The book begins with a definition of public management and an exhortation to scholars to interest themselves in the management component. Chapter 2 defines NPM, emphasizing the role of information technology in reshaping public and private sector organizations. The following chapters lay out the components of NPM in terms of five R’s: restructuring, or downsizing to focus on core competences (ch. 3), work process reengineering (ch. 4), radical organization reinvention (ch. 5), realignment by introducing activity-based costing and responsibility budgeting (ch. 6), and rethinking—by reconceptualizing public sector bureaucracies as learning organizations (ch. 7). The book concludes with an expanded discussion of information technology (ch. 8).

This is a very clear, well-argued, and stimulating book. The authors are conversant with a wide range of literature in business management, bureaucratic history, and economic theory, and demonstrate convincingly its relevance to their vision of NPM, which emphasizes continual organizational renewal. A number of sections of the book are particularly compelling. Arguing that the reinventing government exercise was primarily about organizational renewal through work process reengineering, the authors’ extensive treatment of reinvention labs in the Department of Defense, illustrated by 14 case studies, explains the factors determining whether these bottom-up initiatives succeed or fail.

The discussion of technological change and global competitive pressures is comprehensive and establishes the influence of these factors on both the public and private sectors. Unsatisfied with the public interest pluralist and public choice explanations of the evolution of government’s role in the economy, the authors show that government for systemic reasons has been unable to respond to this rapidly changing environment. They then apply Senge’s organizational learning model to government, revealing it to be a flawed learning organization. This leads them, not to the complacency of public interest pluralists or the cynicism of public choice advocates, but to an optimistic endorsement of NPM as a collection of strategies for enhancing learning by government.

While I found the book cogent and compelling, it could have been strengthened. I would have preferred some restructuring by putting the detailed discussion of the forces creating change, particularly information technology, at the beginning of the book as part of the exposition of NPM, rather than near the end. A number of key themes could have been bolstered by more effective examples. The discussion of downsizing in chapter 3 could have been illustrated with a case study of the federal government’s downsizing initiative that was a component of NPR. Radical organizational reinvention was exemplified by the response of the Hudson’s Bay Company to the challenge of the North West Company in early nineteenth century Canada. A better—and more relevant—case study would have been the creation of the New Labour Party in Britain, particularly because it involved the assimilation of NPM ideas. In addition, the literature contains many public sector turnaround cases that would have been relevant. While it was instructive to refer to activity-based costing in New Zealand, it could have also been illustrated by the experience of former Mayor Goldsmith of Indianapolis.

In summary, Jones and Thompson’s book is a powerful argument for the relevance of a wide range of management ideas to the public sector. Those who see public and private management as fundamentally alike in only the unimportant respects ought to read this book and reexamine their thinking.