Events Books

Forget Descartes and be prepared to review your mathmatical set theory-- Badiou will teach you how to understand the world as multiplicities instead of individuals. He will revolutionize how you think of thought and being. His discussion of the void is especially revealing-- there does not exist "one" in the beginning; there is only the empty set. If you are a student of modern philosophies or post-structuralism, you must read this book.

I had been hoping for some time that someone would write a review for this long-awaited translation. Unfortunately none has appeared and until a more comprehensive and useful review is written, I hope these brief comments will help.

(A brief disclaimer. This review does not summarize or critique the arguments in this book--it would be unjust to attempt to do so in the space of a few paragraphs. I hope only to give some indication of the relevance of this work for those who are interested in Badiou's work and/or those who have heard the name "Badiou" and are trying to find a way in to what his work is all about. If my comments are elliptic or obscure because I use Badiou's terms without providing explication, this is only because I hope that I give enough indication of the direction of his ideas to promote the reading of the actual text.)

Unfortunately, I cannot comment on the quality of the translation, since I have not seen the French text. Feltham's familiarity with Badiou's work is unquestionable, however. He was, for example, one of the editors of the collection "Infinite Thought" (also published by Continuum). He has also contributed to a recent issue of `Polygraph' devoted to a discussion of Badiou's work (#17, 2005).

Until this translation, American readers were denied significant access to Badiou's philosophical method and concepts. The key sources were commentaries by people like Peter Hallward, Keith Ansell-Pearson, and Eric Alliez (and, of course, Slavoj Zizek). The closest one got to Badiou himself was the collection called "Theoretical Writings" (also published by Continuum). With the exception of "Deleuze: The Clamor of Being", it was difficult to know what Badiou's work was all about since just about all of his other translated works presuppose knowledge of the concepts and terms developed in "Being and Event".

Those who have read Badiou's "Deleuze" will have some idea of what occupies "Being and Event". The title recalls, of course, Heidegger's "Being and Time", and Badiou explicitly agrees with Heidegger that philosophy can only be done on the basis of the ontological question. In "Deleuze", Badiou argues that that great thinker was at bottom a thinker of the One and, as Keith Ansell-Pearson points out, the real quarrel between Badiou and Deleuze is over who can speak of being as pure multiplicity. For Deleuze, the concepts are those found in Bergson and the differential calculus; for Badiou one must look to post-Cantorian set theory. In both cases, one cannot approach ontology without a firm understanding of mathematics (anyone who does not have a working grasp of set theory will not be prepared for "Being and Event").

The ontological question cuts a diagonal through various trajectories. Although Badiou accepts the gauntlet Heidegger threw down to philosophy, like Deleuze he thinks that ontology has to be done post-phenomenologically. Badiou even rejects the later Heidegger's notion of "forgetting". Badiou's answer to the ontological question involves a second project in "Being and Event": the articulation of a post-Cartesian (and even a post-Lacanian) subject. If, Badiou says, mathematics is ontology (that is, only mathematics can write being as it is, even if there is no intra-mathematical sense to this writing), the question is no longer the Kantian "how is mathematics possible?" but, rather, if mathematics is the science of being, how is a *subject* possible? In accord with his notion that there are four (and only four) "truth procedures", there are only artistic, scientific, political, and amorous subjects. It is on this idea that Badiou's other works on ethics, politics, art ("inaesthetic"), and so forth, are predicated. In a sense, none of Badiou's other translated works make much sense without the doctrine of the subject laid out in "Being and Event".

(This project of a post-Cartesian subject is announced by the book itself in that it is written as a series of "meditations" that could not be more dissimilar in method to the meditations of either Descartes or Husserl. My own hunch is that any successful engagement and/or refutation of Badiou's work will have to be done on the question of method--viz., Badiou's axiomatic procedure.)

These theses on ontology and subjectivity cross the so-called analytic-continential divide in philosophy. Badiou offers readings of major thinkers throughout the history of philosophy and his readers are asked to have a similarly encyclopedic knowledge of both the post-Kantian analytic and continental traditions. This book is most certainly neither for laypersons, amateurs, or beginning students of philosophy. Throughout the introduction Badiou expresses consternation over the fact that his readers must not only be professional philosophers, but also well-trained in mathematics. One is usually well-trained in one or the other. Analytic philosophy tends to do better at this than Continental (indeed, one of Badiou's goals is to provide a way out of the aporias of the Vienna Circle), but Badiou equally draws from the continental tradition (by way of figures like Hegel, Heidegger, and Lacan) and continental readings of the history of philosophy. (And, until "Being and Event", one couldn't really find much after Quine on the philosophy of set theory except something like Mary Tiles' work from 1989.)

