Independent Books

This book will be interesting only for those who is studing Mongol or Central Asian History and also some points could be interesting for Ulus Juchi, Ilkhanids and Mamluks historians. Good work has done by M. Biran but some moments are questionable. Also some important sources are not used by the author.

The Mongol states of both Persia and China have received extensive coverage since the time of their conception, no less from mediaeval scholars than from academics from various fields today. Primary sources from these two great regions are rich and detailed and to this day are still providing researchers with ample material for investigation. Michal Biran has bravely chosen an area for her vigorous research which lay between these two great power blocs and selected a figure who up until now has often been ignored or underestimated. Her welcome study of Qaidu Khan and the formative years of his Central Asian Khanate succeeds in establishing Qaidu as one of the major players in the reconfiguration of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. One reason for this oversight which has led to Qaidu's marginalisation has been the lack of source materials written from within his own region. In contrast to the detailed chronicles composed in the courts of the neighbouring khanates, only one work is known to have been written from within Qaidu's territory, the 14th century Mulháaqat al-s®urahá of Jamal Qarshi. Most of the detail of Qaidu's life must be gleaned from the sources written in the neighbouring Toluid states, Mamluk Egypt, the Caucasus or from travelogues compiled by European travellers. Unfortunately most of these sources especially the Persian and Chinese material are partisan and betray their hostility toward the ambitious prince, viewing Qaidu as a rebel and an enemy. Where the writers have a more objective view as is the case with the Armenian and Mamluk chroniclers their details are sketchy and their reports imply that Qaidu's territory and political manoeuvring are distant from their concerns. Even travellers like Marco Polo who included a chapter on `King Caidu' in his narratives were more concerned with grander matters to the east or south and did not grant the Ögödeid aspirant his full dues. Faced with these formidable obstacles Michal Biran has performed an admirable and meticulously accomplished task. Armed with an enviable knowledge of languages including Persian, Arabic and Chinese she has been able to retrieve an impressive amount of data from a wide range of sources and to present a convincing and radically new portrait of this remarkable mediaeval Mongol potentate. In her book Biran correlates the various sources and succeeds in building not only a rounded picture of Qaidu, his deeds and motivation but presents a picture of the internal administration of his state in its formative stages and the relationship of this state with the rest of the Mongol world. She is able to show that Qaidu's driving motivation was not as some would have it, to acquire the mantle of the Qa'an, nor to promote the return to the traditional values of the nomadic lifestyle and culture of the steppes in contrast to the `progressive' sedentary regimes of the Il-Khans or the Yuan. Qaidu's motivation for seeking power, Biran convincingly argues, was to redress the wrongs done to his own branch of the royal family, the Ögödeids. He sought to establish a state representing the house of Ögödei which was at least equal in status to and commensurate with the other Mongol states. Such was his stature and political dexterity backed by military aptitude that he was able to achieve to some degree these aims in his own lifetime. However, lacking their father's prestige and genius his sons were unable to sustain these considerable achievements and within ten years of his death in 1301 they had lost much of their political power and the Mongol state over which they ruled became known to history as the Chaghadaid Khanate. Michal Biran traces Qaidu's rise from his birth in 1235 in Ögödei's ordu, through his first territorial base in Qayaliq and then details the intrigues and manoeuvring following the Qa'an Möngke's death in 1259. She shows how Qaidu was able to manipulate other such Mongol princes as Baraq to serve his own ends and that he was not averse to switching allegiances when it might suit his own purposes. Qaidu's confrontation with the Qa'an, Qubilai, which became not only a political conflict between the house of Tolui and the house of Ögödei but also one of personal enmity between the two men, is analysed in depth and the varied effects that the antagonism with the Il-Khans of Persia had on trade links and political exchanges between China and Iran are clarified. The decisive role of the Jochids in Qaidu's rise even though eventually this was to result in the cessation of Jochid control over Transoxiana is highlighted and the commercial contacts with the Mamluks of Egypt are recognised. After carefully collecting, analysing and interpreting all the diverse sources, Michal Biran is also able to plot the shift of Qaidu's kingdom into a state dominated by the Chaghadaids and the collapse of his Ögödeid regime after his death. The nature of his state and its internal administration is not overlooked and ample space is found for careful consideration of the role of the army, religion and the economy in the formation and development of the Ögödeid polity. Lacunae remain but they are unambiguously acknowledged and their individual significance is reduced by Biran's ability to draw on so many different independent sources. Michal Biran's study of Qaidu is complemented by a treasure-trove of detailed notes and references, a healthy bibliography, simple but perfectly adequate maps, a glossary of Chinese terms and a most welcomely comprehensive collection of genealogical tables. Though regrettably the forty-six pages of enticing notes are clumped together at the end of the book rather than positioned so much more conveniently as footnotes, they are fully reflective of the amount of work and painstaking research that must have gone into this short but comprehensive study.

