Leaders today are familiar with the demand that they come forward with a new vision. But it is not a matter of fabricating a new vision out of whole cloth. A vision relevant for us today will build on values deeply embedded in human history and in our own tradition. It is not as though we come to the task unready. Men and women from the beginning of history have groped and struggled for various pieces of the answer. The materials out of which we build the vision will be the moral strivings of the species, today and in the distant past.

Most of the ingredients of a vision for this country have been with us for a long time. As the poet wrote, "The light we sought is shining still." That we have failed and fumbled in some of our attempts to achieve our ideals is obvious. But the great ideas still beckon—freedom, equality, justice, the release of human possibilities. The vision is to live up to the best in our past and to reach the goals we have yet to achieve—with respect to our domestic problems and our responsibilities worldwide.

—From the Preface to On Leadership

In the newly revised seventh edition of Managing Quality: Integrating the Supply Chain, a decorated team of operations experts delivers a thorough introduction to quality management with an enduring emphasis on the importance of the supply chain for quality improvement. You'll obtain an integrated understanding of the customers, suppliers, technology, and people essential to maintaining and enhancing product quality in business.

This latest edition combines the unifying theme of the supply chain with the latest developments in critical subject areas, like Lean, Six Sigma, and service quality. Updated vignettes and references maintain the currency of the work, while new content expands its scope and increases readability and accessibility for students of operations, quality management, and business.

This is a new release of the original 1957 edition.

"Offers Americans timely and inspiring insights into the value and feasibility of higher standards for their society." —Donovan Richardson, Christian Science Monitor

John Gardner's extraordinary career has included service as a marine officer, a cabinet secretary, and the founder of the citizens' lobbying group Common Cause. In his landmark books he addresses some of the most troubling questions that American society faces—questions that demand answers with each new shaping of the political landscape.

In Excellence, Mr. Gardner discusses the strengths and failings of our educational system, our confusion over the idea of equality, and the nature of leadership in a free society.

John W. Gardner, founder of Common Cause, has served his country in many roles ranging from that of Marine Corps officer to Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. He has been a professor, a foundation president, and in 1974 was awarded the presidential medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian award. "The task of the moment," Mr. Gardner says," is to recreate a motivated society." How are we to combat widespread apathy? How are we to release the spirit and zest and enthusiasm that drives civilizations forward? Now, after a dozen years wholly devoted to action and conflict in public life, Mr. Gardner steps back and looks at the beliefs and values that must underlie human striving. He says of this book, "It's about the attitudes and values at the core of your being." He confronts hard questions and offers powerful, thought-provoking answers.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

"Gardner's is not a 'how-to-do-it' book for the conduct of modern society. It is something rarer these days and more basic: a 'why-to-do-it' book. Its impact on many readers is bound to be challenging and stimulating and even inspirational." Clark Kerr, Science

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

Edward Gibbon said of the ancient Athenians, "when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."
America is the longest-lived democracy in the history of the world, but there are signs that our own extraordinary system faces a similar peril. A vibrant civil society, characterized by active citizen participation, is essential to a strong democracy, argues Brian O'Connell, and in his new book he offers a citizen's guide to this concept of civil society -- what it is, how it functions, its limitations and potential, and most importantly, what individuals can do to nurture and support it. It is designed to provide practical understanding and foster action among community and national leaders, including mayors, civic leaders, school boards, public administrators, independent sector leaders, scholars, and teachers.
Civil Society explores the idea and the reality of citizen participation, including government's essential responsibility to preserve the freedoms that allow and encourage it. It also traces the contemporary weakening of this tradition as a result of indifference, selfishness, loss of confidence in government, governmental limits on citizen participation, the influence of special interests on elected officials, separation between the haves and have nots, intolerance and incivility.
Founding president of INDEPENDENT SECTOR and first chairman of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Brian O'Connell draws on his extensive practical experience of civil society to outline concrete actions that can improve the prospects of an enduring democracy, including:
- increasing the role of education in preparing students for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship;
- reorienting public administrators towards a greater receptivity of citizen involvement;
- expanding research into and conducting regular evaluations of the state of civil society itself;
- developing a concerted effort to share and apply what we already know about passing on to future generations the nation's traditions of service and generosity.
In Civil Society, Brian O'Connell has created a practical handbook for elected officials, community leaders, and ordinary citizens who seek to nurture and expand this crucial dimension of a democratic society.