Participatory management is a system of industrial relations purporting to involve employees in workplace decisionmaking. In its various guises, such as quality circles, self-directed work teams, and the like, participatory management has been adopted by thousands of U.S. corporations. It is widely endorsed by business leaders, academics, politicians, and even some union leaders. Yet despite a mountain of book and articles on the topic, participatory management also remains poorly understood.

The literature remains disappointingly vague when it comes to explaining how and why employee involvement has beneficial results. At the risk of being flippant, one can summarize much of the literature as follows: Participating employees are happy employees and happy employees are productive employees. Ergo, participating employees are productive employees. Unfortunately for the conventionally wise, the evidence simply does not support this claim. To be sure, there is some evidence that participatory management has positive productivity effects. But the evidence is highly tenuous and far from conclusive. Lots of interesting questions are still unanswered by any study, let alone a methodologically sound one. As to those questions that have been addressed, studies differ radically in their specification and measurement of dependent and independent variables. Methodologies differ widely ranging from collections of anecdotes that scarcely rise above the level of testimonial to rigorous econometric studies. Even as to methodologically rigorous studies, there is good reason to doubt the quality of the data sets. Failures tend to be under-reported. Hidden costs are ignored. Many data sets are inherently subject to a selection bias to the extent that they focus on firms that have adopted participatory management. Such firms are a self-selected group, whose predispositions may affect the success of participatory management.

John Cotton's "Employee Involvement" is a comprehensive review of the literature that is fair, intellectually rigorous and honest. Cotton summarizes the empirical work through the mid-1990s as reaching conclusions that are all over the map, ranging from finding no benefit to inconclusive results to finding substantial gains. Usefully, while he provides an overview of the entire field, Cotton focuses his analysis by dividing the universe of employee involvement programs into 7 distinct forms. Each form is described, both generically and with an illustrative anecdotal example, which is followed by a careful summary of the empirical literature. In the last chapter, Cotton draws some appropriately cautious conclusions. One conclusion that I think is indisputable is the importance of firm culture. Employee involvement programs vary a lot, and a key determinant of their success is the culture of the firm. Neither firms nor workers are homogeneous and programs that work well for one will flop at another. Because managers often approach employee involvement programs the way teenagers approach the latest fad, Cotton's analysis provides a useful cautionary tale.

This book is an interesting review of all the new methodologies use to research in ethnobotany. It also show how plants are important for humans, and the relationship between humans and plants. In addition, it contains a lot interesting information about the plants and their differents properties; such as medicinal, food, etc.

Ken Cotton co-authored the 'classic' paper on estimating steam turbine performance (together with Spencer and Cannon). Rumor has it that this paper became a rare commodity after GE lost an antitrust suit: GE does not admit to the presence of this paper any longer. However, this paper is the still authoritative source for calculating efficiency of steam turbines in design and off-design conditions. Now, Ken Cotton has included all this useful information in the book being reviewed. Like the SCC paper, it is densely packed with information on estimating and improving steam turbine efficiency. Also, like the paper, it will be a rare commodity as it is self-published. I recommend anyone in the steam turbine community to run out and buy this book before it is too late. Ken Cotton is not a youngster, and, as you can tell from the publisher's name, Cotton Fact, the publication's fate is intimately linked with the author.

Williams' book deals with the issue of export agriculture in Central America and its repercussions on the economic, ecological, and social well-being of this troubled region. Williams divides the book into three parts, according to the main exports of Latin America. First, Williams deals with cotton's emergence as a cash crop and its positive and negative aspects. Second, Williams deals with cattle and the effects it has had upon the land and the men who till it. This book is interesting in the way it views the cash crops in an economic light and in the ways they affect farmers, large
farmers, and the working class.

The environment has blessed Central America with some of the best land anywhere on earth. Central America's pacific coastal plain, for example, is ideal for growing cotton. The ecological consequences of growing cotton, however, are quite severe. The stress on the soil is severe, considering this crop is not for subsistence. While the law requires that the land be cleared as to protect the land, it is nearly inevitable to prevent the volcanic soils to be vulnerable from wind and water erosion. In the rainy season, however, thunderstorms take their toll on the soil since they make the land prone to flooding. This damage is in addition to the fact that the best lands are used for the production of cotton, while simultaneously polluting the coastal eco-system. The fertility of the soil was short lived in Central America, since after four or five years of consecutive cultivation the light soils of the coastal plain began to lose their natural fertility. This, in turn, led to the need to use chemicals to yield more crops per acre of land.

