A relative glut of periodicals and books exist on decisionmaking, whether personally or professionally. Many have solid foundations, many are commercialized tripe. In MAKING DECISIONS, authors Russo and Shoemaker hit on a timely subject for professional managers or entrepreneurs. The economy has plummeted and the stock market has deflated propelling each individual responsble for their company's path to success into crucial, perhaps vital decisions on a daily basis. And the rapid rate of change is forcing all executives and managers to make decisions faster.

Given the current environment, it is well worth the time to revisit an executive/manager's most basic of tasks: making a decision...a subject devoid of attention except in academic journals or business books. In a straightforward, well-presented fashion, the authors break down the decisionmaking process into four steps:

1. Framing or deciding what you are going to decide-and not decide;
2. Gathering intelligence-real intelligence, and not just information that will support your internal biases;
3. Coming to conclusions-determining how your company acts on the intelligence it gathers, and;
4. Learning from experience.

The authors guide the reader through each of the steps providing insight into the process, highlighting key concepts, and providing case studies and worksheets so the reader can begin to track their own issues at hand. Russo and Shoemaker have presented this material in such a way as to demystify the "process" of decisionmaking. The "process" gets so much attention as being clandestine, complex and erudite. However, by providing a detailed framework reflecting a relatively mechanical and logical process to making a decision, the authors have uncorked the mystery. When confronted with the need to assess a situation, gather information and reach a decision, most managers depend on a hit-or-miss approach. This approach is different from executive-to-executive and is measured relative to the frequency and experience an executive may have "putting out the proverbial fire." While there's nothing inherently wrong or incorrect about this type of venerable process, this process typically results in a lower-end spectrum result when nothing but mid-high to high results will suffice as a necessary competitive edge.

The alternative approach presented by the authors allows executives/managers to reframe issues by asking such questions as "What is the crux of the issue that I am facing?" so that they don't end up solving the wrong problem (i.e. analogous to "looking from the outside in"). It also allows them to increase their options by doing such things as "not necessarily taking yes for an answer," when it comes to initial research findings. In fact, these alternatives may result in something quite creative and innovative, a veritable whack on the side of the head.

As they should, the authors stress to the reader that improving one's decisionmaking skills is not an ironclad guarantee to success. Execution of a solid operating (business) plan and being in the right place at the right time (luck) are factors tantanmount to any successful venture. However, it is rational and logical that if one makes better decisions, one's odds of success are bound to increase. And, as one gains experience in making decisions and acting upon the achieved results, desired or not, success rates grow exponentially.

A solid read.

I was considering to buy this book, but I had a hard time making up my mind...

Edwards advances the idea that in every snapshot of human life, we make decisions in accordance with our nature and disposition. Free will is compatabilist in that we have no autonomy other than to follow our greatest desire in any given instance. Not only does this exposition rule out the chance for true virtue--some good thing we do which we might not have done--but Edwards also has a hard time explaining how God is not the author if evil, given that human decisions are consistently determined according to a divine decree.

This is truly one of the greatest works written. Daniel Webster wrote: "The Freedom of the Will" by Mr. Edwards is the greatest achievement of the human intellect." The London Quarterly Review wrote about this work: "His gigantic specimen of theological argument is as near to perfection as we may expect any human composition to approach. He unites the sharpness of the scimetar [sic] and the strength of the battle-axe." A former President of Princeton said that Edwards was "The greatest thinker that America has produced."

This wonderful work is a good tool in learning of the greatness of Christ's grace, in overcoming our minds and hearts, and loving us to the uttermost. This should be in the library of every Christian family.

The atlas is U. S. centric even though the title is 'world atlas'. The map of the U. S. takes up about 25 pages, while the map of Italy, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslovia (formerly) take up 2 pages. And the spelling is unbelievable. Many of the place names are rendered in the native language instead of English, at least I assume so. North and South Korea, about the size of Kansas is shown at about 1/2 the size of Kansas. One normally buys a world atlas to learn about the world, not the U. S. A disappointment.

