Society Books

This is absolutely one of the BEST books on wolves I've ever read! It is packed full of information but does not come across like an encyclopedia. It's easy reading with lots of colorful photographs. I was overcome with sadness and angry when I read McIntyre's account of the story of "Raggs the Digger," one of the famous and incredibly clever so-called "outlaw wolves" that eluded federal government capture for years. The book gives a lively and animated detail of how a famous bounty hunter "finally" killed Raggs, an indomitable spirit. It is an important reminder that there is no animal who will EVER be a match to a human being with a gun intent on killing it.

Excellent and readable book. I couldn't put it down. If you care about wolves, are simply interested in wolves and want to know their story, buy this!

Running a wildlife safari company in Yellowstone, the wolves that we view have become a major attraction. I have learnt so much from this book that it is now a requirement for all my guides to read it from front to back, so they are totally educated on wolves. Rick McIntyre's A Society of Wolves captures everything you want to learn about wolves, including their behavior, pack structure, and how similar they are to us. This book is a must if you are interested in wolves, wildlife and Yellowstone.

Rick McIntyre does us a great service with this book. It is an excellent compilation of written material and photographs that will prove transformational to anyone interested in wildlife. A moving account of day-to-day life in a wolf pack, it also provides an invaluable history of wolf persecution in this country. He also lists excellent resources to contact to learn more about the fate of the wolf and how to become active in their reintroduction. This book answers the questions "Where did all the wolves go?" and "Why do we need them back?" An important and compelling read.

The best part of this book was Dr. Baetjer's explanation of software as a capital good and the knowledge component of capital goods. Drawing on a rich economic tradition, he indicates that software provides a clear example of how the value of capital goods rests in embodied, unarticulated knowledge. Not only does he make this argument convincingly, he makes it clearly. I am neither an economist nor a software engineer, but found even the most difficult economic concepts relatively easy to grasp because of how he articulates them; they are made clear and concise without being dumbed-down for a lay audience. Dr. Baetjer brilliantly applies earlier theories of capital goods to the new field of software engineering.

If this sort of material interests you, I recommend:
Howard Baetjer, Review of Austrian Economics, "Capital as Embodied Knowledge: Some Implications for the Theory of Economic Growth," vol. 13 #2, September 2000
Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions, 1980 (or the 1996 edition)

Just the first chapter's examples of the capital structure of knowledge is worth the price of the book. In many ways software development went through its own communism, long documents, plan the whole thing before you do it, waterfall blah blah. All the Agile stuff, quick prototying , using prototyping to gather requirements, a discovery procedure... The root of all this lies in understanding the capital structure of knowledge.

Howard Baetjer, Jr., takes the reader through a highly informative and thought-provoking lesson in the economics of software engineering. Building on the solid theoretical work of the economists of the Austrian school, he identifies (through solid and thorough industry research) a number of problem areas in the existing marketplace for software, and offers viable solutions to each.

One need be neither an economist nor a software designer to gain usable knowledge from this book; its principles are applicable to any field. Baetjer does a superb job of fully explaining the underlying theories upon which he builds his thesis, using examples from other industries which make the more abstruse subject matter much easier to understand.

Regardless of your field, you will benefit from reading this well-written book.

Well, this work is truly expansive. It covers an analysis of what software engineering is, straight from the horses mouth: Prof. Bauer provides a paper here. Bauer coined the term in the first place, the fact that he contributes here is an indication of how excellent all 45 papers are.

Tom DeMarco and Frederick Brooks' contributions to the Software Project Management topic are essential reading for every project manager. Other notable contributors are Pressman, Boehm and Parnas. This collection guides the professional through development models, requirements specification, coding, testing, maintenance and development technologies, to name a few.

If you have a professional interest in improving the development of software, and avoiding over budget, late and deficient systems, you should start here, and not continue until you've finished reading the book. If you only buy one book on software engineering, make it this one. Warning: this collection is not for beginning students or people with a passing interest, it is written at the graduate student / scientific level.

I ordered this collection after discovering Thayer's "Software Engineering Project Management" collection. I was not disappointed. This is a "must have" for anybody teaching classes in Software Engineering.

