Enlightened Leadership Research Articles

Globalizing Indigenous Psychology: An East Asian Form of Hierarchical Relationalism with Worldwide Implications

AbstractGlobalization has changed almost every facet of life for people around the world, and today the flow of influence is no longer uni‐directional. It is argued that East Asian (and especially Chinese) societies are anchored in an indigenous form of hierarchical relationalism where social structure is produced by relational obligations of an ethical and normative nature that have slowed its traditional culture “melting into air” as prophesied by Marx. The successfully modernization of East Asia has involved hybridization, compartmentalization, and sequencing of traditional psychological features of Confucianist societies such as delay of gratification and respect for education, paternalistic leadership, filial piety, and beliefs in harmony or benevolence. Features of hierarchical relationalism are adaptable to creating niches for East Asian societies that thrive under globalization as characterized by the paradoxical coupling of economic inequality in fact with discourses of equality in principle. Moral, ethical demands for enlightened leadership constrain East Asian elites to at least attempt to protect subordinates and protect societal (rather than merely individual or familial) well‐being. A fundamental contribution of East Asia to global society may be in the articulation of how to ameliorate economic inequality using Confucian principles of hierarchical relationalism.

The most effective leadership style for the new landscape of healthcare.

When leaders in healthcare organizations are asked, What's the one word that best characterizes the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the U.S. healthcare delivery most will answer Change. And when midto lowerlevel employees in those same organizations are asked to describe the one thing they dislike or fear most about the ACA, they, too, say Change. As if they are not already challenged by implementing the ACA, today's healthcare leaders are faced with the challenge of overcoming staffs resistance to change. Furthermore, too many leaders do not understand just how change resistant many of employees are, although these employees are the very people who will be charged with implementing the tremendous changes the ACA will require.Some leaders have tried to persuade staff that surviving healthcare reform is the latest burning platform threatening the prosperity and security of organizations. But they generally find that change management challenges, such as ACA implementation, do not come with a one-size-fits-all solution or that staff do not view the ACA as their problem.WHAT'S A LEADER TO DO?Changes in every aspect of healthcare delivery-from reimbursement to quality control to elimination of wasteful and inefficient practices-are having a tremendous impact on the U.S. healthcare delivery system, with many more changes to come. But the impact of all of these changes on the people who will be implementing them may get overlooked in all the haste for compliance. Add to the mix the initial rocky launch of the reform law and uncertainty regarding its sustainability, and the suggestion that a profound shift is ahead could easily be regarded as an understatement.People at every level of provider organizations are stressed, confused, and bewildered by the blizzard of changes occurring, and many-perhaps most-are ill suited to absorb these changes, and the organizational dysfunction that will likely accompany them, easily or gracefully. The result is a growing insecurity, anxiety, and outright resistance among these workers, leading to a demoralized workforce and compromised compliance.Healthcare leaders must understand the value and critical importance of delivering an emotionally and behaviorally intelligent style of leadership to ensure that staff feel empowered and supported as they work through and implement some of the greatest changes in the delivery of healthcare in this country since the introduction of Medicare. For many leaders, maintaining the status quo in leadership style simply will not get the job done.WHY EMOTIONALLY AND BEHAVIORALLY INTELLIGENT LEADERSHIP?In 2003, the Harvard Business Review examined data supporting emotional intelligence. In that article, it stated that:In hard times, the soft stuff goes away. But emotional intelligence, it turns out, isn't so soft. If emotional obliviousness jeopardizes your ability to perform, fend off aggressors or be compassionate in a crisis, no amount of attention to the bottom line will protect your career. Emotional intelligence isn't a luxury you can dispense with in tough times. It's a basic tool that, deployed with finesse, is the key to professional success.While some leaders may deem the subject of emotional intelligence to be too squishy for any practical value in leading people, enlightened leaders in business, industry, and even the military are finding strong value and return on investment in not just understanding emotional intelligence but incorporating it into leadership style.A study by the Center for Creative Leadership (2010) reported that the need to improve skills in leading employees and work teams was a top priority among senior healthcare leaders. However, those same leaders indicated that such skills-including self-awareness-were rated the lowest of those regularly demonstrated by leaders in healthcare.In his book Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman (2002, p. …

