by Richard Subber | Aug 20, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, Power and inequality
before there were “managers”…
Book review:
The Visible Hand:
The Managerial Revolution in American Business
by Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1918-2007)
Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977
608 pages
A densely researched and densely written history of the evolving American environment for various forms of capitalism and the appearance in the middle of the 19th century of “managers” who didn’t own the business or do the work.
You’ll learn some stuff about commercial, entrepreneurial, financial, and managerial capitalism.
This is an academic treatment of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the history of American corporate structure and performance. Chandler rarely refers to the political and moral aspects of the good works, the charlatanry, and the grossly criminal actions of the movers and shakers in the 19th century and early 20th century business world.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
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In other words: Poems for your eyes and ears with 64 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Aug 8, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, Democracy, History, Politics, Power and inequality
we need love, and we need trust…
Book review:
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
by Martin Wolf
New York: Penguin, 2023
474 pages
Wolf examines the problem in plain language: the imperatives and the expectations of democratic government both complement and conflict with the pursuit of personal and corporate success in a capitalist world.
His arguments and considerations are a lot more nuanced than that. You can learn to think in new ways about the despairing failures that put our society at risk.
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism emphasizes one key point: in both the democratic and capitalist frames of reference, we need to be able to trust our leaders and the folks whose personal interests are at variance with those of the rest of the members of our society.
Aye, there’s the rub.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire Divided
King George and his ministers
wanted the Caribbean sugar islands
more than they wanted the 13 colonies…
by Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Aug 3, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Joys of reading
a storytelling style…
Book review:
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles (b1964)\
New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, Inc., 2016
462 pages
A Gentleman in Moscow has an almost simplistic plot line: a nobleman is condemned to perpetual house arrest, living in an attic room in a fine hotel in Moscow in the 1920s.
What Towles brings to the party is an almost casual storytelling style embedded in a fecundity of warmly engaging words and people.
It’s simply true that I was drawn to continue reading about Count Alexander Rostov and Nina.
You can imagine how the story ends. I could.
Caveat: Towles didn’t need 462 pages to tell this story in the best way.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“Boil up” and other good manners…
The “Hobo Ethical Code” is worth a quick read.
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 27, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, History
swords, and dragons, and boasting…
Book review:
Beowulf
Seamus Heaney, trans.
New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 2000
213 pages
A long time ago, a thousand years, give or take, an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet writing in the Old English language completed a 3,182-line poem we call “Beowulf.”
Just about everyone thinks it’s a classic.
It hasn’t been adapted for TV yet, and there are a number of reasons for that. It’s heroic, but the modern English translation is dramatically flat.
It’s about tough guys with swords, and dragons, and mead halls, and manly boasting, and such.
Beowulf is everything it’s made out to be, and not much more.
I’m happy to assume that it was a more thrilling read and a more entrancing tale in the 9th or 10th century, or whenever it was first written and taken on the road by the storytellers.
Beowulf is a whole lot better than TV.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review:
The American Revolution: A History
The “Founders” were afraid
of “democracy”…
by Gordon S. Wood
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 73 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 20, 2023 | Joys of reading, Language, Tidbits
the right words
“He is hasped
and hooped
and hirpling with pain…”
Beowulf describing the wounded dragon, Grendel
Beowulf, p. 65
Seamus Heaney, trans.
New York, W. W. Norton and Company, 2000
Beowulf, the Old English epic poem, was written more than a thousand years ago. No one knows who wrote it.
He or she had a way with words.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: Cleopatra: A Life
…don’t even think
about Gordon Gekko…
by Stacy Schiff
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Jul 11, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Human Nature, Reflections
“…but not less”
Book review:
Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
by Temple Grandin (b1947)
Foreword by Oliver Sacks
New York: Vintage Books, a Division of Random House, Inc., 1995, 2nd ed. 2006
270 pages
Thinking in Pictures is a calmly important book.
Probably you don’t know much about autism. Temple Grandin knows a lot, and she can teach you about the people who live lives that are different from yours. Really.
“Different, but not less.” That’s what her science teacher said about her.
She writes in a reserved tone, offering a grand sweep of what was known about autism in the mid 1990s and again in the mid 2000s. She talks about the high points and the low points of the rocky road of her life.
Temple Grandin talks with precocious understanding about animals. You’ll learn from this element as well.
I re-learned this very sobering truth: nearly everyone doesn’t experience the world the same way I do.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Reader (Der Vorleser)
Not just a rehash of WWII…
by Bernhard Schlink
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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