Massachusetts Books

This book is the keystone of any collection on the state of the art in modern thought on development assistance. It is easy to read, easy to understand, and presents a persuasive argument for change to the modern methods of so called "development." This books usefulness is not limited to the third world, as its lessons can apply just as easily to New Orleans as it can to the Congo.

I first checked this out from the library, but I'm now picking up a copy (or maybe two) so I can have it on my shelf to cite from and to loan to friends and family.

Highly reccomended.

Dr. Dichter gives a wide range of examples based on real experiences that expose many of the pitfalls of development assistance as we know it. Unfortunately, while his descriptions of the problems are quite comprehensive, his proposed solution (i.e. drastically cut development assistance in favor of private development) lacks much in the way of logical support. For instance, there is no contrasting presentation of examples of privately-funded projects that have succeeded where charity has failed, nor any mention of to what extent business relies on government-funded infrastructure improvements, etc. In addition, the topic is best addressed in two stages -- i.e., is it desirable to encourage development in other countries? and, if so, are our current tactics the most effective and efficient ways to achieve this goal? Dr. Dichter addresses only the second question, but seems to conclude that because the status quo is ineffective, the entire pursuit should be abandoned. But in general the book is still highly worth reading if you're the least bit interested in development assistance -- it is both deeply enlightening and generally accessible.

It's one of those (few) publications that would immediately make you sit up straight, cause you to squirm and shake your head in disbelief, heave a deep sigh, raise your eye brows at some point, and move you deeply to show appreciation to its material by graphically interacting with its content (in other words scribbling all over the pages of the book - line by line, margin to margin - with notes and personal reactions. That happened to my copy. That's how interesting the book is!). No, the book is not trashy and is far from cynical. On the other hand, it offers a very reflective, comprehensive and insightful analysis of the mistakes and failures of the development industry as a whole. The author, a "devbiz" insider, is not an anti-INGO humbug but one who calls on his development colleagues to re-examine their (and their organizations') ways and to genuinely consider the often ignored realities in the field. His analysis of the evolution of the development industry and its trends, patterns and pitfalls are based on actual case studies and historical facts. Full of relevant lessons and thought-provoking questions and issues that would challenge not just your notions of development work but even your own values, motives and goals for entering the "devbiz" industry. The book stimulates mentally but tugs at the heart.

Mr. Dichter has written an excellent book about the so called "development industry". He describes the evolution of the idea of helping the poor countries of the so called third world since 1950 until today. He discusses the problems that have arisen in the hundreds of governement development agencies, NGOs, and humanitarian organizations, mainly the excessive professionalization and bureaucratization of these organizaitons. The "industry" of development as he calls it, exists mainly to give emplyment opportunities for well paid (and well travelled)consultants than to really help the needy.
Interwoven in his analysis are 18 case stories. Just reading the case stories (which are based in the author's wide professional experience)gives you a better insight in the dilemma of development, than dozens of World Bank, IMF and "imperialism" bashing books that are in the market. The description of how the World Bank ticks is very interesting. You feel that here someone is writing that has gone through all this and has thought about it. THIS IS REALITY and not theory.
I myself have worked in Africa for 5 years as an economist for a Christian Mission Society. It is amazing to see that everywhere in the field the problems are the same: poorly conceived projects, neglect of the consequences of projects, and so on. If you are ever thinking of working in the area of international development, AND if you really want to help the poor, AND NOT MAKE A CAREER OUT OF IT, READ THIS BOOK!!!

The title tells it all. This is a fun book to read and it got my wife and me all excited about our trip way before we even packed our bags. All the suggestions were very good.

Living in Chicago, I'm always longing for summer. Now I'm also longing to go to the Cape area. Enchanted Summer paints a great picture of what should be a great summer vacation. The book is well written, well organized and well..enchanting. Can't wait to check out the recommendations.

