Review of Insider Strategies for Outsourcing Information Systems: Building Productive Partnerships, Avoiding Seductive Traps (Hardcover)

As a consultant involved in strategy change and training, I have seen the fruitless internal conflict over who is to blame when new systems are late or clumsy to implement.Any company involved in or considering new systemsdevelopment will find Ripin and Sayles an invaluable resource fornegotiating with potential vendors and facilitating IS developmentprojects.They stress what is so often forgotten: the critical role ofline manager and user participation ... including more realistic trade-offsbetween costs (and failure risks) and ambitious client wish lists.Theirvivid case studies illustrate how client managers obtain new skills byproject participation that enable them to make more effective use of thesecostly new technologies and even to fine tune applications.Outsourcerprofessionals and client staff and line managers will find Ripin and Saylesan engaging, well documented, and widely useful book on developing andimplementing new information systems.A must read!



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Review of A Citizen's Guide to Ecology (Hardcover)

If you want to learn about the science of ecology .... here's the book to read.. It it is scholarly, without being didactic --- entertaining, without being trivial.

The author seems to come right out of the pages and invite the reader into his thoughts.You'll find yourself immersed in the subject, and talking back with questions, which seem to answer themselves as you go on to subsquent pages.

I didn't become an expert in the subject by reading this book, but I certainly did gain a greater respect for it, as well as for the author.Read it!!



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Review of A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Hardcover)

The term neoliberalism is usually heard in the pejorative sense, often coming from Latin American leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.The term refers to an international economic policy that has been predominant in policy-making circles and university economics departments since the 1970's.The four faces on the cover of this book (Reagan, Deng, Pinochet, and Thatcher) are considered by David Harvey the primemovers of this economic philosophy.Reagnomics, Thatcherism, Deng's capitalism with Chinese characteristics, and Pinochet's free market policies marked the beginning of new era of global capitalism.

Neoliberlism as a philosophy holds that free markets, free trade, and the free flow of capital is the most efficient way to produce the greatest social, political, and economic good.It argues for reduced taxation, reduced regulation, and minimal government involvement in the economy.This includes the privitization of health and retirement benefits, the dismantling of trade unions, and the general opening up of the economy to foreign competition.Supporters of neoliberlism present this as an ideal system.Detractors, such as Harvey, see it as a power grab by economic elites and a race to the bottom for the rest.

In this short, but very well researched book, Harvey charts the capital flows of the last thiry years.In the 1970's, there was the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, with its fixed exchange rates, tariff barriers, and capital controls.It gave way to floating currencies and high trading volumes.Capital started searching the globe for comparative advantage.Proponents claimed that this routed out corruption and inefficiencies, while opponents saw instability and exploitation.Indeed, Harvey produces ample statistics showing how the rich got richer and the poor stagnated.More surprisingly, he points out that the aggregate economic growth during the years of Keynesian management (the decades between World War II and the 1970's) was greater than during the neoliberal era (the 1970's to the present).The neoliberal era benefitted mainly the wealthy.In the US, the richest 1% now control 15% of the wealth as opposed to 8% at the end of World War II.

When Reagan and Thatcher came to power in the late 1970's and early 1980's they used their control of the IMF and World Bank to impose neoliberal policies on the developing world - especially Latin American countries.In the case of Chile, Pinochet - after violently ousting the Allende government - instituted free market policies as prescribed by the Chicago school, and was relatively successful.Other Latin American countries were not so successful, and it created a backlash of populist nationalisms in the form of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.

The section on China is one of the best in the book: "Neoliberalism with Chinese Characteristics".Harvey points out that China is not a pure neoliberal state.There is still heavy state intervention in the economy and management of the currency. And as a further criticiem of neoliberalism,he reminds us that China has produced some of the highest growth rates - 9 to 10 percent annually.On the downside, the gap between the rich and poor is growing, and because their currency is held artificially low they are building dangerous overcapacity.

