change Books

This is the first NLP book read when I got into the NLPtrench. Now I realise how great and magnificant this book is. This book is a pleasure just to read by itself. Although from reading it you will gain specific tools to change your percieved reality (what you feel/think/believe) by using techniques in this book! In order to really fuse with it you need to use the techniqes when you want to change something. In other words it is not something you can read once and then just forget about and espect a drastic change. You can achieve drastic change if you do the exercices once. However many thoughts and ways of acting are habits you will repeat over and over, and this book will make you be able to take control of these habitual things so that you can change them. This will give you control of your reality. If you do the simple techniqes in this book and use them as if they are the most important things you can ever practise, you will transform your way of behaving totally! I highly recommend it!

This book is written in easy to understand terms. If you are looking for a way to change your life by getting rid of the "mental baggage" than this book is for you.

The book is a great introduction for anyone who's new to NLP and it's applications. Bandler has also included some very good points on motivation, and it's also the foundation text to his latest technology, Design Human Engineering (DHE).

James Leong
Author of The World's First Book on
Network Marketing with NLP,
"MLM Persuasion Mastery: How
Master Networkers Change Beliefs
and Behavior"

I'm just scratching the surface of this NLP thing, and this book is a good intro to some of the principles and a few practical applications, written in a very informal style. I finally understand what the heck a submodality is thanks to this book!

From the editor of NLPWeekly magazine:

This is a good book for people who have just heard about NLP. However, it would be wise for experienced practitioners to skip this one. It is full of great self improvement advice, but not of true history cases with patients.

Unfortunately, in my 10 years experience with NLP trainings, trainees tend to confuse real life stories and metaphors. I've even heard of a practitioner who tried to immitate Bandler's story, and almost aniled his client to a wooden cross... Hey, that story IS A METAPHOR! It did NOT happen in real life, unless Mr. Bandler is willing to prove it. No REAL psychiatrist would allow a stranger to threaten a hospitalized patient in a psychiatric hospital. Get over your wishful thinking and learn to separate the fiction from the truth.

All and all, it's an easy to read book, and it can satisfy the newbie.

Shlomo Vaknin, C.Ht
NLPWeekly Magazine

Every person should read this short book to see how complicated and interlaced the earth's weather system is. Then you can decide for yourself if we can change it either way.

The author, Kerry Emanual, is knowledgeable, fair, and his view balanced. However, it is so brief that the primary contents of this book would make a good article in a popular magazine which can be read in 1/2 hr. I would have liked to see more quantitative, in-depth information. The book is then padded with brief afterward advocacy articles which gives the usual simplistic platitudes and exaggerations typical of those given by amateur ``environmentalists" in the popular media. In my opinion they diminish the sense of level headed discussion in Emanual's article.

As books go, this one is very short. That, however, is one of it's strengths. By leaving out the details of climate change, which one can find in many other books and reports, and focusing instead on a synthesis of our current knowledge of climate science, Dr. Emanuel has written an extremely useful summary.

I have read many books on global warming, climate change, or, to use the term that I prefer, Climaticide. This volume is one of the most useful for the non-scientist because it presents all the major concepts in a concise, clearly written, yet comprehensive account.

In the first five chapters Dr. Emanuel informs us about two competing views of nature and climate, the physics of greenhouse gases, how we know that climate change is occurring, what the role of humans in causing current climate change is, and what the probable consequences are. Each o these chapters are small gems of exposition and explanation.

Chapter six, which is about the relationship between science and the media, is less useful, probably because it is more political and the author is trying so hard to be evenhanded. The results of this attempt at a balanced description is actually to distort somewhat the history he is recounting.

In attempting to explain why the public still thinks that there is a scientific controversy over the basic facts of anthropogenic climate change, Emanuel points out that "...a dwindling number of deniers [are] constantly tapped for interviews by journalists who pretend to look for balance. Unfortunately, he then does the same thing himself writing that "On the left, an argument emerged urging fellow scientists to deliberately exaggerate their findings to galvanize an apathetic public...". This is an awkward statement by a normally deft stylist, and one is left wondering which, if any, scientists made this "argument".

Chapter seven on "The Politics of Global Climate Change" contains some equally odd attempts at balance. For example, there is a very irrelevant reference to Senator Ted Kennedy's NIMBY opposition to offshore windmills. The afterward by Judith A Layzer and Willia R. Moomaw presents a much more accurate depiction of the current political complexities involved in stopping Climaticide.

The weaknesses that I mention do not affect the book's overall value. The first five chapters alone make it worth owning and, as I think you will find, it can be profitably reread many times.

