Although reading such a long book in its entirety seems at first measure a daunting task (and one that few people's academic credentials hold up to....), readers daring enough to try are pretty well rewarded across the whole of this book. This book is an introduction to systems theory (i.e. that the result of a conglomeration of small scale processes can be seen to accumulate into larger, predictable processes at macro levels, similar to how a person who makes individual knots can end up with a rug...) that straddles the mark from physics to political economy (which is running far indeed!!!)

This is a really big book besides having a lot of pages, and I have a hunch that not too many people are going to buy it outside of researchers or university librarians. But, I suppose, if you're either of these (though if one were going to research they'd probably look to a sucession of smaller books, no?) I'd buy this book.... your collection would be enriched through having it....

Don't let the size of this book stop you from exploring it. The author has designed the book so it (slowly) reveals itself, working from basic concepts of how dynamic systems work through levels of biological and social complexity. It is a brilliant work, a must for anyone involved in any sort of analytical work. It is one of the most important books of the 20th century and, if attention is paid, will be an important guidebook to the 21st.

To see more of Miller's work and its implications, see the web site Principia Cybernetica.

Despite this is a book with an enormous and difficult text, since the very first chapter it enlightens the most basic message: that sciences, and knowledge, can be integrated, in a sort of unified theory, the "general theory of living systems", as the author puts it. And it does; since I began to understand the hole thing, it really makes me easier to think, and to view the world, like somekind of natural phylosophy, or organic phylosophy. It's really helpfull. (My email is galfroid@hotmail.com)