History of Systems Science

Introductory Paragraph(s)

Complementary to this development of systems engineering, from its roots in telecommunications through the needs of the defence industry, there was a strong movement to develop a more general systems methodology, or systems science, based on General Systems Theory (GST). General Systems Theory can be said to have its beginning with the work of von Bertalanffy from 1932 onwards, and the publication of his book “General Systems Theory” [8]. This led to the creation of the International Society for Systems Science (ISSS) and later the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). However, numerous other roots of such a systems science can be identified, and the book An Introduction to Systems Science, by Warfield (Warfield 2006, one of the central figures in systems science, gives a good overview of many of these antecedents. A couple of well-known references are the books by Laszlo (Lazlo 1972, Bowler (Bowler 1981), and Boulding (Boulding 1996). A more recent book, which gives a good overview of the current state of GST, is the one by Skyttner (Skyttner 1996).

References

von Bertalanffy, L. 1941, General Systems Theory, George Brazillier.

Warfield, J.N. 2006, An Introduction to Systems Science, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte Ltd, Singapore (2006).

Laszlo, E., ed. 1972, The relevance of General Systems Theory, George Brazillier.

Bowler, D.T. 1981, General systems thinking: its scope and applicability”, Elsevier, Amsterdam.

Boulding, K.E. 1996, The World as a Total System, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills.

Skyttner, L. 1996, General Systems Theory - An Introduction, Macmillan Press, Basingstoke.

Citations

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Primary References

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