Searching for John Ford: A Life

Book Description

In films like The Grapes of Wrath, Stagecoach, The Searchers, The Quiet Man, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, John Ford etched images deep into the American psyche-Henry Fonda as young Lincoln, Lee Marvin and Jimmy Stewart in their epic duel of good versus evil, John Wayne in his defining roles as cowboy hero-yet Ford himself was a paradox. McBride finds in Ford's story a parable of the creative soul in conflict with the public man; McBride's work is the last word on this singular cinematic visionary. Thirty years in the making, Searching for John Ford is a landmark biography, a moving and richly told profile of one of America's greatest filmmakers.

Customer Reviews:

Ultimately Disappointing.......2006-09-06

30 years of research isn't a career, its an obsession. One suspects McBride has long since completed his research and spent forever getting the thing on paper. At 720 pages, we learn everything about the man's professional and private life. Strangely enough, McBride spends a fair portion of the 720 pages beating around the bush. I found the book sadly lacking in clearly explicating the man's contrary personality. Oddly enough, Ford's relationship with his parents is all but glossed over. Particularly his relationship with his father; any growing boy's 1st and most important male relationship. For a man supposedly so devoted to the idea of family, he wasted no time in getting out of Dodge the moment he was old enough to travel. Interesting that his older brother basically ran away from home and would probably never have been heard from ever again if he hadn't become famous. McBride also fails to note the symbolism of John and Frank's rather cruel and even abusive mutually alcoholic relationship through the years. That sort of cruelty between adult siblings is often learned at home. Indeed, John does not seem to have been remotely close to any childhood kin, even his mother. Also, his abusive treatment of his kids, esp his boy, is most likely learned behavior. Abuse is passed from generation to generation mostly because an abused child grows up not knowing any better. Also, it was interesting to note how Ford's wife of 50 odd years is painted in very thin brushstrokes. How did she feel abt his abusiveness? His self destructive drinking? What was her relationship to her damaged adult children? She doesn't seem to be quoted much or say anything unkind abt her difficult, drunken, absent husband. Did he abuse her physically? Was she a silent partner? His long time acting collaborators Ward Bond, John Wayne, and Henry Fonda seem to have had ambivilant feelings at best abt their mentor/pappy but its not discussed much. It's hard to feel kindly toward a man who forces you to feel indebted and punishes you for your fealty. From what McBride says, the man basically lived in cycles. Making a movie w a makeshift (and rather forced) family of indebted actors and crew who were cowed into accepting his petty tyranny, humiliations, cruel pranks and forced machismo alternating with drunken binge vacations aboard his boat. This is repeated add nauseum until Ford's health finally gives out. The last 150 pages is spent slapping lipstick on a pig as Ford's pathetic drunken diseased decline is chronicled incident by drunken embarrassing reputation destroying incident. Even after this doorstop of a book, its hard to reconcile the maker of such beautiful movies with the horrid person he presented to the world.

A tribute to horseshit.......2004-04-15

This might be the definitive(if that makes sense...)biography of the American Renoir (according to François Truffaut, who eventually came to understand and appreciate the director's work after years of disdain...contrary to Rohmer who never changed his mind), even if thoroughly researched works, among which quite recent ones, are already available: Tag Gallagher's, among others, seemed to embody the bulk of what could be said today of the "greatest poet of the western saga"( "horseshit", according to the guy himself...) or even the "Shakespeare of cinema"...until the release of Joseph Mc Bride's Searching for John Ford.
Mc Bride, with Michael Wilmington, had already explored with sympathy and insight the rich complexity, destructive contradictions and inner conflicts building up the director's work in their 1974 John Ford. The book was an assumed reading of the films in the light of Ford's search for allegiance as a first generation Irish-American, progressively doomed by disappointment and bitterness.The analyses of movies such as Straight Shooting (maybe Ford's first, with most of his themes already in...),The Searchers or The Man who Shot Liberty Valance conveyed a sense of poetry owing as much to the authors as to the soul of the works studied.
This new biography is a thirty-years job, exploring deeper than ever the interconnections between the director's inner life and his films. Nothing is here anecdotal,all is but aimed at understanding a man. As Martin Scorcese puts it on the huge volume backcover: Searching for John Ford should be compulsory reading. And even if Renoir did deserve a pretty good amount of good critical studies, the French John Ford has never been paid such a tribute.

