Research Books

This book and all the other Seth books written by Jane Roberts should be required reading for all. This empowering information is life changing. I highly recommend this book and all the other Seth books as well. It's the only way, as I see it, to have a happier, peaceful, fullfilling life.

Everyone who wants to know more about how to make The Secret work for them must read these books!

I will tell you a story. After reading this book, I wondered if I had a counterpart anywhere near my home!! I asked in my mind to be shown this person, if there was one, and to be shown in such clarity that I would recognize him or her!! As I sat in a cafe, about a week later, a man came into the cafe with a small child. He was wearing the exact clothes I was wearing, down to the running shoes. We had the same shirt on and khaki pants! We had the same body shape, he being a bit taller. He had gotten out of a silver Mercedes( I used to dream about owning one!) Every hair on my body stood up. The child with him had a t-shirt on which read "Sister". My own sister in this life lived one day, "died" in 1942. I had this most wonderful feeling of peace. Just coincidence? No, I don't think so. Cheers!

In this book (two volumes) Seth adds depth to some of the concepts introduced in Seth Speaks (Reincarnation, Probabilities) and adds new flavours (Counterparts, Families of Consciousness). Excellent and intriguing as usual but you should have read and enjoyed "Seth Speaks" or "Nature of personal reality" before you dig into this one. However, I just finished reading it for the third time and (again) it's been like a new book to me.

This book, along with any other Seth book, can open your mind to new ways of seeing yourself and the world we live in. I can read one page, sometimes, one sentence, and have something to reflect on for hours, if not forever. Highly recommended if you want to expand your awareness.

This is a book that may be the addendum to the classic, "everything I know, I learned in Kindergarten." A book of quotes or laws would have been boring , but the author includes such witty insights. "PARKERS OBSERVATION. men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses. POGREBIN'S AMENDMENT. Boys don't make passes at female smartasses." A book to treasure

This book is full "field-tested" wisdom that I would suggest to anyone.

A wonderfully-crafted and edited collection of unwritten maxims -- many of which I have often improperly quoted -- Hugh Rawson's volume clears up many misconceptions and offers insightful historical anecdotes to amplify many of the "laws" than most of us live by (without acknowledging them).

Perhaps the most metaphysical of all is "Haldane's Observation;" that God doesn't play with dice (echoed in Einstein's theory that all of the universe's movements/activities are ultimately understandable). Rawson cleverly adds Stephen Hawking's contradictory observation that God not only shoots dice, but that they often land where man can't find them.

Totally enjoyable and entertaining, can be read straight through or left on the shelf as a "reference book," to be taken down as the occasion merits.

Thom Kowalski

I got a copy of this book from a local book store. What impresses me is Hugh Rawson's ability to locate the source of the "law". Reading this book is both easy and inspirational. As a management trainer, I found this book a great tool for my own REFLECTION:

Do I have beliefs that is questionable? Have I investigated all aspects of the problem? Am I afraid of making mistake and looking stupid?

These are the reflections I've come across while reading it at the bookstore (before I made the purchase, I've spent more than an hour reading it).

While developing management training course, I often come across situations when I want to include something inspirational in the course manual. If this looks familiar to you, Rawson's book is for you. It literally has everything you need to know about "unwritten laws" from the infamous Murphy's Law to those of the great ancient Chinese thinkers.

Get yourself a copy! Kelvin's Law: "You only miss those thing you've haven't done at the right time!"

Still have not recived shippment, long overdue and I am very annoyed as I really needed that book urgently....

The book is great as I have used it before, but your shippment service is extrememly poor....

