Humanities Books

This small autobiography is a poetic inspiring work. It tells of Chagall's childhood in Vitebsk and his first youthful efforts as an artist. And it also contains within it the great love story of Chagall's life with his first wife Bella. Chagall writes with intensity and strength much the way he paints. The difficulty of his early years is somehow transcended by his devotion to his artistic vocation. This is a recommended work for all those who care about the relation of the artist to his life, and of the creator of great beauty to his artistic task.

MY LIFE is unlike any other autobiography I've read. Who would have thought of Chagall as a poet? As a master of word pictures? There is not a dry, boring sentence in the entire book. Instead, Chagall paints verbal pictures of his youth, his family, his struggles to become an artist. It's must reading for anyone who aspires to remain an artist (painter, writer, dancer . . .). Although the book reads very, very quickly, the poignant feelings it evokes cannot end so quickly. I am haunted by Chagall's painful youth-the poverty, the discouragement he received from many quarters. And yet the autobiography is inspirational, because as a writer, I know that one cannot let go of an unshakable faith in one's calling.

This book is an autobiography by Marc Chagall himself. Its a wonderful exploration of Chagall's jewish-russian memories of his beloved village Vitebsk and of his first encounters with the avant-garde in the Paris of the early 20th century. Its a good example of Chagall's sensitivity and of his spirituality. It should be a highly readable book for it is full of poetry, phantasy and hope. At the same time, the reader will be able to meet one the 20th century leading colorists.

One may hear this many times about Marc Chagall's autobiography My Life but it truly is pure poetry. Reading this book I found I didn't have to think at all. His words just sank into my head. He writes about his childhood and the difficulties growing up poor while struggling to make it as an artist. Every word seems to throw you directly into his very thoughts and feelings as he describes his memories growing up. It's a book I would not expect to come from a man whose voice is heard mainly through his paintings. While it's a delightful treat for his fans, it is also an excellent and inspirational read for those who intend to pursue their own love for the arts. Pictures of his artwork are printed throughout the book lending to it, a part of Chagall that many people know and love him for. But in this piece of artwork it's his words not his paintings that are absolutely captivating.

As a 2nd year PhD student someone lent me this book so that I could acquaint myself with Social Psychology (which I had very little exposure to beforehand). I felt that I had a better grasp of social psychology after reading this book than I did after taking a year of PhD level courses. Ross & Nisbett effortlessly cover the foundational works of Social Psy in a way that is immediately accessible and compelling. This is one of two books that I recommend to incoming PhD students...

Offered as "a slim guide ... to the heart and muscle" of the enterprise of social psychology, this volume provides the cummulative evidence of the field organized in terms of the basic principles it supports. This is an excellent introduction and review of the field of social psychology, its research and its applications. To really absorb the knowledge accumulated here into the functioning of our general culture would require a willingess by individuals, over and over again, to transcend normal ways of thinking in order to understand others, and especially differences with others, in a less self-centered manner than is usual.

This book is a wonderful introduction to the importance of situational influences on our inferences and decisions. The coverage of examples is thorough and it is easy to see how each is relevent to the topic at hand. Written in a an imminently understandable and conversational style, this book is a pleasure to read. I particularly enjoyed the ways in which the authors demonstrated the types of faulty logic we all use when trying to use dispositional information to make predictions about the behaviour of ourselves and others. This book points out quite clearly that just because an approach appears to work in the real world, doesn't mean that the rational for using it is reasonable. An enjoyable and informative read!

This book is amply recommended for anyone questioning the individualistic stance of human behavior. The ideas are well structured and motivate discussion. Essential reading for cognitive and AI researchers!

Some quotes:

"People sometimes construe the same object differently because they view it from different angles, rather than because they are fundamentally different people."

"Indeed, when we are confronted with behavior that seems to suggest exceptional personal attributes of any kind we tell ourselves to pause and consider the situation. What were the details of the immediate context of behavior? How was the situation construed by the actor? And what was the broader social context or social system within which the actors were functioning? More pointedly, what objective situational features or subjective construals, or tension system considerations would make these seemingly exceptional actions less exceptional, and more congruent with what experience has taught us about the way ordinary people (ourselves included) generally behave?"

