On various facebook groups, Gerald says:
Good news! The ‘Systems Thinking’ four-volume set that I edited for Sage Publications in 2003 is in print again after being unavailable for a couple of years. I was told by the publisher that the whole series of books had gone out of print, but they’ve revived just this one due to continuing demand!
The four-volume set reprints classic papers on systems thinking from 1913 to 2003, and was assembled with advice from an international advisory board of systems thinking luminaries. It’s priced for libraries rather than individuals (£645), so if you are affiliated to a university that doesn’t already have it, please recommend it for purchase.
My goal in publicising this re-release is to get it into as many university libraries as possible – especially ones that don’t have a comprehensive collection on systems thinking and systems science. It will give staff and students who encounter systems thinking for the first time a ready-made resource to help them explore the history and development of the ideas.
The web site for the ‘Systems Thinking’ four-volume set is below. It is not particularly interesting visually, but lists the international advisory board and the full contents of each of the volumes, so you can see if you think it is worth recommending for purchase. Let’s get this into as many libraries as possible before it goes out of print again!
Source: Systems Thinking | SAGE Publications Ltd
Systems Thinking
- Gerald Midgley – Centre for Systems Studies, Business School, University of Hull
Systems Thinking
Systems Thinking will be an essential reference for all libraries of business, management and organization studies.
International Advisory Board
Peter Allen, Cranfield University, UK
Bela H Banathy, Saybrook Institute, USA & International Systems Institute, USA
Kenneth Bausch, Institute for 21st Century Agoras, USA
Richard Bawden, Michigan State University, USA
Søren Brier, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark
David Campbell, Tavistock Clinic, UK
Fritjof Capra, Center for Ecoliteracy, USA
Peter Checkland, Lancaster University, UK
José Córdoba, University of Hull, UK
Peter Corning, Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, USA
Donald de Raadt, Luleå University, Sweden
Eric Dent, University of Maryland, University College, USA
Peter Dudley, Integra Management Systems Ltd., UK
Robert Flood, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Joyce Fortune, Open University, UK
Wojciech Gasparski, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland
Wendy Gregory, University of Hull, UK
Jifa Gu, JAIST, Japan & Institute of Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Enrique Herrscher, IDEA, Argentina
Kristo Ivanov, Umea University, Sweden
Mike Jackson, University of Hull, UK
James Kay, University of Waterloo, Canada
Lisl Klein, Bayswater Institute, UK
George Klir, Binghampton University, USA
Ervin Laszlo, Club of Budapest, Hungary
Harold Linstone, Portland State University, USA
Sid Luckett, University of Natal, South Africa
Gianfranco Minati, Italian Systems Society, Italy
John Mingers, Warwick University, UK
Heiner M ller Merbach, Universität Kaiserslautern, Germany
P N Murthy, Tata Consultancy Services, India
Yoshiteru Nakamori, Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (JAIST), Japan
Harold Nelson, Advance Design Institute, Seattle, USA
Roger Packham, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Yong Pil Rhee, Seoul National University, South Korea
Kurt Richardson, Institute for the Study of Coherence and Emergence, USA
Fenton Robb, Independent Author, UK
Ricardo Rodríguez-Ulloa, Instituto Andino de Sistemas, Peru
Simanta Roy-Chowdhury, Barnet, Enfield and Harringay NHS Trust & University of East London, UK
John Sterman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Sytse Strijbos, Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Stuart Umpleby, George Washington University, USA
John Van Gigch, California State University, USA
John Warfield, George Mason University, USA
Jennifer Wilby, The University of York, UK
Eric Wolstenholme, Cognitus Ltd., UK
Maurice Yolles, Liverpool John Moores University, UK
| The Skeleton of Science |
| Towards an Ontology of Levels |
| Basic Concepts |
| Obstacles, Potentials and Case Studies |
| Foundations to a Theory of General Evolution |
| An Executive Summary |
| Applications for Organization and Management |
| Its Provenance, Development, Methodology and Pathology |
| A Critical Enquiry |
| Epistemology or Technique? |
| The Search for Objectivity or the Quest for a Compelling Argument |
| A Counter-Ontoepistemology for a Systems Approach |
| A Phenomenological Ontology for Interpretive Systemology |
| An Alternative Theoretical Perspective |
| Three Guidelines for the Conductor of the Session |
| Preliminary and Evolving Ideas about the Implications for Clinical Theory |
| A Methodology for Strategic Problem Solving |
| Organizing Complexity through Disciplined Activity |
| A Development of Systems Thinking for the 1990s |
| Building Learning Organizations |
| Tackling Messy Problems |
| An Ongoing Conversation |
| Critical Theory and Soft Systems Methodology |
| Developing Housing Services for Older People |
| A Practical Face to Critical Systems Thinking |
| A New Strategy for Critical Systems Thinking |
| Probing Methodological Rationalities |
| The Nature and Role of Critical Learning Systems |
| A Concern for the Issues that Matter |
| An American-Chinese Case |
| Towards a Framework for Mixing Methodologies |
| Intending to Ask Lineal, Circular, Strategic, or Reflexive Questions? |
| Intersecting the Ideas of Foucault with the `Problem’ of Power in Family Therapy |
| Gender Paradoxes in Volatile Attachments |
