Departments Books

The UN founded after the end of WWII is the most important global organization, with fifty-one members in 1945, formed to protect and promote national interests. It had grown to 185 members in 1999. Others like OPEC, NAFTA, NATO, UNESCO, sprang from the original United Nations.

UN's purpose was to promote international peach, security and cooperation among states (as the colonies in Africa, South Africa, other small countried reached state status) and to protect human rights.

Cordell Hull from Tennessee was the pivotal person in charge, wtih Alger Hill close behind. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt played a major role representing her husband; Gladys Irwin also was a delegate while her husband was a federal judge. I knew there was a Cordell Hull Dam near Nashville, but she showed her pride in working with "your" Cordell Hull. At CWU meetings, she told all newcomers how much it meant to her.

Based in New York City, the headquarters are something to see. It is taller than the World Trade Center was. Except for Switzerland, all states on Earth are members of the UN Interpol, the Inernational Criminal Police Organization. It is truly a globel membership, thanks to the iniative and hard work of Mrs. Roosevelt. Stephen Schlesinger worked at the U. N. in the mid-1990s and relates in his book, "Act of Creation," that Franklin D. Roosevelt had the desire to become the Secretary-General of the UN and would have resigned his presidency to do so at the San Francisco Conference. On April 12, just 13 days before the Conference, FDR died. It fell to Harry Truman to address the UN Conference on opening day.

Alger Hiss was the acting SG and shared the platform with Earl Warren, then Governor of California. The four freedoms espoused were from want and fear, of speech and worship. Archibald MacLeish served as advisor to the U.S. delegation. He and his aide, Adlai Stevenson, dispensed information about UN in radio broadcasts, speeches, forums and meetings (also lectures for NBC radio). Stevenson, from Chicago, was the grandson of Grover Cleveland's Vice President and worked in the State Department. Later, he would run for the President of the United States.

The UN replaced the League of Nations. Roosevelt convinced Winston Churchill the name should be "United Nations." The UN Declaration was signed by representatives from twenty-six nations. The SG had more power than the League whcih was mostly clerical and administrative. He had to be a linguist to speak the language of the various nations.

One of the best known Secretary Generals was the legenday Dag Hammamskjold from Sweden who served from 1953-1961. In Linda Fasulo's "An Insider's Guide to the UN" is a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt holding the Universal Declaration of Rights poster in November, 1949, which was replaced later by the Universal Declaration's International Bill of Rights. Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash and a beautiful stained glass window by Marc Chagall is at the UN in his memory. At the headquarters in Manhattan, flags of all the members fly from 48th Street to 42nd (191 arranged alphabetically like a grand boulevard).

For twenty years, the unwritten agreement had been tha tthe SG should rotate among regions of the world. Seven have served: Norway, Sweden, Burma, Austria, Peru, Egypt, and Ghana. Fasulo was UN corrospondent and had a weekly NPR report. She explores the founding of UNESCO (UN Educational, Scienfitic, and Cultural Organization) a failure because of favoritism, nepotism, corruption and poor management, like Knox County government's appointing twelve commissioners instead of a special election. On the other side, UNICEF (UN Children's Fund) has lasted and served its purpose successfully. Bureaucracy abounds as in any organization, but the peacekeeping operations supersede all criticism. Different cultures, different opinions. What is good for some is bad for others. You can't please all the people all the time. It's good to remember that manners reflect one's self.

Detailed books with precise well written information. A must have for who's interested.

The chief cause of opposition to the United Nations is lack of knowledge about what it is, what it does, what it can do and what it cannot do. If I were to pick one volume to help both supporters and critics understand what the United Nations is, this book would be it.

This history of the Nations First Police Dept will come to life with this must read and great Pictures of the BPD. Our History as the first Police Dept established in 1864, with our Watch and Ward going back to the 1600's is great. President Clinton Rated us the nationally-recognized police Department. There are over 120 pages of rare photographs. BPD's colorful past all the way from its earliest beginnings in the 1600's to today. A must Have book for anyone that follows the Boston Police Dept and it's Officers.

