Bernard Books

Retired veterinarian Bernard Wasserman, who once wrote a "Vet on Pets" column for the New York Herald Tribune, is a natural born story teller. This charming book about his Brooklyn practice would make an ideal gift for anyone who loves animals. I've read all of James Herriot's books, and fine as they are, I liked this one even better. Wasserman has a friendly conversational style that takes you right in and his humanity, his lively intelligence and above all, his love for animals shines on every page. From the dog who peed on Truman Capote's oriental carpet to the pets of lesser mortals, you'll meet a host of wonderful characters of many species and find yourself laughing out loud, wiping away a tear, and turning the pages eager for more.

The Dog Who Met The Queen & Other Stories is a collection of true stories from the life of author and veterinarian Bernard Wasserman, A.B., D.V.M. Twenty-five thoroughly engaging tales cover such veterinarian adventures as the escapade of struggling to track down and recover a feline Houdini; coping with deadbeats and hangups who never pay the bills for their animal's care or abandon the animal; the story of the scruffy little adopted dog from the pound who met the Queen of England, and more. a sometimes heartwarming, sometimes cynical, wry, and involving book, The Dog Who Met The Queen & Other Stories is highly recommended and delightful reading for all animal lovers.

One litmus test of a good book is when we find ourselves re-arranging our busy lives to accom- modate time to read it. I did this with The Dog Who Met The Queen! Bernard Wasserman, Veterinarian Emeritus and Storyteller, par excellence, takes us into the corridors of power, but also to the fringes of society. Whether writer or gangster, diplomat, down-trodden, or thief, we come to know what is in human hearts - the famous, infamous, and anonymous - through encounters with their pets and them. Dr. Wasserman's recollections of his lively and colorful veterinary practice in New York City brings vivdly to mind the memoires of his colleague, James Herriott. I think, though, that Wasserman is at times more comprehensive than 'the master', Herriott, for he is wont to give us some situational and professional suggestions as future help - help which sticks. I cannot too strongly recommend this gem of a book, and I heartily endorse it for all ages.

It was suggested to me by someone very dear, to read this book. I can not tell you how it has changed my life. This young brave man, must be one of great determination and conviction to have met his challanges . I would imagine if one were to meet Paul Jockimo, you would be blessed beyond belief. Maybe someday, who knows, he will sign my copy of this book.
I thank the man who suggested my finding this book.His friendship has made a difference to me by sharing this book.
You see, we have choices in life to make, and Paul Jockimo made his, and that was to be the great person he would become. We have a chance in life to make a differnce, and he has.

this is an exciting but sad book that is a good way to show little kids that there are not all but perfect people in this world. But please Don't Feel Sorry For Paul

This is a great book. Having met Paul Jockimo, I can say that he is just as inspiring as they portray him in the book. Will, hopes and dreams can overcome anything perceived as a disability by the world at large. Paul Jockimo went on to become a firefighter and emergency services provider. He has trained many people in critical incident stress management, and he is a devoted father and husband. This book showed the spirit of the young man. That spirit has not diminished with time.

Very comprehensive easy to read resource regarding cardiac drugs that is designed for health care professionals. I exceptionally like the links to updated information on the web site.

This is a classic of cardiovascular medicine. In its newest edition Opie's book is excellent in many ways: first, it is a small book, almost a pocket-book, and loaded with concise yet precise infformation. It is the kind of book you can put in your black bag and you can belive it will be valuable anywhere, from the ICU to the ambulatory. There are many excellent chapters on drugs, all of them with an solid pharmacological basis, each chapter is an great review of the subject. But the best of this book is that it is very practical: it goes straight to the problems more commonly found in the cardiology office or in the ICU, with the big advantage of being small and portable. An must-have book for physicians intrested in cardiology and in cardiovascular drugs pharmacology, also excellent for residents. Hope we have an new edition of this great book soon!

I happened to see this book with a cardiology resident..owing to its sleek size he was carrying it in his pocket. Although the edition was 5th, i was so impressed with the chapters on beta blockers, ace inhibitors..Not only every chapter covers the basic pharmacokinetics and dynamics of each group in detail, but each drug has been considered individually as well. Add to it, the references to the clinical trials conducted, the book is indispensable. Especially the last chapter "which therapy for which condition", is a section for quick reviews before grand rounds. I made up my mind that very instant..this book is a MUST have!

