A better guide than Fenby could hardly be found to weigh the opportunities and dangers that face France in the coming...
A rich, masterful study of modern France – its politics, national characteristics, and people.
The author’s 30 years of experience reporting on France and his marriage to a Frenchwoman have prepared him well for describing contemporary French life in all its facets. Fenby (editor of the South China Morning Post, and formerly a reporter for Reuters and the Economist, among others) shows a facility for combining narrative, anecdote, and analysis. He provides the historical context needed to take a critical look at France today by making frequent reference to its foundations in the French Revolution and the turbulent 19th century, and he examines how the nation survived the dissolution of its Third Republic and the Nazi collaboration of its Vichy regime. Postwar political figures loom large in the rebuilding of France (de Gaulle) and in its modernization (Giscard d’Estaing, Mitterrand, and Chirac). This modernization is increasingly an Americanization the French are loath to acknowledge but from which they cannot turn away. Like Germany, France has successfully melded the old world with the new. This coexistence of opposites – McDonald’s and Disney alongside the classic café and the Louvre – has transformed the nature of French life. Small family businesses are giving way to supermarkets and megastores run by national or multinational chains. Yet as the French adjust to the quick meal on the run or the divorced family, they are steadfast in their love for their sumptuous cuisine and traditional family life. Regionalism, racism, and corruption must be resolved if France is to remain influential. Reform in economics and politics has come slowly to a country with frequent massive labor strikes and political demonstrations that all but paralyze daily life. France’s leaders must find a way to exploit what is most useful in American-style modernization while promoting the national traits most worthy of preservation.
A better guide than Fenby could hardly be found to weigh the opportunities and dangers that face France in the coming century.Pub Date: July 14, 1999
ISBN: 1-55970-488-8
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1999
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
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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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