Warren J. Belasco. Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took On the Food Industry

Warren Belasco is recognized as a founding scholar of the interdisciplinaryfield of food studies. Appetite for Change, first publishedin 1989, was one of the books that established his reputation.The book describes a crucial period in recent food history whencritics challenged once unquestioned assumptions about the valueof mass-produced and highly processed food, American tastesexpanded, and a wide range of ethnic and exotic foods becamewidely available. Yet, from Belasco's perspective, both as a     

Roger Horowitz. Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste, Technology, Transformation. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. xiii + 170 pp. ISBN 0-8018-8240-0, $35.00 (cloth); ISBN 0-8018-8241-9, $19.00 (paper).

Roger Horowitz opens Putting Meat on the American Table: Taste,Technology, Transformation with the observation that Americais a meat-eating nation. Throughout his narrative, he examinesthe forces that allow so much meat—six to eight ouncesper person per day—to satiate Americans’ appetite.The central questions driving Horowitz’s analysis are(a) what is the relationship between producing and consuminga product and (b) how does the nature of the good affect thisrelationship? In     

Robert M. Collins. Transforming America: Politics and Culture during the Reagan Years

Robert Collins has written two superb books treating modernAmerican business history—The Business Response to Keynes(1981), and More: The Politics of Growth in Postwar America(2000). In this, his most recent and elegantly written book,he takes on the rather more slippery, amorphous cultural historyof the period. He even dives undaunted into that most murkyphenomenon, "postmodernism." There, he has some delightful thingsto say about "the therapeutic culture" and the "self-esteem"fad that it produced. In his treatment     

Health Is the Key to Happiness——Profile of Dr.Lixin Shen,President ＆ CEO of Wuxi Howfond Biopharma Co.,Ltd.

No matter where he is and what he does,Dr. Shen always considers himself as a devoted researcher,and holds tough mind that he will go further along the medicine innovation, heading for the health and happiness of human being.     

John E. Murray. Origins of American Health Insurance: A History of Industrial Sickness Funds

John E. Murray's Origins of American Health Insurance concernsa little-known precursor to commercial health insurance, the"industrial sickness funds" of the book's subtitle. This well-researchedbook makes a compelling case for the importance of these fundsin shaping the American health insurance system as we know it.Murray argues that the success of sickness funds during theearly twentieth century helps to explain why European-styleuniversal health insurance does not exist in the United States. In 1915, industrial sickness funds     

Glenn Adamson. Industrial Strength Design: How Brooks Stevens Shaped Your World. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003. xi + 219 pp. ISBN 0-262-01207-3, $45.00 (cloth); 0-944110-81, $25.00 (paper).

Brooks Stevens participated in the transformation of the modernsetting of everyday life into a designed environment. Althoughhardly a household name, he influenced the conceptual infrastructureof mid-twentieth-century consumer culture as he worked withproduct manufacturers and communicated his understanding ofAmerican business and consumer product design. In this way,as well as in his design of many consumer products and vehicles,Stevens shaped our world and the way we have moved through it. Industrial     

Tom Sito. Drawing The Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson

Drawing the Line happens to be one of the most intriguing laborstories of the culture industry, with a distinct historicalnarrative that extends from the 1930s to the present day. The author takes us where viewers and readers, even readerson scholarly volumes about Hollywood, rarely go: behind thecamera and inside the animation studio. Because Sito was a protégéof industry old-timers as he built his own reputation in theprofession during the 1980s and 1990s,     

William R. Childs. The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. x+323 pp. ISBN 1-58544-452-9, $35.00.

