NEW SYSTEMS BOOKS SERIES PUBLISHED BY
HAMPTON PRESS.
Hampton Press has introduced a new book series: Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences, under the direction of Series Editor Alfonso Montuori. The focus is on new contributions to systems thinking, translations of important works published in languages other than English, and re-issues of classic texts such as Gregory Bateson’s Mind and Nature and Ervin Laszlo’s Evolution.
Authors in the series include Ervin Laszlo, Gregory Bateson, Edgar Morin, Humberto Maturana, Dora Fried Schnitman, David Loye, Gianluca Bocchi, Mauro Ceruti, Allan Combs, Ernst Von Glasersfeld, David Boje, Sergio Manghi, and others.
Book proposals are welcome and should
be sent to the Series Editor, Alfonso Montuori,
montuori@inreach.com
Or
Alfonso Montuori
865 Vallejo St., #302
San Francisco, CA 94133 USA
"I have taught various branches of behavioral biology and
cultural anthropology to American students ranging from college
freshmen to psychiatric residents, in various schools and teaching
hospitals, and I have encountered a very strange gap in their
thinking that springs from a lack of certain tools of thought.
This lack is rather equally distributed at all levels of education,
among students of both sexes and among humanists as well as scientists.
Specifically, it is a lack of knowledge of the presuppositions
not only of science but of everyday life." (Gregory Bateson
in Mind and Nature, p. 23)
Providing these tools of thought,
and exploring the presuppositions of science and everyday life
is what this classic of transdisciplinary thought is about. Bateson's
Mind and Nature has influenced scholars in disciplines as diverse
as biology, management theory, creativity research, family therapy,
communication, systems theory, and epistemology.
"Gregory Bateson's thought has been generative because of
its transdisciplinarity. Nourished by sources at some considerable
distance from each other, Bateson made the streams flow together,
and in this confluence developed some of the key ideas that will
allow us to face the future."
Edgar Morin, Emeritus Director, French National Research Center
(CNRS), author of Homeland Earth
"Mind and Nature is one of those rarest of literary
jewels: its message shines with increasing intensity as we continue
our descent into the shadows of a disconnected relationship with
Nature. Bateson illuminates a path toward recovering the wholeness
of life."
Brian Goodwin, Schumacher College, author of How the Leopard
Changed Its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity.
A thinker so far ahead of his time it takes your breath away.
"But meet we shall/ And meet and meet again/ Where dead men
meet/On lips of living men." That was one of Gregory's favourite
poems. And how true it is of his influence!
Charles Hampden-Turner, author of Charting the Corporate Mind,
Cambridge University
This classic book summarizes Gregory Bateson's thinking on the
subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other
and to their environment. Every warning that it contains is now
coming home to roost, from the dangers of "chopping up the
ecology" in the effort to dominate nature, to the lack of
"systemic wisdom" in the effort to change behavior.
It has been a kind of moral compass for me over the years, telling
me which way might be true North.
Lynn Hoffman, St. Joseph's College, author, Foundations of
Family Therapy
Mind and Nature is a bridging volume between our philosophical
roots and the bioinformatic sciences including evolutionary psychology.
Bateson takes epistemology very seriously. This is an important
book, timely now because the author was far ahead of his time.
Harold Morowitz, George Mason University, author of Entropy
and the Magic Flute.
Mind and Nature is an important book with profound implications
for psychology, biology, and the ecology of mind.
Frank Barron, University of California Santa Cruz, author of
No Rootless Flower.
"The years have ripened his ideas, metaphors, conversations,
and stories, revealing a web of living clarity. Now is the time
to read and re-read him."
Bradford Keeney, Mental Research Institute, author of Aesthetics
of Change
"Mind and Nature are two ongoing, creative tautologies which
reflect each other and whose internal engines, evolution and learning,
are isomorphic components of one vast ecology. As Bateson puts
it in the introduction to this book: "Mind became, for me,
a reflection of large parts and many parts of the natural world
outside the thinker."
