The astonishing political rise of Donald Trump sent seasoned observers scurrying for clues and explanations. How did Trump happen? Of course no one guide will suffice, but a surprisingly helpful one, suggests Sidney Plotkin, is the early twentieth-century American radical, Thorstein Veblen. In remarkably vivid ways, Veblen understood the enduring American allure of figures such as Trump. [NP] As Plotkin shows in “Veblen’s America,” Trump’s booming persona springs noisily out the country-to...

Amidst the global financial and political crises of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have turned for insight to the work of the radical American thinker, Thorstein Veblen. Inspired by an abundance of new research, social scientists from multiple disciplines have displayed a heightened appreciation for Veblen’s importance and value for contemporary social, economic and political studies. The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen is a stimulating addition to this ...

Amidst cascading global financial and political crises of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have turned for insight to the work of the radical American thinker, Thorstein Veblen. Inspired by an abundance of new research, social scientists from multiple disciplines have displayed a heightened appreciation for Veblen’s importance and value for contemporary social, economic and political studies. “The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen,” edited with an introduct...

Amidst cascading global financial and political crises of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have turned for insight to the work of the radical American thinker, Thorstein Veblen. Inspired by an abundance of new research, social scientists from multiple disciplines have displayed a heightened appreciation for Veblen’s importance and value for contemporary social, economic and political studies. “The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen,” edited with an introduct...

Donald Trump’s astonishing rise to the US presidency challenges conventional understandings of American politics, yet he is distinctively American. His biography and family lineage reflect American traditions such as real estate hucksterism and buccaneering salesmanship. But Trump’s pugnacity also reflects the shadow of other darker American traditions of misogyny, racism and xenophobia, patterns that formed what Thorstein Veblen called a “sclerosis of the American soul.” Using Veblen’s th...

The astonishing political rise of Donald Trump sent seasoned observers scurrying for clues and explanations. How did Trump happen? Of course no one guide will suffice, but a surprisingly helpful one, suggests Sidney Plotkin, is the early twentieth-century American radical, Thorstein Veblen. In remarkably vivid ways, Veblen understood the enduring American allure of figures such as Trump. [NP] As Plotkin shows in “Veblen’s America,” Trump’s booming persona springs noisily out the country-to...

The university is being transformed and can be transformed. This doubleness informs this book. "Transforming" in "transforming higher education" can be read as adjective, suggesting that higher education is being transformed by the social and political situation in which it is enmeshed. "Transforming" can also be read as a gerund, implying the critical activity of changing the university, as signaling a creative and political act of radical possibility. The essays in this book address the ...

The word 'governance' is ubiquitous. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund make loans conditional on 'good governance'. Climate change and avian flu appear as issues of 'global governance'. The European Union issues a White Paper on 'Governance'. The U.S. Forest Service calls for 'collaborative governance'. What accounts for the pervasive use of the term 'governance' and to what does it refer? It has a bewildering set of answers. The word 'governance' is used in a variety of c...

We live in an age dominated by the cult of efficiency. Efficiency in the raging debate about public goods is often used as a code word to advance political agendas. When it is used correctly, efficiency is important: it must always be part of the conversation when resources are scarce and citizens and governments have important choices to make among competing priorities.Even when the language of efficiency is used carefully, that language alone is not enough. Unilingualism will not...

Long a fruitful area of scrutiny for students of organizations, the study of institutions is undergoing a renaissance in contemporary social science. This volume offers, for the first time, both often-cited foundation works and the latest writings of scholars associated with the "institutional" approach to organization analysis.In their introduction, the editors discuss points of convergence and disagreement with institutionally oriented research in economics and political science,...

Make the Right Choice - Enhance Your Ethical Decision Making Skills Today!Ethical issues arise in all walks of life, but none have implications as far-reaching and serious as those related to public management. Most people working in the public sector want to do the "right" thing, but the issues can be highly complex or just not lend themselves to easy answers. Practical Ethics in Public Administration, Third Edition, provides the ...

"Crisp and illuminating . . . well worth reading."—Wall Street JournalThe publication of The Marketplace of Ideas has precipitated a lively debate about the future of the American university system: what makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects are required? Why are so many academics against the concept of interdisciplinary studies? From his position at the heart of academe, Harvard professor Louis Menand thinks he's found the answer...