Amy Chua has been accused of many things – a cruel approach to
parenting, gratuitous use of cultural stereotypes, a talent for
sensationalism – but cowardice isn't one of them. She provoked uproar
with her 2011 memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,
charting her unbending rules for raising her daughters, and spent two
years dealing with the fallout, including death threats, racial slurs
and pitchfork-waving calls for her arrest on child-abuse charges.
with her follow-up. Instead, she and her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, have
written The Triple Package, which is devoted to one of the most
inflammatory subjects imaginable – why some cultural groups soar ahead
in the US (while others, by implication, fail). The book charts how
three specific qualities, which they argue are essential to success, are
passed down through the generations, often through the family.