Rating: 
Summary: See the forest...
Review: I picked this book up because it addressed one of the issues that I think about frequently, but rarely see discussed in book form: our ad-saturated culture. We are so bombarded by advertising that we become blind to it...we can no longer see the forest for the promotional trees thrown at us by Nike and its advertising cohorts. Klein does a particularly good job at illustrating how "branding" works, the tactic whereby a company sells you concept, not an actual product. Her favorite example of this is how Nike has positioned itself not as a shoe maker, but as the embodiment of Sport Itself! It's happened so gradually that perhaps even the media savvy have failed to see it happen. Klein does a good job of making a potentially tedious topic into an engaging read.
Rating: 
Summary: My Bible......even the Bible can have some flaws, right?
Review: People can bash the biased opinion of Klein. People can say that she puts too much emphasis on her little "teenage angst" rebels, but I think they're missing something (either that or I'm seeing something in the book that wasn't there). Certainly, she seems to push for the side of those against the big corporations, but you can't forget that she also takes the time out to talk about how much protesting, activism, and political action is just empty, counter-productive, and hypocritical a lot of the time. It's a call to arms basically. I don't think Klein herself would say that her book is going to change the world, and some people come in ready to criticize. "Just because you wrote a book doesn't change anything about the corporations." True, but once again, would she disagree? In my head, or at least what I've gotten coming out of the book, it's a call to do something but to think before acting. Just because you set up a protest doesn't mean anything. Protests go wrong. Protests buy into the media they're supposedly fighting against. Activism turns into inactivity. Back to my little review title comparing this to the Bible (big stretch, I know, but I had to have a title). You can take this how you wish. It can either be a set of rules to follow for the world where you fit into a regimented life of acting "against" the big corporations or it can be something there to inspire you, to reinforce you, to make you think before acting. You are left to do the work. A book won't do it for you. Plus, I might add, it's pretty entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Klein should grow out of her angst
Review: If I may borrow a line from another reviewer before me, the only reason I give this book 2 stars and not 1 is because Klein knows what she's talking about. The only problem is the can't seem to get off her idealistic, utopic view. Her assumptions and opinions are not well founded, plus she seems to find wrong without exploring the alternatives, which can often be a lot worse. If capitalism promotes efficiency, jobs, productivity, etc., who needs a mom-and-pop shop? The truth is that capitalism -- and the free market -- do make room for small entrepreneurial business in the long run anyway. ...small video stores have to learn how to live with Blockbuster. It's a fair game. I believe Klein fails to see that capitalism -- while far from perfect -- happens to be the most efficient way to promote fair competition, employment, and economic prosperity. I don't recall the exact words, but Klein should listen to Winston Churchill's wise advice "A man in his 20's who's not an idealist doesn't have a heart; a man in his 30's who's not a realist, doesn't have a brain."
Rating:
Summary: A thorough investigation into 'globalisation'
Review: Klein's book gives a very detailed account of the development of advertising and it's encroachment on common space. Following on from this is the brand name as icon and how certain groups of people are supposed to lend it 'credibility'.Her accounting how the decline in manufacturing in 'Western' Countries is due to contracting out to slave labour in the 'Third World' - and the appaling conditions these workers live in - is a truth the main brand leaders would rather not be spoken. Where the book falls down is on two issues: Firstly the assumption that governments have become powerless, being subservient to corporations - see John Pilger's 'Hidden Agendas' for a better explaination of the relationship. Secondly, that 'anti-globalisation' is a coherent movement, which of course it isn't. In many cases, nationalism is a driving force, something she failed to address. Overall, she has done a very good job in tackling a broad subject and how the 'branding' of all our lives restricts our freedom. And not just our freedom in 'Western' countries, but more importantly, how those who make the branded goods for sale in 'Western' countries are treated so inhumanely. Well worth reading, an essential reference book.
Rating:
Summary: researched, but distorted
Review: The reason why I give this 2 stars, not one, is because Klein did do her homework, but got it wrong...Most of the book is a tirade, while organized (somewhat), it is still a rant against...well, everyone except her lovely teen-age angst advertisement vandals.
In the beginning of the book, (about the first 150 pages), I was indifferent. On the 160th page or so, she completly lost me with an ending paragraph that said that WE ALL SALUTE THE FACIST STATE OF LOGO. Little did I know but I am completly controlled by companies, and have no say in what I chose to buy or do, but Im glad that she informed me, for next time when I see Baby Gap, I'll think swaztika. The last chapter of the book is the only readable one. She attempts to make a good point about workers rights.
However, she conviently leaves out the fact that people trek for hundreds, and sometimes thousands, or miles to get to these evil, oppresive, onnerous factory jobs. Why do they do this (maybe the facist state of American Eagle puts a gun to their head and enforces a pogrom on the paseants of China to move them from their picturesque rice farm to their factory), or maybe it is because the dire economic condition on their peasant farms provides a less appealing choice than working in a factory. Farming peasants might look good for pictures in National Geographic, but walk into the peasant house and you'll get a different perspective. I did, and do not, see why this was called a a triumph of socialism, or a must read for the anti-globilization subscribers; if this is the best they could come up with, Im not surprised they are losing ground around the world, especailly in the "die-hard" social democratic countries of France, Germany and Netherlands...
