BIOGRAPHIES
(Note: As you see, we have included only a few biographys of well known social activists. As a Level Four student you may choose the biographies or autobiographies of other individuals who inspire you in any field of endeavor. You may select a specific book or let us know the name of the individual and we will see what is available.)
A Daughter Of Isis: The Autobiography of Nawal El Saadawi
by Nawal El Saadwi ($13.97)
Nawal El Saadawi has been pilloried, censored, imprisoned and exiled for her refusal to accept the oppressions imposed on women by gender and class. In her life and in her writings, this struggle against gender discrimination has always been linked to a struggle against all forms of oppression: religious, racial, colonial and neo-colonial. In 1969, she published her first work of non-fiction, Women and Sex; in 1972, her writings and her struggles led to her dismissal from her job. From then on there was no respite; imprisonment under Sadat in 1981 was the culmination of the long war she had fought for Egyptian women’s social and intellectual freedom. A Daughter of Isis is the autobiography of this extraordinary woman. Sa’adawi grew up in a traditional Egyptian household. Her older, less academic brother’s failures were mourned, while her successes were not even acknowledged. Fighting gender discrimination the entire way, she persevered through university and became a doctor. This autobiography is the story of those years, before Sa’adawi’s name became synonymous with the struggles against gender discrimination and for women’s social and intellectual freedom. Her father was also a great activist and believed in education for all, even his daughters. The book is almost less an autobiography and more a homage to her mother, whom Sa’adawi adores. There are no pages devoted to her years of writing and feminist struggles. There is only a short blurb at the end, catching up on her life to the present day. The book is an insightful piece as it celebrates the family of Egypt’s most interesting feminist.
Gandhi An Autobiography: Thee Story of My Experiments With Truth
by Mohandas K. Gandhi ($10.50)
Gandhi’s nonviolent struggles in South Africa and India had already brought him to such a level of notoriety, adulation, and controversy that when asked to write an autobiography midway through his career, he took it as an opportunity to explain himself. Although accepting of his status as a great innovator in the struggle against racism, violence, and, just then, colonialism, Gandhi feared that enthusiasm for his ideas tended to exceed a deeper understanding. He says that he was after truth rooted in devotion to God and attributed the turning points, successes, and challenges in his life to the will of God. His attempts to get closer to this divine power led him to seek purity through simple living, dietary practices (he called himself a fruitarian), celibacy, and ahimsa, a life without violence. It is in this sense that he calls his book The Story of My Experiments with Truth, offering it also as a reference for those who would follow in his footsteps. A reader expecting a complete accounting of his actions, however, will be sorely disappointed.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King
by Martin Luther King ($11.17)
Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of King’s essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King’s writings into a posthumous autobiography. In an early student essay, King prophetically penned: “We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance…. We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime.” Such statements, made throughout King’s career, are skillfully woven together into a coherent narrative of the quest for social justice. The autobiography delves, for example, into the philosophical training King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, where he consolidated the teachings of Afro-American theologian Benjamin Mays with the philosophies of Locke, Rousseau, Gandhi, and Thoreau. Through King’s voice, the reader intimately shares in his trials and triumphs, including the Montgomery Boycott, the 1963 “I Have a Dream Speech,” the Selma March, and the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. In one of his last speeches, King reminded his audience that “in the final analysis, God does not judge us by the separate incidents or the separate mistakes that we make, but by the total bent of our lives.” Carson’s skillful editing has created an original argument in King’s favor that draws directly from the source, illuminating the circumstances
The Essential Gandhi: An Anthology of his writings on his life, work and ideas
by Louis Fischer ($13.00)
Gandhi believed in revealing himself. He regarded secrecy as the enemy of freedom-not only the freedom of India but the freedom of man. He exposed even the innermost personal thoughts which individuals usually regard as private. In nearly a half-century of prolific writing, speaking, and subjecting his ideas to the test of actions, he painted a detailed self-portrait of his mind, heart, and soul.
The Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography Of Nelson Mandela
by Nelson Mandela ($11.87)
The famously taciturn South African president reveals much of himself in Long Walk to Freedom. A good deal of this autobiography was written secretly while Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island by South Africa’s apartheid regime. Among the book’s interesting revelations is Mandela’s ambivalence toward his lifetime of devotion to public works. It cost him two marriages and kept him distant from a family life he might otherwise have cherished. Long Walk to Freedom also discloses a strong and generous spirit that refused to be broken under the most trying circumstances–a spirit in which just about everybody can find something to admire.
BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
by Roger Lowenstein ($12.08 / 512 p)
By picking the right stocks and businesses to invest in, plainspoken Nebraskan Warren Buffett became the richest man in the U.S. In this excellent biography, Wall Street Journal reporter Lowenstein details the billionaire stock market wizard’s strategy of betting on the long-term growth of a handful of successful companies such as American Express and Berkshire Hathaway. Providing personal glimpses of a very private man, Lowenstein unearths childhood traumas such as the tormenting rages of Buffett’s mother and his forced relocation to Washington, D.C., in 1943, where, at 13, he ran away from home (he was found by the police the next day). Buffett’s wife, Susan Thompson, a nightclub singer, walked out on him in 1977 and was quickly replaced by his mistress, Latvian-born Astrid Menks. Lowenstein profiles an emotionally guarded, “strangely stunted” Midas obsessed with work and secrecy, who seemingly derives little pleasure from his fabulous wealth.
Built To Last: Successful Habits Of Visionary Companies
by Jim Collins & Jerry Porras ($12.56)
Drawing upon a six-year research project at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day — as start-ups, as midsize companies, and as large corporations. Throughout, the authors asked: “What makes the truly exceptional companies different from the comparison companies and what were the common practices these enduringly great companies followed throughout their history?” Filled with hundreds of specific examples and organized into a coherent framework of practical concepts that can be applied by managers and entrepreneurs at all levels, Built to Last provides a master blueprint for building organizations that will prosper long into the 21st century and beyond.
Full Steam Ahead: Unleash the Power Of Vision In Your Company & Your Life
by Ken Blanchard & Jesse Stoner ($13.57)
Ken Blanchard, coauthor of the business classic The One Minute Manager, has teamed up with Jesse Stoner, a leader in the field of vision and strategy, to show how anyone can create a compelling vision for their organization and for their own life. They show where vision comes from, how it unleashes great power and energy, and how it provides ongoing focus and direction. They explain how to create the three key elements of a compelling vision: significant purpose, clear values, and a picture of the future. They demonstrate how to engage people in shaping meaningful visions and putting those visions to work in their organizations and their lives. And they describe how to ensure that the vision stays alive through understanding three principles: how it is created, how it is communicated, and how it is lived. The elements of vision are presented in a beautifully written and engaging story about two people who are struggling to create visions-both for the company where they work and for their own lives. Blanchard and Stoner offer numerous examples of effective visions and explore precisely why these visions work. The lessons are remarkably easy to understand and apply. According to visionary leadership expert Warren Bennis, Blanchard and Stoner have given “meaning and life to vision. Even Dilbert will get it!” Readers will learn how to crystallize a vision that resonates with their own hopes and dreams and allows them to go full steam ahead!
How To Make Collaboration Work: Powerful Ways to Build Consensus, Solve Problems, and Make Decisions. by David Straus & Thomas Layton ($10.17)
Collaboration is an everyday practice that many people find to be a frustrating, even exhausting, experience. How to Make Collaboration Work provides a remedy: five principles of collaboration that have been tested and refined in organizations throughout the world. Author David Straus shows that these methods can help any group make better decisions and function more effectively. The five principles are: Involve the Relevant Stakeholders, Build Consensus Phase by Phase, Design a Process Map, Designate a Process Facilitator, and Harness the Power of Group Memory. Each principle addresses the specific challenges people face when trying to work collaboratively, and each can be applied to any problem-solving scenario.
