Ready Made Democracy or Managerial Accounting

Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men's Dress in the American Republic 1760-1860

Author: Michael Zakim

Ready-Made Democracy explores the history of men's dress in America to consider how capitalism and democracy emerged at the center of American life during the century between the Revolution and the Civil War. Michael Zakim demonstrates how clothing initially attained a significant place in the American political imagination on the eve of Independence. At a time when household production was a popular expression of civic virtue, homespun clothing was widely regarded as a reflection of America's most cherished republican values: simplicity, industriousness, frugality, and independence.
By the early nineteenth century, homespun began to disappear from the American material landscape. Exhortations of industry and modesty, however, remained a common fixture of public life. In fact, they found expression in the form of the business suit. Here, Zakim traces the evolution of homespun clothing into its ostensible opposite—the woolen coats, vests, and pantaloons that were "ready-made" for sale and wear across the country. In doing so, he demonstrates how traditional notions of work and property actually helped give birth to the modern industrial order. For Zakim, the history of men's dress in America mirrored this transformation of the nation's social and material landscape: profit-seeking in newly expanded markets, organizing a waged labor system in the city, shopping at "single-prices," and standardizing a business persona.
In illuminating the critical links between politics, economics, and fashion in antebellum America, Ready-Made Democracy will prove essential to anyone interested in the history of the United States and in the creation of modern culture ingeneral.

Library Journal

Examining the American Colonial and early republican experience, Zakim (history, Tel Aviv Univ.) shows us how clothing can make history. During the early Industrial Revolution, England needed to foster its nascent textile business; it kept textile technology secret and regulated trade so as to import raw materials cheaply from its colonies and sell back to them the finished goods-bolts of finely made and costly fabrics. Colonial Americans chafed under this restrictive regime, for they had to sell cheap and buy dear-a recipe for penury, if not poverty. Hence, America resisted, and this resistance as well as others led to its War of Independence. The American Colonies at first sent emissaries to plead with Parliament for relief, but when none came, they sent spies to steal industrial secrets. Colonial governments and public media, moreover, made it a virtue to refuse English goods and rely on homemade products-in this instance homespun fabrics. Homespun dress came to mark the self-reliant American patriot. A rewriting of Zakim's doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, this book is not a casual read but scholarly, detailed, and thoroughly annotated. Recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with specialty collections in industrial or fashion history.-James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

New interesting book:

Managerial Accounting

Author: Joseph G Louderback

This innovative book tells how todays business managers use accounting information in decision making, planning, and evaluating performance. Time is spent on the basic building blocks of managerial accounting such as CVP analysis while emphasizing conceptual topics.

Booknews

Because it emphasizes the uses of managerial accounting information, this text for an introductory course is appropriate for accounting majors and also for students in other business majors such as marketing, management, and finance, and in non-business majors such as engineering and mathematics. The text assumes one or two terms of financial accounting or exposure to basic financial statements. For this tenth edition, material on statement of cash flows and analysis of financial statements is omitted. Internet references to real companies are included throughout the text. Louderback is affiliated with Clemson University; Holmen, with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Table of Contents:

