Book Description

Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions -- both big and small -- have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented.

Customer Reviews (89)

applicable to everything in life
This book is truly thought provoking and opens your eyes to the real reasons why experiences with an iPod are so good and a mega super market can be overwhelming. As a designer I find it required reading.

important
A glance at the compelling thesis presented on the back of this book made me wonder why I'd never heard of it before. Now I know why: Mr. Shwartz questions a prevailing cultural paradigm in a way that just makes you feel very uncomfortable! Ultimately though, if you're willing to take the plunge, you'll gain a greater understanding of how derive more satisfaction and less anxiety from life. However, the approach of simply limiting choice may be a little materialistic. From a Christian perspective, it seems that the outlined negative consequences of abundant choice can be diffused by spending time in prayer. Also, this book gets redundant about halfway through. Overall an awesome investment of time and money given the great importance of the subject matter.

A good supplement for any advertising, public relations or marketing professional!
This book is a good supplement for any advertising, public relations or marketing professional. Goes into quantitative data to prove its point on how selections are made. The author does seem to become over redundant in many points, right when it talks about how much time you have invested in the book and finishing it.

A Business Leadership & Software Engineering MUST HAVE
All business leaders and professional software engineers MUST read this book.There are many insights in this book that you all probably already know, but that it will help reinforce, identify and provide a foundation for taking the concepts into your everyday business practices and decisions.

While this provides a general psychological/sociological overview of the issue, it also presents some wonder examples of how to deal with things that are related.

A good read for all, but a must have for all the engineers and overall "thinkers" out there.

Why we suck at making decisions
This book changed the way I approach (or decide not to approach) many choices in my life. It delves into the psychology of choices, specifically how an abundance of choices can have many negative effects on us, contrary to what we may think. To quote the book, "Having too many choices produces psychological distress, especially when combined with regret, concern about status, adaptation, social comparison, and perhaps most important, the desire to have the best of everything -- to maximize."

While focusing on consumerism, many of the points apply to any time a choice is made, such as careers and even romance. Points are made with fascinating anecdotal evidence, and are clearly explained.

Definitely a great read.
... Read more

Book Description
A compelling vision.Bold leadership.Decisive action.Unfortunately, these prerequisites of success are almost always the ingredients of failure, too.In fact, most managers seeking to maximize their chances for glory are often unwittingly setting themselves up for ruin.The sad truth is that most companies have left their futures almost entirely to chance, and don’t even realize it.The reason?Managers feel they must make choices with far-reaching consequences today, but must base those choices on assumptions about a future they cannot predict.It is this collision between commitment and uncertainty that creates THE STRATEGY PARADOX.

This paradox sets up a ubiquitous but little-understood tradeoff.Because managers feel they must base their strategies on assumptions about an unknown future, the more ambitious of them hope their guesses will be right – or that they can somehow adapt to the turbulence that will arise.In fact, only a small number of lucky daredevils prosper, while many more unfortunate, but no less capable managers find themselves at the helms of sinking ships.Realizing this, even if only intuitively, most managers shy away from the bold commitments that success seems to demand, choosing instead timid, unremarkable strategies, sacrificing any chance at greatness for a better chance at mere survival.

Michael E. Raynor, coauthor of the bestselling The Innovator's Solution, explains how leaders can break this tradeoff and achieve results historically reserved for the fortunate few even as they reduce the risks they must accept in the pursuit of success.In the cutthroat world of competitive strategy, this is as close as you can come to getting something for nothing.

Drawing on leading-edge scholarship and extensive original research, Raynor’s revolutionary principle of Requisite Uncertainty yields a clutch of critical, counter-intuitive findings.Among them:

-- The Board should not evaluate the CEO based on the company’s performance, but instead on the firm’s strategic risk profile
-- The CEO should not drive results, but manage uncertainty
-- Business unit leaders should not focus on execution, but on making strategic choices
-- Line managers should not worry about strategic risk, but devote themselves to delivering on commitments

With detailed case studies of success and failure at Sony, Microsoft, Vivendi Universal, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T and other major companies in industries from financial services to energy, Raynor presents a concrete framework for strategic action that allows companies to seize today’s opportunities while simultaneously preparing for tomorrow’s promise. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (33)

Highly Academic. Highly Acclaimed. Little value.
The Strategy Paradox is a waste of your money and time! I do not know why this book has received such popular acclaim. Michael Raynor is extremely "academic" and seems to possess little knowledge of the real business world. He repeatedly misuses words in the English language, including "profound", "robust", and "ecosystem". Raynor attempts to impress his readers by talking about quantum physics, game theory, and natural selection but instead he confuses them. Raynor seems to write with an air of authority that few people could have about the subject, and than concludes the book with a philosophical lesson on the value of "humility". Raynor, take your own advice!

Compulsory Text in our Management Degree program
The Strategy Paradox is now a compulsory text in our Management Degree program. Why? It exemplies the critical importance of sharpening innovative thinking into strategic direction, borrowing from his work at Harvard focusing on disruptive technologies and innovation into his thinking on approaches to overall strategy formulation and execution.

The lessons learned are somewhat counter intuitive but Raynor presents strong evidence to support why traditional strategic axioms may be flawed. He offers unique perspectives on strategy, including;
- The CEO should not drive results, but manage uncertainty
- The Board should not evaluate the CEO based on the company's performance, but instead on the firm's strategic risk profile
- Business unit leaders should not focus on execution, but on making strategic choices
- Line managers should not worry about strategic risk, but devote themselves to delivering on commitments

These are not just business lessons but life lessons. Our students must have an awareness of the strategic fundmentals of managing risks & reward, using evidence, insight and in being transparent in communicating assumptions. As in one's personal life, as in one's professional life, over the long term, the ability to effectively manage the the myriad of risk / reward tradeoffs most often finishes on top.

There are few lessons that a business school can teach that have more lasting life impacts, and that is why this book is a must read.

Dean, JR Shaw School of Business

Requisite uncertainty and human capabilities
Zachary Stein ((Harvard Graduate School of Education) & Theo L. Dawson (Developmental TestingService)

We agree with many of the other reviewers of this book. It combines high quality scholarship and accessibility, making it stand out from most of the popular leadership literature. But we think most of the other reviews have missed a key dimension of Raynor's model, a facet of his vision that sets it apart from the more traditional literature on strategies and organizations. With a nod to the research of Elliot Jaques, Raynor makes it clear that the proposed model of "requisite uncertainty" would have us build organizations that are sensitive both to the demands of the marketplace and the realities of human capabilities. We all know that organizations need to be responsive to socio-economic trends and uncertainties, but only a select few are privy to the notion that organizational hierarchies need to be designed in light of facts about human cognition and cognitive development. In our minds, this latter point is what sets the "Strategy Paradox" apart.

Individuals occupying different roles are faced with different demands. This we all know. But Raynor helps to clarify just who should be doing what, and moreover, what those at the top need to do to handle the unprecedented uncertainties of post-modern socio-economic conditions. As Raynor explains, these high-level demands cash out in terms of dialogically rich inquiry-based procedures for "crystallizing and preserving a diversity of opinions" regarding strategic options. Needless to say, that's a tall order that not just anybody can fill. What's preferable is not always possible. Our only criticism is that Raynor has too little to say about the cognitive capabilities that would make his vision possible. There is a rich literature about adult cognitive development and its measurement that Raynor does an inadequate job of referencing. Jaques and Kegan are the tip of a very complex iceberg. And frankly it's an iceberg that might sink this ship.