The ontological argument, premised on what Badiou has to say about the One and the presentation of multiplicity (i.e., the question that preoccupied the presocratics) hinges on this: "maintain the position that nothing is delivered by the law of the Ideas, but make this nothing be through the assumption of a proper name. In other words: verify, via the excedentary choice of a proper name, the unpresentable alone as existent; on its basis the Ideas will subsequently cause all admissible forms of presentation to proceed. ... It is because the one is not that the void is unique ... [which is equivalent] to saying that its mark is a proper name". This is how Badiou interprets the axiom of the null (or void) set and distills the question of the One and Many from Being and change (see, e.g., the history and development of the concepts of the calculus). The question is not simply "how does one think non-being?" but also (and Parmenides also recognized this) "how does one name non-being?" The proper name, as Badiou points out in a passage immediately following the above, is not the transcendent God or the promise of the One or presence but the "un-presentation and the un-being of the one" (cf. Derrida's comments on the possibility of a negative theology).

The payoff for working through Badiou's text is nothing less than a revitalization of philosophy (particularly for anyone who thinks philosophy in America has been boring since the waning of Rortyian pragmatism). The ontological debates surrounding Deleuze/Badiou have tended to be conducted in the margins of philosophical discourse in the US (with both thinkers more popular in circles of theory than philosophy and in the pages of journals on culture and politics than Nous or Mind), but the publication of "Being and Event" itself is precisely what Badiou means when he writes of an "event": something that disrupts the current situation. ("Event" and "situation" are, of course, technical terms for Badiou. The most succinct statement of these terms is probably "The Event as Trans-Being" in the Theoretical Writings.) Like his compatriot Ranciere (who too found his own voice after breaking with a youthful Marxism), Badiou is concerned with how it is possible that something new can be seen. "Being and Event" is compulsory for anyone who thinks ontology has been boring since Heidegger (even Millan-Puelles' ambitious "Theory of the Pure Object" fails to satisfy); and for those who weren't convinced by Deleuze that alternative ways to do ontology (viz. Bergson) were dead-ends, "Being and Event" the place to turn. (Whether one ultimately agrees with Deleuze or Badiou, however, is an open question. The basic difference is this: for Badiou, multiplicities are rigorously determined; Deleuze, obviously, denies this. In both cases being is pure multiplicity, nondenumerable, etc)

And for those who may be interested by Deleuze but are wedded to more traditionally analytic ways of writing: Badiou's writing is often praised for its clarity and in many ways it mimes the economy of analytic philosophy, avoiding the obscurity (while preserving the density) of many of his French contemporaries. Badiou has often been compared to Sartre (both being novelists and playwrights in addition to philosophers), but not only does Badiou in many ways stand apart from the French traditions of Sartre and Hyppolite, "Being and Event" is eminently more readable than "Being and Nothingness". Even if Badiou's writing lacks the brilliance of Derrida or Deleuze, this may be because he explicitly tells us that the poetic is subordinate; indeed, Badiou's writing itself is probably best described as "mathematical". While he is not immune to some amount of obscurity in some others of his writings, "Being and Event" certainly cannot be so faulted. At worst one might fault the author for demanding too much of his reader; but if this be a fault it is an admirable one to have, since it is a rare author indeed who can make such a demand.

