Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 56 - January 2020): Oxford University Press

Price: $ 121.47

India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Yet health is not a part of our ambitious development story. In fact, India's disproportionately stingy healthcare budget makes some of the poorer nations look better in comparison. Statistics, however, speak louder than critics: wehave one of the highest numbers of women dying in childbirth and under-five mortality rates. Every year nearly sixty million people get pushed below the poverty line due to the health expenditures that they incur. But there are a few bright spots too: India has eradicated polio and reversed theincidence of HIV/AIDS by an impressive margin.Drawing on her experience as the former union health secretary, K. Sujatha Rao gives us an unsparingly candid insider's view of India's health system. This richly detailed book favours increasing the health budget, greater use of technology, and providing leadership and good governance. Rao arguesthat unless good health is prioritized as a national goal, India's growth story will remain largely self-congratulatory.

Price: $ 303.75

All people derive particular identities from their roles in society, the groups they belong to, and their personal characteristics. Introduced almost thirty years ago, identity theory is a social psychological theory in the field of sociology that attempts to understand identities, theirsources in interaction and society, their processes of operation, and their consequences for interaction and society. The theory brings together in a single framework the central roles of both meaning and resources in human interaction and purpose. This book describes identity theory, its origins,the research that supports it, and its future direction. It covers the relation between identity theory and other related theories as well as the nature and operation of identities. In addition, the book discusses the multiple identities that individuals hold from their multiple positions in societyand organization as well as the multiple identities activated by many people interacting in groups and organizations. And, it covers the manner in which identities offer both stability and change to individuals. Co-authored by the originators of the theory, this book accessibly presents decades ofresearch in a single volume, making the full range of this powerful new theory understandable to readers at all levels.

Price: $ 275

This Handbook triangulates the disciplines of history, legal history, and literature to produce a new, interdisciplinary framework for the study of early modern England. Scholars of early modern English literature and history have increasingly found that an understanding of how people in thepast thought about and used the law is key to understanding early modern familial and social relations as well as important aspects of the political revolution and the emergence of capitalism. Judicial or forensic rhetoric has been shown to foster new habits of literary composition (poetry anddrama) and new processes of fact-finding and evidence evaluation. In addition, the post-Reformation jurisdictional dominance of the common law produced new ways of drawing the boundaries between private conscience and public accountability.Accordingly, historians, critics and legal historians come together in this Handbook to develop accounts of the past that are attentive to the legally purposeful or fictional shaping of events in the historical archive. They also contribute to a transformation of our understanding of the place offorensic modes of inquiry in the creation of imaginative fiction and drama. Chapters in the Handbook approach, from a diversity of perspectives, topics including forensic rhetoric, humanist and legal education, Inns of Court revels, drama, poetry, emblem books, marriage and divorce, witchcraft,contract, property, imagination, oaths, evidence, community, local government, legal reform, libel, censorship, authorship, torture, slavery, liberty, due process, the nation state, colonialism, and empire.

Price: $ 75.93

The book explores a significant episode of Indian social history, the Hindu Code Bill controversy that stirred the Indian social consciousness in the mid-twentieth century. Revisiting the communicative processes surrounding the reform of Hindu customary laws relating to marriage, divorce,succession, adoption and maintenance, the book provides an in-depth account of the intense debate that took place in and outside the legislature involving political groups, social associations, religious organizations, legal associations, and the women's movement. Placing the debate in a historicalcontinuum, the author tracess the genesis of the Hindu Code Bill by exploring the linkages of late eighteenth century initiatives of colonial administration, the efforts of eighteenth century social reformers, and the contribution of Indian national movement as well as women's organizations in earlytwentieth century.The book analyses the relationship of discourses in the public and legislative spheres and emphases the role of Nehru , Ambedkar, B.N. Rau and other prominent personalities in the promotion of gender justice. The book argues that while effective implementation of enabling legal provisions wereimpeded by deeply entrenched patriarchal structures in Independent India, the debate contributed towards a gradual transformation of the Indian social consciousness, thus contributing towards gender justice in Indian society.

Price: $ 130.58

This collection offers a new rationale and framework for international development cooperation. Its main argument is that in actual practice, development cooperation has already moved beyond aid (i.e. assistance to poor countries) and onto issues such as the ozone hole, global climate change,HIV, drug trafficking, and financial volatility. These issues are not poverty-related but instead concern global housekeeping, which helps to ensure an adequate provision of global public goods. Contributors include Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Jeffrey Sachs of the HarvardInstitute for International Development, Joseph Stiglitz of the World Bank, and many others.

