Book Description
On a quiet July morning, one of the world's most powerful and prestigious investment banking partnerships was launched on the path to ruin-not by the economy, not by an act of God, but by a self-inflicted wound.
The firm was Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, a revered Wall Street institution with roots that stretched back to the Civil War. And what happened that July morning in 1983 would not only spell the end of a banking firm but would come to symbolize the recklessly high-flying Wall Street of the 1980s.
Through hundreds of hours of interviews, through access to private company records, through the confidence of board members, partners, associates and employees, Ken Auletta created a prophetic spellbinder which resonates especially today. It is a story of greed, ego and error; a tale of primal combat between two men and between two irrevocably different and hostile worlds; a superb example of investigative journalism that rivals any best-selling novel for sheer surprise, drama and excitement.
Customer Reviews:
Oh! full of scorpions is my mind (Macbeth).......2006-07-18
This is a classic tale of a company run into the ground because it had two CEOs and two different departments fighting one another for the juicy bonuses. Moreover, the CEOs had totally different characters and a completely different business vision. One was extrovert, overambitious, jealous, profoundly selfish, impulsive, volatile, dominated by lust for power, vindictive, an intriguer. The other was rather introvert, cold, too trusting, apersonal, a bad communicator, self-centered, rather an intellectual aristocrat.
The introvert was ousted by the extrovert, who wanted to run his own show.
The house of Lehman was divided in two different clans: the bankers who were rather fixed on medium and long term business with stable clients and the traders who were only fixed on the short term.
While the introvert CEO could stand above both business divisions in the battle for the bonuses, the extrovert was himself a trader and was rather despised by the bankers. When the latter took the rein, key banking personal left the company. The traders wanted to cash in their shares as quickly as possible and the company was gobbled up by a third party.
This story shows also that `human relations matter as much as the bottom-line.'
A very worth-while read.
Lessons for many in high-pressure working relationships.......2003-09-13
This story of greed and glory is one that has been acted out in all types of businesses - large or small, service or product, new or old. It is a parable of overinflated egos, hyperpolitical environments and the inability of individuals to see their limits when blinded by the light of self-glorification. It is essential reading for anyone in a shared leadership role - partners, executives in tightly run corporations, etc. - and is most valuable for the lessons people should learn about themselves through Lehman's demise.
Boring business book.......2002-06-26
This book was relatively boring compared to many other business books. To much detail was given to mundane topics. Not a mentally stimulating book by any means.
a rich treatment of an important financial event of the 80s.......1997-12-16
reads like a greek tragedy; rich treatment of the people involved in one of the most important, and most interesting, financial events of the 80s. ranks as one of the most finely crafted books of its type in business; it gives the reader a deep look inside a complicated world and shows us the role of interpersonal relationships in business decision making.
Amazon.com
Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter is the Eartha Kitt of change-management gurus. Just when you think the grand dame has taken her final bow, she comes bounding back onto the scene with a new act that's as shrewd and insightful as anything any young kitten has to offer--but benefiting from decades of wisdom and experience that puts the whole litter to shame. Take, for instance, Evolve!, Kanter's latest in a string of highly influential books on organizational management (including Innovation, World Class, When Giants Learn to Dance, and The Change Masters). Yes, the ubiquitous dot (as in "com") after the E in "Evolve" on the book's cover may suggest to the cynical that this is another old-school change guru weighing in with the obligatory guide to making it on the Net--and months after e-commerce mania has subsided, to boot! And granted, the thumbnail keys to successful I-preneuring that form the book's structure--namely, a willingness to improvise, a desire to network aggressively with other sites, a readiness to create "integrated communities," and a commitment to creating a workplace culture that attracts and retains the best talent--aren't necessarily breakthrough insights, however cogently presented.
But Evolve! stands out among the vast spate of e-commerce how-tos of the past few years because of the meticulous, rigorous research on the part of Kanter and her legion of Harvard Business associates. Here, coupled with Kanter's always-keen prose, that research translates into perhaps the most vivid, probing, and instructive anthology of e-commerce success (and failure) stories yet to appear in one book. Kanter & Co. conducted over 300 interviews, plus surveys with nearly three times as many companies worldwide, to tease out their conclusions on what works and what doesn't when doing business online--with brash start-ups as well as brick-and-mortar giants. That serious-minded, Harvard-quality sleuthing is reflected in the long narratives that make up the meat of the book, detailing the complete online journeys of some of the world's most high-profile companies, from venerable offliners venturing online (among them, Arrow Electronics, Barnes & Noble, NBC, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Williams-Sonoma, and Sun) to the Net-born (Amazon, eBay, Razorfish, EarthWeb, iXL, Renren.com, and Abuzz, which clearly emerges here as Kanter's pet model of how to do it right in entrepreneurial cyberspace). If you've followed the start-up scene with eagle eyes every day for the past five years, you might already be familiar with these companies' twisting, turning story lines. If, more likely, you haven't, you're in for some illuminating object lessons on what works (and what doesn't) on the precarious, often uncharted terrain of e-commerce--not to mention some really good reading.
Shortly before Evolve! went to press, Kanter added two new chapters to address the latest changes in the e-commerce market. That's a valuable update, but even if she'd skipped the postscript, Evolve! is blessedly free of reckless cybermania. And, unlike many such dot-com how-tos, it's wise enough to know that, far from having completely rewritten the rules of good business, the callow world of e-commerce has much to learn from the offline forbears it often scoffs at. For these reasons, the observations and advisories in Evolve! should transcend the inevitable fluctuations of the e-commerce market in the years to come. In other words, this is the real thing: smart, deeply researched advice from a pro whose talents are evident on every page. Well, except for the rap lyrics she's penned for "Evolve!--The Song," which kick off the book, and run along such lines: "You're not alone, so start placing your bet/On finding lots of partners throughout the Net!" Cole Porter she's not. Then again, maybe they wouldn't sound so lame if only we could get that other old pro, Eartha Kitt, to slip into her catsuit and purr her way through them. --Timothy Murphy
Customer Reviews:
An Organization CAN'T Evolve, It CAN Learn: A Critical Evaluation of a Book Title.......2007-08-24
Choosing the right metaphor is one of the best ways to assure your ideas (if you have any) will endure. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (or her editors) have failed by confusing evolution and learning.
A species evolves by having the old individuals that make up the species die or divide. Individuals don't evolve. Individuals can only learn.
I am always concerned when someone misuses a metaphor, particularly when it figures prominently in their work. If they can't get THAT right, what else have they gotten wrong?
The ideas in the book seem tired to me as well, but I would like to leave you with the above thought as an example of critical evaluation of a books "cover" or title. It is a particularly useful skill for readers who are considering investing time and money on a book before there are reviews.
New Economy Lobotomy & more...........2006-06-20
Author Kanter is the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration at Harvard (or was when she wrote the book), She has been named as on eof the 50 most powerful women in the world by the TIMES of London. Based on more than 300 inteviews and a global survey of more than 700 companies, the book Evolve! is a study in e-culture, strategy and community. Written back in 2001 -- the book still deserves to be on the shelf of every business exec or entrepreneur in this continually evolving new economy (and at the bargain price it's available on Amazon.com -- add it to your collection now). Kanter talks about talent, change (not just cosmetic) and social evolution...community takes a big role. Perhaps the one element she could have covered better is content-- since so much of what we see today is user generated content and content that is 2-way interactive. Commerce is not a one way street anymore....still the book covers many basics I'm sure you did not learn in B School and it gives insight and strategy into the why's and e-culture and how the Internet fits into the corporate structure of today and tomrorow...or perhaps how it is shaping it....The index is very good and can be used as a reference for making presentations at work or in developing your next-gen digital commerce start-up!
