Elite Perceptions of Poverty and Inequality (International Studies in Poverty Research)

Book Description

"A timely, well-written and scholarly polemic for the separation of church and state."—Bernard Crick, The New Statesman

The Godless Constitution is a ringing rebuke to the religious right's attempts, fueled by misguided and inaccurate interpretations of American history, to dismantle the wall between church and state erected by the country's founders. The authors, both distinguished scholars, revisit the historical roots of American religious freedom, paying particular attention to such figures as John Locke, Roger Williams, and especially Thomas Jefferson, and examine the controversies, up to the present day, over the proper place of religion in our political life. With a new chapter that explores the role of religion in the public life of George W. Bush's America, The Godless Constitution offers a bracing return to the first principles of American governance.

Customer Reviews:

Simple and Insightful.......2007-02-01

I picked this up from the library after seeing it referenced by Damon Linker in "The Theocons". This book is short and sweet. The authors are clear, balanced, and their research is insightful. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the context in which the founders formally placed a dividing line between matters of state and matters of faith.

Good but repeptitive.......2007-01-12

After hearing about the book from the author on NPR I picked it up. It is fascinating to some extent but the same points are made over and over again with only a sprinkle of new insights. I'm not going to be keeping this one in the sanctity of my bookshelf, rather send it off for other people to read.

Book Description

101 USE OLD FARM TRAC DREGNI

Average customer rating:

The first 3 chapters are worth the millions if you are successful!

an easy, accessible style that works

Light-hearted view of subject

Real Help for PhD's and MD's (with no MBA's)

Not a relastic take for investors

Every Business Needs an Angel: Getting the Money You Need to Make Your Business Grow
John May , and Cal Simons
Manufacturer: Crown Business
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Raising Capital | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Small Business & Entrepreneurship | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Venture Capital Handbook: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Raising Venture Capital Revised

Raising Capital: Get The Money You Need To Grow Your Business

The Dinner Club

Attracting Capital From Angels: How Their Money—and Their Experience—Can Help You Build a Successful Company

Marketing for Entrepreneurs (Small Business Management Series)

ASIN: 0609607782
Release Date: 2001-09-18

Book Description

What’s the biggest problem most entrepreneurs face? Raising money: Without cash, you can’t get a
business off the ground or keep it running.

However, many entrepreneurs have a problem. On one hand, the traditional sources of financing—family, friends, personal savings, the local bank—are often inadequate. On the other, the venture capitalists who have played such an important role in the high-tech industry are interested only in investing much higher sums than most entrepreneurs need.

Enter angels: a new type of investor looking to invest between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in a company. There are about three million angel investors, and there’s a huge market of entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs who want to learn how to attract angels’ interest—and their money.

John May and Cal Simmons are at the forefront of this trend. Not only do they have years of experience in advising, managing, and investing in early-stage companies, they are also the originators of The Dinner Club, a Washington, D.C.–based group of successful businesspeople who hear pitches by entrepreneurs seeking funding and then decide whether to invest their own or the club’s money in those entrepreneurial ideas.

Every Business Needs an Angel offers a fly-on-the-wall look at how angel investors evaluate new entrepreneurial ideas, and provides a wealth of practical advice and insight for the countless entrepreneurs seeking help in their quest to find investors for their businesses. The book covers all phases of the process of finding angels and persuading them to invest, drawing on many examples of real-world companies that have pitched angels successfully—as well as unsuccessfully. These entrepreneurs are in a broad range of industries—from high-technology companies to more traditional businesses as diverse as breweries and concierge services—some quite well-known, like Nantucket Nectars and Preview Travel, whose founders had their own guardian angels.

For entrepreneurs who need money and advice on how to find it, the authors offer enormous insight into this new breed of investor. As the title says, every business needs an angel; this book tells you how to find one.

Customer Reviews:

The first 3 chapters are worth the millions if you are successful!.......2005-11-14

I have the pleasure of being a member of one of John May's groups, Active Angel Investors (http://activeangelinvestors.com/) and I am extremely glad I joined this group.

And now for a one sentence review of the book:
Just the first three chapters (How Angels Evaluate Entrepreneurs, When to Dance with an Angel, & Finding Angels and Making your Pitch) are worth the price of the book and if you are a successful entrepreneur, they can be worth millions!

Some other good books for angel info can be found at the Angel Capital Association's website - http://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/dir_resources/books.aspx

Here's the list for your convenience:
* Benjamin, Gerald A. and Margulis, Joel B., Angel Investing - How to Find and Invest in Private Equity, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.

* Benjamin, Gerald A. and Margulis, Joel B., The Angel Investor's Handbook: How to Profit from Early-Stage Investing, New York: Bloomberg, 2001.

* Gompers, Paul and Lerner, Josh, The Venture Capital Cycle, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1999

* Hill, Brian E. and Power, Dee, Attracting Capital From Angels: How Their Money and Their Experience Can Help You Build a Successful Company, New York, John Wiley & Sons, 2002

* Keeley, Robert H., Cooper, Jeffrey M. and Bloomer, Gary D., Business Angels: A Guide to Private Investing, available from the Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, 1998.

