Teaching Economics to Undergraduates: Alternatives to Chalk and Talk

Book Description

Based on data regarding corporate mortality, organizations are built to fail: a conclusion critical to managers, employees, stockholders, consultants, customers, vendors, competitors, and therefore all of us who transact with and depend on organizations. Yet, literature about organizational management tends to focus on education and inspiration, and to bristle with optimism about the potential success of applying its wares. Ignored, in virtually all of this literature is the reality that personnel may or may not be "inherently" self-interested, but certainly join business organizations in order to serve individual rather than organizational interests. Individual self-interest is advanced through control of various processes in order to rationalize that self-interest as a productive, organizational purpose, which not simply suppresses opposition but also conceals or even demonizes that opposition. These processes include such familiar organizational functions as individual and organizational goal-setting, job and organizational design, leadership, hiring, performance appraisal, compensation, promotion, communication, corporate culture, and change. At all levels, therefore, the organization's long-term interest is undermined by the goals of the very members of whom it is comprised--it is built to fail. And through control of its various internal processes and elimination of opposition, the organization pursues self-destructive goals without knowing it.

Customer Reviews:

Intellectual Thrill Ride.......2001-12-07

Dr. Klein's book is nothing less than an intellectual thrill-ride through the dark and exciting mysteries of organizational life. I would give "Corporate Failure" the ultimate praise for such a scholarly and profound work: I couldn't put it down! A true masterpiece: a must-read!

Encyclopedia Corporate Failure.......2001-12-04

Within a deceptively short amount of space, "Corporate Failure" delivers a massive amount of information and insights, serving as a veritable encyclopedia of reasons for corporate demise. Probably the most important book I've ever seen on the subject of organizations.

A MASTERPIECE!!!.......2001-11-30

I never knew that a book on organization and management could be so spine-tingling and intriguing. Corporate failure is staring all of us right in the face: this book dramatically tells us how, why, and what to do about it. A MASTERPIECE of a book!

The Best Book Out There.......2001-11-30

Jonathan Klein has covered the full gamut of reasons for corporate failure, at the depth they demand. By demonstrating their multiplicity and complexity, Professor Klein has effectively demonstrated that corporate failure is not a subject for intellectual lightweights. Probably the most important management book out there!

AMAZING BOOK!!! FINALLY SOMEONE ADDRESSED THIS SUBJECT.......2001-11-27

This book should be required reading for every Organizational Management course One of the best books on management written. Dr. Klein is insightful, and controversial treatise on corporate design; illustrating and backing his points with empirical research and real-life examples. This book of organization will prepare you to understand what is really happening in your world.Jonathan Klein has, in essence, produced a image in which corporations can see themselves reflected.

Book Description

Ian Tattersall is widely regarded as one of the rare eminent scientists who is also a graceful and engaging writer. In this extraordinary new work he attempts to answer the most controversial questions on human origins: What makes us so different? How did we get this way? How do we know? Guiding readers around the world and far into the past, Tattersall examines and explores evolutionary theory, a science based not on a finite set of conclusions drawn from overwhelming evidence, but rather our evolving effort to make sense out of a handful of incomplete fossil remains.
Brimming with delightful stories and scientific wisdom, this exquisite book offers fresh insight into the fundamental questions of our origins--and our evolutionary future.

Customer Reviews:

Good on His Own Ideas, Bad on Other People's.......2006-04-07

Tattersall's essays leave something to be desired, in that not only are they popular, they are extremely popular. "Only the politicians, God help us, can do anything about them." The essays give Tattersall's take on what science is, evolution in general, and various aspects of anthropogenesis. A noticeable proportion of his discourse on evolution, human and otherwise, is bombast on what he considers the errors of biologists he doesn't like, such as Richard Dawkins (even if Tattersall attacks him anonymously). This review is colored by this fact. Evolutionary psychology takes yet another pummeling, here, and "selfish gene theory" (which, I'd like to point out, I don't like) is cursorily dismissed. Most of the essays are good articulations of Tattersall's positions, however the glossing over of differences limits both their usefulness and their pedagogy.

