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Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy from 1453 to the Present
by Brendan Simms

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The Battle of Bretton Woods by Benn Steil

The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order
by Benn Steil

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Marks54 rated a book 1 of 5 stars

The Great Deformation by David A. Stockman

The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America
by David A. Stockman

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I have to admit it. I had to give up on this after getting about a quarter of the way through. In a 700 page book, that is about 175 pages.

Why did I quit on this? To start with, it is hugely overwritten and poorly edited. So even if I had liked it, I...more I have to admit it. I had to give up on this after getting about a quarter of the way through. In a 700 page book, that is about 175 pages.

Why did I quit on this? To start with, it is hugely overwritten and poorly edited. So even if I had liked it, I would have been spending about twice the time than would be the case for a good book. But there is much more to it than that.

Second, it is clearly revisionist history -- an attempt to go back to the onset of the financial crisis and claim that there really was not much of a crisis and that everything would have been fine had the market been allowed to work its wonders in a correction. I just don't accept this as a worthwhile intellectual enterprise, whether the topic is the financial crisis of 2008, the start of World War I, or some other topic. We don't get to do a replay and "what if history" can easily slide into lazy and bad history.

Third, the overarching argument has major inconsistencies. For example, one of the premises of the book is that Wall Street took over the Fed and the Treasury Department, which enabled the massive bailout of the banks through TARP and other programs. At the same time, however, the actions of Paulson and his cronies were inept, paranoid, panic-stricken and unnecessary. The clear impression is that Wall Street had engineered the takeover of the US Government by an inept panic-monger and his crew of young I-bank hangers on -- or something like that. One cannot have it both ways. Either Paulson was incompetent or he was the former head of Goldman Sachs and anything but incompetent.

Fourth, and more generally, the tone of the book is akin to the claim that "everything you have read about the financial crisis up until now has been wrong - read my book and I will set you right." Mr. Stockman did not say that, but that was clearly the tone. The problem with such a claim is that it is very difficult to separate a situation where only you are correct from one in which you are crazy.

I strongly believe that once a stinker has been identified, it is best to move on. That is what I have chosen to do here.(less)

Marks54 rated a book 3 of 5 stars

The Design of Business by Roger L. Martin

The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage
by Roger L. Martin

read in May, 2013

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This book is about "design thinking". What is that? Well, it is a combination of rational/analytical thinking (deductive/inductive) and intuitive thinking. Borrowing a term from CS. Peirce, it is "abductive" thinking. The process involves being able...more This book is about "design thinking". What is that? Well, it is a combination of rational/analytical thinking (deductive/inductive) and intuitive thinking. Borrowing a term from CS. Peirce, it is "abductive" thinking. The process involves being able to appreciate and sort through the mystery of the raw empirical world, shape initial intuitions and judgments into heuristics and then shape those further into algorithms.

Where does actual "design" -- what designers do -- fit in? Good question. It is supposed to fit in and their is a chapter that concerns a real firm that designs office furniture (Herman Miller). Design notions appear at various places in other chapters too, but this is not primarily a book about design, so let the buyer beware.

Design thinking is about facing those tensions and dichotomies that all businesses face in trying to prosper in competitive markets. They need to have good and effective products, but not over specialized. They need to be efficient, but also adaptable to changing conditions. They need to engage with their customers and employees but also need to be profitable and gain competitive advantage. They need to pursue reliability and validity. Get the idea? The idea is to present six chapters showing how successful firms and their leaders have confronted these persistent tensions and achieved some modicum of success. The concluding chapter restates these problems in the form of a solution to spur the reader to employ design thinking.

As an entry into the consultant/guru segment of trade business books, this is a good effort. The writing is clear, the buzzword count is somewhat suppressed, the example companies are interesting. Besides the author is onto something in looking at the interaction of design and business -- look at Apple's success. The trouble is that I am not sure how much progress is being made in this book. The recommendations boil down to the some combinations of recommendations that have been common in the genre for a long time - be fluid but organized, come up with good ideas, fit the best solutions, take the soft factors into consideration, listen to your employees, etc. I don't see where any resolutions are reached, although the author is careful not to claim any. The notion of looking at business functions organized around the key factor of good design work is intriguing, however, and makes this treatment a bit different from others.

