Manufacturing Revolution or Playing for Dollars

Manufacturing Revolution: The Intellectual Origins of Early American Industry

Author: Lawrence A Peskin

"While much has been written about the industrial revolution," writes Lawrence Peskin, "we rarely read about industrial revolutionaries." This absence, he explains, reflects the preoccupation of both classical and Marxist economics with impersonal forces rather than with individuals. In Manufacturing Revolution Peskin deviates from both dominant paradigms by closely examining the words and deeds of individual Americans who made things in their own shops, who met in small groups to promote industrialization, and who, on the local level, strove for economic independence.

In speeches, petitions, books, newspaper articles, club meetings, and coffee--house conversations, they fervently discussed the need for large-scale American manufacturing a half-century before the Boston Associates built their first factory. Peskin shows how these economic pioneers launched a discourse that continued for decades, linking industrialization to the cause of independence and guiding the new nation along the path of economic ambition. Based upon extensive research in both manuscript and printed sources from the period between 1760 and 1830, this book will be of interest to historians of the early republic and economic historians as well as to students of technology, business, and industry.

Go to: The Methodology of Economics or Probablty Theory Statist Inference

Playing for Dollars: Labor Relations and the Sports Business

Author: Paul D Staudohar

Fans of professional sports have been forced to pay attention to labor relations in the last five years. The 1994-1995 season reminded baseball enthusiasts that a players' strike can mean something more than a swing and a miss, and the fans of other sports have experienced similar frustrations. In Playing for Dollars, Paul D. Staudohar analyzes the business dimension of sports with a timely assessment of the interactions among labor, management, and government in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Author of The Sports Industry and Collective Bargaining, an earlier version of the current volume, Staudohar describes the mechanics of contract and salary negotiations, including the pivotal issue of free agency. He explains how unions become established in sports, how the balance of power shifted between owners and players, and how the salaries of stars escalated. He investigates the gambling controversies and changing drug policies that have sometimes alienated fans and comments, as well, on the impact AIDS has had on professional sports. Sports events are media events, and Staudohar takes a look at the effects of television contracts and international expansion. He also considers the future of team sports, discussing league expansion, prospects for growth, and the issue of franchise relocation.

Booknews

In the tradition of The Tao of Physics, Perkowitz (physics, Emory U.) mingles scientific theories with psychic mysteries, creating an elegant and evocative technical interpretation of light's story. Inspired by Magritte's painting Empire of Light and its paradoxical portrayal of day and night, Perkowitz picks up the artist's theme in discussions of ancient discoveries, modern theories (in cosmic and subatomic form), and the human eye's ability to receive data to link it with physiological responses. All this rather dry analysis is illuminated with examples from the artistry of Vincent van Gogh, Edward Hopper, Edgar Degas, and James Turrell. Our only regret is that the beautiful description of how light moves across real water and the water of van Gogh's perspective could not be accompanied by a reproduction of the painting. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)