Customer Reviews:
astonishing.......2002-07-31
I go to Harvard law school and I have found this book to be helpful in my field of study. Although i also study criminal justice law I have now become interested in environmental and this book has been impressive. This book is a life saver. It was classy and sophisticated. Please go buy this and I hope to see some new challenging faces at Harvard. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
This is an outstanding book........2001-08-26
I've used this book in two seated classes and one online course on environmental law. If you want a glorified HAZMAT course or have decided that the way our legal system actually operates doesn't matter, then look elsewhere. This is not a science book (nor should it be). If you want a text that students find easy to read and that provides comprehensive coverage of environmental law and our legal system, this is your book.
An Outstanding Book!.......2001-08-25
I've used "Environmental Law" by Nancy K Kubasek and Gary S. Silverman in two seated classes and one online course. It is an outstanding text for describing the parameters of our legal system to students. Those to want a glorified HAZMAT approach to environmental law (or want to ignore the legal system) might not like the book. I love it.
Limited value.......2000-11-02
The author of this books is an attorney who does a fairly good job with the big picture but not very well with the science. If you're only looking for a quick study of the structure of environmental law in the U.S., which is about one-third of this book, it's readable and informative. It also uses language and structure that's accessible for advanced high school and lower division college students in giving and overview of the U.S. legal and regulatory system for the environment. The author creates a good historical context for these discussions. However, the book begins to lose its polish when the author ventures into discussions of the science behind the law. I noted several points where the presentation of the science was clearly poorly informed (ozone and global warming, nuclear and alternative engery). If you're only looking for an general introduction to environmenal law, this book will get you started. But, if you want to get a good idea of the science that drives environmental law, keep looking.
Book Description
** By the end of 2006 the world carbon market will top $30 billion in transactions and the first carbon billionaire may well have emerged
** HSBC, Volvo, Avis, Ricoh, and American Express are but a few of the thousands of companies now offsetting their CO2 emissions and becoming "carbon neutral", fuelling a massive international voluntary carbon market that is growing exponentially
** This is the only business guide to this "next big thing", with complete coverage of what voluntary carbon markets are, where they are, how they work and how to capitalize--as a buyer or a seller--on a market that has the potential to mirror oil and gas in scale and to slow climate change
This groundbreaking business book, written in a fast-paced journalistic style, draws together all of the key information on international voluntary carbon markets with commentary from leading practitioners and business people. While maturing quickly, the voluntary market is complex, fragmented, and multi-layered, but it is beginning to consolidate around a few guiding practices and business models from which conclusions can be drawn about market direction and opportunities.
The book covers all aspects of voluntary carbon markets in the US, Europe, Australia, Canada, and Asia: what they are, how they work and, most critically, their business potential to help slow climate change. It is the indispensable guide for anyone seeking to understand voluntary carbon markets and capitalize on the opportunities they present for economic and environmental benefit. If you want to be ahead of the curve for the next big thing, you need this book.
Related
The Business Guide to Sustainability (2006) 1-84407320-3
The Natural Advantage of Nations (2006) 1-84407-340-8
Capitalism as if the World Matters (2005) 1-84407-192-8
Customer Reviews:
Voluntary Carbon Markets.......2007-08-05
Excellent primer on the evolving international and US carbon markets, and a vital read to those considering entry.
it is voluntary [for now].......2007-06-15
The most prominent thing about this book is of course the foreword by Al Gore. But whatever you might think of Gore's political views, the bulk of the text is a sober look at what it means to have a voluntary carbon market. As opposed to having government mandates.
Much of the book is uncertain. Not really about global warming per se. The book does not discuss significantly or really debate whether global warming is real. It is more or less taken as a given. Rather, the book's uncertainly revolves about what types of voluntary trading markets might arise. Voluntary because the US government has not made up its mind about federal requirements. Hence the biggest question is why should a US based company engage in such trading?
Candidly, and this will peeve some readers, it is mostly for public relations at this point in time. The book gives several reasons why it might be beneficial to trade. Like anticipating an eventual government edict about minimising pollution through such trades. So a far sighted multinational might venture a small gamble by engaging in some trades, and loudly touting its green credentials. The book does not come right out and say this. But a careful parsing suggests this view.
Carbon 101.......2007-04-11
A finely crafted manual on the emerging voluntary carbon markets.
A perfect mix of information for both the technical and non-technical user.
Average customer rating:
- A Great Book by Carl Sagan
- A masterpiece science for the average reader
- Sagan, the polimat
- great book
- C'mon, its Carl Sagan!
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The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Carl Sagan
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
ASIN: 0345346297
Release Date: 1986-12-12 |
Book Description
Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends--and their amazing links to recent discoveries.
"A history of the human brain from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, to the day before yesterday...It's a delight."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book by Carl Sagan.......2007-07-21
The first time I read Dragons of Eden was about thirty years ago. I enjoyed the book more this time because I have a better understanding of computers and neuroanatomy. This is a great book for a student to learn the evolution of the human brain from it's reptilian origins.
