David Dickson – författare

How science "gets done" in today's world has profound political repercussions, since scientific knowledge, through its technical applications, has become an important source of both economic and military power. The increasing dependence of scientific research on funding from business and the military has made questions about the access to and control of scientific knowledge a central issue in today's politics of science. In The New Politics of Science, David Dickson points out that "the scientific community has its own internal power structures, its elites, its hierarchies, its ideologies, its sanctioned norms of social behavior, and its dissenting groups. And the more that science, as a social practice, forms an integral part of the economic structures of the society in which it is imbedded, the more the boundaries and differences between the two dissolve. Groups inside the scientific community, for example, will use groups outside the community—and vice versa—to achieve their own political ends." In this edition, Dickson has included a new preface commenting on the continuing and increasing influence of industrial and defense interests on American scientific research in the 1980s.

Hugh Dorian was born in poverty in rural Donegal in 1834. He survived Ireland's Great Famine, only to squander uncommon opportunities for self-advancement. Having lost his job and clashed with priests and policemen, he moved to the city of Derry but never slipped the shadow of trouble. Three of his children died from disease and his wife fell drunk into the River Foyle and drowned. Dorian declined into alcohol-numbed poverty and died in an overcrowded slum in 1914. A unique document survived the tragedy of Dorian's life. In 1890 he completed a "true historical narrative" of the social and cultural transformation of his home community. This narrative forms the most extensive lower-class account of the Great Famine. A moving account of the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, it invites comparison with the classic slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. Dorian achieves a degree of totality in his reconstruction of the world of the pre-Famine poor that is unparalleled in contemporary memoir or fiction. He describes their working and living conditions, sports and drinking, religious devotions and festivals. And then he describes the catastrophe that obliterated that world. Horror is remembered vividly but with restraint: "in a very short time there was nothing but stillness; a mournful silence in the villages; in the cottages grim poverty and emaciated faces showing all the signs of hardships." The picture of starvation is stark but authentic: "the cheek bones became thin and high, the cheeks blue, the bones sharp, and the eyes sunk . . .. the legs and the feet swell and get red and the skin cracks . . .". And at last came "the dispersion . . . to places which their fathers never heard of and which they themselves never would have seen, had the times not changed." No one," he writes, "can measure the distance of the broad Atlantic speedier and better than a father whose child is there." A sense of loss, closer to bereavement than nostalgia, is threaded through the text: it is a lament for the might have been — the future as imagined before the Famine — rather than the actual past. The final and lasting image is of trauma without recovery: the wise-men who had sat late into the small hours debating politics in the years before the Famine congregated in the after years but sat now in silence "their subjects . . . lacking words." Dorian's narrative was never published in his own lifetime and all but forgotten after the author's death. First published in Ireland in August 2000, The Outer Edge of Ulster includes a scholarly introduction that traces the troubles that beset the author and locates the narrative in wider literary contexts. Appearing for the first time in America, this critically acclaimed book offers an intimate look at the everyday lives of ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges.

Hugh Dorian was born in poverty in rural Donegal in 1834. He survived Ireland's Great Famine, only to squander uncommon opportunities for self-advancement. Having lost his job and clashed with priests and policemen, he moved to the city of Derry but never slipped the shadow of trouble. Three of his children died from disease and his wife fell drunk into the River Foyle and drowned. Dorian declined into alcohol-numbed poverty and died in an overcrowded slum in 1914. A unique document survived the tragedy of Dorian's life. In 1890 he completed a "true historical narrative" of the social and cultural transformation of his home community. This narrative forms the most extensive lower-class account of the Great Famine. A moving account of the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, it invites comparison with the classic slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. Dorian achieves a degree of totality in his reconstruction of the world of the pre-Famine poor that is unparalleled in contemporary memoir or fiction. He describes their working and living conditions, sports and drinking, religious devotions and festivals. And then he describes the catastrophe that obliterated that world. Horror is remembered vividly but with restraint: "in a very short time there was nothing but stillness; a mournful silence in the villages; in the cottages grim poverty and emaciated faces showing all the signs of hardships." The picture of starvation is stark but authentic: "the cheek bones became thin and high, the cheeks blue, the bones sharp, and the eyes sunk . . .. the legs and the feet swell and get red and the skin cracks . . .". And at last came "the dispersion . . . to places which their fathers never heard of and which they themselves never would have seen, had the times not changed." No one," he writes, "can measure the distance of the broad Atlantic speedier and better than a father whose child is there." A sense of loss, closer to bereavement than nostalgia, is threaded through the text: it is a lament for the might have been — the future as imagined before the Famine — rather than the actual past. The final and lasting image is of trauma without recovery: the wise-men who had sat late into the small hours debating politics in the years before the Famine congregated in the after years but sat now in silence "their subjects . . . lacking words." Dorian's narrative was never published in his own lifetime and all but forgotten after the author's death. First published in Ireland in August 2000, The Outer Edge of Ulster includes a scholarly introduction that traces the troubles that beset the author and locates the narrative in wider literary contexts. Appearing for the first time in America, this critically acclaimed book offers an intimate look at the everyday lives of ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges.

The untold story of a group of Irish cities and their remarkable development before the age of industrializationA backward corner of Europe in 1600, Ireland was transformed during the following centuries. This was most evident in the rise of its cities, notably Dublin and Cork. David Dickson explores ten urban centers and their patterns of physical, social, and cultural evolution, relating this to the legacies of a violent past, and he reflects on their subsequent partial eclipse. Beautifully illustrated, this account reveals how the country’s cities were distinctive and—through the Irish diaspora—influential beyond Ireland’s shores.

