Wang Books

The book reads much more like a very long psycho-analytical English essay that relies on a lot of assumptions to comment on foot binding than actual historical details and analysis of foot binding. If you're trying to find a book that will educate you about the concrete whys and hows of foot binding you won't really find that here. If on the other hand you're interested in how Chinese literature sheds light on the supposed psyche and mores of Chinese men and women as it relates to foot binding you might enjoy it more. As a side note I think some of the analysis in the book was farfetched and filler material for a thesis.

Aching for Beauty is an extensive history of the tradition of footbinding in China. Women were defined by the size of one's feet, a sign of beauty.Wang Ping describes the sexual connotations related to footbinding. I think the book is good,but the contents contains a lot of history and research in order to comprehend the author's intent. The book is more interesting in the second half when Wang Ping desribes female bonding called Tan Chi where women share writing, poetry,and verbal stories. This book would be a great reference in regards to footbinding and Chinese tradition through centuries. It is not an easy read.

I am sure there is plenty of intellectual meat in this book, but I wanted to know more about the phenomenon and experience of footbinding, and this is more like a literary and sociopolitical analysis... Just not what I was looking for I guess...

After enjoying Ping's poetry, I started reading this book. It is wonderfully well-researched. The photos are stunning in their ability to portray the mutilation of the feet. Most interesting is her ability to research this practice from several different views. I was very interested in the arts that promote this practice, as well as how historically it was often difficult to prevent women from continuing the tradition. This book was informative without lapsing into too many stats or technical theories.

Even though the topic is a fascinating one. I struggled to complete this book. The author has a PhD in Comparative Literature and according to the book jacket, teaches creative writing course.

I'm not sure how such an interesting topic could be written in such a dry manner, especially by someone who teaches "creative" writing. This book actually reads more like a doctoral thesis than a book for the mainstream audience. The author has written about the history of footbinding, eroticism and violence in China and how these are all entwined. The too-technical, overly-referenced, dense, academic writing style of the author has not done these topics justice.

This book rivals Alan Schom's biography as perhaps the worst biography of Napoleon ever written. Not only does it present an inaccurate picture of the French Emperor, it does not even attempt to present an even-handed presentation of the period, Napoleon, and the Grande Armee. As a final failure, it isn't large enough for a decent doorstop.

This volume is not recommended as a source or a reference, but it would have been very beneficial to the reader if an attempt at serious scholarship have been attempted. The book is biased in the extreme, and presents a false picture of a man and an age that, while complicated and sometimes difficult to research, deserves much better than this effort.
What has been done is nothing but a repeat of John Bull propaganda that isn't history, but national bias from a bygone age.

THis volume is a waste of good paper and printer's ink.

This book is not for you if you are looking for a basic reference material on Napoleone, as I was. After reading Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and Hugo's "Les Miserables", I was looking for something about Napoleone to put the whole thing in perspective. This book primarily focuses on the personality and psyche of Bonaparte. Barnett, the author seems to have assumed that the reader is already familiar with the events in Napoleone's life. Napoleone's celebrated military victories eg. at Jena, Austerlitz etc., Barnett attributes to the failings of his opposing commanders who fell to his trap and for all his military reverses he blames Napoleone's personal failings as a general and a commander.Not quite an unbiased view.

I really liked this book. No, it isn't unbiased I admit. Indeed, the author really seems to have taken against Napoleon. There are much better sources for Napoleon's military career, and a variety of better books on his life overall. Still, its fun once in a while to read an author who digs up the dirt, and doesn't pull any punches!

So I gave it five stars because I thought it was fun. Would I recommend it? As a fun read, yes. As an antidote to the servile adoration expressed by some authors, yes. But not for a reader not already well-read on the subject, since it is necessary to apply more than a grain of salt to the book. It is especially necessary to exercise caution about Corelli Barnett's estimation of Napoleon's motivations, which can never really be known.

Yours, James D. Gray

Upon reading this book you would think the author had a personal grievance with Bonaparte himself! At every available opportunity Barnett slams Napolean who he makes out was slap dash in the battlefield and relied on the brilliance of some of his generals. Also the author tries to demonstrate that Napolean had little directly to do with the reforms found in France today. Maybe it was just in style that the book is written, but I just found it to be too one eyed to be taken too seriously.

