Renewal

McGrath takes a look at the mess that is spreading into the Episcopal/Anglican Church and tries to take an unbiased but constructive view in how to deal with it. He rightly takes to task the extremist fundamentals and liberals, but at the same time cherishs aspects of liberalism without possibly being aware of it's dangers. But then one can say the same the other way I suppose. He also values the growth of pastoral charismatic culture with a regard for evangelism and also asserts the need for unity between the anglo catholics and evangelicals.

Alister McGrath, a rather prolific writer in the field of theology (particularly historical and systematic theology), ten years ago turned his attention to the idea of undercurrents in the renewal of Anglicanism. To a certain extent, this seems somewhat redundant - Anglicanism has from its beginnings been a tradition in process of both reform and preservation - it isn't so much a pendulum swinging left to right as it is a spiral that covers a lot of ground, often over and over, but always in new contexts and at new levels.

While it is true that Anglicanism has always been in transition, it is also true that the past few decades have presented more elements at play in this process than ever before. Reforms of the liturgies, increasing importance of voices from non-Western church bodies, evangelism (and the failure thereof), and the triumph of secularism in the West have all played major roles in the way Anglicanism has been shaped, and will continue to be shaped. McGrath sees the past generation of Anglicans as being a rather 'lost generation', one in which survival was more important that mission or growth, and in which many inside and outside the church became disillusioned and pessimistic about future prospects.

McGrath argues for a reconstruction of the Via Media - the Middle Way, an idea long in the minds of Anglicans that can mean (as can most things Anglican) different things to different people. For some it looks to middle ground between Catholics and Protestants; for others it is the course between high church and low church (which, contrary to intuitive thought does not strictly parallel Catholic/Protestant categories). For McGrath, it is largely a course between fundamentalism and liberalism, and this seems to be playing out even more dramatically today than ten years ago when this text was first produced. McGrath does not see either fundamentalism or liberalism in terms of set doctrines or ideologies as much as methods and intuitive understandings. This allows for more interaction and cooperation, or at least mutual recognition of possibilities for validity.

McGrath sees the recapturing of vision and education as a primary teaching office of the church to be key to the overall renewal of Anglicanism in the world. There is much history, much theology, much of worth, but it needs to be celebrated, promulgated and taught, not just preserved. Anglicanism is not the stuff of museums and historical theatre, at least not yet - it is meant to be a living, growing and vital strand in the life of Christendom, a unique voice that needs to be used as much as preserved.

An update to this volume in light of current controversies would be welcome; apart from that, this is still a valuable text that gives a good background for thinking about things Anglican.

Ernst Michael Kranich has written an interesting book on the possibility of evolution without necessarily having to be of the Darwinian type. Even though his work is predated in the main by Wolfgang Schad (Man and Mammals) who also provides a far deeper analysis, it does add some new aspects to Goethean science.

Goeathen science or in other words the way of science developed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (the famous German poet) is different in the sense that it stays with the phenomenon rather than going outside of it. Goethe stresses this by statements such as "the phenomenon is already theory" using the Greek meaning of theory rather than the modern meaning which almost dissociates itself from the phenomenon under question. As such this approach is purely objective in the true sense of scientific, to get an idea of the full aspects of such a science in a very clear and methodical way devoid of speculation read the book by Henri Bortoft, The Wholeness of Nature, which can expand on this idea.

Kranich uses the Goethean approach to look carefully at the animal world and its developments such as horses skeletons and the organ arrangement in mammals, the important aspect is that he brings out the wholeness of the animal in question rather than an analysis of each part. The animal is seen whole rather than constructed of parts. For example does the word arm or hand having any meaning when abstracted from the body it is connected to, and so too for the organs and structure of the animal. This approach of Kranich is both satisfactory in a very human way and yet does not sacrifice scientific rigour.

Given the comments above I must note that not all of the book was as well written as I would have liked, its possible the translation from the German was not the best perhaps because of the concepts used in German which may have had untranslatable aspects. But I also felt that at times the science was on shaky ground never feeling quite secure in Kranich's argument and always feeling that either there was more to do to make one really believe it or that the opposing arguments from accepted science could not be fully dealt with.

