OALHAL Demographic Backgrounds and Perceptions_/\_PERSPECTIVE _/\_

My perspective thoughts on our relationships with "the land or earth"; "our home" and where we've established the location ; "our homes" as a utility to family lifestyle and functionalities.

Demographic Backgrounds and Perceptions

Has anyone always lived in the same home?
Same home as their parents? How many generations back?
Does the planet Earth have some detail that connects to the lifestyle or way of living?
How far back does the lifestyle and way of living go in family?
How much of this lifestyle and these ways of living were already a part of the community where you live now?
How far from the current living area would it be to find the original part of the earth, " where :. A) ..your own current type of lifestyle and cultivating trade, craft, or field of work, originated",; B) ..from where it is most predominantly found; C) where this field and lifestyle is part of the entire community living.

While I thought more , at first, about some "Native American" connections, since I blog from an "On America Line" perspective, it occurred to me, more, how important it is in the "immagination"; that is from my search engine's results so few ; the result exclusive to "demographic perception" "native americn" relationship with the earth...
Geometry and maybe a Good Book From Harvard
..and a favorites list so long, I can only relate it to imagination!

Psycobiographical Influences or praised mainstream ; "Psychobiographical interpretation" at home, or hidden, or to surface as a mainstream would be my next "wonder to a citizen's mainstream".

So for now I hope Its okay just to paste in these results from above:



1. Creativity: Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practiceby Mark A. Runco
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US$74.95US$59.75US$15.2 (20%)Category: Hardcover (2006-12-28)Publisher: Academic PressISBN: 0126024006Sales Rank: 169045Lowest New Price: $59.75 Lowest Used Price: $49.84 (8 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
An integrative introduction to the theories and themes in research on creativity, this book is both a reference work and text for courses in this burgeoning area of research. The book begins with a discussion of the theories of creativity (Person, Product, Process, Place), the general question of whether creativity is influenced by nature or nurture, what research has indicated of the personality and style of creative individuals from a personality analysis standpoint, how social context affects creativity, and then coverage of issues like gender differences, whether creativity can be enhanced, if creativity is related to poor mental or physical health, etc. The book contains boxes covering special interest items including one page biographies of famous creative individuals and activities for a group or individual to test and/or encourage creativity, as well as references to internet sites relating to creativity. *Breaks down the major theories about creativity but doesn't restrict to a singular perspective*Includes extensive citations of existing literature*Textbook features included (i.e., key terms defined)
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature: Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Perspectives 2. Handbook of Creativity 3. The International Handbook of Creativity 4. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 5. Creativity: From Potential to Realization .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Academic books on creativity.

2. The Creativity Research Handbook (Perspectives on Creativity Series)
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$32.50Category: Paperback (2009-06-30)Publisher: Hampton PrISBN: 1572731338Sales Rank: 3156440Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Illustrating the extent and diversity of the field of creative research, this handbook provides a comprehensive review of the area. The first section discusses theoretical approaches; the second discusses topics and issues; and the third discusses methodologies in creativity research.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature 2. Outliers: The Story of Success .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

3. Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and Health: (Publications in Creativity Research)by Mark A. Runco, Ruth Richards
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$151.95Category: Hardcover (1998-01-16)Publisher: Ablex PublishingISBN: 1567501745Sales Rank: 4032536Lowest New Price: $136.80 Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and Health brings together key past and present cutting-edge papers in the hot area of creativity and mental health. Included are major papers that have attracted interest in the international press (including the New York Ties, Japan's Asahi Weekly, and New Scientist in England). Other emphases include creativity and "unhappy childhoods," coping with adversity, and immune function and health. Nowhere else is all this material available in one place, together with helpful integration and synthesis. For anyone interested in creativity and health, this book offers a "one-stop shopping approach.
... Read more
Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 1 reviews.
Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and HealthThis book is a classic in its field. Eminent Creativity, Everyday Creativity, and Health contains an enormous amount of information presented in essay format and written by leaders in the mental health field. The editors, Mark Runco and Ruth Richards have done an excellent job in gathering these contributors and then in organizing their essays into groups to facilitate their transmission to the reader, such as "Psychological Health and Creativity" and then "Societal Health and Creativity." The essays not only show a connection between creativity and illness but also between creativity and wellness. Richards has also written an excellent series of introductions to each section to educate and orient the reader. The book will interest the general reader who is creative or would like to be creative but it can also be used as a textbook for students and as a resource book for health professionals.
Tobi Zausner, Ph.D. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Everyday Creativity and New Views of Human Nature: Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Perspectives 2. Understanding Creativity: The Interplay of Biological, Psychological, and Social Factors 3. The Courage to Create 4. Higher Creativity 5. Creativity, Spirituality, and Transcendence: Paths to Integrity and Wisdom in the Mature Self (Publications in Creativity Research) .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

4. Divergent Thinking (Creativity Research Series)by Mark A. Runco
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US$49.95US$49.95Category: Paperback (1991-01-01)Publisher: Ablex PublishingISBN: 0893917168Sales Rank: 2538087Lowest New Price: $25.00 Lowest Used Price: $40.93 (5 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
The research presented in this volume suggests that divergent thinking is an important component of the creative process. Divergent thinking tests are probably the most commonly used measure of children's potential for creative thinking. There are a number of unanswered questions about children's divergent thinking and creativity which are answered throughout the volume and may be identified as themes in the research. The first theme is that the capacity for divergent thinking may not be normally distributed across all levels of ability (a relevant premise is that creative abilities are not evenly distributed across domains of performance and achievement). A second theme is that divergent thinking is influenced by the conditions under which it is assessed. A third theme of the book is methodological; several chapters explore existing evaluations of divergent thinking tests. A final theme is that divergent thinking is important for both basic and applied research. From the perspective of basic research, the divergent thinking model offers an empirically supported view of a cognitive process. From the applied perspective, divergent thinking can be viewed as one component of giftedness and predictive of several expressions of real-world creativity.
... Read more
Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 1 reviews.
Clear account of related researchIf one is interested in similar research this book is invaluable ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Handbook of Creativity .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

5. Theories of Creativity (Perspectives on Creativity Series)
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$59.50Category: Hardcover (2009-03-30)Publisher: Hampton PrISBN: 1572731362Sales Rank: 3206592Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Containing essays by researchers from a variety of perspectives on the study of creativity, this text has been expanded to include recent research and theories, extended descriptions of the development of the various theories, and a new chapter on the evolving systems approach to creativity.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Creativity: From Potential to Realization .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

6. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Inventionby Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
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US$15.00US$10.20US$4.8 (32%)Category: Paperback (1997-06-18)Publisher: Harper PerennialISBN: 0060928204Sales Rank: 8554Lowest New Price: $8.56 Lowest Used Price: $4.95 (42 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Creativity is about capturing those moments that make life worth living. The author's objective is to offer an understanding of what leads to these moments, be it the excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab, so that knowledge can be used to enrich people's lives. Drawing on 100 interviews with exceptional people, from biologists and physicists to politicians and business leaders, poets and artists, as well as his 30 years of research on the subject, Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous theory to explore the creative process. He discusses such ideas as why creative individuals are often seen as selfish and arrogant, and why the tortured genius is largely a myth. Most important, he clearly explains why creativity needs to be cultivated and is necessary for the future of our country, if not the world.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 22 reviews.
InterestingI especially liked the part where he says that a good chunk of Eulers mathematical theorems came towards the latter part of his life and when he was blind. I was especially interested in the linkage between age and creativity since I'm in my early 30's & wanted to make sure that I still have some juice left in me. :-)
Excellent bookThe description posted here doesn't do the book justice - I own a copy and still made 8 pages of notes for myself. Typed pages! Dr. Csikszentmihalyi distills and highlights the creative moments in life and how to create more creative moments in your own. It is not dry reading - the interviews and comments from his pool of world-class 'creative' people was very enjoyable and I liked that portion the least! Here's one of my favorite quotes: 'Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives for several reasons.. First, most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity. We share 98 percent of our genetic makeup with chimpanzees. What makes us different - our language, values, artistic expression, scientific understanding, and technology - is the result of individual ingenuity that was recognized, rewarded, and transmitted through learning. Without creativity, it would be difficult indeed to distinguish humans from apes.'
Long and deep but very interestingVery interesting and detailed book. Helps explain the true reality and complexity of creativity - that it is a system of multiple environmental, technology and human personality elements which in combination and interaction bring about new products and processes.
A book for all psychology majorsIf you're interested in any aspect of psychology then this is not only an informative book to read, but a fun one as well. As a psychology major, I enjoyed learning about how creative people live and work. Not only are the individual stories in the book interesting, but they also teach us ways of how to become more creative. The way Csikszentmihalyi describes the ways to enhance creativity makes us really believe we can do it. No, you don't need to come up with some incredibly brilliant invention. Just simply by waking up, setting a goal to achieve that day, enjoying your success, and increasing the complexity of the goal each day, you can develop the creative "flow" of everyday life. In addition to helping people who lack creative qualities, Csikszentmihalyi also describes many ways to stay creative. For example, he suggests making time for reflection and relaxation. Also, he says to start doing more of what you love, and less of what you hate. These are just a few of the simple ways to help sustain your creative "flow" and again we feel confident that we can do these things. It's not brain science. Even more importantly, Csikszentmihalyi does a great job of informing us about the so-called myths of creative people. These mostly deal with certain psychological traits that are given to the stereotypical creative person. We learn that creative people aren't as selfish, fanatical, crazy, and single-minded as we may assume. Psychologically, creative people tend to be very much a mixture of different levels of these stereotypes and the opposite of those stereotypes. If I had to pick one downside of this book, it would be that there isn't a lot of detail on each creative person being interviewed by Csikszentmihalyi. For some of the people, we are given enough information to understand their creative story fairly well. However, for others it felt like not enough background information was given. A psychologist is interested in all perspectives of assessment: disease, dimension, behavior, and life-story. Thus, it would have been better to learn more about each person's life outside the creative world in order to see if creativity derives from psychological aspects of the person as a child or adolescent. Furthermore, the book could have contained more about the person's family, upbringing, hobbies, past achievements, IQ, etc. Again this is a bit of a personal preference and not necessarily a substantial flaw of the book. This book "flowed", that's for sure. I enjoyed it!
The Real Facts About Creative PeopleFew activities are a misunderstood by the general public as inventing and creativity. Sadly, Hollywood and television often portray the great inventor, scientist or musician as some sort of "mad genius". This book seeks to put the study of creativity on a rational basis. For the purposes of this book, creativity is defined as "... to bring into existence something genuinely new that is valued enough to be added to the culture". Ninety-one noted contemporary people have been systematically interviewed. While only two -- Jacob Rabinow and Frank Offner -- are full-blown inventors, their creative processes have a fascinating similarity to the composers, architects, astronomers, biologists and others interviewed. The book does not just quote the people interviewed, but cites their views regarding various facets of the creativity process. Jacob Rabinow (200 patents in diverse areas) believes most original thinkers share three common traits -- 1) their curiosity, from early childhood, results in acquiring a great deal of information, 2) they enjoy thinking up and combining ideas, and 3) they recognize their "good" ideas and don't hesitate to discard "junk" ideas. Frank Offner (first electronic controls for jet engines and developer of the only successful heat-homing missiles in World War II) notes that while a "solid grounding in physical sciences" is an asset, knowledge from other fields may trigger a creative person's mind to override what is assumed to be true in one field. He also feels the love or joy of solving problems is a key to finding solutions. This fun aspect is so strong that Rabinow is quoted as saying that, given a choice between money-making and fun, he would go for the fun. Creative people are sometimes thought to be arrogant. However, this often stems from the need for self-assurance or, simply, overriding modesty. As Rabinow notes, "... I always assume that not only it can be done, but I can do it". Robert Galvin (head of Motorola for 30 years) is reported as saying two traits are essential: 1) anticipation, i.e., having a vision of the future, and 2) commitment, which keeps you going when you or others have doubts. He also practices a mental exercise worth considering -- flip the problem by asking, "What if the opposite were true?". Freeman Dyson, the physicist, observes, "... it is easy when you have a problem to work on. The hardest part is finding your problem". The book cites how being in the right place at the right time contributes to being recognized. In Florence, Italy, between 1401 and 1425, an explosion of creativity took place. For example, for eighty years the cathedral of Florence lacked a dome, and yet the Pantheon of Rome had a dome (142 feet in diameter!) for a thousand years. Suddenly, Brunelleschi, who had analyzed the structure of the Pantheon, applied it to the problem at hand. The social, economic and political factors that made Florence the "right place at the right time" are detailed in the book. Are we, today, providing incentives for creativity to flourish? One aspect of this is what we can do as a society. The author notes children who suffer from hunger or discrimination are less likely to be curious or interested in novelty. Another aspect is what as individuals can we do to promote our own creativity. The author offers various ways to cultivate creativity. For example, preserve the awe of childhood, "be surprised by something every day". Write down some of your observations and follow-up with some research. Don't think certain things are not your business -- life is your business. While the author is a professor and former chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago, the book is free from pompous phraseology and is readable by just about anyone who is interested in understanding creativity. If you want to dispel myths, such as "creative people are hyperactive", "have very high IQs" and "lack humor", then read this book and find out the real facts about creative people. A big book -- 456 pages -- but a delightful book. Read it and donate it to your local library -- the truth is there, so get it out there. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience 2. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Masterminds Series) 3. The Evolving Self 4. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (P.S.) 5. Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius .
Favourite Lists: 1. Most Popular Books on Flow. 2. Creativity. 3. Pro-Thinking Pro Drinking. 4. Creativity & Innovation Research. 5. Kick Your Creativity into Gear. 6. Spark your creativity!. 7. Books about Human Potential, Creativity & Spirituality. 8. "HELP WANTED". 9. Creativity and productivity. 10. The Psychology of Optimal Self- Creativity & Intelligence....

7. Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativityby Teresa M Amabile
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US$38.00US$36.10US$1.9 (5%)Category: Paperback (1996-06-06)Publisher: Westview PressISBN: 0813330343Sales Rank: 469763Lowest New Price: $19.95 Lowest Used Price: $32.04 (8 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Creativity in Context is an update of The Social Psychology of Creativity, a classic text for researchers, students, and other interested readers. Creativity in Context incorporates extensive new material, going far beyond the original to provide a comprehensive picture of how the motivation for creative behavior, and creativity itself, can be influenced by the social environment.Teresa Amabile describes new findings from both her own research and from the work of many others in the field, detailing not only the ways in which creativity can be killed by social-psychological influences, but also the ways in which it can be maintained and stimulated. The research and the theory have moved beyond a narrow focus on the immediate social environment to a consideration of broad social influences in business organizations, classrooms, and society at large; beyond a documentation of social influences to a consideration of the cognitive mechanisms by which social factors might impact creativity; and beyond subject populations consisting of children and college students to an inclusion of professional artists, research scientists, and other working adults.Amabile describes a greatly expanded set of methodologies for assessing creativity, and introduces a set of methodologies for assessing the social environment for creativity in non-experimental studies. Throughout, the book maintains a clear focus on a comprehensive view of creativity—how the social context can influence motivation and how motivation, in conjunction with personal skills and thinking styles, can lead to the expression of creative behavior within that context. The result is a clarified theory of how creativity actually happens, with strong implications for supporting and increasing essential aspects of human performance.
... Read more
Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 5 reviews.
1This book is so dry that I thought that I was reading soda crackers. If there is valuable information between these covers, it is buried in dust.
Great Use of What Good Research Can Do Which is LimitedThe limitations of this book do not come from its author. She has covered a tremendous territory in a superbly orderly, clear, convincing, rigorous fashion. Rather the limitations come from what modern best-practice social psychology research methods are capable of--not all that much. We have known for about a 100 years (more if you are willing to take aristocratic idea play as pseudo-research) that creators operate more out of intrinsic than extrinsic motivation. We have known common folk opinions about what aspects of extrinsic motivation hinder creation. We have even had sources that suggested something like a distraction effect--any extrinsic motive that takes your eye off your process-of-creating contents and onto goals not yet reached or results not yet gathered reduce the quality and intensity of your process of creating. So this was known before Amabile came along with the first really competent application of social psychology research methods from the publish-or-perish generation of scholars raised up in universities by an older generation that did not abide by publish-or-perish norms themselves though they imposed such norms on a younger generation.
The result is paradoxic--Amabile is very thorough, systematic, comprehensive, rigorous in her research. Her virtues as a scholar and a person stand out so well in her work that the somewhat modest increments of overall new knowledge produced by that work suprises. It is not her fault. He is using imperfect tools masterfully. It literally is the fault of the tools. Modern social psychology has good enough tools to frame somewhat precisely research topics like "creativity". However as a sub-field of psychology and sociology it lacks tools adequate for a host of extremely important recent research questions about creativity. Wolfram in New Kind of Science (and his late 1980s papers) and Kauffman in Investigations along with a Santa Fe Institute host of others have put major conceptual underpinning under the old creativity conundrum--is it eras and fields that create creators and their creations or is it individual heroic Western style people who create fields and eras with their creations. Probably the single most important conceptual frame for such issues is Epstein and Axtel's Brookings/MIT Press book on Growing Artificial Societies. It reports simulated software hunter gatherer agents from which new social institution inventions arose without any individual agent, planning, intending, or inventing them. In other words it proved that new inventions can come into the world, the human civilized world, without any creator creating them. This result is percolating through the social sciences the way chaos theory percolated through the physical sciences years ago. Amabile is wonderful, make no doubt about it, buy everything that she writes if you are interested in creativity and well done research. However, in pursuing her own research frame on creativity she gets separated from major side frames invented by others, like the Wolfram, Kauffman, Epstein/Axtel 1996 one just mentioned. That makes her musings on "social" effects hindering/helping creativity less than complete, comprehensive, and unfortunately less than correct in a strict research sense. There are so many bright people in the world today that being wonderful yourself is not enough--you have to suffer daily the immense pain of importing into the core of your own barely formed work/ideation the wonders just discovered/invented by others. Amabile pursues one tool set and what it can show about social and motivation-in-particular effects on creation but in doing so she omits extremely powerful frameworks by others that undermine, enhance, contradict, and elaborate her own discoveries. THere is no blame here--she is only a human being and cannot simultaneously pursue even with a Harvard budget every creative avenue of social effect research on creativity--no one can. Only a super-human could. She is a good as human researchers get. Her books are never fast, sloppy, or commercial. She is wonderful, pure and simple. However, such wonderfulness has very severe limits, given the limited tools we have for social research these days and for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the other reviewers here who suggest her book is a final or complete source on social effects on creation are simply wrong--dangerously wrong. She is as good as it gets for her chosen tools, but there are other tools around that are extremely powerful in handling the same questions and that have produced immensely powerful results, some of which her tools cannot now handle as well. Read her and more, in sum.
Finally, and I hate to say this, when famous wonderful scholars develop really significant commercial consultancy operations from their work, businesses and others tend to apotheisize what they buy from such consulting scholars. These messages blend in academic and commercial markets making partial, tentative results, not representative of all that plural research approaches are now producing, into "the" knowledge on social effects on creativity. This chthonian exaggeration harms research and confuses markets, driving customers away from less famous emerging scholars and their alternative approaches. It unfortunately can turn into Harvard drawing so many funds for one research tool set and approach that a dozen less famous approaches emerging get nothing and are not heard or pursued. Society is the loser and history is hurt by these institutional forces. Again no individual is at fault--this is an institutional context flaw we all work in--but being aware of it in one's own work means inviting in for reader notice approaches not taken by oneself and recently emerging with potential for great contribution. She does a bit of this but only for well trodden famous other researchers, I am afraid.
Great Use of What Good Research Can Do Which is LimitedThe limitations of this book do not come from its author. She has covered a tremendous territory in a superbly orderly, clear, convincing, rigorous fashion. Rather the limitations come from what modern best-practice social psychology research methods are capable of--not all that much. We have known for about a 100 years (more if you are willing to take aristocratic idea play as pseudo-research) that creators operate more out of intrinsic than extrinsic motivation. We have known common folk opinions about what aspects of extrinsic motivation hinder creation. We have even had sources that suggested something like a distraction effect--any extrinsic motive that takes your eye off your process-of-creating contents and onto goals not yet reached or results not yet gathered reduce the quality and intensity of your process of creating. So this was known before Amabile came along with the first really competent application of social psychology research methods from the publish-or-perish generation of scholars raised up in universities by an older generation that did not abide by publish-or-perish norms themselves though they imposed such norms on a younger generation.
The result is paradoxic--Amabile is very thorough, systematic, comprehensive, rigorous in her research. Her virtues as a scholar and a person stand out so well in her work that the somewhat modest increments of overall new knowledge produced by that work suprises. It is not her fault. He is using imperfect tools masterfully. It literally is the fault of the tools. Modern social psychology has good enough tools to frame somewhat precisely research topics like "creativity". However as a sub-field of psychology and sociology it lacks tools adequate for a host of extremely important recent research questions about creativity. Wolfram in New Kind of Science and Kauffman in Investigations along with a Santa Fe Institute host of others have put major conceptual underpinning under the old creativity conundrum--is it eras and fields that create creators and their creations or is it individual heroic Western style people who create fields and eras with their creations. Probably the single most important conceptual frame for such issues is Epstein and Axtel's Brookings/MIT Press book on Growing Artificial Societies. It reports simulated software hunter gatherer agents from which new social institution inventions arose without any individual agent, planning, intending, or inventing them. In other words it proved that new inventions can come into the world, the human civilized world, without any creator creating them. This result is percolating through the social sciences the way chaos theory percolated through the physical sciences years ago. Amabile is wonderful, make no doubt about it, buy everything that she writes if you are interested in creativity and well done research. However, in pursuing her own research frame on creativity she gets separated from major side frames invented by others, like the Wolfram, Kauffman, Epstein/Axtel 1996 one just mentioned. That makes her musings on "social" effects hindering/helping creativity less than complete, comprehensive, and unfortunately less than correct in a strict research sense. There are so many bright people in the world today that being wonderful yourself is not enough--you have to suffer daily the immense pain of importing into the core of your own barely formed work/ideation the wonders just discovered/invented by others. Amabile pursues one tool set and what it can show about social and motivation-in-particular effects on creation but in doing so she omits extremely powerful frameworks by others that undermine, enhance, contradict, and elaborate her own discoveries. THere is no blame here--she is only a human being and cannot simultaneously puruse even with a Harvard budget every creative avenue of social effect research on creativity--no one can. Only a super-human could. She is a good as human researchers get. Her books are never fast, sloppy, or commercial. She is wonderful, pure and simple. However, such wonderfulness has very severe limits, given the limited tools we have for social research these days and for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the other reviewers here who suggest her book is a final or complete source on social effects on creation are simply wrong--dangerously wrong. She is as good as it gets for her chosen tools, but there are other tools around that are extremely powerful in handling the same questions and that have produced immensely powerful results, some of which her tools cannot now handle as well. Read her and more, in sum.
Finally, and I hate to say this, when famous wonderful scholars develop really significant commercial consultancy operations from their work, businesses and others tend to apotheisize what they buy from such consulting scholars. These messages blend in academic and commercial markets making partial, tentative results, not representative of all that plural research approaches are now producing, into "the" knowledge on social effects on creativity. This chthonian exaggeration harms research and confuses markets, driving customers away from less famous emerging scholars and their alternative approaches. It unfortunately can turn into Harvard drawing so many funds for one research tool set and approach that a dozen less famous approaches emerging get nothing and are not heard or pursued. Society is the loser and history is hurt by these institutional forces. Again no individual is at fault--this is an institutional context flaw we all work in--but being aware of it in one's own work means inviting in for reader notice approaches not taken by oneself and recently emerging with potential for great contribution. She does a bit of this but only for well trodden famous other researchers, I am afraid.
Best Book for Understanding the Social Impact on CreativityI am a management consultant for major corporations and also write business books. My clients frequently ask me to help them understand how to make their companies more creative. Almost all books on this subject ignore the influence of other people on the creative person. Teresa Amabile does just the opposite, and puts creativity into a context to explain how to establish a creative environment for everyone. This book is an update of her earlier work, and the additions are very valuable. If you are a business person who wants to learn how to grow sales and profits faster, you need to understand the lessons in this book. She wrote a summary of this book recently in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW that you may want to read, also. CORPORATE CREATIVITY is another good book on this subject.
Required reading for students of creativity.Outstanding analysis of psychological research on creativity and motivation. Must reading for scholars and laypeople alike who are interested in creativity. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Handbook of Creativity 2. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 3. Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament 4. The Human Brain: A Guided Tour (Science Masters Series) 5. A Colorful Introduction to the Anatomy of the Human Brain: A Brain and Psychology Coloring Book (2nd Edition) .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Academic books on creativity. 3. Enterprise Innovation Management (work in process). 4. Problem-Solving Principles. 5. Artistic Consciousness.

8. Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeistby Dean Keith Simonton
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US$28.99US$28.99Category: Paperback (2004-05-03)Publisher: Cambridge University PressISBN: 052154369XSales Rank: 737786Lowest New Price: $15.48 Lowest Used Price: $14.97 (14 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Where do major scientific breakthroughs come from? Do they arise from the logic of the scientific method, or do they result from flashes of genius? Are they the products of some mysterious zeitgeist, or spirit of the times, or do they emerge from chance or serendipity? Dean Simonton provides an answer, not by choosing one explanation and ignoring the others, but rather by unifying all four perspectives into a single theory in which chance plays the primary role, but with the significant involvement of logic, genius and zeitgeist.
Book Description
Where do major scientific breakthroughs come from? Do they arise from the logic of the scientific method or do they result from flashes of genius? Are they the products of some mysterious zeitgeist or spirit of the times, or do they emerge from chance, from serendipity? This books provides an answer not by choosing one explanation and ignoring the others, but rather by unifying all four perspectives into a single theory in which chance plays the primary role, but with significant involvement of logic, genius and zeitgeist.
... Read more
Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 2 reviews.
ExcellentSimonton is a lucid thinker and lucid writer, so I found this book a delight to read, though it's a challenging delight because it reads much like a PhD thesis, with careful reasoning, abundant use of empirical data, and more quantitative analysis than one might have expected. But that rigor is worth dealing with because many of Simonton's conclusions turn out to be counterintuitive. What is his central conclusion? In a sophisticated way, Simonton makes a strong case that chance (luck) is the dominant factor in scientific creativity and success, while also recognizing the supporting roles of genius (inborn ability), zeitgeist (culture), and logic (basic knowledge of one's scientific domain and its rules of inference). Yet Simonton also notes that "chance" isn't strictly random and out of our control, since the odds of coming up with important results can be increased by factors such as hard work (eg, increasing number of papers published), exposure to diverse and numerous influences, and fostering an iconoclastic attitude (willingness to think "outside the box," in opposition to prevailing paradigms). To place this book in a more "popular" context, please see my December 30, 2008 review of Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell. The bottom line is that I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in creativity and success in science, both at individual and group levels. The book requires sustained concentration, but the effort is well worth it. This book itself exemplifies creative and successful scientific work!
book reviewSimonton, Dean Keith. "Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist." Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK: 2004. This book is essentially an extended academic paper supporting this professor's argument for the causes of and correlations with creativity in science. The main idea of the book is that creativity in science is a function of chance, logic, genius, and zeitgeist. Simonton argues that the other 3 are included under the heading of chance. This is a very interesting idea because the conventional wisdom is that genius is the principal player in scientific creativity, and many would not be happy with suggestions otherwise. The main theory proposed by Simonton is that creative genius is simply a product of random and possibly unrelated ideas being combined in an interesting way through the combinatorial process. Simonton then makes a series of assumptions. From his theory and the assumptions, he concludes the existence of the equal-odds rule, which has been supported by empirical data. The equal-odds rule says that the average publication of any particular scientist does not have any statistically different chance of having more of an impact than any other scientist's average publication. In other words, those scientists who create publications with the most impact, also create publications with the least impact, and when great publications that make a huge impact are created, it is just a result of "trying" enough times. This is an indication that chance plays a larger role in scientific creativity than previously theorized. This book is filled with interesting quotes. One of my favorites is from a famous physicist named Bohr speaking about another theory. He says, "we are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough." This is an example of the kind of traits present in creative scientific people. The chart on the next page summarizes Simonton's findings in relation to the development, birth order, and disposition of creative minds in a concise way. As you may notice from the figure, Simonton also makes distinctions between artistic and scientific creativity. He argues that since logic is a requirement for all scientific creativity, and a detriment to most artistic creativity, these two types of creativity are very different. In addition, it is interesting to note that if a certain scientist never existed, their work would be replaced eventually be something similar, while this is not true for artists. He also argues that there is a stronger correlation in artistic creativity, with psychopathology, unconventional development, and other aspects on the figure below that lead to more random inputs in the combinatorial process. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA 2. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA 3. Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity 4. Creativity Inc.: Building an Inventive Organization 5. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Academic books on creativity.

9. Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Mindsby Jan Davidson, Bob Davidson, Laura Vanderkam
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US$24.00US$20.40US$3.6 (15%)Category: Hardcover (2004-04-06)Publisher: Simon & SchusterISBN: 0743254600Sales Rank: 176307Lowest New Price: $7.96 Lowest Used Price: $3.76 (32 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
With all the talk of failing schools these days, we forget that schools can fail their brightest students, too. We pledge to "leave no child behind," but in American schools today, thousands of gifted and talented students fall short of their potential. In Genius Denied, Jan and Bob Davidson describe the "quiet crisis" in education: gifted students spending their days in classrooms learning little beyond how to cope with boredom as they "relearn" material they've already mastered years before. This lack of challenge leads to frustration, underachievement, and even failure. Some gifted students become severely depressed. At a time when our country needs a deep intellectual talent pool, the squandering of these bright young minds is a national tragedy.
There are hundreds of thousands of highly gifted children in the U.S. and millions more whose intelligence is above average, yet few receive the education they deserve. Many school districts have no gifted programs or offer only token enrichment classes. Education of the gifted is in this sorry state, say the Davidsons, because of indifference, lack of funding, and the pernicious notion that education should have a "leveling" effect, a one-size-fits-all concept that deliberately ignores the needs of the gifted. But all children are entitled to an appropriate education, insist the authors, those left behind as well as those who want to surge ahead.
The Davidsons show parents and educators how to reach and challenge gifted students. They offer practical advice based on their experience as founders of a nonprofit organization that assists gifted children. They show parents how to become their children's advocates, how to win support for gifted students within the local schools, and when and how to go outside the school system. They discuss everything from acceleration ("skipping" a grade) to homeschooling and finding mentors for children. They tell stories of real parents and students who overcame poor schooling environments to discover the joy of learning.
Genius Denied is an inspiring book that provides a beacon of hope for children at risk of losing their valuable gift of intellectual potential.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 38 reviews.
Genius DeniedThis book describes the ways that our American society downplays intelligence as if it were a disgraceful way of showing favoritism in the schools, even though athletes are given great accolades for their skills in the same situations. It gives the reasons for these behaviors and suggests ideas for change. It also explains the difficulty of parenting gifted children who are often seen as pushy and/or bored. Real solutions, including patrons, tutors, mentors, and teachers along with school cooperation are discussed. It supports parents who are feeling isolated and rejected by the teachers and schools to continue mentoring and finding solutions for their child.
Great For EducatorsI am a college student who is pursuing a career in gifted education. I found this book very informative. It outlines the problems that gifted children face at most schools, and it gives many uplifting examples of things done right. This book is full of personal stories about kids who were able to reach their full potential with the help of some caring adults. I found Genius Denied to be quite inspirational. The corresponding web site is also very useful.
Not really worth itMy husband and I found the endless little stories about gifted children tiresome. Yes, yes, we KNOW there are gifted kids out there! We both ended up skimming the stories to get to any real informational meat, and even then, the book fell WAY short of our expectations. So sorry we paid full price for the book. Never again!
An analysis of a problem and an outline of a solutionThis book is not an "advice-book" about the gifted, although it does contain advices. This book describes the state of gifted education in the States and what should and could be done about it. For the benefit of those who think to read this book, I will describe it in a concise manner. The first three chapters outline the sorry state of gifted education. The authors explain that gifted children have special needs, as much as, other "exceptional" children. For me, the third chapter was their apogee. It explains the philosophy and flawed logic of those who are against any exceptions for the gifted. The next four chapters beautifully complement the first ones. They describe successful solutions to the problem, which are and have been used for some time now. They show how easy it can be to change the life of a child and human-being and ultimately of many others and even of the whole country. They give hope and ideas to all gifted children, parents of gifted children and others who "simply hate to see a talent wasted". Finally, the last chapter contains some useful advice to gifted students, parents of gifted children, educators, patrons, etc. Most of these advices can be read on the fine website which accompanies the book [...] A very nice quality of the book is its notes. Instead of any references to them in the text, or in a shape of a footnote, which disturbs the reading (pace and line-of-thoughts) considerably; all the notes are gathered (grouped by chapters) in the end of the book. Therefore, if you read about an author, research-paper or article and you'd like some more details, just go to the notes in the end of the book. If you don't, you shouldn't even think about it while reading and nobody will force some footnotes or artificial numbers in the text, upon you. On a more personal note, the book is informative and very entertaining to read. It is also very effusive. Having a first-hand experience with the subject, the book has brought in me, many emotions to the surface. From melancholy to delight, from anger to bliss, from bewailing to serene hope. I hope that this short description has helped you to understand what the book is about. Regardless of what you were looking for, if you are interested in the state of gifted education or simply in gifted, in any way, I highly recommend you to read this book. Yours Sincerely, G.G.
Eye OpeningI bought this because the assistant superintendent of our school district had recommended it. I have been rather at ease with allowing our two sons to go along with their age groups in school, but this book has made me realize that by not challenging them, I am cheating them. People need to realize that gifted education is an important compenent of education and this book shows why. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The Survival Guide for Parents of Gifted Kids: How to Understand, Live With, and Stick Up for Your Gifted Child 2. Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind 3. When Gifted Kids Don't Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs 4. The Gifted Kids' Survival Guide for Ages 10 & Under 5. Re-Forming Gifted Education: How Parents and Teachers Can Match the Program to the Child .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Are you a gifted young person?. 3. Books for and about Geniuses. 4. Curious about Geniuses and Prodigies?. 5. Genius Denied. 6. Gifted and Talented Great Reads. 7. Gifted books galore!. 8. Gifted and Talented Resources. 9. Favorite books for Parents of Gifted Children. 10. gifted and talented resources.