I consider this a "must read" for anyone interested in great women in history. The spiritual insights, life story, and heroic sacrifices of this brilliant woman, who was both a Jew and a Carmellite nun are amazing. Look closely at the cover art, as my interpretation was that Edith Stein possessed the "ear of God." The only complaint I have is the print was far too small. If it comes in a large print edition, you might be wise to order it. My eyesight is fairly normal.

Edith Stien was a Jew who in the 1920's of Germany converted to Catholicism and then became a nun much to the dismay of her orthodox mother. Those who are have heard of Edith Stien know that ultimately she was martyred in Auschwitz because of her outspokenness against the Nazi's as well as the fact that the Catholic Church in occupied Holland was the only large church organization willing to preach against the nazi regeim.

What must people don't know about Edith Stien was what an incredibly couragous and brillant woman she was even long before she was martyred. As this book tells the story , often in her own words and in the words of those that were close to her, she was a college professer, philosopher, and political activist at a time when a professional woman was at best a grade school teacher or nurse. Even as a nun she worked on her philosophy and her writing.

Waltraud Herbstrith does an excellent job portraying the complete Edith Stien, Her faith Her family and her intellect. An excellent book.

This book is an excellent introduction to the life and thought of Edith Stein (St. Theresa Benedicta). Waltraud Herbstrith presents a biography that encompases the philosophical, spiritual, and personal aspects of her subject with great care. I came away from this book with a true appreciation for Edith Stein, in particular her writings on women and her deep love of God.

Egil was a classic anti-hero, a warrior, poet, runemaster, traveller, adventurer, took crap off of nobody, had bloodfueds and vendettas that went as high up the ladder as the King of Norway. The guy was everything an Odinist should be. I am a lover of Icelandic Sagas and have read many, if not most of them but this one is one of my favorites.

The story of Egil son of Grim the Bald (Skalla-Grim) is one of the prose works from medieval Iceland known as sagas, and of the major sagas it probably most closely approximates the image popularly associated with the word. The story is multi-generational. It features Viking adventures, and its primary hero is a devotee of Odin, god of kings, warriors, and poets. The hero's grandfather is rumored to be a werewolf, and the hero, himself both warrior and skald (poet), has thrilling encounters with berserkers and outlaws, and engages in a feud with a (perfectly historical) king, Eric Bloodaxe, whose wife (later the Queen-Mother) is a sorceress.

Anyone expecting the hero to be a handsome Norseman from a storybook is going to be in for a shock, though. There are several such, including Egil's beloved brother, but, like some of his relatives, Egil himself is actually outstandingly ugly. And his behavior varies from the admirable to the repellent -- even in Viking-Age eyes. (An explanation for some of this has been proposed recently, pointing out stray details in the verse and prose that suggest a now-recognizable medical disorder, possibly genetic.)

The work-a-day life of medieval Iceland, with law-suits arising from it, central to the majority of the Sagas of the Icelanders, shows up only at intervals, as the action ranges from the Arctic Circle to England, and the central North Atlantic to the eastern Baltic.

"Egil's Saga" is thought by some to be the earliest of the "Sagas of the Icelanders," and is in some ways a good, although atypical, introduction to them. Egil's circle of friends, enemies (especially Queen-Mother Gunnhild), and family members (most notably his equally formidable, if much more attractive, daughter, Thorgerd) show up in other sagas, especially "Njal's Saga' and "Laxdaela Saga."

Egil was counted as an ancestor by Snorri Sturluson, the author of the "Prose Edda," an explanation of myths, heroic legends and traditional verse forms, and of the "Heimskringla," a massive history of Norway through biographies of its kings. Snorri is one of the few Icelandic authors of the period whose name and attributed works both survive. The temptation to assign this saga to him is understandable, and has been championed by distinguished scholars. It doesn't seem to have been shared by the medieval scribes who transmitted the text.

The theory was accepted by the first English translator of "Egil's Saga," W.C. Green, whose version of 1893 was (inevitably) based on an obsolete edition of the text. He rendered it into a rather stuffy, and prudish, modern English, despite the more elegant examples of Dasent's "Story of Burnt Njal" and the whole library of translations by William Morris and Eirikur Magnusson. The Reverend Green also could not resist moralizing over "good" and "bad" elements in Egil's character, in a way that would at best have amused the old pagan. (And misses the mark even more, if one accepts that the short-tempered Egil was in pain from Paget's Disease long before other, debilitating, symptoms became marked in later years.)

