change Books

I recommend all books by this author, but I prefer the works of Wang Xiaoping, published by 1stWorld much better.
I also love the fact that the publisher, 1stWorld Library (or 1stWolrd Publishing) has made the text slightly larger which is a blessing for my thirty-something eyes. Great job. I have dozens of books by this publisher.

The Second Declaration
Wild Knowing
Every Day A Miracle Happens
Les Miserables, Volume I & II
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO Vol II
Animal Farm
Planets
American Buddha
Your Star Child: Attracting, Birthing and Parenting an Evolved Soul
The Devil's Disciple

The second book of Toffler's trilogy covers much of the same ground as Fritjof Capra's "The Turning Point" but in a more journalistic and accessible style. Its greatest contribution to modern thought is the powerful metaphor of its title. The Third Wave concept was a metaphor that gave me insight into what had been troubling me about the Jewish condition in general and Zionism in particular. The Jews are a Third Wave people functioning within Second Wave political, ideological and organizational structures. This was the coherent organizing principle of my analysis of the Jewish people in my book "The Optimistic Jew".

All of Alvin Toffler's books yield really useful insights and are well worth your time.
I have read every one in the series including revolutionary wealth and this book "The Third Wave".
No matter what you do for a living or who you are you will benefit from enhancing your world view and your grasp of reality by reading this.
I think there is no doubt that the forward looking aspects of these books are really firmly grounded in the truth.

No doubt about it - this book is one for the ages. It offers a great overview of Modern Western Society (mainly the U.S.) ca 1980-2000. In this work, Alvin and Heidi Toffler cover almost every major trend known to them at the time.

But there's more - A LOT more. The authors also take the reader on a historical journey through the Industrial Revolution and explore all of its effects on society. Their first-rate story of how industrial production transformed the world - economically, politically and socially, is not to be missed. This is the kind of material that should be taught in schools everywhere. While it's true that the Tofflers are known as "futurists", the bulk of The Third Wave goes elsewhere. Indeed. they act as three different writers in one volume - historical sociologists, current-world macro sociologists (they don't go deep into any one area, they do the whole ball of wax) and finally, futurists. They even offer opinion (a "what to do") concerning our political and educational systems. Quite some cover !!

But this could hurt them as well - some readers probably won't like this survey-all approach of history, current trends and future predictions. In this sense, I would agree. I awarded the book five stars due to the historical information it provides and for its outline of important things, social and otherwise, happening in our society today. A separate book covering predictions would have been the better thing to do. And the excessive length of this work is also a problem - the authors take too long to make a point. This especially with the "new corporations" topic - the sheer number of times they mention how companies will "shrink" in size, how they'll be cutting "middle layers", etc. All of these points could have been distilled into one (brief) chapter.

Then those predictions. Like Nostradamus, they make many - probably TOO many. Were they trying to look great in the future by "covering" many areas ? After all, you're bound to get SOME things right. I don't know their intentions....but I do know that some of their predictions have indeed come true while others have not....but WILL someday. Then there are those that haven't happened and most likely never will. In the "they were right" category - fiber optics, "linked" computers, e-mail, "narrowcasting" (though music radio had already begun to splinter, their insight still deserves noting), "aqua-culture", cloning, genetic engineering, mapping the Earth by satellite, corporate downsizing and the coming wave of micro-electronics....all of these came to light. They did mention other things like cable TV, video games, video-tape recording, the do-it-yourself movement, the back-to-nature movement and the rise of the "trans-national" corporation. But these were already happening at the time, albeit in small numbers, while the fomer-mentioned items were not.

As for the things that still haven't, but nevertheless WILL happen someday are "new" schools, clean energy, speech recognition, work from home, flex-time, growing human organs and "altering" the brain's chemistry. And one more - China - still not a pluralistic democracy, its economy has gone capitalistic with free markets soaring. The Tofflers said this type of "marriage" between political structure and economy could not last very long....it has so far in China.

Finally, their false points and "wrong" predictions. First is the theory that "crisis" situations erupt when one society transforms into another. Well, it's true....look at the ribbon machine "smashers" in the 1600's and the U.S. Civil War in 1800's - this does happen. But we also had panics, depressions and World Wars DURING the last major society to hit mankind - the Industrial Revolution. Additionally, there are some things that used to be seen as a crisis but no longer are - like divorce. This crisis-during-change theme mischaracterizes the significance of them, especially when compared to other, far more serious eruptions. Rounding out the "wrong" list: major U.S. cities will become a thing of the past, Western Europe is "unlikely" to become a great power (it would become a great political and economic power), Germany will become THE power in Europe (it turned out to be shared), paper money will disappear, the Catholic Church will become more powerful, young people will grow up faster and become more mature, the U.S. will be "innovative" in art. Also: "sub-economies" will develop, "new" religions will appear, the number of years in compulsory schooling will decline, they'll be a "fundamental change" in the role of woman (yes, they're working out of the home more...but...they are still mothers, will always love to shop and tend to that flower garden !!). Not to be left out, "old" social centers like the pub or the prom, will lose significance, homes will become "adult-centered" (vs. the child-centered homes of years past - it would actually become a blend of both), ethnic and racial tensions will "multiply" (it would become a single-race issue in the U.S. - black vs. black, etc. while political, not ethnic, tensions would rise elsewhere in the world). Finally, space manufacturing and oceanic "floating factories" - never happened, nor will they because of something the Tofflers NEVER MENTIONED in The Third Wave or in their next book, Powershift - Nano-technology.

