Book Description
"Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world." Napoleon's words seem eerily prescient today, as the shock waves from China's awakening reverberate across the globe. In China Shakes the World, the former China bureau chief of the Financial Times, James Kynge, traces these tremors from Beijing to Europe to the Midwest as China's ravenous hunger for jobs, raw materials, energy, and food -- and its export of goods, workers, and investments -- drastically reshape world trade and politics.
Delving beyond mere recitation of by-now-familiar statistics, Kynge's on-the-ground reporting provides alternative explanations for China's explosive transformation, revealing many of the usual reasons given for its growth to be myths. Most important for the future, he details China's deep, systemic weaknesses -- rampant fraud, crippling environmental crises, a corrupt banking system, faltering government institutions, a rapidly aging population -- that threaten even greater global disruptions. And he demonstrates the profound consequences of those weaknesses for American manufacturers, oil companies, banks, and ordinary consumers.
Through dramatic stories of entrepreneurs and visionaries, factory workers and store clerks at the heart of this global phenomenon, China Shakes the World explains how China's breakneck rise occurred, the extraordinary problems the country now faces, and the consequences of both for the twenty-first century.
Customer Reviews:
It is shaking me up now.......2007-10-16
I am Chinese, and of course I am attracted by the title. Finally, China get to shake the world a little too, what an accomplishment. Well, as I read the book, it is making me less and less proud of my motherland. The counterfeit product, the stealing of high-tech information, degradation of environment and the insitutionalized corruption are making my stomach turn. When 1/2 of the population is going at 80 miles an hour in the globalized world, the other half is being left behind by their own country. It makes me wonder, what will happen if the economy slow down in China? What will the people who had already tasted the fast world will do, and what will the ultra-dictatorship of the Ruling Communist party do, and what will the other half of the population that had been left behind do. This is a question worth pondering. Maybe, China is not as rosy as it projected to the rest of the world, and maybe people, or investors should listen to not just the official talking head, but what the people are doing. This is a good read, it will help with my school project too.
An enormous shift in geopolitical power.......2007-10-08
James Kynge analyzes and illustrates brilliantly the emergence of China as a major geopolitical power. He shows that the drastic shift in economic policies under Deng came from rural farmers who used creatively the concept `collective' to found private capitalist companies. The result is now a schizophrenic one party communist State with a capitalist economy. Its social stability can only be maintained with fast economic growth and job creation for its enormous population created by Mao's demographic policy.
The actual industrialization process causes massive population and gender shifts (urbanization resulting in a higher status for women), colossal energy demands (one Italy every year) and huge environmental problems (water, air). In a one party State, corruption and nepotism (with stolen identities) cannot be eradicated and provoke a declining trust in government.
Economically, corporations are mainly concerned with market share, not profits. They continue to (over) produce for the next surge in demand after every dip. They are also beginning to build consumer loyalty by branding their own products.
Internationally, the Chinese voracity created energy and commodities price surges worldwide. The end is not in sight. On the other hand, the bulk of the profits made with China's low cost factory army (no welfare) goes into the pockets of Western retail giants and their shareholders, leaving only 10 to 15 % for their Chinese counterparts. In the meantime, the deindustrialization of the Western world continues with massive job losses in the textile, car, computer and even the service industry.
Overall, however, China's economic development continues to benefit enormously world trade, notwithstanding the regularly surfacing accusations of protectionism, currency manipulation and rampant piracy. Politically, the problem of Taiwan is still not solved.
Mencius''ren' (benevolence) is not a basic ingredient of Chinese foreign policy, but the author believes that ultimately pragmatism and flexibility will have the upper hand.
This book is a must read for all those who want to understand the world we live in.
MBA Mom.......2007-07-15
I am full time Mom and just recently visited Beijing with my 2 young children and husband. As a result of our travels, all the news in the media regarding China, and my own personal experience with respect to my shopping purchase power and selection in the last many year, I was very interested in the "China story." This book is an easy read, and provides a good big picture. It reminds me of the center column in the Wall Street Journal... Too boot, well written, and excellent use of vocabulary.
Mom
Well written, informative book.......2007-06-01
This book is money and time well spent if you're interested in a contemporary survey of China.
Kynge really does an outstanding job with a complex topic. He has a journalist's nose for a story, is well connected in China, and the length of time he lived in the country allows him to really portray his observations in a sophisticated cultural and historical context. He nicely weaves in statistics and facts throughout the book without distracting from the narrative.