A masterpiece science for the average reader.......2007-06-12
A reviewer at the "Boston Globe" asked: "How can I persuade every intellignet person to read this important and elegant book?" There are so many great lines and passages in this book that even now it is timely.
Buy the Ballantine paperback edition with the wonderful mural-like foldout showing an ape man and woman as Adam and Eve in a Garden of Eden that includes dinosaurs.
Sagan, the polimat.......2007-05-13
I really miss him. Just picture it: Carl Sagan debating the climate crisis... or the Iraqui war... Well, this book shows his caractheristic polimatic veiw of knowledge: not separated boxes and disciplines, but a way of thinking, using both, creativity and skepticism to approach nature in its most complex subject: the human self, the misteries and intricacies of our brains and the resulting mind states, wich some call "mind", Sagan and Druyan at its best.
great book.......2007-01-16
This is a fascinating read on the subject of the development of human intelligence and how our species evolved morals, etc. The book is a very good summary of information packaged for the layman but with deep and thought-provoking insights that could serve to stimulate the thinking of experts in the field. Sagan's style is very humorous and engaging.
I give this book the demotion to four stars for only one reason: it was a book very much ahead of its time, but it was published over thirty years ago and much of the research cited in it is now obsolete.
C'mon, its Carl Sagan!.......2006-11-10
I love love loved this book. Some might think its dry, but I love the way he writes, simple, but verbosive enough to make interesting. He always makes a point and backs it up, most of the book is evolution of the human brain, and proved highly insightful, and told me some stuff I never even thought of. If you love learning, defently get this book.
Amazon.com
Everything For Sale is an erudite reprieve from the deluge of books written in praise of free markets. Robert Kuttner fires back with a book that documents relevant, real-world examples of market failure and makes the case for intelligent intervention to attain more desirable outcomes. His exhaustive litany of successful (some, even cherished) government interventions in the market--from National Public Radio to the Internet--creates a persuasive case for a mixed program of political and market-based approaches in the shaping of public policy. When Kuttner pushes his argument for a culture with less commercial emphasis, his preferences exhibit an anti-market bias. But overall, his argument is clear and compelling, exposing blind adherence to market outcomes as largely arbitrary, ideological, and often, an affront to democracy. Academic economists who ignore the political desires of the people in order to protect the purity of their mathematical models draw Kuttner's fire in particular. He writes about ideas and economic details with great verve and ability. Kuttner's book is certain to be a touchstone of debate, if not reform, among public policy makers.
Book Description
Zeroing in on such realms as health care and the workplace, the commercialization of sports and the arts, the chaotic deregulation of airlines, S&Ls, and telecommunications, and the buying and selling of public offices, Kuttner shows how markets can fail precisely those whom they are supposed to serve. Asking the crucial question, "What should not be for sale?", Kuttner shows why a society conceived as a grand auction block would not be a democracy worth having. 416 pp. Author tour. 25,000 print.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Explanation of Market Impefections and How to Resolve Them.......2007-07-28
The marketplace has it advantages, yet it is unable to be perfect. It is foolhardy to believe that all economic solutions will eventually emerge from the marketplace and with just market corrections. Robert Kuttner explains where market imperfections exist and how to correct them.
Unions are presented as a positive economic force, as the organization of employees and prevention of employer abuses is shown to raise productivity. Often these productivity increases surpass their bargained wage increases. Employers resist unions, even with they are advantageous to them, because they don't wish to share concede managerial powers. Plus, increased wages are sometimes paid by with reduced profits. Yetl, the overall effect of unionization has created a better wage distribution that helps the overall economy.
The growing service economy is less unionized. In part, this is the fault of unions who expelled their more radical members, who were in fact their best organizers. The resulting lower wages of service employment in general is contributing to an increase in national wage disparity that is creating economic imperfections.
Robert Kuttner calls for greater civil vitality and government actions designed to work as allies with the market in strengthening the economy. Failing to do so, we will continue to experience such market imperfections as in wage and wealth disparities and a poor allocation of health care services. The health care system lacks free market competition, fails to provide perfect information to consumer, and consumers have little mobility to choose their health care providers even if they had better information.
The economy is one where people do not always act rationally or with stable economic optimization strategies, as a free market requires. There are forces in financial markets and businesses that often seek to take unfair advantage of market systems, which further diminishes the ability of the market to operate efficiently. There is a need for government regulation of the market, unions, fair trade with common international standards, and policies such as strong education systems and social support systems to keep the economic system operating as well as it can. The book is an excellent explanation of the true workings of our economic system.
well argued and well documented critique of "free market" religion.......2007-07-21
Kuttner is not a "leftist", he's pro-capitalist. But he is aware of the destructive consequences of laissez faire policy.
