The Minutemen and Their World by Robert Gross

Book review on award-winning book The Minutemen and Their World by Robert Gross.

Introduction

The Minutemen and Their World by Robert Gross is a winner of the Bancroft Prize. The book first came out in 1976. Recently, it has been reissued in celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary edition with a new Afterward by the author.

In The Minutemen and Their World, Robert Gross wrote a subtle and in-depth depiction of the people and community of this special place. It is a convincing explanation of the American Revolution, depicting it as a social movement.

 

Summary of Book

The Minutemen and Their World offers a glimpse of the lives of the people living in the colonial period in Concord Massachusetts; this is where the Revolutionary War in Robert Gross’s book starts. Gross, “sets the Concord Fight, as it used to be known, in the context of the townspeople’s ordinary lives, before and after April 19, 1775. It examines how the citizens farmed the land, raised their families, and carried on their politics at the end of the colonial period.”

On April 19, 1775, the American Revolution took place at the Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts. The “shot heard round the world” became the wake up call that put the peaceful New England town at the center revolution. Concord’s image took a major shift and its growing popularity hinged on its being the intellectual capital of the new republic. The town where Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne came from symbolized commitment to liberty, intellectual independence, and the firm integrity of the rural life.

 

Author’s Main Theme

The major themes revolved on how people viewed the British invasion, their thoughts on imposed taxes and tariffs, and an overview of life in general during the period. The book depicts the life of people in Concord, Massachusetts to serve as an example for the bigger picture or the overall story on the American Revolution.

Gross points out that the struggle for independence from Britain is not to be considered as a revolution but a cautious social struggle against the pressing issues of the day – patriarchal governance, religious fanaticism, individualism, and restricted government control.

 

Author’s Message

Gross’ message contained in the book is that the Revolution is a means for people of Concord to have a clear grasp on the situation and be able to direct its own course. In 1775-1776, great changes occurred in the colonies, particularly Concord. The urgent concerns include decreasing supplies of land, desire of its residents to hire their own minister.

With all these problems, participation in the Revolution gave Concord an opportunity to exercise initiative and regain rule on its political and communal life, bring back independence. Gross says, “The men of 1775 had not gone to war to promote change but to stop it.”

 

Writer’s Style

In the book, Gross augmented the book’s information by using historical public records to relate a story, associating emotion and motivation with the statistical trends. Quantitative data was presented subjectively and to avoid biases Gross allows the reader to draw his own conclusions.

 

Strengths and Weaknesses

In the book, the most persuasive argument Gross points out is the loss of patriarchal control in Concord, and even across the colonies. His vivid description how sons rely on fathers for land, and daughters rely on fathers for dowries sets the tone of the story.

When drastic changes occurred economically, dowries are affected, local fertile land becomes scant and grown children leave the family to pursue the frontier. In turn, the father loses source of labor (slavery was not popular in Massachusetts) and the children lose inheritance and stability. Gross approaches each argument in a similar manner – he tells a personal story backed by quantitative research. This makes the story more effective because it presents facts in a very interesting manner, something which anyone can relate to emotionally.

 

Conclusion

The Minutemen and Their World was revolutionary in the sense that it personalizes a Revolution. The author added to the understanding of the Revolution by presenting historical records and statistics and intertwine it with the lives and motivations to all of Concord’s citizens – great men, but also average people: poor men, widows, spinsters, ministers, blacks, farmers, blacksmiths, intellectuals, substitutes, and dissenters.

The arguments are based solidly on facts because of the great quantitative research, but the author sometimes wonders “if the Minutemen would recognize themselves in my mirror”. Academics sometimes use Gross’s work to compare Vietnam to the American Revolution but Gross does not include it in the main text. This is a must read for students who wants to know about the Revolution in great detail.

"Ordinary Men" By Christopher R. Browning

The Holocaust presented not only the atrocities committed against the Jews in particular; it was more so a testament of atrocities committed against humanity in general. Browning uses as a basis for his story a compilation of documentation gathered on postwar German interrogations of men of comprising this unit who carried out the wartime atrocities. He takes a deeper look at the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg composed mostly middle-aged men from artisans and working class non-career police reservists. These men were either too old for normal front-line service or those who had no desire to practice a career in the police outside their role in this reserve unit.

In the book, Browning describes the dangerous use of even these units as first guards on trains that used to bring Jews to extermination camps. These units also participated in the in the rounding up Jews in the Polish Ghettos. Later, they exterminate entire villages.

This unit made up of 500 men broke down further into police reservists that did not have combat skills and were not central to the holocaust activity turned out to be the ones directly responsible for the killing of 38,000 people by shooting them to death. Also, they were directly responsible in transporting 100,000 thousand others to their deaths.

Browning turned back the hands of time by showing us what kind of men made up this unit. They were a diverse class of Party members, members of the SS, working or privileged upper higher classes and others. Their first act of killing was looked into in detail. All members of the Police Battalion 101 unit were not aware that they were to shoot unarmed and utterly helpless Jews.

What could possibly draw supposedly decent people comprising Police Battalion 101 to do such ghastly acts? Some cite the need to do so since they were in battlefield. But many believed this assumption is wrong. Those in the Battalion as a matter of fact were not skilled in combat training since most were older men.

Browning could be creating controversy when he called the book "ordinary men" to refer to the members of the Police Battalion 101. Their extraordinary callous acts could be attributed to the decaying effect of the racialist Nazi that was considered as the accepted truth in German society that brought the war. Browning does not give specific answer to the question as to why the atrocities occurred and why they were committed by seemingly good people. Those interviewed members of the unit did not bother to answer the question themselves. It is however the subject of confusion and the focus of the story as to how an ordinary person could kill children, women and old men with little or no remorse. It causes us to look closely and ask ourselves: how can racialist ideologies turned ordinary men into extraordinary monsters? That is the one question posed by the book which it did not address.

The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

A book review on the classic “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka.

“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is a heart-wrenching tale of a young man named Gregor who worked so hard for the welfare of his family. One morning he woke up and saw that he was no longer a man but metamorphosed into a vermin probably a roach. He wanted so much to continue working to help his family but his present state prevented him to do so. His metamorphosis proved to be a huge adjustment for him and his family. Later, he experienced alienation from them. Until, he lost his desire to live and perished.

Metamorphosis is an allegory to Gregor's struggle. Gregor's uncommon sacrifices to provide for his family's needs forced him to lead a life similar to that of a bug long before the transformation actually occurred. Gregor's transformation first occurred within and it manifested physically when he metamorphosed into a vermin.

We could see Gregor complaining at the start of the story. He thought that his transformation into a giant insect was a nightmare that he could simply wish away. So he shifted his thoughts to things that matter to him. We could see here that despite his present condition, Gregor's thoughts still centered on his work so he could support his family.

Gregor willingly sacrificed his welfare for his family but when he transformed into a giant insect he became a burden to them. Gregor therefore no longer serves any purpose for his parents. He was treated as a commodity. He was exploited to be able to support their expensive lifestyle. Yet, in the end, Gregor did not even get the respect and care he so richly deserved.

Equally disturbing is the last paragraph of the story. After Gregor died and the family was finally able to resume normal life, they turned their attention to Grete whom they have overlooked during their struggles. Since the parents had no use for Gregor anymore, they now focus their attention on his younger sister. Despite Gregor's terrible fate, the parents still find it in them to prioritize their whims by exploiting their daughter.

The Metamorphosis could be intended by the author to be satirical indictment of the bourgeois society and its demands. Or it could be Gregor's feelings of alienation and unspoken needs. These unspoken desires were probably crushed by authority and the boredom of the daily grind as attested by Gregor's sad fate. Whatever reasons are behind Gregor's metamorphosis, it all boils down to the fact that it occurred because he allowed himself to deteriorate. This in turn reduced him to a state at par with the insects robbing him of his unique traits and identity as a human being.

Social Entrepreneurship : Social Entrepreneurial Activities

"Social Entrepreneurship" is being responsive to the needs of our times. The non-economic motivational underpinnings of social entrepreneurial activity revolves around its passion of accomplishing a social mission, ability to incorporate innovation, strive to create impact and not just earn income are the very basis for social entrepreneurship.

Our current times call for the entrepreneurial approaches to solving social problems. Government and philanthropic organizations could not tackle the problems on their own. Their efforts are, at best, often viewed as below the people's expectations and, at worst, inefficient. Obviously, the government and social organizations alone could not implement necessary remedies for social problems. This is where social entrepreneurs come in.

Social entrepreneurs create models for the century. They lead people to greater visions and higher heights. Social entrepreneurship may be a newly coined word but the phenomenon has existed long before. This was practiced by institutions which we hardly recognize as such before. The new name enables us to recognize the efforts of these institutions at the same time put sectoral boundaries.

Aside from innovative not-for-profit endeavors, social entrepreneurship can be found in business ventures created for social purposes. Examples of which include for-profit community development banks, hybrid organizations which combines not-for-profit and for-profit activities. Hybrid organizations include homeless shelters that organize businesses fro their residents' livelihood.

