Democracy by Petition

Democracy by Petition PDF Author: Daniel Carpenter
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674247493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 649

Book Description
This pioneering work of political history recovers the central and largely forgotten role that petitioning played in the formative years of North American democracy. Known as the age of democracy, the nineteenth century witnessed the extension of the franchise and the rise of party politics. As Daniel Carpenter shows, however, democracy in America emerged not merely through elections and parties, but through the transformation of an ancient political tool: the petition. A statement of grievance accompanied by a list of signatures, the petition afforded women and men excluded from formal politics the chance to make their voices heard and to reshape the landscape of political possibility. Democracy by Petition traces the explosion and expansion of petitioning across the North American continent. Indigenous tribes in Canada, free Blacks from Boston to the British West Indies, Irish canal workers in Indiana, and Hispanic settlers in territorial New Mexico all used petitions to make claims on those in power. Petitions facilitated the extension of suffrage, the decline of feudal land tenure, and advances in liberty for women, African Americans, and Indigenous peoples. Even where petitioners failed in their immediate aims, their campaigns advanced democracy by setting agendas, recruiting people into political causes, and fostering aspirations of equality. Far more than periodic elections, petitions provided an everyday current of communication between officeholders and the people. The coming of democracy in America owes much to the unprecedented energy with which the petition was employed in the antebellum period. By uncovering this neglected yet vital strand of nineteenth-century life, Democracy by Petition will forever change how we understand our political history.

The Return of Inequality

The Return of Inequality PDF Author: Mike Savage
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674259645
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Book Description
A pioneering book that takes us beyond economic debate to show how inequality is returning us to a past dominated by empires, dynastic elites, and ethnic divisions. The economic facts of inequality are clear. The rich have been pulling away from the rest of us for years, and the super-rich have been pulling away from the rich. More and more assets are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Mainstream economists say we need not worry; what matters is growth, not distribution. In The Return of Inequality, acclaimed sociologist Mike Savage pushes back, explaining inequality’s profound deleterious effects on the shape of societies. Savage shows how economic inequality aggravates cultural, social, and political conflicts, challenging the coherence of liberal democratic nation-states. Put simply, severe inequality returns us to the past. By fracturing social bonds and harnessing the democratic process to the strategies of a resurgent aristocracy of the wealthy, inequality revives political conditions we thought we had moved beyond: empires and dynastic elites, explosive ethnic division, and metropolitan dominance that consigns all but a few cities to irrelevance. Inequality, in short, threatens to return us to the very history we have been trying to escape since the Age of Revolution. Westerners have been slow to appreciate that inequality undermines the very foundations of liberal democracy: faith in progress and trust in the political community’s concern for all its members. Savage guides us through the ideas of leading theorists of inequality, including Marx, Bourdieu, and Piketty, revealing how inequality reimposes the burdens of the past. At once analytically rigorous and passionately argued, The Return of Inequality is a vital addition to one of our most important public debates.

All That She Carried

All That She Carried PDF Author: Tiya Miles
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 198485500X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 425

Book Description
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned historian traces the life of a single object handed down through three generations of Black women to craft a “deeply layered and insightful” (The Washington Post) testament to people who are left out of the archives. WINNER: Frederick Douglass Book Prize, Harriet Tubman Prize, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, Lawrence W. Levine Award, Darlene Clark Hine Award, Cundill History Prize, Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, Massachusetts Book Award ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Slate, Vulture, Publishers Weekly “A history told with brilliance and tenderness and fearlessness.”—Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. Thinking quickly, she packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the nine-year-old girl was separated from her mother and sold. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack in spare, haunting language. Historian Tiya Miles carefully traces these women’s faint presence in archival records, and, where archives fall short, she turns to objects, art, and the environment to write a singular history of the experience of slavery, and the uncertain freedom afterward, in the United States. All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and love passed down against steep odds. It honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today FINALIST: MAAH Stone Book Award, Kirkus Prize, Mark Lynton History Prize, Chatauqua Prize ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, NPR, Time, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Smithsonian Magazine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, Book Riot, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist

The Year in Tech, 2021: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

The Year in Tech, 2021: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review PDF Author: Harvard Business Review
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1633699080
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 83

Book Description
A year of HBR's essential thinking on tech—all in one place. From 5G networks to biometric marketing and from augmented reality to AI wearables, new technologies are reshaping business on the factory floor and in the C-suite. What should you and your company be doing now to take advantage of the new opportunities these technologies are creating—and avoid falling victim to disruption? The Year in Tech 2021: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will help you understand what the latest and most important tech innovations mean for your organization and how you can use them to compete and win in today's turbulent business environment. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

Why Startups Fail

Why Startups Fail PDF Author: Tom Eisenmann
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0593137027
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success.