10. Creativity Inc.: Building an Inventive Organizationby Jeff Mauzy, Richard A. Harriman
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US$29.95US$29.35US$0.6 (2%)Category: Hardcover (2003-04-16)Publisher: Harvard Business School PressISBN: 1578512077Sales Rank: 475431Lowest New Price: $12.06 Lowest Used Price: $4.05 (25 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Fostering Companywide Creativity
Innovations, by definition, change and improve the status quo. Mostly, they do so in small ways, such as a twist on an already existing idea. But when they do so in big ways—such as a new idea altogether—innovations can catapult the inventing company years ahead of competitors.
Those kinds of innovations—from the wheel to the assembly line, from the pen to the PC—are born of creativity. And many companies are allowing this critical wellspring to run dry. In Creativity, Inc., Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman marshal forty years of research into how creative ideas happen and how they become innovations to reveal a set of fundamental principles for infusing creativity into every aspect of an organization.
The authors argue that sustained leadership comes from making creativity a broad, enterprise-wide capability that is "on" all the time—to fuel day-to-day innovative responses, to imagine multiple future possibilities, and to develop the foundation from which fundamental, purposeful innovations can be launched. Through vivid examples from a wide range of industries, they show how companies can rework organizational climate, structures, and procedures to build systemic creativity in individuals, in teams, and at the corporate level.
The book’s creativity framework—designed to be customized to a company’s unique needs—walks readers through four interacting dynamics that make up the creative process: motivation, curiosity and fear, the making and breaking of connections, and evaluation.
Individuals will learn how to: • Reclaim their own creative wellspring • Exercise creativity in all aspects of their work • Strengthen their ideas to address corporate response
Leaders of teams and organizations will learn how to: • Build a climate that supports constant creativity • Fuel daily creative response and long-term vision • Develop a ready foundation for transforming ideas into innovations
Marrying practical strategies with theoretical research, Creativity, Inc. shows how entire organizations can embody and implement creativity and innovation.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 8 reviews.
Fair content. Flat and unimaginative. There is some fair content, however I was not inspired or blown away so-to-speak with the presentation and usefulness of the book. It felt high-level, flat and academic at best. Shouldn't a book on creativity be creative?
Cabbages, Kings, and CreativityThere are so many other books now in print which offer valuable guidance to those who wish to increase creative and innovative thinking within their own organizations. I identify several of them at the conclusion of this brief commentary. Include Mauzy and Harriman's among them. In fact, it is one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking books on the separate but related subjects, creativity and innovation. Mauzy and Harriman agree with Teresa Amabile that creativity is the generation of novel and appropriate ideas whereas innovation implements those ideas "and thereby changes the order of things in the world." They carefully organize their material as follows: Part I: Creative Thinking (The Dynamics That Underlie Creative Thinking, Becoming Creatively Fit as an Individual;l, and Breaking and Making Connections for an Enterprise) Part II: Climate (The Climate for Creativity in an Enterprise and Personal Creative Climate: The Bubble) Part III: Action (Leadership: Fostering Systemic Creativity, Purposeful Creativity, and Sustaining the Change) I agree with Mauzy and Harriman that, "When systemic creativity is in place, creativity flourishes from top to bottom and across all functions. People and teams come up with blockbuster ideas that turn into multimillion-dollar products or even billion-dollar new businesses. Or they create ingenious marketing campaigns that ratchet up revenue, or lead process improvement programs that delight customers and empower employees alike, or implement restructuring initiatives that maximize cost reductions but minimize layoffs. And systemic creativity does not apply just to the big creative triumphs: People in organizations daily spark thousands of ideas that provide value in themselves and also build a higher plateau from which greater peaks of creativity can rise." I agree with Mauzy and Harriman that there is no "recipe" for systemic creativity but that most people within almost any organization (regardless of size or nature) can -- and will -- think more creatively if what Mauzy and Harriman characterize as "four critical dynamics" are present: motivation, curiosity and fear, the breaking and making of connections, and evaluation. True, there are individuals who -- almost single-handedly -- have generated novel and appropriate ideas or implemented someone else's ideas and thereby changed "the order of things in the world." However, there are more instructive examples of how important, climate, environment, culture, etc. are to nourishing creative thought by members of teams or coalitions. Perhaps the most widely cited example is the world's first research and development center which Thomas Edison established in West Orange, New Jersey, in 1887. Others exceptionally creative "communities" include the Disney studios which produced so many animation classics; Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) which developed the first personal computer; Apple Computer which then took it to market; the so-called "Skunk Works" where so many of Lockheed's greatest aircraft designs were formulated; and Los Alamos (NM) and the University of Chicago where the Manhattan Project eventually produced a new weapon called "The Gadget." Everyone seems to agree that having creative and innovative people throughout all levels of any organization is highly desirable and substantially beneficial. To achieve "systemic creativity," the question remains: HOW? The book which Mauzy and Harriman have written is their response to that question. I especially want to commend them on the fact that they devote much less attention to principles and much more attention to implementation than do most other books on this subject. With due respect to their talents as creators and innovators, I appreciate the fact that they are also pragmatists. No doubt each bears some scar tissue from combat with those who felt threatened by what is new or what is different. When nearing the conclusion of their book, Mauzy and Harriman assert that information "is the fluid expression of knowledge feeding the creative effort. Keep it available, keep it rich and diverse, keep it flowing. And remember to keep it flowing up to leadership, not just horizontally or from the top down....If you and your organization have the resolve to carry on, the creative effort you undertake now will continue. In evolving forms, the effort will begin again and still continue. The rewards that creativity brings will continue and renew as well." To paraphrase Henry Ford, whether you think you can or think you can't think creatively, you're right. Most limits really are self-imposed. For many of those who read Mauzy and Harriman's brilliant book, this will be the most exciting intellectual experience they have had in years. Those who share my high regard for it are urged to check out Evan Schwartz's Juice: The Creative Fuel That Drives World-Class Inventors. Also Harvard Business Review on Innovation and Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Thinking as well as Tom Kelley's The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm, Robert I. Sutton's Weird Ideas That Work: 11 1/2 Practices for Promoting, Managing, and Sustaining Innovation, Roger Von Oech's Expect the Unexpected or You Won't Find It: A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus, Joey Reiman's Thinking for a Living: Creating Ideas That Revitalize Your Business, Career, and Life, Doug Hall Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less, and Make More Money with Your New Products, Services, Sales & Advertising, and Michael Michalko's Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius.
From The Innovation Road Map MagazineBecause I've studied and read so much about creativity I must admit that I approached this book with a certain amount of trepidation. I wasn't sure that I wanted to read it. I told myself, just read the intro and the first chapter and then stop if you don't like it. Well, I didn't stop. It was an enjoyable read throughout with many insights along the way. What the authors bring forward in this book is a methodological approach to creativity in organizations, more particularly corporations. They describe a system that seems to touch all the right points in order to increase creativity in an organization. In addition, they provide some helpful information for individuals who want to improve their own creativity. The book is broken into three parts and eight chapters: Part 1 - Creative thinking  The Dynamics That Underlie Creative Thinking  Becoming Creatively Fit as an Individual  Breaking and Making Connections for an Enterprise Part2 - Climate  The Climate for Creativity in an Enterprise  Personal Creative Climate: The Bubble Part 3 - Action  Leadership: Fostering Systemic Creativity  Purposeful Creativity  Sustaining the Change When an organization has systemic creativity, the authors write "systemic creativity becomes an integral part of everyday operations and spawns new thought, from small changes to breakthroughs, that organizations now need in every activity that makes a competitive difference. For this to happen, creativity must become the responsibility of everyone - every leader and senior manager as well as every employee. Systemic creativity is only systemic when everyone in an organization learns how to practice it and then promotes it constantly." This is not an easy task in today's short-term, bottom-line, stockholder-value driven organization. The authors point out "The behaviors required for successful creativity are out of tune with the behaviors that make a company operationally efficient, well-organized and clear-sighted on its mission and goals." The authors also correctly point out that there is no "right way" to foster creativity in an organization. The approach depends upon a number of factors. "There are, however, basic principles and practical techniques that have stood the test of time." This book is a great contribution that goal. The book is informed by six basic understandings: 1. There is no recipe for systemic creativity. 2. Creativity and innovation are two distinct concepts. 3. Creativity happens with individuals, coalitions and teams, and organizations. 4. There are four critical dynamics. 5. Creativity depends on climate. 6. Systemic creativity asks everyone to be a leader. According to the authors, the four inter-linking dynamics of creativity are motivation, curiosity and fear, making and breaking connections, and evaluation. In the authors' model, making and breaking connections within an enterprise is the pivotal dynamic of the creative process. To foster this, they encourage conflict of ideas, encourage risk taking, the promotion of diversity, organizing for intrinsic motivation, the development of information flows that support creativity, and the utilization of more and less information. The "conflict of ideas" concept is one of the few areas in the book that I find myself disagreeing. I have found that the metaphor of battle in creativity to be de-motivating for many people. There may be certain personality types that enjoy competition over new ideas, but there are even more people who find this stressful and a turnoff. I think what needs to be fostered in organizations to promote creativity is the development and facilitation of conversations about ideas. Non judgmental conversations about ideas usually generates new ideas that quite often are better than the originals. To converse is to turn around together. The authors make a distinction between climate and culture. The difference according to their definition is understandable. Many models of culture include a hierarchy of philosophies, beliefs, values and behaviors. Values set expectations and therefore the author's definition of climate encompasses values and behaviors. The concept of a personal creative climate, a "bubble" is an extremely powerful one. There are many distractions, conflicting priorities, and decentives to creativity in organizations. I have always found for myself, as well as observing the behavior of others, that those who can create this "bubble" are the most productive and the most creative. The authors end the book with some wise advice to would be promoters of creativity in organizations. They write "As the change to systemic creativity goes forward, everything covered in the introduction and the first seven chapters - from the dynamics of the creative process and their relationship to individuals and companies, through personal; and corporate climate, through leadership and innovation - requires continued attention, reinforcement, exercise, follow-through, and reinvention." They explain that the forces against creativity are so strong, that without continued reinforcement and reinvention, any approach to systemic creativity will fail. Their advice:  Plan ahead  Record results  Expect resistance  Encourage the flow of information "More than forty years ago, in The Human Side of Enterprise, Douglas MacGregor challenged the command-and-control assumptions about the business establishment: `The distinctive potential contribution of the human being...at every level of the organization stems form his capacity to think, to plan, to exercise judgement, to be creative, to direct and control his own behavior.' MacGregor was arguing on behalf of the creative climate. Today, while there has been much progress, too few leaders ask and expect creativity of their employees; too few leaders provide the climate in which creativity can flourish." How true! Jeff Mauzy is a Consulting Manager and Richard Harriman is Managing Partner at Synectics, a pioneering consulting firm specializing in business creativity and innovation.
Exemplary creativityJeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman's seminal volume on systematic creativity garnered a lasting impression largely due to his gift for making the corporate world intelligible. The book is not solely intended for the tenacious "higher-ups" that dictate the feel of the workplace, but instead tends towards the hands-on approach that is the hallmark of the individuated sucessful corporation.

The main thrust of his approach is to create a kind of learning environment that allows for "growth" and "specialization" in a particular field. Mauzy's knack for egalitarian leadership is firmly based in his experience in child-rearing. Allowing a young person to mature into a specialized and highly competant individual is analogous to the process that Mauzy and Harriman espouse.

I found it to be especially useful when the book described the creative process as being like the teaching of mathematics. It seems counter-intuitive to link creativity to mathematics, but in fact one can be expressive within a rigidly defined field, much like the corporate world itself. I highly recommend this book for its emphasis on the educational and mathematical aspects of corporate creativity.
40 years of creativity research delivered in a fun packageCreativity cannot be reserved for the R&D team or the marketing department. Every enterprise needs to be creative at all times, in all areas, and in all activities. This is what Jeff Mauzy and Richard Harriman call "systematic creativity". Their call for universal and constant creativity might be a slight stretch but it stretches in the right direction. The universal nature of their opening message does not carry over into some unique formula for fostering systemic creativity. Instead of one "right" way, they draw on four decades of research in the field of creativity to set out basic principles and practical techniques that have endured.
The emphasis on tested principles and practices in place of a fixed recipe is the first of six underlying central assumptions for the book. The second assumption is that creativity and innovation are two distinct concepts. The authors follow clear practice in distinguishing creativity - "the generation of novel and appropriate ideas" - from innovation - which "implements those ideas". A third central assumption is that creativity occurs in three areas: individuals, coalitions and teams, and organizations. The remaining pillars that hold up the perspective of Creativity, Inc.: Underlying creativity are four interconnected dynamics that form the "heartbeat" of systemic creativity: motivation, curiosity and fear, the breaking and making of connections, and evaluation; Creativity depends on climate; Systematic creativity asks everyone to be a leader.
This stimulating, informative, and cleanly written book is organized in three parts. Part I, Creative Thinking, Part II, Climate, and Part III, Action. The first two parts examine a range of aspects involved in building individual and organizational creative capability, while the final part shows how to connect creativity to purposeful work. Happily, the authors understand that organizations find it easier to boost creativity temporarily; making it stick as an integral part of the organization is much tougher. They devote the final chapter to "Sustaining the Change".
If you're the kind of reader who likes to go beyond the main text and dig into the authors' sources and references, you'll be delighted to find that the compact (185 pages) of the main text is followed by copious chapter notes and references. Creativity, Inc. provides a rich set of principles and tools for steeping every aspect of your organization in creativity. Mauzy and Harriman's book on systemic creativity complements work on systematic innovation processes. Businesses that manage to get the twin engines of creativity and innovation running at full power will have the only enduring competitive advantage left. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Managing Organizational Change: A Multiple Perspectives Approach 2. Developing Critical Thinkers : Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting (Jossey-Bass Higher Education Series) 3. Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist 4. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life 5. Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating And Profiting from Technology .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity at Work. A Human Resources Guide. 2. Creativity & Innovation Research. 3. How To Get Creative With Work. 4. Spark your creativity!. 5. The Best Books for New and Small Businesses. 6. Building a Winning Organizational Culture. 7. Creativity for Businesspeople. 8. Produce a Purple Cow. 9. Corporate Innovation Books. 10. My Collection of Creative Thinking for Business Books.

11. Group Creativity: Innovation through Collaboration
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US$49.95US$39.96US$9.99 (20%)Category: Hardcover (2003-09-04)Publisher: Oxford University Press, USAISBN: 0195147308Sales Rank: 758413Lowest New Price: $33.16 Lowest Used Price: $38.00 (7 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Univ. of Texas, Arlington. Text focuses on how group creativity is affected by factors such as cognitive fixation and flexibility, group diversity, minority dissent, decision-making, brainstorming, and support systems. Also focuses on how various contextual and environmental factors affect the creative processes of groups.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 2 reviews.
Bruno-Faria reviewsIt is a very important book because the theme "creativity in groups" is essential in the organizational context and there is a single in the area. Moreover, the book brings differents approaches about the subject.
Outlines the next 20 years of research in creativityThis will become a fundamental book for every researcher and practitioner who wishes to understand what creativity is about. It certainly does not contain all the answers (mostly still unknown), but it does present most of the relevant questions that will shape our understanding of this topic in the next two decades. Make a good investment and buy this book and/or look for these researchers' work online. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation 2. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration 3. Handbook of Organizational Creativity 4. Handbook of Creativity 5. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

12. Howard Gardner Under Fire: The Rebel Psychologist Faces His Critics
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$36.95Category: Paperback (2006-11-29)Publisher: Open CourtISBN: 0812696042Sales Rank: 922072Lowest Used Price: $247.85 (2 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Thirteen critical essays challenge Howard Gardner's theories of multiple intelligences, ability traits, U-shaped curves in development, and other psychological concepts of spirituality, creativity, and leadership. All are answered by Gardner himself, and his pungent replies, coupled with the essays, create a provocative, no-holds-barred debate. Also included are an intellectual autobiography and bibliography.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 2 reviews.
Eye at the Center of the StormWell balanced presentation of the arguments generated by the man and his work. Most critiques were appropriately about Gardner's theory and not personal attacks. Most. Unfortunately, Gardner has been long reviled/credited with statements and applications of his theory that he did not make. It was heartening to see that he has been presented a forum in which to clarify some of these issues. Academic territory is jealously guarded with a seeming scarcity mentality. There should always be room for new ideas, and healthy discussion clarifies and hones the theory. Considering the nature of some of the challenges to which he responded, I thought the man remained open, honest, and considered in his responses.
Much criticism - here refuted.HOWARD GARDNER UNDER FIRE: THE REBEL PSYCHOLOGIST FACES HIS CRITICS is for any college-level reader in either psychology or education who already have some gasp of Gardner'' contributions in these areas. Before Gardner's FRAMES OF MIND there was little opposition to the paradigm of IQ: his works changed how intelligence was perceived and measured, and generated much criticism - here refuted. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice 2. Five Minds for the Future 3. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century 4. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 5. Development and Education of Mind: The Selected Works of Howard Gardner (World Library of Educationalists Series) .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

13. The Creativity Passion: E. Paul Torrance's Voyages of Discovering Creativity (Publications in Creativity Research)by M. K. Raina
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US$49.95US$49.95Category: Paperback (2000-05-24)Publisher: Ablex PublishingISBN: 1567503896Sales Rank: 2316143Lowest New Price: $32.00 Lowest Used Price: $32.00 (3 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Raina uses the case study method as a tool for examining the life work of a man who has devoted his life to creativity studies. Ellis Paul Torrance's methods could in fact be disseminated in every classroom the world over. This work provides a fine perspective from which to appreciate the nature of Torrance's creativity and evolution of some of his theoretical and empirical creative endeavors. Raina remains true to the goal of contributing to the scientific understanding of creativity and passion.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 2. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

14. More Ways Than One: Fostering Creativity in the Classroom (Creativity Research)by Arthur J. Cropley
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US$33.95US$33.95Category: Paperback (1992-01-01)Publisher: Ablex PublishingISBN: 089391939XSales Rank: 680157Lowest New Price: $5.01 Lowest Used Price: $3.29 (9 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Current conceptualizations of children's thinking tend to be unneccesarily narrow, and to focus on what might be called "convergent" thinking. As a result, invention and innovation are often underemphasized in schools. This text aims to encourage a broad understanding of intellect, and attempts to help teachers to recognize and foster more varied forms of intellectual activity in their students. It offers a review of recent theory on creativity, conceptualizing this as a matter of getting ideas, trying the new, branching out and the like, rather than of producing artistic or scientific products. It discusses the factors in the classroom which block this more "divergent" kind of thinking and suggests practical ways through which teachers can promote bolder and more innovative intellectual activity in their students. This involves not merely cognitive factors (thinking, remembering, reasoning) but also motivation (courage and willingness), personality (openness to the new, self-confidence), and social factors (nonconformity, ability to communicate ideas). The text is applied in orientation, contains a large number of examples and case studies, and aims at providing practicing teachers with guidelines.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Creativity Games for Trainers: A Handbook of Group Activities for Jumpstarting Workplace Creativity (McGraw-Hill Training Series) 2. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 3. Creativity in Education & Learning 4. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration 5. Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition) .
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15. Understanding and Recognizing Creativity: The Emergence of a Discipline (Publications in Creativity Research)by Scott G. Isaksen, Mary C. Murdock, Roger L. Firestien
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US$188.95US$188.95Category: Hardcover (1993-01-01)Publisher: Ablex PublishingISBN: 0893919829Sales Rank: 2466891Lowest New Price: $188.95 Lowest Used Price: $159.98 (1 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
This volume addresses key issues and assumptions about creativity as a potential discipline, making the progress of creativity studies more explicit and communicable to those within and outside of the field.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The Nature of Creative Development 2. The International Handbook of Creativity .
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16. Genius: The Natural History of Creativity (Problems in the Behavioural Sciences)by H. J. Eysenck
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US$65.00US$65.00Category: Paperback (1995-06-30)Publisher: Cambridge University PressISBN: 0521485088Sales Rank: 388542Lowest New Price: $56.44 Lowest Used Price: $33.66 (11 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Genius: The Natural History of Creativity presents a novel theory of genius and creativity that is based on the personality characteristics of creative persons and geniuses. Starting with the fact that genius and creativity are frequently related to psychopathology, this book brings together many different lines of research into the subject. Professor Eysenck provides experimental evidence to support these theories in their application to creativity. He considers the role of intelligence, social status, gender, and many other factors that have been linked with genius and creativity. His theory traces creativity from DNA through personality to special cognitive processes to genius. The book will generate a great deal of interest in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, and sociology.
Book Description
This text presents a novel theory of creativity that is based on the linkage between the psychopathological characteristics of creative persons and geniuses. It traces creativity from DNA through personality to special cognitive processes and the qualities of genius.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 1 reviews.
Out of responsabilityAs no one has reviewed this book, I will do so even though I didn't buy it from Amazon. The book is not the most exciting read ever. It reads very much like a psychology research book. The message behing it all is what's important. Eysenck gives the Minesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory to creative geniuses and his findings are the following:1) Geniuses average on the top 15% of the population in all psychopathological scales.2) Geniuses are always on the top of the Ego Strenght scale.His argument is that it may be the fact that they believe that they are geniuses that make them so.It's a good book. I gave it to my brother once as a Christmas present. I'm sure Eysenck would appreciate the extra income. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity 2. Metaphors We Live By 3. Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativity 4. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 5. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. London School Classics. 3. Genius. 4. What the Bleep, Bleep, Bleep.

17. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practiceby Howard Gardner
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US$19.95US$13.57US$6.38 (32%)Category: Paperback (2006-07-03)Publisher: Basic BooksISBN: 0465047688Sales Rank: 13168Lowest New Price: $11.09 Lowest Used Price: $4.99 (20 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Gardner's seminal 1993 account of the practical applications of Multiple Intelligences theory is now completely updated and expanded to reflect the latest developments in the field
Howard Gardner's brilliant conception of individual competence has changed the face of education in the twenty-three years since the publication of his classic work, Frames of Mind. Since then thousands of educators, parents, and researchers have explored the practical implications and applications of Multiple Intelligences theory--the powerful notion that there are separate human capacities, ranging from musical intelligence to the intelligence involved in self-understanding.
The first decade of research on MI theory and practice was reported in the 1993 edition of Multiple Intelligences. This new edition covers all developments since then and stands as the most thorough and up-to-date account of MI available anywhere. Completely revised throughout, it features new material on global applications and on MI in the workplace, an assessment of MI practice in the current conservative educational climate, new evidence about brain functioning, and much more.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 4 reviews.
Best thing to hit education reform since...um....ever.I deeply encourage you to learn about the multiple intelligences. Gardeners concepts are shared by teachers, educators, naturalists, facilitators and business owners worldwide and profoundly impactful. The implications of his work, and that of Project Zero deserve the highest honors.
Gardner Returns to Multiple Intelligences TheoryIt was in 1983 that Howard Gardner first decided to challenge the established view of a monolithic intelligence with the book Frames of Mind. In that book, Gardner posited that there are (at least) seven relatively seperate and autonomous intelligences. And 25 years later, this theory is still setting the education world ablaze. The discipline of psychology, however, has been a bit less enthusiastic. They, much more than educators, demand hard evidence in order for a theory claiming to be scientific is accepted as such. Is Garnder's theory testable? If so, has it undergone such testing? Can these intelligences (including 'musical' and 'naturalistic') be measured by objective standards? If not, is it an adequate substitute to the reigning model of 'general intelligence' which, with all its flaws, IS measurable in such a way? In this book, Gardner sets out to expand upon his 25 year old theory and, in so doing, answer some of the preceeding questions. Some will be disappointed and some will be encouraged by his answers. The first section of the book devotes itself largely to questions of MI Theory's methodological standing. Several chapters - particularly towards the beginning of the book - seek to answer objections to MI theory. As to the question of whether the theory can be called scientific, Gardner reluctantly answers a "no." He writes MI theory "intermediary status" between a philosophy and a predictive science. He suggests, though, that it can be put in a similar category with plate tectonics and evolution, in the sense that neither theory is a predictive sceince in a falsifiable sense (which is mistaken, as both are tested by retrodictions and, in evolution's case, also by predictions). Further, Gardner admits that designing assessments for these intelligences has proved to be more than challenging and that he has given up the search for ways to assess them. There is, though, a chapter devoted to detailing a promising new study put together by Project Spectrum, to test elementary schoolers on these seperate intelligences. They were tested (a) to see if the intelligences are interrelated or autonomous by investigating whether high scores in any one area correlate with high scores in any other. The reports are that the intelligences are, by in large, seperate - as Gardner predicted they would be. They also tested to see whether the student's strengths on the tests were echoed by parent and teacher reports gotten independently. (There was correlation, but not so much as to be conclusive). The section that will be most useful to my fellow educators, however, will be the second section. For roughly 80 pages, Gardner expounds on his theory and its possible uses in the field of education. Gardner is quite famous for his 'value free' stance here. He suggests that there are many, many uses for MI theory in education. He tries both in this book and elsewuere to refrain from too much prescription, acknowledging that educators probably know better than he how to apply the work of a cognitive psychologist to schools. However, he is passionate about two things educationally in this book. First, he is very displeased at the 'high stakes testing' mentality that has been developed of late. Like the concept of 'general intelligence,' Gardner sees this as being a very 'one-size-fits-all' way of assessing, and probably mis-assessing, knowledge. Gardner is also very passionate about making sure that we see the 'ends' of schooling as pluralistic. Consistent with the idea of Multiple Intelligences, we must strike a balance between making sure that everyone recieve a common education and making sure that everyone is able to pursue their own strengths, interests, and proclivities to the extent possible. It is hard to disagree with much that Gardner says, particularly in this and the next section (where he takes a look at MI theory's applicability betyond education). Even as one who is a bit skeptical of whether MI theory can ever be a scientific one (and whether there might be bettter models of Intelligence, like that of Robert Sternberg), it is difficult not to come away with much admiration for Gardner. He obviously cares about education and comes to his conclusions out of balanced and rigorous thought. This should be read by educators and those interested in the psychology of intelligence alike.
Hallmark of Multiple Intelligences TheoryGardner is a witty author with strikingly brilliant mind and admirable reverence toward the human divinity. In his book, Gardner manifests the notion of intelligence, as a bio-psychological potential, a computational capacity and a mental chemistry set and subsequently sheds lights on the commonly misconceived concept of intelligence as a one-dimensional human potential, characterized by the g or IQ metrics. With his eloquent style, Gardner articulates the social, educational and psychological impacts of the multiple-intelligence theory rendering speculation on how intelligence shows its multifaceted attributes in various forms such as Mathematical-Logical, Kinesthetic, Musical, IntEr-personal, IntrA-personal, Linguistic, Spatial, Naturalistic and Existentialist abilities. Upon reading the book, I found some interesting answers to my life-long inquiries regarding to the intelligence such as; 1. Why individuals with strong abilities in certain areas of mathematics, such as algebra or probability theory do not necessarily indicate strengths in other areas of mathematical sciences such as geometry or topology? 2. How the society can take advantage of the MI theory to bridge between the ethical values and individuals' capacities. 3. How a creative educator can achieve the "understanding" by exercising various avenues, such as foundational, quantitative, aesthetic, logical and existential methods to stir and incite the human intellect. Gardner makes no effort to back up his hypothesis through psychometric experiments and I believe he has done this deliberately. More specifically, he believes any effort to benchmark the performances of individuals against these metrics would create a new version of human labeling, a concept that he certainly refrains to delve and investigate. Instead of putting effort in benchmarking these abilities in human minds, he believes efforts need to be made to identify, enhance and exercise the abilities that help the individuals to thrive in the areas that they have been blessed with, irrespective of society norms. Chapter 1 of the book contains the highlights of his theory and covers various forms of intelligence. The introduction of the existential intelligence as a form of computational capacity is rather unpersuasive, knowing the fact that it is defined as an attribute (intelligence of big questions) and not as a mental ability. Favorite quote of this chapter; "Having strong intelligence does not mean that one necessarily acts intelligently". Chapter 2 of the book covers the semantics of the intelligence. An interesting topic in this chapter is the profile of the intelligence in which Gardner discusses how the intensity, diversity and locality of these potentials in an individual can result in spot-light or laser characteristics. Chapter 3 provides a chronologic view of intelligence. Gardner tries to provide a simplified and standardized conception of the intelligence development across the life span of a human being. He also discusses the framework for the analysis and examination of the human intellect. This chapter is quite dry and lacks ardor. In my opinion, putting framework around something that has no boundary is rather counterintuitive. Chapter 4 is the prelude of the educational impact of the intelligence. The very interesting topic in this section is the subject of "Multiple Representation of the Key Concepts". Resorting to the notion of multiple-intelligences, Gardner believes that there are numerous ways that an educator can approach a topic in pursuit of understanding. This methodology also helps students to think about a problem in a variety of ways, triggering the thought process in the most diverse form. Chapter 5 is a pool of questions that individuals have asked Gardner regarding to his theories. Of special interest in this section is the topic of memory and its different faculties such as procedural memory, propositional memory, semantic memory, short and long-term memories. I believe this topic deserved more elaboration, or at minimum more references. Favorite quote from this chapter: "I often encounter the greatest resistance to this perspective when I speak to mathematicians or logicians. To these individuals, thinking is critical thinking, wherever you encounter it; if one knows how to be logical, one should be able to apply logic everywhere (And if you don't, life is hopeless !)". Chapters 6 to 10 have heavy weights toward education. Of special interest is the chapter 8 and the topic on multiple entry point toward disciplinary understanding. Gardner discusses how an informed educator can use various entry points, such as narrational, logical, quantitative, foundational, aesthetic, experimental and collaborative methods in approaching the topic. The examples given in this section are extremely valuable for all educators. As you progress toward the end chapters, the modality of manuscript transitions toward ethics. To some extent, the progression of the thought process in this book is analogous to Gardner's perspective toward the subject; in his early life his motivation toward intelligence was mainly driven and influenced by cognitive sciences and psychometric studies, whereas his recent research and interest have roots in social impacts, ethics and humanity. In summary, this book is an instant classic on the topic of multiple-intelligences, a must have book for the fireside at home.
Bringing Multiple Intelligences into the 21st CenturyHoward Gardner summarizes his mulitple intelligences theory first introduced in his 1983 book Frames of Mind. Gardner introduces a provisional acceptance of a ninth intelligence (Existential Intelligence--pondering deep, life questions) to add to the eight intelligences already established. Gardner updates his theory's relevance to education and to other arenas in society. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Five Minds for the Future 2. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 3. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century 4. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think And How Schools Should Teach 5. Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People's Minds (Leadership for the Common Good) .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Teaching Fellows recommendations. 3. The Psychology of Optimal Self- Creativity & Intelligence.... 4. Great Art Teacher References. 5. Gifted Adults.

