A fascinating perspective on what it means to be human, told with a clear voice and an expansive canvas.
Why the ability to imagine the future is a cornerstone of human survival and development.
How do we think ahead? How do we incorporate new information into our plans? Is our foresight trustworthy? Australian academics Suddendorf, Redshaw, and Bulley pull together a wide range of scientific disciplines to explain the nature of foresight, beginning with humanity’s prehistoric past. They examine how the capacity of early humans to look ahead—from knowing when food would become available to carrying a bag of stones to ward off predators—allowed the species to thrive. As civilization developed, foresight became even more important; it was critical to forecast tides, seasonal changes, and planting and harvesting times. As the authors show, complex foresight is a uniquely human quality. A few animals, such as dolphins and apes, have some capacity to look ahead, but it is limited, and their ability to communicate with others does not match that of humans. “To live in the present, our brain must continually forecast what’s coming next….Prediction is not only involved in perception and motor coordination but also manifests in our capacity to run simulations of tomorrow and beyond,” write the authors. Research suggests that most people develop reliable foresight at around the age of 4, but our emotions often interfere with our rationality. One reason is “optimism bias,” which causes us to overestimate the chances of good outcomes. In fact, our foresight is often wrong, and the authors entertainingly recount predictions that went hilariously awry. Foresight is largely a matter of extrapolation, and despite challenges, we can take precautions, such as insuring our house, putting aside money for an unexpected crisis or, on a larger scale, building things like the Global Seed Vault. Sprinkled throughout the book are well-placed moments of deadpan humor to leaven the authoritative research.
A fascinating perspective on what it means to be human, told with a clear voice and an expansive canvas.Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2022
ISBN: 9781541675728
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
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
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