Book Description
An informed and excoriating attack on the tragic waste, futility, and hubris of the West's efforts to date to improve the lot of the so-called developing world, with constructive suggestions on how to move forward.
William Easterly's The White Man's Burden is about what its author calls the twin tragedies of global poverty. The first, of course, is that so many are seemingly fated to live horribly stunted, miserable lives and die such early deaths. The second is that after fifty years and more than $2.3 trillion in aid from the West to address the first tragedy, it has shockingly little to show for it. We'll never solve the first tragedy, Easterly argues, unless we figure out the second.
The ironies are many: We preach a gospel of freedom and individual accountability, yet we intrude in the inner workings of other countries through bloated aid bureaucracies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that are accountable to no one for the effects of their prescriptions. We take credit for the economic success stories of the last fifty years, like South Korea and Taiwan, when in fact we deserve very little. However, we reject all accountability for pouring more than half a trillion dollars into Africa and other regions and trying one "big new idea" after another, to no avail. Most of the places in which we've meddled are in fact no better off or are even worse off than they were before. Could it be that we don't know as much as we think we do about the magic spells that will open the door to the road to wealth?
Absolutely, William Easterly thunders in this angry, irreverent, and important book. He contrasts two approaches: (1) the ineffective planners' approach to development-never able to marshal enough knowledge or motivation to get the overambitious plans implemented to attain the plan's arbitrary targets and (2) a more constructive searchers' approach-always on the lookout for piecemeal improvements to poor peoples' well-being, with a system to get more aid resources to those who find things that work. Once we shift power and money from planners to searchers, there's much we can do that's focused and pragmatic to improve the lot of millions, such as public health, sanitation, education, roads, and nutrition initiatives. We need to face our own history of ineptitude and learn our lessons, especially at a time when the question of our ability to "build democracy," to transplant the institutions of our civil society into foreign soil so that they take root, has become one of the most pressing we face.
Customer Reviews:
Accurate assessment, poor presentation.......2007-10-15
This book makes the very accurate argument that pumping more money into foreign aid is not the answer to the Third World's problems. He correctly notes that:
a. Market-based approaches to aid are more effective than top-down planning.
b. Currently, aid providers often overlap in their efforts, reducing overall effectiveness, and are not held responsible for the success or failure of their efforts.
c. The goals of aid are often so broad that it is difficult to determine what works and what doesn't. Foreign aid is usually more cost-effective with projects that have a single, well-defined goal.
d. No feedback mechanism exists for receivers of aid, receivers have no say in how aid money is distributed or utilized, and not independent analysis of aid providers is ever performed.
e. Aid currently focuses on development, but a lot of development requires money for maintenance and this aspect is frequently not funded.
f. In the case of AIDS, too much money is spent on extending the lives of people that are HIV-positive, while not enough is done to prevent additional cases. This is the least effective way of dealing with the problem.
Unfortunately, Easterly presents his arguments in a somewhat haphazard manner. The book is written in short burst sub-chapters, with macro-level discussions intermixed with individual-level stories that struggle to blend into a single coherent argument. Thus, while the ideas presented suggest a 5-star rating for this book, the presentation and readability pull it down to 4-stars.
This book is best read with Jeffrey Sach's "The End of Poverty", which provides the opposite, big-Planner aspect of foreign aid.
Frustrating and Illuminating.......2007-09-03
I found The White Man's Burden frustrating and illuminating at the same time. I was frustrated by the fact that despite masses of foreign aid little seems to have helped Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the other areas known as "the Rest". It was illuminating in that William Easterly oes such a good job of analyzing the reasons why so much good will and so much money have accomplished so little.
Basically, Westerners who seek to help the rest of the world have largely been Planners, Easterly's term for people and organizations who think the way to help others is to help them become more like themselves. Despite historic, cultural, religious, and a host of other differences, the West tries to improve the Rest by trying to make it into a New West. On the other hand, there are the Searchers, who try to find ways to help and to help the Rest help itself. Unfortunately, too many agencies and too many powerful people are Planners, and far too few are Searchers. Easterly dissects the failures of the Planners and compares them with the successes of Searchers in a scholarly, well researched manner that leaves room for the occasional witticism.
As I read The White Man's Burden I recognized so many of the same problems that I, as a public school teacher, face dealing with bureaucracies full of Planners, who think the way to solve a problem is to come up with a big overall Scheme and throw tons of money around, usually unsuccessfully. Easterly has performed a valuable service by revealing the problem and identifying the solutions. Maybe someday the Searchers will be in charge!