18. Five Minds for the Futureby Howard Gardner
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US$26.95US$17.79US$9.16 (34%)Category: Hardcover (2007-04-03)Publisher: Harvard Business School PressISBN: 1591399122Sales Rank: 43886Lowest New Price: $13.73 Lowest Used Price: $9.98 (25 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
We live in a time of vast changes. And those changes call for entirely new ways of learning and thinking. World-renowned for his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner takes that thinking to the next level in this book, drawing from a wealth of diverse examples to illuminate his ideas. Concise and engaging, "Five Minds for the Future" will inspire lifelong learning in any reader as well as provide valuable insights for those charged with training and developing organizational leaders - both today and tomorrow.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 25 reviews.
Thought-provoking Work for AcademicsAgain, I am fascinated by Gardner's ideas. The focus this time is more on the discipline, academics, and ensuring synthesis in learning. A worthwhile read for any educator.
VisionaryDr. Gardner is a visionary. His recommendations will lead us into the 21st century through a perception that applies to all aspects of our lives.
outstanding bookThis book by Gardner is one of the most important about education and personal development.The concepts are new and well described.A book worth reading and rereading.
Five Minds for the Technology ProfessionalHoward Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, is a psychologist and author known for his theory of multiple intelligences. Application of his theory, especially for education, has been controversial. But I think his latest book, Five Minds for the Future, is a must read for technology professionals. His thesis is that, "...vast changes that include accelerating globalization, mounting quantities of information, the growing hegemony of science and technology, and the clash of civilizations," requires, "capabilities that, until now, have been mere options." He describes "Five Minds," or cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead: 1. The Disciplinary Mind -- the mastery of major schools of thought (including science, mathematics, and history) and of at least one professional craft. 2. The Synthesizing Mind -- the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others. 3. The Creating Mind -- the capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions and phenomena. 4. The Respectful Mind -- awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings and human groups. 5. The Ethical Mind -- fulfillment of one's responsibilities as a worker and as a citizen. While the book is not directed specifically at technology professionals, I found much of what he said echoed characteristics of the most effective people I know: deep domain expertise, intellectual curiosity, creativity, global perspective, knowledge of and respect for diverse cultures, and teamwork. It is and will continue to be possible for anyone with a few of these characteristics to succeed in technology, but I believe those who excel and assume positions of leadership will exhibit all of these abilities.
Insight into five pivotal thinking habitsHoward Gardner is a man of many minds. The Harvard psychologist, MacArthur "genius grant" recipient and prolific author started a revolution when he claimed that human capability couldn't be reduced to a single metric. Rather than accepting IQ as the whole story of cognitive capacity, Gardner said people have "multiple intelligences," a notion he popularized in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence. Twenty-five years later, Gardner is still producing influential work on human mental skills and capabilities. In this clear, eminently useful book, Gardner describes five cognitive capacities that he predicts will be in most demand in the future and which everyone should practice. While he describes them metaphorically as "minds," these forms of thought are neither wholly innate nor immutable. All people can, through diligent practice, cultivate their disciplined mind, their synthesizing mind, their creative mind, their respectful mind and their ethical mind - and they should. Given accelerating technological change and vast increases in the flow of information and the necessity of working closely with many different kinds of people worldwide, getAbstract is of a mind to recommend this book to managers who are trying to think ahead. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future 2. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice 3. Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People's Minds (Leadership for the Common Good) 4. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century 5. Outliers: The Story of Success .
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19. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligencesby Howard E. Gardner
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US$22.00US$14.96US$7.04 (32%)Category: Paperback (1993-04-20)Publisher: Basic BooksISBN: 0465025102Sales Rank: 13533Lowest New Price: $9.76 Lowest Used Price: $2.87 (81 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
More than 200,00 copies of earlier editions have been sold; this reissue includes a new introduction by the author to mark the twenty-first birthday of this remarkable book.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 27 reviews.
The original work on Multiple IntelligencesGardner book review Professor Howard Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences has had a significant effect on our understanding of the concept of intelligence and, especially on education. The recently published Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Gardner's theory, Frames of Mind, is both a reason for celebration and an excuse for reading this work if you have not already done so. There are two cautions, however. The first is that the text is 20 years old and, given the attention that has been paid to MI, not the latest information on this topic. The book does contain an introduction to the 10th and 20th editions, but this is hardly sufficient. The second is that Gardner writes in the heavy, pedantic style of academics and thus it is difficult for the ordinary person to understand. Still, the effort is worth while. In brief, Gardner challenges the then prevailing idea that intelligence is a single generalized entity. Instead, "I argue that there is persuasive evidence for the existence of several relatively autonomous (emphasis in original) human intellectual competencies. These are the "frames of mind' of my title." Gardner goes on to identify seven such competencies: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and the personal intelligences (intra-and inter-personal. In Part II of the book he presents the theory behind these intelligences and in Part III the implications and applications. The theory includes evidence from biology and experimental evidence especially from people with some special mental condition (such as autism). Part III is relatively short and thus the reader will need to consult later works to see how MI has been applied. That MI has had a great influence on education can be seen from the following example. I am currently working in Beijing, China where I am developing a new education curriculum. I was describing this work to a student at Beijing Normal (teachers) University and said that I planned to use the idea of multiple intelligences in the curriculum. She said, "Oh, yes, Gardner, we know all about it." I rate the book at four stars because it is the place to start learning about this concept, but is in itself not sufficient. This idea is especially important to educators, but everyone will benefit from having a better understanding of human intelligence.
StunningFor several years I thought of things that are studied by the howard gardner " Frames of Mind" So far the book has been more than I expected, and makes parents think about what they have to teach their kids at home, and how to realize the different types of perspectives towards dealing with children. A very important trait is the defenition of theory and hypothesis, intresting that the MI is known as a theory with so many people antagonizing with it. kids have an amazing potential waiting to be revealed and the only way to do it is to understand personally all the "Frames " that form your children hidden capacity and potential. When you read the book you realize and understand a lot of reactions and the effect of your knoledge over their learning skills. The book is oriented to teachers, but who could better teach our own children than us.
Freedom to Pursue Our Natural Gifts! A Liberating and Spiritual Awakening Book! Although the concept of Multiple Intelligences had existed for some time, Gardner brings fresh thoughts to the subject. His book "Frames of Mind" explains a non exhaustive list of human intelligences. The book is an academic study primarily written for experts in his field. Although good, it can be tough to read for people outside the field. Thomas Armstrong helped interpret these intelligences for the general population in his book: 7 Kinds of Smart. Having said that, Frames of Mind it is a powerful work that is worth investing the time to read and understand for those who want to understand the roots of the subject. Whether there are seven kinds of intelligences or more is not that crucial, nor is the possibility that there are subsets to any or all of these different types of intelligences. What is important is that if there are multiple intelligences, (and I for one agree), then a whole new world of opportunities awaits those who are willing to learn their true strengths and passions in life. Formal schooling puts strong emphasis on Logical-Mathematical and Linguistic intelligence. Musical Intelligence (music class), Body Kinesthetic and Spatial-Intelligence (gym), Interpersonal Intelligence (intertwined in all classes--getting along with others), and Intrapersonal Intelligence (not taught much) are considered lower priority intelligences in our schools. Logical-Mathematical and Linguistic intelligences are clearly important. However, knowing about and exploring your other intelligences is beneficial as well. Knowing that you possess other intelligences and the ability to pursue your natural gifts (full or part time) can be a liberating experience and a spiritual awakening! The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking 7 (Seven) Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Multiple Intelligences
OverwhelmedI was looking for an intro/overview of Multiple Intelligences. Written for a college student by a professor. Way over my head, dry, but incredible references. Not for a beginner.
Original and intelligent way of understanding human abilitiesIn one sense what Howard Gardner does in this book is expand our sense of what the human mind is and the human being actually does. For instead of accepting what had long been the standard model in which there are essentially only two different kinds of Intelligence, verbal and mathematical he takes note of other sides of our action which were not connected with the theory and study of Intelligence. Gardner suggests that there are seven basic kinds of Intelligence. These kinds of Intelligence were defined by Mark K. Smith in Infed Encylopedia as follows. "Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals.... Logical-mathematical intelligence consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically.... Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns.... Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements.... Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.... Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. ... Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations..." Gardner also suggests that there may be at least two other kinds of Intelligence, a form of intelligence which enables us to connect with, understand relate properly to the natural world. And a spiritual intelligence . This theory of Intelligences which Gardner sees as a new theory of human nature has its primary importance as educational tool. It is also developed in some sense to overcome the straitjacketing of the standard model of Intelligence Testing. As a layman I cannot say much about the scientific weight and value of this theory. It seems to make sense on common sense terms. But one might also want to ask if there is not a certain heirarchy in value , importance relating to the various kinds of intelligence. What is clear is that this work is of major importance for all those who would study human abilities, and their development. By broadening our understanding of what Intelligence is Gardner would also seem to have the goal of widening the circle of those people who we ordinarily think of and define as 'intelligent'. And also more importantly eliminating for many the sense of stigma at not necessarily being the most successful at the standard kinds of Intelligence Test. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice 2. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century 3. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think And How Schools Should Teach 4. Five Minds for the Future 5. Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People's Minds (Leadership for the Common Good) .
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20. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Centuryby Howard Gardner
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US$18.00US$16.20US$1.8 (10%)Category: Paperback (2000-09-17)Publisher: Basic BooksISBN: 0465026117Sales Rank: 73443Lowest New Price: $11.74 Lowest Used Price: $5.00 (32 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Amazon.com Review
How would a musical genius like Mozart have performed on the SAT or GRE? Well enough to go to an Ivy League? Difficult to say, of course, but thank goodness Howard Gardner thought to ask the question: Can every sort of intelligence be measured with the tools we've been using for the past century and more? In his 1983 book, Frames of Mind, Gardner laid out the foundation for the theory of multiple intelligences (MI). In Intelligence Reframed, a revisitation and elaboration of MI theory, he details the modern history of intelligence and the development of MI, responds to the myths about multiple intelligences, and handles FAQs about the theory and its application. He also restates his ideal educational plan, which would emphasize deep understanding of iconic subjects following from a variety of instructional approaches. (His book The Disciplined Mind discusses this plan in more detail.) Most excitingly, Gardner discusses the possibility for three more intelligences. Of these, he endorses only one, the naturalist intelligence--a person's ability to identify plants and animals in the surrounding environment. He writes, "My recognition that such individuals could not readily be classified in terms of the seven antecedent intelligences led me to consider this additional form of intelligence and to construe the scope of the naturalist's abilities more broadly."
An absorbing read from cover to cover, Intelligence Reframed should be studied and discussed by teachers, administrators, policy makers, and all those eager to serve children and prepare them to lead fulfilling lives. --Brian J. Williamson
Product Description
A brilliant state-of-the-art report on how the landmark theory of multiple intelligences is radically changing our understanding of education and human development.
Since its original description in Frames of Mind (1983, 1993), the theory of multiple intelligences has taken its place as one of the seminal ideas of the twentieth century. Further explicated in Gardner's 1993 book, Multiple Intelligences, these ideas continue to attract attention and generate controversy all over the world. Now, in Intelligence Reframed, Gardner provides a much-needed state of the art report on the theory. He describes how it has evolved and been revised. He introduces two new intelligences, and argues that the concept of intelligence should be broadened, but not so much that it includes every human faculty and value. In addition, he offers practical guidance on the educational uses of the theory, and responds in lively dialogue to the critiques leveled against it.
Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner has been acclaimed as the most influential educational theorist since John Dewey. His ideas about intelligence and creativity - explicated in such bestselling books as Frames of Mind and Multiple Intelligences (over 200,000 copies in print combined) - have revolutionized our thinking.
In his groundbreaking 1983 book Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner first introduced the theory of multiple intelligences, which posits that intelligence is more than a single property of the human mind. That theory has become widely accepted as one of the seminal ideas of the twentieth century and continues to attract attention all over the world.
Now in Intelligence Reframed, Gardner provides a much-needed report on the theory, its evolution and revisions. He offers practical guidance on the educational uses of the theory and responds to the critiques leveled against him. He also introduces two new intelligences (existential intelligence and naturalist intelligence) and argues that the concept of intelligence should be broadened, but not so absurdly that it includes every human virtue and value. Ultimately, argues Gardner, possessing a basic set of seven or eight intelligences is not only a unique trademark of the human species, but also perhaps even a working definition of the species. Gardner also offers provocative ideas about creativity, leadership, and moral excellence, and speculates about the relationship between multiple intelligences and the world of work in the future.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 17 reviews.
Excelent overview of Gardner ideasIf you haven't read already Gardner this is a great overview of his ideas and discussions around them. If you have read them this is a superb synthesis plus an update of arguments, pros and cons. The two new intelligences added here(spiritual, and naturalistic)enhance his theory greatly. The analysis of diferences between creativity and intelligence, and between leadership and intelligence are just superb. Highly recommended.
Interesting readHoward Gardner offers thought provoking questions in relation to intelligence and how test that measures this factor may not be adequate. The reason for this is that as humans evolve, the system becomes more complex and other aspects of survival are needed. In society throughout the ages, intelligence has always been something that is looked on favorably. However with the knowledge economy in the 21st century, there is a shift now to focus a lot on spatial, verbal and mathematical abilities. This being the case, Colleges have sought after the SAT etc. to gauge a potential student's success in University. That being said, the best predictor of success in College has long been thought by professionals to be the intelligence quotient. It is my opinion that analysis is one factor that would test the hardiness of potential students. This book is refreshing and interesting for it offers insight into the human mind and its operations. I recommend it to anyone interested in the human brain and intelligence.
Many Intelligences Enabe Us to Work Smarter not HarderTwenty-one (21) years ago, a Harvard University developmental psychologist, Howard Gardner, wrote quite an interesting book called "Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences". He thought that he was writing the book to enlighten, in the main, conventional psychologists, not state-funded public school educators such as classroom teachers and school administrators. In that book, he suggested a novel notion: that the psychological construct 'intelligence' should be formally measured in many more cognitive avenues than simply through dry statistical analytical lenses of widely accepted logical/linguistic IQ-type formalized tests, tests standardized for most schooling systems. More precisely, he questioned the mainstream belief that human beings throughout the world could have only a single 'mode of representation' about life; instead, he suggested that a more pluralistic viewpoint for measuring cerebral capacities ought be addressed -- a variety of intelligent ways of thinking. Or to put it another way, Mr. Gardener, suggested that our human intelligences ought to be arranged in a 'vertical' way, as a number of almost different faculties, rather than 'horizontally', as a set of 'g'eneral skills. This viewpoint was in direct contrast to many of the traditional language and logic theorists of that (1983) time who believed (and many continue to do so, today, in 2004) that there was only one kind of general intelligence, or 'g': that we either has a much of it or not that much, and that there was virtually very little that we could be do about that. In Frames, Gardner theorized a master list of seven basic human intelligences to represent these other types of modes, including the widely accepted linguistic - verbal and logical - mathematical, and visual - spatial, bodily - kinesthetic, musical - rhythmic, and the two most criticized but equally important of all of his intelligences, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Frames was well received by those within the educational arena. The book was reprinted numerous times and translated into many languages, including Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Spanish. His work was selected by five (5) major USA book clubs. To this day, it "is still his best-known and most influential book" (Eberstadt, 1999, p. 7). In other words, Frames has become Gardner's claim-to-fame work. In his second 1999 book, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century, Gardner once again acquaints his followers with another first rate book that continues the argument he made in earlier books, that there are multiple forms of intelligences. Although "he introduces the possibility of three new intelligences (but canonizes only existential intelligence and naturalist intelligence)" (book jacket, inside front cover), Gardner, feels that what is MORE important is how people make use of MI to carry out daily tasks prized in the culture. This latter statement was well summarized during a recent interview when Gardner said "The fact that we have the same intelligences means that we can communicate with one another. But the fact that we represent things mentally in numerous symbolic systems to one another means that we are not necessarily going to construe things in the same way or see the same options." Intelligence Reframed, which "draws heavily on [four] essays written in the 1990s" (p. ix) contains 12 Chapters. In the opening three chapters, comments on the mainstream scientific view of intelligence are reintroducing, including MI theory. These chapters provide important background documentation on the 'psychometric dominance' before MI. In Chapter 3, Gardner redefines intelligence, reviews the eight criteria for intelligence, and clarifies the original seven intelligences. In the next three chapters, he introduces the possibility of four additional candidate intelligences: moral, spiritual, existential, and naturalist, however settling only on the latter two. In Chapters six and seven, questions related to recent myths and issues are discussed. In particular, he "responds in lively dialogue to the critiques leveled against" MI. The reader is offered a series of well thought out observations on how MI theory has been deciphered and misconstrued. Any relationships between leadership, creativity, and intelligence are discussed in Chapter 8. The strength of Intelligence Reframed lies in its core, the three (3) subsequent chapter describing and justifying "the ways in which MI theory can be applied to scholastic and "wider world" settings. Gardner's line of reasoning is persuasive, not because of the extensiveness of the information he includes, and his realization that certain mainstream institutions may encounter difficulty implementing his "multiple approaches to understanding", but because his script, as always, is vibrant and lucid enough to hold our interests more than a monotonous statistical analyses of a psychometric theory of intelligence would, yet firm and advanced enough that he can be taken as a serious thinker rather than as some pop cognitivist. These three chapters outline how others have successfully implemented MI; they detail how the MI model can be easily applied to classroom learning and also infused into the "the wider society." In fact, all of Chapter 11 comments on MI in the wider world of institutions and business communities. Here, Gardner outlines ways that he has observed MI "at work in children's museums", including possibilities within art museums, and finally, within the workplace. The book concluded with Chapter 12 where he addresses (somewhat) the question he first introduced in Chapter 1: Who Owns Intelligence? While the jury will be out most likely well in the 21st century on this deep and philosophical problem, may it be said, for now, that the "proprietary rights" to intelligences belong to all? The book is especially important for the way in which it lays out a challenge to the 'psychometric consensus.' More specifically, I feel that the book is important for the following four (4) reasons. First of all, I continue to believe that this book is important because it refines Gardner's original definition of intelligence: the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural settings, to a more cultivated version, intelligence is "a bio-psychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture" (pp. 33-34). Gardner perceives intelligences as "potentials - presumably, neural ones - that will or will not be activated, depending upon the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers, and others" (p. 34). This is a revision of great consequence. By now referring to intelligences as a 'potential', Gardner, at last, brings to everyone's attention a most important distinction, "intelligence not as a content", but "geared to specific contents in the world." To reinforce this point, Gardner elsewhere likens his intelligences to "elastics bands" that can be stretched beyond those "psychometrically intelligent." Second, I think that this book is important because it outlines procedures for assessing MI. This is a most important point because, in previous writings, Gardner has been appropriately attacked for failing to produce assessment instruments for his MI theory. Gardner feels that "the classical short-answer examinations" are of little use. Instead, he is interested in asking "people to do things" and to observe their skill level in the task under construction. In this way, he feels that an examiner would be better "able to look directly at the skills and capacities" so valued in the dominant culture. Now, intelligences could be used "to carry out tasks valued by society." In other words, by placing intelligence within the role of "human information-processing and product-making capacities", Gardner sees ongoing observation as a pragmatic assessment tool. He prefers to assess in 'intelligent-fair' ways, that is, "assessing people's successes in carrying out valued tasks that presumably involve certain intelligences." Of prime importance here is a "realistic context" for observing the skill. To better explain all of this, Gardner sites several examples throughout the book, including the following two. First, one way to assess interpersonal intelligences would be to monitor individuals as they interact in "real-life situations where they have to be sensitive to the aspirations and motives of others." Second, the visual-spatial intelligence "would be assessed through performances in such activities as navigating an unfamiliar terrain, playing chess, interpreting blueprints, and remembering the arrangements of objects in a recently vacated room." Of greater interest are general pointers that Gardner cautions test developers to consider: making the distinction between one's personal preferences and their capabilities to succeed at the task at hand, the risk of relying solely on linguistic-verbal methods to assess abilities, and the significance of drawing on observations of actual skills, including verification by others who best know that individual. The fact that he has cautioned test developers about such conventional pitfalls is, at last, a step in the right direction for those wishing to develop assessment tools for his intelligences. To demonstrate further that Gardner is in favor of assessment tools to measure his intelligences, he throws out the following suggestions. Ongoing improvement in technology will open up various avenues for computer simulations. For example, to measure one's musical intelligence, a subject could be presented with an unfamiliar tune. The subject could be asked to learn the tune, to implement the tune into a musical performance, or perhaps even to involve a computer simulation package to rearrange its composition. Gardner feels that such an assessment exercise would reveal more about a person's musical skills than would a traditional timed paper-pencil test dealing with the factual knowledge of music. Third, the book is important because Gardner suggests six critical steps that ought to be followed before anyone establishes an MI environment. First, one should learn as much as possible about MI practice, especially MI theory. Some sources for doing this include books, videos, the Internet, including CD-ROMS. Second, interested parties might wish to form study groups and thus learn from others more knowledgeable about MI. Third, one could visit MI schools where the MI model has been in operation for some time, two examples being the Key Learning Center in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the New City School in St. Louis, Missouri. Fourth, much can be learned from attending MI workshops, seminars, and conferences. Fifth, one could join a network of schools that have been active in the MI teaching approach. Finally, Gardner suggests to "plan and launch activities, practices, or programs that grow out of immersion in the world of MI theory and approaches." And finally, I believe that this book is important because Gardner comments on a series of 'entry points' that can be used by anyone wishing to introduce MI into a learning center, be it a classroom site, a children's or art museum, or within the greater business community. The entry points range from the narrative, the quantitative/numerical, the logical, to the foundational/existential, aesthetic, hands on, and social. For the narrative learner, Gardner suggests the linguistic-verbal intelligence as an entrance vehicle. Here, subjects could narrate a story around what s/he sees or hears. Those "intrigued by numbers and the patterns they make, the various operations that can be performed, and insight into size, ratio, and change" may wish to investigate a quantitative/numerical entry point. More to that final reason, Gardner suggests "[figuring] out the cost of the materials and how that relates to the selling price. Deductive thinkers might enjoy the logical point of entry as they could "share [their] theory about why [an] object is important." And for those "attracted to fundamental kinds of questions", Gardner suggests the foundational/existential entry point. Content "that features balance, harmony, and composition" may inspire the aesthetic entry point. For example, Gardner suggests that one could "describe the colors and shapes and how they fit together." A hands on entry point may motivate those to activities "in which they become fully engaged - where they can build something, manipulate materials, or carry out experiments." Here, Gardner suggests one might design a dance centered on what the viewer saw. And finally, for those 'interpersonal' learners who "learn more effectively" from group interaction, Gardner suggests the social entry point. I believe that Mr. Gardner has greatly contributed to the body of knowledge on the nature of human intelligence. He is to be commended for how he makes a most difficult psychological construct so simple to comprehend. He has presented his followers with a revised and updated picture of their various minds and its accompanying intelligences. He has reframed the image of intelligences for the forthcoming century, and perhaps, more importantly, has successfully 'stretched' the mainstream 'borders' of intelligence to include disciplines beyond education and psychology, a most welcomed line of attack. With this book, he has accomplished a major step in elevating the discussion of our cerebral smarts to possibly new frontiers. For all of this, we should be truly thankful. If there is a weakness in the book, perhaps it lies within the opening and closing chapters. Here, one could that Gardner perchance stumbles somewhat in his attempt to address the authentic ownership of intelligence. He suggests that "intelligence is too important to be left to the intelligence testers", that the book lay "out a position that challenges the psychometric consensus", that the book adopt the stance that humans ought to develop a better method of viewing cognitive potential and that what matters more than developing tests to measure intelligences is the practical applications of intelligences. There are some interesting calls for greater human individualization provided in these two chapters. But the details given to intellectual renovators is inconsequential and save for intellectual generalities, is slightly outdated. Long standing followers of Gardner's writings, this retired classroom teacher and school principal included, will find little in these two chapters that they did not already know. Nevertheless, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century, is truly Dr. Howard Earl Gardner, the developmental cognitive scientist, at his very best. It is a delightful and entertaining read and beautifully written by one of the best writers in the field of psychology today. Gardner has, once again, provided us with a significant and well articulated text that should be widely read and discussed. As with most of his previous books, detailed reference notes have been conveniently located in a section at the end of the book, so that the flow of the text remains continuous. The four appendices (Books and Articles by Howard Gardner, Other Works About The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Videos, Newsletters, and Miscellany, and Contacts on Multiple Intelligences Theory and its Application) represent a welcomed background for the more interested reader. The 292 pages of the book clearly delineate and reframe many of the original (1983) pictures stemming from his many 'kinds of minds' image. Every chapter title, save one, contains either the word 'intelligence' or 'intelligences' - an indication of the central theme of the book - to "challenge the psychometric consensus" by updating the reader with numerous fresh viewpoints from a cognitive developmental standpoint. And, like so many of his earlier books, Intelligence Reframed ought to have a powerful impact on all who read it because Gardner once again introduces the reader to a common sense message, a message initially generated from Frames: I think [Frames'] attraction had to do with the fact that I was putting into words and giving some scholarly background -- a Harvard imprimatur -- to something so many people in education know: Kids are very different from one another. They learn in very different kinds of ways, and to treat them all as if they're the same and call everybody a dummy who doesn't resemble a certain prototype is wrong. (Current Biography Yearbook, 1998) Selected references Current Biography Yearbook. (1998). Howard Gardner, pp. 216-219. New York: H. W. Wilson Company. Ebserstadt, Mary (1999, October & November). The schools they deserve: Howard Gardner and the remaking of elite education. Policy Review, 97, 3-17.
Theorizing the Day AwayBefore discovering the writings of Howard Gardner I had been exposed to individuals espousing his theories. The concept always struck me as interesting and something I wanted to read more about as I believe the concept of g to be valid but ultimately limiting. These exciting ideas concerning Multiple Intelligences seemed to expand the definition of intelligence outward to include talents and abilities. Now, however, after reading "Intelligence Reframed" I have been cured of my enthusiasm for this theory. Disecting the term "intelligence" until it becomes useless is the order of the day in the MI Theory. Eschewing the psychometric field, Gardner theorizes endlessly while stating that MI is "based wholly on empirical evidence" (pg 85). That evidence seems peripheral at best, completely unrelated at worst. There are definately some interesting thoughts and ideas in this book. Unfortunately they are surrounded by the above mentioned nebulous theorizing and outright egotism (see cover of book). If you want some scientifically sound reappraisals of intelligence check the works of Robert Sternberg. If any cutting edge thinking is to revolutionize the view of intelligence (and thus it's measurement) it might well be Sternberg's Triarchic Theory.
Intelligences yes, Education no.Howard Gardner's book Intelligence Reframed is somewhat different in content than I'd expected. It starts out with a discussion of psychometrics, particularly intelligence testing, and introduces the author's own research into intelligence. Then the content changes to education. This abrupt change threw me for a loop until I read more on the author and his interests. Gardner started with an interest in psychology, taking a PhD from Harvard University under the direction of the developmental psychologists Bruner and Erikson. He also did postdoctoral work with the neuropsychologist Geschwind at the Boston Veterans Hospital where his research focused on the nature of intelligence and the development of abilities, and on educational processes. In the 1980s he became involved in educational reform. Currently he is the Hobbs Professor in Cognition and Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and is Adjunct Professor of Psychology, also at Harvard, and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine.
The first half of the book made perfect sense to me, especially with the newer data from brain and mind research. Recent experiments with animals and with human volunteers have been conducted to elucidate the function of the different parts of the brain. Earlier information derived anecdotally from brain injured individuals had suggested that the brain may consist of modules that evolved to solve specific types of problems but that interaction of these modules with one another has created a wide variety of emergent properties, the main ones being consciousness and self-awareness. The experimental data seems to support this concept. Gardner has defined a number of "intelligences" that seem to be supported by this data, showing that the concept of a single all inclusive intelligence measurement might not be possible and might skew educational efforts in non-productive ways. With all of this I tend to agree.
The character of the information, and Gardner's own personal interests, naturally lead to the topic of education. Although I agree with his points on the failings of some traditional school systems and even the failure of some of those that pay lip service to his MI theories, I'm not sure that I agree with his overall exuberance over the MI approach to education. He notes that traditional educational programs tend to hit for the middle and hope for the best, so to speak, which they do. He also notes that those schools that say they adhere to an MI approach are generally doing business as usual. (Sort of like calling the school custodian an "environmental engineer" because it sounds better.)
Still, I'm not sure that Gardner's enthusiasm for the application of the multiple intelligences approach to learning is necessarily justified or even possible in these days of financial retrenchment. Schools are hard put to it to provide the 3-Rs by traditional means. The music, language and art classes that were available even during my own years as a child have been drastically cut back for this reason, and now some schools are faced with increasing classroom size.
One of the things I did agree with was his notion that children might benefit from having the same teacher every year with the caveat that changes could readily be made for a better fit of personality between teacher and child. I agree that this might develop a closer mutual understanding between teacher and pupil. However here too, there might be problems. Not all teachers would be able to readily establish such bonds or sustain them over long periods of time. Not all children will maintain the same type of bond with an adult authority figure over the course of their development--as any parent could tell you--and not all teachers are equally adept at all subjects or all methods of teaching any given subject. In short, there would be problems.
While I think the author has some valid points with respect to the variety of intelligences and abilities that we all have, and some good intentions with respect to education, I'm not sure that his ideas are very practicable in a real setting. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 2. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice 3. Five Minds for the Future 4. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think And How Schools Should Teach 5. Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People's Minds (Leadership for the Common Good) .
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21. Creating Minds: An Anatomy Of Creativity As Seen Through The Lives Of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, And Gandhiby Howard Gardner
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US$22.50US$21.60US$0.9 (4%)Category: Paperback (1994-09-23)Publisher: Basic BooksISBN: 0465014542Sales Rank: 152709Lowest New Price: $6.97 Lowest Used Price: $1.97 (82 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
The man who revolutionized our understanding of intelligence now gives is a pathbreaking view of creativity, along with riveting portraits of seven figures who each reinvented an area of human endeavor. Understanding their diverse achievements not only sheds light on the nature of creativity but also elucidates the "modern-era"--the times that formed them and that they in turn helped to define.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 13 reviews.
Great Stories, Picked to Fit Gardner's SchemaHoward Gardner has changed the way we think about intelligence. His seminal book, Frames of Mind, introduced the idea that the correct question we should be asking is not, "How smart am I?" but rather "How am I smart?" It was Gardner who first came up with the idea that there are different kinds of intelligence, and that we have differing gifts in all of them. In Creating Minds, he goes beyond the basic concept that he laid out in Frames of Mind, by looking at creativity through the lens of these multiple intelligences. What he tries to do is to illuminate how specific creative geniuses in different fields used different intelligences. On the whole, the book works. Gardner gives us, in brief, the lives of Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Mahatma Ghandi. In each biography, he talks about their particular gifts, especially their "intelligence," using his own framework. This works very well with some of his subject and not so well with others. It's easy to get a handle on spatial intelligence with Picasso, and musical intelligence with Stravinsky, and linguistic intelligence with Eliot. It's easy to understand how a dancer like Martha Graham has bodily or physical intelligence. But when we move into some other domains, especially the social, things get a bit murky. The chapter on Ghandi seems to me to be in the book because it was necessary to complete the range of intelligences that Gardner had described. Part of the problem may be that political creators have to mobilize other human beings and creativity in that domain is sometimes is harder to judge and define than, for example, the ability to conceptualize a sculpture or a set of mathematical equations. I also wish that Gardner had included some comparisons of other contemporaries in the same field in some of his stories. I would like, for example, to have seen Gandhi set against Hitler. Both were effective at mobilizing people, but they pursued very different ends. Or, perhaps we could have set Gandhi against Franklin Roosevelt or Martin Luther King, Jr. The biggest problem I had with the book, though, was Gardner's definition of creation as lifetime achievement. I'm not sure I'm comfortable, with the idea that the most creative people are the people who work in the same field throughout a lifetime, and make major contributions there throughout that lifetime. That certainly is one kind of creativity and it's well represented and analyzed in this book. We learn, for example, that most of the creative people studied by Gardner seem to move through their creative life in stages. They spend a decade or so mastering their domain and then producing great work. Then there's another decade or so spent mastering a new aspect of the domain, followed by more creative output. We also learn about the need for a circle of people around the creative person who provide both support and stimulation. Many times these are the unsung heroes of the genius' career. There are some things missing, though. There's no discussion of folks who produce creative work in different fields. There's a good deal to be said for the idea that someone - such as Linus Pauling, recipient of two Nobel Prizes - who changes fields and makes major contributions in more than one field, is more creative than a person who stays in a single field. There's something to be said for the argument that a person who is effective in many areas, but not of genius caliber in one, is as creative as the one-field genius. Those kinds of reservations lead me to suggest that this is a much more compelling book as biography than it is as psychology. You can, if you choose, forget all of the material about what constitutes creativity and the reference to the multiple intelligences and read each of the main characters' sketches as a short biography and come away with an insight into that person and his or her creative life that you would not have otherwise. This is a good and illuminating read. It will stretch your mind and your understanding.
A source of inspirationI look to this book when I think about what to do with my life. Gardner is one of my favorite writers, someone who turned me on to Cognitive Science, and one of the only science authors I've read cover to cover.
Creating MindsThis book examines the creative process by reviewing the lives of seven highly creative people. I enjoyed the seven mini-biographies, but the attempts to generalize from them seemed ponderous. Some of Dr. Gardner's generalizations seem overly broad, some don't seem to be universally true even among the seven individuals he studied, and in any case seven cases isn't enough to generalize from with much confidence.
This book reminded me of Eric Erickson's biography of Gandhi, which I read years ago with great interest. Erickson's theories about the life cycle and how it applied to Gandhi's life were more satisfying to me than Gardner's generalizations.
There is an excellent 1955 film (Le Mystere Picasso) that shows time-lapse photography of Picasso's work in progress. The film helped me to feel better about my own frequent revisions when writing. It is available on DVD from a French company, Cinestore.com.
The "Creative Enterprise Writ Large"This is one of the most enjoyable as well as one of the most informative books I have read in recent years. I have long admired Gardner's work, especially his research on multiple intelligences which he discusses in other works such as Intelligence Reframed (2000), Frames of Mind (1993), and Multiple Intelligences (also 1993). As Gardner explains in the Preface, this volume" represents both a culmination and a beginning: a culmination in that it brings together my lifelong interests in the phenomena of creativity and the particulars of history; a beginning in that introduces a new approach to the study of human creative endeavors, one that draws on social-scientific as well as humanistic traditions." Specifically, this "new approach" begins with the individual but then focuses both on the particular "domain," or symbol system, in which an individual functions and on the group of individuals, or members of what Gardner calls the "field," who judge the quality of the new work in the domain.
This is the approach he takes when analyzing the lives and achievements of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. Throughout the book, Gardner makes brilliant use of both exposition (e.g. analysis, comparison and contrast) and narration (especially when examining causal relationships of special significance) to reveal, explain, and evaluate each of the seven geniuses.
Gardner sets for himself several specific objectives:
* "First, I seek to enter into the worlds that each of the seven figures occupied during the period under investigation -- roughly speaking, the half century from 1885 to 1935."
* "In so doing, I hope to illuminate the nature of their own particular, often peculiar, intellectual capacities, personality configurations, social arrangements, and creative agendas, struggles and accomplishments."
* Also, "I seek conclusions about the nature of the Creative Enterprise writ large. I believe that if we can better understand the breakthroughs achieved by the individuals deliberately drawn from diverse domains, we should be able to tease out the principles that govern creative human activity, wherever it arises."
* Finally, "I seek conclusions about the sparkling, if often troubled, handful of decades that I term `the modern era'...Such a selection [of the seven during the half-century period] allows me to comment not only on [their] particular achievemnents...but also on the times that formed them, and that they in turn helped to define."
Gardner achieves all of these objectives while somehow maintaining a delicate balance between respecting (indeed celebrating) individual genius and explaining the relevance (to each of the seven) of three relationships which are common to them all: the relationship between what he calls the "child" and the "master" throughout human development; the relationship between an individual and the work in which he or she is engaged; and finally, the relationship between the individual and other persons in his or her world.
Of special interest to me is Gardner's acknowledgment that two themes emerged during the course of his research for this book which he had not anticipated when he began. Citing a "confidant" relationship with Fleiss from whom Freud received "sustenance" when he needed it most, Gardner gradually realized that a relationship of this kind, "far from being an isolated case," represents the "norm" among the other six. Besso played much the same role for Einstein, Braque for Picasso, the Diaghilev circle for Stravinsky, Pound for Eliot, Horst for Graham, and Anasyra Sarabhai for Gandhi.
Gardner cites what he calls "the Faustian bargain" as the second theme which emerged unexpectedly during his research. This subject is much too complicated to be summarized in a review such as this. Suffice to note now that inorder to maintain their gifts and continue their work, the seven creators "went through behaviors or practices of a fundamentally superstitious, irrational, or compulsive nature," thereby sacrificing normal relationships with family members and friends. "The kind of bargain may vary, but the tenacity with which it is maintained seems consistent." I intend to keep these two themes in mind when I re-read this extraordinary book.
book sales boosted by famous names.find your favourite name on the title and you will read opinions about how they stayed strong to succeed. Exercising a small amount of talent for a lifetme can go a long way.Pretty interesting though. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 2. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 3. Five Minds for the Future 4. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think And How Schools Should Teach 5. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice .
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22. The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think And How Schools Should Teachby Howard Gardner
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US$19.00US$13.87US$5.13 (27%)Category: Paperback (1993-05)Publisher: Basic BooksISBN: 0465088961Sales Rank: 30784Lowest New Price: $5.47 Lowest Used Price: $1.14 (90 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Merging cognitive science with educational agenda, Gardner shows how ill-suited our minds and natural patterns of learning are to current educational materials, practices, and institutions, and makes an eloquent case for restructuring our schools. This reissue includes a new introduction by the author.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 9 reviews.
child psychologyThis book has a lot of information. It is really helpful for my educational psychology class, and also can be related to the 2 1/2 year old I take care of. I do however think it is quite wordy, and some topics I breeze/skim over because they are too difficult to grasp.
UnremarkableI am a new teacher (recently graduated from college) who was looking for a helpful, inspiring, and fresh-faced book about education. This book failed to deliver. I found the author's style hard to read and digest. There was little discussion about practical applications or approaches present in the text. Instead, the author dwelled on abstract theory without offering much in the way of advice/help/direction. The theories presented had already been exposed to me during my collegiate career. In summary, if you are a somewhat recent graduate you will probably find little use for this book. If you are a layperson, you may find it difficult to read. If you are a veteran teacher, you may find the text helpful in refreshing your fluency in educational theory.
Every educator must readHoward Gardner's theory has opened a new frontier for education and all life aspects. In this book he brakes paradigms of standardize schooling for the young. This is a must read book for teachers on the primary grades in order to understand how children think and to reevaluate our system of education and the way we teach.
Another Message from a Failed ReformerProfessor Gardner himself is an example of a learned person who has mastery, but lacks understanding. People, including bright persons, do apply their knowledge to reality. They are not all stuck in a time warp where the false values of their childhood control their "understanding." Lawyers practice law. Physicists do physics. Historians write history. Where is the gap between mastery and understanding that he opines? May it not be that there are levels of understanding? Is there really an opposition between knowing and understanding? Perhaps for Prof. Gardner, but not, I think, for the rest of us. Those who can think out of the box, so to speak, in their respective fields, the ones who can be creative are a limited number. They help and enlighten us all. Can a teacher show a child that he or she really doesn't understand what he claims to "know"? Of course. Children are malleable. Even adults can be persuaded to revise their thinking by a sufficiently persuasive speaker even if what that speaker proposes is false. We've seen it time and time again. He's riding that old hobby horse that rote learning is destroying society. It's not. It's reformers like Prof. Gardner that are driving sincere educators to despair as they drive more and more dictators of our schools to believe that the education we are giving and have been giving is inadequate through and through, based on too many false premises, and that we are all up a creek intellectually. It's the height of elitism, and hides a deeper lack of understanding.
Howard Gardner is a brilliant man!!I read this book a few years ago as part of a course in my Master's degree program. I had some familiarity with Gardner's work, mainly the seven intelligences. However, until an educator has read this book, the educator can not apply the seven intelligences in the class room or teach effectively.
My dad once told me that I never learn anything until I break something. I was 16 and had just wrecked my first car. I never crashed again. This is the concept behind Gardner's book. We learn from our experiences. We learn by applying knowledge in real life situation. Knowledge is not necessarily power, but it is part of the equation. After teaching concepts in my class with follow-up assignments which were real life activities/experiences, I saw test results improve and student interest increase dramatically. Students only want to learn what is useful to them so teachers must show subject matter to be relavent to the student's lives. Gardner explains how a students mind can grow through these means.
This is a great read even if you are a parent who want to explore how your child learns. Highly recommended! ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 2. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice 3. Five Minds for the Future 4. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century 5. The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education that Every Child Deserves .
Favourite Lists: 1. On my "to read" book shelf. 2. Creativity & Innovation Research. 3. Education Matters! (preparing the mind to learn). 4. Earth Policy #4: Education. 5. Learning Styles and Brain Research!. 6. Books Toward Progressive Education. 7. Parenting books I would like(and 1 video). 8. My Favorite Homeschooling Books. 9. Best Books on Learning.

