This chapter examines areas of knowledge where the Romans displayed expertise and consciously sought to develop techniques and systems that enabled them to better understand and control future uncertainties. It begins by looking at architecture, military logistics and law, before moving on to aspects of financial management, such as maritime loans, interest rates and annuities; it then finishes by looking at the probabilistic thinking involved in the religious practices of oracle and dream interpretation. It argues that the ancients did not rely solely on religion to deal with uncertainty. The Romans thought systematically and creatively about many areas where future uncertainty could be assessed and managed. These approaches were not statistical but all show an awareness of a range of likelihoods and possibilities. The Romans did not have statistical models, nor had they worked out how to calculate probabilities, but they did develop a range of sophisticated ways of dealing with the many unknowns they faced.

This essay examines the reciprocal contest of wills as mediated through the use of political violence from roughly 1773 to the end of the war in 1783. In other terms, it covers the escalating application of violence and how that led to outright war in April 1775, as well as the war itself. In both periods, violence was used to influence the will of one’s opponent and the political preferences of the undecided—but sometimes its political intent was exceeded, with escalatory effects. Three broad categories of violence are considered here. The first, “intimidative and catalytic” was primarily associated with the period from 1773 to 1776, in which violence was used by both sides, mostly publicly, to force political opponents to accede or step aside. Some of those efforts at intimidation catalyzed further violence, leading ultimately to armed military confrontation. Once the war had begun, the strong conventions associated with “war” shaped military behavior by both sides’ regular forces, although not always successfully, and always subject to logistical requirements. These behaviors form the second category of “Regular and Logistical.” The third category, “Retaliatory” was primarily associated with peripheral militia forces, which were much less restrained by the customs and usages of war, and often instead indulged in escalating retaliation.

The first command task involved control as well as decentralisation. Chapter explains the military organisation which exerted control and implemented the two further traditional principles involved, establishing a point of main effort (Schwerpunkt) and maintaining the chain of command. Describes the roles of the four levels of command covered by the book, army groups, Armies, corps and divisions, focusing on often-misunderstood changes brought about by the strain of modern battle.

Case study illustrates the difficulties and successes of implementing the Schwerpunkt and chain of command principles as the German army prepared for the Entente offensive. Concluding section links organisational change in 1917 to pre-war thinking on command and stresses the difficulty of striking the right balance between the two elements of the first command task, decentralisation and control. Outcome depended on the complex interplay of principles, formal organisational responsibilities, events and in particular personal factors.

Petitions were deeply material objects, despite the era’s idealized fiction of the frictionless lord–vassal encounter of wills. This chapter describes how sixteenth-century subjects managed to send their petitions to the royal court, through a daunting and often informal network of couriers. These agents moved petitions, helped and hindered by weather and geography, mastering ocean currents, perilous winds, riverine systems, and mountain paths. Here, the labor contributions of non-Spaniards was highly evident, as Indigenous communities, Afro-descendant rowers and muleteers, and others dominated many of the empire’s most daunting and crucial routes. Many sovereign indigenous and Afro-descendant subjects also sabotaged this mail system from the outside, sometimes in conjunction with British pirates and others. This chapter describes how imperial denizens coped with such sabotage, not least internal interference. It also describes the weakness of the official postal system, the supremacy of merchant couriers, the consequences of antipiracy armadas, and express services. It highlights the complex iniquities and limited successes of this dialogue, revealing that, despite constant obstacles and against all odds, the empire’s communications system – even though slow and often inconsistent – preserved the fiction of vassal–ruler dialogue.

Throughout most of the Anglo-French Wars of 1793-1815, the burden of defending France’s interests against Britain fell primarily upon its navy. Having suffered several major defeats and the loss of New France and other colonies, France and its navy re-emerged to contest Britain’s dominance at sea during the American Revolutionary War in1778-1783. Although the French navy had scored several strategic victories for their American allies, the defeat at the Battle of the Saints in 1782 left France with little to show for its efforts except a massive debt. As a navy required extensive logistical systems to mobilize both its resources and manpower, this endeavour presented ever increasingly strenuous challenge to the French monarchy. Faced with needs to modernize both its fiscal, social, and political structures, the French monarchy failed to navigate the tumultuous process of reform. While the resulting French Revolution removed some of the impediments to reform, it also presented its own difficulties as revolutionary principles often clashed with the needs of military service. Although Napoleon Bonaparte brought relatively stability to France and invested massive amount of resources to regenerate the French navy, his insatiable desire for aggrandizing the French Empire and the nearly constant state of war made it difficult to achieve his naval aspirations.

