#AcademicRunPlaylist - 8/10/25

It cooled off just enough for me to go on a nice run, which meant I could listen to books and talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Michal Gregor on effective low-resource NLP techniques at the GRASP Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2QMh8x0a2I

Next was "A New History of Management" by Stephen Cummings, Todd Bridgman, John Hassard, and Michael Rowlinson. This book is nothing less than a revolutionary re-examination of management history, subverting the standard interpretation of modern Western management by going back to source material and the historical context to demonstrate how more modern, heavily biased actors subverted that history to further their own ends. While some big names are of course analyzed, I also was fascinated learning about the extremely recent conception of corporate culture and how much Japanese ascendency in the 1980s flipped the narrative from the importance of a diverse, decentralized culture to the benefits of a centralized, unitary one. As an aside, I think there are more Foucault references in this book than in every other management book/paper I've ever read put together. You also have to love a book that references the management wisdom of C. Montgomery Burns. Highly recommend https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/new-history-of-management/E7FF8CCD65844EAD0AE03BB31B5D89E5#fndtn-information

Last was "The Ever-Changing Past" by James Banner. Banner has put together a masterpiece, methodically demonstrating the essence of history and how the present has always shaped a reinterpretation of the past. Starting with the example of the US Civil War, Banner follows the evolution in the interpretation of that event to powerfully show this in action, then reviews the history of historiography to reveal how new methods and approaches have gradually been added to history's repertoire. Importantly, he also explains how historians and historical understanding makes progress despite this inherent subjectivity, and the challenges of interacting with a public that doesn't understand these techniques and values. Given the even greater importance of understanding and interpreting the historical record today, and the increasingly tenuous nature of understanding at a societal level, this should be required reading for every adult. Highly recommend https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300283273/the-ever-changing-past/