Amazon.com
Celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, technology, medicine, and education. The goal is to help these people reach the first rung on the "ladder of economic development" so they can rise above mere subsistence level and achieve some control over their economic futures and their lives. To do this, Sachs proposes nine specific steps, which he explains in great detail in The End of Poverty. Though his plan certainly requires the help of rich nations, the financial assistance Sachs calls for is surprisingly modest--more than is now provided, but within the bounds of what has been promised in the past. For the U.S., for instance, it would mean raising foreign aid from just 0.14 percent of GNP to 0.7 percent. Sachs does not view such help as a handout but rather an investment in global economic growth that will add to the security of all nations. In presenting his argument, he offers a comprehensive education on global economics, including why globalization should be embraced rather than fought, why international institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank need to play a strong role in this effort, and the reasons why extreme poverty exists in the midst of great wealth. He also shatters some persistent myths about poor people and shows how developing nations can do more to help themselves.
Despite some crushing statistics, The End of Poverty is a hopeful book. Based on a tremendous amount of data and his own experiences working as an economic advisor to the UN and several individual nations, Sachs makes a strong moral, economic, and political case for why countries and individuals should battle poverty with the same commitment and focus normally reserved for waging war. This important book not only makes the end of poverty seem realistic, but in the best interest of everyone on the planet, rich and poor alike. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
A landmark exploration of the way out of extreme poverty for the world's poorest citizens
Among the most eagerly anticipated books of any year, this landmark exploration of prosperity and poverty distills the life work of an economist Time calls one of the world's 100 most influential people. Sachs's aim is nothing less than to deliver a big picture of how societies emerge from poverty. To do so he takes readers in his footsteps, explaining his work in Bolivia, Russia, India, China, and Africa, while offering an integrated set of solutions for the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and social problems that challenge the poorest countries. Marrying passionate storytelling with rigorous analysis and a vision as pragmatic as it is fiercely moral, The End of Poverty is a truly indispensable work.
Customer Reviews:
We need to end poverty.......2007-09-28
The book is great. It puts the poverty of the world, including America into light. It lets the reader know that poverty can be ended in our lifetime. It is very serious topic and book. We have the opportunity to end poverty, but will we be the generation that sits by and watches our fellow humans starve and die of disease or not?
The book got to me in a very timely manner and was inexpensive.
Using American Wealth to End Poverty.......2007-09-18
Eradicating global poverty is a concern that Christian missionaries and activists now share with a growing number of global economists and even rock stars like Bono. The gulf between incomes in the West and developing countries complicates the missionary task, yet missionaries often have little understanding of how the global economy works.
Jeffrey Sachs is well qualified to interpret globalization since he has worked in over a hundred nations, analyzing and offering advice on national economies. He was an economics professor at Harvard University and is now Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He was an economic advisor to Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and to Bono.
In The End of Poverty, Sachs outlines a plan to end global poverty by 2025. He is not only a visionary but also an excellent teacher on the fundamentals of global economics. He distinguishes between three degrees of poverty: extreme poverty, representing one billion people who literally struggle for survival every day; moderate poverty, representing 1.5 billion people who live just above subsistence level; and relative poverty, representing 2.5 billion people. Sachs shows how the world economy has changed dramatically since 1980, with over half the world making economic progress. Only Africa has experienced a general increase in extreme poverty in the past 25 years. When Sachs speaks of eradicating poverty, he means primarily ending only extreme poverty by 2025.
Sachs criticizes the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for failing to represent the interests of the poor and advocates "clinical economics" which gives a scientific diagnosis of each nation's economic problems with a prescription for improvement. He believes that if every wealthy nation committed just 0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) to foreign direct assistance, global poverty would end. The United States currently gives only 0.15 percent of GNP in such aid, far below all other wealthy nations.
Sachs offers deep insights into globalization. He states that his worldview is from the Enlightenment, so he advocates "Enlightened Globalization," meaning that he believes scientific rationalism combined with compassion can solve humanity's problems. He also sees American wealth as the key to ending global poverty and discounts the effects of differing cultures as being part of the problem. Sachs does not answer all questions about the sources and solution of poverty, but he sheds some needed light on the subject.
Another impartial diagnosis of poverty.......2007-06-21
For some populist reasons, many pundits think that poverty in poor countries, notaby in Africa, is the result of the lack of investment or commitment of western nations. Unfortunately, Dr. Sachs is one of them. In this book, he only stresses the external factors deepening extreme poverty in Third World countries, not the significance of domestic variables like the obvious lack of commitment and weak incentives to eradicate poverty. The latter is a confluence of factors, both indigenous and external. Using history as our guide, one can almost certainly say that growth has failed because of weak domestic incentives. Failing to recognize that and calling for a large-scale investment in poor countries is an unadulterated promotion of utopianism. Without prior government commitments( not those based on short-term policy reforms but historical performance), all prescriptions will be worse than the desease.
i really do like it.......2007-06-16
if you think about how stinjy (stingy) the 1st world is, it makes you sad. but if you read this book, you'll at least realize that something can be done. hopefully it'll make you feel a little bit better ^_^
If War Didn't Exist, Poverty Could Be Eradicated .......2007-05-30
Dr. Sachs' basic argument is this: "[W]hen the preconditions of basic infrastructure (roads, power, and ports) and human capital (health and education) are in place, markets are powerful engines of development."
This statement by Dr. Sachs is a valid description of the 19th century, and the first half of the 20th century. His statement does not, unfortunately, describe the reality of the 21st century -- a century in which the world is flooded with cheap weapons (the world will very soon be flooded with cheap nuclear weapons as well). Observe, for example, that all of Dr. Sachs' "preconditions" for economic prosperity exist in Iraq (or at least these conditions did exist, in the recent past), and yet one would not describe the Iraq of 2007 as a delightful place in which to raise children and grow old.
Dr. Sachs refuses to estimate the economic cost of containing this 21st century "flood of weapons". What is an order-of-magnitude estimate of this cost? In Iraq, the cost of containment is currently $100 billion per year, in a nation of 24 million souls. The forces of social disruption are spending less than $100 million per year. In other words, the cost ratio of containment:disruption is at least 1,000:1, and may be 10,000:1 or higher.
Nor is the Iraq example atypical. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Columbia provide wonderful examples of disrupted economic and social systems. In any one of these countries, an estimated annual expenditure of $10 billion or $100 billion would be required to maintain social order, so that the "powerful engine of economic development" can work its magic. Where will all of this money come from? On this question, Dr. Sachs is silent, and his silence is deafening.
Book Description
This mainstream, best-selling text is noted for its especially strong integration of compelling and engaging "Lived Experiences" - extended examples that focus on various social issues to illustrate chapter coverage. These extended examples are introduced with the social issue or application that opens each chapter and are then carried throughout the chapter in various boxes, features, and exercises. Kendall's text is also known for its exceptional coverage of current social issues, along with its integration of race, class, gender, and age perspectives. The author includes diverse theoretical viewpoints, including feminist theory. The author's vivid, applied, personal writing style engages students, and her compelling everyday examples make sociology particularly relevant to the diverse student population of today. The author shows students that sociology involves important questions and issues that they confront both personally and vicariously.
Customer Reviews:
Boring.......2006-12-03
This is the worst college class I have had. This book is sooo boring. It is all common sense; I learned nothing except how to name everyday knowledge with big words. This class was awful, and so was the book. Sorry I'm usually not negative about anything I just can't help it, it has been a horrible four months. I expect a A, which is a really big deal because I thought I was going to fall asleep in several of the tests. Horrible, just horrible.
