Bradford Books

This is a very informative book and would be useful in a tack room. It doesn't go into alot of detail, but it's enough information to get the non-veterinarian wise to what may be happening with their horse.

Full of very good information and very well written. I have been in the medical field for 30+ years and I found this book needed my full attention and concentration. Not an easy read but you get a lot from it once you get through it. Interesting.

Not as quick and clean as Abusing Science (Philip Kitcher, ISBN 026261037X) but still necessary intellectual self defense against those zealots who prey on ignorance and rely on misinformation. In a world that seems to be slipping into darkness this book is a beacon of intellectual light! The same is true for The Blind Watchmaker (Richard Dawkins, ISBN-10: 0393304485).
Required reading for all science teachers!

OK I am still early on in my research of this topic, but the more I read the more convinced I am that the babylonians et al were struck deaf due to an explosion at the time causing mass hearing loss among the living. If you read all the descriptions of the event it is clear there were natural phenomenon occurring about the episode. These included high winds and shaking ground, darkness and blindness.

This author assumes that the Bible says that God created new languages when in fact it says the language was confounded.

What does that mean...well language was confused, communication was altered. I think we can agree thats what is said. Language confounded.

Now imagine a large populous losing the ability to hear all at once, in addition to the other catastrophic events that are reported. The end result would be massive loss of ability to communicate with one another.

While I am sure the author did his due diligence at least to me it is clear at least with the Tower of Babel he is confused about what really happened.

Th

Very well written and easy to read.

"Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism" is a cogent history of creationism and its sophistic spawn "creation science" - and a devastating refutation of the inane bibliolatrous arguments utilized by anti-Darwinists as the gaps available for polemics become increasingly circumscribed by the explanatory power of science. Pennock refutes creationist babble through a novel discussion of linguistic evolution and pays special attention to Paleyesque fallacies embedded in the "Intelligent Design" movement.

Pennock's bestiary classifies all anti-evolution Christians as creationists - kinds include Young Earth Creationists, Old Earth Creationists, Evolutionary Creationists, Progressive Creationists, and Intelligent Design Creationists - squabbling schisms whose theologically impelled supernaturalism places all variants well outside a scientific mainstream united in support of methodological naturalism.

Internecine creationist spats receive a useful historical, theological, and social context treatment, and the preponderance of crank creationist websites is ruefully noted - along with their intellectual and ethical squalor. Pennock debunks the most egregious examples, including the infamous "Lady Hope" hoax (Darwin's fraudulent deathbed conversion and recantation).

After lampooning creationist comedy websites (Google AiG for a slick but sick example), Pennock discusses the Genesis myth meme echoed in the title - the Tower of Babel. Scholars realized that languages were shaped by evolutionary processes and common descent before Darwin burst on the scene. Biological and linguistic evolution contradicts special revelation hallucination, and both have been obdurately attacked by bloviating biblical literalists. Like species and higher biological taxa, languages blur at boundaries and form sub-taxon variants known as dialects. Pennock utilizes these facts to illustrate creationist misinformation about evolution, including the spurious missing link objection, and epistemological issues encountered when science deals with past events - particularly the lack of direct observation and the status of evolution as both factual and theoretical.

Utilizing language illustrates evolutionary taxonomy (classification) and phylogeny (development) and "descent over time with modification" as spoken languages developed from precursors (e.g. Romance languages from Indo-European and Proto-Indo European). This approach exhibits the same quirks as biological evolution including loss through extinction, incomplete preservation, convergence, and horizontal transfer.

Neo-medieval creationists crib from postmodernist rivals by asserting that Darwinism is "a secular religion." Both also deny that human cognitive enterprises can approach the truth. Pennock skewers figures such as Alvin Plantinga, Paul Nelson, William Dembski, Michael Behe, and Philip Johnson who proffer ostensibly 'scientific' lines of reasoning that devolve into theological hand waving and philosophical special pleading upon close examination. Johnson's implicit conflation of ontological naturalism (materialism) with methodological naturalism is artfully deconstructed and Pennock shows that if science were to embrace miracles it would become useless as a way of knowing; an omnipotent and capricious deity would pull seemingly empirical strings. Pennock's characterization of Intelligent Design as a 'science of the gaps' that hamstrings what science could in principle explain is devastating - and portends rampant intellectual sloth "God said/did it, that settles it" - along with endemic theological or political meddling.

Pennock utilizes one of Behe's own examples to shred 'irreducibly complex' systems. Behe lays out the probability that a groundhog could mate across an eight-lane freeway to rebut speciation and adaptation. Pennock's version substitutes a population of groundhogs with survivors who make it to the center divider and reproduce before tackling the next lane, succinctly illustrating Darwinian processes. Behe's claims are then related to Dembski's opaque notion of 'complex specified information' (CSI) an arcane reimagining of Aquinas's argument from design and a mathematically absurd attempt to turn information theory against Darwin. Pennock lucidly explains what is wrong with CSI without overwhelming the reader with mathematical equations or technical terms - unlike Dembski who deliberately uses both to camouflage vacuous arguments.

Creationism and politics go together in America like bibles and thumping. The tortuous maneuvers creationists use to cross-dress theologically motivated political and educational agendas as science are exposed in detail. Creationists incessantly beaver away at court rulings prohibiting state funded public schools from promoting a religious viewpoint with bunko biblical hermeneutics and revelation repackaged as research. Pennock's defense of reason and science in the face of rampant superstition and magical thinking is passionate and compelling - and should be read into the minutes of every local school board or curriculum standards committee meeting.

Highly recommended on all counts - this is an erudite and necessary book.

This is a rich and textured work. Pennock weaves together evolution, intelligent design, and literal creationism into an unexpectedly coherent tapestry.

