The United States has been near the forefront of global consumption trends since the 1700s, and for the past century and more, Americans have been the world's foremost consuming people. Informed and inspired by the literature from consumer culture theory, as well as drawing from numerous studies in social and cultural history, A History of American Consumption tells the story of the American consumer experience from the colonial era to the present, in three cultural threads. These threads recount the assignment of meaning to possessions and consumption, the gendered ideology and allocation of consumption roles, and resistance through anti-consumption thought and action. Brief but scholarly, this book provides a thought provoking, introduction to the topic of American consumption history informed by research in consumer culture theory. By examining and explaining the core phenomenon of product consumption and its meaning in the changing lives of Americans over time, it provides a valuable contribution to the literature on the subjects of consumption and its causes and consequences. Readable and insightful, it will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in consumer behaviour, advertising, and marketing and business history.

The remarkable story of one man's journey to leadership of the world's largest energy company, The Caravan Goes On is the first published inside account of the workings of the corporation by a CEO and represents a significant addition to the literature on the turbulent development of the world's oil industry. Frank Jungers, former President, Chairman and CEO of the petroleum giant Aramco, tells the inside story of his three decades in Saudi Arabia (1947-1978) with the world's largest oil producing company. A North Dakota farm boy Jungers rose to the top of one of the most important hydrocarbon enterprises ever, a company that eventually found itself responsible for nearly one-quarter of the world's oil resources. He writes of his face-to-face encounters with King Faisal and other Saudi leaders, and his role in steering the company through major international crises that included the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the dramatic oil price increases of the 1970s, the Arab oil embargo and the OPEC hostage incident of 1975. Central to Jungers' story is his role in helping to develop Aramco's Saudi workforce in preparation for the eventual transfer of company ownership from four American oil majors to the Government of Saudi Arabia. He explains the unique nature of the ownership transfer, which was remarkably different from the bitter nationalization process seen in Iraq, Libya, Iran and Venezuela. Jungers describes how Aramco and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in an important sense grew up together, and he highlights the crucial role played by Aramco in the development of the young nation's infrastructure and economy. The Caravan Goes On describes the origins of the petroleum industry in Saudi Arabia, with the granting of a concession in 1933 to a subsidiary of Standard Oil of California, the first of Aramco's four oil-company parents. Jungers talks of his own origins as the son of farmer in North Dakota, the family's migration westward due to drought and depression, and his engineering studies at the University of Washington. Jungers began his career in Saudi Arabia working at Ras Tanura, site of Aramco's first oil refinery and oil tanker terminal. He describes how Aramco built its initial workforce, consisting of Americans, Italians, Saudis and other nationalities; he explains how it soon became clear that the future of the Saudi oil industry belonged not with foreign oil interest but to the people of Saudi Arabia; and he relates how he and others worked to give Saudis the training and incentives needed to take over and successfully operate what would become the world's premier oil producing and exporting company. At the same time, Aramco, with its technological expertise and its access to international specialists, began playing a central role in the development of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The company, with support and encouragement of the Saudi Kings, took a lead role in building healthcare, agriculture, the railroads, the electric grid and other sectors of the Saudi economy. The story of the "King Faisal Era" (including the monarch's role in the oil price issue, the Arab oil embargo and his closed-door meetings with the King and his key advisers, including Oil Minister Shaikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani) are vividly described, as well as the shock of King Faisal's tragic death and the tense moments of the OPEC hostage incident that began in Vienna and ended in North Africa. Jungers speaks of his involvement in launching Saudi Arabia's Master Gas System, now a central part of the national economy and his pivotal role in the consolidation of Saudi Arabia's electrical power grid in the Eastern Province. When he returned to Saudi Arabia in 2008 to attend the celebrations of the company's 75th anniversary he fully realized the success of the Aramco venture - how it had indeed prepared large numbers of Saudis for the responsibilities of leading their country's oil industry into a new and exciting economic era. This personal, colorful and up-close view is required reading for oil-industry watchers as well as those interested in big business, geopolitics, America's role in the Middle East and the extraordinary transformation and emergence of modern Saudi Arabia since oil was discovered in its Eastern Province.

When Carter Bryant began work on what would become the billion-dollar line of Bratz dolls, he was taking time off from his job at Mattel where he designed outfits for Barbie. Later, back at Mattel, he sold his concept for Bratz to rival company MGA. Orly Lobel reveals the colourful story behind the ensuing decade-long court battle. This entertaining and provocative work pits MGA against Mattel, shows how an idea turns into a product and explores the two different versions of womanhood represented by Barbie and her rival. Lobel's story is a thought-provoking contribution to the debate over creativity and intellectual property as American workers may now be asked to sign contracts granting their employers the rights to and income from their ideas.