Igniting The Soul At Work
by Robert Rabbin ($10.85)
Rabbin, a self-proclaimed mystic, has penned this soulful exploration into changing the practices of corporate America, admitting that he has felt the sting of uncertainty when presenting his brand of leadership to various groups. Addressing both management and employees, he acknowledges that this type of reflection is scary to some, stating that “spirit is a loaded word in our culture.” He argues that these loaded words make people retreat into fear, rather than be judged as “flakes, incompetents, or cultists” by their peers. Rabbin proposes that “the external world is a direct expression of our internal world, thoughts, ideas, and beliefs,” and that the problems that people see in the world are a result of the inner turmoil that they spew. He pacifies readers, then, with the assertion that they can change the state of things; it is simply a matter of tapping into the inner mystic. Rabbin relies on quotes by spiritual figures and groups like the Dalai Lama and the Hopi to drive his point home. Each chapter ends with a segment called “Personal Reflection,” which contains practical applications for questioning the way leaders view
Natural Capitalism: Creating The Next Industrial Revolution
by Paul Hawken, Amory Louvins & L. Hunter Louvins ($12.21)
In Natural Capitalism, three top strategists show how leading-edge companies are practicing “a new type of industrialism” that is more efficient and profitable while saving the environment and creating jobs. Paul Hawken and Amory and Hunter Lovins write that in the next century, cars will get 200 miles per gallon without compromising safety and power, manufacturers will relentlessly recycle their products, and the world’s standard of living will jump without further damaging natural resources. “Is this the vision of a utopia? In fact, the changes described here could come about in the decades to come as the result of economic and technological trends already in place,” the authors write. They call their approach natural capitalism because it’s based on the principle that business can be good for the environment. For instance, Interface of Atlanta doubled revenues and employment and tripled profits by creating an environmentally friendly system of recycling floor coverings for businesses. The authors also describe how the next generation of cars is closer than we might think. Manufacturers are already perfecting vehicles that are ultralight, aerodynamic, and fueled by hybrid gas-electric systems. If natural capitalism continues to blossom, so much money and resources will be saved that societies will be able to focus on issues such as housing. The book is a fascinating and provocative read for public-policy makers, as well as environmentalists and capitalists alike.
Open Book Management
by John Case ($11.87)
Open-book management is not so much a technique as a way of thinking, a process that actively involves employees in the financial life of the company. Numerous companies have already found that employees who are informed and aware of the company’s financial situation are motivated to seek solutions to problems and assume a greater degree of responsibility for its performance. John Case begins by examining the current competitive climate and the history of established management techniques. He shows how the traditional treatment of workers as “hired hands” with little involvement or responsibility beyond their own area is no longer effective in today’s ever more competitive global environment. Case clearly and carefully explains the principles of open-book management: timely sharing of crucial financial information with employees; educating the employees to understand and apply the information; empowering employees to apply the information to their own work; and offering employees a stake in the successful implementation of their ideas. Open-book management will take different forms at every company, Case notes, but he offers a wide range of suggestions and guidelines for implementing these principles. He concludes with a series of in-depth case studies, featuring companies of various sizes and financial situations that have successfully implemented open-book management. Open-Book Management is the indispensable guide to teaching employees how to think and act like owners.
Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First
by Shel Horowitz ($11.90)
Marketing consultant Horowitz (Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World) offers the latest addition to the deluge of morally-centered business tomes. In one way, it’s an overturning of traditional corporate wisdom-see your competitors as your allies, not your adversaries, Horowitz suggests-but it’s also something we’ve been hearing an awful lot of lately: build meaningful relationships with your customers, view your employees as your partners and so on. Nevertheless, the arguments are all sound and illustrated with the customer-obsessed success stories of ventures like Saturn and Nordstrom. Horowitz is at his best when displaying his canny understanding of the media world, advising how to fit your business’s message with the media’s need to produce timely, relevant stories. But it also feels like the author is trying to riff on too many ideas, as he skips from thoughts on bartering to copywriting to investing. If readers don’t mind following the occasionally meandering structure, they’ll find this to be a bountiful source of marketing tips.
