Reviews (1)

Transforming the American Dream into Reality
America is called the Land of Opportunity because people of all backgrounds are given a chance at advancement through education and hard work, but these opportunities are not available to all students.

Professor Rosenbaum has studied the educational opportunities given to students of low SES (socio-economic status) backgrounds for over 35 years.In this book, he evaluates the adequacy and extent of American vocational education programs and compares them with successful models in other countries such as Japan and Germany.In this analysis, he points out a tragic irony:due to their egalitarian ideals, American schools are uncomfortable with creating a substantial vocational education system and instead offer a college preparatory curriculum to nearly all students, a choice which ends up depriving students of the means to earn a good living.

The American educational system sends the signal to students that they ought attend college:in surveys, most students say that they plan to attend college.At the same time, students have little idea what colleges require:as Prof Rosenbaum's _Making Inequality_ (1976) showed, students were ignorant of basic college application processes.Students do know that community colleges are open to all and perceive that grades don't matter, giving them little incentive to study.Even non-college-bound students also know that employers don't look at high school grades, and so have little incentive to study.

After high school graduation, students enter community colleges ill-prepared for the courses;most students must enroll in remedial courses, which they're paying for, but do not earn college credits.Disappointed with this process, high numbers of students drop out with few or no college credits.

By contrast, in good vocational education programs, students have incentives to do well:teachers develop relationships with employers, who trust their opinions of students, and students see that their performance in the classroom has a direct effect on their employability.In addition, the voc ed curriculum is clearly relevant to the real world, and students gain self-esteem from learning real world job skills such as auto mechanics or computer assembly;making a device work is a clear source of motivation, unlike algebra.

Students in vocational education programs also attain higher levels of competence at the same skills than they would in college preparatory courses.Cognitive psychology studies show that students are often better at solving real-world problems than abstract ones:uneducated Brazilian street children selling fruit on the street are capable of solving complex arithmetic problems, but unable to solve the same problems when phrased in abstract terms.

In sum, the American educational system perpetuates a false egalitarianism through its failure to offer more substantial vocational education programs.Rather than stigmatizing students, vocational education programs empower them to gain competence in fields which are often technically complex and high-paying, and which offer substantially more opportunities for advancement than those jobs open to high school graduates. ... Read more

Amazon.com

If the 1996 presidential election marked the year of the soccer mom,then the 2000 campaign ought to usher in the year of Joe Sixpack, according toRuy Teixeira and Joel Rogers. Or, at least an early-21st-century version of thewhite working stiff who was widely viewed as the key to success in Americanpolitics between the New Deal and 1980s. "It's next to impossible to cement adominant electoral coalition without capturing the support of a good share ofthe forgotten majority"--i.e., the roughly 55 percent of the voting populationthat is white, earns a moderate income, has a low-rung white collar job orlabors in the service industry, and lives in the suburbs. As Teixeira and Rogersadmit, this is an incredibly diverse group of people. Yet, the authors claim,they also share common interests--mainly economic--that neither the Democratsnor the Republicans address. America's Forgotten Majority suggests thatthese folks played a central, if unappreciated, role in the elections of the1990s, and it proposes some ways both parties might change their approaches totap this hidden reservoir of votes.

Here the authors' own political biases become clear. "We need a new era ofstrong government--one in which government doesn't sit on the sidelines butmakes a serious effort to solve the great national problems that divideAmericans from one another," write Teixeira and Rogers. That sounds like thetalk of Democrats disaffected by their party's Clinton-era moderations and,indeed, the authors essentially urge Democrats to revive their party'sworking-class roots. As for the Republicans, Teixeira and Rogers think theyought to act more like Democrats. Until one of the parties remembers theforgotten majority, "Democrats and Republicans will be reduced to 'marketing atthe margins'--attempting to cobble together temporary electoral coalitions in abasically unfavorable and dealigned political universe." It's an intriguinganalysis, albeit one more suited to Democratic interests than Republican ones.Fans of E.J. Dionne, John Judis, Robert Kuttner, and Robert Reich will want tohave a copy of America's Forgotten Majority on their shelves. --JohnJ. Miller ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Timely
The mere mention of a white working class causes many pundits to cringe. Liberals, because the notion of a "white" anything smacks of political incorrectness; conservatives, because mention of any kind of working class puts the fear of Marx in their soul. For decades this key demographic group has been either ignored in polite conversation or caricatured in popular culture. Either way their collective existence has remained submerged, like an iceberg. Yet, as Teixiera and Rogers point out, this grouping composes 55% of the American electorate, or more than enough votes to guarantee governance to any party that can win their allegiance.

