User Profile

As an examination of the German people after World War 2, "They Thought They Were Free" has its flaws. Demographically, the city chosen by Mayer to examine was more supportive of the Nazi program and less scarred by the horrors of war than most. Mayer's sweeping generalizations of the nature of the German people has its flaws as well, especially with the benefit of hindsight. As Mayer himself attests, he was an American in Allied-occupied Germany who didn't know the language. He knew there were limits to what he could accomplish — and he was largely correct about them.

As an examination of specific German people — an examination of some of the "little people " who were attracted to Hitler's program — the book has much to offer. The anti-intellectualism that discouraged development of any coherent policy theories (lest a learned writer of National Socialist theory becomes disgraced later), the creation of and eventual abandonment through neglect of a party-run religion, and the steady expansion of state sponsored anti-Semitism provide examples of authoritarian behavior that all ring true 70 years later.

Where the book truly excels is as an examination of America through the eyes of Germans in the mid-1950s. The hypocrisy of Jim Crow, the stupidity of McCarthyism, and the self-destructive support of fascist movements by the CIA to oppose Soviet-sponsored Communism are all laid bare. The corruption of machine-era politics, in which state public employees still "voluntarily" donate to the political party in charge, is used by Mayer's Germans to partially explain why they held little value in American-style democracy. As a slice of introspection in which Americans started to seriously consider the gap between the idealized version of themselves they pitched on postcards, advertisements, and school lessons against the observed realities of American life, the book offers insights which remain pertinent to the present day.

"The Unicorn Project" tries to pick up where "The Phoenix Project" left off by pitching a world where developers and engineers manage to move fast and try things — and occasionally break them.

Towards the end of the book, it was clear the author started to see some of the political and financial pratfalls inherent in the approach being pitched — and how overly optimistic his vision was — but flinched before he drew away from his preconceived conclusion. Though the author is correct that legacy institutions can process and policy themselves to death, it's also true that many institutions have middling developers and engineers — not the eternally curious and preternaturally competent engineers leading the Rebellion in the book — but need to execute anyway. In the real world, many of the processes and policies exist to keep the "gifted and talented" from running amok beyond their actual (as opposed to perceived) limit of expertise — and also exist to ensure those who are less competent or confident know where their lanes are and how to function with them.

Put more directly, the book did an excellent job of describing how to create small skunksworks projects that can deliver internal value but spent little time describing how to safely bring those into existing operations. Instead, the book hand waved over the process, threw in some artificial political and financial pressure to boot, and then hoped readers wouldn't notice that it served as much as a recipe to distract subscribing organizations on new and shiny projects over the dull but important work that keeps them in business.

And it's an impossibly rich man to become improbably obsessed with their sexual pleasure and emotional well being, a man who will break the rules to support a woman's career and drive for justice, a man who will bring her fresh coffee without being asked and who is also good with cats.

Y'know what? I don't blame them. Sounds nice.