The Pelican the Pearl and the Live Oak Tree" centers on the struggle of a young man, Brad, to discover who he is, where he belongs, and about the three women who shape that struggle. It is a story of love and betrayal set in Charleston, S.C. during the civil rights upheaval. Brad, born and raised in Philadelphia, meets Blaire, a Charleston socialite, while attending school in Spain. After the couple marries and settles in Charleston Blaire's extremely conservative parents insist that Brad "learn to fit in," his wife siding with them. Brad also has trouble finding work, eventually, with the help of a powerful local lawyer, Simons Purvey, taking a job with the local poverty program, which further alienates his in-laws. The second woman is Simons' daughter, Cil, who gradually becomes Brad's closest friend. The third woman is Cathy, whom he works with in the poverty program. Stunningly beautiful but poor, Cathy has been a target of young men from good families most of her life. Against her will she and Brad become involved. As the story progresses Brad is shot; then set up for a drug bust. Eventually, he becomes the victim in a serious automobile accident that might not have been an accident. Blaire tries to change, but is overwhelmed by her parents' bigotry; Cathy flees; leaving Cil and Brad to try to put their lives back together. The story is about the beauty and grace of Charleston; it is about young socialites caught between the comforts of their birthright and their desire to join the modern world; it is about changing Black-White relationships in the deep South; it is about Blaire's struggle to break away from her parents' domination, Cathy's fear, Cil's pride, Brad's confusion...But mainly it is a story about love, set against a backdrop of lavish society balls, racial upheaval, Battery Row homes, and the inescapable rhythms of lowland beaches, marshes and swamps.

Gerrit and Bill were amongst the first to drop out of college and take off looking for adventure. They spent a year hitchhiking around the world during the early 60s in search of a mystery woman they had seen in a movie. Each began with one thousand dollars in his pocket, a sleeping bag and a backpack. No hostels, no luxury hotels, given places to sleep by peasants, princes, priests and prostitutes they were nearly dumped out in the middle of the Persian Desert, used unwittingly as a cover for drug smugglers in the Kyber Pass, night club entertainers and celebrities in Calcutta, thrown out of Burma, official greeters for a brothel in Phnom Penh, thrown out of Cambodia, rode a taxi through Viet Cong territory to Saigon, locked with crates of dying monkeys in the hole of a ship crossing the South China Sea, first male models to appear in a Hong Kong fashion show, thrown out of Hong Kong, nearly killed by jellyfish before being thrown out of Borneo, hitched a ride with crocodile poachers in Australia, sailed through the heart of a typhoon in the South Pacific. Invariably, the first thing people who read this saga say is, "I can't believe you are still alive." An honest response would be, "Neither can we."

