Showing results by publisher "University Press Audiobooks" in Business & Careers

Goldstene uses a biographical approach to focus on key figures along a spectrum of political belief as they struggled to reconcile the inherent contradictions of equal opportunity. The Struggle for America's Promise includes such figures as Booker T. Washington, Samuel Gompers, Edward Bellamy, and Emma Goldman, who were more willing to step beyond the boundaries of the discourse about opportunity and question economic competition itself.

In a dramatic unveiling of the little-known world of contracted military logistics, Adam Moore examines the lives of the global army of laborers who support US overseas wars. Empire's Labor brings us the experience of the hundreds of thousands of men and women who perform jobs such as truck drivers and administrative assistants at bases located in warzones in the Middle East and Africa. He highlights the changes the US military has undergone since the Vietnam War.

Gambling on Ore examines the development of the Western mining industry from the tumultuous and violent Gold Rush to the elevation of large-scale copper mining in the early 20th century, using Montana as representative of mining developments in the broader US mining West. Employing abundant new historical evidence in key primary and secondary sources, Curtis tells the story of the inescapable relationship of mining to nature in the modern world as the United States moved from a primarily agricultural society to a mining nation in the second half of the 19th century.

How can companies succeed over time? To learn the source of enduring greatness, author Christian Stadler directed a team of eight researchers in a six-year study of some of Europe's oldest and most stellar companies, targeting nine that have survived for more than 100 years and have significantly outperformed the market over the past fifty years. Readers may wonder, "Why European companies?" Yet Europe is the ideal place to seek the key to long-term success; half of the Fortune Global 500 companies that are 100 years old or older can be found in Europe, as can 72 of the 100 oldest family businesses in the world.

Charles E. Hires and the Drink That Wowed a Nation chronicles the humble origin and meteoric business success of this extraordinary entrepreneur. Author Bill Double uses published interviews, correspondence, newspaper reports, magazine articles, financial data, and a small family archive to tell this story of native ingenuity. Here, the rough-hewn capitalism of the gilded age, the evolution of the neighborhood drugstore, the rise of advertising in creating mass markets, and the emerging temperance movement all come together in a biography that fizzes with entrepreneurial spirit.

Public-service executives, both elected and appointed within the public and nonprofit sectors, are retiring at record levels, and the number of Americans reaching age 65 annually will continue to rise over the next decade and is expected to surpass four million in 2020. Finding qualified, motivated leaders to fill vital public-service positions will challenge the public and nonprofit sectors. Unfortunately, recent studies show that few proactive steps are being taken by public-service organizations to plan for the next generation.

With more than 50 years of professional experience, Mark C. Zweig has seen it all—from the fear and excitement of starting a new business to the joys and challenges of life as an entrepreneur. In Confessions of an Entrepreneur: Simple Wisdom for Starting, Building, and Running a Business, Zweig draws upon this wealth of experience to offer practical, easy-to-understand guidance for bringing a business to life and cultivating success at every stage of its development.

What We Mean by the American Dream investigates how we think about whether an individual deserves an opportunity, job, termination, paycheck, or fortune. Taussig looks into the fabric of American life to explore how various people, including dairy farmers, police officers, dancers, teachers, computer technicians, students, store clerks, the unemployed, homemakers, and even drug dealers got to where they are today and whether they earned it or not.

This meticulously researched book tells the story of Midwestern agriculture during a period of epochal change in farm technology, farm management, and farm life. The hard work, tight communities, and values that had characterized the family farm were replaced by large corporate enterprises with massive acreages, high-tech methods, and global outlooks. While many decry this change as loss, Nordin and Scott find a net gain. This is their richly detailed account of one of the great transformations in American life.

Laredo is a city at the crossroads of North American history. Founded by the Spanish in 1755, it has stood at the intersection of regional commerce since its earliest days. Now, John A. Adams, Jr. provides the first-ever panoramic business and economic history of Laredo. He traces the evolution of the region from its early days as a ranching center into the mid-20th century when Laredo had become what it remains today: a booming port of trade and a principle center of commerce and financial services on the southern border of the United States.

This timely audiobook challenges conventional business wisdom about competition, secrecy, motivation, and creativity. Orly Lobel, an internationally acclaimed expert in the law and economics of human capital, warns that a set of counterproductive mentalities are stifling innovation in many regions and companies.

When the Fox Film Corporation merged with Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935, the company posed little threat to industry juggernauts such as Paramount and MGM. In the years that followed however, guided by executives Darryl F. Zanuck and Spyros Skouras, it soon emerged as one of the most important studios.

Incorporating ideas and insights from diverse sources, Ready for Anything: The Making of a Change Leader examines organizational change leadership from a radical, existential perspective. By drawing on disciplines outside the business field, the material broadens listeners' understanding of how organizations live, breathe, grow, and die, and empowers them to act.

Most communities and organizations require an organizer to be successful and create change. Being a Leader and Making Decisions tells the stories of great leaders - why they led, how they gained support and became leaders, and why people followed them. Through historical and modern examples, readers will learn about both positive and negative traits of leaders and find suggestions about how to take the lead in their own lives and communities.

Each essay in Producing Fashion is presented in full and has been selected from the original print edition. The essays show how economic institutions in Europe and North America laid the foundation for the global fashion system and sustained it commercially through the mechanisms of advertising, licensing, marketing, publishing, and retailing.

Baseball, religion, work, death, and the company store - these figured eminently in the lives of Southern cotton mill workers and their families during the early decades of the 20th century. In this firsthand account of his native Bladenboro, North Carolina, George G. Suggs, Jr., captures in rich detail the world of a thriving cotton mill town where the company was dominant but workers had forged a strong community. Here the focus is on the workers - their interests, personalities, and values - in their best and in their darker moments.

Ever since Socrates, teaching has been a difficult and even dangerous profession. Why is good teaching such hard work? In this provocative, witty, and sometimes rueful book, David K. Cohen writes about the predicaments that teachers face. Like therapists, social workers, and pastors, teachers embark on a mission of human improvement. They aim to deepen knowledge, broaden understanding, sharpen skills, and change behavior. One predicament is that no matter how great their expertise, teachers depend on the cooperation and intelligence of their students, yet there is much that students do not know.

America confronts a jobs crisis that has two faces. The first is obvious when we read the newspapers or talk with our friends and neighbors: there are simply not enough jobs to go around. The second jobs crisis is more subtle but no less serious: far too many jobs fall below the standard that most Americans would consider decent work. A quarter of working adults are trapped in jobs that do not provide living wages, health insurance, or much hope of upward mobility.

Stories of government management failures often make the headlines, but quietly much gets done as well. What makes the difference? Ira Goldstein offers wisdom about how to lead and succeed in the federal realm, even during periods when the political climate is intensely negative, based on his decades of experience as a senior executive at two major government consulting firms and as a member of the US federal government's Senior Executive Service.

In Sport Is Life with the Volume Turned Up, Joan Cronan offers a refreshing and innovative perspective on strengthening performance and achieving success in both the business world and everyday life.