Pacific University Books

It is well written, and I recommend this book for anyone interested in history of free thinking.

Don't let the title scare you. This isn't abstruse philosophy or dry and dusty intellectual history. It's actually a very accessible, very readable defense of "the natural liberty of private thinking" and its essential corollaries, freedom of thought, speech, and action. Bury traces the political, social, religious, and cultural obstacles Western society has placed in the way of freedom of thought from ancient Greece and Rome until the nineteenth century, then presents his justification for intellectual liberty. Drawing from rationalism and J.S. Mills' utilitarianism, Bury concludes that allowing the greatest latitude for freedom of thought, "the axiom of human progress," is by far the best and most beneficial arrangement for individual and society. It's an argument with as much relevance today as when it was first published in 1913.

I fully agree with the above review in all its positive points. This book is superbly researched and superbly written, and it is well worth the very inexpensive price. It is by far the most detailed examination of the architectural history of the U.S. Capitol building that I have come across. However, the actual physical quality of the book leaves a great deal to be desired, which is why I have given this four stars instead of five. The printing job is lousy. Many words are struck out or compressed into the space of one letter. The illustrations look as if they were copied on an old and dirty photocopy machine. This is a particular problem with the photographs, some of which are almost undifferentiated black rectangles. Also, the captions indicate that some of the illustrations were obviously in color, although they are copied in black and white.

I would recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the architecture of the U.S. Capitol, but I also would recommend that it be read with other books on the Capitol that have better quality illustrative material.

I used to think that the United States Government Printing Office was responsible for putting out lots and lots of documents only politicians and lawyers might find interesting, as well as pamphlets on home canning, fallout shelter design, and other arts. I was thus delighted to find that this government branch has produced a quite beautiful volume, _History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics_ by William C. Allen. It even has a publication note: "106th Congress, 2d Session / Senate Document 106-29 / Printed pursuant to H. Con. Res. 221," but don't be put off by this. It may be an official US Government publication, but it is a large format book of almost five hundred glossy pages, it is well illustrated, and it is written with no touch of bureaucratese. Cynics alert: the government can do some things very well.

Of course, that is what the book itself is about. The Capitol is a real triumph, a gorgeous building that does everything architecture can do to inspire hand-over-the-heart patriotic feelings. Underneath that magnificent dome are wings that are beautifully proportioned and decorated, and it comes as a surprise to learn just how much the building consists of additions that were never anticipated when its first stone was laid in 1793. Indeed, the splendid dome we see now was before just a smaller spherical cap without decoration, and the building consists more of additions than it does of the original structure. We may now think of the building as essentially finished; indeed, historic preservation activists have in recent decades prevented any major additions or changes, but for most of its history, the Capitol has been tinkered with and pieced together. In 1827, Representative Charles Wickliffe of Kentucky addressed the house to complain that the building was not yet finished, and that old men from his district who had worked on it were now amazed to find out that the work was incomplete. Almost ever since, elected representatives within the building have criticized the Capitol, bothered its funding, politicized the selection of architects, and in general acted like politicians. The building remains symbolic in this way: a magnificent outcome has arisen despite the arguing and shenanigans.

The book describes the placement upon Jenkins Hill of the "Congress House" within the famous plan of the city drawn up by Pierre L'Enfant. It was Jefferson who insisted that that it be called a "capitol," with roots deep in the Roman republic, emphasizing ancient principles of citizenship and self-government. There was a competition for the design of the original building, but there is not really one original architect, as it was built by compromise between various plans. George Washington insisted on a dome "for beauty and grandeur," but thought it might be a good place to put a clock or a bell. It was the classicist Jefferson who advised Washington on the final design, and who worked intimately with B. Henry Latrobe to produce the initial structure. Prominent within it was the rotunda, with proportions taken almost directly from the Pantheon in Rome. The Jefferson - Latrobe partnership was enormously productive, but not without some conflict. Latrobe, for instance, was in favor of a "lantern" to be raised upon the dome as a means of covering it and allowing for light to enter, but Jefferson was clearly bound to classical precedent; he knew of no such lantern on classical buildings, terming them "degeneracies of modern architecture." By the time the dome was really to be erected, the British had in 1814 burned much of the original building, and Charles Bullfinch designed a relatively low, spherical dome close to the desires of Washington and Jefferson.

