LONDON (AP) — As construction crews wrap up their work in London's Olympic Park, the pressure to deliver in those new venues is shifting to Britain's athletes leading up to the 2012 Games.
The British team hopes to match its fourth-place finish in the medals table at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where it exceeded expectations …
PORTLAND, Oregon (AP) — PepsiCo Inc. has found its recipe for success in this economic environment: raise prices and grow overseas.
PepsiCo, like many U.S. companies, recently have faced a balancing act during this period of global economic uncertainty. Many consumer brands from McDonald's to Nike have raised prices as they try to offset their higher costs for ingredients, packaging and fuel. At the same time, they've had to look elsewhere to expand their business as consumers in developed markets like the U.S. have cut back on spending.
PepsiCo, maker of such products as Mt. Dew soda, Gatorade drink and Lay's potato chips, showed Wednesday that the emphasis on higher prices …
If you are female and among the 10 percent of the U.S. population that suffers from chronic widespread pain, such as that associated with fibromyalgia, getting the right amount of vitamin D may help. In a new study published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, researchers measured the vitamin D levels of almost 7,000 subjects and recorded information about their bodily pain. The researchers found that the correlation …
Two dozen retired police officers were convicted Wednesday of human rights violations linked to the 1973 massacre of 30 political prisoners _ the biggest group of defendants ever sentenced in such a trial in Chile.
Judge Emma Diaz convicted the former officers on charges involving the detention, torture and shooting of 31 leftists whose bodies were dumped in a fast-flowing river days after Chile's military coup. One woman survived to testify about the incident.
Retired police Col. Adrian Fernandez, 66, was given a maximum sentence of life in prison, while the others received lesser sentences ranging between four and 20 years, a statement from Chile's …
Shinzo Koroki scored twice Wednesday as Kashima Antlers thrashed Singapore Armed Forces 5-0 to move a step closer to the knockout round of the Asian Champions League.
Takuya Nozawa opened the scoring for the J-League champions with a header in the 29th minute and Koroki doubled the lead 10 minutes later off a pass from Mitsuo Ogasawara.
Ogasawara put the game out of reach with a goal in the 50th …
T housands of American vacationers are getting burned this summer -and not by the sun. The warm-weather wanderers are falling prey tocold-hearted hucksters offering non-existent "bargain vacations of alifetime."
Unfortunately, the "good buy" that the scam operators areoffering is a quick way for vacationers to say "goodbye" to theirhard-earned savings, warns the Federal Trade Commission, whichestimates that deceptive selling practices are defrauding Americantravelers out of millions of dollars each month. To make mattersworse, increasing numbers of travelers are being cheated during thesehard economic times, just when they're looking for ways to get themost vacation …
TORONTO (AP) — Esi Edugyan has won one of Canada's most prestigious literary awards for a novel about a group of black jazz musicians trying to survive in Europe during World War II.
Edugyan won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her book "Half-Blood Blues" on Tuesday. She thanked her father, Kweku, an immigrant from Ghana who …
Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land's most volatile shrine, where past violence has escalated into prolonged conflict.
A wall of Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many of them running for cover into the Al-Aqsa mosque, one of the Islamic structures in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
They remained holed up in the mosque with police outside for several hours until dispersing before nightfall. Eighteen …
Chicago's holiday season officially opened this weekend with ahost of activities, including the Brach's Kids' Holiday Parade andthe lighting of the city's Christmas Tree in Daley Center Plaza.
The parade on Michigan Avenue Saturday afternoon featured 100units, including 15 high school marching bands, horses, cheerleaders,dance troupes and floats. Brach's employees passed out candy tospectators.
Friday night, Mayor Daley lit the city's 80-foot Christmas treeand reminded those in attendance that "the holiday season is allabout giving, not just giving presents but giving of ourselves."I hope that the lights on our tree will serve as a brightreminder that the …
SAN JOSE, California (AP) — The Ottawa Senators broke through for their first win in San Jose for eight years by beating the Sharks 4-1 on Thursday in a clash of two of the NHL's leading teams.
Colin Greening scored twice and Craig Anderson made 36 saves for Ottawa, which has won six of its past seven games to be just one point off Northeast Division leader Boston.
Kyle Turris and Erik Karlsson also scored for the Senators.