This slim volume is elegantly structured, very plainly written, effectively argued, and numerically buttressed, (being neither a statistician nor a political scientist, I'm unable to critically analyze the numbers & so, take them at face value). The authors' aim is to show that this key grouping is identifiable (by income and educational levels), grossly underserved by government ( falling income levels since 1973, without compensatory programs that are perceived as favoring minorities), and without fixed partisan loyalties. ( though working class men have lately trended toward conservative appeals).This last is significant, because the authors seek to show how the loyalty of this class can be won in today's politico-economic mix by advancing the right kind of programmatic appeals, ones that importantly seek to unify along class lines rather than divide along racial lines. In the process the authors must also attack some of the myths that currently surround this grouping, such as their endemic racism or the alleged disappearance of their very existence. No lasting governance can be won by any party, the authors provocatively contend, without significant support from this forgotten majority that has been so used, abused and ignored by the elite powers that be. In sum, there is in the book abundant grist for Republicans, Democrats, and third-partyites to chew on and is well worth the price.

You know it's an election year . . .
when books like this roll around. "America's Forgotten Majority" is clearly written for the Democratic Party, even though the authors claimed to be apolitical in the book's preface ("the content of politics is not our chief concern").

The central thesis is that the biggest chunk of the American electorate (55%) consists of the white working class. The authors define working class not just in old, heavy-industry terms (the USA is a post-industrial society and relatively few of us earn our living in industry) but also in low-level white collar, technical and secretarial fields. These are exactly the fields that have had the roughest times economically since 1973. The members of this forgotten majority are better educated in the past (they tend to have a high school diploma or even a two-year college degree) but they tend to vote like the working class.

The press, and by inference the Democratic Party, however, has become infatuated with the upper-middle-class, college-educated "soccer mom." College graduates are the people whose standard of living accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. College graduates may or may not constitute a reliable "swing" faction but they are only about one-fifth of the electorate, say the authors.

It is clear that the authors want the Democratic Party to try to court the much larger (though fickle) "forgotten majority" of white working class voters. This is a good book to read right now but it will probably be obsolete after the 2000 presidential election. By the way, in the whole book I counted only 21 paragraphs having to do with the Republican Party. ... Read more

Book Description

Working Women in America: Split Dreams studies the ynamic growth in women's labor force participation with an eye to understanding what the actual experience of working women is today. The book offers a broad perspective on the diversity of women and their work, and it raises the need to rethink ideas concerning work, family and gender roles in order to help solve women's work and family lie dilemmas. It utilizes a structural approach to rethink these ideas and resolve these dilemmas. The book's central argument is that to understand the position of women in the work world, one must analyze women's situation in the economy, the family, education, and the polity -- in short, within society as large -- because these various social institutions connect, reflect and influence one another. The authors begin with an historical perspective on women at work which recognizes the importance of the economic and legal dimensions of women's work lives. This broad perspective lays the groundwork to a further examination of the particular work situations of women and a recognition of the fact that diversity of women's work experiences are formed by racial, class, and other inequalities (sexual, age, etc.). ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Women and Work
The book focuses on the problems that face women everyday in the workplace.Whether one is actually referring to the labor force as the workplace, or the home as the workplace is a huge part of this book.Oursociety accepts that women should automatically take on theresponsibilities of child care and housekeeping in addition to a regularjob (if they wish to even have a job on top of all these tasks).It's noteasy for women, and Hesse-Biber uses several examples and hard data to backup this book.

Not only is the "average, white Americansupermom" discusses, but also the differences in race, class, andother factors that can influence women's place in the "workingworld."

