Chambers Books

This is an excellent volume for analyzing. I purchased this book for the very purpose of becoming more familiar with Mozart's string quartets, as I haven't been playing classical music for very long. The book is incredibly valuable, considering having 23 full quartets with each part, and very affordable.

Mozart is supposed to be one of the greatest and most prolific composers...well...he starts to wear a little thin here! His operas and orchestrals are wonderful, but if you want the most prosaic pieces of music of all time, try these quartets. (I never regreted switching to viola so much until Mozart and the cello part isn't any better).

Aside from the obvious, that this music is exceptional in all regards, this edition is a bargain for anyone who enjoys reading along while listening to the music (those of us who like to "see" what's we are hearing - very instructive) or for the player (even though I don't play a bowed string instrument, I enjoy reading/playing the parts). You can't go wrong with this well priced edition.

The reader from St Louis should be told that Mozart was still a teenager when he wrote most of his quartets. Try the Hoffmiester and the 3 Prussian Quartets. Better still try the Viola Quintets. Nothing prosaic here!

This is a good score and of course wonderful music. The editing is good, but there are a few questionable bowings. This is definitely good for anybody needing a score for the music. It also gives one an idea of how the music fits together if one plays in a quartet. Well Done!

Although this book is "fiction", it is loosely based on an actual case which occured in Michigan. The potential was there for an excellent story, but the author unfortunately didn't take the time to edit the book very well. His use of pseudonyms for the characters would have been fine, except he couldn't keep the names straight, which made for a very confusing read, even for someone familiar with the case. For example, the medical examiner was referred to by three different names; Dr. Merritt Blanchard, Dr. Stephen Blanchard and Dr. Warren Blanchard. This is just one example of many throughout the book. Also, there were several instances where the pseudonym was dropped and the real name of the character was used, then the pseudonym was used. Just made it very hard to follow. I wouldn't recommend spending the $17 on this book-it's not worth it.

Am not a professional reviewer but am familiar with the incident on which this novel is based. Summerfield knows his stuff be it law, law enforcement, or the brutalities that can be brought out in the divorce process.

The protaganist of the book, cop Frank Salter, is a man near the end of his police career. Like most of us, all he wants is a quiet retirement but his soon to be ex-wife, Susan Beckwith, isn't about to let that happen. Susan is a District Court Judge with a good public image and a private life that can't withstand much scrutiny. Their conflicts will lead to the death in chambers of the title, and take Frank Salter from trusted law enforcement officer to being a defendant on trial for murder.

Though based on reality, fiction begins where reality ends and the author makes that transition smoothly and successfully.

I got my money's worth. It's a good, solid piece of writing
and a darn good read.

Highly recommended. It is apparent from the start of the novel that the author has a deep knowledge of the working level functions within the city/county level judicial system. As the characters within the story are introduced, great detail is given to the development of their personalities, making each individual vivid and credible. The way in which the lives and personalities become interwoven and affected by events as they unfold had me glued to the book throughout the story. Fantastic reading!

Cop and courtroom drama with a touch of Grisham and a dash of Wambaugh mixed into the formula.

Frank Salter, a cop near retirement age, is married to District Court Judge Susan Beckwith, the first woman ever elected to the bench in that county. Salter and Beckwith married for love and security but for both the sense of security died quickly, soon followed by the love. Now both want out of the marriage, but the problem is Beckwith wants all the marital assets. A pistol shot in her own chamber will settle the issue forever and turn Salter from law enforcer to criminal defendant.

A Death In Chambers works on several levels including an insightful look into a marriage that never should have happened and a very perceptive view of the criminal justice system.

I liked it and gave the book five stars, though some of the errors in editing were a bit distracting during the second reading. But put the blame on the editor, not the writer. He did his job and did it well.

Author Dan Summerfield has combined elements of courtroom drama, a la Grisham, and murder mystery to give us a mainstream novel that takes a critical look at the justice system in America.

Main character Frank Salter is a veteran police officer who understands how to fight crime. What he can't understand are the deceptions of his unfaithful wife, District Court Judge Susan Beckwith, and when the final deception, a grab for all the marital assets, comes he confronts her in her chamber. That confrontation leads to a deadly result.

