The 50% Solution: How to Bargain Successully with Hijackers, Strikers, Bosses, Oil Magnates, Arabs, Russians, and Other Worthy Opponents [Hardcover]

I. William Zartman (Editor), Maureen R. Berman (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 552 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300030126
• ISBN-13: 978-0300030129
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,735,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1.0 out of 5 stars not what you think, November 23, 2009

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Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The 50% Solution: How to Bargain Successully with Hijackers, Strikers, Bosses, Oil Magnates, Arabs, Russians, and Other Worthy Opponents (Hardcover)

This book is a total rip-off.

Many years ago, before I first traveled to the Middle East, I felt the need to read a book that spoke frankly about how to deal with Arabs and possibly terrorists. I saw this on Amazon, but never got around to buying it. A few months ago, after years in the Middle East, I saw it on Amazon again and thought it might be interesting to look at, not so much for advice by this point, as for amusement.

The thing that intrigued me was that it was issued by Yale University Press! That was odd: this must have been way before political correctness (but, hey, 1987), because there's no way any university press in the states would ever put out a book these days with the subtitle, "how to bargain . . . with Arabs, Russians," etc. So I thought it odd that what was apparently a flippant, shoot from the hip-type book would ever have seen the light of day on account of a dhimmi press.

False alarm. Or rather, misleading title. (Deliberately misleading, I would suggest.)

See, this is a scholarly work. They just gave it that title to gin up sales. It's not a travel book or any kind of psychology book.

Actually, Zartman is not even the "author:" he's just the editor. He's anthologized a pack of scholarly essays in the field of psychology that touch on situations involving negotiations. He also wrote an introduction to the collection.

Here's a sample of what I mean:

"One climate dimension of relevance to bargaining studies can be defined by the stressful and threatening atmosphere that it creates. In experimental situations, it was found that the greater the induced psychological stress, the greater the anxiety and the greater the rigidity of response behavior (i.e., adherence to past successful methods of problem-solving even when they might be inappropriate) (Cowen 1952). Another study found that threat-induced anxiety increases perceptual rigidity and distortion (Moffitt and Stagner 1956). Janis and Terwilliger (1962) studied the effects of stressful and fearful communications on an individual's willingness to change his attitudes. They found that the stronger the threat, the greater the subject's defensiveness and resistance to attitude or behavior modification. Searching for the influences of personality and situation on bargaining behavior, Terhune (in Swingle 1970) found that the more threatening a situation appears to a subject, the greater his ego defensiveness and the smaller the effect of individual personality differences on behavior. (p. 346).

The essays are uniformly dense and unreadable. As for the "Arabs" in the title, they were able to include that on account of their having included herein G. Henry M. Schuler's essay from the 1970s, "The International Oil Negotiations," which isn't very good. That's it. Not a word about Arabs or the Middle East anywhere else in the book, so far as I can tell.

As for the Russians? That's evidently there because the essay "The Bargaining Structure of NATO: Multi-issue Negotiations in an Interdependent World," by Edward L. Morse, was included.

It sounds like I'm making this up, but believe me, this book is a deceptive rip-off.

The good news, at least for me, is that I am apparently about to make a tidy profit on this. My copy is near mint and cost me about twelve dollars: I see that used ones are going on Amazon for hundreds of dollars! (Though maybe this review warning you this book isn't worth that much might bring that price down a bit.)