Price: $ 83.53

Looking at the many facets of the Indian business culture, Indian Means Business traces the evolution of business in India from the pre-British Raj days to recent times. From indigenous business and financial practices, the role of family business, state-owned public sector enterprises to theinfluence of global business on India and successful business practices of modern India - the book covers all the major factors which have worked together to make India a global business power.The book focuses on the influence of global business, studying its impact through case studies of companies like ITC Limited, ICI India Limited, HCL Limited, and Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, among others, and analyses the sustainability of the Indian dream. The book also includes notices on theguilds of ancient India, hundis (indigenous and para-banking), bahi-khata and parta system, and chit and nidhi funds as well as discussions on innovation and research and development, which analyse the value, spread, and position of India in the global RandD pie.

Price: $ 121.5

In this era of globalization, every region and country in the world is pursuing some kind of integration to further its economic, geo-political, and strategic interests. This book explores the prospects for and challenges to services integration in South Asia through an in-depth analysis ofsome representative services-telecommunications, energy, tourism, health, and education.Identifying trends in performance, policy issues, and the status of intraregional trade and investment initiatives in services, the book argues the case for services integration under South Asian Free Trade Association (SAFTA). It also stresses the need to address cross-cutting issues of regionalmobility of service providers, taxes, transport, trade facilitation, research and development, data collection and dissemination, and regulatory cooperation. Expanding the existing work on South Asian integration to cover services from an intraregional perspective, this book can help inform theongoing services negotiations and future academic and policy work in South Asia. The industry-, country-, and regional-level statistics on services provided by the book serve as a useful reference for taking stock of output, employment, trade, and investment in services in this region.

Price: $ 179.21

This book provides a compendium to the empirical work investigating the hypotheses generated by recent banking theory. Such a compendium is overdue. Since the publication of the The Microeconomics of Banking by Xavier Freixas and Jean Charles Rochet, work in empirical banking has furtherblossomed, not only in sheer volume but also in the variety of questions being tackled, datasets becoming available, and methodologies being introduced. This book follows the structure in Freixas and Rochet's book and arranges the relevant methodologies, applications, and results according to eachof their original chapters in order to have a coherent synthesis between available theory and supporting empirics. Each chapter in Microeconometrics of Banking contains a modest introduction (where possible and appropriate), a concise methodology section with one or more relevant methodologies, andseveral illustrative applications. In a "muscular" results section the authors summarize the main robust and seminal findings in the literature that are in the text, and provide the details of many other studies in figures and tables.

Price: $ 150.32

Large companies doing business on a global basis increasingly dominate the production and marketing of the world's goods and services. This book analyses multinational corporations.

Price: $ 318.93

With its inception at the end of the nineteenth century as a means of consolidation and reorganization, mergers and acquisitions (MandA) have since become quasi-institutionalized as one of the primary strategic options for organizations, as they seek to secure their position in an ever morecompetitive and globalizing market place. Despite the optimism surrounding MandA as strategic moves, research on post-merger company performance suggests that most firms engaging in MandA activity do not achieve the sought-after performance targets, either immediately or in the years following thedeal. What is it that drives MandA activity when research results do not support the performance expectations of these undertakings? Alternatively, have MandA scholars got it all wrong in the way that MandA performance is measured? Is the topic too complex, enduring, and multifaceted to study?The Handbook argues that the field of MandA is in need of a re-rooting: past research needs to be critically reviewed, and fundamental assumptions revisited. A key issue preventing efforts in the practice and study of MandA from achieving dynamic syntheses has been the disciplinary gulf separatingstrategy, finance, and human relations schools. The Handbook aims to bridge the hitherto separate disciplines engaged in the study and practice of MandA to provide more meaningful results.Toward this end, the Handbook brings together a set of prominent and emerging scholars and practitioners engaged in the study of MandA to provide thought-provoking, state of the art overviews of MandA through four specific 'lenses' - strategic, financial, socio-cultural, and sectoral approaches. Bysummarizing key findings in current research and exploring ways in which the differing approaches could and should be 'synthesized', it aims to highlight the key issues facing MandA practitioners and academics at the dawn of the third millennium.

Price: $ 605

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to grow as an area of interest in academia and business. Encompassing broad topics such as the relationship between business, society, and government, environmental issues, globalization, and the social and ethical dimensions of management and corporate operation, CSR has become an increasingly interdisciplinary subject relevant to areas of economics, sociology, and psychology, among others. New directions in CSR research include advanced 'micro' based investigations in organizational behaviour and human resource management, additional studies of environmental social responsibility and sustainability, further research on 'strategic' CSR, connections between social responsibility and entrepreneurship, and improvements in methods and data analysis as the field matures. Through authoritative contributions from international scholars across the social sciences, this Handbook provides a cohesive overview of this recent expansion. It introduces new perspectives, new methodologies, and new evidence from a range of disciplines to encourage and facilitate interdisciplinary research and global implementation of corporate social responsibility.

