Columbia Books

I just bought a copy of this book because I saw the lecture Dr. Maguire gave on CSPAN and was riveted. The book is unbelievably important in these times when the United States claims to be doing things for international justice. But when you read this and see how Pol Pot got away with so much and what's going on in Asia you won't be able to understand why we were so consumed with a man like Saddam Hussein (oil). Everyone should read this book.

Peter Maguire's mix of personal travelogue and historical study works well, with the author lingering on the question of impunity and the ineffectual international community, whilst interviewing victims and perpetrators of Khmer Rouge crimes on many visits following his first trip to Cambodia in 1994. That first exciting yet unnerving visit in 1994 is something the author and myself have in common, as we do the loss of a close Cambodian friend in recent years. His loss was Sok Sin, well known as every journalist's 'fixer' and Maguire's tale of his demise is poignant. His interviews with the suvivors of Tuol Sleng such as Bou Meng, Vann Nath and Im Chan contrast sharply with the soul-less KR photographer Nhem En and guard Him Huy, whilst DC-Cam and Youk Chhang rightly emerge as a beacon of light in the chaos that is Cambodia. He also tracked down Mai Lam, the Vietnamese colonel who'd turned Tuol Sleng into a Genocide Museum though ultimately their discussions were stymied. I found the book stimulating, frustrating, insightful and vexing in equal measures, with Maguire admitting up front that he ultimately failed to come to any clear-cut conclusions. However, the journey to get to nowhere is an interesting one.

This remarkable book takes the reader deep inside the minds of a culture so hard to penetrate that I am returning this year to Cambodia just to attempt to understand the obvious - here is a country in a state of denial. "Facing Death in Cambodia" very effectively analyses Cambodia's culture of compliance, a nation meek to authority, and seemingly paralyzed by a recent past so convulsive that to even think about it is an invitation to "bad karma" - even among survivors and the unindicted killers of their children who sometimes share the same street. Mr Maguire excells at the job of rendering the 75-79 story in human terms. His portraits of the familiar figures like the photographer of those shattering Tuol Slong ID pictures are very important to our understanding of what sort of mental gymnastics many at the heart of the genocide are capable of. The heroic Vann Nath, whose miraculous survival is powerfully and touchingly explained in the book, emerges as a beacon of clear sightedness.Yet even here there is paradox - the survivor is eager to greet the photographer almost as an old friend. The author's tenacious search for the mind set and value system of the killers, and how D.K.'s perverted ideology can be effortlessly justified in Cambodia's "culture of impunity", make for provocative reading. I was particularly impressed by the author's descriptions of lurking violence. The weserner's stereotypes of the smiling Khmer do not long survive exposure to present reality. When Mr. Maguire takes you through the marketplaces and cafes of Phnom Penh, don't expect a comfortable ride. In one shattering passage,we are told how quickly peasant vengeance in the street over seeming trifles turns to horror in a blink. Overall, this book is one of the most important documents of Cambodia's modern history. Mr Maguire has no illusions that this beautiful, tormented country's battle to start over is going to be over soon. Here is a writer of compassion and power, and his book is an excellent one.

This is a clear and concise book about the horrendous regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979)and the aftermath. The author asks the question: why haven't leaders of the Khmer Rouge been prosecuted for the mass murder they perpetrated on their own people. He finds a partial answer by looking at international politics and the machinations of Cambodian leaders, the UN, and the US and everyone's lack of priority in seeking justice in Cambodia.

The author, along the way, adds his personal experiences and interesting observations about Phnom Penh and Cambodia in the 1990s and up until 2003. He interviews a large number of Cambodians, including guards and survivors, about the goings on at the notorious S-21 prison. As many as twenty thousand entered the prison; fewer than a dozen survived. There are photos of some of the murdered and the survivors and several historic photos of Khmer Rouge soldiers. The author delves into the mentality of the mass murderers and present day Cambodians who still suffer the trauma of that horrific era.

Chapter two in this book is one of the best brief descriptions of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and its consequences that I have read. All in all the book is a readable introduction to the sordid history of the Khmer Rouge and the half-hearted international efforts to cope with mass murder and its perpetrators.

Smallchief

I've often wondered about the genocide in Cambodia. The amount of material available on the Holocaust is emmense. We basically went to war to stop the "Ethnic Clensing" in the Balkans. But in Cambodia, almost noting, even while it was going on it seemed to be largely ignored. The famous pictures of the piles of skulls seemed to have no effect.

