His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know." Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA. "If . anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer . everyone in management . should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and . even elegant diagrams." The Economist This is the second edition of a book which has already become a management 'standard' both in universities and on the bookshelves of managers and their advisers. Brain of the Firm develops an account of the firm based upon insights derived from the study of the human nervous system, and is a basic text from the author's theory of viable systems. Despite the neurophysiology, the book is written for managers to understand. The companion volume to this book is The Heart of Enterprise, which is intended to support and complement this text. "Stafford Beer's works represent required reading for everyone who believes that a capacity for rigorous thinking is an essential attribute of today's successful managers and administrators. Brain of the Firm shows a first-rate intellect at work and provides concepts, models and inspiration for both practitioners and teachers." Sir Douglas Hague, CBE

    

    

    Some said her success lay in treating women like horses and horses like women. She certainly tyrannized over both her staff and her clients, only cosseting her Derby-winning thoroughbreds and her pet dogs. Her business took the place of romance, and her racing stable gave her the entree into society she longed for. What need did she have for a man? Elizabeth Arden was born Florence Nightingale Graham, the daughter of an impecunious Canadian farmer. By the time she was thirty she had decided that only the rich were happy and that love and marriage were a trap. She planned to get rich by making other women pay to be beautiful. Backed by nothing more than determination, a gift for salesmanship, and a fictitious name, she proceeded to create a new industry. She worked harder than anyone else and permitted no one - rival, husband, or lover - to stand in her way. It was only at night she showed any weakness, for she couldn't bear to be alone. Someone, usually one of her treatment girls, had to be there to hold her hand until she went to sleep. This Cinderella married twice - she got a prince on the second try - but she never let anyone else run the business. She kicked out her first husband after fifteen years, with no share of the empire he had helped create. The second husband barely lasted beyond one of the more overcrowded honeymoons in history.This complex, interesting, infuriating woman covered a lot of territory, from New York, to Paris to London to Palm Beach to Phoenix and beyond. She eventually knew Everyone from the influential Elisabeth Marbury to the Queen of England. Her story is packed with anecdotes of her high-handed ways with great and small. It is an extraordinary and enthralling tale.