Rating: 
Summary: Globali....What???
Review: I agree with Ms. Chua in ...maybe 90% of her ideas. As a citizen of a third world country in latin-america , I have to agree that local minorities sometimes have the control of part of the economy. I also agree that USA is the market-dominant minority in the world, but I do not agree , at least regarding our country ( Dominican Republic) that we hate americans. My country was invaded twice during the last century by USA troops. The first time (1916) in order to collect USA loans and the second time (1965)...just to make sure that the democratic Constitution of 1963 was not reinstated ..and this intervention cost our people thousands of lifes. This was the direct result of the USA backed cup against the democratically elected gov't of Juan Bosch (1963). After the Trujillo dictatorship ( also supported by USA)we suffered the termination of democratic govt's , a civil war and state terrorism almost similar to Argentina's. We KNOW that a great part of this was sponsored by USA. Then in 1978 , the USA ( now with J. Carter as president) helped us to restore real democratic ruling and.. what happened? ..Democracy is not working , at least in promoting equal oportunities ...Who are we going to blame for this??? We only can blame ourselves , this is not the fault of USA or any market dominant minority
(we do not have such a thing here)...This is our fault...plain and simple..We corrupted nearly all public institutions...This really IS our mess and we are guilty... maybe 80% , but guilty anyway. We had for nearly ten years the fastest and higher GDP growth in latin america (1991-2000) and our corrupt politicians ended this..and now we are in deep trouble. Now,here comes my point..when we refer to USA we are reffering to USA gov't..not to the average american citizen ..who happens to be hardworking , honest and very nice people to have around. Nobody here hates americans...in the past we hated YOUR POLICY for latin-american countries ..yes , we hated Kissinger and still do..but, believe me... he deserves to be hated..But we do not hate your people. Maybe a little envy??? Well, yes. But positive envy. Hey...our second largest city is.....New York
(dominicans died in WTC), we are the largest exporter of baseball players (whom we love) , a lot of them Major League material ( whom we love the most) , you are our main economic partner and we ALL have some relatives living in USA. But nobody can deny that USA policies ,in the past, have been succesful in creating ...hate among the people and wealth just for some dishonest politicians or rulers. I believe that the main factor in our poverty is not a market dominant minority (chinese , lebanese, USA..etc) , but our inherited culture from the spanish colonial era. We are always trying to get our living from the state...via a nonproductive position in gov't or from corruption. Are we all corrupt people??? No...but , we the majority do not do a thing against the corrupt politician minority that is bloodsucking us. And that is the real problem...as I see it. It is a pity we do not have more libanese people down here....
Rating:
Summary: Blame It On The Rain
Review: An epiphany. I was weary of the same old takes on the sad old dramas. Capitalism. Communism. East/West. Imperialism. Left/Right. Colonialism. Tax/Spend. Free Trade. Democracy. What I recognized in World On Fire was...the deep-seeded need we all share of having someone to blame for our trouble and woe. When we aren't doing well, it cannot be a fault within ourselves; someone must've caused it. And so it's the Croats undermining the Serbs and the Chinese the Fillipinos and the Indonesians and Siamese and the Tutsis the Hutus and the Jews the Moslems and so on around and around the globe. In my own native community in the American south, there was an added twist. Usually, the jealousy and resentment is held by the majority against a successful minority. In our town, the working class anglo plurality saw the few and poorer blacks as their bane, because we would have soared ever so high were we not weighted down by maintence of this lazy class of welfare chislers (in no case must the salving saga have a factual base, and rarely does it). We in America will hear plenty of blarney this election season about all the dubious factors contributing to questionable results (which defines politics in America); here is the story of a genuine force at work throughout history and on into tomorrow. I would've discovered all this myself much earlier if it hadn't been for all them Hotentots in our class holding us back... "The best books tell you what you already know." - Ezra Pound (who was a rabid anti-Semite based upon being reared in a hardscrabble area which might have been better off had it not been for all those Eastern European Immigrants...) Blame it on the rain
That's falling...falling
Blame it on the rain
That's falling down
Whatever you do
Don't put the blame on you
Blame it on the rain
- Milli Vanilli
Rating: 
Summary: Globalization and Ethnic Conflicts
Review: This book claimes that market economy and democracy under the name of globalization accelerates ethnic conflicts. There are many books which contend globalization widens economical gaps between the rich and the poor, it is quite interesting that the book relates globalization with political devide and ethnic hatred as well. Such a view also helps understand why the U.S. promoting Americanized globalization is the target of ethnic hatred.
