Blowing the Whistle: Former US Official Reveals Risks Faced by Internal Critics
Worth a Look: The Internet is Not the Answer
5 Star, Information Society, Information Technology
The Internet Is Not the Answer, by longtime Internet skeptic Andrew Keen, offers a comprehensive look at what the Internet is doing to our lives. The book traces the technological and economic history of the Internet, from its founding in the 1960s through the rise of big data companies to the increasing attempts to monetize almost every human activity. Startling and important, The Internet Is Not the Answer is a big-picture look at what the Internet is doing to our society and an investigation of what we can do to try to make sure the decisions we are making about the reconfiguring of our world do not lead to unpleasant, unforeseen aftershocks.
Review: Nation on the Take – How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy
4 Star, Democracy
Wendell Potter and Nick Penniman
4 Stars New Material on One Old Issue — Neglects the Other Eleven Electoral Reform Issues
There is new material in this book, the authors are passionate, informed, and articulate, and they raise an issue that is of vital importance. However, and I list ten other books below to make the point, this is not a new issue, nor is it the whole issue. There are twelve separate electoral reforms that must be implemented together, in a single simultaneous Electoral Reform Act, if we are to restore integrity to how we elect our representatives (at all three levels — the authors excel at showing how state and local initiatives are changing the fund-raising dynamic).
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Review: Designing Regenerative Cultures
6 Star Top 10%, Atlases & State of the World, Best Practices in Management, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Economics, Education (Universities), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Intelligence (Spiritual), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Priorities, Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Strategy, Survival & Sustainment, Technology (Bio-Mimicry, Clean), True Cost & Toxicity, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
Daniel Christian Wahl
6 Star Handbook for Saving Civilization & Earth
This book makes the jump from 5 stars (generally I don't bother to review a book if it is not a four or five star read) to 6 stars — my top ten percent — because of the combination of Questions Asked, glorious color graphics, and the total holistic nature of the book — this is easily a PhD thesis in holistic analytics, true cost economics, and open source everything engineering. Indeed, this book could be used as a first-year reference across any humanities and science domain, they would be the better for it.
Review: The Art of Shaping the Metropolis
6 Star Top 10%, Atlases & State of the World, Best Practices in Management, Budget Process & Politics, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Country/Regional, Future, Leadership, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Stabilization & Reconstruction, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution
Pedro B. Ortiz
6-Star Guide to Saving Every City in Every Country — a World-Changing Book
This is an extraordinary book, easily five stars but I am elevating it to 6 stars (my top ten percent across over 2000 reviews, all but a handful non-fiction) because the author is not just a genius, but he explains his deep multi-level knowledge brilliantly. I have never seen a collection of complicated nuanced topics presented in such a compelling, easy to understand, well-illustrated manner. The case studies abound. The publisher is to be complemented for the purity of the presentation — a stunning book with perfectly laid out pages, glossy color on every page, and a superb index, which is where most publishers fail their authors.
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Worth a Look: The Void Generation: How A Generation of Void Restraining Orders Voided the Lives of a Generation
5 Star, Justice (Failure, Reform)
The Void Generation is a highly readable account of a series of publishing mistakes by the Judicial Council of California between 1999 and 2007 that resulted in the publication of thirteen (13) constitutionally and statutorily void restraining order forms, which the Judicial Council refused to correct until long after the forms were published. With no valid forms available for them to use, the courts were compelled to issue all of their restraining orders on void and unenforceable forms. The public record suggests these void forms may have caused the false arrest and imprisonment of thousands of presumably innocent respondents-without a warning notice or a prior hearing.
Review: Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
6 Star Top 10%, Atlases & State of the World, Change & Innovation, Complexity & Resilience, Future, Information Operations, Information Society, Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity
6-Star Utterly Brilliant Survey and Strategy, April 19, 2016
The author of this book has done something no one else has done – I say this as the reviewer of over 2,000 non-fiction books at Amazon across 98 categories. For the first time, in one book, we have a very clear map of what is happening where in the way of economic and social development; a startlingly diplomatic but no less crushing indictment of nation-state and militaries; and a truly inspiring game plan for what we should all be demanding from countries, cities, commonwealths, communities, and companies, in the way of future investments guided by a strategy for creating a prosperous world at peace.
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