From where we sit, the model is incomplete without further consideration of the cognitive demands of "Strategic Flexibility." Any life-span cognitive developmental psychologist will tell you that less than 3% of the adult population in the developed world has the cognitive skills to meet these demands. We don't mean to rain on the parade, but for this model to work we need to ensure that those who engage in the highest levels of strategic planning are equipped with the requisite cognitive and discourse skills. Without them, real-world implementations will be less than stellar.

To sum up, our reading of the "Strategy Paradox" reveals a devil in the details. We think that Raynor's radical suggestions regarding human capabilities and organizational strata are the trend-setting elements of his model. Zeroing in on these suggestions exposes a formidable challenge.

Raynor has put time back into strategy
I won't repeat the powerful insights stated by many of the other positive reviewers.Read them yourself.They are special in their own right!

Raynor's latest book is beautifully written.It should all be savoured (slowly if necessary)...

The chapters which I believe Raynor will be truly remembered for are nestled in the middle (chapters 6-8).In these wonderful pages he rightfully restores "time" into strategy-making ("who stole time?", should indeed give rise to several more business books).

Leveraging Elliott Jaques' seminal work on time-spans of discretion, Raynor introduces "strategic flexibility" with compelling clarity and irrefutable logic.As an added bonus, he also illuminates the real role of corporate boards with such lucidity, that reading SOX prescriptions in future will seem sadly impoverished.

I have seen and heard Raynor speak in public.He is a virtuosic whirlwind on stage.Read this book.It is even better than the live performance.

Key Concepts Make it Worth Buying
I enjoyed The Strategy Paradox, and have added it to the Pearls of Wisdom page on my site. Powerful concepts in the hands of enlightened leaders, particularly those leading large organizations:

1. Extreme strategies do not come without risk
2. You don't have to predict the future to be successful
3. Divide responsibility for strategy formulation by time horizons
4. Give your organization a chance to adapt and succeed in the most likely future scenarios through options not commitment

In my mind if you get come away from a business book with one or more useful insights, then it was more than worth the time invested. This book is definitely worth the time if you are already (or aspire to be) a corporate leader or strategist.

Five star content! ... Read more

Book Description
Since its debut, Policy Paradox has been widely acclaimed as the most accessible policy text available. Unlike most texts, which treat policy analysis and policy making as different enterprises, Policy Paradox demonstrates that "you can't take politics out of analysis." Through a uniquely rich and comprehensive model, this revised edition continues to show how real-world policy grows out of differing ideals, even definitions, of basic societal goals like security, equality, and liberty. The book also demonstrates how these ideals often conflict in policy implementation. In this revised edition, Stone has added a full-length case study as an appendix, taking up the issue of affirmative action. Clear, provocative, and engaging, Policy Paradox conveys the richness of public policy making and analysis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

good job
i received it in time and the book was well protected with card board. It was in very good condition. Good job !

Good Overview of Public Administration
This book gives insight into the decision making process for administrators. It is not the cut and dried process you would think.

A must for those in public service.

A provocative and rewarding examination of policy making
Deborah Stone's "Policy Paradox" is an important work in the field of policy analysis.The subtitle is illuminating: "The Art of Political Decision Making."Her takeoff point is the following statement (pages x-xi): "This new field of policy analysis supposedly devoted to improving governance, was based on a profound disgust for the ambiguities and paradoxes of politics. . . . In rational analysis, everything has one and only one meaning." In her own words, she (page xi) ". . .wrote this book to critique the field and to capture, I hope, a more inspiring and humane kind of policy analysis."

Her basic point is that the rational models drawn from economics do not explain very well how policy analysis works.Nor, in her view, should it be the actual model for decision making.She contends that economic rationality often gives way to political reality, to accommodation to conflicting interests, to compromise, to values other than economic efficiency (such as liberty, fairness, and so on).

The introduction opens the book strongly, with Stone noting policy paradoxes, where the economic rational model does not prevail and explain how things work.She argues (page 13) that "each type of policy instrument [e.g., inducements, rules, rights, for example] is a kind of sports arena, each with its peculiar ground rules, within which political conflicts are continued."The first chapter continues the theme, by speaking of the market (economics) and the polis (politics), with a nice table summarizing key points on page 33).She concludes that (page 34) "Problems in the polis are never `solved' in the way that economic needs are met in the market model."Two different realms, and what works in the market may or may not work in the polis.

The book proceeds in three major sections: Part II focuses on broad goals (e.g., equity, efficiency, security, liberty); Part III examines problems (with chapters labeled as follows: symbols, numbers, causes, interests, decisions); Part IV focuses on solutions (or tools or instruments, such as inducements, rules, facts).

In the end, the book examines nicely the tensions between economic rational analysis of policy ideas and the messier but inescapable political process as it addresses policy issues.The reader will be provoked to think about important issues upon encountering Stone's perspective.A very useful work on the bigger picture of policy analysis.

Interesting and Thought-provoking
I couldn't help thinking of my past work experience in the government when reading Stone's book. I laughed from time to time as she is so witty in depicting the reality of policy-making.

If you have worked in the policy-making sector, maybe you'll find it a summary of what you did. If you are just about to step into the government, you may put it aside and re-read it sometime later, which will bring you a new and more interesting feeling.

helpful, but unrealistic at times
First I'd like to say that Stone's book is good.It is not great though.I find her far to dismissive of many concepts that are the underpinnings of public policy.However, her insight and criticisms on those very same ideas help us think, even if I don't agree with what she is getting at.This is a very good compliment to a strong economics-based public policy book, but read as 'the' textbook for policy studies would be a big mistake. ... Read more

Book Description
The epic tale of an ancient, unsolved puzzle and how it relates to all scientific attempts to explain the basic structure of the universe

At the dawn of science the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno formulated his paradox of motion, and amazingly, it is still on the cutting edge of all investigations into the fabric of reality.

Zeno used logic to argue that motion is impossible, and at the heart of his maddening puzzle is the nature of space and time. Is space-time continuous or broken up like a string of beads? Over the past two millennia, many of our greatest minds—including Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other current theoreticians—have been gripped by the mystery this puzzle represents.

Joseph Mazur, acclaimed author of Euclid in the Rainforest, shows how historic breakthroughs in our understanding of motion shed light on Zeno’s paradox. The orbits of the planets were explained, the laws of motion were revealed, the theory of relativity was discovered—but the basic structure of time and space remained elusive.

In the tradition of Fermat’s Enigma and Zero, The Motion Paradox is a lively history of this apparently simple puzzle whose solution—if indeed it can be solved—will reveal nothing less than the fundamental nature of reality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Metaphysics of Being
The motion paradox is one of the most important books that you could ever read.After 2500 years of scientific development we still can not understand or quantify an indivisible moment in time.Mathematics tells us that a finite set encloses an infinite series and this creates one of the greatest paradoxes ever conceived of by man.

[...].

Why the Universe is Exceedingly Strange
Modern physics often reads like the ravings of a deluded crank, yet much of the paradox and counter-intuitive ramblings seems to be the way the universe works.For example while string theory is mind-bogglingly bizarre, one is drawn to the conclusion that it, or something akin to it, is probably true at some ultra-micro level.

