Book Description
In Volatility and Correlation 2
nd edition: The Perfect Hedger and the Fox, Rebonato looks at derivatives pricing from the angle of volatility and correlation. With both practical and theoretical applications, this is a thorough update of the highly successful Volatility & Correlation – with over
80ew or fully reworked material and is a must have both for practitioners and for students.
The new and updated material includes a critical examination of the ‘perfect-replication’ approach to derivatives pricing, with special attention given to exotic options; a thorough analysis of the role of quadratic variation in derivatives pricing and hedging; a discussion of the informational efficiency of markets in commonly-used calibration and hedging practices. Treatment of new models including Variance Gamma, displaced diffusion, stochastic volatility for interest-rate smiles and equity/FX options.
The book is split into four parts. Part I deals with a Black world without smiles, sets out the author’s ‘philosophical’ approach and covers deterministic volatility. Part II looks at smiles in equity and FX worlds. It begins with a review of relevant empirical information about smiles, and provides coverage of local-stochastic-volatility, general-stochastic-volatility, jump-diffusion and Variance-Gamma processes. Part II concludes with an important chapter that discusses if and to what extent one can dispense with an explicit specification of a model, and can directly prescribe the dynamics of the smile surface.
Part III focusses on interest rates when the volatility is deterministic. Part IV extends this setting in order to account for smiles in a financially motivated and computationally tractable manner. In this final part the author deals with CEV processes, with diffusive stochastic volatility and with Markov-chain processes.
Praise for the First Edition:
“In this book, Dr Rebonato brings his penetrating eye to bear on option pricing and hedging.… The book is a must-read for those who already know the basics of options and are looking for an edge in applying the more sophisticated approaches that have recently been developed.”
—Professor Ian Cooper, London Business School
“Volatility and correlation are at the very core of all option pricing and hedging. In this book, Riccardo Rebonato presents the subject in his characteristically elegant and simple fashion…A rare combination of intellectual insight and practical common sense.”
—Anthony Neuberger, London Business School
Download Description
In Volatility and Correlation 2nd edition: The Perfect Hedger and the Fox, Rebonato looks at derivatives pricing from the angle of volatility and correlation. With both practical and theoretical applications, this is a thorough update of the highly successful Volatility & Correlation with over 80% new or fully reworked material and is a must have both for practitioners and for students. The new and updated material includes a critical examination of the perfect-replication approach to derivatives pricing, with special attention given to exotic options; a thorough analysis of the role of quadratic variation in derivatives pricing and hedging; a discussion of the informational efficiency of markets in commonly-used calibration and hedging practices. Treatment of new models including Variance Gamma, displaced diffusion, stochastic volatility for interest-rate smiles and equity/FX options. The book is split into four parts. Part I deals with a Black world without smiles, sets out the author's philosophical approach and covers deterministic volatility. Part II looks at smiles in equity and FX worlds. It begins with a review of relevant empirical information about smiles, and provides coverage of local-stochastic-volatility, general-stochastic-volatility, jump-diffusion and Variance-Gamma processes. Part II concludes with an important chapter that discusses if and to what extent one can dispense with an explicit specification of a model, and can directly prescribe the dynamics of the smile surface. Part III focusses on interest rates when the volatility is deterministic. Part IV extends this setting in order to account for smiles in a financially motivated and computationally tractable manner. In this final part the author deals with CEV processes, with diffusive stochastic volatility and with Markov-chain processes.
Customer Reviews:
Very good but missing little things here and there.......2007-02-08
Although the author warns the reader in the Preface, that because he ran out of pages (come on it is more than 800!) he omited dealing with Copulas, it is still a pitty that a book about correlation does not present at least a small chapter on this new (state-of-the-art) area.