Barnett's hatred for Bonaparte undermines the whole book. There is a good case to be made for Napoleon as the forerunner of Stalin, Ceausescu, even Hitler; and another that he was lucky in many key battles and that as a continental strategist he was a bad joke (his planned invasions of England, Spain & Russia were supremely crass and blinkered). Barnett makes these cases very well, but he also glosses over some of Bonaparte's achievements in administrative reform and his occasional feats of battlefield brilliance. His tone is too sneering, so that even though he has an excellent grasp of both the basics and the detail, he allows his personal prejudices to cloud his judgement. The latter chapters are well written and compelling; the book builds up a good momentum as Bonaparte descends at pace into his self-authored and richly deserved fate, but I would have liked a more objective tone with regard to the early years and the reform programmes.

Let's face it. We Americans have a pretty sad track record when it comes to
knowing much about our nation's history, and understanding how our history
shapes our current lives and futures. With the United States now having more
interaction than ever with the rest of the world, it is even more critical
for each of us to gain knowledge of our past, and especially in the area of
foreign relations.

This book offers a timely and highly readable portrait of a fascinating part
of America's story: how the country was shaped from earliest moments to
become "the world's guarantor of liberty," and how it has variously grappled
with and cultivated that role in different eras.

The author is informed and entertaining. He sweeps readers through five
centuries of colorful, often uplifting, sometimes disturbing aspects of
America's unique qualities, beginning well before colonization and moving
through to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm one of those Americans who is sheepishly ignorant of a lot of the
standard US history we're meant to have learned in high school or college. I
was worried that this book would assume that I already knew the basics, and
that it would contain too much about specialized foreign policy matters to
hold my interest. But I enjoyed Ark of the Liberties as an overview of
American history through the framing subject of liberty. It turns out that
even pre-colonial aspects of America are shaped by ancient ideas and images,
such as the Garden of Eden, are associated with freedom from rules. The book
explains how freedom became part of America's identity even before it
existed as a nation. And, as someone with ancestors and close relatives who
have served in foreign wars including in Iraq, I was especially interested
in the coverage of American ideas of freedom as they have been used in
different wars and in diplomatic relations that prevented military conflict.

The book follows some major threads that carry the theme of liberty through
America's history. The most enduring ones are religious, and associate
liberty with heavenly paradise or, at times, with diabolical lawlessness
(America as Satan!). Other recurring themes (isolationism, internationalism,
realism, idealism) appear in foreign policy arenas such as our presidents'
views of liberating others or 'exporting freedom'. The author examines how
variations on initial building blocks of America's humanistic (universal)
ideals have influenced US foreign policy for good and ill throughout the
country's history.

I count myself among those Americans who are tired of hearing how
pathetically ignorant we are about our past. I would recommend this book to
anyone eager to break the bad habit of avoiding American history lessons.
Ark of the Liberties is a fun read. Many of its details will grip you, and
overall it will equip you with an understanding of the big patterns that
form America's exceptional place in the world, its real and imagined
qualities as a country like no other. The author does unveil some strong
political leanings in the last parts of the book (he was a foreign
speechwriter in the Clinton White House, and Clinton provides a glowing
blurb for the book). But ultimately Widmer proves to be first and foremost a
historian, sometimes a quirky and very funny one, with a passion for his
subject. Plus he has a gift for clear, engaging prose (not that I would
expect much else from a world-class speechwriter).

It is hard to write a serious review of this book, because the book doesn't say anything. It is US history, but the topic suggests that international affairs would be a more appropriate focus. The important period for understand current affairs are from WW II to the present. The framing of the constitution is important, as are the ideas of the Founding Fathers. But, we should learn how these ideas reverberated in democratic movements and constitutions in the rest of the world. There is none of that---just a lot of historical fluff of the sort one finds when Googling a topic and randomly writing a narrative on what one found.

The development of democracy in Latin America never gets focus. Allende is mentioned on one page, Cuba gets passing mention, as does Guatemalan death squads. El Salvador is not in the index, and the Trilateral Commission is never mentioned. This is a truly pathetic treatment of the region. Africa is treated even more casually. There are a few pages on the Philippines, but the role of the Reagan administration in promoting democracy in the Philippines is not mentioned. The relationship between democracy in the US and the promotion of democracy in the European Community is mentioned in passing on one page.