"The Motion Paradox" discusses many of these issues, based on the Greek philosopher Zeno's ideas of 2500 years ago.Now the Achilles and the tortoise paradox has been simply solved with modern algebra, but the other paradoxes, although seemingly silly, are not so easily solved.As Joseph Mazur points out in this book, they are not quite as silly on close examination as one would suppose.Why does an arrow appear to have a smooth motion? Why do some calculations approach a limit, like Achilles approaching the tortoise, yet never seem to reach it? In fact as the matter-energy, motion-rest, time-space, microscopic-macroscopic and other paired concepts about our universe are examined closely, the solid world around us seems to disappear leaving us with a very Hindu or Buddhist sounding concept that all is illusion!

This is a very interesting book from a number of standpoints.I dropped it a star because there are parts that I think could have been more clearly written, but overall the author got most of his points across. The upshot is that we live in a very strange planet in a very strange universe and we may never really grasp exactly how very strange this "reality" really is!

unsatisfying
I had high hopes for this book, but I feel like the author has let me down.

My principal complaint with the book is akin to the complaint about the three statisticians who go hunting- one shoots high, the other shoots low, and the third yells "we got it!" Mazur looks at the world through a mathematicians eyes, and misses the forest for the trees. He is attempting to summarize his thoughts on the physical ramifications for the philosophy and math behind Zeno's paradox, completely ignoring the fact that one can pit Achilles and the tortoise in a race and observe Achilles' win. Were he to attempt to focus on this goal, even if he had to do so ironically by halves, he would have a better chance of leaving solid concepts in the reader's mind. Rather, he fills the reader with a hocus-pocus level of wonder, marveling at the impossibility of motion and it all. One can open their eyes, and, like a child, exclaim, "yet it moves!", and not be mystified at all. Is Mazur trying to make the reader feel inferior?

For example, he spends a certain amount of time at the end of the book marveling at the persistance of vision, wondering if our eyesight averages discrete images into a false perception of continuous motion, what if our vision were that of a strobe camera and the universe were continuous, would our vision be different? This is interesting, and the sense of wonder seems genuine; but there is a physical explanation for the persistance of vision, in that eyesight is a chemical phenomemon and as the chemical reactions become saturated, there is a natural decay required before a new image might render fully. Indeed, he completely ignores wondering about two images (such as the bird and the cage) when flipped at high speed, seem to merge into one bird in a cage. He is restricted into a highly constructed narrative, saying, "follow me along this path", to his conclusion, ignoring that the educated reader is constatly going to say "but... what about..", and be left either lost and frustrated, or dumbly following as if in a boring guided tour. Either way, the reader will not feel better about themselves at the end of the tour.

More troublingly, there are extensive unmentioned mathmatical insights that he completely overlooks, when as a mathematician, he should be at least mentioning them. For example, Hilbert's Grand Hotel paradox seems worth at least a brief mention as belonging in the same class, and yet despite three references to David Hilbert in the index, no hint is given. If Zeno's paradoxes are the root puzzle, as the cover suggests, of "all the mysteries of time and space"- then why does he not spend more time giving concrete examples of how that is? Clearly, Zeno's paradox seems to be at the root of calculus, which is extremely relevant for mathematics, but he fails to convey sufficiently how and what that means for real world problems. That there is and has always been a deep divide between pure applied math, and practically applied science, is glossed over. If he is saying, "math is the root of all science", he does not bravely say so. Many people can do science without math, and as such the physical scientist in me is unimpressed with his tack.

More minor peccadilloes: This book was not carefully edited, and the hardcover edition contains many typos, sometimes distractingly so. It is also useless as a reference book. The style and subject matter does not leave the reader more educated- rather it is written in a mystical style which doesn't clearly open or close its subjects, and smacks of a Whig history of Zeno's paradox. When you separate out his whiggish narration, you quickly begin to realize that this book isn't really saying anything. He leaves you not much more significantly educated than many putative purchasers of this book, and as such, you'd be better off saving the money. If it's not educating, it should be entertaining, but he fails on this as well. It does not have well drawn characters, and except for the first few pages, we get no sense of struggle or personality. In fact, reading the first few pages as an excerpt clearly leaves you feeling like it's going to be a more interesting book- for example, how has Zeno's paradox been a personal struggle for the author? But instead, it falls flat. It is a dry retelling of history, and I feel cheated by having wasted my time reading it.

Fascinating and thought-provoking!
The Motion Paradox is a fascinating mix of science, math, and philosophy that draws the reader deeper and deeper into one of the most interesting puzzles of all time. Mazur's prose is joyfully thought-provoking and is not distracted by unnecessary mathematical equations. I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- Mazur's best to date!

Excellent but for mathematically oriented reader a little bit frustrating
This is an excellent account of the development of the ideas around an intriguing question (zeno's paradox) through two and a half millenia of the history of mathematics and physics. In fact this paradox is ultimately related to the problem of the link between discrete and continuous in the linear number system (real line).If one digs deep enough, one can find also links to famous paradoxes of twentieth century mathematics (for example the banach-tarsky paradox or the paradox of the "pea and the sun"). Unfortunately the author overlooks these issues which have caused virulent debates between best mathematicians of the history (supporters of cantor's ideas against his adversaries). The author follows scupulously the maxim that every mathematical formula divides by two the number of peaple who will read the book, so he forbids himself of introducing any formula. I think in many places, mathematical formulation is much clearer than a long text (it could at least be presented as notes). ... Read more

Book Description
Praise for The Macho Paradox

"An honest, intellectually rigorous and insightful work that challenges readers to truly engage in a political discourse that can change lives, communities and nations."

--Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes

"Jackson Katz is an American hero! With integrity and courage, he has taken his message--that the epidemic of violence against women is a men's issue--into athletic terms, the military and frat houses across the country. His book explains carefully and convincingly why--and how--men can become part of the solution, and work with women to build a world in which everyone is safer."

--Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America, spokesperson, National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS)

"If only men would read Katz's book, it could serve as a potent form of male consciousness-raising."

--Publishers Weekly

"This book leaves no man behind when it comes to taking violence against women personally....After reading this book you can see how important it is to be a stand-up guy and not a standy-by guy, no matter what race or culture you come from."

--Alfred L. McMichael, 14th Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps and now serving as the Sergeant Major of NATO

"A candid look at the cultural factors that lend themselves to tolerance of abuse and violence against women."

--Booklist

"These pages will empower both men and women to end the scourge of male violence and abuse. Katz knows how to cut to the core of the issues, demonstrating undeniably that stopping the degradation of women should be every man's priority."

--Lundy Bancroft, author of Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Men Can Change...
...how they see and conduct themselves in society, how they treat women and other men and, this book can help. Thoroughly accessible, Katz simply asks us, and shows us how, to take responsibility for change. This book certainly has changed to way I look at things, the way I talk to men and other women and, most importanly, the way I listen. Highly recommended.

