T. Greenwood Books

The U.S. went to war with Mexico in the spring of 1846: by fall of 1947 American soldiers were in Mexico City. The Mexican War both ended a series of escalating encounters between the two nations and began a series of events which held important changes for both countries, and THE MEXICAN WAR details both pre- and post-war concerns and issues, offering a blend of biographical sketches of key leaders and fighters along with maps, images, a timeline of events, and discussions which utilize primary documents. A 'must' for any comprehensive American history collection; especially at the college level.

Una guerra de conquista, una guerra injusta, una guerra provocada, impuesta a un debil vecino, nada que ver los los tan cacareados ideales norteamericanos de equidad y decencia...

Moxley, through his accessible book "Publish, Don't Perish", shows us why only 10-20 percent of professors are "responsible for the bulk of what is published" and offers practical avenues of how we can fix this problem. (xvi) This lack of participation causes two detrimental problems. One, only a few minds are guiding the respective fields (and society). Two, the "keys" of wisdom we are looking for may very well be in the minds of the silent 80-90 percent. But why is academia like this?

There is a false *myth* in academia is that academics (professors) cannot be both exceptional teachers and great scholars/researchers/writers. In addition, Moxley argues that because academics are so enthralled (because of tenure concerns) in looking for original ideas that they lose sight of the power of reviewing what is out there in their own words, which often times leads to engaging dialogues and breakthroughs. Furthermore, many academics, despite their degrees and intelligence, have such misunderstandings and misgivings about the writing process that they write only when they have to. He also talks about the desperate need for change in the academic journal review processes, including, but not limited to, more "blind" reviewing.

Anyone and everyone should read this book. We all have something important to say. A great many insights lie in each of us, writing helps us bring them out. There are, of course, a few dated references, but the research, reading, writing, and editing strategies he offers transcends time and can help graduate, undergraduate, and even high school students become great writers. I give this book the highest praise!

A very useful introduction to academic publishing. Have used this book for several years in an introductory Ph. D. course I teach

This is one of those entries that I needed to go back and re-read after looking at the other reviews, particularly the PW review, which noted "easy conversational dialogue." Really? Like this segment?

`Is 10 o'clock all right for you?' Helen had asked.

`Yes, that's fine. Do you need directions?'

`No. I'll go on to Map Quest.'

Or this one?

`Do you think so?' That slight inclination of the head again, that enigmatic expression. `Do you really think so?'

`Well...' Helen floundered for words, but quite why she didn't know, she was a writer for god's sake! Sam finished for her.

`I think it's rather crass myself!' She went on, screwing up her nose. `But, then again, this is not exactly my world!'

There are endless examples of this wooden, pointless dialogue. Their conversations take too long and are, like their action, full of extraneous detail and seriously unwarranted exclamation points. The narration has some competent writing, but by the end of it, given that nothing has happened except that Helen arrives at Sam's house, I couldn't have cared less.

I'm intrigued by the two characters and want to know more about the secrets they are both hiding. I felt some of the surroundings were overdescribed but like some of the other readers I prefer to get quickly into the real story. A great start for a first book.

I really felt pulled in by these characters. The descriptions were very good and I liked the characters. I do think the author needs a proofreader, especially for punctuation, but that is my only criticism. Actually I'm dying to read more!

I appreciate and prefer a writer who writes crisp and clean text. The author has a very clean style here. The sentence structure and flow of words are very pleasing to my ear, but I do think the writing over all needs some tightening. The pace of the story is very leisurely, but almost too much so, especially when the dialogue hits. The conversational style is very easy to read and the clean writing continues right through the dialogue so that is not a problem to me. But the fact that so much was included in the dialogue did slow the story a bit too much for my taste. Parts of it could be moved a little faster with some snipets of narration. That being said, I think the relationship between the two women getting set up seems interesting and is worth the read.

