| Title | : | How to Make a Nation: A Monocle Guide |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 3899556488 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9783899556483 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 340 |
| Publication | : | Published April 15, 2016 |
Monocle's books with Gestalten have shown you how to build a better life, business, and home. But now Monocle raises the bar: how do you run a great country? They are not talking about might, muscle, or nationalism --although you need a bit of a swagger every now and then. They are talking about a country that feels like a cohesive community, knows what to value, and goes out into the world to gently get its way with soft power, fine ambassadors, and compelling cultural offerings. At home, this country celebrates good education, well-made institutions, and its own people and their skills.
How to Run a Nation: A Monocle Guide is a thought-provoking primer that informs and inspires. The best ideas don't need to be invented--they need to be found and copied. Let Monocle be your guide.
How to Make a Nation: A Monocle Guide Reviews
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Interesting little volume, but spread a little thin across too many topics. Feels a bit millennial at times - points are awarded to Australia for inventing avocado toast and flat whites, the writers wistfully exhort Russia to be nicer to everyone, and China to stop polluting so much - that is to say, without much consideration for deeper geopolitical issues. I would have preferred what they did in their Guide to Cosy Homes, taking deep dives into a smaller set of issues and unraveling each in detail.
Found it interesting how Singapore breaks nearly every single rule stipulated by the authors. I've always wondered why our particular brand of jingoistic patriotism feels false. Like China, our government's inability to accept criticism and sheer determination to micro-manage our national branding has had the exact opposite effect.
In contemporary culture, the worst thing not to have is not museums (which China is building by the dozens) nor tourism (which China is sending forth unto the world by the city-load); the worst thing not to have is a sense fo humour. If you can't laugh at yourself, you represent the po-faced, buttoned-up, get-in-the-back-of-the-van agent of the police state.
I borrowed this from the library, trying as I am to reduce the number of books I own. Hauling twelve full cardboard boxes of books out of my room during my last move finally convinced me of the fact that I have too many.
It was my first visit to our National Library in about a decade, as it moved from its old location, a gorgeous red brick building in a relatively remote road, to a massive 16-story building in the middle of the city. The lending library itself occupies only a SINGLE floor in a sub-basement. There are hardly any seats. And therein lies so much of the problem with Singapore and its nation building and brand identity - the new library is an edifice, a hollow display, without much consideration for the soul of the actual institution. I have so many great memories of the old library, going with my family and getting lost in the stacks, but I don't think I'll be coming back to the new one. It just makes me angry. -
Brilliant framework on cities, urban development & place branding. However given the absence of external factors that could happen, these suggestions would pretty much work theoretically, in an ideal world.
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Can be summed up by "Be like Norway/Finland / Denmark". Lots of interesting content on a broad range of topics, but gives so much adulation and column inches to Scandinavia that any other mentions feel almost token.
