Business and Economics - Recent Titles from Ohio University Press

Chocolate on Trial

Sat, 01 Jan 2005

Chocolate on Trial (2005)
Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business

By Lowell J. Satre

At the turn of the twentieth century, Cadbury Bros. Ltd. was a successful, Quaker-owned chocolate manufacturer in Birmingham, England, celebrated for its model village, modern factory, and concern for employees. In 1901 the firm learned that its cocoa beans, purchased from Portuguese plantations on the island of São Tomé off West Africa, were produced by slave labor.

Chocolate on Trial: Slavery, Politics, and the Ethics of Business is a lively and highly readable account of the events surrounding the libel trial in which Cadbury Bros. sued the London Standard over the newspaper’s accusation that the firm was hypocritical in its use of slave-grown cocoa. Lowell J. Satre probes issues as compelling now as they were a century ago: globalization, corporate social responsibility, journalistic sensationalism, and devious diplomacy.

Satre illuminates the stubborn persistence of the institution of slavery and shows how Cadbury, a company with a well-regarded brand name from the nineteenth century, faced ethical dilemmas and challenges to its record for social responsibility. Chocolate on Trial brings to life the age-old conflict between economic interests and regard for the dignity of human life.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Chocolate+on+Trial.
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Sales and Celebrations

Fri, 28 May 2004

Sales and Celebrations (2004)
Retailing and Regional Identity in Western New York State, 1920–1940

By Sarah Elvins

Between the two world wars, the retail world experienced tremendous changes. New forms of competition, expanded networks of communication and transportation, and the proliferation of manufactured goods posed challenges to department store and small shopkeeper alike.

In western New York, and in Buffalo and Rochester in particular, retailers were a crucial part of urban life, acting as cultural brokers and civic leaders. They were also cultivators of area pride. Even as they adopted the latest merchandising techniques or stocked the newest items, merchants emphasized their local roots and their ability to put a local spin on national trends and innovations. Regional identity became a powerful selling tool not only during the prosperity of the 1920s but also through the economic crisis of the Great Depression.

Sales and Celebrations explains how local traditions and institutions affected the evolution of American consumer culture. It expands our understanding of American consumerism, demonstrating that local particularities and loyalties could often coexist with, and occasionally challenge, the spread of mass consumption. In her award-winning study, Professor Sarah Elvins provides new insight into the relationship between America's largest metropolises and its smaller centers. Retailers in Buffalo and Rochester did not simply imitate the practices of their counterparts in Manhattan and Chicago; they highlighted their unique ability to serve the wants and needs of their particular markets.

By drawing attention to this persistent power of the local, Sales and Celebrations illuminates a neglected aspect of the story of American culture in the interwar period.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Sales+and+Celebrations.
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The Inclusive Corporation

Fri, 30 May 2003

The Inclusive Corporation (2003)
A Disability Handbook for Business Professionals

By Griff Hogan

Because of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the enormous market of aging adults coping with impairments, disability has become an important issue for all businesses. The Inclusive Corporation is the first book to address comprehensively this issue of disability as it relates to all of the areas critical to effective business management.

The Inclusive Corporation succinctly presents disability-related information and resources that business managers need, and does so in a way that is highly readable and easy to use. The book is respectful and understanding of business requirements, while at the same time conveying a comprehensive knowledge of disability issues.

Matters of legal compliance, social responsibility, recruitment, diversity, employee supervision, customer service, product design and marketing—all are dealt with in The Inclusive Corporation. The result of the author's many years of experience working with businesses to improve their ability to include disabled people both as customers and employees, The Inclusive Corporation will be welcomed by people with disabilities and by business professionals nationwide.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Inclusive+Corporation.
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Ohio on the Move

Wed, 01 Jan 2003

Ohio on the Move (2003)
Transportation in the Buckeye State

By Professor H. Roger Grant

Few American states can match the rich and diverse transportation heritage of Ohio. Every major form of public conveyance eventually served the Buckeye state. From the "Canal Age" to the "Interurban Era," Ohio emerged as a national leader. The state's central location, abundant natural resources, impressive wealth, shrewd business leadership, and episodes of good fortune explain the dynamic nature of its transport past.

