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Vanden Heuvel is to the left what Rush Limbaugh is to the right. Objectivity be damned!

However, the authors state their positions passionately and persuasively. Like one of the reviewers stated previously, if you have a conservative bent, the articles will make you really think about your position. If, on the other hand, you are more liberally inclined, these articles won't say anything that you haven't already heard.

I am not your typical Nation reader, not by any means. In fact I am pretty much so a right winger, but I was curious and thought I'd check out this collection. While I can't say it changed my mind any, in fact it might have done the exact opposite, this is a very interesting and well written piece of work. I do not agree with the politics of The Nation, but I must say they have some of the best contributors writing for them, and they do make you think about your own stances. If you actually agree with their politics, you probably already know about this book and have read it. If not, and you want to see what the other side believes, this is a great way to educate yourself.

This book is for those who missed out on the ~500 issues it draws from, or those who're curious about the ultimate tastes of Victor Navasky, publisher, and Katrina Vanden Heuval, editor. How do you filter the best of ten years? Interesting to ponder. These two must have been taking notes the whole time.

TheNation is a magazine it is good to have discovered. I found it when some soul regularly put big piles of free issues on a table in the English building at my college. A subversive act, no? If you consider progress subversive. It was kind of strange to read at first. Who were all these people mentioned? What were these groups? But once you get in synch with the vibe, the magazine becomes truly exciting and audacious. I don't know how some of these writers became so intellectually powerful, so incisive at tearing apart the fabric of the consensus trance and revealing the bloody insides of what a DeLillo character called The Festival of Death. Which world is this? This book will help you know, with respect to whether you can be helped.

Is TheNation provincial? Some say so, but I think not. What about its coverage of Russia? Latin America? Africa? The Middle East? Asia? Europe? America is the focus, of course, but would we want it different? How can we influence lands far away if we don't yet know the secrets of our own land? Isn't the most powerful machine a good one to examine if we'd like to twist the world history vector? And if you want to get into the foreign more than the magazine itself gives you, there are lots of book recommendations to be had--books that will take you wherever you want to go, and what's more, books that will explore the world in ways you may not have even dreamed of.

No relevent aspect of reality goes unnoticed in the textuality of The Nation, the books, the readers. The perceptual net is tight--the neurotic denial of perspectives is fully minimized here. How much is going on? Can you help people? What about armchair radicals? I have nothing against sitting in chairs. I find myself reading this book, and thinking, I'm totally unable to participate in struggle for justice X, yet--in a certain way, reading about it is enough. If we can't save the victims, we can at least know of them. There is infinite Pain going on, and it's hard to influence an infinity, but any decrease in pain is meaningful. Everything is meaningful.

Let me start by saying that I have owned the full 12-volume set for about a year and use it quite frequently as a resource. To be fair, I have yet to use this particular volume. However, as there seem to be no competent reviews on the set as a whole, I did want to add my impressions of this terrific resource.

I can say that I'm very satisfied with my purchase of the 12 volumes in this set. Every portion has been quite helpful, and this is an amazingly simple and inexpensive way to assemble a good library of commentaries on the entire Bible. Obviously the commentaries are not as thorough as one may find in other series, such as the excellent (although not yet quite complete) "New International Commentary on the New Testament" or a similar series. However, for most Christians who teach or lead small groups in their churches, this set can serve as a great resource to get started with, and one that can easily be supplimented with specific volumes that treat a book of the Bible in greater depth as those books are needed. Additionally, this resource can be more useful than a larger volume in situations where one is interested in looking at a few chapters of scripture at a time, or where one just needs to understand what a verse or two might mean. Thanks to the very clear and practical verse by verse organization, it's a terrific tool to do just that.

Also, I will add that (at the time of this writing) it should be possible to buy the entire set for around $150 or less, so I would suggest shopping a bit if you plan to purchase all 12 volumes.

Strongly recommended.

I needed this book fast for class. I'm a seminary student. I got it quick and didn't miss a quiz (if you know what I mean!)I am a loyal customer. Stever

This is the first time I have used a text book with the NIV translation as the base. This book has been a good text book and very well researched. Do recommend this book to anyone needing to further their studies in this subject matter.

the previous reviewer's 3-star rating because of the lack of color photographs doesn't do this book justice. Cvancara provides a strong, broad overview of geology for the amateur or hiker who's interested in knowing a bit about the nature, origin, and contents of the land around them.

