Art in the Making: Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings

Book Description

Preliminary drawings beneath the surface layers of a painting can often be made visible by a technique called infra-red reflectography. The fascinating revelations of such underdrawings are always a source of important material for art history, leading to deductions about attribution, style, changes in composition, and workshop practices. This accessible book presents the results of pioneering research on the underdrawings of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century paintings by conservation, scientific, and curatorial staff at the National Gallery in London.

The contributors to the book explain the techniques of infra-red photography and reflectography and discuss the materials and technical findings of underdrawings in paintings of the Renaissance period. Also included in the book are detailed entries on the underdrawings of specific paintings by such renowned artists as Raphael, Giorgione, Cranach, Altdorfer, and Bruegel.

This book accompanies an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, from October 30, 2002 to February 16, 2003.

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Art in the Making: Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings
Rachel Billinge
Manufacturer: National Gallery London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORVVKC

Book Description

Minimizing the marks of time on clothing is a formidable challenge. Costumes reflect the cultural, religious, and ethnic elements of society. Maintaining and recording them is an important pursuit to many professionals including anthropologists, archeologists, museum curators, designers, and archivists.

Book Description

Music has flourished in the Mormon church since its beginning. In this book--now available in paperback--Michael Hicks examines the direction that music's growth has taken since 1830. He looks closely at topics including the denomination's first official hymnals; the views of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young on singing; the Mormon Tabernacle Choir; and the changing attitudes of church officialdom and laity toward popular and non-western music styles.

Winner of the 1989 Award in Criticism from the Association for Mormon Letters

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Mormonism and Music: A History
Michael Hicks
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OPWF7W

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Songs for the Sons of Utah Pioneers

Manufacturer: Utah Pioneers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Spiral-bound

Hymnals | Worship & Devotion | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000G01DO6

Product Description

A collection of Utah Pioneer / LDS songs gathered from many sources including: Pioneer Songs by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Hymn Book of the Church of Jesus Christ LDS, and other songwriters and sources living and deceased.

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Clear and Concise

Economy & Lucidity a la Morphy

A First Book of Morphy

This is THE must have book

A First Book of Morphy
Frisco Del Rosario
Manufacturer: Trafford Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Chess | Board Games | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory (Dover Books on Chess)

Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master

Paul Morphy: A Modern Perspective

Mastering the Chess Openings: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Modern Chess Openings, Volume 2

Mastering the Chess Openings: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Modern Chess Openings, Volume 1

ASIN: 1412039061
Release Date: 2006-07-06

Customer Reviews:

Clear and Concise.......2005-11-04

Mr. Del Rosario is an expert in the subject of teaching chess. I have first-hand knowledge of this and vouch for his abilities. This book is clear, very well designed, and he gets right to the point. Definitely worth a place in the library of chess players of all levels.

Economy & Lucidity a la Morphy.......2004-12-15

Nineteenth century American prodigy Paul Morphy never wrote anything about how to play chess, but his games are sparkling examples of classical chess principles at work. He had a talent for discovering magical moves that wound his opponents up in knots -- check, check, and mate out of nowhere. How did he do it? Everyone agrees that it was his insight into principles and his tactical genius that allowed him to dominate the greatest masters of Europe in his day. So, a book of Morphy's games would be entertaining and inspiring. But Frisco del Rosario has done more than compile brilliancies from Morphy's games -- he uses carefully selected games as case studies to illustrate principles enunciated by chess writers such as Fine, Horowitz, and Purdy. On the one hand, you have a principle, such as "Develop with threats" and on the other you have an application, "Morphy vs. Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard." The back and forth between principle and illustrations is well-choreographed and told in a lean and lucid manner. The beauty of this approach is del Rosario's choice of games to illustrate the principles -- they are all crystal clear. The cumulative wisdom of the principles themselves form a unified approach to good chess. Very helpful are del Rosario's explanations of tactical sidelights that informed the decisions of Morphy and his opponents. Some authors go overboard on this and leave you mired in detail. Not in this book. The text, like the games of Morphy, moves quickly. Read it and play through the examples for enjoyment, and you'll feel the effects next time you're faced with a decision over the board.

A First Book of Morphy.......2004-11-08

It is a great book. It really helps you understand the games it shows you. It also demonstrates the 30 rules of Chess. These rules are what chess players have discovered in over a centry.