Two more things. First is their idea that the U.S. should take on a "new form" of democracy - one that incorporates direct (citizen) vote. Well, there are two reasons why this is unlikely to happen, although I hope I am wrong. One is the fact that we can't change the U.S. Constitution - The Framers made this virtually impossible to do. Next is the fact that political decisions in America's future will likely become more, not less, complicated. This puts the average American at odds from becoming political participants, being that they won't (in all due respect) understand the issues deep enough to make an informed decision. A "crash coarse" just won't do. As bad as the leaders in America are today, it would be even worse if the average working person got into the national political arena.

Last is an issue that was brought up by the authors in this book but then got fleshed-out in more detail in their next book, Powershift. It's their statement that the main struggle in the future will be over "the control and distribution of knowledge". This simply won't be the case....because it CAN'T happen, thanks to the Internet. Yes, certain governments (like China's) will try to control information but still, this is not The Central Concern of Tommorro. If anything, controlling knowledge was a thing of THE PAST, not the future (before Freedom of Information, M.D.s "controlling" medical knowledge, etc). More ideas and knowledge can only hurt those already in power and since the bulk of humanity is not in this position, the floodgates shall stay open.....to all of our benefit.

In the end, a great book, despite its overlength. Even if just for the first part, which covers all the effects of industrialism, this book is a must-read. We ALL live in the modern world, right ? So why not learn, in large part, how it came to be.....

Here are my notes

The government was the great accelerator. Because of its coercive power and tax revenues, it could do things that private enterprise could not afford to undertake. Government could hot up the industrialization process by stepping in to fill emerging gaps in the system - before it became possible or profitable for private companies to do so. Government could perform anticipatory integration. By setting up mass education systems, government helps to engineer youngsters for their future roles in the industrial work force (hence, in effect, subsidizing industry)

Without political integration, economic integration was impossible. Distributors wanting to sell goods over territory outside their own communities ran into different duties, taxes, labor regulations, and currencies. Distributors would have to consolidate with local economy and political consolidation as well

The unification/ integration of political system and economic system led to the division of world into distinct national units. As each government sought to extend its market and its political authority, it came up against outer limits - language differences, cultural, social, geographic, and strategic barriers. The available transport, communication, and energy supplies, the productivity of its technology, all set limits on how large an area could be effectively ruled by a single political structure. The sophistication of accounting procedures, budgetary controls, and management techniques also determined how far political integration could reach.
Within these limits, the integrational elites, corporate and government alike, fought for expansion. The broader the territory under their control and the bigger the economic market area, the greater their wealth and power became. As each nation stretched its economic and political frontiers to the utmost, it ran up not merely against these inherent limits but also against rival nations

Imperialism - negotiations between centre and peripheral was often totally lopsided. Often local rulers or entrepreneurs were simply bought off by the Westerners, offered bribes or personal gain in return for sweating the native labor force, putting down resistance, or rewriting local laws in favor of the outsiders. Once conquering a colony, the imperial power often set preferential raw-material prices for its own businessmen and erected stiff barriers to prevent the traders of rival nations from bidding prices up.
Many raw material needed by Westerners were virtually valueless to the local populations who had them.

Geography was embedded in our voting systems. Elected officials are representatives of the inhabitants of a particular piece of land; a geographical district. Political systems assume that people would remain in one locality all their lives. Hence the prevalence of residency requirements in voting regulations

Synchronization. Standardization. Linearization. They affected the root assumptions of the civilization and they brought massive changes in the way ordinary people handled time in their lives. But if time itself was transformed, space, too, had to be repackaged to fit into the new indust-reality.
Spatially extensive to spatially restrictive existence
Schedules - by synchronizes social interaction and coordinates social activity it sets limits to them

Today's corporate critics attack the artificial divorce of economics from politics, morality and the other dimensions of life. They hold the corporation increasingly responsible for, not merely for its economic performance but for its side effects - environmental, social, informational, political, and moral. Corporate executives are now required to pay attention to multiple bottom lines. A corporation is no longer simply responsible for making profit or producing goods but for simultaneously contributing to the solution of extremely complex ecological, moral, political, racial, sexual, and social problems. In this finely strung socio-sphere, corporate decisions are closely scrutinized. Social pollution produced by the corporation in the form of unemployment, community disruption, forced mobility, and the like is instantly spotted, and pressures are placed on the corporation to assure far greater responsibility than ever before for its social, as well as economic, products.
The new importance of information leads to conflict over the control of corporate data - battles over disclosure of more information to the public, demands for open accounting, more pressure for truth in advertising, or truth in lendings.

