Book: I choice the book 'Made In The USA' .
Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing
Customer review:
Contrariwise to extended folklore, the wealth of a nation is not measured by finance, because that sort of money remains virtual and above normal people. Standard people have no use for big earnings by corporations, but for steady high salaries, and these high salaries are provided only if the country can sell what it produces, not if the country simply shifts money around. Real wealth is producing something where formerly there was nothing, or getting concentrated energy from diffuse sources. Curiously, the book signals the turning point of the American dream as exactly coincident with its peak in oil production, the highest ERoEI source of energy in the world. This high ERoEI was responsible for the overflow of wealth to the ordinary man. As soon as the energy sources went to low ERoEI values, the overflowing wealth disappeared and with it the American welfare. The author looks also for answers for the increasing income inequality today in America. He has only to look at England in the 18th and 19th century, when nobility and rich merchants completely dominated the political sphere, as they do today in America. A book well worth buying. |
Rationale: This book looks very interesting because i would like to read about American Industry. This book talks about the rise and fall of industry in America.
ISBN: 978-0262019385 Pages: 256 Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (August 23, 2013) Rating: 5/5 Professional review:
"There's no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil. With his vast knowledge of science and energy, history and business, he brings new insights to every topic he examines." -- Bill Gates "Another irreplaceable entry in Smil's chronicling of the modern world. If anyone needs help understanding why making 'things' still matters in a digital world, start here. The US position as the world's reserve currency probably rests on the outcome." -- Michael Cembalest, Chief Investment Officer, JP Morgan Asset Management "Vaclav Smil is one of our time's most insightful, thorough, and prolific analysts on the history and state of technology, humanity, and industry. Every book Smil has written has made an important contribution, but none may be more important, more timely than Made in the USA. Smil's fascinating and lucid exploration of the history and state of manufacturing in America comes at a critical time and should be the starting point for any discussion about the future for the USA." -- Mark P. Mills, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute |
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention
Customer review:
This book is about a major turning point in human history, and why it happened. By most measures of human advancement, the world pretty much stayed the same between the second and eighteenth centuries, and then something happened. Rosen tackles a question that has obsessed historians ever since--why it happened in England in the 18th c. The book is worth reading because Rosen is a good writer, both in terms of storytelling and explaining science, technology, and law, and because the book will help you to understand how societies can encourage innovation and therefore growth. If I had a complaint, it's that the author is so into his story that he occasionally followed tributaries that I didn't find interesting. But I found it pretty easy to skip over those parts without losing the thread. |
Rationale: This book would be interesting to read and learn about how the industry works in the US. The book talks about how competition works and how business try and beat each other out.
ISBN: 978-1400067053 Pages: 400 Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (June 1, 2010) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review:
The Industrial Revolution inspires more academic theories than absorbing narratives. Rosen, however, crafts one from subplots that connect with primitive industrialism's premier symbol: the steam engine. Ardent about historical technology, Rosen modulates his mechanical zeal with contexts underscoring that Thomas Newcomen and James Watt did not operate in a social vacuum. Fixing on patents as one prerequisite to their inventions, Rosen describes intellectual property's English legal and philosophical origins as he segues to Newcomen's and Watt's backgrounds. A degree of social mobility in eighteenth-century Britain enabled their rise, but it was the specific economic situations in mining and textiles to which they responded that ensured it. These business matters provide Rosen with storytelling opportunities that feature capital investors, scientists studying heat, and over time, innovators who improved the steam engine from a stationary to a mobile power source: Rocket, the famous railroad engine built in 1829. Readers who like enthused authors will like Rosen, and fans of his Roman history Justinian's Flea (2007) augment their number. --Gilbert Taylor |
1. Competitive Strategy : Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
Customer review:
This book is the bible on strategy. It is theoretical and practical at the same time because his theories have proven themselves in the corporate world. I believet that not many people actually read the whole book and you don't need to because you will find Porters thoughts in every good university textbook about strategy. However every business leader should have one and this edition is made very nicely and of great quality. stars: 5/5 |
Rationale: This book would be interesting to read and learn about how the industry works in the US. The book talks about how competition works and how business try and beat each other out.
ISBN: 978-0684841489 Pages: 397 Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (June 1, 1998) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review:
Fortune Three overarching game plans that work in one industry after another explain how thousands of real-world competitors come out on top. The New York Times American executives are grasping for a logic to global competition. Mr. Porter...has given them one. Choice Few books warrant the too-common publisher's blurb "landmark." This one does. Highest recommendation. Strategic Management Journal Represents a quantum leap...may well be one of the most important contributions to the discipline of strategic management. |
2. Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping
Customer review:
The ship board experience of a reporter /writer on board a container freighter reveals elements of exploitation of sailors and safety and environmental regulations which are revealing. Yet the "Outlaw Sea" gives a better account of this element of shipping and the "Box" a better account on shipping revolution in containerization . Since the author was a passenger, she did not capture the experience of ship board work. The chapter on Piracy was probably the most interesting and informative chapter and the tension produced on board ship in the Indian Ocean was easy to imagine. The book is an easy and enjoyable read. It does inform and does demonstrate how the merchant marine makes globalization possible. stars: 4.5/5 |
Rationale: This book is very cool because it talks about the freight industry and how it tis the backbone of our modern day world. Without shipping nothing could get to the consumers.
