William Wooldridge – författare

Throughout Nanjing’s history, writers have claimed that its spectacular landscape of mountains and rivers imbued the city with “royal qi,” making it a place of great political significance. City of Virtues examines the ways a series of visionaries, drawing on past glories of the city, projected their ideologies onto Nanjing as they constructed buildings, performed rituals, and reworked the literary heritage of the city. More than an urban history of Nanjing from the late 18th century until 1911 — encompassing the Opium War, the Taiping occupation of the city, the rebuilding of the city by Zeng Guofan, and attempts to establish it as the capital of the Republic of China — this study shows how utopian visions of the cosmos shaped Nanjing’s path through the turbulent 19th century.

This book addresses key issues related to the choice between governments regulating and enforcing society’s sustainability and social responsibility objectives, and firms reporting on their sustainable and socially responsible activities so stakeholders can exert pressure on firms to achieve society’s goals. While these may be considered as the two endpoints of a continuum, it is clear that there are differing perspectives on the role of governments in sustainability and responsibility.  At one end of this continuum are stakeholders who believe the only way to achieve a sustainable and socially conscious society is to establish and enforce regulations with the concomitant governmental organizations to oversee and enforce those regulations.  At the other end are those who consider firms to be crucial organizations for achieving sustainability and socially responsible outcomes, and who feel it is the responsibility of stakeholders to determine the legitimacy of firms’ actions.  It is probably not the case that any economies exist at either end of this continuum, but it is clear that the availability of reliable information is critical for any stakeholder to review the performance of either the governments or the firms.  This book presents a varied set of papers that explore the issues that must be considered, regardless of which position a stakeholder takes.