Keith Checkley believes in a simple premise: Cash flow is the heart of business. It is also the heart of his new book, a sequel to 1995's Cash is King. Using a detailed and exhaustive discussion of the cash-flow cycle as his springboard, Checkley leaps into the depths of business strategy, product development and restructurings. Just when it's all getting a bit too deep, he surfaces with penetrating case studies from companies like Dell. We at getAbstract recommend this book to financial and non-financial pros alike, all of whom will benefit from its succinct definitions of finance terms and its clear explanation of critical mathematic formulas. While many business and management books suffer from a lack of hard fact and applicability, Checkley gives you the numbers, or more importantly, he gives you the knowledge you need to crunch your own.

This down-to-earth guide is not only fun to read, it's inspirational. By the end of it, I couldn't wait to jump in to children's entertainment, using skills I already had, but never thought to use! Johnson not only motivated me to get started, he also provides useful advice on the things that worried me most--how to handle problem audiences, and how to manage the business side of entertaining. A must read!

Dr. Keith Hart is a distinguished social anthropologist, widely published author, and scholar who has taught on both sides of the Atlantic. He is currently a professor and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He has served on the faculties of Cambridge, Yale, University of Manchester, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, and McGill University.

This background should tell you something already about the author's perspective and what this book will be like. "Money in an Unequal World" is a deep academic treatment of the role of money in society. For those engaged in the study of this topic, this book offers a revolutionary way of rethinking money and society. Hart addresses how internet access separates societies by controlling their access to money and commerce. He shows how money that transfers outside national controls-and taxes-gives some the distinct advantage of being able to use "wild money." Virtual capitalism will change the money balance in the world.

You will find a tremendous amount of information and commentary packed into this book. Expect to encounter page after page of small print text without illustrations. There are nine tables and figures in the entire book. For the serious reader on this topic, this is a page-turner. For the occasional reader in this field, this will feel like a highly focused textbook. In the introduction, Hart describes the book as being written from memory, but each chapter is backed-up by an abundance of footnotes. Fortunately, the book is indexed to help readers find particular areas of interest.

While we can certainly appreciate Dr. Hart writing such a book from his ivory-tower perspective and manner, there are some really interesting aspects of this topic of value to the lay reader. Unfortunately, the design and languaging of the book does not appeal to that market.

If this topic interests you, I recommend this book. If it does not hold high academic interest, move on to another book on the topic. You'll get bogged down in this one.

Money In An Unequal World is one of those key-stone books that should (must) be read by those who think they know about economy, and by those who believe that knowing about economy's single most important tool -money- is unnecessary. Keith Hart goes beyond a simple analysis of what money is. He places money in a context, in the past and the present, as well as in the future. If we are puzzled by what's happening with the stock market, or with the 'unprecedented' economic collapse of countries such as Argentina, wondering how it is possible that within a week three million middle-class citizens suddenly became the New Poor of our era (with no fault of their own ... except perhaps trust in a system -the banking system- that makes us believe 'our' money is in good hands), we'll gain some insight from reading Hart's book and perhaps make some urgent decisions of our own. We'll find out that 'our' money isn't ours, that our choice to work isn't really a choice, because we're pressured to earn 'their' money for it's the only money available and it has very definite rules ... which most of us happen to ignore, and side-effects ... which most of us prefer not to admit are there.
Money In An Unequal World will pull the veil off of money. Are we depressed because we lack enough to fulfill our dreams ... or even our most basic survival needs? Well, one of the characteristics of 'their' money is that it's scarce. If it's scarce, there won't be enough, and if there isn't enough and the value can be made to drop or rise without our consent or even understanding of why this happens, then of course we'll see that suddenly, no matter how much we work, a decision made by 'them' will make it possible for our savings to drop in value by fifty percent, a hundred percent, or three hundred percent, as in Argentina, or five-hundred percent, as it occurred in Ecuador during 1999. Is it fair? Who makes the rules? Why aren't we asked if this is right? The answer is simple: because we are, among 99 percent of the world's population (including most economists), unaware that money is one of the prime reasons why we live in an unequal world. As Keith Hart himself writes: "For all the rhetoric of freedom that abounds in our societies, state capitalism is based on legal and economic coercion, on the ancient principle of territorial monopoly and on the newer one of having to sell oneself in order to live. State power looks as if it is on the wane; and, while the world's money system totters from one crisis to the next, the concentration of economic power in the hands of a few large corporations seems inexorable. This is our chance to find new forms of political association, more appropriate to popular needs, and perhaps even to subvert the dominance of a capitalism enjoying the fruits of globalization."
Not that Hart is against capitalism as such, but since certain expression end up meaning something much different than at first, he would prefer that we enter an era of "economic democracy" in which we also have a vote as to the kind of money we are "allowed" to use. But before we can vote, it might be a good idea to read his Money... in order to understand what choices we have. Hart writes: "The immediate and long-run causes of economic inequality, therefore, are an unfair and unstable system of money-making (...)" among others, and "Virtual capitalism has exacerbated this by marginalizing whole sectors of the world economy where agriculture and mining are predominant, as well as by unleashing savage swings in the money system that can impoverish national economies at a single blow." As in Argentina?
As it's happening or could happen in most of the world ... ?

Marx and Engels figured out capitalism. This guy has figured out money.

Basically, the message of this book is, "You can win the lottery if you just think positively about it." Which is ridiculous, of course. You can win the lottery even if you're a pessimistic jerk about it. Not buying a ticket is the only thing that disqualifies you from winning. The people who run the lottery systems don't know or care how you feel about it. Some reviewers have said this is a good book for changing your "life perspective". Whatever. I'm sure Amazon has a Self Help section with many books on that subject, and they probably aren't as deceptive as this book.

I bought this book hoping for some kind of strategy points on the hitting lottery. What this book gives you instead is a course in "positive thinking" which would be fine, if I were buying a book on that subject. Winning the lottery and this book have nothing in common.

Bought the book thinking I might win the lottery but reading it gave me a totally new slant. This book actually helped change my life! It was a way to live..I became in control of what was to become of me, not dependent on someone else. Thanks!