Industrial Books

This book was a great reference tool for starting my 'chicken raising experience'.

This is a great book, growing up on a poultry farm I can agree with the author - it's not easy!

Hens can be difficult, getting the feltch balance is so hard, just how much do you give them? And should it be straw fed?

Managing cocks is just plain difficult! Cocls tend to get trapped in small places and rarely do what you want. If I had 10c for every time I have trapped a cock in the door I wouldn't need pocket money!!

Overall though a good book.

I think this book is great for starting out. It shows everything you need to know. Check it out!

I own a small hatchery and poultry farm. We sell hundreds of baby chicks every month. When someone with little or no poultry experience asks for some good reference material for their new chicks, I point them to this book. Will Graves covers every aspect of raising poultry in great detail, but does not bore his reader. This book is also a great reference item for the current poultry owner. If I have a question, I turn to Mr. Graves first. I highly recommend this book.

My four Rhode Island Reds are my first ever to care for and this book helped me to quickly know what to do without having to take a college course. It is helpful in building of and requirements of a coop, requirements for the growing chick into adulthood (food, lighting, temperature, water, protection and cleanliness.)I highly recommend this book and also bought one for a christmas present for an owner of a small flock.Plus there is much more information like, illness& diseases, butchering, ducks, turkeys, and incubation.

This is a phenomenal work. This book provides the attributes and tools of what it really means to "grow" a business. Hess brilliantly reveals some of the most fundamental concepts that make a "great" business great. Pages full of evidence and stories about engaged and loyal people, humble servanthood leadership, dynamic client service, and clear and conscise business models will stir entreprenuers as they read this excellent volume.

Hess has done it again. The Six Keys to Organic Growth
cuts through traditional leadership thought to show what great organic
growth leaders really do - execute. This book offers terrific insight into
some of the great organic growth companies. The Six Keys to Organic
Growth should be required reading for all young executives and MBA students who want to win.

Ed Hess has written a book with strikingly original research, compelling analysis, and real soul. This is an inspiring, challenging, and practical book for executives, consultants, and other business leaders (present and future) who believe that the best, most satisfying, and most sustainable kind of growth comes from within. For the good of their businesses and people--as well as the larger economy and society--organizations would do well to follow Ed Hess' road to organic growth.

Ed Hess has successfully identified the keys to building and growing a successful business: useable business and growth model, owning the customer, obsession with measurement, engaging loyal people, finding leaders for the company, and attention to execution and technological details. This is a must read for those building entrepreneurial businesses.

Thomas Kinnear, Chair and President of the Venture Michigan Fund and Executive Director of the Zell Lurie Institute, Ross School of Business

A great book! I loved it. It is broken into nine chapters as follows:

1. Why is organic growth important?
2. Discovering the DNA of organic growth.
3. The organic growth winners: Interesting Facts.
4. An elevator-pitch business model.
5. Instill a "small-company soul" into a "big-company body."
6. Measure everything.
7. Build a people pipeline.
8. Leaders: humble, passionate, focused operators.
9. Be an execution and technology champion.

Chapters 4 - 9 are the ingredients to building a company through organic growth. If a biz can be explained in a just a few words while riding up an elevator, then it's leaders/managers can probably focus well on growing the business from within. If a biz is comprised of workers who care about the company instead of just showing up to work and collecting a paycheck, then the business will probably grow from within. The business will probably also have a pipeline of new managers if the employees care about coming to work for reasons other than just collecting a paycheck. These are the types of things discussed in the last six chapters of the book.

Generally speaking, companies either grow through "organic growth" or by "mergers and acquisitions." Many companies grow by using both methods, but the author only discusses the organic growth method in this book. There is talk that growth may take place by playing accounting games and engaging in financial manipulations. However, this really is not a method to create growth. Manipulations are just that - shifts of revenues and expenses from one accounting period to another. If there is gain today via manipulation, then there is going to be a loss next week or next month - guaranteed.