This chapter examines the “nuts and bolts” of war, including the formidable problems of movement and supply, transportation and administration. Logistics represent a vital element of warfare, indispensable to the operations of armies ever since the emergence of organized warfare. Broadly defined, this concept involves moving, supplying, and maintaining military forces, as well as transportation of material, food and animals, communications, personnel replacement, quarters, depots, and rear administration. The Napoleonic Wars witnessed important developments in the logistics and one of its lasting effects was creation and successful dissemination of bureaucratic reforms that improved state’s ability to mobilize forces and extract resources

Embryo donation is a unique and novel disposition option and family-building choice for patients. While there are an estimated one million surplus embryos cryopreserved around the world, embryo donation cases remain low. At the same time, interest in embryo donation is on the rise, as an increasing number of patients consider alternative methods of family creation. The heightened interest in embryo donation necessitates skilled fertility counselors to provide education and counseling to patients on both the donor and recipient side. Potential embryo donors often struggle with decision making around the disposition of their remaining embryos, while potential recipients may grapple with the notion of nongenetic parenting and their relationship to their donors and their donor-conceived children. The fertility counselor can play an integral role in helping patients navigate their decision making and their new relationships and family structure. This chapter explores the historical, logistical, psychosocial and relational considerations of embryo donation. The chapter highlights the important role of the fertility counselor throughout an embryo donation journey, and offers frameworks, best practices, and therapeutic tools that counselors can utilize as they work to support their patients.

Starting an ICU neuromonitoring program requires in-depth logistical planning prior to initiation. Seemingly small changes to continuous EEG monitoring practices may have a striking impact on resource availability and utilization. Essential decisions include what patient populations are to be monitored and for how long, as well as how often EEG data will be reviewed and by whom. Consideration must be given to which equipment to purchase and the personnel required to handle it. Involving the entire team early in logistical planning -- including EEG readers (attending physicians and trainees), pediatric neurologists, neonatal and pediatric intensivists and nurses, neurodiagnostic technologists, neurodiagnostic laboratory team and hospital administrators -- will help identify possible flaws in the implementation plan and avoid costly financial decisions or committing to practices that resources will not support. Functioning as a multidisciplinary team is essential for the long-term success of an ICU neuromonitoring program. This chapter details practical considerations for establishing and leading an ICU neuromonitoring program.

The main reason for the long-lasting popularity of Lego bricks is their versatility. A back-of-the-envelope calculation will reveal that six bricks of 2 x 4 studs can be combined in almost 1 billion ways. And because Lego bricks made today still interlock with those first made in 1958, the year the toy was first patented, the possibilities for creative play are, quite literally, innumerable.

Two years before the patent that would turn Lego into the world’s favourite toy company, a man called Malcom McLean made the same discovery as Ole Kirk Christiansen, the inventor of Lego. McLean was not in the business of making children’s toys, however, but of shipping goods. On 26 April 1956 he was watching his idea come to fruition: in Newark, New Jersey, a crane was lifting fifty-eight aluminium metal boxes into an old tanker ship.

The Crusades have always been a focus of historical attention. William of Tyre (c.1130–86) wrote a great history of the crusades in Latin which was so well received that in the early thirteenth century it was translated into French and extended in many versions to cover the period after 1186. The French version was so popular that the Renaissance scholar, Francesco Pipino, unaware of the original, translated it back into Latin, while Caxton produced an English version in the fifteenth century.1 Many of the earlier crusader chronicles, notably Robert the Monk’s account of the First Crusade, were also very popular in the Middle Ages and were edited very early in the age of print, notably in the great collection by Jacques Bongars in 1611.2 In modern times the crusades have always been a contentious subject, as President George Bush discovered when he referred to a ‘crusade against terrorism’ shortly after 9/11.

In the Northern Seas we may take as our starting point ships of the type probably used by the Anglo-Saxons in their invasions of the British Isles from the early fifth century.1 The double-ended, long oak ship excavated at Nydam Moss on the island of Als in the Baltic Sea, southern Denmark, is dated to c.310–20 ce. It was originally around 25 m long, 4.3 m in the beam amidships, around 1.35 m deep in the hull amidships, rising to around 2.25 m at the bow and stern. It was an open rowing boat, clinker built, hull first, with only a bottom plank and five strakes per side. The strakes, which were single planks carved from whole trees, were fastened to each other with iron nails clenched through square iron washers. Cleats were left on the inside of the carved strakes roughly every 1.25 m and ribs cut from naturally curved branches were lashed to them later. Fifteen thole pins for oars were lashed to the top strakes or gunwales on either side. A large quarter rudder was found at one end. There is no evidence that the ship carried a mast or sail, and it appears to have been purely a rowing boat.

This chapter examines relief operations, showing the difficulties humanitarian workers face from headquarters or encounter in the field as their efforts are either facilitated or constrained by economic, moral, or political considerations. Allocating aid in Ireland, Soviet Russia, and Ethiopia posed major moral, economic, and logistic challenges to the voluntary organisations involved. We identify commonalities over time, moments of change, and present a nuanced understanding of aid. Soup kitchens and camps operating under trying conditions may dominate the public imagination of famine relief, but the reality over two centuries has involved a great deal of routine bureaucratic administration: calculations of dry rations and scientific calorie counting; compiling and checking lists of recipients; mapping networks of distribution points and arranging transport; negotiating with other organisations, governments, and local partners; and monitoring, evaluating, and writing project reports.

We argue in this chapter that the rise of social movements and the emergence of more popular forms of management, including the appeal of the management guru should be linked. In reading these histories together, especially around the environmental movement and the work of Peter Drucker we find resources for building our Liberal Management Education.