I don't pretend to understand this selection. There is a lot of attention -- and competent writing -- paid to describing the homes of these two women, but I don't believe in either of them. Perhaps, as another reviewer suggests, things are simply developing slowly. I get that Sam has dark stuff going on. Perhaps that will create action. But so far, sadly, I don't care a bit about either of them, nor their rather detailed conversations with each other.
I have a nagging sense that there is a genre here, and a big audience for it, an audience about which I know nothing.

...who is currently stationed in Iraq, as a chaplin with the Vermont National guard. Need to get it in the mail by 10/15/05. His wife said he would like this book. Perhaps he will send a review along, once he has it.

This moving account of the history of the role of medics in our wars down through the decades would be a treasured gift to every serviceman and historian.

Medics at War provides a succinct and impressive overview of US military medicine from the Colonial era to the present. With 214 pages and numerous photographs, the book includes the Revolutionary War, Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War and operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both Army and Navy medical corps are well represented and coverage of Air Force medicine can be read in later chapters.

Authors Greenwood and Berry should be commended for inclusion of WWII amphibious medicine during the 6 June 1944 Normandy landings. Few military historians write of the Navy's vital role during combined operations. Previous authors often identified Navy surgeons and corpsmen on Omaha Beach as Army personnel.

It is important to clarify the 6th Naval Beach Battalion casualty rate reported in the book. Four officers, all Beachmasters, and 18 enlisted men were killed in action 6 June 1944. Twelve battalion officers and 55 enlisted men were seriously injured. Dr. John F. Kincaid, USNR survived the invasion but was killed in action less than a year later during a kamikaze attack off Okinawa. Dr. J. Russell Davey, USNR was injured on D-Day, continued his humanitarian duties on the beach, but unfortunately died at home in 1948.

With an interest in american combat medics particullarly from WW2 and Vietnam I was a bit disapointed with the book. The quality is excellent and the information contained within the book is informative however I am still only giving it three stars for two reasons. First I had hoped that a large part of the text would be filled with personal accounts and stories from actual medics who had served. Unfortunately that is not the case. I was also hoping to view at least some interesting and seldom published photos of medics in action. Unfortunately this is not the case either, the majority of the WW2 and Vietnam era photos are ones you've probably seen a hundred times before. How many times can they show the WW2 medic in Sicily holding a plasma bottle over his head while the concerned Italian family behind him looks on? There was one or two good WW1 photos and a great shot of medics in Korea patching a soldier up however the majority of the others were either ones published way too many times or photos that are only marginally interesting. Time spent searching for new photos in the national archives would have elevated the status of this book and unfortunately too many publishers rely on using the same shots over and over which diminished the book in my opinion. If you have an interest in military medicine history it is still a recommended buy however.

the book was well researched. it is a great platform for those who wants to know the role of combat medics in war.

This book can be compared with Walter Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis in that it is very terse and the reader must sit with pencil and paper to fill in many details, both in the theory and example problems. It is the case that this process actively engages the reader into the subject and permits a deeper, fuller understanding than just reading the results and final equations. Having less detail in the theory is understandable, but I've found that the example problems are equally as difficult to follow; this makes it increasingly tough to solve his problems (though once I solve a problem, I feel a great sense of accomplishment) On problems: the problems are very well thought out and complement the theoretical section of the text quite well.

Chronologically, "Classical Dynamics" was Donald Greewood's second major publication on Analytical Dynamics, covering more advanced topics than the ones in "Principles of Dynamics," whose first edition preceded "Classical Dynamics" by some 12 years.

"Classical Dynamics" is a somewhat more readable text, but just like its companion book, it fails to address issues like how one can use Lagrange's equations (or Hamilton's, for that matter) to correctly account for the effects of nonlinear dissipative forces. Also, its treatment of velocity-dependent potentials could be substantially extended, as could the chapter on Relativity.

On the other hand, the chapters on variational principles, the Pprinciple of Least Action, Hamilton's mechanics, and, above all, canonical transformations are an absolute "must-read"!