A small company soul is what this book is about. And I really enjoyed reading it. I liked the list of "Growth Questions" at the end of each chapter. They helped pull the chapters together for me. If you are putting together a business plan for a start up company, then I recommend you read this book. You will want to incorporate many of the ideas and concepts discussed here into your business plan and your implementation of your business plan.

I would have liked the book better if the print had not been so large. And since the spine of the book was not all that thick I got the feeling that the book was padded by increasing the font size of the text. The book could have been longer if there had been more examples of real world situations regarding what was being discussed. And I would have liked a chapter comparing organic growth to mergers and acquisitions. To discuss organic growth as the best way to grow a company, and to ignore M&A's as though they were a bad way, just didn't feel right to me. In fact, M&A's are a great way to grow a business. But the book was well-written and informative. 5 stars!

As a collector of, and dealer in Central Asian garments, I have long been fascinated by the printed, cotton linings of these garments. Some of the fabrics are so beautiful, that my customers turn the coats inside out, and wear them in reverse. How delightful to find a book on these fabrics. The book shows many different patterns of fabric, as well as a number of coats, turned inside out, to show the wonderful patchwork patterns. Well done.

while this extravagantly illustrated compilation of Russian printed fabrics from 1900 to 1950 will be invaluable to both artist and collector, it is a visual delight to the general reader as well. The author skilfully weaves the history of the Cental Asian tribal peoples into the tapestry of mass migration and technology which produced stunning roller and block-printed cotton clothing.

This book is stunning in a visual sense. Each print illustrates the creative choices of the Central Asian people and also reflect the influences of the world around them. More than a book reviewing Russian textiles, it records the history of a region of the world that is not commonly explored. So beautifully photographed, one can almost feel the weave of the prints. Cloth is so commonplace we take its history for granted. This book reminds us its importance. Its interesting that a swatch of fabric can weave a story of time and people.

This book is not only visually stunning, it is also a fascinating read. This is the first time that these beautiful and unusual fabrics have been given their due recognition both as designs and as an important part of Russian/Soviet history.

A book that will appeal to history buffs, appreciators of indigenous cultures, and those ready to plunge into viewing page after page of artistically-laid-out photos of visually stunning Central Asian robes and their Russian linings. The opening chapters introduce us to the peoples of Central Asia, the "social life" of cloth, and how the Russian textile industry came to play such an important "undercover" role in the clothing worn by Central Asians.

It is a book that you can leave on your coffee table as a wonderful treat for the eyes, or you can read the text and become that much more knowledgeable about a part of the world which continues to gain in strategic importance day by day.

An extraordinary synthesis, this book makes for a great gift to oneself or others.

It's a shame this book is out of print. No longer up-to-date on every detail, but still ahead of the curve on the big picture. Jantsch uses self-organizing systems theory to tie cosmic, geological, biological and cultural evolution together into a unified vision. A book of science with profound social and (to my mind) spiritual implications. Certainly worth the used softcover price, although be warned, the Pergamon softcover binding tends to crack and fall apart (I went through two of them). But at $300+ the hardcover is definately for the serious buyer only (I was lucky and bought mine in the mid-eighties at Powell's for $40). You might also check out Fritjof Capra's 1996 'The Web of Life'. It's an updated version of 'The Self-Organizing Universe' (see page 111: "My own synthesis of these concepts in the present book is, in a sense, a reformulation of Erich Jantsch's earlier work.") Also recommended: any books by Ervin Lazslo, Ilya Prigogine or James Lovelock.

For me, this book is the thing that changed my view upon the universe. Before this book, I was a critical reductionist with a mechanistic view. I am too short of English to express what this book was for me :) but the only thing I can tell you is that if there were only one book that I could have in my life, this book would be that one.. I can't estimate the value of this, surely one of the most important achievements of 20th century..

Following on the heels of Ilya Prigogine, and of course those of Charles Darwin, but also in the same vein as that of Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Norbert Wiener, Ervin Laszlo, and my own favorite, (and thesis Chairman), Charles A. McClelland, Erich Jantsch has made the ultimate scientific "grandstand play:" He proposes a new non-reductive and expanded interpretation of Darwinian theory. One that suggests that "Darwinianism" applies not just to biological organisms but that it is also THE ultimate unifying and organizing paradigm at the base of all "ordered systems," and thus at the base of all creation (as we have come to know that concept).

