H Books

Very Good Textbook! The diagnostic assessments were easy to follow. The textbook is written with professionalism and expertise. I had to take a reading diagnostics class for my graduate program. I am so glad that my school decided to use this book! I refuse to sell my book and I will use the text in my future classroom! If you plan on selling your textbooks, I would not sell this one. I would reconsider selling this book because it will become handy in the classroom. I guarantee you will use it again!:)

This is a great diagnostic tool to get a grasp on a student's reading skills and deficits. I like how it gives their frustration, independent, and instructional reading levels.
I would recommend this informal inventory to tutors, teachers, and mentors.

I needed this book for a class I was taking. It was mandatory so I guess it was helpful. I won't know to the full extent until I begin teaching and using it as a helpful resource. Looking through it though, it seemed very helpful for assessing K-8 students with various assessments in order to keep assessing with different tests.

The grade level assessmenta are very concise and easy to administer, enabling users to quickly assess reading comprehension levels and listening comprehension levels. Because it is easy to use, it helps provide a starting point in grouping students for small group instruction, reading groups and guided individual reading.

This reading inventory kit is great for all students from elementary level to adult. The inventories in this book allow us to make instructional decisions according to the results. The format is easy to follow, and the cd-rom gives a clear idea on test administration. The classroom reading inventory is an individual diagnostic test, and this text explains the process, making you feel comfortable in administering it.

Pauline Tesler is able to combine thought-provoking theory with practical process advice. This is an indispensable tool for collaborative practitioners as well as fascinating reading for anyone who is concerned about the emotional and financial toll of traditional divorce. Working with attorneys as problem-solvers, rather than adversarial litigators, is a revolutionary concept whose time has come. This book provides expert guidance for professionals and the public about the collaborative option. I highly recommend it!

Pauline Tesler's book, Collaborative Law, is an outstanding resource for attorneys interested in transforming the litigious divorce process into a client-oriented, principled, and efficient way to solve the problems associated with ending a marital relationship. It not only explains the principles of collaborative family law but provides substantial guidance in making the paradigm shift to this innovative approach and comes with a disk with a core collection of forms needed to get started as a collaborative lawyer. As a family law attorney for over 27 years and a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers I found this book to be invaluable. Nonlawyers will also find this book helpful in finding a better way to divorce. Collaborative family law is growing throughout the U.S. and Canada--and Pauline Tesler has played a leading role in this through her lectures and this fine book.

Pauline Tesler clearly explains this new form of lawyering that keeps family disputes, especially divorces, out of court. The book includes forms, checklists, and other essential practice aids for lawyers offering this service to clients. While it is addressed to lawyers, a person considering using Collaborative Law for his/her case will find it very informative.

Pauline Tesler's book is essential reading for any family lawyer who is interested in practicing collaborative law. It is a priceless resource that should be on the shelf of every family law practitioner who is willing to make the paradigm shift from adversarial gladiator to counselor and healer. The collaborative law movement owes Tesler a vote of gratitude for translating Stu Webb's simple concept into a brilliantly thought-out system that can be easily understood and followed. Since reading it the first time I have referred to it almost weekly.

As an attorney engaged in collaborative practice, I make more use of Pauline Tesler's book than any other practice resource. Beyond explaining the basic collaborative philosophy in clear terms, her book provides the practical, step-by-step tools that a practitioner needs to get through the challenging parts of the process.
Through the book, the collaborative process broken down into key stages with specific achievement landmarks and goals. Detailed forms and documents for the process are provided in the text and on a diskette. It is the kind of book you can pick up before a collaborative meeting to develop a concise checklist to cover.
For me, it's the Bible of Collaborative Practice. Although in-person training is preferable, I believe that just studying this book can provide an attorney with all the basic tools of collaborative practice.

I have read numerous accounts (most notably in the journal of the Mencken Society) that assume that Mencken was being ironic in the pages of this book, but I am gladdened and relieved to see that the other reviewers here got it right. The omniscient Mr. Mencken simply observes that men are forever being bamboozled by women.

But there's a great variety of Mencken's wisdom on tap in this slim volume -- such as,
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary." (Page 53 of the 1926 edition)

Mencken's "In Defense of Women" has such a bad reputation in some circles that I'm almost afraid to review it for fear of virtual grenades. But surely the bad reputation is unjustified, for whether one approves of Mencken's conclusions or not, it would seem hard to deny the nobility of the his intentions in publishing them. He simply wished to help us rid ourselves of some harmful and incorrect stereotypes. To wit: men think they are intelligent and clear-headed while women are emotional and sentimental. But in reality, Mencken explains, it is men who are prone to sentiment and women who are intelligent and clear-headed. Of course many things follow from both the misconception and the "truth." Although it may be useful to some people to know Mencken's ideas about the sexes (I find this knowledge useful), perhaps the best reason to read "In Defense of Women" is that it is incredibly entertaining. If you are not amused by Mencken's style, or if you are afraid that you might encounter an uncomfortable truth or two, then by all means keep safely away.