The twentieth edition of Goode's atlas of the world continues to be a standard for U.S.-educational purposes. The reference maps themselves are not too accurate and detailed, but they provide a reasonably well-balanced coverage of the world, with handy larger-scale inset maps for the more populous regions of each continent. There is an elaborate thematic section on a variety of topics about the world, the continents, and the United States in particular. This is supplemented by a very good statistical section, and the 30,000 entry index gazetteer contains a pronunciation guide for each entry, which is unique for a world atlas. Non-US buyers probably have better alternatives, but for school purposes for North America, this is a very good choice. The publication of this twentieth (!) edition illustrates the endurability of this work since 1922.

When I took my first college-level geography class, my professor told the class that Goode's World Atlas is the best atlas on the market. Fifteen years and a couple of editions later, it's still the best atlas I've ever seen. The atlas includes a commendable section on map projections, many excellent thematic maps, easy-to-read regional (general) maps, tables of country and landform sizes, and a wonderful index. If you're looking for a road map, this atlas probably won't help. If you want to learn about the world, or teach school-aged children about the world they live in, then this is one of the top resources out there.

This is the best book in the Edwards' stable. The other books really didn't stand out from the pack. This one is inspirational and filled with stories of folks just like the rest of us who found their perfect work. Finding Your Perfect Work is thought AND action provoking - definately one to be read again and again. I hope they can continue in this way and move away from the formula home business how-to type of books.

Wow!! Whenever I think I have no choices I pick up this book and reenter the world of possibilities! I love the stories of 'real' people and how they've found their 'perfect work'. They should teach this in schools - everyone needs to know how to do this.

The "Personal Style Survey" really explained how what activities I do naturally are some of my greatest assets. The Directory of Self Employment Careers (1600 + Independent Creative Careers) provided great ideas for making money just by being myself! And that's just a small portion of the book. This is a must have for any one considering the wild, wacky and wonderful world of self employment.

Many looking to start their own business are searching for an easy How-To, without any regards to what they really want and need to fulfill their life. This book makes you examine what motivates you and lets you find out for yourself what would be your "Perfect Work." There are no shortcuts to success and this book makes you think and plan out your own path. If you are looking to seriously consider creating a life-style that lets you control your own career, then buy this book!

For a little while in college I was queen of career guides and resume books. But that wasn't helping me figure out what I wanted to do. And it certainly wasn't helping me find a post-college job. An arbitrary cousin sent me this book for graduation, and 2 years later I still use it. I threw out all the other books. "Cool Careers" outlines new approaches to finding both careers and jobs, and walks you through interviews and salary negotiations with simulations. The authors also pay special attention to shaping your job to suit your needs once you have it... a section that distinguishes it from other books in this category. Most importantly, the book leads you on a job search that balances the short-term panic with the long-term perspective needed to secure the RIGHT job for you.

Using this book, I found an unadvertised entry-level job without a resume in a field I didn't know existed. A year later I found a managerial position in the same field. The friends who graduated with me work meaningless jobs in cubicles, and they still don't know what they want to do when they "grow up". I have a career, making real decisions, and the confidence that I can find a new one whenever I want.

I've been a career counselor for over 30 years and referenced every self-help book there is. This one MOTIVATES clients to DO something. The others all start with what the COUNSELOR wants to do -- this one starts with what clients want -- information about the cool jobs! And it doesn't force the usual program of testing, more testing, and even more testing down their throats. In fact, if clients don't know the answers to the assessment questions, they're told to "skip it" and move on. That's the key -- users aren't stuck in the hard stuff that keeps them from acting. This book is wonderful -- what looks like just a fun surface approach to a very complex subject is actually very thorough. But it doesn't hurt! It makes you want to really take a look at your career.