This is THE must have book.......2004-10-19

This book is incredible. I have bought (and sold!) many different chess books but this is the first that has had a dramatic impact on my game.

I have been to many of the author's lectures that were based on this book. It was how I was able to rediscover my game and got me back to the core principles of how to win a game (vs. memorizing the 20 variations to the xyz defense to the abc attack). It made chess fun again and had me winning more games.

The book is very readable and well thought out. It is also very powerful - you can spend a little time with it and still have a solid improvement - or you can spend a lot more time and be amazed at how much it can do for your game and your perspective on chess.

With regard to applicability, it has a wide range. I am using it with my young kids and know a bunch of expert players who love it also.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

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A Good Insight into Customer Service

Good look at an interesting system

Outstanding Service, Underwhelming Author

A Worthwhile Look into the Nordstrom Culture

Nordstroms - Still a Solid Read

The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America's #1 Customer Service Company
Robert Spector , and Patrick D. McCarthy
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence: A Handbook For Implementing Great Service in Your Organization

BE OUR GUEST

Lessons from the Nordstrom Way: How Companies are Emulating the #1 Customer Service Company

The Disney Way Fieldbook: How to Implement Walt Disney's Vision of "Dream, Believe, Dare, Do" in Your Own Company

The Disney Way, Revised Edition

ASIN: 0471161608

Book Description

Praise for The Nordstrom Way

"Outstanding customer service and Nordstrom's are synonymous. The innovative approach has allowed them to find out what the customers want and then do it. Their standards of service are what we all shoot for." - David D. Glass President and Chief Executive Officer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

"Nordstrom is a national model for outstanding customer service. American business should use this book as a primer to learn how to make and keep happy, satisfied customers." - J. Willard Marriott, Jr. Chairman and President Marriott International, Inc.

"When you run a family business that includes your customers as extended family, you're unbeatable. This book outlines an American family saga that has become the admiration of the world." - Leonard A. Lauder President and Chief Executive Officer Estée Lauder Companies

"Nordstrom's business is built on one-to-one communication with the customer. Their professional salespeople bridge the gap between the designer and the consumer. The Nordstrom Way is what the '90s are all about!" - Donna Karan Designer and Chief Executive Officer Donna Karan Company

Customer Reviews:

A Good Insight into Customer Service.......2007-08-28

Nordstrom definetly have the best customer service. I had read about this and then whoile in the USA went to one of their stores in Orlando.I must say it is all true, they are #1!

This book explains how Nordstrom get their people to super perform and fall over backwards for their customers. Reading about how they do it and the results they get is very enlightning.

Good look at an interesting system.......2006-12-21

The Nordstrom way gives an inside perspective of how the service at Nordstrom's really is run. It gives the perspective of desperation and attention to customers. By putting is employees livelihoods on commissions they are forced to deliver a superior product. The purchases and the sales clerks work closely together to form a bond that gives the company its edge. Overall this is an excellent book and very well done. It is written very well and can be read very quickly.

Outstanding Service, Underwhelming Author.......2006-12-12

This book only gives you a vague idea of how Nordstrom creates their legendary customer service. It goes into more detail about the history of the company and things like their battle with the unions.

If you are looking to create first rate customer service in your organization, this is NOT the book to buy. If you have a general interest in Nordstrom and have a few hours to kill, this book may be more worthwhile.

While Nordstrom may be the king of customer service that certainly doesn't make Spector and McCarthy brilliant authors. I recommend you save your money for something better.

A Worthwhile Look into the Nordstrom Culture .......2006-10-11

The Nordstrom Way was not developed overnight. It has been four generations and over one hundred years in the making. It is a culture, not an act that can be turned on and off. It is a pleasure also to have its recent top salesman Patrick McCarthy share his story.

The Nordstrom Way oozes with pride... the pride of providing a top-rate retail experience. Salesmen are empowered to make decisions. This is not just lip service. They carry a card which states "Rule #1: Use your good judgement in all situations. There will be no additional rules." Emphasis is given to placing the needs of the customer ahead of short-term profits.

Other aspects of this 'culture' include promoting only from within and profit-sharing.

Most retail outlets have a small Customer Service department. At Nordstrom, the whole store is the Customer service department.

The Nordstrom Way embodies simple concepts that are not necessarily easy for other companies to duplicate.

