Rating: 
Summary: Economic feudalism
Review: This is a powerful and exceptionally well researched book which documents the economics of globalisation in frightening detail. The globalisation equation goes like this: first, sack as many of your US employees as possible, and certainly all of your employees which actually manufacture anything your company sells. Second, contract out your manufacturing to developing countries while putting political and economic pressure on the governments of those countries to keep the wages at below what anyone could possible live on. Your goods will be made in sweatshops under dangerous and sub-human conditions and each worker will cost you only cents an hour. Contracting out the manufacturing also conveniently distances you from the human rights violations involved. Third, import your goods back to the US and sell them for the same price or higher than you used to when they were made by Americans, but now cream in the 100's of percent higher profit margins. Fourth, pay yourself an annual bonus for increasing profits which is so large that it could support all, or most, of your sweatshop workers (in good conditions) for a decade or more of their lives. Fifth, couch your company's globalisation strategies in terms of increased efficiency and job provision in poor countries - perpetuate the myth that gobalisation is good for everyone. For an example of this equation: that "family values" company Disney pays its CEO $9,783 an hour, while their Haitian manufacturing workers get 28c a hour - at such a rate it would take a worker 16.8 years to earn the CEOs hourly income. In addition the CEO exercised $181 million of his stock options in 1996, which is enough to take care of his 19,000 Haitian workers and their families for 14 years! Welcome to the world of economic feudalism.
Rating:
Summary: Informative and intriguing
Review: If you're like me, you've sort of noticed the type of things she describes happening, the growth of big business, the increased importance of marketing, the shift of production to poorer countries; but you've never realized how much is really going on, how serious the situation actually is. Corporate attacks and brand bombing are in fashion right now (backlash is happening among intellectuals and at the street level), but this book is much more than a simple attack on the horrible nature of corporate America, more than just another trendy "I hate Big companies" book. It describes a shift away from products to brands and logos. Companies focus on marketing and building an image and outsource production to poor countries and underpaid workers (i.e., more image, less substance), and she goes into a thoroughly researched journey through this trend. This book may be described as a certain call to arms. And it ends with this conviction that there is something auspicious on the horizon (or if you're one of these super corporations - McDonalds, Nike, Pepsi, Levis, Tommy Hilfigger, Microsoft, etc. - something ominous), as if this trend won't be able to last long because it undermines trust and loyalty. We get nothing from these companies but substanceless image, and we're just beginning to realize it. More people should read this book. We need to ween ourselves off the superbrands. It'll open your eyes or will give you the knowledge to justify the suspicions you may already be harboring.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm converted!
Review: Growing up in Indonesia in a family that operated a so-called "sweatshop" for Banana Republic in the late 90s, it took me many years to understand the anti-globalization stance... And what did it for me was not the headline-hungry, emotionally-driven WTO protesters, but this academic and logical volume by Ms. Klein. Instead of adopting a general "they're so evil" tone, this book builds the arguments how brands hurt local economies and consumer identity in specific case-by-case manner. I was rather disappointed about this book in that, like many books addressing this issue, it offers little current alternative to the corporate way... although it leaves on a positive note for the future
Rating:
Summary: No Nonsense
Review: This book has an edgy tone and seems to vent at times, but it makes several really good points and attacks the out of control corporate consumerism where all buildings will soon have a logo, such as the The American Airlines Lincoln Memorial.
Rating:
Summary: Makes you see the world differently
Review:
No Logo is a book well worth reading no matter what your political persuasion. It will make you aware, or more aware, of just how pervasive the "branding" of the world has become. Naomi Klein's book is well-researched, well-organized and well-written. It deals with some quite complicated material, such as the interaction between various social and economic forces, while always remaining very readable and never lapsing into simplistic ideological rhetoric or academic-style jargon. No Logo documents the history of the brand in America, then goes on to explore various ways people have resisted the corporate domination of modern life. It's difficult to dispute that these are important issues. Finding a solution, however, is not such a simple matter. Klein is sophisticated enough to be skeptical of the very kind of activism she covers in No Logo. For example, she points out how boycotts of high profile companies such as Nike often benefits other equally guilty (of exploiting its Third World labor force) but lower profile companies. One question that No Logo doesn't directly tackle is whether significant curtailment of corporate power would really benefit people in the Third World. It's likely, for example, that if companies were forced to improve working conditions, they'd simply hire fewer workers. It's a complex situation, and a kind of Catch-22 for the world's poor, including those in affluent nations stuck in "McJobs". However, we can't fault Naomi Klein for not solving such a complex problem. I highly recommend No Logo as a thorough study of modern capitalism's impact on our culture. It also provides insight into a growing protest movement, one this book has certainly helped along. Most of all this book, whether you agree with all of it or not, brilliantly synthesizes many complex issues and reveals the underlying forces that connect them. It's a significant contribution to modern social theory.
Rating:
Summary: Is No Logo the answer?
Review: I read No Logo with much anticipation and some prior knowledge of its content. No Logo is now both well known and heralded by many as an important landmark of the modern anti-globalization and anti-consumerism movement.
But what for is the book? What does it advocate and what realistic alternatives does it promote? More on that later.
