Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knöbl
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691150840
- eISBN:
- 9781400844746
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691150840.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Social Theory
This chapter examines democratization, “failed states,” and empire building after the East–West conflict. The debate over “democratic peace” focused on democratization and was being underpinned by ...
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This chapter examines democratization, “failed states,” and empire building after the East–West conflict. The debate over “democratic peace” focused on democratization and was being underpinned by the vision of peace developed by Immanuel Kant in 1795. Since the end of the nineteenth century, there had been no serious discussion of Kant's ideas on how to achieve peace. Power–political realism, liberalism, and modernization theory, which were based on assumptions quite different from those of Kant, were far more prominent. It was only in the early 1980s that this changed, with global political developments and new political circumstances playing a crucial role in the resumption of the debate on Kant's ideas. The immediate trigger for this debate, at least the academic variant, was the two-part essay by Michael Doyle from 1983 entitled “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs.” The chapter also considers the relationship between international relations and sociology.Less
This chapter examines democratization, “failed states,” and empire building after the East–West conflict. The debate over “democratic peace” focused on democratization and was being underpinned by the vision of peace developed by Immanuel Kant in 1795. Since the end of the nineteenth century, there had been no serious discussion of Kant's ideas on how to achieve peace. Power–political realism, liberalism, and modernization theory, which were based on assumptions quite different from those of Kant, were far more prominent. It was only in the early 1980s that this changed, with global political developments and new political circumstances playing a crucial role in the resumption of the debate on Kant's ideas. The immediate trigger for this debate, at least the academic variant, was the two-part essay by Michael Doyle from 1983 entitled “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs.” The chapter also considers the relationship between international relations and sociology.
Charles Issawi
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195118131
- eISBN:
- 9780199854554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118131.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
The chapter starts with a survey of the distribution of the main language groups that account for about two-thirds of the world's population—Chinese, Indian, Russian, Anglo-Saxon, Latin European, ...
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The chapter starts with a survey of the distribution of the main language groups that account for about two-thirds of the world's population—Chinese, Indian, Russian, Anglo-Saxon, Latin European, Latin American, and Arab. These divisions coincide with the so-called “popular” culture (food, dress, architecture, religion) and it is surveyed in this chapter how these cultures attained their present locations and dimensions. It is observed that the brilliance of the people's “high” culture is not a major factor in imprinting a culture's language and popular culture to other people. Rather, it is the capacity for empire building (a good example is North and South America and Russia) and the presence of a proselytizing religion (like Christianity and Islam) that is more significant for providing the framework for imprinting the language and popular culture on indigenous populations and immigrants.Less
The chapter starts with a survey of the distribution of the main language groups that account for about two-thirds of the world's population—Chinese, Indian, Russian, Anglo-Saxon, Latin European, Latin American, and Arab. These divisions coincide with the so-called “popular” culture (food, dress, architecture, religion) and it is surveyed in this chapter how these cultures attained their present locations and dimensions. It is observed that the brilliance of the people's “high” culture is not a major factor in imprinting a culture's language and popular culture to other people. Rather, it is the capacity for empire building (a good example is North and South America and Russia) and the presence of a proselytizing religion (like Christianity and Islam) that is more significant for providing the framework for imprinting the language and popular culture on indigenous populations and immigrants.
Yong Chen
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231168922
- eISBN:
- 9780231538169
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231168922.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter links the spread of Chinese food to the geographic and socioeconomic expansion of the United States. This connection is best captured by the notion of “empire food,” which was created in ...
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This chapter links the spread of Chinese food to the geographic and socioeconomic expansion of the United States. This connection is best captured by the notion of “empire food,” which was created in the process of America's empire building for the pleasures of its citizens. While many Americans are unwilling or unable to see their country as an empire, the United States is, nonetheless, an empire of consumption characterized by extraordinary material abundance. It is the kind of empire that an American founding father such as Thomas Jefferson aspired to build in order to ensure freedom and liberty. Standing as an important event in the expansion of the American empire, the multiplication of Chinese restaurants expanded the meaning of American freedom and abundance by extending the dining-out experience to the masses.Less
This chapter links the spread of Chinese food to the geographic and socioeconomic expansion of the United States. This connection is best captured by the notion of “empire food,” which was created in the process of America's empire building for the pleasures of its citizens. While many Americans are unwilling or unable to see their country as an empire, the United States is, nonetheless, an empire of consumption characterized by extraordinary material abundance. It is the kind of empire that an American founding father such as Thomas Jefferson aspired to build in order to ensure freedom and liberty. Standing as an important event in the expansion of the American empire, the multiplication of Chinese restaurants expanded the meaning of American freedom and abundance by extending the dining-out experience to the masses.