Five Stars

Nordstroms - Still a Solid Read.......2002-05-21

This book made a big splash when it hit the stands in 1995. If you are worried about it being outdated, don't be. I found it to be very thorough in it's study of Nordstrom's, and it is still a good lesson in what we should all strive for.

Minimal mistakes that need to be updated in the next revision:
1). Their top notch website is not addressed, however, it does describe the thinking that was held by the company in 1994 to take advantage of the new electronic media. I thought that this section spoke volumes to how far reaching Nordstrom's view of service really is.
2). Very minor changes have been made to their business plan since this book was released. Most of these changes would be evident to the keen observer after 10 minutes in their store.

All in all, I recommend this book to anyone who is studing how to change attitudes on customer service. If you are just looking for a book on sales, this is not for you.

Book Description

Here is the first biography to appear in fifty years of Harvey Cushing, a giant of American medicine and without doubt the greatest figure in the history of brain surgery. Drawing on new collections of intimate personal and family papers, diaries and patient records, Michael Bliss captures Cushing's professional and his personal life in remarkable detail. Bliss paints an engaging portrait of a man of ambition, boundless, driving energy, a fanatical work ethic, a penchant for self-promotion and ruthlessness, more than a touch of egotism and meanness, and an enormous appetite for life. Equally important, Bliss traces the rise of American surgery as seen through the eyes of one of its pioneers. The book describes how Cushing, working in the early years of the 20th century, developed remarkable new techniques that let surgeons open the skull, expose the brain, and attack tumors--all with a much higher rate of success than previously known. Indeed, Cushing made the miraculous in surgery an everyday event, as he and his team compiled an astonishing record of treating more than two thousand tumors. This is the definite Cushing biography, an epic narrative of high surgical adventure, capturing the highs and lows of an extraordinary life.

Customer Reviews:

Harvey Cushing - A Life in Surgery.......2006-03-09

The book is a good read, particularly to those interested in medicine and more particularly, medical history. The book is well written, informative and holds ones attention amazingly well. Although I have never read Michael Bliss (author) before, I will certainly be looking out for him in the future. I very much recommend reading the book.

The best biography of Cushing.......2006-02-14

Harvey Cushing's life and achievements deserved the very best of a literary recounting and this is it. Previous biographies (including Fulton's "classic") of Cushing, the Father of Neurosurgery, were uniformly dull or disappointing. Michael Bliss has now written the very best Cushing biography and has undoubtedly set the standard for years to come. It is extremely readable despite being detailed in both the technical aspects of neurosurgery and also Cushing's private life. Cushing himself won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of William Osler and this work is at least as good.

Excellent Biography of America's Pioneer in Neurosugery.......2005-11-20

It is a strange mystery why a man of such accomplishments and medical innovation in the history of neurosurgery, the American pioneer in fact, is not more well known in popular culture. Dr. Harvey Cushing has to be one of the most fascinating, complex and astounding medical personalities in the last century. He became the first of American medical men to be an international leader in this special field. Harvey was part of a long line of medical men, his great grandfather, grandfather and father were all competent physicians. A Yale graduate, later attending Harvard Medical and working at John Hopkins, he paved the way, as he called "The Northwest Passage", in the area of brain tumour surgery, his OR innovations, insistence on sterile working conditions, the use of clips to prevent excessive bleeding and the diagnosis of brain tumours, were all devised and applied by him, having operated on over 2000 patients with brain tumour related illnesses during his long career. This man takes the term "workaholic" and takes it to an entirely new level. A tireless researcher, recorder, bibliophile, surgeon and prolific writer, his drive and obsession for work and life, set the precedent for future surgeons. A truly remarkable individual.

Michael Bliss, however, is a competent biographer, revealing Cushing's genius as well as his many faults. Cushing was an irascible perfectionist with zero tolerance for any incompetence in the OR. His arrogance and caustic tongue became the stuff of legend; interestingly, as Bliss implies, his personality has become almost a stereotype for the brilliant surgeon, egotistic, sarcastic with no patience for mistakes while in surgery. He was a difficult man to work with and for, however, his care for his patients took priority over all other actions. Ambitious and single-minded with an insatiable appetite for knowledge, Cushing pioneered brain surgery, writing volumes of medical articles and essays, countless lectures, and even a Pulitzer Prize winning two-volume biography on his mentor and world renowned physician, William Osler.