The virtue of this book is that it discusses clearly in detail a wide variety of areas where market failures are rife. He shows how laissez faire market governance doesn't work for health care, or electric power, how it leads to greater oppression and inequality for workers. He gives many concrete examples from the real world that falsify the theoretical assumptions of "neo-classical" (laissez faire) economic theory. He shows how the assumptions laissez faire makes about people -- "we're all self-centered maximizers of our own self-regarding wants" -- are wrong, how humans are more complex in their actual motivations.
When a theory -- neo-classical economics in this case -- is held to despite its being falsified by reality over and over, it begins to take on the character of a religion. Since the explanation for its hold can't be its scientific credence -- in fact it's a pseudo-science -- we need some other explanation for its hold. The fact that it is an ideology that has been extremely beneficial to the rich and powerful seems the best explanation.
Kuttner is an old-fashioned liberal and a particularly intelligent one. His book is thus in part a defense of the liberal approach that wants to use state regulation of the economy and he provides various arguments to show how efficiency and other human benefits can be secured through government action.
Since capitalism has always depended on the state to support it, I don't think this is a different economy from capitalism, whereas Kuttner calls his proposal a "mixed economy". Kuttner thus doesn't consider any alternatives that would go beyond the hierarchies of the state and corporations or go beyond a society based on private appropriation of profit. However, Kuttner's evidence of endemic market failures can provide good ammo for those who have a more anti-capitalist viewpoint.
Democracy not for Sale: a Fair and Balanced View of Markets.......2006-11-06
Everything For Sale is a powerful response to the wave of ideologically motivated free market boosterism that passes itself off as works of sophisticated scholarship. Notice the subtitle: The Virtues and Limits of Markets. Kuttner does, in fact, praise markets for their strengths. He has little patience, however, for the abstract ideal of a pure market, which is as illusory as Kant's thing-in-itself. He asks that discussions of markets and regulations bearing upon markets account for the way things really work, with conclusions supported by actual case studies.
Instead what Kuttner finds is the scholarship of those questing for the grail of a pure market relies primarily on deductive reasoning, tautologies, abstract models and unlikely presuppositions (the rational maximizer, for example), rather than sound historical analysis. Of course, it is easy to cherry pick regulatory failures, but ideologues that ignore or misrepresent counter examples of regulatory necessity and success disserve the cause of democracy -- they see only the virtues, not the limits of markets.
Kuttner effectively argues for a nuanced view of markets and regulation in his discussion of health care and money markets, in his discussion of democratic, human and environmental values, none of which can be reduced to market values, but all of which appropriately rely on markets to varying degrees to achieve communal and individual good. Kuttner does not argue that regulation is always the solution for market limits and failures, but he decisively rejects that dogma that no matter how bad things are, government involvement will always only make it worse. He rejects the market vs. regulation dualism, and the cynicism that says market values are all that matter.
Everything For Sale presents a well reasoned and well written case for reevaluating the public institutions upon which our democracy (and markets) depends. If anything, it is a more important book today than it was when written in 1996.
An excellent refutation of classical liberal misunderstandings.......2006-08-09
Free market zealots will find this book impossible to understand, because the author has a sophisticated ontological understanding of the human being that they can never have. Kuttner, like Freud, Veblen, Polanyi, Galbraith, Packard and many others before him, understands that the human is a vulnerable, emotional being driven by anxiety and susceptible to manipulation by a business class whose ruthlessness has never been in question. This contrasts starkly with the simple-minded utilitarian view of the individual as a free-willed rational calculator programmed to maximise his or her economic interests in a market system that circulates information purely and transparently. This view of the human being as an autonomous hedonist-rationalist has become a self-fulfilling prophecy amongst those who subscibe to it, and they have become in their everyday lives the narrow, simple, unethical and anomic creatures that the belief constructs. Tediously and predictably, all critiques of work such as Kuttner's are grounded in this one-dimensional depiction of the human being. Consequently, all the apparently sophisticated mathematical models constructed by the pseudo-scientists who call themselves 'free-market economists' - even though their internal logics seems to make sense to the simpletons who construct and apply them - are thus spectacular examples of mumbo-jumbo based on a single and catastrophically false ontological assumption. To me, books such as Kuttner's make a strong case for temporarily disbanding economics and reformulating its fundamental metaphysical assumptions under the guidance of more sophisticated social scientific and philosophical disciplines. Well done indeed, Mr. Kuttner, and someone now needs to take up the baton and write a comprehensible book that instructs these Hayekian-utilitarian simpletons about the psychological vulnerability of the emotional human being and the moral complexity of human intersubjectivity in its economic, political, social and ecological contexts.
The grail of a perfect market is a dangerous fantasy.......2005-07-13
In this mightily important book Robert Kuttner attacks frontally and defeats by KO the utopian view of 'laissez faire' of the Chicagoans, who hold that regulation is never warranted because all private choices are free of coercion.
He adopts the Schumpeterian view that the real economy rather than aggregating to a single optimal 'general equilibrium' is constantly in disequilibrium. 'Perfect competition is not only impossible, but inferior.'
