Showing results by narrator "Steve Menasche" in All Categories

The American Dream is one of the most familiar and resonant phrases in our national lexicon, so familiar that we seldom pause to ask its origin, its history, or what it actually means. In this fascinating short history, Jim Cullen explores the meaning of the American Dream, or rather the several American Dreams that have both reflected and shaped American identity from the Pilgrims to the present.

The middle class is the most successful group in world history. Sometime before 2030 the fifth billionth person will join the middle class. What started a little over two hundred years ago as a search for a better life has fueled unprecedented global transformation. In his new book Homi Kharas looks at how this powerful dream captivated generations through history, but its demands have led younger generations to ask if it is all worth it. Can the middle class continue to thrive, or will it falter under the stresses of automation, consumerism, pollution, and political strife?

Balancing the short term and the long term is a perennial struggle, but new developments put boards squarely at the center of this dilemma and in need of guidance. Much of the $14 trillion of assets that firms like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street manage is now held in index funds, creating a huge class of permanent institutional investors. These so-called passive investors (unlike activist investors, passive investors don't have power to exit the fund) own almost 60 percent of the Fortune 500 - and they have found their voice.

This volume explores the variety of business enterprise in the United States and analyzes its presence in the country's economy, its evolution over time, and its meaning in society.

In Understanding Software, Max Kanat-Alexander, Technical Lead for Code Health at Google, shows you how to bring simplicity back to computer programming. Max explains to you why programmers suck, and how to suck less as a programmer. There's just too much complex stuff in the world. Complex stuff can't be used, and it breaks too easily. Complexity is stupid. Simplicity is smart.

In Copyright: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Neil Netanel explains the concepts needed to understand the heated debates about copyright law and policy. He identifies the combatants, unpacks their arguments, and illuminates what is at stake in the debates over copyright's present and future.

Of all the musical developments of rock in the 1960s, one in particular fundamentally changed the music's structure and listening experience: the incorporation of extended improvisation into live performances. While many bands—including Cream, Pink Floyd, and the Velvet Underground—stretched out their songs with improvisations, no band was more identified with the practice than the Grateful Dead. In Get Shown the Light Michael Kaler examines how the Dead's dedication to improvisation stemmed from their belief that playing in this manner enabled them to touch upon transcendence.

COVID-19 for Dummies is a quick crash course for people with COVID-19 and long COVID who want to learn more about how to treat and manage their symptoms. Anyone who wants to know more about this new disease will appreciate this trustworthy Dummies guide.

As a young girl, Becky is forced to hide from phantom Nazis, subjected to dental procedures without pain medication, and torn from her mother again and again. Growing up in the shadow of her father's PTSD, she wants to know what is wrong, but knows not to ask. Her father won't talk about being a Timberwolf, a unit of specially trained night fighters that went into combat first and experienced a 300 percent casualty rate. He returns home with thirteen medals and becomes a doctor, but is haunted by his past.

Once you’ve been admitted to college, the next step is to develop a strategy of how to find your best life there. But for decades, Professor James T. Hamilton has seen students struggle with their college journey. Some avoid challenging experiences, follow a path of familiar expectations, and rely on shortcuts. Others aim for perfection, ignore their friends and health, labor over what subjects to study, and neglect spending time outside the classroom. The pressure to make college valuable and interesting can feel overwhelming.

Historian Erik Baker argues that the entrepreneurial work ethic has given meaning to work in a world where employment is ever more precarious—and in doing so, has helped legitimize a society of mounting economic insecurity and inequality. Where work is hard to find and older nostrums about diligent effort fall flat, the advice to "make your own job" keeps hope alive.

If you're enrolled in an MBA or executive education program, you've probably encountered a powerful learning tool: the business case. But if you're like many people, you may find interpreting and writing about cases mystifying and time-consuming. In The Case Study Handbook, Revised Edition, William Ellet presents a potent new approach for efficiently analyzing, discussing, and writing about cases.

Free speech is indispensable on college campuses: allowing varied views and frank exchanges of opinion is a core component of the educational enterprise. But free speech does not mean a free-for-all. The First Amendment prohibits "abridging the freedom of speech," yet laws against perjury or bribery, for example, are still constitutional. In the same way, valuing freedom of speech does not stop a university from regulating speech when doing so is necessary for its educational mission. So where is the dividing line? How can we distinguish reasonable restrictions from impermissible infringement?

Steel City is the story of the 1890s golden age of Pittsburgh when its technological innovations and wealth creation made it the Silicon Valley of its day. Pittsburgh was first in steel, food processing, and electricity, and the leaders of those industries—Carnegie, Frick, Heinz, and Westinghouse—are names we still know today.