Diana, Corazon Roto/ Diana, Broken Hearted

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When deciding which athletes to profile, our editors take into account not only a player's statistics, but also his character. SPI takes care to select athletes who are known to be community minded and can serve as role models.

The biographical material on each athlete covers him from his earliest days to the present.

Book Description

Dai Jinhua is one of contemporary China's most influential theoreticians and cultural critics. A feminist Marxist, her literary, film and TV commentary has, over the last decade, addressed an expanding audience in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Cinema and Desire presents Dai Jinhua's best work to date. In the book she examines the Orientalism that made Zhang Yimou the darling of international film festivals, establishes Huang Shuqin's Human, Woman, Demon as the People's Republic's first genuinely feminist film, comments on TV representations of the Chinese diaspora in New York, speculates on the value of Mao Zedong as an icon of post-revolutionary consumerism, and analyses the rise of shopping plazas in 1990s urban China as a strange montage in which the political memories of Tiananmen Square and the logic of the global capitalist marketplace are intertwined.

Book Description

The 25th anniversary edition of a sociology classic-a groundbreaking look at the history of advertising and consumer culture as defining forces in American life.

Captains of Consciousness offers a historical look at the origins of the advertising industry and consumer society at the turn of the twentieth century. For this new edition Stuart Ewen, one of our foremost interpreters of popular culture, has written a new preface that considers the continuing influence of advertising and commercialism in contemporary life. Not limiting his critique strictly to consumers and the advertising culture that serves them, he provides a fascinating history of the ways in which business has refined its search for new consumers by ingratiating itself into Americans' everyday lives. A timely and still-fascinating critique of life in a consumer culture.

Customer Reviews:

Instrumental in broadening prospective .......2007-08-28

Stuart Ewen. Captains of Consciousness. Basic Books, 2001

Preface says that some reviewers labeled the book as "Marxist". They definitely missed the point. Feeling sympathetic towards Proletariat isn't Marxism exclusive trademark. Yet the book definitely lacks the depth of economic analysis and feeling of history (including actual class struggle) to fit the best standards of historical materialism. H. Zinn's "People's History of the USA" is much more monumental in collecting the social and economical realities of the US of the period.

As M. Schudson rightfully noted, the author of "Captains" too often takes the bluffing of second-rate admen at face value as the industry's real best practices. All this comes under obvious ideological inspiration of Marcuse.

Still the book seems to be the only study of advertising history that takes into consideration the working-class, including immigrants. Virtually all others suggest that there was no life outside of "Middle Class America".

Thus "Captains" are the must for any researcher or student in advertising sociology who wants to broaden his/her prospective.

Social Commentary from a Marxist .......2007-03-27

To appreciate this book you need have at least a general understand of the work of Karl Marx because the book is written from a Marxist perspective. From this 'perspective' the author is able to draw certain conclusions about American society (or a capitalist society) in which a reader may mistakenly infer as to the intent of the actual participants of that society. Its one thing to describe a particular outcome as a result of advertising and it's another thing to say that this outcome is the actual intent of advertising companies and businesses. A casual reader (or biased reader) may have trouble distinguishing between the two. The book title is a little misleading, saying `Captains' of Consciousness when the author does not focus on any 'specific' advertising company or business. The book cover is also a little misleading, with a picture of the store front NikeTown with heavily armed police. The book was written in 1976, no where in the book does it mention the Nike company and book contents does not convey any sense of power struggle thingy going on. Overall, it's an okay book for those who are familiar with the work of Marx and sociology in general. If you are not, then you would have no understanding of where the author is coming from or really the conclusion he is making. To sum I would say that is book is really just social commentary from a Marxist.
Here are some notes I've taken from the book (word for word) that I feel are most meaningful to me:

Modern advertising was concentrating upon a type of copy aiming to make the reader emotionally uneasy, to bludgeon him with the fact that decent people don't live the way he does

Mass industry, requiring a corresponding mass individual, cryptically named him "Civilized American" and implicated his national heritage in the marketplace. By defining himself and his desires in terms of the good of capitalist production, the worker would implicitly accept the foundations of modern industrial live. By transforming the notion of "class" into "mass", business hoped to create an "individual" who could locate his needs and frustrations in terms of the consumption of goods rather than the quality and content of his life (work).

