Barry Williams Books

The book's whole idea (having a lot of Nobel laureates write about themselves) might have worked well for, say, six to eight such laureates, but it just doesn't scale to the 18 that are now writing -- a kind of dull repetitiousness falls upon the whole work by about the halfway mark or earlier. If you do get this book, and that may be worthwhile since each individual essay is useful and readable, by all means read it in small snippets (1-2 autobiographies at a time) with long waits in-between: trying to just read it cover to cover is a mistake.

Sorry to say that I was not very impressed with this book. Hard to read. Lots of gramatical errors. This was a required text for a course I took - Business Ethics.

I ordered this book for my evening class starting in less than two weeks. To my surprise, it arrived in plenty of time for me to read the first chapter for day one of class and it was in perfect condition. I saved over $20 on the book and couldn't have been happier.

4 stars= some good arguments to consider, and issues it provokes. Being a philisopher student, some of these arguments are strong.

Nuntius said: "Keynes, Hayek, and Friedman" were skipped in discussion. I know that Friedman was well included, in the case studies and in some chapters. Look at 4.3 for a real focus.

He also said that "Like ssaber, I was disappointed to find a three page "defense" of capitalism and a ten page attack of it in Chapter 4, "The Nature of Capitalism.""

I noticed a sentence stating that we can't dismiss a capitalist society because of the fact of where it brought us, where as the other systems didn't do so well. Therefore, I wouldn't really consider this a dismiss on capitalism.
For example, in page 158, they say "The debate over capitalism is a large and important one; the presentation that follows should be viewed as a stimulus to further discussion and not as the last word on th pros and cons of capitalism." Furthermore, "complete coverage of capitalism's features has filled many books" (154). This clearly states what the authors intend, as a mere stimulus. In fact, having a whole chapter seems to be sufficient to their intent.


Maybe they can expand the subject to add more back and forth criticisms, but we know that debate can be long. As long as they made that statement of it merely being a stimulus, I'm ok with it.

After all, capitalism is a very new concept with the foundation of the industrial revolution. Of course debate should ensue. But I guess they should end the chapter stating the "nonetheless, a capitalist framework has got us great heights."

God Bless.
-NVS

If you professor or school uses this book, protest. This book is not an interesting read. As far as the Seller I was satisfied with the condition of the book and the timley fashion on which it was recieved

As a professor, I have used MIB for over 15 years in university classes in business ethics. As a (rare) campus conservative, I would argue that the outline, and case studies, are quite good, albeit, not always complete, especially with the rush job in the seventh edition on Enron. However, MIB is not dispassionate politically, and it it harder to find such reads these days in academe. Unfortunately, the author(s) of many of these books on business ethics have never themselves been business owners in order to understand the day-to-day issues of competition, pricing, motivation, and the rest. I came to academics after having run two successful businesses which has given me a breadth and depth to the classroom. Back to MIB: please be sure to read all of the reviews thus far that share the inherent shortcomings of this book. Since I agree with them I will not restate them here as they are well written. Still, along with the obvious anti-capitalist overtones in MIB, there is another philosophical factor that must be considered, to wit: the authors insist that morality and ethics do not necessarily have a religious connection, or better, that they do not hang on the necessity of objective epistemology (to know, and to know how we know). Au contrare: a little history-doing will demonstrate that up until the Enlightenment (ca. 1750 AD)that virtually all of Western moral philosophy was deeply rooted in theology and/or religious primary sources. The ancient Greeks and Romans appealed to the gods, Judaism appealed to Yahweh (Greek: Adonai), and Christianity appealed to Jesus as the divine Logos (Word). Thus, if we added up objective epistemology and subjective epistemology in terms of years in operation, the Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians win. We must also consider the words of probably the greatest representative of Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, the Frenchman who witnessed the brutality of the Nazis during WWII, who quite emphatically stated in his book, "Existentialism and Human Emotions," that he actually grieved that God does not exist, because, he said, since God does not exist, we have no basis to establish ethics or morals. Thus, Sartre clearly understood the God-connection concerning ethics and morals, but do modern students?

In this post-modern world, objective ethical constructs have been substituted for what I call the Eternal-I, i.e., individuals appeal not to objective authority to establish morality and ethics, but to the subjective, Eternal-I, the "Me," or what I think is right or wrong. If everyone is able to appeal to their own standard of ethical behavior, then there is little objective bases for determinining true right and wrong.

If you decide to purchase MIB, I would balance the sections on capitalism with Von Hayek and Milton Freidman, two free market capitalists who understand both the beauty and necessity of wealth, human nature as desirous of incentive and rewards, limited government restriction and human autonomy (freedom), and the failure of Socialism, Marxism and confiscatory taxation. Concerning the failure of the last three, didn't we already learn that in high school economics?

Lot of book is common knowledge. Chapters too long. Examples at end of chapters aren't very creative. Definitely a starter/intro level book.

