Peter Miller - Böcker

The literature on governmentality has had a major impact across the social sciences over the past decade, and much of this has drawn upon the pioneering work by Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose. This volume will bring together key papers from their work for the first time, including those that set out the basic frameworks, concepts and ethos of this approach to the analysis of political power and the state, and others that analyse specific domains of the conduct of conduct, from marketing to accountancy, and from the psychological management of organizations to the government of economic life. Bringing together empirical papers on the government of economic, social and personal life, the volume demonstrates clearly the importance of analysing these as conjoint phenomena rather than separate domains, and questions some cherished boundaries between disciplines and topic areas. Linking programmes and strategies for the administration of these different domains with the formation of subjectivities and the transformation of ethics, the papers cast a new light on some of the leading issues in contemporary social science modernity, democracy, reflexivity and individualisation. This volume will be indispensable for all those, from whatever discipline in the social sciences, who have an interest in the concepts and methods necessary for critical empirical analysis of power relations in our present.

How Understanding Flocks, Schools and Colonies Can Make Us Better at Communicating, Decision Making and Getting Things Done.The modern world may be obsessed with speed and productivity, but twenty-first century humans actually have much to learn from the ancient instincts of swarms. A fascinating new take on the concept of collective intelligence and its colourful manifestations in some of our most complex problems, Smart Swarm introduces a compelling new understanding of the real experts on solving our own complex problems relating to such topics as business, politics, and technology.Based on extensive globe-trotting research, this lively tour from National Geographic reporter Peter Miller introduces thriving throngs of ant colonies, which have inspired computer programs for streamlining factory processes, telephone networks, and truck routes; termites, used in recent studies for climate-control solutions; schools of fish, on which the U.S. military modelled a team of robots; and many other examples of the wisdom to be gleaned about the behaviour of crowds-among critters and corporations alike.In the tradition of James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds and the innovative works of Malcolm Gladwell, Smart Swarm is an entertaining yet enlightening look at small-scale phenomena with big implications for us all.

The Resilience of New Public Management examines the role and significance of New Public Management (NPM) in contemporary society, and explores its emergence and resilience. Eminent scholars have said that NPM only existed from 1980-2000, and that we now live in a post-NPM world. This book tells a very different story. Evidence is presented in this book of 40 years of continuous NPM in public services, including government agencies, universities, and health care. NPM has diffused across sectors and globally since the 1980s, and in the process mutated to become modernization. It also coexists with alternative models of managing public services, including models such as digital era governance and network governance which were considered replacements for NPM. The capacity of NPM to mutate has caught many of its critics by surprise. This capacity for NPM to reinvent itself includes the adoption of Lean Management, the Toyota Production System. Early NPM adopter countries engaged with the use of Lean Management techniques, but late NPM adopters did not. The most recent alternative to NPM is Trust-based management, which has made significant advances in Scandinavian countries. However, Trust-based management is closely linked to proto-NPM and NPM practices and it has itself mutated to present itself as a friendlier and more supportive version of NPM, which at the very least deserves close scrutiny. The above trends are indicative of the resilience of NPM, and its intuitive appeal for policymakers. Its advocates argue that NPM has the capacity to deliver policy outcomes, but this book shows that such claims and aspirations are not always matched by the evidence of NPM in action.

When modernist poets rejected meter at the beginning of the twentieth century, they seemed to reject something at the heart of poetry: sound. Yet meter was only one of the many sound media that poets on either side of 1900 used to structure their poems. As new technologies, such as the phonograph, unsettled printed modes of representing sound, language, and voice, poets likewise pluralized the sonic basis, or "prosody," of their work. Enlisting talking birds and printed ballads, illuminated manuscripts and books shaped like vinyl LPs, poets in Britain and America mixed new media with old to revitalize the lyric tradition and explore the cultural stakes of sound reproduction. Examining key moments of prosodic innovation from Romanticism to hip hop, Poetry, Sound, and the Matter of Prosody, 1800-2000 reads the fall of meter against the rise of modern sound technology to reframe prosodic analysis as a form of media theory. By considering the broad range of elements affecting the sounds and rhythms of poetic language, some tangible (e.g. paper, ink, vinyl), others intangible (e.g. meter, genre, musical form), Peter Miller provides a richer sense of the prosodic repertoire of individual poems while enabling unexpected connections between poems from different historical periods. Anchored around five canonical figures, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, and Langston Hughes, while attending to their work's ongoing transformation by contemporary popular culture, the book offers both formal and historical insights into the nature of lyric poetry after Romanticism.