In regards to cattle, Williams argues that the emerging demand for beef in the United States as a result of the fast food business precipitated the need to make subsistence plots in Latin America land for cattle grazing. For institutions like the World Bank, AID and IADB cattle was seen as a pragmatic, quick way to achieve export led growth. By most accounts, this land was carved from Central American forests. Swidden agriculture (slash and burn) practiced by indigenous allowed for the land to be regenerated after the patch had been abandoned. Under modern methods of forest clearing, the land is almost always relegated to remaining fallow. Modern methods of clearing have allowed for flatlands below the grazing grounds to become subject to flooding. Williams concludes that for those privileged enough to gain access to bank credit, the beef export boom meant a quick way to expand their fortunes, while for those who planted for survival it spelled impending doom.

As a quilter, I enjoyed the information in this book. It is especially useful in helping make decisions on purchasing and using our fabrics. An added extra is my showing children the process by which cotton becomes fabric - the machinery is well photographed and helps children get a visual picture.

'The Hallelujah Revolution' is a look at one of the most interesting Christian phenomena at the turn of the Millennium - the rapid growth of the Evangelical / Charismatic movement. A movement now spreading so rapidly that, according to Cotton, "far from being on the fringe, Evangelicals are currently taking over the mainstream."

Cotton spends the first half of the book looking at the characteristics and origins of this movement. He defines these new Christians as follows: Evangelicals believe that the essence of the Gospels consists in the doctrine of salvation by faith in the atoning death of Christ. They therefore deny that either good works or the sacraments have any saving efficacy, while seeing themselves as having a responsibility to bring others to Christ. The term 'Charismatic' refers to Christians who seek a post conversion experience called 'baptism in the Holy Spirit'. Such baptism may bring one or more of these gifts: - ability to speak in tongues, to perform healing through prayer, to prophesy, to discern spirits, perform exorcisms and deliverances, and, receive dreams and visions.

Cotton sees the social origins of the E/C movement as arising from the particular uncertainties of the late Twentieth Century. These enduring uncertainties and the impotence of rationalism in solving them created a Zeitgeist in which people desire simultaneously both the solid certainties of doctrine, and the fluid outpourings of charisma. The E/C movement derives its doctrinal certainty from the Bible, while its outpourings of charisma lead to social action from a sense of community responsibility. The examples given of faith in action, supplanting ineffective social welfare agencies, are of Ichthus (runs many programs, such as for teenagers on drugs), and Pecan (a successful back to work scheme). They have a touching directness and unpretentiousness about them.

The accounts of conversion experiences provide compelling reading, both for the human interest, and because of the obvious transformational effect of the conversion. The section (chapter 8) on the drug induced conversion of both 'tripping' partners shows how the change becomes real, extends through all aspects of their lives, and out into the community around them.

However in the second half of the book Cotton digs himself into a hole and he cannot get out of it. He implicitly accepts the Freudian view of religion as psychopathology. Freud claimed religion has as its source a neurotic remnant of infantile adoration of the father. The adult, unable to face the uncertainties of living, projects the infantile adoration of the father onto an imagined 'super-father' we call God, who becomes responsible for controlling all the uncertainties of life beyond our control.

From this present but unstated axiom Cotton shoulders the self-defeating task of examining the inspirational or divine from a materialist perspective. In a range of reductive chapters he tries to source the religious experience to psychological origins, or organic determinants in the brain. He cites the association of stress and uncertainty in people in the pre-conversion phase. He notes the similarities between the processes of conversion and brain washing. He peruses the 'religious' experiences of Huxley who took LSD and Mescaline, and the surgeon Wilder Penfield's work on electrical stimulation of parts of the cerebral cortex. But he leaves the important questions unasked: Does the documented association of stress and uncertainty with the pre conversion state necessarily devalue the conversion? Have LSD experiences been real enough to sustain a lifetime of LSD religion, and have they wrought transformational changes to values? If electrical stimulation of the cortex leads to an experience with religious content does this imply a non-validity of faith, and does the same apply when such stimulation leads to experiences involving hunger or sexual content?

There are interesting chapters on misdiagnoses in claimed miracle cures, on an experiment on therapeutic touch, and on Michael Persinger's laboratory induced mystical experiences. There is also a fashionably obligatory but pointless chapter on Left/Right Brain functioning.