A Journalist's Eye.......2007-05-24
I've loved the lyrical quality of this book. It looks at the many problems facing China from the ground up and individual journalist's eyes. For a big picture view that is based more on economic analysis, see my own book: The Coming China Wars: Where They Will Be Fought and How They Can Be Won
Average customer rating:
- Improving the improvements
- Future of the American Auto Industry revealed
- Excellent Introduction to Lean Production
- Great book, but now dated and perhaps a bit too fawning
- A paradigm shift, and now I understand "Lean" a whole lot better
|
The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production
James P. Womack ,
Daniel T. Jones , and
Daniel Roos
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated
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The Toyota Way
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The Lean Manufacturing Pocket Handbook
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Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production
ASIN: 0060974176 |
Book Description
This volume carefully traces the rise of the Toyota system from its take-off point in Ford's mass production system to its spread across the world, starting with the NUMMI joint venture with General Motors in California and now advancing in Europe, Latin America, and East Asia as well. It then identifies and describes the advantages of this system, which needs less of everything including time, human effort, inventories, and investment to produce products with fewer defects in smaller volumes at lower costs for fragmenting markets. The Machine That Changed the World even gave the system its name: lean. P In the decade since its launch in the fall of 1990, The Machine That Changed the World has sold more than 600,000 copies in 11 languages and has introduced a whole generation of managers and engineers to lean thinking. No lean library is complete without this groundbreaking book. P "The fundamentals of this system are applicable to every industry across the globea[and] will have a profound effect on human society. It will truly change the world." - New York Times p i Paperback / 1990 / 323 pages /i
Customer Reviews:
Improving the improvements.......2007-05-20
Lean production started with Henry Ford's car for the masses. Toyota took the old idea of customization combined with mass production to create their mass customization model. Quality is important in the product and focus on what is important to the client allows us to know what qualities make the most difference."If it aint broke don't fix it." Providing an affordable product was 20th century sales. Improving the improvements that are critically important to the client is 21st century marketing. The book proves it through the automotive manufacturing model.
Future of the American Auto Industry revealed.......2007-02-07
If this this book had been required reading for everyone employed at Chrysler, Ford & GM, the US auto industry may not be in the dire position it is today.
Excellent Introduction to Lean Production.......2007-02-01
This book provides an excellent introduction to lean techniques. I am college student majoring in mechanical engineering and needed something that could give me an overview of lean production and help me understand how it differs from mass production. The book certainly meets that criteria. While it does not give many case studies of how companies can convert to lean production, "Lean Thinking" by the same authors does do that and is also an excellent book.
The authors performed many years of research before publishing their data and can provide hard numbers to back up their claims that lean production is simply a better method. If you're looking for something to introduce you to lean production, this is the book to get.
Great book, but now dated and perhaps a bit too fawning.......2007-01-23
The title sets the tone the authors carry throughout the book. A little too much glorifying. A little too much hype. Yes, what Toyota and others did was impressive. But no, they did not change the world. In my opinion, not even close.
And this book is dated. In fact, though written in the early '90s, it reads more like many of the books written about Japanese management in the early '80s. Books like "Japan As Number One." Or "Trading Places." At the time, the Japanese were thought to be able to do no wrong.
Now, of course, we know that Japanese executives and managers are mere mortals too. Toyota has certainly done better than most Japanese companies over the last 15 years. And part of the reason -- a big part probably -- has been the effectiveness of their management in areas like lean production. But even without the benefit of the hindsight we now have, the authors of this book should have realized that their unstinted praise was not warranted. Even for the brains behind Toyota.
Still, this book is the best I have found on the history of the "Industry of Industries." It traces the history of the automobile industry from craft production to mass production to lean production. No other book I have read has done that so well.
And for an academic book, The Machine That Changed the World is easy to read. It keeps a careful balance between informing the reader and keeping the reader's interest. Most writers, particularly of works like this, tilt too much one way or the other. Either too dry and pedantic or too light and entertaining. A happy medium is hard to achieve.
Where does the auto industry go from here? Lean production is no longer exceptional. It has become the rule. But it seems to have run its course.
The future of the automobile industry may lie in "collaborative production." Major automakers concentrate on sales and service, not production. Suppliers develop specialized skills in technologies from hybrid power trains to drive-by-wire control systems. And everyone sells to everyone else. Technology becomes less important than brand.
If that is the case, Toyota may still lead the pack. In Business Week's list of the top 100 global brands, Toyota leads all carmakers at number 7. No one has caught Toyota napping on the increasing importance of brand.
Even so, Toyota fiercely defends the idea that is a motor company, not a sales company. Innovative technology and excellent manufacturing have been much more of a focus than sales. Will it be able to adapt if the industry does change?
An interesting question that we should see answered in the next few years. Like many good history books, The Machine That Changed the World gives us hints as to what that future will be.
A paradigm shift, and now I understand "Lean" a whole lot better.......2006-10-24
_The Machine the Changed the World_ by Womack, Jones & Roos is nominally about how Japanese carmakers came up with new ways to meet some difficult challenges. But really, it is about lean manufacturing and why lean manufacturing should be successor to current mass-production methods.
The authors did much of their research for the book while working at the International Motor Vehicle Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That program was sponsored by a large number of car companies who wanted to understand why the Japanese way of manufacturing (especially as practiced by Toyota) had had such different results from older American & European car companies.
Consequently, the book does focus entirely on the automotive industry. Originally, the first automobiles were custom-made (and often handmade) to the exact specifications of individual buyers, who were usually quite wealthy. Henry Ford wanted to get beyond that and create an automobile that did not need hand-fitting and hand-crafting of every single piece, and that could be built by people who had not already spent ten years in an apprenticeship for a very specific and specialized craft. In his efforts to get beyond the craftsman era, Ford developed a lot of the concepts and attitudes that still define mass-production today.
