Independents Books

"The most dramatic entrance to Venice is by boat. You can enjoy the same breathtaking view enjoyed by visitors for centuries by taking the Alilaguna waterbus from the Marco Polo International Airport to the San Marco landing in Venice..." pg. 114

For the independent traveler, two CDs present tours to twelve locations in Venice. For the armchair traveler, this book/CD set allows for an enjoyable visual and auditory journey through famous locations of interest.

Pictures of winter floods may dissuade you from visiting at certain times when there are floods. Pictures of people walking across ramps to visit St. Mark's seems somewhat daunting. Gondolas moored along canals on foggy afternoons draw you back into dreaming about visiting Venice. Museums hold a large collection of Venetian boats, including elaborate gondolas from the city's regattas.

"When I went to Venice, I discovered that my dream had become-incredibly but quite simply-my address." ~Marcel Proust

Famous quotes, special instructions for when to turn the CD on and off, tips on where to enjoy famous views, all make this guide very worthwhile. There is a historical timeline and lots of historical tidbits for anyone interested in the city from a historical perspective.

~The Rebecca Review

The entire book has good amount of useful practical information but the unique aspect is the 12 audio tours. We extracted the audio tours off of the CD's and loaded them on our iPod nanos. It works like a charm. Occasionally we wished that the script was a bit less general but it is an excellent precursor of what is probably the wave of the future. Why follow guides who are trying to impart the information in three languages (perhaps with a heavy accent) and practically running the too-large tour group past the attractions when you can use this methodology?

It was magical. My husband and I travelled to Venice last month, and the audio guide Venice in Context was fabulous. Instead of weaiting for a tour, and trying to hear and follow the guide, we went at our own pace. It was easy to follow and use. A great and eceonomical way to tour a city, I recommend it!

Seemingly designed for the curious and cautious American traveler, this illustrated/ textual/CD combination will guide you through, beyond, and back into one of the fabled cities of known history. Wayne takes care to neither preach nor cajole, yet sheds much light on a treasured living artifact. Perfect for singles or couples.

Venice In Context provides travelers with twelve narrated walking tours of Venice. This CD has information about what travelers can see and how to get around Venice on their own. tour brings to life the city's romance and explores its rich history and artistic heritage with stories and anecdotes about the lives of historical figures, artists, and musicians that will greatly enrich the travel experience. The series is narrated by Joel Godard, a veteran New York actor who appears as the announcer on NBC's popular Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Great book that shows the perils of continuing to work for others. I loved the comparison of jobism and communism. If you need a boost toward self employment, this is it!

This book is great for anyone thinking about starting their own business. If you have any insecurities about leaving the world of jobism, they will all disappear after reading this book.

A great book to learn why Jobs = slavery and Self-employed = Freedom and that it's your choice as to which direction you go. And why. And what to do about it.

A great book with a simple idea that most Americans never realize.

I've been free from a job for years now. I just wish I'd had this book to read when I got out of college. I would have started my action plan to freedom sooner. Now I help others "plan their escape" by consulting them on how to become free by starting their own business. If I weren't there to guide them, I'd toss 'em this book instead.

This book was written back in 1996 and boy didn't Hedges call it right?Many of those people who hung their hopes on a J-O-B now find themselves out of work and attacked Hedges for this book and it's predecessor, "Who Stole The American Dream", are probably wishin they had listened to Hedges instead of attacking him.The very popular Rich Dad series of books is interestingly sending out the same message only to a larger audience---you must go from employee to self employed if you want to succeed. The best and fairest boss that you will ever have is the one you see every morning in the mirror.I also recommend "Who Stole The American Dream", "Cash Flow Quadrant", "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "Wave 4."

This is a fantastic book for anyone who wants to go into business for themselves. It is educational for those with an open mind and stuck in the (J)ust (O)off (B)roke (JOB) mentality.

Not sure I can improve upon the thorough reviews already given, but I think this is an excellent and sober analysis of the relationship between the US government and the concepts/realities of freedom. His analysis inlcudes discussions about the costs and benefits of various government programs which helps to keep things in perspective; refraining from theoretical speculation and simplistic harping. Mr. Higgs work is timely and needed for the current and past crops of statists churned out of the government school systems. I am anxious to read more of his work and recommend this book to others whenever I have the opportunity.

Robert Higgs is one among a treasure trove of liberty's greatest assets at the Ludwig von Mises Institute at mises.org. Where a collection of America's greatest classical liberal free market mavens, and advocates of the minimalist government conceived by the Founders, have put together one of the WWW's most heavily trafficked site for freedom and truth in the entire world - bar none.

Mr. Higgs, and his ultra-commendable associates at Mises; Raico, Rothbard, Hoppe, Thornton, Denson, Hulsman, DiLorenzo, Stromberg, to name a very few, have put this prior dupe of the government, media & academe, on the right track after nearly a half century of being totally misled and lied to. Almost all I knew was wrong; a lifetime of disinformation literally meant to deceive me into believing our Government's massive existense is justified.

It is not, nor never was, justified to serve any more than it's intended role as the benign night watchman of our shores and our natural rights while otherwise keeping it's freaking nose out of our personal business and finances. A purpose Govt itself has spent this past century, and vast billions of our own money in it's compulsory education, to convince the people otherwise for the sole purpose of enriching an elite few on the backs and lives of the many they feed off like the unproductive parasites indeed they mostly all are.

The plethora of downloadable mp3 and video lectures at mises.org by Mr Higgs and others has given me the education I now must believe was purposely denied me by an evil establishment who's ONLY concern is it's own self preservation and expansion to our grave detriment and to our ever dwindling freedoms that each new "emergency" enables the chipping away of.

