Bloomsbury Press

Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save The World

admin — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:22:00 +0000

If the adage about giving a woman a fish only feeding her for a day, but teaching her to fish feeds her for life is true, then Matthew Bishop and Michael Green would argue that the nature of today’s philanthropic giving has taken a similar turn by creating a standard and strategy of giving that doesn’t simply donate—it leverages, it grows, it profits, and it multiplies.

In Philanthrocapitalism, through a series of interviews with notable wealthy donors like Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, and even Angelina Jolie, the pair argues that philanthropy has taken on a new shape. Though giving as a trade has been around for sometime (Bishop and Green mark the merchants of Tudor England and Renaissance Europe as among the first philanthropists), they argue today’s new philanthropists were born of an era of highly lucrative capitalism and as a result “are trying to apply the secrets behind that money-making success to their giving,” and earning them the title “Philanthrocapitalists.”

The giving is notable, of course. The authors begin with Warren Buffet’s incredible public donation of more than $37 billion dollars of his fortune, comparing it to the prior year’s $31 billion dollar donation from Bill and Melinda Gates. At stake, the authors argue, for many of these donors, is their challenge to one another to continue to give and to continue to up the ante. The leveraging of funds—positioning dollars to begin or shore up projects and using corporate business sense to keep the money coming and the project growing—is the newest incarnation of giving. The authors argue, it’s new, it’s innovative, and it’s working.

Philanthrocapitalism is a combination tutorial on philanthropy’s history and good works and contemporary business and investing. The constant parallels to solid business stamina and strategy are necessary to explain how contemporary givers are able to do so and in order to highlight the unique ways they donate. It is also, however, a useful tutorial to anyone investing, $37 billion or simply $3,700. The writing style of the authors allows even the algebra apprehensive to understand leveraging practices and money growth. The coupling of business with the heartwarming and important stories of empathy and need also highlight the unending need for donation.

Key also to Philanthrocapitalism, though published in 2008 and its statistics and information necessarily assembled prior to that, is its timing. The current economic downturn is free marketing for Bishop and Green’s overarching argument that in a capitalist framework, the need for philanthropy is unending, necessarily political and is to be counted on as a source of revenue for any number of social programs.

This analysis is highly informative, if not disturbing, because it showcases a capitalist privileging of wealth that isn’t simply about consumerism. The philanthrocapitalists are choosing charities that not only make a difference, but that can be successful and it begs the question: who decides and how do the new definitions of need get crafted? Is it to be based on quarterly reports and evidence of growth? Or is it to be based on tangible human qualities like fed children, cleaner water and savvier school children? If giving is to be a business, who decides what the bottom line should be?

Written by: Dr. Julie E. Ferris, September 10th 2009

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma: A Tale of Obsession, Nostalgia, and the World’s Most Charming Mammal

admin — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:36:00 +0000

By Hugh Warwick

Bloomsbury Press

I remember the first time that I saw a hedgehog. I was studying abroad in England, returning home after a night out, and outside my flat I heard a snuffling sound in the underbrush. Seconds later, a small hedgehog toddled out, seemingly unfazed by our presence. This small moment has stayed with me.

I feel that Hugh Warwick, the author of The Hedgehog's Dilemma, would appreciate my story of my first encounter with a hedgehog considering his overwhelming passion for the personable little creature. Warwick has been researching hedgehogs for over twenty years, and his story is a mix of biography, scientific research, and impassioned plea.

Warwick has tracked hedgehogs—literally—across the world. Tracking hedgehogs by GPS across the hills of England, Warwick came literally nose to nose to hedgehogs, and he fell in love. And as I read his book, I began to fall in love with the creatures myself. As he discovered one of his hedgehogs was tragically being eaten, I gasped so loud that the people around me on the subway actually looked up to see what was happening. (For those of you who ride the subway in NYC, you know that this doesn’t happen often.)

Warwick tells his own story of researching hedgehogs across the years and across the seas, and we are met with a number of characters. There are the hedgehog collectors in America, where no native population exists. There are the overzealous journalists blaming hedgehogs for the decline of bird populations in Orkney. There are the incredibly selfless caretakers of injured or abandoned hedgehogs.