Badiou's work is something of a hybrid. His use of analytical philosophy and logical notation runs at variance with the usual Continental practice of abstract linguistic poetizing. The book was completed nearly 20 years ago, though at the time it did not lend itself to ready comprehension because Badiou made four affirmative assumptions that went against the spirit of the time.
For Badiou situations are nothing more than pure in different multiplicities. Consequently differences do not point to norms. If true truths exist they are in different to differences. So cultural relativism can never go beyond trivial statements that different situations exist. Such relativism cannot tell us anything about what, among the differences, looked legitimately matters to subjects. Furthermore the structures of situations in themselves do not deliver truths per se. As a consequence, nothing normative can be drawn from the simple realist examination of the becoming of things. In particular, a truth is solely constituted by a rupturing with the order which supports it, never as in effect of that order. This insight seems to be restating Godel's theorem. Badiou names this type of rupture "the event". For him authentic philosophy begins, not in structural facts such as cultural, linguistic or political perspectives, but uniquely in what takes place in what remains in the form of a strictly incalculable emergence.
Next Badiou claims a subject is nothing other than an active fidelity to the event of truth. This means the subject is a militant truth. Badiou philosophically reintroduced the notion of militant during a time when the consensus of thinkers was that any engagement of this type was archaic. Not only did he found this notion, but also considerably enlarged it. Badiou sees the militant in the political activist working for human rights and environmental justice, but also for the artist-creator, the scientists who opens up by new theoretical field, or the lover who enchants the world. For Badiou the being of truth is generic because it proves itself an exception to any pre-constituted predicate of a situation in which that truth is deployed. In other words, although it is situated within a world, a truth does not retain anything expressible from that situation. A truth concerns everyone in his much as it is a multiplicity that no particular predicate can circumscribe. Therefore, the infinite work of a truth is thus that of a generic procedure. And to be a subject, and not just a simple individual animal, is to be a local active dimension of such a procedure.
Badiou has created a philosophical classic that will puzzle and confound many graduate students and colleagues for years to come. The work is modular a series of 37 meditations upon the previous postulates of classic Western thinkers. Plato and Cantor are taken to task about the meaning of the multiple and the nature of the void. Heidegger and Galileo are examined with regards to the nature of time and infinity, event and ontology. Pascal and Holderlin are interrogated about the nature of choice and inference. Leibniz and Godel are contrasted with regards to the nature of quantity in the limits of formal systems. Badiou becomes more constructive when reviewing the nature of the event as construed by P.J. Cohen. In many ways the event becomes a way of dealing with multiple change and conditions without presuming upon consciousness of time. Likewise, Badiou reinvents the nature of the subject, going beyond the classic critique of Lacan. Grasped in its being, the subject is solely be finitude of the generic procedure, the local effects of an eventual fidelity. What the subject produces is the truth itself, which is an indiscernible part of the situation. However the infinity of this truth transcends it. It is abusive to say that truth is a subjective production. Rather a subject is much taken up in fidelity to the event and suspended from truth; from which it is forever separated by chance. For Badiou the subject is ever situated between the decidable and the ineluctable. As such, he does not have a theory of consciousness so much as a mirroring of events without limit.

The feats of set theory are here employed as a proof that multiplicity (Deleuzian "virtuality", Nitzschean "chance" or "eternal return") defines the structure of being. More deeply, this entails the projection of Deleuze's structural design whereby he conceived of the virtual level of being (multiplicity of singularities) onto actual being itself, onto actuality, at the expense of any ontic configuration whatsoever, which henceforth acquires a transitory character. There remains, however, the problem related to the emergence of the "event" from the horizontal and homogenous texture of multiplicity. Through this rupture, Badiou unconsciously reproduces that duality he (and Zyzek too) accuses Deleuze of perpetrating in his ontological argument. And yet, seen from the Bergsonian standpoint, Badiou's scheme seems far more dual than Deleuze's. Most possibly, Badiou should do away with the notion of event altoghether.

Mr. Mirlis' capacity to capture the thoughts and recollections of these wonderful sportsmen (and women) really made me (and my friends) feel like I was "being there" (of course, no pun intended!). In all seriousness, this book held my interest and I'm proud to say that I am not only a friend of Mr. Mirlis', but that I also own his wonderfully written book.

Having attended several of the sporting events and watched many of the others described by many of the contributors, I really enjoyed re-living these moments in time. I think a sequel would be a great follow up read. Mr. Mirlis should be commended on his ability to gather such a strong group of contributors.

This book is so great! I've bought several copies for FATHER'S DAY gifts for family members and friend who love sports.

I would totally recommend this book for all to read. Nice and relaxing and makes you wonder about the events you have been to in your lifetime. Maybe they should be in "Being There II"

While the Bell Curve has stirred up a whirlwind of controversy, the Bell Curve Debate is actually the better of the two books. This book has great rebuttals by the likes Stephen Jay Gould, Howard Gardner, Carl Rowan and many more. It even includes some of the classic papers on these matters such "On Breeding Good Stock" by Karl Pearson. Given a choice between reading the Bell Curve or the Bell Curve Debate, the Bell Curve Debate is the clear choice.