The book has all the limitations of other guru books. The tone is a simplistic mixture of consulting and academia. Perhaps that is because the author is a consultant and an academic. One gets the sense that the meat of the examples is in the details of each situation - precisely those details that are covered in confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements. The book then becomes a general discussion of the approach that the author takes with clients -- a sort of marketing brochure for executives who might be interested in following up.

These books have a very short shelf life. This is a 2009 book and I had read some chapters earlier for various projects. In looking at them now, they seem dated. The author's consulting firm, Monitor, has gone bankrupt. Some of the companies profiled have undergone changes of fortune in the subsequent five years. For example, the head of Blackberry is profiled. To see how timing matters, run a 10 year stock profile on Blackberry and you will see that few now would see it as an exemplar company as it was seen in 2009.

Overall, if one finds this sort of book interesting, it is good for its genre and still has a few bits of information to provide.(less)

Marks54 rated a book 4 of 5 stars

Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea
by Mark Blyth

read in May, 2013

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Mark Blyth has written this terrific book as a history of a policy choice, The choice is austerity, which involves financial belt-tightening during times of recession or depression, including raising taxes, cutting social transfer payments, raising i...more Mark Blyth has written this terrific book as a history of a policy choice, The choice is austerity, which involves financial belt-tightening during times of recession or depression, including raising taxes, cutting social transfer payments, raising interest rates, and other related actions.

The choice of austerity has always struck me as an odd one. Why cut welfare payments just at the time when people are more likely to be out of work and in need of them? Why raise taxes when times are bad and businesses and people are struggling and making less, if anything? It just seems so counter-intuitive.

What makes the book especially timely is that austerity is actively under consideration in both the US and Europe. It is laced throughout the fiscal cliff arguments about taxes and government spending. It is at the heart of current EU policies for bringing about fiscal stability and relieving the plight of the PIIGS countries.

How does one provide a history of a policy choice? Well, you start by outlining the importance of the idea in current policy debates in the US and Europe. Blyth then goes back to show the intellectual history of the idea, beginning with Locke, Hume, and Smith and moving up to current post-war European economic theorists. After he traces the intellectual history of the idea, he traces the evidence of how austerity has worked in practice -- where it has been tried and what the results were. In doing so, he goes over the latest econometric work purporting to show the effectiveness of austerity in the current European context around the 2008 financial crisis.

So what does he find out? Well, you can guess from the title that Blyth is not a fan of austerity as a macroeconomic policy option. The details of the entire case he presents are fascinating and I found the book to be extremely well done. It will even be interesting for those used to going directly to the research, since copious references are provided. Blyth does a very good job of translating very involved research into an informative narrative that is accessible to a broader public. The story does get involved, however, and even with the author's communication skills, there are sections that may be tough sledding for some. Recall, however, that this is an argument and a case is being made. If you buy the case, some stridency is acceptable I suppose. But the Blyth does admit that sometimes austerity may be defensible. As to his recommendations, it is not necessary to accept them to buy the argument. ... But is Iceland really a model for how to handle a crisis? That requires more processing. Perhaps the last chapter is too much.

This is a wonderful way to write about social and economic policy in a way that is valuable to many readers. I hope more authors follow this example.(less)