When this was happening we had just ended our participation in the Viet Nam war. I asked a Viet Nam protester why they weren't protesting what was happening there, why are we building a Holocaust museum when something of almost horror was happening in Cambodia. There was no answer.

For a time I thought that it might be an issue of race/color. The Jews were white, the Cambodian brown. Then the happenings in Rawanda got a fair amount of press coverage. And I can only conclude that it was just a matter of time. Viet Nam took all the energy the protestors had, perhaps combined with such a contempt/hatred for our own government that they couldn't see the evil in the Khmer Rouge. Maybe it was the left's "love" for communism that made them blind.

Peter Maguire's book puts a personal and human face on this genocide. He has talked to the people all over Cambodia, he has analyzed the international response and concluded that "international law, human rights, and international criminal courts are little more than sonorous fictions without political will."

There is no political will to even think much about Cambodia, not while it was happening, not now.

This book is well worth the time. It is different from the usual story of the fate of Jews in eastern Europe. While we have available many memoirs from these times, there are few that are as well written, edited, and detailed. The initial part is devoted to the author's life in prewar Poland and makes for a very useful background for understanding peoples' reactions to subsequent events. The complex relationships between the author and the Polish farmers and villagers illustrate the moral ambiguities inherent in actions of some, as well as the heroism of others. Names are named and places documented. The book was difficult to put down. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the subject and especially to those that teach it.

This book is a must read. The author shares his gripping story of fighting both the Nazis and the anti-semitic Polish as a Jewish resistance fighter during the Holocaust. It is an inspiration how during the darkest hours of human misery, man's will to survive, protect the unprotected, and fight back against an enemy committed to their destruction propels them forward despite the odds. Harold Werner and the men and women who fought (and sometimes died) beside him should be remembered as heroes for generations to come.

Fighting Back, by Harold Werner, is the well told story of a group of Jewish partisans, who instead of quietly submitting to the will of their Nazi oppressors, and those anti-semitic villagers, and there seemed to be many, who collaborated with the Nazis in their quest to destroy the Jews of Poland, decided to fight back. The author was one of those partisans. These people had all lost family members and friends to both the Nazis and to many of their neighbors who had once been their friends, and all they wanted was a chance to fight back, an opportunity for revenge. After reading many holocaust books about the camps, or about Jews in hiding, it was a pleasure to finally read one where the Jews actually defended themselves, and if they had to die, they died "Fighting Back." This is a must read.

Thanks to Harold Werner for retelling these events from his deathbed. I read the book in an evening and could not put it down. I am very proud to know that people such as Mr. Werner fought back no matter what the odds. Not only does he write about battles and suffering, but he also writes of the community he grew up with, the people he loved, how people made their living, and how they related to their neighbors.

This true story takes place in Poland during the late 1930s thru 1946.The main character is a young man named Harold.The trials he experiences prior to WW2 are nothing compaired to the radical changes his life undergoes during the Nazi occupation.There were several things that I enjoyed most about this book.It is scary to realise how treacherous people can be to each other but it is encouraging to see how the human spirit rises to such adverse circumstances.You will follow his life from living in the city to hiding in the forests of Poland while being hunted by villagers and Nazis.Fear and hunger were common among this group of partsians.I found this story easy to read and relate to. This story can parallel any group of people who are oppressed.

Wonderful story! John Daly was my husband's uncle, and we used to go to Garden Bay, BC to visit him. We have wonderful memories of John and miss seeing him, even tho' it's been probably 20 years since John died. I'm sorry I never met Edith, altho' my husband Lionel and his aunt Leslie Joslin met her when she gave a reading from the book in Seattle in 1988 or 1989. Now made-for-TV movie on Lifetime Channel, they changed the name to "Navigating the Heart" with Jacqueline Smith and Tim Matheson. Watch if you get the chance (TV characters much younger than actual story, tho'). Would LOVE to get copy of movie to keep with the book.

Thanks Edith for one of the best books I've ever read! I've borrowed Fishing With John at least a dozen times from the public library-in the mean time tried to find it in used book stores, flea markets, and garage sales for a couple of years! Finally got lucky in a book store in Vancouver B.C. A public park in Pender Harbour B.C. is named in honour of John Daly-which says it all! You have to read it folks!