This book accululates the classic works of the accepted authorities in the field of Software Engineering. As a senior consultant for government and industry for software productivity improvement, I continuously refer to and recommend this book to my clients and co-workers. This book should be required reading for every computer science, MIS professional. Thank you for the effort it took to bring this all together.

What one among us hasn't felt the desire for peace and solitude so aptly described in this poignant work. I loved it!

I read this book because The Enchanted April is one of my favorite movies and I thought the author had an outlook on relationships that was different from the usual and in fact, uplifting. Solitary Summer is a sweet and relaxing read. I got lost in the beautiful prose and found that as I read, I became so removed from my everyday stresses that it was as if I had been meditating and not just reading.

This book captivated both me and my best friend. The issue of the book I read was printed in 1907 and is titled The Solitary Summer by the author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden". Nowhere else in the book does it ever reveal the author's name. The book starts out with a dedication "To the man of Wrath with some apologies and much love". The book is a diary (May-September) of a woman with 3 small babies (referred to only as my April baby, my May baby, my June baby) who wants to spend the entire summer to herself.The first page of the book begins. "May 2nd - Last night after dinner, when we were in the garden, I said, "I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. Nobody shall be invited to stay with me, and if any one calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick. I shall spend the months in the garden, and on the plain, and in the forests. I shall watch the things that happen in my garden, and see where I have made mistakes. On wet days I will go into the thickest parts of the forests, where the pine needles are everlastingly dry, and when the sun shines I'll lie on the heath and see how the broom flares against the clouds. I shall be perpetually happy, because there will be no one to worry me." And so begins her solitary summer, filled with books, the garden(s), nature, her thoughts and reflections. And conversations with her husband who does not believe she can endure an entire summer without visitors.

If your desire is to awaken to the essence of non-dualism,then this book is a pearl. It is much easier to read than the previous version that I encountered. It is not a book to add new information to the mind, but a verbal meditation to challenge the erroneous beliefs of conditioned identity.

For any spiritual seeker attracted to Advaita Vedanta, Zen, and other forms of pure nondual Self-knowledge this provides a detailed and inspired description of Self-Realization. The tone, and the emphatic, lyrical restatements of the direct experience of Self-Realization, convey its absolute certainty in a way impossible to describe. In my experience it is an ideal support for nondual meditation.

Sri Ramana Maharshi regularly recommended Ribhu Gita to spiritual seekers, even when they said they could not understand it. He said it is a sadhana in itself just to read it over and over. Sri Chandrasekharendra Sarasvati, a Sankaracharya of the Kamakoti Pitha, stated that the Ribhu Gita is to the Sivarahasya (its source) as the Bhagavad Gita is to the Mahabharata (its source).

The book review in Hinduism Today of the Sanskrit version of Ribhu Gita (published by SAT in 1995, and substantially different in detail from the Tamil version) applies perfectly here. It starts by saying: "How rare! How precious! How utterly lofty! How far beyond the everyday consciousness of humanity, yet how close to our most intimate yearnings!"

My previous review of "The Heart of the Ribhu Gita" led me to track down a copy of this precious root text from which the "Heart" was taken. I'm very, very glad to have found it.

The Song of Ribhu is a well-written, highly readable translation of the Tamil version of the Sanskrit Ribhu Gita, the fourth through forty-seventh (of fifty) chapters of Part Six of the twelve-part epic Shiva Rahasya. (A translation of the Sanskrit Ribhu Gita version, which is a little different, is also published by the same Society of Abidance in Truth, titled simply Ribhu Gita).

Besides the text, there are good introductory sections and a large glossary for those who might benefit from some background info.

This book tells how the Sage Ribhu met Shiva at his abode on Mount Kailas, and asked for and received the supreme knowledge from him. Later some disciples, Nidagha and others, came to Ribhu, and asked him to teach them the Ultimate Truth as Shiva had taught it to him. This book is the teaching Ribhu gave in reply to their request.

Ribhu's teaching mostly employs the "not this, not this" method to point to the Ultimate Truth, since it can not be pointed at directly, but there are a number of direct hints as well. The "not this" approach used here also serves as a fine and exhaustive review of lesser, more dualistically-based Hindu approaches to the Truth as well, of course eliminating each one as "not this" until all conceptual, dualistic approaches have been refuted. Overall, the book resonates in this way with the best of the highest Buddhist teachings of the Prajnaparamita, Mahamudra and Dzogchen, as well as with the highest teachings of non-dual Vedanta, of which it is a supreme example.

