Although food-production systems for the world's rural poor typically have had devastating effects on the planet's wealth of genes, species, and ecosystems, that need not be the case in the future. In Ecoagriculture, two of the world's leading experts on conservation and development examine the idea that agricultural landscapes can be designed more creatively to take the needs of human populations into account while also protecting, or even enhancing, biodiversity. They present a thorough overview of the innovative concept of "ecoagriculture" - the management of landscapes for both the production of food and the conservation of wild biodiversity. The book:
Ecoagriculture explores new approaches to agricultural production that complement natural environments, enhance ecosystem function, and improve rural livelihoods. It features a wealth of real-world case studies that demonstrate the applicability of the ideas discussed and how the principles can be applied, and is an important new work for policymakers, students, researchers, and anyone concerned with conserving biodiversity while sustaining human populations.
Every day, in every sector of our economy, a business shuts down while another starts up, jobs are created while others are cut, and workers are hired while others are laid off. This constant flux, or turbulence, is a defining characteristic of our free market system, yet it mostly inspires angst about unemployment, loss of earnings, and the overall competitiveness of corporations. But is this endless cycle of fluctuation really so bad for America? Might something positive be going on in the economy as a result of it?
In this penetrating work, three esteemed economists seek to answer these questions by exploring the real impact of volatility on American workers and businesses alike. According to the authors, while any number of events--shifts in consumer demand, changes in technology, mergers and acquisitions, or increased competition--can contribute to economic turbulence, our economy as a whole is, by and large, stronger for it, because these processes of creation and destruction make it more flexible and adaptable. The authors also acknowledge and document the adverse consequences of this turbulence on different groups of workers and firms and discuss the resulting policy challenges. Basing their argument on an up-close look into the dealings and practices of five key industries—financial services, retail food services, trucking, semiconductors, and software—the authors demonstrate the positive effects of turbulence on career paths, employee earnings, and firm performance.
The first substantial attempt to disentangle and make clear the complexities of this phenomenon in the United States, Economic Turbulence will be viewed as a major achievement and the centerpiece of any discussion on the subject for years to come.
A timely investigation of the potential economic effects, both realized and unrealized, of artificial intelligence within the United States healthcare system.
In sweeping conversations about the impact of artificial intelligence on many sectors of the economy, healthcare has received relatively little attention. Yet it seems unlikely that an industry that represents nearly one-fifth of the economy could escape the efficiency and cost-driven disruptions of AI.
The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: Health Care Challenges brings together contributions from health economists, physicians, philosophers, and scholars in law, public health, and machine learning to identify the primary barriers to entry of AI in the healthcare sector. Across original papers and in wide-ranging responses, the contributors analyze barriers of four types: incentives, management, data availability, and regulation. They also suggest that AI has the potential to improve outcomes and lower costs. Understanding both the benefits of and barriers to AI adoption is essential for designing policies that will affect the evolution of the healthcare system.
Creative work has been celebrated as the highest form of achievement since at least Aristotle. But our understanding of the dynamics and market for creative work--artistic work in particular--often relies on unexamined clichés about individual genius, industrial engineering of talent, and the fickleness of fashion. Pierre-Michel Menger approaches the subject with new rigor, drawing on sociology, economics, and philosophy to build on the central insight that, unlike the work most of us do most of the time, creative work is governed by uncertainty. Without uncertainty, neither self-realization nor creative innovation is possible. And without techniques for managing uncertainty, neither careers nor profitable ventures would surface.
In the absence of clear paths to success, an oversupply of artists and artworks generates boundless differentiation and competition. How can artists, customers, entrepreneurs, and critics judge merit? Menger disputes the notion that artistic success depends solely on good connections or influential managers and patrons. Talent matters. But the disparity between superstardom and obscurity may hinge initially on minor gaps in intrinsic ability. The benefits of early promise in competition and the tendency of elite professionals to team up with one another amplify and disproportionately reward even small differences.
Menger applies his temporal and causal analysis of behavior under uncertainty to the careers and oeuvres of Beethoven and Rodin. The result is a thought-provoking book that brings clarity to our understanding of a world widely seen as either irrational or so free of standards that only power and manipulation count.
Why should manufacturing firms in many national industries maintain multiple small scale plants when they might produce the same output at a lower unit cost in a single large establishment? What specific benefits are attained through the operation of multiple plants? To address these questions, the authors conducted 125 in-depth interviews with businessmen actively involved in plant size and multi-plant operating decisions. They investigated the experience of twelve industries in six countries (West Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, and the United States).
