Society Books

THE CONSUMER SOCIETY is an exceptionally timely and incisive work. Much of the current national dialogue on environmental politics is disabled by the notion that our citizens harbor two incompatible drives: more material goods and a healthy environment. Underlying that common wisdom is the neoclassical conception of human motivation that has become so widely rooted in the media. This book provides an important sociological and historical critique of the highly abstract neoclassical view.

The presentation of the material, with clear and comprehensive essays for each section, and brief summaries for each of the outside authors, make this book exceptionally accessible. It should be widely used by political and environmental scholars and in college classrooms as well.

The "Frontier Issues in Economic Thought" summaries, along with the overview essays, provide a markedly different service from the standard collection of abstracts. The series will benefit not only scholarly work but the application of our best thinking to the problems of the times.

-- Kenneth Prewitt President, Social Sciences Research Council

This book is basically a massive collection of indepth summaries (usually about 2-4 pages long) of the points made by major papers in the fields of sociology and economics (mainly somewhat "liberal" works). Frequently essays and papers include a lot of information that is simply filler or is unnecessary explaination of already established concepts. This book eliminates that but leaves all the main points and main support of those points intact. This book summarizes just short of 100 essays and divides them into 10 parts: Scope and Definition; Consumption in the Affluent Society; Family, Gender, and Socialization; the History of Consumer Society; Foundations of Economic Theories of Consumption; Critques and Alernatives in Economic Theory; Perpetuating Consumer Culture: Media, Advertising and Wants Creation; Consumption and the Environment; Globalization and Consumer Culture; and Visions of an Alternative.

Some of the summaries are of essays from writers such as: Juliet Schor, Alan Durning, John Kenneth Galbraith (Forward also written by him), Colin Campbell, Frank Ackerman, and (of course) many others.

There are name and subject indexes in the back and a table of contents in the front, so it is very easy to find a particular essay's summary or just find summaries of essays on the subjects/by the authors you are interested in. In addition, each summary begins with a formal citation of the essay being summarized. This is a great way of finding good articles on various subjects!

I highly recommend this book as a tool for finding good essays, as a reference book on various economics and sociology subjects, or as an introductory book to major sociology and economic theories.

THE CONSUMER SOCIETY is an exceptionally timely and incisive work. Much of the current national dialogue on environmental politics is disabled by the notion that our citizens harbor two incompatible drives: more material goods and a healthy environment. Underlying that common wisdom is the neoclassical conception of human motivation that has become so widely rooted in the media. This book provides an mportant sociological and historical critique of the highly abstract neoclassical view.

The presentation of the material, with clear and comprehensive essays for each section, and brief summaries for each of the outside authors, make this book exceptionally accessible. It should be widely used by political and environmental scholars and in college classrooms as well.

This book is great for the operator to understand more about the boiler control loops and what happens when he/she, for example places the burner tilts on Auto, etc. I've bought this book twice, it was so good someone stole my first copy.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone involved in operating a large boiler.

The intent of this book is to emphasize the basic ideas involved in boiler control. Boiler control is a broad subject that includes the total start-up and shutdown procedures, as well as safety interlocks and the on-line operation of the boiler.

This edition includes coverage of boiler basics, on-line operations, start-up, shutdown, flame monitoring, and safety interlock systems.

The book content is distributed the following way:
- Introduction.
- Boiler basics and the steaming process.
- Performance and input-output relationships.
- Basic control loops and their system interconection.
- Combustion of fuel, excess air, and products of combustion.
- Efficiency calculations.
- The steam supply system.
- Firing rate demand for industrial boiler.
- Firing rate demand for utility boilers.
- Main steam and reheat steam of temperature control.
- Boiler and unit interlocks.
- Feedwater supply and boiler water circulation systems.
- Feedwater control systems.
- Boiler draft systems.
- Measurement and control of furnace draft.
- Measurement and control of combustion air flow plus related functions.
- Fuel gas analysis trimming of combustion control systems.
- Fluid fuel burners for oil,gas, and coal.
- Solid fuel burning systems.
- Burner management and flame safety interlocks for gas and fluid-fired boilers.
- Combustion control for liquid and gaseous fuel boilers.
- Pulverized coal and cyclone coal burner ystems.
- Combustion control for cyclone and pulverized coal-fired boilers.
- Combustion control for stoker-fired boilers.
- Atmospheric fluidized-bed boilers.
- Control system complexity and future directions for boiler control.