It has the advantage of being out of copyright, though and, in addition to the Kessinger reprinting, various versions are available on-line, including at least one which claims to have been revised to bring it closer to the Icelandic original, not least by restoring some passages omitted to avoid giving offense to Victorian sensibilities. (In Reverend Green's world, men don't need to "go outside" after drinking all night for any *specified* reason...)

Green's translation has some annoying minor features, too. He followed the dubious practice of tacking on vowels to names, to make sure his readers could tell the boys from the girls. So Gunnhildr -- everyone else's Queen Gunnhild -- shows up as Gunnhilda, and the lady Hildirid (Old Icelandic Hildiridhr) becomes Hildirida. Perhaps Reverend Green should have remembered that Gunnhild was reported to be a sorceress, and known to be spiteful (a prominent factor in this saga, and several others, including the great "Njal's Saga") before meddling with her name!

As for the poems, which are one of the glories of the work; let us just say that Green's English versions are lacking in any obvious merits, technical or literary, but could have been much worse; at least, they aren't too bad to read.

Anyone reading Green's translation, even an "improved" version, should remember that it is NOT a perfect introduction to the sagas in general, or to this one in particular. And the saga has been fortunate in its twentieth-century translators; there have been five later renderings in English

Green's version was followed, over a generation later, in 1930, by a careful, elaborately annotated, translation by E.R. Eddison, whose fantasy novel "The Worm Ouroboros" and historical novel of Viking-Age Sweden, "Styrbiorn the Strong," both had been published in the 1920s. He greatly admired Dasent and Morris and Magnusson, whose influence is evident on every page; but he rather outdid them.

Eddison's version, originally issued by Cambridge University Press, is not for everyone, but has many merits. Alas, that original printing is hard to find, and expensive, and the reprinting by Greenwood in 1968, and is not always available either. A new, reasonably priced, reprinting is much to be desired. Given the prices usually asked for it, my advice to the curious would be to try a library. (I count myself fortunate to have acquired a copy in the 1970s.)

Now, as far as the quality of the translation goes, views are mixed. It helped that Eddison was able to use an advance text of what was then the latest scholarly edition, published in 1933, which was still the standard for the next three translations.

However, Eddison's attempt to approximate the sounds and syntax of Old Norse with an English style using as many related words as possible, instead of more familiar equivalents derived from French or Latin, takes getting used to; and some people never do. Eddison is, of course, rather scornful of Green, both for his Victorian English and his prudishness. But he is rather more programmatic than the other Victorians he took as models.

Now the sagas themselves are notable for an unadorned prose, so the very concept of Eddison's translation was criticized by scholars who reviewed it at the time -- although they added that they found that the result was better than Eddison's theory.

They did not complain that Eddison's versions of Egil's major poems (which are extremely impressive) are carefully annotated because they badly need the explanations. The language of the skalds (the high-class poets of the medieval Scandinavian world) was esoteric and convoluted in its own time, Egil was renowned for impressively "hard" poems, and Eddison's choice of language and style is unquestionably appropriate for the verse, if not the prose.

It took thirty years for the next version to appear, a much more colloquial translation by Gwyn Jones, for the American-Scandinavian Foundation, was published in 1960, and reprinted in 1970. Jones' version is less "full-bodied" than Eddison's, but still an impressive rendering of the saga's lean prose. (Although I can't agree with Christine Fell's view that his was "the first readable English version.") Jones' treatment of Egil's poems is lucid, but hardly even attempts to emulate Eddison's feat of producing verse in something like the original meters. It too, unfortunately, is out of print, but, unlike Eddison's translation, Jones' is often available, at comparatively reasonable prices. It too could do with a reprinting!

This leaves three more recent versions. The translation, as "Egils' Saga," by Christine Fell, with the poems translated by John Lucas (a sensible division of labor), was published in the old Everyman's Library in 1975. It was included in Everyman Paperbacks in 1985, with some revisions, and reprinted in 1993 with additional bibliography, but seems to be out of print. It may be picked up in the current Everyman Paperback Classics series. I certainly hope so, since it is very readable, although I at first found the prose a little flat after long familiarity with Eddison. The notes and indexes are the closest approximation to Eddison's in a translation, and the scholarship is obviously much more up-to-date than 1930.

