Ward Books

Thomas Molnar's _Utopia: The Perennial Hesesy_ explains the fundamental errors and wickedness of utopian thought. Utopianism applies to the idea that mankind will experience a state of bliss and harmony in this world, in this life, after certain things happen as a result of a determined process of history. Although _The Perennial Heresy_ was published in 1967, it still remains relevant to today, especially because of Molnar's insight as to how improved communications technology (he mentions the first computers in development at that time) would appear to validate utopian prospects of a united, mechanized mass-humanity. Religious utopians, like numerous heretical offshoots in the Middle Ages and Reformation period, believed Christ's return was eminent and would establish a worldly rule of saints before the final judgement. Secular utopians, on the other hand, believe a utopia is the inevitable outcome of material, social, economic, psychological, evolutionary (and as in the case of Nazism, racial) forces working toward a climax of history where all men would live in harmony. The foremost and most influential utopian theorists were of course Rousseau, Marx, Engels, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, the Gnostics, Joachim of Fiore, and in the religio-evolutionary sphere, Telihard de Chardin. Chardin, a Jesuit paleontologist, wrote of the evolution of God, mankind and Christ into a cosmic whole, an "Omega point" where mankind would realize his Godhood. Marx and Engels wrote of the eradication of religion (along with other societal institutions like government and the arts) in society as a precursor and necessity for the coming Communist collective paradise. A utopia, a literal "nowhere," implies an end to progress, and development. Man, a finite, material, temporary being has replaced the transcendent, immortal God as the repository of Divinity. The highest authority in human affairs would be recognized as the State (in power because it supposedly represents Rousseau's "will of the people") to which all must share allegiance. Any who do not comply must be forced out or eliminated. There is no conception of freedom of choice or independent action outside of the boundaries set by the State. The "heresy" of utopian thought is essentially the denial of free will, the replacement of faith (something that is not materially certain, or can be proved so) with a rigid historical, dialectical determinism. Since religion, especially the Christian conception of God, is unacceptable for social progressivism, it must be openly abolished (Revolutionary France, Soviet Union) or subverted to accommodate for the interests of the State (Western democracies). Molnar labels utopianism "evil," and goes to a length to justify that harsh appellation. Utopianism entitles a control upon, if not an outright war against, human nature, which is and remains imperfect in this time, in this life. The entire experience of human existence, embracing family life, reproduction, race, nationality, culture, religion, geography, climate differences, scarcity of resources, division of labor, social deviance, etc., negates against utopian sameness, unity and conformity to a collective mass. Indeed, utopian thought, even in its present American technical cybernetic variety, relies upon ancient Gnostic beliefs (a topic to which Molnar constantly refers) in a universal pantheistic monad-a oneness of God, physical material, humanity and its intellect coalescing at the culmination of time. It is totally opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity, of God's three Persons of one Essence, Father, Son and Holy Sprit, which created the cosmos as it exists and operates. The utopian dream of a perfect society and perfect world is a revolt against _being_, against existence itself.

Utopia, the Perennial Heresy is a very original and thorough criticism of modernity, in particular some of the political movements that can be traced to the enlightenment. The hypothesis of the book is that the overwhelming self-confidence of the utopian visionary and his/her belief in creating a perfect world on earth is by its essence at odds with the Christian understanding of human nature (in particularly the idea of a personal God and that of original sin). Based on this hypothesis TM argues that utopian ideals (Christian and non-Christian alike) inevitably lead to exclusion or isolation of those members of society who dare to question and think independently, the favouring of mediocrity over natural talent, and the disappearance of privacy. On an official level the accompanying result is extensive bureaucracy. The criticism is aimed not only at the most obvious examples (Marxism, Nazism) but also at some of the symptoms exhibited by present-day USA and Western Europe such as political correctness, the dominance of the so-called "left" in the arts, media, and academia.

My only problem with the book was that in the industrialized societies of the early 19th century there was a strong need to address the ills of capitalism. TM's criticisms of Marx (who attempted to address them) seem to be valid, but as far as every day problems of the era (as opposed to philosophical issues) are concerned, I believe the followers of traditional Christian teachings was too self-absorbed, ence of little use to many.