This book will be a valuable reference for anyone involved with control and safety systems of boilers. I am an industrial practitioner that has been working for the last 16 years as an Instrumentation, Automation, Process Safety and Process Control Engineer for the Oil & Gas Industry. This book is always on my shelf, and has been useful many times during my career

I have been a member of ISA since 1985 and joyfully read many publications from ISA. I find this book to be thorough, convincing and easy to understand, not only by the experienced Mechanical and Control System Engineers, but also by the new engineers and system designers. I sincerely look forward to the 3rd Edition.

This book helped me understand the control logic of boilers. Really easy to read and understand. Probably the best controls book out!

Do yourself a favor and read this book. It offers an in-depth, innovative outlook at why we, as humans, do what we do, based on our personal experiences. It is refreshingly honest and heartfelt which aides in reflecting the writers passionate beliefs. The writers concepts compelled me to want to stop, look deeply inside, and evaluate the who and why of who I am. The writer clearly shows this concept can be carried on through many facets in one's life and through hard work and contemplation lead to greater awareness of who one is. Don't delay....buy today!

Written by Susan Lawrence, M.D., Creating A Healing Society: The Impact of Human Emotional Pain and Trauma on Society and the World is far more than an individual self-help book, focusing on the ills of human emotional pain and trauma as the root cause of societal and world problems. Without support, traumatized individuals engage in self-destructive and antisocial behaviors, from spreading disease such as AIDS to engaging in drug addiction to perpetuating cyclical ills such as child abuse and neglect - to international atrocities of terror and war. Creating A Healing Society offers a personal insight to suffering, as the author describes her own alienated childhood and her efforts as an adult to help those most in need, and examines how society can be practically and spiritually improved, and offers a list of resources concerning trauma and recovery. Enthusiastically recommended.

"Each of us has an immense ability to influence others, although we are for the most part unaware of it. Even in the briefest of human contacts, we have the power to bring healing to a hurting person simply by being present with them: but we cannot do this is we are still driven by our own traumatic pasts." ~ pg. 77

Susan Lawrence's interest in creating a healing society is a direct result of her journey to compassion. Through her personal experiences she documents her journey in a highly readable format filled with insight and answers. Healing childhood trauma is a way to eradicate problems in society, especially when we set aside fear and embrace compassion. This is a learning process that can take years and in the meantime many of us may fall into anti-social and self-destructive patterns of behavior.

How do you recover from neglect, domestic violence, and then deal with the results of trauma as it cycles into more abuse. Susan Lawrence discusses the consequences as they appear as homelessness, helplessness, rage, anguish, despair, depression, powerlessness, unemployment, violent crime, risk-taking, eating disorders, obsessive disorders, addictions and suicide.

Through her own personal story and the stories of those she has loved and cared for, she brings a new understanding to the realities of compassion. What can we do on a daily basis to prevent poverty, war and addictive behaviors? Are these simply expressions of the world's unhealed psychic traumas?

"...our problems of violence, war, terrorism, and the like, will not be solved by military, political, or diplomatic means alone: but rather by a deep and compassionate understanding of the nature of humanity." ~ pg. 95

While this book's focus is on the healing of trauma in society, interesting thoughts about synchronicity and the "Six degrees of Separation" explore our invisible connections. The more visible forms of peer pressure are also discussed.

"Creating a Healing Society" offers a sense of immense possibility in a world where the human spirit rises again and again to face the cycles of abuse and trauma. This thoughtful journey through the nature of trauma explores the lives of five main individuals who profoundly influenced the author's life.

Susan Lawrence, M.D. currently teaches a CHS course for prisoners. In the past she has worked with AIDS and cancer patients with a sense of understanding and care. Her life seems to be a journey within compassion to empower the lives of everyone she meets. This is a beautiful book and a comforting read, especially if you want to understand how trauma is creating chaos in our modern society.