Rating: 
Summary: Extended NYT Opinion Piece
Review: There should be a more descriptive name for this kind of book than "non-academic non-fiction." A lot of people don't realize how stringent the standards are in social sciences literature and too many assume anything written by an academic must be authoritative. This is certainly an informative book and probably deserves its place on the reading lists of college freshmen taking survey courses in Political Science. But World on Fire is mostly personal (if well informed) observations about current and recent trends in global economics. Chua sets up a straw man argument between strict Laissez-faire capitalism and some vague notions of redistributive policies. She does not engage in open America bashing but consistently links the very worst outcomes in the developing world with the actions of the U.S. government. Nearly every reference to the WTO or IMF is followed by a parenthetical "strongly influenced by the U.S. government." Chua links current trends in global economic development to increases in ethnic violence and terrorism and contends that redistributive policies would reduce such violence. She seems to ignore the possibility that the situation is more complex than she describes. Isn't it possible that wealth transfers would simply give anti-western elements deeper pockets? Isn't it possible that a technologically developed world will require populations to abandon subsistence lifestyles or become wards of the developed world? Isn't it possible that courting international investment might be a good thing when there are no roads or health care? Amy is pandering to the Left but my hat is off to her for getting the right title on the shelf at the perfect time. I'll bet the royalties are ridiculous from University bookstores alone. Let's hope her redistributive principles are in the right place at tax time.
Rating: 
Summary: The World is Upside Down
Review: I can die now because I have seen it all. This book argues that democracy is bad because it attacks the few wealthy elites in a country that fritter away 70 to 90% of the country's wealth while their fellow citizens starve and suffer. This book could have been written by Marie Antoinette complaining that she couldn't hear the dance music because of the angry mobs outside the palace. Why does Ms. Chua think that her elite dominated societies are at all ethical or deserve to survive? Does she know a non-violent way to get rich people to give up their money. Most I know would fight to the death to protect it. That's why they call them revolutions. They are not always pretty. And this wealth that was created by these insiders, does she really believe these wealthy competed in a fair and open market economy, or rather , like in the Philippines and Indonesia, those closest to the dictator benefitted from monopolistic policies. As we have seen in America, democracy does not guarantee that the rich and powerful don't garner an unfair economic advantage from the government, but I believe that the solution to that problem is more, not less, democracy through substantive campaign finance reform and greater use of term limits and direct referendums on important issues. If an economic system is so unjust in how it distributes wealth that it cannot survive a majority democratic vote than it is good policy to tear it down and replace it.
Rating:
Summary: Not Ready For Prime Time
Review: Amy Chua's book rips the cover off a well-kept secret. In many Third World countries, market dominant ethnic minorities control the economy and abuse the poor majority. This is an explosive issue and I appreciate Ms. Chua for raising it. That being said, World on Fire is a deeply flawed book that is woefully incomplete. For starters, once Ms. Chua she makes her point, she repeats herself to the point of nausea. Ms. Chua raises issues that are very important, but her solutions would make things worse. Ethnic violence is exploding in every part of the world. Nevertheless, one comes away from Ms. Chua's book with the strong sense that she wants us to turn back the clock on democracy and free markets. I had hopped that World on Fire would include a thoughtful discussion of possible solutions. Unfortunately, Ms. Chua's 340 page long book devotes only 20 pages trying to solve the problems that she discusses. Ms. Chua's best "solution" to ethnic violence is for market dominant ethnic minorities to give more money to charities that serve the people they oppress! Ms. Chua's hypothesis is that competitive markets and democracy are bad models for most of the world. Ms. Chua thinks the world would be better and less violent if we were to stop the spread of democracy and free trade. That