Division I Books

it is actually 21 dollars plus 6 for shipping, true you do still save money, but you have to print an order form off the website and fax it back. I dont have a fax machine and i dont want to mail an order form so it depends if all that time is worth an extra 8 $.

ASC sells it on their website for $18 plus $9 for ground shipping. That's still less than the lowest price on amazon! Can you say rip-off?

whatever you do not buy this book here.... you can buy it directly from the source, sorry amazon doesn't sell on here but sometimes people with their own old copies sell them and try to make a rip roaring profit... the book is only 18 bucks plus shipping from the ACS.... DO not buy this book please do your self a favor and save 50 bucks... I can't believe this guy is doing this...

I took the ACS examination and I purchased this book for review. I found it quite helpful. Even though I did not ace the exam, there were many reactions that were easier to recognize because I had reveiwed this book. I felt better prepared and did considerably better than fellow classmates who did not have this resource. As has already been mentioned..this book is not easy to find.

I highly recommend this book for review purposes, and I would also keep it in reach for reference.

I can't believe how horribly ridiculous these sellers are. They are trying to sell a book that can be purchased brand new for $18 from ASC themselves. They are trying to sell it for $30, $40, $50...$80 dollars!!!????!!!!! Poor college students beware of these horrible people trying to rip you off. They should all be banned from Amazon.

GOOD BOOK WITH THE HISTORY OF THE ss DIVISIONS, HAVE GOOD DRAWINGS OF THE VEHICLES USED.

This book is a good general reference to the Waffen-SS. It deals with all the divisions albeit in a breif way. The illustrations are good as are the organisational tables. More of a general reference then a vehicle identification guide, but still worth the money.

This book gives a brief history of the Waffen-SS Divisions of WW II, with very good illustrations and pictures. A good book for general information, but not alot of detail on any one division.

I would recommend this book for someone looking for some easy reading on the Waffen-SS.

I didn't mind the first volume on the Panzer Divisions of this 3 part set but by the time this one has come out I think they have run out of colour plates. This is meant to be a vehicle guide but there are only so many times I can see the same Flak or Pak gun reprinted and presented as belonging to different divisions. If you're a keen reader of German armour who'll easily pick up the many glaring mistakes such as the GD Panther 01 which is printed a number of times, the 251/9 1144 which was a 2SS vehicle presented belonging to more than one division. Surely they could have done more colour plates with vehicles from the more photograhped divisions. I appreciate it would be virtually impossible to get an accurate photo from each division but to just make it up seems a bit lazy. I've seen the same trucks, kubelwagens, Pak guns, bikes through the whole series and that's just either laziness or poor editing. I think I have seen the same 250/9 and 251/9 from 19 Panzer Division at Kursk printed at least half a dozen times through the whole series and that's bad. If these are your first books on german armour ok, but there are better ones out there and these will eventually end up in the bottom of your pile never to be read again. sorry Mr Bishop

This book isn't sure what it wants to be. It has a little on Waffen SS divisional history, a mix of German vehicles showing camoflouge patterns and a little about unit organization. Some pages just show a picture of the same six tanks and a note what size of a unit had six tanks which doesn't add anything to the book. It could have been a book on the SS divisions, vehicle camoflouge or unit organization but mixing these all together in small amounts makes for a disappointing book.

I like the books from Heimdal, even I can not read french. Buying this book in hope to find some nice AFV arms etc. photos I was a little bit despleast about it. Most photos showing staged soldiers photos.

Mayby a good book if you are able to read the french text.