A Wake-up call for the Aid-Industry.......2007-08-07
William Easterly gives, in his book, The White Man's Burden, an important contribution to the debate on foreign aid to developing countries. As a counterpart to economist Jeffrey Sachs and the World Bank's utopist policies, most of all suitable to give the West and their politicians a clean conscience - this book gives more realistic and down-to-earth suggestions to what really could work and what is possible to accomplish. It also calls for greater UN/World Bank/ NGO accountability towards the poor and not only towards donors...A "must-read" for all involved in foreign aid and other citizens alike.
Skip Part 3.......2007-07-26
In this book, William Easterly does an excellent job of critiquing the West's efforts at foreign aid and why they have been so unsuccessful despite constant efforts over the past decades. He draws on his extensive experience with the World Bank and knowledge of the practices of other aid agencies to build a solid foundation for his argument. His claims that the grand plans of agencies simply do not address the real problems that the poverty face and that their efforts are simply not working are well founded.
However he divides the book into 4 parts, the first an introduction and the second a more detailed critique of development agencies. The fourth section presents his conclusions about the future of foreign aid and suggestions about how to make it more effective. But in part 3 he strays from the topic of direct foreign aid to address other ways that he claims that West has tried to aid the Rest. The section consists of 2 chapters. The first chapter addresses a proposed idea that Western powers take over certain sections of the developing world as a sort of economic protectorate. The idea is not clearly outlined but Easterly is immediately opposed to it because it sounds sort of like colonialism. He then analyzes decolonization for examples of why colonialism was bad for the developing world and, by analogy, so will these economic protectorates. His analysis of decolonization hinges on the fact that the colonial powers left behind countries with artificial boundaries that grouped antagonistic ethnic groups together and led to warfare and rivalry that hindered the country's development. However, he gives examples in which he twists historical facts to support his thesis, presenting colonial powers in an exclusively negative light. His treatment of the partition of India at their independence is the best example. As India was achieving independence from Britain, Muhammad Jinnah, the leader of the Muslims of India, pushed for a separate Muslim state, against the wishes of Gandhi and Nehru. He claimed that India will come to be dominated by Hindus and the Muslims would suffer under such a situation. The actual point of independence was overseen by Lord Mountbatten, sent in by Britain to peacefully bring about independence. The creation of Pakistan was the result. Unfortunately Pakistan would encompass a number of ethnic groups, including Sikhs, Baluchis, Pashtuns as well as Muslim Indians, who were uncooperative and led to Pakistan being an underdeveloped state. All of this is presented well by Easterly in the chapter. However his final take is that the problems of Pakistan are Mountbatten's fault for allegedly grouping all the ethnic groups together in that country. But Pakistan was Jinnah's idea who was doing something that Easterly would have advocated, separating 2 mutually antagonistic ethnic groups into separate states so that each could control their own destiny. Easterly twists historical facts in order to put Britain (a.k.a. the West) in a negative light. This attitude and distortion of history characterizes the entire chapter. Moreover his critique of colonialism says nothing the possible success of the proposed economic protectorates. Colonies were focussed on the economic development of the mother country. The economic protectorates would theoretically (and the whole idea was only a theory at the time of writing) focus on the economic development of the Third World.
The second chapter of the section does not fare much better. He addresses military interventions into developing countries, positing them as attempts to bring development to a country by bringing peace. However his detailed critique of them never presents them as economic development measures. Many of them were simply peacekeeping missions just to stop people from killing each other or undertaken as a means of national security. They were nothing more than political moves and should not be used as an example of the West's failure at development.
Overall this section simply reveals Easterly's biases and shows that he has stepped far outside his area of expertise. The section is misplaced and should have been deleted from the book altogether. It only detracts from an otherwise well-written and carefully thought out critique of foreign aid. In all I agree with his critique and his belief that the West needs to abandon its grand plans and listen to the world's poor to find out how we can address their needs more specifically.
Incidentally, I found one point where Easterly does not follow his own advice. At one point he is talking with a South African woman diagnosed with HIV, who will likely die within a few years, who, instead of resigning herself to her fate, is working as hard as she can to ensure a good life for her children. He asks what the biggest problem the country faces is. She answers "No jobs". Easterly then turns back to the reader with a twinkle in his eye and uses her unwillingness to give up as a call for better aid. But she didn't say she wanted aid, did she? She wants jobs. The real problem that all the developing world faces is a lack of economic investment. They need jobs so that they have a better chance of standing on their own in the future. What was that idea about economic protectorates?
Very informative, unfortunately too much detail.......2007-06-22
Prof. Easterly knows what he is writing about as he spent many years with the World Bank. His basic thesis is, that the aid to developping countries does not lack funding, but the funds are applied very inefficiently. The "customers" of the help agencies are not the needy poor, but the "rich" donor countries and their citizens. Hence aid is applied to please these customers, rather than pleasing the poor. In other words, he applies market logic to explain the reasons for failure.
