Organizations Books

I am reading this book after reading "Jesus and Community", also by Lohfink. I am an older student and fairly well educated (B.S., B.A.). I found the books somewhat slow going but packed full of insightful and thought provoking information. Although Lohfink's background is very different from mine, his use of scripture made it possible to stay on track with his points. I have had hours and hours of discussion and comtemplation from this study. I am in the process of redefining my concept of "church" in response to some of these ideas. I would recommend this to any lay person for serious study (if you aren't scared to pull out your dictionary and don't get alarmed if someone references ideas or texts that you don't necessarily agree with).

The author, a well-known New Testament scholar, published a study some twenty years ago entitled "Jesus and Community." That book was well-received, but it did not provide enough background to be helpful for contemporary parishes wanting to renew themselves. This book is a much more fulsome study of the entire biblical story from Genesis to the Book of Revelation, focusing on the role of community in shaping the people of God. He shows quite convincingly that the God of the Bible wants his people to give witness to their faith not simply as individuals but primarily as a unified community of believers. Accordingly, Christians who do not see the importance of belonging to a concrete parish or local church do not understand the biblical message.

This book communicates the author's vision of the Church and its role in the world with power and progressive clarity. Lohfink demonstrates that an understanding of the Church cannot be separated from an understanding of Israel as the people of God, the vehicle through which God brings salvation to the entire world. Using historical critical methods and his experience as a biblical exegete, he reconstructs the story of Israel, particularly its Exodus traditions, showing how the experience of Israel with God resulted in a social project, rooted in the Torah. It was a radically new form of community and worldview that stood in contrast to other nations and peoples. He proceeds to weave the story of Jesus in the context of Israel's history, connecting his gathering of the Twelve with the eschatological gathering of Israel, and portraying his death as the renewal and sealing of the covenant for the people of God. Finally, he details how the Church is a continuation of a history that began with Abraham, but now centered in Jesus.

Of particular interests is how Lohfink handles Jesus' feeding of the five thousand. He shows how the historic Church has tended to make the same mistakes as Jesus' disciples did in their response to the hungry multitudes. Lohfink uses Jesus' response to their questions to deduce how the Church must be formed in order to be more than another charitable organization or religious services provider. The mission of the Church is rather to be the new society, a locus of salvation capable of transforming the world.

Finally, Father Lohfink shares his own story, describing his experiences in the German Church from the time of Hitler to the present, including his decision to relinquish his chair as a Professor of New Testament at the University of Tubingen to join the Catholic Integrated Community and its Association of Priests in Munich Germany.

Does God Need the Church? Yes indeed!

The following comments were submitted by a student the first time I used Dr. Hatch's excellent text--Jim Horn

This book provided a rich description of qualitative research and an easy to understand roadmap for students embarking on the process of conducting a qualitative research study. Hatch took a difficult subject and made it accessible to novice researchers by providing an in-depth, well-thought out presentation of how to go about conducting research step by step in a logical manner. It was thorough from beginning to end. It also spoke to the individual, unique personal qualities and characteristics of the researcher that is inherent to the research. Therefore, it offered us an opportunity to do some real soul-searching and see ourselves in a different light.

It was easy to read and understand and organized well. I thought the section about writing and Hatch's personal experiences were very valuable not only for researchers but for those who wish to write or improve their writing skills in general. The data analysis chapter was extremely helpful during the data analysis process because it provided clear, easy-to-follow steps. I used it as a guide and a reference for my project.

One suggestion is that the section on research paradigms might be a little difficult for some students who are not familiar with the meaning of ontology and epistemology. In our class, a number of students noted they had a hard time understanding these concepts so it might be helpful if there was a paragraph that explains these concepts leading into the connection to the various paradigms.

Overall, this is an excellent introduction for students to the various steps in the process. It was enjoyable to read, enlightening and it gave me a solid foundation for conducting my own study. I loved the book and I enjoyed doing qualitative research. It was also helpful . . . to enable us to delve deeply into the challenging and exciting experience of conducing qualitative research. The book and Dr. Horn also provided a good contextual framework for different methodologies as well.

The importance of qualitative research in education settings can not be underestimated in world in which children are often reduced to nothing but a number on a standardized test score. Thank you, Dr. Hatch, for giving us this wonderful gift and thank you Dr. Horn for sharing it with us.

