Society Books

the gift recipient of this book was very happy with it and reads a lot of Virginia Woolf.

I have read this book many times over the past 25 years at different stages in my life and I have loved it every time. Virginia Woolf is my favorite author (this and To The Lighthouse are her best works, in my opinion), and have given the book to my daughter, Katharine, for Christmas. (Guess who she's named after?) This book is an "easy" read, unlike many of Virginia Woolf's other novels, and follows a conventional style. However, there is nothing conventional about her writing; I have yet to come across another novelist with her ability to touch on everyday life with such subtlety and nuance. The characters in this book are very likeable - it's as if I have known them in my own life. Love this book!

For those of you who have disdain for vanity publishers, as some call the self-published authors, be advised that much of Virginia Woolf's work was self-published through the Hogarth Press. She has been hailed as one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century and one of the foremost Modernists, though she disdained some artists in this category. Woolf is considered one of the greatest innovators in the English language. In her works she experimented with stream-of-consciousness, the underlying psychological as well as emotional motives of characters, and the various possibilities of fractured narrative and chronology. Her literary achievements and creativity are influential even today. Historic London is the setting of Night and Day. The novel and its characters center around one place in particular the Hilbery home, an eighteenth-century house built on the Thames riverfront in Chelsea, London, a house that doubles as the literary shrine for a great Victorian poet, Richard Alardyce. The emotionally strained and serious Katharine Hilbery gives an American visitor a tour of her poet grandfather's study in the presence of her former fiance. This room is both a "religious temple" devoted to Richard Alardyce and a commercial showroom for which she is the "show-woman" of remains not for sale. Katharine, preoccupied by the interruption of feelings into her life, guides the American through the collection inattentively, thus rendering the effusive American's enthusiasm absurd. This bewildered pilgrim and the home's other specimens--Katharine Hilbery's father, an influential editor of a literary journal; her mother, an energetic though disarranged steward of her poet-father's memory; and their circle of visitors who cannot abide living writers--all point to a critique of a literary establishment and its morbid maintenance of the literary past as the only worthwhile present. Night and Day is a portrait of Virginia Woolf's and (her sister) Vanessa Bell's family home at Hyde Park Gate, ruled by Leslie Stephen, who, as an influential man of letters and steward to the Victorian literary establishment, is Mr. and Mrs. Hilbery combined. ... "He received her assurance with profound joy. Quietly and steadily there rose up behind the whole aspect of life that soft edge of fire which gave its red tint to the atmosphere and crowded the scene with shadows so deep and dark that one could fancy pushing farther into their density and still farther, exploring indefinitely." Woolf's reputation declined sharply after World War II, but her eminence was re-established with the surge of Feminist criticism in the 1970s. After a few more ideologically based altercations, not least caused by claims that Woolf was anti-semitic and a snob, it seems that a critical consensus has been reached regarding her stature as a novelist. Virginia Woolf's peculiarities as a fiction writer have tended to obscure her central strength. The intensity of Virginia Woolf's poetic vision elevates the ordinary, sometimes banal settings of most of her novels, even as they are often set in an environment of war. For example, Mrs. Dalloway (1925) centres on the efforts of Clarissa Dalloway, a middle-aged society woman, to organize a party, even as her life is paralleled with that of Septimus Warren Smith, a working-class veteran who has returned from the First World War bearing deep psychological scars. To the Lighthouse (1927) is set on two days ten years apart. The plot centers around the Ramsay family's anticipation of and reflection upon a visit to a lighthouse and the connected familial tensions. One of the primary themes of the novel is the struggle in the creative process that beset painter Lily Briscoe while she struggles to paint in the midst of the family drama. The novel is also a meditation upon the lives of a nation's inhabitants in the midst of war, and of the people left behind. The Waves (1931) presents a group of six friends whose reflections, which are closer to recitatives than to interior monologues proper, create a wave-like atmosphere that is more akin to a prose poem than to a plot-centered novel. Her last work, Between the Acts (1941) sums up and magnifies Woolf's chief preoccupations: the transformation of life through art, sexual ambivalence, and meditation on the themes of flux of time and life, presented simultaneously as corrosion and rejuvenation - all set in a highly imaginative and symbolic narrative encompassing almost all of English history. Recently, studies of Virginia Woolf have focused on feminist and lesbian themes in her work, such as in the 1997 collection of critical essays, Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings, edited by Eileen Barrett and Patricia Cramer. The Hours is a 2002 Academy Award winning film and Best Picture nominee about three women of different generations and times whose lives are interconnected by Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway. All the action takes place within the span of one day.
Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope and South State Street Journal.

As in the other Virginia Woolf books I have read, what strikes me first and foremost is the wonderful writing. The descriptions are phenomenal, starting with the surroundings and continuing with the character's facial expressions. Some of the passages are pure poetry and the characters are beautifully and consistently drawn out. Oddly, although we know that Katharine is beautiful, we do not get a description of her, or of any other person in the story, with the exception of William Rodney.

