A fairly pedantic and at times self-serving walk through the signs of our times. The idea that signs are a reflection of a society’s soul is an intriguing one. Unfortunately, Starr, now president of her family’s sign company, ArtKraft Straus, and Hayman (Journalism/New York Univ.) don’t delve as deeply into this idea as they promise when they write in their opening sentence, “Our signs tell us who we are.” Still, the book is fairly useful in its historic tracing of America’s fixation with neon, something about which Starr knows quite a bit since Artkraft Strauss has literally lit much of Times Square for the last century. The authors trace the beginnings of the square’s status as the supersign center of the world. There’s a section on O.J. Gude, nicknamed the “Lamplighter of Broadway,” and information on the division between Thomas Edison and his championing of direct current versus the alternating current theories of Nikola Tesla. The authors chronicle as well neon’s metamorphosis from a symbol of richness in the 1920s to its later tackier connotation. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the description of the creation of larger moving signs such as the 60-foot-tall Miss Youth Forum, a sensuous babe who sashayed across a 100-foot-wide sign on top of the Brill Building beginning in 1947. The section on how the lighting community banded together to fight the proposed renovation of Times Square, a rehabilitation that they feared would make the Great White Way a lot less white, is interesting as well. From Times Square, Signs and Wonders moves westward to look at the development of signs in Las Vegas, a.k.a. Glitter Gulch, and Hollywood. More than the average person would ever care to know about signage, but a serviceable history for lighting and marketing buffs nonetheless. (48 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-385-48602-2
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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