I think some descriptions of this book do it a disservice, claiming that the point of the book is comparing language evolution with biological evolution. It is true, Pennock has that rather novel idea, which helps the reader better grasp the certainty of evolution. A literal reading of the Bible indicates that God directly creates both animals and languages- yet the scientific evidence indicates a process for both. But the changes in languages happen at a much more rapid and visible rate, making it more difficult for the Literal Creationist to deny them. And if one developmental process is accepted, the other is not too remote in logic. Yet this is not really the main point of the book, but rather a very helpful recurring analogy.

Pennock's brilliance is in another area. He very clearly stating what evolution is, and is not, for the lay reader. And for stating what the many brands of creationism are, including Theistic Evolution, Young Earth and Old Earth Literal Creationism, and Intelligent Design. He discusses with great frankness and equanimity the various groups, being fair yet not withholding all of the positive evidence for evolution. He doesn't deny where he stands, but tries to point out the myriad of different stances others hold. Through this he shows his true brilliance- describing the evolution of creationism. Applying (by analogy) principles of natural selection and biological evolution to languages, he extends that to the development of various creationist doctrines, thereby pointing out the danger in attempting to teach creationism in schools- for there are thousands of forms of this belief.

Like Pennock, I was once a Literal Creationist, and like Pennock, discovered the Light as a Quaker. I can relate to much of what he shares. Pennock helps the die-hard evolutionist understand better where creationists are coming from, and what ideas are important to them. He shows how clearly those in Intelligent Design are rejecting the foundations of Christianity in order to embrace Post-Modernist philosophies. He shows how clearly the evidence for evolution stands, and after everything, still stands. And dare I say it? As a former Literal Creationist, I'd say he comes quite close to being convincing to the open-minded Literal Creationist that evolution just might, after all, have some truth to it. And that's a hard path to create.

This is little more than a promotional flyer which you can download free from their website. It's a ripoff, don't bother. The ideas may be good but you can't evaluate it from the blurbs in this advertisement posing as a book.

There is a wealth of information in Topgrading. Most business owners do not understand the importance of having the right people in the right spots. As the statistics show, about 75% of the people hired for a job are mis-hires. That is to say they are not the best available for the job and the salary range in the location of the job. In short, they are not "A" employees.

There are many business that have a protective culture. Once an employee, they are entitled to keep their job. As Dr. Smart points out, your company cannot afford to continue to mis-hire and/or keep the "B & C" employees on the payroll. Business is simply too competitive.

The book is well written and covers the subject in depth. The book is long and it can be slow reading. However, as Brad points out, you do not need to read all the details. It is designed so that you can read the bullet points and delve deeper in those sections that are of particular interest to you.

The book is primarily written for those hiring managers in larger companies. The most value to be gained will be from those companies that fit that category. However it is well documented that the cost of mis-hires and the percentage of mis-hires is too high for any employer to ignore the information in this book.

There is a wealth of information in the appendix. Most people will say that hiring this way takes too much time and cost too much. To that anyone who understands the process would ask, how much time and money does it cost to make a hiring mistake and how much to do it over.

In today's competitive environment, business owners do not have the luxury to allow "B & C" employees to run the ship. If you truly want to run a top notch company, you will only achieve that with "A" employees.

Everyone knows that the quality and growth of your business will depend on the quality of your employees. This is a wonderful manual for getting 90% "A" players on your team.

A must read for anyone responsible for hiring in their company - no matter the size of the company.

This is the best interviewing book I have read. I have been in Executive Search for over 10 years, recruiting "C" level executives for technology companies and I buy 10-20 copies of this book at a time to give them away.

Dr. Smart describes exactly what goes on in the interviewing process, the dynamics of the team and who is likely to recruit whom. Paying attention and utilizing his methods allows companies to build world class management teams.

This is the best and most comprehensive book I have ever seen on recruiting top sales people. While the methodology is time and labor intensive, our firm has seen the positive impacts. We are now hiring sales superstars and our turnover is way down. Can you afford NOT to read and study this book?

I saw the book listed on Wall St Career Journal, supposedly what NYC HR people use... Unfortunately the book had very little to no information beyond the age old surround yourself with the best people.. and a few quotes. The book "High-Performs: Recruiting and Retaining Top Employees" by Alan Dubinsky and Steve Skinner had much more actionable information.

This was a great book - it was packed with information. Sometimes it had a little bit too much detail in certain sections and it got a little bit boring. Overall, it was really interesting and I was glad that it was so well written as opposed to a quick read that leaves you with more questions. Highly recommended.

Sarah Bradford has written a very complete story from Jackie's childhood to her death. There is lots of details about Jackie, as well as her husbands, JFK and Onassis. The book also focuses on JFK's affairs, and how much it hurt Jackie.

Even before Jack died, Jackie was determined to be free from the Kennedy family. To separate from the Kennedy family, Jackie used wit and charm and focused on her children and her own interests, like art.

One of the highlights of the book for me was how Jackie restored the White House. She asked for free donations, like a valuable portrait of Ben Franklin. She enlists the help of experts.Everyone seems willing to help her, because of her charisma and her position as first lady.

I have no way to know how accurate this book is, but the author cites a lot of other books for research. Jackie was a very intelligent and determined lady. It is a shame that she died at only 64 years old.I enjoyed reading it.

My comments concern the narrator of the audio cd who felt that she had to change her voice inflection when she read quotes of various people. She talked in a soft wispery tone when quoting Jackie, however, she continued to use that same voice for any of the females quoted. She then attempted a deeper tone for the male voices. Due to all the voice shifting it was disruptive and the reading did not flow. Since it was a narrative and not a play it would have been more pleasing to the ear if the narrator did the entire reading in her natural voice.

Jackie Kennedy was the closest thing that America ever got to home-grown royalty. Her birth and upbringing in New York City, refinement, etiquette, and Olympian cool ... Jackie radiated a deep mystery that remains. She was iconic in her need for privacy and protectiveness of it. A woman of another era who remains enigmatic and unique in her persona ... an American icon who seems both American yet not typical of the United States. A sophisticate, debutant of the year, equestrienne, well-manner, posh Park Avenue social doyenne who intrigued the world until she died in 1994. Fluent in several language, a writer of poetry, political wife, patron of the arts, native New Yorker, and poised like any Queen in Europe. She wasn't perfect but she was Jackie. America may never see another quite like her.