Rise of the do it yourself industry reasons. Inflation. The difficulty of getting a carpenter or plumber. Shoddy work. Expanded leisure. All these play a part. A more potent reason is what might be called the Law of Relative Inefficiency. This holds that the more we automate the production of goods and lower their per unit cost, the more we increase the relative cost of handcrafts and nonautomated services. For such reasons, we must expect the price of many services to continue their skyrocketing climb in the years ahead. And as these prices soar, we can expect people to do more and more for themselves. In short, even without inflation, the Law of Relative Inefficiency would make it increasingly profitable for people to produce for their own consumption.

With the emergence of multinational corporations, the organization of independent sovereign states is now being overlaid by a network of economic institutions. With their ability to shunt billions back and forth instantly across national boundaries, their power to deploy technology and to move relatively quickly, they have often outflanked and outrun national governments.

For industrialization to operate successfully in third world nations traditional family and marriage customs, religion, and role structure would all have to be crushed, the entire culture ripped up by its roots

Configuration - The relatively concentration mass media. Individuals were continually encouraged to compare themselves to a relatively small number of role models, and to evaluate their life styles against a few preferred possibilities. In consequence, the range of socially approved personality styles was relatively narrow. The demassification of media presents a dazzling diversity of role models and life style for one to measure oneself against. Moreover, the new media do not feed us fully formed chunks, but broken chips and blips of imagery. Instead of being handed a selection of coherent identities to choose among, we are required to piece one together: a configurative or modular me. This is far more difficult, and it explains why so many millions are desperately searching for identity.

This book is for the third edition, not the forth in case anyone couldn't tell, but a lot of the problems are the same (a little different order) It wasn't as helpful as I had hope'd since it only has the solutions for the odds, and the odds are already in the back of the book. However, it was nice to see the work on a few problems for which the back of the book had just listed the final answer for. For me it was worth buying, esp with the extremely low used book price.

You know this is not a subject that I know a whole lot about...though I do profess some interest and curiosity about the reasons why people choose gender reassignment surgery. Mostly I was interested in exploring the why's and if's about gender and the myriad of choices and ways of being that people encounter and deal with or embrace in their lives. I wasn't sure what to expect...and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this book, but I've finished reading it and it's time to write down my thoughts about it. First and foremost, this is a book that doesn't just rehash the same debates one sees nearly everywhere these days about how little Tommy can play with dolls and Sally can play with cars or how Molly can be a doctor and Biff can be a nurse...this goes beyond what's considered politically correct or "allowable" excursions outside the comfort zone of the tribe. In Gender Outlaw Borenstein really tries to examine why we need gender at all and how gender is really determined in today's societies, she looks both backward and forward with regards to this issue in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Gender Outlaw is a strange blend of biography and gender theory written with a theatrical flair. The author is really not looking to redefine gender so much as she is looking to toss it out altogether, in favor of a gender model that is more dynamic and fluid. Now for what I didn't like about the book...well, I do understand that the author is an artist and performer at heart, but I read because I LIKE to read and while I like most of what I read to be entertaining and informative, I DON'T like to have to struggle to read it because the author thought it would be interesting and creative to create columns and make the reader have to read from side to side skipping about on the page. There is a serious lack of continuity in the format of the text that makes it a bear to read. Everything does not have to be performance; everything does not have to be art. Sometimes a book should just be a book. Outside of that, I enjoyed reading Gender Outlaw, I think the author wanted to reach the mainstream and this book is certainly readable and accessible to the general public...now if we could just get them to read it and open their minds to the ideas presented. Borenstein certainly got there with me, as I had no quarrel with the gender I've been assigned, but it certainly gave me lots of food for thought and I'll probably never think of gender the same way again. I give it a 4 stars (3.5 really, but since Amazon doesn't allow ½ stars, I'll settle for 4, round up instead of down).

I so wish I had read this book at 30 years of age. I so wish everyone would read this book.
Kate Bornstein is right. There simply is no gender. Anima, animus.
Sometimes we do need to have our ideas challenged. I am happy to have had my old ideas changed by this book. It seems to have given me answers for so many vague questions I had in my mind.
Valuable book for heterosexual ppl and homosexual ppl. Valuable book for ppl.