A fine introduction to sociology.......2003-12-02
As one of the most recently-developed social sciences, not to mention one that seems to be consistently popular with college students, sociology is a field that truly needs a good comprehensive text. Put quite simply, this is it. Diana Kendall, a well-respected scholar and author in the field, has managed to put together a text that manages to cover all of the major subfields of the field, presenting a lot of information on each, and giving a good general overview. All of the major subpoints of sociology are covered: population studies, race/gender/ethnic relations, collective behavior, criminology, and more. In addition to providing a solid block of information for each subtopic, Kendall further invigorates her text with well-placed contemporary and classical photographs, graphs, charts, and other peripheral information. She also prefaces each chapter with a real-life example relating to the forthcoming information, a quiz about the information contained within (which sometimes will yield surprising results!), and more. Throughout the individual chapters, she also sprinkles dialogue boxes with separate takes on individual subissues relating to the major topic at hand and shows readers how they can get involved. As a bonus for the college student, certain editions of the book feature a CD with access to additional material, and a free four-month subscription to Infotrac, a well-known scholarly index.
Kendall writes well, and she presents a lot of information. Therein, however, lies my only complaint about this text: certain chapters feel overlong. Granted, sociology is a diverse field, and this book attempts to cover it all between a single set of covers. Still, some chapters are so jam-packed with information that they become somewhat tiresome. Nevertheless, it is all good information -- and all worth reading. It is a small complaint, on the whole, that does not detract from the overall quality of the text.
In summary, this is an excellent introductory text both for a college text and for the individual reader.
One of the better Sociology Textbooks.......2001-07-17
There are a number of good sociology textbooks available, and one can choose almost any of them with confidence. However, this is definitely one of the best. It is accessible, yet the author does not talk down to the student. The illustrations are pertinent and timely. The choice of topics is comprehensive. It is a broad-ranging textbook, yet, at the same time, is focused and direct.
The instructor who chooses to use Sociology in Our Times can be comfortable with the choice. The student who is fortunate enough to have a teacher who chose Sociology in Our Times should be confident that they have had a good exposure to Sociology. If one learns the material in this book they will be well-grounded in Sociology.
Sociology in our times.......2000-08-08
this book is very board. it doesn't discuss things in details. Personally, I don't like this kind of book. I would rather get a psychology than this.
Book Description
Though management expert Margaret J. Wheatley works with an unusually broad variety of clients, from Fortune 100 CEOs to ministers, she points out that they all struggle to maintain integrity, humanity, and effectiveness in a relentlessly fast-paced, technology-driven world. Credited with establishing a fundamentally new approach to leadership based on living systems theory — or, as she puts it, "how Life organizes" — Wheatley shares her first-ever compendium of essays about her real-world experiences helping clients introduce more authentic, life-affirming practices into their organizations. Essays cover a wide scope of topics including leadership strategies, raising children in turbulent times, and the role of communities in the lives of organizations. Finding Our Way is filled with a wealth of practical advice on applying the ideas in Wheatley's groundbreaking books and has particular relevance for managers, administrators, and leaders who are trying to run their organizations in more progressive, egalitarian, and effective ways.
Customer Reviews:
Visionary.......2007-05-12
Margaret J Wheatley beautifully weaves the compassion of a wise woman with the insight of a true visionary to deliver a very moving message. The new paradigm of leadership Ms. Wheatley describes embraces all citizens, creates harmony, and compels each member to become their best authentic self. Regardless of your structure: business, family, corporate, or government, your environment will benefit from this philosophy, individually and collectively. I found a shift in my perspective and the tools to take it to the streets. Ms. Wheatleys elegant writing inspires us to be better and do better.
refreshing honesty.......2007-01-31
Some reviewers have called for a "management book" -- that's the last thing we need. What I love about Wheatley is that she goes where no one else goes, and creates a path. For that reason, I use this book with my senior seminar leadership students in an effort to send them out into the world to do the same.
Disappointing.......2006-06-02
I was all set to fall in love with Finding Our Way: Leadership in Uncertain Times by Margaret Wheatley. A friend had recommended Wheatley, and I have spent the last several years researching the interplay between systems thinking, connectionism, quality, leadership and learning. I've been reading Deming, Keynes, Bateson, Prigogine and Karl Polanyi. I had just come out of a three week period of intensive training, leading and facilitating a group of software users in gathering user requirements and system modeling. The book was brand new and available at the library.
Finding Our Way is, unfortunately, a compendium of nebulous generalities. In trying to make the case for self-organizing systems as models for human organization, the "new story" falls short. I can't help but note that mobs, riots and panics are self-organizing.
The ideas may be relevant and Wheatley's descriptions of current conditions seem accurate, but the presentation and writing style make for a rather mushy, second-rate management book. Maybe I've been spoiled by the fabulous work of the writers cited above. I fear the author misses the irony of Thera, her model "nature-based" civilization, being destroyed by a volcano.
I had been hoping for a more specific, detailed, and perhaps case-based book on how to actually lead in the midst of chaos. Perhaps, as other reviewers have indicated, her other books are more serious, and I will certainly take a stab at Leadership and the New Science. Finding Our Way does have this to recommend it: it's so fluffy, one can probably get through it at one sitting.
Good!.......2006-02-06
This book is very impressive because of the writer's attitude towords the world. Good for everybody who read this book!
Alarmingly Inspirational.......2006-01-05
You know those times when you meet someone for the first time yet the experience is like you have known them all your life. This book was like that for me. Much of what I read felt like reacquainting myself with what I already new, but had forgotten, like some life-long fog of amnesia slowly clearing.
Is the book too `touchy-feely' (as some have suggested)? decide for yourself. Frankly, I don't care. All I can say is I applied some of the principles in this book immediately with a team for whom I am responsible. It works. In one meeting (no bull) we turned around two years of pain, suffering and anguish. Is there still work to be done? Sure. Do we know all the answers? Gee, we don't even know what all the questions are. One thing we are sure about, we will find our way through talking, community and shared responsibility. We might even have fun doing it.
Thanks Margaret.
Book Description
Charlie Wilson's War was a publishing sensation and a New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller. In the early 1980s, a Houston socialite turned the attention of maverick Texas congressman Charlie Wilson to the ragged band of Afghan "freedom fighters" who continued, despite overwhelming odds, to fight the Soviet invaders. Wilson, who sat on the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee, managed to procure hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen. The arms were secretly procured and distributed with the help of an out-of-favor CIA operative, Gust Avrokotos, whose working-class Greek-American background made him an anomaly among the Ivy League world of American spies. Avrakotos handpicked a staff of CIA outcasts to run his operation and, with their help, continually stretched the Agency's rules to the breaking point. Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers' conventions, to the Khyber Pass, this book presents an astonishing chapter of our recent past, and the key to understanding what helped trigger the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and ultimately led to the emergence of a brand-new foe in the form of radical Islam.
Customer Reviews:
A great true story.......2007-10-04
This is a truly amazing tale. Never told until now and soon a movie. Buy this book and read the true story about how a "wild" congressman and a rogue CIA agent changed history. Better by far than all those fictional adventures!
four and 1/2 stars........2007-10-01
steve coll's excellent book "ghost wars" whet my reading appetite for more on the soviet war in afghanistan. since that military action, with the unanticipated consequences it spawned for the united states, was such a catalyst for the 9/11 attacks, it seems essential for an american to get a grip on what took place there. "charlie wilson's war" is a thrilling account of that international drama. though much of the book deals with funding america's covert involvement through congressional appropriation subcommittees, and with CIA office politics, the narrative is interesting page for page throughout this long work. not once did i find it a chore to continue, or feel an urge to skip past anything. george crile brings the colorful personalities of those involved to vivid life through his clear prose. he actually makes appropriation subcommitees, and their methods of work, interesting. and his portraits of afghanistan and pakistan, and their respective political environments and key political players, is brilliantly executed. the story is told completely from the american perspective, true. you will have to seek elsewhere for a more balanced view (by this i mean one that takes into account the soviet soldiers side of things). but this book being what it is, is a fascinating read, and one you can learn much from.
