Monday, June 28, 2010
Books Mein Kampf, the Hot New Inspirational Management Manual for Indian Business Students
Posted by Mark Asch on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 3:17 PM
Trawling for firsthand testimonials on an MBA message board, the article finds quotes from students. When Mein Kampf is reissued in a new paperback edition with cool graphic front cover and large-print supplemental material, you can expect to see many of these innocuous quotes used for blurbs:
"Though a bit chauvinistic…it’s the best one to understand management from the root," says admirer. Another, who admires "motivational writing or the real stories of great people," counts it as a favorite. One publisher notes, "A lot of students admire [Hitler's] leadership qualities."
You could probably call this an unfortunate collision of cultural mistranslation—it's not as if Indian history is entirely fixated on the history of 30s and 40s European fascism—and the fact that business and management students are awful people who see all culture and history through a lens of personal self-actualization. You would probably be right, calling it that.
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