An updated, extended second edition would be most welcome now.

I have always enjoyed Greenwood's book and it is much more original than most of the other engineering mechanics books out there. The only real deficiency here is a complete lack of any discussion of motion in a central force or vibrations. This is undoubtably due to the curriculum the book was designed for, but as a book these subjects should have been included for completeness. The absence of these subjects really mars an otherwise outstanding text.

This is the first book review on the books I listed here that are good for students. The first subject is classical dynamics, in which I listed two books. The book I am gonna review in this post is "Classical Dynamics" by Donald T. Greenwood, Dover Publication.

This is a concise book, whose main text contains 324 pages. Such a small size gives students confidence to read it cover to cover. regarding the mathematical prerequisite, although it claims to be a graduate textbook, it assumes only familiarity with basic calculus and some knowledge in differential equations.

The book is very well organized into seven chapters. The first chapter introduces basic concepts such as generalized coordinates, constraints, virtual work, and so on that are essential and enough for the following chapters. Chapter two derives Lagrange's equations, discusses integrals of motion, and applies the theory to small oscillations. Many interesting examples are worked out in this chapter. Chapter 3 then analyzes four special applications of Lagrange's equations, namely Rayleigh's Dissipation Functions, Impulsive Motion, Gyroscopic Systems, Velocity-Dependent Potentials.

Chapter 4 turns to the other pillar of the theory of classical dynamics: Hamilton's equations. It first elaborates the Hamilton's principle with logical clarity, then derives Hamilton's equations with examples. Finally, it discusses other variational principles and Liouville's theorem.

Chapters 5 and 6 should be considered as a whole. Chapter 5 tells one how to obtain principal functions and characteristic functions by using the Hamilton-Jacobi method. Chapter 6 explores the theory of canonical transformations and its application to dyanamics in more details and in a generalized way, in vewing that a principle function is a generating function for a canonical transformation between two points in phase space. These two chapters contain lots of details that are worth reading carefully.

The last one, Chapter 7 discusses special relativity by applying previously introduced methods. However, I found that such a chapter is actually not very necessary, at least for me. If one did not know much special relativity, he/she would not expect to learn much from this chapter. If one knew special relativity very well, then he/she should simply skip the chapter. But anyway, if you like, it is still fun to read it.

Now, pros and cons. Compared to other polular or standard books on this subject, this book is very well balanced between volume, conciseness, and the amount of details, it is easy to read. The book works every example in a detailed and heuristic way, which are good for the readers to develop their own problem-solving skills. The pictorial illustrations in the book are also very nice. At the end of each chapter, there are a bunch of excercise problems carefully chosen by the author. Final resutls of these problems are given at the end of the book so that readers can check their own answers after working through the solutions by themselves. I found that these problems are extremely usefull and interesting; hence, I solved each of them step by step.

Frankly speaking, I did not find any nonnegligible disadvantage of this book. Someone has a review, saying that "it fails to address issues like how one can use Lagrange's equations (or Hamilton's, for that matter) to correctly account for the effects of nonlinear dissipative forces". But I disagree, because I think topics like nonlinear system should be better treated in a more contemporary method, e.g. in the book: Classical Dynamics: a contemporary approach.

You may feel that the book is a bit too old, since it is first published in 1977. But come on, the subject is Classical dynamics, on which a book can never be too old to read. Another overwhelming reason to own it is that it is priced at only 10.37USD. Can anybody convince me to give up this one and buy the 100USD Goldstein's book instead? No way, of course not.

A slightly different version of this review can be found on my web blog.

This book is an excellent read, and it explains concepts with unusual clarity. I wouldn't suggest it as a main text, but it is an excellent supplement to others, such as Goldstein or Jose and Saletan. I found this little book explained many concepts far better than these "standards" that are used in most graduate mechanics courses. It includes many nice examples. It also includes the answers to the problems in the back. How often do you see that in a graduate level book? I also think it is an excellent read for physics graduate students, who are just trying to get through the comprehensive exam rather than master the details of classical mechanics.

