Time Bound Words: Semantic and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's

Book Description

This book argues that changes in English society and the English language are woven together, often in surprising ways, and investigates this claim by following eleven words from Chaucer's time to Shakespeare's. Middle English words like corage, estat, thrift, and virtugrave; come to serve the logic of new social discourses by 1611. Language from Chaucer, Wyclif, More, Spenser, Shakespeare, Jonson, and others is examined both as current and emerging usage, and as a verbal play that accomplishes cultural work.

Elizabethan Silent Language Time-Bound Words: Semantics and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's.(Review): An article from: Renaissance Quarterly

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Elizabethan Silent Language Time-Bound Words: Semantics and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's.(Review): An article from: Renaissance Quarterly
Mary Thomas Crane
Manufacturer: Renaissance Society of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Renaissance Society of America on September 22, 2001. The length of the article is 1439 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Elizabethan Silent Language Time-Bound Words: Semantics and Social Economies from Chaucer's England to Shakespeare's.(Review)
Author: Mary Thomas Crane
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2001
Publisher: Renaissance Society of America
Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Page: 976

Article Type: Book Review

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Steering change is a major issue for managers today. But how do we develop the ability to control it, and not just become a spectator to it? Following on from the success of his previous books, The Customer's Victory and The Chemistry of Change, Francois Dupuy further develops his theories about the relationship between sharing knowledge and managing change. With a strong pedagogical format, new case studies and a helpful glossary, this is an invaluable guide both for managers having to deal with change implementation and for students and researchers of change management.

Customer Reviews:

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way.......2007-07-18

By now, I have become convinced that an organization's performance in these separate but related areas - knowledge management and - will probably determine whether or not it survives. That is why I recently read with great interest this book as well as Gaston Trauffler and Hugo P. Tschirky's Sustained Innovation Management. Think about it: An organization can neither initiate nor respond effectively to change without sufficient information; the same is true when an organization must assimilate radical and incremental innovation management, and do so over an extended period of time.

Francois Dupuy observes that "we are now seeing an interesting paradox which certainly merits some attention: it is not so much change itself which poses a problem - it is even valued as a driving force for economic activity, as a source for the creation of wealth - but more the ability to lead it, to steer it, to control it, in brief to be an `active actor' and not just a simple, even if enthusiastic spectator." My own rather extensive experience with all manner of organizations indicates to me that most people do not fear change; rather, they fear what is unfamiliar. Hence the importance not only of knowledge but also of managing it well.

Dupuy carefully organizes his material within two Parts. In the first, he explains the nature, extent, and implications of what he characterizes "the customer's victory" within what has become a new environment, "an uncertain world," in which there has been a paradigm shift from "a scarce product to a scarce customer." Throughout Part I, Dupuy focuses on forces, factors, and issues that come into play as organizations scramble (with mixed results) to respond to all manner of changes. Insofar as knowledge management is concerned, many (most?) organizations do not know (a) what they already know, (b) what they think they know...but don't, (c) therefore, what their most important knowledge needs are, and finally (d) how to meet them. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard a senior-level executive claim that her or his "most valuable assets walk out the door at the end of each day." Yes, a cliché but nonetheless true. There is a "fog" in business just as in war, as Carl von Clauswitz once suggested when referring to the difficulties of communication during combat.

Then in Part II, Dupuy shifts his attention to the methodology and tools that an effective change process requires. He includes a number of "anonymous" case studies, all of which are based on real-world situations. Opinions vary as to the extent it is possible to "manage change." Peter Drucker frequently suggested that the best way to manage the future was to create it. I certainly agree that it is better to control the process by which to prepare for, initiate, and then sustain change than be surprised by it and perhaps managed by it.