Fantastic. Buy this book if you deal with kids at any age group. Answers questions that even burgeouning adult Christians may have. A must read for any Christian evangelist, and anyone trying to spread the Word. Transcends its target audience, high school teens, indeed the toughest group going.

I bought this book for my teenage daughter, who had a lot of questions.
I pre read it before giving it to her and was quite pleased. The reading level was not to advanced or overly simplified. Amy Wellborn did a great job of taking some difficult concepts and explaining them very clearly.
Even if your kids are not into reading this book will give y ou a lot of information to explain things to them, or it can be used for just about any CCD/ Religious Ed class.
Keep in mind that this is not intended to be an all encompassing tome like the Summa Theologica of Aquinas, but for the average teen and pre teen this does a great job.

My teen enjoyed this book. And even though I am in my 40's, I thoroughly enjoyed it also. I found it to be insightful and simply explained some concepts that can get confusing when confronted by a nonbeliever. Highly, highly recommended!

Written in a lively style, this excellent book provides answers to the most common arguments for not believing in God. Short and easily readable, this book is ideal for teenagers or adults that question their faith.

Drawing from Welborn's experience as a teacher, she tackles statements such as:

-I don't believe in God because no one can prove he exists. -I don't believe in God because people could have just made the stuff in the Bible up. -I don't believe in God because people do such horrible things in the name of religion. -I don't believe in God because innocent people suffer.

Welborn provides clear, solid help in answering the important questions of life, such as does God exist? What does God want from me? Does it matter if I'm Catholic or not?

Each chapter includes a summary. This book could easily be used with teenagers, or as part of religious instruction or CCD classes.

This book is the first in the Prove It! series.

This book is simply the best and one of the only books on the Indians of Brazil and Uruguay and the conquest of them. This is an amazing wide ranging study from the missionaries to the slave trade to the many indian nations in Brazil.

The story of how the Portuguese came to rule Brazil takes us to the "Pope Line" of Alexander VI, which split South America into two pieces. Most of it fell within the Spanish hemisphere, but, as fate would have it, the eastern slab (roughly, where Brazil is) went to Portugal. Given the absence of mineral deposits, the colonists resorted to exploiting human population. The tale of Brazil's conquest is a grim story of progressive accretion, acre by acre, tribe by tribe, with only the Jesuits serving to moderate the excesses of the colonists. Needless to say, the Jesuits were soon eliminated as a threat (this is depicted in the Morricone film "The Mission") and the Brazilian interior given over to plunder. Hemmings also takes us through the Dutch and French interludes, wherein Portugal stood to lose its dominions to these interlopers. There are few heroes on the European side in this epic, however there are a number of brave tribesmen who succeeded, always temporarily, in holding back the advance.

A terrifically comprehensive history of the impact of European settlement on the native population of Brazil. Hemming has introduced a style and content that makes this as much a story book as a formal text book. The brutal and tragic consequences of the meeting of two extremely diverse cultures are brought to life in this book, with the greed and self-righteousness of the Portugese settlers set against the innocence and primitive nature of the indigenous 'Indians'. Anybody with an interest in the history of Brazil would find this a truly fascinating read.

A terrifically comprehensive history of the impact of European settlement on the native population of Brazil. Hemming has introduced a style and content that makes this as much a story book as a formal text book. The brutal and tragic consequences of the meeting of two extremely diverse cultures are brought to life in this book, with the greed and self-righteousness of the Portugese settlers set against the innocence and primitive nature of the indigenous 'Indians'. Anybody with an interest in the history of Brazil would find this a truly fascinating read.

Sure, most Robert Burns poems are on the `Net. Sure, we can look them up, print them out, and then recycle them. But what if you are at home, with no computer on, or in the park, or in a bus or train or plane? This is a smooth, slim, handsome volume, with a purple picture of a thistle on the cover and a ribbon placeholder inside. This is a book of poems for the ages--familiar, resonant, humorous, and ready.