Emanuel has written an outstanding survey of the difficulty and methodology of doing climate change science. One comes away convinced that something needs to be done, although Emanuel doesn't prescribe solutions. The afterward, by Judith A. Layzer and William R. Moomaw, is a pallid letdown after the concise and perceptive work of Emanuel. The backgrounds of Layzer and Moomaw are omitted, unforgivable in the context of the discussion. (Layzer is is Associate Professor of Environmental Policy in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT and Moomaw is Professor of International Environmental Policy and Director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at Tufts). They are guilty of the academic bias that Emanuel talks of and contribute nothing to the issue. What a shame to sully an otherwise useful book with such irrelevance! Five stars for Emanuel's work. One star, at best, for the afterward. I worked as an experimental physicist before retirement and have been appalled by the lack of scientific acumen exhibited by politicians, the public, and some of the scientific community. I'll give this book to friends with a disclaimer about the afterward.

If you don't have a lot of time, but want to understand what are the main ideas about climate change, this book is for you. It has only 85 pages total, and the pages are small (like a 4x6" index card) making it a very quick read.

Most of the book, up to page 64, is about the science. Emanuel explains in a very clear and logical way what physics goes into the climate models. Those models are very important tools for deducing whether or not humans are responsible for warming. Also, the models are used to predict the future temperature. Emanuel explains several sources of uncertainty, like whether water vapor is a negative or positive feedback (one of the main controversies), the issue of clouds, and the problem of predicting the behaviour of a chaotic system.

There is one figure on page 45 and it is essential: it shows how well the models do at predicting data, which gives the reader an idea of how confidently we can say man-made warming is occuring and how much "faith" to put in the models for predicting the warming trend in the future.

I liked the summary near the end (page 60-63) listing what is known, breaking it into two lists: findings that are not in dispute and findings which most climate scientists agree with but that are disputed by some.

Pages 65-85 discusses the politics and some ideas for averting man-made climate change.

If you have more time, you may try to read the longer book by Dessler and Parson, which I also reviewed.

This book is informative, easy to read and user-friendly. The arrangement of the text on the pages makes it easy to read section by section. There are no wasted words in this book, so there is no wasted time reading. It's a great resource for future use. I'm definitely keeping mine.

G. Buermann, Middle School Principal

My book arrived with a small rip on the outside cover near the binding, and I tried to take a picture, but it would not show up good enough for viewing. Also, I thought the book was new and expected the binding to be tighter, but the front cover flopped open wide. Overall, the book is in good shape, I was just a little disappointed.

I have many I Ching interpretations and find that this text follows closely with them. The language is very simple and focuses on its application to you rather then the symbolism found in the others. It was a nice addition to my library and gives me a fast and simple reading. I do recommend it to any students of the Oracle.

Brian Browne Walker subtitles his book, A Guide to Life's Turning Points. This book certainly keeps its promise. The I Ching is one of the most profound guides for the seeker of truth and balance in one's life. Walker's version inspires deep levels of self-awareness. He has captured the essence of the I Ching - that we must first nurture and then act from our inner strength and always follow the principles of "humility, simplicity, equanimity and acceptance." His description of each of the sixty-four hexagrams is elegant and true to the ancient wisdom with an economy of words. Brian Browne Walker's I Ching lends itself beautifully to everyday use.

I won't say much, except this. I have been studying and using the I-Ching for over 20 years and have found this to be the most concise, responsible book on the i-Ching in quite some time. A lot of interpretations are completely irresponsible, and do more damage then good.
I use this everyday now. I highly recommend Brian's Hua Hu Ching also. Now if I can get his "crazy dog series" I'll be set.

This is a good edition for more logical and straightforward people.
The interpretations are not always very well-rounded, but it can be a good introduction to the I Ching.

This is one of the easist I Ching books I've found, so far !
The text is "right on" when throwing the coins for the hexagrams, it
always seems to be just what is needed at the time. In times of
confusion or crossroads in life this book always seems to give me the
answers I need.
I hope you enjoy this book as much as I do.

This is an incredible, thought-provoking true-story of a young woman who has watched her mother die from cancer and then tests positive for a gene mutation that makes her nearly 90% likely to get cancer herself. What would you do if you had that knowledge?

Author Jessica Queller eloquently takes us with us on her journey. Despite the heavy material, this book is an easy read - I read it in 2 days - because her writing is clear and the story is so engaging.... You want to know Jessica and are rooting for her all the way.

This book is for EVERY WOMAN - not just those with BRCA mutations or with cancer in their family. It is for anyone who believes that true stories often make the best books, and are drawn to the extraordinary stories of 'ordinary' people.

I read this book in one day. It's a great read. Jessica really makes you think about your options. My mom is a breast cancer survivor and the BRCA test has always been in the back of my mind. It's definitely something that needs more discussing.

I am faced with the same genetic predisposition to breast cancer and it was a life-saver to read about another person's triumph.

The author explained her gene risk for breast cancer and ovarian cancer in an emotional informative way. I purchased the book because my daughter, twin sister and myself had just been tested for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation. Our test results are that we all have a "variant" that is the same so it is genetic but it is a variant that the lab has never seen in the whole world thus it is "uncertain" what it means other than it is genetically being passed in our family. Reading this book helped me understand gene mutations. The author truly is "beautiful" inside and out.
Joan Reams

This book is a must for anyone with the BRCA mutation or anyone who wants to understand a woman's journey after she finds out she has a BRCA mutation. It is brutally honest and therefore, absolutely compelling. As one who has walked this path, I can tell you that Jessica is very brave to lay it all out there for others to benefit from. I wish her health and happiness.

