Robert Stone Books

The book's author served as Cornell University's Professor Emeritus of Linquistics, so he is far from a fad-flaring fringe-fan of Viking rune-stones. Rather, Professor Hall has, in a very readable-yet-scholarly manner, argued the linguistic and archaeological evidence (corroborated by forensic insights) for the historic authenticity of the Kensington Rune-Stone, with a very helpful interlinear translation, followed by a word-by-word analytical commentary, especially buttressed by contemporary political history events of relevance, all the while using logic and historic philology for analysis. It is a shame that the detractors of the Kensington Rune-stone don't make a good-faith effort to reply to Hall's evidence and logic. To date I have seen no serious scholarship to refute Hall's work in this extreming interesting area of American Viking history. I say that as a viking history lecturer with a history-oriented doctorate that included a minor in European studies, as the author of a few publications on Viking history, as a past Historian for a chapter of the Sons of Norway, and after having served as a Icelandic saga analyst/Viking history lecturer abroad (involving research-related travels to viking history locations in 7 different countries). Sadly, many researchers today judge events in history by a "uniformitarian" approach, e.g., assuming that the "wine-berries" (grapes) of Vinland must match growth conditions under today's climate, as opposed to researching what a place's climate was like 1000 years ago, e.g., by noticing that the Norman Domesday Book of 1086 recorded at least 38 vineyards in England. Hall provides REAL research.
><> JJSJ, a college professor/Viking history lecturer

Un libro que te brinda muy buenos elementos para afrontar situaciones dificiles en la vida cotidiana y te ayuda a encontrarte a ti mismo para salir adelante con conocimiento de causa y muy centrado en la resoluciones de diferentes problemas.

I read Harry Roberts in that great backpacking magazine, "Wilderness Camping", before it merged with Backpacker Magazine. Harry Roberts has a unique way of looking at things, that is still refreshing. His basic premisses and observations are still correct today. I read moving' Out in 1975. After rereading this book in 2008, I understand where I got my solid Backpacking philosophy from, Harry and Molly Roberts. It is still a good read today!

He escuchado que este es un libro excelente, basado totalmente en los conceptos del método Silva aplicado a la empresa, PERO está descontinuado, Amazon ha estado pidiéndome aprobar el pedido en varias ocasiones. Ojalá que sí lo consigan y entonces les podré decir más.

This book is easy to understand and can teach you many things, that pertain to your life! Yourself, (things you did'nt know) love, money, health, fame, ect...This book is awesome...Get it somehow and you will be glad you did! Want to keep looking young for your age? Things around you to go your way? Even the weather? World events? Get the book!

I like gemstones more than money.

Originally written in 1943, a textbook classic on gemology, for students and a self-instructor for jewelers. 21 sections comprise notes on the formation of gem materials and the chemistry of it. Includes refractive index, color, and specific gravity. This 4th edition has a new section on luminescence and electrical effects.

Diagrams and charts. 210 pages, British book.

This uplifting, enchanting, and inspired collection of poems is both accessible and profound. The authors grasp of nature symbolism is masterfully used to portray common everyday reality into something rich and beautiful and replete.In addition, these poems are very wholesome and healing as the author shows a great reverence for nature as well as people. It would be hard for even the most lost soul not to feel refreshed by this collection of simply beautiful poems.

~Robert Nisbet : Communitarian Traditionalist~ is a biographical sketch about the life and essentially the ideas of this influential twentieth-century sociologist and social thinker. Sociology has long been the mainstay of statist liberals and radical collectivists, and Nisbet is definitely out of touch with the quixotic or authoritarian mindset of most sociologists. Brad Lowell Stone's research is highly recommended and an excellent overview of Nisbet's social thinking. It is prudent to read Nisbet's books in tandem with Stone's biography. Stone points out some of Nisbet's influences, which are rather fascinating. Nisbet was weaned on the writings of Southern Agrarians like Crowe, Ransom and Tate who penned _I'll Take My Stand_ in the 1930s. Nisbet also gain insight from the late conservative luminary Russell Kirk, having read his book _The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot_ in 1953 the same year he wrote _The Quest for Community_. Since his assent in the 1950s, the late Robert Nisbet has gained recognition from both the Left and Right. Contemporaneously, his appeal is primarily with those on the Right whether traditionalist or libertarians. Nisbet's sociological thinking is aloof from the statist sociologists who often fail to distinguish between state and community. Essentially Nisbet made a dichotomy between monism and pluralism. The thought of Plato, Hobbes, Compte, Rousseau and Marx embodied monism, while Aristotle, Burke, and De Tocqueville represented the pluralist camp.