Burns is a legendary lyric poet whose Scots verses inspired Wordsworth and Coleridge. A number of his poems and songs, "Auld Lang Syne" " To a Mousie" "Tam O'Shanter" " A man's a man for a that" are among the most well- known in the language.
Burns bright star burned briefly, and his life was filled with passionate and romantic loves about which he wrote some of his greatest poems. " My love is like a red red rose" is perhaps the most well-known of these.
In brief lines he expressed a great range of feeling, from satirical to humorous to tender and loving.
Here are the concluding verses of one of his signature poems, "To a Mousie"
But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o mice an men
Gang aft agley,
An lea'e us nought but grief an pain,
For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An forward, tho I canna see,
I guess an fear!

Robert Burns was and still is the greatest Scottish poet to ever live. This book takes you deep inside the mind of the Scots and makes you feel like one yourself. A perfect selection of literature, it is sure to be among your favorite bedside books. Buy it!!!

This is the best volume you'll find of the poetry of the great Bobby Burns (1759-1796). What's so great about this guy is that his poetry is never really sad or whiny like, well just about everybody else, but his poetry is really happy and merry; just a song you sing while drinking scotch. Another thing is that Burns is just the voice of Scotland. His poems in the Scottish dialect are nothing short of delightful like one of my favorites of his, A Red, Red Rose
Oh my luve is like a red, red rose ,
That's newly sprung in June
Oh my luve is like a melodie
That's sweetly played in tune
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel awile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile!

While Kebric's book is best read as a supplement, there is no doubt that this is one of the better historical narratives I've ever read. Kebric's book teaches without the tedious dryness of a regular history book thanks to his well-organized and friendly style which reads more like a series of related stories than a history. An abundant supply of original sources compliment the book, many of them interesting and often humorous!

I recommend this book if you want a quick overview of Roman history including a look into the lives of important Roman figures. It's a good quick and easy read.

We used this book as a supplementary text for my Roman Civ. course. I found it extremely interesting and informative, as well as easy to read. Kebric gives portraits of Romans from different eras in great detail. He supplements his own work with passages from ancient authors of the Roman world. This is a good read for anyone interested in the Roman era, and a must read for students of Roman history.

After reading Kebric's "Greek People," I thought I'd give "Roman People" a try as well. Both are well-written social histories of ancient Greece and Rome that look at the daily lives of the people through the eyes of those who were there. Kebric makes liberal use of primary-source material to support his narrative, and he keeps the reader engaged with small vignets about the significant contributions of individual Roman people.

I thoroughly recommend this book.

I was dissappointed somewhat when I first got this book, as I was expecting it to cover the social conditions of one particular period of the Roman Empire instead of being a general history. When I finally sat down to read it, though, I was pleasantly surprised by what a gem of a book this is.

Not exactly social history, not exactly general history, this book instead considers the lives of various people throughout the history of the Roman state which are either important in their own right (those of important political figures) or else important as indicators of significant trends (e.g. the rise of Christianity).

Perhaps why I like this book most, though, is the author's crips style and lucid reasoning. Conclusions are always supported with reference to original sources, and when these are either lacking or ambigious then clear-headed deduction is used to try to reconstruct what most likely might have happened. A fine example of this is when Kebric argues that Roman incompetence was probably more responsible for the protracted siege of Syracuse than any fantastic siege inventions on the part of Archimedes.

Given how much ink has been spilled on Roman history, I can perhaps give no greater praise to this book than by saying it showed me things I had never seen or thought of before.

This truly amazing book "found" me facing much that just did not matter in my life. I read the entire book in almost a single gulp - excited because I found that life could be absolutely beautiful when we live to serve others!

This book is a nicely rounded compendium of insights into spiritual relationships, healing, energies, and requirements of the disciple in the "worldly" sense. It was the first AAB book I ever bought many years ago, and I have always taken seriously the intent and energies in its words. If your motive in life is "Selfless Service to Others" you will like this book!

Its content helped reaffirm my own inner attitudes to life, and made me examine my world of associates and inter-relations with all manner of events and circumstances due to my own actions. It helped me see the good in all people and states of affairs. It helped me see there is no such thing as blame, and no such thing as bad luck or good luck. We make our futures, just as we made our past.