23. Art, Mind, And Brain: A Cognitive Approach To Creativityby Howard Gardner
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US$28.00US$26.60US$1.4 (5%)Category: Paperback (1984-07-20)Publisher: Basic BooksISBN: 0465004458Sales Rank: 348968Lowest New Price: $22.54 Lowest Used Price: $7.76 (43 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
In this fascinating and informative book, Howard Gardner explores all aspects of creativity, from the young child's ability to learn a new song through Mozart's conceiving a complete symphony; from the implications for creativity of studies of the brain to the effects of television on a child's imagination. A scholar of extraordinary breadth, Gardner here brings together insights from developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, philosophy, and other areas in cognitive science.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The Arts and the Creation of Mind 2. Art Education and Human Development (Occasional Papers, Series 3) 3. The Arts And Human Development: With A New Introduction By The Author 4. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 5. Creating Minds: An Anatomy Of Creativity As Seen Through The Lives Of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, And Gandhi .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity. 2. Creativity & Innovation Research. 3. essentials for the art teacher's bookshelf.

24. Howard Gardner: The Myth of Multiple Intelligences (Viewpoint)by John White
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US$7.95US$7.95Category: Paperback (2005-11)Publisher: Institute of EducationISBN: 0854737243Sales Rank: 1718979Lowest New Price: $7.94 Lowest Used Price: $7.16 (2 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
In this paper, John White examines Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences in human beings. The author asks if there is good evidence that the nine types of intelligence that Gardner identified exist, or if they are, indeed, a myth.
... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice 2. 7 (Seven) Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Multiple Intelligences 3. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 4. The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education that Every Child Deserves 5. Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research.

25. Growing Up Creative: Nurturing a Lifetime of Creativityby Teresa M. Amabile
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$14.95Category: Paperback (1992-06)Publisher: Creative Education FoundationISBN: 093022289XSales Rank: 1013609Lowest New Price: $50.00 Lowest Used Price: $19.92 (5 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
A myth-shattering "how-to" by the established authority in the field that proves creativity must originate from within the child and shows parents and teachers how to help foster it. Based on more than 12 years of research with thousands of children, and rich with examples from real life, here are answers to the questions parents ask most often. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 3 reviews.
Nurture creative potentialWhen you are trying to help a child develop her or his creative potential, you don't have to worry about the nature-nurture debate. Nurture is your only option. This book is a useful introduction to the developmental social psychology of creativity, and it is a good place to start for nurturing the realization of creative potential. Helping kids become more creative is a good cause, and "Growing Up Creative" is a good book.
Not my kids you don'tThis book is wonderful in a number of ways, none of which, unfortunately, really get to the point of creativity. It is a light survey of the actual research results on creativity done in a very well communicated way that most people can understand. It does not distort or exaggerate points so it is above the zillion books on 6 ways to be a genius and 12 ways to think like Linus Pauling. It is comprehensive, balanced, and comprehensible. So, what is it missing? It is missing something important.
I guess, my gut reaction was--I want my kids to be about 20 times as creative as this book wants them to be. The soul of creating is what is missing. You get an academic researcher soul showing you what creating is. I would rather have a creator's soul showing me. In a perfect world you could get onto Harvard's faculty while having a creator's soul; in our actual world you have to publish little research articles and be liked by journal editors and well placed colleagues. There is too much intangible fitting in and playful insoucience where there needs to be drive, passion, persistence, immense challenge, penetrating tough fields for year after year, visiting conferences with mom and dad, playfully spotting hot and dying subfields at them, imagining what thought operation produced some new conference topic and so on. THis book is a great foundation for creating "creative" people who lack the soul and toughness to create. It is too polite in some ways.
An excellent guide for raising creative and curious kids!I originally bought this book in 1990. It was such an excellent book I lent it to many friends and teachers. Unfortunately the last time it was not returned and I have looked everywhere for a replacement. I'm so happy to have found it. This is an easy reading book with fun and easy suggestions on how to create an atmosphere so your children will grow up to be more creative and curious about the world around them. I feel it makes raising children more fun and allows them to grow up feeling more secure about themselves. This book makes a great teacher or school gift! ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Creativity In Context: Update To The Social Psychology Of Creativity 2. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention 3. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die 4. Frames Of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences 5. Art, Mind, And Brain: A Cognitive Approach To Creativity .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Artistic Consciousness.

26. Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Thinkingby Teresa Amabile, Dorothy Leonard, Jeffrey Rayport, Elleen Morley, Andrew Silver, Wetlaufer Suzy, Peter Ferdinand Drucker
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US$19.95US$13.57US$6.38 (32%)Category: Paperback (1999-08)Publisher: Harvard Business School PressISBN: 157851181XSales Rank: 97211Lowest New Price: $3.95 Lowest Used Price: $0.01 (27 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
THE HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PAPERBACK SERIES is designed to bring today's managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast-moving world. Here are the landmark ideas that have established the Harvard Business Review as required reading for ambitious business people in organizations around the globe.
Creativity and innovation are the keys to competitive advantage, and yet many organizations view inspiration as an elusive, unmanageable phenomenon. In fact, proven strategies for fostering and managing creativity do exist--the Harvard Business Review has published some of the best thinking on how to organize for innovation. Harvard Business Review on Breakthrough Thinking highlights leading ideas for incorporating the power of creativity into your strategic outlook.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 7 reviews.
The best book I've ever readThis book has the most breakthrough thoughts per page of any book I've ever tabulated.
Any one article worth far more than the cost of the bookThis is one in a series of several dozen volumes which comprise the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Each offers direct, convenient, and inexpensive access to the best thinking on the given subject in articles originally published by the Harvard Business School Review. I strongly recommend all of the volumes in the series. The individual titles are listed at this Web site: www.hbsp.harvard.edu. The authors of various articles are among the world's most highly regarding experts on the given subject. Each volume has been carefully edited. Supplementary commentaries are also provided in most of the volumes, as is an "About the Contributors" section which usually includes suggestions of other sources which some readers may wish to explore. In this volume, the reader is provided with eight articles. Here is a selection of brief excerpts from the executive summaries with precede each of three: "....managers need to understand that creativity has three parts: expertise, the ability to think flexibly and imaginatively, and motivation. Managers can influence the first two, but doing so is costly and slow. It would be far more effective to increase employees' intrinsic motivation....To that end, managers have five levers to pull: the amount of challenge they give employees, the degree of freedom they grant around process, the way they design work groups, the level of encouragement they give, and the nature of the organizational support." (Introducing Teresa M. Amabile's "How to Kill Creativity") "Some innovations spring from a flash of genius [but] most result from a conscious, purposeful search for opportunities. For managers seeking innovation, engaging in disciplined work is more important than having an entrepreneurial personality....[According to Drucker, the major sources of opportunities include] unexpected occurrences, incongruities of various kinds, process needs, or changes in an industry or market,...demographic changes, changes in perception, or new knowledge." (Introducing Peter F. Drucker's "The Discipline of Innovation") "[Having studied more than 30 of the largest international corporations, Kim and Mauborgne found that]....the difference between the high growth companies and their less successful competitors was in each group's assumptions about strategy....Managers of the high-growth companies followed what [Kim and Mauborgne] call the logic of value innovation....Many companies let competitors set the parameters of of their strategic thinking; value innovators do not use rivals as benchmarks. Rather than focus on the differences among customers, value innovators look for what customers value in common. Rather than view opportunities through the lens of existing assets and capabilities, value innovators ask, What if we start anew?" (Introducing W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne's "Value Innovation: The Strategic Logic of High Growth") In the other five articles, Dorothy Leonard and Jeffrey F. Rayport explain how to spark innovation through what they call "empathetic design"; Leonard and Susaan Straus explain how to "put your company's whole brain to work"; Eileen Morley and Andrew Silver propose taking what they call "a film director's approach" to managing creativity; in a case study, Suzy Wetlaufer examines what is stifling creativity at CoolBurst, a fictitious Miami-based fruit juice company; and Richard K. Lester, Michael J. Piore, and Kamal M. Malek introduce their concept of "interpretative management," explaining what general managers can learn from design. Granted, because several of these articles were published years ago, some of the material in this volume is understandably somewhat dated but the core concepts are solid and remain relevant to all organizations, regardless of size or nature. Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out others in the "Harvard Business Review Paperback Series." Also, Michael Michalko's Cracking Creativity, Doug Hall's Jump Start Your Business Brain, and Tom Kelley's The Art of Innovation as well as Barry J. Nalebuff and Ian Ayres's Why Not?
average.Alot of the principals here to me at least seemed a bit trite. A lot of the principals presented are simple common sense dressed up in a business vocabulary. If you want results keep reading, if you want to WOW lesser managers w/ your corp. speak - this might be the book for you.
Read this book if your sales or profits are in declineCreativity and innovation are the keys to competitive advantage in the knowledge economy and this book is a collection of eight HBR articles on how to organize for innovation. Many companies unintentionally crush employee's intrinsic motivation in pursuit of productivity, efficiency and control, but creativity requires expertise, motivation and the ability to think flexibly and imaginatively. Key factors are challenge, freedom, the design of the work group, encouragement, and organizational support but with careful planning it is possible to create an organization in which business imperatives are attended to and creativity flourishes. As innovation takes place through creative abrasion, care must be taken to prevent players with different worldviews and thinking styles having personal disputes. Managers often prefer like-thinking staff, neglecting a dynamic set of individuals whose counter culture thinking patterns are considered disruptive. A mix of right- and left-brain individuals is required to develop new approaches to the business.
There are many lessons to be learned from a film unit where talented people band together for a short time; success depends on getting the right personnel, enabling them to work well together, motivating them to peak performance, leading them to create on schedule, and handling the stresses that arise. The director's job is managing the different phases in a film's production - preproduction script development etc, the production phase of shooting, camera, lighting, sound crews etc., and post production of picture and sound editing etc., all under intense budget and time pressures. Many managers in business and industry follow the film directors' approach intuitively but it is rarer for a manager to relate to different people in different ways or to the same people in different ways at different times.
CoolBurst is a fictitious case study of a soft drinks company that had ruled the market but where revenues and profits had stagnated. The company's most creative employee had joined the largest competitor while many new companies were joining the competitive fray with each one coming from a different angle. The one remaining creative person, the marketing director, got a lot done but his work style of going to the movies during work hours did not fit the company culture and adversely affected others. He had warned everyone that past success was due to being in the right place at the right time and that the bubble would burst; CoolBurst had to create a new vision of the brand and innovate or evaporate. CoolBurst had to make itself a more welcoming, nurturing place for creative individuals, encourage employees to take more risks and change the culture of command, compartmentalization and control. Leadership that envisions, empowers and energizes is required. Five experts put forward their views of the best way out of the dilemma.
Peter Drucker points out that opportunities for innovation can be found in unexpected occurrences, incongruities, process needs, changes in an industry or market, demographics, changes in perception, and new knowledge. These seven sources overlap and the potential for innovation may lie in more than one area at a time. Innovation requires talent, ingenuity, knowledge, diligence, persistence, commitment and demands that managers look beyond established practices. Demographics and an education explosion clearly identified a forthcoming shortage of blue-collar workers but only the Japanese acted on it and stole a 10-year lead in robotics. Despite an unprecedented improvement in Americans' health, perceptions were different, creating a huge market for health care products and exercise equipment. Purposeful, systematic innovation is work rather than genius, beginning with the analysis of the source of new opportunities followed by field work to look, ask and listen, using both left and right sides of the brain.
The past two decades have seen a dramatic acceleration in the pace of change in the market place requiring companies to abandon old hierarchical models and managers to adapt to unstable and unpredictable markets in which it may be difficult to define the problem let alone engineer a solution. The analytical approach is giving way to the interpretive approach in companies like Levi Strauss and Chiron that have stayed at the top of an industry where the customer does not know what he wants or needs. What is fashionable emerges during conversations between designers, buyers, customers, manufacturers, and fashion writers. There is no beginning and no end; what is fashionable has no final answer and the answer keeps changing. Levi divides the market into age segments and assigns a designer to each segment. Each designer is encouraged to become immersed in that segment's culture by living the life of its members, shopping at their stores, eating in their restaurants, dancing in their clubs, listening to their radio stations, and reading their magazines - all in an effort to spot new trends. Interpretive management constantly questions the boundaries of the company's core competency and demands a whole new way of thinking about the work of the business executive.
Managers of less successful companies follow conventional strategic logic while managers of high growth companies follow what Kim and Mauborgne of INSEAD call the Logic of Value Innovation. Instead of battling competitors over shrinking cinema attendance in Belgium, Bert Claeys created Kinepolis in 1998 and made the competition irrelevant by offering a greatly improved experience. Neither an ordinary cinema nor a multiplex, Kinepolis is the world's first megaplex which won 50% of the Brussels market in its first year and expanded the market by about 40%. Today many Belgians refer not to a night at the movies but to an evening at Kinepolis. The five dimensions of Value Innovation Logic say that:- an industry's conditions can be shaped and are not given- competition is not the benchmark- focus on what customers value- what would we do if starting anew?- think in terms of the total solution sought by the customerAny manager who sees sales or profits stabilizing or going into decline would be wise to read this book.
An assortment of articlesThis collection of HBR articles on creativity, organization and 'out-of-the-box' stuff is packaged as the HBR on Breakthrough Thinking. Hence, if you are in an exploratory mood to read up various viewpoints of organizational creativity then do pick up this book. But if, you are working in an organization, and what to know what to do to take it through the whole end-to-end innovation journey then this book is only an appetizer. You'll have to catch someone else to serve you the meal.The book has articles like:How to kill creativity: The list of no-nos to avoid getting stuck in a rut.
Putting your company's whole brain to work: Looking at the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) of people working together.
An interesting article is "A film director's approach to managing creativity" which could have been very powerfully used. It ends up drawing lame parallels between a movie production and organizational projects and what the corporate world can learn from it.
The masterpiece is as usual, The Discipline of Innovation, by Peter Drucker, as he gives insights as to why some firms can innovate. He classifies them as firms that do process innovations, or capitalising on industry or market changes. OUtside, due to demographic , perception and knowledge changes. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Harvard Business Review on Innovation 2. Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) 3. Harvard Business Review on Decision Making 4. Harvard Business Review on Advances in Strategy 5. Harvard Business Review on Strategies for Growth (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) .
Favourite Lists: 1. Creativity & Innovation Research. 2. Innovation and Corporate Creativity Library. 3. Work: Moving Forward. 4. Conquistador - Innovation/Creativity. 5. Enterprise Innovation Management (work in process). 6. Creative Thinking's Best Books. 7. Creativity and Innovation in Business. 8. Creativity. 9. Harvard Press.
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$8.24 (45% off)The Shack