Nevertheless, given the present situation, the book is a real mind-opener, and an appeal to balance and modesty! Even if one is not willing to go along with its hypothesis the careful analyses in the book devoted to each idea presented (and there are many, from modern Christian thinkers to Pantheism and Buddhism) provides a constant intellectual stimulus. TM manages to present what is essential, and at the same time not get lost in the details. The references chosen by TM are also a great basis for further study!

Utopia, the Perennial Heresy is a very original and thorough criticism of a common human tendency: attempting to create a perfect world. The hypothesis of the book is that the overwhelming self-confidence of the utopian visionary and his/her belief in creating a perfect world is by its essence at odds with the Christian (Augustinian) understanding of human nature (in particularly the idea of a personal God and that of original sin). Based on this hypothesis TM argues that societies built upon utopian ideals (Christian and non-Christian alike) inevitably lead to exclusion or isolation of those members of society who dare to question and think independently, the favouring of mediocrity over natural talent, and the disappearance of privacy. On an official level the accompanying result is the growth of bureaucracy. The criticism is aimed not only at the most obvious examples (mainly Marxism) but also at some of the symptoms exhibited by present-day Western societies such as political correctness, the dominance of ideological bias in the arts, media, and academia.

Even if one is not willing to go along with the hypothesis of the work, it has to be acknowledged that TM definitely places what he has to say on solid foundations. Not only is a wealth of ideas and their historical contexts presented in this book (which alone makes it of great educational value) the critical examinations from such an original point of view turn each analysis into real food for thought.

I saw this book on a friends desk and shamelessly took it before he had a chance to read it. I have many php books on my bookshelf, too many. I can now remove quite a few and replace them with this book.

When I first glanced through this book, I was intrigued by the way it was laid out. There are 12 chapters covering many topics that php programmers should know about their language and how browsers interact with a web server using php. Each chapter has many sections that cover a specific topic and most have very useful code examples. The extra feature is a part labeled: "What can go Wrong?". This is a great time saver on how to deal with common issues that might come up when you are working on your php script and implementing the example code. Most of the issues have really good explanations of how and why something could go wrong. What makes this book a real keeper is that they have the "why" explanations. I've always hated it when books tell you to do something a certain way, but never go into any depth on WHY you should do it one way or another. This book has the WHY covered very well for a great number of the examples.

The style of the book makes it easy to read and learn from the examples. In my case, it makes it easy to pickup, read a few pages when I get the chance and then put it down again. I find it easy to pick up right where I left off and keep reading right on to the next example. I like the humor level too. Often authors can get a little too cutesy with their wit and humor. I find that to be a real turn off. William and Brian (The authors) do a great job of keeping the humor light and laughable.

I just made some room on my busy book shelf for this book of 76 time-saving, problem-solving php scripts. I hope my friend doesn't ask for it back...

'Wicked Cool PHP: Real-World Scripts That Solve Difficult Problems' is a fantastic PHP cookbook that is written exactly the way I like books to be written:

- it's fun to read and learn from
- content is broken up logically at the right points
- layout and design is a joy on the eyes and brain
- length is around 200 pages which is within the 2-3 (hundred) range that I like most books to be

Content is broken up over 12 chapters:

01. Basic script stuff
02. Configuring PHP
03. PHP Security
04. Form Fun
05. Text & HTML
06. Dates
07. Files
08. User and Session Tracking
09. Email Excitement
10. Image Tasks
11. Using cURL to talk to web services
12. Other Stuff

The audience for this book hits the rare area of ALL developers from the expert to the newbie to the weekend hacker. There are 76 scripts contained within that nearly anyone could find useful in any project.

I love No Starch books because they don't feel like reference materials, rather they package it in a fun way from the glossy cover to smart design. No Starch gets 'it' when it comes to what geeks want and PHPites you will WANT this book!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

PHP is an easy scripting language for creating web features, but like any software it has its quirks. That's where WICKED COOL PHP: REAL-WORLD SCRIPTS THAT SOLVE DIFFICULT PROBLEMS comes into play. It's for those who have some experience with the scripting program but need more specifics to tweak applications. From scripts to process credit cards, template HTML and serve dynamic images to tracking visitors with cookies and editing images and text, WICKED COOL PHP is packed with tips and comes from two experienced PHP developers: perfect for any computer collection catering to PHP users.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

This book has just the right mix of theory and analysis as well as tactical themes. Unlike some books (such as The Complete Dragon and Ultimate Dragon by Gufeld and Stetsko) this book focuses primarily on white systems against the Dragon and offers one or two systems against each of White's systems. It also covers early deviations once the basic Dragon position has been reached (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6). It includes some brilliant wins by Black (which is what the reader should strive to emulate) as well as some examples of Black players underestimating the potential strength of White's kingside attack.

