AS

I found this slim little volume years ago and was so moved by it that I felt compelled to write to the publisher and to the translator. Dr. Ergin, an American surgeon, is also Turkish Sufi, his religion is the center of his life. I admire him greatly and believe that his translation of Rumi is the most accurate and authentic. He fully understands and experiences the spirit of Rumi and makes the ancient verses come alive in the most direct, unadorned way. I hope you treasure this book as I do.

Rumi's words will truly speak to your soul - The poems reach deep into your heart and illuminate the answers to the burning questions we all ask of ourselves.

How do we achieve our futures? Is our future predetermined? How much of our future can we extrapolate from our past and our present? These are questions which James Ogilvy addresses in this book.

Ogilvy has an impressive background in both academia and the business world. Before co-founding the Global Business Network, he was a Professor of Philosophy at Yale and Williams, and a social researcher with the Stanford Research Institute (Values and Lifestyles Program). In Creating Better Futures he draws on all his experiences in these fields to outline what he sees as an emerging paradigm of how we view and shape society. This paradigm he calls the 'relational worldview': a view of the world which highlights relationships and interdependencies across and in spite of differences.
Ogilvy devotes a large part of the book to outlining his worldview - he identifies social structures which were dominant in the past & explains why they are no longer sufficient to provide us with the futures we want. Then he relates his argument for a new world view to shifts he sees in other social sciences, namely anthropology and literary criticism: the shift from objectivity to subjectivity, from things to symbols and relationships, from determinism to ambiguity and the existence of many different but equal possibilities which arise from meanings created and shared by and within groups.

Ogilvy points out that we already have at hand the essentials for creating a better tomorrow; the three key elements of players, values and tools we need are easily identified once we look at the world through the new paradigm of the relational worldview. He rejects the Religious Institutions of past eras, and the Governments and Marketplace of the modern era, as major players in future society. Placing individualist and collective societies at two opposite ends of the same spectrum of social organization, he identifies individuals within communities as the new actors in making decisions.

Similarly, the social values of this new paradigm are not found in the absolutism or determinism of religion, or the scientific objectivity of modernism. Nor are they found in the subjective relativism of postmodernism. Rather, values are found in the ethical pluralism of interrelated communities - an ongoing process whereby communities share their hopes and negotiate meanings as they try to get along with each other.

Recognizing that in an increasingly interdependent world there are a multiplicity of religions, races, standards, norms and values, Ogilvy's worldview identifies scenario-building as the tool best suited for creating better futures. Scenario-building is a process which provides a venue for a individuals and groups within a community to assess, articulate and negotiate its hopes and values for a better future. In the final chapters of the book Ogilvy gives a brief outline and some illustrations of the practice of scenario planning.

This is stimulating, though not easy, book to read. Adopting a new perspective is always challenging, and Ogilvy has included a lot of abstract philosophical, sociological and literary theories as he builds his case for a new worldview. However I chose this book because I wanted to read more than another "How to .." book - I wanted a book that would situate the technique of scenario-building in a wider social and global context. Ogilvy's well-considered paradigm provides a very good starting-point for us to contemplate as we try to negotiate our shrinking and increasingly interdependent world.

Compiled in part as a rebuttal to those who see the future through a dystopian lens (i.e. Orwell and company), Ogilvy offers this book as a refusal to accept either the notion that we are a doomed people, or that we must settle for "good enough" in contemplating progress and the future. He offers scenario building as the premiere tool for creating multiple, multicultural futures, based upon a "relational worldview". In doing so, Ogilvy tackles positivism and relativism, values and ethics, and the importance of true pluralism to creating better futures.

Ogilvy is well equipped for the task. With a doctorate in philosophy from Yale University, he has taught at that venerable institution, as well as at the University of Texas, and Williams College. He has been interested in the relationships between human values and consumer societies, and headed the "Values and Lifestyles" research project at the think tank, SRI International (formerly known as Stanford Research Institute). He worked in scenario building with Peter Schwartz for Royal Dutch/Shell, and later co-founded Global Business Network (GBN) with Schwartz and others. At GBN, he specializes in corporate scenario planning and research on futures in business environments. He has also authored, Living Without a Goal (1994), China's Futures (with Peter Schwartz - 2000), and Many Dimensional Man (1977), as well as numerous other publications through SRI.

