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Departments Books sorted by Average customer review: high to low .

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Cracking the GRE with CD-ROM, 2006 (Graduate Test Prep)
Published in Paperback by Princeton Review (2005-06-14)
Author: Princeton Review
List price: $31.95
New price: $9.97
Used price: $0.38

Average review score:

Good for general review, not for scoring extremely high...
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-24
I feel that Princeton Review books are best for people that want a simple and easy to understand review of the most important concepts and strategies useful for the GRE.

The math review is easy to understand. The strategies for the verbal section are clear.

The Princeton Review books ARE NOT enough for high scorers. The math problems are far too easy for someone that wants to get an 800 in math.

For instance, I scored 800 on the Princeton Review CD tests with tons of extra time left and while I was watching TV, playing with the dog and using half a sheet of scratch paper. I'm not THAT talented in math.

Kaplan's, Barron's and other books have much more challenging CAT software. They are better for high scorers.

So use Princeton if you want a painless review and need to score between 600 and at most the low 700s in math. The verbal section is better, but if you want to score over 700 in verbal you need more practice material. Kaplan's verbal tests are relatively challenging, in my opinion. This is especially true when it comes to reading comprehension passages.

Solid -- especially helpful for the writing section
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-05-11
This is a pretty solid all-around GRE prep. Especially helpful, though, is the part about creating templates to deal with the analytical writing session. This advice in itself makes the book worthwhile.

Decent, But Not the Best
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-07
This GRE prep book has a fairly decent Math review and Verbal review, but the practice tests both in the book and on the CD aren't very difficult compared to the actual GRE. It has some good points on how to write the Issue and Argument essays, but the Baron's prep book is much better in all areas. It's good to use this book along with other guides like the Baron's simply because they have a few different points, and getting all the practice possible is what will ultimately help you in the end.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY OR STUDY TIME
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2006-08-23
Please do yourself a favor and buy the Kaplan review book, as well as the book ETS publishes. This book has AWFUL advice and wildly unrealistic practice tests. The tests on the CD rom often repeat questions already answered in the book and have produced a range of scores which in no way reflect my scores on the tests ETS provides in their book (which are the real deal). The only saving grace of the Princeton Review book is the fact that they provide 4 or 8-week study schedules combining work from this book and the ETS book. My advice -- just make your own schedule and try to stick to it.

good for review, but tests on CD repeat a lot of questions
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-11
the math review in PR was, i thought, the best amongst the main players (barron's, kaplan) - though i am very good at math, so i didn't need a lot of explanations regarding some of the shortcuts, etc., they have in this book. verbal was pretty solid in terms of instruction as well. you want to supplement the vocab here w/ kaplan's word list and barron's top 300 words. vocab is key to the verbal part of the exam, but you don't need to go overboard and learn 3,500 words (in barron's) unless you have time to prep that much...it's overkill. 600-800 is about right, which is what you'll get if you combine all sources. the one major negative - PR's tests are really easy. well, moreso because they repeat a lot of questions from the book. not to say the real exam is much harder than PR's, but it would probably be a good idea to try a few different books for more realistic tests (kaplan and barron's are pretty good). again, it's not so much that the questions here are very easy, it's that a lot of them are repeats.

Departments
The Gourman Report: A Rating of Undergaduate Programs in American and International Universities
Published in Paperback by Natl Education Standards (1996)
Author: Jack Gourman
List price: $19.95
Used price: $7.63

Average review score:

Unbiased and authoritative!
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2002-05-06
I love this book! It is so accurate and fair. Some individuals might be bitter ...because it rightfully ranks the medical school at Queen's University (Canada) well under the University of Manitoba... but you can't argue with the facts. Thank you Dr. Gourman for your unbiased report.

Unreliable information
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2001-01-12
It is impossible for me to view this report as credible and reliable without knowing anything about its methodology. For all we know, these rankings may represent nothing more than the author's personal opinions. Every other ranking publication, no matter what the subject, explains its criteria for selection and ranking. It frightens me that high school students are relying upon this misinformation when applying to colleges.

