Berkshire Blog: a global point of reference

November 28, 2006

My first trip to Ireland, and now to London Online

Last night I had supper in an Italian restaurant in Cork, Ireland, with a Chinese colleague, and made plans to meet her in Beijing in April. That's one aspect of global business development. On the other hand, at London Online, I'll be talking to a lot of U.S. colleagues. It's a strange thing, the modern way of the road warrior. We travel to distant venues to meet for half an hour in person, and we see the same people at conference after conference. In theory, these events are educational, and there's lots of attention paid to speakers and panels in all the promotional materials. But many people never go to a panel; they simply make the rounds. Don't think I'm pointing fingers: conferences are neither relaxing or educational for me, either! But they are a great chance to build relationships, and this particular meeting brings together people from different parts of my working life, and happens to be in one of the places on earth I think of as home.

As usual, I'm wearing more than one hat: I plan to write about the conference for the issue of Against the Grain I'm wrapping up this week.

I have two observations about Ireland. First, Irish feelings about the English are close to the surface: my cab driver couldn't be enjoying the cricket results more. More than one person made it clear that the English are a former colonial power and won't be forgiven for that any time soon, reinforcing one of the key lessons of Global Perspectives on the United States, that people do not forget. We Americans may have short memories, but other people do not. Second, the Irish are just as friendly and warm as I'd heard. I was presented with tea and scones on a tray within a few minutes of arriving at my hotel. Sadly, I can't report on the pub scene, another aspect of Irish culture I've been hoping to investigate.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:14 AM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2006

One of the real world series: The Ashes 2006-7

We've just sent out the first galley proofs of Global Perspectives on the United States to the major reviewers, and more will be going out next week while the indexing and corrections are finished. I'm in England now, celebrating Thanksgiving Day with fish and chips, and trying to figure out how to catch a bit of the first match in The Ashes, the cricket competition between Australia and England. It's shown from midnight to about nine in the morning, not exactly prime viewing time. But the BBC has a spectacular website with all kinds of educational stuff, too, which got me to wondering if there are English people who need an explanation of "LBW." I know what it means: Leg Before Wicket. And I know what a wicket is, and how the game is played. During my years in England, I watched dozens of league cricket matches and the guys liked nothing better than to explain the game, but the finer points I used to know, and the slang, have definitely faded in memory.

What I do remember is how global perspectives came into the talk about sports. The cricketers could not understand why tough Americans wore so much padding for their football, and they thought baseball gloves were hilarious. A cricket ball is almost exactly the size and weight of a baseball, and cricketers use no gloves (except the wicket keeper--the catcher). No wonder they saw baseball as a bit wimpy. This made it even more ridiculous that Americans called their baseball championship the World Series.

Try the Cricket Academy if you want to learn what an LBW is. Oddly enough, the glossary doesn't explain my favorite terms, googly and golden duck. Finally, here's a history of The Ashes written by your humble correspondent and put online when England won last year: http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/blog/archives/2005/09/england_wins_th_1.html. The first day this year went to Australia, 346 for 3 (90.0 overs). For you Americans, a quick explanation. 346 is the number of runs. 3 is the number of batters, out of 11, who are out. And an over is a kind of inning. The whole thing goes to 6 January 2007, with five five-day matches.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2006

Sponsoring World History

A year ago I flew to Rome to attend the World Congress of History Producers. This is the largest gathering of history documentary film makers, and I knew only one person there—coincidentally, I’d heard from Gerry Sperling, a long-time contributor, the month before and he mentioned that he was going. I went without a plan but with a conviction that the story of human history—and big history—needed film treatment.

At this point I know you’re saying, “But Berkshire is a publishing company--you make encyclopedias. What does that have to do with the movies?” But in a 2002 interview, back when we were producing books for big publishers like Macmillan and Sage, I explained that, “we are reference publishing’s equivalent of an independent film company. We come up with the concept, evaluate the competition, make the deal with the publisher (the studio), hire the expert editors and contributors and researchers (the creative talent), direct the content development process, and deliver a clean copy to the publisher.”

Publications like the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History involve hundreds of top scholars, and amazing talent and knowledge. While I haven’t figured out quite how a small company like ours can move into such a challenging area, I feel sure that with the right partnerships that we can be involved in some wonderful new things, working with our existing networks of experts and creating new materials for teaching as well as for general audiences. These general audiences are interested in broad historic panoramas as well as the fascinating stories of the past, and they need history, too. As Bill McNeill pointed out in his introduction to the encyclopedia, “Genuinely inclusive world history is such a helpful, even necessary, guide for survival in the crowded world in which we live.”

Berkshire is a bronze sponsor of the World Congress this year, and I look forward to fascinating presentations and rewarding discussions. I'll be blogging, and you can read about last year's conference here.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:13 AM | Comments (3)

November 2, 2006

Thinking about America, inside and out

It strikes me that for a global company we are doing a lot of American subjects these days, between our African American titles and the Libraries We Love, which is focused entirely on U.S. public libraries. (But don't worry, we have global libraries in mind, too.) This American publishing makes sense, in fact, because one of the things we have long wanted to do, in addition to helping U.S. citizens to understand the world outside our borders, is take a fresh look at the United States.

We have big plans in that direction, with the first two volumes of Global Perspectives on the United States coming next month, and a number of other things in the works.

David and I have been finishing up the introduction to Global Perspectives and I was amazed to discover the historic continuity in Americans' reaction to criticism. I found these passages in Frances Trollope's 1832 Domestic Manners of the Americans. She was writing about the reception of an earlier book by Captain Basil Hall and observes:

". . . one of the most remarkable traits in the national character of the Americans; namely, their exquisite sensitiveness and soreness respecting everything said or written concerning them.. . . Other nations have been called thin-skinned, but the citizens of the Union have, apparently, no skins at all; they wince if a breeze blows over them, unless it be tempered with adulation."

"So deep is the conviction of this singular people that they cannot be seen without being admired, that they will not admit the possibility that anyone should honestly and sincerely find aught to disapprove in them, or their country."

Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2006

Making British history

We had an email today from the British Library, asking to archive one of our websites as part of their effort to preserve "UK documentary heritage." It's quite thrilling to be part of this, and to the credit of Tim Coates, who writes the Good Library Blog. Here's a little about the project:

Dear Rachel http://www.goodlibraryguide.com/ The British Library is a founding member of the UK Web Archiving Consortium (www.webarchive.org.uk) consisting of The British Library, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), the National Archives, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales and the Wellcome Library. The Consortium is the national effort to archive selective representative websites from UK web space in advance of the introduction of legal deposit for digital materials. The British Library would like to invite you to participate in this work by allowing us to archive your web site under the terms of the appended licence. We select sites to represent aspects of UK documentary heritage and as a result, they will remain available to researchers in the future. We aim to subsequently include the archived copy of your web site in our permanent collections.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 27, 2006

An eye for an eye?

This is the season of the Jewish holidays, which means overflowing motels in the Berkshires and our eating at home. David goes to a small synagogue in the Catskills with his elderly father, and our daughter Rachel often goes along. (Rachel was once asked if she was Jewish. "Not until Mummy married Daddy," she said.) I was shocked by a New Year's card I received today from Marty Edelston, founder of Boardroom Reports. Marty is a very affable man. I knew he was rather conservative, but can't quite make out how this could be in the spirit of any religious holiday: "5767--The year to drown the Muslim terrorists in the Red Sea." I guess it's that old time religion, an eye for an eye.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:00 PM | Comments (0)

September 20, 2006

An introduction to www.openDemocracy.net

I've been traveling for almost four weeks but even on this last day in London I've made another wonderful contact, with Isabel Hilton, a journalist, radio presenter, and China specialist who runs both openDemocracy.net and the new chinadialogue.net. The offices of these organizations is a pleasant 15-minute walk from Mecklenburgh Square, and I was thrilled that Isabel was in London and had time to meet. We found many areas of common interest, as will be obvious to anyone who knows our work at Berkshire Publishing and also takes a look at Isabel's projects, and what amazes me is that I didn't know about them before. That's my ignorance, I know, but there's a surprising level of disconnect between the U.S. and U.K., and it seems to have got worse over the past six years--as many Europeans have distanced themselves from the United States. Lots more to say about both of these projects, and the ways we might work together, and the story of how I learned about chinadialogue is also something I should explain.

In a piece of remarkable serendipity, I arrived in London on Saturday, the day that a 40th birthday party was being held in Oxford for Resurgence, Britain's green magazine. Although I've written for the magazine--a feature entitled "Don't Call Me a Green Consumer"--and have had connections for many years with the editor, Satish Kumar, I'm not really part of the Resurgence crowd, which is considerably more interested in spirituality than I am. But the speakers on Saturday included people like Jonathon Porritt (who's written forewords to two of my books) and Sara Parkin (former leader of the Green Party), Anita Roddick (founder of the Body Shop), and Crispin Tickell (an ambassador to the UN and now active with environmental planning in China). Sara had told me about the event, which was really a conference, and I went along for a few hours. It was hippy spiritual, as expected, and Deepak Chopra was quite the attraction--and the salesman. I went to the China workshop and was glad to meet Herbie Giradet again, and also Sir Crispin. Maryann Bird, a journalist from chinadialogue, was there; we exchanged cards, and that's how I learned about that fascinating project, and openDemocracy, too.

From 1989 to 1991, when I left the UK, I was quite active in green circles here, and it's been wonderful to catch up with old friends, and amazing to find that so many of them, too, are working on China. Sara Parkin is planning to develop a leadership program there connected with Forum for the Future (here's an article she wrote for Resurgence on leadership), and Jonathon was off to China in his government role as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:18 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2006

Day 1 of the Global Information Summit: Stay out of China?

