The General Practice Management Handbook

Eds P Orton, C Hill

W B Saunders, £18.95, pp 276

ISBN 0 7020 2204 7

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Management handbooks are a peculiar literary genre. They are obliged to present management as straightforward and commonsensical (in order to appeal to the pragmatic nature of managers), but beneath this veneer of practicality they are intensely ideological texts. They offer a particular and partial perspective on organisations and the world of work. Typically, they portray organisations as consensual and the managerial perspective as unconditionally legitimate. Crucially, they seek to reduce the processes of …