Atlases & State of the World – Page 4 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/06/032012/06/04

Review: Honeycomb Kids – Big Picture Parenting

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atlases & State of the World, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Education (General), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Philosophy, Priorities, Public Administration, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Anna M. Campbell

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, Endearing, Inspiring, Useful, Rooted in Reality, June 3, 2012

The author asked me if I would review this book, and sent me a PDF version. I've just gone through it and it earns a solid five. If you have any doubts, use Amazon's great Look Inside the Book feature, and read the specifics in the Table of Contents.

It was the table of contents that first impressed me. I've been an intelligence professional most of my life, and in the process of getting to 60 years of age, have developed four strategic analytic models that remains best in class today. I also read a lot — across 98 non-fiction categories, with the last 1,800+ books reviewed here at Amazon (and accessible by category at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog).

I say all of that by way of saying that the author's selection and articulation of the core issues facing humanity — immediately followed by the author's even more inspired outlining of key values, key behaviors, key perspectives — all with citations interspersed and talking points for parents or mentors or teachers and children — impressed me enormously.

Over 30 books are offered as recommended reading, all of them relevant, one in particular catching my eye: The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature.

Continue reading “Review: Honeycomb Kids – Big Picture Parenting”

2011/11/162011/11/16

Review: The Decline of American Power – The US in a Chaotic World

2 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Atlases & State of the World, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Country/Regional, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Insurgency & Revolution, Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Immanuel Wallerstein

Price for 160 Pages Beneath Contempt,November 16, 2011

I am angry–I really wanted to buy and read this book, but a price of $50 for 160 pages is beneath contempt. The author is being abused by the publisher and I urge the author to consider a new publisher for the paperback, or demanding that the paperback be published immediately. Barnes and Noble has been shut down by Amazon — all other publishers appear in intent on staving off their ultimate demise in the face of on demand publishing by gouging the public.

This book in hardcopy should not be sold for more than $25, and in paperback for $16. Please join me in boycotting this publisher, as someone who cares deeply about the dissemination of important knowledge — which the author clearly offers — I find this pricing an utter outrage.

Here are some reasonably priced books that I offer as a substitute–my “top ten” if you will.
Continue reading “Review: The Decline of American Power – The US in a Chaotic World”

2011/10/252011/10/25

Review: A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation – And How to Save it

6 Star Top 10%, Atlases & State of the World, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Economics, History, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

cover crisis of civilization — Amazon Page

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond 5 Stars – Superb Individual Effort, October 25, 2011

In its own way this book is every bit as good as such classics as The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology) or The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters (New in Paper) and I am also reminded of Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization, all books I have reviewed here at Amazon, mirrored (often with material added) at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.

I was tempted to keep the book at five stars because the author tip-toes around the core issue of our day, institutionalized corruption. While he opens by saying he is striving to address the “linkage between political violence and social crisis in the context of imperial social systems,” the word imperial is as close as he gets to calling out the global criminals that used to be called the elite, and their equally complicit enablers, the political class. Which reminds me of another important book, The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back as well as the more recent Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History.

Continue reading “Review: A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation – And How to Save it”

2011/07/262011/07/26

Review: Measuring Evolution

6 Star Top 10%, Atlases & State of the World, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Science & Politics of Science, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

David Loye

6 Star Plus — Simple, Sensible Revolutionary, July 26, 2011

I am astonished that there are no reviews of this book. I first learned of it from my reading of A Democratic Approach to Sustainable Futures: A Workbook for Addressing the Global Problematique, and now I have discovered other books by this author, among which I would quickly point to

Bankrolling Evolution: A Program for a President
Darwin's Lost Theory of Love: A Healing Vision for the 21st Century
The Healing of a Nation

This book is very fairly priced, and while it may come across to superficial reviewers as too simple or shallow, I find it to be engrossing. This is a really big idea ably presented, with very brief overviews of prior science, examples of organizational applications, and addendums including a pointer to The Darwin Project.

Continue reading “Review: Measuring Evolution”

2011/07/20

Worth a Look: Who Governs the Globe?