A DEATH IN CHAMBERS gives the reader a look inside the world of criminal justice as it is actually practiced, not how it is portrayed by television and Hollywood. Read this first novel by Summerfield...really read it...and you'll never see cops, attorneys and judges in the same light again.

Highly recommended.

Robert Shaw

I purchased this thinking it was a follow up to the novel dragonlance, but it wasn't. I think it's something used for role playing???

This is an invaluable DM tool for planning a campaign in Krynn during everyone's favorite war. The maps are typically subpar. The best maps are available for free to download however.

This book is a great blast from the past. It contains some DL history during the Time of Troubles. Updates important characters to D20. Has new spells, and items. Many artifacts from the War of the Lance. Some PRCs. Talks about the lack of divine magic during the time. Has great art. Talks about what's going on with the nations at the time. This is a favorite time for fans in the DL setting. If you like DL, you must get this book.

This book is a must for anyone gaming in the Dragonlance setting. It details the lands and atmosphere of Ansalon during the time of the War of the Lance. It also includes adventure ideas for DMs that want to add a little something to the War of the Lance. Buy yourself a copy or ten, you'll be glad you did.

Anything that you want to know about the War of the Lance is in this book. From the way the armies moved, the size of the dragonarmies, to who controlled what land during what portion of the war. So not only is this a great must for gamers, but is also a must for those who loved the Chronicles.

The author is highly knowledgeable of the subject of workplace promotion. He is aware of the current trends in the workplace and provides insightful suggestions on how one can dramatically improve the chance of promotion. There are three factors to promotion:

1)SAW (Skill, Ability, Willingness)
2)People's Positive Promotable Perception (relationship and leadership skills).
3)Promotional Opportunities within an organization.

Promotion is increasingly becoming more competitive. In most situations, one needs to be the best, not just good, worker to be promoted to the next level. One needs to set the highest standard in technical skills and constantly improve on it. Next, it is critical one has positive attitude even among those who are strongly negative. Emotional Intelligence in an increasingly stressful and hostile work environment (brought on by more work with fewer workers) is absolutely neccessary to create and maintain positive relationships with the coworkers, the boss, and the customers. Finally, one must be able to affirmatively answer the following question with measureable results: "Will promoting you result in creating greater benefit for the organization?". One must show the ability to put the team ahead of one's interest for the greater good in a consistent basis.

Drawing from interviews and research, the author shows how to utilize your most promotable skills, manage perceptions of colleagues and supervisors, avoid promotion killers, and utilize the appraisal process to advance yourself. Chambers outlines some of the most crucial promotional realities in today's workplace. He shows how to converge three pathways to promotion: (1) sharpening skills, abilities and willingness; (2) achieving visibility and positive perceptions of you; and (3) taking advantage of opportunities within the organization. An excellent guide for the ambitious at any career stage. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates and the Business InfoCenter, author of Stern's Sourcefinder: The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and Stern's Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

I bought this book hoping for helpful suggestions on how to be more successful at work. What I found was a book full of buzzwords and cute acronyms. The writing style is convulted and the text lacks any real substance. The advice is so generalized that it is rendered meaningless.

There are much better books out there about getting promoted, doing well in the workplace, and improving on your weaknesses.

I loved this book's positive outlook on getting promoted. It focuses on finding ways to motivate yourself and to improve yourself so that you are more productive. While the author acknowledges that other factors besides merit play a roll in getting a promotion, he encourages readers to focus on doing their jobs better.

I believe this is ultimately the best approach because if you try to get promoted by unethical means, it is easy to be exposed. This book is about being ethical and succeeding by doing things that you?re proud to stand behind.

I find this book to be good motivation to examine areas in which I could improve at work and to take action.

Harry Chambers has written a book that really says something. You're carer will get a big boost if you follow his guidelines. Yes, I've read a lot of these self-help get-ahead books, but this one cuts to the chase with the correct advice.