For Dummies has done it again! I had a need for information and was able to get through the entire book in a matter of days because of the down to earth approach all their books take. It has inspired me to search for my career harder than ever and it is great to reference again and again because of how entertaining it is!

I am intending to start my own little business but have no idea how to, and bought this book. to my dissappointment, this book is so general and not touching the point. it tells me how great it is to start your own business...etc which i knew already, and left me unchanged about how to start my business and wondering where the hell the secrets are?!!
If I want to know how to build a house, I don't need to know how great it is having my own house.. instead, I need to know that first i need to find the perfect land and other important steps. The book can save much paper in cutting off all the repetition of unnecessary sentences.

My daughter bought this book for me and it made me tenfold over the price of the book within one week by using one of the tips. The Edwards' format is easy to read and they go through all the possible setbacks of self-employment and how to avoid them. I've been a freelance writer for two years, but anyone - whether starting to work on their own or in the business for 10 years - can learn from this book. It's well worth the price.

I am 21 years old, and would love to be a part time real estate investor and be an independent personal trainer! I am in college, and have had low paying minimum wage jobs(working for someone else) and my LONG TERM goal is to be my own boss. Why spend your whole life working under 1 person's clock, with only one set paycheck(a lousy one at that) when you are capable of so much more? To me having your paycheck dependent upon only one person is much riskier than getting the same amount if not more from lots of other people. All of the males in my father's side of the family worked for themselves. Here is what my great-great grandfather once told my own father, "It is best to get $1 from 100 people, then to get $100 from only one person".

This page is about a book by, among others, "Paul" Furlong. I haven't read it, but neither did any of the other so called "Reviewers." Instead, we get gushing statements in praise of the actor, "Edward" Furlong. Now I like Eddie, but wake up folks: this book is not about him! Amazon should exercise some supervision and delete reviews that are obviously inappropriate, including this one.

The book, great. But you other reveiwers makee me sick! You're raving on andd on about how much you LOVE a guy you haven't met! YOU CAN'T TRULY LOVE SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW! You groupies are saying howEddie is so hot. And he is, but there's more to a person than their looks. Sure, I would like to meet the one who made my heart soar when I watched those movies (I even saw Home of our own In french

edward furlong is the hottest actor in the world. he shall be mine. and this book was so good. he's so cute. he's the best actor in the whole world and he shall be my husband. thank you for reading this. and that other chick who reviewed this book should hide.

In this sobering analysis of the pluralist welfare state,Professor Gottfried castigates statists for dishonesty inexpropriating the term "liberal" from its original meaning as defending individual property rights and maintaining a civil order with culturally and religiously formed social expectations to marginalizing any dissent from the managerial welfare state and its deliberate undermining of once commonly shared moral precepts. He explains how democracy became subverted from community-based self-rule with restricted participation to a mass plebiscite that votes itself largesse from the public treasury. By diluting civic participation from direct involvement in community affairs to a universal right to vote without further responsibility, cultural insurgents were better able to elect demagogues who could promise something for nothing. And Gottfried warns the reader that despite some populist grumbling, the elitist nomenklatura controlling the levers of political power and media influence operate largely without significant opposition to the goals of transforming society from the independent and culturally homogenous bourgeois classes that honor values of thrift, industry and propriety with a motley crowd of peoples who share no common interest except demands for special favors bestowed by an ever expanding and intrusive centralizing government that deliberately blurs distinctions between state functions and public involvement in civic affairs.

After Liberalism describes the pedigree of traditional liberal political philosophy, which included support of a free market and restraints on undisciplined appetites, primarily by informal enforcement of social and cultural norms. The government was afforded the limited rôles of civil order and martial pursuits. Readers of Adam Smith, John Locke, Alexander Hamilton, Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek are aware of this expropriation of the term "liberal" to mean a therapeutic, intrusive, egalitarian and moral-relativist welfare state envisioned by J. S. Mill and John Dewey among others, although on occasion a natural harmony between democracy and market economy was alleged. Gottfried plumbs the minds of both advocates and critics of custodial pluralism.