The only draw back to the book is its length. After some time, the book starts repeating itself, and the details become onerous for the interested lay person. (Who, except the specialist really cares about some fine differences between World Bank IMF and the various UN agencies?)
Even though I did not finish the book for that reason, I highly recommend it to anybody, who wants to know, why his aid money does not seem to work.
Book Description
When a company decides to make a major organizational changewhether it's a new emphasis on customer service, quality management, restructuring or downsizingmanagers must get the message through to front-line employees, and enlist their support...or the changes will create more turmoil than progress.
Written for busy managers at all levels, Communicating Change offers specific prescriptions for effecting successful change centered around three guiding principles:
- Conveying the message through supervisors
- Communicating face-to-face
- Making the changes relevant to each work area
In addition, a variety of helpful forms, checklists, sample communications, and surveys help managers to quickly put these principles into action.
Customer Reviews:
common sense communication improvements.......2007-01-18
I work as a Communications Specialist... sounds impressive, but really it is all about listening...and this book gives real world examples and steps for improving how you communicate change in your company. Perhaps I enjoy it because it supports my own theory that a chat or memo from the CEO is nice, but who is the guy/woman? really?...the immediate supervisor is the one I interact with everyday... that person is the key to clear communication and the conduit to change.
This is an easy-to-read book, presenting clear practical solutions.
Packed with Knowledge !.......2005-02-23
Nearly every CEO of a large corporation believes that words directly from his or her mouth will inspire front-line employees. Five decades of research show just the opposite, explain consultants and authors T.J. and Sandar Larkin. Their investigations emphasize the importance of communicating change through low-level supervisors, a group that has more credibility with front-line workers. They maintain that CEOs must go beyond simply telling supervisors what to do; they must also listen to these key employees and empower them by taking their suggestions seriously. The authors provide plenty of real-world examples to bolster their case. We recommend this clearly constructed argument to CEOs and to anyone charged with communicating with large numbers of employees. This engaging treatise, a classic, is ready to persuade its next crop of managers.
Good reference.......2003-11-22
My line of consulting has a lot to do with change management and communicating change so this was a good book to refer to for additional ideas and tools for the toolkit. One of the chapters that sticks out in my mind is the one that talks to how people prefer to hear certain types of messages (e.g. from their direct mananger, through an email, at an all hands meeting etc) The author uses actual data from surveys to back up his ideas which I fpund helpful - not only in helping me recommend certain vehicles for communication but also convincing others. Good resource.
A superb book.......2000-06-11
I'm an academic--a professor of corporate communication--and this is one of the few books I recommend to students in this area. Larkin bases every one of his assertions on applied research in organizational communication--very refreshing from the "I did it in my organization, so it must work in your company" perspective of most business authors. Larkin also completely shatters myths around traditional corporate communication practices (e.g. the executive should communicate directly to employees around major change areas), and bases such assertions on research in the area *plus* his own consulting experience (of which he has a great deal). My students also loved this book. If you buy one book on employee/corporate communication, this is the one.
Breath of fresh air.......1999-12-22
After years of being force-fed communications theories that didn't work, it was a real joy to see reality documented. The solutions presented are too simple to be acceptable to anyone more interested in documenting "quality" than running a business. These "rules" help: they work in practice (when was the last time you heard that about a communications theory?): and they will change your world.
Book Description
Chad Pregracke was a high school student when he first glimpsed the trash that littered the bottom of the Mississippi, a shocking sight that launched him on a quest to clean up the river. After four discouraging years seeking government help without success, he decided to take his fund-raising private—and a corporate sponsor decided to take a chance on this naive but unshakably determined young man.
Ten years later Chad's one-man project has grown into a $500,000 operation with more than 60 sponsors (including National Geographic). His work has been featured on national news and won numerous honors and accolades, but its grassroots, can-do spirit still thrives aboard the 135-foot barge that serves as home base for his organization, a floating environmental classroom, and an inspiration to people of all ages.
This is the story of his personal triumph as an advocate for America's rivers. Chad measures success in tons of garbage removed and thousands of people with a new stake in—and a new understanding of—the river environment. But From the Bottom Up is much more as well: a first-person chronicle of Chad's own life along the Mississippi featuring colorful characters, a near-death experience, a haunted swamp, and other flourishes worthy of a modern Mark Twain; and a fascinating portrait of the river itself which explores everything from the natural history of mussels and catfish to Indian lore to the key role of the Mississippi in our country's history.
