Richard Duke Books

Smoking-related disease accounts for 3/4 of the deaths in this world. But you probably knew that if you're smoking.

No matter what the assertions, I could care less if people claim to enjoy their freedom and life by smoking. However, it becomes a problem when you infringe on other people's right to live, when your second hand smoke gets into their lungs. That means you deny others the right to life and that, my friends, is slow murder. While in America, we are finally having smoke free areas, most of the rest of the world is still coughing in a second-hand smoke haze and that needs to be changed.

The only review was a downer. Whoever "reader" was, didn't really know anything about literature and philosophy. Some basic philosophy knowledge is needed to read this book. Kant (with the sublime theory), Nietzsche and quoted throughtout the book. Great reading. Specially if you smoke.

I can not remember the last time I read such a well written book. Klein is an amazing wordsmith & this book is a treasure in understanding the lure, beauty, and sublime charms which keep 1.4 billion people in the world smoking every day.

In this iconoclastic gem of a book, Klein manages to provide a wonderful tool to those of us readers who resonate with his wonderful voicing of one giant "in your face" to the new and stultifying "Nanny State". This statement summarizes the message of "Cigarettes are Sublime" !
Usually we who chafe at "Big Brother" telling us how to treat our bodies, resort to arguments like: "Well, I want to have the right to smoke on my balcony at work 'dammit'!" Such protest can sound a bit like an adolescent stamping one's foot. Klein however, in this so well-spun book, with its rich historical analysis spanning many cultures, gives us a unique and powerful tool to use, in voicing our protest.
"Cigarettes are Sublime" manages to capture what is the CULTURALLY EMBEDDED power, and perhaps (if you agree with Klein) what is in fact the VALUE, as means of self-expression, of smoking, as a social symbol and act. As the Editorial reviews note, "vices" in general (drinking, playing poker, smoking, eating gloriously at sumptuous tables with friends) are all very powerful "games" or "props" in that very underappreciated arena of how we humans "play" with each other in private life--what mischief we toy with, what message we project to others about our "attitude"; to death, to sex, to an embrace vs rejection of the message (broadcast daily in ominous bulletins from our media),that our bodies are entities vulnerable and besieged by a barrage of "risks" that we must always vigilantly guard against, at any cost, including sacrifice of our bodies as instruments of pleasure and work. In this light, the puff on a cig is not JUST recklessness, but in fact, can give that same royal pleasure that one gets in reveling on one's roof to catch rays, as others , anxiously monitoring the daily published "cancer index" of the sun, huddle indoors.
Seen from this very often ignored angle of pleasure and play and social intercourse, cigarettes--as are so many of our personal habits and messages to others in our myriad relationships--are a sublime pleasure in the playground of life, the very thing that those who cry for quantity of life, ignoring quality of the play, indeed need heed, if life is what they wish to "celebrate".

Richard Holmes is an eminent historian and a splendid TV presenter but, though I found his study of the great Duke of Wellington an enjoyable biography that I couldn't put down until it was finished, I also found myself being irritated on too many of the 303 pages (hardback edition) by mis-spellings and stylistic and punctuation inconsistencies. An example of the latter was the mixed and varying use of inverted commas (quote marks). My own preference is for the end of a phrase or a sentence to appear thus: '................... end,' or '..................... end.' Too often the style was thus '........................ end', or '........................... end'. Mr Holmes ought to have made up his mind which way his work was to appear or his editor ought to have been sacked!

Another niggle was that the Duke's Hampshire home was named only once as 'Strathfieldsaye,' with '[sic]' to follow. Mr Holmes should have been aware that that was the original spelling and that 'Stratfield Saye' is the more modern name of the house and estate.

I mustn't criticise too much, however, because I learned a lot from a very good book and I recommend it to other lovers of our British history and other admirers of one of the greatest and most courageous Britons ever to have been born.

Richard Holmes's "Wellington - The Iron Duke" is a well-written survey of the active life of the First Duke of Wellington. In just 300 pages, Holmes presents a balanced, even nuanced view of a man who was both the quintessential military professional and a complex human being. Through Holmes' efficient prose, we see Wellington as an extradinarily dedicated soldier who mastered his profession in ways few of his contemporaries did, yet who sometimes paid a price on campaign for his insistence on micromanaging his armies. Wellington comes across as a remarkably honest and duty-bound public servant; as a young man, he was also relentlessly ambitious, and as an older man, sensitive about his military reputation.