Reading this book made me wonder "where are the men of today who are writing like this on these topics?" -- things like soul mates, monogamy/polygamy, affairs, prostitution, romance novels, Darwin's theory of sexual selection, the double standard, the "Madonna/whore complex" (not called that then), sexual harassment, employment discrimination, abolishing marriage, and declining marriage and birth rates all make an appearance in the book. And much of it retains its essential truth. The more things change...

It's especially interesting to see where HLM was right and where he turned out to be wrong. For instance: the book was written just before men gave women the vote (i.e., during World War I, when Mencken was in his mid-to-upper thirties and still a bachelor); Mencken thought women voting would cure politics of rampant corruption -- because women wouldn't allow such shenanigans. This is not to say that he had any kind things to say about the suffragettes. He didn't, and some of what he wrote was outrageously funny. One can extrapolate in a straight line to some of today's feminists.

His basic thesis -- which may or may not have been meant to be taken seriously -- is that women are more intelligent than men, the proof being the ease with which they typically defeat men in the war between the sexes:

"I am convinced that the average woman, whatever her deficiencies, is greatly superior to the average man. The very ease with which she defies and swindles him in several capital situations of life is the clearest of proofs of her general superiority. She did not obtain her present high immunities as a gift from the gods, but only after a long and often bitter fight, and in that fight she exhibited forensic and tactical talents of a truly admirable order. There was no weakness of man that she did not penetrate and take advantage of. There was no trick that she did not put to effective use. There was no device so bold and inordinate that it daunted her."

It would be fifty years before Esther Vilar's "The Manipulated Man" continued with many of the same themes. But Mencken was quite prescient in the section on women's martyrdom, which today we'd call their claim to victimhood or being "oppressed". I could go on at some length about how close his description of marriage is to what prevails today (based on reports which come to my attention), but I'll spare you.

I'm sorry I waited so long to get around to this book, as it's truly a classic written by a great mind -- a highly recommended trip above the stratosphere for all men and, especially, bachelors.

This is not a book for faint of heart. No one was better at invective than Mencken, and his defense of women is far more of an attack on men than a defense of the "unfair" sex, as Ambrose Bierce signified our better half. Mencken's basic argument goes something like this: women are pretty bad; men are worse; therefore, women are better than men. This is, to be sure, a gross over-simplification. Mencken's argument is really much more sophisticated and ingenious. He picked it up, he tells us elsewhere, from a madame of a bordello. It contains a great deal more truth than most people would be willing to admit. Mencken's hillarious presentation is recommended only to hardened cynics (which is to say, hardened realists). Sensitive people with "beautiful" souls are well advised to avoid this brilliant book.

Mencken wrote that "Nothing could be plainer than the effect that the increasing economic security of women is having upon their whole havit of life ... The diminishing marriage rate and the even more rapidly diminishing birth rate show which way the wind is blowing . . . large numbers of them [women] now approach the business [of marriage] with far greater fastidiousness than their grandmothers." So as a result, only relatively skilled men are marriageable, and lower-class men go without. By contrast, in the past "even marriage with a fifth-rate man was better than no marriage at all."

Mencken also correctly predicted that even after the influx of women into the workplace, women will still lag behind men economically: he writes that "it is impossible to imagine a genuinely intelligent human being becoming a competent trial lawyer, or buttonhole worker, or newspaper sub-editor, or piano tuner, or house painter. Women, to get upon all fours with men in such stupid occupations, will have to commit spiritual suicide, which is much further than they will ever actually go. Thus a shade of their present superiority to men will always remaijn, and with it a shade of their relative inefficiency, so marriage will remain attractive".

Mencken also predicts loosened sexual mores: "With the decay of the ancient concept of women as property there must come inevitability a reconsideration of the whole sex question."

And of course all these things have come to pass, both in America and in Europe: well-employed women marry later or not at all and get divorced more quickly, and low-income women have virtually abandoned marriage altogether.