Yesterday morning, the Global Information Summit in Amerstam kicked off with a speech (accompanied by detailed PowerPoint, sadly) by Ruud Bakker of VNU, one of the major international publishers based here in Holland (others are Wolters Kluwer and Elsevier). It was fascinating to see how focused VNU is on adding social media to its publishing program, both because that doesn’t seem to be common, yet, in the B2B companies that form the bulk of SIIA membership, and because it would surprise me if a mainstream business audience really wants to contribute to online forums and a “virtual wikipedia.”

(What is a virtual wikipedia, anyway? A wiki encyclopedia on the subject of the particular database or service, I suppose, but it’s hard to see why lots of people would want to contribute to that instead of throwing the same content onto Wikipedia.com. When you’re writing for nothing, you usually want the widest possible audience. On the other hand, I have been thinking about starting subject-specific wikipedias with authorship limited to a certain group; but that requires some market research: would our authors want to contribute, and how would we provide editorial controls?)

Mr Bakker ended by saying said that online directories were very promising, and that virtual search was vital. I am puzzled by this and would have loved to have some debate about it (maybe that’s what I’ll propose to SIIA for next year, panels to debate issues that are important in the information industry, just as those of us in publishing are debating issues like the Google library program and the role of books in libraries). The online directories I bump up against in Google searches for restaurants or hotels are annoying, not useful, and surely the whole idea of web search is that we don’t need directories because the search engine will pull together the right current information from original sources (the actual restaurant websites, for example). I must talk to some of the delegates about this today and get more information.

Next up was our Asia panel, criticized by some people in the audience for being too negative, and we’ll probably end up bending over backwards to be positive during the roundtable this afternoon (though as you can imagine, I wasn’t negative about working in China—but someone told me at the cocktail party last night that I kept a poker face so they weren’t sure if I was agreeing with my copanelists). The panel on Europe was led by EPS’s David Worlock, who said that the most gold is in old mines. I don’t think that’s necessarily true—when the California Gold Rush was over, it was over, and when old mines, or oil fields, continue to worked, the costs get higher and higher. But eastern Europe is new territory for many publishers, and Berkshire Publishing has barely begun even in western Europe so I appreciated this overview.

I was surprised to learn that the EU has 51 official states, 37 languages, and 27 currencies, but had known that Skype (which I use all the time for phone calls and instant messaging) originated in Estonia. It’s good to be reminded that working in Europe, too, requires cross-cultural skills. It would be interesting to know if one could identify cross-cultural aptitude for working in different places and cultures. Are some people better adapted to working in Eastern Europe, or in Asia? I’m going to propose a panel or workshop on this for next year’s conference.

I'm sneaking out now to see something of Amsterdam.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:08 AM | Comments (0)

September 1, 2006

Reflections on Beijing traffic

When I first visited Beijing in 2001 with David and our kids, then 12 and 15, we stayed in a hotel on a main road not far from Tianamen Square. One of things that impressed us most was the flow of traffic. David's an anthropolgist and I study community, and we were quite happy on long taxi rides just watching the way trucks, cars, bicyclists, bicycle and hand-drawn and motorized carts, and pedestrians interacted on the roads. We agreed that the surprising harmony of this wild scene reflected the dynamics of Chinese society.

This time the traffic is much worse, because of the surge in private car ownership, but otherwise it's much the same. A middle-aged woman sits, facing back with her knees up, gazing calmly at the people behind her, in a rusty cart attached to her husband's bicycle. Two girls on a bike, the cyclist picking her way through a junction packed with stop and start traffic, the girl on the back perched on a wire bike rack. This is what impresses me: the riders simply hop sideways and sit on the bare rack, crossing their feet and lifting them away from the back wheel. They don't hold on in any way, and if the bike is moving too slowly for the rider to maintain balance, they hop off and walk along side, hopping back on once there's a clear space. It couldn't be more casual--no helmets, no special shoes, hands in lap or holding a bag.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:15 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2006

The open road

I don’t object to a stopover at Narita, the airport in Tokyo. It’s a chance to have some Japanese food in an airport cafeteria (I choose the most exotic meal on offer, grilled eel, since we have plenty of sushi in Great Barrington). More important, I get to experience a civilized airport culture, and pleasant manners even at the security checkpoint. I have become so tired of U.S. security, where the rules are excessive and intrusive and the people are surly, suspicious, and at the same time lax. I can’t count the times I’ve gone through checkpoints where the guards are busy with personal conversations, pausing only to snarl directions at hapless passengers.

There was a sign here, as I entered the International Connections checkpoint (I’m en route to Beijing), about new U.S. rules about liquids. This naturally raised the question of why, in a world fraught with conflicts, the United States seems to be positioned as the global victim of terrorism. Not so, by the statistics, as our Patterns of Global Terrorism (written, largely, by the U.S. State Department) shows so clearly. Why do they, as President Bush and other put it, hate us? I don’t believe that ‘they’ hate us for our freedoms. They may hate the U.S. because it is rich and powerful—human nature, really—but the more I see and read, the more I think it comes down to three things arrogance, hypocrisy, and greed. There is much to love about America, or so I think, but those characteristics are unattractive, and increasingly dangerous.

I found myself thinking of Toad in Wind in the Willows as I looked at the flight board. It's exciting to be in the big wide world outside Europe and the U.S., and my heart beats faster when I see all the places people are travelling to . . . I feel the call of the open road.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:34 AM | Comments (0)

August 4, 2006

What the world thinks--from Aljazeera

I have a deep affection for all "my" authors, the thousands of wonderful scholars and experts who write for our publications, but I have to admit to a certain partiality for our Norwegian contributors. You might guess that I am of Norwegian descent, and I do feel an affinity for Norway and other Scandinavian countries, even though I've not yet had the pleasure of visiting there. (And I should, I know. I have many friends there to visit.) One of our Norwegian authors, Dag Herbjørnsrud, just sent a link to an article he wrote for Aljazeera, taking me for the first time to that important and challenging source of world news and world opinion. This article, "Western Europe united against Bush" from Aljazeera.Net, comes from the 10 November 2004. It's worth reading:

"No other country in the world is so keen as mine to see George Bush lose the coming presidential election. And where do I live? In Indonesia? In an Islamic country? No. I live in Oslo, Norway.

"Norway is a Nato-member country, a declared Christian nation in the far north of Europe. And yet, hardly any Muslim population that has been surveyed expresses such strongly negative views of Bush as mine. People in several Muslim countries generally have a more diverse and pragmatic view of the US than that of the Norwegians."

Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:38 PM | Comments (0)

Free downloads of Patterns of Global Terrorism

As a public service during the month leading up to the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we've decided to post our edition of Patterns of Global Terrorism 1985-2005: U.S. Department of State Reports with Supplementary Documents and Statistics for free PDF download (inspired by the Earth Policy Institute, mentioned in this post). We hope in this way to get this valuable information into the hands of far wider numbers around the world. Also provided in HTML format will be a document of particular current relevance from each section of the volumes. Check the web page throughout August and September as new portions are posted.

Berkshire's Patterns of Global Terrorism 1985-2005 is arranged in a user-friendly format replete with tables, graphs, and illustrative material-much of it from the original reports but with additional material developed by Berkshire and its editors.

Technorati : 9/11, patterns of global terrorism, state department, terrorism

Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)

July 30, 2006

Hackers attack Berkshire Publishing

As Tim Coates put it on the Good Library Blog, we suffered a biscuit attack over the weekend. This is the second time our LoveUsHateUS.com, an interactive website about global perspectives on the United States, has been hacked, bringing down our other sites and blogs, too. Thanks to Trevor for sorting this out, and of course we are in the process of improving our site security.

Our work on global perspectives has angered people in the United States and now abroad, too. But the fact is that it is, for Americans and people around the world, a sincere and important effort to build understanding. We need the support of everyone who wants to build a more peaceful and fair world, no matter what party they belong to, what religion they practice, or what country they live in.

By the way, the hackers took down 20 of our sites!! Not an insignificant attack, especially considering what a small company we are, and how much else is on our IT plate.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2006

The importance of trust

I'm on my way to New York for meetings about Global Perspectives on the United States and Guanxi: The China Letter. These are my two main projects these days, along with Sustainability. Global Perspectives and Guanxi are a fascinating pair, because one explores on the world sees America while the other does something quite similar for China. We aren't directly examining in Guanxi how the world sees China (though that specifically is a project in early stages), but every issue does help readers understand Western conceptions and misconceptions about China. My aim as editor, working with many Chinese scholars and businesspeople, is to provide a venue in which they can explain to us their point of view. I have learned that Chinese people, as well as Western "China hands," are well aware of how poorly we understand China, how many false ideas are floating around.

For example, I met someone yesterday who told me that when dealing with the Chinese one has to be very serious and very careful about every word. That's rubbish: the Chinese are as sensitive as any people could be to the slipperiness of language, and they know that words can be misunderstood. What really counts is the trust that develops between people, the enduring relationships we form. And humor is an important part of that. The first morning I was in China, jet-lagged and overwhelmed, we were standing in a hotel lobby in Beijing with the woman who we'd arranged to meet us at the airport and get us to the hotel (that was the extent of our being guided), with the driver.