So what does the Market say about the Quality of Gourman's w
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-21
You've read the critical reviews that dismiss Dr. Gourman's research and publications. But what does the MARKET say about his work. Last published in 1997 for $21.95 and today, eight years later, the LOWEST priced used copy here on Amazon is NINE (9) times that original retail price.

Go figure .... and who do you believe?

Useful but biased
Helpful Votes: 11 out of 18 total.
Review Date: 2000-10-20
As mentioned in the previous review, Jack Gourman (who taught at the University of Michigan at one point) heavily favors large state universities over private insitutions, which leads him into making such howlers as declaring Michigan to be one of the three top undergraduate institutions in the country.

Michigan is a fine institution, but like any state university, its mission is to provide an education to the youth of the home state, which means that it is not going to be able to recruit and accept the best students nationwide.

State institutions also offer courses of study (e.g., Home Economics, Agriculture and the like) essential to the well-being of the home state but generally not among the course offerings of the best private schools. Unlike US News, Gourman is vague about how he weights the various factors he considers, but it appears that he weights these programs on a par with Mathematics and Physics.

Having said all of that, I found his lists useful as a cross-check against other rankings. For instance, Gourman lists the University of Delaware as one of the top 10 institutions in the country in Chemical Engineering. That's obvious once you think about it (Dupont is headquartered in Delaware), but I hadn't thought about it until I read his book.

In the meantime, Jack, if you want to be taken seriously, disclose your methodology.

Good for the U of M
Helpful Votes: 8 out of 14 total.
Review Date: 2001-04-18
The Gourman report is a very good source for the evaluation of undergraduate programs across the country. There is an obvious bias of Professor Gourman that forces him to favor large state institutions instead of smaller liberal arts schools. When he ranks the top 100 schools, he gives Harvard and Princeton the number 1 and 2, at number 3 he lists the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor. Swarthmore College weighs in at 97. A lot of people would disagree with this ranking, but Gourman makes a point I agree with. Gourman argues that the larger state schools (especially schools that draw from all over the country and not just their home state such as Michigan, Wisconsin, California-Berkeley, and Virginia) are the best schools to receive a degree from. I agree with him because the strength of programs he evauluates are obviously better at the larger schools than such schools as Williams, Swarthmore and Amherst. While you may disagree with his rankings, it is hard to argue with the depth of support and statistics he deals with. It is also impossible to argue with his ranking of the U of M. Go Blue!

Departments
Cracking the GRE with Sample Tests on CD-ROM, 2005 Edition (Graduate Test Prep)
Published in Paperback by Princeton Review (2004-06-15)
Author: Princeton Review
List price: $32.95
New price: $7.00
Used price: $0.46

Average review score:

Good math section, weak vocab.
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-01-07
This book was very helpful in preparing for the quantatative part of GRE if you (like I) have not done math in a long, long time(good strategy advices, just enough practice questions), and had good strategy advice for the verbal and writing parts. However, vocabulary list is NOT enough to adequately prepare for the exam (unless you are satisfied with a lesser score). They operate on the principle of "hit parade," or the most used words on the test, which is not enough in case you get (and you always do) some more "obscure" words. I would still recommend this book for its Math and Writing sections, but would suggest that you also buy Barron's GRE Prep for their extensive vocabulary section. Also, I did not use their CD, since I don't have an Internet access on my laptop, so I can't tell you about that part of the book.

Good introduction to the GRE
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2005-12-12
This book is a good buy over all. It has a good vocabulary list with good descriptions of what the words mean. The math section is week at times and should only be used by those who have not done math for a long time and want to brush up on their skills. A beter book for the math section is Barrons. The sample questions in this book are also very week and the test is a lot harder especially the quantitative part.

Worthless software
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-31
As many others have noted the book is passable, but the software attached to it for the computer simulated test is simply a disaster. Not only it sometimes ditches your whole test instead of grading it, it demands a registration (which results in a lot of spam), and the program didn't even adapt itself to my display format (i.e. you have to hold the "appropriate" display mode or part of the screen (including the crucial bottom buttons) will be offscreen. Considering I basically bought the book for the computer tests besides making it REALLY annoying to read the long texts with small font, this is just worthless and the work of complete amateurs. Granted the GRE is a silly test, but I would have expected some level of professionalism from those who describe themselves as experts. The book itself I found nearly worthless since the questions in it are too easy and you are simply not going to learn math and vocab from one single book in a rush.

