Art Against War: Four Hundred Years of Protest in Art

Book Description

This is a collection of highly engaging and provocative essays by top scholars in the increasingly interrelated fields of Philosophy, Film Studies, and Communication Arts that deal with the epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and genre dynamics of horror cinema past and present, reveals that our fascination with horror cinema, and the pleasure we take in it, is in the end simply a natural extension of a philosopher's inclination to wonder. Contributors include Curtis Bowman, No'l Carroll, Elizabeth Cowie, Angela Curran, Cynthia Freeland, Michael Grant, Matt Hills, Deborah Knight, George McKnight, Ken Mogg, Aaron Smuts, Robert C. Solomon, and J.P. Telotte.

Book Description

Although Verdi began sketching the music for Il corsaro in 1846, a lengthy illness forced him to postpone further work. He completed the score in early 1848, but the revolutions of that year delayed its first performance. When it finally premiered on October 25 at the Teatro Grande of Trieste, Verdi was in Paris and did not participate as usual in the production, which was poorly received. Though more successful in subsequent stagings, Il corsaro was soon eclipsed by the operas of the noted "trilogy" and fell from the repertory.

The full score of Il corsaro as well as recent revivals, reveal the work to be far more rewarding than even Verdi himself would later admit. This edition offers for the first time a paperback derived from the definitive full score.

Average customer rating:

A peek inside the chess world

Interesting at times, but it doesn't quite satisfy

you don't have to like chess to love this book

Great Book

The weird underbelly of an intellectual pastime

The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World's Oldest Game
J. C. Hallman
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Chess | Board Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Entertainment Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 031233396X
Release Date: 2004-10-14

Book Description

In the tiny Russian province of Kalmykia, obsession with chess has reached new heights. Its leader, a charismatic and eccentric millionaire/ex--car salesman named Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a former chess prodigy and the most recent president of FIDE, the world's controlling chess body. Despite credible allegations of his involvement in drug running, embezzlement, and murder, the impoverished Kalmykian people have rallied around their leader's obsession---chess is played on Kalmykian prime-time television and is compulsory in Kalmykian schools. In addition, Kalmyk women have been known to alter their traditional costumes of pillbox hats and satin gowns to include chessboard-patterned sashes.The Chess Artist is both an intellectual journey and first-rate travel writing dedicated to the love of chess and all of its related oddities, writer and chess enthusiast J. C. Hallman explores the obsessive hold chess exerts on its followers by examining the history and evolution of the game and the people who dedicate their lives to it. Together with his friend Glenn Umstead, an African-American chessmaster who is arguably as chess obsessed as Ilyumzhinov, Hallman tours New York City's legendary chess district, crashes a Princeton Math Department game party, challenges a convicted murderer to a chess match in prison, and travels to Kalmykia, where they are confronted with members of the Russian intelligence service, beautiful translators who may be spies, seven-year-old chess prodigies, and the sad blight of a land struggling toward capitalism. In the tradition of The Professor and the Madman, Longitude, and The Orchid Thief, Hallman transforms an obsessive quest for obscure things into a compulsively readable and entertaining weaving of travelogue, journalism, and chess history.

Customer Reviews:

A peek inside the chess world.......2007-06-22

Chess players can be very intriguing. At the highest levels, it is difficult to imagine what they go through and why they do it. It is a competitive obsession.
The reader is led through the world of a competitive chess player with some great insights of the motivation and culture in which a chess player immerses himself/herself.

Interesting at times, but it doesn't quite satisfy.......2007-04-29

The Chess Artist contains some interesting observations about the game, and the occasional worthwhile excursus, but it never quite closes in on an interesting story. This may be because so much of it is built on intentionally arbitrary encounters, events seemly engineered to generate something to write about (e.g. chess games played in prisons, or among a museum's Duchamp collection). I enjoyed it, and I learned something, but I had hoped for more.

you don't have to like chess to love this book.......2006-12-12

even if you don't like chess, this book is interesting enough for you to enjoy. it's part travel narrative, part outsiders look into the world of chess. the book is well written, extremely interesting, and is informative as well as entertaining. i like chess, so i enjoyed it, but i lent it to someone who doesn't like chess, and she enjoyed it just as much. hallman paints a detailed picture of chess city in the former soviet union, as well as personalities of people who play chess. for me, the best part was his description of the crazy subculture and chess playing in the park in NYC as well as the "skittles room" of the tournaments. i wish there were more books about chess like this one. great book, definately recommended.

