Nominated for The Best Books Published in 2000 by Management General

It is true in every corporation, in every organization, in every enterprise: one still cannot find the entity where people believe that everyone -- everyone! -- is working to their full mental potential and bringing that intellectual capital to bear on the purpose and productivity of the firm. Thus, Ehin has written a book that is part paean to the power of the human mind -- and part prescription for how management can tap into that powerful resource.

Then again, perhaps the word is not "management," for Ehin boldly announces early on that "Increasing intellectual capital cannot be  managed in the traditional sense." This upfront distinct point-of-view makes this book a standout. For at its core, this book is not about managing organizations; it's about human nature.

Ehin argues that to tap into intellectual capital, one must "grasp the vital function of the genes. Second, we need to be aware of how our multilevel minds process information received through our senses. Finally, we should be familiar with some of our fundamental drives."

Ah, now the reader starts to understand what Ehin was talking about when said in his Preface that he was going to build a case for unleashing organizational intellect by "building on the most recent research in a variety of fields, such as anthropology, paleontology, molecular biology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and sociobiology."

And, guess what? He does. He does! And he does it in 183 crisply written pages that

Beginning with the author’s return to Estonia in 1982 to meet relatives not seen for nearly four decades, Ehin chronicles not only the bloody results of the back-and-forth War as it battered Eastern Europe, but also day-to-day life of soul-smothering bureaucracy, tyrannical policies and burning prejudice that survived the war. The story is told in the first-person in a way that brings the reader right into Eastern Europe, to the moment at hand with its troubled history. With his eye for the “small” detail, the story comes alive, and points to the larger, underlying conflicts of past and present.

Aftermath shows the current problems in Eastern Europe and describes the past history that has led to these problems. It does so without losing the emotion of the moment. Aftermath is a valuable exposé of a courageous people who faced horrors beyond belief, a people whose story is seldom told in the West, and a story about war and its aftermath that needs to be heard in a country involved in conflict, and likely to face greater conflict.

Aftermath reveals the heart-wrenching catastrophe of war, whether for victim, perpetrator, by-stander or hero. When blood is spilled, there are no winners, only various kinds of pain. The author reveals some of his own deeply personal hurts and confusions, both as a boy struggling with an adult world-gone-berserk, and as a man who returned and tries to understand.

Aftermath takes us through a world of Eastern European history seldom seen. Throughout the book, both author and story keep alive a hope -- a hope for reform,for progress, for a potential that certainly IS there -- a hope that this potential for peace and understanding might become reality in us all. To say that the book is deeply-moving,

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