Cross Books

Having taken Richard Walsh, the text is a wonderful way to approach reading the Bible. It forces the student to think of the Bible in different ways. It forces those that believe in the Bible to see things differently and those that don't believe in the Bible too as well. Wonderful book from a wonderful, wonderful man

Richard Walsh's introduction offers the student a literary critical approach to the Bible. The work's greatest asset is its connections to ancient, modern, and post-modern cultures with many references to movies, literature, historical figures, etc. Walsh's textbook speaks well to two audiences: the student who is satisfied with a reader-friendly introduction and the reader who is eager for a challenging in-depth approach. Walsh accomplishes this dual approach by isolating the more demanding (but also, more rewarding) material-->insets which appear throughout each chapter. They are a book in themselves!

Hats off to Doris Cross! She's produced yet another spectacular cookbook! The recipes in this book are absolutely delicious, easy to prepare, and don't require bizarre ingredients. The taste is sensational; you think you're eating high-fat dishes when you aren't! The dishes are simple enough for everyday fare, yet elegant enough for a dinner party. Of the many cookbooks I've purchased since being diagnosed with diabetes, the ones by Doris Cross are far and away my favorites!!

Since I love Italian food and also need to eat in a balanced manner, I was delighted when I saw this cookbook in the library. It was everything I expected and more! The diabetic exchanges are clearly listed as well as the exact grams of carbo, protein, fat, sodium, and cholestrol. I tried two of the recipes, Garlic and Parmesan Chicken with Pasta, and Shrimp and Crab Stuffed Shells. The recipes were easy to follow and the taste was magnificent! I was amazed at the rich flavor and beauty of the dishes. I think this book would be helpful for anyone who follows the Zone Diet as well as diabetics.

You're not reading it! You're reading my review! Don't waste time - this book has more action, more adventure, more story, more EVERYTHING than you could ever hope for in a work of fiction...I am on pins and needles to read the rest of the books in this series!

Don't be misled by the main character's title 'Knight of Death' or 'Chevalier du Morte'. He is the ultimate Misfortune's child, and his misadventures more than make up for his shady past and numerous sins. You'll hate the villains and love the blonde even though the entire cast of characters seems a bit twisted at first. This guy can't win for losing and I found myself as confused and desperate to learn the truth as he was and there were a number of times that I could honestly say "Been there, done that!" This guy is almost me in another incarnation, except for his age, of course. I don't want to give anything away, but I can honestly say when all was said and done, I completely identified with him, especially in the last chapter. Great book! Couldn't put it down. If you've ever wondered what happened to the mysterious Templar Knights of yore, you've got to read this. I hope more adventures or misadventures, as the case may be, are forthcoming.

This may be one of the best buys for the money a teacher/trainer can purchase. It is both quick and easy to use, very rapidly helps students understand the challenges in learning a second language. We use it to help corporate clients understand both employees and clients for whom English is a Second Language--and, more importantly, apply empathy in developing strategies for being more effecive across language differences. We get great Return on Investment every time we use it.

"Redundancia" is an excellent simulation that helps participants get a clear experience of the linguistic challenges in cross cultural communication. Also "Redundancia" is easy to use because of its clear guidebook. It is definitely fun for participants, rich in experiential learning and in widening perspectives, and effective to assist both trainers and trainees in intercultural contexts.

I use Redundancia because this simulation helps my monlingual clients understand what it is like to speak a foreign language. In addition,it encourages the clients to pay attention to body language while they are listening. Redundancia is a clever and effective tool for increasing the awareness of the client who is moving to another culture where a different language is spoken or who is working with someone speaking English as a foreign language.

Redundancia offers an ideal method to help your staff communicate effectively in a global environment. It is not just a simulation, but an effective tool.