Bob Vandenberg interviewed more than 40 players, managers, and others to write this book of profiles about the White Sox from the late 1940's to early 1980's. Each personality gets his own profiling chapter, be they players like Early Wynn, Luis Aparicio, Nellie Fox, Minnie Minoso, Billy Pierce, etc., managers like Al Lopez and Chuck Tanner, or front-office figures like Bill Veeck, Frank Lane, etc. This is basically an oral history, one where readers learn about the competitive Go-Go Sox teams (1951-1967) that almost always came up short, plus the mostly mediocre squads of other years. The underdog White Sox typically had strong pitching and defense, but weak bats, a non-glamorous ballpark (and image), modest crowds, and limited media. Few outside Chicago realize that this team was captured just one AL pennant (1959) in an 86-year stretch from 1919-2005, and shaky finances nearly led the franchise to leave Chicago in 1969, 1975 and 1988. This readable book reflects this blue-collar team in all its glories and frustrations.

THIS IS ABOUT THE WHITE SOX CIRCA LATE 40'S TO EARLY 80'S. IT CONTAINS INTERVIEWS WITH FRANK LANE, BILL VEECK, AL LOPEZ, MINNIE MINOSO, NELLIE FOX AND MANY MORE. THEY TELL US MANY MANY STORIES THAT ARE BOTH INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING. SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS ARE STORIES CONCERNING THE 59 WORLD SERIES, DISCO NIGHT, AND MANY MORE. THIS IS A GREAT READ FOR ALL SOX FANS AND BASEBALL FANS. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS, A MUST READ.

First impression--this guy loves life and can't wait to squeeze the juice out of every thought in each of the many books that he consumes. This book lacks focus and seems to cover a wide range of subjects all loosely under the umbrella of "reading education." I thought it was ironic that his editor told him to add more on the history of educational reform@mostly in the 20th century, because I would have thought the editor's job would have been to focus--not add more. It's like Kline is a renaissance man who can speak on any subject and relate a reading issue to any other subject in human culture. That said, I got a lot of good ideas from this book. I loved his chapter on the hunt for who authored Shakespeare's works. I even dreamed about who Shakespeare was the night after I read it. But my favorite part was his "phoneme" (different from phonics) system of learning to read. Wow! That gave me clarity on what is truly important in teaching early reading. I wish this book had come with his entire reading program!

I don't completely agree that our kids "can't think," but I do think American culture has come to have an increasingly chaotic fabric and the author raises one very substantial point in that regard: the way we read affects the way we think about the material we are reading. The importance of reading is not just some archaic value, it sets the tone for education in general.

The way we engage written material does seem to me to be central to the kinds of questions we ask, and consequently the way we understand the material. When I browse a tree of documents on a website, I often seem to come away with a very different understanding of the content than when I read the same material in a book. Some of this may just be technological (taking margin notes is still difficult without a book, etc.). I suspect that there may be more to it, because the way we tend to use the web medium makes attention-grabbing more important than the organization of the material. We tend to organize web pages to keep our limited attention span engaged rather than to engage deep thinking about the material.

What we lose isn't obvious, because we tend to think of learning solely in terms of lists of facts. However deep thinking requires that we more actively engage the material, ask questions, follow up, criticize the arguments, and so on.

