Industry Books

Causey is what anthropologists should be. His book is grounded, full of humanity, insightful, surprising, poetic, compassionate and a lovely read. He beautifully describes and explains something profound of a people through times of tremendous social and economic change. An extremely informative and humanistic look at a Sumatran cultural group in the midst of global pressures.

A first rate work and a wonderful read. This book was delightful to read. Right from the beginning of the book, I was drawn in. It's clear this is a scholarly work, well researched and carefully detailed. As a reader of more casual literature, I was agreeably surprised at the superior writing style of the author. I thoroughly enjoyed the experiences and anecdotes throughout the whole book. Anyone who enjoys reading about other cultures and other places would definitely enjoy reading this book. I stayed up to 1:00 am one night reading it. I look forward with real anticipation to future works from this author.

Like most working stiffs, I save up for a big vacation to some far away land and when it finally happens I get shuffled around from one tourist spot to the next. The culture presents itself for purchase and I buy.

"Hard Bargaining in Sumatra" isn't just a book by an affable scholar. It immediately took me into the home of a very different family, sat me on a 'fancy mat' and amused me with a narrative by the author to his Toba Batak friends. He told a story for their entertainment that might easily have described my own hapless first experience in an exotic culture. The family's reaction and the unfolding details of their work in the woodcarving-for-tourists trade was a pleasure to read.

I was continuously surprised at how clearly Causey expressed complicated, seldom-analyzed notions of place and identity. The relationship between tourist and vacation spot is alive and dynamic in a way I'd never imagined. The author's struggle to learn the skills of the woodcarver gave extra dimension to my understanding of this traditional craft. The friendship between the student/researcher and the teacher/subject made the dynamics of the familial roles and societal obligations disarmingly vivid and personal. The book enriched my understanding of a distant culture to a degree I could never have achieved by hopping a plane and wandering their marketplaces. When I saw a Toba Batak carving at an art museum a few weeks later, I had a wealth of feelings and observations that would never have occurred to me before. For me, reading this book was like the best kind of vacation. I learned a lot, felt a connection to the people and culture, and enjoyed the process.

"What happens when the homeland of one group is also claimed as the vacationland of another group?"

This question put by the author rather succinctly sums up a major theme of the book, and perhaps should be a guiding thought for all of us who ever take a vacation...anywhere.
Whether we are taking a "package" vacation or just winging it in a new location, we have an impact not only on the place we visit, the feeling of the place, the services it provides, and perhaps most importantly, the ART of the place. Souvenirs...mementos...folk art...all these tokens and totems that come from our vacation spot are evolving to meet our desires.

The author handles this idea and others in a very human and sensitive way, inviting us into his experience in Sumatra, Indonesia and filling our minds with the sense of the place: its smells, visuals, sounds, landscape and its people. It is easy to lose oneself in this book as if it were a novel or the travelogue, yet it tackles some very difficult issues without sounding preachy or judgmental. I have always been interested in, and sensitive to the general "sense" of a place. I can be easily spooked by the quality of light or the sight of long shadows in the afternoon. I found Dr. Causey to be a kindred spirit, as he has addressed this feeling (because it is at heart a "feeling") very poetically in his writing about Lake Toba.

There are many humourous vignettes within the book, as well as many parables and lessons.
It in indeed educational, and educational on a new level-it reaches right into the spaces between ideas and brings into being a hybrid way of looking. It is accessible, informative and heartfelt.
I would recommend this book to anyone - it can be read for sheer pleasure. But if you are planning to travel, and would like to get some ideas on developing a very diplomatic and culturally sensitive approach to your new destination, this is most certainly the book for you.
I nominate Dr. Causey for Goodwill Ambassador!

This book is a true rarity--a work of serious scholarship, written in a user-friendly, personal, poetic, eminently-readable style. You'd almost be fooled into thinking you were reading a romantic travel narrative, one of those popular memoirs à la "Under the Tuscan Sun" where a naive American goes off and has a life-transforming experience while in a foreign land. But as Dr. Causey relates his tales of the months spent with the Toba Batak in their remote, beautiful homeland in northern Sumatra, learning something about their culture, something about woodcarving, and a LOT about shopping, he also unfolds a series of subtle, complex observations about aesthetics, about colonialism and acquisition, and about the role of tourists / collectors in a market economy and their effect as both destroyers and saviors of traditional culture. Absolutely fascinating stuff, and certainly not just for students of anthropology--this is a book that should be read by art historians as well as by economists, as well as by anyone who simply enjoys a well-written tale of a beautiful place that they've never been...