Woolf became a little heavy when it went into the minds of the characters who are in crises, but as one reaches the end of the book, all is forgiven.

An excellent read!

Here is an artist at work, painting the nuances of the heart, creating living people, reacting to the subtleties of mood, ambiance, the weather, and external perceptions that make up how we live and who we are. No matter what you think of these people, you have a chance to live with them and understand them, feel their conflicts, their love, and their pains. Virginia Woolf is the ballast that offsets all the one-book-wonder authors, the cynics, the nasty moderns, and those authors who have given up on anything positive in the world. Like Shakespeare, her work will live on long after so many others are forgotten. That's because she offers us art, hope, vision, and the truth about our humanity. It's all here in this book, if you choose to read it.

Hollander puts the selective moral outrage and selective acceptance of evidence of the Left on parade as he follows these blinkered one's through the various Potemkin Villages of the Totalitarians, from the October revolution forward into most of the 20th century. Smug arrogance knows no political party or religious faith, no gender, race or sexual preference, it seems to be evenly spread among us. In this instance the highly developed capacity for self-deception of the Left is on trial and an amusing trial at that. Their tortured explanations of the intellectually unexplainable are a fictive of mankind's marvelous ability "to transform things to the liking of his desires".

Like all those who are "blowin' in the wind", these intellectual hard heads do not seek truth, but instead to validate their worldview. This book is a study of intellectuals, estrangement and its consequences.

Hollander hits an important nail on its head. Many members of the intellectual left have a horrible track record of either excusing or turning a blind eye to the brutality of socialist dictators. As such, many twentieth century leftists served as apologists for evil socialist dictators. Of course, these same people have no difficulty finding fault with the US and UK. No problem in the West is too small to warrant condemnation in their eyes.

The sad truth is that the vision of an egalitarian society has been romanticized and popularized. Even today there are some who defend and even promote the USSR. Hollander counters this nonsense with evidence. Unfortunately, there are still some ideologues to whom evidence means nothing. We need more scholars like Hollander.

Political Pilgrims is the amazing story of how Western intellectuals embraced Marxist tyrants at the very moment their colleagues were rotting in prison cells, and the common people everyone claimed to be concerned for, were starving. The book relates how cultural and religious leaders from the West, including familiar names, visited the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and other communist countries, and told the most appalling lies to flatter their hosts and express their contempt for Western society. It is quite an education, as another reviewer put it. Marx's revolutionary myth dominated history for the better part of the 20th Century, and if we are serious about not repeating the errors of that period, this book should be a part of our education. The short story Buddha's Smile in Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece, The First Circle, brilliantly tells the same story, from the point of view of Soviet prisoners. Lewis Feuer's Marx and the Intellectuals compares Marx and Engels themselves with the kind of people Hollander is describing. I also recommend the writings of the Rumanian philosopher, pastor, and former prisoner, Richard Wurmbrand.

Hollander retells George Keenan's story of a Norwegian radical who, when asked what country he most admired, said, "Albania." Keenan noted that the student obviously knew nothing of Albania, but chose that country "simply because it seems to be a club with a particularly sharp nail at the end of it with which to beat one's own society."

The same reactionary psychology has, it seems to me, been transferred in our day to an uncritical and naive attraction towards what is (simplistically) called "eastern religion." One could write an even longer book about how Westerners project their fantasies on monist ideologies: people like Joseph Campbell and Karen Armstrong "explaining" human sacrifice, the Theosophical Society standing up for caste, Arthur C. Clarke (Did he know much more of Asian history than the Albanian radical knew of Albania?) describing Buddhism as "the only faith that never became stained with blood." Even Hollander allowed that, "While the suspension of disbelief has its place in human life, it belongs more to the religious (or asthetic) than the political realm." But his book should be read, in my opinion, as a warning against all forms of ideological naivite. A love of truth, and a determination to tell it no matter how out of fashion it may seem, is essential to integrity in all walks of life. Political Pilgrims vividly illustrates, in the political realm, the evil that can be done when honesty plays second fiddle to fashion.....

This is an awesome book which helps the reader understand why intellectuals always seem to be on the wrong side of history. They loved Communism even when it was obvious that Lenin & Stalin were exterminating hoards of people! They are defective in their thinking and they stick to it. The author has a quote at the beginning of the book. "A GREAT DEAL OF INTELLEGENCE CAN BE INVESTED IN IGNORANCE WHEN THE NEED FOR ILLUSION IS DEEP." (Saul Bellows) . This book walks you through the 'needs' that these intellectuals seem to have which continually seems to cause them to deny the stark realities around them & cling to their 'ideologies'. I am so glad I read this book as I just laugh now when I hear so much of what is on the news. I GET IT!