Everything else is very good, solid material with a good balance between maths surrounding the topic, explanations and worked out examples.
very informative and reader friendly.......2007-01-09
for the first time I really understood risk neutral probability, explanations are excellent. unfortunately I am only read about 10 chapters int he book, should spend more time with it.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
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Similar Items:
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History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2 (Chronology)
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History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III
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They Cast No Shadows: A Collection of Essays on the Illuminati, Revisionist History, and Suppressed Technologies
ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Book Description
This "Report Card on the Future" distills the collective intelligence of over 2,000 leading scientists, futurists, scholars, and policy advisors who work for governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and international organizations. The 2006 State of the Future comes in two parts: a 125-page print executive summary and a 5,400-page CD. The CD contains all the research behind the print edition, plus the Millennium Project's 10 years of cumulative research and methods. Some unique features not available in other global assessments:
- 15 Global Challenges - Prospects, Strategies, Insights
- 4 Global Energy Scenarios for 2020 - rich in detail
- 650 Annotated Scenario Sets
- State of the Future Index
- Reflections on 10 years of Global Futures Research
- And much more futures intelligence on technology, environment, governance, the human condition
Customer Reviews:
Worth having on the shelf.......2007-03-05
Some interesting extensions of existing data with some inbuilt biases towards technology as a cure all occasionally surfacing. The focus was clearly on energy in the future and the scenarios provide solid launching pads for generating and thinking about alternatives not considered in the scope of this document.
Clear Map of the Future and What We Do Wrong Now.......2006-09-08
I have been much taken with the integrity and wisdom of the Honorable David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, who has been telling Congress that they are not providing for the future and that today's budget is inconsistent with sustainable national security and enduring national prosperity. He is right. This is the book he should buy and give to every Senator and every Representative, along with E. O. Wilson's "The Future of Life" and J. F. Richard's "HIGH NOON: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them."
The book is actually in two pieces. 129 black and white pages that is comprised of an Executive Summary, a section on Global Challenges, a State of the Future Index, 40 pages on four global energy scenarios, a separate chapter on emerging environmental security issues (see my review of Max Manwaring's "Environmental Security and Global Stability"), and a final chapter on reflections as the project achieves its tenth anniversary.
The printed book also includes a table of contents for the CD-ROM of 5,400 pages with color graphics and global maps that are quite good, and the publishers are to be complemented for providing the CD material in both PDF form and Document form, the latter for ease of extraction of pictures and text for repurposing.
As I get ready to publish a book by Thomas J. Buckholtz entitled "INFORMATION METRICS: The GIST (Gain Impact, Save Time) of Successful Intelligence," I cannot help but admire the manner in which the authors have leveraged the measurement of political, social, economic, and other indicators of quality and sustainability, a process that was first pioneered by Professors Banks and Textor in the 1970's.
The day will come when this book and the CD are available in a Serious Game that is both receiving near-real-time information feeds from all open sources in all languages, AND is connected to the real-world budgets of all governments and non-governmental organizations and private sector parties so that any individual can type in their zip code and their issue, and see the color-coded "threat condition" corresponding to whether or not their level of government or their organization is spending wisely, what I call "reality-based budgeting."
The authors have done a superb job of documenting reality, and as I went through the book, I could not help but feel that we need a second book that evaluated national-level budgets in detail, to publicize the erroneous trade-offs that are being made without the public's real understanding or approval--too much money for a heavy-metal military and corporate tax loopholes, not enough for a global educational Marshall Plan and free telecommunications for the five billion poor (easily affordable for the half trillion the USA has wasted on the elective invasion and sustained heavy-handed occupation of Iraq).
In brief, this book, the CD, this project, are a *cornerstone* for building our future. Worth every penny, and worth several hours of a good read and reflection.
Book Description
Relatively simple yet highly disciplined, scale trading has become one of today's most popular and rewarding--et risky--futures trading methods. Understanding Hedged Scale Trading explains this high level trading method from the ground up, outline techniques for trader to hedge scaled positions through the judicious use of options. By explaining how to profit from hedged scale trading while controlling its many risks, it should prove to be among the most practical, hands-on advanced trading books on the market today.
Download Description
Understanding Hedged Scale Trading explains this high level trading method from the ground up, outline techniques for trader to hedge scaled positions through the judicious use of options.
Customer Reviews:
Very disappointing.......2004-09-21
The title of this book is misleading. Only one chapter in the entire book deals with hedged scale trading and to sum it up the author says..."buy puts". Brilliant. The rest of the book describes scale trading (poorly) and fundamental analysis. If you want to learn about scale trading go to the source. Look at Robert Weist's, "You Can't Loose Trading Commodities". Weist does a much better job describing this trading technique. This book was a real disappointment and waste of money (in my opinion).
Currently the definitive work.......2002-11-02
Mr. McCaffery writes with clarity and leads the reader surely towards a grasp of this somewhat arcane futures trading strategy. Scale trading with options means : buying (or shorting) a hedged commodity with the expectation that the price will revert to its mean within a certain period of time.