For decades, manufacturers and especially car assemblers from all over the world would make a pilgrimage to Ford Motor Co. to better understand what wondrous thing this was that Ford had created. Among those was Eiji Toyoda, a member of the family that had founded Toyota Motor Company. While he found much of Ford's work interesting, he also saw a lot of wasted time & effort. Furthermore, Toyota was faced with some challenges that neither Ford (Ford Motor Co.) or Alfred Sloan (General Motors) had ever had to deal with, such as a work force that they almost could not fire, and a severe lack of investment funds.
In dealing with those challenges and in trying to eliminate waste, Toyota Motor Company (and many other Japanese companies) developed what it today known as "lean" manufacturing.
Unfortunately, most presentations of "lean" in the U.S. seem to focus on some of the surface features, such as smaller batch runs, a focus on a neat & orderly work space, and not carrying a lot of inventory.
This is where _The Machine That Changed the World_ really shines, because it explores the thought processes behind the surface features, and explains how lean thinking affects every department of a company, not just manufacturing. The requirements & results of a lean mentality in purchasing, product design, and marketing are all examined as well.
The book was published in 1991, and is therefore a bit dated in some respects. The authors look very favorably towards the Japanese banking & finance system, yet that same system has been having ongoing problems since the mid-1990s. The authors predicted a number of problems -- in marketing, market share, and labor relations -- for GM, Chrysler, and Ford, as well as many of the European auto makers. While I know some of those predictions have come to pass, I would dearly love to see a second edition of this book that goes into more detail about what has happened in the automotive industry during the last 15 years.
Finally, I would have liked to have seen some discussion about implementing a company-wide lean structure in an American company. I have seen references in numerous books to Americans having atypical attitudes regarding individuality vs. other cultures that stress a conformance with society, and while I do believe the lean mentality could (and probably should) be implemented almost anywhere, I think there will be some specific aspects of American culture that will force a slightly different implementation than was done in Japan.
Amazon.com
Daniel Yergin's first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there,
The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world--oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin's fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize Winner -- and Now an Epic PBS Series
The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.
The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting, important, well-written, well-researched history.......2007-10-20
Fascinating account of the history of the oil industry. I would say that just the four chapters on World War II--and the oil role in it--are worth the book. Reads like a novel, where Yergin jumps back and forth between history and details about the industry main players. And the amount of details that enrich the historic account is just perfect. The research done to put this work together must have been mind boggling.
First to cover the topic, but still a facile book.......2007-09-17
Yergen gets kudos for being the first to cover this topic, but his account (perhaps because it's now outdated) is facile and pro-oil company. Every time the oil companies are thwarted he seems to blame straw men for it: tree huggers, the people that hounded poor misunderstood Tricky Dick Nixon, the Saudi sheiks (best friends of Bush, Cheney, et al). He never turns his gaze on the corruption of the oil companies themselves. We hit peak oil in the U.S. in the 1960s. The oil companies suppressed any attempts since then to find alternative fuels. Now we are up the creek, so to speak, with the Oil Men running the Show. Some "Prize". I'd say it's the booby prize. The best overview of our current fix is Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower.
The Age of Oil.......2007-07-04
We are living in the Age of oil.
World and human civilization have experienced different "ages" such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Gilded Age, and so on. The 20th and 21st Centuries are indeed, the "Oil Age." We are living in it. This book is one of the most informative and relevant books published in recent years, In my opinion. This work by Daniel Yergin was and still is prescient today, in 2007. "The Prize" tells the story of where we are today, and how we got here. It also latently foresees where we're going in the future. The book doesn't tell us - we just know. We're human. This book is so comprehensive and has so much information only a small portion of it can be noted. Below relates to WWII, and former Iranian leader Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.
"The Prize" proceeds chronologically. And within the chapters there are numerous mini-subtitles for sub-chapters that connect the big picture. The bibliography and index are excellent and can be used to tie in different figures and historical occurrences. The 'history of oil' is actually the history of the world: humankind, business, innovations, globalization, war, and geo-political power-plays. The very survival of a nation-state is based upon oil.
"The Prize" begins with tiny puddles of black, sticky, goo, in Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s. Locals collected this goo and realized its many uses. In 1859 oil was struck. Almost immediately, the wealth and power amassed from possession and control of oil was realized. The initial trust acts in the U.S. are related to the oil industry, in which Barons quickly gained gargantuan amounts of wealth and political power.
Enter WWII:
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because of oil. Japanese conquests throughout South-East Asia and the Pacific were motivated not only by the quest for dominance but for securing oil and keeping their oil (fuel) supply lines open. Without supply lines of oil, the war machine would completely break down, as it later did (Chapter 8).
The Americans sacrificed a lot, but Japan in large part lost WWII because of its lack of fuel for planes, ships, and ground forces. Domestically, the Japanese economy collapsed because of its inability to import oil. The Kamikazes were brought into existence after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines, in 1944. Lack of oil meant lack of fighter plane fuel. Fuel supplies became so low they actually stopped training Japanese pilots at all. Pilots were ordered to "follow the leader" to the attack site because they didn't even have navigation training.
There was even an "Oil Czar" In the U.S. during World War II in PAW, the Petroleum Administration for War. The Oil Czar was Harold Ickes.
