Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream, Lemann - B

                                    The title of this book is a counterpoint to a 1950's one called 'Organization Man'. Then, the American economy and society were dominated by big corporations and other institutions such as unions, governments, colleges and school systems that offered lifetime employment in exchange for security and  conformity. That world is long gone and today's transactional world is its opposite in every measure. Wealth is now concentrated, and the public arena is fraught with anger. "This book aims to lay out the history of our move from an institution-oriented to a transactional-oriented society." The transactional society is now slowly becoming networked by big technology. The history is told through the eyes of Adolf Berle, Michael Jensen and Reid Hoffman. 

Berle was born in 1895 as America was in the middle of its multi-generational struggle to determine how to control the concentration of power in big business. By 21, he had obtained three Harvard degrees. He practiced as a lawyer and gave serious consideration to the role of the corporation and its relationship to its shareholders. He published 'The Modern Corporation and Private Property'. Large corporations with tens of thousands of shareholders were essentially answerable to no one, and only the federal government was capable of controlling them. He became an advisor to Governor Roosevelt  and sketched out the essentials of the New Deal for him. Controlled capitalism came out of the Depression, managed the war effort and treated post-war America to a period of unimaginable prosperity. The large corporation and its people reigned supreme and was responsive and responsible to all stakeholders. In the 1950's, management consultant Peter Drucker proposed that big companies had social responsibilities, and America's biggest, GM, responded by offering health care and retirement benefits to the UAW. This world in which the forces of capital had been tamed began to change in the 1970's when substantial pools of money in pension plans and mutual funds came to the fore. Corporate pension plans owned a third of the stock issued in America, leading Drucker to announce that the workers of America owned the means of production. Soon, the providers of capital would demand higher returns on their investments. 

Mike Jensen enrolled in the graduate economics program at the University of Chicago in the early sixties at a time when the idea that the markets were the proper governing institution of the postwar world was gaining traction. Milton Friedman, among others, argued that corporate America was not sufficiently market oriented. Jensen and a partner published in 1976 a 'Theory of the Firm', castigating corporate managers for not acting as owners and not maximizing profits. Soon thereafter, corporate raiders, mergers, and hostile takeovers were the rage.  One third of the companies on the Fortune 500 did not maintain their independence in the 1980's. Wall Street changed from genteel provider of advice to its corporate accounts to swashbuckling raiders and traders. And more importantly, the social construct of running business for the well being of the community vanished. The Financial Stabilization Act of 1999 further deregulated Wall Street as financiers pushed boundaries more and more.   Eventually, Jensen concluded that the markets had overplayed their hand, as all anyone did anymore was manage for quarterly earnings. The new century saw a headlong rush from deregulation to outright speculation. It all fell apart in the Great Recession. The transaction men had demolished  the organization men, and in turn, were laid low by their own hubris. The system was adrift. 

Reid Hoffman was born in California in the late 60's. He was a gamer, and a Stanford grad who became CFO of PayPal and believed in the power of the network. He went on to found LinkedIn and became a proponent of 'social operating systems', whereby people connected person to person, and not to or from a larger entity. Money was to be made owning the connective infrastructure, not providing the content. In 2011, LinkedIn went public and today has 500 million members. In 2016, the firm was sold to Microsoft.

 The information about and the ideas generated in Silicon Valley are fascinating. But at no point does the author tie them in to the big issues that the previous ideas tackled: how to control big capital and big business, how to weigh the needs of a society, how to regulate and control fair outcomes? He closes with the observation that the organizing ideas of the past cannot make a comeback and that we are both economically and politically in hot water. He suggests a sort of return to basics,  and having interest groups fix the day to day issues and not worrying about grandiose concepts as the solution. 

Throughout the book, the author returns again and again to a neighborhood in Chicago to illustrate his points. Chicago Lawn was once an all white blue collar neighborhood just east of Midway Airport. In the 1950's, it was filled with working class Catholic ethnics, who were the bastion of the postwar world order in America. They worked for the plants in the neighborhood:  General Foods, car parts fabricators and other small manufacturers. Many worked for the city and regardless of where they worked, they voted Democratic and went to church on Sunday. The 60's saw an occasional person of color move in. The 80's saw all of the public companies in the neighborhood close up their local plants and stores. Their withdrawal ended  the economic stability of the neighborhood. The banks that financed homes were gone, and in the 2000's, many, particularly Hispanics, were victimized by mortgage brokers. Soon, community leaders met with bankers, the Governor, Senator Durbin and  the local organizer, Barack Obama, in an attempt to do something about the foreclosure crisis. Of course, they failed. The US saved the financial institutions, but not their customers. 