This is an exciting and thrilling book. I couldn't put it down! It was so exciting to find a book that I enjoyed so much! The part with the basilisk. If you are a young Harry Potter lover make sure you get to read the first three books. Read the second one slowly and make sure you understand it. You will indefinetily find it very thrilling!

This was a gift for my daughter who had taken 4 years of High School French. She is an avid Harry Potter reader and this has been a fun challenge for her.

Well yes i go to a french school and, yes i know french. I finished reading this book and it is really not the same...I don't really like it at all...I mean, look at the cover!!!
The English one is MUCH better because well just because!

A great Harry Potter book that's really fun to read in French. It's not always easy to understand the vocabulary, and it's in that crazy tense that looks like future but is actually sort of past and is only used in literature ..... but get a good dictionnaire and you'll be fine. Bonne chance!

Harry Potter is back at Hogwarts, his wizarding school, and thankful for it. He had the worst summer with the Dursleys, his aunt, uncle, and cousin, whom he hates. He met a house elf, who caused him to be locked in his room for 3 days, with next to no food at all. Then the Wesleys come to rescue him, in a flying car. But that is not all that happends, Harry and Ron can't get through the wall to the Hogwarts train that awaits them on the other side. Then they remember the flying car. After a rough journey to his school and an even rougher landing, Harry Potter thinks that it can't gets worse, but it does. A cat is found hanging on a lamp post in front of Harry, Ron and Hermione, not quite dead, but not really alive, it was Stunned. Then, even worse, a student is next. Everyone, but a couple of his friends thinks that Harry did it. And when people keep getting Stunned, no one belives that he is innocent. It is up to Ron, Hermione, and Harry to find out who is really doing it, before the Hogwarts students get killed off one by one......

Dumas rates five stars; the story rates five stars, but the formatting makes reading it on the Kindle a nightmare! The lines of text are fixed-length, and they are longer than the width of the Kindle page, even at the smallest character-set size. Thus each line displays as one full line, followed by a short overflow (or word-wrap) line. Ugh! I asked for, and received, my money back, and I deleted the item from my Kindle. I am VERY disappointed, as I wanted to read it in the original French, but I couldn't cope with the jerkiness that the ridiculous text formatting imposes on the reading process. (OK, I see others didn't seem to notice . . . so, I guess I'm picky. But there you are: my opinion, for what it's worth.)

I read this book with my class in high school, and I enjoyed it then and still do now. I found it an easy read, and it has helped me to read the 'texte integral' version as well, which contains the full story in regular French, not in 'simple French' as it is in this version.
The only reason I dislike this version is that the vocabulary in the margins is not usually the more difficult vocabulary of the passage, but it is something bearable.
For someone learning French or wanting to brush up on their skills, Les Trois Mousquetaires is excellent, and it also provides the reader with one of Alexandre Dumas' fascinating tales.

It seems that two of the three other people who have written reviews rated the wrong edition. As the other reviewer pointed out, this is the "texte integral." This is not an edition to be read by somebody who is beginning to learn French. I consider myself very fluent in French and still have difficulties with some parts of the text.

For a more advanced reader such as myself, this book is an excellent read. Dumas is an excellent author and I have enjoyed every story of his that I have ever read. The plot is well developed and engages the reader through to the end of the novel.

This is not Les Trois Mousquetaires of Alexandre Dumas; it is "adapted in simple French by R. de Roussy de Sales." It includes marginal notes, usually not on the most challenging vocabulary in the paragraph, and a set of writing exercises in English in the back.

However, this is a good adaptation, if you are looking for something to challenge rusty French skills.

Dumas' characters and action are exciting and compellingly drawn, and the boundary between history and fiction is blurred enough to make Dumas' version the more persuasive.

This is still a terrific story.

This edition of the book, ISBN 2266087594, is not an adaptation, has no vocabulary, no writing excercises, and no English anywhere. The review below is of a different edition.

This book does have footnotes that explain historical references, maps showing the travels of D'Artagnan, and sections talking about historical context and structure of the text. To be honest, I did not find all this extra information useful, but it was there if I wanted to look at it. This edition is "texte integral", meaning that it includes the entire text, even a preface and appendix written by Dumas that are not part of the main story.

