About the Author

David Callahan is cofounder and director of research at the public policy center Demos. The author of five books, he has published articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today, and has been a frequent commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. He received a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University and lives in New York City.

Reviews

PRAISE FOR KINDRED SPIRITS
"As Americans wrestle with how to fix what has gone wrong in the system of corporate governance, the message that can be taken from Kindred Spirits is that there may be no quick fixes."--The New York Times "David Callahan gives us an intriguing, incredibly detailed look at the values, work ethic, and creative minds that characterized this group of businessmen."-USA Today
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CNN and NPR commentator and cofounder of the public policy center Demos, Callahan here presents a sordid picture of greed and corruption in American society. Though he provides broad coverage, he breaks little new ground in detailing instances of cheating in business, politics, and academia. Callahan's initially balanced tone shifts during the book, and the last section exhorts readers to take a stance and help to end cheating. The question of why more Americans are cheating is left mostly unexplored. The book's publicity blurb reads, "Callahan pins the blame on the dog-eat-dog economic climate of the past two decades," but he spends less time developing his arguments about why and how our culture arrived at this point than he does in pushing for cultural change. Callahan backs up his arguments, and the book contains adequate endnotes, but librarians looking for a thorough examination of this cultural development will find that this title is passionately argued but not sufficiently complex. Still, this work may be a popular choice in larger public libraries, and academic libraries may wish to consider.-Audrey Snowden, Brewer, ME Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Newspapers have reported on many cases of corporate fraud at the highest executive levels in the past two years, but Callahan cites other instances of people going to often questionable lengths to succeed. It's estimated that half of all major league baseball players are taking steroids to enhance their strength and performance. Many attorneys regularly overstate their hours to stay competitive with their colleagues. To get into the right college, high schoolers will turn in papers written by tutors, while their parents shop for psychologists willing to diagnose a learning disability to gain extra time on the SAT. Callahan, director of public policy center Demos and frequent TV commentator, has a simple explanation for this proliferation of cheating. In a cutthroat economic climate, everybody wants to get ahead, and decades of deregulation have made it easy to bend the rules. He further argues that when the middle class sees wealthy cheaters get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist, it inspires them to follow suit. A fairly obvious premise, to be sure, but the book's strength lies in tying together assorted detailed descriptions of cheating throughout the system and explaining the connections between disparate acts like r?sum? inflation, tax evasion and illegal downloads. He offers straightforward, commonsensical solutions, including increased funding for federal enforcement agencies. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.