American manufacturing is in obvious crisis: the sector lost three million jobs between 2000 and 2003 as the American trade deficit shot to record highs. Manufacturers have increasingly decentralized productive responsibilities to armies of supplier firms, both domestically and abroad. Many have speculated as to whether or not manufacturing is even feasible in the United States, given the difficulties. Josh Whitford's book examines the issues behind this crisis, looking at the emergence of a 'new old economy', in which relationships between firms have become much more important. Whitford shows that discussion of this shift, in the media and in the academic literature, hits on the right issues - globalization, de-industrialization, and the outsourcing of production in marketized and in network relationships - but in an overly polarized way that obscures as much as it enlightens. Drawing on the results of extensive interviews conducted with manufacturers in the American Upper Midwest, Whitford shows that the range of possibilities is more complex and contingent than is usually recognised. Highlighting heretofore unexamined elements of constraint, contradiction, and innovation that characterize contemporary network production models, Whitford shakes received understandings in economic and organizational sociology, comparative political economy, and economic geography to reveal ways in which the American economic development apparatus can be adjusted to better meet the challenges of a highly decentralized production regime.

Featuring a new preface for the 10th anniversary As did the national bestseller Nickel and Dimed, Mike Rose’s revelatory book demolishes the long-held notion that people who work with their hands make up a less intelligent class. He shows us waitresses making lightning-fast calculations, carpenters handling complex spatial mathematics, and hairdressers, plumbers, and electricians with their aesthetic and diagnostic acumen. Rose, an educator who is himself the son of a waitress, explores the intellectual repertory of everyday workers and the terrible social cost of undervaluing the work they do. Deftly combining research, interviews, and personal history, this is one of those rare books that has the capacity both to shape public policy and to illuminate general readers.

Buy now with one-click. Amazon's business model is deceptively simple: make online shopping so easy and convenient that customers won't think twice. Yet Amazon's success is largely down to CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, a man described as both a 'happy-go-lucky mogul' and a 'notorious micromanager'. His high energy, passionate approach to retailing has driven Amazon to the top. Jeff Bezos is smart. Originally a computer geek, he had the vision to capitalise on the untapped online market for books. He's also a calculating machine who creates 'deal-flow' charts for every major decision, from what business to create to how to chose a spouse. One Click explores what makes Bezos Bezos. Through detailed research and interviews with Amazon employees, competitors and observers, Richard Brandt has deciphered how Bezos thinks, what drives his actions and how he makes his business decisions. Amazon.com was waiting to be discovered. It took Bezos's unqiue character and strategy to make it happen. Anyone in the business world can learn from his reinvention of the retail landscape.

Being Home is a collection of personal essays about the spirit of place, the juncture of memory and emotions. It is different for everyone; it is different for members of the same family, and it most likely has nothing to do with where you were born or grew up. Award-winning essayists Sam Pickering and Bob Kunzinger selected the essays for this collection, selecting essays about being home where setting becomes character, where time becomes the antagonist, and where we make our most important discoveries.

Three institutions that are of particular importance to Basque history and culture are the main subject of this book: the basseria (the Basque farmstead), the cofradia (the fraternity of fishermen) and the txoko (gastronomic society).

The author's purpose for Introduction to Old Testament Theology is to show how different approaches to the Old Testament can be brought together into a single theology. The author develops his own distinctive approach which he calls canonical theology.