A lucid, informative portrait.
A thriving marriage buoys two impressive careers.
Financial journalist Hilsenrath, senior writer for the Wall Street Journal, makes his book debut with a perceptive dual biography of Janet Yellen (b. 1946) and her husband, Nobel laureate George Akerlof (b. 1940). By the time they met in 1977, Yellen had earned a doctorate at Yale, where she was inspired by the “moral passion” of her mentor, James Tobin, and had just left a teaching job at Harvard. Akerlof, coming out of MIT, had taught at Berkeley, was divorced, and, in 1970, had written a transformative 13-page paper, “The Market for ‘Lemons,’ ” which, Hilsenrath notes, “helped open the door for a new branch of research called behavioral economics.” In many ways, the two were opposites: “Janet was disciplined, grounded, sensible, orderly; George was creative, contrarian, and unorthodox.” Soon after meeting, they married and went off to teach at the London School of Economics. Though their personalities differed, their views on their field concurred. Both were critics of the efficient-market theory of economics, which held that individuals always act in their own best interests. Yellen and Akerlof believed that a person’s financial decisions are not always rational nor predictable. Similarly, they opposed the stance of economists such as Milton Friedman, who saw individual liberty to be “both a virtue in its own right and the central mechanism for economic good.” In 2001, Akerlof shared a Nobel Prize; his continued research in behavior and social psychology led to his creating the field of identity economics. Yellen attained ever higher political appointments as chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, chair of the Federal Reserve, and secretary of the treasury. Hilsenrath draws on personal interviews and abundant published material to clearly elucidate economic theories, recount Yellen’s challenges in steering the nation through economic upheaval, and convey the warmth of the family’s life.
A lucid, informative portrait.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-316246-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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