Creators Books

Odilo Globocnik was of partial Slovenian ancestry. Like Hitler, he grew up with the belief that the Slavic and Jewish elements were corrupting and weakening the Germanic element of his native Austria. Globocnik set up the death camps of Belzec, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Settling in Lublin in German-occupied Poland, he was also responsible for the deportation (and frequent murder) of over 100,000 Poles of the Zamosc region and the terror-pacification of Polish guerilla resistance. Like Himmler, Globocnik carried cyanide in his mouth after Germany's defeat, and used it the moment that his cover had been blown.

For all the emphasis nowadays upon Jews and Poles being unequal victims, the Nazi opinion of the two peoples wasn't all that different. Konrad Meyer, an agrarian economist who worked for Globocnik, assigned the following scores for "racial worth": Jews--zero percent, Poles and Lithuanians--15%, Latvians--50%, and Estonians-->50% (p. 105).

The German-speaking peoples follow this north/south division: "Bavarians--and most Austrians also subscribe to this self-image--are thought of as soft-spoken, beer-swilling, sausage-eating Catholics of dark complexion, while Prussians are for the most part harsh and haughty, blond and blue-eyed Hanseatic Protestants. This division runs along the Main [Mainz?] River. The Prussians (or `fish heads') are considered to be power-hungry, stuffy, and morally rigid; Bavarians are sloppy, lazy, and inept. Hitler, who rose from the `Bavarian' camp to the position of Fuehrer by declaring the `Prussians' as an Aryan ideal, nevertheless preferred to surround himself with `Bavarians'..." (p. 88).

Nazi official sometimes attempted to topple their rivals through accusations of partial Jewish ancestry. Henning von Winterfeld's wife had such ancestry, but it had been pardoned by the Fuehrer, hopefully making it a non-issue (pp. 68-69).

In refutation of the Holocaust deniers, who had argued that diesel engines produce insufficient carbon monoxide for gassing, Rieger showed that Soviet tank engines actually used a combination of petrol and diesel (p. 204). Moreover, diesel engines, when run in near-throttle mode, produce more CO.

Is the European Union a backdoor attempt by present-day Germany to do what she had failed in two world wars--rule over Europe? Dr. Karl Schnurer, a nonagenarian unrepentant Nazi and onetime acquaintance of Globocnik, obviously thinks so: "In his eyes, the German and Italian cultures were all that mattered with regard to civilization, and Slavic countries did not figure. Schnurer felt that the European Union's expansion of our day represented the finalization of the German `Lebensraum' programme for the east." (p. 18)

This book contains very valuable information for EVERYONE. It is interesting and easy to read and should be in every household. Whether or not you read the Bible or believe in its principles, this information is backed by scientific proof and can be a great resource for better health. I have personally benefited by changing my eating habits as referenced in the book. I have also done several fasts, using the directions in the book, which I found to be very beneficial.

Adam C. Murrell has a deep spiritual foundation and a gift for verse. This book is manages to be both light and amusing and theologically sound. I would recommend this short book for any parent searching to find a way to expose their child to the truths of the Bible. This would make a great gift for an expecting mother at church or a fantastic addition to a Sunday school library. I am very pleased that I found it and I am looking forward to his next work!

I found the book riveting. A book that makes you stop and think about the everyday opportunities to exercise faith and grow spiritually. I found myself going back over life experiences and analyzing them from a totally different perspective. Both an inspiration and a guide for personal growth.

These portraits of great formative Jewish religious and intellectual figures are informative and inspiring. This work is in this sense a great introductory work to Jewish thought in general.

This work edited by a devoted Jewish scholar Abraham Milgram tells of the life and work of major figures in shaping modern Jewish experience.

Dan Brown is a revolutionary! I have read previous critics of him. They are flawed and brain washed and not very perceptive in their study of the early Christian movement. The earliest text of antiquity of Christ is not even in the Bible. It is instead the Gospel of Thomas that makes Jesus the Christ a beacon of wisdom! If a person wants to sink a blind faith in a document that is mythic without looking at the spiritual interpretations of it, might as well join a cult! I personally find Dan's interpretation not always accurate, but at least he realizes that the true interpretation that we have in the Bible is not accurate either! If you doubt that statement. I ask? How did Judus face his demise? The gospels say he hung himself out of remorse. The book of Acts says he fell in the plot he bought out of his iniquity and all his insides came out. So much for biblical accuracy. Dan Brown is not out to destroy Christianity! He is just a realist trying to understand a very complex world. Glory to God and Jesus as he really was, not like the mythology we all grew up with.

