Berg Books

Greenwood was a participant-observer in the practics of the British magical and wiccan communities. She spent several years working in groups around london, both 'high magic' and wtchcraft groups. Unlike some earlier studies of this sort, Greenwood does not attempt to 'explain away' the results of her training. Instead she uses a more modern anthropological approach that recognizes the validity of the experiences magicians have of the 'otherworld' and attempts to find its meaning.
Very interesting for magicians and scholars alike.

I have used this ethnography for 2 semesters of teaching applied cultural anthropology and have found it very useful. There are a few sections that I have my students skim - particularly on the specifics of protectionist laws and food retail in Norway. But the rest of the book is very useful for looking at organizational structure, the construction of reality through metaphor, and the similarities between "modern" marketing and traditional totemic thinking. I recommend this book!

The book is best suited for those actually using Fortran. The Markov chain examples of Monte Carlo runs are well explained. Hopefully, the reader should not have any problem with the concepts. Of course, the actual runs are very compute intensive, but that's why you need a computer.

If you are coding in another language, the book can still be of use. The algorithms are the same, of course. You'll have to manually recode the examples in your language. But the core of the algorithm implementations is relatively small. Shouldn't take too long.

This is a brilliant discussion of electronic surveillance in England, where cameras abound and few citizens pass through public space without being watched. The authors pay particular attention to race and gender issues, showing how young men, and young black men in particular, are the object of greatest suspicion. Anyone who is interested in policing or civil liberties issues would do well to pay attention to this important book. After Sept. 11, some of these once unthinkable surveillance policies may become reality in the US.

A significant amount of usable information in a small book! I am new to the Transcription world, but not to Medicine, and I am happy to find a book with realistic advice. Worth the money!

For an academic book the author gives us a great tale of the social norms prevalent on the island that the the whole novel revolves around. He describes the islanders and how they interact with their present and past traditions, in a very clear and easily understood manner.
I would recommend this book for people with an academic bent towards the arts, or who are students of the Mediterranean world and its peoples and traditions.
What makes this directly interesting, is that it gives us a view that one rarely sees in the Aegean, that of a matriarchal society (in terms of property inheritance), with a social custom of dynamite throwing. This is a revelation to me, and extremely interesting to me as a person of Greek descent.
For people with an academic bent and who enjoy discovering new people with their infinitely varied traditions/beliefs/customs, I think this book will satisfy your curiosity.

It is a common conceit that our problems are unique in human history. One of the reasons for studying history, of course, is to deflate that conceit by finding the overarching stories that have been part of human history for millenia. New Faith in Ancient Lands accomplishes this by giving historical insight into West/East religious encounters in the past two hundred years that evoke parallels with what we see in the news today.

Consider the story of Pope Gregory XIII who in 1582 sent two papal legates to the Coptic patriarch John XIV. In the middle of negotiations with the Coptic Church synod, John XIV mysteriously died. The legates were immediately arrested as spies and were not released until a ransom of 5,000 gold pieces was paid. As Anthony O'Mahony summarizes the end result of this attempt at reunion, "The results of the attempt at reunion remained ambiguous and contested through mutual lack of understanding between the two parties." (p.94)

Or consider the fate of Miss Matilda Creasy, one of the first female English missionaries to Jerusalem. Creasy became the treasurer for the Sarah Society, and partnered proselytization with the charitable work of the society. Most of the Sarah Society's money went to feed and clothe the poor women of the Jewish Quarter. On September 9, 1858, Matilda Creasy's beaten body was found outside the city of Jerusalem. Efforts to investigate the murder led to conflict between the Ta'amri Bedouin and the Ottoman government, resulting in the death of four of the Ottomon soldiers. No one was ever convicted for Miss Matilda Creasy's murder, but unflattering portraits of the Holy Land as a murderous land lived long after her.

Nor are all the stories negative: Consider the works of the Kaiserswerth Deaconess Institution. Founded in 1836 in Kaiserswerth Germany and funded by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, the Kaiserswerth deaconesses worked to establish the Orientarbeit, an educational and nursing program in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire. Part of the Deaconness Institution mission was to raise up sisters from the local population. This partnership with local peoples contributed to the longevity of the Orientarbeit, and the last Kaiserswerth deaconess retired in 1974.

As Murre-van den Berg writes in her introduction, "There can be little doubt that the nineteenth century, like the early stages of the Crusader period, constituted a time in which influences and developments from many different parts of society contributed to an ever-increasing Christian interest in the Middle East." (p.17) The stories collected in this volume capture well the ambiguity, the struggles, and the seemingly few successes of Western missionary efforts in the Middle East. They are apt tales for our time.

Gary Robson's anthropological picture of this infamous South London club provides a rich incite into the lives of fans, historical background and social practices of Millwall followers. "No one Likes us, we don't care," the anthem of the club, is an appropriate title for this book. Robson attempts to go behind the mythologies and media stereotypes of fans as unreconstructed neo-fascist hooligans, and attaches more significance to working class identities. Robson, has managed to do a detailed piece of research into working class male culture without boring the reader to tears with academic jargon, and the early chapters of the book are particularly fascinating. The voices of South East Londoners shout out at readers off the page, and records urban memories of the Old Den and the move to the New den. Any football fan who finds this book will not be disappointed.

Good reference work for open salt collectors. Primarily master size salts. See web site "opensalts.info" for lots of stuff on the subject and for srdering a copy
Ed Berg

I'm a fan of the "Little Quilts" books and miniature quilts in general, and I think this is a really fun book with cute patterns that range from easy to difficult. I've made a couple of the patterns so far and the directions are easy to follow and adapt to your own ideas. A big plus is that all the patterns have templates for hand piecing as well as machine piecing directions, which makes the patterns even more versatile. It's also a pretty book and fun to just browse through but if you do you'll want to make the quilts before long!