fifteen countries in Scandinavia, Europe, Asia, Australia, and U.S.A. All of them came to Stockholm primarily because they recognize the growing im portance of networks as complex systems, and their home institutions do not offer any systematic lectures on this topic. The Networks Course was originally initiated jointly by the Summer University of Southern Stockholm Foundation and the County Council of Stockholm, the Swedish Aviation Administration, the Swedish National Road Administration, the Swedish Post, the Swedish State Railways, and Telia AB. They have all served as joint sponsors and hosts for the Course. In the year 1993 the Course also was sponsored by the Swedish Transport and Communications Research Board. All these organizations have supported the publication of a series of key lectures from the Course, to be released as a single volume entitled Networks in Action. It is the ambition of the Foundation to create continuity in its activities for the future. The board has proposed to its principals to take a decision in this direction. It is my expectation that this will be the case for the Networks Course from 1995. This book will then serve as a basic reference for use in an era when the topic of Communication-Networks will be included on a permanent basis in the Summer University's agenda."

Since the beginning of the fifties, the ruling paradigm in the discipline of economics has been that of a competitive general equilibrium. Associated dynamic analyses have therefore been preoccupied with the stability of this equilibrium state, corresponding simply to studies of comparative statics. The need to permeate the boundaries of this paradigm in order to open up new pathways for genuine dynamic analysis is now pressing. The contributions contained in this volume spring from this very ambition. A growing circle of economists have recently been inspired by two distinct but complementary sources: (i) the pathbreaking work of Joseph Schumpeter, and (ii) recent contributions to physics, chemistry and theoretical biology. It turns out that problems which are firmly rooted in the economic discipline, such as innovation, technological change, business cycles and economic development, contain many clear parallels with phenomena from the natural sciences such as the slaving principle, adiabatic elimination and self-organization. In such dynamic worlds, adjustment processes and adaptive behaviour are modelled with the aid of the mathematical theory of nonlinear dynamical systems. The dynamics is defined for a much wider set of conditions or states than simply a set of competitive equilibria. A common objective is to study and classify ways in which the qualitative properties of each system change as the parameters describing the system vary.

Charting winter journeys, travelling to funerals and to the anniversary of a young death, David Batten reflects on loss in its many guises. Facing grief with a meticulous attention, whether it strikes in close family or political reality, Winterreis touches on truths as urgent now as when Willhelm Muller wrote his own Winterreise, a poetry cycle with which Batten resonates and echoes, or when Franz Schubert composed his song cycle of the same name, based on Muller's poems. The poems here become an "assembly of the omens encountered while wandering in contemporary Europe..." and a commemoration of those making music and poetry, who too often die young. Poignant, cathartic and ultimately life-affirming, this is considered poetry written with grace.

Paul travels to work on a day like any other: filled with reflection and questions. But the chill is more than the wind slicing in off the North Sea and Paul's soul searching runs deeper, with no end in sight. Part autobiography, part humanist study, Rotterdam is a unique, moving text. -- Welsh Books Council

Exploring how humanity is rooted in and linked to everywhere and everything, David Batten brought a fresh voice and precise language to his reflective, but ultimately hopeful debut, Transhumance. In Untergang, he moves from the open, cosmic, affirming tone to a sequence that is internally reflective - darker, almost claustrophobic. Whereas his first collection ended on the plateau, in the light, anticipating summer, Untergang starts indoors in the dark of a power cut in the depth of winter and finishes inside the writer's ribcage, where it is even darker. This is not a world without hope, but it is one that urgently needs to wake, to face the dark and change it. Increasingly confident, Batten uses his distinctive, lyrical voice as a call to reflect on what might really matter in life.

One of the biggest killers in history is back...and looking for victims. A 14th Century corpse is unearthed in the name of science, bringing with it a punishing legacy. Dormant underground for hundreds of years, the plague has grown stronger than ever. Once set free, it never sleeps and it takes no prisoners. Archaeologists released it. Neither doctors, the police nor the army can stop it. Only one man can fight the new Black Death. To win, he must escape the clutches of crazed vigilantes, hell bent on executing him in the name of humanity, and survive not one but two nightmare journeys to salvation. This Son of York gives an uncompromising portrayal of modern-day York's trial by pestilence. The accuracy of detail within is just as uncompromising and as unrelenting as the story being told. Will York ever return to normality? The answer lies in This Son Of York's gritty narrative.