This work describes the clashes of culture that can occur when powerful corporate entities move into less developed countries. Litvin reveals the highly complex and intriguing moral and practical issues that corporations and host countries have to face.

The New Media In September of 2004, the CBS News program “60 Minutes II” ran a special on President George Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War. One of the pieces of data they displayed was a memo allegedly written by the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. As soon as the memo flashed across the screen, the New Media began an investigation that would lead to in the firing of three CBS News executives and the retirement of longtime anchor Dan Rather. At issue was a simple question: was the memo authentic? CBS News assured the public it was, citing handwriting and document experts. Within 24 hours, the New Media had shown that such was not the case, that the memos could not have been produced on any machine in the hands of the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam era. The New Media quickly demonstrated that the proportional spacing of the memo and the superscripting of dates were nearly impossible to create on 1970s technology and that the layout of the memo was unlike anything produced at the time. In short, they showed that the memo was not created on a Texas National Guard typewriter as CBS News had alleged, but was instead produced on a modern computer using Microsoft Word on its default settings and faxed or copied repeatedly to make it look old. They showed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the memo was a fake. As word of the fraud spread across the internet, additional data came to the fore, questioning the use of CBS news’ acquisition and handling of the documents. Within a week, other major news organizations began reporting on the controversy, within two weeks, CBS itself reported that they had been misled by their source concerning the origin of the memo. Soon after, CBS brought in a former attorney general and a former president of the Associated Press to get to the bottom of the issue. The result was a shakeup of the entire CBS news structure. Who was this “New Media” that was knowledgeable enough about such arcane topics as superscripting and National Guard memo layouts to shake up one of the biggest news outfits in the world in a matter of weeks? It was a network of independent bloggers who posted their findings in real time, shared information, and tested ideas. And their posts were followed closely by millions of readers, many of whom posted the findings on their own blogs for their own readers. As those readers shared the information with friends and colleagues, interest in the New Media, and the habit of readers looking for their news from independent sources, accelerated a climb that began when Matt Drudge reported rumors of what became the Monica Lewinski scandal several months before the Old Media whispered a word publicly about it.

The issue of globalization-its promises, and more often, its shortcomings-commands worldwide attention. Recent events illuminate the dark side of globalization and underscore the urgent need to redesign its basic principles. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 are one in a series of crisis that have shaken the foundations of the global order. The rise of strong anti-globalization movements around the world, the deteriorating global economy, including America's own economic turbulence, and an ever-growing distrust of powerful multinational corporations in the face of catastrophic mismanagement, symbolized by Enron and WorldCom, dramatize the failure of globalization. For a safe and economically secure future, Charles Derber argues in People Before Profit we must de-bunk the myths about our current form of corporate-led globalization and re-orient ourselves on a more democratic path. Popular misconceptions, what Derber terms the "globalization mystique," present globalization as new, inevitable, self-propelling, and win-win for rich and poor countries alike. By challenging each of these beliefs, Derber reveals a dynamic system that is constantly being invented and re-invented-and can be again. Globalization does not have to be a "race to the bottom" where the poverty gap grows ever wider and half the world lives on less than two dollars a day. In fact, Derber's hopeful and detailed vision of reform, including practical suggestions for every concerned citizen, shows that globalization has the potential to be an authentic agent of democracy, social justice, and economic stability. The challenges are great; the new globalization will require deep and difficult changes, as well as a new politics that shifts power away from the elite. But the seeds have already been planted and the new globalization is beginning to emerge. In a moment rich with opportunity, People Before Profit is an essential contribution to the most important debate of our times, written in clear, straight-forward prose for everyone seeking a better world.

Profit — getting more out of something than you put into it — is the original genius of homo sapiens, who learned how to unleash the energy stored in wood, exploit the land, and refashion ecosystems. As civilization developed, we found more and more ways of extracting surplus value from the earth, often deploying brutally effective methods to discipline people to do the work needed. Historian Mark Stoll explains how capitalism supercharged this process and traces its many environmental consequences. The financial innovations of medieval Italy created trade networks that, with the European discovery of the Americas, made possible vast profits and sweeping cultural changes, to the detriment of millions of slaves and indigenous Americans; the industrial age united the world in trade and led to an energy revolution that changed lives everywhere. But when efficient production left society awash in goods, a new sort of capitalism, predicated on endless individual consumption, took its place. This story of incredible ingenuity and villainy begins in the Doge’s palace in medieval Venice and ends with Jeff Bezos aboard his own spacecraft. Mark Stoll’s revolutionary account places environmental factors at the heart of capitalism’s progress and reveals the long shadow of its terrible consequences.

In the nineteenth century, the Qing empire experienced a period of profound turmoil caused by an unprecedented conjunction of natural disasters, domestic rebellions, and foreign incursions. The imperial government responded to these calamities by introducing an array of new policies and institutions to bolster its power across its massive territories. In the process, Qing officials launched campaigns for natural resource development, seeking to take advantage of the unexploited lands, waters, and minerals of the empire’s vast hinterlands and borderlands. In this book, Peter B. Lavelle uses the life and career of Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtang (1812–1885) as a lens to explore the environmental history of this era. Although known for his pacification campaigns against rebel movements, Zuo was at the forefront of the nineteenth-century quest for natural resources. Influenced by his knowledge of nature, geography, and technology, he created government bureaus and oversaw state-funded projects to improve agriculture, sericulture, and other industries in territories across the empire. His work forged new patterns of colonial development in the Qing empire’s northwest borderlands, including Xinjiang, at a time when other empires were scrambling to secure access to resources around the globe. Weaving a narrative across the span of Zuo’s lifetime, The Profits of Nature offers a unique approach to understanding the dynamic relationship among social crises, colonialism, and the natural world during a critical juncture in Chinese history, between the high tide of imperial power in the eighteenth century and the challenges of modern state-building in the twentieth century.

To understand business and its political, cultural, and economic context, it helps to view it historically, yet most business histories look no further back than the nineteenth century. The full sweep of business history actually begins much earlier, with the initial cities of Mesopotamia. In the first book to describe and explain these origins, Roberts depicts the society of ancient traders and consumers, tracing the roots of modern business and underscoring the relationship between early and modern business practice. Roberts's narrative begins before business, which he defines as selling to voluntary buyers at a profit. Before business, he shows, the material conditions and concepts for the pursuit of profit did not exist, even though trade and manufacturing took place. The earliest business, he suggests, arose with the long distance trade of early Mesopotamia, and expanded into retail, manufacturing and finance in these command economies, culminating in the Middle Eastern empires. (Part One) But it was the largely independent rise of business, money, and markets in classical Greece that produced business much as we know it. Alexander the Great's conquests and the societies that his successors created in their kingdoms brought a version of this system to the old Middle Eastern empires, and beyond. (Part Two) At Rome this entrepreneurial market system gained important new features, including business corporations, public contracting, and even shopping malls. The story concludes with the sharp decline of business after the 3rd century CE. (Part Three) In each part, Roberts portrays the major new types of business coming into existence. He weaves these descriptions into a narrative of how the prevailing political, economic, and social culture shaped the nature and importance of business and the status, wealth, and treatment of business people. Throughout, the discussion indicates how much (and how little) business has changed, provides a clear picture of what business actually is, presents a model for understanding the social impact of business as a whole, and yields stimulating insights for public policy today.

Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.