This book is what travel guides are supposed to be: informative, interesting, and most of all--fun. Great research and the author's warm writing style make planning a leisurely holiday a pleasant experience. Great suggestions for romantic getaways, but there's plenty here for the whole family, if you really want to bring the kids.

The author captures the very essence of the Cape Cod shores and the Vineyard and Nantucket. And the charming illustrations add to the call of life at another pace and that life can truly be enjoyed, one B & B at a time.

EXTRAVAGANZA KING: Robert Barnet and the Boston Musical Theatre
by Anne Alison Barnet (2004, Northeastern University Press, Boston, MA ISBN 1-55553-611-5)
In the 1890s and the 1900s, Robert Barnet brought together Boston Brahmins, Bankers, Bohemians and Billy Dalton to create a series of successful extravaganzas featuring young men of fine families cavorting in female drag to the benefit of Boston’s own First Corps of Cadets and their ambitions for an Armory. Designed by one of their own, the architect William Gibbons Preston, they built, show by show and wall by wall, “a rusticated granite fortress with a six story head-house, a two-hundred-foot long drill hall, and fortress like details: triple doors to defend against mob attack, a drawbridge and a light well that looked like a moat.” The fear of the day was not Islamists, communists, anarchists but immigrants—-especially Irish Catholics.
The author, Ms. Alison Barnet, is the great granddaughter of Robert Barnet, the man whose annual extravaganzas raised the money to complete the bastion of Boston’s Back Bay where, in its quirky glory, it still stands at the corner of Columbus Avenue and Arlington Street. Ms. Barnet writes with elegance and subtle humor. Unlike run-of the-mill biographies of family members, she writes neither to exalt nor vilify. She is removed in time, circumstance and relation from her subject and takes us along as she pieces together the story of a man who was bound to Boston but would have succeeded on Broadway. A number of his shows were staged on Broadway: Excelsior, Jr., Jack and the Beanstalk, Three Little Lambs, Miss Pocahontas, My Lady, Up to Date, Miss Simplicity, The Show Girl or the Magic Cap, 1492 and Tabasco, but even the shows that went no further than Boston were covered by the New York drama critics.
Too often the history of show business and the stage is confined to the goings-on in New York City. Boston was home to the Fox-Howard clan, the birthplace of vaudeville and the stage for all manner of presentations from lecture series to dime store curio museums to classic and contemporary drama. Extravaganza King fills in missing pieces about the history of the American stage, and its appeal should extend well beyond city limits.
The cast members for Mr. Barnet’s extravaganzas were cadets, veterans of Harvard College’s Hasty Pudding shows rather than armed conflicts. Occasionally a ‘ringer’ made his way into the cast. One was Billy Dalton, a young man who liked to dress as a girl and entertain the two-fisted patrons of Butte, Montana’s dance halls. His father banished Billy to Boston, which it must be allowed was not much of a punishment. He entered dancing school where he soon shined, and he was hired to perform in several of Barnet’s extravaganzas. Young master Dalton, encouraged by reviews and applause, changed his name to Julian Eltinge in 1903, went to Manhattan to play musical comedy and vaudeville as a female impersonator and eventually had a Broadway theatre named for him.
Ms. Barnet brings various Boston amateurs and professionals back for a final bow, and traces her great grandfather’s arc of success and eventual decline through the 1910s into 20 years of obscurity.
By sketching the plots and production numbers of various Barnet shows and tracing their incubation and production, Ms Barnet She fills a void that statistics cannot. This is a wryly told and useful book for theatre buffs.

Extravaganza King: Robert Barnet And Boston Musical Theater by Anne Alison Barnet (writer, researcher, public speaker, and the great-grandaughter of Robert Barnet) is the biographical story of a remarkable man and which will bring him out of an undeserved obscurity by documenting his singular accomplishments and contributions to the history of American musical theatre. Robert Barnet (1853-1933) was a successful sugar merchant who wrote and directed incredibly popular musical theatricals for the First Corps of Cadets, a volunteer militia of young, upper-class Boston businessmen seeking money for an armory to use in defense against feared immigrant revolts or riots. In a tradition reminiscent of Shakespeare, men played all the roles, and Barnet himself was known to take upon the role of Queen Isabella of Spain in "1492", his most famous work. Black-and-white photographs, a wealth of information from scrapbooks and family memorabilia, extensive research and more follow Barnet's spectacular successes, and eventual enduring failures, when he moved in 1908 to New York City but was unable to adapt his talents to people's changing tastes in musical entertainment. A lively and fascinating true tale.

