Rating: 
Summary: Mostly student journalism
Review: Except for the first part of the work, Naomi Klein's No Logo reads like a college paper rant and doesn't get much better. She writes with preconceived notions, brands are bad and globalization is wrong, but she doesn't build a good case to prove her stance. However, that first part, which deals with the invasion of the brand into our daily lives, also effectively investigates how big brands are populating our habitat. Klein fails to convince uncommitted readers that brands are bad per se, but she does convince us that many of the tactics used by brands are immoral. For instance, I drink Coca-Cola and I resent her trying to tell me this is wrong. However she's perfectly correct to attack Coke machines in high school cafeterias. They shouldn't be there period. Klein is also correct in attacking secret agreements between public universities and Coke, by which the Universities get undisclosed benefits in exchange for granting Coke distributors monopoly rights. Public institutions should not have SECRET agreements with anyone, unless perhaps national security is involved. These agreements were largely unknown and Klein should be praised for this piece of reporting and for using her prominence to expose this practice. Unfortunately, the rest of the book doesn't have anything new to teach us. We all know workers in developing economies are not as materially well off as we are in OECD, but we also know they are materially better off now than say 15 years ago. Ironically, Klein implicitly makes a good case for brands improving things world wide: she reports that consumer pressure forced Nike to improve working conditions in the factories manufacturing their products. This is hailed as a great victoy for oppressed workers in the Phillipines and Thailand. But what if Nike had not been famous, what if it had not been a valuable brand? Would consumer pressure have been effective? Klein ignores that question and with reason: she would have needed to rewrite the whole book to answer it.
Rating: 
Summary: No Logo
Review: I really liked this book! I especially liked when Naomi talks about the teen consumers. Being a teenager myself I see everyday what it is like. I would recommend this book to anybody that would like to know about the effects of logos on consumers and those people who work hard at making items but really dont benefit of the success and those who want to learn about people who are trying to fight this LOGO craze.
Rating:
Summary: The best book on the topic
Review: No Logo is the most detailed, fact giving book ever written on modern corporate policy, and how it affects ordinary people around the world. Covered in this book are topics like Export Processing Zones (AKA sweatshops), Western employment, corporate advertising styles, corporate influence over public space, how the Reagan administration's policies caused schools to have to turn to corporate sponsorship and how so many professors felt betrayed when their schools sided with sponsors when the results of an experiment did not turn out the way the sponsor planned. In fact, the book's content is so broad that it has to be divided into different sections that can easily be like books in themselves. Klein is obviously an activist, so the reader can be assured that the book will be written from a very progressive standpoint, and will, "pull no punches," when assigning blame when dealing with the problems facing the industrial world. This is a sharp contrast to the book, Globalization and its Discontents, which was written by a former member of the World Bank and Clinton's administration. I think that Naomi Klein is one of the writers best suited to describe modern corporate behavior. Almost every instance she gives is backed up by a personal experience, such as traveling to Indonesia and interviewing EPZ workers or to Manhattan to get a perspective of those working for big chain stores in America and to explain what the companies' propaganda to their workers is. And so each fact giving chapter seems to come bundled with a story of one of, "Naomi's Adventures," which leaves the reader feeling like he/she has a new understanding of an issue. I highly recommend No Logo for anyone interested in the harmful effects of Western corporate policy and obsession with corporate brands.
Rating:
Summary: Consumer Handbook
Review: First off, full disclosure... I'm registered Republican and enjoy (if not always agree with) National Review, etc. To those who complain about Klein's angle/bias and methods, respectively know 1) It's HER book! 2) There are three kinds of lies -- lies, goddamn lies, and statistics. The WTO, GATT, and Chrysler use lots of statistics, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're right. That said, No Logo is one of a kind, representing in great depth a generation's growing contempt toward ad saturation and global(capital)ism. Klein shows that the air we breathed growing up (TV, icons, consumerism) has grown so thick as to be suffocating. Corporate imagery and philosophy (consume = happy, GDP up is always good, etc) have filled our minds, leaving little room to contemplate options. If the Soviets prevented revolt for decades by exhausting people in salt mines, perhaps our minds are being exhausted with an endless (and growing) barrage of corporate-backed "entertainment" telling us to buy more. And, in a sense, the whole world pays. Most helpfully, Klein provides an opening for the individual who is looking to break free from the cycle of consumerism. Her coverage of advertising, production, and consumption allow you to see behind the fountain/perfume facade of the mall. Exposure to both Klein's macro-view and case studies can open your mind, and perhaps change your behavior. In short, corporate products lose their appeal when you know their full story. Klein also goes into depth about global activism and organizations, and sketches prescriptions for what ails the world. These passages were sometimes respectfully disagreed with (by this Republican :-). In any case, No Logo paints a broad landscape - macro and microeconomics, socio-cultural-political issues - that can enlighten and tangibly benefit the reader... and likely any group (Greenpeace, unions, etc) the reader is compelled to help. In short, good stuff!
