Book Description
This book is a straightforward introduction to the complex, multidimensional field of public health and how it functions in modern day America.
Customer Reviews:
Never Received.......2007-10-11
Never received book, inquired about a refund and was told I would be refunded but have not been. This is all a month after the original order.
If you really want to know how the public health system works...buy this book!.......2007-06-09
Informative, scholarly presentation detailing the roles, responsibilities, and goals of the public health system from the federal agencies to the health department in your home town. Useful graphs and resources.
Inaccurate and vapid.......2004-05-05
If you've ever had any actual experience in public health, you will probably recognize this book for the sham it really is. Public health systems in the real world just don't behave in the idealized way that Turnock describes. Moreover, Turnock is far too uncritical of HMOs, which consitently fail to provide actual assitance (not just theoretical assistance) to patients who need it. There is also no understanding at all here about the ways in which class differences affect dstribution of health care coverage, or any discussion of what we might be able to do about it.
The reader is left with a blinkered and rather utopian model of our current public health system - one that glosses over existing problems and presents only the most simplistic assessments. You might learn something if you're just beginning your public health studies, but for the rest of us, this book just isn't worth its exorbitant price tag.
Wow..........2000-10-13
Boy, I'm surprised at the reaction the book is getting! I have this book, and it's really quite good - I'm an MS-Epidemiology candidate, and it's really helped me with the fundamentals of the field. Incidentally, in response to the implication that Dr. Turnock is less than qualified to put forth an effort such as this, you might want to investigate that, you can find his impressive accompishments at the school's website. Board certified in Preventive Medicine and Public Health, and former director of the IDPH, to name a few? Sounds qualified to me. I'd recommend this book to any PH student or someone looking to learn the basics...I don't hesitate to rank this right up there with Gordis. Cheers!
Good guide to understanding Public Health.......1999-12-09
This book really tells us what the Public Health is and how it works, as the title suggests. Even though data or statistics cited are somewhat outdated, you can understand the fundamental meaning of PH.
Amazon.com
"Science," writes physicist Gregory Derry, "is the active and creative engagement of our minds with nature in an attempt to understand." Not to understand anything in particular, mind you--just to understand, to gain a sense of our place in the world. Whether viewed as a body of knowledge, a collection of techniques, or a way of seeing, Derry adds, science is just plain interesting. It is also difficult to live in the modern world, which is so entangled economically and culturally in technology, without some grasp of science, technology's sire.
All that said, Derry states his aim: to show his readers how to think scientifically. In this aim he is quite successful, as his narrative proceeds through case studies that draw on real-world situations to discuss the importance of precise measurement, replicable experimentation, clear research design, logical thought--and imagination. He is quite clear on what constitutes good science, and he profiles a few heroes (Kepler, Einstein, Helmholtz, Joule) to illustrate how that good science is conducted. He is just as clear on what constitutes bad science, which often results when money and politics enter the laboratory. The fundamental virtue required of a scientist is honesty, he remarks, and a scientist who is dishonest or unethical scarcely deserves the name.
Part textbook, part manifesto, Derry's book offers both entertainment and food for thought for readers inclined to learn the ways of science. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
How does a scientist go about solving problems? How do scientific discoveries happen? Why are cold fusion and parapsychology different from mainstream science? What is a scientific worldview? In this lively and wide-ranging book, Gregory Derry talks about these and other questions as he introduces the reader to the process of scientific thinking. From the discovery of X rays and semiconductors to the argument for continental drift to the invention of the smallpox vaccine, scientific work has proceeded through honest observation, critical reasoning, and sometimes just plain luck. Derry starts out with historical examples, leading readers through the events, experiments, blind alleys, and thoughts of scientists in the midst of discovery and invention. Readers at all levels will come away with an enriched appreciation of how science operates and how it connects with our daily lives.
An especially valuable feature of this book is the actual demonstration of scientific reasoning. Derry shows how scientists use a small number of powerful yet simple methods--symmetry, scaling, linearity, and feedback, for example--to construct realistic models that describe a number of diverse real-life problems, such as drug uptake in the body, the inner workings of atoms, and the laws of heredity.
Science involves a particular way of thinking about the world, and Derry shows the reader that a scientific viewpoint can benefit most personal philosophies and fields of study. With an eye to both the power and limits of science, he explores the relationships between science and topics such as religion, ethics, and philosophy. By tackling the subject of science from all angles, including the nuts and bolts of the trade as well as its place in the overall scheme of life, the book provides a perfect place to start thinking like a scientist.
Download Description
How does a scientist go about solving problems? How do scientific discoveries happen? Why are cold fusion and parapsychology different from mainstream science? What is a scientific worldview? In this lively and wide-ranging book, Gregory Derry talks about these and other questions as he introduces the reader to the process of scientific thinking. From the discovery of x-rays and semi-conductors to the argument for continental drift to the invention of the smallpox vaccine, scientific work has proceeded through honest observation, critical reasoning, and sometimes just plain luck. Derry starts out with historical examples, leading readers through the events, experiments, blind alleys, and thoughts of scientists in the midst of discovery and invention. Readers at all levels will come away with an enriched appreciation of how science operates and how it connects with our daily lives. An especially valuable feature of this book is the actual demonstration of scientific reasoning. Derry shows how scientists use a small number of powerful yet simple methods -- symmetry, scaling, linearity, and feedback, for example -- to construct realistic models that describe a number of diverse real-life problems, such as drug uptake in the body, the inner workings of atoms, and the laws of heredity. Science involves a particular way of thinking about the world, and Derry shows the reader that a scientific viewpoint can benefit most personal philosophies and fields of study. With an eye to both the power and limits of science, he explores the relationships between science and topics such as religion, ethics, and philosophy. By tackling the subject of science from all angles, including the nuts andbolts of the trade as well as its place in the overall scheme of life, the book provides a perfect place to start thinking like a scientist.
Customer Reviews:
Facinating book that was mailed in record time.......2005-09-16
This is a book that everyone should read whether or not they like to study and leatn about science. Amazon.com did an excellent job at making sure that the item got to me quickly and efficiently. Thanks.
A great book I might use for textbook.......2001-05-09
Informative, especially for the non-technical people. I am considering using this book for an introductory course to the Art and Literature students in Taiwan.
The book is well written and concise. Well suited for today's short attention-span students!
A pretty good book........2000-05-23
If I could summarize my opinion of this book in a single word it would be "ambivalence." The book definitely has its good points, but it lacks closure on many themes, is open ended in many ways, and it's a little of order. Perhaps Derry wanted it that way because scientific progress often goes the same route. This is supposed to be an explanatory text, though, and I would have organized it differently.
The book begins with a chapter consisting of several stories from the history of science, including the discovery of the structure of Benzene and the development the Smallpox vaccine. There are five in all, and each illustrates a different application of the method of science to discovery. The one thing lacking from this chapter (and from the book, for that matter) is a cohesive summary of the principles brought out through these examples. I think Derry wanted his readers to figure it out themselves, and so he shuns summary tables and lists as a way of making the reader think. Part of the author's message is that science does not work according to a given set of rules -- the kind of rules you might have learned in grade school. Instead, Derry presents science as a more fluid construct. I agree, but telling the stories had a point, and I believe he should have been more succinct in bringing out his opinion about what the point was suppose to be, especially in relationship to the stories meant to illustrate how science works.
The next few chapters list some important methods used by scientists -- some of which are illustrated in the examples from chapter 1. For example, chapter two describes how looking for patterns in nature provides important clues in scientific exploration. Chapter three describes the importance of instrumentation in scientific work, primarily in allowing scientists to observe phenomena in which they would be otherwise unaware. Chapter four explains how sometimes small discrepancies between observation and theoretical prediction often leads to the abandonment of old theories and the development of new ones.