A must read for everyone. We must ALL act now to save our planet from self-destruction!

He says the climate is important and supports us taking care of it, by driving smaller cars. Yet he still flies around in his own jet. hmmmmmm.

In his book, 'An Inconvenient Truth', Al Gore writes about a
"hockey-stick" graph, with "global average temperature" on
one axis, and time on the other axis. "GLOBAL WARMING" IS
SCIENCE FICTION. Temperature varies from point to point.
What people call temperature, is what mathematical
physicists refer to as a value assigned to a point in a
temperature field. There are potentially an infinite number
of readings one may obtain in a given region of space. But
to assign a single temperature reading to a given region of
space is misleading. For example, putting a thermometer
under a bed, beside a window, or on top of a radiator in a
given room may give you a different reading, with or without
you in it. A temperature reading should only be assigned to
a single point, and not a space. For to assign a single
temperature reading to a region of space, such as a room, or
a city, is misleading. The earth is a very big place. For
example, on a hot day in India, it may be a cold night in
Canada. A global average temperature reading is essentially
meaningless since there appear to be a countless number of
places, or points, upon the earth, or slightly above the
earth, where a temperature reading might be taken. If your
population size is infinite, or vast, how large should your
sample size be in order to obtain a meaningful statistic,
such as an average? If you cannot determine what the global
average temperature is today, or was yesterday, why would
you claim global warming is taking place? Why would
academics, or politicians, lie? ("Fifty thou a year, buys a
lot of beer." - Timbuk 3).


The 'Kyoto Accord' will help establish the creation of a
global economic planning agency. Have you noticed that the
manufacturing sector in North America has been disappearing
has factories are closed "here", only to open up "there"?
The Wealth of a Nation is determined by what that nation can
produce. The Living Standard of a Nation is determined by
what that nation can consume. Don't confuse WORK with INCOME.
They who advocate "enviro-mentalism" are not really concerned
with weather patterns, but are interested in economics. If
they really cared about helping the global poor, would they
not open up factories overseas without closing them
domestically? Instead, they are behaving as if transportation
costs are negligible. Do not most Americans live within 30km
of their jobs?


Consider, as another example, the irrational belief that
enviro-mentalists (such as Al Gore) are advocating, that it
is possible to save electricity by not using it. A magnet
rotating inside a coil of wire will generate an electrical
current in that wire: engineers call this INDUCTION.
A TURBINE is essentially a giant magnet placed inside a giant
coil of wire: In order to generate electricity, the giant
magnet must be rotated, according to scientists. (Where
these giant magnets come from, is another story.) In theory,
the pressure of steam, water, or air against the vanes of a
wheel turn the magnet inside the turbine, generating
electricity; In nuclear power plants, nuclear energy is used
to heat water, converting the water into steam, and the
resulting steam pressure is used to operate the turbines which
provide households with available electricity. The turbines
are not going to stop producing electricity, just because you
stop using it. By definition, the only way you can SAVE
ELECTRICITY is BY STORING IT, as in a rechargeable battery.
If you are a customer of a hydroelectric company, you can save
money by not using electricity. However, if you choose not to
use the electricity which the turbines generate, that
electricity will be wasted, like an untappped natural gas leak.
Gasoline is made from oil: Conserving gasoline makes more
sense than conserving electricity, so why don't "they" ban
landscaping (lawn mowers)?


In the name of "enviro-mentalism" a philosophy of "act local,
think global" is emerging, which in practise means the creation
of a local "slave labour" population and a "no-fly list",
restricting travel for some. An elite "work" force of "symbol
analysts" is emerging, university-educated "citizens" who will
manage the "locals". Imagine a dog with a leash around his
neck, which leash is attached to a stick in the ground. The
owner/manager tells the dog, "You are free to roam. as you are
able (allowed) to". That is the future that enviro-mentalists
are advocating: The new economy is about serving females, and
offering males (the boyim) opportunities to serve females. The
future looks a lot like the past, only without the black oil
and the gasoline-powered lawnmowers. The future is FEMDOM.
Fight the future. Resistance is not futile. Ever read the
play, Lysistrata?

This book is badly written and poorly reasoned, a shallow, tendentious screed that promotes environmental apocalypticism at the expense of common sense and sound policy. Gore seems to think that until recently, the Earth's climate was stable and that CO2 emissions are driving temperatures to unprecedented levels. In fact, the world is still quite a bit cooler than it was during the Middle Ages, when greenhouse gas emissions were neglible. When people realize how much Gore's absurd proposals would cost, and that they would accomplish little more than to drive American industry into the arms of the Chinese, even those who are conned by his reasons will have second thoughts.