Neither does the US, for that matter, operate according to neoliberal principles.Even as it is urging other countries to maintain minimal goverment and balanced budgets, it is running huge deficits and issuing ever more t-bills to cover its excess spending.

With China and the US - two linchpins in the world economy - not playing according to the rules of the game a crisis is bound to happen.One country is totally geared toward producing and exporting, while the other is content with importing, consuming, and creating more debt.Harvey believes that the global economic readjustment that is going to take place will be painful and possibly violent.

Harvey's excellent little book illustrates, once again, that the perfect market, presupposed by neoliberalism and classical liberalism, does not exist.Unfortunately, he does not offer any remedies to rectify the current situation, nor does he offer an alternative system.Nevertheless, this book is very insightful.



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Review of Contemporary Iran: Economy, Society, Politics (Hardcover)

Contemporary Iran is a collection of documented and highly detailed research papers by authors of the first quality. Great Reference! If the information you seek is not contained in the volume, the Bibliographies will take the reader there. All black and white keeps the cost down, but the charts are easy to understand. Permits the reader to unravel much of the current mystery of Iran and to develop a third order of knowing the Land of the Persians.



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Review of Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus (Hardcover)

Perhaps I will end up buying the Oxford English Reference Dictionary at some point, but presently, this Oxford American Dictionary and Thesaurus 1st Ed is great.I don't care about slang or computer definitions in my dictionary, English has always been English, and while American may be different in spelling, it is still English.Internet, blog, PCMCIA, ARP, .NET, Mono, etc... is in computer books, which is where it should be.I don't expect my dictionary to have the recipe for Rice Balls or the proper pronunciation of this common variation of a Japanese dish, now perhaps coming towards being cross-cultural.I expect that information to be in a cookbook.

However, in words, it's wonderful.Why?That's easy; I believe it's because it had 'anfractuosity' as well as the minimum of 3 decent definitions for 'numinous'.This was the smallest dictionary I could find that had all the words in the Prologue of 'The Problem of Pain' by CS Lewis.Any dictionary that can match words with the vocabulary that CS Lewis expressed is all that I need.

Some other thoughts... I've been reading dictionary reviews for 20 minutes, and I think there are too many people that are trying to get subject specific with their dictionaries.Dictionaries should be ENGLISH specific.It's all this slang, idioms, and subject specific vocabulary that has dropped my vocabulary to sad terms.Between that application, and the genuine desire of individuals around the world to give the wrong definition to words such as feminine, it's no wonder the young are becoming less educated while spending more time in school.

New English... There is no such thing.English is English.It's been essentially the same for much longer than I've been alive.

Still, you should definitely get a dictionary of slang and idioms.It's good to know what people are saying in a specific region/country.





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Review of Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions: Making Sense of Transatlantic English (Hardcover)

I bought this author's book on London and happened to notice that he wrote this one too, so I picked it up. Glad I did! It's really just what I needed for understanding the ins and outs of British English. Everything is treated by subject matter and I have found the book a real gold mine for trying to figure out just what people are talking about here (in London). The methodical presentation of spelling differences is really informative - it goes a lot deeper than I thought! The chapter on grammar is useful too, and I skipped some of the technical terminology but the examples of usage really told me what I needed to know. And I actually started hearing a lot of this stuff, as soon as I read about it. Spooky! Maybe people were using these constructions all along and I just blanked it out because I didn't really understand everything. All the chapters that treat different subject areas are also laid out well, and I found the one on health and healthcare really helpful in my job; it's mind-blowing how different the NHS is from US healthcare, you really have to learn a whole new vocabulary for dealing with it (I thought surgery was something a doctor did, not a place where he worked!). The chapter about swear words and other language you should avoid is a hoot! And really, the author's sense of humor comes through everywhere; I found myself chuckling all the way through it, at the same time I was learning. Thanks to this book, I can follow a cricket match or read an article about one and actually understand what they're talking about. Who knew that would ever happen? I really recommend this book strongly to any American who deals with, or wants to get better acquainted with British English; it would probably also be useful for Brits trying to understand Yanks.