Someone should write this book. Widmer should stick to writing Presidential speeches and issuing little sound bites.

The New York Times last week gave a scathing review of this work. Every sentence of this book was home to purple prose and flat-out amatuerish-cliche-ridden writing. The review compared this book to a rushed sophmore term paper. The reviewer also compared the author to "Amy Winehouse."

If you are looking for sharp analysis of any issue at all, you shall not find it. This book was poorly written pointless historical fluff. It was if the only reason the author penned this work was to include his criticism of the Iraq war in the epilogue.

This book is a delicious series of essays documenting America's relation to and impact on the concept of liberty, beginning with the earliest days of colonialization. Widmer has assembled an unprecedented collection of material, selecting the most provocative and telling events in the history of our self-assigned role as liberty's hero. A treat for those prone to despair in these benighted - but, as Widmer shows, not unprecedented - times.

It's tempting to surmise that men's interest in body image, and their relatively recent concerns about physical attractiveness, along with sexualization of the male body, means they are becoming feminized. This, however, is decidedly not the case. Looking good is part of a quintessential male strategy whose ultimate aim is to make men more successful, competitive, and powerful. The means of achieving this goal may be new, but the objective is not.

Millions of American men have been transformed into body-conscious consumers of revealing fashions, seductive perfumes, and the services of hairstylists, personal trainers, and plastic surgeons. Due credit for this transformation must be given to advertisers, marketers, and self-esteem gurus, who have sold men--and all of us--a message of self-transfiguration through self-commodification. The traditional image of women as sexual objects has simply been expanded: everyone has become an object to be seen. -Lynne Luciano, Introduction to Looking Good

Though Lynne Luciano's look at male body image would be perfectly adequate as a long magazine article, maybe one of those forty page jobs in The New Yorker, it feels like it's stretched pretty thin as a book. Perhaps this is because one key element is missing : analysis and conclusions. The basic premise, as stated above, is intriguing, if arguable. The reportage, on trends in exercise, diet, hair loss remedies, cosmetic surgery, and sexual dysfunction treatments, over the past five decades, is excellent. She suggests a number of factors which have led men to be more concerned about how they look, some of which are fairly obvious--the Sexual Revolution, Youth Culture--but some of which are more subtle and interesting : later marriage and multiple marriages mean that men are on mating display long after their prime, whereas in the past they had only needed to look good between the ages of 15 and 21, when nature took care of most of the problem; loss of exclusive control over economic assets means that many men, just as women in the past, need to look appealing for more financially well-off mates. What's sorely missing though is a defense of the thesis, some discussion of what it all means, and some proposals for how to counteract these trends which clearly seem malignant.

As a threshold matter, it is not necessarily clear that the premise of the book is accurate. It may well be that this is simply one more instance where the massive and aberrant Baby Boom generation, by dint of sheer numbers and vocality, has warped societal perceptions, making it seem that their unique pathologies signal the coming of a new day. The defining characteristic of the Boomers has been their total and exclusive fascination with themselves. At each step along their march through life, they've wielded sufficient numbers and power to get whatever serves them best, but have always cast their demands as societal imperatives. Thus, when they were young, we got sexual revolution and drug culture, but they became parents and all of a sudden we were back to "Just Say No," and safe sex. When they were old enough to go to go to Vietnam, war became immoral. Sure enough, they got us out of that war, but for all their talk of changing the world, they seemed unfazed by Desert Storm. They abandoned their president, Bill Clinton, when he wanted them to pay for Universal Health Care, but now they are retiring and, mirabile dictu, it's time for a Universal Prescription Drug plan. And so on, and so forth. At any rate, they've made a fetish out of their youth, back in those halcyon 60's, and most of the trends in physical obsession that the author talks about may well just be attempts by this unique, unfortunately influential, cohort to cling to the illusion of youth for a few extra years.