One of my favorites at mises.org is Mr. Higg's lecture that he begins w/the Margaret Attwoods poem "Siren Song" and well worth anyone's time in the listening.

If truth and freedom are your primary concerns, as they have luckily become mine, this Higgs book, like all his others, is highly recommended.

He really covers every base and sticks it to the man right between his little beady lying pea-brain eyes.

When Robert Higgs is attacking big government of the Hobbesian kind - i.e. "Leviathan", he is brilliant while also promoting the blessings of a free economy. "Against Leviathan" is a collection of 40 essays and reviews save one that were previously published in various journals, especially the Independent Institute's "Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy" that is edited by Robert Higgs. The 40 pieces are grouped under seven topics: Welfare Statism, Our Glorious Leaders, Despotism, Soft and Hard, Economic Disgraces, The Political Economy of Crisis, Retreat of the State?, and Review of the Troops. The gist is that "few people in the United States today really give a damn about living as free men and women".

Despite Junior Bush being selected as President by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and Junior Bush next stealing votes in Ohio through corruption and cheating in 2004 to win that state's electoral votes and subsequently the national election, Higgs believes that Americans have free and honest elections: "Citizens in a democracy can always `throw the rascals out' at the next election". Ask a Libertarian or a Green about ballot access laws.

Higgs blames the American voter for the Demo-publican monopoly in party politics: "Here in the United States we have been flinging rascals hither and yon for more than two centuries". Yet during the last election in 2004, this reviewer asked all of his sociology of law students at a very expensive private college in Ohio to name the 4 candidates for President to appear on the Ohio ballot - they could name only 2! That's a score of 50% - not a passing score. They only knew Bush and Kerry, they could not name Badnarik or Peroutka. Higgs does not see the covert struggles by Demopublican statists and their corporatist friends to maintain control of their monopoly, so he blames the U.S. voter! Having said that, however, Higgs does see the end result: "two revolving factions of a one-party state".

Higgs does a good job of lambasting government and presidents, but pauses when he mentions Grover Cleveland who Higgs says "may have been the best of them all". Cleveland, former mayor of Buffalo and later governor of New York, built his anti-big government reputation by battling corruption and graft. Yet after Cleveland was elected President, his hostility towards the spoils system never translated into reforms. In fact, he nearly doubled the number of civil servants during his term of office and a majority of them represented his party of Democrats. Cleveland did veto a precedent-setting number of bills because they sought to enrich an elitist few at the expense of the general population. But then his increasing appetite for bigger government led him to create the Interstate Commerce Commission. Near the end of his term as President, Cleveland began to be viewed as a mercantilist, or British free trader, which was different from an American free enterpriser. And although the voters reelected Cleveland by a vote of 5,538,000 to 5,447,000, the Electoral College chose Harrison 233 to 168. But as we have already seen, Higgs blames the U.S. voter.

After four years of Harrison, the voters managed to outmuscle the Electoral College and reelect Cleveland to an ill-fated second term beginning with the Depression of 1893. He let the British drain American gold reserves, thereby establishing the Gold versus Silver controversy. Cleveland showed his statist heavy hand when he terminated the Pullman Strike. And as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. militaries, he failed to control his marines who deposed the Queen of Hawaii and took liberties with her daughters. In short, Cleveland was good at talking the talk but less able to walk the walk. Calvin Coolidge would have been a better choice because he slept more than the others and was awake less time to do statist damage, although his handling of the Boston Police Strike was abominable.

In short, Higgs does a thorough job of railing against Big Government, collectivism, and welfarism. But by ignoring the creation of the corporation by the State and its resulting status as offspring of the state - thereby just as inefficient and bureaucratic as its parent, Higgs is telling only half the story. Leviathan is government AND its corporations. In a free market, there are no corporations; corporations are creations of the state - they are "artificial persons" that are granted Constitutional rights by its parent. This is a problem I hope Higgs will address one day soon.

"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant."

~ H. L. Mencken (Living Philosophies, 1931)

H. L. Mencken would have delighted in Robert Higgs's crisp and razor-sharp assessment of America's political evolution, Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society. The American body politic in the early 21st century seems somewhat inexplicable to many classical liberals, traditional conservatives, libertarians and others who appreciate the famous Marxist inquiry (Groucho, not Karl) of "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Higgs, in forty concise chapters focusing on what has really happened in our historical, political and economic evolution as a Republic, ensures not only that we "know" and are no longer ignorant, but hints that Americans may also someday recognize that it is better to be free than to be a slave to the idea of the necessity of a centralized nation-state.

How did America migrate so far from the ideas of the founders, who believed government was a necessary evil to be constantly watched for signs of insincerity and encroachment? How did we change from a people who saw American presidents as presentable representatives abroad and models of moderation in all things governmental, into a people who worship activists from Wilson to Roosevelt to Nixon to Clinton and George W. Bush - each in their own way a national embarrassment abroad and utterly Bacchanalian in all things related to the state?

Higgs explains why this is so, by showing us the historical facts, the rich and widely available evidence of a growing and ravenous state, addicted to an all-it-can-eat diet of American national wealth, productivity and citizens, and the actions of the three prolific cooks in the kitchen - the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive. Whether the cooks are just doing their jobs, or are actually co-dependent with the chief customer and its insatiability, will be a question answered in one way by modern Republicans and Democrats, and another by the rest of the country. That the state has eaten extremely well in the last century will be denied by neither group.

