Butler Books

First off, let me tell you I love reading letters so this book has definite appeal to me. And of course, Yeats was Yeats and Gonne, as you may or may not know, was a famous feminist in Ireland. That the relationship continued for so many years despite her contunual refusals to marry him says olumes about the personalities of these two people.
If you're interested in what made Yeats tick or how a feminist conducted herself without major media support, read this book.

This is a wonderful volume. The love of Yeats for Maud Gonne is one of the defining characteristics of his life and the passion he felt for her powered some of his strongest poems. Reading these letters you get a marvellous feel for the strength of the woman and her respect and love for the poet, despite turning down many marriage proposals.

Maud Gonne was much more than the woman beloved of Yeats, she was also a political activist, a woman convinced of the need for Irish nationalism and prepared to work for the benefit of the Irish people. This comes through in her letters to Yeats through her mention of meetings and rallies.

I can almost forgive her destruction of almost all the letters she received from Yeats, which explains the one sided nature of this volume, almost all the letters are from Gonne to Yeats with only a few from him to her.

This volume is a superb addition to the library of anyone who enjoys Yeats. It is also gives a remarkable understanding of Maud Gonne, a major element in the Irish history of the early 20th century. It loses a star because of the shortage of Yeats letters.

Friedrich von Hayek, along with Ludwig von Mises, were among a number of Jewish-Austrian intellectuals to flee Vienna during the 1930s and the encroaching threat of Nazi Germany. This concise 170 paged book by Eamonn Butler, who was Director of the Adam Smith Institute in Britain, attempts to convey the essentials of Hayekian thought that grew out of the economic thought of over 25 books.

After a single paged preface and a 14 paged introduction "Hayek's life and work" are 6 chapters and an Epilogue: Chapter 1) Understanding how society works; Chapter 2) The market process; Chapter 3) Hayek's critique of socialism; Chapter 4) The criticism of social justice; Chapter 5) The institutions of a liberal order; Chaper 6) The constitution of a liberal state; Epilogue) Sense and sorcery in the social sciences. These chapters and epilogue are followed by notes, a select bibliography, and an index.

Some interesting tidbits are that "Hayek's 1941 work, "The Pure Theory of Capital", continues the same theme of looking under the surface of the averages and aggregates which economists like to talk about" and this same "theme was taken up again in "The Counter-Revolution of Science". Butler says that the "problem for any planner is that the 'facts' he must deal with are not concrete things, but are the relationships and behaviour [sic] of individuals themselves, something which nobody can predict in advance" (pp8-9). I suppose somebody forgot to pass Butler's insight along to the American advertising and marketing sector, because they spend 100 billion a year attempting to do what Butler maintains cannot be done - predict the behavior of consumers.

Another interesting aside is the story of Antony Fisher, who founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, England, at the suggestion of Hayek who "advised him to avoid politics, and do what he could in the field of ideas"(p12). Unwittingly, these free marketeers provided the camouflage for state corporatism that was appropriated by the Tories in both major parties. See Richard Cockett's "Thinking the Unthinkable".

Hayek is not just an economist, he is also a sociologist: "If we are to understand how society works, we must attempt to define the general nature and range of our ignorance concerning it" he wrote in "The Constitution of Liberty" on page 23(p13). Hayek came up with a sociological term he dubbed "constructivism": "man's mind is itself a product of the civilisation in which he has grown up and . . . it is unaware of much of the experience which has shaped it - experience that assists it by being embodied in the habits, conventions, language and moral beliefs which are part of its makeup"(p152). He adds that "we can only know the world as it is filtered through past experience"(p153). Hayek's recognition of cultural programming stands in contradiction of his earlier view that the actions of consumers cannot be predicted. Butler adds "Note the crucial distinction between Hayek's liberalism [of Scottish influence] and the 'laissez-faire' caricature"(p155).

Hayek is properly critical of socialism, but remains silent on corporate statism. He ignores the fact that corporations are creatures of the state and that in a free market there are no corporations. His silence is strange because he reviewed George Orwell's "1984", which told of Orwell's 1944 days at the BBC doing war propaganda for the British state in the guise of a futuristic novel. Hayek also wrote a nice piece on "The Confusion of Language in Political Thought" in "New Studies" that indicated he was familiar with the attempts of statists to camouflage their activities with the rhetoric of the free market.

