The final insightful texts on Change

I recently drew attention to the fact that books on change divide into four very different typologies – the individual, the technological/commercial. the organisational and the societal – although a fifth field which tried to straddle all 3 fields (limited so far in principle rather than reality to capacity development) was evident in some recent titles such as The World We Create Tomas Bjorkman  2019; and Unlearn – a compass for radical transformation by Hans Burmeister (2021).

Until now, the only book I knew about which had tried to do justice to all 3 levels was Life and How to Survive it by Robin Skynner and John Cleese (1993) – a marvellous dialogue between a psychologist and the famous comedian. 

Only activists will have had experience of all three fields – and only central and Eastern Europeans have had the experience of the “transition” from communism to capitalism whose full effects have still to play themselves out. I’m fairly unusual in being a western European who has immersed himself in the transitology and development/modernisation literature which offers many insights into the process of change.

When you google “change” you tend to be offered either the material on “self-help” (which, intriguingly, now includes “resilience”) or that on “managing change”. To get the important material on mobilising “social change” you have to type that phrase in.

Such are the problems of labelling. But, as far as I’m concerned, they are all part and parcel of a process which needs to be treated as a whole

 

Key Texts about change – in ascending order. A lot of the titles can be read in full.

Title	Focus – and readership	Notes
Occupy Theory; Michael Albert (2012)	Activists	the first volume of a 3 volume series written to mark the Occupy movement, the others being Occupy Vision and Occupy Strategy
Can Democracy be Saved?  - participation, deliberation and social movements; Donatella Della Porta (2013)	Title self-explanatory   Academic	Useful to get an Italian approach on what is too often an anglo-saxon field
Waves of Democracy – social movements and political change; John Markoff (2013/1996)	Academic	More perhaps about the democratisation process than social change per se, its  geographical and historical spread is suitably wide
The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement; David Graeber (2014)	Activists, historians	One of the founders of Occupy Wall St who happens to be an anarchist and anthropologist recounts the fascinating story of the movement
Against Power Inequalities Henry Tam (2015)	General  reader	Inspiring romp through history for critical turning points
A Guide to Change and Change Management for Rule of Law Practitioners (2015)	Transition countries	rare attempt to bring the insights of change management to those trying to build “rule of law” in transition and developing countries
A Development Practitioners’ Notebook (OECD 2015)	Consultants	Marvellous insights into the practice of development work
Blueprint for Revolution S Popovic (2015)	???	A very strange book I wouldn’t recommend and include as an example of a How Not to Do Change!
How Change Happens Duncan Green (2016)	Community groups and officials	Great overview – if from a development experience perspective
Building State Capability – evidence, analysis, action; ed Matt Andrews et al (2017)	Academics, donors	Reflects the latest rethink about how to take proper account of the politics of “developing countries”
How to Resist; turn protest into power; Matt Bolton (2017)	Trade unionists, activists	A short manual for the British market – with overtones of Saul Alinsky’s “Reveille for Radicals” (see second entry in part !)
Can we know better? Reflections for Development; Robert Chambers (2017)	Experienced development activists	A rare book of wisdom from the 90-year-old guru of development studies
How Change Happens – why some social movements succeed while others don’t ; Leslie Crutchfield (2018)	Change agents	Very accessible – if a bit US-focused
Change – how to make big things happen; Damon Centola (2021)	General	Since Covid, we have become more aware of contagion. This US sociologist rather milks that to offer an all-encompassing theory
Unlearn – a compass for radical transformation Hans Burmeister (2021)	general	A rare attempt to cover all 3 levels – the individual, organisational and societal