Download or read book Hell on Wheels written by David Blanke and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating look at the rise and growing popularity of the automobile during the first half of twentieth-century America, which brought with it a dark undercurrent. On the one hand, Americans embraced the newfound sense of freedom and mobility embodied by the automobile; on the other, they grew increasingly anxious about and fearful of the enormous threat that cars--and car accidents--posed to public safety.

Download or read book Prescription for a Healthy Nation written by Tom Farley, M.D. and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2006-05-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing a new way of thinking about health: public health experts Tom Farley and Deborah A. Cohen show us that the antidote to our ever-growing rates of obesity and chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, lies not in our medical care system or in more health education but rather in how our environment affects our behavior.

Download or read book Car Safety Wars written by Michael R. Lemov and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-03-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Car Safety Wars is a gripping history of the hundred-year struggle to improve the safety of American automobiles and save lives on the highways. Described as the “equivalent of war” by the Supreme Court, the battle involved the automobile industry, unsung and long-forgotten safety heroes, at least six US Presidents, a reluctant Congress, new auto technologies, and, most of all, the mindset of the American public: would they demand and be willing to pay for safer cars? The “Car Safety Wars” were at first won by consumers and safety advocates. The major victory was the enactment in 1966 of a ground breaking federal safety law. The safety act was pushed through Congress over the bitter objections of car manufacturers by a major scandal involving General Motors, its private detectives, Ralph Nader, and a gutty cigar-chomping old politician. The act is a success story for government safety regulation. It has cut highway death and injury rates by over seventy percent in the years since its enactment, saving more than two million lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. But the car safety wars have never ended. GM has recently been charged with covering up deadly defects resulting in multiple ignition switch shut offs. Toyota has been fined for not reporting fatal unintended acceleration in many models. Honda and other companies have—for years—sold cars incorporating defective air bags. These current events, suggesting a failure of safety regulation, may serve to warn us that safety laws and agencies created with good intentions can be corrupted and strangled over time. This book suggests ways to avoid this result, but shows that safer cars and highways are a hard road to travel. We are only part of the way home.

Download or read book Moving Violations written by Lee Vinsel and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive history of auto regulation in the United States. Regulation has shaped the evolution of the automobile from the beginning. In Moving Violations, Lee Vinsel shows that, contrary to popular opinion, these restrictions have not hindered technological change. Rather, by drawing together communities of scientific and technical experts, auto regulations have actually fostered innovation. Vinsel tracks the history of American auto regulation from the era of horseless carriages and the first, faltering efforts to establish speed limits in cities to recent experiments with self-driving cars. He examines how the government has tried to address car-related problems, from accidents to air pollution, and demonstrates that automotive safety, emissions, and fuel economy have all improved massively over time. Touching on fuel economy standards, the rise of traffic laws, the birth of drivers' education classes, and the science of distraction, he also describes how the government's changing activities have reshaped the automobile and its drivers, as well as the country's entire system of roadways and supporting technologies, including traffic lights and gas pumps. Moving Violations examines how policymakers, elected officials, consumer advocates, environmentalists, and other interested parties wrestled to control the negative aspects of American car culture while attempting to preserve what they saw as its positive contributions to society. Written in a clear, approachable, and jargon-free voice, Moving Violations will appeal to makers and analysts of policy, historians of science, technology, business, and the environment, and any readers interested in the history of cars and government.

Download or read book Forensic Media written by Greg Siegel and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Forensic Media, Greg Siegel considers how photographic, electronic, and digital media have been used to record and reconstruct accidents, particularly high-speed crashes and catastrophes. Focusing in turn on the birth of the field of forensic engineering, Charles Babbage's invention of a "self-registering apparatus" for railroad trains, flight-data and cockpit voice recorders ("black boxes"), the science of automobile crash-testing, and various accident-reconstruction techniques and technologies, Siegel shows how "forensic media" work to transmute disruptive chance occurrences into reassuring narratives of causal succession. Through historical and philosophical analyses, he demonstrates that forensic media are as much technologies of cultural imagination as they are instruments of scientific inscription, as imbued with ideological fantasies as they are compelled by institutional rationales. By rethinking the historical links and cultural relays between accidents and forensics, Siegel sheds new light on the corresponding connections between media, technology, and modernity.

