<p>Building upon the Age of Possibility first espoused in their provocative and acclaimed The 500 Year Delta, Watts Wacker and Jim Taylor now welcome readers to the Age of Uncertainty, where, because life has never been easier, it has never been more difficult.</p>
<p>In this unprecedented new book, Wacker and Taylor present a vision of the present and future that goes beyond all the chaos and complexity of our times. With a clear and firm grasp of their material, they proceed to chart a method for readers to create a personal course for the future. </p>
<p>This navigational route is premised upon the authors' profound understanding of nine mind-boggling paradoxes that capture the imponderables of modern life, and define the business and social climates of the world as we move forward into the new millennium:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of the Visionary</strong> The closer your vision gets to a provable truth, the more you are simply describing the present. In the same way, the more certain you are of a future outcome, the more likely you will be wrong.</li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Value</strong> The value of any product becomes inseparable from a buyer's perception of worth. Instead of intrinsic value, we have relative value only--the products that a business makes bear diminished relations to the physical content of the offering.</li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Size</strong> The bigger you are, the smaller you need to be. </li>
<li> <strong>The Paradox of Time</strong> To succeed in the short term, you need to think in the long term. Yet the greater your vision and the longer the time interval over which you predict results, the greater the risk that you will be unable to take the necessary steps in the short term to achieve the long-term goals. The tension between short- and long-term planning has never been more tormented.</li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Competition</strong> Your biggest competitor is your own view of your future; competition comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. </li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Action</strong> You've got to go for what you can't expect to get; nothing will turn out exactly as it's supposed to. You must act intuitively and be equally ready to take resolute counter-intuitive action. </li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Leadership</strong> To lead from the front, you have to stay inside the story. In an inherently inconsistent world, consistency is not the virtue it once was in our leaders.</li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Leisure</strong> Play is hard work; play and work are blending and becoming indistinguishable. </li>
<li>
<strong>The Paradox of Reality</strong> Every person on planet Earth today has the potential to be connected to every other person, and every single one of us inhabits a world of our own and is a marketing segment of absolutely one. As our links become stronger, our individuation becomes starker.</li>
</ul>
<p>A bold, incisive book, The Visionary's Handbook captures the interlocking web o paradoxes that abound in everyday business life, and provides an essential map to help make the future work for every individual and every company in the challenging and uncertain times ahead.</p>

The Visionary's Handbook: Nine Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business

Business & Money

Means, Howard

Taylor, Jim

Wacker, Watts

Management & Leadership

Harper Business

<p>From the moment of Lincoln’s death on April 15, 1865, until Andrew Johnson, his replacement, formally announced postwar plans on May 29, the fate of the country hung in the balance. War had left the Republic strained almost beyond endurance. Johnson’s ascendancy to the presidency seemed the killing stroke even to the victorious North. A former slave owner from the border state of Tennessee, Johnson had been drunk at his inauguration as vice president; he was hated equally by the South and the North. Some Northerners were even convinced he had been part of the conspiracy behind Lincoln’s assassination. Later, he escaped impeachment by a single vote.   As Howard Means reveals in this revisionist, powerfully persuasive, and absorbingly dramatic account of Johnson’s first six weeks in office, the new president faced almost insurmountable odds. Yet, as Means shows, Johnson not only met but overcame them, preserving the Union for which so many had sacrificed their lives.</p>

The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Mariner Books

<p>At midday on May 4, 1970, after three days of protests, several thousand students and the Ohio National Guard faced off at opposite ends of the grassy campus Commons at Kent State University. At noon, the Guard moved out. Twenty-four minutes later, Guardsmen launched a 13-second, 67-shot barrage that left four students dead and nine wounded, one paralyzed for life. The story doesn't end there, though. A horror of far greater proportions was narrowly averted minutes later when the Guard and students reassembled on the Commons.<br><br>The Kent State shootings were both unavoidable and preventable: unavoidable in that all the discordant forces of a turbulent decade flowed together on May 4, 1970, on one Ohio campus; preventable in that every party to the tragedy made the wrong choices at the wrong time in the wrong place.<br><br>Using the university's recently available oral-history collection supplemented by extensive new interviewing, Means tells the story of this iconic American moment through the eyes and memories of those who were there, and skillfully situates it in the context of a tumultuous era.<br></p>