This work, among other things, stands as the final refutation of all "deus ex machina" approaches that seek to explain with various forms of "magic" how we moved across the threshold from "disorder" to "order," and from "inanimate" to "living organisms." It brings together into a resoundingly unifying (and satisfying) synthesis a collection of seemingly disparate but fascinating insights from across the field of science, biology, and culture.

Among those insights are the following select few: (1) that evolution is not just about adaptation and survival in a particular environment (where the only reward is being able to stay in the game) but is a world in which the environment itself is an evolving process; (2) that the interplay of processes alone can lead to the evolution of structures; and thus; (3) that the origin of life is necessarily neither a mere accident, nor a result of "the Gods in the machine; "(4) that since evolution is itself an emergent and dynamic process it transcends human meaningfulness, and finally; (5) that the very existence of a paradigm in which dynamics organize themselves is proof of its own existence.

What Jantsch brings to the table is a new expanded and exciting paradigm that emphasizes process over structure and that is at the same time large enough to encompass the broader emergent properties of his more general vision of Darwinism. In it, the old Darwinian theory is retrofitted with the latest scientific and non-scientific discoveries so as to assume the much larger more general role of interconnecting the natural dynamics of "non-human" as well as "human" systems.

Darwinianism as "pure process" is like "a self-learning apparatus:" It is an "automatic entropy changing machine," that moves progressively from nothingness (or complete disorder), to indistinct process, to full process, to proto-order, to order, to random connections, to non-random learning, to proto-structure, to structure, to loose connections, to interconnectedness. From this stepwise process of synthesis and its interconnectedness, not only does a new paradigm emerge, but also new understandings of what it means to be (or not be) human. That is to say, a whole new "ecology" of, and lexicon of concepts, ideas, and theories emerge along the pathway to Jansch's paradigm.

As a final note, several years ago I gave a talk at Cal State Dominguez Hills, about some of the ideas in this book, but my audience thought that my invocation of Darwin was only in the conventional "Sociobiolgical" "survival of the fittest" sense. Much to my dismay (and embarrassment), they and my colleagues who had hosted the talk, got stuck on this more limited interpretation. I finally gave up on trying to convince them that there was a larger more important interpretation of Darwinism.

To say that this book is a tour de force would be a monument to understatement. Ten Stars!

This book is unlike any other publication I have ever looked at. Jantsch synthesizes scientific facts from numerous fields of study, and does so in a surprisingly coherent manner. While reading through the pages, I wondered, where has this book been my entire life? Why didn't somebody tell me this book existed? I stumbled into this volume accidently, and to my good fortune.

Reductionism is a useful paradigm, but certainly not a comprehensive one. Jantsch drills this point home.

The strength of this book isn't just the fact that it makes a very strong argument for a self-organizing universe. It's the fact that Jantsch does so with a unique combination of hard facts, experimental evidence, analytical arguments, coherent synthesis, profound humanity and even a bit of poetry. I'm not trying to be dramatic and sappy, it's really true. I can almost feel how much this book meant to Jantsch, and how he knew, deep down, that he was on to something very important. There was something special about Jantsch, and something special about this book. If you read this book, and are still convinced that the universe is purely a meaningless "mechanistic machine" then I feel very sorry for you.

I just want to agree with the four earlier reviewers. I think I found Jantsch's book in 1985, and to me life has never been the same afterwards. Jantsch taught me that the world is like me, I am no stranger living in a strange world that is cold and hostile (Monod). Since then I've left my research object, literature, and spent my time reading and writing, following his steps. The result can be seen on my website www.lagerroth.com. I, too, copied the whole book, but afterwards I found a German paperback edition: Die Selbstorganisation des Universums (3 ed 1986, from original hardcover 1979). Maybe it is still in print.

I bought this book with not much idea of what it has got for me.
As a went through some of the initial chapters I really got interested.The book has numerous examples and case studies. This really helps in understanding the concept and driving an analogy to actual life scenarios.
I strongly recommend reading this book.
Thanks.

