Historians and Their Duties Essay Example for Free

Historians and Their Duties Essay Gorman timely presents the question â€Å"Do historians as historians have an ethical responsibility, and if so to whom? † in his essay Historians and their Duties especially in an era which has seen the use of history as a way to further political agenda, invent or distort historical fact to justify political undertakings. He rightfully disputes Richard Evans’ assertion of value-free reportage of history and the restrictive historian’s duty of presenting and interpreting knowledge. In saying that â€Å"Historians are simply not trained to make moral judgments†¦they have no expertise in these things,† Evans suggests they must evade the moral question, but this is impossible. Morality governs us all, including historians. I differ in Evans’ bloodless concept of historical duty, one I think he broke after being expert witness in Irving v. Penguin Books and Lipstadt (Fulford, 2001) where he became instrumental in the conviction of a historian for distorting historical interpretations about the Holocaust. I think history, to become a significant part in advancing knowledge and good in society, must refuse to be monastic or ornamental, but instead be engaging and useful to mankind. I find Butterfield’s thoughts on ethics provocative in the verbose Bentley essay Herbert Butterfield and the Ethics of Historiography. The most striking is his recommended passive attitude to international politics: â€Å"Whatever wicked things we may think are done†¦ †¦ we have no right to say a word†¦ until we have forgiven the sin and covered it up with love. It strikes as a worldview that is either naive or cruel because it seems to justify crimes against humanity. I find it hard to reconcile with his anti-Whiggish stance condemning the selective presentation of history from the viewpoint of the victor (Schweizer, 2007). Is he, in the process, recommending us to absolve Hitler or the U. S. which he disdained for dropping the A-bomb on Hiroshima? I believe he is, and historians, to his view, being limited in understanding, cannot truly uncover the hand of God or Providence, enough for them to deliberate moral judgments of history. Responses to Student Views Unlike the first student response, I support Butterfield’s criticism of selective or rejectionist approach to the interpretation of history with a bias to the â€Å"victor†. I share his view of world events as a historical process. This is something that historians must take careful consideration of when upholding â€Å"objectivity† and â€Å"truth† in the conduct of their profession. Historical events are not static, after all, but an accumulation of events, not people, of experiences, not single victories. Regarding his treatise on passivity and quietism, Butterfield no doubt shares the brand of Christian helplessness when it comes to appreciating world events. I agree with the second student response on his critique of Evans, who promotes value-free interpretation of history as a duty of the ideal historian. I believe that duties of historians extend far more than writing history, but of injecting analysis and viewpoints as well, as long as he does not distort or invent historical fact in doing so. On being â€Å"politically neutral†, I have to disagree. It is true that historians possess a great deal of influence in shaping public perception of how events should be interpreted. In analyzing historical facts, the historian must take a stand, and in this manner, he loses his neutrality. He cannot claim the correctness of two contradictory interpretations but must determine which interpretation finds basis in fact. Indeed, historians cannot exempt themselves from ethical responsibility just because they feel a presumptive need to produce a â€Å"dispassionate† account of history. I think Gorman wrote this essay assuming essay that historians today are a vast and eclectic mix with varying dispositions. He preempts those who have an overly â€Å"institutional† view of ethics in saying: â€Å"As business people or historians, we surely all share the same moral world. † I agree that historians have the ethical duty to pass moral judgment and those who find themselves incapable of deliberating such must undergo â€Å"moral education. †

Sister Carrie :: essays research papers

I think it is very difficult to define the exact character of Dreiser’s "Sister Carrie", and his original intention. I would say, "as many eyes, so many opinions", so no wonder there are different approaches and interpretations towards the novel which is influenced not just by the reader’s reading or personal experience, but also by their particular philosophy of life as well as knowledge about the historical background. "Sister Carrie" can be read as a novel of desire, seduction, or the critique of capitalism and consumerism. It’s definitely not the plot or characters which are dominant elements of it. The taste and the literary value of Dreiser’s novel is shaped and created by its setting and the author’s tone. Chicago and New York have almost as organic and important role in the novel as the characters. They do not just form the simple environment for the novel, but they influence its character and a very strong impr ession. Chicago’s character is kind of more "positive", it is a city of promise, luck, rise (Carrie). We can say that in Chicago, Hurtswood means something. New York ‘s character is different. It’s a city of lies, fall, impersonal isolation of "walled city where surviving is much more difficult than in Chicago. In New York, Hurstwood means nothing. The setting creates different expectations to people. During the reading of "Sister Carrie", I was interested in searching and revealing the different kinds of desire. Generally we can say that Dreiser deals with the desire of wealth, social status, material things which are represented by money. Within this generalization, we can find and identify many other faces and forms of lust and longing. Carrie, as an ambitious and strong woman embodies the social values of the consumer culture. All she longs for is a material wealth, which represents power. She can be seen as a symbol of money. But Car rie lives in a world of prices. Her labor costs $4.50; board $4 a week; car fare $.60; cheap lunch $.10; etc. She imitates everything perfectly and that’s why she is becoming what people want her to become. Her desires come from other people’s desires. It is exactly Drouet, who introduces her to the world of wealth, to materialism. He gives her money, flat even "name when she enters the world of theater. She plays her role according to Drouet’s desires – once acts as his mistress or "wife".