Direct Wines, The Sunday Times Wine Club, Laithwaites or just Wine People. Known by various names over the last 50 years, Laithwaites is now the top wine company in the UK and a leading example of a thriving family business turned empire.

In the 1960s young geography student Tony Laithwaite took a job washing wine bottles in Bordeaux and soon fell head-over-heels in love with the wine and the people who make it. After his inspiring time in Bordeaux, he took a van stocked with his favourite French wines back to the UK to share with friends and neighbours at home as part of a small start-up business. He wrote to Harold Evans at the Times to persuade him of the superior quality of his imported wine, and they soon joined forces to set up the hugely successful Sunday Times Wine Club. It wasn't long before hundreds of small wineries around the world were queuing to take part in Tony's venture, which transformed from a tiny operation to a massive business virtually overnight. Today, nearly 50 years on from its foundation in 1969, Laithwaites' parent company Direct Wines is the world's number one home-delivery wine merchant with operations in the UK, US and Australia and New Zealand.

Direct: Tony Laithwaite My Story is not just the remarkable story of a wine company, or its wines, but a tale of the people who have created its success. Filled with rich archive imagery and newly commissioned illustrations by David Eldridge, as well as anecdotes of Tony's early years in France, this inspirational memoir is perfect to enjoy with your favourite bottle of wine.

As health care concerns grow in the U.S., medical anthropologist Linda M. Whiteford and social psychologist Larry G. Branch present their findings on a health care anomaly, from an unlikely source. Primary Health Care in Cuba examines the highly successful model of primary health care in Cuba following the 1959 Cuban Revolution. This model, developed during a time of dramatic social and political change, created a preventive care system to better provide equity access to health care. Cuba's recognition as a paragon of health care has earned praise from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Pan American Health Organization. In this book, Whiteford and Branch explore the successes of Cuba's preventive primary health care system and its contribution to global health.

This book reveals a great untold story of enterprise and innovation based on the relationship between the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Elkington & Co., the renowned industrial art and design manufacturer of the 19th-century. The Birmingham-based company pioneered and patented the industrial art of electro-metallurgy to create original artworks, perfect replicas, and mass-reproduced luxury consumer goods that used electricity to 'grow' metal into shape at a molecular level. This technological revolution created a profound legacy, which continues to influence the way modern material culture looks and operates today. Elkington's syntheses of science and art into industrial manufacturing processes revolutionized the design and production, replication and reproduction of precious metalwork, metal sculpture, and ornamental art metalwork. Elkington & Co. gained huge public acclaim at the Great Exhibition of 1851. They subsequently produced artworks and luxury goods, including world-renowned sports trophies like the Wimbledon Singles Trophies, as well as luxury dining services for great steamships and railways, including tableware that sank with the Titanic. Elkington played a crucial role in shaping and building the V&A's permanent collection from its foundation in 1852 (following the Great Exhibition) until the First World War. The V&A's collections in turn had a profound influence on Elkington's output. The great success of their relationship cemented both the museum's status as a leading cultural institution, and the E&Co 'makers-mark' as one of the world's first truly multinational designer brands. Elkington's electrical alchemy helped spark the electrical revolution that founded the modern world.

Josiah Wedgwood, perhaps the greatest English potter who ever lived, epitomized the best of his age. From his kilns and workshops in Stoke-on-Trent, he revolutionized the production of ceramics in Georgian Britain by marrying technology with design, manufacturing efficiency and retail flair. He transformed the luxury markets not only of London, Liverpool, Bath and Dublin but of America and the world, and helping to usher in a mass consumer society. Tristram Hunt calls him 'the Steve Jobs of the eighteenth century'. But Wedgwood was radical in his mind and politics as well as in his designs. He campaigned for free trade and religious toleration, read pioneering papers to the Royal Society and was a member of the celebrated Lunar Society of Birmingham. Most significantly, he created the ceramic 'Emancipation Badge', depicting a slave in chains and inscribed 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' that became the symbol of the abolitionist movement. Tristram Hunt's hugely enjoyable new biography, strongly based on Wedgwood's notebooks, letters and the words of his contemporaries, brilliantly captures the energy and originality of Wedgwood and his extraordinary contribution to the transformation of eighteenth-century Britain.