The book is very useful and Hesse-Biber always takes astrong feminist perspective.One fault would probably be that she doesn'tshow both sides as best she could, but overall, the book is an enjoyableone. ... Read more

Book Description

The American economy is in good shape: profits are soaring, employment is expanding, and technological advances abound. Yet inequality between genders and among races still exists. In ComplexInequality, Leslie McCall sifts through the complexities surrounding wage differences and economic restructuring to provide an important new understanding of the differences gender, race, and class make in inequality. McCall's vision of inequality will offer a new way to approach and address the complexities of inequality. ... Read more

Book Description

Is your organization constantly battling the nursing shortage? Are you having to cancel elective surgeries due to lack of available nursing staff? Are your current nurses nearing retirement age?

If your organization is suffering from the decreasing number of qualified nurses, this new practical book, Rx for the Nursing Shortage, will help you create an environment that both attracts new nurses and helps you keep the ones you have on staff.

Written by two nurses with over 50 years of experience between them, this practical book provides strategies for recruiting and retaining nurses; describes the roles of the executive, senior, and middle nurse managers; and highlights the qualities that make an organization attractive to nurses. Also included are "toolbox lists" of 100 practical ways to recruit, retain, and lead RNs. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Not too bad
The book is quite technical, includes lots of ideas about how to go about starting a home business. It is quite useful in a sense that it is easy to understand and follow, definitely worth the money and if you are wondering how to go about starting your own home business, this is the one book you needed. ... Read more

Book Description

This book, originally published in 1974 by Little, Brown and Company, is a sweeping reexamination of the economic foundations of American Negro slavery. Based upon a vast research effort, this volume constitutes an entirely new portrayal of slavery's past. It challenges traditional assumptions about the material condition and management of slaves, their work habits, domestic welfare, and the economy of the antebellum South in general. ... Read more

Reviews (16)

Time on the Cross shatters myths about slavery in America
This is one of the best books I've ever read on American negro slavery. What makes it a valuable edition to the academic literature is that the authors did not go into this with any ideological axes to grind. Indeed, both are political liberals who thoroughly deprecate the institution of slavery as a social and moral evil. They simply wanted to attain a better understanding of the actual economics of slavery in the Old South by analyzing the Plantation Books (i.e. the financial logs of Southern planters) and other relevant statistical resources so as to be able to accurately assess what slavery was like and how it affected the slave, the master and Southern society as a whole.

Much to their surprise, the authors concluded that slavery, as it was, bore little resemblance to the fictional, fever-swamp, nonsense that is peddled by the NAACP, the liberal media, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and left-wing academics. They found that slaves had a better diet and better housing conditions than their wage-slave, immigrant counterparts in the North. They also found that slave families were rarely broken up and that miscagenation between masters and slaves was exceeedingly rare -- indeed, almost nonexistant. They also found that many slaves earned substantial incomes - a fact that surprises many people who believe that slaves did not earn money for their labour. I could go on and on but that would give away the book and ruin the joy of reading a text that absolutely blows away virtually all the "conventional wisdom" you've ever heard repeated about slavery in the Old South.

Anyone who really wants to learn the truth about slavery owes it to themselves to buy and read this book.

An Econometric Approach to Slavery
This book is a must read for any students of Economic History. Rather than using a traditional approach to history, the book uses a particularly mathematical approach to the economics of slavery. Its conclusions are based collected data. Some of the books conclusions may bother people. Such as the implications that explotation of slaves can be mitigated by the money they receive during the course of their life. It also offers evidence that certain henious practices such as breeding, and sexual relationships between master and slave, were not as wide-spread as is commonly believed. It also attacks the notion that any modern family problems, specifically the commonality single parent homes, can be attributed to the purposeful degredation of the family unit by slave holders. This book does not try to convince people that slavery was an acceptable economic system. I believe its intent was to make the readers better informed about slavery. I would hope that the reader realizes the true evil of slavery was not the conditions associated with it, but rather depriving others of their freedom for economic gain.

A Great Example of Bad History
Fogel and Engerman's "Time on the Cross" was used in one of my junior history classes. The professor had us read it, write a paper on it and then, after we handed in our papers, demolished the book in class. He assigned it entirely as an example of sloppy historical research and how something well written can be convincing even if its based on deeply flawed information.