Specifically, you buy a commodity (sugar, soybeans, oil, etc.) that's trading toward its historic lows. You purchase put options to put a floor under the trade (limiting your risk), and scale into the trade (buy more futures at pre-determined intervals) if the price continues to fall. You are relying on the near certainty that the price must eventually rise. If you hold long enough and if all goes as it should (i.e., you execute), you will make a boatload of money in the eventuality. Obviously, attempting to scale trade a stock, which may have no tangible worth (think "Enron") is a bad idea, hence the focus on commodities futures.
"Understanding Hedged Scale Trading" offers a relatively user-friendly technique for playing in the pits. After explaining how the futures markets work, the author gets right down to the real nitty-gritty: deciding which commodities to trade, the mechanics of trading futures, and how to buy more time (roll over your position). There is even a short treatise on technical analysis.
According to the publisher (and my Amazon search), this is the only comprehensive book on hedged scale trading currently available. Good thing that it's a keeper.
Product Description
Thinking about the Future distills the expertise of three dozen senior foresight professionals into a set of essential guidelines for carrying out successful strategic foresight. Presented in a highly scannable yet personable style, each guideline includes an explanation and rationale, key steps, a case example, and resources for further study. The 115 guidelines are organized into six sequential categories that mirror the phases of a strategic foresight activity, namely Framing, Scanning, Forecasting, Visioning, Planning, and Acting. Executives will find both the guidelines and the framework invaluable for understanding what it takes to successfully explore the future, while analysts who actively carry out strategic foresight projects will find the book an indispensable reference that they turn to again and again.
Customer Reviews:
Future Thinking with a hidden potential.......2007-08-03
Personally I would have put a 5 star rating; but, I lowered it to keep it real. The actual
5 star rating would require more introduction to the principles behind thinking in general
and specifically thinking about the future. But with a little creativity this book could be
used as a thinking system like Edward de Bono "Six Thinking Hats". This is the answer
to his latest adventure into designing the future. If he wants to really move ahead with
"New Thinking" this will give him a Quantum leap to the future. Futurlogics is
another possibility. Every business should consider the ideas in this book with great
editing by Andy Hines.
Book Description
A Future Perfect is the first comprehensive examination of the most important revolution of our time—globalization—and how it will continue to change our lives. Do businesses benefit from going global? Are we creating winner-take-all societies? Will globalization seal the triumph of junk culture? What will happen to individual careers? Gathering evidence worldwide, from the shantytowns of São Paolo to the boardrooms of General Electric, from the troubled Russia-Estonia border to the booming San Fernando Valley sex industry, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge deliver an illuminating tour of the global economy and a fascinating assessment of its potential impact.
Customer Reviews:
Double Zero.......2005-10-01
[...]
Although globalization, the latest theme to embrace the academic and journalistic worlds, is the subject of these two very readable books, it is handled very differently in both. Zachary, a senior writer for the Wall Street Journal, propounds the thesis that a new cosmopolitan figure is emerging on the world stage. This figure is equally at home in Japan or Ireland and is unencumbered by the prejudices of the past. This a new kind of Superman, who treats the world as his oyster and is as happy eating oysters as he is drinking pints of Guinness or bottles of sake. He is the true cosmopolitan and tomorrow, if Zachary is to be believed, belongs to him.
To make the same argument on a global scale, he introduces us to a host of globalized characters. We meet Barry Cox, an English kid from Liverpool who sings pop songs in perfect Cantonese; Vince Morabito, a nomadic farm expert who is equally at home in the wheat fields of Nebraska, the vineyards of Moldova or the rice paddies of Southeast Asia; Soo Ing, the German-educated, Canadian-born daughter of Chinese immigrants, who ranges the Mongolian plains on horseback studying the uses and abuses of fire. These super human characters all seem to be modeled on Indiana Jones, Laurence of Arabia or other such folk heroes. They certainly seem to travel a lot.
Micklethwait and Wooldridge, who both write for the Economist magazine, pursue a broadly similar path and also introduce us to an array of cosmocrats who are spearheading this revolution from one end of the world to the other. The authors introduce us to a range of people who are exporting Southern California's pornography to the four corners of the earth. We meet traditional Moroccan perfume sellers who export their fragrances to the entire world. We also meet Zambian-born economists, German and Japanese auto workers, Singaporean math teachers, Indian entrepreneurs and a galaxy of other characters drawn from just about every nation in the world showing us the benefits of this globalized age. Although the authors also show us some of the downsides, the overall message is clear. Globalization is the way of the future.