The creation of the calculus brought with it some obvious foundational issues (chapter 1). There were different ways in which these could be addressed since, basically, the calculus stood on two legs: infinitesimals and power series. Since Manheim is aiming for point set topology, he emphasises infinitesimals and plays down power series, for example trying to put limit formalism in the mouth of D'Alembert (section 2.1) when the quotations from his works are nothing but fairly trivial elaborations on Newtonian-Leibnizian concepts. In fact, despite Manheim's wishes, it was power series that attracted the most attention. This makes perfect sense. On the one hand careless manipulation of power series can obviously lead to false results while infinitesimals work flawlessly, being open for attack only on metamathematical grounds. On the other hand power series belong to the domain of algebra and are thus in a way more tangible than infinitesimals. So one will be tempted to base the entire calculus on power series, and we see such attempts by Landen (section 2.2) and Lagrange (section 2.3), but for this to work one would need a much more thorough understanding of power series, which is why we see Gauss (section 2.4) deriving precise convergence criteria for the hypergeometric series F(a,b,c,x), which has lots of common functions as spacial cases, e.g. sin(x)=xF(k,k',3/2,-x^2/4kk') for infinitely large k, k'. Cauchy attempted a comprehensive approach to the foundations of the calculus (section 2.5). Manheim is quite sympathetic to this program, but it is also clear that it was very flawed not only on retrospective grounds but also since it produced false theorems, e.g. the famous theorem on the continuity of a series which was disproved by Abel's counterexample (Fourier expansion of x/2 on [-pi,pi]) and the theorem that a function of two variables is continuous if it is continuous in each separately (cf. e.g. (xy)/(x^2+y^2) at the origin). In chapter 3 we study the impact of trigonometric series on researches on the foundations of analysis. The equation for the vibrating string (and later heat propagation) is solved in general by trigonometric series, and so to find the solution for a given initial shape y(x) of the string we must find the trigonometric series for y(x). The question arises how arbitrary y(x) can be for the series expansion to work. This thorny issue was tackled unsuccessfully by Cauchy, more successfully by Dirichlet, and further by Riemann who saw that since the Fourier coefficients are given by integration a thorough investigation of the integral concept would be rewarding. Chapter 4 is very poor. It is called "Arithmetization of analysis", but it deals almost exclusively with pathological functions and foundations of the reals. Manheim subscribes to the standard interpretation that "the continuous but non-differentiable function of Weierstrass precipitated a crisis" which meant that "the mathematical world ... was finally forced to surrender all faith in geometric intuition" (p. 76). Essentially no proof whatsoever is offered in support of this interpretation. In fact, once again, Manheim's own evidence (e.g. the fact that Bolzano, Riemann and Weierstrass were in possession of such functions without publishing) point to the opposite conclusion. Chapter 5 treats Cantor's work. The importance of uniform convergence had now been established; in particular, Weierstrass had proved that a uniformly convergent series may be integrated term by term. This has implications for the question of uniqueness of Fourier series: suppose a function has two uniformly convergent trigonometric series representations f,g; then it follows immediately by term by term integration that f-g has all coefficients equal to 0, so f=g. However, uniqueness without uniform convergence--or, equivalently, that there is no trigonometric series for f(x)=0 with nonzero coefficients--is harder and was only proved with great effort by Cantor. He then extended this theorem to cases where f(x) is nonzero at some exceptional points; in fact, f(x) could differ from zero at infinitely many points, and Cantor captured a large class of possible such sets with his notion of derived set. The step to study infinite sets in themselves was not far. Chapter 6 on general point set topology is poor for several reasons. It is more concerned with assigning credit for this or that step on the "correct" path to point set topology than describing the growth of mathematical ideas. Also, except for a few very vague allusions to functional analysis, it skips the motivations that led people to study point sets. It may be a legitimate opinion that "generalizations rather than the piecemeal extensions ... serve the unifying purpose of mathematical inquiry" (p. 116), but one should not pretend to tell the story of "the genesis" of a concept when imposing this point of view retrospectively.

