Rating: 
Summary: Awesome MindBlowing Book!
Review: I just started reading the book and I finished the Culture and Economics section. I am not an economist and I am not a sociologist, I am a 27 year old engineer (born in Pakistan and raised in the Middle East) who intends to make a documentary on a related subject. This book is a collection of essays by prominent sociologists and economists written in an easy to understand language (except for some sections in one essay where the authors wants to foist technical terms on you to impress or cajole you into seeing things their way but you will know and identify such people and make your own judgements about what they have to say) and it presents both point of views (the extremes as well as the middle ground). Although there is one bad thing about the book (you cannot tell clearly which author will argue which side until you are in the middle of the essay : this is particularly the case with people who wish to state that Culture Does NOT Matter. They almost sneak up their arguments on you and beat around the bush for pages before getting there; which probably reflects on their essays). If anything, reading this book has told me A LOT about African and Latin American cultures (atleast in the first 50 pages). These are deep insights that only an observant student of that culture can deduce. It is very amusing to read them at times while at other times you go "Ok, so these people have problems, I can't do anything about it but I would like to know more about the culture good and bad, and particularly the parts that every culture tries to hide or gloss over". This book is a good read for all future politicians, economists, businessmen and anyone who is curious about how to interact with various cultures and what are the motivations behind the actions of various cultures. Fabulous, simply fabulous. What is amazing is the media attention a mediocre book like Guns, Germs and Steel received as opposed to this book which is simply sublime. I read passages of it for my younger sister and my friends and to this guy who is working on making our company more efficient (some motivation coach) and my coworkers too, naturally ... tonight I intend to read passages of it to my date over champagne and strawberries (I hope) ... after reading this book I felt a closer attachment to my watch and a greater desire to be more efficient and precise, more hardworking, more thrifty (with the exception of tonight) and more entrepreneurial (sp?)
Rating:
Summary: Wish My Library Carried it!
Review: I looked at the new york public library and they don't carry this book! what a shame! one of the biggest and best libraries in the world is in shambles. I am going to get it somehow (even though I am a student with little income) because I love Mr. Huntington's work and all he has gone through to bring these ideas to us. I hope they would airdrop these books on the countries of the world because that would serve the people more than a tin can would. Teach them to fish!
Rating:
Summary: A Very Important Book
Review: I saw this book reviewed in TIME and decided I had to read it. It's absolutely fascinating to see such a diverse group of scholars write about the role of culture in societal progress. You may not agree with every piece in this book, but every piece in this book will make you think. I particularly liked the articles by Orlando Patterson and David Landes.
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Summary: New York reader
Review: I saw this book reviewed in WALL STREET JOURNAL AND THEN TIME and then knew I couldn't ignore it. I was amazed that an edited volume could have so much integrity. It is fascinating.
Rating: 
Summary: Look at the perspectives
Review: I see that many whom support the arguments in Culture Matters - on this site and elsewhere - are generally non-Western, and simply hanker for the opportunity of a Western lifestyle. It seems that they are seduced by the comforts of democracy and the economic vernacular. It's not surprising! Westerners who have the option of 'choice' accuse Huntington et al of cultural imperialism and racism. Let the periphery-dwellers speak out - for the thesis that culture values progress is reasonably debated in this collection of essays. Don't get caught up in the romanticism of the 'other':
"a society in which magic and witchcraft flourism today is a sick society ruled by tension, fear, and moral disorder" (Daniel Etounga-Manguelle, Culture Matters, p73).
Rating: 
Summary: One of the WORST books on the subject!!!!!!