This is a wonderful non-fiction book about the life of a British Columbia fisherman written from the point of view of his wife & assistant, Edith Iglauer. Its not a "how I caught the big one" story, but instead a story of a fisherman's daily life, his relationships, and the enjoyment he gets from his work in the great outdoors. Edith Iglauer's writing style is much like the beautiful scenery and natural lifestyle she describes - a pleasure to read

This book is a very relaxing account of a life long fisherman. As you read it, you will find yourself infinitely hungry for a fat bagel with fresh lox.

"...it was fishing with John that I loved so much." "and he appeared to remain blissfully content to have me there and trying."

What Edith Iglauer doesn't describe is as important to the texture of this book as her detailed accounts of trolling for salmon with John Daly along the coast of British Columbia. The only intimacies she reveals are the everyday tasks required to keep a commercial fishing boat afloat, John's exuberance in the life, home and friends he has made; and his many choices. The restraint Iglauer exercises in chronicling her four years fishing with John invites the reader to consider the centrality of character in any voyage one may take.

We have been reading and collecting books about trees and wood for quite some time now, so Forest Giants... caught our attention. We do visit `trees' from time to time, so the opportunity to call on familiar trees once again was intriguing.

It seemed the author's intention to create a useful guidebook, thus he has done a marvelous job of locating and describing the trees. The addition of the lovely, hand drawn portraits makes the book quite personal and reveals Mr. Van Pelt's great love of the trees. The photos also seem homemade and have not been overly processed, so they have a `snapshot-for-the-scrapbook' look also. Together with the rather prosaic text, they draw the reader into daydreaming about the trees and being with them. We liked that aspect of the book very much. The author's enthusiasm will be infectious to some; we hope that this book will inspire the preservation of these incredible living individuals. (Yes, it's possible we were once Druids.)

The softbound cover was a great disappointment in a $30 book. It deserves a hard cover and so we will most likely make a hard slipcover for it ourselves, since Forest Giants... will go into our library.

This book rocks! It inspires as well as informs! The line drawings are especially amazing. Van Pelt selects specific angles for each drawing, such that he captures the unique qualities of each individual tree. These renderings are beautiful and accurate. Each one can be studied for hours. The photographs could have been a bit more creative, but he follows an effective strategy by showing a human in most pictures. This allows the reader to understand the immense size of these giants. The text provides an excellent natural history, conveying to the reader an intertwined tale of ecology, history, and discovery. Lastly, I was especially impressed with the fact that Van Pelt included so many tree species and individuals. By doing this he has allowed us to truly appreciate the diversity, beauty and uniqueness of these amazing trees.

This is an awesome book of personal accounts, illustrations, and photographs of magnificent individuals of Pacific coast conifers. Van Pelt knows these trees like no one else, having journied to, measured, and stood in awe at each of the giants depicted. His writes with witty reverence and from a deep understanding of the ecology of giant trees. Featured in the book are the author's beautiful line drawings of the trees, which capture the amazing structural complexity of their crowns in a way not possible with photographs. This book is a must for all tree lovers and those interested in coffee table adventuring into the last great forests of the Pacific coast.

This is a must see, must read book about "Forest Giants." If I had the loot to RV this would be a road map to follow. As a nurseryman I appreciated the detailed information about each species, the beautiful handrawn representatives of each major tree of the group -- be it Incense Ceder, Fir, Spruce etc.

Despite 35 plus years in horticulture, this book had much I could learn from. It is wonderfully written and illustrated.

I cannot think of no better book I could have gifted myself for my Christmas yet to come.

Secateur

This book affects people deeply. Certainly it did me. It is a simple and absolutely passionately beautiful account of giant trees, how they're discovered, how they're measured. Van Pelt's drawings are amazing. I think this book is a classic and I think it will live in print for many, many years.

Enhanced with the color photography of Saxon Holt, Shatoiya and Richard de la Tour's The Herbalist's Garden provides the reader with an exception, fascinating, and informative guided tour through ten unique herb gardens, introducing the people who grew them and the plants that inspired those master gardeners. After an informative introduction (The Path of the Herb Gardener), we are treated to the Dry Creek Herb Farm & Learning Center (Auburn, CA); Rosemary Gladstar's Sage Mountain (East Barre, VT); Deer Run Herb Sanctuary (Napa, CA); Plimoth Plantation (Plymouth, MA); EverGreen Herb Garden (Placerville, CA); The City Garden (Sacramento, CA); Dr. Duke's "Farmette" (Fulton, MD); Ravenhill Farm (Vancouver Island, British Columbia); Caprilands (Coventry, CT); and Saso Herb Gardens (Saratoga, CA). A very highly recommended, inspiring, beautifully presented work, The Herbalist's Garden is enhanced with a concluding commentary (Manifesting Your Own Vision), a resources section, and an index.