In an attempt to massify men's consumption in step with the requirements of the productive machinery, advertising increasingly offered mass-produced solutions to "instinctive" strivings as well as to the ills of mass society itself. If it was industrial capitalism around which crowded cities were being built and which had spawned much of the danger to health, the frustration, the loneliness and the insecurity of modern industrial life, the advertising of the period denied complicity. Rather, the logic of contemporaneous advertising read, one can free oneself from the ills of modern life by embroiling oneself in the maintenance of that life. A 1924 ad for Pompeian facial product argued that: unless you are one woman in a thousand, you must use powder and rouge. Modern living has robbed women of much of their natural color.. taken away the conditions that once gave natural roses in the cheeks

The advertising which attempted to create the dependable mass of consumers required by modern industry often did so by playing upon the fears and frustrations evoked by mass society - offering mass produced visions of individualism by which people could extricate themselves from the mass - mass pseudo-demassification

Appealing to dissatisfaction and insecurities around the job, certain advertisements not only offered their products as a kind of job insurance, but intimate that through the use of their products one might become a business success - the capitalist notion of individual "self-fulfillment".

Much of American industrial development punctuated by attempts to channel thought and behavior into patterns which fitted the prescribed dimensions of industrial life

If you are advertising any product never see the factory in which it was made. Don't watch the people at work. Because when you know the truth about anything, the real, inner truth - it is very hard to write the surface fluff which sells it.

Speaking of seeming purposelessness of American industrial life itself, this lack of purpose in life has an effect on consumption similar to that of having a narrow life interest, that is, in concentrating human attention on the more superficial things that comprise much of fashionable consumption. The mass-produced goods of the marketplace were conceived of as providing and ideology of "change" neutralized to the extent that it would be unable to effect significant alteration in the relationship between individuals and the corporate structure. "Fatigue" with the futility of modern life might, if all other avenues of change are eradicated, be channeled toward a "fatigue... with apparel and goods used in one's immediate surroundings".
The concept of consumption as an alternative to other modes of change proliferates within business literature of the twenties. Given the recent history of anticaptialist sentiments and actions among the working class, the unpleasant possibility of "deeper changes" gave flight to a more pacified notion of social welfare that emanated from comsumerization. Recognizing the irreversibility of frustration among those who felt trapped in their surroundings, change would be "the most beneficent medicine in the world to most people", mass consumption is offered as a means of acting out such impulses within a socially controllable context. "To those who cannot change their whole lives or occupations, even a new line in a dress is often a relief. The woman who is tired of her husband or her home or a job feels some lifting of the weight of life from seeing a straight line change into a bouffant, or a gray pass into beige". The basic issues of industrial capitalism were fractionalized, isolated and reduced to trivialities in her formula. "Most people do not have the courage or the understanding to make deeper changes".
The logic of using consumption and mass leisure as ameliorations for boredom and social entrapment was not merely an underlying trend in advertising

Fear in itself is paralyzing; it robs one of the power of action. No one buys anything through fear, but rather through the instinct of self preservation or some other reaction that is almost inseparable from fear

AGAIN, if you don't understand what the hell the author is taking about then I don't recommend this book to you.

A thought provoking analysis of advertising/consumer culture.......2005-04-27

Ewen's book "Captains of Consciousness" is an insightful analysis of the rise of consumerism through advertising. He starts by covering the technique and effects of mass production. Of course workers were not pleased with their dehumanizing roles in line production that made them easily replaceable. Where industrialization standardized the means of production, there was a need to modernize the consumption end of the deal; this is where advertising came into play. The book focuses on the 1920's during the advent of mass advertising. Advertising provided a desire in the public to comsume a variety of new productions as well as ameliorated a society who had become increasingly upset with the wage system. Much of the later part of the book deals with how advertising was primarily meant for women, who had become the managers of the household and responsible for most consumption. Overall, the book is well worth the read, even though it is over 25 years old. Many of the advertising tactics that Ewen speaks of, such as the youthful ideal, are still present today.

Why are 3rd World nations far less materialistic? Read This........2003-12-07

If you've ever spent a considerable amount of time living in a 3rd World nation like I have, this book can help you understand why the USA has such an intense consumer culture which is almost unheard of in other such countries. I'm a big fan of capitalism, and this book makes a lot of sense. It's not a critique of capitalism nearly as much as an explanation of how it can shape cultures.