Reed Supermarket case Essay

Recommendations for Growth: 1. Stop the dollar special for each week: 1st step is to stop the dollar special promotion immediately. This is not consistent with the brand equity and positioning built over the years. It’s resulting in net operating loss of 76% on each discounted item and overall decreased the net operating profit for 2010 to 0.4% only (details in justification). Moreover, this promotional activity is polluting the message for regular consumers, considering that some of the dollar stores are located nearby. 2. Increase Sales Target: To increase the current market share to 16%, sales target is set to775Mn for 2011. It’s an increase of 95Mn. from 2010, on the assumption that total marketsize (4.74Bn) remains same. 3. Focus and Maintain current Target Segment and Increase the Wallet Share: Continue focusing on the current target segment of affluent and older customers with smaller household size. Their wallet share is 8.93% only as compared to average supermarket customer’s walle t share of 10.0% (details in justification). Wallet share of Reed customers will be increased by at least 1% which will result in additional revenue of 79Mn/year. 4. Maintain current Brand Positioning: Maintain current brand positioning by serving to highend of customers with good and specialised quality of products (like sea food and organic).Continue leveraging on better customer experience by providing attentive staff, shortercheck out times, and opening stores for long hours, with clean and better lit lay outs. This will able to defend the competition from Delfina, Whole Foods Market and Galaxy and Top Val. 5. Improve Product Mix: Improve the product mix by introducing more private labels. Increase the private labels to 25% of total products on offer while maintaining the same Gross Marginand SG&A. Offer 2 types of product in each category, one with different brands (total 75% ofthat category) as a premium product and second with private label with lower prices as compared to branded ones. This increase in private labels will send a signal to stores like Aldi to  not to enter their territory of high end market with private labels. Roll out the bundled products containing food and beverages. Increase the organic andprepared food (high margin) in a product category where feasible and continue the organicpets food for its customer (comprises 20% of existing customer). 6. Increase Customer Base: Reed will grab at least 1% of market share of Galaxy storesresulting in additional sales of $47.15 Mn (details in justification). 7. Price: There will be no change in pricing policy for all the products (dollar sp. is scrapped). 8. Promotion: Leverage the integrated marketing channel of online, print and ad to promotenew addition of more private labels, organic food and prepared food. Promote the message healthy food adds to betters quality of life and for this no compromises should be madeesp. in later part of the life (for older affluent population). This will help in tackling theperception of consumers that prices are high. Promote the excellence in customer service,clean stores and convenient locations. These promotions will drive the increase in customerloyalty, awareness, choice and will increase the trips to store. 9. Maintain Current Locations: As far as distribution is concerned don’t add new stores oracquire any new store this year. Lot of dollar stores have come up at convenient locations toconsumers but it has made only a marginal impact (increase of 0.05%) on their habit ofregularly shopping at supermarkets, so don’t react to it. Additionally there are no plans forany capital expenditure for next 2 years as market conditions are quite tough. Why These Recommendations To understand how these recommendations were made, let’s first explore the current Industry situation, followed by Industry player and competition analysis and finally thejustification of why these recommendations are made for Meredith Collins. Porters – Industry Analysis Industry Players & Competition Players in this industry make money by applying high volume and low margin strategy. Theonus here is to leverage the economies of scale driven by operational efficiency to reducethe cost. They buy large number of products across various categories in bulk from  different suppliers and sell them at lower prices as compared to a smaller store which have limited shell space, product range and category. Net Operating Margins are quite thin, 1.5% – 2.5%,room for error or slag is nearly negligible in operations. There are 5 types of player in theindustry competing in 3 segments, from high end to low end of market. They are differentiating with each other on the following parameters: Pricing as a strategy (shown below in perceptual map) is used by retailers to differentiate. Some are positioning their price low (Dollar stores) and some at premium like Reed, someuse discounted pricing or everyday low prices (TopVal). Product specialisation and variety is another way of differentiation being employed. Someretailers are offering specialised products, like Reed specialises in organic and fresh seafoods and some differentiate on packaging. Some retailers are selling various products in a category by different manufactures and some retailers like Aldi sell only 1 product exclusively (private label) in a category. Quality is another way of differentiating the product, higher the quality, higher the price. Reed and Whole Foods are leading the pack when it comes to quality. Customer Experience driven by customer service and presentation plays a bigger role inattracting customers. For customer service, stores like Reed open for long hours, have morestaff on check outs to reduce the servicing time, have runners for shuttling the baggage.Some stores (like Dollar stores) have less/minimal staff (reduced cost) for help and checkout. For presentation stores are leveraging cleanliness, bright and better lighting (Aldi, Reed)and a better layout of shelves and stores Perceptual Map: Justification for Recommendations Focus on current Customer Segment and Increase Wallet Share: Reed’s current customer segment is composed of affluent and older customers with, smaller householdsize. Their annual income is 12% higher ($58,200) then state’s median household income of$52,000. On Average Annual spend by customers in US is $5,200. Hence on average wallet share of Reed’s customer is 8.93% (refer Appendix) as compared to 