Ogilvy fleshes out his relational worldview in the first part of the book, where he traces the move from mysticism to rationalism, and the evolving recognition of the inter-relatedness of the world today. Emphasizing the growth of elaborate networks of information and obviously competing visions of the future, Ogilvy constructs an extremely useful framework for beginning to consider potential futures in the world at large. He considers changing relations in religion, politics, and economics, in the struggle between individual and collectivist posturing and power, and weaves together multiple, shifting disciplinary views in the human sciences, and interprets these into a new view of the world that avoids the excesses of zealots and nihilists alike.

Ogilvy takes a chapter to discuss the application of particular features of this new world to normative scenario building. Recognizing the philosophical shift from things to symbols, the growing emphasis on relationships, the shift to narration from explanation, and the questionability of "timeless norms", Ogilvy cautions against wholesale subjective relativism, and instead holds out the possibility of what he calls the democratization of meaning, and paths towards ethical pluralism, that strives to unite the normal, or what exists, with the normative, what ought to be. In this model, ambiguity is always present, and the potential for multiple interpretations is rife - and a source of welcome creativity. Likewise, the idea of heterarchy, a sort of hyperlinkish anti-hierarchy, creates opportunities for multiplicity as well. Rather than trying to devise the One True Path based on immutable "laws" of nature, multiple paths are carved out that represent the shared hopes and dreams of community and communities.

By Part Four, entitled New Rules, New Tools, it is quite obvious how scenario building works hand in hand with the relational worldview and ethical pluralism Ogilvy has discussed. The rest of the book is devoted to the use of the scenario building tool, with examples of scenario building in action in first an educational context, and then a healthcare context. He closes by reiterating why even thinking about one best future is no more possible that thinking about one best way of being human, and encourages the visualization of a "rich ecology of species in the gardens of the sublime."

The strengths of this book are many; it is an extremely enjoyable read, with just enough additional sources to round it up to a "scholarly" tome. In the best scenario building tradition, the thesis of the book is cohesive and plausible, and is an especially refreshing departure from much of the scenario building literature, that too frequently focuses on business applications and barely questioned assumptions defined by buzzwords. Ogilvy stresses the need for passion and pluralism to co-exist, reminds us of the true potential of communal/social creativity, and suggests the possibility of exhilaration in imaginations unfettered. Creating Better Futures is aptly named, and offers an "Etch-a-Sketch" blueprint to be used over and over to do just that.

This landmark survey of Czech avant-garde photography is the first time we have seen how Central European experimentalists found the same mainstreams and explored many of the same byways as did their American and European cohorts. And yet, as the images in this book testify, almost every shot has a quality distinctive enough to be called Czech.

Czech photographers had a vision of modernity that resembled Bauhaus in its desire for a major houseclean of old forms, but avoided the Bauhaus's smothering insistence on theory first and reality later. The Czech vision was really many visions. We see aesthetic old friends here: pictorialism, picture poems, abstraction and its quasi-abstract variant called nonfiguration, social journalism, surrealism-and a home-grown movement named Poetism.

The text is an anthology of essays. They have a elbowy reach as they knock into each other introducing the period and movements; exploring the background of the photographers and their mutual influences on each other; and much more.

Photography came to Czechoslovakia well after film had been put onto rolls. They could spend their spare time thinking. It is tempting to compare the Czech efforts with the boundary-pushing experiments of North American and Western European photographers in the Twenties and Thirties. They were, after all, conducted almost simultaneously. Yet there is a clear difference in technique between images by Paul Strand, Minor White, Ansel Adams, and Edward Steichen, and their Czech counterparts named Jeromir Funke, Jindrich Styrsky, and Drahomir Ruzicka. The difference is largely due to the Czechs being essentially untrained, unlettered hobbyists with very little aesthetic theory to distract them, and therefore an ability to see objects and scenes on their own terms.

It shows.