Customer Reviews:
We need more people like this! .......2007-08-23
It's a great book that details how one person saw a need for change no matter what it took. Chad perservered (and continues to) and has created this movement that draws in sponsors, staff and volunteers who are happy and willing to help with enthusiasim. It's very well written and makes for a good read. Thanks Chad and Jeff - keep up the good work!
Fantastic! .......2007-06-15
I could not be more engaged in the book than I am - it is so thrilling and to read about the experiences they have had it makes you wish that you could have been there! It is just excellent! I love it - and I'm so excited when I carry the book somewhere and people ask me what I'm reading because I can't wait to tell people some of the CRAZY things that have happened to Chad and his crew.
ANYONE could read this book and thoroughly enjoy it - I even share parts of the book with my 6 year old son who can't wait to get back out the XStream Clean up this year!
It's amazing how he can take something seemingly so mundane as picking up garbage - write a book about it - and it is just an amazing adventure!
Rising to the Top.......2007-05-29
"From the Bottom Up" is an enormously impressive account of the prodigious effort and success of Chad Pregracke and his clean-up team to take on a difficult and necessary problem in our environment.
Our world needs this motivation, talent, work, and hands-on planning to protect our planet. Jeff Barrow's excellent writing makes the information flow easily and captivates the reader's interest. The dedicated and hard-working team forces attention to rise to the top of our consciousness and educates the reader on the necessity of cleaning up our waterways, taking responsibility for our environment, and stimulates our will to do it.
Great, very entertaining story about one man's idea and his ability to get thousands to help........2007-05-01
It's hard to write an accurate description of this book, let alone Chad Pregracke's accomplishments. Do you measure it in the number (545) of refrigerators he's pulled from rivers? Do you measure it in the number (15,991) of tires his group has pulled up? Or possibly by the number (1) of horse's heads he's pulled from the river? Combine these stats with tons of press coverage alongside a trip to the White House to receive an award alongside Rudy Giuliani and Bill and Melinda Gates and you've got a very good story.
Over the past 10 years Chad has assembled a group of volunteers, sponsors, and genuinely interesting people to help him accomplish a daunting goal of cleaning up America's rivers. This has extended into an audacious goal of planting a million trees and educating thousands of students on his "floating classroom."
This book will give you an inspiring, very entertaining snapshot of how it was done and even gives you a quick blueprint of how to do something in your own area. Read it for an inspiring portrait of a true original who started with a small idea and turned it into a national movement.
It's a real CRUSADE - action - danger - adventure & comic relief!.......2007-04-27
This is an amazing story with never a dull moment. Chad has to be one of the most tenacious persons on the face of the earth! The obstacles he overcame were numerous and the spirit he faced them with was awe inspiring. They don't call it the Mighty Mississippi for no reason. Chad's fabulous sensce of humor comes shining through from this self appointed trash talking, picking, sorting, recycling dude.
Book Description
When Charles O. Rossotti became Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service in 1997, the agency had the largest customer base—and the lowest approval rating—of any institution in America. Mired in scandal, caught in a political maelstrom, and beset by profound management and technology problems, the IRS was widely dismissed as a hopelessly flawed enterprise. In Many Unhappy Returns, Rossotti—the first businessperson to head the IRS—recounts the remarkable story of his leadership and transformation of this much-maligned agency. In the glare of intense public scrutiny, he effected dramatic changes in the way the IRS did business—while it continued to collect $2 trillion in revenue. Through fascinating accounts of heated Congressional hearings, encounters with Washington bigwigs, frank exchanges with taxpayers and employees, and risky turnaround strategies, Rossotti serves up a colorful story of leadership and change against daunting odds. He also underscores why every honest taxpayer should demand reform in the broader U.S. tax system. Infused with keen wit and hard-won business wisdom, Many Unhappy Returns illuminates the perils and possibilities of leading large, complex organizations in a transparent world.
Customer Reviews:
Reforming Government is Hopeless!.......2005-12-29
Rossotti tried it as head of the IRS from 1997 to 2002, coming from outside government and without prior significant tax experience. At the time, it had the largest number of customers and lowest approval rating of any institution in America. Behind this rating was a new $4 billion computer system that could not meet requirements, callers couldn't get through, staff could not resolve many issues without added calls and letters, there were high error rates in response to caller questions, and numerous charges of staff building "success rates" by deliberately focusing on taxpayers thought least able to resist.
One of Rossotti's early acts was to have a list compiled of outstanding promises - it exceeded 5,000. He consolidated the list and focused on 157 - giving them top attention. In addition, Y2K was coming - threatening chaos unless thousands of old programs were changed before the old programmers familiar with them and increasingly uncertain about their own future left. (Resolved that problem with a temporary 10% bonus and the promise of re-training in new languages.)