"Searchin' Way Out There"..........2004-01-15

I don't know why anyone interested in the seminal American director, John Ford, would not find this book utterly fascinating. McBride illuminates Ford's early life and the beginnings of his long career with detailed care. He explores his problematic character with skill, compassion and insight without ever being patronizing and without ever holding back about the darkest aspects of Ford's personality and behavior. For instance, McBride makes it very clear that Ford does not deserve as much credit as he usually gets for what was really an ambivalent attitude toward the notorious Hollywood "blacklist" during the anti-communist hysteria of the 1940s and '50s.

McBride's book is packed with vivid anecdotes from associates, observers of Ford and members of the legendary "Stock Company" (Harry Carey, Jr.'s stories are really wonderful!), and his own critiques of the films are sophisticated and augmented by quotes and assessments by other major "Fordians." McBride is generous with his inclusion of other critics' views and when he disagrees he himself is never mean or dismissive. His illuminations of the significance of the post-WWII western, his accounts of the intricacies of the "blacklist" and his sympathetic understanding of Ford's last films and what they represented are especially valuable.

There may indeed be other biographies just as good as McBride's but this is a captivating, comprehensive and intellectual volume for the Ford aficionado. It is immensely satisfying!

A Monumental Job.......2002-09-09

This is a very good biography of Ford. Yes, McBride relies on Sarris and Carey Jr. a good bit of the time, yet this book remains very interesting and does a thorough job covering the many films Ford made.

Strengths of the book include an eye-opening look at Ford's WWII service, (How many other guys were at both Midway and D-Day and managed to get to Burma and Yugoslavia as well?) a clear presentation of Ford's relations with the different studios (the list of "better" titles for The Quiet Man the head of Republic tried to force on Ford is hysterically funny) and an evenhanded evaluation of Ford's behavior during the blacklist era.

Perhaps the evenhandedness of McBride's tone is what I liked the most about the book. One could take Ford's life and turn it into a straightforward case of hero-worship, or one could take an axe to him up and down the line, pointing out his failures in family life, his bigoted comments, his questionable actions in some controversial issues. McBride avoids falling into either extreme camp. We get Ford warts and all here, and it is left up to us to decide.

My only complaint is that the book is too short. I would have liked more discussion on a few films, and I would have liked a chapter on Ford's posthumous reputation. McBride raises the issue in his introduction that Ford is being forgotten by the new generation of writers and filmmakers, but he never quite tells why.

Still, this was a fine book, one that I read quickly despite its length.

A great biography of a great director.......2001-06-04

As a fan of the master filmmaker John Ford, I was enthralled to find this wonderful biography. It is both entertaining and scholarly, filled with fascinating anecdotes that provide the reader with an in-depth view of Ford's complex personality. In spanning Ford's life and career, this book also provides a panoramic overview of Hollywood itself and the dramatic changes it went through over the years, many of which are reflected in Ford's work. I really enjoyed the analyses of Ford's films which provide many new insights and perspectives. A must-read for anyone interested in film.

Average customer rating:

SEARCHING FOR JOHN FORD : A LIFE
JOSEPH MCBRIDE
Manufacturer: ST. MARTINS PRESS/TOR BOOKS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KUMBZW

Tras la Pista de John Ford / Searching for John Ford, a life

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Tras la Pista de John Ford / Searching for John Ford, a life
Joseph McBride
Manufacturer: T&B Editores
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Product Description

Hollywood no ha dado un director más grande que John Ford. Entre 1917 y 1970, Ford dirigió y/o produjo más de 226 películas, desde discretos cortometrajes hasta ambiciosas epopeyas e intensos documentales de combate. Sus principales trabajos, -tales como "La Diligencia" ("Stagecoach"), "Las Uvas de la Ira" ("The Grapes of Wrath"), "Qué verde era mi valle" ("How Green Was My Valley"), "They Were Expendable", "El Hombre Tranquilo" ("The Quiet Man"), "Centauros del Desierto" ("The Searchers") y "El Hombre que Mató a Liberty Valance" ("The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance")- son clásicos del cine. Las películas de Ford sobre la historia americana son investigaciones profundas del carácter nacional. A lo largo de su larga y prolífica carrera, Ford se popularizó por redefinir el género Western, enmarcando historias de vidas pionera frente al eterno telón de Monument Valley. Las películas de Ford consiguieron admiración en el mundo entero. Sin embargo, Ford fue un hombre atormentado y deliberadamente enigmático. Ocultó su verdadera personalidad al público, presentándose más como un escritorzuelo analfabeto que como el artista sensible que sus películas mostraban que era. Guió sagazmente las carreras de algunas de las más grandes estrellas de Hollywood, como John Wayne, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara y Katharine Hepburn, aunque su trato hacia los actores pudiera ser abusivo e incluso sádico.