In his new book, The Texas Railroad Commission: UnderstandingRegulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century, historianWilliam Childs explores the history of regulation in the contextof one of the most interesting state commissions in the UnitedStates. He provides a counterpoint to many economists’narrow analysis of regulation on the basis of efficiency. Regulation,he says, has to be understood as a social, cultural, and politicalphenomena operating within the federalist framework     

The craft of business intelligence: An American view

Business is war. And in war, it is a matter of survival of the fittest. In order to survive in today's cutthroat business environment, we must be properly armed. And one of the most important arrows in the executive's quiver is accurate knowledge of competitors and their business environment. In other words, detailed knowledge of the enemy and the terrain of the battlefield. Every major country on earth recognizes the importance of intelligence and employs an intelligence agency to collect it for them. Over 2,500 years ago, the Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Frederick the Great also expressed his opinion on the importance of intelligence when he said: “It is pardonable to be defeated, but never surprised.” In today's highly competitive business world it is becoming more and more important to know your competition-know your enemy-and, particularly in the international arena, to know your battlefield. There are minefields out there, and it is imperative to be able to identify and avoid them. You can still lose, even when armed with superior forces, if the terrain is against you. 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

What are student preschool teachers learning about diet in their education in Norway?

This article is based on a qualitative study on diet education among student preschool teachers. The problem under discussion is: What does a student preschool teacher learn in his education about food, meals, and nutrition? The material used in the article comprises interviews with student preschool teachers at one university and one college in Norway. Preschool teacher education is a three years university college study with bachelor degree. The survey results show that student preschool teachers do not receive even the most element training, when it comes to food and meals, including nutrients, vitamins, and minerals, although education must prepare them for a job outside the kindergarten. Practical cooking was almost completely absent in their education, including hygiene. Most student preschool teachers did not know what fat they were to use in cooking. Food and senses, allergies, and food and culture were not discussed in their education. There was little correlation between the formal curricula in connection with food and meals and the training the preschool teacher students received in their education.     

John Landers. The Field and the Forge: Population, Production, and Power in the Pre-industrial West. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2003. xiii + 440 pp. ISBN 0-19-924916-4, {pound}60.00 (cloth); 0-19-927957-8, {pound}22.50 (paper).

This book recalls literature that emanated from the Annalesschool of historians, for, like the annalistes, Landers is fascinatedby the longues durées of history. His subject is preindustrialEurope from roughly the second century (with occasional forays back to the Iron and Bronze Ages) to the nineteenthcentury . He takes his thesis from E. A. Wrigley: preindustrial Europe relied overwhelmingly on organicsources for food, heat, energy, crafts, manufactures, commerce,and the means     

Chandler: A Retrospect

I met Al Chandler in late 1962 (or early 1963), when he visitedthe Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, as a guestof Associate Dean Clarence Walton. Chandler gave a seminar,based on his new book Strategy and Structure. I was then atColumbia Business School, completing my (and Frank Ernest Hill’s)archive-based history of Ford Motor Company's internationaloperations, which was my first book. As my next project, I wasseeking to write an overall history of US business abroad. Iwanted to figure out whether patterns I had found in my researchon Ford abroad were typical (or atypical) of US corporations,in general, as the latter expanded worldwide. Recently, I looked at the preface (dated June 1963) of our AmericanBusiness Abroad: Ford on Six Continents, published in 1964;there was no acknowledgment of the     

Understanding and Profitably Serving the ‘Close-Contact’ Consumer

Abstract

According to many recently published accounts, systems for food creation and distribution are consistently providing inferior foods. For example, at this writing prepackaged spinach distributed in the U.S. has been found tainted with E-coli bacteria. We briefly review and discuss a few of these published accounts. We define and discuss the concept of the Close-Contact consumer segment that has arisen at least partially in response to perceived weaknesses in domestic and international food creation and distribution systems. The Close-Contact consumer is termed Close-Contact because s/he seeks to have a higher than average level of knowledge about the source of his/her food and the policies of his/ her food suppliers. Thoughts about the Close-Contact consumer arose after dozens of conversations and informal small group discussions with customers. We view the characteristics of Close-Contact consumers and describe marketing programs targeted to this growing consumer group. The Close-Contact consumer responds particularly well to personalized service and full information disclosure regarding food suppliers and food products. Whether in restaurants or grocery store environments, the Close-Contact consumer expects high information availability about the food that s/he consumes.     

Tuija Mikkonen. Corporate Architecture in Finland in the 1940s and 1950s: Factory Building as Architecture, Investment and Image. Helsinki, Finland: Bookstore Tiedekirja, 2005. 269 pp. ISBN 951-41-0982-1, {euro}30.00.

