This book is everything I could have wanted and more–it exceeded expecations. For each of 75 “opportunities” sorted within eleven chapters it provides a summary table (Market Need, Mission, Knowledge to Start, Capital Rquired, Timing to Start, and Special Challenges, along with a multi-page discussion and a variety of “sidebar” elements that vary but generally address Related Trends, In the Long Run, Green Leader, Industry Information, Information Resource, Eco-Tip, or Eco-Issue.
This is a 4 in comparison with many other books, and was disappointingly generic and “lite” in the resource sections, BUT this is BEYOND 6 STARS if you do not have a college education and wither will not get one (see chapters on Solar, Wind, and Geothermal) or are just going into college (see chapters on Bioenergy, Hydro, Buildings, and Energy Management)….so I give it a solid 5 over-all. This book is NOT for “mid-career” folks with degrees looking to switch tracks.
Erudition Demanding Concentration–Need Lay Chapter or Pamphlet
October 12, 2009
Paul A. Rahe
This is an extraordinary book offering a very detailed and superbly integrated examination of the consistencies and differences among Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville, both to illuminate precisely what was in the Founding Father's minds when they sought to create a Republic of, by, and for We the People; and how distant we have migrated from that ideal.
As other reviewers have noted, this is not for the lay person or even the average Libertarian, for whom I would like to see (and would benefit myself) a pamphlet or article version. This is erudition in its highest form, offering a painstakingly devised integration and application of the works of three author's to the question: “what is the ideal state of unfettered democracy, and where does the USA stand in that regard?”
The book begins with an utterly devastating full page quote from Tocqueville in which I underline the words “petty and vulgar pleasures,” “elevated an immense, tutelary power,” “a network of petty regulations,” and “it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born.”
Published in 2009 this book is totally current with our recent financial collapse based on Congressional failures of integrity combined with Wall Street moral hazard and bad judgment, and the author notes that as of 2008 25% or more of US citizens were not happy with the state of America or its government. I believe a more telling statistic is the migration of over 44% of the population away from the two-party tyranny and toward declared Independent status. See also:
In Its Niche Beyond a Six–In Larger Context a Four
October 11, 2009
Roger Martin
First off, what got me to buy this book does not appear in the book at all–the author on record as saying that Wall Street was not designed to make money for its investors, only for its mandarins–the same is true of how universities are designed, businesses, etc. but that one observation really got my attention. I bought the book before BusinessWeek featured it as one of four in the October 5th edition (Europe version), and after looking the others over, chose this one.
In the larger context of changes to the Earth that now take three years instead of ten thousand years, as an entire literature flourishes on The Philosophy of Sustainable Design, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage and Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, the book is a four for narrow-casting and lack of context, but you can use Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, to search and sort among my other 1,400 reviews, so no penalty is warranted, This book will be scored Beyond 6 Stars at PBI/PIB for the simple reason that it addresses the core need of all eight tribes of intelligence (academia, civil society, commerce, government, law enforcement, media, military, and non-governmental organizations), to re-design away from the Industrial Era waste (where Six Sigma stops), and to instead envision how the world could and should be, and set out to achieve that–a prosperous world at peace.
Although I read mostly non-fiction, one of Ralph Peter's novels (his first in ten years, the last one I really liked was Traitor), is better than reality, for it portrays what we can expect when our delusional political, economic, and military acquisition practices play themselves out, and in the case of this book, what happens when we ignore the desperate need for religious counter-intelligence that I have been calling for since the 1980's.
In a nut-shell, this a marvelous depiction of what happens in the future when enemies of the USA plant two small nuclear devices in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, leading to a nation-wide call to arms with crusade overtones.
My Head Hurts–Time for a Black Caucus on Black Power
October 7, 2009
Houston A. Baker
My head hurts. After enjoying and reviewing Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics yesterday evening, I was not anticipating the firestorm of erudite adjective-laden brow-beating that this author delivers. Minus one star for beating several (black) horses to death, and as Reviewer Carter notes, not without meriting some of the same himself.
First off, this is a book that had to be written and must be read. There are, amidst the “wordier than thou” broad brush critiques, some real gems, some really engaging turns of phrase. It is unfortunate that the nature of the inquiry demands fairly personal explicit attacks on avowedly great black intellectuals, but there is some meat here.
Page 104: “Centrist territory is a rhetorical demilitarized zone where honest, committed, and historically informed proclamations on cause and effect regarding race, culture, morality, and gender in the United States can be studiously avoided, fudged, or simply made to suit the audience on hand.”
Phenomenal Overview, Reference, Exceeded Expectations
