"Palo Alto's weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing. Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system. In Palo Alto, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory. The Internet and computers, too. It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. Palo Alto is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course"--Provided by publisher.

A revised edition of this celebrated cultural history features a new afterword and three new chapters focusing on the global K-pop phenomenon BTS, as well as the Academy Award–winning film Parasite and the hit Netflix series Squid Game. In this fresh, funny, and insightful cultural history, Euny Hong recounts how South Korea vaulted itself into the twenty-first century, becoming a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture. Along the way we meet teachers, cultural critics, Michelin-starred chefs, pop music superstars, and government ministers in charge of creating boy bands with highly synchronized dance moves. The strict rigors of the Korean education system now lead to a society that works and plays hard—with a Ministry of Culture that churns out movies, television dramas, pop bands, and video games exported throughout the world. The Birth of Korean Cool reveals how a really uncool country became cool, and how a nation that once banned miniskirts, long hair on men, and rock and roll could come to be known for its pop music and the smartphone in everyone’s pocket. This revised edition features a new afterword and three new chapters focusing on the global K-pop phenomenon BTS, as well as the Academy Award-winning film Parasite and the hit Netflix series Squid Game.

"A fresh, funny, up-close look at how South Korea remade itself as the world's pop culture powerhouse of the twenty-first century. By now, everyone in the world knows the song "Gangnam Style" and Psy, an instantly recognizable star. But the song's international popularity is no passing fad. "Gangnam Style" is only one tool in South Korea's extraordinarily elaborate and effective strategy to become a major world superpower by first becoming the world's number one pop culture exporter. As a child, Euny Hong moved from America to the Gangnam neighborhood in Seoul. She was a witness to the most accelerated part of South Korea's economic development, during which it leapfrogged from third-world military dictatorship to first-world liberal democracy on the cutting edge of global technology. The Birth of Korean Cool recounts how South Korea vaulted itself into the twenty-first century, becoming a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture.Featuring lively, in-depth reporting and numerous interviews with Koreans working in all areas of government and society, Euny Hong reveals how a really uncool country became cool, and how a nation that once banned miniskirts, long hair on men, and rock 'n' roll could come to mass produce boy bands, soap operas, and the world's most popular smartphone"--

Examines the economic and social role of women in today's society, covering changes in job structure and technology, birth and divorce rates, education, sex roles and the family, and assesses the domestic pressures on men.

Raising the Floor confronts America's biggest economic challenge--the fundamental restructuring of the economy and the emerging disruptive technology that threaten secure jobs and income. Andy Stern convincingly shows why it is time to consider a universal basic income as the nation's twenty-first-century solution to increasing inequality. In 2010, troubled by watching families chase the now-elusive American Dream, Andy Stern began a five-year journey to investigate how technology will impact jobs and the future of work. Stern, formerly the head of the nation's most influential and fastest-growing union, the Service Employees International Union, investigated these issues with a wide range of CEOs, futurists, economists, workers, entrepreneurs, and investment bankers who are shaping the future. The sobering assessment that emerged from his research across the political spectrum, from libertarians at the CATO Institute to the leaders of the progressive left, is that this time is different: there will be meager benefits that come with full-time work and fewer good jobs overall. Facing such a challenging moment, Stern's solution is fittingly bold: to establish a universal basic income by eliminating many current government programs and adding new resources. At once vivid, provocative, and pragmatic, Raising the Floor will spark a national conversation about creating the new American Dream.

"Japan and the four little dragons—Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore—constitute less than 1 percent of the world’s land mass and less than 4 percent of the world’s population. Yet in the last four decades they have become, with Europe and North America, one of the three great pillars of the modern industrial world order. How did they achieve such a rapid industrial transformation? Why did the four little dragons, dots on the East Asian periphery, gain such Promethean energy at this particular time in history? Ezra F. Vogel, one of the most widely read scholars on Asian affairs, provides a comprehensive explanation of East Asia’s industrial breakthrough. While others have attributed this success to tradition or to national economic policy, Vogel’s penetrating analysis illuminates how cultural background interacted with politics, strategy, and situational factors to ignite the greatest burst of sustained economic growth the world has yet seen. Vogel describes how each of the four little dragons acquired the political stability needed to take advantage of the special opportunities available to would-be industrializers after World War II. He traces how each little dragon devised a structure and a strategy to hasten industrialization and how firms acquired the entrepreneurial skill, capital, and technology to produce internationally competitive goods. Vogel brings masterly insight to the underlying question of why Japan and the little dragons have been so extraordinarily successful in industrializing while other developing countries have not. No other work has pinpointed with such clarity how institutions and cultural practices rooted in the Confucian tradition were adapted to the needs of an industrial society, enabling East Asia to use its special situational advantages to respond to global opportunities."