Take some of the high-angle panoramic portraits of cafe terraces and outdoor restaurants of Josef Ehm, Jan Lauschmann, Arnost Pickart, and Eugen Wiskovsky. They resemble the overhead shots of Atget and Cartier-Bresson. The big difference is that Cartier-Bresson was consciously seeing a "decisive moment" to push the shutter, while the Czechs seem more preoccupied with panorama in and of itself. For example, there are almost no humans in the pictures; unoccupied cafe tables march off in rows like stamped-metal plates on a production line. From the flat, even light one knows the skies were overcast. Did the photographers go there on such days because they sought a scene without life? If so or even if not, they succeeded.

This same sense of dyspersonalization also occurs with the nudes. If ever there was a case for elan as a series of curves, the nude is it. Yet the nudes of Frantisek Drtikol are so embedded in (and mostly behind) angularities and factory-hewn curves that the figures come off as union-shop amazons fresh from the factory floor. While the text assigns terms to the various classes of imagery-Constructivism, Futurism, Functionalism, and the like-the impact on the eye is rather different: of all the catchalls one can apply to remove being from reality, industrial photography is as cold and correct as a calculus solution.

The rather smallish amount of commercial photography presented likewise is unremarkable, even the page layouts trying to be with-it in an era when Art Deco dominated almost everything a few longitudes to the west. This surprises, because the American experimentalist Man Ray, living in Paris, was a formidable esprit de l'oeil to Jaroslav Rossler and others. Ray's was is the most energizing foreign influence on Czech photo imagination of the time.

All this took an abrupt swerve when Surrealism arrived. Photographers such as Jindrich Styrzsky, Hugo Taborsky, Frantisek Vobecky, and Bohumil Nemec spared us Western Europe's metaphysics of dripping clocks and life-vacated forms to concentrate on a more local product: the magical encounters to be found on a human visage. With surrealism the Czechs utterly reversed themselves. A human-seed sensibility blossomed into a broad meadow whose subtext was poetry, imagination, creativity, and the inner model. Literature was as much a part of photography as photograph was of literature, just as complexity, too, contains its own antonym. The term "Surrealism" as defined in Paris didn't quite fit this heady mix, so it was aptly called Poetism by the locals. Antonin Dufek's chapter on the subject is arguably the most stimulating in the book.

The most striking images in the book are Surrealist. In Jeroslav Rössler's "Untitled, 1931" on page 117 (and the cover jacket), a woman's face fills the frame, tilted at 45 degrees as she looks the lens in the eye. The pictorial strength may come from her thin line of almost black lipstick and one eye encircled by a black ring, but the psychic strength comes from the translucent panes before her that divide the image into portions of clarity and bad focus. What we see isn't a reality, it is a focusscape.

The book is as complete a view as we can find of the entire Czech world between the White Carpathians and the mountain rim that barriers off Czechoslovakia from the rest of Europe. Photographers had a great old time in the years between the arrival of democracy with Jan Masaryk's government in 1918 and its end with Hitler's invasion in 1938. An astonishing number of them were hobbyists with little interest in what today would be called a career path. It is quite something to watch them trying the same experiments and making the same mistakes-finding their own metier like good artists should-with results quite different that events further westward.

They defined aesthetics, possibilities, and learned the limits of their medium. But much more. They ventured well beyond the typical hobbyist's preoccupation with technique and equipment. Their great contribution was essentially the same as that of Atget and Bressai: a vivid glimpse into the realities of their part of the world-Westernized Slavs-which no one had paid much attention to. It turned out that society and commonplaces were more relevant to them than theory and manifesto.

First published as "Ceska fotograficka avantgarda 1918-1948," this book shows how great the photographers of Czechoslovakia of the first half of the 20th century were. They did not have digital techniques, but nevertheless produced wonderful art (as suggested by the original title of the exhibition, "Modern Beauty: Czech Photographic Avant-Garde 1918-1948"). I had heard of Frantisek Drtikol, Jaromir Funke, and Josef Sudek, but I had never seen a good sampling of their images before reading this book. New to me were artists such as Jindrich Heisler, Jaroslav Rossler, Karel Teige, and Eugen Wiskovsky. The authors must have carefully chosen the photographs published in the book from collections in Prague and elsewhere. Most of the photos are in black and white, but some are in color, and all are well reproduced. The text is illuminating, with discussion of the relationship of the Czech photographers' work to that of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Man Ray, and other contemporaries. The chapters on "optical words," "hidden sources" (e.g., collages), and surrealism were the most interesting to me. Toward the back of the book, the chronologies, biographies, bibliography, and index are useful for future reference. I hope you purchase it!

