The rise of the extreme right globally, the crisis of capitalism and the withdrawal of all but the most punitive arms of the state are having a disastrous impact on disabled people's lives. This is the political context in which the concept of 'disability praxis' is set. What then is its relevance to disruptive theory and practice? Bob Williams-Findlay offers an account of the transformative potential of disability praxis and how it relates to disabled politics and activism. He addresses different sites of struggle, showing how disabled people have advanced radical theory into the implementation of policies. Examining the growth of the global Disabled People's Movement during the 1960s, Williams-Findlay shows how a new social discourse emerged that shifted the focus away from seeing disability as restrictions on an individual's body, towards understanding the impact of restrictions created by capitalist relations. He shines light on the contested definitions of disability, asking us to reconsider how different socio-political contexts produce varied understandings of social oppression and how we may play a role in transforming definitions.

Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit explores the application of systems ideas to investigate, evaluate, and intervene in complex and messy situations. The text serves as a field guide, with each chapter representing a method for describing and analyzing; learning about; or changing and managing a challenge or set of problems. The book is the first to cover in detail such a wide range of methods from so many different parts of the systems field. The book's Introduction gives an overview of systems thinking, its origins, and its major subfields. In addition, the introductory text to each of the book's three parts provides background information on the selected methods. Systems Concepts in Action may serve as a workbook, offering a selection of tools that readers can use immediately. The approaches presented can also be investigated more profoundly, using the recommended readings provided. While these methods are not intended to serve as "recipes," they do serve as a menu of options from which to choose. Readers are invited to combine these instruments in a creative manner in order to assemble a mix that is appropriate for their own strategic needs.

Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit explores the application of systems ideas to investigate, evaluate, and intervene in complex and messy situations. The text serves as a field guide, with each chapter representing a method for describing and analyzing; learning about; or changing and managing a challenge or set of problems. The book is the first to cover in detail such a wide range of methods from so many different parts of the systems field. The book's Introduction gives an overview of systems thinking, its origins, and its major subfields. In addition, the introductory text to each of the book's three parts provides background information on the selected methods. Systems Concepts in Action may serve as a workbook, offering a selection of tools that readers can use immediately. The approaches presented can also be investigated more profoundly, using the recommended readings provided. While these methods are not intended to serve as "recipes," they do serve as a menu of options from which to choose. Readers are invited to combine these instruments in a creative manner in order to assemble a mix that is appropriate for their own strategic needs.

Wicked problems are complex, ill-structured, human problem situations. This book will help you design an inquiry and intervention in such messy, wicked situations. It does so by guiding you through the steps and stages of a systemic process that addresses your own wicked problem. Limited references to systems theory and history acquaint you with the key principles to work wicked problems on your own. The focus of this book on systems thinking is on a critically important question that often goes unanswered: "Where do I start?" It also provides numerous tips and tricks to keep you on the right track. You will find that the systems approaches in this book will not only help you to address wicked problems yourselves, but also that it will give you a basic grasp of what is involved in other systems methods. Few other investments in your intellectual toolbox could claim the same.

The book written in free style includes poems and short stories and reflects the author's experiences as he worked as an engineering consultant/manager in London, Jamaica and the USA over a period of fifty years. The book is not about engineering, but rather about people, events and circumstances observed and or experienced as he navigated his way through diverse places and situations over that period of time. The writings include romantic, cultural, sociological and political subjects. Each poem or story has its own natural emotional dynamics ranging from hate, love, lust, abysmal ignorance or arrogance, beauty of nature, beauty of the soul. Like in the case of movies that embellish books of authors so as to capture the imagination of the viewer, so does this book in embellishing those poems and short stories to peak the interest of the reader. As in the case of broadcasting or voice over work, this book should be read with emphasis to reflect the emotion embedded in the words.

What makes for a successful business? From poverty to success, 21 business professionals from Staten Island's Business Guild 2 tell their stories. They describe what worked for them, and occasionally, what didn't, from finding your own course into the profession you love and escaping the grind of a job you don't. Most started from scratch, with nothing. All turned negatives into positives. They have all reached a satisfying place in their lives.