We believe this book to be an essential read, and recommend it highly.

The book 'The Sociology of Philosophies' purports to be 'The first comprehensive history of world philosophy,' as well as 'a social history of global intellectual life.' Collins in this book takes as his subject the whole of human intellectual endeavour, exploring the strands and developments of philosophical thought in all the major cultures of the world.

Collins begins this weighty and, at times, hyper-intellectual tome by building a theory of intellectualism, ritual, education, and philosophical reflection. He identifies two of the longest and most dominant philosophical strands as being those arising in Greece and China.

Collins posits the theory that intellectual pursuits do not arise in a vacuum, and are more of a societal and communal development than an individual pursuit or achievement.

'That ideas are not rooted in individuals is hard to accept because it seems to offend against a key epistemological point. Here the question is analytically distinct from the propensity to worship intellectual heroes.'

However, when one looks at the history of ideas, they usually arise in groups. While there are certainly key individuals who arose at different times in history, it is also true that there are patterns -- the age of philosophy in Greece, the Renaissance in Italy, etc. There is a particular atmosphere and sociological aspect to the culture that encourages and develops intellectual development that is unique to each, and leads to differing developments.

After exploring this history and the rituals of intellectuals and intellectualism (which is little acknowledged among scholars in the West), Collins explores who the major individuals are, who the minor individuals are, and what places they occupy in the chain of intellectual history. These chains are most pronounced in developments from Greece and developments from China; the Chinese strands continue through almost all subsequent Eastern thought, which is always responding to or reacting against key ideas formed there; in Western thought, almost all philosophical and intellectual development does the same with regard to the Greek development.

Collins proceeds from this to a theoretical framework (in which he develops more closely the Greek philosophical reflective framework, being the one from which Collins was educated, and thus the dominant underpinning of his writing) that explores the importance and rarity of true creativity. From this, he continues, doing a comparative analysis of intellectual communities, drawing in, in addition to Ancient Greece and Ancient China, India, Japan, Neo-Confucian China, Medieval Christendom, Islamic philosophies, Jewish philosophical development, then surveying modern western philosophies, French, German, and British.

Strong historical themes, political and other intellectual developments (such as the shift from faith-based to experimental-based knowledge and the rise of scientific method and mathematical objectivism) are included in his analysis. Collins concludes this work with Meta-Reflections, in which he explores the sequence and branches in the production of ideas socially (exploring the future of philosophy, which Collins states is 'a partisan theme which announces that the era of foundational questions is over. The call for the end of philosophy is recurrent, a standard ploy in intergenerational rearrangements, usually a prelude to a new round of deep troubles and new creativity.'

Collins' meta-reflections also include an epilogue on sociological realism. The quote that starts this review comes from this section. Self-evident truths are explored here.

'Virtually no one actually doubts the reality of the world of ordinary experience. It is only within specialised intellectual networks that the question has arisen whether this banal reality can be proven to a high standard of argument; and even intellectuals, when they are 'off duty', go back to assuming the reality of the ordinary time-space world.'

Sociological realism accepts the world as it is, which is not always the case with philosophy, even though philosophy purports to explain the world. This is a disconnect that occurs frequently in history. Collins further looks to mathematics and 'rapid-discovery science' for complications and developmental pieces in the intellectual history of the world.

Collins includes an extensive bibliography (worth the value of the book in itself), indexes of persons and of ideas, keys and timelines to figures, and a very interesting appendix entitled 'The Clustering of Contemporaneous Creativity', in which the ebb and flow of intellectual development on a global scale is examined and shows interesting results. He charts here the 'cultural production' of intellectuals, and their influence on their respective cultures. He traces such developments across hundreds of major and minor figures, determining fewer than 20 'isolates' in any cultural strand, and those being only among the minor figures.

While some outstanding experts on humor, like Freud and Heine, are mentioned in this book, the index does not provide lists for jokes. I tried looking up the key terms in the line, "Science is a sacred cow." The number of entries on Schools, Science, and Secularization only list a few pages, from 609 to 613, on anti-scientific intellectuals. There are no entries for Cow, but it would be between the listings for Courts and courtiers and for Creativity, which includes a bit (see pages 44-46, 52) on a discussion of emotional energy. Comedy would be found between the listings for "Cogito ergo sum" and Conflict as source of intellectual change. Instead of offering comedy as a subject, the index suggests, "See also Opposition, division of attention space by." (p. 1091). That's close enough for me.