In seems that Tattersall chooses his opponents carefully so that they can be dismissed. Consider his discussion of a child's skeleton dated 24,000 years ago that some people claim is an intermediate form of homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis. He quotes (I assume) someone calling calling it a "love child" and other arguments "special pleading," but doesn't actually discuss them. He may be right, but without reference to the actual discussion, it's very hard to tell from his polemic, which isn't always consistent with previous statements. He says, "Neanderthals and moderns did not interbreed. They are simply too different anatomically to not have belonged to different species." However, in the second chapter, Tattersall admonishes us to not look merely at such differences when deciding what is and is not a species, because "all [domestic dogs] are reproductively compatible, if not directly (think of Chihuahuas and Newfoundlands) then through intermediaries." I looked up the side-by-side comparisons in The Complete World of Human Evolution, and it seems to my untrained eye that there is less structural difference between them and us than between a Chihuahua and a Newfoundland. The explanation he gives simply isn't enough.

The anonymity of the people Tattersall doesn't agree with is annoying. He'll name Eldredge, his colleague at the American Museum of Natural History, and Gould when discussing their (viable to a large-to-great degree) theory of punctuated equilibrium, but he doesn't mention Dawkins by name or Smith or anyone else who might to some even minimal disagree with him. Additionally, the book has no bibliography, so neither can you look up the disagreements, yourself. This is a major failing for someone who begins with a very cautious, conservative definition of science in his first essay (the kind you'd find in The Skeptic). He says that science does not claim to find "the Truth," only to approximate it, but then he scorns his opponents, in some cases very distinguished opponents, as pseudoscientists (read, heretics) and so on. Again, Tattersall's rhetoric does not conform to his stated beliefs.

This is all very disappointing because Tattersall writes very nice popular prose and does tell some very interesting stories, full of interesting facts, and usually much more cautious than authors who inspire books like this. He is, after all, one of the leading experts in his field. However, in the end, I cannot recommend this book because of its unapologetic and apoplectic bias.

Remembering that Tattersall does articulate his own positions very well, I'd recommend buying Becoming Human instead of this one. Not "in addition to" because almost all salient points and almost all examples are common to both books, and Becoming Human lacks most of the annoying, propagandistic habits that Tattersall displays in this book.

Interesting and Iconoclastic!.......2004-11-28

What made humans human? Why study science at all? Is evolutionary psychology science or informed speculation? Who were the Neanderthals? If these look like lofty questions, that is because they are. But author Ian Tattersall does his best to speculate answers (or at very least, discourse on why one can't be had.)

Tattersal is somewhat iconoclastic. For instance, he tries to dispell the 'myth' that evolution is a gradual process of small tinkerings and explicates the view (first made by SJ Gould) that evolution consists of much stasis punctuated by radical changes. He also rails against the 'ultra-adaptationism' prevalent in things like evolutionary psychology - the view that all (or at least, most) traits should be explained as ones 'selected for' due to their adaptationary benefit. Nonsense, Tattersall retorts. As evolution doesn't work on the reductionistic 'trait' - but rather than holistic individual - level, many of our traits could more easily (and plausibly) be explained as ones that were part of individuals who made it due to OTHER traits - exaptations that simply 'came along for the ride,' only to be utilized later.

The reason I bring all this up is that these ideas are integral to Tattersall's essays (almost to the point of repitition). From his conjecture that the 'human' brain wasn't a gradual process, but appeared somewhat rapidly (with many of its functions coming to use only later), to his discomfort with evolutionary psychology (no, he does not say that traits have no genetic basis, as one reviewer caricatured. Rather, he suggests that evolutionary psych is oversimplistic and quite untestable), these essays draw on the iconoclastic ideas outlayed in the preceeding paragraph.