Latrobe was the first of the architects to deal with the Americanization of classical influence. For instance, the sculptors of the enormous eagle above the Speaker's rostrum produced a weird bird that was distinctly un-American. The Italian sculptor modeled the bird from memory, and it was only after shipments of anatomical parts of a bald eagle to the sculptor that we got an eagle whose inauthenticity would not "be detected by our Western Members." Latrobe also designed novel columns for the inside of the building, capped by magnolias or graceful tobacco leaves rather than the classical acanthus. His most popular feature, however, were the corn columns, the body of which resembled stalks of corn tied together (rather than plain fluting), with a cap of ears of corn. Everyone liked them, and they enabled him to get extra appropriations.

The architect who has most to do with the appearance of the Capitol as we know it was Thomas U. Walker, who entered the competition for the expansion of the building, once the old Senate and House chambers were acknowledged as too small. His design of wings for new chambers on either side of the old ones, and connected to them by narrow corridors, was approved by Millard Fillmore in 1851. Walker worked on the creation of the new chambers even though for most of his term the building project would be transferred to the War Department. It is not clear who had the idea for a vertical extension of the low dome into the splendid one we now see, but by the time a certain Representative addressed his colleagues about the fire hazard of the mostly wooden Bulfinch dome, Walker was already designing its replacement. Many of Walker's beautiful drawings and plans for the dome are reproduced here. The dome is of fireproof cast iron, painted to look uniform with the stone of the rest of the building. Miraculously, the colossal and ornate dome exceeded in weight the original, much smaller, masonry and wood dome by only twenty percent. It was not without controversy; there were many in architectural circles who insisted that buildings and materials must be honest and iron should not imitate stone, but this was never a controversy entered by the politicians. The dome had been started by the beginning of the Civil War, but the firm with the contract for the cast iron had over a million pounds of it on site, and kept working even though the government admitted that the war would postpone all payments. During the war, the Capitol was used as a bakery, a barracks, and a hospital. With the confusion of war, the grounds became trampled by hogs and goats, and they rubbed against and discolored the ironwork waiting installation. But the great dome was completed by the time the war was over.

There have been extensions to all four sides of the Capitol, and many changes to the interior. While many of the historic decorations have been deliberately retained, a few (and it seems significantly few) changes have done serious damage to what went before. The author notes that the 1950s update of the Senate and House chambers took out all of the high Victorian decoration and replaced it with "pastiches of vaguely classical designs." He sniffs, "Few connoisseurs today look upon the designs with satisfaction, nor has any student of Federal period architecture discovered either authenticity or wit among the details." However, such dismissals are few in this gorgeous book. Allen is himself the architectural historian in the office of the Architect of the Capitol, and so his enthusiasm for the structure is not only obvious but it is exceedingly well informed. He has included the controversies, personality clashes, funding debates, and political bombast here, but nothing can obscure the success and the beauty of this remarkable building, a superbly American temple.

This is the definitive work on Pacific States Flora, top notch illustrations, well origanized in 4 volumes, clear precise descriptions, no serious library can be complete without this exaustive work.

This massive 4 volume set was created from 1923 through 1960. It is well laid out listing the species under each family classification. The species are then listed in an "outline" format. The plants are listed by their scientific names with the common names also shown. Abrams is often quite specific in listing localities for finding many of the rarer plants.

One of its strong points is the many fine line drawings which accompany most of the descriptions. The volumes are well bound and finely printed. The cost is not excessive, as the quality is excellent. (In reference the the 4 volume Stanford University publication).

The primary flaw with this work is it is a bit dated. Several new classifications have emerged since Abram's day, and a newer work should supplement this work. An example is the classification of Lilium Vollermi, which is now considered to be a sub-species of Lilium Pardalinum. (Though the whorled leaves of L. Vollermi gives it a nice distinction!).