25 years ago, "Political Pilgrims" documented beyond any doubt the willing self-deception of intellectuals in love with the totalitarian regimes in Cuba, China, the Soviet Union and East Germany. The debate no longer rages over whether these countries were "freer" than their counterparts in the West. They aren't. What hasn't changed, however, is the continued willingness of intellectuals to find paradise anywhere but in the US.

Paul Hollander brings his trademark meticulousness to the study of Intellectuals who travel to what used to be referred to as Worker's Paradises. Using mountains of evidence, one cannot help but be persuaded that Western Intellectuals experience such a depth of alienation from their cultural birthplace, that they become morally blind to the abuses of its antagonists.

What's truly remarkable, is that none of this has changed. One merely needs to point to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and it's grotesque representation of Hussein's Iraq as an innocently peaceful place of playful children and mothers. At no point in that execrable movie does he mention the mass graves or torture chambers.

Michael, post your wish list on Amazon and I'll send you this book. Promise.

It would be silly to say that you NEED to read this book before entering into the ministry. God has used many a man who have probably never even heard of Baxter or "the reformed christian."
However, if you are considering purchasing this book, then I would say dont even think twice. Besides the "pastoral epistles" of Paul (1st & 2nd Timothy, and Titus) I know of no other piece of work that will prepare you and teach you the way that those who lead the church ought to be. I would recommend it to anyone who has a heart for the Lords work, not just pastors.
Richard Baxter was a man full of the Holy Spirit. The words in this book will illuminate your soul, and convict you to the point of crying out to God and running to the cross of Christ. It can be a very painful book in many areas because it will cause you to look at yourself and wonder if you are really walking the life that The Lord wants from those who lead his people.
Its very difficult to find the words to describe how incredible this book is. I have to read it in tiny little sections instead of by chapters because there is so much depth to it. and each small section will bring me to tears.
Physically, this book weighs about as much as any other paper back. Spiritualy, you wont be able to lift it off the ground, much less turn a page

Baxter's time was not too unlike our own. Despite there being a large theological agreement that there must be discipline within the Church, very few leaders in the church are willing to carry it out. Baxter reminds us, and convincingly so, that we must do so for not only the good of the soul of the individual, but for the rest of the Church, and even ourselves. Most of the book rotates around the subject of discipline in the pastoral ministry. It also contains many other details concerning the ministry that would be good for any aspiring, or current pastor to read.

The only reason I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 is because this version is the abridged version of what Baxter wrote years ago. However, there is nothing that would tell you this unless you read the preface. I was a little disturbed upon originally reading the preface that this was the case, and that the original work is closer to 700 pages (depending on margins and type settings). This book has a rather tiny font size, and very little margin, so even though it is only over 100 pages, if it were in the typical type setting you see in most books, it would probably be closer to 3-400 pages.

Also, the ancient Elizabethean english has been revised for the modern reader, which probably accounts for the shorter number of pages.

Don't let any of this distract you from getting this book though, there are still many redeeming qualities to it.

The Reformed Pastor was actually very different than I anticipated, being nothing about reformed theology or even theology at all. "Reformed Pastor" actually means reforming pastors, using the word the same way we would say "reformed hardened criminal." Hmmm. I guess that already tells you this book isn't one of those "feel-good" books.

Richard Baxter was famous for two things: being a tremendous pastor to a town in England, and getting constantly into trouble for being so blunt that he would make enemies of his friends. This book is about being a tremendous pastor, and it is very very blunt.

It is an extended lecture he proposed to give to a local ministerial association in 1656. The book uses as its foundation and framework Acts 20:28: "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood." The book first deals with pastors "taking heed" to their own spiritual state and life, and then turns its attention to taking heed to all the flock.

As to the topic of taking heed to their own spiritual lives, Baxter starts at the beginning, with making sure the reader is truly a Christian, and progresses through disciplines, qualifications, and indwelling sin. He next emphasizes the reasons why a pastor must be rigorous in his own spiritual life. He expounds reasons such as how many eyes are on the man of God, how difficult the work is, and how the honor of Christ depends on it. He reminds his reader of many practical insights, such as "all that a minister does is a kind of preaching" and to avoid the error of men who "study hard to preach exactly, and study little or not at all to live exactly."

After dealing with the pastor's personal life, he tackles the pastor's responsibility to shepherd his congregation. His most radical recommendation, radical back then and almost unthinkable to American churches today, is for a pastor to personally visit and catechize people (for those unfamiliar with the term, it means to teach a list of several hundred questions and answers of basic theology). Specifically, he says a pastor should catechize each and every family, in the pastor's entire town, each and every year. In Baxter's town that meant 2000 people in 800 families, that he and his associate pastor took two full days every week to go through the whole town every year.

He bluntly states, "If the pastoral office consists of overseeing all the flock, then surely the number of souls under the care of each pastor must not be greater than he is able to take such heed as to here is required." Yea, and I'm sure the pastoral staff of most churches personally know every member of their flock. And yes, I know that we consider Sunday School teachers or small group leaders to be "overseeing the flock"- but how many of those leaders in our churches see themselves as shepherds, have been theologically trained and commissioned as overseers, one-on-one ask them regularly about their spiritual life, and are seen by the members of their class or group as having spiritual responsibility over them?