Mencken only runs aground when he looks at war and peace. He correctly predicted World War II (in particular predicting wars between France and Germany, and between Japan and America) but thought that it would be so devastating, and wipe out so many of the world's men, that women would vastly outnumber men, which in turn would radically modify marriage- perhaps by causing the reinstitution of polygamy. Had WW 2, like WW 1, killed only soliders, Mencken might have been right. Instead, of course, millions of civilians were killed- including many women, thus limiting the male/female imbalance.

Combating Addiction Through Recovery Education: The C.A.R.E. Program - Substance Abuse Awareness and Relapse Prevention offers a methodical and informed approach to anyone seeking to free himself or herself from addiction. Written by Stephen Lloyd, a recovered alcoholic and addict trained as a certified substance abuse counselor, Combating Addiction Through Recovery Education discusses causes of addiction, the value of medical help, how to combat "triggers" for cravings, seeking support, goal setting, anger management, dealing with resentment, how to create a solid relapse prevention plan, and much more. Combating Addiction Through Recovery Education is a consumable text, with numerous opportunities for the owner to write down lists of resources, thoughts and feelings, future plans, and more. A highly recommended supplement to a personal addiction treatment and recovery program.

Combating Addiction Through Recovery Education: The C.A.R.E. Program - Substance Abuse Awareness and Relapse Prevention offers a methodical and informed approach to anyone seeking to free himself or herself from addiction. Written by Stephen Lloyd, a recovered alcoholic and addict trained as a certified substance abuse counselor, Combating Addiction Through Recovery Education discusses causes of addiction, the value of medical help, how to combat "triggers" for cravings, seeking support, goal setting, anger management, dealing with resentment, how to create a solid relapse prevention plan, and much more. Combating Addiction Through Recovery Education is a consumable text, with numerous opportunities for the owner to write down lists of resources, thoughts and feelings, future plans, and more. A highly recommended supplement to a personal addiction treatment and recovery program.

Very well written and easy to understand. Right from the start you get the sense that the author really wants to help, and knows how to do it. I would recommend it to anyone who needs help with a subtance abuse problem of thier own, or someone they know.

This book is such an easy read yet outlines the steps for what can be such a difficult journey. I gave my copy to my teenage son to read and am ordering more for others I know will benefit from it. Steve's wisdom as well as his candid disclosure of his personal journey through recovery cannot fail to leave a lasting impression on the reader. Well done!

I bought this book with the hopes of grasping a better understanding of addiction and alcoholism. I did get an understanding but I also got so much more. The author has written this book in a way that anyone should be able to pick it up and benefit from the contents. I can see how this book would be useful to youth, adults, seniors, virtually anyone. The author including his own story lends credibility to this book that cannot be overlooked. Thank you for such an informative read.

Horton and others clearly delineate the dangers which face the Church of Jesus Christ, and if you're looking for fluff or easy reading, here, find another book like Max Lucado. This is meaty reading and worthy of the purchase. Highly recommended.

With regard the authority of Scripture, most Christians would agree that the Bible is our authority in some sense. But in exactly what sense does the Bible claim to be our authority? I think evangelical Christianity is in serious trouble in that matter. In fact, it is facing big challenges for keeping Biblical faith. Some present-day evangelicals do not believe more in the Bible. The Scripture becomes just a very important thing, but not more a sufficient an inerrant Word of God. In their opinion, we have other sources to learn about God and his will for the Church today. So, if you are considering that questions into your heart, I would like to recommend you to read this book and The Compromised Church (from the same general Editor).

Some of the conservative church's greatest ambassadors deliver a great message in this book. Some very godly and inteligent men deliver a warning to the church of the future. The books basic theme is that the church must be circumspect so that it does not drift away from biblical dependence. The present day church has come to depend on so many sources for their theological understanding when ultimately scripture should be the only recognized voice. This book defends the traditional evangelical faith while giving and understanding of obvious needs of reform. Readers of this book will become acutely aware of the problems and solutions of the modern godly church.

Whenever one writes a book of this type you almost wish that its message would be heard and changes made to prevent it from coming to pass. That was my reaction when I first read this book while in Bible college. Now removed several years from that setting I can personally see the message from this book coming to pass before my very eyes.

The pragmatic age has dawned. We now have churches for every individual needs. Sound doctrine has been replaced by pop psychology and business data. Elders today listen more to the business gurus than to the Holy Spirit in the pages of Scripture. In fact, to stand firm upon the Word of God is now viewed as a fundamentalist, dogmatic, or even (as one former elder told me when he resigned from our church) "hard nosed." Pastors now resemble CEO's more than they resemble Jesus. As Leonard Ravenhill so put it, "We have many Degree's today with no heat. The early Church had much heat with no Degree's."