During the first few months of 1996 I was traveling to London regularly on business and was able to visit this wonderful exhibition twice. It was much richer in exhibits that even this fine book shows. The actual surviving costumes and even a HUGE set from the big ballets were all there as well as the preparatory paintings and drawings for the various ballet costumes and sets.

It was a multimedia event as well, because there was a place to sit and watch a couple of videos on Stravinsky and the work he did with his first three ballets. There dancing from Petrushka stays in my memory.

Of course, Diaghilev was critical to the success of all the works produced by the Ballets Russe during his tenure. He raised the money, obtained the resources including rich materials for the productions, as well as the artists. His personal willfulness also caused some of its problems as well. However, like all successes, the Ballets Russes has many who claim fatherhood for it as well. And it cannot be said that things would have been the same without Benois or Bakst or any of the wonderful artists whose work made up those fabulous productions in those unique years. Stravinsky transcended the Ballets Russe where for others it was the culmination of their careers, so it is a bit different for him.

This book is full of wonderful pictures, reproductions of paintings, and great stories about how the whole thing came about. It is a pretty fun story. There is more to it than can be gotten to in a catalogue of this type, but it is a fine place to start.

I am the very definition of the creator collaborator that Andy Covell describes in his second book on Digital Convergence. I have a doctorate in English, but I make my living as the Webmaster for the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill. And now I teach courses part time at UNC-Greensboro that help students put into practice the very ideas Covell talks about in this book (the course syllabus is online at http://www.unc.edu/~pyoung/eng524).

Both books are extremely helpful for anyone who wants to have a better grasp of the technological revolution where the rubber meets the road, not only in terms of where and how technologies converge (book 1), but where and how we can creatively make them converge (book 2, this book).

Different audiences will find different values reading this text and Andy Covell's previous one. If you are a layperson who simply wants to understand the impact of technology, which includes far more than its current shining star, the Internet, then you will find both of Andy Covell's books accessible and easy to read. If you are a layperson interested in flexing your own technological muscles to express yourself to the world, then this book is a definite must read. The Interent has sidesteped the gatekeepers (publishing houses, TV Newsroom editors, radio programming directors) of the traditional routes for publishing information and opened up the entire world to public expression. A good companion text would also include Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas, which on its own is a challenging read (but far more accessible than most books written by lawyers).

If you are a technologist (a company Webmaster, university IT department head or support staff, or an IT training specialist), then you will find this an excellent book to assign as primer for discussion about how technology works and fits into our super-industrial, modern society. Get your administrative personnel a copy for a birthday present or some upcoming holiday (President's day, Columbus Day, Bosses Day). They will be better informed about technology without having to take a computer science course, and they'll better understand your work.

Covell does something I find valuable in a number of writers across a number of diciplines, Lawrence Lessig (law), Stephen Gould (natural science), Walter Truett Anderson (cultural studies), Ann Berthoff (writing), and Mary Pipher (psychology); he makes complex ideas accessible without losing the complexity of the idea. In this second book he encourages people generally, not specialists to look to the future and see all the possible things they can do BECAUSE technology has become so accessible. I know my students, several of whom started out with no knowledge of how to design a Web site and no prior knowledge designing marketing material (a brochure and PowerPoint), became powerful creator collaborators by the end of my course (just 15 weeks). Projects included an online cookbook business site, a health food site, a site for a local church, a business site for writing romance novels, and so on. My students brought together, print, photo, and Web technologies to create businesses and professional hobbies and/or support organizations.

This text is a most helpful text that I highly recommend.

This is a basic guide for teaching religious girls about the traditional role of the woman in Judaism. It is based entirely on the Oral Law, and begins with Mishnaic sources. It does its bet to cover all the areas of life which would be of concern and question to young women.
It is concise, and the translation is by a Rabbi of great distinction who I was privileged to know , Rabbi Mendel Lewittes Z"ts"l.
This work is a source work and basic guide. Positions expressed in it would no doubt be questioned were they to be looked into more deeply. I am not a Talmudic scholar but I did notice a number of areas which the prescriptions given here seemed to me to ignore contradicting views.