In short, Hayek is no Murray Rothbard who understood that government is the problem, not the solution. Hayek, on the other hand, believes some government is necessary. Hayek does not address Robert Nozick's warning that government is similar to a cudgel where parties and individuals compete in order to wield it over others - the larger the cudgel, the more damage it can do. Witness the state terrorism being waged by Bush, Blair and their cronies by wielding the enormous cudgels in the form of U.S. and British governments. The result is American-powered British Empire in contradiction to every value that George Washington and the other Founding Fathers fought for when they fought 'against' the British, not for them as Bush does today. Hayek would be alarmed at today's growing collectivism.

Professor Butler's "Hayek" is an excellent introduction to the works and thought of F. A. Hayek. I am familiar with many of F. A. Hayek's works, and was very impressed with the way that Professor Butler was able to capture the essence of F. A. Hayek's thought in such a clear and concise manner. I strongly recommend "Hayek" to anyone seeking an introduction to F. A. Hayek, or to anyone already familiar with F. A. Hayek who is interested in a brief summary of his works and thought.

Judith Butler in Conversation is a valuable resource for academics, students and researchers in narrative therapies, psychology, cultural studies, theatre, gender, politics, feminism, education and communication. The incredible intellect of Judith Butler is initially made accessible through conversations with Bronyn Davies, a post structural feminist researcher and academic at the University of Western Sydney. Davies interviews Butler about aspects of her thinking and writing and asks salient questions that translate Butler's work just as writers have translated Foucault's work. Subsequent to Davies conversation, various other academics relate Butler's thoughts to their own spheres of research and thinking. These cover discourse, gender emergence, refugees, education and the experience of childhood in a pluralistic society. There are multiple conversations within this text. The writers are not only conversing with Butler but also with each other. Each chapter has a response by other academics. The greatest achievement of this text is that it makes Butler's intellect accessible to a whole new audience. It relates her work to the practical and the every day giving the reader an opportunity to open up to a new paradigm, a different way of perceiving the world. Davies and the other contributers to the text are to be congratulated on such a valuable contribution to academic texts.

Easy to Read, Butler is always thorough and insightful. This book is not so much an introduction but an alive performance or thinking in action. The relation between theory and concrete problems males it a pleasure to read. It is philosophy today, as I see it

I too, read this book years ago for school, and it has stayed with me. It was a touching story, and great to read about Cathy overcoming her struggles. As well, there's a bit of nice old-fashioned romance (not like the garbage written in strictly "romance" novels). I recently purchased a copy for myself on Ebay, as well as the sequel, called Gift Of Gold, which deals with Cathy postponing decisions about love and career until she finds out if her eyesight can be restored.

I read this years ago, and it has stuck with me. The basis for the title is an old proverb to the effect of "It is better to light a single candle that sit and curse the darkness." Cathy, through losing her sight, faces darkness. The book details how people react to her differently, and how she reacts. It details the choices she makes, and her reasons behind them. I believe that this book was written before mainstreaming of special education students became mandatory. The book also mentions Cathy using books on records, which we now use as books on tape or CD, so modern young persons reading this might need a quick history lesson. I would one day like to teach elementary school, about 4th grade level, and this would be an ideal book to read, as Cathy is only a few years older than they. The title of the book have stuck with me over 25 years, since I read it in middle school, and I intend to purchase a copy soon. A wonderful read to have and to pass on to one's children around the age of 12 or so, or to read with youngsters over 10. I can't say enough about it.

William George Hoskins (1908-1992) was a pioneering figure in the field of English local history, and in 1965 was appointed as the first ever university professor in that discipline (at the University of Leicester). This book, first published in 1955, has become something of a classic of its kind.

I bought it in the 1970s Pelican edition when I came across it recently in a second-hand bookshop, largely for the purposes of comparison with Oliver Rackham's more recent work "The History of the Countryside". The two works cover slightly different ground. Hoskins (as his title indicates) limits himself to England, and does not touch on Wales, Scotland or Ireland; Rackham covers the whole of the British Isles, although in practice he deals with England in greater detail than the other three countries. Rackham (as his title indicates) confines himself to the countryside, whereas Hoskins also covers industrial and urban landscapes, and even in rural areas deals with villages and the built environment as well as woods and farmland. Their methodologies are also different. Rackham devotes a chapter to each different type of rural habitat- woodland, fields, heathland, moorland, marshes, etc, whereas Hoskins' book is written in chronological order from prehistoric times to the twentieth century.

