In Stumbling Giants, Patricia Meredith and James L. Darroch embark on an audacious and startling examination of Canada's big banks. Meredith and Darroch's new vision for the Canadian banking industry is a call to action for all interested stakeholders to work together in creating a banking system for the twenty-first century.

From the late 1950s to the 1980s, baseball’s American League mismanaged integration and expansion, allowing the National League to forge ahead in attendance and prestige. While both leagues had executive structures that presented few barriers to individual team owners acting purely in their own interests, it was the American League that succumbed to infighting—which ultimately led to its disappearance into what we now call Major League Baseball. Stumbling around the Bases is the story of how the American League fell into such a disastrous state, struggling for decades to escape its nadir and, when it finally righted itself, losing its independence. The American League’s trip to the bottom involved bad decisions by both individual teams and their owners. The key elements were a glacial approach to integration, the choice of underfinanced or disruptive new owners, and a consistent inability to choose the better markets among cities that were available for expansion. The American League wound up with less-attractive teams in the smaller markets compared to the National League—and thus fewer consumers of tickets, parking, beer, hot dogs, scorecards, and replica jerseys. The errors of the American League owners were rooted in missed cultural and demographic shifts and exacerbated by reactive decisions that hurt as much as helped their interests. Though the owners were men who were notably successful in their non-baseball business ventures, success in insurance, pizza, food processing, and real estate development, didn’t necessarily translate into running a flourishing baseball league. In the end the National League was simply better at recognizing its collective interests, screening its owners, and recognizing the markets that had long-term potential.

Two former friends seek a powerful ancient oracle—one for good; one for evil—in this fourth Prism Pentad novel that explores the harsh world of Dark Sun The Dark Lens is an ancient oracle that can harvest the magic of the sun, hidden by the last dwarven knights for the sake of a new world. With it, Tithian of Tyr can evolve into a true sorcerer-king. Only Agis of Asticles, who covets the lens to destroy the Dragon Borys, stands between Tithian and his desire. For either man to survive the quest, the hatred between them must be vanquished. If not, they risk falling prey to the beast-headed giants who guard the Obsidian Oracle.

In his book "Jurassic Park" (and in the movie based on the book), Michael Crichton describes a crazed professor who through techniques of genetic engineering manages to recreate the dinosaurs and giant ferns of 65 million years past. Once the giant Tyrannosaurus Rex is brought to life. a powerful dynamics sets in: evolution. The prehistoric world embarks on a collision course with man. Researching his book, Crichton had been reading up on paleontology and on the mathematical theory of evolution, catastrophes, and chaos. Crichton explains some of the twists of nonlinear mathematics that are rewriting not only thermodynamics, physics, and chemistry (that all grapple with evolving and turbulent processes) but also paleontology, genetics, medicine and even anthropology. Collapse and chaos is not limited to prehistoric animal kingdoms and ancient civilizations. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the political and economic chaos in its aftermath demonstrate that modern civilizations are just as vulnerable. This book aims at reexamining some main portions of the discipline of economics from the point of view of economic change and creativity. There are two aspects to this perspective. First, diversity and complexity. The range of different kinds of high technology products available to consumers and producers increases rapidly. Each product is the result of a long and complex production hierarchy. As these hierarchies grow, they deliver ever more diversified and complex high tech goods. Other hierarchies fall by the wayside.

One of the greatest heroes from Marvel—and myth—returns as Thor battles the mightiest of the giants in a fight to the death. The first book in an action-packed trilogy, Dueling with Giants is a story of epic combat from start to finish, sure to entertain fans of Marvel comics and adventure novels alike. During just another day for the God of Thunder, Thor is defending Asgard against invading trolls when the unthinkable happens—his hammer, Mjolnir, loses its enchantment, depleting Thor's strength. Thor is still more than a match for his enemies; after vanquishing them, he learns the secret to his sudden weakness: Mjolnir has been switched! And only one being is cunning enough to carry out such a trick: Thor's own adopted brother, Loki. As punishment, Odin imprisons Loki for a year, but the trickster soon takes on other forms and escapes his imprisonment. He provokes a dispute between Odin and the giant Hrungnir—one that soon brings a full-scale attack on Asgard and a one-on-one challenge to Thor himself. Dueling with Giants will be followed by two more riveting installments featuring Sif and the Warriors Three, all written by Marvel veteran and popular fantasy author Keith R.A. DeCandido. The Tales of Asgard Trilogy will be an adventure that Marvel readers won't soon forget.

Disruptive change has clearly intensified in today’s fast-paced business world. Why are boards of directors so ineffective in dealing with the threats inherent in every corporate governance system? In Better Boardrooms, Donner Prize winning author Patricia Meredith zeroes in on how boards can help manage uncertainty. Meredith outlines the specific corporate strategies that should be implemented in order to reduce the tremendous waste of resources – financial, human, intellectual, social, and environmental – that occurs when companies fail to respond effectively to forces that are so obviously surrounding them. To regain the reputation of boards as vibrant enablers of economic growth, Better Boardrooms proposes that a broad cross-section – including policy makers and regulators, customers, suppliers, bankers, and investors – work together to create a system better suited to the business obstacles of the twenty-first century. Discussing how the current corporate system is flawed and in desperate need of a digitally focused restructuring, Better Boardrooms proposes a new model of governance, one based on dialogue and collaboration that ensures all relevant voices are heard and included. As boundaries between industries blur and stakeholders gain greater access to information, it is vital that boards of directors help set corporate strategy rather than simply approve it.

"Chowdhry and Nair, along with the authors of this volume, make a timely, vital, and deeply necessary intervention in international relations - one that informs theoretically, enriches our knowledge of the world through its narratives, and forces us to confront the differentiated wholeness of our humanity. Readers will want to emulate the skills and sensibilities they offer.." Naeem Inayatullah, Ithaca College This work uses postcolonial theory to examine the implications of race, class and gender relations for the structuring or world politics. It addresses further themes central to postcolonial theory, such as the impact of representation on power relations, the relationship between global capital and power and the space for resistance and agency in the context of global power asymmetries.