The U-FE framework is primarily a text about user focused evaluation. I have found this text to be both useful and comforting. The usefulness of the book begins with taking a novice evaluator, I am one, through some very basic activities to help build evaluation skills of professionals.
Patton starts with the rationale the many evaluations are unused. Then he builds his case for use throughout the entire text. He continues to develop the strengths and weaknesses of goal based and goal free evaluation. Ultimately he states that evaluations need to have use for primary users and that evaluations need to measure client outcomes. Did the program actually change, maintain, prevent something in the target population.
There are few books in any profession that admit working with human based systems is very difficult. Patton lays out the highly complex feelings and emotions that an evaluator deals with at any point in the evaluation process. I know as a teacher that sometimes our profession misses that we have a tremendous impact on students. I know that it is a platitude. Evaluation is a relatively new field with few institutions currently offering degrees in evaluation, so Patton offers a lot of insight into this highly complex and still developing field.
There are some very practical menus offered in the text as well. Approaching any consulting work with a list of viable and workable choices is a good thing. I find that understanding the choices helps me to focus on what is right for the primary users of the evaluation. Focusing on the primary intended users is good business. Not only is it good business, but I believe that working in challenging situations it is good to allow people to decide what course to take. Many criticize this approach for being to close to the program being evaluated, and I disagree with this notion. There is little evidence in my experience or in the literature to suggest that any interaction with human systems can be objective. People are smart and keeping a distance may add unintended consequences to any evaluation.
Patton is suggesting working with intended users to increase evaluation use. Evaluation that are completed and never used is a waste of time and resources. I find Patton's book helpful in keeping my interest in evaluation because I do want to be part of a world that I can help make better.

One of the most important books on evaluation ever written, and this third edition is better than ever. How to ensure that evaluation results are put to maximum use, by involving key stakeholders as true partners in the effort from start to finish. This is evalution for the new century at its finest. And fun to read as well.

I found this book to provide a very useful summary of a philosophy of evaluation that seems very valuable. Despite the horrible title the test is easy to read, and scattered with funny stories which may be an advantage or disadvantage depending on your perspective.

The first two parts are largely philosophical, with the later parts providing more of the practical back-up.

I am not convinced by all of Patton's arguments, but he certainly gives evaluators food for thought.

I read the book purely out of curiosity. I co-manage a high tech company so at first I was disappointed since none of the high tech companies are included in the book. But I started reading it anyway because I wanted to read what some of the famous companies like Caterpillar and UPS are doing to gain market-leadership. Although some of the company stories get to be tedious, most are useful and fun to read. And even though none is from a high tech company, it gave me ideas for my own business. Now whenever I am faced with a customer problem, I would be thinking of one or the other story to come up with my own innovative ways of solving the customer's problem and to meet his or her value requirements. Beyond the stories, what I found useful is the customer value framework the authors offer. At first, it looks deceptively basic and simple; but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed valuable. Its simplicity is a good thing. Authors claim that it is comprehensive - I am not sure yet, but so far every value creation activity I could think I could fit into the framework. And I could apply it to my company. Indeed the framework is applicable to any company in any industry. The book offers nothing in the way of quick-fix. And when you finish reading it, don't expect to run with excitement, eager to implement something. Rather, the book's framework gives you a template to use in long term, cool-headed, planning. It does not matter if you are a small business or a large business, and if you are a established company or a start up, the book's framework will be a handy tool for constantly thinking about various avenues of creating "unusual and complete" customer value.

I read the book purely out of curiosity. I co-manage a high tech company so at first I was disappointed since none of the high tech companies are included in the book. But I started reading it anyway because I wanted to read what some of the famous companies like Caterpillar and UPS are doing to gain market-leadership. Although some of the company stories get to be tedious, most are useful and fun to read. And even though none is from a high tech company, it gave me ideas for my own business. Now whenever I am faced with a customer problem, I would be thinking of one or the other story to come up with my own innovative ways of solving the customer's problem and to meet his or her value requirements. Beyond the stories, what I found useful is the customer value framework the authors offer. At first, it looks deceptively basic and simple; but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed valuable. Its simplicity is a good thing. Authors claim that it is comprehensive - I am not sure yet, but so far every value creation activity I could think I could fit into the framework. And I could apply it to my company. Indeed the framework is applicable to any company in any industry. The book offers nothing in the way of quick-fix. And when you finish reading it, don't expect to run with excitement, eager to implement something. Rather, the book's framework gives you a template to use in long term, cool-headed, planning. It does not matter if you are a small business or a large business, and if you are a established company or a start up, the book's framework will be a handy tool for constantly thinking about various avenues of creating "unusual and complete" customer value.

.

ValueSpace? What is it? What does it do for my business?

We are constantly asked these questions since the book's release. They are best answered by us in the preface, excerpted below.

PREFACE

ValueSpace -we hold it in utmost admiration.

ValueSpace-it is to us the be-all and the end-all of all business activity; the only purpose of all businesses. It is the only justifiable goal of all reengineering, organizational renewal, entrepreneurship and corporate innovation. And it is the only path for sustained growth; for winning the battle for market leadership. It is the space where true market value is created. For shareholders; for employees; and, most of all, for customers. We present in this book a blueprint on how companies can build enduring ValueSpace for their customers.

This book is at the intersection of our two long-held obsessions: As university professors, we view ourselves as lifelong learners; and for decades, we have been students of customer behavior on the one hand and business organizations on the other. We have studied theories of customer behavior-indeed created some of them ourselves--, and for decades, we have observed, analyzed, and written about business processes, precepts, and practices. In this book, we bring these two streams together-our knowledge of customers and our knowledge of businesses. This is our ValueSpace for you, the reader: Uniquely in the current sea of business advice books, we combine the customer and business perspectives.

We set out to understand what constitutes value for the customer and how companies can create it. With financial support from the Marketing Science Institute (a Cambridge-based nonprofit research organization), .. we studied 11 Fortune's Most Admired Companies. ... Our framework, comprising the components of ValueSpace and its drivers, is quintessential-no matter what else you do or do not do, you must create these value components. Our framework is enduring-it is not the "project of the month"; long after the current fads have vanished, you must still build the value components we describe. Our framework is universal-it applies to all companies: manufacturing and service; small business or global enterprises, business-to-business or business-to-consumer; physical or digital; dot-com or not-com.

We intend this book to be a blueprint for thought as well as practice. We present conceptual framework to help you plan; we provide a self-audit form that you can use to assess your company's current standing in the ValueSpace; and we present case histories, stories of the most admired companies, and insights from executive interviews that you would find both inspirational and actionable. It is a hands-on guide to launching your journey into the customer ValueSpace.

Our own journey has been fascinating; we have learned a lot-from the Most Admired Companies we studied; from the executive interviews we did specifically for this research; and from thousands of conversations over the years with consumers, mangers, and corporate leaders just like yourselves. It is a pleasure and privilege to share with you our view of Customer ValueSpace, and our total fascination with it.

(End of Preface) * * *

VALUESPACE FOR BUSINESS EXECUTIVES

How You Can Use the Book:

Knowledge is the foundation for all strategy and sound executive action. This book will give you:

a. A Perspective: A framework for thinking about your customers' ValueSpace, and indeed about your business itself.

b. A Strategic Planning Tool. The book contains an Audit self-survey both for nine ValueSpace components and 40 driver processes. You can use this tool to assess your company's current standing and then plan action to move forward in the ValueSpace.

c. As an Account Planning Tool. For each major customer, you can identify the gaps in the ValueSpace you can fill.

d. As an Executive Training Tool. As a platform for Executive Training, the book can inform, guide, and frame the continuing education experiences in corporate universities and in-house Executive training centers.

Once you adopt the ValueSpace thinking, the potential to explore avenues of value creation are limited only by your creativity and vision.

* * * * * * *

SELECTED EXCERPTS

Value, not money, is the basic currency of all human interaction. When we meet someone, we try to quickly assess how long would it be worth our while to be talking to that person. If an incoming phone call shows up on our called ID, we promptly decide if we would gain anything by taking the call at that time. If we get 10 letters in the mail, we look through them and choose to open only those that we expect to contain some information of value to us. This is even more true for marketplace exchanges.... ...

Companies that invent new values such as these possess certain traits. They observe customers real close. They dig customer need to its essential core. And they keep their eyes on a singular target: creating far fetched new ValueSpace for the customer. These traits indeed lead a business to mold its own self-concept in the customer's image. Rosenbluth redefines the very nature of its business as "business interaction management." And 3M comes to view itself, instead of being a maker of masking tapes, abrasive papers, and adhesives, as a provider of bonding, protection, and masking solutions.....

This reinvention of oneself as a corporate being, this customer-centered adoption of a new self-identity, the constant contemplation of the customer desires -this is what it takes to invent unparalleled ValueSpace for the customer. This is what it takes to win the battle for market leadership. This is what it takes to thrive.

* * * * * * *

IN CONCLUSION

We hope you enjoy the book. We will certainly be grateful for your feedback. You can send it to us at BanMittal@MyValueSpace.com.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

A few years ago, I read a New York Times bestseller, The Discipline of the Market Leaders, by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema. Since its publication, I have heard a lot of managers quoting from it. In this bestseller, authors Treacy and Wiersema describe three strategies: product leadership, operational excellence, and customer intimacy. My fellow executives translate these as product, price, and service, and we all generally agree that to compete, "You have to be good at two, and be excellent at the third."

Last week I read ValueSpace by Mittal & Sheth. It changed my interpretation of Treacy and Wiersema's book. I realized how wrong every manager's understanding of Treacy and Wiersema's book had been. The confusion is between the Marketspace and Valuespace. Treacy/Wiersema's book tells us WHAT market to compete in (Marketspace); Mittal/Sheth's book tells us HOW to compete in the chosen market (ValueSpace). Their discussion of this distinction in Chapter 12 was an eye-opener. They also do a great job of tying up the theme of their book with the themes of other business bestsellers, such as Tom Peter's In Search of Excellence and Collins and Porras' Built to Last.

I highly recommend this book to anyone concerned with business strategy. If you have read other bestsellers on business strategy, you can't afford to miss this one. I only wish the authors had made Chapter 12 as their first chapter. . My suggestion would be to read Chapter 12 first. Then the rest of the book would be doubly meaningful.

This is THE book to read on the spread of AIDS and the HIV virus. It has the best coverage of the natural history of the HIV virus and related viruses I have found. Goudsmit explains HIV in terms of geography, ecology, and history. He is even-handed; his explanation of the controversy over the discovery of the HIV virus is clear and not contentious. The book is well referenced, with a good bibliography and a glossary.

Very objectively written, it is chock full of info from start to finish(and a look to the future as well), history, symptoms Etc. A full 5 stars for his book!

I am writing this because in chapter 8, the author tries to explain the means of tranferance of a feline blood disorder to primates in a captive population as being due to fighting, or licking, when in all likelyhood it was the external parasites, ie. ticks, which could have easily moved from cage to cage in ancient egypt. This is the only flaw I could find in this excellent text, realizing that it is all best guesses, all of which are very clearly explained, down to simians, and then as far back as our feline friends in ancient Egypt.

This was the first book I read, after finding out that my lover, and wife to be was HIV +, (odds are HIV 1E, or 1C). A wonderful narrative of the historical spread of HIV and HIV-like disorders. Very intelligently written, not dumbed down like all too many other books on HIV. Thankyou for informing me, the only way to fight back is through education, as it is the only weapon against fear. If someone you know or love has come to be HIV positive, this should be one of your first steps, and one of the first books you read. J-

This very well written book will totally engage your attention by the end of the first chapter -- if not before. Even with the recent discovery of an HIV-chimpanzee association -- an association predicted by the author -- it is only the beginning of a fascinating travalogue into the phylogeny and origin of this group of retroviruses. The title is unfortunate. It does not convey the rich heuristics and detailed research that the author has captured in this wonderful book on HIV origins. I suppose some editor thought that the title would excite (some) readers. In fact, the title is a distraction to those who wish to learn more about the long trail of HIV and related viruses, stretching back two or more millennia in Africa. A must book for epidemiologists, medical historians and those interested in AIDS/HIV history.

If you are a teacher who would like to become familiar with the latest academic research regarding vocabulary acquisition, but who has neither time nor energy to wade through hundreds of pages of technical research in academic journals, then this is the book for you!
Too often, a wide ravine separates literacy teachers from academic researchers in the field. The teachers tend to focus on practical textbooks, oriented around lesson plans for specific grades (such as those in the Scholastic Teaching Resources series), while the researchers produce highly technical articles published in journals such as the Journal of Child Language or Reading Research Quarterly, which are all but inaccessible to the average teacher, whether because of the lengthy and technical nature of the articles, or because of the limited time available to practicing schoolteachers.
However, the present compendium of articles successfully bridges this gap, bringing the latest results of academic literacy research to the literacy teacher. Concepts are presented clearly and succinctly, in a fashion which underscores their relevance to the challenges of the literacy classroom. At the same time, however, these studies do not suffice with a simple recital of the research results; rather, they also include detailed explanations of the field tests from which the concepts emerge, along with complete bibliographical references. Thus, the reader emerges informed not only of the results of the research but with an overview of the research process as well; and the reader who wishes to explore any given matter further needs only follow up the copious bibliographical notes within.
Underlying most of the studies within the book is the contention that wide reading will generally not suffice to build a child's vocabulary. On the one hand, studies show that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the context surrounding unfamiliar words is not sufficiently rich to allow the child to learn the words in any meaningful way. Additionally, the frequency of unfamiliar words tends to be too low for the words to become ingrained within the mind of the reader. On the other hand, additional studies demonstrate that using a variety of proactive instruction strategies, significant quantities of words can be acquired and internalized, such that reading comprehension is bolstered considerably. These latter studies investigate strategies for analyzing unfamiliar words (such as morphology instruction), as well as methods for heightening awareness of new words (such as the Vocabulary Self Selection method).
Given the wide range of authors included within this compendium, it is natural that some differing viewpoints will emerge. For instance, although the word "predict" is used by Shane Templeton as a prime example of a word which can generate a fruitful morphology session in the classroom (page 133), Michael Graves, in his discussion of prefix instruction 50 pages earlier, specifically notes that words such as "predict" are not sufficiently transparent and should be excluded from morphology discussions (page 83). Nevertheless, such differing positions are perfectly reasonable and are certainly welcome in the present book, allowing teachers to make informed decisions, choosing varying methods and strategies as appropriate for their particular students.
The one fault which I have found in this book is that the authors fail to take their vocabulary acquisition methods one step further, towards the writing process. That is, the overarching concern of virtually every one of the writers is the learning of vocabulary for reading comprehension. While this is certainly a worthy goal, and certainly precedes any effort placed upon developing writing skills, I felt that the research explored here regarding the integration of new vocabulary should have also been exploited to develop strategies which would encourage the students to use the newly acquired words in their writing as well.

This review of research is just as important for the Non Reading classroom teacher.

I started by skipping through the chapters that I thought applied to me, but ended up reading all of the chapters and finding use for all of the information.

I shared this with collegues who ended up buying their own copies!

The collaborative effort of James F. Baumann (Professor of Reading Education, University of Georgia) and Edward J. Kame'enui (Director of the Institute for the Development of Educational Achievement, College of Education, University of Oregon), Vocabulary Instruction: Research To Practice is the newest title in the outstanding "Solving Problems in the Teaching of Literacy" series from Guilford Publications. Focusing upon student vocabulary development, this compendium of research-based approaches provides current findings in the areas of effective classroom curriculum strategies for increasing vocabularies through the teaching of specific word meanings, strategies for learning new words independently, opportunities for word and language play, and developing a lifelong appreciation for words, their meanings, and their usages. Enhanced with illustrative classroom examples, Vocabulary Instruction can well serve as a primary text for aspiring teachers, as well as informative supplemental reading for practicing classroom instructors developing curriculums for any grade level of instruction.

I am an educator who recently had to overhaul and redesign a large-scale vocabulary instruction program. The information in this book was invaluable to me. I found it to be accurate, insightful, actionable, well-organized, and comprehensive.

As another teacher suggested, this book is not full of teaching activities, lesson plans, or word lists. (If you want that kind of book, you might try The Vocabulary Teacher's Book of Lists.) It is, however, full of big-picture facts and credible answers to important questions. It gave me confidence in my approach and helped me make many decisions. It also helped me plan teacher training.

If you are teaching in a traditional classroom setting with an established curriculum and an established set of practices, this book will probably not change the way you teach very much (although it might be interesting). However, if you are making larger-scale decisions about your vocabulary program, this book is a wonderful resource.

Loved this book! There's something here for everyone. I've been giving copies to friends as gifts. It's unusual to read such honest in-depth interviews with well known people. Unlike other works of this kind, this book is refreshingly direct, has no hype, and really gets to the bottom of some important and often controversial ideas without sounding preachy or defensive. In her conversation with physicist Michio Kaku, the author even manages to make advanced physics not only understandable but exciting, ironic, and amusing.

If you've ever wanted to have a conversation with someone whose work or ideas intrigued, then Voices of Truth is a great book for you. When you read it, you feel as though you are the one engrossed in the conversations. Journalist Nina Diamond asked 14 of our world's most intriguing people the same kinds of questions I would have asked had I been there. This book was the next best thing. She tackles very thought provoking issues and ideas often with humor and great wit that makes you feel each of her subjects--from James Redfield to Arun Ghandi-really opened up. Interesting and easy to read.

One of the most reader-friendly attributes of Voices of Truth is that you can read it - be entertained - and be informed while still having the ability to PUT IT ASIDE before you've finish it cover to cover. The writer's collection of interviews is assembled in such a way that while on a recent business trip, I was able to read selected segments completely from beginning to end - feel fulfilled - go on to other things and then come back to the book - over and over until I had completed reading the entire colletion of interviews. The Q & A style of this book made it seem as though I was in the room with the author and the interviewees. Quite extraordinary! Kudos to the author for presenting such a grand collection of impressive subjects!

Here is a collection of in-depth interviews with some of today's most visionary and progressive figures. From "the usual suspects" (Deepak Chopra, Carolyn Myss, et. al.) to folks like Arun Gandhi (grandson of the Mahatma) and pioneering neuroscientist Deborah Mash, these lengthy interviews provide a superb glimpse into the minds and thoughts of these controversial "truth-speakers." Most charming of all is author Diamond's down-to-earth, conversational, and at times genuinely humorous style. Don't miss her questioning Arun Gandhi about his grandfather's loincloth! Highly recommended.

This is a tender, touching, love story of epic proportions. The love and feminine worship of the Trimates by the author, Sy Montgomery is apparent and the loves both human and primate of each woman is so masterfully told by Montgomery. We can't help but feel a kinship to the three wonderful women who are celebrated in this Leakey led sisterhood of Montgomery's biographical tale of primatologists Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Berute Galdikas. Not unlike her other works, Montgomery has allowed us to follow her...NO! This time, walk along side of her throughout her journey to tell the stories of these three women scientists who spent their lives in the service of Louis Leakey until his death in 1972, and the primates they each chose to bravely live among and almost change into their respective Animagus form. Montgomery has taken three biographies and woven them poetically together like the intertwining lives they each lead, without gossip, but of obvious sincere heroine worship.

An astonishing writer named Sy Montgomery thoughtfull wrote Walking With The Great Apes. Montgomery's captivating novel portrays three women who are fasinated about how primates live and care for one another. In a dire world of poaching and murder, these three scientists attempt to protect and preserve the world and nature of humanity's closest cousins. All together Walking With The Great Apes is a thought-provoking book and a must read for anyone interested in the Great Apes.

A very well written book and a great introduction to those who want to know more about the lives and studies of these 3 extremely remarkable woman Jane Goodall, Birutas Galdikas and last but not least for me THE woman of the 20th century Dian Fossey.

Sy Montgoemry writes extremely well, and as a consequence, her book is compulsively readable. Not only that, but the subject matter is pure fascination, as she sheds light on each of these great apes, their extraordinary environments, and the daring women scientists who study them - their unique approach to science, their trials and tribulations. A great book.

How do military organizations successfully "transform" themselves to meet new priorities and situations? Equally important and interesting, do technological systems employed by these military organizations bear the mark of the institutions that created and employed them. Timothy Moy considers these salient questions in this book by exploring two case studies in the interwar period when the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Marine Corps transformed themselves by developing unique capabilities that found expression in World War II.

The Army Air Corps between the two world wars has been the subject of considerable historical investigation, and from the standpoint of employing new technologies it was a natural for Moy to consider. It represented a profound transformation, both in terms of a doctrine emphasizing strategic bombardment and flowing from that a reorientation toward the development of the manned strategic bomber. No less important, but certainly not enjoying the same level of scrutiny, was what the Marine Corps did during this same period. During the 1920s and 1930s the Marines developed the tactics and the technologies necessary to undertake amphibious assaults, creating a unique niche for their services that found expansive use in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Moy also notes that while the Army Air Corps relied on high technology to accomplish this mission, the Marines employed more modest technologies--landing craft and tactics emphasizing riflemen--to build a new mission for the Corps. Moy notes that these two organizations might have approached their perceived tasks in a strikingly different manner and reached different solutions, but the approach they took shape because of shared "beliefs, habits, and practices of mind," in other words because of an institutional culture that prompted the leadership to think about the challenges before them in a specific manner (p. 5).

Both the Air Corps and the Marines were searching during this period for legitimacy and therefore chose to emphasize unique capabilities not available elsewhere. In a succinctly argued text, Moy makes the case that as it sought legitimacy each organization pursued decisions that reinforced its ideals about itself. For example, the Army Air Corps believed it was on the cutting edge of technology and it had to pursue futuristic aerial bombardment options. At the same time, the Marines built capabilities around its riflemen, taking a decidedly low-tech approach to amphibious assault. Moy warns that both organizations were captured by their leaders' decisions and found change difficult thereafter. He cautions: "By the time the war came, The Air Corps and Marine Corps were prepared to do little else" (p. 169).

"War Machines: Transforming Technologies in the U.S. Military, 1920-1940" is a superb discussion of the interplay of technology, ideas, and organizations. It is a welcome addition to the literature of the twentieth century America military experience.

Timothy Moy is a professional historian and he has written a scholarly book. It digs deeply into the issues at hand, offers carefully measured conclusions, and supports those conclusions with a wealth of evidence. He makes a persuasive case for the idea that the technologies that made possible long-range precision bombing and amphibious assault were created by a complex set of forces: some technological, others political, still others institutional. Moy's treatment of amphibious assault is particularly welcome, since (unlike long-range bombing) it has received little attention from historians.

Moy is also a graceful and efficient writer. His argument flows smoothly, and--even when deeply immersed in details--he never loses sight of the point those details are intended to reinforce. The result is a book that can be read with profit *and* enjoyment by historians, military personnel, engineers, or anyone else with a serious interest in how new weapons systems are born.