The Ultimate Truth is beyond the conceptual mind, beyond words. And yet, what words can do to guide and encourage one towards its realization, beyond words, this book does.

Imagine the metaphor of a jewel, and the light reflected in that jewel. This book is a supremely beautiful jewel, gorgeously reflecting the light of the Ultimate Truth. How does it do this? How can something so mundane as this book bring out in such a jewel-like fashion something so brilliant, ineffable, and luminous?

The scripture, The Ribhu Gita, as it is presented here, is 700 pages long. Each line describes an aspect of the truth. The Gita essentially says the same thing, over and over again: Forty-four chapters, each with about 50 verses, each of eight lines, and each line is saying essentially the same thing! How can the book sustain your attention with this amount of repetition? Wouldn't a 700 page book with every line saying essentially the same thing grow boring? Not so. I think only the most spiritually poor mind would find this book boring. Why? Each line points to a different facet of the Truth. It is no different than gazing into the most exquisite jewel, turning it over endlessly to watch the supremely beautiful play of light reflected off the various facets. You could look at it forever and it would still be dazzling. It is utterly mesmerizing. This book is mesmerizing in a similar but even greater sense. You could easily get the message and put it down in several minutes, but I think you might instead be tempted to spend the rest of your life blissfully reading it over and over again. It is that good.

My highest recommendation.

As an active Relief Society attender, I found this to be a hoot. I think its healthy to have a good laugh at least once a day, and this innoculated me for the entire year! Don't miss this.

I didn't think I could have as much fun as to sit within an audience watching as Laurie Mecham turns into Fonda AlaMode [as well as into Fonda's daughter, Crystal]. But this book is that much fun! It would be wonderful if Ms. Mecham could take her so-special Mormon-insider humor into a more widely understood church-woman comedy. I can't help envisioning Ms. Mecham as a deeply disappointed wife of a Promise-Keeper! But until then, anyone who has experienced Mormonism's women should not miss, "Special Living Lessons." Signed, A Utah-Mormon Escapee

This book proves all over again that the unbearable can be made tolerable -- even wonderful -- by a sense of humor. Anyone who has sat through countless Mormon meetings without losing her mind will find it hilarious.

Dr. Greek has again put forth the most powerful, insightful, and rational reference work in the scope of human health issues. What entities control the way you approach disease and illness, its treatments, and the prevention of it? Here you will find overwhelmingly documented sources and information on how we can finally equip ourselves to understand why Americans have one of the world's worst health records while simultaneously spending more than any other country on 'treatment'. Where is so much of our money being wasted and whom is pocketing the rest? Can you really handle the truth? You can allocate many, many years researching and trying to uncover the answers on your own and still come up far short, or you can save several tens of thousands of dollars and invest less than [price] in an advanced compilation of documentation, which is written, by the way, in lay person's terms. Your co-workers or friends will never return this book to you if you lend it out though---it is that good, I'll attest to this, as I am on my third copy.

Finally, an antidote to the incessant and self-serving claims of the animal research industry!

Specious Science excels in at least three areas. First, it's a great primer in the fundamental tenets of sound science. Second, it shows how animal-modelled research fails to meet these basic requirements in theory and in practice. Third, it explains how human-focused medical research, which competes with animal experiments for funding, is superior in its scientific rigor, relevancy, and predictive value.

How many times have we heard that a mouse is the "best" model for studying human disease? One look at a mouse should make you skeptical. The Greeks probe deeper and investigate significant differences between humans and animals at the cellular, sub-cellular, and molecular levels - the arenas in which both the agents of and treatments for disease operate. They explain how small interspecies differences in genetic layout lead to substantial divergences in responses among species. In other words, Evolution 101! The animal model, no matter how strenuous or creatively its proponents argue otherwise, fails this lesson.

"Best animal model" is a fairly meaningless term. Extrapolating from one species to another is fated to be inexact and misleading. Our "hit rate" for medical discoveries is higher in every other type of scientifically-grounded medical research, and for this reason, as the book points out, money squandered on the crude and antiquated animal model harms humans.