Quite often Fogel and Engerman rely on a singal, somewhat questionable, example to support a sweeping generalization of the entire institution of slavery. Much of their work rests on a single source which they use time and time again to prop up a badly construted hypothesis. When this is coupled with a devotion to the idea of man as a rational economic actor you have something that is almost an apologia for the entire practice of slavery.

My suggestion is to read this book and read it well. Use a critical eye when they present information and pay attention to their sources. Use this book as a tool to help you discover the many avenues of failure in writing history. Do not, I beg of you, use it as a guide to the truth because there is precious little in here.

Problems with Fogle and Engerman
"Time on the Cross" is a very well written book. That is all it is! It uses information from small spacific areas of the south and generalizes it for all of the south. Just because it happens in one area of the south doesn't mean that it happens every where. People that read this book may think that they are getting a new look at the south but really they are getting a bunch of numbers that makes it look like the south was not that bad of a place. This book depicts people as rational people who always think things out. This book depicts the south as though the slaves were being treated well as far as eating, sleeping quarters, and medical care. This is a good book for showing how bad clieometrics can go wrong. I just hope people will not take this book to heart for if they do they will be very misinformed as to how the south was. Fogel and Engerman only use information from specific areas, such as New Orleans. They doen't take into consideration about the human nature of people. This book, if not explaned in detail could do some harm to the view of the south. This book does use statistics very well but it doesn't give the big pitcure. The only reason I would recomend this book is if someone wants to see a different way of writing or how data could creat different aproaches about historical events, good or bad.

Well put together...
worth 5 stars for the data alone. You might not agree with their conclusions, but the research is powerful. ... Read more

Book Description

In recent years, technological change, unemployment and industrial restructuring have highlighted training and the acquisition of skills as a policy issue. Throughout the industrialized world there is widespread concern that employees are insufficiently skilled. This deficiency can have serious economic consequences, reflected in excessive unemployment, meager growth, impeded competitiveness, excessive wages, insufficient innovation, and deficient product quality. This volume, from the Centre for Economic Policy Research, provides a systematic account of all the major market failures in the area of skills acquisition. ... Read more

Book Description

The first unified and systematic treatment of the modern theory of bargaining, presented together with many examples of how that theory is applied in a variety of bargaining situations. Abhinay Muthoo provides a masterful synthesis of the fundamental results and insights obtained from the wide-ranging and diverse (game theoretic) bargaining theory literature. Furthermore, he develops new analyses and results, especially on the relative impacts of two or more forces on the bargaining outcome. Many topics - such as inside options, commitment tactics and repeated bargaining situations - receive their most extensive treatment to date. In the concluding chapter, he offers pointers towards future research. Bargaining Theory with Applications is a textbook for graduate students in economic theory and other social sciences and a research resource for scholars interested in bargaining situations. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Excelent review of bargaining theory
This is an excelent and rigorous review of the literature on bargaining theory. Its a good place to start the study of barganing as well as a good reference for people familiar with the subject. ... Read more

Book Description

A comprehensive graduate-level text and professional reference covering all aspects of labor economics. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

This is THE history of the IWW, despite the problems...
Historiographically speaking, this is THE book to read on the history of the IWW. There are other attempts worth reading, (Renshaw or Thompson for example) but for a solidly researched, brilliantly written academic study, this is the place to go. Renshaw's book includes a few things on the IWW oustide North America, and can be thought of as an easy to read summary, but as a historical research and analysis work, it is not in the same league. Thompson's official history of the IWW is a different attempt as well, as its focus is strictly an institutional history; it is not a work of historical research and analysis, it is written in the dry prose of a chronicler's accounts. You won't find in-depth analyses and a major historian's work there, although it has its uses. Given the fact that We Shall Be All was produced more than three decades ago, it still holds much better than a great many number of studies published in its time. In the absence of a new and comprehensive historical work on the history of the IWW, Dubofsky's book is still the major, requisite reading on the subject.

Not the classic it's presented as...
This book caused a major stir when first released in the 60s. But labor history studies have changed a great deal since that time. The entire orientation of this book is patronizing to the amazing works of the IWW.