This is a funny book about an almost forgotten form of entertainment. It's hard to imagine the current governor of Massachusetts attending live entertainment featuring men dressed as women, but that's what happened more than 100 years ago. Nor is it typical to associate the Victorian era with men dressed in drag. In addition to being a readable and amusing account of theatrical events, Barnet's book is a terrific look at the people and places of Boston's past.

This isn't a topic I would normally be interested in but Ms Barnet writes so engagingly that I couldn't put the book down until I'd read the whole thing. The story of her great-grandfather is like a visit to another time and place. A very interesting time and place. And I loved the way the author's own humor kept shining through the narrative.

Very well written and documented history of the Pike lines stemming from John Pike who came over from England in 1635 and settled in MA. His lines spread mainly through New England and the book covers twelve generations. A genealogy of this type will be of interest primarily to those who have the Pike name in their ancestry. However, if one is starting to prepare a published account of a member of their line, this is an excellent source for study and how to organize material. It is a large book, some 875 pages. However,it is well done and attractive. There is a significant amount of information here that may prove to be of immense value. Different typing fonts are used very effectively in high lighting names, dates, and lines of decent. In many cases, short biographies of numerous individuals are given. This adds an unusual slant and offers an insite into the lives of the people discussed. Wills are reproduced where available and in several cases weddings are described. An appendix is attached and gives family lines for allied groups which tie into the Pike line. Examples are the Carr, French, Bradbury, Plummer, Stockman, Cutts, Worth, Bloomfield, True, Fletcher and Coolidge families. An excellent bibliography is given along with a complete every-name index. Mr. Allen R. Pike is to commended for assembling this material into a usuable and interesting form. It had to be a monumental effort and the result is an exceptional addition to the family history library.

The book begins with John 1 Pike arriving in America in 1635 and proceeds to share with us twelve generations of the descendants, along with excerpts from some of the more well known Pike personalities. The author, a tireless searcher of the past, gives us a well sourced, factual genealogical look at one of the more important families of Newbury, MA, and Woodbridge, NJ. Along the way there are real life stories of our ancestors, telling us what life was like in the past, that we might more fully be able to comprehend the joys of living today. You will know the thrill of hearing one of your ancestors tell you about his or her struggles and then as you share that joy with other new found cousins you will be blessed again. This book is truly a classic which will bring joy to countless generation in the future. It is well indexed and contains the names of other Pike Family members researching other lines. The author has given us a base to build a more complete genealogy of the Pike Family. With 800 plus pages and thousands of persons at your fingertips you will soon be wanting to add your ancestors and descendants to his lists. You then can pass this on as a gift to the future. Thanks to Allen for the thousands of hours of labor he has given to our family.

In 1635, at the age of 62, John Pike embarked from Southampton, England to Suffolk, Massachusetts with two grown sons and three daughters. This book looks at their descendants who, after 14 generations, have spread through the United States from the shores of New England to the Gulf Coast and to the Pacific Ocean, covering over 350 years. Families are organized and presented within generations. Brief family histories and individual biographies add greatly to the well-presented family group and personal information. The author's personal insights and explanations increase the book's value and understanding. The index includes some 14,000 names. (Genealogical Helper, May-June 1997, p.198)

The ansestors of John Pike of Newbury, Massachusetts owe a debt of gratitude to Allen R. Pike for the substance, content and joy contained in his book. He strikes out from the first ship's manifests, journals, wills, deeds and letters of John and his family upon their arrival and generation by generation builds upon the family story and connection.