Warwick ends up in China looking for the elusive (possibly extinct) hughi hedgehog, his namesake hedgehog in a way. He tracks this specific species of hedgehog from the museums to the forests of China. I felt the excitement and possibility of the moment as he crossed continents in search of hughi, and you’ll have to read the book yourself to see what happens.

Hedgehogs—little creatures that trundle through the underbrush of England and other parts of Europe—are being threatened by human interference. With the demolition of the famous English hedges that hedgehogs are so inherently fond of, combined with the more cars on the road, the hedgehog population is diminishing. Inherent in this book—other than a clear love song to the hedgehog—is the message that humans are negatively affecting their environment. A conscious effort must be made to first acknowledge this fact, and then, something must be done about it.

Written by: Kristin Conard, May 25th 2009

30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account

admin — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:36:00 +0000

By Peter Carey

Bloomsbury Press

Peter Carey’s 30 Days in Sydney: A Wildly Distorted Account is one of the most accurately named books that I’ve read recently. This book is not a traditional travel narrative, and it gains so much from that. The twists and turns inherent in Sydney’s history and people are developed throughout the book not only in the words, but in the style of the book. It is indeed a wildly distorted account, and an unapologetic one. We are along for the ride with Carey’s spin through Sydney, a city he once lived in.

Carey starts the book saying that he originally wanted to research the Earth, Air, Water, and Fire of Sydney, but he continually gets off track. There isn’t a clear and focused direction to the narrative; instead it’s a lovely and intense stream of consciousness. The tale wanders through streets and history of Sydney in a delightful and inspiring way.

Settled as a town for prisoners from Europe, Sydney has a complicated relationship with its own past, particularly considering that there were already people happily settled and living in the area before Europeans arrived. The balance between the white settlers and the indigenous people is still a precarious but not often discussed issue in Sydney. The issue of land rights is touched upon, in a way that doesn’t beat a point over the reader’s head, but allows the reader to think for himself or herself.

Carey looks at the landmarks of Sydney as he brings the story back (on occasion) to his specific focus of the four elements. We get to see Bondi Beach; we’re taken along a trek in the Blue Mountains; we survive a high intensity brush fire; we manage to survive a deadly storm on the bay.

The culture of the area, including the corruption and scandal that is quietly endured and overlooked, is also highlighted in the book. Carey fully admits that there is no real way to accurately and adequately describe Sydney to someone who hasn’t lived there, but he does an incredible job of trying.

Don’t pick this up if you are looking for dry facts and a straightforward narrative; pick it up if you want to be enchanted with Sydney, with history, with people and with story-telling. The book is a part of the Bloomsbury “Writer and the City” project, and I cannot wait for the next release in the series.

Written by: Kristin Conard, April 25th 2009

The $trip

admin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:09:00 +0000

By E. Duke Vincent

Bloomsbury Press

Mafia hits, scandal, celebrity, subterfuge, Vegas. The $trip by E. Duke Vincent seems to have all you would want in a guilty pleasure read. Though given all of the possibility that should have been building throughout the book, it was a bit of a let down.

The main character, Nick Conti, is a TV producer on the show The $trip. A couple of low-level Chicago mobsters are blackmailing the show, promising to shut down production if a cut of the shows profits are not handed over. Conti himself has connections from his past to the Kansas City mob. He is currently known in Vegas as a womanizer who prefers to keep out of the spotlight.

Arson on the set of Conti’s show and the attack on one of the stars brings out the journalists sniffing around for a story. Conti is the one who has to deal with all of it.

There are numerous plot twists that don’t add to the book’s sense of excitement or suspense. Conti’s old flame, Erin Conroy, pops up connected to a movie producer with his own separate ties to the mob. One plot line that should have been developed further is the angst that Conti reportedly went through in returning to his mob roots as the book ends.

The book is well-researched, and I have no doubt that the situations and characters presented are true to life. Vincent was a producer of a number of popular shows including Beverly Hills 90210 and 7th Heaven. I feel that this book would work better on the screen; unfortunately, the writing doesn’t have the excitement of Vincent’s TV shows. I had figured that there would be more suspense and scandal involved in the story, and it just fell flat.

Throughout the book, women are essentially objects. The lead female character, Erin Controy, is noted for her waistline, leg length, and sexiness. She is not fleshed out as an actual character; all that is focused on is her flesh.

