Description
Book SynopsisThis book presents a biographical history of the field of systems thinking, by examining the life and work of thirty of its major thinkers. It discusses each thinker’s key contributions, the way this contribution was expressed in practice and the relationship between their life and ideas. This discussion is supported by an extract from the thinker’s own writing, to give a flavour of their work and to give readers a sense of which thinkers are most relevant to their own interests.
Trade ReviewFrom the reviews: “Ramage and Shipp wrote this book as a textbook for a course in the UK’s Open University. … This work examines 30 major figures from all disciplines. The authors describe each figure in terms of how their work fits the ‘systems thinking’ pattern … . This book is suitable for its stated purpose as a resource tool for a course in a specialized academic discipline. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, and faculty.” (C. G. Wood, Choice, Vol. 47 (9), May, 2010)
Table of ContentsEarly Cybernetics.- Gregory Bateson.- Norbert Wiener.- Warren McCulloch.- Margaret Mead.- W. Ross Ashby.- General Systems Theory.- Ludwig von Bertalanffy.- Kenneth Boulding.- Geoffrey Vickers.- Howard Odum.- System Dynamics.- Jay Forrester.- Donella Meadows.- Peter Senge.- Soft and Critical Systems.- C. West Churchman.- Russell Ackoff.- Peter Checkland.- Werner Ulrich.- Michael Jackson.- Later Cybernetics.- Heinz von Foerster.- Stafford Beer.- Humberto Maturana.- Niklas Luhmann.- Paul Watzlawick.- Complexity Theory.- Ilya Prigogine.- Stuart Kauffman.- James Lovelock.- Learning Systems.- Kurt Lewin.- Eric Trist.- Chris Argyris.- Donald Schön.- Mary Catherine Bateson.