Thank you very much for sending me a copy of The Smart Organization. I have completed only two chapters, but find the book to be thoroughly engaging. Especially, the six dimensions of decision quality.

My current job is proving to be a daily "case study." The ideas contained in the book have come to life, helping me to better understand my environment at work and make better decisions along the journey.

Frequently organizations face the challange of what not to do. They tend to believe in the person presenting the idea, rather then creating a rigorous process for evaluating the options before them. Companies adopting best practices in managing their investment options realize substantial gains in their long term bottem line. This book quantifies this performance difference, and what the best practices are across a range of industries.

Why aren't organizations more rigorous in selecting projects? The book outlines several barriers which are extremely relevent:

· It will make a popular champion look bad,

· Organizational resistance to change, or cannibalization of an existing business for a new opportunity,

· We confuse the urgent with the important,

· Its hard to agree on measures and success criteria

· People are afraid of making the wrong prediction, so they don't make any,

· Its hard to normalize results from different contributors,

· Business plans are not integrated with new project activity,

· Power and politics, a methodical evaluation leaves no room for interpretation and "behind the scenes" trade offs between groups and individuals,

· Lack of strategy.

The best practices outlined in this book are backed by substantial research. I would have like to have seen a few additional chapters on application of best practices in real companies ... a case study of a turn around.

The Strategic Decisions Group framework for smart organisation is informative. One reason for this is that the authors are reporting a practical benchmark study of R&D which appears to include every American corporate I've ever heard of. They do readers the great favour of synthesising this into a 9 principle framework for Smart Organisation. 3 principles for achieving purpose: -continual learning -value creation culture -creating alternatives 3 principles for mobilizing resources: -open inforamtion flow -disciplined decision making -alignment and empowerment 3 principles for understaning environment: -systems thinking -embracing uncertainty -outside-in strategic perspective What I especially like is that for each principle 5 How do you knows? are given scaling the difference between an organisation which hasn't got a clue about the principle (not smart) to one that lives it (smart org) For example these are the 5 how-you-knows of alignment & empowerment: 1 Examine the strategies at different levels (eg technology strategy to portfolio strategy to project startegy). In smart org: there are clear strategies at all levels taht provide useful guidance for decision making. Strategies at one level are clearly linked to the next. Lower level strategies interpret and carry out the implementation of higher-level strategies. In not-smart: few strategies or they provide little guidance for decision-making. They are viewed cynically as corporate PR. Links among strategies are absent, unclear or ambiguous 2 Examine the value measures used to evaluate decisions at different levels. In smart org: there are clear measures of value at all levels. Value measures at one strategic level are clearly linked through the strategy to measures at the next level. In non-smart: There may be no value measures. If there are, each level sets its own values or decision criteria, with no special requirement that they be related to values and strategies at other levels. 3 Examine the approvals required to make or carry out important decisions. In smart org: Decisions require few approvals because people understand the strategy and are trusted to carry it out. Meetings with upper management are viewed as adding value. In not-smart: Decisions require many levels of approval. Review meetings are perceived as wasting time. Often meetings with upper management are feared because it may redirect efforts and change priorities without clear reason. Upper management often feels overloaded with the need to check on subordinates. 4 Examine the roles of people involved in an important recent decision. In smart orgs: Many people participated in the decision process,at multiple levels in the organisation. A dialogue was carried out in the process that continually aligned and refined the vertical links. Management at different levels collaborated to build a high quality decision and achieved aligned commitment to action. In non-smart: Either few people participated in the decision or so many did that the process got bogged down. Typically, lower level employees make proposals to upper levels for approval or rejection 5 Examine a recent decision that was controversial. In smart org: People unified around the decisions aand carried it out with little intervention. They understood the reasons for the decision and believe the organisation is carrying out a sensible strategy for creating value. In non-smart: The decision did not stick and was undone or remade over and over again. 100+ of us are discussing frameworks like these in a free e-mail group : Organising Creativity Network. e-mail me, Chris Macrae, at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk if you are passionately interested.

