Constructing Books

The biases of those interested in this book are: Korea does/does not have 5000 years of history. The author is quite outspoken in his assertion that, if by "Korean" we mean a "Korean state", then a Korean state can only be traced as far back as the third century AD. Though the archeological record of those peoples who became modern Koreans go further back than that. He renders a valuable service in placing names to the various progenitors of the 5000 year history view, and the trends of thought that they represented. Not being tremenduously interested in archeology, my eyes glazed over with the myriad descriptions of dig sites that undoubtedly interest true archeologists. It is easy to see why this dissertation has offended so many Korean nationalists, particularly those in whose eyes the inhabitants of Gogoryo of 2500 years ago are identical genetic, linguistic, and cultural twins to modern day Koreans. A useful book for anyone interested in Korean origins, but targeted to those with more than an amateur interest in archeology.

This book weaves together the separate fields of nationalist studies, archaeology, and history to show how the past has been used to construct a modern, Korean identity. Hyung-il Pai fills a large gap in the understanding of Korean identity in taking on difficult questions like: When was the first "Korean" state? What makes a premodern group of people or artifact "Korean?" How is the politics of the present projected retrospectively on the past in order to construct a basis for nationalism?

One caveat - this book is for the academic reader and contains much fluffy jargon. But at its heart, the arguement of this book is basically correct and needs to be understood more widely.

Final note - This book may upset Koreans, who have a deep sense of nationalism based on historical grievances against the Japanese. Pai's book shows how history is abused and distorted to establish a praiseworthy Korean history that is largely fictional. One could cite 10,000 examples of Koreans' historical inventions, but the most famous is that there was a Korean state 5,000 years ago called "Old Chosun" - this is based on an account of a myth written in the 12th century AD in the Samguk Yusa ("Miscellany of the Three Kingdoms") of a god coming down from heaven to transforms a bear into a woman and then marrying her, producing the founder of Korea. This demystification of Korean nationalist history touches nerves, as you can see from the other reviewer, but it is nonetheless a very necessary book.

I regret that this book was published by Harvard University Press because the fact shows that the publisher did not have good reviewers or proof-readers for this book. The problem of this book is:

First, it includes serious technical mistakes such as misspelling or inaccuracy of Korean names of place and event and some historical dates, which shows that there was no good proof-reading or reviewing process by Korean scholars. Yes, this book is a publication of the author's Ph D dissertation, and the author's adviser was an ancient Chinese history scholar!

Second, thus, I cannot imagine this kind of institutional relationship of academic influences was neutral in the author's opinion-formation about the history of the Korean origin. Can you imagine that an English historian is good to be an authoritative dissertation advisor of French history or even American history (especially regarding such a sensitive topic as "national origin")?

Third, I could find some serious essentialistic bias in the author's discussion, even though the author abuses in the citations of this book the names of many bigshots of so-called deconstructive or post-essentialistic theories. According to the author, most narratives of Korean history suggested by Korean historians in Korea are fakes because all of them are nationalistic. A serious prejudice. The author's assumed attitude does not seem to represent anti-nationalistic and academic objectivsity or fairness, but an Orientalistic intellectual assault blessed by the authority of writing a dissertation at an Ivy college in the US. The book just ignores decade-long local scholarship about the topic (if considering just modern one) in a very simple way without a persuasive logic or proofs. Isn't this academic imperialism?

What a convenient way of using such fashionable post-theories for concealing the lack of academic intergrity in this book! The arguments in the book seem to me like a kind of academic violence because the author uses skills of discrediting Korean scholarship just by using terms like 'nationalistic' repeatedly. It is not true.

Finally, the book has a serious contradiction because it seems to use a deconstructive way of reconstructing historical narratives, but it includes the apendices of about half of all pages of this book probably for the purpose of showing the authenticity of the author's fieldwork experience. This is a waste of pages, and such construction of the book format contradicts the author's way of narrating an alternative and fictional history.

Regretfully, I cannot help saying that this book has no value for any one who wants to look for some theoretical depth or factual discoveries in Korean history. The author's problems discussed above makes me discredit the author's arguments in the book. This book has too much serious Orientalistic biases.