What a joy to discover this book! The De La Tours find a deep spirituality in gardening, even everyday gardening like I do, and convey that inspiration and meaningfulness to the reader. I enjoyed the beautiful photographs, the recipes, and especially the personal stories about each herbalist and their garden. The writing style is straightforward and often humorous and touching. I expect to enjoy gardening more than ever now that I have read The Herbalist's Garden.

Herbalist Shatoiya de la Tour, her husband, Richard, along with a very talented photographer, Saxon Holt, have produced a treasure of a book! This book takes us on a journey to visit ten exceptional herb gardens in the United States. First stop - Richard and Shatoiya's own garden which she describes as "a garden to serve the community". She shares her story of how her garden, Dry Creek Herb Farm came into being and has evolved over the years to become a refuge for herb lovers and learners across the country. Next stop is Sage Mountain, the Vermont garden of the highly respected herbalist, Rosemary Gladstar. Also spend time at Deer Run Herb Sancuary, Plimoth Plantation, Evergreen Herb Garden, the city garden of Brian Fikes and Greg Howes, Dr. Dukes "Farmette", Ravenhill Farm, Caprilands, and Saso Herb gardens.
The photographs are exquisite, probably the best gardening photography I have ever seen. You will also get to meet these very interesting gardeners, get a glimpse into their own life stories to learn what first attracted them to herb gardening and how herbs have become the focus of thier lives. I LOVE this book and have turned to it for inspiration over and over again. I feel you will be very pleased with it. Buy it!

THE HERBALIST'S GARDEN is subtitled a "guided tour of 10 exceptional herb gardens" and it is just that. I don't think you could get much closer to the real thing unless you made the actual physical trip to each of these gardens. Perhaps the only drawback for me is that so many of them are on the West Coast because seeing them makes me want to SEE them.

The photographs by Saxon Holt are some of the best. In each picture, I can clearly distinguish one plant from another--no small feat since to capture one plant clearly often causes others to be distorted. For example in one shot the viewer can raise her eyes from lettuce in the first row to cabbage in the second row to onions in the third row. I guess this is "trick" photography, but it's great. Although the photos are not three dimensional, they remind me of old 3-D viewer I had when I was a kid or the holograms of today where you can hold the picture to your eye and feel as if you are "inside" the frame.

The de la Tours have done a fabulous job of compiling, writing, and editing their book. They are down to earth and friendly and the text is newsy and informative. The de la Tours own Dry Creek Farm and Learning Center in Auburn California--the first garden on the guided tour which features the gardens of several other herbalist/gardeners and writers. Each section shows a ground plan for the featured garden. There are plenty of shots of the gardens including entrances and paths, and unique features found at the various sites.

Dry Creek Farm features a children's garden, a medicine-wheel garden, and a moon garden. The medicine-wheel garden is festooned with multi-colored prayer ribbons--hung out by the de la Tour's students at the Spring Equinox--that will be burned at the Winter Solstice. Along the edge of the medicine-wheel garden are plants representing the Zodiac Signs--Lavender for the Gemini, Mint for Virgo, and Lemon Balm for Cancer.

The Moon Garden is composed of a Catalpa tree surrounded by a circle shaped garden. The garden surface is composed of white gravel chips and outlined with smooth river stones. Both the full moon and the cresent are delineated. The full moon is white pebbles sans plants, the crescent is set off by Artemesia, the ghostly white plant that bears the "other" name of Diana, queen of the Fairies, Queen of the Witches and Queen of the Moon. A statue of a coyote (Diana's hund?) sits below the mobile moons hanging from the Catalpa tree.

There are photos of garden layouts, photos of specific beds, photos of smiling owners/gardeners and plenty of close-ups of the herbs recommended by the 10 herbalists. The text is extremely informative and inspiring.

I number THE HERBALIST'S GARDEN among the most inspiring books I've read. This guided tour of several outstanding herb-based gardens (public, private, small, large, urban, rural, you name it) is filled with informative and charmingly written text along with gorgeous color photography, and augmented by little "boxes" that suggest ways to incorporate an idea into your own gardens, or provide neat recipes for teas and baked goods. (The peppermint brownies are especially fantastic -- and easy!)