In a particularly helpful way, Higgs explains how our Constitution exists in three realities - the literal paper document, the body of judicial evaluation and rulings accumulated over decades about what it meant to say, and the most important reality - Charles Beard's idea of a living Constitution, "...what living men and women think it is, recognize as such, carry into action, and obey." In this last incarnation we find hope that it really can be the citizens in a republic who govern. Sadly, the hope Higgs offers in Against Leviathan must be gleaned along the model of the Straussians through the esoteric approach, using a kind of anarcho-libertarian inspired gnosis.

For those of us who have apprehended American history from television and public school texts, Against Leviathan explains political actions beginning the early 20th century in a way that makes real sense and is historically accurate. Specifically, Higgs analyzes various mythologies against econometric data not available or ignored when these story-lines were initially put forth. In particular the idea that World War II got us out of the depression, something I grew up believing without question, is firmly debunked on the basis of hard cold fact. As the irreverent Mencken and Jesus of Nazareth both understood, knowing the truth is remarkably liberating.

The past prepares the way for the future, and it cannot be otherwise. Woodrow Wilson, with a friendly legislature and judiciary, transformed his own electoral pledge to "keep us out of the war" into the classic tease practiced by all centralized states, where "no means yes." The federal government did not go from outlays of less than 2% of the gross national product in 1914 to the modern level of well over 20% without creative approaches towards confiscation and the elimination of citizen resistance, without a "crisis constitution" taking precedence over a "normal constitution." The massive conscription called by Wilson worked hand in hand with the Espionage Act of 1917, and its notorious Sedition Act amendment, to deliver bodies to the state while silencing complaints. Wilson's dedicated work paved the way legally and intellectually for the New Deal, in both spirit and detail of the governmental excesses, and further paved the way for an American command economy between 1941 and the end of World War II. This militarized society and emerging centralized state led, in turn, predictably and irreversibly into the quasi-corporatist government we both fostered and endured as Americans throughout the Cold War. Today we witness an even more perfect progeny, the never-ending War on Terror.

After their passage and implementation, the 1917 Espionage Act and the 1918 Sedition Act were challenged in the courts as violating the first amendment, among other things. Both were subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court, although they were repealed in 1921, several years after WWI ended. Higgs points out that the Supreme Court has upheld most of emergency powers assumed by the state in post-hoc reviews, and he explains why in a way that is both disturbing and depressing. In part, reversing things like Roosevelt's confiscation of privately held gold stock and invalidation of all public and private contractual language mentioning gold as a form of payment would have not only embarrassed the federal government, but completely shattered its finances, its authority and its credibility. In other words, had the Supreme Court acted to preserve the amendments to the Constitution that once protected life, liberty, and property, it would have brought down the government completely and chaotically. That several principled and stubborn justices at times came close to doing just that is heartwarming.

Robert Higgs covers a lot of ground in this comprehensive book. A relaxed reading is warranted by all Americans, whether they come to the book embracing the idea an activist state and feeling it is worth the cost, or loathing it as a moral and financial abomination. My favorite sections are those that address the political economy of the Leviathan; Higgs educates, entertains and enrages all at once. But there are at least three topics that are blazingly important to all of us as we consider present day-to-day challenges in our lives and for our families. In this election year, Americans are concerned about health care, crime and national security, and Against Leviathan enlightens on the state's interest in and influence on all three issues.

The Food and Drug Administration seems a benign example of the Leviathan holding our individual interests foremost. Yet Higgs clearly shows how the FDA not only inhibits and warps scientific research and consumer choice, but is killing people daily with crimes of both commission and omission. Higgs carefully analyzes, with the help of FDA scientists and administrators themselves, the risk analysis conducted prior to every decision of the FDA, decisions that seem to place the needs of politicians and lobbyists as well as scientists and pharmaceutical CEOs over those of actual people who need to purchase drugs and get complete information about their health and their choices. This chapter is entitled in part "A Billy Club Is Not a Substitute for Eyeglasses" indicating that the FDA's law enforcement agenda has superceded its better health agenda. Frankly, after reading this chapter it is not clear to me that the FDA would understand the metaphor, after decades of steeping in its own brand of moral superiority and bureaucratic infallibility.

In terms of crime and keeping Americans safe, Higgs relates the rise in public security spending with a threefold rise in private security employment and an astronomical rise in the incarceration rate of Americans and prison construction. Clearly, spending more for public safety from crime isn't working out as planned, although the prison industry emerges as one of the new micro-corporatist entities that provide depth and character to American-style corporatism. Higgs points out that while the private sector has rushed to fill the public safety void left by government policing, government spending in this area grows, unabated by a lack of effectiveness. In a discussion of the military industrial congressional complex elsewhere, Higgs points out how "no failure goes unrewarded" and discusses how industries affixed to various federal teats actually define government requirements instead of responding to them. It appears this condition extends beyond the MICC and into domestic law enforcement and public safety.

In terms of national security, the Leviathan on steroids we have witnessed in our crisis constitution's one thousand days since 9-11 tells its own story. Higgs, in defining the nature of government growth and the state's natural-born tendency to infringe upon individual rights of speech, action and property, takes a bit of the mystery out of the Patriot Acts, the Department of Homeland Security, and a bloated federal budget that unguently merges the military state with the police state to make everyone feel better. It was all so predictable, and a unique value of Against Leviathan is its clarification and analysis of how and why government grows, not just that it does.

