A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

indispensable, 18 Jun 2008
What, in less skilled hands, might have descended into a po-faced rant against the establishment, is in Van der Zee's, a concise, fluent and highly readable manual of rebellion.

Underpinned throughout by indispensable legal advice, the Guardian journalist takes us on a journey covering everything from climate change to Ghandi, Vietnam to the Tollpuddle martyrs, the anti-war movement to Bertrand Russell. Recommended for activists and non-activists alike.

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

indispensable, 18 Jun 2008
What, in less skilled hands, might have descended into a po-faced rant against the establishment, is in Van der Zee's, a concise, fluent and highly readable manual of rebellion.

Underpinned throughout by indispensable legal advice, the Guardian journalist takes us on a journey covering everything from climate change to Ghandi, Vietnam to the Tollpuddle martyrs, the anti-war movement to Bertrand Russell. Recommended for activists and non-activists alike.

The governors have nothing to support them but opinion (D. Hume), 24 Oct 2006
As N. Chomsky brilliantly states, `Alex Carey draws the veil of deceit and imposed ignorance in the struggle for freedom and justice.'
Alex Carey shows how corporate propaganda protects corporate power (the few) against democracy (the many). Skilled manipulation conceals the real human nature and the needs of the common man in the interest of corporate efficiency and profit, in other words, in the interest of the privileged segments of society.

The effectiveness of propaganda depends on the availability of emotionally charged symbols and ideas. The most powerful ones are nationalist symbols. Therefore, corporate propaganda tries to identify the free-enterprise system with US national values, and strong unions, interventionist governments, communists and alleged liberal fellow travelers with threats to national security, subversion and tyranny.
A surveillance network detects early signs of ideological drifts. Corrective persuasion is immediately disseminated through the media, completely controlled by fellow megacorporations. As the social scientist H.D. Lasswell said: `propaganda is the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery or other possible control techniques.'

Another means of manipulation is the filtering of social science studies. Only those which improve the industry's image and interests are propagated.
Alex Carey shows the nonsense and fundamental hypocrisy of alleged `basic' social experiments (the Hawthorne studies, the experiments of K. Lewin and F. Herzberg), which `prove' that salary, job security and good working conditions are only of secondary importance for employees. In the meantime, corporations pocket superprofits.
Alex Carey's dissection of the Hawthorne studies is simply devastating. He unmasks social scientists as servants of power and union busters.

This book contains also excellent historical information (the McCarthy crusade, the great steel strike of 1919) and exposes rightly the link between propaganda and the pragmatism of Dewey and W. James (the promotion of false beliefs is justified if they are socially useful).

This is a very revealing book and a must read for all those wanting to understand the world we live in.


I never read this book in school..., 26 Aug 1999
An excellent and scathing critique of modern information systems and how those symbols can channel thought to protect the powerful.

Alex Carey examines how Management, Gov't, and other powerful interests manipulate the symbols of our cultural life to destroy union solidarity, dillute political accountability, and distract attention away from issues (and solutions) that threaten those institutions.

Very well researched and cleverly developed, it is unfortunate that Carey's career was abruptly cut short. This book and those it has inspired stand strong, albeit quietly, in the face of the information control systems that they seek to expose.

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

indispensable, 18 Jun 2008
What, in less skilled hands, might have descended into a po-faced rant against the establishment, is in Van der Zee's, a concise, fluent and highly readable manual of rebellion.

Underpinned throughout by indispensable legal advice, the Guardian journalist takes us on a journey covering everything from climate change to Ghandi, Vietnam to the Tollpuddle martyrs, the anti-war movement to Bertrand Russell. Recommended for activists and non-activists alike.

The governors have nothing to support them but opinion (D. Hume), 24 Oct 2006
As N. Chomsky brilliantly states, `Alex Carey draws the veil of deceit and imposed ignorance in the struggle for freedom and justice.'
Alex Carey shows how corporate propaganda protects corporate power (the few) against democracy (the many). Skilled manipulation conceals the real human nature and the needs of the common man in the interest of corporate efficiency and profit, in other words, in the interest of the privileged segments of society.