Study Guide and Student Workbook to accompany Kamien Fifth Brief Edition: Music An Appreciation
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Study Guide and Student Workbook to accompany Kamien Fifth Brief Edition: Music An Appreciation
Roger Kamien , Raoul F. Camus , and Susan Lindahl
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Study Guide and Student Workbook to Accompany Music: An Appreciation : Brief Edition
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Study Guide and Student Workbook to Accompany Music: An Appreciation : Brief Edition
Roger Kamien , and Raoul Camus
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill College
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Study Guide and Student Workbook to Accompany Music: An Appreciation : Brief Edition
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Study Guide and Student Workbook to Accompany Music: An Appreciation : Brief Edition
Roger Kamien Raoul Camus
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill College 1999
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Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MCCGGM

Amos Burn: A Chess Biography
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An amazing biography of Amos Burn as well as the chess that was played at that time

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Quite Possibly, the Best Chess Biography Ever Written

Amos Burn review.

chess career in depth

Amos Burn: A Chess Biography
Richard Forster
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 078641717X

Book Description

This enormous and definitive work on the Englishman Amos Burn assembles and analyzes all extant games and provides a thorough biography of the famous chess master of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It chronicles in exceptional detail the broader picture of chess development throughout that era. Burn was active for a long time, winning victories over such masters as Blackburne, Marshall, Steinitz (his mentor), Alekhine, and Zukertort. He was a fighting player who relished tactical battles against his more romantic rivals but was also one of the world's best defensive players. He made a number of valuable discoveries in such openings as the Queen's Gambit Declined and the Ruy López, and even today his name remains associated with a variation of the French Defense.

Burn's life is painstakingly traced from his birth on the last day of 1848 to his death of a stroke at age 76. The great international tournaments in which he took part are paid particular attention, with extensive quotation of notes by Burn himself and his contemporaries. Where necessary, old analysis is corrected and supplemented. Meticulous research has been undertaken in newspapers and periodicals from various countries where Burn played and traveled, including the United States, with the result that many forgotten games have been unearthed. Precise citations of primary sources are given in all cases.

The book features approximately 800 games played by Burn, almost all of them annotated, about 850 chess diagrams, and about 200 photographs, indices of openings, annotators, games, players, and general subjects. An appendix describes missing evidence, uncertain games, and further research possibilities. Another appendix lists corrections to game scores published elsewhere and a third gives Burn's complete tournament and match record.

Customer Reviews:

An amazing biography of Amos Burn as well as the chess that was played at that time.......2007-09-19

Truly a magnificent undertaking by Richard Forster who not only provides a detailed study of Amos Burn's chess career but also a truly enlightening history of chess as it was played at that time and the chess players who played it. If you want to learn more about chess and the chess players of the second half of the 19th century, here is the book for you. This book also provides a standard by which all other chess biographies and games collections should model themselves after. I would give this book 50 stars if I could.

How to rate this book?.......2006-10-18

This book is easy to recommend for those interested in Burn's career, or even people interested late 19th century/ early 20th century chess, especially the players based in England at that time. It's well worth the high price tag if you fit in that group.

I put myself in that group -- I'm not a particular fan of Burn (I don't mean that as a slight -- I'd just not read much about him, or played over many of his games until I read this book), but I love the dark recesses of chess history, and the period covered in this book especially fascinates me.

Forster does a decent job of setting the background in which Burn lived by documenting some of the club politics and events of the times. This can sometimes be rather dry reading, but that's one problem chess biographers face -- oftentimes the great players lived rather mundane lives outside of chess.

That said, I admire the scholarship of the book. There is a lengthy appendix, bibliography, and index, as well as an index of openings, and credits for annotations which Forster did not write himself. This book will function as a reliable reference for those interested in Burn or the players of his time.