In the European Theater's Eastern Front Germany invaded Russia with Operation Barbarossa mostly to get the oil in the Caucuses (In addition to "lebensraum" and "untermensch" beliefs). In addition, a needed land-route to Iron Ore in Scandinavia via the Baltic SSR Republics was a factor. Hitler also began making synthetic oil because without enough of it Germany's war machine, domestic economy, and arms production were doomed. These synthetic oil factories were top targets in Allied bombing missions.
Oil and the Cold War World:
The Soviets dominated Eastern Europe and exerted its influence after WWII for 45 years because the Allies ran out of gasoline. When the British 3rd Army and U.S. 1st Army were advancing eastward toward Berlin chasing demoralized, retreating, and broken German troops in disarray. But because of the lack of gasoline for the Allied Armies, a million people ended up losing their lives and war was prolonged because the Germans were able to retreat and re-organize (page 388).
If someone says "it's not about the oil" today in 2007, tell them to read this book. Oil encompasses almost all things in our daily lives, whether we are are conscious of it, or not.
Oil, Military, and Economic Interests:
Democratically elected governments are overthrown by foreign governments because of oil. In 1953 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected in Iran. He was an anti-communist. He didn't like the 93% to 7% profit sharing split with a British Oil company operating inside Iran. He changed it to 50-50. The CIA sponsored a coup to overthrow him. Americans were repeatedly told by the U.S. media that Mossadegh was a communist and communist sympathizer, although factually untrue. The American public believed this propaganda, according to poll results. Gullible? Mossadegh was ousted and the Shah was placed in power. Democracy has never been supported in the Middle East and it isn't now by the U.S. government. Also see the Carter Doctrine of 1980.
Most of us as individual consumers literally need oil to function. Dependence upon oil is for the continuation of the nation-state, its military machines, and domestic economy. More critical today, is that nation-states need a *sufficient* supply of it.
This is a positive book. It's a history book.
We're in the heart of the "Oil Age."
Amaze.......2007-06-19
This book is the better form to say what means the oil in the world. The history is well clear end real. There are many important information and who is curious or needs to know the subject this is a perfect one.
It's interesting to know the past to forecast the future..........2007-06-14
I really appreciated Daniel YERGIN's book.
The history of oil is crucial to try to solve the huge demand for future oil. History tells us that oil is limitless in virgin deserts...
Book Description
In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.
Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world.
But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.
Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.
Customer Reviews:
A Box is more than a box........2007-10-18
A good review of the transportation & shipping industry.
A little tedious at times but the points are well made.
I would like to have had a side bar on the boxes used in the
air cargo network to round out the topic.
No where near technical enough.......2007-10-03
Like many jounalists' stories this is set around a particular factor. In this case an entrepeneur who no doubt had a big role to play.
But there were lots of other factors which are not given much play and others bearly alluded to. Also, not even one drawing of a container or its fittings!
So OK as an intro but by no means a comprehensive history.
Global supply chains explained.......2007-08-13
It's hard to dispute that containerization has dramatically altered the rules of the game: global supply chains, logistics, and outsourcing are all direct consequences of the massive trade flows enabled by modern containerships. Marc Levinson's account of this industry is an interesting mix of politics and history. A good section of the book is dedicated to labor disputes, and the general resistance of the dock workers and US unions to mechanization. In retrospect, they were worried for the right reasons, modern ports require very little human involvement and the days of breakbulk shipping are long gone. In all, 'The Box' offers a good mix of the politics, strategy, and historical research.
Interesting Look at the Building Blocks of Globalization.......2007-08-08
Although THE BOX may be somewhat too American centered, economist and business journalist Marc Levinson has written an eminently readable history of the advent of the modern logistics industry that goes a long way toward bringing the attention of a nonspecialist audience to the topic. Despite his belief that his subject has "all the romance of a tin can" (p. 1), his account is anything but dull because he builds much of his narrative around a cast of colorful entrepreneurs, engineers, and union leaders. The most significant character is Malcom P. McLean, who launched modern containerization in April 1956 by having fifty-eight truck trailers loaded onboard a refitted oil tanker that sailed from Newark, New Jersey, to Houston. The main background to Levinson's account, however, consists of the various roadblocks to containerization put in place and enforced by government regulators in agencies such as the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the United States Maritime Administration, and the Federal Maritime Board. In the author's opinion, the bureaucrats, far from having the consumer's best interest in mind, usually undertook to protect established commercial interests by limiting competition in the transportation industry....
Levinson's treatment of the revolutionary days of container shipping, which lasted until the early 1980s, is very thorough, but his account of the more recent past is much less so. Indeed, people familiar with the industry may get the impression that a final (non-American) chapter is missing from the book. For example, although Levinson describes the rise of container ports in western Europe and East Asia, he devotes only two paragraphs to the fact that European and Asian firms that were late entrants in the game now dominate the industry. No U.S. firm is currently listed in the world's top eighteen container ship companies. Five of these top firms (including the three largest) are headquartered in Europe, three in China (two in mainland China and one in Hong Kong), three in Japan, two in Taiwan, two in South Korea, and the remaining three in Singapore, Chile, and Israel. (See Ted Smith-Peterson, "Railroading's New Economy: The Spigot," TRAINS 66, no. 9 [2006]: 34-41.) In Levinson's opinion, these late entrants achieved success because they "arrived with financial and managerial skills foreign to many of the carriers they replaced, skills appropriate to an industry in which raising capital and managing information systems were far more important than maritime knowledge" and because they were not burdened with "the legacy of government subsidies and directives that had crippled many of their predecessors by forcing them to buy ships built in their home countries or to sail routes determined by regulators" (p. 275). No doubt many readers would like to know more about these developments and about which skills Levinson means.