Still this work is a vast and useful resource, an essential tool for the professional field botanist.

Found what we were looking for in this detailed map

As the author of Tonga-Samoa Handbook, I've used James A. Bier's map of the Samoas many times to check dubious place name spellings or to verify geographical information. The detailed index makes finding places a breeze and the drawing is amazingly clear. I recommend this map highly.

I am planning to sail to the South Pacific next year, and this seems like a very valuable planning tool. It has some information about the history of European exploration, weather patterns, general geography, route planning, etc., but the bulk of the volume is devoted to specific info about the individual island groups, and individual islands in them.
I predict this will be open often during my trip, along with Charlies Charts and a few others.

Considing the relatively small market for a book like this, it's not surprising there's virtually nothing comparable in print. And Earl's territory is vast - all of the Pacific islands from Hawaii to New Zealand and north into Micronesia. The numerous maps should prove useful for orientation and could save you a bundle on official charts (although the author and publisher disclaim any responsibility for errors). There's lots of useful 'passage planning', yacht entry, weather, and public holiday information here, but the country intros could be shortened and the yacht facility sections beefed up. The oversized B&W photos throughout the book occupy space that could be better utilized. An appendix provides four pages outlining the use of amateur mobil radios, but no mention of communicating over the internet is to be found herein. At times, the coverage is skeletal and uneven. For example, on Tahiti only Papeete is visited. Moorea isn't included (!) and the popular Leeward Islands merit only a few lines. In contrast the seldom-visited Austral and Gambier islands receive four pages of maps and texts. In Fiji, Earl only descibes facilities in the main ports of entry: Suva, Lautoka, Levuka, and Savusavu. Really out of the way anchorages are seldom discussed. All that said, these criticisms are mute as there simply isn't another South Pacific cruising guide to choose from. It's a credit to Earl Hinz that he has kept this book going through four editions, and hopefully the electronic revolution will allow him to rejuvenate his book. Meanwhile Landfalls of Paradise is a basic reference work every Pacific sailor will want to carry aboard.

Did you know that Tolstoy created Gandhi with his "The Kingdom of God is Within You?" Gandhi says as much, having read it as a young barrister in UK. It transformed him (along with Ruskin's "Unto This Last")and on he went to save India with this "bible" under his arm, by way of South Africa.

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. was formed if not created by Tolstoy's "The Law of Love and the Law of Violence" which he read as a Seminarian at Crozier Seminary in Chester PA.

Both these books were created by Tolstoy's self-suicide preventing work, "The Gospel In Brief," his original translation of the Greek Texts of the Gospel. THIS is the book that could save the world. THIS is the GOOD NEWS, THE TRUE GOSPEL.

If one confidently labels oneself a follower of Jesus Christ, yet don't find credence in Tolstoy's proclamations, you ain't the real thing, baby. Tolstoy's title makes for a good read. Warning to the Christian right: are you sure Bush has Christ in his heart?
Tolstoy's reader will be slapped in the face with consternation and this is as it should be for the true believer. Surely worth your time if you want to become enlightened.

The much awaited new edition of this book should be out by the summer of 2007. The old edition's taxonomy has gotten rather dated. This new edition will be a must for serious marine biologists who want to identify California's wonderfully diverse marine invertebrate fauna.

Even though the latest edition was published in 1975, Light's manual is still a "must have" for the west coast naturalist. This book contains taxonomic keys and information about the majority of intertidal invertebrate animals that live along the California Coast.

The keys have supplementary illustrations that help the reader figure out what animal is in their bucket, or in the tide pool at their feet.

There are entries that are unavoidably out of date due to the publication date. The reliability and usefulness of the taxonomic keys and supporting information in this book, however, still ring true.

A wonderful reference book to the invertebrates of California.

The only reason I didn't give the book 5 stars was that its publication year (1975) is causing its contents to slip out of date.

Anyone up for putting together a new edition?

Not only does this book hold a wealth of information impossible to find elsewhere, it is also accompanied by beautiful photos.
The detail on the fauna of the Moluccas is better than anything one could find for any other, actually far less remote region of Indonesia. Every bit as good as the book on the Mammals of New Guinea by this author.

Absolutely fascinating book by well known mammalogist Tim Flannery. In the same series as "The mammals of Australia" by Strahan and "Mammals of New Guinea" by Tim Flannery, and equally as well laid out. Sections of the book are divided into families such as muridae (rats), phalangeridae (possums) and pteropodidae (fruit bats). Each species description includes a colour photograph, along with most available information on the species (many species are relatively unstudied. Overall, this book is a wonderful insight into the mammal fauna of this area, and I highly recommend it for any mammalogist or interested individual.

The edition of _Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life_ by Oswald Spengler that I read does not appear to be advertised on this website. It is a small paperback printed in Britain by the European Books Society and features a pen-outline of a burly bald man wearing a suit and holding a cigar (presumably Spengler himself). I found _Man and Technics_ to be a wierd philosophic exposition of the origins of humanity and the organic process of birth, flowering, decay and death that human Cultures inevitably face. The greatest Culture of all is the Western or "Faustian" Culture which far outranks the Classical (Greco-Roman), Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Mexican Cultures. It is something of a manifesto of extreme pessimism regarding the fate of the West and of its people in Europe and America. The Faustian Culture, of which America is a younger shoot, based in Western Europe, began to form around 1000 AD and it is marked by spiritual uncertainty, but an innate ability in Spengler's theme of "Technics." Technics involves the use of the reasoning faculties of the Mind in accordance with the physical use and manipulations of objects by the Hand to make whatever that is outside of man's being in Nature subject to man's will. This provides obvious advantages and also extremely serious disadvantages as well. The more a group of human beings became more machine, material and industry orientated, the more they tried to control Nature--the more Nature will eventually bring about the destruction of the human Culture that builds itself up over time and becomes overgrown, the same as individual plants, animals and plants die--as living organisms. Spengler, in the last page of _Man and Technics_ concludes that there is nothing that can be done to abort the fall of Faustian Civilization, which is ruined by internal decadence, economic competition from without, and the militancy of non-Western peoples who will use Western technology against Europe and America. Spengler regards any notion of optimism about the outcome of human affairs to be cowardly and any hope of utopian salvation to be a flighty dream. The best thing that any man can do in the face of eventual destruction is an honorable end following the choice of Achilles: "Better a short life full of deeds and glory than a long life without content." Spengler, a German philosopher influenced by the works of Nietzsche and contemorary with the National Socialist movement in Germany was a "conservative revoloutionary" opposed to the modern life of artificial material comfort and lack of individuality and spirit. Spengler may be viewed as being "racist," but his outlook on environmental damage was ahead of his time. This book does not, nor is likely to, have a wide audience, but it gives a different view of history in which Cultures and Civilizations are viewed as living organisms which live and die rather than in the liberal/economic interpretations of human affairs currently ascendant in social-political theory. Some of the material is outdated (_Man and Technics_ was written in the 1930s) and innacurate, but remains insightful in an analysis of the fate of the West today.

Spengler wrote "Man and Technics" as a short and accessible supplement to his 'magnum opus', "The Decline of the West". Despite being short this is in fact a truly GREAT book. Spengler examines man's way on earth from the perspective of a philosophical anthropology. In agreement with the other exponents of reactionary modernism in Weimar Germany, Spengler focuses on technology as the critical feature of the Faustian Western Civilization. Spengler uses the Goethian hero in order to disclose to the reader the likely outcome of man's blind worship of instrumental technological reason. At the same time he scorns the West for its imperialism and violation of the life-style of other cultures. Apart from the -mostly accurate - prognoses that it makes, "Man and Technics" reveals a detached view of humanity as if perceived from an Archimedean point of view. Spengler remains a great thinker, rather misunderstood, who ought to be rediscovered by modern intellectuals for his penetrating insight and his uncompromising honesty!

as NREL/TP-462-5173. It is available as a free pdf download from NREL.

This Manual is available for free download at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory website (www.nrel.gov) or by going to http://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/old/5173.pdf