Sansone's book should resonate with students and academics interested in identity studies in general, but especially identity studies in Brazil and in a transnational/diasporan frame. However, the underlying significance of the work is in its historiographical contributions, so readers might not catch any "breakthrough in intellectual thinking and debate on the matter" without having read 15-20 other works on race in Brazil. Much of the studies on Afro-Brazilian identity have been done by North American scholars who brought with them their own ideas of what "blackness" should mean. Sansone is among the first to suggest that such methodologies and assumptions are wrong and have skewed those earlier studies, and then he goes on demonstrating how/why throughout the book.

but I didn't get much out of this book. It seems to stray too often from the subject title. Also the book seems to be lacking in anything that might be considered a breakthrough in intellectual thinking and debate on the matter. It also seems a bit jumbled. For general reading on the subject I am not sure if I would recommend it, however if you are a researcher of academic type looking for information that you can quote you may just gleen something useful out of it.

Worst thing I ever read. Good remedy for insomnia. . put me right to sleep.

Constructing Nationalities In East Central Europe edited by Pieter M. Judson, Marsha L. Rozenblit (Austrian and Habsburg Studies: Berghahn Books) The hundred years between the revolutions of 1848 and the population transfers of the mid-twentieth century saw the nationalization of culturally complex societies in East Central Europe. This fact has variously been explained in terms of modernization, state building, and nation-building theories, each of which treats the process of nationalization as something inexorable, a necessary component of modernity. Although more recently social scientists gesture to the contingencies that may shape these larger developments, this structural approach makes scholars far less attentive to the "hard work" (ideological, political, social) undertaken by individuals and groups at every level of society who tried themselves to build "national" societies.
The essays in this volume make us aware of how complex, multi-dimensional and often contradictory this nationalization process in East Central Europe actually was. The authors document attempts and failures by nationalist politicians, organizations, activists, and regimes from 1848 through 1948 to give East-Central Europeans a strong sense of national self-identification. They remind us that only the use of dictatorial powers in the 20th century could actually transform the fantasy of nationalization into a reality, albeit a brutal one.
The essays in this volume originated in papers delivered at a symposium of extraordinary interest held at Columbia University in March 2000, entitled "Dilemmas of East Central Europe: Nationalism, Dictatorship, and the Search for Identity." The Harriman Institute and The Department of History of Co¬lumbia University together with the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota sponsored this conference, which brought together a gifted group of scholars who are opening new vistas of modern Central and East-Central European history. Pieter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit organized the sym¬posium, and they made the subsequent selection of papers for this volume, of¬fering suggestions for revisions, and editing the final versions that appear here.
The high quality and interest of the Columbia University symposium in March 2000 was a tribute to the Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia, István Deák, who taught all the presenters of papers, either as undergraduate or graduate students. The range and originality of their work testifies not only to the quality of the students drawn to Central and East Central European studies at Columbia in the last several decades but also to the stimulus, inspiration, and scholarly discipline which Professor Deák has provided during his long career in seminars, lecture courses, and direction of individual research. Professor Deák has been an extraordinary model and guide both to his students at Columbia and to many scholars elsewhere.