But it was a radical idea even back then, so much so that Baxter takes dozens of pages to specifically give all the reasons why every pastor should devote himself to this universal visitation and dozens more pages to specifically answer a whole series of objections to the work. In short, he says that he had found that an hour of focused questions concerning a person's spiritual state was often more helpful than years of listening to sermons for their spiritual growth. It's hard to argue with that conclusion, and harder to argue with the marked growth (in both numbers and spiritual maturity) that history shows that his church had under his pastorship.

As to objections to why not do it, he says that they all are variations on the theme of "I'm too lazy or greedy" which he viciously attacks as unworthy of any follower of Christ, let alone a pastor. To laziness, he asks "Are these works to be done with a careless mind, or a lazy hand? O see, then, that this work be done with all your might!"

To greed, he states that if a pastor has too many families in his church for him to visit individually, then he should hire another pastor out of his own salary to help him. He challenges, "What! Do you call yourselves ministers of the gospel, and yet are the souls of men so base in your eyes, that you had rather they eternally perish, than that you and your family should live in a low and poor condition?" Whoa there, Baxter must have never read Your Best Life Now!

The book is chock full with other helpful insights and wry comments, such as "All our teaching must be as plain and simple as possible." "Is it not a pity, then, that our hearts are not as orthodox as our heads?" "It is a contradiction in terms, to be a Christian, and not humble." "We must study how to convince and get within men, and how to bring each truth to the quick." "In the name of God, brethren, labour to awaken your own hearts, before you go to the pulpit, that you may be fit to awaken the hearts of sinners." And my list could go on and on and on. I have already discussed his specific instructions on personal evangelism in another article.

After reading The Reformed Pastor, I have to agree with Spurgeon, Packer, Dever and all the other big kahunas- this is absolutely essential reading for any man called to the ministry, to pin him against the wall and make him take stock of his ministry, his priorities, and his life before God, and to make him deeply consider about how best to "take heed over" himself and all his flock.

This is no candy or soup for the soul, its solid and challenging real world meat for the work of the ministry. Baxter challenges us to a kind of ministry that exceeds human ability alone. Such a ministry drives us to our only hope for that ability and keeps us returning to the everlasting arms of our heavenly father.

I read this book because so many people have spoken of it as a classic. Having now finished it, I must say I am a little disappointed with the content. I expected profound and striking ideas. In these pages however, were no new principles I have not already learned.

The smallness of Baxter's content however, is far exceeded by the substance of his character. It is his character, his pastoral passion for ministry that makes this book the classic it has become. His single-minded devotion to God and his tender, shepherd's heart for his flock have inspired pastors for over 300 years.

This book is not an easy read. The English language has changed substantially over 300 years, and as a result the essence of Baxter's pastoral passion is undoubtedly distorted. Still, this volume IS a classic, and is a must-read for any pastor wanting to refine and/or restore his motivation for ministry.

You can find a good summary-article of this book under the heading "The Origins and Diffusion of Patrism in Saharasia, c.4000 BCE: Evidence for a Worldwide, Climate-Linked Geographical Pattern in Human Behavior" by the same author free on the web. It's an introduction to the general thesis and recommended for anyone having problems with the size of this book. Regardless, it's some of the most rewarding reading I've ever done, both in terms of making sense of the world as a student of culture and personally. It would be difficult indeed to go closer to fundamentals than "Saharasia" without turning to religion and metaphysics, yet DeMeo remains true to the principles of science. Rare. Tell me if there are other works such as this.

I want to thank Amazon reviewer J Studebaker for connecting me with this book. It is an exciting read! It has been a long time since I felt impelled to underline and post-it the pages of a book. James DeMeo's Saharasia is full of sweeping, courageous and inspiring insights marred by jarring blind spots.

He says that the drying up of a wide swath of land from Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia caused continued forced migration and psychological desiccation. That led humanity away from the easy going, sex positive ways of the mother goddess to the male oriented warfare and cruelty now considered normal.

He painstakingly documents this theory, but his documentation is flawed. For one thing, the evidence for the previous state of "matrist" bliss is scanty, with much of it coming from very old data compiled by early anthropologists in small, now destroyed, communities in places like the Trobriand Islands. He himself points out that people told those anthropologists what they wanted them to know and what they were willing to disclose. The anthropologists also interpreted their data through their own prejudices.

One blind spot is DeMeo's lumping of homosexuality into the category of an effect of the "patrist" repression of "healthy" heterosexuality. Another is his worshipful attitude toward Wilhelm Reich. DeMeo gives Reich, originally a follower of Freud, credit where credit is due. He first outlined the process of human "armoring" in the face of prolonged trauma.

