The Cold War
John Lewis Gaddis Penguin, €14
ISBN 0143038273  Is it really possible that almost 18 years have passed since the Berlin Wall fell? As Gaddis points out, for university students today the Cold War must seem as remote as the Peloponnesian War of classical times – yet the 45-year period that ended in 1989 was a “necessary contest that settled fundamental issues once and for all”.
This is a short, well-written book enriched by the brief access Gaddis had to the Soviet archives (opened after 1991 before being slammed closed again by President Putin). His main audience is the general reader and all the major topics are covered: the communist takeover of Central-East Europe, the Berlin airlift, the Korean and Vietnam wars, Mao’s victory, the disastrous Great Leap Forward (estimated cost: 30 million lives) and the nonsensical Cultural Revolution, which almost consumed Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. Gaddis also considers developments in the US, particularly through the McCarthy era and Watergate. In comparison to the world today, it seems remarkable somehow that the West should have deferred apparently so readily to Russia’s domination of Central-East Europe and to the grotesque absurdity that was communism, yet such were the realities of the nuclear arms race. As Gaddis reminds us, there were times when Cold War realities were strange indeed – before the 1961 building of the Berlin Wall, for example, Germans hopping on the S-Bahn could cross from communism to capitalism in two minutes. At its best, The Cold War recounts the foreshadowing of the era’s end. Actors including Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were crucial because they were outsiders who found themselves propelled to positions of key importance, yet refused to allow their actions to be bound or conditioned by the contemporary wisdom. Technological advances including greater use of satellites – which made surprise attack, previously one of the great guarantors of the status quo, almost impossible – also contributed to communism’s defeat and with it, the end of the Cold War. JK
Raising Venture Capital Finance in Europe
Keith Arundale
Kogan Page, €66
ISBN 0794948490  If you want to raise money for a start up but don’t know how, this is the book for you. Ditto if you are wondering what private equity is. This book de-mystifies an industry subjected to ever-escalating scrutiny by politicians, unions and journalists. From the perspective of this magazine, a third bonus is the European scope of the book. The early chapters briefly review the history of private financing in Europe, with its 18th-century roots, typically revolving around old-fashioned patronage and the forerunners of today’s so-called ‘business angels’, rich individuals with cash to invest.
The first institutional seed-fund was the Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, or ICFC, set up in 1945 in the UK. It provided sums of investment between £5,000 and £200,000 to help small and medium-sized firms grow. From the outset, the author is careful to note that venture capital is not more or less than a sub-branch of private equity, but that it typically refers to smaller transactions for start ups or SMEs, where banks shun the higher levels of risk and won’t get involved. The dot-com era was atypical because it led to a super-fuelled and unsustainable venture capital market, leading to an inevitable correction. Yet the survivors expanded rapidly and today European private equity accounts for 39% of the global total, compared to North America’s 41%. Yet as chapter seven notes, although numerous funds and venture companies say they’re transnational, just 4% of the European money is placed outside investors’ national borders. Numerous case studies provide up-to-the-minute, practical examples, though they tend to be skewed towards technology spin-offs from university researchers. There is not room here to do this book justice. Written in layman’s English, it’s a must-read for anyone who wants to win funding, hone their skills or learn more about this sector from a position of relative ignorance. Brilliant stuff! RL The Civil Corporation
Dragons At Your Door Simon Zadek
Earthscan, €30
ISBN 1844074315  One doesn’t have to look far to find examples of companies – or, indeed, entire industries – that appear to have become unaccountable. Oil, banking and aviation can all generate prime examples of hubristic arrogance. In this interesting and readable account of what it takes to be a civil, even philanthropic, yet still profitable company, Zadek reminds us: “Businesses are run by people for people. They are no more or less than a human invention for… making people variously happy, satisfied or simply able to survive.” JK
The Maverick
Luke Johnson Harriman House, €22
ISBN 1905641400  Celebrated as a British serial entrepreneur – particularly successful with restaurant ventures – and occasionally vilified as chairman of the UK’s controversy-baiting Channel 4, Johnson wrote a regular column as “The Maverick” in the Sunday Telegraph for eight years. This book brings together 84 of these snappy missives. Johnson is an engaging companion and this breezy read is far more thought-provoking than one might suppose – and a lot more entertaining than many wit-and-wisdom collections. If it’s glib in parts, well, Johnson can jolly well afford to be. BF
Dragons At Your Door
Ming Zeng and Peter J. Williamson Harvard Business School, €25
ISBN 1422102084  While much of Europe trembles at the prospect of cost cutting by Chinese manufacturers, this well-argued book makes the point that a larger, much-ignored threat is actually innovation and speciality products being cranked out by those same feared factories. The authors give several examples of how, without the distractions of corporate governance and politicking, the Chinese are increasingly identifiing niche markets and competing in areas other than cost. BF
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