In his final chapter, Dupuy addresses a number of issues of special interest to me. Specifically, the challenge all organizations face when struggling to survive what Charles Darwin would describe as a process of "natural selection," and do so at a time when change is the only constant. According to Dupuy, "at least in the short term, nothing is written in stone. The managers and members of organizations are returned not only to their perception of the future, to their choices, but above all to their reciprocal confidence - an essential condition for introducing a process of change into organizations - while at the same time offsetting the most severe aspects of the crisis, the drama or the ever-renewed pressure." How to respond effectively to what is undeniably a formidable challenge. The observations and suggestions that Francois Dupuy offers are worthy of careful consideration. Then a choice must be made: Lead, follow, or get out of the way?

Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to read O'Dell's If Only We Knew What We Know (written with C. Jackson Grayson) and The Executive's Role in Knowledge Management. Also Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline and a more recent work, Presence, co-authored with C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworksi, and Betty Sue Flowers; Richard Ogle's Smart World; Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman's X-teams; Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future; Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David Robertson's Enterprise Architecture as Strategy; Dean R. Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement; and Competing on Analytics co-authored by Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris.

A clear-sighted, employee-focused prescription for organizational change.......2007-05-07

In response to globalization and other major business challenges in "post-industrial society," analysts have developed two highly different theories of organizational change. The first, "E theory," focuses on short-term financial gain, which usually translates into higher stock prices. Prevalent in North America, E theory encourages downsizing, including mass layoffs. Clearly, in E theory, the human element is of negligible importance. In contrast, "O theory" emphasizes retaining employees by upgrading their skills. Popular in Europe and Asia, O theory assumes an "implied contract of loyalty-protection" between management and employees. François Dupuy describes this theory, and how companies and other bureaucracies can apply it. His dense writing style and the book's forbidding layout, with few subheadings or visual aids such as charts, often make his reasoning difficult to follow. However, we believe this book is very useful for executives who want a new perspective on organizational change. Its prescient formula for corporate transformation is not only moral and humane, but also intelligent and sustainable. It recognizes that an organization is nothing without its people.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Epoca, published by Difusora de Informacion Periodica, S.A. (DINPESA) on July 30, 2000. The length of the article is 545 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: DE NUESTRA TIERRA.(productos alimentarios de fabricación tradicional; España)(TT: From our land.)(TA: traditionally-produced food products; Spain)(Artículo Breve)
Author: Gonzalo Sol
Publication: Epoca (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 30, 2000
Publisher: Difusora de Informacion Periodica, S.A. (DINPESA)
Page: 130

Article Type: Artículo Breve

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Future of Our Land: Facing the Challenge

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Future of Our Land: Facing the Challenge
Food and Agriculture Organization
Manufacturer: United Nations Pubns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Our Foood, Our Land - Why Contemporary Farming Practices Must Change. (book reviews): An article from: Food Trade Review

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Our Foood, Our Land - Why Contemporary Farming Practices Must Change. (book reviews): An article from: Food Trade Review

Manufacturer: Food Trade Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00092C75U
Release Date: 2005-06-01

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Food Trade Review, published by Food Trade Press Ltd. on May 1, 1991. The length of the article is 657 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Our Foood, Our Land - Why Contemporary Farming Practices Must Change. (book reviews)
Publication: Food Trade Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 1991
Publisher: Food Trade Press Ltd.
Volume: v61 Issue: n5 Page: p257(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Food from our land: Book A-
Elise Sams Patrick
Manufacturer: published by Bureau of School Service, University of Kentucky, as a part of an experiment in applied economics made pssible by a grant from the Alfed P. Sloan Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Readers | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007EMKUW

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Our Food, Our Land
R. Body
Manufacturer: Century Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O397O8

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Our land and our food;
Winston Churchill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007K8FT6

Our national dangers and our need. A scheme for the full and proper cultivation of the land of Great Britain and Ireland, and the production of the larger proportion of our food supplies

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Our national dangers and our need. A scheme for the full and proper cultivation of the land of Great Britain and Ireland, and the production of the larger proportion of our food supplies
S. W Poynter
Manufacturer: Hamilton Adams and Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0008CVIN8

Customer Reviews:

Daunting management challenge--saving Kenya's elephants........2005-06-25

Anyone who has ever been to Kenya's extraordinary game parks to see the elephants, or dreamed of doing so, will be fascinated by this story of how these parks came to be the refuges they are and not the corrals for government-sanctioned poaching that they were. When paleontologist Richard Leakey took over the Department of Wildlife and Conservation in 1989, rampant corruption, theft, absenteeism, and a don't-care attitude were hallmarks within the department.