Timothy Brook, Michael van Walt van Praag, and Miek Boltjes (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226562629
- eISBN:
- 9780226562933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226562933.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
The Qing Great State, founded by the Manchus in 1636, absorbed Ming China into a polity that ruled East Asia for close to three centuries. To recruit sources for their legitimacy, the Manchus drew on ...
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The Qing Great State, founded by the Manchus in 1636, absorbed Ming China into a polity that ruled East Asia for close to three centuries. To recruit sources for their legitimacy, the Manchus drew on Inner Asian Mongol and Tibetan Buddhist practices and forms of authority as well as Chinese. The Qing emperor was thus at once the Great Khan who commanded the allegiance of Chinggisid princes, the emanation of Manjusri who was recognized by the Dalai Lama, and the emperor at the apex of the Chinese tribute system. The realm the Qing emperor ruled was managed through particular relationships strategically developed with the ruling elites of each part of his realm in accordance with their respective worldviews. Stabilized from three different sources, the Qing was able to pursue a process of empire-building that dominated much of Asia at a time when states based in Europe were also building world empires. Skillful management of relations in these different legal orders held the whole together, but empire-building was a military project and could be sustained only through an investment of resources at a level. By the nineteenth century, the Qing was not able to meet these costs.Less
The Qing Great State, founded by the Manchus in 1636, absorbed Ming China into a polity that ruled East Asia for close to three centuries. To recruit sources for their legitimacy, the Manchus drew on Inner Asian Mongol and Tibetan Buddhist practices and forms of authority as well as Chinese. The Qing emperor was thus at once the Great Khan who commanded the allegiance of Chinggisid princes, the emanation of Manjusri who was recognized by the Dalai Lama, and the emperor at the apex of the Chinese tribute system. The realm the Qing emperor ruled was managed through particular relationships strategically developed with the ruling elites of each part of his realm in accordance with their respective worldviews. Stabilized from three different sources, the Qing was able to pursue a process of empire-building that dominated much of Asia at a time when states based in Europe were also building world empires. Skillful management of relations in these different legal orders held the whole together, but empire-building was a military project and could be sustained only through an investment of resources at a level. By the nineteenth century, the Qing was not able to meet these costs.
Kelly O'Neill
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300218299
- eISBN:
- 9780300231502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300218299.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This concluding chapter argues that the empire-building process cannot be understood apart from its spatial context. On one hand, the exercise and experience of authority were shaped in important ...
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This concluding chapter argues that the empire-building process cannot be understood apart from its spatial context. On one hand, the exercise and experience of authority were shaped in important ways by the built and natural environments. Russian officials paid an inordinate amount of attention to sites and attempted to infuse many of them with particular symbolic significance. In another sense, the cultural and economic connections that integrated Crimeans into non-Russian, and usually trans-imperial, spaces were themselves valuable to the empire-building process. Commercial networks, family estates, and pilgrimage routes continually took Crimeans across the border of the empire. Cross-border transactions then provided the empire with channels for expanding its own sphere of influence.Less
This concluding chapter argues that the empire-building process cannot be understood apart from its spatial context. On one hand, the exercise and experience of authority were shaped in important ways by the built and natural environments. Russian officials paid an inordinate amount of attention to sites and attempted to infuse many of them with particular symbolic significance. In another sense, the cultural and economic connections that integrated Crimeans into non-Russian, and usually trans-imperial, spaces were themselves valuable to the empire-building process. Commercial networks, family estates, and pilgrimage routes continually took Crimeans across the border of the empire. Cross-border transactions then provided the empire with channels for expanding its own sphere of influence.