Social entrepreneurs implement various ways to serve their social missions.
Different people have different views on "social entrepreneurship" though.


So what does the term " social entrepreneurship" really mean? What does it take to be a social entrepreneur?

The succeeding definition is derived from a variety of social entrepreneur definitions all combined to come up with one, comprehensive definition. It is taken from Say's idea of value creation with emphasis on discipline and accountability, Schumpeter' notion of innovation and change agents, Drucker's pursuit of opportunity and Stevenson's need for resourcefulness. The definition goes:

Social entrepreneurs play the role of change agents in the social sector, by:
Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value),
-  Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission,
-  Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning,
-  Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and
- Exhibiting heightened accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created.

The more a person can satisfy all the conditions enumerated, the closer the person is to being a social entrepreneur. It necessarily follows that those who practice innovation and who create more significant social developments will obviously be viewed as more socially entrepreneurial.

Change agents in the social sector: According to Schumpeter, social entrepreneurs introduced reforms and innovations coupled with a social mission.

The introduce modifications to the traditional way of doing things in the social sector. They have bold visions. They get to the bottom of the problem and address the root causes instead of doing superficial treatment of symptoms.

They effectively curb needs instead of satisfying them. They aim to introduce general changes. Their actions might be geared towards the local public but the effect could lead to global improvements in several areas particularly education, health care, economic development, the environment, the arts and other social field.

Adopting a mission to create and sustain social value: This separates the social entrepreneurs from business entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur focuses on a social mission. It is an essential part of business, the core with which the entire activities of the social entrepreneurship revolves around.

The mission to create social improvement cannot be compromised to attain personal advantages such as profits. Reaping profits, becoming wealthy, or filling the need customers form part of the social entrepreneurship, but these are simply ways of achieving social end, not the end goal itself. Profit and customer satisfaction are not the measurements use in creating value but social impact. Social entrepreneurs seek to attain long-term social effect.

Recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities: Social entrepreneurs do not see problems instead they see view problems as opportunities in disguise.
They do not merely address social needs but also have the appropriate vision. The models and approaches they follow often change in response to the changing needs and demands of their work. Persistence is their number one trait coupled with willingness to adapt to change.

Engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning: All kinds of entrepreneurs whether business or social are, by nature, innovative.
They do not necessarily invent new things but also introduce new ways of looking or using existing things.

Innovations they made maybe apparent in their core programs, or gathering of resources and funds. Creativity for entrepreneurs is a continuous learning process. Innovation often entails risks. But entrepreneurs are capable of managing these risks.

Acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand: Limited resources for social entrepreneurs do not pose as a hindrance to their desired ends. They augment scarce resources by exploring options such as adding partners, collaboration and soliciting aid from philanthropists. They develop strategies that promote and enhance their social missions or the objectives they sought for.

Exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created: It is hard to totally wipe out ineffective social activities in business. That is why, social entrepreneurs focus on creating social value. To do this, they need to determine correctly the needs and values of the community they revolve in.

They aim to achieve a perfect balance between promoting social development at the same time providing financial or social return to their investors. This is a huge part of the challenge social entrepreneurs' face.

Progress of social entrepreneurs is determined by the relevant social, financial, and managerial outcomes. Unlike the business entrepreneurship where there is a greater emphasis on size, outputs, or processes. They use the information they gathered based on the outcomes to adapt to changes or make new goals if necessary.

For social entrepreneurs, the social mission is intrinsic part of their endeavors. Their objective of attaining socially relevant goals is the basis for perceiving and assessing opportunities. The impact they derived from achieving their social mission is central to social entrepreneurship not wealth creation. Wealth is merely one of the instruments to attain their social goals.

Impact of Entrepreneurs to the Environment

Entrepreneurs have enormous impact on the environment. The enterprises that they build could either be harmful or beneficial to the environment. Enterprises use products, such as plastics, services and chemicals which could potentially harm the environment. Great care, therefore, must be taken in carrying out their enterprise.

During the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, UK Government made this commitment "encourage and promote the development of a ten year framework of programmes%u2026.to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production".

Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) aims to promote economic growth within environmental limits. SCP is one of the four critical areas of priority for UK action in achieving sustainable development. SCP according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs promotes:

Better products and services, which reduce the environmental impacts from the use of energy, resources, or hazardous substances

Cleaner, more efficient production processes, which strengthen competitiveness, and

Shifts in consumption towards goods and services with lower impacts.

Thus, we can glean from the environmental thrusts delineated by the UK government that entrepreneurs are important in carrying the program out.
One such program that enlists the participation and help of the UK entrepreneurs is the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Programme (BREW).

In this program, the UK Government introduced the Landfill Tax. Landfill Tax is aimed to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill at the same time help them find ways to do this.

It was found out that some 400m tonnes of waste each year are generated in UK. This rate is growing by 3% each year. Industrial and commercial waste comprises 20% of total waste and more than half of this wastes goes to landfill. But landfill or incineration does not promote sustainable long term solutions for dealing with large scale wastes. Government instituted the Landfill Tax to encourage businesses to lower the levels of business waste.

The impact of entrepreneurs then in promoting sustainable development is huge. That is why, it is important for entrepreneurs to find ways to protect the environment in the course of conducting their entrepreneurial activities.
Sometimes, environment and entrepreneurs seem to be at odd with each other especially in their objectives. But the truth is a business does not necessarily harm the environment in order to be profitable.

Environment sustainability then offers a way for business to operate in a more efficient manner at the same time make positive contribution to the community they revolved in.

A sustainable future is made possible by the combined efforts and contributions of all individuals, organizations and levels of government. Entrepreneurs must balance their economic progress with commitment for preserving environment.
Environmentally friendly business practices as a matter of fact would be beneficial to the entrepreneurs business in the long run.

How can entrepreneurs protect the environment? How do they work hand in hand with preserving the environment at the same time increase profits?

These are tricky questions which seem quite impossible. But the entrepreneur has a number of options that they could explore and utilize that could contribute to environment sustainability. Among these options are:

Using renewable resources and energy. This does not only allow the entrepreneur to protect the environment but at the same time improve opportunities of development for future generations;

adhering to conservation practices which in turn save money for the business and can be incorporated into business with relative ease;

encouraging new ideas and embracing innovation that will enable the business, employees and customers to take advantage of new and sustainable technologies;
buying and developing environmentally friendly products and services helps protect the environment and can create new market opportunities; and

understanding the potential impact your business operation can have on the environment is important to the local community and your liability exposure.

Another way of attaining sustainable development is through the practice of environmental leadership by entrepreneurs. To put it simply, environmental leadership is collective efforts of the individuals particularly the entrepreneurs in ensuring a healthy environment for future generations.

The idea of environmental leadership in business does not require that entrepreneurs will prioritize environment compliance over business profitability.

Environment leadership, however, means that entrepreneurs have to find ways to be more efficient and utilize or come up with new products or services that will be more environment-friendly at the same time make their business profitable. In short, business profitability must work hand in hand with environmental stewardship. One does not need to compromise the other in order to achieve such balance. Both factors have to be present to achieve maximum impact.

The Center for Small Business and the Environment in Canada declared that entrepreneurs of small and medium-sized enterprises are well fitted and in the position to encourage a culture of environmental leadership and enumerated the following reasons:

they represent a huge talent pool filled with the kind of opportunity, drive, creativity, skills and experiences needed to address a wide range of environmental challenges;

they are rooted locally and have a greater likelihood of understanding environmental issues as they may affect their communities, workers and families; and

they have traditionally led the way when it comes to efficiency and innovation.
Of course it would be practical to expect that some environmental practices are easier to adapt at the same will be very profitable, while other environmental practices will take a little more getting used to, require more hard work and may not make a bigger impact as the others.

These are the realities that entrepreneurs must accept. That is why, it is imperative that to attain the most impact and achievement in environment leadership, priorities must be set, advantages and disadvantages must be weighed before embarking on the project.

Eco-Efficiency is another important framework that entrepreneurs could introduce in the course of conducting their business. Eco-efficiency is the development of a highly effective infrastructure for the ecological operation of business. This could be one of the greatest and most rewarding achievement of an entrepreneur.
The idea of eco-efficiency revolves around the following:

delineates practical and systematic approaches in setting and attaining environmental performance goals in business;

promotes a management philosophy which helps businesses become more competitive, more innovative and more environmentally responsible;

aids entrepreneurs create products and services at the same time lower resource use, waste and pollution in the process of doing business

works in promoting businesses that prevent and minimize waste.

Concept of Quality in Entrepreneurship and Business

Entrepreneurship pertains to businesses which are designed to address particular opportunities. Entrepreneurship is also defined as the process of determining, assessing and utilizing opportunities. Webster defined an entrepreneur as "one who undertakes to start and conduct an enterprise or business, usually assuming full control and risk."

Business is the social science of managing people to direct their collective efforts towards accomplishing organization goals and to earn profits. It is derived from the word "busy" which is often perceived as doing something productive commercially.

