Martin Sullivan – författare

With birth rates falling at the same time that average age is rising in the developed world, the pensions time bomb is ticking louder than ever. Understanding how pensions work, their history, and their future is absolutely essential.This book thoroughly explains to readers the unique concepts and terminology which underpin pensions. Focusing firstly on the rationale for pensions and their evolution, before moving on to an explanation of the latest controversies regarding pensions. The glossary of pensions terminology in the final section of the book virtually ensures its place on many academic bookshelves. This timely volume is an extremely useful contribution to this important issue. Of use to policy-makers as much as to students and academics of finance and public policy, Understanding Pensions should prove to be a popular addition to the literature.

For more than fifty years, pensions have been the subject of academic enquiry and controversy. Debates have raged over, amongst other things, the need for pensions, the means by which they might be delivered, their implications for the public finances, their impact on an individual’s employment motivations and their significance for national and global capital markets. These debates, and others, have spawned a vast and disparate literature.Currently, the issue that most often exercises the minds of academics and policy makers is that of pension reform. It is widely recognized that decades of social and economic change have rendered obsolete the pension arrangements in many developed and developing countries. The question of what now constitutes an appropriate set of pension arrangements is, however, far from settled. Opinions are divided over whether existing national pension systems can be modified to make them fit contemporary needs and circumstances, or whether they should be jettisoned in favour of something entirely different.Central to the analysis of many issues in pension provision is the universal phenomenon of population ageing. Around the world, falling birth rates and rising life expectancy are raising the ratio of elderly to working-age people. For several decades the literature on pensions and population ageing has been extremely negative. Recently, though, a series of books and papers have appeared which argue for a more benign, less pessimistic, interpretation of population ageing.The papers and articles included in each volume of this new Routledge Major Work have been selected so as to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of the subject and the interest it has aroused internationally. With a full index and an introduction newly written by the editor, this four-volume collection is a unique and valuable research resource for both student and scholar alike.

With birth rates falling at the same time that average age is rising in the developed world, the pensions time bomb is ticking louder than ever. Understanding how pensions work, their history, and their future is absolutely essential.This book thoroughly explains to readers the unique concepts and terminology which underpin pensions. Focusing firstly on the rationale for pensions and their evolution, before moving on to an explanation of the latest controversies regarding pensions. The glossary of pensions terminology in the final section of the book virtually ensures its place on many academic bookshelves. This timely volume is an extremely useful contribution to this important issue. Of use to policy-makers as much as to students and academics of finance and public policy, Understanding Pensions should prove to be a popular addition to the literature.

In the spring of 1941 a small number of flight instructors, students and ground troops successfully defended the RAF base at Habbaniya, 55 miles from Baghdad, from a besieging force of Iraqi troops, greatly superior in numbers to the defending British. A relief column of British regular troops was hurriedly put together and crossed 500 miles of desert from the Mediterranean coast to Habbaniya, going on to occupy Baghdad. This was the first of three campaigns fought in early 1941, the others being against Vichy Syria and in Iran, where the British eventually linked up with the Russians.The results of these campaigns were tremendously important. By preventing Iraq from falling to the Nazis, and later by aggressive pre-emptive action in both Syria and Iran, Britain had ensured that these countries did not fall themselves to Nazi intrigue. These actions closed the back door to the Suez Canal and allowed a conduit to open from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, thus connecting the USA to the USSR, safeguarding Britain’s supplies of non-American oil, without which the war would have undoubtedly been lost.Martin Wager joined the Life Guards in the late 1920s and remained with the Regiment until 1949\. When war was declared, Martin started to write a diary. This was strictly against regulations, but his officers turned a blind eye. Martin’s regiment left Britain in February 1940 for Palestine and was stationed in the Middle East, Egypt and North Africa through until May 1944, when they embarked for Italy. He returned to Britain in October 1944 and spent the remainder of the war in France and Germany. The diary records not only the above events of 1941 but also the campaign in North Africa and the Battle of El Alamein in 1942, the invasion of Italy in 1943 and the end of the war in Germany in 1945\. Martin wrote entries almost daily, often in conditions of extreme discomfort and danger, and they cover not only the military aspects of the campaigns but also the ordinary day-to-day life of a serving soldier.The diary is a fascinating historical and personal record, and this book, edited by Martin’s nephew, transcribes the most interesting passages, alongside analysis of the events being recorded.

The war of 1809 between France and Habsburg Austria, culminating in the titanic battle of Wagram, has been described often as Napoleon’s last successful campaign. Napoleon said later that the manoeuvres and actions of the French army and their German allies in the opening two weeks of this conflict were among the most brilliant and skilful of his entire career. But matters might have gone very differently. A series of miscalculations, mistakes and poor communications, both prior to Austria’s declaration of war and in the early days of hostilities, might have resulted in a major setback, if not a disaster, for the French Emperor. That they did not is due in large part to the decisions and actions of Marshal Louis Davout, the so-called “Iron Marshall”This is the first English study of Marshal Davout's command and leadership in over fifty years. Little known outside of France, Louis Davout was one of the finest generals in Napoleon's army, as evidenced by his comprehensive defeat of the main Prussian force at Auerstadt in October 1806\. A hard, even harsh, disciplinarian, an utterly ruthless opponent on the field of battle, Davout was also a loving family man, meticulously concerned for the health and well-being of his troops, and able to command the loyalty of his divisional commanders for far longer than any of his contemporaries.In this new study, Martin Sullivan describes in detail the decision-making processes and actions of Marshal Davout, and from this analysis illustrates leadership concepts and theories which remain relevant to the world of today. Focusing upon the opening phase of the Wagram campaign, he examines in detail the decisions and actions of the participants, Davout, his opponent the Archduke Charles, and Napoleon himself. By this method the art of leadership may be seen exercised in the heat of an intense and deadly conflict.