It is regrettable to see that this valuable work is now out of print. This book is mandatory reading for anyone desiring to delve deeper into this controversial subject matter. Russell Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman do a splendid job of bringing together authors with widely differing views on the "The Bell Curve." Irving Louis Horowitz, Stephen Jay Gould, and Christopher Hitchens are only among a few of the highly regarding thinkers contributing to this collection. The editors even included a couple of insightful pieces by Walter Lippmann written in 1922 taking to task scientists similar to Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. I particularly recommend the article by Hugh Pearson entitled "Breaking Ranks." Pearson, aptly argues that the anti-intellectualism embraced by many Afro-American males afraid of being perceived as race traitors, does much to explain the low I.Q. scores of this group.

There is, though, one major complaint I have with each and every writer that has tackled "The Bell Curve." Not one that I'm aware of has made reference to the great philosopher, Karl Popper. This fact flabbergasts me to no end. Karl Popper warned that scholars, at best, present tentative indications for their theories which may eventually be proven false. How can we forget that fully credentialled scientists, not perceived crack pots, encouraged the bleeding of patients only a few hundred years ago? Another area of study now discredited is phrenology. All students in their formative years must read the serious scholarship of those bygone days when such views were highly respected. It is, I dare say, a humbling experience. Scientists may earn our respect, but we should never consider them infallible.

The measuring of intelligence is hindered by its intrinsic nebulousness. Thus, the study of this phenomenon is not restricted to members of the hard sciences. The arrogant premise of Logical Positivism is found wanting. Poets, artists, philosophers, and other denizens of the often derided Liberal Arts will forevermore continue to have a seat at the table. Debates over the nature vs. nurture aspects of intelligence are doomed to take place until the end of time. Nobody will ever be able to claim they have exhausted this ultimate conundrum of human existence.

... .

This is a worthwhile collection of old and new articles dealing with the controversy over IQ.Both pro and con groups are well represented in the various selections.The best article is written by S J Gould.
It is interesting that practically none of the selections question the very basic methodological question concerning the data upon which IQ calculations are constructed-standarized,fill in the circle,multiple choice,pattern recognition tests.No one explains why such tests are relevant to the measurement of intelligence.Such tests appear to measure memorization,recall,and effective "drill and kill " tutoring.It would appear that this is what some academics mean by intelligence- how well a test taker can regurgitate past training in taking such tests.

It's hard to imagine a better or more balanced collection of essays on the topic of intelligence testing and _The Bell Curve_. The essays present various sides of the debate, featuring perspectives from psychologists, biologists, historians, and theorists. Especially illuminating were sections dealing with _TBC_'s authors' funding source, a clandestine eugenics think-tank in New York. Also, you can find some good pro-Bell Curve articles here, although the bias certainly seems to be in favour of con- (a relection, I believe, of the academic consensus_.

It's a long book, so I thought it would last. No such luck. The writing is simply amazing, across the board. Buy it, enjoy it.

No one could possibly take The New Yorker, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Esquire,The American Scholar, the Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Time, Gourmet, Harper's and Vanity Fair and read all the stories in them every month for a year. But what if the greatest experts, The American Society of Magazine Editors read 1,586 stories and picked just the best 17 of them for you to read. Even if you didn't think you'd like the subject, you will love reading each and every one of these. I'm using it for a seminar I'm giving -- one article and its author to discuss each week for 14 weeks. It's Terrific!!!

For anyone who enjoys feature writing and investigative journalism this is an excellent read. I have made it through 9 of the 17 stories and have thoroughly enjoyed 8 of them. The topics are broad (John McCain, seal hunting in Greenland, a fat wine critic, campaign finance reform and many more.) The writing is so good that even topics that usually bore me (wine for one) became interesting.

No matter who you are, what your interests or where your political affiliations lie, if you enjoy reading good writing, you will enjoy this book. It represents some of the tightest, best researched and most insightful writing of a year's worth of magazine articles. The magazines in which the articles were originally published range from The Atlantic Monthly to Zoetrope: All-Story (did they include the ends of the alphabet for such a sentence as this?). The subjects, writing styles and tones of the stories smatter widely, but have in common one thing: they are stories worth your while. You could be forced to walk, sit and suffer with John McCain through his torturous 5-year imprisonment in a North Vietnamese p.o.w. camp, as well as with the cast of characters behind one week of McCain's presidential campaign tour. You could bask in the glory of Bob Parker, a burly, middle-aged Maryland guy whose freakishly acute sense of smell, coupled with his rigid integrity, led to his publication of The Wine Advocate and the author's well-founded claim that Parker may be "single-handedly changing the history of wine." The book is replete with the end product of authors whose diligence, sensitivity and dexterity with the English language have culminated in some rock-solid reading.