(For those who are truly serious students, the Viking Society for Northern Research has announced a new (2003) edition of the Icelandic text, as "Egils Saga," edited by Bjarni Einarsson, with annotations in English, available through Cornell University Press [not seen]. This should supersede the commentary in any existing English translation.)

The Fell / Lucas translation was followed immediately by a Penguin Classics version by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards (1976), which is quite enjoyable. The Glossary of Proper Names is a fairly good index of the characters, and the maps are usable. Footnotes provide translations of some place-names, and a few other details, but the legal issues at stake in various parts of the saga, and the major historical problems whenever Egil brushes up with documented events, cry out for annotation.

The five-volume translation series of "The Complete Saga of the Icelanders," published in 1997, includes Bernard Scudder's version of "Egil's Saga." His translation takes the lead place in a recent (2000) Penguin Classics volume, "The Sagas of the Icelanders," a massive trade paperback based on "The Complete Sagas." It is there one of ten sagas, and seven shorter tales.

It was also announced as a separate volume in the Penguin Classics for Spring 2005 (as "Egil's Saga," of course), which I have not yet examined. Scudder's version is similar in style to the Jones, Fell, and Palsson and Edwards translation, and his rendering of the poems aims at the meaning more than the style, following Jones and Palsson and Edwards, rather than Eddison or (the less extreme) Lucas in trying to give an impression of the artistry of the verse.

In practical terms, for most people this comes down to Green, in one an on-line or other digital version, and a translation from Penguin; probably Scudder's, if it is the only one Penguin keeps in their catalogue.

Reprintings of Eddison, Jones, and Fell would all be welcome; although a version of Green is not without interest, too.

I would NOT advise relying on any version of Green's translation exclusively, but it might be consulted if convenient -- and its electronic forms may be searchable, which can be handy if you have fast connection. Various publishers have offered e-book pdf versions of it, which are even handier.

For those interested in a modern fiction writer's view of Egil and his associates, the late Poul Anderson's "Mother of Kings" is an interesting quasi-historical novel in which Egil is a major character. (I call it quasi-historical because, as Anderson warns, the story adopts attractive medieval legends about Gunnhild on some key points, instead of following the historical evidence; and a fantasy interpretation, although not required, is not ruled out.).

Egil's Saga, most likely written by Snorri Sturlusson, an Icelandic chieftain, scholar, writer, and storyteller, is a tale regarding his ancestor - a man called Egil Skallagrimsson. This (famously ugly) man was himself well-versed in the arts of poetry, but also had the benefit of being a fierce warrior with a rough sense of honor and something of a soft (shy?) spot for women and children. That isn't to say that some of his deeds were heinous by modern standards, as is to be expected from many noteworthy men from the ages described the saga, but in spite of that one can't help but root for Egil in his personal ventures of achieving respect, wealth, and his (in some ways striking) concept of justice.

(INTRODUCTION TO STORY - SPOILERS)