Thankfully many of the men in this book are standing against the tide of secular, man-centered teachings that are hitting the Church. Nearly everyone of these men have written books, articles, or preached sermons against the tide of the world invading the Church and the Church not becoming like Jesus Christ meant for us to be. May God have mercy on us in these last days!

In my humble opinion, everybody who dares call themselves evangelical, and this term is used widely today, should read this book and take its warnings and suggestions to heart. So many churches would call themselves evangelical today, but would not be able to give a proper definition for the term, or the history behind it. Read this book and you will get to see what it means to be evangelical!

I must echo what each of the other reviewers has already said about this book. I have made many of the recipes and always get asked for "a copy". At least six of my friends have gone out and purchased their own edition of the book. Now I'm planning to buy a second copy so I won't have to keep taking my original with me when I go to Florida for an extended period in the winter.I really can't be without it.Even my batchelor son borrows Mom's book when he's entertaining.

This has become one of the books I reference most often. I like the individual recipes, but I absolutely LOVE the recipes for full dinners and buffets. I have made the cocktail for 40 not once, but twice, and it was a smashing success both times. My new mother-in-law so enjoyed the frozen apple waldorf salads I made for an inlaws visit recently, she asked for the recipe - when I removed it from my cupboard, she said, oh, I have that cookbook, but I haven't looked at it. What a shame! It's one of my all-time favorites!

Over the past 25 years, I've purchased a lot of cookbooks and I love to cook. When I ordered this book I expected a lot of mediocre recipes that could be done ahead and in a hurry. What a wonderful surprise. Every recipe I've made has been outstanding and received rave reviews from my family. I don't like meatloaf - but I loved the Piquant Little Meat Loaves. Cornish Hens Mandarin was excellent and Company Chicken-Artichoke pleased even grumpy teenagers. The final and supreme compliment came when I visited my mom (recovering from surgery in Iowa) and I cooked one of the recipes. She is a superb (extremely particular) cook and said, "This is a cookbook that finally makes sense." She liked that the first recipe was large and leftovers were utilized in the series of recipes that followed. Thank you so much for a group of fresh and exciting recipes!

The time saving tips you will find here are worth their weight in gold. I like to entertain but still have enought time and energy left to enjoy my company. This book teaches you how to prepare foods well in advance so you are not running around at the last frazzled minute before dinner guests arrive. I had a Christmas part for 60- prepared all the food myself and did minimal preparation that day. I was able to freeze the cream puffs for Curried Chicken Salad Puffs a month ahead and fill them that day. The section Coctail Buffet for Forty took all the hassle out of planning for a large affair and I used every recipe I found there- the Beef Tenderloin with Horseradish was elegant to serve and thrilled my guests. Also, the Rasberry Vinaigrette is the best I've ever come across. This is almost exclusively the only cookbook I use and has become my standard present for soon-to-be brides.

This is a great book! I have made the Delta Shrimp recipe several times and always get asked for the recipe. I make it even easier using frozen uncooked, peeled and cleaned shrimp, and always get rave reviews. The Company Artichoke Chicken Bake is also excellent! For anyone who loves to entertain, and do most of the preparation ahead of time, this is the book to get!

Now some of these tales are out there, but all offer some amusement. Some may not make any sense (i.e. the endings seem incomplete or "off") and they may not be on par with the Grimms tales, but it's nice to have all of these in one place and to be able to read tales that I have never heard of or come across over the years. If you are making a collection of myths and fairy tales, this collection is a must.

Every child should read Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales a first introduction to fantasy and modern tales of today. The book is great for adults also. Many stories I recall from my own childhood as I devoured the fairy tales that are enduring and lasting as classics forever.
Evelyn Horan - author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl, Books One - Three

It is a pity that most people only know Hans Christian Andersen for a few of his "easiest" fairy tales. What springs to mind for almost everyone is stories like "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Ugly Duckling" and perhaps "The Snowqueen". But Hans Christian Andersen has written a vast array of profoundly touching tales. In Odense, Denmark the Danish actor Troels Møller said (two years ago in a lecture on "H.C.A. & God"),

"We are all going to die. H.C.Andersen knew this, he worked with it and he used it to show us all the beauty of life - the beauty of all life."

His stories are not only for children they are for everyone. The likes of H.C.Andersen can be found nowhere. If you want to discover the full grandeur of his genius you MUST read more than just his popular works. I would even urge you to go to Odense to learn Danish - Much is lost in translation. But although the English translation doesn't reach the heights of the original Danish text I still give it one of my 5 star sets. And don't think that it's a case of petty nationalism - you will find no other Danish writer that I'll grant 5 great ones. It is entertainment, philosphy and religion.

