College and University Books

I bought this book for my daughter. She is in the college application process, and the student essay was really stressing her out. (There is so much hype and conflicting information from school, guidance, and the other kids!) The information in this book was perfect -- it's not essays to copy, but a true "how-to" on writing winning essays, step-by-step. The examples are clear and totally geared to the student-reader. The advice is practical and easy to follow -- right down to the steps for submitting the application online. A real bargain!!

Now in a fully updated and expanded second edition, Graduate School: The Best Resources To Help You Choose, Get In, & Pay is designed specifically for those seeking a competitive edge when pursuing an advanced degree in the academic field of their choice. Graduate School explains the importance of the GPA, GRE, and other tests in the admissions process, as well as letters of recommendation, the personal statement, writing samples, and portfolios. Graduate School covers all aspects of choosing, applying to, and excelling Business, Law, or Medical School. It surveys financing a graduate or professional degree, including federal and state financial aid programs, the application process, the average loan burden, financial aid paperwork, and much more. Graduate School also provides identifying resources to aid in scholarship searches and is an invaluable, essential resource.

Incredible. Excellent. REALLY Excellent.

I wish I had this book last year when I started college - I wasted SO MUCH TIME working on figuring out how to handle my courseload, and I still didn't figure it out until I read this little book.

The author's ideas are so annoyingly simple and easy to follow that I was angry with myself for not seeing these things on my own.

I really believe that EVERYONE graduating from high school should get two things - a diploma, and this book.

Why doesn't Amazon.com have the recent Pali grammar that Perniola has published in Oxford, GB, with the Pali Text Society? The following review concerns this recent version of Perniola's Pali grammar.
This grammar is extremely rich. Rich of course in all the morphonological and morphological elements of the language. This is a great help to follow the meaning of words and the evolution of the language. The author seems to favor the idea that Pali is directly derived from Sanskrit. Very often he uses the sanskrit root or origin to explain the particularities of the Pali forms. The book is also extremely rich in syntactic morphology and syntax. The author details all the possible compositions of words with many examples. This is essential to understand the complexity and the density of the language. A composition relation can cover an at times very complex relation between the two elements and a simple nominalisation of such a compound can produce the equivalent of a full sentence or clause if one of the elements is a verbal form. There seems to emerge the idea that compounds are ordered from right to left (the dominant element on the right and its subordinate elements on the left) but it is not always clear because the formulation, the terms used by the author are not purely linguistic, at least from a hierarchical linguistic approach of language, but rather descriptive and hence on the surface of things with deictic elements that do not express a hierarchical or mastering relation. This leads me to another remark about the translations. Most of the time the translations are not expressing the relations between the various items of a compound or a sentence, but the final semantic translation that can, and does very often, cover up the real syntactic or morphological derivation, composition or construction. In other words this book is not for a dilettante or a beginner. You need to know Pali already and/or to have a dictionary next to you to follow. The second great section, of the book is that concerning the verb. Tenses and moods are clearly identified and examplified in their various meanings and uses. Then the description of the non-finite forms of the verb is very useful especially to understand the various participles that do not exist in our languages. But the real understanding we get must be derived from the translations because the various modal and aspectual values of these participles and gerunds are not really identified as modalizations and aspects, hence introducing some fuzziness in the values. Finally the book examines the cases and their uses very closely, but once again not from a really linguistic point of view but from a compiling and descriptive point of view. For one example, the genitive can be used both to express the source of a moving object and the goal of it, according to the context. This is a real problem since the genitive expresses contradictory values and assumes the « goal » value which is commonly expressed by the dative for example, a dative that is very absent from Pali. Here we need to wonder a lot more than just state the fact in order to come to an explanation. That is the main shortcoming of the book : it leaves many explanatory domains totally uncovered and open. Yet an essential book for those who are interested in Pali. I will note that Geiger's « umlaut » concept seems here to have been completely abandoned. Paranavitana has at least been effective on that point.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne

While some in the Civil War community complain of "Chamberlain fatigue," it is difficult to gripe about this marvelous new collection of postwar correspondence from one of the most articulate officers on either side of the conflict.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain survived the Civil War - including a horrible wound at Petersburg - to become one of Maine's most prominent citizens. His postwar career included four terms as governor of Maine, a stint as president of Bowdoin College, numerous business enterprises, and perhaps most importantly, many years as a writer and lecturer on his Civil War experiences.

The correspondence included by editor Jeremiah Goulka covers nearly every aspect of Chamberlain's personal and professional life. Chamberlain's heartfelt letters to his family, especially those to his wife Fannie, reveal him to be a loving, thoughtful husband and father. His relationship with Fannie, stormy and difficult though it was for many years, survived numerous crises until Fannie's death in 1905.

Chamberlain's Civil War experiences transformed him, and his separation from the army often left him feeling restless. In 1870, Chamberlain wrote to the King of Prussia and offered his services in Prussia's war with France. In 1898, Chamberlain contacted the Secretary of War to volunteer for the Spanish-American War. Even with all his postwar positions and projects, Chamberlain never quite filled the space in his soul left empty by the end of the Civil War.