Levinson also barely alludes to more recent technological advances and to the amazing fact that the rest of the world now handles only one-third as many containers as the Chinese do (for both domestic and international trade). Furthermore, in the words of one industry analyst, China has now become the "U.S. railroads' growth engine" and has been the cause of an American "rail renaissance" (Tom Murray, "Railroading's New Economy: The China Factor," TRAINS 66, no. 8 [2006], p. 28).
Despite such shortcomings, however, THE BOX is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in understanding the emergence of our contemporary "globalized" world economy.
Superb for non-specialists.......2007-05-08
I read this book a few months ago for my nonfiction "foreign policy" book club and we loved it. I continue to rave about it and recommend it to others in diverse fields from national security to development to leadership studies. As generalists unfamiliar with shipping, this book was incredibly readable and engaging. Chapters treated a diverse range of topics, which we found well covered and incisive, such as the discussion of the role of labor unions, business entrepreneurship, and interplay between containerization and globalization. Kudos to Mr. Levinson for a superb effort.
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
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History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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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
In this important study, Abu-Lughod presents a groundbreaking reinterpretation of global economic evolution, arguing that the modern world economy had its roots not in the sixteenth century, as is widely supposed, but in the thirteenth century economy--a system far different from the European world system which emerged from it. Using the city as the working unit of analysis, Before European Hegemony provides a new paradigm for understanding the evolution of world systems by tracing the rise of a system that, at its peak in the opening decades of the 14th century, involved a vast region stretching between northwest Europe and China. Writing in a clear and lively style, Abu-Lughod explores the reasons for the eventual decay of this system and the rise of European hegemony.
Customer Reviews:
Eurasian interactions.......2005-12-09
A work drawing on deep scholarship providing welcome adjustment to views that overstate Europe's precocity and importance before 1500. Europe was a peripheral backwater prior to its export of the Eurasian disease pool to the Americas (and even for some time after). Abu-Lughod examines each major area of the Eurasian trading network in term, bringing out how much events in one area were affected by changes elsewhere (in particular, how much Europeans were responding to such changes).
I also found Abu-Lughod's scepticism about grand conceptual schemas and strong preference for considering the complex texture of reality engaging. She sets out a highly informative history of the creation of an interacting Eurasian economy under the period of Mongol domination and how changes among the various participating powers (particularly China) resulted in the interactions falling back to a lower level. She also argues a power vacuum was set up in the Indian Ocean that the Europeans (first the Portugese, then the Dutch and finally the British) were able to fill. That there was a "Fall of the East" prior to there being a "Rise of the West". She does a nice job of debunking "cultural" and "Confucian-isolationism" explanations for China's shift, placing the public policy considerations the Ming court was dealing with in a more plausible context.
My first quibble is with the title. This is about the Eurasian system, not a global one, a point the author herself concedes (p.37). It is a "world" system only in terms of the Old World/New World usage and, to be fair, she is responding to Immanuel Wallerstein's coinage of the term. The second is she suffers from the modern academic fetish for shudder quotes, though at least she is often prepared to explain in more detail why concepts are problematic, rather than simply engaging in the tedious knowing-virtue wink. The worst bit of the book, as so often is the way, is when she attempts to look forward. The talking down of the stability of the current world-system, and the situation of the US in particular, reads rather poorly for a book published in 1989 with clearly no sense whatsoever of the impending collapse of the Soviet empire.
But the book is very readable and extremely informative, the personality of the author engaging. An excellent way of coming to grips with how global history works.
Provocative.......2005-02-12
This book is approaching the status of a classic. While a work of history, the author is not a historian but rather a sociologist with an interest in the role of cities. Perhaps because she was a disciplinary outsider not specializing in a given historical period, as well as being used to comparative analysis, Abu-Lughod adopted a cross-cultural approach. The starting point for this book was the prevailing belief that a world economy was created by Europeans in the early modern period. More naive interpretations saw this as a logical development of European capitalism and that capitalism was unique to Europe. A major point of this book is that a world economic system, spanning all of Eurasia and including Southeast Asia and Eastern Africa existed prior to the early modern period. This world system was based on pre-existing regional trade networks in the Eastern Mediterrenean, the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and China. Some of these linkages, like the famous Silk road across Central Asia and trade across the Indian Ocean, were ancient.
Abu-Lughod reconstructs a true world economy stretching from western Europe to China reaching its peak during the 13th and 14th centuries and then declining. She shows that Europe joined this system relatively late and was a smaller component of these large trade networks. The peak of this world system is associated with the Mongol conquest of Central Asia and China. Mongol successes are seen as simultaneously making trade across Central Asia, the northern axis of the world system, and trade through the Indian Ocean and south China, the southern axis, more efficient. This lead to a Eurasian boom. As a corollary, Abu-Lughod explores the richly capitalist nature of trade in the Muslim, Indian, and Chinese regions making up the world system. Some of the institutional innovations attributed to Medieval and Renaissance European merchants may have been borrowed from the Muslim world.