~The Rebecca Review

Susan Lawrence, M.D. is more than an author and a doctor. She is a healer, a motivator and absolutely a lifesaver. Her book, Creating a Healing Society, is not only profound but has the capabilities of changing our views on trauma and how it impacts all of us daily.

I was just overwhelmed with emotion after reading the first few pages. I put it down, I picked it up--all in the span of a few moments. Not only does she share her own personal experiences with trauma, but she also shares her life with those she has and continues to come in contact with. I found it unbelievable how giving this nurturing human being can be.

Honestly, reading this book has changed my life for the better. It was like holding up a mirror and finally finding out who is on the other side.

Dr. Lawrence takes us through a journey of understanding how trauma, particularly as a child, can change us and chart the course of our lives. We learn about how AIDS is affecting us as a people, and also how other diseases affect society as a whole. Her book touches on loss of life, and how people can affect us long after they have passed away.

But, most important, what can happen to society if we recognize how as adults we traumatize children in a way that we truly never realize. By understanding this we can surely eliminate and discontinue the handing down of pain from one generation to another.

I celebrate Dr. Susan Lawrence, her book and its message. She is our modern-day Florence Nightingale, alive, well and healing others by the grace of God.

Armchair Interviews says: Very thought-provoking book.

Goes way beyond blaming individuals for the horror of abuse, and holds the violent culture that abuse is embedded in accountable. Doesn't let individuals perpetrators off the hook, but is a window into the mechanism that produces them. Other people have addressed the topic of abuse and violence, but perhaps not as comprehensively as this book. Scary topic, but information and viewpoints needed to address this systemic illness.

By Dr. Ian Irvine, co-editor The Animist Creating Sanctuary is a powerful piece of writing by an almost extinct professional breed - the psychiatrist/psychologist prepared to examine the bigger picture in regards to the causes of psychic distress in modern Western societies. The book undoubtably belongs to a long tradition of humanistic and Freudian writings on mental illness as produced by modern Western social structures. The title itself recalls Fromm's book 'The Sane Society' and I would argue that in many ways Bloom has given us a powerful update on themes covered in that now classic work. One also thinks of works by Arthur Janov (especially his work on trauma suppression), Alice Miller, De Mauss, Mickel Adzema, Wilhelm Reich (and the Bioenergetic tradition), Stanislav Grof and many others who have applied Freudian and Humanistic ideas to the social arena. In this sense the work is also in a kind of refracted dialogue with that great Freudian text Civilisation and its Discontents. The picture of modern society - particularly modern American society - painted for us by Bloom is not a pretty one. Sanity and psychic health is seen as a virtual impossibility in the face of a normalised climate of repression and institutionalised trauma creation. The central obsessions of our consumeristic, violence and money obsessed modern world are described in terms of a general malaise polluting and undermining the psychic integrity of individuals and collectives alike. Bloom accurately describes to us a world characterised by institutional harshness, denial (that there even is a crisis!) and outright disinterest in the truly important issues to do with trauma and violence that now shape our collective social psyches. In this climate, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and other health care professionals seem all but unable to act in the best interests of their clients. In this sense, Bloom criticises the faceless bureacrats, lawyers and insurance moguls who increasingly shape and infringe upon the client patient relationship: often forcing psychiatrists to opt for functionalist alienated treatment regimes over potentially more humane and effective ones. The insight that society is not so much interested in curing people who have fallen victim to the collective (in)humanity we call a society, as in making money out of the later life effects of trauma suppression is a disturbing under-current to the book. There is a great deal to this book, far more than I could cover in a short review like this. The work is groundbreaking in its merged sociological and psychological methodology. More importantly, however, it stands as powerful indictment of the way in which modern societies act to undermine and subtly traumatise large sections of their populations. A must read.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. This is the most understandable and clearly written text I have ever read relating to the psychology field. There is no "psycho babble" here, folks. Anybody with an eighth grade education should be able to understand what the author is trying to say.

The author obviously believes in treating patients with tremendous dignity and respect. While this program is mainly inpatient focused to benefit those of us who are unfortunate enough to need more than a little help in carrying our life's baggage, as it were, reading this book makes very clear to me the way in which many situations I faced as a child effect my adult life that I have never really completely understood. The author says, in the most compassionate and definitive way, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! The author should be commended for her fine work and that of her team of obviously exceptional and gifted health care providers. The author must be one of the "real doctors" in todays environment, and they are darned hard to find.