The effectiveness of propaganda depends on the availability of emotionally charged symbols and ideas. The most powerful ones are nationalist symbols. Therefore, corporate propaganda tries to identify the free-enterprise system with US national values, and strong unions, interventionist governments, communists and alleged liberal fellow travelers with threats to national security, subversion and tyranny.
A surveillance network detects early signs of ideological drifts. Corrective persuasion is immediately disseminated through the media, completely controlled by fellow megacorporations. As the social scientist H.D. Lasswell said: `propaganda is the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery or other possible control techniques.'

Another means of manipulation is the filtering of social science studies. Only those which improve the industry's image and interests are propagated.
Alex Carey shows the nonsense and fundamental hypocrisy of alleged `basic' social experiments (the Hawthorne studies, the experiments of K. Lewin and F. Herzberg), which `prove' that salary, job security and good working conditions are only of secondary importance for employees. In the meantime, corporations pocket superprofits.
Alex Carey's dissection of the Hawthorne studies is simply devastating. He unmasks social scientists as servants of power and union busters.

This book contains also excellent historical information (the McCarthy crusade, the great steel strike of 1919) and exposes rightly the link between propaganda and the pragmatism of Dewey and W. James (the promotion of false beliefs is justified if they are socially useful).

This is a very revealing book and a must read for all those wanting to understand the world we live in.


I never read this book in school..., 26 Aug 1999
An excellent and scathing critique of modern information systems and how those symbols can channel thought to protect the powerful.

Alex Carey examines how Management, Gov't, and other powerful interests manipulate the symbols of our cultural life to destroy union solidarity, dillute political accountability, and distract attention away from issues (and solutions) that threaten those institutions.

Very well researched and cleverly developed, it is unfortunate that Carey's career was abruptly cut short. This book and those it has inspired stand strong, albeit quietly, in the face of the information control systems that they seek to expose.

Dense theoretical waffle from self-appointed movement leaders and academics, 26 Sep 2008
The target audience for this book is, according to the introduction, those interested in the British direct action movement of the '90s and early '00s. That audience will find nothing of any great worth here, certainly nothing that can't be found better elsewhere. It starts off badly as Tim Jordan waffles about social theory he doesn't understand, lunges vaguely at post-modernism, and makes grandiose claims about the future of the 'movement of movements'.

A series of oddly irrelevant chapters follows (bisexual politics, hacking, etc), finished off by an interview with some elderly Communists including Stuart Hall who have apparently started a (then) new left wing journal. They refuse to say anything that is not extremely general. The end.

There is a small amount of material in three of the chapters that might be useful to someone doing exhaustive research - Rupa Huq's average chapter on rave being one. But generally, steer well clear.

A note, unless the reader thinks I am being harsh, just because this is not the sort of book I could ever like. I am keen on serious academic writing (see my other reviews), and very sympathetic to the movements which the book tries to cover. But those movements need to be taken seriously, their stories told attentively, and on their own terms, not used as an opportunity for someone to rant about "difference" and "post-socialist politics" while sliding helplessly down the outside of an ivory tower.

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

indispensable, 18 Jun 2008
What, in less skilled hands, might have descended into a po-faced rant against the establishment, is in Van der Zee's, a concise, fluent and highly readable manual of rebellion.

Underpinned throughout by indispensable legal advice, the Guardian journalist takes us on a journey covering everything from climate change to Ghandi, Vietnam to the Tollpuddle martyrs, the anti-war movement to Bertrand Russell. Recommended for activists and non-activists alike.

The governors have nothing to support them but opinion (D. Hume), 24 Oct 2006
As N. Chomsky brilliantly states, `Alex Carey draws the veil of deceit and imposed ignorance in the struggle for freedom and justice.'
Alex Carey shows how corporate propaganda protects corporate power (the few) against democracy (the many). Skilled manipulation conceals the real human nature and the needs of the common man in the interest of corporate efficiency and profit, in other words, in the interest of the privileged segments of society.