The service sector occupies a dominant position in the Japanese economy, yet few studies have looked at the way the industry developed. This book, first published in 1992, focuses on the growth and development of a major world security and communications corporation, SECOM. The success of the company has been rooted in the management strategies of Makoto Iida, who has shaped the company from a small localized business to an international industry at the forefront of innovation. The book first looks at the background of Makoto Iida, offering an insight into the nature of an entrepreneur and the issues this raises within the context of Japanese management styles. It then follows the company development stage by stage, assessing the importance of individual creativity in adapting and implementing traditional management techniques. It shows how strategies for human resources, service quality, new technology, globalization and corporate restructuring evolve within the context of a growing organization, and includes an analysis of the innovative marketing techniques and product development processes needed to sell security services to one of the world's safest countries.

Though still a journey filled with resistance, a struggle for space and the recognition of rights, the Brazilian LGTBQIA+ population has achieved some legal and social progress. Yet transphobia in Brazilian society is one of the biggest problems for trans people; this social exclusion generates a multitude of difficulties when entering the formal labor market. Even companies that are considered LGBTQ+ friendly often focus more on "LGB" than "TQ+". An ANTi-History about Transgender Inclusion in the Brazilian Labor Market answers repeated calls to correct the neglect of voices from the global south and the scarcity of work on gender and transgender peoples in organizational history. Luna and Barros investigate socio-political relations of actors-networks, highlighting the main mobilizations and demobilizations in the trajectory of transgender people inclusion in organizations in Brazil. (Re)assembling a version of history about transgender people's labor inclusion and introducing a network rhizome, the authors rescue memories in the transgender-society-labor market relationship, revealing the silences and broader context surrounding recent employability initiatives. Speaking to management academics and reaching beyond to inform actions, policies, and initiatives for the inclusion of trans people in the job market, An ANTi-History about Transgender Inclusion in the Brazilian Labor Market is a novel and extremely important addition to the field of Organizational Studies.

Established by New York stockbroker Juan Trippe in 1927, the story of Pan Am is the story of US-led globalisation and imperial expansion in the twentieth century, with the airline achieving the vast majority of 'firsts' in aviation history, pioneering transoceanic travel and new technologies, and all but creating the glitz, style and ambience eulogised in Frank Sinatra's 'Come Fly with Me'. Bryce Evans investigates an aspect of the airline service that was central to the company's success, its food; a gourmet glamour underpinned by both serious science and attention to the detail of fine dining culture. Modelled on the elite dining experience of the great ocean liners, the first transatlantic and transpacific flights featured formal thirteen course dinners served in art deco cabins and served by waiters in white waist-length jackets and garrison hats. As flight times got faster and altitudes higher, Pan Am pioneered the design of hot food galleys and commissioned research into how altitude and pressure affected taste buds, amending menus accordingly. A tale of collaboration with chefs from the best Parisian restaurants and the wining and dining of politicians and film stars, the book also documents what food service was like for flight attendants, exploring how the golden age of airline dining was underpinned by a racist and sexist culture. Written accessibly and with an eye for the glamour and razzamatazz of public aviation history, Bryce Evans' research into Pan Am airways will be valuable for scholars of food studies and aviation, consumer, tourism, transport and 20th century American history.

An intimate portrayal of the stumbling giant that is Facebook by two New York Times journalists.

In November 2018, the New York Times published a bombshell in-depth investigation that exposed, with disturbing insider detail, how leadership decisions at Facebook enabled, and then tried to cover up, massive privacy breaches and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The story quickly shot to the top of the paper's most emailed list. It would earn the team of Times reporters a prestigious Loeb award, the George Polk award, and a spot on the Pulitzer short list. But it only skimmed the surface.

The investigation's lead reporters, Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, spent eighteen months piecing together the story of how one of the most powerful companies in the world tried to bury a damning truth-that Facebook has become a conduit for disinformation, hate speech, and political propaganda. The unrivalled sources of these two veteran journalists led them to perhaps the most recognizable names in the tech industry: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Both have long existed as archetypes of uniquely 21st century executives-he, the tech "boy genius" turned billionaire, she, the ultimate woman in business, an inspiration to millions through her books and speeches.

An Ugly Truth is the definitive story of Facebook's fall from grace, following the embattled company from 2011, when its power and positive influence was undisputed, to 2020, when it will face its biggest test yet-the US presidential election. What are the ultimate ramifications when a few individuals are in charge of the technology used by half the world's population? Can they control the technology they've unleashed into the world? And if not, can we, as individuals and as a society, control them?