This is a wonderful resource for obtaining meanigful quotes for anyone who posseses insight into the nature of our existance here in America, and in the world.

This book is a wonderful collection of quotations that showcase the good in soceity and human nature. While there are a few pages devoted to poking at the far right, most of the book is filled with positive, uplifting thoughts. If you're a liberal, you're sure to feel a sense of pride regarding your beliefs, if you're a Conservative, it will help you to understand the REAL meaning of what it is to be a Liberal. I absolutely loved it.

I agree with Jim Hightower's assessment on the book cover, "This is a bible of progressive wisdom." This is not just a reference book, but a celebration of the virtues of liberal thought. I sat down and read it cover to cover. It's a one-of-a-kind digest and resource for taking our country back!

I have been searching for a compact book of quotes to use in opening and closing arguments in court - this book is perfect! It is not so long that hours are spent searching and not so short that only the most familiar quotes are included. Instead, it has many qulates which we may have heard at one time, but they are not so cliche'ridden that we know the end of every one. Instead, it reminds us of quotes which we would like to remember, and will either buy the book to keep, or spend time "borrowing" it from friends to copy the quotes we want.

The book is loaded with quotations appropriate to issues of justice, human rights, equity, honesty, fairness and a multitude of other positive liberal American virtues. It is good reading by itself but is also invaluable for anyone who does any issue writing in any field!

Charles Pfeiffer's book is essential for understanding how and why Jewish culture changed during the silent 440 years.

This book is an accurate and sound book. If you are looking for factual information about the intertestament period, get this book.

This is THE book to read on what heppened in the 400 silent years between the Old and New Testaments. This exciting time in Jewish history set the stage for the coming of Jesus. Why did the whole world speak Greek? What was the Jewish Rebellion? How did the Edomite line of Herod come to rule over the Jews? All of this background and more is in this book. It is written at a college history level, it is not light reading but it is well worth the effort.

'Is it not written in the Book of Jasher? The sun stopped in midheaven, and did not hurry to set for about a whole day." (Joshua 10:13)




The Silent Years:
The Christian looks upon the Old Testament as preparatory, looking toward the fulfillment of its hopes and promises in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is interested in the history of the centuries preceding the coming of Christ, the advent, and a progress toward that period of history termed "the fullness of time" (Gal. 4:4)."
The time between the close of Old Testament history and the beginning of the New Testament period has often been called "the four hundred silent years." To the historian, however, these centuries were anything but silent, and they seem to become more vocal with each passing decade. Proceeding from the Old Testament into the New Testament you notice changes in their political and religious milieu. Apparently no Hebrew prophets were speaking or writing, and God was revealing no new word to the Palestinian Jews. It was a time of wondering and waiting for the Diaspora, and mother land being acted upon by other nations. Now appear Jewish groups within Palestinian Judaism; the Pharisees and the Sadducees are two-which did not show up in the Old Testament, but appear in the New.
The Jew notes during these centuries the development of synagogue worship, the successful Maccabean revolt, and the emergence of those parties within Judaism which have set the pattern for Jewish life and thought during the past two millennia.

Palestine under the Nations:
To the student of ancient history, names like Cyrus, Darius, and Alexander the Great make this period one of paramount importance. There is a new political power on the scene. The Old Testament ends with the Israelites under the control of the Babylonians. As the New Testament opens, Rome rules Israel. What has happened? Palestine, because of its location on a major travel and trade route, was often invaded and ruled by other nations. Those times of invasion-and the ensuing occupation-had profound effects on the nation and its religious life.The Assyrian Influence. Although the Assyrian influence came before the Inter-Testament period, there was an effect that lasted into the New Testament period. After conquering parts of Israel in 722 B.C., the Assyrians carried off some of the Jewish inhabitants and replaced them with other people. The resulting intermarriages resulted in the Samaritans, a half-breed people racially and religiously.

- The Greek Influence, through the conquests of Alexander the Great, had two major effects. Greek culture and the Greek language became prominent. The New Testament books were written in Koine, Old Greek and some of them utilize Greek concepts to convey the message of the Good News. On the other hand, the overwhelming Hellenizing influence led to a split among the Jewish people between the those who adopted Greek culture and the Nationalists who defended a pure Jewish culture and traditions.
- The Egyptian Influence. One major result of Egyptian rule was the translation of the Old Testament scriptures into the Greek language. This translation, known as the Septuagint, made Jewish ideas readily available to non-Jews and, at the same time, laid a foundation for the spread of the Christian faith.
- The Roman Influence, colonizing of Palestine by the Roman Empire as the Caesars expanded their power and territory. In order to rule their vast empire, the Roman government constructed and maintained a system of highways. They also saw that travelers on the highways were protected.