DeMeo is eager to point out that while Freud first pointed to the importance of the "pleasure principle", he was wrong late in his life, denying the reality of the child abuse reported by patients. When it comes to Reich however, DeMeo is defensive about everything Reich espoused, even the supposedly curative powers of "Orgone energy", a concept which derailed Reich's career late in his life. DeMeo blames the patrist "powers that be" for that.

I enjoyed this book most because it made me think. Although I would like to, I am not sure I agree that in a state of nature human beings are warm, nurturing and sexually permissive. Perhaps we are a complex mix of both open and armored traits and can go either way depending on conditions. In other words, we adapt and survive.

I am willing to accept that the change in the earth's climate that started approximately 6,000 years ago has led to the current cultural climate as well. That doesn't mean that we can go back to Eden. We need new solutions and we have to stop making our problems worse. Future generations will have to find a way to survive the global warming we are precipitating and all its attending climate changes. We ain't seen nothing yet!

In a nutshell, DeMeo says that before around 4000 BCE, humans were democratic, egalitarian, sex-positive, pleasure-oriented, non-violent Goddess-worshiping "matrists." Over the next 10-20 generations, however, certain matrist groups morphed into "patrists": violent, sexually-repressive, misogynistic, sadistic, male-dominated high-god worshipers with painful and traumatic child rearing techniques.

What caused the morphing? More on that below. First, though, a word on DeMeo's research. This is not any old "armchair science" book. DeMeo backs up his theories - ten years in the making -- with some of the most solid and extensive interdisciplinary data I've ever seen. To present this data for our perusal took over 400 pages, in a large-scale format, of scores of maps, charts, diagrams, figures, tables, drawings, photographs, footnotes and appendices as well as ample data-driven text.

The majority of DeMeo's data are sterling. For example, working with class-A anthropological data (from the Human Relations Area Files, etc.) and meshing those with class-A geological data (from the Budyko-Lettau Dryness Ratio), DeMeo shows that (1) around 4000 BCE a broad ribbon of land across Africa, the Middle East and Asia began dying; 2) People living in this land became the most patriarchal on the planet; and, 3) the further one wanders from this ribbon of land, the less patriarchal people are. DeMeo calls this land "Saharasia." It's an area that covers hundreds of thousands of square miles on our planet.

DeMeo offers a fascinating analysis of how the hideous change from matrist to patrist occurred. He bases his arguments on current studies of starving peoples. The behavioral changes in starving groups are enormous and appalling. Starving people become consumed with eating and lose interest in all other pleasures, including sex. The old and young are abandoned to die. Brothers steal food from sisters, and in some cases parents eat their own children. For children who survive, bad diet leads to laundry lists of psychological and physical abnormalities down the road. The culture breaks down. Life bumps into chaos.

Although this starvation syndrome began in Saharasia ca 4000 BCE, it continued for generation after generation. Most of the crazed groups caught in the desertification process died out. In the few that survived (and why they survived is explained below), mentally-ill behaviors became institutionalized. Mental illness became their way of life; the loss of interest in pleasure; the glorification of the strong; the strong stealing from the weak - all these and more would have become fossilized into a new and actively promoted way of life - a set of behaviors "learned, shared, patterned and transmitted from generation to generation," as my anthropology texts used to define culture. It is at this point, when mental-illness becomes codified, that one witnesses the birth of the patriarchy.

DeMeo contends that the first response to desertification was for the agricultural matrists to abandon their land and become nomadic, riding horseback over rough terrain, frantically searching for food and water. In order to keep babies alive, loving matrist mothers would bind (swaddle) them tightly in cloth. Babies spent all day tied to their mother's backs, unable to move heads, hands, legs or feet. For the successful new patrist groups this swaddling became something glorified. One effect was severe skull deformation in both infants and adults.

DeMeo thinks that infant swaddling and head binding produces a deep-set rage in adults, especially toward mothers, women, and female deity. Hence one possible source of the misogyny and abandonment of female deity that became hallmarks of patriarchal cultures.

"The heads of ... children ... are pressed so tightly by means of a peculiar kind of ligature, that little by little the heads assume the shape of sugar-loaves. The pressure is so great that the noses of the children ... are constantly bleeding.... The child cries and turns black, and when the mother presses on its forehead, a white slimy fluid comes out its nose and ears...." (p. 112).

Fortunately, skull deformation has died out over the past several hundred years (p. 112). Swaddling, however, has not. Even today groups across, and on the edges of Saharasia retain this awful practice in, for example, the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China.

Although I don't agree with every theory in his book, I think DeMeo's basic premise - that ancient, widespread, continental desertification drove humans from their natural, healthy state into one of codified mental illness -- is a premise he proves almost beyond a shadow of a doubt.

And knowing that, once upon a time we actually *did* live in "The Garden of Eden," means there's hope we can get back there again.

~ Jeri Studebaker, author of Switching to Goddess: Humanity's Ticket to the Future

Saharasia is one of the most profound works I've ever come across. Contrary to what some other reviewers have said, I could NOT put this book down. It is definitely a 5 star work!