Powerfully Realizing What Happens All around Us
Jackson Katz's book could be one of the most important I have ever read, hands-down.Two years ago, after my wife came home from a graduate-level class, she told me we needed to watch Katz's documentary, Tough Guise (MEF).The documentary revolutionized the way I veiwed masculinity both in myself and in our culture. I then found Katz's book. The Macho Paradox does the exact same thing: Katz includes an amazing array of statistics as well as references to a variety of studies and cultural icons in order to prove his case--that masculinity needs a serious overhaul in our contemporary culture.No longer can we allow women to be abused in such rampant fashion.Katz explodes the myth that men are simply "born" with a bent towards aggression and violence; rather, he questions and explores what in our culture teaches men to behave the way we do. I highly recommend this book to both men and women, as its message is one we severely need today.

great book on many levels
This book is both accessible and sophisticated in its approach.It covers political and social issues and popular culture in great depth.However, Katz pitches his argument to the broadest possible audience; he almost never uses jargon.I used the introductory chapter in a classroom with both high school and college students, and they all responded to the piece with enthusiasm.Another aspect of the book that elevates it above many similar works is Katz's use of personal anecdotes from his career as an anti-sexist activist to illustrate his points.These stories not only help to ground the book in reality, but they make it clear that the author has tested his ideas in the field of deeds.He has constantly sought out new audiences and been challenged to refine his approach.He advocates for a very inclusive model of gender violence prevention.He wants us to be honest with ourselves and call "domestic violence" what it is--men's violence against women.However, he also makes it clear that viewing all men as potential perpetrators is not the answer.Rather, encouraging men to take the issue personally and own up to their social responsibility, while encouraging others to do the same, can make a huge difference.For anyone who would like to learn more about men's violence against women, or gender and society in general, this book is a great place to start.

Katz is right on--this is the next step in ending violence.
Jackson Katz believes that an end to violence (of all kinds, but particularly violence against women) must come from a new definition of masculinity that does not support violent behavior.His book explains clearly why this is and how to begin to make it happen and is some of the most positive and forward-thinking work in this field.This book is very accessible--it is not accusatory or preach-y and is very honest.I have bought a second copy of the book because so many people have been interested in borrowing it.Jackson Katz is a real innovator and his book is insightful and inspiring.

Buy this for the men in your life....
I wish I had 200 copies of this book. There are so many men I know that can find themselves depicted in Katz's clear and insightful reflections on male culture today. Why has the violence women suffer at the hands of some men been called a "woman's issue"? Where's the curiosity and creativity of more men when it comes to looking at why violence and sexual violence in particular are so epidemic? Or even, more dangerously, glamorized in aspects of the pornography industry? Forget "Pretty Woman" or "The Girl Next Door" and dive into real life. Katz has done his research and articulates a vision that should make every man stand up and collectively work to make this a world they are proud their daughters and sons will inherit. I really wish I had 200 copies.... ... Read more

Amazon.com
Ordinary middle-class Americans have often tried to assuage their jealousy of the rich by repeating the axiom "money can't buy happiness" to themselves. But according to New Republic senior editor Gregg Easterbrook, "the rich" are, in fact, those same ordinary middle-class Americans and no, they're not happy at all. Wages have soared over the past fifty years and regular citizens own large homes, new cars, and luxuries aplenty. Better still, the environment, with a few exceptions, is getting cleaner, crime is on the decline, and diseases are being wiped out as life span increases. So why do people report a sense that things are getting steadily worse and that catastrophe is imminent? Easterbrook presents a few psychological rationales, including "choice anxiety," where the vastness of society's options is a burden, and "abundance denial," where people somehow manage to convince themselves that they are deprived of material comforts. The sooner we accept how good we have it, the better off the whole world will be, he says, because if we would just realize that we have this wealth, we could be using it to alleviate hunger, provide health care for the millions who lack it, and otherwise address the ills that actually do exist. While at times the book's attempts to make the world a better place seem a bit of a stretch, it's admirable that Easterbrook is willing to make that stretch and not suggest people simply light up cigars and bask in their newly discovered joys. One might look a bit askance at some of Easterbrook's sunny perspectives on our societal fortunes--he celebrates rampant consumerism while skating past the rampant consumer debt that lies beneath it, for instance--but it's hard to deny that the pessimistic viewpoint is much more widely stated than that of optimists. Is the glass really half empty or should we, as Easterbrook indicates, enjoy the wonderful world in which we secretly live? --John MoeBook Description
In The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook draws upon three decades of wide-ranging research and thinking to make the persuasive assertion that almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved in the past century–and yet today, most men and women feel less happy than in previous generations.

Detailing the emerging science of “positive psychology,” which seeks to understand what causes a person’s sense of well-being, Easterbrook offers an alternative to our culture of crisis and complaint. He makes a compelling case that optimism, gratitude, and acts of forgiveness not only make modern life more fulfilling but are actually in our self-interest. An affirming and constructive way of seeing life anew, The Progress Paradox will change the way you think about your place in the world–and about our collective ability to make it better. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (83)

Too Many Exagerated Statistics to Prove His Arguement
The fact that so many endorse "The Progress Paradox" is nothing short of tragic. I am disappointed that the best reviewers got as far into the book as they did without noticing that the author spun many of the statistics to prove his point. He downplays the reality of poverty with false statistics. Recalling from memory, very close to the beginning of the book, Easterbrook states that the elderly no longer have to worry about being cared for. Perhaps he should have read Susan Sheehan's article in The New Yorker, "Not Poor Enough" which tells the true story about how the elderly are doing in this country. Has the author been to a state subsidized nursing home? He also strolled right over the problem of poverty with a completely false statistic about the number of children in the U.S. living under the poverty line. The list goes on and on. I was so impressed with the number of fallacies used to make his argument I started highlighting. My copy looks like Key West Christmas tree. How did the manuscript ever make it past the editor?

I think this book is written to help the 1% at the top of the pyramid feel better about themselves. Let them eat cake? Coincidently, the book was given to us by the wealthiest people we know who also happen to live in one of the premier independent living centers in the NE.

This book should be read as an example of fallacy in argument, and nothing more.

Makes you reflect on what happiness really is
What is progress?Gregg Easterbrook looks at that question, showing that while we have "progressed" a great deal in a very short time; most of us are feeling worse about our lives.Read this book and recognize that happiness isn't found in luxury.

Can't pull off the "happy liberal" act
Liberals are dour and gloomy by nature.You know the routine: the earth is heating up like a Toast-R-Oven; a hundred million children don't have health insurance; the fundies are taking over the school system; we're bombing every third-world country except Darfur; no one likes us.

Then Easterbrook comes out with this book, and for a moment you think: "Wow!A liberal can be an optimist!"But then you read a little further, and discover that's not the case.

First the optimism.This first part of this book is a welcome antidote for the Paul Erlich-esque hand-wringing, doom-and-gloomism constantly being showered on us.Some of the book's better points include:

* "Many figures in philosophy, religion, politics, and other fields have recommended that others pay no heed to material concerns, while being obsessed with the same things themselves" (p 145).Excellent point, and for a very engaging expansion of that point, read Paul Johnson's "Intellectuals."

* "On its face, existential despair appears self-canceling: If life really is pointless, why bother to get upset about that? Wouldn't getting upset be pointless?" (p 253).

* By and large, things are getting better, not worse.We live longer, are richer, healthier and have more comfortable lifestyles than our ancestors.

However, the liberal's trademark pessimism, distortions, fear-mongering, political correctness, nanny-state policy preferences and plain old errors of fact then return -- with a vengeance.

* At its core, the book is contradictory, and exposes the problem liberals have with optimism.Easterbrook appropriately harps on the fact in the first 150 pages that astounding progress has been made in an absolute sense.For example, a car made today emits only 2% of the pollutants of a car made in 1970.But particularly at the end of the book, Easterbrook throws this all away and begins berating us for problems that exist in a relative sense, something he spends the first part of the quite correctly scoffing at. Easterbrook then reverts to type, producing a glaring series of unchecked, unabashed, big government, we-know-what's-best-for-you liberalism: mandated universal health insurance (pp 255-257); elimination of SUVs (pp 92-93); increase in the minimum wage to a "living wage" whatever that is (pp 260-263); Bush-favors-the-rich bashing (p 247); CEO bashing (pp 266-277); subsidized housing for drug addicts (p 259); more foreign aid (p 309).And when he says that in the U.S. "millions of people not only have more than they need, but have, in many ways, more than is good for them" (p 258), then you should, as Robert J.Ringer would say, "Hold on to your chips," because he's coming after them with a vengeance.

