Synopses & Reviews
Public trust in corporations plummeted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, when andldquo;Lehman Brothersandrdquo; and andldquo;General Motorsandrdquo; became dirty words for many Americans. In Corporate Dreams, James Hoopes argues that Americans still place too much faith in corporations and, especially, in the idea of andldquo;values-based leadershipandrdquo; favored by most CEOs. The danger of corporations, he suggests, lies not just in their economic power, but also in how their confused and undemocratic values are infecting Americansandrsquo; visions of good governance.
Corporate Dreams proposes that Americans need to radically rethink their relationships with big business and the government. Rather than buying into the corporate notion of andldquo;values-based leadership,andrdquo; we should view corporate leaders with the same healthy suspicion that our democratic political tradition teaches us to view our political leaders. Unfortunately, the trend is moving the other way. Corporate notions of leadership are invading our democratic political culture when it should be the reverse.
To diagnose the cause and find a cure for our toxic attachment to corporate models of leadership, Hoopes goes back to the root of the problem, offering a comprehensive history of corporate culture in America, from the Great Depression to todayandrsquo;s Great Recession. Combining a historianandrsquo;s careful eye with an insiderandrsquo;s perspective on the business world, this provocative volume tracks changes in government economic policy, changes in public attitudes toward big business, and changes in how corporate executives view themselves.
Whether examining the rise of Leadership Development programs or recounting JFKandrsquo;s Pyrrhic victory over U.S. Steel, Hoopes tells a compelling story of how America lost its way, ceding authority to the policies and values of corporate culture. But he also shows us how itandrsquo;s not too late to return to our democratic idealsandmdash;and that itandrsquo;s not too late to restore the American dream.
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Review
andquot;In this expansive, engaging, and learned history of the ever-changing set of ideas and ideologies which have legitimated corporate power and profit in America, James Hoopes explores the presumptions, popular as well as academic, that have for so long sustained managerial authority and corporate prestige. Because Hoopes is a thoughtful ethicist, as well as an accomplished historian of business enterprise, his book has the kind of moral weight and political urgency that commend it to a very wide readership indeed.andquot;
Review
andquot;Hoopes throws his hat into the ring of books on the evils of corporate America. Hoopes seeks to resurrect in Americans a 'moderate anticorporatism' by tracing the history of corporate culture from the 1930s to the end of George W. Bushandrsquo;s presidency. He divides the book into seven parts that correspond to stages in the evolutionary time line of corporate culture, each of which includes four vignettes that describe a defining event or important personality that significantly impacted the stage. A quick read with academic flavor, this title will appeal to fans of political and business history as well as those looking to better understand what led to Americaandrsquo;s latest recession.andquot;
Review
andquot;Throughout American history, there has been an intriguing tension between corporate authoritarian rule and the democratic ideals of the government. Hoopes argues in this timely volume that despite prevailing anticorporatism, Americans have been in awe of corporations and have placed too much faith in their leadership. He examines the ebb and flow of illusions surrounding business management from the Great Depression to the great recession and seeks to reveal that the corporation is a moral paradox that improves prosperity by subjecting its workforce to overbearing authority. Hoopes argues that Americans must understand the usefulness of corporations while being wary of their power, and must maintain discerning suspicion of corporate power as they have been mindful of politicians. Excellent chapter on critics of managerial character. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;James Hoopes believes we need to understand the differences between valid 'entrepreneurial leadership in politics and government' and tired versions of corporate fluff. He argues that simplistic president-as-chief-executive-officer equations of politics and business are dangerous. This short book is informative.andquot;
Review
"The idea that America has a civil religion has a notoriously slippery history. Raymond Haberski, Jr. gives us a wonderfully lucid and keenly perceptive account of how this idea has been variously appropriated and refashioned since World War II."
Review
"A self-proclaimed 'nation under God,' the United States has a pronounced affinity for war. In this illuminating and important book, Raymond Haberski explores the intimate and largely pernicious relationship between these two abiding aspects of American identity."
Review
“God and War perceptively reveals the component parts of America’s civil religion since 1945. It is a troubling story steeped in a mythical idea that the nation’s violence was blessed by God.”
Review
"The best book on American civil religion since The Broken Covenant. Haberski takes us up to the present day, illuminating how times of war can both summon and distort civil religion."
Review
"Haberski's analysis of civil religion in the US is timely given the recent Afghan and Iraqi wars. Haberski portrays the US as a country at a civil crossroads in search of a national identity and purpose. Whether it is the old one or a new one remains to be seen. Highly recommended."
Review
"Raymond Haberski Jr.'s book is a valuable contribution to the rich body of work addressing American civil religion. [It is] a highly recommended, absorbing study that will be of interest to scholars and students in a wide range of disciplines, as well as to general readers."
Synopsis
Kevin Mattson explains the apparent contradictions of the party in this fresh examination of the postwar conservative mind
Synopsis
Do you ever wonder why conservative pundits drop the word "faggot" or talk about killing and then Christianizing Muslims abroad? Do you wonder why the right's spokespeople seem so confrontational, rude, and over-the-top recently? Does it seem strange that conservative books have such apocalyptic titles? Do you marvel at why conservative writers trumpeted the "rebel" qualities of George W. Bush just a few years back?