Since a number of new businesses fail, an integral part of entrepreneurship then is taking risks. Entrepreneurs deal with these risks by creating solutions to problems. The vision of an entrepreneur is what drives the entrepreneurship. It also takes a lot of hard work and determination to grow an entrepreneurship.

Concept of Quality

The concept of quality is defined differently by various people. According to Gitlow et al., 1989 or Ozeki and Asaka, 1990, quality means the expectations that accompany a product or service being delivered which are: 1) is at par with customer standards, 2) meets and satisfy the needs of the customer, 3) meets the customer level of expectations, and 4) will meet unforeseen needs and aims in the future.

Management Process in an Entrepreneurship: Planning, Organizing, Leading and Controlling

Management refers to the ways of the personnel in charge of directing the organization, which in this instance is an entrepreneurship, through the utilization of resources such as labor, capital and assets whether tangible or intangible.

Being in the management connotes power and influence for the person. It is not unusual for an entrepreneur to do all the management functions at the start of the business. It is only later when the business grows that proper designation of functions can be made.

Managing an entrepreneurship means overseeing various functions such as:

Planning - making decisions with regards to the future and making those plans happen.

Organizing - utilizing the fullest potential of resources - people, capital and assets to ensure the success of the plans.

Leading/Motivating - inspiring others to do their part effectively in carrying out the organization's plans.

Controlling - step by step monitoring of the implementation process to see if changes are necessary to be made on the plans.

Entrepreneurs should establish and maintain an environment within the business to encourage efficiency among employees. The functions of management involve planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of resources. These functions are influenced by objectives set by the entrepreneur. They are closely related to each other and interdependent.

Planning pertains to arriving at an efficient process to attain the objectives of the company. It leads the company towards its goals. Organizing coordinates the resources that needed to implement the plan. In organizing, company structure is established, relationships are formed and resources are allotted appropriately to realize the objectives sought for. Directing refers to leading and supervising employees to attain the company objectives. Finally, controlling is confirming if the plan is carried out in actual situation.

Managing Risks in Entrepreneurship: Making Ethics-Based Decisions and Operating in a Global Environment

Entrepreneurship manages risk by first establishing the context which is to determining the scope of the risk management such as basis, identification and analysis of risks. The next step is to identify possible risks. Then risks are assessed according to its severity and possible occurrence. Once risks are identified and assessed, treating risks then follows. There are four ways to treat risks: risk avoidance, risk transfer, risk reduction and risk acceptance.

Avoiding risk is when the company opts to avoid going into situations that create risks for them such as buying a property that has problems. Risk transfer is when transferring the risk to another party such as insurance firms. Risk reduction is reducing the extent of the risks such as putting fire extinguishers to minimize risk of loss during fire. Risk acceptance is accepting the risks of loss such as in fortuitous events.

Making Ethics-based Decisions

Entrepreneurship makes ethics-based decision by treating everybody with respect - customers, employees, suppliers. Another way businesses make ethics-based decision is by being responsible. This is reflected by meeting deadlines, performing the assigned tasks well and coming up to expectations. Another business ethic to observe is attaining results through carefully weighed means.

Operating in a Global Environment

Entrepreneurship operates in a global environment by being flexible and knowing its market. It is easy to assume that what works in one works with another. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the international scene. A lot of businesses make the same mistake of adopting same policies at home in promoting their products in another country.

Quality Management in an Entrepreneurship

Fundamentals of business include proper planning, setting up objectives, promoting customer relationship, promoting supplier relationship, dealing with competition and use of accounting.

Knowing all these aspects could greatly facilitate the flow of the business. Managing these aspects well or quality management would spell the difference between success and failure in business. It is also important to know the legal aspects affecting the business and the need to adhere to business ethics.

An entrepreneur needs to know the business fundamentals so it can manage the business well. Fundamentals of business include proper planning, setting up objectives, promoting customer relationship, promoting supplier relationship, dealing with competition and proper use of accounting.

Having a plan and setting up objectives before embarking on a business or during business is essential because it would be hard to provide a direction with which the business will follow without vision.

Customer relationship is very essential to the business. How well you relate to the customers could translate to profits in the income statement. Choosing the target market also falls under this. The target market must reflect the style, image and price point of the product you are selling.

Supplier relationship is important because without suppliers securing raw materials to create the finish product would be impossible. It is always good to establish good rapport with supplier as this would greatly facilitate the production process.

Competition is one of the threats to business. It is important to size up the competition to be able to make your products competitive in the market. Allocating proper resources and taking the time are important requirements to remain competitive.

Accounting is fundamental to business because it enables you to determine how the entrepreneurship fares. Proper accounting methods enable one to have solid basis in making sound management decisions and adopt necessary changes.
Simple financial statements include the following

Balance sheet - this reflects the value of the business. In the balance sheet we find assets, liabilities and the capital invested. The simple equation for balance sheet is Assets = Liabilities + Capital.

Income statement - is also known as the statement of profit and loss. It reflects the financial status of the company whether it is incurring profits or losses. In the income statement sales is deducted with cost of sales to get net income before other income. Other income such as bank interests is then added to get the net income before tax.

Statement of Retained Earnings - this explains the changes in the company's retained earnings for the period. It reflects the profits or losses incurred, dividends paid and the amount retained for future use.

Getting into business is not only a full-time job it is also long-term. Commitment from entrepreneur is critical to the success of the endeavor. Looking at the situation on a long-term basis would enable the company to overcome initial disappointments and the hassles in business. Operating costs involved early on may seem unjustifiable compared to the sales but it pays dividends in the long run.

Commitment is necessary to be able to continue in the face of obvious impediments. Quality management of an entrepreneurship is a method used to make sure that the activities pertaining to design, improve and apply a product or service performs efficiently. The primary role of quality management is to always aim for the quality improvement of the product, service or enterprise.

There are four key methods to do this that could, at the same time, assess the progress of quality improvements. These are:

Plan - create or improve an aspect of the business process for better results
Do - apply the plan and monitor its results
Check - evaluate the measurements used and provide reports on the outcome to the management.
Act - make decisions required to enhance the method.

Disclosive Nature of an Entrepreneur: History-Making Disclosive Practices: Articulations, Cross-Appropriations and Reconfiguration

"Entrepreneurs are in tune with the disclosive nature of human activity in that they establish disclosive spaces held together by particular styles" (Spinosa et al., 1997:68). Critically analyse this statement: what are disclosive spaces and how do they relate to entrepreneurial activity?

"Entrepreneurs are in tune with the disclosive nature of human activity in that they establish disclosive spaces held together by particular styles" (Spinosa et al., 1997:68). The disclosive nature of humans according to Flores (1997) means capacity of a group of people to make history. Entrepreneurial activity encourages disclosive spaces by providing a great avenue or a unique opportunity for people to gather together and create history by being innovative and trail blazers in their fields of expertise.

The major focus on Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores, and Hubert Dreyfus' book entitled Disclosing New Worlds (1997) is the need for social interaction rather than technology. This in turn serves as the starting point of the idea of world disclosure which is also espoused by Heidegger, another adherent to disclosive spaces.

A world is "disclosed" or a disclosive space is defined by Heidegger as the orientation or the view of the person puts reality in perspective and makes it comprehensible to him or her. Our ability to interpret things then is not a specific intellectual activity but provides the very basis of our existence as human beings.

This disclosive nature of humans could be inherited or based from the philosophical teachings Kant. Kant was considered the first constructivist. He espoused the view and fought for the recognition of the constitutive activity of the subject in perception. But he also admitted the finitude of the subject as a being in the middle of other or multitude of beings in the world. How can the finite subject comprise the totality of experience? The apparent irony that exists between an epistemology focusing on human power and an ontology that focuses on human weakness has created debates in philosophy since time immemorial.

Hegel came up with a solution to address this irony which influenced Heidegger. It is main idea expressed in the book Disclosing New Worlds. In this book, there is an acknowledgment that history rather than nature is essentially real and existing which paves the way for the contradicting finitude and constitutive power of human subjects to be reconciled. History is obviously a product from human acts even though humans are also part in the historical world they create. The idea of "disclosure" as both the creation and being mere observer to reality is explained.

Disclosing New Worlds discusses this essential concept within the theory of what it referred to as the history-making practices. The problem tackled in the book is how these activities which are referred to as disclosive activities transform and influences the world we live in. The book leads us to new or different perspectives and attempts to initiate change in our practices to make sense of what is real and important. The book focuses on three main types of history-making disclosive practices which are in accordance to the three main types of historical actors.

History-making disclosive practices are: articulations, cross-appropriations and reconfiguration. "Articulations" re-emphasize the need for a community to focus
on its basic values and practices. This is often manifested or carried out by political leaders. The authors cited John Kennedy's ability to generate public support on the space race by establishing themes such as the new frontier.

"Cross-appropriations" combine together values and practices from different parts of social life in new patterns that change the form of the world we live in. This is apparent in the examples of successful social movements, such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) which aims to change the view on responsible behavior as belonging or a pert of work into the something pleasurable or a part of leisure.

