Reviews (Books & DVD) – Page 41 – Public Intelligence Blog

Richard A. Barker

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 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.

Continue reading “Review: On the Nature of Leadership”

2015/07/122015/07/10

Review: Crisis without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe

5 Star, Environment (Problems), Science & Politics of Science, True Cost & Toxicity, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Helen Caldicott et al.

4.0 out of 5 stars Vital Detailed Truth, Lacks Compelling Visualization, July 9, 2015

This book stems from a conference and is a very nicely presented double-spaced precis of the world-class contributions from the conference.

Highlights:

HELEN CALDICOTT QUOTE (3): The Fukushima disaster is not over and will not end for many millenia. The radioactive fallout, which has covered vast swaths of Japan, will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years.”

NAOTO KAN QUOTE (19): Considering the risk of losing half our land and evacuating half our population, my conclusion is that not having nuclear power plants is the safest energy policy.

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2015/07/112015/07/10

Review (Fiction): Twilight’s Last Gleaming

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Civil Society, Complexity & Catastrophe, Democracy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Impeachment & Treason, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

John Michael Greer

5.0 out of 5 stars Goosebumps — very very real — the playbook for taking down the USA, July 9, 2015

I first read Decline and Fall: The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America, that was the serious book, and then this book and I have to say that the both go very well together.

This book is the playbook for how a hollow US military over-reliant on satellites for location and communications, over-reliant on carriers that are too easily killed by supersonic wave-hopping missiles, over-reliant on a very mediocre US air force that cannot maintain air superiority or long air-based supply lines, is smashed by the Chinese when an amoral thoughtless US presidency goes one regime change oil field hijacking too far.

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2015/07/102015/07/10

Review: Decline and Fall – The End of Empire and the Future of Democracy in 21st Century America

5 Star, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Complexity & Catastrophe, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Politics, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

John Michael Greer

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Primer, July 8, 2015

I come at this book with something most readers do not have, over 2,000 non-fiction book reviews here at Amazon, and I mention it only because there are some negative reviews that I think are lacking in the larger context one gets from very broad reading. From my perspective, this book is an extraordinary primer and the author is gifted — truly gifted as a teacher and an explainer of complex ideas in simpler captivating terms.

There are many other books that go into greater detail on specifics, and I will begin by listing just four of them:

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2015/07/072015/07/06

Review: Base Nation – How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback

David Vine

Fundamental Work, Narrow, Understates Total True Cost

This is a five-star academic work, a superb up-to-date compilation of what can be known legally and ethically about US military bases in all forms from the formal to the undeclared and covert, around the world. It's inclusion in the American Empire Project puts the author in the company of such great scholars and iconoclastic observers as Andrew Bacevich, Noam Chomsky, Robert Dreyfuss, Chalmers Johnson, and Howard Zinn.

The author provides a compelling combination of history, anthropological-sociological narrative, and political-economic calculation as to the cost of what some estimate to be as many at 1,000 bases around the world.

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2015/07/052015/08/01

Review: Transforming the Dream – Ecologism and the Shaping of an Alternative American Vision

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Best Practices in Management, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Civil Society, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Democracy, Economics, Education (General), Education (Universities), Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Public Administration, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Charles Bednar

5.0 out of 5 stars 6 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.

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2015/07/042015/07/03

Review: Killing Hope – US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

5 Star, Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Military & Pentagon Power, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), War & Face of Battle

William Blum

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reference on the Toxicity of US Military at Direction of Political Criminals, July 3, 2015

This is the UPDATED edition bring this long-standing historical tour de force up from the last edition that ended in 2008, to 2014. This means that it includes the newest elective wars and the “swath of destruction” we have created from Central Asia down through the Middle East and North Africa to Western Africa, where we now lust for oil in Niger and Nigeria.

Over-all, this is a very precious book, and an essential reference on the history of US intervention, both military and clandestine or covert.

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