Nevertheless, globalization, for whatever faults it possesses, has made the people of the nations of the world feel more connected than ever (In fact, I'm writing this from Japan, where I have lived for seven years). this book sensibly points out that In order to come up with a food policy that will minimize hunger worldwide, naturally poverty must also be reined in. It seems to me that in order to significantly reduce poverty, all nations must make a fundamental shift in their foreign policy away from acting for the benefit of national interests and toward the benefits of the human race as a whole. I cannot say whether mankind is ready for such a change at this juncture.

However, The book concludes that the freedom to eke out a living (the problem of the poor) supersedes the right to accumulate unlimited wealth (the hoarding of wealth by a small number of people). While this is most certainly true, it also seemed to oversimplify the problem of disparity of income based on the very facts presented in the book. While the book did denounce communist regimes at one point in the book, I felt that the conclusion of the book unneccessarily demonized wealthy individuals and major companies and called the proletariat of the world to unite.

For this weakness in its conclusion, I can only give this work four stars, but still I do strongly recommend giving a careful read to this text for the invaluable information it provides on this terrible problem.

World Hunger: 12 Myths should have a permanent home in school curricula, libraries, and in the hands of people of all ages wishing to better understand and improve the world in which they live.

Some people think that population (or overpopulation) is the problem. Others think that there simply isn't enough food available, or that nature, with her floods and droughts, is the culprit. Still others think that the solution lies with free trade, or letting the market provide, or with the Green Revolution, with its heavy emphasis on pesticides and other chemicals. Other possibilities are that the poor are simply too hungry to revolt, or that the US should increase its stingy foreign aid budget.

The authors place the blame elsewhere. All over the world, there has been a huge concentration of land in fewer and fewer hands, forcing poor and middle-class peasants off the land (in the US, witness the decline of the family farmer). Structural adjustment programs from places like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (part of the requirements when asking for a loan) require a country to reorient its agriculture toward items that are easily exportable rather than items that can feed their people. Another requirement is the removal of internal tariffs and other barriers to the import of grain and other foodstuffs. It results in a flood of cheaper (usually American) agricultural products reaching the market, driving local farmers out of business. The countries that one thinks of when hearing "famine" actually produce enough food to feed their people. The only problem is that much of it has to go overseas to help pay the foreign debt.

This book is excellent. It presents a potentially complex subject in a clear, easy to understand manner. It contains a list of addresses to contact for more information, and is a great activism reference.

In the nicest possible sense, this book isn't exactly what the title claims. All to often discussions of change management tend to concentrate on the people side of things and ignore the less glamerous topics such as re-tooling, revised administrative and reporting procedures and so on.
So, just to keep the record straight, this book is primarily concerned with the personnel aspects of change, with all other aspects of the overall process taking a very secondary part in the proceedings.

And now, on with the review:

One of the ways I judge a book like this is by the number of highlights I've made (makes it so much easier to refer back to the key points).
Sometimes I'll go through an entire book and be lucky to have half a dozen highlighted passage.

NOT here, though.

Without a hint of exaggeration I found numerous points worth highlighting in every one of the eight reprinted articles.

Of course this is not entirely surprising given the list of contributors, which includes such "leaders of the pack" as John Cotter ("Leading Change"), Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos ("The Reinvention Roller Coaster"), and Jerry Porras (Building Your Company's Vision").

I'd also like to commend the article "Managing Change : The Art of Balancing", by Jeanie Daniel Duck, (which ended up with highlighting on nearly every page!).

So, whilst the material is not exactly new (the various items appeared in the Harvard Business Review between 1992 and 1998), I'd suggest this well-chosen set of articles is as important now as when the articles were first published.

There are articles from such leading authorities on change management as John Kotter (Leading Change), Paul Strebel, and more. Each article opens with an executive summary, helping you decide if you want to tackle that article then and there, or move on to another that fits your interests of the moment.

Sooner or later, change is about people altering the status quo, and those in charge often turn a blind eye to the fact that leadership is singularly the most important issue when an organization has to implement major changes. This is followed closely by teamwork, of which there won't be any without leadership.

Inside the covers you'll find the collected knowledge, opinions and counsel of those executives and consultants who have dealt with change at all levels. If your schedule doesn't permit you to leisurely meander through hundreds of pages to find a few workable ideas upon which to build some change solutions, then this collection should be highly recommended for you.