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Review of New Frontiers in Cognitive Aging (Hardcover)

Outstanding overview in a readable yet scholarly presentation.Up to date information usefule for researchers as well as lay people.



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Review of Derivatives: Valuation and Risk Management (Hardcover)

I have used Miller & Dubofsky to teach my undergraduate options class in the past and this year I switched to Hull (7th edition).I find that I much prefer the way Miller & Dubofsky is organized. A good example would be the treatment of forwards and futures.Miller & Dubofsky begin with forwards and move on to futures.In Hull they are treated together and this serves to confuse students, especially when it comes to valuation and marking to market.Another strength of the book is that risk management is addressed right away whereas in Hull it seems to be an afterthought.Hull's notation is also quite confusing for students.Hull tries to do everything using continuously compounded rates but for many instruments (FRAs and Interest Rate Swaps for instance) this is not possible.The result is a mish-mash of compounding conventions in the same formula.

There are a few weaknesses of the Miller & Dubofsky text as well but these tend to be minor.I think it would benefit by a second edition.




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Review of The Timber Bubble that Burst: Government Policy and the Bailout of 1984 (Hardcover)

Increadable Amasing Futureistic my joy at readinggoverment policy great magic inspiring I know things I never new before. Beutifull cover inspireing pages. Bright spitful interactive we are all hope full for abetter future



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Review of Recalibrating Retirement Spending and Saving (Hardcover)

Recalibrating Retirement Spending and Saving. John Ameriks and Olivia S. Mitchell, eds. Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-199-54910-8, 320 pages. doi:10.1017/S1474747209004077
Two leading researchers, John Ameriks and Olivia S. Mitchell, have organized and contributed to a highly informative and thought provoking book aimed at enhancing retiree financial decision making and security. It provides new analyses that helps us better understand the behavior of the retired population and a number of practical ideas. All the articles are uniformly good, and I comment only on a selected few.
2 Book reviews
The first section of the book covers key issues affecting retirement security. Sewin Chan and Ann Huff Stevens analyze the HRS to measure the extent of ``retirement reversal, '' and they find that about one in three older people move from a more retired to less retired state at some point. Combine that with the tendency to a variegated path to retirement, rather than retirement at once, highlights the need to re-conceptualize what retirement means. Erik Hurst conducts a careful analysis of several datasets to evaluate declines in consumption after retirement. He demonstrates that most types of spending stay the same or increase, but work-related consumption, such as for clothing, transportation, and expenditures for food, do decline. Less spending for clothing and transportation are easy to understand, food expenditures are more complex. But Hurst shows that, in most cases, retirees do not suffer a decline in the quality of food; rather better shopping habits and increased home production are mainly responsible. About one-fifth of the retired population does suffer a decline in food expenditures caused by economic want, and many of those experienced a health shock and retired involuntarily. This leads Hurst to the interesting suggestion that insurance products be developed to protect people's consumption when they suffer a health shock.
The second section addresses the impact of tax policy on Individual Retirement Account (IRA) withdrawals, bequests, and the ideal timing of Social Security claiming. Sarah Holden and Brian Reid offer an excellent analysis of withdrawals from IRAs. They show that individuals tend to hold onto IRAs as long as possible, and Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) are the main reason for withdrawals. To some extent, this indicates that tax policy has worked to keep these accumulations for retirement and old age, and to some extent it indicates a desire to maintain principal. James Mahaney and Peter Carlson contributed an excellent article on the ideal time to claim Social Security. They show that, for most primary earners, claiming benefits as late as possible is beneficial. Today, most workers do not do that so more effective claiming strategies can importantly strengthen financial security.
The third section brings forward a number of new ideas for financial strategies and products that promise to help retirees manage their assets more efficiently. William Sharpe, Jason Scott, and John Watson demonstrate convincingly that two financial strategies frequently recommended by financial advisors are sub-optimal. Specifically, it is inefficient to move assets from equities to fixed investments, when not accompanied by advice on how to adjust spending to market conditions. For example, it can be dangerous to propose the typical ``4% rule, '' which advises that a retiree should start withdrawing this fraction of assets and then adjust upward by inflation, particularly when accompanied with advice to keep a substantial asset allocation in equities. The authors propose a better rule than one tied to investments.
Several articles deal with annuitization and health. Cassio Turra and Olivia Mitchell use modeling, supplemented by an analysis of HRS data to indicate that health conditions and anticipated out-of-pocket health care expenses often make life annuities sub-optimal with current life annuity pricing, which assumes anti-selection. The authors conclude that life annuities that provide higher payouts when there is a medical shock would make the product more attractive to many. John Ameriks, Andrew Caplan, Steven Laufer and Stijn Van Nieuweburgh examine the impact of Medicaid aversion and the bequest motive on receptivity to annuitize. Medicaid aversion is the level of undesirability of depending upon Medicaid to pay for long term care costs. They find that people who desire to leave an estate and the Medicaid-averse desire to have cash, making life annuities less attractive due to their lesser liquidity. This leads the authors to suggest annuity structures that provide additional funds if the need arises for long term care. They model the higher level of interest for these products among the segment who have no bequest motive and are Medicaid-averse (the best target market for this product). Finally, David Brazell, Jason Brown and Mark Warshwsky discuss a combination life annuity and long term care insurance approach, one granted tax benefits under the 2009 Pension Protection Act. Combining insurance protection against long term care costs with a life annuity is believed to reduce anti-selection, reduce the cost of long term care insurance, and help extend protection against covered risks.
Book reviews 3
One of the book's important contributions is its deeper understanding of the retired population's heterogeneity and the need for specific solutions for key segments, particularly since many retirees are not in excellent health. Overall, the articles cover important topics and are well researched, and it offers a welcome mix of authors, both academics and practitioners. The volume will be of interest to a broad range of people, providing academics with new insights and suggestions for research questions, policymakers with suggestions for enhancing retirement security, private market product designers with new ideas for insurance products and insights on target markets, and financial advisors who will find a critique of some commonly used financial strategies.
MATHEW GREENWALD
Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc.