ISBN: 978-0805092639 Pages: 304 Publisher: Metropolitan Books; First Edition edition (August 13, 2013) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review:
Though the romance is gone from seafaring life, journalist George's (The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters) multifaceted exploration of the global shipping industry gamely reintroduces an element of wonder. Nearly all goods sold worldwide are transported by container ship, which make workaday passage through the Straits of Malacca, the Suez Canal, and other channels kept in constant motion by an expanding global economy. One of George's main points is that freight shipping remains largely behind the scenes, leading to a byzantine system of concealed ownership structures, convoluted regulations, a labor force largely drawn from developing nations, and inhumane working conditions. In a lengthy, thoughtful section, George takes to sea on the Kendal, a container ship of the Maersk shipping line, and explores these issues, and the very real threat of piracy along the Somali coast. George's work unfortunately suffers from a civilian's perspective on a closed professional fraternity. She searches for the poetry and elevated thought that informs literary accounts of a life at sea, but as one of the pragmatic crewmen notes: "For us, it is just work." 10 b&w illus. (Aug.) |
3. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power
Customer review:
I work in the oil and gas industry as an engineer and have really enjoyed this book and the information it has provided. It gives a chronicling of oil and gas and how it has helped shape the world into what it is now. The book seems unbiased and provides a lot of interesting details and facts I didn't know. To be honest I have yet to finish this book, while I find it very interesting this is a really big book. I love facts and information and history as much as the next engineer but some points in this book seem to drag and it isn't so much the fault of the author it is just how it actually happened and I appreciate the commitment to the details. I recommend this book to anyone interested in how the world has come about using oil and gas and the rich history behind it all. stars: 4/5 |
Rationale: The Prize is about the history of the oil industry. The oil industry is very large and it would be fun to learn how it got so bug.
ISBN: 978-1439110126 Pages: 928 Publisher: Free Press; New edition (December 23, 2008) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review:
Daniel Yergin's first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there, The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world--oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin's fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. |
4. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution
Customer review:
Industry and Empire is a rare book that incorporates both a economic historical perspective and a political perspective, both on the English scene and on the world scene. What you'll find in this book is a combination of a narrative of how exactly the industrial revolution started in Britain, how it effected the people involved, the social structures of society, how the political structure of Britain changed in response to the economic changes and how Britain's colonial ventures shaped this and were shaped by the changes that were taking place. |
Rationale: I would like to read this book to learn more about the industrial revulsion that lead the world to were it is today.
ISBN: 978-1565845619 Pages: 411 Publisher: New Press, The; Upd Sub edition (September 1, 1999) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review:
A masterly survey of the major economic developments and changes of the last two hundred years, sharply and ironically observed, and elegantly written. -- Guardian An original and masterly reinterpretation of Western economic (not to speak of social and political) history, [from] by far the most gifted economic historian now writing. -- The Listener |
5. Going Global: The Textile and Apparel Industry
Customer review: This book is a great source and tool for anyone who is interested in the textile industry, and how globalization affected each country in the world. I am writing my thesis on the textile and apparel industry in Italy and South Korea, and this book has been an helpful source to get information and also to compare it with other titles. This book provides the overall picture of the textile industry without going much in detail. In addition, charts and pictures simplify concepts underlined in the chapters.
4/5 |
Rationale: I would like to read this book to learn about the textile industry and how it started. I like to learn about how companies went from being small little local companies to huge global giants.
ISBN: 978-1609011062 Pages:464 Publisher: Fairchild Pubns; Second edition (January 18, 2011) Rating: 4/5 Professional review:
Grace I. Kunz, PhD, AAFA, ITAA, is an Associate Professor Emerita and past Interim Department Chair of Apparel, Educational Studies, and Hospitality Management in the Textiles and Clothing Program at Iowa State University, where she developed and taught merchandising related courses for 32 years. She is an active member of the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) and the American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) Supply Chain Leadership Committee. Myrna B. Garner, PhD, AAFCS, ITAA, is an Associate Professor Emerita at Illinois State University. A former Fulbright Scholar, consultant with the United Nations Development Program in Jordan and Faculty Fellow with TC2, she has authored or co-authored articles for the Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, Journal of Women & Aging, and Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. Her areas of interest include apparel product development and global trade in textiles and apparel. She is a member of International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA), American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS), Illinois Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (IAFCS), American Society for Quality Textile and Needle Trades Division, and the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Apparel Sizing Committee. |
6. The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production
Customer review:
If you are just starting out learning about Lean Manufacturing, and you only have time to read one book, "The Machine that Changed the World" is an historically important book but "Lean Thinking" is the one that actually gets you started toward implementation. It's one of those rare occasions where the sequel was better than the original. |
Rationale: This book talks about how Toyota grow from a semi-small company and is now one of the worlds largest auto mobile makers.
