Studying the Princess Carolina

2023-12-14 Social Science

Author : Warren Curtis Riess
Release : 2023-12-14
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 119/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Studying the Princess Carolina by : Warren Curtis Riess

Download or read book Studying the Princess Carolina written by Warren Curtis Riess. This book was released on 2023-12-14. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In January 1982, archaeologists conducting a pre-construction excavation at 175 Water Street in Lower Manhattan found the remains of an eighteenth-century ship. Uncertain what they had found or what its significance might be, they called in nautical archaeologists Warren Riess and Sheli Smith to direct the excavation and analysis of the ship’s remains. As it turned out, the mystery ship’s age and type meant that its careful study helped answer some important questions about commerce and transportation of its day. Given only one winter month for fieldwork, the large crew excavated and recorded the site, which became known as the “Ronson ship site,” named for the site’s developer, Howard Ronson. At the end of their time in the field, the crew was able to save the first eighteen feet of the bow for preservation. For Riess, the analysis and conservation of the artifacts would begin. In this book, the follow-up to his 2014 publication The Ship That Held Up Wall Street, Riess presents the technical analysis of the vessel, which he believes to be the Princess Carolina, a merchant ship likely constructed by shipwright Benjamin Austin in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1700s. In doing so, he fills significant gaps in contemporary knowledge of eighteenth-century shipbuilding techniques. Though meticulous in scientific detail, Riess’s style is eminently readable for interested general readers.

Liquidated

2009-07-13 Social Science

Author : Karen Ho
Release : 2009-07-13
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 376/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Liquidated by : Karen Ho

Download or read book Liquidated written by Karen Ho. This book was released on 2009-07-13. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Financial collapses—whether of the junk bond market, the Internet bubble, or the highly leveraged housing market—are often explained as the inevitable result of market cycles: What goes up must come down. In Liquidated, Karen Ho punctures the aura of the abstract, all-powerful market to show how financial markets, and particularly booms and busts, are constructed. Through an in-depth investigation into the everyday experiences and ideologies of Wall Street investment bankers, Ho describes how a financially dominant but highly unstable market system is understood, justified, and produced through the restructuring of corporations and the larger economy. Ho, who worked at an investment bank herself, argues that bankers’ approaches to financial markets and corporate America are inseparable from the structures and strategies of their workplaces. Her ethnographic analysis of those workplaces is filled with the voices of stressed first-year associates, overworked and alienated analysts, undergraduates eager to be hired, and seasoned managing directors. Recruited from elite universities as “the best and the brightest,” investment bankers are socialized into a world of high risk and high reward. They are paid handsomely, with the understanding that they may be let go at any time. Their workplace culture and networks of privilege create the perception that job insecurity builds character, and employee liquidity results in smart, efficient business. Based on this culture of liquidity and compensation practices tied to profligate deal-making, Wall Street investment bankers reshape corporate America in their own image. Their mission is the creation of shareholder value, but Ho demonstrates that their practices and assumptions often produce crises instead. By connecting the values and actions of investment bankers to the construction of markets and the restructuring of U.S. corporations, Liquidated reveals the particular culture of Wall Street often obscured by triumphalist readings of capitalist globalization.

Ghost Galleon

2019-10-14 Social Science

Author : Edward Von der Porten
Release : 2019-10-14
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 671/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Ghost Galleon by : Edward Von der Porten

Download or read book Ghost Galleon written by Edward Von der Porten. This book was released on 2019-10-14. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghost Galleon tells the story of archaeologists’ twenty-year search on a desolate beach in Baja California for the enigmatic remains of a Spanish galleon that disappeared without a trace more than four centuries ago. Carrying a cargo of Asian riches to the New World, Manila galleons forged the final link in the unification of the world through commerce by their annual voyages across the Pacific Ocean. Here, author Edward Von der Porten relates how a chance viewing of Chinese porcelain sherds in a museum catalog led him, his wife Saryl, and a team of researchers to the beachcombers who discovered the sherds. To Von der Porten, these sherds represented the possibility of something much more significant: one of the earliest known Manila galleon shipwrecks on the West Coast. In collaboration with the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH), Von der Porten and his colleagues undertook the first of many archaeological expeditions to investigate the site in 1999. Over twenty years, a team of American and Mexican archaeologists recovered thousands of artifacts and concluded that they had located the remains of the cargo from a Spanish galleon—most likely the San Juanillo of 1578. This copiously illustrated, highly accessible work offers an inside view of how archaeologists carefully assemble the evidence that allows scientific reconstruction of past events. Despite the grudging resistance of time, Von der Porten and his colleagues have resurrected the tale of the ill-fated San Juanillo to enrich our understanding and appreciation of the past.

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