Consumer society revealed.......2001-08-24

This book is a penetrating analysis of the origins of our mass-culture, consumerist society. First, the author debunks the notion that consumerism was a natural technological development or clearly represents progress.

The author makes evident that the captions of industry sought to exert control over the entire social milieu beginning in the 1920s. Their foremost project was to define American life as consumerism. Consumption was marketed as far more than acquiring the essentials of life; it was a means to transform one's life: to achieve social esteem, to escape otherwise mediocre, humdrum lives. It was very much an individualistic approach to life in contrast to the traditional focus on small communities or extended families.

Industrialism was not easily swallowed by workers of the 19th and early 20th century. Traditional social bonds became irrelevant in factory production. Also under scientific management work was systematically deskilled and redefined by management. The strike wave of 1919 and the "Red Scare" of the early 20's convinced economic elites to set upon a course of pacification of discontented citizens in addition to measures of suppression.

The advertising in the 20's tried to convince that the mass production of consumable items was of tremendous benefit to society. The "freedom" of workers as consumers to transform their lives more than offset the actual loss of control over work processes. Every effort was made to see that mass-culture goods penetrated and hence defined all areas of life. Non-acceptance of that corporate-defined world was not viewed kindly. Virtually all non-market activity was cast as secondary, if not illegitimate. Buying superceded voting as the means to social remedy. Even families became purchasing units.

By the 1950s the transformation of the US to a consumerist culture was virtually complete. The penetration of corporate-owned television into all households ensured that alternatives to consumerism would not surface which was a continuation of the trend of centralization of all media outlets. The free-market and free trade ideologues of the 1990s are merely following in those same footsteps.

Though written 25 years ago, this book remains relevant today. More recent authors such as Kuttner, Schiller, Lindblom, or Frank can only add to what Ewen has already said.

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CAPTAINS of CONSCIOUSNESS : Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture.
Stuart. Ewen
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFDIU0

Book Description

More than 100 hands from international play illustrate every important aspect of defensive strategy. This is high quality, entertaining bridge writing at its best, from the best.

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"Tipping Point" Book, Vital for Achieving Sustainable Peace and Prosperity

Wheatley provokes the mind to rethink organizations

World class philosophy but light on specifics

Excellent resource for principals!

Good concept, poor writing.

Leadership and the New Science: Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe
Margaret J. Wheatley
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World

A Simpler Way

Points of Influence: A Guide to Using Personality Theory at Work (Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series)

Images of Organization

Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time

ASIN: 1881052443

Book Description

Margaret Wheatley shows how the "New Science"-the revolutionary discoveries in quantum physics, chaos theory, and biology that are overturning centuries-old models of science-provides powerful insights for transforming how we design, lead, and manage organizations.

Our understanding of the universe is being radically altered by the "New Science"-the revolutionary discoveries in quantum physics, chaos theory, and evolutionary biology that are overturning the models of science that have dominated for centuries. Now, in this pioneering book, Margaret Wheatley shows how the new science provides equally powerful insights for changing the ways we design, lead, manage, and view organizations.

In a warm, inviting style, Margaret Wheatley takes readers on a mind-opening journey into the new science, and applies these concepts to shed new light on the fundamental issues of organizing work, people, and life.

Customer Reviews:

"Tipping Point" Book, Vital for Achieving Sustainable Peace and Prosperity.......2005-09-17

This book is beyond five stars, and not just for business, where it is receiving all the praise it is due, but within government, where it has not yet been noticed. It was recommended to me by the author of "Building a Knowledge-Driven Organization," and I now recommend it to everyone I know. If there are two books that can "change the world," these are the ones.

Although the Chinese understood all this stuff centuries ago (Yin/Yang, space between the dots, the human web), the author is correct when she notes late in the book that the commoditization of the human worker (Cf. Lionel Tiger, "The Manufacture of Evil") and the emphasis on scientific objectivity and scientific manager (Cf. Jean Ralston Saul, "Voltaire's Bastards") were perhaps the greatest error we might have made in terms of long-run progress. Coincidentally, as I finished the book, on the Discovery channel in the background they were discussing how the leveeing of the Mississippi blocked the Louisiana watershed from cleansing the Mississippi naturally, as it once used to.