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Review of The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (Hardcover)

Make no mistake about it.The snide comment by Washington Post reviewer Michael Hout above indicates a fundamental inability to comprehend what Shapiro is saying.Why would Hout choose to write this in his review?:

"Families and generations are at the core of Shapiro's analysis. So I was surprised that he did not directly address how marriage and family structure fit into the cycles of accumulation, inheritance and investment. Married couples accumulate more wealth than single parents do, according to other researchers. That suggests to me that African-American family issues must play a role in the wealth gap."

Hout obviously is attempting to make a point about the high rate of single parent families within Black America, and is implying that if only Black women chose to marry the fathers of their babies that they would not suffer many of the consequences Shapiro lays out in his book.There is but one problem:Shapiro addresses this lame-ass "culture of poverty" nonsense repeatedly in his book, and convincingly shows that even if Black marriage rates were equal to white rates that African-Americans would STILL have less wealth, educational opportunities, and transformative assets.Moreover, Shapiro does a good job of pointing out the motivations behind WHY whites like Mr. Houst consistenly resort to the same trite culturalist arguments of Black pathology when confronted with the troubling facts:they can't bring themselves to admit that their white privilege was constructed and is maintained at the expense of people of color, especially Blacks, because it shatters their deep-seated need to believe that they "earned" everything that they have instead of having been bequeathed it as a result of generations of racial prejudice and institutional racism.

Perhaps the sublety of Mr. Shapiro's argument was a tad too much for Mr. Houst and his editors at the Washington Post.