When Alexander Noble established his boatyard in 1898, he probably didn't realise he was also establishing a new Noble tradition. Alexander's yard would soon be handed over to his eldest son Wilson, who would set up Wilson Noble & Co. to build fishing boats - although he would branch out into minesweepers when needed in the Second World War. Meanwhile, second-youngest son James would break out on his own, thinking that the future of boatbuilding lay in yachts. Altogether, these companies built almost 400 boats, some of which are still working today, and would be a fixture on the Fraserburgh shoreline for nearly a century. Packed with images, interviews and recollections from the crew, The Noble Boatbuilders of Fraserburgh is a thoroughly researched tribute to these men and their boats, and is a fascinating look into an industry that once peppered our island's shorelines.

This book provides a collective view of the five major English chartered trading companies which were active during the period 1688-1763: The East India Company, the Royal African Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, The Levant Company, and the Russia Company. Using both archival and secondary sources, this monograph fills in some of the knowledge gaps concerning the less well-studied companies, and examines the interconnections between international rivalry, the financial operations of the companies, and politics which have not featured prominently in the historiography.

Building Blocks is the history of Buckeye CableSystem. Buckeye is part of a family empire started in 1900 by the son of an immigrant in upstate New York. This book is a fascinating tale of the family's progression into the fourth generation and through the myriad of daily newspapers, radio and television stations, cablevision firms, a telephone company, a fiber-optic construction company, and other related communications and advertising firms which the family owns or has owned. This book shows some of the trials and tribulations faced by family members as they employ a nimble strategy to compete with the industry behemoths. It also examines the unique factors that have spelled success for 50 years and looks at what the competitive future holds for smaller cable and Internet firms Buckeye's size.

Learn about one of the most impactful distilleries in American history in this comprehensive tale Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon tells the fascinating tale of the Buffalo Trace Distillery, from the time of the earliest explorations of Kentucky to the present day. Author and award-winning spirits expert F. Paul Pacult takes readers on a journey through history that covers the American Revolutionary War, U.S Civil War, two World Wars, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon covers the pedigree and provenance of the Buffalo Trace Distillery: The larger-than-life personalities that over a century and a half made Buffalo Trace Distillery what it is today Detailed accounts on how many of the distillery's award-winning and world-famous brands were created The impact of world events, including multiple depressions, weather-related events, and major conflicts, on the distillery Belonging on the shelf of anyone with an interest in American spirits and history, Buffalo, Barrels, & Bourbon is a compelling must-read.

They helped invent the bar code. They revolutionized business schools and created the corporate practices that now rule our world. McKinsey employees are trusted and distrusted, loved and despised. They are doing behind-the-scenes work for the most powerful people in the world, and their ranks of alumni include the chairman of HSBC and William Hague. Renowned financial journalist Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts but also become mired in controversy across the years. Discover how the firm celebrated Enron's disastrous corporate structure and how they've been instrumental in the government's controversial NHS reforms. Are they worth their astronomical fees? And what do firms and governments actually get for their money? Based on exclusive interviews with key McKinsey players and written in gripping prose, this is a revealing window onto one of the most secretive and powerful companies in the world.

This title was first published in 2000: This volume tells the fascinating story of the origins, development, growth and survival of a small country brewery in Hampshire. Employing and analyzing a wealth of original documentation, it examines the local environment both before establishment of the brewery and during the 150 years of its existence. While the performance of Gales Brewery is examined in the context of the British brewing industry as a whole, the thread of family involvement is woven throughout the volume. The contribution of contrasting individual entrepreneurs is examined in absorbing detail, from the half century of domination by George Alexander Gale to the subsequent century of contribution by the Bowyer family. Gales is exceptional in being one of the very few family breweries to survive the mania of mergers and takeovers in the brewing industry. This very readable book will be of considerable interest to business, economic, family and local historians.