ISBN: 978-0743299794 Pages: 352 Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (March 13, 2007) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review:
This provocative and highly readable book summarizes five years of research by the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) at MIT into the role of the autmobile industry in the world economy. The authors, all directors of the IMVP, recommend that Western automobile makers adopt the concept of lean production in all phases of automobile production. A thorough and persuasive explanation of the benefits of lean production, along with numerous examples, mainly from Japanese industry, support their recommendations. This important book offers informed insight into the auto industry; for all public and academic libraries. - Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad. Lib., West Point, N.Y. |
7. Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry
Customer review: Helaine Olen has taken years of research and exposed many, as she describes, "dark" issues in the financial services industry. As someone inside the industry, I was impressed with Olen's ability as a financial lay person to get under the hood and examine the inner workings of complex financial products and pitches. Conflicts of interest and hypocritical advice abound. Selling without informing is common. Yet I had mixed feeling while reading the book and certainly about the conclusion.
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Rationale: This book looks very weird but also interesting. The book talks about the dark side of the finance industry and about what people do wrong and what they should do better.
ISBN: 978-1591844891 Pages: 304 Publisher: Portfolio (December 27, 2012) Rating: 4/5 Professional review: “The personal finance and investment industry is a juggernaut, a part of both the ascendant financial services sector of our economy and the ever-booming self-help arena,” states Olen, personal finance writer. Readers learn about Sylvia Porter, whom Olen describes as the “mother of the personal financial industrial complex.” Porter, by the 1960s, had a daily column in which she explained stocks, bonds, and budgeting to millions of Americans. From that beginning mushroomed financial therapy (psychotherapy, life coaching, and financial planning), which originated in the 1970s and caught substantial media attention after the 2008 financial debacle. Explaining the shortcomings of financial therapy, the author cites bias toward individual demons, errors in comparing financial problems of the rich to those of average and poor Americans, and “a dysfunctional relationship with class, specifically the lack of class mobility in a country that prides itself on the American Dream.” This thought-provoking book alerts us to important issues in today’s postrecession economy and thus will enlighten many library patrons. --Mary Whaley
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8. Entertainment Industry Economics
Customer review:
This is the most comprehensive book on the business of the media and entertainment industry that I have come across yet. The discussion in Chapter One on the economic principles and trends driving "leisure" time and spending was especially interesting. The book goes on to cover movies, music, television, publishing, and even gambling quite well. This breadth of coverage was especially helpful, as every entertainment product can be thought of as competing for the same leisure dollars (to some extent). |
Rationale: This book talks about the entrainment industry and how it has changed and grow over time. I would be interested in reading this book to learn about the entertainment industry because i like to be entertained.
ISBN: 978-1107003095 Pages: 600 Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 8 edition (December 20, 2010) Rating: 4/5 Professional review:
In this newly revised book, Harold L. Vogel examines the business economics of the major entertainment enterprises and offers an invaluable guide to how entertainment industries operate. The result is a comprehensive, up-to-date reference guide on the economics, financing, production, and marketing of entertainment in the United States and overseas. |
9. Introduction to the Music Industry: An Entrepreneurial Approach
Customer review: I had to buy this for a university course, but I found that this book has a TON of helpful information for anyone that is starting to be interested in the business side of the music industry. Even if you are just a solo artist that wants to make a little extra money by putting your music up online to download, read this book--you may read something that can help you make more money off of your investment! :)
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Rationale: I would read this book to learn about the music industry and how they make music and such large profits.
ISBN: 978-0415896382 Pages: 288 Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (August 26, 2012) Rating: 5/5 Professional review: Catherine Fitterman-Radbill is the Director of the New York University Steinhardt School’s Undergraduate Music Business Program.
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10. Toxic Sludge is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
Customer review:
This book is one of the most eye-opening things I have ever read, and given how much I read that is saying a lot! As a person who has worked in PR as a lobbyist (in my case for a state university), I was already somewhat acquainted with, and disgusted by, the general processes used by the industry. This book, however, put a whole new spin on things. The concrete examples of some of the PR fiascos that have been used on the American people were depressingly explicit. Yes, this book is one-sided. It never pretends not to be. It is also a must-read for anyone who views the media. If you read this book, you'll never read a newspaper the same way again. Does the book add to one's cynicism? Yes, but sometimes cynicism is a preservational force. This is one of those times. |
Rationale: This book is one of the most interesting books that i have seen because it talks about how people twist words and turn bad things into good things for themselves.
ISBN: 978-1567510607 Pages: 244 Publisher: Common Courage Press; 1st Edition(PB) edition (July 1, 2002) Rating: 4.5/5 Professional review: Sure, many of us in this modern world are cynical. The most cynical may even suspect that the news is manipulated and massaged by sponsors, that corporations act in their best interests, that political campaigns are determined not by votes, but by bucks, and that we don't get "all the news that's fit to print" but instead, "all the news that gets the ink". But even the most media-savvy amongst you will be awed by the behind-the-scenes descriptions of the Public Relations industry in action so masterfully described in this book. If you want your eyes to be opened, open them upon the pages of this book. (But remember: there are some very important people counting on you, and they really would prefer that you didn't ever hear about this book, much less buy it.)
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