"Betsy Mix Cowles--a bold reformer whose circle of acquaintances included Frederick Douglass, Abby Kelley, and William Lloyd Garrison--is a brilliant example of what an educated and independent woman can accomplish. A staunch defender of abolitionism, Cowles also took up the cause of women's rights and dedicated her life to the advocacy of women's access to education, equal rights, and independence in the pre-Civil War era. The life of this devoted social reformer illuminates the struggles and historical developments relating to abolitionism and the fledgling women's movement during one of the most contentious periods in American history. About the Lives of American Women series: Selected and edited by renowned women's historian Carol Berkin, these brief biographies are designed for use in undergraduate courses. Rather than a comprehensive approach, each biography focuses instead on a particular aspect of a women's life that is emblematic of her time, or which made her a pivotal figure in the era. The emphasis is on a "good read," featuring accessible writing and compelling narratives, without sacrificing sound scholarship and academic integrity. Primary sources at the end of each biography reveal the subject's perspective in her own words. Study questions and an annotated bibliography support the student reader"--

"Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) are unique economic and governance events as privately held firms issue common stock or shares to the public for the first time. The governance issues surrounding IPOs are relatively unexamined compared to more established, and usually larger, firms. As such, they provide a unique context to study corporate governance and its development around the world. Based on a collaborative international research project, this book analyses the corporate governance of IPOs in twenty-one countries, each of which is characterized by different governance environments and different levels of IPO activity. The end result is a broad and deep assessment of governance practices and IPO activity for an array of economies that represent roughly 80 percent of the global economy. These chapters collectively provide new insights into what a global theory of corporate governance might look like and offer guidance to policy makers and academics regarding national governance configurations"--

"Novel Characters offers a fascinating and in-depth history of the novelistic character from the "birth of the novel" in Don Quixote, through the great canonical works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the most influential international novels of the present day. An original study which offers a unique approach to thinking about and discussing characterMakes extensive reference to both traditional and more recent and specialized academic studies of the novel. Provides a critical vocabulary for understanding how the novelistic conception of character has changed over time. Examines a broad range of novels, cultures, and periods. Promotes discussion of how different cultures and times think about human identity, and how the concept of what a character is has changed over time"-- "What makes novelistic characters unique? How do novelistic characters reflect or prefigure different ideas of human possibilities? Why and how has the concept of novelistic character changed over time? These are some the questions addressed in Novel Characters, an ambitious work that aims to reinstate character to its proper and central place in the art of fiction. Novel Characters argues that the novel is the literary form best suited to create characters of real, often troubling distinction, and that indeed it has a generic disposition, amounting to an obligation, to do so. DiBattista proposes a way of understanding what is distinctive about novelistic character as well as offering a discussion of how different cultures and times think about human identity. Novel Characters ranges from the "birth of the novel" in Don Quixote through the works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and concludes by considering today's most influential international fiction. It simultaneously develops a lexicon of terms to describe the 'development' and trace the moral genealogy of novelistic characters through various literary periods"--