Author: Ennio Vita-Finzi
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595897126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 68
Book Description
Tired of your career? Maybe it's time to switch directions. If you're open to change and willing to do some exploring, then you need to take advantage of The Opportunity Bus. The bus operates continuously, providing transportation to new experiences and adventures-if you step on board when it stops. Following his own philosophy, Ennio Vita-Finzi describes the opportunities he seized through his optimistic jaunt through life. Known as a "human energy source with no reverse gear," Vita-Finzi seizes the most out of a life that has taken him around the world. He's had careers in air transportation, banking, and the service sector, was a trade commissioner in Western Europe, South America, and the United States, and managed four companies in Canada and Mexico. In addition to creating two consulting companies in Canada, Vita-Finzi has also been an actor, travel agent, cartoonist, headhunter, martial artist, and telemarketer. Add to his list university lecturer, musician, street vendor, public speaker, tour guide, antique dealer, and a college and university teacher, and you'll see that Vita-Finzi is living proof of how you, too, can create a life bursting with possibilities. A guide for like-minded and adventurous career travelers who are willing to seek their own unique paths, The Opportunity Bus is waiting-will you hop on?
The Opportunity Trap
Author: Pallavi Banerjee
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479825158
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Winner of the ASA Section on Asia and Asian America's Book Award on Asian America Honorable Mention, 2024 Social Science Category Book Awards, given by the Association for Asian American Studies Honorable Mention, 2022 Betty and McClung Lee Book Award, given by the Association for Humanist Sociology Unravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and families The Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families —families of male high-tech workers and female nurses—Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses. Drawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize—if not completely dismantle—families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress. Banerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479825158
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197
Book Description
Winner of the ASA Section on Asia and Asian America's Book Award on Asian America Honorable Mention, 2024 Social Science Category Book Awards, given by the Association for Asian American Studies Honorable Mention, 2022 Betty and McClung Lee Book Award, given by the Association for Humanist Sociology Unravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and families The Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families —families of male high-tech workers and female nurses—Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses. Drawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize—if not completely dismantle—families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress. Banerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.
The Confidence Trap
Author: David Runciman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691178135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
Why democracies believe they can survive any crisis—and why that belief is so dangerous Why do democracies keep lurching from success to failure? The current financial crisis is just the latest example of how things continue to go wrong, just when it looked like they were going right. In this wide-ranging, original, and compelling book, David Runciman tells the story of modern democracy through the history of moments of crisis, from the First World War to the economic crash of 2008. A global history with a special focus on the United States, The Confidence Trap examines how democracy survived threats ranging from the Great Depression to the Cuban missile crisis, and from Watergate to the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It also looks at the confusion and uncertainty created by unexpected victories, from the defeat of German autocracy in 1918 to the defeat of communism in 1989. Throughout, the book pays close attention to the politicians and thinkers who grappled with these crises: from Woodrow Wilson, Nehru, and Adenauer to Fukuyama and Obama. In The Confidence Trap, David Runciman shows that democracies are good at recovering from emergencies but bad at avoiding them. The lesson democracies tend to learn from their mistakes is that they can survive them—and that no crisis is as bad as it seems. Breeding complacency rather than wisdom, crises lead to the dangerous belief that democracies can muddle through anything—a confidence trap that may lead to a crisis that is just too big to escape, if it hasn't already. The most serious challenges confronting democracy today are debt, the war on terror, the rise of China, and climate change. If democracy is to survive them, it must figure out a way to break the confidence trap.
The Opportunity Trap
Author: Phillip Brown
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781872330785
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 38
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781872330785
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 38
Book Description
The Education Trap
Author: Cristina Viviana Groeger
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674259157
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Why—contrary to much expert and popular opinion—more education may not be the answer to skyrocketing inequality. For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality. The Education Trap returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger’s test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences—both intended and unintended—for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality. The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674259157
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Why—contrary to much expert and popular opinion—more education may not be the answer to skyrocketing inequality. For generations, Americans have looked to education as the solution to economic disadvantage. Yet, although more people are earning degrees, the gap between rich and poor is widening. Cristina Groeger delves into the history of this seeming contradiction, explaining how education came to be seen as a panacea even as it paved the way for deepening inequality. The Education Trap returns to the first decades of the twentieth century, when Americans were grappling with the unprecedented inequities of the Gilded Age. Groeger’s test case is the city of Boston, which spent heavily on public schools. She examines how workplaces came to depend on an army of white-collar staff, largely women and second-generation immigrants, trained in secondary schools. But Groeger finds that the shift to more educated labor had negative consequences—both intended and unintended—for many workers. Employers supported training in schools in order to undermine the influence of craft unions, and so shift workplace power toward management. And advanced educational credentials became a means of controlling access to high-paying professional and business jobs, concentrating power and wealth. Formal education thus became a central force in maintaining inequality. The idea that more education should be the primary means of reducing inequality may be appealing to politicians and voters, but Groeger warns that it may be a dangerous policy trap. If we want a more equitable society, we should not just prescribe more time in the classroom, but fight for justice in the workplace.
