Contemporary Systems Thinking is a series of texts, each of which deals comparatively and/or critically with different aspects of holistic thinking at the frontiers of the discipline. Traditionally, writings by systems thinkers have been concerned with single theme propositions such as general systems theory, cybernetics, operations research, system dyna- mics, soft systems methodology, and many others. Recently there have been attempts to fulfil a different, yet equally important, role by com- parative analyses of viewpoints and approaches, each addressing dispa- rate areas of study such as...