Finally, and most importantly, the third history making disclosive nature described in Disclosing New Worlds is "reconfiguration". Reconfiguration is the process in which a marginal or minor practice is modified or made into a dominant or majority practice. Entrepreneurs serve as the driving force behind reconfiguration, which they achieve or bring about by launching new products that implies or sets new ways of life.

Disclosing New Worlds focuses on this disclosive nature of the entrepreneurs or their ability to bring about change and create history. The authors greatly stressed in the book though that "it is the product or service, not the virtuous life-style of the entrepreneur, that makes the world change..." (Spinosa, et al., 1997: 45).
The need for technology studies is not really delve deeper by the book but it can be gleaned from the examples mentioned that there is a need for interpretative flexibility which could include the need for technology.

Gillette's successful introduction of the disposable razor provides one of the importance case of 'disclosive' capabilities of the entrepreneurs. The traditional straight razor came to symbolize a world in which men cared for and cherished objects of fine craftsmanship. Gillette redefined this sense of masculine relation to objects by adding control and disposability to the traditional razor. It also created an entirely new type of razor.

To put it in another way, there was no pre-existing need for Gillette's sharp razors. "The entrepreneurial question was, What did his annoyance at the dullness mean? Did it mean that he just wanted a better-crafted straight-edge razor that kept its edge longer? Or did he want a new way of dealing with things? We shall argue that genuine entrepreneurs are sensitive to the historical questions, not the pragmatic ones, and that what is interesting about their innovations is that they change the style of our practices as a whole in some domain" (Spinosa, et al., 1997: 42-43).

Style pertains to the very general characteristics of worlds important to the design of artifacts. In this case, Gillette modified style at the same time modified the view on the style which was from respectful to more controlling attitude towards the razor.

"A world, for Heidegger," the authors write, "...is a totality of interrelated pieces of equipment, each used to carry out a specific task such as hammering in a nail. These tasks are undertaken so as to achieve certain purposes, such as building a house. Finally, this activity enables those performing it to have identities, such as being a carpenter" (Spinosa, et al., 1997: 17).

Infant Safe-Haven Laws: Response to Infanticide and Infant Abandonment

Many State legislatures have enacted legislation to address infant abandonment and infanticide in response to a reported increase in the abandonment of infants. One such legislation was enacted in Texas in 1999 called "Baby Moses laws" or infant safe haven laws.

These laws have been enacted as an incentive for mothers in crisis to safely relinquish their babies to designated locations where the babies are protected and provided with medical care until a permanent home is found. Designated locations pertain to police stations, hospitals, rescue squads, and fire houses. These are all typical locations to which the safe haven law applies.

Safe haven laws generally allow the parent, or an agent of the parent, to remain anonymous and to be shielded from prosecution for abandonment or neglect in exchange for surrendering the baby to a safe haven. Currently, there are approximately 47 States and Puerto Rico have enacted safe haven legislation.The focus of these laws is protecting newborns. In approximately 15 States, infants who are 72 hours old or younger may be relinquished to a designated safe haven.

These laws decriminalize the act leaving unharmed infants with statutorily designated private persons so that the child becomes a ward of the state. "Safe Haven" laws typically let parents remain nameless to the court, often using a numbered bracelet system as the only means of linking the baby to the mother. Some States treat safe haven surrenders as child dependency or abandonment, with a complaint being filed for such in juvenile court. The parent either defaults or answers the complaint. Other States treat safe haven surrenders as adoption surrenders, hence a waiver of parental rights.

Depending on the state the age of the baby or child that are accepted into designated safe-haven places could be as little as 72 hours to as old as 18 years old (as in the case of Nebraska). Safe-haven laws have helped infants and children found a home away from home. Without which, they would probably be exposed to environments full of abuses and threats such as in the streets. Safe-haven has provided these vulnerable babies/children who might not have other viable options a chance for better lives.

Business Strategies in a Recession: Strategies: Taking Risks, Resilience and Embracing New Technology

In order to thrive in an uncertain economy, companies must adopt business strategies to weather the storms. These three business strategies in an uncertain economy could help the company survive:

Taking Risks

Risk is the essence of business. Businesses face two kinds of risks : sinking-the-boat risk and missing-the-boat risk. Sinking-the-boat risk means the risk of failure. In an uncertain economy characterized by marked inflation and deflation, some entrepreneurs are having second thoughts about starting a business.

However, another kind of risk called missing-the-boat risk which means foregoing opportunities. By choosing not pursue business endeavors, one could lose golden opportunities for progress. Take for instance, the case of The Access Group and Healthcare Performance Partners, its co-founder Charles Hagood said that they lost numerous opportunities at the start of the business because they were not able to recognize opportunities.

Businesses face both risk of failure and risk of missing an opportunity. By being too cautious, especially during recession, opportunities could slip away. There are a number of markets that are untapped or underserved or with lesser competitors. A weak economy can establish new niches.

For example, when banks foreclose on houses, new businesses restoring foreclosed houses sprout everywhere. Being prudent in choosing opportunities is clearly an important step during recession. The risks maybe higher but the opportunities never diminish.

Resilience

Businesses need to be resilient in order to endure unforeseen difficulties like recession, disasters or terrorist attacks. Resilience pertains to the company's ability to recover from difficulties at an acceptable speed. A resilient company does not only withstand the pressures of business but also acquire a competitive advantage in the process.

Resilient companies have the ability to anticipate problems and resolve these problems to avert potential disastrous results. This is the common characteristic shared by highly resilient companies that last through time. Companies such as Nokia, Dell, Toyota and others exhibit this trait.

Embracing New Technology

Albert Einstein once said that "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Embracing new technology requires that one adopts to the modern way of doing things. Internet technology for instance.

Everybody is using the net now or at least has some knowledge of how to use it. It is to the company's advantage therefore to make use of this technology to advance its interests. Creating a website, using SEO, blogging, social networking - these are but a few things a company can do online to promote its products or services.

A good example of embracing new technology would be HP. Instead of booking a flight to meet with international staffs, executives at HP could choose to use the Halo telepresence studios, a real-time video conferencing system. This would alllow company staffs to conduct meetings with several teams simultaneously in all parts of the world. This technology not only cuts costs but also saves energy and time to travel.

How to Improve Business Through Ideas: Generating New Concepts for Products and Services

Every great achievement in mankind starts with an idea. An idea which the inventor or the thinker believes in totally. Take for instance, Coca Cola. Coca Cola started as an idea from a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia - Dr. John Pemberton in May 1886.

When businessman Asa Candler bought the formula for Coca Cola, sales of the carbonated beverage took off because he had great faith in the product and invested money into it. With Candler's vision and determination, the Coca Cola is now a known brand the world over. As the cliche goes, the rest is history.

How to Generate Ideas

How do these visionaries generate such unique ideas for products and services? Generating ideas for your business is not that difficult. Basically there are four steps to come up with creative ideas:

1. Search for an idea
2. Design value or change information to create new ideas
3. Acceptance of the idea
4. Implementing the idea

Search for an Idea

Generation of an idea requires that you gather as much information as you can in order to come up with several ideas. Collect all data without discrimination even seemingly useless information. Let your curiosity flow freely.

Design Value of Ideas

This pertains to the ability of the ideas to be transformed or designed into new ones. Come up with new ideas based on the information collected. Take the case, for instance, of this 21-year old British student, Alex Tew who came up with a unique idea of making a website that sells a million pixels at $1 each.

Tew wanted to go to college but could not afford the £30,000 tuition fee. So one night, he brainstormed for ideas that could bring in money. Since he has some ideas on graphics and websites, he came up with the idea of selling pixels. He launched the website August 2005 and months later he earned $1 million. Tew merely changed old information to come up with new ideas. And the innovation paid off big time for him.

Acceptance of an Idea

The acceptance of an idea stage is when you choose which of the ideas is the best then try it out for yourself. Acceptance is at the point when you manufacture the item and actually sell it to test the customers' reactions. Acceptance by the customer is a necessary ingredient in the acceptance stage. Take for instance McDonald's.

When it first started to serve breakfast, the idea did not take off immediately. It lost money for four years. This is because customers were accustomed to taking breakfast at home. Later, customers began accepting the idea of having breakfast in McDonald's and now it is one of the most profitable segment of the company.
However, to wait for four years for customers to accept your product would require a lot of financial resources and confidence in the business idea. The creative design process often requires that the new idea is at all levels because it would be difficult to introduce something that others are not sure of.

Implementing the Idea

Implementation stage would be to make the new idea or concept or product a part of the company is offering. This is past the acceptance or test stage. When the idea is able to pass the test and is gaining acceptance then the next move would be to implement it continuously. This is the point when the company makes a choice to continue the idea or abandon it altogether. In order for the idea to be successful, it must offer value to the customers.

At the same time, implementers must see to it the the expected value of the idea is realized in the market place. The four steps enumerated would definitely help any business come up with new unique ideas that could differentiate them from competitors and give them an edge. In times of economic difficulties, these edge could spell the difference between survival and untimely demise of the business.

Career Paths Within TV Industry

TV and where it originates, Hollywood, is fascinating place to be in. The TV Industry offers a number of opportunities to those interested to play a part in it.