The effectiveness of propaganda depends on the availability of emotionally charged symbols and ideas. The most powerful ones are nationalist symbols. Therefore, corporate propaganda tries to identify the free-enterprise system with US national values, and strong unions, interventionist governments, communists and alleged liberal fellow travelers with threats to national security, subversion and tyranny.
A surveillance network detects early signs of ideological drifts. Corrective persuasion is immediately disseminated through the media, completely controlled by fellow megacorporations. As the social scientist H.D. Lasswell said: `propaganda is the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery or other possible control techniques.'

Another means of manipulation is the filtering of social science studies. Only those which improve the industry's image and interests are propagated.
Alex Carey shows the nonsense and fundamental hypocrisy of alleged `basic' social experiments (the Hawthorne studies, the experiments of K. Lewin and F. Herzberg), which `prove' that salary, job security and good working conditions are only of secondary importance for employees. In the meantime, corporations pocket superprofits.
Alex Carey's dissection of the Hawthorne studies is simply devastating. He unmasks social scientists as servants of power and union busters.

This book contains also excellent historical information (the McCarthy crusade, the great steel strike of 1919) and exposes rightly the link between propaganda and the pragmatism of Dewey and W. James (the promotion of false beliefs is justified if they are socially useful).

This is a very revealing book and a must read for all those wanting to understand the world we live in.


I never read this book in school..., 26 Aug 1999
An excellent and scathing critique of modern information systems and how those symbols can channel thought to protect the powerful.

Alex Carey examines how Management, Gov't, and other powerful interests manipulate the symbols of our cultural life to destroy union solidarity, dillute political accountability, and distract attention away from issues (and solutions) that threaten those institutions.

Very well researched and cleverly developed, it is unfortunate that Carey's career was abruptly cut short. This book and those it has inspired stand strong, albeit quietly, in the face of the information control systems that they seek to expose.

Dense theoretical waffle from self-appointed movement leaders and academics, 26 Sep 2008
The target audience for this book is, according to the introduction, those interested in the British direct action movement of the '90s and early '00s. That audience will find nothing of any great worth here, certainly nothing that can't be found better elsewhere. It starts off badly as Tim Jordan waffles about social theory he doesn't understand, lunges vaguely at post-modernism, and makes grandiose claims about the future of the 'movement of movements'.

A series of oddly irrelevant chapters follows (bisexual politics, hacking, etc), finished off by an interview with some elderly Communists including Stuart Hall who have apparently started a (then) new left wing journal. They refuse to say anything that is not extremely general. The end.

There is a small amount of material in three of the chapters that might be useful to someone doing exhaustive research - Rupa Huq's average chapter on rave being one. But generally, steer well clear.

A note, unless the reader thinks I am being harsh, just because this is not the sort of book I could ever like. I am keen on serious academic writing (see my other reviews), and very sympathetic to the movements which the book tries to cover. But those movements need to be taken seriously, their stories told attentively, and on their own terms, not used as an opportunity for someone to rant about "difference" and "post-socialist politics" while sliding helplessly down the outside of an ivory tower.

A fascinating study of this influential group., 19 Mar 2001
James Barr, currently the Political Secretary to Francis Maude, has written a fascinating and thoroughly researched study of what remains one of the leading political think-tanks in British politics. The Bow Group, founded in 1951, was designed to counter the view prevalent at the time that the Conservatives were the 'stupid party' with nothing to offer in the way of intellectual debate. The founders of the group, including Geoffrey Howe, William Rees-Mogg and Norman St. John Stevas, were aspiring Tory thinkers who saw little to attract them in groups such as the Young Conservatives and who wished to take on the Socialist Fabians at their own game. Hence the Bow Group was formed to produce pamphlets based on original research into the political and social issues of the day. Deliberately eschewing any corporate manifesto, the group rapidly established itself as a centrist and free-thinking body of young graduates based predominantly in London and Birmingham. Harold Macmillan was soon forced to take note of them and, with the establishment of the magazine Crossbow in 1957, the group firmly placed itself on the political map.

