Michael Cavanagh – författare

In democratic societies, it is said that wars and military interventions are fought in the name of the citizens of the nation engaged in the conflict. Yet, ordinary citizens, the major stakeholders in war, are seldom provided with as much information for making and acting on their moral decisions about war as they are about many other national issues that affect them. To fill the void, this volume addresses the nature of conscience, various moral norms, a moral decision-making process, and the theoretical and practical issues involved in attempting to avoid war or at least to make it as moral as possible, considering its nature.By discussing how the morality of war differs from its political, military, economic and legal dimensions, this unique work attempts to enable citizens to make informed decisions about declaring, waging and ending war, and to act on those decisions.Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Nobel Prize winning Irish writer Seamus Heaney has been an ambitious critic as well as poet, publishing five books of literary criticism in the four decades of his career. This book surveys his critical essays, setting forth Heaney's poetics- his concept of what poetry should be and what its uses are- and relating them to his practice as a poet.The first full-length study of Heaney's poetics, Professing Poetry explores Heaney's unusual concept of influence and the various ways in which Heaney interacts with other writers. It shows how Heaney, writing brilliantly about others, establishes quiet partnerships with them. It shows as well how he sometimes resists writers, sometimes misrepresenting them and even himself in the process. The book returns frequently to Heaney's anxiety about poetry's justification, to his wariness of the politicizing of poetry, and to his spirited and eloquent defense of what he calls poetry's ""redress."" Heaney wants to ""make sense"" of poetry in the context of the modern world, but he feels the pull of contradictory opinions. Poetry, he sometimes thinks, should immerse us in the world. At other times Heaney thinks it redeems us by putting us at a distance from the world.Professing Poetry aspires to a simple language described by Heaney in Finders Keepers as one in which ""there will be no gap between the professional idiom and the personal recognition."" The study considers Heaney's relations with Robert Lowell, Dante, Philip Larkin, Patrick Kavanagh, T.S. Eliot, W.B. Yeats, and others.

A record of a teacher’s lifelong love affair with the beauty, wit, and pro­fundity of Paradise Lost, celebrating John Milton’s un-doctrinal, complex, and therefore deeply satisfying perception of the human condition. After surveying Milton’s recurrent struggle as a reconciler of conflicting ide­als, this Primer undertakes a book-by-book reading of Paradise Lost, re­viewing key features of Milton’s “various style,” and why we treasure that style. Cavanagh constantly revisits Milton the singer and maker, and the artistic problems he faced in writing this almost impossible poem.This book is emphatically for first-time readers of Milton, with little or no prior exposure, but with ambition to encounter challenging poetry. These are readers who tell you they “have always been meaning to read Paradise Lost,” who seek to enjoy the epic without being overwhelmed by its daunting learning and expansive frame of reference. Avoiding the narrowly specialized focus of most Milton scholarship, Cavanagh deals forthrightly with issues that recur across generations of readers, gather­ing selected voices—from scholars and poets alike—from 1674 through the present. Lively and jargon-free, this Primer makes Paradise Lost accessible and fresh, offering a credible beginning to what is a great intellectual and aesthetic adventure.

Secondary mathematics teachers working in the Australian education sector are required to plan lessons that engage with students of different genders, cultures and levels of literacy and numeracy. Teaching Secondary Mathematics engages directly with the Australian Curriculum: Mathematics and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers to help preservice teachers develop lesson plans that resonate with students. This edition has been thoroughly revised and features a new chapter on supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students by incorporating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and ways of knowing into lessons. Chapter content is supported by new features including short-answer questions, opportunities for reflection and in-class activities. Further resources, additional activities, and audio and visual recordings of mathematical problems are also available for students on the book's companion website. Teaching Secondary Mathematics is the essential guide for preservice mathematics teachers who want to understand the complex and ever-changing Australian education landscape.

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got, and if it's not good enough, you need to do something else. As project complexity increases, so too does the need to do new things. The existing Project Management tools - examples being Earned Value Management, PRINCE2, Lifecycle Management, PMBOK- are incredibly useful; but they were designed for linear project development in a stable, understood environment. We term them 'First Order'. Second Order Project Management (PM) goes beyond, addressing the issues of a complex, unstable, uncertain environment with all its associated difficulties. Second Order PM has to address four major issues: the conspiracy of optimism, inappropriate contracting models, the application of methods and tools capable of dealing with complexity, and the need for creative, inspirational, adhocratic leadership. These problems are compounded by the need to convince executive sponsors from different disciplines to invest in the necessary process improvement - this book is designed to help alleviate the frustration that every member of the profession has experienced when trying to gain such approval. Illustrated by interviews with an international group of very senior managers responsible for managing highly complex projects, Michael Cavanagh explains why there is nothing magical, or even complicated, about Second Order PM. The techniques discussed include aspects of System Thinking, Experiential Learning and its application, Ethics and Governance, Stakeholder Relationships, Appropriate Contracting Models, Outcome-driven Management and Leadership Behaviour, all recognised as increasingly necessary in direct proportion to the complexity of the project at hand.

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got, and if it's not good enough, you need to do something else. As project complexity increases, so too does the need to do new things. The existing Project Management tools - examples being Earned Value Management, PRINCE2, Lifecycle Management, PMBOK® - are incredibly useful; but they were designed for linear project development in a stable, understood environment. We term them 'First Order'. Second Order Project Management (PM) goes beyond, addressing the issues of a complex, unstable, uncertain environment with all its associated difficulties. Second Order PM has to address four major issues: the conspiracy of optimism, inappropriate contracting models, the application of methods and tools capable of dealing with complexity, and the need for creative, inspirational, adhocratic leadership. These problems are compounded by the need to convince executive sponsors from different disciplines to invest in the necessary process improvement - this book is designed to help alleviate the frustration that every member of the profession has experienced when trying to gain such approval. Illustrated by interviews with an international group of very senior managers responsible for managing highly complex projects, Michael Cavanagh explains why there is nothing magical, or even complicated, about Second Order PM. The techniques discussed include aspects of System Thinking, Experiential Learning and its application, Ethics and Governance, Stakeholder Relationships, Appropriate Contracting Models, Outcome-driven Management and Leadership Behaviour, all recognised as increasingly necessary in direct proportion to the complexity of the project at hand.