He turns the 'Revealed Preference' (markets serve free choices and aggregate welfare) into Bertrand de Jouvenel's 'Revealed Ignorance'. Corporations have the power to set prices, not to take them passively.
What we need is a mixed economy: a balance between market, state and civil society. In fact, the US has a long history of governmental interventionism.
The author illustrates his credo forcefully by examining a whole range of all important industries and markets.
Free markets and/or deregulation are not a solution for
- the health care sector (the most efficient way to make a profit is to avoid sick people and to limit care)
- the money market (the S & L disaster)
- the labor market (is a reflexion of the relative power between the capital owner and the salary worker. After loosing his job, the latter is three months away from destitution)
- the airline industry (deregulation has degraded service in multiple ways)
- the environment (global warming, acid rain and deforestation cannot be solved by market forces)
- telecommunications (major sectors are natural monopolies)
- electricity (the final sale remains a true natural monopoly)
- education (a paramount source of long-term economic growth)
- safe and health in the workplace (that's why Congress wrote OSHA).
He cleverly explains the motives behind 'laissez faire' policies. As Robert Heilbroner said 'Ideology is part of economics'.
'Wealth buys among other things power and power resists income distribution.'
The champions of false evangelism are for the author the Public Choice cynics. He unmask them as fundamental anti-democrats, because they believe that 'politics is hopelessly self-defeating'.
However, he notes that its representatives are very congenial to the most powerful and poses the rhetoric question: Who looses when society pursues political mobilization of propertyless voters, a broad welfare state, substantial economic regulation and redistributive taxation?'
On the contrary, we need a reinforced democracy as a bulwark against tyranny, for the expression of selfhood, for the cultivation of civic skills and norms and to keep markets in place and to limit their sometimes destructive mechanism.
This is a very important political book written by a superb free and unbiased free mind.
Nevertheless, the political pendulum is actually close to the far right: after giving mighty tax breaks for the wealthy, the actual US government declares that pensions and medical aid have to be cut for budget reasons!
I also recommend Peter Temin's work 'Did monetary forces cause the Great Depression?' where he destroys Friedman's explanation of the most important economic disaster in the US history.
Average customer rating:
- My view
- A sand county Almanac: and sketches Here And there by Aldo Leopoid
- First Time User
- an excellent edition of an outstanding book
- book revisited
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Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections)
Aldo Leopold
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
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A Sand County Almanac
ASIN: 0345345053
Release Date: 1986-12-12 |
Amazon.com
Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." Leopold's road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right. Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
"We can place this book on the shelf that holds the writings of Thoreau and John Muir." San Francisco Chronicle
These astonishing portraits of the natural world explore the breathtaking diversity of the unspoiled American landscape -- the mountains and the prairies, the deserts and the coastlines. A stunning tribute to our land and a bold challenge to protect the world we love.
Customer Reviews:
My view.......2007-10-07
Well written book. A. Leopold was an early messenger regarding people`s influence on nature and the risk of damage because of short-sighted politics/business. His description of his surroundings is vivid. One wonders how "his" landscape looks today!
A sand county Almanac: and sketches Here And there by Aldo Leopoid.......2007-02-27
was not a hard covered book recieved a paper back. I kept it only because I wanted to read it. arrived in good condition and in about 10 days
First Time User.......2007-01-16
The whole process went great. It took a few minutes extra at the beginning as it was my first time. Since then, I have bought another book and some other items. It's truly a great way to get a good deal on thing you would never think were available on line. Have plans for many other items that I have been checking out as my budget allows.
an excellent edition of an outstanding book.......2007-01-16
Book worth reading and re-reading for anyone interested in ecology, also professionally, or who has respect for the natural world. In a way it is pity that the book is as vital now as it was. Our undersanding of ecology and needs for looking after our environment increased alongside with the rate of its destruction
book revisited.......2007-01-13
except for about 3 missprinted words in this book,it is just as good a read as it was for me in high school.A true conservation and nature classic.
Book Description
A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation is unique in its clear descriptions of the most commonly used nonmarket valuation techniques and their implementation. Individuals working for government agencies, attorneys involved with natural resource damage assessments, graduate students, and others will appreciate the non-technical and practical tone of this book.
The first section of the book provides the context and theoretical foundation of nonmarket valuation, along with practical data issues.
The middle two sections of the
Primer describe the major stated and revealed nonmarket valuation techniques. For each technique, the steps involved in implementation are laid out and described. Both practitioners of nonmarket valuation and those who are new to the field will come away from these methods chapters with a thorough understanding of how to design, implement, and analyze a nonmarket valuation study.
The concluding section takes stock of the usefulness of nonmarket valuation, highlighting chapters on benefit transfer, the role of nonmarket valuation in real decisions about natural resources, and where nonmarket valuation is headed in the future.
