Berg Books

This is quite a good product for its intended use in the classroom etc.

HOWEVER I have seen many copies of this title with manufacturer's defect - missing either pp. 17-24 or 9-16. I don't know how widespread this is or if only a particular print run is at fault.

I would not hesitate to recommend this product but with the proviso to make sure the copy you are purchasing has all 64 pp.

Reviewing ISBN 0-7586-0475-0 UPC 9780758604750

I enjoyed this first book of the series, but not the second or third volumes. If you like cats and are thinking that these are going to be cute stories with the cats as the protagonists, you may or may not like this series. The cat doesn't always "win" and sometimes the stories in the series are only peripherally related to cats.

This is another one of those fairly good design books that relies far more on the images than on analysis and description. While the objects should certainly be able to speak for themselves, and they do, their age and what they meant at the time of their invention need far more explanation than is available here. Indeed, many pages have only a paragarph or less of text, a mere supplement to beautiful photos.

That being said, I learned a lot about the early history of industrial design from this book, from its origins as a reaction to the drab and near-featurelessness of early efforts to mass manufacture everyday objects to the abstract philosophy of the constructionists and the heavy duty functionalism of the Bauhaus. The longest treatment is rightfully reserved for Bauhaus and its immediate predecessors in the Werkbund, all Germans who were attempting to systematically merge artistic expression with the demands of industrial production, thereby creating a new movement. These developments are covered to a near-acceptable degree, but the language is confusing and often abstruce or cryptic and hence hard to understand. THe text also assumes a lot of knowledge and hence is not introductory, though at least it does not get lost in academic jargon.

I got the lightest introduction to the early history of industrial design in this book, but obviously I wanted more. I guess I will have to keep reading. Also, the Art Deco movement, which is a French/American development from the same period and largely a reaction to the utilitarianism and minimalism of the Germanic schools, is mentioned in a single paragraph and hence left completely unexplored.

One thing that really struck me was the direct line of continuity with much contemporary design. There must be subtle differences that I hope to discover later, but it made a lot of what I admire now look derivative. That was interesting and extremely stimulating.

Recommended as a starting point and a visual feast. It can be read at leisure in one day.

I am extremely intereted in the relationshiop between morality and dress and was immediately drawn to this book. Costume has been used throughout the ages to advertise social status, distinguish genders, and as a reaction to current politics, and has therefore always been controversial. However, Ribeiro has made this incendiary topic extremely dry, perpetually refering to moralists' problems with the fashions of their times without connecting the issues of decency to anything: politics, cultural issues, etc. The inclusion of more specific fashion scandals-their causes and results-- would have made this a far more enjoyable and poignant read as well. This book is a decent chronology of sumtuary laws, but it's missing a theme more coherent than "moralists had a problem with all types of clothing at some time."

A sometimes dense and pretentious evaluation of magazine fashion photography, "Fashion Spreads" is nonetheless an informative and thought-provoking work. Jobling too often cites photographs as examples that are not included in the book, and many of his arguments on gender theory are tenuous at best. He is most convincing with his definition on the difference between "fashion" and "clothing", and in his description of the fashion cycle and what it says about society.

I have found this book to be profoundly informative. It has not only broadened my knowledge of capitalism in my community today but gave me a sense of pride for my country.

I got this book a couple years ago even though there were no reviews on it because it was the only book that covered both Fourier and Laplace transforms. The book is dissapointing. It is more like a collection of notes than a text book that flows, explains, or guides. There is almost no formatting; for example, the first time the analysis equation is shown, (the equation that pretty much IS Fourier analysis) they don't even so much as put it in bold. It's just like equation 2.332 tucked in the bottom of the page. Not even a comment on it's importance, meaning or anything. I suppose all the material is in there, but I recommend not getting this book.

While giving precise information on several key issues surronding the subject of this book, the author fails to go into more in-depth discussions on some points resulting in a case of quantity, not quality.

Details use of geotextiles, geogrids and geomembranes using typical design applications for each ... Useful for those who would like to obtain a general understanding of geosythetic design and construction... Each chapter covers a different application: from design methods, material selection to specifications, costs considerations , inspection and construction procedures. Each chapter makes use of a design example to illustrate the chapter. I haven't come across too many texts which cover a broad range of geosynthetic applications and do it well. Some chapters seem a bit weak ... Koerner's Designing with geosynthetics is similar in that regards, although i liked this text's more detailed design examples than Koerner's....

While I appreciate any book that writes about heroin users in our culture's climate (where heroin users are viewed as the devil even though morphine--which differs from heroin only in its legality--is a safe medical miracle, and marijuana--our culture's 'sanctioned' illegal drug-- produces a high as warped as heroin's is comforting), there are serious problems with this book's analysis of heroin users. I will allow that Lalander has done his research in Sweden, and perhaps his sample of Swedish junkies are different than American junkies. But from what I've read of other Scandinavian drug subcultures, he must have interviewed a very narrow and very uneducated sampling. He makes generalizations of gender dynamics based on the warped beliefs of one or two male users who believe females are meant to hold the poor boys' heads over the toilet while they go through withdrawal, be simperingly oblivious otherwise, and never do anything Dionysian or hedonistic such as drugs...and if they do, they are automatically 'dirty whores' regardless of their practices regarding safe syringe use and bans on sex-for-drug trades. He did not interview many female junkies as counterparts to the two gender-obsessed men, nor did he discuss the research of other theorists who have surmised that heroin use creates LESS dualistic polarity between the genders; that, unlike other drugs, heroin is equally popular with males and females, that the primary junkie unit is the addicted long-term heterosexual couple, that heroin lowers sexual drives AND emotions, resulting in a more gentle, sensual male and a more androgynous, less shrewish, less screechy, less emotionally-dramatic female; that the title 'junkie' eclipses identification with inane gender stereotypes in all but the most sex-stereotyped, uneducated, and antisocial of junkie subcultures...all evidence that contradicts the one or two interviews he has done on gender and heroin. To say that this book is an accurate picture of gender relations among heroin users is to say that the idiotic "Trainspotting" is cinema verite.