Barr's fiftieth anniversary history is particularly interesting for the light it throws on the early thinking of men who were later to make their mark at the highest level. The list of prominent politicians who were at one time members of the group does, in fact, read like a who's who of the Thatcher and Major administrations, and it is not surprising to find that Michael Howard, Norman Lamont, Peter Lilley and Leon Brittan were all members. Barr chronicles each period of the group in a clear and even-handed way, turning the raw material of Bow Group publications, records and interviews with key members into a lively and compelling narrative. He is particularly good at unravelling the sometimes precarious financial fortunes of the group, mixing this with lighter material by way of anecdotes and lively accounts of the political crises in which the group occasionally enmeshed itself.

This book will undoubtedly take its place as an indispensable and seminal study of an important area of the post-war political landscape. Barr's achievement has been to make the material interesting and accessible to the casual observer of the political scene while also writing an important, academic study worthy of the group it chronicles. As a reviewer largely unfamiliar with the Bow Group before encountering this work, I warmly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in the period it covers.

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

indispensable, 18 Jun 2008
What, in less skilled hands, might have descended into a po-faced rant against the establishment, is in Van der Zee's, a concise, fluent and highly readable manual of rebellion.

Underpinned throughout by indispensable legal advice, the Guardian journalist takes us on a journey covering everything from climate change to Ghandi, Vietnam to the Tollpuddle martyrs, the anti-war movement to Bertrand Russell. Recommended for activists and non-activists alike.

The governors have nothing to support them but opinion (D. Hume), 24 Oct 2006
As N. Chomsky brilliantly states, `Alex Carey draws the veil of deceit and imposed ignorance in the struggle for freedom and justice.'
Alex Carey shows how corporate propaganda protects corporate power (the few) against democracy (the many). Skilled manipulation conceals the real human nature and the needs of the common man in the interest of corporate efficiency and profit, in other words, in the interest of the privileged segments of society.

The effectiveness of propaganda depends on the availability of emotionally charged symbols and ideas. The most powerful ones are nationalist symbols. Therefore, corporate propaganda tries to identify the free-enterprise system with US national values, and strong unions, interventionist governments, communists and alleged liberal fellow travelers with threats to national security, subversion and tyranny.
A surveillance network detects early signs of ideological drifts. Corrective persuasion is immediately disseminated through the media, completely controlled by fellow megacorporations. As the social scientist H.D. Lasswell said: `propaganda is the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery or other possible control techniques.'

Another means of manipulation is the filtering of social science studies. Only those which improve the industry's image and interests are propagated.
Alex Carey shows the nonsense and fundamental hypocrisy of alleged `basic' social experiments (the Hawthorne studies, the experiments of K. Lewin and F. Herzberg), which `prove' that salary, job security and good working conditions are only of secondary importance for employees. In the meantime, corporations pocket superprofits.
Alex Carey's dissection of the Hawthorne studies is simply devastating. He unmasks social scientists as servants of power and union busters.

This book contains also excellent historical information (the McCarthy crusade, the great steel strike of 1919) and exposes rightly the link between propaganda and the pragmatism of Dewey and W. James (the promotion of false beliefs is justified if they are socially useful).

This is a very revealing book and a must read for all those wanting to understand the world we live in.


I never read this book in school..., 26 Aug 1999
An excellent and scathing critique of modern information systems and how those symbols can channel thought to protect the powerful.

Alex Carey examines how Management, Gov't, and other powerful interests manipulate the symbols of our cultural life to destroy union solidarity, dillute political accountability, and distract attention away from issues (and solutions) that threaten those institutions.

Very well researched and cleverly developed, it is unfortunate that Carey's career was abruptly cut short. This book and those it has inspired stand strong, albeit quietly, in the face of the information control systems that they seek to expose.

Dense theoretical waffle from self-appointed movement leaders and academics, 26 Sep 2008
The target audience for this book is, according to the introduction, those interested in the British direct action movement of the '90s and early '00s. That audience will find nothing of any great worth here, certainly nothing that can't be found better elsewhere. It starts off badly as Tim Jordan waffles about social theory he doesn't understand, lunges vaguely at post-modernism, and makes grandiose claims about the future of the 'movement of movements'.

A series of oddly irrelevant chapters follows (bisexual politics, hacking, etc), finished off by an interview with some elderly Communists including Stuart Hall who have apparently started a (then) new left wing journal. They refuse to say anything that is not extremely general. The end.

