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Globe and Mail Review
JULY 20 2008: I hadn't yet waded into the Saturday book section of the Globe and Mail when I bumped into my friend Paul Weinberg (the progressive technology journalist) in the park yesterday.
He told me about the Globe's review of my book ... and then expressed his condolences -- which initially got me worried! No need to fret, however. Andrew Allentuck, the reviewer, is a regular business columnist for the paper, so he was a tough audience, but I'd say his comments helped more than they hurt (among my target audience, anyway).
He reviewed e4e alongside Geroge Soros's new book on the financial meltdown (The New Paradigm for Financial Markets), which is interesting company for me to keep. He uses words like "fresh package," "soft edge," and "a bit of humour" to describe e4e. (You know how movie ads can take one kind word from a review and convert it into what looks like a half-page endorsement?) In the end he finds Soros's prescription (a bit of tinkering with bank regulations) more credible than my vision for all-out social justice. I don't mind being the bad cop in that particular comparison -- it's all part of shifting the goalposts a bit.
Here's the full review. I engage substantively with a couple of his economic points (namely, about the historical rise of capitalism, and the nature of South Korea's economic policy) on the Progressive Economics Forum blog site here.