Business excellence through sustainable change management

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to make a case for achieving business excellence through sustainable change management. Business excellence is defined through the Baldrige Performance Excellence Criteria. Sustainable change management has three pillars: enlightened leadership to provide change direction, great project management to manage technical aspects of change, and excellent talent management for implementing the change. All three pillars will be discussed in this paper along with successful examples of sustainable change management practices from various sectors. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a synopsis of professional work done by the author over 38 years in achieving business excellence and managing sustainable change in professional and personal arena. Findings – The paper provides insights about how sustainable change is achieved to propel an entity toward business excellence. It suggests that leadership is central in initiating the change for the benefit of the enterprise. To successfully manage change, strong project management skills are crucial. Without proper talent management, change initiatives will falter. Originality/value – This paper fulfills a global need on how to achieve business excellence through sustainable change management.

March towards democracy? The development of political movements in Afghanistan

Although the post-2001 period in Afghanistan has been hailed as a return to an earlier process of democratic opening that was interrupted in the early 1970s, a comparison of the development of political movements up to 1978 and then after 2001 highlights important differences. Until the late 1960s, Afghan political parties were mainly focused on influencing a supposedly enlightened leadership towards faster modernization of the country. Their disillusion was beginning to push them towards the development of forms of organization which could mobilize sections of the population on their behalf, even if tentatively so. Little comparable effort was noticeable after 2001, when parties big and small, seemed intent mainly on securing a position from which to develop a following based on the distribution of patronage. It could be argued that the availability of resources on a large scale following international intervention in 2001 drove the Afghan political system in a direction quite different from the path which was initially embarked upon in the 1960s.

Madison's Metronome: The Constitution, Majority Rule, and the Tempo of American Politics. By GregWeiner. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012. 194 pp.

Madison's Metronome: The Constitution, Majority Rule, and the Tempo of American Politics. By Greg Weiner. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012. 194 pp. In this slim volume, Greg Weiner focuses our attention upon an underlying and abiding feature of James Madison's theory: time. Weiner explicates Madison's temporal republicanism to demonstrate his enduring commitment to majorities as both an inevitable and desirable form of decision making in a republic. The problem, of course, is that majorities are often passionate and unjust. To alleviate this problem, Weiner argues that Madison consistently pursues mechanisms that will slow down decision making such that time can temper passionate majorities. As Weiner explains, Madison's democratic theory consequently relies on delaying mechanisms that compel majorities to cohere for an interval sufficient to dispel passions. This use of time to season majorities enhances the likelihood that they will behave reasonably and avoids the necessity of a trade-off between majority rule and minority (p. 130). Weiner's analysis draws principally on Madison's thought regarding the extended republic, the Bill of Rights, and separation of powers, but he also delves into Madison's understanding of freedom of speech and conscience, the national negative, and the Virginia Resolutions and Report. Spanning the entirety of Madison's career, Weiner successfully illuminates and contextualizes Madison's enduring support for majority rule in an eloquently written and well-documented text. To understand and illuminate Madison's majoritarianism, Weiner emphasizes the passive role of time rather than its instrumental use in Madison's republicanism. The overweighting of passive time has the effect of enhancing the reasonableness of national majorities and minimizing the role of enlightened leadership in Madison's thought. For example, in his discussion of the Senate, Weiner argues against those who view this body as an aristocratic check on the will of the people. Instead, he claims that Madison considered the Senate something of a speed bump constructed to slow majoritarian decision making until the people returned to the basis upon which they ordinarily act, that of reason, justice, and truth (p. 50). More surprisingly, Weiner claims that it is the action of time itself that works this magic: there was no indication of moral tutelage by leaders (p. 32). Weiner rightly observes that Madison's theory, particularly the centrality of majoritarian institutions in his thought, tends to cultivate the people's capacity for deliberation and reflection in contrast to what Weiner sees as the contemporary overreliance on rights talk and the courts to determine matters of justice. …