There is a small amount of material in three of the chapters that might be useful to someone doing exhaustive research - Rupa Huq's average chapter on rave being one. But generally, steer well clear.

A note, unless the reader thinks I am being harsh, just because this is not the sort of book I could ever like. I am keen on serious academic writing (see my other reviews), and very sympathetic to the movements which the book tries to cover. But those movements need to be taken seriously, their stories told attentively, and on their own terms, not used as an opportunity for someone to rant about "difference" and "post-socialist politics" while sliding helplessly down the outside of an ivory tower.

A fascinating study of this influential group., 19 Mar 2001
James Barr, currently the Political Secretary to Francis Maude, has written a fascinating and thoroughly researched study of what remains one of the leading political think-tanks in British politics. The Bow Group, founded in 1951, was designed to counter the view prevalent at the time that the Conservatives were the 'stupid party' with nothing to offer in the way of intellectual debate. The founders of the group, including Geoffrey Howe, William Rees-Mogg and Norman St. John Stevas, were aspiring Tory thinkers who saw little to attract them in groups such as the Young Conservatives and who wished to take on the Socialist Fabians at their own game. Hence the Bow Group was formed to produce pamphlets based on original research into the political and social issues of the day. Deliberately eschewing any corporate manifesto, the group rapidly established itself as a centrist and free-thinking body of young graduates based predominantly in London and Birmingham. Harold Macmillan was soon forced to take note of them and, with the establishment of the magazine Crossbow in 1957, the group firmly placed itself on the political map.

Barr's fiftieth anniversary history is particularly interesting for the light it throws on the early thinking of men who were later to make their mark at the highest level. The list of prominent politicians who were at one time members of the group does, in fact, read like a who's who of the Thatcher and Major administrations, and it is not surprising to find that Michael Howard, Norman Lamont, Peter Lilley and Leon Brittan were all members. Barr chronicles each period of the group in a clear and even-handed way, turning the raw material of Bow Group publications, records and interviews with key members into a lively and compelling narrative. He is particularly good at unravelling the sometimes precarious financial fortunes of the group, mixing this with lighter material by way of anecdotes and lively accounts of the political crises in which the group occasionally enmeshed itself.

This book will undoubtedly take its place as an indispensable and seminal study of an important area of the post-war political landscape. Barr's achievement has been to make the material interesting and accessible to the casual observer of the political scene while also writing an important, academic study worthy of the group it chronicles. As a reviewer largely unfamiliar with the Bow Group before encountering this work, I warmly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in the period it covers.

Fantastic, 06 Sep 2004
This book is a must read for anyone doing chartism. The author, Richard Brown, is my history teacher at Manshead School, and he must be commended on this excellent book, and no doubt, with the help of this book and the an himself, i will achieve the grades i hope for.

A great insight into the radical issue of chartism, 04 Jan 2001
This is a very impressive book to read and study from cover to cover. Brown covers many aspects of the Chartist movement, its history, and related issues. As a second year A-Level student, I found this a very helpful source of background reading- it supported my studies no-end, and would even be suitable as a textbook for history classes. Brown should be commended for an excellent effort, he may be partly responsible for the high grades I will hopefully achieve this summer!

A book of passion, determination and humility, 11 Aug 2003
'No Destination' has left more of a lasting impression on me than any other book I have read for years. Satish Kumar draws an incredibly vivid, beautiful and uplifting picture of his life, and life going on around him, often describing a fascinating and alien culture, but celebrating the universality of the human spirit. It is a song for peace and the story of an incredible man.

A journey of a pacifist's pilgrimages across the world, 08 Apr 2002
Starting with his birth and ending in 1991, 'No Destination' is the autobiography of Satish Kumar, the campaigner reknowned for his epic pilgrimages in the name of peace. The book details his journeys and his life between these walks. It examines the influences on his life, from becoming a monk at 9 years old, to setting up a college to promote ecology and spirituality. At 287 pages long it is not always an easy read, at times the journeys feel like a list of place names, and at other times his life seems very distant from our western daily routines. Though, this is a book which can be picked up and put down at your leisure and should therefore, with slower reading, give clearer indications as to why Satish Kumar undertakes these challenges and also why he makes life decisions that are perhaps alien to some of us. His life is indeed extraordinary and for readers who enjoy journeys of self-exploration, this book must be at the top of reading lists.

