Dark Money - Jane Mayer

1493 - Charles C. Mann

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Mann, Charles C.

Summary: Reveals how the voyages of Columbus reintroduced plants and animals that had been separated millions of years earlier, documenting how the ensuing exchange of flora and fauna between Eurasia and the Americas fostered a European rise, decimated imperial China and rendered Manila and Mexico City the center of the world for two centuries.


Booklist Reviews
From the same mold as Mann's popular and critical success, 1491 (2005), this tome surveys up-to-date scholarship on the ramifications of Columbus' voyage. Eschewing condemnation or exaltation, Mann aims to explain all that was exchanged during the centuries in which ships connected continents. Diseases, pests, plants, people, and silver are the major transports into which he delves, and he presents them in their scientific, geographic, economic, and historical aspects. Where academic debates persist (e.g., over how slavery became established in America, about what rendered China ravenous for Spanish silver), Mann advocates his view of the particulars, supported by his on-site reportage from places significant in his accounts, such as Manila and Columbus' first settlement. Shaping a sprawl of information, he emphasizes how homogenization was unleashed by transoceanic trade, as is illustrated most minutely in discussions of the potato, the rubber tree, and mixed-race societies. With its theme of globalization, Mann's survey should interest not only history readers but also those concerned about the environmental and social impacts of contemporary world commerce.

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Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged - Rand, Ayn

Summary: The decisions of a few industrial leaders shake the roots of capitalism and reawaken man's awareness of himself as an heroic being.




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The marketplace of revolution - T.H. Breen

The marketplace of revolution: how consumer politics shaped American independence - Breen, T.H.

Summary: Citing evidence from museum collections, colonial wills, newspaper advertisements, and archaeological sites, argues that the increasing availability of British consumer goods into the colonies help set off the American Revolution. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
What was the role of "ordinary" people in preparing the path to independence between 1763 and 1775? In examining the role of the masses, in what was truly a mass movement, some historians have focused on groups with a penchant for dramatic, even violent action, such as the Sons of Liberty. History professor Breen has chosen to emphasize the less spectacular but probably more important role of common economic action. Despite the vast cultural and economic differences between the colonial regions, most colonists were participants in an emerging consumer society based upon use of British manufactured goods. This was, in essence, an open market, in which goods, services, and ideas flowed freely. American participation in this imperial market created economic and even emotional bonds between colonists that transcended regional and religious differences. So when the time for resistance arrived, these bonds provided a network for communication and organized protest, including the startlingly effective use of boycotts of goods produced in Britain. This interesting work offers an original perspective and some provocative conclusions. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

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Freedom's forge - Arthur Herman

Freedom's forge: how American business built the arsenal of democracy that won World War II - Herman, Arthur

Summary: Assesses the pivotal role of American big business in building weapons and enabling industrial dominance for Allied forces in World War II, tracing the contributions of Danish immigrant William Knudsen and shipbuilding industrialist Henry Kaiser. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
A narrative of America's industrial mobilization for WWII, Herman's history heroizes two business executives at the center of affairs, Henry Kaiser, builder of the Liberty ships, and William Knudsen, president of General Motors. While Kaiser's hyperkinetic flamboyance lingers in the recognition his name still provokes in WWII readers, the more effacing Knudsen, Herman makes clear, was the critical character. An expert in organizing assembly lines, Knudsen was tapped by FDR in 1940 to convert consumer into military production, which he initiated through private enterprises. New Dealers who wanted the government, not big business, to direct mobilization nominally won in early 1942 by ousting Knudsen and establishing the War Production Board. But Knudsen's profit-motive template had momentum and prevailed, as Herman dramatizes in the manufacturing setups for such weapons as the B-24 and B-29 bombers, Sherman tanks, and aircraft carriers. What with the millions of workers needed to build them, Rosie the Riveter included, swarming factory floor and shipyard, Herman's story will resonate with readers whose parents and grandparents won the war with a welding torch. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Makers - Cory Doctorow

Makers - Doctorow, Cory

Summary: What happens to America when two geeks working from a garage invent easy 3D printing, a cure for obesity, and crowd-sourced theme parks? Lawsuits against Disney are only the beginning in this major novel of the booms, busts, and further booms in store for America in the age of open source and its hero/hacker culture.


Library Journal Reviews
After winning acclaim and awards for his YA novel Little Brother, Locus Award winner Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom) returns to adult sf. His latest involves a corporate executive who funds high-tech microprojects—they cost thousands of dollars instead of millions—a pair of inventors who can make anything out of anything, and a blogger who chronicles their careers. Doctorow isn't Pollyannesque about the effects of rapid technological change: change of such scope and force is often devastating—boom followed by bust, then boom again, then bust. The ending of this well-written, well-conceived novel is bittersweet. VERDICT In speculative fiction, too often the ideas outrun the writing, but not here. Doctorow's novel features a good, modest story, appealing characters, and extremely interesting ideas that will appeal to his fans and sf aficionados as well as readers interested in cogitating on the social consequences of cybertechnology's near-exponential growth. Enthusiastically recommended.—David Keymer, Modesto, CA