There are a *lot* of games, all, or virtually all, annotated by Burn, other players of the age (especially appreciated are the notes by Steinitz, since his writings aren't easy to come by these days), or Forster, who is an International Master himself.

There is a massive amount of material here --972 pages, including index, etc, and plenty of tournament tables, pictures, and other diagrams. The most surprising revelation to me is that Burn was a very fine tactical player. There are quite a number of brilliant attacking games in his praxis.

So, how to recommend? If you have no real interest in Burn or his games, it probably won't be worth the money to you. However, if you do have an interest, you can hardly go wrong. The book is beautifully bound, as is common with the McFarland chess books. It is rare to find such quality in any field. Forster's work is easily one of the greatest chess biographies ever written.

Quite Possibly, the Best Chess Biography Ever Written.......2005-10-01

Why? Let me count the ways...

The heart of the book is Burn's games. It is hard to see how Forster's treatment of them could be improved. First, he unearthed over 900 of Burn's games; only about 500 of those appear in databases or other books. Second, his annotations are marvelous. All annotations by the players, or by a contemporary chess columnist, are given. These include comments by many of the leading lights of the time (in particular Steinitz). In addition--and what is crucial--Forster, an IM, analyzed the games himself (with the help of a computer) and often adds excellent annotations of his own, or corrects errors in the contemporary annotations.Hundreds of the games are annotated, many of them in great depth. Third, the indexes: There are indexes of all the games based on the openings and opponents' names, as is customary, but in addition games are arranged in a seperate index according to the chess themes they exemplify. It includes entries such as "stubborn defense"; "instructive games"; "rook endings"; "positional sacrifices"; "Bishops of opposite color"; etc., etc. For those looking to improve by seeing how Burn handles certain types of positions--the #1 reason people buy collections of master games in the first place--this is invaluable.

Apart form the games, this book's biographical section is excellent. Just about every fact known about Burn--birth, death, family, work, travel, chess tournaments participation, club memberships, relations with other players, etc.--is given. Here, too, Forster "goes the extra mile": for example, for every tournament Burn participated in, he gives us not only his results and opponents, but the complete crosstable (when available); he not only tells us when Burn played in the Liverpool chess club, but what exact positions he held, the text of some of his speeches (or speeches in his honor) given at the club, and so on.

Finally, there is production value. The book is HUGE--over 900 folio pages on high-grade paper--in excellent, hard-cover blue velvet covering, with a gold-embossed title, and includes numerous rare photographs. "They don't make 'em like that anymore", as a cursory glance at the endless stream of thin soft-cover books on your local bookstore's "chess" section will show.

At $75, it's a bargain.

Amos Burn review........2005-09-28

This is the best chess book I have ever seen. It's what I think the perfect chess book biography should be. It has annotated games, chronology of the player, crosstables, history, best indexes I have ever seen, pictures and photographs, trivia, and absolutely thorough (972 pages!). Richard Forster wrote the best chess book possible on a less-famous chess master. I wish every great chess master from the past had a book like this. The publisher, McFarland and Company, put together this book, which I think is there finest work. - Bill Wall

chess career in depth.......2004-08-22

These days Amos Burn is remembered as a somewhat dour and obscure player who was famous for losing a couple of brevities to more famous players like Frank Marshall. Burn had a defensive/positional approach to chess and was by all reports quite reserved and taciturn. So what incentive would there be to catalogue his chess career in such great detail. The secret with this book is that it brings Burn to life within the context of his times and historical setting (1870s to 1920s). The players, the tournaments, the controversies are analysed in at times great detail, and are overall very interesting and holds the reader's attention throughout. The various elements (games, notes, pictures, tournament tables, and background details) are superbly presented to enable the reader to drop in and out (you will not be able to digest the material in one sitting) without getting lost in the enormous detail. This is a desert island book par excellence and will provide interesting reading for years. The closest comparison is the excellent book on Alekhine by Skinner and Verhoeven (same publishers). If you think that it is the biggest chess book on the planet, the Burn book is in fact bigger. It is not just the size, but that it takes chess biography/game collections to a higher level. I thought that this would be impossible as the Alekhine book is a masterpiece (it's only weakness is the absence of photos - has only one - the Burn book has hundreds). The games are a comprehensive collection, as unlike Alekhine, Burn did not tend to play a lot of simultaneous and blindfold games, with the inevitable variablity in quality. The games therefore are uniformly good, but not quite reaching Alekhine's genius (both highs and lows). The annotations are outstanding, both compemtorary and brought up to date by Forster (who is a strong player himself). Any serious student of chess will be richly rewarded. Although quite expensive, the book contains enormous value and will definately become a classic. It has the expected excellent McFarland touch (quality paper, library quality binding, high quality layout and general presentation, etc) and despite its size (over 950 pages)is unlikely to fall apart. I believe that this book sets a new challenge for chess authors and is quite likely to be the best book of its type ever written. Even Edward Winter, one of the supreme chess authors, has in a recent review admitted that this is the book that he would have liked to have written. I cannot wait for Forster to turn his mind to Lasker or indeed any of the other world champions who richly deserve this treatment. Buy this book, you will not regret it.
Walter Hart, Burra Creek, Australia