It was fantastic to be able to grasp a better understanding of the stoic, graceful beauty that was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. It was great to see the different facets of her personality from political darling to yacht hopping party girl. Her desire to control and veneer everything that happened in her life was inspiring. Couldn't put it down, was consistantly interesting throughout.

As I was strolling through the book store and couldn't find a book that suited me for my school project, I decided to check out the history section. I then I saw this book Thermopylae the Battle for the West. I had done a report on this battle not long ago, but not in much detail. So I decided that I would check it out and give it a try. After getting about forty pages in I started to realize that this is not the book to read for fun. It is extremely interesting and the author definitely knows about what he is writing, and this is definitely the book to read if you have to research the subject.

This book goes into detail about everything that has remotely anything to do with the Greek and Persian relationship leading up to the war and the battle between the two empires, but does not cover in detail the actual battle of Thermopylae in that great of detail. It has 240 plus pages about such things as the bridges the Persian Empire built to the history and relationships of the Greek City States. As a reader with no projects to do on the battle or research papers to write, I found it very interesting but I would only pick it up for thirty minutes every other day I found it hard to keep everything straight. That could be contributed the fact that I have no real knowledge of the history leading up to the battle (which Ernle Bradford covers in great detail).

On the other hand if I was to be writing a research paper on the subject I would have struck gold. The book has a complete Index in the back of the book. This book is also extremely organized, not like some other history books I have read that start on one subject and lead into another and then link back to the previous subject. You will not find anything like that in this book. Thermopylae the Battle for the West Also includes quotes from people of the time which could be very useful.

Partially I decided to read this book in response to seeing the movie "300", which I though was one of the best movies I have ever seen. Seeing as I think that I am not the only one read this after viewing the movie I'm going to compare it. The movie puts the emphasis on the glory of the battle where this book puts the emphasis on the history of it. Also in the movie many think that they got all of the facts. When in reality they only see part of the facts, and this book explains why the battle happened. It also covers that famous scene from the commercials where the Persian messenger is kicked into a well and Leonidas yells "This Is Sparta!". The book says that it actually happened and goes into more detail about that incident.

I only had one regret with this book, and it's that I didn't read it faster. After reading this I am now much more educated on Greeks and Persians, and equipped with the knowledge needed to write a paper on the battle if I was to in the future. I recommend this book to all researchers out there and maybe even the casual reader only if they read it in reasonable time period and not over two months like me. I also encourage those movie goers who loved the movie to check out this book.

The book was very thorough and covered the subject very well. Each chapter was broken down into ten pages or less and each one took on a very specific subject, perfect for a light reading on the subject. It would have been nice to have some breakdown of the individuals in the beginning, because there are many and at times I had to back track to see who was who and what they had done. More maps, especially later when the details of where ships are sailing or troops are moving, maybe a map at the beginning of each chapter to help keep things moving without breaking the reading momentum.

Overall, a good read, and I enjoyed it very much.

"it was the natural human tendency to elevate the battle at the hot Gates to an almost superhuman dimension and, having done so, to let the purpose of it be forgotten."

"Even the self-perpetuating bureaucracy of our modern Western, self-styled 'democratic', world would have seemed to the Spartans who died at Thermopylae an unacceptable thing."

There lies the moral of the whole story. It is not just a military history, it is a story of peoples choosing sides. Pushed to the brink were you have to choose what is really worth dying -and living- for. Here are the options that people (yesterday and today) consider before committing themselves to a country/party/policy/, etc. What would we fight for today? How much would you be willing to give up in the face of threats? Today we don't consider the real issues because wee don't see our lives threatened.

This book shows us what the people considered worth fighting for. Today things haven't changed, and that's what makes this book so relevant (besides well-written): we have today so much "noise" coming from the media and our elite classes (academia/bureaucratic establishment) that prevents us from listening to our own hearts when it comes to making sound and fundamental decisions.

Put yourself in the sandals of a Spartan or an Athenian in 5th century BC. and where would you stand? What would you live/die for?

The book covers Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea.

I found the author gave a very good background to the story of Thermopylae. It is hard to add much to an event that took place nearly 2500 years ago but his description of the world picture and the battle were able to transport you to another level. He delim=neates the real reason for the importance of the battle the domination of the East over the West or Asia over Europe. I found the work well worth my time.

I have read other books by the late Ernle Bradford and did not have to think twice about purchasing this one. I know Mr. Bradford to be an excellent and thoughtful writer; he may qualify as an historian by profession but he has a profound love of the ancient Greek world and as a sailor who has navigated the waters of the Aegean he has special practical knowledge. His book is a refreshing look at the battle of Thermopylae and the events of the Greco-Persian War.

Mr. Bradford's is a concise history of the Greco-Persian Wars but by no means is it lacking in substance or an abridgement. Certainly Peter Green's excellent volume is, arguably, the best and most thorough book on the war but Bradford's Thermopylae is highly readable and presents a good discussion of the people and events of the Greco-Persian War.

Mr. Bradford lays out his chapters nicely beginning with a discussion of Xerxes and his forbearers who created the Persian Empire; he is even-handed in his portrayal of the Great King discussing his weaknesses and noble traits. We are them given an overview of the Greek world concentrating on Athens and Sparta followed by how soldiers on both sides were armed and fought each other and their respective navies. He also provides a chapter on the invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians and round out his book with a good discussion of Salamis and the final battle of Plataea.