Janis Mimura
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449260
- eISBN:
- 9780801460852
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449260.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 initiated a new phase of brutal occupation and warfare in Asia and the Pacific. It forwarded the project of remaking the Japanese state along ...
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Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 initiated a new phase of brutal occupation and warfare in Asia and the Pacific. It forwarded the project of remaking the Japanese state along technocratic and fascistic lines and creating a self-sufficient Asian bloc centered on Japan and its puppet state of Manchukuo. This book traces the origins and evolution of this new order and the ideas and policies of its chief architects, the reform bureaucrats. The reform bureaucrats pursued a radical, authoritarian vision of modern Japan in which public and private spheres were fused, ownership and control of capital were separated, and society was ruled by technocrats. The book shifts our attention away from reactionary young officers to state planners—reform bureaucrats, total war officers, new zaibatsu leaders, economists, political scientists, engineers, and labor party leaders. It shows how empire building and war mobilization raised the stature and influence of these middle-class professionals by calling forth new government planning agencies, research bureaus, and think tanks to draft Five Year industrial plans, rationalize industry, mobilize the masses, streamline the bureaucracy, and manage big business. Examining the political battles and compromises of Japanese technocrats in their bid for political power and Asian hegemony, the book offers a new perspective on Japanese fascism by revealing its modern roots in the close interaction of technology and right-wing ideology.Less
Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 initiated a new phase of brutal occupation and warfare in Asia and the Pacific. It forwarded the project of remaking the Japanese state along technocratic and fascistic lines and creating a self-sufficient Asian bloc centered on Japan and its puppet state of Manchukuo. This book traces the origins and evolution of this new order and the ideas and policies of its chief architects, the reform bureaucrats. The reform bureaucrats pursued a radical, authoritarian vision of modern Japan in which public and private spheres were fused, ownership and control of capital were separated, and society was ruled by technocrats. The book shifts our attention away from reactionary young officers to state planners—reform bureaucrats, total war officers, new zaibatsu leaders, economists, political scientists, engineers, and labor party leaders. It shows how empire building and war mobilization raised the stature and influence of these middle-class professionals by calling forth new government planning agencies, research bureaus, and think tanks to draft Five Year industrial plans, rationalize industry, mobilize the masses, streamline the bureaucracy, and manage big business. Examining the political battles and compromises of Japanese technocrats in their bid for political power and Asian hegemony, the book offers a new perspective on Japanese fascism by revealing its modern roots in the close interaction of technology and right-wing ideology.
Vera Tolz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199594443
- eISBN:
- 9780191725067
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199594443.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
After outlining the book's key issues, the Introduction offers a brief history of Orientology in Russia in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, focusing on how the establishment of university ...
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After outlining the book's key issues, the Introduction offers a brief history of Orientology in Russia in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, focusing on how the establishment of university chairs and departments of Orientology was directly linked to the demands of Russian nation- and empire-building. Particular attention is paid to how, as a result of the activities of the Arabist Viktor Rozen, the study of Russia's eastern and southern borderlands, which Rozen called ‘Russia's own Orient’, became one of the research priorities for the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the 1890s. In showing how Rozen's agenda for Russian Orientology was linked to various pan-European intellectual trends, the Introduction also gives profiles of the main figures, Rozen's disciples, whose ideas are discussed in this book.Less
After outlining the book's key issues, the Introduction offers a brief history of Orientology in Russia in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, focusing on how the establishment of university chairs and departments of Orientology was directly linked to the demands of Russian nation- and empire-building. Particular attention is paid to how, as a result of the activities of the Arabist Viktor Rozen, the study of Russia's eastern and southern borderlands, which Rozen called ‘Russia's own Orient’, became one of the research priorities for the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the 1890s. In showing how Rozen's agenda for Russian Orientology was linked to various pan-European intellectual trends, the Introduction also gives profiles of the main figures, Rozen's disciples, whose ideas are discussed in this book.
David Farber
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199734573
- eISBN:
- 9780190254360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199734573.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter describes John's entry into the skyscraper business, particularly his decision to build the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building was announced to the world on August 29, ...
