Number of words: 389 Of course, China too had acted early to ban the importation of opium, and the laws passed in 1729 were re-enacted twice more, once in the late eighteenth century and then again in the early nineteenth century. Because of these bans, the East India Company could not formally or explicitly acknowledge … Read more
Number of words: 374 The plant whose profile most closely resembles that of the opium poppy is the coca bush (Erythroxylum coca), the leaves of which can also be processed into the addictive drug cocaine. But for most of its long history coca was a grassroots psychoactive, used by indigenous populations in South America, where … Read more
Number of words: 779 Largely because of tea, China was consistently among four countries from which Britain bought its imports. The value of the goods that Britain received from China vastly exceeded what it got from most of its colonies: In 1857, for example, the computed real value of imports into the United Kingdom from … Read more
Number of words: 541 The seed from which this story begins is that of the tea bush T (Camellia sinensis), which produces most of the world’s tea. The oldest tea leaves go back 2,150 years and were found in the tomb of China’s Jia Ding Emperor. Beginning as an elite practice, tea drinking advanced quickly … Read more
Number of words: 250 The roots of India’s Chinese communities go back to the late eighteenth century, when the first Hakka migrants settled near Calcutta. Over time the community thrived; it ran several schools, temples and newspapers, and many of its members became successful professionals and entrepreneurs. Many Chinese Indians never visited China and had … Read more
Number of words: 1,080 Pretend you’re a caveman. You’re in your cave preparing for a hunt, but something outside seems dangerous. You hear violent sounds you don’t understand. You have two choices: Skip the hunt, spend the night hungry, but live another day; or risk death and go outside. Hold onto that thought. We’ll be … Read more
Number of words: 432 Since McKinsey consultants visited Shell, in fact, the latter’s profits have swollen gigantically – never mind the sheer impossibility of proving that a chain of cause and effect links the consultancy with the profits. The story of Shell and McKinsey started in Venezuela, where two brilliant young consultants, Hugh Parker and … Read more
Number of words: 609 A story tells of two schoolboy friends, one brilliant at maths, one innumerate to the point of idiocy, who meet much later when the first is a professor and the second a multi-millionaire. Unable to control his curiosity, the professor asks the figure-blind dunderhead how he man- aged to amass his … Read more
Number of words: 751 Mesmerised managers have fallen for their own con-devices. They have been persuaded that new computer models, like new cars, or new soaps, or new cigarettes, represent some major advance on the previous ones. So they may- but not in terms of practical use. A few of the first computers ever built … Read more
Number of words: 630 The greater the risk, the smaller the case for the project. Risk-taking holds its pride of place among the managerial virtues for reasons deep in managerial psychology, for managers need no urging to take chances. The most purblind old buffer in the boardroom will cheerfully approve ventures of total insecurity. The … Read more
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