I think the Mr. Bradford's words would speak better than any I could put together so here is an excerpt from chapter 18:

"Thermopylae, which has been wrongly compared in recent times to the evacuation of Dunkirk, can be counted a victory in moral terms. The right men had been there, in the right place and at the right time - but far too few of them. Had Sparta sent a thousand men instead of a king's bodyguard of three hundred, the Phocian force guarding the pass over Kallidromos could have been stiffened by a leaving of Spartan officers who would have made sure that it was, at the very least, hotly contested. In the end, in view of the size of the Persian army, there can be small doubt that the result would have been much the same...Quite unlike Dunkirk, which was a withdrawal, Thermopylae was a deliberate self-sacrifice by a handful of men who died so that the fleet at Artemisium might stay in being."

This is an engaging book (certainly better than some books that I have read on the same subject) that holds the reader's attention and I would not hesitate to recommend to someone who wants to about Thermopylae and the events surrounding the battle.

It is impossible to teach people "How to Stay Alive in The Woods" in one book -- especially one that is as small as this one. But Angier does a very good job of covering some of the fundamentals and pointing you to areas that will later need further study. This is one of the first of many "survival skills" books that I have read and is generally the one that I recommend people read first (that or the "SAS Survival" book by Wiseman, which is also pretty good)

highly recommended ...

First off, it's important for the potential buyer to realize that this book was written in the 1950's.


This is a handy book - if you already have some experience with the out-of-doors. The author assumes some familiarity with roughing it on the part of the reader, and does not give in-depth instructions on some survival skills such as procuring food - making this book less than ideal for the rank beginner. However, there are plenty of valuable tips and skills outlined in this book that it would be good for the beginner to learn - and this book can serve as a starting point for figuring out which skills you need to learn more about! This book is not nearly as in-depth as the U.S. Army Survival Manual - it's not designed for anything like the same purpose, however. The author stresses preparedness, common sense, and choosing the proper gear to carry with you while trekking in the wilderness. This book is more of an overview of important things to consider for your survival, not an instruction manual.

This book was written in the 1950's, so some of the instructions (particularly for medical supplies and other kit) are a bit out of date, but there is plenty of timeless, common sense advice at hand. I found the information on finding one's direction and not getting lost in the first place to be quite useful - but understand that this book was written in a different time, and for a different audience than today's casual hiker or vacationer.

This book focuses mainly on survival in the North - i.e. the Canadian wilderness, but there are some tips on survival in desert climates, as well.

There are probably better manuals out there for practical survival skills, and this book suffers from a lack of clear illustrations and step-by-step instructions, But much of this lore comes straight from those who truly DID have to survive in the woods - trappers, prospectors, and the independent spirits who simply wanted a simpler way of life. I think this book is mainly useful as a general work on the subject of survival - and it does give you an interesting insight into how old-timers managed to live off the land in days gone by.

But with a little brains and common sense most of the tricks in this book can be adapted to different types of terrain, vegetation, and climate, and outdated survival kit items can be substituted with more modern ones.

Not a must-have book, in my opinion, as there are better survival guides out there these days, but it was an interesting read and does contain some solid tips for survival, I think.

This book was originally published in 1956 under the title Living Off the Country: How to Stay Alive in the Woods. The copy my review is based upon was printed in 1969.

The author's intention is to explain how to survive in the wilderness under dire circumstances. Game laws and cultural or personal taboos might need be to be set aside. You eat what you can to survive. You start a fire and build a shelter from the materials at hand.

The book is divided into four parts: sustenance, warmth, orientation, and safety. The most enduringly useful section is, I believe, part three, on orientation. The first two chapters of safety precautions in part four are also good. In the final two chapters of the book, the author discusses the value and contents of a "survival kit", which, although motivated by somewhat different concerns, is very similar to the current notion of the "bug out bag" (BOB) widely discussed in various online forums.

If you enjoy older books in this genre, as I do, this is probably a classic of its kind. But if you're looking for comprehensive or current advise and instruction on wilderness survival or primitive living skills, this book is not a good choice.

Since i have both this book and the US Army survival manual (albeit the 70's version) I can say prefer this book more. The illustrations are easier to understand. the information is in greater detail and while others are saying that the writing style is antiquated I think it brings a fresh perspective and is actually fun to read.

One of the reviews I read spoke of the author making it sound like fun to get stuck in the wilderness and I have to agree.

The information is practical, the plant illustrations are in color and easy to identify, and I would not replace this book with any other (in my survival kit).

It is a good read with good info.

my father gave me his copy of this book when i was in college. he was a camp director in his youth and while times were different then (they taught kids how to 'live off the land' by catching their own dinner) i am still able to share many of this books teaching with my own campers in today's much reserved society.
angier has found a balance of the science of each topic mixed with easy to use tips or diagrams (although limited in the old copy that i have) so he connects with people who learn in different ways.
this book gets you excited about exploring the wilderness and trying new things rather than leaning on one style. i will be passing this book onto my nephews or niece when they're ready, too! it crosses curious generations that easily...

The question really matters: what if free will is just an illusion?

I purchased and read this book in 2002. This book helped me consider the question. I set it aside as inconclusive. I worried that it could excuse otherwise irresponsible behavior. I was not interested in evading responsibility.

I was reminded of this book when I read recently the following:

"We have seen that materialist and functionalist theories of the mind are false, precisely because they do not take into account the mind's intrinsic intentionality. By intending a nonexistent state of affairs as a goal for action, an agent is free in the sense of being capable of doing otherwise. The intention also makes the action free, in the sense that the agent could have refrained from doing it, because the decision to act at the initiating step of action is not causally determined. The decision to act and the action that issues from the decision, as we have seen, are not causally determined, because they intend a nonexistent state of affairs that cannot be fully explained or predicted in terms of determining causal factors. If the decision to act and the action issuing from it are free in the strong sense of not being causally determined, then they could have been otherwise. In particular, the decision and action could have been otherwise if the mind in its freedom and causal indeterminism had chosen differently, or, in other words, if the agent had made a different but equally free decision about what to do."