There is even a section on anti-Sicilians which help the reader to find lines in which play is similar to that of the Dragon so that the reader does not have to sift through pages of an opening reference to find an antidote.

All in all, a great buy for players looking to add the Dragon to their repertoire.

Chris Ward is an expert on the Dragon. This is the second edition of the book and he has other publications on the subject, at least one video and a website where paying customers get his latest analysis. Above all he has the incredible ability to present the Dragon in all its beauty. Chris style is original, funny and makes learning the Dragon a pleasure.

This book presents complete sample games on each variation and there is an index at the end with the opening tree. One caveat: the book does not deal with the anti-Sicilians. For that you need to look elsewhere. Chris only presents a few pages on this subject and as soon as the word gets out that you are a strong Dragon player, guess what? Your opponents start playing the closed Sicilian or an anti-Sicilian. I hope on the third edition he takes a deeper look on this issue.

If you only buy one book on the Dragon, get this one.

As John Nunn said in his book,understanding chess move by move, those Dragon addicts would never abandon this opening. I just wonder if Chris Ward's claim that Dragon is such a POWERFUL weapon in Sicilian, why supergrandmaster ( those rating above 2650 ) would not use it, and still stick to Najdorf, there must be some reasons on that. Though Kasparov used it as a surprise weapon against Anand in 1995 was successful, but this is just one-off show. Later Kasparov still sticked to Najdorf. So my impression is that Dragon may be good at club level player, for encountering one of those supergrandmaster, I think as Bobby Fischer's comment in " My 60 memorable games", you would be slained!! I always wonder if there is another Bobby Fischer or Fischer re-juvanted in nowaday, all Dragon player would be killed instinctly if they dare to use Dragon defense against him!! Anyway, I still give 5 stars to this book for the clear writing and enthusiasm from Chris Ward.

Titilating stuff from the master of the Conte crayon bound in spectacular fashion inside this huge tome. The book is dazzlingly thorough in its collection of archive material charting the career of Ward with in depth and informative writing.
The artwork is displayed in its most suitable form, I recently bought a pocket sized collection of Ward's work and it is practically useless in comparison to this full size collection. Having the pictures displayed at this large scale allows you to see just how he worked and just how fluid and confident an artist he was.
A must for pin-up fans or alternatively anyone who wants to show off with their taste in giant books.

It's unfortunate that Bill Ward's most well known pin-up work appeared in down-market, scruffy, digest-sized magazines because it meant that he was not considered with the big names like Varga, Petty or Elvgren and many others who created 'painted ladies'. This huge book (check out the dimensions, above especially the thickness: two inches) will most likely become the standard reference to his work though.

The book divides his career into three sections; the early years show work for various comic book publishers and his Torchy title where you can clearly see the origins of his later glamour style. The second section has 180 of his Conte crayon cartoons for Abe Goodman's various Humorama digest-size titles and this is the art that Ward is famous for.

Between 1947 and 1967 he claims to have drawn more than seven thousand of these sexy females and despite the large number they are each worth serious money to collectors. These drawings are one, two or four to a page and printed in sepia with white highlights. Another book of his work 'The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward' (ISBN 1560975318) has about 116 Conte drawings all one to a page and nicely doesn't seem to have any pictures duplicated with this Kroll book. If you can take your eyes of the dames you'll notice how Ward used embossed wallpaper samples to create curtains, cushions and sometimes filmy negligees by putting the sample under his drawing paper and rubbing the Conte crayon across the relevant area.

The third section of the book covers work after Humorama and here I think his style lacks the creativity of the Conte work. There are plenty of examples of paperback covers, color cartoons, comics, covers to porno magazines and a real surprise, the 1954 Lili St. Cyr lingerie catalog where Ward created precise model drawings with Lili's face on each.