A concise and accurate descriptive analysis, Remapping Knowledge: Intercultural Studies For A Global Age by Mihai I. Spariosu (Research Professor at the University of Georgia, Athens) is a comprehensive and scholarly study of the historical and modern theories of global intelligence. Presenting the progression and emergence of globalization and generational definition and revolution-oriented developments in intercultural research of dialogue, educational programs, supranational authority and predefinite goals and cultural aims, Remapping Knowledge innovatively describes the intricate detailing of global authority, intercultural paradigm, and security amidst change. Enhanced with an appendix ("Quantum Relations Theory: A Brief Overview"), extensive bibliographical references, and a comprehensive index, Remapping Knowledge is very strongly recommended for college and university reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Remapping Knowledge: Intercultural Studies for a Global Age Edited by Mihai I. Spariosu (Making Sense of History: Berghahn Books) Excerpt: This book can best be read in conjunction with its companion volume, Global Intelligence and Human Development (2004). In both volumes I attempt to elaborate the basic principles of an ecology of global learning, oriented toward global intelligence and harmonious human development. In both studies, I reflect on the phenomenon of globalization primarily in its intercultural, rather than in its financial or political, aspects, and seek to turn away not only from the Western-style, utilitarian mentality, but also from the modernist ideology of progress, understood as unlimited growth. Unlike neoliberal ideologues and their antiglobalist opponents, therefore, I do not see globalization as a golden opportunity for the financially wealthy to become even wealthier. Rather, I see it as a renewed opportunity for humanity to embark on a global, paradigmatic shift from a mentality of power and so-called "struggle for life" toward a mentality of peace and mutually beneficial, intercultural cooperation. But, in order to bring about this paradigmatic shift, we need to create alternative theoretical concepts and cultural blueprints, oriented toward global intelligence, and then work collectively toward their worldwide implementation.
We can begin by developing alternative concepts to analyze and evaluate the phenomenon of globalization itself. To this purpose, my two studies explore key concepts such as global intelligence, sustainable human development, globality, globalism, locality, localism, and the local-global. Thus, I define global intelligence as the ability to understand, respond to, and work toward what will benefit all human beings and will support and enrich all life on this planet. Global intelligence is based on the collective awareness of the interdependence of all localities within a global frame of reference and the enhanced individual responsibilities that result from this interdependence. As no national or supranational authority can predefine or predetermine it, global intelligence involves long-term, collective learning processes and can emerge only from continuing intercultural research, dialogue, and cooperation.
The phrase "what will benefit all human beings" in the preceding paragraph, however, should not be understood in the utilitarian, restricted sense that implies the excessive, materialistic and consumerist mentality currently spreading to many parts of the globe. Nor should "human development" be understood primarily in terms of neoliberal, economic development, as is all too often the case in public discourse today. In the long run, such utilitarian and reductive modes of thought and behavior, based on the primacy of material self-interest, will hardly benefit humankind, let alone other forms of life on earth. On the contrary, it will impede, if not completely arrest further human development and will severely impoverish the rich diversity of the biosphere. From the standpoint of global intelligence, therefore, "benefit" implies the harmonious, sustainable development of both the material and the spiritual aspects of humanity These aspects should, moreover, be regarded not as independent entities, but as complementary sides of human nature, engaged in a relationship of mutual causality.
In turn, I define globality as an infinitely layered network of variously interconnected and interactive actual and possible (or imagined) worlds or localities. At a basic human level, globality involves an aspiration toward (self-) transcendence that expresses itself as ceaseless world making and self-fashioning. Globalism, on the other hand, can be regarded as the proper or improper expression of the aspiration toward globality. There are many kinds of globalisms, some proper, some improper, some Western, some not. Most of the improper types of globalism that have so far manifested themselves in human history belong to various mentalities of power that aspire, and compete among themselves, to hold sway over the entire planet. I have called such improper types "globalitarianism," to stress their close affinity with the totalitarian political tendencies that were particularly visible in the past century, but that continue to manifest themselves today. Yet, twenty-first century attempts at globalitarianism do not involve solely repressive political regimes or right wing and left wing dictatorships, but also, most alarmingly, the Western democracies. For instance, they include the current economic, political, and military efforts on the part of some Western governments to impose Western-style, neoliberal forms of democracy on the rest of the world.
Localism, in turn, is a mirror image of globalism and can often take improper forms such as ultranationalism, ethnic and religious intolerance, racism, and so forth. Recent examples of improper localism are not limited to the intolerant, closed-minded attitudes of some monocultural or totalitarian nation-states. They also include the paranoid, ultranationalist, and racist attitudes that certain Western governments have displayed toward immigrants from Islamic and other so-called Third World countries, as well as toward their own dissenting citizenry, in the wake of September 11 and other terrorist attacks against Western (utilitarian) global interests. By contrast, locality is the specific ecocultural space in which individual and collective human activities, contacts, and interactions take place. Locality, just like globality, involves multilayered human perspectives and experiences, ranging from those of the tiniest community to those of planet Earth, or multiplanetary systems.
On the basis of the preceding distinctions, moreover, I propose the term "local-global" as an appropriate way of describing not only any theory and practice of globalization, but also any future human community. A local-global theory is a globally oriented local theory. In turn, a local-global community is a globally oriented local community or ecocultural environment. Communities around the world do not engage in interaction with a universal or global community-although they may often imagine such communities-but with other local communities. Some communities may happen, at a particular historical juncture, to become globally dominant or visible as far as their ideas and ways of life are concerned. This fact does not, however, oblige other communities automatically to accept their ideas, values, beliefs, and modes of behavior as if they were embodiments of the Global or the Universal itself. On the contrary, these communities will often perceive such ideas and ways of life as improper forms of globalism (e.g., imperialism), particularly if they are forced upon them. By contrast, a globally oriented local community is constantly aware of its links and interdependence with other, close or distant, communities and is open to free and mutually enriching interaction with all of these communities. In other words, a globally oriented local community is aware that symbiotic intercultural cooperation may be the shortest path to global intelligence.