Still relevant for e-business managers in traditional firms.......2005-01-25
This book is to some extent out-of-date. It is written in the dot-com era. And there is indeed a lot of hype on the young start-ups' heroic characteristics such as speed, flexibility, and courage that traditional large companies couldn't compete with in the short run. Today, we all know that these characteristics didn't stand the test of time in a ruthless competitive landscape.
But I'll still recommend this book for a special target audience: People, who are working on an e-business project for a traditional corporation will still get much inspiration from Moss-Kanter's book. Also in retrospect, I find that her best sections in the book were those on describing the tough change management processes that she found in successful "old economy" firms like Williams-Sonoma, Honeywell, and Reuters. In all these companies, a strong conventional company culture made it extremely difficult for the e-business team to navigate towards success. In 2005, many companies have still not made much of their business model online.
This is also a very important book for me personally. I read this book on a vacation to Cyprus in May 2001 just before taking on a long 3-year assignment as an e-business manager for a large industrial firm in Denmark. I experienced most of the difficulties that Moss-Kanter describes in her book.
I find the merit of this book in the very colourful case stories of traditional organizations' struggle with e-business initiatives. The author conducted more than 300 interviews of both traditional companies and dotcoms, successes and failures alike, in a research project before writing this book.
As you may know, Harvard professor Moss-Kanter is a leading expert on change management. Her chapter on the "change wheel" is in a class of its own.
Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business
About the author..........2004-03-22
This review is not so much about the book but rather about the author. I had the chance to have Rosabeth Moss Kanter as a Professor for a semester last year while doing an MBA at Harvard. She has an extraordinary personality, full of passion, full of colors and surprises. A fresh, insightful and pragmatic perspective of the world. A Grand lady who constantly evolves with her time. In my opinion, that's why her books, and Evolve! in particular, are so well written and so inspirational for all of us. Grand books are the reflect of Grand personalities. I cannot wait to get her new book "Confidence".
One sided observation rather than an Analysis.......2003-03-09
I thought the naration was terible on this CD, author was not to the point. More of a one sided observation presented as a story rather than a complete analysis.
Average customer rating:
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Keys to Positive Thinking
Michael J. Ritt
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- French intellectual flop
- The end of work
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The Economic Horror
Viviane Forrester
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Customer Reviews:
French intellectual flop.......2001-07-31
This book is a `post-modernist' contribution to the debate about unemployment. It starts from the facts that the present economic system prevents full employment, and that the working class as a whole is becoming surplus to requirements. There are now 18 million unemployed people in the EU alone. It is increasingly a world in which workers have no place at all, especially our young people. An OECD Jobs Study openly recommended raising unemployment to cut wages. The World Bank openly recommended cutting benefits to force workers into low-paid jobs, and said that "wage cuts and redundancies [are] essential."
Unfortunately, Ms Forrester argues that we must accept ever-growing unemployment. Instead of working out ways to end mass unemployment, she proposes, in characteristic post-modernist style, to end the `culture' of employment. She writes that our terms of work and unemployment `created such reality', so if we stop using the terms, we change the reality! She calls for "organising society starting precisely from the absence of work." According to her, unemployed people do not need work; they need instead to free themselves from the very idea of work.
She seems unaware of the paradox that she has produced a book - which is work - calling for everyone to recognise the end of work! Not surprisingly, she never mentions the words `manufacturing' or industry': the idea that things are made and need making never seems to strike her.
But of course there is an alternative. We can change our ideology to change the world. Workers do have the right to work; we must organise to reclaim that right. We need to rebuild our industry, in order to rebuild our society. Work needs to be done: improving the environment and our transport services, building homes, schools and hospitals, developing education and culture. How can society survive without work? Jobs need doing, and people need to work. So let's put the two together!
The end of work.......2000-05-10
What happens to society as more and more technology makes work less and less necessary? Viviane Forrester, in her book "The Economic Horror" brilliantly and passionately discusses this question. Her basic thesis is that the benefits and profits from this change accrue to a tiny oligarchy, while the mass of people worldwide essentially become surplus, dispensable trash. She mercilessly cuts through the subterfuges and band aids which have no purpose other than to conceal the impending economic horror for as long as possible, while behind the curtain of lies the politicians collude with business to bring it about as quickly as possible. She shows how racism, xenophobia, class divisions, indeed the whole institutional structure play into the grand scheme of rendering the human person, even human life itself, superfluous. Does she hold out any hope? Yes and no. No hope of a resurrection of work and economic productivity as the measure of worth and dignity. But understanding and acknowledging this truth is in itself a powerful shield for preserving one's worth and dignity. And once the truth is fully understood, there is hope for "organizing society precisely from the absence of work" and trying "to make life decent and viable by other means, and doing it today." Perhaps in another book she will suggest how this could be done.
The translation generally succeeds in maintaining the serious and passionate tone; but occasionally it interjects inappropriate or flippant colloquialisms, and sometimes it is simply unintelligible. But these are minor flaws, and they do not really detract from the power of this work.
If there is one book that can open one's eyes to the world being constructed by the corporate, financial and political powers, this is the book. Read and see.
Average customer rating:
- "New economics of information" or new business of information?
- A knowledge economy classic
- Learn from the past & avoid being swept-away by E-commerce 2
- A valuable e-business classic - but lacks an epilogue
- Internet Hype
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Blown to Bits
Philip Evans , and
Thomas S. Wurster
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Amazon.com
Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster think that the Internet can blow away practically any business, and in Blown to Bits, they examine how the new economy is "deconstructing" industries such as newspapers, auto retailing, and banking while creating new opportunities for others. They write that the "glue that holds today's value chains and supply chains together" is melting, and that even "the most stable of industries, the most focused of business models and the strongest of brands can be blown to bits by new information technology."
Evans and Wurster, both executives of the Boston Consulting Group, argue that the Internet demands new business strategies because it provides companies tremendous "reach" for customers without sacrificing "richness," or the quality of the information about products and services. The book shows how some businesses--Microsoft and Intuit in personal finance, Dell Computer in retailing, and the Automotive Network Exchange in manufacturing supply--are thriving amid a rapid expansion of connectivity and the widespread acceptance of new technical standards on the World Wide Web. Clearly written and tough-minded, Blown to Bits is required reading for business leaders, entrepreneurs, strategists, and others concerned about the new economics of the information age. --Dan Ring
Book Description
Richness or reach? The trade-off used to be simple but absolute: Your business strategy either could focus on "rich" information - customized products and services tailored to a niche audience - or could reach out to a larger market, but with watered-down information that sacrificed richness in favor of a broad, general appeal.
Much of business strategy as we know it today rests on this fundamental trade-off.
Now, say Evans and Wurster, the new economics of information is eliminating the trade-off between richness and reach, blowing apart the foundations of traditional business strategy.
Blown to Bits reveals how the spread of connectivity and common standards is redefining the information channels that link businesses with their customers, suppliers, and employees. Increasingly, your customers will have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers, and your competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain. Your competitive advantage is up for grabs.
To prepare corporate executives and entrepreneurs alike for a fundamental change in business competition, Evans and Wurster expand and illuminate groundbreaking concepts first explored in the award-winning Harvard Business Review article "Strategy and the New Economics of Information," and present a practical guide for applying them. Examples span the spectrum of industries--from financial services to health care, from consumer to industrial goods, and from media to retailing.
Blown to Bits shows how to build new strategies that reflect a world in which richness and reach go hand in hand and how to make the most of the new forces shaping competitive advantage.