Gender Outlaw is considered a classic and a step forward. And it is, annoyingly.

A lot of her fearless theory, proto-GenderQueer, I believe is totally right on - and certainly harmonizes with my ideal of Permanent Transition. Yet Bornstein, with her conventional SRS, might not the most compelling proponent of smashing the binary chains. Like Trotsky, Bornstein has a populist (often gimmicky) style in which to place her epistemology and, like Trotsky, Bornstein is a tireless self-publicist: Just how many times does the reader need to know she appeared on the Geraldo Show?

Kinda the right book, by the wrong author.

This is an amazing, amazing book. It's easy to read, engaging, and the tone is casual but the content is rich and nuanced - both accesible and intelligent. If you only read three books in your life, this should be one of them. I'm not exaggerating.

The format of this book makes it real hard to read and detracts greatly from the content. Your eyes have to dart from one side of a page to the other and back again then to the middle. The content is important but on the edge of the spectrum which makes it even more difficult to read at times with the far fetched concepts. I'm not a big fan of this one.

I ordered the book for a class I'm taking. I find the book to be very interesting and it keeps my interest. Key points that I need to know are included in the text. Excellently written.

The book's content is precise, to the point and not repetitive in hard to understand grammer. The context was really reliable for the course I am currently taking. The chapters are not long and drawn out yet the examples the author uses are up-to-date, on point and target. I truly liked this book because it is a great read outside of higher education.

Kim Klein is a nationally known expert in the area of fundraising, and demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of fundraising in the book. She presents the information in an easy to understand format, and shares her expertise in a motivational manner. I highly recommend this book, even if you have been in fundraising for a number of years.

This is a must read for any staff member of a small not for profit organization. It's a bit freeky how she knows so much about my group, and then cuts to the chase on how to address the problems identified.

I love this book. It's been around for a while in one form or another. Currently it is in its 5th revision. And with each revision the author has refined it. As a result, it is very well written and outlined. It is also really good because the author is a fundraising practitioner and teaches what she does. She really knows her stuff when it comes to fundraising. At least that's the impression I get from reading her book.

Fundraising at a nonprofit, whether large or small, is basically a profit center. It's a business! This book treats it as a business and has the feel of a startup guide for that business. As a SCORE volunteer believe me when I say this book has the feel of a startup guide; I've read my fair share of startup guides for for-profits and counseled enough wanta-be entrepreneurs on how to start a business. This book is a startup guide.

So how is this book a startup guide? Well, it advocates preparing a written fundraising plan BEFORE you put together your fundraising office and start raising funds. It describes a "fundraising framework" that you must understand before you can prepare a sound and successful plan. Then it tells you about time-tested strategies for acquiring and keeping donors - the strategies that will enable your nonprofit to build a foundation or base of donors from which all successful fundraising will emanate. And next it tells you about the time-tested strategies for upgrading donors so they will (or can be expected to) give larger gifts as time moves forward. There are also sections that explain how to setup and manage a fundraising office, and how to prepare a budget and write a fundraising plan.

The book could have stopped there. That's all that a startup really needs to know and do to be successful at raising sufficient funds to provide its services and distribute its products. However, the author tells us more. She talks about feasibility studies and capital campaigns. And she talks about actually being a professional fundraiser, and about special or unique circumstances where traditional fundraising methods don't always work well.

I really have only one problem with this book. I would like it so much better if the author would change its title to something like - A Fundraising Startup Guide: The Nuts and Bolts to Building a Successful Fundraising Profit Center. I realize the author's background is in helping cash-strapped nonprofits that advocate social change, and that this book was initially created to help her help those organizations (and herself). But the book is not merely about nonprofits that advocate social change. And I wish the title would properly reflect what the book covers. 5 stars!

When dealing with a deeply-entrenched culture that has to change to keep up with the world around it, this book can be a huge inspiration for managers. I have seen it work first-hand without destroying the company, yes, even strengthening it and giving it "permission" to look at things with fresh eyes.

However, I can see some of the critics' points in that it doesn't give tools and it advises some confrontational techniques. However, I would hazard a guess that the authors expected the readers to already have a well thought out plan. There IS a reason that the book is vague in that regards.

As to the reader who criticized the writing level: I didn't find it to be overly simplistic or offensive. If one has spent any time in a marketing or teaching environment, they will know that the key to learning and changing behavior is repetition.

Perhaps the loudest critics of this book belong in the 30% who are anti-change?

Depending on the current state of you company's climate and/or culture, this book can provide some very poigniant insight as to how to manage yourself and your teams. The concepts and principles are dynamic, hard hitting, and thought provoking. I highly recommend this quick and easy read, if you presently find yourself in the midst of a cultural evolution.