67 Shots: Kent State and the End of American Innocence

History

Americas

Grand Central Publishing

<p><b>Choose a stroke and get paddling through the human history of swimming!</b> <div><b><br /></b></div> <div> <div>From man's first recorded dip into what's now the driest spot on earth to the splashing, sparkling pool party in your backyard, humans have been getting wet for 10,000 years. And for most of modern history, swimming has caused a ripple that touches us all--the heroes and the ordinary folk; the real and the mythic.</div> <div><br /></div> <div><i>Splash!</i> dives into Egypt, winds through ancient Greece and Rome, flows mostly underground through the Dark and Middle Ages (at least in Europe), and then reemerges in the wake of the Renaissance before taking its final lap at today's Olympic games. Along the way, it kicks away the idea that swimming is just about moving through water, about speed or great feats of aquatic endurance, and shows you how much more it can be. Its history offers a multi-tiered tour through religion, fashion, architecture, sanitation and public health, colonialism, segregation and integration, sexism, sexiness, guts, glory, and much, much more.</div> <div><br /></div> <div>Unique and compelling, <i>Splash!</i> sweeps across the whole of humankind's swimming history--and just like jumping into a pool on a hot summer's day, it has fun along the way.</div> </div></p>

Splash!: 10,000 Years of Swimming

Sports & Outdoors

Miscellaneous

Colin Powell

"Colin Powell is the most effective general officer we've had since George Marshall."H. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPFGeneral Colin Powell embodies the fulfillment of the American Dream. Born in Harlem to a wonderfuly supportive family of Jamaican heritage, and raised in the poverty-ridden South Bronx, Powell's discipline and determination drove him to become the highest-ranking military official in the nation. Now, after 120 interviews with family, colleagues, and General Powell himself, Washington insider Howard Means traces the extraordinary life of the man behind the medals.

Leaders & Notable People

Ballantine Books

Money and Power: The History of Business

<b>The dramatic story of greed, money, power, and the moguls and dynasties that have shaped business</b> <p>From merchant ships to microchips, industry has been defined by the powerful business leaders who have caused seismic shifts in the growth of commerce. The companion book to the acclaimed CNBC documentary, Money and Power takes readers on a gripping journey following the movement of power from east to west-from the feudal estates of medieval Europe to the halls of modern finance, from the teeming streets of ancient Venice to the serene campuses of Silicon Valley-to tell the story of how business shaped the modern world, and how the goals of a few ambitious people paved the way to the wealth and prosperity shared by so much of the world's population today.</p> <p>A dramatic narrative focusing on the groundbreakers throughout history-from St. Godric, the twelfth-century monk reviled for his love of money to Bill Gates, the contemporary embodiment of money and power-traces the roots of banking, industry, commerce, and power. Fever-pitch moments in the book center around pivotal figures such as Cosimo de Medici, Philip II, the Rothschilds, J. P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, Henry Ford and others. The authors also extract important lessons about the strategies and tactics used to build these business empires.</p>

Grubin, David

Professionals & Academics

John Wiley&Sons, Inc.

<p>In a speculative thriller based on the premise that the South had won the Civil War, President Spencer Jefferson Lee discovers that his world of very separate races is threatened by DRAGO, a protest group made up of cross-racial lovers and their children</p>

CSA - Confederate States of America

Literature & Fiction

United States

William Morrow

Colin Powell: Soldier/Statesman, Statesman/Soldier

BOOKS-ON-TAPE, INC.

The Banana Sculptor, the Purple Lady, and the All-Night Swimmer: Hobbies, Collecting, and Other Passionate Pursuits

<p>A humorous study of American leisure explores a wide variety of unusual activities and hobbies, from swimming the Great Lakes to growing bonsai trees. 35,000 first printing.</p>

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Sheehan, Susan

Mental Health

Simon&Schuster

In a speculative thriller based on the premise that the South had won the Civil War, President Spencer Jefferson Lee discovers that his world of very separate races is threatened by DRAGO, a protest group made up of cross-racial lovers and their children.

C.S.A.: Confederate States of America

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Dove Entertainment Inc

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Books by Means, Howard