This is a book about the people who shaped an idea — that to make sense of the complexity of the world, we need to look at it in terms of wholes and relationships rather than splitting it down into its parts and looking at each in isolation. In this book we call that idea systems thinking, although others have called it by other names (such as systems theory or systems sciences). Within this idea we include a number of areas which have independent origins but have tended over time to become interlinked while retaining their distinctiveness — general systems theory, cybernetics, complexity theory and system dynamics among others. Our focus in the book is on people and how their personalities, lives and links with each other shaped these ideas. Other books have been written on the ideas as such, describing and classifying them in various ways, presenting a history of the ideas or arguing for the importance of one perspective or another. By focusing on the creators of the ideas, and by taking a broad look at a range of areas, we aim to shed a different light on systems thinking.
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References
Beishon, R. J., & Peters, G. (1972). Systems behaviour. London: Harper and Row.
Emery, F. E. (1969). Systems thinking: Selected readings. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Forrester, J. W. (2007). System dynamics — A personal view of the first fifty years. System Dynamic Review, 23(2/3), 345–358.
Midgley, G. (Ed.) (2003). Systems thinking (4 vols). London: Sage.
Acknowledgments
In conducting such a long and all-consuming project as this, we have been helped along the way by very many people, and while we can mention only a few of them, we are deeply grateful to everyone who has encouraged us through this journey.
The systems study group was a source of great support to us, and involved almost every member of the Systems Department at the Open University as well as several visitors. We particularly thank Rose Armson, Andrea Berardi, Chris Blackmore, Ray Ison, Bill Laidlaw, John Martin, Martin Reynolds, Sandro Schlindwein, Rupesh Shah and Roger Spear.
Bill Laidlaw, Tony Nixon, Becky Calcraft and Martin Reynolds were extremely helpful in reading drafts of various chapters and offering valuable advice on making them better.
The long gestation and production process of the book has been supported by a number of colleagues within the Open University and outside: Angela Walters and Marilyn Ridsdale in our faculty; Teresa Kennard, David Vince, Giles Clark and Christianne Bailey of the university's Co-publishing department; Helen Desmond, Beverly Ford and Francesca Bonner at Springer. We are also grateful for additional information about some of the authors from Nancy Schön, Vanilla Beer, Dirk Baecker and Klaus Dammann; and for helpful conversations on several occasions with John Mingers.
Magnus would also like to thank personally his wonderful wife, Becky Calcraft, for her support, constant encouragement, long discussions and willingness to put up with late nights; and Alice, who hasn't had a single moment of her life when Daddy wasn't writing the book.
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Ramage, M., Shipp, K. (2009). Introduction. In: Systems Thinkers. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-525-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-525-3_1
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