"Every day, innovative entrepreneurs pioneer bold economic ideas that change the way we live and work. Companies like Google, Apple, Oracle, Facebook and Twitter aren't the only ones shaping our economic future--there's another trend emerging that will change the ways we work and live. The "sharing economy," or the "collaborative consumption economy," includes companies like TaskRabbit, Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Zaarly, and DocVacay who are purveyors of an economic system that revolves around sharing human and physical resources. This new aspect to the economy, Steven Hill argues, is a dead end for U.S. workers, as well as for the national economy. In Raw Deal, Hill shows the "sharing economy" is a new and troubling component to what is an overall bad economy that undermines workers. Vulnerable freelancers and day laborers hire themselves out for ever smaller jobs and amounts of money, and it is only the companies who hire them who reap the big benefits. Hill argues that we must shift the support for American workers to one that is individual-based rather than workplace-based. Countering the onset of the freelance society and the new economy is the new civil rights and labor struggles of our time. This important book answers these questions and provides pragmatic solutions to adapt our economic system to its new realities, launching a new civil rights struggle capable of transforming the freelance society into a stakeholder society"--

""Too Much Magic" is what Kunstler sees in the bright visions of a future world dreamed up by optimistic souls who believe technology will solve all our problems. In Too Much Magic, Kunstler articulates a number of issues relating to the unsustainability of our high-energy lifestyle, including: The pernicious cult of "Happy Motoring" and our desire to preserve an ailing and backwards automotive industry at all costs; The upcoming demise of suburbia and the mass migration and demographic shifts that will ensue; The inadequacy of both renewable energy sources and alternative fossil fuels such as biodiesel, tar sands, and shale oil and gas to make up the energy shortfall when our conventional sources of fuel dry; The effect of the continuing increase in global population even after resource shortfalls of oil and fossil fuels become acute; How the diminishing returns of technology collide with hypercomplexity to scuttle our wishes for an easy way out of our epochal predicaments. With vision and clarity of thought, and an antic, comic spirit, Kunstler argues that the time for magical thinking and hoping for miracles is over, and the time to begin preparing for the long emergency has begun."--Jacket.

"This book focuses on the importance of ideological and institutional factors in the rapid development of the British economy during the years between the Glorious Revolution and the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Joel Mokyr shows that we cannot understand the Industrial Revolution without recognizing the importance of the intellectual sea changes of Britain's Age of Enlightenment. In a vigorous discussion, Mokyr goes beyond the standard explanations that credit geographical factors, the role of markets, politics, and society to show that the beginnings of modern economic growth in Britain depended a great deal on what key players knew and believed, and how those beliefs affected their economic behavior. He argues that Britain led the rest of Europe into the Industrial Revolution because it was there that the optimal intersection of ideas, culture, institutions, and technology existed to make rapid economic growth achievable. His wide-ranging evidence covers sectors of the British economy often neglected, such as the service industries." -- Publisher description.

Israel has changed. The country was born in Europe's shadow, haunted by the Holocaust and inspired by the Enlightenment. But for Israelis today, Europe is hardly relevant, and the country's ties to the broader West, even to America, are fraying. Where is Israel heading? How do citizens of an increasingly diverse nation see themselves globally and historically? In this revealing portrait of the new Israel, Diana Pinto presents a country simultaneously moving forward and backward, looking outward and turning in on itself. In business, Israel is forging new links with the giants of Asia, and its booming science and technology sectors are helping define the future for the entire world. But in politics and religion, Israelis are increasingly self-absorbed, building literal and metaphorical walls against hostile neighbors and turning to ancient religious precepts for guidance here and now.

In August 1999 a forty-six-year-old sheep farmer name José Bové was arrested for dismantling the construction site of a new McDonald's restaurant in the south of France. A few months later Bové built on his fame by smuggling huge chunks of Roquefort cheese into Seattle, where he was among the leaders of the antiglobalization protests against the World Trade Organization summit. Bové's crusade against globalization helped provoke a debate both within France and beyond about the pros and cons of a world in which financial, commercial, human, cultural, and technology flows move faster and more extensively than ever before. As the French struggle to preserve the country's identity, heritage, and distinctiveness, they are nonetheless adapting to a new economy and an interdependent world. This book deals with France's effort to adapt to globalization and its consequences for France's economy, cultural identity, domestic politics, and foreign relations. The authors begin by analyzing the structural transformation of the French economy, driven first by liberalization within the European Union and more recently by globalization. By examining a wide variety of possible measures of globalization and liberalization, the authors conclude that the French economy's adaptation has been far reaching and largely successful, even if French leaders prefer to downplay the extent of these changes in response to political pressures and public opinion. They call this adaptation ""globalization by stealth."" The authors also examine the relationship between trade, culture, and identity and explain why globalization has rendered the three inseparable. They show how globalization is contributing to the restructuring of the traditional French political spectrum and blurring the traditional differences between left and right. Finally, they explore France's effort to tame globalization maîtriser la mondialisation and the possible consequences and lessons of the French stance for the rest of the world.

Feldman, Gerald D.

This book focuses on the legal issues confronting foreigners doing business in Taiwan and reports on the legal aspects of international trade and investment in the country. Mitchell Silk achieves a balance between the scholarly and practical aspects of each of the topics covered in Taiwan Trade and Investment Law by providing indepth insight into both theory and practice. Topics examined include taxation, technology transfer, banking and financial services, trademark law, and environmental protection issues.