As Leakey tells us here, the Kenyan government lacked a real commitment to conservation, and the burgeoning population exerted pressure on national park borders, clearing land for farming and threatening wildlife, unimpeded. Poaching, patronage, a general ripoff mentality, and collusion between park rangers, politicians, blackmarketeers, and smugglers, were so interconnected and seemingly so ineradicable that the department resembled a many-headed hydra.

Tribal rivalries within Kenya, a porous border through which Somalian thieves made forays, and a lack of agreement between Kenya and neighboring African countries about the best way to conserve animals made this one of the most daunting management challenges imaginable.

In prose that is as direct and to the point (and sometimes as self-congratulatory) as he is, Leakey tells how he set up and managed a multimilliondollar corporation in a country in which everyone wants a piece of the pie, usually under the table.

As Leakey tells of cleaning up the department and conserving the elephants, the reader also learns about the economics of the ivory trade, the tug-of-war between immediate political realities and long-term goals, the role of the World Bank in African development, and the politicking involved in deciding what is an endangered species under the U.N.'s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). It's a fascinating tale, equally intriguing to the lover of wildlife, the student of management, and the East African history buff. Mary Whipple

Wildlife Wars: My Battle to Save Kenya's Elephants

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Wildlife Wars: My Battle to Save Kenya's Elephants
Richard E. Leakey
Manufacturer: Pan Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OUVS84

Book Description

The most expensive thirty seconds in sports.

Every year, on Valentine's Day, the great Thoroughbred farms open their breeding sheds and begin their primary business. For the next one hundred and fifty days, the cries of stallions and the vigorous encouragement of their handlers echo through breeding country, from the gentle hills of Kentucky to the rich valleys of California.

First appearing as an article in The New Yorker, Stud takes you into this strange and seductive world. We move from Lexington's Overbrook Farm, where the world's leading sire, Storm Cat, a lightly raced eighteen-year-old, brings in around thirty million dollars a year; to the auction halls, where sheiks and bookies (known more casually as the Doobie Brothers and the Boys) bid millions for Storm Cat's well-bred offspring. We visit Three Chimneys, where the twenty-seven-year-old Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew, a senior citizen by equine standards, makes a rousing return to active duty after spinal surgery, and stroll through Running Horse Farm, on the banks of the Rio Grande, where a nearly unmanageable colt, Devil Begone, has found peace and prosperity servicing desert mares like Patty O'Furniture.

Cheap stud, top stud, old stud, wild stud, from the Hall of Fame horse to the harem stallion with his feral herd, Stud looks at intimate acts in idyllic settings (and the billion-dollar business behind them), providing a voyeuristic glimpse of just how human the equine world can be.

Customer Reviews:

Funny,Interesting way to introduce horse racing/breeding.......2007-05-01

I don't know much about horses,I live in a place where owning one means you have the space,money, and can accomodate them to the colder climate. Needless to say, I went into this book knowing very little about them let alone what it takes to make a champion racehorse.

However, by the time I got done reading this book I was able to inform other people on horses in general and breeding them. I enjoyed reading it, Conley makes the whole business entertaining and practical for anyone to understand. I couldn't put the book down, everyday when I was finished with what had to be done life-wise I read this book. Despite this factor there are a few things in the book that one had to either know offhand or research. This is the only reason why it didn't get five stars from me.

Fun and Educational.......2006-04-24

STUD is both fun and a nice overview of the horse racing and breeding industry. One of those rare books you tend to share witty quotes from with your friends.

The writer does an excellent job of telling us about the industry, horses and people - while rarely, if ever, boring us with the "I'm special 'cause I was there and you weren't" flavor common to many horse racing industry books.