Worth the cost. Warm and personal, yet firm and straightforward. The authors take on the subject of Christians living each day as a disiciple of Christ (instead of just letting disciples be "those other guys"). I was particularly intrigued at the outset by the intro written by Dee Brestin (Heritage Keepers) and the foreword by Bill McCartney (Promise Keepers). Then, the chapters take off from there and go further. Again a good book. Looking forward to doing the Daily Disciples study guide book in my group.

DAILY DISCIPLES grabs you in the Prologue and continues on --making good points chapter after chapter. There's also pointed discussion questions at the end of each section. The best Christian Living book I have read this year.

For a fresh dose of inspiration, this collection will do wonders for the soul. It's a great "pick-me-up," spiritually, but not only that, the selections are taken from some of the classic writers of prose and poetry in the Christian tradition. I sometimes use it to jot down thoughts I take from it and put it in my Bible. And it's amazing how the thought for the day matches what the challenge and/or problem may be.

A marvelous collection to inspire and propel to the heights of Divine Providence. Highly recommended!!!

Some people look forward to their first cup of coffee in the morning , and it is that kind of "I can't wait to read this morning's message" that I greet my book every day. It never fails to be a word in due season, encouraging, useful food for thought; simple messages to contemplate your entire day.Its a habit I am better off to keep.

In the area of dance and healing the name Anna Halprin, Ph.D. is a beacon of hope and strength. And, in the area of cancer support and education, Anna's name is legend. This prolific author, dancer and healer now brings us Dance as a Healing Art, which hows us the connection between dance and spirituality as a means to fight cancer, AIDS and other terminal illnesses.

Anna Halprin, now 80 years old and a cancer survivor herself, brings not only years of experience and training in her art and craft, she brings vast quantities of love and understanding. Dance as a Healing Art exposes the viability of movement as a"...vehicle for releasing feelings which are essential to the healing process. Repressed or incongruent emotions shut down the immune system, causing pain and illness" relates Dr. Halprin.

Dance as a Healing Art, by definition, is an effective guide to healing for both teacher as well as student. It is filled with lessons to facilitate understanding of getting in touch with yourself (or patient) both physically as well as emotionally and spiritually.

Anna Halprin re-defines ritual to refer "...to an artistic process by which people gather and unify themselves in order to confront the challenges of their existence". That, in turn, defines Dance as a Healing Art as a process that enables the person in a health crisis to reach within and apply their emotional and spiritual healing tools to help.

Dance as a Healing Art is a powerful book from a pioneer and innovator. Anna Halprin offers a healing modality that uplifts by implementing a healing process through movement and imagery. This is a book, in this reviewer's opinion, not only for the stricken, but for the well!

Dance As A Healing Art: Returning To Health With Movement & Imagery is based on Anna Halprin's many years of practical experience in collaborative programs incorporating modern American dance with treatment protocols for cancer and AIDS patients. Dance As A Healing Art is a vital, innovative resource and practical, effective guide for people involved with any kind of chronic health crisis, -- including terminal illnesses. As a cancer survivor herself, eighty year old Anna Halprin brings a genuine authenticity to her presentation, offering uplifting insights and the wisdom off a great creative artist, teacher, and facilitator for healing. Dance As A Healing Art is highly recommended, life enhancing reading for medical care providers, patients, and their families.

Darwinian Happiness is a novel concept in the literature on well being. Contrary to most books that offer advice on how to live your life, it starts out with a scientific perspective. It explains why, in evolutionary terms, we have a capacity to feel good or feel bad. Based on this understanding of the human brain, we are advised on how to best nurture positive feelings.

All in all the book does a very good job at explaining what it means to be human, why we have evolved a capacity to enjoy life in general, and things like art and music in particular. One recurring recommendation is that we should try to adapt the way we live to the way we are designed to live. By heeding this advice, we are likely to obtain better health both mentally and physically.

Above the entrance to the ancient Oracle of Delphi was written "know thyself". This book on Darwinian Happiness allows you to follow that advice. It is the best book on the biology of human behavior that I have read. I urge you to try it.

