Category Archives: Book Reviews

Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Book Reviews / June 2012

Righteous MindHaidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. (New York: Pantheon), 2012.

Bruce L. Gibb

The Righteous Mind is clear, accessible, and interesting. Haidt breaks the “third wall” and relates his own personal journey of developing awareness and understanding. This journey is an engaging way to do the expected academic “literature review.” I also prefer it to the approach used by David Brooks in The Social Animal who threads scientific findings onto the life …

The New “Little Red Book”

Book Reviews / June 2012

Russ Volckmann

Stephane Hessel and Edgar Morin.s The Path of Hope, foreword by Jeff Madrick. New York: Other Press, 2012.

It is an election year in Algeria, Egypt, France, Iran, Italy, the US, Israel, Russia, and elsewhere. Do you think that is a reason for so much interest in integral circles in politics and action? Well, for sure the politics thing. But what about action? We are being called to occupy, to learn to lead, to take action. Some …

Book Review: Gary Stamper, Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior

Book Reviews / March 2012

Is the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement Ready for the Leap to Integral? A Review of Awakening the New Masculine: The Path of the Integral Warrior, by Gary Stamper, Ph.D. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012.

William Harryman

When I see a new book coming out from someone involved with the integral movement (Stamper co-founded and led the Seattle Integral salon), and especially the Ken Wilber version of integral theory, I steel myself for the seemingly obligatory two to three …

Book Review: A New Economics of Cultural Cross-Fertilization

Book Reviews / March 2012

A Review Essay on Ronnie Lessem’s and Alexander Schieffer’s Integral Economics (Gower, 2010)

Christian Arnsperger

The discipline of economics has fallen into a deep crisis, just as humanity is scrambling for a new – and, for the first time perhaps, completely global – worldview that will allow it to address the immense challenges of economic poverty, ecological and human sustainability, and geopolitical peace that the 21st century is sending its way. A crisis of economics at a moment of economic …

Book Review: Misleadership

Book Reviews / March 2012

Paul Roscorla

John Rayment and Jonathan Smith: Misleadership: Prevalence, Causes & Consequences.  Farnham, Surrey, UK: Gower, 2011.

This book has an intriguing title and therefore considerable potential to be thought provoking.  There is a good idea here that the authors, who are business academics and business consultants, have been commissioned to explore.  Whether or not they have succeeded in translating a great idea into a great book is less certain, but the concept of “Misleadership”, its origins and impact has …

Book Review: Buffalo Maps

Book Reviews / January 2012

Nick Obolensky. Complex Adaptive Leadership. Farnham, Surrey, England: Gower, 2010

Nick Shannon

In one of the appendices to this book, the author tells a story about Cheyenne Indian tribes whose initiation rights for young men included sending them out on a hunt for buffalos. Invariably such hunts were initially unsuccessful. Returning empty handed, initiates would be sent to the medicine man who would bolster their courage and confidence by providing a “magic” buffalo map, written on a piece of hide, …

Book Review: Integral Psychotherapy and With a Commentary on Ken Wilber’s AQAL and Types

Book Reviews / January 2012

John Rowan

Mark D Forman. A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy:
Complexity, Integration and Spirituality in Practice
.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010.

R. Elliott Ingersoll & David M Zeitler.
Integral Psychotherapy: Inside Out. Outside In
.
Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2010.

 

 

 

 

Two books on the same subject, from the same publisher, in the same year. They both say – A volume in the SUNY series in Integral Theory – and have the same series editor. How …

Book Review: Learning to Inspire

Book Reviews / October 2011

 

John Marshall Roberts. Igniting Inspiration: A Persuasion Manual for Visionaries. Transformational Design, 2008.

One of the challenges people steeped in theory and ideas have is learning to successfully communicate with those who hold different theories or ideas. Another is to communicate with those who don’t give a fig for either theories or ideas  different from their own. Certainly one of the promises of exploring psychological theories and models, and particularly adult developmental psychology, is that it will lead …

Book Review: True North Together

Book Reviews / October 2011

 

Bill George and Doug Baker. True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development. San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.. 2011.

During the last year I have been in a process of interviewing CEOs and entrepreneurs, We have talked a lot about their development as individuals that prepared them to be effective in leader roles in their businesses and elsewhere. Experience, education, training and practices have all played an important role. And I thought I had re-discovered another …

Book Review: Innovative Leadership

Book Reviews / October 2011

 

Maureen Metcalf & Mark Palmer. . Innovative Leadership Fieldbook. Tucson, AZ: Integral Publishers.

James L. Ritchie-Dunham

What is interesting about this book?  One of my favorite papers on “interesting” suggests that showing what seems to be complicated and disparate is actually straightforward and connected is interesting (Davis, 1971).  The world of leadership development is definitely ready for a “straightforward and connected” contribution, and Metcalf and Palmer make it with the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook (ILF).

As a reviewer, I …