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Ahmet Kuru, in his book, suggests that the explanation for the lack of social and political development in the modern world can be traced back to a historical ‘state-ulama alliance’ from the 11th-century Saljuq empire or earlier. From the perspective of an historian, however, this dating displays some empirical problems. It is certain that the state eventually did gain the upper hand over the Muslim intellectuals, at least in the centre of the Ottoman empire. But the process to that point was different. In this comment, a different explanation is proposed that points instead to two crucial factors: the loss of a homogeneous Muslim state with the fall of the caliphate, and the rise of a unified Muslim world, an umma, through the independence, not subservience, of the class of scholars in the mediaeval period of Islam. Thus, a model is proposed that focuses on two turning points: the replacement of the effective caliphate with a fractious system of sultanates in the mid-tenth century, coinciding with the solidification of Islamic thought in a more strictly regulated form both in theology, law and in Sufism. The second moment is ca. 1500, when the period of political fragmentation comes to an end with the Ottoman state unifying the Middle East, flanked by Morocco and Iran, while challenges to the religious orthodoxy begin to grow at the margins. Such a model thus sees the ulama as actors for change as well as for orthodoxy throughout Muslim history, responding to changing developments in social and political contexts.

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.

An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.

Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.

Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.

In the years following the publication of A Theory of Consumption (1923), Hazel Kyrk’s book became the flagship of the field that would later be known as the economics of consumption. It stimulated theoretical and empirical work on consumption. Some of the existing literature on Kyrk (e.g., Kiss & Beller, 2000; Le Tollec, 2020; Tadajewski, 2013) depicted her theory as the starting point of the economics of consumption. Nevertheless, how and why it emerged the way it did remain largely unexplored. This chapter examines Kyrk’s intellectual background, which, we argue, can be traced back to two main movements in the United States: the home economics and the institutionalist. Both movements conveyed specific endeavors as responses to the US material and social transformations that occurred at the turn of the 20th century, notably the perceived changing role of consumption and that of women in US society. On the one hand, Kyrk pursued first-generation home economists’ efforts to make sense of and put into action the shifting of women’s role from domestic producer to consumer. On the other hand, she reinterpreted Veblen’s (1899) account of consumption in order to reveal its operational value for a normative agenda focused on “wise” and “rational” consumption. This chapter studies how Kyrk carried on first-generation home economists’ progressive agenda and how she adapted Veblen’s fin-de-siècle critical account of consumption to the context of the household goods developed in 1900–1920. Our account of Kyrk’s intellectual roots offers a novel narrative to better understand the role of gender and epistemological questions in her theory.

Ahmet Kuru replies to two important and critical reviews of his book, Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019), in this volume. He explains why he disagrees with certain points in Knut Vikør's and Roel Meijer's reviews. He particularly reiterates the ulema's negative roles in contemporary Muslim societies. From Egypt's Al-Azhar to Turkey's Diyanet, from Iran's mullahs to Pakistan's sharia courts, the ulema hold the power to shape the public discourse in many ways, such as controlling Islamic education, issuing fatwas, and imposing blasphemy laws, in partnership with the state. The ulema have been the main ally of the rulers in marginalizing intellectuals and economic entrepreneurs, and thus, they share the responsibility with the rulers in problems of authoritarianism and underdevelopment.

This study aims to discern medieval information literacy (IL) practices through scrutiny of medieval manuscripts: both the content and the “marks of usage” evident therein.

Analysis of the writing of scribes. Engagement with selected primary texts (manuscripts) and prior scholarly investigations.

Ample evidence exists of the practice of IL in the medieval era, and how it was transmitted and negotiated across time and space. Popular guides for scholars, including Hugh of St. Victor's Didascalicon, and the marks of usage left on manuscripts by readers/scribes, are evidence of how members of scholarly communities engaged in collaborative metacognitive work, helping each other with tasks such as understanding the ordinatio (organisation) of texts; cross-referencing; locating information; and making judgments about relevance, amongst others. New practices were stimulated by key historical transitions, particularly the shift from ecclesiastical to secular settings for learning.

This is a preliminary study only, intended to lay foundations and suggest directions for more detailed future investigations of primary texts. The scope is Eurocentric, and similar work might be undertaken with the records of practice available elsewhere, e.g. the Arab world, South and East Asia.

Some previous work (e.g. Long, 2017) has investigated medieval scholarly communities by retrospectively applying notions from practice theory, but no prior work has specifically focused upon IL as the practice under investigation.

The conflict between institutionalism and neoclassicism in the 20th century has been investigated by scholars over the years. Many of them believe that in the postwar period, neoclassicism triumphed while institutionalism largely disappeared. The present chapter takes a very different view. The late 20th century represents a broad synthesis of neoclassical and institutional themes in a methodology we call pragmatic empiricism. That approach combines the mathematical model building and theoretical formalism of neoclassical economics with the institutional economist’s data-driven statistical analysis and concern for developing institutional forms. We use as a case study the history of American locational economics from the 1930s to the present. The mixing of institutional and neoclassical themes is quite evident in the work of three young scholars at Harvard who effectively initiated American locational economics. In the postwar period, we find a series of outstanding, well-published papers that capture the spirit of the “founders.” These papers do use more modeling, but they also focus on major institutional developments. A broader review of locational works is consistent with the pragmatic empiricism label. The history of locational economics supports the claim that institutionalism, far from disappearing, continues to provide fundamental questions and techniques for modern pragmatic empiricism.

This chapter will develop an understanding of what the logical conclusion of having English football clubs primarily existing as businesses: namely, those instances where clubs are treated not as community institutions but as any other business with set assets that can be disposed of at a profit. There is an unfortunate history of clubs being owned based on the value of the assets they possess (such as their stadium or training), a trend that has only seemed to accelerate in recent decades. The various forms asset stripping takes can be explored by examining what happened to clubs like Blackpool FC and Wimbledon FC, as well as many others. This chapter is an exploration of what happens when the entity that fans assume is something more than a business is dismantled for profit, the harshest of reality checks, and a reminder that football clubs in these contexts are little more than business assets.

This paper aims to study the origin story of Harvard Business School’s involvement with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to study the reasons for the spread of American management education. It introduces both the explicit influence of Cold War politics and Indian development imaginaries to the export of American management thought in the early 1960s.

This paper relies on archival research for its primary source material, drawing upon rich archives of documents found at the Baker Library of Harvard Business School.

Harvard’s role in Ahmedabad was explicitly influenced by the Cold War anti-communist foreign policy of the USA, but did so opportunistically and contrary to the Ford Foundation’s (FF) original plans. Vikram Sarabhai, who was a key player in the Indian national imaginary of development, invited Harvard on his own initiative and forced the foundation to follow his interests rather than being a mere “subaltern.”

This paper could additionally add to the historical debate about the scope and periodization of the Cold War and the role of non-state actors.

This paper covers new ground in exploring the early connection between the Indian development imaginary and business education. It concludes that the export of hegemonic US management education was not successful during Cold War, and the FF was not as dominant as it was made out to be.