Brad Winchester scored for the Sharks, whose lead in the Pacific Division was sliced to one point ahead of Los Angeles.
___
PENGUINS 4, RANGERS 1
In New York, Pittsburgh won a fourth successive game by beating New York, closing the …
Ray Scott helped make bass fishing big business. Now, he's created a business out of his personal playground.
The founder of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society and well-known fishing impresario has launched his own BB&B: bed, breakfast and bass.
Ray Scott's Trophy Bass Retreat opened in January, offering use of the three lakes on his Alabama property that have hosted presidential fishing excursions, as well as stays in the guesthouse where former President George H.W. Bush bunked down on several …
MONDAY, June 8
WASHINGTON _ Treasury auction.
BOSTON _ Boston Newspaper Guild to vote on management proposal to cut pay, end job guarantees.
TUESDAY, June 9
WASHINGTON _ Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for April, 10 a.m.; National Transportation Safety Board hearing on U.S. Airways Fight 1549, which landed safely in New York's Hudson River on Jan. 15. Through June 10; Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee hearing on the role of the oceans in the nation's economic future; Defense Secretary Robert Gates testifies at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Defense Department's proposed budget for 2010; Joint Economic Committee hearing on oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, focusing on the strength of financial institutions; House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on regulating the over-the-counter derivatives market.
WEDNESDAY, June 10
WASHINGTON _ Commerce Department releases international trade for April, 8:30 a.m.; Treasury releases federal budget for May, 2 p.m.; Federal Reserve releases Beige Book, 2 p.m.; Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee hearing on aviation safety; Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the role of the administration's auto task force in restructuring the auto industry; House Science and Technology subcommittee hearing on cybersecurity research and development.
RIVERSIDE, Calif _ Deadline for MGA and Mattel to respond to settlement proposal from court-appointed mediator regarding rights to Bratz dolls.
DAYTON, Ohio _ U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing for CertifiChecks Inc., company that sold gift certificates to thousands of businesses and individuals around the country, then abruptly went out of business.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa _ Kofi Annan and fellow members of the Africa Progress Panel launch a report on the continent's development, part of opening of three-day World Economic Forum on Africa. Through June 12.
THURSDAY, June 11
WASHINGTON _ Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases the retail sales report for May, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases business inventories for April, 10 a.m.; Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance company, releases weekly mortgage rates.
LOS ANGELES - Johnny Depp's boozy, woozy buccaneer Jack Sparrow has plundered the box office, with "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" taking in a record $132 million in its first three days, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Disney's swashbuckling sequel sailed past the previous all-time best debut, 2002's "Spider-Man," which took in $114.8 million in its first weekend.
"Dead Man's Chest" also did nearly three times the business of its predecessor, "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," which took in $46.6 million over opening weekend in 2003.
The sequel surpassed that total in its first day alone, taking in $55.5 million Friday to beat the previous single-day record of $50 million, set last year by "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith." With $44.7 million on Saturday, "Dead Man's Chest" also became the first movie to top $100 million in just two days.
Despite sky-high projections for the "Pirates" sequel from industry analysts, producer Jerry Bruckheimer said he had expected "Dead Man's Chest" to open closer to the $77 million debut weekend of last spring's "The Da Vinci Code."
"When people in the industry predicted these high numbers, I thought they were just trying to be mean. So no matter how good we did, if we did $100 million, we'd be failures," Bruckheimer told The Associated Press on Sunday. "I didn't think we'd get near these numbers."
The movie sent Hollywood's overall business soaring. The top 12 films grossed $206.5 million, up 48 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Fantastic Four" opened with $56.1 million.
"Dead Man's Chest" raked in nearly double the total of the rest of the top 12 combined. The previous weekend's top film, "Superman Returns," fell to No. 2 with $21.85 million, down 58 percent from opening weekend.
"Superman Returns" has grossed $141.7 million in 12 days and should fly past the $200 million mark, said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released the film.
The sci-fi tale of drug addiction "A Scanner Darkly" debuted strongly in limited release with $406,000 in 17 theaters. Shot in live action then painted over with digital animation, the movie stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr. in a hallucinatory tale adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel.
In a single weekend, "Dead Man's Chest" reeled in 43 percent of the $305 million total domestic gross the original "Pirates" rang up in its entire six-month theatrical run.
The movie's audience was equally divided between males and females, and it drew strongly from all age groups, according to Disney.