$12.64 (45% off)Breaking Dawn

$10.99 (45% off)Eclipse

$14.82 (45% off)The Yankee Years

$6.04 (45% off)New Moon

New Moon

$8.24 (45% off)The Love Dare

$6.04 (45% off)Twilight

$13.19 (45% off)Act Like a Lady, Think

$15.39 (45% off)Outliers

1. The Shackby William P. Young
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US$14.99US$8.24US$6.75 (45%)Category: Paperback (2008-07-01)Publisher: Windblown MediaISBN: 0964729237Sales Rank: 1Lowest New Price: $6.99 Lowest Used Price: $6.50 (48 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever. In a world where religion seems to grow increasingly irrelevant "The Shack" wrestles with the timeless question, "Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?" The answers Mack gets will astound you and perhaps transform you as much as it did him. You'll want everyone you know to read this book!
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 2670 reviews.
Folks, this isn't the Bible...I loved the book, and read a bunch of reviews, for and against. The ones who re united with Jesus, fantastic, the ones who thought it was New Age, oh well. But, this is a story, written by a man who wrote it for his children. It got published and has changed many lives for the better. It opened my eyes up to some things I haven't thought of for awhile, good things. If this was advertized as a Biblically sound theory in theolgy, then I can understand folk's negative posts. But, it is not and for those who can't see it for what it is, I feel bad for them. For those who claim it is dangerous for some, stay away from the White album!! Charles Manson says he killed because he was told to from listening to the Beatles album! It's a great book and bringing many back to their First Love-Jesus.
The ShackI am reading this because I wanted to see what all the "fuss" was about and it seemed like I was one of the few in our church who had not read The Shack. I think it is an "uplifting and creative fiction". Yes, it is based on good and true theology from the author's experience as the child of a missionary and his own education. It is enjoyable and helpful to me but not life changing.
The ShackAn amazing book! It left me with a new and renewed understanding of the Trinity, like nothing I had ever experienced before! The writer brings the complex and nearly incomprehensible nature of God literally down to earth! Any reader will not soon forget this beautiful story and will feel its impact daily, thereafter!
The ShackThis book is an absolute "must read" regardless of your spiritual beliefs. It will give you some things to think about very seriously and may even change your life. I especially like Chapter 11, "Here Come Da Judge", and plan to reread it often. This book would be great for a study group also.
greatThis book is great! And it came in the promised time frame in the stated condition. I was very impressed! ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore 2. He Loves Me! Learning to Live in the Father's Affection 3. Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together 4. The Love Dare 5. Fireproof .
Favourite Lists: 1. Christian Inspiration To Feed your Soul. 2. Excellent Books of Today. 3. True Love: Marriage, Romance, Inspirational, Historical, Contemporary. 4. Birthday gifts. 5. Book Club suggestions. 6. Books that will help free you from religion, guilt, and shame. 7. Books That Will Change Your Life!. 8. Books I read and loved.... 9. Great Books to Read (All Genres). 10. Need Some Inspiration?.

2. Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)by Stephenie Meyer
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US$22.99US$12.64US$10.35 (45%)Category: Hardcover (2008-08-02)Publisher: Little, Brown Young ReadersISBN: 031606792XSales Rank: 5Lowest New Price: $12.20 Lowest Used Price: $11.98 (71 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?
To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs.
Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life--first discovered in Twilight, then scattered and torn in New Moon and Eclipse--seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever?
The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.
Amazon.com Review
Great love stories thrive on sacrifice. Throughout The Twilight Saga (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse), Stephenie Meyer has emulated great love stories--Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights--with the fated, yet perpetually doomed love of Bella (the human girl) and Edward (the vampire who feeds on animals instead of humans). In Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final installment in the series, Bella’s story plays out in some unexpected ways. The ongoing conflicts that made this series so compelling--a human girl in love with a vampire, a werewolf in love with a human girl, the generations-long feud between werewolves and vampires--resolve pretty quickly, apparently so that Meyer could focus on Bella’s latest opportunity for self-sacrifice: giving her life for someone she loves even more than Edward. How close she comes to actually making that sacrifice is questionable, which is a big shift from the earlier books. Even though you knew Bella would make it through somehow, the threats to her life, and to her relationship with Edward, had previously always felt real. It’s as if Meyer was afraid of hurting her characters too much, which is unfortunate, because the pain Bella suffered at losing Edward in New Moon, and the pain Jacob suffered at losing Bella again and again, are the fire and the heart that drive the whole series. Diehard fans will stick with Bella, Edward, and Jacob for as many twists and turns as possible, but after most of the characters get what they want with little sacrifice, some readers may have a harder time caring what happens next. (Ages 12 and up) --Heidi Broadhead
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 4155 reviews.
My favorite but sorry to see it end...I so enjoyed this series and loved the ending. I can only hope that Stephenie's career will be as long and successful as Nora Roberts! Thanks for a great series.
Quick/GoodThe book came within two days even though I paid for regular delivery. Book was in excellent condition. Glad to get it. Great work Amazon!
This Emotional Avalanche Is The Best Book In The SeriesAfter fourteen hundred pages of dragged out romance scenes and endless ruminating from a teenager, Author Stephanie Meyers finally gets it right. The forth book in the series is by far the best. Belle gets to experience the full passion of life. From the bruising grip of copulation to the out of body experience that is childbirth, Belle and Edward are put through an emotional avalanche and the reader falls down it with them. The pace of action is quick, the chills are heartwrenching and the outcome is truly creative. While parts of the series might put you to sleep, this is the book that will wake you up and make you want to live again. Well, maybe as an undead at least.
very funa fun series, on the corny side, but really, sometimes you just need something fun like this book. very vivid book really draws you in.
Loved this story.I really liked Breaking Dawn. After the disaster that was Eclipse I had low expecations for this final book. I was tired of Bella with her constant whining and fainting and the way she betrayed Edward made my sick in Eclipse. Breaking Dawn resolved my issues with Eclipse and unlike alot of the negative reviews I did not see a problem with Bella getting married and having a child. I mean come on, she was about the become a vampire and everyone is upset because she wasn't going straight to college after high school lol!! She has time to attend college 100x if she wants to in the future. I also like that she stopped whining in the book and that her character actually progressed. This story is a fairytale, I was expecting for Bella to get everything in the end and I was happy when she did. Jacob's character really shined in this book and let me tell you, after Eclipse I wouldn't have minded if she killed his character off. I enjoyed looking at things from his point of view and I liked how Meyer resolved the 'love traingle' that I was so disgusted with in Eclipse. I just started reading Midnight Sun on her website and I love it, reading from Edward's point of view is refreshing. I hope she gets it finished and in the bookstore soon. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3) 2. New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) 3. The Host: A Novel 4. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) 5. Twilight Soundtrack .
Favourite Lists: 1. Excellent Books of Today. 2. My 2009 list of books read. 3. Thrilling Romance. 4. Favorite Books. 5. 2009 Reading List. 6. Books that I didn't want to see end. 7. All time Favorite Authors and their works!. 8. My top 25 Books. 9. Books I want to Read in 2009. 10. 2009 Reads.

3. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3)by Stephenie Meyer
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US$19.99US$10.99US$9 (45%)Category: Hardcover (2007-08-07)Publisher: Little, Brown Young ReadersISBN: 0316160202Sales Rank: 6Lowest New Price: $9.50 Lowest Used Price: $10.30 (63 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Readers captivated by Twilight and New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga. As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob --- knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 1418 reviews.
Love/Hate with the Love Triangle!This is book 3 in the Twilight series, and I definitely feel in the minority. One reviewer commented that if Twilight is about "finding love", New Moon is about "loosing love", and Eclipse is about "choosing love". I think this was a brilliant summery of this series so far. What am I to do when this whole series is based on the "destined love" between Bella and Edward, and I wish something would happen to Edward so that Bella and Jacob could be together! Jacob, to me, is the best part of this series. He is "fire" to Edward's "ice" literally and figuratively, and I am so much more inclined towards "fire". Not only Jacob's body temperature, but his heart beats with warmth and love for Bella. I loved their friendship in New Moon and now I have come to love their romantic love in Eclipse. Obviously, this is not going to happen! Edward and Bella are destined and it's like Jacob said best...... "He's (Edward) is like a drug for you, Bella. I see that you can't live without him now. It's too late. But I would have been healthier for you. Not a drug; I would have been the air, the sun." So Heartbreaking. Enough said.
Quick delivery/Great conditionI paid the lowest price around for this book and got regular delivery but the book came within two days! I was thrilled because I was waiting on them to continue the saga. The book was in excellent condition.
literary cracki am so anoyed that i like this book. i am a 36 year old man and have really enjoyed the series. it is not good literature nor a great story but they definately capture your attention and pull you through. reccommended fun reading. literary candy.
Warning addicting!Eclipse is a great addition to the Twilight Saga and I enjoyed reading this book as well as the other 3. They should really put a warning label on this series because it is addicting! Once you start reading, you can't stop!
So disappointedThis is my husbands account but I am writing the review. I just finished reading the first two books. I have to be honest I skipped the whole Jacob thing in New Moon and went straight to the Edward part. If eclipse is about Jacob YUCK! Who cares about Jacob we all want Edward and Bella. I couldnt understand how after all she suffered with losing him and giving up her life to save him and getting him back that Meyers had the nerve to throw in Jacob who was just a friend. After she was so stubborn about having made her decision. I did notice they ever had fun together, I would have liked to see them do more human things together since Edward missed out dying at such a young age but instead they always argued, she always wanted more. It started getting old. She did mention wanting to marry and secretly hoped he would one day ask but when Edward finally asks she flips out. I was thinking about buying Eclipse but after reading the reviews I will NOT buy the book. I feel that it will make me dislike the characters. I am really sad Meyers twisted the story so much. The beauty of the first book, the forbidden love is why we all bought the second book. But by the end of New Moon I was actually embarrassed that I was reading the book it started getting petty. I think I will stop while the going is good. I would say dont buy this book and ruin the beauty of the first book. I really hope the last one goes back to the passion of the first one. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) 2. New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) 3. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) 4. The Host: A Novel 5. Twilight Soundtrack .
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4. The Yankee Yearsby Joe Torre, Tom Verducci
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US$26.95US$14.82US$12.13 (45%)Category: Hardcover (2009-02-03)Publisher: DoubledayISBN: 0385527403Sales Rank: 20Lowest New Price: $11.00 Lowest Used Price: $11.48 (10 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Twelve straight playoff appearances. Six American League pennants. Four World Series titles. This is the definitive story of a dynasty: the Yankee yearsWhen Joe Torre took over as manager of the New York Yankees in 1996, the most storied franchise in sports had not won a World Series title in eighteen years. The famously tough and mercurial owner, George Steinbrenner, had fired seventeen managers during that span. Torre’s appointment was greeted with Bronx cheers from the notoriously brutal New York media, who cited his record as the player and manager who had been in the most Major League games without appearing in a World SeriesTwelve tumultuous and triumphant years later, Torre left the team as the most beloved and successful manager in the game. In an era of multimillionaire free agents, fractured clubhouses, revenue-sharing, and off-the-field scandals, Torre forged a team ethos that united his players and made the Yankees, once again, the greatest team in sports. He won over the media with his honesty and class, and was beloved by the fans.But it wasn’t easy.Here, for the first time, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci take us inside the dugout, the clubhouse, and the front office in a revelatory narrative that shows what it really took to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world. The high-priced ace who broke down in tears and refused to go back to the mound in the middle of a game. Constant meddling from Yankee executives, many of whom were jealous of Torre’s popularity. The tension that developed between the old guard and the free agents brought in by management. The impact of revenue-sharing and new scouting techniques, which allowed other teams to challenge the Yankees’ dominance. The players who couldn’t resist the after-hours temptations of the Big Apple. The joys of managing Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, and the challenges of managing Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi. Torre’s last year, when constant ultimatums from the front office, devastating injuries, and a freak cloud of bugs on a warm September night in Cleveland forced him from a job he loved.Through it all, Torre kept his calm, kept his players’ respect, and kept winning.And, of course, The Yankee Years chronicles the amazing stories on the diamond. The stirring comeback in the 1996 World Series against the heavily favored Braves. The wonder of 1998, when Torre led the Yanks to the most wins in Major League history. The draining and emotional drama of the 2001 World Series. The incredible twists and turns of the epic Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series against the Red Sox, in which two teams who truly despised each other battled pitch by pitch until the stunning extra-inning home run.Here is a sweeping narrative of Major League Baseball in the Yankee era, a book both grand in its scope and fascinating in its details.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 60 reviews.
An insite to the players of the recent Yankee years.A great look at the player-management relationships in the recent Yankee years. It sets this season up as the ending is yet to come. It is very current to todays happenings.
Ex-Yankee Fan ReviewWell written description of what went on in Yankee land and professional baseball in the last twelve years. In my opinion, Joe Torre is one of the classiest and competent baseball managers of all time. The treatment he received from the Yankee organization and the way they handled the whole A-Rod business is why I am no longer a devout Yankee fan. The book takes you behind the scenes and gives insight into some of the big name players of that era. Baseball has gone from "America's Pastime" to a giant, uncontrolled, greedy business.
GREATBEING A YANKEE FAN, ANY BOOK ABOUT THEM IS GOOD. THE HULLABALLO ABOUT THIS ONE IS A LOT OF MALARKEY. ALL BOOKS HAVE SOME SELLING FEATURES. I FOUND THIS BOOK TO BE WELL WRITTEN AND NOT AN "EXPOSE" OF ANY KIND. I ENJOYED IT THOROUGHLY.
If you are a Yankee fan, or even a baseball fan, you'll love this book. I took "The Yankee Years" on vacation with me to Cancun and spent many enjoyable hours on the beach reading it. It was honest and eye-opening. Joe Torre gave a behind the curtain look at what it was like to manage the Yankees all of those years, through the good times and not so good, dealing with the players that shared his philosophy and those who did their own thing and how difficult Steinbrenner was to work for but how Torre learned how to manage him also. It was a fun page-turner and if you love baseball and especially if you love the Yankees, you will love this book.
The Yankees YearsGood read. The Yankee Years is not just about "THE" one team. It is an eye opening account of MLB. Lots and lots of information. Highly recommended. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The Associate 2. Working on a Dream (Deluxe Version) 3. Baseball Prospectus 2009: The Essential Guide to the 2009 Baseball Season 4. Run for Your Life 5. Bases Loaded: The Inside Story of the Steroid Era in Baseball by the Central Figure in the Mitchell Report .
Favourite Lists: 1. LIFE IN THE ARENA OF SPORTS. 2. 10 Great gifts for the man in your life 2009. 3. Great Books for 2009. 4. 10 Best Books Published So Far In 2009!. 5. Best of the current New York Yankees books. 6. Expand Your Library and Your Mind. 7. Great Sports Books. 8. Bestsellers from January 2009. 9. Money, Wealth, Health and love. 10. *****Awesome!!!.