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This chapter describes John's entry into the skyscraper business, particularly his decision to build the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building was announced to the world on August 29, 1929. The building would cost $60 million, be a thousand feet high, and open for business May 1, 1931. The chapter also details the impact of the stock market crash of 1929 on John's finances.Less
This chapter describes John's entry into the skyscraper business, particularly his decision to build the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building was announced to the world on August 29, 1929. The building would cost $60 million, be a thousand feet high, and open for business May 1, 1931. The chapter also details the impact of the stock market crash of 1929 on John's finances.
Simone C. Drake
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226363837
- eISBN:
- 9780226364025
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226364025.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
This chapter charts a genealogy of black men’s urban business practices in relationship to citizenship and the law. Focusing on Marcus Garvey, Berry Gordy, and Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter), this chapter ...
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This chapter charts a genealogy of black men’s urban business practices in relationship to citizenship and the law. Focusing on Marcus Garvey, Berry Gordy, and Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter), this chapter analyses the nuances of what I refer to as a hip-hop genealogy and how it infuses the ways in which these men imagine black entrepreneurship as a nationalist site of redemption, enabling them to build literal empires. The self-branding that is central to how each of these men builds an empire possesses its own nuances, but each is driven by a self-actualization produced by imagining alternatives to the limited spaces open to black men. The law, custom, and intra-racial conflict emerge as challenges for all three men’s pursuits; the ways they negotiate and think about the obstacles challenges discourses of crisis. It is, however, difficult to separate hegemonic gender ideologies from nationalist and capitalist informed economic pursuits; thus, I also consider the role black women play in the empire building legacies of these men.Less
This chapter charts a genealogy of black men’s urban business practices in relationship to citizenship and the law. Focusing on Marcus Garvey, Berry Gordy, and Jay-Z (aka Shawn Carter), this chapter analyses the nuances of what I refer to as a hip-hop genealogy and how it infuses the ways in which these men imagine black entrepreneurship as a nationalist site of redemption, enabling them to build literal empires. The self-branding that is central to how each of these men builds an empire possesses its own nuances, but each is driven by a self-actualization produced by imagining alternatives to the limited spaces open to black men. The law, custom, and intra-racial conflict emerge as challenges for all three men’s pursuits; the ways they negotiate and think about the obstacles challenges discourses of crisis. It is, however, difficult to separate hegemonic gender ideologies from nationalist and capitalist informed economic pursuits; thus, I also consider the role black women play in the empire building legacies of these men.
Kelly O'Neill
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780300218299
- eISBN:
- 9780300231502
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300218299.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter focuses on one of the crucial mechanisms of empire building: the integration of elites. Previous scholars have presumed that the Crimean elite followed a path similar to that of their ...
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This chapter focuses on one of the crucial mechanisms of empire building: the integration of elites. Previous scholars have presumed that the Crimean elite followed a path similar to that of their Georgian and Ukrainian peers. According to the accepted narrative, officials offered the mirzas a role in facilitating the establishment of Russian rule, and they accepted. By the early nineteenth century, mirzas relinquished the reins of authority to Russian officials and landowners, thus removing any vestiges of local particularity in the Tavrida administration. Those who remained in positions of power did so only by forsaking their previous allegiances and becoming part of the Russian social and cultural fabric. In so doing, they left the Crimean Tatar population vulnerable to integrationist policies.Less
This chapter focuses on one of the crucial mechanisms of empire building: the integration of elites. Previous scholars have presumed that the Crimean elite followed a path similar to that of their Georgian and Ukrainian peers. According to the accepted narrative, officials offered the mirzas a role in facilitating the establishment of Russian rule, and they accepted. By the early nineteenth century, mirzas relinquished the reins of authority to Russian officials and landowners, thus removing any vestiges of local particularity in the Tavrida administration. Those who remained in positions of power did so only by forsaking their previous allegiances and becoming part of the Russian social and cultural fabric. In so doing, they left the Crimean Tatar population vulnerable to integrationist policies.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778015
- eISBN:
- 9780804782043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778015.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter examines the issues of empire building and transculturation in Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Brazil-Maru, describing her research for this novel about government-sponsored Japanese ...