All the essays here, in various ways, address the development of popular na¬tionalist loyalties, identities, and politics in Central and East-Central Europe since the eighteenth century. They bear witness to the great changes in historical research on nationalism and popular identities that have taken place in the last two or three decades. Previously, historians tended to study European national identities as the natural and inevitable outgrowth of longstanding popular cultural factors, largely accepting at face value nationalists' claims about the origins of their group identities. In recent years, though, scholars have come to study national loyalties as fundamentally dynamic phenomena that individuals and groups con¬struct under specific historical circumstances, loyalties that can be transformed or exchanged or may be held in ambiguous relationships together with other al¬legiances. The essays in this volume demonstrate richly the imagination and cre¬ativity which historians have brought to bear in developing these new studies of the development of modern nationalist loyalties and solidarities.
Much the same imagination and creativity, combined with a healthy skepti¬cism for much of the traditional conventional wisdom in Central and East Cen¬tral European historiography, has characterized the scholarly work as well as the teaching of István Deák. His interests have ranged widely during the course of his long career as an historian. His first book, based on his doctoral dissertation, was Weimar Germany's Left-Wing Intellectuals: A Political History of the Weltbühne and Its Circle (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968). Most recently, he has written on war crimes trials and processes in the twentieth century. Research and teaching on Habsburg Central Europe, however, has occupied most of Professor Deák's career. Perhaps the most salient quality of his work in this field has been the in-dependence of his perspective-a profoundly thoughtful and informed skepti¬cism that has given him the ability to raise critically important questions which widely held master narratives have excluded. This skepticism has endowed his writings with a distinctive freshness of outlook.
Prof. Deák's independence of view and healthy skepticism were apparent as early as 1967 at the famous conference on the Austro-Hungarian Compromise and its consequences held in Bloomington, Indiana. At that meeting, Deák pre¬sented a comment for a panel on the dominant nationalities of the Monarchy as integrating and disintegrating factors in the polity. He essentially threw the standard conceptualization of the critical nationality conflicts in the political history of the Monarchy back in the faces of the panelists, suggesting that, ... the subject of this debate is neither justified nor valid.... I would argue that there were no dominant nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. There were only dominant classes, estates, institutions, interest groups, and professions.
Conventional historiography was certainly sensitive to social differences and conflicts in the lands of the old Monarchy, but most older historians essentialized ethnic and national differences and let them cover over other factors.
In István Deák's writings on nineteenth century Austria and Hungary which have followed since 1967, he has typically presented fresh, probing perspectives, which have broken through conventional wisdom and long-held nationalist mythologies. This was clearly apparent in his book The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848-1849 (New York, 1979), still one of the very finest accounts in any language of the political career of Louis Kossuth and the revolution and warfare of 1848-49 in Hungary.
Professor Deák's other great book on Austro-Hungarian history, Beyond Na¬tionalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848-1918 (New York and Oxford, 1990), was a bold foray in social and administrative history.
In this study, he took an unfashionable path in studying one of the major institutions of the Habsburg state. In the army officer corps, he examined one of the most important institutions that worked for a broader unity and engendered some real Habsburg state loyalty and identity. In the process, he also helped re-mind us that there were important state institutions and administrative struc¬tures during the last decades of the Monarchy that continued to function better than many observers would allow and that left important legacies to the succes¬sor states. That so many of Prof. Deák's students, as represented in this volume, are doing similarly pathbreaking work represents perhaps the strongest evidence of his inspiration and continuing legacy. I am deeply grateful to the editors, Pieter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit, and to Marion Berghahn and her colleagues at Berghahn Books for bringing this volume to publication.

