A piercing course in sensitivity training to build a moral community upon re-entry into society. For a similar but more...
Sherman (Philosophy/Georgetown Univ.; The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers, 2010, etc.) describes the many and varied struggles for inner pace after returning from war.
The author speaks to readers of those veterans with trouble reintegrating with civilian life upon return from the war front and our moral responsibility to bring some measure of understanding and engagement to them. She examines topics that are uncomfortable but undeniable—e.g., “feelings of alienation and disengagement,” “resentment or disappointment or visual dislocation,” and “profound moral dislocation and a consequent slipping of connectedness with family.” Sherman brings into the light the hellish experiences of both men and women in theaters of war, experiences that do not dissipate after leaving. She grasps and presents these vignettes via philosophy and psychology. She calls on a host of thinkers for guidance, including David Hume, Aristotle and Immanuel Kant, noting how “ancient stories, like that of Philoctetes, are our own stories through which to understand betrayal and the possibilities for trust’s renewal.” Sherman offers insightful emotional inquiries into the loss or turning from identity, the loss of dignity, the shame on top of guilt, gender betrayals, the what-ifs and could-haves, shadow feelings, and the overwhelming senses of sadness and futility. The twists and turns into a soldier’s post-traumatic renewal are complicated but essential to follow—e.g., the attachment involved in double transference, in which a familial relationship is mirrored in a professional one and where self-esteem leaks in via “a reciprocal positive moral address of trust and hope.” Readers will learn about the years veterans devote to therapeutic self-empathy and the rekindling of trust, and Sherman successfully invokes sympathy for their causes—even if the language is occasionally academic in nature.
A piercing course in sensitivity training to build a moral community upon re-entry into society. For a similar but more character-driven tale, see Helen Thorpe’s Soldier Girls (2014).Pub Date: May 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-19-932527-6
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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