There are numerous anecdotes in this fine biography, but the one that really stands out is Cushing's first experience with a patient who dies in front of his eyes. A young student at Harvard, he managed to get invited to assist with `etherizing' patients for surgery. Weeks pass and everything is moving along fine until one evening he administers the ether to a young woman under-going an operation for a strangulated hernia, whose chances for survival are next to nil. The patient dies before the operation commences minutes after Cushing etherizes her. This of course devastated the young medical student, who walked the streets of Boston deciding to quit the profession. When he returned and told his teacher of his intent, he berated the boy, calling him "a damned fool" and to buck-up, for they had work to do. He continued on, of course, but remembered this incident over thirty years later.

As any good critical biography should be, it is written with erudition, (explaining medical terms and procedures for the laymen) as well as presenting as a riveting narrative- this is an entertaining and inspiring work of an astonishing individual in American medical history.

Terrific portrait of Cushing.......2005-11-10

I must second the other positive review of the book. I had previously read his biography of Osler, when it came out a number of years ago, and found it to the most well-rounded portrait of Osler that I have read. His biography of Cushing is equally is good. Bliss writes well and easily. I think his estimate of Cushing is a fair one. He gives all sides: the driven surgical pioneer and mentor who really established neurosurgery as a legitimate field, but also the workaholic who neglected his family and could be cruel and abusive to co-workers.(Great to be his patient but not one of his children) I found the contrasts between Cushing and Osler that Bliss draws out particularly interesting, and I would recommend that the Osler biography be read in conjunction with this one. Also, I also appreciated that Bliss presents the evidence and allows the reader to make his or her own judgements about Cushing, particularly in regards to his racial prejudice. Bliss limits the amount of medical terms, so I think the book could be read by and appeal to someone with little knowledge of medicine. Overall, highly recommended.

Excellent.......2005-10-10

Another excellent book from the Canadian historian Michael Bliss. This biography is a companion volume to Bliss's outstanding biography of the great William Osler. Together, these biographies tell the story not only of their subjects but also of the rise of North American medicine from provincial status to equality, and in some respects superiority, with the great clinical centers of Europe. Harvey Cushing was the first great pioneering surgeon produced by the USA or Canada. As much as a single person can be said to generate a field, Cushing was the progenitor of neurosurgery. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Cushing was the product of a line of respected physicians of New England extraction. From his parents, he inherited a Puritan sense of mission, rectitude, and a remarkable dedication to work. Educated at Harvard Medical School, he sought post-graduate training at the epicenter of the revolution in American medical education that was Johns Hopkins University Hospital. At Hopkins he became a protege of Osler and started his surgical career under the direction of the outstanding and rather erratic William Halstead. Ambitious and remarkably diligent, Cushing set out to make his mark by pioneering an area of surgery avoided by other pioneering surgeons - brain surgery. A remarkably facile technical surgeon, Cushing was obsessed with improving all aspects of surgical care, including use of careful clinical diagnostic methods, improvement of anesthetic management, and post-operative care. Despite formidable obstacles, Cushing succeeded in creating a new discipline. His methods were adopted widely and his trainees became the founding neurosurgeons in many regions. Bliss gives a vivid impression of surgical practice in this period and of Cushing's innovations. To read these sections is to appreciate the remarkable progress made in the last century. At the end of his career, Cushing was pleased to attain 10% operative mortality for operations on intracranial tumors, a figure that seems horrifying today. Bliss is careful to note Cushing's considerable defects. He was a stringent, sometimes abusive preceptor. His ambition was manifested not only by his drive to do the utmost to improve clinical care but also by considerable arrogance. He inspired great loyalty but seems to have been respected rather than loved by many. He was a difficult husband and an absentee father. But while his relations with colleagues and trainees could be stormy, in his treatment of patients he appears to have behaved with compassion and tact. Bliss does a good job of putting Cushing's achievements in the context of broader developments. While Cushing became the most famous American surgeon with a substantial international reputation, other American surgeons, like Halstead, George Crile and the Mayo brothers, were producing substantial improvements in surgical practice.
Its impossible to avoid comparing this book with the Osler book. In terms of scholarship and quality of writing, this book is on par with the Osler biography. Still, this is not quite as enjoyable a read, largely for 2 reasons. The Osler biography is also the story of the institutional maturation of American/Canadian medicine, a remarkable story. Cushing's development of a new surgical discipline is not qute as impressive as the institutional transformation accomplished by Osler's generation. As the subject of a biography, Cushing is also not as attractive a personality as Osler. Bliss depicts Cushing as a remarkable man and Bliss clearly respects and admires Cushing. Osler, on the other hand, inspires not only respect and admiration, but also affection. Regardless, this Cushing biography is first-rate and combined with the Osler book, gives a peerless impression of American/Canadian medicine in its first flush of maturity.