Finally, both studies assume that an emergent ethics of global intelligence can best be grounded in a mentality of peace, defined not in opposition to war, but as an alternative mode of being, thinking, and acting in the world. This mentality, which I have elsewhere defined as "irenic" (Spariosu 1997), has its own body of values and beliefs, emerging through intercultural research, dialogue, and cooperation, and generates its own reference frames, organized on principles other than power. It is such an irenic mentality that can best nurture further human (self-) development and that should inform not only the ethical stance, but also all other aspects of the concept and practice of global intelligence.
Whereas the first book focuses mostly on the social and the life sciences, the present one concentrates mostly on the humanities and on information and communication technology (ICT). Furthermore, while the first book deals mostly with the broader, theoretical issues involved in human development, the present volume concentrates largely on institutional and practical issues, including some of the concrete ways in which we can remap our current fields of knowledge and institutions of advanced learning and research, reorienting them toward global intelligence. Specifically, I focus on the ways in which we can remap and reorganize a transdisciplinary field of intercultural studies that would hopefully transcend the current ideological and political impasse of cultural studies, especially as practiced in the West, while preserving and reorienting some of its valuable insights. Such a reconstructed, transdisciplinary and crosscultural, field would constitute an important vehicle for creating local-global learning environments that will nurture further human development.
The humanities, side by side and in close cooperation with the other contemporary sciences, could also have a crucial role in both remapping intercultural knowledge and creating local-global learning environments, oriented toward global intelligence. But in order to assume this role, they need, no less than all of the other sciences, to undergo extensive reforms, based on a thorough reexamination of their current principles and practices. Therefore, in the first chapter of the present book, "Intercultural Studies: A Local-Global Approach," I begin this reexamination process by staging an extensive dialogue between two Western-style, academic disciplines: contemporary "experimentalist" ethnography, which turns to literary studies in order to reform itself, and contemporary literary theory, which turns to anthropology to do likewise. The main purpose of this dialogical exercise is to further illustrate and develop the guiding principles of intercultural studies and practices that I began exploring in Global Intelligence and Human Development. They include intercultural and global (self-) awareness or attentiveness (instead of cultural critique); intercultural responsive understanding, communication, and cooperation; intercultural resonance (rather than mimesis); intercultural comparative analysis, with nonreductive juxtapositions or engagements of various cultural horizons; mutually enriching, dialogical modes of intercultural translation and interpretation; and nonviolent intercultural contact and learning experiences at the liminal intersections of various cultures.
Based on the foregoing principles, I then suggest a number of concrete research programs in intercultural studies that should initiate a much needed, comprehensive study of and dialogue among world communities and cultures, not only from local, national, or regional perspectives, but also from a global one. So, far from being limited to one or two cultures, or to one or two fields of knowledge, these types of programs would involve a sustained, collective, and cooperative effort on the part of learners, educators, scholars, researchers, and other practitioners from academic and nonacademic fields throughout the world. They would also require creative organizational and institutional forms that are better suited than our current ones for operating within a global reference frame.
Chapter 2, "The Role of the Humanities in a Global Age," outlines the research programs and methodologies of a proposed School of Intercultural Theory and Practice. The School would continue the work, and learn from the experiences, of an earlier International School of Theory in the Humanities that a number of colleagues and I founded and operated until recently. I then propose and consider in some detail two concrete, intercultural research projects. The first one concerns the history of the literary canon, as well as that of other disciplinary canons, in various world cultures. The second one proposes an extensive reexamination of the history of world literature and of other fields of knowledge in terms of works that stage complex intercultural issues that remain equally relevant today, in both a local and a global reference frame. Inthis particular instance, I consider an early view of globalization in English Renaissance drama, specifically, in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, comparing it with the postmodernist and postmarxist notions of globalization, present, e.g., in Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's influential book on Empire (2000).
The two research projects can be seen as having their origin in Western literary studies, but they could best be developed within a crossdisciplinary and crosscultural framework that includes a number of other human sciences, such as anthropology, art history, education, intellectual history, history and philosophy of science, history of religion, cultural studies, legal studies, music, philosophy, political science, sociology, women's studies, and so forth. While I attempt to show concretely how future intercultural projects in human sciences can productively be carried out across a wide range of traditional disciplines, I also attempt to reassure my colleagues in literary studies who feel that their field has lost all relevance to the contemporary world. My response to them is that few fields of knowledge could play a more important part than the humanities in creating new ways of thinking and acting within a global reference frame. But, we must reinvent ourselves in order to serve the human needs of intercultural communication and understanding, peaceful coexistence, and respect for the diversity of life on our planet.
In a world of increasing complexity and interdependency, there is an urgent need to interpret, understand, and communicate intercultural information properly, as well as to translate, mediate, and negotiate among the mindsets that generate it. So there is an ever-increasing demand not only for interlinguistic, but also for intercultural translation and interpretation. Cultural and linguistic commonalities and differences play an important, perhaps even a determining role, in many human transactions, including trade; diplomacy; political, economic, and environmental disputes; sports competitions; tourism; personal and social relations; and so forth. The humanities are best positioned to study, comprehend, and convey such commonalities and differences, as well as to mediate between them, in a responsible manner. The key words here are interpretation and communication. There is an urgent need to continue our research on the nature and modalities of human communication in its culture-specific contexts, as well as within a global reference frame.