Focusing on large R&D intensive organizations, this book explores nine key principles that make these enterprises effective, such as: open information flow, systems thinking, and continual learning. The author's emphasize the decision making process as a means of changing and improving overall organizational performance. If you are seeking new insights into how strategy is developed, excellence can be achieved in decision making, and organization renewal can be realized, you will find this book enlightening and fascinating reading. The insights offered here are by no means limited to high-technology firms; they apply to any organization seeking to be successful in today's fast-paced markets. This work includes an organizational IQ test (a diagnostic tool) for identifying root causes of the barriers to improving decision processes. There is an impressive amount of knowledge about organization to be gleaned in The Smart Company. Whether you are a technology -based bus! iness or not, you will find many nuggets in this work. We highly recommend it.

While some passages are repetitive, on the whole, this book is very informative. The author leaves nothing to chance and is thorough in his explanation of various methods and how to reproduce them. The explanations by example are flushed out with no assumptions made about user knowledge, which was great in my case because before reading this book, all I knew about SAS is that it existed. Now, I can apply various and powerful statistical techniques on my own. Thanks Prof. Hatcher!

More detailed explanation of every subject discussed. Nothing was assummed. The appendix include vital information for new SAS users.

This is the single best statistics text I've ever read. It's extremely easy to follow, very practical, and gives outstanding examples. Everything is so clearly described in the book that one might call it Factor analysis and SEM for Dummies. I only wish that the book covered nonrecursive SEM models.

Very easy to read. Examples are simple and effective. The book explains the statistical concepts as well as the SAS programming tricks. In fact, the book provides complete code - you will be able to get good amount of analysis done just by copying that code. However, you also need to buy the "The Little SAS Book" if you never used SAS before.

This outstanding book was one of the mainstays for my Ph.D. dissertation. It explain factor analysis and SEM techniques in a clear and effective way, with an hands-on approach that guides the reader during all the data analysis and result interpretation phases.

True to the topic, it transports you right there. Historical and old, but still current.

I thought this book was one of the best books Ive ever read it describes how people feel and view the world from inside themselves but can never express this externally or even realise they are thinking these things themselves.

For me It depicts how inadequate we all are men and women, when it comes to Love, and expressing it and sharing it. it flumoxes us all, Its too big for us, "the chickens had more sense"....pass the worms please.

Written about a South African farm. this book depicts the story of a family and how they interact throughout the book. The most striking dynamic in the book is the relationships of the women in it. It portrays female existence in a realistic light even for today. The story has a lot of character to it, and I would recommend it highly for teachers who want to teach about feminism.

Although I had to read this book for a college class, I would read it again in a second, I feel that I can only gain more and more from this book through rereadings. Its plot is at times disjointed to the style of the author and the message she is attempting to convey, so for those who are looking for a strongly Dickensian or "feel good" read, this is most likely not the book for you right now. But for me, from an analytical and heartfelt standpoint, the subtlety of the book and its beauty and its truth made me tear up a little bit. I'm currently writing a paper on Waldo and his artistic and personal growth throughout the novel, so maybe I'm a little biased, but although Lyndall is an incredibly interesting and advanced character, I think Waldo is often glossed over as merely suffering from a religious crisis of faith, and, being a man, not deserving of attention in this novel of the "New Woman". But Waldo ultimately reaches a place of amazing peace and understanding, and the lives of Waldo and Lyndall intertwined together is truly beautiful.

"Story of an African Farm" is a difficult work to describe. It must be read several times, and carefully pondered before all of its secrets are unlocked.

Ostensibly, the book revolves around the lives of three children (and, later, adults) who live in the Karroo plains of South Africa. The main focus, however, is on two of the characters - Waldo, the earnest and deeply curious son of the German farmkeeper, and Lyndall, the beautiful, outspoken and rebellious orphan who suffers all her life for her ideals.

