Beyond Our Means—Why America Spends While the World Saves: Sheldon Garon

Published by Princeton University Press, 2011, 488 pages.Review by Susanne Karine Gjønnes The key question Sheldon Garon, Professor of History and East Asian Studies at Princeton, tries to answer is why are some countries thriftier than others, and in particular, why is the US saving so little? Through a comparative historical analysis, Garon tracks thriftiness …

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Indian Summer— The Secret History of the End of an Empire: Alex von Tunzelmann

Published by Henry Holt & Co. / Simon & Schuster, 2007, 496 pages.Review by RIshad Patell Reading this book as an Indian who grew up in the nineteen eighties and who had been fed a version of Indian independence through text books and what was taught in school, it is interesting to look at this …

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Nickle and Dimed—Undercover in Low-Wage USA: Barbara Ehrenreich

Published by Metropolitan Books, 2001, 224 pages. The America of mimimum wage workers is not one that gets a lot of attention in the media. To quote Polly Toynbee’s introduction to this book, it is “a secret continent”. “The barely reported truth about the American dream is that it exists in a country of widespread, …

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