Despite articulate prophets like these, that future will be a long time in coming even in export-oriented countries like Japan and Ireland, which remain prisoners to the fortunes of the international economy. Countries and nations will continue to nurture their different cultures and opposition to the pronouncements of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other messiahs of globalization will remain as perennial as the economic insecurity globalization has visited upon most of the world's communities.
People, in other words, will still strive for meaning and a sense of belonging in today's global village. This need to belong will ensure that conflict will remain as perennial as attempts like these two books to reduce all of our desires and experiences to a simple cocktail of clichés. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, belief in Marxism waned. Many of Marxism's apostates have now embraced this new credo. Unfortunately, it explains as little as did the writings of the cosmopolitan Karl Marx, who is used as a straw man in the last chapter of the book by Micklethwait and Wooldridge. Ultimately, theories like globalization, which purport to explain everything, explain absolutely nothing. The same goes for these two books. Although they give us a nice overview of what the authors do with their time, they leave us none the wiser at the end. Worse still, by marginalizing the very real social and economic problems globalization begets, they help to guarantee that they will continue to fester in the years to come. Individuals like Osama bin Laden, who think globally and act locally, will see to that. There is, in other words, nothing new, noteworthy or novel beneath the covers of these and similar eminently readable but ultimately disappointing books.
Lucid writing, but lazy theorizing.......2005-09-30
The title of this book betrays the authors' optimism about the future of globalization. However, this optimism, which is easily passed on to the reader through empowering stories and delicious prose, makes the skeptic of globalization's promise feel that this book was written by two Pollyannas. Pollyannas they may be, but ignorant or partisan they are not. Their argument for globalization is derived from economics rather than any conservative or capitalist agenda. The reasoning behind their push for globalization is simple neoclassical economics: lower trade barriers, and the world economy will grow. Unfortunately, with both this book and most schools economics, the importance of increasing the present day economic pie is overemphasized.
Unlike other books on globalization, this is not a survey of the institutions involvement in the process, but rather a narrative of archetypal examples of those affected by globalization. These include the unemployed factory worker, the 30 year old Silicon Valley yuppie, and the newly technologically savvy foreigner. Ostensibly, these stories have little in common, and are only tied together by they all being affected by the same process. For a narrative of this type to be coherent, the narrators must provide the reader with plenty of explanatory writing. In this department, the authors fall short.
In terms of style, the authors perform wonderfully. Their writing, which is engaging and lucid, makes a dry subject palatable. Literary references are littered throughout the text, and, in an act of style and taste, are never relied upon to convey pertinent information, but only to entertain. The above characteristics are why, despite its shortcomings, the book was a joy to read.
written like The Economist, which is a good thing.......2004-07-22
Fans of the Economist, like myself, will likely enjoy this book; however, like The Economist, there are a few chapters that I had to struggle to get through.
Globalization has been presented in the major news channels as the Outsourcing of Jobs, which is like judging a car by its cup holders. Only when the stock market turned bearish and Clinton moved out of office did I begin to hear so many complaints about global competition. So, this book is a welcome change from the usual rantings.
I would hope for a later edition that explains more about the impact of electronic commerce on globalization, as well as an explanation of the international commodity markets as they work today.
For a book that lacks charts and graphs, the process and wholesale impact of globalization is covered well and fairly.
The best book on globalization!.......2004-06-05
GLOBALIZATION is a process where people, things, ideas, capital and commerce is able to freely travel anywhere in the world. As a result, the notion of comparative advantages are becoming far more frequent. More people are exposed to competition than ever before, and this has been a good thing for most people (i.e., witness the cheaper and better American cars). Globalization has been very helpful in attacking the status quo -- entrenched, pesky bureacratic public sectors unions, who take their job as a right, not a privilage; getting workers to think more about productivity, since, if they do not succeed, operations can move elsewhere.