Price: $ 108

The economic analysis of the digital economy has been a rapidly developing research area for more than a decade. Through authoritative examination by leading scholars, this Handbook takes a closer look at particular industries, business practices, and policy issues associated with the digitalindustry.The volume offers an up-to-date account of key topics, discusses open questions, and provides guidance for future research. It offers a blend of theoretical and empirical works that are central to understanding the digital economy. The chapters are presented in four sections, corresponding with fourbroad themes: 1) infrastructure, standards, and platforms; 2) the transformation of selling, encompassing both the transformation of traditional selling and new, widespread application of tools such as auctions; 3) user-generated content; and 4) threats in the new digital environment.The first section covers infrastructure, standards, and various platform industries that rely heavily on recent developments in electronic data storage and transmission, including software, video games, payment systems, mobile telecommunications, and B2B commerce. The second section takes account ofthe reduced costs of online retailing that threatens offline retailers, widespread availability of information as it affects pricing and advertising, digital technology as it allows the widespread employment of novel price and non-price strategies (bundling, price discrimination), and auctions, aswell as better tar. The third section addresses the emergent phenomenon of user-generated content on the Internet, including the functioning of social networks and open source. Finally, the fourth section discusses threats arising from digitization and the Internet, namely digital piracy, privacyand internet security concerns.

Price: $ 57.68

Is primitivism a consequence of the natural evolution of some human societies? Or is it a conscious choice by such societies to evade state power? In The Roots of the Periphery, Bhangya Bhukya sets out to answer these questions by taking as his focal point the case of the Gond dynasty of theerstwhile Chanda region of Deccan India. Arguing that the "periphery" - the adivasis (or the indigenous peoples) - have their roots in the "centre", he demonstrates how the British colonial government in India created an administrative divide between the plains and the hills, thus stereotyping hilland forest communities as isolated, primitive, barbaric, and uncivilized.This book examines the evolution of Gond society over a prolonged period - from Mughal rule to the colonial era - with an interdisciplinary approach that uses both oral narratives and folklore along with archival sources. In so doing, it challenges the isolationist and assimilationist perceptionsabout adivasi society and asserts that the "difference" imagined and articulated by the Gonds was deeply rooted in self-rule and self-determinism.

Price: $ 546.75

Media ownership and concentration has major implications for politics, business, culture, regulation, and innovation. It is also a highly contentious subject of public debate in many countries around the world. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi's companies have dominated Italian politics. Televisahas been accused of taking cash for positive coverage of politicians in Mexico. Even in tiny Iceland, the regulation of media concentration led to that country's first and only public referendum.Who Owns the World's Media? moves beyond the rhetoric of free media and free markets to provide a dispassionate and data-driven analysis of global media ownership trends and their drivers. Based on an extensive data collection effort from scholars around the world, the book covers thirteen mediaindustries, including television, newspapers, book publishing, film, search engines, ISPs, wireless telecommunication and others, across a ten to twenty-five year period in thirty countries. In many countries--like Egypt, China, or Russia--little to no data exists and the publication of thesechapters will become authoritative resources on the subject in those regions.After examining each country, Noam and his collaborators offer comparisons and analysis across industries, regions, and development levels. They also calculate overall national concentration trends beyond specific media industries, the market share of individual companies in the overall nationalmedia sector, and the size and trends of transnational companies in overall global media.This definitive global study of the extent and impact of media concentration will be an invaluable resource for communications, public policy, law, and business scholars in doing research and also for media, telecom, and IT companies and financial institutions in the private sector.

Price: $ 303.75

The rise of Asia, and China specifically, is the single most important force reshaping the world economy at the beginning of the 21st century. From a low of 20 per cent in 1950, Asia's share of global GDP has now risen to 33 per cent and will exceed 40 per cent within a generation if currentforecasts are realized. Asia's growing weight in the world economy is elevating it to a central position in global economic and financial affairs. The potential global impact of this astonishing growth is far reaching, from oil markets and the environment to a reshaping of trade relations in thecurrent multilateral system dominated by the WTO.This collection of original essays written by leading economists explores the likely impact of the rapid growth in the East Asian economies, and in particular China, on the world economy in the coming decades and the consequent challenges for the development of trade, macroeconomic, andenvironmental policy.