I had realized by then that she had brought us to the wrong hotel, and I'd tried to tell her. She was sure she knew better and insisted on our going inside. The driver obviously understood something of what I'd said to her, and he could see from the debate going on with the desk staff that we were indeed in the wrong place. We looked at each other and started laughing. What a reassuring thing, that laughter. It was completely clear to both of us that she was trying to save face, that she was in the wrong, and that if we just waited a few minutes we could finally get going to the right hotel.

Even more important in international relations is being able to laugh at yourselves. The British are wonderful about this, but we Americans are not. We take ourselves very seriously. I suspect that if we could learn to laugh at our national foibles, the world would laugh with us, would like us better, and might forgive us more freely for our mistakes. Of course, it would help if we now and again admitted to a mistake.

Fortunately, there are more and more people who understand that the world's point of view matters, and that U.S. dominance is not an eternal position. David and the kids were joking last night about a song in the movie Nashville, which has a chorus, "We must be doing something right, to last two hundred years." Two hundred years isn't all that long, really.

But we're also eager to raise people's consciousness of the truly important contributions this country has made. I'm awed, for example, by the First Amendment. Isn't is remarkable that those who founded this nation understood that freedom of speech is the single most important aspect of a democracy?

Technorati : america, china, global perspectives, guanxi, loveushateus

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:41 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2006

Looking for a leader

Naturally, we're talking about global politics. Most of the staff at Berkshire is under 30, which lends a fresh perspective to the discussion. This morning Liz (Steffey), who works on our China projects, said, "I wonder if during my lifetime we'll have a president we can really respect." That so sums up something that concerns many of us: a world in which the people charged with national leadership are not doing a job we can admire. We talk about leadership a lot, too, having done a major publication on that subject. These conversations always come back to Winston Churchill (in spite of the fact that there was a faction, amongst the leadership scholars, who didn't even want to include him in the Encyclopedia of Leadership). Who would have known he would become the leader he was during World War II? Circumstances play a part, and sometimes women and men rise to the historic occasion.

Sadly, our president doesn't even have the sense to keep his hands off the German leader.

The discussion continued over supper, and Rachel (17) asked Tom (20) to explain what's going on in Lebanon. He gave us a precise historical overview, and a run-down on the events of the last few days. I was quite delighted, since I knew he couldn't have learned all that from Jon Stewart, a comedy news programme that is well-known for conveying more information about world events than the "real" news shows. Actually, Tom reads more about current events than anyone I know. The result is that he is quite pessimistic about the future. But he's a fundamentally cheery soul, so he comforts himself with the idea of having a front-row seat at the first mass extinction in four million years.

Technorati : america, leadership, world affairs

Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2006

Can a global perspective make us "future-proof"?

I was intrigued to come across an article about how to create "Future-proof URLs", given the state of the world on this fine July day. As Jon Stewart put it last night (I'm fortunate in having a son to relay important lines, since I don't stay up till 11), these days you turn on your computer and find out World War III has started.

It's a grim outlook, and that's why I noticed the idea of "future proofing." URLs need to be coded in a certain way to make them future proof, and that's quite easy. But what can we do to future-proof our countries? I've been in DC, where at least some people understand that national security means more than military might, but includes energy security, environmental security, and social security, too.

What can a publisher do? As a U.S.-based publisher, perhaps the single most important thing we can do is to help Americans better understand the world they live in. This means providing material that offers new points of view and that helps students, in particular, understand global perspectives. It's thrilling to be close to publication of a landmark work, the first general resource to explore the global role and image of the United States, from its founding to the present. This work is called Global Perspectives on the United States and two of the three volumes will be published in November. It includes nation-by-nation surveys written by experts, timelines, biographies, and much more.

This work will provide essential information that can help us make our nation, and the world at large, a bit more "future-proof." And if you haven't added your two cents' worth to www.LoveUsHateUS.com, please do join the conversation and tell us what you love, or hate, about the United States.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:41 PM | Comments (0)

July 8, 2006

A note from Osama

From the Washington Times:

"At a Chicago news conference, Bush called "incorrect" a report this week that the CIA had disbanded the unit set up to track the Saudi dissident.

"'We've got a lot of assets looking for Osama bin Laden,' Bush said."

"Assets"? But that's not as odd as the newspaper's phrasing: "Saudi dissendent"? I though he was a terrorist, murderer, and coward. Is this some new kind of political correctness?

When I hear the name Osama Bin Laden, I think of an e-mail that circulated after 9/11. It still makes me laugh; we call it "Osama and the Tragedy of the Commons." A key concept, as it happens, in sustainability.

To: Cavemates
From: Bin Laden, Osama
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001, 11:14 AM
Subject: Cave Memo

Hi, guys. We've all been putting in long hours, but we've really come
together as a group and I love that.

Big thanks to Omar for putting up the poster that says "There is no I in team," as well as the one that says "Hang In There, Baby." That cat is hilarious.

However, while we are fighting a jihad, we can't forget to take care of the cave. And frankly I have a few concerns. First of all, while it's good to be concerned about cruise missiles, we should be even more concerned about the scorpions in our cave. Hey, you don't want to be stung and neither do I, so we need to sweep the cave daily. I've posted a sign-up sheet near the main cave opening.

Second, it's not often I make a video address, but when I do, I'm trying to scare the most powerful country on earth, okay? That means that while we're taping, please do not ride your razor scooter in the background. Just while we're taping. Thanks.

Third: Food. I bought a box of Cheez-Its recently, clearly wrote "Osama" on the front, and put it on the top shelf. Today, my Cheez-Its were gone. A little consideration, please. That's all I'm saying.

Finally, we've heard that there may be American soldiers in disguise trying to infiltrate our ranks. I want to set up patrols to look for them. The first patrol will be Omar, Muhammad, Abdul, Akbar and Steve.

Thanks lots, Osama

Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)

June 6, 2006

Americans just can't help themselves

It must be our size and border security (haven't been attacked by Mexico or Canada for a while) that makes us so insular. Even clever, educated Americans make silly mistakes that remind me the question I was often asked as a kid, when someone has found out that I had a twin brother. "Are you identical?" they would ask, and I would wince with embarrassment. How was I to tell one of my professors that that in fact wasn't possible?

We just got a terrific review of Patterns of Global Terrorism, 1985-2005: U.S. Department of State Reports with Supplementary Documents and Statistics from Library Journal, that ends, "recommended for large public and university libraries serving scholars, researchers, and graduate students in criminology, international policy, and military studies."

It explains that "Finding aids are made up of the reader's guide, which serves as an expanded table of contents, and a 57-page index of names, countries, and organizations. Nearly 100 tables, graphs, and maps show trends over time." and then goes on to say, "There are lengthy sections on countries accused of state-sponsored terrorism (e.g., Cuba, Iran, Iraq) but little reference to domestic fringe groups often associated with terrorist acts, e.g., the Animal Liberation Front and the Ku Klux Klan." No domestic terrorism groups? Gee, I guess that's why it's called Patterns of Global Terrorism and published by the State Department.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)

June 2, 2006

LoveUSHateUS.com

A regional paper spotted one of our projects and made it the Valley Advocate's "Website of the Week". They chose to quote one of the wacky comments but there are many coherent, thoughtful remarks to read through. We'll be doing a book on the subject, too, in addition to our forthcoming reference work on Global Perspectives on the United States, a three-volume set.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2006

Love Us, Hate Us Hits Home

I'm having fun adding famous quotes to Berkshire's
Love Us, Hate Us: What the World Thinks of America. After seeing the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly on The Daily Show, I thought we just had to have a quote of his on the website that we affectionally call "LUHU." He'd said some very funny things about how America is hated because it's "got all the stuff" like the handsome guy at college who has the best car and best women--the guy everyone winds up hating. Well, I couldn't boil down his funny exchange with Jon Stewart into a pithy quote, so I found another one of Billy's quotes about the U.S.: "The only time I would like to see was the 20s and 30s in America because I love the music and the style and the optimism, I wanted to see New York being built. I wanted to see all that, you know."

Well, what a kick it was to see someone looking a lot like Billy Connolly walk by my daughter and me as we were waiting for our train in Grand Central yesterday. I walked down the platform and heard his distinctive Scottish brogue, and said, "It is you!" He responded, "It depends on who you think I am." "One of the Beatles," I joked. He explained that he's sometimes mistaken for John Cleese, who he does resemble a bit now that they're both of a certain age.

I told him how I'd enjoyed his appearance on Jon Stewart and that I'd just posted his New York City quote on our LUHU website. I asked him if he was coming upstate but he explained he was just seeing off his daughter who goes to school not that far from us.

Since I don't expect to meet George W. Bush or Arnold Schwarzenegger anytime soon--two other famous people whose quotes I've recently added to LUHU--I'm quite content to bask in the coincidence of running into this quite lovely LUHU luminary.

Posted by Marcy Ross at 8:48 AM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2006

Off the beaten track

I met Javier Diaz Reynoso when I was 16 and visiting my cousin Cheryl, who was studying in Guadalajara, Mexico. We reconnected 25 years later, after Cheryl died, and he was a gracious host when David and I visited Guadalajara two years ago for the International Leadership Association's conference. Javier is an architect but he paints and takes amazing photographs, too. Now and then he sends one he thinks I'll like. The photograph we used on the cover of our new catalogue is one he took, a rainbow arched above a quiet country road in the Mexican countryside. It shows the beauty of the back road, those unknown places far off the beaten track of tourism and global business, and somehow echoes what we at Berkshire want to show in all our works: the wonder and difference and familiarity of distant places.