If anything, Shapiro's argument can be argued from a left perspective to be an insufficient "liberal" formulation that refuses to engage and critique the structural inequalities of capitalism head-on, substituting a Ford Foundation-esque "asset accumulation" prescription for maladies that require far more radical measures.As authors such as Manning Marable have noted for years, much of American capitalism was structurally DESIGNED to UNDERDEVELOP Black America and continues to operate in this fashion.Thus arguing that Blacks simply need "more" wealth in order to achieve racial parity overlooks many sociological and anthropological insights about race developed over the past thirty years, as well as many Marxian insights about race that have been floating around for years as well.

Still, even as a half-measure, this is a highly enlightening and challenging read.It is sure to make many white families uncomfortable because they will probably see themselves in much of what Shapiro writes.Which is the point.



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Review of The Legacy of Fischer Black (Hardcover)

This book is an elucidation of the applied science of financial economics, as told through a dozen chapters contributed by many of the preeminent researchers in the field.While none of the material draws directly from Fischer Black's own work, the spirit of the research is what drove Lehmann to select these particular examples.Most of the twelve chapters in this volume derive from talks given at the 1996 Berkeley conference on finance in honor of Fischer Black.In addition to these historic presentations, Lehmann added his own comprehensive summary of the work of Fischer Black, from the Sharpe-Treynor CAPM applied to Black's relatively overlooked wheat economy model, to Black's zero-beta CAPM, to Black's empirical investigations and collaborations, to the Black-Scholes-Merton options pricing model, to his work on international asset pricing and asset allocation, as well as Black's rigorous treatment of business cycles and macroeconomics.Also fortuitously added is a contribution on "Crisis and Risk Management" by one of Black's most famous collaborators, Myron Scholes, who provides an excellent review of this critical subject from the unique perspective ofa Nobel Laureate with first-hand experience in managing the Long Term Capital Management liquidity crisis.Also added is a beautiful review of the contributions of Black, Merton and Scholes to economics by the 2003 Financial Engineer of the Year as voted by the IAFE, Darrell Duffie.

Stewart Myers, who in 1976 published Black's "Dividend Puzzle" paper, as well as Black's astounding reinterpretation of Jack Treynor's1962-1963 MIT presentations of CAPM, in his wonderful text "Modern Developments in Financial Management", reviews Black's many contributions to corporate finance, including real options and accounting issues.

Bob Litterman provides a treatment of risk budgeting as currently practiced at Goldman Sachs, many of the approaches having been pioneered when Black was a partner there.This chapter reminded me of my days as a young analyst in Goldman's Asset Management division, when the following story circulated amongst the troops: At one presentation on risk management to some brokers, someone in the audience asked Black, who was the presenter, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" To which Black calmly reflected for a moment and then replied, "If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?"

Although there is no substantial difference between the models in Black-Litterman (1991) and Black's earlier collaboration with Jack Treynor in their 1973 paper, "How to Use Security Analysis to Improve Portfolio Selection",Lehmann's compilation treats theearlier paper for the first time in Steve Ross' excellent chapter on noisy rational expectations.This chapter provides a theoretical explanation for the existence of intermediation in capital markets, such as mutual funds, which accommodates an unstable equilibrium.

Mark Rubinstein and Jens Jackwerth's chapter on imputing risk-neutral probabilities from options prices, asset prices and the risk-free rate takes a general equilibrium approach much similar to the approach favored by Black.Scott Richard adds a negatively-correlated factor to the one-factor model of Black-Karasinski in order to better price term structure derivatives.Douglas Breeden examines the empirical negative convexity (why don't they simply refer to it as "concavity"?) in the mortgage market.Huang and Stoll examine the returns of liquidity providers on the NYSE and find thatliquidity providers such as specialists and dealers profit at the expense of public limit orders.

