Marshall Brickman, mayor of Sand Pail City, can't escape his past when a newcomer evokes some bitter feelings that could cause the downfall of his political and entrepreneurial empire. During the eighties, Brickman was instrumental in transforming a once sleepy fishing village into a sprawling wonderland of ocean side shopping, restaurants, and golf communities for the retired and affluent. Everything seems to be going fine as he makes preparations to become the new lieutenant governor can...

The emergence of a true systemic science - the systemic one - capable of rigorously addressing the many problems posed by the design and management of the evolution of modern complex systems is therefore urgently needed if wants to be able to provide satisfactory answers to the many profoundly systemic challenges that humanity will have to face at the dawn of the third millennium. This emergence is of course not easy because one can easily understand that the development of the systemic is...