As a novice herb gardener tending my first 4x10 bed in its first season, I was deeply impressed by the gardeners (and plants!) featured in this book. I got the book from the library, started reading, and immediately purchased my own copy from Amazon. I need to have this one around! It's a great book to come back to for tips when you're worried, glorious colors when it's wintertime, and inspiration whenever you want it.

Each section tells the story of a lovely garden and the people who have made it what it is, then profiles their three favorite herbs, suggesting culinary and medicinal uses and giving instructions for planting and care. Gardeners and herbalists will not regreat the purchase of this beautiful book.

This novel has emerged, from the ruins of the purges, like a pure, unspoiled and immaculate gem. As an autobiographical novel, one cannot deny the importance of this work to provide for insights into Bukharin's private life, given that most biographies of Bukharin are about his political and intellectual life.

Not only is this work important in this regard, Bukharin's stunning literary ability comes to the forefront in this work, which details, with a humanistic empathy, the plight of the peasants, family relations and the psychology of a middle class family from the late 19th century Russian society. The novel begins with the birth of "Kolya" and is seen through the boy's eyes as he grows up. It ends, poignantly, (Bukharin did not live to finish the work) with the death of his brother.

Of particular note is the rich texture of his narrative; it powerfully invokes a child-like sense of wonder that is intrinsic to children of that age. There are indeed very few works out there that parallel the vivid evocation of imagery which Bukharin is capable of. Bukharin's description of the Russian landscape was beautifully detailed, as was the heartfelt revelations about life which slipped through.

It is through this work that we come to realize that the interior life of this man was not only brilliant, but that his political stance was chosen fundamentally because of his humanistic understanding of Russian peasants and the impoverished.

This edition comes with very lovely pictures, too.

Set in the pre-revolutionary Russia, Bukharin's novel attempts to demonstrate, through the eyes of a youth named Nikolai Petrov, how the revolutionary spirit fermented and grew among the youth and intelligentsia. While this novel could be read with an eye toward the abuses of the Soviet Union and dismissed as political propaganda, in doing so the reader would miss the wealth of historical detail with which Bukharin writes. Every page is bursting with succulent fruit for anyone interested in the social, economic, and cultural world of the peasants and the working class at the turn of the century in pre-revolutionary Russia. Part of that fruit is socialism, communism, atheism, and the raging underground debates taking place during that period; seen as history, however, Bukharin gives us an invaluable insider's view, recalling his youth in all its variety and discussing the situations that led him down the path his life had taken.

The story revolves around Nikolai, who is obviously a cipher for Bukharin himself. Young Kolya (Nikolai) is full of energy, wit, and curiosity. As he grows and excels in school, his thinking begins to grow as well, from that of an innocent child to that of a young man on the verge of becoming a revolutionary himself. Unfortunately, the saddest part about this novel is that it ends in the middle of a chapter; Stalin finally had Bukharin executed, making it very difficult to continue writing. The writing is so well done it is hard to believe Bukharin never had a chance to re-write it; we are reading essentially his first draft, written in prison. His astounding intellect is obvious, quoting from German, French, English, and Russian poets and authors, occasionally making references to Latin or Greek jokes the children learned in high school, and discussing the variety of birds and other animals Kolya collects with amazing clarity.

This is a remarkable book. It combines three forms in a single work: 1) a detailed and evocative story of a boy growing up in late 19th century Russia, 2) an informative and moving autobiography of one of the most important Bolshevik leaders, and 3) commentary on the social and economic developments leading up to the 1905 and 1917 revolutions, including (in the tradition of Russian novels) imagined descriptions of important meetings of leaders of state. Most remarkable, though, is that the entire book was written in the nights of Bukharin's confinement in Moscow's Lubyanka Prison while he awaited almost certain execution following his notorious "show trial". The idea of a man who knows he could be shot at any moment writing such detailed, even leisurely descriptions of his childhood in Moscow and Bessarabia is almost beyond comprehension. Indeed, the novel breaks off in mid-sentence. This book should not be missed by anyone interested in 19th and 20th century Russian history, and will be enjoyed by anyone interested in a good coming-of-age novel as well.

Before reading this book, I knew Bukharin was a political genius that few have matched. However, I did not realize his brilliance as a writer: he appeals wonderfully to all the visual and emotional senses as a great novelist. He occasionally discusses his growing political awareness, but that is not the focus of this work. His love of life, nature, and family show the incredible depth of his mind. Much credit must also be given to the translator for making the language so effusive in English.