These attitudes to induce so-called "right human relations" and "goodwill" are central to the furtherance of "brother/sisterhood" as a "fact in nature", rather than as an ideal. In the AAB books is the concept of a "New Group of World Servers". The NGWS function subconsciously as a "group-force" of spiritual aspirants and disciples. This NGWS idea is expounded in detail in this book. Its hard to fault this kind of positive theory and hard to doubt the truth of this concept. I believe it is a feasible idea that the forces of "will to good" contribute substantially on a world-wide basis, and that our conscious effort to be part of this is a worthwhile pursuit. The book is very interesting, and distils many helpful ideas and techniques for the disciple.

I have kept this book by my bedside for a year. It is my guidebook and inspiration for following my heart and creating my life's work. This book covers every aspect of service, what it is and what it isn't. This is a book for all those who want to make a contribution, who are feeling the pull of their soul, and who want to advance on their spiritual path by serving humanity.

Serving Humanity is an outstanding collection of wisdom teaching on the Science of Service from the extensive writings of Alice Bailey and the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul. Our international spiritual group is using this book as a training manual. We learn that true service is basically the spontaneous outflow of a loving heart and an intelligent mind, produced by the inevitable inflow of spiritual force and not simply by strenuous physical plane activity. The true server lives, serves, works and influences, asking nothing for himself personally.

The service the Tibetan teaches helps awaken a deep sense of brotherhood in humanity. "Work and give, love and think, and aid those groups who are building and not destroying, loving and not attacking, lifting and not tearing down. Work with groups who are not fighting other groups and organizations, no matter how sincere their motive."

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has made contact with the soul, awakened to the universal suffering of humanity, and wants to work for a civilization of greater light and good will.

Liked it, very good pacing, lots of surprises, excellent character deliniation. I wish more SF authors would get back to the basics like this and just tell a great fast-track adventure story without all the ET, bioweapon and psychobabble distractions. The details were just right, not too much, not too little. The plot was imaginative, linear and satisfying and full of unconventional concepts and twists. I highly recommend it.

I have read all three of Carpenter's most recent books and enjoyed all of them immensely. This one is no exception. One thing that appeals to me is that he always characterizes his women in the stories as intelligent, strong, independent and resourceful, yet having a loving and nurturing side. All of his main characters are fully developed as genuine human beings, some courageous and kind, some weak and nasty, but all are believable. Dan Cutter the main protagonist is an example. He is not perfect, has weaknesses, makes mistakes and is conflicted with memories of his lost wife and daughters who died in one of the many massive earthquakes that accompanied the destruction. The other characters play major roles, too, it isn't just a story where all the focus is on the central character and the others merely provide background. In this story, the trials and tribulations of a small remaining group in the aftermath of the world's worst tragedy are outlined in stark detail, yet the pressure of their radically altered lives forces each to reveal hidden truths about them.
I wasn't too keen on the details of the battle between the religious cult and the nomadic tribes, too gory for me, but I know most men would relate strongly to that. I have no other criticisms, the pacing was excellent, the descriptions so vivid you felt you were there in person. The whole book literally defines the word "adventure." It is educational and food for thought too, written with certain knowledge of living in primitive conditions and understanding nature. I was very pleased with it because it very well could happen just like that if such a major calamity befell our planet and after reading it I still think a lot about how I would cope in such a situation.

Great book! I really liked how the story was on this planet and not way out there with hard to understand plot and bizarre situations. It seemed like a true story even though it was set a few decades from now. I liked the logical way the people interacted and the experiences were described, I could actually visualize all the events and the characters clearly. The trek across into Mexico was an amazing tale, as was the way people formed groups to survive. Carpenter really knows his material, nature, the animals, the terrain, the way people have to live without modern conveniences, even the weather and the smells. He also is apparently expert in weaponry, tracking and hunting, battle strategy and history. I am a true fan of his books, I only wish there was more of them.