But what I forgot to explain in the catalog is that all the buildings you see on the cover (though not on the back of the catalog, where you'll see the original photograph) were added by our very creative designer Joe DiStefano. Joe has an extraordinary knack for capturing our global vision. It took him only minutes to come up with this way of combining photos from our collection with Javier's open road to create an evocative mix that takes us from Mexico to Greece to China.

If you'd like a catalog, please write to us. We'll be happy to put one in the mail.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:40 AM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2006

World music with Lucy Durán

A new highlight of my weekends is listening to Lucy Durán's program "World Routes" on BBC Radio 3. I thought I'd missed it today--forgetting that Europe changed its clocks last weekend and we wait till tomorrow--but the BBC offers the most recent program as a separate option. How wonderful.

I met Lucy Durán when I was in London early in March. She's an African music expert who teaches at the School of African and Oriental Studies, and my dear friends Mike Dibb and Cheli Durán thought we should meet after hearing about my interest in world music. What fascinating work she is doing, exploring and recording music that we might never know about without this kind of scholarship. And it connects with popular music, too, as world musicians begin to build a following outside their own regions.

Whether this exploration of music turns into a new publishing project or not, my world view is being expanded every week now, thanks to Lucy! If you haven't explored streaming radio on the Internet yet, I encourage it. There's some variation in the programs required by each radio station--iTunes or RealPlayer or QuickTime--but they are free and it's worth half an hour's fooling with settings to have access to a vast range of music and much more from around the world.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2006

A Novel Way into History

My wonderful local library, The Roeliff Jansen Community Library, wanted to begin a book group last fall. To start the group, they'd already approached my neighbor and close friend, Sheila Moss, who'd been in book groups in New York City, for more than a decade. Sheila was willing to do it if I would "co-facilitate" to get things going, but little did we know that Sheila would have to be out of town for our second group meeting. So I led the discussion about Bette Bao Lord's book Spring Moon (1981), a novel covering 80 years of crucial Chinese history, from the 1890s to the time of President Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972.

The novel portrayed well the lives of an upper-class Chinese family, who slowly find themselves with integral roles in revolutionary changes, from the time of Sun-Yat-sen through Mao's Long March and then into the the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. As high school English teachers hope when they assign historic novels, I felt a close connection to these historical periods through the characters. But I wanted to know more about the actual history. And (warning: shameless plug ahead) I found what I needed, not online, but in our own Berkshire works, the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia and the Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History, where I read great overviews of China, and specific articles on all the key topics and people. Although I'd probably looked over all those articles before they went into publication, I don't think I really appreciated their value until I really needed them for reference. Belated kudos to all our scholars and copy editors who made these entries so rich and accessible.

And one other nugget from my reading that I wanted to share. Bette Bao Lord has one of her main characters reflect (in a 1912 letter),
"Sometimes I wonder if a republic can be made to work at all where old ties cannot be denied and news laws are not understood or respected. I fear that when change comes to ancient ways, no matter how long in the making, no matter how fervently wished for, chaos follows." In one of those "Aha!" moments, I realized that it's all too easy for those of us in the U.S. -- a country started without old ties and ancient ways -- to misunderstand how and why such chaos can follow having a new type of government imposed (however great we may feel it is).

Posted by Marcy Ross at 8:28 AM | Comments (0)

March 17, 2006

St. Patrick's Day in Kazakhstan

Nearly five years ago, in April 2001, we were in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and heard a story that we bring up every year on St. Patrick's Day. David and I, and our children Tom and Rachel, were at an Irish pub in Almaty talking to the American manager. He was gregarious. First, he warned us that we'd have trouble getting out of the country without paying a bribe (he was right--but we got away with forking over only about $4), and he told us about his problems with the KGB co-owners of the pub. He complained about communicating with the Kazakh staff, and told us what had happened when he tried to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in proper style.

I hope they have more sense in Ireland, but here in the States green beer is a tradition so our friend was determined to serve the first green beer ever seen in Kazakhstan. He provided the staff with money to buy green food coloring and explained the whole concept carefully. But when he tasted the sample they proudly presented he nearly gagged. Kazakhs use a lot of fresh herbs in their food and they had decided to save money by coloring the beer with parsley and mint!

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:49 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2006

What the world thinks about America

Our new website, www.LoveUsHateUS.com, is humming with thoughts from around the world. In fact, the discussion is so lively that we're going to set up a forum, in addition to the current arrangement that features comments separately (along with quotes from famous authors--from Edith Wharton to Jon Stewart). Please, join the conversation.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:46 AM | Comments (0)

February 6, 2006

Wikis, global perspectives, and peanut butter

Wikis are getting a lot of attention in encyclopedia land, and they're definitely an interesting tool. Not for everything, but for some kinds of collaboration. We have, for example, set up a wiki to start work on a definition of "a global perspective."

I'm more and more involved in marketing and PR and thought this was a clever way to get me to spread a little word of mouth on the wiki tooth we've just started using, PBwiki--as easy, they said, as making a peanut butter sandwich. And I think they're right. Here's the pitch (this'll get me double space at our free Berkshire wiki): Get a free wiki at PBwiki.com.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:18 PM | Comments (0)

February 2, 2006

Anthropologist to the rescue

In her Wednesday column in the New York Times the hot redhead Maureen Dowd opened by suggesting that the White House hire an anthropologist. I am an anthropologist. I’ve offered them my services. Or, more accurately, I’ve offered to share reliable information my publishing company has about what people in nations around the world think about us and why they think those things.

We’ve made this offer twice. To Sec. of State Rice. And to Asst. Sec. Karen Hughes, shortly before she became our ambassador to the world. Based on the silence that followed, I doubt they will follow Dowd’s advice now.

Here’s a bit of what they are missing. Most nations base their opinions of us mainly on what we have done for or to them lately. And, since the opening of the Iraq War, what we might do for them or to them in the near future. While many nations admire much about us, trust is low and fear is high. We are most popular in Eastern Europe (we are better than the Russians – who isn’t?) and in some former French colonies in Africa (we are better than the French – again, who isn’t). Behind these gross generalizations is a great of variation across nations and over time in each nation.

Our books on this will be out later in the year but we thought we’d be good citizens and give the government a head start. After all, they accepted my offer when I volunteered for the army in 1966!

Posted by David Levinson at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

January 31, 2006

Information Summit in New York

This trip to New York for the SIIA Information Industry Summit 2006 has been a massive disappointment. Mostly because of me: I've got an awful cold and am not in prime form for all the networking I usually enjoy.

But the fact is that most of the sessions today were just plain dull. I guess that's what happens at an event where the CEOs of big corporations are given their moment in the sun. They pitch their company or their position on free trade or Google Print, and there's no response, no controversy. Harold "Terry" McGraw was this morning's keynote speaker and not a single person asked a question when he was finished.

Even after a much more interesting presentation, an interview with the founder of Audible, the audience had nothing much to ask or add. Although the theme of the conference is "Users Taking Control" and the SIIA organizers said that we attendees were users, too, I have never been to a less interactive event.

I imagine I'd feel more comfortable at one of the conferences not composed of "C-level" people, with younger entrepreneurs and jean-clad techies. Not because I'm 20-something or jean-clad, but because their energy and alertness to the world that's hurtling at us would be a more interesting, inspiring atmosphere than today's meeting of the suits.

There was one serious question asked that deserves mention, addressed to the chief scientist of Akamai, a major online business systems provider. Someone asked what he thought of growing activism by people and companies around the world, and especially in Asia, aimed at changing the American and western dominance of the Internet. Unfortunately, his response was purely technical: he said that no one dominates the Internet and the proof is that there are so many security holes.

Considering that Mr McGraw opened the conference with the announcement that New York is the greatest city on earth, I guess it's a good thing that there weren't too many attendees from from other countries. I can't imagine someone in London or Beijing welcoming people in that way--it's a bizarre American trait that goes against all traditions of hospitality I know of.

The best presentation by far was by David Worlock, the UK head of Electronic Publishing Services. He gave a clear, crisp, detailed overview of opportunities and risks in publishing in Russia. I'm
hoping for better things tomorrow!

(No, there was not a mention of anyone's blogging the conference, though Esther Dyson was there and I hope there are other star bloggers in the crowd.)

Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:04 PM | Comments (0)

January 2, 2006

The risk of a global perspective

One of Rachel's plans for 2006 is to learn to drive, and this reminded me of a favorite anecdote that shows what can happen in a household where "global perspective" has become a mantra. She came to me not long ago with a small book in her hand and said, "I'm not sure this is for the right country." The book was The Highway Code, the UK driving manual. I'd picked up a copy for Tom once upon a time, and he had handed it to her when she asked for the book she should study to get her permit. Now I'm wondering what Tom read to take his driving test three years ago.

We'll soon be launching a website where people can tell us what they think about many aspects of American life and culture, and I already know that we'll be getting comments on American driving. I learned to drive in England and still hear the driving instructor's voice, talking about how crucial it is to "make progress" (ie, stay out of other people's way). "Lane control" is also considered vital to harmonious driving: Americans take note.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:54 AM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2005

American cultural bias

I was planning to write about the moral imperatives of publishing (celebrating Christmas, even in our nonsecular way, led to a lot of conversation about this), but I'm so riled by a newspaper story, "A Sure Thing for Kazakhs: Horses Will Provide" in today's New York Times, that I need to say a few words about that instead.