The distresses with Gore's propaganda book for global warming are manifold. The first and worst sin Gore commits is he's NOT FAIR AND BALANCED in his struggling argument that global warming is real, caused by man, and the single-biggest threat facing the world. If Gore was FAIR AND BALANCED in his presentation, he could persuade more readers to give him the benefit of the doubt. Gravely for him, his presumptuous, one-sided and absolutist/elitist argument for global warming--where he brainwashes the reader to believe that global warming is 100% fact through arrogant declaration but no foundations--actually sours the reader and makes Gore appear as a fanatical, ideological DEMAGOGUE with an agenda and shabby credibility.

The most flagrant trespass in Gore's book is it's constructed to indoctrinate grade school/high school kids in the Religion of Global Warming. This is indisputable if we look at the layout of Gore's propaganda: it's short on text, full of colorful graphs, size 30 fonts on some pages, and full of pictures. With this shortcoming of substance, it's clear Gore's slideshow-turned-book was NEVER designed to make an intelligent argument about global warming's allegedly looming threat. It was designed to proselytize impressionable kids at the K-12 levels to believe in the Religion of Global Warming.

The predicament of failure of substance is found everywhere in Gore's propaganda book. He never has many sources to credibly validate the legitimacy of graphs and projections he cites!!!! Even gloomier for Gore's trustworthiness is that his sources come from biased, agenda-driven organizations whose "statistics" you cannot trust--if you're being intellectually honest, which the majority of sycophant-reviewers here refuse.

For instance, a purportedly "authoritative" chart claiming to show 2005 was the hottest year EVER in the history of humankind was conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an ideological group sponsored by the UN!!!! Their whole mission statement is to prove that global warming is to be blamed on human activities, so any statistics emerging from their partisan group must be discounted. However, unfair and unbalanced Gore has the insolence to cite this statistic as "authoritative."

Another misconstruction in Gore's argument of ideology is to blame man and global warming for Africa's abysmal problems with genocide and civil wars!!!! Despite the insanity of this supposition, Gore shamelessly alleges that this is so, yet if we analyze his thinking, it can easily be discreditable. Gore's accusatory misconstruction is we (read: US and the West) are single-handedly to blame for the murderous genocide and afflictions in Africa because of our alleged contribution to global warming!!!!

Gore charges the US "helped manufacture the suffering in Africa," as he bases this antagonistic accusation on the supposition that US greenhouse gas emission caused the drying up of Lake Chad--which he then misuses to account for the genocide in Darfur!!!! To any intellectually honest person, of course, the ethnic cleansing and civil war in Darfur are mainly caused by Muslim Janjaweed fighting the non-Arab rebels who are in turn fighting the Sudanese government. With self-hating, anti-American allegations like these, Gore's credibility itself suffers.

Yet another, equally heavy reprimand Gore deserves is for the irrational conclusions and methodology he continually abuses to arrive at his presumption that the scientific community has a consensus that global warming's manmade. In example, Gore mendaciously cites a Science magazine study of every massive, peer-reviewed article on global warming from scientific journals and magazines. He cites this utterly dissolute study to pretend to prove that there's consensus among EACH AND EVERY SCIENTIST ON THE PLANET that global warming is manmade. However, killing Gore's believability is the mortifying fact that said Science magazine study only reviewed TEN PERCENT of every available article on global warming. With this contemptible restriction on what a proper population sample of articles would be, Gore assumingly and pitifully declares that there is basically complete, 100% consensus on the fiction that every single scientist on earth is in unison about global warming.

If this is reliably the case, as Gore forges it to be, then why in the hell are there so many scientists who outright dispute Gore's BS allegations?!?! Some prominent critics of global warming are French geophysicist Claude Allegre; director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University Robert Balling Jr.; Associate Professor of Geology and Environmental Science at University of Auckland Chris de Freitas; and so on and so forth. These scientists only scratch the surface; for a more comprehensive list of authorities discrediting global warming, simply do a Google search or check Wikipedia.

Gore's book stumbles in its ineffective struggle to convince the reader of the conclusiveness of global warming. Instead, Gore and his fellow, global-warming co-conspirators simply incriminate themselves as ideologues menacingly dismissing the REAL, BIGGEST threat to the world: Islamic terrorism. Gore often speaks of his kids' kids hating our current generation for not addressing global warming, but they'll likely hate our generation more if we succumb to Gore's advice and pursue the unreliability of global warming while ignoring terrorism!!!!

I first heard a lecture by Victor Papanek about 20 years ago, shortly before this revised edition was released. He was a very impressive speaker, drawing from a seemingly bottomless well of ecological design ideas. His work has taken him far and wide and in the process allowed him to revamp many of his views on environmental design. This book is an extensively updated version of his seminal book on the subject. It has become a bit dated in the 20 years since its release, especially in regard to computer software design. But, most of the material he covers is still relavent to the present, as we have only begun to scratch the surface of sound ecological ideas.