The Opportunity Bus
Author: Ennio Vita-Finzi
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595897126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 68
Book Description
Tired of your career? Maybe it's time to switch directions. If you're open to change and willing to do some exploring, then you need to take advantage of The Opportunity Bus. The bus operates continuously, providing transportation to new experiences and adventures-if you step on board when it stops. Following his own philosophy, Ennio Vita-Finzi describes the opportunities he seized through his optimistic jaunt through life. Known as a "human energy source with no reverse gear," Vita-Finzi seizes the most out of a life that has taken him around the world. He's had careers in air transportation, banking, and the service sector, was a trade commissioner in Western Europe, South America, and the United States, and managed four companies in Canada and Mexico. In addition to creating two consulting companies in Canada, Vita-Finzi has also been an actor, travel agent, cartoonist, headhunter, martial artist, and telemarketer. Add to his list university lecturer, musician, street vendor, public speaker, tour guide, antique dealer, and a college and university teacher, and you'll see that Vita-Finzi is living proof of how you, too, can create a life bursting with possibilities. A guide for like-minded and adventurous career travelers who are willing to seek their own unique paths, The Opportunity Bus is waiting-will you hop on?
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595897126
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 68
Book Description
Tired of your career? Maybe it's time to switch directions. If you're open to change and willing to do some exploring, then you need to take advantage of The Opportunity Bus. The bus operates continuously, providing transportation to new experiences and adventures-if you step on board when it stops. Following his own philosophy, Ennio Vita-Finzi describes the opportunities he seized through his optimistic jaunt through life. Known as a "human energy source with no reverse gear," Vita-Finzi seizes the most out of a life that has taken him around the world. He's had careers in air transportation, banking, and the service sector, was a trade commissioner in Western Europe, South America, and the United States, and managed four companies in Canada and Mexico. In addition to creating two consulting companies in Canada, Vita-Finzi has also been an actor, travel agent, cartoonist, headhunter, martial artist, and telemarketer. Add to his list university lecturer, musician, street vendor, public speaker, tour guide, antique dealer, and a college and university teacher, and you'll see that Vita-Finzi is living proof of how you, too, can create a life bursting with possibilities. A guide for like-minded and adventurous career travelers who are willing to seek their own unique paths, The Opportunity Bus is waiting-will you hop on?
Escaping the Build Trap
Author: Melissa Perri
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
ISBN: 1491973765
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
ISBN: 1491973765
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs
The Meritocracy Trap
Author: Daniel Markovits
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735222010
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes. This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735222010
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
A revolutionary new argument from eminent Yale Law professor Daniel Markovits attacking the false promise of meritocracy It is an axiom of American life that advantage should be earned through ability and effort. Even as the country divides itself at every turn, the meritocratic ideal – that social and economic rewards should follow achievement rather than breeding – reigns supreme. Both Democrats and Republicans insistently repeat meritocratic notions. Meritocracy cuts to the heart of who we are. It sustains the American dream. But what if, both up and down the social ladder, meritocracy is a sham? Today, meritocracy has become exactly what it was conceived to resist: a mechanism for the concentration and dynastic transmission of wealth and privilege across generations. Upward mobility has become a fantasy, and the embattled middle classes are now more likely to sink into the working poor than to rise into the professional elite. At the same time, meritocracy now ensnares even those who manage to claw their way to the top, requiring rich adults to work with crushing intensity, exploiting their expensive educations in order to extract a return. All this is not the result of deviations or retreats from meritocracy but rather stems directly from meritocracy’s successes. This is the radical argument that Daniel Markovits prosecutes with rare force. Markovits is well placed to expose the sham of meritocracy. Having spent his life at elite universities, he knows from the inside the corrosive system we are trapped within. Markovits also knows that, if we understand that meritocratic inequality produces near-universal harm, we can cure it. When The Meritocracy Trap reveals the inner workings of the meritocratic machine, it also illuminates the first steps outward, towards a new world that might once again afford dignity and prosperity to the American people.