Chapter five is a condensed history of astronomy, from the early Greeks through Galileo and Newton (the book uses examples from many branches of science, but mostly from physics, Derry's field of expertise). This chapter brings together many of the unifying concepts in science, but (again) they must be found and understood by the reader -- the author does not deliver them point-by-point in list or table format (even in summary).
Chapter six begins the second part of the book (there are four) by describing models, modeling, and approximations. This chapter is definitely long on "how science works" and short on "what science is." Reading the chapter on models, for example, might leave the reader with the impression that truth and reality are almost irrelevant and that the objective of science is to simply develop models that predict the outcome of experiments. I agree that models are important. However, I think it's safe to say they are more important in applied science and engineering than they are in pure science, and that there is still some expectation by scientists that fundamental scientific theories somehow give us a window into the way the universe "really is."
Chapter seven is among the best, and deals with the way logic, reason, critical evaluation, and evidence are built into the scientific method. This chapter describes deductive and inductive logic, the importance of documented (and repeatable) evidence, and evaluating causality. It also has some really good stuff on bogus arguments, giving examples of half-a-dozen or more common techniques used by people to fool themselves and/or mislead others.
There is also a chapter on science and religion, as well as science and how it relates to society and ethics. Both these chapters have little to do with the book's thesis (what science is, and how it works). The chapter on science and religion, in particular, is brief and tends towards reasoning based on semantics.
Another good chapter (12) deals with pseudoscience and how to recognize it. Derry offers "claims for perpetual motion" and "creation science" as examples of pseudoscience. Unlike other examples in the book, Derry shows exactly how and why these two inventions of human imagination ought to be classified as pseudoscience, and how they are fundamentally different from modern science. Chapter 13 describes boarder-land areas like cold fusion and parapsychology. These, Derry argues, qualify as science, but (especially in the case of cold fusion) illustrate ways in which science can (and sometimes does) go awry.
The third part of the book ends with chapters 14 and 15, which deal with the philosophy of science. Here Derry actually explains the important parts of theory formation, but only briefly. Most of this chapter deals with things of a pretty philosophical nature, such as questions about what causes scientific revolutions and how we know things. The nuts and bolts of theory formation are in the chapters on modeling -- chapters that unfortunately and amazingly virtually never mention the word "theory."
The last part seems almost like a separate book, and consists of six chapters that supposedly describe unifying concepts. While I could certainly find unifying concepts in the examples, I'm not at all sure that these are the best examples. For example, one chapter describes how volume grows faster than area, which grows faster than length, and how this determines maximum sizes for some animals. Another describes the importance of symmetry in mathematics and in art. Yet another describes thermodynamics and the "arrow of time." Finishing off the list are chapters on feedback loops, linear dependence, and exponential growth.
For me, this book started out slow, but ended up being reasonably interesting. Overall I don't think it's a great book on the nature of science, but it's okay and certainly has its good points.
Great Science Book.......2000-04-29
This book is incredibly well-written and imformative. It spans all of the sciences, and describes many breakthroughs and issues in the sciences, both current and from centuries ago. It delves into topics both simple and complicated, from symmetry to pseudoscience. Derry writes in language both simple enough to understand and interesting enough to keep you raptly engaged. One of the best books spanning general science. All levels.
Great Science Book.......2000-04-29
This book is incredibly well-written and imformative. It spans all of the sciences, and describes many breakthroughs and issues in the sciences, both current and from centuries ago. It delves into topics both simple and complicated, from symmetry to pseudoscience. Derry writes in language both simple enough to understand and interesting enough to keep you raptly engaged. One of the best books spanning general science. All levels.
Amazon.com
What Management Is, by former Harvard Business Review editors Joan Magretta and Nan Stone, identifies management as the driving force behind key innovations of the past century and presents a jargon-free look at the way its core principles work. Designed to promote "managerial literacy" up and down the business food chain, as well as among those who simply "want better communities and a better world for our children," the book uses concrete examples to explain fundamental concepts and practices like value creation, the 80-20 rule, and decision analysis in a way that sheds light on them for the uninitiated while providing needed perspective for the more experienced. "Think of this book as everything you wanted to know about management but were afraid to ask," Magretta and Stone write. A comprehensive exploration of the overall process rather than a traditional how-to, in its first section What Management Is examines why and how people work together; the second section shows how ideas are translated into action. With case studies ranging from Old Economy stalwarts like Ford to New Economy upstarts like Dell, along with pioneering nonprofits such as the Nature Conservancy and India's Aravind Eye Hospital, the authors explicitly lay out the basics along with a framework for employing them in a wide variety of situations. --Howard Rothman
Book Description
"This book will help managers in any type of organization, including nonprofits and the public sector, do their jobs better."
-- Michael E. Porter
Harvard Business School
Whether you're new to the field or a seasoned executive, this book will give you a firm grasp on what it takes to make an organization perform. It presents the basic principles of management simply, but not simplistically. Why did an eBay succeed where a Webvan did not? Why do you need both a business model and a strategy? Why is it impossible to manage without the right performance measures, and do yours pass the test?
What Management Is is both a beginner's guide and a bible for one of the greatest social innovations of modern times: the discipline of management. Joan Magretta, a former top editor at the Harvard Business Review, distills the wisdom of a bewildering sea of books and articles into one simple, clear volume, explaining both the logic of successful organizations and how that logic is embodied in practice.
Magretta makes rich use of examples -- contemporary and historical -- to bring to life management's High Concepts: value creation, business models, competitive strategy, and organizational design. She devotes equal attention to the often unwritten rules of execution that characterize the best-performing organizations. Throughout she shows how the principles of management that work in for-profit businesses can -- and must -- be applied to nonprofits as well.
Most management books preach a single formula or a single fad. This one roams knowledgeably over the best that has been thought and written with a practical eye for what matters in real organizations. Not since Peter Drucker's great work of the 1950s and 1960s has there been a comparable effort to present the work of management as a coherent whole, to take stock of the current state of play, and to write about it thoughtfully for readers of all backgrounds. Newcomers will find the basics demystified. More experienced readers will recognize a store of useful wisdom and a framework for improving their own performance.
This is the big-picture management book for our times. It defines a common standard of managerial literacy that will help all of us lead more productive lives, whether we aspire to be managers or not.
Customer Reviews:
Jargon de-jargonized.......2006-07-04
Joan Magretta does a superb job of distilling the essentials of management from the infinite liquid of history, teachings, theory, and practice of the art. This book is especially useful for people who find themselves in supervisory and middle management roles without a grasp of "big picture" fundamentals, helping them to re-orient their approaches, and increasing effectiveness. While not a "Management for Dummies," repeated readings of "What Management Is" will help any manager get and stay grounded in the critical elements of strategy, numbers, and value creation. Good stuff!
Ties all the management fads together.......2004-12-16
As a recent master's level graduate, I've had the pain and the pleasure of reading a magnitude of books on management. When I picked up Magretta's book, I wasn't sure whether it would have much value for me since I had read all those other books and was familiar with practically all the theories presented in this book.
As is the case often times in the world, the most meaningful insights don't necessarily stem from some totally new idea but from a reframing of existing ideas. This is the area where Magretta's book really shines. She is able to put a vast number of different management theories into a new and coherent perspective that really gives the reader actual value.
For example, the way she frames extreme differentiation as being a monopoly and absolute cost leadership as being akin to perfect competition illustrates her holistic viewpoint. Despite managers' praise of perfect competition, every manager wants to move his/her company toward the monopoly end of the spectrum and away from perfect competition.
I recommend this book to anyone who's trying to cut through hyped up managerial buzz and wants to grasp the meaningful theories all managers should know.
One of the best business books I have ever read.......2004-11-18
Most of the business books try to create new management fads and methods. This book is about common sense in business and management. I recommend this book to every managers from newly appointed to senior executives who are lost in management fads and consulting world's business jargon. Especially this book is healthy reading for technology oriented companies and their managers.
