The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America
Amy Chua, Jed Rubenfeld, 2014
Penguin Group (USA)
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594205460
Summary
That certain groups do much better in America than others—as measured by income, occupational status, test scores, and so on—is difficult to talk about. In large part this is because the topic feels racially charged. The irony is that the facts actually debunk racial stereotypes. There are black and Hispanic subgroups in the United States far outperforming many white and Asian subgroups.
Moreover, there’s a demonstrable arc to group success—in immigrant groups, it typically dissipates by the third generation—puncturing the notion of innate group differences and undermining the whole concept of "model minorities." Mormons have recently risen to astonishing business success. Cubans in Miami climbed from poverty to prosperity in a generation. Nigerians earn doctorates at stunningly high rates. Indian and Chinese Americans have much higher incomes than other Americans; Jews may have the highest of all.
Why do some groups rise? Drawing on groundbreaking original research and startling statistics, The Triple Package uncovers the secret to their success. A superiority complex, insecurity, impulse control—these are the elements of the Triple Package, the rare and potent cultural constellation that drives disproportionate group success. The Triple Package is open to anyone.
America itself was once a Triple Package culture. It’s been losing that edge for a long time now. Even as headlines proclaim the death of upward mobility in America, the truth is that the oldfashioned American Dream is very much alive—but some groups have a cultural edge, which enables them to take advantage of opportunity far more than others.
- Americans are taught that everyone is equal, that no group is superior to another. But remarkably, all of America’s most successful groups believe (even if they don’t say so aloud) that they’re exceptional, chosen, superior in some way.
- Americans are taught that self-esteem—feeling good about yourself—is the key to a successful life. But in all of America’s most successful groups, people tend to feel insecure, inadequate, that they have to prove themselves.
- America today spreads a message of immediate gratification, living for the moment. But all of America’s most successful groups cultivate heightened discipline and impulse control.
But the Triple Package has a dark underside too. Each of its elements carries distinctive pathologies; when taken to an extreme, they can have truly toxic effects. Should people strive for the Triple Package? Should America? Ultimately, the authors conclude that the Triple Package is a ladder that should be climbed and then kicked away, drawing on its power but breaking free from its constraints.
Provocative and profound, The Triple Package will transform the way we think about success and achievement. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Amy Chua
• Birth—1962
• Where—Champaign, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in New Haven, Connecticut
Amy L. Chua is the John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She joined the Yale faculty in 2001 after teaching at Duke Law School. Prior to starting her teaching career, she was a corporate law associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She specializes in the study of international business transactions, law and development, ethnic conflict, and globalization and the law. She is widely known for her parenting memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), and The Triple Package (2014), co-authored with her husband Jed Rubenfeld.
Background
Chua was born in Champaign, Illinois. Her parents were ethnic Chinese from the Philippines who emigrated to the United States. Amy's father, Leon O. Chua, is an Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley and is known as the father of nonlinear circuit theory, cellular neural networks, and discovered the memristor. She was raised as a Roman Catholic and lived in West Lafayette, Indiana.
When she was eight years old, her family moved to Berkeley, California. Chua went to El Cerrito High School and graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in Economics from Harvard College in 1984. She obtained her J.D. cum laude in 1987 from Harvard Law School, where she was an Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Books
Chua has written four books: two studies of international affairs, a memoir and her latest on Ethnic-American culture.
• World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003), explores the ethnic conflict caused in many societies by disproportionate economic and political influence of "market dominant minorities" and the resulting resentment in the less affluent majority. The book—a New York Times Bestseller, was selected by The Economist as one of the Best Books of 2003 and was named in The Guardian as one of the "Top Political Reads of 2003"—examines how globalization and democratization since 1989 have affected the relationship between market dominant minorities and the wider population.
• Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance—and Why They Fall (2007), examines seven major empires and posits that their success depended on their tolerance of minorities.
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), is a memoir that ignited a global parenting debate with its story of one mother’s journey in strict parenting techniques.
• The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (2014) outlines three personal traits that make for individual success. It is co-authored with Jed Rubenfeld, her husband.