I particularly admire "Hard Bargaining" for the lack of any tang of cultural superiority on Dr. Causey's part--he never assumes that he knows more than the people he's observing, or that since he has a Ph.D., his observations must be considered correct. He went there; he lived, he learned, he shopped; and he thought about it, hard, and critically, comparing the Toba Batak culture to our own, and letting the reader make the judgement calls, not the anthropologist. Very well done!

I was interested in better understanding the complex issues regarding healthcare reform. This book fullfilled this role and provided me with a clear understanding of the overall healthcare economy. The author does an excellent job integrating published economic research into a thorough unbiased summary of healthcare economics. The book provides numerous references. I recommend this book to all. A prior understanding of basic microeconomics is desirable but not necessary for understanding this book.

This textbook is a wonderfully written introduction to health care economics. It takes complex issues and presents them in a somewhat simplified manner while not losing the quality of the information.

The coverage of this book is as comprehensive as there is no need to hold any similar book describing the health economics on the whole. The pollicy description is mainly US focused and less stress has been put on the international perspective. Nonetheless, Phelps' Health economics is for me the first to take into hand when preparing slights, talks or just looking for simple answer. Ales Tichopad (CEEOR - Central and Eastern Europe Outcomes Research)

Having spent almost 10 years teaching health economics, I've read and used quite a few of the texts books that are around. Phelps' "Health Economics" is quite simply the best I've read bar none.

Its coverage is as comprehensive as one would want in a book of this type covering the standard demand, supply and policy issues as well as looking at specific aspects of the health economy such as medical malpractice. It is written largely from a US perspective but is by no means insular.

What I found particularly commendable in this book was its style and structure. Many books cover much of the material that is covered here but none in a fashion that is as readable, articulate or clear. Appendices are used to deal with technical issues (and deal with them in a way most students with a basic knowledge of economics will actually work through) while examples are used to provide an intuition that is often absent from other texts.

I cannot recommend the book highly enough for teaching at an undergraduate level or non-specialist postgrad level. I also recommend it as a good read for those working in the area of health economics. Quite simply a cracking book.

I am completing my final semester in the Economics Department at the University of Rochester. Looking back over all of the books that I have read as an undergraduate student, this book ranks among the top three (including books from other disciplines). Dr. Phelps offers a balanced perspective on a broad selection of health-related issues. Furthermore, he constantly backs up his analysis with insightful studies and statistics. Regardless of the quality of your professor, after reading this book, you will feel knowledgeable (from an economic perspective and more) about the issues facing our health care system (and to a certain extent, even those of other countries).

this the 1st time me using this site so i don't have much to say, but i like what i need.i think its nice book for who just start how to work in shop or people who like to work with truck

i am asking about this book..when will you have a new book on this name calld heavy duty truck systems and can i get it... chris j coombes

We used this book in our diesel technician class. The book gives you an excellent introduction to every aspect of a heavy-duty truck. I usually shy away from books written by more than one author because of lack of continuity or overcoverage in certain areas. In the case of this book, the authors have done a fantasic job of explaining the topics without any assumptions. The book does a good job in covering cluthes, standard transmission, torque converters, drive shafts, axles, and automatic transmissions. On the subject of brakes, I recommend Delmar's "Today's Technician: Medium/Heavy Duty Truck Brakes." If your thinking of buying a book on this subject matter, you can't go wrong with this selection. Be aware that a third edition has been released.

i am asking about this book..when will you have a new book on this name calld heavy duty truck systems and can i get it... chris j coombes

I am an ASE CERTIFIED TRUCK TECHNICIAN AND FOUND THIS TITLE TO BE REALLY HELPFUL IN MY REVIEWS FOR THE TES

What a shock for Peter Leroy to discover after the deaths of his warm and cuddly "Gumma" and "Guppa," that they had been involved in a rather unusual cottage industry! This is possibly my favorite of Eric Kraft's books. It's the one I frequently suggest to my friends that they start with. It's a warm, loving, and very funny story of the couple written posthumously by their fictional grandson.

Savor this wonderful, funny, fabulous book. To say that it is sweet is, well, true, and yet, that doesn't quite catch the theme, as readers will know from the first page. This book is definitely on my top ten list-- I have enjoyed all of Eric Kraft's books about Peter Leroy and his family and friends, but this one is my all time favorite. My copy has made the rounds through over 10 friends and I've bought as many as gifts, and each and everyone of the readers has been delighted and enraptured by the story of Peter's grandparents and their romance. To be able to share this novel is truly wonderful. Thank you, Mr. Kraft!