There is no doubt that the style of the political right today is tough, brash, and by many accounts, not very conservative sounding. After all, isn't conservatism supposed to be about maintaining standards, upholding civility, and frowning upon rebellion? Historian Kevin Mattson explains the apparent contradictions of the party in this fresh examination of the postwar conservative mind. Examining a big cast of characters that includes William F. Buckley, Whittaker Chambers, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Kevin Phillips, David Brooks, and others, Mattson shows how right-wing intellectuals have always, but in different ways, played to the populist and rowdy tendencies in America's political culture. He boldly compares the conservative intellectual movement to the radical utopians among the New Left of the 1960s and he explains how conservatism has ingested central features of American culture, including a distrust of sophistication and intellectualism and a love of popular culture, sensation, shock, and celebrity.
Both a work of history and political criticism,
Rebels All shows how the conservative mind made itself appealing, but also points to its endemic problems. Mattson's conclusion outlines how a recast liberalism should respond to the conservative ascendancy that has marked our politics for the last thirty years.
Synopsis
Outstanding Academic Title of 2008
Do you ever wonder why conservative pundits drop the word "faggot" or talk about killing and then Christianizing Muslims abroad? Do you wonder why the right's spokespeople seem so confrontational, rude, and over-the-top recently? Does it seem strange that conservative books have such apocalyptic titles? Do you marvel at why conservative writers trumpeted the "rebel" qualities of George W. Bush just a few years back?
There is no doubt that the style of the political right today is tough, brash, and by many accounts, not very conservative sounding. After all, isn't conservatism supposed to be about maintaining standards, upholding civility, and frowning upon rebellion? Historian Kevin Mattson explains the apparent contradictions of the party in this fresh examination of the postwar conservative mind. Examining a big cast of characters that includes William F. Buckley, Whittaker Chambers, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Kevin Phillips, David Brooks, and others, Mattson shows how right-wing intellectuals have always, but in different ways, played to the populist and rowdy tendencies in America's political culture. He boldly compares the conservative intellectual movement to the radical utopians among the New Left of the 1960s and he explains how conservatism has ingested central features of American culture, including a distrust of sophistication and intellectualism and a love of popular culture, sensation, shock, and celebrity.
Both a work of history and political criticism, Rebels All shows how the conservative mind made itself appealing, but also points to its endemic problems. Mattson's conclusion outlines how a recast liberalism should respond to the conservative ascendancy that has marked our politics for the last thirty years.
Synopsis
In Corporate Dreams, James Hoopes combines a historianandrsquo;s careful eye with an insiderandrsquo;s perspective on the business world. This provocative volume tracks changes in government economic policy, changes in public attitudes toward big business, and changes in how corporate executives view themselves. Whether examining the rise of Leadership Development programs or recounting JFKandrsquo;s Pyrrhic victory over U.S. Steel, Hoopes tells a compelling story of how America lost its way, ceding authority to the policies and values of corporate culture.
Synopsis
Americans have long considered their country to be good—a nation "under God" with a profound role to play in the world. Yet nothing tests that proposition like war. Raymond Haberski argues that since 1945 the common moral assumptions expressed in an American civil religion have become increasingly defined by the nation's experience with war.
God and War traces how three great postwar “trials”—the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the War on Terror—have revealed the promise and perils of an American civil religion. Throughout the Cold War, Americans combined faith in God and faith in the nation to struggle against not only communism but their own internal demons. The Vietnam War tested whether America remained a nation "under God," inspiring, somewhat ironically, an awakening among a group of religious, intellectual and political leaders to save the nation's soul. With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 behind us and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, Americans might now explore whether civil religion can exist apart from the power of war to affirm the value of the nation to its people and the world.
About the Author
RAYMOND HABERSKI JR. is an associate professor of history at Marian University. He is the author of several books, including It’s Only a Movie: Films and Critics in American Culture, The Miracle Case: Film Censorship and the Supreme Court, and Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. The Corporate American Dream at Its Height and in Its Origins
1. The Corporate American Dream
2. Corporate and National Character
3. From Public Purpose to Private Profit
4. Corporations as Enemies of the Free Market
Part II. Corporate Failure and Government Fix
5. Corporate Crashes
6. Managers versus Markets
7. Corporations Blow Their Chance to End the Depression
8. Roosevelt's Confused Anticorporatism
Part III. The Corporation Strikes Back
9. The Right toand#160;Manage
10. Corporations Recover Their Moral Authority
11. Killing the Unions Softly
12. Creating Reagan and His Voters
Part IV. What Manner of Man(ager)?
13. Masking the Arrogance of Power
14. Responsibility versus Profit at General Motors
15. Critics of Managerial Character
16. JFK's Pyrrhic Victory over U.S. Steel
Part V. The Corporation in the Wilderness Again
17. McNamara and the Staffers
18. The False Confidence of the Anticorporatists
19. Corporate America Loses World Supremacy
20. Laying the Groundwork for the Corporation's Cultural Comeback
Part VI. Leadership
21. Managing by Values
22. Creating the Concept of Corporate Culture
23. Inventing the Leadership Development Industry
24. Reagan Aids Corporations by Bashing Government
Part VII. Entrepreneurship
25. Supply-Siders versus the Big Corporation
26. Reengineering the Corporation
27. George W. Bush, Enron, and the Great Recession
28. Can the Corporate American Dream Be Saved?
Notes
Index