Ohio on the Move is the first systematic scholarly account of the transportation history of Ohio. To date, little has appeared on several subjects discussed here, including intercity bus and truck operations and commercial aviation. The more familiar topics of river and lake transport, canals, steam railroads, electric interurbans, and mass transit are extensively explored in the Ohio context.

In this inaugural volume of Ohio University Press's Ohio Bicentennial Series, Professor Grant demonstrates the truth of the slogan that Ohio is "the heart of it all" - not solely by location but also in the impressive network of transportation arteries that have linked the state, whether natural waterways and air space or various artificial land-travel routes.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Ohio+on+the+Move.
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Surabaya, City of Work

Wed, 15 May 2002

Surabaya, City of Work (2002)
A Socioeconomic History, 1900–2000

By Howard Dick

Surabaya is Indonesia's second largest city but is not well known to the outside world. Yet in 1900, Surabaya was a bigger city than Jakarta and one of the main commercial centers of Asia. Collapse of sugar exports during the 1930s depression, followed by the Japanese occupation, revolution, and independence, brought on a long period of stagnation and retreat from the international economy. Not until the export boom of the 1990s did Surabaya regain prominence as Southeast Asia's leading non–capital–city industrial area.

Previous thinking on Indonesia is being reassessed in light of recent political and economic upheaval. Surabaya, City of Work offers an alternative to the Jakarta-centric focus of most writing on the country. It is a multifaceted view of a fascinating and complex city in the dimensions of time and space, economy and society, and the current transition toward decentralization makes it highly topical.

Exploration of this eventful economic history gives new insight into Indonesia’s modern economic development. Industrialization is recognized as being associated with rapid urbanization, but this is the first study of Indonesia from an explicitly urban perspective. Surabaya, City of Work takes a broad approach that links industrialization to socioeconomic trends, the increasing role of government, changing land use, and trade patterns.

This well–illustrated local history encompassing national events and trends will be a central work on Indonesia for years to come.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Surabaya%2C+City+of+Work.
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Art As Image

Sat, 15 Dec 2001

Art As Image (2001)
Prints and Promotion in Cincinnati, Ohio

Edited by Alice M. Cornell

Cincinnati was a major printing and publishing center from the earliest days of the Old Northwest Territory. The spectacular technological and artistic developments in the 19th-century printing trade nationally were reflected in the Cincinnati printmakers' achievements, many of which were promotional in nature.

Highlights of Cincinnati prints, printing, and graphic design are the focus of this book, which includes examinations of the work of The Strobridge Lithographing Company and its circus posters, the participation of the Smithsonian Institution in the Cincinnati Centennial Exhibition, a survey of Cincinnati printing and graphic design, an examination of early engraved Cincinnati views, Emil Klauprecht and the German-American influence in Cincinnati printing, lithographic portraits by Ehrgott & Forbriger, and the unique contributions of The United States Playing Card Company of Cincinnati.

This book is a unique collaboration between two of Ohio's university presses in providing a hardcover version of this important study along with access to the accompanying website devoted to faithful reproduction of the color images discussed within the book.

The total package is an illuminating and eclectic introduction to the varied and colorful history of Cincinnati printing.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Art+As+Image.
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In the Company of Diamonds

Sun, 15 Jul 2001

In the Company of Diamonds (2001)
De Beers, Kleinzee, and the Control of a Town

By Peter Carstens

After the 1925 discovery of diamonds in the semi-desert of the northwest coast of South Africa, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. virtually proclaimed its dominion over the whole region. In the town of Kleinzee, the company owns all the real estate and infrastructure, and controls and administers both the town and the industry.

