Reviews for On the Challenges of Unemployment in a Regional Europe

The average rating for On the Challenges of Unemployment in a Regional Europe based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-05-03 00:00:00 Jeremy Soliday First off, the book has a ridiculous cover, but it's worth looking past that. The author teaches in Taiwan and the book is from 2007, so he has a front row seat with Chinese growth and Chinese/Japanese institutions. His thesis is that one should define countries as modern or not, where modernity is defined as a constant change. Social and political change is almost impossible for individuals to create because of our own entrenched beliefs and preference for the status quo, but in modern societies individuals are pushed along to change by impersonal institutions. A modern society has these institutions and a non modern society doesn't. The specific institutions are those for "reflection" (to identify areas that have the potential for change), "entrepreneurship" (to effectuate the change), and "pluralism" (to deal with conflicts that emerge). In Europe, the discoveries of other lands and the presence of universities and the printing press allowed for reflection. Marginal groups like Jews, urban poor, townspeople, and merchants allowed for economic entrepreneurship, while Europes battling states and difficult to police coastlines allowed for political entrepreneurship. Institutions like joint stock companies, property rights, and banks helped. For pluralism, there were lots of competing states, also politeness was tried, and finally balances of power politically and free market balances economically were the European solution. For some places like England many of these institutions were already in place and transition to modernity was easy, for others like France one needed a revolution. For China, he says there was plenty of reflection, entrepreneurship, and pluralism happening, but it was among individuals, it wasn't institutionalized, and so the modernity machine never got going. Even now there is a lot of focus on institutions for entrepreneurship, but institutions for reflection (free press, assembly, etc) and pluralism (political freedom) are missing. Japan on the other hand had the benefit of seeing what happened to China first (when European powers came knocking in 19th century) and also had longstanding institutions that eased the transition to modernity. Overall it's an interesting framework, but the arguments are not made that well. A lot of times I had trouble figuring out where the author was going.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-07-21 00:00:00 Richard Converse Fantadtic Everyone who lives in the United States should read this book. It illuminates the origins of our culture and relationships to one another. Beautifully worded and attention to detail is unmatched for a period journal from this time.