Giuseppe O. Longo, University of Trieste, author of Homo Technologicus
Gregory Bateson wrote far ahead of his time. Only now do we
recognize his astonishing wisdom and profound insights. His "pattern
that connects," then a metaphor, has become the reality of
our digital era. His "ecology of mind(s)" provides a
frame to see our larger environmental responsibilities. Mind and
Nature challenges us to critically examine how we participate
in rewriting nature.
Klaus Krippendorff, Gregory Bateson Professor for Cybernetics,
Language, and Culture, The Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania, author of Content Analysis
"MIND AND NATURE is the best distillation of Gregory Bateson's
wide-ranging ideas, whose relevance continues to grow in the 21st
century. One of the reasons I keep paying attention to Bateson's
thinking is that it keeps newly refolding on itself with the complex
sweetness of mental baklava."
Stewart Brand, Global Business Network, author of The Clock
of the Long Now
"Gregory Bateson was for me one of the truly wise men of
the 20th century; at times not immediately transparent, but always
inspiring."
Ernst Von Glasersfeld, University of Massachussetts Amherst, author
of Radical Constructivism
"Bocchi and Ceruti have written
a challenging, brilliant book that is required reading for anybody
who wishes to participate in the intellectual revolution through
which we are now living."
From the Foreword by Jerome Bruner, New York University,
author of Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.
The Narrative Universe is a unique book (and) fascinating
to read. It is indeed a remarkable feature of modern science that
we have moved to a different view of nature which emphasizes the
narrative levels of observation from energy physics to chemistry
and biology. Bocchi and Ceruti present a global and impressive
view of this narrative aspect starting with mythology and the
early history of humanity and going from there It will be of great
interest for everyone who cares about the memory of the past as
well as humanity's position in the Universe."
Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Laureate, Free University Brussels,
co-author of Order out of Chaos.
"The Narrative Universe
is a wondrous book, whose very title is the message. The authors
take us down the highways and byways of the world of knowledge,
to tell us that we live not only in a contingent universe but
are engaged in the creation of contingent knowledges. We are forced
to think about assumptions we never realized needed to be questioned.
It is a resolutely hopeful, creative work about a creative universe."
Immanuel Wallerstein, SUNY Binghampton, author of The End of the World as We Know it: Social Science for the 21st Century.
"Drawing from biology, complexity science, cultural history,
cosmology, linguistics, mythology, anthropology, as well as the
history of religions, literature, and twentieth century film,
Bocchi and Ceruti have crafted our time's most comprehensive and
compact survey of contemporary science." Brian Swimme, California
Institute of Integral Studies, co-author of The Universe
Story.
"A remarkable work of transdisciplinary scholarship. The
Narrative Universe is a rich and fascinating work that offers
a new perspective on evolution that emphasizes the importance
of human choice and actions, and the possibility for creating
a partnership world."
Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade, Sacred Pleasure, and Tomorrow's Chidren.
"A marvelous book in several senses: I marvel at Bocchi and Ceruti's erudition, and at the grace with which they apply it. Here we have a masterful narrative well told about the history of consciousness, from the earliest dawnings of human awareness to the latest reflections of evolutionary theory about our evolution."
James Ogilvy, Global Business Network, author of Creating Better Futures and Living Without Goals.
Edgar Morin, one of the leading figures in European thought, challenges us to think differently about our past, our present, and our future. Morin points to the development of a planetary culture that is not homogenizing or fragmented, and the need to recognize complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity as potential sources of creativity, learning, and transformation. Given the uncertainty of our journey, Morin presents "complex thought" as a way to overcome the "crisis of the future," and stresses the importance of human solidarity.
In the middle of today's confusion, the reader will salute, in
this book, the enlightened perspective of a free spirit and the
intelligence of a wise friend, whose thought and writing renews
our hope of understanding the world in order to change it. Homeland
Earth is a great book, in service of a great cause.