Included in this line are: Major Robert Pike, whose force of personality and logical defenses finally put an end to the public madness known as the Salem witch trials; General Zebulon Montgomery Pike, known for his exploration of the southern reaches of the Louisana Purchase lands at the same time that Lewis and Clark explored the north; he who was to discover Pike's Peak in Colorado, the mountain top that provided the inspiration for the song "America" and which provided the early settlers traveling east with a beacon and a slogan "Pike's Peak or Bust"; or there was General Albert Pike, commander in the Confederate army, who resigned his commission rather than carry out an order to enlist the Indians to attack the Union army and he who later became the most celebrated Freemason and whose statue stands at the corner of Third and Indiana Streets in Washington DC.

Family members and historians seeking to know and understand the impact of an early American family on the shaping of the country will find many samples in the stories of the men and women of this family. While not a narrative per se, tracing the lines from generation to generation gives a great account of the forces at work and the personalities.

Decendants should take to heart the importance of keeping a record of the accomplishments and notable accounts of their family members for archive and future studies of the family heritage.

Marshall Pike, Acting Sec.-Treas., Pike Family Association of America

The first amendment gives us the right to free speech and for the most part this is a fairly simple concept right? Well in 1994 in Massachusetts this became a complex legal issue that turned a simple parade into chaos.

Riveting from beginning to the very end, this 600-page fact filled legal expose on how our court system really works, is like nothing else you'll ever read. The authors take you on a journey from the state court right the steps of the highest court in the land.

Using actual trial transcripts and painstaking detail, the author's leave no stone unturned. I was simply amazed at how much information was packed into the book. I was simply astounded by the way the system works.

Law professors and students of law need to take and read this work. It is most likely the best book of the first amendment law. A great work in the legal field and a very good read - well done!

As an attorney, what I found most interesting about this book was the use of trial transcripts to help frame the debate on the larger First Amendment constitutional issues. The authors did a superb job of telling a complex story from beginning to end. I would recommend some of my old professors take a close look at this work, and consider using it in trial advocacy and constitutional law classes. I don't remember anything like this when I was at school, but can say it told me a lot more about how the judicial process works than I learned in the classroom.

By far, this book tops all others on how our courts operate. The authors have given a detailed look at the legal system at every level, state and federal, and cover so much territory in so short a space that the book borders on being overwhelming. This is the definitive book on "process". Using rich citation to trial transcripts the authors show in meticulous detail how some judges try to unwrap constitutional guarantees to achieve what they think the law shoud be. I read three other works which aspired to this detail: "Out of Order", "Civil Action" and "Closed Chambers" and can state that none were as insightful as this. This is truly a remarkable work, and should be mandatory reading in every law school in this country.

"Riveting..." National Law Journal; "Compelling... well-written..." Bimonthly Review of Law Books; "Tremendously engaging..." AOB News; "One of the most informativbe law books I have read..." Journal of the Indiana Bar Assoc.; "Chilling, troubling, Kafkaesque..." Prof. Charles E. Rounds Jr., Suffolk Law School

If one lives and Boston and was curious about what the city looked like 100, 200, 300, or 400 years ago this is the book for you. I discovered that somewhere between 1837 and 1851 the street I lived in was filled and went from being underwater to land.
An incredibly well-researched history of how people altered the landscape of Boston.

Disclaimer: I was very fortunate to take the Harvard University class tought by the author, which uses this book as the class text.

This book is a spectacular work of research and writing. The author truly shows her passion for the subject.
The text presents a unique view of Boston history, with stunning detail and even intrigue. The historical and original maps are without equal, and the photographs and illustrations are superb selections.
Pardon the cliché, but truly I found myself unable to put this book down!

Her recent book Walking Tours of Boston's Made Land is also a must-have for anyone who wants to get close-up and personal with Boston history.

This is a wonderful book about how Boston changed in the last 200+ years. It is very readable, but I especially enjoyed the pictures and maps. It is an excellent book for anyone interested in the subject.