Great.......2007-09-08
One of the most intriguing stories of American foreign policy making. This book was recommended to me by a staffer for a military oriented Congressional committee. He was quite emphatic in stressing that this book, better than any other, offers a great perspective on the influence Congress can have on foreign and war policy. I don't know how representative it is of the day to day activities of members of Congress, but it certainly shows how a dedicated member of Congress CAN get seriously involved in an issue.
Charlie Wilson is one of the most interesting politicians to have walked on the stage in the past 50 years. Part JFK, Nixon, LBJ, and Clinton - both good and bad parts - Wilson was a smart and dedicated defender of CIA efforts to support the mujaheden in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. More than any supposed hardline conservative, including President Reagan, Wilson, a socially liberal Democrat from Texas, was the most agressive elected official to back the CIA in its anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan. Wilson was also wildly able to get in the worst kinds of trouble: womanizing, drunk driving, and questionable uses of public money. I guess it goes to show that people are incredibly complex and contain a much more dynamic mix of good and bad within them. Kind of like the Incredible Hulk, but with less green.
Hard to read.......2007-08-29
Content was OK, I'm sure acurate, but about 210 pages into this 500+ page book I had to give in - I just couldn't make myself want to read it. I am only 31, so I do not know of Charlie Wilson, or the political temperature in the 80s, but this book was recommended to me so I tried, but couldn't make myself do it.
Caution: Children at play.......2007-07-28
It's impossible to know how much, if any, of "Charlie Wilson's War" is believable. After all, George Crile is a producer for "60 Minutes," which is notorious for hyping and faking stories. But, for purposes of a review, let us assume all of it is.
First, there is the adventure story: Charlie Wilson, affable and handsome, goes to Congress from the Big Thicket of Texas. He's a scandalous rogue, the kind who sometimes can carve out a political career in the rural South.
Then there is the fashion story. Rich oil men and women from Houston have soirees where they exchange rightwing political stories. The protagonist is Joanne Herring.
Finally, the spy story. The CIA blunders about the world, trying to "contain" or destroy communism. The key figure here is Gust Avrokotos, like Wilson something of a rogue.
Crile certainly tells a stem-winding story. By complicated pathways, Herring and Wilson become obsessed with the heroic struggle of the Afghans against the Russians. Avrokotos is roped in because he wants to kill commies. We are, apparently, supposed to look favorably on these people.
And to believe that their plots to supply advanced weapons and training to the mujahedeen brought down the USSR.
Well, that is certainly nonsense. The USSR fell of its own weight. Rightwing fantasies that it was brought down by Reagan's firmness or -- in this version -- the obsession of a Texas Democrat, are just that -- fantasies.
It's a great yarn and ought to be an object lesson in what happens when rich, ignorant people -- or, in the CIA's case, ignorant not-so-rich people -- are able to meddle in serious matters they do not understand.
In an epilogue entitled "Unintended Consequences," Crile, who boosted these nutcases with publicity for years, draws some -- though not enough -- rueful conclusions about the long-term inadvisability of giving powerful weapons to people who hate you and have a cultural habit of murder. Well, duh. Anyone who knew he history of Islam -- that would not include Wilson, Herring, Avrokotos or Crile -- could have predicted the outcome.
Book Description
"A brilliant and humane philosophy for our confused age."—Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell
Kwame Anthony Appiah's landmark new work, featured on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, challenges the separatist doctrines espoused in books like Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations. Reviving the ancient philosophy of "cosmopolitanism," a school of thought that dates to the Cynics of the fourth century BC, Appiah traces its influence on the ethical legacies of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Raised in Ghana, educated in England, and now a distinguished professor in the United States, Appiah promises to create a new era in which warring factions will finally put aside their supposed ideological differences and will recognize that the fundamental values held by all human beings will usher in a new era of global understanding.
Customer Reviews:
Essays by Appiah.......2007-06-27
This book is a collection of essays around a common theme; each is extremely well written, reflective and accessible to the non-specialist.
Anthony Appiah is surely one of our most important thinkers about ethical issues that arise in common life. He brings unusual color and verve to
his subjects, reflecting a childhood in Ghana and an adult life spent as a true citizen of the world in one of the world's great universities.
An importance exploration of what it means to be a responsible part of today's world.......2007-02-10
There are few individuals more qualified to write a book on the idea of cosmopolitanism than Kwame Anthony Appiah. Biracial, raised in both Ghana and England, multicultural, multilingual, educated at Cambridge but teaching at Princeton, Appiah has an inside familiarity with larger world that few can rival. It is tremendously encouraging to me, a WASP who has been unable to engage in any real travel, that we both seem to share precisely the same ideals. My experience of the world counts for little; his a great deal. Yet it shows that people with extremely different backgrounds can embrace the same ideals.
Appiah is a philosopher, but though he has clearly been raised in the Anglo-American linguistic philosophical tradition, he has not found himself restricted by it. From the various philosophers he quotes, I'm sure that he and had had similar philosophical training. I envy the way that he can make what I learned as logical positivism (Appiah lops off the "logical") and make it relevant in a discussion of wider cultural issues. Though he obviously was trained in the tradition honed by Russell, Carnap, Frege, Ryle, Austin, Anscombe, Dummett, and the large contingent of American and British logicians and philosophers of language, none of them have informed his literary style. In fact, the two writers Appiah reminds me of most are Herodotus and Montaigne. Like them, he feels a license to bring into his discussion almost anything. If he is cosmopolitan on a moral and social level, he is also as a multidisciplinarian. Nor does he hesitate at mixing cultures. Many of the most compelling passages in the book detail incidents from his experience in Ghana.
The point of the book is to discuss many of the problems that arise if one attempts to embrace--as Appiah clearly feels we all should--cosmopolitan ideals. He deals interestingly with a host of issues, from the idea of who owns the products of a culture to the incommensurability of values from one culture to another (or their possible commensurability) to whether it is problematic when there are conflicts on fundamental issues. As a person he seems to have been deeply molded by all of the cultural influences in which he grew up, but as a philosopher he is exceptionally British. Over the decades there have been a number of British thinkers who have been able to cut through a thick wad of nonsense and discuss issues in a balanced, commonsensical manner. Gilbert Ryle had this capacity, as did (sometimes) G. E. Moore, and so also Mary Midgley. While his views are unquestionably progressive, Appiah always seems to avoid extremes to arrive at conclusions that are, above all else, balanced and reasonable. He is a master at making sense. So when philosopher Peter Unger argues that we all have a moral obligation to give every penny that we do not need for our own sustenance to organizations like UNICEF and OXFAM so that food and medicine can be purchased for the desperately poor in the Third World. Appiah, on the other hand, believes that a world in which no one bought a ticket to the opera would be flat and uninteresting. Besides, what really matters is reforming local governments in order to provide long-term transformation of the socioeconomic structures in the areas most afflicted by poverty, something that giving exclusively to UNICEF and OXFAM will not accomplish (though for the record, Appiah thinks both organizations are very important and he does not discourage contributing to them). Though he does not state it as a principle, he constantly employs something akin to Aristotle's golden mean.