"It is straight across the board," said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney, which based the movies on its "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme park ride. "Everybody's coming. Whoever it is, they're there."
Even factoring in higher admission prices since 2002, "Dead Man's Chest" still set a record of just under 20 million tickets sold, about 200,000 more than "Spider-Man."
"Maybe the only movie that has a chance to beat this record might be the next `Pirates' movie," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
Audiences won't have to wait long. Disney shot much of the third installment at the same time as "Dead Man's Chest," which ends in a cliffhanger leading into part three, due in theaters over Memorial Day weekend next year.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," $132 million.
2. "Superman Returns," $21.85 million.
3. "The Devil Wears Prada," $15.6 million.
4. "Click," $12 million.
5. "Cars," $10.3 million.
6. "Nacho Libre," $3.3 million.
7. "The Lake House," $2.8 million.
8. "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," $2.5 million.
9. "Waist Deep," $1.9 million.
10. "The Break-Up," $1.6 million.
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Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Vivendi Universal; DreamWorks is a unit of DreamWorks SKG Inc.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Classics are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney's parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros., New Line, Warner Independent and Picturehouse are units of Time Warner Inc.; Lionsgate is owned by Lionsgate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.
Portia Munson
P.P.O.W.
Portia Munson remains best known for Pink Project Table, 1994-96, an installation that appeared in the controversially titled "Bad Girls," a 1994 exhibition of feminist art curated by the late Marcia Tucker at the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Mareia Tanner at UCLA's Wight Gallery. Munson's work, which greeted visitors at the entrance to the New Museum's portion of the show, took the shape of a table crammed with found objects, most of them plastic, all of them pink: hairbrushes, mirrors, curlers, wigs, toys, toilet brushes, ice cube trays, dolls, and other domestic items, the composition looking like a collection of evidence or a meth addict's late-night project.
But from the looks of her recent show, Munson is now neither a "bad girl" nor particularly interested in gender politics. Instead, she seems to have crossed over to a more docile domesticity, embracing emblems that are more often associated with Martha Stewart than with radical feminist politics. The gallery was lined with photographs of flowers (grown in her own garden) arranged into artful mandalas. These works, reminiscent of simpler, less psychedelic versions of Fred Tomaselli paintings, have benign-sounding titles like Cut Daffodils, Queen Anne's Lace, and Rose Bed (all 2006). They were joined here by diminutive still-life paintings, including Mermaid Dish with Potatoes, 2005, and Kroken Coblets, 2006.
The centerpiece of the exhibition wasn't two-dimensional, however, but borrowed heavily from strategies first employed by Munson in Pink Project Table. Lawn, 2007, was an almost room-size installation of grass-green plastic found objects, some placed on a large, rectangular bed of Astroturf. Broken lawn furniture, toys, watering cans, wreaths, laundry baskets-even a mint-green bag from the Whitney Museum of American Art's gift shop-were assembled in cascading heaps that mimicked a landfill. Environmentalism, disposable culture, and the complicated semantics of the word green-it's not just a noun, but a verb, too-were obvious allusions. Among the plastic junk was also a large collection of toy dinosaurs that felt like a portent; at the present rate we will be following them into extinction after using up the last of their remains, in the form of fossil fuel.
Yet, if Pink Project Table had viewers studying the arrangement tor clues to the secrets of our culture, Lawn felt significantly slighter. There's no reason, of course, why Munson shouldn't reemploy the formal vocabulary of her best-known work. But if Lawn is less satisfying, it's probably because Munson's accretion and careful arrangement of pink objects highlighted not only the arbitrariness of "feminine" signifiers (pink, after all, was considered a masculine color until the last century), but actually re-created the manic energy expended by women desperate to conform to narrowly defined, often equally arbitrary stereotypes of beauty and femininity.
Lawn takes a more obvious tack: We are a culture devoted to consumerism and planned obsolescence that has, paradoxically, become enamored with the idea of a "greener" planet. The evidence of our crimes is everywhere; the world is awash in nonbiodegradable plastic. But the psychic glue of Pink Project Table is missing here. Lawn feels lackluster and oddly dated, offering a view into how even colors suffer at the whims of culture, fashion, and history.