Environmental Sustainabilitys Impact On Earnings

There is ever increasing social pressure for businesses to adopt sustainable methods of production to minimize environmental impacts. While this may be laudable, businesses have a responsibility to their stakeholders to maximize financial results. These potentially competing objectives are often referred to as part of the triple bottom line. In this paper, we restrict our attention to the original bottom line, Earnings per Share, and the Environmental bottom line of conserving resources. Focusing on the health care sector, we find a clear relationship between EPS and the adoption of sustainable practices. We augment this study with a look at expectations. That is, to what extent are sustainable business practices affecting the financial markets assessment of expected future success v. current financial success? Future expectations could be affected if environmental initiatives signal enlightened leadership or if a business that adopts environmental initiatives is thus well-positioned to face regulatory uncertainty in the future. Either of these management advantages would raise expectations of future success and thus be reflected in higher stock prices today, beyond what is currently captured in earnings ratios.

Working Together to Restore the Mental Well-Being of Our Veterans

Article AbstractBecause this piece does not have an abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.With this month's Journal, we publish the first in a very special series of CME-certified Commentaries that will focus on restoring the mental well-being of veterans. These offerings are the result of a unique collaboration between our company and the Aspen Institute, a well-known and respected international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue on contemporary issues.In the broadest sense, this multipronged, multiyear effort is designed to create a public-private partnership between organizations such as ours from the private sector, nonprofit institutions, and government agencies.

Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression by Dale Maharidge (review)

Reviewed by: Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression by Dale Maharidge Joseph B. Atkins Someplace Like America: Tales from the New Great Depression. By Dale Maharidge. Photographs by Michael S. Williamson. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 2011. The Great Recession is a relative matter. “My Great Recession is your Great Depression if you lose your job and your home,” writes Dale Maharidge in his and photographer Michael S. Williamson’s new book Someplace Like America (7). In fact, even the Great Depression of the 1930s included two recessions, the first lasting from 1929 to 1933, and the second from 1937 to 1938. “From my street-level perspective, the technical definition . . . means very little to the jobless and unemployed” (7). Someplace Like America is the latest book by Maharidge and Williamson to depict the lives of the marginalized in this nation, the people who began falling through the cracks after Ronald Reagan announced it was “morning in America” 28 years ago (31). In their first, Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, they traveled by “bus, by thumb, in boxcars, and in a rusting 1973 Olds Delta 88” across mid-1980s America and encountered a restless homelessness—not unlike the hoboes and Dust Bowl refugees Woody Guthrie sang about in the 1930s—desperate for a job and a future wherever the road led (4). In Someplace Like America, Maharidge, now teaching at Columbia University, and Williamson, a Washington Post photographer, show us a new kind of desperation, one less likely to hit the road, one that knows “life is not better somewhere else” (227). As former steelworker Ken Platt of that “necropolis” of American de-industrialization, Youngstown, Ohio, says, “the rest of the country is down to where we are” (109). Written in the grand tradition of the early 20th-century muckrakers—Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker—this is a book that occasionally confounds as it shifts from decade to decade, story to story, but which drives home its central theme that America has lost its way. Maharidge’s straightforward-but-impassioned prose and Williamson’s gritty black-and-white photographs make you angry. They’re an indictment. The road traveled here leads to rural backwaters and to cities like Youngstown, Detroit, and New Orleans, metaphors for “a nation working for Wal-Mart wages” and, big surprise, can no longer afford the mortgage on the house (21). With rock musician Bruce Springsteen accompanying them, the authors visit the ruins of the Jeannette blast furnace in Youngstown and come face to face with what Springsteen in his foreword calls “the cost in blood, treasure, and spirit (of) the post-industrialization of the United States” (x). Along the road are people like these: Sam, with his racquet and Adidas bag desperate to appear less lost than he really is; Jim and Bonnie Alexander, living in [End Page 175] a tent near Houston with two small children; Jay, the most lost of all because he’s given up hope. The enlightened leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt helped America survive the Great Depression. Such leadership is missing today, the authors tell us, but hope lies in a growing awareness across the land, a grassroots sense of community that has the potential to stand up to Wall Street and Washington and redirect the nation back to the road it was meant to travel. Joseph B. Atkins University of Mississippi Copyright © 2013 Mid-America American Studies Association

The world view of Khaketla's novel Mosadi a nkhola

Khaketla emphasises the essential and inner qualities of the medium of his novel Mosadi a nkhola (‘The wife brought calamity upon me’) as based on his convictions of the supremacy of art over all other means of expression or knowledge. The novel is about Chief Lekaota who realised that there was an imminent clash in outlook between traditional chieftaincy and Western ways. He sends his son, Mosito, to school to ensure enlightened leadership for his people after his own death. After his death, his matriculated son takes over and he is advised by his former schoolmates, Pokane and Khosi. Khati, Sebotsa and Maime claim to be Chief Lekaota's former advisors. Mosito is married to the unenlightened and superstitious Sebolelo, whom he chose for his wife, against his friends’ advice. The main concern of the researcher in this article is to explore the possible reasons for Mosito's downfall.

