Shachtman returns to the turf of his 1991 Skyscraper Dreams, the business world of New York City, for a study of one year in the life of an urban block. The block in Manhattan bounded by Seventh and Eighth avenues, and 17th and 18th streets is ``an ordinary block in an in-between neighborhood in the biggest city in the country,'' Shachtman writes. As such, it makes a surprisingly good lens through which to view three trends going on in urban America: increased urbanization, a growing polarization between rich and poor as the middle class is driven out, and a concentration of economic power in the hands of large chain stores. Each of these trends comes into play during the year covered here (April 15, 1993, to April 15, 1994). Shachtman uses the block's three large companies (Nynex, Cahners, and the fashion emporium Barney's) and over a hundred small ones to illustrate the effects of rising rents, increasing tax burdens, and rapid technological change. Along the way, he offers some profoundly moving vignettes: A lumber-company proprietor commits suicide rather than allow a bank to foreclose on his business; a Korean-born professional is making his way in the New World as a liquor-store owner; a gay video-store proprietor finds himself battling the behemoth Blockbuster chain. The personal lives of the men and women who own businesses become deeply implicated in their survival, as Shachtman richly illustrates. Finally, he offers a bold thesis, that it is the small businesses of American cities that engage in real job creation and are the heart of the nation's economy, and he proposes a series of changes in US banking and governmental practices designed to bolster them. Despite the limitations of his pedestrian prose style, Shachtman conveys the drama of simple daily life in New York small business, and no one who reads this will ever walk down a city street and see it in quite the same way again. (8 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-15-100077-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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