It's a wonderful miracle that this book was not destroyed by Stalin; it's just a shame that it's incomplete, cutting off in mid-thought. Nevertheless, what Bukharin was able to complete provides an enthralling look into life in late Tsarist Russia, as well as putting us a bit closer with one of the most prominent and tragic victims of the purges.

Bukharin's autobiographical work is a lyrical, moving, story of the life of a young boy in pre-Soviet russia. Unlike Leon Trotsky's autobiography, which is a similar work in content, this is a novel. And a grand one. When you read the touching descriptions of Kolya's then idyllic, then tragic domestic life, you feel helpless, sad, for you know that this boy will eventually be dead, the New World he helped to create corrupted and turned against him. The very existence of this novel is a message of hope, that even under the most tragic and ironic circumstances there can something joyous (Bukharin wrote the novel while in Lubyanka prison). The poignancy of all this is further increased by the included letter by Bukharin, written to his wife Anna Larina and not given to her for 50+ years. This book also stands as a monument (in a medium I belief he would have perhaps preferred) to Nikolai Bukharin, a brilliant scholar, writer, and Revolutionary

This book, the second edition for Ellis, Balcomb and Ford, is a beautiful book for anyone interested in whales, their habitat and their behaviour. Focusing on the Orcas of the Pacific Northwest, this book details their lives from what they eat, to their social habits. It includes a wonderful photo chart of all the Northwest Orcas still alive when this book was published. It is a bit heavy reading, with many complex scientific terms. I would not reccommend for children, but if you know anyone with a facination with whales, this book will it into an obsession.

This book, the second edition for Ellis, Balcomb and Ford, is a beautiful book for anyone interested in whales, their habitat and their behaviour. Focusing on the Orcas of the Pacific Northwest, this book details their lives from what they eat, to their social habits. It includes a wonderful photo chart of all the Northwest Orcas still alive when this book was published. It is a bit heavy reading, with many complex scientific terms. I would not reccommend for children, but if you know anyone with a facination with whales, this book will it into an obsession.

May I first say I have never encountered a better identification book then Killer Whales and Transients. Both books are written by THE wild orca authority in the Pacific Northwest. Catalouged pictures and organized information of each individual in every pod along the coast from WA to northern BC along with accurate info on feeding, behavioral and other habits of the pods in Puget Sound and British Columbia. Truly a great book, and as I plan on researching these animals in my adulthood, it has been a great boost to my knowledge on them.

I just returned from a kayaking trip in the Johnston Straight just East of North Vancouver Island known as the inside passage. We had first hand views of the Orcas. This book was used as a reference manual to identify some of the whales. It has wonderful reference pictures of the known pods (families) in the area. It goes into great detail on their eating habits, language, and family history. It also explains their social behavior, and the differences between the pods. It is a wonderful book full of pictures, and details.

This is an excellent book for anyone who is interested in orca whales. It has mass amounts of great information, it's easy to read, there are great photographs, and the ID catalogue of orcas is nothing but the best. This book is a must have for any whale-lover, researcher, or someone with just a general interest.

To my mind, the expanding civil war in Colombia is the biggest story in the Western Hemisphere -- but no one seems to be paying much attention to it. Good thing, then, that we have Garry Leech, a talented reporter and writer whose book explains it all, from the start of the trouble over fifty years ago to the U.S.'s involvement today with more and more money, guns, and soldiers. If George Bush gets his way, Colombia is going to be the next bloody battle in the "war on terrorism." Americans need to get wise to what's going on before we sink any deeper into Colombia and a world of hurt and regret. Step one: Read this book!

This book satisfied my need for a clarification of the conflicts in Colombia. Leech does an amazing job of simplifying this political quagmire.

"Killing Peace" is an outstanding book. Garry Leech provides a front row seat to the surreal violence in Colombia. Moreover, he explains why a just and enduring peace is so difficult to attain. The author is a superb journalist who documents how the flames of peace have been doused and the drums of war have been amplified. Recommended.

Leech has done the confused observer of Colombia's tragedy a great service with this short, pocket-sized introduction to the reality behind the sporadic news reports on Latin America's most violent, dysfunctional country. The book provides a clear and concise history of modern Colombia with particular emphasis on the causes of the armed conflict that has raged there for decades. Leech examines Colombia's civil war and how it differs from yet is intertwined with the drug war, while avoiding the common pitfall of completely muddling the two topics.