Eric Kraft draws you into the life of a totally off-the-wall but thoroughly lovable family, headed by Herb and Lorna. Through all the clever (if twisted) humor and odd but tasteful sexiness, the tremendous love of the title characters envelopes you.

Everybody has a book or two they recommend not just because the book's good, but because they want to share the special pleasure of a secret joy. This is my book. Herb and Lorna are the sweetest, kindest, sexiest grandparents imaginable. And their lives get spun out in one of the most clever, funniest, slyest, biggest-hearted novels ever. You can imagine how much fun Kraft had writing Herb n'Lorna and how sad he must have been to leave them. The Buffalo reviewer called it a triumph of love and art over folly. It's a triumph of love and art AND folly.

I just remembered I owned this book, and I came in here to check out what I thought would be dozens of glowing reviews, but found only two! The story is original, funny and heartwarming, about two people who are madly in love, and spend their entire lives together with a secret each between them. There are parts of this book I would not dare to read in public, because I know I will break into hysterical laughter. I spent years forcing my friends to read it, and now I am trying to force strangers. You must read it! It's wonderful! And the photographs are priceless.

This book is, plain and simple, the best book on what drag racing is all about. The history and facts are first rate. I learned more about the sport from this one book than all others I have read combined. This would be a fantastic documentary for TV.

as a lover of drag racing and a drag racer myself,i have to say this is THE MOST COMPLETE BOOK on the subject of drag racing i have ever read.it covers all aspects of the sport from the beginning to 1990 and in every detail.if you are a lover of the sport,a drag racer or even if you know nothing about the sport this book will give you new insight,new feelings and you WILL learn a new appreciation of the sport..

Robert Post has given us an invaluable book. This is a strong claim, for Post's book is a narrative history of drag racing. And, while it is a very well done history, how can it possibly be "invaluable" when its subject matter is essentially useless? Now there's a strong claim. Let me hasten to establish my appreciation for what drag racers do. At the end of the 1997 racing season, the very best racers were getting to the end of their quarter mile race track -- from a standing start -- in less than a blink over 4.5 seconds. Perhaps even more astounding, the very fastest were going more than 320 miles an hour -- once more, from a standing start -- when they got there. This is truly amazing, but I am regularly struck dumb when asked a very simple question -- what's the point? Name almost any other major form of auto sport and I'll give you an answer. In NASCAR it's obvious. Even though those aren't at all stock cars anymore, a lot can still be learned by running flat out for 500 miles on production-based components, and that can be used to improve even the family car. Furthermore, that kind of abuse is perfect for testing tire technology. Even failing this, there's the old fallback, "win on Sunday, sell on Monday". But what do we learn from -- or sell from -- the top-notch dragsters? These are all completely purpose built vehicles, using all custom designed parts, performing a completely atypical activity and resembling nothing that is at all available on the showroom floor. In short, drag racing is the mountain climbing of motorsports. There is no point to it except to do it, and once you've decided to do it, you might as well do it as well as the technology -- and your money -- will allow. Recognizing the uselessness of the activity, however, is not to denigrate this very fine book. Anyone with an interest in the evolution of technology, automotive history, or motorsports will be fascinated, as should just about anyone who grew up during the time Post covers. Post writes that the first officially organized drag race happened on the streets in Goleta -- near Santa Barbara, California -- in 1949, although he recognizes that that same strip of road had been used for "unofficial" races for years before that. He uses that race as his starting point, and, in a clear, engaging writing style, supported my quite pertinent quotes from racers and many, many wonderful pictures, tells the story of the next 40 plus years in the development of this pursuit. Post is not a rah-rah boy, at least not for modern drag racing. This book is clearly a labor of love, but of love for a bygone era. While he appreciates and applauds the remarkable performance gains since the beginning -- those early cars took nearly 11 seconds to cover the quarter mile, hitting about 150 miles an hour -- he believes that the technical strides that account for those gains have changed the sport forever. It simply costs too much to go this fast. Further, going this fast fosters too much me-tooism. There is usually only one sure way to build a car to go this fast, so everybody essentially builds the same car. For these reasons, Post sees both the little guy, shade-tree mechanic and the spirit of innovation frozen out of bigtime drag racing. And since these are the backbone of what we think of as the hot-rod, drag racing culture, this is apprehensible. Post, then, seems to yearn for a time of more innocence. A time, say, 25 or 30 years ago. It is this that makes this book so invaluable. It will be invaluable to anyone who -- like me -- grew up not only during the time Post relishes, but also at the places, and cheering for, sometimes, if you were lucky, helping the people that he writes about. I started going to the drags before I had either a car or the money to get into the track. I must of been about twelve when I first rode my bike up the long hill to the Pomona fairgrounds and clung to the fence along the road, peering through the holes at what was going on. I was in love. My folks didn't have a lot of money, but I was lucky. My birthday almost perfectly coincided with Winternationals weekend! I had a standing request for a birthday present, and my parents never failed me. I always had my Winternationals ticket. Then I got a car, and enough money to hit all the local strips. Fontana. Lions. Irwindale. Orange County. Man-o-man. I took tons of pictures, but through the carelessness of youth and the normal attrition of many moves, all have been lost. Post's many pictures at least partially makes up for that. More important than the pictures, however, are the memories. The many intervening years have taken quite a toll on mine, at least. Post tells his story so clearly, and with such detail, that it can cause the fog to lift. You will be reading about a match race with Stone, Woods and Cook against Big John Mazmanian and suddenly remember that you were at that race, and remember it as if it had been run last weekend. Unfortunately, Post pulls no punches, and you will also remember that you were there when Lefty Mudersbach died, after his parachute failed. This is a very good book, but I have one minor quibble. Post keeps his focus firmly on the top rank of racers. This is understandable, since what he wants to teach us is what it took to get from going 150 mph in 11 seconds to going over 300 mph in far less than 5 seconds. But if he would let his gaze drift down a level or two, he may find that the little guy is still there and still innovating. Most often, this happens outside the formal, second-tier, "sportsman", categories of the larger sanctioning bodies, where costs are still quite prohibitive. But at places like the increasingly popular muscle car or nostalgia meets, a racer with tools and time can still run a unique and competitive car for a few thousand dollars and a lot of work. He'll only be going about 150 mph in about 11 seconds. He'll be, in other words, just about where we were in the beginning. Perhaps if Post would give us a history of this static drag racing he wouldn't yearn for the old days, for in many ways the old days of drag racing are still here.