Decent for beating the test, not the material
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-07-11
This is the ideal book for those who don't have the time to study the actual material. It is chock full of hints and strategies, but the review of the actual material was pretty good. I found that what I really needed was to review the material, and the test-taking strategies really got in the way. Unlike many others, I did not have trouble with the online tests, though it took me two days to get my computer updated with the proper software. In the end, I ignored the online tests, using them only as a way to practice taking the test, not for evaluating my progress. I then focused on studying the discussion of the material itself, and did really well. My advice? Ignore the test-taking strategies, focus on the review material, and don't use the online tests to evaluate your progress.

Misleading information - website does not work
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-30
This book advertises on the cover that you will get free access to GRE tests online for practice purposed. When I try to login I just get an HTTP/404 error.

When I called tech support they told me that they no longer allow access to the website for my edition of the book (they want me to purchase the new 2006 edition). The book does not state anything about my edition (2004) expiring after a certain time, and nor does the website. What a rip off.

Departments
The Handmaid of Desire
Published in Paperback by Soho Press (2003-07-01)
Author: John L' Heureux
List price: $12.00
New price: $2.82
Used price: $0.01

Average review score:

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-08-08
I am one of the "fools". Well, that's the only sympathetic group in this novel, and they are marginalized. With personal experience of a college French department where the dominant element would gladly push out that pesky language and literature and style itself The Department of Theory and Discourse, I admit that much of my delight in this satire comes from the in jokes.

However, there is another dimension here that appeals to any reader interested in the task of writing fiction, which L'Heureux (how do you pronounce this happy name in American, anyway?) deconstructs even as he sends up Deconstruction. Who can resist the parallel of Olga, in her role as Author, to Mary Poppins? She alights on the scene, opens her carpetbag of tricks, manipulates her unsuspecting charges and, having changed everything, disappears into the air.

snideness with a small plot
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2007-10-21
This book is a must read for aspirants to a MFA writing program, or and English PhD, and also to survivors of these programs. Persons in humanities academia will appreciate the name dropping, inside jokes, and mentions of deconstructionism. Other may find them tedious.

The book is a little slow to get started, but does pick up somewhat after that.

The book is seriously marred by 2 chapters "humorously" describing a circumcision. The characters gleefully talk about the "healthfulness and cleanliness" of circumcision... a very dated opinion considering the recent spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a very real risk of infant circumcision. This is not a great subject for humor.

A small request for the author:
1) Next time you write about circumcision, please watch one first. Babies do not "coo happily" an hour or two after having 10,000+ nerve endings and 40% of their penile skin removed.
2) All babies, including fictional ones, deserve the best possible start in life. Among PhD educated stay-at-home moms in the USA (as two moms are in the book) breast feeding rates are well over 90%. The mention of "bottles" in this book significantly detracts form the realism.
3) Real babies, at 3-6 months old, do not sleep most of the time. Visit with a mom of a 3 month old for a few hours, and you will see what life is really like.

Dumb and Self Serving
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-02-26
Handmaid of Desire is a ridiculous tale of lust, greed, and murder set in the Ivory Towers of Northern California academia. It is light reading, and unwittingly, the author gives support to those who criticize "English" as a useless university major and department. This book seems like it was written for the author and his friends as an inside joke--"Ho ho ho! That jibe at Foucault was hilarious!"

The novel is centered around Professor Olga Kominska, who can read minds and knows the deepest secrets of the English professors with whom she works. She thinks her time as an invited guest professor should be spent helping the other teachers with their personal problems. I honestly can't go on reviewing something that doesn't deserve the time or space. Skip this one at all costs.

a promising beginning but
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2004-11-22
After the frist hundred pages, this novel falls into repetition without interesting variations. Longueur succeeds longueur. The characters cease developing and the situations become predictable. Only verbal brilliance could save the book.

A much niftier book about life in poststructural times on a major American unversity campus is Hynes, The Lecturer's tale. Much more interesting style, plot, and characters.