As a companion to
A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation, a website has been developed, http://www.fs.fed.us/nonmarketprimerdata/. This website includes downloadable datasets for each of the techniques described in the
Primer, as well as links to published journal articles and reports based on the data. The website also provides an opportunity for students to estimate models using the data.
Product Description
This study covers the latent demand outlook for environmental consulting services across the states and cities of the United States. Latent demand (in millions of U.S. dollars), or potential industry earnings (P.I.E.) estimates are given some 12,920 cities across in the United States. For each city in question, the percent share the city is of itÂ’s state and of the United States is reported. These comparative benchmarks allow the reader to quickly gauge a city vis-à-vis others. This statistical approach can prove very useful to distribution and/or sales force strategies. Using econometric models which project fundamental economic dynamics within each state and city, latent demand estimates are created for environmental consulting services. This report does not discuss the specific players in the market serving the latent demand, nor specific details at the product level. The study also does not consider short-term cyclicalities that might affect realized sales. The study, therefore, is strategic in nature, taking an aggregate and long-run view, irrespective of the players or products involved.
Amazon.com
You may be only six degrees away from Kevin Bacon, but would he let you borrow his car? It depends on the structures within the network that links you. When the power goes out, when we find that a stranger knows someone we know, when dot-com stocks soar in price, networks are evident. In Six Degrees, sociologist Duncan Watts examines networks like these: what they are, how they're being studied, and what we can use them for. To illustrate the often complicated mathematics that describe such structures, Watts uses plenty of examples from life, without which this book would quickly move beyond a general science readership. Small chapters make each thought-provoking conclusion easy to swallow, though some are hard to digest. For instance, in a short bit on "coercive externalities," Watts sums up sociological research showing that:
"Conversations concerning politics displayed a consistent pattern .... On election day, the strongest predictor of electoral success was not which party an individual privately supported but which party he or she expected would win."
Six Degrees attempts to help readers understand the new and exciting field of networks and complexity. While considerably more demanding than a general book like The Tipping Point, it offers readers a snapshot of a riveting moment in science, when understanding things like disease epidemics and the stock market seems almost within our reach. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
The pioneering young scientist whose work on the structure of small worlds has triggered an avalanche of interest in networks. In this remarkable book, Duncan Watts, one of the principal architects of network theory, sets out to explain the innovative research that he and other scientists are spearheading to create a blueprint of our connected planet. Whether they bind computers, economies, or terrorist organizations, networks are everywhere in the real world, yet only recently have scientists attempted to explain their mysterious workings.
From epidemics of disease to outbreaks of market madness, from people searching for information to firms surviving crisis and change, from the structure of personal relationships to the technological and social choices of entire societies, Watts weaves together a network of discoveries across an array of disciplines to tell the story of an explosive new field of knowledge, the people who are building it, and his own peculiar path in forging this new science. 24 b/w illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
Real-world networks are the result of nonrandom structure.......2007-08-12
Random Graph Theory: Image throwing a box full of buttons on a table and then choosing a pair of buttons at random and connect them with a piece of string. What would the buttons look like over a period of time. "In particular, what features could we prove that all such networks must have?" If you pickup one of the buttons what would be its connected component? "The fraction of the nodes connected in a single component change suddenly when the average number of links per node exceeds one." If we add enough thread so each button has one thread the fraction of the graph that occupied by the largest component suddenly jumps from almost zero to one. A phase transition from unconnected to connected and the point this happens is called the critical point. "Phase transitions of one sort or another occur in many complex systems and have been used to explain phenomena as diver as the onset of magnetization, the explosion of disease epidemics, and the propagation of fads. In the particular case, the phase transition is driven by the addition of a small number of links right near the critical point that have the effect of connecting many very small clusters into a single giant component, which then proceeds to swallow up all the other nodes until everything is connected." "So the presence of a giant component means that whatever happens at one location in the network has the potential to affect any other location." "The line between isolation and connectedness is thus an important threshold for the flow of information, disease, money, innovations, fads, social norms, and pretty much everything else that we care about in the moder society. The global connectivity should arrive not incrementally but in a sudden, dramatic jump tells us something deep and mysterious about the world." Almost everything we know about complex networks tells us that "they are not random." "Nevertheless, if we would like to understand the properties and behavior of real-world networks, the issue of nonrandom structure is one that eventually has to be faced."
Opens up the world.......2007-04-05
We used this book in a doctoral seminar addressing shifting practices of "meaning making" in a networked society. It was the one book that everyone agreed was outstanding in all areas: aside from the depth and level of scholarship in Watts's work, he also has an extremely approachable style, one that will make the book useful to scholars and laymen alike.
Efficient and Excellent!!!.......2007-03-10
No more other words to say, I am really satisfied with the service!
Excellent for its audience.......2006-04-30
I wrote this book review as an assignment for a class. Its intended audience was sociologists unfamiliar with network theory. The intended audience for the book though is much wider. If you want the math, read academic journals.