This latest work by Phillip E. Carpenter veers off course from his established genre, however it turns out to not be a bad thing. As I read this book, I immediately recall why I liked his writing so much, he brings an intelligent and literate application to a decidedly masculine and forceful style. The prologue of the book begins with what now has become almost a cliche mode, thanks to Hollywood beating the concept of a world-wide post-apocalyptic cataclysm to death, but to be fair, it is merely a set up for the main plot and there is no other way the reader could get the information required to understand the following story line. It also introduces at least two of the main characters and their backgrounds, a glimpse into their previous lives at the time of Earth's major disaster.
How they and the other interesting and unique individuals they encounter adapt to survive horrific climatological and geographical changes and the loss of their comfortable technological civilization is amazingly detailed and realistic. It becomes an adventure in the truest sense of the word, a quest for life and a struggle to maintain some form of civilized behavior among the most primitive conditions. I have always liked Carpenter's ability to get inside the minds of the various characters, making the reader feel he or she knows them personally. And these characters are very intriguing. They are too numerous and strange to list here, but one clue is the artwork on the cover of the book, the woman Samantha, a red-headed former stripper from Argentina who joins the Jaguar tribe of the Nomad Nation and must have their totem tattooed on her face to assure loyalty. Her story alone is well worth reading the book, but she is only a part of the great ensemble. The way Carpenter weaves many people's lives into this plot is a work of art and reinforces the basic premise that perseverance, integrity and honor will prevail over greed, degeneration and evil. The war between the Nomad Nation and the Host of Jesus becomes the pivotal point in the book and it is told in a manner that gives one serious pause and reflection on the human condition. Conflict over ideology is not glorified nor is it abhorred, but treated in a realistic manner, warts and all.
The only criticism I find is that in this book, as in Elephant Gun and Arabian Assignment, Carpenter tends to provide too much detail about weaponry and personal combat for my tastes. I do not need to know how to kill someone in twenty different ways or use every type of weapon from knives, bow and arrows, seige machines and antique cannons to infra-red-scoped sniper rifles, however I admit it is all well within the context of the story and emotionally entertaining. I am still shuddering from the description of how a man dies when bitten by a rattlesnake and another tortured on a cross. On balance, I prefer the parts of the book where separated people discover courage and loyalty within themselves and find each other, develop new loves and strengthen relationships and family ties. There is where the author's writing is most powerful and moving. Those who choose this book will soon see what I mean.
-Barker Reviews

This philosophy book by Stumpf and Fieser is a good survey of all the major topics in philosophy (from a classical Western standpoint), and includes many of the major thinkers over time, both in the narrative discussion presented by the authors, as well as in primary source readings from major philosophers themselves.

The text is divided into five major sections: I - Ancient Greek Philosophy; II - Hellenistic and Medieval Philosophy; III - Early Modern Philosophy; IV - Late Modern and 19th Century Philosophy; and V - 20th Century and Contemporary Philosophy. Section I looks at the major ancient Greek thinkers, such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, as well as lesser-known important figures and schools such as Thales, Pythagoras, the Sophists, and more. This is the time that philosophy began to be broken into certain topical areas (ethics, politics, metaphysics, logic, etc.) but also a time when the disciplines of science, mathematics and what we would call social sciences and arts and humanities were all directly and explicitly tied to the overall philosophical enterprise.

The section on Hellenistic and Medieval Philosophy looks at later Greek schools (Stocism, Skepticism, Epicureanism) as well as the advent of Christianity and Christian influence in philosophical development. Key figures here include Augustine (heavily influenced by the twin sources of Christianity and Neoplatonism), Boethius, Anselm, Aquinas (influenced greatly by the European rediscovery of Aristotle), and late medieval figures such as Scotus, Ockham and Eckhart.

Early Modern Philosophy begins at the time the various Renaissance and Reformation periods began, looking at key philosophers such as Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and the British Empiricists; this was also the advent of the scientific revolution and prelude to the Enlightenment, so there were philosophies of politics, religion, science, knowledge and ethics significantly different from anything before.

Late Modern and 19th Century Philosophy looks at primary Enlightenment figures such as Kant and Hegel, with fundamentally new ideas in the areas of metaphysics and epistemology (and, accordingly, new philosophies in other areas that reflect the new developments). This is also the period that saw the advent of Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill, and Comte), and radical thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Marx and Nietzsche, whose direct influence in areas of religion, politics, and culture are still being felt.