Sustainable globalization and implications for strategic corporate and national sustainability

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to present a conceptual framework and a set of conditions within which nations and business can strive to embed sustainability in corporate/national strategy. The objective is to motivate business and national leaders to do so with sustainability mindsets and strategic leadership. The pre‐conditions that will accelerate the “motivation” to do so are identified, as are interventions identified. The sphere of influence business and national leaders have to impact sustainable globalization is identified.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is to focus on information in the public domain that outlines the “real” challenges faced by nations and business as they consider the need for sustainability and key issues such as “poverty and climate change”, which if not addressed could have detrimental strategic implications for the planet, business and nations. The changes that have taken place since 1982 when global leaders signed up to Agenda 21 and the relatively insignificant movement that has occurred to date is outlined to strengthen the case for quantum leaps in the short to medium term. The strategic framework recommended is one that combines the need for organizations to set a new gold standard for “corporate responsibility”, which is a “commitment to sustainable business” followed by a commitment to differentiating the business or nation on a sustainability paradigm. This is presented as means to embedding sustainability in strategy in the form of the concept of “strategic corporate sustainability”. The concept of strategic corporate sustainability is presented as a two‐step approach that initially requires both national and corporate leaders to commit to the need for sustainability by developing triple bottom line strategies. This is followed by the need to embed sustainability strategy as the corporate strategy that differentiates the nation and the business, strategically setting it apart from those that have not done so. This is presented as one of the ways to move forward to achieve the goal of sustainable globalization.FindingsThe key findings from information in the public domain of nations and business that have embedded a sustainability policy and are demonstrating that enlightened leaders who have sustainability mindsets as a primary requirement for the future are presented with the examples of General Electric and Unilever. The process of nations embedding sustainability policy, which in turn motivates business to strive for sustainable business, which finally leads to sustainable consumption, is presented in a sequential manner.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper is in the form of the concept of strategic corporate sustainability, which was first mooted in 2008 at Cambridge University and has since been accepted as a key subject and elective for MBA and AMP programs between 2008 and 2012 at many business schools, confirming both its validity and its originality.

The importance of matching talented leadership with the growth stage of your life-sciences company

In the life sciences' rapidly changing business climate, it is imperative that companies find innovative, effective and enlightened leadership.

Role of Women in Panchayat Development and Challenges

The participation of Indian women in the freedom movement led by Gandhi as well as enlightened leadership of India ensured that Indian women got equal political rights in the constitution of free India; however, in reality despite some successes, the majority of Indian women were left far behind men in enjoyment of these rights. Hence, the need for bringing women in political sphere through reservation was felt and 33 percent seats were reserved for women in the local self-governing bodies. This brought hundred thousand women into active politics, but questions were repeatedly raised regarding their competence. This article is a theoretical study based on references of several articles prevailing on situation at the ground level in women’s role in Panchayat system was selected as it represents the real India. Panchyath Raj Institutions have always been considered as a means to good governance and 73rd Constitutional Amendment was effected in the hope that it would lead to better governance and provide political space to the disadvantage section of the society like schedule caste, and schedule tribes and women. The preset paper concentrates to know the extent of participation of women representatives in Panchayat and the problems faced by them.