This is by far the best book on drag racing I have ever come across. My first season was 1961 at the track of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and to varying degrees I have followed the sport ever since.

This book has an incredible amount of detail on who did what, and includes many important historical events, and other oddities that have happened in the forty years covered. He even includes one of the weirdest accidents I ever saw, which was the time Paula Murphy's rocket car had a stuck throttle, and sent her off the end of the track at Sears Point Raceway, and literally over the rolling hills of Sonoma County at well over 200 mph, like a real-life Whiley Cayote.

But even more to his credit the author attempts to get at the heart of drag racing, what drives the participants. And he writes with a fine balance of scholarly objectivity and insider's appreciation. A very nice piece of work and a "must-read" for anyone seriously interested in how drag racing got to be what it is today.

Richard Fay

The book HIGH PERFORMANCE allowed us a view into the formative and early years of our sport, complete with the games, politics and personality clashes that were in existence. There were a lot of politics by the sanctioning groups who have come and gone over the years(UDRA,AHRA,PRO), as well as those who continue with us (NHRA, IHRA). The fuel ban years are covered, the promoters clashes with the sanctioning groups were covered, and the evolution of the sport is pretty well documented with accuracy. Several people I have spoken to who were running in these early days have confirmed a lot of this books content. This book removes the lustre from the logo of the sanctioning bodies, instead exposing ulterior motives within their organization for all to see.

I think the book is incredibly accurate and deserves high marks for bringing the facts out, in a non-judgemental way, for the fans to absorb.

What an important book for the contemporary marktplace! The author gives the reader incredibly canny insights into the confusing world of interactive marketing--both the "30,000-foot," strategic view and the hands-on, everyday tactics that get the job done. And all of this is presented in a friendly, easy-to-read style with a minimum of jargon and buzzwords. This book is worth many times the cover price. It's about time someone wrote this book.

A must for all new and veteran marketing professionals.

First, read the last four paragraphs. Then read the book. Use a marker liberally. This is a person with strong opinions and he is usually right. He is a marketer's marketer who never strays far from the fact that we all have to sell something to survive. He complies a lot of current internet thinking and best practices with a substantial heaping of his own background. He adds a sprinkling of the future with an eye on what's working now. Worth the price of admisssion, but start with the end.

A must read for anyone who either makes or influences marketing decisions. Being a part of an organization that serves both small and medium sized businesses that need integrated marketing solutions, this book is the outline for success. As an avid reader, all too often I see either "Joe Bob's theory on marketing success" or somebody plagiarizing one of the Porter bibles; either way, they're not usable by the average guy. Ryan's book has concise, easy to implement solutions that can be scaled. In today's marketplace where most businesses have between 2 and 10 employee's and make well under a million a year in revenue, business owners need roadmaps that are easy to follow and implementable with the staff that is on hand. Ryan does this well.

