The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2011 05:18 PM PDT Guide to the 50 Economic Indicators That Really Matter Authors: Simon Constable and Robert E. Wright Publisher: Harper Business This guide by The Wall Street Journal offers investors powerful new tools to help them analyse the markets. The two authors also help readers to pick out what to watch out for, what to do when movement happens and the risk level involved in taking action. An enlightening book that offers essential advice on navigating the global economic climate. Hostage At The Table: How leaders can overcome conflict, influence others and raise performance Author: George Kohlrieser Publisher: JosseyBass The author explains that only by openly facing conflict that we can truly progress through the most difficult business challenges. A provocative book with psychological insights that can be applied to personal and business relationships. Some key concepts include learning to bond, the importance of communication, establishing trust, mastering your mind and never think you are the victim. Think Smart, Work Smarter Author: Tremaine Du Preez Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Business Our mind produces up to 60,000 thoughts a day. Most of these are responsible for the decisions that we make. These decisions, in turn, determine success or failure, both professionally and personally. However, throughout our lives, we are taught what to think, not how to think. Information overload, short time frames and past failures can make even simple decisions and problems daunting. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Going back in time for business reasons Posted: 29 Jul 2011 05:18 PM PDT Title: Civilization: The West and the Rest ONE of the world's leading historians of our time, Niall Ferguson does not only write with dashing panache, but also pulsing energy with which history burst right out of the pages like fireworks. For these reasons, I was compelled to toil on this subject I admittedly have limited knowledge on but nevertheless am intrigued by his latest book – Civilization: The West and the Rest. The principal question addressed in this book is the question I have often I asked myself. Just why and how the West is more sophisticated that the East, if it had been commonly known that the East, China mainly, was once the centre of scientific revolution and spiritual enlightenment? Had there been a western epoch during which the East was completely taken over, and if so, what happened? This book answers both of my questions completely and more. It takes me as far back as the 1400s when some of the main civilisations – the West, India, China, Byzantine and Islam – interacted. It is this interaction that has given rise to our world today. Human civilisation, spanned through a series of societies and countless economic trajectories, is the longest story in the world but Ferguson makes this long journey interesting and malleable by breaking 600 years of history into six important aspects – Competition, Science, Property rights, Medicine, Consumer society and Work ethnic. These six key aspects, as keen readers will notice, form the framework of Western society modeled by many countries across the globe. That said, coupled with the title of the book, reader may think of Ferguson as another of those self-serving writers who likes to delve into the triumph of the West. But Ferguson begs you to hold that premature judgement early in the introduction, lest you abandon this valuable book and walk off. Throughout the book, which he has written with the help of a host of people of different background and nationality, he shows how the West had come to the conquest and colonisation of so many parts of the world. According to him, the West's ascendancy was aided by fortuitous weaknesses or decline that were taking place in rivaling civilisations such as the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century and the Ottoman Empire in 17th century. By the 18th century, the West's edge over the Orient and Persia was a matter of brainpower and gunpowder. Ferguson seems to have been born to tell historic stories for he tells them with zeal and aplomb. Frederick the Great might as well wake to attest to his crisp analysis on the rise of Prussia while Suleiman the Magnificent might salute for his acknowledgement of Muslim's contributions to math and science. Indeed so and Fergusonis not shy about making definitive claims and he backs them up with many facts and his own take on them. I am not sufficiently well read to doubt a lot of what he says, but all I can promise you is a joyful reading experience whether or not you agree with Ferguson's accounts and conclusions. Civilisation rises and falls. Is decline and fall the looming fate facing the West? Very much so, according to Ferguson, and he has reasons to be prescient. The population of Western nations has long begun to decline, so has power of many Western countries such as Germany, United Kingdom and the United States. What more, loss of confidence, as well as deterioration of infrastructure, competitiveness and education, has made the West increasingly less appealing. Yet, the attempt to argue on the possibility of the West's decline is futile if it is without identification of the true causes of Western ascendancy. Hence, whether it is to satisfy our curiosity or to allow business people an accurate estimate on the imminence of Western decline, Ferguson embarked on a journey. This wonderful book is the result of his voyage back in time. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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