Most important, I would say that globalization has reformed governments. As the book explains, there are still extremes on the left (Nader) and the right (Buchanan) who don't understand economics and are perfectly willing to harp on the same old course they've been on. But as this book explains, many governments are learning that they too are not immune from competition. Countries must open their borders up to foreign capital, privatize state services, come up with more flexible labor laws (i.e., France's radical law that forbids anyone from working more than 35-hours a week. However, without such a law, the average person in the U.S. works only 34 hours a week).
I am even more excited about globalization after reading this book. It's very timely, written in the familiar prose found in The Economist, and well worth the money!
The age's great shift made reasonably tangible.......2004-03-10
This book is often funny and insightful and most importantly offers a good survey of the processes and challenges that make up one of man's great products-Globalization. Brilliance is seen in chapter 10 where the authors examine the notion of the Americanization of the world. The common beliefs are flipped on their heads as the authors explain how complaints of Hollywood corrupting the rest of the world are actually contrary to fact. It is actually the world's influence on Hollywood that makes its product less desirable. Fascinating insight like this is found throughout the book.
Refreshing techniques are used to explain themes of Globalization keeping the reader engaged and willing to learn. At one point, the authors examine the "losers" of Globalization by taking individuals in different situations and examining their unique dilemmas. Thereupon, the authors tie together the disparate instances and look at all three from another angle in attempt to exonerate Globalization.
This book IS an attempt to promote Globalization. Some times, the aim gets in the way of logic and what seems to be contradiction results. In the conclusion, the authors laud the free market, but (for some reason) do so through the eyes of the anti-free-market Karl Marx and come up with an unsatisfactory excuse for taxes (liberalism's self-doubt).
This kind of contradiction is not uncommon throughout the text and as a result, many of the proofs are severely lacking. Even if the explanations don't contradict, they are not as thorough as the reader might hope. I would really have liked a better explanation of the riots in Seattle and a more thorough examination of the anti-Globalization movement as a whole. Statements that appear to end a chapter and theme seemed like they could have been doors to more complex and penetrating analysis.
Despite these flaws, the text is a good read. It is clear and offers several concepts that will stimulate the keen reader.
Product Description
Korean-Americans: Past, Present, and Future is a limited-edition publication commemorating the first 100 years of Korean immigration. From its account of the rich history of Korean immigration to the United States, to providing current sociological research on such issues as the interplay of family dynamics and gender roles in Korean-owned businesses or the role and function of religious communities in the discovery of the Korean identity, this work presents a panoramic tour of a people desiring to belong within the American milieu while retaining the heritage and values of a homeland they left. In the end, a compelling vision is made for an active engagement of all Koreans and Korean-Americans into the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the United States that does not negotiate one's tradition and self-identity, but one which enriches them and inspires others to join in the enterprise. By charting the history and lessons of Korean immigration, the contributors uncover the values and spirit of Korean immigrants and how the struggle to survive and thrive, then and now, is reinterpreted by each succeeding generation. Included in this book is a section of prize-winning essays submitted by Korean-American college students concerning topics including acculturation and the role of Korean-Americans in politics. This book was commissioned by the Centennial Committee of Korean Immigration to the United States-Greater New York, and edited by Dr. Ilpyong Kim, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Political Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and President (1996-2000) of the International Council on Korean Studies (ICKS).
Customer Reviews:
Essentials on Korean Americans.......2004-09-16
This volume is a publication commemorating the first 100 years of Korean immigration. From its account of the rich history of Korean immigration to the United States, to providing current sociological research on such issues as the interplay of family dynamics and gender roles in Korean-owned businesses or the role and function of religious communities in the discovery of the Korean identity, this work presents a panoramic tour of a people desiring to belong within the American milieu while retaining the heritage and values of a homeland they left. In the end, a compelling vision is made for an active engagement of all Koreans and Korean-Americans into the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the United States that does not negotiate one's tradition and self-identity, but one which enriches them and inspires others to join in the enterprise. By charting the history and lessons of Korean immigration, the contributors uncover the values and spirit of Korean immigrants and how the struggle to survive and thrive, then and now, is reinterpreted by each succeeding generation. Included in this book is a section of prize-winning essays submitted by Korean-American college students concerning topics including acculturation and the role of Korean-Americans in politics.