Clever but boring...
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2000-06-08
"The Handmade of Desire" by John L'Heureux is not written for the average reader who likes her tales to flow chronologically. One has to have some prior knowledge to follow his 'plot' which seems to be a send-up of deconstructionism.

Olga Kominski, a supposedly brilliant feminist writer joins the faculty of an unnamed university. She is of vague origin, perhaps Eastern European given her Polish last name. Her origin would not be an issue but for her proclivity to speak with multiple accents.

Olga has been hired as a member of the English faculty, and she is working on a book in her spare time. A professor of English writing a book is not unusual, but what is unusual is that as Olga writes, the characters in L'Heureux's book act in accordance with the characters in Olga's text. Is Olga merely recording the events she witnesses in the lives around her? Is she manipulating people so that they behave in ways she desires? Or, is she writing a script and through mysterious powers gaining the willing participation of the characters?

One experiences a sensation akin to that felt when viewing the famous Escher print where the hand is drawing the hand is drawing the hand. Surely, the author is spoofing the reader.

Most of the characters in Olga's book and L'Heureux's book are faculty peers or their spouses. All have secrets. All have problems. Unfortunately, the characters in both books are one-dimensional caricatures. I found it difficult to care about them. Unlike the characters in Jane Smiley's "Moo" some of whom still live in my mind, L'Heureux's characters are totally forgetable. The possible exception is Daryl the taxicab driver who seems to be "real."

Departments
Ranger Handbook
Published in Paperback by Apple Pie Publishers (1992-01-06)
Author: Department of Army
List price: $14.95
New price: $14.95
Used price: $8.49

Average review score:

Great info, bad production
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-02
This is perhaps the single greatest book on small unit tactics available. It is well organized, to the point and written after hundreds of years of experience. It is not a good manual for "individual combat skills." There is information that would be interesting to anyone needing to know about small team leadership int the field. There are good sections on warning and operations orders, patrolling and immediate action drills. Some of the information is only useful for study, as they are not applicable to anyone not supported by the larger US Army (like fire and air support.) This review would be a "high four" but it becomes a "low three" because of the production quality. A lot of the illustrations and tables have been copied so many times and reduced so much that they approach being un-readable. If you can find another version (hopefully that you can see hands on) get it.

Rip-Off
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2004-11-02
This manual was REDUCED to about 4x5 inches. Some of the tables are so small that the characters in the type is a black blob on the page, rendering the information unreadable. Most of the diagrams are so small that they are useless.

Whatever price you pay for this book it's too much. No, if I'd payed a couple of dollars for it at a garage sale I'd feel I paid a fair price.

Excellent Book!
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2002-01-25
This is an excellent book, printed just the right size for taking it with you in the field where you need it. Like the ones issued to active duty personel, it's bound on the top for easy reading.

NOT AS GOOD AS THE REVIEWS CLAIM!
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2003-03-31
When I purchased this book I was under the impression that the information inside would be easy to read and understand.Unfortunatly this was not the case for me.
Most of the survival techniques are vague and unhelpful.
The illustrations that are suppose to show you how to
implement these techniques are sketchy at best.
To put it bluntly I had to return the book and
find another one that was more informative.
So unless you are a military collector I wouldn't
suggest buying this book.

ranger handbook
Helpful Votes: 4 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2002-02-24
Informative, yet very very basic. It seems to me that anyone reading this book would be fully aware of the operational tecniques of the rangers. They are efficient, yet very step by step, and predictable. Also the illustrations are a bit difficult to follow.

if youre in high probabilty of encountering the US Army Rangers in combat, i suggest u read this book.

Departments
U.S. Army Survival Handbook
Published in Paperback by The Lyons Press (2002-06-01)
Author: Department of the Army
List price: $14.95
New price: $9.26
Used price: $8.99

Average review score:

Get a better book on the subject ... this one is terrible
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-11-12
This book is superficial and unrealistic. None of the topics are covered in sufficient detail to be of any use in a real-world situation. Do yourself a favor and get a better book on the subject.

Plus, this book is available online (legally) for FREE anyway -- just type "army field manual survival .pdf" into Google, and you can download it and read it without wasting your money.