Holmes provides some useful insights. He suggests that exhaustion and strain were responsible for Wellington's uncharacteristically poor performance at the Siege of Burgos in 1812. Holmes examines the academic dispute over Wellington's relationship with the Prussians during the Waterloo Campaign; he tellingly notes Wellington's responsibilities to his alliance partners and to the British Government and finds that he served both. Holmes acknowledges Wellington's extramaritial activities but resists the urge to obsess over them or to indulge in psycological speculation.

Serious students of the Duke and of the Napoleonic Wars will find no new scholarship here; indeed, Holmes readily acknowledges his debt to earlier works such as Elizabeth Longford's exceptional biography and Jac Weller's battlefield narrative trilogy. Holmes has provided an accessible biography for the general reader, supported by well-chosen quotes from the Duke' contemporaries and by a nice selection of illustrations.

This book is highly recommended to the general reader with an interest in the man and the era.

The book aims to be realistic - the fog of
war is foggy indeed, and Wellington sometimes makes mistakes. The
casualties at Waterloo are appalling, and the battle almost lost.
Lt.-Col. Trant of "Sharpe's Rangers" fame actually appears, an excellent soldier but "the most drunken dog there ever was" in Wellington's words.

Unusual is the emphasis on Wellington's Indian campaign and on the
Peninsular War - the period of Sharpe's Rangers is the most important in
the book. The Battle of Waterloo is treated as somewhat of an
afterthought, as I suppose it was (if Nap had won it would have been a
very different matter, of course). There are a number of good plates,
including a daguerrotype of the Iron Duke himself in his mid-70s, looking
buth shrewd and oddly sympathetic.

This is one of those books that once you take it up, you can't put it down!

Its balanced treatment of Wellington the man, the military man and the politican, has meant that this is not just a book about Waterloo.

One is left with the impression that Wellington was a great man, with equal weight given to his 'greatness' and his 'humanness'.

Very readable and highly recommended.

If your would like to know about Colombian modern history, this is a great book.

The editor of this book is Mark Tushnet. The other names listed above are contributors (as Tushnet is also). The book is well described in Tushnet's Introduction (pp. 1-7).

A semi-scholarly but very readable combination of Norman history and genealogy, to the eve of the Conquest. Its nonthreatening briefness -- one chapter per duke and a total of only 175 pages -- doesn't impair its usefulness as contextual genealogy.

Richard Tobin in his book attempts to describe political responses to the problems of endangerment and extinction of species. The book argues that nothing in society is a continuing problem because of itself, per se; something becomes and remains a problem because of shortcomings in the institutional arrangements we rely on to deal with it. Most species are now endangered or become so because of actions that political or economic systems either encourage or allow people to take. The issue is described as not only how much government intervention is desirable or necessary, but also how the governmental system perceives biological diversity as political issue. Many variables ofcourse determine which issues catch policy-makers' attention and author deals with them quite successfully.

A detailed account of the circumstances leading to Buckingham's rebellion, and the connection between the revolt and the ultimate fate of Richard III at Bosworth Field. The focus is on the gentry of the south of England who were loyal to Edward IV and eventually became the instigators of the rebellion. This book may be heavy going for the casual reader since it presumes basic familiarity with the events of the period. A good complement is Paul Murray Kendall's biography of Richard III, which describes how Richard gained support from the nobility and gentry of the north of England. The book includes lots of photographs and helpful maps. All in all, a good read.

Thank you again Anne Easter Smith..another delightful read. I could not put this book down. I loved the characters and did not feel like I was muddling through history. Altho I liked "Rose for the Crown" (if you haven't read this, drop everything and get this book) a little better, I would never short change "York". It was such fun putting this family together again and it was very heplful to have read the "Rose" first.
I love a book that transports me to another time and place and this one certainly does. The descriptions of the setting were vivid and clearly imaginable. The characters are very interesting and I felt as if I knew them well. I loved the intrigue (one of the authors definite strong points). I would and have recommend this book to any one who enjoys a good read but especially to a lover of historic fiction.

