Leader

This is as good a set of personal reflections as you will ever read. From his induction, training and initial taste of Army life Charles B. Haydon puts you on guard duty and allows you to experience boredom, nasty weather, and interminable marches. Along the way you will fight at Bull Run, participate in the Penninsula campaign, particularly the fight at Williamsburg, the fight at Fredericksburg and to top it off, the sieges of Vicksburg and Knoxville.

Haydon was a gifted writer who rises from the ranks to become a lieutenant colonel. Oddly, he dies in Cincinnati of pneumonia. His is a most unusual journal. He was very sincere about being a good soldier and performed flawlessly under intense, continuous combat. These are the personal reminiscences of a very good man, selflessly devoted to his men, his comrades and to his country.

You will not be disappointed.

With movies like Patriot reviving an interest in our Colonial roots, our heritage of faith is also reviving. One of the stories that has not been told well enough is how our American Revolution grew out of a revival of Christian faith called the Great Awakening. The leader of this movement was an amazing man named George Whitefield. Few know that name today, but our Founding Fathers new it well and honored it as a force in the founding of our nation

Stephen Mansfield has written an accessible, moving, skillfully told story of the man who is indeed our "Forgotten Founding Father." If you love this book as I do, then don't miss Mansfield's other biographies, like Never Give In on Winston Churchill and Then Darkness Fled on Booker T. Washington. Each of these marvelous books restores a heritage largely lost to our generation.

I added this fine work to my library about 4 months ago and already the pages are showing signs of wear. I can't begin to say how many times I have turned to this fine work for a reference source.

Mr. Spalding has put together a very readable sourcebook. The book begins with a calendar of notable events, followed by six outstanding essays on six of America's most notable founders. All six essays come from different authors and each one is equally well written.

The last half of the book is devoted to notable quotations, founding documents and additional resources. The quotes are divided into numerous indexed categories. The documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, have quick reference sidebar notes. You won't regret adding this fine work to your personal library.

Prof. Leader's work will change the way people think about freedom of association. It's a must read for anyone doing work in this field.

Every now and then there is a book that a reviewer can wholeheartedly recommend as being both practical and a genuine contribution to the way in which we think and act. This is one of them. It offers an extremely valuable typology with which to think about and develop the leadership role, based firmly on the imperative of a solid basis of core values. An invaluable tool for developing the leadership function in organisations and skills in individuals.

Stuart Wells offers a deceptively simple and very rich framework for thinking about the leadership function and for building personal and organisational leadership capacity, consisting of nine management roles, framed within three foci of managerial effort and three principal leadership processes. The whole of the book is an explanation and elaboration of the model.

Points to notice about the model are:

• first, that the explicit articulation and demonstration of a coherent set of core values lies at the base of the effectiveness of all the roles;

• second, that the author is concerned with roles, all of which contribute in different ways to the success of the organisation, that collectively make a difference to organisational success and that may be exercised cooperatively by different people within a team or group. The model is not about the superhuman abilities of the 'hero' leader;

• third, that each role lies at the intersection between one of three leadership processes and three foci of managing effort - at different times and in different situations different combinations of roles may be critical to moving forward. Each role is itself distinctive and different from the others;

• fourth that the nine roles are learnable, but that in each individual they will be differentially developed and each individual with have natural preferences, strengths and weaknesses.

The model is focused on observable roles and their impact, rather than on: • the inner qualities of a leader (eg Jaworski 'Synchronicity'), • the stance of a leader in relation to the authoritarian/participative continuum (eg Bower 'The Will to Lead'), or • the way in which a network of leadership may be developed within an organisation (e.g. Senge: 'The Dance of Change').

These different perspectives are complementary to each other. Wells' distinctive contribution is to separate the discussion of important and continuing roles from the mythology of the 'hero' leader that is implicit or explicit in so much writing about leadership.

The author's claims for the book are modest. He explicitly recognises that leadership is learned from practice, not from books and he offers the book as a guide to self assessment and a guide to building practice and confidence in each role.