This book is an interesting work, but ultimately limited by its reductive approach, which is insufficient to explain the teleological shift to a set of higher values. There is no doubt that transformational changes are wrought in the lives of converts, and these changes go well beyond the shedding of one ideology for commitment to another. They include better mental health and more effective lives over a range of areas, and in particular, improved social relations and greater ability to face and deal with problems. Any work attempting to fairly assess the E/C movement must address this issue. And there is also a wider theological issue that requires addressing: How can the E/C movement be so effective and lead to enduring and far reaching transformational changes in the lives of converts when at its heart there is a self contradictory paradox?

The paradox of Christian fundamentalism is that an omnipotent and omnipresent God is bound by the same space/time limitations that bind you and I. God is, in effect, trapped in His decreed limitation set by the Dispensation of Grace 2000 years ago, when at a precise point in history the Divine and Temporal intersected. The fundamentalist Christian claim is that God's grace and presence in the lives of man can only be validated by commitment to today's version of what transpired at that time, through the redeeming blood of Christ in the Atonement. But what of God? Is He bound by these rules, or can He redeem whosoever He chooses, or even send later exhalted souls to guide men?

An omnipotent and omnipresent God contradicts the fundamentalist reference back to the a priori requirement of the Atonement. Yet, despite their essentially mechanistic theology there is a transformational power at work in these Christians. How can this be? What are the implications?

As cotton says, "Clearly we are living through the fastest expansion of Christianity ever...." It is a pity his account of 'the rise of the new Christians' did not look at some of these other questions that dogged his heels at every step.

I find this book an outstanding introduction to issues related to human impact on weather and climate. Authors elected to divide the discussion into three main parts, dictated primarily by the scale of perturbation. The first part deals with some of the most striking examples of controlled human impact on weather: modification of clouds, hail suppression and modification of tropical cyclones. The presentation is clear, with many interesting historical and technical details and is inspirational for people interested in cloud processes. The second part shows that humankind modified already weather and climate at local and regional scale. Such human impacts are: anthropogenic emissions of aerosols and gases, urban induced changes in precipitation and weather, and impacts caused by land use. Authors did a good job is showing that regional scale atmospheric perturbations are by far the most intense and have clear fingerprints in observations as well as in numerical models. Finally, the third part has a broad presentation of human impact on global climate. This is well illustrated with climatic effects of anthropogenic aerosols, possible nuclear winter scenarios, and with the greenhouse theory. I think students as well as a broad spectrum of readers interested in Earth sciences will benefit from reading this book.

The book was obviously written for historians, and more particularly those historians interested in the British Navy during the Napoleanic era. Nonetheless there is much to be learned by the laymen who are interested in what life was like for the average naval officer during that period. The names of Nelson and the others parade in and out of the pages of this book as the story of Charles Cotton unfolds; the story of a non-hero who began his career off the coast of North America during the war for American Independence and rose through the ranks to become commander of the Mediterranean Fleet and of the Channel Fleet before his career came to an untimely end. Cotton's career did not afford him the distinction of fame and fortune but he faithfully served both king and country. His career was certainly more the norm that those of his famous contemporaries. The very nature of this book demands the inclusion of many names, dates, and places, but in spite of all the data, the author has made it a fast moving story that will hold the interest of professional and amateur historians alike.

The Last Puritan
By Peter Clifford, Esq.

"The New England conscience...does not stop you from doing what you shouldn't - it just stops you from enjoying it." Cleveland Amory

There are few things as perplexing as the study of the "New England conscience." Our thinking is, or should be, rooted in this ethical tradition.

Are we, like Thoreau and Emerson, at the forefront of philosophical thinking? Or are we dullards, living in a philosophical backwater? Have our values changed over the centuries, or have they been constant?

New Englanders typically flatter themselves by taking credit for the American Revolution, the Romantic and Transcendental movements, the abolition of slavery, philosophical pragmatism, even the creation of sliced bread. Those from other parts of the country see us as obnoxious, cranky, hypocritical, and cheap.

The truth lies somewhere in between. There are two dominant themes that emerge from a study of New England thinking: The rejection of Puritanism, and a resulting spirit of inventiveness.

New England inventiveness is personified by one of my personal heroes. Chester Greenwood, the legendary inventor of the earmuff, was an Oxford County native, His brilliance saved literally millions of cold and raw ears from frostbite. However, his story must wait for another day.