The Corporate Mystic: A Guidebook For Visionaries With Their Feet On The Ground
Gay Hendricks & Kate Ludeman ($10.88)
The authors of this wise little book have been consultants to corporations for 25 years. From their experience working with some 800 executives, they deduce that the corporate leaders of the 21st century will be spiritual masters (“corporate mystics”), and that already boardrooms are replete with mystics who are in on the secret that organizations are collective embodiments of spirit. In business for their heart and soul as well as for their wallet, they have beaten back the fear that robs the less hardy of their authenticity. With their ability to focus easily and nondogmatically on the task at hand, these “visionaries with their feet on the ground” are also problem solvers who inspire commitment, speak plainly, listen well, manage projects and create wealth. Wealth begins in the human soul, the authors say as they expound on powers of positive thinking, and at this point the book becomes a how-to manual culminating in four 10-minute exercises for attaining wealth-producing qualities of mysticism.
The Ecology Of Commerce: A Declaration Of Sustainability
by Paul Hawken ($11.53)
Paul Hawken, the entrepreneur behind the Smith & Hawken gardening supplies empire, is no ordinary capitalist. Drawing as much on Baba Ram Dass and Vaclav Havel as he does on Peter Drucker and WalMart for his case studies, Hawken is on a one-man crusade to reform our economic system by demanding that First World businesses reduce their consumption of energy and resources by 80 percent in the next 50 years. As if that weren’t enough, Hawken argues that business goals should be redefined to embrace such fuzzy categories as whether the work is aesthetically pleasing and the employees are having fun; this applies to corporate giants and mom-and-pop operations alike. He proposes a culture of business in which the real world, the natural world, is allowed to flourish as well, and in which the planet’s needs are addressed. Wall Street may not be ready for Hawken’s provocative brand of environmental awareness, but this fine book is full of captivating ideas.
The Great Game of Business
by Jack Stack ($12.21)
In the early 1980s, Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC) in Springfield, Missouri, was a near bankrupt division of International Harvester. That’s when a green young manager, Jack Stack, took over and turned it around. He didn’t know how to “manage” a company, but he did know about the principal of athletic competition and democracy: keeping score, having fun, playing fair, providing choice, and having a voice. With these principals he created his own style of management — open-book management. The key is to let everyone in on financial decisions. At SRC, everyone learns how to read a P&L — even those without a high school education know how much the toilet paper they use cuts into profits. SRC people have a piece of the action and a vote in company matters. Imagine having a vote on your bonus and on what businesses the company should be in. SRC restored the dignity of economic freedom to its people. Stack’s “open-book management” is the key — a system which, as he describes it here, is literally a game, and one so simple anyone can use it. As part of the Currency paperback line, the book includes a “User’s Guide” — an introduction and discussion guide created for the paperback by the author — to help readers make practical use of the book’s ideas. Jack Stack is the president and CEO of the Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation, in Springfield, Missouri. The recipient of the 1993 Business Enterprise Trust Award, Jack speaks throughout the country on The Great Game Of Business and Open Book Management.