The authors develop an economic theory of plant size and multi-plant decisions and apply it to analyze the statistical and qualitative evidence on factors affecting plant size choices. They then examine the extent of multi-plant operation, its statistical correlate, and the economy actually or potentially realizable from various modes of multi-plant operation. Implications are drawn from antitrust and foreign trade policy, the evolution of scientific business management, and the development of industrial organization knowledge.
Is a native-born tour guide who has sex with tourists—in exchange for dinner or gifts or cash—merely a prostitute or gigolo? What if the tourist continues to send gifts or money to the tour guide after returning home? As this original and provocative book demonstrates, when it comes to sex—and the effects of capitalism and globalization—nothing is as simple as it might seem.
Based on ten years of research, Economies of Desire is the first ethnographic study to examine the erotic underpinnings of transnational tourism. It offers startling insights into the commingling of sex, intimacy, and market forces in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, two nations where tourism has had widespread effects. In her multi-layered analyses, Amalia Cabezas reconceptualizes our understandings of informal economies (particularly “affective economies”), “sex workers,” and “sexual tourism,” and she helps us appreciate how money, sex and love are intertwined within the structure of globalizing capitalism.
Prominent female voices in journalism provide critical perspectives on the challenges women face in today's news organizations, such as connecting with diverse audiences, educating readers about international issues and cultures, maintaining credibility, negotiating media consolidation and corporate pressures, and overcoming the persistent barriers to professional advancement. A powerful and complex assessment of how women are transforming the news industry, The Edge of Change explores how the news industry might implement further reforms aimed at creating a more inclusive journalistic community.
Contributors are Catalina Camia, Kathleen Carroll, Pamela J. Creedon, Paula Lynn Ellis, Helen E. Fisher, Dorothy Butler Gilliam, Ellen Goodman, Sharon Grigsby, Carol Guzy, Kirsten Scharnberg Hampton, Cathy Henkel, Pamela J. Johnson, Jane Kirtley, Jan Leach, Caroline Little, Wanda S. Lloyd, Arlene Notoro Morgan, June O. Nicholson, Geneva Overholser, Marty Petty, Deb Price, Donna M. Reed, Sandra Mims Rowe, Peggy Simpson, Margaret Sullivan, Julia Wallace, and Keven Ann Willey.
The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed some of the greatest gold mining migrations in history when dreams of bonanza lured thousands of prospectors and diggers to the far corners of the earth—including the Gold Coast of West Africa.
El Dorado in West Africa explores the first modern gold rush of Ghana in all of its dimensions—land, labor, capital, traditional African mining, technology, transport, management, the clash of cultures, and colonial rule. The rich tapestry of events is crisscrossed by unexpected ironies and paradoxes.
Professor Dumett tells the story of the expatriate-led gold boom of 1875-1900 against the background of colonial capitalism. Through the use of oral data, he also brings to light the expansion of a parallel “African gold mining frontier,” which outpaced the expatriate mining sector.
African women, kings and chiefs, and the ordinary Akan farmer/miners, as well as European engineers and speculators, are the focal points of this study. It probes in depth the productive and developmental features and the turbulent and shattering effects of mining capitalism on African societies.
In addition to providing the full text, Uihlein and the contributors trace Ricker’s career and delve into his practice of teaching. Subject experts explore specific topics. Thomas Leslie surveys contemporary construction practices in Chicago. Tom F. Peters considers Ricker’s writings in the context of the time while Rachel Will looks at masonry know-how and testing. Donald Friedman examines the teaching of iron and steel construction.
An illuminating look at a field and a legacy, The Elements of Construction rediscovers a figure that shaped the teaching of architecture and trained a generation that forever changed Chicago.
The poignant rise and fall of an idealistic immigrant who, as CEO of a major conglomerate, tried to change the way America did business before he himself was swallowed up by corporate corruption.
At 8 a.m. on February 3, 1975, Eli Black leapt to his death from the 44th floor of Manhattan’s Pan Am building. The immigrant-turned-CEO of United Brands—formerly United Fruit, now Chiquita—Black seemed an embodiment of the American dream. United Brands was transformed under his leadership—from the “octopus,” a nickname that captured the corrupt power the company had held over Latin American governments, to “the most socially conscious company in the hemisphere,” according to a well-placed commentator. How did it all go wrong?