From what I can tell this book does a great job compressing business law into very concise chapters. I for one don't like long drawn out chapters about the same subject matter. I lose interest after the first few hours of reading any text book. The chapters move quick enough to really make me feel interested in the subject. I use this book for a intro into business law and think is does a pretty decent job aiding my education.

we had some shipping problems with this book, but it got to me in one piece and in proper time.

If you're buying this book for yourself, spare yourself the headache. It is certainly not of any academic value, and considering what I've read so far, it does even appear to be a business law book. The book chronicles very simple and basic legal matters, and presents these topics in such a way, someone interested in a thorough discussion of them would likely become upset.

As I said before, unless you have a very basic interest in law, ignore this book as much as you can. Also, because the book is not state-specific, there's not much you can get out of the book. It presents general information, which is of no use to those who want to learn specifics.

I've given it two stars just because it would probably be good for a beginner.

Narrow in scope , poor combination of behavior and the brain , virtually no Neurophysiology and behavior - the most relevant and expanding area in ALL of Neurology Psychiatry integration. Same old hard wiring book written 50 years ago. Looking for amazing advances in brain/ physiology and behavior money Poorly spent.

I like this text tremendously. It has helped me to understand neuropsychiarty and relate it to clinical findings. It is easy to follow and has great illustrations.

The text is well written & very understandable. There are good examples in every chapter. The problems are good, too. In general, it's all very well explained.

The book is fine, but it didn't point out enough that it is the professional edition which does not come with the turbotax, so I had to end up buying it seperately, it pissed me off, stupid amazon. Wake up.

I could not believe all the errors in this book. Arithmetic errors, coding errors, answers that don't match the given question numbers, using the wrong standard library methods with arguments which cannot be used for them -- the incompetence of the proofreading is inexcusable for any published Java book, let alone one claiming to be an exam guide. As some other reviwers have noted, I give one star because that is the minimum allowed.

the typeset used for the example did not render correctly when published, there were typos enough to make me think the work was never proofed. all that is not ideal, but once several incorrect assertions regarding language constructs and behavior were spotted, into the recycler it went. this book helped my efforts at certification in a very round-about way. if the reader was less aware of the mistakes, following this book could have a negative impact on their exam.

Its pretty obvious a group of people decided to bash this book and that did a real number on book sales I bet to the benefit of all the other Java certification books no doubt. I've used several editions of this book. The 3rd edition published in 2002 is what I am using right now to study for the exams. The book is excellent and well written.

If you would like to know what the poorest exam guide could be, this one is an excellent sample. You could found all errors in your imagination and even more errors out of you imagination.
An definite guide for Java Exam candidate who would like to failed.

This book [is bad]. Even the basics they have got it wrong. Like Arithmetic operators postfix and prefix notation. This is not only misleading but also did confus me. I did not expect this from a professional publisher

This is really an autobiography written in the third person - the first 80 pages have nothing to do with Earth First! but describe the author's partly successful career as an informant in Montana gathering evidence against marijuana users. The middle part of the book discusses the author's year-long paid infiltration of Earth First! on behalf of the Washington Contract Loggers Association (who are also the publishers of the book) in the early 1990's and his failed attempts to interest law enforcement in his inside information. The end of the book discusses things he learned about EF! and the environmental movement by reading newspapers and magazines after he stopped participating actively, and goes into considerable detail about a legal dispute in Montana entirely unrelated to EF!. (but, curiously enough, perhaps tangentially related to Leonard Peltier and the Pine Ridge trials)

The book provides interesting insight into someone who's operating on the margin between different political/social groups - first drug users and cops, then loggers and environmentalists - but it's short on information about the radical environmental movement.

Unfortunately this book is not really about EF! I was looking forward to learning about the operations and organization of EF! but instead was confronted by the authors own autobiography, largley about his work as a private detective. I wish the book had dealt only with EF! and extremists environmentalists instead of the author himself. I feel like the author missed an opportunity to provide an interesting account of his dealings with EF! Aside from obvious content flaws, the book was also written poorly making it a confusing and monotonous read. At the same time, I am glad I read this book because it seems to be the only one of its kind.

This is a laughable account of the author, a self-styled private investigator, and his "infiltration" of Earth First! His writing is not entirely coherent, he bounces around from from subject to subject and periodically launches into rants about the evils of the environmental movement. He also tries to make a lot of connections that simply aren't there: for example, implying that the actions of underground animal liberation groups are directed by Earth First! and by extension, by the more mainstream ecology groups. All in all this reads like a Eustace Mullins conspiracy rant more than anything believable.

I'm sure this is a good book for psychiatrists.. or really anyone that already knows the material it covers and just needs a VERY technical review. We used this as a textbook for a neuropsych class and I have to say it's worthless. I have read stereo instructions that are easier to understand. Really, it reads like a journal of research papers more than a "synopsis" of anything. It uses odd abbrev. throughtout (eg NA.. nucleus accumbens.... LC.. locus ceruleus) that make it even harder to understand. If you're a medical student, don't even bother with this book.

Numerous errors, extremely weak clinical guidelines, and strange omissions mark this as a neuropsychiatry text to avoid.