The Leadership Pill
By Ken Blanchard & Marc Muchnick ($13.57)
How can you become a more successful manager, a stronger team leader, and a motivator who gets the best results from a group? Ken Blanchard and Marc Muchnick’s The Leadership Pill provides the answer. Their entertaining and inspiring book is a parable about the competition between two leaders with totally different management styles — a story that reveals the ingredients of truly effective leadership. Consider this tantalizing possibility: What if there were a pill that could actually stimulate the natural powers of the mind and body to provide leadership? In the story, an amazing new pill heightens one leader’s powers, but contains the wrong ingredients, stimulating him in an obsessive and shortsighted direction with disastrous results. In contrast, the Effective Leader, working without a pill, proclaims that “only through sustainability can our teams remain motivated and successful.” An inspiring and supportive leader, he supplies the right ingredients, earning his team’s respect and trust with a blend of integrity, partnership, and affirmation. The hard-won result is a highly motivated team producing consistent top performance and genuine success. Ultimately it is recognized that “leadership for a lifetime” is much easier to digest than a pill for leaders looking for a quick fix.
The Power of Failure: 27 Ways to Turn Life’s Setbacks into Success
by Charles C. Manz ($14.95)
“Failure” is one of the most dreaded words in the English language. The very idea of failing is enough to stop most people in their tracks. It can cause the majority to simply pack up, turn around and retreat without even trying. Yet it is through seeming failure that most of life’s greatest successes are achieved The Power of Failure is designed to provide simple yet profound ways to turn seeming failures into successes. It contains practical prescriptions for successfully meeting some of life’s most common setbacks. The lessons of this book can help us all find the opportunities that are just waiting to be discovered in the challenges we face every day. This book is about failure, but failure in a whole new light. It is about The Power of Failure.
The Starfish and the Spider:
The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Ori Brafman & Rod Beckstrom ($16.47 / 240 p)
Brafman and Beckstrom, a pair of Stanford M.B.A.s who have applied their business know-how to promoting peace and economic development through decentralized networking, offer a breezy and entertaining look at how decentralization is changing many organizations. The title metaphor conveys the core concept: though a starfish and a spider have similar shapes, their internal structure is dramatically different—a decapitated spider inevitably dies, while a starfish can regenerate itself from a single amputated leg. In the same way, decentralized organizations, like the Internet, the Apache Indian tribe and Alcoholics Anonymous, are made up of many smaller units capable of operating, growing and multiplying independently of each other, making it very difficult for a rival force to control or defeat them.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Difficult Conversations
by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen & Roger Fisher ($10.50)
Members of the Harvard Negotiation Project–which brought you the mega-bestseller Getting to YES–show you how to handle your most difficult conversations with confidence and skill. Whether you’re dealing with an underperforming employee, disagreeing with your spouse about money or child-rearing, negotiating with a difficult client, or simply saying “no,” or “I’m sorry,” or “I love you,” we attempt or avoid difficult conversations every day. Based on fifteen years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Difficult Conversations walks you through a step-by-step proven approach to having your toughest conversations with less stress and more success. You will learn:
* how to start the conversation without defensiveness
* why what is not said is as important as what is
* ways of keeping and regaining your balance in the face of attacks and accusations
* how to decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversation
Filled with examples from everyday life, Difficult Conversations will help you on the job, at home, or out in the world. It is a book you will turn to again and again for advice, practical skills, and reassurance.
Getting To Resolution: Turning Conflict Into Collaboration
by Stewart Levine ($17.95)
What is the greatest impediment to productive and satisfying business and personal relationships? According to empowerment guru Stewart Levine, it’s inadequate conflict resolution. Levine’s seven- step model integrates two skills essential for success – collaboration and conflict resolution – and emphasizes the importance of a shift in attitude, assumptions, and approaches when facing a problem.
Mediators Handbook
by Jennifer E. Beer & Eileen Stief ($14.93)
Mediation is a respected and effective alternative to courtroom litigation. Completely revised and expanded from previous editions, The Mediator’s Handbook is an invaluable resource for people working in corporations, government agencies, community organizations, schools, or any other situation where there is a need to build bridges between diverse perspectives. The Mediator’s Handbook is a “how-to” guide walking the reader through the steps to an effective mediation. The Mediator’s Handbook can assist in conflict resolution for anyone working in corporations, government agencies, community organizations, schools, or neighborhoods where there is a need to build bridges and compromises between diverse perspectives and conflicting interests.