-Martha Schwendener
PITTSBURGH - Pedro Martinez struggled in his first start in more than a month and the New York Mets missed a chance to clinch the NL East, losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-3 Friday night.
The Mets' magic number to win their first division title since 1988 remained at one when second-place Philadelphia later held off Houston 4-3.
Martinez (9-6) had been on the disabled list because of a strained right calf since Aug. 14. Mets manager Willie Randolph had said Martinez would be on a pitch count of 60-to-80 pitches.
Martinez allowed four runs in three innings. He threw 68 pitches and gave up six hits, walked one, hit a batter and made a throwing error. He struck out four.
"I didn't see the results I was expecting," Martinez said. "When you come off so many days without throwing the ball, you want to make a statement. I wanted to do a little bit better."
"My physical body didn't feel quite as well as I was expecting for the time being," he said. "I can't expect to be 100 percent fine. I still have plenty of time to do it."
Television cameras showed Martinez appearing distraught in the dugout and being consoled by Randolph and pitching coach Rick Peterson after leaving the game.
"My pitches weren't there. That was the biggest frustration," Martinez said. "I was about to snap and let it all out. Thank God Willie was there. I felt like crying at that time."
Randolph said Martinez was healthy and would make his next scheduled start.
"I thought he did pretty well, actually," Randolph said. "He's a competitor, he's a warrior and it didn't work out like he wanted. He's a little frustrated."
Paul Maholm (8-10) allowed only one run and two hits in seven innings as the Pirates beat the Mets for the first time in six tries this season.
Maholm, who walked three batters and hit three, is 4-0 in his last seven starts.
Salomon Torres pitched the ninth for his eighth save - all coming in Pittsburgh's last eight wins.
Jason Bay hit his 33rd homer and drove in three runs. Jose Reyes had two hits and two RBIs for the Mets.
Pittsburgh jumped on Martinez in the first inning when Bay doubled home Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez. Sanchez went 2-for-4, but lost his lead in the NL batting race to Florida's Miguel Cabrera.
The Pirates added two more runs in the third when Ryan Doumit hit an RBI double and scored on Ronny Paulino's single. Paulino was 3-for-4.
The Mets did not get a hit until the fourth and did not score until the fifth, when two batters were hit before Reyes' RBI single.
New York scored twice in the eighth off John Grabow. Mike DiFelice led off with a double and scored on Reyes' triple, and pinch-hitter Julio Franco had an RBI grounder.
Notes:@ Mets C Paul Lo Duca was ejected from the game when he argued with umpire Jeff Kellogg after being called out on strikes to end the fifth. ... Sanchez has 48 doubles this season, setting a club record for right-handed hitters. ... Martinez finished the game with 2,990 career strikeouts. ... The Mets are 11-10 in games started by Martinez.
Treasury prices threw off early weakness and turned higher Tuesday as the stock market wavered and investors wrestled with fears about widening debt problems.
Investors have generally favored Treasurys and punished stocks in recent sessions, scurrying to minimize their exposure to the debt crisis by loading up on government-backed bonds.
On Tuesday some investors ventured back into the stock market in search of bargains after declines over the past week sent prices to attractively low levels. But Wall Street turned mixed in late morning as some investors once more choose the safest route and loaded up on Treasurys.
"Treasurys are just playing off the stock market," said Shubha Jayaram, Treasury analyst at IDEAGlobal.com. "There is little economic news and so far no negative news has come out about the financial sector."
Analysts at Action Economics said unconfirmed rumors about major mortgage-linked losses for Goldman Sachs & Co. Inc. helped push Treasury prices higher. The firm has denied a similar rumor earlier in the week and the economics firm said another denial is likely on the way. But rumors are having an unusual influence in a nervous market, nonetheless.
In the past week, both Citigroup and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. have lost their top executives, largely due to the leaders' failure to protect their institutions from assets linked to home loans made to borrowers with poor credit.
There is great tension in the lending markets this week, and analysts say there appears to be an unwillingness by banks to lend in case they need new cushions against more losses on mortgages and related debt.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose 5/32 to 103 12/32 with a 4.32 percent yield, down from 4.34 percent late Monday. Prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The 30-year long bond advanced 5/32 to 106 with a 4.63 percent yield, unchanged from late Monday.
The 2-year note gained 3/32 to 99 31/32 with a yield of 3.64 percent, down from 3.68 percent late Monday.