There is one big con and one big pro to this book. The con is that Tattersal is quite repititious in that he brings the same two ideas back as the prime mover of every essay. The pro is that his view of what science is, is profoundly honest. From the first essay (on why science is so important and successful) to the last, he sees science as something that should never be afraid to admit that it doesn't quite know yet, a process that is ongoing in the collection of information and the testing of theses, and something that, to qualify as science, MUST be testable somehow (which is why evolutioanry psych gets Tattersall's criticism).

All in all, a good book.

Tatters-All.......2004-09-11

I was looking forward to reading this book, as I have a great deal of respect for Ian Tattersall for his writings on human fossils. So I was surprised to discover that it is a poorly thought out slam of Evolutionary Psychology (EP).

It is not ipso facto a bad thing to be critical of EP, especially as some EP writings gallop ahead of any confirming experiments, but this author does a sloppy and embarrassing job of it. What is even more surprising is how much praise it got from the popular science press (Natural History, Science News, etc.) which is how I heard of the book.

Just to demonstrate its weakness, compare this work with the writings of Steven Pinker. Pinker, in "The Language Instinct", shows in great detail how complex, universal, and neuoanatomically-based the different brain units are that cooperate to produce language. He shows that languages are implementations of the X-bar grammar protocol that is uniform to all humans. In contrast, Tattersall just does some handwaving and mumbling about exaptation. (He has learned to drop the word "spandrel" at least.)

While Pinker in "How the Mind Works" (HTMW) describes the experimentorum crucis of Clark and Hatfield on gender differences toward sexuality, this author simply declares that the conclusions of EP come from a misreading of social and economic pressures. Certainly, there are economic pressures, but the whole point of science is to isolate different factors in observations. For example, David Buss in his textbook, "Evolutionary Psychology" (1999), cites many cross-cultural and cross-species studies which confirm the hardwired nature of gender differences in sexual behavior. Tattersall is oblivious to the methodological thoroughness of some EP research. Instead, he calls it pseudoscience. He seems jealous of the media draw of EP, but he fails to weaken the explanatory power of its research programme.

And why is it that he is so upset? It appears that the author clutches to a Gouldian anti-adaptation stance. While Tattersall and Eldredge have a strong point about the role of speciation in fixing variation, I think it is foolish to be so entirely anti-adaptationist. One has to ignore a lot of evidence in order to do so. Tattersall clearly rejects any version of Dawkin's selfish gene.

The author also makes the naturalistic fallacy (that "is" entails "ought") and accuses EP of being immoral. On page 178, he accuses EPers of 'defending' rape. As Pinker carefully explained in HTMW (see page 52 and following), explanation is not justification, even if there is the Spector of Creeping Exculpation in all explanations of human behavior.

Time and again in this book, the author choses not to accept the most parsimonious theory for the evidence, apparently because it does not fit his preconceived notions. For example, Pinker argued that language, being as complex as it is, must have gone through stages of development, where mental and physical adaptations (some of which could have been exaptations) gradually added to it until it reached its present state. Tattersall notes that the vocal tract is a liability unless you factor in language, and then notes that the larynx was in its current position 600 kyr ago, but then he insists that language leapt into being fully formed about 60 kyr ago through exaptation of unused brain real estate. No need to wonder why Gould was accused of being an accidental creationist.

Worse still, the author is not even consistent. On page 160, he says that knowing the minds of the human ancestors is "entirely guesswork." But on the very next page, he says, "what must have happened," was a scenario that again violates Occam's razor. Around page 120, he goes into great detail of the housekeeping habits of Neaderthals versus Sapiens (we Sapiens are neatnicks), but then claims (p. 170) that efforts to characterize the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness are terribly misguided.