Nonviolent Communication: A Language Of Life
By Marshall Rosenberg ($12.21)
Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and the founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication, an international nonprofit organization that teaches peacemaking skills across five continents, including a number of war-torn areas such as Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, the Middle East, Colombia, Serbia, Croatia, and Northern Ireland. An enlightening look at how peaceful communication can create compassionate connections with family, friends, and other acquaintances, this book uses stories, examples, and sample dialogues to provide solutions to communication problems both at home and in the workplace. Guidance is provided on identifying and articulating feelings and needs, expressing anger fully, and exploring the power of empathy in order to speak honestly without creating hostility, break patterns of thinking that lead to anger and depression, and communicate compassionately. These nonviolent communication skills are fully explained and can be applied to personal, professional, and political differences. Included in the new edition is information on how to compassionately connect with oneself.
Peace is the Way: Bringing War & Violence To An End
Deepak Chopra ($15.64)
Noted author, Deepak Chopra contends that the deeply ingrained human habit of resorting to violence can be ended by raising the consciousness of individuals until there is a global change in awareness, similar to the shift that took place when the age of science took hold. Chopra is refreshingly honest about the way our comfort and security are ultimately the fruits of war. “The satisfaction of waging war cannot be replaced by philosophy or religion,” he writes. In addition to analysis, he offers daily practices of meditation, thought and actions on behalf of others as a way to live the truth of Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Ultimately, however, the ego itself has to be disarmed to live the way of peace, he says: “For me as an individual to be free, I have to confront myself with questions about who I really am, and this is done in large part by examining the layers of false identity that I mistakenly call me.” This is clearly harder to practice than it is to read. Still, Chopra’s affirmation that “our true identity is at the level of spirit and nowhere else” has the ring of truth and so does the rest of this simple, practical, inspiring book.
Raising Children Compassionately
Marshall Rosenberg (48p / 5.95)
Your search for parenting tips that actually improve your family dynamics is over. While other parenting resources offer communication models or discipline techniques, this powerful, practical booklet offers the unique skills and perspective of the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) process. NVC stresses the importance of putting compassionate connection first to create a mutually respectful, enriching family dynamic filled with clear, heartfelt communication. An exceptional resource for parents, parent educators, families and anyone else who works with children. For over 40 years Dr. Marshall Rosenberg has taught NVC to parents, families, children and teachers. Parents around the world have used his advice to deepen family connections, move past conflicts and improve communication. His revolutionary approach helps parents motivate children to cooperate without either the threat of punishment or the promise of reward. Learn how to model compassionate communication in the home to help your children successfully resolve conflicts and express themselves clearly.
Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict & Diversity
by Arnold Mindell ($15.95)
This is a good introduction to the conflict resolution method called “Worldwork, which is the application of Mindell’s methods of Process Oriented Psychology to conflict between groups of all sizes. It is written in very easily understandable language, and very readable. It has interesting descriptions of conflict resolution work between several hundred people at one time, as in a town meetings where many ethnic groups in conflict are represented. It makes large group conflict much more understandable than usual.
The Argument Culture: Moving From Debate to Dialogue
by Deborah Tannen ($10.50)
The world’s most famous linguist offers a completely original analysis of the way we communicate, and a revolutionary language to live by. In her #1 bestseller You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen showed why talking to someone of the opposite sex can be like talking to someone from another world. Now Tannen is back with another groundbreaking book, this time widening her lens to examine the way we communicate in public–in the media, in politics, in our courtrooms, and classrooms–once again letting us see in a new way forces that have powerfully shaped our lives. The Argument Culture is a remarkable book that will change forever the way you perceive–and communicate with–the world.
