Book excerpt: This book was written by a man well-placed to observe the differences between the East and the West culturally, philosophically and in business. Born in Lebanon to a silk merchant, his family migrated to America in the late 1880s when Ameen was in his twenties. His observations of the two cultures are fascinating; for example, he describes the Western trait of inquisitiveness as acceptable in the West but not in the East, where he writes, "the Oriental would prefer a man to pick his purse than to pick his heart or mind." He goes on to add that possibly the trait of inquisitiveness is why Western culture advances more quickly than that of the East.