Great Book.......2006-11-19

This is a great read even if you hate chess,this by far my favorite book about a chess player or players( I have read 2 others ,see my reviews)I would like to read a sequel to it.I was captivated by, and enthralled with this book!Hallman is a great writer, please write more books on chess players,maybe follow Nakamura and write about it!.

The weird underbelly of an intellectual pastime.......2006-09-21

J.C. Hallman's The Chess Artist is structured around a trip that the author took with his friend Glenn, the chess player of the book's title, to Kalmykia, a crumbling Russian Republic on the northwest shore of the Caspian Sea. Hallman was interested in interviewing Kalmykia's despotic president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a former chess prodigy and the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), who was using chess "as a tool to unify and mollify his people." (He had made chess instruction compulsory in schools, for example.) Woven around the story of their journey are chapters on chess history--its development and geographical migration across a thousand years, the history of its individual pieces--and Hallman's further adventures with Glenn: marathon chess sessions over the internet, formal chess competitions, blindfolded chess and speed chess, chess played in prison and in Princeton, and the various characters they ran across on their adventures--child prodigies and the denizens of Dickensian chess shops and the down-and-out chess hustlers of New York's Washington Square Park.

Part travelogue, then, and part history, Hallman's book is also an exploration of both the international subculture of competitive chess and of his traveling companion. For most of the period covered by the book, Glenn was ranked as a chess master--exceptionally good but well below the grandmasters who form the true elite of the chess world. Glenn is an enigmatic character. A germophobic 39-year-old with a genius for the game and poor grammar, he is apparently incapable of consistently making smart decisions in the real world. Divorced and perpetually broke, almost childish at times, his friendship seems to be to a great extent a burden. Hallman has a tendency, actually, to write about Glenn as if he were a sort of lab animal, whose mannerisms and mode of play are alike under scrutiny.

"He shrugged and performed a gesture that was new to me, opening his palms suddenly and at the same time contorting his face to an expression of exaggerated surprise."

Annoying and strange, given to marking promising relationships with ceremonial whistling, Glenn is also a sad figure, a broken man "spiraling toward nothingness, a waste of twenty years of effort and energy." One wonders what Glenn thought of his presentation in the book.

The Chess Artist is very well researched and thick with information. And it is punctuated by some truly wonderful, sometimes poetic writing:

"The train was all lullaby, the gyroscopic jostle of the tracks, the steady click of the wheels like the eighth notes of some slower melody, the stars stationary out the small window, all of it a lull of travel nostalgia, a cradle or warm womb, Glenn and I like twins incubating in that cramped space."

In Kalmykia Hallman is served "a genocide of crayfish"; in a prison cafeteria the fare is instead "hockey pucks of meat like the leftover scrapings of a botched autopsy." One chess player they observe has the "eyebrows of a demon," while another is "a nondescript man who fit the profile of a serial killer--short, well-groomed, quiet, and very dangerous."

Hallman's writing is riddled with such evocative descriptions. This is both wonderful and, surprisingly perhaps, problematic: the problem is that Hallman tends to lavish his well-written descriptions on nearly every minor character who crosses his path, so that the reader is met with too much information. Hallman's flair is obvious. But after a time, the personalities in the book tend to blend together.

It is tempting to say that Hallman does for chess what Stefan Fatsis does for Scrabble in his book Word Freak, exposing the weird underbelly of an intellectual pastime, the obsessives who sacrifice sleep and hygiene over their chosen game. Hallman's book, though, is a more serious and more difficult read. Presumably, the more familiar a reader is with chess, the more he will get out of the book. I myself do not play, but I was able to understand and appreciate, at least on some level, most of what the author had to say. Non-chess players should not be afraid of diving in.

Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

Book Description

If you’re like most people, you want to be sure that, once you’ve passed on, no more of your property and money will be lost to the government than is absolutely necessary. You want to know that you’ll be leaving your heirs your assets and not your debts. You want to be absolutely certain that your will is ship-shape, your insurance policies are structured properly, and that every conceivable hole in your estate plan has been filled. And most of all, you’d like to do all of this without driving yourself crazy trying to make sense of the complicated jargon, jumble of paperwork, and welter of state and federal laws involved in the estate planning process.

Written by two estate planning pros, this simple, easy-to-use guide takes the pain out of planning for your ultimate financial future. In plain English, the authors walk you step-by-step through everything you need to know to:

Put your estate into order
Minimize estate taxes
Write a proper will
Deal with probate
Set up trusts
Make sure your insurance policies are structured properly
Plan for special situations, like becoming incompetent and pet care
Craft a solid estate plan and keep it up-to-date

Don’t leave the final disposition of your estate up to chance and the whims of bureaucrats. Estate Planning For Dummies gives you the complete lowdown on:

Figuring out what you're really worth
Mastering the basics of wills and probate
Using will substitutes and dodging probate taxes
Setting up protective trusts, charitable trusts, living trusts and more
Making sense of state and federal inheritance taxes
Avoiding the generation skipping transfer tax
Minimizing all your estate-related taxes
Estate planning for family businesses
Creating a comprehensive estate plan

Straightforward, reader-friendly, easy-to-use, Estate Planning For Dummies is the ultimate guide to planning your family’s future.

Customer Reviews:

Not of value to me..........2007-01-09

I purchased the Willmaker Plus CD. The accompanying manual looked a bit thin so I ordered Estate Planning for Dummies to read before getting down to the Willmaker manual and program. Frankly, it was a waste of time and money, as the Willmaker manual and the on-screen help was more concise and better written. I've been happy with several Dummies books, but this isn't one of them.

You would be a dummie to buy this book........2006-06-22

Open this book and you will see that it is formatted and reads like every other textbook you have read since college. The writing makes no attempt to reduce the complexities of the subject. It simply reiterates all the language you never understood in the first place. As the author of "Everything A Baby Boomer Should Know -- An Insider's Guide to Estate Planning," I suggest you compare my book which honestly and easily explains the tools of the probate system, to this book which is impossible to understand if you have no background on the subject.

Its okay but I wanted more-specific information.......2006-01-09

This book gives you general information about Estate Planning but It left me wanting more. I was surprise that it didnt mention anything about AB trust. I wish it would have given the upside and donwnside to each options of wills or trust.

I would have settled for a checklist what to ask your lawyer or accountant considering that he kept harping of always ask your lawyer. Although I see the lawyer point, if I was meeting with a lawyer I would have not wasted 20 dollars and change to read the book.
Many who read books like Dummies want to avoid paying thousands of dollars to a lawyer or as I mention , and if you want me to ask my lawyer at least give me very specific checklist of questions.

If you could, buy it at a discount or borrow it from the library. I probably sell mine on Ebay.

They weren't kidding when they said "for dummies".......2005-04-28

I didn't find this book helpful at all. It just barely skims the surface, and usually concludes with "make sure you talk to your accountant/attorney/estate planner." If I intended to talk to all those folks, I wouldn't waste my time reading this book in the first place. Most of what this book covers could be learned by snooping around the web - and in many cases you can learn more that way. It defines the terminology, but even that is often inadequate. I suggest you check this book out from the local library, and then if you find it to be a useful resource go ahead and buy it. I wish I had done that - I don't feel this book has enough information to really qualify as a reference book.

Are we that dumb?.......2005-02-12

I thought the tone of this book was really patronizing (okay yeah I know it's for 'dummies' but does it need to keep reminding you of that fact constantly?). It's repetitive and ultimately tells you to consult an estate planner anyway--so forget using it to save money to plan your own estate. For a much more directly useful guide to estate planning (with forms you can fill out on a cd-rom), I highly recommend Quicken's Willmaker Plus. You get all the same information as in this book, plus more, and in a much less annoying style. And since it includes the forms for the key documents you need to prepare (e.g., simple will, durable power of attorney, etc.), you may be able to plan your own estate yourself (dummy or not).

Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance))

Average customer rating:

Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies (For Dummies (Business & Personal Finance))
Peter Conti , and Peter Harris
Manufacturer: For Dummies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Investments | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0470174919

Book Description

A friendly guide for investors who want to jump into commercial real estate

Commercial Real Estate Investing for Dummies offers investment options for any investor looking to make the leap to commercial properties. Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies serves as both an overview of how to break into the business and as a guide to the different aspects of commercial real estate--from analyzing and appraising to location and financing. It covers all the ins and outs of the commercial real estate market, from office buildings to shopping centers to hotels, offering practical advice on how to make better decisions when it comes to selecting a potential investment property and maximizing investment potential.

Peter Conti (Annapolis, MD) is the author of several successful books on real estate investing, including Buying Real Estate Without Cash or Credit (978-0-471-72831-3). Peter went from auto mechanic to self-made millionaire in three and a half years by tapping into the power of commercial and residential real estate. He has mentored thousands of investors teaching them how to invest in apartment buildings, shopping centers, office buildings, warehouses, and land development projects. Peter Harris (San Francisco, CA) left the corporate world in 2004 to pursue full-time his passion for real estate investing and teaching others how to do the same. He continues to build a portfolio of commercial and residential investment properties and imparts his knowledge to clients across the country.

Average customer rating:
Wills and Estates for Canadians for Dummies
Margaret Kerr , and JoAnn Kurtz
Manufacturer: For Dummies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Estate Planning | Personal Finance | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Consumer Law | Business | Law | Subjects | Books
General | Law | Subjects | Books
Wills | Practical Guides | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1894413172

Book Description

Estate planning resources to help you put your affairs in order.

Leave what matters to those who matter with this smart, sensible guide.

This book is your one-stop reference for all aspects of estate planning. From determining how taxes affect your estate to choosing a lawyer to help you write your will, it's all explained in easy-to-understand terms. Tackle difficult topics with this savvy, helpful guide and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing that those you care about are looked after for the long term.

All this on the bonus CD-ROM

AOL Canada 6.0
Interactive financial planning software from Scotiabank
Estate planning checklists, worksheets, and more

Discover how to:

Craft your ideal will
Create an estate plan
Make the most of a lawyer's services
Increase the value of your estate
Minimize estate taxes

Retirement & Estate Planning for Dummies

Average customer rating:

Retirement & Estate Planning for Dummies
Eric Tyson
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc (Computers)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0764550608

Customer Reviews:

heartbreaking tale that needed to be told.......2007-05-28

We know it happened; many of us have read books by others on the same subject--and yet it is hard to believe what went on. People gassed and tossed into ovens (even though some weren't even completely dead...) Then you've got your so-called Dr. Mengele who performed castrations on patients (male as well as female) without anesthetics. It goes on. It's gut-churning, but needs to be read. Because if we don't read about what happened, and if we don't see films about it--not only to honor all the innocent who were murdered (six million of the Jewish faith, and another six million non-Jewish), but as a reminder to remain vigil, keep alert...because you've got wannabe little Hitler jerks all over the place who'd love to do a re-peat of what their sorry and confused, not to mention mentally imbalanced "hero" set out to accomplish back in the 1940s--and, thankfully failed.

Makes you wonder what Olga Lengyel's life was like after she survived her ordeal. How do you go on, knowing that your husband, your two kids and both of your parents were senselessly slaughtered? How was she able to endure?

I read somewhere that she died a few years back. Not much else about her on the internet.
All I can say is read the book--and pass it on to someone else.

R.I.P.

No Nonsense, Articulate and to the point, historical view of Auschwitz.......2007-03-29

An accurate reference of the history of one persons life and the atrocity of the Nazi, Auschwitz death camp. One can only hope that this book remains in the public eye so that this kind of history is never repeated. We need to pass on this kind of information to future generations.

I have read several other books in reference to the Holocaust and what is different about this book is the matter of fact way the author dealt with the issues. I am not in any way critical of this author or her method of writing.(She did a wonderful job) I am simply saying that she does stay with the issues at hand and does not offer much in regard to a personal reflection of herself or her family.(She does respect the medical aspect of confidentiality) From the standpoint of a person who obviously was educated and cared for the well being of mankind, this had to be a difficult task for this author, to write this book. Consequently from a historical and reference standpoint this book tells the story and succeeds in relating to the reader the atrocities of Auschwitz. This is a must read for anyone who values life and questions the evil capabilities of mankind. A follow-up to this book would be to read: Auschwitz by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli. These two books and the authors will pretty much sum up the difference in professionals, their conduct in difficult situations, and the story of death at Auschwitz.