For example:

1) It completely ignores the IWW's international aspects, for example that the IWW had more influence in Chile and Australia than in the US and Canada.

2) It glosses over the IWWs activities during the 1920s, the Marine Transport Workers' control of the Wetsern Hemisphere's shipping, longshore workers in North America, the 1927 Colorado Miners' Strike, etc. etc.

3) It has no coherent understanding of why the IWW declined. How FDR worked with Lewis and the CIO to force unionization, the principled stands the IWW took to stop the rise of business unionism, and some buttheadedess by the IWW's membership.

It contains many good stories and is an OK overview. The definitive work is still waiting on the subject. ... Read more

Book Description

How do two-career couples manage in a one-career world?It’s about Time examines this mismatch between outdated scripts and the experiences of dual-earner couples.It broadens our understanding of occupational and family career strategies couples use in light of the widening gap between their real lives and the outdated work-hour and career-path roles, rules, and regulations they confront. It’s about Time draws on the data from the Cornell Couples and Careers Study to demonstrate that:

•regardless of income, time is a scarce commodity in

dual-earner households. With two jobs, two commutes,

often long work hours, high job demands, business travel,

several cars, children, ailing relatives, and/or pets -

time is always an issue.

•time is built into jobs and career paths in ways that make

continuous full-time (40 or typically more hours a week) paid

work a fact of life in American society.

•the multiple strands of life--career, family and

personal--unfold over time. Spouses move through their life

courses in tandem, with early choices - to have children or

not, to work long hours or not, to switch jobs or not, to

relocate for his or her career or not--all having long-term

consequences for life quality and for gender inequality.The evidence from this book suggests that it is about time for the United States to confront the realities and needs of contemporary working couples and indeed, all members of the new workforce. To do so requires more than Band-Aid, short-term (and often short-sighted) policy remedies. It’s about Time argues that it is essential to re-imagine and reconfigure work hours, workweeks, and occupational career paths in ways that address the widening gaps between the time needs and goals of workers and their families, at all ages and stages of the life course. ... Read more

Book Description

What is a committed employee? Are employees who are committed better or worse off than employees who are uncommitted? What are the organizational advantages and disadvantages of having a committed workforce? Commitment in the Workplace provides an overview of academic and popular perspectives on what committed employees look like and how they become committed. The multiple faces of commitment are examined as are the links that have been established between the various forms of commitment and organizational behavior. In addition, questions concerning individual differences, organizational characteristics, and work experiences associated with commitment are explored. The book concludes with a discussion of what organizations can do to manage commitment effectively, including commitment under more difficult circumstances, such as merger/acquisition, downsizing, and relocation. One of the great strengths of the book is that it summarizes the key organizational commitment research in such a way that the research findings can be evaluated for both their scientific merit and their practical value. The primary audience for Commitment in the Workplace includes students in MBA and executive MBA programs, researchers, and students and practitioners in the fields of organizational behavior and industrial psychology. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A résumé of more than 10 years of research.
For newcomers in the field, this is probably the best book available.

Clear, Straightforward.
This is the best book about commitment in the workplace so far as I am concerned. Readers may find the style of writing, contents and structure so clear and straightforward.

If you STILL recognise employees' commitment to their organisation is composed of only one dimension based upon "affection" or "identification", probably you're wrong. And if you find your coworkers and supervisors may seem committed to the organisation, their behaviours lead to various results, not simply determined as a good citizen's.

This book will give you a key to solve what we think about "complexed" commitment. Essential for MBA students, researchers and HR managers. Good work, in a word.

A Complete book about organizational commitment.
The book is a complete review and application of the Meyer e Allen three component conceptual model of organizational commitment. An indispensable book for organizational commitment research. ... Read more

Book Description

Technological advances and changes in the global economy are increasing the geographic distribution of work in industries as diverse as banking, wine production, and clothing design. Many workers communicate regularly with distant coworkers; some monitor and manipulate tools and objects at a distance. Work teams are spread across different cities or countries. Joint ventures and multiorganizational projects entail work in many locations. Two famous examples--the Hudson Bay Companys seventeenth-century fur trading empire and the electronic community that created the original Linux computer operating system--suggest that distributed work arrangements can be flexible, innovative, and highly successful. At the same time, distributed work complicates workers professional and personal lives. Distributed work alters how people communicate and how they organize themselves and their work, and it changes the nature of employee-employer relationships.

