University of Toronto Press

This podcast is made possible by the members of the Champlain Society who work hard to bring to life original documents in Canadian history.

We would like to thank several Canadian scholarly book publishers, including the University of Toronto Press, UBC Press, and McGill-Queens University Press for their financial support.

My name is Nicola Byrne.

This interview was recorded on July 3rd, 2026.

It was produced by Kevin Ball and supported by the University of Toronto Press Journal team.

He said to me, what did you work on? He said, that'd be a wonderful thesis subject, and it complements my own interest in political systems, political management, political culture.

So I wrote a thesis and spent a year in Ottawa going through all the papers for that period, and it was completed I think in 73 and 1977 I published it and it's called The Decline of Politics title we came up with at the very last minute I had we were I had a terrible title for the thesis long and kind of meaningless and My editor, U of T Press, Rick Davidson, said, that's a perfect kind of blue cover.

And so it was fascinating to see what happened that so many of the reviews focused on the title as being the central theme of the book, which in some ways it was, in some ways it was, but in some ways some of the reviewers lost their way.

But the book did very well.

I think he got it at a used book sale.

It was published in 1968, I believe, uh, by the University of Toronto Press, published for the, uh, Royal Ontario Museum.

And yeah, reprinted 1971.

Handbook of the Crayfishes of Ontario by Denton W. Crocker and David W. Barr.

This characteristic of a particular crayfish species so unforgivable from the game fisherman's point of view may well be outweighed greatly by the fact that crayfishes themselves are trout food.

Crayfish do not attack larger animals such as fish, but they will ki- kill and eat other crayfishes which have recently molted and are still soft." Yes.

That's from "Handbook of the Crayfishes of Ontario," University of Toronto Press.

It's an old book, but there are some parts there that are useful.

He is a Ramon y Cajal Research Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Granada, and he holds a PhD in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University.

His book, Relative Strangers, Romani Kinship and Palestinian Difference, which was published by University of Toronto Press in 2024, is an ethnographic portrayal of how Romani differences within Palestinian society are based on factors like memory and kinship that aren't visible either through obvious markers like race or religion or in the eyes of the state.

And that is what we will be talking about today.

So thank you so much, Arpan, for joining me.

Alfie Marcus is ordinarily the host of On the Cusp Between Strategy and Ethics, where he interviews authors about the intersection of organizational strategy, corporate responsibility, and the changing role of business and society.

Today, however, I'm in the host seat, and Alfie is joining as the guest to discuss his own new book, Comeback, Can Great Companies Rise Again?, from the University of Toronto Press.

Alfie is a professor at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, where he holds the Edson Spencer Endowed Chair in Strategy and Technological Leadership.

Comeback encapsulates more than four decades of research and teaching, seeking to understand why great companies struggle, and how they can best chart a path back to success.

I think you deal with aspects of business that are really important, like some of the moral issues or ethical issues that face business leaders, which is a hugely important part.

It's not just about... be a good person but also it's it's a business question too because you could as you relate you could lawsuits can be very expensive i mean i think face meta is seeing this right now they're they're they're potentially going to be on the hook for hunter i don't i don't know what will actually happen but you know they're being sued for 200 billion dollars right now um in damages um So yeah, I definitely recommend people go and check out Comeback King.

Great companies rise again from the University of Toronto Press.

So yeah, thank you so much for letting me interview you and for you being the guest on your own show.