Download or read book Autonomous State written by Dimitry Anastakis and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-02-19 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autonomous State provides the first detailed examination of the Canadian auto industry, the country’s most important economic sector, in the post-war period. In this engrossing book, Dimitry Anastakis chronicles the industry’s evolution from the 1973 OPEC embargo to the 1989 Canada–US Free Trade Agreement and looks at its effects on public policy, diplomacy, business enterprise, workers, consumers, and firms. Using an immense array of archival sources, and interviews with some of the key actors in the events, Anastakis examines a fascinating array of topics in recent auto industry and Canadian business and economic history: the impact of new safety, emissions, and fuel economy regulations on the Canadian sector and consumers, the first Chrysler bailout of 1980, the curious life and death of the 1965 Canada-US auto pact, the ‘invasion’ of Japanese imports and transplant operations, and the end of aggressive auto policy-making with the coming of free trade. More than just an examination of the auto industry, the book provides a rethinking of Canada’s tumultuous post-OPEC political and economic evolution, helping to explain the current tribulations of the global auto sector and Canada’s place within it.

Download or read book Injury Epidemiology Fourth edition written by Leon S. Robertson, Ph.D. and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2015 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on injuries is a high priority to inform public policy that reduces deaths, hospitalizations and associated costs. Principles for research design and analysis of injury incidence and severity are emphasized. Review of extant surveillance data reveals numerous flaws that must be changed to increase usefulness of the data. Research designs of studies of injury causation and evaluation of countermeasures are often inappropriate and mislead analytic and injury control efforts. Appendices to chapters illustrate research projects that influenced public policy affecting the reduction of motor vehicle fatalities per population by half in the U.S. The principles illustrated by these studies can be applied to other types of injury.

Download or read book The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership written by Richard S. Tedlow and published by Rosetta Books. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Giants of Enterprise examines the evolving role of business leaders in the 21st century—with essential lessons from today’s trailblazers. In The Emergence of Charismatic Business Leadership, Harvard Business School Emeritus professor Richard S. Tedlow reveals how a handful of individuals have transformed modern-day leadership, making charisma essential to the role. He looks at leaders like Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs: three pioneers who found success by innovating their management style and using their charisma to champion their vision. Through Tedlow’s in-depth accounts of modern business history, we see how former outsiders attain power and influence, and how charismatic leadership enables the creation of revolutionary products like the battery electric vehicle and the smart phone. But Tedlow also considers the careers of people who used their charisma to mislead, such as Jeff Skilling of Enron and Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. In this thorough examination, Tedlow shows how charisma, when combined with genuine character, can get you far.

Download or read book Closing Death s Door written by Michael J. Saks and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After heart disease and cancer, the third leading cause of death in the United States is iatrogenic injury (avoidable injury or infection caused by a healer). Research suggests that avoidable errors claim several hundred thousand lives every year. The principal economic counterforce to such errors, malpractice litigation, has never been a particularly effective deterrent for a host of reasons, with fewer than 3% of negligently injured patients (or their families) receiving any compensation from a doctor or hospital's insurer. Closing Death's Door brings the psychology of decision making together with the law to explore ways to improve patient safety and reduce iatrogenic injury, when neither the healthcare industry itself nor the legal system has made a substantial dent in the problem. Beginning with an unflinching introduction to the problem of patient safety, the authors go on to define iatrogenic injury and its scope, shedding light on the culture and structure of a healthcare industry that has failed to effectively address the problem-and indeed that has influenced legislation to weaken existing legal protections and impede the adoption of potentially promising reforms. Examining the weak points in existing systems with an eye to using law to more effectively bring about improvement, the authors conclude by offering a set of ideas intended to start a conversation that will lead to new legal policies that lower the risk of harm to patients. Closing Death's Door is brought to vivid life by the stories of individuals and groups that have played leading roles in the nation's struggle with iatrogenic injury, and is essential reading for medical and legal professionals, as well as lawmakers and laypeople with an interest in healthcare policy.

