Stanley Books

The Seventh Edition of this 4-inch x 7-inch x 2-inches-thick book of 1,366 pages was published in 1940 by the McGraw-Hill book company from the writings and collections of authors Fred H. Colvin and Frank A. Stanley.

This book was used by virtually all American Machinists in every WWII production industry. It provided all those fine folks with a common reference point on which most all bombs, jeeps, airplanes, locomotives, ships, boilers, guns, trucks, tanks, boats, motors and many more items were built.

The First Edition was published by the same authors in 1908. Thirty-two years later the two authors published the Seventh Edition. A 75-page Dictionary of Shop Terms preceeds the 37-page Index. The 14-page Table of Contents fully identifies the contents of each of the 27 Sections in the book.

I use the book every day in my cabinet making efforts and have not yet found any obsolete information. Those more knowledgeable about Section XXVI's railroad shop data ( all steam related ) may not be as lucky as I am with THIS STUNNING GEM OF A BOOK.

The world owes an incalculable debt to authors Fred Colvin and Frank Stanley for their exquisite amalgamation of soooooo much information into a book that fits in a (larger) pocket.

If one would ever have a chance to see or own one of the 25,000 published in the 1940 Seventh Edition, then I would calculate that one is very fortunate indeed !

This book offers a unique insight of the Korean War at its worst as seen through the eyes of an Orthodox Jewish Chaplain who shared the travails of the American soldiers at a most desperate time in our history. It is comprised of translations from the Yiddish, as it was published in the Yiddish Daily, The Morgan Journal, out of New York. The book has a fascinating introduction about the Korean War which in abbreviated form sets the stage for a true understanding of the depth, breadth, and tragedy of this conflict. It also gives a heretofore unseen insight into the thoughts and behavior of the Jewish soldier of that time. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the Korean War from "the trenches". Original maps and clear writing make the information come to life.

At the close of a review of _Analog Science Fact Reader_ (1976), I asked: "Isn't it about time for somebody to publish a collection of more up-to-date science articles from _Analog_?" I should have known. Somebody had already done so. _Analog: Essays on Science_ (1990), edited by Stanley Schmidt, is an assemblage of a score of fact articles from the 1980s. I will say at the outset that it is excellent and well worth your attention.

From the 1940s on up to the present, _Analog_ has published at least one science article per issue by a variety of authors on a variety of topics. The overall quality has been consistently good. How does a magazine do what _Analog_ has done? First, you need an editor with a strong background in science-- somebody who can judge the _content_ of the science as well as the quality of the writing. The last three editors of _Analog_-- John W. Campbell, Ben Bova, and Stanley Schmidt-- have all had that background. Second, you need to build up a stable of fact writers qualified to to write in a variety of fields. You need some writers who can do articles on astronomy, some who can do articles on meteors, some who can write about xenobiology, some who are experts on ecology, some who can provide information about spacecraft, some who know their oats about cybernetics, and... But you get the idea.

Nor can the editor simply sit back and wait for the right articles to come in. He must encourage his writers, build up relationships with them, generate ideas for articles, and give constructive feedback. Many fact writers for _Analog_ also double as fiction writers. Names likely to be familiar to science fiction readers in this collection include Poul Anderson, L. Sprague de Camp, David Brin, Arthur C. Clarke, Milton Rothman, and Tony Rothman. Lesser known fact/fiction amphibians herein are John Gribbin, Rick Cook, and Joel A. Davis. But this is by no means true of all of the authors. Chris Peterson, K. Eric Drexler, Patrick Collins, Thomas Donldson, Christopher P. Dunn, and Richard Matzner come from scientific, academic, or industrial backgrounds and don't seem to write much fiction.

The articles are organized in six categories: New views of the Past, The Universe We Live In, What Is This Thing Called Man?, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Coming Soon..., and Beyond Tomorrow: The Far Future. While a number of the essays are of a speculative nature (especially those in the extraterrestrial intelligence section), none are what I would characterize as pseudoscientific. John W. Campbell had a strong background in science, but he constantly wanted to see what he considered "scientific orthodoxy" overturned. He was therefore frequently a sucker for pseudoscientific bandwagons-- dianetics, the Heironymous machine, dowsing rods, the Dean drive, and psionics. Editors Ben Bova and Stanley Schmidt have moved away from such articles-- wisely, I think. Short-term sensationalism doesn't outweigh long-term ridicule to the magazine when much-touted Scientific Breakthroughs don't pan out. But can more traditional science articles hold the reader's interest? I believe that they can.

Some articles generate interest because they deal with controversial issues or "hot button" topics. These include Poul Anderson's "Science and Creation," George W. Harper's "A Little More Pollution, Please!", L. Sprague de Camp's "Man's Biological Future," and Thomas Donaldson's "24th Century Medicine". The areas of concern are, respectively, evolution and creationism, pollution and climate change, eugenics and overpopulation, and cryonics and future medicine. You may or may not agree with all of these authors, but you will find that they argue intelligently. And you won't be bored.