Nonetheless a satisfying book and a good lead into Goethean approaches to science.

If you think that only those with religious motivations find current evolutionary theories inadequate, this book is for you. These German scholars demonstrate that gradual accumulations of mutations does not add up to biological novelty. The abrupt appearance of fossils in the fossil record, as noted by the German paleontologist Otto Schindewolf decades ago, is also recounted. The work of Michael Denton is also mentioned.

Is Jordan's book a popular history or a scholarly work? Professor Jordan is in a better position to say than I, but I had difficulty seeing it as a scholarly work, despite its fifty pages of endnotes. Mostly this is because Jordan uses the terminology of class struggle. Surely even academia has reached the point of recognizing that this is all nonsense, and not even important nonsense, despite the millions of lives it has cost. Jordan must be aware that the very word "bourgeoisie," which he uses in the belittling way you'd expect, literally means "city-dwellers." But he never points out that, for all the difficulties of the workers' lives, they evidently found the city, and specifically Paris, preferable to the alternatives.

It's also a bit hard to take Jordan seriously when he, more than once, uses the word "hoard" to mean "horde." The mind, violently derailed, seeks a subtle bon mot, but in vain, for there is no humour in this book. This may well be Jordan's editor's failing, but Jordan bears the responsibility. The writer's language is a chauffeur, carrying us effectively but above all unobtrusively to our destination.

Worse even than the fallacies inherent in class-struggle terminology is the simple fact that it's deadly boring. And that was the problem I had when I viewed the book as a popular history. Compare Jordan with Robert Caro's Power Broker, the popular biography-history of Robert Moses and the remaking of New York, quite similar in many ways to the haussmannization of Paris. Caro fills his book with characters and anecdotes. In sad contrast, Jordan has but a few characters, Haussmann and Louis Napoleon chief among them. The other humanity affected by their activities is lumped together into anonymous classes: the bourgeoisie, the landlords, the workers, the national assembly. But where's the story? Stories are about individuals, and there just aren't any!

Jordan tells us repeatedly, and with evident contempt, that Haussmann was an archetypal bureaucrat, an authoritarian, an opportunist, an autobiographer blindly in love with himself. Well, yes, but we don't want to be told this; we want to be shown. Where are the examples? Where are the stories? We get only a few self-aggrandizing quotations from the autobiography.

So the book fails as popular biography. We see Haussmann in one dimension only, and by the end, we really don't care to learn more. But there must have been more! There was a wife, there were daughters, there were colourful mistresses, about whom the wife exercised restraint. But we learn little more than what I write here.

Or if the real Haussmann was in fact deadly dull, how about the thousands of people whose lives he affected? Surely, some of their stories must have survived, and some of the surviving stories must be worth the telling.

Jordan tells us how the Louvre was extended, the Rue du Rivoli was punched through, the Opera was built, the Hotel de Ville and the Tour St Jacques were isolated from the city - these are but statements of brick and mortar. Even in brick-and-mortar terms, one suspects there is a story about, for example, the Sainte Chapelle, imprisoned by the court. The closest we get to the life of the city are remarks that the neighborhood of Les Halles was clogged with the daily traffic of the markets, that the boulevardiers adopted Haussmann's chestnut-lined avenues, and that the wide streets were barricaded by insurrectionists as effectively as the old passageways. Collective humanity, all of it, no stories, no interest. Even when Jordan cites Victor Hugo, he fails to capture our interest. Rather remarkable, that, when you think of it!

What was I expecting, what had I hoped for? Jordan himself (and thanks!) mentions Robert Moses, reminding me of Caro's book, which I hadn't read for some years. It's a good contrast. Caro doesn't explicitly discuss New York in the terms of Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities, but it's easy for the reader to supply the analysis himself, and if he knows New York, to observe the effects of Moses' actions in the quality of the city. Sadly, Jordan doesn't give us enough to do the same with Paris. The material surely exists: even today, hotels on the left bank - which was neglected by haussmannization - advertise themselves as being "in the safe part" of Paris. Someone as intimately familiar with the geography and history of Paris as Jordan could have given us that view.