Average customer rating:

Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery.
Harvey] BLISS, Michael. [CUSHING
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QV8HGC

Average customer rating:

Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery
Michael Bliss
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKV866

Book Description

While the Germans did not succeed in invading Britain during World War II, they occupied a number of islands in the English Channel. The English population continued to lead fairly normal lives, while the German occupiers built some of the most extensive fortifications of the Second World War. As the war progressed, British commandos made occasional attacks, resulting in harsher conditions on the islands. The German garrisons were totally isolated by the D-Day landings, but managed to hold on through the following winter to surrender in May 1945.The author, a renowned military historian, examines these questions with complete candor, in addition to his study of the famous fortifications. All of the wartime events and the islands and their fortifications as they are today are covered in the popular Battleground Europe style, with illustrations, maps and then-and-now photographs.

Customer Reviews:

Army of Occupation.......2005-02-20

This Battleground Europe paperback on the Channel Islands: Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark from World War II is afforable and interesting. Lt.Col. Forty also covers this same subject in his hardbound, larger volume "Channel Islands at War." Both books, depending on one's interest, and pocketbook, are worth the time.

I became interested in the channel islands of WWII through some of the fictional works of Jack Higgins. A few plots of his novels either take place there, or make mention of the islands. Also, Mr. Higgins is reported to reside on one of them.

The total population of these 4 islands never exceeded 100,000, and was probably closer to 90,000. The home government in London had a hard time determining how they were to be handled, and finally decided on evacuation. But only just as the Germans were bombing and invading. The resultant occupation, and fortification of these island is the focus of Mr. Forty's interesting narratives.

If you want to study another of the off beaten track type WWII book, or two, these are the ones.

Semper Fi.

Book Description

Classical archaeology promotes the view that a state's evolution reflects general, universal forces. Norman Yoffee challenges the model in this book by presenting more complex and multi-linear models for the evolution of civilizations. Yoffee questions the definition of the prehistoric state, particularly that which heralds "the chiefdom" as the forerunner of the ancient state and explores case studies on the role of women in ancient societies.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent discussion of recent change in archaeological theory of state development.......2007-07-20

This is a superb book, but it really isn't quite what I had expected from the title. I had expected a more cut and dried account of early state development in a variety of world venues as extracted from recent archaeological studies. Certainly the more recent technological developments in the procedural side of archaeological endeavors has produced abundant new results, as the new research on Mellart`s old site at Catal Hoyuk indicates.The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Catalhoyuk

Instead the author Norman Yoffee, a professor of Near Eastern Studies and Anthropology at the U of Michigan, gives a very thorough account of what has transpired with respect to the theory and practice of archaeology particularly in the field of interpretation of research results. His focus, as the title indicates, is on city, state and civilization development, and he presents considerable amounts of new information on a variety of cultures.

To begin with, in his chapter entitled, The Evolution of a Factoid, he covers neo-evolutionism and processualism in archaeology and discusses what these theories attempted to do and why they failed. He notes that archaeology has been, at least in the US, a sub-department of anthropology in most university settings. According to Professor Yoffee, this history created a perceived need to justify archaeology as a "legitimate" subject of study, particularly scientific study, by adopting some of the theories and research modes of the parent department. While this was productive of a healthy and vigorous field of enquiry, especially in the first half of the 20th century, over the years since that time, new questions which are not well answered by the old theories have arisen which challenge how the past is interpreted and demand a new framework to explain them.

To illustrate both the issues that highlighted the need for restructure and his own suggestions for a new theory, the author looks at various interpretations of social/political development as viewed from earlier perspectives and why they do not work. He notes especially a general failure in definitions, particularly in that of pre-state societies formerly termed "chiefdoms." He also clarifies rudimentary definitions of "state" and "civilization," particularly the difference between them and what each says about a particular society.

