800-CEO-READ New Releases

Boeing Versus Airbus

by John Newhouse

(Random House Inc, 256 Pages)

From the author of the classic study of the aviation industry, The Sporty Game, a new book that chronicles the high-stakes rivalry between the world’s two largest aircraft manufacturers—companies that will bet the house on a single airplane.

Long one of America’s most successful and admired corporations—and its biggest exporter—Boeing struggled to maintain 50 percent of the market share for commercial aircraft after being overtaken by the European upstart Airbus in the late 1990s. But Airbus did not remain on top for long. By 2006, the company suffered from mismanagement and had adopted the kind of complacent, risk-averse culture that had once characterized its competitor.

Incorporating interviews he conducted throughout the industry—with everyone from company leaders, past and present, and Wall Street analysts to design engineers and factory workers—John Newhouse takes us inside these two firms to help us understand their struggle for supremacy in a business based as much on instinct as on economics. He examines the critical issues that Boeing has faced in recent years, including its difficult merger with McDonnell Douglas, its controversial move from Seattle to Chicago, and a series of corporate scandals that made front-page news. And he analyzes the troubles that have beset a once ascendant Airbus, notably an institutional structure aimed at satisfying the narrowly focused interests of its European stakeholders. Newhouse also explores the problems that now face Boeing and Airbus alike: potential competition from China and Japan, the challenge of serving burgeoning Asian markets, and the need to undo years of mismanagement.

Boeing Versus Airbus is a fascinating, informed, and insightful tale of success, and failure, in the turbulent, do-or-die world of the aircraft industry.

Flower Confidential

by Amy Stewart

(Workman Pub Co, 306 Pages)

We buy more flowers a year than we do Big Macs, spending $6.2 billion annually. We use them to mark our most important events, to express sentiments that might otherwise go unsaid. And we demand perfection. So it’s no surprise that there is a $40 billion global industry devoted to making flowers flawless.

Amy Stewart takes us inside the flower trade—from the hybridizers, who create new varieties in the laboratory, to the growers, who produce flowers by the millions (often in a factory-like setting), to the Dutch auctioneers, who set the bar (and the price), and ultimately to the neighborhood florists orchestrating the mind-boggling demands of Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. There’s the breeder intent on developing the first blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the world’s most popular lily; a grower of gerberas of every color imaginable; and the equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the “ Forever Young” rose.

Stewart explores the relevance of flowers in our lives and in our history, and in the process she reveals all that has been gained—and lost—by tinkering with nature.

How Countries Compete

by Richard H. K. Vietor

(Client Distribution Services, 320 Pages)

Business and political leaders often talk about what their respective countries must do to compete in the world economy. But what does it really mean for a country to compete, and how do they do this successfully? As the world has globalized, countries develop strategies to compete for the markets, technologies, and skills that will raise their standards of living. These government strategies can make--or break--a nation's efforts to drive and sustain growth.

In How Countries Compete: Strategy, Structure and Government in the Global Economy, Richard Vietor shows how governments set direction and create the climate for a nation’s economic development and profitable private enterprise. Drawing on history, economic analysis, and interviews with executives and officials around the globe, Vietor provides rich and insightful examinations of different government approaches to growth and development--leading to both success and failure.

Individual chapters focus on the unique social, economic, cultural, and historical forces that shape governments’ approach to economic growth. Countries discussed include: China, India, Japan, Singapore, the United States Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. Vietor challenges the widespread notion that, in market-driven economies such as the United States, a strong government can only hinder business success.

A provocative account and a rich resource, How Countries Compete offers potent insights into how the business environment has evolved in crucial nations—and what its trajectory might look like in the future.

Connected

by Daniel Altman

(Farrar Straus & Giroux, 288 Pages)

What if you could look behind the headlines of the global economy to see how it really worked? Instead of listening to pundits, politicians, and protestors, you could see firsthand how everyone from migrant workers to central bank governors lived their lives. Then you could decide for yourself where the big trends were heading.

Now you can. Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy isn’t another polemic for or against globalization. Daniel Altman takes you on a whirlwind journey through more than a dozen cities, gathering points of view from moguls, ministers, and the men and women on the street. At each stop, you’ll hear how the world’s workers played their parts in the events of a single day. Starting with their stories, related in their own words, you’ll take on pressing questions in new ways: Can poor countries become rich too quickly? Can corruption ever be a good thing? Do companies need crises in order to stay competitive? What determines the global economic pecking order? Most important, you’ll learn how the billions of decisions made by individuals can and do change the future.

Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy is part travel guide, part owner’s manual—an absorbing, accessible, and essential road map for every citizen of the global economy in the twenty-first century.

The Sushi Economy

by Sasha Issenberg

(Gotham, 352 Pages)

From the sea to your plate, the first international tour of sushi’s journey in the global marketplace

One generation ago, sushi’s narrow reach ensured that sports fishermen who caught tuna in most of the world sold the meat for pennies as cat food. Today, the fatty cuts of tuna known as toro are among the planet’s most coveted luxury foods, worth hundreds of dollars a pound and capable of losing value more quickly than any other product on earth. So how has one of the world’s most popular foods gone from being practically unknown in the U.S. to being served in towns all across America, and in such a short span of time? Sushi aficionados and newcomers alike will be surprised to learn the true history, intricate business, and international allure behind this fascinating food.

A riveting combination of culinary biography, behind-the-scenes restaurant detail, and a unique exploration of globalization’s dynamics, journalist Sasha Issenberg traces sushi’s journey from Japanese street snack to global delicacy. THE SUSHI ECONOMY takes you through the stalls of Tokyo’s massive Tsukiji market, where the auctioneers sell millions of dollars of fish each day, and to the birthplace of modern sushi--in Canada. He then follows sushi’s evolution in America, exploring how it became LA’s favorite food. You’re taken behind the sushi bar with the chef Nobu Matsuhisa, whose distinctive travels helped to define the flavors of global sushi cuisine, and with a unique sushi chef blazing a path in Texas. Issenberg also delves into the complex economics of the fish trade, following the ups and downs of the hunt for bluefin off New England, the tuna cowboys on the southern coast of Australia who invented the art of tuna ranching, and uncovering the mysterious underworld of pirates, smugglers, and the tuna black market.

Few businesses reveal the complex dynamics of globalization as acutely as the tuna’s journey from the sea to the sushi bar. After traversing the pages of THE SUSHI ECONOMY, you’ll never see the food on your plate — or the world around you — quite the same way again.

IT And the East

by Bob Hayward, Partha Iyengar

(Perseus Distribution Services, 226 Pages)

The center of gravity in the technology world has shifted east. Today, India and China are churning out some of the world’s best-trained computer science and electrical engineering graduates. In both countries, consumer classes and domestic markets for technology have ballooned. Western high-tech firms are increasingly sourcing their products’ assembly from India and China and the innovation that drives those products. Meanwhile, indigenous Indian and Chinese companies are creating intellectual property and innovations that will compete with those same Western companies.

In IT and the East, James M. Popkin and Partha Iyengar examine the vital questions these developments raise: What’s the long-term impact of high-tech outsourcing? How will innovation be managed in the future? Can Western firms compete in Asian markets while protecting key intellectual property? Will the innovation engine inexorably shift east? What would such a shift mean for Western countries currently driving innovation? The authors also discuss the emerging alliances between Indian and Chinese technology companies and outline the implications for Western businesses.

Filled with extensive interviews with high-level executives, government officials, and academics from around the world, IT and the East is the first book to articulate the challenges that new business scenarios and capabilities in India and China pose for Western technology firms.

India Arriving

by Rafiq Dossani

(Amacom Books, 291 Pages)

Book Description
Once the jewel in the crown of the formidable British Empire, India has been surrounded by myth for years. After gaining independence in 1948, this often misunderstood country found itself faced with a new sense of freedom -- and along with it, enormous burdens and challenges. While exotic, mysterious, and seductive, it has also become an economic force to be reckoned with. With the fourth largest economy in the world, the largest youth population on Earth, and a thriving middle class, India is the second-most-preferred destination for foreign investment. But very few Americans truly understand what a rich and powerful country it has become � or its role as a global power, center of outsourcing, and potential partner with the United States.

From the country�s thriving film industry to its burgeoning high-tech industry as well as its attempts to stabilize its economy, India Arriving offers a fascinating glimpse into the real India, with all of its assets and all of its faults. Author Rafiq Dossani goes beneath the veil surrounding India and explores the many ways it has begun to emerge onto the world stage. He explores its birth as an independent nation and forces like political shifts, social reform, and education that have helped to shape a new India. Honest and revelatory, India Arriving provides a deeper understanding of a country that promises to be the next major player in the world economy.