Bjorn Grinde not only explains the nature of being human, he goes beyond that and uses this knowledge to offer advice as to how to improve your quality of life. The resulting concept of Darwinian happiness makes a lot of sense. It offers a way of pursuing happiness that may benefit not only the individual, but also society.

Happiness can be found by tuning in to the potential we all have for positive feelings. It does not require spending a lot of money and it is better served by being kind to people rather than being mean. As to the latter, the author points out that gregariousness and compassion give more joy than aggression.

Sociability evolved relatively late in our lineage at a time when features in the brain were added by coupling them with brain rewards in the form of positive feelings. Our aggressive tendencies, on the other hand, are evolutionarily-speaking very old and are, therefore, more instinctive and, to a less extent, coupled with positive sensations.

The book is entertaining and easy to read. It can be highly recommended. I truly wish this book had been required reading in my college psychology and sociology classes.

More of an overview of Powell's life than a straight ahead bio, this book (wisely) focuses more on Powell's novels, concerning itself with their creation and relation to the author's life and experiences. Ms. Rice has a very fluid, readable style and makes many fascinating points about Powell's life and works (one thing which made me think a great deal was the fact that while her novels were very autobiographical, she excluded any 'character' resembling her autistic son.) This is a fine companion to Tim Page's bio of Powell and I highly recomend it; however, if you are looking for a more traditional biography, Tim Page's book is probably a better choice.

Either way, both volumes (as well as Powell's own works) have made me quite devoted to this wonderful novelist, and for that I thank Mr. Page and Ms.Rice both.

Having spent the last nine years involved in my own research into the life and work of Dawn Powell, I was unprepared for the richness and depth of Marcelle Smith Rice's fresh take on this extraordinary author. I learned a great deal from this book -- and enjoyed every bit of it. Rice's prose is clear, welcoming, insightful and detailed, and she has written an affectionate and appropriate study.

If your load is heavy, here's a load lightner, If your life needs some light, Read this gosh darn book now, and again tonight.

But, of all the humble souls, you missed but one. The book I finished reading, it's closed, readings done.

...Mr. T.

Where the hell is Henry K., but let's call him "Hank" Maybe discussing his IQ with "so new nue" Or waiting in line at the humility bank?

I wish I could write this review in verse. That is what the book really calls for. Failing that I will simply say that the only trouble with this book is that you find yourself annoying everyone around you by constantly reading it aloud. It should not be missed.

Hirsch's "Democracy vs Socialism" is very different from von Mises' "Socialism." The person who is recommending von Mises *instead of* Hirsch's work is part of the anti-georgist, propertarian right wing of libertarianism. Who misses Hirsch's work misses a unique synthesis of late 19th century classical liberalism and early Austrian economics sans the Social Darwinism that ultimately cut the heart out of Classical Liberalism and split the movement into its modern day left and right wing fragments.

Hirsch's work integrates a modern model of Capital & Interest with classical liberalisms principle of labor earned property rights and equal freedom to use/access what is not created by individual labor, eg, natural resource opportunity and civil opportunity.

Hirsch's exposition of the formation of genuine "technical" Interest is beautiful in its simplicity and clarity and is alone worth its purchase. It clears away all the jargonistic obfuscations and needless complexity. His strength in clear exposition might be best demonstrated by one of his startling analogies: "Just as Labor's Wages are extended across Space as Land's Rental value, so are Labor's Wages extended across Time as Capital's Interest." Hirsh's derivation may not explain all of new capital formation but it does cut through to the heart of the most difficult aspect of technical "Interest." This is especially useful to most of us who need to find a coherent path through technical jargon, especially for us who are economic beginners through talented novices.

Hirsch also provides abundant thorough replies and anticipations of anti-land reformers of both Left and Right. It's too bad that latter day Austrian Economists like von Mises clung to his anti-Georgist prejudices instead of considering Hirsch's arguments. If you insist on covering your ears and eyes in favor of anti-Georgist name-calling, then by all means go instead to von Mises "Socialism." If you want to learn about a very important alternative proposal for constructive solutions to the ills of neo-feudalist, landlordist Capitalism, an alternative that is steadfastly ignored and "ad-hominemed" by both Left and Right, then invest your time more *constructively* in Max Hirsch's "Democracy vs Socialism." Practically all anti-georgist arguments of right wing libertarianism are based on ad hominems, diversion, evasion and "package dealings."