Desha's biographical essay on Kamehameha the First follows all the others I have read on this important historical figure, the first to unify all the Hawaiian islands under one rule. This author has one great idea in mind---to create in the mind of his native Hawaiian readers pride in the accomplishments of the great king. This idea is certainly in line with the goals of the school whose press published the work ,and so is appropriate. Other authors of biographical essays on Kamehameha seemed to have other goals in mind, such as promoting the king as the greatest of the Hawaiian warriors.
What is missing, however, from all the works published are the elements of a comprehensive biography of Kamehameha, as opposed to biographical essays such as Desha's. What would be most valuable in a biography would a set of maps on his wars, a list of key advisors, period illustrations, etc.-all of which are missing in Desha's work.
This reviewer, while admiring Desha's devotion to the Hawaiian people, is still looking for the publication of a comprehensive biography of Kamehameha.

This book was originally four lectures delivered by Charles A. Beard at Amherst College in 1916. The fourth lecture was revised when the book originally appeared in 1922, to try to keep up with events. If anything, the relationship between economic interests and the ability of governments to reflect the general will of the governed suffered an agonizing setback after World War One, when constitutions which provided universal suffrage, soon to include women in many countries, were abrogated by fascist forms of totalitarian political control leading up to World War Two. In 1945 a long chapter was added to attempt to relate events to that point to our understanding of the political possibilities which still remain open to those who might support some new constitutions.

Economics used to be much more stable than governments, and the early philosophers who had opinions on the role of the governed in systems of government assumed that the components of the system would represent various economic interests. Aristotle gets credit as ` "the father of political science" because he took it out of the sphere of utopian idealism where Plato left it and placed it on the strong foundation of natural history.' (pp. 4-5). For an ideal society, even then, "A city ought to be composed, as far as possible, of equals and similars; and these are generally the middle classes." (p. 20). A father of the United States Constitution, James Madison, wrote in Number Ten of the Federalist, on `the protection of the different and unequal faculties of men for acquiring property. "From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results." ' (pp. 16-17).

There is a lot to be said for systems which can combine representatives of different interests and produce results which would be considered satisfactory to a majority. The form of political theory tending to demand this result most strongly is Rousseau's SOCIAL CONTRACT, which proposed giving a majority the power to impose "the general will." (p. 51). The French Revolution is considered an example of the inability of a vast number of people with no economic interests to run a society.

"Then followed the Revolution of violence and terror in which radical readers inflamed the disenfranchised by appeals to the gospel of Rousseau and to the proclamations of the bourgeois. To save themselves the latter had to resort to that other great source of authority, the sword. This instrument was wielded by Napoleon Bonaparte, a man who understood the relation of property to political power, and who, through his constitutions based on checks and balances, gave stability to bourgeois institutions." (p. 55). We still have some terror and proclamations of the bourgeois, but there seems to be little evidence than anyone is about to write a constitution with the checks and balances that can defeat the gospel that inspires those who are no longer fired up with zeal by the doctrines of Rousseau.

The United States was in a *nice country, if you can get it* category at the time of the American Revolution, with fundamental equality through land ownership available to those who were not involved in productive activities or being enslaved. Jefferson's choice of "the free-and-equal doctrine" (p. 58) was easier to proclaim in America because "There was no established clergy here. There was no titled aristocracy." (p. 57). Those who pictured themselves governing themselves in America had no reason to worry that "Jefferson, while justifying the revolt against George III, in fact challenged the rule of property which was guaranteed by the state constitutions drafted by his fellow revolutionists in that very epoch." (pp. 57-58).

This book is small, but there is some question if the simplicity with which it begins can lead to any enlightenment in the face of the complexity which we face. Chapter IV, The Contradiction and the Outcome (pp. 62-70), only leads to "In other words, there is no rest for mankind, no final solution of eternal contradictions." That idea comes from 1922, shortly before "No less drastic than its consequences has been a transformation in the functions of government, particularly in those which call for wholesale intervention in economic operations." (p. 71). Looking back in the spring of 1945 might have been more comforting than facing the end of 2003 with economic sanctions still in force against some political regimes which displease the global superpower more than any form of economic activity or illegal substance ever will. But the gross distortions of political economics in this book hardly extends beyond the restrictions which communism imposed on itself.