Having read the more recent books on ecological design by Sim Van Der Ryn and William McDonough, I was surprised to see that neither mentioned Papanek, who prefigured many of the ideas they present in their current books. Papanek long ago advocated the lease/use principle, which makes much more sense in a rapidly changing technological world than does the buy/own principle that continues to dominate our social thinking. Papanek notes the many cultural and psychological blocks we have created for ourselves when it comes to ecological design, but also illustrates how we can overcome these blocks with methods such as bisociation, first proposed by Arthur Koestler. But, what really makes this book stand out are the great number of illustrations that Papanek uses to demonstrate his ideas. This is one of the most practical books written on environmental design.

While Papanek was an industrial designer, his ideas are equally germaine to the field of architecture and biology. He advocated a multi-disciplinary approach, feeling that our universities had become too compartimentalized and were stifling creativity, which needs cross-pollination in order to thrive. The book is as inpiring as his lectures. Papanek challenges the reader to explore new avenues, not continue to follow the status quo, which only results in creative dead-ends.

Papanek, like his mentor Fuller, took on a guru like status where rhetoric became more important than the reality. He bends facts and contradicts himself several places in this book.

Here are a few that jumped out at me

Misrepresentation of the facts -

Page 89 - The Hyatt collapse wasn't bad design rather the builder changed the construction and inspectors weren't doing their job.

281 - He talks about farm implement companies' negative reaction to his walking tractor proposal. Troy-Bilt Rototiller has around since 1937, was and is building a 10 HP tiller very similar to the one pictured.

Contradicts himself -

Page 6 he says, "Design must be meaningful. And meaningful replaces such semantically loaded expressions as ... "ugly"... "cute"...

Page 93 - he describes gum as "tawdry

Page 246 - He asserts that humidifiers are bad because they are "costly, ugly, and ... wasteful of water"

Granted there are a lot of dangerous, overpriced, impractical, and generally unnecessary products on the market, but except for ranting about what he considers to be wrong, he doesn't offer much in terms of direction to others who want to be socially responsible.

one of the best books on design ethics till date!

I first spotted this book while studying in Denmark last year, where my host parents had studied under Victor Papanek. I would have studied under him at the University of Kansas, if not for his untimely and unfortunate passing. This book is one of the best books on the principles and ethics of design. It illustrates both the designer's responsibility and the potential to affect real change in the world through design. This most renowned of works by Papanek focuses on industrial design in two parts: How It Is, and How It Could Be. Papanek encourages radical thinking in design, and most of the topics in the book are easily translated to architecture. To my knowledge, reading this book has never been a required part of the core curriculum at the School of Architecture and Urban Design here at KU, but in my opinion, it should be.

It has been many years since I read this important book. I hope this book will be made a compulsory read for all design students. If only more designers would adopt Mr Papanek's approach to socially-responsible design, the world will be a much better place to live in.

Never judge a book by its cover - particularly its blurb. On first glance, The Age of Heretics seems askew, a tract on business revolution for "corporate leaders" interested in anything but. It purportedly chronicles the "recreation" of institutions, an eccentric term when left unhyphenated. It's described in alarming code words, such as "magisterial" (read, "long"). Why would anyone bother with a book like this?

Because it's terrific. And because the bland façade is disguising a remarkable reality. The Age of Heretics offers one of the few compelling, intelligent, thoroughly researched histories of the field of organizational development. Focusing largely on the 1960s and 1970s, Art Kleiner details the origins of T-Groups, Theory X and Theory Y, scenario planning, systems thinking, and much more. He proves particularly adept at summarizing an approach or technique succinctly, as if in passing, and all the while in the context of corporate change movements. Perhaps Kleiner errs on the side of the Great Man Theory of History ("there was one man who could do it, and his name was ..."), but he does demonstrate how OD can prove revolutionary to the modern corporation. And we all know what fate befalls the revolutionary.

For that is part of Kleiner's history: how the OD early adopters so often sowed the seeds of their own downfall. Perhaps they evolved from enthusiastic to monomaniacal. Perhaps they exacerbated their cultish image by experimenting with LSD. Perhaps they merely stepped on the wrong toes. Whatever the reason, the drugs or the shoes, they blew their own trumpets, then whimpered the blues.

As the title suggests, Kleiner dubs these forerunners "heretics," and even adopts a framework of comparisons to medieval knights, millenarians, Pelagians, and the like. The comparisons don't do any harm, and may even add a soupcon of panache, although a few are a stretch. Likening twelfth-century intellectual Peter Abelard to pharmaceutically enhanced 1960s visionaries does the great philosopher a disservice, not least because he's not an ideal model of universalism and holistic thinking. One might also argue that Kleiner misrepresents Parzival's dilemma when he writes of the plight of the OD consultant who fears to lose his job. Parzival encounters an obviously suffering king and must decide whether to ask "what afflicts thee?"; the consultant encounters an organization and must first recognize that there is any affliction in the first place.