A weakness in the book may be that while its title suggests we could have a foothold against our Leviathan government, the contents are not as optimistic. Is the black market and a growth in contempt for law a means of rebellion against state controls and restrictions? Sort of, Higgs says, but not really, as these two are mutually dependent. The super-productive peasant gardens in vast barren state collectives in the old Soviet Union worked well in part because the state run collectives were owned by everyone, meaning owned by no one. Thus collective resources of time, effort and supplies were free to be used on individual plots. The mystery was symbiosis. Once the artificial resource flow made possible by collectives was eliminated, the super-productive peasant gardens were likewise changed irrevocably, and we no longer hear of them. What about incremental change? Higgs points out that the Third Way is more of the same, succumbing to the false god of central planning even while lamenting it. Perhaps a major crisis so massive the state would be unable to surmount it could crash the system and relieve us from the Leviathan. Even this is viewed as unlikely, because of the remarkable stability of state interests netted with other interests, whether business or values based. America quasi-corporatism is not fascism, because each industry is not a single actor able to negotiate wholly with the state, or to completely act with the state to pursue this aim or that. Our corporatism is far more fluid and multifaceted, but the Leviathan's very widespread usefulness to all important political actors and factions makes it remarkably difficult to unseat it or even put it in a lurch. Only the individual is left out of the Leviathan equation, and most of us don't recognize that crucial reality.

We have been acculturated and miseducated to accept patronizing massive central power and call it a Republic. The benevolence, magnificence and necessity of the nation-state has been preached every day from Washington for the past one hundred years. Robert Higgs aims to correct this dangerous circumstance, and baptize us all with truth. He has succeeded in Against Leviathan. One only wishes that Higgs' next book will be entitled "Leaving Leviathan: The End of the Affair."

October 20, 2004

I highly recommend this book to veterans and newcomers to Liberty. I myself will definitely pass this book around to my friends and relatives.

The author has a very unique and humorous voice, and the writing overall is very clear and concise. It's an odd thing to say, but this book has the most entertaining and informative introduction I've ever read in a book--and I read many!

Buy it, read it, and spank it.

Michael R. Beschloss' 1991 book, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khruschev 1960-1963, is a literary rarity: a history book about a complex and critical period in the 20th Century that is so well-written that it reads like a novel.

Beschloss describes the dramatic events of the period that began shortly before the Presidential election of 1960 and ended with the dreadful events of November 22, 1963, focusing on the interplay between President John F. Kennedy and Chairman Nikita S. Khruschev. These two men from vastly different worlds -- one the son of a self-made millionaire from Boston, the other the son of Russian peasants who had been semiliterate until his thirties -- held the fate of the world in their hands.

The Crisis Years discusses in great detail the most dramatic events of the Cold War, including JFK's first meeting with the Soviet leader in Vienna, the Bay of Pigs fiasco, the building of the Berlin Wall (including a photo capturing the only time American tanks and Soviet tanks faced off), the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that marked the first thaw in the frosty relations between the superpowers.

This book is sadly out of print, but it's definitely a must-read for readers who want to know more about this critical period in world history.

This book rescued me from the recent Taubman biography of Khruschev. Not that I didn't thoroughly enjoy Taubman...up until the point that Kennedy was assassinated. Somehow, without Kennedy to reflect off of, or react off of, or bark at, or explode at, Khruschev became rather dull.

This book, winding as it does completely around the relationship between the leaders of the two superpowers, their mistrusts of each other, their odd affection for each other, their correspondence, and their dangerous, global risk-taking flare-ups, proves far more interesting. Beschloss creates characters full of life and vigor, sympathetic and sometimes frightening, as when Khruschev threatens war over Berlin, or when we learn the details of the narcotics the President required to manage his back pain.

The book also manages to set the stage for years and years of politics to come, in space policy, in cold war strategy, and in the Vietnam war.

Interesting to note that Castro came to the UN after the Cuban revolution in the hope of normalising relations with the US but was rebuffed. There then followed the Bay of Pigs. If cooler heads had prevailed and approachement made at that point, we may have been living in a totally different world today. A banal observation, admitedly. Certainly, US intransigence led to a more absolutist and repressive Castro.
Kennedy indeed felt that Khrushchev had outclassed him when it came to discussing political ideology on first meeting, but Kennedy did focus on the crux of the whole matter. The nation that could provide best materially for it's people would be the winner of the cold war. Krushchev ended up in a hut in the country somewhere, an 'expendable hero' as Harry Palmer once joked to an old Bolschevic in the film 'Funeral In Berlin'.

Michael Beschloss has done what every history writer should aspire to...make complex history telling "readable". Even though this book is very long, it flows very smoothly without missing any of the details of that "Crisis" era. I love books on the Cuban Missile Crisis and have found very few that would be characterized above the "textbook" level, but this one surely meets that tough standard. This book should be included in every "Crisis" historians library.

This is a massive (700 page), comprehensive, if not especially analytic, study of the United States' relationship with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, told from the perspectives of the superpowers' leaders, John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. At the beginning of his administration, Kennedy may have had sincere desire to improve relations with the Soviets, but his famous inaugural address was interpreted by many as a committed cold warrior's call to arms, and, as Beschloss's title implies, a series of foreign policy crises followed. Often in minute detail, Beschloss discusses the disastrous invasion of Cuba by opponents of Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs, the construction of the Berlin Wall, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the Cuban missile crisis. For those who enjoy narrative history liberally sprinkled with portraits of colorful personalities, this is a fascinating book.