Judy Rabinowitz
Monmouth University

As a new qualitative researcher, finding Dr. Hatch's book "cleared the clouds" and provided an easy to read support for all the processes necessary to be successful with a qualitative research project, especially for dissertation students. After reading all the classics (Yin, Creswell, Denzin, Lincoln, Stake, Miles and Hubermann, etc) Hatch brings it all together and provides solid questions for you to evaluate your own work before sending it into your committee. Must have for new qualitiative researchers!

Dr. Hatch's book should be required reading for all doctoral students planning to do qualitative research. His clearly written step-by-step methods have proved invaluable in my own dissertation data analysis and reporting. Do yourself a favor and read this book BEFORE starting your qualitative research!

This is a book you will probably want to buy in quantity. It's an affordable little 96-page compendium of the most relevant "Do's and Don'ts" of leading a group of people. What I like about this book is its simplicity. Each "Do" and each "Don't" is accompanied by a short story from real-life situations to help clarify the significant points. These are the issues that tend to get leaders in a lot of trouble, and Steve Herbelin has captured them nicely in this book.

The dos and don'ts are direct, to the point and extremely practical for just about any kind of working environment. I especially like the abundance of true anecdotes that clarify and reinforce the points being made. I strongly recommend this book for team leaders as well as coaches!

I started reading this book with a bit of skepticism. After all, it's written by the workers. Right from the start, though, this book makes sense. Lots of sense. It presents a philosophical outlook on team leadership that gets to the core --- interpersonal relationships --- without using superficial analogies or inventing contrived structures. Just common sense about how to deal with people and situations in a real, straightforward manner. Over and over again I found myself thinking things like, "Yes, I know that. That's true. Right on!" It's mostly things that we already know, but maybe need a little book like this to give us the confidence to more often do the right thing and act the right way. If everyone applied the principles outlined in "The Dos and Don'ts of Work Team Coaching," the world would certainly be a better place in which to work. I'm going to keep it handy and read it again someday, and again.

"Our work on this topic has been inspired primarily by personal consulting experiences over many years...Ten years ago, these experiences confirmed the teachings of W.Edwards Deming and others involved with continuous quality improvement. Deming asserted in his fourteen obligations of managment that quality was impossible where people are afraid to tell the truth...Besides Dming, other voices strongly reinforce the need to understand the dynamics and effects of fear. Chris Argyris's extensive body of work clarifies how invisible and self-reinforcing miscommunication due to fear can be. Peter Senge's explorations of systems thinking illuminate its far-reaching effects. Both of these thinkers underscore the need to understand the negative assumptions about people that keep fear in place. Peter Block's works on empowerment and stewardship demand a wholesale rethinking of the concepts of management and leadership as a way to escape thses destructive beliefs. Most recently, Thomas Stewart's examination of the rapidly emerging value of intellectual capital demands that even more attention be paid to reducing fear and building trust" (from the Preface).

In this context, Kathleen D.Ryan and Daniel K.Oestreich, with the following core questions, illustrate some important elements of the trust-fear continuum. They say that if your answers to these questions are all 'yes,' your workplace is clearly fear-based:

* Do a high proportion of people in your organization frequently hesitate to speak up about certain issues?

* Does a fear of speaking up exist at many levels in your organization?

* Are people in your workplace associating managers and supervisors with th presence of fear?

* Are leaders in your organization exhibiting behavior that causes employees to be afraid?

* Are people reacting with strong emotions to a perceived environment of fear?

* Is fear having an impact on work and how it is getting done?

Thus, by describing the following 'core behaviors,' they define the vision of a high-trust workplace: *mutual helpfulness and understanding, *serving as a reality check for one another, *providing feedback for one another, on strengths as well as areas that need improvement, *influencing each other's ideas and decisions; willingness to be influenced, *humor; enjoyment of each other's company, *creative, synergistic problem solving where the results are greater than the sum of the parts, *respect for different backgrounds and talents; reliance on one another's expertise to ensure the best results, *willingness and ability to work through conflicts and disagreements, *common commitment to the same goal; commitment to one another's success, *a high level of rapport and honesty with one another, *straightforward communication.

They argue that the vision of a high-trust workplace can draw people naturally away from the cycle of fear and mistrust toward a new set of possibilities for better workplace relationships, and hence high-performance organization.

Highly recommended.