Rating: 
Summary: Populist and engaging, but full of intensity
Review: Klein certainly doesn't compromise on No Logo; its a long book, difficult at times; but fascinating to the non-expert reader. There have been countless similar books since but this is a somewhat groundbreaking work and a great synthesis of the various anti-globalisation arguments. Its scope is large, from how things are marketed to third-world exploitation to the anti-globalisation movements like Reclaim The Streets, she paints a picture which in turn makes you furious and then empowered and ready to act. Obviously its hardly an unbiased text but as a theory and argument its brilliantly written (what isn't is the countless clone books since). A reviewer on the back cover describes her as a young, funky heiress to Chomsky for the new generation; its a very interesting parallel to draw. She is indeed in turns blisteringly uncompromising and vicious and then humorous. At the heart of the book is a driving moral core which empowers the reader to action. Great stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: No logo, no facts, no logic
Review: Klein's thesis is interesting if a bit predictable when she writes on the ubiquitous nature of advertising and the branding of society. Who, really, likes to see the same stores of the Left Bank of the Seine as they do at the local mall? But on everything else she is either off point or simply wrong. She writes that third-world countries have not benefitted from free trade and financial market liberalization. This is simply not so. Economist Xavier Sala-i-Martin of Columbia University shows that the proportion of the worlds population living with less than $1 per day of income (a conventional definition of the very poor) has fallen from 16 percent in 1970 to 5 percent in 2000. Similar figures arise for other definitions. Sala-i-Martin also shows that within-country income and wealth inequality has also fallen. Romain Wacziarg and Karen Welch, both of Stanford University, showed that trade liberalization in the third world has been associated with annual per capita growth rate increases in those countries of 1.4 percent, on average. Over extended periods of time, this is a very substantial effect. Klein points to Mexico as the "proof" of her claim to the opposite, but Mexico is the exception to the rule and its poor performance in the 1990s had to do with a financial crisis and Mexico's mishandling of the ensuing banking crisis in that country not globalization. In this regard, it is worth noting that Klein takes the 1998 Asian financial crisis as evidence of the failure of globalization. It was a measure of failure something--probably several things--but liberalized trade and globalization are not two of them. The period studied by Wacziarg and Welch includes the Asian crisis and they still show substantial benefits. Her claims to the contrary are examples of the worst kind of Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc logic. Klein devotes considerable space to the awful working conditions in which sweat shop workers find themselves in such countries as the Phillipines. Indeed, these are not places one would want to spend a vacation, but before decrying sweat shops it is important to place them in perspective. These are very poor countries and by Klein's own admission, people come long distances to work in these factories. Work in factories, even with the sweat shop conditions, represents a better life to these people than the alternative. To shut down sweat shops is to consign these people to an inferior outcome. (This is not to say that things could not, or should not be done to improve the lot of sweat shop workers. But beware of those offering 'help' to the third world. In most instances, their true motive is helping western businesses avoid competition from abroad.) Lastly, let us recall one important why sweat shops are a better outcome to the alternative. The alternative is usually agricultural work. And agriculture doesn't pay well. One huge reason for this is the lavish subsidies that western industrialized nations heap on their agriculatural industries, thwarting the prospects for export earnings for third world countries. Both western countries and the third world would benefit from eliminating these subsidies (even if agricultural industries would not). In short, we need more globalization and free trade, not less.
Rating:
Summary: MONEY AND MUSIC DON'T MIX
Review: SEEMS THAT AMAZON IS NOT AN APPROPIATE PLACE TO REVIEW THIS BOOK. AM I WRONG? SO CAN'T REVIEW ANY LONGER ABOUT THE SUBJECT. THE WORLD IS A BIG COMEDY, WE'R ALL ACTORS, JUST PLAY AND BE FREE...FREE TO CHANGE YOUR MIND AND FREE TO GO ALMOST ANYWHERE...ANYTIME!
Rating:
Summary: i liked no logo
Review: this book really impressed me, it uses a lot of shocking, disturbing and just plain unpleasant facts and statistics and really tries to change your view on something that is so immeresed in culture today that many people dont even notice it. It will make you think about things you never thought about before and it will scare you and make you want to change your lifestyle, perhaps
Rating:
Summary: User friendly? Not for this reader
Review: I began this book ready to have my indignation tweaked, and 200 odd pages in, sated with tales of malnourished children working 18 hour days in crowded and dangerous conditions to assemble my clothes, computer, furniture, car, and probably grind my coffee too, my indignation nerves are ringing. Some of the simpler aspects of Klein's doctrine are things I can appreciate. I like buying locally designed and made products, for example, and would rather spend more money on something not knocked off in a sweatshop by an over worked child. The last time I was back in New Zealand, I noticed that a favorite inner city shop where I had bought locally designed and made clothing had vanished, victim, no doubt, to the gravitational pull of the suburban malls. Likewise, my hitherto favourite New Zealand outdoor equipment company, Macpac, has just adjusted its manufacturing policy to bring it in line with "market reality", laid off a great number of staff in NZ and shifted all its production to the third world.