Highly Recommended!.......2004-08-06
Those who say, "Good grief, not another book on management," may rest assured that this volume is worth careful study. Author Joan Magretta and collaborator Nan Stone offer advice based on decades of business experience and, yet, they distill the obnoxious "consultant-speak" so common to the field to clearly understandable, conversational terms. While at times they may seem to have a firm grasp on the obvious - investments are risky and managers need to make good choices - their work is fundamentally sound overall, offering practical case studies and real-world examples. This book takes common business concepts such as the "80-20 Rule," shines an insightful light upon them and then advances into more complex ground. We recommend this broad, new perspective on the growing social importance of effective management.
Great book!.......2004-03-16
This book really delivers: it's a good introduction for new managers, and a great refresher for experienced managers. It provides a superb overview of what is entailed in being a "general manager."
Book Description
The Simplest Path, Step One: Free Your Mind delineates, in one slim volume, a complete system for achieving personal spiritual awakening, along with a straightforward, no-nonsense plan individuals and groups so enlightened can follow to awaken Humanity en masse and positively transform the world. This book contains keys to awakening. Awakening from our personal dream shatters the solid "box" of limitation memes have built around our lives, and frees us to fluidly craft our personalities, environments, relationships, careers, etc. as an artist paints a landscape or a sculptor teases form from formless clay. All of us awakening together from the shared dream of the planet will mark the birth of our species out of our current global nightmare of decline into a limitless future literally beyond our present ability to imagine, even in our "wildest dreams," indeed.
Customer Reviews:
Way Beyond "Socrates Revisited".......2007-08-22
After reading the commentary attached to the one star rating given by the young man from Texas, I feel compelled to step forward in defense of this very fine book. With only one exception, every point made in that negative review is simply wrong. Just not factually correct. The reviewer identifies himself as a young man (... "to my young mind"), and since all of his other Amazon reviews are of TV episodes on DVD, video games and rock music CDs I take him at his word. Well, I am an "old man," closing in on my sixty-third birthday, and I came to Mr. Casspriano's book after six decades of life experience, the last three of those decades a zealous practitioner of Zen Buddhism. I say this not to "brag," but simply to qualify myself as a reviewer before beginning.
I'll start where the one star reviewer closed his argument, with his statement that the simplest path reduces to two Socratic concepts: "Admit that you don't know anything" and "know yourself."
The first part is nominally true (the exception). Like Zen Buddhism, a central tenet of the simplest path is working to release the false notion we all hold that we know ourselves, other people, the world around us. But identifying and releasing our attachments to our illusions is a life's work, not some brash "I don't know nothin'!" as the young Texan seems to imply. Under normal circumstances, we go about our daily lives with no idea we are deluded about anything, as Maya (the illusion of the phenomenal world around and even inside us) is so convincing that most of us never even think to question its validity. Casspriano did not invent the notion of human beings being trapped in illusion, as this truth was known to the timeless authors of the Hindu Vedas and is central to all schools of Buddhism (not just Zen). But his scientific/spiritual exploration of the mechanism by which Maya ensnares our minds and can, with effort, be overcome is among the best "plain English" explanations of this process I have read. There is no "inscrutable mystery" in the simplest path (a criticism that has been accurately leveled toward Zen Buddhism, as a lot of Eastern thought truly does come off as "inscrutable" when translated into English and/or the metaphors of Western culture). Casspriano lays out in no-nonsense American English exactly what our brains are doing when they create the illusion we mistake for reality, then shows the reader in the same clear terms how to train his or her brain to break free of illusion and taste reality as-it-is. In just 216 pages, that is no mean feat. After thirty years of Zen practice and numerous kensho experiences (of varying depths and intensities), I can say from personal experience that Casspriano is correct. Enlightenment comes as the fruit of a long, incremental process of retraining the mind to touch reality in a new way, and the process described in the simplest path is the same as that followed in Zen practice, especially Rienzi Zen koan study (I'll have more to say about this in a later paragraph). Casspriano's approach and language is very different from traditional Zen (more "scientific," and no sitting meditation is required), which I think would appeal to Americans and other Westerners seeking to experience "awakening" without necessarily committing themselves to a religion like Buddhism, but the internal mental/spiritual process and final destination are the same.
"Know yourself," on the other hand, is not in this book at all, at least not in the way the young reviewer, or Socrates for that matter, uses the phrase. As in Buddhism, Casspriano takes pains to demonstrate that "self" is as much of an illusion as our misapprehension of the phenomenal world, and is a byproduct of exactly the same mind process that creates outer Maya. A core teaching of Buddhism is that our "self," our personality/ego, is nothing more than an aggregation of outside influences that cluster together in our minds like shiny stones gathered into a pile, and which we mistake not only for something "real," but tragically, for our essential selves. Yet this "pile" has nothing really to do with who we are at all. Buddhism teaches "no-self." Belief in the illusion of a unique and independent "self" is our greatest obstacle to enlightenment. Wasting time and energy getting to "know yourself" in the Western sense is foreign to Eastern thought. Casspriano again does a great job of translating the Buddhist concept of "no-self" into Western scientific/spiritual terminology. He shows the process by which our ego/personality aggregate "piles up," as well as how to take the pile down, stone by stone. Enlightenment is what the pile was covering up, and so it naturally appears as soon as the pile is removed - but oh how we cling to our personal pile of stones! "Self" is what we must trade for enlightenment, what must be surrendered, and Casspriano returns to this truth many times in the simplest path. My point is that the one star reviewer's reduction of the simplest path to "know yourself" has no basis at all in the actual book.
As to the book being "gimmicky": Yes, the words "The Simplest Path" recur frequently throughout the book, but not in reference to the book itself (at least that's not how I took it), but rather to the system of understanding the mind and working toward "awakening" Casspriano is describing - and it is a complete system that deserves to be considered as a whole, on its own. At times the repetition does have a feel of "branding" in the commercial sense, so I understand where the reviewer may have taken his impression. But the simplest path, while resonant with Zen Buddhism (and apparently, according to Casspriano, with the Toltec philosophy espoused by Carlos Castaneda, of which I have no personal knowledge, so I'll have to take the author's word for that) is far enough different that it needs its own "name" to set it apart from other schools of similar but not identical thought. The reviewer's criticism is like saying that every use of the term "Zen" in a book called "Zen Buddhism" should be taken as a reference to the book, and not to the larger practice of Zen Buddhism as a spiritual discipline that the book is describing. Casspriano's point in repeatedly linking The Simplest Path, Zen Buddhism and Toltec Shamanism throughout the book, at least as I understood it, is to highlight these three spiritual practices as related reliable paths through a dark forest of illusion, a forest in which many apparent (and more popular) paths, including most (all?) religious beliefs, actively vie to mislead travelers toward deeper ensnarement in the dream, rather than leading them toward "awakening."
I want to say a word about koan study in Rienzi Zen and how it relates to the simplest path. Koans are those quirky Zen sayings and stories like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" or "what was your original face before you (or your parents) were born?" that have no rational answer, and which Zen students turn and turn in their minds like the tumblers of a combination lock until their imprisoned psyches "explode" in a "super-rational" experience of reality beyond the illusion ("irrational" would be the wrong term, as that implies "nonsense"). That "super-rational" vision of reality is called "kensho." I have experienced it myself, more than once in my lifetime. I have come to think of Casspriano's "Key Questions" in the second half of the simplest path, especially the later seven of the ten, as "cultural koans" designed to trigger "collective kensho" for the whole human race at once. Like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?", unflinching consideration of the value of human life, of how our beliefs about the future shape the present, of the true origin and destiny of life on Earth, etc., especially as seen through the lens of Casspriano's "Key Question Technique," reveals that none of these questions have rational answers, yet all require our active and immediate response. Successful resolution of these larger riddles that impact everyone will require us all to eventually "explode" into reality, together, in a "super-rational" way. We'll have to break through the illusion and wake up together, as one (which has been the goal of Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is a sect, since around 200 BCE). That is the "Planetary Awakening" addressed in this book, and I believe Casspriano's "Key Questions" are a concrete step in that direction. I'm glad I spent my fifteen dollars.