This book is poignant and disturbing. It shows how modern liberals have created the "managerial state," which is author's euphemism for the "welfare state." This state has been expanding throughout the twentieth century, reaching frightful proportions. What is most troubling is not its recurring inefficiency, but rather the power that the state has acquired vis-a-vis society. The pretext is protection of the individual set adrift in the industrial society, the rhetoric is that of compassion and assistance, the reality--an ever more powerful state that crushes individuality.

The author notes how cunning the proponents of modern liberalism have been by not talking about things as they are and substituting the rhetoric of compassion for a plain statement of facts. "The uninterrupted exercise of its power may depend upon not talking plainly about such unclean matters. Yet, it is worth the effort to look beyond euphemism to see how political power is exercised. Behind the mission to sensitize and teach 'human rights' lies the largely unacknowledged right to shape and reshape people's lives. Any serious appraisal of the managerial regime must consider first and foremost the extent of its control--and the relative powerlessness of its critics." This assessment is right on target.

This book is written primarily for other scholars and graduate students, and the reading can get dense and heavy on proper names and references to ideological doctrines. Yet, the political bias in academia being what it is, I am a university press agreed to publish this book. I found this book perceptive, erudite, and enjoyable. Pick it up today.

After Liberalism is largely a genealogy of how liberalism as anideology has been constructed over time and through changingcircumstances. Gottfried argues that there is no fixed "essence" of liberalism. He points out the necessity of contextualization when tracing liberalism through history (p. 36). Gottfried states that two mistakes are usually made by analysts-either the assumption that liberalism has remained the same throughout the past, or the assumption that the past was a progressive, linear, inevitable prelude to the current definition of liberalism (p. 36). Gottfried contends that such global theories ignore the distinctiveness of specific phases of history (p. 38). This is an important point for Gottfried since he will use it throughout his book to argue that a "semantic theft" (p. 29) has taken place, in which the terms "liberal democratic" have been appropriated as a figleaf to cover up illiberal uses of power by those who administer the modern mangerial state.

Gottfried presents the reader a tale of two liberalisms-the classical and the managerial. He argues that there is a historical discontinuity between classical liberalism, with its emphasis on minimal government interference in the private lives of citizens, as imagined in the nineteenth century, versus the managerial liberalism of the twentieth. Gottfried states that the difference is that managerial liberals believe "letting people go their own way will not suffice to make them open-minded or civic spirited" (p. 17). Liberal democracy" has come to mean not a form of government, but a process akin to evangelism where the government impresses it on its own people and then on the world (p. 68). Liberals are attempting to self-fulfill their own prophecy. Gottfried points out liberalism must expand itself, otherwise it will not be able to claim that its principles are universally applicable. The United States has been hijacked as well as liberalism by the managerial elite. It now is a tool for their agenda-it is billed as a "universal nation," hence the open borders policy that has been pursued in recent years (p. 76). Besides this internal policy of "universalization," the managers have also embarked upon an external policy as well, with the United States again serving as the preferred instrument.

A major aspect of Gottfried's analysis is the role psychological intimidation and exclusion plays in the managerial state. Managerial liberalism needs an Other to marginalize, in order to realize its claims of "making the world safe for democracy." That Other is "fascism" (p. 18). Those who are critical of the current regime are labeled as extremists or fascists and are summarily condemned (p. 139). In an attempt to make citizens free, the managerial state has created a type of prison. Gottfried identifies the source of this carceral logic as the medicalization of politics (p. 80). The state has a therapeutic function, ensuring mental health by fighting pathologies like insensitivity, fascism, and so on. There is great irony in managerial liberalism as an ideology that uses totalitarian methods for antitotalitarian ends. Citizens have become patients. Dissenters have become dehumanized (p. 91). Gottfried points out that people are afraid to oppose the official values of the regime (p. 95). Unlike past totalitarian regimes, this one acts by "concealing its operation in the language of caring" (p. 141). It hides its power. Its real agenda is to "shape and reshape people's lives" (p. 141). The state engages in behavioral modification (p. 107). It is important to note that the term "totalitarian" is being used here differently than would usually be expected. "Totalitarian" describes the universal, totalizing ambitions of managerial liberalism, in terms of its desire to reach into every aspect of the lives of the citizenry, including private thoughts and lifestyle preferences. It does not necessarily mean physical, violent, secret-police style repression.