This has been an enlightening and informative read. I have tended to think of our nation's income inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class as caused by globalization and technology. Perhaps I've overlooked the financial services sectors' deregulation because I prospered from it. Clearly, globalization, technology and deregulation of the financial markets are the three primary reasons for our predicament. That said, the author finished with an almost incoherent whimper.

  

                                   

Chances Are, Russo - B+

                                  This fabulous novel features three men, all blue-collar underdogs who meet while working as 'hashers' in the kitchen of the Theta sorority house at fictional Minerva College in 1967. Most of the girls are from places like Greenwich while the three men are scholarship kids working their way through. The most important event of their young lives comes on Dec. 1, 1969, the night of the first lottery,  when one loses, one wins and one isn't so sure what his number means. On Memorial Day after their 1971 graduation, one of the Thetas joins them for the weekend on Cape Cod. Jacy leaves early on Tuesday morning, leaves a good-bye note and is never seen again. Her disappearance is still center stage when they reunite on the Cape forty-four years later. This is a truly superb exploration of life, love, family, the threat of war, heartbreak, failure, the eked out successes we all seek, and hopefully claim. The fact that it is written by someone my age  provides an eerie immediacy. 

Lock Every Door, Sage - B

                                  When a book is labeled a page turner and it's dedicated to Ira  Levin, you have a suspicion of what follows. On the Upper West Side overlooking Central Park is a hundred year old building filled to the brim with really nasty people. They have a propensity to hire apartment sitters who tend to be young, healthy and without family. To say more  would be inappropriate. This is nice easy fun.

The Accomplice, Kanon - C

                            Max, an ailing and old Nazi hunter,  sits in a cafe in 1962 trying to convince his nephew Aaron, a CIA desk man, to join the family business. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a man walking away and tells his nephew that the man is Otto Schramm, noted number two  to Mengele at Auschwitz. Max's heart attack and death convince Aaron to try to track down Schramm. He goes to Buenos Aires and follows Otto's daughter, Hanna. Aaron locates Schramm and recruits the Mossad, who snatch Schramm off the street. The CIA joins the fray and wants to try and turn Otto, who winds up dead in an escape attempt. Hanna winds up assisting the CIA. Kanon is an accomplished writer in this genre, but I believe he has lost a step here.

City of Windows, Pobi - B+

                                                  This an excellent novel featuring a brilliant astrophysicist who in a prior life had worked for the FBI. Lucas Page had always been a polymath boy genius and currently teaches at Columbia. His FBI career was centered on his ability to envisage bullet trajectories in his head thus eliminating massive amounts of field work. He left the bureau after getting himself very badly shot up. When a sniper starts indiscriminately firing from the heights of NYC buildings, he is pulled back in. He brilliantly sorts it all out and so begins what will hopefully be a very good series.