Paradise plundered: fiscal crisis and governance failures in San Diego

The early 21st century has not been kind to California's reputation for good government. But the Golden State's governance flaws reflect worrisome national trends with origins in the 1970s and 1980s. Growing voter distrust with government, a demand for services but not taxes to pay for them, a sharp decline in enlightened leadership and effective civic watchdogs, and dysfunctional political institutions have all contributed to the current governance malaise. Until recently, San Diego, California-America's 8th largest city-seemed immune to such systematic governance disorders. This sunny beach town entered the 1990s proclaiming to be America's Finest City, but in a few short years its reputation went from Futureville to Enron-by-the-Sea. In this eye-opening and telling narrative, Steven P. Erie, Vladimir Kogan, and Scott A. MacKenzie mix policy analysis, political theory, and history to explore and explain the unintended but largely predictable failures of governance in San Diego. Using untapped primary sources-interviews with key decision makers and public documents-and benchmarking San Diego with other leading California cities, Paradise Plundered examines critical dimensions of San Diego's governance failure: a multi-billion dollar pension deficit; a chronic budget deficit; inadequate city services and infrastructure; grandiose planning initiatives divorced from dire fiscal realities; an insulated downtown redevelopment program plagued by poorly-crafted public-private partnerships; and, for the metropolitan region, inadequate airport and port facilities, a severe underinvestment in firefighting capacity despite destructive wildfires, and heightened Mexican border security concerns. Far from a sunny story of paradise and prosperity, this account takes stock of an important but understudied city, its failed civic leadership, and poorly performing institutions, policymaking, and planning. Though the extent of these failures may place San Diego in a league of its own, other cities are experiencing similar challenges and political changes. As such, this tale of civic woe offers valuable lessons for urban scholars, practitioners, and general readers concerned about the future of their own cities.

Collapse, environment, and society

Historical collapse of ancient states poses intriguing social-ecological questions, as well as potential applications to global change and contemporary strategies for sustainability. Five Old World case studies are developed to identify interactive inputs, triggers, and feedbacks in devolution. Collapse is multicausal and rarely abrupt. Political simplification undermines traditional structures of authority to favor militarization, whereas disintegration is preconditioned or triggered by acute stress (insecurity, environmental or economic crises, famine), with breakdown accompanied or followed by demographic decline. Undue attention to stressors risks underestimating the intricate interplay of environmental, political, and sociocultural resilience in limiting the damages of collapse or in facilitating reconstruction. The conceptual model emphasizes resilience, as well as the historical roles of leaders, elites, and ideology. However, a historical model cannot simply be applied to contemporary problems of sustainability without adjustment for cumulative information and increasing possibilities for popular participation. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, Western Europe responded to environmental crises by innovation and intensification; such modernization was decentralized, protracted, flexible, and broadly based. Much of the current alarmist literature that claims to draw from historical experience is poorly focused, simplistic, and unhelpful. It fails to appreciate that resilience and readaptation depend on identified options, improved understanding, cultural solidarity, enlightened leadership, and opportunities for participation and fresh ideas.

Lessons from America: Liberal French Nobles in Exile, 1793–1798 by Doina Pasca Harsanyi