I purchased this book,Constructing Social Research: The Unity and Diversity of Method (Sociology for a New Century Series), from laxicanagirl for $15.25. This book is in very poor condition and heavily highlighted. I would never purchase another book from this vendor. This will be a very hard book to use for my studies. Just thought I would let others know. It was way over priced for it's condition.

Over the past 15 years or so, sociology and political science have converged towards the methodological standards of positive economics. This trend has undeniably produced several positive effects. (For example, in Europe, it has forced social scientists to come down of their intellectualist/ideological pedestal and work through the difficult bits of research.) Nevertheless, it has also come at the expense of (a) rigorous interpretive work, and (b) careful theorizing.

This (old-ish) book should be read carefully, for it can greatly help fix these probolems without jeopardising the benefits of positivism.

When one reads other standard books on methodology (e.g. King et al.), one is left with two false impressions, namely that (1) qualitative research aims at more or less the same thing as quantitative research, and (2) "science" is about method. This book demonstrates the falsity of the first point. (For a demonstration of the falsity of the second point, one should turn to standard micro-economics books or maths-for-economics books, such as Nicholson & Snyder or Chiang, and ponder on the fact that it does not make sense to test hypotheses that are not derived from the same logically consistent assumptions.)

Where others would make you think that all kinds of social scientific research are about finding regularities (and perhaps their causes), Ragin warns you of the complementarities between that kind of research and more "grounded" research that aims, for example, at interpreting significant events, or at discovering the objective function(s) that different kinds of actors seek to maximize. More, he makes it crystal-clear that, although qualitative research may sometimes come close to anthropology, it is not exempt from presenting and justifying its procedures. In other words, if the standard mainstream vision à la King et al. is not your cup of tea, do not think that you're exempt from methods: Ragin is here to remind you of the basic steps that you must take, and to drive you through the main works that you should read and work with.

My only critique is that this book needs a new edition. Unless a new edition comes out, read this one, but bear in mind that some techniques have evolved over the past 15 years.

The author succinctly relates the past to emerging interfaces in the library of future. Such a futuristic dimension is best reflected in the last chapter, i.e., Giving up Prophecy. Billings has summarized, in this collection, his extensive experiences, and presented a summum bonum of his 25 years career - from grassroots to the bureaucratic heights, building infostructures that sustain any hurricane. Herein, intangibles are so nicely presented that even a novice in the field does not have to re-read the text or find much left for imagination. His thought provoking essays challenge information professionals to accept needed change. He is of the view that those who forget history will be forced to repeat it.

Given the strength of the book as a good assessment of successful ventures in information-sharing I recommend it to practitioners in academic / research libraries, as well as, library schools.

Present Value, Constructing a Sustainable Futre is, at the very least, a useful book. This is an excellent primer on solar technologies for professionals who are trying to relearn some of the basics of sustainable design. Even though is was written in 1979 and looks primarily at residential examples, the basic information and simple technologies haven't changed. Plus, its just fun to see the pictures of the '70's architecture.

Simple text and simple graphics are used to explaing the different methods and results, allowing the ideas to be interpreted in new ways. If your local public library doesn't have a copy, the minimal purchase price is worth its reference capabilities. I gave the book 3 stars because its not an exhuastive resouce, obviously dated, but, I believe, still useful.

This is a book about writing/journaling through mental/psychiatric pain. I thought it would be about physical pain. I've not read much of it. I will donate it to the local library.

When I first saw this book it looked very promising. Unfortunately it isn't. Although this book appears to be written for people who are experienced programmers, it spends time teaching basic concepts. The first chapter is an "Intro to Java" including a discussion about what data types are available in Java. The remainder of the first half of the book teaches simple AI techniques. Why was paper wasted on such trivial topics? If somebody wants to learn about Java they would be better off buying an introductory Java book. If they want to learn about basic AI they would learn more with an introductory AI book. I could understand it if the authors spent a little time touching on the basic concepts, but devoting half the book to them is a waste. The second half of the book is slightly more useful but it doesn't make up for the first half (or the fact that much of the example code doesn't work). If the book were cut in half with the second half being sold for 1/2 price, then the book might be worth it. But as it is now, it is a waste of money.

A readable introduction to the principles of Intelligent Agents and Artificial Intelligence.

The topics described are illustrated with example applications, however, as the authors point out, the book does not aim to teach Java (or object oriented) programming. As such the examples do not take full advantage of the features offered by an object-oriented language, for example there is little use of Interfaces, which would promote reuse. The designs are not expressed in UML, which would be useful. Also some of the examples are rather lacking in substance. At this time, we have not pursued the topics covered in this book to see how well they scale to real world applications...

This book provides a good introductory treatment of intelligent agents and their implementation in Java. The book provides details on the essential components of classical AI such as search, representation, reasoning, and learning, and Java code with an example. Agent implementation ideas are provided via a generic agent written in Java, and three examples displaying different extents of agency. Some figures in the latter part of the book dealing with agents, providing representations of the essentials of the Java code for the generic agent, and the three examples will greatly help the reader. The book will help greatly in getting you started in the area of implementing intelligent agents, if you have a reasonable preparation in Java.

just i read the last page, i would like you help for buying this book. How can i do it? I am from Quito-Ecuador, and my name is Fernando Lopez

Following several unsuccessful attempts to get the NewsFilter application to work using JDK 1.1.8, I am convinced that the non-functioning software is a serious impediment to learning the material presented in the book, regardless of how well written the prose. I did like the introduction to Java and AI in the beginning of the book to set the stage for the actual demonstration projects later in the book, however, I agree with several other reviewers that these topics can not be adequately covered in the number of pages allocated. Overall, I was very disappointed with the book and would not recommend the book, particularly given its relatively high price.