The first pages of No Logo are less than spectacular and, for a while, I began to doubt No Logo. Yet as the book progressed, the content became heftier and it became clearer that Naomi Klein has done a good job of chronicling the moments of a monumental movement. It reads like an anthology.
Past the numerous run-on sentences, American spellings and grammatical mistakes ('desert' instead of 'dessert', 'but more important' instead of 'but more importantly', etc.) I was reminded of a scene on the Star Trek - DS9 TV show of all places. It goes like this: Rom: "The fate of millions of people depends on you," to which Quark replies:"Boy they are going to be disappointed!" No Logo itself is published by an international corporation. The more No Logo sells, the more this company will profit. As the book progresses, it becomes more and more evident that the solution lies in a broad-based boycott of multinational brands, self-virtue and a lessening of consumption and materialism not single-focus boycotts. Yet, and this is the issue, you can not criticize and instruct others while you yourself are compromising. For the world is full of teachers and philosophers. What is lacking is people who practice what they preach. We need more action and less talk and if Klein can't find an alternative to resorting to a big corporation, then she might as well pack it in and stop pretending that she has something to tell the rest of us.
Having said that, I enjoyed No Logo. It raises legitimate questions and packages quite a bit in one tome. Even if I was looking more for Klein the solution provider and less for Klein the writer/researcher.
Rating:
Summary: Read this book no matter what your political persuasion
Review: Confession - I happily work for a multinational company with a strong brand image, and I'm not a supporter of the anti-globalisation movement, but I do have an open mind. I fully enjoyed reading this book, and anyone who isn't disturbed by its contents doesn't have a heart. It won't stop me working for my current employer, because thank heavens they don't indulge in any of the foul practices described in the book.
However, I'll never buy anything again from Nike, no matter what they do (if anything) to try and redeem themselves. In fact, at the end of the book you might well think that Phil Knight (Nike CEO) should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
The only disappointment was in the pictures & graphics. They were ill-chosen, and were either unreadable, unintelligible or didn't really add anything to the argument. The text in itself was very readable.
Rating:
Summary: no logo; a wake up call for the masses
Review: read this book and your eyes are opened to the carefully conditioned and constructed lives we live without even realising. Extensive research and a real passion for the subject is shown by the author and this passion is communicated to the reader. I defy anyone to read this book and look at the commercial and advertising world the same way again. You will feel empowered and the quest to further your knowledge, make a change and take control of your life will begin.
Rating: 
Summary: Main arrow doesn't achieve the right target
Review: I think that No Logo has a great hole in his theory. The problem is that Naomi Klein starts to write from this point: big multi-county brands are guilty for all the problems in South-east Asia and other countries where workers are not defended in their social, human and economic rights. Companies such as NIKE or GAP built a new business model where production is not the core activity but the brand building. The production is outsourced in countries where they realize this situation: economic power vs. human and social rights. It is absolutely true, but Naomi Klein doesn't say the biggest truth. This status quo can go ahead because there is someone that buy Gap, Nike and other big brand's goods. My point of view is that Nike wasn't able to continue with this exploitation policy if nobody, in the west, is available to accept this situation. So, probably, main guilty is the consumer who continue to buy NIKE, Gap and so on, because in this way he says that there is no problem in exploiting Asians, Africans, Latin Americans, babies and all people that work for more than 12 hours per day for a 0.66 USD wage. The main thing is to have a pair of wonderful Nike. That's what Naomi Klein doesn't say.
Rating:
Summary: Ditch the Gap
Review: I found this book, however exagerated, to be a welcome releif from the ever growing orgy of marketing and conumeristic proganda that has invaded us. There is little that critical minds can do to resist it other than either write or read a book like No Logo. Naomi Klein forcefully argues that people are pawns manipulated by the corporate establishment with advertising and global reach. Brand names promise somethjing better than you had before and skew your choice in favor of the most marketed rather than the best product. i don't agree entilrely with Klein'is claim that brands represent "a fascist state where we all salute the logo". i still think some of us are smarter than that and are able to escape it, enjoying that felling of indiscretion that goes along with it. But I find little to disagree with the notion that developing nations' workers are being abused and that branded goods are displacing excellent local products. As an Italian I feel dismayed when neapolitan children, who have at their disposal the very best food the world has to offer, nag their poor parents- who'd rather eat an 'arancino' or crocche' or timballo di melenzane -
to go to mcDonald's. and what should Italians say about the mass-marketing and appropriation of the cappuccino by Starbucks and company? No one in America even knows what Cappuccino means and that it is only a breakfast drink which tradition holds should be served only until 11.00 am. Did you know Russians learned about Pizza from Pizza Hut and not a piazzaiolo from Sorrento ? I thought we were immune. But no sheep exist everywhere. Brands misappropriate and cheapen traditions. the Market shoulkd not have such sway over culture. No wonder teh French are afraid - and far better than Italians at resisting. I'm not surprised that the freemarket at all costs mouthpiece 'The Economist' magazine ran an issue arguing in favor of branding and against Ms. Klein. The only good thing in this consumeristic world is that it allows those people who do have real taste to show it without any effort. It helps me separate the sheep form the humans. call me a reactionary, but I'd rather be that than a gap poster boy.
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