Brennan, Chordia and Subrahmanyam analyze 13 years of data, use individual securities in order to avoid the problems associated with forming artificial portfolios, and, using APT-style factors, find that after adjusting for risk, mean asset returns are significantly related to certain firm characteristics: size, analyst following, membership in the S&P 500 index, 12 month lagged returns, and the bid-ask spread (negative!).Lehmann provides a discussion of the Brennan et al paper in Chapter 8, discussing the problematic nature of their task, suggesting potential methodological improvements to their procedure and discussing the portfolio formation issue as well as the data-mining aspect of the specification searches.

While a title like "The Legacy of Fischer Black" might whet potential readers' appetites for a volume reprinting Black's own work, Lehmann has done a masterful job of both describing Black's own work and assembling a current group of research that is similar in spirit to the type of work in which Black was interested and engaged.This volume, paired perhaps with Perry Mehrling's "Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance" will provide the reader with a relatively comprehensive overview of the incredible work in economics performed by Fischer Black and his successors.





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Review of Global Banking (Economics & Finance) (Hardcover)

A great book. Exciting to read, clearly written and full of practical insights into global banking.Discusses tenable strategies for financial firms world-wide and contains insights that are difficult to find anywhereelse.The authors taught a course based on this book at INSEAD and thebook retains the liveliness and rigor of that excellent course.

A mustbuy for anyone connected with or interested in the structure and strategiesof global finance firms.



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Review of Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English (Hardcover)

No other book on my bookshelf is more worn out. I use it all the time. When I started to study English I used to use an English / Portuguese (my first language) dictionary but I could only actually improve my English when I started using the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

The dictionary has lots of pictures (over 1700) for words that can be explained but for which a picture is much more effective like "hinge". The words have a pronunciation guide with a mark (') showing the main stress. There are many useful appendixes like irregular verbs conjugation, usage of numbers, punctuation, family relationships and a few colorful maps.

Over 220 usage notes clarify the subtle differences among words such as dealer trader and merchant. Although it's mainly a British English dictionary the differences in spelling, use or pronunciation between American English and British English are stressed.

By far the most interesting feature is the extremely reduced defining vocabulary constituted of 3500 words. The great majority of definitions are written using that reduced defining vocabulary. This simplifies the definitions and it's a great starting vocabulary for the beginners. The use of such a small defining vocabulary rules out the use of this dictionary as a thesaurus but the advantages compensate this drawback.

My copy is a paper back that has been reinforced with adhesive tape. This makes the dictionary lighter and handy. I used to put it on my back pack and take it to all my classes when I started college in USA.

The drawbacks are the need of an additional thesaurus and the fact that the entries are not syllabified. Nevertheless I would give it 10 stars if I could.

Leonardo Alves - December 2000



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Review of Garner's Modern American Usage (Hardcover)

For three generations, a single book dominated the market as the authoritative reference in matters of grammar, style, and usage in the English language: "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" by H.W. Fowler, first published in 1926, ably revised by Sir Ernest Gowers in 1965, and now in its third edition (published 1996). But by the century's last quarter, the modern English language -- particularly its American dialect -- had begun outgrowing Fowler, and several newer guides began competing with it. The third (1996) edition of Fowler was a disappointment, and left the field without a clear leading authority.

That gap was filled in 1998, when Bryan A. Garner wrote "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage" (published by the Oxford University Press, which also published Fowler). Finally, someone had written a book that matched Fowler -- not only in its erudition, but also in its accessible style, and even its wry sense of humor. And Garner's book had the advantages of being written both in modern times for a modern audience, and in the United States by an American author about American English. The book is a gem, and as authoritative a reference as you will find in this field in the last several decades (and probably the next several too).

"Garner's Modern American Usage" is this oustanding work's second edition, now retitled after its author in view of the acclaim that the first edition earned. A new edition is appearing after only five years because, as Garner explains, "changing usage isn't really the primary basis for a new edition of a usage guide: it's really a question of having had five more years for research." The payoff shows. And the second edition builds upon the first: the first edition was a dictionary of words in usage, rather than words about usage, and therefore assumed that the reader possessed a certain working knowledge of basic grammatical terms and concepts. For example, the first edition didn't define such basic terms as "sentence," "phrase," "clause," "word," or "part of speech." The second edition appends a glossary that defines many such basic concepts. It also appends, as did the first edition, an 11-page chronology of books about usage, which illustrates both the rich tradition that Garner's work joins, as well as the tremendous resources upon which he drew in producing this magnum opus.