Specious Science should be required reading for any life science major, or anyone interested in how charities and the Federal Government spends their health research dollars.

Those with a vested interest frequently claim that biomedical research using animals is a necessary evil. Specious Science demonstrates that those who make such claims have wandered from the fact-based rationality that drives real science.

The Greeks use current knowledge of genetics and evolution to explain why animal-modeled science should be viewed with the same skepticism that most educated people view crystal therapy, pyramid power, and faith healing.

Once they have presented a theory for why members of other animal species are not productive models of human disease, the Greeks go on to examine the evidence and demonstrate that their theory is sound. Using the history of medical advancement as their test bed, the authors look at the record and debunk the claims we have all heard about animal research being the source of all cures - claims made by the vested interests that turn out to be spin-doctoring and myth.

With much scholarship and research, the Greeks have uncovered the roots and behind-the-scenes stories of the discoveries that have changed medicine through time into a science. They explain the lost chances and delays that a faith in the animal model has repeatedly caused. They expose the fatal catastrophes that have resulted when scientists have chosen to value animal data over human, and they have explained the surprising histories of the medical miracles that have arisen from doctors trying to help human patients.

The book also points out recent breakthroughs and advances in medicine that are stemming from human biology, genetics, epidemiology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. We learn that computers are screening chemicals at astonishing rates and predicting their efficacy and toxicity as drugs at a rate and degree of accuracy that will embarrass everyone with a stake in the archaic practice of animal experimentation.

Together, Specious Science and their earlier work, Sacred Cows and Golden Geese, present a cogent and compelling argument that explains why animal experiments continue and why they continue to retard real medicine progress and result in continued human suffering.

Anyone wishing to understand the science of medicine and the debate surrounding the theory of animal models will find this book essential reading.

This carefully researched book about the spiritual lives of children, independent of their religious beliefs, is refreshing and heartening. The authors conclude that children naturally bond to clouds, to trees, to animals, to other people, to almost anything and everything, visible and invisible, but that modern culture, especially schools, deaden this relational life by isolating children - teaching them to be alienated individuals half-alive in worlds of facts. It reminds me of the works of Kent Nerburn, that describe Native Americans living in worlds of relation rather than modern bubbles.

*The Spirit of the Child* introduces the topic of children's spirituality, making use of David Hay and Rebecca Nye's valuable research of children in England. David Hay, formerly the director of the Alister Hardy Research Centre at Oxford University, and Rebecca Nye, at the University of Cambridge, offer a theory of spirituality that includes religion but is not limited to this area. Spirituality is marked by unusually intense experiences of many possible varieties, and is an inborn aspect of human nature, the result they believe of evolutionary development. Yet Western culture has suppressed this aspect of children to the point that they are often embarrased and self-conscious about the topic. The authors describe their own research with children, including the identifying terms that children use to describe spiritual experiences. They also describe previous research that relates to spirituality of youngsters. Children's spirituality is an important, emerging area of child development that needs to be considered in greater detail by researchers and theorists, as children's spirituality is an almost completely overlooked area of children's development, yet it deserves careful consideration by educators, parents, and others interested in children.

Also see... for details related to a recent international conference on children's spirituality, at which David Hay was a keynote speaker.

The authors report and reflect on the results of their research on children's perceptions of spiritual experience. Based on interviews with children, the authors come to describe the spirituality of children as "relational consciousness" -- the child's innate sense of relationship with others, creation, one's self, and God.

This significant research supports the work of Sofia Cavalletti, Jerome Berryman and others in providing children with access to a language that is worthy of the experience children already have of "God's presence" in their lives. It also supports the work of Vivian Gussin Paley, in which she engages children as young as 2 years old, in telling and acting out their stories -- tapping into the child's innate capacity to find and to give order and meaning to an otherwise ambiguous world through play and fantasy. Moreover, the research provides a basis for creating curricula designs that integrate rather than fragment the child's studies in various disciplines.

The research invites religious educators to look again at their approach to religious education. Ultimately, a primary objective in religious education, as in all of education, is not to indoctrinate but to engage the children in the use of skills that enable them to reflect on the meaning of their unfolding experience and to share that with others. This book is valuable not only to religious educators but to anyone responsible for providing childcare.

