An expansive philosophical treatise on living a principled, open-minded life, under the mantle of a gripping international...
In Maxwell’s freethinking thriller, a global conspiracy unfurls when an inexpensive energy device sparks the murderous greed of big business.
This story takes shape quickly, as readers learn about a Kenyan man who has created a device that harnesses solar energy. Kevin Chu, an esteemed patent lawyer, foresees energy companies lethally resisting such a device. That turpitude gives Maxwell the opportunity to expound on the ruinous nature of avarice and warfare and how those pursuits have thwarted Adam Smith’s idea of wealth accruing in all nations. That examination spins into a consideration of childbirth and, in turn, the birthing of a genius baby: “The happier the home, the more the mother will be relaxed. The more the mother relaxes, the less adrenaline she produces...the more the fetus’s own healthy hormones can function efficiently to knit synapses in the brain.” Richard, the 23-month-old son of Chu and his wife, Ann Milton-Chu, a children’s book author, speaks like a Cambridge scholar, plays a mean blues piano and comes up with a plan to prevent the murder of the Kenyan inventor’s patent attorney, Jacques Rousseau. Seemingly every encounter between Richard and his father is another chance for the narrative to digress into varied topics, including music, the brain, derivatives, bureaucratic catatonia, breast-feeding, truth, Calvinism and cynicism. The philosophies are bighearted and generous, even as they overstuff the book—a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance on steroids. The details, however, can threaten the book’s momentum—“Kevin leans back in his luxurious soft Brazilian beige calfskin executive chair”—and provide moments of near-farce: The conspiracy is conducted by “a supreme council connected to a secret world-wide military industrial fascist complex,” among whom are former Skull and Bones members, with “their usual rituals of male bonding, which includes dancing American Indian style, but in the nude.” Nonetheless, it’s impressive to witness so many inclusive, decent thoughts under one roof.
An expansive philosophical treatise on living a principled, open-minded life, under the mantle of a gripping international thriller.Pub Date: April 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482006063
Page Count: 310
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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
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
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