A history of obesity

Anne Scott Beller. Fat and Thin, a Natural History of Obesity. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1977. 310 pp. $4.95.     

Corporations and commemoration: first world war remembrance,Lloyds TSB and the national memorial arboretum

This paper explores the role of corporations and financial organisations in maintaining a memory of employees who have served during the wars of the 20th century. Focusing initially on memorial schemes devised by finance houses in the commemorative era after the Great War, the paper examines the emergence of a broader approach to organisational memory and the social construction of collective memory. Taking the Lloyds TSB finance group as a case study, the origins of the company’s war memorial in central London are examined, and the recent attempts to re‐locate a number of memorial objects and icons accumulated during the expansion of the group. This case study indicates how the social memory of an organisation might be understood through an appraisal of the monumental furniture that lives, often invisibly, within an organisation. The paper concludes with a number of questions concerning the nature of organisational memory when confronted with a history of merger and acquisition, and the difficulties in finding a commemorative site able to represent and safeguard these histories.     

Memorial gardens as dramaturgical space

Abstract

Since the end of the First World War British and Allied military cemeteries and memorial sites have been designed within a carefully controlled Imperial aesthetic. The emotional and historical capital of these sites has made objective judgement difficult; the burden of martial memory has made innovation in design almost impossible. This paper examines how the Dominion forces – notably Canada – achieved a distinct nationalism in their war memorials after the Great War. By focussing on two recent Canadian memorial sites – in London and France – the paper speculates on the ways in which artistic and military precedent informs the construction of monuments of conflict. The study concludes by looking at the recent public enthusiasm for floral and other temporary memorials which have challenged the rhetoric of official mourning.     

LOCATION THEORY AND THE MULTI-PLANT FIRM: A FRAMEWORK FOR EMPIRICAL STUDIES

A model is presented to provide for the optimum distribution of manufacturing plants for a multi-plant firm in a market-oriented industry. Independent variables are production costs, transport costs, and density of demand; dependent variables are optimum plant size and market area. It is argued that the model provides a suitable framework for analysing changes over time in the distribution of a firm's plants. The applicability of the model is illustrated with short studies of spatial changes in the fluid milk industry in southern Ontario and the auto assembly industry in the United States.
Nous présentons ici un modèle fournissant la répartition optimale des manufactures pour une entreprise à usines multiples dans une industrie orientée sur les marchés. Nos variables indépendantes sont les coûts de production, les frais de transport, et la densité de la demande; nos variables dépendantes sont les marchés et la grandeur optimale des usines. Nous soutenons que ce modèle foumit un cadre d'analyse acceptable pour étudier les changements dans le temps dans la répartition des usines d'une entreprise. Pour illustrer Fapplicabilité du modèle, nous nous servons de brèves études de changements spatiaux dans l'industrie sud-Ontarienne du lait liquide et 1'industrie de montage des automobiles aux États-Unis.     

The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs

Climate change is unusual compared with most environmental issues in the extent to which it has become accepted among orthodox policy institutions and public-and private-sector organizations. The authors explore the conditions that have led to the establishment of an epistemic community that brings together a broad array of actors, including the various NGOs, and the operational dimensions that define the participation of NGOs within the community. An epistemic community does not imply conformity of opinion or approach but allows for differentiation in terms of how its members construct the problem, and their objectives, core beliefs and favoured responses to climate change. Three broad styles of engagement through which NGOs contribute to this debate are identified: developing creative policy solutions, knowledge construction, and lobbying or campaigning. It should be noted that the authors refer primarily to development or environmental NGOs (ENGOs), though they do discuss business NGOs at a few points.