Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Rodney Turner is Professor of Project Management at the Lille School of Management, France and at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. He has also authored or edited thirteen books, written numerous articles for journals, conferences and magazines and is editor of The International Journal of Project Management.
The authors provide a holistic perspective of the field of project management. You get the impression they know their field well, although the starting point is in academics and a practicioner has to think for their own how to apply specific methods or perspectives in their own project. But I believe that is exactly the whole point of the book. The authors provide 9 different perspectives, which essentially represent different schools of thought within the field of project management. Explaining these perspectives and what to focus on within that perspective can be stimulating for your own project situation. (Four stars because academia and its scientific approach is per definition reactive, using case studies to understand how things worked in retroperspective, instead of focusing on how things should be and what the tools and methods to reach those desired states are. Thus the book is descriptive and normative in nature. Good for understanding the topic, but how to apply it is your own responsibility!)