Part 1	Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis and Decision Making	1
1	Introduction	3
	Management Functions and Accounting	4
	Managerial Accounting and Financial Accounting	8
	Advanced Manufacturing	10
	Activities of Managerial Accountants	14
	Ethics	15
	International Aspects of Managerial Accounting	18
	Deregulation	19
2	Profit Planning	26
	Cost Behavior	27
	Relevant Range	33
	Cost-Volume-Profit Graph	34
	Achieving Target Profits	35
	Target Selling Prices	39
	Target Costing	40
	Cost Structure and Managerial Attitudes	41
	Assumptions and Limitations of CVP Analysis	43
Appendix 1	Income Taxes and Profit Planning	49
Appendix 2	Multiple Products	51
3	Cost Analysis	76
	Objectives of Analyzing Costs	77
	Managing Activities--Cost Drivers and Cost Pools	78
	Value-Adding and Non-Value-Adding Activities	79
	Estimating Cost Behavior	80
	Problems and Pitfalls in Cost Behavior Analysis	86
	Step-Variable Costs	88
	Committed and Discretionary Fixed Costs	89
	Avoidable and Unavoidable Costs	90
	Direct and Indirect (Common) Costs	92
	Manufacturing Costs	92
Appendix	Regression Analysis	95
4	Activity-Based Costing and Management	119
	The Traditional Approach	120
	Activity-Based Costing Approach	121
	Activity-Based Management	133
	ABC/ABM and World-Class Manufacturing	137
	ABC/ABM Analysis and Income Reporting	138
Appendix	Quality Costs	141
5	Short-Term Decisions and Accounting Information	164
	The Criterion for Short-Term Decisions	165
	Developing Relevant Information	169
	Typical Short-Term Decisions	171
	Decision Making Under Environmental Constraints	187
Appendix	Theory of Constraints	191
Part 2	Budgeting	227
6	Operational and Financial Budgeting	228
	Comprehensive Budgets	230
	Sales Forecasting	233
	Expense Budgets	235
	Budgeting and Behavior	241
	International Aspects of Budgeting	246
	Illustration of a Comprehensive Budget for a Merchandiser	247
	Budgeting in Not-for-Profit Entities	255
Appendix	Budgets for Manufacturers	261
7	Capital Budgeting Decisions--Part I	280
	Importance of Capital Budgeting Decisions	281
	Types of Capital Budgeting Decisions	282
	Capital Budgeting Fundamentals	282
	Capital Budgeting Methods	285
	Taxes and Depreciation	289
	Uneven Cash Flows	290
	Decision Rules	292
	Strategic and Qualitative Considerations	293
	Other Methods of Capital Budgeting	293
	Summary Evaluation of Methods	297
	Investing Decisions and Financing Decisions	298
	International Aspects of Capital Budgeting	298
8	Capital Budgeting Decisions--Part II	316
	Investments in Working Capital	317
	Sensitivity Analysis	324
	Mutually Exclusive Alternatives	327
	Income Tax Complications	330
	MACRS	331
	Criticisms of DCF Methods	334
	Social Consequences of Decision Making	335
Part 3	Control and Performance Evaluation	359
9	Responsibility Accounting	361
	Goal Congruence and Motivation	362
	Responsibility Centers	363
	Performance Evaluation Criteria	366
	Responsibility Reporting	369
	Cost Allocations on Responsibility Reports	376
	Allocation Methods and Effects	379
	Ethics and Allocations	385
Appendix	Other Allocation Methods	388
10	Divisional Performance Measurement	415
	Decentralization	416
	Measures of Performance	418
	Behavioral Problems	424
	Problems in Measurement	426
	The Subject of Evaluation--Division or Manager	432
	Transfer Prices	434
	Multinational Companies--Special Problems	439
11	Control and Evaluation of Cost Centers	469
	Productivity and Cost Control	470
	Standard Costs and Variances	470
	Control of Fixed Costs	488
	Standard Costs, Variances, and Continuous Improvement	491
	Standard Costs for Nonmanufacturing Activities	497
Appendix 11A	Variances and Quality	500
Appendix 11B	Learning Curves	502
Part 4	Product Costing	525
12	Introduction to Product Costing	526
	Flows of Manufacturing Costs	528
	Kinds of Manufacturing Processes	529
	Job-Order Costing	530
	Overhead Variances	538
	Income Statements, Actual and Normal Costing	540
	Activity-Based Overhead Rates	542
	Overhead Application, Behavior, and Strategy	546
13	Standard Costing, Variable Costing, and Throughput Costing	576
	Standard Absorption Costing	577
	Comparison of Standard and Normal Costing	585
	Variable Costing	586
	Evaluation of Methods	595
14	Process Costing and the Cost Accounting Cycle	630
	Process Costing	631
	The Cost Accounting Cycle	637
Appendix	Process Costing--The FIFO Method	653
Appendix A	Guidelines for Preparing Memoranda	676
	General Guidelines	677
	Audience Analysis	677
	Analysis versus Restatement	677
	Names and Abbreviations	677
	Supporting Schedules	677
	Use of Jargon	678
	Assignments	678
	Reading the Assignment	678
	Perspective of Writer and Reader	679
	Headings	679
	General Writing Guidelines	679
Appendix B	Time Value of Money	681
	Present Value of a Single Amount	682
	Present Value of a Stream of Equal Receipts	683
	Streams of Unequal Amounts	684
	Computations for Periods Other Than Years	684
	Uses and Significance of Present Values	686
	Determining Interest Rates	686
	Determining Required Receipts	687
	Company Index	695
	Index	699
	Check Figures	709