The Ugly Duckling. The Little Mermaid. The Tinderbox. The Emperor's New Clothes. The Princess and the Pea. It's all here!

C. S. Lewis, in his preface to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," observed that as children we grow out of hearing fairy tales, but as an adult we can come back to them with fresh eyes and be enchanted in a different way. HCA stories have that amphibian quality of living above and below the supposed age limits.

I find it surprising that HCA writing in a minor language would be so popular, but he is a genius at writing fairy tales. The Grimm Boys just collected and edited the German fairy tales, but HCA was generating new and original fairy tales. I hope we don't sluff off this unique talent he had solely on the ground that he was writing to children. After all, how many naked Emperors have we seen? The comic Dilbert gets it's life blood from the fact that so many emperors can be smooth-talked by so many charlatans, and be sustained in their delusion by smarmy sycophants, and only brought to light by a child.

If children can understand this, why can't we adults?

On the printing-side of the book, I would like to see this in a hardbound, with durable paper, and not the thin and fragile newsprint. I am almost afraid to read this book since the opaper is so delicate!

I received this book as a gift for my 20th birthday. I am very pleased with it. I recomend it, and especially for its beautifully crafted and translated material. Enjoy! There are so many so many tales... I love it!

Christians weren't and aren't necessarily "right" when it comes to art. Often uninformed and bias, Christians tend to pigeon-hole art, making it have no place in the lives of humanity. This book takes a look at art through a historical and biblical viewing glass. Rookmaaker does not just say "sin is the problem" and leave it at that (though he speaks plenty on the root of the problem which is sin). Rather he looks to history, the artist's intentions of a particular "movement", and both Christian and secular mentalities that pervaded the times. Rookmaaker ends the book splendidly, answering questions that are left in the Christian's mind (concerning faith, morals and art, good and bad art, beauty, aesthetics, what is art, and more), calling Christians to take courage, and finally charging Christians with the responsibility to go out and make good art.

Rookmaker uses words like existentialism, nihilism, anarchy, irrationality, and anti-art to describe a lot of what we call Modern Art. He has good reasons for saying this as he gives a great overview of art from medieval times, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment to now. The art started going downhill, in his view, from about the time of the Impressionists, when art became "non-thematic" or "art for art's sake". He sees Post-Impressionist Cezanne as the father of Modern Art who fostered movements such as cubism, abstract, expressionism, and fauvism; Picasso then picked up the artistic baton from him and greatly influenced the rest of 20th century art.

I liked the author's overview of art probably the best, followed by his philosophical take on what each phase means. It's an interesting debate as to the value of art for art's sake, which I personally like, even if it does give equal value to everything in a given painting and 'does not say anything'. I also still admire the clever imagination of the modern artists, while shuddering a little more at what they are trying to express after reading this book.

If you like art, and want a Christian take on what's really going on, you should read this book. But if you're like me, you'll still decide for yourself what you like and don't like about Modern Art, even if you don't agree with the world view. Besides, isn't it important for Christians to understand what the world stands for?

I used to really like this book. Finding it at the Dales Bible Week in Harrogate was a stroke of exceptional good fortune. Together with various texts by Schaffer and Guinness, I found a good deal of clear explanation for the kinds of encounters with literature I had had in recent years.

However, I think that in later years I became somewhat anxious. Oddly enough there was the coincidence that nearly all the actual content of the Dales Bible week was suddenly coming under very close scrutiny and rightly being found wanting, I re-read quite a few of the texts I picked up in that period (which was the late 70's and early 80's), this included.

What passes for scholarship in this book is quite hard to resist, and requires the most detailed knowledge to refute. I have some friends who have tried to do this. It takes years to absorb the whole impact of 19th century machinations in the arts, and the 20th century is far more difficult. I found that Rookmaakers analysis still held up, though it is hard to rationalise how this book has now become the sole element in far too many arts and literature courses in Christian establishments. Not every stream of arts development led entirely to despair, and not every artist abrogated their responsibility to truth quite so wilfully as the author seems to suggest.

The book has become, in fact, far too embedded in the Christian subculture now. And this of course is a dreadful trap. In some institutions this form of criticism has become an alternative and if fact, vicarious alternative to real scholarship.

At the risk of being classed as a reckless fool, I would suggest it would be best if there was a concious attempt to point focus away from the L'abri fellowship for a while and to allow people to develop and sharpen real critical skills. This should never compromise real faith. Once again, what is happening in the real world is a loss of dialectic clarity among those who should be the salt and light.