About the Author
Rafiq Dossani (Santa Barbara, CA) is a senior research scholar and executive director at Stanford University�s Asian Pacific Research Center.

How to Rule the World

by Mark Engler

(Nation Books, 256 Pages)

From the back cover
Right now a debate is taking place over what values should define our international order. For global elites, it is a debate about how to rule the world. Laying out a new and original framework for understanding globalization politics, Mark Engler describes the conflict between a Clinton-era vision of an expanding, corporate-controlled global economy and a Bush-era "imperial gloalization" based on US military dominance. How to Rule the World explains how these visions overlap and also how, at critical moments, they clash with one another. It written, however, in the hopes that neither will prevail.

Becoming Your Own China Stock Guru

by J. Trippon

(John Wiley & Sons Inc, 208 Pages)

The Nonverbal Advantage

by Carol Kinsey Goman

(Berrett-Koehler Pub, 216 Pages)

The workplace is a "blink" worldstudies show we form opinions of one another within 7 seconds of meeting, and that 93% of the message people receive from us has nothing to do with what we actually say. So good nonverbal communication skills are a huge professional advantage. Carol Kinsey Goman combines the latest research and her 25 years of practical experience as a consultant, coach and therapist to offer a fun and practical guide to understanding what we and the people we work with are saying without speaking, Goman writes in an informal, conversational tone, illustrating her points with cartoons, photos and anecdotes, and she includes dozens of simple and enlightening exercises readers can practice to gain control over the message their body is sending. The Nonverbal Advantage will help readers communicate far more effectively, understand those around them more completely, and project a more accurate picture of who they really are to their colleagues, clients and partners.

The War for Wealth

by Gabor Steingart

(McGraw-Hill, 304 Pages)

Chinese Fireworks

by Robert Hsu

(John Wiley & Sons Inc, 224 Pages)

China is on fire! In the course of barely a decade, China has become the world's fastest-growing economy and it is now the world's most important marketplace. China produces more steel, coal, clothing, and toys than any other country in the world, and exports to the U.S.alone have grown by more than 1,500% since the 1990s. These are the figures that everyone talks about. What they don't know is that the Chinese consumer is the real growth driver and has become singularly important to the global economy. Because of the incredible growth in China, there are 1.3 billion people who suddenly have the ability to create personal wealth. This new reality has created an unprecedented opportunity for global investors to grow their portfolios and build their fortunes.

As big investors scramble for their piece of theChina pie, however, individual investors are being fed misinformation and conflicting reports that could lead to disastrous investments. Investing in China is easier to navigate and much more profitable when you know what to look for—and China Fireworks will show you the way.

Author Robert Hsu has been making money for years by watching China's growth and identifying trends that deliver the greatest return for investors. As one of the leading experts on investing in China's economy, he advises people every day on how a China strategy will truly take them to a new level of investing.

With this book, Hsu shows you how to build your fortune by participating in what he calls the "China Miracle." Hsu begins by explaining the key differences between China's major economic and geographic regions, as well as Hong Kong, providing insight into how consumer spending habits differ and what that means for you when building an investment strategy in China.
With China Fireworks as your guide—along with some thoughtful research and common sense—you'll be well on your way to getting rich from the "China Miracle."

Globality

by Harold L. Sirkin, Jim Hemerling, Arindam Bhattacharya

(Business Plus, 304 Pages)

Globalization is about Americans outsourcing product development and services to other countries. Globality is the next step, where rapidly developing economies from around the world are now competing with us head to head. The authors present a strong case that the economic climate in which we have lived is going to change in unprecedented ways.

Over the past five years, Hal Sirkin, Jim Hemerling and Arindam Bhattacharya of the prestigious Boston Consulting Group have completed an exhaustive study of more than 3,000 companies operating in the new emerging market economies of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Eastern Europe. Sirkin, Hemerling and Bhattacharya believe that these companies that seem obscure today will be the GMs, Monsantos, Apples, Proctor and Gambles and Toyotas of the future.
Sooner than we think, we will either end up working for these foreign-based companies or, even worse, have to compete with them. Globality will describe how these new companies have come to power, and how, in the West, we will have to step up our game if we are to compete with these new, lean, hungry businesses.