Not only would I consider this a must read, I'd say it's one to pick up again and again.

Christopher Ryan has hit a homerun with his book High Performance Interactive Marketing. His book provides the reader with a host of real-time, practical advice on how to improve the performance of your business.

I love the fact that Ryan provides the reader with a plethora of real-world examples that a company (such as mine or my client's) can utilize immediately.

In a book world that is so focused on nice-to-know theories, Ryan delivers on what all companies covet--practical advice that can be used the next day. I especially like his demonstrations of metrics, such as return on marketing investments, as this continues to be the holy grail that most companies seek, but very few find the right formula tied to their specific situation.

I will use this book regularly for my company and highly recommend it to my clients.

A must for any Military and History buff. This book has bought me endless hours of reading enjoyment. As a Latino, of most interest to me were the chapters on the Mexican revolution, Spanish-American war and Che Guevara. Asprey writes in great detail and in chronological order, he also provides the reader with the political and social climate of the time and events that lead to any engagements against opposing forces. Keeping any opinions to himself, he just gives the fact as if we all are spectators viewing a movie. Asprey describes the guerrilla units, their political indoctrination, strength and weakness and field attire and equipment. The maps help illustrated the subject area and regions, any troop movements and battles fought that help paint the complete picture. He presents any leading figure with importance and when able too delves into their personal histories and background. I'd fancied myself a authority on History and warfare till I read Asprey "War In The Shadows" and found out just how much I wasn't aware of. So put this on your list of reading materials and tell your friends.

This is a very broad, very shallow survey of the entire history of guerilla warfare from the days of Alexander the Great and his successors in the Roman Empire all the way to the (contemporary, at least in 1976 when the book was first published) War in Vietnam, with the explicit purpose of explaining the Vietnam war by placing it in its proper historical context (and thereby revealing the mistakes made). The narrative (and it is a narrative, with themes that recur with sickening frequency) spends the most time detailing the abject failure of the United States in Vietnam, and devotes smaller chunks of the book to the rest of guerilla history. This focus and the aforementioned shallowness of the historical analysis in some parts are in no way out of place or even remotely harmful to the author's thesis. He is not attempting to exhaustively chronicle the "wars in the shadows" but to build up a tremendous tidal wave of evidence to support the claims he makes during the chapters on Vietnam.

Those chapters on Vietnam are worth reading the entire unabridged 2-volume set from start to finish. Throughout the narrative the author meticulously extracts common themes from the guerilla wars of the past and builds up a vocabulary of incompetence, ignorance, supidity and brutality that is then unleashed on the planners and generals of Vietnam with all of the mad rancor of an attack dog. The author lambasts short-sighted policymakers, incompetent or fatally uncreative generals, and a hideously flawed understanding of the nature of "Communist" power, and after two thousand plus pages of his compelling argument it is very difficult to disagree with virtually anything he says. The triumph is total and complete. The conclusion, in the end, seems to be that we shouldn't get outselves involved in these kinds of wars, and if we do we should engage in them not as military conflicts but social upheavals. The author's suggested changes to the State Department (presented as a coda) seem to suggest this.

The bottom line is that this is a marvelously researched and skillfully argued thesis which sadly remains as relevant and incisive as it was thirty years ago.

I bought this after reading the review above that says, "this updated, abridged version of Asprey's monumental survey of guerrilla warfare begins with the struggle between Persian king Darius and Scythian irregulars and concludes with the mujahedin resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan." In fact, it ends with the Cuban Revolution.

This is the definitive work on guerrilla warfare. No other book covers the subject with the breadth and depth equal to this one. If you are a serious student of counterinsurgency, guerrilla warfare, unconventional warfare, 4th generation warfare, or whatever you want to call it; you will want this two-volume set on your shelf. You will read it then refer back to it again and again. This monumental study begins with guerrilla warfare in the classical age and brings you up to date through recent conflicts. I believe the first edition of this book was through America's involvement in Vietnam but subsequent editions have been expanded to include far more since that time. I can not stress the importance of this book enough for this topic. You will not be sorry to have it ready and available in your library.