There's nothing wrong with this detailed article about the role of the horse in Kazakh culture, except that it has no context. It is written to appeal to the most sentimental of American animal lovers (the vast majority of animal rights activists are older, white, female, and wealthy). What makes me angry is that it suggests that people elsewhere are violent, insensitive, and rather disgusting in their tastes. How about turning the tables and looking at what went on our tables yesterday, and how the animals most Americans tucked into were cared for, and slaughtered? I doubt that many of our turkeys, pigs, or cattle died after a prayer of thanks for the nourishment they would provide. There's a tone of cultural superiority here that makes me cringe.

We're planning to start an annual award for the best published article with a global perspective; I'm going to clip this article to show what we're trying to change.

(And I admit it: we had roast beef for Christmas dinner. My guilt about eating beef--occasionally--is more about environmental impact than animal welfare, though. It was a wonderful meal, with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, and the other English accoutrements. Homemade mince pies were avaiable but none of us had room for dessert!)

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:52 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2005

Driving left and right

My daughter Rachel came across the world mapped by whether people drive on the left or right. Driving on the left does seem to be a British imperial legacy, though I remember hearing in England that it was based on ancient traditions. Swordsmen, my friends explained, would want to pass on the left in hostile circumstances, to keep their sword arm ready for defence. There's a huge amount of information about this on the web (some of it backing up the swordman explanation), and it is interesting to imagine the chaos of border crossings where the rules change.

It's one of the things that it really might make sense to standardize internationally. I'll campaign for that after the USA switches to the metric system, okay? I actually had someone tell me that they couldn't understand why America was so backwards--using pints and inches in this day and age. Let's start there. I'm longing to be able to use A4 paper.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:34 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2005

Reading Beautiful Ghosts

I've just finished a second detective story set in China. This latest, Beautiful Ghosts, by Eliot Pattison, takes place in Tibet for the most part, with some excursions to Beijing and Seattle. It's an exciting, convoluted story, with intriguing Chinese and Tibetan characters. Not surprisingly, it doesn't portray Chinese officials in a flattering way, and the story of the brutal Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950 is important to the plot. What I like, though, is that although it certainly shows Tibetan Buddhism, and characters, in a sympathetic way, it isn't a predictable cowboys and Indians story, of bad Chinese and good Tibetans (and Americans).

Not only does Pattison present a religious tradition in rich detail, but he also shows how differently people from different cultures can see the same thing. When a Chinese character visits Seattle, he tells his American friend, "What you called the shopping center. You said you took me there so I could see America. When I first stepped inside I thought it was a church. Then I saw the people there. I don't know, I have no words. I made me sad somehow. I'm sorry."

It's hard, these days, for Americans to complain about the brutality and secrecy of other governments.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2005

Security services online

How fascinating, to be able to read FAQs about the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Arabic, or Chinese. The FBI's site, on the other hand, is only available in American. Same goes for the CIA online.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

December 7, 2005

USA faces the world over global warming

Rachel Carson, a US biologist, is credited, internationally, for launching the modern environmental movement. US environmentalists and organizations are widely admired, and when I wrote my first book, Home Ecology, people in the UK were always praising the USA for its recycling programs and general awareness.

Today, the US doesn't have the same Green credibility, and in fact its position on global climate change is costing us friends, both politically and on the local level. It's a topic people bring up in conversation quite often. Here's what's going on right now: "U.S. rejects bid for post-Kyoto talks."

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:02 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

What we're thankful for

In the United States, it's Thanksgiving Day, a day that unites us more clearly than any other holiday. What a simple ritual--turkey and football, and maybe a parade--unconnected with any particular religion or ethnic tradition. What's not to love? Even vegetarians seem to cope, because apart from turkey there are a score of other dishes that turn up on our tables as part of this harvest festival. There's two inches of snow on the ground here in Massachusetts, and I can't imagine the original settlers actually waited until the end of November to celebrate their harvest. But we're used to the timing now, and it provides a reflective pause before the onslaught of Christmas commercialism.

I should have asked everyone yesterday at staff meeting what they were thankful for, but I think I can guess at some of the things we all appreciate about the work we do:

* The freelance editors, compositors, and proofreaders, many of whom we have never met, who have become so much a part of our team;
* The scholars around the world, many of whom we've now worked with for years, who share their research, suggestions, and contacts with us so generously, and who share in our commitment to providing fresh, global perspectives;
* The librarians we work with, because they and their patrons are responding with such enthusiasm to the Heart of the Community: The Libraries We Love. We love libraries, and we are deeply grateful for the people who make them the heart of their communities; and
* The chance to develop a growing range of exciting publications and media projects, even though we're based in a small and remote New England town (thanks be to the gods of the Internet).

And David and I are especially thankful for the small team that has grown up with us, through the difficult transition into independent publishing, and for all the colleagues who have encouraged and advised us.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:25 AM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

Join a global mentoring project

Here's a wonderful idea that we're going to be circulating widely. Please consider pledging that "I will mentor a minimum of two people in the developing world in the area of my skills base and expertise (media, communications, broadcasting, democratic media building, participatory media, community video). I will do this for free for a minimum of six months (in my free time). The mentoring will be in person or via email/skype." Global Mentoring pledge from Lucy Hooberman.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:19 AM | Comments (0)

November 8, 2005

Title search

I had lunch with Margaux today and we talked about how she wanted to travel from the time she was only 10 or so. Matt, her husband, also had the travel bug from early in life. It's funny that some people get bitten so early, and without any particular context. My parents had never traveled, and yet I knew from the time I was small that I wanted to travel to far away places.

Faraway places with strange customs. And that doesn't nececessarily mean countries with inadequate power supplies or uneducated citizens. England provides plenty in the way of strange customs, it seems to me. I just had an email from my dear friend Emma, whom I've known since we lodged together in the Eaton Square house where a famous murder had fairly recently taken place (do a search on "Lord Lucan" if you're curious). It was an email from one of the people on the Parish Council, which she is, to my surprise, a member of. Pretentious, she said, and quite right; the person said he might not make the meeting as there was a chance he'd be flying to the States to meet with President Bush (is this, these days, something to boast about?).

One of the other people cced in the original message was Lord Something, and I remembered how awed I was by titles when I first went to England. My family certainly never moved in those circles--even though my father's name was Earl--but somehow I found myself that first year at an Oxford student supper party where the guests were a Lord and Lady.

Eventually I learned that there were many types of Lord and Lady. Emma's mother was a Lady, but when we first met she was a Viscountess, and only after her father-in-law died did she become the Countess of Strafford (and, surprisingly, the illustrator of my first book). I was terribly nervous the first time, and as it happens the last time, I addressed Emma's step-grandfather as Lord Strafford. Over time, I've become quite accustomed to the idea of titles, as just one of the many differences in English life and culture.

Much more important is knowing the rules about, and meaning of, whether you put the milk in first and then pour the tea, or whether you add the milk after pouring the tea. (Emma never, ever puts the milk in first. But I do. In rebellion, and on the authority of the Tea Council.)

Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:27 PM | Comments (0)

November 4, 2005

Water, not wi-fi

Online companies, and maybe the rest of us high-tech types, are starting to sound like Marie Antoinette, the queen of France who was beheaded. “Let them eat cake,” she reputedly said, when told that the poor were rioting because they had no bread.

"Let them go online," say Google and Amazon and Microsoft and a host of other companies, and countries.

In Peru, farmers have been protesting the launch of a new wi-fi service, funded by a mining company in exchange for much sought after rights to the copper in the southern Andes. "We're peasants, many of us cannot read or write ... we don't believe the Internt will help us as much as an irrigation channel will." Give us irrigation

People are rioting in Argentina and France and Iraq, so the conflict strikes me as important and global. More on this, and the new Amazon scanning plans, shortly. I'm in Florida in the midst of a family wedding. Blogging is not considered a legitimate reason for escaping the demands of the occasion, I'm afraid. (Yes, it does sound like I am a member of the technorati crowd I'm complaining about.)

Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:25 AM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2005

No hyphens please: naming conventions round the world

There was a kid in my neighborhood named Donald Duck. Really.

That wouldn’t have been allowed in Germany. Mom Duck and Dad Duck would have had to choose a name that would not have subjected Donald to endless teasing at school--and who knows what kind of reaction in his professional life.

When you study global perspectives, as we do, the big issues tend to dominate. Trade agreements, invasions and coups, terrorist attacks, that kind of stuff. But there are many other fascinating and important differences between the way we do things around the world, and something as basic as naming babies can tell us a great deal about social ties and expectations, and also the crucial balance between individual rights and community values (in the U.S., this balance has been debated in recent years by "communitarians" led by Amatai Etzioni, a contributor to Berkshire's Encyclopedia of Community).

Here's a little from the recent Wall Street Journal article on the subject of names in Germany (the article is available in full to subscribers):

"Young Leonhard Matthias Grunkin-Paul has a problem: His name is illegal.
"The German boy's divorced parents want Leonhard to be known by their combined last names, an increasingly common practice elsewhere. But authorities in Germany, citing a law against hyphens, have refused to allow it. So Leonhard, born in 1998, officially has no last name at all.
"His passport reads: "Leonhard Matthias, son of Stefan Grunkin and Dorothee Paul." Says his mother: "I don't know how he can go through life like that."
"Many Germans have long chafed under their country's rigid naming rules. But a European Union court may shortly deal the rules a blow for at least some of them. A preliminary ruling from the court has found that Leonhard, a German citizen born and named in Denmark, is entitled to his hyphen as a citizen of the EU.
"In a society that values order and tradition, the rules are meant to prevent German children from being the victims of ridicule or confusion. A forename must indicate a person's gender, for example; if it doesn't, a second name should be given that clarifies the matter." From the Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2005.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:27 PM | Comments (0)

World news, from the BBC and John Simpson

David Levinson and I are temperamentally almost complete opposites, but one thing we share entirely is a fascination with the world and an absorbing concern about global perspectives. This brought us together and led to our starting Berkshire. He's the one who reads the newspapers religiously, while I tend to look for books that will expand my still far too limited knowledge of the world. Neither of us watches much TV (except of course sports), and because we walk only five minutes down the hill to work we don't end up listening to all the NPR our driving friends seem to manage.