First of all, however, it behooves literary and other humanistic studies to continue moving away from the notion of "discipline" itself and to prepare the way for transdisciplinary mindsets and practices in all fields of knowledge. In future global and crosscultural interchanges, traditional cognitive fields and boundaries will increasingly be challenged and reconfigured. We literary people should help this process along by contributing to the development of specific blueprints for future remappings of knowledge, which might well need to display the kind of ontological flexibility and epistemological inventiveness that have always been the mark of literary discourse. For that purpose, we need to give up our own territorial ways of thinking and doing things and to begin looking on literature not as a traditional canon of literary texts, but as a form of liminal activity that generates new cognitive associations and interactions.
Chapter 3, "Information and Communication Technology for Human Development: An Intercultural Perspective," explores the validity of the claim that the contemporary, Western-style technosciences, also known under the collective name of information and communication technology (ICT), have brought about a revolution in human history, inaugurating the so-called Information Age, which has in turn engendered a new global paradigm, called the "information" or "knowledge" society. I suggest that this claim might sound convincing only to those analysts and practitioners who assume that technology is the determining factor in the development of a certain society, driving its economy and, through the latter, all other social and cultural arrangements. But one needs to test this assumption against the broader, cultural historical background of current ICT, closely examining the intercultural and socioeconomic consequences of its introduction worldwide. Such an examination will reveal that, far from moving toward a genuinely new global paradigm, we are simply extending the currently dominant one.
When speaking of "information-" or "knowledge-" based economies and, by extension, societies, neoliberal and other analysts implicitly refer only to a Western-style system of commercial values and practices and, within that system, only to a small, if currently privileged, fraction of it: the subsystem of utilitarian values. Far from being a universal instrument of knowledge, the current ICT is merely an expression of this economic subsystem that wishes to impose itself not only on Western culture as a whole, but on all other cultures as well. Although shifts in modes of production/distribution and supporting technologies can certainly make a substantial difference in people's daily, material existence, they do not amount to global paradigmatic shifts. Such shifts come from human mentality, involving radical changes in modes of thinking, behavior, and interaction.
It is highly unlikely, therefore, that our current information and communication technologies, given their predominantly utilitarian orientation, will revolutionize our mentality any more than their earlier counterparts such as the radio, telegraph, telephone, and television did. Speaking of a "knowledge" society, moreover, obscures rather than clarifies the most important issues that humanity is confronted with and should be working on in the foreseeable future. Far from assisting us in resolving these urgent issues, the concept of a "knowledge" society appears, within a global reference frame, as smug, (self-) deceptive, and overreaching. Thus, within this global frame, instead of a "knowledge" society one would be much more advised to speak of "learning" or "intensive learning" societies.
In turn, I emphasize the necessity of creating different forms of ICT that would support worldwide learning and research projects, oriented toward global intelligence. I then highlight the important role that the humanities canplay in assessing and in helping develop such ICT forms. Specifically, I discuss two broad areas in which the humanities and the arts could prove particularly helpful: a) initiating extensive historical-theoretical reflection, as well as sustained intercultural and crossdisciplinary dialogue on past, present, and future ICT within local-global reference frames; and b) participating in the creation and development of new Internet projects and software concepts, based on, and further amplifying, emerging intercultural knowledge/wisdom. I give a number of examples in each area, including an analysis of Gunther Grass's recent novel, Crahwalk (2002), which utilizes the concept of the Internet both to create new narrative techniques and to reflect on the current cultural and ethical consequences of its worldwide use.
I also provide analysis of Quantum Relations (QR), an innovative concept of data processing, based on relativity and quantum theory in physics, as well as on the ontoepistemological assumptions of general systems theory and Whitehead's philosophy of process. In contrast to most reductionist scientific theories, QR implicitly acknowledges diversity and alterity as the very conditions of existence. It can take into account and process widely different cognitive perspectives, including linguistic, philosophical, cultural, sexual, and other observer-dependent variables.
Like other contemporary strands of systems theory, QR acknowledges that hierarchies as modes of organization are best understood not as centers of "command and control," but as reference frames or levels of complexity embedded or nestled within each other and engaged in constant communication and mutual interaction. QR could thus support and enhance a cooperative, symbiotic view of our universe, in which all living and nonliving components of the global system and subsystems depend on each other for their well-being and sustainable development. In the Appendix, I have also included a hitherto unpublished, "Brief Overview" of Quantum Relations, kindly provided by Hardy F Schloer, the founder of the theory, and his close collaborator, Philip Gagner. This overview offers a firsthand, general account of the theory, complementing my own analysis of it.
Chapter 4, "The Intercultural Studies Academic Program: A Pilot Project in Global Learning and Leadership," continues the proactive stance of the present book and proposes an experimental academic program, designed to educate local-global elites in the spirit of global intelligence. This is a three-year program, leading to a combined BA and MA degree in Intercultural Studies, and is based on the concept of intercultural studies that I develop in previous chapters and in Global Intelligence and Human Development. Indeed, it is the preparatory, undergraduate version of the doctoral program in Intercultural Knowledge Management that I outline in the latter book. Both programs take into consideration the current disciplinary and administrative constraints in our universities. Consequently, they could be implemented relatively easily even under the present state of world education.
A main objective of the Intercultural Studies Program (ISP) is to cultivate in its participants a sense of mission and commitment to local-global human values and ideals, as well as willingness and ability to translate them into practice throughout the world. ISP students develop superior intercultural linguistic and communication abilities, as well as increased intellectual mobility and flexibility, which allows them to feel at home in, and move freely across, several cultures, thereby gaining a genuine global, crosscultural perspective. The transdisciplinary and intercultural nature of the ISP research projects and academic curricula require that students move between institutions in several regions of the world, as well as across departmental divides at any single institution. A global perspective will give them the intercultural responsive understanding needed to bring together specialists or experts from various fields and from several cultures in order to design and execute transdisciplinary and intercultural projects that none of these experts would know how to implement on their own.