This is perhaps the worst example I have encountered of terrible advice, wrapped in a package of nonsensical and even self-contradictory aphorisms. This is par for this sort of "book" (it's not a book, it's a pamphlet) - what is unusual is how violent the language of the book is... nothing like trodding over and destroying those who don't understand your vision for organization change. The book presents untestable hypotheses, uncited claims, and essentially no tools or mechanisms for actually doing the things they instruct you to do (not that anyone should do anything these authors suggest). If your organization is passing this book around, you should strongly consider whether this is an organization that values rational thought - and thus whether you should work there. Sad that you can't give negative stars - this book will hurt your organization.

Unfortunately the manager at my company adopted the philosophy of this handbook. Since then, moral has taken a severe drop, senior employees have left and we've been investigated by outside sources for questionable practices. I have never read a book that promotes such ineffective methods of employee development. This book is trash!

If a fourth grader had written at this level I'd send them back to third grade. Follow up the poor writing with an approach which can only be described as derived from brainwashing techniques, and you come up with a book that is more painful to read than undergoing Chinese Water Torture. The writer bombards the reader with poorly worded rephrasings of the same thing, again and again. He throws the rephrasings at the reader multiple times. The author switches his words around and repeats the same premise over and over. Get the idea.

On TOP of this, the premises seem to go along the lines of:
Change is good.
Change must happen.
Promote Change.
If people don't like your change get rid of them.

There is no consideration given to analysis, progress, fixing actual problems. The upper level manager at my company who promoted this book also cost our company more than $31 Million because she was addicted to changing things. I call that sort of thing a Legacy change, as in "look at what a good job I did, I changed things." It promotes change over results. Change for change sake does not equal progress.

This book is even more painful than an Ayn Rand novel.

Crimmon's book was heart-wrenching to read. The story of her husband's TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) and the after effects of it on her life, his life and their daughter have to be read to be understood. I can't do it justice. She keeps a good sense of humor throughout the book but there is certainly an underlying cynical and bitter tone throughout. Not that I can blame her. It's real. It's life and a it ain't pretty. Personally, after reading this I literally wanted to make all my loved ones wear helmets each day after reading about the hell that TBI can put a family through.

We read this book for book club and we all loved it. Only now I understand what my cousin and his family have gone through after he had an bicycle accident and was in a coma for three days. The writer clearly describes the pain and anguish she and her daughter went through. I admire her absolute commitment to her husband and getting him back on his feet and back to a "regular" life. This is a great and informational book to read for everybody who comes into contact with a person with brain injury.

I found this account of a severe brain injury and the bumpy road to recovery very moving. I ask will there be more to Cathy and her husband's experiences
written as a memoir at some later date? Maybe not this book was published in September 2000. Worth the read!

I read this book in four nights, right before bed. I tore through it like no other memoir before. This book, for me, was like reading my own parents' memoir. My father suffered a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) when I was four/five years old. Of course, so much of what was available to the author's husband was simply not around 45 years ago. I understand so much more why my father acted the way he did for the remaining 16 years of his life. This book is powerful. It is honest, raw, intense, lighthearted at times, funny, sad, well written and easy to read (though the subject matter is quite painful at times)... an all around excellent book. I am so glad that I read it, and plan to keep this one.

An honest telling of head injury and what family will experience.

I was shocked at what her daughter, Kelly, was exposed to - I have since read that the author now regrets this. Rehab is NO PLACE for children - or an endless stream of friends. I am sad that her husband's privacy was taken away in order to project 'normalcy' or the authors belief in emotional honesty. She should have protected her husband and her daughter. THIS is the time when you close the door to the world outside and tend to your family - as best you can.

I feel for the author. How quickly the nurses/non-doctors put forth a 'professional opinion' about brain injury. As I often say: Everybody wants to be a doctor, nobody want to go to medical school. You have to see brain injury over a long span of time, which is years and decades. A nurse who sees them admitted and discharged knows next to nothing, unless personally affected.

The beginning of the story was confusing to me because the marriage had so little intimacy. The parents were 2 ships in the night and then they had a child. This little girl was utterly alone through a waking nightmare. I hope she finds the support that she will need as she grows up.

Eventually, the author acknowledges her lack of connection to husband and child and explains herself in a way that is somewhat satisfying.

I appreciate her honesty in the discussion on disinhibition. You can count on it happening and it's real hard to explain to people - especially when you have to.

Worth reading, though disturbing in ways the author may not have intended.

Millionaire in 365 Days: The Daily Plan to Get There

A revealing expose....and so simple an idiot can fix it...but wait the unions do not want that....so we have a mediocre system that is beat out by many other countries...a good education on the educational SYSTEM.

While Hirsch does a good job of listing most of the trends in public school education, he does a truly dismal job of explaining why they don't work. In fact, even though I lean towards more traditional learning, I thought he was so off base with his reasons as to *why* this or that educational technique doesn't work, that actually I found I agreed in several cases with his opponents, which I don't think was the aim of his book, lol.