A plausible argument can even be made that this cultural moment has already passed. Things like hair plugs and Viagra are relatively passive responses to aging, and are easily undertaken, but the type of exertion required to maintain a youthful physique is quite difficult. It would be shocking if many older men were actually able to maintain the weight levels, muscle tone, and stamina of truly younger men. Nor is there any evidence that they are doing so : America is notoriously becoming an obese nation. The response, at least in recent years, has not noticeably been for older men to exercise more, rather it has been for our archetypal males to get fatter : Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Drew Carey, John Goodman, Hank Hill, and that guy on the King of Queens are just a few examples. And the alternatives to this body type are not typically your masculine males--the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone of twenty years ago--instead there are the nerds, like Bill Gates and Ken Starr, or the androgynous, like Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio. It seems likely that as the Boomers are losing their battle with aging and the beltline, they are demanding icons who resemble themselves, which is after all easier than trying to make yourself look like some Madison Avenue version of the ideal male.

As for what it all means, to the extent that the process of objectification of the male body is going on, the focus on the physical shell rather than the inner being is easily explained as part of the broader and quite pernicious cultural trend towards extreme egalitarianism. Given enough hair treatment, cosmetic surgery, steroids, and exercise, you could pretty much make the entire population look the same. Hell, if Michael Jackson can turn himself into a Caucasian, what can't you do with technology ? Just wait until we can really manipulate DNA and you may have a planet that's half Antonio Banderas and half Jennifer Lopez. The problem, and the inherent flaw in egalitarianism, is that this inexorable grinding of the population towards a mean does not actually produce anything worthwhile in the people themselves. One day you wake up with a whole planet full of people who look exactly the same, think the same, achieve the same, and all you've got is a huge mass of mediocrity. The time men, and women, are wasting on making themselves "beautiful" could better be put to use improving their character and their minds. A society that invests so much of its time, money and effort in pure externalities and ignores the soul, must surely be headed for trouble.

As for proposals, here are two :

* Do not provide any health insurance coverage for any cosmetic processes or for drugs which target physique or sexual function. Make folks pay for all this crap and it will quickly fall out of favor.

* Strengthen the institution of marriage and make divorce more difficult. Marry one person and grow old, bald and fat together.

That should be enough to get us started on the road back to normalcy. The impending decrepitude of the Baby Boomers should take care of the rest.

GRADE : C

Luciano's message is both served and undermined by her mesmerizing and even-toned prose. I found myself at times wishing that she would get on a soap box and spew alarmist Vance-Packard-like jeremiads. I wanted her to denounce the predatory industries--medical, pharmaceutical, fitness, clothing, advertising--that seem to conspire to make people (in this case, men) so discontent (and preoccupied) with themselves. But Luciano is careful not to do this. The responsibility for this mad obsession with looking good (read "young") must be shared. Beginning with the 50s Organizational Man, Luciano traces how men's attitudes about themselves, their place in the economy, and their relationship with women has evolved in the last half-century. Though she presents more than adequate data (statistical and anecdotal) to make her points (her descriptions of hair-replacement and penile enlargement surgeries are not for the squeamish), it is her ability to interpret the broader economic, societal, and psychological issues that make "Looking Good" such a fascinating read.

If you read and enjoy this book, you'll probably also enjoy "The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private" by Susan Bordo. Bordo's take on this subject is more personal. I find it interesting that two of the most insightful books written about men recently have come from the pens of female academics.

I didn't think this book was well-written and any different from another book called The Adonis Complex, which was much more interesting and focused. From what I understand, the authors of the Adonis Complex were the original doctors behind many of the studies Luciano discusses, including the GI Joe study. I suggest picking up The Adonis Complex if you want a better understanding of this problem in men.

This book tells the recent history of why and how men have cared about their looks. As such, I think it's more informative than insightful. The most annoying thing about the book is that it is infused with an overly PC writing style: Quotation marks are overused in an attempt to distinguish traditional meanings from newer, liberal notions. Words like "male" and "beauty" are put in quotes with regularity, as if to repetitively stress, "if that word means anything, I mean it in the sense of what the unenlightened would say it means." The book would have been better served if it actually broached the anthropological as well as historical basis for what these words have meant to people at different times. This would have provided the tone of objectivity that the book aims for but lacks; its arguments would have been more persuasive.

On that note, I should mention that the author tends to overreach, drawing conclusions from isolated quotes and other insufficient evidence. This left me scratching my head all too often, saying, "Well, not necessarily." All in all, if you're interested in a history of the subject of the male beauty obsession, this book is a passable buy; I would skip it if you're looking for a thoughtful historical analysis.