The first thing I had hoped for was, then, the ability to go somewhere in Paris, or perhaps on a map or only in my memory, and say, "This is how it was, and these interesting events were part of its transformation into what we see today." I already play these little mind games with Hugo's Paris.

Though a Jane-Jacobs analysis might well disagree with the conclusion, both Jordan and Caro lead us to the view that, thirty, fifty, a hundred years later, when the ruined have died and the bonds have been paid off, the city is the better for having undergone her ordeal, that eventually, the end justifies the means. Even if we were to accept the conclusion as a matter of pragmatism, however, we cannot accept it morally or ethically. Surely there must be a way for men to build congenial and functional environments by mutual consent, without having to despoil one another. Can a city be renewed - probably a continuous process, not an overhaul - without the use of authoritarian force or major disaster? London had her fire, Germany had the war, Paris had Haussmann, New York had Moses. Hong Kong, maybe?

To the best of my knowledge, this question has never been addressed by any author. The writer who does this, with intellectual rigor, imagination, lots of examples, and a lively style, will make a real contribution. That's the book I'd really like to read.

Jordan has marshalled his impressive research and writing skills to tell the story of how such an arrogant, unsentimental, and philistine man created one of the most magnificent urban centers in the world. When Jordan discusses how certain roads and venues were decided upon, the laying of the sewers, the struggles that the Prefect of the Seine had with his political opponents and landlord antagonists, how he cooked the books to raise the necessary cash for the effort, and Haussmann's inglorious fall, the book is a first-rate monograph. The author's presentation makes us see how Paris became the prime example of "authoritarian urban planning" and yet also bravely suggests that such iron-fisted control was needed to defeat the coterie of landlords, politicans, and entrepreneurs whose personal interests lay in defeating Haussmann's schemes. Yet Jordan's prose is a bit too Haussmann-like itself. Jordan conceives of Haussmann as the prefect did of Paris -- in a singularly determined way -- and repeatedly insists that we share this view. He constantly hammers away at Haussmann's arrogance, contempt for democratic procedures, his political ruthlessness and his disdain for the poor. And while these details are not correct, they're repeated so constantly that they ultimately detract from Jordan's achievement -- it's as though the author came to resent spending all those years and efforts researching a man who ultimately repelled him. Jordan is so insistent that we see Haussmann on his terms that he doesn't let us enjoy for ourselves the paradoxes and foibles of his protagonist. When the baron writes some feeble pastoral poetry about his youth, Jordan doesn't trust us enough to relish the absurdity of this autocrat imagining himself as a romantic, he insists on telling us how absurd it is and why we should think so. We're also constantly and needlessly told each time he took credit for the work of someone else and how much his arrogance was flattered by the attentions of Napoleon III. Jorda! n grounds his protagonist's character so early on that these repeated instances of his appalling behavor seem petty. Inasmuch as he criticizes Haussmann for creating a Paris that orders around its citizens, Jordan himself overly-directs his readers. Moreover, the book spends less time than I would have liked discussing the myriad problems of transforming Paris -- there's less here about the expropriations, the architecture of the new Haussmann buildings (virtually non-existent in the book despite the early presence of the intriquing quote that "Haussmann's Paris represents a paradox in that he created an architectually fascinating city without creating any memorable buildings"), and the forced relocations of the poor into the banlieue than on Haussmann's bullying tactics in the Yonne and Bordeaux (fascinating as those episodes are Jordan overly relishes them as evidence of the Baron's ruthlessness). In other words, there are several instances where there's more build-up than pay-off. Why issue it a seven despite these critical flaws? For one thing, Jordan has turned an administrator's career into a compelling read -- no mean achievement -- and he successfully alters our traditional view of the Second Empire as a "carnival empire" to show how it had serious modernizing concerns. Aside from Jordan's personal interjections, all of the episodes in the book are fascinating and well-written if a little disproportionately represented and the author gives us the first clearly written book in English as to how Paris became the city it did. Mostly, like Haussmann's achievement, Jordan's book, despite being a bit overbearing and contemptuous, shows us how the most mundane details of bureaucratic life can produce a work of fascination and, yes, beauty.