Critics of Chamberlain, in his lifetime and in our own time, claim that he inflated his role at Little Round Top in an attempt to horde the glory of that important engagement. At least one letter included in this volume refutes this criticism. In a January 1910 letter to Union veteran and author Oliver W. Norton, Chamberlain says of his brigade commander, Strong Vincent, "He was a noble man, and I have not known an abler commander in his grade. Nothing could exceed his skill and energy in taking the position on Little Round Top and the confidence he inspired in his subordinates. To this the result of the fight on the left at Round Top is very largely due [emphasis added]."

The correspondence also clarifies an often incorrectly reported fact concerning the July 1913 fiftieth anniversary reunion at Gettysburg. Chamberlain, while he visited Gettysburg in May as a member of the planning commission, did not attend the July reunion. Chamberlain's doctor strongly urged him not to go due to his declining health, and he stayed behind in Maine.

Rather than being castigated for his prolific eloquence, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain deserves the timeless thanks of everyone who studies the Civil War. Jeremiah Goulka deserves thanks as well, for his skillful editing, and for giving us a deeper understanding of a genuine American hero.

What direction should America's foreign policy and grand strategy take, asks well-known Political Scientist Robert Art. Art begins by defining six major interests for the United States: Defense of the homeland, continued peace among Eurasia's major states, access to Persian Gulf oil, international economic openness, the spread of democracy, and no severe global climate change. The first is the least controversial, although there are certainly major disagreements over how this is best achieved. But Art's second major interest, prevention of a major war in Eurasia, might well be the most controversial of the six. Moreover, by Art's own reckoning, it is the second-most vital interest! Yet many oppose this policy. Maintaining peace overseas requires maintaining a large American troop presence in Germany, Korea, and Japan. Many argue that these troops cannot be expected to remain there indefinitely. For example, John Mearsheimer claims that the United States in not the world's cop. Once the threat overseas in the form of the Soviet Union has disappeared, US troops should return home. Only when the peace is directly threatened again should they go back overseas. But this policy, known as offshore balancing, has been proven to be ill-advised. Art notes that the United States was dragged into all three major European wars since 1783. Moreover, had the US maintained a presence in Europe after World War 1, it may have averted the Second World War, thus saving a great deal of money and manpower. By keeping its troops abroad the US can avoid the outbreak of further wars. Others, like Kenneth Waltz, have argued that with the collapse of the Soviet Union the Eurasian states will now balance against America's overwhelming power. But Art notes that "power considerations are never absent from a state's foreign policy calculations and they do count a lot, but it is absurd to argue that power explains everything. " Indeed it has now been 17 years since the Soviet Union collapsed. Yet no balancing has occurred against the US. The reason is simple: geography. As Stephen Walt has noted, threat diminishes with distance. The states of Eurasia do not fear the US as much as they fear each other. This will also for the continued American pacifier presence. I believe the call for a forward defense is the major contribution of this book. Art in fact wrote one of the most important studies on this phenomenon, "Why Europe Needs American and NATO" in 1996.

A second fairly controversial proposition put forth by Art is the importance of spreading democracy. A vigorous literature debates whether or not democracies are more peaceful. Art takes the middle road, noting that while democratic governments do not guarantee peace they seem to war less frequently with each other, based on statistical analysis. Moreover, he argues that democracies are the best guarantor of human rights and freedoms. Where we can support democracies, we should, he argues. In addition to advancing the six major goals, Art discredits other grand strategies, most notably offshore balancing, which he believes to a dangerous policy that will only lead to more wars. There isn't much in this book about specific policies. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw noticeably little attention. But as Art notes in the beginning, this is "a big-idea book." Art believes that selective engagement can last for at least another 30 years and probably longer. During this era we have "an unparalleled opportunity to both protect US security and prosperity and to improve the security, health, prosperity, and human rights for the rest of the world."

this book is a real find! there are some truly magnificent and stylistically ground-breaking samples of early 20th century graphic design here. most of the selections represent the pinnacle of the german and russian avante-garde designers of the 1920's and 30's, including alexandr rodchenko, el lissitsky, lazlo-moholy nagy and many others. But there is also a decent overview of french and american designers as well.

this period of work is profound because of it's ingenuity, daring graphic experiments in text and layout, and it's use of collage, photos and text, and dada influences to create bold graphic statements. the pieces included in this volume span many different media in the graphic arts...war propaganda, art exhibition posters, product advertising, civil program posters, packaging, publishing, and even fine art.
it is a testament to this collection of designers, because many of them worked simultaniously in many different mediums all at once, especially those involved in the bauhaus movement and the russian avante-garde artists.

this book is an excellent overview of this period in graphic design, and would provide endless inspiration for anybody involved in any field of design. i cannot recommend it strongly enough!

Fantastic Book on how to write your college essay and organize your admissions application. Useful writing strategies and much more. A great guide to the application process.

This is an excellent read for any college basketball fan. I was at MSU during the Kelser-Johnson reign and knew a number of players in the book. Kelser filled in many behind-the-scenes stories I'd heard about as well as games and incidents I'd always wondered about. The format is a little ackward, and there's some fairly obvious blowing of one's own horn, but it still delivers what's promised--a behind-the-scenes look at a fascinating team's road to the NCAA championship, potholes, bumps and detours included. I also found interesting contasts to today's game and the 1979 "dawn" of the Final Four's evolution into the National psyche. You don't need to be a Spartan to enjoy this book.

I have only read a little of the book, but I know if you are looking for a college it'll give great advice. My DAD is a great writer & so is my Mom, Karen, so look her up,too.