Completely Haunting.......2005-10-18

I actually stumbled upon this book because it was referenced in "A Death in Vienna" by Daniel Silva (his fictional spy novels involving a character Gabriel Allon mostly had a holocaust theme). After reading Five Chimneys there was no question in my mind why Albert Einstein praised this book as such an important work. Olga Lengyel's horrific and heartwrenching tale filled me in on so much I did not know about the Nazi death camps - including the fact that many people who were neither Jews nor minorities were sent there "just because." The book was very emotionally draining (especially when Lengyel talks about what happened to pregnant women and the babies they delivered) but the book left me completely changed. The unimaginable courage and hope that Lengyel and other prisoners conveyed was a tribute to the human spirit.

In our daily quest to get more money, drive a bigger car, buy a better house - we forget the reality of how little we really need to be human beings. This book will be required reading for my children when they are older. I am completely humbled and grateful to Ms. Lengyel for her ability to replicate such painful experiences into this book.

Gripping tale of the Holocaust!.......2005-06-22

Olga Lengyel has written the most graphic, horrifying look at the holocaust I have read.
Olga was an uppermiddle class wife with a degree in the medical sciences. She was married to a doctor who was arrested by the Germans. She felt it was best to stay with her husband and was lulled by the Germans into thinking that she would be fine if she accompanied him. So she, her parents and children followed her husband only to discover that they were not to join him but were sent to a concentration camp.
At the camp an unwitting Olga made the mistake of telling the Germans her son was under 12. Though he was large and could pass for over 12, Olga thought he would be treated in a lenient manner due to his age. Little did she know older and young people were almost immediately put to death. If the loss of her parents, her children and not knowing what had happened to her husband were not enough Olga had to endure the mental and physical trials of the camp.
Those who were not put to death were put to work in the most menial tasks under the most horrible conditions.
Olga leaves nothing to the imagination. Here you will find the most graphic details of mans inhumanity to man. Naked roll calls while shivering for hours exposed to the elements, being examined everywhere when entering the camp, having all body hair clipped off, using the same bucket to eliminate in and eat from, the sex at the camp, the cruelness of the officers and of fellow campmates who were trying to save themselves, the things some women would do for a crust of bread, the smell of the camp, the beatings....Olga spares no detail.
It is not for the weak of stomach. You will feel the despair and wonder how man could ever be so cruel and pray that this never ever happens again.

"It must never be allowed to happen again!".......2005-06-02

Olga Lengyel's story is extraordinarily heartbreaking and powerful, but I think the book would have been even more effective and much easier to read if she had told her entire story from beginning to end in order instead of jumping around so much.

That small complaint aside this book should still be mandatory reading by anybody who has at least a little bit of humanity in them. Be warned though, Olga does not sugarcoat anything. I had to stop reading on more than one occasion cause I felt sick or thought I was going to cry.

Also read "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski.

Average customer rating:

AN AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR REMEMBERS...
hell on earth
An account of a woman who lead her family to Auschwitz

Five Chimneys, the Story of Auschwitz
Olga Lengyel
Manufacturer: Howard Fertig
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Holocaust | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Hungary | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

AN AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR REMEMBERS..........2005-02-24

This is the story of a woman who spent about seven months in Auschwitz and survived to tell the tale. She wrote this book shortly after her ordeal, while her horrific experience was still fresh in her mind. It was definitely a mind numbing, life changing experience, as it saw the loss of her entire family, her parents, her children, and her husband. It should be noted that none of them, including Olga, were Jews.

Olga Lengyel lived an upper-middle class existence in Transylvania, in the capital city of Cluj. Her husband, Dr. Miklos Lengyel, was a Berlin trained medical doctor and the director of a private hospital that he had built shortly before the onset of World War II. Olga had also studied medicine and was qualified to be a surgical assistant. She and her husband had two young sons. They were all surviving the war as best they could, with Germans an occupying force. They even had a German soldier billeted with them for a time.