HBR's 10 Must Reads 2021

HBR's 10 Must Reads 2021 PDF Author: Harvard Business Review
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1647820049
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Book Description
A year's worth of management wisdom, all in one place. We've reviewed the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to keep you up-to-date on the most cutting-edge, influential thinking driving business today. With authors from Marcus Buckingham to Amy Edmondson and company examples from Lyft to Disney, this volume brings the most current and important management conversations right to your fingertips. This book will inspire you to: Rethink whether constant, candid feedback really helps employees thrive Move beyond diversity and inclusion to creating a racially just workplace Adopt connected strategies that anticipate your customers' needs Navigate the challenges of dual-career relationships Understand when data creates competitive advantage—and when it doesn't Break through the organizational barriers that impede AI initiatives Lead in a new era of climate action This collection of articles includes “The Feedback Fallacy,” by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall; “Cross-Silo Leadership,” by Tiziana Casciaro, Amy C. Edmondson, and Sujin Jang; “Toward a Racially Just Workplace,” by Laura Morgan Roberts and Anthony J. Mayo; “The Age of Continuous Connection,” by Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch; “The Hard Truth about Innovative Cultures,” by Gary P. Pisano; “Creating a Trans-Inclusive Workplace,” by Christian N. Thoroughgood, Katina B. Sawyer, and Jennica R. Webster; “When Data Creates Competitive Advantage,” by Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright; “Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong,” by Peter Cappelli; “How Dual-Career Couples Make It Work,” by Jennifer Petriglieri; “Building the AI-Powered Organization,” by Tim Fountaine, Brian McCarthy, and Tamim Saleh; “Leading a New Era of Climate Action,” by Andrew Winston; and “That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief,” by Scott Berinato.

Say It Loud!

Say It Loud! PDF Author: Randall Kennedy
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0593316045
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 529

Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A collection of provocative essays exploring the key social justice issues of our time—from George Floyd to antiracism to inequality and the Supreme Court. Kennedy is "among the most incisive American commentators on race" (The New York Times). Informed by sharpness of observation and often courting controversy, deep fellow feeling, decency, and wit, Say It Loud! includes: The George Floyd Moment: Promise and Peril • Isabel Wilkerson, the Election of 2020, and Racial Caste • The Princeton Ultimatum: Anti­racism Gone Awry • The Constitutional Roots of “Birtherism” • Inequality and the Supreme Court • “Nigger”: The Strange Career Contin­ues • Frederick Douglass: Everyone’s Hero • Remembering Thurgood Marshall • Why Clar­ence Thomas Ought to Be Ostracized • The Politics of Black Respectability • Policing Ra­cial Solidarity In each essay, Kennedy is mindful of com­plexity, ambivalence, and paradox, and he is always stirring and enlightening. Say It Loud! is a wide-ranging summa of Randall Kennedy’s thought on the realities and imaginaries of race in America.

Harvard 2021

Harvard 2021 PDF Author: Harvard College (1780- ). Class of 2021
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description


The Legacy of Slavery at Harvard

The Legacy of Slavery at Harvard PDF Author: The Presidential Committee on the Legacy of Slavery
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674292464
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
Harvard’s searing and sobering indictment of its own long-standing relationship with chattel slavery and anti-Black discrimination. In recent years, scholars have documented extensive relationships between American higher education and slavery. The Legacy of Slavery at Harvard adds Harvard University to the long list of institutions, in the North and the South, entangled with slavery and its aftermath. The report, written by leading researchers from across the university, reveals hard truths about Harvard’s deep ties to Black and Indigenous bondage, scientific racism, segregation, and other forms of oppression. Between the university’s founding in 1636 and 1783, when slavery officially ended in Massachusetts, Harvard leaders, faculty, and staff enslaved at least seventy people, some of whom worked on campus, where they cared for students, faculty, and university presidents. Harvard also benefited financially and reputationally from donations by slaveholders, slave traders, and others whose fortunes depended on human chattel. Later, Harvard professors and the graduates they trained were leaders in so-called race science and eugenics, which promoted disinvestment in Black lives through forced sterilization, residential segregation, and segregation and discrimination in education. No institution of Harvard’s scale and longevity is a monolith. Harvard was also home to abolitionists and pioneering Black thinkers and activists such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Charles Hamilton Houston, and Eva Beatrice Dykes. In the late twentieth century, the university became a champion of racial diversity in education. Yet the past cannot help casting a long shadow on the present. Harvard’s motto, Veritas, inscribed on gates, doorways, and sculptures all over campus, is an exhortation to pursue truth. The Legacy of Slavery at Harvard advances that necessary quest.

Rationality

Rationality PDF Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241380308
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer