Monday, January 11, 2010

“Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News” plus 2 more

“Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News” plus 2 more

Business book reviews - Dallas Morning News

Posted: 11 Jan 2010 05:28 AM PST

The 10 Laws of

Career Reinvention

Pamela Mitchell (Dutton, $25.95)

Author Pamela Mitchell says that if people define their lives in terms of their jobs, they can lose their sense of self when they lose that job. She wants to help people learn to look at careers and jobs as "delivery services for the kind of life you want to lead."

She offers 10 laws to guide you to life opportunity – not just a job. Here are four:

It starts with a vision for your life. Forget the myths that hold you back and be honest about what you want.

Progress begins when you stop making excuses. Take cues from your past – the times when you thought you couldn't do something but did.

You've got the tools in your toolbox. Your skills and experience are portable. They will need repackaging to appeal to a new employer, especially if you're targeting another industry.

They won't get "you" unless you speak their language. When applying for a job in another industry, learn its lingo. Check out blogs, industry associations and trade magazines.

Mitchell's advice is spot on. I used to work for a Ford Motor subsidiary. I reinvented myself as a journalist and consultant on urban workforce development and affordable housing. Was it easy? No. Was it worth it? Yes.

The Triangle of Truth

Lisa Earle McLeod (Perigree, $21.95)

From a conflict resolution standpoint, the base angles of a triangle are "my truth" and "your truth" and the apex angle is the "higher-level solution." In business, that solution sets aside emotions, turf wars and office politics to produce the optimal organizational solution. Author Lisa McLeod cautions against thinking in terms of compromise because watering down truths won't create the same solution as merging them.

McLeod offers "Yes, and" thinking as the productive alternative to "Yes, but" thinking. Embracing the and leads to working together to reconcile different perspectives by focusing on how things might work.

The triangle of truth allows an organization to reach better decisions faster, with buy-in guaranteed.

Jim Pawlak reviews business books for The Dallas Morning News.

bizbooks@hotmail.com

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Book reviews: Chris Hedges and Sam Tanenhaus - DAILY KOS

Posted: 10 Jan 2010 04:57 PM PST

With the holidays, I had a chance to catch up on some reading--so much so that I'm far behind in reviewing, resulting in a backlog. I'm going to throw a couple of small reviews into one. And forgive me, both books are from the past fall and summer but are well worth reading now since they are timeless in message and subject matter.

The Death of Conservatism
By Sam Tanenhaus
Random House: New York
Hardback, 144 pages, $17.00
September 2009

Money quote:

But of all American movements, only ideological conservatism was from its inception explicitly political--that is to say, preoccupied with the question of power (how to obtain it, how to wield it, how to keep it)--to the exclusion, at times, of all other considerations.

This explains the air of embattlement that has so often characterized the American Right, even when it has attained power at the highest levels of government and society. Of the last six Republican presidents, three (Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush) had strong ties to movement conservatism, while three others (Eisenhower, Ford, George H. W. Bush) did not. The differences between the two groups had less to do with policy than with politics. The first three pursued a revanchist course in which institutional conflicts--waged against the other branches of government or against the "permanent government" of the executive--were part of a broader ideological campaign too urgent to be trusted to the traditional channels of governance. This resulted in breaches of conduct widely deemed illegal--and even impeachable (Watergate, Iran-contra, various aspects of "the war on terror"). In contrast, "merely" Republican leaders from Eisenhower to the first Bush respected the established boundaries of constitutional precedent, even if it meant carrying out actions imposed by hostile congressional majorities and adversarial courts.

Author: Editor of the New York Times book review section as well as the newspaper's Week in Review section, political commentator, author of Whittaker Chambers: A Biography.

Basic premise: The current moral and political bankruptcy of the Republican Party is due to the rise over the past 75 years of one radical branch of the conservatism movement. While the more realistic, temperate conservatives in the past half century or so attempted to create with liberals a "politics of stability," these radical conservatives sought to undermine belief in government and the machinations of democracy itself. At long last, it appears the public is rejecting the scorched-earth radicals and have sent the GOP out into the wilderness to reflect, repent and reform. Because America needs an honorable conservative wing as a counterpoint to liberals, Tanenhaus argues, we should look forward to the day when the party is recharged with moderates (read: sane) people and belief in the efficacy of government is restored.