Like many of the Icelandic Sagas, the tale does not begin in Iceland but rather in Norway - King Harald Tangle-Hair is finishing up the job of uniting the counties of his country under one king and one of the king's who opposes him wants a notable man of his realm, Kveldulf, to support him in an alliance against Harald's enroachment. Kveldulf suspects that King Harald is fated to rule Norway (a prominent theme in Saga literature) and that his own king doesn't have enough luck to fill the palm of his hand (and these are basically the words right out of his mouth). As such, Kveldulf stays home and his king goes to battle and (predictably) loses. In Viking fashion, King Harald is generous to his friends (those who supported him) and brutal with his enemies (those who fought against him who are still alive or their close family) - but Kveldulf, being a man of note in the county he has conquered, is something of an oddity in that he neither supported nor fought against him (why this should be so when King Harald is, in other sagas, more inclined to view those who remained neutral as his enemies is not known to me - probably because they were written by other storytellers or maybe because some of Kveldulf's close kin did support him and it would be poor repayment to drive one of their family out of the country for no offense except not making an offense). King Harald speaks to some of Kveldulf's kin who supported him and asks that the man come see him. Kveldulf has an intuition that, in the long run, his family will receive little good from King Harald should they serve too strongly and so refuses - but promises to maintain good relations with his new king from afar. King Harald takes this in ill stride, thinking he is dealing with some very arrogant people, so Kveldulf's kin who are in his service become insistant. Finally, Kveldulf says he will send, if they are willing, one of his sons. The younger of these, Skallagrim, says he doesn't have much interest in serving the king and suspects he will do badly in a royal court anyway. The older son, Thorolf, is not at home, but Kveldulf assures his kin he'll ask him once he returns from raiding. His kinsmen return to the king and soften things up to make it sound more attractive: Kveldulf will send one of his sons but the more suitable one is not home yet. King Harald accepts that with grace and so forgets about the matter for awhile. Once Thorolf has come home, he is more than willing to join King Harald - after all, the king's men live in greater luxury and honor than anyone else in Norway - and finds that serving the new king is a good position. He thinks little of his father's warning that King Harald will bring their family bad fortune and so goes to see the king. King Harald thinks he has a promising look and so grants him a position among his retinue. They fight in battle together (during which Thorolf makes some friends and reacquaints himself with his kinsmen already serving Harald) and Thorolf is found to be exceptionally brave and strong. When one of his closest companions perish, Thorolf is charged (by his deceased friend) to care for his wife (implying marriage) and to take over the rule of his lands, property, and duties. After receiving the king's blessing, Thorolf does so and thus becomes very rich and famous. Among the duties assigned to him is the collection of taxes (from Lapps) and in this he excels (for they both respect and fear him). For a long time Thorolf enjoys this sort of good fortune, but sadly slander (lies) are thrown about by men who mean him evil (because he received their kinsmen's property ahead of them) and King Harald hears it - most of these ugly rumors revolve around Thorolf wanting to kill Harald and seize the throne of Norway out from under him. This understandly leads to some conflict and misunderstandings, eventually accumulating in the king relieving Thorolf of most of his lands and duties and bequething them to the men who had told the lies about him. Thorolf takes this in stride (for he still has plenty of wealth, servants, and warriors) and goes to build in a new house in the north where he lives just as grandly as before. In the end, however, Harald's anger grows so great that he marshals an army against Thorolf and the two clash at his new household. Thorolf has many men loyal to him and so puts up a valiant fight, but is ultimately cut down by the king himself. The king notes that, in spite of the the perceived wrongs he implemented against him, Thorolf is a good warrior and that he should receive due honor (allowing the men who served him to be spared and a proper burial). Sadly, this does little to allay the grief of Kveldulf or Skallagrim. Both of them have ill feelings toward the king and contemplate revenge, but ultimately decide it would be best to just leave Norway and head for Iceland (where many worthy men who dislike or fought against King Harald have gone for safety). After some trouble with the king's men who assault them, Kveldulf and Skallagrim make good of their escape. Ultimately, however, Kveldulf dies and is laid to rest at sea. His coffin miraculously floats all the way to Iceland - in keeping with his father's last words, Skallagrim builds his household near where his father's coffin came to shore. It is here he has two children - an elder, named Thorolf after his deceased brother, and a younger, named Egil (the main protagonist and namesake of the story - hence, Egil's Saga). The rest of the story (which I will no longer relate) pretty much follows Egil's life story (from childhood till death) throughout a hundred or so pages of aweseome classical drama written in masterful prose written by a skilled (and probably famous, if it was indeed written as most historians suspect, by Snorri) storyteller.

(END SPOILERS)

I've read a couple of the sagas (as the title says, eleven) and this one's the first of them. As such, it should be expected I feel a strong loyalty toward it. Putting that aside, however, this saga has objectively been considered one of the top three, and sometimes top two, of the genre (of about - I think - forty or so, give or take some tales which aren't really sagas but are written in a similiar style by the same class of writers) ... in short, whether your a veteran looking to expand his horrizon or a newbie to the Icelandic Sagas, this is no mean place to start. It is a thrill from beginning until end.

On a side note - I never acutally bought this version. I have the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Sagas of the Icelanders which has 8 of the Icelandic Sagas, the first of which is (predictably) Egil's Saga. Thus it is the same edition published by the same company, but you might want to consider buying the Deluxe Edition (it's on this website - just search for 'Sagas of the Icelanders') so that you can have this and 7 more (plus some tales) for just a little more than this is worth.

This valuable book is loaded with imformation to help with work station and tool design, human anthropometrics, and much more. I highly recommend this book.