This is my "old man" take on the simplest path, having encountered it after 30 years of Zen Buddhist practice (I'm not veering off my chosen path here, just bowing respectfully in passing toward Casspriano's). From a Buddhist perspective, the simplest path is true Dharma, though I do not get the impression from reading his book that Vincent Casspriano is himself a Buddhist or a follower of any religion. That to my mind makes his book all the more interesting.
True, but gimmicky.......2007-08-09
Casspriano's book is scientifically and philosophically sound as best as my young mind can tell, but I don't recommend this book. Its scattered with numerous pages of advertising about how his "program" works and how it compares to other religions and spiritual movements. Why must this author physically write out "The Simplest Path" in reference to his book every other page, and talk about his second volume? Perhaps because he's not out for pure truth, but for our money.
All this book comes down to after you strip away the nonsense is two things. First, admit that you don't truly know anything. Second, know yourself. Do those two things (they essentially both mean to question EVERYTHING), and you'll have Casspriano's "Planetary Awakening," with 15 bucks still in your pocket. And you'll be following the fundamental truths already said by Socrates.. so do yourself a favor and pick up Plato's "Apology" and read up on the Socratic dialogue on how to live a good life. And don't stop there, because you can't be sure he's right.
And I have 10 bucks that says these other couple of reviews were written by the book publisher. In any case, ignore the hype.
A Unique and Inspiring Wake-up Call.......2007-05-15
This is one of the most clear-headed books I've read in years on the subject of real, nitty gritty, get your hands dirty spiritual development (as opposed to the fru fru New Age variety). So much of what passes for "spirituality" in our time amounts to some author, celebrity, priest, philosopher or self-appointed guru telling us what to "believe," sight unseen, if we want to reach heaven, attain enlightenment, achieve "ascension," etc. Casspriano takes an at times startling opposite approach. For Casspriano, such unquestioned/unquestionable beliefs are not only NOT the path to spiritual awakening, they represent the chief obstacle blocking our realization of higher consciousness. And it's not just religious beliefs ("faith") he's talking about, but all our beliefs about reality, especially those that enclose our thinking in "boxes" that limit our freedom to find solutions to real-world threats like Peak Oil, overpopulation, Global Warming, etc. Though much of the book focuses on individual enlightenment, for Casspriano, these larger planetary issues are "spiritual," as well. Whether the issue is our personal inability to find happiness or Humanity's collective rush toward physical extinction, the cause is the same - our wrong-headed beliefs about what's real. The solution is the same, as well - continuous, deep questioning. Using Richard Dawkins' concept of "memes" as a central metaphor, Casspriano first breaks down the basic process of belief, showing the mechanism in our brains by which beliefs misdirect and control our psyches, then he walks the reader through an exploration of a series of ten "anti-meme questions" aimed at breaking down the walls of our mental "boxes" and setting our minds free. With each question, he supplies an exercise designed to allow the reader to attain a personal taste of reality "beyond the box," especially as flavored by that chapter's "Key Question." For the most part, this formula works very well (with a few rare moments of over-exuberance on the author's part, as already described in other reviews, though as a card carrying vegan environmentalist, I can't say I particularly minded), delivering a cumulative series of death-blows to some of the most basic "pillars" of our present human consensus reality. Beyond the walls those pillars supported lies real reality, where we are all interconnected and interdependent, and, in Casspriano's view, mutually destined for greatness, if we can just wake up and grab the reins of our runaway culture in time. This is not a book for spiritual "feel gooders" seeking soft assurances that they're perfect just they way they are and everything's going to be all right, no matter what. This is a wake up call, a tool kit and a concrete action plan for becoming individually enlightened and collectively saving the world, all rolled up into one. That, I think, is a cause well-worthy of exuberance.
Challenge Consensus Reality!.......2007-05-10
This is a thoughtful book that addresses how we may go about developing a process to question our everyday consensus reality. I suppose if I have learned anything in 49 years of life, it is that all personal and social problems stem from our fundamental views on the nature of reality itself. Vincent Casspriano uses the concept of a "meme" as a fundamental unit of ideas, assumptions, etc. that often block our understanding of reality itself. One such meme, for example, may be that we have to "fight for our freedom" or the world's a "fearful" place and hence, we have to be ready to kill to protect ourselves. I suppose you could also use the word "paradigm" here as well, but the essential point of this book is that we "unconsciously" function in our life with many limited points of view that block our ability to solve problems on both a personal and a social basis.
While Vince Casspriano is to be congradulated for producing a book that presents both a methodology and a motivation for personal transformation, there are a few pitfalls here that the potential reader should be aware of before tackling this material. The author has some rather strong views on fossil fuel consumption, meet consumption, and the role of humans in the cycle of procreation. While I generally agree with his analysis on fossil fuel consumtion and meat consumption (as I have viewed large tracks of deforrested grazing land in developing countries), these viewpoints can distract the reader from the essential point here which is to rigourously question consensus reality. Since I am single, and have no motivation to have children, I definitely disagree with his views on the necessity of human procreation on this planet, but here again, it is important to extract the essential meaning rather than get caught in the specific political/social debates that these issues may spawn.
If you are serious about personal transformation with the potential for changing our global consciousness, than this book can be an invaluable tool. I do agree with the Author that a world population of "high functioning" people can resolve every planetary problem we face today. As we systematically question our consensus reality, we will see our problems in new ways, and with this new perspective, problems can often be quickly resolved or transcended.
A Simple Cure For What's "Eating Us".......2006-11-13
I considered titling this review, "Stop Whining, Wake Up and Get Busy Saving the World," but decided "Eating Us" would be more attention-grabbing - which matters because I believe Vincent Casspriano, Jr.'s "The Simplest Path, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND" is an important book, and I want to do whatever I can to draw your attention to it. Pick the title you like best. Both very fittingly describe what you will find within the pages of this remarkable new release from New Paradigm Press.
I have selected three short quotations to explore in this review that I think best summarize Casspriano's overall message:
From Chapter One, "The Boxes We Dream In":
"Right now, this very moment, you are asleep... Even if you are reading these words in broad daylight - sitting at your desk or beside the kitchen table, your feet firmly planted on the floor, eyes open, senses alert, feeling the weight of this book in your hands as sounds of life rise and fall rhythmically around you - you are deeply asleep, and dreaming furiously"
Now, the idea that Humans are sleeping, and must therefore "awaken," is by no means unique to Casspriano's "Simplest Path" spiritual system, being the root observation underlying pretty much all Eastern religion, and a lot of Western Occultism and New Age metaphysics, as well. In fairness, Casspriano makes no claim to this as an original insight, openly supporting his assessment of the human predicament with quotations taken from Animism, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. He then flows seamlessly into a list of complementary illustrations from the secular realms of Quantum Physics, brain/consciousness research, and most to-the-point, the study of memes and memetics, ala Evolutionary Biologist and world's best-known cheerleader for scientific atheism, Richard Dawkins.
If you've never heard of memes or memetics, a quick Google of those terms will reveal hundreds of serious, information-rich websites devoted to this now thirty-year old science. In a nutshell, a "meme" is a sort of contagious thought-form that spreads between people by way of imitation. Obvious memes in our environment include advertising jingles, fads and fashions, etc. Casspriano somewhat radically extends the concept to include just about everything that makes up the contents of our individual brains and shared human culture. While he resists redefining the word "meme" wholesale, he decidedly expands its definition to make memes and "memeplexes" (what you get when a number of memes band together into an organic, relational unit, like a religion or cultural or political movement) the basic, fundamental building blocks of everything we habitually label "real..."