* May, John and O'Halloran, Elizabeth F., State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing, Charlottesville, VA: Darden Business Publishing, University of Virginia, 2003.

* Moore, Karl and Coveney, Patrick, Business Angels: Securing Start Up Finance, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998

* Osnabrugge, Mark Van and Robinson, Robert J., Angel Investing: Matching Start-up Funds with Start-up Companies - The Guide for Entrepreneurs, Individual Investors, and Venture Capitalists, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

* Simmons, Cal and May, John, Every Business Needs an Angel: Getting the Money You Need to Make Your Company Grow, Washington DC: Crown Business, 2001.

* Williams, Kelly, Working with Angel Investors for Community Development, New York: Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, 2003.

To the entrepreneur with the next idea that will change the world & make you a billionaire:
1) Read Every Business Needs an Angel (or better yet all of the above referenced books).
2) Contact me & send me your compelling executive summary!

NOTE: By compelling I mean that your executive summary is going to have me calling you before I finish reading it. Good luck to you all! (...)

an easy, accessible style that works.......2003-01-12

A really good intro to the inner works of angel investing, useful for angels and entrepreneurs alike. Focuses on angel groups (the author makes his living managing some large angel groups). A must read insider account if you're starting an angel group or, alternatively, are an entrepreneur looking for angel money. Don't read it for a definitive textbook on everything you need to know about business plan writing, making a equity deal etc. but invaluable nonetheless.

Light-hearted view of subject.......2002-04-02

This is a fun, easy-read on the subject of angel clubs - which are valuable but should not be confused with real individual angel investing. John and Cal's writing style is case-book and easy to read. This is a business book that makes you smile ... a little bit because the stories are fun ... and a little bit because there are a lot of not-so-happy stories that they don't tell you about. But being the perpetual optimist, I like reading about the nice stories.

Real Help for PhD's and MD's (with no MBA's).......2002-03-31

"Every Business Needs an Angel" will become a treasured resource to scientists and scholars with great credentials and ideas but with little formal business background and training. It is an excellent travel guide for "intellectual property" company entrepreneurs who are represented by top tier lawyers and accountants but who also wish to acquire, on their own and in advance, an overall perspective and broad oriention to the entire fund raising process along with insight into what to expect and direction about how to behave.

May and Simmons provide an entertaining, fascinating-to-follow road map of the complete process of working with investors which will appeal especially to those who are uncomfortable when put into the position of accepting advice and direction from their professional advisors without some overall comprehension of the substance and scope of the territory which will be navigated together. This book is a first rate companion for what may initially appear to be a very bewildering journey.

Not a relastic take for investors.......2002-03-09

I have read several angel books as well as having spent 5 years running a large fund in the Valley, and I just don't feel that Cal and John have their views correct. The investment world has changed and those who can be to the point and have a good idea with good management have a shot. However, I hope for these folks that Cal and John are not on the other side of the table evaluating.

Book Description

Political histories of the Soviet Union have portrayed a powerful Kremlin leadership whose will was passively implemented by regional Party officials and institutions. Drawing on his research in recently opened archives in Moscow and the Urals--a vast territory that is a vital center of the Russian mining and metallurgy industries--James R. Harris overturns this view. He argues here that the regions have for centuries had strong identities and interests and that they cumulatively exerted a significant influence on Soviet policy-making and on the evolution of the Soviet system. After tracing the development of local interests prior to the Revolution, Harris demonstrates that a desperate need for capital investment caused the Urals and other Soviet regions to press Moscow to increase the investment and production targets of the first five year plan. He provides conclusive evidence that local leaders established the pace for carrying out such radical policies as breakneck industrialization and the construction of forced labor camps. When the production targets could not be met, regional officials falsified data and blamed "saboteurs" for their shortfalls. Harris argues that such deception contributed to the personal and suspicious nature of Stalin's rule and to the beginning of his onslaught on the Party apparatus. Most of the region's communist leaders were executed during the Great Terror of 193638. In his conclusion, Harris measures the impact of their interests on the collapse of the communist system, and the fate of reform under Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Download Description