The book also traces the gradual U.S. entry into the fray of the Colombia's conflict, from early forays into combatting marijuana production to the current strategy that closely resembles Reagan-era strategies in El Salvador, albeit with the additional complication of Colombia being a leading cocaine and heroin supplier. Leech's answer to the uncomfortable question, "Is the drug war working?" is an emphatic "No." He explains how the U.S. drug war is failing on all of its own terms, while at the same time detailing the disastrous human toll of increased U.S. aid to the undisciplined and extremely compromised Colombian military. The role of the various guerrilla and paramilitary groups is explained, and there are also interesting new insights into the relations between the Colombian army and the rightist paramilitaries.

This book should be of particular use to those who seek to quickly learn more about the country and conflict that are fast becoming one of the primary U.S. foreign policy concerns. Its brevity and breadth should prove especially appropriate for high school and college classes focusing on current events, foreign policy, Latin American affairs, and history. A good, short read on a truly important topic.

Killing Peace is a good introduction to the forty year civil war in Colombia. (Arguably the civil war began in the 1940s. The 1960s represent the date the rebel forces FARC emerged.) Leech provides objective descriptions of the history of the conflict, the social forces and striking class divisions generating it, how the USA's imperialist interests and interventions aggravate it, the civil war's principal players and fighting forces, the widespread human rights abuses that debase the conflict, the criminal activities employed to finance it, and the many failed military and peace approaches to resolve it.

I particularly appreciated Leech's analysis of the rise and role of the right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia, the staggering degree of homelessness and poverty created by the USA's "fumigation" program, and the USA's use of (what should be frankly coined) corporate mercenaries in the war. Although FARC is the largest fighting rebel force in Colombia, I wish Leech would have provided more information about the ELN. But, in this respect, Killing Peace is like most works on the Colombian civil war.

My chief issue with the book, and others like it, is that it tends to analyze the prospects for resolving the conflict in terms of some equitable and just accommodation among the principal players (except for the paramilitaries). But that's precisely the problem with this civil war: given the nature and extent of their human rights violations (including assassination, mass murder, terror, kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking, etc.), it is doubtful the principal players are capable of fashioning and maintaining an equitable and just settlement.

The book doesn't satisfactorily look at other options. For example, the prospects for a resolution coming from the various social movements within Colombia as well as how other Latin American regional powers and interests could be brought to bear on the conflict. Perhaps that hope is too thin for Leech, but it could very well be the only one available.

The subtitle of this book is "A History of Alaskan Salmon Trolling and the Tragedy of the Dammed Columbia River." In this compelling historical novel, Colvin "tells the other side of the story" of what we as a nation have lost in the name of progress. By imagining the life of one man (aptly named Sammy) the author provides a dramatic and personalized view of the changes that destroyed, in one lifetime, the salmon trolling industry. While this is ultimately a story of loss, I found that Sammy's story also includes joy and suspense. What fisherman wouldn't thrill to the catch of a nearly hundred pound "June Hog," truly the king of salmon. Sammy faces many perils, such as deadly storms and an earthquake, but he also has the opportunity to witness the pristine and awe-inspiring beauty of the Alaskan wilderness. I enjoyed being a part of Sammy's life; I was fascinated with the evolution of the salmon trolling industry; and I was shocked at the way we as a nation destroyed it. While we can't undo the past, we can be vigilant in our future treatment of our planet earth.

The Last Fisherman is a fantastic read for anyone, but especially for those who love historical novels, or for those whose interest is in the commercial fishing scene of Alaska. Personally, I love historical novels, but knew nothing about Alaskan commercial fishing.

I found the fishing life style and the information provided, fascinating. More serious than humorous, the book nonetheless has some very entertaining funny moments. There are some great bear stories!

I used to wonder whether the environmentalists exaggerated the effect of dams on the salmon runs, or if the story from the dam builders was so much public relations spin. Now I know!

The book is easy to read, and you won't want to put it down.

Dan Dunn, M.D., Scott City, KS

Captivating account of an adventuresome life style with amazing details of the navigational skills & seamanship necessary to both survive & succeed as a commercial fisherman in the coastal waters of wilderness Alaska.

Excellent book - excellent writing. Could not put the book down. A great read for just about anybody but particularly those interested in the truth about the fishing industry and what the Government has done to it. Cannot wait for this to become a movie!

I highly recommend this book - not just for those who personally experienced salmon fishing on the west coast, but for anyone who loves the outdoors and understands the importance of our natural resources, and the role the independent fisherman has played in our history. This book is well written and very enjoyable.

