Jonathan Boswell

This new book explores the music of the great composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), its surrounding history and still unfolding potential. It follows the music from love poetry, through changing events in the Church Year, to the composer's record-breaking 104 Mass settings, uncovering many neglected treasures on the way. Its approach is accessible and largely non-technical. There is a focus on relationships with text, belief and ceremony, the individual melodic lines, and the richly interweaving voice parts (cantus, alto, tenor, bass). Not least, the author explores diverse ways - emotional, devotional, imaginative - of enjoying and responding to the music.Here is music which excels in subtle differentiation, equality, consonance and cordiality between the voice parts. Much of it can be interpreted as symbolising ideal community and core beliefs about the eternal God. There is a striking avoidance of tight metricality, mighty forces, tumult or disjunction. The music's leading values are those of clarity, balance, affectionate concord and graceful flowingness.{WHAT SOME LEADING PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK}'Historian Jonathan Boswell has brought a lifetime's fascination with the life and music of Palestrina to bear in a new book, the first accessible general guide in English to appear for several decades' (EARLY MUSIC TODAY, News, June 2019).'Anyone interested in exploring Palestrina should start with this account ..I very much applaud the author' (PETER PHILLIPS, The Tallis Scholars). 'So refreshing, so personal, so illuminating ...I loved this book' (HARRY CHRISTOPHERS, The Sixteen). 'A very valuable contribution to the field, and it will immensely enrich all those who engage with it' (CHIARA BERTOGLIO, Professor of Musicology, University of Bologna). 'Cannot fail to move and stimulate the reader' (PATRICK RUSSILL, Royal College of Music). 'A much needed book .. it's first class' (ANDREW CARWOOD, St Paul's Cathedral & The Cardinall's Musick).'Wonderful, welcome, long overdue ...an invaluable guide to programming Palestrina's music for both the liturgy and concert hall ....not merely setting the seal on the rehabilitation of a much-misunderstood master, but also teaching one how to hear, appreciate and absorb the internal workings of Palestrina's counterpoint, rather than be distracted by the line highest in pitch ....a grand demystification of both man & music ...there isn't a word too many ....It should be on the shelves of music students, choir directors, church musicians, academics, singers (both amateur & professional), and listeners' (CHOIR AND ORGAN, REBECCA TAVENER, January 2020)'Palestrina for All should be bought and read carefully by anyone either new to (Renaissance) choral polyphony, or to 'early' music in general... The audience probably also includes many who already feel at home and familiar with Palestrina' ...an accessible and comprehensive study ...apposite choice of examples and delicate evaluations ...Self-published to a very high standard ...what is now the best introductory volume ....Jonathan Boswell's excellent contribution will suit the general reader and inquiring specialist very well indeed' (Mark Sealey, MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL).'An insightful overview that balances analyses of specific passages of the composer's output with thoughts on its enduring legacy & impact. Boswell's writing illuminates Palestrina's music so convincingly that one must pause ... find a recording, and listen in rapt attention to the features he has uncovered .... He 'unwraps' Palestrina's music for the singer, listener and scholar admirably in this well-written & insightful volume, and for this we are grateful' (The Choral Journal, Ian Loeppky).

This book shows how economics can be used to clarify and stimulate thinking about organisations and their decision problems. It is mainly designed for university students of economics, management and business studies and of public and social administration. But its clear and lively exposition will have a wider appeal. The author introduces economic controversies on organisational power, exchange and self-interest, generosity and public spirit. He outlines many practical uses of such concepts as marginalism, opportunity cost, time preference and risk, scale economies and diseconomies, market power, public goods and externalities. He applies economics to business planning and budgeting problems and also to the problems of social enterprises in obtaining resources through charges and grants and in allocating these resources ‘efficiently’ and ‘fairly’. A distinctive feature of the book is that it analyses problems in the wide context of business, public and voluntary organisations. Unlike many conventional texts it is not highly abstract, technical or descriptive. Drawing on his extensive experience, the author provides many real-life and typical case studies to highlight his central theme: the fruitful interaction between abiding economic ideas and contemporary organisational problems.

First published in 1973, this title examines the development patterns of small businesses. It considers why people found firms; the factors that contribute to entrepreneurial success; problems of management succession and inheritance; the strengths and weaknesses of family firms; the reasons why small firms are taken over; and the social, economic and managerial context of their growth, decline, and revival.Based on a survey of sixty-four firms, each employing fewer than five hundred people, in engineering, hosiery, and knitwear, and on the records of 370 similar organisations, a striking gap in performance and management attitudes emerges as between dynamic, mostly founder-run firms and stagnant, mostly inherited ones.Where many books are either minutely specialised or highly abstract and over-generalised, Jonathan Boswell’s work is practical and diagnostic, probing the inner recesses of the small firm sector. With particular relevance to the difficulties faced by entrepreneurs in today’s economic environment, this title advances selective measures to deal with old firms and inheritance, and a wide range of policies to encourage new entrepreneurship.