Information galore
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-09-28
This book is, by far, the best book I have read for understanding and gaining knowledge for survival. Not only does it cover the basics of life, food, water, and shelter, but helps you understand the physcological stresses that can be even more important. Great Book!

Luke Batten

U.S. Army Survival Handbook
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-10-05
A very accurate book. It covers a lot of information, and is therefore not very precise, but it teaches you the basics of what you need to know, and I recommend it to anyone interested in survival techniques.

SURVIVAL 101
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-26
This civilian version of the US Army's Survival Manual is an excellent resource for weekend- and dayhikers, but probably isn't what you're looking for if you want to camp/hike for long periods of time. The book covers the basics of gathering food, finding water, building a shelter, first aid, field medicine, and other survival skills, but lacks many valuable details. Its simple wisdom honestly reminds me of my old Bear Scout guidebooks. Again, this book is a priceless resource for weekend campers, but lacks the details necessary to really teach you survival skills. Serious campers: Take a look at the "real" military version (the FM 21-76) for the info you need!

THE PRICE IS LOW BECAUSE THE CONTENT IS LOW!!!!
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 7 total.
Review Date: 2006-09-01
I have both books this one and the U.S. Army Survival book. The military book is so much better even if it is 14.95. I read the reviews on the military book but I got this book first because it was cheaper and I wasted my money. They say you get what you pay for and they are right. Buy this book if you just need to spend money. Buy the military version if you really want to know about survival. Think about it who better than the Army.
The title of the book may confuse you but check out the "real miliary book for 14.95!" Much Much better.

Departments
21st Century U.S. Army Combatives Field Manual
Published in Ring-bound by Progressive Management (2002-04)
Author: Department of Defense
List price: $29.95
New price: $29.95

Average review score:

"We use our fists"
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-08-12
I teach a Filipino Martial Art to soldiers here in Iraq. FMA is based on weapons(though unarmed capabilities are there as well)... that is, impact and edged weapons. The basic principles, if adhered to, will allow the exponent to pick up almost anything and disable or kill an assailant.

Once, a soldier came up to me and asked if this was a Army combatives class; I said, no. One of my students said proudly, "We beat people up with sticks!" She immediately put on an air of superiority and said, "Oh yeah? We use our fists."

I was practicing a knife drill with one of my buddies one day, and a soldier walks by, admiring it, but then saying, "Boxing is better."

This is not about whether Karate is better than Judo, or my teacher is better than your teacher... I've been involved in the martial arts for 17 years, and while I've done my share of "my teacher can beat your teacher", I've grown up since then.

I am still dumbstruck by what these soldiers had to say. This is what the "new and improved" Modern Army Combatives teaches soldiers these days? That, somehow, an unarmed person is at an advantage against one who is armed? That it is okay to engage in fisticuffs or grappling against someone with a baseball bat or (good lord) a knife? Look at what you have wrought, SFC Larsen... your intentions may have been good, but face it, every soldier wants to be in the UFC, not prepared for battle.

No matter how rough and tumble the UFC gets, there are still rules, weight classes, and you only have to worry about one guy.

Recall one of Murphy's laws of combat: If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in combat.

Combat is treachery, it is deception, it is CHEATING. It is ambushing, blind siding, KILLING the other guy before he KILLS you. There are no weight classes, no cornermen, you aren't training in just ACUs and sneakers, you are in IBAS and MICH, hell, maybe your M4 is still attached to you, and the ground is muddy.

As I write this, soldiers are engaging in step aerobics... I'm not kidding.

Where's the battle focus in step aerobics?

Drill Sergeant in the sky, what's happened to our Army?

Oh yeah... politically correct people who know all about fighting and winning a war. Liberal parents who don't want thier kids to be toughened up in basic training. Gives new meaning to the phrase, "Kill them with kindness."