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Review of The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance (Hardcover)

Lester Salamon's edited book, "The Tools of Government," is an immensely useful work that identifies the various tools that government has today to effect its goals.Government policy-making has changed in recent decades.Now, problem solving by the public sector is not carried out by government alone.Nonprofits and the private sector have become involved, too.As Salamon notes (page vii): "Largely overlooked. . .has been the extent to which actual public problem solving has come to embrace the collaborative actions of governments at multiple levels and both government and private institutions."

A table on page 3 well illustrates this thesis.This table shows that:

(1) In social service delivery, 56% of services are delivered by nonprofits, 4% by for-profits, and 40% by government.

(2) In health, 44% of services are delivered by nonprofits, 23% by for-profits, and 33% by government.And so on.In reality, public service delivery is a complex mixture of government and non-governmental actors.

This volume describes the various tools used by those who deliver services--from economic regulation to government corporations to vouchers to grants to loans to tort liability to contracting and so on.The point is simple: there are many tools that can be used to achieve public goals--whether those services are actually delivered by the private sector, not-for-profits, or government itself.

However, tools are not developed and deployed in a vacuum.This volume also discusses the use of such tools in democracy and the nature of the politics of tool use.Also well discussed is accountability of the nonprofit, for-profit, and governmental sectors.

In the end, a well worthwhile book for those interested in how government decisions and priorities become implemented and services delivered.The book is not elegantly written, but there is much content here.



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Review of The Economics of Financial Markets (Hardcover)

This book presents the basic economic concepts behind daily activities onfinancial markets, such as stock price or exchange rate movement, and triesto explain the relations between them.It briefly introduces choice underuncertainty, risk aversion, portfolio optimization problems, marketefficiency hypothesis, and equilibrium of asset markets.In addition, theCapital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and Arbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) arepresented.It brings the most exciting part of academic evolution offinancial economics in the last three decades to the pubic with modestknowledge of mathematics.It also shows the weakness of these theories. Very self-contained and readable.However, if you want to pursue a groundunderstanding of these theories, you should go further.



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Review of Going Broke: Why Americans Can't Hold On To Their Money (Hardcover)

There are many things this book does well. (In fact, everything this book does, it does well.) First, and most remarkably, it tells stories. Not only is the author brave enough to reveal his own financial foibles, he includes interviews with individuals who have suffered financial ruin and lived to tell the tale. The stories are striking in their variety and poignancy, and they are made all the more salient by Vyse's beautifully written prose. The author paints a clear picture of his subjects' various crises, so that each story--no matter how different it may be from our own--has a sense of familiarity. We understand that these are fellow Americans who for the most part have worked hard and played by the rules, and we can't help recognizing their humanity and vulnerability as our own.

Moving beyond the stories that open each chapter, Vyse looks not only at the internal, "psychological" processes associated with financial difficulty--such as the seemingly inexplicable tendency to overpay for items on eBay--but he also uses a broad lens to examine the social and political forces that conspire against our best efforts to stay ahead in the financial game. Rather than simply attributing the bankruptcy epidemic to "shopaholism" or endemic self-indulgence (as many others blithely do), Vyse weaves together hard science, cultural criticism, and macroeconomic analysis to create a disturbing image of our personal--and national--economic landscape.

Finally, the majority of Vyse's suggestions for not going broke are practical, common-sense solutions that almost every American can employ. But even in presenting his suggestions, Vyse acknowledges that there are larger forces which need to be addressed before a majority of Americans can enjoy financial security. Far from being a panacea, Vyse presents his suggestions as something of a self-defense strategy in a world where our senses and sensibilities are constantly bombarded, and our financial futures are bought and sold by corporations without hesitation or regulation.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in human behavior, American culture, economics, politics, or public policy--and to anyone who just wants a good, thought-provoking read.