And then he demonstrates, in at times excruciating detail, the complete emptiness of the "apparent-reality" that is a byproduct of memetic activity in our brains. What we call "real" is not real at all. It's an illusion spun up by our memes. And our memes are not original to us. They are "viral invaders" assailing our minds from without. Worse - and, while even this thought is not wholly unique to Casspriano, he certainly gives it his own very effective spin - memes are by no means mere passive beliefs or simple "harmless ideas." They are, Casspriano believes, actively predatory psychic parasites whose survival depends on our buying into the illusions they create in our minds. Think of illusion (Samsara, Maya, etc.) as a web we're caught in. Memes are the spider. We are the fly. Gotcha.
One thing I like very much about Casspriano's book is that he never asks us to take anything on faith, least of all this rather ugly depiction of the human psychic/spiritual condition. He not only challenges readers to test his hypothesis firsthand in order to experience what is real and true for ourselves, he spends a large chunk of the book outlining specific exercises anyone can do to escape memetic interference and personally experience reality as-it-is. The exercises in Part II of the book are powerful medicine... But this is a digression, so let me return to the point.
Memes are the spider, and we are the fly. A better metaphor might be that memes are the farmer, and we are the cow. Domesticated and docile, we allow memes to milk us daily, to extract from our minds the potent human psychic energy which, if reclaimed by us and put to proper human use, would quickly and positively transform our lives and our world. This transformation is awakening, ascension, enlightenment, metanoia, the Buddha-like change of consciousness most religions and spiritual systems on Earth hint at, but few ever actually deliver to followers. In this analysis, Casspriano's "Simplest Path" is very much in line with Gurdjieff's "Fourth Way," Carlos Castaneda's Toltec sorcery, and a few other well known spiritual practices inhabiting a somewhat darker, though perhaps more realistic corner of the New Age. But unlike most of those other systems, Casspriano's prescription for escaping illusion and awakening to reality is remarkably, well... simple.
From Chapter Three, "Waking Up":
"The simple truth is that we are sleeping because we lack sufficient energy to wake up."
And later in the same chapter:
"The real work that brings about awakening, rather than merely granting the external appearance of "being spiritual," while actually embroiling us ever more deeply in the dream, is a rigorous, daily commitment to the identification and elimination of every self-serving belief from which our personal dream-lives are constructed."
For "belief" in the quotation above, read "meme/memeplex." Casspriano certainly does, treating the terms as largely interchangeable. In the end, this genuinely simple - at least in the sense of being uncomplicated and pragmatic - spiritual practice amounts to discovering reality as-it-actually-is less by searching for a glimpse beyond the illusion, than by systematically withdrawing our participation in, and identification with, the dream. When we disentangle our psyches from memetic illusion, only reality remains. We don't have to chase it; to a meme-free mind, reality just appears. This is "Satori" in Zen Buddhism. This is "stopping the world" in the Toltec sorcery of Castaneda and others. Casspriano's genius lies in his talent for exposing the core mechanism behind such complex and often inscrutable spiritual systems, and for putting into plain language clear instructions for unraveling the dream and achieving personal awakening. The virus-like process by which memes take over and control our human minds, as described by Casspriano is, to my mind, very complicated (but well worth struggling through). What is genuinely simple about "The Simplest Path," however, is Casspriano's prescription for breaking those bonds, once you've made the effort to understand how they are created and maintained. For Casspriano, remaining a victim of spiritual sleep and energetic exploitation by memes is a complex activity in which we unconsciously invest enormous amounts of psychic energy every day of our lives. Awakening is the product of a simple act of withdrawing that investment, which automatically re-energizes of our minds and lives. Or as Casspriano cleverly phrases it when closing Chapter Three, "Waking Up":
"Unweave the tapestry of the dream, and awakening happens."
Anyone can do this. Spiritual awakening, in Casspriano's view, may be hard work, but it is not complicated work. The path to enlightenment is really rather shockingly simple. Fall out of love with the dream. Reclaim your psychic energy. Wake up to reality.
The ten "Key Questions" Casspriano explores in the second section of the book are designed to put the theory laid out in Part I to practical and immediate use. Essentially, I think Casspriano sees these ten issues - why we treat enlightenment as an "airy-fairy" ideal instead of a measurable transformation of brain functioning, the excuses we make for avoiding personal responsibility and integrity along the lines of Castaneda's "impeccability," the fallacy of belief in a "separate self," etc. - as pillars of both our personal and collective human dreams. They are by no means an exhaustive listing of the memes twisting our minds. But they are primary keystones on which layers upon layers of the grand illusion are built. Topple these ten baseline pillars and the larger structure crumbles.
Casspriano explores some "Keys" more successfully than others. One downside to the book is that, especially in the "Keys," Casspriano's own memetic prejudices shine at times rather glaringly through, as when, in his discussion of the American "What Would Jesus Do?" religious fad, he characterizes the Evangelical Christian purveyors of WWJD as, "ultra-conservative, right wing ideologues." Even should the reader personally agree with such pronouncements, its hard to resist thinking, "Hey Vince! Your memes are showing!" But where he nails his point, Casspriano's prose can be downright inspiring, as with the "Key" cosmological study "Is Earth the Center of the Universe?," which explores the gap between what we know, scientifically, about the Universe and what our daily choices and behavior says we really believe, about the cosmos and about ourselves. His closing "Key" "Are We Alone?" so poetically frames the true stakes of our global human predicament - species survival VS extinction - that its hard to imagine anyone keeping their gaze glued squarely to their own self-involved navel in the wake of reading it. Of course we are not alone. There are six and a half billion of us on Planet Earth, and whether we awaken to what's best in us or follow our darkest drives over History's cliff into oblivion, we do so as one. One planet, one fate.
This notion of "oneness" and of a common, intertwined human spiritual and biological destiny is a core theme in The Simplest Path, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND that sets it apart from any spiritual book in recent memory. My final quotation from the book returns us to the opening lines of Chapter One, "The Boxes We Dream In":
"We are all aware of the challenges facing us as we enter together into the 21st Century:
· World oil supplies are running out.
· Global warming is transforming the Earth into a steamy greenhouse.
· Even as our technology connects the world, ideological extremism, terrorism and militarism divide us as never before.
· Headlines bombard us with news of war, famine, pestilence and death until we feel overwhelmed and unable to respond.
· Time is running out..."
Vincent Casspriano, Jr.'s "The Simplest Path to Personal and Planetary Transformation, Step One: FREE YOUR MIND" does not offer easy escape from these very pressing real-world human ills, but rather, a down to Earth, workable prescription for their cure. Yes, we must awaken as individuals, and, rest assured, "The Simplest Path" shows spiritual seekers exactly how to do that. But a prime message of "The Simplest Path" is that, for personal awakening to have meaning, it must occur within the context of a complete re-visioning of global culture, and a mass wrenching away of the wheel of History from the control of viral memes, that we might create a common cosmic human destiny worthy of our highest potential as a species.
Now that's a meme worth feeding.
Book Description
They're on everything we touch, eat, and breathe in -- on every inch of skin. And despite the advances of science, germs are challenging medicine in ways that were unimaginable ten years ago. No wonder the world is up in arms -- and using antibacterial soaps.
From the common cold, E. coli, and Lyme disease to encephalitis, mad cow disease, and flesh-eating bacteria, Tierno takes readers on a historical survey of the microscopic world. Rebuffing scare tactics behind recent "germ events" Tierno explains how the recycling of matter is the key to life. Yes, he'll tell you why it's a good idea to clean children's toys, why those fluffy towels may not be so clean, and why you never want to buy a second-hand mattress, but he also reveals that there is a lot we can do to prevent germ-induced suffering. You'll never look at anything the same way again.