--from page 69 of Dale Jacquette's "Six Philosophical Appetizers."

This excerpt represents my own conclusion on this crucial question: conscious will is NOT an illusion and responsibility IS real.

Those interested in the nexus and sometimes disconnect between conscious thought and action are likely to find this book an enormous disappointment. The book is deficient in the cogent reasoning or experimentation it would take to make meaningful headway on this topic.

People who question what they read, will have a very hard time with this book. Page after page, Wegner guides the reader through logical leaps, ignoring alternate explanations and expounding on unsupported points. Most citations are merely to others saying similar sounding things, without actually offering any real support. Often, Wegner seems to do no more than play with different definitions of will.

Wegner appears to be fascinated by the possibility of a flawed recollection/reconstruction of one's own thinking preceding or commensurate with a completed action. He is thrilled to offer explanations for spirit possesion and Ouija board readings. I on the other hand, am more interested in how thoughts and actions lead to other thoughts and actions in everyday life and how conscious thought interacts with other processes to ultimately decide what we do. At the end of the book, I was left with little more than food for thought. Bulky undigested food.

Do conscious thoughts submerge into a subconscious mix before re-emerging into action? Sounds possible. After all, the thoughts cannot remain static in the conscious for the time it takes to act on them, whether that be a second or a year. I'd like to read a book about that, but not one by Wegner.

Throughout the book I kept getting the distinct impression that Wegner is an armchair warrior. He writes with obvious eloquence, erudition and wit, but it is more like his position is one of marketing rather than experiential substance in the sense that his thoughts are packaged very nicely but lack substance and nutritional quality (so to speak).

Moreover, like so many of the academic faith and other such pseudo priests of scientism, Wegner also impressed (read: disimpressed) me as the type of researcher who, if he found himself in the sanctum santorum of ancient Eleusis with The Mystery in full swing - and was offered a cup filled with the sacred psychoactive brew - that Wegner would not ingest it. He seems rather pellucidly to lack the inner fortitude required for such experiences. Droll but typical.

With that appreciated, his ideas ring hollow - perhaps even wishful, like pharmaceutical propaganda, endeaovoring to pave clear the way for greater corporate/government social control. But then perhaps I am reading too much into the consequences of his train of thought. I may be giving him too much credit. However, it is exactly such seemingly innocuous Ivory Tower evangelism as this that so insidiously infects the minds of people in positions of influence and power to further inflict the world with such dehumanizing ideas as Wegner posits.

Certainly read his book, but handle it with gloves for the meme complex he works so dilligently to impart to his readers is not your friend. It's like his thoughts are adware, or the psychological equivalent of trojans, seeking to rewrite several potent but subtle elements of one's knowledge/beliefs in favor of his own saliently indoctrinated opinions - actually in the favor of his paymasters, to be blunt.

All-in-all Wegner's book is a worthwhile read (although his NLP skills are lacklustre at best). But regardless, if you enjoy the cultish dogma of academia, written from a neatly removed and well sanitized staus quo point of view, then this book is assuredly for you. However, if you find his ideas lacking, and his agenda both plebean and sinsiter in a corporate promotional sort of way, then you will be well advised to look elsewhere for Wegner, in the end, delivers little more than seductively articulated glitz and glam.

Along with that, it's an excellent refutation of the illogic and weak knees of someone like Dan Dennett, as well as seeming to scare the hell out of a lot of amateur readers who perhaps should never be allowed near material like this in the first place.

The title speaks for itself. Wegner then looks at the latest findings in modern neuroscience, along with the latest speculation in cognitive philosophy, and offers up his ideas as to how and why this illusion arose.

And here is where I say he is an excellent refutation to Dennett.

It's been roughly two decades since Dennett came out with his claim that we have no Cartesian Central Meaner at the core of our minds, ie. no homunculus or metaphorical little man serving as the central director of our consciousness.

But, but, but, Dennett refuses to come to the logical conclusion that, if we don't have a Central Meaner, we can't have a Central Willer, either. It's not just a lack of goal to go down this road; in his latest books to touch on free will, it's a willful (nice pun, eh?) rejection of this logical conclusion.

Well, Wegner is not afraid to take the plunge, and does so in convincing fashion, although he does pull back somewhat at the end.

That said, and although I gave this a five-star rating, there's plenty to still study on this issue that Wegner (and Dennett, et al) have not tackled.

1. Is there an Unconscious Willer? After all, as Dennett won't tell you, much of the working of our mind is unconscious or subconscious (and I mean no Deepak Chopra New Ageism by that statement). Isn't it possible, at least, that there is a Central Meaner, or several quasi-Central Meaners, in one or more subconscious brain routines? Of course, these quasi-Meaners would generate quasi-Willers.

2. Again, without getting into New Ageism, dimestore Zen, bogus metaphysics, etc., there's room for Wegner to go further down the path of just what "I" is and is not, without not only a Central Meaner but a Central Willer.

3. Handwringing and gnashing of teeth aside from fundamentalist Christians or people in that general direction (the ones who shouldn't be reading books like this in the first place) where do theories of morals (or aesthetics, for that matter) get grounded with no Central Willer as well as no Central Meaner? Here is where Wegner most pulls his punches in this book when he had the chance to meaningfully explore this from a non-willer perspective.

Folks, we've got enough material here for another book. Hopefully, Wegner, or someone else, is in the process of writing it.

I had two problems with this book. First, a stylistic complaint - I found the writing to be much too self-consciously cute. If you're going to write about serious topics, then do so in a serious way. Second, the author's approach consists of constructing one straw man argument after another and then demolishing it. He did not seem to be addressing any serious theoretic perspectives on conscious will, rather he seemed more interested in proving that the idea of conscious will is simply silly on its face and proceeds from there.

A good and extremely important topic, but flawed execution.