When War in the Shadows (WITS) was first published in 1975, it infuriated members of the US military. Asprey's denunciation of high-ranking officers' conduct of the war in Vietnam came under intense criticism. Asprey claimed the US military lost that war due to its total ignorance of unconventional guerrilla warfare. Though blackballed by military scholars for almost a decade, he refused to retract his accusations. Instead, he continued to cite 2000 years of guerrilla/terrorist warfare tactics, operations, and strategy as proof the US military violated most, if not all, principles of unconventional warfare. Nineteen years later, he revised WITS, and along with that revision came a newfound respect for his insights. WITS is still the most definitive study of guerrilla/terrorist warfare available and it continues to remind the military of the requirement to fully understand this type of warfare's capabilities and limitations.
Overall, Asprey's work is very edifying. His 30 year research effort brillantly imparts lessons needed today. His reminders to the military about going off to an unconventional theater of war "half-cocked" contain some of the most valuable military thinking of our time. WITS is more than a historical appraisal. It is a usable text of events that, while historically embedded, continue to speak to the contemporary experience of unconventional warfare.

Complex, thought provoking book that helps One building the gut level instincts that eventually will be used in making a decision about which movie to produce.

De Vany presents a profound and imaginative treatment of the economics of the movie business, one that has implications, not only for similar businesses such as publishing and music, but for our understanding of the dynamics of culture. When Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" he unwittingly paved the way for tons and tons of sexy but shallow commentary on human culture. Though that is not what he set out to do - "meme" never shows up in the book - De Vany has given mathematical form to the behavior of movie memes and has demonstrated that it is the people who are in change, not the memes.

In the words of screen writer William Goldman, "nobody knows anything" about what happens to movies once they are released to the theatres. Most movies don't even break even, much less make a profit - not in theatrical release, which is what De Vany investigates. [These days, movies make money on DVDs and TV, but that's another story, told by Jay Epstein.] That's no way to run a business, but the problems are inherent in the nature of movies as a business venture. The deep and ineradicable condition of the business is that there is no reliable way to find out whether or not your movie has a market other than putting it on screens across the country and seeing if people come to watch.

Does having "bankable" names of the marquee guarantee that the movie will make bank? No. Does opening big on thousands of screens with PR from here to the moon guarantee that the movie will make bank? No. Does a small opening mean the film is doomed? No. Hence Goldman's remark.

But all is not chaos. Or rather it is, but chaos of the mathematical kind. De Vany shows that about 3 or 4 weeks into circulation movie dynamics (that is, the dynamics of people coming to theatres to watch a movie) hit a bifurcation. Most movies enter a trajectory that leads to diminishing attendance and no profits. But a few enter a trajectory that leads to continuing attendance and, eventually, a profit. Among these, a very few become block busters.

And those few come to dominate the statistics of movie economics. From the point of view of statistics based on the normal distribution those few are movies outliers and should be discounted. De Vany develops a statistical framework - he calls is the stable Paretian model - that gives proper attention to those block busters. The model is stable in the sense that it exhibits the same structure at all scales.

* * * * *

De Vany devotes particular attention to the structure of the movie business. During its glory years the industry was organized by the studio system. The studios owned both the means of production and the means of distribution. Stars, directors, writers, and craftspeople, all were on staff at the studios. When it came time to release films, the studio's distribution system went to work and the films went out to theaters owned by the studios and to independent theaters with long-term booking arrangement. The system worked well.

But in the 1950s an anti-trust action was brought against the studios and they were ordered to divest themselves of their theaters and stop the cozy booking arrangements. The result of that was that was that they lost the stars, directors, writers, and producers - who became independent contractors - and the costs of production went up. And those increased costs were passed on to the movie-goer.

De Vany argues, convincingly, that the studios were not a cartel that drove up prices for their own benefit. Rather, their arrangements, their ownership of theaters, helped them cope with the extreme uncertainty of the business. They had just enough direct control over exhibition practices to stabilize their income so that they could afford to keep the talent on staff. Once that stability was taken from them, they had to let the talent go. And that, in turn, meant that, each time a film was to be made, someone had to go out into the marketplace and put the team together, thus incurring transaction costs that didn't exist in the studio system.

* * * * *

An excellent book. Note that it's thick with mathmatics. But it also has lots of charts. You can read those even if you can't make sense of the equations.

How can you predict the success or failure of a film? Even if you can't predict with perfect accuracy, can you predict which movies will probably be a hit? For example, does a star guarantee a hit? Do big budgets matter? Do ratings ensure a certain level of profit? Does a movie's gross receipts in its first week predict its total gross over the entire run?