Dumas is an inventive and entertaining story teller, and Les Trois Mousquetaires is on of his better books. Recommended.

As is the case with almost all romances, the characters are attracted to and fall in love with each other all to quickly. What sets this story apart from most others is the very real tragedy described in it. It has a very sad background story that is a focal point in the beginnings of the romance.

My favorite part of this book though is the family ranch dynamics described. I always love books with rough and handsome cowboys, but I like this one because it includes his family and their relationships that carry on through the rest of the West Texas series. Ginger Chambers did an excellent job with this series.

Long Before the War Between the States, Parker sons and daughters ranched Parker land. Eighty-one-year-old Mae Parker aims to keep things that way.And as far as Mae-and almost everone else on the ranch-is concerned, her word is Law. Except to her great-nephew Rafe. And Rafe,35 yrs old, iron-willed and unmarried, is Mae's favorite.But he has no plans to buckle under to her by changing his marital status. That's why Mae invites Shannon Bradley to the ranch.Something about Shannon-the only person other than Rafe who has ever stood up to Mae- gets under his shin.Still, after years of watching his great aunt manipulate the rest of his family, he's damned if he'll fall in love on Mae's order!

This book was a huge disappointment to me! I have a compulsion to finish every book I start but this one made that task very difficult! Jordan was such a pig headed jerk! And Amanda was such a coward! He practically turned her into a whore forcing her to marry him to help her family financially. I picked this book up at a garage sale and next summer I'll be selling it in mine. Janet, you've come a long way baby!

Janet Dailey, as always did a great job in exposing the estacy of attraction. I found and read only the middle half of that book when I was sixteen years old, and was so captivated and hooked that I have been looking for that book ever since. Now in my forties I still can't get that book out of my thoughts. I Janet Dailey is a woman whom I feel is or has been in love and understands the beautiful and compelling feeling that God intended to be experienced between a man and a woman. It is a beautiful book.

It is the first book that I've read by this author. I don't know what to think. The hero (?) acted like such a jerk throughout most of the book. He may have been the epitome of virility but he had no other redeemable qualities. It was often hinted that his cynical attitude was because of his childhood but the reader was never told what his childhood was like beyond the fact he was often ignored by his wealthy parents.

The heroine was somewhat more realistic in that she let her heart lead her into what seemed to be a one sided love affair. I say realistic because I have seen so many young women fall in love with men who they think will change their ways. I'm not saying that it is sensible.

But it's not realistic for him to change on the last page and the reader leave with the feeling of a "happy ever after".

Needless to say I am not going to keep this book to re-read at some later date.

It is a very great book that helps in learning the .Net language through an easy way to practice as well

I thought this book really helped me pass 70-305. However, it will probably not be sufficient if you are just beginning with the material or if you are using it as your sole resource. I used it with Self Test Software and I did not have any trouble with the exam. Also, as some of the other reviewers mentioned there are a few mistakes in the book especially with the chapter review questions. However, I still plan to use it to pass 306 and 310. Overall I would give this book a 7 out of 10.

While it may be not the only study guide and resource you should read to prepare for the MCAD/MCSD exams, it is certainly a must have for your study and as a reference. Excellent book.

First of all when I bought this book I was drowning in .Net books and E-Books, I was confused in where to start from, so when I found this book I told my self this is the end of the suffering..... but it seems to be is the beginning.

The book tries to cover the whole subjects required by Microsoft to pass and excel MCAD/MCSD so the book passes throw each of them but just like super sonic ...., it just like a cram no more no less, it try to cut that fat off but it cute much of the meet as well, so there is many subject that poorly covered and many other subject is covered in a way that left you in a state that you don't know what is this thing for, for example when covering ADO.Net it just pass throw it to tell you how to make connection and adapter, but it will not tell you how to add data, or even delete it, and it have not even show how to publish it in a datagrid, same thing happen in COM and assembly chapters.

Another thing it's not a wise choose for absolutely beginners, it have no concentrate on fundamentals of programming, so if you are fresh keep your hands off this book.

More over there is many typing errors, and even errors in tables and examples, so for fresh programmers that will turn the learning process into hell it self.

