Book Summaries

In our modern world where most of us take electricity for granted, the constant availability of power that drives our lives is rarely noticed except when the supply breaks down. That constant flow of electricity determines where we live, what we eat, what we read and watch, and what we purchas...

History of the network of bridges and highways that span four million miles to the four corners of the United States is rarely chronicled from the perspective of infrastructure. In fact the use of term is only three-decade old.  ...

Today and just as thousands of years ago we are constantly finding our way in our environment. We commute, travel short distances or sometimes take long road trips with the help of modern technology and devices and constantly accessing the GPS on our phones.  ...

When something fails we are quick to blame the design or engineers that built them but upon a closer look a wider canvas emerges that often leads to other issues.  ...

Sexless reproduction, once the talk of science fiction is likely to become a reality in the next three to four decades. With the advances in genetic and bioscience, prospective parents will be able to select from the hundreds or thousands the most favorable embryo and improve the genetic outco...

Practitioners of philosophy and medicine have always looked at each other for inspiration but in the recent decades the growing overlap has led to the development of philosophy of medicine.  ...

Societies and governments around the world are looking for ways to improve and often Scandinavian model of economic and social structure gets plenty of attention. Survey after survey do their part in keeping up the perception of “heightened bliss” in the similar but still distinct communities ...

As the cold war entered in the late seventies, the venue shifted to Middle East and especially to Iran and Iraq as Western nations divided the region to friends and enemies to maintain the supply of oil, the commodity that drove the much of the economic engine.  ...

2,000 year old religious institution Catholic Church has seen its share of trouble in the last two decades. Author Mark Shriver, the lifelong Catholic and the nephew of John F. Kennedy – America’s only Catholic president – found himself increasingly disconnected from the Church until the appoi...

Managing growth has not always been easy for most entrepreneurs. There are about 28 million firms in the U.S. and only 17,000 surpass $50 million in sales and 2,500 pass $500 million.  ...

Who’s Waging it, Why it Matters, What We Can Do About It  ...

Francis Marion, though the subject of Television series and a movie, was rarely the focus of historians. General Marion, a National Hero is also credited for adopting the guerilla warfare tactics from the Cherokee in successfully repealing British Army during the American Revolution.          ...

When consumers think of seafood they seem to forget fishing, but that is precisely what they should be thinking of. Since the 90s, and increasingly in the last 15 years, the U.S. government has been privatizing fisheries, one of the most precious natural resources of the nation, with mixed res...

Electricity is one of the most basic advances of modern times that we tend to take for granted. Yet, producing and distributing electricity is capital intensive and demands a fine blend of engineering skills and business savvy. State Grid Corporation of China, although government owned and con...

In the last four decades, the United States and other developed nations have struggled to revive economic growth above 3%. Politicians and economists of all stripes have tried Keynesian stimulus, price controls, and conservative solutions ranging from free market incentives to privatization. W...

When we see a container we tend to ignore it but that aluminum box with no eye appeal managed to make world smaller and the world economy bigger.  ...

For centuries olive oil has been sought after in the Mediterranean world for its nutritive and culinary properties. Extracted from fruit, unlike other vegetable oils derived from seeds, olive oil has unique properties in taste, flavor and nutrition. With the advent of globalization in the rece...

In today’s success-focused culture, many parents assume a rather active role in projecting the early success of their children, all too often with devastating consequences. Jessica Lahey, an educator, speaker and author with a vast experience at both middle and high school level, urges overpro...

Humans, undoubtedly the most invasive species to have inhabited the Earth, have been transforming the planet for thousands of years, not always by design. This transformative human force influences other co-existing living forms and long-term outcomes in ways that are often too hard to perceiv...

Why are some bosses good at gaining support from their team and reaching new heights? How do they become superbosses in the process? Sydney Finkelstein, Professor of Strategy and Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, explains how superbosses utilize the talent of thei...