This is one of my all-time favorite management/OD books. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in learning how to improve manager-employee relationships, trust, and communication in organizations. I think it should be on the bookshelf of every Organization Development specialist, Human Resource manager, executive coach, and leadership trainer. It contains useful, thoughtful, and often unique advice for managers, team members, trainers, and anyone else interested in reducing the climate of fear in their workplace. Some of the ideas translate well to personal and family relationships too.

Fear is extremely damaging to organizations. It can harm trust, communication, quality, knowledge sharing, cooperation, innovation, retention, and overall organization effectiveness. Whether you are interested in improving morale, communication, and performance company-wide, or you just need to improve your relationship with one person, you'll find something useful here. This is not just the same old recycled advice you'll see in leadership books. Some of the ideas will be familiar to experienced people in the field, but the authors expand them and put them into a new perspective based on their work. They contribute many new ideas and examples that you won't find elsewhere.

Portions of the book are particularly helpful for well-intentioned managers who just don't understand why people don't fully trust them. If you're not getting the level of communication, ideas, and candor needed to bring your organization to the next level, fear may be the problem. If you hear a manager say, "I don't know why they didn't tell me sooner," give him or her this book. Most of us don't realize all the little things we do to discourage good communication.

My favorite concepts in this book include the cycle of mistrust and undiscussables. The cycle of mistrust provides a great understanding of how our perceptions and assumptions influence the behavior of other people. It's a great model for leadership, teambuilding and communication workshops. You'll be sure to recognize a few "undiscussables" in your own workplace. An undiscussable might be a sensitive issue that employees whisper about to one another, but not with those who might have the power to do something about it. It's just too risky to speak up. Management might not learn about it until they experience the shock of scathing comments in an anonymous employee survey, or they hear about it from someone in another company! You can prevent this from happening by driving fear out of the workplace and by creating an environment that makes it easier for people to speak up in the first place.

A culture of fear permeates many organizations, draining them of their potential and vitality. Based on their interview findings, the authors examine how fear is a major obstacle to open communication and organizational effectiveness. The book also addresses fear during times of rapid change. In this work you will find strategies for building a high-trust work environment. The book is loaded with good, practical guidance for managers. From fear to trust is a quantum leap; this book can help you take that enlightening jump.

The American writer Willaim Saroyan once said, "In the time of your life, live---so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."

In this time of global terrorism, rising oil prices, climatic disruption and political decay, hope is an increasingly scarce resource. Leadership too is becoming a perception to be managed and not a trait to be displayed. West African writer and teacher Malidoma Some declares that we have "an instinct of community," and so as societies grow and evolve, they build up resevoirs of social capital, taking generations to fill.

This instinct for community -- toward cooperation and competition, or so called 'co-opetition' by Brandenberger & Nalebuff -- is so strong in humans that we come into this world stocked with such emotions as anger, pride, shame, and guilt -- all of which, according to Fukuyama, "come into play in response to people who either are honest and cooperate, or who cheat and break the rules.

Yet the promise of this communal synthesis is being degraded as we "are using the instinct of community to separate and protect us from one another, rather than creating a global culture of diverse yet interwoven communities." Based on the interdependent models available to us in eco-systems theory, there is the possibility to "to connect to others through their diversity, [to re-establish] communities that succeed in creating sustainable [long-term] relationships."

It is the collaboration and cooperation of individuals in elaborate interdependent networks of relationships that allows new capabilities and talents to emerge. Individual fitness leads to greater societal and communal fitness and the connections and relationships strengthen and reinforce the fabric of society.

Yet as individuals weave this social fabric, a paradox is created -- the individual must surrender autonomy to achieve community. This paradoxical tension can lead to even greater awareness and understanding of the role of the individual in society, or it may contain the seed of our eventual self-destruction.

As Wheatley proclaims, "This paradox can be a great teacher to us humans. When we don't answer these questions as a community, when we have no agreements about why we belong together, the institutions we create to serve us become battle grounds that serve no one. Our institutions dissipate into incoherence and impotence. In the absence of these agreements, our instinct of community leads us to a community of 'me' not a community of 'we'." Such is the paradox and the promise of community.

basically satisfied with everything. the book came in good condition and was pretty much on time.

Before WW I, fewer that 5% of the population lived in a city. Today in developed countries, less that 5% live in a rural area. All of this has occured in less than 100 years.

The key to survival and health of this new urban society is the development of communities in the city, by non-profit social sector insititutions, according to Peter Drucker.