War Machines: Transforming Technologies in the U.S. Military, 1920-1940 examines the U.S. Army Air Corps and the U.S. Marine Corps' uniquely different relationships with technological developments during the interwar period. The Army Air Corps, which owed its very existence to technological developments, emphasized high-tech strategic bombing in order to support and expand the role of the Air Corps in the military structure. The end result for the Air Corps was that it left the Army and became the independent U.S. Air Force. The Marine Corps, which owed its very existence to the rather low-tech concept of a man with a rifle, focused on producing rugged and dependable landing craft whose sole purpose was to safely and efficiently transport riflemen and equipment to a hostile shore. The result for the Marine Corps was that it was not annexed by the U.S. Army, which believed it was essentially a redundant force.

The author, Timothy Moy, who is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of New Mexico, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and this book is an outgrowth of his doctoral dissertation. After an introductory chapter, Moy, a historian of science and technology, devotes four chapters of his ten-chapter book to a roughly chronological examination of the Army Air Corps' development of strategic bombing. He then devotes four chapters to a likewise roughly chronological examination of the Marine Corps' development of amphibious landing craft. Moy concludes with a chapter concerning what he perceives as the military, bureaucratic, and cultural victories won by the Army Air Corps and Marine Corps, and how these victories were manifested in the roles of each service during World War II and in the creation of the independent U.S. Air Force in 1947.

Moy has produced a book that is both well written and researched. He tells his story not from a strictly military history point of view, but also includes the bureaucratic and cultural issues which played such an important role in the process of technological developments. Moy's conclusions certainly appear to be supported by the roles and successes of the Army Air Corps and the Marine Corps during World War II.

Despite these positive points, I do believe that this work has some weaknesses. In both cases, Moy has chosen technological developments which he knows, in advance, were perceived as successful during World War II. I find myself wondering, therefore, if his use of only successful outcomes somewhat biases his analysis of the relationship between these services and technology. From my point of view, he would need to demonstrate examples of failed as well as successful technology to truly make his case. In fact, I believe that examining the failures might be just as useful (if not more useful) than examining the successes.

Though some of the text can be confusing when dealing with the discussion of technological detail and despite my questions regarding Moy's methodology, I do recommend this volume for historians interested in the military, bureaucracy, and science and technology.

Timothy Moy's War Machines: Transforming Technologies In The U.s. Military, 1920-1940 is the fascinating story of how during the interwar years from 1920 to 1940, leaders from the Army Air Corps and the Marine Corps recreated their forces based on concepts and equipment emerging from new military technologies. Moy carefully examines how bureaucratic pressures, institutional cultures, and technological enthusiasm shaped and affected the choices and decisions of key military leaders. Indeed, the very existence of an Army Air Corps was based on the new technology of the airplane, while the Air Corps was compelled to compete for money and other resources during the years following World War I with an America enmeshed in isolationist policies. Moy provides the student of American military history with a cogent, articulate, astute, scholarly, and compelling analysis that will prove a greatly appreciated contribution as both a personal study and an academic reference.

I found this book to be highly illuminating and relevant for our times, when so many children--and their parents--are suffering in what is truly an "autism epidemic". Many children might benefit from the diet Judy Chinitz discusses in this book, if only more people knew about it. The way the author combines information on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet with personal narrative makes it a suprisingly good read.
Today I googled the author and discovered that she has a website, [....]

The reality of what this author, Judy Chinitz, has proclaimed can not be underestimated. As a 32 year veteran teacher, I was always well aware of the link between diet and behavior. (The popular hot dog lunches were the worst!) The claim made by the author, and backed by Dr. Baker and the cited case studies, can not and should not be ignored. This is a sad story; but at the same time, it is wonderful, insightful and informative. I recommend that it be read by all parents ---- not just those that have children with autism.

As a consultant in autism nutrition, I have found this book to be an excellent resource for parents of children on the autism spectrum who want to start the Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

It is wonderful to have a book written by a parent who has been there. Judy lets you know what to expect and how to get through the rough patches. Invaluable.

I would not hesitate in recommending "We Band of Mothers".

One mother's battle to rescue her son from autism-induced pain by introducing a special diet to the boy. The commentary sheds light on the situation and the details of the diet will prove to be of great value to parents facing similar problems.