More appropriately titled, 'Journey toward Newness/Novelty'. The main strength of the book is to show how subtly, gradually and unwittingly a journey away from evangelical core beliefs can be for anyone, no matter the intellectual horsepower or academic credentials or sincerity. Compare/contrast prior Pinnock quotes (1985 - How I Use the Bible in Doing Theology) with his current position (still evolving, progressing, 'renewing', 'maturing'): "theological novelty does not blend well with a high view of Scripture" "adherence to the Bible means acquiescence to all its teachings and a refusal to allow any rival to stand above it, whether tradition, reason, culture, science, opinion" "the theologian has no right to pick and choose between biblical doctrines" "reductionism has no rightful role in theology, nor is there a right to place in opposition one part of the Bible against another. I simply presuppose its falsity on the grounds of my confidence in scripture, the inspiration of which carries an assumption of its unity and coherence" "each text must be read and understood in the canonical context which resists an atomistic approach" "we must not conform theology to our situation" "use of process thought cannot be explained in terms of biblical reflection but must be explained in terms of the influence of secular modernity" "What divine revelation does not disclose cannot be incorporated into theology as truth. Only what is taught in Scripture is binding on the conscience" "the wise theologian accepts the tensions which are present in the Bible and learns to resist the temptation from reason to tamper with them. I cannot tamper with the data as regards sovereignty and human freedom just because it would be easier if one were at liberty to do so" "Reason is a God-given faculty which is of great usefulness in theology; however, it must be kept in its ministerial role and not allowed to rise to a magisterial role"

"tradition (the living faith of the dead, as opposed to traditionalism, the dead faith of the living) provides contexts in which Scriptural knowledge is pursued" "Tradition in its servant role alerts theologians to heresy" Prooftexting is suspect because "when the Bible is cited in support of some proposal, it must be apt, intelligent and discerning. I do not want to be sued by Scripture for exegetical malpractice" In other words, citing texts must be done in a way that is

illuminant, Spirit-friendly, plenarily representative and canonically/contextually balanced. "be wary of twisting Scripture to serve one's own interests and preferred views" "theology must not attempt to advance beyond the limits of the Bible" - do not go beyond what is written! "We cannot go beyond the evidence", especially if it is where no man has gone before, or where even angels fear to tread. "We cannot invent new data or eliminate any. We may even have to accept antinomies which offend the rational impulse"(apparent contradiction; paradox; antilogy) "Scripture may not always satisfy human curiosity which presses for answers in areas where sufficient evidence is not provided" That is, we have all we need to know, not all we need to want to know. The wise theologian must be careful to find even what he may not be apt to seek, rather than seek only what he is prone to find. "tradition serves to confront heretical teachers who advance their novelties in the name of some lost-sight-of exegetical insights" "A high doctrine of Scripture and theological novelty do not go well together" "we are not free to pick and choose between biblical doctrines or to perform theological reduction that marks the shift toward humanity in religious liberalism" "The biblical writers do not seem to feel that (divine sovereignty and human agency) are mutually exclusive, but instead they place the two ideas in juxtaposition at every turn and seem indifferent to our intellectual dilemmas" "Reason is a faculty of great usefulness to theology. Occasionally, it rises up to challenge Scripture and when it does, we ought to put it in its place as supportive,ministerial, non-legislative" "When confronting heresies, novelties, 'lost-sight-of exegetical insights', the creeds of the church, though not infallible, provide temporary respite by alerting to the time-honored convictions and conventions of multitudes of believers before our time and make one pause before accepting innovations" Even the most well-intentioned are "quite prepared for and adept at twisting Scripture to serve their own ends; no one is immune from doing the same thing"

Truer words were never spoken! This biography highlights the importance of guarding against any violation of the above principles of using Scripture in theology. Caveat Emptor!