Seasholes must have combed every archive and walked every inch of Boston to produce this monumental book. Not only is it exhaustive, but it is entertaining as well. Although this is a handsome book it is not a cooffe table enterprise. This is a book you will want to take with you as you walk the streets of Boston. This book is destined to become dog eared and underlined. It is simply a must for anyone interested in the history of this great city.

I just finished this book and am dazzled by the author's ability to recall and reconstruct her life and the(to the less integrative eye) disparate up-ending events of the 1960's. So much was totally familiar to me(I'm that cohort) and at the same time I had no roadmap for making any sense of it until she generously produced this extraordinary work. It must have been a tumultuous emotional journey for her to revisit all those relationships, encounters and powerful feelings-- she did(we all did --and still do) absorb a lot of disrespect and indignities--but I do think that we can also take some credit for the substantial progress that's been made by women over the past 30 years. There's so much more to say-- her writing is lucid- --- a pleasure to read; she certainly has a strong identifiable voice - --

I just learned about this book from C-SPAN2 presentation and I have ordered the book. So I am writing a request for this author or other feminist authors to answer my question--where and how and when did we lose the feminist movement and here is my evidence that it was lost.

I am 63 and I worked for the anti-Vietnam War movement in San Antonio for the American Friends Service Committe as the typist and mimeographer.

I was in the early consciousness raising groups of the feminist movement. I left that group because my husband wanted to come to be "liberated" and then took up with one of the other women leaving me in the dust!! Additionally, one of the most amazing facts dropped by one of the "leaders" of our consciousness raising group was that many major corporations were financing the women's movement. I began to think the feminist movement must be going awry if that were true.

I still very much hold to feminist ideals and beliefs in spite of that.

However, I remember the naysayers during the early feminist movement saying that we just wanted to be "men!" But now I see a vanished feminist movement turning out to make the naysayers true.

How do you explain the heavily-made up, pretty, young, mostly dyed blond hair females on the networks in stocks, weather, and news loudly proclaiming what male spectator sports to attend or applaud? How do you explain Jane Mayer's book where one of the most evil of Bush's torturers was female?

We lost the female persona of nurturing and care and just added the male persona of the biggest cojones are the best. We have the highest rate of female violence that is mentioned occasionally as if it is of little import. Yes, things may well have changed, but we do not have much feminism and more aggrandising corporate machoism in our culture at its cruelest and most vicious.

On the only female-oriented television networks (Lifetime and LMN), females are still touted to be well made up and non-wrinklely in its advertising. These networks specialize in their programming content with occasionally important feminist issues and lack of self-esteem of our young women. However, make-up, hair care, and skin emollient producers are the only advertisers who have any interest in "chick" television. "Chick" television at least covers important feminist issues, i.e., male violence against women, lack of laws covering video peeping, lack of laws protecting victims of spousal abuse, lack of acknowledgment of verbal abuse directed toward women from spouses and others, as examples.

So with brainwashing women to "get a career," the corps doubled their work force lowering their labor expense and threatened men that if they didn't fall in line for corporate needs there were plenty of desperate single women ready to fill their shoes at half the price. And the movement created lots of single women as women got self esteem and learned that they should have a little dignity in a marriage where the male indicated his was the only important consideration. Everybody lost by women getting a career (such as they were and are). Women rushed to low-wage jobs, filled their children's bellies with fast foods, left their children's care to indifferent and sometimes brutal day care providers, and so began the "health" care industry, now trying to get us all in line with "required" health insurance to take care of the cancers and other ailments the result of terrible food, lack of adequate rest, and polluted air from trucking in 1500-mile food.

Recently, Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver have brought to mind the actual cause of our poor health is not lack of health care, but rather lack of well-grown foods in healthy soils. And I would add lack of well-cooked food from foods grown in healthy soils grown locally.