Download Description
The new economics of information is blowing apart the foundations of traditional business strategy. According to Blown to Bits, your business definition, industry definition, and competitive advantage are simultaneously up for grabs. Evans and Wurster argue that with the spread of connectivity and common standards, your customers will increasingly have rich access to a universe of alternatives, your suppliers will exploit direct access to your customers, and focused competitors will pick off the most profitable parts of your value chain. With an uncompromising clarity and vivid examples, Blown to Bits is targeted squarely at today's practicing business and corporate leaders. This groundbreaking book shows how to build new strategies that reflect the new economics of information, and explains how to take advantage of the forces shaping today's competitive advantage.
Customer Reviews:
"New economics of information" or new business of information?.......2007-01-29
"Blown to Bits" is a book about the "new economics of information technology" and its impact on businesses. The "morals" of the story include the fact that traditional business entities are increasingly being destroyed by newer and technology-based competitors. The destruction is happening because some old-style firms, after years of dominant positions in the market, have rested too comfortably on their laurels, unaware of emerging competition. Other firms are simply locked-in old technologies either because their investments are irreversible, or because changing old models of doing business may hurt stakeholders without guaranteeing future success.
The preceding statement suggests the difference between the "economics of information" and the "economics of things". Things and information are wed, but the marriage is fracturing, signaling an impending separation. The separation brings things and information is sharp competition, which increases the market value of information and tends to reduce the market value of things. The ensuing tradeoff between the quality of information (richness) and the quantity of information (reach) determines technical capability (production possibilities curve). However, with the value of information rising relative to the value of things, it becomes easy for "enablers" such as internet connectivity and standardized dissemination to shift the production possibilities frontier outward. The shift represents deconstruction defined as the "dismantling and reformulation of traditional business structures" (p. 39).
The flow of information in deconstructed enterprises is decentralized and orderly chaotic, rather than hierarchical. The benefit of deconstruction is the shifting out of the richness-reach tradeoff constraint; the corresponding cost is vulnerability and how to assess the level of vulnerability. Here the book does a good job of discussing possible outcomes, all of them indicating that deconstruction poses significant challenges for the incumbent.
As deconstruction succeeds, both richness and reach increase, which in turn permits disintermediation. So-called "navigators" replace traditional intermediaries which tend to reduce information, but with internet access and speedy information delivery, consumer surpluses rise. This is evident from the PC industry where consumers have gained as sales have shifted from the salesperson, to local superstores, to telephone orders, and now internet shopping.
Again with complete deconstruction competition comes to stand on three legs: richness and reach of information, and affiliation with consumers. Here dedicated communication lines replace old-style communication hierarchies. Intermediaries vanish and opportunities for outsourcing increase with all the pros and cons this implies. Moreover, once we change the supply chain, changing the organization is a natural consequence. The effect of organizational change on richness, reach, and affiliation has important implications for ownership, risk profile, control, as well as employment. Whether such implications are good or bad depends on the response of a business to organizational change. The author offers interesting concepts here like fluidity, flatness, and trust.
The book concludes with a brief chapter on what is needed to manage the deconstruction programs: new principles and new leadership.
This is clearly a creative effort - although it occasionally sounds preachy. Some examples like how Dell (the company maker) dealt with change are perfect; other examples like Silicon Valley may have been good during the dotcom years. By "new economics of information technology" the book really means "new business of information technology". If I am correct, it is easy to understand why the book does not mention groundbreaking work on the economics of information by Nobel Prize economists like Joseph Stiglitz, Michael Spence, and George Akerlof, even where it refers to information asymmetries. Regardless, I would still recommend this book.
Amavilah, Author
Modeling Determinants of Income in Embedded Economies
ISBN: 1600210465
A knowledge economy classic.......2006-01-27
Traditionally, companies have had to focus their information strategy on either richness or reach.
Richness is a measure of the quality of the information. Richness concerns six aspects of information:
· Bandwidth: how much information can be moved in a given time.
· Customization: the degree to which the information can be personalized.
· Interactivity: the level of exchange possible between groups of people based on the size of the group.
· Reliability: reliability of information decreases with an increase in the size of the group in which it is exchanged.
· Security: a measure of the sensitivity of the information.
· Currency: a measure of how up-to-date the information is.
Reach is the number of people exchanging information. In traditional business, companies have had to compromise, sacrificing richness for reach, or reach for richness. However, the advent of the Internet, say the authors, has blown this traditional understanding of managing information to bits.
The compromises and trade-offs that existing companies have had to make between richness and reach, make them vulnerable to new competitors who are able to utilize the internet to step entirely outside of the richness/reach dichotomy. Until recently it has been impossible to share very rich information with as many people as one likes. The Internet has radically altered this equation. The consequences of unbundling information from its carrier, however, can be devastating for existing industries. The authors call this process Deconstruction. They outline four steps to understanding how deconstruction will play out in a particular industry:
1. Examine how informational economics shape your industry.
2. Consider how new technologies can shift those existing structures.
3. Analyze how the various players in the business system could create economic value as a consequence of those changes.
4. Lead the transition from the old business to the new one.
Learn from the past & avoid being swept-away by E-commerce 2.......2005-04-06
Although tempered by the DotCom bust, information technology is still very real and continues to shake up industry after industry, and an untold number of companies are being swept-away by the resulting riptides. Clearly written and tough-minded, Blown to Bits is required reading for entrepreneurs, and others wanting to transform their companies before it's too late.
Chapter 1: A Cautionary Tale
Chapter 2: Information and Things
Chapter 3: Richness and Reach
Chapter 4: Deconstruction
Chapter 5: Disintermediation
Chapter 6: Competing on Reach
Chapter 7: Competing on Affiliation
Chapter 8: Competing on Richness
Chapter 9: Deconstructing Supply Chains
Chapter 10: Deconstructing the Organization
Chapter 11: Monday Morning
Opportunities are everywhere. The problem is transforming ideas into reality. Blown to Bits is a hard-hitting book that will definitely open your eyes. The New Economy is literally pushing aside old line companies in favor of dynamic, new enterprises. Everyone aspiring to be an entrepreneur should read this book or risk climbing the wrong mountain.
Michael Davis, Editor - Byvation
A valuable e-business classic - but lacks an epilogue.......2004-08-31
This book is an important e-business classic. But despite the authors' clever recommendations, an epilogue is missing, as the Internet revolution they announced did not materialise. The Internet EVOLUTION, however, lives on.
Blown to Bits is about the consequences of the Internet for businesses.
The most important conclusion in the book is that the combination of increased bandwidth, global interconnected electronic network, faster computers and open standards are abolishing the requirements up to now of balancing information reach with information richness.
One example is the alternative media that a company can select when potential customers are targeted. Newspaper ads can reach a broad audience with a limited and static message. At the other end of the scale, a personal meeting with the customer gives the opportunity for deep, detailed and interactive information.
Businesses' supply chains include the same balancing act. When firms do business, the number of partners is inversely correlated to the richness in the information of the interchange.
The Internet removes this balancing act because you suddenly can reach many partners without compromising on the level of detail and complexity of the information (vast reach AND vast richness).
According to the authors, the consequence is that the value chain is blown to bits. They call it deconstruction, which happens when the things economy increasingly is separated from the information economy. "Information is the kit that binds the value chains and supply chains". But the kit is eroding. Information is no longer embedded in the physical units. The economy for physical things and the economy for information are fundamentally different. Unlike physical assets, information (an idea, illustration, checklist, article, etc.) can be reproduced costless infinitely. And where things are worn out, information remains their original form.
Blown to bits contains a wealth of well-described cases like newspapers, banks, car dealers, stock brokers, computer hardware and last not least Encyclopaedia Britannica. In addition, the book includes many interesting text boxes with questions the reader can use for further consideration.