Human beings need community. If no communities are available for constructive ends, there will be destructive communities, i.e. gangs to fill the void.

This thoughtfully written, well organized book is about the future -- the future quality of our lives. In "The Community of the Future", the editors have gathered the wisdom and insights from 31 distinguished authors, from around the world, to discuss their unique perspective on the nature of community.

The book is divided into six sections: * Trends Shaping the Evolution of the Community * The Values of Community * The Impact of New Communication Technology * Creating Community in Organization * Strengthening the Social Fabric * Global Dimensions of Community.

If you are interested in creating the future, strengthening our communities and improving our understanding of our world, I highly recommend "The Community of the Future".

Building the global community of the future is not the work of tomorrow. We are each called to build it today -- to build it now.

Anything Woodson writes is a winner. I have enjoyed his other books as well. He can be highly controversial at time which lends such extrordinary flavor to his books. Enjoyed it and recommend it to all.

I recommend everybody to read this book. Everyone that is an African American.

Carter G. Woodson's constructive critique of the how the education system in America plays a pivotal role in ensuring African-Americans' dependence on white America. This is not book of protest. In fact, Mr. Woodson proposes that, "One should rely upon protest only when it is supported by a constructive program". The writing here is clear, concise and compelling. I often don't finish reading books. This one was very difficult to put down. This book is a MUST READ for all African-Americans. You didn't hear me...READ THIS BOOK!

This text was required for a class in School Administration in my post grad class at Seton Hall University. The author is easy to follow along with as he presents theories along with examples of organizational life in the education system. An excellent chapter on the Culture and Climate of Schools can be used by administrators in any field to better recognize these characteristics, as well as organizational health, before taking steps to change the culture or climate. Another very good chapter deals with Leadership in Schools and helps to identify the various theories of leadership and the strengths and weaknesses associated with each type. A great book for administrators in either the private or public sector.

Very quick receipt, well packaged, and fairly priced for the excellent condition of this book. Thank you so much for the great service.

This book was and is the best introduction to school administration available. I was the foundation for my doctorate program.

This review is a shorter one I wrote for the journal Personnel Psychology.
I couldn't resist reviewing this book. Its title is beguilingly ambiguous. I had to see what it really meant. Are the authors describing a reality I have yet to discover? Or are they prophesying? Or writing a manifesto? Or wishfully thinking? The authors, both organizational consultants who "have drawn on over thirty years experience with hundreds of organizations," raise and dismiss in the same sentence the fourth interpretation. But can it be so confidently dismissed?

The book was written "as a tool to help build more collaborative, democratic, self-managing organizations." Note the use of multiple qualifiers. Done occasionally would be tolerable, but the authors' habit of frequently tacking three and four onto nouns and of also running trains of verbs and nouns in a single sentence annoyed me a bit (e.g., "---we have separated, disengaged, detached, distinguished, and divided---in order to clarify, categorize, and recommend---.").

Part One is devoted to "making a case for the end of management" through a review and a critique of hierarchies and their management. In tracing the evolution of management, three of the influences posited by the authors had never occurred to me before yet seem quite plausible. They are slavery, then serfdom, and much later on, increasing governmental regulations that the regulated have to increasingly manage. Nor was I aware that the French novelist, Honore de Balzac, and I share the same sentiment, namely, that bureaucracy is "a gigantic power set in motion by dwarfs." I also learned that "hierarchy" stems from the Greek word hieros, which means holy, implying sacred power at the top, and that a contrasting word, "heterarchy," stems from heteros, meaning neighbors.
The authors dust off and briefly examine Taylorism, scientific management, and Theory X rationales. I wish they had gone further in their review to present and debate more recent and starkly opposite arguments, including those that are unabashed paeans to hierarchies and bureaucracies (e.g., du Gay, 2000; Jaques, 1990).

Making their case includes presenting, each in a separate chapter, the familiar arguments that management "reduces communication, morale, and motivation," "constricts quality," and is intransigent, resisting change and innovation. While I think a separate chapter should also have been given to the moral inferiority of hierarchies, it's very clear throughout the book that the authors recognize such organizations foster unethical conduct by their members, and a separate chapter in Part Two is devoted to suggestions on how to "shape a context of values, ethics, and integrity."