Treasury market participants also are monitoring the dollar, which fell to a new low of $1.4569 against the euro, and commodities, which are surging as the dollar falls. Light, sweet crude for December delivery traded above $97 for the first time on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The combination of a faltering dollar and spiraling commodities prices is worrisome to the bond market because it is likely to heighten inflation. The bond market detests inflation because it dents the value of fixed-income.
In addition, higher inflation would dampen the interest rate outlook. The Federal Reserve has reduced the federal funds rate by a full 0.75 percentage point during the past two months. Many analysts think the credit market turmoil and weakness in the economy will force the central bank into making more rate cuts soon.
However, a surge in inflation would pressure the Fed to maintain the fed funds target at its current 4.50 percent level or even lift it, scenarios the bond market does not want to see.
Traders also are selling Treasurys ahead of a Wednesday offering of $13 billion in new 10-year notes. Investors typically get rid of older issues to make room in their portfolios for new notes.
Summer is typically the season for extended vacations, but theMarch jobs report solidifies the case for the Federal Reserve tostart now on a long monetary policy holiday.
By broadly reinforcing the view that the nascent economic recoveryis just a few notches above feeble, the March unemployment data tellthe Fed that it probably will be quite a while before the centralbankers can justify raising interest rates.
One of the biggest guessing games on Wall Street has been when theFed would start inching rates back up. Right now, the overnightfederal funds rate stands at a dramatically low 1.75 percent.
Those who figured rates would go up sooner rather than laterpointed, among other things, to the perception that the post-Sept. 11rate cuts were done more to reassure markets than for moretraditional economic motives.
Therefore, this thinking goes, some at the Fed would be happy tostart reversing the rate trend and start pushing them back up. Butafter Friday's release of March jobless data, any policy makers eagerto raise rates will clearly have to restrain themselves.
This lack of action probably will last throughout the summer inorder to give the economy time to really get its legs back underoptimal low-rate conditions.
The March data show 58,000 jobs were added in March, which markedthe end of a seven-month string of job losses. (The string appearedto be broken in February, but on Friday the Labor Department revisedwhat it first said was a 66,000 job gain to a 2,000 job loss.)Meanwhile, in March, the unemployment rate climbed to a surprising5.7 percent.
Economists will tell worriers that employment is a laggingindicator, and even within the March report there are signs ofrelative strength to be found. In manufacturing, for instance, thenumber of jobs decreased in March, but fewer were lost than inprevious months.
No matter how you read it, the March jobs report does not raiseany fears that the economy is running faster than is healthy for thelong term.
Average hourly earnings crept up to $14.67 from $14.63, so thereis no fuel from the key wage component of inflation.
Meanwhile, the outsized recent increases in energy costs forAmericans are enough to provide more than enough restraint on therecovery.
To the degree that having to pay more at the gas pump inhibitsAmericans' ability to spend on other items, climbing energy costs puta crimp in a recovery that is still waiting for corporate America toget off the mat and make its own contribution to growth.
Energy prices are yet another reason to keep the Fed from raisingrates.
So what should the central bank do during this lengthy period whenrates should be left alone? Well, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan hasalready shown himself adept at getting enmeshed in the importantdebates over better corporate governance and accounting. And the newarrivals among the Fed governors should appreciate the time to getacclimated. And the weather should be starting to get warmer ...
Dow Jones/AP
WASHINGTON - La presidenta electa de la C�mara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, expres� que la nueva mayor�a dem�crata tendr� entre sus prioridades aliviar la situaci�n que atraviesa la clase media estadounidense, afectada por recortes crediticios y por restricciones presupuestarias a la salud y a la educaci�n.
Se�al� asimismo que la restauraci�n del servicio militar obligatorio no formar� parte de la agenda de los dem�cratas cuando asuman el control de la c�mara baja en enero.
Tras una reuni�n estrat�gica con el pr�ximo l�der de la mayor�a de la C�mara de Representantes, el legislador dem�crata Steny Hoyer, Pelosi manifest� que se encontrar� con el pr�ximo l�der de la minor�a de ese recinto, el republicano John Boehner, y "encontraremos nuestros puntos comunes por la poblaci�n estadounidense".
"El principio de cortes�a y respeto por la participaci�n de la minor�a en la C�mara de Representantes es algo que prometimos a la poblaci�n estadounidense. Es lo correcto", sostuvo.