Review: I think it is terrible, and I nevertheless recommend people read it to see why it is so bad. Yes, I think it is the worst book. Why? Two reasons. The first is that it is so Eurocentric. Come on! Enough already of this European conception of objective happiness, development, economic growth, bla, bla, bla... This is all "blond-hair-blue eye-short-upper-lip" Anglosaxon ... There is no such thing as "objectively good" path of development. When will the scholars finally learn that? The authors should read Polanyi again or something. Second, there is no account of how STRUCTURE influences CULTURE and cultural perception of the structure. The authors show only one way causality, and I think they did it on purpose and are fully aware of it. But to say that culture matter is exactly 50% of the story. Where is the rest 50%? The only review on this page ...touches a little bit on the problem.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Jump to Conclusions
Review: I'm afraid some may jump to conclusions simply from the title and contributors of this collection. This book is a fascinating discussion on the differences in culture around the world and how these have affected cultural paths. There really is no judgement involved. If you're curious at all about the way modern thought, from the most micro of microeconomics to the universals of anthropology, regards cultural differences and how those differences might contribute in a positive or negative way to the world's future success, then read it. You can be of any political persuasion, if you have an open mind, you will appreciate it.
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Summary: Towering Ignorance
Review: In this book a large group of Harvard economists and political scientists, and a few anthropologists, debate the radical proposition that culture makes a difference in economic development. While its nice to know the foreign policy elite are ready to think about culture as more than `western civilization,' it turns out that this allows them to blame all poverty on the malformed and defective cultures of underdeveloped countries. It's as if the `culture of poverty' debate never took place. Most anthropologists will grind away several millimeters of tooth enamel while reading this. Why do economists and political scientists feel like they don't have to read the work of people who have devoted their lives to studying cultural difference?
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Summary: It Certainly Seems to Matter
Review: It certainly seems to matter. Why, after all, should Japan have been be rich while Taiwan was poor, if culture did not matter? Or Denmark been a nation of farmers while Holland held dominion over the trade routes of the world? And why, as is asked in one of the most frustratingly tentative essays in this very variable volume, do different immigrant groups to the United States have such very different careers? Of course, it is unfashionable to ask such questions lest someone believe that to say culture matters is to imply that race matters: ie that members of wealthy races are inherently superior to members of poor races. Perhaps that is why the most compelling essays in this book are by an African development economist and a Latin American journalist who exclaim impatiently that of course culture matters and insist that the thing their nations need is to discover the cultural components of economic success and import some. Even more refreshing is the essay by Ronald Inglehardt who brings - gasp - actual measurable data to this debate. Not that anything is quite settled. We are still left with the big questions, like: Why Europe? Why not China? and What was so special about eighteenth century England? On those questions, permit me to recommend two other new books. Nathan Pomeranz's THE GREAT DIVERGENCE, which bends over backwards to prove that China could equally well have given us the industrial revolution, but for a few chance occurances that have nothing to do with culture. And BULLOUGH'S POND by Diana Muir, which, in the course of discussing a number of other things, does lead one to wonder if there may have been something about those Calvinists after all.
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Summary: Culture matters, but there is no such thing as progress
Review: It is surprising to me that 40 years after Rostow said USA is the most advanced country in the world, there are still people (not surprisingly Americans) who still think they are the best, of the best, of the best. Why should American culture be the most advanced? Because it has the highest GDP per capita? Yes, if you believe most contributors of this very bad book. It seems to me that most have never left their air-conditioned office and all they know from the rest of the world comes from CNN. Three contributors actually come from other countries. The Argentinan Carlos Alberto Montaner is particularly bad. Obviously a USA educated member of the elite (as Shweder writes), one wonders if he has ever spoken to a Argentinan farmer or factory worker, or he has only read about them in academic books. A couple of chapters are better (Shweder's for example), as they do not start with the idea that American culture is the more advanced. If American culture is the most advanced, why does it have the highest prison population in the world? Very high rates of drug addiction? High rates of suicides? Why does it only survive by robbing other countries of everything they have? These issues are simply ignored. The only important thing is that GDP=Progress. What is culture? Why does it affect human choice? How does it change? Where does it come from? What makes a particular culture compatible with a particular economic system? Should one promote cultural change to reach economic goals? What will be the consequences? All these are questions that should have been addressed in a book titled "culture matters". Yet, the chapters are written by people who seem convinced that they live in the country chosen by God. Forget about this book, read cultural psychology, behavioural psychology, economic sociology, or Marx, Weber, Durkheim. There you can find some answers, and also some intelligent questions.
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