Eli and the Octopus traces the rise and fall of an enigmatic business leader and his influence on the nascent project of corporate social responsibility. Born Menashe Elihu Blachowitz in Lublin, Poland, Black arrived in New York at the age of three and became a rabbi before entering the business world. Driven by the moral tenets of his faith, he charted a new course in industries known for poor treatment of workers, partnering with labor leaders like Cesar Chavez to improve conditions. But risky investments, economic recession, and a costly wave of natural disasters led Black away from the path of reform and toward corrupt backroom dealing.
Now, two decades after Google’s embrace of “Don’t be evil” as its unofficial motto, debates about “ethical capitalism” are more heated than ever. Matt Garcia presents an unvarnished portrait of Black’s complicated legacy. Exploring the limits of corporate social responsibility on American life, Eli and the Octopus offers pointed lessons for those who hope to do good while doing business.
The popular notion of a lone scientist privately toiling long hours in a laboratory, striking upon a great discovery, and announcing it to the world is a romanticized fiction. Vincent Kiernan's Embargoed Science reveals the true process behind science news: an elite few scholarly journals control press coverage through a mechanism known as an embargo. The journals distribute advance copies of their articles to hundreds and sometimes thousands of journalists around the world, on the condition that journalists agree not to report their stories until a common time, several days later. When the embargo lifts, airwaves and newspaper pages are flooded with stories based on the journal's latest issue.
In addition to divulging the realities behind this collusive practice, Kiernan offers an unprecedented exploration of the embargo's impact on public and academic knowledge of science and medical issues. He surveys twenty five daily U.S. newspapers and relates his in-depth interviews with reporters to examine the inner workings of the embargo and how it structures our understanding of news about science. Kiernan ultimately argues that this system fosters "pack journalism" and creates an unhealthy shield against journalistic competition. The result is the uncritical reporting of science and medical news according to the dictates of a few key sources.
In this magisterial study, Michael Smith explains how France left behind small-scale merchant capitalism for the large corporate enterprises that would eventually dominate its domestic economy and project French influence throughout the world.
Arguing against the long-standing view that French economic and business development was crippled by missed opportunities and entrepreneurial failures, Smith presents a story of considerable achievement. French companies made major contributions to the Second Industrial Revolution of 1880-1930, especially in ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, electrochemicals, industrial gases, and motor vehicles. Rejecting the notion that France took a separate route to economic modernity, Smith argues that it tracked other industrial nations along a path dominated by large-scale production and corporate enterprise. Technological and organizational capabilities acquired by French companies prior to 1930 played a key role in the country's rapid economic recovery after World War II and its broader economic success in the second half of the twentieth century. Smith also addresses the distinctive characteristics of French economic and business development, including the pivotal role of the French state, the pervasive influence of French financiers, and the significance of labor conflict.
This superb account is an invaluable contribution to business history and the history of modern France.
Energy and the Ecological Economics of Sustainability examines the roots of the present environmental crisis in the neoclassical economics upon which modern industrial society is based. The author explains that only when we view ourselves in the larger context of the global ecosystem and accept the physical limits to what is possible can sustainability be achieved.
The transformation from a carbon-based world economy to one based on high efficiency and renewables is a necessary step if human society is to achieve sustainability. But while scientists and researchers have made significant advances in energy efficiency and renewable technologies in recent years, consumers have yet to see dramatic changes in the marketplace—due in large part to government policies and programs that favor the use of fossil fuels.
Energy Revolution examines the policy options for mitigating or removing the entrenched advantages held by fossil fuels and speeding the transition to a more sustainable energy future, one based on improved efficiency and a shift to renewable sources such as solar, wind, and bioenergy. The book:
In the early 2000s, energy prices have fluctuated wildly, from historic highs in the winter and spring of 2001 to the lowest wholesale prices in decades a few short months later. As the largest user of fossil-fuel energy, the United States is the key player in the world's energy markets, and our nation's energy policy (or lack thereof) has become a subject of increasing concern.