The book covers types and varieties of rock, fossils & landforms as well as geologic time and how it changes & reforms land. I foudn the best part to be an interesting ~50 page section on "how to do geology", covering such interesting topics as how to analyze a landscape to determine its origins, reading topographic and geologic maps, how to track the source of a stone, how to find & pan for gold, and how to build a rock, mineral, or fossil collection. With the attached appendices of geologic resources I find it a great way for myself as an amateur to enjoy knowing what it is I'm admiring on hikes & such.

Considering a majority of geology is recognizing colors, this book (with only black and white photos) is hard to use as a reference manual. The reading is also a bit stuffy, but does cover a wide range of geologic topics.

I'm definitely no expert in geology, but I've always wanted to learn the basic concepts and understand the terminology. I found this book to be an excellent introductory book. It is much more than a grade-school primer, but not as deep as a college textbook. In short, it's ideal for the interested amateur who want to understand the subject without having their eyes glaze over. It is well organized, starting by describing the different types of landforms, then on to historical geology, minerals, rocks, and fossils, and finally a practical section on how to do geology as an amateur. I learned such things as the difference between basalt and gabbro, how to measure strike and dip, and what an anticline is. This is probably not a book that you would sit down and read start to finish, but it is written in easy-to-understand text. (Compare that to something like John McPhee's Annals of the Former World, a book guaranteed to mystify anyone who doesn't have a Ph.D. in geology.) I agree that the photos of rocks and minerals need work, but part of the problem is that in my copy, they are printed too dark. Color might help, but the colors in the field never seem to match those in a photo, so what you really need are samples you can touch and feel. The only real complaint I have is that the layout of the book is atrocious. The choice of font and line spacing makes it appear to have been done by an amateur desktop publisher. I would have expected better from a quality publisher like John Wiley.

This is a fast read with practical, beneficial ideas primarily intended for the prose writer. Cook often refers to newspaper and magazine articles, radio pieces, and book chapters. His tone is extraordinarily chatty, almost to distraction, but his casual approach makes the advice seem designed specifically for just you and your writing. Plentiful examples from an eclectic array of pulications plus well-known and unknown writers help demonstrate the universality of the instruction he offers in this short, but utilitarian writer's manual.

ProActive Sales Management is full of great ideias covering everything from creating a sales culture in an organization to how hold a decent sales meeting.

As someone who occasionally struggles with leads, I found this guide quite helpful in working out some of the kinks and better using my creativity. I've read it cover to cover several times and my only complaint is that I wish it were longer!

Just a response to the School Library Journal review's mention of the one
"glitch" in the book: a reference to the sudden appearance of the gold stars on the sidewalk. A careful look near one of the lamp posts on the page where text reads: "As the sunlight faded away, so did everyone else." will reveal how the stars got on the sidewalk!

I love that this book takes place in an urban setting, and the feeling of the drawings is magical yet real. The intricate detail engages toddlers through to my 11 year old niece. A wonderful book.

Young readers (and adults, too) enjoy stories about friendship. Toss in a little magic, and it's sure to please. Such is the case with Annette LeBlanc Cate's touching story about two best friends, Ray and Bunny.

Not only are they best pals who live together and do everything together, but they're business partners. Ray is a magician and, of course, Bunny pops out of his hat.

All goes well until the day there is a ruckus on a crowded sidewalk, Bunny is frightened and runs off. Being lost in a big city is hard on anyone but it's especially difficult for a small white rabbit.

How the devoted duo are reunited is the crux of the story.

Illustrations are in black and white save for gold stars rather than the full-color full-page paintings that are so often the mark of a young readers' book. I found Cate's choice to be very effective.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

I read the book and found it very helpful with my plan to form a real estate parnership. I found the examples at the end of each subjet very helpful. However, it seems the authors went to a great length to demonstrate to readers that they are NOT gender biased, to the point where one would find himself sometimes cringing. Their objective could have been attained better by replacing all the He, she, him, her, with "he/she" or "him/her", and let each readers to choose the jender for themselves.

I found this title to be all-encompassing if you're considering entering into a partnership - whether it's an existing partnership or whether you're starting up a new partnership. In fact, I purchased another title on this same topic and I ended up returning it because I didn't see where it covered anything that wasn't already covered in The Partnership Book. I feel much more comfortable entering into a partnership after reading this book as I feel that I now have the necessary information to make proper decisions. I strongly urge anyone considering entering into a partnership to read this book.

This book gives you an excellent foundation for writing a partnership agreement. It saves tremendously on the cost of having a lawyer write the whole agreement. We just had to use a lawyer to insure nothing was omitted.