How do we influence society to return to true feminist values, i.e., care and nurturing, care of the earth and care of the children. And, most importantly, building plowshares instead of guns and bombs. I hope to see a generation of women who are not spending their days with fashion and make-up, but learning yoga, vegetable gardening, or self-defense. You cannot do both things. I urge a return to women being allowed 4 hours a day or even 8 hours protected financially if they choose to remain in the last used-to-be cottage industry of child care, garden care, and food preparation. Apparently, we cannot afford to pay women to raise their children (i.e. welfare queens), but we can afford to pay divisions of men to fight for corporate interests, misnamed as US interests.

I did not grow up well-heeled in an urban city, but ironically from what I learned in Ms. Nies' presentation on CSPAN, our histories are weirdly convergent. She fighting the women's balcony in Washington and I with the Quakers telling my boss that the Friends could not afford to pay for "secretaries" to attend national priority-setting conferences. I am ordering the book, The Girl I Left Behind, via Amazon's Kindle and look forward to seeing what other congruencies are in our respective past lives.

I grew up on one of the last peasant (sustainable) farmsteads in this area due to the aged state of my parents. I began being a believer in women's rights at an early age because after a long day clearing shrub for more pastureland, my parents returned for meals with my father taking a nap and my mother doing meals and parenting.

We really never had a feminist movement that worked as today's "culture" so vividly shows. We have a movement freeing women to be just like their dads! The problem was and still is, dear old dad--ruler of the roost and the agenda setter.

We need an intelligent writer such as Ms. Nies or someone else to analyze what happened to the feminist movement and how we can revive a true feminist movement and it is not a movement where we all take on male values and male lifestyles. It is a book where we get men to want to be women, i.e., nurturers and open thinkers, not Bible thumping war mongerers as we have now for most of the male population who just can't get enough of drilling into the earth and wherever else it can be done. I look forward very much to such a book and it is long overdue.

In "The Girl I Left Behind, Nies personalizes the agonies that America was going through in the turbulent 60s. Her book is a very informative and entertaining chronicle of that troubled era, told with wit and a keen understanding of history. I couldn't put it down!

[[ASIN:1590303644 The Return of Desire: A Guide to Rediscovering Your Sexual Passion]
Living and working in Washington DC as a speechwriter for the men (sic) who famously made government policy during the Vietnam years gave Judith Nies a fascinating life story through which she shows history unfolding that is trenchantly relevant to Iraq-era politics today. As she gradually leaves behind the "girl" who is trained to wear white gloves and ask few questions, she confronts inequities of gender and race, demonstrating how far we've come in the last 40 years--and how far we still have to go. If you've ever wondered if bras were really burned at the Miss America pageant in 1968, how women first got to become news reporters, or how war and peace actually proliferate, read this book--and be sure to discuss it with ten friends.

In "The Girl I Left Behind" Judith Nies' tells us the history behind the feminist movement of the 1960's. The book could not be more timely, coming as it does on the heels of the contentious Democratic Primary season when for the first time in history we had a woman as a serious presidential candidate. Much has been written about Hillary Clinton's supporters, her most ardent being older white women. The constituencies of Hillary and Obama have put the spotlight on a feminist divide. Women who supported Obama or Edwards felt they were being assailed for not being "true" feminists. And there were those who discredited Hillary's candidacy on the "Evita" basis; that is, a woman taking over after her husband had left office to perpetuate his reign, so to speak. Hillary's older women supporters seemed to feel that younger women took things for granted after all the good fights they had fought.
Judith accesses for us the history of the modern feminist movement as it was initially led by older women who still had connections to the suffrage movement; the civil rights struggle and the anti-Vietnam war movement. Thus the book provides a point of departure to expand the current discussion of what it means to be a feminist in 2008 by reminding all of us, young and old alike, or indeed telling us for the first time that the Boomers, however many advances they helped to make for women, did not create the modern feminist movement.