'A landmark book....A massively reported deep dive into the unparalleled corporate industrial giant Koch Industries....This impressively researched and well-rendered book also serves as a biography of Charles Koch, with Leonard providing an evenhanded treatment of the tycoon. Leonard's work is on par with Steve Coll's Private Empire and even Ida Tarbell's enduring classic The History of the Standard Oil Company.' Kirkus Reviews 'Leonard's superb investigations and even-handed, clear-eyed reportage stand out....American capitalism at its most successful and domineering is at the center of this sweeping history of a much-vilified company.' Publishers Weekly 'Leonard's intricately developed and extensively researched history of the Koch empire is a colossal corporate biography that sheds important light on this closely guarded enterprise while simultaneously scrutinizing the nefarious underpinnings of American economic policies and practices.' Booklist 'This page-turning expose reveals the full extent of the Koch brothers' influence on American capitalism.' Book Riot 'If you want a crash course in the evolution of postmodern capitalism over the last five decades read Kochland....Leonard's study is exhaustive and engaging.' New York Journal of Books The annual revenue of Koch Industries is bigger than that of Google, Goldman Sachs and Kraft Foods combined. But very few people have ever heard of Koch Industries because the billionaire Koch brothers want it that way. Now, in Kochland, Christopher Leonard has managed what no other journalist has done before: to tell the explosive inside story of how the largest private company in the world became that big. In doing so, Leonard also tells the epic tale of the evolution of corporate America over the last half-century, in all its glory and rapaciousness. Koch is everywhere. It controls the fertilisers at the foundation of our food system. It controls the synthetics that make our diapers and carpets. It controls the chemicals that make our bottles and pipes. It controls the building materials that make our homes and offices. And it controls much of the Wall Street trading in all of these commodities. It makes money at every end of almost every deal. For five decades, CEO Charles Koch has kept Koch Industries quietly operating behind a veil of secrecy, with a view toward very, very long-term profits. When Wall Street came calling twenty years ago, trying to take Koch public, Charles Koch said no. He's a genius businessman: patient with profits, able to learn from his mistakes, determined that his employees develop an almost a worshipful dedication to free-market ruthlessness, and a master disrupter. We think of disruption as something that happens in Silicon Valley, but this book will upend your understanding of what disruption really is. Charles Koch's business acumen has made him and his brother David (Koch Industries' co-owner) together richer than Bill Gates. But there's a dark side to their story. If you want to understand how we killed the unions in this country, how we widened the income divide, how we stalled progress on climate change and how corporate America bought the influence industry, all you have to do is read this book. Seven years in the making, Kochland reads like a true-life thriller, with larger-than-life characters driving the battles on every page. The book tells the ambitious tale of how one private company consolidated power over half a century - and how in doing so, transformed capitalism into something that feels so deeply alienating to many Americans today.

Founded in 1987 by a former engineer in China's People's Liberation Army (Ren Zhengfei), Huawei Technologies is the world's largest telecoms equipment manufacturer and second only to Apple in smartphones. Its emergence into a multinational with over 175,000 employees all around the world is nothing short of extraordinary. This book explores the spirit of Huawei. Through a series of personal stories told by Huawei employees, we gain a unique perspective on the extraordinary dedication and perserverance of the individuals that form the culture and spirit of the company, and which is the very foundation of Huawei's immense success as one of today's leading technology companies. As Ren Zhengfei remarked, "Huawei will move the world forward and set new standards", and the company's spirit is very much the driving force behind that.

'Early in my research, a friend with excellent knowledge of the United Auto Workers internal operations told me, "Don't give up. They are hiding something"...' It's 1990, and US labour is being outsourced to Mexico. Rumours of a violent confrontation at the Mexican Ford Assembly plant on January 8 reach the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in the US: nine employees had been shot by a group of drunken thugs and gangsters, in an act of political repression which changed the course of Mexican and US workers' rights forever. Rob McKenzie was working at the Ford Twin Cities Assembly plant in Minnesota when he heard of the attack. He didn't believe the official story, and began a years-long investigation to uncover the truth. His findings took him further than he expected - all the way to the doors of the CIA. Virtually unknown outside of Mexico, the full story of 'El Golpe', or 'The Coup', is a dark tale of political intrigue that still resonates today.

Originally published in 1917 in the midst of World War I, Carpenter argues that industry in pre-war Britain was simply exploitation of labour for private gain and attempts to look toward a future with more socialist values. The papers in this study explore the negative aspects of industrial life and suggest a new outlook with which the United Kingdom can move forward in industry. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.

Persuasively arguing for the inclusion of overlooked female figures whilst simultaneously bridging feminist theory and critical historiography, Historical Female Management Theorists features four literary non-fiction, fictitious conversations with historic female proto-management theorists from Canada and the United States: Frances Perkins (1880-1965), Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969), Madeleine Parent (1918-2012), and Viola Desmond (1914-1965). These women have been noted for their contributions in various fields, however their accomplishments and lessons have largely been overlooked by management and organizational history. A variety of archival, biographical and media sources are combined with Williams's own sense-making and learnings to stitch together a believable, but fictional encounter, introducing a method for feminist historical inquiry - ficto-feminism. A blend of auto-ethnography, collective biography and fictocriticism, this new method explores mechanisms to enact personal agency in subject and writer, featuring a novel narrative, storytelling style inspired by fictional writing. Historical Female Management Theorists is essential reading for both feminist scholars and management historians.

Originally published in 1917 in the midst of World War I, Carpenter argues that industry in pre-war Britain was simply exploitation of labour for private gain and attempts to look toward a future with more socialist values. The papers in this study explore the negative aspects of industrial life and suggest a new outlook with which the United Kingdom can move forward in industry. This title will be of interest to students of sociology.