The book itself is semi-autobiographical. Waldo represents Schreiner's journey from fanatical, childlike faith to bitter skepticism, who reaches a watershed of sorts when he hisses to Lyndall 'There is no God - none!'. Lyndall, on the other hand, embodies Schreiner's frustation with her station as a woman - barred from the upper echelons of society, and her inability to find a mate who is both her intellectual match and willing to accept her as an equal. "I want to love", she whispers to the grave of Waldo's father, "I want something great and pure to lift me to itself."

There are many other themes that flesh out the subtext of this extraordinary book - the tragedy of solitude, that ultimately, all humans are alone in the cosmos. "Dear eyes", the dying Lyndall whispers to her mirror, "they will never part us."

Readers who expect a narrative will be dissapointed. What narrative there is serves only to undersore the book's many themes. Often, the flow of the story is out of sequence, or devoid of context, and deliberately so. Roughly, the book is divided into three sections - the first introduces us to the characters as children, and reveals their innermost thoughts. The second, and shortest section is entitled "Times and Seasons". It is somewhat of a summary of what has gone before, dealing mostly with Waldo's journey from Christian fanaticism to dispairing atheism, and foreshadows some of what is to come. The third, and longest section, covers the lives of the characters as adults, and is by far the most powerful, and moving piece of the book.

The reader who is looking for mindless action is advised to pick up the latest Tom Clancy novel, or whatever passes for literature these days. Those who are willing to put aside all preconceived notions, and have their cherished beliefs challenged are invited to read this book. The search for truth is endless. But this book is a perfect place to begin.

This text should be required reading for every supply chain professional. It covers every important topic and trend in supply management and does so with a unique blend of theoretical analysis, industrial survey results and real-life examples. I was particularly impressed with the sections on supplier selection, managing supplier performance and the use of information technology to optimize and support supply objectives. From this text, I learned not only how to take a big picture, strategic look at the problem of supply management but what tools and techniques are available to help day-to-day execution of that strategy. You can quickly see from this text just how complicated supply management is and that a high level of interaction exists between many different functional organizations. Taking a short-term, isolated approach to this topic and ignoring the trends and advice offered in this text will make it very difficult to achieve long-term success.

I was very pleased with the writing style used by the author. It did not read like a textbook with listing of fact after fact. Instead, the author made the subject matter enjoyable to read and included some personal observations that stressed the practical aspects of the material. I would highly recommend this text to anyone who works in supply chain management.

This book is an excellent read for supply chain professionals and those wanting to understand the tools and practices of world-class supply management. Thoroughly researched, Trent provides the foundations and processes of supply management and supports these with real-world examples demonstrating how organizations have transformed their supply chains. The book is a quick read and the summary points at the end of each chapter are also a great reference for those in a hurry. Supply management organizations looking for sustainable competitive advantage will find this guide invaluable.

This book is a complete guide to supply management for any purchasing professional or student. It effectively addresses all the pressures supply professionals face today and provides actionable solutions. The book provides a holistic view of supply management but also gives specific tools and identifies additional resources for more in-depth research. Specifically, I found the tools for supplier identification and selection and the tips for crashing the timeline for supplier identification and selection very useful. While this book is executable by more senior supply professionals, lower level supply professionals can benefit by it also. If you have been too busy to follow what others are doing, this book will give you the heads up on new trends that work. It's a fast, well organized and interesting read you can breeze through during the weekend so when you go back to work on Monday you can begin transforming your organization to a lean and mean supply management machine.

Strategic Supply Management provides a step by step guide to creating a world-class supply chain. By focusing upstream on the power of procurement, readers can learn to establish a solid integrated foundation upon which to build their corporate value proposition. Trent uses timely examples of real-world companies and supplies straight-forward assessment templates that, once completed, provide a comprehensive plan to develop a sustainable and highly effective supply chain. Injected with an occasional dash of humor, this book is a well-organized, efficiently-detailed must-read for anyone wanting to transform their twentieth century procurement function into the strategic supply chain required to compete successfully in today's world.

A soup to nuts roadmap for developing, implementing and leveraging best practices of supply management to propel your organization to world class status. Encompassing and pragmatic, this book will help you recognize and fill gaps in your supply management strategy, and learn how to make supply management a integral part of an overall business strategy. In today's hyper-competitive global business environment, high performance organizations need to succeed at many levels. Strategic Supply Management is a great reference for leaders looking to bring another dimension of success to their organization.