I am embarrassed for the author for having written the book. Gould may have had his crank ideas, but he was not as sloppy as this. The quality of prose is high, but the reasoning behind the prose is shoddy. In my assessment, I agree with Changizi's review in Heredity and the Haines Amazon review.

on a few peak topics in human evolution.......2002-12-01

I read this and _becoming human_ for an online class in human evolution at barnes and noble dot com. This is an extension and elaboration of the major points in _becoming human_. Actually a little bit better given the looser construction of the essay format, so read this rather than _becoming human_. Either is a simple basic intro to human evolution with a big dose of Neanderthal history, which is tattersall's field. Short, to the point with a minimum extrapolation and speculation, recommended for a light informative afternoon spent with our closest relatives.

Evolution? Read Just This One........2002-09-24

This book is a great summary of the past century's debates on Evolution. It is well and clearly presented by a master of the science. There is a small hidden agenda regarding the author's theory of "exaptation" (which BTW should probably be called "abaptation" as the opposite of "adaptation"). Anyway, for those of us not deeply interested in the creationist/evolutionist debates this book begins as a clear statement of the conflict and ends with an interesting and insightful prediction of our future. The book is short. If you only want to read one of these Human Evolution texts. . .read this one.

The Monkey in the Mirror (Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human)

Average customer rating:

The Monkey in the Mirror (Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human)
Ian Tattersall
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJE954

Book Description

This book is a practical guide to learning Hap Ki Do: The Korean Martial Art of Self Defense. A textbook with pictures and indept explanations of kicks, techniques, weapons, breathing technique 205 pages full of precise clearly written step by step examples of the Korean Martial Art of Hap ki do.

Customer Reviews:

Practical Hapkido Textbook.......2006-01-30

Excellent Hap Ki Do book. I'm a taekwondo'er and found this book very easy to understand with big clear pictures for illustration. I've purchased all three of Master Choe's HKD books and found a certain amount of redundancy in the techniques, but highly recommend all three any way. I originally found one of these in the library and realized right away that these books were the best I've found.

IHF style GM MYONG JAE NAM.......2003-10-06

Looks a lot like his work. Good book. Should give credit where it is due however.

Great Text Book Ecspecially for beginners.......2001-09-13

As a beginner in hapkido i would recommend this book for others that are also interested in starting hapkido. This book offers step by step pictures on how to execute kicks and basic self defense, and plus it is very short on words which makes it interesting and easy to learn techniques.

Good Intro to Hapkido.......2000-10-17

This is the book to start with for Hapkido. Master Choe's other book (Hap Ki Do - The Korean Art of Self Defense) focuses mainly on joint locks and takedows and how they can be varied from different grabs. This book however, shows a variety of striking techniques and counters in addition to the joint locks. Also, more realistic situations and the effective techniques are presented here. Although both books are lacking in text they are definitely worth getting as excellent references.

Practical Hapkido Textbook.......1999-12-06

This is an excellent reference book for anyone starting in hapkido. The pictures are detailed and easy to do. I really enjoyed working through is book.

Hap Ki Do: The Korean Art of Self Defense

Average customer rating:

Hap Ki DO by Master Choe
great for reference
Hap Ki Do: The Korean Art of Self Defense
Not for Beginners
Good for beginners

Hap Ki Do: The Korean Art of Self Defense
Hui-Son Choe , and Master Choe
Manufacturer: Hui Son Choe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Sports | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0966825403

Book Description

The Korean Art of Self Defense. A fully illustrated book on the Martial Art of Hap Ki Do. Filled with over 400 photographs. Designed to show Hap Ki Do in a easy to follow step by step method for the beginner. Included are close-up photos of various wristlocks, arrows to show certain steps and minimal wording on the steps, to make this book very easy to follow. The large format (8.5 x 11) also makes this book easy to read and handle.

The Hap Ki Do practitioner diverts or suppresses an attackers flow of energy peacefully, this diversion allows him to use the attackers power against himself leading to the attacker's defeat. Through the use of certain skeletal joints and pressure points, very little strength is needed to overcome an opponent.