Mr Scott's review is egregious because it is not a book review at all but a personal attack on Dr Pinnock. This is a well done volume that provides helpful information for both supporters of Dr Pinnock's work (myself eg) and detractors (Mr Scott eg). One does not have to agree with all of a theologian's conclusions in order to appreciate and even be inspired by their love for truth, for God, and for the church. But perhaps this assertion is precisely what is a matter for contention in evaluating Pinnock's personal journey.

Barry Callen has shown in this exciting book that if one is truly open to the moving of the Holy Spirit, then change can take place. He shows how Clark Pinnock, who was totally sold out for the Reform doctrine, began to question these beliefs and search out the Scriptures. It is a story spanning over 30 years of Pinnock's life, and it is truly well done. Many have seen Pinnock as a deserter of the faith, but Callen shows how Pinnock's faith has only been strengthen by this truly spiritual journey. There will always be those who question and critisize anything that is different than what they themselves believe. But for those who want a truly inspiring book that shows how the rewards of the journey far outweigh the risk of leaving the harbor, then I recommend this book.

All references and resources are to nonchristian or non scriptural sources. I keep expecting Willow Creek to throw a Godapaloozafest.

The book has a great title and a good concept but it is simply too long and too complex to be useful. This book teaches that change must be slow and you must win people over to your side through vision casting and good communication. This book does an excellent job teaching how to facillitate change, but it should have done it in 200 fewer pages.

Many pastors have sensed a calling to move churches from old ministry paradigms to new forms that will be more effective in the 21st Century. The problem is that such change requires insights and skills that are typically not intuitive and are not taught in most Bible Schools or Seminaries. "How to Change Your Church" is a much needed resource for pastors who are called to be congregational change agents.

The book contains practical and proven strategies for moving a church through a change process. Any pastor on this journey would be wise to glean from the successful and failed efforts of the authors. The bias of the book is toward the "seeker model" but the principles would hold true for those desiring to move a church in any forward direction.

At points the book can lose you in the details but the proven principles and tools of change are worth skimming through the less interesting portions. If you are contemplating being a pastoral "change agent" do yourself and your church a favor by reading and applying the principles and recommendations from "How to Change Your Church."

I can imagine that this book would be decent for people who don't know much about political theory or serve as a reading for intro to political theory classes. However, it serves as nothing more. The book fails to give any concrete evidence to back up his ideas. I guess then this book would constitute a good outline for how he feels social democracy should go, but as one reviewer said, this is not an academic text. I guess if you have some time on your hands and want an intro social democracy and what he feels the future of it is, than read this. If you want facts and detail, don't bother. One more thing, I find it quite scary if it is true that Tony Blair based his policy on this book

In 1956 British Labour MP Tony Crossland wrote about a party "searching for its lost soul." The world was changing so fast that the old doctrines were no longer any guide for the future. Crossland argued that, at its core, socialism was more a set of moral values and aspirations than an unchanging political program.

Like Crossland's The Future of Socialism, Anthony Giddens' The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy, is an attempt to reinvent social democracy--to give a political movement back its lost soul.

By 1998 many of the party faithful believed that Labour had sold its soul for victory at the polls. Tony Blair was talking tough on crime, tough on welfare dependency, and tough on government spending. The party had abandoned its old social democratic policies and modeled itself on Clinton's pragmatic New Democrats. Many Labour intellectuals were wondering whether the party had any vision at all other than winning elections.

Meanwhile Giddens, as an academic sociologist, had been questioning the philosophy behind the socialist tradition. With the 1994 publication of Beyond Left and Right he gave a long and subtle account of the exhaustion of the old ideologies and the prospects for the future. With the victory of 'left of center' parties on both sides of the Atlantic under the banner of the 'third way' he saw a chance to popularize his views.