A very moving account of the impact of violence on our lives and what it takes to create an environment where we can recover from our wounds. Dr. Bloom's call for a therapeutic approach to violence stands in stark contrast to popular proposals for meeting violence with more violence. In a violence-traumatized society, Creating Sanctuary belongs at the top of our social agenda.

The Cross by Day, the Mezuzzah by Night reminded me a little bit of the Diary of Anne Frank but was set during the Spanish Inquisition. The book is told from the point of view of a girl, Isabel, at the age of her Bat Mitzvah-twelve turning thirteen. She has been raised as a Catholic in a very prominent and observant family, but upon her thirteenth birthday, she is told of her Jewish ancestry and given the golden mezuzzah which belonged to her great-grandmother. She also finds out that the rituals her family performs on Friday nights in the basement after the servants are all asleep are really the way her family has kept alive their Jewish identity. The remainder of the book tells of her struggle with who she really is and the pride she feels for her father and the rest of her family along with the revulsion she feels for having this dangerous secret life. In the end the family must leave the home they love in order to escape the horrible torture that awaits the secret Jew. This book truly is not to be missed!

As a descendant of Conversos, and researcher of their history, I am REALLY glad to see a young adult book of this kind. However, I was very unhappy to see mistakes. They are minor, and I hope that a second edition will be better edited. For example, the mother, at one point, says, "Uno momento." This is horrible Spanish and only non-speakers would say this. The correct way is, "UN momento." Still, I'm glad that the subject is being written by and for non-scholars. Isabel/Ruth's experiences are true to the time she lived in, and this period in history is widely ignored by many. Secret Jews (Anusim) and their descendants deserve more attention!

This is touching story of a family courageously dealing with cultural and religious genocide. There is, perhaps, no better way to fight intolerance than to journey with a victin, fictional or otherwise, through the nightmare of persecution. This story needs to be told. As a Catholic, I welcome the opportunity to come to terms with a dark time in our past when Christ's message of love was unrecognizable in Christianity. We don't have to look far to see parallels in the ethnic cleansing taking place today, to realize vigilance is necessary if history is not to repeat itself. I would very much recommend this book and hope it will be read by Christian and Islamic, as well as Jewish, young people.

This is an excellent book for both adults and mature junior high and high school age. The information was obviously researched well as I am of this heritage and have read much on the subject. Isabel is a believable young woman who has to grow up way too soon in the face of the Spanish Inquisition. I found the story to be both exciting and educational. Many of the situations Isabel finds herself in are well documented as fact. Parents should read this book first before giving it to their children because the information may be difficult to digest. Treat it as you would a Shoah (Holocaust) book.

A dying child must deal with life with courage and wisdom. Sad and inspiring.

I feel like I walked with Robyn on her journey with Jeremy. I am reminded that faith comes from unexpected places. From the most painful situations comes peace. I am inspired to go and do more for others and you will also.

Dance with an Angel is a great book! It is a very powerful story. It shows how God works with us everyday. Robyn Accetturo did a wonderful job writing this inspirational story with love and warmth. I loved Dance with an Angel and I'm sure you will too!

"Dance With an Angel" is one of the best books I've ever read! It inspires, brings hope, and reaffirms God's presence in our lives. The author, Ms. Accetturo, tells her powerfully moving story with tremendous warmth and insight. Be prepared to stay up all night -- you will not be able to put this book down!!!

The 2008 edition of Darfur: A New History of a Long War, by Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, is an essential reading about the current conflict in Darfur. The book gives a short overview of the history of Darfur and its people - from independent sultanate, annexation by the Anglo-Egyptian condominium, colonial times, to Sudan's independence.

Authors blame the British colonialists and Sudanese governments after independence for the lack of development in Darfur. They assert that Arab supremacy and racism, preached from Libya and the Sudanese capital, have caused divisions and animosity between "Arabs" and "Africans" in Darfur in the 1980s and 1990s, culminating with the conflict that began in 2003.