Dr. James DeMeo details hard evidence of the origins of social violence, rape, genital mutilation, warfare, and the suppression of women, children, etc. With a detailed outline of the origins of this area of research, DeMeo proves Wilhelm Reich's sex-economic theory with dozens of maps, images, engaging history, and detailed, iron clad evidence. He shows us exactly how and why our society got the way it is, and how we can change it by ending sexual suppression--by giving our children the love and attention they need--and defeating indoctrinated beliefs.

Have no doubt that this book is HUGE, but don't let its size stray you away from this most fascinating read. A good portion of its size is due to the fact that he has so many maps and images. It took me about 12 days to read it from cover to cover. I normally read a book a week. However, I do recommend that those who wish a gentler introduction to this work, to read Reich's Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, as a pre-requisite to this book.

DeMeo finds no need to sugarcoat truth and facts into deluded, bitesize tidbits. Those who think he pounds the information in too hard, disregard the fact that this book is all about getting to the truth.

Those who have doubted Reich's theories may doubt no more!

This book is probably one of the most important works of the last century, and DeMeo has certainly earned the title. May this book live through history and open minds as an accepted "Great Work"!

I'm adding DeMeo to my favorite authors list!

This is probably the best researched book to date on how environmental destruction has affected society over the course of history. DeMeo shows with charts, maps and studies how we have systematically turned vast regions of the planet into desert wastelands. He then documents a disturbing pattern of cultural consequences for society across the world. DeMeo's decades of research help illuminate what is at stake for us in the struggle to heal the land.

--BG, author of "The Gardens of Their Dreams: Desertification and Culture in World History"

Some of the information in this book may now be out of fashion and sometimes wrong, it is a great pleasure to read "Scouting for Boys". The ideals defended by B.P.: courage, generosity and compassion are as much a necessity today as they were a hundred years ago, when that book was first published.

The idea of an active, "hands on" education still find its echo in today's most recent education innovations.

Of course, the key message lies in the the initials of the author: Be Prepared!

Excellent book detailing the original , if somewhat dated thoughts , of the founder of the Scout Movement- Sir Robert Baden Powell. A must have read for all interetesed in the movement and it's principles

At the very beginning of the twentieth century, retired General Robert Baden-Powell, the hero of the siege of Mafeking, coalesced his ideas for an organization to train young British boys in scouting for the British Empire. Not a very organized thinker, Baden-Powell borrowed heavily from all sorts of unrelated resources - newspaper articles, military dispatches, fiction, and much more - and produced this, his first book on scouting. Originally published as six separate books, this book brings all of them together, complete with original illustrations.

Now, as might be expected from its roots, this book reflects a lot of the biases and ways of thinking from Edwardian England. But, leaving that aside, this is a fun and interesting book that shows clearly the forms that have stayed with the Boy Scouts movement to this very day. The introduction was written by Elleke Boehmer, a professor of Colonial and Postcolonial literature, and is a fairly predictable deconstruction/analysis of B-P and his movement.

Now, as a newcomer to Scouting (my son is a Tenderfoot) did I find anything useful in this book? I sure did. Robert Baden-Powell was very knowledgeable about the subject, and this book sure shows it. (I never thought of tying my shoes like that!) Of course some of the information is out of date, especially the first-aid information, so it isn't really usable by the boys "as is." But, this is a nice resource, one that shows you where Scouting started.

Oh, and I must say that I actually enjoyed the somewhat jumbled organization of this book. It isn't as scholarly and antiseptic as modern Boy Scout books, and the stories and tales laced throughout make the reading much more fun. Plus, I did find the focus on some subjects, such as logic and deductive reasoning, to be quite interesting. I loved this book, and highly recommend it to you!

I was an Eagle Scout as a boy, and now I'm the founding Scoutmaster of my sons' troop. As such, I was anxious to get a copy of this hard cover version. Baden-Powell's work is a classic and well worth the read. The problem with this edition is the Introduction by Elleke Boehmer. Without it, the book is a 5-star. Ms. Boehmer appears a non-believer. Reading her is like taking a pessimistic art critic along side while viewing an art gallery. Far more benefit (for all concerned) would occur without her input. For each positive she states about BP, she mentions a negative. She also spends just over two pages discussing homosexual tendencies (pp xxxii-xxxiii) within BP's works, something which is out of place in this work. I started to list several quotes, but I think one sums it up best of all from the back cover: "She has never been a scout, but she did once shake hands with Lady Baden-Powell at a jubilee celebration in South Africa." I guess that must make her an expert.

This original text of BP's "Scouting for Boys" is an excellent read. You can skip the introduction, however. The intro is a steaming pile of horse excrement written by someone seething with contempt for BP and the Boy Scout movement. Why it was included with the book is beyond me unless it's to provide bum fodder whilst camping. Remember, a scout is thrifty!