I have read several Diana biographies and too much of the time it's a simple rehash of stories and moments already told. Sarah Bradford's bio is a breath of much needed fresh air. I think it's the definitive biography on Princess Diana's life. At times you feel for her and at others you are left in total disbelief at how petty and irrational she could be. The book is a success because the author doesn't try or attempt to side with Diana or any other member of the royal family. There's no line crossing here, Bradford keeps her subject at arms length but at the same time manages to weave a touching and warm biography. Towards the later part of the book that deals with her life from the time she agreed to do the Morton book, reading about how manipulative and out of control she could be I was left wondering why I respected this woman. But because of the author's talent in presenting both sides of a person, I ended up not hating Diana but respecting that she was a complex person, as are all human beings. She was not a saint but a woman trying to find peace, succeeding at times and due to outside circumstances and her own misjudgment failing to find the peace she sought. By the end of the book I found myself tearing up. This is truly a wonderful and well paced biography.

This is probably the closest we will get to an "official" biography of the late Princess of Wales for many years to come. Sarah Bradford (who is also Viscountess Bangor) was able to interview countless friends and servants and other acquaintances of Princess Diana, including apparently several unnamed members of the Royal Family. The result is a book which, while overall sympathetic to the Princess, also acknowledges her darker side.

Lady Diana Spencer broke into the world's consciousness as a shy, smiling young girl in 1981. After her magnificent wedding most people thought the fairy tale would go on forever. There were warning signs from the beginning as Bradford points out: Diana's troubled childhood, her tendencies to overdramatize and manipulate her way out of difficulties, and her sadly neglected education. The Prince of Wales, Bradford also demonstrates, also had more than his share of problems. With hindsight, we can only wonder why any one thought this marriage ever had a chance.

Bradford does a good job of dissecting the numerous contradictions in the life of the Princess, exposing the differences between reality and the facade erected by both the Prince and the Princess. At the end, the reader is left still feeling sympathy for this tragic couple but very aware that they themselves did much to sabotage their lives.

If you're like me and just want to know Princess Diana's whole story, this is the book you need to read. It tells her life story in such an intertaining way that i just couldn't stop reading it until the very end. Sarah Bradford's work is remarkable. I highly recommend it.

I wasn't sure about "Diana" by Sarha Bradford when I picked it. I thought that it would be a Diana hate fest or love fest. But this book was either. I was a balance book about Princess of Wales. Ms. Bradford should that Diana was just everyone else in the world. She had her up and downs with family and friends and all that she was looking for was her place in world, but unlike the rest of us the whole world was watching her do it.
If you are a fan of the late Princess of Wales this may be the book for you.

Bradford sounds like a fan of the Princess. She gives Diana the benefit of the doubt at every juncture. In a way, this makes for a pleasant and poignant read. Diana is portrayed as misunderstood and misused by "the establishment," the press, her family and most of her lovers. The only ones who didn't let her down were us (her public) and Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani surgeon who loved her dearly but couldn't/wouldn't marry her. Diana's more destructive impulses are portrayed as being the flip side of her strength. The thing of it is, though, very little of this information is new and much of it is hard to believe. Diana did bring much of her heartache onto herself. As Tina Brown's superior book exhibits, Diana's real story -- objectively told -- is just as compelling and heartbreaking as this more rose-colored version.

I'm really interested in machine learning and artificial intelligence, but the author's outright assumption that he is going to do for thought what Schrödinger's did for DNA (before its discover) is pretty arrogant. I don't know what it is (perhaps using mind as a proper noun inconsistently), but halfway through the book I couldn't take it anymore and ditched it in favor for Hawkins' "On Intelligence". Life is too short.

In the introduction to this handsomely bound book, the author suggests that it is an appropriate time for an explanation of how the dynamics of a human brain can be accounted for by computer science. His title is motivated by Erwin Schrödinger's enormously influential "What is life?" which launched the field of evolutionary biology by inducing both Francis Crick and James Watson to successfully seek the molecular basis of biological evolution, but the analogy is strained for several reasons.

Schrödinger's book is less than 100 pages in a current edition, while Baum's is about five times as long. In the context of Schrödinger's lifelong interest in biological problems and based on a series of three public lectures that he presented to the Irish intelligentsia in 1943 (as one of his statutory duties as the founding director of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies), "What is Life?" is a classic example of his exceptional expository skill---in a second language, no less---whereas Baum's book would have profited from another round of copy-editing. But the most striking difference between these two titles lies in the cogency of their respective contents.

Although Max Delbrück and his colleagues had used measurements of mutation rates of fruit flies under X-radiation to show that their genes were necessarily of molecular dimensions in the mid-1930s, the implications of these data were unnoticed by the literate world of the mid-1940s. Thus Schrödinger's public lectures were newsworthy, being favorably noted by Time magazine in the spring of 1943, and his subsequent book---after some difficulties with an Irish publisher and the Roman Catholic Church over the religious implications of his ideas---went on to sell over 100,000 copies for Cambridge University Press, with translations into seven languages. Is there a similar communications gap in our current understanding of the nature of thought?

Noting his background in computer science, one mightclassify Eric Baum among those who believe that ``our souls are software'', but this is not quite fair. Although he states that ``the obvious inability of present-day computer science to account for [the brain's behavior] is no reason at all for doubting that they can be accounted for by computer science,'' the intellectual perspectives of "What is Thought?" are broader than this assertion seems to suggest. The book begins with several interesting chapters on the nature of computation (I particularly liked the presentation of the traveling-salesman problem), which include discussions of the importance of making decisions at the level of semantics, the Turing test, properties of neural nets, hill climbing in a fitness landscape, among several other relevant topics. These discussions lead into the author's central thesis that the mind, like all efficient computer programs, is necessarily modular. In other words, each aspect of the brain's dynamics comprises several subroutines, which presumably can be further broken down into hierarchical structures of nested activities, and he discusses several permutations of this important concept. Curiously, Baum's otherwise comprehensive list of references does not include Donald Hebb's seminal and classic work, in which the notion of ``cell assemblies'' (which are dynamically self-sufficient modules of neurons) was first suggested over a half-century ago. As a psychologist, Hebb aimed to ``bridge the long gap between the facts of psychology and those of neurology,'' and coming at about the same time as the development of the digital computer, his formulation has provided the basis for many numerical studies starting in the 1950s and continuing to the present day which are in accord with a growing body of electrophysiological data. Setting this quibble aside, Baum offers compelling psychological evidence for the modular structure of mind and provides his readers with an interesting and informative account of how the structure of our thinking may have developed over the course of biological evolution, with particular attention paid to computational constraints on the development of learning mechanisms. Importantly, his perspectives are broader than those of many of his colleagues, as he asserts that the ``whole program'' of a brain's dynamics includes the ``complex society'' in which it is embedded. Indeed, the author's evident humility in the face of awesome intricacy of mental activity is, to me, one of the more appealing aspects of "What is Thought?"

