Powell Books

You do not have to read this book by starting at the front. Just pick any chapter and read. You will have your faith in God renewed in just the few short minutes it takes to read any of the devotionals in these great writings. Be prepared to know that God still loves you no matter WHAT! You will once again be inspired to realize that God is in you and ready to lead you through this life if you put him in charge. God has no plan "B". He is always following his original plan and you will know that His love for you is his plan. Take a minute or two, read 1 chapter, and let God renew your life!

Nove details the pre-reform and reform process of the Soviet economy, mostly focusing on 1950s-1970s. It isn't an economic analysis in the sense of theory and mathematical proof, but it is instead a straightforward discussion of (in detail) why the attempts at reform were not fixing the underlying problems of the Soviet approach.

The planning agencies and the hierarchy of centralization are discussed a length (though I would have liked more details on the internal workings of the Gosplan myself), "centralized pluralism" and problems of decentralization are discussed, you'll learn about normed net profit and other approaches to tracking planned output, also investment, wages and differences between industry and agriculture, inflation, choice and of course incentives and calculation problems in each of these areas are all discussed at great length. Finally future options are discussed - as this was pre-collapse.

The best thing about this text is the detailed analysis of why incentive structures have failed in socialist experimentation and why all myriad of reforms undertaken did not help. The data and anecdote from the real world experience is compelling. This unbiased accounting of the issues is priceless.

To give one quick gem from the book: one of the earliest reforms was a slight decentralization, since central planners could not determine exactly what each firm could produce. Ministries were set up with local level planners and what amounted to big public firms which could decide exactly how to fulfill a more general plan or target. Planning, rather than profit-maximization, means that Soviet firms must reach a target, and incentives put in place so that workers and managers will work toward fulfillment (be they monetary or otherwise) will encourage those who make decisions on how to reach the target attempt to produce the most at the least cost to themselves (in terms of labor, for example).

So, planners provide a target - and it tends not to be in money terms (since prices of inputs will be set by planners and may not be cost effective for the other firm to use, etc, but you'll see it doesn't matter). So, they will choose a target such as 100 tons of boots. The firm will then have to choose how to reach this target. So, they find the most heavy material to use for boots. They produce much less than expected, often making a horrible final product, but follow the letter of the plan and cannot be punished.

So, the planners change the target. Instead they ask for a certain number of boots. The next batch are made from the flimsiest of materials, made appreciably smaller or all in the same size, run through the machine at the least cost, making it faster and cheaper to produce in hopes of squeezing some extra funds out of savings or shortening the work-day.

So, then the planners to to combine requests, but the process continues. You cannot tell them exactly the size, color, weight, dimensions, materials -- because the central planners cannot know what inputs exactly and demands exactly that you must work with. That is why the Soviets were trying to decentralize in the first place!

So, pipe firms were told to make x number of tons and used the heaviest of metals - but when it was changed to meters, they produced light cheap pipes that were unusable and everyone agreed that they must switch back. They used tons for everything even plastic dolls! Monetary aggregate measures also would lead to bad mixtures of inputs, no single measure was impossible (or even difficult) to use to advanatge. Cloth was planned in linear meters and led to long thin strips of cloth being made; if square meters were used they would be made too thin, while they needed to be sturdy and durable.

One transortation firm was told to carry so many hundreds of tons of materials so many kilometers per year, in hopes that they would spend the day hauling the materials between the other firms in order than inputs were brought to the firms which needed them. They succeeeded in encouraging the trucking firm to drive in circles all day!!

They even drove empty, in order to clock more kilometers with which to multiply the number of tons hauled... yes and geologists also fulfilled planning targets of "number of meters dug" so that the old adage of digging holes and filling them up again was never truer.

this is a wonderful book based on Innocents "inner circle" during his reign as pontiff, this is a look into innocents power, campaigns, politics during this era when the papacy was the most powerful ever which still stands today, a young man elected to the chair of Peter.

A fascinating, rigorous yet personal, application of Deleuzian concepts to the neglected field of horror studies. This is a ripe subject, as Deleuze is all about strange metamorphosis and viseral impact. Powell makes us look at both Deleuze and visceral/horror cinema in a new way. Intruginigly, the book engages BOTH Deleuze's cinema books AND his collaborations with Guattari in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia series, with much success.
This book is a beautiful tome and well worth it's steep sticker price. You will NOT find this rare volume in any computer databases.

Patients often believe everyone in the dental office nows everything about dentistry. It's not true. But this book can help get "everyone on the same page" by standardizing explanations to common dental procedures and situations.

This is a quick-read, fast-paced, true story.
It has it all: Humor, suspense, and adventure.
Readability and interest intergenerational = age 10 to 100!
Includes photographs of places and characters within the book.
Story takes place in southwest usa and mexico's sierra madre mountains.

