Spreading the Risks: Insuring the American Experience
John A. Bogardus Jr. with Robert H. Moore
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Spreading the Risks, a history of insurance in the United States, is an American business story told in a straightforward style by an industry insider and leader. It chronicles the history and development of the commercial insurance industry against the backdrop of changing social, political and economic imperatives from colonial times to today. Told from his vantage point as an industry veteran and retired CEO of the insurance brokerage Alexander & Alexander, John A. Bogardus Jr. set out to preserve the institutional memory of the business, recording a history and providing context for industry developments. Spreading the Risks is the most complete account to date of the history of insurance brokerage in America; it offers valuable lessons for insurance and business professionals.
In the foreword, Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Founding Brothers, calls it "a paradoxical and fascinating story of how the boisterous energies of the marketplace were rendered safe, how risk taking became more prudent, how the economic jungle was tamed." |
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Dara, Autobiography of a Chesapeake Retriever "transcribed" by Lolo Sarnoff; drawings by Cole Johnson, photographs by Linda Rosenthal This engaging tale relates the life of a blooded Maryland dog who is abandoned in New England and ends up in a pound (i.e. on death row for dogs!). There is rescued by an artist. Though she resents the abuses she has suffered at human hands, she makes a kind of peace with the imperfect world of Homo sapiens. A vibrant plot, a persuasive canine voice and the protagonist's intense character—Dara is no pussycat—give this yarn the attributes of a modern classic. Designed by Cyndi Cliff of Janin/Cliff Design, the petite volume features both drawings and photographs of the nominal "autobiographer." Its design won a Washington Book Publishers award. (ISBN 1-889274-06-2; 104 pages; $16.96; author's earnings support animal shelters.) Out of Stock. |
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A Generous Idea: St. Paul's School and Seikei Gakuen by David T. Dana III In 1949, as the world was recovering from World War II, one of America's oldest prep schools invited a school in Japan to send a worthy student to its sylvan campus in New Hampshire. Thus began a relationship between the two schools that has entered its sixth decade. Of the first three Japanese boys to matriculate at St. Paul's, one became board chairman of Mitsubishi, another Ambassador to the Netherlands and West Germany, the third a distinguished professor of art history at Princeton. This vibrant fifty-year history by a St. Paul's alumnus will find its audience among other alumni, educators within New England and beyond, and in the international exchange community. (ISBN 1-889274-13-5; 155 pages; $9.95.) Out of Stock. |
Between the Lines: Overseas with the Red Cross and OSS in World War II A memoir in letters by Elizabeth Phenix Wiesner Working in a Boston doctor's office when the war begins, Lee Phenix joins the American Red Cross to serve with the 26th General Hospital in North Africa. In Bari, Italy, she witnesses the air raid that causes disaster when German bombers sink an American ship secretly loaded with mustard gas. Leaving the Red Cross for OSS, she moves to Spain and England, then becomes Allen Dulles's secretary in Switzerland. For security reasons she cannot write home about spy matters, of course; instead her letters to her parents reveal the vibrant day-to-day life of a young American woman doing vital work in Europe and the Mediterranean during WWII. (After the war, Miss Phenix married a diplomat, raised a family and answered a call to the Episcopal priesthood as related in her earlier book, Pilgrim and Pioneer, Churchman Publishing Ltd/Morehouse, 1989.) (Hardbound, 284 pages, $21.95, ISBN 1-889274-04-6.) Order now. |
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Companions Along the Way by the Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade This handsome hardback is a collection of sermons about human relationships-relationships between people and with God. The author is rector of St. Alban's Episcopal Church. (Hardbound, 125pages; $14.95, ISBN 1-889274-01-1) Out of Print. |