Comatives
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-12-01
Ok, now this guy E. M. Van Court apparently has not been through the actual Army training. We do not train to submit, but we submit in training if that makes any sence to you, big guy. We teach a soldier to submit while training against another friendly soldier so that we do not injure a guy needed in combat. We do realize that in a combat situation you would not stop with submission, you would continue until you break that arm or snap his neck regardless of the fact the he might tap you 1,000 times. Also, ground fighting techniques do not make up the complete Modern Army Combatives Program just the first 2 levels becuase they are the easiest to learn. As you go you learn to work in reverse order from the ground up. So before you blast something you know nothing about, get true facts from the scource. This book is helpful but I always reccomend a trainer becuase books do not fully illustrate a movement and they do not play out in your head the way they should but if you know the moves then this is a great refresher tool to help you stay on top of your moves thats why I gave it 4.

Get this plus more and videos on a CD for $7.99 at USBJJ.COM
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2003-10-16
This is a great start to learning Brazilian Jujitsu. Using the Military's KISS mantra (keep it simple stupid!) the Army has managed to produce something very worthwhile. However, it is WAY overpriced!! You can get this book and the prior version with more stand-up traditional jujitsu and judo, wrestling and 105 short videos on a CD at USBJJ.COM. And then you can print out the pages you need to take to train and not worry about lugging around a 300 page book or mashing the pages.

Great Combatives Manual for all
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-04
This manual takes beginners and advance fighters to a different level. From basic BJJ, some Judo and lots of Battle Focus training. Remember, this manual is design for realistic fighting...Servicemen in action. I recommend this book as a great source of knowledge, techniques and visual graphics.

Rolling around on the ground with razor wire and shrapnel? Oh please...
Helpful Votes: 6 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-30
The premise of the 2002 (current as I write) edition of the U.S. Army Combatives manual is that military hand to hand combat starts with ground fighting or grappling and ends when someone's teammate shows up. Let's address the explicit and implicit fallacies one at a time.

Ground fighting for soldiers? The odds favor urban environments for this sort of engagement (short lines of sight, extremely complicated terrain with large numbers of hiding places, etc). In a war torn city, with broken glass, scrap metal, razor wire, rusted re-bar, etc does it make sense to roll around on the ground with an opponent and hope your teammate shows up before his does?

Ground fighting/grappling techniques are high coordination and multiple step movements. This makes it difficult for a student to do one correct repetition of a technique, much less the two to three thousand repetions that it takes to really internalize a technique. When you are trying to train hundreds of young Americans at once, simple has a clear value.

Ground fighting allows for competition in units. OK, competition certainly motivates most people, but it trains bad habits. In competition, techniques that would be simple and effective against an assailant are not allowed, so you are teaching people to fight 'nice'. If an opponent is determined to inflict serious injury, or is so pumped up on adrenalin or drugs that he/she doesn't care what damage they do, targeting the groin, throat, and eyes is the place to start, not "off limits/a foul".

Note well: sentry removal (silent killing techniques) have been removed from this manual. Politically insensitive, most likely, but for a soldier, the doctrine should teach techniques that could help them escape from being taken captive.

There are several more issues worth addressing here, but I'll leave it with one more.

Most disturbing is the undercurrent in this manual that unarmed combat doesn't really involve hurting an opponent, it's about submission. To allow this sense of fair play does U.S. soldiers a serious disservice. When a soldier faces an enemy, it does him or her no good to have a subconscious belief that their opponent will "submit" before they are incapacitated.

Don't buy this one unless you are interested in UFC fighting or grappling, it has only the most trivial connection to what soldiers need to know. Go for the 1992 edition of FM 21-150, 'Combatives', the Canadian army manual availible through the Canadian government website, or even D'Eliscu's 'Hand To Hand Combat' availible through Amazon.

Departments
Arco Everything You Need to Score High on the Gre: 2000 Edition (Master the Gre)
Published in Paperback by Arco Pub (1999-07)
Author: Thomas H. Martinson
List price: $16.95
New price: $2.00
Used price: $0.81

Average review score:

Best Math Review
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2000-05-17
Well of all the gre books i've studied i think this book has the best math review section of all with pretty good excercise questions help you calculate faster and develop different type of skills needed for the math section in gre. I don't like the CATs given in this book which are in CDROM due to 2 reasons. Firstly their scoring system and the division of questions of different kind of skills and then the range it predicted was'nt right too. I've taken the CAT in it on the last day before my GRE exam and it predicted V=660-700, Q=710-750, A=660-700 and in the real one the next day i got V=560, Q=790, A=790. So don't depend upon its predictions about you. Any how I got this book only for the Math review which paid dividends for me.