Job Opportunities in the TV Industry

Working in television may sound glamorous but this industry also offers a number of pitfalls. Preparation is the key. Experience is the best way to get your foot in the door. Meeting the right people would hasten your chances of getting to the top.

TV Industry is about common sense at the same time preserving your creative talents. Cold logic sometimes go ahead of deep feelings. It isn't enough that you are talented, you need to have strategies to get to where you want to go too. These are just few of the potential career paths in the television industry:

Performing Jobs and the Sociological Variables

Actors, dancers, singers, musicians, and models, magicians, chefs and so many others are but a few of the talents required by the TV industry. All sorts of performers are welcome as long as they up the tv ratings. There are a number of sociological factors that come into play when considering this career path.

One is education. Although it is not necessary to be equipped with a college degree but an educational background in acting would most certainly help. Another is sociological variable is skill.

A multi-skilled actor would most likely have more job opportunities in the tv industry than someone, let's say, who does not know how to ride a horse or drive a race car.

Competition is another sociological variable. For every role, there are hundreds if not thousands of actors vying for that role. In order to, at least, cope with competition it is important for performers to have a lot of exposure to gain the attention and nod of TV industry's bigwigs.

Development and Production

For television industry, development and production jobs include people who give the approval, develop, and oversee the project (producers and production executives) to those who implement its physical and creative aspects (set designers, location scouts, costume designers, makeup artists) to those who shoot, edit, and refine the finished product (directors, engineers, film editors, special effects and animation specialists).

Television stations require film editors, sound engineers, and program directors- production and engineering. Most people who choose this career path would take the production assistant or assistant in the art department to break into the TV industry. Being a production assistant would enable you to learn about every aspect of a production.

Writing Jobs

Another vehicle to get into the TV industry is writing. Screenwriters create teleplays, television writers write sitcom episodes, reality show scripts, and newscasts, and songwriters pen musical lyrics. Competition is really stiff in this area. Only a few could secure full-time positions with studios or on specific TV shows. Many more write independently and try to land an agent to have better chances of getting their work into production.

Talent Management

Talent managers represent stars to do a host of activities for them from negotiating deals, helping them improve personally, and promoting them as desirable commodities and other stuffs. Every actors, singers, and models acquire the services of agents to be able to start work.

These agents get their clients booked by dealing with the producers, casting directors, and other professionals. There may be numerous opportunities in the TV industry but the people who want to get in number more. With so many creative, determined people wanting to break into the industry, the TV industry demands only the best.

The TV Industry Culture: TV Goes Digital

The TV Industry culture is highly competitive. It is first and foremost a business. People especially performers who are seen as capable of generating a lot of money for the TV company are considered at the top of the food chain. Where you live and who you know sometimes go ahead of ability and talent. These are the critical places to be in:

Hollywood: the center of the entertainment world. To find work in a major or minor outfit in the television industry, you need to live as close to Hollywood or L.A.

New York: New York offers a number of possibilities particularly for those who want to make independent film and get into the music scene.

Other Places: Orlando, Florida; Montana; Colorado and Seattle, Washington. More actors and producers are spread all over the US. Orlando, Florida has five studios including Universal Studios, Disney MGM. Atlanta has Turner Broadcasting.

The TV Industry Culture Fierce competition: it doesn't matter where you want to be in the TV industry - behind the camera or in front of it, onstage or off, the TV industry is extremely competitive. Even internships in production or art departments are very competitive and are rare.

Screen Actors Guild (SAG) alone, the industry's major labor union, has an estimated 120,000 performers. Compare this number to the celebrities who actually made it big. That's how competitive the TV and movie industry.

Low pay: Working in the TV industry pays huge dividends if you are famous or your skills are sought after. However if you are just starting out, it is not unusual to see starving artists living on a pay to pay basis. Internships or assistantships oftentimes do not pay or pay so little.

Emerging TrendsWith the advent of computer and internet technology, advancements in the TV industry have been introduced further bolstering its media power. Creators of TV programs find themselves either aided or competing with Internet, digital video, and media-on-demand.

TV Industry Goes Digital

The twentieth and early twenty-first century saw a number of technological revolution that helped spurred TV's popularity. iTunes, YouTube, blogging, podcasts provide new methods of viewing and sharing content. TV industry has to cope with the challenges posed by these technological advancements. Adapting to evolving technologies and maintain consumer loyalty are probably two of the greatest challenges TV industry has to face in this day and age.

Sometimes, people find it easier and cheaper to just download songs from the net instead of tuning in to MTV or buying CD's. To cope with this, TV industry has to join the digital bandwagon. ABC, for instance, is offering recent reruns of its most popular shows online for free.

Film directors and editors must keep themselves abreast with the latest developments in video-editing programs. Even blogs affected the industry as popular bloggers can deliver commentaries that can help or put down a TV show.

Digital film has practically revolutionized the way TV shows are produced. Technical expertise in editing and special effects are becoming more and more important with the proliferation of video avenues. The digital age does not only create more competition but also offers more opportunities and demand for the TV industry.

World Recessions: Recessions between the 1970s and the 1990s

A recession is one or more consecutive years of negative real GDP growth. The opposite of recession is expansion where there a year or more of positive growth is experienced.

The world economy has experienced significant slowdown in the early 1990s. Business cycles are always present in market-oriented economies. Arthur Burns (1947) wrote: "For well over a century, business cycles have run an unceasing round. They have persisted through vast economic and social changes; they have withstood countless experiments in industry, agriculture, banking, industrial relations, and public policy; they have confounded forecasters without number, belied repeated prophecies of a "new era of prosperity" and outlived repeated forebodings of "chronic depression. The same observations could be made today" (World Economic Outlook, 2002).

Business cycles are important in determining the levels of recession in a country"s economy. It is defined as recurring chain of growth and recessions in the level of economic activity. It also means cyclical rise and fall in economic activity around a trend particularly its growth cycle, where the growth rates are high and level recessions are rare (World Economic Outlook, 2002).

Business cycles in industrial countries after 1973 are characterized by lower growth rates and common level recessions. Growth cycles depend on subjective distinction between trend and cycle, and key cyclical characteristics depend largely on which detrending method is used. Level cycles can also be determined using output per capita, which is a better measure of welfare and clearly recognizes that high growth rates of output are sometimes caused by rapid population growth. In practice, output per capita recessions in industrial countries after 1973 were similar to output recessions, as population growth rates were generally low (World Economic Outlook, 2002).

Business cycles in industrial countries from 1973 to 2000 have generally milder recessions and longer period of growth or expansions; synchronized recessions are a common feature of the international and historical experience; and investment is playing a larger role in recessions now than in the late nineteenth century.

Analysis indicates that investment contractions and stock price declines are more synchronized than recessions; that investment contractions make important contributions to recessions but upturns in consumption tend to drive recoveries; and that cycles in interest rates and output in G-7 countries are closely related (World Economic Outlook, 2002).

There are four distinct periods of recession as indicated by the business cycles. These four are divided by major world events: the prewar period before World War I (1881-1913); the interwar period between the World Wars (1919-38); the Bretton Woods period between World War II and the productivity slowdown, the oil shocks, and the move to generalized floating of exchange rates in the early 1970s (1950-1972); and the post--Bretton Woods period (1973-2000) (World Economic Outlook, 2002).

The American National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession more ambiguously as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months" (Wikipedia, 2007).

Building Your Company Brand

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA) a brand is a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers".

A good brand should be able to meet the following objectives:

* Convey the message clearly
* Validate your credibility
* Relate to your target prospects in the emotional aspect
* Encourage the buyer
* Creates User Loyalty

In branding, it is essential that the needs and wants of the business' customers and prospects should be taken into consideration.

A strong brand is important to remain competitive. Time should be invested in researching, defining, and building the company's brand. It should be given due importance since the brand serves as the focal point of the company's marketing communication.

Skoda makes use of branding to be able to develop into a powerhouse. Advertising has made its brand widely perceived as a car that offers great value of money. Due to this, car sales have increased speedily through the years. The proper branding and the appropriate perception it created on its target market allowed Skoda to rise from the multitude and a company to watch in the future.

At the opposite end of the pole we see recovering megabrands M&S, Sainsburys and Burberry that suffered reversal of fortune from once being at the top of food chain to acquiring losses.

The brands are perceived to be VFM or those that provide value for money. Unfortunately the perceived value for money changed and standards were seen to be deteriorating for the three companies. It became apparent among surveys conducted within the companies and outside, from customers. Another fatal error was the top managers were not able to take swift action to address the matter. Good thing though that they were able to wake up just in time before M&S, Sainsbury and Burberry sank to the bottom.

This serves as a lesson to those who want to embark on business to stay alert to customers and employees feedback.

Advertising campaigns made by Gap designed to increase Hollywood celebrity excitement into the Gap's floundering brand image did not go as expected. This, according to industry analysts and the retailer's own decreasing sales show.
Conclusions/Recommendations

Embarking on business venture is a huge undertaking for a first-timer. Therefore, every step, every decision matters and should be weighed carefully. There is a huge market which could possibly translate to more sales and profit waiting for the business.