If the Mongols were the inadvertant architects of this system, they were also the inadvertant cause of its collapse. The key event is the Black Death, a Eurasian pandemic which probably originated in central Asia and was spread by Mongol armies and trade made possible by their states. The resulting depopulations and political instability, including the Ming expulsion of the Mongol from China, crippled the Medieval world system, though it left intact regional trade networks, particularly in Asia that the Europeans would join and come to dominate in the Early Modern period.
A final and more controversial point made by Abu-Lughod is that the success of Europeans in subsequently reconstructing and dominating, in an unprecedented way, the Eurasian trade system was the withdrawal of the Chinese state from interest in trade. Under the later Ming, the powerful Chinese navy was dissolved and trade through southern China ceased to be an important issue for the Chinese state. The subsequent power vacuum made European domination possible. This may not be entirely correct but is argued well.
This book has become the point of departure for much subsequent important work in world history. It is well written and has a nice bibliography.
A landmark of the "new" economic history.......2004-03-17
There are few books in the field of economic history that I'd say are both landmarks and enjoyable to read. Assuming the reader has a great interest in history, Before European Hegemony is certainly one of them.
Abu-Lughod's excellent world systems survey details the inter-connections between pre-modern economies and societies of the era. There is also the sense of continuity between these pre-modern economic relationships and the modern era.
Special mention should be made of the fact that Before European Hegemony was one of the first of a new wave of economic, historical and sociological studies that de-emphasized the eurocentric histories that came before them. Guilty of the same simplistic approaches the eurocentric histories were charged with, for example giving the only reason for the rise of the West as military might, much of what followed Before European Hegemony was, in a word, garbage. Not so, this groundbreaking study.
Well researched, well written and highly recommended.
Great book, but still one sided.......2003-02-23
Dr. Abu Lughod's book is a great work of scholarship and a much needed addition to the "New Histories" being written that show the history as it really happened.
Still, as Gunder Frank mentions in his review of this book, Abu Lughod misses one point in her survey. She sees the world economy as a disconnected series of events, and much like Wallerstein, maintains the idea that world after 1500 hundred was not connected to the one before that date. She treats the Mongol trade network as an isolated world-system, instead of a period in the world system.
This is a small flaw in the face of so many larger problems we have in current historiography. A great read, and I suggest you read it in conjunction with ReOrient, The Colonizers' Model of the World, and World System History.
Continuity in global connections -- the rest of the history.......2001-12-18
In much the same way that Eric Wolf shows the world before European conquest in his book titled Europe and the People Without History starting in 1400, Abu-Lughod begins before the European trade routes by ship. She traces the cross-continent trade routes of India, China and the Mediterranean. By looking back to these early systems of trade, Abu-Lughod shows how ideas, foods, language and people were transported between regions of the earth long before colonialism took hold. By looking at movements of people and ideas before Europe's world domination, Abu-Lughod is able to take a new look at the future - a perspective that does not seem as deterministic as other historic views. Europe was not necessarily "destined" to become the greatest region on the planet and it need not be in the future.
This new look at history provides a wider framework from which to understand the current era. While it is true that computer technology and the spread of the Internet has been facilitated predominately by English-speaking programmers and subsequently English-based programs, this might not be the wave of the future. Looking at how vast regions of the planet interacted centuries ago provides a better base from which to understand how they might interact in the future. The people from the same geo-political regions that Abu-Lughod describes in her book are now "commuting" or "traveling" and conversing via electronic media. How will the new instrument of communication change the way these people share time and space?
Book Description
Since China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002, China is now officially fully open for business and may soon be the biggest economy in the world. No one in, or embarking upon, a managerial career can afford to ignore a market that comprises one-fifth of the world's population. Doing Business in China is essential reading for the manager or firm setting up a business for the first time in this vital and complex market. Aimed specifically at Western and non-Chinese businesses and managers, this book offers a general framework for understanding Chinese business culture along with a guide for acquiring further knowledge on China.
This text is a practical guide to business practices, market conditions, negotiations, organizations, networks and the business environment in China. Alongside summaries of theoretical research, Doing Business in China provides a perceptual toolkit which will enable the businessperson or student to do business in China and apply that knowledge back in the West.
Building on the strengths of the first edition, this new second edition is fully updated to include new case studies as well as discussion of China's entry into the WTO . It is an invaluable resource for students of international business and management, and practitioners alike.
Download Description
This book is a general introduction to managing business ent
Customer Reviews:
How to do the business in China ?.......2002-10-26
Doing business in China!
Relation, Relation And Relation....
If you are using your American or European style to work and even partner with China's firms, you must be failure in the end.
Relationship with the Government and officials are the major concerns when you stepping into the door of China.
Think Global and hire Local Chinese people is the only way to have the final success with your partner in China.
China means: " Always in the historical culture "
So don't think about China with your American Standard !
Try to learn with your local Chinese people (doer)
Anyway, China is opened now and also needed to face the ways for WTO ! Reckon, China can learn from their European and American business partners from today.
