`Tom Burns' book was a minor classic when it was first published; one of the most sensible and profound critiques of bureaucracy in print. It was way ahead of its time, perhaps "prematurely right". I congratulate Oxford University Press for this re-issue, the third edition, with a new and extraordinary Preface to a book that is now a major classic.'Warren Bennis, University of Southern California, Author of An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change, Addison Wesley, `93