Readability/quality: Quick, easy read--almost like a broadside or pamphlet, but packs a lot of solid history into a small volume.

Who should read it: Those interested in the history and rise of conservatism; fans of Rick Perlstein's books would most definitely be interested in Tanenhaus' take on movement conservatives.

Problematic quote:

... attempts to depict Barack Obama as a radical or socialist dissolve under the most rudimentary examination of the facts. The decision by his team of conservative, Wall Street-infliected economists to fortify the banking system and improve the flow of credit is patently an attempt to salvage the free market, quite as the economic conservative Roosevelt tried to do in 1933. Obama's plan to extend health-coverage to the nearly fifty million Americans who lack it is pure Disraeli. And Obama's foreign policy, premised on diplomacy and multilateral concord, is as forceful a repudiation of the imperial presidency as we have seen in the modern era. All these are the actions of a leader who, while politically liberal, is temperamentally conservative and who has placed his faith in the durability--and renewability-- of American institutions.

Culturally, too, these are conservative times. The Right should revel in the emergence of a new generation of college students who have rediscovered the virtues of public service and volunteerism, and of business school graduates who are turning away from Wall Street, either to experiment with Internet commerce or to choose altogether different careers. What better evidence that the young are no longer alienated from our civil society and that the chasm between the "business elite" and the "adversary culture" is negotiable after all--and may someday narrow to extinction? So, too, conservatives should savor the embrace of "family values" by the nation's homosexual population, who seek the sanctuary--and responsibilities--of marriage and child-rearing, a development unthinkable a generation ago, when gays personified the excesses of the "alternative lifestyle."

I'd argue that "the virtues of public service and volunteerism" are actually progressive values, and a rediscovery of civic engagement is much more in line with New Deal liberal values than even traditional, moderate conservatism. To me, this kind of identification of public service and family values with traditional conservatism is unnecessarily (almost thoughtlessly) ceding ground that is not conservative ground to begin with.

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
By Chris Hedges
Nation Books: New York
Hardcover, 240 pages, $24.95
July 2009

Money quote:

Those who manipulate the shadows that dominate our lives are the agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers, bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters, public announcers, and television news personalities who create the vast stage for illusion. They are the puppet masters. No one achieves celebrity status, no cultural illusion is swallowed as reality, without these armies of cultural enablers and intermediaries. The sole object is to hold attention and satisfy an audience. These techniques of theater, as Boorstin notes, have leeched into politics, religion, education, literature, news, commerce, warfare, and crime. The squalid dramas played out for fans in the wrestling ring mesh with the ongoing dramas on television, in movies, and in the news, where "real-life" stories, especially those involving celebrities, allow news reports to become mini-dramas complete with a star, villain, a supporting cast, a good-looking host, and a neat, if often unexpected, conclusion.

Author: Foreign correspondent and Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, author of several respected books, including the notable War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning.

Basic premise: We are relentlessly marching toward despotism, enthralled by a trivializing culture that uses a mixture of fantasy, New Age mysticism, trash TV, celebrity gossip and pop Positive Psychology to distract ordinary Americans while the elite classes--politicians, media, corporate powerbrokers--ruthlessly strangle any sign of populism in the citizen ranks. Academics and journalists, long considered the guardians of middle-class and working-class concerns, have been seduced by the shadow play and are now part of the problem, even if they neither acknowledge nor perceive it. We are doomed.

Readability/quality: Lyrical, beautiful thoughtful writing. Depressing, haunting and grim. You shouldn't want to read it, but you do, and you're glad you did, but you can't stop thinking about it afterwards.

Who should read it: Anyone interested in the big, depressing sweep of history and neoliberal trends, implications and consequences. Ultimately, it's a great blend of Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine and Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided, mixed with scathing commentary on People magazine consciousness.

Problematic quote:

Our culture of illusion is, at its core, a culture of death. It will die and leave little of value behind. It was Sparta that celebrated raw militarism, discipline, obedience, and power, but it was Athenian art and philosophy that echoed down the ages to enlighten new worlds, including our own. Hope exists. It will always exist. It will not come through our structures or institutions, nor will it come through nation-states, but it will prevail, even if we as distinct individuals and civilizations vanish. The power of love is greater than the power of death. It cannot be controlled. It is about sacrifice for the other--something nearly every parent understands--rather than exploitation. It is about honoring the sacred. And power elites have for millennia tried and failed to crush the force of life. Blind and dumb, indifferent to the siren calls of celebrity, unable to bow before illusions, defying the lust for power, love constantly rises up to remind a wayward society of what is real and what is illusion. Love will endure, even if it appears darkness has swallowed us all, to triumph over the wreckage that remains.