A key moment for Professor Hoskins was what he calls the "English Settlement"- the coming of the Anglo-Saxon invaders in the fifth century AD, after the withdrawal of the Roman legions. Few features of the modern English landscape can, in his view, be attributed to the Roman or pre-Roman period. Each succeeding age, however, has left a mark which still survives. The Saxons' great contribution was the English village; most of the population in Romano-British times either lived in towns and cities or in isolated hamlets and farmsteads. A few new settlements were founded in the Middle Ages, chiefly in upland districts or those with poor soil, which were consequently the last to be settled, but outside the industrial areas most of the settlements in existence today were founded between the fifth and eleventh centuries and mentioned in the Domesday Book.

Like Dr Rackham, Professor Hoskins tends to concentrate on some parts of England more than others. In his case there is a particular emphasis on the East Midlands; Rutland may be the smallest county in England but more space is devoted to it in this book than to larger counties such as Cumberland, Hampshire or Norfolk. One reason for this emphasis may be that Hoskins (originally from Devon) lived and worked for a long time in Leicestershire, but another may be that it was this area, more than any other, which was affected by the Enclosure Acts of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although he does not use those terms, Hoskins makes a distinction similar to the one Rackham was to make between "Ancient Countryside" and "Planned Countryside".

In the "peripheral areas" of England- the south-west peninsula, the Home Counties, eastern East Anglia, the Welsh Border counties and the upland North- the countryside had, broadly speaking, taken on its present appearance by the sixteenth century. These are the regions of small (often irregularly shaped) fields, winding lanes and small villages and hamlets, with isolated farms scattered among them. The rest of England, however, especially the East Midlands, was still dominated by the open-field tradition, and would remain so until the open fields were enclosed by Act of Parliament. This is the "chequer-board" countryside with larger, more regular fields, straighter roads and larger villages with few isolated farmsteads. Because these areas did not acquire their current appearance until around 1800, or in some cases even later, the processes which shaped them are better documented and therefore easier for the historian to study.

Hoskins also has some interesting points to make about the growth of towns and the built environment. He shows, for example, that traditional regional styles of building mostly developed during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a period when growing prosperity made it possible for the middle classes to rebuild their homes in local stone or brick; previously most houses, except those of the very rich, had in all parts of England been made of wattle-and-daub on a timber frame. The Enclosure Acts also had unexpected effects on urban landscapes as well as rural ones; Hoskins demonstrates this by comparing the growth of two East Midland cities during the Industrial Revolution. Nottingham was surrounded by unenclosed open fields over which numerous people possessed complicated grazing rights and which for many years made it virtually impossible to expand the city outwards; the result was overcrowding and some of the worst slums in England. At Leicester the surrounding fields had been enclosed before the growth of industry and it was easier to obtain land for building; consequently the city was more spacious and living conditions were better, even for working-class inhabitants.

For most of its length the book is not only very informative, but also a delight to read. In order to tell his story, Hoskins relies upon not only official documents but also literature and poetry; John Clare (another East Midlander) seems a particular favourite. At times his own prose style verges on the poetic itself. There is, nevertheless, a serious flaw in the book, which is why I have only given it four stars.

Hoskins was clearly a small-c conservative (which is not necessarily the same thing as a large-C Conservative) who tended to look back on the pre-industrial era as a lost Golden Age. He could see little good about the nineteenth century and nothing good about the twentieth. For him the Industrial Revolution achieved nothing other than the despoiling of once-beautiful landscapes and townscapes with dark satanic mills; he ignores the fact that by 1900, and certainly by 1955, most people enjoyed far higher standards of living than their ancestors had done in 1700 or 1800. In his final chapter Hoskins simply rails at the changes in the landscape wrought by the twentieth century without analysing the social causes of those changes or even saying in much detail what those changes are. He even bewails the large number of Air Force bases in Suffolk and Lincolnshire, even though only ten years before he wrote his book the nation had been very grateful for those bases and for the men who flew from them.

A book about something as subjective as landscape cannot simply be a record of objective scientific or historical fact, so I have no objection to personal opinions in a book of this nature. Opinion, however, cannot simply be a substitute for analysis.

The best introduction to the evolution of the the English landscape. For professionals, students, travelers and all who seek to understand the processes - natural and human - behind the scenery, this is the best place to start. Erudite and readable with great photos and illustrations. Must take it with you on your next visit.

Although written in 1994, the basics haven't really changed that much. Sure it doesn't cover today's digital devices, if you don't know a balanced connection from a hole in the wall you aren't going to be much help with a spectrum analyzer anyway. And let's face it, there's not a book in the world that will prepare you to sit behind the desk at major live concert. A great start for a beginner, and not a bad place for the rest of us to go back over once in a while either. Well written, not overly technical but covers a wide range of topics from the basic physics of a sound wave to signal processors.
Chapters include:
Sound Basics
Basic Types of Equipment
Microphones
Mixers and Mixing Consoles
Amplifiers
Loudspeakers
Wiring and cables.
Specs on Specs
Gain Structure
Ringing out the system
Reverb and Delay
The House System
Monitor Mixing
and much more....