This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of distributed work groups and organizations, the challenges inherent in distributed work, and ways to make distributed work more effective. Specific topics include division of labor, incentives, managing group members, facilitating interaction among distant workers, and monitoring performance. The final chapters focus on distributed work in one domain, collaborative scientific research. The contributors include psychologists, cognitive scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, economists, and computer scientists. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Face-to-Face versus On-Line Work
"The Place of Face-to-Face Communication in Distributed Work"
Bonnie A. Nardi, Agilent Technologies; Steve Whittaker, AT&T Labs-Research

This chapter is significant. There is a wealth of knowledge and understanding that can be brought to on-line business collaboration from fields like anthropology. This is particularly important given the notable failure of many on-line collaboration efforts.

What intrigues me about the work are the larger questions that emerge - what does this mean for the meaning and quality of business life, the effectiveness of on-line work, work/life balance, alienation/mental health, etc. For example, what will the quality of our ideas be like is we work more and more on-line? If we work in isolated, on-line environments how does this impact our need to "be" as social beings and learn informally with others around the coffee pot? What if the on-line "coffee pot" can never be as rich as the real thing? ... Read more

Book Description

It was the particular talent of Samuel Gompers to have perceived the realities of the position of working people in the United States at the end of the nineteenth century during a period of massive industrialization and large-scale immigration. Gompers was part of the working class himself. Pragmatically, he developed a pattern of action and a philosophy that enabled one segment of the labor force to organize itself effectively. Those who joined his American Federation of Labor were largely skilled workers. Although the great mass of industrial employees was still unorganized when Gompers died, the forms he outlined and the procedures he followed provided the basis for the ultimate formation of a powerful American labor movement. Livesay's thoughtful book clarifies the main forces that operated not only in the life of this colorful figure but also in the economic and social background against which Samuel Gompers acted. ... Read more

Book Description

This important book reports on the latest research from around the world on the causes of stress in health care professionals, as well as the latest intervention techniques for reducing stress levels among those professionals. It integrates approaches from organizational and clinical psychology, and develops intervention strategies for individuals and groups in all key health care provider categories, including hospital doctors, general practitioners, nurses, mental health professionals, EMTs, and others. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Strees in health professionals
This book is the second edition (first published in 1987) edited by a clinical psychologist from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, England and an organisational psychologist from Curtin University ofTechnology, Perth in Western Australia. There are also 25 internationalmultidisciplinary contributors with most of the authors from the field ofpsychology. Stress in health professionals is devided into threeparts: the study of stress, the stress of various professions andinterventions with a total of 18 chapters. The first edition had focus onphysicians at a time, when the field was in its initial stage, but thepresent edition has a much broader definition of health professionals,including nurses, health service managers, ambulance personnel and childprotection workers. I especially liked the chapter on child protectionworkers, because this is a field, where in the "heat of the moment" thefocus is most of the times on the child and their families. Cases of childabuse usually gets a lot of media coverage and in recent years the mediahas often blamed the professionals of overreaction and being too ready toremove children from their families, especially in cases of child sexualabuse. In this chapter results from a survey of doctors and nurses workingin child protection from the Yorkshire region are presented. The higestlevels of stress were caused by the fear of making mistakes, followed byoverwork and organisational change. Doctors found the most difficult groupto relate to were fellow pediatricians followed by senior managers, whilenurses found social services personnel followed by senior managers theirmost difficult groups to work with. The book can be recommended as aresourse for health providers, managers and researchers involved in thefield of work stress.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD, DMSc Medical Director,Division for the Mentally Retarded, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs,Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel; Email: jmerrick@aquanet.co.il ... Read more

Amazon.com

Work, for most of us, is something we do, not something we think about. We may wonder whether our work is sufficiently stimulating, whether it brings in enough money, or whether it makes a difference in the grand scheme of things, but we don't often question what, in fact, work really is, and why we work in the first place. In The Working Life, Joanne Ciulla asks these critical questions and others, taking a philosophical, sociological, and practical look at the nature of work and its role in our lives today.