But now that I've become a huge fan of BBC World's John Simpson, through his books, I've asked Rachel to see if her TIVO machine can record the BBC World News and the show "Simpson's World." Here's a little from Simpson's News From No Man's Land: Reporting the World:

"...the most arrogant approach is to say that all people can understand is news about crime and traffic and consumer affairs and the weather and show business, so that’s all they’ll get. The world is a difficult, dangerous, highly complex place, and unless we help people understand it to the best of our ability, we are failing them in the most shameful manner. And--as happened with American audiences after 11 September--they will turn on us angrily and demand to know why we let them down.”

He's talking about the media, but we have the same job as publishers.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:05 AM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2005

9/11 or 11/9?

When a person enters the United States, there are forms to fill in. The Customs Declaration is available in a number of languages, including Chinese. I was intrigued to notice that it now asks for birthdate in the international, and logical (small to large unit), order: day/month/year. Capitulation on the part of the U.S. government to global usage!

I've wondered about our term "9/11," which doesn't make sense outside these borders. I thought it might be used anyhow, because it is unique and simple, but while people elsewhere certainly understand it they do not use it themselves. It's "11 September" elsewhere in the world.

While I love local distinctiveness and regional cultural, I do wish the United States would switch to global usage on dates, measurements, and paper sizes. The rest of the world isn't going to switch to our outmoded forms; standardization would be better for business and would help to foster a sense that we are part of a global village.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:19 PM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2005

Background to terrorism and why context matters

When you're a CEO, even of a small company like Berkshire, there is an expectation that you'll be staid and well-behaved. It's probably not obvious from any of our printed material that we actually share, here in the office, a rather wicked sense of humor. And some people think the point of reference is that it is objective. I agree, to a considerable extent, but what I think is most important is that an encyclopedia article explains fairly the different opinions that exist on a subject, and that it recognizes that even on what might seem old-hat topics--the Plague, for example--there are sometimes raging controversies. (Not to mention bee-in-the-bonnet experts. Some of these are self-appointed experts, but there are some manic characters with endowed chairs at major universities, as well.)

Our next publication is so astonishingly full of facts and statistics, which makes it both of great value but also a bit overwhelming to the ordinary person, like me, who doesn't know much about terrorism. For that reason, David asked me to write Publisher's Preface to Patterns of Global Terrorism, explaining why this work is so important and why we are so proud to be publishing these reports from the U.S. Department of State. Click the link above for a preview.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:10 PM | Comments (0)

October 11, 2005

Humor helps

Whatever you think about Howard Dean or Tom Delay (or even if you'd rather not, ever, think about either of them), I hope you'll agree that American politics on both sides of the fence needs a little more humor. Rachel's the one who said, "Now that's a cool country," when she heard that Britain has a Monster Raving Loony Party.

Democracy for America was born from Dean for America, and they've launched a campaign to follow George W. Bush's example and create a "people's court"--click here to read about it and nominate your friend for the U.S. Supreme Court. We could do with more humor like this, it seems to me, in a world where the news seems increasingly grim.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:46 AM | Comments (0)

October 3, 2005

A test of global perspectives

Read this sentence from a recent issue of the New York Times Book Review:

"The challenge of our lifetime is a religious totalitarian death cult."

The book being reviewed was 100 People Who Are Screwing Up American (And Al Franken Is #37), and I'd gathered that the reviewer wasn't a screaming liberal. But I was puzzled when I read the sentence. Did he mean Islam, or the Christian fundamentalists in the US government?

I read it to David, without context I must admit, and he immediately thought of the US millenarian fundamentalists.

But the author meant extreme Islam, as I realized on rereading the paragraph and upon seeing that he, Richad Brookhiser, is a senior editor of the National Review.

Hm, "a religious totalitarian death cult." That definition, like many others, is a matter of perspective.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:06 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2005

The Wars Against Saddam by John Simpson

I do not enjoy confessing, but I’m sure it is good for the soul. Here’s mine: breathtaking, embarrassing ignorance of what’s really gone on in the Middle East, and especially Iraq, over the past 20 years. I’ve just read The Wars Against Saddam by BBC journalist John Simpson. It’s a very fine book, and does a tremendous job of fitting one person’s experience into the whole story of what has been going on in that region, as well as in Washington, London, and elsewhere. There’s a reasonable amount of history, too, and I suddenly feel far more informed, and painfully aware of how I accepted the superficial media accounts and word of mouth, too, instead of digging deeper.

But Simpson’s story also makes it easy to see why an ordinary citizen, trying to get a handle on a global crisis, just doesn’t have access to enough information. A clip on the news, a newspaper column, just aren’t enough. How on earth can we get reliable data fast enough to help us make decisions? Whom can we trust? Moveon.org? The president or the prime minister’s men? A particular columnist? Jon Stewart?

I don’t entirely trust any of them. I want a guide I can get to know a little, see his or her biases, hear her or him talk about principles, about honor and courage. A book is a great medium for this, but I know I’m not going to read a book about every major world issue, and by the time there’s a book it’ll be too late, anyhow. Can blogs provide this, I wonder? But there’s no way a blogger is going to provide the crisp storytelling, the summary accounts, and the historical background, that a good book does.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:56 PM | Comments (0)

The Goodenough Club in London

I arrived in London yesterday evening, and immediately turned on my computer, thrilled to have a highspeed connection now at the Goodenough Club. AIM logged on automatically and within seconds I had a message, "Mom?"

Rachel and I IMed for a minute then decided to use Skype so we could talk. (I'd remembered to pack my tiny headset, though not sufficient business cards.) Soon after we started talking, about the tomato and bean harvestng that's going on at home, Tom came online on AIM, Rachel told him to open Skype, and then "called" him. We had a conference call, London to Massachusetts to Iowa, easily and at no charge. Certainly a transformative technology. (And one I need to put to business use, too!)

NB: there is no charge for the basic Skype service we are using.

I'm back at the Goodenough Club, which provides accommodation for travelling academics and others at a reasonable cost. A number of our friends and colleagues have now stayed here, and I highly recommend it (and a visit to London, of course). I have a room on the second floor overlooking the private garden in the middle of Meckenburgh Square.

The Club is part of Goodenough College, which has a long tradition (under other names, I think) of welcoming graduate students from other countries, so a global perspective is very much part of its
characters. The location is perfect, not far south of King's Cross Mainline Station yet on a quiet square with no through traffic. (Yes, two of the July bombs were near here.)

My first job in London, at what was then Blackwell Scientific, was on John Street, only a few blocks from here. And when T. S. Eliot was alive, Faber & Faber's offices were at 24 Russell Square, an address I came to know well when I worked on the letters.

Until this year I always went back to my south London neighborhood and stayed with friends there. This is more convenient, and also a familiar part of London. One of the subeditors took me to a fish 'n chip shop on Theobalds Road my first week at Blackwells, and it's still there. (And at Goodenough I've got highspeed Internet, and Skype, too--definitely the best of old and new. There's even wireless in the garden.)

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:11 AM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2005

Research on the road

Didn’t have time to post this as I rushed for the train to Leipzig. More conversations at the conference itself, and I’ll be writing about them as time (and sufficient sleep) allows. From Thursday:

I’m not a chatty traveler, but when people do start conversations with me I seize the opportunity to ask about whatever subject is on my mind, and if they come from countries I don’t know well I’m especially keen to find out what they think of the United States. And, more broadly, what their friends and country’s people are talking about.

Frankfurt, Germany, is my present location, and I am waiting for a train to Leipzig, where I’ll be attending the first European Conference on World and Global History. Thankfully, there’s wireless in Frankfurt—as there was at Heathrow, in London, but was not at the international terminal at JFK in New York.

The man who shared my table at the airport restaurant was a headmaster from Sweden, and he broached the topic of New Orleans delicately, “You are having some problems in your country.”

As we talked, he brought up several of the subjects that seem most pertinent when we look at global perspectives on the United States: pollution, money, and guns. We don’t care enough about the environment—or we pay it lip service, and let financial concerns override our claims to care about the world we leave for our children. And we let people buy automatic guns. I found it especially interesting that my Swedish companion was a hunter, and he had just bought a little backpack for his new grandson with family hunting trips in mind. So the issue isn’t guns in general--as it was for my Green feminist colleagues in London, who were horrified by Tom’s passionate display of the Lego gun he had made, at age 3—but guns inappropriate.

And it’s a good thing our president does not read newspapers. The things the conservative British press has to say about him amaze me a little. 'Mad and bad' was the gist of what I saw in the papers I scooped up as I passed through Heathrow.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:27 AM | Comments (0)

September 23, 2005

World, Global, or International?

As I got ready for this trip, I wondered if it really made sent to be heading to Leipzig to figure out European world history possibilities when we are in such early stages of developing our audience in the US. Today gave me the answer: yes. First, because I was able to meet one of our favorite editors, Marnie Hughes-Warrington from Sydney, as well as a number of friends and colleagues I met at the World History Association conference in Seoul, when we were just beginning our work in this area. And of course there are now some new friends and colleagues.