A rare find, I was sorry to reach the end.

A great book!.......2003-12-08

This book, in addition to being well written and interesting, covers the oft-overlooked foundation of the racing industry. I loved the portrayls of the horses and the owners!

good book that..........2003-11-07

reads pretty quick. a nice interlude into the breeding industry, with some cool info.

Most expensive 30 seconds in sports.......2003-09-18

The text on the back cover of this book says it all: "The most expensive thirty seconds in sports." You will need a lot of pocket change plus a very good mare before you book a cover from Storm Cat, the Thoroughbred stallion with the world's most expensive stud fee---$500,000 per mare through 2004. And there's no `payable when the foal stands and nurses' clause in his contract, either.

"Stud" is a two-year labor of love by "New Yorker" staff writer, Kevin Conley who became intrigued by the amount of money that a Thoroughbred stallion could earn after retiring from the racetrack. This is an exuberant, stylishly-written book that will tell you everything you wanted to know about what goes on in the breeding shed, but were afraid to ask.

I also learned some things I didn't know I wanted to know, like the diameter of a certain stallion's testicles---this is a book for horse-lovers who have already been through sex education class.

The author spends some time at the Keeneland sales in Lexington, Kentucky, where the `Doobie Brothers' (four sheiks from the royal family of Dubai) duke it out with the `boys' (Ireland's Coolmore Stud) for the most expensive yearlings in the sale (often Storm Cat progeny). Conley doesn't neglect the smaller breeders who make a profit by buying and breeding inexpensive mares with good blood-lines, and then selling their yearlings and two-year-olds for a profit. (There was a story in a recent "Thoroughbred Times" about a filly "who clearly did not have enough pedigree to shoot for the stars," yet was sold for $1.9 million at Barretts March sale because she showed that she could run.)

Finally, Conley details the differences between a `natural' cover (Thoroughbreds), artificial insemination (A.I.) techniques (Standardbreds), and pasture breeding (semi-feral Shetland ponies). Speaking for myself, I wouldn't exactly use the word `natural' after reading that it usually takes five or six people plus a stallion, plus a twitched and hobbled mare to complete the breeding process. Thoroughbred folks tend to be very conservative and have already rejected A.I. even though it is a safer, cheaper, and healthier method of getting mares in foal.

Customer Reviews:

Forgiveness for the Mainstream Clinician.......2003-05-29

Thanks to "Helping Clients Forgive", the concept and process of "forgiveness" are not just for the confessional or the minister's office any more. I find much to recommend to clinicians- as well as pastoral caregivers and educators- about Enright and Fitzgibbons' book.

First, it is the fruit of many years of multidisciplinary reflection on an extensive review of both practical (clinical and pastoral) and theoretical sources. The conceptual understanding of forgiveness is based on an extensive review of both the social (e.g., psychology and sociology) and speculative (philosophy and theology) sciences.

Second, Helping Clients Forgive fits into and expands the broader and better known clinical approaches to the management and resolution of anger and to overcoming emotional trauma. The book describes how "forgiveness" may be an effective, and sometimes indispensable, means for dealing with anger when awareness, understanding, assertive expression, or sublimation of the anger have proven inadequate for resolving it.

Third, I found the book insightfully reviews research about anger as a cause or co-morbid difficulty of a wide range of DSM-IV disorders. Whether a clinician ever encourages a client- or a client attempts- to use forgiveness to try to resolve the anger associated with these conditions, I think that this knowledge about the prevalence of anger associated with so many problems presented by clients is invaluable.

Fourth, many clients have a religious world-view and tend to view forgiveness as a moral duty- and sometimes an anxious compulsion. I think that reading Helping Clients Forgive will enable clinicians (pastors, et al.) to respect their clients' values and worldview while explaining what emotional and other psychological factors make it difficult to forgive, and even more important, how to forgive. I think that the phases of forgiveness and the ways of forgiving during each phase will help guide a religious client's efforts to forgive and to relieve any inauthentic guilt about lingering resentment despite past efforts to forgive.