An excellent book. Weinstein shows through example and explanation how literature can teach us about life. Even if you have never read the books he quotes from his examples are clear. I don't think you can read this book without wanting to read more of Arnold Weinstein's books and more of the classics in general. I am now reading Dr. Weinstein's book, "Recovering Your Story".

I could not put this book down. I talked about it to everyone I knew while I was reading and then bought copies for them! It was insightful and intuitive, a wonderful commentary on the ability of great literature to enrich our lives.

As a real fan of Arnold Weinstein's terrific lectures on both American and World Literature (from the Teaching Company, but which I borrow from my library), I had high expectations for this book. My expectations were exceeded. That's because in the lectures, Dr. Weinstein focuses almost exclusively on literature. That's not a bad thing. It's a solid traditional approach. But in this text he is also free to draw in art, theater and film where appropriate, and to treat his material thematically, instead of on a book by book basis, a practice which tends to marginalize overall thematic observations. Also, in this format Dr. Weinstein can engage in digressions, and not worry about taking up too much time doing so, as he might in a lecture situation.

Here's an example of a short digression that I found particularly insightful: "One of the ironies of modern culture is its peculiar treatment of high art. Either we subject it to the rigors of modern critical theory, so as to disclose the hidden ideological arrangements it contains; or we piously commit it to the scholar's care, with the implicit view that we "laypeople" do not have the tools of access to frequent such work with any degree of profit. It would be better if we taught our students to view all art as fair game, to approach the most formidable and hermetic works as an aspiring thief might; with intent to break and enter, to discover, steal and possess what is there." Page 334.

Summarizing his insights at the end of this highly engaging text, he meditates on the tragedy of modernity, which he sees as a surfeit of consciousness combined with a lack of human connection. Weinstein illustrates this observation most dramatically through Faulkner's Quentin Compson. First, he cites Robert Penn Warren as having gotten it right when he said that it is not that Quentin suffers from a consciousness of doom, but rather the doom of consciousness. Hamlet was perhaps the first hyperconscious modern, and Weinstein does a fine job of showing how Hamlet and Quentin are connected, too.

Implicit in this, at least in my opinion, is that hyperconsciousness has been promoted by the consumer society. It has filled the world with things, variations of things upon things, filling up our lives with endless vexed choices and in so doing both stokes and attempts to put out the fire of hyperconsciouness. In either case we are seduced into ignoring the fast beating heart of our own humanity as this world of things muffles the scream that goes through the house of our bodies and consciousness.

Weinstein's observations are like those moments you have in life where for an instant, a fog of clarity fills your heart and mind. He is that mist of understanding you cannot describe, and best of all he is accessible in portable paperback. I am currently a student of his and he gives a reader the tools of a new set of eyes that you put together by yourself as you learn. Why do we read things? Weinsteing will lead you to your own answer, and reading will never be the same. ...literature's LSD with no harmful side effects.

For a visceral thrill we can always count on Arnold--not Schwarzenegger in this case, but Arnold Weinstein, whose books combine a whole lot of learning with the human touch of passion and the starkness of memory. Arnold's dream of a scream loud enough to wake up an entire household clues us in immediately that he is a sensitive, caring man, with definite issues regarding boundaries. No wonder he then focusses on the famous Munch painting in which space and time are caught up and expressed in a soundless scream, a visceral pain of being that transcends the visual and becomes auditory, or not quite.

Many professors have written reams about Munch's SCREAM, but few have managed to bring it into the mainstream of Western intellectual culture. As he did in his book about spaces and the heimlich, Weinstein constantly surprises and envigorates the tiredest old subjects, I can just imagine what he does to his students!

There are many papers and review articles about the quantum well intermixing and its applications to photonics. This great book selects the most important articles in this field. It covers the milestone work in the early stage of quantum well intermixing as well as advances in later stages. The editor is a highly respected scientist in this field, he chose the most relevant articles which are useful for both beginners and experts in this field. This books includes articles on materials, physics, and devices aspects of quantum well intermixing for photonics. This is a "must" for anyone who is interested in quantum well intermixing.

This is a very useful and helpful book for a beginner and an expert.

As a beginner I found this book a very useful introductory material. The author made a carefull selection of the most important papers in the field of QWI.

This kind of a book was needed on the market for a long time.

This is the first comprehensive review of the QW intermixing. The book gives introduction to basics of QW intermixing for people who are just starting to study this, as well as a variety of in-depth studies on more advanced level.

I really devoured this book. I found myself highlighting every paragraph and I even took notes. This is a wonderful look at teaching and how to utilize your skills to change lives, not just fill a young person's mind with information. Several of the quotes in the book have now become bold printed pages in my teaching notebook.

Este libro contiene los principios básicos de los diferentes elementos de la enseñanza. Me abrió la mente para mejorar mi manera de trabajar con mis alumnos y comenzar nuevos desarrollos y relaciones con ellos. Excelente libro.