Rating:
Summary: The backlash begins here
Review: Books like "No Logo", which is a solid critique of the attempted corporate takeover of the world, are a sign of the growing backlash against the excesses of unfettered, globalized, laissez faire capitalism. While the twin ideas of the invincibility of multinational corporations and the inevitability of complete globalization are promoted by a mass media that is itself quite literally owned by those same corporate paymasters, the truth is that a large number of people are becoming increasingly disillusioned with this situation and are beginning to look for strategies to fight back. People could do a lot worse than to begin by reading Naomi Klein's book.
Rating: 
Summary: No Logic
Review: When I read the title "No Logo" I thought the book would unmask images such as the swastika-like DK of the Dead Kennedy's or the latent black-shirt fascism in the black flag of anarchy. I was wrong. The subsurface celebration of violence in the image of the clenched fist and the subsurface history of extortion in the AFL-CIO's "handshake" logo receive no mention. When I read the subtitle "Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies" I thought the book would offer a critique - a scathing expose - of the would-be brown shirts who vandalize billboards. I was wrong. I turns out that these vandals are actually "semiotic revolutionaries" who "liberate" our "mental space" from "colonization" by "multinational corporations." Joseph Goebbels couldn't have offered a better rationale for Kristallnacht. Witch goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover - or a company by its logo. I suggest that you read the last section of this book first. In this way, you can see exactly how many "problems" her so-called solutions fail to solve. To her credit, Klein offers several solutions: "Culture Jamming" (i.e. vandalism) "Reclaiming The Streets" (i.e. blocking traffic) "Critical Mass" (i.e. blocking traffic while you are on a bicycle) "Investigative Activism" (more on this below) and "Local Foreign Policy" (e.g. Berserkly prohibits Pepsi in public vending machines because - GASP - they sold cola-flavored candy water in Burma.) One questions the effectiveness of a Local Foreign Policy ™. True, divestiture did precede the repeal of apartheid in South Africa. To say that divestiture caused the repeal is post hoc reasoning. If you sneeze and it starts to rain, it doesn't mean that sneezing causes raining. In Cuba, economic leverage has taken the form of sanctions - well beyond the mere "selective purchasing" that Kline advocates - for over forty years. Castro still is the warden-in-chief of that balmy, Caribbean penal colony. And while we are on the topic of Cuba, we should recollect that this island 'worker's paradise' largely lacks the Coca-colanization that Kline rejects. Does Cuba better embody the ideal toward witch we should aspire - an island population that suffers from stunted growth due to widespread malnutrition? Batista was a thug, but under Batista and the multinationals, prosperity and literacy were among the highest in Latin America. Under Castro, Cuba rivals Haiti for the status of greatest penury. Under Batista and the multinationals, people moved from Spain to Cuba. Under Castro and without the multinationals, people move from Cuba to Spain - if they can escape. Compare South Korea, where the baleful effects of multinationals are present, with North Korea, where the pernicious effects of the Nike swoosh are absent. Where would you rather live? North Koreans have found conditions so bad that they have even sought refuge in China - where the swoosh is making inroads.. Culture Jamming ™ should be rejected because it's destructive - on the same moral grounds as painting a swastika on a synagogue. Beyond that, it's ineffective. Ballyhoo was the Adbusters of the Depression era. Walker Evans, Dorathea Lang and Margaret Bourke-White, the Guy Debords of their day, produced photographs that juxtaposed shiny, happy billboards with their dismal surroundings. None of this prevented the "Disneyfication" of the 50's Reclaiming The Streets ™ and Critical Mass ™ should be rejected because they are annoying - unlikely to attract support to a vanguard movement that styles itself as a grass-roots one. Beyond that, it's apt to provoke a backlash. Consider the hullabaloo outside the '68 Democratic Party convention while the "whole world" watched - and then voted the "law and order" Nixon a landslide victory.