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Civil Society, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Truth & Reconciliation, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Worth A Look

cover who governs the globe — Amazon Page

Review

“This path-breaking collaborative work illuminates complex social and political relationships that constitute governing authority in a changing world. New questions provoke deeper reflection than the term ‘global governance' typically stimulates. Specialists need to read this fine book, and so do students.” Louis W. Pauly, Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Governance, University of Toronto

“This volume makes and illustrates an important fact about global governance today: it isn't only or always the institutional form of actors – be they states, corporations, or NGOs – but their relationships with key constituencies and with one another that shape governance outcomes. Authority, the essence of governance, comes in many guises. I recommend this book highly.” John Gerard Ruggie, Harvard University

Product Description

Academics and policymakers frequently discuss global governance but they treat governance as a structure or process, rarely considering who actually does the governing. This volume focuses on the agents of global governance: ‘global governors'. The global policy arena is filled with a wide variety of actors such as international organizations, corporations, professional associations, and advocacy groups, all seeking to ‘govern' activity surrounding their issues of concern. Who Governs the Globe? lays out a theoretical framework for understanding and investigating governors in world politics. It then applies this framework to various governors and policy arenas, including arms control, human rights, economic development, and global education. Edited by three of the world's leading international relations scholars, this is an important contribution that will be useful for courses, as well as for researchers in international studies and international organizations.

Original Conference with Presented Papers (2007)

Conference: Who Governs the Globe?
November 16 & 17, 2007

2011/06/122011/06/12

Worth a Look (DVD): One Man, One Cow, One Planet

Advanced Cyber/IO, Atlases & State of the World, Change & Innovation, Collective Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Communities of Practice, Complexity & Resilience, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Crime (Corporate), Cultural Intelligence, Culture, Research, Disease & Health, Earth Intelligence, Economics, Environment (Solutions), Ethics, Gift Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (Public), Key Players, Methods & Process, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace Intelligence, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Public Administration, Reform, Reviews (DVD Only), Science & Politics of Science, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Technologies, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), Threats, Truth & Reconciliation, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Home Page of DVD

Phi Beta Iota: The industrialization/ chemicalization of agriculture, in combination with the corruption of every aspect of society beginning with governance and extending to the media, has allowed for the desecration of the Earth and the poisoning of humanity. This has been done with the explicit consent and encouragement of the so-called elites of the West, who have a vision of eugenics and the covert eradication of the poor and uneducated over time. These elites do not see that the brainpower of the three billion poor is the only thing that can restore natural harmony and sustainable agriculture as well as legitimate governance and natural capitalism. The time has come to create M4IS2–public intelligence in the public interest.

2010/12/162010/12/16

Review: A Cross-Polity Survey (1963)

5 Star, Atlases & State of the World, Country/Regional, Culture, Research, Economics, Games, Models, & Simulations, History, Insurgency & Revolution, Politics, Priorities, Public Administration, True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Arthur S. Banks (Author), Robert B. Textor (Author)

Set a Standard, Modern Version Urgently Needed

December 16, 2010

When I was a graduate student in the 1970's, “Banks & Textor” was the bible, and I could not have done my first graduate thesis on revolution without its inspiration. This reference taught me how to “operationalize” from a pre-condition of revolution (e.g. concentration of wealth) to specific measurable factors within a society (e.g. a mix of per capita income and spread).

As I just wrote in a commentary on the gap between rich and poor in the US,

In the 1970's an era when “whole systems” thinking tried to flourish only to be crushed by the emergent merger of the two-party tyranny and Wall Street, there was a vital comparative international studies reference, “Banks & Textor,” or more properly, Arthus S. Banks and Robert B. Textor, A Cross-Polity Survey (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1963). We strongly suspect that today the USA would be qualified a failed state, certainly so if the 1% of the population hoarding the bulk of the wealth were isolated as an extraneous factor contributing little of value to the larger economy while siphoning off one fifth of the asset value through legalized financial crime. There is clearly a need for a return of the Banks & Textor model, but with the added sophistication of distinguishing between negative factors of domestic production (excessive concentration of wealth, legalized mortgage clearinghouse, Wall Street derivative, and Federal Reserve fraud, prison factories and prisons, hospitals, and marginalized enterprises among others).

I would love to see a great university somewhere take on the magnificent challenge of recreating this great work, but modernized to include the Internet factor, measures of openness across all fronts (see my Gnomedex ketone, “Open Everything”) and so on.

This book is still priceless, it was the gold standard in its time, we need it now more than ever, but completely redone and modernized.

AA Mind the Gap — Vote and/or Comment on Review

See Also:

A Cross-Polity Survey (Free Download)

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