Bibliography for Complexity Theory


  • Abraham, Ralph. Chaos, Gaia, Eros: a Chaos Pioneer Uncovers the Three Great Streams of History. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994.
    Includes stories of Rashevsky, Von Bertalanffy, Richardson, and others.

  • Bateson, Gregory. An Ecology of Mind

  • Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature: an Essential Unity

  • Bateson, Mary Catherine. Our Own Metaphor xxx, 1972.
    Reports on the 1968 conference org'd by her father

  • Bertalanffy, Ludwig von.
    • General system theory : a new approach to unity of science. Baltimore : John Hopkins Press, 1951.
    • Problems of life; an evaluation of modern biological and scientific thought. New York, Harper [1960].
    • General system theory; foundations, development, applications. New York, G. Braziller [1969, c1968].
    Among many others.

  • Burks, Arthur Walter, ed. Essays on Cellular Automata Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1970.
    Early history of CA.

  • Cohen, Jack, and Ian Stewart. The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World. New York: Penguin, 1994.
    Simplexity and Complicity enter on p. 399.

  • Coveney, Peter V., and Roger Highfield. Frontiers of complexity : the search for order in a chaotic world. New York : Fawcett Columbine, 1995.
    Journalistic account, under the assumption that Complexity equals the Santa Fe Institute.

  • Davidson, Mark. Uncommon sense : the life and thought of Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), father of general systems theory; foreword by R. Buckminster Fuller ; introduction by Kenneth E. Boulding. 1st ed. Los Angeles : J.P. Tarcher.
    More than a biography.

  • Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. The Mechanization of the Mind: On the Origins of Cognitive Science, Transl. by M. B. DuBevoise. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994/2000.
    Traces the roots of cognitive science to the Macy Conferences of 1946 to 1953.

  • Foerster, Heinz von, ed. Conference on Cybernetics (8th : 1951 : New York, N.Y.) Cybernetics : circular causal and feedback mechanisms in biological and social systems : Transactions of the Eighth Conference March 15-16, 1951. New York, N.Y. New York : Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1952.
    This is but one of a series.

  • Goodwin, Brian, and Peter Saunders editors. Theoretical Biology: Epigenetic and Evolutionary Order from Complex Systems.. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, c1989.
    Papers from a meeting in Oaxtepec, Mexico, September, 1987. Participants included Goodwin, Saunders, Mae-Wan Ho, Bernardo Huberman, Stuart Kauffman, Rene Thom, Franisco Varela, and Christopher Zeeman.

  • Gray, William, and Nicholas D. Rizzo, eds. Unity through diversity; a Festschrift for Ludwig von Bertalanffy. 2 vols. New York, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers [1973].
    Prepared for Von B's 70th birthday. Includes chapters by Maria von B., Laszlo, Whyte, Koestler, Odum, Rapoport, Rosen, Klir, Boulding, and other luminaries of GST.

  • Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman : Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics Chicago, Ill. : University of Chicago Press, 1999.
    Includes chapters on the Macy Conferences and the Cybernetic Group.

  • Heims, Steve Joshua. Gregory Bateson and the Mathematicians from Interdisciplinary Interaction to Societal Functions. c1977.

  • Heims, Steve Joshua. John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener : from Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1980.

  • Heims, Steve Joshua. The Cybernetics Group. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c1991.

  • Kauffman, Stuart A. The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. New York: Oxford, 1993.
    700 pages of innovation, from one of the pioneers.
    See also his At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity, 1995, and Investigations, 2000.

  • Laszlo, Ervin, ed. The Relevance of general systems theory; papers presented to Ludwig von Bertalanffy on his seventieth birthday. New York, G. Braziller [1972].
    Laszlo is perhaps the best of the followers of Von B, and much more than that. See his other books. This edited volume, published just after the death of Von B, includes chapters by Rapoport, Pattee, and Rosen.

  • Lewin, Roger. Complexity : life at the edge of chaos. New York : Macmillan Pub. Co. ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1992.
    Another journalistic account of the recent events only.

  • McCulloch, Warren Sturgis, Collected works of Warren S. McCulloch. edited by Rook McCulloch ; with a preface by Heinz von Foerster ; and contributions by M.A. Arbib ... [et al.]. Salinas, Calif., U.S.A. : Intersystems Publications, 1989.
    Historical gold mine.

  • Meadows, Donella H, and others. The limits to growth; a report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York, Universe Books [c1972].
    First report on this crucial application of GST.

  • Nicolis, Gregoire, and Ilya Prigogine. Exploring complexity : an introduction. New York : W.H. Freeman, c1989.
    One of many classics from Prigogine and company.

  • Strogatz, Steven. Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order. New York: Hyperion, 2003.
    Puts synchronization theory in the long line of cybernetics, catastrophy, chaos, and complexity theories.

  • Waddington, C. H. (Conrad Hal), 1905-1975. The Strategy of the genes; a discussion of some aspects of theoretical biology. With an appendix by H. Kacser. New York, Macmillan [c1957].
    Catastrophe theory ideas, eg, chreod, epigenetic landscape, pp. 26-38.

  • Waddington, C. H. (Conrad Hal), 1905-1975, ed. Towards a theoretical biology. An IUBS symposium. [Chicago] Aldine Pub. Co. 1968-1972.
    * Vol. 1. Prolegomena, 1968. (Villa Serbelloni, Aug. 28, 1966)
    * Vol. 2. Sketches, 1969. (Villa Serbelloni, Aug. 3, 1967)
    * Vol. 3. Drafts, 1970. (Villa Serbelloni, 1968?)
    * Vol. 4. Essays, 1972. (Villa Serbelloni, 1970?)
    Here is where it all came together.

  • Waddington, C. H. (Conrad Hal), 1905-1975. Tools for thought : how to understand and apply the latest scientific techniques of problem solving. Illustrated by Yolanda Sonnabend. New York : Basic Books, c1977.
    The first and still the best text on complex systems theory. Written just before the junction of complexity and chaos theories.

  • Waldrop, M. Mitchell. Complexity: the emerging science at the edge of order and chaos. New York : Simon & Schuster, c1992.
    Journalistic account, under the assumption that Complexity equals the Santa Fe Institute.

  • Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics; or, Control and communication in the animal and the machine. New York, J. Wiley [1948].
    Classic.

  • Yates, F. Eugene, Alan Garfinkel, Donald O. Walter, and Gregory B. Yates, eds.. Self-organizing systems : the emergence of order. New York : Plenum Press, c1987.
    Proceedings of the Dubrovnik conference, August, 1979. Articles by Arbib, Goodwin, Gould, Haken, Iberall, Morowitz, Pattee, Schuster, Stent, Von der Malsburg, and many others.

  • Zachary, G. Pascal. Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century. New York: Free Press, 1997.

  • Revised 21 July 2002 by Ralph Abraham, <abraham@vismath.org>