Personal
Chua lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Jed Rubenfeld. She has two daughters, Sophia and Louisa ("Lulu"). She is the eldest of four sisters: Michelle, Katrin, and Cynthia. Katrin is a physician and a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Cynthia, who has Down Syndrome, holds two International Special Olympics gold medals in swimming. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)
Jed Rubenfeld
• Birth—1959
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in New Haven, Connecticut
Jed Rubenfeld, (born 1959 in Washington, D.C.), is the Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is an expert on constitutional law, privacy, and the First Amendment. He joined the Yale Law School faculty in 1990 and was appointed to a full professorship in 1994. Rubenfeld has also taught as a visiting professor at both the Stanford Law School and the Duke University School of Law. He is also the author of two novels and a nonfiction work, co-authored with his wife, Amy Chu.
Education
Rubenfeld was a summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University (A.B., 1980) and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D., 1986). He also studied theater in the Drama Division of the Juilliard School between 1980-1982. Rubenfeld clerked for Judge Joseph T. Sneed on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1986-1987.
After his clerkship, he worked as an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and as an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
Books
2001 - Freedom and Time: A Theory of Constitutional Self-Government
2005 - Revolution by Judiciary: The Structure of American Constitutional Law
2006 - The Interpretation of Murder, a novel
2010 - The Death Instinct, a novel
2014 - The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of
Cultural Groups in America (with Amy Chua)
Personal
Rubenfeld is Jewish. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut and is married to Yale Law School professor Amy Chua, author of several nonfiction works, the most well-known of which is her 2011 memoir on parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011). They have two daughters. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)
Book Reviews
The Triple Package as a book is a real head-scratcher.... It’s part sociological study, part national call to arm...and even part self-help book.... Connecting these far-flung dots seems to require, first of all, a lot of repetition of the phrase “Triple Package” (on one page it appears seven times). What’s curious...is how dull the prose is.... The continual restatement of the thesis (which is a kind of truism—who actually expects addiction and complacency to be success markers?), and the winners-versus-losers emphasis, makes reading this book feel like being slugged over and over again by a bully wearing kid gloves.
Sandra Tsing Loh - New York Times Book Review
The problem with the The Triple Package is that its fundamental argument is half-baked. The question of how cultural, societal, economic, and historical factors interact, and how this interaction gives rise to problems like inequality, is one of the trickiest in the social sciences, and Chua and Rubenfeld fail to give it its intellectual due. .... It’s also worth pointing out that The Triple Package isn’t without its charms. Chua and Rubenfeld’s recountings of how various ethnic groups carved out chunks of the American dream are engaging and concise.
Jesse Singal - Boston Globe
This book has stirred up a storm of controversy. But why shouldn't Tiger Mother Amy Chua and her husband investigate the success of certain cultural and ethnic groups? The question is: are they right in their explanation of it?... Whether the authors' explanation as to why some groups thrive is valid is another question, and it's a problem with this kind of book that the marketing hook, in this case the "triple package"—a clunky formulation the authors have chosen "for lack of a less terrible name" —is often too flimsy or too broad to be meaningful.
Emma Brockes - Guardian (UK)
(Starrerd review.) In their provocative new book, Chua (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) and Rubenfeld (The Interpretation of Murder)—Yale Law professors and spouses—show why certain groups in the U.S. perform better than others.... This comprehensive, lucid sociological study balances its findings with a probing look at the downsides of the triple package..
Publishers Weekly
Some ethnic or religious groups seem disproportionately successful.... Chua (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) and Rubenfeld (The Interpretation of Murder), professors at Yale Law School and wife and husband, researched the question.... This is popular sociology at its best: well researched, heavily noted, and clearly written.... [L]ikely to promote debate. —David Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia
Library Journal
This book explores why...Asian-Americans dominate admissions at the Ivy League..? Why are so many Nobel Prize winners Jewish? Why are there so many Mormon CEOs? Why are Nigerian-born Americans overrepresented among doctorates and MDs? Though coolly and cogently argued, this book is bound to be the spark for many potentially heated discussions
Kirkus Reviews
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