From: Ruth H. Axelrod [mailto:
raxelrod@gwu.edu]
Hi, colleagues--
It's not a "how-to," but as a resource of rich descriptive material I
recommend "The Oxford Book of Work", Keith Thomas
<
keith.thomas@ccc.ox.ac.uk>
(ed.,) Oxford U. Press, 1999,
[ISBN: 0192142178
http://www.oup-usa.org/isbn/0192825313.html ].
It's a wonderful compilation of short (1 paragraph to 3 pages)
extracts from literature about various aspects of work. I am using it
this summer--having students read aloud relevant passages during
discussions. It helps give a "taste" of worklife in areas that they/I
may know little about--industrial era jobs, domestic service, heavy
labor, farm work, etc.--and, thus, provides another dimension of
specification and application (beyond their experience and mine) of the
leadership issues that we are discussing.
It's currently available at substantial discount from Daedalus Books,
which is an altogether dangerous resource for a book-lover that retails
overstocks of mostly scholarly, literary and esoteric books (we find a
lot of great stuff, especially stories from other cultures, for my
husband's grandchildren in its catalogue!)--800-395-2665 and at
http://www.daedalusbooks.com/bookcatalog.txt for $6.98 (list $35!).
Ruth
raxelrod@gwu.edu
[comment from Mg-Ed-Dv Discussion Fomenter: There is a used one for under
ten dollars currently available from Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0192142178/qid=992005559/sr=1-1/ref=s
c_b_1/002-9345291-2496864
Amazon quotes:
Edward Rothstein, New York Times, October 2, 1999
There may be no reconciliation between work as torture and work as
cultivation, judging from "The Oxford Book of Work," a massive anthology of
writing compiled by Keith Thomas, the president of Corpus Christi College of
Oxford. "What a dreary subject!" he recalls his friends saying when he
announced his ambitions to gather literary and historical material on the
theme of work. But, also, in all its contradictions and variety, what an
astonishing one.
...and...
Richard Sennett, Los Angeles Times , September 1999
Thomas, a historian at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, has put together an
amazingly varied collection of poems, snippets of novels, newspaper
articles, diaries, socialist denunciations and capitalist celebrations about
the experience of working, from the farmers of ancients Greek times to
modern office workers. The book is mercifully short on academic
social-science treatises....Thomas makes labor come to life by charting a
stark, great historical conflict between those who believe work is degrading
and those who believe we fulfill ourselves through our jobs.
One might consider whether you are at a retrograde institution or not by
considering that UCLA and UCB have the electronic version of this book in
their electronic libraries of management books at:
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/resources/library/etext/etitle.htm
and
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BUSI/ebooks.html
Yeah, tell the dean "If we don't get an electronic management library like
the University of California's immediately, I'm out the door!"
Cybercollegially,
Charles Wankel
Mg-Ed-Dv Discussion Fomenter
wankelc@stjohns.edu ]