Another concern is that now the arts are so degenerate, it is now almost certainly the case that the canary is now thoroughly dead, and very little, if anything is to be gained from it's postmortem. I suspect that far more is to be gained by shifting the focus of action to other spheres.

I'm afraid I must sound very critical of this - I don't mean to really. The book contains invaluable truth and should be read. However, things in the secular world are changing rapidly and it is important for us all to think on our feet.

One of the joys of fathering a bunch of boys is taking them fishing. My oldest is only eight, so as of yet we have not had a lot of success actually catching fish! Nontheless, there is a lot of joy in teaching them about bobbers, hooks, bait, casting the line, etc. - there is truly an art and a science to the task. One of the difficulties that little hands have is pulling all the information together and using it properly.

Just as little children need a good teacher to help them integrate a lot of facts, so do we often find ourselves in the same condition. In writing Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, the late Hans Rookmaaker comes alongside us to explain how a lot of different topics intersect and interact with each other. Art, aesthetics, culture, theology, philosophy world history - these various areas are laid out on the table for discussion, and then integrated together to make a strong point.

Rookmaaker, a lifelong friend of Francis Schaeffer, provides us with a biblical perspective on the modern world, focusing specifically on the philosophical agenda behind modern art. Beginning his overview with the dawn of the Renaissance and Reformation, Rookmaaker quickly covers a lot of historical ground in the journey toward the modern era. In the end, he reveals the roots of modernity's despair. The autonomous reason of mankind put God outside of the box of the world, and as a result began the slow descent into subjective meaninglessness.

Don't let the topic of the book scare you. Even while addressing heavy themes, Rookmaaker writes with great skill and passion. He is not trying to impress you with ivory tower gibberish and a specialized insider's vocabulary. Although he knows his material exceedingly well, his aim is to edify Christians. He wants to teach you how to pull a lot of cultural data together in order that you understand the times in which you live. If you have ever been puzzled at the message, or lack thereof, of modern art, Rookmaaker will help you understand and discern what you are seeing. I highly recommend this work, and wish that many more works like this will be written that help Christians to understand the worlds of high culture, popular art, and music.

Note: This 1994 Crossway edition is actually a reprint of this classic work originally written in 1970, about seven years before the author's death.

Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by Rookmaaker

This is one of the most powerful books I've ever read. I heard a lecture by Rookmaaker in Amsterdam in 1972. I thought a lecture on art would bore me to death. Instead I was on the edge of my seat even after an all night plane ride. The book shows through art how our culture has moved away from the concept of a transcendent God since the 1300s. It is an exciting read because it takes the words of the artists themselves right up the the 1970s to explain their art and their spiritual beliefs. It is very hard to put this book down even for someone like me who is not all that excited about art. It is ominous in its predictions of what impact this has on our present culture.

You can get it used [...]. I value it so much I don't even loan my copy out.

An authority in the field of artificial intelligence and computer science in general, Joseph Weizenbaum provides insight in proceedings in that area but mainly warns about what these developments may lead to. It is very entertaining to read this book some 20 years after original publication and see how many of what we believe are recent developments were actually implemented back then already (on one or two priceless "super" computers).
Very dogmatic and patronizing at times, it still is a good read if only for the thought provoking ideas like: if electronic computers would have been used in the manhattan project, today we would assume that development of the atomic bomb would have been impossible without it.

The computer and natural language is a sub-domain of computer science in which one of the major aims is to imitation of man, focusing on two topics: psychology and linguistics. If we wish the machine to do something, we must tell it what to do and it must be able to understand us. The easiest way to tell a computer what to do is to give it a program to run. "Humans, if they are machines at all, are vastly general-purpose machines and what, is most important, they understand communications couched in natural language." Work must be done for a machine to understand natural language. "Man's capacity to manipulate symbols, his very ability to think, is inextricably interwoven with his linguistic abilities." A machine must be able to extract semantic content from the messages impinged upon it, adopt a syntactic structure of a visual scene and adopt a certain conceptual framework. The question of what comprises a visual symbol is in question. The developer defines the elements of the machines primitive vocabulary. Robert Lindsay said, "high quality translations could be produced by machines supplied with sufficiently detailed syntactic rules, a large dictionary, and sufficient speed to examine the context of ambiguous words for a few word in each direction."

Eliza was a program consisting mainly of general methods for analyzing sentences and sentence fragments, locating so-called keywords in texts, assembling sentences from fragments and so on. Eliza created the remarkable illusion of having understood in the minds of the many people who conversed with it.