Key areas covered in the final chapter on Contemporary Philosophy include Pragmatism (Pierce, James, Dewey, Bergson, Whitehead), Analytic Philosophy (Russell and Wittgenstein), Phenomenology and Existentialism (Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty), and very new ideas that are only now coming to full expression (postmodernism, structuralism and post-structuralism, mind-body problems, etc.). Overall, this text includes a 500-page narrative of the principle ideas and patterns of development that have shaped the many dimensions of Western philosophy.

Sufficient for an introductory course, it should also serve to whet the appetite of readers who are seeking more in particular philosophical areas. This book would be well served paired with a collection of primary text readings (and indeed, there is such a volume available).

There is a useful glossary of key philosophical terms, a select bibliography arranged chronologically by chapter, divided into original documents and critical studies, and an index including names, terms and concepts.

Philosophy is rarely easy reading; there will be parts that appeal to a particular reader that will leave another bewildered or bored (or both!), but there tends to be in the philosophical discipline something somewhere of interest to most. This gives a good, broad layout of philosophy as done in the primary Western, academic tradition, and serves as a good text for classrooms, as well as use for a personal study.

This is a very even handed over view treatment of western philosophy from ancient times right on up to modern times. A great deal of the pertinent subjects in philosophy are covered by many of the main thinkers through the ages. This is probably about as good as it gets in a one volume history of philosophy book. It's a bit "thick" at times, but this should be expected from the nature of the subject. It should be noted that this work does not include eastern philosophy. Some other decent one volume works are: A Short History of Philosophy, by Kathleen Higgins ( includes some eastern philosophy ); Consequences of Ideas by R.C. Sproul. Be sure not to miss this last one by Sproul. It's concise and makes some solid philosphical/theological points worth knowing. When it comes to learning about philosophy, one needs to be aware of both "spins" on philosophy- liberal and conservative, secular and religious. These types of works are good places to start serious philosophical exploration.

This book, now in its seventh edition, is one of the better histories of western philosophical thought and development. In this edition, Fieser takes the reins, building upon the work of the late Samuel Stumpf, respected philosopher at Vanderbilt. This is a book that is comprehensive, yet fairly accessible as well. The beginner to philosophy might have difficulty with sections dealing with the more elaborate thinkers like Hegel or even Heidegger, but on balance, I think even a beginner will be able to get a great deal out of this book.

Through careful study of this book, the reader will begin to see how western society has been thoroughly shaped by the philosophies described here. While philosophy is regularly dismissed as irrelevant theorizing that has no bearing on the real world (a criticism that is not altogether invalid), what can be seen from reading this book is that ideas matter, and they have consequences that thoroughly shape the 'real world'.

Stumpf/Feiser begin with the pre-Socratic philosophers, and then devote considerable time to analyzing Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It is Plato and Aristotle that Western thought owes its inheritance, and this can be seen in the treatment of Augustine and Aquinas and the outworkings of their philosophies/theological approaches and necessities.

Modernist philosophy gets a hard look in this book as well, starting with Descartes and moving up through Kant. Existentialism, both Christian and atheist, are examined through Kierkegaard and Sartre/Camus, and the book also devotes a decent amount of attention to Nietzche and analytic philosophy, the forebears of postmodernism.

In each case, the analyses in this book are solid, and while the treatment is certainly not exhaustive, many of the major ideas of the philosophers mentioned are handled quite well and in mostly understandable and accessible ways.

I will register only 2 minor complaints. The book's citationing approach is not good at all. The book regularly quotes from the works of the philosophers in question, but does not have formal citations. This is very fixable and should be fixed in the next edition, there's no reason why the citations shouldn't be in here. Secondly, postmodernism itself is still not dealt with as comprehensively as it should be. While Rorty's thought is discussed, Foucault, Derrida, and others are not and they should be in order to present an adequate picture of contemporary philosophy. In addition, the work of Plantinga also deserves mention but is excluded.

But overall, this is a fine survey - more advanced than Grenz's survey 'Primer on Postmodernism' (which I would recommend for those wanting a survey treatment on Derrida and Foucault), but still accessible for most anyone interested in a substantive treatment of Western philosophy.

