Great Britain, United States - and China
Great Britain
Winston Churchill became Prime Minister at a time when his leadership skills were direly needed by the British government. Hitler was about to dominate the continent with a lightning fast warfare that no country had yet been able to hold at bay. In order to survive, someone needed to lead while providing an image of certainty that would inspire the whole country not only to survive, but dominate a clearly superior force intent on winning. Churchill's War Lab could be about all the inventions that flowed from British science during the war years. My first thoughts were that the book would list them all out and work through all the technologies on-by-one. Radar. Aircraft. Ships. Communications. The bomb. Operations research. They all came out of British labs in the early forties. War Lab didn't even try to explain things scientifically. It was all about leadership. Aggression was part of it. If the British were to win, their leaders had to focus on aggressively attacking the Germans. They had to get there first time after time. The first step entailed micromanaging. Churchill had experience in all the facets of governance in Britain. Since, in a way, he knew more, he trusted his intuition and started directing in all sorts of minute and grand ways. How many bombs arrived at such and such a port today? Move them out to the troops. Now. How many troops are available for re-assignment to Northern Africa - today? Move them there. Now. So direction was a big part of it. Maybe even micromanaging. Attracting the best scientists around him was another step. His dinner parties on weekends at his country estate might have the best scientists sitting next to the leading generals, discussing what to do next and how to do it, and, then, doing it Monday morning because Churchill directed it so. He visited the troops, on the front lines repeatedly. He visited the leaders in their capitals repeatedly. Face-to-face was better than a personal letter was better than a typed letter was better than a telegram, although he used all those methods. Amazing story.
America
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wasn't an elected leader certainly, in fact her portfolio was limited to the White House and the tasks of being the First Lady. We all know it wasn't so simple. I'd forgotten about all the crowds abroad and in, say, Louisiana, who shouted, "Jackie! Jackie! Jackie!" over and over. But that happened, even early on in the Kennedy years. She re-decorated the White House in a politically tense environment. Big deal, no, not really, when you contrast it to Jack Kennedy facing down the Russians over Cuba. The tone, however, showed through. This is an important place. Important things happen here. It deserves respect. Lastly, we forget about Jackie's last years in the publishing world. She obviously could have just sat back and waited for people to come to her, or, more likely, lived behind a wall. She didn't. She used all her contacts, all her skills, to bring some seventy or more books to market, some of them best sellers from the best authors. She used her rolodex, yes. She also used her sense of style and all her learning to make sure the books she chose to support were the right books, that they were well written, obviously, and more, that they were presented as art pieces in themselves, something easily forgotten. Quite a lady.
China
Now, a new face, Jianying Zha. Lucky enough to get into Peking University shortly after the Cultural Revolution ended in China, she could have taken a nice job somewhere in China and lived an easier life. She chose instead to come to America for more schooling, to South Carolina of all places, and then on to New York City. We're lucky she was here. Bright. Focused. Open. Lots of adjectives apply. One of them, the ability to listen, if probably very important, as is her skill at forcing what she hears onto the printed page. She ended up with best sellers in Chinese for the Chinese market, and, hopefully, with best sellers in English for our markets. She doesn't interview folks we've heard of before. A retailer who grows a market, and then sells at the opportune time. A printer who comes to America for a start but who returns home to challenges the publishing world at home to allow things that might not have happened before. Two of the biggest real estate developers in China today who got their start with aggression on a small scale, and who then had the nerve to grow things into the big scale using not only business skills, but artistic ones, as well. Finally, Zha takes through the politics of the Chinese University as it figures out how to become not only big, but world class. The first step? Admit, basically, that being big doesn't necessarily mean world class, and that, yes, there are wonderful scholars in China while at the same time recruiting competitively around the world. We've seen all this before. China is reliving the process now, but at a pace unseen before.
References
Downing, Taylor. Churchill's War Lab. Code-breakers, scientists, and the mavericks Churchill led to victory. The Overlook Press. 2011.
Flaherty, Tina Santi. What Jackie Taught Us. Lessons from the remarkable life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Perigee. 2004.
Zha, Jianying. Tide Players. The movers and shakers of a rising China. The New Press. 2011.