Fifth, the authors write with intellectual humility about a process that offers significant benefits, yet is commonly long, uncomfortable and sometimes paradoxical. Enright and Fitzgibbons write about when and how forgiveness is possible. They acknowledge that while an empathic understanding of and beneficence toward the "offender" may be the ultimate outcome, the forgiveness process may and often must begin with the self-interested need to overcome the personal costs of repressed or suppressed resentment.

For me, the discussions on helping clients understand what healthy or authentic anger is, and even more what forgiveness is not, are especially insightful. For example, victims of emotional trauma or long-term offenses can be reassured by learning that forgiveness does not mean unassertively tolerating another's irrational anger or attempting to reconcile or otherwise trust past offenders who remain insensitive and unmotivated to changing their offensive behavior. Forgiveness may lead to reconciliation with one's offender, but one may forgive and free oneself from the emotional consequences of the offense even if one's offender is unwilling or unable to seek or accept forgiveness.

And sixth, researchers and more empirical-minded clinicians will find invaluable a careful reading of the chapters which detail the results of Enright's two decades of empirical research on these phases. As does any competent report of current research, Enright and Fitzgibbons also propose an agenda for future research, including the study of how offenders are affected by being forgiven.

After reading Helping Clients Forgive, I found myself wishing that a companion book for non-professionals would be written. I was delighted to discover that Robert Enright has written a sequel for clients' called: Forgiveness is a Choice (APA Books, 2001). I understand better the forgiveness process described by Enright and Fitzgibbons in Helping after having read the didactic material- and having worked through some of the related self-reflection questions- present in Enright's more recent book. The additional material in Choice on how an offender appropriately may seek to be forgiven was particularly welcome.

Philip M. Sutton, Ph.D. South Bend, IN

Sophisticated and Subtle.......2003-05-19

This is a sophisticated and subtle treatment of forgiveness, so subtle that some important points might be missed. Here are three points that might be misunderstood together with clarifications that may be helpful to those new to forgiveness therapy:

1) The entire treatise is a focus on psychotherapy. This means, of course, that the emphasis of the book is on the patient who is trying to forgive. Here is the possible misunderstanding: The authors focus too much on the one who forgives, distorting what forgiveness actually is by not dealing with the offender. This reasoning is incorrect in the present context precisely because the intent here is to help the one who comes to therapy. That forgiveness, shown through the authors' science, helps the one who forgives does not mean that the act of forgiveness itself ignores the offender. On the contrary, the authors' definition of forgiveness and the therapy itself emphasize reaching out to an offender (as appropriate for each unique situation).

2) Psychotherapy patients are helped emotionally when they forgive. This scientific finding, replicated many times, need not lead to this conclusion: In the book, the act of forgiveness itself is reduced to an emphasis on one's own happy mood. This reasoning confounds what forgiveness is and outcomes of forgiveness (healthy emotional regulation). Should we blame patients (or the authors) if those patients become emotionally healthier by forgiving?

3) Some might argue that forgiveness is not about anger reduction. This argument might take the following deductive form: The authors discuss forgiveness in the context of anger reduction in psychotherapy; anger reduction is not a part of forgiveness; therefore, the authors are misrepresenting what forgiveness is. Yet, this argument against the authors' reasoning does two things that need re-thinking: a) the reasoning, as in point 2 above, confounds what forgiveness is and an outcome of forgiveness in psychotherapy, namely the reduction in a patient's anger; b) the deduction to be valid must ignore the facts: The authors' reasoning is supported by copious scientific references showing that anger oftentimes underlies patients' psychological distress (for both males and females, even though both genders might express that anger somewhat differently at times). Forgiveness offers the patient a way out of the anger and out of the distressful symptoms that accompany anger.

This book is a thinking person's tome that should prove quite useful to those seeking help to forgive.