Accounting has an ever-increasing significance in contemporary society. Indeed, some argue that its practices are fundamental to the development and functioning of modern capitalist societies. We can see accounting everywhere: in organizations where budgeting, investing, costing, and performance appraisal rely on accounting practices; in financial and other audits; in corporate scandals and financial reporting and regulation; in corporate governance, risk management, and accountability, and in the corresponding growth and influence of the accounting profession. Accounting, too, is an important part of the curriculum and research of business and management schools, the fastest growing sector in higher education.This growth is largely a phenomenon of the last 50 years or so. Prior to that, accounting was seen mainly as a mundane, technical, bookkeeping exercise (and some still share that naive view). The growth in accounting has demanded a corresponding engagement by scholars to examine and highlight the important behavioural, organizational, institutional, and social dimensions of accounting. Pioneering work by accounting researchers and social scientists more generally has persuasively demonstrated to a wider social science, professional, management, and policy audience how many aspects of life are indeed constituted, to an important extent, through the calculative practices of accounting.Anthony Hopwood, to whom this book is dedicated, has been a leading figure in this endeavour, which has effectively defined accounting as a distinctive field of research in the social sciences. The book brings together the work of leading international accounting academics and social scientists, and demonstrates the scope, vitality, and insights of contemporary scholarship in and on accounting and auditing.

Accounting has an ever-increasing significance in contemporary society. Indeed, some argue that its practices are fundamental to the development and functioning of modern capitalist societies. We can see accounting everywhere: in organizations where budgeting, investing, costing, and performance appraisal rely on accounting practices; in financial and other audits; in corporate scandals and financial reporting and regulation; in corporate governance, risk management, and accountability, and in the corresponding growth and influence of the accounting profession. Accounting, too, is an important part of the curriculum and research of business and management schools, the fastest growing sector in higher education.This growth is largely a phenomenon of the last 50 years or so. Prior to that, accounting was seen mainly as a mundane, technical, bookkeeping exercise (and some still share that naive view). The growth in accounting has demanded a corresponding engagement by scholars to examine and highlight the important behavioural, organizational, institutional, and social dimensions of accounting. Pioneering work by accounting researchers and social scientists more generally has persuasively demonstrated to a wider social science, professional, management, and policy audience how many aspects of life are indeed constituted, to an important extent, through the calculative practices of accounting.Anthony Hopwood, to whom this book is dedicated, was a leading figure in this endeavour, which has effectively defined accounting as a distinctive field of research in the social sciences. The book brings together the work of leading international accounting academics and social scientists, and demonstrates the scope, vitality, and insights of contemporary scholarship in and on accounting and auditing.

First published in 1987. Our understanding of the nature of power in western societies is currently undergoing a major reassessment. The significance of this reassessment emerges forcefully through comparing the writings of the principal exponents of Critical Theory - Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas - with those of Michel Foucault. Peter Miller suggests that these two traditions embody fundamentally distinct philosophical and sociological principles. He grounds his analysis in the concepts of domination (Critical Theory) and power (Foucault). Miller identifies the notion of subjectivity as central to a differentiation of the respective approaches of Critical Theory and Foucault. For Critical Theory it is the repression of subjectivity which provides the evidence of domination and the rationale for its critique, while for Foucault subjectivity in western societies is fabricated through power and linked to the deployment of specific knowledges. Miller shows that despite the achievements of Critical Theory in bringing to light the repressive nature of advanced industrial societies, its thinking is inadequate as a basis for future analysis and critique. He argues that Foucault’s genealogy of the modern subject, which highlights the role of the human sciences in its fabrication, is a more fruitful basis for charting and investigating the mode of operation of contemporary forms of power. The book includes a survey of all published works by Foucault, up to the time of his death in 1984, and commentaries on the writings of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas.

First published in 1987. Our understanding of the nature of power in western societies is currently undergoing a major reassessment. The significance of this reassessment emerges forcefully through comparing the writings of the principal exponents of Critical Theory - Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas - with those of Michel Foucault. Peter Miller suggests that these two traditions embody fundamentally distinct philosophical and sociological principles. He grounds his analysis in the concepts of domination (Critical Theory) and power (Foucault). Miller identifies the notion of subjectivity as central to a differentiation of the respective approaches of Critical Theory and Foucault. For Critical Theory it is the repression of subjectivity which provides the evidence of domination and the rationale for its critique, while for Foucault subjectivity in western societies is fabricated through power and linked to the deployment of specific knowledges. Miller shows that despite the achievements of Critical Theory in bringing to light the repressive nature of advanced industrial societies, its thinking is inadequate as a basis for future analysis and critique. He argues that Foucault’s genealogy of the modern subject, which highlights the role of the human sciences in its fabrication, is a more fruitful basis for charting and investigating the mode of operation of contemporary forms of power. The book includes a survey of all published works by Foucault, up to the time of his death in 1984, and commentaries on the writings of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas.

Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was arguably one of the most important and interesting English theorists to focus on the issue of political liberty during the English Enlightenment. His concept of freedom is of crucial importance to two of the major issues of his day: the right of dissenters to religious toleration, and the right of the American colonists to self-government. Despite the fundamental importance of both these themes in liberal political theory and their contemporary relevance to national self-determination, Priestley's writings lack a modern edition. This new collection will be the first to make accessible to students Priestleys' Essay on the First Principles and The Present State of Liberty, which encapsulate his political ideology. An introduction and notes, together with guides to further reading and key figures in the text provide the student with all the material necessary for approaching Priestley.

