New Books In Public Policy

While Systems Thinking has enjoyed an increasing amount of societal influence through work of such practitioner/authors as Peter Senge, it is also true that the vast majority of the popular literature on the systems view has taken place within a business context and, as such, often avoids placing the “first principles” of market capitalism on the list of “mental models” to be unpacked and interrogated within a systemic process of inquiry. A refreshing antidote to this state of affairs is provided by David Peter Stroh’s Systems Thinking For Social Change: A Practical Guide to Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, and Achieving Lasting Results out in 2015 from Chelsea Green Publishers.  Drawing on his rich experience in the non-profit, educational, and municipal sectors, Stroh’s focus is squarely on “wicked problems” of social development uncoupled from the profit imperative as he guides us through highly accessible descriptions of common system archetypes and the strategies that can be e