Book Description

Futurist Joel Barker was the first to apply the scientific concept of paradigm shifts to the world of business, which helped make his 1992 book, Future Edge (later republished as Paradigms), a national bestseller. He has spent more than twenty- five years studying how companies adapt (or fail to) to new breakthroughs.

Now Barker and fellow futurist Scott Erickson offer a bold new way of looking at today's rapidly evolving technologies: as five distinct “ecosystems” that each operates with a distinct set of values, advantages, and disadvantages:
• Super Tech: Bigger, better, more! (e.g., fusion power)
• Limits Tech: Use what you've got (e.g., aerogel insulation)
• Local Tech: Think small, think home (e.g., electric wind turbines)
• Nature Tech: Be one with nature (e.g., organic plastics)
• Human Tech: What lies within us (e.g., stem cells)

From pet robots to hypersonic planes, from wave power to waterless toilets, Barker and Erickson give readers a totally new way to understand and take advantage of the future of technology. Five Regions of the Future is an essential book for anyone baffled by today's technological onslaught.

Customer Reviews:

New observations on technology and the future.......2006-04-24

This is a fascinating, original take on what lies ahead. Rather than project a single future, authors Joel A. Barker and Scott W. Erickson examine existing trends and group them into five regions of technology. They explain each technology, extrapolate the future it might create if it alone shaped the world, and then discuss how these different technological currents might intersect. Barker and Erickson paint their five futures in broad swaths. This allows them to cover a lot of ground and sketch many potential markets and challenges, but it also means that they cover their ground shallowly. Of the five technologies they examine, they are far more solidly grounded in "Super Tech," "Limits Tech" and "Nature Tech" than in "Local Tech" or "Human Tech." They sometimes treat individual and place them in categories their fans might dispute. For example, science fiction author Isaac Asimov was a long-time supporter of population control and of limiting the power of machines, but he is found here in Super Tech rather than Limits Tech. These small nuances should not take away from your enjoyment of this book, which we recommend to managers who want to plan for a flexible, productive future, and to those who enjoy mental experiments and challenges, since, at times, it is simply fun to read.

How to frame the new "fearful symetry" .......2006-02-10

Those who have already read Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, already know that Barker is one of the most insightful and eloquent business thinkers in our time. Years ago, Peter Drucker suggested that one of the greatest challenges for any organization is to manage the consequences and implications of a future which has already occurred. I agree. However, I also agree with Barker that it is possible to recognize what he calls a "paradigm shift": a major change of the rules and regulations that establish or define boundaries, a change which suggests that new behavior will be required within those redefined boundaries.

One of the most important concepts in Paradigms is what Barker calls "paradigm pliancy": "the purposeful seeking out of new ways of doing things. It is an active behavior in which you challenge your paradigms [ie the status quo, assumptions and premises] by asking the Paradigm Shift Question: What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change my business?" This is a question which must be asked...and then answered correctly, especially given the fact that competitors may be doing so now or will do so in the near future. I again recall Wayne Gretzky's response when asked to explain his great success playing hockey: "Everyone knows where the puck is. I see where it will be." Barker does a brilliant job of explaining both how to "change the rules of the game" or at least recognize when such change is underway and then respond to it effectively.