Dr. Besant presents her material with loving concern for all people on the path to spiritual enlightenment. Her style is thoughtful and illumining, not doctrinaire or dogmatic. Every chapter guides and inspires us to greater love and service to all mankind.This is a work I'll cherish and return to again & again.

Besant is so gifted in enlightening one on the spiritual path! This book of essays will inspire you when you need a lift and comfort you when you are in despair. She simply is incomparable in her ability to shed light on life and the divine.

For someone who is looking for a deeper understanding of the nature of reality and/or the attainment of a better life, this book will educate and inspire you greatly, opening up many doors of opportunity for you.

For the earnest and devoted seeker of The Path, this book contains much light that will surely illumine many obscure parts of your search. It clearly lays out the direct way to finding the narrow path and also gives many subtle keys that will prove to be necessary as you progess closer to the light.

I would also recommend "The Power of Thought" by Annie Besant, The Path of Light by Lorr/Crary, and any of the Ramacharaka books.

Briefly - this multi-layer book is a masterpiece of modern political science. This history of Romanian Communism is one particular case speaking crystal-clear about global Communism . Due to Vladimir Tismaneanu and his history of Romanian Communism we have an accurate, a splendid x-ray of Communism in the world.
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More than that this book is as a wonderful political novel - written by Vladimir Tismaneanu with genius and, believe me, plenty of fine, ironical humor.

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Therefore, reading this work, you can easily re-make historically and politically the whole nightmare of the Communist era, in Romania, and in Europe, and world-wide as well. Yes - a tragic nightmare. A disaster.
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Vladimir Tismaneanu presents to us, with knowledge and skills of a master in laser-surgery, the anatomy and the functions of this Monster , Communism - alas ! somehow still alive . His lesson is a fundamental lesson about humankind's fatal errors and disasters ... which we do not have the right to repeat and re-live. At least, because you have to admit this terrible reality: nazism = communism = Islamic terrorism. At last but not at least, considering this irrefutable truth - I warmly recommend you the lesson of Vladimir Tismaneanu, his work as a unique book of our modern times. A healing book !
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And, for this lesson, we definitely have to be grateful, from the bottom of our hearts, to Vladimir Tismaneanu - who is practically the genuine creator of the modern school of Romanian political science.

After "Stalinism for All Seasons" it must be truly depressing to consider writing books of political sociology on the topic of the communist grand narrative. This is not only because Tismaneanu's opus, the outcome of a lifelong fascination with the topic, is so well-stocked with quality historical data (his archival research, and access to unique resources can hardly be replicated), but also because the author is a genuine maestro of both analytical insight and of a captivating writing style.
It is astonishing how he managed to strike the right balance between a sociological-political excursus of great analytical accuracy with a novel-like narrative that stretches over almost a century and whose charm ruins your work agenda for several days.
Although the book's focus is the case of the pariah Romanian Communist Party, Tismaneanu immerses this case in the wider phenomenon of world communism. The reader is stunned to discover, en premiere, the constitution of informal transnational party networks and narratives that spanned from Vietnam to Greece, and Romania. Particularly fascinating are Tismaneanu's foray into mechanisms of Leninist and Stalinist manipulation of the (rather excessively)romanticized world communism" of the 20s and 30s, as well as his treatment of the role of memory, charisma, nationalism and aesthetics in the ascension, ossification and in the decay of the party.
We have access to the operationalization of general issues of interest for political scientists such as puzzling hybridizations of mechanisms for political power conquest and maintenance, the crucial role of personalities (that escapes facile research designs accomodation), how resources are distributed and conflits are settled in opaque political machines.
For those interested in how birth pathologies impact the subsequent development of radical political projects that end up reaching the lands of dystopia, this read is undoubtedly set to be on list of classics.

Professor Tismaneanu, one of the sharpest analysts in the field of Eastern European politics, has written what is no doubt the definitive comprehensive study of the Romanian Communist Party. Brilliantly written and painstakingly researched over many years, the work will be appreciated by anybody interested in Eastern European politics or the stalinist system and its various deviations.

A solid political science work, the prose is lively and the entire work, complete with the cast of characters at the end, reminds me more of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury than other blander political analyses.

A superb book.