Giddens is philosophical sociologist and works mostly in the realm of abstract ideas. None of his political books have much to offer as accounts of real-life political decision making or practical suggestions for refom. A much better example of that genre would be something like David T. Ellwood's 1988 Poor Support (the blueprint for Clinton's failed welfare reform plan).

If you're after Giddens-Lite -- a non-academic introduction to his vision for social democracy then this is the book to get. It's short, easy to read and relates big ideas to recent political events. If, on the other hand, you want a more serious, academic account then Beyond Left and Right is a better choice.

The Third Way is an influential book but is unlikely to become a classic.

I considered myself more of a traditional Socialist for the last couple of years. Then, one night in September, I was browsing through the History/Social Science section on the second floor of the Connecticut College Library, and I happened across this book. Curious to know more about the "Third Way" so derided by orthodox Socialists and other leftists, I picked it up and began to read. This book was the first factor that caused me to shift my thinking away from the orthodoxy of the old left and toward a modernized vision of Social Democracy for the 21st century. Giddens makes it clear through his analysis of the evolution of the modern economy that Socialism is dead, and that no viable alternative to a market economy exists anymore. He makes a strong case for letting go of orthodox Social Democracy and moving forward to a new system that incorporates the potential of modern education and technology. He also makes it plain that the state is still necessary to promote equality, protect the environment, and mitigate the natural negative effects of the capitalist system. I recommend picking this up and taking a look at Gidden's ideas for moving the world forward to a system that rejects the orthodoxy of both the left and the right, and calls for us to seek out a newer world.

With a few exceptions, the houses in this book were made into ghastly Modernist homes, or were so overdone as to not be viable to any but the rich. I do not recommend this book.

Here's what happens when you take a typical post-WWII American suburban home, add some design ingenuity, a lot of labor and a ton of money: you get a unique, livable and classy home. At least that's what's shown in this book--though I wish some of the homes had more photos and detailed floor plans.

As a residential architect I have been using this book for years as a starting point to show my clients the possibilities and transformations that are possible to their typical, tired, suburban home. Most of my clients want to expand their home in someway while renovating and updating to modern looks, conveniences and finishes. This book provides all that and more. And while there are some homes that upon careful observation would be considered torn down and reconstructed on the original foundation, they are still well done in scale and respect for the lot and very likely the neighborhood. Don't look to this book for detailed information but for inspiration!

This book gave me a quick laugh, then I put it back onto the bookshelf. This book seems to advertise itself as being serious, but it's very hard to take it that way. This book is good for a laugh, nothing more. Radio ads, better coffee, and new banners don't make a church less dull. If a church is dull then nothing in this book will do anything to change that fact. There is very little to say about this book, because there isn't much there. if you want a laugh, or want to do a few funny things around your church, then you might want to get your hands on this book. It will help to get the creative brains going. This book is a comedic book, not a serious book.

In retrospect, I think this book was a complete waste of my money. I don't really recommend this book for anyone.

A 'lighten-up' look at heavy services. A must-have manual for over-varnished pew-racks everywhere.

cheers!

Anyone looking for insight either into convent life or the renewal/upheaval of the 1960s is likely to find little in this volume. Though there is a fair amount of humour, including a chuckle at Maura's naivete (at least, if one is another nun of the era, as I am!), character development is poor, and Maura seems extremely self-centred. No depth whatever - and therefore no insight.

Oh, do I understand Sr. Maura and her associates oh, so well. The dates are the same but the denomination is different. What I found interesting was both of us were attracted to the orders we joined by the work... and the work was the recruitment hook. When we got there the external restrictions were indications on many of the internal and psycological restrictions preventing the growth of mature individuals. Although she was given an education and the Anglican order I was in did not, the same meaness and pettiness were allowed to grow . It cultivated the inane idea individual self-realization and change were evil and should be resisted. Her account of some of the sisters towards Afro-Americans reminded me of a similar situations. Freedom riders came to the convent for Mass (Anglican) before leaving in buses for the South to protest segregation. After they left the Mother Superior laughed at their efforts. This same Mother dictated the sister's voting choices... we did not see newspapers, TV etc. I remember thinking , and I was only a postulant, she can't do that. She was a Republican and I coming from the working class, a Democrat.