Customer Reviews:

Hap Ki DO by Master Choe.......2006-11-01

A complete waste of money. Way too basic to learn anything new for anyone that has even minimal experience in Hapkido. And some of the pictures were poorly taken and made it hard to see the grip applied throughout the entire technique. I looked at this book for all of MAYBE 5 minutes!

great for reference.......2006-05-25

I would say if you are new to Hapkido, or looking maby to join a class then this book is a must. I just started several months I use it as a reference. The one thing you will find about Hapkido is there are slight varations fom school to school. The one thing I do recomened is if you are going at a school look at what federation your school belongs to. Just happends my school belongs to this association. I gave this a five rating for couple reasons. The pictures, directions are easy to follow,great if you want to have a reference,or you want to get a friend willing let to practice.The one negative I did find on this book was that it should went over breaking falls better. There isn't to many Hapkido books out there good as this! IT was money well spent, I am giving it ***** !

Hap Ki Do: The Korean Art of Self Defense.......2006-01-30

Not for Beginners.......2000-10-17

This book is straight to the point on joint locks and take downs. The book is broken down into chapters by how the joint is locked with varying grabs and attacks. One must already have good control and be familiar with stretching, striking and falling before applying this text. Master Choe's other book (Practical Hapkido Textbook) is a better introduction and includes some striking and falling techniques.

Good for beginners.......2000-02-05

This book is excellent for those just beginning Hapkido or are at least low ranking. Advanced Hapkido practitioners would not find it very useful. The photographs are excellent in showing proper hand position and body movements. However, the section on breaking falls is incomplete. The author fails to describe or show proper body positioning for left side, right side, back, and front falls; he only shows the rolling fall. Anyone interested in martial arts should learn in a Dojang with a competent instructor, not from a book. Use this book to supplement your study of Hapkido, not as your only source. With that in mind, I would definately recommend this book.

El Arte Marcial Coreano de Defensa Personal Hapkido/The Korean Martial Art of Self Defense. Hap Ki Do.: Guia Estudio Para Cinturon Negro / A Guide to Black Belt Studies

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El Arte Marcial Coreano de Defensa Personal Hapkido/The Korean Martial Art of Self Defense. Hap Ki Do.: Guia Estudio Para Cinturon Negro / A Guide to Black Belt Studies
Choe Hui
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

The Hapkido "Bible"

Hap ki do: Korean martial arts
He-Young Kimm
Manufacturer: Andrew Jackson College Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006OY7UE

Customer Reviews:

The Hapkido "Bible".......2007-01-29

If you only buy one Hapkido book, this is it.

This book is BIG, hard-bound and close to 800 pages. There are lavish pictures and techniques from white belt to 5th dan black belt. The organization is very clear and the text is good. Everything is in English and Romanized Korean (my only complaint is that there is no Hangeul).

Apparantly Dr. Kimm and GM Ji Han Jae worked closely to make sure this book represented the material accurately. Some have mentioned that Dr. Kimm's background in Kuk Sool seeps over but this doesn't distract from the value of this reference in any way.

In addition to the physical material, there is a wealth of history presented here and it covers everything from a more accurate point of view than many other do. If you are interested in the early history of Hapkido, this would be the first reference to check.

His Hapkido II volume apparantly is an updated version with some minor changes and some additions. Each book runs about $100 but in my opinion Hapkido I was well worth that. One downside is that its size and heft make it a bit of achore to carry around and reference, but that's a minor quibble.

The Korean martial art of self-defense Hap Ki Do: Advanced techniques

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The Korean martial art of self-defense Hap Ki Do: Advanced techniques
Hui S Choe
Manufacturer: World Hap Ki Do Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006R6LFU

Book Description

With over half a million copies sold, The New Strong's® Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible is now available in the only truly enlarged-type edition. Newly typeset, updated, with corrected text throughout, including the Greek and Hebrew dictionaries.

