Thinking in Systems: A Primer
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- ISBN13: 9781603580557
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In the years following her role as the lead leader of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a restricted planet— Donella Meadows remained a lead the way of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001.
Meadows’ newly unrestricted manuscript, Thinking in Systems, is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to renovate the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life.
Some of the largest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fitting one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking.
While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is vital, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner.
In a world growing ever more intricate, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions.
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I’m not really sure how to classify this book. It could be useful in a wide variety of situations, but it’s such an introduction to the basics, that it probably won’t take you very far. I could see it championed as business management self-help, or maybe as side reading for an intro six-sigma course.
Overall, it reads more like a textbook and the state diagrams reminded me a lot of sentence diagramming done in grade school English classes – useful if you’re going to work in the meadow, but otherwise not essential to understanding the content.
There were less than a handful of places where a concept was open and I thought “huh, that’s appealing”, which is one of the key measures I use for judging these kind of books.
The 16-page appendix is really an extremely excellent synopsis of the entire book. You could get the whole thought from just reading that appendix and then referencing the main chapter for any further explanation you need.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
One of my favorite class books from the mathematics of the 1950’s is Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s “All-purpose System Theory”: All-purpose System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications.
Since the artor omits mention this book,
I really can’t give her the five stars her book probably deserves.
Her “water works” systems control diagrams are unique and excellent; they remind me of the real time control diagrams in:Real Time Programming: Neglected Topics (Addison-Wesley Series in Joy of Computing).
I have several linear circuit control books that came out of the late 40’s early 50’s that have maybe a better mathematics background like: Introduction to systems theory.
The relationship between systems theory, control theory and population dynamics in biology is one of the concepts that need to be made clear.
The principles that govern compound plants, fuel injection and automatic car transmissions also apply to world securities markets and
production of food. That we can use nonlinear analysis and fractals to predict and control our world on an much privileged level than is, now, done
is the new paradigm that she is trying to get across.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
A must read for everybody (exception for some specialists in the meadow, perhaps). The type of future humanity will face, fervently depends on the extension that this area of knowledge eventually evolves and becomes largelly diffused. No amount of praise would do justice to this work of Donnella Meadows.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
It took me a while to get into the book. At first it was very basic with simple concepts that were obvious. For example, if you have a stock of water (e.g., a bucket) with a drain in one end and an input (e.g., a hole in the bottom and a faucet above), the level of the stock depends on the excise of the input and output. Like I said, it is pretty obvious and as a consequence a dull read.
As I progressed through the book it got more detailed and more appealing. But, at no point did I get the feeling that it was telling me something I didn’t already know. Maybe this is due to excellent writing and presentation of the material, but I felt that it was still a bit of a chore to read the book and at the end I can’t really say I know anything now that I didn’t know when I ongoing reading it, except one thing.
In a small side note was a basic rule of excise that says that a stock will double at a rate of 70 divided by the % rate. So, for example, if you have a balance of $1000 on your credit card and it is charging you 20% interest, left alone, the balance will double to $2000 in 70/20 = 3.5 years. This small tidbit is a nice small piece of knowledge, but not what the book is about and so doesn’t really count as something I learned about “Thinking In Systems”.
It could be that I already know the concepts open in the book and that it would be very useful or informative to others. The additional reviews for this book indicate that others felt it had something to offer them, so your mileage may vary, as they say. If you already deal with systems in your job or if you reflect you’ve permanently had a knack for this type of thinking, then you might not find this has much to offer. Otherwise, this could provide some insight and could help make sense of complex systems and situations.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
I had been curious about Systems Thinking for awhile and wanted an entry into the topic area. This book did just that. The only thing else that I would want from it is more information around the modeling approach involved.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5