I gave this inch-thick book three stars because it IS full of good information, well researched, and will certainly be just what some people are looking for. For me, however, it was not at all what I expected (or wanted).

I was hoping that a 'Lovecraft Encyclopedia' would shed light on the fictional elements within his works. However, this encyclopedia concerns lovecraft's life, acquaintances, influences, etc.

Mostly.

It's inconsistent; if you look up "Azathoth," you get two paragraphs about the stories "he/it" appears in and those that inspired, but learn absolutely nothing about what Azathoth actually *is*. "Cthulhu" provides pages of info, but really nothing more than the geneology of the name "Cthulhu Mythos," and absolutely nothing at all about the character.

But if you look up "Lake," "Atwood," "Dombrowski" ... you at least do get a sentence or two about these fictional characters, though not much, really. Why include relatively unimportant fictional characters but include no information about the "heavy-hitters"?

Seriously diappointing; there's room for another book here.

I would have been happy if the book at least gave definitions for certain archaic words, such as "eldritch" and the like, words not found in a contemporary dictionary. But no. Or perhaps even a pronunciation guide for commonly mis-pronounced words.

I guess for now, if you want to know something about the entities in HPL's works, you have to buy a book related to the "Call of Cthulhu" role playing game or something.

If you need to do a term paper on the life of HPL, you may find some gold here; if you enjoy his stories but would like to understand them better, this will be of no help.

Although this excellent piece of work is more suited to Lovecraft's fans or people with some background on his work, it serves equally well the interests of newcomers into the subject.I shall just point out the utmost care and respect for the Master's original work, the passion and scholarship pervading every single line of the encyclopedia.I did not grade it with a fully deserved 5 stars,though....because only the Deep Ones are perfect...

For scholarly-minded Lovecraft readers who can manage the hefty price (this volume is put out by a publisher specializing in reference books for libraries, such books usually being very expensive because of low print runs and then storing these titles on inventory for many years rather than remaindering them), this is a "must-have" reference and research tool. Joshi and Schultz are, respectively, THE leading figure and one of the leading figures in Lovecraftian scholarship, and they've assembled something that is most helpful, that merits high praise for accuracy and assiduousness.

That said, the priorities of AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA are somewhat perverse and leave something to be desired.

Astoundingly, there's no discussion whatsoever of Lovecraft's philosophical beliefs, a matter that coauthor Joshi has elsewhere written, and nearly all contemporary Lovecraftian scholars agree, is essential to an understanding of Lovecraft's works and life. Why not? In the preface, Joshi and Schultz write: "No separate entry on Lovecraft's philosophical thought is included here, as the topic is too complex for succinct discussion." (p. xi.) How "succinct" are we talking here, one wonders? General information encyclopedias manage to summarize the "thought" of the great original figures Western philosophy in articles ranging from a few sentences to a few pages. Surely something calling itself AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA could muster a few paragraphs or a few pages about the nature of the "philosophical thought" of Lovecraft himself. (By such reasoning, there shouldn't even be such a thing as general information encyclopedias, since the sum of human knowledge is assuredly "too complex" to fit into a work of 30-odd volumes.)

This unwillingness here to do the obvious may be the flipside of a trait of the authors: a difficulty with being succinct when the situation calls for it (which is what encyclopedias are all about in the first place). A huge portion, if not most, of the book is occupied by astonishingly long synopses of Lovecraft's fictional works.

There is, of course, good reason to include synopses of Lovecraft's writings in an encyclopedia devoted to him: to help the scholarly-minded reader sort out his various writings, and to jog the reader's memory as to what transpires in the fictional works. But Joshi and Schultz detail so much that it's as if they're addressing those who've never read the texts and never plan to. Succinctness seems to be a hard pill indeed for the authors to swallow.

