The book is in two parts. The first three chapters provide a brilliant summary of current thinking about the nature of life, mind and consciousness, and social reality as an emergent property of social organization seen as a complex adaptive system. It's very good but not easy to read. The remaining four chapters and epilogue can be read separately, although they rely on the theories in the first part. They form a wide-ranging critique of the current governance of organisations and of globalisation, with what amounts to a very detailed case study of how these structures produce the fundamentally dishonest and very dangerous commercial drive to GM foods. The final chapter offers broad guidelines for reshaping the current political and economic framework to bring economic incentives into harmony with the needs of society and the natural world.

Fritjof Capra, bestselling author of The Tao of Physics and The Web of Life, here explores another frontier in the human significance of scientific ideas--applying complexity theory to large-scale social interaction.

In the 1980s, complexity theory emerged as a powerful alternative to classic, linear thought. A forerunner of that revolution, Fritjof Capra now continues to expand the scope of the theory by establishing a framework in which we can understand and solve some of the most important issues of our time. Capra posits that in order to sustain life, the principles underlying our social institutions must be consistent with the broader organization of nature. Discussing pertinent contemporary issues ranging from the controversial practices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the Human Genome Project, he concludes with an authoritative, often provocative plan for designing ecologically sustainable communities and technologies as alternatives to the current economic globalization.

Acknowledgments

Preface

Part One Life, Mind, and Society

1 The Nature of Life

2 Mind and Consciousness

3 Social Reality

Part Two I The Challenges of the

Twenty-first Century

4 Life and Leadership in Organizations

5 The Networks of Global Capitalism

6 Biotechnology at a Turning Point

7 Changing the Game

Epilogue: Making Sense

Notes

Bibliography

Index