The media clearly shows that movie makers go for big stars in expensive racy or violent films that are widely distributed from the first week they open. This is what Hollywood thinks creates true hits. But think twice about trusting Hollywood instincts: Arthur De Vany looks at the empirical evidence on movie revenue and concludes that this conventional wisdom should be rejected.

De Vany shows that while stars and big budgets do indicate a movie's revenue scale, they do not predict its success. Big stars have made expensive turkeys (e.g. Waterworld starring Kevin Costner) while on the other hand huge hits have been produced without stars (e.g. Home Alone). One of the more interesting conclusions is that the old movie studio system understood implicitly that this business was unpredictable. Until the antitrust laws were used to break them up, the studios contracted stars, script writers, directors, distribution networks and movie theaters in order to own the entire stream of revenues all their movies would generate.

This way the old studio bosses could diversify their risk in what was essentially a portfolio of movies. They knew that they could not predict which of their films would be a hit so they insisted on owning them all and on managing costs so that the hits would pay for the turkeys, while leaving shareholders with a healthy return.

These results are fascinating and have a wide range of application beyond Hollywood, particularly in uncertain hit-or-miss industries as unrelated to the movies as are gold mining and oil drilling.

One word of warning. Despite what the blurb says, the book is technical. Each of the twelve chapters is a peer-reviewed academic paper in economics making full use of all the quantitative analysis tools available to a professional researcher. To get the full message, you need enough basic statistics to understand conditional probabilities, first and second moments, cumulative functions, linear regression, etc. However, each of these chapters also comes with an intro and conclusion worded in plain English. So as long as you're willing to trust the peer reviews, you don't actually need to do the math yourself.


Vincent Poirier, Dublin

I skipped the high-falutin' parts with integral calculus...BUT: Anyone who is investing a nickel in ANY entertainment medium should read this book. The buying public is discerning, fickle and SMART. Crap stinks and the first to catch a wiff of a film that stinks are like Paul Revere coming out of the theater. On the other hand, a great film can fizzle due to any number of peculiar reasons such as distribution decisions or competing releases. There is also interesting treatment of the demise of studio-owned movie houses and an argument in favor of lifting the ban.

William Goldman ("nobody knows nothin'", or something like that) has it figured out: write screenplays and wait. The Princess Bride, case in point. He even wrote the book AFTER the movie hit big.

Let somebody else put his money into film production. There is a fine line between genius and lunacy...the buying public determines which he is.

Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry by Arthur De Vanyn (Routledge) (Hardcover)
What do stars do for a movie? Aside from earning a higher least revenue, a star movie has only a slightly higher chance of making a profit than a non-star movie De Vanyn shows. If the star's agent extracts the higher expected profit in the star's fee, then the movie almost surely will lose money. This De Vanyn calls the curse of the superstar.
Opening big and leading at the box office is a momentary success. A movie has to attain or sustain box-office dominance over many weeks to make major money. The size of the opening does not predict how the ensuing battles will evolve or how much money the film will take in. Why do executives compete so strongly for stars when they can assure no more than a higher expectation of a movie's least revenue? It seems to be based on a belief that the opening predicts how much a movie will make. That turns out to be false, as this study shows.
The articles are grouped into four parts: dynamics, wild uncertainty, judges and lawyers and extremes. There are three chapters in each of these parts. De Vanyn writes a brief introduction to each part noting the main issues, techniques and results of the papers contained therein. De Vanyn has not sacrificed rigor or completeness; these are refereed articles, published in scientific journals and their results have been independently confirmed and replicated by other authors many times over.
De Vanyn also provides a couple of new chapters that were not published previously. One of these concerns artists, primarily actors and directors. It examines how productive they are and how they are paid. De Vanyn establishes the Price-Evans law of artists, estimate the half life of a star and see if one can separate luck from talent in career patterns. In another new work for this book, De Vanyn puts all this work into a more complete model, a model that begins to bridge the gap between standard management and economic models and the reality of the business.
In the Epilogue he muses on how one might manage a business where nobody knows anything. It is here that De Vanyn takes up the fundamental flaws his research reveals about the way the modern corporate studio manages the movie business.
Finally perhaps we will see why conventional models fail spectacularly to explain the movies and why De Vanyn had to invent a new kind of economics to come to grips with this endlessly fascinating business. Perhaps De Vanyn has built a consistent and fundamental model of the industry that is of interest not just to scientists, but to movie fans and moviemakers, too. And De Vanyn shows that these models can be applied to other industries as well.
In science, as in the movies, creativity takes you to unexpected places. This study is exciting because we get unexpected and wonderful discoveries. It is hard to imagine at the outset that by applying high-brow mathematical and statistical science we end up proving Goldman's fundamental truth that, in the movies, "nobody knows anything."
None of these results is more surprising than finding out that, hard-headed science puts the creative process at the very center of the motion picture universe. There is no fool proof formula. Outcomes cannot be predicted. There is no reason for management to get in the way of the creative process. Now tell then that! Character, creativity and good story-telling trump everything else. Now let's see some fresh movies made!