So what's the harm in long synopses? First, if the reader's goal is just to have his memory jogged, the amount of reading entailed is so great that a synopsis may be little more help than simply skimming through the text itself. Second, publishers impose page limits on a book like this, and so space used inappropriately is space subtracted from other things.

Already discussed has been how this work incongruously omits any discussion of philosophy. But also omitted are entries for the various supernatural (or, often really, alien) beings in Lovecraft's fiction, because, argue the authors, they "do not figure as 'characters' in any meaningful sense in the tales", despite the fact that fictional persons and places in Lovecraft's works receive entries. There seems to be some unexplained double-standard at work here.

I have a suspicion as to why this double-standard is there. The authors are justly contemptuous of the August Derleth-inspired "Cthulhu Mythos" bunk that so lamentably remains in circulation, and so may be revolted that any highlighting of the likes of Cthulhu, the Old Ones, etc. could be taken as buttressing the spurious notion that there's a Derlethian pantheon of "gods" on which Lovecraft and his colleagues had collaborated.

If that's Joshi's and Schultz's underlying motivation for treating these entities differently from other proper names, then they're to be faulted for letting the "Mythos" help define Lovecraftian studies. Moreover, scholarly-minded Lovecraftians should be able to use a Lovecraft encyclopedia as part of their arsenal to debunk misconceptions, and so including entries on Lovecraft's supernatural/alien entities that set the record straight as to what they're each about may be the most important components of that arsenal.

Collaborative compiled by Lovecraftian experts S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia is an exhaustive reference filled with an impressive wealth of biographical and literary lore about one of the best-known writers of supernatural horror in the 20th century. Filled cover to cover with bibliographical information, the encyclopedia lists entries in A to Z format of people Lovecraft knew, characters in his books, and much more. An extensive, scholarly reference especially for Lovecraft enthusiasts, An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia is an essential, core, indispensable reference work for students of Lovecraft's life and work.

Both this book, AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA and its companion volume issued at the same time by Greenwood, THE COMPLETE H.P. LOVECRAFT FILMOGRAPHY are highly recommended. Both books are scholarly, authoritative and well written. These two excellent works encompass the highest level of scholarship about Lovecraft and should be read by every fan and student of Lovecraft. Bravo to Greenwood for these two volumes.

"Awakened China" is a well written first-hand account of China in the pre-1960 era. Greene visits several places around the county and offeres a very optimistic outlook about a country that is (and more so, was) misunderstood by Americans.

A bit dated, pre-Robertson and pre-Gallagher, but still a useful collection of scholarly essays. Standouts are Johnson's article on Civil War military history and the excesses of revisionism; Fishel on the Secret Service which wasn't; Starr on saber fighting. McWhiney's article sets forth the now-standard "outmoded tactics" viewpoint; his apparent belief that the South should have fought entirely on the defensive ignores political and supply considerations, and though he effectively proves that attackers lost more heavily, it's hard to see why a criticism of attacks should apply only to the South. By McWhiney's own admission, "in half of the twenty-two major battles of the Civil War the Federals attacked". (281) While acknowledging that heavy losses were more damaging to the outnumbered South, a criticism of offensive tactics should surely apply to both sides.

Overall, slightly dated (another article compares Quantrill to *contemporary* Vietnamese guerrillas!) but solid scholarship. Worth searching out for the saber article in particular.

I know, I know. It sounds silly but it's true. I read this whole book cover to cover. I went to China and it was soooooo helpful to me. I would recomend this book to anyone who is going to China. For a long period of time, or just for a short stay.

As a non-historian who enjoys reading medieval history, I found Professor Hudson's discussion of kingship and the royal clans interesting, readable, and detailed. His discussion of Mael Coluim II (Malcolm II) was particularly informative and well-written. He is remarkably free from the pro- or anti-MacBeth bias one finds in so many other works on this period. His discussion of Scottish interactions with Anglo-Saxon England explodes the myth that there was always enmity between them, and made me reexamine my assumptions on that topic.