Intertestamental literature:
While some of the political changes were harmful to the Jews, they proved later to promote the emerging of Messianic faith in the nations, expected by the Essenes and the Therapeutae, a holy Jewish coenobetic monastic community. We get the literature of this period to find out how the people were thinking, to what their minds were being given. A large part of that literature appears in the Septuagint Old Testament, and is incorporated in the Roman Catholic Bible. In our Bible the Roman Catholics make their insertions of the Jewish literature as follows: Just after Nehemiah they put in two books, Tobit and Judith, neither one of them historically good, and a good deal of Tobit is exceedingly silly. To the book of Esther they add ten verses to the tenth chapter, and then add six more chapters. That these additions were written in this period, and after the inspiration closed, is evident from the reading of them. Just after the Song of Solomon, they put two Apocryphal books, Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus. These books, while not inspired, make very good reading, but they are written, as I said, in that interval between the two Testaments, and rather late in that interval. Just after the Lamentations of Jeremiah, they put the book of Baruch. Baruch himself was the scribe of Jeremiah and a good man. This book, some of it, is exceedingly silly, and evidently not written by Baruch.

Pseudo.epigrapha:
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are a variety collection of ancient works inspired by the spirit of TaNaKh, some parts of which are so vividly close, that in Jebna they could have been included in the Jewish canon. The imaginary milieu and adventures of biblical characters; Enoch, Moses, Ezra, and Ezekiel, fill the pages of this heterogenous corpus with marvelous faibles. Oracles of such sages as Ahiqar and Sibyl, their apocalyptic prophecies and sacred legends provides a fantastic description of celestial realms.
Pseudo: false, epigrapha: inscription(Gr.), Psedoepigrapha: false ascribed writings, a collection of intertestimental writings of Jewish and early Jewish-Christian origins, not found either in Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint (Alexandrian translation in Koine).
The Pseudepigraphic writings were preserved in Eastern (Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian church traditions, and were often transmitted in those church original and ecclesiastic languages, and translated into Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic even if originally composed in Hebrew or Aramaic. Early Christian, Essenes and Gnostics may have added to writings or interpolated into some of these then existing books, as some fragments of pseudo writings have also been discovered among Cairo Geniza, Chenoboskion Gnostic library, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Book Review
"Pfeiffer's book on this subject is a gem. It is not so weighed down with scholarly material to be dry to the average reader. Meanwhile, it's not so light on material to be useless to anyone. This volume on the inter-testamental period covers those four hundred years in about 125 pages-- enough to give you fairly significant detail about what happened (and suggestions for where to look if you care to study the matter further), but not so much that it will put the average reader to sleep." Editors, Standing-Alone.com

Charles Pfeiffer's Authority:
I encountered Pfeiffer's scholarship in his two books, Ras Shamra and the Bible, and Tell El-Amarna and the Bible, and his book 'The Biblical World' is a masterpiece. He is concerned more with archaeology as, then, the new tool for checking history. That is why his book, Between the Testaments, was aimed at clarifying the impact of Persian and Hellenistic periods on the Jewish nation, before the Romans took over. The book's final chapters, 'The Origin of the Jewish sects,' and 'Rrise of Apocalyptic Literature' are compelling. This historical book is a good preparation for its Synonym, by D. S. Russell which elaborates on these two chapters literally and theologically. In an authoritative essay on Jewish Sects (IX): Zealots and Herodians, Fred Shewmaker referred to Charles Pfeiffer eleven out of seventeen times.

A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay(Conservation, population, and the Indifference to Limits) by John F.Rohe is an extremely interesting, must-reading, for all responsible people. Alarming, yet exciting, to gain a realistic understanding of conservation. Thinking non-conservationists will become conservationists. Conservationists will find the back-up information to substantiate their beliefs.

Richard M. Shuster, Retired Circuit Judge
5th Judicial Circuit Court, Barry County,
Michigan

A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay(Conservation, population, and the Indifference to Limits) by John F.Rohe is an extremely interesting, must-reading, for all responsible people. Alarming, yet exciting, to gain a realistic understanding of conservation. Thinking non-conservationists will become conservationists. Conservationists will find the back-up information to substantiate their beliefs.