For the police man or woman in your life, this is a great gift and a nice stroll down memory lane for native Bostonians. Informative and engaging, the facts are nicely woven in with a narrative that keeps you turning the pages. The photos are particularly well researched and thoughtfully chosen. A wonderful piece of work from an author who clearly has spent her career preserving and communicating the history of this famous (and infamous)organization.

Anyone who enjoys learning about Boston's past, and the history of it's nationally-recognized police Department in particular, will want to own this fun, engaging, and fact-filled book. Using over 120 pages of rare and unusual photographs, it documents BPD's colorful past all the way from its earliest beginnings in the 1600's, right up to today. There are pictures of many of the people and places that figured prominently in the Department's early days back in the 1800's, as well as entire chapters on technology, specialized units, and the impact of the 1919 Police Strike. Makes a great gift!

While combing through "Bullock's Wilshire", a great tome of space and imagination, I immedately felt as though I had been transformed back into history. This building reflects what's GOOD about Los Angeles and what's missing with the current batch of misappropriated, misaligned, and malcontented "plastic chic" we Angelinos replace great buildings with now. Ms. Davis gives an incredible insight into the era of the true department store. A true "good buy" for any architecture officianado.

This book can only hint however the magnificince of this Truly great department store. Very nicly done descriptions and captions of each room in the store. Gives a very vivid idea of the grandeur of each department in Bullocks. An elagantly presented book at no time is the reader board or not facinated with the history or the photographs and the variouse architectural drawings.

Bullocks Wilshire represented Los Angeles during the heyday of Hollywood. Ms. Davis presents a well-researched homage to this architectural wonder and social icon, which came to be the place to see and be seen by the movers and shakers, gods and godesses of the day. What could have been a great book ends on a dubious note. Ms. Davis, an Alumna of Southwestern School of Law, sounds the praises of her alma mater, which took over the building after the store's demise in 1993, turning it into a library.

After reading Tom Rob Smith's novel Child 44, which moved the story 30 years earlier and which had an unsatisfyingly contrived ending, I wanted to turn to a "true crime" depiction of the serial child killer. For those of us accustomed to seeing CSI shows and endless TV dramatizations of serial killers, FBI profilers, etc, Killer Department provides a mind-boggling counterpoint. It's almost as if in everything we think of as useful tools, the Soviets did the opposite. It took 6 years to catch the killer, although Chikatilo's victims numbered at least 56 and stretched over 10 years.

There are heros here: Detective Burakov, a dedicated Party member who was willing to chance flaunting Party-line restrictions, and the psychiatrist Bukhanovsky, also willing to ignore directives from superiors. It quickly became apparent that there was a serial killer--from the methods of murder. Hundreds of people eventually worked on the case. But there was little coordination. Authorities (not Burakov) believed that there had to be 2 or more separate killers: they refused to countenance the idea that one person would sexually assault and kill both males and females. Psychiatry had withered under Stalin: Freud was a decadent figure. Children were not warned to be careful around strangers--quite the opposite. Almost all murders were done by family members in drunken rages or to cover up theft. Children were safe in the workers' paradise: crime was a capitalist problem. Confessions were de jure: with 400 murders a year in Rostov, careful scientific investigations were a rarity. It turns out that Soviet forensics consistently mistyped semen samples, classifying blood type A as AB. Chikatilo was type A, and since semen samples from victims were mistyped as AB, the murders perhaps continued for years longer than they should have.

You get a fascinating view of Soviet society here. It's a thoroughly chilling tale, accentuated by the appetites for most of those in authority to find convenient scapegoats, and colored by a too-prevalent disinterest in underclasses: lost youth, homosexuals, children discarded by parents, children who could vanish without anyone notifying authorities or caring at all. But in the end, the killer was caught--more by luck and by the dedicated work of Burakov. Burakov suffered breakdowns, and there were times he came close to being demoted back to coal mining or the like. Catching Chakatilo was a triumph by individuals, not by the State.

Citizen X is an interesting look at the search for a serial killer as the Soviet Union falls. The frustration of the stifling and rigid government rules that hampers the investigation, a look at Russian beliefs about law, government, and murder. Enjoyable, interesting, and very sad at times. If you are interested in Soviet/Russian life, or serial killers in general this is a good read.

