Books 02 (Nov 08 - Nov 09)

[LenaHuat]

Has any1 read Naomi Klein's "Shock Therapy"

I googled Amazon and discovered some 400 reviews were written on her book. This morning, I visited Kinokuniya and saw stacks of her books, translated copies in Chinese. I'm very curious what the Chinese world is thinking???

[kennynah]

I'm very curious what the Chinese world is thinking???

now...you've gotten me even more curious....about you

[iam802]

Has any1 read Naomi Klein's "Shock Therapy"

I googled Amazon and discovered some 400 reviews were written on her book. This morning, I visited Kinokuniya and saw stacks of her books, translated copies in Chinese. I'm very curious what the Chinese world is thinking???

This book is also available at the library

[millionairemind]

Lena,

Sounds like an interesting book. I went online to check it out and like the summary.

Thanks for highlighting this book. I am almost done with The Tipping Point so Shock will probably be the next book I would read.

Here's a summary I found on the web.

Hidden Content:

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

In THE SHOCK DOCTRINE, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

At the most chaotic juncture in Iraq’s civil war, a new law is unveiled that would allow Shell and BP to claim the country’s vast oil reserves…. Immediately following September 11, the Bush Administration quietly out-sources the running of the “War on Terror” to Halliburton and Blackwater…. After a tsunami wipes out the coasts of Southeast Asia, the pristine beaches are auctioned off to tourist resorts.... New Orleans’s residents, scattered from Hurricane Katrina, discover that their public housing, hospitals and schools will never be reopened…. These events are examples of “the shock doctrine”: using the public’s disorientation following massive collective shocks – wars, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters -- to achieve control by imposing economic shock therapy. Sometimes, when the first two shocks don’t succeed in wiping out resistance, a third shock is employed: the electrode in the prison cell or the Taser gun on the streets.

Based on breakthrough historical research and four years of on-the-ground reporting in disaster zones, The Shock Doctrine vividly shows how disaster capitalism – the rapid-fire corporate reengineering of societies still reeling from shock – did not begin with September 11, 2001. The book traces its origins back fifty years, to the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman, which produced many of the leading neo-conservative and neo-liberal thinkers whose influence is still profound in Washington today. New, surprising connections are drawn between economic policy, “shock and awe” warfare and covert CIA-funded experiments in electroshock and sensory deprivation in the 1950s, research that helped write the torture manuals used today in Guantanamo Bay.

The Shock Doctrine follows the application of these ideas though our contemporary history, showing in riveting detail how well-known events of the recent past have been deliberate, active theatres for the shock doctrine, among them: Pinochet’s coup in Chile in 1973, the Falklands War in 1982, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Asian Financial crisis in 1997 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Cheers,
mm

[LenaHuat]

Hi K

Me, old folk lah, MJ's contemporary.
I've an interesting aside for U. This morning, I checked out the French magazine "Match" which has a topless spread of 50-year-old Stone on its cover. But, the censors stuck a label on her peaks. What a pity but she's still an eyeful

Hi iam802

Thank Q.

Hi MM
It's a book on political economics and that's why it caught my eye. Almost all of the creme de la creme in China's financial institutions, below the age of 50, are American educated. They are well read abt American political and economic thoughts. If there is a market for this books, it will have some impact on the Chinese.
I'm scared stiff abt reading heavy political economics and so I will try to leaf some insights from Chinese websites. That's the key : how are the Chinese elite reacting to this book.

[millionairemind]

Hi MM
It's a book on political economics and that's why it caught my eye. Almost all of the creme de la creme in China's financial institutions, below the age of 50, are American educated. They are well read abt American political and economic thoughts. If there is a market for this books, it will have some impact on the Chinese.
I'm scared stiff abt reading heavy political economics and so I will try to leaf some insights from Chinese websites. That's the key : how are the Chinese elite reacting to this book.

Lena,

If you enjoy this type of books, pick up THE COMING COLLAPSE OF CHINA. The book was violently rebutted by top cadre and Chinese scholars in 2002, 1 year after it was published. I guess it did rattle a few cages

Cheers,
MM

[kennynah]

Hi K
Me, old folk lah, MJ's contemporary.
I've an interesting aside for U. This morning, I checked out the French magazine "Match" which has a topless spread of 50-year-old Stone on its cover. But, the censors stuck a label on her peaks. What a pity but she's still an eyeful

hello L : thanks for the tip...i'm sure to go hunt for it when i should pass by any of these bookshops... sometimes. what's not seen is so much more erotic than bare all....

[LenaHuat]

Hi K
The censors got me curious and so here's the bomb. Save you leg effort
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/sharon-stone-topless-on-p_n_252960.html

Hi MM
Thanks a million for the suggestion. Will look out for it at NLB.

[iam802]

Thanks Lena.

Wonderful link!!!

She is hot @ 50...which reminds me of her performance in Catwoman....much better than Halle Berry

[kennynah]

Hi K
The censors got me curious and so here's the bomb. Save you leg effort
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/06/sharon-stone-topless-on-p_n_252960.html

Hi MM
Thanks a million for the suggestion. Will look out for it at NLB.

oh man.... but still....L, mucho gracias....