One day, I would like to build a large sleigh with my husband, so that our family can go Christmas caroling together through the snow. I'm intrigued by the simplicity and hominess of the Victorian era's holiday traditions. It was with that in mind that I purchased Horse Drawn Sleighs, by Susan Green. Her information was well-documented and -described, the illustrations were beautiful and detailed, and I feel that, with her book in hand, my able husband and I will be able to build a beautiful vehicle to transport family and friends when the winter snowflakes begin to pile up!

This is a great book. We recently bought an old sleigh that needs to be refurbished and I wanted info on how to do it authentically.

Excellent Variety of sleighs, with essays of sleighs and sleighing giving valuable background information, plus a glossary of sleigh parts to help understand construction details.

This book has a wealth of historical information pertaining to the various types of sleighs and their differences. Within each catagory the models are described separately and in detail. A must have for anyone who wants to learn about these icons of the past.

I highly recomend this book to anyone involved in the building and restoration of sleighs. Being compiled of articles from The Hub, The Carriage Monthly and other trade journals from the days of the horse drawn carriage this book has been very useful to our buisness. I highly recomend this book.

At first I thought this book wouldnt be that great because there are a lot of names that I didnt recognize when looking at the index of people interviewed. However, that is because a lot of the names are the behind the scenes people who may not be 'names' unless you study the credits at the end of movies. There are some very interesting stories here. There is one good interview where a guy indicates how he screwed people all the way to the top of his field and later himself was screwed by someone he trusted. Payback. Karma. I hated that guy, but Im glad he told the truth. Each interviwed person is shown in a photograph. This is a well crafted book, done in a simple way and it works.

Major Hollywood stars had to work hard to break into the industry and make it big, but few places chart their stories under one cover. HOW I BROKE INTO HOLLYWOOD: SUCCESS STORIES FROM THE TRENCHES gathers dozens of Hollywood's greatest successes under one cover, including not just actors but writers, directors, designers and more to provide profiles of the best and how they worked to achieve their goals. Inspirational chapters profile nearly fifty such Hollywood success stories and will appeal to any interested in learning from experience.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I loved this book, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in working in Hollywood, or to any creative type struggling to find career success. There are 67 first-person stories (from a variety of producers, actors, editors, lawyers, writers, etc.), and the interviewees have been incredibly generous in sharing not only their successes, but also their humble beginnings, self-doubts and failings. That willingness to show the true journey, warts and all, is what makes this book so inspiring, and such a gift. Many thanks to those who participated, and to the authors for making it happen.

A word to the publisher: this book has all the hallmarks of a classic, but the cover art and title don't match the contents. I almost passed it over on the shelf because the graphic design looked low rent, and it seemed to just be the personal story of the two authors, whose names I didn't recognize (sorry, guys). When it comes out in paperback (which it should--promote this baby!), how about listing some of the well-known participants on the cover, and changing the title to How I Broke Into Hollywood, 67 Success Stories from the Trenches? This book is a winner!

I thoroughly emjoyed this book, very readable, lively and interesting. The interviews flow like fascinating stories. The advice from those who made it will apply to almost any endeavor so the book should appeal to a wide audience.

If you are looking for some gossip-rag style tales of how Hollywood's biggest names got to where they are, then this isn't the book for you. There are a few big names in this book, Bernie Mac among them, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

This book, rather, is a thoughtfully introspective look at how many of the behind-the-scenes people working in Hollywood accepted crushing rejection time and time again, dealt with monetary difficulties while pursuing their dream, the tips and tricks they used to become known and well-employed in Hollywood.

Screenwriters, producers, actors, music supervisors, agents, and costume designers are featured, among other jobs, and their tales are inspiring and really helpful. Each person interviewed in this book really seemed to set aside their ego and talk truthfully about the times they doubted themselves and what could have made things go more smoothly in their journey to Hollywood elite. The advice given is really solid, and could benefit anyone in any career, but especially in the brutal film/ TV industry.

I'd definitely buy this book for any friend considering trying to make it in Hollywood. The advice and stories are entertainingly given and would be valuable and interesting even if they didn't end up pursuing that particular dream.