If you have benefitted as much from reading as I have, you will have no trouble finding the author's view congenial in its stress on reading for understanding and interpretation, and also disturbing in its implications for the way we are changing the way we read. At the very least, this book is itself very engaging and well-written and serves as a good example of why we should be taking the fundamentals and concepts of reading very seriously as new technologies begin to augment and replace it.

21st Century Veterans Health: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a very helpful and broad based introduction to understanding the effects of traumatic brain injury. I'd recommend it to any clinician looking for a good, introductory level resource on this topic.

THE ABU GHRAIB INVESTIGATIONS may not be a book readers will elect to purchase and read, but this finely edited treatise by Steven Strausser is a document that should be part of the history books and of the information presented to the American public at this particular time.

While Americans were shocked by the incredibly agonizing photographs of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, little information as to the extent of this atrocity has been readily available. After an informative and well-written introduction by Craig Whitney, the actual Department of Defense Detention Operations Abu Ghraib Report is presented in complete form. The now infamous photographs, which devastated the American image throughout the world, are presented here. The Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade include not only the physical and sexual abuses and drug problems in the prison, but also the frightful lack of control over the soldier's in charge of interrogations and prisoners. Frequent references to the situations at Guantanamo Bay prisons and the trail of responsibility for prisoner abuse leading all the way to the White House make for fascinating though very disturbing reading.

Time will deal with these documents and what they represent in our history, but at the present one wonders if the conditions at Abu Ghraib prison were much different during the reign of Hussein. Much food for thought here and a prayer for action to prevent such atrocities of war in the future. Strasser is to be commended as an editor for his refraining to add comment, but to let the horror on these pages speak for itself.

Having read this book about 5 years ago, I spotted it on my bookshelf and read it again. Winston Graham's style is sharp and interesting. His three protaganists, Wilfred Angell, Pearl (little oyster) and little God, are all totally different kinds of people and he succeeds in getting the reader inside the head and mentality of each character. Enjoyed it as much the second time as the first and have given it only 4 stars because I think the ending could have been better.

Not bad for someone looking for just basic information on Aloe and its uses. For the most part it was what I was looking for and what I expected for the price ... you get what you pay for...

Perhaps you are tired of the analysis of the Hollywood mainstream; of the blockbusters made by the large studies. This book offers a contrast. Describing how the modern Hollywood studio system arose since the 1920s. And how from the early years, there arose a split, with smaller studios occupying a precarious niche. But in this niche, those studios sometimes produced unique, distinctive movies. In recent years, the best known example cited by the book is the Blair Witch Project.

A constant theme is the struggle by the small studios to stay in business, and stay independent. The large studios might sometimes buy out a successful small studio. The economics of budgeting even a so-called low budget movie have always been uncertain. Along with the vagaries of getting a movie distributed to enough theatres, and trying to break out of the art house niche.

I met Peter in high school and knew him until his death in 2007. He was a person of strong beliefs of what was right and lived by those beliefs. As news anchor at a local TV network, he was well known in his electorate and saw an opportunity for election on the retirement of a sitting member. He stood in 4 elections and increased his margin each time.

His popularity grew because of his integrity and the fact that he took a stand on issues he saw as important. He opposed the Government on issues like the sale of Telstra, parliamentary pensions and the treatment of refugees; in his electorate he worked tirelessly for his constituents.

The book is an autobiography well written by a journalist. Apart from that, it gives a unique insight into the workings of the Australian Parliament. The book deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in Australian political history.

In addition to the good descriptions of arthritis, I found this book to be a great collection of exercises. A complete list of gentle exercises to increase range of motion, flexibility and strength are all described and illustrated in this little book. Shortly after being diagnosed with rhumatoid arthritis I checked out an armload of arthritis books from my public library. The one that I liked the best was this common sense little volume. It is small enough to tuck into your suitcase and take on a trip or to leave on your chairside table as a reminder to do some of the exercises during the evening TV commercials. It has helped me and I highly recommend it for anyone who has been diagnosed with either osteoarthritis or rhumatoid arthritis.