Pick up a deck of playing cards and count them. Put them down and know for a fact that this is how many people Andrei Chikatilo murdered between 1978 and 1990 before he was caught. It was a case that baffled Soviet police for over a decade, almost never solved thanks to the constrictive Soviet system that would never allow such knowledge of a `serial killer' to be known or addressed. The bureaucrats forbid the publication of the murders to alert the public, and one by one their children disappeared. `Citizen X' will convince you that true evil can and does exist, often in the worst possible places.

In Russia, children are taught to respect and trust grownups to the point where it becomes second nature to them, and it is this fact that enabled Chikatilo to lure so many girls and boys, even young women, with promises of alcohol, cigarettes and candy, away from prying eyes. In the seclusion of the forests around the Rostov and Shakty Oblasts, he would rape and mutilate them, often biting off portions in order to achieve release. It became known later that he had been impotent for years, but the grisly sight of his work allowed him to achieve some sort of sexual satisfaction. Cullen's interview before his execution has enabled the author to enlighten us to Chikatilo's activities during the murders.

`Citizen X' was a name penned by a psychologist who profiled Chikatilo, something unheard of in the Soviet Union, and enabled investigators to construct a pattern of events around the killer. It is a testament to the dedication of the police who worked on the case, often to exclusion of all else, including their health that Chikatilo was ever caught at all. Most notably is the man who spearheaded the case since day one, Viktor Burakov, and a more dedicated police officer has never existed. His determination, and his ability as a careful and analytical thinker enabled him to eventually piece together Chikatilo's patterns until his arrest. And while he was tried for fifty-two murders, the actual count may go as high as a hundred.

Chikatilo himself was a diseased monster, incompetent at life, for though he was trained as a school teacher, he had been fired for sexually assaulting a young girl around 1976. He worked odd jobs until he found steady work at a train plant in Rostov. Cullen's book assembles all of it in stunning detail that draws the reader in until they are silently urging Burakov onward to solving the case. It is fortunate then that Chikatilo was caught and in late 1990 they put a bullet into his misbegotten brain.

If you are thinking of a MBA, worth reading this book whether you want to do it online or not. It contains good practical tips and helps you identify if this venture is really for you. The only downside of the book is that it focuses on the USA MBAs only, although UK and Canada programs are mentioned as well.

This book contains a wealth of information and resources for any potential MBA student who is considering an online MBA. George Lorenzo has done his homework--and has taken the guesswork out of evaluating online MBA options. He has thoroughly researched this growing phenomenon that is now changing the landscape of graduate management education world-wide. He provides critical perspectives on the pros and cons of doing an MBA online and debunks many of the myths about online education. This is must reading for any prospective MBA student who wants to understand the many benefits of doing an MBA online. Students' commentary, testimonials and advice are woven throughout the book and add immeasurably to understanding the online learning experience.

Lorenzo is correct in explaining how you might get the content of much of an MBA course online. The attraction is of course a considerable saving in cost.

But a lot, and maybe even most, of the benefit of an MBA derives from the personal networking that goes on between you and your classmates. For years, this has been a strong selling point of the best MBA schools. Even before the advent of the Web. Because for an MBA, it's not just the hard, analytic skills which are of value. The intangibles are also crucial. Sadly, the book downplays the latter.

Now, it's true that online communities have emerged. But many people do tend towards the live meetings, especially for crucial, business related matters.

This book is renowned as THE collector's item of the 20th Century. It's reputation precedes it due to the fact that when the authors' decided to publish an updated second edition, they felt it extremely necessary to include the now infamous Chapter 13, titled as "Enemy Attack And The UFO Potential."

This was confirmed in a highly revealing interview with one of the authors on "Sightings," a popular weekly television show hosted by Tim Rice and produced by Henry Winkler during the 1990s.

Inheriting Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" legacy, which aired during the 1970s, "Sightings" drew a tremendous audience during the 1990s as it explored and analyzed many different aspects of the paranormal and metaphysical genres.

