Seminal Work, Get It Used, Should Be ReprintedThis book changed my life in the sense that it served as a foundation for my first Master's thesis on Predicting Revolution, work that has not yet been surpassed.
I myself developed one side of the matrix, finding through the secondary literature that revolutions were generally distinct within each of the following domains:
Political-Legal
Military-Law Enforcement
Socio-Economic
Ideo-Cultural
Techno-Demographic
Natural-Geographic
It was not until I chanced across this work, which the author points out is the first ever theoretical dissertation at the Harvard Business School. I share the author's disdain for the Know-Nothings stepped in their rote learning who label all that they do not understand as “naive idealism.” They've become prostitutes, while the author and those like him continue to “live free.”
What this book did for me personally was provide and explain “Radical Man” in terms precisely suited to explode my first thesis from something pedestrian to something that today, a quarter of a century later, is still “best in class” (available at OSS.Net in Library, Steele's Early Papers).
He provided a model of psycho-social development with the following elements:
+ Perception
+ Identity
+ Competence
+ Investment
+ Suspension & Risk
+ Transcendance
+ Synergy
+ Integration
+ Complexity
Along the other side of the matrix, that allowed me to create a framework in which the secondary literature could be pigeon-holed into a third of the boxes, and then I did primary research to both complete the other two thirds, and to operationalize each element (identify specific collectable data with which to determine the degree of risk, scope, etc.).
Charles Hampden-Turner is in my view one of the great minds of our time, and I point readers to my review of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable so as to meet the second mind that I most admire in my time (there are others, of course, like E. O. Wilson, Alvin Toffler, but see my reviews for the details).
See also:
Maps of the Mind: Charts and Concepts of the Mind and its Labyrinths
Riding The Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business
Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
This one is free online at Army War College Strategic Studies Institute
The new craft of intelligence: Achieving asymmetric advantage in the face of nontraditional threats (Studies in asymmetry)
Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) 101 (Wrong Way)
Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) 102 (Right Way)
Work Inspired by this Book:
Preconditions of Revolution in the USA Today
Graphic: Pre-Conditions of Revolution
