Saving The Sun

'A classic tale of East meets West, a subject Tett makes as intriguing in business as it is in war or romance.'International Herald Tribune

Gillian Tett was trained as a social anthropologist but became a journalist while doing fieldwork in Soviet Central Asia during the communist period in Russia. Since that time she has risen through the ranks of the Financial Times, holding positions on its economics desk before becoming the bureau chief in Japan. She now lives in London.

For more than a decade, Japan's dismal economy - which has bounced from deflationary collapse to fitful recovery and back to collapse - has been the biggest obstacle to economic growth. Why has the world's second largest economy been unable to save itself? Why has a country, whose financial might in the 1980s was the most feared force on the globe, become the sick man of the world economy? Saving the Sun answers these questions and more in the riveting and remarkable story of Long Term Credit Bank, one of the world's most respected financial institutions, and its attempts to transform itself into a Western-style bank and reconcile the cultural gulf that still exists between Japan and the international banking community.'Smart and engaging-it's a riveting tale with important insights into Japan's culture and its sclerotic system.' BusinessWeek'Saving the Sun is not simply about the fate of one Japanese bank. It is about the clash of two visions of finance-and how hard it is to reconcile them.' The Wall Street Journal Europe

Gillian Tett

Will turn your world upside down in the best possible way: fun, profound and bursting with important insights.

Tim Harford, author of HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD ADD UP

Makes a compelling case that "anthro-vision" can help us understand ourselves, our tribes, companies and communities, and to reduce our wilful blindness . . . One of the glories of Anthro-Vision is that it never argues (as many do) that its way of seeing is the only way. It's a timely call for decision-makers to wean themselves off their dependency on big data and embrace the full complexity of human life.

A fascinating and compelling demonstration that all of us, especially economists, can benefit from the insights of anthropology: the worm's-eye, not just the bird's-eye, view of how people behave.

Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England and co-author of RADICAL UNCERTAINTY

Drawing on a wide breadth of case studies, Gillian Tett explains that whether you're marketing Kit-Kats in Japan or fighting the spread of COVID-19 in England, you need a more qualitative understanding of who people are and what they care about. Anyone working to rebuild a more equal world will benefit from Tett's well-argued case that to solve twenty-first-century problems, we must expand our fields of vision and fill in old blind spots with new empathy.

Melinda Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and author of THE MOMENT OF LIFT

Absolutely brilliant . . . Very compelling examples.

Daniel Kahneman, author of THINKING, FAST AND SLOW and NOISE

From a Tajik valley to Silicon valley, Anthro-Vision takes us on an enthralling and deeply insightful journey. Tett shows us how the discipline and tools of anthropology helped her see the world more clearly. Full of rich insights and examples - I couldn't put it down.

David Halpern, CEO, The Behavioural Insights Team and author of INSIDE THE NUDGE UNIT

In a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, we need an antidote to tunnel vision, argues Gillian Tett. That antidote is Anthro-Vision - applying the techniques of anthropology she learned as a young scholar in Cambridge and Tajikistan . . . Admirers of her journalism will love this book, but they will also learn a great deal from it - including how better to understand their own familiar yet strange tribe.

Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford and author of DOOM: THE POLITICS OF CATASTROPHE

Looking at the world like an anthropologist has long given Gillian Tett the edge over the rest of us as a journalist and thinker. With this book she generously shares her secret recipe - and explains why we may all need Anthro-Vision to see a way through some of today's most pressing global challenges.

Stephanie Flanders, Senior Executive Editor for Economics, Bloomberg

Tett provides readers with a new intellectual framework - grounded in her deep understanding of anthropology and her path-breaking journalism - that can fundamentally transform how we approach solving society's most wicked problems, from climate change to pandemics to political polarisation. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and author of THE ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE

Trouble follows when insular guilds - bankers, doctors, journalists - fail to take into acconut the viewpoints and folkways of non-elite people . . . [Tett's] conclusions are bright and buoyant.