Other articles attract interest because their basic content is highly unusual or original. Examples include the articles by Christopher Dunn (on advanced machinery in ancient Egypt), Richard Patrik Terra (on life found near hydrothermal vents), H. Keith Henson (on memetics and human cult behavior), Milton Rothman (on death statistics), Robert A. Freitas (on alien sex), and Stephen L. Gillett (with a portrait of Venus _after_ it has been terraformed). These pieces were all well-written, though I found the Freitas to be a bit too speculative for my tastes.

Other articles deal with topics that have been covered many times before. But they serve as readable introductions to important areas of science. Some examples of introductory pieces are those by Richard Matzner, Tsi Piran, and Tony Rothman (on demythologizing black holes), Arthur C. Clarke (on new communications technologies), David Brin (on xenology and the search for intelligent life on other worlds), and Chris Peterson and K. Eric Drexler (on nanotechnology). The black hole article by Matzner, et al. is especially outstanding-- one of the best in the book.

Finally, there are articles that deserve attention because of the way that they are presented-- with an unusual style, a touch of humor, or a bit of imaginative pizzazz. Examples include pieces by John Gribbon (on base eight math, meteors, and man), Patrick Collins (on space tourism), Joel A. Davis (on exploring the asteroids), Mark E. Peeples (on DNA testing and Huntington's disease), and Gordon A. Woodcock (on interstellar flight).

In closing, I will mention that only one woman is represented in this collection-- Christine Peterson. If that doesn't seem like a lot, consider this: For many years, _no_ women published fact articles for _Analog_. In more recent years, women have been going into fields like medicine, biochemistry, physics, and mathematics. To his credit, Stanley Schmidt has added a sizeable number of qualified women to his stable of fact writers. The male/female ratio in this anthology is a bit misleading.

This book was a great asset, the illustrations and text were always very concise and to the point. It will be one of your most used reference tools in lab. I would always reviewed this book before any test and it helped me greatly.

Step-by-step guide to all things anatomy. Fantastic illustrations!

I am impressed with the brevity and organization of this softcover book. I studied Marieb, and love that book, but this is a great review book for me to retain what I learned in greater detail. The diagrams in this paperback are very helpful. I will use this book to teach my daughter anatomy and physiology. This book is very user-friendly. I took it to the oil change shop and filled in blanks while I waited. The study guide in the back of the paperback is fun, like working a jig-saw puzzle. Enjoy this book, especially after you have studied a more indepth text to retain your knowledge!

This book did so much to portray the accounts of spiritualism and seance phenomena in Canada and the US. If you are in to the details of a seance and history of how they became popular and the good and the bad experiences this book is a great find! It is evidential of afterlife communication based on historical references and very factual.

Rosen's book has the rare quality of being playful and provokative, while also invoking the impression that it rests on very solid scholarship. The book reads as a polemic, but would nevertheless easily defend a place in any academic course on political philosophy or cultural cricism. Most fascinating is the way in which the author makes the whole history of western thought come together, while simultaneously securing a consciousness of the gaps and differences comprised in it. The sweep is wonderful and the points often surgically precise. There is a singular author at work here, one that I belive no one will regret the time spent reading.

Father Jaki has some very interesting insights; this is a very good read and offers a number of interesting observations.

Jaki is an historian of science possessed of a brilliant intellect, but he is also a brilliant and entertaining writer, and wickedly funny, to boot. This short book is one of my favorites of his. In it he treats, in about 100 pages, the radically different views of man held by scientists and theologians down through the ages. If the subject sounds a little dry, in Jaki's hands it is not (and I am no theologian or philosopher, just a simple liberal arts major). He has a wonderful gift for the vivid and telling anecdote -- for a few well-chosen descriptive strokes and quotes that bring an historical figure to life on the page. That is the surface pleasure of the book, with its deeper pleasure the elegance and force with which Jaki sets forth his larger thesis. Recall he is an historian of science -- with a gifted historian's ability to perceive telling connections and patterns within the mess of facts that make up the historical record. And like all great historians Jaki has, too, a marvelous rhetorical gift for getting across his opinions and conclusions in language that imprints them on the mind in a powerful and persuasive way.

To sum things up, here's a nice quote from a 1984 review of the book by M.D. Aeschliman: "Only a hundred pages long, Jaki's 'Angels, Apes, and Men' is the distillation of a lifetime of profound learning; it is a magisterial book that by its sure and eloquent command of scientific history and philosophical rationality joins what errant and transgressive minds too often put asunder, the worlds of matter and mind, of physics and metaphysics, of science and religion."

If you are new to Jaki, the place to begin is with his masterwork, The Savior of Science. But if you are already familiar with the man's work, "Angels, Apes and Men" will not disappoint. It offers Jaki in top form, and a real treat for the Jaki fan.