There is little in this book which is new, but much of it bears repeating, especially for readers too young to remember the early 1960s. However odious Castro's dictatorship was to become, the attempt to topple it in the spring of 1961 was destined to fail. According to Beschloss, one of Kennedy's advisers warned him that "he could not recall a single case in history when refugees returned and successfully overthrew a revolutionary regime." The Berlin crisis that summer did not escalate into a nuclear confrontation because, as Kennedy observed: "A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." And Beschloss writes about the missile crisis that the 39 hours' warning of the naval quarantine that Kennedy gave Khrushchev "demonstrated the President's wisdom in starting his response not with an irreversible air strike but with milder pressures that gave Khrushchev time to ponder his move."

Some of Beschloss's observations about the leaders border on gossip. He lends credence to reports that Khrushchev could be a buffoon who occasionally drank too much and that Kennedy's enthusiastic womanizing continued while he was president. But personal traits and predilections often could not be separated from matters of substance. For instance, the author reports that Kennedy was regularly treated by a medical practitioner with "vitamin shots" which "also contained amphetamines, steroids, hormones, and animal organ cells." Beschloss proceeds to explain the importance of this revelation: "Even in small doses, amphetamines cause side effects such as nervousness, garrulousness, impaired judgment, overconfidence, and, when the drug wears off, depression." Beschloss implies that Kennedy may have been under the influence of amphetamines at his summit meeting with Khrushchev in the spring of 1961, when the Soviet leader, by Kennedy's own admission, "just beat hell out of me." Beschloss concludes that Kennedy "should have been vastly more careful in pursuing his medical experimentation than he had been as a Senator. The stakes now were not one political career but literally the fate of the world."

This book is not without its limitations. As I implied above, it is much stronger on narrative than analysis, and some passages give the impression that Beschloss was more interested in the personalities of Kennedy and Khrushchev than in the substance of the policies they devised and pursued. Beschloss's discussion of Kennedy's approach to the growing conflict in Vietnam is brief and generally superficial. The book's organization is quirky: The role of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the development of Kennedy's national-security policy is barely mentioned until page 400. And the index is not entirely reliable. (For instance, the index's listing for Gen. Lyman Lemnitzer, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inexplicably omits reference to Beschloss's description of a critical briefing Lemnitzer gave to the President in September 1961 in which the "bottom line" was that "the United States enjoyed vast nuclear superiority.")

While I was preparing this review, I discovered that this book, which was published in 1991, is already out of print, and that surprised me a bit. Some aspects of it clearly have been superceded by more recent scholarship, such as Lawrence Freedman's Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam, which I reviewed here shortly after it was published last November, but I believe that Beschloss's book continues to be of value. The magnificent 19th-century English historian Thomas Carlyle once wrote: "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." Few eras provide more validation for Carlyle's perspective than the crisis years of 1961 and 1962, dominated as they were by the intensely personal diplomacy of Kennedy and Khrushchev. Beschloss's coverage of that aspect of U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations during this period is superb.

The Parents' Choice Foundation, the only nonprofit consumer guide of its kind, has selected "The Funny Things Kids Say, Vol. 3" for honors as an approved book for parents and children. The Foundation said the book is "an amazing accomplishment."

This book is a family-friendly, inspirational book, making it ideal for your personal, school or church library. Grace Housholder's collection of "one-liners" by kids will keep you laughing for many years.

The afternoon I placed Housholder's books on my coffeetable in my living room was the last I saw of them for weeks. They turned up on my nine year old daughter's nightstand -- where they've been cherished ever since! With three younger brothers, my daughter gets a kick out of being "in the know" -- I recommend this book not only for parents, grandparents and anyone else who LOVES children, but for children themselves! It's fun, "family-friendly" reading for all

As a bonified rat in the rat race of the current modern day world - my breaks - like millions of others - are often over looked. But when I get really bogged down - The Funny Things Kids Say Vol. 3 comes off of the book shelf. Hi, my name is Jodie Lynn and I am a parenting columnist. I don't profess to be an expert - but kids are one thing I know - as does my good friend - Grace Housholder - the author of this book. Any time of any day when you feel like you are going to explode from "overscheduling," go for the gusto and open up this delightful and wonderful book. Kids really do say the funniest things and it is captured uniquely on every page. Just remember these words - TAKE A BREAK AND GET READY TO GIGGLE! :)

"Funny Things Kids Say" is a wonderful reminder of real life with children. It is humorous yet so true. Children will interpret words and situations in the most ridiculous ways. And "Funny Things Kids Say" is an excellent look at the brighter side of childhood. Once you start it, you won't put it down! Highly recommended for parents, teachers and others who deal daily with our fascinating children.

Eases the reader gradually through the foundations of ICA and treats various published methods in a contrasting manner. No other reference is needed while reading the book; he even gives the pronounciation of some of the greek letters in footnotes.

This excellent book introduces the reader in the field of Independent Component Analysis providing the necessary fundamentals to understand and apply the different methods. The book also makes interesting links to other techniques. The author has succeeded at writing a very didactic text, not an easy task given the complexity of the matter, and at transmitting his enthusiasm to the reader.
I've enjoyed this book, which has been not only an introduction to ICA but which has brought me into ICA, stimulating my own experimentation with the technique.

Without this book I would never have understood the basics and finesses of ICA. Even if readers ar highly skilled in math reading this book will set out mile'stones' that will enhance the understanding of the ICA- problem, -tools and -possibilities.

Dr. G. Otte

I can't stress how reader friendly this book is. It is by far the best introduction on component analysis. It is written in such a way that those with a weaker math background can understand it while those with years of experience will not be bored, at certain times it even reads like a story.