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For the win - Cory Doctorow

For the win - Doctorow, Cory

Summary: A group of teens from around the world find themselves drawn into an online revolution arranged by a mysterious young woman known as Big Sister Nor, who hopes to challenge the status quo and change the world using her virtual connections.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Doctorow is indispensable. It's hard to imagine any other author taking on youth and technology with such passion, intelligence, and understanding. Although perhaps less urgent than Little Brother (2008), this effort is superior in every other aspect: scope, plot, character, and style. Set in the near future and in locations across the globe (though primarily China and India), the story involves a sweeping cast of characters making a living—if you want to call brutal conditions and pitiful wages a "living"—in such virtual-game worlds as Svartalfheim Warriors and Zombie Mecha. Many of them, like 15-year-old Mala (known by her troops as "General Robotwalla"), endure physical threats from their bosses to farm virtual gold, which is then sold to rich First World gamers. Then these brilliant teens are brought together by the mysterious Big Sister Nor, who has a plan to unionize and bring these virtual worlds—and real-world sweatshops, too—to a screeching halt. Once again Doctorow has taken denigrated youth behavior (this time, gaming) and recast it into something heroic. He can't resist the occasional lecture—sometimes breaking away from the plot to do so—but thankfully his lessons are riveting. With it's eye-opening humanity and revolutionary zeal, this ambitious epic is well worth the considerable challenge. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Moby-duck - Donovan Hohn

Moby-duck: the true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea, and of the beachcombers, oceanographers, environmentalists, and fools--including the author--who went in search of them - Hohn, Donovan

Summary: When the author heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. His accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. This work is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable. With each new discovery, he learns of another loose thread, and with each successive chase, he comes closer to understanding where his castaway quarry comes from and where it goes.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Like Bill Bryson on hard science, or John McPhee with attitude, journalist Hohn travels from beaches to factories to the northern seas in pursuit of a treasure that mystifies as much as it provokes. His quest is to determine what happened to a load of 28,800 Chinese manufactured plastic animals in a container that fell off a ship en route to Seattle in 1992. Hohn's inquiry leads him to 10 Little Rubber Ducks (2005), children's author Eric Carle's idealized board-book version, and also to the plastic-strewn beaches of an Alaskan island, a Hong Kong toy fair, and the Sesame Street origins of the rubber duck's popularity. By turns thoughtful, bemused, or shocked, Hohn finds the story growing beyond his wildest visions as he learns about the science of ocean currents and drift and the lure of cheap plastic in a consumer culture that has dangerously lost its way. The resulting book is a thoroughly engaging environmental/travel title that crosses partisan divides with its solid research and apolitical nature. Rubber ducks as harmless, ubiquitous symbols of childhood? Not anymore, not by a long shot. This dazzles from start to finish. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.


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The corpse walker: real life stories, China from the bottom up - Yiwu Liao

The corpse walker: real life stories, China from the bottom up - Liao, Yiwu

Summary: "A compilation of twenty-seven extraordinary oral histories that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu (one of the best-known writers in China because he is also one of the most censored) chose his subjects from the bottom of Chinese society: people for whom the 'new' China--the China of economic growth and globalization--is no more beneficial than the old. Here are a professional mourner, a trafficker in humans, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner, and many others--people who have been battered by life but who have managed to retain their dignity, their humor, and their essential, complex humanity. Liao's interviews were given from 1990 to 2003."--From amazon.com.

Publishers Weekly Reviews
In this rich, often harrowing oral history, Chinese writer (and notorious target of censors) Liao travels to the margins of Chinese society, interviewing 27 outsiders from China's forgotten classes. The book contains an incredible cast of characters: a grave robber, a composer, a leper, a professional mourner paid to wail at funerals, a human trafficker and a delusional peasant who has anointed himself emperor. These conversations, largely recorded from memory, showcase Liao's empathy for his subjects and a particular talent for getting into tight situations; on one occasion, the author is forced to leap out of a three-story building when he fears the Communist government is targeting him for talking to a Falun Gong supporter. Liao's research took 11 years, and his final product is a stunning series of portraits of a generation and class of individuals ignored in history books and unacknowledged in the accounts of the "new" China. (Apr.)
[Page 147]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

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Confessions of an economic hit man – John Perkins

Confessions of an economic hit man - Perkins, John

Summary: This is the inside story of how America turned from a respected republic into a feared empire. John Perkins should know, he was an economic hit man. His job was to convince countries that are strategically important to the U.S., from Indonesia to Panama, to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown and Root, and other United States engineering and construction companies.

Library Journal Reviews
According to Perkins, a former Economic Hit Man and founding president of Dream Change Coalition, "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other ‰foreign aid' organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources." Perkins began this book in the early 1980s but claims to have put it aside owing to threats and bribes. Perkins's daughter Jessica finally inspired him to finish it by declaring, "Don't worry dad. If they get you, I'll take over where you left off. We need to do this for the grandchildren I hope to give you someday." This riveting look at a world of intrigue reads like a spy novel. Perkins vividly recounts his work throughout the world, from Saudi Arabia to Panama to Ecuador, and introduces such characters as Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, who became a personal friend. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.-Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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