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They're everywhere. Silent and invisible to the naked eye, they're on everything we touch, eat, breathe -- on every single inch of our skin. And despite the remarkable advances of science, germs are challenging medicine in ways that were unimaginable just a decade ago. Due to an explosion of infections never before reported in modern history and a new germ horror story surfacing every week, it's no small wonder that we're frightened -- and that antibacterial soaps are a billion-dollar business. Now, renowned microbiologist Philip Tierno cuts through the media hype with the compulsively readable Secret Life Of Germs, revealing exactly where the greatest threats may be hiding. The Secret Life Of Germs provides an inside view of this fascinating and elegantly ordered microscopic world -- from the common cold, E. coli, and Lyme disease to encephalitis, mad cow disease, and anthrax. It takes readers on a historical survey of the culprits of disease and explores the effect that they -- and the scientists who study them -- have had on our world. Rising above the common scare-tactic techniques used by many authors, Dr. Tierno's message is an optimistic one. Recognizing that humans are more often than not the main spreaders of disease, he offers numerous protective response strategies -- health and hygiene tips for inside and outside the home, advice on food safety, and pointers on human contact -- to stop the transmittal. Filled with practical and enlightening information, The Secret Life Of Germs is an engaging book that will keep readers mesmerized while helping them stay healthy.
Customer Reviews:
Awful.......2007-03-12
I never received this book and I don't know how to get in touch with any other to get my money back.
Great, Informative and Fun.......2007-02-03
Not at all a dry, scientific read. You'll never look at New York city the same after reading this!
Good PreMicrobio book.......2006-02-26
If you are worrying about taking Microbiology, read this book first. It explains Microbiology in understandable terms and also makes this subject quite interesting. When you finally take mirco, you will be ahead of the class
Superficial Analysis .......2005-12-07
This book is good if you want to be warned over and over to wash your hands! If you are looking for the difference between viruses and bacteria, actual scientific references or interesting facts about how germs and bacteria live, reproduce and colonize us - look elsewhere. This book was too preachy and didn't have enough information for anyone with a genuine interest in biology, human physiology, or health.
Germs Revealed!.......2005-06-24
I'm a stay-at-home mom who hangs out with two other moms who are extremes of each other - one who is a self-described germ-phobe and the other who doesn't do anything at all. I knew there was a middle ground, but what was it? This book told me exactly what I needed to know, plus I learned some interesting history & science along the way. Warning - I believe the author intends this book for mass consumption, but often he wanders into somewhat technical descriptions. Which is fine if you enjoy reading science (ask yourself, would I read National Geographic, Scientific American, Popular Science, or the like?). And interestingly, this book is scary AND reassuring at the same time. Definitely helpful for arming yourself with facts against all the germ myths out there. Required reading for all moms, I would say.
Book Description
Artful Making offers the first proven, research-based framework for engineering ingenuity and innovation. This book is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Harvard Business School professor Robert Austin and leading theatre director and playwright Lee Devin. Together, they demonstrate striking structural similarities between theatre artistry and production and today's business projects--and show how collaborative artists have mastered the art of delivering innovation "on cue," on immovable deadlines and budgets. These methods are neither mysterious nor flaky: they are rigorous, precise, and--with this book's help--absolutely learnable and reproducible. They rely on cheap and rapid iteration rather than on intensive up-front planning, and with the help of today's enabling technologies, they can be applied in virtually any environment with knowledge-based outputs. Moreover, they provide an overarching framework for leveraging the full benefits of today's leading techniques for promoting flexibility and innovation, from agile development to real options.
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Artful Making offers the first proven, research-based framework for engineering ingenuity and innovation. This book is the result of a multi-year collaboration between Harvard Business School professor Robert Austin and leading theatre director and playwr
Customer Reviews:
Worth reading, though not as good as measuring........2006-12-21
I've had very great expectations about this book. This was mainly because of Rob Austin's genius earlier work (measuring and managing performance). Unfortunately, even though the book was quite book, I found myself disappointed. This book was not as good as the measuring and managing one.
Artful making is making a comparison between several different ways of creating products and divides them into industrial and artful. Examples of artful making in the book are theatre production and also agile software development. Then from that perspective, the book looks at several aspects of artful making and tries to describe qualities about artful making that can help managers create such an environment. The book describes these qualities in rather abstract terms and names them release, ensemble, collaboration and play.
Personally I felt the comparison in the book was a too big simplification. Of course, theatre production and software development can learn from each other, but still in the end of the book, I was not really convinced that they are artful making while the other product creating methods are industrial making. The book takes then a lot of (interesting) examples from e.g. Apollo flights and puts them in the category artful, though to me some of the comparisons were not clear or obvious at all.
All in all, I DID enjoy the book and found it useful reading. I've rated it 3 stars because I would rate "measuring and managing" as 5 stars and this is book was clearly not as good. 3 starts, in this case, does mean that the book is still a recommended reading and it does provide interesting insights and stories.
Reconceive your engineered perceptions!.......2005-09-09
Austin and Devin present a truly innovative approach to help us in the software industry to reconceive our traditionally engineered world. I have a bias toward metaphors and this one really hit home. It not only brings out the soft-science (human) side of developing software, it helps displace the perceptions that artful productions are anything but a disciplined, impeccable process requiring as much, or more, business aptitude than software development to be successful.
If you are in the software development industry and have, as I have had, pre-conceived notions of how artists create and innovate, this book is a must read. If you have been using agile development methods, it will open your eyes to why those methods are successful. If you have used more traditional methods, or are skeptical toward agile methods, this book will enlighten you toward an industry that has been using such agile methods for centuries.
Finally, and most importantly, this book highlights the creative and innovation process. Many in the software development industry struggle with how to create innovation, typically stumbling over it if you are lucky. This book will guide you through how you can use innovation techniques in your company and teams to build innovative products. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to improve their organizations' innovative capabilities.
Building Bridges.......2005-07-07
We have this tendency, understandable but at times pernicious, to bracket the world off, to make compartments for our relatively unexamined opinions. One of the worst examples of this is the notion that individuals in the arts and folks in business have nothing to offer one another: artists squander resources and are fundamentally dysfunctional when it comes to practical matters; business people care only about the bottom-line and apply an industrial model to whatever they do. In their book, Artful Making, Lee Devin and Rob Austin frustrate this kind of thinking and in doing so open up new lines of communication and cooperation amongst individuals who actually have much to offer one another. In creating these bridges, Artful Making offers readers a fundamentally generous view of human experience as evidenced by its key terms - collaboration, ensemble, release, play.
Nothing new here.......2004-12-29
The book goes into great lengths into comparing business and theatre. Concepts of rapid iteration, small groups and "playing" are mentioned in the book.
No new concepts... they just went deep into the comparisons. The read is a bit boring.
A Lot to Offer ANY Reader!.......2003-11-12
"Artful Making" is a great book. Before reading it, and even into its first few chapters, I was under the impression the book was aimed mainly at midlevel management of medium-to-large corporations:a large group, to be sure, but one to which I do not happen to belong. But I was mistaken . . .
I soon realized that the key qualities of release-collaboration-ensemble-play can fit any setting where individuals or groups of people want to create something valuable. What Austin and Devin are talking about is developing a process and a result that unite in a never-ending productive cycle, where each "iteration" is different, but yet a necessary prelude to what follows. We can all benefit, because we all have the same need to stay away from the "staleness" and complacency that can be so deadly to personal and professional growth. "Artful Making" will help you find the way.
I recommend the book completely. Read it over and over and keep a pencil handy for special passages!
Book Description
Spiritual Mind Treatment can seem very simple in concept, yet exasperating to learn. The instructions are clear. You follow every step. You are committed to "see it through" and realize your goal until one day you look around and wonder to yourself, "Well, where is it?"
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Many people embark on their New Thought path only to meet these same obstacles feeling frustrated, discouraged, and even betrayed when their Treatment seems to fail.
HOW TO USE SPIRITUAL MIND TREATMENT offers helpful guidelines to understanding the key elements of this life-changing practice that was first introduced by Ernest Holmes in the early 1900's. Part I is a "how to" that explains what spiritual mind treatment is, how it works, and how to use it. Part II is a troubleshooting section that tells you what to do when treatment doesn't seem to work along with a16-item questionnaire to help identify the problem. This section also includes practical information on the following topics:
The Most Common Self-Defeating Mind States How to Eliminate Self-Defeating Mind States Counter-Intentionality There is no limit to the good that can be realized through spiritual mind treatment. Properly understood and utilized, the practice can be used to improve your health, fitness, relationships, finances, career, creativity, spirituality, or well-being. All that is required is an open mind, a sincere heart, and a willingness to be gently persistent in one's practice.