I originally obtained a copy of Geoffrey Powell's "Devil's Birthday" on a visit to London 20 years ago. Unlike most works on the Arnhem battle, Powell, who was a company commander in the British "Red Beret" paratroopers who fought there, gives the reader the full scope of the campaign - not just the battle for Arnhem bridge.

He chronciles the bitter strife between the Allied commanders involved - not only Montgomery versus Eisenhower but within First Allied Airborne Army, between the American Air Force General, Lewis Brereton, an "odd choice" to command this Airborne Army, capable but with the shadow of the destruction of his command in the Phillipines at the beginning of the war hanging over him, and with his deputy, the brilliant but irascible British General Frederick "Boy" Browning, who as a genius in Airborne warfare had never actually fought in an Airborne engagement! Pressured by the quick Allied advance into France and the Low Countries after D-Day, Brereton and Browning kept planning airborne operations that were stopped at the last minute by Allied successes on the ground, Brereton and Browning clashed bitterly, and at one point the high-strung Browning (husband of "Rebecca" novelist Daphne DuMaurier)submitted his resignation - but chose to stay on.

Then Montgomery came up with his plan to secure the Rhine Bridges in Holland and open the gates into Germany's Ruhr - Operation Market-Garden. Browning became an enthusiastic proponent of this, in no small part for finally unleashing his trained and beloved 1st British Airborne Division into battle. (its sister division, 6th Airborne, had already seen combat on D-Day as chronicled in Stephen Ambrose's "Pegasus Bridge") The normally cautious Browning failed to heed or take seriously all warnings including one from his chief intelligence officer, Major Brian Urquhart (later Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations) that the Germans, far from beaten, had brought tanks into the Arnhem area, Thus, as thousands of brave, enthusiastic British and American paratroopers prepared for battle, a tragedy was already in the works.

Powell surprisingly is not as critical of Browning as are other British participants, including the Arnhem field commander, the late John Frost are. Colonel Frost (later a Major General in the British Army) was wounded and captured along with the majority of his command trapped alongside the Arnhem bridge by German tanks and infantry. His only criticisms of Browning is for taking his battalion-sized headquarters into Holland at the Groesebeek Heights outside the town of Nijmegen, where the American 82nd Airborne had landed and were more successful than the British were, however suffering extremely heavy casualties. Powell felt that Browning, desirious to see combat, should have stayed in Britain and directed the battle from there, including further drops by Polish paratroopers and the subsequent relief effort. Being "on the ground" in the midst of it all could not and did not give Browning an overall sense of the fight. Otherwise Powell's criticisms of Browning are mild compared to other Airborne personnel - including Frost who bitterly writes how Browning told airborne commanders - Arnhem Bridge - take that, and then went on to say to the Americans - and seize Groesebeek Heights.

General John "Shan" Hackett, a great British Military Historian who was also one of the 1st Airborne Battalion commanders, was wounded and narrowly evaded capture in the confusing, swirling battles that marked the aftermath of the failure to take Arnhem Bridge has rightfully credited Powell with writing a full book about the full campaign, including the splendid contributions of the American paratroopers of Jim Gavin's 82nd Airborne and Max Taylor's 101st, who did achieve their objectives albeit with heavy casualties; and of the efforts of the Polish Airborne, who tried to relieve their British comrades - wishing though that they had been deployed over Warsaw instead of the Dutch countryside. The Polish commander, a very experienced officer who had fought the Nazis in the battle of Warsaw and had escaped via the underground to France, had constantly warned Browning about "the Germans, General, the Germans" and had been rewarded with being dismissed from command following the debacle.

If not the best book written on the scope of the Arnhem campaign, Powell's book is indeed the best one written by an active "Red Beret" participant of "The Bridge Too Far".

Thank you, Steerforth & Tim Page (and Gore Vidal) for making the work of Dawn Powell available. Of all her books, I like the diaries the best--so candid, such a grown-up view of the world; her comments on writing, the New York literary world, and the gritty beauty and ugliness of New York are always acute. Her grasp of the complexity of relationships is amazing-her comments about her husband Joe, her sweetheart, and her child are poignant reminders that life need not be perfect to be rich. Here is the voice of a remarkable woman, one of the most clear-eyed American writers of the twentieth-century. She captures a particular New York moment as does no other writer, and that's saying something.

I am somehow reminded of another great writer, another unsentimental woman: Natalia Ginzburg. An Italian, her work and Powell's are very different, yet they share a rare candor and stoicism.

School-age beginner English Language Learners like to use this board book as a learning tool. Once it is read a few times, teachers can have students practice rereading it independently. It can be a template for learning to ask questions to express themselves and their thoughts.

My twins were given this book as a gift when they were around 12 months old. I used to read it to them and they liked it. But now at 16 months they love it and my one little girl brings it to me to read over and over. When you pull the tabs out, it says "No, I am a (whatever animal its supposed to be)". Both of my girls pull it out themselves and say the NO part and then "pretend" they are saying the rest. Its really cute to watch! I have to order another though because the one they have is not in the greatest of shape anymore from being "read" so much.