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This chapter examines the issues of empire building and transculturation in Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Brazil-Maru, describing her research for this novel about government-sponsored Japanese emigration to Brazil during the interwar year. It analyzes how Yamashita's attempt to grapple with the contradictory dimensions of the Japanese emigration to Brazil was translated into rhetorical ambiguities, elliptical references, and esoteric visions in her literary portrayals. The chapter also considers several aspects of the novel as fraught with ideological tension, including utopia as an imperial imaginary ideal and the primitive as a racially inflected signifier.Less
This chapter examines the issues of empire building and transculturation in Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Brazil-Maru, describing her research for this novel about government-sponsored Japanese emigration to Brazil during the interwar year. It analyzes how Yamashita's attempt to grapple with the contradictory dimensions of the Japanese emigration to Brazil was translated into rhetorical ambiguities, elliptical references, and esoteric visions in her literary portrayals. The chapter also considers several aspects of the novel as fraught with ideological tension, including utopia as an imperial imaginary ideal and the primitive as a racially inflected signifier.
John Marsh
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- November 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198847731
- eISBN:
- 9780191882425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198847731.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
By awe, philosophers and psychologists mean the sensation that overcomes someone in the presence of something simultaneously vast, powerful, and, when compared to humans, strangely humbling. The ...
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By awe, philosophers and psychologists mean the sensation that overcomes someone in the presence of something simultaneously vast, powerful, and, when compared to humans, strangely humbling. The chapter begins with a review of amazing discoveries such as island universes, the expanding universe, and the Big Bang that altered the understanding of the universe and made the solar system “seem but a speck of dust in infinite space.” It then turns to other sources of awe, or the Depression sublime: the Empire State Building; Jesse Owens’s record-setting long jump at the 1936 Berlin Olympics; the moral heroism of the Joads in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; and James Agee and Walker Evans’s deification of tenant farmers in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Whereas most accounts of the sublime involve the vastness of nature overwhelming human beings, during the Depression human beings themselves became a source of the sublime.Less
By awe, philosophers and psychologists mean the sensation that overcomes someone in the presence of something simultaneously vast, powerful, and, when compared to humans, strangely humbling. The chapter begins with a review of amazing discoveries such as island universes, the expanding universe, and the Big Bang that altered the understanding of the universe and made the solar system “seem but a speck of dust in infinite space.” It then turns to other sources of awe, or the Depression sublime: the Empire State Building; Jesse Owens’s record-setting long jump at the 1936 Berlin Olympics; the moral heroism of the Joads in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; and James Agee and Walker Evans’s deification of tenant farmers in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Whereas most accounts of the sublime involve the vastness of nature overwhelming human beings, during the Depression human beings themselves became a source of the sublime.
Michael Khodarkovsky
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449727
- eISBN:
- 9780801462894
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449727.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
Russia's attempt to consolidate its authority in the North Caucasus has exerted a terrible price on both sides since the mid-nineteenth century. This book tells a concise and compelling history of ...
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Russia's attempt to consolidate its authority in the North Caucasus has exerted a terrible price on both sides since the mid-nineteenth century. This book tells a concise and compelling history of the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian seas during the centuries of Russia's long conquest (1500–1850s). The history of the region unfolds against the background of one man's life story, Semën Atarshchikov (1807–1845). Torn between his Chechen identity and his duties as a lieutenant and translator in the Russian army, Atarshchikov defected, not once but twice, to join the mountaineers against the invading Russian troops. His was the experience more typical of Russia's empire-building in the borderlands than the better-known stories of the audacious kidnappers and valiant battles. It is a history of the North Caucasus as seen from both sides of the conflict, which continues to make this region Russia's most violent and vulnerable frontier.Less
Russia's attempt to consolidate its authority in the North Caucasus has exerted a terrible price on both sides since the mid-nineteenth century. This book tells a concise and compelling history of the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian seas during the centuries of Russia's long conquest (1500–1850s). The history of the region unfolds against the background of one man's life story, Semën Atarshchikov (1807–1845). Torn between his Chechen identity and his duties as a lieutenant and translator in the Russian army, Atarshchikov defected, not once but twice, to join the mountaineers against the invading Russian troops. His was the experience more typical of Russia's empire-building in the borderlands than the better-known stories of the audacious kidnappers and valiant battles. It is a history of the North Caucasus as seen from both sides of the conflict, which continues to make this region Russia's most violent and vulnerable frontier.