I am especially intrigued to hear people talking about international and global studies, and how these growing disciplines (in which students at the undergraduate level can major; there are also MA and PhD programs) relate to the study of history. World historians believe that their work can be useful as well as beautiful, and they are often very much engaged with current affairs. But the relevance of world historz isn't always clear to students. Perhaps there is an argument for talking about global history, because it seems more current, connected with globalization and other trends that students are aware of and eager to incorporate in their studies.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

From Leipyig

Itäs reallz Leipyig ß no, Leipzig! This is HCI internationalization, the different keyboards used around the world, and the shared struggle in the Internet cafes at conferences is to figure out how to get the @ symbol. On this German keyboard, itäs easz enough. Alt Gr + the @ key. But sometimes it is more complicated, and I've seen people at Internet spots whisper the secret to the next person before they leave.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:00 AM | Comments (0)

September 16, 2005

Foreign influence

One of the big issues in the USA just now is the appointment of a new Chief Justice to the Supreme Court. The justices are appointed for life, and, as most people know, their role has become increasingly politicized in recent years. It was their decision that made George W. Bush president in 2000, to the astonishment of legal scholars. I was interested to see an article in Slate about the questioning of John Roberts, the prospective chief justice, about whether non-US legal decisions should be considered at all. How fascinating, and frightening, that some people think that Americans should pay no attention to what the rest of the world does, and thinks.

But this isn't surprising. I've often noticed how arguments in the USA take place without the slightest reference to any other place or people, as if there is nothing to be learned from the experience of others. And it doesn't depend what people are talking about. The subject could be obesity, education, or relationships--experiences common to almost all humans, in one way or another--yet Americans talk as if they are a race apart. Perhaps it is a symptom of the sense of superiority that we seem to exhibit, to the amazement (and amusement) of people from around the world, who may admire much about the United States but rarely share the belief that it is in every respect better than their own country.

I had an English friend who couldn't get over the way old men in coffee shops would approach him for a chat, then tell him, "This is the greatest country in the world, yessiree." Even if it were true, it would be terribly bad manners to say this to a guest. Imagine someone doing the same when someone came to his house, "Yep, this is the best house in the whole neighborhood." In many cultures it is considered extremely important to downplay one's accomplishments and possessions, and even in the US we don't speak this way about our homes. Or do we?

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:10 AM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2005

How the world sees us, after Katrina

David and I are editing a big project about global perspectives on the United States. The title's a bit of a challenge. "How the world sees us," perhaps, or something with "world opinion" in it? We like plain old "global perspectives," though, because that's what we're about in general: how Americans see the world, as well as how others see us. And when we edited the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (Berkshire/Scribners 2002) we covered how different nations see one another. (It sometimes seemed that they liked the US better than they liked their neighbors, in spite of spy planes and sunken fishing boats.)

We joked that the global perspectives project could be called simply, "Why They Hate Us," alluding the comments made by the president and others after 9/11. But perspectives on the United States are far more complex than that, and the events of the last two weeks have made a difference. When we started the project we made a list of events in history that we thought might be markers in terms of what different people thought of the United States: World War II, the civil rights movement, Watergate, the Clinton impeachment, and 9/11 among them. We've found that these American events have far less significance to other people than we expected; in general, people react only to things than affect their own nations, and lives, directly, so international aid, trade regulations, and of course wars and invasions are what really count.

The effects of the hurricane in the Gulf States, and New Orleans, were predicted (by our neighbor Mark Fischetti. for one, who was quoted by Jimmy Carter recently in a op-ed--as Mark said, where do you go from there?). What no one seems to have imagined was what the result of failure to prepare and respond would be. We have been stunned and horrified by what we read and saw, and viewers around the world have had a view of life in these United States that will affect their perspectives for years to come. Here's an Economist article on the failure in New Orleans.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:29 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2005

Four years later: which path have we taken?

It's September 11th. 11 September in most of the rest of the world, but still 9/11 to everyone. One of the discussions I remember from the days immediately after the attacks in New York and Washington was just that: what would we call it?

The other questions were more important, and with four years' experience to reflect on, it's easy enough to see that there were two paths to take. Much of America, and certainly many in its political leadership, took one: seeing the attacks as a justification for any demonstration of American power, however misplaced. Others thought we might learn some lessons, that we should try to understand Islamic fundamentalism, have our security and diplimatic representatives learn some Arabic, and maybe find new ways to ally ourselves with countries and peoples around the world in order to deal with the threat of terrorism.

As publishers, our responsibility is to present different points of view accurately and fairly, and to provide the background data and analysis that will enable even students to come to an informed position, to be able to discuss a topic with some knowledge and context. (I use the word "student" broadly: when it comes to international policy and the realities of terrorism, most of us are students. We have a lot to learn.)

But we do publish from a principled position: that we Americans need to understand the world we live in, to recognize that our perspectives are not universal or inherently correct, and that for safety's sake, as well as out of a sense of common humanity, we ought to listen more. Berkshire's also intriguing by the idea of helping those outside the United States understand it better; we have the privilege and pleasure of working with colleagues around the world, and it saddens us to see how much many of them now distrust the institutions of the United States.

In October 2001, this position got me into trouble at a dinner in New York.

It was a business dinner at the elegant Four Seasons restaurant, held every month by Marty Edelston, publisher of the Boardroom Reports newsletters. I'm invited every year because they ran a piece once about one of my environmental books (read the tips they published). It was also my first trip to New York after 9/11 and I wanted to go, to be in the city again, even though the timing was difficult and I arrived in New York with just enough time to drop my bags and go to the restaurant.

I remember saying to myself that I should just enjoy the food and keep my mouth shut. I was tired, and it was a business crowd (most of the Boardroom newsletters focus on tax-planning and investments). But as we went around the room--a high-ceiled wood-panelled private dining room--introducing ourselves I found that there were a number of former military men in the group of 30, and men involved in security systems. After dinner Marty, as usual, started the conversation by asking what was going on in the world we thought he should know about. The military and security men started talking about defense, and about how much money there was to be made in it.

It was the guy promoting defense systems for individual homes that got me riled. I don't know exactly what I said, but I made a pitch for improving our security by understanding our enemies, and our neighbors in the world at large. I probably started by mentioning my Army veteran husband, my brother who was in Delta Force--thus trumping the former Navy Seals in the room, and establishing that I was a good American too. (I know this is silly, but it's amazing how much extra credibility I have with certain people because my husband was in the Army during Vietnam. Ironic, isn't it, that the US hawks of today never went through basic training?) I felt completely ineffectual, though, outnumbered and trying to convince people whose minds were locked into a particular point of view, a way of reacting to threats.

When the discussion that provoked was over I went back to my food, feeling foolish. But as the evening proceeded, at least two people commented that they agreed with me and as we were leaving a couple of people came over and thanked me, amongst them Dan Burstein, an investor and author with whom I have a number of interests in common, from technology to China (he's a very successful publisher, too, of books about the Da Vinci Code). And one of the former Navy Seals even invited me out for a drink.

And, yes, I have been invited back.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:52 AM | Comments (0)

September 6, 2005

National, and international, preparedness

Here's some thought-provoking news from Anna Sabasteanski, editor of the forthcoming Patterns of Global Terrorism (Berkshire, September 2005), from her Terrorismcentral.com newsletter:

"The US National Preparedness Month launched on 1 September.

"A report commissioned by the UN's relief agency prior to Hurricane Katrina finds many limitations in worldwide preparedness for major disasters and the ability of governments, non-governmental agencies, and donor organizations to respond quickly. Gaps in "water and sanitation, shelter, camp management and in food aid, nutrition and livelihoods" are magnified when a crisis outstrips available capacity. Providing international examples that are reflected in the situation seen now in New Orleans, Darfur provides an example in which armed protection required "special and urgent attention" both for security and to "restore dignified conditions of human life". In crises, a lead organization must take control and assistance must be based on need, not on external benchmarks. Disaster response, including central controls, must be adopted system-wide. The 112-page report is divided into four chapters that review benchmarks for accountability and performance, preparedness and response capacity, coordination, and financing."

Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:20 PM | Comments (0)

August 31, 2005

"Drowning New Orleans"

I wasn't surprised to see Mark Fischetti on the phone when I got to work today. Mark has been our hall neighbor since 1998, with an office set in the midst of ours, and he's been a welcome friend and colleague with many similar interests. He is a journalist specializing in science and technology, and the reason I expected to see him on the phone is that four years ago he wrote a major article for Scientific American (where he is a contributing editor) called “Drowning New Orleans.”

“A major hurricane," the headline went, "could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city.” The article is available online, and Mark was today pleading with Scientific American to make it free, while juggling requests for interviews and an oped for the New York Times.

For those who don't have subscription access to Mark's excellent and thorough article, here's just a little of it:

"Fixing the delta would serve as a valuable test case for the country and the world. Coastal marshes are disappearing along the eastern seaboard, the other Gulf Coast states, San Francisco Bay and the Columbia River estuary for many of the same reason besetting Louisiana. Parts of Houston are sinking faster than New Orleans. Major deltas around the globe--from the Orinoco in Venezuela, to the Nile in Egypt, to the Mekong in Vietnam--are in the same delicate state today that the Mississippi Delta was in 100 to 200 years ago. Lessons from New Orleans could help establish guidelines for safer development in these areas, and the state could export restoration technology worldwide. In Europe, the Rhine, Rhone and Po deltas are losing land. And if sea level rises substantially because of global warming in the next 100 years or so, numerous low-lying coastal cities such as New York would need to take protective measures similar to those proposed for Louisiana." Mark, too, thinks globally.