In the first chapter of Six Degrees Duncan Watts notes that gossip, power outages, epidemics, even properties of the human brain such as consciousness are phenomena that may be understood as emerging from the interaction of their constituent elements. Through such examples, he calls attention to the broad applicability of his subject matter. Having provided this motivation, Watts spends much of first half of the book discussing what he knows best, "small world" networks. In the second half he presents a network perspective for a wide range of topics such as epidemics, externalities, speculation, social decision making, and organizations.
Like many academics marketing books to non-academics, Watts skillfully weaves his personal story with the science. His personal story is not only provided to keep laymen interested. Watts is now a member of the sociology department at Columbia University, but one can't help but wonder whether he identifies as a sociologist? How would other members of the discipline respond to a youngster whose PhD is in theoretical and applied mechanics who may never have read Durkheim? His early collaborators were mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists lodged in appropriate departments. Watts though, has become a strong proponent of interdisciplinary science, and he respectfully acknowledges research that has been done in anthropology, sociology, psychology and economics.
His first foray in the social sciences was inspired by the "small world" phenomenon. When two people are surprised to learn they have mutual acquaintances, someone often says, "It's a small world." In 1967, social psychologist Stanley Milgram decided to investigate how small the world really is. He tasked randomly selected residents of Boston and Omaha with getting a letter to a stockbroker who lived in Massachusetts. The rule was, they could only send the letter to people they knew on a first name basis. Amazingly, the letters that reached their destination usually did it in just 6 steps. This finding was then misconstrued and became the urban legend that there are six degrees of separation between any two people. Despite the widespread interest in the small world phenomena, little progress was made understanding it over the next thirty years.
Watts got interested in this problem when he was a graduate student in theoretical and applied mechanics. He and his advisor, Steven Strogatz, had been trying to understand how crickets' chirping becomes synchronized without a conductor cricket. Watts surmised that the timing of a cricket's chirp must be influenced by where it is located and the other crickets it is listening to. The ability to synchronize may depend on the structure of this network of crickets. The relationship between network structure and network phenomena such as synchronicity suddenly seemed broadly important, and he was surprised to learn how little mathematical attention it had garnered. Recalling the idea of "six degrees of separation," Watts and Strogatz turned to social networks and set about building simple models. Where Milgram had asked, "How small is the world?" they were now asking, "What does it take to make a world small?" This reframing of the problem was fundamental to the contribution they were to make.
Watts and Strogatz settled on modeling just two facets of social networks. One was the "small world" aspect, quantified as average path length (the number of links required to connect two randomly chosen people). The second was clustering, the extent to which my friends overlap with my friends' friends. What makes small world networks surprising is that short path lengths and high clustering are inherently antagonistic. Paul Erd?s and Alfred R?nyi rigorously proved that path lengths are short in networks with no inclination towards increased clustering, a random graph in the parlance of mathematicians. At the opposite extreme, if everyone was friends with all of their friends' friends, short path lengths would be impossible (in fact social groups would be completely disconnected from each other). After countless computer simulations, Watts had two important results. The alpha model captured the small world balance of path length and clustering. The beta model showed that if a network was systematically clustered, to the point of fragmentation, just adding five random links (edges) halves the average path length. He then began acquiring and examining network data sets. Remarkably, Hollywood actor collaborations, the neurology of C. Elegans, the power grid of the Western United States, interlocking boards of directors and the world wide web are all small world networks.
Next Watts reviews the work by L?zl? Barab?si, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame. His major contribution is research on scale free networks. Sociologists have long been concerned with questions surrounding the number of connections (degree) people have. Barab?si realized the importance of the degree distribution in a network. The degree distribution of many networks is approximately Poisson but Barabasi showed that the degree distribution of other important networks follows the highly skewed power-law. The distribution of wealth and the size of cities both fit this model. Furthermore he showed that this distribution will follow if the future growth rate is linearly related to the present size. This has obvious implications for these two examples and calls to mind Merton's Matthew Effect.
Barab?si's book, Linked, is similar to Six Degrees in that is geared to the general public and reviews many of the most important advances in network scholarship. Do Watts and Barab?si overstate their case? Rather than get bogged down in the semantic debate that is likely to arise from the claim to a "new" science, we should appraise the value of this line of research. It clearly has potential but Watts himself sometimes alludes to the difficulties in achieving that potential. Watts' work is mostly theoretical. Six Degrees offers a thought provoking network perspective on many topics but little help harnessing the theory in empirical work. Appropriate data may be hard to come by. Perhaps Watts has provided ideas that creative empiricists will find ways to exploit, but there are methodological challenges that may prove to be stubborn.
Despite some important exceptions such as Granovetter's Strength of Weak Ties sociologists have tended to take one of two approaches. One was to focus on the relationship between social structure and network structure. The other was to view network ties as sources of information or influence. This means exploring the association between position in a network, and a node's identity or power. Watts is right to call attention to the fact that these approaches usually ignored dynamics: changes in the network structure (changes in network connections), and what individuals do on the network (search for information, spread rumors, make decisions). Network data that captures these dynamics may be harder to come by.