The Book Of Agreement: 10 Essential Elements For Getting The Results You Want
by Stewart Levine ($12.21)
For most people, negotiating an agreement feels adversarial. It is a process one tries to win. It is not viewed as a process that expresses a clear joint vision or a path to desired results. We have been conditioned to function in a “me vs. them” context. Creating agreements for results, rather than negotiating agreements for protection, would provide much greater benefits. The conflicts most people get into are avoidable. Conflict develops because of differing expectations about what working with others will produce. Differences arise because these expectations have not been made explicit to everyone. People fail to make their expectations explicit because they never learned how. The Book of Agreement provides a clear path through the minefields of conflict, to shared expectations.
The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution:
Preserving Relationships at Work, at Home, and in the Community
by Dudley Weeks ($10.47)
This book teaches the reader a process towards better conflict management. It is not a hard process to learn; its not an easy process to use all the time, though. That being said, I recommend this book HIGHLY, especially to anyone who is looking for ways to make their home life, work life, or community life more enriching. — a readers review
The Unconquerable World – Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People.
by Jonathan Schell (10.88 / 433 p)
At the outset of this lucid survey of alternatives to warfare, the author disavows the label “pacifist”: he is not opposed to the use of force, but he believes that it has become an ineffective tool for achieving political ends. On this pragmatic basis, Schell builds a case for civil noncoöperation, which he argues has long played a crucial role in deciding otherwise bloody conflicts (among them the American, French, and Russian Revolutions). Showing how nonviolent action proved successful in ending apartheid in South Africa and in dismantling the Soviet bloc, Schell writes with discipline and urgency. It’s disappointing, then, that, once he has persuaded us of the need for peaceful solutions, those he offers—such as shared sovereignty—seem disconnected from the realities of politics today.
You Just Don’t Understand: Men & Women In Conversation
by Deborah Tannen ($10.50)
Georgetown University linguistics professor Tannen here ponders gender-based differences that, she claims, define and distinguish male and female communication. Opening with the rationale that ignoring such differences is more dangerous than blissful, she asserts that for most women conversation is a way of connecting and negotiating. Thus, their parleys tend to center on expressions of and responses to feelings, or what the author labels “rapport-talk” (private conversation). Men, on the other hand, use conversation to achieve or maintain social status; they set out to impart knowledge (termed “report-talk,” or public speaking). Calling on her research into the workings of dialogue, Tannen examines the functioning of argument and interruption, and convincingly supports her case for the existence of “genderlect,” contending that the better we understand it, the better our chances of bridging the communications gap integral to the battle of the sexes.
CONSCIOUSNESS & ONTOLOGY
(Ontology: The Study Of the Nature Of Reality or Being)
Awakening The Energy Body: From Shamanism to Bioenergetics
by Kenneth Smith ($10.71 / 240 p)
A practical guide to understanding and enhancing the functionality of the human energy body
• Shows how the energy body and its interactions are the principal determinant of all we see, feel, think, or otherwise perceive
• Details strategic skills to manage the infinite alternate realities available to the energy body
Each of us inhabits an energy body whose interactions are the principal determinant of all we see, feel, think, or otherwise perceive. Even as modern science is establishing the uncertainty of physical matter, it is asserting the reality of our existence as interconnecting quantum energy fields. For over 5,000 years, shamans of the Toltec tradition have studied and worked with the energy body, learning to recognize and understand its structure and perceptual capacities as well as mapping it as an objective, measurable part of our anatomy. In Awakening the Energy Body, Kenneth Smith’s thorough grounding in the Toltec tradition allows him to bring forth an instructive overview for non-Toltec adherents of the latent possibilities available to the energy body and how to bring awareness and objective form to it. Using evidence from the emerging scientific discipline of bioenergetics, which studies the flow and exchange of energy, Smith shows that conscious awareness not only creates our reality but enhances the functionality of the human energy body, allowing it to navigate the myriad realities of our world. He offers a specific set of strategies to manage the energy body in ways that are beneficial to both material existence and spiritual development. He also discusses the ethical considerations of developing consciousness and how one can quicken personal evolution in order to live a full and complete life, while revealing where the worlds of ancient tradition and modern science meet.
