Thinking in Systems: A Primer (MEADOWS, Donella H.)

“Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind.” —Hunter Lovins, founder and President, Natural Capital Solutions and co-author of Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution

“When I read Thinking in Systems I am reminded of the enormity of the gap between systemic thinkers and policy makers. If this book helps narrow the gap, it will be Dana's greatest contribution.” —Lester Brown, founder and President, Earth Policy Institute

“The publication of Thinking in Systems is a landmark... This book is destined to shape our understanding of socio-ecological systems in the years to come in much the same way that Silent Spring taught us to understand the nature of ecosystems in the 1960s and 1970s.” —Oran Young, Professor, Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at University of California, Santa Barbara

“Dana Meadows was one of the smartest people I ever knew, able to figure out the sensible answer to almost any problem. This book explains how she thought, and hence is of immense value to those of us who often wonder what she’d make of some new problem. A classic.” —Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

“This clear, fun-to-read synthesis will help diverse readers everywhere to grasp and harness how our complex world really works.” —Amory Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute

In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows remained at the forefront of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Long anticipated, Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. A woman whose pioneering i work in the 1970s still makes front-page news, Donella Meadows was a scientist, author, teacher, and farmer widely considered ahead of her time. She was one of the world’s foremost systems analysts, winner of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, and Pulitzer Prize-nominee for her long-running newspaper column. She died unexpectedly in 2001 as she neared completion of Thinking in Systems.

For more information, visit www.ThinkinglnSystems.org.