Such criticisms are minor and admiring. The Age of Heretics is what the English like to call "a rollicking good read": fast-paced, persuasive, and written for adults, not sixth-graders. (Rare is the business author who would think to describe In Search of Excellence, accurately, as Manichaean.) This is not a book for generic "corporate leaders." It's for OD professionals and agents of change. If you pitch your tent in either camp, bring this book along for companionship.

Note: The review that follows is of the Second Edition.

Long ago, Voltaire suggested that we cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it. Throughout human history, there have been those who challenged what James O'Toole so aptly describes as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Some were executed, others were forced to recant their beliefs, and still others were at first ignored and then ridiculed as cranks, troublemakers, mavericks, misfits, etc. Ironically, many heresies eventually became orthodoxies, usually long after their advocates have died or been silenced. The search for truth continues as newly embraced orthodoxies are questioned and then challenged by other secular "heretics."

What we have in this long overdue, substantially revised and updated Second Edition of Art Kleiner's classic, first published in 1996, is a sweeping and penetrating analysis of various "heroes, outlaws, and the forerunners of corporate change" who struggled (with mixed results) to transform mainstream organizations and even entire cultures throughout a process of multi-dimensional evolution whose can be traced back almost 2,000 years to the monasteries of the early Christian church and continues forward through the Reformation, the establishment of the great European ecclesiastical universities, royal chartering of mercantile stock companies and then state chartering of companies after thirteen colonies won their independence from England, the emergence of nascent entrepreneurs, and the domination of commercial corporations in major industries (e.g. steel, oil, and railroad) from the end of the 19th century until after World War Two.

In the first chapter, Kleiner briefly discusses this background and summarizes key developments since 1945, noting that by the 1950s commercial culture had come to dominate the culture of the world. It was "a vast wave that struck with such immense, captivating grandeur that there seemed to be no escape. But the greater the wave, the stronger the undertow. This is the story of that undertow." His model is the mythic literature of destiny and integrity. Why? "Myth holds its characters to a higher ethical standard than they can possibly fulfill and yet shows us how to love them when they slip - or at least it forces us to recognize that slippage is inevitable." In each of the eight remaining chapters, Kleiner focuses on a specific time segment during which "new truths" and their advocates collided with conventional management wisdom and its defenders. On Pages 315-317, Kleiner shares a few of the lessons to be learned from the respective fates of various countercultural ideas.

The "heretics" to whom he devotes primary attention in this volume include those involved with the National Training Laboratories (1947-1962), Charles Krone and his colleagues at Procter & Gamble who attempted to improve operations, and Lyman Ketchum and Ed Dulworth who attempted to design and build a state-of-the-art production facility for the Gaines Dog Food division of General Foods (1961-1973).

Kleiner is among very few contemporary business thinkers who combine the highly developed skills of an historian, iconoclast, raconteur, humorist, explorer, thought leader, and cultural anthropologist. At no point does the pace of his extended narrative drag and his writing style reminds me of E.B. White in top form. He seems to perceive his function to be that of a travel agent and tour guide, one who invites his reader to return with him to actual situations in which an individual or members of a group struggled to resolve what he characterizes as "Parzival's Dilemma": "If we are damned for our actions but don't know our actions' results, then how dare we act? And yet when our help is called for, how dare we refrain?"

In Chapter 7, Kleiner examines this dilemma when discussing the process by which NTL was envisioned, established, and developed before it encountered all manner of problems that eventually led to its demise as a functioning organization. (Its influence and impact continue to varying degrees in today's corporate training and development programs.) Kleiner singles out Edie Seashore, Chris Argyris, and Warren Bennis. Each was determined for NTL to change the world, "and each ran up against Parzival's dilemma. Each had to find a way to act, balancing a new understanding against the old orthodoxy, while the potential for mistakes grew ever higher. Each found a different resolution - a different way of muddling through."

The same can be said for most of the other heretics within Kleiner's lively narrative. He concludes it with the observation that countless other heretics now exist in every organization, "balancing the imperative to do good works with the imperative to keep their jobs and keep earning a living...Perhaps a corporation exists, in the end, precisely for its heretics. Perhaps it's purpose in the long run is to help people to expand their souls and capabilities by providing venues within which people can try things on a large scale - to succeed and fail and thereby change the world."

And perhaps Art Kleiner needed twelve years before writing this second edition, not to change the world but rather - with rigor and eloquence - to reaffirm the great value of corporate heretics in a world in far greater need of them today than did the world he surveyed in 1996.

This book makes the false assumption that corporations 'are here to remake the world.'
The fundamental goal of corporations is profit growth. If that needs a remake of the world, they will do it, otherwise not.
By the way, this is also the aim of consultancy firms and one of the reasons why responsible officers are so suspicious of them, seeing the huge fees involved.
These officers need them if they want to implement their own policies, but need to present them as necessary measures proposed by outsiders.