The first page of Chapter V, Economics and Politics in Our Revolutionary Age, mentions Lenin and Trotsky, "the early leaders of the Russian revolution." (p. 71). The problem they faced, representing a party which predated the vanguard of the economic system they intended to run, seems similar to the United States trying to establish a constitution for Iraq, a country in which people have interests which are not economic, the lack of security there now extending beyond the concern for property rights. Beard was even fearful. "But military men have, necessarily, a set of values which differ in many respects from civilian values; and the military interests, enlarged by universal conscription, will constitute a powerful influence in American affairs, with all that may involve amid the domestic and foreign contingencies of coming ages." (pp. 102-103). It is not likely that Beard was then worried about how long it might be before Iraqis act like civilians. Some might be wondering how long it will be before electricity will even allow economic activity.

First, let me clarify my passion for college football: I visit the websites of other teams just to learn their gameday traditions, I follow the stories and histories that make every Saturday game a 'big game,' -heck, I play college video games to "virtually" visit the 117 stadiums that are out there. So when I bought a book calling itself "An Illustrated Guide" to college stadiums, I expect to read a little more than technical data and some very mediocre B&W photos. This book seems slapped together with information that any halfway intellegent fan could look up on the internet (with color photos no less). Adding an extra layer of insult, the book, although published in 2000, still has stadium pictures that are more than several years out of date (i.e. stadiums built pre-1998 are still shown in their "model" phase).

College Football Fan and Fanatics: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste your money on this book. Just look up the info on a search engine, you'll get way more information in a much nicer package (or you could buy the latest college football video game and see them all in virtual form). Anyway would be better than this book.

First, let me clarify my passion for college football: I visit the websites of other teams just to learn their gameday traditions, I follow the stories and histories that make every Saturday game a 'big game,' -heck, I play college video games to "virtually" visit the 117 stadiums that are out there. So when I bought a book calling itself "An Illustrated Guide" to college stadiums, I expect to read a little more than technical data and some very mediocre B&W photos. This book seems slapped together with information that any halfway intellegent fan could look up on the internet (with color photos no less). Adding an extra layer of insult, the book, although published in 2000, still has stadium pictures that are more than several years out of date (i.e. stadiums built pre-1998 are still shown in their "model" phase).

College Football Fan and Fanatics: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT waste your money on this book. Just look up the info on a search engine, you'll get way more information in a much nicer package (or you could buy the latest college football video game and see them all in virtual form). Anyway would be better than this book.

This book is an information packed encyclopedia for anyone who is interested in architecture and stadiums, or for anyone who just likes college football. 110 stadiums in lively colorful pictures and surrounded with facts such as capacity, dates, the team, the mascot, information about stadium renovations, and little unique facts that people don't ususlly realize. A great book. Extremely detailed. You can sit and just marvel at the pictures for hours. This is a book not to pass by. There are not many about college stadiums, and this one is the best you will find.

Another review for this book contends that you can "marvel at the pictures for hours." Absolutely correct. You can marvel at how poor the picture quality is. You can marvel at the terrible grade of paper used. Mostly, you can marvel at the fact that someone actually deemed this worth publishing.

i cannot believe this article made it to print. absolutely terrible. who writes this stuff!!!??? probably someone with too much time and money and not a shred of athletic knowledge. not worth the paper it's printed on.