way we could protect market dominant ethnic minorities from their poor brethren for the next two or three generations while the "natives" learn to become more civilized. This is the same argument that racist segregationists used during America's Civil Rights Movement. Shame on you, Amy Chua! It is doubly ironic that the daughter of Chinese Filipino abusers of Filipino natives completely ignores the most significant change in global competition. The astounding growth of the economy of the People's Republic of China Chinese economy is changing the world economic order. Nevertheless, Ms. Chua, like other anti-globalization zealots, still looks at the world as though Europe and America were still in control. China's effort to turn 700 million subsistence farmers into factory workers is something we cannot afford to ignore. Yet Ms. Chua completely misses this issue because she doesn't have a clue about business or international trade. If she did, she might have recommended the elimination of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy and America's farm subsidy system. That one act would generate more jobs for the poor in Third World countries than all of the foreign aid combined. I have spent the past three decades helping the poor in the United States and 27 countries improve the quality of their lives. The poor think the anti-globalization people are dead wrong. The poor do not want a continuation of the pre-globalization model that consigned them to permanent poverty. They are glad that they finally have a chance to work at jobs that pay them in cash instead of corn. What they want is true "free trade" so they can finally earn their way to a better life. While Ms. Chua clearly understands the dynamics of race and power in Southeast Asia, her book falters when she leaves SE Asia. Ms. Chua hired law students do goggle searches on parts of the world that she doesn't understand. Goggle searches can't, however, substitute for first-hand knowledge. For example, her discussion about Indians in East Africa is offensively misleading. It completely ignores the long history of arrogant, offensive, racist and hostile antiblack behavior by far too many East African Indians. You can't discuss the explosion of anti-Indian ethnic rioting in East Africa without talking about the role of some Indians in fanning the flames of racial hatred. Amy Chua also doesn't understand the role of the British played in creating a three-class system in East Africa and other parts of their empire. In Africa, Blacks were limited to subsistence farming and chattel labor. The British gave Indians control of the distribution and commerce sectors. Whites kept control of international trade, banking, the government and the military. This divide-and-conquer pattern repeated itself around the world. To undo it will take hard work, but Amy Chua doesn't address this at all. By the time I finished Amy's book, I was frustrated and deeply disappointed at how she had squandered such a powerful beginning. But then, that is why it pays to read book reviews. If you do decide to read her book, stop after the first 100-pages. You won't miss anything.
Rating:
Summary: No Pulitzer Candidate, But Important Dynamic to Understand
Review: If you're at all interested in global issues, then you need to understand (or at least consider) Dr Chua's premise regarding the interplay of free markets, democracy and market dominant ethnic minorities. After reading this book, you'll view many contemporary conflicts around the world in a whole new light. Dr Chua could have gotten her point across in less than half the pages, and more objective data instead of personal anecdotal evidence would have been nice. Nonetheless, the opportunity to be exposed to this theory is worth your investment.
Rating:
Summary: Chua: it is innate intelligence and ethnocentrism!
Review: This book is an excellent overview of how in many countries, a racial minority can dominate economically. Unfortunately, Amy Chua just doesn't get the connection between the observation made and what causes it. In reading this book, every page was a vindication of two primary principles: some races are more intelligent than others and they do better economically. Also, group evolutionary strategies dictates that some highly ethnocentric races will establish racial boundaries, form working coalitions with kin, and consolidate wealth based on kinship relationships. Chua does admit that class struggle does not account for ethnic conflict and dominance. One other thing that jumped out at me was her belittling of anything Caucasian. She seems to have a special hatred for Whites, while giving all other races a pass - she appears to be highly Anglophobic.