In ordinary two person communication, each has a working hypothesis, a conceptual framework, concerning who the person is and what the conversation is about. The hypothesis serves an indicator of what the other person is going to say and what he is going to mean by what he is about to say. Often, the erroneous prediction is falsified before the sentence is completed and the listener makes corrections on the fly and virtually unconsciously. Each brings into mind an image of the other person, the image consists in part of the other's identity, attributes based on evidence derived from independent life experiences of the participant. "Our recognition of another person is thus an act of induction on evidence presented to us partly by him and partly by our reconstruction of the rest of the world; it is a kind of generalization". Eliza starts with the hypothesis that the system does understand.

Rogar C. Shank, based his theory on the central idea that every natural-language utterances is a manifestation, an encoding, of an underlying conceptual structure. Understanding an utterance means encoding it. The theory proposes a formal structure for the conceptual bases for making predictions. The theory creates formal rules for converting utterances into a conceptual base. One difficulty is that every individual's belief is constantly changing mean that an individuals entire base of conceptions is changing. "When a person enters a conversation he bring his belief structure with him as a kind of agenda."

Terry Winograd, of M.I.T, was working with a group were building a computer-controlled "hand-eye" machine; the computer could see its environment and manipulate objects in its environment by means of a computer-controlled mechanical arm. Winograd design and coded the software to enable humans by natural language, too instruct the computer, how to manipulate and explain events with respect to the toy world of blocks, in a natural language. "The robot can manipulate toy blocks on a table containing simple objects like a box." The robot could be ask to manipulate the objects, doing such things as building stacks and putting things in a box. It could be questions about the configuration of blocks on the table, about events that were going during the discussion, and it could be told simple facts about the objects which could be stored and used for reasoning later. The conversation goes on within a dynamic framework - "one in which the computer is an active participant, doing things to change his toy world, and discussing them."

This book is a basic philosophical treatment of computing. I think that it should be included as a basic part of any Computer Science / Computer Engineer curriculum in respectable universities, along with Roger Penrose book, The Emperor's new mind, it creats a better understanding of what is human and what is mechanic for all those who need to know it.

Should Computer Science / Engineering freshmen/women in universities know? My answer is YES, in their first year !

I read parts of this book, thinking highly of it. I thought one particular passage from it, as quoted in Gates by Stepehen Manes and Paul Andrews, particulary stood amid the limelight: [t]he computer programmer . . . is a creator of universes for which alone is the lawgiver. . . .No playwright, no stage director, no emperor, however powerful, has ever exercised such absolute authority to arrange a stage of field a battle and to command such unswervingly dutiful actors or troops.

This is perhaps the best book ever written on issues of computer technology and modern life, in the sense that it says a lot of really important things and is also very readable by both lay persons and technical persons. People like Jacques Ellul, Arnold Gehlen et al. have written very important texts in this area, but are much less "accessible". If the truth only counts when it is absorbed by persons, Weizenbaum's book stands out as being engrossing and a pleasure to read, as well as saying what needs to be said. It is very sad that the second edition which was supposed to be out a year or so ago has not appeared. But in no way has 20 years "dated" the present text. _Computer Power and Human Understanding_ explains why we have such problems as Y2K, etc.

While devouring this book, I really felt that I was getting close to, quote unquote, "The Answer." That's how powerful it was on both me and, as I see, some of my fellow reviewers. So much of it has to do with making decisions, and making decisions is an integral part of Soren K's definition of truth. But you have to get at it subjectively, not objectively. There's one part where, let's say, you (the reader) are in prison, and you will get your head chopped off by the guillotine tomorrow. You are afraid, naturally. I, as your friend, can talk to you and say (objectively), "Oh, you're worried about the guillotine tomorrow. You see, it's very simple: you just walk out to the scaffold, put your head down on the slab of wood, making sure to put your neck in the appropriate neck hole; they will cut a rope, the blade of the guillotine will come down, your head will be chopped off, and it will all be over in a minute." You, the subjective decision-maker, do not see it in the same way.

Be warned! The Princeton edition of this book comes in two volumes. Volume 1 is just the body of text to Kierkegaard's book. There is no historical introduction in the first volume, just Kierkegaard's satirical introduction that was intended for the original book. The historical introduction and scholarly apparatus are in the second volume. If the reader does not wish to inquire beyond Kierkegaard's text, he need not worry, the second volume is for the person who did not find Kierkegaard mind numbing enough and sees need to go behind the text. I am one of those kind of people, but you might not be.