The "bad news," however, is that Congressionally-imposed complexity had led to an 83,000-page manual, a prohibition on quotas, and a requirement for performance statistics. Further, MAJOR improvement would require not only simplifying the tax code but also the organizational structure. For example, the Office of Management and Budget had great control over staffing, and Treasury department attorneys determined the legal rulings used by staff - often with little concern over practicality.
Rossotti focused on having staff stop seeing taxpayers as "the enemy," moved to organize those responding to taxpayer questions by topic and providing more training. Their efforts did improve customer satisfaction ratings, but he did not provide data on what happened after leaving. (My experience in government is that after the crisis passes or the change agent leaves, things revert back to the way they were.)
Probably most helpful, though was Rossotti's suggestion for Congressional focus - that the definitions and requirements regarding dependents (different in various situations) and tax-treatment of savings accounts added the most complexity to most taxpayers situations. Therefore, revising those areas would have significant benefit in simplifying taxpaying for many, many taxpayers.
It's not just the IRS.......2005-06-15
This is a truly remarkable book. Clearly written, with many practical examples and devoid of management jargon, it describes what Charles Rossotti did to signbificantly improve IRS operations. But it's not just about the IRS, or about big, cumbersome government buraeucracies, or about how to change organizations. It's about good management! The principles that guided Rossotti and that he lays out out in this book are universal, such as focus on the customer (that's right, taxpayers treated as customers)and involvement of employees in the improvement process. Those apply to any organization at any time and make this book an extraordinary valuable read for anyone genuinely interested in good management. I highly recommend it.
Government at its best.......2005-05-07
All those interested in how the best modern management practices of the private sector can be applied to huge government bureaucracies with dramatic benefits to the taxpayer (literally) should read Charles Rossotti's book. This book should remove all doubt about whether it's possible to improve the operational performance of government. The fundamentals are all that's needed: getting one's arms around the whole problem, structural reorganization, customer focus, gathering input from all directions, using modern information technology, leveraging the frustrated talent already in the organization, constant and honest communication, and the right chief executive. Rossotti was the right executive for the IRS, and fortunately he has written a clear and lively narrative of his experiences there.
Some Happy Returns Too.......2005-03-28
This is a modest and engaging memoir from a successful businessman who, to the surprise of his own family, accepted an offer to become Commissioner of the IRS. He took the job in 1997, when the IRS was in a political firestorm, being berated as both abusive and bungling in dramatic Congressional hearings. Charles Rossotti took over this very troubled agency, and after five years of hard work, left it, well, still a troubled agency, but with somewhat more manageable problems than it had before.
The list of problems he faced was truly daunting. The IRS was an outdated organization based on geography instead of function; its computer system for taxpayer accounts was from 1962; its customer service lines were chronically busy; and its workforce was demoralized. On his first day in office, Rossotti told his staff he wanted to send an e-mail to all employees and was promptly told it was impossible. Where to begin?
He began with the organization, removing layers of management and consolidating functions so that offices could focus on particular types of taxpayers. Rossotti was allowed to bring in his own management team, but to his relief, found that the career IRS executives he inherited were eager and able to make big changes in the agency. He accompanied IRS employees during their meetings with taxpayers so that he could watch them work. He replaced the big paper manuals that telephone assistors used with computer databases, and devised a plan to keep the old computer system updated for Y2K and tax law changes until a new system could be designed and deployed. All these changes were made after consulting with everyone from the employees' union to small business groups; Rossotti's motto is, "Engage, and then decide."
As the dour title of the book would suggest, not everything went well. Most of Rossotti's plan for "Modernizing America's Tax Agency" had only long-term benefits, but the politicians who make the rules and set the budget wanted a sense of immediate accomplishment. Congress demanded that he respond to the hearings by firing some employees. The White House hoped that a few public relations gestures could just make the problem go away. In one of book's few insider revelations, Rossotti claims that Clinton aides actually asked him to find a "happy taxpayer" for the audience of a State of the Union speech. Rossotti's budget requests were routinely cut, so he reduced enforcement to pay for the improvements he wanted in customer service. Not surprisingly, tax evaders, often assisted by prestigious accounting firms, took full advantage of the decline in audits.