A plea to those of us who may be unfamiliar with Tett's academic discipline to think more like an anthropologist. I think she's right . . . Tett's book may be anthropological, but it also embraces a style of accessible economic writing that, sadly, went out of fashion as the mathematicians and their models took over. Anthro-Vision reminds me of John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1958) and The New Industrial State (1967). Some economists may regard this as a criticism. I can think of no higher praise.

A good read, as one might expect from a Financial Times journalist . . . Many of the cases studies are entertaining and instructive . . . This book is a reminder that culture and context really do matter and cannot be ignored when trying to understand and change organisational behaviour.

Adrian Furnham, Professor of Psychology, UCL

In this superb book, Gillian Tett - Editor-at-Large at the Financial Times - applies the lessons of her doctorate in anthropology to the world of business and, more generally, to social behaviour and trends . . . There are many reasons to read Anthro-Vision, but the most compelling is its liberation of [its] analysis from the often phoney and banal punch-ups of today's culture wars.

A really interesting read. Increasingly, businesses are understanding that we can change our attitudes to things - be better at managing people, managing ourselves, and become more profitable - if we do not take a myopic view of culture.

Fantastic . . . A wonderful book and I recommend it. It will help you think about the world differently, but it will also help you think about yourself differently. A very entertaining exercise in a kind of social and cultural mindfulness.

Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, Royal Society of Arts

Deliberately listening to other people and taking on their perspective is a rare skill, and a powerful tool . . . For readers, this book offers something more valuable: the opportunity to consider how truly strange we all are.

Wonderful . . . [on] that anthropological skill of looking at things from the outside.

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UK and author of Alchemy

Full of examples that make you see work and business differently.

A rattling good read . . . The book has loads of interesting vignettes about the use of anthropology, particularly in business.

Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge

Tett's examples of research are vivid, surprising and imaginative; their revelations are informative . . . Tett's book is lots of fun and could even create a few business converts to the anthropological cause.

It's hard to argue with her common-sense case that companies should strive to take an outsider's view . . . Packed full of insight, this has the power to change minds.

I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed reading this book . . . A terrific piece of work.

Thomas Friedman, author of THE WORLD IS FLAT and THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE

A compelling, readable argument for the business value of anthropology.

How Anthropology Can Explain Business and Life

'Absolutely brilliant.' Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow 
 
Meet the business anthropologists seeking to explain how we buy, sell, work and think. 
 
From supermarkets to factories, trading floors to tech firms, their methods are revealing the hidden codes that define our lives. 
 
The result is a wholly new way to see human behaviour: anthro-vision. 
 
One of the World's Top 50 Thinkers - Prospect

Gillian Tett

Praise for Anthro-Vision

Will turn your world upside down in the best possible way: fun, profound and bursting with important insights.

Makes a compelling case that "anthro-vision" can help us understand ourselves, our tribes, companies and communities, and to reduce our wilful blindness . . . One of the glories of Anthro-Vision is that it ne ...

A fascinating and compelling demonstration that all of us, especially economists, can benefit from the insights of anthropology: the worm's-eye, not just the bird's-eye, view of how people behave.

Will turn your world upside down in the best possible way: fun, profound and bursting with important insights.

Makes a compelling case that "anthro-vision" can help us understand ourselves, our tribes, companies and communities, and to reduce our wilful blindness . . . One of the glories of Anthro-Vision is that it ne ...

A fascinating and compelling demonstration that all of us, especially economists, can benefit from the insights of anthropology: the worm's-eye, not just the bird's-eye, view of how people behave.

Will turn your world upside down in the best possible way: fun, profound and bursting with important insights.

Makes a compelling case that "anthro-vision" can help us understand ourselves, our tribes, companies and communities, and to reduce our wilful blindness . . . One of the glories of Anthro-Vision is that it ne ...

A fascinating and compelling demonstration that all of us, especially economists, can benefit from the insights of anthropology: the worm's-eye, not just the bird's-eye, view of how people behave.

Books by Gillian Tett

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter