Columbia Books

Professor Watson has done us all a great service by identifying and restating the fundamental argument of this scripture in his "Essential
Lotus: Selections from the Lotus Sutra" (2002), based on his earlier
complete translation, "The Lotus Sutra" (1993). This sacred text may
be "one of the most important and influential of the sutras or sacred
scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism" (xvii), but, truth be told, it is also
"a rather prolix and loosely structured text, with some chapters that are
repetitious or of minor doctrinal importance." (vii). Watson is one of
our great translators and the perfect editor to clarify its message.

Although the Lotus Sutra often refers to its program as the One Vehicle or Great Vehicle which supersedes "expedient means" (the earlier teachings which the Buddha adjusted to the needs and level of understanding of his listeners), One Vehicle claims to be the BEST--
but not the only -- means of attaining Buddhahood, which all living
beings have the potential to achieve (viii). Transcending "expedient
means" may be the goal of the Lotus teaching, but we come gradually to realize it while living in a religious world of "expedient means." This is an important concept. The early, second chapter of the Lotus Sutra takes the name "Expedient Means," the first chapter fully included in the "Essential Lotus." Most of the sutra's Seven Parables refer to this notion in one way or another. Here is to be found the rationale for religious inclusivism -- the accommodation of the religious beliefs and practices of others.

Predictably, many today are interested in what the Lotus Sutra has to
say about the status of women? In his Preface to "Essential Lotus,"
Professor Watson describes the famous anecdote concerning the
"daughter of the dragon king Sagara who, though only a child of eight,
has attained the highest level of enliightenment. Earlier Buddhism had
generally denied that women could attain Buddhahood, at least while
in female form . . . The Lotus Sutra firmly rejects such assertions. We are to understand that all beings without exception, good or evil,
female or male, are equally capable of becoming Buddhas." (ix; 85-87).

"Essential Lotus" includes an informative preface and introduction,
and a good glossary and index. Even if you already the have a complete translation of the Lotus Sutra, you will find this to be a most useful addition to your library.

Burton Watson has translated the entire Lotus Sutra, and here presents a selection of what he considers to be the core chapters of the long, episodic and uneven collection. The Lotus Sutra is one of the most influential early Mahayana texts, and so shaped Buddhism in all of East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam). It has attracted more scholarly commentary over the centuries than any other sutra, and further, its imagery and stories have profoundly influenced East Asian culture in a way similar to the way the stories of the Bible permeate Western culture.

THE ESSENTIAL LOTUS provides an essential service to the scholar of religion, or of literature, or of culture, or the practicing Buddhist who wants to go to the core of this important text without the painstaking effort of wandering through its every winding and inessential byway. According to Watson there are 3 main lessons of the Lotus Sutra:

1) There is One Vehicle, the Greater Vehicle (Mahayana), for all -- other teachings are superseded, they were but expedient means.

2) Enlightenment (Buddhahood) is for everyone, not just a select few.

3) The manifestation of the historic Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was simply the most recent -- the Buddha his lived innumerable lives, and taught the Dharma to innumerable sentient beings, leading to the Enlightenment of innumerable sentient beings. The Buddha is within, and we can call on him for assistance.

When outlined in this way it is much easier to see the main points, points which were Mahayana innovations in their day and challenged the earlier Theravada tradition, than if a reader was to try to extract them independently. For the practicing Buddhist, there are many better Mahayana sources than the Lotus Sutra, though, even this superb edited version. (My apologies to those Buddists who believe that simply chanting the name of the Lotus Sutra will bring enlightenment.) I recommend Watson's ESSENTIAL LOTUS mainly to the scholar of religion and to the student of comparative world literature for its parables and vivid imagery.

See my BHUDDA-DHARMA list for more.

I've not read the book. I wish for information on the author. My mother's maiden name was Riste. She came to Canada in 1918.

Gary Vliet

I've not read the book. I wish for information on the author. My mother's maiden name was Riste and she came to Canada in 1918.

Gary Vliet

Out of the now almost countless array of books published over the last decade and meant to `explain' what happened in Yugoslavia, John Allcock's "Explaining Yugoslavia" is among the best. In fact, readers need go no farther if they're looking for a one-volume analysis of the former Yugoslavia and some of the underlying reasons for the country's violent and bloody collapse. Allcock, a sociologist, analyzes historical, cultural, political, social/societal, economic and other factors and skillfully ties them together to provide a comprehensive picture of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia and reasonable answers to the question of why their common state fell apart. Allcock essentially sees the root cause for the failure of Yugoslavia in the country's economy, but this is hardly economic reductionism - he stresses the importance of the interplay of numerous other factors. If this book is not the definitive `explanation of Yugoslavia' (something that will likely never be achieved), it is a large and important step in that direction.

Allcock traces the present of the "former Yugoslavia" back to its distant roots - and does a great job. Organised around issues (eg. "economic modernisation", "the movement of population", "violence"), his genre of historical sociology offers remarkable insights.

Oxford historian Richard Crampton praised this book as "making many Balkan backstairs intrigues, including those of the last few years, more comprehensible" (New York Review of Books, January 11, 2001, p.18). Rightly so.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a fiction novel that took the world by storm. Nick, Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan a tangled mess of social relationships, some intended for love, some for friendships, others stemmed from old running love. Nick lives on West Egg, near the Gatsby mansion, Gatsby a man whom Nick comes to know well, as well as possible.

Gatsby throws huge social gatherings that people come to even if not familiar with the man Gatsby himself. Nick goes to these gatherings and soon meets Gatsby and becomes friends of leisure. When reading of these lavish parties of Gatsby's F. Scott Fitzgerald makes you feel as though you have been there and wish to stay one second and leave the next by feelings of discomfort. But yet you will want to continue to read to see what is in store next.

Gatsby throws these gatherings in hopes of meeting Daisy once again, for in the past they were lovers. Tom, who is Daisy's husband, is also Nick's old college buddy, is clueless of Gatsby's intentions with Daisy. Which Tom himself is not so faithful to Daisy. Nick agrees, not so whole heartedly, to help Gatsby and Daisy meet. As all of this falls into place Tom continues to see a mistress by the name of Mrs. Wilson, a woman who is married to a mechanic living in a dreary place. Meanwhile Nick starts to fall for a flirtatious and wildly mannered Ms. Jordan Baker. The parties continue to exist, and the company continues to fall into a social web of deceit and denial. As this all takes place you feel for Gatsby because of his longing for Daisy, but are struck by a weak appalling feeling for the way he seems to go about his business.

As the story continues to fall into place some find true love, some find old love, while others find the truth. The plot thickens as a death occurs causing an uproar of suspension of motive and a scandalous cover up causing suspension and tension among the old acquaintances.

F. Scott Fitzgerald throws twist and turns at you in this novel just when you think nothing else could happen. He has quite the talent for hooking a read and slowly reeling them in to feel every slight bump and jerk before reaching the shore, or the end. Which leads to another misfortunate death in the novel that was a great mistake, but yet made a great ending to a great novel that will have you intrigued from the first page to the last.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was published by Simon & Schuster Inc. in New York in 1925. The book is about the American Dream and the failure of the attempt to reach its illusionary goals, especially the Gatsby's. The attempt to capture the American Dream is central theme to many stories of all times. For Gatsby, the dream is that one can acquire love and happiness through wealth and power. F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) was born in St Paul, Minnesota. He was an American short-story writer and novelist. The Great Gatsby is considered as Fitzgerald's finest novel.
The story was set in New York and Long Island in 1920's. Nick Carraway is a young man working as a bond broker in New York. He is used as the narrator throughout the story. Nick acts as an insider as well as an outsider. He eyes everything that is happening in between, but has no intention to interfere. I think he chooses not to lose anybody close to him in the story. This arrangement makes it easy for Fitzgerald to give the audience detailed inside information and to back out as an outsider as needed. The core character, Jay Gatsby, is a character that longs for the past. He devotes most of his adult life trying to recapture it and he finally pays his life as the price in his pursuit. When he was young in the military, Gatsby fell in love with the beautiful Daisy, but he could not marry her because of the difference in their social status. So he left her to acquire wealth. When he got the wealth legally or illegally, he moved near to Daisy, who has already married to another wealthy man, and threw extravagant parties every week hoping Daisy might show up one day at the party. Finally, he set up a meeting with Daisy through her cousin Nick. Fitzgerald uses Gatsby's personal dream to symbolize the larger American Dream where all have the opportunity to get what they want.
Nick is a multi-functional character to the author. He uses Nick as the approach for Gatsby to Daisy. The author naturally arranges all these. Gatsby cannot accept that the past is gone and done with. Nick once attempts to show him the folly of his dream, but Gatsby innocently replies to Nick's assertion that the past cannot be relived. For Gatsby, his American Dream is not material possessions, although it may seem that way. He only comes into wealth to fulfill his Dream, Daisy.
Gatsby believes that he is acting for good beyond his personal interest and that should guarantee success. However, he is terribly wrong. He is so determined and so blind that he would do anything to get Daisy, even covering her up for the fatal accident. His dream never comes about and he ends up paying the ultimate price for it. The idea of the American Dream still holds true in today's time, which is wealth, love, or fame. But one thing never changes about the American Dream. That is everyone desires something in life and strives to get it. Gatsby is a good example of pursuing the American Dream.
A society naturally breaks up into various social groups over time. Members of the lower statuses constantly suppose that their problems can be solved if they gain enough wealth to reach the upper class. Fitzgerald believes in his story that many people interpret the American Dream as being this passage to high social status. They believe once reaching that point, they do not have to worry about money any more. Though, the American Dream involves more than the social and economic standings of an individual.
It seems that the more Gatsby tries to obtain, the less he ends up with. The saddest part of Gatsby is the funeral, which symbolizes the ultimate failure of Gatsby to ever achieve what he has wanted. The women he loved and died for was not present. None of the people who frequented the parties over the summer showed up. Wolfsheim, whom Nick believed to be a close friend to Gatsby, refused to attend. The idealism conflicts with the materialism and is torn apart. However, it is his father who lives at the bottom of the society, who is the most natural and native person in the story, whom Gatsby has never mentioned about, finds his way to his son's mansion for the funeral. What greatness of a father's love is in contrast to the love that Gatsby died for? That is the love of eternity. The father loves his son no matter his son is rich or poor. At this moment, both the idealism and materialism are eclipsed by the truthfulness and naturalness. And that is why Nick was tired of the life there, the carelessness of the people, and the corruption of the society in the American East. He decided to head back to his origin, to the more natural and traditional American Mid-West.
Gatsby possesses an extreme imbalance between the material and spiritual sides of himself. Fitzgerald uses him as a portrait of the ultimate failure of the American Dream in that individuals tend to believe wealth is everything. Maybe what Fitzgerald wants to say is that a nation cannot operate solely on materialism. The spirits of individuals are the true composition of a nation.

The Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale is a must have tool, in evalauting your program to meet todays high standard in the family child care business.

The order was delivered quickly. The product is used for our organization to rate the quality of our family child care providers.

The re-publication of Carlo Levi's mystifying autumnal excursion unto the indiscretions of social, philosophical, theological and political violence is a flurry of stellar activity in the midst of the dark abode we presently inhabit. Uncharacteristic and impossible to define, these pieces have a concentration, and moreover a consummate sincerity, that confronts the social and theological impositions upon the self with a critical impressionism that unearths the corpus delicti of a postmodern event that announces itself as horryfing and horrific. The closest we may come to describing this work of genius is to award it kinship with Emile Cioran and Walter Benjamin, for its poetic sensibility and its professing of a mutliplicity of unfolding testaments that like a fragile parchment seem to demand delicacy and awe. We find meditations that, while philosophical, are teeming with personal phantoms that haunt as the spectre of justice is thwarted by a redemptive cadence that resonates in a vacuum of nihilistic bastardizing dissolution. The edition here reviewed is of exceptional quality, the prints provided illustrate how a Lucian Freud (Levi's style is tentalizingly similar to this painter's aesthetic isolationist portraits of expressionism, for they transcend the moment of reprieve where the senses and the intimate, the sensual and the animalistic cease to be erotic and acquire a metaphysical purpose that identifies its own distress.
Of extraordinary import is here added a brilliant exploration on the moment, the apathetic event of abstraction in modern art exposed in the essay "Fear of Painting" where a truce with the muses is struck while they are being abandoned - much like Ariadne was by Dionyisis in an island of nostalgic wisdom as the traces of the self are being decentered and blurred for us to conduct a disorienting search for that which is no more.

For those concerned with modernity this is an article of truth, an auto-da-fe that espouses the lyrical trademarks of a melancholy whore who wishes she had never been subject to a love affair with the profane tedium that has become her mark of identity.

For those concerned with the history of ideas this will be a fresh draught of water that washes down all the lumping toxins the world has fed us, and while causing indigestion keeps a promise scholarship has tellingly failed to honor in its adulterated strains of reason.

Read, reread and pass it on. Although I must relate that the quality of this edition is so exceptional you will indubitably feel compelled to soon after buy the hardback and put it by your night table lest you forget the beauty of its message, the shadows its flickering solace descries and implies in a state of urgency we may yet not be ready for.

I read "Fear of Freedom" (Paura della liberta`)when I was a senior in college, in 1959. It was the first book I read in Italian, after studying the language for two years, and I have never forgotten its impact on me. Levi's searching essay had already been translated into superb English by Adolphe Gourevitch and published in 1950 by Farrar, Straus, the same lucid version that's now reprinted in this splendid new edition from Columbia University Press. But I was unaware of that translation, finding only the Italian original in my college library, when I went looking for another book by Carlo Levi, having already been enthralled by "Christ Stopped at Eboli," his first published book, the story of his internal exile, in 1935, by the Fascist government, in Lucania, Southern Italy, and his life among its peasant population, where, having previously given up medicine for painting and writing, Levi returned to its practice, treating the impoverished residents of the community and gaining their respect.

"Fear of Freedom" was written in 1939, after Levi's release from confinement in Lucania, when he was living in France, again in exile from fascist Italy. In this essay, in the midst of war, Levi attempts to confront and understand the cultural, religious and political origins of the phenomena of Fascism and Nazism, along with the reasons for the capitulation to authoritarianism by whole populations in an otherwise democratic Europe. What troubles Levi is why so many people seemed so willing to give up their freedom--their independence and their autonomy--to dictators, instead of struggling to remain free. And one of the reasons Levi gives, in anticipation of Erich Fromm's "Escape from Freedom," is that, all though history, the dizzying prospect of freedom of choice and the responsibility it entails has effectively terrified people, and they would rather live in the certainty of the State and the Church, taking comfort from imposed forms and rules of thought and behavior instead of having to think for themselves and live according to their own self-created personal dictates. In a word, the presumed comfort of an unexamined life was easier to accept than the uncertainty of the rigorously examined life Socrates had proposed.

Levi's small but incendiary book had an enormous impact on me at the age of 21, an apoltical student just coming out of the McCarthy era and beginning to ask the kinds of questions Levi addresses in the book--Why do people shrink from freedom? Why do Americans seem so timid about expressing their beliefs and feelings? Why were we so afraid of Communism? What was the Cold War really about? Levi didn't answer those questions directly for me, but he gave me the intellectual and philosophical means to examine them for myself.

I think again of those questions and I'm moved to return to this marvelous new edition of Levi's powerful essay, as we appear to be living once more in a time of guilt by association, a time when expressing one's opinion about the debacle of the war in Iraq has often brought down upon one the accusation of treasonous behavior, a time of fear; indeed, a time of undue executive power and privilege. It is a time when all our freedoms appear again to be under assault. So this little book, written in exile by a great European thinker and artist; written when Levi had no hope of publication, speaks to us down through the years.

As Levi later wrote so presciently, "Every age has its own Fascism, and we see the warning signs wherever the concentration of power denies citizens the possibility and the means of expressing and acting on their own free will...and not just through the terror of police intimidation, but by denying and distorting information, by undermining systems of justice, by paralyzing the education system, and by spreading in a myriad subtle ways nostalgia for a world where order reigned and where the security of the privileged few depends on the forced labor and the forced silence of the many."

I think this book is excellent because it have things I didn't know about orcas like the size, some parts of their body, and many other things. I think this book is very different to the others because it have different things. I want to recommend this book for all the people that like orcas becouse is an excellent book, is one of the best books I've read of orcas.

I think this book is excellent because it have things I didn't know about orcas like the size, some parts of their body, and many other things. I think this bbok is very different to the others because it have different things. I want to recommend this book for all the people that like orcas becouse is an excellent book, is one of the best books I've read of orcas.

This is a great novel. I was kind of put off at the beginning because a big deal was made out of that it had never been editted due to the history of the book and it's a work of natural genius blah blah blah, but I really got into this book. Billany tackles issues of class system and war ethics, honesty and love in a way I've never seen so genuinely done before. I got a lot out of this novel (or memoir, I'm not sure which as it's in first person).

Dan Billany's The Trap is an unjustly forgotten book. Billany, who died in 1943 after escaping from a prisoner of war camp, brilliantly analyzes British society and the war. For Billany, a Communist, the war is not a "just" war, a war for democracy and against the forces of darkness. Instead, it is merely one capitalist society fighting another for dominance. It is a powerful and compassionate look at the lowest class in British society.

This is an utterly brilliant book that has held my attention all morning. Although the authors do not integrate the thinking in the ten books below, I am totally, deeply, impressed by their intelligence, knowledge, and good intention.

They set out to develop understanding in five areas:

1. What State needs to do
2. How international community can help
3. How timelines and interdependencies should define sequencing
4. Why one size does NOT fit all
5. Why we must accept our shared responsibility and recognize the need for both proactive intervention, and coproduction (and sharing) of wealth.

I started with the endnotes and index, which is where I begin the most intelligent books in my reading program. I immediately detected the gaps that I address with the ten annotated links, but I was also immediately won over in seeing their appreciation for the report of the High Level Threat Panel of the UN, for Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew, for the balanced score card approach (some call for a triple bottom line), for Paul Collier's focus on the bottom billion, for Paul Hawkin's et al on natural capitalism.

Within the notes, I was shocked to learn that it has been reported that the United Nations deprived Afghanistan of the first two and a half years of all donor contribution, "by agreement" with US Government and World Bank. Since one of the author's has served as Finance Minister in Afghanistan, not only do I believe this--it must never happen again.

I find in this book one of the most original, refreshing, relevant, and therefore essential reviews on the matter of the State. Although the author's do not cite McIver, the original master on the origins and functions of the state, I consider them to be the new thought leaders and essential to any discussion of how to improve the inter-relationships among the eight tribes of governance: states, militaries, law enforcement authorities, academics, businesses, media, non-governmental organizations, and civil society including labor unions and religions. They are wrong-headed in thinking that "only sovereign states...will allow human progress to continue," and that "illegitimate networks will not be conquered except through hierarchical organizations," but in no way does this diminish the extreme importance of their deep thinking on the role of the state and the need to change both our concepts of sovereignty and our rules of the road for international organizations.

A useful early idea is that of the "double compact" between the country leadership and the international community on the one hand, and with the citizens on the other. It becomes obvious very quickly that corruption in government service is the single cancer that must be removed before states can achieve legitimacy and efficacy.

The authors have many gifted turns of phrase to include "harnessing our collective energies and readjusting to emerging patterns."

The authors recognize early on that legitimacy comes from below, from citizens, and must be earned.

I am not going to summarize each chapter, but I want to point readers toward the Army War College Strategy Conference, just concluded, on "Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power." I have posted both 29 pages of notes and an 8-page draft article for the Joint Forces Quarterly. Singapore got it early and is the world's first "smart nation." They understood early on that education powers economics, economics powers security, and so on.

Today, the authors document ably, stewardship of the environment, respect for social entrepreneurship, fair trade, and innovation in applying information technology to create wealth are all coming to the fore with honest leaders.

They identify five aspects of the networked world that are of note:

1. Framework for balancing activities of diverse stakeholders
2. Rule of law at a strategic level, with freedom of action at a tactical level (not quite true in the USA where the corrupt federal Congress establishes federal CEILINGS for regulatory action).
3. Massive investment--one reads repeatedly of the glut of money available for emerging markets (and I would add, the absence of both commercial intelligence and co-investment planning with charitable foundations)
4. World is evolving according to open systems (super point, see my keytone briefing to Gnomedex 2008, "Open Everything."
5. World is finally starting to evolve past rote memorization and toward recognizing patterns (the adaptive complex system and panarchy literature covers this well).

In the middle of the book they have six themes, each developed in a manner that makes this book quite valuable for any library, personal or organizational.

1. Conflict causes polarization of identities *and* ungovernability of aid subject to black market rules.
2. Peacemaking has been geared to compromise rather than strategic planning for a long-term outcome
3. This means that state dysfunctionality is highest immediately after the peace accord.
4. Even if civil war does not break out, cost of failed politics and poor policies is immense.
5. Lack of money is not the driver for poverty, but rather corrupt politics that enrich the few at the expense of the many.
6. Dysfunctional states spawn the rise and spread of networks of criminality and wealth confiscation instead of networks of social wealth creation and sharing.

The book concludes with "A New Agenda for State Building"

1. International compacts
2. Sovereignty strategy
3. Shared rules of the game
4. Mobilization of resources (this would be better titled harmonization of resources--we need Global Range of Gifts Tables for every country down to the village hut level, online, updated by national call centers
4. New leadership styles--this is a superb overview of what it takes to migrate from industrial era pyramidal leadership to Epoch B swarm leadership (see the image I am loading above).
5. Reflexive monitoring at every step of the implementation process
6. Double compact in practice

The final two chapters focus on national programs, and in conclusion, on "Collective Power."

I put the book down feeling GREAT. This book is a seminal reference.

Now for ten books (and my reviews) that round out this one book:
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

This is an important, easy-to-understand look at why rebuilding failing states should be the at the top of our country's priority list. The authors provide clear cut examples of why previous efforts to curb corruption and terrorism have failed, and offer a viable "framework" for fixing these systems.

George Hart and Hank Heifetz transport us in time to a fascinating ancient Tamil world of honor and valor. As a Tamil who knows Modern Tamil, but does not understand Classical Tamil too well, reading the translation and then going back to the originals helped me gain better insight and understanding of the originals. Wish the originals were printed alongside the translation!!

Hart & Heifetz again prove that you don't have to be a dried up, passionless writer to generate fine scholarship. The translations are flawless, retaining all the grace, passion, and subtle flavor of the originals. Poetry has never been so beautiful or so bloody. A haunting loveliness combined with a window the steals an uncompromising glance at the capriciousness and creativety of a forgotten age. If your heart can bare such a relentless look into South India's forgotten past, you must read this book. An excellent source for hardened scholars, armchair Indologists, and poets alike.