So what is Charles Rossotti's legacy? The organizational and technological changes he was able to make will have lasting benefits. The IRS has caught up with such basics as fax and e-mail, and the irs.gov website is excellent. Rossotti's positive assessment of the employees he met is encouraging. His major emphasis on customer service may be threatened though. Rossotti's successor, alarmed at the level of cheating but no more successful with the overall budget, is now cutting customer service to shore up enforcement. Congress ignored Rossotti's requests to simplify the tax code, and in fact made things worse. Rossotti certainly wasn't the first businessman to go into government and find frustration, but with his modesty and his emphasis on consultation, he seemed much more poised for success than an autocratic type.
Many Unhappy Returns is neither bitter nor self-congratulatory. Rossotti doesn't criticize many people by name, and he is quick to share credit for what went right. His analysis of organizational structures certainly won't outsell books on terrorism or celebrity trials, but he does seem to be a very honest and capable man who took on a difficult job with no prospect of fame or glory. Reading his book is a small way of saying thanks. He didn't completely succeed, but thank God people like him are willing to try.
Someone had to do it.......2005-02-25
Just when you think that your own job is the pits, you encounter someone whose occupation is even worse. Actually, Rosetti volunteered - sort of, if you can call succumbing to pressure from several Washington heavies 'volunteering' - to fix something that appeared terminally broken: the IRS. But the result is a book that has more to do with transformational change in large organisations than taxation, and Rosetti is clear about the steps that were involved in bringing the IRS back from the brink to being a fairly credible organization (although he admits the process will take much longer than the five years that he held the job).
As a former businessman from the private sector, before taking the job he insisted on being able to form his own team - and he managed to assemble some good people from the private sector and from within the IRS. He also highlights the importance of keeping reform promises credible - better, he says, to only promise realistic changes, rather than promise the world and deliver nothing. Another key was the installation of up-to-date technology - astonishing to realise that the IRS was still running on a computer system from 1963.
The major problem was the micro-mandates imposed on him by various Congressmen and other stakeholders, as well as the apparently random interventions of the Clinton White House.
As a non-American, I cannot personally vouch for Rosetti's claims about the IRS lifting its game, although it sounds right from other things I have read and heard. One way or another, it makes for a pretty interesting book, and Rosetti writes with clarity and occasional humor (an ability to see the funny side of things would have been essential in this job).
I think I will send my (advance) copy to the head of the tax office in my own country.
Book Description
The brilliant European best-seller that presents a multi-disciplinary look at the way life is organized and where our evolution is taking us
In The Symbiotic Man, de Rosnay expresses his persuasively optimistic view of how humans will learn how to evolve in harmony with our ecosystem, much as the cells of our body must work together for our continued health. "The great challenge of the future will not be technical," he writes; "it will be human." The challenge is for us to learn how we fit into a planetary macro-organism that includes all humans, machines, organisms, networks and nations.
In this exhilarating search for the outlines of the future, as de Rosnay shows, we will be using such emerging and evolving new disciplines as biotics, molecular electronics, neobiology, and cognitive sciences.
Customer Reviews:
Insightful!.......2001-06-02
Joël De Rosnay's book is a gold mine of provocative ideas about the evolution of mankind, economics, politics and more. It pulls together information from organic chemistry, computer technology, chaos theory and a slew of unrelated fields to argue for a less egocentric approach to business and government. In the process, it redefines competitiveness and industry. This eloquent presentation is definitely not a light read. It is mind-boggling in scope but fractal in delivery - which means you can delve into virtually any section and get a feel for its message. Business wisdom is spotty here, but this is not a business book. Instead, it's more of a cross between Wired magazine and an intricately researched science fiction novel. It is not for the faint of heart (or brain), but we [...] recommend it, if you'd like to stimulate your mind, shake up your old beliefs, check the inventiveness of bold technological projections, or glimpse an exciting future.
Cybion and the future of the Society.......2000-12-21
With the metaphor of the Cybion, central concept of the Symbiotic Man, Joel de Rosnay has jumped a new step since the Macroscope. The first part of the book will delight a reader who likes imagination and vision. This part describes a lot of conceptual ideas and requires a serious attention when reading it. On the other hand, the second and third parts are more practical with many political, economic and social examples and graphics illustrating the ideas of the first part. One of the characteristic of the book is the possibility to open the book at any page and extract relevant information. This book would be particularly suited to be published on the Internet in order to navigate between main ideas and examples ! Before reading this book, I had a very imprecise idea of chaos, rigidity, fractal evolution, order, complexity. No I understand these notions when applied to organisations and society.
Customer Reviews:
Possibly the simplest, most powerful way to save the earth.......2000-03-17
If you have always thought jobs and the environment were at odds with one another, read this book and see that there are very sensible ways to help the environment AND the economy at the same time. See how current tax policies penalize exactly the things we want more of (employment, environmental protection), and subsidize exactly the things we want less of (pollution, pillaging). The authors make their points powerfully and convincingly, yet with a surprisingly light, readable touch. Normally I would never read a book with "tax" in the title, but this is not a typical book. Any thinking citizen should take a look, and anyone interested in government, politics, or activism should read it as soon as possible. It will give you new perspective on how we run our society, and on how we should.