After Liberalism serves the function of unmasking and revealing the dynamics of power at work in contemporary Western society. Gottfried is wise to avoid prophecy or prescriptiveness, stating "no attempt has been made to chart any supposedly inevitable future for the managerial state" (p. 135). He makes it clear that his sympathies lie with populist resistance to the managerial state, and his text is replete with defenses of and appeals to human particularity and local rather than global conceptions of rights and community. His mode of argumentation exposes the inherent inconsistency, and thus irrationality, in the supposedly rational managerial ethic. The managerial state presumes to protect plurality and diversity by criminalizing "insensitivity" toward racial, sexual, and other "disadvantaged" groups, yet its methods yield conformity and stamp out true human particularity and diversity. By denying the managerial state its rational foundation, Gottfried exposes the fact that the regime maintains its legitimacy only because of its provision of benefits and services, much like ancient Roman "bread and circuses" (p. x), to an increasingly fearful and skeptical population.

Ultimately, Gottfried's text deserves praise for contributing yet another nail into the coffin of liberal democratic rationalism. It arrives in print in the midst of exciting times, where the political climate, like other arenas of human thought and action, are quite simply a mess. Events have transcended terms such as "left" and "right," as can be seen in the recent endorsement of Patrick Buchanan (who is well in line with Gottfried's sympathies) by the African-American ultraleftist Lenora Fulani. After Liberalism therefore performs an important stocktaking function for those interested in an account of contemporary Western politics, especially in light of its unusual and promising ideological and epistemological debts.

There was not enough information as far as I was concerned. I think there are other books out there that are more specific and contain far more information.

Vendors mentioned are not in business now. The topics are way to generic. He doesn't even own his own business and I still had so many questions after reading this book. I don't ususally comment on books but felt there were other books out there which provided more insight.

I read Rick Benzel's first edition years ago and found it to be highly informative. His second edition is clearly researched and reflects the changes in the healthcare industry. I would recommend this book as a prerequisite for anyone contemplating self employment in this field. He covers all areas and gives a comprehensive look at the healthcare service business. As a medical billing service owner and consultant for 18 plus years, I feel qualified to give this book two thumbs up!!

Professor Gottfried's book might well be titled "On Our Present Discontents." He provides an erudite analysis of multiculturalism and its causes, many of which Gottfried locates in a secularized version of the religious impulse for reform. The topic has drawn many authors, but Gottfried's work stands apart on many levels. It is openly conservative and deeply critical of multicultualism, while displaying a more sophisticated view and greater knowledge than others on the right who gained fame from talk shows or think tanks. Gottfried avoids the jargon that clots most academic writing, and makes a clearer case than such defenders of multiculturalism as Martha Nussbaum and Amy Guttmann. Unlike almost all other writers on both sides of the question, he places the American experience in a wider context and compares it with similar trends in Europe and Canada. Widely read in German, French, and Italian, he has a solid grasp of European politics. Few others works discuss multuculturalism in Europe so well or explain the populist movements that have arisen in reaction to it. For that perspective alone, the book is worth the price of admission.

The relationship between religion--particularly the "Protestant Deformation" Gottfried cites--deserves more attention than it receives. Historians have noted the role of the 19th century "Social Gospel" and Finneyite Christianity, while theologians have described many 20th century political movements as basically religious in their motivation. Gottfried describes multiculturalism as an American export, but he also discusses how the decline of traditional Christianity in Europe and European-derived societies provided fertile ground. On this point too, the book makes an important contribution that neither side of the debate can afford to neglect.