This is Kierkegaard's most important work - the real meat of his writings. It is more difficult then most of his works and should be approached with caution, but it is absolutely essential to achieve a full understanding of Kierkegaard. Keep in mind that _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_ was originally written under the pseudonym of Johannes Climacus, the sceptical and pessimistic alter ego of the real Kierkegaard. Not to spoil the surprise, but in reading this book you should remember that much of what is being said is contradictory to Kierkegaard's real beliefs. In my experience reading this book, I only began to realize this gradually. This is because not EVERYTHING in this book is antithetical or diametrically opposed to Kierkegaard's real views; only portions of it are antithetical. Kierkegaard truly engages and challenges the reader by exposing views that make sense at first, but then after letting Climacus get riled up, his rantings and ravings become increasingly illogical and pessimistic. The challenge consists in discovering where the real Kierkegaard leaves off, and where the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus picks up. The reader must constantly be on alert for antithetical and contradictory statements, and must approach this book with a highly critical mindset. The end result is one of the most fantastically thought-provoking, creative, original, and entertaining books you will ever read. By forcing the reader to take this critical approach, Kierkegaard gives us an opportunity to formulate and fortify our individual beliefs in contradistinction to those of Climacus, forcing us to truly think for ourselves. The reader is bombarded with profound philosophical statements which are oten true and sensible, and can be proven consitsent with Kierkegaard's real beliefs. But sandwiched between these logical statements, Climacus will say something so off the wall that the reader must subject these statements to a critical re-evaluation. This is what makes the _Postscript_ such a profoundly thought-provoking and personally enriching experience.

One more thing to consider before you read this book: As I said, this book was written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. To fully understand the inner workings of this character, you must also read _Philosophical Fragments/Johannes Climacus_, which is the precursor to _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_. This first book helps the reader understand the pseudonymous and sometimes antithetical beliefs held by Kierkegaard's neurotic alter-ego. Taken together, the _Johannes Climacus/Philosophical Fragments/ Conlcuding Unscientific Postscript_ series is the be-all end-all philosophical work of the 19th century. It is a monumental achievement of epic proportions and will go down in history as the most important and profound work of literature to come out of Europe during that time period.

Along with Nietzsche's The Gay Science, this book had the most impact on me of any philosophy books I have ever read. For those who find themselves running around in cirles looking for objective proof of this or that, Climacus (Kierkegaard) insists you are just wading out into the sea of life. Take the leap onto 70,000 fathoms of roaring ocean! Live!

After Hegel's reduction of the individual to a cog in the grumbling historical machine, it is refreshing to read of the individual and the individuals concerns. As mentioned, Climacus ridicules objectivity and focuses the reader in on subjective truth, encouraging us to be authentic and take responsiblity for life. Christian or non-Christian alike, this book will challange the reader in many ways. It was a major influence on existentialist and Continental thought for a good reason. Unconditionally recommended.

To begin with, the title is a joke. This is the in keeping with the putative author of the piece. Johannes Climacus (who is named for the Seventh Century Hermit and Monk, St. John Climacus) is a humorist. A humorist, as he will point out, is someone on edge of becoming religious, but is not yet religious and, in fact, may never become religious. That being said, back to the title. "Concluding," as is obvious, implies that SK intended this to be his last book (in a separate declaration published with the book he acknowledges all the previous pseudonyms with the proviso that no one should quote him directly unless it is from a book that bears his name as author and claims that he has no privileged access to the pseudonyms than any other reader). However, as the result of a religious conversion after it's publication, it became the middle child of his authorship, recapitulating all that had come before and pointing forward toward new things yet to be imagined. "Unscientific" is a dig at Hegel. If one wishes to over-simplify one may say that SK's position is Either/Or: Either there is a God and the world actually means something, Or there is no God and the world is absurd, meaningless and accidental. Hegel abolished God and attempted to find meaning in historical process. This is the "science" for which SK has such contempt. For this reason, SK refuses to call himself a philosopher, content to call himself a "poet." If a fraud like Hegel is a philosopher, then he wants no part of the designation. "Postscript" is where the joke comes in. This book is a "Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments." The "Philosophical Fragments" is, therefore, a 100 page book with a 600 page postscript attached (that's the joke ha ha) Of all of SK's books this is my favorite. It is his funniest and either you keep your eye carefully peeled or you will miss a joke (the first time you read it you will miss hundreds of them). And in typical SK fashion the more he jokes the more deadly serious he is (by the end he is claiming the book, in its entirety, is a joke). The central distinction is between our ideas about things and the things themselves. If you have any trouble, there is always Merold Westphal's "Becoming a Self," a good commentary. The only problem is that he probably takes SK more seriously than SK would be comfortable with. That's not necessarily a good thing. You lose too many good jokes in the process.