Negative Positive
Title: This is the book
Review: Originally published by Heinz von Foerster and the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois, but out of print and unavailable for 20+ years, this, by far the greatest cybernetics collection between two covers, has been rescued and brought back into print by Future Systems. Articles, diagrams, definitions, illustrations, and aphorisms are collected and creatively indexed. Ashby, Bateson, Beer, Hardin, Maturana, McCulloch, Pask, Powers, von Foerster, and Wiener are all here, as are many others. This collection is not perfect (where is Maruyama?), but the cybernetic ideas live and breathe here as they do nowhere else. For the student who has heard the words but not yet the music of cybernetics, this is the place to start. For the professional cybernetician, of whatever stripe or trade union (and who may well have been on the lookout for this collection for decades), this is the place to return.
Is the review positive or negative? 