Flint and de Waal closely look at the links between the Sudanese government and "Arab" militias, called Janjaweed, claiming that there is enough evidence that proves that the government of Sudan is using the militias as a proxy in the Darfur conflict. They write about the Darfur rebel movements and their leaders, noting tribal divisions among the rebels and the crimes committed by the "African" rebels against "Arab" civilians.

Authors examine the international community's reaction to the conflict and the Abuja peace talks that culminated in 2006 with the Darfur Peace Agreement that was signed by the Sudanese government and only one rebel faction, but did not bring peace. They end the book with a chapter titled Endless Chaos, having little hope that the Darfur conflict could be ended any time soon.

It is important to note that the authors, for whatever reason, have not mentioned China once in the entire book. As a major world player that has oil interests in Sudan and is preventing any sanctions or condemnation of the Khartoum regime, China must be mentioned in a book about the current conflict in Darfur.

This book is a valuable asset to any library. The only problem I had with this book is trying to read Swahili. I took Introduction to Swahili 101 at Oklahoma City Junior College, but I guess that just was not good enough.

There are plenty of serious human rights abuses in Africa which Westerners, particularly American corporations and arms dealers have strong complicity in: the 4 million dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia under Meles Zenawi, Equatorial Guinea under Teodor Obiang, Chad under Idriss Deby, Uganda under Museveni. One can also mention the horrors of the neoliberal economic model which African governments have followed so studiously. But Sudan and Zimbabwe seem to take up 90 percent of recent Western media reporting about abuses in the region. Both governments, vile as they certainly are, have struck independent courses via US power over the years and so are demonized in the US media. Former Senator John Danforth, US ambassador to the UN in 2004, stated on British tv in 2005 that the main reason the Bush administration made noises about Darfur in the election year of 04' was to please the voting block of fundamentalist Christians who have long believed the Sudanese regime to be satanic.

There is plenty of stuff in this book about the barbaric atrocities of the Sudanese government and the Janjiweed, the paramilitary force which acts as a proxy for the Sudanese military in Darfur.. In Darfur, the driving Arab supremacist ideology was rooted in the "Arab Gathering" group which emerged under the backing of Colonel Qadaffi of Libya in the 70's and 80's. Many in Sudan's government have been influenced by this ideology. The authors provide much quotation from these brethren who stress the need to make Darfur a purely Arab homeland and to cleanse it of non-Arab elements. Qadaffi funded the Sudanese Islamist/Arab nationalist groups Ansar and Muslim Brothers against his enemy, Sudan's then dictator Jafarr Nimieri in the 70's and early 80's. Many in these groups ended up in positions of power after the Islamist regime took power in June 1989. Qadaffi also funded Arab supremacists in Chad during the 80's, many of whom found refuge in Darfur and have since made not insignificant contributions to the violence there.

It also appears from the authors' discourse that the conflict is driven by the struggle for land and water in an area which has seen much drought, and a dwindling supply of water and arable land.....
The authors point out that Arabs of the Bagarra Rizeigat--to which the majority of Arabs in Darfur belong--have kept out of the conflict.... A not insignificant number of the janjiweed are violent criminals released from Sudan's prisons to serve in that body......

Bagarra Rizeigat have protected refugees from Janjiweed terror. The Bagarra Rizeigat chief, Saeed Madibu has resisted efforts by the Khartoum government to bribe him and terrorize him into submission. The authors seem to imply that most of the Arab tribal elites in Darfur would greatly prefer peaceful social, political and commercial interaction between Arabs and African tribes instead of the apopaclyptic ideology of a Darfur cleansed of all black people that Janjiweed leaders profess. Saeed Madibu, in a contumacious act to the Khartoum government, has resurrected meetings of Darfurian tribal elders to negotiate in an equitable fashion, land and resource issues.

One of the two Darfurian opposition groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) is divided between two tribal based factions, the Fur, led by Abdel Wahid and the Zaghawa, led by Minnie Minawi. These two groups spend alot of time making war upon each other, rather than upon the Sudanese army and Janjaweed. They mention that the SLA, perhaps a joint action of the two factions, attacked Bagarra Rizeigat territory in the Summer of 2004 and burned villages, stole livestock and engaged in other such activities at which the Janjiweed are such experts but Said Madibu's forces drove them out of their land.