For a casual guilty pleasure read (particularly someone who appreciates seeing women portrayed as actual women as compared to bits of meat), you could do better. For a book on scandal in Vegas or the mob, you could do better. For a start of a movie script, it’s not bad.

Written by: Kristin Conard, April 18th 2009

Burnt Shadows

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:47:00 +0000

By Kamila Shamsie

Bloomsbury Press

Kamila Shamsie’s latest novel, Burnt Shadows, is a well crafted story, centering on the life of a fierce and feisty Japanese woman named Hiroko. The novel spans four historical world events as we witness Hiroko’s navigation through tragedy, love, family, and identity.

Beginning in Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945, we first meet the smart and talented schoolteacher Hiroko and soon learn that she is in love with Konrad, a German man that she is helping to translate texts. As their conversations flow between Japanese, English, and German, Konrad eventually asks Hiroko to marry him. Their giddy love for each other grows within the seconds that Hiroko agrees to marry him, but Konrad has to leave her house to run an errand. Still tingling with excitement, Hiroko puts on her mother’s silk kimono with three black cranes on the back of it and within seconds those birds will remain engraved on her body forever. As the second atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, the world for Hiroko turns deathly white, and the love of her life will never be seen again.

It is from this moment on that the rest of the novel unfolds. With her bird-scarred body and a huge hole in her heart from the death of Konrad and her father, Hiroko travels to India in search of Konrad’s sister, Elizabeth Burton—someone who can help Hiroko keep the memory of Konrad alive. The year is 1947, and as Hiroko seeks to find more of herself in India, while still remembering her home country, India is a shifting landscape on the brink of war. Entering into the second historical event of the novel, Shamsie introduces many deep and emotionally rich characters that reveal the complexities of Partition.

In India, Hiroko meets Sajjad—a man who is paid by the Burtons to assist them with whatever they need, but he is more to them than a lower-class servant. When Sajjad and Hiroko discover they both have a love for languages, they begin to have informal language classes. The energy that flows between them in every language they converse in is overwhelming in the best way, and the unlikely pair of the displaced Japanese woman and Muslim Indian man eventually marries. Shamsie’s development of Hiroko’s character during this time is beautiful. Dealing with issues of grief—both for her lost fiancé and family, as well as for her home country that now feels lost to her—and her unfaltering desire to always be an emotionally strong woman, Hiroko emerges from this section of the novel with a resilience that carries her throughout the rest of the story.

The third part of the novel begins with Hiroko and her husband Sajjad sitting at their kitchen table with their son Raza. The time and place is Pakistan in 1982. Raza is an intelligent young man who enjoys doing multi-lingual crosswords—an outcome of having a Japanese mother who speaks at least four languages and an Indian father who speaks multiple languages himself. Raza is a stunning mixture of his heritage, and both his mind and physical body hold this history. As Raza grows into young adulthood he is increasingly mistaken for an Afghan, which becomes both a blessing and a curse.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is the third political event that Shamsie uses as a backdrop for her story. While the narrative concentration of the novel switches from Hiroko to Raza, the story continues to take on the issues of identity that helped to construct the reader’s relationship with Hiroko. Without giving away too much of the story, it is Raza’s need to find his identity that ultimately results in another huge life change for Hiroko.

Finally, it is 2001, and Hiroko is in New York City post-9/11. Raza finds himself in a dangerous situation in Afghanistan and the climax of the novel results in Raza trying to get to America to see his mother one last time. Interspersed throughout this story are characters that represent different historical times and locations. Like memories, they pop back up in the story to enrich and inform life.

While Burnt Shadows is rich with historical content and events, Shamsie’s thoughtful storytelling humanizes each situation. In the end, the reader is incredibly well taken care of. Shamsie is an expert at crafting a story in which the characters and setting help to create each other. Time, location, identity, and humanness can never be separated as single characteristics of the novel, but instead swell together to create an unforgettable journey.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, April 6th 2009

Poster Child: A Memoir

admin — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:02:00 +0000

By Emily Rapp

Bloomsbury Press

The memoir these days can be a forum for the expulsion of demons, the settling of a score, or with more frequency, utter fabrication to gussy up one’s adventures. On occasion, however, the memoir can enlighten, help heal wounds, and inspire the reader.

