The author also admits that it would be extremely difficult for the already over worked CEO to find time to take up all these extended responsibilities. They may not have the skills either, to understand issues as diverse as foreign policy, security, global trade, economic development and social welfare. The responsibility then shifts to Business Schools and corporate in-house executive programs to expand their curriculum to meet these challenges. The terrain is uncharted and the challenge is unprecedented, warns the author.

The author, dean of the Yale business school, has rendered a most valuable service to the business leaders of America, and in the process opened the possibility that new forms of business education, new forms of business practice, and new forms of moral global governance might yet emerge in America.

Originally inspired by the "double-whammy" of 9-11 and Enron on business--(the one costing America, by Fortune's estimate for businesses alone, $150B in additional security measures, or close to 1.5% of the Gross Domestic Product; while others suggest 9-11 has reduced profits by 5-6%), the author provides an easy to read, well-documented overview of why CEOs have to engage in rebuilding the integrity of business, protecting the homeland, preserving global economic security and free trade, taking on global poverty, and influencing foreign policy.

The author excells at pointing out, in the most gracious way possible, how all of the preconceptions of the current administration, and in particular its penchant for unilateralist military bullying, have proven both unworkable in achieving their intended results, while also unsuitable in being translated to economic gains. Military power does not translate into economic power or added prosperity.

This book is *loaded* with common sense and specific ideas for getting business leadership back into the global stabilization dialog. The author focused on two ideas that I consider to be especially important: the need to reexamine how the taxpayer dollar is being spent on national security, with a view to redirecting funds (I add: from military heavy metal to what Joe Nye calls soft power: diplomacy, assistance, intelligence); and on the urgency of restoring the independence and expanding the mandate of the U.S. Information Agency so as to overcome the acute misperceptions of the US fostered by Saudi-funded schools for youths being taught to hate, and little else.

The non-governmental organizations come in for special scrutiny, and the author has many good ideas, not only for promoting better business-NGO partnerships, but for auditing the NGOs and not ceding to them the moral high ground. As he points out, many organizations that oppose globalization or specific business practices do not have any standards or transparency with respect to who funds them, how decisions are made, and so on.

Finally, the author concludes with a focus on business education. While citing many improvements made by many schools, he notes that a comprehensive study and reengineering overall has not occurred since the late 1950's and early 1960's, and that the time is long past when graduate business education must be completely revamped. He is exceptionally astute and credible throughout the book as he explores the many things that CEOs need to know but do not receive training on, to include understanding and dealing with government, NGOs, citizen advocates, and the real world. As he notes, Master's in Business Administration tend to train students for the first years in the corporation, not the long-haul. He places some emphasis on the need to consider continuing education as an extension of the original program, and I immediately thought of an MBA as a limited-term license that must be renewed by recurring personal investments in education.

As someone whose opening lecture line to citizens and businessmen is "if the State fails, you fail," I found this book extraordinarily valuable and urgent. We get the government we deserve. If citizens do not vote, if businessmen do not think of the larger social goods and social contexts within which they operate, then the government will prove incapable and at some point the party will be over.

Yale has always had an extra helping of morality and humanity; in this book the dean of the business school ably makes the case that business leadership and engagement in national security and global stabilization is the sine qua non for continued prosperity. He's got my vote--if I were a mature student looking for a place to learn, he's put Yale right at the top of my list.

Emerging Markets [eg Prahalad and Lieberthal on "The End of Corporate Imperialism"]

Europe and Asia [eg Williamson on "Asia's New Competitive Game"]

Corporate Strategies [eg Porter on "Clusters and the New Economics of Competition]

Leadership [three interviews: Victor Fung, Robert B. Shapiro, and John Browne]

Garten then provides Executive Summaries and About the Contributors, both sections giving the reader a frame-of-reference within which to evaluate the specific essays and their respective authors. Garten is eminently well-qualified. You are urged to check out another of his books, The Mind of the C.E.O., in which he shares what he learned from interviews with 40 CEOs of major global corporations.