The local and international market opens a lot of opportunities at the same time but it is also laden with a number of risks for a business. Going into business is no small feat. It is not something to take lightly. For a business to succeed it requires an amalgamation of factors - effort, money and time.

Learning how to maintain competitiveness also enables the company to acquire necessary rudiments to keep their advantage at the local market. To be successful, the best strategy for the company would be to weigh risks against the possible benefits.

Renaissance Art: Different Periods of Renaissance

Renaissance is the French equivalent of the Italian word rinascita which means "rebirth". This is period of European history from early 14th century to late 16th century.

Cultural rebirth was the central characteristic of the Renaissance. There is a marked revival of the values and artistic styles of classical antiquity during the period particularly in Italy. Giovanni Boccaccio in the 14th century defined Renaissance as the collective Italian efforts to imitate the poetic style of the ancient Romans. In 1550 the art historian Giorgio Vasari coined the term rinascita (rebirth) to refer to the imitation of the ancient Roman method of painting by Giotto di Bondone at the start of the 14th century.

Renaissance: Italy

The "rebirth" of art in Italy was brought about by the rediscovery of ancient philosophy, literature, and science and the changes of empirical methods of study in these fields. The evolution of Italian Renaissance art was an evolving process but it is divided into three major phases: Early, High, and Late Renaissance. The

Early Renaissance

The principal members of the first generation of Renaissance artists - Donatello in sculpture, Filippo Brunelleschi in architecture, and Masaccio in painting. Early Renaissance artists create art forms that imitates the physical appearance of the natural world and in consonance with their experience of human personality and behavior.

Early Renaissance pertains to all the art of the 15th century. In 1450, a new generation of artists such as Pollaiuolo and Sandro Botticelli flourished in Florence. Leon Battista Alberti's work in Rimini and Mantua represented the best architecture of the new Humanism; Andrea Mantegna's paintings in Padua showcases linear perspective, antiquarianism, and realistic technique; and Giovanni Bellini's portrays poetic classicism.

The High Renaissance

The art of the High Renaissance sought a general, unified effect of pictorial representation or architectural composition exuding dramatic force and physical presence. The High Renaissance style endured for only a brief period (c.1495-1520) and was created by a few artists of genius, among them Leonardo da Vinci, Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian.

The Late Renaissance

In 1527, Rome was sacked which hindered the progress of Italian art. Artists were forced to leave and settle in other parts in Italy, France, and Spain. Some early proponents of Mannerism, were Jacopo Carucci Pontormo, Parmigianino, and Rosso Fiorentino.

The mannerism style however were expressed extremely in the work of Giorgio Vasari and Giovanni da Bologna. Mannerism was an aesthetic movement that placed importance on refined grace and elegance -the beautiful maniera, or style, from which Mannerism derives its name. The Renaissance period is characterized by radical and comprehensive changes that took place in European culture leading to the end of the Middle Ages as it makes its transition to the modern world.

A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester

“A World Lit Only By Fire” by William Manchester paints a clear portrait of an era that spans the Medieval & the Renaissance or the Middle Ages. William Manchester was able to craft a woven tale of a civilization undergoing a painful transition, teetering on the cusps of grandeur and the eventual realization of the dream. The Medieval allows us to savor exquisite tales of chivalrous knights at the same time exposed us to the grim barbaric laws during the times such as trial by ordeal.

The Middle Ages despite being depicted as a brutal period as embodied by the Medieval offered a number of redeeming qualities as attested by the heroic accomplishments of the people in the era paving the way for the great age of Renaissance. Thus proving, nobility knows no age. In Renaissance we saw the rise and huge concentration of talented poets, philosophers, painters, artists and reformers coupled with the most astonishing villains.

“History is not a random sequence of unrelated events. Everything affects and is affected by everything else.” Nowhere is this truer than in the Medieval. The book is set towards the end of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance roughly from 400 -1500 AD. Europe was plunged in utter chaos towards the end of the Medieval Age up to the Renaissance. The Greco-Roman Empire though was highly prominent during that time.

Christianity was at the core of the conflict because of the wrongful interpretation of the Christian dogmas by people in authority such as popes and kings. The aristocracy was characterized as flawed, greedy, incestuous and other negative depictions. Most people particularly those belonging to the lower class were ignorant, very poor, unhealthy even savage. Warlords attacked each other to increase their lands. And if that was not enough, execution was constantly implemented and death for those executed did not come swiftly. Burning at the stake, slash, beheadings and other gory and extreme measures were adopted. Martin Luther, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicolus Copernicus, Sir Thomas Moore, Erasmus were some of the elite thinkers during the time who all met untimely and gruesome death such as murder or assassinations.

Based largely on his research, Manchester was able to compile a detailed, information-rich book that plunges the readers into the medieval mind-set. The broad span of the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance which is the setting of the book provided a varied and riveting tale to the avid reader. Manchester delineates the age when invisible spirits ruled the air, when tolerance was viewed as treachery and “a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity.'' It does not only delve on the tough lives of ordinary people, Manchester, a Wesleyan professor of history, was able to depict the lives of great people as well whose voices still echoed to this day. Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn fill the pages of the book. He described Martin Luther as the “the most anal of theologians . . . this derived from the national character of the Reich''. Manchester (The Arms of Krupp) focuses attention to Magellan, who disproved Christendom's belief that Europe is the center of the universe. Manchester describes the transition of the Medieval, "shackled in ignorance, disciplined by fear, and sheathed in superstition," into the Renaissance even with the famous villains such as Cesare Borgia and Torquemada. Manchester’s depiction of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd prospered, while the creative, the dreamer, the thinker and the unfortunate suffered, resonates even to this day.

“A World Lit Only By Fire” is an absorbing and fascinating read. Instead of arranging the sequence of events by chronological order as historical books wont to do, Manchester takes the reader through subject by subject. It begins with the author’s explanation of the Medieval mind and how it came to be. Manchester addresses every probable facet of life during the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods. Aside from recalling the defining moments of the time and portraying the lives of prominent people, he is able to vividly illustrate the main characteristics of the Medieval period starting from the way people dress, their eating habits, beliefs, and living conditions of all classes, ranging from peasantry to nobility. The book ends with a section dedicated to the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, telling of his voyage to travel all over the globe and how his voyages effectively quelled the erroneous Catholic dogma that promoted Europe as the center of the universe. It ushered in an era of enlightenment, changed Western man’s view of the world and proved beyond doubt that the world is round. Consequently, these changes brought an end to the medieval era and its way of thinking.

Manchester managed to deviate from the traditional way of presenting history which is narrating events in a chronological order, that is, year after year after year until the period covered is fully covered. Manchester’s “A World Lit Only By Fire” is done differently. He does not utilize the chronological order in his writing. He starts with one aspect of the Medieval period and traces its way back in time and forward until the topic is exhausted. It would have made the book utterly confusing if Manchester was not able to effectively combine and associate one event from the other. Manchester was able to present a fascinating tale of the close association of the seemingly differing aspects of the Medieval era. He himself pointed this out in the beginning of his book "each event [leads] inexorably to another, then another..." (pg. XV).

Manchester expresses his ideas in a clear and easy manner. He is also able to express his personal views on history without getting across as vicious. He may have his biases but he remains objective in presenting the facts all throughout. He has the ability to stick to details religiously which could be a factor in making his book a cut above the rest of history books.

“A World Lit Only By Fire” is comprehensive and presents history into a fantastic tale not boring narration which makes it all the more enjoyable. For those who take pleasure in learning about Europe particularly the Middle Ages, this book comes highly recommended.


Works Cited:
“A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester.” Barnes and Noble.com. 2005. Accessed on April 7, 2006 from
“A World Lit Only by Fire : The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance - Portrait of an Age (Paperback).” Amazon.com. 2006. Accessed on April 7, 2006 from

What is Recession: When Do Economic Woes Become a Depression

Recession is a decline in economic activity as measured by the GDP for at least two quarters. This decline cycle usually lasts for a few months. Several indicators of weak economic performance are reflected in the results of real GDP growth, real personal income, employment (non-farm payrolls), industrial production and wholesale-retail sales (NBER).

When Recession Turns to a Depression

Depression, on the other hand, is long-term recession. If the recession drags on beyond months and reaches years then it is no longer mere recession. It is an economic depression. The worst thing that could happen is if the depression could not recover then progresses into economic collapse. Former US President Ronald Reagan's 1980 Labor Day speech provided a humorous metaphor to this dilemma: "A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours." What Happens When there is a Recession When recession occurs, the economy of the entire country, of course, will be affected. Recession causes various effects.

Effects of Recession

1. Company losses/closures - in a recession, businesses are the ones affected the most. Most companies would be experiencing losses and some unlucky few would be forced to declare bankruptcy. Companies experience losses because demands for their products go down. There is a marked drop in spending particularly on mundane products as most people would be saving their money for the rainy days.

2. Job losses - A natural side effect of company closures would be unemployment. Thousands, if not millions, would be laid off by these affected companies. Unemployment rates soar. Economists pegged a 1.5% rise in the unemployment rate within the 12 months as an indication of recession.