This book is only good to be quick reference for MCAD/MCSD, you can pass the test only with this book but take it word from me you will not excel it with it.

So what to do? If you are beginner get some easy to learn book like Deitel series, then get the huge MS-VB.Net, but you will need this book just to know what is exactly in the exam.

Finally, THERE IS BIG CHANCE THAT YOU CAN PASS THE EXAM WITH THIS BOOK, SO TAKE IT IF YOU ARE THAT KIND OF GUYS WHO JUST WANT TO GET THE CERTIFICATION.

Anyone will tell you that one book alone can not prepare you for Microsoft Certification. And I have to agree 100%. With that said I found this book detailed(technically) in a way that other books that aim at being the only certification book you need. I started reading the books on the subject and while the language was warm and fuzzy and easily kept your attention, I really didn't get much in the way of technical detail. The examples in the All in One book helped me nail down the more complex topics like delegates and remoting that other books only lightly touched. The one negative to this book is you need some experience in order to understand it. If you lack experience then my advice would be to buy both the MSPress Study Guides and this All in One. Use the MS book to get a feel for the concepts and use the All in One to start coding examples.

Nice and speedy. Only took a few days and it came in great condition. Thanks

Received it in a timely manner, a lot different from other theory books I've seen but looks like it'll be good in class. Haven't used it yet, but gives many, many musical examples with a few questions at the beginning of each section.

This book is organized by terms of harmonic content. The book is divided into three sections: Diatonic Materials, Chromatic Materials, and Twentieth Century Materials. It contains an analytic checklist and sample analysis that can be used as a guide to the student. An index of composers makes it easy to study the musical style of a particular composer. The excerpts can be played by any competant keyboard player. This book contains mostly excerpts, but a few sections that contain a complete piece or movement of a piece. The selections are not analyzed, which makes for fun practice at analyzing them yourself!

Beware! If you are after music analysis, you won't find much in this book.

This book is exactly what it says: music for analysis -- not music analysis.

Lots of bits and pieces of scores with pertinent questions here and there.
But no discourse about music analysis.

Typically the kind of book I would never have bought if I had been in a bookshop and able to quickly flip through the pages.

This book is organized by terms of harmonic content. The book is divided into three sections: Diatonic Materials, Chromatic Materials, and Twentieth Century Materials. It contains an analytic checklist and sample analysis that can be used as a guide to the student. An index of composers makes it easy to study the musical style of a particular composer. The excerpts can be played by any competant keyboard player. This book contains mostly excerpts, but a few sections that contain a complete piece or movement of a piece. The selections are not analyzed, which makes for fun practice at analyzing them yourself!

One usually looks at history either as a chronological account of a particular place or discipline, or as broad account of a specific time period. This is the sort of slightly eccentric look at a time period that does so much to make connections between what one learns in more customary histories.

Secord is not so much looking at what Vestiges proposed, nor critiquing it by current scientific information, nor creating a biography of the author. He does a little of all these, but his main purpose is look intensively at the work as a social phenomenon. He considers it as a book, published in different versions for different segments of society, he reports on the reactions of various social classes in various geographic areas, the reaction of scientists, clergy and laymen to its "atheistic" or "deist" point of view, gender perspectives, etc. For the most part, for all its detail, it is extremely readable.

In order to do this, he has done an incredible amount of research. Knowing that the social elites talked, rather than wrote about it, he has combed diaries for records of conversation. He has researched technical details and statistics of the book trade. Truly a daunting project.

Serious students of the time period, scientific and philosophical history should find it very worthy of their attention. It should also appeal to the general reader (like me) who has at least a moderate knowledge of the era and of scientific history. I certainly wouldn't recommend this as a beginning text in either field.

The book is filled with a variety of black-and-white illustrations: ledgers, title pages, portraits, caricatures and cartoons, probably at least one on every fourth page. There is an extensive bibiography and a detailed index.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the book, the problem is it seems to me James Secord digress too much. It's a good thing to know the context at which the events took place, but too much detail sometimes makes reading hard. Secord definitively can't be accused of superfluos, he really did a profound investigation and a great effort, though a little hard sometimes, the book still is worth reading.