This book is essential to appreciating the Chinese psyche..........2001-11-29
Particularly impressive is the author's approach at presenting the Chinese thought process in such a manner that Westerners can not only understand the Chinese psyche, but respect and learn from it as well. This book was perhaps one of the most enlightening books I have read in a while. There is a a concerted effort to show business protocol and potential avenues of entry, but more importantly this book addresses the fundamental social concepts that need to be FULLY understood before attempting to grow in China.
authorative and insightful.......2000-09-04
Of the vast number of books about China, this one is a very useful account of how successfully doing business in China. Western Managers at the forefront in China should read this book which brings together a lifetime of research and practice on China.
Book Description
Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky's kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.
Customer Reviews:
Salt - The perfect seasoning........2007-10-18
This book is great because you can either read many chapters or a few lines and learn something new every time. The historical value, the value to wordsmiths and economic insight into the world of food is fascinating and the recipes sprinkled throughout make for delightful and enlightening read. I definitely recommend and have recommended this book to anyone who has an interest in the events that shape our world and why something that seems necessary, but generally insignificant turns out to have had a tremendous impact on world events past and present.
A Whirlwind Tour of One of Mankind's Most Important Products!.......2007-09-23
This is a whirlwind historial tour of one of civilizations most important products!
A sustance so valuable, salt has served as currency, influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions.
The United States is both the largest producer of salt in the world and the largest consumer. It produceds more than 40 million metric tons, earning more than $1 billion in sales revenues.
Author Mark Kurlansky writes that fashionable people are divided into two camps. The first is passionate about staying healthy and eating less salt. The second is pasionate about salt.
Like all his books, Kurlansky's "Salt" is endlessly interesting and informative.
Exceptional non-fiction.......2007-09-09
I read very little non-fiction, but this book was so full of interesting facts that it was almost impossible to put down. Kurlansky's account of mankind's quest for salt and the commerce it created is indeed a mini-history of civilization. The book is well written, easy to read, and holds the reader's interest from first page to last. I found myself reaching for it again and again to find out what happens next. Who would have dreamed that a common every-day product that we take for granted could have such a rich, varied history? Kurlansky did a wonderful job!
Throw It Over Your Left Shoulder!.......2007-08-28
Salt is a great subject for a book. Everyone is familiar with salt. It complements the flavor of food (as with French fries). It can be used to preserve foods (salted fish for example). It can be used to process foods (such as cheeses). It can be found in salt mines and in the evaporation of salt water. It is a commodity that can be bought and sold. It can be taxed by the government. And it can be exaggerated.
I'll give just one example. Midway through the book, the author states, "The history of the Americas is one of constant warfare over salt. Whoever controlled salt was in power." Think about that! The Declaration of Independence? -- Salt. The American Revolution? -- Salt. The Whiskey Rebellion? -- Salt. The War of 1812? -- Salt. The Mexican War? -- Salt. At least he did not say, "Give me liberty or give me salt!" Nonetheless, continued overreaching and exaggeration render the author's opinions unreliable and completely undercut the appearance of meticulous research. It is not long before the reader hears a voice in the back of his/her mind repeatedly saying, "I wonder if that is true?"
The book recites many interesting stories and presents novel perspectives of the role of salt in human society. However, as noted by many prior reviewers, the deficiencies of lack of organization, statements that are scientifically suspect and lack of historical reliability greatly detract from the potential of the subject matter. It is not a waste of time but there are better books out there.
An extraordinary read..........2007-08-15
Among the most thought-provoking books I have read...the impact of salt upon history is extraordinary.
Book Description
The primary colors of oil today are money (lots of it), technology (basic but demanding) and people (special ones). The colors of the rainbow can be seen in the 100+ oil producing countries. There are a dozen large petroleum producing and exporting countries. Yet most have little in their history that links them to wealth, technology and management. Corruption among the elite and governments, mismanagement and the squandering of the petroleum wealth are endemic. Culture is everything, and no other human endeavor makes this as pointedly obvious as the world of petroleum.
Customer Reviews:
The color of Oil.......2007-09-07
This book is not too bad, it has chapters good as green colour chapter and black colour chapter and other that are not so good. I think that it is too subjective and has a patriotism air supporting United Estates against the rest. Also it is well written and simple to understand it. For sure that it will not be a master piece but it is interesting the thinking of the writers and Texas AM ( in my opinion one of most prestigious oil involving schools, I studied there). You can learn something about the book...
Off base reviewers.......2007-08-03
I think this book is still on target in depicting the mis-information in the media and so called proven CO2 effects in the atmosphere. In fact, Professor Economides has offer $10,000 to anyone that provides a peer-reviewed report proving that man made effects to global warming is more than 1% of 1% of the warming increase.
Childlike and frustrating.......2007-02-19
This over-simplistic view of the industry does Economidies no honor. It appears to be more of a rush to get his name in print than to do anything in support for or to the decline of the real history of the industry.
One sided and out dated.......2006-02-25
Much of this book is very one sided. In particular the sections on the environment are distorted and now known to be incorrect. The book would be much better if they had not shown their bias.
it nails the big picture.......2005-11-22
This is an absorbing survey of the petroleum industry by two highly knowledgeable oil guys. The prose has a dry academic flavor to it, but the strength of the book's ideas and the way they are propounded bereft of politically correct sentiment almost makes one forget this shortcoming.