* "Until the day when everyone is released from basic want, a sword will hang over Western abundance" (p 68).This from the guy that complains about "amplified anxiety" (p 111).Who will wield this sword anyway?And exactly who is going to "release" the whole world from basic want, how are they going to get the money to do it, and how are they going to force the leaders of other countries who may not be too concerned about releasing their citizens from want?This sounds like the basis for Rudyard Kipling's most famous poem.Also: is freedom from want all that's causing a sword to be held of Western civilization's head?Was Mohammed Atta poor?

* "A reason Western economies keep performing better may be that capitalism has been supplanted by market economies" (p 67).In response to that non sequitur, I would only ask, What kind of economy existed during capitalism then?

* SUVs are unsafe because an SUV is "more likely to harm the passengers in a car it collides with" (p 93).To *that* non sequitur, I'll only ask: What vehicle do *you* want to be in when you get into an accident?

* "But the mid-1990s rise of road rage coincided with the onset of SUV mania" (p 94).No. Having lived in L.A. in the late 1980s, I can definitively refute that asinine comment.

* In the 1990s culture wars, "the right claimed the left was...opposed to reading of the classics" (p 103).Yes, that's absolutely correct.The Right *was* saying that and it *was* happening.For instance, anyone remember the $20 million Bass Grant controversy with Yale? Hmm?

* "Each of the three Die Hard movies...depicted dozens of police officers being gunned down" (p 115).Now this is a supposed fact that we can easily verify for accuracy.Let's see: counting the two special agent Johnsons, the helicopter pilot and two cops in the armored vehicle ("What do we have here...it seems the police have themselves an RV"), and three SWAT team members, that comes to a grand total of eight police officers killed.Add in the two rent-a-cops in the beginning of the movie just to be generous, and you're talking ten.Not exactly "dozens" is it?How can Easterbrook expect to have us take him seriously on the big facts when he can't get the small ones right?

* "...luck is simply part of life, but [we] should acknowledge this means that those who experience good luck acquire significant obligations to those who do not" (p 154).Uh-oh.That sounds too much like a Dick Gephardt "lucky in life's lottery" line, which is a set-up for a soak-the-rich line.Easterbrook casually tosses this out without a discussion of premises (how exactly does one "acquire" an obligation to another person whom you have never met and who lives thousands of miles away?) as well as its practice (who is to distinguish luck from unequal effort?).

* "When free-market conservatives begin to suppose that something beyond the free market is necessary for human happiness, a threshold has come into view" (p 250).First off, is there such a thing as a free-market liberal?I can't think of one.Second off, I know a straw man when I see one.Conservatives, by definition, constitute the group that understands the importance of religion and culture, and not just free trade.

* When the U.S. based troops in Saudi Arabia, we were "asserting suzerainty over much of Islam's oil wealth" (p 297).Does a religion have oil?Doesn't it belong to the state, or the people living in that country?If we were asserting suzerainty (power, authority) over Saudi Arabia's oil, how come we were buying it instead of expropriating it?How do a bunch of troops stationed far out in the desert, away from everyone, assert power over a country bigger than the size of Alaska?Is oil cheap now?If not, then why not, if we control Saudi Arabia?Didn't we station troops in Saudi Arabia because one Mohammedan country attacked two others, including Saudi Arabia?

* American agents picked the current Saudi ruling family "with oil interests in mind" (p 297).As for who got picked and why, I encourage Easterbrook to brush up on his pre- and post-WW I history.America didn't pick them (the House of Saud has been prominent for over 250 years) and hadn't been discovered when Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud finally consolidated his power in 1932.Easterbrook literally couldn't be more wrong.

* Mohammedan terrorists are compared to Timothy McVeigh: "the Christian ethos spawned its share of hideous killers, among them the terrorist Timothy McVeigh" (p 299).Unlike Easterbrook, apparently, I was alive and awake after 9/11, and the silence of the imams in America was deafening.Does Easterbrook think we don't know the difference between a nutjob like McVeigh and a current of religious thinking with tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of adherents?Besides, when exactly did McVeigh say that Jesus told him kill all those people?Superficial, glib and sophomoric comparisons just make you look like a hack, an apologist or an fool.

Overall, I have to give the book three stars because it gores so many of the left's sacred cows.You just don't find that in mainstream books, and it has to be recognized.But this achievement is marred by careless, counterfactual and inconsistent writing, and by a steady stream of liberal clichés.Easterbrook's no happy liberal warrior.

Fact filled, but bring a big dictionary
The author does a great job at making his point, showing statistically how things have changed over many generations, but yet life has not necessarily improved. My big nit with this book though is that the author couldn't possible write like he talks; if he did, few would understand him. I find too often that non-fiction writers go for the gusto when trying to flower up their work with words requiring a dictionary to understand; this author did just that. I felt the author could have used a lighter and more humorous prose to get his points across, but instead made the book a klunky read. In all though, this book serves as a great wake-up call to those caught on life's treadmill, wondering what in the heck they're running toward.

The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
One of the best books I have ever read.Would recommend it to everyone. ... Read more

Book Description
Faulty decision-making can have dire consequences, and when it comes to group decisions, the challenges are even greater.Join Dr. Jerry B. Harvey as he clearly illustrates why no organization wants to find themselves goin' to Abilene.
See how group dynamics can keep individuals from stating their true beliefs for fear of isolation and separation, and how that often leads to mismanaged agreement.
You'll learn to recognize the warning signs of risky group dynamics and improve decision-making processes throughout your organization.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

the abilene paradox and other medidations on management
It is an excellent and enlightening book with much food for thought and a precise account of reality in malfunctioning organizations. Also provides suggestions for improving organizations and helping them act in an ethical manner.

A classic and a must read
With humor and "paradox" Professor Jerry Harvey does a great job in stimulating personal reflections about management. Among the several tales, see Management and the myth of Abraham ("every time a boss makes a stupid mistake, he sends his administrative assistant to try to rectify it"), my favorite Captain Ashok and the Concept of Grace ("Asoh told the truth, and we are starved for it") and Group Tyranny and the Gunsmoke Phenomenon (our behaviour is related to our fear of separation but we have a choice "when confronted with the possibility of group tyranny"). Enjoy your reading and start thinking.

Thought Provoking Essays
These "Meditations" provide great thinking into how to be a more effective manager.As "Meditiations", this is not a how to cookbook on management, or checklist.There are no promises of improved customer service, or increased efficiency.Rather, by reading them, your thinking about management will improve.

Two examples on the meditations:
1 - The Abilene Paradox essay talks about a family vacation to Abilene.Nobody really wants to go there, but everyone thinks everyone else wants to go there, but is affraid to speak up.The lesson is self evident, but the story conveys it in a manner much more memorable than a directive to "Create an organization with open communication"
2 - The writings of Elliott Jaques.Harvey introduces the concept of the "Requisite Organization", an idea developed by Jaques.This highlights the imnportance of understanding complexity (as defined by the time horizon of projects one is capable of thinking of) and designing an organization where that is the key component to success.That's a deep thought in today's quarter-driven business.

Reading and pondering these meditations will make one a better manager and leader.But it isn't spoon feeding, it takes some thought as well.