Download or read book The Sack of Detroit written by Kenneth Whyte and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Vigorous, provocative... The Sack of Detroit is compelling, bold and stylishly written." —Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal A provocative, revelatory history of the epic rise—and unnecessary fall—of the U.S. automotive industry, uncovering the vivid story of innovation, politics, and business that led to a sudden, seismic shift in American priorities that is still felt today, from the acclaimed author of Hoover In the 1950s, America enjoyed massive growth and affluence, and no companies contributed more to its success than automakers. They were the biggest and best businesses in the world, their leadership revered, their methods imitated, and their brands synonymous with the nation's aspirations. But by the end of the 1960s, Detroit's profits had evaporated and its famed executives had become symbols of greed, arrogance, and incompetence. And no company suffered this reversal more than General Motors, which found itself the main target of a Senate hearing on auto safety that publicly humiliated its leadership and shattered its reputation. In The Sack of Detroit, Kenneth Whyte recounts the epic rise and unnecessary fall of America's most important industry. At the center of his absorbing narrative are the titans of the automotive world but also the crusaders of safety, including Ralph Nader and a group of senators including Bobby Kennedy. Their collision left Detroit in a ditch, launched a new era of consumer advocacy and government regulation, and contributed significantly to the decline of American enterprise. This is a vivid story of politics, business, and a sudden, seismic shift in American priorities that is still felt today.

Download or read book Industrial Engineering in Systems Design written by Brian Peacock and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on and promotes the applications of the diverse tools and techniques of industrial engineering to the design and operation of systems in industry, business, the government, and the military. Industrial engineering is growing rapidly as an educational option and is a practice favorite in Asia, South America, and many parts of Europe. This book will meet the needs of those growth markets. Industrial Engineering in Systems Design: Guidelines, Practical Examples, Tools, and Techniques offers a wide range of engineering tools from checklists to in-depth analysis guidelines for systems design and operation. The book discusses the integration of industrial and systems engineering from both qualitative and quantitative techniques for systems design. In addition, guidelines for operational resiliency for industry in the case of disruptions, such as a pandemic are covered, and the book provides case examples for industries in developing and under-developed nations. The inclusion of practical examples of where industrial engineering has contributed to the advancement and survival of industries makes this book a very interesting and useful resource. This is a practical guide for professional engineers and consultants involved in the design and operation of systems, particularly manufacturing, production, and supply chain systems, and can also be used as a reference for students.

Download or read book Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Automobile Insurance written by Samuel P. Black and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-09-30 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entrepreneurs play a central role in economic growth and development, but how they do so is the subject of considerable debate. This book explains that process through an historical case study of an automobile insurance entrepreneur, Samuel P. Black, Jr., and Erie Insurance, the company he helped build. It also recounts the largely untold history of American automobile insurance. One of this study's central themes is the role of innovation in the entrepreneurial process. The rise of Erie Insurance from a four-person enterprise in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1925 to the fourteenth largest property-casualty insurer today was the result, in part, of Black's relentless push to innovate. His continual efforts to cut costs, develop new products, satisfy customers, increase sales, and improve operations, all contributed greatly to the company's growth. A second theme is the automobile's dramatic impact on modern America. Its takeover of mass transportation provided the basis for the development of the automobile insurance industry and created many of the opportunities that Black and Erie Insurance capitalized on. These themes combine in the history of Black and Erie Insurance to illuminate the dynamic process by which the cultural, social, economic, and technological environment creates opportunities that entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial firms exploit, and how entrepreneurial actions stimulate economic growth.