At the front of the book Eric Kroll writes a fascinating fifty-page introduction with many quotes from the artist and illustrated with plenty of artwork and photos, in this beautifully designed and printed book devoted to the glamour work of Bill Ward.

This is, to borrow from its title, a wonderful book. The huge (13 3/4" x 10 1/2" )tome contains nearly 400 pages, printed on nicely textured photos, crammed with trilingual text and hundreds of illustrations, many of them in full-page size, both in color and black-and-white (actually sepia). As the other reviewer has noted, there isn't any overlap between this book and _The Glamour Girls of Bill Ward_, so you can safely get both of them to have an excellent, wide-ranging collection of Ward's work. As with the other work, the core of this book is the middle section containing nearly 200 drawings from Ward's glory days between 1947 and 1967, featuring the voluptuous, gorgeously dressed glamour girls that he's most famous for. The book contains extensive samples from his early work (featuring his well-known "good girl art" character Torchy) and his later, more explicitly sexual projects, but the reader can easily see that Ward's heart and enthusiasm belonged to his beloved glamour girls; the later nude cartoons are as skillfully executed as his classic cartoons, but in my own opinion, lack much of the spirit that animated his great 1950's and 1960's works (indeed, Ward was known to admit that he did much of the later work strictly for the money, particularly the BDSM drawings which form a big part of his later oeuvre). Again, it was the Ekbergesque glamour girls that he loved drawing best, and the reader gets a thoroughly satisfactory helping of them here. Expensive (though not as much so as the out-of-print hardback edition of _Glamour Girls_), but very much worth the money. Strongly recommended.

Finally, a thorough treatment of this critical area! Ward does an excellent job of describing what makes product/service development so unique in telecommunications. I also believe the book does a very good job of explaining how to **improve** processes so the organization is optimized for service creation.

If you truly understand (or need to understand) the challenges and sometimes, the pain, in getting telecom services deployed to rate-payers and subscribers, you will appreciate this book. As one who has lived through aspects of this, I enjoyed the reading it. In fact, recommended it to one manager who had his whole team read it!

This book is foundational for anyone who desires to understand the right way to develop product and services in telecom/network centric companies.

There are plenty of books on new product development, but very few on service development. Fewer still -- in fact non-existent until now -- are books on telecommunications service development. This book was written to fill that void and to provide a much needed methodology for those involved in bringing new communication-based services to market.

"World-Class Telecommunications Service Development" begins by examining why traditional product development methodologies -- methodologies which have gained acceptance in the discrete manufacturing world -- don't apply to an industry where the product is not a tangible commodity but rather an 'always-on' service. Here, the product being developed and delivered is primarily a set of business processes. Indeed, this role of 'process' is so central to what's involved in developing products for this industry that it serves as the book's main message and theme ("in telecom, the process is the product").

If we accept the role of processes in the development of new services, then we need to understand what's involved in actually creating these systems-based, inter-departmental delivery processes. Re-working a manufacturing model won't do the job. What's needed are logical product and process models designed specifically for this environment in this time.

In this book, you'll discover some proven (albeit high-level) approaches for logically modeling new services. You'll also learn techniques for managing the complex and highly cross-disciplinary process known as product development across the entire enterprise. Weaving together hands-on, structured models and methods with valuable management techniques and insights, this book offers a blend of information needed for any person -- whether at the executive, engineering, marketing or product management level -- involved in bringing new products to market.

The book is organized into 7 sections:

Part I looks at today's telecommunications services industry and at some of the characteristics that make this industry unique.

Part II offers a product development framework consisting of three separate but related perspectives. The first two of these perspectives involve the product -- the network service and the service delivery process. The third perspective -- the product development process -- is the process by which a company brings these two parts together in the creation of a new product.

Part III looks at how providers decide what products to build. In this section, issues involved in evaluating, defining, structuring and packaging the product are considered.

Part IV examines the processes of service delivery. Here, the individual processes that make up the end-to-end service delivery view are identified and reviewed, with a discussion on what's involved in linking these processes together.

Part V considers what's at stake in developing systems-based business processes. This section explores some of the issues providers face in integrating and automating their service delivery systems and processes.