This is more a testimonial to the Tibetan Qigong of Master Zi Sheng Wang than a narrative or biography. If one is considering studying Qigong or seeking relief from a health complication it would be wise to read this book and decide for ones self.

I've gone to one of Master Wang's workshops and find his approach to healing to be unique. This book is not by him, but by a follower, and so doesn't have much theory. Still, it helps explain the experience of being treated by Wang, and how it improves health.

Master Wang is one of China's great energy healers and a fascinating personality who has visited America for several years to teach Taoist & Tibetan Qigong. I have attended a dozen of his healing workshops and recommended several acupuncture patients to attend, & he gets results. So I would like to give this book high rating but that's not possible. Although it gives basic background and presents some interviews of people who benefit from treatments, it really misses the chance to present either a portrait of a wonderful, fascinating healer or an in-depth examination of an extraordinary healing modality. This is more like an advertising document, descriptions of workshops are lifted from the healing brochure, and most of the details could be heard by anyone who attends a couple of workshops. In a day and age when there exists a substantial body of excellent literature on Qigong, Taoism, Budhhism & Tibetan studies, this book still preaches on the tired theme that the West doesn't understand Eastern philosophy. Still, anyone who reads this is encouraged to attend Master Wang's healings & workshops, and you can easily get your own ideas beyond what is offered here.

I found this book somewhat outdated. Even though it was well-written if was of little value. There are several other books of better quality.

I've used this book in two of my groundwater modeling classes. Despite the fact that it is a little outdated, it has the clearest explaination I've come across of the mathematics behind groundwater modeling. In addition, it contains very good example problems.

I found this text very valuable in explaining the differences between these two methods and how each handles the dependent variable (head) and its first derivative (flow). The text also discusses Laplaces equation, iterative methods including Gauss-Seidel/SOR. Chapters are dedicated to finite difference and finite element methods under steady-state and transient conditions. It also demonstrates how each element is handled separately using finite element method and then the equations are assembled into a conductance matrix.

This text is a very good complement to other modeling texts. However, if you want to learn how to set up your hydrogeologic conceptual model, what data is needed to develop a good model, how to choose your numerical model, verify, calibrate your model, interpret results and perform a post audit, this is not that text. For the purpose of model setup etc. I would recommend Applied Groundwater Modeling.

This book was enjoyable to read. Books looking at messianic beliefs through history seem to be a burgeoning market. A better one covering the same material is Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millenium. As well, there are books that cover a very specific part of the picuture, such as Michael Barkun's Religion and the Rascist Right, examining British-Isrealism and Christian Identity. Part of the charm of Messianic Revolution is its looseness in defining radical religious politics. It often seems the authors include an idea or group simply because it interests them and then they shoe horn it gently into the narrative. This may not make for a authoritative book but it does keep the story and subject interesting and should lead the reader to read more on this subject.

Any brief review carrying a theme through many centuries will cover certain aspects in an overly simplified or superficial manner. But the test is if in the end the information provided grants us insight that would otherwise have been lacking. "Messianic Revolution" by Katz and Popkin stands up well to this test. Although at certain points early on the book seems to drag, by the second half all the pieces tie together well. The reader gains an understanding of where many messianic concepts current today had their origin. Such understanding can on the one hand break down prejudice caused by ignorance, on the other hand it can give the reader healthy caution in reviewing his own religious concepts. It is important to note the use and constant potential abuse of prophetic interpretations.

If we understand historically where we came from and how we arrived at this point at the turn of the millennium, we can have our eyes that much wider open as to what will or will not occur in the next.

The authors show commendable effort in tackling such an ambitious project. Unfortunately their scholarship is often spotty. One example of many: they base their discussion of Jehovah's Witnesses on superficial, secondary, non-scholarly sources. They state that Jehovah's Witnesses "reject the use of tobacco and alcohol, and will not accept blood transfusions." (P. 158) This is more-or-less correct regarding blood transfusions, but the authors of this book are obviously not aware of the fact that the scholarly literature concerning Jehovah's Witnesses documents widespread alcoholism among the Witness leadership. Similarly, on page 456 and elsewhere, the authors make sweeping statements concerning John Calvin, statements that they fail to document, and which, in fact, constitute gross oversimplifications. On the other hand, the authors, with more attention to research and more mature reflection, are no doubt capable of writing a much better book some time in the future. They need to go back to the library !