Download or read book Risk written by Arwen P. Mohun and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-02-26 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How have Americans confronted, managed, and even enjoyed the risks of daily life? Winner of the Ralph Gomory Prize of the Business History Conference “Risk” is a capacious term used to describe the uncertainties that arise from physical, financial, political, and social activities. Practically everything we do carries some level of risk—threats to our bodies, property, and animals. How do we determine when the risk is too high? In considering this question, Arwen P. Mohun offers a thought-provoking study of danger and how people have managed it from pre-industrial and industrial America up until today. Mohun outlines a vernacular risk culture in early America, one based on ordinary experience and common sense. The rise of factories and machinery eventually led to shocking accidents, which, she explains, risk-management experts and the “gospel of safety” sought to counter. Finally, she examines the simultaneous blossoming of risk-taking as fun and the aggressive regulations that follow from the consumer-products-safety movement. Risk and society, a rapidly growing area of historical research, interests sociologists, psychologists, and other social scientists. Americans have learned to tame risk in both the workplace and the home. Yet many of us still like amusement park rides that scare the devil out of us; they dare us to take risks.

Download or read book Manufacturing written by David O. Whitten and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1990-09-27 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overall, this first volume in the series should render business research in manufacturing a good deal easier by bringing together insightful industry histories and detailed critical bibliographies. This series has much to recommend it. Future volumes will be eagerly awaited. Reference Books Bulletin This historical and bibliographical reference work is the first volume of Greenwood Press's Handbook of American Business History, a series intended to supplement current bibliographic materials pertaining to business history. Devoted to manufacturing, this work uses the Enterprise Standard Industrial Classification (ESIC) to divide the subject into distinct segments, from which contributors have developed histories and bibliographies of the different types of manufacturing. Though authors were given sets of guidelines to follow, they were also allowed the flexibility to work in a format that best suited the material. Each contribution in this volume contains three important elements: a concise history of the manufacturing sector, a bibliographic essay, and a bibliography. Some contributions appear in three distinct parts, while others are combined into one or two segments; all build on currently available material for students and scholars doing research on business and industry. The contributors, who include business, economic, and social historians, as well as engineers and lawyers, have covered such topics as bakery products, industrial chemicals and synthetics, engines and turbines, and household appliances. Also included are an introductory essay that covers general works and a comprehensive index. This book should be a useful tool for courses in business and industry, and a valuable resource for college, university, and public libraries.

Download or read book Accidents in History written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-01-29 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is now an extensive literature on the social and environmental consequences of living in the risk society. Studies of trauma are also increasingly prominent. But scant attention has been paid to perceptions of risk and danger in the past — in particular, to the history of accidents and the meanings of the accidental. This collection of interdisciplinary essays addresses this lacuna providing a theoretically informed historical sociology of the accident and risk. It explores the social and cultural contexts in which ‘acts of God', calamities, catastrophes, disasters, injuries, casualties, and other category of ‘mishaps' were experienced, conceptualized and responded to. Drawing on the skills of British, European and North American scholars, Accidents in History combines philosophical, sociological and ecological overviews with in-depth historical case-studies. It spans the period from the eighteenth century to the present, probing the epistemological, social and political roots of the accidental. The authors differentiate between industrial and other forms of injury; trace the origins of the normalization of accidents; and analyze the interactions and gendered discrepancies between domestic and non-domestic mishaps. They also investigate the medicalization of sudden injury, and discuss the emergence of new socio-medical and humanitarian discourses around the organization of relief for victims.

Download or read book The Bottom Line Or Public Health written by William H. Wiist and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-03 with total page 591 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, authors from around the world reveal the range of tactics used across the corporate world that ultimately favor the bottom line over the greater good.

Download or read book Mobile Technologies of the City written by Mimi Sheller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-18 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mobile communications technologies are taking off across the world, while urban transportation and surveillance systems are also being rebuilt and updated. Emergent practices of physical, informational and communicational mobility are reconfiguring patterns of movement, co-presence, social exclusion and security across many urban contexts. This book brings together a carefully selected group of innovative case studies of these mobile technologies of the city, tracing the emergence of both new socio-technical practices of the city and of a new theoretical paradigm for mobilities research.