Nisbet achieved notoriety for his groundbreaking manuscript, entitled _The Quest for Community_. His thesis therein was remarkable, for he asserted that the contemporary preoccupation with community was a result of the displacement of the intermediary institutions between the individual and the state. These vital institutions of civil society -- namely the family, neighborhood, church, or voluntary and civic associations -- have been trounced upon by an overbearing central state authority. The displacement of these institutions so vital to civil society lead to the accompanying obsession with revitalizing community. The veritable disintegration of community and the intermediary institutions was precipitated by the activities and structure of the modern managerial state. In our time, the centralised state has come close to dissolving the natural bonds and allegiances of civil society. Much of the later twentieth century social pathologies, dependency, poverty, and rampant crime perhaps are incidental to authentic community being grinded in the millstone of central state authority. When the intermediary institutions are displaced, the void is usually filled by central state power, which has the roots of authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

Nisbet is well versed in the classics and history. Gleaning valuable lessons from history, Nisbet recognized the impact of war. Moreover, the state's effort to subordinate all facets of society to the demands of warfare, acts as a solvent that dissolves the natural allegiances and those intermediary institutions between individual and state. Nisbet speaks of Roman History, as being "one long sage of conflict between established patria potestas, the sacred and imprescriptible sovereignty of the family in its own affairs, and the imperium militiae, the power vested in military leaders over their troops." As the imperium (empire) supplanted the republic, the traditional kinship society was weakened. Nisbet notes, "...the once proud Roman family had been ground down by the twin forces of centralization and atomization." History seems to repeat itself. Nisbet shows the harmonious relationship between the war-state and the welfare-state, and how they feed and nurture one another. Socialists accomplished much of their agenda by the the rise of military socialism. War has a democratizing, egalitarian-leveling tendency which brought about not only universal suffrage but also conscription. Not surprisingly, Nisbet laments, "Democracy, in all its variants, is the child of war." The synthesis is the so called "welfare-warfare state" that libertarians fuss about.

History has proven when alienated individuals lose their community then they often seek a "national community" to fill the void. Totalitarian states like Nazi Germany quite deliberately laid waste to the remaining intermediary institutions between the individual and the state, and sought to create such a sham community, supplanting all competing allegiances, for total allegiance to the central state. Communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci too, postulated that the socialists could achieve their agenda in the West, by transforming the culture and supplanting the institutions of the old "bourgeosie superstructure" with their own radicalized institutions. Stone notes, "[a]s communities wane, the desire for communal fellowship leads straight to the extension of state power-further eroding the communities that mediate between the individual and the state. It is a melancholy fate."

In sharp contrast to the centralizing statists, Nisbet was a pluralistic communitarian who never confused authentic community with allegiance to a centralized power structure. Incidentally, the appellation of communitarian itself can be a misnomer, since Nisbet stands alone, and most avowed communitarians are simply statists hoping to tether back broken bonds and broken communities under the auspices of the central state.

Nisbet has called for a "new laissez-faire," which is a "form of laissez-faire that has for its object, not the abstract individual, whether economic or political man, but rather the social group or association." Nisbet would eschew radical libertarianism, and see its adherants as rather peculiar reactionaries. Nisbet recognises the symbiotic relationship between individualism and statism. In modern times, the hyperatomized autonomous cogs that individuals have been reduced to in liberal society, owes to the twin perils of atomization and centralisation which grinds away at the individual and authentic community. Alienation from the loss of authentic community often compels the intemperate masses to seek deliverance from state power within a "national community." As communities weaken and parochial, regional distinctives begin to fade, the fervor to accumulate central state power becomes overwhelming. Integral to Nisbet's socio-political thought is the medieval principle of subsidiarity, or sphere sovereignty, which emphasized localism, regional cultural diversity, "plurality of association, and the division of authority." Subsidiarity, as applied to civil society, means that matters ought to be handled by the smallest (or, the lowest) competent authority. Subsidiarity is a precious gem that has been vanquished, if not lost, and it is among the vital remnants for restoring civil society.

All things considered, Brad Lowell Stone's biography of Robert Nisbet is an excellent introduction to the life and poignant thought of this brilliant man.

This is one of the best of the juvenile science fiction genre from the best juvenile science fiction writer. There's nothing here that parents might find objectionable. It's all about a family who decides to pull up roots and explore the solar system for a year. Grandmother, Hazel, goes along as well. Everyone works together for the family.

Even if you have found some of Heinlein's adult science fiction more than a little too mature for youngsters, know that Heinlein wrote family-oriented books for teens as well. The book is well dramatized by a cast and thoroughly enjoyable. Adults might like it as well as a light read/listen.

I don't how long SD technology will remain marketable, but the book will be around for centuries.

With similarities to The Elves and the Shoemaker comes The Secret of the Stones, a folktale based on African and African-American narratives. The illustrations transport the reader to the Ozark mountains. Each day from sun-up to sun-down a childless couple, John and Clara, tend the cotton and vegetables before retiring to their simple meal--peas, okra, corn bread. One evening on the long walk home, Clara stoops to pick up two white stones. She plans to use them to whet her knives and instead brings a mystery into their home. The next evening they find the clothes ironed, wood sawed, floor swept, corn pounded, fire made, and the supper things laid out. Not even a footprint is left. Aunt Easter sends them on an errand to solve the mystery and possibly change their lives. An enchanting book to share.