David Daniel's descriptions of place and atmosphere in GOOFY FOOT are right on the mark. In the seaside town of Standish you can feel the salt air and hear bar music drifting through the fog. "Goofy foot" is slang for a surfer who leads with the off-foot. But it also means "how you sometimes get the intuitive stuff...inklings." The reader, like Alex himself, gets inklings of what's going on and comes to understand things intuitively, the way it usually happens in real life. With another writer this lack of specificity might be annoying, but Daniel has brought the reader so completely into the story, and Alex has been so honest with his thoughts, that in GOOFY FOOT all seems as it should be.

This was an all-around super book! I loved it, just the way I loved Daniel's last book, WHITE RABBIT. So it looks like David Daniel is just a terrific writer and anything he produces has a good chance of being a great read.

After last year's excellent and underrated classic, "White Rabbit" David Daniel's returns with "Goofy Foot" the third installment of his Alex Rasmussen mystery series.

Though the plot of a missing girl is less than innovative, Daniel structures it nicely and his character development is par excellence. "Goofy Foot" bounces from great storytelling to literature in a way that keeps the pages turning. His protagonist, hard-boiled Alex Rasmussen is a modern day Philip Marlowe. In the Lowell settings, you can feel at once the working-class pride and the grinding existence, and the reader looks forward to his next Rasmussen blues' book and his "Ghost of Kerouac."

Daniel has stories to tell.

In Lowell, Massachusetts, Paula Jensen hires private sleuth Alex Rasmussen because she has not heard from her daughter Michelle in two days. Paula explains that Michelle was visiting her father Ben Nickerson in California, but should have been home by now even with Ben breaking their agreement and driving her home cross country, but they should have arrived already.

Alex makes inquiries and quickly learns that the seemingly perfect family paragon of the Jensen household is a fake. Michelle's sister Katie insists that her sibling has a strained relationship with her mom and especially her stepfather Ross. The local Police Chief Delcastro feels there is nothing to investigate as two bickering parents are involved and the teen will show up. Besides Michelle missing, Ben also seems to have vanished. When the last known person to admit to seeing Ben alive suddenly dies in a dubious car crash, Alex knows that his client's teenage daughter in danger, but anyone who might be able to help seems lethargically reluctant to get involved.

In some ways this delightful private investigate tale reads more like a cozy as the cast led by the hero is passive to the extreme of wondering if anyone is breathing in Massachusetts. Thus anyone seeking brawls inside a suburban noir should look elsewhere. However, readers who appreciate a solid leg work sleuth tale starring an amiable protagonist will enjoy David Daniel's cold footed detective story that is no warm day at the beach.

Harriet Klausner

In the third book in the Alex Rasmussen mystery series David Daniel gives us a book which is hard to put down and even harder to figure out who is who and what is what.

In a background of aging surfers, small town police, missing persons and get rich land barons, we find our hero trying to figure out who is missing and who is dead. As he travels from Lowell to a small Massachusetts vacation resort town to try and find a missing father and daughter, Alex runs into more intrigue and trouble than he baragins for.

If you are a fan of the Alex Rasmussen series, you will love this book and if you are just now reading your first A.R. mystery, I am sure that you will want to catch up with the others.

Surf's up, dudes, but the waves are high and treacherous in this non-stop thriller. Grab your board and go for the ride of your life.

I found this to be a well researched and mostly through book covering a wide selection of architectural examples from the Berkshires. It has a good mix of numerous previously published historical photos (the Lenox Library put out a photography book of note, too) but also many photos I have not seen before. While many of the properties are still standing today few of the photographs used are current, which is a shame, and fewer still are from the middle of the last century.

The title is more sterile in comparison to the almost Bible-like reference on the Berkshire estates, Carole Owens' "Berkshires Cottages: A Vanishing Era" from 1984. The Owens title came out when architecturally the "Inland Newport" was just starting to awaken from years of abuse and neglect of many of these delightful white elephants of the Gilded Age. Now this title, "Houses of the Berkshires", is being released when the area couldn't be any more desirable and vibrant with almost none of the remaining and covered Berkshires `cottages' in any state of disrepair. A large exception is the in-restoration Rotch & Tilden designed Ventfort Hall. It would be nice, as a means to better appreciate these homes, to also share in such a book as this the state to which many of these homes sank before they rebounded to the condition they are in today.