Poster Child author Emily Rapp was born with a genetic anomaly that led to her left foot being amputated before the age of four, which led to a life of prosthesis. From a literal wooden leg and a foot made for an adult male to state-of-the-art modern legs with hydraulic knees that frequently pass for a natural leg, each step in the author’s journey chronicles the evolution of medical prosthesis. With fairly unflinching detail Rapp tells of being the March of Dimes poster child for Wyoming, where she grew up, and of her deeply religious parents strident devotion to their daughter and her "normal" life. Rapp’s transformation from a smiling child with an artificial limb to an emotionally conflicted teen so conscious of her femininity and body fascism of the American High School Girl that she becomes anorexic is harrowing. All the while the bright student makes strides academically while refusing to deal with the emotional anguish of being different.

A Fulbright Scholar, Rapp‘s sojourns in foreign lands are the only glimpses of her freedom that she discloses. When she allows herself to give in and live in the moment, she soars - only to let a nagging yet unmentioned self-deconstruction wear her down. While in Korea, a tale that bookends the memoir, Rapp finally begins to unravel and deal with the years of emotional constipation that were put upon her as a “poster child” and, upon her return to her parents' home, is finally able to give herself room for catharsis.

Rapp’s writing is, at turns, flat reportage of what must have been horrific ordeals and deft turns of beautiful prose. She is, no doubt, a remarkable woman, a survivor who never treats herself as a victim. Rapp’s view of her parents' dedication to their daughter is striking; so many memoirists use the medium to right wrongs or, in some cases, simply reopen old wounds. The poignancies of her father unearthing a giant box with all of her discarded artificial legs to an adult Emily is a scene of pure poetic beauty.

The book serves as a great state-of-the-union via one person’s experience as a woman with a disability in America. Men can be war wounded and become sexual icons, despite or, in some cases, because of their amputation. Rapp fights with being wounded from a war in her very DNA and, in the process, sheds light in unexpected ways on how America and the world view those with disabilities.

Written by: Andrew Levi Klaus, May 7th 2008

The Last Empress

admin — Tue, 01 May 2007 12:41:00 +0000

By Anchee Min

Bloomsbury Press

An ancient sage once foretold, “China would be destroyed by a woman.” Historians described Empress Tzu Hsi of the Qing Dynasty as an evil leader hell-bent on the usurpation of power. This much-documented image later served to affirm the age-old prophecy. The Last Empress by Anchee Min is the sequel to the acclaimed _Empress Orchid _(2004). Set towards the end of Imperial China, Min continues the heartbreaking tale of the country’s downfall at the hands of merciless foreigners. Tzu Hsi or Orchid, as she is previously called, first enters the Forbidden City as a concubine then reluctantly but out of necessity gains control of the throne after the Emperor’s premature death.

Contrary to history’s cruel depiction of China’s central female figure, Min successfully weaves a portrait of a woman whose love is bountiful as a mother and a ruler. The Empress portrayed in Min’s novel is truly human and is liberated from her profound demonization.

Adhering to strict traditional codes, Orchid remains a life-long widow. Prohibited to enter another relationship, her objective becomes to raise her son Tung Chih as Successor. The story not only illustrates female oppression, but also demonstrates the brutal treatment of eunuchs—the palace servants who are castrated from an early age to ensure that concubines and wives produce the Emperor’s “seeds” alone. No one is to be trusted inside the Forbidden City. Bribery and betrayal is common amongst the eunuchs and the threat to Orchid’s survival is often.

Steeped in tragedy the author crafts a fictional account of the Empress’s private character and life, challenging the prevalent conception of her as a bloodthirsty monster and thereby restoring a sense of her dignity. Rather than causing the empire to crumble, as is history’s assumption, Orchid tries desperately hard to maintain order despite outside invasions and internal rivalry. Through her strong will, wisdom and self-sacrifice, she single-handedly holds the dynasty together by its remaining threads.

Told through first-person, the narrative is written in beautiful prose bordering on the poetic. It provides an insight into late 19th and early 20th century Chinese culture and politics and unearths a deep power struggle between the sexes and, indeed, against Western Civilisation.

Engaging and intriguing, The Last Empress has the feel of a memoir. Lovers of Memoirs of a Geisha would relish this rich historical fiction that will make you think twice about accepting the male view of history as truth.

Written by: Payal Patel, May 1st 2007