Really, this final paragraph of the book, after 192 pages of stark, somber face-to-the-wind reality feels tacked on, to say the least. Telling everyone we're doomed, but the power of love will survive to the next generation through honoring the sacred ... well, it seems a little too close to the grim Christian tactic of telling people they'll have a better afterlife if they just accept their trials and poverty now. Perhaps Hedges is right in this last heroic paragraph, but if so, he spent a couple of hundred previous pages arguing otherwise, and this inconsistency takes a very slight shine off of an excellent (though gloomy) read.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Book reviews: Lincoln biographies from McGovern, White - Everything Alabama Blog

Posted: 10 Jan 2010 11:49 AM PST

By Press-Register Correspondent

January 10, 2010, 1:35PM

"A. Lincoln: A Biography" by Ronald White Jr. (Random, $35)

"Abraham Lincoln" by George S. McGovern (Times Books, $22)

Reviewed by DAVID HODO, Special to the Press-Register

2009 marked the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Much has been written about our most discussed, if not always beloved, president. "A. Lincoln: A Biography" by Ronald White Jr. and "Abraham Lincoln" by George S. McGovern are two biographies that are excellent, though markedly different from each other.

McGovern Lincon.jpgJake Roth/Associated PressFormer South Dakota senator George McGovern holds a copy of his book "Abraham Lincoln" in March 2009.McGovern was asked to write his book for The American Presidents Series. His credits as politician and academic are impressive. His book is brief and pointed. The information is accurate. He gets the facts straight. If you knew little about Abraham Lincoln, if you had to review a book for a class regarding Lincoln, this would be a good choice. But McGovern's portrait, though largely accurate, is decidedly one-dimensional. His statement that Lincoln "had almost always met with political disappointment" does not appear to be accurate. He served in the Illinois Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the Presidency, rather remarkable for a man with very limited formal education. McGovern alludes to Lincoln's faith, telling us that the president saw himself as an "instrument of God's will" but then he quickly moves on. What we get is a synopsis of sorts, a succinct portrayal of a remarkably complex man.

"A. Lincoln" is a much larger and more intricate biography. The title comes from the fact that Lincoln often signed his name that way, one of many modest idiosyncrasies that made him endearing. Ronald White has written before on both Abraham Lincoln and Christianity. While the biography is thoroughgoing, it does take a close look at the president's spiritual life.

Lincoln was a fascinating figure in terms of his inner workings. He could and did quote the Bible with great skill from a remarkable memory. Despite this adroitness, he was roundly criticized for not actually belonging to a church. He repeatedly was forced to defend himself against the charge of being irreligious.

He alternated severe melancholy requiring help from his friends (no psychiatry was available at that time) with an iron discipline and an ambition of gargantuan heights. He constantly saw the need for mentors and advisers. He steadily persevered. He had the unique ability to master new subjects when confronted with the need; for instance, he knew nothing about military tactics when he became president, but quickly educated himself. He possessed a remarkable ability to respect others, almost never denigrating an opponent, a discipline that modern politicians would do well to learn.

His ability to focus on a primary task, while assigning associated tasks to a lesser rung, appears to be part of his genius as a politician. He saw saving the Union as a far greater calling than abolishing slavery. He personally opposed slavery, but did not come to embrace emancipation until well into his presidency, and even that was somewhat because of the need to add soldiers to the ranks.

He had a cornucopia of contrasting character traits, some endearing, some perplexing. His genius was in blending them into a coherent whole. He always wanted to be consistent, the same before and after, win or lose. He seems to have succeeded well.

White's book invites comparisons to our current president. Both were elected from Illinois. Both were young when elected. Both possessed great tenacity. Last but not least, both were criticized for their religious beliefs.

Why are so many books written about a man dead 200 years? One reason, I believe, is our thirst for normality, for greatness, for how you do it right in a world too complex, too vicious.

These two books offer roadmaps. Both are good, in very different approaches to the same remarkable man, a great American.

David Hodo is a psychiatrist who practices in Selma.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.
Posted by at

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)