Marks54 rated a book 4 of 5 stars

The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream
by Thomas Dyja (Goodreads Author)

read in May, 2013

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Thomas Dyja has written a wonderful social and cultural history of Chicago that spans the time period from the death of Louis Sullivan at the start of the Great Depression until the death of Walter Paepcke, the CCA executive who served as "Chicago's...more Thomas Dyja has written a wonderful social and cultural history of Chicago that spans the time period from the death of Louis Sullivan at the start of the Great Depression until the death of Walter Paepcke, the CCA executive who served as "Chicago's Medici" by funding many of the art and design initiatives of the period that brought such renown to the city during this period. The story goes far beyond art, architecture, photography, and design to cover popular music (blues, soul, rock, jazz), literature, All of these stories are tied together in a broader narrative of politics, both national and local, and broader cultural and social developments, especially the civil rights movement. There is a huge amount of information here and the trick is organizing it so it doesn't come across as just a huge amount of information. Dyja does this by focusing on a few of the major actors who were critical to Chicago's development. Mies and Frank Lloyd Wright are covered. Nelson Algren and Simone De Beauvoir are another central pair. Mayor Daley is a key to the second half of the book. Hutchins and Adler, along with the Great Books, are another recurring pair. What I found most interesting were the portraits of the Chess brothers of Chess Records, and the large group of musicians that they worked with, including Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. (The musicians are especially interesting because as an early classic recording is mentioned, one can easily look it up on YouTube.) This is only a small sampling, however, of a very complex scene.

Dyja tells a good story and has an opinion on almost everything covered. The last trait is a bit annoying at times and sounds a bit like some recycling is going on, but this doesn't happen too often. Dyja is especially good at weaving together the stories of the different actors to produce memorable combinations. The link between Studs Terkel and Mahalia Jackson was one that I had missed and is fascinating. I think the author is a fan of Chicago, although in parts the story suggests more of a "love-hate" relationship. This is especially clear in his judgments on the period of the first Mayor Daley (Richard J.) whose machine presided over and enshrined many of the city's bad habits and suppressed the black community in favor of developers. This is not a new critical take on the city's history, but the account of Chicago presented here has both strengths and weaknesses, highlights and blemishes.

This is a rewarding book and should be essential for anyone interested in Chicago It fits in nicely with a number of good Chicago books in recent years, such as the Devil in the White City, City of Scoundrels, Sex in the Second City, and The Warmth of Other Suns (in which one of the three critical biographies is about a move to Chicago).(less)

Marks54 wants to read

Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century
by Christian Caryl (Goodreads Author)

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Marks54 made a comment on Steve Jobs — Steve jobs or bill gates? "For what? As what? A better question.would be helpful. There is a small time wasting niche on the web comparing them, so some more focus would help. G...more "
10 hours, 12 min ago
Marks54 wants to read Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy from 1453 to the Present by Brendan Simms	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 19, 2013 05:50am
Marks54 is currently reading The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order by Benn Steil	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 17, 2013 06:52pm
Marks54 rated a book 1 of 5 stars The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David A. Stockman	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I have to admit it. I had to give up on this after getting about a quarter of the way through. In a 700 page book, that is about 175 pages. Why did I quit on this? To start with, it is hugely overwritten and poorly edited. So even if I had liked it, I...more
May 17, 2013 06:02pm · see review
Marks54 rated a book 3 of 5 stars The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage by Roger L. Martin read in May, 2013	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This book is about "design thinking". What is that? Well, it is a combination of rational/analytical thinking (deductive/inductive) and intuitive thinking. Borrowing a term from CS. Peirce, it is "abductive" thinking. The process involves being able...more
May 16, 2013 02:06pm · see review
Marks54 rated a book 4 of 5 stars Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth read in May, 2013	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Mark Blyth has written this terrific book as a history of a policy choice, The choice is austerity, which involves financial belt-tightening during times of recession or depression, including raising taxes, cutting social transfer payments, raising i...more
May 15, 2013 07:35pm · see review
Marks54 rated a book 4 of 5 stars The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream by Thomas Dyja (Goodreads Author) read in May, 2013	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Thomas Dyja has written a wonderful social and cultural history of Chicago that spans the time period from the death of Louis Sullivan at the start of the Great Depression until the death of Walter Paepcke, the CCA executive who served as "Chicago's...more
May 12, 2013 10:00am · see review
Marks54 wants to read Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century by Christian Caryl (Goodreads Author)	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
May 06, 2013 06:12pm

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