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Complexity

Life at the Edge of Chaos

"Put together one of the world’s best science writers with one of the universe’s most fascinating subjects and you are bound to produce a wonderful book. . . . The subject of complexity is vital and controversial. This book is important and beautifully done."—Stephen Jay Gould

"[Complexity] is that curious mix of complication and organization that we find throughout the natural and human worlds: the workings of a cell, the structure of the brain, the behavior of the stock market, the shifts of political power. . . . It is time science . . . thinks about meaning as well as counting information. . . . This is the core of the complexity manifesto. Read it, think about it . . . but don’t ignore it."—Ian Stewart, Nature

This second edition has been brought up to date with an essay entitled "On the Edge in the Business World" and an interview with John Holland, author of Emergence: From Chaos to Order.


242 pages | 30 halftones, 4 line drawings, 5 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2000

Biological Sciences: Evolutionary Biology

Economics and Business: Business--Business Economics and Management Studies

Table of Contents

The View from Chaco Canyon
Beyond Order and Magic
Edge of Chaos Discovered
Explosions and Extinctions
Life in a Computer
Stability and the Reality of Gaia
Complexity and the Reality of Progress
The Veil of Consciousness
The View from the Edge
Afterword: On the Edge in the World of Business

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