Today, we look at Puritanism, specifically the "Last Puritan," Cotton Mather. In The Life and Times of Cotton Mather, Kenneth Silverman examines Mather's complex life, and the resulting history of New England. This important book compares the history of early New England with the subsequent history of revolutionary New England. The comparison shows how we transformed from a land of faith and tyranny into a land of reason, commerce and science.

During the first hundred years, New Englanders rejected the idea of political freedom, and the idea of commercial society. Puritans saw human nature as, (not to mince words), evil. To paraphrase, life stunk. For all but a tiny minority of saints, after this lousy life, we die. Although it is difficult to understand how this appealing philosophy died out, we must try.

Like other philosophical pessimists, such as Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Freud, Puritans believed human nature was unchangeable. Puritans tried to eliminate natural desires for power and aggression. They suppressed all efforts at rebellion. The Puritans' solution was strict conformity, based on rigid moral codes. These codes were enforced by an all-powerful theocratic ministry.

New Englanders, like sassy children, have never liked theocratic ministries. They didn't like them in 1650, and they don't like them now. We like to argue, backstab, and criticize.

Eventually, Puritanism was overthrown in New England. Since this overthrow, we have never gone back. We have held firm to democracy, and the spirit of the Declaration of Independence.

Why did we reject Puritanism, and its leader, Cotton Mather? Have we retained any of our Puritan heritage? Why have we held true to our resulting democratic roots?

Three words: Salem Witch Trials.

In 1692, Mather, Boston's leading Puritan Minister, wrote an article to warn the faithful. The pamphlet was called Memorable Providences. It described the story of several Boston adolescents who experienced "strange fits."

Mather came to believe that Goody Glover, an "ignorant and scandalous old woman," somehow caused the fits. His reasoning seemed natural enough: whenever the kids were near Goody, they started acting up. Goody liked to curse. She also liked to play with dolls - voodoo dolls, with pins in them. Based on this overwhelming evidence, and a series of lengthy interviews with the victims, Mather ultimately concluded that Goody was a witch.

After Mather's article began to circulate in New England, preachers started warning the faithful about witches. Other young girls, and a few boys, began to experience similar fits. These fits usually occurred when the youngsters were near powerless women. Eventually, a group of girls in Salem accused three women of being witches: a slave, an old woman, and a beggar, Sarah Good. They were quickly tried.

The judges at the witch trials, took their lead from Mather,. Based on his analysis, they allowed proof of witchcraft through the use of "spectral evidence." Spectral evidence consisted of the accuser's testimony that he or she saw ghostlike images of the accused haunting the accuser. (You'll be happy to note that since the Daubert and Kumho rulings. spectral evidence is no longer allowed in Maine courtrooms.)

Tragically, several hundred people were either accused or jailed as witches. On one day alone, eight of nine accused witches were hanged. Over the course of that terrible year, 19 men and women were executed.

Silverman has a powerful explanation for both the fits and the hysteria of the witch trials:

"When read in the context of a society that demanded utter submission from the young, Cotton Mather's account of the Goodwin children becomes a tale of sassy adolescents who loathed washing their hands, going to bed or doing their chores. ... "

(Ironically, the author's children do not like washing their hands, going to bed, or doing their chores).

Puritan religious life angered these children. Rebellion was, however, not permitted.

Reforms enacted after the trials took away much of the power of the ministry. This rebellious generation of New Englanders, led by Franklin, John Adams, Sam Adams, and John Hancock, eventually became the revolutionary generation. Based on the recent events in New England, they insisted on separation of church and state, a free press, freedom from arbitrary arrest, and freedom of expression. Freed from theocracy, and conformity, the founding fathers believed that human society would steadily improve, so long as it was free and well educated. Ironically, these same Founding Fathers accepted the moral teachings of Mather, so long as they could do so voluntarily, on their own terms.
If there is a historical positive resulting from our Puritan heritage, it is that religious and intellectual freedom became essential. The liberties of America were enacted in response to the religious horrors of Europe and America in the seventeenth century.

Those horrors still exist. Repression will not work. It never has.

I first read this book back in 1992 as part of my research for my doctoral thesis, and found it a verbal delight (Mather is an excellant author), a spiritual challenge (Mather was an intense devotionalist, and set high standards for himself and his readers), and amazingly current. Mather knows what real ministry is like, in the real world of people which has not changed. You will be refreshed and challenged for ministry. This, and the realization that we have a document of genuine historical value as we gain a persecptive into the Puritan mind from one of its greatest American advocates.