As Ciulla points out, we live in a work-oriented society where, even though we have more freedom and flexibility than ever and more tools to increase convenience and efficiency, our work determines our lives. We have "gone beyond the work ethic," she states, to a point where our jobs have become our primary source of identity. To understand this, Ciulla looks at the values we reflect in our choice of jobs and professions, the attitudes we express in our language for work, and the sociohistorical journey that work has taken from cursed necessity to calling. She follows the path of work in our recent past, from unregulated labor and slavery, through unionism, to the rise of the all-encompassing corporation and today's blurred lines between private and public lives. In the final section, Ciulla investigates the role that work plays in our understanding and use of time and our search for meaning.

Now teaching courses on ethics, leadership, and critical thinking at Virginia's University of Richmond, Ciulla has examined and experienced the nature of work from both sides of the managerial divide. After supporting herself through the first nine years of an academic career with bar and restaurant work, she went on to study and teach business ethics at Harvard and Wharton. These varied experiences give the book a balanced and sensitive tone, adding credibility to her insights. She supports and refines her ideas about work with the comments of philosophers, writers, sociologists, economists, management theorists, and even the narratives of popular television shows. Her sources range from Aristotle and the ancient storyteller Aesop to the early-20th-century time-study engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, the comic strip "Dilbert," and modern-day business gurus. The diversity of perspectives is inspiring and helps--together with Ciulla's own interpretations and clear, precise prose--create a thought-provoking and stimulating look at the nature of work. --S. Ketchum ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A more optimistic 'Nickel and Dimed"
Sciulla's book avoids policy conclusions, and other theoretical certainties as other books like Fogels' 4th Awakening. She notes the interesting point that "Today, clock time measures events" in the past events measured time. For example, in Magadascar a half hour was measured by the time it took to cook rice. She became interested in the nature of work when she subsidised one job teaching philosophy with another as a waitress in a restaurant. Ms. Ciulla is particularly struck by the fact thatt wealth has not brought happiness. People continue to want to earn a living. Even when people have enough to live on, many of them continue to want to work, remaining perplexed at the fact that while life is supposed to be easier, many continue to seek meaning through employment. However, she notes, employment provides a schedule and a rythm for daily life and serves as an outlet ofr greater forms of community participation.

Provocative Overview of What We Often Take for Granted
Joanne Ciulla presents a very well organized, philosophically grounded overview of work -- its varying meanings, its historical evolution, and its paradoxes as found in modern institutions. She is very up front with the reader in her introduction, admitting that this book is not a scientific investigation, but rather a broad interpretation of the meaning of work and how it has come to both bless and curse us in present times. Accordingly, there are succint summaries of some of the major interpretations of work -- from the early Greek philosophers to contemporary management schools.

But this is more than just an overview, too. Ciulla has a way of getting her readers to look at work with unexpected insights every step of the way. She peels away the common sense and taken-for-granted interpretations of work (which are often based on promising the worker some sort of fulfillment, but at the price of surrenduring autonomy). She does a nice job of deflating recent management theories that tout "new" approaches (management theory is woefully a-historical, she asserts, and is always looking at recycled approaches as though they are breakthroughs). There is a tone of leariness here, rooted in a skepticism over those who apply new management theories in order to exert greater control over individuals, and encourage them to shift their focus more and more away from families, community, and individually expressed forms of self-worth.

Overall, if you're skeptical of the latest management promises of creating "fulfilling work" (or if you really think the "Dilbert" cartoon series is right on the mark), you'll like this book. If you are looking for something that offers a new twist to management technique, you will likely find this book impractical and overly alarmist.

Culture of Autonomy
Ciulla places great importance on personal autonomy. She is suspicious of any connection outside of thepersonal that infringrs on that autonomy. She finds difficulty in the fact that people draw at least some of their identity from the world around them and in particular for this book from their occupation or job. Ciulla constantly stresses the implicit danger of betrayal and exploitation in this trust in others for life meaning. She repeatedly draws comparison between this fidning of identity in one's job with that of slavery in which the slaves identity is submerged to the personal interests of teh master.