The book reads like it was written by a high school student. Ms. Romines lets her arguments lead her to the supporting evidence and not the other was around. For example, although Laura writes in These Happy Golden Years that she had never been as happy in her short life as she was the summer she taught at the Perry School and lived on her parents' claim, Ms. Romines decides this statement must be false because Laura can see the Wessington Hills out the window of the school and Wessington contains the letters W, E, S, and T so really she must be longing to go west the whole time. The most infuritating part was when she said that it would have been perfectly plausible for Laura to write a book about Mary's college years and that her decision not to might have been indicative of something under the surface. Anyone who knows these books at all knows that Laura's descriptions are almost entirely visual and the stories are told through the EYES of the main character. Laura's ability to capture the world with words came from spending years of her life filling in the gaps in Mary's experiences. How could she possibly have written a story from the point of vieew of a BLIND person? I may not agree with everything I read, but if it is written well and the arguments are supported well I enjoy learning something anyway. This book was a lesson in what should not be published.

After reading good and not so good reviews of this book, I attempted to read this book with an open mind. Hard thing to do, especially if you are a Laura-fanatic.

I can see where the author was coming from on such topics as minority issues and the subject of Ma and Laura's relationship. However, I think some of the gender/feminism issues were WAY over the top, and had to stop reading the book for a while after reading the ludirous accusations of an incestual relationship between Pa and Laura. Also, with all the conflicts the author tried to find, I"m surprised she didn't tackle the good ol' fashioned sibling rivalry that is a major player between Laura and Mary in the first 3 books, and rears its head from time to time in the last four.

The author tried too hard to find conflict where there wasn't any. There is a complex web we weave in day to day interactions that have anything and everything to do with gender, race, and class distinction but you know what? Sometimes a Rose is just a Rose.

I enjoy reading about Laura Ingalls and her family and was anxious to read this book as well. But I soon became disappointed quickly when the author decided to put sexual overtones into relationships between father and daughter and cast the mother as a predjudiced servant who followed her husband around like a dog. She mistankenly tried to explain the roles of the family in a 20th century feminist viewpoint, but it failed horribly. For example; in LHOTP, when Pa and Ma were raising the walls of the house, she seemed to write how Ma wasn't capable of raising the walls with heavy logs. " Obviously, a woman who participates in building courts disaster." What the author fails to realize is that logs are extremely heavy for any person, let alone a woman and the simple explanation is that Ma just could not lift such a heavy item. I highly doubt Pa thought that women bring bad luck and ruin any project that involve them. My advice to the author is that if you are going to write a book about a 19th century family, you can't think like a 20th century feminist.

What most of the reviewers here seem to have missed is that Romines's book is an academic analysis; don't read it if you're not interested in a textual analysis of the books. All that being said, as someone who loved the Little House books as a child and reread them as an adult, I was shocked to rediscover the gender and ethnic issues raised in the books. Romines book provided just the sort of scholarly analysis that I was looking for. I do feel that Romines made a few too many assumptions in her analyses (for example, the issue raised by other reviewers about the *subconscious* incestuous relationship between Laura and her father) -- but this may be because I don't really have a background in literary theory. Nonetheless, I was fascinated by the analysis of gender, race and ethnicity, consumption, age, etc., issues that are obvious when reading the books. In addition, Romines does a good job of making the book readable; she discusses her own love of the books from childhood to adulthood.

Romines' study of the Little House books is learned and informative. She alludes to many current discussions in literary studies. I recommend this book for the college student who is interested in children's literature and/or women's writing. Don't be put off by the negative reviews of readers who wanted hagiography rather than analysis.

I was skeptical about a book just on this subject. I was right. There is no real insight here. Don't waste your time or money/

Contrary to other reviewers, this site does exist.

This book promises to "take all the hassle out of implementing web menus, in whatever style and technology you wish". It doesn't deliver.