I especially enjoyed his chapter on The Counter-Cosmopolitans. He places many of today's Islamic extremists in this category, though he also very correctly places many Christian fundamentalists here as well. I have long fantasized about writing a book about contemporary proponents of Counter-Enlightenment ideas (a book I will never write because I haven't mastered the range of disciplines such a project would require). Isaiah Berlin wrote frequently about various Counter-Enlightenment thinkers such as Hamaan, but I believe it can be extended into the present for such mass movements as various religious fundamentalisms (Christian, Islamic, as well as Jewish), the New Age movement, contemporary astrology, right wing political movements, and free market capitalism. Obviously I can't make my claim here, but I found Appiah's discussion of the counter-cosmopolitans to overlap entirely with counter-enlightenment ideals.
I value this book not only for its ideals and the intelligent discussion of a host of thorny issues, but for Appiah's warm humanity and wonderful literary style. It is not merely an intelligent book but a well-written one as well.
Becoming Cosmopolitan.......2007-02-05
One of the most pernicious ideas has spung from the myth that we are necessarily separated and segregated into groups that are defined by criteria like gender, language, race, religion or some other kind of boundary. And it is easy to see that these boundaries are a major cause of conflict.
The author of this enthralling book - Kwame Anthony Appiah - challenges this kind of separative thinking by resurrecting the ancient philosophy of "cosmopolitanism." This school of thought that dates back almost 2500 years to the Cynics of Ancient Greece. They first articulated the cosmopolitan ideal that all human beings were citizens of the world. Later on, these ideas were elaborated by another group of philosophers: the Stoics.
According to Appiah, the influence of cosmopolitanism has stretched down the ages and through to the Enlightenment. He takes Immanuel Kant's notion of a League of Nations and the Declaration of the Rights of Man to be two manifestations of this ancient idea.
Appiah sees cosmopolitanism as a dynamic concept based on two fundamental ideas. First is the idea that we have responsibilities to others that are beyond those based on kinship or citizenship. Second is something often forgotten: just because other people have different customs and beliefs from ours, they will likely still have meaning and value. We may not agree with someone else, but mutual understanding should be a first goal.
The book is full of personal experiences. I doubt that anyone else could have written it: His mother was an English author and daughter of the statesman Sir Stafford Cripps, and his father a Ghanaian barrister and politician, who reminded his children to remember that they were "citizens of the world."
Appiah was educated in Ghana and England and has taught in both countries. He now holds a chair of Philosophy at Princeton. He is no starry eyed idealist, and he knows that differences between groups and nations cannot be wished away or ignored. But he contends, rightly, I think, that differences can be accepted without being allowed to become barriers.
As he says, "Cosmopolitans suppose that all cultures have enough overlap in their vocabulary of values to begin a conversation. But they don't suppose, like some Universalists, that we could all come to agreement if only we had the same vocabulary." The reason is simply this: most of us arrive at our values not on the basis of careful reasoning, but by lifelong conditioning and subjective beliefs and attitudes.
In parts of Europe, there have recently been misgivings about the growing diversity and multiculturalism of countries like the United Kingdom, with people asking whether it is doing no more than fracturing society. Appiah tackles this question head on. He has this to say, "If we want to preserve a wide range of human conditions because it allows free people the best chance to make their own lives, there is no place for the enforcement of diversity by trapping people within a kind of difference that they long to escape. There simply is no decent way to sustain those communities of difference that will not survive without the free allegiance of their members."
Cosmopolitanism, balances our "obligations to others" with the "value not just of human life but of particular human lives," what Appiah calls "universality plus difference." He remains skeptical about simple maxims for ethical behavior such as the Golden Rule. He swiftly demonstrates its failings as a moral precept. He argues that cosmopolitanism is the name not "of the solution but of the challenge."
This is an important book that will inevitably be controversial. In a world that is becoming more interconnected and shrinking by the day, and where the "clash of cultures" threatens our existence, Appiah has many new perspectives as he articulates a precise yet flexible ethical manifesto. He does not claim to have all the answers, but this book should be of interest to all of us as we try to make sense of the turmoil, challenges and opportunities of our globalizing world.
Current and relevant.......2007-01-05
Very insightful. Draws on past scholarship to apply to our world today.
Brilliant.......2006-08-31
Excellent, Brilliant and full of wisdom. This is from a philosopher who has the ability to see things from more perspectives than black and white. His book is concise and not too academic. He makes philosophy trendy. He is a new generation of thinkers that will reshape our thoughts. He tackles sensitive issues with respect for all parties. One cannot tell his sentiments due to his fairness and objectivity. The first book I will read a second time.
Customer Reviews:
Opened my eyes.......2007-07-19
I read this about 8 years after it was written, and it opened my eyes. Not in the sense of seeing the world as being driven by conspiracy, but as seeing the world as driven by economics. People who worry about the conspiracies are missing the more important information it conveys.
Traditional history sees the world moved by Politics, Religion, Conquest, etc. All that is good as far as it goes, but what this book revealed to me is that economics are a raw force of nature, and nothing can deviate too far from where that force leads. I don't think it was the author's intent that be the main message of the book, but it was my main conclusion after reading it. If we understand the force of economics and work with them, amazing things can be done. If we try to ignore them, we will live in the dark, always mystified about what comes to pass and what does not.
This has huge ramifications. For a contemporary example; if you want to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere, how will it be done? If you try to get everyone to "quit emmitting" you are never going to succeed. You have to look at the problem as an economic problem and find a way to make it pay (and I don't just mean credits) to reduce co2 levels. That is just an example issue, it is true of almost anything. Want your religion to prosper? Want to reduce poverty? If you really want it to happen, you must work through the economics of the change you desire and find a way to make them work, but without ignoring the traditional ways of effecting change at the same time.
First Stone in the Digital Study of Abusive Wealth.......2007-01-05
This is a very long book, longer than Laurie Garrett's "BETRAYAL OF TRUST: The Global Collapse of Public Health," and it has taken me over two months, between other easier to read books, to examine. I strongly recommend that W. Cleon Skousen's book ("The Naked Capitalist") be purchased at the same time, as it offers a very helpful "Cliff's Notes" and summary of the larger work.
I give this book 5 stars for substance, 4 stars for personal bias, and 4 stars for being both too late, and too soon--to late to have saved us from what Derek Leebaert calls "The Fifty Year Wound," too soon to be centerpiece, as I would have it be, of a massive public intelligence digital project to nail down all the relationships and follow all the money.
Carroll Quigley's book is excruciatingly dull and filled with thousands of facts in very small print. I never-the-less recommend it for purchase because it may well be one of the more fundamental references of our time. Two other books that complement this one are Mike Rupert's "Crossing the Rubicon," and Jim Marrs' "Rule by Secrecy."
Now to my final point: others get nervouos when I begin to engage the "conspiracy literature," and I have to reiterate that the conspiracy literature is no more nor any less rife with bias and error than the conventional literature. See my reviews of John Perry's "Lost History" and Larry Beinhart's "Fog Facts." And if your really want to worry, read John Lewis Gaddis "The Landscape of History" on how inept and ignorant most of our scholars are, or the more conventional "Information Anxiety" by Richard Saul Wurman.
Quigley is the cornerstone for a public intelligence digital map that will emerge over the next few years. I anticipate that thousands of books and articles, including Sterling and Peggy Seagrave's "Gold Warriors" will all "make sense," and I believe they will make enough sense to warrant a massive re-possession of wealth such as has never before occured under non-violent circumstances. This book is revolutionary, but it is also before its time.