It's all about systems--the author does cite Donella Meadows' 1982 article in Stewart Brand's Co-Evolution Quarterly, but does not pay much heed to the large body of literature that thrived in the 1970's around the Club of Rome.

There are perhaps three bottom lines in this book that I would recommend to any government leader who hopes to stabilize and reconstruct our world:

1) Information is what defines who we are, what we can become, what we can perceive, what we are capable of achieving. Blocking or controlling information flows stunts our growth and virtually assures defeat if not death. It is the optimization of listening--being open to *all* information (and especially all the information the secret world now ignores)--that optimizes our ability to adjust, evolve, and grow.

2) Command & control is history, block and wire diagrams are history. General Al Gray had it right in the 1990's when he talked about "commander's intent" as the baseline. Leaders today need to be disruptive, to look for dissonant views and news, and to empower all individuals at all levels with both information, and the authority to act on that information.

3) Disorder is an *opportunity*. We have the power to define ourselves, our "opponents," and our circumstances in ways that can either inspire protective, constricted, secretive, "armed" responses, or inclusive, open, sharing "pro-active" peaceful responses.

The author is to be praised for noting early on in the book that "Ethical and moral questions are no longer fuzzy religious concepts but key elements in the relationship any organization has with colleagues, stakeholders, and communities." I would extend that to note that social ethics and foreign policy ethics are the foundation for sustainable life on the planet, and we appear to be a long way from understanding that it is ethics, not guns, that will stabilize and fertilize...Cf Jonathan Schell, "Unconquerable World."

It also merits comment that the author essentially kills the industry of forecasting, scenarios, modeling, and futures simulations. I agree with her view (and that of others) that early warning is achieved, not through the theft of secret plans and intentions or the forecasting of behavior, but rather by casting a very wide net, listening carefully to all that is openly available, sharing it very widely (as the LINUX guys say, put enough eyeballs on it, and no bug will be invisible), and then being open to changed relationships. Trying to maintain the status quo will simply not do.

I give the author credit for carrying out an extraordinary survey of the literature on quantum mechanics, and for developing a PhD-level explanation of why old organization theory, based on the linear concepts of Newtonian physics, is bad for us, and how the new emergent organization theory, understood by too few, is let about the things and more about the relationships between and among the things.

This is an elegant essay and a heroic personal work of discovery, interpretation, and integration. While I would have liked to see more credit given to Kuhn, Drucker, Garfield, Brand, Rheingold, and numerous others that I have reviewed here for Amazon, on balance, given the academic narrowness of her Harvard PhD, I think the author has performed at the Olympic level. This is a radical book, somewhat reminiscent of Charles Hampden-Turner's book, "Radical Man," which as I recall was not accepted by Harvard as a thesis at the time. Perhaps Harvard is evolving (smile).

For other key books that complement and precede this book, see my lists on information society, collective intelligence, business intelligence, and intelligence qua spies and secrecy in an open world.

Read this book BEFORE you read her new collection of essays, "Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time."

Wheatley provokes the mind to rethink organizations.......2003-06-17

Margaret Wheatley explores the reasons for the apparent failure of numerous contemporary managers to understand the nature of organizations. By drawing interesting parallels with new science, she challenges the traditional assumptions of organizations and leaves the reader with alternatives.
She urges redesigning organizations where relationships are valued, processes are allowed to flourish at varying speeds, with appropriate structures being formed to support these processes that ultimately help achieve organizational goals. Information flow is fundamental in this process.
She explains that a viable, open system in a state of non-equilibrium, constantly changing and morphing is preferable over a stable, balanced system in equilibrium or stasis. It implores organizations to change form constantly to meet the changing needs of the environment, arguing that organizations develop greater freedom from the environment through this very change process.
Wheatley has made a great attempt to validate and provide legitimacy to new management principles by providing connections to important scientific discoveries of the last century. A "must read" book for new age leaders.