This publication covers all aspects of renewable solar power in the U.S. It takes complex scientific and engineering concepts and brings them down to understandable practical knowledge that all professionals as well as the casual reader seeks.

Any time a project team gets together on the design of renewable energy systems, they will need a common practical project oriented denominator from which to work from--and this is it. Even though the focus is on sustainable solar power, the book never forgets the other renewable energy sources that can be used for sustainable development.

Thank you for the clearest, most concise, & easily understood treatment of a technology whose time has definitely come. Starting with a history & background of solar technology in its previous incarnations, we are quickly brought up to date with workable solutions to many of our current energy challenges. From homes to concert halls & public facilities, the "how-to" of putting these technologies to work is fully explained in crisp paragraphs & bullet items, punctuated by colorful graphs, schematics, photos & charts which clearly illustrate the concepts explained. Examples of successful projects are provided & strategies presented to transition into use of solar power & other forms of renewable energy. When you finish reading this book, I'm sure you will feel as I did that you have a genuine understanding of what technologies are available & how they can work

Amazing, is the most compressive compilation of renewable technologies ever created under one cover. It reads as if you are having a one on one lesson from a favorite professor. In a simple laymen way it exposes the social, economic, and architectural relationships with renewable technologies. A must read for city planners, architects, engineers, and all college students.

We have all intellectuality known that the continued use of fossil fuels has been dumb. But this year the emotional understanding of the situation came closer to home as the cost of home heating has roughly doubled. All of a sudden, sustainable energy, particularly solar power looks a lot more attractive than it did even last year.

In spite of its title, this book is primarily on solar power. To be sure about half the book is on other technologies such as wind, tidal, and so on. But from an architectural standpoint, the technology is more advanced and more easily adapted when it is solar.

This book is not a detailed tutorial on how to install a solar power system, instead it is more of an overall survey of the concepts of how solar power can be utilized in the home and in some commercial/industrial buildings.

Near my house is a new development being built. There is absolutely no attention being made for solar power. So it hasn't quite yet reached the house buying public, but that time is coming. The concepts in this book are reaching mandatory level, maybe next year when the price of heating doubles again.

If there is one point lacking in this book, that is passive home heating. This is cheaper to install, has a very good payback, and can be combined with solar electric in the same building.

The book is quite an accomplishment with an amazing wealth of information- a virtual solar bible. With information about different types of technologies, manufacturing processes, costs, and installation data, it tells everything an architect would ever need to know about solar power. The book is like the graphic standard for solar power technology.

Las huelgas de 1934 que forjaron el movimiento
sindical industrial en el mediooeste
norteamericano y ayudaron a allanar el camino
para el ascenso del Congreso de Organizaciones
Industriales (CIO), relatadas por un dirigente
central de esas batallas. El primero en una serie de
cuatro tomos sobre el liderazgo de lucha de clases
de las huelgas y campa?as de sindicalizaci?n que
transformaron el sindicato de los Teamsters en gran
parte de esa regi?n en un movimiento social
combativo y se?alaron el camino hacia la acci?n
politica independiente de la clase obrera. Incluye
una nueva introducci?n a la edici?n en espa?ol
por Jack Barnes.

THIS REVIEW IS ALSO BEING USED FOR TEAMSTER POWER WHICH IS A CONTINUATION OF THE STORY PRESENTED HERE. THE POLITICAL POINTS ARE VALID FOR BOTH BOOKS.

ORGANIZE WALMART! ORGANIZE THE SOUTH! These are the slogans which outline the tasks that the American labor movement, particularly the organized trade union movement under the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Coalition, need to address. With those tasks in mind it was refreshing for this old militant to re-read Farrell Dobbs' analysis of the fight to organize the truckers in the 1930's. This volume, and an earlier one detailing the struggles to organize truckers in Minneapolis, are little handbooks for model labor organizing. Dobbs himself was instrumental in organizing the truckers of Minneapolis in the great strikes in that city in 1934 and as documented here the later, successful organizing of the over the road drivers in the Midwest which created the modern, powerful Teamsters International Union. He was, more importantly, a supporter of what later in the decade became the Socialist Workers Party- American section of the Trotsky-led Forth International.