CLINTONS' MENTOR !.......2006-05-18
The late Prof. Carroll Quigley,of Georgetown University taught former President Bill Clinton ALL he knows-or so said Clinton at the 1992 Democratic convention.I've had this book for 30 years and its contents NEVER fail to amaze me.If yiu want to know the truth about the Cecil RHOADS sociey,Clinton was a member,or the anglophile Council on Foreign Relations(CFR),Bill was a menber of it too,READ THIS BOOK.Prof Quigley,who died in 1978,was an insiders' insider,he also had an influence on the late Sen. Joe McCarthy.The author of this review is very much a leftists.
1300 pages are too many.......2006-04-20
Quigley was a Georgetown professor who was permitted access for two years in the early 1960's to the private archives of the Committee on Foreign Relations, a Rockefeller internationalist organization that compliments the work of the Trilateral Commission and the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
It is difficult to determine what the author is trying to communicate. There is no continuity to the book; nothing ties together Quigley's version of the past and of the future. It's like reading about the solar system and finding out that the conclusion of the matter is that the sun will expand and burn everything up. You are left wondering, what is the point?
We are left with the suggestion that the elite should continue to guide us in the same direction that we are traveling, but avoiding some of the monumental blunders that they have made in the past.
Quigley's version of history consists mostly of unquestioning repetition of propaganda. Quigley did a superficial job of analyzing history, and he is even worse at sociology. He touts Inclusive Diversity as our great strength and greatest gift. Perhaps he should have considered the aphorism, "Divide and conquer." The West, or any other empire, can only flourish when it concentrates on matters of common concern, not divisivness
Quigley does slightly better with economics and foreign policy, which are more in his area of expertise. He correctly observes that British and American "victories" in WWI and WWII resulted in the almost total destruction of international law. Quigley is in favor of the idea of continental blocs replacing national states. As globalization unfolds, Quigley exposes some of the hypocrisy and bungling, yet he inexplicably remains committed to the overall plan.
So, what is the point of all of this costly meddling? Quigley predicts success...and then failure. "We shall undoubtedly get a Universal Empire in which the U.S. will rule most of Western Civilization. This will be followed by a period of decay and ultimately by invasions and the total destruction of Western culture." Couldn't we save ourselves the trouble and just mind our own business?
Minding our own business is a concept based on the idea that the electorate is in control of the government, and that we have a choice. However, Quigley admits that international financiers influence and control governments. Quigley says that the internationalists, who prefer to remain in the background, should be known for their "valuable" contributions. What these contributions amount to is that they want world government, and they intend to cram it down everyone's throats.
As we slouch toward financial, industrial, and government monopoly the author reminds us of some of the casualties. "As economic enterprises have become larger and more tightly integrated into one another, the freedom, individualism, and initiative traditionally associated with the modern economy have to be sacrificed." Quigley acknowledges that in our future, "In general, there will be a very considerable modification of the areas and objectives of freedom in all societies of the world, with gradual reduction of numerous personal freedoms of the past."
To add to this loss of freedom, Quigley bemoans our loss of a spiritual mooring and suggests a return to the values of Christianity! His version of Christianity, of course. Still full of contradictions, Quigley cleaves to relativism rather than absolutes, approximations rather than final answers-not realizing that the adoption of these mindsets are what weakened the appeal of Christianity.
Finally, as we follow our present course, Quigley predicts an age of conflict characterized by class struggle, war, irrationality, and declining progress. Obviously, we're there now.
Rather than attack his sponsors, who are bringing us this New World Order, Quigley vents his frustration on the middle class. Quigley touts the moral superiority of both the rich and poor, but he asserts that the middle class consists of poorly-informed, neurotic, bourgeois, radical-right Republicans. Worst of all, they have Puritanical attitudes toward sex.
The many internal contradictions in this book indicate a confused mind or a shallow thinker. The author's history is mostly stale propaganda, spiced up with occasional pro-government cheerleading or tales of government boondoggles.
Maybe if Quigley had broken this monstrosity into several different books, he would have had something coherent to say. In this book, Quigley's conclusion is almost totally divorced from the rest of the book. This effort spanned 20 years, and possibly senility was sneaking up on the author.
A fascinating perspective of history !!.......2005-10-05
Quigley has done an immense job writing the history of the world from the elitist point of view. The winner, the powerful, and the wealthy usually write the history. Biased or not, based on evidence or not, they write the history or pay someone to do it for them, either way, they make it reality and a basis for the future of the world. As a reader, you must understand the history and the context in which it was written, in order for you to comprehend the dangers of the present and to predict the urgency of the future.
The tragedy in this book is in the Narcissism of Quigley and his oligarchy, and the vanishing hope is in the faith and the hands of the determined and decent people............
Book Description
The Mayan Calendar may well provide the basis for the understanding of creation. In this extraordinary publication, Carl Calleman shows us how the Mayan Calendar combines science and sprituality to unlock the secrets of the universe and provide clues to the future of mankind.
Customer Reviews:
Masonic Propaganda.......2007-09-20
You have to love Masonic propaganda. The roots of all this Mayan/Atlantean "mysteries" lies in 19th century creators of the New Age movement, most famous of which was the Freemason Mrs.Blavatsky.
Masons are putting together a One world government (taking shape under European Union, and the coming Rockefeller-sponsored North American Union)...which needs a one world religion. Its easier to control people if they all believe the same religious nonsense that you feed to them.
Masons invented communism (look up Marx and Mazzini), and succeeded in killing about 200 million people, but it didn't work in wiping out Christianity, which was its original intent.
So they try to invent new religions, fuse Christianity with all sorts of New Age concepts (like this book)...etc...but so far they've failed to come up with anything that would catch on.
Maybe they are still experimenting...
It will still take a few more decades to bring about one world government with continental "unions"...so they have plenty of time to pitch ideas to people and see what works. By 2013, the Mayan Calendar will be long gone and forgotten...
I get a good laugh out of those reviewers who consider this a "scholarly" work, when in fact almost none of the ideas presented can be scientifically corroborated.
A Bit on the Technical Side.......2007-07-30
Textbook style, in-depth analysis of the Mayan Calendar and the formation of the civilization itself. Devotes very little to the prophecy as it realtes to our present day. Not an easy read.
deeply compelling.......2007-05-14
I am so appreciative for this book and all the work it represents. Speaking for myself, I feel so benefitted by the perspective of a picture this big, this ancient and this relevant to events throughout time itself. I have been interested in the Mayan Calendar in times past but never have I been so "grabbed" and held inthralled by the potential of evolving consciousness. What a gift at this timie of so much shifting that all can feel but few can identify sufficiently to draw up a map for living. This book inspires to bend and flex in all the right ways and not to fear but to accept that what is coming will look, feel and be very different from what we are used to.
DiaGnosis: This is an invention, and not the Maya calendar.......2007-02-18
Extracts from the online disgnosis2012 (dotcodotukslashcalldothtm) review that also apperars in the book Beyond 2012:
Swedish researcher Carl Johan Calleman noticed that since the tzolkin can be used as a map of the 13-baktun cycle, it could theoretically also be applied to the larger cycles that have been found on a few stelae, (a stela or stele is an upright lab or pillar with an inscription or sculpture and the plural form is stelae) such as stela 1 at the Coba - a ruined Maya city in the forest sixty miles east of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan. Then he noticed that if this is continued upwards, a cycle is discovered that is close to the scientifically accepted age of the universe. To explain this further, we must first look at the extended version of the Long Count calendar.