When the "Sightings" crew focused their interest on the "Fire Officer's Guide to Disaster Control, Second Edition," it gave the book, its authors and its controversial Chapter 13 a level of public exposure that basically ripped the rug out from under any false notions that UFOs or alien craft were not real local, state or national issues.

I got my hands on a copy by calling Fire Engineering Books and Videos and pretending to be a firefighter. This was just before they caught on as to what was happening due to public interest generated by the "Sightings" episode.


Anecdote 1:

An atheist/agnostic friend of mine had read Chapter 13 and her comments were as such: "I can't believe this! This is absolutely shocking to me! Anyone who is the least bit mentally imbalanced would surely commit suicide after reading this!"

What amazed her the most was its casual, professional, matter-of-fact approach - as if to say this happens everyday for firefighters.


Anecdote 2:

My brother, who had just started his own trucking delivery service at the time, had actually crossed paths with the warehouse that stored and shipped copies of "Fire Officer's Guide to Disaster Control" for the publishing house. While making a delivery, he spotted the books stacked on pallets in the warehouse and, knowing a good opportunity when he sees one, decided to ask about the Second Edition.

The guys in the warehouse looked at each other and then back at my brother. They began to smile, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "You're talking about that Chapter 13, right?" they asked. They already knew why he was inquiring. They told him that everyone always asks about that edition and that chapter.

This book is a broad study of about all the large disasters a Fire Officer might need to understand something about. There are statistics, and some very good facts about the many subjects including myths and misconceptions. And UFOs. The chapters are well organized and the print is large enough for relaxed reading. The book is written in a casual, but professional style that keeps your interest.
I recommend it for any EMS, Fire, or civil defense/preparedness students or professionals. The only reason for a 4/5 rating is the broadness of each subject. Anyone in the business knows each chapter is worth a book all by itself. This work is a great accomplishment and my copy cost $55 in 1995. Its only slightly dated, HazMat is still chemicals, riots are bad, Terrorism is still violent. These authors did a great job!

How many other books of this type have a chapter concerning how to deal with a UFO crash? Seriously, Chapter 13 is entitled "Enemy Attack and UFO Potential." I've always been a skeptic concerning these types of things, but when a completely serious book like this has a chapter about dealing with UFOs (and one of the authors claims to have seen one), you just have to wonder...

Readable, in-depth and broad in scope, this history covers the rise of Rome and the Successor states following the death of Alexander. The second half of the book examines the social changes and the cultural richness of the period: Hellenistic women, changes in art & architecture as well as city design and scholarship. I will definitely read more books by Grant, a well-versed scholar with a penchant for good writing and a lack of verbosity.

Some readers are apprehensive about Michael Grant because the adjective "prolific" so often precedes his name. Whether or not you've read his other 70 books, this is a great work which, in little over 300 pages, takes us into the heart of the Hellenistic world. The period "Alexander to Cleopatra" is often treated as bookends marking the ending and resumption respectively of interesting periods; the interregnum punctuated only by obscure wars between Ptolemites and Selucids. But, as Grant recalls, the Hellenstic period saw Greek culture spread from Egypt to Central Asia and marked new heights in art, mathematics sculpture and literature. Moreover, without understanding the Hellenistic world, it is well nigh impossible to understand the history behind the New Testament - much of which was written in Greek. Maybe it is the very success of the Alexandrian conquests in spreading Greek culture which leads historians to look down their noses at this period - as if the popularization of Hellenic thinking somehow represents a debasement of the coinage. Well illustrated, too.

This book was really an eye opener for me. I have a great love for classical History(especially Roman History) and the Hellenistic period is seldom given the attention I feel it deserves. Grant solves this problem by providing an intense and thorough introduction to the Hellenistic World. I learned a lot from reading this. Nevertheless it must be said that Grant's highly intellectual and thorough style may bore the casual reader. I confess I even found parts of it a bit dull myself(in some cases this was probably due to Grant going over my head, he is a very intelligent person), and I've read lots of history books(though admittedly I only have an associates degree in History so I'm far from a professional historian). So if you think your man(or woman) enough to take on a Hellenistic History book as intellectually intense as this by all means go for it, but if your just looking for a light enjoyable read(that's easy for beginners to understand) you may wish to try something else.