First, I would have expected more about what a "usable Web menu" is. The twelve rules and the brief section on information architecture are pedestrian. The authors recommend usability testing but don't give test results for their own designs. The authors mention "the excellent book 'Web Site Usability'" and then violate its emprically determined recommendations. Rule 2, "Menus must be distinct from content", is a case in point. It contradicts an observation from "Web Site Usability": that "Navigation and content are inseparable".

Second, I would have expected "hooks" between the usability section (design) and the technical section (implementation). The usability section ends on p. 53, and the technical section, which continues for another 150 pages, makes few references to it.

Third, I would have expected suggestions for basic, universally accepted, HTML-only menus. The authors illustrate Rule 12, "Menus must work on multiple browsers", by showing what a fancy graphical menu reduces to in Lynx, the text-only Web browser. Lynx is never heard from again, and every example in the book requires JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, Flash, or, worse yet (for other reasons), server-side scripting.

Fourth, I would have expected information about accessibility. Rule 11, "Menus must be accessible to the handicapped", suffers from outdated diction and a total lack of coverage. The rule is introduced on pp. 31 - 32 but never mentioned again. "Accessiblity" isn't even in the index. Due to heavy use of JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, and Flash, the examples in the book are not accessible. (Incidentally, Web accessibility is often a legal requirement. Any project involving federal money must comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.)

Fifth, I would have expected a more professional approach. The tone of the book is informal and sloppy. Sometimes, this covers up the authors' laziness. For example, it's easier to mention an information source (like "Web Site Usability" or the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and call it "excellent" or "eye-opening" than it is to actually read the material, quote from it, and use it.

"Constructing Usable Web Menus" is a diappointment. I'm glad I borrowed it from the library instead of buying it.

The companion website for this book, www.glasshaus.com, where you are supposed to be able to go and download the code samples, is no longer in existence.

Aimed at intermediate to advanced developers, "Constructing Usable Web Menus" homes in on what works, and what doesn't when designing menus for the Web. Chock full of copious amounts of code and screenshots, the book offer a good, albeit incomplete, overview of available menu options for webmasters and guidelines for effective menu design.

The book is one of the first in a series of how-tos from Glasshaus, a new imprint from Wrox Press. This new series is designed to teach "web professional to web professional" and is slanted towards the more proficient practioners of the craft.

The first two chapters of the 227 page book offer guidelines for good menu design (rules, info architecture) while the final four chapters show how to create various types of menus through JavaScript, DHTML, Flash, and PHP/MySQL to populate client-side menus.

The first part of the book deals primarily with usability and information architecture. Here's a list of the "12 Rules for Web Menu Usability" from the first chapter:

1. Menus must be considerate of the user's main task
2. Menus must be distinct from content
3. Menus must be clearly readable
4. Menus must be easily scanned for information
5. Menus must be easily operated
6. Menus must behave as your target user would expect
7. Menus must load quickly as possible
8. Menus must be consistent across a site
9. Menus must put a higher premium on usability than branding
10. Menus must be localizable
11. Menus must be accessible to the handicapped
12. Menus must work on multiple browsers

All good advice. On the last point the authors do an admirable job, claiming their code works on most modern browsers, including IE4+, Netscape 4+, and Opera 5+ for the PC and IE4+, Netscape 6+, and Opera 5+ for the Mac. They make some good points, especially that menus be clearly readable and fast loading. I've seen many a site with slow loading, tiny text menus that are difficult to use, especially for users with older eyes or motor impairments. Designers would be well-advised to follow their guidelines.

However, the authors' coverage of menu designs is somewhat incomplete, and their research needs a refresh. They don't cover simple CSS menus that don't require JavaScript. Perhaps this was because they decided to include Netscape 4 among their target browsers. They also cite Miller's 1956 7+-2 paper, then say it is out of date, but offer no more recent data on the limits of short term memory and menu design (Microsoft's depth versus breadth research for example).

Expandable menus are covered, but hierarchical menus get just one screen shot, from MSDN. While some may question the use of slow-loading or overly complex menus on Web sites, hierarchical menus are in use on many popular sites...Overall the book gives developers a good overview of menus on the Web, and how to create them.