3. Real Estate declines - demand for real estate also declines since fewer investors would most likely invest in real estate during a recession. Foreclosures would oftentimes occur as buyers will not be able to pay for their houses.

4. Credit crunches - loans are difficult to avail of. With banks feeling the pinch, lending or borrowing money would be even harder.

5. Deflation - this is when the supply of money decreases and supply of goods goes up. In simpler terms it means falling prices of commodities. In a recession, there is also a sustained decrease in the price level of goods and services.

Deflation is caused by a change in the supply and demand curve for goods. During recession there is significant fall of demand since decrease in the willingness to buy is also noted. This affects the price of goods.

Consumers then have the luxury of waiting until the prices decline even further since they can delay purchases and consumption. The result is the value of money is greater before recession occurs because for same amount of money, more goods can be bought.

6. Inflation - if there is falling prices of commodities during recession, one can also note prices of some commodities climbing higher. This is inflation. Since the value of the currency such as the dollar devaluates then prices of food or energy could go up, resulting in inflation. The difference between recession and depression depends largely the severity and length of the economic downturn.

Italy's Economy: Applying Porter's Diamond Model to Italy

Italy is ranked as the seventh largest economy in the world in 2006 after United States, Japan, Germany, China, UK and France. Italy mainly trades with the European Union member-countries with 59% of its exports.

The major industries in Italy revolve around precision machinery, motor vehicles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electric goods, food, fashion and clothing. Italy's economic strength lies in processing and manufacturing of goods from small and medium size firms.

Tourism is a major industry in Italy. At least 37 million tourists flock to Italy each year, making the country the fifth biggest tourist destination in the world. The Italian economy has two parts: the progressive and industrialized North and the agricultural South hounded by high unemployment rates. Italy's economic policy is created to decrease government budget deficits and controlling national debt.

Porter's Diamond Model of Italy

1. Firm Strategy, Structure and Rivalry - these are the conditions that affect corporations in the home market. In Italy, competition or rivalry among small and medium-sized companies is cut-throat. Italy's market is largely dominated by small and medium-sized family-owned companies instead of huge corporations.

2. Demand Conditions - this is the extent and nature of demand for products or services within Italy. Italy's consumer market is sophisticated. It has a number of industrial buyers that put pressure on industrial companies. Demand for quality is also noted in the service industries such as hotels and restaurants.

3. Related Supporting Industries - these are industries that make the country competitive internationally. Italy's economic strength lies in processing and manufacturing of goods which are produced by small and medium size firms. Italy also excels in the production of industrial machinery. It is the third biggest producer of industrial machineries after Germany and Japan.

Italy's major exports are motor vehicles such as Fiat Group, Aprilia, Ducati, Piaggio. It also exports chemicals, petrochemicals and electric goods such as Eni, Enel and Edison. The most famous exports are fashion apparels and items. Armani, Gucci, Valentino, Versace, Bennetton, Prada are the most popular fashion brands in the world. Luxury vehicles such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, Pagani and Maserati also make Italy extremely famous.

4. Factor Conditions -are key factors that help the country remain competitive. The specialized key factors are: skilled labor, capital and infrastructure. Skilled Labor Unemployment in Italy is decreasing to 7.7% in 2007, the lowest since 1992. Women and young people mostly comprise the unemployed.

After passing flexibility measures, unemployment burdens ease up a bit but concerns on increase of working hours and less job security arise. The largely agricultural Southern Italy still copes with 20% unemployment problems though.

The latest population estimate for Italy is 59,131,287 residents. Of which, according to CIA Factbook, the literacy rate of Italians in 2001 is 98.4% of the total population. Italy's Capital Outlay Italy supports free international trade. The Italian government provides incentives such as tax reduction or project financing in some Italian regions specifically the South to counter unemployment problems.

Foreign investors find considerable opportunities in the financial sector particularly foreign banks and insurance. Communications is another viable field for investment in Italy. Infrastructure The Italian government is focusing on improving its infrastructures to be able to serve the business community better.

Bridges, high-speed railway line, transportation projects, tunnels beneath mountains, roads and others are but a few of Italy's infrastructure projects. Rome wants the EU to allow spending for its infrastructure to be exempted from the budget deficit limits and not be regulated by the Stability Pact.

Reality Television: Benefits of Reality TV

The Television Industry is an integral part of the entertainment industry. TV is most widely used telecommunication medium. It is considered the main source of entertainment and news.

Reality Television

Reality television is a genre of television programming. It is different from other tv programs because it is unscripted, depicts real-life situations, documents actual events, and features ordinary people not professional actors. This genre has been around since the early years of television but reality television is often associated with programs produced since 2000.

Documentaries and nonfictional programming such as news and sports shows are not classified as reality shows. Reality television offers a wide range of programming formats, from game or quiz shows to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as Big Brother.

The contestants are sometimes coached to act in certain ways possibly to up the audience rate. Events on screen are sometimes manipulated or edited to get the maximum effect. Some scenes are deliberately cut to offer more surprises or elicit more responses from the public.

In this so-called reality, it is often hard to determine how much of it, if any, is actually real. Producers seem to give more importance to good copy. Editing what actually transpired in the show becomes a liability to the truth.

Benefits of Reality TV

There are numerous benefits derived from reality tv. Reality TV, for instance, features ordinary people not known personalities. The money paid to people in reality shows come in the form of prizes unlike professional actors who received vast amount for their appearances.

Aside from lower costs of producing, reality TV also does not offer repeats. Some scripted shows would feature repeats instead of continuous story lines. Most of the reality shows feature original material and would not show repeats since that would destroy the continuity of the program.

However, some reality shows do have reruns. Encores of reality shows are often shown in marathon format. This is because it would be useless to show it in weekly episodes considering the winner is already announced.

To solve this dilemma, tv producers opted to run the show in its entirety in one setting. Often this reality marathon is shown not for ratings but to generate excitement for the show's succeeding season.

Another contention for reality tv is that the audience need not contend with lackluster story lines too like in some scripted materials. Some reality shows may not add much value to the viewers' lives except for a few laughs but more often these shows offer audience perspectives on lives based on people we could relate to. If properly utilized, these perspectives could help overcome emotional, mental or psychological problems.

These reality shows also offer viewers escape to reality. If things appear to be painful, watching the reality shows give them the diversion they needed. It is sort of safe haven against the onslaughts of thoughts of terrorism and war, personal problems and job pressures.

The difference with casting bigger-than-life people in scripted shows and reality shows is basically that the former is a kind of escapist entertainment. Reality programming on the other hand is more like a catharsis. This is because viewers witness actual, real-life events unfolding. They are able to observe the show's personalities and able to identify with the characters that best reflect their values.

Also, comparing these characters with the people in their surroundings offer them deeper insight into how other people think and act. The TV industry and the public also stand to gain from reality shows because the scriptwriters and all other people involved with the production are forced to produce only the best materials in order to compete with low-budgeted reality shows.

Reality shows that truly feature relevant issues, have substance and not based on fads are actually beneficial. These shows do not only tackle weighty issues but also provide the viewers some good laugh. Reality TV has changed the way the public view the TV industry as a whole.

“Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller and “True West” by Sam Sheppard

Comparisons of characters Biff and Happy in “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller and Austin and Lee in the play “True West” by Sam Sheppard.

Biff and Happy in “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller and Austin and Lee in the play “True West” by Sam Sheppard

Summaries

In “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, Willy Loman is the father of two, Biff and Happy, who is at the twilight of his career life as a traveling salesman. He is sixty years old and mulling on retirement but his present career does not permit him. He has been recently demoted to a strictly commissions salesman, a position he holds at the start of his career as a young man.

Due to his predicament, he looks back at his past life to answer the questions which baffled him. How did he come to this? Where did he go wrong? His brains rack back and forth as he searches for answers.

He realized that he has not been exactly the ideal salesman. Willy always thought that being popular is the key to attaining success. It is not what you know but whom you know that matters to him. He shuns hard work and frowns on integrity – things which every morally upright salesman should strive for.

As the end draws near for him, he realizes his errors. He looks back with regret on how he was deaf to the advices his brother Ben once showered on him. Ben is wealthy at the age of twenty-one.

Willy tries to show his sons the how-to’s in attaining success. Early on, he prepares Biff, the eldest, for success and excellence in the business world. In his desire to teach them, he creates a make-believe world where he appears to be respected, admired and successful businessman. Willy wants to earn the love and respect of his family by creating a web of deception. To some extent, Willy is trying to salvage some remnants of respect for himself. He even believes his own deception and is convinced of his own importance just as he convinces his boys. When the stark reality confronts him however and his illusions are contradicted, his life slowly crumbles.

The truth strikes him like a blow and wakes him up to harsh realities. He knows he is a dismal failure. And his greatest failure is turning his sons into copies of him. He taught his sons the wrong way. Biff becomes a bum who cannot stay in a job and ends up as a farmhand in the West. Happy, on the other hand, is the assistant’s assistant who has a blown-up concept of self-importance. Willy knew that he brought them up in the wrong way hence the reason for their mediocre lives.