Customer Reviews:

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance is exhausting.......2007-10-04

As far as content, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible is everything I expected. I purchased the large-print edition, the largest type available, for my mother. She could barely read the print and the type did not appear as large as it did in the example. Because of the increased size of the text the book's volume increased, becoming quite heavy and cumbersome. It would be better divided into two volumes for ease of handling. On a positive note the concordance is comprehensive, easy to navigate, and user friendly.

Essential and very necessary.......2007-02-01

A Strong's concordance is an essential tool for breaking the English text back to its Hebrew or Greek roots. I happen to have the large print edition and love it so well, I plan on getting the smaller print edtion.

New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible: Large Print Edition.......2007-01-12

The book is excellant for bible study and the Large Print gives you the extra you need to fine everythging you want or are looking for

A must have for anyone who wants to study God's Word........2007-01-12

Yes, there are many softwares out there now that all ready have Strong's Concordance. However for a book that is so moderately priced it is so nice to flip through the pages. Verse retrieval and cross-reference is easy and joyful. Also with a Greek dictionary, this is a must own. This book is always with in arms reach when ever I study. It is among one of my favourites in my quest to know and understand God's Word.

I wish the print was larger.......2003-04-12

I bought this book for my friend who cannot see as well as he used to and it still isn't as big of print as I would have liked it to be. I hope they make a Giant print.
Other than that it is great.

Product Description

Dig into the work-ready tools and resources that help you go way beyond just using Microsoft Windows XP. You'll conquer it! The Deluxe, Second Edition of this popular reference packs all-new coverage of Windows XP Service Pack 2 and the latest on Windows

Amazon.com

Ed Bott and Carl Siechert have combined their considerable talents for producing user-level documentation in creating Microsoft Windows XP Inside Out. One of the most carefully researched books on Windows XP to date, this large volume has all the information and procedures most everyday users of the operating system will want. With its nicely formatted how-to instructions, detailed documentation of command-line commands, intelligent explanatory text, and broad scope, this book makes a great reference for a family or business that uses Windows XP extensively. Even the illustrations are more helpful than usual, largely because the publisher has gone to the trouble of annotating many of them with pointers and labels.

Bott and Siechert deal with the most controversial features of Windows XP, notably product activation, in a straightforward way. They simply explain what activation is for, tell how to go about it, and move on. If you're a power user interested in getting around activation and performing other unsanctioned hacks, look for your information in online newsletters. This book plays by Microsoft's rules, and that's fine. It's obvious that the authors have had access to Windows XP for some time, and spent a lot of time exploring its new features. Count on this book to explain the complete set of Windows XP's features--even the exciting networking stuff--in terms you can easily follow. --David Wall

Topics covered: Microsoft Windows XP (Professional and Home editions) for home and office users who want to install, use, and run applications. Emphasis is on basic set-up and configuration, hardware installation and modification, file management, multimedia, and networking.

Customer Reviews:

Quite Happy.......2007-08-23

The book I ordered was advertised as being slightly damaged. I have not found the damage yet.

A book for any XP "want to know it all".......2007-05-26

This book provides an amazing coverage of many topics in the most easy to read format. It is more than useful for any computer diagnostics work, as well as installation, networking, customization and more! The books mass at over 1500 pages seems daunting, but before your 200 pages into the book you'll more than likely have learned more than you ever thought you could about XP. If you don't have XP Professional several chapters in the Deluxe edition won't apply to you.

The best XP Book available........2007-05-13

This book has absolutly no one to compare to. It is truly unique.

Win XP - The Book Everyone Should Own........2007-05-12

I have never encountered a technical reference which is so thorough in covering all aspects of Windows XP. Beginning with the "simple" and culminating with the "technical" facets of Microsoft XP, this bible has subjects covering nearly every version of XP; Home, XP Pro, Media Center, etc. If one must seek an answer, it probably is contained within Windows XP, Inside Out, Second Edition.

Microsoft Windows XP .......2007-02-24

This book has so much information. It is actually more than we need in our household, but would be helpful to anyone who uses the computer for all things. S.Robertson

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