Peter Carstens's In the Company of Diamonds draws a stark and startling portrait of this closed community, one that analyzes the power and hegemonic techniques used to acquire that power and maintain it.

As a prototypical company town, Kleinzee is subordinated to the industry and will of the owners. Employees and workers are variously differentiated and ordered according to occupation, ethnic variation, and other social criteria, a pattern reflected most markedly in the allocation of housing. Managers live in large, ranch-style houses, while contract workers are lodged in single-sex compounds.

As a community type, company towns like Kleinzee are not entirely unique, and Professor Carstens successfully draws a number of structural parallels with other closed and incomplete social formations such as Indian reservations, military bases, colleges, prisons, and mental hospitals.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/In+the+Company+of+Diamonds.
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Rookwood and the Industry of Art

Thu, 15 Mar 2001

Rookwood and the Industry of Art (2001)
Women, Culture, and Commerce, 1880-1913

By Nancy E. Owen

Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati--the largest, longest-lasting, and arguably most important American Art Pottery--reflected the country's cultural and commercial milieux in the production, marketing, and consumption of its own products.

Rookwood and the Industry of Art is a critical appreciation of Rookwood's rise to its commercial pinnacle, assessing the labor practices and production of ceramic ware as a way to explore anxiety about women's roles outside the home as well as about industrialization, immigration, and urbanization.

In this illustrated study, Nancy Owen analyzes the discrepancies between the concepts of fine art and culture and the managerial positioning of the firm as "an artist's studio, not a factory." Owen also looks at the meaning of Americanness as portrayed in the choices of decoration and in the marketing campaigns that sought to elevate the ceramic ware to an artform.

For the collector as well as the cultural historian, Rookwood and the Industry of Art is a revealing and sensitive treatment of this uniquely American commercial and artistic phenomenon.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Rookwood+and+the+Industry+of+Art.
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The European Union

Fri, 15 Dec 2000

The European Union (2000)
From Jean Monnet to the Euro

Edited by Dean Kotlowski

The transformation of Europe since the end of World War II has been astounding. In 1945, a battle–scarred continent lay in ruins. Today, it has achieved a level of integration, prosperity, and stability that few people could have anticipated. The life and career of the French statesman Jean Monnet and the recent adoption of the “euro” as Europe's common currency represent the bookends of this half–century–long metamorphosis.

This collection of essays, drawn from the lectures of the 1999 Baker Conference at Ohio University, explores Monnet's vision of an integrated Europe, its gradual implementation, and the social, economic, and international consequences. The scholarship focuses upon Monnet's life, personality, and legacy, the development of social policy within the European Union (EU), the economic and national security implications of the EU, and the continuation of an American presence in Europe through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

This significant collection fuses biography with comparative political economy and policy studies to help political scientists, sociologists, economists, international lawyers, and historians on both sides of the Atlantic understand important aspects of Europe's post–1945 development.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+European+Union.
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Sowing the American Dream

Fri, 01 Dec 2000

Sowing the American Dream (2000)
How Consumer Culture Took Root in the Rural Midwest

By David Blanke

From 1840 to 1900, midwestern Americans experienced firsthand the profound economic, cultural, and structural changes that transformed the nation from a premodern, agrarian state to one that was urban, industrial, and economically interdependent. Midwestern commercial farmers found themselves at the heart of these changes. Their actions and reactions led to the formation of a distinctive and particularly democratic consumer ethos, which is still being played out today.

By focusing on the consumer behavior of midwestern farmers, Sowing the American Dream provides illustrative examples of how Americans came to terms with the economic and ideological changes that swirled around them. From the formation of the Grange to the advent of mail-order catalogs, the buying patterns of rural midwesterners set the stage for the coming century.

Carefully documenting the rise and fall of the powerful purchasing cooperatives, David Blanke explains the shifting trends in collective consumerism, which ultimately resulted in a significant change in the way that midwestern consumers pursued their own regional identity, community, and independence.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Sowing+the+American+Dream.
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