How These Things Work: Business Management Writ Large

Phillip Phan, professor and vice dean of faculty and research, Carey Business School

Nearly 80 years of collective wisdom on the nature of corporations, management, capitalism, and entrepreneurial creativity. In the present economy, wisdom can seem like a scarce commodity.

• The Modern Corporation and Private Property, by Adolph A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means. In 1932, Berle and Means laid out their argument that in most U.S. corporations, the owners play little role in managing the company and the managers have little ownership at stake. Maybe not the best idea.
• The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, by Joel Mokyr. “What is required for technological creativity is the right blend of accumulated knowledge of past generations and the ability to shed the stifling burden of past institutions.” Where does technological creativity come from, and why do some nations have it in abundance while others do not?
• The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek. Hayek’s thesis was summarized pungently by George Orwell: “Collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of.”
• Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise, by Alfred D. Chandler. How large corporations manage burgeoning business. The secret, says Chandler, is that structure follows strategy.

Nursing As It’s Been Done, As It’s Done Now

Sarah J. Shaefer, assistant professor of community public health nursing, and Sharon Olsen, assistant professor of acute and chronic care, School of Nursing

Nursing as a discipline has been anything but static, as this course will make clear. The historical scope of the readings is vast—back to ancient Egypt—and they cover many aspects of contemporary practice.

• Pivotal Moments in Nursing: Leaders Who Changed the Path of a Profession, by Beth Houser and Kathy Player. Essays on a dozen men and women who followed varied paths to becoming leaders in the profession, including Loretta Ford, Gretta Styles, and Luther Christman.
• Nursing, the Finest Art: An Illustrated History, by Patricia Donahue. It’s all here, nursing from ancient Assyria and Babylonia to the modern day, profusely illustrated with more than 500 historical images.
• Contemporary Nursing: Issues, Trends & Management, by Barbara Cherry and Susan R. Jacob. Comprehensive overview of how the profession is practiced today.
• Advanced Practice Nursing: Essentials of Role Development, by Lucille A. Joel. The core concepts of advanced practice by nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and others.
• Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses, edited by Ann Page. One way to improve outcomes for patients is to change the working conditions of and demands on nurses.
• Our Shared Legacy: Nursing Education at Johns Hopkins, 1889–2006, by Mame Warren. The history of nursing instruction at Johns Hopkins; another well-illustrated volume.

Affairs of an International Nature: Global Finances, Economic Development, and Leadership

Jessica Einhorn, dean of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies

Readings about players on the biggest stage—mistaken bankers, failed states, a shaky dragon, and mediocre presidents. The instructor, who is not only a dean but chair of SAIS’ Foreign Policy Institute and an expert on the international political economy, has hit four areas of international affairs: finance, global poverty, China, and U.S. foreign policy.

• Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed. After the First World War, the world’s most powerful quartet of bankers pushed the political leaders of the wealthiest nations into decisions that nearly ruined the global economy. A book that may not make you feel better about the current state of affairs.
• The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, by Paul Collier. Collier argues that the best way to help the poor would be to concentrate on the billion people (70 percent of them in Africa) with the bad luck to live in nations that are going nowhere but down.
• China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future— and the Challenge for America, by James Kynge. When Kynge, a former Financial Times Beijing bureau chief, looks at China, he sees a juggernaut with a voracious appetite for resources, labor, energy, and markets, and systemic problems so large that everything could come crashing down.
• Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower, by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The author grades the last three U.S. presidents. He is not all that impressed.

Next: Readings on race, the art of teaching and a deep journey into what has made you into you.