10% wallet share of anaverage customer. Additionally, on average customer in US spends $47.62/trip to a supermarket and currently Reeds Average Sales Value is $31.42/transaction. This must be  leveraged to increase the average sales value and wallet share. Having said that, it seems that current downturn has impacted the spending habits of Reeds customer segment. Competition and Brand Positioning: Reeds main competitor is Delfina, Whole FoodsMarket, Galaxy and TopVal. These players together comprise 45.10% of total market and Reed is leading overall. Since they are in same segment of market (except Top Val), its vital Reed maintain its current brand equity and position (defending the territory) which has beenbuilt over the years. Whole Foods which is competing with Reed on same positioning insame segment, but it has only 3 stores and has 1.2 % of market share. Reed need not worryabout them at this stage. As far as threat from Galaxy (supervalu) is concerned, they don’thave good locations and only some stores are marginally profitable. They are in trouble andit’s a matter of time when they are up for sale. Reed doesn’t need to react to them, in factthere is a potential for Reed to get some customers from Galaxy.On competition from TopVal it is positioned as low price player in the middle marketsegment. It’s very aggressive and is reacting hard to mai ntain its presence in competitionwith Walmart & Costco, this is not sustainable, and therefore there is no need to react totheir everyday low pricing discount roll out. To further defend against competitors, continueleveraging on better customer experience by providing attentive staff, shorter check outtimes, and opening stores for long hours with clean and better lit layouts. It’s neither attractive and nor possible for Reed to move to middle end of market (in middle ofperceptual map) where bigger players like Costco and Walmart hold the place with totalshare of 13.46%. Any signalling (using Game Theory)/movement in that segment can drivethe price wars leading to a disaster for Reed as they have bigger pockets and globalcapacity to sustain the price war.On the lower end (extreme right on perceptual map) of market it’s evident from perceptualMap that dollar stores doesn’t impose any serious threat as they have combined marketshare of 1.2% and can reach up to maximum of 3%. They have a different customersegment and market positioning. Similarly Aldi/Trader Joe has 1.62% of market share todayand can reach up to maximum of 5%. Store like Aldi rely heavily on lean operating modeland efficiency. It leverages private labels  (95%) and limited products (14,000 only) comparedto 50,000 in a supermarket) by Reed. Aldi targets niche customers w ith low and medium endof price market. In short term it doesn’t pose any threat to Reed, in longer term they canpose some threat as they have the expertise to compete and can grow aggressively byintroducing private labels for high end of market. Improve Product Mix: Currently 17% of sale is attributed by private labels in food andbeverage and has grown since 2005. Private labels aren’t perceived a low quality product anymore because of aggressive campaigning over the years in industry. These are beingused successfully at lower and middle end of price market by Aldi/Joe Traders. It will bewise for Reed to increase its product mix by increasing their intake of private labels in highend of products (high price and quality). This will add more choice for consumers along withbranded ones. Negotiate with the bigger suppliers and tell them that they need toincrease/add private label offerings as consumer doesn’t perceive them low value anymore.If they don’t come to the party then look for new suppliers in private label category.Bundling of food and beverages must be done as they complement each other and goeswell with target customer base. This will help in driving the sales and margin. Organic andprepared food is high margin as a product category and goes well with the health consciousand affluent people (less time for cooking). So these products need more attractive shelfspace and intake by Reed and it will help in driving the increase wallet share. Organic petfood is a good way of retaining (loyalty) affluent segment and increasing the trips to store asthey take their pets when they go out for shopping. Increase Customer Base: Reed need to target to grab at least 1% of market share($47.15MN) of Galaxy. These stores are poorly located & are in trouble as they can’t sustainthese promotions. Addition of more private labels, more prepared food, good customerservice & convenient locations will help in driving the customers to Reed. Scrap Dollar Special Promotions: Since June 2010, 250 items have been offered on adollar special on weekly  basis where prices have been reduced by 44% (refer Appendix).This sale constitutes 4% (12.69 Mn.) of total sales in a week, which is 0.51 Mn/week ofsales. This has increased the traffic in some stores by 3% but each sale is registering a netoperating loss of 76% on these discounted items and decreasing the overall net profit ofReed for 2010 to 0.4% only (refer Appendix). This is not sustainable from economic point ofview, if this is run for 12 months Reed will make a loss. Secondly from brand equity point ofview it is destroying the equity built over the years. It is sending mixed signals to targetcustomer segment as dollar stores are nearby. The 3% increase in traffic at some stores isdriven by bargain hunters, which is opposite to Reeds Positioning. Price: There is no need for change in pricing policy for all products as COGS and Expensesare built in using economies of scale. It’s already a very low margin business (NPM of 1.5%to 2.5%); further reduction of price (only and having same GM and S&A) will impact the economic model and the bottom line of Reed. This is also evident from the Dollar SpecialPromotions Conclusion: These points above provide the justification for recommendations. Reed muststay the course on what it has done successfully over the years. This current cycle ofdownturn and increasing competition must be used to focus on target segment & defend theterritory and grow on what Reed does well. Reaction like weekly Dollar Special without athorough analysis and plan can be detrimental to business. Soon there will be moreopportunities as some players will burn themselves by employing unsustainable practices.So Reed must stay the course with sharp focus.