Richard M. Shuster, Retired Circuit Judge
5th Judicial Circuit Court, Barry County,
Michigan

At a time when many people downplay Malthus, or even ridiculed him, his predictions are coming true-if we just take notice. This is certainly not visible in the suburban supermarket where many of the people who affect what is happening shop. However, for growing numbers of malnourished people on our planet, this is all too apparent. This fine book looks at the underlying causes for this predicament and suggest that the only final way to resolve this problem is to face up to our population problem. Increasing food production, if that were still possible, only postpones the worst, and because the world's population would be larger, would make the suffering even more terrible. Everyone should read this book.

Rohe addresses the natural limits that we face, population, resources, environmental degradation, the earths carrying capacity whose totality is a disease of being indifferent toward these limits. He write with the precision and logic of a lawyer which he is.

Patricia Thomas writes a phenomenal book of science, of politics, of a deadly disease, intertwined with business and the age-old struggle of societal good vs. personal/business gain. I was at first daunted by the size of the book alone, but the writing is so clear, so concise, so reader-friendly that it is an easy read. This is a must read for everyone interested in finding solutions to science-society issues such as AIDS. It is a must read for every health care professional and medical researcher, as well. As a science/health writer myself, I also highly recommend it as a teaching tool for how to write science for the lay person.

Sept. 11 has had a galvanizing effect in reminding Americans that planet earth is really a small place where whatever affects one person ultimately affects us all. The emergence of AIDS in the early 1980s might also have united Americans to fight a common enemy. Might have. But the truth, so compellingly told by Ms. Thomas, is that personalities and politics (both personal and national), prejudice and posturing got in the way of mounting a cohesive campaign. As a result, we are still far from stopping AIDS. Sure, treatments are better, but most of the world cannot afford treatment.
What makes "Big Shot" especially timely is that, as America prepares to fight the "new war," more military personnel will likely be exposed to the AIDS virus. When the GIs line up for vaccinations and grimace comically for the camera, as our fathers and grandfathers did for previous wars, protection against the AIDS virus won't be part of the cocktail. Because there is no vaccine against AIDS.

It's a pretty depressing scenario, but Ms. Thomas retains a wonderfully upbeat message with the subtext "that was then, this is now, so let's move forward."
Besides, she tells a helluva entertaining story.

It's been said that politics, like sausage, is best not seen in the making. But those who wonder why we don't yet have a vaccine or a cure for AIDS need to know why. Pat Thomas takes us behind the scenes and lives of the cast of characters deeply involved in the science, politics and business of one of the most hotly sought-after pharmaceutical products of all time.
"Big Shot" gives us reason to despair that science can ever succeed, given the private and public agendas of so many involved in the AIDS epidemic.
But it also gives us hope, as we see the many dedicated to finding a way to stop the spread of an epidemic that has already claimed 22 million lives. This is a masterful job by one of the best science writers working today -- wonderfully written and compelling.

I think "Big Shot" is the first important nonfiction work of the 21st century. With a clarity and an exuberance not often found in books about hard science, Patricia Thomas explains how politics, human frailty and corporate greed have prevented us from finding a vaccine for AIDS. Comparisons with previous books about AIDS and public policy don't exactly do justice to "Big Shot." If books must be categorized, Thomas' scrupulous research sometimes places this book with top ranking medical journals; but the wonderful writing -- you can almost dance to Thomas' prose -- places it among the better mysteries. In the hands of a lesser writer, the workings of DNA, retroviruses, surface antigens and hard-working proteins would cause one's eyes to glaze over. Instead, I found myself turning pages with Evelynwoodesque speed to get to the next development and the next, wondering which young researcher would win the race to the vaccine goal. Thomas has raised the bar for future books about medical research.

This book of Huainanz is full of wisdom. It pretty simply to apply in all aspect of life & business world too. I am a student now, studying this chinese masters has help me reach a new level of understanding.

This book is more philosophical than some others of similar titles and natures are. It views leadership and strategy through the lens of Taoist thinking, and as such is more concerned with the spiritual and ethical development of a leader. The book is broken into four sections: State and Society; Warfare; Peace; and Wisdom. Each is linked to the other, and follows the previous topic. There is a lot of discussion on the health of a given society, and how both the heads of a society as well as the people within it reflect and affect its overall health. There is a lot of focus on the causes and effects of warfare, as well as the ethics of waging war properly.

This is a small book, one that you can keep in your pocket or briefcase, perfect in size for reading on the train into work or while sitting in a doctor's office. It's full of essays that will make you think, and perhaps re-evaluate how you deal with certain situations in your life. It is worth buying, no question about that.