Energy: Science, Policy, and the Pursuit of Sustainability is an essential primer on energy, society, and the environment. It offers an accessible introduction to the "energy problem" -- its definition, analysis, and policy implications. Current patterns of energy use are without question unsustainable over the long term, and our dependence on fossil fuels raises crucial questions of security and self-sufficiency. This volume addresses those questions by examining the three broad dimensions of the issue: physical, human, and political-economic. Chapters consider:
Engineering the Farm offers a wide-ranging examination of the social and ethical issues surrounding the production and consumption of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), with leading thinkers and activists taking a broad theoretical approach to the subject. Topics covered include:
Contributors argue that the scope, scale, and size of the present venture in crop modification is so vast and intensive that a thoroughgoing review of agricultural biotechnology must consider its global, moral, cultural, and ecological impacts as well as its effects on individual consumers. Throughout, they argue that more research is needed on genetically modified food and that consumers are entitled to specific information about how food products have been developed.
Despite its increasing role in worldwide food production, little has been written about the broader social and ethical implications of GMOs. Engineering the Farm offers a unique approach to the subject for academics, activists, and policymakers involved with questions of environmental policy, ethics, agriculture, environmental health, and related fields.
The first detailed analysis of Native metalworking in the Protohistoric/Contact Period
From the time of their earliest encounters with European explorers and missionaries, Native peoples of eastern North America acquired metal trinkets and utilitarian items and traded them to other aboriginal communities. As Native consumption of European products increased, their material culture repertoires shifted from ones made up exclusively of items produced from their own craft industries to ones substantially reconstituted by active appropriation, manipulation, and use of foreign goods. These material transformations took place during the same time that escalating historical, political, economic, and demographic influences (such as epidemics, new types of living arrangements, intergroup hostilities, new political alliances, missionization and conversion, changes in subsistence modes, etc.) disrupted Native systems.
Ehrhardt's research addresses the early technological responses of one particular group, the Late Protohistoric Illinois Indians, to the availability of European-introduced metal objects. To do so, she applied a complementary suite of archaeometric methods to a sample of 806 copper-based metal artifacts excavated from securely dated domestic contexts at the Illiniwek Village Historic Site in Clark County, Missouri.
Ehrhardt's scientific findings are integrated with observations from historical, archaeological, and archival research to place metal use by this group in a broad social context and to critique the acculturation perspective at other Contact Period sites. In revealing actual Native practice, from material selection and procurement to ultimate discard, the author challenges technocentric explanations for Native material and cultural change at contact.
A new history explores the commercial heart of evangelical Christianity.
American evangelicalism is big business. For decades, the world’s largest media conglomerates have sought out evangelical consumers, and evangelical books have regularly become international best sellers. In the early 2000s, Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life spent ninety weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list and sold more than thirty million copies. But why have evangelicals achieved such remarkable commercial success?
According to Daniel Vaca, evangelicalism depends upon commercialism. Tracing the once-humble evangelical book industry’s emergence as a lucrative center of the US book trade, Vaca argues that evangelical Christianity became religiously and politically prominent through business activity. Through areas of commerce such as branding, retailing, marketing, and finance, for-profit media companies have capitalized on the expansive potential of evangelicalism for more than a century.
Rather than treat evangelicalism as a type of conservative Protestantism that market forces have commodified and corrupted, Vaca argues that evangelicalism is an expressly commercial religion. Although religious traditions seem to incorporate people who embrace distinct theological ideas and beliefs, Vaca shows, members of contemporary consumer society often participate in religious cultures by engaging commercial products and corporations. By examining the history of companies and corporate conglomerates that have produced and distributed best-selling religious books, bibles, and more, Vaca not only illustrates how evangelical ideas, identities, and alliances have developed through commercial activity but also reveals how the production of evangelical identity became a component of modern capitalism.
As a function of its corporate duties, the Consolidation Coal Company, one of the largest coal-mining operations in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, had photographers take hundreds of pictures of nearly every facet of its operations. Whether for publicity images, safety procedures, or archival information, these photographs create a record that goes far beyond the purpose the company intended.
In Extracting Appalachia, geographer Geoffrey L. Buckley examines the company’s photograph collection housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Included in the collection are images of mine openings, mining equipment, and mine accidents, as well as scenes of the company towns, including schools, churches, recreational facilities, holiday celebrations, and company stores.
Although the photographs in the collection provide us with valuable insights, they tell only part of the story. Using company records, state and federal government documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other archival materials, Professor Buckley shows that these photographs reveal much more than meets the eye.
Extracting Appalachia places these historic mining images in their social, cultural, and historical context, uncovering the true value and meaning of this rare documentary record.
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