For example, he doesn't like project-based learning, or cooperative (small group) education. He feels they're inefficient. Well, they're not inefficient if done correctly, where each student is assigned an equally difficult and important task, and the teacher keeps on top of things, individually grading each student independently of the project, and the students in the group are similar in terms of intelligence, skill, and work ethic.

However, what *really* happens, and why they don't work (which he does not mention) is that most teachers use these techniques during class as babysitting devices so they can grade papers or do other paperwork or go on break. The smarter and/or harder working students, because they don't want their grades to suffer, end up doing all of the work and the slackers skate by with a good grade because the teacher only grades the total project. The smarter students also wind up actually teaching the other students for a good deal of the school day, which gee, I thought that was what TEACHERS are paid to do.

He even fails to list that the best reason to continue with the "traditional" classroom where teacher talks and students listen is that it is often the most efficient way to get information across to large groups of people. How could he miss that?

He mentions that in Asian classrooms students are typically given an overview of exactly what they will learn in a class session. Well, go to any seminar and probably 95% of them are taught that way, because you have really large groups of people and only one instructor. Most lower-division college classes (especially those held in large auditoriums) are taught this way.

However, these classes only work if students are well-behaved (often not the case in K-12) and everyone in the class is assumed to have the ability to learn the new information with little or no follow-up (which again is often not the case in K-12). In these types of classes, the teacher (or indeed, anyone who can read the lesson plan) simply presents the information, which is hardly "teaching", by any stretch of the imagination.

The chief value in this book lies primarily in the glossary, which provides a wealth of buzzwords for the homeschooling parent to jazz up any district-required homeschool record-keeping.

There are printing errors on pages 121, 124, and 132 of the paperback edition - including repeated and truncated sentences, misplaced quotes, and truncated paragraphs. I have contacted the publisher, and advise others to check before they purchase. I found the same errors on three paperback copies, from three retailers, in two states.

I love the premise of this book, and have found a clean, hardcover copy without errors.

The only thing more inflated than grades in today's public schools is self-esteem. How a student feels about what he thinks he or she is learning is considered far more important than whether that child is learning anything at all. Considering the millions of public school graduates who can only be described as functionally illiterate, it's apparent that almost half of public school students aren't learning much of anything. As Hirsch explains, this is because the government's education system is no longer concerned with teaching facts (historical, scientific, grammar, reading & writing skills, etc.). They're more concerned with kids having fun, which ensures no one's feelings get hurt by getting a low grade on a test or writing assignment. His book makes a strong argument for classical education where content knowledge from core courses like English, math, science and history is emphasized, rather than modern educators' bloated rhetoric of "learning about learning" or teaching "critical thinking skills" when students don't have enough facts to think clearly about anything. It is a fact that public school students who are taught using classical rather than modernist teaching strategies perform better on standardized tests, but the elitists progressives who support these modern strategies will argue that standardized tests only reflect one aspect of what a child is learning. I say these tests also point out what a child is NOT learning, which is all the more reason to support a return to classical education. And since public schools are controlled by the above modernists, that's not likely to happen, which is why I strongly encourage parents to remove their kids from public schools right now. Put them in a privite or Christian school, most all of which follow classical teaching methods, or you can home school your kids yourself using a classical curriculum. It's not as difficult or expensive as you might think, but it's far cheaper than what it'll cost you to leave your child in the government's care.

A long time ago, a well known theorist of education - John Dewey - decried certain "dualisms" in education. Schools, in other words, should not put all of their educational eggs in one basket by focusing either SOLELY on teaching factual recall or SOLELY on teaching students how to think. Schools should do both and avoid the idea that the two can be seperated. Thinking, in Dewey's mind, was dependent on factual knowledge and factual knowledge was useless without a mind trained to think about it.

Hirsch's book is written amongst a steady tide of educational thought that has forgotten this most basic insight. Most educators today believe the primary goal of education to be promotion of critical thinking and creative expression at the expense of fact-b ased instruction, which is often decried as 'mindless repitition of facts.' (In my education classes, I often hear it referred to as the 'three R's' - read, remember, regurgitate.')

In this sense, the thesis of Hirsch's book - that critical thinking and creative expression MUST be accompanied by firm, factual understanding - is a very Deweyan idea. And Hirsch makes a good case, both philosophically and scientifically.

The first half of the book is the more philosophical half. First, Hirsch traces the ideological roots of the 'learning as a social, constructivist enterprise' theory. Owing to the work of a handful of theorists in and around the 1930's, the 'learn from the bottom up' approach (facts first, then higher-order reflection) became replaced by a "bottom down" approach that sees learning as more holistic and constructivistic.