It addition to being readable the book contains an impressive amount of content for its size. This content is presented in an organized manner, and in such a way that the user can immediately apply the techniques to their own problems.

If you are interested in independent component analysis or one of its relatives I highly recommend this valuable, reasonably price book.

James Stone's monograph is a refreshing new book amongst the many other `new books' on Independent Component Analysis (ICA). The author brings his teaching experience to present the theory and practice of ICA in a highly accessible form using a duplication of words and straight-forward mathematics.

Particular attention is given in the earlier chapters to the description of the linear signal mixing process giving the Reader a good basis for understanding the fundamental assumptions upon which ICA and its application to Blind Source Separation are based.

The book is aimed at the Reader with a technical but not necessarily formal mathematics background. Illustrative examples and functional algorithms in MatLab are frequent and references are made to the author's available electronic resources. As such it is suitable to both the newcomer to ICA, and to the more expert engineer or scientist.

This Reviewer rates this book very highly.

The product arrived within given time range and was in excellent new condition. No complaints.

Good for telling your what your 1st step of action should be. It has simple cases that are very common in practice. The original cases are then expounded upon when one thing is changed. Good book.

I used five different review books on my clerkship and this was by far my favorite. Compared to Case Files, there are more topics and the format was definitely better.

I really like this book. The book is presented in a case-based question/answer format. The book is written in narrative form (no bullets, or choppy info). I like the design of the book and it's easy to read and understand. The cases presented are classic and in-depth. It's a long read though, and may be too much for boards when its crunch time. I used it mostly for reference and when I didn't understand something when I was studying for Step 2. It's a great book for 3rd year surgery rotation and the shelf exam. Good luck!!

I just finished my surgery rotation and took the shelf exam. I have to say that reading this book really prepared me for the shelf and also for the whole surgery rotation. I highly recommend this book. You may also want to have a question book such as pre-test surgery to do some practice questions.
Good luck in surgery.

The best I ever met in my studying sanskrit. Perfect glossary and gramatical analysis. In addition, digital audio recording of the text is available in the Sanskrit Library at sanskritlibrary.org of Brown University.
Thanks for Peter Scharf's excellent job.

This is an excellent and extremely useful resource for those who know some Sanskrit and want to keep working on it. Very well produced.
We are indebted to the author.

In addition to the other reviewers I would like to say something about the general set up of the book.

The core of the book is the text of the Ramopakhyana. There is one page (sometimes two) for each verse. Apart from a high quality Devanagari text of each verse you get:

A transcription of the Sanskrit text in the Latin alphabet.
The resolution of the sandhi used, with an interlinear annotation giving the exact grammatical classification of the word in question (for instance: "third person, dual. active, perfect" in case of a verb).
A glossary, containing all the words that appear in the verse, including the complete derivation (compounds, nominal derivates etc.).
A Sanskrit prose paraphrase.
Grammatical, textual, contextual and other notes.
An English translation.

It would seem that you need to be a Sanskrit scholar to be able to appreciate the book, nothing is less true. If you are only able to decipher Sanskrit from a text presented in a Latin transcription, maybe using some grammar and/or dictionary and want to go ahead "doing something", this is your book. If you want to practice reading Devanagari, this is your book. If you want to practice resolving sandhi, this is your book. If you ... , well, there is a chapter in this book called "Suggestions for Use", anyway, this is your book!

Apart from the text there is an extensive Introduction covering all kind of aspects connected to the text.

The Devanagari text contains some typos. The most obvious one is on page 71, the title page of the text part. The "o" has changed into an "a", resulting in "ramapakhyana" instead of "ramopakhyana". As up to now, this is the only typo I found I don't expect the text to be overloaded with them. Because there is also a latin transcription and a resolution of the sandhi, typos will not be difficult to detect and resolve.

Readers, scholars and admirers of the Indic epic "Ramayana" and students and scholars of the Sanskrit language must offer profuse thanks to Prof. Peter Scharf, for putting before us a "Labour of Love" in his publication : Ramopakhyana, the Story of Rama in the Mahabharata. The work comprises chapters 258 to 275 of the Aranyaka Parvan of the Indic epic "Mahabharata". But apart from the Ram saga, the book serves as an independent-study resource for students who have completed a basic survey of Sanskrit grammar. Following in the linguistic traditions set forth in the bench mark publication of Sargeant Winthrop's, The Bhagavad Gita, Dr. Scharf provides a liguistic apparatus that
will delight and amaze even the most astute of Sanskrit scholars.
The Devanagari and Roman fonts and the layout of other materials is simply superb on each page. The press of RoutledgeCurzon must be congratulated for bringing forth such a finely edited text. Needless to add such a massive work must include some typographical errors, notably an outstanding one on page 71, but the typographical errors may actually serve to sharpen the astute thinking of students and readers alike. I have no doubts this work will serve as a standard reference source for many years and I hope and pray that other Indic and Sanskrit scholars will emulate this work, to provide in a similar format the entire translations of the the four Vedas, the Mahabharata and the 18 Mahapurans.

Scharf's fully annotated edition of the storey of Rama is just mind-blowing and endearing work.He seems he has not spared anything.He gives you Sanskrit script and then with transliteration and the tanslation and lengty explanations.
After finishing this book I will continue with Bhagavad Gita published by Suny Series.

I have always been a fan of Orson Welles on radio and television. Having collected a ton of radio broadcasts on CD and audio cassette and having watched most of his movies, I appreciate the genius of his work. I picked up a copy of this book recently and am amazed at the amount of research put into it. An aspect of Welles rarely discussed is his magic career. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention this September in Aberdeen, Maryland, I plan to attend the presentation about Orson Welles and his magic career so I can watch rare footage and films with Welles, and get an even deeper insight to his trickery. Book comes recommended.