Great book that does not confuse forgiveness and pardon.......2002-11-16

This book is valuable for many reasons. One in particular is that it does not confuse forgiveness and pardon. For some people (fewer now than 20 years ago, based on what people are saying in print) forgiveness was equated with: 1) judging the wrongdoer guilty; 2) reducing or eliminating their sentence (or foregoing collecting what is owed); and 3) restoring them to full legal standing in the community. This is *pardon,* not forgiveness. Philosophers and psychologists have now come to realize that pardon is not the same thing as forgiveness. One can pardon someone and be a judge----not even the one who was hurt. One can pardon someone and be quite neutral about that person, even harboring resentment as you reduce their deserved punishment or forego what is owed. (For example, one might forego what is owed because of harsh judgement that the wrongdoer is morally incapable of repayment.) Forgiveness, instead, is the costly process of struggling to love someone who has hurt you. It is neither cheap nor superficial. Once a person has achieved even a little of this love, then he or she is free to express that love as he or she wishes to the offender. Enright and Fitzgibbons are aware of this. That is why they do not prescribe precisely what a forgiver is to say or do toward a forgiven person. What the forgiver says or does will differ substantially in each encounter. Certainly, the authors expect the forgiver to reach out to the offender when this is appropriate. Forgiveness is not only an internal process. The authors are very clear that forgiveness includes thinking, feeling and *behaving.* They are also clear that forgiveness does have certain meaning and not others. They actually take great pains to review the ancient literature on the topic from Hebrew, Christian, Buddhist, and other sources. Further, they painstakingly review the modern scholarship in philosophy, showing the overlap in the meaning of forgiveness between the ancient and the modern views. Joanna North's philosophy, in particular, dovetails brilliantly with the ancient and the modern scholarship. That she was not widely known before Enright and Fitzgibbons began to cite her work is no argument at all against what she *says.* Enright and Fitzgibbons have done their homework and have presented an accurate picture. Clients and patients are the ones who gain from this careful scholarship.

Lacking on many counts.......2002-11-10

At least three flaws make this book quite incredible. (1) It's account of forgiveness is at odds with the concept of forgiveness as it is universally understood by everyone except forgiveness therapists. (2) The quality of the research is poor. (3) The theory is contradicted by very well established scientific data. To wit:

(1) This book epitomizes an oft-remarked, vitiating flaw of American psychotherapy: reducing social relations, justice, and morality to subjective sentiments, in which the solipsist's personal comfort matters most.

Historically, forgiveness is not about the victim's feelings at all. Historically, forgiveness is about the transgressor's guilt--and absolving him of it.

The authors go on and on about overcoming anger, as if that were the thing that matters about having suffered transgression. Besides being historically inaccurate, this is highly sexist: a substantial body of research shows that men, but not women, usually respond to transgression with anger. (Women generally respond with sorrow, grief, a sense of loss, and self-blame.)

Forgiveness has a history--it isn't a new notion, invented or discovered by social scientists. Forgiveness has always been seen as (a) a transaction between two parties, in which an aggrieved foregoes being made whole--that is, collecting what is owed, whether recompense or retribution. (b) The motivation for forgiveness has been understood to be concern for the welfare of the guilty party or others, like the guilty party's family. (c) When one forgives, the guilty person is no longer considered guilty; he is removed from the category of offender. Forgiveness is fundamentally a moral transaction, between parties, for the sake of those without an intrinsic moral right to claim it. Forgiveness is always bestowed upon the forgiven.

For the authors of this book, forgiveness is an internal process, which the transgressor need not even know about. The aggrieved party need not forego collecting what is owed him. The forgiven person need not be taken back into relationship or community. Enright and Fitzgibbons recommend forgiveness because it is said to be good for the forgiver. They do not ask, or ask their patients to consider, when or whether it actually helps the transgressor to be forgiven.

This book provides a relatively risk-free way to boost self-esteem--to think of yourself as virtuous in the privacy of your own mind, without running the risks of real forgiveness, namely, absolving the guilty party from guilt and treating him or her as an innocent, once again, in one's actions or relationships.