Twenty kin or days is one uinal (20 days); eighteen uinals is one tun (360 days; twenty tuns is one katun- 7,200 days (about 20 years); twenty katuns is one baktun - 144,000 days (about 400 years); twenty baktuns is one pictun - 2,880,000 days (about 8,000 years); twenty pictuns is one kalabtun - 57,600,000 days (about 160,000 years); twenty kalabtuns is one kinchiltun - 1,152,000,000 days (about 3.154 million years); twenty kinchiltuns is one alautun (about 63.08 million years); twenty alautuns is one hablatun (about 1.26 billion years); twenty hablatuns is about 25.2 billion years.
What Calleman realized is that thirteen hablatuns would be equal to about 16.4 billion years, which is close to the usual estimate given for the age of the universe; about 15 billion years. If the pattern of the 13 x 20 Sacred Calendar or tzolkin encodes larger sacred cycles, such as the 13-baktun cycle, he reasoned that a whole cosmology of 13-unit cycles, rather than twenty-unit ones, could be represented in a nine-step pyramid form, such as the Pyramid of the Jaguar at Tikal, Guatemala, or the Temple of Inscriptions at Palenque, Mexico (the one that conceals the tomb of the ancient Maya ruler, Pacal). In this way, the top or ninth level would represent a 13-uinal period, while the bottom or first level would represent a 13-hablatun period.
So, the topmost layer represented the 260-day tzolkin of thirteen uinals. The next level down would be a 260-uinal cycle of thirteen tuns. The next level down would be a 260-tun cycle of thirteen katuns (this is a cycle normally known as the Short Count). Under this would be a 260-katun cycle of thirteen baktuns (this is the familiar 13-baktun cycle). Below this would be a 260-baktun cycle of thirteen pictuns, and so on. In this way, we would have a nine-level pyramid, where each layer is structured like the tzolkin, but twenty times larger than the layer above.
This is a very intriguing idea, showing how the development and evolution of the universe could be encoded into the structure of the Maya calendrical systems, from the creation of the universe until its final consummation at the end-point. At the junctions of each level of the pyramid, humanity gains another "frame of consciousness", and although Calleman says that speculation on the consciousness that will be accessed at the "summit of the pyramid" would seem to be "almost pointless", he does indulge the reader a little. It will be an end of time, in which no more calendars are needed:
"...the attainment of a time-less cosmic consciousness, and an experience of unity with All-That-Is in its fullest sense, a disappearance of the line dividing life from death. Although many that live today have had temporary experiences of such a cosmic consciousness, these have only been temporary, due to our limiting frame of consciousness. At the end of Creation this may no longer be so and the eternal life may in fact manifest as a time-less cosmic consciousness."
If this sounds familiar, maybe that is because it is based on "several ancient scriptures" that turn out to be mainly the Book of Genesis and the Book of Revelation.
Calleman supports the True Count, as opposed to the Lounsbury correlation, but he realised that his theory would be much neater if only the Long Count had ended on the day 13 Ahau in the tzolkin, instead of 4 Ahau. Incredibly, he decided that the Maya had got it wrong, and says that although he still agrees with the True Count of the tzolkin, the correlation between the Long Count and the tzolkin was wrong. This is something nobody had questioned before, since there has never been any doubt of the tzolkin - to- Long Count correlation; it was set by the Maya and wherever a stela shows the Long Count, it shows the relevant tzolkin date. Previous arguments had concerned how the calendars relate to the Gregorian calendar, not how they relate to each other. Calleman criticized Arguelles for creating his own New Age Dreamspell count, yet has not seen the parallels to his own creation. In fact, he says in reference to later "invented" tzolkin correlations, "Such disregard of the calendrical knowledge of the Classical Maya is not likely to lead to truth", but this applies equally to his own invented Long Count correlation. The result of the change in correlation means that Calleman sees the 13-baktun cycle as starting on June 17th 3115 BC and ending on 28th October 2011.
There is a problem, however, because dividing by twenty works fine until we get to the level beneath the summit of the pyramid, when we find that thirteen tuns is 4680 days, and a twentieth of this is 234 days, not 260 days. Calleman admits this, where he refers to "The short universal cycle of 2011, probably totalling only 13 x 18 = 234 days, but possibly 260 days..." Two diagrams on p.77 of Calleman's book differ on the length of this last cycle - one says 13 x 20 days (260) and the other says 13 x 18 days (234). If the tzolkin level (the Universal Underworld) is shortened to 234 days, so that the pattern (of each level being a twentieth the size of the one above) is retained, then the tzolkin as the key 260-unit "filtration pattern of divine light" is unable to form the top level of the pyramid. Alternatively, if the 260-unit tzolkin is retained as the top level of the pyramid, so that each level consists of 260 sub-units, then the top level will be only an eighteenth the size of the level below, whereas all other levels are a twentieth the size of the level below. Since both solutions lose the symmetry of the pyramid, Calleman is clearly undecided as to which is correct. This brings the validity of the whole pyramid construct into question.
If Calleman had stuck with the Maya Long Count correlation, the idea would have remained an interesting concept, but the idea that the tzolkin "ends" on the day 13 Ahau and "begins" on the day 1 Imix is, in fact, "based upon a misconception of the tzolkin calendar" due to modern conventions in representing it, according to John Major Jenkins. Therefore the alteration to the Long Count was not necessary, and Calleman could have presented the idea without resorting to inventing his own correlation. Calleman now has quite a following, and supporters are presenting his theory as "The Mayan Calendar" or saying, "The Maya say..." when they should say, "Carl Calleman says..." His book is titled The Maya Calendar: Solving the Greatest Mystery of Our Time, but his solution is being taken as the genuine Maya Calendar, when it is an attempted explanation that got out of hand and ended up "massaging" the facts to fit the explanation. Amazingly, José Arguelles has written the introduction to Calleman's sequel book, just as several websites are attempting to combine the theories of Arguelles and Calleman... and even Jenkins. It seems that people are so wary of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, that they have poured all the water into one bath, inadvertently drowning the baby.
Judge Only for YOU..........2007-01-12
Do not take the words of anyone else - especially when it comes to this book. If you want opinions, read ALL of the reviews on this book, not just the negative ones which seem to display most prominently.
I do not know what standards Mr. Jonathan Jett-Parmer thinks this book does not meet, nor does he state what his qualifications are in the subject material. He tells of the the relevance of Dr. Calleman's other works and their apparent qualifications which DO meet with the standards of Mr. Jett-Parmer. However, he does not provide any reasons for such assertions and apparent contradictions.
If he would be so kind as to update his review I think we could all benefit from a more detailed explanation for the opinions he has every right to express.
I would not be surprised if it took most people six months to a year of effort before the material in this book began to sink in and feel like one was learning it, instead of being confused by it. The reason is that it addresses using a calendar other than the one we all share worldwide - the Gregorian calendar. The calendar itself, no matter which one we used at any point in the past, present or future, is the basis for our conscious reality. That is why the book seems like it is not as easy to comprehend as perhaps other readers would expect. I know that I felt dumbfounded and walked away from it several times.
The reason it because the idea that we would use a calendar other than the one we know worldwide is truly a shock to your senses. We don't know how to even think about a calendar other than the one we know. Think about it: have you ever thought once about using another calendar?
I guarantee you have not - not to replace the one we all sharez. How about a year that was not 365 days per year? What about a year that was actually 360 days per year? The same as 360 degrees in a circle? Don't worry - because in this book there is no either/or with the calendar: There are 17 in total, one called the Haab that tracked the solar orbit of 365.2421 days per year and is more accurate than the Gregorian.
On solar orbit, why is that meaningful to our planet, besides the seasons, planting and harvesting to grow food? Why are we so obsessed with how accurate ANY system is in precision timekeeping of the Earth around the sun in a year? I think down to 4 decimal places is good for me.
