MONTAGE dents at Wellesley, and Yang was editing a (As it was, the glossy publication lasted for a School, “just to get it out of my system.” student publication at Harvard. “His whole dozen years and had several hundred thou- She enjoyed her time there (“It was awe- thing was, ‘Let’s start a real magazine, an sand readers at its height.) some, actually,” she says. “I was pleasantly Asian-American magazine for the Asian- After graduation, Chu tried several dif- surprised.”) and became a management con- American population,’” Chu recalls. ferent jobs, including running an arts non- sultant, specializing in biotech firms. That The result was A. Magazine, a periodical profit and—through a chance encounter at might have taken her to retirement, if she Yang and Chu co-founded with two other a fundraiser—running the Macau tourism hadn’t run into an old friend at Harvard’s friends. They bootstrapped the publication office in Hong Kong (despite not speaking first-ever Asian-American alumni summit by throwing parties for Asian Americans in Cantonese). By 1999, she says, “I thought in 2010. New York. “If we’d stuck to the parties, we for whatever reason I should get a business Filmmaker and television writer Geor- would have made a ton of money,” she says. degree” and applied to Harvard Business gia Lee ‘98, M.B.A. ‘09, wanted Chu’s help How Finance Works, by Mihir H. gates the nexus among the Koch brothers’ Desai, Mizuho Financial Group pro- political network, deregulatory business Off the Shelf fessor of finance and professor of interests, and entities like the American Recent books with Harvard connections law (Harvard Business Review Press, Legislative Exchange Council, all bent to- $35 paper). A teacher (and contrib- ward shaping state and local policymak- utor to these pages) succeeds at his ing—in one ideological direction. The three latest installments in the Cass sternest educational challenge: mak- R. Sunstein-book-of-the-month-club, as ing financial statements, and the underlying This Is How We Pray, by Adam Dressler, three academic presses publish current flows of cash and capital, clear and useful M.T.S. ’05 (FaithWords/Hachette, $20). A work by the wildly prolific Walmsley Uni- to the quantitatively shy. down-to-earth, personal—as opposed to versity Professor (see “The Legal Olym- theological or doctrinal—approach to pian,” January-February 2015, page 43): The 8 Brokens, by Nancy Berliner ’79, prayer. The author has made a personal On Freedom (Princeton, $12.95), a suc- Ph.D. ’04 (Museum of Fine Arts, $55). The journey from Oral Roberts University to cinct essay on democracy and navigating museum’s Wu Tu senior curator of Chinese Harvard Divinity School to Grace Com- toward life’s better choices. How art has crafted the first book on bapo (“eight munity Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, Change Happens (MIT, $29.95), an ex- brokens”) painting, which originated in nine- where he is now lead pastor. ploration of social norms and challenges teenth-century China. The works, depicting to them—making sexual harassment sud- antique texts, art, and ephemera, seem The Code of Capital: How the Law denly visible and unacceptable, for in- strikingly modern. Perhaps reflecting the Creates Wealth and Inequality, by stance, while white nationalism simultane- turmoil of their era, they can evoke strong Katharina Pistor, M.P.A. ’94 (Princeton, ously amplifies its voice and apparent nostalgia for declining cultural norms. $29.95). A Columbia law professor ex- following. Conformity: The Power of plains the status in law of capital in all Social Influences (NYU, $19.95), a com- State Capture, by Alexander Hertel- forms, and how financial assets, intellec- plementary dive into the phenomenon of Fernandez, Ph.D. ’16 (Oxford, $29.95). The tual property, and their brethren affect the the title, and dissent. author, at Columbia, searchingly investi- ownership and distribution of wealth. Good Charts Workbook, by Scott Berinato (HBR Press, $35 paper). A Har- vard Business Review senior editor pro- vides vivid guidance on how to make “bet- ter data visualization” (a description inferior to the graphical contents within)— a good proxy for vivid thinking. The Role of the Scroll, by Thomas For- rest Kelly, Knafel Research Professor of mu- sic (W.W. Norton, $29.95). A gorgeously illustrated exploration—both scholarship and a passion project—of “fascinating ob- jects that have always been shrouded by an intriguing kind of aura, and a quality of some- An untitled 1900 ink and color work by an unidentified artist, exhibiting the strikingly © MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON modern “eight-brokens” style 70 May - June 2019 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746 MONTAGE with a startup idea she had: a comics im- soccer scene in Iowa in the 1980s, “Lo and print for books aimed at girls. She knew Chu behold, it’s all dudes,” she recalls. “I didn’t had helped found A. Magazine and wanted her even know if Wonder Woman was DC to handle setting up the business. or Marvel; they’re arguing over Martian TH To Chu, it seemed like a low-cost ven- Manhunter.” THE 25 ture. “Let’s do it,” she said. She threw her- The first assignment was a five-page sto- SECRETARY OF self into research, buying and reading com- ry. Chu turned in a tale about a female cab- ics for the first time and taking a class on driver/mercenary in a dystopian metropo- DEFENSE writing comics. lis who is hired to rescue a hostage named reveals the inner It was immediately clear that the class Abby (the twist: Abby is actually a cat). workings of the was not a place where Chu fit in: like the When she turned it in, something she calls Pentagon and provides essential lessons in how standing outside The bottom of a leadership and of time,” not least be- sixteenth-century English alchemical driving innovation. cause they continued scroll associated with to be produced after George Ripley the invention of the eminently more practi- not. An Iowa Writ- cal codex and its ers’ Workshop grad- spread in the Middle uate, she begins her Ages. The author, who novel, The Unpass- previously wrote First ing (FSG, $26), with Nights, and taught the the feigned collapse eponymous course, is —a stroke?—of the an incorporator of this narrator’s mother, magazine. and proceeds to a real Taiwanese immi- The health beat. Dia- grant family’s loss, in betes Head to Toe, Alaska. by Rita R. Kalyani ’99 et al. (Johns The lifespan. Mom WELLCOME LIBRARY, LONDON Hopkins, $22.95 Hacks, by Darria paper), is a com- Long Gillespie, prehensive guide to M.B.A. ’05 (DaCa- understanding and living with an epidemic, po, $15.99), an emergency physician, is a chronic disease. Well: What We Need breezy checklist of nutrition, exercise, to Talk About When We Talk About sleep, and other tips new mothers can use Health, by Sandro Galea, M.P.H. ’00 (Ox- to get—and keep—it together. Elder- “ONE OF AMERICA’S ford, $24.75), Boston University’s public- hood, by Louise Aronson, M.D. ’92 MOST RESPECTED health dean, addresses Americans’ mis- (Bloomsbury, $30), is a memoir, meditation, LEADERS . guided confusion of medicine with health, and guide to “redefining aging, transforming [and] one of the great and the costly mistakes (“[W]e spend so medicine, reimagining life” by a geriatrician technologists of our time.” much and get so relatively little for it”) with an M.F.A. who runs UC, San Francis- —ERIC SCHMIDT, stemming from that category error—and co’s health-humanities program. Her ex- technical advisor, Alphabet Inc. what to do about it. amples and spirit are lovely, and wise. Debut novels. The Organ of Sense, by VC: An American Industry, by Tom Alan Ehrlich Sachs ’07 (Farrar, Straus and Nicholas, Abernathy professor of business Giroux, $26). “In an account sent to the administration (Harvard, $35). A first his- Philosophical Transactions…a young G. tory of venture capital, which has played W. Leibniz…” runs the opening sentence an outsized role in propelling U.S. entre- READ AN EXCERPT: prh.com/insidethefivesidedbox of a fiction, set in 1666, concerning a solar preneurship and growth. The author eclipse, a blind astronomer, and much else. grounds readers well, linking investments The author, a Harvard Lampoon alumnus, in, say, artificial-intelligence startups today ON SALE 6/11/2019 concentrated (no surprise) in the history to those in whaling expeditions two cen- of science. Chia-Chia Lin ’03, J.D. ’07, did turies ago. Harvard Magazine 71 Reprinted from Harvard Magazine. For more information, contact Harvard Magazine, Inc. at 617-495-5746.