I read A Rose for the Crown first, and I loved that story--and how Kate Haute has a cameo in this one. However, I am not sure that I like Margaret all that much, but I did like the tension between her and Anthony. I may have a different take after the Cecily book is out. I might have enjoyed this heroine better if I waited and read them in historical order, rather than publication order. I just kept feeling like something was missing that I should have already known.

The overwhelming romantic entanglement in this novel, set in 15th century England and Burgundy, is admitted by the author as possible, maybe probable. It has no basis in discovered fact. Though Margaret, sister to a King and a political pawn, possibly was enamored with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales (Lord through his wife Eliza), the relationship doesn't have a lot of depth, although a lot of romantic emotion.

Charles the Bold of Burgundy is drawn two dimensionally as well, the anti-Anthony. His cruelty and implied misogyny in response to his father Philip's profligacy is well outlined by the author, but it's hard to believe he was thoroughly evil. The clothing of all concerned was well described.

Basically, this is historical romance, and not historical fiction. Entertaining perhaps, but little meat.

I really disliked this novel. It was supposedly researched, but there is so much speculation in the plot that she might as well have written some trashy "historical" romance and just made up the people and the situations. The gratutious sex was not appreciated, either. Read another author's works, such as Sharon Kay Penman. This one is not worth spending time on.

I love Anne, and I loved A Rose for a Crown, so I am disappointed that this novel did not hold my attention. It starts off good, when Margaret is still at her brother's court, but about the time she marries Charles the Bold it goes into nothingness. Because she is away from the English Court and does not maintain contact with her family, we don't hear much of anything that is going on there, and there is certainly not much going on in Burgandy at this time. I knew the ending to the story, and was disappointed that it wasn't added in the book. When you have 600 pages I expected it to cover Margaret's whole life which gets much more interesting and involved after 1480 (when the novel ends). I can see that Ms. Smith wanted the book to end on a "happy note" but the "happy note" makes for a boring book. I think this story could have easily been told in 300 pages or less. I do love reading about this time period in British history, and this book would not cause me to look unfavorably on future novels from Ms. Smith. This one just didn't really possess any action or substance.

The book not only teaches you how to book accounts, but also why to do so, which I rarely found in other comparable accounting books. It helps you understand the logic behind the accounting rules. The author is both a good teacher and good reseacher. I love this book!

This book for undergraduate accounting classes at the junior level was more confusing to me than the comparable book by Kieso et al. The sequence of the chapters is not entirely logical. More advanced concepts seem to be covered towards the beginning whereas some basic chapters are discussed towards the end of the book. It was especially confusing when not covering the chapter in chronological order - too bad that my class's syllabus was not outlined according to this book's chapter sequence. In a different class - when we used Intermediate Accounting by Kieso - jumping back and forth was not a big problem. This book by Spiceland also seemed to be very wordy. Studying by solving problems at the end of the book seemed to work. However, it is more important to know how your teacher designs the quizzes and exams and then study accordingly. On the CD that comes with it, there is a lot of ballast. The quizzes are the only valuable thing, I felt. There is not really a lot of use complaining about its weight - accounting books always seem to be extremely heavy and pricy. But this certainly holds true for this one as well!!! When I tried to resell the book at the university bookstore, they would not take it back because it was selling badly on a national scale. Very frustrating when you paid [$$$] just a couple of months earlier...

This book put me to sleep. It is a very bland book. This is based on the volume one edition chapters 1-14.

I have been using this book for an Intermediate Accounting class that I have to take as a pre requisite for a Master's degree. Even though the book is quite complete in explaining accounting principles it is unecessarily wordy and extremely heavy.

The first five chapters (220 pages) provide a review of what accounting is, the accounting information system, the income statement and the balance sheet. Most of the what is written here is either too basic or will be later found in the remaining chapters of the book. These pages could be easily removed without sacrificing the remaining contents and the understanding of accounting.

Later chapters, however, are also wordy and take too much time explaining concepts that could readily be understood in a couple of lines. You end up getting tired of reading the same thing again and again.

