Austria Books

Good all-around guide, but the Michelin Green Guide to Vienna is more comprehensive (although without the hotel, restaurant and shopping listings). This one is a good one volume all-round guide, but it has stupid mistakes such as saying that Vienna's largest cemetary is the Karl-Marx-Hof (it's the Zentralfriedhof). The blue pages with practical advice are excellent as are the maps. Sometimes the tone is a bit snide which is more than a little off-putting.

Enter at your own risk.

I was very happy with this book - I was interested mostly in shopping and restaurants, since I had already done all the touristy type stuff in a previous visit to Vienna. It lists things by district, the maps are easy to follow, it has both an alphabetical and street index, and it is small enough to carry around. The restaurant reviews were right on - I went by this guide for about 10 meals/drinks/desserts (all of which were great), and helped me discover places I would have overlooked. It includes restaurants for ALL budgets. The shopping guide helped me find niche shops and boutiques, not just chains, and also a lot of the stuff that I discovered on my own and LOVED was already in the book once I looked back to check on it. Even though I didn't use the sightseeing section as extensively as the restaurant and shopping guide, it is superpacked with background info and pictures. I picked this book over lonely planet and let's go since it was the most recently published of the 3, and also because I regularly purchased the TimeOut magazines when I lived in London, and I feel like I really got my money's worth.

The current edition of Time Out Vienna is about half the size of the previous one. The previous edition was wonderful, with much more information on cultural sites, museums, cafes, etc. What remains in this over-edited -- yet not, by the way, cheaper -- edition is basically a list of hotels and shops. The few museums, etc., mentioned are wedged into neighborhood 'sightseeing' chapters, as though the main factor in choosing a museum were locale. The end result seems quite shallow, even cynical, and a bit sad, apparently aimed at weekending yuppies on breezy consumption jaunts rather than travelers truly interested in the city. Further, this edition carries much outdated and erroneous information; many of the listed restaurants have closed down, and directions and opening hours are grossly wrong, as if the writers failed to visit the spots recommended. The only value of the new edition is providing prices in euros. If you can, get a used version of the previous edition -- the one with a lion's head fountain on the cover -- and figure out conversion rates yourself.

I used this book as a basis for a 3 week trip to the Swiss and Austrian Alps and it was invaluable. We stayed in recommended towns, Lauterburnen, Zermatt, and Alpbach and they were perfect jump off spots for hikes. We are day hikers, so it was nice to return to comfortable hotels in the towns. All of the hikes were on the mark for difficulty and scenery. I combined some of the shorter hikes into longer ones and used a couple of other books to find ways to extend some of the hikes in the book. We had a fantastic vacation and owe much of the success to this book.

We followed the trails suggested in the Bernese Oberland section. We chose a walk rated as having medium diffiulty for the book. The descent was so steep that my 30-something walks-a-mile-to-work-everyday husband was not able to walk at all the next day because of the extreme pain in his knees. We missed out on all our subsequent hiking. We later learned (from our swiss maps) that the red-white-red trail markings meant "paths for experienced hikers". The yellow markings mean paths for everyone. There was no mention of this distinction in the book. And given the book's title, we would have thought that all of the walks would have been pretty easy. What would we have done if we were older or had our children along? I think hikers should ask their hosts in Switzerland to recommend walks. Our hotel (the Hotel Regina in Wengen) had many easy walks to suggest. I'd get a good map and order something better to read.

A great hiking guide for easy walkers...in the picturesque villages of the alps.. these villlages are easy to get to with public transportationand all hotels cater to summer hikers/walkers. Lifts are nearby and trails are described and well signed and maintained... great for families and hikers of all ages... the book describes the details of the walks with many maps and hotel suggestions. A very user fiendly edition... try it

This is update of a 1954 cookbook, with ingredients brought up to date with supply and some techniques also caught up with modern equipment. The cake war, as author calls it, is also updated.

I agree with another reviewer who thought photos would have enhanced this, as they do all cookbooks. It certainly inspires one trying it after seeing it prepared and presented.

This book is a classic in its area. There are not (in my experience) a lot of books about Austrian cooking. Often, indiginous Austrian dishes like the well-known Wiener Schnitzel get lumped into books about German or Hungarian cooking. Not that there isn't any resemblance, but the Austrian aspect gets ignored. Beer's book goes a long way at remedying this. The book has the classic, well-known recipies, plus others that are less well known. For example, a tasty lentil soup makes a good vegetarian entree. And there are others as well. The biggest problem I found with using the book is that there are too few pictures to show what you are making is supposed to look like. If you follow the directions as written, chances are what you make will look at least marginally like you'll find in the pictures included, but the shots are too few and all sandwiched in the middle. That being said, I can vouch for the authenticity of the recipies. My mom was from Austria, and learned to cook from her grandmother, who had been a cook for a family of the Austrian nobility in the Habsburg days. Well, mom keeps my copy of this book at her house and uses it quite often. Many of the dishes she knows by heart, but it says a lot for the recipe's authenticity when my mom trusts it enough to use for her own cooking!