Update: the principles in this book are so impressive that the notion of a tax shift, and a related concept the "feebate", have entered the mainstream political agenda in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It's a persuasive book!
Average customer rating:
- An Eyeopener ...
- "The Organisation Man" revisited
- History class book list
- The 1950's Corporation: Friend or foe?
- Why aren't more people reading this book?
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The Organization Man
William H. Whyte
Manufacturer: University of Pennsylvania Press
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Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0812218191 |
Book Description
"The Organization Man is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. It established the categories Americans now use when thinking about the workplace, the suburbs, and their lives."--David Brooks, senior editor at the Weekly Sta
Customer Reviews:
An Eyeopener ... .......2007-08-21
Whyte's book is a fascinating read, still, after so many years. It is wonderfully written, filled with anecdotes and telling examples -- and it is above all else to the point: large-scale bureauratic structures have evolved a functionalist climate that thrives on its own logic of operation. Organizations make for an environment that incessantly shapes the conformist functionary, and that drives the creative, intelligent, free-spirited, and self-conscious type of person 'out of business'. The very first pages reveal how salient Whyte's concerns are today, more than fifty years after the first publication of the book. My favorite chapters are 16-18 about the 'education' (read: stultification) of future functionaries and the dubious/odious role big corporations play in this context. A short glance at the role of nowadays educational institutions suffices to have this circumstance confirmed ...
"The Organisation Man" revisited.......2006-03-18
The secondary title applied to this excellent work was " Moulding Team Players for Free Enterprise" The principal idea was how Big Business through the educational system and the prevailing culture indoctrinated a generation of aspiring corporate executives and middle managers into company men - similar to armed forces indoctrination of career officer cadets.
This excellent work is applicable today as it was 50 years ago, and is an invaluable work to all who wish to understand corporate culture. One only has to think of the many examples of Corporate interest over riding individual executives concience to see the relevance.
History class book list.......2005-07-26
This book is an optional reading assignment for my United States history class. It is hard to find in the bookstore because it was first published in the 1950's.
The 1950's Corporation: Friend or foe? .......2005-05-12
William Whyte, who was an editor at Fortune magazine, argues in this 1956 bestseller that some people not only worked for an organization, but sold their psyches to them as well. These "organization men" willingly subordinated their personal goals and desires to conform to the demands of corporations and other organizations. This is different than modern-day workaholism -- the "organization men" of the 1950's hoped to gain loyalty, security and "belongingness" in exchange. In their view, the organization is a friend, not a foe; it's should be co-operated with, not questioned.
Whyte argues that the ideology behind the organization man is a "social ethic." Its core beliefs are that the group is superior to the individual, and individuals lack meaning and purpose outside of that group. "Belongingness" is assumed to be the ultimate emotional need of the individual, and to achieve it society should not hesitate to use a bit of social engineering. The result, however, is an ethos of over-conformity at any price.
As Whyte looked around the world in the mid-1950's, he saw the ethos of the Organization Man everywhere. He saw it in college graduates who joined big corporations, pledging their loyalty with visions of a safe stable life in exchange. He saw it in corporate executives who willingly pulled up their roots every time the company wanted to transfer him. He saw it when educators were asked to teach kids social skills so they could get along, rather than teaching academic subjects that forced kids to think for themselves. He saw it in engineering companies that said that there are "no geniuses here; just a bunch of average Americans working together" (although studies show that innovative engineers and scientists are fiercely independent, thus the direct antithesis of the company-oriented man).
So what to do? Whyte says we must realize that although we need the organization, we must know when and how to resist it. We must tread the fine line between self-interested cooperation and psychological surrender. We must realize that although the group can be a friend, it can also be a tyrant.
Even though this book was written about 50 years ago, many of Whyte's messages still ring true today. Yes, times have changed, and worker loyalty to corporations is passe'. Yet this book is worth reading, if only for its historical perspective on the mood in the 1950's. Also, it's well written - after all, Whyte was an editor at Fortune. Recommended.
Why aren't more people reading this book?.......2003-03-22
College students who are majoring in history, business, sociology, and industrial psychology should read this book. Also, anyone just interested in challenging the status quo will find inspiration within its pages.