The Content Trap
Author: Bharat Anand
Publisher: Random House Group
ISBN: 0812995384
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
“My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Praise for The Content Trap “A masterful and thought-provoking book that has reshaped my understanding of content in the digital landscape.”—Ariel Emanuel, co-CEO, WME | IMG “The Content Trap is a book filled with stories of businesses, from music companies to magazine publishers, that missed connections and could never escape the narrow views that had brought them past success. But it is also filled with stories of those who made strategic choices to strengthen the links between content and returns in their new master plans. . . . The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are.”—The Wall Street Journal
Publisher: Random House Group
ISBN: 0812995384
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
“My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Praise for The Content Trap “A masterful and thought-provoking book that has reshaped my understanding of content in the digital landscape.”—Ariel Emanuel, co-CEO, WME | IMG “The Content Trap is a book filled with stories of businesses, from music companies to magazine publishers, that missed connections and could never escape the narrow views that had brought them past success. But it is also filled with stories of those who made strategic choices to strengthen the links between content and returns in their new master plans. . . . The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are.”—The Wall Street Journal
The Opportunity Trap
Author: Pallavi Banerjee
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781479860821
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Unravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and familiesThe Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families --families of male high-tech workers and female nurses--Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses. Drawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize--if not completely dismantle--families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress. Banerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781479860821
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Unravels how US visa laws fail Indian professional workers and their legally dependent spouses and familiesThe Opportunity Trap is the first book to look at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on women and men visa holders in Indian families in America. Comparing two distinct groups of Indian immigrant families --families of male high-tech workers and female nurses--Pallavi Banerjee reveals how visa policies that are legally gender and race neutral in fact have gendered and racialized ramifications for visa holders and their spouses. Drawing on interviews with fifty-five Indian couples, Banerjee highlights the experiences of high-skilled immigrants as they struggle to cope with visa laws, which forbid their spouses from working paid jobs. She examines how these unfair restrictions destabilize--if not completely dismantle--families, who often break under this marital, financial, and emotional stress. Banerjee shows us, through the eyes of immigrants themselves, how the visa process strips them of their rights, forcing them to depend on their spouses and the government in fundamentally challenging ways. The Opportunity Trap provides a critical look at our visa system, underscoring how it fails immigrant families.
Learning, Work and Social Responsibility
Author: Karen Evans
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 140209759X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
The concept of individual responsibility has taken on a signi?cance comparable to that of ‘choice’ in the global rise of neo-liberalism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The rise of neo-liberalism is most often analysed through the lenses of theory, governmentality and societal structures. There has been a tendency for an- ysis to become overly abstract with the subjective experiences of the social actors missing dimensions in the literature. This book draws on more than 20 years of international research that has focused on the subjective experiences of people as actors in changing social landscapes. These landscapes are differently positioned politically, economically and socially, in relation to the rise of neo-liberalism. Comparisons enable the differences in people’s experiences to be located, explored and explained in relation to different soc- economic landscapes, thus throwing into relief the effects of neo-liberal policies where they are found. My approach is to create an extended dialogue between ideas and evidence, starting close to home, and then extending to speci?c international comparisons and to wider explorations of the central themes of the book: human agency and social responsibility. Finally, I return to social landscapes of Britain, to review the position and potential for social change in societies that exemplify what Sennett has termed ‘Anglo-American regimes’, in contrast to ‘Rhine regimes’ as exempli?ed by Germany.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 140209759X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
The concept of individual responsibility has taken on a signi?cance comparable to that of ‘choice’ in the global rise of neo-liberalism of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The rise of neo-liberalism is most often analysed through the lenses of theory, governmentality and societal structures. There has been a tendency for an- ysis to become overly abstract with the subjective experiences of the social actors missing dimensions in the literature. This book draws on more than 20 years of international research that has focused on the subjective experiences of people as actors in changing social landscapes. These landscapes are differently positioned politically, economically and socially, in relation to the rise of neo-liberalism. Comparisons enable the differences in people’s experiences to be located, explored and explained in relation to different soc- economic landscapes, thus throwing into relief the effects of neo-liberal policies where they are found. My approach is to create an extended dialogue between ideas and evidence, starting close to home, and then extending to speci?c international comparisons and to wider explorations of the central themes of the book: human agency and social responsibility. Finally, I return to social landscapes of Britain, to review the position and potential for social change in societies that exemplify what Sennett has termed ‘Anglo-American regimes’, in contrast to ‘Rhine regimes’ as exempli?ed by Germany.