There are better study guides out there...
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2000-05-22
ARCO's GRE study guide is fairly cheap, but there are much better guides out there (KAPLANS or the PRINCETON REVIEW). The book itself is "verbose," to say the least, and the tips are not really tips at all. Who really has time to sift through 500 pages of stuff? The only redeeming aspect of the guide is it's vocabulary list, which, compared with the other guides, is really lacking. I'd invest my money in something else. If anything, you can make a great door prop with it...

BUEN LIBRO, DE GRAN CALIDAD y EN ESPAÃ`OL NO EXISTEN
Helpful Votes: 3 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2000-04-07
Recientemente adquirí el libro GRE* 2000 edition ISBN-0-02-863225-7 ( libro con CD-ROM), pero me llama la atención de encontrar algunos errores que pueden ser corregidos, para no bajar la credibilidad del texto, el cual considero metódico y muy didáctico.

Agradezco tomar en cuenta los comentarios que anexo.

1)page 39, Problema 17 Al comienzo del enunciado debe decir "pq (diferente) 0" en donde dice "pq=0"

2)page 275, Problema 14 El signo de la fracción 7/5 esta errado, donde dice "+7/5" debe haberse indicado "-7/5", según la explicación en la pagina 291, incluso la respuesta indicada, es solo es correcta si se efectúa la corrección anterior

3)page. 290, Problema 11 (Explicación) El razonamiento no esta bien, donde se indica el valor de n, debe ser -4; a pesar de ese error, el razonamiento no es correcto. Si piensa dejar la pregunta, la mejor respuesta es D "No se puede asegurar con la información dada". page 276, Problema 18, La opción E) tiene un error de tipeo, y esta bien escrita en la explicación en la pagina 291, problema 18.

This book is not worth the money!
Helpful Votes: 5 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 1999-03-16
The book is much less organized or helpful than the Kaplan book or the Princeton Review that I have also used. Particularly, I found that the explanations of the answers to the sample tests were a)not complete b)used esoteric language.

Good and cheap book to prepare for the GRE
Helpful Votes: 7 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 1999-07-07
I really liked this book. This was the only study material that me and my friend had to prepare for the GRE and we both "passed" the first time and only time that we took the exam. I felt like I knew what to expect for the GRE exam after reading it. It had very simple but complete math review section on the back that I found very helpful. Its only $13.95 at regular price. It's a much better deal compared to some other books and will do the same for you.

Departments
Defending Ivan the Terrible: The Justice Department's Conspiracy to Convict John Demjanjuk
Published in Hardcover by Regnery Publishing, Inc. (1996-05-08)
Author: Yoram Sheftel
List price: $27.50
New price: $26.94
Used price: $7.16

Average review score:

Wow
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-07-13
I'm just into this book I bought from Amazon and I'm amazed at the process behind the Demjanjuk persecution!

Kangaroo Courtroom
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-11
"Defending Ivan the Terrible" is a book about retired Cleveland auto worker John Demjanjuk, who was accused of participating in [...] war crimes. Due to the false accusation, the Demjanjuk family went through 14 years of Hell.

This book was written by Yoram Sheftel, Demjanjuk's Israeli defense attorney, an ardent nationalist who for a time became the most hated man in Israel.

Israeli attorney Sheftel became interested in the case because,

"Throughout my 10 years of work, I had not come across a single instance when Israel Police had conducted a proper photo spread in the absence of a defense lawyer on behalf of the suspect. Hundreds of Supreme Court rulings invalidated photo spreads that had only a fraction of the faults found in every one of the spreads the prosecution was basing itself on."

The anti-establishment Sheftel had developed a basic distrust of the authorities responsible for criminal investigations, particularly the police. His motive for getting involved was that he wanted to publicly expose their improper actions. Sheftel would not have participated if he had believed Demjanjuk was actually guilty.

Sheftel became chief defense counsel, in contradiction to his original intention. So, Demjanjuk, who was accused of murdering 900,000 Jews, depended on a Jew to save his life.