Pelosi y Hoyer reiteraron que en las primeras 100 horas del nuevo Congreso que asumir� en enero, tratar�n de lograr la aprobaci�n de proyectos de ley relacionados con la econom�a de la clase media y la clase trabajadora, incluyendo el incremento del salario m�nimo, el recorte de las tasas de inter�s a los cr�ditos de estudiantiles y autorizar una negociaci�n de mejores precios para las medicinas.
Otras de las prioridades para enero ser�n la implementaci�n de las recomendaciones de la Comisi�n de Investigaci�n de los Ataques del 11 de Septiembre del 2001, y la reanudaci�n de los subsidios a la industria petrolera.
Networked Machinists: High Technology Industries in Antebellum America. By David R. Meyer. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. xi + 311 pp. Figures, maps, tables, notes, index. Cloth, $49.95. ISBN: 0-801-88471-3.
Reviewed by John K. Brown
In technological or business history, books with the synthetic aspirations of Networked Machinists are too rare. So David Meyer earns real credit for this survey of American "high-technology industries" between 1790 and i860. His coverage includes most branches of ironworking and finishing to produce machinery of various kinds. This breadth results in many good revisionist correctives to the historiography on antebellum industrialization. Unfortunately, those insights are secondary to his central purpose. In nine chapters showcasing different metalworking industries, Meyer hammers away at a thesis as durable as it is unremarkable-that skilled practitioners came together in informal and shifting networks to transmit and develop technological expertise. Joseph Wickham Roe first laid out this thesis in his English and American Tool Builders (1916). Telling quite different stories, both David Hounshell (From the American System to Mass Production, 18001932 [1984]) and Philip Scranton (Endless Novelty [1997]) carried out fine primary research to explore how such networks of knowledge and practice actually worked. Meyer eschewed primary research, fair enough for a synthetic volume. But in reaching for breadth, he provides little analytic depth beyond the repeated assertion that networks matteredfor generalist iron foundries, steam-engine builders, makers of cotton machinery, locomotive builders, armories, and machine-tool firms.
More valuably, Meyer astutely counters the privileged position that Nathan Rosenberg gave to machine-tool makers in his "Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840-1910" (Journal of Economic History [1963]). Meyer shows that Rosenberg's concept of "technological convergence" occurred repeatedly in different machine-building sectors-and long before a real machine-tool industry existed. Meyer is especially cogent in describing generalist iron foundries as the original "nests" of metalworking knowledge that inaugurated the industrial era. By contrast, the Federal armories and their contract partners in gunmaking had only narrow roles in antebellum industrial growth (p. 278), despite their outsized positions in the historiography.
Alongside its virtues, the book displays sizable weaknesses. The source base is long on journal articles from economic history and on government documents, such as antebellum census reports and patent records. Meyer makes insightful use of these aggregative sources. But both source types are ill-suited to tracing networks of knowledge and practice. The book lacks a proper bibliography, in favor of that hermaphrodite known as an "Essay on Sources." It lists only three articles from Technology and Culture and only four firm histories (monographs). Missing are a number of fine-grained, archivally grounded studies (articles, theses, dissertations, and firm histories) that shed real light on the communities of knowledge and practice in machine building. Compounding the unsatisfactory sourcing are the inadequate endnotes. With only 102 notes for its 311-page text, the documentation is perilously incomplete and essentially useless.
Machinists are Meyer's focus, but these are not the proud, classconscious artisans we know from labor historiography (another literature absent here). All are petit bourgeois, striving examples of Homo economicus (p. 4). No beer breaks or strikes intrude into the narrative of these men-on-the-make, nor is there any divergence of interest between employer and employed. Meyer's descriptions of his case studies also depart from common historical understanding at points. On one hand, he defines firearms as a producer durable (p. 4), while foundries making cooking stoves show up in a chapter on "the heavy capital equipment industry" (pp. 107,131-35).
The book offers some interpretive stances that drew this reader to a full stop. To cite but one example, Meyer asserts that American machine tools "were already highly refined by i860" (p. 218). His evidence: illustrations from the 1880 census of manufactures show very sophisticated tooling. But, in his view, the Civil War and the 1870s recession were "not conducive" to innovation (p. 218). So, in a feat of backward reasoning, he argues that the sophisticated tooling had to predate the war. In point of fact, the war greatly spurred precision metalworking techniques across the Northeast, while the recession drove machine makers to innovate in order to revive sales-as the patent records and trade catalogues attest. There is every bet that Meyer's own networks also played some important innovative roles between i860 and 1880.