In the bright light of hindsight!
Blown to bits was published in the roaring heydays of the dot-com wave ... and it shows. In 2001, two years after Blown to bits was published, the authors admitted their mistakes in an article for their employer, Boston Consulting Group. They summarised the evolution:
1) It is increasingly clear that the new economy is not displacing the old one. Instead the old is in the process of transforming itself from within.
2) The Internet is NOT proving to be a disruptive technology (i.e. characterised by eliminating the advantages for existing market players). Instead, incumbents are using it to challenge their own business models.
3) Information does not, in general, "want to be free"; instead, intellectual property rights are being extended.
This does not imply that the Internet won't change a lot. Nor can we all can return safely to the good old ways of doing business. Rather, it means that all incumbents have got a second chance to get e-business right.
This conclusion concurs with the view of strategy professor Michael Porter (quoted August 2001 in Business Week)
"We need to see the Internet as complementary to other things the company does rather than contradictory or cannibalistic. That was a really fundamental mistake that many people made. They assumed that this was a disruptive technology that existing companies could not embrace as efficiently as a new company coming in with a clean sheet of paper.
And Porter concludes: "The Internet as a family of technologies will have a very powerful effect on operational effectiveness. We'll see deeper integration among service, sales, logistics, manufacturing, and suppliers."
Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business
Internet Hype.......2003-12-10
The authors must be embarrassed. But they are probably too busy on their next bogus book full of more mananagement consulting buzzspeak and claptrap.
"Blown to Bits"?--perhaps they were referring to the bursting of the Internet bubble??
Book Description
In 1583 in Vienna, a 16-year-old girl suffered stomach cramps. A team of Jesuits exorcized her for eight weeks. The priests announced that they had expelled 12,652 demons from her, demons that her grandmother had kept as flies in glass jars. The grandmother was tortured into confessing that she was a witch who had engaged in sex with Satan. She was then burned at the stake. This was one of perhaps one million such executions during three centuries of witch-hunts.
In 1989 in Moradabad, India, a pig caused hundreds of people to kill one another when the animal walked through a Muslim holy ground. Muslims, who think pigs are an embodiment of Satan, accused Hindus of driving the pig into the sacred spot. Members of both faiths went on a rampage, stabbing and clubbing. The pig riot spread to a dozen cities and left two hundred dead.
A squad of armed Islamic zealots raided a Christian church at Behawalpur, Pakistan, on October 28, 2001, killing the minister, fourteen worshipers, and the church's police guard.
It is said that there is never enough religion in the world to make people love one another--just enough to make them hate one another. Incendiary blends of fundamentalist religion, politics, nationalism, and ethnic zealotry engender countless examples of atrocity in the name of faith and orthodoxy. If anything, religious persecution is more savage now than ever before in the history of mankind.
HOLY HORRORS chronicles the grim spectrum of religious persecution from ancient times to the present. Fully illustrated with drawings, woodcuts, and photographs, the book recounts such historic religious persecution as the Crusades, the Islamic jihads, the Catholic wars against heretics, the Inquisition, witch-hunts, and the Reformation. It also chronicles modern-day atrocities, including the Holocaust, the seemingly insoluble Catholic-Protestant schism in Northern Ireland, religious tribalism in Lebanon, and the barbaric cruelty of the theocracy in Iran.
Customer Reviews:
Very interesting, but could have been much better.......2005-12-22
I wasn't a religious man before I read Holy Horrors.
I never became religious reading it.
And one thing's for sure; I'm definitely not religious after having finished it.
Because I doubt that I've ever - despite having a degree in religious studies - read a book which made the entire phenomenon of religion, no matter during what era, in what culture, and what particular faith, look worse than this. Author James A. Haught writes in a way that makes him look like a militant atheist (and even if he's not then I doubt he'll ever be welcome in a church), and it's not a very happy reading.
On page after page, paragraph after paragraph, numerous examples are given where the most horrible of crimes, murder, torture, hatred and more have been carried out in the name of religion. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism; most faiths out there are made to look like the most vicious of philosophies. Mankind's ability to simply annihilate his fellow man apparently has no limits whatsoever, and worst of all: it's all true.
The human race have a tendency to show its very worst sides whenever a religious conflict appear, and to all of you who happen to believe that contemporary man has learned his lesson by now, Haught has a simple answer: Wrong. Religiously inspired murder, torture, and public executions still happen all the time all over the world.
However, Holy Horrors isn't a brilliant book, unfortunately. Because since its focus is exclusively on all the murder, blood, and gore, it simplifies what's really quite complex issues. Reality isn't as black and white as Haught makes it out to be, and even though it's both well-written and very interesting with its many illustrations, the end result still comes out as somewhat sloppy. Due to its many illustrations and large print, the total amount of text isn't very large, and obviously things like the Reformation and the witch-hunts of Europe cannot be dealt with in just a few pages.
Sure, all the blood and gore are truly awful, and all of you who see religion as something good and beautiful will have to think again, but since Holy Horrors never really dig deep into the topic the reader will remain unsatisfied.
I know I did, despite the fact that I liked what Haught had to say and how he said it.
I was not impressed.......2005-11-01
First off, let me say that I am an atheist and feel that religion is the most destructive human invention ever devised. Therefore, I was looking forward to reading this book. But for me it was rather disappointing.
As I was reading the book, I felt as though I was reading a student's term paper. The author covers numerous religious groups or time periods but in a very superficial manner. As a couple of reviewers already mentioned, the book is only 234 pages (243 with the biblio), 24 of those are full page illustrations (I know, the cover states "An Illustrated History") and the pages have unusually wide margins. In fact, the size of the margins was the first thing I noticed when I started to read the book. It's almost as though Haught didn't have enough material to fill enough pages to warrant publication. But even from what material is in the book, it is obvious that this book could have much longer and more detailed, giving it a more scholarly presentation.
Personally, I think that if an author is going to write about a controversial subject, it needs to be backed up with properly referenced facts. This book does not even come close. There is a section at the end of the book that the author calls a Bibliography but then he writes, "The following is a selected reading list, by topic." So does that mean that the books listed were used by the author as references or are some of these books just recommendations? It is rather difficult to tell because Haught uses no footnote notation. He repeatedly presents statements as fact, including historical information and figures (as in the number of deaths). He also has many direct quotes that have no reference. For example, the cover of the book highlights one corner and states, "Includes the 9-11-01 terrorist attack..." Within the text Haught includes a lengthy quote that is a translation of some of the writings found in the highjackers' notebooks in order to make the point that the 9-11 attackers were able to carry out their mission due to religious zeal - which I happen to agree with. But where did he get these quotes. I don't think he translated the notebooks themselves! Other quotes may state, "So and so said,..." but then there is no reference in the Bibliography to match up with the speaker. In addition, even if a reader was interested in following up with one of the recommended books, a significant number of them are 25 to over 100 years old. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but as some Amamzon customers may know, it's sometimes difficult to obtain a book that's over 10 or 15 years old - let alone the book titles listed as recommendations. Maybe others feel that I'm nitpicking but whenever I'm reading a book of non-fiction (especially a book that is historical, scientific or political) I look at the references to see where the author got his/her information.
I'm giving the book three stars because I feel that this is an important topic and I'm glad that author wrote about it. As he states in the book (p. 235), "As far as can be ascertained, no previous book has surveyed the phenomenon of religious homicide ["homicide" - I like that] in its entirety." I just wish the book was more thorough and that it backed up its information with better references.