Price: $ 126.02

The present global economic crisis demands we look anew at the role of corporations, and the working of financial markets around the world. In this challenging and insightful book, one of our most eminent economists provides a compelling new analysis of the corporate firm; the role ofshareholders, managers and workers; and institutional governance structures.In recent decades the firm has predominantly been seen as an organization run and governed in the interests of shareholders, where managers act as the agent of shareholders, and the workers simply as instruments for share-value maximization. This book reverses this viewpoint. It sees corporations ascognitive systems where 'cognitive actions' are distributed amongst managers and workers, with shareholders in effect supplying 'cognitive tools' to them. Aoki analyses the different relationships that can exist between shareholders, managers, and workers from this perspective, and identifies arange of different models of organizational architecture and associated governance structures. He also discusses ways in which corporations act as players in social and political games, as well as global economic games; how these inter-related social dynamics may change particular, distinctivestructures into the diversity incorporated in the global corporate landscape; and how they now call for new roles for financial markets.

Price: $ 417.66

A leading business school economist lays bare the complexities of `strategic thinking' in business and offers a lucid and innovative analysis of the source of `competitive advantage'. Kay engages with and develops the work of Michael Porter, who is regarded by many as the pre-eminent authority on business strategy.

Price: $ 373.61

It is now more than fifty years since the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions were created. The world has changed since then, and so have its governance needs in terms of institutions and rules. It is time to think about the contours of institutions and governance thatwould meet the needs of the world economy, and also polity, at least for the first quarter of the twenty-first century. This book is the first to examine the subject in depth.The study is divided into four parts. The first situates the subject in the wider context of globalization which has shaped development in the world economy, affected the living conditions of people, and constrained the role of nation states. The international context and the national setting areexplored. The second part analyses some issues of emerging significance in the contemporary world, such as global macroeconomic management, transnational corporations, international capital flows, and cross-border movements of people, to suggest that there are some missing institutions which areneeded. The third part provides a critical evaluation of the existing institutions, in retrospect, with a focus on the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. It analyses how existing rules need to be modified or existing institutions need to be restructured to meet the present and future needs ofglobal governance. The fourth part explores some important elements of governance which are critical for any vision of the future. It suggests some changes in existing institutions and points to emerging governance needs where new institutions may have to be created.This authoritative volume will be of enormous value to readers with an interest in international economics, development economics, and international relations. It will also be of immense value to practitioners, both policy-makers and diplomats, concerned with problems of global governance, andshould become the standard reference on the subject.

Price: $ 42.49

This collection of interviews conducted by Ramin Jahanbegloo looks at India and Indias place in the world today through the experiences of twenty-seven leading Indian personalities.Jahanbegloo, as someone attempting to understand India, questions the contradictions of life in India: the long history of religious tolerance and growing religious fundamentalism, democracy and caste, equality and the low status of women, the affluent urban areas and the impoverished rural tracts.But looking beyond these contradictions, Jahanbegloo finds that after sixty years of Independence, the society, economy, and culture of India continue to develop in many ways.Including interviews with Romila Thapar, Partha Chatterjee, Ashis Nandy, Mushirul Hasan, M.J. Akbar, Vandana Shiva, the Dalai Lama, Mrinal Sen, Sonal Mansingh, and many others, this book is a one-of-a-kind view of contemporary India, for Indians as well as for non-Indians.

Price: $ 18.19

R.S. Sharma, one of the best-known historians of early India, provides a comprehensive yet accessible text on the ancient period of Indian history. Beginning with topics such as historiography and the importance of Ancient Indian history, he goes on to cover the geographical, econological and linguistic settings, before looking at specific cultures of neolithic, chalcolithic types, the Harappan civilization, the Vedic period, the rise of Jainism and Buddhism, Magadha and the beginning of territorial states, the age of the Mauryas, Satavahanas, Guptas, and Harshavardhana. While taking the reader on this journey through time, he highlights important phenomena such as the beginning of urbanization and monarchy in India, invasions, the Varna system, commerce and trade, developments in philosophy and cultural efflorescence. He ends this insightful volume with a comments on the transition from the Ancient to the Medieval. This book also addresses a number of issues which have become current in discussion on Ancient Inida today, such as the Identity of the Aryan Culture, and Historical Construction. This is a volume meant for all those who want a masterly, lucid, yet eminently readable introduction to and overview on India's early history by one of the master-scholars of Indian history - be it students, tourists, or the interested lay reader