Furthermore, large detailed datasets may be limited by the computational power available. Even simple computer simulations can be very computationally demanding. Threshold models of decision making, discontinuous phase transitions and cascades - many of the fundamental concepts in the study of networks are nonlinear. Proving the existence of causal relationships is always a challenge but these complex systems make a hash of everything. The measured effect of an independent variable, on average or at the margin, tells us little about the importance of that variable.
Despite a reasonable display of humility and respect, Watts should be criticized for the sociology he leaves out. Neither space limitations, nor a rush to publication can justify the gaps in his otherwise helpful recommendations for further reading. For example, Blau, Burt, Coleman, Homans, Laumann, Marwell and Oliver are conspicuously absent from the list. Perhaps this observation should not be overanalyzed but it does brings us back to how Watts will be received by sociologists and what impact he and scholars outside the discipline will have on sociology. It is hard for this reviewer to understand how anyone who reads this book could come away uncertain of the value of mathematics for theory development as well as empirical analysis. Model building can simplify and clarify, enhancing our intuition. Watts would never argue that all sociologists should drop what they're doing and begin running computer simulations, just that we should be open to such approaches. As he points out, "For any complex system, there are many simple models we can invent to understand its behavior. The trick is to pick the right one. And that requires us to think carefully, to know something about the essence of the real thing." Sociologists know something about the real thing. That's why we can't leave all the modeling to physicists and economists.
"Six Degrees" - A Reaction to Professor Watts' Seminal Work.......2006-01-13
The book is not a user's guide to social networking. This is not "Networking for Dummies"! It is a thoughtful treatment by an academic of a fascinating topic - or to be more precise - an intriguing network of interrelated topics.
In presenting the material in his book, Dr. Watts tells two stories in parallel. At one level, he describes the evolution of his work and that of his colleagues in trying to solve the problem of modeling and understanding the dynamics within a wide variety of types of networks. The networks described include electric power grids, social networks, AIDS and Ebola virus epidemics, hierarchical organizational charts in Fortune 500 firms and financial markets. At another level, Watts uses the story of the arc of his research as a case study to describe the emergence of a whole new branch of science: the science of networks. In one sense, as I made my way through the ten chapters of this book, I felt I had been invited into a microbiology laboratory to view the results of experiments in which Watts and his gifted colleagues has served as human Petri dishes that had hosted the incubation of germs of ideas that had been cultured from a wide variety of disciplines and streams of thought.
As a recruiter and an avid practitioner of social networking, I found much to ponder in these chapters. Chapter 5, "Search in Networks," is particularly relevant to the problem of how best to think about finding the right person via directed searches or broadcast searches. I also found enlightening Watt's tracing of the development of the popular concept of "Six Degrees of Separation" from its inception in 1967 the research of social psychologist Stanley Milgram into the "small-world problem." through its current level of cachet in popular parlance.
As a Renaissance Soul who believes firmly in the value of helping companies to discover and to hire broadly educated leaders, I was particularly encouraged by Chapter 9, "Innovation, Adaptation, and Recovery." Standing on the shoulders of two MIT professors, Chuck Sabel and Michael Piore, whose 1984 book, The Second Industrial Divide, warned of a sea change in industrial organization, Watts surveys the challenges of organizational structure and communication in an age of ambiguity. Implicit throughout this book is a point that he makes explicit in this chapter: the only way to function effectively in this world of growing complexity and ambiguity is to utilize strategies of collaboration across traditional boundaries. This principle is true in facing the challenges of creating a new science of networking. Boundaries had to be crossed and chasms bridged that had traditionally separated scientists in their own fiefdoms of physics, economics, mathematics, sociology in order to be able to begin to model network behaviors and dynamics. I see the same dynamics at work in the nascent field of nanotechnology, in which biologists, physicists, material scientists, electrical engineers, optics specialists and software engineers are all working together to solve problems and grasp emerging opportunities.
In much the same way, the only reasonable approach to resolving complex challenges within organizations is to create collaboration strategies that connect individual and teams that traditional have done their work in isolation from one another. As a compelling case in point, Watts dissects the Toyota-Aisin crisis of 1997 and its stunning resolution.
I am more convinced than ever before that the challenges of complexity and ambiguity in the world of business will be faced most successfully by companies that have the vision to hire as leaders Renaissance Men and Women who understand at the very core of their being the value and power of collaboration across traditional boundaries of thought, academic discipline and functional role within an organization.
I am grateful to Dr. Watts for taking his experience from academic work and making it applicable and accessible to those of use practicing outside the world of academia.