Cleary brings us another brief, readable translation from the Taoist canon. This time, it's a compilation of extracts from the Huainan Tzu (or Huainanzi). Unlike other books, this has multiple authors, guest philosophers in the court of a king of the small Huainan nation. If there's any choppiness in this list of brief lessons, it's probably due to the book's mixed origin rather than Cleary's editing.

He chose to arrange the aphoristic anecdotes into four chapters, on State, Warfare, Peace, and Wisdom. These readings are much less direct than other authors on statecraft - Han Fei Tzu or Sun Tzu are clearer to a modern reader, and more immediately applicable. Like other Taoist authors, these convey the sense that proper following of The Way is the only goal. Within The Way all other things, including peace, prosperity, and victory, ensue with the inevitability of water flowing down hill.

Some of these teachings are clear enough, though, and applicable immediately in today's world. "In early spring, ... pregnant animals are not to be killed and birds' eggs are not to be taken." Natural and agricultural resources need to be managed properly in order to stay productive for the long term. It's a lesson that is too rarely remembered in modern policy-making, when resources must be stretched to feed so many more people. Elsewhere, the Huainan masters direct their invasion forces not to destroy resources or plunder the populace, in order to keep the majority's good will after a change of regime. They knew this over two thousand years ago, but we're still applying the lesson only poorly today.

This isn't in the first rank of Taoist writings, but it's a readable and worthwhile addition for anyone who wants to dig a bit deeper. It complements Sun Tzu and Mo Tzu as much as it does Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. It gives a little extra perspective on today's world, too.

//wiredweird

PS: This book's content also appears as one section of a larger collection, Cleary's "The Taoist Classics, Volume I."

i read on the subject of eastern philosophy and the book of leadership and strategy is one that encompasses a typical taoist thought. very informative, and makes more sense than most holy books. thomas cleary is on my list of authors

This little book is great on so many levels. It consists of, as the title would indicate, of questions concerning Business, Politics and Ethics. There are a total of 223 questions. The book is completely and absolutely nonjudgemental, as it gives no answers to the questions nor does it supply any opinions. This job is left up to you! The questions are well written and very plane it that they are, at first glance simple. Far from it. When you read one of the questions here, you will have almost an instant "gut" reaction, or instant answer, but, after giving it some thought, you will find you self thinking, "hey, this is not as easy as I thought." This is a wonderful book for group discussions, but beware, some of the questions could be discussed for days and days, answers would change and opinions swayed...it is just that type of book. I love to brouse through it, read a question, and then just think, asking myself questions about the questions asked. The issues addressed here are ones we face on a daily basis in our society and are not particularly addressed only to business and politics. Highly recommend this one!

Far too many of us wait until faced with an ethical dilemma before figuring out what our personal ethical stand is. This book, used correctly, provides the opportunity to flex your brain muscle and reflect on your ethical perspective before it becomes necessary.

I use it to challenge my site management team every morning with great effect.

The only criticism I would have is that some questions while provacative are not for the meek.

Great job Mr Stock

The original "Book of Questions" made a good conversation-starter and, in my opinion, inspirational tool for writing or journaling. "The Book of Questions: Love and Sex" is better for helping you to see your own relationship values and how they may be helping and harming you and your loved one, and it can also be used to help open up communication in a relationship if approached carefully. "The Book of Questions: Business, Politics and Ethics," on the other hand, is perhaps best for pushing you to explore your own moral values and how well you're living up to them.

What's most impressive about this is that very few of the questions seem to imply a "right" answer or try to push some sort of specific realization, and even those that do sort of come across that way don't have to be read in that way. Dr. Stock specifically says that he doesn't want to push an agenda--he merely wants to spur people to think more carefully about what it is they're doing and why.

The questions run the gamut from economic programs to health care, international policy to business. There are questions about hiring and firing employees, stealing from or betraying employers, tradeoffs in public programs and government spending, and so on. Many of the questions seem particularly relevant to today's political situations. While I wasn't as fond of the tradeoff questions in the "Love and Sex" book, I think that in this one they come across much better. Somehow they end up feeling less arbitrary and more like realistic quandaries.

Dr. Stock tries not to give us easy questions with easy answers, instead forcing us to truly think about the hard issues.

I have the screen saver version of this book, which is integrated with the original The Book of Questions for Windows computers. The graphics and sound effects are great and I get lots of people in the office asking me about it. It's a real head turner that engages people in conversation.