Wonderful advice, coming and going
The Abilene Paradox... has been one of my favorite books for many years. Whenever I read it, I find something of value in it for whatever challenges I am facing in my work. Plus, it's just fun to read. The first essay (the actual Abilene Paradox) should be required reading for anyone who wonders why groups do stupid things. And the last essay (on teaching future managers to cheat) should be required reading for anyone who wonders how one simple change could make a huge difference in business education, making it more relevant and more solidly ethically based. Everything in between these two essays is worth, reading, too.

All Managers should know about Abilene!
The first time I heard about the Abilene Paradox was back in the early 1980's when Jerry Harvey made a video for use by the government in training management.

I had run into a recent management situation in which our Director wanted only agreement with her.I immediately began to search a reference on "Abilene" and management.

So, immediately, you can see how much this little video lecture influenced me.Over twenty years later, I still remembered the reference that was needed now in 2003, and it was called the road to "ABILENE" or something similar.

A quick search on my favorite reference site "Amazon.com" and voila: I found a book called the "Abilene Paradox".

Jerry writes likes he speaks but *OH* he speaks in such an amazingly entertaining way.

Jerry gives a lot of examples of things that can happen in the workplace that will bring you down a path to disaster.He is amazingly accurate in pointing out the potholes to avoid.

Although, he is a bit shy on things you should do, I highly recommend this book.If all you get out this is that "Yes" men or "Yes" folks are not conducive to good business, then you have learned one gem of management that you will value forever. ... Read more

Book Description
“Impressive. . . Wide-ranging. . . . The Wisdom Paradox makes a compelling case for the possibility of maintaining a sharp mind far into old age.”
—KENNETH SILBER, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN MIND

The Wisdom Paradox explores the aging of the mind from a unique, positive perspective. In an era of increasing fears about mental deterioration, world-renowned neuropsychologist Elkhonon Goldberg provides startling new evidence that though the brain diminishes in some tasks as it ages, it gains in many ways. Most notably, it increases in what he terms “wisdom”: the ability to draw upon knowledge and experience gained over a lifetime to make quick and effective decisions. Goldberg delves into the machinery of the mind, separating memory into two distinct types: singular (knowledge of a particular incident or fact) and generic (recognition of broader patterns). As the brain ages, the ability to use singular memory declines, but generic memory is unaffected—and its importance grows. As an individual accumulates generic memory, the brain can increasingly rely upon these stored patterns to solve problems effortlessly and instantaneously. Goldberg investigates the neurobiology of wisdom, and draws on historical examples of artists and leaders whose greatest achievements were realized late in life.

Praise for The Wisdom Paradox:
“Good news: Our brains can and do improve with age. The evidence Goldberg presents is thorough and indisputable . . . Informative and entertaining.”
—Diane Stressing, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“[A] graceful exposition of the latest findings in developmental neuropsychology, brain mapping, and computational neuroscience. . . Goldberg overturns stale assumptions about the different functions of the two sides of the brain and about the roles of the frontal lobes. . . It is still cheering, in an era that worships youth, to be reminded that age can bring its own intellectual gifts.”
—Emma Crichton-Miller, The Telegraph (London)

“The Wisdom Paradox is unusually easy and enjoyable to read for a book loaded with information and ideas about the brain. . . [Goldberg] is a gifted explicator and a talented writer.”
—Cerebrum

“A book of wise reflections on the gains, not the losses, that come to the older human mind. Here is a valuable addition to the literature on aging.”
—ANTONIO R. DAMASIO, AUTHOR OF DESCARTES’ ERROR, THE FEELING OF WHAT HAPPENS, AND LOOKING FOR SPINOZA
... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Wordy platitudes, some interesting points, no payoff
I recommend that you read the Scientific American review that you can find above. It contains just about everything this book has to offer. The ideas about brain hemispheres are interesting, but you won't learn much more by reading the 300+ pages.
The Wisdom Paradox has a very promising premise and the topic is very important and the author has a mighty pedigree, but still the book leaves you emptyhanded. The most infuriating part is the last chapter that describes a program for cognitive fitness, i.e. a way of enhancing your brain power. And that's it: a description! Nothing else. The author doesn't give the reader a single exercise, but he just pats himself on the back for inventing such a wonderful program.
You won't become any wiser from this book.

An Enjoyable Read
I came across this book after I read Joe DeLoux's Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, and it proved to be an enjoyable read. Elkhonon Goldberg has written quite complex information into a very comprehensible direction for the reader in his "The Wisdom Paradox."

There are fifteen chapters in this book, with an addition of an epilogue.With each chapter, it is more like a personal journey than a simple or dry work. It is both personal and informative.

I personally like this book because it adds to my understanding of neuropsychology and neurobiology as it would be a good resourceful book. After reading this book, I find myself feeling compelled to exercise my mind and get those synapse of mine firing. My current skills are limited and useless. However, I can increase my skills by doing what I never done before. Knowledge is indeed unlimited and so is our brain power.

In my opinion, I recommend this book.

Original, Informative, Hopeful
Elkhonon Goldberg brings to fore many insights about the brain, but the overriding theme of the book is that as we age our brain shifts focus from a right-hemisphere dominated approach to a left-hemisphere dominated approach. New evidence has generally shown that, contrary to older studies, the right hemisphere is used to 'learn new things' and the left hemisphere is used for pattern recognition. As we age, we shift our brain dominance from right to left. Goldberg explains how we can take advantage of our awareness of this shift. (For example: keep our brain active so it doesn't atrophy -- especially the right hemisphere.)

Just as our brain shifts focus, this book shifts focus as we read along, too. The first part of the book is generally fact and hypothesis based. Goldberg explains his theories interlaced with personal narrative. The book then shifts focus to what we can do to maintain our cognitive abilities as we age. Goldberg outlines cognitive exercises we can do to keep our brain sharp. This chapter comes immediately following a chapter summarizing recent research proposing that humans grow neurons their entire life -- how many we grow and where they migrate to is up to us (in theory).

This is a positive book, bringing hope and some scientific rigor to those older folk interested in the life-cycle of their brain. Goldberg comes across as a competent scientist and, at over 50, still hasn't lost his writing ability. (If you read the book you'll learn, from a technical point of view, why this isn't so surprising. Hint: writing is a mostly left-hemisphere activity.)

Ooops! There go the piano lessons
This is the book that got me interested, once again, in neuropsychology and neuroanatomy. Yes, the immediate interest is that business of not wanting "to go gently into that good night." as Dylan Thomas wrote. How much will cognitive delcine affect me as I age (something we are all doing since birth - it isn't only the old who are aging).

I think Goldberg, motivated by his own need to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," used his enormous knowledge of neuropsychology to create a work that should benefit all who want to know what their chances are (or of relatives/friends) of continuing to lead a useful life despite the inevitable (and many) ways we decline in capacity as we age.

This book is not necessarily an easy read for a generation used to soundbites, e-mail abreviations, evening news pseudo-profundity, or dumbed-down magazine articles. One has to realize that neurology is the subject medical students fear most. And with good reason. The human brain has been described as the most complex thing we know of. Somehow, in a way not yet fully understood, consciousness emerges from the healthy, mature human brain to give us (finally in human evolution) the ability to study effectively with recent functional brain scanning techniques the very organ system that allows us to smell a perfume and recall a long ago romance, to see a face in the crowd and recognize someone we have not seen for ten years (or fifty years), to freeze with terror as the amygdala (as close as we can come to Freud's Id) brings to mind a terrible incident from childhood, to meditate and find a place of peace where some of our systems shut down like that scene in the film "2001" in which HAL, the space ship's computer, gets his memory modules unpluged after trying to kill the crew.