HARSANYI, DOINA PASCA. Lessons from America: Liberal French Nobles in Exile, 1793– 1798. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2010. ISBN 978-0-271-03637-3. Pp. xi + 204. $80. Meticulously documented and persuasively argued, this book tells the story of a group of French liberal aristocrats (Talleyrand, Liancourt, Noailles, and six less familiar figures) who, during the Reign of Terror, chose emigration to America over almost certain execution for alleged antirevolutionary activities. The first three chapters are devoted to setting the stage for the émigrés’ exile, describing in detail the situation in France on the eve and in the aftermath of the Revolution. The period between 1789 and 1792 saw their identity regress “from liberal nobles to just ‘aristocrats,’ and from enlightened leaders [...] to enemies of the people and agents of despotism” (20). These ex-members of the National Constituent Assembly, all firm believers in Enlightenment values, congregated in Philadelphia at the bookshop of one of their own, Moreau de Saint-Méry. Harsanyi discusses depictions of America already in circulation, such as that of Cornelius de Pauw, who considered living in the state of nature “the result of innate stupidity mistakenly interpreted as simplicity by European observers” (41) and that of Démeunier, an émigré himself, who believed that America represented France’s future. The heart of the study is the chapter on the émigrés’ American experience as recorded in memoirs, diaries, travel notes, and letters. The mix of “begrudging respect” for American institutions of government and “a sort of Schadenfreude” regarding sociocultural standards resulted in new stereotypes that replaced “the lofty prerevolutionary image of America” (57). Among the grievances: America’s lack of enlightened leadership (“the rich had no manners, no taste, and no class” [67]) and its obsession with making money (Liancourt claimed that “getting rich quickly was the only true ideal of all Americans” [61]). Not surprisingly, these “accidental tourists” (115) had no interest in assimilating into American culture (Liancourt, for one, proclaimed “I would perish if I had to stay here” [118]); rather, they wished to preserve the integrity of the values and principles under siege at home in the hope of restoring them once the political climate changed. In the penultimate chapter Harsanyi discusses the émigrés’ reactions to politics in America and their forays into business (particularly land development), destined to fail because of their aversion to money-making and their reluctance— as short-timers—to make long-term investments. By 1798 all but two of the members of Moreau’s coterie were back in France, some blessed with bright futures (Talleyrand embarked upon an impressive diplomatic career, for example), others not (the marquis de Blacons gambled away the money he had made in America and killed himself). The final chapter proper looks at how the lessons learned in America, where stability and social peace reigned (“uncouth and ignorant American elites” [77] notwithstanding), might be applied to the France to which the émigrés would return. Harsanyi’s talents for synthesis and interpretation truly shine in her conclusion, where she analyzes the extent to which the émigrés’ observations anticipated those of Tocqueville: she states unequivocally, for instance, that the émigrés were wrong about so many things American “because they so intensely needed to be right about France” (140), and that although Talleyrand and Liancourt did not have a direct influence on Tocqueville’s thinking , they and their cohorts “helped create the paradigm of intense scrutiny of America qua analytical tool, a precedent that Tocqueville was able to build on” (142). Though aimed primarily at historians, Lessons from America will appeal to Reviews 773 anyone keen on discovering the roots of the cultural misunderstandings that continue to influence Franco-American relations today. It is sobering indeed to learn that over two hundred years ago, Americans were already being taken to task for not devoting enough time to leisure... University of Arkansas Hope Christiansen READER, KEITH. The Place de la Bastille: The Story of a Quartier. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84631-665-4. Pp. viii + 184. £25. Even though the Bastille prison was demolished shortly after 14 July 1789, countless visitors seek out its location for its role...

William Gorgas

In 1891, Carlos Finlay and Walter Reed made the landmark discovery that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes.1 Unfortunately, this discovery did not immediately lead to the eradication of the disease—not only because the virus was extremely widespread in tropical communities, but also because sanitary officials were reluctant to recognize the importance of mosquitoes as the disease vector. The task of putting this knowledge to effective use fell to a young US Army captain by the name of William C. Gorgas. Yellow fever had been a presence in Gorgas' life from early adulthood, when he had acquired immunity through a mild case of the disease.2 In 1898, soon after the end of the Spanish-American War, Gorgas was detailed to Havana, where yellow fever had been endemic for centuries. Gorgas directed a control strategy to identify and destroy mosquito breeding places, and after only a few months of a strict mosquito control program, yellow fever was eradicated from Havana. When Gorgas learned of the US government's decision to build the Panama Canal, he requested assignment to Panama. There he again tackled the eradication of yellow fever through mosquito control—despite vigorous opposition by US officials who believed yellow fever was caused by environmental filth, and who made efforts to discredit his work.3 President Theodore Roosevelt supported Gorgas′ efforts, and the Canal Zone was free of yellow fever by 1906, followed by eradication of malaria a few years later. Gorgas' enlightened leadership in public health did not go unrecognized. He was elected as the president of the American Medical Association in 1908, and in 1914 he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson as the Surgeon General of the Army. Even so, public health measures that he promulgated during the First World War were often opposed by his superiors, who objected to their cost. After the First World War, Gorgas continued to agitate for more effective control of infectious diseases, consulting with a number of foreign governments. He was on his way to Africa in 1920 when, at the age of 66, he suffered a stroke. He was knighted by King George V on his deathbed in London, and lay in state in St. Paul's Cathedral before being returned to the US for burial.Figure: William Gorgas

The Good Life in Victorian and Edwardian Surbiton: Creating a Suburban Community Before 1914

Throughout their recent history suburbs and suburban society have been characterised by a number of writers — including historians — as being dull, detached, monotonous, lacking in community spirit and devoid of cultural activity. The aim of this article is to challenge these negative stereotypes by examining the reality of community life in the classic suburban town of Surbiton before 1914. It sets out a framework within which communities can be defined and analysed and argues that the criteria used to identify working class communities in the past are not necessarily applicable to more middle class suburban communities. The historical evidence for community life and identity in Surbiton before 1914 is provided by the existence of clubs and societies; sporting and leisure activities; participation in cultural events; support networks when necessary; multi-class activities; and enlightened middle class leadership.