Life Changing!, 20 Aug 2008
This is a book of great insight and full of simple truths. Satish Kumar is a light in the darkness of a confused materialistic world. What he offers are suggestions as to how we might be able to get out of a fix through the stories of encounters with visionary people. One to read again and again.

Cheers

the best book ive read for years, 31 Aug 2003
from the very first page this is a work of rare genius, truly life changing and worth reading many times over, It is a personal and philosophical masterpiece that i would recommend to everyone.

philosophy student

indispensable, 18 Jun 2008
What, in less skilled hands, might have descended into a po-faced rant against the establishment, is in Van der Zee's, a concise, fluent and highly readable manual of rebellion.

Underpinned throughout by indispensable legal advice, the Guardian journalist takes us on a journey covering everything from climate change to Ghandi, Vietnam to the Tollpuddle martyrs, the anti-war movement to Bertrand Russell. Recommended for activists and non-activists alike.

The governors have nothing to support them but opinion (D. Hume), 24 Oct 2006
As N. Chomsky brilliantly states, `Alex Carey draws the veil of deceit and imposed ignorance in the struggle for freedom and justice.'
Alex Carey shows how corporate propaganda protects corporate power (the few) against democracy (the many). Skilled manipulation conceals the real human nature and the needs of the common man in the interest of corporate efficiency and profit, in other words, in the interest of the privileged segments of society.

The effectiveness of propaganda depends on the availability of emotionally charged symbols and ideas. The most powerful ones are nationalist symbols. Therefore, corporate propaganda tries to identify the free-enterprise system with US national values, and strong unions, interventionist governments, communists and alleged liberal fellow travelers with threats to national security, subversion and tyranny.
A surveillance network detects early signs of ideological drifts. Corrective persuasion is immediately disseminated through the media, completely controlled by fellow megacorporations. As the social scientist H.D. Lasswell said: `propaganda is the one means of mass mobilization which is cheaper than violence, bribery or other possible control techniques.'

Another means of manipulation is the filtering of social science studies. Only those which improve the industry's image and interests are propagated.
Alex Carey shows the nonsense and fundamental hypocrisy of alleged `basic' social experiments (the Hawthorne studies, the experiments of K. Lewin and F. Herzberg), which `prove' that salary, job security and good working conditions are only of secondary importance for employees. In the meantime, corporations pocket superprofits.
Alex Carey's dissection of the Hawthorne studies is simply devastating. He unmasks social scientists as servants of power and union busters.

This book contains also excellent historical information (the McCarthy crusade, the great steel strike of 1919) and exposes rightly the link between propaganda and the pragmatism of Dewey and W. James (the promotion of false beliefs is justified if they are socially useful).

This is a very revealing book and a must read for all those wanting to understand the world we live in.


I never read this book in school..., 26 Aug 1999
An excellent and scathing critique of modern information systems and how those symbols can channel thought to protect the powerful.

Alex Carey examines how Management, Gov't, and other powerful interests manipulate the symbols of our cultural life to destroy union solidarity, dillute political accountability, and distract attention away from issues (and solutions) that threaten those institutions.

Very well researched and cleverly developed, it is unfortunate that Carey's career was abruptly cut short. This book and those it has inspired stand strong, albeit quietly, in the face of the information control systems that they seek to expose.

Dense theoretical waffle from self-appointed movement leaders and academics, 26 Sep 2008
The target audience for this book is, according to the introduction, those interested in the British direct action movement of the '90s and early '00s. That audience will find nothing of any great worth here, certainly nothing that can't be found better elsewhere. It starts off badly as Tim Jordan waffles about social theory he doesn't understand, lunges vaguely at post-modernism, and makes grandiose claims about the future of the 'movement of movements'.

A series of oddly irrelevant chapters follows (bisexual politics, hacking, etc), finished off by an interview with some elderly Communists including Stuart Hall who have apparently started a (then) new left wing journal. They refuse to say anything that is not extremely general. The end.