Customer Reviews:
Good As a Supplement To SOM or Other New Thought Books.......2007-06-17
Good book on spiritual mind treatments that beginners and more advance practioners can benefit from. I would say use it as a supplement to Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes or any of his other beautiful books many of which are written in early 20th Century language, and can sometimes be tough to decipher. Nonetheless the principles are the same then as they are today, with a few minor adjustments which the author explains. I bought the book because I have been working on a creative project which has taken me sometime now to manifest, almost 3 years so I was curious to know what some of the blockages are. For many including myself if comes down to fear, disquised in some shape or form as hate, self-worth issues, fear of the unknown, and the list goes on and on. I am so clear now and realize that my good is here and i KNOW IT that im just as excited know as I will be when it manifest in the visual world. Bottom line I dont think you can do wrong with this book, but again I'd say to use it more as a supplement to Ernest Holmes, Raymond Charles Barker or any of the other teachers of new thought.
Average customer rating:
- How do things get invented?
- Creative and Stimulating!
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Imaginative Inventions: The Who, What, Where, When, and Why of Roller Skates, Potato Chips, Marbles, and Pie (and More!)
Charise Mericle Harper
Manufacturer: Little, Brown Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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| Science, Nature & How It Works
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Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women
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ASIN: 0316347256 |
Book Description
Have you ever wondered how chewing gum was invented? Or who made the first roller skates?Or why there are piggy banks rather than doggy banks?Imaginative Inventions answers all of these questions and tells the fascinating stories behind these, as well as potato chips, eyeglasses, doughnuts, high-heeled shoes, the wheelbarrow, marbles, the vacuum cleaner, animal crackers, and more.Written in verse and with illustrations full of offbeat characters and quirky details, this book invites young readers inside the minds of great inventors and encourages them to think imaginatively.
Customer Reviews:
How do things get invented?.......2002-06-11
Did you know that there was life before Frisbees?
How long do you think doughnuts have been with us?
Who wanted the first pair of eyeglasses?
What about those Flat-Bottomed Paper Bags in which your parents bring home groceries?
Why did the passion for chewing gum stick?
Exactly how did the vacuum cleaner start sucking up dirt?
Questions, questions, odd & silly
answered in poems both factually & frilly!
A good book to start you wondering about how things got started & why.
Creative and Stimulating!.......2001-12-20
This book is a must for any parent who wants to stimulate their child's curiosity in the world--and what parent doesn't? The subject matter focuses on everyday items, but provides interesting, little-known facts about these inventions(and probably some fun, harmless fiction). Great for getting kids to start thinking creatively about where the things around them come from, and how big ideas are generated. The illustrations are cute and witty, with spectacular colors. Each invention provides a great launching point for discussion with your children. What more could you ask?
This book was recently listed on the Time magazine web site as one of six "best children's books you've never heard of." The "never heard of" part won't last long...The authors first book (yes, I bought that one too!) is equally thought provoking about children's goals early in life, yet also, charming and sweet.
Average customer rating:
- Good, but a bit too optimistic
- Rubbish
- A Calm but Caring Exploration
- The Market System: Understood Properly!!!
- Interesting reflections on the market system
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The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It
Charles E. Lindblom
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
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The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Second printing with new preface and appendix (Harvard Economic Studies)
ASIN: 0300093349 |
Book Description
In this clear and accessible book, an eminent political scientist offers a jargon-free introduction to the market system for all readers, with or without a background in economics.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but a bit too optimistic.......2005-08-01
Charles Lindblom brings up several interesting issues about the Market System. While I agreed with the basic principles, I had the feeling that he sometimes oversimplified some issues and I was sometimes left with more questions than answers. Specifically, given the current environment of proposed nation building in the Middle East, I attempted (perhaps too ambitiously) to extrapolate his theories to this problem, and thus found Lindblom's explanation of the Market system as a peacekeeping force most interesting, and therefore also most troublesome.
I was hoping to find some understanding of how the implementation of a healthy market system "does not simply flourish in peaceful societies; [but also how] it helps to make those societies peaceful." Also I was interested in how Lindblom defines `peaceful', as I believe the USA may have one of the most effective market systems in the world, yet at least compared to Europe, and in fact many other countries like China with central planning, the USA is far from peaceful (high crime rates, riots etc.).
I found Lindblom's caveat that "the market system makes societies peaceful, but that is not necessarily efficient, equitable, or humane" perplexing. Does, as Lindblom claims, "higher income - and especially growing income - reduce frustration, conflict, and consequent mutual injury, making possible a peaceful and stable political order", and if so can this be projected at an international level to reduce incidents such as 911? Specifically, what can be done in a country like Afghanistan, with an arguably weak market system, which has been at the center of the `Great Game' for so long? Lindblom mentions the success of how "now conspicuously in Asia Q.E.D. The market system makes for social peace"; should Afghanistan attempt to follow the example export oriented example of the Asian Tigers, how would this be possible?
Charles brings up some good points, but probably should read Huntingtons Clash of Civilizations. I think the glass is only half full. And globalization is somehting which our current governmental bodies and supranational organizations are, not yet equipped to deal with. I fear it is a society that small, especially economically challenged nation states fear, perhaps rightly so? This is what will give rise to further clashes of civilizations but not peace.
Tom Anderson
Anderson Analytics, LLC
http://www.andersonanalytics.com
Rubbish.......2002-10-18
"Professor Lindblom's argument manifests a fundamental misunderstanding of the case for capitalism. Unless some people with money to spend wanted to read books critical of capitalism written by leftist intellectuals, our author would be unable to sell his book. But this does not weaken his claim to the money he is paid for the book: quite the contrary, that very fact is his claim to the money."
"Lindblom's abuse of logic in his argument goes further. Suppose one grants him that because the value of his book in large part depends on the preferences and actions of people besides him, he is not entitled to what people choose to pay him. It hardly follows that it is up to "society" to decide the issue. Lindblom has argued in this way: The value of what someone produces depends on the actions of everyone else, that is, on "the whole system." But this is to reify "the whole system" as if it were a separate entity with rights and entitlements of its own."
""Do you mean to tell me that in your society, other than a claim to liberty to work for wages and to hold and use assets if you can get any, no one has any claim on anyone else, on government, or on society other than what one can claim by offering something in return. . . . You call yourselves human beings?" (p. 114).
Clearly, the spaceman speaks for our author, who elsewhere bemoans the millions of people who would starve, were the market rule strictly applied. Would not all infants fail to reach adulthood, since they make no market contribution? "[T]he world would lie depopulated in a generation" (p. 120).
I venture to suggest that Lindblom has totally misapprehended the issue. The question is not whether people without assets or marketable skills should starve; of course they should not. But does it help these unfortunates to give them enforceable rights to sustenance? A legal enactment of this kind will not conjure into existence any resources, and these can be obtained only from the productive. Why will the poor fare better if they depend on the state to seize wealth from others, rather than rely on charity? Again Lindblom falls into the fallacy of thinking that a market society contains nothing but market transactions."
"Lindblom is for the most part content to repeat his arguments of fifty years ago. Perhaps in another half-century he will grasp what is wrong with them."
Quote: David Gordon,...
A Calm but Caring Exploration.......2002-03-14
"Think society, not economy." Thus Lindblom, our author, urges the reader to think about the market system in a more inclusive context than we ordinarily are wont to do. To what end?
Well, the subtitle of this book is "What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It." As he says early on: "For at least 150 years many societies have been trapped in an ill-tempered debate about market systems. Now we have an opportunity to think about these systems with a new dispassion and clarity. Market ideologues have learned that there is little to fear from communism... For their part, socialist ideologues have realized that aspiring for a better society is not enough. They have to face the complexities of constructing one."