Whatever else may be true about Dobbs this man could organize workers. Why? The last sentence in the previous paragraph gives the answer. In the modern labor movement it is not enough to be a militant on the picket line but one must also have a political approach to labor actions. With the merging of corporate and governmental interests on the labor question in the modern state militants better think politically. As the December, 2005 unsuccessful struggle of the transport workers in New York City demonstrated militants better know the enemy and his tactics well. Moreover, these days, unlike in the 1930's when it went without question by advanced workers, it is as important to know there is an enemy. On the other hand think what it would be like to have a political militant like Dobbs organizing the drivers of those 7000 trucks that Wal-Mart owns to distribute its merchandise. You get my drift. Read what he has to say carefully.

To even introduce this militant labor leader of the 1930's is to state the fundamental problem of today's labor leaders. They do not exist in the modern labor movement. Yes, there are militants out there in the rank and file but militant leaders are no longer produced and that is the rub. Unlike the strategy of independent political action which underlined Dobbs' work the strategy of today's labor leaders can be summed up in two words- class collaboration. That is a strategy of dependence by the labor movement on the good will of the `friends of labor', essentially the Democratic Party- not to fight for victory in the streets but by what at times amounts to parliamentary cretinism. Just start to organize Wal-Mart seriously or organize the South and militants will quickly see who their `friends' are.

The natural audience for this book are today's labor activists so the reviewer would draw attention to the following issues that Dobbs and his associates had to confront and which militants today will confront in any serious organizing efforts. (1)The role of the labor bureaucracy in limiting the scope of struggle. (2) The role of governmental mediators, courts, legislation and the above-mentioned `friends of labor' in curtailing the struggle. (3) The role of scabs and others, including government troops, who will try to break the up the struggle. On the positive side- the following should be noted; have your own publicity organ to get out your message; organize other labor and pro-labor sources to assist in strike action; anticipate that governmental and corporate sources will try to `freeze' workers out so have your own transport, commissary and medical operations. Finally, in the words of the old Wobblie song by Joe Hill- "Don't Mourn, Organize!!

In rereading this book I was struck by what a wonderful thing it was that these rank and file workers were able to change history by creating, out of their struggle, an example of revolutionary unionism. It was wonderful for them and is wonderful for us, because it shows what we can do today. This book also tells the story of how Farrell Dobbs learned that he could trust in both the fighting capacity of the working class and the leadership capabilities of its vanguard. Through powerful examples Dobbs describes the dog-eat-dog viciousness of capitalism and contrasts it with the desire on the part of young fighters to break through the backstabbing and open up a road to workers' solidarity. This book could change your life. Amazon may list this book as unavailable from time to time, but it's always available from the Pathfinder z store. Click on "new and used" at the top of the page.

Dobbs, a leader of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike, which became a citywide general strike, tells its story. The battles with the companies, cops, strike breakers, and their hangers-on are told with masterful effect. It also shows the rising industrial unions as organizations of working-class struggle, taking on the employers and its government. But the real gem at the heart of this tale is how the unfolding struggle transformed ordinary workers, including Dobbs himself, into extraordinary fighters, thinkers, and revolutionary leaders.

Farrell Dobbs was a coal-yard worker and one of the central leaders of the 1934 strikes when in his twenties. Some forty years later Dobbs was the national secretory of the Socialist Workers Party and wrote down an account of his experiences working in the coal yards and becoming involved in unionist movement organizing the drive to establish Teamsters Local 574 and the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as an effective nation-wide instrument to better working conditions for men and women like himself. Teamster Rebellion is Dobbs account of the hard-fought strike actions which were often all out battles with law enforcement and hired thugs operating as strike breakers in the employ of the exploitative company owners and such big-business fronts as Citizen Alliance. Teamster Rebellion is a welcome and recommended addition to academic and community library American Labor History collections.