Would it make sense to have alternatives to try and see if an even 360 day per Galactic Year system would be more likely to relate to other systems in the galaxy and universe? Is it safe to say that, at the very least, the time it takes our little planet to go around the sun in a year means nothing to anyone not on our planet? Why would it? IT ONLY MATTERS IN THIS LITTLE SOLAR ORBIT.
The rest of the universe is based on spherical shapes and sizes, of varying ellipses and precessions and so on, but they are all ultimately 360 degrees round. In the span of thousands to millions to billions of years and years it is the mathemathical relationships that deterine the flow of evolution. That does not mean that Keplers Laws or Newtons Laws are no less important - just that they are only important if what you use them for is relevant - like landing on the surface of a planet. Or putting a sattellite into orbit. Or blasting off from the surface of the planet.
But tracking the progress of our evolution, over 16.64 billion years ago until now, and culminating on October 28, 2011? That is mathematics, and the planets and orbits REPRESENT how it all works together. But the celestial mechanical motions from one day, month or year don't matter in the grand scheme of things. And besides that, if this book is wrong, then there is nothing to fear. Right?
but I am an expert on this book as well as the books by Mr. John Major Jenkins and Jose Arguelles: Jenkins and Arguelles are BOGUS disinformation based on unprovable assertions. This book is based on mathematics and makes no claims that are not verified. Are there assertions and deep thoughts as to the meaning of the math and how that should be interpreted? Of course. As with any book, on any subject, especially a subject as controversial and difficult to comprehend as the Mayan Civilization, if someone is asking you to ignore something for no apparent reason, or they make spurious claims that seem 'fishy' then wonder more about why they are working so hard to close your mind. Keep your mind open at all times, judge for yourself and of any books on the Mayans BUY ONLY THIS BOOK. It is not perfect, but it is the closest to the Truth that we have right now. Thank you.
Amazon.com
Social phenomena happen, and the historians follow. So it goes with Google, the latest star shooting through the universe of trend-setting businesses. This company has even entered our popular lexicon: as many note, "Google" has moved beyond noun to verb, becoming an action which most tech-savvy citizens at the turn of the twenty-first century recognize and in fact do, on a daily basis. It's this wide societal impact that fascinated authors David Vise and Mark Malseed, who came to the book with well-established reputations in investigative reporting. Vise authored the bestselling The Bureau and the Mole, and Malseed contributed significantly to two Bob Woodward books, Bush at War and Plan of Attack. The kind of voluminous research and behind-the-scenes insight in which both writers specialize, and on which their earlier books rested, comes through in The Google Story.
The strength of the book comes from its command of many small details, and its focus on the human side of the Google story, as opposed to the merely academic one. Some may prefer a dryer, more analytic approach to Google's impact on the Internet, like The Search or books that tilt more heavily towards bits and bytes on the spectrum between technology and business, like The Singularity is Near. Those wanting to understand the motivations and personal growth of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO Eric Schmidt, however, will enjoy this book. Vise and Malseed interviewed over 150 people, including numerous Google employees, Wall Street analysts, Stanford professors, venture capitalists, even Larry Page's Cub Scout leader, and their comprehensiveness shows.
As the narrative unfolds, readers learn how Google grew out of the intellectually fertile and not particularly directed friendship between Page and Brin; how the founders attempted to peddle early versions of their search technology to different Silicon Valley firms for $1 million; how Larry and Sergey celebrated their first investor's check with breakfast at Burger King; how the pair initially housed their company in a Palo Alto office, then eventually moved to a futuristic campus dubbed the "Googleplex"; how the company found its financial footing through keyword-targeted Web ads; how various products like Google News, Froogle, and others were cooked up by an inventive staff; how Brin and Page proved their mettle as tough businessmen through negotiations with AOL Europe and their controversial IPO process, among other instances; and how the company's vision for itself continues to grow, such as geographic expansion to China and cooperation with Craig Venter on the Human Genome Project.
Like the company it profiles, The Google Story is a bit of a wild ride, and fun, too. Its first appendix lists 23 "tips" which readers can use to get more utility out of Google. The second contains the intelligence test which Google Research offers to prospective job applicants, and shows the sometimes zany methods of this most unusual business. Through it all, Vise and Malseed synthesize a variety of fascinating anecdotes and speculation about Google, and readers seeking a first draft of the history of the company will enjoy an easy read. --Peter Han
Book Description
"Here is the story behind one of the most remarkable Internet successes of our time. Based on scrupulous research and extraordinary access to Google, the book takes you inside the creation and growth of a company whose name is a favorite brand and a standard verb recognized around the world. Its stock is worth more than General Motors’ and Ford’s combined, its staff eats for free in a dining room that used to be
run
by the Grateful Dead’s former chef, and its employees traverse the firm’s colorful Silicon Valley campus on scooters and inline skates.
The Google Story is the definitive account of the populist media company powered by the world’s most advanced technology that in a few short years has revolutionized access to information about everything for everybody everywhere.
In 1998, Moscow-born Sergey Brin and Midwest-born Larry Page dropped out of graduate school at Stanford University to, in their own words, “change the world” through a search engine that would organize every bit of information on the Web for free.
While the company has done exactly that in more than one hundred languages, Google’s quest continues as it seeks to add millions of library books, television broadcasts, and more to its searchable database.
Readers will learn about the amazing business acumen and computer wizardry that started the company on its astonishing course; the secret network of computers delivering lightning-fast search results; the unorthodox approach that has enabled it to challenge Microsoft’s dominance and shake up Wall Street. Even as it rides high, Google wrestles with difficult choices that will enable it to continue expanding while sustaining the guiding vision of its founders’ mantra: DO NO EVIL."
Download Description
David A. Vise is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Washington Post and the author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller The Bureau and the Mole. Mark Malseed, who has contributed to the Washington Post and the Boston Herald, has won high praise for his research efforts on Bob Woodward’s recent books, Plan of Attack and Bush at War.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
A modern business story that is both unusual and topical.......2007-09-13
This founding and growth of Google is a fascinating story. While this book is very boosterish in its approach, that is fine. We understand what is going on and it is inevitable that the "dark side" of Google will come out elsewhere. Still, at its core and in the surrounding landscape, it is a pretty happy story.
Larry Page, a Ph.D. student at Stanford, wanted to download the Internet to his computer and thought he could do it quite easily and quickly. He met Sergey Brin, also a doctoral student at Stanford, was also interested in working with vast amounts of data, what could be learned from it, an how to organize it. Page came up with the PageRank algorighms that ranked the searches in ways that made them more useful to the person doing the search. (The name is a pun on Larry PAGE and web PAGE).
Stanford approached a number of organizations and venture capitalists to sell the technology, but there were no takers. So, Brin and Page dropped out and started their own company, which became Google. They have always focused on their corporate culture being innovative, oriented towards small teams, doing interesting things and only later worrying about how to make money with whatever comes of the research, and doing the best to live by their motto "Don't Be Evil".
They didn't follow the normal rules for raising money from the Venture Capital community, but were able to raise $25 million. They promised the VCs they would hire a CEO, but put it off for more than a year and when they did accept Eric Schmidt (because the three of them got along) they would not ever report to him nor would they cede control to him. When they finally had to go public (the VC stuff, again), they didn't follow the prescribed and traditional methods the investment banks use and only paid them half their usual fees.
Yes, going into China caused them real spiritual difficulties, and still does. And their goal of gathering all the information in the world and making it available does raise serious questions about personal privacy and freedom that they have not adequately addressed. However, they have great technology. I do use it and love Google Desktop. The book provides some tips about ways to use Google you may not know. Do you know that you can simply type in a math problem and it will solve it for you? That you can type in an address and it will pull up a map? Do you know about Google Book or Google Scholar? Take a look!