Trotsky's analysis of the early stages of the Communist Revolution in China is a remarkable exegesis of Stalin's dictatorial and anti-revolutionary attempts to organize a political leadership for the sake of working against the peasantry. Trotsky is especially meticulous in his documentation of Stalin's internal declarations of aligning the U.S.S.R. with the Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuo-Min Tang. Trotsky writes: "The Communist Party of China has been a shackled party in the past period. It did not have so much as its own newspaper. Imagine what this means in general and especially in a revolution! [..] Can we tolerate anything like this? This means to disarm the the proletariat politically" (89). Trotsky constantly called for the arming of the proletariat and the forming of independent Soviets in China, while Stalin constantly fought against it. Perhaps if Trotsky had been in the position to implement his politics more directly the history of Communism in China would have been different.

Recently I reviewed in this space Andre Malraux's Mate's Fate, a novelistic treatment of the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27 that emphasized the turmoil at the base of Chinese society in its late phase after the popular front alliance with General Chiang Kai-Shek's bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang broke down and Chaing began his extermination drive against the Chinese Communists. In Leon Trotsky's book, under review here, we get a real time, real life analysis of the political questions that led to that catastrophe and what revolutionaries could learn from it.

I have noted elsewhere that the Communist International (hereafter Comintern) evolved in the mid-1920's , under the impact of Stalinization, from a revolutionary organization that made political mistakes, sometimes grossly so, in pursuit of revolution to an organization that pursued anti-revolutionary aims as it turned primarily into an adjunct of Soviet foreign policy. Prima facie evidence for such a conclusion is the Soviet Communist Party /Commintern policy and its implementation toward the budding Chinese Revolution.

As much as policy toward the Chinese Revolution became a political football in the internal Russian Communist party fights between Stalin's bloc and Trotsky's bloc it is impossible to understand the strategy for the Chinese Revolution without an understanding of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. No Marxist, at least not openly and honestly, put forth any claim that in the West the national bourgeoisie could be a progressive force in any modern upheaval. Russia, in the early 20th century was, however, still a battleground over this question. This is where Trotsky formulated the advanced Marxist notion that in Russia the national bourgeoisie was too weak, too beholding to foreign capitalist interests and too dependent on the Czarist state and its hangers-on to fulfill the tasks associated with the classic bourgeois revolutions in the West. Thus, for Russia alone at that time Trotsky postulated that the working class had become the heirs of the revolutions in the West as well as its socialist tasks. The Revolution of 1905 gave a glimmer of understanding to that proposition and the Revolution of October 1917 cannot be understood except under that premise.

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution the question of who would lead the revolutions of the countries even less developed that Russia, mainly colonial and semi-colonial regimes, formed one of the new political battlegrounds. And China was the first dramatic test that Trotsky's original Russia only premise applied to underdeveloped `third world' capitalist regimes, as well. However,unlike in Russia, this time Trotsky lost. The necessary independent organization of the working class and the political separation of the communist vanguard were not carried out and, to our regret, the Chinese Revolution was beheaded. As mentioned above this was a conscious Stalinist policy of kowtowing to Chiang by unequivocably ordering the Communist Party to make itself politically and miltarily subservient to the Kuomintang as well as providing Comintern military advisers to Chiang.

Today, even a cursory look at countries of belated and uneven development hammers home the fact that the various tasks associated with the Russian and Chinese Revolutions still need to be carried out. Thus, the political fights that wracked the international communist movement in the 1920's which under ordinary circumstances would only be of historical interest today take on a more life and death meaning for many of the peoples of the world. That makes this book well worth the read.

I would also add that there is a very interesting appendix at the end of this work detailing reports from the field filed by those Comintern agents that carried out Comintern policy in China and who, as a result, had become oppositionists. These reports give added ammunition to Trotsky's more theoretical arguments. They also give fresh and bones to the some of the points that Malraux was trying to bring out in Man's Fate. Read on.

While probably not the best introduction for those unfamiliar with Trotsky's philosophy, this book hits the mark. In article after article, Trotsky shows how Stalin's policies were aimed against the interests of the international working class. Trotsky's arguments are many, but in essence, he argues that Stalin forced the Communist Party to subordinate itself politically to the bourgeois-nationalist Kuomintang party of Chiang-Kai-Shek. This obvious deviation from Marxism was justified by the Stalinists on the grounds that China was an oppressed country straining under the weight of western imperialism. Stalin -- and Mao -- argued that within backwards countries there exists something called the "national bourgeoisie." Stalin and Mao repeatedly forced the working class and the peasantry to accept the domination of the so-called "national bourgeoisie" in the name of fighting imperialist oppression. Trotsky shows that the "national bourgeoisie" in the backwards countries is just the agent of imperialism, nothing more. Thus, Trotsky advances the theoryof the permanent revolution, which says that true national independence and agrarian reforms can come only in a struggle against the so-called national bourgeoisie.