Ciulla's book is a strong advocacy of her point of view written with an evident extensive background in the subject. It is well worth reading but one must keep in mind that this book is a brief to support one point of view.

As a side note. Ciulla deplores the needs of some people to find their identity in their relationships with others. She calls these people 'other-directed.' This is just the standard extroversion that is highly prized in current culture. It is nice to read a book in which introversion is praised as an ideal rather than being regarded as an ailment to be treated.

Thought Provoking Work
For those of us who truly enjoy our jobs, despite difficulties and challenges, this book is truly enlightening in helping us to understanding the factors that influence our approach to life and its components in general. Whether we work because we must (which indeed is the case for most of us), or because it is stimulating, rewarding or fulfills our inner yearning for depth and meaning is rooted not only in our own psyches, but also in our cultures, traditions, upbringing, etc.

In The Working Life, Joanne Ciulla explores the nature of work, examining the concept the holistic (my word) nature of work from the practical to the philosophical factors that play into our approach to "earning our daily bread."

The author asserts that ours is a society in which we are defined by what we do as much as who we are. We have progressed beyond the traditional Protestant Work Ethic to a point where our jobs often become our primary identity. Whereas some "work to live," more and more of us "live to work" where work is not just a means to an end, but an ultimate end in itself.

Ms. Ciulla, a teacher on leadership, critical thinking and ethics at the University of Richmond, has analyzed the concept of work from the perspective of both management and the managed. Given her diversified work experience, the book is expectedly balanced and even, providing a comprehensive view toward the nuances of the work experience. I particularly enjoyed the wealth of supporting references ranging from philosophers, storytellers, management experts, so-called efficiency experts, modern day management theorists and even cartoon characters to flesh out her concepts, yet she presents these as part of her own creative synthesis.

"The Working Life" is written with and engaging and thoughtful prose, flowing quickly and ending all too soon. It is time well spent and may give the reader additional insight into what makes them "tick" with respect to both the working life and to their whole being.

Ciulla knows more than all the management gurus combined
This is a rare find among books about work. I feel that I cannot recommend it too highly. She looks at work from the perspective of the worker, an individual with the right to consider his/her own interests, not of the manager who tries to convince his subordinates that the company is in right next to God and Country as an institution deserving blind, unselfish loyalty and sacrifice. Ciulla makes assertions that are far too daring for the average management "guru": people are different, managers are not all well-meaning, competent and fair. She reviews the history of attitudes toward work and scathingly points out that many experiments in enlightened management worked very well--right up until the company double-crossed the workers. ... Read more

Book Description

"I didn't want to remain a hick from the mountains... In my cultural naivete I saw McDonald's as a place somehow where modern culture capital could be dispensed. Keeping these memories in mind as years later I monitored scores of conversations about the Golden Arches in the late 1990's, it became apparent that McDonald's is still considered a marker of a modern identity."

So begins a complicated journey into the power of one of the most recognizable signs of American capitalism: The Golden Arches. The Sign of the Burger examines how McDonald's captures our imagination: as a shorthand for explaining the power of American culture; as a symbol of the strength of consumerism; as a bellwether for the condition of labor in a globalized economy; and often, for better or worse, a powerful educational tool that often defines the nature of culture for hundreds of millions the world over.

While many books have offered simple complaints of the power of McDonald's, Joe Kincheloe explores the real ways McDonald's affects us. We see him as a young boy in Appalachia, watching the Golden Arches going up as the—hopeful—arrival of the modern into his rural world. And we travel with him around the world to see how this approach of the modern affects other people, either through excitement or through attempts at resisting McDonald's power, often in unfortunate ways. Through it all, Kincheloe makes clear, with lucidity and depth, the fact that McDonald's growth will in many ways determine both the nature of accepting and protesting its ever-expanding presence in our global world. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The best book in cultural studies and labor
This book is a refreshing break from the self-indulgent prattle of cultural studies. Taking an autobiographical theme, blending it with a bricolage of good research, the author looks at the power behind the McDonald's corporation. Examining the hegemonic implications of McDonald's, Kincheloe never ceases to entertain, teach, and create the best page-turner of the year--read this book if you are interested in consumer colonialism. ... Read more