The religious life as documented by Mary Pat Kelly and my own experience demonstrated how it actually was a violation of personal boundaries and such a life leads not only to physical but to emotional, intellectual and psycological restriction. I spoke to a former nun in the order I was in and asked why she left. Her answer was, "If I remained in there I would have gone crazy."

Right on Mary Kelly. This opinion of the religious life of that time reveals in story form the results found in the research of Lucinda San Giovanni in her book,Nuns, A Study of Emergent Role Passage. I recommend both be read together.

Although I am not Catholic, I have had a special interest in the lives of nuns since I saw Audrey Hepbrun in The Nun's Story. And while Mary Pat Kelly's book, Special Intentions, provides one with a small glimpse of a nun's life, it left me as the reader pondering why this young woman took up this calling in the first place.

The year is 1962 and Margaret Mary Lynch becomes a postulant shortly after graduating from high school. Almost from the very beginning Margaret proves to be an outspoken woman who questions almost everything including her own devtion. Attending college as a postulant and then becoming a teacher in a ghetto neighborhood does little to make her feel mroe compoftable about her ulitmate vows. But even when Margaret becomes more comfortable as a teacher, the leaders of her convent find her at fault over most issues and then assign her to a parochial school where her students will be very different from what she had been used to. This new assignment proves to be too much for Margaret and now at the age of 22, when m,ost young peopel are first graduating from college, Margaret decides to leave the convent. It didn't surprise me as I read on that her first act once she leaves the religious order is to help out in a tent city in Selma, Alabama.

As the 60's were a time of change both socially and racially within the United States and other countries, so did the times change within the Catholic Church. Young women who once thought they were well suited for life within a religious order suddenly began questioning everything and other nuns and priests like Margaret gave up their religious orders for lives within secular communities. I suspect this book might have been somewhat autobiographical and if so I couldn't help buy wonder why the author ever entertained the idea of becoming a nun when she was so ill suited for this vocation. Despite this, though, on some level I did enjoy reading about Margaret's changes both personally and religiously.

The book begins with great promise with the authors doing a great job of capturing the impact of the internet, globalization and hyper-competition on the concept of marketing.

The authors introduce a new marketing paradigm called holistic marketing, and present a "holistic marketing" framework. The rest of the book is devoted to describing various elements of this framework.

The book dissappoints from the point this new framework is presented. It ends up being a compilation of information on business systems and applications for customer-centric marketing. The latter half of the book lacks depth. All said, the book doesn't stand apart from some of the others on this subject and is one among many.

Clearly when one looks at the book authors, expectations get really high.

What I find really interesting is the new marketing paradigm that they propose, which focuses on a holistic marketing framework that encompases: looking at value from three perspectives (value exploration, value creation and value delivery) and looking at managing activities from three dimensions (demand, resource and partners) in order to create your market offer, business architecture, marketing activities, and operational system that drive profitability.

The issue is that discussions are too focused on e-business and don't provide much detail. For example, it touches different ideas such as CRM, One-to-One Marketing, Permission Marketing, customer loyalty, and Life Time Value but they don't disscuss them thoroughly.

I recommend it so you can understand how your marketing philosophy should be evolving based on their new marketing paradigm and how it links to other ideas, but be careful because you won't find much detail. Don't expect too much or you might be dissapointed.

The book provides a brilliant and easily digestable historical overview of "old" and "new" marketing and corporate strategy. Upon this foundation the book describes the current state of commerce and makes reccommendations for successful corporate strategy.
If you have read several marketing related books, the material may not seem revolutionary; however, the writing and clear thinking in this book puts it in a league of its own and creats its value. The book very effectively synthesizes history, theory, and the current state of corporate strategy and notably enhanced my thinking on marketing.