Read "Drowning New Orleans"

I hadn't thought that this disaster would be connected with the war on terror (whoops--the struggle against violent extremism), but we've heard that there aren't enough soldiers to help in New Orleans because so many of the National Guard units are in Iraq. (I'm not connecting Iraq with terrorism here, but pointing out that terrorism has been the justification for sending soldiers there.)

Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:41 PM | Comments (0)

The end of the war on terror(ism)--G-WOT?

Joe diStefano, our graphic designer, was the subject of one of the best office jokes we've seen in a while, on a sticky, hectic afternoon when we all needed a good laugh. And all thanks to George W. Bush.

All of us are engrossed, one way or another, in terrorism these days, as final corrections are made to Patterns of Global Terrorism. Joe's had to deal with quite a few changes to the subtitle, with the latest being a particular nuisance because it's so long (and messes up the cover design, says Joe). But we--both editorial and marketing tams--want to explain the fact that we are publishing all the State Department reports, from 1985 to 2004, called Patterns of Global Terrorism, as well as extensive selections from other government reports and documents chosen to clarify and support details in the reports themselves. That's how we got to the current full title: Patterns of Global Terrorism 1985-2004: U.S. Department of State Documents and Supplementary Materials.

Yesterday, though, we read that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior Bush administration officials have decided to stop referring to "the global war on terror," and will now say instead that we are engaged in a "global struggle against violent extremism." (Read this hilarious article about the change, and the battle of the acronyms.) So Margaux emailed Joe that the title would have to be changed on press to Patterns of Violent Extremism and the Global Struggle Against It.

We've been getting lots of comments from authors and experts on terrorism. I especially like this, from Benjamin Barber: "Talk about 'glocal' (the global is local and the local is global!)--it takes a splendid little Berkshire publishing house to do what a major international trade publisher should have done long ago: make available in concise, readable form, the indispensable State Department reports that experts, scholars and engaged citizens have consulted for decades." Benjamin R. Barber, author of Jihad vs. McWorld, Kekst Professor of Civil Society, University of Maryland

Posted by Karen Christensen at 4:55 AM | Comments (0)

August 19, 2005

Terrorism strikes

Last month we mailed thousands of copies of our new magazine, the Berkshire Savant, to friends and colleagues and libraries around the US, UK, and elsewhere in the world. At least we thought we did. Margaux and I have been puzzling over the fact that our testers had not arrived, and we certainly haven't been deluged with enquiries from the UK either. This morning we found out why: we are the victims, indirectly, of the terrorist attacks in London. Apparently mail into the UK is delayed because of increased security.

Ironic, isn't it, given that we are promoting Patterns of Global Terrorism?

Here's the latest comment on that title: "Until now, students, analysts, journalists, and professionals had to page through dozens of spine-broken volumes of State department reports to discern trends or trace historical developments. Thanks to Berkshire Publishing we can clear away a shelf of surplus tomes and replace it with a valuable two-book tool. With its clear charts, historical overviews and intelligent organization, this is a must for any serious researcher of global terrorism."--Richard Miniter, bestselling author of Losing bin Laden and Shadow War and editor of the daily terrorism report at www.RichardMiniter.com.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:37 AM | Comments (0)

August 3, 2005

Global terrorism resources

"This compilation of Patterns of Global Terrorism [due out from Berkshire next month] is an invaluable resource for policymakers and serious researchers with an interest in the long-term trends in international terrorism and the U.S. response thereto. It deserves an honored place in all counterterrorism libraries." Andrew Cochran, Editor, The Counterterrorism Blog

Editor Anna Sabasteanski and the entire Berkshire team is hard at work, determined to see this important publication out as quickly as we possibly can. Anna also has a free weekly newsletter that she compiles from a vast--and I've seen the piles--of reports and media from all over the world. She's drawn on this wealth of information and her extensive research to organize and annotate the State Department reports in a variety of useful ways.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:00 AM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2005

Chinese values

So the yuan has finally been revalued. I thought I'd missed something big when I got the Economist pop-up this afternoon, but it took place only yesterday. Thank goodness. I get so immersed in activities here on the ground that I don't always pay the attention I'd like to the wide world. (The BBC's news alerts help.)

BTW, the yuan is also called RMB, the acronym for the Chinese words for "the people's currency."

China's relationship with the US and the rest of the world is one of the topics of greatest interest to me, especially because my son Tom (19) is in Shanghai right now. I called him this morning and he said, "I can't believe I come home in 2-1/2 weeks--there are so many things I want to do. I just want to live here." He was in Beijing last spring studying Chinese but this trip is very different because he's there thanks to arrangements made by one of our editors for the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, who comes from Shanghai. Tom's been with Chinese people the entire time and is getting to know Chinese life in a completely new way (and loving it). He says that everyone is talking about the London bombings, that they are not feeling friendly towards Japan, and that girls are scared of him (he is 6'2). Until they get to know him, that is. He had been treated with wonderful hospitality, and his job--teaching English--has gone well (and is much easier, he says, than the customer service work he was doing at Berkshire Publishing!). His Chinese is much improved, too, apparently, which will be a help when he goes back to college next month. And we'll certainly put it to good use if he comes back to work for us.

Meanwhile, I am trying out a wide variety of Chinese language tapes and CDs; I'll be able to put a critical review online before long. I am making slow progress, but I can now understand some words and phrases. I have no idea yet if anyone will be able to understand me!

Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)

July 7, 2005

London terror

How awful to write about violence and terror in London the day after the Olympics announcement. Just a few days ago I reminded Anna Sabasteanski, who writes and produces the Terrorism Central newsletter, that she and I had both lived within a couple of blocks of the Harrods bombing in the early 1980s. Yesterday David Levinson and our accountant Frank Francis discovered that they had been on Pan Am 103 exactly a week before the Lockerbie bombings. This morning I am a long way from London but my heart is there, imagining each of the known target sites and thinking of friends and colleagues in the area. Macmillan's headquarters, for example, are just north of King's Cross, and the Goodenough Club where I (and now friends) stay is just a little south, near Russell Square where apparently there was also a bomb.

Anna, by the way, is hard at work on Berkshire's forthcoming Patterns of Global Terrorism: the complete reports of the U.S. State Department, juggling that project with her daily intake of news from around the world.

Our thoughts are with the brave and stalwart people of London.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:50 AM | Comments (0)

July 1, 2005

Flying the flag?

Marcy just asked how we feel about flags. I didn't even remember that it's the Fourth of July weekend; my first thought was about the draft cover for Global Perspectives on the United States, which does include a lot of flags. But it turns out that she was wondering about flags on stamps--postal stamps. Instead of the neutral first-class stamps we generally use, or the historical sports stamps we prefer but can never get enough of, someone had bought rolls of stamps bearing the American flag.

No, I said, after a moment's reflection, we don't want flags on our letters. We're busy trying to convince our colleagues and contributors that we really, truly want to know what they think, that we have a global perspective. I lived in England for years and left, in part, because I no longer wanted to live in a country where I couldn't vote (or run for office), and I simply couldn't bring myself to apply for UK citizenship--because I am, in my bones, an American. But I still hate the pomp and posturing that are so often part of US patriotism, and I want to see something on the letters and packages that Berkshire Publishing sends around the world that will better represent this nation's diversity, creativity, and rich history. On Tuesday the flag stamps will go back and we'll see if we can get football players instead--or wild flowers.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2005

Seeing Africa

My consciousness is being raised on the subject of Africa, thanks to our marketing assistant Margaux Rossouw, who comes from South Africa. I'm chagrined by my lack of knowledge about this area of the world, even after years of working in global publishing. Here's the latest on human rights violations in Zimbabwe, which we should all be aware of.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:53 AM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2005

Terrorism: who benefits?

California has won my heart, and I'm ready to set up a west coast office any time (when someone offers me space, that is). I don't mind the flight, either, but what really rubs me the wrong way is airport security. I'm all for security, when it's effective and worth the cost (in terms of money, privacy, and time). But what you and I currently have to endure is ineffectual and misdirected systems that are making some people rich, and creating an atmosphere of fear that is irrational. Some people caught onto the business opportunity of 9/11 very quickly: I got into quite an argument at a Boardroom Reports dinner at the Four Seasons in New York in October 2001 with other guests who were touting their security companies as the solution to global terrorism. I felt a little embarrassed by my speechifying (about how we need to tackle the causes of terrorism, understand global perspectives, all that stuff that infuriates the military guys), so it was nice that a number of people jumped in to agree with me. That, in fact, is how I met Dan Burstein, a technology investor and author of Secrets of the Code.

I'm all the more pleased that Berkshire will soon be providing the public with one vital source of facts: the U.S. State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism reports. Our two-volume edition will be out in late August.

Posted by Karen Christensen at 11:48 PM | Comments (0)

June 5, 2005

China threat

After a brief but brilliant visit to BEA in New York yesterday (that brilliancy included the weather, which couldn't have been better--and how we appreciate the arrival of summertime!), I am off to California for a week. Part of my work is research for our new projects on China, and I have been talking to people about their perceptions of the "China threat." We have a fine article on this topic ready for our new magazine/catalogue and you'll be able to read an extract by clicking below. It's drawn from our global perspectives project, and here too is an article from the Asia Times.

The “China Threat”

By Anthony A. Loh

The “China threat” thesis, circulated in the United States, claims that PRC’s economic growth, population size, increasing military capabilities and political influence, threaten U.S. national security. It assumes that Chinese and American political systems and ideologies are irreconcilable, and accordingly predicts that there wil