Washington Irving And His Works Essay -- essays research papers

Washington Irving and His Works Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in Tarrytown, New York. His father was a merchant and owned an import business. Irving had literary influences early in his life. He was friends with Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Charles Dickens. Washington Irving had no formal schooling. Instead, he taught himself by reading as many books as possible. Washington Irving had other interests than just writing. Irving was an inventor. He invented ice drinks and the dumb waiter. Irving was also an entrepreneur. "Early in his life Irving planned to follow his father's footsteps in the family business." (p. 187) Irving had many writings in his literary career. His works include The Sketchbook, A History of New York, The Devil and Tom Walker, and Rip Van Winkle. Despite all of these well known works, Irving never won any awards. Irving's short stories are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Devil and Tom Walker. The first semblance in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Devil and Tom Walker is that nature proves to be a problem to the characters. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the hollow is the setting for fear in Icabod's tall tales. Irving reflected on the dark setting many times in this story. "The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks." (Washington Irving. p. 57) In The Devil a...

How Global brands compete Essay

1. Introduction Over the years, global branding has turned out to be a key aspect for effecting management considerations globally.   Indeed, it has turned out to the main defining objective of various companies around the globe. 2. Importance of the global branding Global branding is not important to the global consumers. Global branding of different products has assimilated a marketing notion and do not necessarily indicate a sense of superiority. Indeed, it was not until recently did people stop associating global brands with American values, a notion which was very misleading (Douglas, John, and Earl, 2004).   The most important aspect to consider when shopping for different items is the quality they posses as opposed to the name.   Following the recent anti-Globalization protests against some companies like Coca Cola, McDonald’s, and Nike due to their production processes and products’ negative impacts to the people, the truth has been revealed indicating that bulk of their products are indeed not superior 3. Characteristics that consumers associate global brands with Globally, consumers associate global brands with three main characteristics. To begin with, they belief that global brands are indeed superior in technology used to produce them as well ass the quality of the products. They also see a major consideration of continued improvement to maintain their global positions.   Douglas et al (2004) points out that others view the global brand as a major source of identity and prestige where they are able to get much ‘bigger’, much better, and much idealistic products that derive their overall sense of identity.   Finally, the notion of social responsibility is viewed to be a role of the globally branded companies and products as opposed to the local communities.   Douglas et al (2004) points out that many of the locally ignored notions like pollution demands and excessive water usages become the point of controversy when the globally branded companies progress towards the same direction. 4. How global brand once influenced my decision Since when I was young, my dad had always emphasized on the need to be patriotic.   As a result, he insisted that we should seek to promote locally made products at all times. Indeed, he led us by a good example as we grew up knowing only the local products and praising them always. However, with the onset of the global branding that the hybrid Toyota vehicles were given, I could not resist to get a hybrid Toyota Prius to share the same global taste status and prestige. Though it never invoked conflict at home, my dad expressed his dissatisfaction with my decision. 5. Challenges and transnational companies with reference to international brands Global markets are faced with major competitions from other giants in the same level. Large companies like Motorola face it off with Nokia while others like Toyota compete with Ford and Volkswagen in the global market.   This calls for great innovation in technology and vast resources application to maintain the brand name.   To add to that, the consumers have vast negative views about global brands which are not easily identifiable taking into consideration that they are vastly distributed in time and space. Many of the consumers’ demands like involvement with corporate social responsibilities are in most of the cases counter productive.   Besides, the fast rising numbers of antiglobals and agnostics threat to kill the overall spirit of the global brands hereby posing a major threat to the superiority consideration (Douglas et al, 2004).. 6. Addressing transnational companies’ problems In conclusion, it is clear that a solution should be developed to anchor the transnational companies from possible subsidence. They should seek to create credible myths that add value to the consumers as opposed to less-than-credible myths that are short tern unsustainable on a long term. To add to that, transnational companies should treat the antiglobals as part of the consumers to avoid unfavorable fights with them as they totally taint the global brands.   This should be done through investment in projects that will positively convince even the skeptics.   Social responsibilities should be approached from an entrepreneurship point of view where extra involvements of the companies seek to pro-actively determine and derive positive returns to the company.   Finally, the transnational companies must seek to manage the dark side of the consumers’ perception about the negative side of their perception as opposed to concentration on only the best side of their global produ cts.

Criticisms Of Kant s Perpetual Peace - 1304 Words

Throughout the history of mankind there has come to be two factors that are seen as inevitable. The first is progress, humans are naturally competitive creatures who not only want to insure their own safety but also get one up on their neighbours. Progress has led to huge leaps forward, not only technologically but also socially. However, aside from progress there is another factor, war. Time and time again throughout history humans have fought and killed each other for their own selfish reasons and security. And according to political theorists such as Hobbes this is simply the state of nature, a perpetual state of ‘war of all against all’, further surmising that it is due to this that mankind is fundamentally selfish. However, just because so far, mankind’s history has consisted of an endless cycle of wars, does that mean that it must continue to be this way? Political Philosopher Immanuel Kant outlines a number of articles that he hypothesises could lead toward s a perpetual peace. There are many criticisms of Kant’s perpetual peace, many argue that it is to idealistic and utopian. However, Kant doesn’t deny these claims. Instead Kant argues that if this ‘perpetual peace’ is even a remote possibility then for the good of mankind, we have a duty to try make it a reality. For perpetual peace to be worth pursuing, it needs to be remotely possible. In order for it to be possible it cannot go against nature. Kant agrees with Hobbes definition of the state of nature, except heShow MoreRelatedKantian Ethics And The Categorical Imperative Essay1581 Words   |  7 PagesAnalysis of Kantian Ethics and critiques In Elements of Pure Practical Reason Book, I, Immanuel Kant, a prominent late Enlightenment Era German philosopher discusses his most famous ethical theory, the â€Å"Categorical Imperative.† The â€Å"Categorical Imperative† is a proposed universal law in stating all humans are forbidden from certain actions regardless of consequences. 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