ISP is designed to create group solidarity among a culturally diverse body of students, teaching them how to cooperate in and effectively interact with shifting cultural and linguistic environments. It will also integrate academic and experiential knowledge. From the first year of their studies, students begin to acquire and combine theoretical and practical knowledge in order to address real-time, local, and global issues. They organize their curricula and research programs around the concrete problems they are asked to solve. They form crossdisciplinary and intercultural teams to work on viable solutions to specific, real-world problems, rather than through the codified practice of a particular academic discipline or culture.
ISP students, moreover, build capacity to identify and address potential socioeconomic and other types of problems before they develop into crises that threaten the peaceful development of world communities or diminish the diversity of world resources. They will also be called upon to design workable, realistic blueprints for the sociocultural and human development of their countries or regions, based on the best traditions of wisdom available in their cultures, as well as in those of others, and on the most cherished aspirations and ideals of their people.
Thus, the most important objective of ISP is to cultivate in its graduates a propensity toward global intelligence, or toward intercultural responsive understanding and action, in addition to global competence and expertise. This is what will distinguish ISP from many academic programs with an international and intercultural focus, such as can be found at some of the top international schools in various parts of the world. For the most part, the main objective of such international programs is to develop global competence and expertise that their students will, in turn, place in the service of individual private or public organizations, irrespective of the mission and goals of these organizations. These are important skills, and to date there is a grievous shortage of globalexperts in North America and many other parts of the world. But, for a genuine local-global practitioner, these skills cannot be separated from the goals and ethics of global intelligence, from which they derive their true meaning.
By way of conclusion, I would like again to emphasize that, despite differences in focus and disciplinary subject matter, the present book and the earlier one on Global Intelligence and Human Development complement each other and can best be read as a hypertext. They attempt to bring together, under the banner of intercultural studies, a wide variety of fields, cutting across many scientific and humanistic disciplines. Specifically, they create extensive links between global studies, environmental studies, ICT studies, the humanities, and global education, even though at present such domains of knowledge are treated as if they were largely independent of each other. Global studies, for instance, are considered as mostly the domain of the social sciences, such as international relations, sociology, political science, and political economy. In turn, environmental studies and ICT studies are regarded as mostly the domain of the physical and life sciences, whereas global education is mostly confined to the academic discipline of "higher education," even as this discipline is increasingly "encroached upon" by a number of nonacademic, national and international, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, concerned with developing new ways of learning and research in the context of globalization. On the other hand, the humanities, and literary studies in particular, are increasingly perceived as only marginally relevant to all of these other fields and to global issues in general.
My position in both books is that all of these areas of knowledge, as well as many others, should become part of the same transdisciplinary network, within a global reference frame. Yet, all too often, academic and nonacademic researchers and practitioners in these areas are unaware of the issues that concern their colleagues, or of the fact that many of them share the same concerns, especially at the theoretical and ethical levels. Consequently, they seldom talk to each other, let alone cooperate, across disciplinary and cognitive boundaries. My two companion volumes attempt, at least in part, to compensate for this regrettable lack. Above all, they stress the necessity of remapping our fields of knowledge and learning institutions so that they can communicate freely and interact symbiotically. One should remember at all times that, from a global perspective, there is ultimately only one kind of science, which is human science. It comprises any number of interdependent branches of learning and knowledge production, including the physical sciences, the social sciences, the humanities, and the performing arts, which can contribute equally to human (self-) development. Therefore, all branches of learning need to work together to generate new forms of integrated knowledge, oriented toward global intelligence.
I would also like to note that both books mark a departure in my way of thinking about scholarly research and educational institutions. In earlier works, I have attempted to convey my life philosophy and ethical beliefs mostly indirectly, through a detached, scholarly medium. In the past few years, I have found myself moving more and more toward a proactive stance in academia and scholarship, reflecting on and even seeking to contribute to alternative forms of institution building. I have come to believe that this stance-which I do not regard as political, but as broadly civic and ecological-is necessary, because too many of my colleagues in North American academia and elsewhere seem to have adopted either a purely negative or a fatalistic position toward the global changes that are dawning upon us. They appear to think that these changes are somehow coming from outside our local communities and have little to do with our deep beliefs and personal choices. Therefore, all we can do is either to react to them critically, if ineffectively, or to submit to them in a fatalistic, if not a cynical or opportunistic, fashion.
Nor do I agree, as I have made it clear, with those neoliberal and other analysts who see the current changes as being driven by our economies and/or technologies that subsequently become our fate. On the contrary, I believe that changes in our economies and technologies are driven by our increasing awareness of, and curiosity about, our almost unlimited potential as human beings and our desire to figure out how we can best evaluate and fulfill this potential. In this regard, it is up to us continually to transform our economies and technologies to suit our life projects, instead of fetishizing them and then surrendering our freedom to them, as we all too often tend to do, especially in academia.
The newly (re) discovered, nonlinear world conditions inherent in the current globalizing trends are both encouraging and terrifying. They are encouraging, because they reveal each individual human being to be an active participant in the continuously emerging local-global realities. They should thus alleviate the feeling of helplessness and "powerlessness" that many of us experience in the face of the complexities of the contemporary world. But, they are also terrifying, because our responsibilities as human beings have increased and continue to increase at an exponential rate. It is for this very reason that cooperative and dialogical, rather than agonistic models of human relations and interactions have now become imperative. It has also become imperative that all of us academics get involved at the level of our local communities and do not abdicate our responsibilities as intellectuals and educators in the face of the occasionally overwhelming onslaught of utilitarian and reductionist attitudes and practices that prevail both inside and outside our current learning establishments.

