cover image The Global Marketplace

The Global Marketplace

Jerome Roscow, Jerome Rosow. Facts on File, $21.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8160-1633-4

Foreseeing an international world economy that can bring ``profits, growth and an improved standard of living for people everywhere,'' Rosow ( Views from the Top ) here presents related essays by 10 world business and financial leaders, among them General Motors CEO Roger Smith (on global competition), John F. McGillicuddy of Manufacturers Hanover (on world finance) and the heads of AT&T, Sears, Rockwell, Westinghouse and comparable executives in Germany and Japan. This valuable overview of the dawning information/communications age contains not a little self-serving puffery. McGillicuddy's claim for worldwide financial transactions ``at breathtaking speed'' will not impress customers of Manufacturers Hanover who have waited months to have computer errors corrected in their accounts, and Smith's upbeat projections for GM call to mind recent heavy criticism of his Saturn project and Electronic Data Systems acquistion. Still, there is plenty of good meat here to go with the grains of salt. (Dec.)