Book Description
For five consecutive generations, from roughly 1880–1980, Native American children in the United States and Canada were forcibly taken from their families and relocated to residential schools. The stated goal of this government program was to "kill the Indian to save the man." Half of the children did not survive the experience, and those who did were left permanently scarred. The resulting alcoholism, suicide, and the transmission of trauma to their own children has led to a social disintegration with results that can only be described as genocidal.
Ward Churchill is the author of A Little Matter of Genocide, among other books. He is currently a Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Customer Reviews:
interesting subject-uninspiring author.......2006-01-13
This book covers a facinating and underexamined area of US history. I was very much looking forward to reading it. The author clearly is extremely well-educated on this subject. The problem is -- he's boring. Ward Churchill writes like your typical college professor who turned you off history forever by being pedantic and uninspiring. I've worked as a book editor in the past and I have found that often the more education a writer has the worse his or her books are. Churchill seems to be underlining his scholarship with tediousness and seems to be over his head in information with no way to convey it in an readable manner. His editor should be fired for not making this book comprehensible to a wider audience. It isn't a doctoral thesis, for crying out loud. It's a disappointing treatment of what should have been an enlightening and educating experience. I wish I'd saved my money and hope, considering all the books Churchill has listed on Amazon, that he has, or will, learn to write well.
A core contribution to Native American Studies .......2005-03-10
From 1880 to 1980 the families of Native Americans were cruelly disrupted by the United States and Canadian governments who forcibly removed children from their homes and relocated them in residential schools. The stated goal of this intrusive and brutal governmental program was to "kill the Indian to save the man". Half of the children died in this process of cultural remodeling refashioning aboriginal children into the clothing, hairstyles, attitdudes, and langauges of the larger white culture, and those who survived were often left permanently scarred resulting in alcoholism, suicide, and the transmission of trauma to succeeding generations down to the present day. A core contribution to Native American Studies curriculums and academic library reference collections, Ward Churchill (a Keetowah Cherokee and Professor of American Indian Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder) clearly lays out this unhappy chapter in Native American history with considerable detail and expertise in Kill The Indian, Save The Man: The Genocidal Impact Of American Indian Residential Schools.
Book Description
Ever get the feeling that your coworkers don't understand you?
Misunderstanding through poor communication is rampant in the workplace, yet most workers just shrug their shoulders and accept misunderstanding as a fact of life. In Why Didn't You Say that in the First Place?, the author offers a path to clear communication by demonstrating how we can always reach full mutual understanding with others by using the power of plain talk in a systematic way.
You'll discover:
- Why nobody understands you
- Why misunderstanding is normal
- The power of strategic talk
- Communicating when understanding is critical
It is full of anecdotes, illustrations, sample conversations, and checklists to show readers how misunderstandings can be prevented in everyday settings.
Customer Reviews:
This Book Launched My Career As A Consultant.......2003-04-19
First off, I know the author. Met and interviewed him often in Boston radio. But when he wrote this first book, it coincided with me leaving a major media corporation and launching my own business. I couldn't have done so without Jeffrey's sage counsel. This book should be must reading for any would-be entrepreneur as it lays out, step by step, how to build your firm and market yourself effectively to a network of clients and colleagues. Kudo's to Dr. Lant for taking me from $0 to a half-million a year as a sole practioner.
Have used and recommended this book many times.......2002-06-06
Jeffrey Lant is an amazing guy "who answers his own phone" in
Cambridge, MA. He is the most generous teacher of business
basics and advanced techniques that I know of...for any price.
The complete novice/layman can learn to be their own publicist,
and marketer most successfully with his books. He has written
a number of excellent business manuals. Its worth searching
his site to learn more about him and what he teaches.
He has helped my business succeed!
Not So Great.......2000-09-14
While I liked this book better than the other Lant books I tried, I found that so much of Lant's information can be found for free on most good web sites. His books are big, but can be condensed into 1/2 the number of pages. Another thing about Lant's work is that unless you like pomposity, you may be turned off.
Unabashed Self Promotor's guideby Dr. Jeffrey Lant.......2000-01-15
Any small businessman who doesn't have this this reference on his shelf isn't interested in selling products. Dr. Lant points the way to develop an effective program for promoting your business which is focused, effective and inexpensive. He shows you the indices for getting attention and then capitalising on that attention.
Dr. Lant writes in plain English and lays out his points in a very easy to follow fashion. His common sense approach is organized in such a way the small business person can literally "fill in the blanks" and produce a first class publicity campaign.
This book is a "must have" for any small business who wants more business!
Dr. Lant is a marketing genius! Worth every penny!.......1998-12-27
Dr. Lant is a marketing genius! Worth every penny! This book is a MUST read if you plan on marketing on-line or off-line! Every serious marketer must add this to his arsenal!
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Development as Freedom