In the end, we have to pay the price for so many pages. With 1300 + pages this book is the heaviest one I have ever carried around. Many people in my class have to use a wheeled backpack. I sometimes can't understand the fascination of editors in the US for such heavy books. If you go to Europe, Asia, and South America, books are usually thinner and much, much lighter.

I would recommend the book to be offered in a CD Rom (or e text) format. Carriyng my laptop around makes more sense than carrying the book.

Straightforward and logical, the material in this text is so well laid out that it is truely possible to learn Intermediate Accounting on your own. An excellent sequential and progressive presentation of a difficult subject! My school has changed texts and is using Kieso's text, but I want to learn the material (all but impossible with Kieso) so this is the text I rely on!

This treatise has one fundamental flaw, a misrepresentation of what the
term "militia" means. The authors equate it with an organized body
initiated and commanded by state government officials, but if that is
what the word means to them, it is not what the word meant to the
Founders. The term is from Latin, and it translates as "defense
activity". In the idiom of the era, a word for an activity could also be
used to refer to those engaged in that activity, and that usage is the
source of the confusion here.

There is also a misrepresentation of the meaning of the word "state",
which, when used in the context of the Constitution, does not mean the
government of the state, but the people of the state, whether they acted
through a government or not. When the Founders referred to a state
government, they used the term "state legislature".

The authors are correct in their thesis that the right to arms is tied
closely to the duty of militia. However, they commit a logical error in
concluding that if the duty is being neglected, the right disappears.
The duty is indeed being neglected, but the duty continues, a duty that
arises out of the social contract that created the society and the
natural rights and duties of mutual defense of rights that are the terms
of the social contract.

The duty, and the right to perform that duty, continues, regardless of
whether it is being actively performed or not. In fact, it is being
performed by millions of civilians every day, in thousands of ways.
Every time anyone reports a crime, conducts his own criminal
investigation, or makes a civilian arrest, that is militia. Any time
anyone defends himself or another from injury, that is militia. Any time
anyone asks others to join him in defending the community from any
threat, that is a militia call-up. We are all militia, when we engage in
militia, even when we act alone. There is no need for initiation or

leadership by some official. Of course, sheriffs are supposed to be the
militia commanders of their counties, and constables militia commanders
of their wards or precincts, but if they neglect to perform that duty,
the duty falls upon anyone present who is aware of a threat requiring
defensive action, or preparation for such defense.

For more on this topic see http://www.constitution.org/cs_defen.htm .

This is a must read for anyone who really wants to understand the truth about the second amendment.The authors present an impressive amount of historical research to show that the second amendment protects an individual right to bear arms only in connection with an organized citizen militia. Some have claimed that the second amendment protects an unconditional right to bear arms. However, an objective examination of history, reveals that this notion is undoubtedly false. The term "bear arms" referred to military service at the time of the writing of the second amendment. When deciding on the language of the second amendment, the first congress debated whether conscientous objectors should be exempt from bearing arms. Obviously, they weren't talking hunting or using guns to defend one's home against criminals.

This book seeks to balance two predominant schools of thought regarding the Second Amendment: The individualist school and the collective rights school. Uviller and Merkel's thesis is that the right to bear arms was an individual right, but only within a collective context of service in a state sanctioned, regulated and disciplined militia. The book has it right. Uviller and Merkel are well researched. This book is not a polemical such as Halbrook's "That Every Man Be Armed" - it is historical scholarship. A must read for anyone who seeks a scholarly and objective, as well as balanced approach to the understanding of the Second Amendment.

The language in this book is verbose, hard to read, one almost has to be a college professor to understand it. Once you do get through it, you find that the authors, while putting forth facts about the concerns between maintaining a militia and not having a large standing army, totally ignore facts that show that the intent all along, of both federalists and anti-federalists, was to protect a pre-existing, God given right of individuals to keep and bear arms, for any reason, including hunting and self-defense, but most importantly to resist a potentially tyrannical government. They also repeat standard gun control arguments, e.g. the word "bear" only had a military context when it came to firearms, even though the minority report from Pennsylvania expressly requested an amendment that would protect the individual's right to "bear" arms for hunting. Such is the nature of books with an agenda, spinning facts and propagating half-truths and lies.