When Biff was younger, he was close to Willy. Things changed though when growing up Willy felt disappointed in Biff for not coming up to his expectations. Given the situation he was in, it was hard for Biff to achieve anything without the proper guidance. Willy instead encourages Biff to strive for popularity. Biff was taught not to work hard or to take orders from anyone. Willy also encourages his boys to steal. Consequently, Biff fails immensely in his jobs. Worse, he often gets into trouble due to stealing. He jumps from one job to another. When Biff goes home, he realizes that he is not as important as he thinks himself to be. That he is just an ordinary guy who cannot survive the business world.

He further learns that he is at his element when he is honest to himself. This serves as an impetus for Biff to be on the path towards self-discovery. The values which he learns from Willy become useless and he needs to embark on a drastic and painful transition. Biff wants to reveal the lies Willy taught them for years. Willy of course is adamant. His pride is at stake. After several arguments, Biff chooses to leave his father for good. He realizes that he will never come up to his father’s expectations nor will he persuade Willy to face reality.

Willy becomes unemployed and wearied by life’s struggles. He has aged not only in appearance but more so in spirit. He wants to prove to Biff that he was not an utter failure after all. His disillusionment reaches a notch higher when he decides that he will achieve the much sought-after redemption if he kills himself so Biff can use the insurance money to start a business. He likes to believe that because of what he believes as his heroic and unselfish act, Biff will regard him as a hero and learns to appreciate his father. That his success is real and his funeral will be grand, attended by many of his customers in New England.

But things are not meant to work out for Willy in life more so in death. The insurance that he hoped to give to Biff does not include suicide. The grand funeral he wished for is attended only by his family and two neighbors. The legacy Willy left, in the end, is a broken spirit characterized by dismal failure.

“True West” by Sam Sheppard is another tale depicting the sons’ struggles. In the story the father is hardly ever mentioned. But the impact he has on his sons’ lives is where the story revolves.

True West is the captivating tale of two grown brothers who attempt to work out the details of their sibling rivalry while gulping down a ridiculous amount of beer in their mother’s kitchen. It explores intensely a tortured familial relationship.

Austin and Lee are the brothers featured in “True West”. At the start of the story, the brothers are depicted as people totally opposite from each other like day and night. But as the story progresses, their similarities become more pronounce.

Austin, although ten years younger than Lee, is perceived to be the more mature and goal-oriented one. He is driven by his ambition to become a scriptwriter in Hollywood at the same time his ambition confuses him. He wears glasses and works hard to succeed.

That is why their mother did not hesitate to put Austin in charge of her Southern California home while she goes on tour to Alaska. Austin wears neat white clothes. He does not use the slang words Lee uses. Austin takes after his mother who is conservative middle-class person who lives with family. Just like his mother, Austin observes the traditional life of the new West.

Lee is the opposite of his brother when it comes to physical and mental aspects. He is drunk most of the time. He has bad teeth. He looks untidy with his dusty clothes. His accent is slurred by a slang. He does not have a stable job or a family to go home to. He is a drifter. He earns money by taking part in illegal dog fights. He takes after his father who abandons his family and follows the life of a vagabond by going to the Mojave desert. Unlike Austin and mother who loathe his father, Lee worships his father like a hero. Lee chooses a rebel life just like his father and lives at the desert too.

Austin and Lee refer to their father as the Old Man. Both barely know their father as he left them when they were young.

At the start of the story, Austin is found in his mother’s kitchen attempting to write a screenplay and housesitting for his mother at the same time when his older brother decides to drop by from his frequent wanderings from the desert. Lee constantly disrupts his brother’s Austin writing. Austin is an aspiring writer who dreams of clinching a Hollywood movie deal later. It is easy to see how troubled the relationship is between the two brothers. Despite their mutual dislike, it is easy to see that deep down they really admire each other’s dissimilarities. And what appeared to be their differences actually stems from their fundamental similarities.

Tension builds as Lee insists on helping Austin with his screenplay, but reaches epic proportions after a schmoozing round of golf during which the straight-laced Austin scores fewer points with the schmooze target than Lee does. Just as Austin is on the verge of exploding, Lee stares him down and taps the frames of his glasses threateningly with one of his golf clubs.

Both brothers despite their obvious dissimilarities are actually seeking for appreciation and a better life. Their methods of pursuing their goals may differ. Austin tries to cope by keeping his desires hidden and being reserved. Lee, on the other hand, is more loud and expressive.

As the play unfolds later, both realize that their lives are not exactly what they want it to be. Lee wants to become a writer just like Austin and land a movie deal. He realizes the endless possibilities if he could sell his ideas to Kimmer. The bigger surprise though is when Austin realizes that he wants to be like Lee. He even begs his brother to take him to the desert. Each influences the other to become the opposite of who they are.

When their mother arrives from her trip earlier than schedule because she misses all her plants, she is aghast to find her kitchen and alcove all messed up, her plants all dead, a number of stolen toasters on her table and a typewriter shattered on the floor. She finds Austin on the floor fighting with Lee. He almost kills him. Mom does not seem to find the whole situation terrifying until Austin declares his intention to leave his family and goes off to the desert. Another surprise awaits her though when Lee also announces that his script is sold and he clinches a deal. The role reversal seems to have taken mom more off-guard than the plight of her kitchen that she mumbles “this is worse than being homeless”.

Mom is certain that the “disease” that once afflicted their father has now passed on to them. It was simply beyond her grasps that Lee, whom she thought would amount to nothing just like his father, would sell a script to Hollywood in just a matter of few days. The ever-reliable Austin, whom she sees as mentally and emotionally stable, wants to give up family and career to be able to live with his brother in the desert. Mom believes that the curse of the father is now in his sons. The role reversal is proof to that. This sudden change destroys the stability of the identity mom cherishes.

The role reversal though is seen by the brothers as liberation of their true self and the attainment of their dreams. Due to the reversal of their roles, the brothers need each other for support as they now become strangers to their own worlds.

At the start, Austin believes that his world is the true world and not Lee’s. As he convinces Saul to choose his script as the one that depicts the truth he explains: “I swallow the smog. I watch the news in color. I shop in the Safeway. I’m the one who’s in touch.” Later on, Austin realizes that he desires the life Lee leads. The struggle of the brothers continues as they tackle their new-found dreams. The play comes to an abrupt end in the middle of the brothers’ fight.

 

Similarities

In both stories, the influence of fathers is markedly present and is manifested even to the point of duplicated in the way of life of their sons.

In the case of Biff and Happy in the play “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller, the sons’orientation to an easy and lazy sort of existence early on in life teaches them to dislike hard work as a means of attaining success. Being popular and well-liked are the more important traits than hard work needed to get ahead in life as their father, Willy Loman, taught them. This proves to be false, of course. Willy unfortunately also taught them to steal which further aggravates their problems later on in their career life.

As expected, Biff and Happy do not attain the success their father Willy hoped from them which was frustrating on their sides because they were not actually equipped with the right attitude and skills for success due to their own father’s erroneous way of bringing them up.

Austin and Lee in the play “True West” by Sam Sheppard barely know their father because he abandoned them when they were little. Austin being the more mature yet younger brother was able to attain a respectable level of success through hard work and his conservative ways. He has a wife and kids. From the way the play is told, we can safely assume that Austin is a good father and provider too. He does not rest on his laurels and strives to do better by writing scripts and hoping to clinch a movie deal.

Lee, on the other hand, is a free-spirit who likes his father wanders to the desert and live there most of the time and pays his mother a visit every now and then. Lee lives by participating in illegal dog fights.

The negative influences of their fathers seem to result in mediocre achievements in their lives except perhaps for Austin who has managed to break from the mold at the start of the story. Later though, as the roles reversed Lee manages to clinch the Hollywood deal Austin strongly desires at first. And Austin decides to give up family and career to live with his brother in the desert.

The bad examples the sons see from their fathers serve as the impetus for change later such as in the case of Biff who openly criticizes his father’s unscrupulous ways. It also enables Lee to find better use of his and his experiences by coming up with a realistic script that enables him to land a movie deal.

 

Differences

The main difference I see between the two plays is that Biff and Happy in the play “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller were consciously and deliberately taught by their father to attain success in twisted sort of way. Austin and Lee in “True West” by Sam Shepard, on the other hand, learn everything on their own without the guidance of a father since they were abandoned at an early age. Of course, the absence of a paternal figure denies them a role model that could have influenced them in a positive way hence the errors they consequently committed. Austin and Lee’s father though does not deliberately lead them astray the way Biff and Happy’s dad did.

Another difference is that while Biff and Happy become typical examples of maladjusted individuals of society, Austin and Lee somehow lead normal lives although quite deviant for Lee. Austin and Lee lead lives that are more morally upright and at least, acceptable in society than Biff and Happy.

The negative influence of Bill and Happy’s father reduce them to scoundrels and undesirables in society. Austin and Lee may not really exhibit the perfect examples of respectability but they do not have issues of morality either unlike the other two.