In the final analysis, the key problem of the book lies in the incomplete development it gives to that core concern-networks. How did networks actually work? Meyer cannot really say, beyond tracing a tie (such as business dealings or the movement of trained personnel) from one shop to another. For example, locomotive builders had ongoing network ties to railroads and to machine-tool makers (analogs to the forward and backward linkages of vertical integration). Which ties were more important? In what ways? What discrete factors contributed to the strength and longevity of a network? Did any machinist-proprietors resist this happy world where all knowledge flowed without apparent hindrance? Meyer never raises such issues.
His central argument is that networks boosted the creation and diffusion of cutting-edge industrial practices. That was certainly true in individual cases-and was likely true in the aggregate for diffusion. But the free flow of technological knowledge, best exemplified in the tramping journeyman machinist, also imposed real costs for individual firms and the economy at large. Proprietors made their knowledge proprietary for a reason, patenting ideas in an attempt to wall them off from network freeloaders. Another cost: bosses found it difficult to maintain craft apprenticeship programs when their young cubs wandered off in search of higher wages as soon as they possessed any valuable skills. In turn, the broader economy was weighted by a labor scarcity (especially in skilled trades like machine-tool making) that surely hindered growth while biasing the direction of technological change. That labor-saving bias aimed directly at those tramping journeymen, revealing the divergent interests of the men and their masters. The circulating supply of knowledgeable machinists made it easy to create new firms (commonly partnerships), but difficult to sustain them. It was the firm, not the network, that created knowledge in the first place. New York's great maker of printing presses, Richard March Hoe, kept his best ideas under wraps in his experimental room. Hoe took from varied networks whenever it suited his firm's interests, but he also withheld when advantage dictated.
[Author Affiliation]
John K. (Jack) Brown is associate professor in science, technology, and society at the University of Virginia. He wrote The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831-1915: A Study in American Industrial Practice (1995) as well as articles on the Sellers tool company, mechanical drawing practice among machine builders, and the capital equipment sector of the nineteenth century. He is currently working on a history of the design, construction, and consequences of the Eads Bridge, completed across the Mississippi at St. Louis in 1874.
Oil and gasoline prices continued their push higher Wednesday on signs that the longest U.S. recession since World War II may be easing and that demand for energy could rebound.
Benchmark crude for July delivery rose $1.24 to $63.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gasoline prices, which are up 19 percent in the past month, rose 0.9 cents overnight to $2.434 a gallon (64 cents a liter), according to auto club AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service. Prices are now 10 cents a gallon higher than a week ago and 38.4 cents higher than a month ago.
About 74 percent of the forecasters in a survey by the National Association for Business Economics expect the recession, which started in December 2007, to end in the third quarter. Another 19 percent predict the turning point will come in the final three months of this year, and the remaining 7 percent believe the recession will end in the first quarter of 2010.
Oil prices have jumped from below $35 a barrel in March on investor expectations that the worst of the global economic slowdown is over.
Jim Ritterbusch of Ritterbusch and Associates said the big move up in oil and gas prices, helped by anticipation for strong demand for fuel in the next several months, may be coming to an end for now and that gasoline prices could be back down to nearly $2 a gallon by the end of summer.
"Demand is going to remain weak,and we've got plenty of excess refining capacity to crank up production," he said.
OPEC members gathered in Vienna for a meeting on Thursday. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi has said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is unlikely to add to 4.2 million barrels a day of production cuts the cartel has announced since September.
"There is no need to cut production," Naimi said Wednesday, adding that the group should "stay the course." He said that oil prices would likely reach around $75 a barrel by the end of the year on the back of growing demand in Asia.
In other Nymex trading, gasoline for June delivery rose 3.63 cents to $1.8887 a gallon and heating oil rose 2.1 cents to $1.5671 a gallon. Natural gas for July delivery fell less than a penny to $3.635 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, Brent prices rose $1.19 to $62.43 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
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Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, Alex Kennedy in Singapore and George Jahn in Vienna contributed to this report.