I can see the relevance of what Klein is writing about, but honestly I can't see myself finishing this tome, just because of the indigestible style in which it is written. Naomi Klein is evidently critical of super-brands and their invasive effect on society, but sometimes she seems so enmeshed in the language of marketing mumbo-jumbo that it's hard to find the meaning in the message. Here's an example from the section ALT.EVERYTHING: "As the success of branding superstars like Nike had shown, it was not going to be sufficient for companies simply to market their same product to a younger demographic; they needed to fashion brand identities that would resonate with this new culture." Later in the same chapter, she notes that Tony Blair is "a world leader as nation stylist [who] successfully changed the name of his party from an actual description of its loyalties and party proclivities...to the brand-asset descriptor "New Labour". His is not the Labour Party but a labor-scented party." Much of the marketing speak Klein adopts when discussing the influence big brands have on the western world is in inverted commas. However, if you aren't used to reading phrases such as "experiential shopping" and "fully branded experience", reading paragraph after paragraph larded with these expressions becomes much like the mind-numbing experience of wandering endlessly through a shopping mall. After a few hundred pages I wasn't sure whether Nike manufactures shoes or thin air, and whether I should be congratulating them for their business savvy in ripping off the gullible public or protesting their deplorable third world labour practices.
Anyway, sitting here logged on to AOL, wearing my knock-off Hilfiger shorts, Roots T-shirt and Nike sneakers, I'd be a hypocrite to criticise those evil brands.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Disturbing
Review: I found this book to be very interesting, and disturbing. Klein is certainly a Leftist, and generally as a conservative I would dispute much of her world-view but with the first half of her book she is on to something. I believe that the second half is less successful, and I do not share her idealization of graffiti artists and anti-global activists, but overall her book is a provacative and important one. Read and beware. I would like to respond to an earlier reviewer's comments, which many of my friends have directed me to when I told them of the book. Tristan from Australia finds fault with a graph in her book (not indexed for inflation) and then sets to beaking her over the head with it. I think he misses much of the point of her book - even if her graph is off. There is no question based on anecdotal evidence alone that advertising and the pervasiveness of "branded" space has increased. Look at modern sports stadiums, say the NFL - they're all named after corporations. The athletes at "FedEx Field" are all wearing brands that the team has negotiated (and been paid large sums to wear) - and they can be fined if they aren't wearing a "Starter brand" cap when they sit on the bench, etc. They then sit down and drink a Gatorade, while they watch the Coca-cola sponsored half-time show featuring Michael Jackson, Britney Spears or whoever the company believes they can best get to flog their product. The highlights from the first half will be then shown on the X-brand half-time show, and then recreated using graphics from EA Sports John Madden game. You could avoid all this and go to a movie, but first you'll have to sit through advertisements before the movie - and not just for upcoming movies anymore. First you'll be shushed by Halley Epsenberger while she's cramming Pepsi down your throat - all this after you spent $9.50 to be a captive audience for commercials - at least when you watch basic TV the excuse that the advertising is paying for the programs make sense, but this? And then you can be clever and see how many products have been placed in the movie. If it's James Bond you can see him wearing X-brand watch, drive his BMW, and polish it off with some Tanqueray Gin - not because smooth sophisticates drink it, but because Tanqueray paid the most for it. As for her other points - she goes into great depth about how we're becoming fungible goods as workers. An example I remember from the book is that Microsoft has a core of permanent employees and true they do make good money, but half of their work is done by temps. And to ensure that temps don't try and claim anything as basic as health coverage (what would they be thinking?) they're required to be laid off for a 30 day period every year so that no one classifies them as full time workers. Walmart does get to keep prices low as the Australian writer suggested, but unlike prior employers who believed they had a responsibility to take care of their workers - e.g. Ford wanted every worker to be able to afford a Ford - Walmart doesn't care whether it's employees can afford to shop their or not. As I know from having done some work for them they're all about keeping employees employed at under 28 hours a week - again so they can keep from having to pay any benefits. Great you say - get another job, but others such as Starbucks have caught on to that and screw their employees similarly. Sure you work 30 hours a week, but the schedule is such that you can't realistically get a job to fill in the time you're not working for them, plus you get to be on unpaid call (I guess for a coffee emergency), and in typical fashion they've even done computerized studies on each employee's productivity. They know each stores peak hours, how many customers x-employee typically serves, etc. - so they can schedule the employees only for the most cost-effective time. On one hand this sounds fair, but on the other - it's completely shafting the employee - especially those that treat it as their "real" job. Given that we're becoming a service based economy, this is getting to be a larger and larger part of the public. So the Australian guy can carp all he wants about graphs, and he can avoid the point of her argument - which is that advertising has gotten more sophisticated, and insidious - all to help companies, which are shedding any "brick and mortar" connections to become brands and images rather than production (an interesting example - Levis - which no longer owns a single factory, but has outsourced all of its production to third-world factories - which it is not responsible for, and which it can leverage to provide even cheaper and cheaper products - damn the sweatshop employees). I hope he and others are comforted when their jobs disappear and he goes to stand in line at the Hillfiger sponsored Employment office.
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