Way cool.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson
Excellent business book.......2007-08-15
Very interesting read. The author clearly loves Google but that aside, he covers the story from the start of Google as a research project at Stanford University through to their IPO and after. The best parts of the book for me was the incubation phase where they thought it was a good idea but needed to figure how to make money off it and turn it into a successful business. Lots of details on the key decisions made along the way but not too many details where you'd get bored reading it.
I appreciated how the author covered this as a business story covering the early investors who believed in the value of the idea to the immensely successful branding of the Google name. If business and technology companies in interest you, I don't think you'll be disappointed reading this book.
Great read!.......2007-08-13
This book was a true delight to read! This was so much more than just how two guys from college created a successful company. It was more than that. Those guys were turned away from Alta Vista, Excite, and Yahoo and had suffered disappointment after disappointment but never gave up. Their product (almost overnight) grew to be a massive empire once they got an investor to give $100k to their company. What I LOVED about this book was watching two easy-fun loving guys (who skateboard at their office in jeans and t-shirt) who continued to look to the future in the face of defeat. These guys never gave up and I, for one, was truly inspired after reading the book.
The back-story of how google came to be can be described as the underdog finally reaching the top and overtaking those who turned him down.
Great company summary.......2007-07-31
This book does a wonderful job of explaining that Google's success comes from great timing, great leadership, having a solution to a specific problem, and a bit of luck. A worthwhile read for sure.
Good Book.......2007-07-29
Dear All,
Its very good book, i have never seen before. its good and it needs really a very good time to read about it & to get in touch with that one.
My name is Mohammed Tantawi & in case of you need any thing to return back to me, please feel free & here is my E-mail as well.
[...]
Average customer rating:
- Intriguing analysis of the forces shaping the future
- Thought-provoking, irresponsible, and sometimes comically incorrect. But fun.
- Good Cliff note summary of current events
- Interesting read
- Past, Present, Future, Global, Local
|
Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World
Eamonn Kelly
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ASIN: 0131855204 |
Customer Reviews:
Intriguing analysis of the forces shaping the future.......2006-12-18
Eamonn Kelly's predictions aren't as simple as those offered by some futurists, but that's because he's trying to be realistic about the complexity of "powerful times." And while Kelly's ideas aren't simple, they are clear. You can take any one of his predictions, such as the growing importance of water or the rise of consciousness about the sacred, and work through the implications for business and home life. In fact, Kelly explicitly asks readers to do so. His afterword poses a series of questions about how individuals and organizations are experiencing the changes he enumerates and invites readers to share their ideas within their organizations and on his Web site. Kelly emphasizes that humanity has just begun to feel the effects of many of the high-profile changes of recent decades, and that they haven't yet worked their way through the global economy. If the book has a weakness, it is that it's so focused on the United States. Kelly's treatment of Western ideals in general, and of U.S. military and political aims, seems to take America's self-image for granted. We recommend Kelly's book to policy wonks, executives involved in change management and, in general, anybody seriously planning for the future.
Thought-provoking, irresponsible, and sometimes comically incorrect. But fun. .......2006-10-13
Powerful Times has promise as you plow through the first handful of chapters. I've done quite a bit of future `ideating' mostly for product innovation to have concepts like `clarity vs craziness' - something we called, `synthesized sense-making' at work - and `technology acceleration vs pushback' - resonate with me. His arguments make sense and they feel like they're pointing to a powerful conclusion.
And then, something happens that makes you distrust everything you haven't researched yourself. For me, it was when that old bogie-man, "global warming", came out under the heading, `people and planet'.
I don't know if you have a poster of Al Gore in your dorm room or not, but when confronted with often-quoted-but-usually-disproved data points like polar ice melting (except where it's thickening), sea levels rising (plate tectonics, anyone?), and "NASA" saying the ten warmest years on record have all happened in the past twenty years (except for the entire decade of the 30's), I start to doubt everything else I've just read. (Take the time to read Sen. James Inhofe's speech on Capitol Hill from 9/25/06. He's the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee at the epw dot senate dot gov website - you'll have to hunt for it from there, as Amazon doesn't like reviewers to embed URL's. Most all of the current hype on global warming gets pretty clearly debunked here. And if that wasn't enough fun, pick up Michael Critchton's `State of Fear'. There's just too much hysteria against a backdrop of conflicting data and more conflicting politics to buy this hook, line and sinker).
After you fully defoliate the chapter on global warming, you are then faced with vignettes on how China is poised to offer the world advances in environmental conservation. Is it just me, or do you also recall hearing that a few hundred cities in China had air so bad you needed a catalytic converter just to breathe normally? Given China's record, it's hard to see anything done on an environmentally sustainable basis for its own sake.
So if I can't buy the stories on global warming or Chinese environmental stewardship, what am I to do with vignettes on the "African Renaissance" in scientific research? Frankly, I don't know whether there's any merit to this one or not, but his track record is getting a bit suspect at this point. (It's funny, I'm also reading Robert Young Pelton's `World's Most Dangerous Places', so the difference in perspective leads one to pause. I don't know about you, but my money at this point is on Pelton).
In "Prosperity and Decline", we're told that Brazil's "experiment in free trade" of violating patent laws on pharmaceuticals to provide AIDS drugs for free is a `vindicated' strategy because of lives saved and thus represents a bold new twist on free trade. Huh? I'm all for saving lives, but maybe the Brazilian government would pick up the tab next time? I take it that Hwa Wei's pirating Cisco software is excused because the domestic Chinese market now enjoys US-style router technology without all those pesky big invoices.
This is the second great red flag of the book - a huge disconnect in critical judgment. However, let's continue to suspend disbelief and plunge ahead with our story.
After two chapters that feel a bit out of place - governance and innovation - we get into three potential world scenarios, all of which are plausible in the author's view: "The New American Century", "Patchwork Powers", and "Emergence".
"The New American Century" assumes a greater American role in world affairs, with the ascendance of "American Values" on the global stage as the center piece. Free trade, democracy, the pursuit of happiness, individual freedom, etc., all presented against the sinister backdrop of American military might. You almost had us there.
"Patchwork Powers" operates under the assumption that the world always knew George W. Bush was up to no good, that the war on terror was illegal, and now "America has been put in its place". In other words, the Democratic National Committee platform. This scenario unfolds with regional powers - India, China, and China - taking a greater role, and Europe pretty much sinking beneath the waves. The superpower is dead. Long live the Junior Varsity.
"Emergence" illustrates the rise of the individual, flash-mobbing their way to political primacy, with nations crashing under their own bureaucratic hubris. Innovation sky-rockets for some reason, open source replaces intellectual property rights and terrorism runs amok. This is pretty close to hell, unless your vision of the future looks like "Blade Runner".
The number of not-very-subtle digs at the US and its president become a bit tedious. Sure, I'm biased -- I pay property taxes, travel internationally, and have a family, which makes me like things like stable currencies, the rule of law, economic growth. The irony, given the author's clear anti-American biases, is that "The New American Century" is the only optimistic scenario he presents. The reasonable idea that a "New American Century" with China beginning to take baby steps towards a leadership role, India being "open for business", and Middle East and Latin America (hopefully) finding their way towards real representative government and stable economic policy is not just possible, but hopefully our collective goal. The other scenarios all sound like a global retreat from where we are today - economically, politically, and socially.
The first half of the book gets four stars. The middle needed an editor. The last few get a two. I'll round up to a three.
Good Cliff note summary of cur
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
Development as Freedom
Globalization and Its Discontents
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