Frankly, I liked Goldberg's making the book not a text, but a personal exploration. Textbooks are the most boring article ever devised by the human mind - but necessary until in some new century slouching up towards Jerusalem we get microchip implants that make us into Borgs, don't snicker, people are having chips placed subdermal just so they can wave their arm at a door and have it open. Think how willing people will be score of years hence to suffer the implant of cerebral devices that give us many terabytes of updatable data storage or like "The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy" Marvin, the robot with a brain the size of a planet, unlimited intelligence. What Faustian deals will we make in centuries to come?

Get out your magic marker and color all those amazing bits of research and speculation about how our brains age. His theory is that we will get by nicely, thank you very much, on the sheer acumulation of left brain (that's not your creative side, sorry) routines which will enable us to be useful on the job and not too dull in our personal lives. This is despite the loss of some brain capacity (literally, the brain shrinks), memory loss, lessened creativity and such. It helps to have been bright and active using the brain in one's occupation.

However, we still don't know definitively what causes Alzheimer's disease or many other serious forms of cognitive decline. The good news is that we have a better chance than not of living our life to the full without disabling mental decline. It is not a 'neuropsychology for dummies' work. It is not well illustrated - see my review of Rita Carter's "Mapping the Mind" which is - but one keens at Goldberg's expertise in his field (he specializes in the frontal lobes, which, incidentally, is where the part of the mind that seems to be YOU is located - maybe).

With all the babyboomers coming along worried about their senior years, I see a bright future for this book - and many others like it. There are just so many more answers to those questions the artist asked: D'ou venons nous? Que sommes nous? Ou allons nous? (Gaugauin, MFA Boston). Goldberg is one of many helping us to understand the latest discoveries and theories in this field. He has some of his own; he's more in favor of the 'distributed processing' theory of brain function, not the highly modular view which has held sway for decades. Incidentally, recent research has shown that the Broca's area and Werneicke's area are less fixed and immutable than formerly thought.

I recommend this book.

seriously disappointed
I was unable to finish this book because I found it too academic and pedantic; it is of little use to elderly people who seek guidance in regard to the problems of agying ... Read more

Book Description
Christians trying to model their lives after Jesus may find that He gets buried under lists, rules, and formulas. Now bestselling author Randy Alcorn offers a simple two-point checklist for Christlikeness based on John 1:14. The test consists of balancing grace and truth, equally and unapologetically. Grace without truth deceives people, and ceases to be grace. Truth without grace crushes people, and ceases to be truth. Alcorn shows the reader how to show the world Jesus -- offering grace instead of the world's apathy and tolerance, offering truth instead of the world's relativism and deception.

Grace or Truth…or Both?

Truth without grace breeds self-righteousness and crushing legalism.

Grace without truth breeds deception and moral compromise.

Is it possible to embrace both in balance?

Jesus did.

Randy Alcorn offers a simple yet profound two-point checklist of Christlikeness. “In the end,” says Alcorn, “we don’t need grace or truth. We need grace and truth. And for people to see Jesus in us, they must see both.” ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Little Book, Big Message
The message here in this little book has a powerful impact.Alcorn in a very concise way hits the nail on the head when describing the balance needed between grace and truth.This book would be a great gift for a new believer, or for a seasoned saint.It's definitely a keeper!

Gracious truth telling and Truthful grace giving!
This book spells it out for us! It has shed light on the the inner dilema: I want the world to know that Jesus Christ is Lord--He is a Holy God and we have sinned against Him!!! We need to be Saved by His only Son Jesus Christ!!!! I want to shout it from the roof tops....BUT what if people feel judged? What if they can't handle the truth? They don't need someone telling them they are bad..their self-esteem is already low....We should love them and let them know that God forgives them and offers his grace and mercy....We need both TRUTH and GRACE we must stand for BOTH ---it can be done through CHRIST! "I can do all things through Christ Who Strengthens Me!" PHIL 4:13 This book flawlessly tells the Church--the Body of Christ---how to stand firm on both principles! A must read for every believer and nonbeliever--A light bulb will go off in your head and you will know how to be SALT & LIGHT! Thank you Lord for using Randy to wake up us ALL!

GraceNote
Randy Alcorn once again hits the nail right on the head.Real, honest and relevant to the true Christian lifestyle.

Great and concise
I genuinely enjoyed this book.It reinforced the forgiving, loving nature of Christ and by extension, Christianity, without providing a license to practice sin.The author did an excellent job of concisely including a more complete understanding of Jesus.

This is a terrific book
This book examines the two essential charcteristics of Jesus: His grace and truth. In doing so it provides a model on how to truly live a Christian life without compromising either our Lord's grace or truth. It is invaluable if you want to be an effective witness of the Good News. I recommend it whole heartedly. ... Read more

Book Description
Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Riddles, paradoxes, conundrums--for millennia the human mind has found such knotty logical problems both perplexing and irresistible. Now Roy Sorensen offers the first narrative history of paradoxes, a fascinating and eye-opening account that extends from the ancient Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and into the twentieth century. When Augustine asked what God was doing before He made the world, he was told: "Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that." A Brief History of the Paradox takes a close look at "questions like that" and the philosophers who have asked them, beginning with the folk riddles that inspired Anaximander to erect the first metaphysical system and ending with such thinkers as Lewis Carroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.V. Quine. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into twenty-four chapters, each of which pairs a philosopher with a major paradox, allowing for extended consideration and putting a human face on the strategies that have been taken toward these puzzles. Readers get to follow the minds of Zeno, Socrates, Aquinas, Ockham, Pascal, Kant, Hegel, and many other major philosophers deep inside the tangles of paradox, looking for, and sometimes finding, a way out. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and vividly written, A Brief History of the Paradox will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavor. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Vast perplexities
Generally speaking, there is no charm in certainty. Riddles amuse because they take some dull, every day word and, by shrouding it in mystery, transform it into a stimulating challenge. Paradoxes do something similar: they defy our notion of logic and show us conundrums where we only had rock-solid truths. A paradox enriches our reality by undermining it. Roy Sorensen, Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth, has written a dazzling book that traces the evolution of some of this conundrums throughout (western) history. As the topic itself, this book can be frustrating at times, but it always remains strangely compelling.

Starting with the Presocratics and ending with W.V. Quine, the chapters are ordered chronologically and they tend to focus on a specific author, a paradox he may have discovered or worked on, and several possible solutions to it by an array of philosophers from different ages and schools of thought. The historical context provided usually takes a life of its own, though, and Sorensen is likely to spend more time gossiping about, say, Aristotle possibly being a Macedonian spy or Kant's ailing mental faculties than delving into the paradox at hand.

Since the book is mainly aimed at armchair philosophers, I suppose some academicians may only see lack of depth in Sorensen's jovial writing style. And, to be honest, he does sometimes seem to be overly interested in retelling memorable anecdotes and witticisms rather than in meticulously analyzing arguments and pinpointing logical fallacies. But I do not think this makes his work any less worthwhile. He is not trying to be the Copleston of paradox, a go-to historian. Sorensen is just offering his readers a delightful look on a few great men, a few great questions. As himself admits in his preface: "I am interested in the developmental and antiquarian aspects of paradoxes. Consequently, my approach is more leisurely. Although I have my own theory of paradoxes, my general intent is to have paradoxes enter at their own initiative (...) The deepest paradoxes are extroverts, naturally good at introducing themselves."