The authors argue that hierarchies are the source of bureaucracy, the formal mechanisms that support the organizational structure and provide a "safe haven" where managers can escape accountability and exercise autocratic power. Each of these elements reinforces the other. They also violate, the authors contend, four "value-based propositions" about all people in organizations. One, everyone is a human being, not merely an employee or a human resource. Two, everyone is fully capable of acting responsibly and thriving on challenges. Three, the only natural relationships of any worth aren't hierarchical. And fourth, human beings deserve all of the different dimensions of freedom that should be available to them in an organization, such as the horizontal dimension of cross-functional teams and the "hyperdimension" of community. Regarding this latter observation, the authors' argument most appealing to me affectively is that it's incongruous for people to live in a democracy where they can vote for their country's leaders, yet work in hierarchies where they aren't free to select their organizations' leaders.

Time and again the authors remind us that their case is being made against management as a system rather than against management as a class of people. But the authors often contradict themselves (e.g., "Managers who hold these assumptions---micromanage---restrict----and institute---."), and I wonder if they aren't being a bit disingenuous, for as consultants they do feed off the hands of that class of people. Furthermore, not all management processes or systems are dysfunctional. Performance management, for one, is both inevitable and essential as a process. It couldn't end if you tried, and you wouldn't want to try. It can be done well or poorly, but it will be done. I think all species instinctively manage their own performance.

My assessment of Part One is that the authors make a better case against management on rational than on empirical grounds. What supporting evidence is offered is mostly piecemeal and largely anecdotal. Further, no footnote citations are provided for the few surveys and research studies briefly mentioned, and numerous assertions are made (e.g., "many managers report," "many organizations seek," etc.) with no corroborating evidence given. Even so, the evidence that is provided and all of assertions made do seem relevant and plausible, and I have no reason to doubt the authors "who have been inside enough organizations to know how dysfunctional most of them are."

In Part Two, the authors explain how to use their book as "a practical guide to organizational democracy." It does indeed seem practical, but a caveat is necessary. Almost all of their consulting experiences appear to be with limited interventions in hierarchies, not heterarchies. I found only one instance where the authors' intervention, in this particular case the design of a conflict resolution system, was for a large corporation they say had already been reorganized into self-managing teams. Their guide would thus appear to be untested for making the wholesale, even revolutionary changes they believe are required but apparently have not fully tried anywhere.

I don't mean to be dismissive of the second part, however. To the contrary, I would guess that any business organization that followed the "seven key strategies" the authors describe, each in a separate chapter, would "shift from management to self-management," "hierarchy to heterarchy," and "autocracy to democracy." The authors begin, logically and necessarily I believe, with a strategy for transforming the values of the organization's culture. Then there's a strategy for forming "evolving webs of association" (in contrast, say, to rigid functional departments in a hierarchy), for developing leadership skills throughout the organization, for building self-managing teams, for implementing "streamlined, open, collaborative processes" (e.g., teamwork as opposed to the adversarial processes common to hierarchies), and for creating "complex, self-correcting systems" (i.e. the kind of feedback you won't find in hierarchies). The seventh is having an overall strategy to ensure that all changes are integrated together.

The book ends with a final chapter on "the consequences of organizational democracy." The authors argue that greater organizational democracy is bound to have positive effects not only on members of the organization but also on society and politics.

While I basically agree with the distinguished business professor, Ian I. Mitroff, who endorses the book very favorably as "bristling with wisdom and practical advice," I don't want to conclude without mentioning two more significant faults I find with the book.

Nowhere in the book do I get a sense of whether heterarchies are gaining in number over hierarchies. I don't think the authors know or even tried to know, yet I would have expected them to know or try to know given the book's title and their treatment of the subject. They waffle on the matter, too. They say, for instance, that "---management continues, with few exceptions, to manage autocratically---." Then they turn around and say, "We have reached---the end of management---." Perhaps their waffling simply reflects what may be an accurate observation during a transitional period, for when I read the research literature on organizations, some findings suggest a shift towards heterarchies, (e.g., Purser & Cabana, 1998), some don't (e.g., Koch & Godden, 1996), and some are totally silent on the matter (e.g., Collins, 2001; Collins & Porras, 1994).

Secondly, the authors fail to differentiate sufficiently between business and government organizations. The latter have an endless lifeline to taxpayer pockets and no market incentive whatsoever to undertake the seven strategies toward heterarchies, no matter how strong of a case is made for making the shift. It will be the 12th of Never, I say, when heterarchies prevail in government.