5. New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)by Stephenie Meyer
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US$10.99US$6.04US$4.95 (45%)Category: Paperback (2008-05-31)Publisher: Little, Brown Young ReadersISBN: 0316024961Sales Rank: 8Lowest New Price: $4.80 Lowest Used Price: $4.71 (173 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Legions of readers entranced by Twilight are hungry for more and they won't be disappointed. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 1612 reviews.
Not as good as the first, but an excellent setup for #3 & #4At first I didn't like this sequel to Twilight, but after finishing the series I have come to appreciate it much more. Not giving anything away, but this book is an important factor in the series as a whole. My advise: Enjoy it as much as you can, though it may seem slow and a bit depressing compared to the first book, and get through to the more exciting #3 and #4!
BookThe book is wonderful, part of a great series. Amazon had it at a very reasonable price and it arrived very quickly in the mail.
Teenage Girls Are Upset About EdwardI think that the only reason why this book is getting some bad reviews is because the teenage girls have fallen in love with the Edward character and are torn apart to see him leave Bella. That is one of the main reasons that I like this book because a good book brings out emotion in the reader and this book certainly does.
Twilight Saga - New MoonThis is an awesome book....I am a 46 year old mom (Jimmy's wife) and am addicted to the Twilight Saga. Easy read and entertaining.
GT Book ReviewBella Swan is at it again in the second book of the twilight series New Moon. Bella is still hanging out with the mysterious vampire Edward Cullen. She loves him with an extent that she always wishes have him in her presence. He is very protective of her, and wants to be around her also. Bella seems to see his change in perspective when he spills the news that he and his family need to move. Since vampires do not age, people get suspicious in one area after a wide range of time has passed but yet the vampires' complexion has aged none whatsoever. In this book, this is the time the Cullens decide to leave Forks, and go somewhere else. Bella was devastated. She could not let Edward leave without her, but no matter what she said about the move, he would stop her and change the subject. When the move actually occurs, Bella sobs and mopes everywhere for several months on end until she remembered her good friend Jacob Black. He was the repair man, and builder who helped to get her truck back to life again. She went to him with two tattered motorcycles from the dump to let him fix up so that they could both enjoy the excitement of adrenaline on them. They spent much time together fixing up the motorcycles, but had to make sure neither of their parents found out about their dangerous attempts. When the motorcycles were eventually done, Bella tried to learn how to ride, but found herself very klutzy, and enjoying the experience at the same time. The enjoyable ride became exciting when she heard Edward speak in her head telling her how she needed to stay safe, and not to do something so crazy. Bella was shocked at his voice, and slid off the road to be smashed by the bike with a gash in her head, this was, however, the bad part. Bella made up a silly excuse, and Charlie, her father, believed her because she is usually very klutzy anyway. After that wild experience, Bella wanted another adrenaline-rush kind of fun to happen again. She encouraged Jacob to go with her to do many crazy things like cliff diving, but she decided that she was bored one time and jumped off alone into the deep abyss of black water. Once she hit, she knew she was in trouble when she did not know up from down. She finally was saved by the heroic Jacob who towed her onto the shore. She found that Edward thought she had died, and was going to ask to be killed over in Europe. Alice gave her this news, and then they rushed over on a plane to barely meet him under the clock tower before he was revealed in the light to the entire town as a bloodsucking vampire. This book can be very, very boring at parts, but the plot of the novel leads the reader to continue reading until the book is read cover to cover. Edward is not in a large part of this novel because of his move, and his absence makes the reader somewhat bored, but makes the reader want to read because they want to hear about Edward again. I encourage a dedicated Twilight reader to READ THIS, but if you are a person who does not enjoy reading boring material, DO NOT read this book. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3) 2. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) 3. Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) 4. The Host: A Novel 5. Twilight Soundtrack .
Favourite Lists: 1. Excellent Books of Today. 2. My 2009 list of books read. 3. Favorite Books. 4. All time Favorite Authors and their works!. 5. Books I've Read Part III. 6. My top 25 Books. 7. Unforgettable Romances. 8. Highly recommended reads for 2009. 9. 2009 Reads. 10. Books I read and loved....

6. New Moonby Stephenie Meyer
Category: Paperback (2008-06-05)Publisher: ATOMISBN: 1905654359Sales Rank: 2976760Lowest Used Price: $20.00 (2 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Legions of readers entranced by Twilight are hungry for more and they won't be disappointed. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 1612 reviews.
Not as good as the first, but an excellent setup for #3 & #4At first I didn't like this sequel to Twilight, but after finishing the series I have come to appreciate it much more. Not giving anything away, but this book is an important factor in the series as a whole. My advise: Enjoy it as much as you can, though it may seem slow and a bit depressing compared to the first book, and get through to the more exciting #3 and #4!
BookThe book is wonderful, part of a great series. Amazon had it at a very reasonable price and it arrived very quickly in the mail.
Teenage Girls Are Upset About EdwardI think that the only reason why this book is getting some bad reviews is because the teenage girls have fallen in love with the Edward character and are torn apart to see him leave Bella. That is one of the main reasons that I like this book because a good book brings out emotion in the reader and this book certainly does.
Twilight Saga - New MoonThis is an awesome book....I am a 46 year old mom (Jimmy's wife) and am addicted to the Twilight Saga. Easy read and entertaining.
GT Book ReviewBella Swan is at it again in the second book of the twilight series New Moon. Bella is still hanging out with the mysterious vampire Edward Cullen. She loves him with an extent that she always wishes have him in her presence. He is very protective of her, and wants to be around her also. Bella seems to see his change in perspective when he spills the news that he and his family need to move. Since vampires do not age, people get suspicious in one area after a wide range of time has passed but yet the vampires' complexion has aged none whatsoever. In this book, this is the time the Cullens decide to leave Forks, and go somewhere else. Bella was devastated. She could not let Edward leave without her, but no matter what she said about the move, he would stop her and change the subject. When the move actually occurs, Bella sobs and mopes everywhere for several months on end until she remembered her good friend Jacob Black. He was the repair man, and builder who helped to get her truck back to life again. She went to him with two tattered motorcycles from the dump to let him fix up so that they could both enjoy the excitement of adrenaline on them. They spent much time together fixing up the motorcycles, but had to make sure neither of their parents found out about their dangerous attempts. When the motorcycles were eventually done, Bella tried to learn how to ride, but found herself very klutzy, and enjoying the experience at the same time. The enjoyable ride became exciting when she heard Edward speak in her head telling her how she needed to stay safe, and not to do something so crazy. Bella was shocked at his voice, and slid off the road to be smashed by the bike with a gash in her head, this was, however, the bad part. Bella made up a silly excuse, and Charlie, her father, believed her because she is usually very klutzy anyway. After that wild experience, Bella wanted another adrenaline-rush kind of fun to happen again. She encouraged Jacob to go with her to do many crazy things like cliff diving, but she decided that she was bored one time and jumped off alone into the deep abyss of black water. Once she hit, she knew she was in trouble when she did not know up from down. She finally was saved by the heroic Jacob who towed her onto the shore. She found that Edward thought she had died, and was going to ask to be killed over in Europe. Alice gave her this news, and then they rushed over on a plane to barely meet him under the clock tower before he was revealed in the light to the entire town as a bloodsucking vampire. This book can be very, very boring at parts, but the plot of the novel leads the reader to continue reading until the book is read cover to cover. Edward is not in a large part of this novel because of his move, and his absence makes the reader somewhat bored, but makes the reader want to read because they want to hear about Edward again. I encourage a dedicated Twilight reader to READ THIS, but if you are a person who does not enjoy reading boring material, DO NOT read this book. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3) 2. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1) 3. Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) 4. The Host: A Novel 5. Twilight Soundtrack .

7. The Love Dareby Stephen Kendrick, Alex Kendrick
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US$14.99US$8.24US$6.75 (45%)Category: Paperback (2008-09-28)Publisher: B&H BooksISBN: 0805448853Sales Rank: 7Lowest New Price: $7.69 Lowest Used Price: $7.42 (13 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Too many marriages end when someone says "I've fallen out of love with you" or "I don't love you anymore." The Love Dare discusses how these statements reveal a lack of understanding about the fundamental nature of true love.
As featured in the popular new movie Fireproof, from the team that brought us the #1 best selling DVD Facing the Giants, The Love Dare is a 40-day guided devotional experience that will lead your heart back to truly loving your spouse while learning more about the design, nature, and source of true love. Each reading includes Scripture, a statement of principle, the day's "dare," and a journaling area and check box to chart progress.
Dare to take The Love Dare, and see your marriage change forever.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 147 reviews.
A Couple That Prays Together, Stays TogetherAlex and Stephen Kendrick do a fantastic job at keeping the reader captivated throughout the text. The contents of their book influenced my writing of A Greater Prayer: A How-To Manual on Making the Lord's Prayer Your Very Own. I believe that whatever your ministry, including that of being an exeplary spouse, this book will open doors.
Good ReadHeard this from many friends. It's a good read. I would give it 4 stars.
so awsomeim so glad i got this book.it has help me within myself.it has lots of struggles 2 deal with but in the long run has made me @ peace in my heart & with God.i now have so much weight lifted off me & now its in Gods hands to do what he needs to do with my life.
The Love Dare This book is for everyone who is serious about saving their marriage and who do not want to leave a legacy of divorce to their children.I also like to guide you to my favorite book about love and marriageI Love You. Now What?: Falling in Love is a Mystery, Keeping It Isn't
a WORTHY ReadNicely Produced book. Easy / concise chapters. However, be forewarned, it's not just for Reading. It's for DOING. So, if you're ready for some Action, open the cover... ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. Fireproof 2. Fireproof Your Marriage Couple's Kit 3. Fireproof 4. Flywheel (Director's Cut) 5. The Shack .
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8. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)by Stephenie Meyer
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US$10.99US$6.04US$4.95 (45%)Category: Paperback (2006-09-06)Publisher: Little, Brown Young ReadersISBN: 0316015849Sales Rank: 10Lowest New Price: $4.54 Lowest Used Price: $4.00 (190 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
"Softly he brushed my cheek, then held my face between his marble hands. ''Be very still,'' he whispered, as if I wasn''t already frozen. Slowly, never moving his eyes from mine, he leaned toward me. Then abruptly, but very gently, he rested his cold cheek against the hollow at the base of my throat. " As Shakespeare knew, love burns high when thwarted by obstacles. In Twilight, an exquisite fantasy by Stephenie Meyer, readers discover a pair of lovers who are supremely star-crossed. Bella adores beautiful Edward, and he returns her love. But Edward is having a hard time controlling the blood lust she arouses in him, because--he''s a vampire. At any moment, the intensity of their passion could drive him to kill her, and he agonizes over the danger. But, Bella would rather be dead than part from Edward, so she risks her life to stay near him, and the novel burns with the erotic tension of their dangerous and necessarily chaste relationship.Meyer has achieved quite a feat by making this scenario completely human and believable. She begins with a familiar YA premise (the new kid in school), and lulls us into thinking this will be just another realistic young adult novel. Bella has come to the small town of Forks on the gloomy Olympic Peninsula to be with her father. At school, she wonders about a group of five remarkably beautiful teens, who sit together in the cafeteria but never eat. As she grows to know, and then love, Edward, she learns their secret. They are all rescued vampires, part of a family headed by saintly Carlisle, who has inspired them to renounce human prey. For Edward''s sake they welcome Bella, but when a roving group of tracker vampires fixates on her, the family is drawn into a desperate pursuit to protect the fragile human in their midst. The precision and delicacy of Meyer''s writing lifts this wonderful novel beyond the limitations of the horror genre to a place among the best of YA fiction. (Ages 12 and up)
Amazon.com Review
The book that started the phenomenon is now available in a deluxe collector's edition! Featuring a ribbon bookmark, cloth cover, ragged edges, new chapter opener designs, and a beautiful protective slipcase, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.Bella Swan's move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Bella's life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Bella, the person Edward holds most dear. Deeply romantic and extraordinarily suspenseful, Twilight captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. This is a love story with bite.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 3774 reviews.
Loved this book!I love to get a book that I can't put down. This was one of those. It held my attention the entire time. My husband bought me all the other Twilight saga books & I loved them also.
Great Book Great PriceI really enjoyed this book and love that I could buy it at such a great price.
So Easy to ReadThis book was written with such simple language, easy flow and wonderful pacing, that it is an incredibly easy read. I really enjoyed it. The love story has a "Romeo and Juliet" quality - the forbidden love. I enjoyed it. It does have a young feel, alas it is a Young Adult book. The characters are in high school and there is a teenage feel to the story. One of my favorite parts of the book was the mystery and allure surrounding Edward Cullen's family. It intrigued me and kept me turning the pages. I also enjoyed the teaser at the end. I can't wait to pick up the next book in this series.
great read!great read -never thought vampires or vampires romance would ever be of any interest to me and I was proven wrong with this book --the entire series is enjoyable!
found it intriguingthis was a book i was skeptical about because i am a perso that doesn't like romance novels and i found the beginning a little but it progressed it took a turn and there was a terrific plot in all of this i love stephen king but i think he is my second favorite author ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2) 2. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3) 3. Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion 4. The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide 5. Twilight Soundtrack .
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9. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitmentby Steve Harvey
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US$23.99US$13.19US$10.8 (45%)Category: Hardcover (2009-01-27)Publisher: AmistadISBN: 0061728977Sales Rank: 3Lowest New Price: $12.97 Lowest Used Price: $12.65 (4 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
Steve Harvey, the host of the nationally syndicated Steve Harvey Morning Show, can't count the number of impressive women he's met over the years, whether it's through the "Strawberry Letters" segment of his program or while on tour for his comedy shows. These are women who can run a small business, keep a household with three kids in tiptop shape, and chair a church group all at the same time. Yet when it comes to relationships, they can't figure out what makes men tick. Why? According to Steve it's because they're asking other women for advice when no one but another man can tell them how to find and keep a man. In Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, Steve lets women inside the mindset of a man and sheds lights on concepts and questions such as:
—The Ninety Day Rule: Ford requires it of its employees. Should you require it of your man?
—How to spot a mama's boy and what if anything you can do about it.
—When to introduce the kids. And what to read into the first interaction between your date and your kids.
—The five questions every woman should ask a man to determine how serious he is.
— And more...
Sometimes funny, sometimes direct, but always truthful, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man is a book you must read if you want to understand how men think when it comes to relationships.
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 67 reviews.
Excellent This book was hard to put down...very informative and helpful if you want to know some of the things that goes on in the heads of men. Ladies, you will feel like your dad, uncle or big brother is giving you the advice that you need when it comes to a man. You will thank Steve Harvey for this one. He dropped a lot of nuggets for us girls.
Outstanding This book will empower women to think about the kind of relationship they wont to be in and how to ask question and get the right answer from a man, to have a health and normal relationship. The book was very informative. Loved It!!!!!
satisfied customerThis book was VERY informative and quite appropriate for the single woman who is looking to find a healthy and committed relationship. Though many women have preconceived visions of a fantasy relationship, Steve Harvey's book helps to translate the male manifestation of a women's core desires.
ladideeI throughly enjoyed the book. It was informative, practical, and provided a clear guideline for dating. I would suggest this book for any young adult or women's reading group. I believe that any woman questioning whether or not she is in an serious relationship would more than likely get her question answered after she reads the book. The book is also for any woman who wants a better understanding of what her man needs. This book is definitely from a mans perspective on dating and relationship. I was able to say 'oh, that's what that mean.'
It helped immediately..I read and finished this book last night.. with my husband of 11 years next to me.. we have our problems.. for sure, but we're happy right now.. this book really opened my eyes to what was going on in his world, and with that knowledge brought me a little closer to him. I already started some of the stuff Steve said was positive reinforcement.. things you knew already, but not really in that light.. complimenting him, showing him appreciation, "respecting the 'return'," and a lot of the things Steve said about men, was exactly like my man. I demand more ("standards"), yet am less demanding in other areas. I know, it's only been a day, but starting last night, and all day today, I can tell he's appreciating my new vision a whole lot, which in turn is making me feel really happy as well. It's a win win. But definitely have an open mind when reading and feel the author in his words. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The 4 Day Diet 2. Steve Harvey: Still Trippin' 3. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage) 4. If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs: A Guide to Understanding Men 5. The Man Plan: Drive Men Wild... Not Away .
Favourite Lists: 1. Save your marriage. 2. Books That'll Blow You Away. 3. love and roses. 4. 10 Best Books Published So Far In 2009!. 5. Favorite Relationship Advice Books. 6. Expand Your Library and Your Mind. 7. Self-help. 8. Bestsellers from January 2009. 9. Money, Wealth, Health and love. 10. Falling in Love.

10. Outliers: The Story of Successby Malcolm Gladwell
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US$27.99US$15.39US$12.6 (45%)Category: Hardcover (2008-11-18)Publisher: Little, Brown and CompanyISBN: 0316017922Sales Rank: 9Lowest New Price: $12.00 Lowest Used Price: $12.00 (28 Used Items)Canada United Kingdom Germany France Japan Product Description
In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band. Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, November 2008: Now that he's gotten us talking about the viral life of ideas and the power of gut reactions, Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."Outliers can be enjoyed for its bits of trivia, like why most pro hockey players were born in January, how many hours of practice it takes to master a skill, why the descendents of Jewish immigrant garment workers became the most powerful lawyers in New York, how a pilots' culture impacts their crash record, how a centuries-old culture of rice farming helps Asian kids master math. But there's more to it than that. Throughout all of these examples--and in more that delve into the social benefits of lighter skin color, and the reasons for school achievement gaps--Gladwell invites conversations about the complex ways privilege manifests in our culture. He leaves us pondering the gifts of our own history, and how the world could benefit if more of our kids were granted the opportunities to fulfill their remarkable potential. --Mari Malcolm
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Customer ReviewsAverage Customer Review: Based on 388 reviews.
Thoroughly enjoying Outliers Had to buy the book for a class, but it really is a great story. My class and I are really enjoying it.
another thought-provoking read from GladwellGladwell does his normal excellent job of throwing out thought-provoking statements and then backing them up with data. His arguments are compelling and provide yet another way to look at things. While some people find a few of his topics off-putting or controverisal I think he comes at them with an honesty and openness that is refreshing. I can highly recommend all of his books, including this one.
It's Rather AmusingI thought the book was lightly entertaining. I also find it amusing that someone writes pretty near a book of their own just to denigrate this one. Someone clearly has an axe to grind or just plain needs to get a life.
Interesting observations, fun read.This is a very engaging and entertaining book. In the case of the Korean pilots and Jewish lawyers, Gladwell has a way of making sense of all the cultural stereotyping and racial generalisation, putting them into their proper context, and somehow articulated to the reader that stereotyping can be beneficial if properly understood. I don't know how much to believe there is a link between thousand years of hard working Chinese farmers and their descendant maths ability and high IQ. The 10,000 hours "rule" to become an expert at anything is comforting for those of us who aren't blessed with the smart of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and the likes. I can't help but notice most of that are hardcore technical skills like singing, music, programming or writing. Does the 10,000 hrs rule applies equally well to business management ? Most would say the practice of becoming a great business leader take years to perfect. How then could one explain the cause of most business failures by senior management who have had tens of thousand of hours being managers. Rarely a company fails because of its technical problem. Some have argued that the book is just a collection of the author's own anecdotes, flimsily research at best. Gladwell wasn't asserting himself as a scientist. Even the non-scientist audience would be hard-pressed to accept some of the grander theories (such as the link between rice paddy farmers and high IQ) without more vigorous supporting evidence. This however, does not detract the general theme of the book, which is to say a lot of the Outliers' success are a combination of luck, hard work, tenacity and the grace of others around them. It is a fun read.
Another Anti-American Revisionist's Attempt to Change HistoryI read, and reread, this book three times. While Mr. Gladwell makes some interesting points regarding birth dates and the connection to success, his assertion that the USA's success is simply a matter of right time right place is unfounded. He discounts aspects of history that are inconvenient and embellishes the aspects of history he feels fits into his puzzle. Unfortunately, he is simply another Canadian imprisoned by a hatred of all things American. This hatred is so engrained in Canadian culture. While many of America's millionaires and success-stories can be explained as people of fortune circumstances, the leap to discounting an entire culture and people is simply not credible. ... Read moreSimilar Items: 1. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference 2. Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else 3. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking 4. Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America 5. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life .
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