Good, but..........2005-04-23
...I was a little disappointed to receive a rather slim book (234 pages), when Amazon described it as being 661 pages. I was expecting a more scholarly work, but this is a good introduction to the subject. Someone needs to write a more in-depth book on this important topic.
not bad.......2004-11-30
if you like, i recommend reading something by c.s. lewis. great stuff to read
The crimes of religion.......2004-01-25
Very well written. Direct and to the point. Shows how religious beliefs are used as acts of violence against others of different faiths. Great read for the beginner or novice.
Book Description
Spignesi selects and ranks the top 101 works out of the more than 550 created by Stephen King during his prolific career. Each chosen work is synopsized and reviewed by the writer who Entertainment Weekly has called "the world's leading expert on Stephen King."
Customer Reviews:
Utterly uncritical, and duller than dishwater..........2005-05-24
The problem with the book is that it's utterly uncritical of the entirety of Stephen King's work - it's simply a basic recounting of the novel's plot, followed up with a few bits of trivia and the author's "What I Liked" section.
The problem is that the author of this book likes everything about Stephen King, even when he's talking about King's weaker material. You could write the words "I love Stephen King and everything he's ever done!" on an index card, then post it next to the Amazon search results for Stephen King and you'd have this book in a nutshell.
Plus, he refers to the Gor novels as "wildly popular". Uh, no.
-Darren MacLennan
Great book, entertaining, interesting.......2003-04-23
This book is good. It has a lot of interesting facts about the worlds greatest authors books. Things you might have missed when reading. It's worth the money.
Wonderful!.......2002-10-16
This book is a great resource. It has a vast amount of information on King's books that you won't find elsewhere in one collection. I found this little gem at a bookstore and spent about a half hour reading through it. I finally broke down and bought it on Amazon and I'm really glad I did.
I'm already a Stephen King fan and have read many of his books. But it was great to read synopsis's on his other works that I havn't gotten to yet. The author made a break-down of each book, gave the character's names, and a movie adaptation of the book if applicable.
If you are already a Stephen King fan, you will no doubt enjoy this book. You can see which books made which spots on his '100 list' and perhaps argue, but I found myself agreeing with the author on most of his choices.
If you arn't a Stephen King fan yet, but are thinking about reading a book of his and are not sure which one to pick first, this is a great choice for you to read, so you get an idea of what your headed for. :)
9.......2001-12-27
Spignesi is a great fan(atic) of King's and his enthusiasm shows in this listing of the top 101 King writings. He includes a wide variety of King's material from across his career. Anyone who is a fan will enjoy remembering the great stories already read and will be inspired to read ones Spignesi mentions that haven't yet been read.
Not all of Spignesi's opinions are correct, of course, but he is well-informed enough to make a strong case for each of his picks.
A Good Ranking, Even Better Writing.......2001-09-03
Spignesi is probably the biggest King fan out there. He knows every book, novella, short story and essay the man has written in and out. There isn't one work he isn't totally familiar with. I actually wonder if he knows more about King's writing than King does himself.
In The Essential Stephen King, Spignesi tries to rank the 101 best things king has ever written. And although every major King work is featured (all of the novels are there, so are the novellas), many of King's best short stories didn't make the cut (where are The Night Flyer and Lawnmower Man?). And I was disappointed when I saw some of my favorite King novels ranked so high up the list (Dolores Claiborne, The Dark Half, Needful Things and Storm Of the Century aren't even near the top 10!). Of course, this is a fan ranking his favourite works. No two fans will think alike.
The reason the book is so powerful is because of the author's writing skills. Spignesi writes with passion and dedication. Every sentence is like a love confession for the King of horror. And I also enjoyed the articles written by King fans/experts at the end of the book. This books makes you want to revisit King's best writings. It's a book every King fan will enjoy and will use time and time again as a reference manual.
Amazon.com
A conservative, prosperous, American journalist gadding around the world laughing at all the ways less successful nations screw up their economy--this might not sound like the recipe for a great read, unless you're Rush Limbaugh, but if that journalist is P.J. O'Rourke you can be sure that you'll enjoy the ride even if you don't agree with the politics. Although Eat the Rich is subtitled A Treatise on Economics, O'Rourke spends relatively few pages tackling the complexities of monetary theory. He's much happier when flying from Sweden to Hong Kong to Tanzania to Moscow, gleefully recording every economic goof he can find. When he visits post-Communist Russia and finds a country that is as messed up by capitalism as it was by Communism, O'Rourke mixes jokes about black-market shoes with disturbing insights into a nation on the verge of collapse. P.J. O'Rourke is more than a humorist, he's an experienced international journalist with a lot of frequent-flyer miles, and this gives even his funniest riffs on the world's problems the ring of truth.
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
What is it that makes one person rich and another poor? It's a tough question and not one generally suited to laughs, but P.J. O'Rourke--in the audio version of his ironic and insightful book, Eat the Rich--is a master at finding humor in the most unlikely places. Here he travels from Wall Street to Russia, Hong Kong to Cuba on an immensely entertaining quest for economic enlightenment. It's an educational journey wrapped in hilarity, which is especially enjoyable when heard in the surprisingly deep, resonant voice of the author himself. (Running time: three hours, two cassettes) --George Laney
Book Description
2 cassettes / 3 hours
Read by the Author
In P.J. O'Rourke's classic bestseller Parliament of Whores, he attempted to explain the entire United States government. In Eat the Rich, he takes on an even broader subject, but one that is dear to us all - wealth.
What is it? How do you get it? Or, as P.J. says, "Why do some places prosper and thrive, while others just suck?"
The starting point is Wall Street. P.J. takes the listener on a scary hilarious, and enlightening visit to the New York Stock Exchange, then sets off on a world tour to investigate funny economics Having seen "good" capitalism on Wall Street, he looks at "bad" capitalism in Albania, views "good" socialism in Sweden, and endures "bad" socialism in Cuba. Head reeling, he describes to tackle that Econ 101 course he avoided in college. The result is the only astute presentation of the principles of economics that can make you laugh on purpose
Armed with theory, P.J. ventures to Russia, Tanzania, Hong Kong, and ends up in Shanghai, observing a top-down transition to capitalism.
P.J.'s conclusion in a nutshell: the free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there's nothing in the mall and if you don't go there they shoot you.
Customer Reviews:
Laughing at suffering. Psychopathic........2007-08-01
Smug rich people and their propagandists don't make me laugh, no matter how cute they think they are.
Regarding why some countries are poor and others rich, it's not complicated. The rich nations have been imposing disastrous neoliberal economic policies upon the poor nations that concentrate wealth, destroy local economies, and decimate labor and environmental protections.
Generations of invasions and colonialism haven't helped matters either.
Moreover, those people who work for economic justice are often oppressed by the state forces the rich countries arm and train. For example, the U.S.-backed Colombian forces and paramilitaries kill a couple hundred union activists each year. Subtle Voices: Cries from Colombia and The Profits Of Extermination: How U.S. Corporate Power is Destroying Colombia
O'Rourke does what the rest of the corporatists do, they co-opt the brand "conservative" while they divert their audiences from the realities of geopolitics.
For some actual understanding of economics, I'd recommend When Corporations Rule the World andThe Corporation.
"The money hunger grows on what it feeds. So everyone is compelled to take part in the wild goose chase, and the hunger for possession gets an ever stronger hold of man. It becomes the most important part of life; every thought is on money, all the energies are bent on getting rich, and presently the thirst for wealth becomes a mania, a madness that possesses those who have and those who have not.
Existence has become an unreasoning, wild dance around the golden calf, a mad worship of God Mammon. In that dance and in that worship man has sacrificed all his finer qualities of heart and soul - kindness and justice, honor and manhood, compassion and sympathy with his fellowman. Each for himself and devil take the hindmost. Is it any wonder that in this mad money chase are developed the worst traits of man - greed, envy, hatred, and the basest passions? Man grows corrupt and evil; he becomes mean and unjust; he resorts to deceit, theft, and murder."