Product Description
Guaranteed Success will show you how to rewire your brain to make thinking and acting at the next level automatic. It will inspire and it will instruct. It will fire up your heart and provide light for your path. It will reawaken you to the possibilities of your life--and will provide the tools to turn those possibilities into reality. At one level Guaranteed Success will provide you a new way to win old battles. And at another level, Guaranteed Success will supply you the outlook, knowledge, and tools to go from success to success, tackling new challenges that previously seemed out of reach. Guaranteed Success will help you change you. And in doing that, it will help you change your results for good.
Customer Reviews:
A great Icons book.......2006-05-07
At first I was surprised how each entire page is a complete futuristic illustration with no text. Then I quickly welcomed the idea of no text for describing each image because these great illustrations say it all.
Icons.......2004-02-27
These little icons books are great - if for nothing else than just a pop-culture reference. A little small - and the paper could be better. But overall, lots of images for an unbeatable price.
Futuristic Eye Candy from the Age of Optimism.......2004-02-19
This little book is a sampling of pop futurism from what the editor calls the Age of Optimism, namely the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's. In the introduction, it is pointed out that people in these decades had a special need to believe in a better future, because the present, and immediate past, had been so grim. In the 20's people tried to forget the meat grinder of the Great War, in the 30's they tried to get their minds off of the Great Depression, in the 40's they needed to believe that they were fighting for a better world to justify the sacrifices of the Second World War, and in the 50's there was the Cold War and the Bomb to forget.
These images are strictly pop futurism. Almost none of them came from professional designers or engineers. Many are from advertisements. The rest of them are largely from magazines like Popular Science, pulps, and supplements to the Sunday newspaper. The emphasis wasn't on hard science and practicality here, it was on armchair dreams of a better future. Here you have pictures of personal helicopters and flying cars. There are also picture phones and robot lawn mowers. You have many versions of the house of the future, and the great towering cities of the future. There are bases and colonies in space. Even the few depictions of warfare are of the sanitized and automated sort. This was a bright, clean, colorful future for all (everyone seemed to be at the same upper middleclass level of plenty and comfort- there are no excessively rich or poor to be seen.) You quickly realize that this is where the creators of the Jetsons must have drawn much of their inspiration.
In short, these are images of a time when people still believed in the future.
The book itself is almost all illustration with no accompanying text. You are intended to browse through and get an over all feeling for the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist. There is a short, perceptive, three-page introductory essay to set the mood. It is repeated in both German and French- though you really don't have to read any language to appreciate this collection.
My one small criticism is that the pages are not numbered. This makes it impossible to refer anyone else to a specific illustration.
This is the future that I was raised to believe in- and with any luck it still isn't too late to bring it into manifestation....
Gee, wasn't tomorrow swell!.......2002-09-13
I love this paperback. Dozens of color pictures (mainly sourced from adverts) of the future created when optimism was in the air and one was led to believe that science would conquer most frontiers and life was going to be one long continuous weekend. Editor Jim Heimann has wisely restricted his choice of images from the mid-thirties to the start of the fifties, so they picture a very streamlined future. Amongst all the pictures are twenty-three super covers from the science and mechanics type monthly magazines (some enterprising publisher should do a coffee-table book of these with their striking cover paintings) several pages of comic-book type illustrations and thirteen intriguing ads, designed in 1945, from the Bohn aluminium company showing some wonderful streamlined vehicles.
Future transportation has the biggest showing but there are future homes, offices, suburbs, schools, space and everyday living. Bruce McCall sums up the feel of the pictures in an interesting introduction called `Futures that never arrived'. Other than his intro there is no other text so if you want to read about past predictions of the American future have a look at `Yesterday's Tomorrows' by Joseph Corn and Brian Horrigan, it is one of the best books I have read on the subject and it includes plenty of excellent pictures. Worth a look also is `Out of Time' by Norman Brosterman, it covers the same subject but I found it historically too broad in scope, some of the pictures date back to the eighteen hundreds.
With `Future Perfect' my brighter tomorrow has arrived today.
***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.
Books:
- Word Histories and Mysteries: From Abracadabra to Zeus (American Heritage Dictionaries)
- Wrestling Babylon: Piledriving Tales of Drugs, Sex, Death, and Scandal
- A Grammar of the Multitude (Semiotext(e) / Foreign Agents)
- A Vulgar Display Of Power: Courage and Carnage At The Alrosa Villa
- Air Guitar
- America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies
- American Cinema/American Culture
- American Government (Cliffs Quick Review)
- Associated Press Reporting Handbook
- At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry
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