Rating:
Summary: Mrs. Chua modestly overlooks the intelligence of the Chinese
Review: Mrs. Chua pounds home the point that "Market Dominant Minorities" are a significant factor, often the dominant players, in developing countries. The situation differs from continent to continent. Ethnic Chinese dominate many Southeast Asian economies, basically everything from Burma eastward. Overseas Indians and a few local tribes are the entrepreneurs of East Africa and Lebanese share West Africa with the locals. Former colonials, of course, retain important roles in South Africa, Zimbabwe and a few other countries. The notion of "Market Dominant Minorities" plays out somewhat differently in Europe, especially the newly capitalistic Russia. There, in less than a generation, long suppressed Jews, representing something like 1% of the population, have become the tycoons. Latin America, mixture that it is of European, Native American and African bloodlines, is a different situation. Nonetheless as Mrs. Chua points out, the elites have a decidedly white cast. And why is this a dangerous situation? Because democracy puts the majority in control. Rule of law is not sufficient to prevent them from expropriating the wealth of the minorities. Or worse -- killing and looting, such as the Chinese minority suffered in Indonesia, whites have suffered in Zimbabwe, and Tutsis suffered at the hands of Hutus in Rwanda. She expands her thesis to explain that the USA dominates the world economy much as Chinese and others dominate certain nations, and that 9-11 was an expression of the rage and frustration of countries that find themselves unable to compete with the US. Miss Chua cites Thomas Friedman, "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", to refute his optimism, and Samuel Huntington and Thomas Sowell as supporting authors. Still, in the end she finds no reason why certain minorities always seem to wind up on top. I think that the Chinese Mrs. Chua is being modest and disingenuous. I would suggest that she read the black Mr. Sowell more deeply. There are significant differences among peoples. At a minimum they are, as Mr. Sowell suggests in "Race and Culture," cultural. Other authors, among them Lynn and VanHansen in "IQ and the Wealth of Nations, Arthur Jensen in "The g Factor", and Murray and Herrenstein in "The Bell Curve" see significant differences in average intelligence among peoples, with Jews and Chinese like the Chua-Rubenfelds likely to be at the top of the heap. Folks in academia shy away from this conclusion. MIT's Steven Pinker dances around it in his excellent "The Blank Slate." Stanford's Luigi Cavalli-Sforza lays out a wealth of excellent research on human evolution in "Genes, Peoples and Languages" but declines to follow where it might lead. Jared Diamond makes a powerful case in "Guns, Germs and Steel" that accidents of geography gave Asians and Europeans a tremendous cultural endowment, but declines to consider that evolution might have favored intelligence these among peoples with a richer material culture to manage. And now Mrs. Chua feigns having no notion of what might be special about her own people that makes them bubble to the top in situation after situation, with or without education, connections, or seed capital, and despite formidable obstacles. For only one reason would I endorse her reticence. If some peoples turn out to be smarter than others there isn't much we can do about it. One might twist Christ's words to say, "the smart will always be with you." Moreover, they will always be a minority. As savants from Malthus to Herbert Spencer have remarked, the smart and the rich don't seem to be terribly fertile. Maybe they have found something more fun than sex? Her most trenchant observation, that the rich should find ways to buy off the poor, is probably the best wisdom in the book. It happens in the US. Our government redistributes wealth in any number of ways. Rich folks from Carnegie through Rockefeller, Gates and Soros, well fixed unto the third generation, have given away vast sums. More than democracy, then, the U.S. needs to export a philosophy of philanthropy and even welfare. One further observation. Large numbers of Jews, Chinese and other smart folks in the United States are, like Mrs. Chua herself, sufficiently confident of their material survival that they eschew crass lucre for the pursuit of ideas. She left Wall Street to write this trenchant book. I hope that her example inspires others.
Rating:
Summary: Unconventional Wisdom, Strong Chinese Element
Review:
This book is a solid five stars in part because the author ably bring forward a well-documented (solid notes, good index) case for suggesting that both Western democracy and unbridaled (that is to say, uncontrolled) capitalism, are not only harmful to lesser developed countries, but also ultimately, through their creation of instability and the export of terrorism, harmful to the very proponents of unbridled democracy and capitalism.
She is on strong ground. Robert Kaplan has written many books examining failed states and lower tier nations and come to the same conclusion with respect to democracy, while George Soros has published "The Crisis of Global Capitalism." More subtly, Thomas Stewart, in "The Wealth of Knowledge", slams much of what passes for effective industrial and corporate organization as archaic and inappropriate to the new environment. What I found most intersting, having spent much of my life in Asia and Latin America, and been close to some Chinese elements in Singapore, was that much of the author's case is based on Chinese examples, not American. This makes the book especially valuable to Americans, because when she speaks of a world on fire and the dangers of ethnic conflict coming out from under market-dominant minorities, she is speaking about Chinese examples, not American examples. As the Godfather would say, "This is not personal, this is business." The author ends with a number of recommendations that appear sensible, but that at this point have no hope of every being considered by the US or other Western powers--or in China. The author's recommendations require an educated public exercising its political power in the pursuit of both global stabilization and national prosperity as seen through a long-term lens. It may take another 9-11, the meltdown of Arabia, and several more genocides in Malaysia and Indonesia, the utter chaos in the Congo, the Ivory Coast, Sudan, and Burundi, to name just four failed states that are testing the United Nations, before the public ultimately realizes that what is exported overseas "in their name" ultimately comes home on fire. The book is well-titled, the author's thesis is important, and those who do not like this book are well-qualified to represent the problematic organizations that the author is discussing.
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