Next, Hirsch shows that by most any measure, these ideas have failed - ever since their inception in the '30's - to produce any improvement in the United State's educational situation. More than that, while these 'reforms' flounder in the public schools, those schools that still hold to a fact-based rigorous educational model - private schools and universities - continue to thrive. So, is it any wonder that we might find reason to question whether these reforms have done more harm than good?

But, as Hirsch points out next, not only are these ideas not questioned within the education establishment, they are simply treated as common sense - even in the light of their repeated failure to deliver on their promises.

AS a masters student in Special Education and a first year teacher, this was a pertinent section for me. I can see the dominance of the constructivist model not only in the school where I teach, but permeating every inch of the Graduate School which I attend. We are taught EXCLUSIVELY in the constructivist approach and the more fact-based approach only comes up when we talk about how things used to be (ah...those draconians!).

Finally, we get to the meat of Hirsch's case. The last third of the book presents the data. While most of the alleged data supporting the constructivist approach boils down to philosophy dressed in the language of science, the data supporting the other, more fact-based approach, consists of numerous studies that independently come to the same conclusion - that fact-based, large-group, disciplined instruction, rather than the more free-form, constructivist, small group approach, wins the day more often than not.

Of course, as I have not done any exhaustive reasearch on this subject, I cannot say that there is NO research to support a constructivist approach. But I can attest that many articles in support of constructivism are thinly veiled philosophizing under the guise of sceintific research, the quality of which would be laughed at in any journal with scholarly standards. (Unfortunately, education journals don't seem to have very high publishing standards.)

My only complaint about this book - and it is a big one - is that Hirsch really should have focused more on the scientific case against a wholly constructivist approach.It may be true that the science supports a more fact-based approach, but, if so, he should rebut it more with science than his own philosophy. Otherwise, he is only doing what he alleges others of doing - being a partisan to philosophy rather than data. If the data is as staggering as he suggests, he shold show it rather than relegate it to the last third of his book.

Be that as it may, this book is sorely needed in an educational world that has been trying the same thing over and over (under new names every few years) only to find that it doesn't work. Perhaps we should take a cue from the schools that are working - private schools, universities, and the pulbic schools of other countries. Of course, if we did that, we might have to admit that Hirsch, and Dewey, are right; education is not worth much without factual rigor.

If you are concerned about change and need more and better arguments, techniques, tools and experience to do, this book is the best option. Great analysis and very solid in theory and practice. I Like so much.

Very good book if you are interested in human resource. Shows lots of good examples and is very easy to read and understand.

Now in a completely updated and significantly expanded second edition, "Organization Change: Theory And Practice" by W. Warner Burke (Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he also serves as the Chair of the Department of Organization and Leadership) continues to be esteemed and recommended as a graduate school level text for university course work in the disciplines of industrial psychology, business administration, and organizational behavior. An invaluable resource for understanding and analyzing organizations be they corporate, governmental, or academic, this edition of "Organizational Change" is enhanced with a new chapter on 'Transformational Leadership' covering the fundamentals of leadership compared with management, transformational leadership, and the roles/responsibilities of the change leader. Also of note is the illuminating discussion on theories for understanding organization and change; as well as the evolutionary and revolutionary aspects of organization change. Professor Burke analytically discusses the nature of change and how organizational change is initiated by changing behavior, but not (as is commonly supposed) changes in mental sets or attributes. Enhanced with the inclusion of theoretical and illustrative models, as well as a model of meticulous and articulate scholarship, "Organizational Change" should be a part of every academic library reference collection and is especially recommended reading for students of the role of leadership in organizational evolution.

I found this book to be boring and slow at parts, but educational. It was an assigned read for a Human Services class, and I would not have read it on my own if I didn't have to.

I had to buy this book and use it for a class. I find the book to be filled with a wide range of simple common sense theories. It is not a book I would recommend to anyone if they are looking for clear and valuable techniques to utilize there has to be something better then this.

It's obvious with so few reviews written they were more than likely written by acquaintances of the authors. One particular author of this book sticks out in my mind as questionable and that would be Ron Fournier. I have read his journalistic diatribes in the past and as he is a reporter for the Associated Press, in my opinion he is less than impartial and more biased toward the liberal stance. It's one thing to publish the Truth but another to slant the Truth. This review in no way is intended to lessen the credibility of the other authors of the book as they may be sincere in their work and I'm not all that familiar with their other work.

I bought Applebee's America when it came out in 2006 but I just now got around to reading it. I'm sorry I waited so long, but the book took me less than a week to read and I do feel that it was worth it.

The authors took liberty in creating terms like Gut Values and Navigators. However, I don't know that they created these terms as much as they used new, quirky words to say the same thing. The authors referred to a book called The Influentials many times throughout. I wonder if I should have read that book first. The Influentials is also a good example of what I mean when I say that the authors didn't really create terms, as they basically called previously known Influentials, Navigators.