Stumpf's text is widely used in Introduction to Philosophy courses, a fact in no doubt due to the book's brevity and clarity. Teaching philosophy is a tricky business. It is easy to make ideas that ought to be exhilarating into dreadfully boring subjects but, on the other hand, a good philosophy teacher can take some dry and boring philosophical idea and breathe life into it so that it becomes interesting to anyone, even the casual reader. Stumpf is this latter type. He excels at clearly communicating the fundamental ideas of the major thinkers in the history of western philosophy, but more important is the efficiency with which he does it. Overview philosophy texts can often fall into one of two traps: either they bog themselves down so much with the various philosophers' canons of thought that the book becomes too bloated for the average student, or for the sake of being concise they boil down those canons until what remains are only bare bones structures of the philosophers' bodies of thought. Stumpf avoids both extremes, and when the economy with which he writes is paired with his keen understanding of philosophy, the result is an extremely effective philosophy text that comes in at a fighting weight of about 500 pages.

My only criticism of Stumpf would be his choice of philosophers to include. I am not all that concerned with August Comte, for example, and in my mind the inclusion of Reid or Paley would have better represented the Enlightenment debates on epistemology. But each philosopher has a different band of thinkers that he thinks is more important than others, and I guess it's inevitable that I as a Christian would want any philosophy text to include those two. Setting that gripe in the ditch for a moment, I would heartily recommend Socrates to Sartre to anyone interested in western philosophy.

Thank you so much for getting me the book in such a timely matter I really appreciate it, also it is in great condition.

Need to learn the basics of statistics? B Michael Thorne and J Martin Giesen's book is a very well written, fundamentally sound textbook that will give the reader a well-structured taste how statistics are applied to the behavioral sciences.

The book expounds well on the language of statistics. Chapters 2-6 are dedicated to Discriptive Statistics wherein the student will learn the basics of scaling, frequency distribution, and graphing of data. Following are appropriately placed and well written lessons on Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Dispersion finishing with the functions and dynamics of Standard Scores.

Generally speaking, the book systematically advances some very neat step-by-step lessons involving statistical formulas for finding the variance et al. It teaches the student the importance of graphs and helps them to develop a deep appreciation for the various kinds of graphs available to express ones data.

The intent of the authors seems to be an effort to delivers a text where every chapter builds perfectly on the next. The student may find himself or herself submerged in learning about the measures of the central tendency and before they know it, they will be calculating t scores, the average deviation, the standard deviation and the variances for given data.

This book also teaches about the importance of the power of a statistical test while helping the student to appreciate the difference between a parametric from a non-parametric test and coaches the student of which test to use when.

This book offers fine systematic lessons in appreciating such tests as one and two-way ANOVA design and makes correlation and regression principles easy to understand.

The book also offers nice easy to comprehend tutorials in Chi-Square goodness to fitness test as well as the Chi square test of independence. The text concludes with a solid lesson in alternatives to the t and F tests and features manageable lessons for the Mann-Whitney U Test, The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed- Ranks Test, and the Kruskal-Wallice-One-Way ANOVA.

The appendix is loaded with a nice review of the formulas for quick reference and glossary definitions that make understanding statistical symbols an easy and pleasant task. It is adequately furnished as well with statistical tables, albeit limited, for locating areas in a z score, and for finding critical values for t, f, q, r, x2 et al. given of course the degrees of freedom.

B Michael Thorne and J Martin Giesen's book on statistics for the behavioral sciences was such a fine and well organize book that it gave me confidence and today I look forward to the day when I will test my own Null Hypothesis.

I read the whole 3rd edition of this book and I did not have many complains, other than the chapter on 2 way ANOVA was too brief. I tried to look inside this book, but such info is not available here at this moment. At least I know the former edition was really good. Everything else than 2 way ANOVA was explained in narrative ways that definitively help to understand this topics much better than so many other book filled of junk equations. However, I'm not so sure if you should use this book if you're currently taking a statistic related course because you may need immediate answers, just equations and repetitive solutions. The proper and deeper knowledge that will be useful in real life when doing research takes much longer time to learn and you shold take it at some time later on. I am not a psychology major, but a chemistry one and the book is just as helpful to me as to the aimed audience, it's math after all, 1 + 1 is 2 no matter which one is your major.

this book is better than the previous book for the course... this one explains things in better detail as if you are just learning the stuff rather than to assume you already know what the authors are talking about