As Alfred Chandler has shown in his writings, particularly thethree monographs Strategy and Structure (1962), The VisibleHand (1977), and Scale and Scope (1990), the development oflarge industrial corporations has been an important featureof society from the nineteenth century onwards. These organizationsbecame not only significant employers but also important providersof goods to consumers and to other industrial firms. Furthermore,their development has had considerable consequences for thelandscape in     

An analysis of the profiles and motivations of habitual commodity speculators

The focus of this study is the habitual speculator in commodity futures markets. The speculator's activity broadens a market, creates essential liquidity, and performs an irreplaceable pricing function. Working knowledge of the profiles and motivations of habitual speculators is essential to both market theorists and policy makers. Responses to a 73-question survey were collected directly from retail commodity brokers with offices in Alabama. Each questionnaire recorded information on an individual commodity client who had traded for an extended period of time. The typical trader studied is a married, white male, age 52. He is affluent and well educated. He is a self-employed business owner who can recover from financial setbacks. He is a politically right-wing conservative involved in the political process. He assumes a good deal of risk in most phases of his life. He is both an aggressive investor and an active gambler. This trader does not consider preservation of his commodity capital to be a very high trading priority. As a result, he rarely uses stop loss orders. He wins more frequently than he loses (over 51% of the time) but is an overall net loser in dollar terms. In spite of recurring trading losses, he has never made any substantial change in his basic trading style. To this trader, whether he won or lost on a particular trade is more important than the size of the win or loss. Thus he consistently cuts his profits short while letting his losses run. He also worries more about missing a move in the market by being on the sidelines than about losing by being on the wrong side of a market move; that is, being in the action is more important than the financial consequences. Participating brokers confirmed that for the majority of the speculators studied, the primary motivation for continuous trading is the recreational utility derived largely from having a market position. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 18:765–801, 1998     

Paul Mason Fotsch. Watching the Traffic Go By: Transportation and Isolation in Urban America

In this well-meaning but deeply flawed book, Paul Mason Fotschexamines what he calls "narratives that promote a reliance onthe automobile."(2) Fotsch's Watching the Traffic Go By examinesa series of different events, times, and ideas that he claimshave had a hegemonic power in American popular culture. Thisbook draws on the disciplines of cultural studies and history,and closely reads various books, movies, and events. It movesbetween exploring transport systems (particularly the     

周云海:用责任与诚信积累财富

<正>"以诚为本,干一行、爱一行、懂一行",在周云海的身上,我们看到了此言无虚。第一次见到他是在2010年全国建材商大会上,那时的他一身西装,坐在会场的第一排认真地听着专家的发言,并时不时地记着笔记,他的认真给人印象深刻,他就是鄂尔多斯市易兴实业集团董事长周云海。     

李国庆 我的愤斗

<正>"我真是很孤独的。"李国庆说。了解他的人,羡慕他有讲真话的底气和本领,但也会暗地里骂他臭显摆;讨厌他的人认为他哗众取宠,像马戏团里的小丑。也有人说,李国庆就是企业家里的农民。"有的时候,别人会把我们两个人放在一块     

Is business ethics philosophy or sophism?

The contrast between the philosopher and the sophist is subtle and significant. The significant difference is identified by Socrates when he claims, in the Apology 21d, to be the wisest man in Athens: “Neither of us has any knowledge to boast of, but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance.” Nearly two and one half millennia later, business ethics has transported street corner conversation into the meeting room and board room, where ethical leadership is cultivated or stifled. Are these conversations about ethics philosophy, or are they sophism? In this paper, I will evaluate the philosophical soundness of business ethics as it is practiced in business situations. My objective will be to outline the unfulfilled value of philosophical wisdom to ensuring the value of business ethics, and business, to society at large.     

Belarus, A Chinese Fort in Europe

＂In recent years, we＇ve found increasing interest from Chinese investors in the Belarus economy. Please let China know, Belarus is always ready to be a true friend to China. We have built a fort in Europe for China,＂ the President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko told Zhou Xiaochuan, President of the Bank of China, during his visit to the capital of Minsk, on January 8th, he expressed his high praise and firm confidence in the development of Sino-Belarusian relations.