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SOME
NEW BOOKS OF NOTE...
| From
time to time we hear of new books that we think you might
find of interest. Do you have any recommendations? Please
sample and enjoy! |
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1.The
Fourth Great Awakening, by Robert William Fogel, (University
of Chicago Press, 2000). This is not light reading for summer
vacation on the beach but it sure packs a wallop. Fogel is
a University of Chicago economics professor, and 1993 Nobel
Prize winner in economics. In other words, he is no slouch.
Fogel's main argument is that it is no longer the distribution
of material resources that is essential to an egalitarian
future. Rather, the essential issue facing us now as a nation
is access to and the distribution of spiritual resources.
(click here for full review)
2.
A
Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A Hard Look at Spirituality,
Religion, and Values in the Workplace, Ian I. Mitroff
and Elizabeth A. Denton, (Jossey Bass, 1999).
As
with Robert Fogel's Fourth Great Awakening, this book does
not come out of the theological community, yet it serves to
give empirical evidence for what people of faith have long
understood about the marketplace: faith matters. Mitroff (a
business school professor at University of Southern California
at Los Angeles) and Denton (an independent organizational
consultant in NY) provide a compelling empirical case that
companies that foster a "spiritual" environment
tend to have employees who are more creative, loyal, productive,
and adaptive to change than companies that stifle spirituality.
(click
here for full review)
3.
SPIRITUALITY@WORK: 10 Ways to Balance Your Life
on-the-Job, by Gregory F.A. Pierce (Loyola Press, 2001).
The 1/23/01 issue of Publishers Weekly's Religious Bookline
writes: "Pierce first describes "spirituality@work"
by defining what it is not: it's not evangelizing at the water
cooler or getting like-minded colleagues together for a Bible
study. Rather, Pierce writes, it's discovering God amidst
the creative energy that we typically pour into our jobs.
One of the grooviest aspects of this very thoughtful book
is that Pierce, who maintains an Internet bulletin board about
work and faith, quotes many ordinary people talking about
their experiences: the mail carrier whose best prayer times
occur on her route, or the engineer who declined a promotion
to do the less prestigious work he truly loved. Pierce speaks
from the Christian tradition with a Zen-like appreciation
of the spirituality that can be made manifest in daily activities."
4.
The Mind of the C.E.O., by Jeffrey E. Garten (Basic
Books, 2001). Here is a book that looks promising if not provocative.
The Mind of the C.E.O. is written by Jeffrey E. Garten,
the dean of Yale School of Management. He argues for "a
new way of thinking about business and society that recognizes
the multinational corporation as a pivotal participant in
society and politics." Garten is a firm believer in free
trade and the private sector. His thesis is that CEOs are
in the best position to understand the amazing changes and
possibilities of globalization and technology, and that, "They
can be a progressive force in building capitalism around the
world, or they can constitute a rear- guard action,"
he said. "However they behave, their influence will be
at least as important as that of national governments and
international organizations - probably more so." In response
to critics of big business and globalization he says, "The
upshot is that C.E.O.'s need to get in front of movements
they see coming, rather than always fighting a rear-guard
action."
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