This classic work first published in 1884 should be part of the curriculum for all schools training teachers. That it is still being reprinted (the 10th printing was in 2003) is a testimony to the timeless value of the author's wisdom contained within its pages. There are times when the old ways are the best ways and this book is one of those. Public schools, the failures that they are, would do well to scrap modern pedagogy and practice The Seven Laws of Teaching.

This book isn't just for the teaching profession: it is also an excellent training manual for pastors, Bible teachers and Sunday School teachers.

This author not only spoke from the perspective of an educator, but from the experience of a learner. Without that vital connection between the teacher and student, there indeed is little learning taking place. John Milton Gregory gave a wonderful description of the dynamics, the give and take, that must exist between the teacher and learner to ensure a real education. He explored the necessary efforts of both the learner and the educator and laid on them both the responsibility to engage. Wonderful book.

I have been teaching in the public schools for 19 years. I train other teachers. I am a mentor to new teachers. And yet, I learned so much from this book. I can't express how much I loved it other than to say, from this point forward, every teacher I meet will hear about this book. Every teacher in every institution should be required to read this before placing one foot in the classroom. My favorite quote from the book: It is only the unskilled teacher who prefers to hear his own voice in endless talk rather than watch and direct the course of the thoughts of his pupils. If you teach, read it!

Great story excellently written by a newcomer author. Can't wait for his next work. Couldn't put this one down!!!

The Society was magnificent and intriguing!!! First time author John Conn successfully wrote a book which kept me on the edge of my seat and allowed me to live through the eyes of each character. James Felton Kellogg is a character that I will never forget. I can't wait to read Mr. Conn's next book.

This book is full of action and will keep you on the edge of your seat. Sometimes you think a character is a good guy and low and behold he's a bad guy. Great story teller with a little bit different way of writing. Refreshing! A must read for any Stephen King fans.

This is a great story of a society of serial killers. Mr. Conn is very skilled at developing his charecters and plot. This book is difficult to put down. Be sure to read all the way to the end--there's a twist. Hope to see more from this author very soon!!

The Society turns out to be more than what I expected when I first picked it up. The fact that the tables are turned on a society of serial killers might make it seem a clear hunt and destroy type of book with the standard bad guys (nowadays everyone seems to be a serial killer) and good guys. I've read a number of these types of books and John Conn's novel turns out to be anything but standard. An undercurrent runs through the book that not only surfaces with each kill but also waits in the corners for the next character to make a mistake and join the ranks of the dead. At times, it almost reads like a text book study on these killers within the framework of the story. I came away with a great scary story and an insight to a society I want no part of.

Ms. Boas has put together an exceptional book on the Society of Six Painters. It is generously illustrated with carefully chosen examples, most in full color. Close ups, with full bleeds, lead each chapter and will take your breath away. In addition, the book contains many black and white images of the artists working and hanging out.

I'd say roughly half of the book is on Selden Gile and why not? He was likely the most prolific and arguably the best of the group. Ms. Boas describes how the group got together and how they were influenced by European artists, a few California painters as well as Bellows and others. One gets some idea of the personality (even drinking habits!) of each of "the six" as well as their camaraderie, working methods, palettes and materials. On page 97, there is a reprint of the group's manifesto (primarily Clapp's handiwork). It may be the best description of "what makes a painting good" that I have ever come across. In addition, the book is littered with quotes and excerpts from letters. One thing I particularly enjoyed were the many quotes by Diebenkorn and Thiebaud describing the Society's work. I highly recommend this book.

Hazou Gallery, Elie (art dealer) San Diego, CA
This has been a great reference book for me. I own three artists in this remarkable group, The Society of Six. In addition to all the information in this valuable book, the price was great.

I give this book 10 stars! Nancy Boas did a superb job cataloguing the history of this unique & historical California art movement. As one of America's foremost buyers of the Society of Six paintings, I can say this is a "must buy" book. www.LawrenceBeebe.com

While many books and much attention has been given to the Impressionists, little mention has been offered to the Society
of Six - California Colorists. The beautiful illustrations and enlightening text provide a case history for the needed aware-
ness of these talented and innovative artists. Nancy Boas has
obviously done a tremendous amount of research resulting in a
spectacular and much needed work on our California art history.
A perusal of this title will be richly rewarded.

Nancy Boas has done the American art scene a great service by producing a beautifully illustrated and printed book about six rugged individualists who did much to build a California school of painting in the early 20th Century. While they are often referred to as impressionists, their paintings are generally far more adventuresome, ambitious and challenging to the viewer than the relatively tame and accessible impressionist school. Whether they had any direct influence from the Fauvists or the Blaureider colorists, they have more in common with those post-impressionist Europeans. Ultimately, it doesn't matter much how they arrived at their approach to color and painting, it was the California landscape and climate that determined their subjects and color they used to interpret them.
Boas' handsome book does particular justice to the work of Selden Gile, who was the most aggressive and and insistent in his use of primary colors.
This is a terrific and important addition to any artbook collection.