This book addresses the topic of innovation and transcends into the philosophical with some profound input from business leaders, artists, and other thinkers. "Passion for Ideas" reaches beyond innovation by considering what new is, how innovation can be created and how innovation will affect our future. In one chapter for example, "Increase and Arrival," Professor Gerhard Schultz from the University of Bamberg argues that the era of innovation is coming to an end.

Other chapters refer to business innovation, with thoughts on how companies can sustain creativity. Some of these ideas, although business related, and sometimes German-centric (the book was translated from German) reveal great insight into what new is and what can be done to develop new ideas. For example, an organization has the potential for more creativity by allowing more disorder in the chapter "The Virtues of Corporate Disorder."

Some of the chapters in this book I want to read again and others I found uninteresting or too abstract. Overall, I thought the authors have pulled together a compelling collection of ideas.

Collaboratively edited by Heinrich V. Pierer (President and CEO of Kraftwerk Union AG) and Bolko V. Oetinger (Senior Vice President, The Boston Consulting Group), A Passion For Ideas: How Innovators Create The New And Shape Our World is an impressive and superbly presented anthology of interviews and commentaries focusing on the concept of how new ideas are actually generated. A wide range of twenty-seven notable thinkers informatively present their carefully articulated thoughts on the creative process and what it really means. Highly recommended reading for students and non-specialist general readers with an interest in technological innovation and the creative process, A Passion For Ideas is a fascinating, seminal volume, offering a insightful glimpse into the struggling recesses of the psyche.

This book is interesting, yet shallow. I was able to read the book in one sitting. The main thrust seems to be "The SS and Hitler did all the bad stuff, while the Honorable German Army prosecuted the war in a humane, if ineffective, manner while trying to figure out how to murder Hitler. The Author highlights the confusion and backbiting of Post-world War I German Politics. The inability of the different factions within the government to cooperate being the reason given for the rise of National Socialism and Hitler. It is a good book to read but don't expect any satisfying insights.

This is a reliable dictionary covering a wider area than is immediately apparent from the title.

I bought this book not sure whether or not it was translated. I found that it was all in German, however it looks beautiful on the bookshelf and it smells different than American new books so I kept it. I later found the translated version here at amizon. Just search for HENRY VON OFTERDINGEN instead of Heinrich.

The great German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also an enthusiastic amateur scientist saying that of all his work he considered his scientific work to be the most important. This is no trivial matter considering the great works of prose and poetry Goethe produced eg Faust, Erlkoenig etc etc.

Probably the most well developed of his scientific investigations is his book on colour theory which studied many aspects of the formation of colours. Proskauer in this book reviews and also extends some of Goethe's work on colour as well as allowing the reader to experience the phenomena first hand through a small prism attached to the book with special cards to serve as "light/dark" sources.

The book starts with an introduction to Goethe's work which contradicts Newton's theories such as the notion that ordinary "white" light is constructed from a combination of the colours and that the prism separates the colours already present in it. Proskauer demonstrates that the spectrum observed by the prism is in fact a construction which arises due to two distinct spectra overlapping and that a spectrum is noticed only in the presence of a light/dark boundary. Further fascinating aspects are disclosed and provide a strong argument for a scientific approach akin to Goethe's. The colour phenomenon is observed without abstraction used to construct a colour theory.

These are the good aspects of the work, however the writing is at times speculative and goes counter to Goethe's original approach to "never leaving the phenomenon". Somehow it never quite convinces but nonetheless it certainly wakes up the mind from the mechanistic slumber of ordinary science. Perhaps a deeper approach would remove some of these problems.

A good book with great potential.

kung is a smart man and a scholar. however, in trying to make christianity all-inclusive, he dilutes christianity into little more than dialectic feel-good mysticism. i think he needs to buy a Bible and reexamine/meet Jesus.

"Christianity and the World Religions" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy" http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

The book is entirely a sourcebook of illustrations with no text. The illustrations are wonderful however, and highly detailed. Also, a good, well rounded collection of different types, formats and designs. I gave it three stars because I felt that I would have enjoyed knowing where the ironwork pieces illustrated are, their dates and what the use was. All in all, a good visual reference.