47 results for "History"

Competition and growth: reconciling theory and evidence

Aghion, Philippe
Though competition occupies a prominent place in the history of economic thought, among economists today there is still a limited, and sometimes contradictory, understanding of its impact. In Competition and Growth , Philippe Aghion and Rachel Griffith offer the first serious attempt to provide a unified and coherent account of the effect competition policy and deregulated entry has on economic growth. The book takes the form of a dialogue between an applied theorist calling on "Schumpeterian growth" models and a microeconometrician employing new techniques to gauge competition and entry. In each chapter, theoretical models are systematically confronted with empirical data, which either invalidates the models or suggests changes in the modeling strategy. Aghion and Griffith note a fundamental divorce between theorists and empiricists who previously worked on these questions. On one hand, existing models in industrial organization or new growth economics all predict a negative effect of competition on innovation and growth: namely, that competition is bad for growth because it reduces the monopoly rents that reward successful innovators. On the other hand, common wisdom and recent empirical studies point to a positive effect of competition on productivity growth. To reconcile theory and evidence, the authors distinguish between pre- and post-innovation rents, and propose that innovation may be a way to escape competition, an idea that they confront with microeconomic data. The book's detailed analysis should aid scholars and policy makers in understanding how the benefits of tougher competition can be achieved while at the same time mitigating the negative effects competition and imitation may have on some sectors or industries.
MIT 2008-01-25 104 pages

Thinking Palestine

Ronit Lentin
This book brings together an inter-disciplinary group of Palestinian, Israeli, American, British and Irish scholars who theorise 'the question of Palestine'. Critically committed to supporting the Palestinian quest for self determination, they present new theoretical ways of thinking about Palestine. These include the 'Palestinization' of ethnic and racial conflicts, the theorization of Palestine as camp, ghetto and prison, the tourist/activist gaze, the role of gendered resistance, the centrality of the memory of the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) to the contemporary understanding of the conflict, and the historic roots of the contemporary discourse on Palestine. The book offers a novel examination of how the Palestinian experience of being governed under what Giorgio Agamben names a 'state of exception' may be theorised as paradigmatic for new forms of global governance. An indispensable read for any serious scholar.
Zed Books 2008-04-01 264 pages

Blowing the whistle on genocide: Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., and the struggle for a U.S. response to the Holocaust

Medoff, Rafael
"Blowing the Whistle on Genocide tells the story of a young Treasury Department lawyer who helped alert the world about the Holocaust and force U.S. government action to rescue Jews from the Nazis." "Risking his career and ignoring threats that were made against him, Josiah E. DuBois, Jr., relentlessly investigated and then exposed the State Department's suppression of news about the Holocaust and obstruction of rescue attempts." "His report, "The Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews," helped force President Roosevelt to belatedly establish the War Refugee Board. With DuBois as one of its leaders, the board played a key role in the rescue of more than 200,000 refugees during the final months of the war." "At every turn, DuBois was confronted by officials who tried to stop him - from the powerful Assistant Secretary of State who sabotaged rescue attempts, to the War Department official who blocked DuBois's proposal to bomb Auschwitz and worked to pardon Nazi war criminals after the war." "But DuBois persevered. He overcame the obstacles and saved lives. He was America's Schindler."--BOOK JACKET.
Purdue University 2009 157 pages

Outback ghettos: Aborigines, institutionalisation and survival

Brock, Peggy
Up until the 1970s, a large proportion of Aboriginal people in Australia had some experience in institutions as part of government assimilation and protection policies. By focusing on three communities in South Australia, this book attempts to understand the consequences of this institutionalization for Aborigines and Australian society in general. Peggy Brock uses the word "ghetto" to evoke the nature of the missions in which many Aboriginal people settled for generations, as ghettos both oppress and nurture. The book shows that Aboriginal people often chose to live in the missions as part of creative strategies to ensure their own survival. This constructive and insightful study should become a central text in Aboriginal Studies and Australian history.
Cambridge University Press 1993-11-29 180 pages

