by Richard Subber | Oct 15, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Politics, Power and inequality
the birth of “big business”
Book review:
The Essential Alfred Chandler:
Essays Toward a Historical Theory of Big Business
by Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1918-2007)
Boston: The Harvard Business School Press, 1988
538 pages
Chandler offers a deep and dispassionate inquiry into the genesis of “big business” and the “big multinational corporation” in the latter part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
There’s much of interest here, even for the casual student of history and the “non-business” types.
Much of the motivation and much of the opportunity for the development of what Chandler chooses to call the “modern business enterprise” was circumstantial and related to geography and the exigencies of human and animal labor.
The author chooses to avoid the legal/illegal, moral, and philosophical aspects of the rise of big business, and the vastly maldistributed benefits of the same.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
iambic pentameter, y’know?
da DUH, da DUH, and stuff…
“In search of”…my poem
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 3, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, World history
a nightmare in slow motion
Book review:
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War
by William Manchester (1922-2004)
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980
401 pages
Manchester’s quietly passionate memories of being a young Marine fighting in the Pacific theater in World War II are terrible to behold.
He tells all of his story, the good, the bad, and the really hard to read parts.
Reading Goodbye, Darkness means watching another man’s nightmare in slow motion.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: An Empire on the Edge
by Nick Bunker
The British wanted to win
the Revolutionary War,
but they had good reasons
for not trying too hard…
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Sep 28, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, Global climate change, History, Politics, Power and inequality, World history
the unknowable future begins tomorrow…
Book review:
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
by Yuval Noah Harari, PhD (b1976)
New York: Spiegel & Grau, imprint of Random House, 2018
372 pages
Harari considers many of the questions that are plaguing 21st century liberal democracies, and the other folks, too.
Perhaps the predominant takeaway of 21 Lessons is that things are changing rapidly, and the unknowable future will be on us during our lifetimes.
If we do not try to deal more effectively and more urgently with the frightful challenges of burgeoning infotech and biotech, and the inescapable constraint of manmade climate change, and our own social, economic, and political shortcomings, we’ll unavoidably learn that we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Harari is a deep thinker, a provocative intellect, and a blunt writer who calls you to risk learning more truth.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
Book review: American Colonies
So many and so much
came before the Pilgrims
by Alan Taylor
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Sep 21, 2023 | American history, Book reviews, Books, History, Power and inequality
who believes President Madison didn’t do it?…
Book review:
The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family
by Bettye Kearse
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020
253 pages
Bettye Kearse has written her convincingly detailed book about her family tradition that President James Madison is her relative, six generations back.
Her belief is that Madison fathered a son (Jim, a slave) with Coreen, a black slave cook in his household, and that James and Jim are in the long line of Kearse family grandfathers.
There is no objective proof of the Madison connection, but it’s way too easy to believe that this slave-owning president did what so many other white men did with so many of their slave women in the early 19th century.
I wonder how many “black” Americans have white ancestors?
I wonder how many “white” Americans have black ancestors?
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
“Many waters cannot quench love.”
Love will rise to meet you…
(what you hear is poetry)
Book review: St. Ives
by Robert Louis Stevenson
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Sep 17, 2023 | Book reviews, Books, History, World history
Samarkand…been there?
Book review:
A Short History of the World in 50 Places
by Dr. Jacob F. Field
London: Michael O’Mara Boos Limited, 2020
288 pages
Field’s intriguing approach to history is a success.
Probably you don’t know much about the great city of Samarkand, south of the Aral Sea in Asia. Its history begins in the 7th century BC, and it was an important commercial stop on the Silk Road until the 15th century AD. Samarkand is one of the 50 places.
A Short History is a broad sweep that’s appealing, easy to read, and a lot to learn.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute (book review)
It isn’t out of date…
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
* * * * * *
by Richard Subber | Sep 7, 2023 | Joys of reading, Language, My poetry, Poetry
…let the chorus turn you…
Symphony
A new book
somehow sings a siren’s song,
a symphony of words
that make a new tune,
such delight to open any page,
and hear the mezzo’s lilt,
the soprano’s tear-stained kyrie,
and nod as the basso
closes a chapter
with words worth repeating,
and let the chorus turn you
to another page,
for more words
that suddenly are not strangers,
such old words
that make a new song.
Rumford, RI
May 30, 2023
Let yourself watch your 12-year-old granddaughter with a new book…does this poem occur to you?
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2023 All rights reserved.
The Scarlet Letter, victim of Hollywood
the Nathaniel Hawthorne version is best
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As with another eye: Poems of exactitude with 55 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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