I didn't know the herring run started today, but the ospreys sure did (it's a bit hard to make out but there's one in its talons in the photo)! And after watching the seasonal wildlife I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Richard Macve on the historical roots of accounting at Mohamed Elsalkh's seminar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhpOOxyxCMc

Next was "America's Assembly Line" by David Nye. Nye traces the history, refinement, and diffusion of the assembly line process through the decades, demonstrating its tremendous power in driving (see what I did there?) mass market production and consumption. The sections that covered the diffusion of the optimized process conceived at Ford through work site visits by European executives was instructive, as was the similar ingestion of more effective Japanese processes later in the century. The specter of automation taking jobs is continually raised throughout the decades, essentially never coming to pass (most displacement was due to outsourcing), which hopefully people today consider when they make proclamations about the potential displacement effects of new technologies. Highly recommend https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262018715/americas-assembly-line/

Last was "Coxey's Crusade for Jobs" by Jerry Prout. This book covers Coxey's march to Washington from its genesis in Coxey's own experiences and economic/working conditions of the time to the march itself and its relatively anticlimactic denouement. This march itself is an incredible example of the early form of a whole variety of phenomena: mass political mobilization, national-level worker action, and even embedded reporting. I wish the book were a bit longer so that it covered the aftermath of the march, in addition to adding a bit more depth about the participants themselves. Highly recommend https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780875804989/coxeys-crusade-for-jobs/#bookTabs=1