In Five Regions of the Future which Barker co-authored with Scott Erickson, the focus is on "a geography of technology so that we can better map our future. Just like locating our towns and cities on a physical map of the world, we need to locate, on some kind of conceptual map, the blizzard of new products and processes that are appearing [and will continue to appear] so we can better understand this `brave new world' of technology." The reference to a "conceptual map" is especially appropriate because Barker and Erickson are introducing what I view as a new business discipline: cartology of paradynamic transformation. (Yes, I realize that it's a bit of a mouthful but, at this moment, I can't come up with anything better.) I am curious to know what would happen if senior managers in an organization were to read this book in combination with Kaplan and Norton's Book Strategy Maps in which they explain how to "convert intangible assets into tangible outcomes," and then formulated a game plan based on the core principles in each of the two books.

Barker and Erickson carefully organize their material within six chapters as they provide and explain what they characterize as "a new paradigm for understanding the development of all technology." I was especially interested in their observation that "the world is witnessing the birth of technological ecosystems constructed of human-made elements instead of biological elements." They identify five TechnEcologies which have evolved during the past 100 years since the advent of the mass production of automobiles and steel. What are TechnEcologies? They are "the inevitable result of accumulating discoveries, inventions, and innovations of human beings." Each is a complex ecosystem of technology made up of the tools and techniques invented by humans "that interact in both mutualistic and competitive manners to increase the variety of technologies and the complexity of interaction."

According to Barker and Erickson, they can place almost any example of technology into one of the five regions of the future once they know the technology's dominant purpose or function. The nature of each of the five is revealed by the answers to these four value questions:

1. What is the region's attitude toward material wealth?
2. What is the region's view of science and technology?
3. How does the region view its relationship with nature?
4. Finally, what is the region's view of work and leisure?

If I understand their primary objective (and I may not), Barker and Erickson see themselves as 21st explorers who are attempting to define the future of technology just as Lewis and Clark once set out to define the vast and uncertain land west of the Mississippi River. "In the twenty-first century, we need a more sophisticated way to catalog and describe our technology. We think the five regions offer that. As citizens of this new world, we all need to begin to think more systematically. The five regions methodology invites that. Our technologies are bigger than our nations. We need to understand the consequences of that."

Barker and Erickson conclude with a passage from a poem which William Blake wrote 200 years ago. His metaphor for technology was the tiger "burning bright/In the forests of the night." Now, another quite different "tiger" burns even brighter. Here's mankind's challenge: How to frame its "fearful symmetry"? And what will be the consequences if we don't? In this context, I am reminded of Robert Oppenheimer's reaction when the first atomic bomb was detonated more than 60 years ago. He immediately recalled a line from the Bhagavad Gita (The Song of God): "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Those who share my high regard for this brilliant book are urged to check out Kaplan and Norton's The Strategy-Focused Organization as well as their Strategy Maps. Also two books by Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World, and, Inevitable Surprises: Thinking Ahead in a Time of Turbulence; and finally, for now, Frans Johansson's The Medici Effect: Breakthrough Insights at the Intersection of Ideas, Concepts, and Cultures. I truly envy those who have not as yet read any one of them. What an intellectual feast awaits them!

The future is already there.......2005-12-27

There is a lot going on in academic and commercial labs that are rather invisible to the ordinary public. The results however have the potential to change our life completely. This book gives a very thorough insight into current developments. And more, it also helps you to imagine how these technologies are being used in the real lives of persons.
We face the unique challenge in the coming years to use new technologies and at the same time take our responsibility towards sustainability of this planet. This books shows a lot of potential in innovative use of materials and processes that makes it possible to make right choices.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in not only new technologies, but also in the impact and actual use.

A Leadership/Managerial Necessity.......2005-08-09

Joel coined the phrase "Anticipating the future", in my mind and continues that focus quite well, with new perspectives, in this very readable, clearly written, short book. I'm insisting participants in my Leadership Learning Forums study it and discuss it

A great "future view" of technology..........2005-07-25

This is a great book. The value of The Five Regions is its ability to segment the potential future applications of technology into five distinct areas, which provides for a great deal of clarity and depth. I found the book's content on technology to be especially relevant and useful. The Five Regions Assessment also allowed me to expand my own cognitive horizon on how I tend to see the various technologies in application, while also expanding my vision into new worlds of application. As always, Barker's observations are intertwined with science and research, thereby opening our eyes and our minds to fascinating possibilities. Indeed, the book also left me intrigued. I had a renewed sense of excitement about the future utilization of technology. All in all, this book is written in true Barker style. It is incredibly captivating yet understandable, stimulating, and well worth reading.

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