The often suggested possibilities for quantum computation are discussed in some detail, along with an analysis of the widely noted example of ``Schrödinger's cat'' which was originally proposed to emphasize the difficulties of applying ideas developed for atomic dynamics to complex macroscopic systems. Considering that a quantum computer---if it is at all possible to construct one---must be carefully isolated from structural irregularities and operated near absolute zero of temperature, Baum joins the majority of physical scientists in concluding that it is ``highly unlikely that quantum computation is relevant to the mind.''

Eric Baum has a dog, and---like most of us dog owners---he is convinced that his pet is conscious, but he goes on to assert that ``we do not need to posit new qualitative modes of thinking to explain human advance over animals. To my mind, the difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence is straightforwardly explainable by cumulative progress once there is the ability to communicate programs.'' Here, again, Baum could profit from reading Hebb's book, which contains but a single mathematical expression, namely A/S. This parameter represents the ratio of the associative area (A) of a mammalian neocortex to its sensory area (S), and it becomes greater as one progresses from rats through dogs to humans. A related physiological parameter---with profound significance for the ease and rate at which modules (or cell assemblies) can switch on and off---is the percentage of inhibitory intercortical neurons, varying as follows: rabbit (31%), cat (35%), monkey (45%), human (75%) [6]. Of course, these relative differences may be examples of the ``cumulative progress'' to which Baum refers.

In a penultimate section, Baum discusses the question of free will, noting that ``our decisions look, from any reasonable perspective short of knowing the exact state of our brains and simulating them in detail, like they are introducing genuinely new information.'' In reaching this conclusion, he may be confused by the continuing tendency of many scientists to overlook a phenomenon called ``sensitive dependence on initial conditions'' first studied by the eminent French mathematician Henri Poincaré and widely observed nowadays by those who study nonlinear dynamic phenomena (chaos theory). As Poincare` famously put it over a century ago:

"If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of that same universe at a succeeding moment, but even if it were the case that the natural laws had no longer any secret for us, we could still only know the initial situation approximately. If that enabled us to predict the succeeding situation with the same approximation, that is all we require, and we should say that the phenomenon had been predicted, that it is governed by laws. But it is not always so; it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena. A small error in the former will produce an enormous error in the latter. Prediction becomes impossible, and we have the fortuitous phenomenon."

For an author who bases many of his conclusions on close mathematical reasoning and offers a theory that purports to be ``capable of explaining everything,'' the implications of these ``fortuitious phenomena'' should be carefully digested.

Alwyn Scott
http://personal.riverusers.com/~rover/

The main thesis of this book, asserted repetitively, is that the mind is a computer program. Once this is borne in mind, pardon the alliteration, most of the book is reduced to an argument in its favour, rather than an investigation into its credibility. The book often reaches for blunt assertions to support its positions and only afterwards begins a slight retracing of steps. For example, we are told that inductive bias and learning algorithms are coded into the genome. It is obvious, bit of speculation on DNA, evolution and algorithms and out comes the result!

In his observance of Occam's Razor, the author confuses the appeal of the simplest explanatory hypothesis with the belief that he has found such. The discussion of neural networks leaves aside recurrent networks, which are probably more biologically plausible than competitors.

Likewise the idea that the brain essentially 'runs' compressed programs due to evolutionary endowments is unconvincing and philosophically leaky.

I don't want to be over critical of the book as it has brought together many interesting strands of work, but it just has not woven them into anything interesting. There is little new here, whether from modularity or evolutionary programming constraints on neural activity. A lot of it is speculative and several of the key themes are discordant due to under analysis of their assumptions.

Several of the elaborations verge on the frivolous. For example, there is a particularly woolly argument linking the learning of Scheme to "what goes on in constructing our understanding of the world" (p. 222). Likewsie in discussing awareness and consciousness, the author relies on the use of 'main' in C to metaphorically explain how information might come together in the brain (p. 413-415). All kinds of reification fallacies come to mind, leaving aside the thinnes of the argument.

The bottom line is that the book pursues a strong cognitivist program (the brain is a computer) without convincingly examining various sides of the argument. I was certainly no wiser off at the end of it.

In many respects Baum's book is orthodox cognitive science: "the
discussion in this book follows what I perceive to be folk wisdom
among computer scientists interested in cognition." (page 2) In
fact, it is probably the best such text that I've read in years.
I highly recommend this book to anyone studying cognitive systems.

Baum basically agrees with Werbos' definition of an intelligence:
"a system to handle all of the calculations from crude inputs
through to overt actions in an adaptive way so as to maximize
some measure of performance over time" (P. J. Werbos, IEEE Trans.
Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1987, pg 7). Or, in Baum's words:
"I am proposing to think about creatures...that are given a reward
function...learning and computing algorithms...The creatures then
apply these algorithms to maximize reward during life." (page 396)
Of course programs that do exactly that have been around for a long
time: "Adaptive systems using learning matrices" (K. Steinbuch and
E. Schmitt, Biocybernetics in Avionics, Gordon and Breach, 1967, pg
751).

