Thinking in Systems

A primer

English language

Published Dec. 3, 2008 by Chelsea Green Publishing.

ISBN:
9781603581486
OCLC Number:
225871309
Audible ASIN:
B07FW9Z4KG
Goodreads:
3828902-thinking-in-systems

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4 stars (3 reviews)

The classic book on systems thinking―with more than half a million copies sold worldwide!

"This is a fabulous book… This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."―Forbes

"Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."―Hunter Lovins

In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth―the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet―Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001.

Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings …

3 editions

System System

2 stars

Donella Meadows is one of the 20th Century's most well known systems theorists, mostly due to her landmark book Limits to Growth. This follow-on, written in the 90s and published in 2006, is a high-level introduction to systems theory.

As a basic book on a subject, it is accessible and sometimes enjoyable. It is strongeSt when Meadows is exploring comcepts like nonlnear systems, where as a reader you can consider the implications. But the book is not well written, and uses far too many examples, sometimes contradictory ones, without useful evidence or theory. While it is refreshing to see a stance in the 90s that supports systemic change, other more recent books do this better.

Also, the unapologetic references to Garrett Hardin are pretty unpalettable to anyone who knows about him.

Subjects

  • system theory
  • sustiainability
  • feedback
  • control theory