Accounting as Social and Institutional Practice is the first major collection of critical and socio-historical analyses of accounting. It gathers together work by scholars of international renown on the social and institutional nature of accounting to address the conditions and consequences of accounting practice. Challenging conventional views that accounting is a technical practice, and that it comprises little more than bookkeeping, this collection demonstrates the importance of analysing the multiple arenas in which accounting emerges and operates. As accounting continues to gain in importance in so many spheres of social life, an understanding of the conditions and consequences of this calculative technology is vital. Its relevance extends far beyond the discipline of accounting. This book will be of considerable interest for specialists in organisational analysis, sociologists, and political scientists, as well as the general reader interested in understanding the increasing significance of accounting in contemporary society.

Just Ecological Integrity presents a collection of revised and expanded essays originating from the international conference "Connecting Environmental Ethics, Ecological Integrity, and Health in the New Millennium" held in San Jose, Costa Rica in June 2000. It is a cooperative venture of the Global Ecological Integrity Project and the Earth Charter Initiative.Beginning with an in depth look at the history and meaning of the Earth Charter itself, Just Ecological Integrity moves to consider the systems of measurement necessary to indicate progress in achieving the Earth Charter's goals. Contributors to the volume explore such issues as the reciprocal impacts between humans and nature; human destructiveness; and the various ways in which the revaluation of nature in terms of intrinsic qualities affects broader notions of justice. A rich collection of case studies enhances the volume and examines such issues as violence, risk, and the preservation of nature in local circumstances.

The literature on governmentality has had a major impact across the social sciences over the past decade, and much of this has drawn upon the pioneering work by Peter Miller and Nikolas Rose. This volume will bring together key papers from their work for the first time, including those that set out the basic frameworks, concepts and ethos of this approach to the analysis of political power and the state, and others that analyse specific domains of the conduct of conduct, from marketing to accountancy, and from the psychological management of organizations to the government of economic life. Bringing together empirical papers on the government of economic, social and personal life, the volume demonstrates clearly the importance of analysing these as conjoint phenomena rather than separate domains, and questions some cherished boundaries between disciplines and topic areas. Linking programmes and strategies for the administration of these different domains with the formation of subjectivities and the transformation of ethics, the papers cast a new light on some of the leading issues in contemporary social science modernity, democracy, reflexivity and individualisation. This volume will be indispensable for all those, from whatever discipline in the social sciences, who have an interest in the concepts and methods necessary for critical empirical analysis of power relations in our present.

This book tells the story of the famous James ML military motorcycle which had originally been developed as a utility machine for the working man and was then modified for the military during the Second World War. The James ML was used for carrying messages on the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day landings, earning it lasting respect and affection.The book covers the various military roles for the motorcycle, including airborne use and its various deployments. The author also describes ML production after the end of the war when the reliability and ruggedness that it had displayed as a military machine proved effective in off-road competitions.The author also presents a brief history of the James and Villiers companies and provides a background to the military decision to purchase lightweight motorcycles. He describes the evaluations and tests and compares the James ML with other motorcycles in the running.Illustrated with colour and black and white images from contemporary magazines such as Motor Cycling and The Motor Cycle, this book tells you all you need to know about this iconic motorcycle.

This volume introduces the notion of Thinking Infrastructures to explore a broad range of phenomena that structure attention, shape decision-making, and guide cognition: Thinking Infrastructures configure entities (via tracing, tagging), organise knowledge (via search engines), sort things out (via rankings and ratings), govern markets (via calculative practices, including algorithms), and configure preferences (via valuations such as recommender systems). Thus, Thinking Infrastructures, we collectively claim in this volume, inform and shape distributed and embodied cognition, including collective reasoning, structuring of attention and orchestration of decision-making.

A love letter to the small shop, and shop owners everywhere, by beloved bookseller Peter Miller.There is a tradition of shopkeeping, a tradition of codes, etiquette, and customs. For the most part, it is an oral history, passed along, person to person. You learn to be a retailer-not by going to college, but by going to work. You learn from people who have learned how to run a shop." [from the Introduction]For more than four decades, Peter Miller has run a design bookshop that shares his name in Seattle. He has also written three of his own books, manuals about cooking and about food and about eating together. In this love letter to his day job, Miller writes for the first time about his other love: shopkeeping.Miller crafts stories from the bookshop floor with wry humor and skillful storytelling. Readers are taken on a shopkeeping journey and will come to understand along the way that small shops characterize our towns and cities, making them unique, special, and worth visiting and living near. This essay collection is for shop lovers everywhere and captures the art and heart of running a local shop treasured by the community that surrounds it. By the end, you can't help wanting to own a shop.

George Brough started building motorcycles shortly after the First World War. The machines were named Brough Superior both to distinguish them from his father's Brough machines and to denote the highest levels of performance and quality of manufacture. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the name Brough Superior was synonymous with the very best in motorcycle design. The machines gained fame in the hands of riders such as Bert le Vack, Eric Fernihough, Noel Pope and, of course, T E Lawrence 'Lawrence of Arabia'. This book documents the full story of Brough and Brough Superior from the early years of the twentieth century through to the end of production in the Second World War, and post-war attempts at revival.