It is now widely recognized that communication is at the very heart of effective management. There is therefore an ever-expanding demand for valid and generalizable information on how best to relate to people in organizational contexts. Communication Skills for Effective Management meets this demand. It demonstrates how, for managers to be successful, they need to employ a range of key communication skills, styles and strategies. The contents are based upon the authors' considerable experiences of researching, teaching and consulting in a range of private and public sector organisations. From their academic and real-world involvement they have identified the core skills of effective management, presented in an academically rigorous yet student-friendly way, the reader is encouraged to interact with the material covered. Each chapter contains a series of boxed text, diagrams, tables and illustrations which summarise core points. Exercises are also provided to enable managers to put the material reviewed into practice. All of this is underpinned and supported by a firm foundation of research findings. This will be an excellent text for undergraduate business and management students studying business communication and MBA students. Practising managers will also find this book to be an invaluable resource.

People's behaviour can be rewarding to others through what they say or do: it may be no more than an appreciative smile, a sympathetic touch or a word of praise, but the impact can be highly significant. This book, first published in 1993, explores these social rewards and their relevance to the practice of people in the interpersonal professions. While much of its content is relevant to everyday life, the focus is on ways in which an understanding of the working of social rewards can benefit such groups as teachers, doctors, social workers, counsellors, nurses and managers in their interaction with their patients, clients and pupils. In exploring the nature and distribution of social rewards, the authors introduce the concept of interpersonal skill, and discuss a range of theoretical perspectives to account for the consequences of responding positively to others. The effects of promoting interpersonal attraction, the establishment and regulation of relationships, and the ethical issues involved in conferring power and facilitating influence are also discussed. With its discussion of theory and research linked to explicit practical applications, Rewarding People will be of interest to students in the areas of communication, psychology and business studies.

People's behaviour can be rewarding to others through what they say or do: it may be no more than an appreciative smile, a sympathetic touch or a word of praise, but the impact can be highly significant. This book, first published in 1993, explores these social rewards and their relevance to the practice of people in the interpersonal professions. While much of its content is relevant to everyday life, the focus is on ways in which an understanding of the working of social rewards can benefit such groups as teachers, doctors, social workers, counsellors, nurses and managers in their interaction with their patients, clients and pupils. In exploring the nature and distribution of social rewards, the authors introduce the concept of interpersonal skill, and discuss a range of theoretical perspectives to account for the consequences of responding positively to others. The effects of promoting interpersonal attraction, the establishment and regulation of relationships, and the ethical issues involved in conferring power and facilitating influence are also discussed. With its discussion of theory and research linked to explicit practical applications, Rewarding People will be of interest to students in the areas of communication, psychology and business studies.

It is now widely recognized that communication is at the very heart of effective management. There is therefore an ever-expanding demand for valid and generalizable information on how best to relate to people in organizational contexts. Communication Skills for Effective Management meets this demand. It demonstrates how, for managers to be successful, they need to employ a range of key communication skills, styles and strategies. The contents are based upon the authors'' considerable experiences of researching, teaching and consulting in a range of private and public sector organisations. From their academic and real-world involvement they have identified the core skills of effective management, presented in an academically rigorous yet student-friendly way, the reader is encouraged to interact with the material covered. Each chapter contains a series of boxed text, diagrams, tables and illustrations which summarise core points. Exercises are also provided to enable managers to put the material reviewed into practice. All of this is underpinned and supported by a firm foundation of research findings. This will be an excellent text for undergraduate business and management students studying business communication and MBA students. Practising managers will also find this book to be an invaluable resource.

On Seas Contested is an in-depth analysis of the Second World War's seven major navies. A team of expert naval historians have contributed chapters outlining the navies of the United States, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, and the Soviet Union. Each chapter consistently details key features such as weaponry, training, logistics, and doctrine. This definitive work will be a standard reference for years to come.

The only comparative analysis available of the great navies of World War I, this work studies the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, the German Kaiserliche Marine, the United States Navy, the French Marine Nationale, the Italian Regia Marina, the Austro-Hungarian Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine, and the Imperial Russian Navy to demonstrate why the war was won, not in the trenches, but upon the waves. It explains why these seven fleets fought the way they did and why the war at sea did not develop as the admiralties and politicians of 1914 expected. After discussing each navy’s goals and circumstances and how their individual characteristics impacted the way they fought, the authors deliver a side-by-side analysis of the conflict’s fleets, with each chapter covering a single navy. Parallel chapter structures assure consistent coverage of each fleet—history, training, organization, doctrine, materiel, and operations—and allow readers to easily compare information among the various navies. The book clearly demonstrates how the naval war was a collision of 19th century concepts with 20th century weapons that fostered unprecedented development within each navy and sparked the evolution of the submarine and aircraft carrier. The work is free from the national bias that infects so many other books on World War I navies. As they pioneer new ways of viewing the conflict, the authors provide insights and material that would otherwise require a massive library and mastery of multiple languages. Such a study has special relevance today as 20th-century navies struggle to adapt to 21st-century technologies.

On Seas Contested is an in-depth analysis of the Second World War''s seven major navies. A team of expert naval historians have contributed chapters outlining the navies of the United States, the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, and the Soviet Union. Each chapter consistently details key features such as weaponry, training, logistics, and doctrine. This definitive work will be a standard reference for years to come.