This gem of a book is a refreshing guide for growth into true life and an experience of the kind of happiness that lasts. It's a fresh reminder that we can mature in our capacity for goodness and love. Duff Gorle masterfully provides practical lessons in the Life of the Spirit, sharing realities that penetrate deeply and offer a richer, fuller, more satisfying life. I am re-reading and sharing the book with my loved ones.
I'm grateful to Duff Gorle for sharing his thirst for a more authentic life.
Anonymous, Laguna Beach, CA

This book is amazingly written from an open-minded perspective touching on real life issues that many of us bury or ignore. I was reminded that life is more than pure existence but a wonderful, beautiful adventure to enjoy! Thank you, Duff Gorle, for inspiring me to live my life to the fullest! I can't wait for your next book.

Wow. I'm glad I went out on a limb and bought this. It's worth it for the CD alone. The book is a nice aid as well, but, ummm the whole caveman blues-band narrative is a tad cheesy, and would be a little racist (a white, Tarzan-esque hijacking of what is essentially a black music) if it weren't so obviously bone-headed. Oh stop, I can't help with the cultural analysis. It's a reflex at this point. at least you don't have to sit with me in a movie theatre...

Back to the point, I would go so far as to guarantee that if you simply play along with the CD and skim the book for about 20- 30 minutes a day, you will MASSIVELY improve in skill. And the harmonica sounds really damn good on the CD- which makes you try harder. You want to be that good. Oh- Learning to Bend the notes on holes 2 and 3 takes TIME. I still can't hit them all when I need to.