Olga had begun to hear disturbing things about what the Germans were doing in occupied territories, but had discounted it. She felt that Germany, a country that had contributed so much culturally to the world, could not be culpable of some of the atrocities of which she was hearing. She felt the stories that she was hearing were too fantastical to be believable. Then her husband came under the cross-hairs of the Nazis, accused of having his hospital boycott pharmaceuticals made by the German Bayer Company. This was the beginning of the end for the Lengyel family. Shortly thereafter in May of 1944, he was ordered to be deported to Germany.

When Olga heard this, she insisted on accompanying her husband, as she thought that he would be put to work in a German hospital. She naively asked the Nazis if she could accompany her husband, and they had no objection. When her parents heard, they insisted on going with them, which meant that Olga's young sons would also be going. Once they got to the train station and saw that they were all to board a cattle car with ninety-six other people, they knew that their nightmare was just beginning. Their destination was Birkenau-Auschwitz.

Olga recounts the horrors that awaited her family there. Hers is a testament to the brutality of the Nazi regime towards Jews and non-Jews alike. In it Olga chronicles her first hand observations of Dr, Joseph Mengele and his passion for twins and dwarfs, as well as his mad scientist medical experiments. She recalls her run ins with the "blonde angel", the exceptionally beautiful and sadistic Nazi, Irma Griese. She talks about the selections that were made, which determined who lived and who died. She makes it clear that the Jews were targeted, first and foremost, for extermination. She recounts the utter depravity with which the inmates of the camp were treated, creating a veritable hell on earth.

Ms. Lengyel gives a no-holds-barred account of life at one of the most notorious concentration camps run by the Nazis. It should be noted that the five chimneys in the title of her book refers to the chimneys of the crematoriums, which towards the end of the war appeared to be burning night and day. While her chronicle might have benefited from some better or more careful editing, this is a minor criticism, as hers is a powerful voice in the arena of holocaust literature. It is a book that should be read by those who are interested in learning more about these concentration camps and about man's inhumanity to man.

hell on earth.......2003-02-20

My book was published in 1960, it does not have an ISBN #, except 885. the only book i have read about the extermination of so many Jews during Hitler's rule. A doctor, his wife and extended family are among the thousands of people rounded up, put in rail cars and taken to Auschwitz. the doctor was kept because of his medical skills, and his wife because of her valuable skills. the germans taking the gold fillings and other valuable items from their prisoners. the story is an awsome day by day account of a beautiful woman who survived and lived to tell the story of all the autrocities to herself and thousands of others. everyone should at least try to read this story, it is non-stop terrible what humans can do to others. a great book.

An account of a woman who lead her family to Auschwitz.......1998-08-24

This was the fist book I read about the Auschwitz camp. It has been four years since I read this book and I still think of this woman and her family. This daughter, wife and mother did not know that she was leading her entire family to their death and discribes the horror of her mistake very well and in full detail. The family was seperated when they arrived at the camp and all except her and her husband were executed only hours later. She and her husband lived through the camps but seperated. The majority of her experience is at Auschwitz, 5 years if I recall correctly. This book is worth the time to read.

Average customer rating:

Excellent

Forward looking reseach that looks back

Bold Endeavors: Lessons from Polar and Space Exploration

A very important contribution to the future of humanity.

An intriguing story of human relationships in the extreme.

Bold Endeavors : Lessons from Polar and Space Exploration
Jack Stuster
Manufacturer: US Naval Institute Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Similar Items:

Living Aloft: Human Requirements For Extended Spaceflight

Human Spaceflight: Mission Analysis and Design (Space Technology Series) (Space Technology Series)

ASIN: 155750749X

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2007-01-03

This is an excellent book to understand the historic human challenges associated with histroic human polar exploration and what will be confronted by future humans bases on the Moon and Mars. The analogs of the past have much to teach us for the future if we take the time to understand the past experience and relate it to what humanity is now seeking to do with a lunar base in the next two decades. The book is exciting, entertaining, and insightful. For any person thinking about the challenges that will confront humans associated with the first permanent human lunar base, this is a must read.

