author: Stephanie Nolen asin: 0676978231 binding: Paperback list price: CDN$ 22.00 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 16.06 CAD

author: Ronald Wright rating: asin: 0887847064 binding: Paperback list price: CDN$ 18.95 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 13.83 CAD

No hope, just an awareness of what's being done now and what's been done in the past, is what Ronald Wright will permit in A Short History of Progress, his grim, ammoniacal Massey Lectures, the 43rd in the series. In five lucid, meticulously documented essays, Wright traces the rise and plummet of four regional civilizations--those of Sumer, Rome, Easter Island, and the Maya--and judges that most, perhaps all, of humanity is making and will continue to make mistakes equally disastrous as theirs. He gives general reasons first for not reckoning we'll pull back from the brink. Important among them is an anthropological observation. As individuals, we live long lives. We evolve more slowly than we should, given our lack of vision and our aggressive, selfish nature. We seem to lack the collective wisdom and the insight into cause and effect to realize the limits to what Wright calls the "experiment" of civilization. What Wright calls natural "subsidies" underwrite civilizations' successes. The squandering of those gifts presages inevitable failure, but with careful, canny stewardship, a civilization can manage to muddle through eons. Wright cites Egypt's submission to the limits set by the Nile's annual floods and China's windblown "lump-sum deposit" of topsoil, used for hillside paddies instead of being put to the plough. Wright observes with unrelenting eloquence that our planetary civilization lives precariously, far beyond its means. "Hope drives us to invent new fixes for old messes," he acknowledges, neither claiming nor wanting to be a prophet. We certainly have the tools for change and remediation; we also know what our ancestors did wrong and what happened to them. We're faced, our author observes, with two choices: either do nothing--what he calls "one of the biggest mistakes"--or try to effect "the transition from short-term to long-term thinking." His evidence suggests we're taking the first alternative, which will include a swift, final ride into the dark future on the runaway train of progress. Wright's account tempts one to bet on the rats and roaches. --Ted Whittaker

author: Randy Ottinger rating: asin: 0071496769 binding: Hardcover list price: CDN$ 34.95 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 22.02 CAD

author: Tom Watson asin: 0470375043 binding: Hardcover list price: CDN$ 30.95 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 19.50 CAD

author: Frances Westley Brenda Zimmerman Michael Patton rating: asin: 067931444X binding: Paperback list price: CDN$ 22.00 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 16.06 CAD

rating: asin: 0253219558 binding: Paperback list price: CDN$ 23.41 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 21.55 CAD

author: Jim Collins rating: asin: 0977326403 binding: Paperback list price: CDN$ 15.50 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 11.32 CAD

author: Jim Collins rating: asin: 0066620996 binding: Hardcover list price: CDN$ 38.99 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 24.56 CAD

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards

author: Hugo Bonjean rating: asin: 0973754206 binding: Paperback list price: CDN$ 20.95 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 15.29 CAD

author: Robert Urbanowski asin: 0981037003 binding: Hardcover list price: CDN$ 22.95 CAD amazon price: CDN$ 16.75 CAD