There is a small amount of material in three of the chapters that might be useful to someone doing exhaustive research - Rupa Huq's average chapter on rave being one. But generally, steer well clear.

A note, unless the reader thinks I am being harsh, just because this is not the sort of book I could ever like. I am keen on serious academic writing (see my other reviews), and very sympathetic to the movements which the book tries to cover. But those movements need to be taken seriously, their stories told attentively, and on their own terms, not used as an opportunity for someone to rant about "difference" and "post-socialist politics" while sliding helplessly down the outside of an ivory tower.

A fascinating study of this influential group., 19 Mar 2001
James Barr, currently the Political Secretary to Francis Maude, has written a fascinating and thoroughly researched study of what remains one of the leading political think-tanks in British politics. The Bow Group, founded in 1951, was designed to counter the view prevalent at the time that the Conservatives were the 'stupid party' with nothing to offer in the way of intellectual debate. The founders of the group, including Geoffrey Howe, William Rees-Mogg and Norman St. John Stevas, were aspiring Tory thinkers who saw little to attract them in groups such as the Young Conservatives and who wished to take on the Socialist Fabians at their own game. Hence the Bow Group was formed to produce pamphlets based on original research into the political and social issues of the day. Deliberately eschewing any corporate manifesto, the group rapidly established itself as a centrist and free-thinking body of young graduates based predominantly in London and Birmingham. Harold Macmillan was soon forced to take note of them and, with the establishment of the magazine Crossbow in 1957, the group firmly placed itself on the political map.

Barr's fiftieth anniversary history is particularly interesting for the light it throws on the early thinking of men who were later to make their mark at the highest level. The list of prominent politicians who were at one time members of the group does, in fact, read like a who's who of the Thatcher and Major administrations, and it is not surprising to find that Michael Howard, Norman Lamont, Peter Lilley and Leon Brittan were all members. Barr chronicles each period of the group in a clear and even-handed way, turning the raw material of Bow Group publications, records and interviews with key members into a lively and compelling narrative. He is particularly good at unravelling the sometimes precarious financial fortunes of the group, mixing this with lighter material by way of anecdotes and lively accounts of the political crises in which the group occasionally enmeshed itself.

This book will undoubtedly take its place as an indispensable and seminal study of an important area of the post-war political landscape. Barr's achievement has been to make the material interesting and accessible to the casual observer of the political scene while also writing an important, academic study worthy of the group it chronicles. As a reviewer largely unfamiliar with the Bow Group before encountering this work, I warmly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in the period it covers.

Fantastic, 06 Sep 2004
This book is a must read for anyone doing chartism. The author, Richard Brown, is my history teacher at Manshead School, and he must be commended on this excellent book, and no doubt, with the help of this book and the an himself, i will achieve the grades i hope for.

A great insight into the radical issue of chartism, 04 Jan 2001
This is a very impressive book to read and study from cover to cover. Brown covers many aspects of the Chartist movement, its history, and related issues. As a second year A-Level student, I found this a very helpful source of background reading- it supported my studies no-end, and would even be suitable as a textbook for history classes. Brown should be commended for an excellent effort, he may be partly responsible for the high grades I will hopefully achieve this summer!

Excellent - should be part of the school curriculum, 19 Jun 2008
This is an excellent book, which I wholeheartedly believe should be part of any school final year curriculum, to help children understand the importance of self-reliance and entreprenuership. Garet Garrett really understood the issues of the time (which funnily enough are also the issues of today), and was able to narrate them clearly. Here, we have a man who saves an ailing railway and the national economy, but instead of being celebrated, he finds himself criticised, and ultimately destroyed, by those very people he lifted out of the gutter.

Sadly, this book is virtually unknown in the UK, which is a shame, as it is unmissable.

A True Classic, 14 May 2008
It's great to see this old classic back in print, newly typeset and with a brand new cover.

It stands as one of the true classics for people to read to understand the importance of civil liberties and a life without government interference and the politics of envy. This is one book I'm proud to have standing on my bookshelf.