Forward looking reseach that looks back.......2001-04-16

Dr. Jack Stuster's "Bold Endeavors" distills a considerable amount of careful research into a book that is much more interesting than the usual dry study of this nature. By collecting data from a number of disparate sources, including Shackleton's 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Thor Heyerdahl's "Ra" voyage, years of military experience at bases in the Antarctic, and even undersea habitat experiments, Dr. Stuster has produced an exceptionally well thought out series of suggestions applicable not only to expeditions on Earth, but to future Moon settlements and Mars expeditions as well, assuming these ever happen (I would prefer to be more optimistic and I know Dr. Stuster is, but the current trend is not promising). In fact, this book has become required reading among the astronauts, who have recognized its value.

The book is organized into chapters that deal with a particular facet of human behavior as it applies to expedition settings, such as personnel selection, personal space, group interaction and the like. Dr. Stuster carefully illustrates each chapter's point with well-selected vignettes from previous expedition experience. For example, he discusses in-depth the importance of leadership by comparing and contrasting the successes of Shackleton, Admiral Byrd, Thor Heyerdahl and others to a particularly good example of a poor leader, Lt. Charles Wilkes, the commander of the somewhat fraught 1838-1842 US Navy expedition, noted only for discovering imaginary territory and the endless conflicts between Wilkes and the unfortunate men under his command. It is worth noting that while Wilkes' first reaction to leadership was to hoist a distinguishing pennant and basically promote himself to acting Commodore as soon as he was out of sight of land, Shackleton, Byrd, and Heyerdahl, though obviously in charge, led their men in as egalitarian and considerate a manner as possible. Stuster also points out the importance of little things in keeping an expedition's morale high - shared meals, opportunities for privacy, a good viewing window on a space station.

By including and discussing negative as well as positive expedition experiences Dr. Stuster has produced a very valuable book that will not only be of interest to our astronauts and persons planning expeditions here on Earth (read Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" for a recent example of bad expedition planning and personnel selection), but also to the general reader and even writers of fiction and science fiction dealing with small groups in dangerous situations.

Bold Endeavors: Lessons from Polar and Space Exploration.......1999-12-08

Dr Stuster has scored! He has captured the essence of a major field in human factors research....and made it pleasant and entertaining. Much like reading a great historical novel and learning history, except this is no novel! It is a welcome addition to my library.

A very important contribution to the future of humanity........1999-10-18

A very important contribution to our understanding of human behavior and to the advancement of space travel.

An intriguing story of human relationships in the extreme........1999-10-16

Bold Endeavors by Jack Stuster proved to be a real page-turner! Since childhood reading about adventures and explorers had been my favorite literature. In this book the persons behind these endeavors came to life. They were of flesh and blood and you as a reader took part of their everyday life, their hardships and personal problems. A thrilling experience. A lesson in the importance of relationships not only among people in isolation A lesson of use at job interviews, schools and even in families. I am thankful for an added knowledge and understanding of the many problems associated with these Endeavors. This book should be a "must" to all young people.

Amazon.com

The most vocal critics of Bill Clinton's presidency tend to be conservatives--think, for example, of William J. Bennett's The Death of Outrage--but there are those on the Left who are fed up with Clinton as well. Among them is journalist Christopher Hitchens (most prominently associated with The Nation and Vanity Fair), who has produced a slim but vehement volume outlining how "Clinton's private vileness meshes exactly with his brutal and opportunistic public style." No One Left to Lie To is the story of a man who took the Democratic presidential nomination and, having achieved office, began enacting welfare reform and anticrime legislation that surpassed the ambitions of all but the most ideologically loyal Republicans--and routinely plundered the GOP platform for other policy ideas as well.

Hitchens is particularly damning on Clinton's tendency to resort to divisive racial politics when it suits his purposes, as when, in the course of the 1992 presidential campaign, he refused to lift a finger to save a mentally retarded African American from state execution so he could appear tough on crime, then shortly afterwards hijacked a Rainbow Coalition conference to criticize rap artist Sister Souljah for the benefit of the attendant press. When he needs the black vote, though, Clinton will allow himself to be trumpeted as the most racially sensitive president in American history--if not, in Toni Morrison's memorably ludicrous phrase, "our first black president." Furthermore, the man who once connived his way out of the draft has become a chief executive so willing to use military air strikes as a means of foreign policy that, in the author's view, the United States is now a "potential banana republic."