In proposing his own theories of state development and archaeological interpretation of data, ie. social evolutionary theory, he uses information drawn from the Mesopotamian region (of which he has personal knowledge), Egypt, the US Southwestern and Mississippian cultures, the Maya, and early China. This makes for a colorful and enjoyable illustration of the author's theme. His use of Santa Fe Institute's multidisciplinary research on complex systems and self organizing criticality, etc. was particularly interesting, as I had read a recent book Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos which included archaeology in the SW in this way. His citation of Per Bak and his "sandpiles" how nature works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality (Copernicus)certainly suggests that the author is very well read and enjoys a cross-disciplinary perspective. (From the latter, since other specialties can be daunting to tackle, one can presume he is also both curious and courageous.)

My favorite chapter is "New Rules of the Game." In the section "The Game of Archaeological Neologisms," the author notes that it has become fashionable to create new "types" of archaeological enquiry. As he writes: "The basic rule of the game was to proceed down the alphabet adjectivizing the common noun 'archaeology.'" He cites a number of examples, including "analytical archaeology," "behavioral archaeology," "cognitive archaeology," "demographic archaeology," "economic archaeology," etc. and notes that, "Having found a suitable modifier to 'archaeology,' the idea was to write a book on the neologism, hold a conference on it, or at the very least contribute an article to a jounal with the neologism as its title (pp. 181-182)." Since I have discovered this trend myself in my reading, I found his assessment very amusing and aware. My favorite of this type of book is Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos, and the Realm of the Gods.

Those who are looking for a procedural book will be disappointed, since the author specifically states that this is not possible in so short a volume nor is it his intension. One book that covers this topic from the perspective of the geology of riverine sites, which are the focus of some of the author's illustrations, is Alluvial Geoarchaeology: Floodplain Archaeology and Environmental Change (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology), which, though fairly technical, covers considerable information regarding fluvial sites, their interpretation and their problems. Some of the type sites in this book are the same as those used by Professor Yoffee. In general, texts on procedures in archaeology are difficult to recommend, because the discipline has gotten very specialized; as the author himself notes, it requires more than one book to cover the subject.

For the non-professional interested in the topic of how cities, states and civilizations developed, this might be more than you bargained for. While the author does an excellent job of discussing the developmental trajectory from "bandishness"--to use his term--to state, his main objective is to clarify theory. Certainly if you have not studied anything of the areas that he discusses, the book will make an acceptable starting point, since he describes his type models adequately but not dauntingly so. Furthermore, the presentation on theory will give the beginner a better feel for what can and cannot be said about a past society from its material remains, something not always clearly noted in more general discussions on ancient society.

For those who, like myself, have taken archeology and anthropology some time ago and want an update, this is a superb book, since it covers a lot of ground. It makes one realize how much even the Past has "changed." I will make a point of saying, however, that the author has an incredible vocabulary, both professional and personal, and there are places where a good dictionary will be helpful--and this from a person who is considered to have a good vocabulary herself!

For the student, the book certainly provides a good overview of the changes in archaeological theory over the past century. The type societies are well described and the bibliography is extensive and thorough. Because of the nature of the topic, however, many of the citations are drawn from 20th century books and journals (including one from my history master's advisor, Tom B. Jones). With some exceptions, the range of topics in the bibliography focus, as would be expected, on the author's main theme, so they may or may not be a good starting point for a course research paper; whether they are or not will be determined by the subject of your paper.

Misleading Title.......2007-05-29

[...]

It contains very little material on it's nominal subject; almost all of the content is of the form "So-and-so theorized such-and-such, but This-other-fellow contradicted him, saying this-and-the-other."

Actual facts, raw data, etc. are very sparse.

If a history of the academic squabbles in the fields of archeology and historic anthropology is what you're after, by all means, get this book; I'm sure you'll be delighted. If you're actually interested in the evolution of early civilization, look elsewhere.

Myths of the Archaic State : Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations

Average customer rating:

Excellent discussion of recent change in archaeological theory of state development
Misleading Title

Myths of the Archaic State : Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations
Norman Yoffee
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Similar Items:

ASIN: B000MUD7EY

Customer Reviews:

Excellent discussion of recent change in archaeological theory of state development.......2007-07-20

Misleading Title.......2007-05-29

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