The book is more brief then I'd prefer on some homes, but often those noted residences have been far better covered in books devoted to the architect or the family. Case in point, Elm Court was best detailed in the 1991 book "The Vanderbilts and the Gilded Age: Architectural Aspirations, 1879-1901" and High Lawn in the 2003 title, "The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich". Although the latter seems to be a place forever cloaked in mystery matching its beautiful fa?ade and vast feudal landholdings.

Published by Acanthus Press who republished the brilliant architect Harrie Thomas Lindeberg's 1940 original "Domestic Architecture" as well as an assortment of reflective regional focused titles with areas of wealth and architectural significance. Among those titles is the delightful "The Main Line: Country Houses of Philadelphia's Storied Suburb, 1870-1930". This book is recommendable for those who enjoy grand domestic architecture mated with true landscaping skill which should be preserved and harkens back to a time when having money did result in good taste - at least for the Berkshires.

A beautiful book, beautifully written, about a memorable part of American history, architectural and otherwise.

Acanthus is the gold standard publisher of books of this kind and their latest book does not disappoint. Mr. White does a supurb job of selecting wonderful images of these amazing estates and his research is scholarly and highly informative. If you appreciate beautifully crafted books on Gilded Age residential architecture, then I can't imagine you not loving this book. I have never had the pleasure of visiting the Bershires, so I guess this will have to be the next best thing to experiencing in person.

Mr. Millen brings up some criticisms that are valid but are misplaced. This is not an ENTIRELY fresh view of the Berkshires but local authors Gilder and Jackson bring to light much fresh architectural and social history. Also, they have found a number of previously unpublished photographs that delight, such as the early view of Naumkeag that appears inside and on the back cover. Ms. Owen's work was groundbreaking, but this work supercedes it, particularly in the great production values for which this publisher is famous.
Most curious about Mr. Millen's criticism is his desire to see the houses in mid-century ruin. There is romance in ruin, but this exquisite book's goal was to show these great estates in their glory days. Perhaps he should approach the publisher to produce his very own "Berkshires in Ruins" volume. That might indeed be a charming tome and one I would consider buying.
I highly recommend this book as an intelligent and distinctive coverage of the great houses of Lenox and Stockbridge and environs.

This is one of the best books in management. Some might find it a bit too mathematical, but the insights and general theory are one of the best contributions to the field of management.

I am Professor in the field that the author created, and (many years ago) one of the author's students. I may be biased about the field's importance, but not about this book's extraordinary clarity and continuing relevance to the field.

The book presents the philosophy, the mathematics and the computer modeling needed to take a fresh and practical perspective on managing social systems. The book's implications go far beyond "industrial" systems(though people interested in the dynamics of businesses won't be disappointed). The principles presented in this book have subsequently been applied to understanding issues in all sorts of social systems: cities, the environment, epidemics, romantic relationships, and terrorism to name just a few.

Industrial Dynamics was the first book published in system dynamics, a field founded by Jay Forrester (the author) at MIT. Nothing in this book is outdated. The fundamentals of the field remain as Jay Forrester described them in 1961. Forrester's insistance that the field be relevant and understandable has no better incarnation than this book.

A very high quality study of the information-feedback characteristics of industrial activity; describing how the flows of information, money, orders, materials, personnel, and capital plant interact to produce the system's behavior over time; relating organizational structure & corporate policy to corporate growth and stability.

I agree with the previous reviewer, that Mr.Forresters book was one the most important and yet most ignored books on dynamics/strategy in the 20th century.

Forresters basic insight was: translate the evolution of a market segment into cybernetic circles, translate those circles into differential equation, and those equations into a computer language like DYNAMO.