In closing, if you are simply interested in the subject of if you do consulting in the subject area and regardless of whether you already appreciate arguments for heterarchies, I would recommend you read this book. If you are also empirically bent, then this book alone won't totally satisfy you unless you already know what's happening out there.

References

Collins, JC. (2001). Good to great. NY, NY: Harper Business.

Collins, JC. & Porras, JF. (1994). Built to last. NY, NY: Harper Business.


du Gay, P. (2000). In praise of bureaucracy: Weber, Organization, Ethics. London: Sage Publications.

Jaques, E. (1990). In praise of hierarchy. Harvard Business Review, 68, 127-133.

Koch, R. & Godden, I. (1996). Managing without management: A manifesto. London: Nicholas Brealey.

Purser, RE. & Cabana, S. (1998). The self-managing organization: How leading companies are transforming the work of teams for real impact. NY, NY: The Free Press.

Newscasts are filled with reports of democracy's relentless spread across the planet, but less is heard of its expansion through the corporate world. Just as dictators and oligarchs everywhere are being toppled from power, the hierarchical management structures that have governed organizations since before the industrial revolution are falling. Their usurper is self-management - the concept that motivated employees empowered to make their own decisions will work harder, faster and smarter than their rigidly controlled counterparts. Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith document this organizational coup and instruct executives on how to incite the revolution in their own companies. While acknowledging the scarcity of hard data to prove some of the book's assertions, we from getAbstract highly recommend The End of Management to all executives for its innovative take on modern organizational theory.

This is the best book on the changing face of management that I've read in 10 years. As part of the new Warren Bennis Management series, it provides the framework for the new Organizational Democracy and how it can (and should!) replace the outdated, ineffective heirarchical forms of management most common today. If you manage or lead a team, department or organization and desire to manage less and produce more, this is the book for you. I felt the same excitement in reading this book as I did when I read Drucker's classic many years ago.

The chapter entitled "A Brief History of Management" is worth the price of the book -- and its just 10 pages. In the rest of the book you will be given step-by-step guidance for implementing a new way of managing. Among the many practical applications of this book, you will learn:

How to shape Values
How to create Webs of Association
How to develop Self-managing Teams
How to implement Effective Process
and How to produce Self-correcting Systems.

Management (Drucker) is dead, long live management (Cloke).

Nelson Searcy, Chief Innovation Officer, Smartleadership.com

Excellent, comprehensive primer on the intricacies of managed care. Covers all the major topics, including delivery systems, public and private sector forms of managed care, regulatory and legal issues, medical management, information systems, and operational issues. Thoughtfully done by Dr. Peter R. Kongstvedt and contributors.

The author created an invaluable tool to help begineers understand the rather complicated topic of managed care using a straightforward linear approach to the topic. All topics are covered early with references to indepth coverage found later in the volume.

Getting the book is just a tool though, you really gotta want to learn the material because as practiced as the author is at putting the pen to paper, it's a very difficult topic and therefore, read.

The book was easy to understand and was written from the perspective of someone who is unfamiliar with the managed care topic. I recommend it highly

Where has this scholar been hiding? Shapiro has written a tome on disabilities and the education of teachers and students--the book has sources, resources and is written in a way that engages the reader immediately. a must have for those involved in education

Dr. Shapiro has written an excellent book on an important topic -- how to successfully promote positive attitudes toward students with disabilities.

Unless teachers and parents plan for the social as well as the physical and academic integration of students with disabilities, the concept of inclusion in regular education classes will not work. Students with disabilities will be rejected, teased, and ignored.

"Everybody Belongs" is a sensitively written, practical book for making inclusion work. Shapiro's ideas are based on years of experience and a detailed, insightful understanding of the relevant research and the history of disabilities. It is also based on a keen understanding of schools, teachers, and children.

Professor Shapiro has provided a first rate addition to the disability literature in this wide ranging and very readable volume. From the need to change attitudes to the historical roots of the oppression of persons with disabilities to the unique problems of special education and many practical suggestions, Shaprio's work is impressive in scope. He has written both a textbook for the field of special education and a reference work useful to all scholars examining disability issues. This book is also a "must read" for policy makers, both in and out of education. As a graduate student in the cultural and intellectual history of disabilities, I expect to make repeated and substantial use of Shapiro's book in the years to come.