There was some overkill with some of the concepts, especially the concept of community and the phrase "people want to belong to a community".

Some of the chapters were fascinating and that made them very quick to read. As others have said here on amazon, the "history" of the megachurches was incredily interesting. The authors did do some serious work to write AA. While they did use a lot of prevously published sources and they document them well, they also did a good number of interviews. If you're looking for a lot of answers or a place to go for them, this book will guide you to a plethora of sources.

Fast read, easy to understand the concepts being presented, good examoples of gaining a following and how it was done in each case.

By examining developments in business, church and politics, the author opens a fascinating view on how people respond to belonging, form community, and make relationships in our new age, and how new communication methods and deliberate efforts by institutions to use them are re-shaping traditional processes and systems, and yielding remarkable success. As a new political leader who thought he understood how these things worked, it opened my eyes (once again) to an ever-changing world. Highly recommended. It will get you thinking ... a lot!

I enjoyed this book overall. The Navigators were an especially compelling article included. It reminded me of DuBois and The Talented Tenth and that a few people often make decisions for the entire community. I especially liked the section on Generation 9/11. As a grad student I intend to study this generation and this gives me a great starting point. One of the things I disliked was the linking of church, community, restaurants and many other points that were not covered enough or should be covered with additional books. Each topic deserved more coverage but I understand why he was trying to link them all. It seemed a little cluttered. Overall it is a well written book and I am sure it will be assigned to participation classes in the future. I give a grade of B.

If you haven't stumbled into Bill McKibben's work, do. He is very good at asking questions and clearly explicating his search for answers. THE END OF NATURE explores the unavoidable truth that the wild only exists at the whim of humankind these days. Whether we micromanage a game park, use a wetland as a water filter, or call an area "wilderness" and more or less keep our hands off, everything everywhere is impacted by our activities. A thoughtful and not unhopeful book, this one will make you see "nature" differently.

As relavent today as it was in 1989 and when combined with Deep Economy gives you something to ponder.

This would've been a five-star review if this book were about 10-12 years newer than it is. In some ways, McKibben's extended essay on global warming has aged very well. His central thesis that nature is ended (not destroyed but removed of majesty or even neutered) by the overwhelming pressures of human industrial society and human overpopulation is as relevant now as it ever was, the truth of this argument more evident every day. And global warming, the central thread of his argument, is even more pressing today, even though we in the United States are doing even less about it. Though some of his worst fears have yet to come true, the reality of global climate change is bad enough, as underscored by the recent report on rapid climate change in arctic regions.

In other ways, though, the book seems dated. A lot of what McKibben writes about is uncertain. "It could be that in 50-100 years..." or "our models are very uncertain but..." and so on. The last 15 years have seen a lot of research in this area and a a great deal of refinement of our climate models, such that we know have a much more certain picture of the realities of climate change. This is real. It is happening, and it's happening quickly. Unfortunately, the greater uncertainty in our understanding of this at the time McKibben was writing undercuts his message somewhat, that we must learn to curb our desires and live more humbly if we wish to avoid the worst consequences of global warming. Were his argument bolstered by more modern research, I think he would have a much easier time outlining some real steps we as a society could take to deal with global warming.

Still, the issues McKibben raises and the ideas he presents for how we can deal with them are as pressing now as they were in 1989, perhaps even more so. Anyone who is at all concerned about global warming, the environment, or even just living beyond the next 30 years or so would do well to read this book.

Bill McKibben's beautifully written and cogently reasoned analysis of how humans are damaging the world we share with all other life is must-reading. He shares with readers a respect for Nature---truly wild, untouched Nature---that is personal, emotional, reverential, and spiritual. That respect is contagious. We need to hear voices like his. His book strengthens our will to take the difficult but essential steps to slow global warming. He urges us to be good stewards of the earth.

The good news: "The End of Nature" was a truly prophetic book when it was published in 1989. Eloquent and well-intentioned, it was one of the first books aimed at a general audience to discuss global warming and deep ecology. It may even have influenced public opinion, if not public policy.

The bad news: "The End of Nature" is meandering, journalistic, and full of 20-year old science. Even worse, it's main Big Idea doesn't seem true. McKibben believed that man's ability to change the climate would eventually make it impossible for anyone to see nature as quasi-sacred and independent of human meddling. In reality, man's respect for nature will surely increase, not diminish, as the earth warms up. Coastlines will disappear, hurricanes slam into cities, and summers sizzle. Whatever else global warming will do, it will humble mankind.

The bottomline: "The End of Nature" has earned a place in the canon of environmental literature alongside classics like "Silent Spring." Every environmental library should have a copy of it. However, there's no compelling reason why general readers in 2007 should devote much time to it.