The previous reviewer said this is a mathematically difficult book? I say yes and no. This is a nice book for theoretical fuzzy control novice. It is considered a thin book but covers sufficient basics leading to concept and design of fuzzy logic and fuzzy control.

But watch out! This is not a book for those who have not a propriate background of control theory nor advanced mathematics (abstract algebra and numerical analysis). If you are a student or someone who has little or no knowledge of such topics, I suggest you to find other books.

I think this book is excellent for those who need to design control machinary, as artificial intelligent base. I recommend this book to anybody who needs an introduction of fuzzy control theory and design (maybe for people who work for control machinary manufacturing companies?).

Mathematical difficulty will make you tired. But the idea to adjust the fuzzy parameters, i think, is helpful to study adaptive fuzzy control. Mathematical difficulty is due to stability analysis.

I wanted to see what this book looks like, simply based on the price which is also why I gave it one star. I may be in the minority with this opinion, yet if this book is "worth" the money they want for it I would presume one would want to know what it looks like. I looked it up on Barnes & Noble's web site and it really looks no more spectacular than any other coffee table photography book. I love photography and can appreciate a beautifully laid out book of similar caliber, yet I find it interesting what a used copy goes for on their site? Thanks

I believe the title listed in this edition is actually a set of limited edition prints from which the book came from. Hence the high price.

The actual book lists for $50 and sells for the mid 30s on this site.

I think the combination of the academic sounding subtitle, and the rather lurid cover art illustrate the problem this book presents; it never seems to be sure whether it's trying to be PH.d thesis or a potboiler.

The story it tells is fascinating, to be sure. It's remarkable to reflect how much social and technological turmoil the US was in during the time period examined, and how much of a struggle life was for many. This is the context from which Sandow, Houdini and Borroughs arose, and the authors thesis seems quite sound. But it's not particularly coherently developed. And the biographical details are a bit uneven. I found myself wishing for a deeper discussion of the flaws of the "Perfect Man" that Sandow, Houdini and Tarzan represented, perhap unfairly, for the book sets out to tell the start of Beefcake as an ideal, not it's whole sorry history.

A worthy read, but not as compelling as I wanted it to be.

This relatively short and well-illustrated book presents brief portraits of three contemporaries from the turn of the last century: bodybuilder Engen Sandow, escape artist Harry Houdini, and the fictional Tarzan (as well as his creator Edgar Rice Burroughs). Kasson's thesis is twofold: that their popularity was emblematic of the insecurity that white males felt in an increasingly bureaucratic world that threatened racial, sexual, and cultural hegemony and that their semi-mythical qualities were instrumental in changing the collective sense of the ideal man.

These stories are undeniably fascinating and informative, and Kasson's thesis is fairly straightfoward. Because Kasson's argument seems easily supported, he is able to focus more on biographical rather than thematic details and includes much information that is not necessary to his argument. As a result, I found myself wishing several times that I were reading instead the three major biographies on which much of his narrative is based: David Chapman's "Sandow the Magnificent," Kenneth Silverman's "Houdini!!!," and Irwin Porges's "Edgar Rice Burroughs."

A terrific storyteller, Kasson is likewise unable to avoid including several vignettes that have no direct bearing on his thesis. This is not necessarily a bad thing: his account of female impersonator Julian Eltinge is certainly intriguing, but this section seems peripheral to his discussion. Likewise, he discusses Houdini's obsession with debunking spiritualists, especially Mina ("Margery") Crandon, but it's never really quite clear what this has to do with societal perceptions of the white male body. Kasson attempts, unconvincingly, to present this as a battle of the sexes, but admits that Houdini directed his ire toward all psychic charlatans, regardless of their sex. Margery just happened to be among the most "talented" of the spiritualists. When he does finally return to his thesis, the prose turns to semi-parodic academic-speak: "In exposing Margery's fraud, Houdini also exposed her as a woman who, despite all her guides and talents, could only sham the phallus."

Fortunately, these occasional faults seldom mar the overall presentation. Not only did I enjoy these tales, but Kasson has piqued my interest enough to make me want to read more about these three paragons of "masculinity."