Recommended Reading - Family: The Compact Among Generations by James E. Hughes Jr.

Family: The Compact Among Generations by James E. Hughes, Jr. Why do some families thrive for generations? What accounts for the sad deterioration that other families experience? This book builds on the now widely accepted practices offered in Hughes’s signature work Family Wealth and offers families and the professionals who serve them a view of his panoramic insights into what makes families flourish and fail. It lays out the basis for the vision of family governance the author has developed through his work and research. His advice addressed not only what to do but how to think about the complex issues of family governance, growth and stability, and the ongoing challenge of nurturing the happiness of each family member.

About the Author

JAMES E. HUGHES JR. is a sixth-generation counselor-at-law, now retired, and author of many influential articles on family governance and wealth preservation. He is renowned for facilitating multigenerational family meetings, with an emphasis on governance issues. Hughes is frequently called on to address international and domestic symposia on helping families to avoid the fate of the shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves proverb and to instead flourish through the growth of their human, intellectual, and financial capital.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky Sapolsky’s storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person’s reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill.

About the Author

Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research, National Museum of Kenya. He is the author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, A Primate's Memoir and The Trouble with Testosterone, which was a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist. A regular contributor to Discover and The Sciences, and a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, he lives in San Francisco.