Part VI examines what is required within the organization to launch and support the product. This section looks at the last three phases of the development cycle: development, implementation and launch. (The three preceding phases, opportunity analysis, feasibility and definition, are covered in earlier sections).

Part VII concludes with a discussion on organizational issues, and on ways organizations can make their development efforts more effective. This section includes chapters on effective team building and rapid development approaches. It ends with some thoughts on what it means to be a world-class service provider.

eward@wardassociates.net

Until now there's been almost nothing on this subject. The author has done an outstanding job of bringing together diverse information and adding her own experiences. She's made a valuable contribution to an area rarely written about - telecommunications service development. Ms. Ward's Framework for Telecommunications Service Development provides an invaluable tool to the way successful organiztions should take an idea and carry it through the entire life cycle.

Zyzzack Breakthrough: The Beginning is the first novel of an epic five-book science fiction saga. A small band of research scientists, led by the youthful Dr. Steven Barrett, are sorely tested in a contest against a superior life form. The odds are stacked against them, and when the alien sentient beings known as the Zyzzack arrive, Earth and humanity itself will be dramatically changed forever. The setting of Zyzzack Breakthrough extends to the horizon of outer space, and both physical and spiritual reality, addressing even the mystery behind the meaning of life itself. Enthralling to the point of mind-bending, Zyzzack Breakthrough is a visionary journey and an enthusiastic kickoff to a grand spacefaring quintet.

I enjoyed the story about Zyzzack. It took me a on a ride and adventure to a distant strange galaxy where humankind and different forms of aliens learn to get along, maybe....

Lots of energy and excitment. Fun book for all science fiction fans.

A good summer read, I enjoyed it very much.

I like the idea of energy issues that entities from other galaxies face (makes you think about our own). Hits close to home. Also, hadn't expected a sci-fi book to engage in moral dilemmas, very thought provoking, can't wait for the next installment to see where this goes.

This commentary is an excellent source of info and research regarding the NT's pastoral epistles. The author is very thorough and he also considered other views in contrast to his personal views. The book itself came in an excellent condition. If the Biblical references were in KJV, I would have rated it 5 stars.

This doesn't spin off into super-deep waters ( which usually is reaching anyway....) but it is such a great read and so solid that I give it five stars!

I have Mounce, Marshall, Knight, Johnson, Hendriksen, Hughes and Stott on the Pastoral Epistles. But none of them can hold a candle to Fee's commentary. It is not an exaggeration to say that his commentary "UNLOCKS" the understanding of these 3 precious books. If you want volume of pages then Mounce is the one you want. If GREEK is what you want then Marshall and Knight are for you. But if you want to understand the Pastoral Epistles as you never have before, see and appreciate the truths in these 3 books as never before, Fee is your man. God bless. Mike

great book, Amazon is a great store in which to purchase anything that you need at great prices. My grandkids love the jokes.

Oh, boy! This is one book you canNOT miss ... it kept me laughing for 3 minutes non stop. And during class, I kept remembering about the jokes of this book ... kept me entertained.

My son, who is not really interested in Language Arts, but is good at it, got very interested in this book. He would ask to do vocabulary and more vocabulary.

This book makes learning vocabulary fun even though it's through repetition. Each lesson contains many pages of the same words but in different ways and it gets kids into vocabulary and learning new words happily!

I highly recommend this book!

I learned about this book from Beestar online vocabulary program for kids. Vocabulary is the foundation for good reading and writing. Many smart kids don't do well in reading because of limited vocabulary. Unlike some other skills, a good vocabulary cannot be achieved quickly. Young students need to learn and read extensively to snowball their words. This book is a great help. It gives thorough practice through the use of synonyms, antonyms, compound words, homophones, homographs, plurals, etc., to ensure that your child will learn the meanings of the words used in each section. Through a variety of exercises that vary within and between each section, a child will become familiar with not only the word's meaning, but also the meaning of each type of word (i.e., synonym, homophone, etc). Little by little, this book built the word power for my child without stressing. Now his reading level is at the top of his class. His confidence is high. This book is an excellent tool for after-school enrichment.

Excellent read will teach riders alot. A very well thought out book with excellent photo's.

There's good skills to be learned in this book.