Minnesota Books

I loved this cookbook and looked forward to reading it each night after tucking my son into bed. It includes many wonderful recipes and stories about life in Minnesota. Often, I would find myself smiling at the stories because they would remind me of my own childhood in Minnesota.

The author has some displeasing theoretical positions, but the history of recorded music in the first section is very good. The analysis of My Fair Lady can be a bit tedious, but it does illustrate the commercial side of recorded music and its enjoyment quite well. Also an interesting discussion of stereo. It's a nice, light read that is a real pleasure.

I purchased the book as text for Mammology class @ BemidjI State University. The Author taught the course and related that he could find no book that gave the imformation as he wanted it presented. So he wrote the book as he saw it should be presented. The diagrams and dentition were fascinatiing. The range maps were entlightening. The book was organized by all the different orders of the mammal family. I am glad to return it to my collection of reference books.

Excellent photos, illustrations, explanations and layouts. The series of nature books by Stan Tekiela is the best I have seen in collecting nature books for over 30 years. The easy to read text, is very accurate and it is easy to find the information you need by the paragraph headings. I would recommed this and his other books on birds, trees and wildflowers.

There is so much in this book that mirrors my own life it's scary! It makes it difficult to write my own story without fear of being accused of plaigarism. I was fortunate enough to get an autographed copy! I truly do treasure this book!

Managing Sustainable Development does an outstanding job of analyzing the principles of sustainable development and summarizing many of the best practices internationally in bringing them to fruition. Sustainable development involves living within the carrying capacity of the earth's natural systems, while maintaining and improving the quality of life for people around the globe.

Beyond its analysis and summary, however, this book contains the best thinking yet seen by this reviewer on how to link research and action into a global learning network. Those of us who practice community development need to know what kind of research will make our work more informed and effective. Researchers, likewise, seek practical application of their hard-won findings. Everyone involved in promoting sustainable development desires a link with the many achievements around the world. Carley and Christie demonstrate how that might happen, by creating and connecting "research-action networks". Changing the paradigm may seem impossible to some; this book offers a practical plan to accomplish that essential task.

MANGOS CHILES AND TRUCKERS: THE BUSINESS OF TRANSNATIONALISM focuses on local groups and individuals and how they foster creative methods in reaction to the global economy. Produce and trucking industries in Mexico are the focus, with Alvarez taking a studied approach on the impact global policies have on growers of mangos and chilies in Mexico, and those who transport the produce across the border. This isn't a broad overview but a precise tracing of connections between politics, nations, and different states as they react to economic changes. In emphasizing the importance and methods of control of the nation-state in the global process, MANGOS, CHILES AND TRUCKERS shows how people adapt to changing economic influences in their daily lives. Robert Alvarez is a professor of ethnic studies at UC San Diego, and his is a well documented, scholarly account.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

As the title suggests, Finn's model breaks the cycle of pathology inherent in the MMPI and allows the dissemination of information to be potentially less hurtful to clients. His model is feminist based, which means that there is always collaboration between client and therapist, which can only heighten the assessment experience. I love his model because it allows for the client to easily integrate what their results are into their own definition of their personality/identity. A must have for any clinician serious about doing objective assessment.

I have over 200 signed books on aviation and this book is one of the best. I believe it truly captures what its like to be a Combat Pilot and a Marine. These are the kind of stories that soon will be in the forgotten past without books like this. An easy read for the novice and professional aviation enthusiast alike. I got mine, now go get yours.
Semper Fi.

I read this book for a graduate course in Roman history.

Eleanor Goltz Huzar's very insightful biography of Mark Antony described him as a great general who was also chivalrous but politically outwitted and trapped. Within hours of Caesar's murder, Mark Antony moved to grasp the reins of power. However, Mark Antony was politically caught off guard by Caesar's will. The will named Caesar's grandnephew Octavian his heir apparent. Mark Antony, who was twenty years Octavians' senior, decided that this eighteen-year-old boy would be a minor nuisance and would not pose much of a threat to the leadership of the Caesarean party. Mark Antony, who learned well from Caesar, realized that if he wanted to keep political control in Rome he needed the support of the army. Mark Antony moved quickly to buy 6,000 veterans as a bodyguard and a nucleus to build an army. In the meantime, Octavian was shrewdly making political moves of his own.

Huzar viewed Octavian as a young revolutionary full of ambition. Octavian courted leaders of the Caesarian party as well as the rich supporters of Caesar. Octavian also made good on Caesar's promise in his will to give every citizen a payment of 300 sesterces. Octavian did this by hocking all his processions since Mark Antony had kept Caesar's monetary inheritance from him. Within three months, Octavian effectively raised a bodyguard of his own from Caesar's veterans and brokered a compromise with the Senate to gain their support as well. Octavian also learned well from his education and from Caesar how to gain and maintain power. Thus, Mark Antony, like Pompey, severely underestimated his rival.
Octavian made the first overture to Mark Antony and Lepidus and offered to share power. The three men agreed, and in 42 BCE they formed Rome's Second Triumvirate. With their proscription on their political enemies of between 100 to 300 senators and possibly thousands of knights, the Triumvirate not only began a political revolution but a social revolution in Rome as well. This Triumvirate was to last for five years. They divided control of the Empire as well as sixty legions among themselves, with all three men possessing a portion of Italy. The triumvirs defeated the last vestiges of the Roman Republic in the battle of Phillipi.

With no common enemy, the triumvirs would start to turn on themselves. Mark Antony had just started his amorous affair with Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt. She supported Mark Antony's ambitions to rule Rome, which would solidify her political ambitions for Egypt as well. Huzar called Mark Antony's marriage to Cleopatra a mere "ritual marriage" even though she gave birth to his twin children. Huzar claimed that, "there is no sign of infatuation here," and that their marriage "left no political consequences" and that "Mark Antony was compelled to stand by Cleopatra to the end by honour and by principle as well as by the necessities of war." When one considers Mark Antony's many years spent in Cleopatra's court, his actions in Egypt which led up to his defeat at the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, and his ultimate suicide, he was either in love with Cleopatra or she truly was a "siren" as Roman propaganda described her. In either case, it meant that she duped Mark Antony. Regardless, the Roman Empire could not suffer by having one of its leaders under the spell of a foreign queen. Mark Antony's defeat and suicide meant Octavian would become Augustus and become Rome's first Emperor.

Recommended reading for those interested in Roman history, military history.