But I can jam along with my favorite tunes by Mandrill, The Clash, The White Stripes, and many others... I feel like I have bounced moths ahead in week's time!

I don't know any other 'teach your self blues harp,' guides, because this one is working so well I haven't felt the need to purchase another. I enthusiastically reccomend this without reserve!

This book really made me start jamming the minute I started reading it. You are not supposed to know anything about music, or musical theory, to understand and follow the lessons. It brings everything from understanding music to knowing deeply the instrument, and I still use it from time to time, when I need more info about harp playing.

This book conveys a teaching whose roots are anchored in the past. It gives a new-life to the Rose+Cross. Not only you will find historical explanations about the mysterious order, but also secret ancestral techniques. These exercises can be a key to understand the meaning of life, and will show you the path to a good and healthy inner development.

It is not a dry book with dates , names of personalities , with each one trying to out do each other with their Titles , Charters , Certificates of Authenticity ,etc.

It is a Book written from the Rose of the Heart . Each sentence had an impact on my inner being . It's a book that's easy to read , but one , that I must re-read several times to digest
its meaning fully . This Book raised many emotions in my being , and I must be careful to keep my sense of objectivity .
Light , Love , Life

I'm not a die hard runner and I sure don't know everything about running. So I have questions. This book has been such an EASY reference when a questions pop up. I keep it next to my running log and probably refer to it at least 2 times a week. It gets a big thumbs up from me.

Collaboratively compiled and written by Richard Benyo and Joe Henderson, Running Encyclopedia: The Ultimate Source For Today's Runner provides an A to Z listing of all the people, places, things, and ideas that directly or indirectly affect runners and the sport/physical fitness regimen of running today. From age-grading (a system of equalizing runners by age and gender) to Emil Zatopek (arguably the greatest distance runner of all time), the Running Encyclopedia covers just about everything any novice or veteran runner could want to look up. A recommended giftbook for running enthusiasts and a core volume in any personal or professional sports oriented library collection!