In the Introduction, Garten identifies several "common themes" revealed throughout the sixteen essays: operating in a global market requires CEOs to rethink everything about their strategies -- even what strategy means in an environment which is changing so fast and is so brutally competitive; the best strategies require organizations that are set up for gathering massive amounts of information and processing it effectively; companies that succeed on a global scale are constant innovators; great global companies create a culture conducive to extensive internal and external collaboration; and finally, virtually all of the authors agree that change is brining unprecedented opportunity to capture markets and enhance shareholder value.

Who will derive the greatest benefit from this superb anthology of separate but inter-related essays? Obviously, the governing board members and other senior executives of global organizations (which include but are not limited to for-profits) as well as CEOs of companies which include one or more of the global organizations among their own clients. Also, business students at the undergraduate and graduate levels who seek a single-volume source of information and insight concerning global strategies for the New Economy. (Have you checked out the price of textbooks lately?) For those in need of additional sources, Garten provides an abundance of them in the "About the Contributors" section.

Those who share my high regard for this book should also check out Dun & Bradstreet's Guide to Doing Business Around the World (Morrison et al) and also, if relevant, Doing Business in Asia (Dunung) and/or The New Silk Road (Stuttard's observations on doing business in China). Having accurate and sufficient information is obviously very important but without an appropriate strategy, information cannot be effectively leveraged. Hence the importance of the diverse and abundant wisdom which is so readily available in this book.

In The Big Ten, Jeffrey Garten undertakes the task of setting forth why he believes that the countries of China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, South Korea, South Africa, Indonesia, Poland, and Argentina are on the way to economic and political success. His major premise is the embrace of free market philosophies by each country. While this is true to varying degrees, there is a big difference between free market economics as practiced by the United States and as practiced by any of these countries.

Each of these countries retains to some degree the command and regulatory economy that is almost a death bite to emerging economies. The most egregious of these countries oddly enough happens to be one of the most successful: China. However, China's success has more to do with how awful a position they were starting from than with true free market reforms.

In retrospect, it was more than wishful thinking on Garten's part to believe that all of these countries would some day soon blossom into developed industrial or post-industrial economic and political forces. It appears that he will be right in at most four cases but more likely two or three.

The two guranteed successes appear to be Mexico and South Korea. Both have not only made the transition to free market economics; but, they have also made the transition to free market politics. I believe that any multi-ethnic country needs political freedom as well as economic freedom to truly be successful past a certain point. While not being in this category, South Korea has nevertheless made the transition, which only bodes well for them.

There is a group of six from which I believe that two are likely to emerge from to gain the type of influence that Garten eyes for them. Those two are Poland and India. I believe these two are the most likely to come from this group for the reason I mentioned above: multi-party free elective governments. I don't believe the others in this group (China, Turkey, Brazil, and Argentina) are likely to hit the same level for their own unique reasons, endemic corruption, state interference, and political repression to name a few.

The remaining two countries, South Africa and Indonesia, will be lucky if they manage to make it through the next twenty years without a bloody war, either internal or external, on their hands. Indonesia is disintegrating before our eyes from political turmoil and South Africa is doing the same from the AIDS epidemic.

History will be the ultimate judge if Garten, or even myself, is correct on this matter. So far, it isn't looking good for him.

The only dissapointment of this book is that 85% of it is the author filling in his own interpretation and editorial comments between actual quotes from the CEO's. It would have been nice if the book was a series of interviews. This would have given readers more objective content and allowed us to decipher the language for ourselves. With only 15% of the reading being actual pull quotes from several CEO's, I would have to say that we only get a small glimpse of the CEO's mind.

But all in all, the author does a great job of posing the right questions to the right people. He certainly has a moral agenda that most of the consumer population would side with. It was nice to know that someone is willing to hold up the mirror of social responsibilty to the business world.