The power of inclusive exclusion: anatomy of Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territories

Ophir, Adi
Contents: Introduction / Adi Ophir, Michael Givoni, and Sari Hanafi --The Illegality of the occupation regime : the fabric of law in the occupied Palestinian territory / Orna Ben-Naftali, Aeyal M. Gross, and Keren Michaeli --The occupation's paper trail I / Michal Givoni --The order of violence / Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir --The occupation's paper trail II --The (in)human spatial condition : a visual essay / Ariella Azoulay --Photo dossier I : the architecture of destruction --Where, where to, and when in the occupied territories : an introduction to geography of disaster / Ariel Handel --The occupation's paper trail III --Photo dossier II : types of blockage --From colonization to separation : exploring the structure of Israel's occupation / Neve Gordon --The occupation's paper trail IV --Regimes of separation : Israel/Palestine and the shadow of apartheid / Hilla Dayan --The occupations paper trail V --Photo dossier III : the architecture of separation --The colonial foundations of the state of exception : juxtaposing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories with colonial bureaucratic history / Yehouda Shenhav and Yael Berda --The occupation's paper trail VI --From domination to destruction : the Palestinian economy under the Israeli occupation / Leila Farsakh --The occupation's paper trail VII --Cultivating dependence : Palestinian agriculture under the Israeli occupation / Caroline Abu-Sada --Photo dossier IV : the architecture of fear/the language of subjugation --The destruction of risk society and the ascendancy of Hamas / Neve Gordon and Dani Filc --The occupation's paper trail VIII --Palestinian refugee camps in the Palestinian territory : territory of exception and locus of resistance / Sari Hanafi --Matrix in Bilʹin : colonial capitalism in the occupied territories / Gadi Algazi --Photo dossier V : textures of destruction --Thanato-tactics / Eyal Weizman --The occupation's paper
Zone Books 2009 641 pages

After abolition: Britain and the slave trade since 1807

Sherwood, Marika
With the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and the Emancipation Act of 1833, Britain seemed to wash its hands of slavery. Not so, according to Marika Sherwood, who sets the record straight in this provocative new book. In fact, Sherwood demonstrates that Britain continued to contribute to the slave trade well after 1807, even into the twentieth century. Drawing on government documents and contemporary reports as well as published sources, she describes how slavery remained very much a part of British investment, commerce and empire, especially in funding and supplying goods for the trade in slaves and in the use of slave-grown produce. The nancial world of the City in London also depended on slavery, which - directly and indirectly - provided employment for millions of people. "After Abolition" also examines some of the causes and repercussions of continued British involvement in slavery and describes many of the apparently respectable villains, as well as the heroes, connected with the trade - at all levels of society. It contains important revelations about a darker side of British history, previously unexplored, which will provoke real questions about Britain's perceptions of its past
I. B. Tauris 2007 246 pages

British policy and the refugees, 1933-1941

Kapp, Yvonne
This book was written in 1940, but never published. The authors had held, until May 1940, responsible positions in the Czech Refugee Trust Fund, which brought political refugees (including large numbers of communists) to Britain. In May 1940 they were dismissed from their posts by the Home Office due to their political affiliations. The introduction (pp. ix-xxvi) relates the history of the authors and their book, which is a critique of British prewar and wartime immigration policy. 65,000 refugees from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia immigrated to Britain in 1933-39; 90% of them were "racial refugees" - i.e. Jews or part-Jews. Describes the events that impelled these people to leave the Reich. Dwells on the hardships and social discrimination which confronted the refugees in Britain both before and during the war. In April 1940 an internment campaign was launched; many refugees were interned in camps in the country or in the dominions. Discusses the legal aspects of the reception of refugees in Britain. Compares the ordeals of refugees in Britain with those in France, where the situation was much worse.
Frank Cass 1997 152 pages