Books
Five books over more than a decade, with a common theme of systemic change. Ranging from public policy, scenarios, resilience, to a novel wrestling with the origin of our prediction for reductionist thought.
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Falling in Love While Stuffing a Zebra
Reviews
Charming, erudite, entertaining, informative, ingenious and philosophically intriguing. As with magical realism, this novel blends the mundane with the marvelous—except in this case, the marvelous emerges not from magic but from historical characters and amazing documented details.
Kupers takes us into Enlightenment Paris with a story that is both cleverly light and yet thoughtful and melancholy: a taxidermist, a zebra, and a circle of historical figures, who take us on an adventure into such provocative questions as: what makes things unique, what is natural, how best to handle loss, can love heal us or not? It’s engaging, erudite, and refreshingly original — a philosophical novel that also entertains.
A unique read combining an entertaining yarn about a taxidermist and a commission to preserve a zebra, guest appearances by various historical figures and stimulating philosophical reflections on the limits of reductionism. Propounding systems thinking in the form of a novel is a master stroke by Kupers. Read, smile and reflect!
Roland Kupers has a rare talent to make complexity simple, to make the entanglement of humans with their environment tangible, understandable – and fun. By doing so he engages a broad audience in these important ways of seeing and being in the world. We need experimenters and storytellers like Roland to shift minds to a truly planetary way of looking at current affairs.
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A Climate Policy Revolution: What the Science of Complexity Reveals about Saving the Planet
Reviews & related writing
- Book review: Terwilliger, J. (2022). A Climate Policy Revolution — Environmental Politics
- Editorial: Project Syndicate — How the Pandemic Can Revolutionize Climate Policy
- Article: Politica Exterior — El tiempo se acaba — Ante el cambio climático necesitamos una revolución, no una reforma paulatina. Promoverla requiere que la economía deje paso a la ciencia de los sistemas complejos, capaz de abordar este desafío de manera inmediata.
- Interview: EcoBusiness Singapore interview — We can’t rely on governments or businesses—we need a climate policy revolution
- Interview: BCG Henderson interview — Embracing the Complexity of Climate Change
- Editorial: The Mint Magazine — An inconveniently complex truth
- Editorial: ICAEW editorial — Climate change and accountancy: when government action falls short
- Review: The Times Higher Education — ‘Revolution’ coming on education, complexity, climate
- Interview: Rocky Mountain Institute interview — The book takes a refreshing look at climate policy, and is both concise and accessible.
- Blog: Florence School of Regulation — Complex systems require surgical interventions through regulation to tweak their dynamic.
Videos
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Complexity and the Art of Public Policy: Solving Society’s Problems from the Bottom Up
Reviews
- Amazon.com — Herbert Gintis: “Best Book on Public Policy in Years”
- 11 Smart Books You Should Read This Summer — 250 Words: “Maybe the most groundbreaking book on this list.”
- The Enlightened Economist: “Slow demise of the economist ex machina”
- The Evolution Institute: “A Book That Changes The Way We Think About The Economy And Government”
- Buchanan – Bloomberg View: “Colander and Kupers’s book ought to be on every policy maker’s reading list”
- Arnold Kling, It’s Complicated — Library of Economics and Liberty: “I strongly recommend Complexity. It is by far the most stimulating nonfiction book I have read this year.”
- Public Administration Review: “In my opinion, they have succeeded in providing a convincing argument for why and how complexity science should have a much bigger role in (thinking about) policy making.”
- Journal of Economic Literature — Kirman: “Complexity and Economic Policy: A Paradigm Shift or a Change in Perspective? A Review Essay on David Colander and Roland Kupers’s Complexity and the Art of Public Policy”
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The Essence of Scenarios: Learning from the Shell Experience
Video
Reviews
- Jefferson in Technological Forecasting & Social Change: “The most detailed, balanced and satisfactory account to have appeared in print. For anyone interested in following the history of Shell’s work on developing, and seeking to apply, scenarios, this is an essential read.”
- Futurista blog: “The book gives us an insight in the development and finetuning of the ‘gentle art’ of scenario planning in Shell and is basically a unique case study with educational insights for both beginners and more experienced foresight experts.”
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Turbulence: A corporate perspective on collaborating for resilience
Video
Related
- Swiss Re 2014 Corporate Responsibility Report: “This 188 page publication presents the tools and concepts developed by the members of the Resilience Action Initiative to foster resilience in an increasingly turbulent world. Swiss Re contributed a full chapter focusing on enterprise resilience.”
Open access
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