Why has Robert Owen continued to occupy the attention of historians in the twentieth century? What changing significance has been seen in his work? What was his relationship with the great social and political movements of his age? To what extent was the Owenite 'message' of importance outside Great Britain? These and other questions are taken up in this study.
Robert Owen (1771-1858) was the founder of British socialism, and one of the most influential reformers in Britain and America in the first half of the 19th century. This book contains all Owen's key writings on the ideal community, socialism, religion, and the capitalist economic system.
J. F. C. Harrison has written that ‘for each age there is a new view of Mr Owen’, which is proof of the fertility and continuing relevance of his ideas. Not just in Britain and America but today around the world anti-poverty campaigners, birth-controllers, collectivists, communitarians, co-operators, ecologists, educationalists, environmentalists, feminists, humanitarians, internationalists, paternalistic capitalists, secularists, campaigners for social justice, trade unionists, urban planners, utopians, welfare reformers can all find something to admire and inspire in the treasure trove that is the thought and actions of Robert Owen. Owen was a creative genius of global significance, a radical writer and activist of international reputation and reach who has inspired those seeking to change human society for the better. The contributors to this volume include not only many of the recognized experts on the life, work and legacy of Owen, but also work from younger scholars or scholars coming to the field afresh. The volume presents the most recent and original research on Owen. Owen notoriously (and impressively) dabbled in many spheres, and this is reflected in the its breadth of content. The unifying themes are Owen’s profile in his own time, and the relevance of his ideas for the generations that followed. His importance for educational and social philosophy, for political economy and for the political theory of socialism are all discussed, as are his contribution as a philanthropic employer, his political activities and the specificities of his historical context.
The bibliography contains references to literature on British industrial relations published in the years 1971 to 1979 inclusive. It includes books, periodical articles, theses, government publications, pamphlets and any other relevant publications. As well as general material on industrial relations, the bibliography includes material on employee attitudes and behaviour, employee organisation, employers and their organisation, collective bargaining, industrial conflict, industrial democracy, the labour market, training, employment, unemployment, labour mobility, pay, conditions and the role of the state in industrial relations. It is cross-referenced and has an author index. It is a supplement to the volume compiled by George Bain and Gillian Woolven (published by the Press in 1979) and for the years since 1980 is itself updated by annual articles in the British Journal of Industrial Relations. The material is arranged by subject, and chronologically within that framework.
Originally published 1965. This reprints the 1977 edition which included a new introduction. From the starting point of "popular" charity education, the book traces the dynamic of ideological and social change from the 1790s to the 1830s in terms of attitudes to education and analyzes the range of contemporary opinions on popular education. It also examines some of the channels through which ideas about education were disseminated and became common currency in popular movements.
In the early nineteenth century, governments introduced kindergartens and infant schools to give children a head start in life. These programs hinged on new visions of childhood that origin-ated in England and Europe, but what happened when they were exported to the colonies? This book unwinds the tangled threads of this history, from early infant schools in England to three Commonwealth countries Canada, Australia, and New Zealand where systems of educating young children were transplanted but adapted to suit local ideas, politics, and populations. This unique, comparative approach to the history of early childhood education provides fresh insight into how to reconcile educational theory and practice in an increasingly global world.
This book considers the role played by co-operative agriculture as a critical economic model which, in Australia, helped build public capital, drive economic development and impact political arrangements. In the case of colonial Western Australia, the story of agricultural co-operation is inseparable from that of the story of Charles Harper. Harper was a self-starting, pioneering frontiersman who became a political, commercial and agricultural leader in the British Empire’s most isolated colony during the second half of the Victorian era. He was convinced of the successful economic future of Western Australia but also pragmatic enough to appreciate that the unique challenges facing the colony were only going to be resolved by the application of unorthodox thinking. Using Harper’s life as a foil, this book examines Imperial economic thinking in relation to the co-operative form of economic organisation, the development of public capital, and socialism. It uses this discussion to demonstrate the transfer of socialistic ideas from the centre of the Empire to the farthest reaches of the Antipodes where they were used to provide a rhetorical crutch in support of purely pragmatic co-operative establishments.
"[An] important new book . . .Mr. O'Toole puts soul and values squarely back into a vital topic, leadership." --Tom Peters The New York Times Book Review "A deeply philosophical and eminently practical study of leadership as change." --James MacGregor Burns Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, and author of Leadership Current management philosophy advocates an outmoded Machiavellian approach to running organizations: Leaders are told in countless books that they can only accomplish their goals by being tough, manipulative, dictatorial, or paternalistic as the situation requires. In Leading Change, noted management theorist James O'Toole proposes a provocative new vision of leadership in the business world--a vision of leadership rooted in moral values and a consistent display of respect for all followers. As O'Toole brilliantly demonstrates, values-based leadership is not only fair and just, it is also highly effective in today's complex organizations. When leaders truly believe that their prime goal is the welfare of their followers, they get results. The finest leaders--from political giants like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln to contemporary CEOs like Max De Pree and James Houghton--have always shared leadership with their followers. They create organizations that encourage change and self-reevaluation; they foster an atmosphere of open-mindedness and fresh thinking, in which assumptions can be challenged and goals reassessed. Grounded in the ideas of moral philosophy, Leading Change powerfully transcends the standard how-to management primer to define a challenging new approach to leadership. As O'Toole so persuasively argues, growth and change are possible, indeed necessary, and they will be effected by individuals who have the stature and the courage to lead morally. This important book, at once thought-provoking and totally practical, is bound to take its place as one of the landmark business volumes of our times. "Jim O'Toole has written the essential work for organizations to survive and thrive in today's changing world. His intellectually penetrating thinking shows us how the sometimes conflicting problems we wrestle with--often in piecemeal fashion--fit together to form a complete picture, even as the picture itself continues to change. His message is so critical to the very existence of every organization that any leader who fails to heed his advice condemns his or her company to mediocrity and/or early death. It's that basic." --Warren Bennis Professor and founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California Author of An Invented Life and Why Leaders Can't Lead
