David H. Brown – författare

This book, first published in 1996, examines the problems associated with the management of change, particularly those brought about by the rapid pace of economic development in China in the ‘reform’ period since 1979. China’s managers were challenged as never before as the country integrated itself into the world economy, introduced new technology, and decentralized control over its industries. This book discusses their successes and failures in chapters by specialists in Chinese management practice.

This book, first published in 1996, examines the problems associated with the management of change, particularly those brought about by the rapid pace of economic development in China in the ‘reform’ period since 1979. China’s managers were challenged as never before as the country integrated itself into the world economy, introduced new technology, and decentralized control over its industries. This book discusses their successes and failures in chapters by specialists in Chinese management practice.

Originally published in 2003, The Light Inside is a ground-breaking study of an Afro-Cuban secret society, its sacred arts, and their role in modern Cuban cultural history. Enslaved Africans and creoles developed the Abakuá Society, a system of men’s fraternal lodges, in urban Cuba beginnings in 1836. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the country, the book’s novel approach builds on close readings of dazzling Abakuá altars, chalk-drawn signs, and hooded masquerades. It looks at the art history of Abakuá altars, not only tracing changing styles but also how they evolve through cycles of tradition and renovation. The Light Inside reflects the essence of the artists’ creativity and experience: through adornment, altars project the powerful spirituality of Abakuá practice, an aesthetic strategy. The book also traces a biography of Abakuá objects – their shifting forms and meanings – as they participated in successive periods of Cuban cultural history. The book constructs close rhetorical and visual analyses of changing representations of the Abakuá, spanning nineteenth-century arts and letters, modern ethnographic texts, museum displays, paintings, and late twentieth century commercial kitsch. This interdisciplinary work combines art history, African Diaspora, cultural studies and cultural anthropology with Latin American.

Originally published in 2003, The Light Inside is a ground-breaking study of an Afro-Cuban secret society, its sacred arts, and their role in modern Cuban cultural history. Enslaved Africans and creoles developed the Abakuá Society, a system of men’s fraternal lodges, in urban Cuba beginnings in 1836. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the country, the book’s novel approach builds on close readings of dazzling Abakuá altars, chalk-drawn signs, and hooded masquerades. It looks at the art history of Abakuá altars, not only tracing changing styles but also how they evolve through cycles of tradition and renovation. The Light Inside reflects the essence of the artists’ creativity and experience: through adornment, altars project the powerful spirituality of Abakuá practice, an aesthetic strategy. The book also traces a biography of Abakuá objects – their shifting forms and meanings – as they participated in successive periods of Cuban cultural history. The book constructs close rhetorical and visual analyses of changing representations of the Abakuá, spanning nineteenth-century arts and letters, modern ethnographic texts, museum displays, paintings, and late twentieth century commercial kitsch. This interdisciplinary work combines art history, African Diaspora, cultural studies and cultural anthropology with Latin American.

Ever since its emergence in colonial-era Cuba, Afro-Cuban Santería (or Lucumí) has displayed a complex dynamic of continuity and change in its institutions, rituals, and iconography. Originally published in 2003 Santería Enthroned combines art, history, cultural anthropology, and ethnohistory to show how Africans and their descendants have developed novel forms of religious practice in the face of relentless oppression. Focusing on the royal throne as a potent metaphor in Santería belief and practice it shows how negotiations among ideologically competing interests have shaped the religion’s symbols, rituals, and institutions from the nineteenth century to the present. Rich case studies of change in Cuba and the United States, including a New Jersey temple and South Carolina’s Oyotunji Village, reveal patterns of innovation similar to those found among rival Yoruba kingdoms in Nigeria. Throughout, the book argues for a theoretical perspective on culture as a field of potential strategies and "usuable pasts" that actors draw upon to craft new forms and identities – a perspective that will be invaluable to all students of the African Diaspora.

Ever since its emergence in colonial-era Cuba, Afro-Cuban Santería (or Lucumí) has displayed a complex dynamic of continuity and change in its institutions, rituals, and iconography. Originally published in 2003 Santería Enthroned combines art, history, cultural anthropology, and ethnohistory to show how Africans and their descendants have developed novel forms of religious practice in the face of relentless oppression. Focusing on the royal throne as a potent metaphor in Santería belief and practice it shows how negotiations among ideologically competing interests have shaped the religion’s symbols, rituals, and institutions from the nineteenth century to the present. Rich case studies of change in Cuba and the United States, including a New Jersey temple and South Carolina’s Oyotunji Village, reveal patterns of innovation similar to those found among rival Yoruba kingdoms in Nigeria. Throughout, the book argues for a theoretical perspective on culture as a field of potential strategies and "usuable pasts" that actors draw upon to craft new forms and identities – a perspective that will be invaluable to all students of the African Diaspora.

Wild things go on in Moundsville, the normally quiet seat of Chippewa County. Newborn fraternal twins are abandoned in the basement of an apartment building, but survive without nourishment for eight days, a medical record. Their teenage mother is shot to death shortly after delivery. Two decades later, detective A.G. Reynard not only locates the untraceable murder weapon, but also unravels the mysterious motive. A persistent reporter discovers a diary that could jeopardize the lives of promiment people, including the now grown twin girl. The police chief drops dead in the arms of his nurse wife in a local hospital, where other strange events take place. A city police car chase results in a bizarre court trial. The judge, who is blind, also presides over the trial of a black teenage youth who is convicted of killing a white elderly woman he was trying to rape. There are more twists and turns than on San Francisco''s famed Lombard Street.

Don''t let the gruesome murders of a man and a woman in the basement of a former government building just off Capitol Hill in Washington, DC lull you into thinking this is just another mystery novel. It will take careful reading of this compelling and different kind of novel tounderstand the O. Henry-type ending.

Page after page, and chapter after chapter, will bring together a series of intrigues. For example, the heads of the Italian mafia and the Russian mafiya work out a historic cooperative scheme to assassinate a high U.S. government official. This is to take place in late October 2007 during the 100th anniversary of Union Station on Capitol Hill, and the 78th anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market crash. (These two events truly are historically correct.)

Once youdiscover that asecret Middle East terrorist organization is involved, the two events will make sense, because thatorganizationhas learned of the mafia and mafiya alliance''s plan and will take advantage of them to execute its own event that will make a mockery of Capitol Hill''s security procedures. The organization uses a small bank in a Caribbean nation to lauder the money needed to carry out its mission.

The organization calls its effort OPERATION RED HERRING. The term stems from animal rights activists in England whoconfusehunt dogs bydragging bags of that dead fish across the trail so the fox is not killed. To the organization, the term means deception.

A curmudgeon private detective and his Capitol Police niece not only solve the two murders, but they help unravel the Union Station plot. The murders take place in what used to be, for the novel''s purpose, the former Government Printing Office. The GPO now houses an innovative semi-government agency, but few of the current and former occupants know the existence of a underground tunnel between the building and Union Station. (It actually exists.) The assassination attempt will make use of that tunnel to avoid discovery.

Many clues are scattered throughout the novel. You may have to reread sections of the novel to discover them. Even the murder weapons are unusual. And, at least one character will turn out to be someonewho really is not what you think.

This is an update of two previously published books on this subject, which are both included in this volume.

As the last remaining member of, and press officer for, the Federal Aviation Administrations anti-skyjacking task force that developed the original procedure during 1969-70, the author has unique personal experience.

The general theme is that the government is going around in procedural circles to provide security when a return to the original Dailey Profile as Step One would provide the same, if not better, protection against potential skyjacking. The book also defines the difference between domestic events and perceived terrorism.