-Alexander Berkman
Great book, Better than Econ 101.......2007-07-04
PJ O'Rourkes books crack me up. But you still can learn from them. This book is a funny, but true, perspective on various economies. Not from a real scientific perspective, but rather "the Man on the Street".
The Place to Start with O'Rourke.......2007-04-05
Barring none, this is the place for a novice P.J. O'Rourke reader to start. He has been in a slight slump as of late, but he is at his peak here. I loaned my first copy to someone who never returned it. If I lose this copy, I would buy it again.
This is O'Rourke's essay on economics, in it he analyzes why some societies work economically and why some do not, regardless of geography or access to natural resources. It has often been said that to be funny you first have to be smart. Here O'Rourke demonstrates that he knows more than a little about free market economics. He posesses keen powers of observation and an even sharper wit. His innate intelligence comes through.
How much funnier would he be had he not burned out all those brain cells in the '60s? It's not likely he could be! This one is hard to top.
How to Get Rich: Write a Book that Says Nothing but Makes People Laugh.......2007-02-05
P.J. O'Rourke manages to dizzy his audience with a tautological series of stories, comparsions, and self-defacement and then nauseatingly spews empty paragraphs. Don't know what a tautology is? Read this book, you'll figure it out.
An author either takes pride in his ignorance or banks on his authority. O'Rourke attempts to do both, the former almost always shining through the latter. Coming away, you'll feel like you learned something. Of course you did! It just took him 10 angles, 5 anecdotes, and 8 less-than-appropriate similes to convey a Macro 101 principle. If you want a good laugh, read this book. If you want someone who knows what they're talking about, keep looking
funny, but don't expect to learn much!.......2007-01-29
I actually love O'Rourke's quips (even though I disagree with most of his theories and viewpoins), and I think the book is well worth buying if you ever write, or speak in public, about matters at all related to economics (including, say, making reports or giving presentations to management): go through the book with a highlighter and small sticky bookmarks and by the time you're through you'll have a hundred funny quips to enliven your next report or presentation (only pick a couple of them for each occasion, of course!-). But you won't learn much from this book -- whether you already know a lot about economics, or just about nothing; it's just too much of a "snapshot" of specific short periods of times in various places, observed very partially and reported with much more attention to being funny than to being accurate and useful.
Amazon.com
If you wanted a glib way to sum up how the economy works today, you could say we've gone from hardware to software, from selling tangible things such as railroads, cars, and airplanes to selling less tangible ones such as information services. In fact, services grew from 31 percent of U.S. economic output in 1950 to 55 percent in 1998. In Future Wealth, Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer explain why they think we're headed toward a new stage of economic development in which "human and intellectual capital [is] the most highly valued resource."
Remember how David Bowie sold Bowie Bonds a few years back, essentially leasing out his future earnings from royalties and concert revenues so he could get $55 million in cash up front? That's just the beginning, say the authors. Today thousands of people we've never heard of accept signing bonuses to go to work for companies, and soon many exceptionally talented individuals will imitate Bowie's move--sell stock in their future earnings. Regardless of whether we're fortunate enough to offer ourselves to the financial markets in the form of stocks or bonds, or even to command signing bonuses, each of us has unprecedented potential to become wealthy, the authors posit. More and more, our salaries will become chump change compared to the money we make from investments. Add to that the supposition that we carry around untold capital in our brains, and Future Wealth shows a future that we'll definitely want to be a part of. --Lou Schuler
Book Description
A radical realignment in the nature of wealth is under way--transforming ordinary individuals into powerful stewards of their own financial futures, and all corporations into risk managers. Deep structural shifts in financial markets and in economic value are profoundly altering the nature of wealth, catapulting most workers from spectators to players in the new economy. As of mid-1998, American households controlled 59 percent of all stocks held in the nation, a figure that underscores a fundamental new truth: wealth is not just for the wealthy anymore.
In business, change occurs so fast that once-internal management activities, like setting prices, are now migrating into the marketplace. The role of human resource departments will transition from managers of administrative functions to builders of human asset portfolios, as the labor market establishes a price for each employee. And strategic risk units, the complement to strategic business units, will enable companies to identify, isolate, and trade risks in financial markets.
In
Future Wealth--the companion volume to the authors' bestselling book Blur, and the long-awaited follow-up to Stan Davis' famous Future Perfect--Davis and Meyer offer a compelling vision of what lies ahead. It relies on three major consequences of the newly connected economy: risk as an opportunity, not a threat; the growing efficiency of financial markets for human capital; and the need for new forms of social capital. These three developments are combining in ways that will forever change how individuals, companies, and societies create, accumulate, control, and distribute wealth.
According to Davis and Meyer, wealth creation in the Information Age has been more financial (bearing, trading, and managing risks) than real (producing and consuming goods); wealth accumulation is shifting from earned income (salaries) to unearned (investments); and control of wealth is shifting from institutions to individuals.
Davis and Meyer describe a world in the not-so-distant future in which we will trade everything of value--including human capital, talent, and other intangibles--in efficient markets. Companies will begin to invest directly in their employees, not secondarily through training and development, and to treat business units as units of financial risk whose worth equals the quality of their intellectual capital. Individuals will think less about jobs and more about investing in their own human capital. As average citizens gain more knowledge about investments, they will begin to accept higher risk for the potential of higher rewards, turning the concept of risk from threat to opportunity. But future wealth will depend not merely on a healthy appetite for risk, but also on stronger social safety nets designed to balance new individual freedoms with commensurate order.
From how we work and earn, spend and save, manage our corporations, plan our mortgages, taxes, retirement, and more--the new economy will provide opportunities for every individual to reap unprecedented rewards. Describing both the enormous possibilities and potential consequences of this exciting new world, Davis and Meyer outline the principles that will help make every person's net worth and every corporation's growth add up to a society rich in both the human, financial, and real aspects of wealth.
Customer Reviews:
INTERESTING.......2005-12-19
I am not a financial wizard by far, however I did learn alot from listening to these two CD's. I feel anytime you can learn anything to help you in this life - it's worth while. These were definitely worth my time.
A great book ...again!.......2004-11-06
Dans ce nouveau livre qui n'est que la poursuite d'une réflexion entamée dans leur ouvrage précédent (Blur), Meyer et Davis conduisent une analyse sur quelques facettes de la transformation de nos économies . Si leur position sur le rôle du risque et la nécessité de son management est déjà d'actualité pour beaucoup d'entreprises, celle qu'ils développent sur la marcheisation du capital humain est nettement plus prospective. Mais le caractère provocateur de la démarche ne doit pas faire oublier que déjà surgissent les premiers indices de cette révolution. Pour nous en convaincre, il faut replacer les thèses de nos auteurs dans le cadre plus large de la création de valeur dans une Economie Connectée.
Même après le brutal ajustement que la bourse a connu au cours des dernières semaines, les performances de la Nouvelle Economies restent exceptionnelles. Sur les cinq dernières années, l'indice S&P500 a été multiplié par 2,75, et celui du Nasdaq composite par 4,5. Cette création de valeur exceptionnelle n'est pas due au hasard. Elle résulte d'une profonde transformation du fonctionnement de nos économies. Grâce à la connectivité, les marchés réels- celui des biens et service et celui des talents- adoptent peu à peu une organisation qui les rend plus efficients. Le marché financier vient faciliter et accélérer ce phénomène.