Gottfried describes this book as a follow up to After Liberalism, a more philosophical and historical work that addressed the question of how liberalism shifted from the "juste milieu" of 19th century Europeans like Francois Guizot and William Gladstone to the late 20th century welfare state. That volume was a modern classic of conservative thought, and the current book is a worthy successor.

This richly-learned and thought-provoking book seeks to explain how and why multiculturalism has acquired an iron grip on the governments, schools, churches, and so on of the West. Building on his earlier After Liberalism, Professor Gottfried describes how increasingly Orwellian welfare states in America, Europe, Canada, and Australia are cramming political correctness down the throats of their subjects, literally at the point of a gun. Gottfried illustrates with a wealth of chilling anecdotes. Thousands of German journalists are tried every year, and thousands are in prison, for expressing their opinions. Canadian courts enforce hate speech codes. And so on. All too clearly, modern liberalism has nothing to do with liberty. Rather, it's all about social engineering, seeking to work a permanent revolution in the soul. This naturally raises the question, why do Westerners stand for this self-righteous bullying? Gottfried advances a provocative explanation: Protestant culture, with its long stress on social guilt, individual shame, and public confession of sins and guilt, predisposes Westerners to swallow multiculturalism's will-corroding poison of unearned guilt and meekly submit to oppression and humiliation. Mainstream Protestant Christianity's long history of sympathy for the "oppressed," the Social Gospel, and guilt-ridden but self-righteous crusades to reform other people make Gottfried's thesis plausible. A true scholar rather than a slapdash neoconservative journalist doing a little shallowly-researched, skin-deep PC-bashing to push his career along, Gottfried is thorougly well-informed about political developments at home and abroad, and is at home in foreign-language newspapers and scholarly literature. Not only does his erudition give his critique persuasive authority, he writes at a high conceptual level with considerable skill and occasional bite. Being administered by true believers, multiculturalist regimes, he maintains, may not be able to control immigration, hence may import a hostile population which may one day bring them down. At this distance, Gottfried's pessimism about our prospects unfortunately looks justified. A penetrating, illuminating, and sobering book unafraid to call attention to politically incorrect truths, Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt is not for the fainthearted seeking to be jollied along with pap.

In this book, Paul Gottfried analyses a pattern now common to all western democratic (formally, at least) societies: the evolution of the State, from its classical role to a managerial (therapeutic) one, intending to realize not the marxist utopia - collectivism, nationalizations, agrarian reformation, central planification and egalitarianism -, but its substitutive and heir, the multicultural utopia.

To achieve it, the therapeutic State doesn't hesitate to have resource to the same methods of social engineering formerly used by marxists, in order to change and constrain its citizens to accept without resistence the new reality, showing towards the opponents of this one an intense intolerance and a high level of dogmaticism, interfering and even restraining their freedoms, very especially, freedom of speech, forcing such citizens to be "good" from a multicultural point of view, to be sensitive and uncritic with issues like third world immigration, the devaluation of european historical past or the exaltation of non-european cultural achievements, everything under pain of severe fines or prision terms.

Obviously, in this task the therapeutic State has its allies: left political parties and also, quite surprisingly, center-right parties (they pretend to look politically sophisticated), academia, liberal protestant christianism (although I think, contrarily to Paul Gottfried, that multicultural sectarianism is much more owed to the survival and persistence of marxism spirit and political practice among western lofty minded intellectuality, that was not affected by the ideological bankrupcy of the eastern european real socialism, than to liberal protestant christianism - this last one being no more than a subproduct of that first one) and media - a "de facto" thought police.

The book is very interesting and quite accurately describes the not so soft totalitarianism that now is embracing North America and the entire Europe.