The author has also no problem with an amoral market: 'selling grain overseas for a better price ... while people in the village were hungry ... You gave up your loyalty to the village for loyalty to an impersonal exchange that ... would better everyone in the long run.'
He forgets that in the short run people in the village (could) starve.

This book treats on the same level, consumer activist Ralph Nader, oil planner Pierre Wack, nonrationalist and LSD-mysticist Willis Harman, futurist Herman Kahn, social psychologist Kurt Lewin, 'kundabuffer' Ivan Gurdjieff, the developers of the 'Managerial Grid' and F-groups or the authors of the Report of the Club of Rome; all this under the superficial dressing of some Middle Age philosophies.

Some ideas developed in this book are important: democratic leadership based on dialogue, group dynamics, the importance of listening and respect, community and self-organized teams, shareholder activism or Jay Forrester's model about the interrelationship between population and economic growth, environment, technology and human aspirations.

It exposes also Herman Kahn's optimistic future where everyone would be affluent and have the chance to be educated. Kahn also didn't foresee the domination of transnational corporations.

All in all, I cannot recommend this book.

N.B. Amfortas has not been wounded by a spear in his groin, but in his genitals.

Reviewing the basically 1970's ingenuity in the business world, Art Kleiner teaches us that many of the lessons and interpretations of that era are amazingly more profound today than then.

Corporations, explained as to their purpose in the beginning, flourished in postwar America They had sense of duty and power. They were inclined not only to make money, but to make societal declarations. And, amid those developmental periods, many of the leaders are referred to as heretics - leaders who change the corporation or the industry of the corporation (usually for the better).

One General Foods leader said, "Don't get stuck (in the changes) on changing General Foods." Instead, the change was to be made on the industry - the greater good.

Among the many experiments in industry was how to use LSD to greaten perspective. "Engineers were particularly good candidates for LSD research. They were often emotionally sensitive men with painful early lives. . . this resulted in the choice of a vocation that dealt with inanimate objects, sparing further emotional pain. LSD was a marvelous tool for discovering and releasing buried feelings." Hmmm.

Many of the factories of the 1960's were run or managed by the engineers. "In the early 1960's. . . you wanted to become an engineer or physicist. In the early 1970's, there were only two appropriate choices: to be an artist or to save the world. . . In the early 1980's, you would set your sights on becoming an investment banker or corporate magnate . . .In the early 1990's, you would be preparing for a career launching some new Internet-driven entrepreneurial enterprise." Interestingly, in these times, the 1970's calling may be returning - and that may well be why this book was edited and republished as the greener world demands "changes" or concepts to "save" the world.

And, as the book focused mostly on the 1970's, the majority of the research was artistic or about saving the world. The intelligentsia created future predicting programs - we would run out of oil, but would change our dependence by 2025. This was made in 1970! These were impressive minds.

Other predictions were created out of sheer genius or happenstance luck. But, the methodology and expertise hint that the former as opposed to the latter is true.

This book's thorough review of the detailed observations made by brilliant people of that generation is both enlightening and refreshing. Businessmen are more than pencil-pushing bottom liners. They show heretical actions by being motivated by things other than corporate profit. Corporations, as displayed here, are good so long as they adapt. And, adaptation usually arises from the heretics who lead the corporate enterprise to do something not previously encouraged by the mainstream.

One similar book on this need for corporate America to adapt and morph to newer and bigger domains is outlined in William Taylor's "Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win." Heretic or maverick, each is what is adored by the respective author for forging business forward.

As a last note, this author is talented. The research is thorough. The development is well organized. This is not a quickly delivered thesis. And, those points alone make this worthwhile reading.

This book should remind anyone of an age to be in a position of significant and high-level corporate change responsibility of opportunity lost. In a societal post-culture where it's stylish to be outlandish, different, revolutionary and heretical, Kleiner illustrates for us the substantive difficulties faced by substantive revolutionary thinkers (and doers!) in developing the plans for socially responsible corporate transformation.

The Age of Heretics is almost unfairly engrossing (I read it in a single sitting). Its superb and nuanced documentation at times reads almost like an additional narrative. And Kleiner's wonderfully accessible writing makes this intellectual history of organizational development speak to those otherwise put off by the cerebral work.

Oddly, those most in need of a recovery of revolutionary spirit or heretical passion - contemporary OD/MD/HR executives- won't read it. After all, even though interesting history, it is still history and those folks are now too busy figuring out what happy face button everyone can wear for the fiscal quarter. On my read, this is the lesson of Kleiner's history; that is, abandoning the revolutionary, hopeful,Pelagian spirit and resignation to work within the system enables the system to eat you.

Also oddly, Kleiner's history will likely be dismissed by socially conscious and critically-minded business/organization/management Marxist academics, as just not explicitly critical enough of the "one-dimensionality," technocracy and precipitous consumerism of the capitalist system, which is of course what identifies the work of McGregor, Lewin and the early NTL'ers as heresy. The lesson from Kleiner's work here is that even small scale revolutionary efforts establish precedents for larger ones, and that it's better to try something than simply continue to pontificate - as academics devoted to studying the corporate organization critically are prone to do.