John Shaw Billings: Science and Medicine in the Gilded Age (review)

Reviewed by: John Shaw Billings: Science and Medicine in the Gilded Age Michael Bliss James H. Cassedy . John Shaw Billings: Science and Medicine in the Gilded Age. Bethesda, Md.: Xlibris, 2009. 253 pp. $29.99 (cloth, 978-1-4415-9518-8), $19.99 (paperbound, 978-1-4415-9517-1). John Shaw Billings is best known as a great American librarian—founder of the Army Medical Library, which evolved into the National Library of Medicine—and as a key builder of the New York Public Library. That he had a very wide range of other activities, both during and after his thirty-year career in the Surgeon-General's office, such as playing a key role as a designer of Johns Hopkins and other hospitals, has also been recognized in the standard works on Billings. These are Fielding H. Garrison's John Shaw Billings: A Memoir (1915) and Carleton B. Chapman's Order out of Chaos: John Shaw Billings and America's Coming of Age (1994).1 On the surface, neither book seems to shortchange its subject. If anything, the Billings biographies are excessively hagiographic. For James H. Cassedy, who had a long and productive career at the National Library of Medicine, the primary weakness of the biographical material on Billings is its failure to portray the astonishing breadth of Billings's activities and to ground that breadth in Billings's passion to expand scientifically based knowledge throughout public and private institutions. Cassedy's short monograph, John Shaw Billings: Science and Medicine in the Gilded Age, is not so much a new biography as it is a supplement to the existing ones. Drawing on the Billings Papers in the New York Public Library and the remarkable amount of institutional history that has been written about U.S. government agencies after the Civil War, Cassedy provides a linked series of essays aimed at showing Billings as "a participant in and major exponent of the period's substantially growing federal presence, specifically the expansion of federal authority in health policy, medical institution-forming, and scientific ventures" (p. 7). So we learn more than we have previously known about Billings's early interest in hygiene in the U.S. Army, the models of the hospitals he designed, his interest in ventilation and other sanitary issues, his service on the aborted National Board of Health, his passion for statistics and major contributions to the modernization of the U.S. census, and his service to a wide range of medical and scientific organizations. Billings was so incredibly hardworking, so dedicated, so versatile, such a straight-shooting public servant (at least ostensibly) that the mere recounting of his activities is exhausting to a merely human reader—and, not surprisingly, leans toward becoming a dry compendium of detail. Billings was indeed a great builder, a nineteenth-century public entrepreneur, one of the small band of public servants who laid the foundation for the rise of American eminence in medicine, science, and higher education. Cassedy is conscious of but does not dwell upon some of the less attractive of Billings's traits—his ambition, his neglect of his family, his penchant for political [End Page 304] manipulation (Billings made many enemies, and never became Surgeon-General), his tendency to spread himself too thinly and burn out. Perhaps this is fair enough. Cassedy clearly subscribes to the view of Billings as one of the best in an age when all the best men in American science and medicine lived in five cities on the eastern seaboard, all knew one another, and never doubted that collectively they were giving enlightened leadership to the American people. Perhaps now that we see how much Billings achieved, we can reconsider how to set his work more fully in the context of his life and times. A major new Billings biography might be the next step. Michael Bliss University of Toronto Footnotes 1. Fielding H. Garrison, John Shaw Billings: A Memoir (New York: Putnam, 1915); Carleton B. Chapman, Order out of Chaos: John Shaw Billings and America's Coming of Age (Boston: Boston Medical Library, 1994). Copyright © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Capitalism in China: A Centrally Managed Capitalism (CMC) and Its Future