Say Nothing: A True Story Of Murder And Memory in Northern Ireland, Keefe - B +

In the north of Ireland, both faiths are in the minority. The Protestants are outnumbered on the island and are deathly afraid of the Republic. The Catholics are the distinct minority in the six counties of Northern Ireland. Somehow, notwithstanding a shared ethnicity and shared back-breaking poverty, they have developed a tribal hatred based on confessional idiosyncrasies to rival any on the planet. That hatred has waxed and waned over the centuries and came to the forefront once again in the late 1960's This book is nominally about the murder in 1972 of Jean McConville, a mother of ten, a Protestant who crossed the line and married a Catholic. What it really is though is a history of the Troubles,  the violent era from  1969-1999, and its aftermath. Sectarian violence accelerated throughout the sixties and in 1972, over 500 people died. The Troubles also meant the return of armed republicanism with the birth of the provisional wing of the IRA. The Provos accepted women for the first time as front line fighters and not handmaidens. The Price sisters, Dolours and Marian, were the daughters of committed members and early joiners. The year 1972 also saw the the legendary Bloody Sunday, when British paratroopers killed thirteen and London imposed direct rule. The British Army soon had 30,000 men in the north and, under the Special Powers Act, could intern anyone for as long as it wished without trial or any form of redress. Indeed, the UK was in full colonial suppression mode, utilizing any and all tools of counterinsurgency, including clandestine assassination. In the waning days of the year, a few men showed up at Jean McConville's apartment and took her away. Her children later said that her crime had been to provide a pillow to a British soldier bleeding to death in the street. Republicans said she was a traitor. A tactic that the IRA had been pursuing was car bombs. They eventually recognized they were killing people in Ireland and no one in Britain was paying much attention. Dolours Price suggested targeting London, and in March, two bombs went off in the capital. There were hundreds of casualties, but no deaths. Dolours, her sister Marian, Brendan Hughes and half a dozen others were captured at Heathrow. They were sentenced to twenty years. They demanded to be transferred to Ireland and be declared political prisoners. They went on a hunger strike and were force-fed for five months, but eventually prevailed and were transferred to Armagh. As the conflict continued, Gerry Adams, leader of the IRA in the north, concluded that a political victory, not a military one, was the true prerequisite to the eviction of the British. But the 1979 murder of Lord Mountbatten and the election of Margaret Thatcher, followed by the car bombing of Thatcher's campaign manager, pushed any resolution out to the future. Thatcher was unmoved as Bobby Sands was the first of ten hunger strikers to die in a British prison. However, as anorexia and other health issues plagued the Price sisters, the government remitted their sentences. Gerry Adams was elected to Westminster in 1983, but never attended. He began to push the movement to the political arena, acting on constituency and everyday living matters. Behind the scenes, he discussed the possibility of peace with moderate Catholics. The violence in the eighties toned down and in 1994, the IRA declared a cease fire. In 1998, Adams, retired US Senator George Mitchell and newly-elected British PM, Tony Blair, were negotiating a real peace. The ensuing Good Friday Accord provided that the six counties of the north could, at some stage in the future, join the Republic if a majority desired to do so.  In the new century, the idea of creating an honest record of the past grew and led to the creation of the oral history program at Boston College known as the Belfast Project. By agreement, no one's recollections would be available until after their death. Many of the faithful who spoke to the BC interviewer were disappointed in the GFA. They felt betrayed by Adams for giving up on the fight to evict the British and felt the rationale behind many of their actions, certainly criminal but done for a higher purpose, had now been reduced to the mundane. Two who spoke to BC were Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes. In 2003, the corpse of Jean McConville was found and interred. Before he died in 2005, Brendan Hughes had arranged for his oral transcript to be used in a book, and in 2010, 'Voices From The Grave' told many stories and, in particular, named Adams as the man who ordered innumerable actions including the London bombing and the murder of Jean McConville. Price too said that Adams ordered the McConville assassination. Adams, by then a member of the legislature in the Republic, was arrested in 2014, but no charges were ever filed. Twenty-years after the GFA, Northern Ireland is at peace, but it hasn't really changed. Ninety percent of children go to segregated elementary schools. No one has been held responsible for the atrocities committed by the government or the Provos and no admissions have been made by either side. The population of 1.5 million suffered a total dead during the Troubles of 35,000. The conflict is paused at the moment as Brexit wreaks havoc with the structure of the United Kingdom.This book is on every 'best of' list and is very, very good. My mother's grandmother came from what is now the north and was a staunch Republican. My father's grandfather came from County Cork. Thus, I have always leaned left on this topic and sincerely believe that the British oppressed the Irish for centuries and deserve to be tossed off the island. This story depicts chapter and verse the atrocities inflicted on the Catholics in the north. I'm sympathetic to their right to rebel, but am truly saddened by the cold-hearted extremes of their tactics. There is much blame to spread around on this topic.

The Darkness, Jonasson - B

                                  This is the first book in a three-part Icelandic series featuring Hulda Hemannsdottir, a Reyjavik detective during her last few days of work. At 64 plus, she's about to be pensioned off and decides to take a peek at a cold case involving the death of a young Russian woman who had been seeking asylum. It had been declared a suicide, but it didn't feel right. Hulda uncovers some serious wrongdoing when the story abruptly, and totally without resolution, ends. I guess that's what brings on the click for the next one. 

A Bend In The Stars, Barenbaum - B-

                                  This is a solid novel set in and around Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) and Kiev in the summer of 1914. The key characters are Jewish, at a time when the institutionalized hatred and persecution of Jews in the Pale is worse than ever, with war on the horizon. Miri is a physician, as is her fiance, Yuri.  Her brother Vanya is a brilliant theoretical mathematician, engaged in a bit of a long-distance rivalry with Albert Einstein. The focus of the story is Vanya's attempt to photograph an eclipse to see light bend, and thus to  confirm the theory of relativity before Einstein. It is also a love story as the brave Sasha replaces Yuri in Miri's heart. The author attempts a broad brush depiction of the chaos of that summer. But I believe she misses the mark with one too many harrowing escapes, close calls, fortuitously obtained train rides, wounds recovered from, and just too much luck at such an unlucky time and place. 