Consequently, both groups miss a valuable history of the connection between the serious committed efforts to change society through corporate transformation by these early renegades and the larger macro socio-philosiohical pronouncements of counterculture theorists. Indeed, Kleiner's book is voraciously consumed by an audience with a particular spirit. Unfortunately, that is few of us. I suspect I speak for all of us in that audience in suggesting that the sequel - The Hour of Reconstruction - is eagerly awaited.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear

I read this book several years back and was just recommending it again today. I was giving up hope for America every recovering from the abuse of power we were suffering under the BushII administration, I came away realizing that little things done by everyday people do make a difference.

I don't understand why one reviewer thinks this is a "leftist" book. It's about standing up for your rights as a citizen and learning from others who have done the same thing.

I guess people who buy into "be afraid, be very afraid, 9/11, 9/11... if we don't fight them over there they will come here.." won't like this book. But I think that is a very small fringe minority.

Anyone who believes in Democracy and is proud to be an American will understand that our contry and other country's struggles give us common ground.

Received on time and in a very well condition. Very Satified.

Good things are possible, keep at it, it will take a while, but, it is not impossible! Even the review here at Amazon by Ms. Nina Rosenberg shows the uphill distance we have to go. Let's all keep walking, and even invite Ms Rosenberg along, maybe offer her a cup of tea. Anyhow, I loved this book and feel that we need to sometimes focus on what is good, and what HAS been accomplished and try to understand how it was acomplished so that we too may pave the way to greater peace, for all. Yes, not just for the USA, but for all citizens of the world. If you liked this book, I suspect you might also enjoy a book on non-violence called "nonviolence: twenty five lessons" by Mark Kurlansky.

Don't give up, keep at it, keep the faith, ward off despair!

This book managed to be easy to read despite the large amount of information within its pages. I found it to be inspiring without being too heavy, and informative without leaving me wracked with guilt and anxiety.

If you are not already a leftist committed to shoving your ideology down everyone else's throat, don't go anywhere near this book. Utter trash.

Just pick the book up and have fun. It has no philosophical message, although it does deal with a rather vile subject. I really do believe that Parker writes these Jesse Stone novels with Tom Selleck in mind, because you can literally hear Selleck deliver the lines, verbatum from the book. Love to meet Chief Jesse Stone and all the wonderful characters around him. Just pure fun!!!!!

All of the women in this novel are never seen in any way other than sexual. Supposedly professional female police officers are coming on to Jesse Stone over the phone before they even meet him and in conjunction with the story's theme, it makes you wonder if Parker and his editor are a little dense not to see the contradiction between Stone's repugnance at the treatment of the "victim women" in the story and his willing treatment of the "normal women." Jesse Stone needs to end his relationship with his ex-wife if for no other reason than compassion for the reader. They have one of the most vapid, uninteresting relationships around and then they dissect it endlessly. I understand why my husband said he skipped every chapter with the ex-wife in it. It was also tiring of hearing that Stone hadn't had a drink in almost a year--he has the same conversation with every character. First, why would you tell an almost stranger that you're in AA, especially people you are cultivating a professional relationship with? It's not the AA part that is disturbing, but the character's total lack of boundaries and knowing what is too much information to share with a stranger. The state cop says that marriage is tough for cops because they bottle up their emotions and get bitter when their wives are gone and they have no one to talk to. It made me wonder if the guy was paying any attention because Stone can't seem to shut up about how he feels--he blabs about his ex, his drinking, and seeing a shrink. Also Stone isn't a great cop. My first thought when the murder victim and her sisters were introduced was sexual abuse based on their behavior. A good cop would've realized it very early on and no cop says "stat rape" they just say "statutory" because there is no other statutory crime, so everyone knows it is rape. I like the Tom Selleck tv movies of the books, but the books themselves no so great.

Jesse Stone is a strong character. After seeing the TV movies with Tom Selleck, I picture him as I read each book. Tom Selleck is also a strong character, so......why does the author keep up this relationship with the ex-wife. To me it protrays a very weak person. I personally am getting tired of reading about the ex-wife in all the novels, one of whick took place 10 years after the divorce. I would have told Jenn to get lost a long time ago! How do you other readers feel?

Not all that great. Wow did this one drag on! Lot's of story about Jesse and Jenn and whomever they are sleeping with. Lot's about Jesse's therapy. Lot's about Jesse's drinking or not drinking. Not a whole lot about the story. The story itself twists and turns with some dead ends and it seems to take forever to get to the conclusion.

I didn't think much of this one.

This was an easy book to read. The plot was good and easy to follow. The characters were also true to life as was the depiction of a rich, scum filled lifestyle.

The book also had short 'breezy' chapters which made it a quick read, something that I appreciate.

I would highly recommend this item.