I picked up a copy of the first edition of this book while working on my master's degree in ergonmics. I found it to be a useful quick reference. Once working as an ergonomist it proved to be a valuable tool. It is small enough to be easy to carry along when going out to work sites. The various illustrations are simple and clear; handy when explaining a concept. I've recommended it to workers, managers and supervisors who wanted a low-cost reference. It is a tool they can use after I'm gone to answer basic questions. In short, if you want one book about ergonomics and are concerned about cost then this one would be an excellent choice.

great book for beginners! lots of wonderful simple to understand images and captions follow. very informative about the requirements of ergonomics in the design field and how it affects products. cheap enough to buy and keep for reference on your own bookshelf - very handy!

I was very pleased to receive this book. The condition of this book was excellant. I was also very impressed at how fast I received the book. I had it in less than two weeks.
The projects in this book have very easy to follow instructions and I'm sure I will have hours of fun making the different projects.

This book has terrific directions..excellent pictures. So many projects to choose from. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to do hand quilting . these projects were so much fun and gave me a great sense of accomplishment.

Some quilting books are a disappointment and don't deliver the content you expect from the cover, but "Two-Hour Quilted Christmas Projects" is terrific. The items are easy and refreshing. The patterns and directions are complete. This book delivers more than I expected. Although the hardcover price was hard to accept I think I will get my money's worth because I will actually make several of the projects in the book.

Faces of Revolution: Personalities and Themes in the Struggle for American Independence written by Bernard Bailyn is a delightful and informative read as it examines the background, origins and character of the American Revolution, with leading and representative figures and issues of interpretation; making a balanced statement of preceived life events and motivations.

The author cleverly divides this book into twelve essays and these essays are divided into two major chapters. The first major division of essays is called Personalities. Personalities has essays on John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Hutchison, Thomas Paine and Harbottle Dorr. The last one I found to be of extreme interest as it looks at middle-income Americans at that time and how the American Revolution affected them. This was a real time-in-the-bottle look at how middle-income America looked at these times.

Also, this first section covers how religion played a part in the Revolution as three biographical sketches complete this section and here we have Andrew Eliot, Jonathan Mayhew and Stephen Johnson. Here in the first section, we find that there was nothing inevitable about the American Revolution and it did not need to happen. According to Benjamin Franklin the Revolution could be deflected (1772 or 1773). What was inevitable, was America's emergence into the modern world as a liberal. democratic and captialist society.

The second Section is called: Themes and the four essays contained here bring to the front ideological challenges and a society wanting change to home rule... but greater yet, who should rule at home. This book conveys something of the vividness of the personalities involved in the Revolution; to comment on some of the ways in which personalities and ideas intersected with circumstances and events, making an interesting read. This book shows the reader an essential spirit of eighteenth-century reform... its idealism and determination to protect the individual from the power of the state... something we cherish even today.

This is an excellent collection of essays dealing with, as the title suggests, the key people and ideas of the revolutionary period. It is extremely well-written and well-argued and draws upon a lifetime of scholarship.

His biographical vignettes flesh out the personal characteristics and ideas of key figures (great description of John Adams: "driven and uneasy"). Particularly interesting among these were the two lesser known figures: Thomas Hutchinson and the unknown Harbottle Dorr. The conservative (especially in temperament) Hutchinson found himself unable to respond to--effectively, if at all--or understand revolutionary ideas or motivations. Harbottle Dorr, who I suspect will never appear in a textbook, kept a fascinating collection of Boston newspapers, which he indexed and annotated throughout the period; his story is a deep insight into what was driving "regular" revolutionaries and how they were engaging the ideas of the time.

The thematic essays are also particularly good. "1776 in Britain and America: A Year of Challenge--A World Transformed" was especially enlightening. It places American events and ideas in the broader context of what was occurring in Britain; this annus mirabilis witnessed the publication not only of Paine's "Common Sense," but also Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," Smith's "Wealth of Nations," and Bentham's "Fragment on Government," among several other lesser known works. This was a world in flux, with ubiquitous economic growth and a population explosion--as well as vast movements of people. Existing government structures were insufficient in dealing with these dramatic changes, and so new ideas and ideologies--building on previous authors, such as Locke--circulated to address the new problems. The other thematic essays, in some way or another, also attempt to place the ideas and themes in a broader perspective--either of the physical world or the world of ideas.

All in all, a great compilation of essays.

'All history is biography,' the saying goes, and while that may or may not be true in the absolute, it's certainly true that the best way to understand how 'movements' and 'forces' affect history is by studying the lives of the individuals who shape, and are shaped by, them.