Product Description
In the highly praised The Market for Virtue, David Vogel presents a clear, balanced analysis of the contemporary corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement in the United States and Europe. In this updated paperback edition, Vogel discusses recent CSR initiatives and responds to new developments in the CSR debate. He asserts that while the movement has achieved success in improving some labor, human rights, and environmental practices in developing countries, there are limits to improving corporate conduct without more extensive and effective government regulation. Put simply, Vogel believes that there is a market for virtue, but it is limited by the substantial costs of socially responsible business behavior.
Customer Reviews:
An invaluable resource offering a serious-minded, in-depth discussion of a complex issue.......2007-01-06
Written by Professor of Business Ethics (Haas School of Business) David Vogel, The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility is a scholarly examination of a politically charged and highly polarized debate concerning what corporate social responsibility can, cannot, and must accomplish in a modern capitalist economy. Chapters explore answers to and differing perspectives on the questions "Is there a business case for virtue?" and "What is the demand for virtue?" as well as examining corporate responsibility with regard to both the environment and human rights. Extensively researched, The Market for Virtue is an invaluable resource offering a serious-minded, in-depth discussion of a complex issue. Enthusiastically recommended especially for college library shelves, and invaluable reading for activists, businessmen, and legal personnel grappling with all dimensions of the interests and responsibilities of corporations.
Excellent: Balanced, Readable and Practical.......2006-02-22
Vogel has provided us with a much needed skeptics eye view of Corporate Social Resposibility. This book is a very accesible and practical guide for the manager who is beset with open ended questions and needs realistic answers to a difficult subject. The "needs to have" are separated from the "nices to have", the realistic from the theoretical.
At less than 200 pages, this is the one book the operating manager needs to read on the subject.
The Seminal Work in CSR.......2005-11-18
Vogel's THE MARKET FOR VIRTUE is the seminal work in CSR. His lively text offers the right mix of theory, analysis, and example. His conclusions are profound and will make a difference for the better. Required reading for corporate executives, business and management students, and those of us who simply wish to be informed participants in 21st century society.
Excellent analysis on CSR today by Silvia Barceló Lhéritier.......2005-10-25
Excellent and neutral analysis with accuracy and clarity. Helps thinking about future of CSR professionnals.
Best Book on the Subject.......2005-10-07
Vogel's THE MARKET FOR VIRTUE is a balanced and objective review of the many activites that fall under the rubric of "corporate social responsibility." He convincingly shows that these are over-ballyhooed by their enthusiasts, and over-disparaged by their critics. In fact, they make useful, albeit marginal, contributions to the welfare of communities and society. He draws useful distinctions between the many different manifestations of CSR, and offers thoughtful metrics for evaluating them. He cites literally hundreds of examples, and helps the reader to think about them in a rigorous and disciplined way. This is a must-read for corporate executives and business students.
Book Description
Since the late 1980s, policy makers and regulators in a number of countries have liberalized, restructured or deregulated their electric power sector, typically by introducing competition at the generation and retail level. These experiments have resulted in vastly different outcomes - some highly encouraging, others utterly disastrous. However, many countries continue along the same path for a variety of reasons.
This book examines the most important competitive electricity markets around the world and provides definitive answers as to why some markets have performed admirably, while others have utterly failed, often with dire financial and cost consequences.
The lessons contained within are direct relevance to regulators, policy makers, the investment community, industry, academics and graduate students of electricity markets worldwide.
· Covers electicity market liberalization and deregulation on a worldwide scale
· Features expert contributions from key people within the electricity sector
Customer Reviews:
A must read.......2006-07-21
The rapidly developing liberalization of the energy markets takes many diverse directions in the different countries and continents. The editors F. Sioshansi and W. Pfaffenberger aim at a comparative study of these developments in order to draw some conclusions on what is going well and where there are disadvantages for the different players. In the foreword the editors point out that there are several market studies available but this volume represents a concise, systematic and up to date comparison on a worldwide basis to identify working and not working market models.
The book is an important contribution to the fact that electricity sector reforms have significant potential benefits but also carry the risk of large potential costs if the reforms are implemented incompletely or incorrectly. This book represents a broad and very valuable overview of the liberalization processes and regulatory models in different electricity markets throughout the world. The documentation of this experience represents an important contribution to improve the existing markets and to control the future development in the right direction. Lessons learnt from errors in the past may help to more efficient solutions in the future. The editors' aim to provide a complete and objective comparison of different electricity markets has well been achieved. The book provides a well-founded source for future analyses and studies. In this context, the numerous references of books and papers provided by the authors are most helpful.
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- Financial Statecraft: The Role of Financial Markets in American Foreign Policy
- Foundations of Multinational Financial Management
- Game Theory for Applied Economists
- Ghetto Schooling: A Political Economy of Urban Educational Reform
- Gilded Tarot
- Global Capital, Political Institutions, and Policy Change in Developed Welfare States (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)
- Global Challenges: An Approach to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems
- Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security
- Global Shift, Fifth Edition: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy (Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours)
- Global Strategy (with World Map and InfoTrac )
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