Taking a Look at Eleanor Roosevelt - 1858 Words

Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the most famous First Ladies in history. Although she was awkward and shy as a child, she married Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an influential figure to the world as well as an inspiration to women everywhere in her own right. Eleanor was more than a president’s wife; she was an eloquent speaker, delegate of the United Nations, and overall an independent woman. Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in New York City. She grew up with a wealthy family in the Manhattan boroughs. She was the sister of two younger brothers: Elliott Jr. and Hall. Her parents, Elliott and Ann, were socialites at the top of New York’s society. Although her parents were wealthy, it did not buy them their happiness. Before Eleanor was five, her father broke his ankle while doing somersaults for the county circus. To reduce the pain of his injury, Elliott began drinking more heavily. Because of Elliott’s moodiness and depression, he set out to find a cure for himself. This separated him from all of his children, including Eleanor. Without Eleanor’s father with her, she became discouraged. Her only wish was to make her father happy. Not only was Eleanor upset over Elliott leaving; Anna was as well. Anna was furious with his decisions and started to neglect her children. Eleanor’s education was disregarded, so her mother hired h er a tutor. While this was occurring, Anna was diagnosed with an unknown illness. A few weeks after Ann had surgery, she diedShow MoreRelatedNo Ordinary Time By Doris Kearns Goodwin1688 Words   |  7 Pagesinto the personal lives of the Roosevelts. From their meetings with world leaders to problems in their marriage concerning infidelity, nothing is left unsaid. The historical novel starts with Roosevelt sitting in his bedroom, contemplating the end of the phony war that occurred before the official beginning of World War II. The novel continues with Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attempts to aid overseas Allies while trying to prepare his own country for war and Eleanor Roosevelt’s struggle for equalRead MoreEleanor Roosevelt : A Personal And Public Life By J.945 Words   |  4 PagesReport on Eleanor Roosevelt In Eleanor Roosevelt: A Personal and Public Life by J. William T. Youngs describes the life of Eleanor Roosevelt. Anna and Elliott Roosevelt was married and gave birth to a beautiful daughter who is Eleanor Roosevelt. This biography shows the reader a description of Eleanor’s early childhood, young adult, marriage, and how she was faced with many challenges, grief, and changes throughout her years. 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She took on roles that were considered untraditional for women, and with an innovative approach. I admire her work as a