The Age of Paradox

Author of the best-selling The Age of Unreason, published in 1989, Charles Handy was a management consultant and philosopher who taught at MIT and London Business Schools. Age of Paradox, his 1994 classic, remains a wise guide to tumultuous change. In it, Handy offered a prescient account of the challenges that communities, businesses and countries face. He provides clear insights and recommendations on every page.

Unlike management authors who are keen to make everything sensible, in this book Handy recommends accepting the conflicts of today’s paradoxes and working with them rather than trying to make them go away. If you feel beset by economic, political and social decisions from your past, Handy’s text helps you cut through the morass to break new ground. While his ideas are complex, his language – while not exactly simple – is neither difficult nor obscuring. Handy’s thoughts are helpful for everyone who wants to think through problems and find new ways of working.