If you have to learn about pain in all its varieties,
then reading any title by Patrick Wall will be beneficial.
this changed my view of pain perception . Patrick Wall
was dedicated to the science and study of pain. Perfect
for Physio students.

This book has definatly answered a lot of questions regarding Chronic Pain and has opened up a whole new understanding of the condition. The section on the placibo effect was of particular interest as it showed the mental side of dealing with pain and how we can possibly use our minds as part of a combined stratigy in dealing with pain. The mind and the way we think is a whole lot more powerful than I had first imagined and it can work for and against us with equal benifit and detriment. Patrick Wall covers this subject from all angles and this book is well worth reading for someone who suffers from this evil.

Who better to spend a few evenings with (metaphorically) than Patrick Wall, the man who literally, with Ronald Melzack, wrote the (text)book about pain?

Wall is now in the twilight of his still productive career. In this refreshing book, he gives an overview of what he has learned. He distinguishes among normal, i.e. biologically useful, and abnormal pain. He discusses at length the placebo response, showing fascinating data that it may be found even among animals.

His main point is that pain may be seen as a preparation for response, hence the essential role of attention in the experience.

This book is for the educated layman with a curiosity about the ubiquitous yet misunderstood phenomenon of pain. It will also be of considerable interest to the physician treating pain.

I was attracted to this book because earlier in my life I had experienced chronic pain for 8 years. The search for relief was ultimately successful, but the path to finding that relief was long and arduous. What I learned in the process didn't help me very much for being able to advise others, so I hoped this book would help.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Pain contains more information about pain than all that I learned in my personal journey. "Any knowledge that brings patients into a clearer appreciation of their condition decreases their anxiety," says the author, Patrick Wall who is a pain researcher and was suffering from pain related to cancer while authoring the book.

Wall's basic point is that pain is related to many different parts of the brain and body, and is affected by our psychology. Little is known about many aspects of pain, and there is little focus on pain relief in medical training or medical research. Wall knows that the fear of pain is often worse than the pain, so he makes the subject amazingly pleasant. I expected to be depressed by reading the book, and felt elated instead as I learned more about the causes of pain.

The book starts up with case histories where people with severe injuries report no initial pain. The reason seems to be that they were still in a survival mode, and surviving concentrated their attention away from the wound and potential pain. Many frequent "mysteries" of pain are also explored like people who have lost limbs and feel pain in the lost part of the limb.

You will also learn about fascinating experiments to identify causes of pain and their relief. The book goes on to discuss the sources of pain, how treatments interact with those sources, and how placebo effects can reduce pain. For example, did you know that pessimistic people report more pain than others? As a result, I learned that it is normal to have some residual pain from my earlier experiences. I need not be concerned that full pain will return. That was a nice relief.

I suspect that you, too, will lose some of the unnecessary sources of your concerns about pain. And that will probably, in turn, reduce the pain you will experience in your future.

While that is happening, you should examine other areas of your life where you fear the worst. That could be a harmful misconception. Why not begin to expect the best instead? Think about it. There may be another placebo effect to help you there also.

A word of advice: as the author states in the preface, this book is NOT a textbook, nor a do-it-yourself recipe book for pain relief. It is a work of communication for educated laymen "intended to give the readers the power of understanding processes in their own body." If the topic were not so grim, one could describe this work as "fascinating and fun." The topics he touches on range from studies of Yom Kippur War survivors to biofeedback training, from migraine auras to the sensitivity of babies to pain, from hand injuries to cannabis, and from nerve regeneration to the attention mechanism in ducklings and monkeys. The slim volume is filled with anecdote and humor, as well as with suffering. He reminds us that pain frequently occurs without physiological basis, and that pain sometimes fails to kick in when we are severely ill. ---- Dr. Patrick Wall (a British professor of physiology who started his career 40 years ago as a neuroscientist) is the author of several other books about pain. He unfortunately has first hand knowledge of pain. He is the victim of cancer. ---- This volume explains what we have learned in recent years about pain - and is honest about the vast amount of ignorance still to be conquered. After examining the corpus of knowledge - much of it gained in the last few decades -- in the first nine chapters, Dr. Wall brings together "all the phenomena we have discussed in the previous chapters and ask[s] what precisely is going on in someone who senses pain" in Chapter 10. His purpose: "a profound understanding one's own pain has itself a therapeutic effect and proposes a rationale for therapy." This is a fascinating summary of the status of knowledge to today. It is a work that invites re-reading.