Agent Running in the Field, LeCarre - B+

                                                   He maintains his mastery of the language as he approaches age 90. He turns a phrase and sets up a plot as well as he has for sixty years.  He refers to the City as a 'laundromat' in reference to an oligarch's investments there. Here, a late-40's twenty-five year handler is ready to be sent off, when he is offered a low level job keeping an eye on the endless number of Russian illegals in London. Simultaneously, he begins a regular round of badminton at his club with a foul-mouthed younger fellow, whom he apparently tolerates only for his badminton skill. He manages to uncover a nefarious Moscow Centre plot with a player whose relationship with him causes the Office to have its doubts. There are plenty of twists and turns and an opportunity for Cornwall to speak his mind. He thoroughly enjoys bashing our leaders who have forgotten about who the enemy was in the Cold War. Bravo. 

The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story Of How America Saved The Soviet Union From Ruin, Smith - B

                                  Drought struck the Russian breadbasket along the Volga in 1920 and 1921. On the heels of seven years of war, revolution, civil war, and Kulak withdrawal of land from production,  the granaries of Russia were empty. People turned to cannibalism. Lenin allowed Maxim Gorky to publish an open letter to the West asking for help. US Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover's American Relief Agency had fed millions in Europe after WWI. He offered the help of the ARA and by August, 1921 it was in country to dispose of food parcels where and how it saw fit. However, it was not all hearts and flowers, the American right was opposed. The Cheka believed every American was opposed to the state and shadowed, if not hounded, them around the country. The conditions were so bad in Russia that the ARA staffers in the field were constantly felled by typhus. Within months of starting, the ARA was feeding 570,000 children a day. Massive distributions of corn in 1922 further stemmed the famine. The summer of 1922 was the peak of American success and popularity in Russia. Mission creep led to vast amounts of medicine and clothing arriving overseas. As the famine eased, Russian cooperation waned and the Americans began to plan a mid-23 exit. By that summer, the Americans were gone. It is estimated that the ARA saved ten million lives. The newly established USSR turned on those who had worked for the ARA and most wound up in jail or worse.   

I was unaware of this story and am glad to have learned of it. I must point out an obvious conclusion I came to long ago. The greatest failure of Bolshevism was its inability to feed its own people. Nothing says failed state more than that.

Button Man, Gross - B+

                                   This is an absolutely fabulous novel set in t New York in the first half of the twentieth century. There is nothing I enjoy more than a NYC immigrant story. It follows the life of Morris Raab, first generation impoverished Jewish kid from the lower East Side. He goes to work at 12, builds a firm in the garment industry, marries well and is a classic American success. At that point, he is targeted by Murder Incorporated, a Jewish-Italian racketeering joint venture that forces businesses into untenable crooked union contracts. He refuses and they burn down his business. He cooperates with Thomas Dewey's team and helps bring the bad guys down. He prospers in WWII, creates a national brand in the post-war era and lives to a respectable, happy old age. The surprise at the end of the novel is a postscript by the author. It is the story of his grandfather who, although long dead, left a recording about his incredible life and his business at N.Y.'s Fashion Institute. Thanks, Wendell.

The Andromeda Evolution, Wilson - B

                                  It's half-a-century later. It's back in a more potent and virulent form. To contain it, it's all hands  on deck from the US to the Amazon forest and the Space Station.

The Body In The Castle Well, Walker - B +

                                 This is the latest on Bruno, Chief of Police in the fictional St. Denis in the Perigord. I have complimented this series previously because the author is a semi-retired journalist and historian, so the writing is accurate and precise and, of equal import, the background information on the region, it's history and culture is accurate. Bruno discovers the body of  a young, beautiful, and rich American graduate student, who was researching a local art collection and apparently thinking about purchasing it. The autopsy shows Fentanyl and Oxycontin in her bloodstream, leading to the conclusion that her death was an accident. But all deaths must be investigated and Bruno, under tremendous pressure from Paris and America, sorts it out. This is one of the best yet in this series. I welcome the diversions to French history and we are treated to quite a bit of background on the exit from Algeria and its ongoing consequences.