Jason M. Barr
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199344369
- eISBN:
- 9780190231736
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199344369.003.0010
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Economic History, Development, Growth, and Environmental
The skyscraper boom of the Roaring Twenties has not been subjected to much rigorous study. What caused it? There are two conventional stories: The ego story and the financing story. The ego story ...
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The skyscraper boom of the Roaring Twenties has not been subjected to much rigorous study. What caused it? There are two conventional stories: The ego story and the financing story. The ego story says that the building boom of the Roaring Twenties was caused by egos unleashed by the economic euphoria of the day. The financing story says that real estate Gold Bonds were to blame. This chapter argues that the growth of the skyline was a rational response to important structural changes in the economy, which created a tremendous demand for office space in the city; technological progress was also making building skyscrapers much cheaper. The Empire State Building is not representative of the period. Some of the construction was caused by the stock market boom, but the rise of Midtown 2.0, with the completion of Grand Central Station and Penn Station, was the central cause.Less
The skyscraper boom of the Roaring Twenties has not been subjected to much rigorous study. What caused it? There are two conventional stories: The ego story and the financing story. The ego story says that the building boom of the Roaring Twenties was caused by egos unleashed by the economic euphoria of the day. The financing story says that real estate Gold Bonds were to blame. This chapter argues that the growth of the skyline was a rational response to important structural changes in the economy, which created a tremendous demand for office space in the city; technological progress was also making building skyscrapers much cheaper. The Empire State Building is not representative of the period. Some of the construction was caused by the stock market boom, but the rise of Midtown 2.0, with the completion of Grand Central Station and Penn Station, was the central cause.
David Farber
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199734573
- eISBN:
- 9780190254360
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199734573.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
John Raskob is not a name that looms large but his greatest building casts a shadow on the people of New York every day. Financier of the Empire State Building, Raskob was a self-made businessman who ...
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John Raskob is not a name that looms large but his greatest building casts a shadow on the people of New York every day. Financier of the Empire State Building, Raskob was a self-made businessman who worked for DuPont and for GM and famously invented with the idea for consumer credit, which he first offered to individual car buyers (GMAC). A friend of New York Governor Al Smith, Raskob became active in New York politics and ran the Democratic National Committee and Smith's campaign for the presidency. He invested his own fortune heavily in the Empire State Building, built at the height of the Great Depression. A colorful figure, Raskob's life evokes the roaring twenties, the Catholic elite, the boardrooms of America's biggest corporations, and the rags-to-riches tale that is central to the American dream. His most famous interview was entitled “Everybody Ought to Be Rich” in Ladies' Home Journal in August 1929—on the eve of the stock market crash—and his personal achievement of such extraordinary wealth and power highlights just how far he came traveled from a teenage candy seller on the railway between Lockport and Buffalo. His wide circle of business associates and personal acquaintances included Water Chrysler, the DuPonts, Alfred Sloane, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Kennedy, Western miners, and the Pope. He lived his own creed: “Go ahead and do things. The bigger the better, if your fundamentals are sound. Avoid procrastination”.Less
John Raskob is not a name that looms large but his greatest building casts a shadow on the people of New York every day. Financier of the Empire State Building, Raskob was a self-made businessman who worked for DuPont and for GM and famously invented with the idea for consumer credit, which he first offered to individual car buyers (GMAC). A friend of New York Governor Al Smith, Raskob became active in New York politics and ran the Democratic National Committee and Smith's campaign for the presidency. He invested his own fortune heavily in the Empire State Building, built at the height of the Great Depression. A colorful figure, Raskob's life evokes the roaring twenties, the Catholic elite, the boardrooms of America's biggest corporations, and the rags-to-riches tale that is central to the American dream. His most famous interview was entitled “Everybody Ought to Be Rich” in Ladies' Home Journal in August 1929—on the eve of the stock market crash—and his personal achievement of such extraordinary wealth and power highlights just how far he came traveled from a teenage candy seller on the railway between Lockport and Buffalo. His wide circle of business associates and personal acquaintances included Water Chrysler, the DuPonts, Alfred Sloane, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Kennedy, Western miners, and the Pope. He lived his own creed: “Go ahead and do things. The bigger the better, if your fundamentals are sound. Avoid procrastination”.