Everyone knows that Orson Welles made _Citizen Kane_, possibly the most audacious and most analyzed movie to come out of Hollywood. And then what happened? He had been called a "boy genius", having made the movie (co-written, directed, and starred) when he was but twenty-five years old, but within a decade the term was used with sarcasm, and Walter Kerr wrote that Welles had become "an international joke, and possibly the youngest living has-been." Welles had been knocked down, and in the view of many, he never got up. Certainly, he never made anything like a _Kane_ again, but that isn't really fair: no one has. It is true that he never produced the sorts of films that were Hollywood-popular, but he did not at all disappear. Joseph McBride, a film historian who knew Welles, has answered the title question in his book _What Ever Happened to Orson Welles? A Portrait of an Independent Career_ (The University Press of Kentucky). The answer, quite simply, is that Welles worked and worked for decades in film, writing scripts, making movies, and (perhaps because few would bankroll him) doing things his own way. It's a sad story, in many ways. No one could doubt Welles's genius, and there are so many "if only" episodes in this book that it is often a depressing account. But Welles was not a tragic figure; he reflected years later that he might have made a mistake in staying in films (rather than, say, returning to the theater in which he had previously made his mark). But he would not have had it any other way: "I'm just in love with making movies," he said, and indeed, it was only death that stopped him.

McBride necessarily describes the problems that beset Welles immediately after _Kane_, when Welles could no longer get anything close to the full control of a film which he had practiced on his first movie. Still wanting to make movies, he left Hollywood to continue in Europe. McBride makes the case that contributing to Welles's decision for self-exile was his fear that he would be called to testify in the Communist witch-hunts. Welles loved shooting films and he especially loved editing them (as anyone who has seen _Kane_ can tell). There are plenty of pictures Welles worked on whose footage has been lost, but many others have the footage saved by fans or by creditors, and they frequently propose bringing out a finished version, hiring someone to pull the scenes together into a finished movie even so long after Welles's death in 1985. One producer mentioned she'd like to see a particular film screened not as an unfinished work by Welles, but as a film the way he might have finished it; but she says, "Finished by whom? Who can you substitute for Orson Welles?"

McBride does not go deeply into Welles's inability to finish things. Certainly it was attributable in a large part to Welles's way of skin-of-his-teeth filmmaking, whether or not it was some deep-set psychological disability. Welles could have written a magnificent autobiography, but when he got advances for such a work, he always returned them to the publishers. McBride writes, "Welles was deeply ambivalent about reminiscing, perhaps because he would have had to address issues he usually found too painful or delicate, such as his sexuality, his family life and some of his more traumatic experiences in Hollywood." Some of the stories of incompletion here, however, are extraordinary. His finished negative of _The Merchant of Venice_ was simply stolen from Welles's production office in Rome. The Iranians held funding for his meditation on filmmaking in the sixties, _The Other Side of the Wind_, and then the Shah was overthrown. "It's hard to imagine a movie career more littered with sensational catastrophes than mine," Welles admitted. He seldom admitted that he was the source of the less sensational catastrophes; a cameraman who worked with Welles late in his career said that Don Quixote was never completed because Welles "moved around too much, stuff got lost." For sensational and unsensational reasons, the losses recounted here are staggering. Nonetheless, McBride shows that they cannot be blamed, as some critics say, on Welles's being lazy or dilatory. The decades were filled with work for him, and he was pounding out a manuscript for a brand-new project on the night he died. As an independent filmmaker, Welles may have never fully lived up to his potential, but with a record of films that includes _Touch of Evil_ or the supremely weird _Lady from Shanghai_, his pattern of incompletion must be a minor sin. Much of McBride's personal account comes from his being an actor in _The Other Side of the Wind_ (of course, never finished) as were such droppable names as John Huston and Dennis Hopper. McBride's story won't re-make Welles's post-1950 career, but it isn't just a story of loss and lost opportunities; it is one of real movie history and at least some genuine artistic success.

Along the cinema's history - from time to time - the lucid conscious tends to appear in certain regions of the world. If Griffith gave the first step with (Intolerance and the Birth of a nation), Stroheim made the same with Greed , Robert Wiene with Dr. Caligari, Lang with Metropolis, while the comedy counted with Chaplin and Keaton, then Renoir with The rules of game and The grand illusion and Jean Cocteau emerged as if the same spirits of the Greek dramaturges would have reappeared with his wild mythic expression. Then came Orson Welles , while Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi showed us unknown facets of Japan, Luis Buñuel , the lavish son of the Surrealism in the cinema, half Spanish, half Mexican but France would have among his most sharp and talented artists as the portentous and unique Robert Bresson, and other not less relevant figures such as Marcel Carne, Max Ophlus, Rene Clement; Denmark with Dreyer, Italy would count with De Sica, Visconti and Fellini , Russia with Tarkovsky, Sweden with Bergman and Germany would have to wait until the early sixties for Scholondoff, Fassbinder, Wenders, Herzog, Von Trotta sisters and Hauff. And so, during the early eighties in Italy the brothers Taviani, Bernard Tavernier in France, Kaurismaki in Finland, The Coen brothers in North America , Quedraogo in Africa, Angelopoulos in Greece, Jarmush, Lars von Triers, Kim Ki Duk, Shohei Imamura and more recently Alexander Sokurov in Russia. Because more than artists this constellation of artists-filmmakers had something to say and how they did it.

But the case of Wells is particularly worthy to pay attention, because he embodied like nobody else the status of Shakesperian tragic personage, his ceaseless mind, his countless projects that never became materialized, the enormous efforts he had to do to make a film without abdicating in his ethic principles.

His devotion and everlasting admiration by Griffith, his sharp opinions, profane irreverence, mordacious opinions, his gastronomic excesses, among other singularities gained him respectable and unsaid enemies who neither didn't share nor understand his vision of the world. It's not easy to fit his hat, but the true of the case is he appealed to many filmmakers around the world, (Fuller, Casavettes, Allen, Saura, Almodovar, Waters, Loach, Huston, Roeg among so many others) to make the humanity would be aware (and I borrow a famous Buñuel's statement) we are not living in the best of the possible worlds. A biography that will absorb you from start to finish.

This excel essay allows us to approach the creative universe and the effervescent mind of a propulsive human being, who refused to accept outer impositions, filming what he wanted along his lifetime.

"A filmmaker is really great when the camera is an eye in the mind of a poet."
ORSON WELLES

Mention the name Orson Welles and his most famous involvement - with the radio scare 'War of the Worlds' - immediately comes to mind; but for a deeper understanding of Welles' life and career you need What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career. His later projects were largely self-financed and erratically distributed, but film critic and biographer Joseph McBride has a personal familiarity with Welles from previous projects worked on with him and here shows how the Hollywood studio system forced Welles out of the industry. Its value thus is twofold: as a biography for Welles fans, and as a history of film industry operations and politics.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

While I might be biased because a many parts of this book included stories about my father, Gary Graver, this is not something you want to miss out on if you have any interest in Orson Welles or the inner workings of the Hollywood movie industry. I knew Orson when I was a young boy and teenager during the time my father worked with him, but my memories are nothing compared to the vivid details and thoroughness of Joe's writings.

This book taught me a lot about a man whom I admired and feared. He was rather scary from the perspective of a ten year old, but he often took time to have me sit with him while he taught me card tricks. I am so grateful that these stories are now available for everyone to read. Thank you Joe for your commitment in documenting what no one else ever has and sharing these wonderful stories.

I went to my university's library and tried to compare Goldrei's book with almost all other popular accounts on Set theory, prior to investing my time learning the basics of the subject. After having almost finished reading it, I believe that this a model of how textbooks in mathematics should be written. Let me be a little bit more specific:

1)Suberb organization of the material. Ideas are built gradually without logical gaps or regressions. Definitions and theorems are clearly stated. "What follows from what" is always transparent. Even the choice of paragraphs is so well thought, that one can easilly assign a title in each of them for quick reference later on.

2)Each subject is clearly introduced within its historical and logical context. Each theorem (and even exercise) is motivated for its importance and its merits in the global picture of Set theory.

3)The logic and intuition behind the proofs is given (as well as the proof itself...) in a well organized and not unecessarily wordy manner.

4) There are exercises within the main text (which, as usual, are well motivated for their importance) with solutions folowing right after. In this way, one may develop skills and understanding, without getting frustrated or spending too much time. There are also exercises in the end of each section which are interesting and not too difficult.

5) There are comments aside of the main text, which range from ideas concerning a proof to historical remarks or recommendations to the reader. In this way, the main text remains clean of tangencies, but never dry.

I could continue praising this book, but let me cut it short by saying just this: it is one of those proper (i.e. rigorous) math textbooks that invite you to read each following chapter and to turn each page to see what's next. Having finished it I feel I have a pretty firm understatnding of the basics.

I only wish that Goldrei could write a second book on specialized topics (say, similar to the topics covered in Devlin's "The Joy of Sets", or Moschovakis' book), with the same energy and enthousiasm that wrote this one.

In recent months, I read (at least in part) about ten books on set theory, of different levels and styles. Goldrei's book is by far the best on my list. Goldrei has the talent of presenting a fairly difficult and abstract material in a friendly style, with abundant explanations, solved exercises, illustrations, and illuminating comments. I can highly recommend this book as a first reading on set theory, whether for self-study or as a supplementary text for a course on the subject. For the interested readers of this review, here is how I rank some of the other books I've read: Stoll is definitely a second, then Suppes (which goes deeper than both Goldrei and Stoll, but in my opinion is poorly organized and suffers from nonstandard and funny-looking notations), followed by Halmos, Machover, and a few more. And last and least, the incomprehensible "book" by Vaught.

This book is especially useful for self study, as it has more worked examples than usual, motivating hints in side bar, and explanitory comments in text. Perhaps the origin of this materical in Open University (I think roughly analogous to what USA schools call "Extension"?) course is reason. Found it helpful where Halmos was a bit concise for someone with fellow students or TA handy.

Recently, I had to learn set theory for my current work (automated reasoning and expert systems). This book proved to be an excellent supplement for learning set theory; which I then used to learn formal logic, resolution, etc.

Very well written and with good examples and exercises.

What this book tries to do, is to make set theory understandable for everyone. The book starts with the construction of the real and natural numbers. Proceeds with Zermelo-Fraenkel set-theory, and goes on to discuss the axiom of choice, cardinals and ordinals, and finally the continuum hypothesis.

Considering the subject matter, the book is extremely easy to read, with an easy progression in just under 300 pages. It never looses focus to get bogged down in detail, but somehow still manages to take you through all the essential proofs. The only thing missing is a few more interesting exercises for those wanting to refine their proof skills.

Even if you have only a passing interest in logic (or the foundations of mathematics), this book is an excellent starter.