One way of bisecting the population is by distinguishing those who see an imperfect world and want to perfect it from those who see an imperfect world and want to live in it as well as its imperfections allow. Charles Lindblom, a professor of economics and political science, is of the first sort. His viewpoints become clear as the book goes along, and he makes no bones about the imperfections of the various market systems and their supporting political systems. At the same time he is not an ideologue, and does not fall into the trap of yearning for a utopia of the right, or of the left.
Basically, he sees the market system as inducing cooperation and preempting violent interaction over a vast range of social interactions. That these take place mostly with money as intermediary does not remove them from the social sphere: it is, he claims, a false distinction to place economic interactions in some separable sphere from social interactions. The real distinction that the market system makes is quid pro quo: interactions between people involve an exchange - of goods for money, of favor for favor, of dinner at your house for (maybe much later) dinner at my house. But the invention of money and credit has made possible society-wide cooperation (the chain of cooperators to get this computer to my desk runs into the millions, or the hundreds of millions, of cooperating humans). For this the market system gets full credit.
But, as we know from the history of the Industrial Revolution (still going on in speeded-up form in some parts of the world), unfettered capitalism (the unregulated market system, in our terminology) is a harsh sorter-out of its participants into a few big winners (the entrepreneurs), a large number of more-or-less-contented employees, and a large number (although, unless the society is in imminent danger of revolution, not so large as the second group) of "losers" for whom the system offers little but grinding toil and early death.
Excepting such as Robert Nozick and Ayn Rand, most people feel the government has a legitimate role in curbing the excesses of the market system and protecting the citizens from each other within it. For it is a particularly transparent sophistry that all participants in the system come to it as roughly equally competent. To consider just one sort of inequality: many participants cannot do the arithmetic (don't even know that there is arithmetic they should be doing!) that would tell them whether they are getting a reasonable value when they buy something on time. Nor, say, do they understand the savage rate of compounding that credit card debt, left unattended, incurs.
The great political schism of our time is not religious, but free-market vs. government intervention. It can take a vast number of forms, and debate can get bogged down in symbolically important issues of little practical consequence while other more important effects are ignored. It is the virtue of this book that it adopts a more neutral terminology ("the market system") and is able to discuss and evaluate a vast range of issues on which sides are taken without demonizing one side or the other.
The weakness of this book is its inconclusiveness. It can't be helped. One can read a book about welfare reform, for example, and come away convinced of the author's prescription, because he has carefully stage-managed his argument to minimize or hide difficulties. Lindblom does not have that luxury: every issue really does have two sides. His general views are not in doubt: the market system is a very good thing; it needs government controls; government can, does, and should use the market system when it can it further the collective goals of the society.
But: how much freedom, of what sort, is enough? Is a command political system that employs market incentives just about as good as democracy? What possible alternatives are there to a market system? What can be done about corporations, these vast engines of production that are increasingly out of the control of the political system?
I enjoyed this book, although I'm not sure what I now know that I didn't already tacitly know. There were a few epiphanies, but they went by so quickly that I suspect I could profit much from a second reading. There are no pictures, charts, or bold-faced claims: the book has no visual aids to highlight its points. The prose is calm, and the arguments for or against a position are spare, with little or no supporting evidence. One reason for this is the high level at which the points are discussed: Lindblom is not making policy, but rather pointing out the wide range of possible answers to many of the vexed questions of the day. One cannot doubt the truth of most of what he says. The question is, what is one to do with it?
If one is a person of the second type, the answer is, nothing. But reformers should be given pause: Perhaps, after reading this book they may be persuaded to make their solutions less sweeping, in keeping with a new appreciation of the subtlety and richness of the problems of organizing a society around a market system that is intertwined with a political system.
The Market System: Understood Properly!!!.......2002-02-13
The main objective of Lindblom in this book is to elucidate the market system, not only in relation with the economic system but also in relation with the "social system", about what it does mean, how it does work, and what the alternatives it does have. Though the author is a supporter of the market system, he clearly demonstrates the efficiencies and inefficiencies, and accomplishments and failures of the market system in some important points for the society as a whole. At a point of time in history in which the alternative systems, including socialism, to market system have collapsed and the market rhetoric has pervaded all spaces of civic discourse, especially that regarding public sector management, Lindblom presents an excellent account of the market system that I believe will be very helpful to anybody who is interested in applying the market model to the public sector, and to anybody who believes (sometimes blindly) that the State is an impediment to the effective and efficient functioning of the market system.
The book is grouped into three parts. In the first part titled "How It Works" Lindblom examines the dynamics of the market system that lead to "great accomplishments". In the second part titled "What to Make of It" the author focuses on the operating rules of the market system, the relationship of the market system with and impact on democracy and culture. In the third part titled "Thinking About Choices" Lindblom envisages the alternative system to the market system that is expected to solve the problems of the market system. I will try to summarize some important points below.
To Lindblom, "a market system is a method of social coordination by 'mutual adjustment' among participants rather than by a central coordinator" (p. 23). To better grasp the role of the market system in coordinating the society, the author advises us to focus on and think the society, not the economy. In the market system, millions of people think and act without a great mind's planning and intention (say, central planning bureaucracy in socialist systems). "The market system is not a place but a web, not a location but a set of coordinated performances" (p. 40). The important point Lindblom tries to accomplish is that "it is a mindless and purposeless market system that accomplishes the great tasks of social cooperation" (p. 40). The market system wheel is rolled by intended and unintended behaviors of the individuals, but it creates an efficient functioning that was dreamed but could not yet have been accomplished by centrally intended systems such as socialist system. Lindblom approaches social coordination and "peacekeeping" in close relation to each other. Because of scarcity, according to the author, there is an inherent danger that people find themselves in fight to each other for determining who will get what and in what amount. "The market system", with the help of its formal and informal rules, "produces patterns of behavior that themselves reduce mutual injury and keep peace in the society, quite aside from inducing people to obey the law" (p. 44). Although "the market system makes societies peaceful, but that is not necessarily efficient, equitable, or humane" (p. 44), Lindblom cautions.
Lidblom believes that although enterprises and corporations are of critical importance in the market system in making proximate decisions (that transform inputs into outputs), he adds a caution that "the more the coordination by corporate management, the less by the market system", and he goes on to say that "The corporation is indeed an alternative to the market system" (p. 78). Why? Because the corporation can become an "island of command in market sea", by vertically integrating its production and by horizontally diversifying its mix of goods and services In these cases, multilateral cooperation among participants in the market system transforms itself into the unilateral hierarchical decision making of corporate managers, a form of decision-making that is more different than the market system's mutual adjustment, more similar to the central planning system's top-down decision making. This is a very important point that attracts our attention to the vital role of the State in ensuring the proper functioning of the market system and assuring fair competition.
Lindblom examines a large number of operating rules that lead the market system to producing efficient results in the domain in which it is mainly responsible and able to. This operating rules ranges from "quid pro quo" to "efficiency prices". Though generally market system is seen "completely" efficient as compared to "witch government", Lindblom demonstrates how the market system creates and feeds inefficiencies (negative spillovers, income inequalities are some among many others) and fails in many points that necessitate the State intervention to keep the "civilized" society get across the road.
One point in the book that impressed me deeply is how the market system, through its elite, creates (that I can call "anomalies in democratic system") what Lindblom calls "undemocracy". Lindblom also wages an effective critique on "granting the enterprise a citizen's rights (corporation as citizen) and demonstrates (with examples) how this "grant" can give (or gave) way to serious problems for the democratic system. In sum, Lindblom believes that "a society has to pay heavily for its market system in some loss of democracy (p. 250).
The inefficiencies and dangers of the market system constitute no reason, according to Lindblom, to abandon the market system. The alternative to the market system is n
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