So this book tries to take some of the lessons they've learned about how to get temperamental, highly-skilled-but-specialized workers to work together without a leader to impose order, and apply these lessons to the knowledge economy. Interesting idea. The book itself is somewhat less interesting - it breaks the "Orpheus Process" into eight principles, and spends a chapter on each principle with examples from their own history, and from other companies. With the principles being things like "Encourage individual responsibility", and "Foster horizontal teamwork", it's all a little bit too general to be really useful in my opinion. But the insight into how their orchestra actually functions was interesting. And their ideas are good, but it's difficult to see how to apply them unless you are starting a company from scratch with these principles in mind.
His life was fascinating. He cared about nothing except mathematics. He needed people to take care of his most basic needs. He had no home, instead preferring to wander like a gypsy from one friend to another, stay with them long enough to figure out a problem (often leading to a paper), and then move on. The book does a good job of mixing in enough math to give you an idea of the vast breadth of problems that he worked on, but not so much as to overwhelm the average technical reader. Interesting read.
One cute anecdote from the book was a story of how LBJ, when he first arrived in DC as a secretary to a Congressman, was housed in a dormitory with all the other secretaries. His first week in the dormitory, he would take a shower every ten minutes for an hour, traipsing up and down the corridor to the communal bathroom. Why? To meet as many of his compatriots as possible in as short a time as possible. Apparently, it worked - "Within three months of arriving in Washington, the newcomer got himself elected Speaker of the "Little Congress", the organization of all House staff assistants...proving that getting ahead is just a matter of getting to know people."
While I'm entirely sympathetic to his goals since I strongly believe that no rights come without responsibilities and get annoyed when people free-ride or otherwise abuse their position within a community, I think his formulation is a bit idealistic. Individual rights are easy to define. Community rights are difficult, because you quickly fall into the trap of choosing who represents the community, and unless people are all perfectly loyal to the community, it can quickly degrade into people confusing their interests with those of the community.
The ideas in the book have a new relevance, though, in light of the events of 9/11. It is clear that people are willing to sacrifice some of their rights for the sake of security. Where do we stop along the slippery slope (a term he mocks in the book) before landing in a state of martial law? He proposes some "common sense" ideas for finding balance between the rights of the individual and the community. Certainly an interesting topic for further thought.
Newjack recounts his time as a guard, through his training course
(where he gets tear-gassed so he knows what it feels like), his first
terrifying day on the cell block at Sing Sing, and his evolution over
nine months into a competent guard, but different person. He
describes the incredible stresses that guards are under at all times,
and the warping effects those have on the rest of their lives. It's a
sobering look at the environment that we subject 1.4 million of our
citizens to.
It is often hard for those of us with suburban upbringings to
understand why anyone would ever fall into the trap of drug
addiction, and we tend to think of addicts as stupid and uncaring.
Simon makes us meet these people as people, and understand the
environment in which they live, and the pressures which have driven
them into their addiction. The book also serves as a sobering and
depressing reminder of the vast wealth of human potential that is
being wasted each year in the inner city. Simon strongly criticizes
the ineffectiveness and misguidedness of America's drug war policy,
and in so doing, made me think about many issues I tend to try to ignore.
Gabler details a history of this century, through the prism of
entertainment. By tracking the growing emphasis on entertainment
in American society, Gabler presents a compelling story of how we have
come to internalize the values of entertainment, to the point where we
visualize ourselves on an internal screen. We have celebrities who are
famous for being famous, in effect having turned their lives into
movies for the voracious public. Gabler does not pass judgment on
this society, instead preferring to describe it in an attempt to make
clear the forces that are acting upon us in society today.
I am pretty ignorant of the civil rights movement, and, in fact, most
of this era of America. My U.S. History course in high school ended
just after World War II, as most do. And, of course, I didn't live
through it. So much of this book was quite eye-opening. What was
amazing to me was how committed these people were to their cause. The
beatings and jailings they endured were stunningly recounted, and
really brought home just what they were fighting for. The failure of
the Kennedys to respond to King's pleas for help, the swirling
politics of the day, the tension between the U.S. and state
governments - all were vividly brought to life. Highly recommended to
learn more about these times.
I wasn't nearly as impressed by War and Anti-war as the other two
Toffler books. They do not seem to be as far ahead of the world as they
were - although that may be a side effect of the accelerating rate of
change postulated in Future Shock. But their description of
"Third-Wave" war is fairly uninteresting, compared to much better
depictions done by such authors as Tom Clancy.
A total impulse buy at the bookstore. The subtitle is "A Motorcycle
Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend". Even though I'm a sucker
for motorcycle stories, and my knowledge of Che Guevara is zero except
that his character has some pretty good songs in the musical
Evita, there wasn't a lot to this book. Symmes re-traces a
motorcycle journey that Guevara took in 1952, following a diary of the
journey that Guevara wrote later in life. On this trip, Guevara was
transformed from an aristocratic young man to the Communist
revolutionary who would later help Fidel Castro conquer Cuba, and
fight in revolutions in both Africa and South America. Unfortunately,
there's not enough of the social context to really understand Che's
journey, and Symmes's isn't that interesting. Okay as a South
American travelogue I suppose, but nothing more.
Eric Nehrlich's WWW home page / nehrlich@alum.mit.edu