I wonder what compensation Demjanjuk received for his troubles. Apparently it was considerable, but none of it went to reimburse the owner of a travel agency who worked tirelessly to lobby the media and Congress in Demjanjuk's behalf. He later sued Demjanjuk for almost $100,000 advanced for airline tickets.

This book would make a great movie. What more could you want? Two men, each conditioned to hate the other's origins, yet drawn together in a life-and-death struggle. A frame-up, a cover-up, exotic setting, passionate courtroom drama, struggle between good and evil, a probable [...] of one of the defense attorneys, and a love story (Sheftel got married during the wait between appeal and verdict-and quickly got divorced.)

I highly recommend it. The reader will learn a lot about communism, injustice, kangaroo courts, show trials, and the reliability of the eyewitness testimony of holocaust survivors.

Vital reading for seekers of Holocaust justice.
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 1999-08-18
We tend to forget that charging anyone with a crime is only the beginning of the justice process: then there must be a trial to decide whether the accused is innocent or guilty. Show trials, staged for political purposes, are not concerned with guilt or innocence but with turning on a performance that will satisfy crowd emotions. Yoram Sheftel's book describes, with graphic inside detail, how a show trial nearly succeeded in hanging an innocent man accused of being a vicious concentration camp guard. Perhaps because Shoftel is a lawyer and not a political scientist, "Defending 'Ivan the Terrible'" dosn't explain the socio-political background equally well. It can be read as an exciting (although wordy) courtroom drama in which both the US and Israeli establishments are caught abusing power and the wrong man almost hangs. However, the book will make more sense if it is read against the background of the antagonism between secular Zionism and religious Judaism, for example, as illustrated by the Kastner scandal.

I felt that this book lacks substance!!!
Helpful Votes: 1 out of 28 total.
Review Date: 1999-02-08
I just feel sorry for this lawyer who needs to attract attention by betraying his own people!

a story of government deceit to rival Ruby Ridge and Waco
Helpful Votes: 14 out of 15 total.
Review Date: 1996-12-20
The author of this book is a very courageous Israeli lawyer who labored for more than eight years to prove that a naturalized American citizen of Ukrainian descent, John Demjanjuk, was "railroaded" by the American and Israeli governments, with help from Germany and Poland. It is a story of government deceit and coverup which rivals and in some ways surpasses both Waco and Ruby Ridge. The OSI in our justice department and the Israeli government needed a conviction, and they didn't care that their "vi

Departments
Fire Department Incident Safety Officer
Published in Paperback by Delmar Cengage Learning (2007-04-17)
Author: David W. Dodson
List price: $57.95
New price: $44.99
Used price: $43.00

Average review score:

helpful
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-13
The book was well written and easy to read. I found it helpful in my safety officer class.

If you have a wad of cash that you are about to toss into the paper shredder, I guess you could buy this book but I wouldn't
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2007-04-07
If this book was written at the 8th grade level, then it must've been proof read by an 8th grader. There are mistakes in this book that spell check could've fixed. As for content, George Carlin says that the "quality of our thoughts is only as good as the quality of our language." This book is so poorly written, I couldn't find anything of practical value. I can only hope that in the far distant future, historians will not judge our beloved job by the quality and content of this book.

A disservice to fire fighters
Helpful Votes: 0 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2004-03-13
The lessons presented by Dodson are grossly oversimplified and the book is an injustice to fire fighters who use it. In addition, it is only written to an eighth grade level. Save your money and maybe your life.

Lessons forgotten or never taught
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2005-05-03
I found this book very informative, ignore Safety-Command's review. I attended David Dodson's 16 hour class during the FDIC conference in Indianapolis in 2005. The class was an overview of the book and the more important skill of learning to read smoke. Mr. Dodson also taught an Art of Reading Smoke class that was attended by over 1,000 people. This book is the basis for the FDSOA certification test. It is a must read for any Department who has not established procedures for implementing a scene safety officer. Read and learn. The book is simplified to better understand and function in the role of a Safety Officer.

well presented to the point text
Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 1999-11-15
The author documents the duties and responsibilities of theincident scene safety officer . in an understandable way , Great book.


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