There aren't a whole lot of books that cover this much about sound reproduction, this one's pretty good.

I work in a music retail store. I found this Book in the many dusty, old, discarded books on the shelf. Though written in 1994, it shed some light on a lot of toppics on basic pro audio. i'd recomend this one for the beginner, but not the pro. Myself, I enjoyed the read.

This is a wonderful book for the person that loves military history and insightfulness

A very intresting first hand account of a young soldiers rise through the wars and rank to become a general. Associated with different calvary units, he comes in and out service to Napoleon and ADC to many great generals and marshals. Some action but alot of interaction.

PAINTBRUSH IS A CAT. THIS IS HIS STORY OF MOVING TO PARIS AND GETTING TO KNOW ABOUT THE "LA VIE FRANCAISE"...RULES FOR DINNER, WHERE TO SHOP (INSIDER'S ADDRESSES), MUSEUMS AND A CUTE STORY . ADORABLE ILLUSTRATIONS: LOOKS LIKE A CHILDREN'S BOOK BUT WRITTEN FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN.

Paintbrush in Paris offers a light-hearted and insightful view of cats, Paris, Parisians and the world of art. Paintbrush himself, and his friend Mon Ami, will capture your imagination and your heart while teaching you un petit de francaise along the way. Indulge...and enjoy on this vicarious bon voyage!

Rick Butler has given the reader a realistic look into the face of war as he lived it while a young man fighting in Vietnam. It reads with the great authenticity of a man sitting down to talk about his war experiences. Rick is not a professional writer but he is very good at story telling and what a story he has to tell! Some of it is heart-rending and some is very funny; from the terrifying first day joining A Company in the field to the later visit by a curious Bengal Tiger. This needs to be read if only to gain a small understanding of what so many of our fellow citizens were (and are currently) forced to endure and then come home to live with for the rest of their lives. I am giving POINT a rating of 5 because it is such an important story for every American to read.

Vietnam! The war that still haunts this country--and many soldiers who served there.

A paratrooper at age 18, Rick Butler arrived in Vietnam at 19. He became a man very quickly. Rick's story is about what soldiers and friends in war mean to each other.

He did not adjust to Army life easily but soon he was being trained to be the "point man," first in line as they traveled through the jungles. His mentor was Ray Garza, an experienced point man. Hero Garza earned three Purple Hearts, but was killed with 16 days to go. Rick was devastated.

Rick says, "Although wars can be won or lost, they are atrocious and actual combatants seldom win--they mostly lose. They lose a piece of their sanity and are tormented, often for the rest of their lives."

When Rick came home from Vietnam, everything was different. Although he quickly married his waiting girlfriend, he was tormented, was experiencing Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) syndrome. Now in normal work and friend situations, the idea of what is important, and what makes sense--well, Rick related differently because of his PTS syndrome. However, the real difficult symptoms-depression and withdrawal mostly-didn't show up for 10-11 years.

Many things now seemed superficial, unimportant. In Vietnam the guys had a saying: It don't mean nothing (meaning if it isn't about life or death, it don't matter). Nightmares, relationship problems at home and at work were all part of Rick's life. "I didn't care about much other than my family," Rick wrote.

In many ways, Rick "walked point" for years following Vietnam, and having been a leader when he walked point, and now a new boss was driving him crazy. This man wanted followers, not leaders, and Rick was lucky enough to take early retirement at 55.

Today he is a VA volunteer for returning Iraqi vets--and says some estimate that 20-25% of returning soldiers will be affected by Post Traumatic Stress syndrome, which he describes very clearly.

Only comment--wonderful story well told, but it would have been much improved with some editing and certainly proofreading.

Armchair Interviews says: If you had a father, brother or other loved one in Vietnam (or now in Iraq), this book will give you better understanding of their war experiences and post-war life.

This was a very good read. As an ex-USAF aviator, Butler knows his stuff and did a good job of staying technically accurate. (The only small mistake occurred on the last page, where he referred to a character as a Royal Air Force Major - the RAF doesn't have such a rank.) But, other than that it was a compelling story.

Jimmie Butler obviously knows the military world that he speaks of in this exciting, tightly plotted story. Couldn't put it down.