Bernard Bailyn is one of our leading historians (maybe THE leading historian) on the American Revolution. His classic 'Ideological Origins of the American Revolution' casts a huge shadow, not least over this small but valuable collection of 'personalities and themes in the struggle for American independence.'

Here, Bailyn gives us in-depth portraits of patriots John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine, as well as a fascinating portrayal of the loyalist Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson, one of the leading Americans of his time but almost forgotten today. And he introduces us to Harbottle Dorr, a Boston shopkeeper whose writings give us a priceless look at how the Revolution affected middle-class Americans. Then, in a special chapter on religion and the Revolution, Bailyn writes about three preachers and their experience of, and influence on, the themes and issues of American independence.

The last two chapters, 'The Central Themes of the American Revolution,' and 'The Ideological Fulfillment of the American Revolution: A Commentary on the Constitution,' are alone worth the price of this volume.

History has no stage on which to play out its drama save in the lives of individuals (unless you're talking about geology or astrophysics, I guess, but why ruin a good epigram?). A student of the Revolution, or of intellectual history, would benefit much from this fine, though lesser-known, work of an excellent historian.

Colin Evans has written a number of excellent books on forensics and this one is just as much of an edge-of-your-seat page-turner as the others, if not more so. The book's focus is on a subset of the many cases in which Britain's Sir Bernard Spilsbury was involved as the much revered, indeed legendary, forensic pathologist. The main highlights of Spilsbury's life are also included. The author's writing style is as witty as it is engaging, often tongue-in-cheek. The words that he uses to describing these many cases seem to be very carefully selected and put together. But it is much more likely that this excellent style of writing simply comes naturally to this most gifted author; I cannot praise it enough. This book will be indispensable to anyone who enjoys reading well-crafted true crime stories in which forensics plays an important role. Very highly recommended!

I've read accounts of other forensic pathologists at the turn of the century, but this one is easiest to digest. It has a smooth reading style, lays out the crimes in sufficient detail that you can follow the 'plot' and then shows how Spilsbury and his associates helped lay the forensic groundwork for conviction. Cases include such well-known murders as "The Brides in the Bath," among others.

Besides the fascination at watching the growth of forensics at the hands of the pioneers (Spilsbury doesn't get all the kudos in this book) you also catch a glimpse of the personal toll exacted by the long hours and hideous conditions.

For readers keen to see a glimpse of early forensic technique and the men behind the emerging technology, I highly recommend Evan's informative book.

Evans' writing is very compelling and pushes you easily along the dateline of modern forensic techniques. His storytelling skills are marvelous and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I am only part way through and find myself trying to savor every page by reading only a little at a time. I don't want this book to end!

These are the first 3 of the 9 books with Bernard Samson as the major character. Game, Set and Match; Hook, Line and Sinker; Faith, Hope and Charity. Samson works for British intelligence during the cold war era. Samdon, although British, was raised in post WWII Berlin when his father was the Berlin chief of British Intelligence. There is a constant thread with Samson through each book, yet each book stands alone. All are good reads. Deighton is an historian and doesn't skimp on historical details. Deighton's explanation of Berliners reaction to President Kennedy's famous "Ich bin Berliner" speach alone is worth the read. The series, 9 books, gets a 5 star rating.

These are the first three of nine in the total series, all great reads and able to stand alone, definitely the best trilogy of the nine.

I would first like to say that this review is not only for "Game, Set and Match", but also for the other two trilogies, "Hook, Line and Sinker", and "Faith, Hope and Charity". I believe that all nine works must be spoken of here, or the mood that the author creates will have been lost.
From the first sentence in "Berlin Match" to the last paragraph of "Charity", Len Deighton has created a masterpiece of intrigue, double-dealing and the cloak and dagger mentality that is peculiar to the British Secret Service. Looking at Bernard Samson and his family, friends, enemies and detractors has made for an extremely interesting read: I believe that I read all nine in about a month and a half.
In a style similar to John LeCarre, Deighton takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride that starts out with trepidation, builds to a almost certain climax, only to finish with an entirely different ending than anticipated. I disagreed with the author's statement that each novel can stand alone and be read in any sequence. I believe that each book laid a groundwork that the following novel picked up and developed further.
I highly recommend this nine volume series and would welcome Mr. Deighton to write a final Bernard Samson work. Enjoy, and good readuing!