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Leafcutters building a system
Leafcutters building a system

‘System’ - a collection of elements connected to form a whole.

Systems Thinking holds the ideas of emergence and hierarchy, communication and control.

Systems practice uses these ideas to design and manage complex processes and constructions for the benefit of individuals, organisations and society.


Books

Some recent and relevant systems publications are:

Systems Thinking
 Gerald Midgley (Ed), 2002
Sage Publications
ISBN: 0761949593 order from Blackwell's

This four volume set brings together classic and contemporary writings that cross the entire breadth of the systems field.
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Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology and Practice
 Contemporary Systems Thinking
Gerald Midgley, 2000
Kluwer Academic / Plenum
ISBN: 0306464888 - order from Amazon

Rethinks systemic intervention to enhance its relevance for supporting social change in the 21st-century. Arguments are provided for why philosophy, methodology and practice all have a role to play in our thinking about systemic intervention.
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Systems Approaches to Management
 Systems Approaches to Management  Michael Jackson, 2000
Kluwer Academic / Plenum
ISBN: 030646506X - order from Amazon

Provides a guide to the application of the Systems Thinking paradigm in the field of management.
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Guided Evolution of Society
 A Systems View
Bela H. Banathy, 2000
Kluwer Academic / Plenum
ISBN: 0306463822 - order from Amazon

A comprehensive review of human and societal evolution, this work develops an approach to conscious, self-guided evolution.
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The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory
 The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory  Kenneth C. Baush, 2001
Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers
ISBN: 0306465396 - order from Amazon

Summarises the works of over 30 major systemic theorists, this text goes on to show the converging areas of consensus among these out-standing thinkers. It categorizes the social aspects of current systemic thinking (in 2001) as falling into five broadly thematic areas: designing social systems, the structure of the social world, communication, cognition and epistemology.
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Systems Thinking, Systems Practice
 Systems Thinking, Systems Practice  Includes a 30-Year Retrospective
Peter Checkland, 1999
Wiley Europe
ISBN: 0471986062 order from Wiley

This work established the now accepted distinction between 'hard' systems thinking, in which parts of the world are taken to be 'systems' which can be 'engineered', and 'soft' systems thinking in which the focus is on making sure the process of inquiry into real-world complexity is itself a system for learning. A classic text in Systems Thinking.