In Coca-Colonization and the Cold War, Reinhold Wagnleitner traces the evolution of an American foreign policy of cultural imperialism and its success in post World War II Austria. This success is rooted in American influence on periodicals, radio, literature, education, drama, music, and film. The author contends that Europe and the United States should be part of the same political analytic and in important ways constitute a common cultural bloc. He sees World War I as a tipping point where the expansion of American exports into Europe is necessarily followed by American culture. The expansion of American media monopoly is closely tied to its rise as a global superpower. The text even suggests that some American cultural trends, like a belief in choice through consumerism and science as the engine of social progress, matured in Europe a generation before they matured in the United States.

Coca-Colonization can draw parallels with two books that proceeded it, John W. Dower's Embracing Defeat and Tom Engelhardt's The End of Victory Culture. Like Dower, Wagnleitner confronts American cultural expansion as a policy aim in the occupation of a war torn nation. He also documents the reification of American occupiers and their country of origin. Like Engelhardt, Wagnleitner weaves together political history and personal childhood experience in telling the story of the Cold War through American popular culture. Unlike Engelhardt, Wagnleitner is less interested in biography and more interested in policy and policy actors. Unlike both, Coca-Colonization emphasizes the technological infrastructure of media distribution as an adjunct to cultural policy.

After comprehensively making a case for the common yoke of America and Europe, Wagnletiner's "colonialism" comes off as a "civil-colonialism" at best. While he finds it ironic in chapter one that America was a European colony that became a cultural imperialist in Europe, he is not Frantz Fanon. The colonialism he refers to (from the seventeenth thru the twentieth centuries) is quite different than the colonialism which exploits political subjects and inscribes power in the psychology of inferiority and mutilated kinship ties. Wagnleitner's colonialism is not one of balls and chains but rather bread and circuses. Perhaps this is what is missing from Coca-Colonization. While it is impressive in relating European and American cultural history, and even more impressive in documenting the American cultural-industrial-policy complex, it speaks of American colonialism in Austria without speaking of being an exploited people. It is as though there was a wild party across the Atlantic which Austrian children suddenly found themselves immersed in and liking. Is this the same as the historical experience of American Indians or Australian Aboriginals who may have also found themselves drinking Coca-Cola?

If the author does not see this distinction in appropriating colonialism as a term, how can he animate it in his consideration of American foreign policy? It should be noted that as a translated work, this review treads one step removed from the project's indigenous nomenclature. The credibility of this engagement with debates in the translated language is constrained. Still, as Austrian children reveled alongside American children in rock-n-roll, blue jeans, anti-Vietnam sit-ins, movies, logos, new left counterculture and individual expression, Coca Colonization does a fabulous job at explaining this as a policy outcome. It just yearns for a comparison with other "colonial" experiences and in discussing American "colonization" of Austria, it does not question the meta-narrative of World War II American liberation with a ten-foot pole. It is also lacking in its consideration of race, gender, and class in the American cultural products which it documents.

Wagnleitner does a great job of taking the reader through Western Austria's change from an ex-Nazi state to a miniature US "wannabe." The author also discusses the discrepancy between the percieved American culture and actual American culture. He furthers the discussion by examining the role that cultural imperialism has played in the history of the world. Overall, it was a great look at an issue which remained a hot one in Europe for decades (and still is in France, of course).

A question about the 'reviewer' below : Is his critical judgement any better than his spelling (Oregan) ?

Deeply researched, but if this book's author is nearly as long-winded in his classes his students must fall asleep in droves.

Hermann Buhl: Climbing Without Compromise does a great job of engaging the reader on several levels. Firstly, the photos are absolutely stunning. I've seen books with only photos, not as good as those included here, that retail for more than this book. The second way this book engages readers is through the well-told story of one of the most interesting characters in mountaineering history. Finally, and perhaps best of all, by using extensive source material from Hermann Buhl directly, this book actually comes across as a personal introduction to the legend, Hermann Buhl, himself.

Hermann Buhl was one of the greatest mountain climbers of the last century and this book consists primarily of excerpts from his climbing diaries, starting from his earliest climbs as a teenager in the Dolomites, continuing through his major triumphs, including, of course, the conquest of Nanga Parbat that made him world famous, and ending with his ill-fated attempt on Chogolisa. There are also several biographical essays, including contributions by his daughter and a long-time climbing friend, and many of the diary excerpts are accompanied by further editorial details about the circumstances of the climbs. The ugly politics that were involved in the Nanga Parbat climb and their effect on Buhl are also discussed in the commentaries.

Although it is not as detailed an account of Buhl's climbing life as "Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage", this newer book has several advantages over Buhl's autobiography. The perspectives offered by the third-party commentators are very useful. There is a full description of Buhl's final climbs and untimely death. "Climbing Without Compromise" is nicely illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs that make a great contribution (although the story would be easier to follow in places with the addition of some maps). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, one gets to read Buhl's story in his own words. According to the editors Messner and Höfler, Kurt Maix, the editor of "Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage", re-wrote considerable portions of Buhl's text using far more flowery and poetic language than Buhl himself would have chosen. In any event, the two books, while overlapping to a degree, do complement each other as well. (And where there is repetition, the English-language reader will benefit from having access to two translations.)

Hail to the king of the mountaineers! Read about Messner's climb of K2 without oxygen - an amazing feat even for today's best-conditioned climbers. I'm continually amazed of Reinhold's incredible fitness and knack for survival. He survived so many adventures in some of the world's toughest places. Lance Armstrong is a super human cyclist, and Reinhold Messner is a super human mountaineer. The greatest thing about his success is that he survived all of his epic climbs. It is a 3-4 star book, but a 5-plus star adventure.
For another book with tales of adventure on a more "recreational" scale, try "Rocky Mountain Adventure Collection."

Note to Amazon: You may delete my other, older review if you would like to.

Hail to the king of the mountaineers! Read about Messner's climb of K2 without oxygen - an amazing feat even for today's best conditioned climbers. For another book with tales of adventure on a slightly smaller scale, try "Rocky Mountain Adventure Collection."

A tribute to Hungary's best and brightest deserves cogent writing. In Made in Hungary, Mr. Simon, fails to even utilize basic English grammer. The errors are too common, too glaring and time and time again I found myself wondering who could have edited and published a book with so many obvious errors. In addition, throughout thebook Mr. Simon makes numerous unsupportable and sometimes outrageous statements. My advice is to pass this book up and wait until someone with some writing ability tackles the subject.

This book is excellent! I wanted to learn more about Hungary, its history, its ways, its contributions to the world, and this book covers it.

It begins with a historical perspective, 'Milestones of Progress', and then covers Hungary's impact from the Arts and Social Sciences to Engineering, and even Sports. It is not a 'cover to cover' read, but can be read either a chapter at a time, or as a reference book to look up information as needed.

If you are looking for a book that covers Hungary from an interesting and to the point perspective, this is it!

I hated having to use this text in my morphology class. It does cover all of the major issues and concepts, but does so in roundabout way. I often found the book confusing and had to reference online resources to make sense of it.

If you are going to be teaching a course in morphology, please look for a book that is more student friendly.

Peter Matthews' textbook (1st edition from 1974) is definitely THE classic textbook on morphology for its time and context (late 20th century post-Chomsky American linguistics). Unlike other introductory morphology textbooks, it places little emphasis on the latest theories of the month, focusing instead on the major problems faced in describing systematically the structure of words in various languages. It does this through extended, careful examination of concrete language data. Yet at the same time, the book has historically played an important role in the development of morphology in the US during the last 30 years, by articulating the basics of the Word-and-Paradigm approach to morphology as an alternative to the traditional structuralist dichotomy (Item-and-Arrangement vs. Item-and-Process).

This is just the best place for a student of morphology to start.

Apologies first! Although I have not yet read Dimond's latest work I really would like to express my appreciation for his "Music made simple", now regrettably out of print. This book was an absolute inspiration to me when I first read it a while back. In it Dimond's excitement, thorough knowledge and -dare I say it - 'passion' for the composers he discusses is all too obvious. The book was evidently a labour of love and was a joy to read. Read it and be glued, avidly, to each page. Additionally, it includes concisely explained passages on music theory. With this book in your hands you will sail through G.C.S.E music. But just read it as a beautifully written book primarily on the lives and music of the great composers from the past. I wish I had Dimond's email to thank him myself!

There are errors appearing in this book from page 23 on (Va del furor portata instead of Va dal furor portata). Index of persons is very weak and inaccurate. I really wonder who did the recensy of this book? (Shame...)