Le Monde Diplomatique
This book is not recommended for lovers of ready-made solutions,
but it will delight those in search of a method, or rather, in
search of the art of avoiding prejudices. (Homeland Earth is a)
handbook for the next millennium.
Le Figaro
Homeland Earth incisively challenges the progressivist, expansionist,
assumptions of our hypermodern era, calling instead for a conscious
journey into "our earthly identity." At the heart of
Morin's eco-social vision is the possibility that humans will
begin to "think the complex." His own example of this
direction is a multifaceted assessment that suggests new patterns
of thought, born of pragmatism, wisdom, and compassion.
Charlene Spretnak, author of The Resurgence of the Real.
The best known and most widely read thinker in France writes on
our new planetary home: Planet Earth. A must for everyone who
wishes to keep up with the vertiginous pace of change in our world.
Ervin Laszlo, author of The Whispering Pond and Macroshift.
Homeland Earth is a powerful and brilliantly written vision that can guide human, social, and global evolution. Based on a solid understanding of evolutionary principles, the authors convincingly articulate the solution of the seemingly antagonistic goals of (a) preserving of our cultural and natural diversities and the same time (b) engaging in a transformative revolutionary change by which humanity can realize itself as "one and whole," as a global community of nations.Bela H. Banathy, Saybrook Graduate School and International Systems Institute, author of Guided Evolution of Society: A Systems View.
A deeply intelligent exploration of our place in this Earth, and
of the evolutionary moment and potential at which we stand.
Allan Combs, University of North Carolina, author of The Radiance of Being: Complexity, Chaos, and the Evolution of Consciousness.
Anyone seriously interested in systems
thinking should read this book. Morin takes us on a telescopic
journey through space and time, tracing the dynamics of a complex
evolution toward a planetary culture. A breathtaking achievement
in social thought!
Ronald E. Purser, San Francisco State University, co-author,
The Self-Managing Organization : How Leading Companies Are
Transforming the Work of Teams for Real Impact.
"This work resonates with one
of the most exciting movements in contemporary scholarship: to
redraw the western conception of the person, to locate our roots
within relationships as opposed to isolated consciousness. This
is a rich and multi-faceted collection that vitally expands the
resources for achieving this end."
Kenneth Gergen, Swarthmore College, Author of The Saturated
Self and Realities and Relationships
"A refreshing atom blast shattering outdated definitions
of creativity limited to the image of the lone genius. The editors
have provided a crash course in systems-oriented thinking that
opens up the possibility for a more contextual and systemic perspective
of the creative process. Anyone interested in creativity must
read this work."
Suzi Gablik, Author of Reenchantment of Art and Conversations
Before the End of Time
"I can think of no other book that brings together a group
of thinkers better able to illuminate and reconstitute the conceptual
foundations of how the modern idea of creativity is understood.
Sensing the increasing gulf between commodified meaning and uses
of creativity, and the conceptually rich and varied ways that
seminal thinkers have been considering it, Montuori and Purser
have given both the academic community and public a truly transformative
book."
C.A. Bowers, Author of The Culture of Denial: Why the Environmental
Movement Needs A Strategy for Reforming Universities and Public
Schools
"A topnotch collection of thoughtful essays on the complex
relationship between creativity and the social order."
Philip Slater, Author of The Pursuit of Loneliness and
A Dream Deferred
"A panoramic overview of what
is social, and therefore actionable, about creativity.
Everyone concerned with the design and leadership of organizations
should take heed."
--John Kao, Harvard Business School, and Author of Jamming:
The Art and Discipline of Business
Submitting Proposals or Manuscripts:
We welcome your submissions. Please send your proposal to Alfonso Montuori, Ph.D., Series Editor, at montuori@inreach.com , or snail mail at:
Alfonso Montuori
865 Vallejo St. #302
San Francisco, CA 94133
USA
To order books, please contact Hampton Press:
By Phone: 800-894-8955
201-894-1686
Hampton Press
23 Broadway
Cresskill, NJ07626
Or order through www.amazon.com