Within the book are a few compact chapters on the history of Big Oil that whet the appetite for more. Above all other figures of his day, John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil, sticks out as a fascinating character deserving of a book in his own right (actually there's an excellent one out there by Ron Chernow, called TITAN, that curious readers should pick up).
As their history unfolds, the writers argue that the major conflicts of the 20th century were ultimately the consequence of feuding over oil. It's an interesting perspective and illuminating in many respects, but something of an oversimplification.
THE COLOR OF OIL will turn out to be prophetic, though, in anticipating that the present century and all its accomplishments will be built largely on natural gas, just as the previous was based on oil. It's a view that hasn't sunk into public consciousness yet, but that will change in due course as the era of cheap oil finally draws to a close.
In contrast to a lot of contemporary hyperbole on the subject, THE COLOR OF OIL demonstrates that in a competitive environment, the oil industry can flourish to the benefit of its shareholders and the public without government meddling in its affairs. Curiously, the authors forget this lesson in the final chapter with their call for more government involvement in energy infrastructure and R&D. It's a minor flaw in an otherwise admirable work.
Book Description
An award-winning journalist breaks through the wall of secrecy to reveal the many astonishing ways Wal-Mart's power affects our lives and reaches all around the world.
The Wal-Mart Effect: The overwhelming impact of the world's largest company--due to its relentless pursuit of low prices--on retailers and manufacturers, wages and jobs, the culture of shopping, the shape of our communities, and the environment; a global force of unprecedented nature. Wal-Mart is not only the world's largest company; it is also the largest company in the history of the world. Americans spend $26 million every hour at Wal-Mart, twenty-four hours of every day, every day of the year. Is the company a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, market guru Warren Buffett estimates that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year. On the other, the behemoth is the #1 employer in thirty-seven of the fifty states yet has never let a union in the door.
Though 70 percent of Americans now live within a fifteen-minute drive of a Wal-Mart store, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company and the many ways it is shaping American life. We know about the lawsuits and the labor protests, but what we don't know is how profoundly the "Wal-Mart effect" is shaping our lives.
Fast Company senior editor Fishman, whose revelatory cover story on Wal-Mart generated the strongest reader response in the history of the magazine, takes us on an unprecedented behind-the-scenes investigative expedition deep inside the many worlds of Wal-Mart. He reveals the radical ways in which the company is transforming America's economy, our workforce, our communities, and our environment. Fishman penetrated the secrecy of Wal-Mart headquarters, interviewing twenty-five high-level ex-executives; he journeyed into the world of a host of Wal-Mart's suppliers to uncover how the company strong-arms even the most established brands; and journeyed to the ports and factories, the fields and forests where Wal-Mart's power is warping the very structure of the world's market for goods. Wal-Mart is not just a retailer anymore, Fishman argues. It has become a kind of economic ecosystem, and anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping our world today must understand the company's hidden reach.
Customer Reviews:
Good read about off shoring and big business.......2007-10-22
This is a great book about how Walmart works with some good examples of the good and the bad. The stories about certain companies and products that walmart deals with gives a good example of some of the effects of off shoring on quality and our own health. Good look at the effects of our drive for bargains and the true cost.
Walmart at it's best and worse!!.......2007-10-11
Amazing writting! Very informative as well as entertaining!
The author covers all the ends. I recommend this book 100%.
You won't see this book selling in Wal-mart any time soon!
Good cover of the topic.......2007-10-06
Provides a good coverage of a subject which is not obvious to the naked eye. May attenuate your shopping habits and the way you define a good deal. A must read for americans
Impact beyond price.......2007-09-24
Having spent the past 18 months researching and writing on the negative impact on the economy of poor customer service, go to ACSI research at University of Michigan School of Business, I have found that Wal-Mart's fanitical focus on price, and consumers that focus only on price are having a very negative impact on our country and society. Of all of the books I have read on Wal-Mart, Fishman presents the most detailed factual and insightful information on which to base an opinion on the impact Wal-Mart has made on our communities.
Balanced & Comprehenisve .......2007-09-17
Like many, I begrudgingly shop at Wal-Mart familiar with the arguments of it's negative impact on locally owned business's, and it's poor wages and benefits--------trying in vain to strike a balance between social responsibility and self-interest. It's always struck me as large version of the beloved "five and dime" where I bought my baseball cards growing up. I marvel at the low prices, and the sheer variety of merchandise. Fishman has permanently purged me of the that nostalgia. His backstory on Wal-Mart is utterly convincing in it's pernicious effect on our economy. He ably tells the story of Wal-Mart's rise with it's hyperfocus on pricing. But he's after something bigger here, and that's corporate secrecy. Like many large corporations, Wal-Mart is a closed and secret society. Consumers are robbed of the information that would assist them in identifying the true cost of consumption. Fishman is saying that the rise of the mega-corporation, with their ability to dominate a whole sector of the economy, is both anti-free market and anti-consumer. Though vague, he argues that we must consider stronger governance and regulation. This is where his book left me wanting. I wanted to know what exactly that would look like. That said, this is a well-researched, balanced and important book for our times.
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