Which came first? Massive growth in European Internet traffic, or the bandwidth and the underlying technology to support it? The answer, it would appear, is both. By any measure—users, bandwidth consumed, or pages supported-the Internet is exhibiting massive growth in Europe right now and looks set to continue growing rapidly for at least the next five years. At the same time, new optical network technologies are enabling carriers and Internet service providers (ISPs) to increase the capacity of networks transporting Internet traffic to unprecedented levels. The combination of these factors is yielding at least four outcomes: As pan-European capacity grows, bandwidth prices begin to fall, leading to more traffic being placed on the network, leading to greater demand for capacity-a self-perpetuating cycle; The increasing availability of pan-European bandwidth points a spotlight at the lack of capacity in national and access networks, and the growing local bottleneck that is inhibiting Internet traffic growth; to free up that Internet traffic, pan-European players are now building or partnering with national and city fiber nets to connect with (and bring traffic to) their international backbones; Backbone providers see the Internet as the key to their own growth and are now acquiring or partnering with ISPs; they are seizing the opportunity of optical Internets to transform themselves from pure transport providers to e-commerce enablers; and Optical technologies allow carriers to create not only more capacity, but higher-quality, more reliable IP-based infrastructure as well. Our December 1999 Report,"Bandwidth Bonanza: Supply and Demand on Transatlantic and Pan-European Backbones," looked at transatlantic bandwidth requirements and trends. This EuroScope Communications Report focuses on Europe and examines the role of the Internet in the creation of Europe's capacity boom. It also looks at the ways companies once viewed primarily as bandwidth merchants are evolving to meet market needs, including the extension of their networks within countries and cities, their acquisitions of and relationships with ISPs, and their plans to penetrate the e-commerce and application service provider (ASP) sectors. Finally, we look briefly at the equipment providers that are making this market transition possible, and their likely roles in future developments.

Book Description

A service revolution is sweeping America. Nearly three-quarters of people in the U.S. labor force work in services, almost half of family income is spent on services, and providing good service is widely believed to be the key to an organization's success, whether in for-profit, nonprofit, or government. Yet, in an era where the customer is supposedly king, individuals are increasingly dissatisfied with the service they receive. As more and more services traditionally offered by indepAndent practitioners--such as law, health, and mental health--shift to large organizations, the quality of the customer-provider interaction deteriorates.

The Dynamics of Service is the first book to examine the service transaction in depth from social, psychological, and management perspectives. Barbara A. Gutek details the changing nature of customer-provider interactions from relationships when a customer has repeated contact with a particular provider--to encounters, which typically consist of a single brief episode. She examines the cumulative impact of this quiet revolution upon customers, providers, and the enterprises that provide service--and shows how it is changing the quality of our lives.

With powerful implications for health care, psychotherapy, higher education, law, and all areas where work is rapidly being restructured in large organizations, The Dynamics of Service provides professionals in many disciplines with a common framework for understanding how customers will be served in the future.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting and unique theory with important implications.......1997-10-21

Are you in a service business? If so, you could learn a lot from reading this book. Based on solid research and keen insight, the book explains why people feel service is getting worse in America. It postulates two basically different ways service providers relate to their customers: in "relationships" and in "encounters." Choosing the right way to provide service (and avoiding "pseudorelationships," is vital to the success or failure of a service business.

The Dynamics of Service - Reflections on the Changing Nature of Customer and Provider Interactions (Examination of the Service Transaction From a Social, Psychological and Management Perspective)

Average customer rating:

The Dynamics of Service - Reflections on the Changing Nature of Customer and Provider Interactions (Examination of the Service Transaction From a Social, Psychological and Management Perspective)
Barbara A. Gutek
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WZS7PS

Product Description

A service revolution is sweeping America. Nearly three-quarters of the people in the U.S. labor force work in services, almost half of family income is spent on services, and providing good service is widely believed to be the key to an organization's success, whether in the for-profit, nonprofit, or government sector. The Dynamics of Service is the first book to examine the service transaction in depth from social, psychological, and management perspectives. Barbara A. Gutek details the gradual encroachment of fast-food-type delivery approaches (service "encounters") into all forms of services, even those - such as medical care, financial services, and child care - that have traditionally been provided in ways that offer more continuity (service "relationships"). Gutek examines the cumulative impact of this quiet revolution on customers, providers, and the enterprises that provide service - and shows how it is changing the quality of our jobs and our lives. With powerful implications for health care, psychotherapy, higher education, law, and all areas where work is rapidly being restructured in large organizations, The Dynamics of Service provides professionals in many disciplines with a common framework for understanding how customers will be served in the future.

Book Description

This book, written at the request of practitioners and donor agencies, draws on the author’s research and practical experience in Bangladesh, Philippines and East Africa. The first part outlines cutting edge issues such as how far micro-finance can contribute to reducing poverty and how to recruit, develop and maintain high quality clients. The second part provides a practical guide, and the third and final section has two case studies, detailing how two very different systems were developed.

Book Description

This yearbook contains basic information on export-import, investment and business opportunities in the respected country. Provides information on government structure, economy, business climate, regulations, and more... Includes basic statistics, information on the most important business contacts and business travel. Updated annually.

Nepal Business and Investment Opportunities Yearbook

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Nepal Business and Investment Opportunities Yearbook

Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | International | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Asia | Travel | Subjects | Books

Nepal Investment & Business Opportunities Yearbook (World Investment & Business Opportunities Library)

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Nepal Investment & Business Opportunities Yearbook (World Investment & Business Opportunities Library)
USA International Business Publications
Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
ASIN: 0739713205

Book Description

This yearbook contains information on investment business opportunities, international economic projects, tenders, government projects, marketing and export-import opportunities information.

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