Of course, there is plenty of vitriol directed at Clinton's conduct with regard to Monica Lewinsky (the woman with whom he admitted, under duress, to having had an "inappropriate relationship" consisting of multiple incidences of oral sex) and Kathleen Willey (who alleges that the leader of the free world merely fondled her breasts and forced her to touch--albeit shielded under some layers of clothing--his tumescent penis). In Hitchens's view, however, the sexual controversies are only the most prominent aspect of Clinton's shameful character, a moral condition that must be considered in toto. The book is short, with an argument that runs only about a hundred pages, but that's still more than enough room for Hitchens to serve up a comprehensive, blistering indictment suffused throughout by his dark wit. He sums up the failure of those fixated on Clinton's adultery to fully investigate his cronyism and financial shenanigans: "It's not the lipstick traces, stupid," Hitchens warns, "it's the Revlon Connection." --Ron Hogan

Book Description

In this expanded paperback edition of Hitchen's slow motion citizen's cardiac arrest of the Clinton presidency, our protagonist looks at Clinton's baleful influence on the 2000 election, Hillary Clinton's run for a New York Senate seat, and how the net of corruption in Democratic fundraising is cast far and wide. 'Clintonism' is not an idea, or a program; still less is it a principle. It represents what might be termed-were it not for its murk-the distilled essence of consensus politics. Unremarkable in its constituent elements, which are a mixture of opportunist statecraft, crony capitalism, 'divide and rule' identity politics, and populist manipulation, Clintonism has nonetheless raised these ordinary practices to the level of theory. It has succeeded, argues the author, because of a stealthy appeal to the waning and insecure forces of an American liberalism gone bad. Christopher Hitchens followed Governor Clinton through New Hampshire in 1992, and has remained an assiduous student of his methods ever since. In No One Left to Lie To, he profiles the rise and decline of some prominent Clintonoids, from George Stephanopoulos to the First Lady. He scrutinizes the debased new language in which the discourse of Clintonism has been couched, and proposes that, if successful, the Clinton machine will become the model of pseudo-democracy for the coming century.

Customer Reviews:

An Attack from the Left.......2007-07-01

Most of the books demonizing the Clintons came from the right. Hitchens is different because he crticizes them for abandoning values held dear by the left.

Lying under oath in a sexual harrassment trial, ending welfare as we know it and compromising gay rights with a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy indicates to the author that the most important value to the Clinton is not the core democratic principles, but the raw pursuit of power.

He details the evidence that Bill was likely guilty of rape, likely multiple times, and how his distraction on these moral issues impacted his judgment in critical foreign affairs decisions. He indicates that Hillary was not only facilitating but actually managing the smear campaigns against victims that may come public.

His picture is one of arrogance, never accpepting any repsonsibility for their actions, always having someone to blame- and a rapacious thirst for power at any cost, unrestrained by principle or integrity.

FASCINATED FASCINATION FASCINATES.......2006-07-26

If you are a sucker for this kind of expose, you should note that, with the substitution of names and incidents, the general outlines of this volume apply equally to Clinton's successors in office.

Brilliant, Biting, Accurate --Well, Mostly Accurate.......2006-06-19

There shouldn't be anyone left to lie to, but somehow the public has a short term memory when it comes to the Clintons. This book should be required reading for anyone voting in the upcoming presidential primaries. If anyone still trusts Hillary, or thinks she has a soul. Read this. If you read it and still think so, reread. There is one thing, and one thing only, that either Clinton feels passionately about, and that is their political survival.

If Liberals talk about the author instead of the book........2006-05-18

The book must be true.

No One Matches Hitchens..........2006-05-11

...for style or substance.

Hitchens is perhaps the most brilliant intellectual alive today. He is the person I would least like to be matched up against in a debate on any subject.

Simply put, this is the most devasting politcal biography that I have ever read, bar none. Quite a feat for it's slim 150 pages.

Two basic questions on Bill Clinton?

Why do American Conservatives loathe Bill Clinton when they should adore him?

And

Why does the American Left revere Bill Clinton when they should drive him and his wife from their party forever?

If you are confused by these two questions, buy this book.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books