Buy this one. It's well printed, well indexed and seems to have all the words I've had questions on. Maybe I'll run into some that aren't included as I continue to use it. Oh well, nothing is perfect. It won't change my assessment. This is a good book.

This book contains over 30,000 Military and Naval Terms, For Linguists, Historians, Collectors, displayed on the front cover.

It is more than that. Many German words are "invented" by putting two words or more together--and simply reading this dictionary will give the learner not only a feel for HOW this is done, but why, and give you a taste of how words are created for things that did not exist before.

Example: die Karabinertragevorrichtung. Made up of, carbine, the verb carry (tragen), apparatus (die Vorrichtung). If you know any part, you'll end up knowing THREE words. Meaning, carbine ring.

Example: das Nachrichtengerät. Composed of Nachricht (news), Gerät (apparatus). However, the meaning is signal equipment--so, you learn "nachrichten" means "to signal", and a general word for physical tools (plural), which is the same in the singular (das), "Gerät".

This sort of deconstruction-reconstruction exercise is essential to learning German. Imagine if such books were available not only for Wartime-related words!!! However, this one is an inexpensive, government-produced (1944) weapon of information and language that will serve any German learning well! And the price? Less than an hour's tutoring.

A very useful, if not essential tool for anyone conducting research involving German World War II military records and/or Nazi-era military literature. During their 12-year rule, the Nazis introduced a great many terms as well as "slang" that were peculiar to them and are no longer used in contemporary German. This book serves primarily as a guide to those terms and it can open windows onto the past that have long remained closed. In terms of its completeness the book is pretty good but not infallible. This writer has been able to find a few terms that this dictionary has missed. However, notwithstanding these flaws, nothing comes close to this book in terms of its range and completeness. Nevertheless, readers should be aware that it is aimed at the specialist and it is NOT a substitute for a standard German dictionary. Those of us who are weak in modern German will also need one of those (I recommend Cassell's).

This highly insigtful reprint of war department intelligence on Germany's WWII militery is really quite helpful for those interested in German militery things of WWII. Covers as much as the US could learn about Germany's armed forces down to the most trivial of things such as field kitchens and rations. And will provide the reader insights into the mindset of the American militery intelligence of the period.

Covers weapons uniforms ranks and decorations, unit formations in some detail, as well as background in regards to Training and mindset. One can feel the respect American Intelligence Officers felt for their enemy as well as their pride in the intelligence they had assembled for allied officers to defeat them.

It has some mistakes in regards to German navy warrent officers, (Actual rank titles Deckofficer and Oberdeckofficer) and a few other areas but otherwise pretty good.

A must have for anyone interested in WWII.

The book is very useful on the basic knowledge of german military force. The book has much emphasis on the development of what is to come, and less on what has been utilized. It is a great resource for wwii history buffs and/or wwiionline game players.

Far as I can tell, this is the same book as the one published in '95 which still appears to be in print. I found this book to contain a wealth of information about the WWII German army's organization and weapons, and how (some of) these weapons (e.g., mines) were employed. The only drawback was that it was originally published in '43 or '44 such that most of the details were for what the U.S. Army might still face, and less on equipment that was used earlier in the war. For my purposes (wargame design and development) it is a very useful book.

This book has everything you need to know about the ASVAB test. This book covers everything from motor vehicle parts and shop tools, to mathmatics and defining words. I do not usually like to pick up a book and learn about math or science and other subjects, but this book makes me want to learn. This book seems to be able to make a person much brighter. I highly recommend this book. Thank war veretans for all they have done for us. HOO-YAH!!!!

This book contains several tests for each subject area, with accompanying answers and explanation. The word knowledge section was very good. It tells you ways to improve your word knowledge skills and provides a list of over 1000 words that can be used to boost this skill. We (my son and I) are using this book to help him prepare for the ASVAB and have found this book to be very helpful. We are also using the ARCO book in conjunction with this, you can't over practice! This book (Barron's) is also the book used by the community college in it's six week class for ASVAB prep. We have found it to be a very useful tool!

very good