Hirsch's ethical demolition of pro-statist Socialism (modern oxymoron so-called) is also a huge bonus. Hirsch points out that when statist Socialisms deny all individual rights except for arbitrary state dictates, there are no real rights save arbitrary state privileges. Without some sort of rights prior to and independent of State formation, there is no reliable concept of "Good" or "ought" save the arbitrary dictates of state politicians and bureaux men. Hence, the very foundation of pro-statist Socialism is to deny any reliable objective standard of reckoning what the "good" is, what the state "ought" to do, how it could protect and extend the "happiness" of the people. So, Hirsch anticipated vonMises', Hayek's and Popper's calculation deficiency objections to statist ruled economics by about 2 or 3 decades. The additional latter day objections concerning lack of valid market price data are trivially derivative of the fundamental epistemologic fallacy of pro-statist Socialism, it's own self-contradiction; that some kinds of social policies "ought to be" without some reliable code, system, concept of rights vs wrongs besides predatory forced political power and privilege at the command of arbitrary statist government.. Hirsch boils down pro-statist Socialism's conceptual system to "these social policies ought to be because we in power say they ought to be, no matter who they hurt or lay waste to, no matter the alternative facts, reasonings, rights claims of others without the power to forcibly dissent and disagree."

In the United States there was Henry George; in Australia there was Max Hirsch.

Hirsch, who was born in Cologne, Prussia in 1853, settled in Victoria, Australia in 1890. It was here that he became a respected and outspoken leader of Henry George's Single Tax movement. 'Democracy Versus Socialism' was Hirsch's master work. Published in 1901, it was the first book to deal comprehensively with Karl Marx's 'Das Kapital' and the literature which had, up to the end of the nineteenth century, been published by Socialists.

Hirsch's analysis is arguably the most thorough refutation of the basic ideas of Marx ever written. Although Ludwig von Mises is often praised for being the first economist to offer such a refutation, it is important to note that, with respect to the evils of Socialism, von Mises reached no conclusion in any of his works that Hirsch had not already reached decades earlier.

While Hirsch's views on capital and interest were heavily influenced by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, his views on land were heavily influenced by Henry George. In short, Hirsch believed that the moral basis of private property is derived solely from the right of the individual to the fruits of his or her labor. But since land is not the fruit of anyone's labor, Hirsch, like George, held that all individuals have an equal right to land, and hence to the rental value thereof. He advocated George's Single Tax remedy -- the abolishment of all taxation save that upon land values -- as a means of upholding the true right of property, while at the same time eliminating poverty by freeing laborers and capitalists from the clutches of State-granted privileges and monopolies, particularly as they relate to the concentrated ownership of land.

After an exhaustive analysis, Hirsch determined that "The ultimate social and political outcome of Socialism...must be an all-pervading despotism on the part of the rulers, and a degree of slavery on the part of the ruled masses." Nevertheless, Hirsch also believed that Capitalism would continually fail humanity as a whole so long as it is based on State-sanctioned land monopoly. If the earth becomes the exclusive property of a relative few, Hirsch argued, then "all non-landowners, under this condition, would have no right to the use of any part of the earth," and would thus "have no right to live upon it." In Hirsch's view, only when both the exclusive right of the individual to the fruits of his or her labor *and* the equal right of all to the use of land are upheld will Capitalism truly become what Hirsch envisioned it to be--'the most marvellous system of co-operation which the human mind can conceive.' To that end, Hirsch recommended the Single Tax, and devoted the last part of his book to providing persuasive answers to both right-wing and left-wing objections to this remedy.

I highly recommend 'Democracy Versus Socialism' to anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of both Capitalism and Socialism (as they are currently defined), and who suspects that there is a fundamental flaw in each, but is unsure as to what that flaw is. I also recommend it to economists who have an overall high regard for Henry George's 'Progress and Poverty,' but who are dissatisfied with George's theory on the nature and cause of "interest." Hirsch provided a more analytically sound treatment of that subject, and, in doing so, corrected what up to that point had been the sole logical blemish in George's economic paradigm. (It's worth noting, however, that before eliminating that blemish, Hirsch insisted that it in no way lessened the overall soundness of George's Single Tax remedy).