I ordinarily do not review other books, for a variety of reasons. However, having written what are arguably the two best books available on the Lost Battalion and, having spent the last ten years researching the LB and making it my life's work, I consider myself uniquely adroit to review this particular work. Therefore, I feel it would be particularly remiss of me not to do so.
That said, I cannot, in good conscience, let this abysmal project by Michael Clodfelter be presented to the public without as stern a warning as I am able to muster. Simply put, this book is the single worst retelling of a given assortment of the rumors and myths concerning the Lost Battalion as I can remember in recent memory. Compounding this is the clear fact that the author simply cannot write worth a damn. Not only does Mr. Clodfelter simply retell the work of others - in a mind-numbingly poor style - but he does so with an apparent eye toward accepting unsubstantiated information as fact. Anyone that has ever read one of the spate of books written especially for young teenagers during the 1950's and 60's must agree that the large majority of the dialog in these books was never meant to be taken as being literally what was said, but instead as more illustrative of the `character' of a situation. Yet Clodfelter has chosen to use as literal dialog taken from one of these, Werstein's 1966 teenage `The Lost Battalion', when it clearly was never meant to be. This detrimental use of "Golly gee, Sir" style pap is only mildly propped up by some documented dialog that the author dug out of other books as well as the National Archives - which is virtually the only research that Clodfelter can claim as his own.
Worse, the author engages in the highest cardinal sin of historical reporting style writing - he presents supposition as fact, with absolutely nothing but his own imagination to back up what he has presented. Repeatedly, we are subjected to supposition which we are expected to take as the gospel truth, when there is absolutely no evidence presented by the author that what he writes can be backed up by anything other than it is what the author speculates to have been. Basically, these parts come from the author's own imagination then, and are little more than illustrative untruths - perhaps created to better demonstrate a point, but yet an untruth nonetheless and passed off as fact. This is simply reprehensible and unforgivable.
Further, Clodfelter simply stands on the shoulders of other's work, as far as the LB is concerned. His primary sources are the partly flawed 1938 classic, `The Lost Battalion', and the narrow viewed 2005, `Five Days in October'. He additionally quotes a few magazine articles and two monographs from the 1920's, but beyond some light digging through a couple select boxes of archival records, he produces no real research of his own. He instead takes what was written before him (or passed as fact before him) as gospel - without ever once checking those facts or attempting to provide new or distinctively unique information. The result is yet another retelling of a string of unending rumors, myths, and legends of misinformation and half-truths, passed off as fact, that I and others have worked hard to try to correct over the last several years.
And despite what the McFarland Press website claims and the photographs in the book might lead a reader to believe, it is quite obvious that Clodfelter did little during his trip to the Charlevaux Ravine other than to walk down the hillside, look around a bit, and then walk back up. His descriptions of the contour of the land, what can and cannot be seen from a series of points, as well as his sense of direction, indicate plainly he has no true concept of the area. He does not know many of the names of the important geographic points indicative to the incident, nor does he understand the distances involved. This makes for serious confusion concerning the geographic aspects of the story.
Compounding all of this is the dreadful writing. All writers use a thesaurus, but that does NOT mean it should be used to find the most obscure descriptive words possible. Doing so merely shows the writer to be a poor one trying to make himself sound better than he actually is. So it is with Clodfelter. Further, his use of stupid euphemisms, as well as inane descriptions and boring commentary of his own opinions, mixed with modern jargon meant to sound period (which it clearly is not), make for extremely irritating reading. There is a strong sense that he is trying to `identify' with his reader, but the poor writing fails the effect and the effort comes off as ignorant and buffoonish. The book took longer to read than it should have because of this regressive and elementary school style-less writing, as I put it down repeatedly in exasperation.
Additionally, the book is horribly overpriced (beautiful hardcover notwithstanding) at a short 256 pages, of which the entire first chapter is the author's own speculative nonsense that adds nothing to the story. McFarland Press should be ashamed of itself for allowing such a shoddy product to pass into public hands bearing its name, and the editor of this particular volume should hang his head.
The one bright spot of the book might have been the statistical analysis. The author shows a real affection for numbers - provided he has the correct raw data to work with. However, Clodfelter's lack of hard-core research is revealed in his statistics concerning the Lost Battalion, where he - yet again - fails.

I sadly condemn this book, which I had actually looked forward to for some time. Instead, I feel cheated and angry, and wish I could get my money back.


Lost Battalion historian and author Robert J. Laplander

Lame