"The Roots and Future of Management Theory" presents a well-researched history of management theory that can be used in classrooms and for seminars. Written by William F. Roth, a professor of management sciences at Kutztown University, a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of six other books in his field, "The Roots..." introduces readers in a user-friendly manner to the origins of modern day management practices. It begins with the team-oriented, cooperative approach of the Medieval Period guilds. It then carries us into the Renaissance workplace where the merchant class wrested power away from the Church and nobility, shifting cultural emphasis toward individualism, competition, and profit. The third stop is the Protestant Reformation Period during which the Protestant Work Ethic was generated, spawning both the middle class and modern workplace exploitation. Next we enter the Enlightenment Period, possibly the most innovative era in Western history due to the fact that empirical thinking became the rage and technology took center stage. The ensuing Industrial Revolution was shaped mainly by our growing love affair with technology, our growing infatuation with efficiency, and our attempts to turn workers into machine parts. The book discusses worker resentment of this treatment that led to the unionization movement and to the battle between the Robber Barons, who fostered a "law of the jungle" atmosphere, and Humanists who believed that individual development was important, but not at the expense of others. The book's next stop is the Post-Industrial Revolution and the re-birth of a team approach reminiscent of the early guilds. During this period the battle between efficiency experts locked into the numbers and those who believe that humans are more productive when treated like humans continues. And, finally, "The Roots..." deals with the impact of computers on workplace management systems, with the fact that they are driving us away from the Work Ethic and toward a newly evolving Development Ethic that is forcing us to change our ways of doing things, both as employees and as members of society. During our trip we meet individuals who have made major contributions to management theory including Niccolo Machiavelli, Martin Luther, Adam Smith, Sir Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, Herbert Spenser, John Stuart Mill, Robert Owen, J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers, Frederick Taylor, Oliver Sheldon, Max Weber, Henry Ford, Mary Follet, Rensis Likert, Douglas McGregor, Elton Mayo, Eric Trist, Abraham Maslow, Donald Schon, Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, and Russell Ackoff. We visit such concepts as "one-just-price," Machiavellian Humanism, Christian Humanism, the "scarcity mentality," the Protestant Work Ethic, "useable truths," the economic man, efficiency versus effectiveness, scientific management, the mechanistic school, the human relations school, the systems school, the Development Ethic, statistical measurement techniques, socio-technical theory, dynamic conservativism, autonomous work groups, labor-management councils, MBO, team building, quality improvement, idealized design, circular organization, reengineering, 6-sigma, and the growth versus development controversy. The story finishes by telling us how our workplace culture needs to change in order to take fullest advantage of the advances made during the last six centuries. It follows our historic progression from the Survival Ethics during the Dark Ages and Medieval period to the Development Ethic during the Post Industrial Revolution. It finishes by suggesting management tools and techniques that will facilitate our final achievement of the Development Ethic as a "stable state" both in the workplace and in society.

A growing number of educators are beginning to believe that as we move into a different kind of world with different possibilities, the traditional approach to teaching is no longer the most productive. They are beginning to understand that if we are to continue progressing as a nation, we need to place more emphasis on the development of each student's unique potential. This book presents a new model for education that achieves this goal through the effective use of technology. Redefining U.S. Education: A Systematic Approach to Teaching first looks at the evolution of the U.S. public education system, explaining how we got here and where we are in terms of our system's strengths and weaknesses. The book explores the philosophical and theoretical roots of the U.S. system developed in Europe centuries ago. It introduces the major dilemma of whether emphasis should be on ensuring that all students reach a defined level of expertise or on encouraging individual students to develop their full potential. In an effort to draw from the experiences of two other major societies, the book also looks at the education systems in Europe and Japan. It examines Europe's Bologna Process, identifying its advantages and shortcomings as an attempt at standardization. It then travels to Japan, a country that represents the epitome in terms of standardization. It discusses the damage that this over-emphasis on standardization has done to Japanese society, and especially to the Japanese education system. The authors then present an exciting new paradigm of teaching that incorporates computer technology into education. This new paradigm allows students to use computer programs to progress at their own rate in subjects they enjoy and excel at while, concurrently, ensuring that they still get the basics they need to function successfully in society. The book details the key logistics of the new paradigm, including the way classes are run, the way subjects are taught, and the way students are graded.

During the author's decades of experience consulting in the corporate world and teaching management theory at the university level, he has often questioned many modern-day management practices. For example, why do so many companies have evaluation and reward systems that force employees to compete against each other while these same organizations preach the gospel of cooperation and teamwork? Why do companies continue to downsize when this practice has proven antithetical to long-term success? Out of the Box Thinking for Successful Managers explains, in a user-friendly and sometimes humorous manner, why these practices are based on worn-out logic in some cases and complete falsehoods in others. Questioning numerous management practices that have been popular for decades, it details their weaknesses and explains why they continue to hamper attempts to improve productivity. The book reviews a range of management theories, including Six Sigma, downsizing, and management by objective. After showing where the holes lie, it offers alternative approaches that have proven effective in a growing number of private and public sector organizations, including some that enable a more positive workplace culture. Illustrating practical application with case studies, the book provides simple suggestions for change that can be highly beneficial to your organization. It addresses the major myths that managers need to examine and eventually do away with or, at least, replace with modified versions that make more sense in today's increasingly competitive business environment.