5.0 out of 5 stars6 Star Paradigm Shifting Book — Destroys Existing Leadership “Industry”, July 13, 2015
I received this book as a “must read” gift from a colleague finishing his doctorate with a focus on transformative leadership, and after reading it, I quite agree, to the point of rating this book at 6 stars (my top 10% across 2000 plus non-fiction books). In brief, this book is a massive detailed literature review that covers academic and practitioner definitions of leadership and finds them all wanting for the simple reason that they are mired in leadership as a supervisory hierarchical relationship in a reductionist system in which the followers are the means and the ends are defined by someone other than the followers.
5.0 out of 5 stars6 Star Synthesis, Starting Point for Anyone Who Wishes to Think Holistically, July 4, 2015
The author taught me most of what I retain in the way of political science fundamentals during our time together at Muhlenberg College, where he was former Chair of the Department of Political Science and an Associate Dean. We had not kept in touch since I left Muhlenberg in 1974, but in 2014 I reached out to him and bought this book immediately upon learning of its existence.
Published in 2003 by the State University of New York Press, this book was evidently not marketed at all, and little noted. That is a sad commentary on our times, because I find that the author has distilled multiple literatures into one coherent presentation, augmented by an original model that tells a vital story beyond Ecological Economics into Ecological Political Economy (in essence, politics), into Ecological Ethics and Ecological Pedagogy, two topics rarely covered by others.
Robert Steele's quite extraordinary book, INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH, is now available in Kindle, which means that the hundreds of links within the book are easily exploitable. There is no one else on the planet that is a former spy, honorary hacker, #1 Amazon review for non-fiction, and the “top gun” for ethical evidence-based decision support to leaders who wish to be ethical and effective.
5.0 out of 5 starsSIX STAR Primer on the Necessary Socio-Economic Revolution, February 28, 2015
SIX STAR (my top 10% across 2000+ non-fiction book). This is an extraordinary book full of straight talk and common sense that sets the stage for a socio-economic revolution, first in the USA and then elsewhere. It does not address the many isolated incidents of collaborative capitalism and the commons that are in motion around the world — for that look up Michel Bauwens and the work of others on the economic commons — and it neglects the coincident need for a political revolution which is what my latest book on Open Power is about — but on balance this is easily a six-star offering.
5.0 out of 5 starsSIX STAR SPECTACULAR — COULD BE A CATALYST FOR REVOLUTION USA, October 27, 2014
This work is not being properly marketed in the USA. Harvard, the US publisher, is not doing all that it should which I find especially distressing because this could well be the single most important book any US citizen could read going into the farce of an election in 2014 and the travesty of 2016, when it appears that Jeb Bush will face off against Hillary Clinton, each so ably representing their side of the two-party tyranny that has sold out to Wall Street, barred the other parties (Constitution, Green, Libertarian, Natural Law, Reform, Socialist — and the Independents) from any possible access to political office, and sent two generations to elective wars mounted on the basis of greed and 935 lies.
Put as strongly as I can put it, this book could be a catalyst for revolution in the USA, and for that reason alone, I place it in my top ten percent, beyond five stars, this is a six star book.
5.0 out of 5 starsShould Be Top Ten Book Across All Progressive Communities, October 5, 2014
This is one of the most useful important books I have read in the past couple of years, and I am stunned that the publisher has failed to properly present the book for purchase on Amazon. This book should be one of the top ten books across the progressive communities of the world.
I rate this book at SIX STARS, which puts it into the top ten percent of the 2000+ non-fiction books with some DVDs (139) I have reviewed at Amazon. This is an *amazing* book of passionate informed truth-telling and in my view, it should be the starting point for a totally new conversation among all progressive minds going into the future.
I read this book on the way back from The New Story Summit as hosted by the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. While the book is deeply supportive of my own views on the desperate need of the distributed progressive community for tools and methods that bring together all minds and all information into a coherent whole, attending the summit and listening to the leaders of major progressive organizations including the Global Eco-Village Network and Transition positioned me to better appreciate this book by Micah Sifry.
QUOTE (34): “…has not made participation in decision-making or group coordination substantially easier.”
5.0 out of 5 starsCo-Creator with Buckminster Fuller of the Analog World Game, The Gold Standard for Serious Games 4.0, September 4, 2014
Medard Gabel, co-creator with Buckminster Fuller of the analog World Game, and architect of the digital EarthGame(TM), is “root” for anyone who wishes to do holistic design, true cost economics, serious games, and open source information-sharing and sense-making. He is too little known, very modest, and does not get the deep attention that he merits.
I have participated in his design seminars, and am always thrilled at how well they work. Everyone starts out working on “their” problem, generally an issue in isolation, and around the middle of the week-long seminar, all the different teams experience the “aha” moment when they realize that they cannot succeed in isolation, that all the challenges need to be addresses by everyone working together.
For me Medard Gabel is the “gold standard” and none of the serious games, however well-intentioned they might be, can be helpful beyond their narrow niche for lack of the holistic understanding and the information-sharing and sense-making architecture that Medard provides for — mostly human, not technical at all. As Russell Ackoff likes to say, what is good for one part of the system might be very bad for all the other parts — Comprehensive architecture and prime design — all threats, all policies, all demographics — are essential to our moving past the toxic industrial era of reductionsim and separation that we have fostered these past two hundred years.
I rate this book, because it is a collection of the best of the best from past books, some of which I reviewed at the time, at six stars instead of five.
