International Encyclopaedia of Systems and Cybernetics, second edition Edited by Charles Francois

The first edition of Charles Francois' Master Work, 'International Encyclopaedia of Systems and Cybernetics,' was published in 1997. I reviewed it in this Journal in 1999 (Glanville, 1999). The first edition was itself an extension of an earlier publication with 475 entries, Diccionario de Teoria de Sistemas y Cybernetica. The essence of my review of the first edition was to express thanks for that enormous and remarkable work: a true labour of love and a vital element in the development of cybernetics and systems. It is an astonishing achievement of one man working doggedly and diligently with affection and respect for his work area, studying texts in many languages and from many different cultures: a task that perhaps only Francois could undertake. I wrote my review in the context of an exploration of the notion and origin of the encyclopaedia and how that forms a view of knowledge that is built into it. Now there is a new, second edition which I have been invited to review. And the inevitable question is what can I review (what is there to write about)?