While China continues to develop capitalistic capacities, the party-state has increasingly tightened control of the economy and synchronized political and economic stratification – a tendency towards acentrally managed capitalism. Under centrally managed capitalism, the party-state commands the economy by controlling personnel, organizations, and capital in both political and economic arenas. At the same time, it delegates fiscal and administrative authorities to multiple and diversely formed corporations to compete in the marketplace. I further speculate on future ideological alternatives: a western-style democracy, a mature-stage socialism, or an enlightened authoritarianism –Xiaokang(小康 moderate prosperity or well-off society). After eliminating or casting doubt on the former two, I argue that a two-step transformation towardsXiaokangis under way. In the first step, the party-state leadership gradually decouples its position from Marxist ideology of communism and socialism, and moves towards the maintenance of economic growth and social order. The second step then allows the legitimacy of party rule to be based on indigenous Confucian ideology that emphasizes enlightened leaders, moral institutions, and social relations (i.e.,Xiaokang). Finally, I explore the feasibility and paths towards an indigenous ideology of democracy (Datong: 大同 – universal harmony).

<i>Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson Beverly Tomek Jane E. Calvert. Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xiv, 382. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth, $99.00.) John Dickinson has been an enigma for most historians of the American Revolutionary period, who have had a hard time reconciling his role as the "penman" of the American Revolution with his refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence. Further complicating matters was his active participation on the battlefield during the war, after he refused to call for [End Page 231] independence. Jane Calvert has finally solved the puzzle by focusing on the influence of Quakerism in Dickinson's unique constitutional theory. In the process of explaining Dickinson, she has offered insight into the influence of the Society of Friends on U.S. constitutional history, as well as American reform from colonial times to the twentieth century. Calvert's reassessment of John Dickinson's role in the revolutionary and founding era of the United States is so much more than another "founding father" biography. It is instead one of the most thorough treatments of American Quakerism in general and Quaker politics and resistance in particular. Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson offers new insight into the role of Quakers in the creation of governments in North America, as well as in the American Revolution. It also sheds new light on the influence of the often-unappreciated Dickinson. Finally, it describes in rich depth both the foundation and the legacy of Quaker reform. Calvert begins her study with a promise to do what few scholars have attempted: "to show precisely what Quakers have contributed to American political culture and how they accomplished it" (1). She then systematically destroys the notion that during the American Revolution Quakers were passivists or "withdrawers" at best and Loyalists at worst. As her narrative unfolds, she describes a unique Quaker constitutional theory that shaped not only the earliest constitutions of Pennsylvania but also, ultimately, the U.S. Constitution. This theory contained two key ideas. First, the Constitution was a living and evolving document that would be guided to perfection by enlightened leaders, and second, those hoping to guide this evolution had a number of techniques at their disposal, the most radical of which was civil disobedience. According to Calvert, Quakers were very active in opposing laws that they considered unjust, but with few exceptions they could not support the notion that revolution was a legitimate option when fighting for their rights. Put simply, Quakers believed that reform was often necessary but that it had to be brought about in a systematic manner that respected the existing constitution. Otherwise, chaos would ensue and the rights of religious dissenters could be jeopardized. After describing in detail the basis of Quaker constitutionalism, Calvert uses John Dickinson as a case study to describe how Quaker ideas affected and were affected by the tumult of the American Revolution. She argues persuasively that the notion of Quakers as passivists who withdrew from the political world in the years leading up the break with England is too simplistic. Instead, she describes a trifurcated situation in which some Quakers did indeed withdraw because of their passivism while others, such as the Free [End Page 232] Quakers, joined the fight for independence with relative ease. A third group, best represented by Dickinson, pushed for colonial rights through civil disobedience and economic resistance but fell short of calling for independence. According to Calvert, Dickinson, a product of the Quaker milieu though not a professed Quaker himself, fought for change within the boundaries of constitutional resistance because he believed, as Quakers had for generations, that while it was one's duty to protest injustice, such protest must respect the existing constitution or the results would be illegitimate. Her explanation of Dickinson's actions in terms of the Quaker constitutional theory goes far in solving the historical puzzle that Dickinson's career has presented. Calvert offers an analysis of the group's resistance and reform efforts that historians of any time period will find useful. She describes in great detail the foundations of civil disobedience...