David Farber
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199734573
- eISBN:
- 9780190254360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199734573.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter describes John Raskob's activities in his later years. He continued to manage calmly the economic travails that the Empire State Building put him through into the early 1940s, and ...
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This chapter describes John Raskob's activities in his later years. He continued to manage calmly the economic travails that the Empire State Building put him through into the early 1940s, and remained rightly optimistic about the value of his grand adventure in the skyscraper business. Although his fortunes would go up and down, and personal and policy attacks from his political enemies would occasionally enrage him and drive him back briefly into the public arena, Raskob would find peace, pleasure, and reward in the challenges he created for himself. Up until the end, Raskob kept doing things. He kept imagining that his next enterprise or his newest investment would produce another fortune and that his latest project would prove rewarding for everyone he had invited to the game.Less
This chapter describes John Raskob's activities in his later years. He continued to manage calmly the economic travails that the Empire State Building put him through into the early 1940s, and remained rightly optimistic about the value of his grand adventure in the skyscraper business. Although his fortunes would go up and down, and personal and policy attacks from his political enemies would occasionally enrage him and drive him back briefly into the public arena, Raskob would find peace, pleasure, and reward in the challenges he created for himself. Up until the end, Raskob kept doing things. He kept imagining that his next enterprise or his newest investment would produce another fortune and that his latest project would prove rewarding for everyone he had invited to the game.
David Farber
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199734573
- eISBN:
- 9780190254360
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199734573.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter provides a biographical sketch of John Jakob Raskob, who embodied the American Dream of his day. Starting as a $5 a week stenographer at Holly Pump and Machine Shops, he ...
More
This introductory chapter provides a biographical sketch of John Jakob Raskob, who embodied the American Dream of his day. Starting as a $5 a week stenographer at Holly Pump and Machine Shops, he became the financial helmsman of the DuPont Company and then General Motors. His stock pronouncements made headline news and moved the markets. He built the Empire State Building. Raskob was one of a small group of men who created the capitalist order of the modern United States.Less
This introductory chapter provides a biographical sketch of John Jakob Raskob, who embodied the American Dream of his day. Starting as a $5 a week stenographer at Holly Pump and Machine Shops, he became the financial helmsman of the DuPont Company and then General Motors. His stock pronouncements made headline news and moved the markets. He built the Empire State Building. Raskob was one of a small group of men who created the capitalist order of the modern United States.
John Lowe
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195385359
- eISBN:
- 9780190252786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195385359.003.0026
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 18th Century and Early American Literature
This chapter examines the role of the ethnic novel in creating a multicultural nation during the period up to 1870. It first considers fictional depictions of the US-Mexico War and how they shaped ...
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This chapter examines the role of the ethnic novel in creating a multicultural nation during the period up to 1870. It first considers fictional depictions of the US-Mexico War and how they shaped ideologies of racial hierarchy, territorial expansion, and empire building. It then looks at novels by ethnic writers such as John Rollin Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854), Amédée Bouis’s Le Whip-Poor-Will (1847), Eugène Sue’s Les Mystères de Paris (1842–1843), Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein’s The Mysteries of New Orleans [Die Geheimnisse von New Orleans] (1854–1855), George Lippard’s The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall (1844–1845), and Reinhold Solger’s Anton in Amerika: Novelle aus dem deutsch-amerikanischen Leben (Anton in America: A Novel from German-American Life, 1862).Less
This chapter examines the role of the ethnic novel in creating a multicultural nation during the period up to 1870. It first considers fictional depictions of the US-Mexico War and how they shaped ideologies of racial hierarchy, territorial expansion, and empire building. It then looks at novels by ethnic writers such as John Rollin Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854), Amédée Bouis’s Le Whip-Poor-Will (1847), Eugène Sue’s Les Mystères de Paris (1842–1843), Baron Ludwig von Reizenstein’s The Mysteries of New Orleans [Die Geheimnisse von New Orleans] (1854–1855), George Lippard’s The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall (1844–1845), and Reinhold Solger’s Anton in Amerika: Novelle aus dem deutsch-amerikanischen Leben (Anton in America: A Novel from German-American Life, 1862).