The JEM is much more sophisticated. Islamists disillusioned with the extreme corruption and violence of the Khartoum regime seem to make up a significant part of the JEM's leadership. In interviews with one or another of the authors, the JEM leaders disavow any association with Hassan Al-Turabi, the Islamist scholar who was Sudan's de facto ruler throughout the 90's until he lost a power struggle with the country's president General Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in 2000 and was thrown into prison. Turabi had attracted many to his cause in the 70's and 80's because he spoke of a brotherhood of Muslims regardless of race and spoke out against the extreme corruption and inequality in Sudan's society. JEM leaders, according to the authors' interview of them, think that Turabi is a disgusting fraud and don't want anything to do with him. However many of them are specifically committed to setting up an Islamic state in the Sudan, which they say will grant freedom of worship to other faiths and will fullfill the ideals of honesty and equality in government that Turabi's variety of Islamists promised back in the 80's but have made such a mockery of in practice. The leaders of the JEM are often former national and regional officials under the current regime and provide the authors with stories probably containing at least some truth, illustrating their own virtue when they were in the service of the current regime, in the midst of grotesque brutality and corruption.

The authors mention the US and UK backed Naivasha accords that ended the civil war in Southern Sudan in 2005. In that accord the oil revenues are to be evenly divided between North and South, the SPLA has become the autonomous ruler of the South and army units in the capital are divided 50/50 in membership between the SPLA and the Sudanese army. SPLA leader John Garang was made first vice president of Sudan but he died in a mysterious plane crash shortly after the Naivasha accords. However the war criminals in both the Sudan government and the SPLA were granted amnesty from prosecution.....The authors note the desire for stability in south Sudan with its strategically important oil wealth by the US and UK, the Naivasha accord backers. Darfur in contrast has no important resources.

People professionally concerned with genocide prevention and Darfur recommended this short but outstanding book (there are quite a few others on the crisis) when I needed to supplement my knowledge quickly. Its 134 pages of condensed information are based on prolonged and detailed work in the region and with people who know it well. The complexity of Darfur and its crisis as well as its relationship to other regions of Sudan emerge with balance, but with a clear picture of the horrors being committed. It enlarged my knowledge greatly beyond what I had gleaned from the media and a few days spent with some refugees from Darfur. It discusses events up to early 2005, its publication year, so is not quite up to date. The experts recommended it despite pointing this out, and I'm glad they did.

Excerpt from the book:

I grew up with domestic violence and witnessed my mothers escape. As an adult, I lived with an abusive husband, leaving with my two children in 1996, our ninth departure. We first went to my sisters and slept on her floor. Through the assistance of a social service agency, I learned of a shelter but didn't think I would qualify because I wasn't visibly bruised like Mom, although I did feel her shame and worthlessness.

I remember my father kicking my mother in the stomach when she was six months pregnant. He gave her black eyes and broke her nose twice. He would beat my brother and me in front of each other and told us if we cried he would beat us more. Mom left Dad for the final time, taking her five children to Aunt Rene's where we joined a cousin and her children fleeing an abuser. Mom borrowed Aunt Rene's pistol, afraid of what Dad would do to us after his release from jail. When he came, Mom confronted him with the gun. He left, but I always wondered how our lives would have turned out if Mom had killed Dad that night.

At the time, my mothers only recourse was to live in the projects in Houston: her two sisters were married to abusive men and we couldn't stay with our grandparents because Grandpa had raped Mom as a child and she was afraid he would molest us, although he eventually did.

Without a diploma, Mom worked full-time at night and attended school full-time during the day. While my mother never sought any counseling, I had access to a shelter and its services: a court advocate to escort me to court, help in obtaining a protective order, an apartment with the anonymity required to prevent our abuser from stalking us as he always had, daycare for my children, and most importantly, help in locating psychiatric services to manage my depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), as well as much-needed counseling for my daughters and myself. I'd left my abuser so many times before and always returned because of money and fear.

After eight consecutive departures and returns, I felt my daughters didn't deserve such a pathetic mother. I wasn't there for them emotionally of financially. I felt like such a
failure. I was ready to end my life.