First published in 1983, this study investigates and compares three leading firms in the British iron and steel industry between 1914 and 1939, analysing their strategies, boardroom politics, and their responses to the problems posed by the Great War and by the vicissitudes of the 1920s and ‘30s. Jonathan Boswell illuminates certain issues that are of perennial importance for students of business: rationality and ‘error’ in decision-making, ethics, centralisation versus decentralisation, and the question of cyclical phases. The central theme throughout is the pursuit of three partly conflicting objectives: growth, efficiency and social action. The trade-offs between these three pursuits are used to examine significant contrasts in corporate strategies and behaviour, including towards government and public opinion.Boswell’s rejection of economic determinism; his insistence that managerial influences fall into definable long-run patterns; and his theses on managerial specialisation and long-term policy biases confront fundamental issues for theories of the firm.

First published in 1983, this study investigates and compares three leading firms in the British iron and steel industry between 1914 and 1939, analysing their strategies, boardroom politics, and their responses to the problems posed by the Great War and by the vicissitudes of the 1920s and ‘30s. Jonathan Boswell illuminates certain issues that are of perennial importance for students of business: rationality and ‘error’ in decision-making, ethics, centralisation versus decentralisation, and the question of cyclical phases. The central theme throughout is the pursuit of three partly conflicting objectives: growth, efficiency and social action. The trade-offs between these three pursuits are used to examine significant contrasts in corporate strategies and behaviour, including towards government and public opinion.Boswell’s rejection of economic determinism; his insistence that managerial influences fall into definable long-run patterns; and his theses on managerial specialisation and long-term policy biases confront fundamental issues for theories of the firm.

First published in 1973, this title examines the development patterns of small businesses. It considers why people found firms; the factors that contribute to entrepreneurial success; problems of management succession and inheritance; the strengths and weaknesses of family firms; the reasons why small firms are taken over; and the social, economic and managerial context of their growth, decline, and revival. Based on a survey of sixty-four firms, each employing fewer than five hundred people, in engineering, hosiery, and knitwear, and on the records of 370 similar organisations, a striking gap in performance and management attitudes emerges as between dynamic, mostly founder-run firms and stagnant, mostly inherited ones.Where many books are either minutely specialised or highly abstract and over-generalised, Jonathan Boswell’s work is practical and diagnostic, probing the inner recesses of the small firm sector. With particular relevance to the difficulties faced by entrepreneurs in today’s economic environment, this title advances selective measures to deal with old firms and inheritance, and a wide range of policies to encourage new entrepreneurship.

This book shows how economics can be used to clarify and stimulate thinking about organisations and their decision problems. It is mainly designed for university students of economics, management and business studies and of public and social administration. But its clear and lively exposition will have a wider appeal. The author introduces economic controversies on organisational power, exchange and self-interest, generosity and public spirit. He outlines many practical uses of such concepts as marginalism, opportunity cost, time preference and risk, scale economies and diseconomies, market power, public goods and externalities. He applies economics to business planning and budgeting problems and also to the problems of social enterprises in obtaining resources through charges and grants and in allocating these resources ‘efficiently’ and ‘fairly’. A distinctive feature of the book is that it analyses problems in the wide context of business, public and voluntary organisations. Unlike many conventional texts it is not highly abstract, technical or descriptive. Drawing on his extensive experience, the author provides many real-life and typical case studies to highlight his central theme: the fruitful interaction between abiding economic ideas and contemporary organisational problems.

Capitalism in Contention examines the ideas of British business leaders on political, economic and social issues since 1960. Using unexplored records, interviews and both narrative and conceptual approaches, it sheds new light on the Wilson, Heath and Thatcher periods from business points of view, on the ‘mixed economy’ and the ‘New Right’, the peak business bodies (CBI, BIM, IOD etc), and business-government relationships. Although the business ideas were often muffled or secreted, they made distinctive contributions to both public policy and thinking about ‘capitalism’. The authors highlight three main ideological tendencies of elite business opinion, ‘revisionism’, ‘liberationism’ and reconstructionism’. These saw business respectively as adaptive partner in a pluralist system, pivot and liberator, and focus of social reconstruction, and their struggle for influence forms a central theme. This book will be of absorbing interest to students of politics, modern history and business, and to policy makers as well as concerned citizens.

Capitalism in Contention examines the ideas of British business leaders on political, economic and social issues since 1960. Using unexplored records, interviews and both narrative and conceptual approaches, it sheds light on the Wilson, Heath and Thatcher periods from business points of view, on the 'mixed economy' and the 'New Right', the peak business bodies (CBI, BIM, IOD etc), and business-government relationships. Although the business ideas were often muffled or secreted, they made distinctive contributions to both public policy and thinking about 'capitalism'. The authors highlight three main ideological tendencies of elite business opinion, 'revisionism', 'liberationism' and reconstructionism'. These saw business respectively as adaptive partner in a pluralist system, pivot and liberator, and focus of social reconstruction, and their struggle for influence forms a central theme. This 1997 book will be of absorbing interest to students of politics, modern history and business, and to policy makers as well as concerned citizens.

Presenting a new political and historical theory of the mixed economy, this book is a convincing argument for a challenging social ideal - democratic communitarianism. Individualistic notions of liberty, equality and prosperity are too central to modern life and they need to be balanced by values of `community' and co-operation. Arguing that such a transformation is possible and practical, the author argues that long-term changes must be achieved before economic success can take place in a more fraternal, participative, and democratic society.