|
|||||||
|
More: Q&A with author David Callahan
Other Topics:
|
Reviews
"This is a breathtaking book." - Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A damning and persuasive critique of America's new economic life." - Esquire
"That Americans cheat more than they used to sounds like an impossible hypothesis to prove. And yet, Callahan's book is thick with convincing examples." - Boston Globe
"Everything you ever wanted to know about what's gone wrong with ethics in our society is explained in David Callahan's remarkable and readable new book. . . . For its meticulously researched, thoughtful and damning look at our broken moral compass, this should be required reading for every high school and college student, and anyone who's ever complained about how bad things have gotten." - Philadelphia Inquirer
"The reason to read this book is for his eye-opening portrait of the way we live now, his sobering analysis of how we got here and his prescient warning of where we may be headed if we don't get back our bearings." - Los Angeles Times
"Well-constructed, civic-minded...full of compelling statistics and anecdotes...relentlessly big picture." - The New York Times Book Review
"In comparable history, venality may never have been so brazen, lucrative and accepted. Dozens of books and hundreds of newspaper, magazine and journal articles have examined this phenomenon. New ones come out daily. None I have yet seen does it with the anger, vigor and persuasiveness of The Cheating Culture." - Baltimore Sun
"A hundred years ago, the progressive reformer could draw on a coherent worldview shaped by Social Gospel Protestantism. For better and worse, our culture lacks that coherence today. But if we ever do try to overcome our divisions and regenerate our public life, we will find few more thoughtful guides than David Callahan."
- In These Times
"Callahan has done us a good turn by confronting the question of 'why do Americans do wrong?' Here's hoping 'The Cheating Culture' gets past the sound bites and pundits and fuels our energetic introspection and real willingness to become better acquainted with honesty." - Seattle Times
"Callahan performs a useful service in reminding us that even as we berate the world's Michael Milkens and Kenneth Lays and Ivan Boeskys and Marc Riches, we would do well to tidy our own backyards." - The Washington Post
"The book's strength lies in tying together assorted detailed descriptions of cheating throughout the system and explaining the connections between disparate acts like resume inflation, tax evasion and illegal downloads. He offers straightforward, commonsensical solutions, including increased funding for federal enforcement agencies." - Publishers Weekly
"Meticulously researched." - Booklist
"Callahan's indictment is relentless. The toxic nature of competition has leached into the world of work and destroyed its ability to produce either satisfaction or success, except for the few. It has also produced a generation of white-collar criminals." - The Houston Chronicle
"David Callahan's The Culture of Cheating presents a Technicolor panorama of shameful behavior." - The Village Voice
Media
"Mr. Callahan seems intent on
wresting moral issues out of the hands of conservatives.
Liberals, he says, should wake up to the rot in the country,
fight against its pervasiveness and stake out moral values
as their own turf."
"A Liberal With a New Emphasis
on Values."
New York Times
June 15, 2004
"To Mr. Callahan, whose book is one of the
first scholarly attempts to evaluate
the current bout of cheating, new economic
pressures for those at the bottom and more goodies for those
at the top is partly responsible. . . . He based his
argument on interviews, surveys and studies in fields like
accounting and law."
"Are More People Cheating?"
New York Times
"While the urge to deceive others may be an essential facet of human nature, our attitudes toward lying and cheating seem to change as our sociocultural climate and our values shift. In his book 'The Cheating Culture,' author David Callahan suggests that the individualism and free-market ideals of our culture create conditions in which members of every economic strata of society find themselves tempted to cheat in order to get ahead." "The Year of the Liar" Salon December 22, 2003
"Americans' ethics are on the skids, argues David Callahan, and it only makes sense: 'In a winner-take-all society, with the rewards so great for those at the top,' he says, 'there are rational incentives to cut corners, to be a winner, to do whatever it takes.' " "Questioning Authority" Across the Board January/February, 2004
"Callahan likens the past 10 years in America to a giant social experiment in which people were put under intense financial pressure, but allowed a cheating option that could, at least temporarily, relieve that pressure." "You Can Trust an American to Pull a Fast One" The Daily Telegraph (London) January 17, 2004
"Is there any hope? Even after sifting through hundreds of examples of
cheating for his book, Callahan thinks so. He believes watchdog groups need
to be funded better. He'd like to see a social contract re-established
between leaders and ordinary
citizens to make the world a more equitable and honest place."
"Cheating Culture"
The Fresno Bee
February 5, 2004 "The crisis has been incremental, Callahan says, the result of a society obsessed with financial success and the opulent fantasy that for many has become the American Dream. As the stakes of success rise, the reasoning goes, so do the temptations to cheat. Add to that the sometimes slim chances of being caught and the perception that people at the top are getting away with it, and the result is a system that seems to be rigged to make suckers of the honest." "Have We Become a Nation of Cheaters?" Houston Chronicle March 6, 2004
"Still, Callahan believes, most of us will continue to resist the urge to cheat, but he thinks doing so will require heroic effort, unless structural changes occur to ensure greater economic fairness and equal justice." "Do You Cheat on Your Taxes?" CNN/Money March 26, 2004
"With the rise of the unfettered free market, the removal of market regulation and a reduction in public servants to ferret out wrongdoing, Callahan charts the spread of duplicity among white-collar workers over the past 20 years." "Liars and Cheats Give Country Built on Hard Work a Bad Name" The Times (London) March 29, 2004
Endorsements
"In what he aptly describes as THE CHEATING CULTURE, David Callahan identifies the rising tide of cheating across American society as the inevitable moral downside of unfettered market economics. This book has an important role to play in the fight against the culture of avarice." - Kevin Phillips Author of Wealth and Democracy
"Here, finally, a lucid explanation for why America seems on its way to becoming a nation of cheaters. Cheating begets more cheating, from our board rooms to our classrooms. With verve and insight, Callahan shows that too many Americans feel the dice are already loaded, so they might as well give them an extra roll when no one's looking. His solutions are as provocative as is his diagnosis. Buy this book (don't steal it) and take to heart its wisdom." - Robert B. Reich former U.S. Secretary of Labor. Author, The Future of Success
"Anybody out there who cares about honesty and integrity in our culture ought to read this book." - Bob Barr Former U.S. Representative |
||||||
|
|
|||||||