World class philosophy but light on specifics.......1999-09-05

Wheatley does a fine job of explaining the implications for organizations and management philosophy of the shift away from the mechanistic worldview that grew out of Newtonian physics. She does a good job of explaining how quantum physics and chaos theory together demolished all the asusmptions of the mechanistic worldview. This mechanistic view fostered the idea that organizations are impersonal machines. It also gave credence to the nonsensical idea of the commodity theory of labor applied to the people hired to fill the "job-parts" of those machines. The mechanistic view excludes concepts such as esprit de corps or team spirit. It ignores the communal loyalty that goes with teamspirit that helps foster cooperative self-motivated teamwork so vital in achieving top performance.

The new (postmodern) worldview is organic rather than mechanistic, is holistic rather than parts centered, is participatory rather than impersonal and manages much more via networks than through top down hierarchies. As Capra points out in his book, The Web of Life, all living systems are mainly coordinated by networks, not hierarchies. All this fits well with the new postmodern management philosophy that stress empowerment of employees on the local level, self managed teams, and organic systems. And as Wheatley points out the reality of such new thinking lies in the relationships that arise from them

If Wheatley is great on philosophy and of the importance of relationships, she is more than a bit light on the specific policies that in fact create a mechanistic or an organic set of social relationships within an organization. These policies are not at all mysterious. If you want to create a mechanistic (read bureaucratic) organization then as a matter of policy establish an employment relationship between the firm and employee based on the buyer-seller relationship. You will then hire people to do designated jobs complete with detailed job descriptions. And thus though autopoiesis (that Wheatley well describes but does not much apply)you almost will guarantee that your employees will become job defensive, especially in times of change which will be seen as threats to one's (job-based)identity because autopoiesis drives all life at all levels to remain self consistent including the integrity and consistency of one's identity. The employee is thus driven to job-defensiveness. The bureaucratic employee will also sub-optimize behavior around the job-part, rather than the whole organization. To be promoted, one must be promoted in job, motivating most bureaucrats to lobby constantly for more levels of management in the administrative hierarchy to create more rungs on the administrative promotion ladder. Then too turf battles between departments full of jobs routinely break out for lack of a holistic focus on the enterprise. (The word bureaucracy is the same as saying departmentocracy and is itself an indication of a fragmented focus.) But it is important to realize, as Wheatley does not seem to, that all such pathology is policy-driven more than attitude-driven. After all, the attitude of suboptimization itself arises from the policy to depend on hired labor paid to do particular jobs in a buyer-seller relationship. It is this parts-focused relationship that creates bureaucratic reality. It does so the world around quite apart from cultural differences.

You want out of this bureaucratic box? Then go organic and pay the person, not the job. Make the employee a "member of the firm" as if the firm were a sort of extended family. Let the income of all such members rise or fall together in sync with the firm's performance. The the employee is no longer an impersonal hireling, but an organic member of the whole. As such he or she is free to focus on the whole firm. Indeed they have every motivation to do so. Thus organic members tend spontaneously to develop a team spirit. They are free to participate as a team member cooperating for the better good of the whole, because, to do so is not threatening as it often is to the hired job-holder. William M. Wallace's book (Postmodern Management) which is also available on Amazon.com makes all this clear.

Still in the end Wheatley is worth reading and I for one read it several times. Thus I anxiously await her updated version which apparently will appear next month.

Excellent resource for principals!.......1999-07-07

I am ordering copies for all 23 middle school principals and the two assistant principals leading two middle school programs in the Milwaukee Public Schools system. We will use Wheatley's book as the primary resource for our professional growth at our MPS Middle School Principals Collaborative institute August 9-11, 1999. We are not just concerned with reform; we seek renewal as well. Wheatley provides the basis. She notes that Einstein said that a problem cannot be solved from the same consciousness that created it. The entire book is a marvelous exploration of this philosophy!

Good concept, poor writing........1999-06-07

Wheatley taps into an interesting view regarding the way organizations should be run. The ideas and concepts are interesting but the writing style is close to unbearable. It took days to read because I was constantly falling asleep.

Leadership & the New Science : Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe

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Leadership & the New Science : Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe
Margaret J. Wheatley
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLJ4DY

LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE - Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe

Average customer rating:

LEADERSHIP AND THE NEW SCIENCE - Learning About Organization from an Orderly Universe
Margaret J. Wheatley
Manufacturer: Berrett-Koehler Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O7M4BC

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