It took years to fully recognize my abuse. I didn't know that besides physical abuse, domestic violence includes emotional abuse, sexual abuse, isolation, using the children, economic abuse, male privilege, coercion and threats. The shelter helped me gain control over my life. With their help I went back to school and I am now a graphic designer. For the first time I feel more important than my abusers and that I have a real chance to make it.

My mothers journey from domestic violence ended with my journey. My daughters won't repeat the cycle of abuse. That is the most precious gift anyone has ever given me.

------------

am a public speaker and have addressed audiences of over 500 regarding domestic violence, incest and child abuse. I've given a multi-media presentation at The Women's Museum, Dallas City Hall including Mayor Laura Miller and spoken to law students at SMU. I've appeared on Good Morning Texas and have been interviewed by media outlets in Austin, Texas where I testified before the Texas Senate regarding domestic violence.

The book consists of several short essays followed by poetry. I designed the cover and back (excluding misguided typography) and included my artwork.

Angela Hayden
ART GODDESS
http://www.cafepress.com/angelahayden

Ms. Hayden offers an opportunity for an empathetic journey through her own trauma and in doing so, bravely displays the hope she retained and ultimately seized in her triumph over physical and sexual abuse. Readers will gain an insight into the intergenerational component of abuse only offered by such a heartfelt and nearly stream-of-consciousness account.

In her book, Ms. Hayden does what few women dare to do. She tells the truth - both in prose and in poetry imbued with a raw, emotional honesty - about domestic violence and its effects on women's minds, sexuality, and families. In a culture where women's suffering and acquiescence to exclusively male sexual gratification remain the norm both inside of the bedroom and out, Dead Wrong dares to break the `feminine' silence. It is a rallying call to women who have been and are being victimized, and a must-read for anyone who seeks to know all facets of the reality of female existence in the contemporary western world.

This book is so real, so touching. It is walking through the anguish of abuse with the author.
I almost felt the pain as she told about her childhood. By the time she began to tell about her abusive husband, anger had set in. Then I was allowed to cheer when she discovered a way out and had the courage to take it.
I hope every person who has a daughter, sister, or other loved one in an abusive relationship will read this book. It will help them understand and, hopefully, stop them from asking the question, "Why didn't she just leave?"

Este es uno de los mejores libros que he leído. La verdad sobre la educación en las escuelas. Estoy segura de que este es un libro que pocos educadores han leído...que lástima!
Sería grandioso que existiera la traducción al idioma español, me encantaría que todo Mexico lo leyera, al menos los profesores y encargados de las escuelas que tanto daño hacen a los niños...
Este es un libro que no se pueden perder!

This was one of the best books I have ever read in my life (not very many though). It gives an extremely accurate synopsis of the American education system. I read it for debate and realized that almost everything said in it was very true. Great book. I recommend it to everyone, whether and philosopher, educator or just an average Joe.

This book made me examine my assumptions and opinions on schooling and education... question things I have always taken for granted. It's a collection of essays and writings that will inspire you and give you courage.

Este es uno de los mejores libros que he leído. La verdad sobre la educación en las escuelas. Estoy segura de que este es un libro que pocos educadores han leído...que lástima!
Sería grandioso que existiera la traducción al idioma español, me encantaría que todo Mexico lo leyera, al menos los profesores y encargados de las escuelas que tanto daño hacen a los niños...
Este es un libro que no se pueden perder!

Hoffman explains how so many scientist could have erroneously concluded that cold fusion worked. He describes processes that were heretofore misunderstood and led to the fiasco that became the "Cold Fusion Hoopla." His remarks were right on the money, for as we see five years later, cold fusion has not become the panacea that it was made out to be.

This book so easily explains the "hoopla" concerning the whole cold fusion issue. Great reading!

As a daughter of a scientist, I could relate to the skeptics out there who question the theory of whether cold fusion can be proven or if it should actually just be called hoopla as Dr. Nathan Hoffman would say. If so, I could say that after reading this book, you will lay the book down with a strong view of optimism for cold fusion, or perhaps a stronger appreciation for scientific study. Either way, the impact of science regardless in what field will amaze you and leave you hungry for more!!!

Informative,engaging,humorous and illuminating.