From the Sunday Times, 18 February 2001

Bigger than Darwin

VICTORIAN SENSATION: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by James A Secord Chicago U P pp624

MIRANDA SEYMOUR

Tennyson, with whom this accomplished work begins and ends, was an avid reader. In 1844, he spotted a review of an anonymously authored book which, according to the critic, convincingly linked the natural sciences to the history of creation. The poet, like many other readers of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, had already formed what we might consider advanced views on this subject. Man had resulted from a slow gestation beginning with simple invertebrates; man's ability to reason and distinguish between good and bad was part of his development. Tennyson had already completed much of In Memoriam, arguably the most powerful of Victorian poems. After reading Vestiges, he used its notion of an ever-ascending condition to celebrate the idea of a link "Betwixt us and the crowning race".

Tennyson's readers knew exactly what that reference meant. It is we who have lost it. Hailing Darwin as the great originator, we have forgotten that Vestiges, in the mid-19th century, had a greater impact, reaching far more readers and being discussed at all levels.

This is the central point of James A Secord's book. The idea he illustrates in a hundred entertaining ways is that we, as readers, like making narratives. We want things tidy, with beginnings and ends. It's reassuring to suppose that the concept of evolutionary culture began with Darwin's Origin of the Species in 1859. Reassuring, and wrong, not just because Darwin's grandfather had been writing about evolutionary matters in the previous century, but because geologists had reached Darwin's conclusions on evolution - not natural selection, which blew up a storm rather later - years before he published his turgid and, in many respects, quite cautious book.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, first published (anonymously) in 1818, was not directly responsible for the upward surge of new ideas about creation and spontaneous generation. Shelley's extraordinary book did, however, provide the creationists and their opponents with a potent image. Discussions of man's origins were regular among the circles in which she herself moved; her own interest in fossil history led her to consider writing a book on the subject. The suggestions made by Vestiges were, then, original only in the elegance of their formulation. (Even its opponents conceded that the prose was superb.) Revealingly, the gossips and critics were able to produce at least 10 authors who might have produced such an argument. Two of them, intriguingly, were women.

"Sensational" was the description always given to Vestiges. In Britain alone, it went through 14 editions and sold 40,000 copies: why? It helped, of course, that Vestiges looked small and user-friendly, its scarlet cover causing one irate reviewer to compare it to "the accomplished harlot". It was, unlike Darwin's later work, easy to follow and illustrated with homely analogies. Above all, it was a curiosity. The anonymity by which the Scottish publisher, Robert Chambers, screened himself for 40 years became one of the book's hottest selling points.

Not even Secord, whose knowledge is impressively omnivorous, is certain why Chambers continued to hide his identity for so long. The decision was first taken, it seems, from a combination of prudence and shrewdness. He wanted to sell copies; he knew that his unscientific status would be held against him. Anonymity, while frequent in fiction, was unusual in the fields of biography and history. To be anonymous in this area was to attract attention and speculation. Guessing the author became part of the enterprise in a period that extended into decades during which Vestiges and its authorship were passionately discussed. An anonymous sequel, published in 1845, may have sold only 3,000 copies, but it achieved the more important goal for Chambers of keeping up interest.

Transmutation was the brand-new theory of creation that Chambers put on offer in his book, prefacing it with the bold, Frankenstein-led query: "In what way was the creation of animated beings effected?" The notion of endless ascent was not received with unanimous respect. Florence Nightingale joked that she found it impossible to climb down again, "and was obliged to go off as an angel". Darwin, scratching for fleas while he furtively studied the British Museum's copy, thought the geology and zoology were hopelessly amateur, although he agreed with the general conclusions. Philip Gosse, rejecting the idea that fossils indicated a pre-biblical history, wrote a response, Omphalos; 75% of the published copies were pulped through lack of demand. Vestiges continued to sell. Punch joked about a lonely book that is spurned at the door of every famous author who might have claimed it. Chambers, confronted with an inquiry about "that horrible book" and whether he had read it, kept his counsel.