Un marché tend vers l'efficience s'il développe les caractéristiques suivantes : une information abondante et partagée de manière symétrique par les intervenants ; une liquidité organisée ; un ajustement continuel des prix en fonction de l'offre et de la demande ; et, enfin, des coûts de transaction faibles.
Ces caractéristiques sont celles des places de marché électroniques qui se développent aujourd'hui dans toutes les industries (il y en existent déjà plus de 600). Ces places sont organisées autour des principaux groupes pétroliers, de la grande distribution, de produits agricoles, de pièces pour l'automobile, de chaînes d'hôtels, etc., avec comme objectif d'optimiser les processus d'achat. On estime que les gains de coûts de production qui en résulteront se situent entre 10 et 25% selon les secteurs. Ces marchés poussent des entreprises concurrentes à s'allier sur des projets qui sont stratégiques pour leur avenir. La coopetition remplace la compétition.
De même, le marché réel le plus inefficient , celui des talents, commence à s'organiser. Dans une économie dominée par les intangibles (capital intellectuel et capital humain), cette évolution est inéluctable et, c'est l'un des points essentiel de Future Wealth. C'est ainsi que sont apparus des sites comme bid4geeks.com sur lequel des individus ou des équipes peuvent mesurer la valeur de marché de leur capital humain et mettre aux enchères leurs compétences. Le marché de l'innovation et des brevets, encore plus opaque, bénéficie lui aussi de cette évolution : pl-x.com est un site sur lequel les entreprises peuvent commercialiser leur brevets inexploités à un prix déterminé par le marché.
Cette révolution a été rendue possible et est aujourd'hui accélérée par la capacité du marché financier à anticiper les évolutions économiques et surtout à les financer. Il joue un triple rôle dans cette nouvelle dynamique : il aide les entreprises à accélérer leur croissance et à développer de nouveau modèles de développement (comme les places électroniques) ; il leur donne les moyens d'attirer les meilleurs talents (stock options) ou d'utiliser ceux de partenaires (établissement de liens capitalistiques) ; enfin, et c'est l'un des points clef du livre, il crée les conditions d'un marché du risque.
Comme le montre très clairement Future Wealth, notre attitude à l'égard du risque doit changer radicalement. Ce qui est vrai pour les individus l'est encore plus pour les entreprises. L'économie connectée est porteuse de formidables opportunités, mais engendre aussi des risques importants. Il est donc indispensable de mieux identifier les risques que l'on courre, et, de les externaliser (assurance, couverture, ...) ou les partager si l'on ne peut les maîtriser convenablement.
Cette situation contraint les entreprises à réexaminer profondément leur techniques de management stratégique. La maîtrise des connections avec leur environnement devient une compétence critique. L'avantage compétitif d'une entreprise réside autant dans ses propres forces que dans le réseau qu'elle construit avec ses partenaires. Ce réseau lui permet de bénéficier de talents qu'elle ne peut plus détenir directement et d'augmenter son portefeuille d'options de croissance future.
Le marketing financier va devenir également essentiel : les activités de l'entreprise doivent être plus finement segmentées en fonction de leur profil de risque et de rentabilité afin d'optimiser leur gestion et leur financement. Les « traking stocks » qui permettent aux investisseurs de s'intéresser à une activité spécifique de l'entreprise, l'échange de produits ou de services contre des actions, l'intrapreneurship ou les fond de capital risque créés par des groupes industriels sont autant de manifestations de cette nouvelle stratégie de segmentation et de partage de risque. Les frontières entre les marchés financiers et réels s'estompent : gare aux préjugés sur le fonctionnement de l'économie!
Flawed Underlying Themes Behind Old But Reworded Concepts..........2002-08-09
First of all, when you look at the "Advance praise" section, you will see that one of the sources is Kenneth Lay, former chairman/CEO of the now-defunct Enron. If that doesn't scare you off, I don't know what will. In a book chock full of the bygone-Internet-era business terms, I did NOT find anything particularly novel or ground-breaking with this work. The concept of "human capital" is not a new idea; certainly Bill Gates has already put this concept to good use for nearly two decades. Also, the concept of marketing one's talents, while a sound idea, has major consequences which I'm surprised the authors did not place much emphasis on: Given the constant emphasis on training in school to improve your job skills, there has been and always will be growing intensity and competition in the job market -- this can already be seen in the market for engineers, where more versatile candidates get a better shot than specialists; the disastrous result would be a glut of engineers and techs, most whom will be unemployed (or underemployed). The same thing happened to lawyers in the 60's and 70's, MBA's in the 80's, and most recently, to doctors. Add to this the fact that a direct correlation between deteriorating skills and age has been established. So the whole "human intellect" as capital, while noble, is practically unsound. The sad reality is that we as human cogs in the wheel of work (skilled or not) are still depreciable assets. I am also surprised that the authors placed some emphasis on the efficient market as a basis for companies, etc. EMT is a theory whose soundness has been invalidated time and time again. Even more so recently, with all the "creative accounting" that has caused the market to crash just recently. Assuming that the book was written during the wave of post-Internet wealth euphoria, it must be only natural that there was no expectation that the markets would ever get into a downturn once the plain, good-ol' economics set in, and the poorly-managed, overvalued companies imploded unto themselves. I would strongly suggest that business owners NOT try their hand at doing any human capital accounting just yet, until they prove themselves competent at doing conventional (and legal) accounting practices. I would also strongly advise against running your business to market standards. I know that's a loaded statement, as businesses indeed do have to watch the market to stay competetive and retain their assets (especially employees), but to keep on changing just for the market's sake is just pure nonsense. As with a lot of the ideas here, most of it is speculative and defies common sense. Theoretical, yes; just not sensible. In general, economic theories should never, ever be taught unless proven experimentally, i.e., the battlefield of business, with a reasonable degree of success... this coming from an experimental physicist who knows damn well what he's talking about. The book lacks clear organization, and therefore does a poor job of relating their points, much less arguing the validity of such. As I said before, the main idea of treating human capital as assets is not a new idea. There are indeed sound ideas that could be manipulated in harnessing this vast pool of knowledge for the benefit of the greater good, but they aren't here in this book. I flatly recommend against ever buying this book -- just check it out at your local library, if a copy is available.
The Evolution of Paying Up for Top Talent.......2001-02-18
As communications improve, everyone wants to be entertained or helped by the best in the world. This means an incredible shortage of top talent and a glut of all other talent. In such a world, how will the market allocate resources? This book uses existing trends to extrapolate into a free market economy for talent that will be patterned along the lines of stocks and time share units. It all makes sense, once you get past the initial shock of thinking about yourself potentially as being a public version as YOU, Inc.
Future Wealth is the second book in a trilogy that began with Blur, by Stan Davis and Chris Meyer. The book builds a full argument on the most intriguing, but small, theme in Blur concerning the issue of Bowie Bonds by the rock composer and performer David Bowie. Seldom will you find a book with such a valuable insight into the likely future of capitalism.
Unlike most business books which just describe something that has been going on for some time, Future Wealth clearly goes beyond today into tomorrow. For those who are unfamiliar with scenario-based thinking, this book will seem strange. Experience shows that such thinking is extremely valuable for helping each of us prepare for things that may well happen when the exact shape of the future is unknowable.
Although some will see nothing new in this book beyond Blur, that is clearly not the case. Blur ends with the Bowie Bonds example and Future Wealth begins there, but that is not the end of the thinking.
The biggest idea in Future Wealth is that individuals need not have the exposure to volatility risk that makes each of us take a conservative financial course. The solution to volatility for each person is to pool risk with a statistically significant number of others. This is the solution that makes insurance and mutual funds work better. Davis and Meyer have the insight to see that combining all aspects of our future, including our net worth, into such pools can allow us to take greater risk that will permit the potential for achieving much greater rewards. As a result, risk is our friend when we handle it properly. This is a powerful insight that will change the way almost all human beings conduct their lives.