Investigative Activism, on the other hand, is a horse of another color. I prefer the old term - muckraking. (Why avoid using the old term? Bad public relations perhaps?) Kline points to case after case where companies have adjusted their behavior in an effort to make nice with the activists. Starbucks finds "organic" alternatives to milk from hormone treated cows. Nike adopts codes of conduct that apply to its contractors in places like Indonesia and Vietnam. Shell oil decides to dispose of its Brent Spar oil rig on land rather than at sea after a campaign spearheaded by Greenpeace. The list goes on. In all of these cases, the brand has been the linchpin of the campaign. The bigger the brand, the harder they fall. As Kline demonstrates, bigger brands, like Woolworths, are more responsive than smaller brands like Daishowa (who are they?) All of this makes sense. A brand embodies a business' reputation. Businesses adjust their behavior in response to consumer sentiment in order to prevent the deterioration of their reputation. Brands are not the problem, brands are the solution. In the final chapter, Kline affirms citizenship over consumerism without being clear about what she means by this. If anything, the section on investigative activism demonstrates that consumerism is more democratic than citizenship. In response to consumer outrage, Shell did a U-turn on Brent Spar. In contrast, John Majors, as prime citizen, denounced the reaction as an act of cowardice. Amnesty International has had more success with Shell than it has had with Sani Abacha.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect entree into the globalization debate
Review: While this book does its fair share of chronicling the exploits of and exploitation by the chronically greedy, it's not just a big whine. The point is that people are beginning to feel that corporations are overrunning their lives; as a result, many are reclaiming their intellectual and metaphorical turf, by some creative and effective means. Even if you pray to a picture of Milton Friedman while reading verses from the gospel of Adam Smith, this book is worthwhile. It explains why people, specifically my 20-something generation, which has never known America to be anything but callous and greedy, are drawing a line in the sand and not backing up any further. The book highlights, if not explicitly, the dialectic tension between that hotly debated "right to be left alone" and, well -- the right of a nonhuman entity to market products to all and sundry, I guess. Klein levels her criticism at the commercial actors instead of the political/NGO ones, and properly so. Those groups are moving in opposite directions and have opposite agendas. The heroes of this story are the ones who are fighting their enemies, not the groups that perhaps inadvertently allow those enemies to flourish. One letdown for me with Klein's otherwise remarkable work is that it takes her a long time to build her case; on the other hand, it wasn't a hard sell, and I eventually bought in big time. If nothing else, No Logo will force you to think more critically when, for instance, you hear the wags on the evening news talk about protesters if you had heretofore written them all off as hippies. You will have an idea what all the fuss is about, and you might even come to think of "those punks" as real "Americans," refusing to quarter the Imperialists in their private space. It's exactly the justification one needs to take matters into her own hands to make all of our lives more colorful and real.
Rating:
Summary: Globalisaster...
Review: Globalisation is a very common word down at the street or in the media these days but you'll find very few in either "location" that can fully tell you what it means or, in the case of the media, are willing to.
But globalisation is supposedly our "future" if the plans of the money lords go as envisioned. This might not be very likely actually but that's a different story.
Ever wondered why your DVD player costs only $[money] or why your sneakers cost $[money] or why certain brand clothes also cost cheap? How could that be possible and what does it mean that most of such products (and others you might not be suspecting) are made primarily in Asia? "Respected" companies like Nike or Adidas contract out the manufacturing of their products to factories in Asia where workers work under , often, brutally unhuman conditions, 14 hour shifts, no benefits, and with shameful wages like 28 cents an hour..At the same time these and other companies try to pass out an image at home that tries to convince us how much they respect the "ideal of sport" or other such noble causes when in reality they are cynical exploiters of people all over the world and they dont omit to rip off their customers "at home"..
"No logo" is an exhaustive study of all this. Reading this book wont leave you the same person afterwards, especially if you dont have a very clear picture of all this situation. It will also leave you disgusted and wondering how many of these companies have actually suckered you.
But the most important message of this book goes out to those (and they are many) that say "hey, nothing can be done, you cant take these multinational giants on" and so forth. Not only does it show that a lot can be done but that a LOT has already been done and it demonstrates in detail what organisations in America and in the rest of the world are doing to change this predicament which is nothing short of a direct throw-back to medieval conditions for 1000s of workers around the world while CEOs are laughing at us, the customers, and on their way to the bank.
A must-read is an utter understatement for "No logo".
Rating:
Summary: I give a sigh of relief
Review: That this book was so clear and stunning, but didn't beat me over the head with grief. I was travelling when I read No Logo, and was pleased to include it my carefully selected items. I'd sit in the tube and try to ESP my new "groundbreaking" knowledge to people across the way, glaring at their foreheads ("Sweet Jesus - don't you know how ironic it is that you're wearing Reebok, Adidas and Nike all at once?" "Starbucks is the DEVILLLLLLLLLLL"). Londoners have got ignoring down to a very fine art and I was an ameture at brain penetration in peak hour public transport.
But its out there, and that's a comfort. My exposure to human rights movements had been broad and vague - Klein's clear cases, vocalised intentions and linking action across the globe brought relief to the fear that there's a few token do-gooders in obscure locations. I have, in the past, thought of the issues relating to corporate management of the frontline workers, and instantly felt overwhelmed and exhasperated by the miriad of issues involved - all of them invincible. But all those threads became clear and managable from Klein's text: uncomplicated, pedestrian, accessable.
The anger I felt while I read this book translated to enthusiasm. I'd hunt for conversational windows ("Is anyone sick of Michael Jackson?" "Speaking of North America, I've jsut read this book that talks about urban comunities in Canada...") and learn to identify that face of heard-it-before-not-listening-now. And now I'm just happy its popular, which is a good start. Yes, to us exposed types, it does seem small, but don't forget there are some awfully thick folk out there, and them simply HAVING ANY IDEA of what No logo is about is so much better than the alternative.
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