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Review of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) (Hardcover)

David Kennedy's book, "Freedom From Fear" is a monumental achievement of historical writing.

Covering the years from just before outbreak The Great Depression to the end of World War II and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the author focuses on the impact which Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) had on America during this seminal period of our history, and how his influence still impacts on our country today.

"Freedom From Fear" is an extremely long book--over 900 pages in length--and the early chapters, detailing various aspects of The "New Deal" and the many agencies under the "New Deal" which F.D.R. helped establish, are a bit too detailed and not quite as interesting as the rest of the book. But none of the wealth of information which Kennedy gives is dull or uninteresting--and when Kennedy starts to write about the events that occurred in Europe and the Pacific during World WarII, his book becomes as enthralling as any novel.

A previous Amazon Reviewer faults Kennedy for being anti-Rosevelt and says that Kennedy feels "nothing Roosevelt did seems right." I wonder if we have read the same book! Kennedy is an obvious admirer of F.D.R. and does not hesitate to point out his many accomplishments and praise his ability as a politician and "visionary" in helping to draw so many conflicting elements in Congress and the country as a whole, together.

Kennedy DOES point out that Roosevelt kept many of his thoughts and motives to himself--and that even his closest friends didn't know always exactly what he was THINKING. But the fact remains that F.D.R.accomplished wonders in drawing our country together and restoring a "Faith in ourselves" as a nation, that was woefully lacking until he became president. Kennedy gives more than ample credit to Rosevelt's accomplishments, and is an impartial enough as a historian to also mention his weaknesses and faults. Fortunately for our country, his accomplishments far outweigh his weaknesses!

A further observation about this book, which I think should attract a wide readership and make his book appealing to all organization is superb! His writing is extremely clear and free of "pedanticism." His chapters, describing the various battles fought during World War II (i.e. The Battle of Midway; Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, etc.), are as riveting as any novel.Written as a historian, Kennedy still has a novelist's flair for bringing what he writes about to life on the printed page. The "facts" he presents are totally free from "colorization"--but the WAY he presents them is dramatic and thoroughly engrossing.

One of the most appealing aspects of his book is his "organization" of material. His accounts of the personalities of many of the world leaders described in his book are seemlessly interspersed with the history he is describing. His "profiles" of various leaders are gems of cogent brevity.

"Freedom From Fear" is historical writing at its best--detailed, always interesting--and dramatic in in impact. It amply deserves to win a Pulitzer Prize--which I hope it does!

Larry Auerbach, Las Vegas, NV



Click Here to see more reviews about: Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) (Hardcover)

Review of The Oxford Style Manual (Hardcover)

What is not clear from the listing for this book in most of OUP's promotional materials is that THE OXFORD STYLE MANUAL is really TWO books in one: THE OXFORD GUIDE TO STYLE and THE OXFORD DICTIONARY FOR WRITERS AND EDITORS. Even at the combined length of just over 1,000 pages, THE MANUAL is a manageable reference work, no more cumbersome than a standard collegiate dictionary.

Although, as an American, I will continue to use the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE as my arbiter for editorial decisions, I find Oxford's manual an excellent way of distinguishing between British and American styles of English; Part II (the dictionary) is especially thorough in pointing out key differences. Also, beginning on page 244 in Part I is a list of about 500 everyday American words with their British equivalents (tick-tack-toe = noughts and crosses). Although it would be nice to have the same list in reverse (an American's undershirt is a "vest" in UK, and his vest is a "waistcoat", something that is not immediately clear from the way the list is put together), the list is short enough for anyone to read through and become familiar with. (The CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE has no equivalent list.)

In short, a good and thorough resource.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Oxford Style Manual (Hardcover)