(2) What their "national and international research" does and doesn't look at is telling: They don't study changes in behavior towards offenders, they don't study when their interventions lead to improved or appropriate relationships, and they don't look at the effect of forgiveness on the forgiven. They mostly just look at patients' self-reports of how they feel or think. They generally do not even look for corroboration beyond the self-report.

That is to say, they do not even look to see whether forgiveness has occurred!

When their fans tell you about the "empirical research" supporting forgiveness therapy, take it with at least a grain of salt. (The hard fact is that many PROPONENTS of forgiveness therapy are very critical of their research--see, for instance, Exline and Baumeister, among others, in the McCullough, Pargament, and Thorsen book, "Forgiveness: Theory, Research, and Practice.")

They contrive distinctions without doing any careful work on how the distinguished terms do and don't relate to each other. Their arguments, such as they are, hardly withstand scrutiny. E.g., they show, rightly, that pardon and forgiveness are not the same thing--but conclude, illogically, that therefore forgiveness need not entail pardon. But in fact, distinct terms always involve a variety of entailment relations. For instance, saying something false and lying are not the same thing, but lying entails saying something false.

To grasp the illogic of their analysis, imagine you show up at the Pearly Gates, and God says, Ahyes. Its you. Well, youre forgiven, but its off to the Lake of Fire and Brimstone with you! What? you say. But you said Im forgiven. Oh, yes, God says, Youre forgiven. That just means Im not mad at you any more. But youre not pardonedyou have to pay for your sins. Besides, I dont want to have to spend eternity with you around. I dont get it, you say. In what sense am *I* forgiven if *I* dont get any benefit from this so-called forgiveness? You silly child, God says. I just needed to get all that anger out of my system. Forgiveness isnt about helping youits about making ME feel better!

(3) And frankly, their theory makes little scientific sense.

If, in fact, one no longer feels anger and has shifted to a benevolent attitude, everything we know scientifically about how emotions work would dictate that the offender would no longer be avoided. Patients who object that they do not want a relationship with an offender are quite right: "internal" reactions-- that is, real internal reactions, not self-congratulatory words--carry behavioral consequences. You simply cannot forgive without dissolving any psychologically salient reason known to science or common sense to avoid the offender.

Furthermore, there is strong evidence from the evolutionary behavioral sciences, which is consistent with traditional views of forgiveness but not with forgiveness therapy, that (a) forgiveness generally threatens social cohesion and the capacity of a community to sustain itself, and (b) a "tit for tat" strategy optimizes both individual well-being over the long run and group survival; indeed, there is strong evidence that we have evolved an innate, neurologically hard-wired "cheater detector" precisely for this reason.

As the Jewish tradition insists, we must have strong moral justification for forgiving transgressors, since those transgressors endanger not merely ourselves but the community. That forgiveness makes us feel better does not give us the right to indulge it--any more than the benefit to one's self suffices to make any other act with social consequences right.

Here, science simply shows the wisdom in the millennia-old understanding that forgiveness is NOT a matter of individual choice.

Thus, we have here a book that make little conceptual sense, can claim but poor empirical support and theoretical coherence, and that is contradicted by enormous bodies of scientific research. Believe it if you wantbut willfulness, not evidence or reasoning, will motivate the belief.

Psychology & Christian Ethics Agree.......2002-07-19

I am deeply impressed by this work, which is well written and (so far as I can judge) methodologically sound. The authors avoid jargon and provide a straightforward statement of their theory as well as clear factual descriptions and treatment guidelines. They manifest command of an extensive psychological literature, are cautious in making claims for forgiveness therapy, and encourage further research in the hope that it will correct their findings if necessary and refine patient care.

I noticed nothing in the work touching on my own field (Christian ethics) that even seems questionable. And, of course, psychological evidence that forgiveness is conducive to mental health is perfectly harmonious with Christian moral teaching that calls for love of enemies and forgiveness.

The fact that this fine work was published, not by some commercial press, but by the American Pscyhological Association commends it to serious readers.

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