Conscious Acts Of Creation
by William A. Tiller, Walter Dibble, Michael Kohane ($25.46)
This book is an “eye-opener” for both non-scientists and scientists, metaphysicians and physicians, students and teachers and all people with a real interest in how science moves our world. It concerns unactualized human capabilities, opportunities and adventures for all of us in the years ahead. For the first time, a rigorous experimental protocol is available to allow human qualities to meaningfully alter the properties of physical materials via specific human intentions! The experimental data portion of this book shows, via the use of IIEDs (Intention Imprinted Electrical Devices), how human intention can robustly influence physical reality with measurement amplitude changes by as much as 100 times the instrument measurement accuracy. The described experiments deal with inorganic materials like water, in vitro organic materials like enzymes and in vitro living systems like fruit fly larvae. This experimental data shows how after ~3 months of continued use of the IIEDs in a particular laboratory space, that space becomes “conditioned” to a higher state of physics Gauge symmetry than present in normal locales. In a “conditioned” space, human intention acts as a true thermodynamic potential to significantly influence the many chemical, electrical and biological processes of nature.
Far Journeys
by Robert Monroe ($10.17)
I have read Monroe’s 3 books, and this one seems to be the most intriguing and enlightening. While his first book talks about the mechanics of Out of Body Experience ( written in the early days when he was still experimenting with it), this book talks about his Far Journeys to the outer realms of existence, out of time and space limitation, where he learns about the cycle and meaning of human existence (this will be the first time you read something like this from a rational straightforward perspective, without any religious conotations). Talks about human existence in time and space, and about existence outside of time and space. He meets a brighlty glowing enlightened being who knows everything about him (somewhat like his guide) who guides and shows him about life itself (most people who had Near Death Experience think that glowing being as their God, or Jesus, Allah, angels or whatever God they believe in, which Monroe many years later in his 3rd book ‘Ultimate Journey’ discovered who that glowing being truly is! You will be absolutely shocked and surprised!!) – A readers review
God At The Speed Of Light
By Lee Baumann ($11.66 / 178 pages)
Quantum physicists study the nature of light. The Bible speaks of light when talking about God. Near-death experiences describe going to a light that is welcoming, intelligent, and loving. Strangest of all, however, is the similarity of all these descriptions of the nature, presence, and behavior of light to descriptions of the nature of God. Could it be that light and God are one in the same? Physician Lee Baumann makes a case for exactly that. From many sources, Dr. Baumann has synthesized a compelling picture of what may be the true nature of our universe at all levels- physical, mental, and spiritual.
Ishmael: An Adventure Of The Mind & Spirit
by Daniel Quinn ($11.56)
Quinn won the Turner Tomorrow Award’s half-million-dollar first prize for this fascinating and odd book–not a novel by any conventional definition–which was written 13 years ago but could not find a publisher. The unnamed narrator is a disillusioned modern writer who answers a personal ad (“Teacher seeks pupil. . . . Apply in person.”) and thereby meets a wise, learned gorilla named Ishmael that can communicate telepathically. The bulk of the book consists entirely of philosophical dialogues between gorilla and man, on the model of Plato’s Republic. Through Ishmael, Quinn offers a wide-ranging if highly general examination of the history of our civilization, illuminating the assumptions and philosophies at the heart of many global problems. Despite some gross oversimplifications, Quinn’s ideas are fairly convincing; it’s hard not to agree that unrestrained population growth and an obsession with conquest and control of the environment are among the key issues of our times. Quinn also traces these problems back to the agricultural revolution and offers a provocative rereading of the biblical stories of Genesis. Though hardly any plot to speak of lies behind this long dialogue, Quinn’s smooth style and his intriguing proposals should hold the attention of readers interested in the daunting dilemmas that beset our planet.