However, I will not deny that the pace gets too "leisurely" at times. Mischievously dragging the Lewinski scandal into Parmenides' Theory of the One and Bette Middler into Pascal's vacuum experiments may be fun for a while, but when one thinks about the number of things Sorensen left out, one starts wondering if he could have used his space more wisely. For example, Eastern philosophy - so rich in riddles and devilish contradictions - has been almost completely neglected; and so has Quantum mechanics, with the million bewildering and hotly controversial paradoxes it has lead to. It should also be noted that while Sorensen dedicates whole pages to talk about the already well-known lives of Socrates and Hume, for example, he rushes the explanation of certain paradoxes and solutions (e.g. Carter's Doomsday argument and Cantor's answer to Zeno) that should be explained in more detail.

Nevertheless, all in all, this small book is rich in revelations, in thought-provoking fun; it is, in a way, also a brief history of philosophy looked through the lenses of doubt. Its charms are more hedonistic than academic; yet Sorensen's vast knowledge is always commanding and most chapters (specially the ones on Thomas Reid, Russell, Wittgenstein and Quine) do more than just entertain: they shed some kind light on an intrinsically obscure topic. Personally, I have read and re-read this book, underlined several passages, and admonished some of its pages with grumpy handwritten notes. I know of no better compliment to pay a book.

More than just paradoxes
As the title states, this is a HISTORY of paradoxes. The focus is on the development of thinking about these problems from ancient Greek times to the present. But to a great extent Sorensen's book is also a history of philosophy (which shows just how important paradoxes have been in philosophy). The topics covered include such things as the nature of God and of time, fatalism, Hume's skepticism, and many other things.

Sorensen makes it all relatively easy to follow and includes many interesting asides (e.g., when Pascal tried to convince Descartes that vacuums exist, Descartes quipped that Pascal had too much vacuum in his head).

There are other books out there that concentrate more on the resolutions, or attempted resolutions, to paradoxes. But what this book offers is just as valuable.

Primarily historical
On the cover of this book, "history" is in small print, and "paradox" is in large print.When I obtained this book, I hoped it would focus almost exclusively upon presenting and resolving paradoxes, but, instead, much of the book is devoted to the history of philosophy.The author frequently attacks others' definitions of "paradox," without, however, developing a clear definition of his own.The book is often interesting when it concentrates on paradoxes.I wish it had demonstrated in detail its contention that Zeno's paradoxes have been solved.This book contains, to its credit, the most concise and clear explanation of McTaggart's philosophy of time (and its refutation) that I have ever found.

Most paradoxes aren't
This survey by a Dartmouth Professor of Philosophy promises "a narrative history of paradoxes [extending] from the ancient Greeks ... and into the twentieth century." Although a small-format book, it's a bulky one, using its 370 pages to comprise 24 chronologically-ordered chapters. Each chapter pivots around one philosopher and a paradox associated with that thinker. Examples are: "Aristotle on Fatalism", "Aquinas: Can God Have a Biography", and "The Common Sense of Thomas Reid". Author Roy Sorenson writes with a smooth but playful authority, conveying an encyclopedic grasp of the somewhat cloudy subject matter.

The book begins with "Anaximander and the Riddle of Origin". Author Sorenson states therein that "I take paradoxes to be a species of riddle." Here and elsewhere he hints that he is developing for us a taxonomy of paradoxes, but he never fulfills this promise in any explicit fashion. (Only in the final chapter, when the author quotes W. V. O. Quine as defining a paradox as "just any conclusion that sounds absurd but that has an argument to sustain it", do we have a definition most of us could identify and work with.) The same holds true for explanation or resolution of most of the paradoxes he covers. Seldom does the author present a clear explication of how to resolve out the paradox under discussion.

At the same time, he treats almost all with a significance they may -- but too often do not -- deserve. In presenting Parmenides' belief that "there is only one thing", Sorenson discusses the origins, implications, and stubborn persistence of this contention with erudition but also with some subtle lack of clarity.Later when the author (finally) enlists the rejoinder that the truth of Parmenides' contention depends on the inherent ambiguity in a cognate of the verb "to be", the reader may feel that too much has been wasted before admitting the superficiality of this non-paradox.

In fact, after following the author through a number of these paradoxes easily resolved by revealing their semantic underpinnings, the reader may feel that this book's primary goal is to convince us that Wittengenstein was right in warning that "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language."

Despite the rigor of the book's organizational structure, the discussions themselves are elusive and elliptical, but usually entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking. For this reader, most of "A Brief History of the Paradox" disappointed as a solid treatment of its subject matter. It gained strength though as it left behind the semantic games only posing as paradoxes, and took up thinkers like Russell, Wittengenstein, and Quine who strove to find the true "depth" in such questions. But perhaps we should keep in mind another Wittengenstein quote (cited by Sorenson): "A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes." ... Read more

Book Description
During the past decade, leaders have increasingly relied on self-managing work groups, multifunctional teams, and cross-national executive groups to create the organization of the future. Yet groups are not a panacea for organizational problems; conflicts between individuals or factions within a group often create seemingly contradictory situations?paradoxes?that can prevent the group from reaching its goals.

In this groundbreaking classic, Kenwyn Smith and David Berg offer a revolutionary approach to understanding groups and overcoming the problems that often paralyze group members, the group as a whole, and relations among groups. They explore the hidden dynamics that can prevent a group from functioning effectively. And they show how an apparently paradoxical suggestion?for example, inviting a success oriented group to risk failure, or affirming the benefits of going nowhere to a group focused on moving ahead?can break action barriers, overcome conflicts, and improve group performance.

Smith and Berg offer a different way of thinking about groups that will open new avenues of inquiry for professors and students of group behavior, and they propose many innovative ideas that will prove valuable to consultants, trainers, therapists, and others who work with groups on a regular basis.

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Customer Reviews (3)

A true companion on the road to no-where
Smith and Berg have wrouth - written is too modest - a briljant insighful and wise guide tour behind the coulises of our lifes. It is the best guide book I know to the place you live in: the group. You can use it in almost every situation. They show how we are caught in our webs, our own frames of mind, our relational swamp. Such is life and it is getting sucher and sucher all the time.
I recommend this book to every one dealing with groups AND individuals, because there is no better way to start to understand what life ' is'.

Constant Companion for Group Work
This insightful book has accompanied me through grad school, two corporate reorganizations and numerous consulting projects.The authors have written an excellent text on the contradictory forces/movements endemic to group life.Their use of paradoxical thought as a lens for thinking about and successfully navigating the territory of group life is both practical and innovative.If you're looking for the usual book about conflict resolution, please look elsewhere. Smith and Berg advocate reclaiming rather than repressing or eliminating the fears and anxieties that define many aspects of group life.Their explanation of concepts such as group paralysis, oscillation, group-as-whole, splitting and individual ambivalence are clear and highly cogent when integrated into a paradoxical framework.

Aptly titled: This analysis is rife w/ incisive insights.
Paradoxes of Group Life is a masterful explication of the concepts its title announces. This readable volume will serve the newcomer to Group Dynamics as well as the more experienced cognoscenti. People are often fundamentally ambivalent about ourselves and our participation in groups. Smith & Berg explain these (often unconscious) dynamics with great clarity and force. Treat yourself to this compelling analysis. I highly recommend their important work! ... Read more