Personnel

Author(s):  
Gordon Boyce

This chapter examines the role of executives within the Furness Group and the way in which they conducted the Group’s affairs. It seeks to determine the structure of Furness Withy’s personnel in 1919 and the disruptive factors that surrounded it, such as the First World War, and the withdrawal of the Furness family. It uses the structural management theories of Alfred Chandler, Edith Penrose, and Peter Payne to explain how ownership and control of Furness Withy became divorced, yet personal concerns and motivations continued to structure the company’s development. It also explores statements and publications written by Christopher Furness and his associates that illuminate his management strategies and incentives, and the organisational direction within the Group. At the core of the chapter is the question of whether the Group failed to consolidate their interests due to executives failing to implement their knowledge, or due to the administrative complexity surrounding the expansion efforts of the Group. It concludes that as the Furness family withdrew, their dynastic style of management continued to influence the next generation of leadership, a curious but not overtly hindering development.

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-156
Author(s):  
Craig Barclay ◽  
Rachel Barclay

This new work, published in English, French and Mandarin, draws upon recently-discovered photographic evidence to cast a fresh light upon the work and role of the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) on the Western Front during the First World War. At its core lie the photographs taken by William James Hawkings in China and France between 1917 and 1919 and rediscovered by his grandson, John De Lucy, in 2014. These images formed the core of A Good Reputation Endures Forever—the first UK exhibition to focus exclusively on the volunteers of the CLC—and now, thanks to the efforts of John De Lucy and Steve Lau, highlights from the collection are available to a wider audience.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 583-609
Author(s):  
John Martin

This paper explores the reasons why artificial or mineral sources of nitrogen, which were more readily available in Britain than in other European countries, were only slowly adopted by farmers in the decades prior to and during the First World War. It considers why nitrogen in the form of sulphate of ammonia, a by-product of coal-gas (town-gas) manufacture, was increasingly exported from Britain for use by German farmers. At the same time Britain was attempting to monopolise foreign supplies of Chilean nitrate, which was not only a valuable source of fertiliser for agriculture but also an essential ingredient of munitions production. The article also investigates the reasons why sulphate of ammonia was not more widely used to raise agricultural production during the First World War, at a time when food shortages posed a major threat to public morale and commitment to the war effort.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Sjang L. ten Hagen

ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein’s theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions.


1986 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-337
Author(s):  
Jacob H. Dorn

Historians have produced a rich and sophisticated literature on urban reform in the progressive era before the First World War. It includes numerous studies of individual cities, biographies of urban leaders, and analyses of particular movements and organizations. This literature illuminates important variations among reformers and their achievements, the relationships between urban growth and reform, and the functional role of the old-style political machines against which progressives battled. Similarly, there are many examinations of progressive-era reformers' ideas about and attitudes toward the burgeoning industrial cities that had come into being with disquieting rapidity during their own lifetimes. Some of these works go well beyond the controversial conclusions of Morton and Lucia White in The Intellectual Versus the City (1964) to find more complex—and sometimes more positive—assessments of the new urban civilization.


Author(s):  
Kirill V. Vertyaev ◽  

The article develops the stadial formation thesis of the proto-statehood among the Iraqi Kurds. The concept of national identity of the Iraqi Kurds remains the subject of a complex and long-lasting discussion. The main obstacle for the emergence of the Kurdish integral nationalism is still the fact that the Kurds speak different dialects of Kurdish language, and still maintain political and inter-clan conflicts over the distribution of power (not to mention the futility of any attempts to define political boundaries of Iraqi Kurdistan). Ironically, Great Britain faced practically the same contradictions during its occupation of Mesopotamia at the end of the WWI (following the Mudros armistice in October 1918), when British attempts to create an independent Kurdish state failed for a number of reasons, which are discussed in the article. In our opinion, this period was responsible for the formation of proto-statehood in Kurdish area (Kingdom of Kurdistan, for example, obtained classic characteristics of a chiefdom, but at the same time had a vivid anti-colonial, anti-imperialist orientation). The phenomenology of the British government’s political relations with such ‘quasi-states’ presents the subject for this article’s analysis.


2021 ◽  
pp. 133-149
Author(s):  
I. Vietrynskyi

The paper focuses on the initial stage of the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia, and the process of its establishing as an independent State. The international political context for the development of the country, from the period of creation of the Federation to the beginning of the Second World War, is primarily viewed. The Commonwealth’s international position, its place and role in the regional and global geopolitical processes of the early XX century, in particular in the context of its relations with Great Britain, are analyzed. The features of the transformation of British colonial policies on the eve of the First World War are examined. The specifics of the UK system of relations with Australia, as well as other dominions, are being examined. The features of status of the dominions in the British Empire system are shown. The role of the dominions and, in particular, the Commonwealth of Australia in the preparatory process for the First World War, as well as the peculiarities of its participation in hostilities, is analyzed. The significance of the actions of the First World War on the domestic political situation in Australia, as well as its impact on dominions relations with the British Empire, is revealed. The history of the foundation of the Australian-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) and its participation in imperial forces on the frontline of the First World War is analyzed. The success and failure of its fighters, as well as the role of ANZAC, in the process of formation an Australian political nation are analyzed. The economic, humanitarian and international political consequences of the First World War for the Commonwealth of Australia are examined, as well as the influence of these consequences on the structure of relations between the dominions and the British Empire. The socio-economic situation of the Commonwealth of Australia on the eve of World War II, in particular the impact of the Great depression on the development of the country as a whole and its internal political situation in particular, is analyzed. The ideological, military-strategic and international political prerequisites for Australia’s entry into the Second World War are being considered.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-198
Author(s):  
Pavlina Ivanova ◽  

The article examines the modern historical epoch - from the First World War to the present day, and the related concepts and discussions. Concepts and categories that are of paramount importance for the objective representation of this reality are considered. The formation of historical concepts is of particular importance for the overall process of teaching history. The author considers and analyzes different opinions about the methodological requirements towards the concepts in the teaching process in history, presented in the methodological literature. The role of the teacher in clarifying to students the content of new concepts in modern history is pointed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo Mora-Rioja

During the course of the First World War, the generation of British authors known collectively as the War Poets revolutionized the popular culture of their time. Due to their changing attitudes towards armed conflict, their portrayal of war chaos included realist descriptions of life in the trenches, unusual choices of subject matter and an eventual challenge to the political and religious establishment of their time. Metal music, a genre with an inherent lyrical and musical concern about chaos and control, has crafted several songs inspired on the First World War poetry. This specific relationship has not been studied before. Based on Weinstein’s and Walser’s insights on chaos and control in metal music, the aim of this article is to evaluate the ability of metal music to either transmit or refute the War Poets’ discourse on chaos, and to study the textual and musical resources metal bands use to relay and control said discourse. For this purpose, I perform a comparative analysis of nine metal music adaptations and appropriations of six different First World War poems they are based on. A chronological path of the evolution of the First World War poetry is followed. The study concludes that, besides effectively transmitting or contesting the War Poets’ discourse on chaos, metal music exerts chaos control through its use of musical resources, especially in the case of extreme metal subgenres.


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