They also see the systems potential of getting the present value of our economic potential available to us when we most need it. Then, we can use the funds to both expand our future income and net worth, while diversifying our risk. That is a fundamental insight that we should each pay attention to.
Instead of being limited to the resources at hand, we can have virtually unlimited potential by investing in our futures using all of the potential resources that might be available to us. A public company is like a government, in that it can issue more stock to create more resources. Now, Davis and Meyer point out the important benefits of extending that perspective to the individual.
Turning around the current company-centered economic culture, they argue that companies should invest in their employees by helping them go public and taking a position alongside of them. By making every employee a shareowner in many firms, companies are already started down this path. This next step will work even better. Imagine how much more incentive you would have to hire and nurture the best, if you could always get benefit from that relationship . . . even after they left the firm.
One of the great strengths of this book is that it suggests a fundamental new paradigm for growth and wealth. There is a set of public policy suggestions that emphasize greater social safety nets that permit each person to take on more risk that can expand wealth for the individual, the company and the society. They point out that the connected economy favors the potential for each of us to so much more.
In the future, thoughtful readers will remember this book as The Wealth of Nations for individuals. Good luck with developing your Future Wealth!
I also encourage you to find ways to diversify your risk in advance of these new market mechanisms being available. In that way, you can make progress faster now. That is an important part of the lesson of Rich Dad, Poor Dad . . . seen from this perspective.
When the market mechanism is in place, the paths to entrepreneurship will be much more available. That will be good for us all!
Close to fiction.......2001-02-01
In their earlier book "Blur" Davis and Meyer had blurred the difference between many things ( the difference between product and service for example ) . In this book the difference between fiction and reality gets blurred !
The common thread that runs across all chapters is - Connectivity, Speed and Intangibles, and it is certainly advisable to read "Blur" before reading this book. I find it very difficult to visualize many events that are forecast in this book. The main effects of IT (Information Technology) in the new economy seem to be the phenomenal increase in the ratio between I (Intangibles) and T (Tangibles) ; the redistribution of wealth wherein the individuals manage their own risks; securitization of talent ; and virtually trade in everything thereby creating new markets and opportunities.
A word of caution. Check your vision both before and after reading this book!
Average customer rating:
- A Great Read!
- Night Biters Rocks!!!
- Pinoys get Respect
- A Clever Premise, filled with Twist and Surprises
- Great Book
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Night Biters: A Tale of Urban Horror
Adrian Harper
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Time Management
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Holistic
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United States
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Vampires
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ASIN: 1419613111
Release Date: 2005-09-07 |
Product Description
In a novel that crackles with wit and suspense. Night Biters takes horror to a new, yet familiar place; the inner-city and introduces characters as diverse and complex as their city. Set against the gritty backdrop of Oakland, California Night Biters tells the story of Bay Area teens coping with the dangers of urban living while facing the horrors of the Supernatural. Fasten your seat belts, you're going to a place bustling with hip hop music, drugs, gangs and vampires.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Read!.......2006-03-06
This is a great read.
Great, because it has a common sense idea that is missing from most stories of this genre.
The genre, "supernatural horror," ultimately goes to a war between good and evil (yep, heaven and hell), because these would be the source of power in the story. So the ultimate source of power is on another level--not the level the story is about (our everyday homes and neighborhoods). But hey, the vampires, zombies, and other things have been around for a long time. And we are still here, too. Something we don't usually see in these stories must be equalizing the landscape, or else ordinary humans would have been gone a long time ago. What equalizes a vampire? They have supernatural powers, so regular folks are out-gunned. In any war, if the sides are not matched, the war does not last long. In the literature vampires, zombies, et al., have been around a long time. So what holds them in check? Doesn't have to be a "good" version of the evil creature--just something with power and method of its own that it can use to engage the enemy. That's war. Even a supernatural one would have to have this equivalence of power.
There are popular movies about renegades that have reason to hate the supernatural villains, but vampires alone would have over-run the world before most of these popular characters started. Besides, these stories are usually more about special-effects or martial arts or something--not really horror stories but more like action-adventure-martial arts-horror. Whatever. There's only one movie I've seen recently that is an exception to this, "Constantine." But since this isn't a plug for movies, let's move on... ;)
"Night Biters" revitalizes the role of the church in this type of story! Instead of the lame "Exorcist" angle in which the demons have power that is clearly uncontrollable, here the war could have lasted this long. God is on our side through supernatural beings at this level. That's what I was referring to before, when I said that ordinary humans would otherwise be gone. In run-of-the-mill horror stories a recurring theme is that the heroes are so outmatched they have to sacrifice themselves--and leave this plane of existence--in order to win. So in time they'd all have moved on, leaving us here. There must be something more powerful that fights here and wins often enough to balance the war against evil. This story touches on this with style; it's a story told intelligently in a way that makes sense.
So is it scary? Yeah, because the writer tells the tale in a way that evokes vivid images of what the characters are going through as all of these peculiar things happen. It's not a predictable story. I found myself liking some, and wondering if they'd make it...but it's war. Casualties are inevitable. How does it end?
Check it out! It's a great read!
Night Biters Rocks!!!.......2006-01-16
This is no R L Stien! This book has a diverse group of hip hop characters from the Bay Area that are actully intelligent and not based on stereotypes. The book has teens in the Bay dealing with regular teenage issues, as well as vampires gang violence. The characters are cool, there's African American's, Vietnamese, Latino's, Filippino's, Jews, Goths, ravers, taggers and possibly dirty cops and a guy who eats a rat. If you LOVE hip hop, or you're from the Bay Area you need to read this book. I love Night Biters because it's real hip hop, it's not derogatory or dogmatic, it's just real and entertaining.
The book is written in the style of how Traffic and Crash were made as movies. A ton of individual stories, all intertwined into one explosive plot. Read this book, you won't be disappointed. The story is based on actual events in 1999 leading up to the change of the century in the backdrop of the worlds most integrated group of cities. Two teens come here to spend the summer and find that some of thier friends have become vampires and are dealing with personal issues like abusive stepfathers, drugs, gangs and police (damn taggers!). Doooooood read it!!!
Pinoys get Respect.......2006-01-13
Night Biters is my favorite book, I visited the Bay Area and have saw the old Montgomery Ward building. It was too scary a building for me to enter but not a vampire. I also like that us Pinoy's finally got some recognition and respect in a book. Dragonbrush is my dog I liked the way he and Tioni looked out for one another and how he showed that he really appreciated her. Jamilah is cool but too stuck up for my taste, I wouldn't want my sister taking all my favorite clothes just because she wants them. But in the end they all looked out for one another.
A Clever Premise, filled with Twist and Surprises.......2006-01-04
Adrian Harper's Night Biters offers some fresh ideas to the fantasy genre. The magical compact disc is as effective a talisman as a ring or trinket in other period work of fiction. It also solidifies the effectiveness of hip hop in a way the reader will find appealing. Graffiti spray painting is also featured, skateboarding is taken to new heights and I will never see using a Super Soaker the same way.
The writer skillfully depicts the story's teens as youth who regret some of the poor choices they have made and the impact those decisions have on their families while ably avoiding stereotypes. He also offers some interesting views on vampirism viewing it more to an addiction than a spiritual damnation reminding the reader that there is always hope. Filled with clever twist and surprises, Night Biters is a delight.
Great Book.......2006-01-03
This book puts Oakland, CA on the map. It is filled with suspense and humor. The multi-cultural characters are people we see in everyday life. I loved this book. I can't wait for the next one.
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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