There's something that I really love about collections like this. It's a time capsule! I think it's just great to have the opportunity to read things that are not reflections of years of consideration and debate, but are actually the attitudes of the day. It can be eye-opening.

At the same time, there are ways in which it can be disappointing. One of the things you get from this book is that Rolling Stone had more or less the same 10-12 things to say about REM over 14 years and a dozen albums. (eg. Stipe's lyrics are ambiguous and often hard to understand, the band is known for its political and social conscience, etc etc).

Nevertheless, when just given the opportunity to talk, REM never fails to say interesting things. (It's priceless to read Stipe's reference to two oranges being nailed together, resurfacing, years later). You may put up with some repetition, and some real rock critic posturing, but it will be worth it.

This book should be on the bookshelf of every R.E.M. fan. It is jam packed with all kinds of information about the band. I only wish that the book included glossy photo's of the band. I think that you should be forewarned that the book covers the band from the time period of 1982's "Chronic Town" to 1994's "Monster". Overall, if you are an R.E.M. fan buy the book you will not be disappointed!

A nice collection of articles, factoids, interviews with bandmembers, interesting quotes and opinions on R.E.M. from music biz insiders. It was a pleasure to read and very informative. Nice pictures. This book is a great start for those just learning about R.E.M., the folks who have fallen in love with their music and want to learn how these 4 guys from Athens could possibly be saying exactly what is in your head. This is also a good companion piece for the longterm R.E.M. fan, those who cannot live without their music, there are lots of interesting tidbits to savor. You WILL enjoy this book!

This was an interesting book to read due to its offering of some alternative ways to look at risk assessment. The fresh approach was enjoyable, as was the emphasis on making risk assessment practical and something that's done over time, not just at the beginning of a venture or project.

The layout of the book was split into two major divisions in my mind. The first half seems to be most focused on how to be a trainer or risk assessment expert. It offers guidance on how to make risk assessment a part of an organization's process and how to increase acceptance of these techniques. The second half focused more on the technical background for risk assessment, including a discussion of probability distributions for modeling uncertainty and then a number of examples (including computer code presumably used in the author's risk software). The second half of the book was much more technical than the first half, which seemed a little unusual to me.

One thing I wasn't too sure about in the book was its characterization of different risk types. The author argued against all the technical names for distributions, but then proposed a variety of distributions that were simply renamed versions of these distributions. Frankly, I found the names to be silly and of no value except for the novelty factor. Further, in discussing the distributions, the charts to go with each distribution are outputs of distribution sampling, rather than raw distributions. This struck me as odd and seemed to be much less useful than it could have been. (An example is the uniform distribution which should represent an equal probability of all values within the range; the figure in the book doesn't show a uniform probability for each value.)

This is a good managerial-type book for risk assessment. It's a worthwhile read and addition to a practitioner's or academic's library. It lacks basics on statistics and risk assessment and really needs to be accompanied by a traditional risk-related book to be most useful.

I give the book 4 stars because it's a good book but has a number of quirks discussed above that detract from the content and made me scratch my head.

This book does an excellent job of laying out the basic of risk assessment, including all of the non-mathematical aspects, such as office politics and educating others in the use of risk models. It's easy to understand, even if you don't have a strong math background. I'm an English major, so I should know!

This is a great book for someone who is starting to practice Risk Assessment, either as a consultant, or internally. It covers the practical aspects of risk assessment studies which are usually overlooked, such as working and communicating with stakeholders. The 'softer' side of risk assessment theory is covered i.e. what does all this mean in plain english - how do you communicate the results etc.

The author has a good style, and the text does not contain the usual fluff and buzzwords often found in business-oriented books. Check it out!

The husband/father in this household is a baseball-lover of the first water, well-read and well-versed, who received this book as a peace-offering. Large and handsome, the book brought him discoveries: photographs not in general circulation and tales that made legends real.

I like to think of this book as a companion to the printed version of the Ken Burns Baseball documentary. While the Burns book may cite a reference, this book will contain the complete text. As a result the level of detail here is greater but less ground is covered. Likewise, there are less photographs here but they are rarier and more striking than most of the Burns photographs. For example I had never seen an "action" photograph of the great Christy Mathewson prior to reading this book (see p. 114). It is one thing to imagine that wicked curve being fired at you via prose, quite another to actually see the fire in his mid stride eyes bearing down on you via photograph.

If I had to choose one, I prefer the Burns book but I think that every baseball fan will want to have both in their collection. What one lacks, the other fills in.