I read this book on my plane ride back home from college because I had become interested in modern Social Democratic theory over the course of the semester. What I found in The Future of Social Democracy is a collection of brilliant, vibrant essays from center-left leaders in Sweden, Canada, Costa Rica, England, Germany, and beyond. The argument for a market economy with the influence of the state to provide social welfare programs and mitigate inequality is spelled out clearly with examples from four continents across the twentieth century. The coverage of Sweden's welfare state makes an important point: The reason the welfare state is unpopular in America is that it only benefits the lower classes and the aged. In Sweden, the healthcare, public education, and social services are so good and so well-funded that all segments of society benefit. This is why middle and upper-class Swedes are so much more willing to support their country's welfare state than is the case here in the USA. Social Democracy is a wonderful system that incorporates the effeciency of a market economy with the benefits of a welfare state. As the conclusion of this collection points out, it is a system that is rooted in the basic human need to serve one's own interests as well as working for the common good of the society in which one lives. Anyone wishing to see an excellent analysis of the twentieth century and where our governments and economies are headed should pick up The Future of Social Democracy.

Bill and John are personal friends of mine. I've known them since the 70s when John and Burton and I were co-leading the New Games Foundation. Bill has been teaching recreation at San Francisco State and stayed with it despite lack of funding and recognition for-just-about-ever. So anything I have to say about this book is probably suspect.

On the other hand, I REALLY like this book. In my 30 years of exploring new games and deeper fun, I haven't found any book that could actually portray New Games leadership as comprehensively and compassionately.

It is, of course, about more than leading games. It is about leadership itself, and a startlingly revolutionary model for the kind of leadership that truly serves the players.

This book contains so many activities to do, you will never run out of things to do with children as well as adults.

Excellent book for anyone working with young people. The games are fun, and useful. It's great for quick references and reminders of games when you are planning a session/ class. It's in an easy to read format. There are traditional games as well as lesser known games which are just as good. It's an absolute must for Youth workers and Teachers.

Being a Leftist, I didn't know much about how the conservative movement actually works. After reading this book, I think I understand it a little better. I had always known that the Republican Party is fractured, with religious conservatives and economic libertarians forming a coalition of people who have little in common with one another. This book showed me that there are even more divisions than that.

It also showed me how the conservative movement has changed. In this profile of five relatively young conservative leaders, you won't find any mention of Jesse Helms as a role model. The Republican Party is trying to smooth the edges a little bit.

Of the five leaders whose lives are profiled (Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Clint Bolick, David McIntosh, and Bill Kristol), I found Ralph Reed's to be the most interesting. I really didn't know how moderate he is. After his almost comical exploits as a young man trying to rig elections, his maturity and conversion come off as being genuine if incomplete. I loved the parts of the book where Ralph Reed tries to moderate the conservative christian message and is undercut by his own followers, who are much more interested in being anti-abortion crusaders than in crafting a complex social policy. When he missteps, it is usually by presuming to speak for them in ways for which they would not approve.

Grover Norquist comes off as a Darth Vader-like character, a man almost completely blinded by his ideology. Reading about his torpedoing of a potential Colin Powell run for the presidency and about his thinly disguised sympathy for separatist militia groups, one is reminded of the ugly face of conservatism that earned it the traditional brand "mean-spirited". But one also realizes that people like Bill Kristol disapprove of that sort of thing vociferously, and still call themselves conservatives. Norquist operates under the supposition that 60% of the people of the country are Rightists, and that Democrats only win by cheating, but it seems that not even 60% of Republicans would meet his definition of a Rightist.

This book chronicles the intellectual development, the rise to power, the internal conflicts, the illusions and delusions, the lessons learned through hard experience, and the ultimate disappoinment of the Right's leaders before, during, and after the Republican Revolution of 1994. As a liberal reader, I recommend it as a great primer. I don't know what a conservative reader would think of it.