It is hard to overpraise this book. Magnificently illustrated, erudite, thoughtful and stimulating, it has the added bonus of a wickedly subversive style. I liked, to single out a small example, Secord's throwaway description of a Punch journalist: "Douglas Jerrold was a known infidel (and ate his peas with a knife)." One of the illustrations shows a group of "advanced thinkers" chatting by the fire. The light catches their faces; they look intensely alive, and enthralled. Reading Victorian Sensation gives you the illusion, at least, of joining them.

Unlike many of the horrible, theory-driven products of American graduate schools, Victorian Sensation is well written (despite occasional lapses into jargon) and readers can learn a lot about Victorian culture in the first half of the 19th century. Mr. Secord reads carefully and is sensitive to the nuances and social context of what he is reading. This makes for good history. He provides a finely detailed account of how Vestiges was received within different social groups and how the definition of science itself was developing during the period. I'm not sure why he is so surprised that people interpret the same information in different ways. All communication falls into an existing state of affairs. As for the concept of genius, anyone who studies any subject in depth will find that all works are built upon a foundation provided by others. There is no other way. This understanding does not diminish Darwin's achievements; it merely puts journalistic excesses into perspective. Further, hero worship encourages as many people as it discourages.

The real problem with this work lies in his epistemology, which is shoddy beyond measure. To wit: "The texts of science have no meaning apart from what readers make out of them, yet -ironically - they aspire to be a transcript of the truth of nature, needing no interpretation." Historians and scientists alike may well be confused about many of the details of how science developed, but Secord is a reader who can make little sense of science. He seems to be at home in the emotional, blustering, and over-moralized world our ancestors lived in before they learned how to evaluate the world with some degree of objectivity (full objectivity is impossible, of course). This was the problem the 19th century set itself. The fact that this rationalism was carried too far does not mean it needs to be rejected in toto. I am old enough to remember the distortions of print culture and I find those fostered by electronic media and espoused by Mr. Secord to be no improvement. All symbolic systems distort. The current obsession with cultural relativism is no more than an unconscious mimicry of habits encouraged by television, which favors rhetoric (he said-she said) over objectivity. Mr. Secord and his ilk consider themselves to be on the cutting edge of historical criticism when they really represent a new orthodoxy fostered by television. Secord is hardly the chief offender here. He retains both a readable style and knowledge of how to gather and evaluate evidence. He would be a better historian if he would rid himself of his philosophical pretensions.

As Henry Drummond noted in 1883, "This is the age of the evolution of Evolution. All thoughts that the Evolutionist works with, all theories and generalizations, have themselves evolved and are now being evolved."
This remarkable work on the Vestiges of Robert Chambers is itself a history of the evolution of evolution, describing in wonderful detail the context of a book that perfectly fits Drummond's description. Springing from eighteenth century intimations, first theorized by Lamarck, the idea of evolution finally bursts into public consciousness with Chambers' Vestiges, whose sudden popularity, if not notoriety, made it one of the first modern bestsellers in an age of technological breakthroughs in communications, transport, and printing. Laying the groundwork for laters theories, it nonetheless is too often dismissed as pseudo-scientific when, in fact, the author was aware of certain aspects of the pre-Darwinian ideas of evolution that only now are resurfacing, after being shunted aside by the Darwin tide to come. The account in this work is an engaging hybrid of cultural history mixed into the biography of Chambers' book, and is useful for the student of evolution in its account of the social relations of science, from the gentleman scientist to the grub street popularizers, and indirectly brings to life the later relationship of Huxley to Darwin. The age of Darwin in which we live has made him the sole authority and source of a science of evolution and this distorts the facts, and has obscured the reputation of this and other books. Indeed part of the confusion over selectionist theories sprang from the need for Darwin to artificially separate himself from previous ideas of evolution, by a novelty of claims, since the idea of evolution had seen its foundations laid. It is good to remember the full tale. The reality is that Vestiges was the first thunderclap of the evolutionary idea, whose correct intimations mixed with much speculative confusion were filtered out of the positivist account of Darwin, that provoked its own firestorm of reactions, for not the least reason that it was as evolutionary as the work of Chambers, and did not truly foot the bill for a theory of descent.