In his book Baum frequently equates reward/fitness/utility, U, with
number of offspring a creature has, N. In fact, a more biologically
accurate model (for mammals) might be U=(N-2)/L where L is the
creature's lifespan.

But Baum is quite UNorthodox in that he believes in an extreme
dependence on innateness. He believes that via our DNA we receive
a large number of computational subroutines which contain a great
deal of knowledge about the world.

Baum believes that "semantics comes from compression...If one
compresses enough data into a small representation, the
representation captures real semantics, real meaning about the
world." (page 102) But, unfortunately, a number of DIFFERENT
models may fit the data. As Baum himself admits: "there are likely
many possible locally optimal solutions as good as the one evolution
has come up with that may differ considerably in detail." "There
may be many compact discriptions ...aliens might think of the world
using a substantially different description..." (page 212) So
something which has "meaning" for you, with your model of the world,
may have NO meaning for someone else (having some different world
view). Baum seems to admit as much on page 226: "...there is some
evidence for an evolved module for religious faith, which might well
exist whether or not there is in actuality an anthropomorphic god."
Unfortunately, then all meaning is purely RELATIVE and it makes no
sense for Baum to talk about some "concept really present in the
world." (page 162) Rather, concepts are defined (INVENTED) by
people in the course of their efforts to organize their observations
of the world. Our concepts need not really exist IN the world. They
are best regarded as mental fictions.

Although Baum frequently distinguishes animal intelligence from human
level intelligence he makes no room for the existance of an artificial
intelligence which is not isomorphic to human reasoning. In actual
fact there are many important applications waiting for an artificial
intelligence even IF it were not fully on a par with human reason.
Furthermore, with regard to human level AI Baum seems only to
recognize the ways in which humans outperform computers. Alongside
the list of things people do better than computers one should place a similar list of the many things that computers do better than humans:
computers have better memory, are better at logic, statistics, and
math, can be diskcopied, etc., etc. "What people can't do" (comp.ai,
21 May 1997, R. Jones) I would point out that my Asa H system
(Trans. Kansas Academy of Science, 2006, vol 109, no 3/4, pg 159)
has most of the functionality Baum requires of an intelligence.
It compresses what it learns, is guided by a value function module,
and is hierarchically (self)organized. Perhaps only the vast store
of innate categories is missing; waiting to be learned.

Baum's book is always stimulating and in some ways admirable, especially in its instance that there is nothing magical in the brain. But he's wrong in several crucial ways, the same ways that Pinker get's wrong (for example, in "The Slate's Last Stand").
1. Despite his neural network background, Baum fatally underestimates the power of unsupervised learning. While he's right that complex networks cannot be explicitly trained without astronomically numerous examples, it's now clear that unsupervised learning (where the number of examples is quite literally astronomical) combined with the rather regular (albeit complex) structure of the world, can do most of the heavy lifting, with supervision filling in details. Explaining unsupervised learning to a lay audience is not easy (I know of no successful attempts) but cannot be shirked.
2. Because of his background, Baum fatally overestimates the power of Darwinian evolution. For example, he completely omits the Eigen error threshold problem, he does not take seriously the gap between the information content of genomes and brains, and he seems to think that adding one bit per generation (which is all evolution can do) is a powerful learning procedure.
3. He's hopelessly starry-eyed about the ability of Darwinian evolution to find "compressed descriptions" (though he's spot on in his emphasis on compression). Both evolution and learning are algorithms for adapting, and Baum completely overlooks the possibility that brains can implement the Darwinian algorithm in a different physical medium (synapses instead of nucleotides). To validly draw the conclusions he jumps to, he would have to prove that either the Darwinian algorithm cannot be implemented neurally, or that it would be far too slow (while the evidence suggests that the basic update can be done neurally a billion times faster neurally than genetically). As Dawkins has emphasised, Darwinism is the only way to get intelligence, but this does NOT mean that only DNA can do it.
In sum, a book for the beach, not for eternity.

I read this book with great interest. It offers what other publications covering ETF Style and Sector investing have missed -a practical, direct approach to successfully IMPLEMENTING tested investment strategies.

I especially appreciate the timely supporting data the author, David Vomund, offers on his website www.etftradingstrategies.com, at the two tabs labeled Analysis and Strategies. That weekly-updated information, along with the book, help me understand and accurately execute the recommended trading strategies. It's really not any more complicated than that. I'm committed to adopting two of the strategies and excited to begin trading soon.

I also want to offer my thanks to the 16 reviewers before me who have shared thoughtful comments about this book and the author. Were it not for you, I may never have noticed or purchased David's book.

As previous reviews have stated, this book is very simply written and brief, which is great. Mr. Vomund knows how to communicate to the reader without being ambiguous and makes sure that everything is stated such that no pertinant detail is missed (as with the case with most books discussing strategies). I have corresponded frequently with the author via email and have found him to be both personable and intelligent. I recommend this book to anyone desirous of educating themselves on the subject of the growing phenomenon, ETF's.

I am a market participant that has been successful using various "Active" strategies.
What I really like about ETF Trading Strategies Revealed is that it is not filled with "extras" to make it larger and harder to get to the meat of the issue. There is a sharing of a good workable active strategies that warrant consideration for at least a portion of your portfolio.

There is a background presented briefly and some strategies that are tradable just as they are written. If you are new to any kind of active portfolio management, you can trade this system and most likely improve your returns at less risk or drawdown.

If you have experience in this arena, it is a good basis to test and refine for even better risk adjusted returns.

All of this without having to wade through hundreds of pages of filler.

Highly recommended

On the background of some simple strategies, the book appears to concentrate on promoting its website resources. There is no "Aha" strategy here.

The book's title is a little misleading. There's only one strategy that's "revealed" here, that of style rotation -- here style can mean "market cap groups" or "sectors," etc. The book is really slim, totaling about 90 pages, of which only 30