Book Description
An American artist of worldwide renown, Ellsworth Kelly has consistently returned to nature as a subject throughout his extraordinary career. Kelly began making prints in 1964; shortly thereafter he created his first suite of plant lithographs. To date he has produced 72 plant lithographs that fall into five major series: Suite of Plant Lithographs (1964–66); Leaves (1973–74); Twelve Leaves (1978); Series of Plant and Flower Lithographs (1983–85); Oak Leaves (1992); and several individual works. This comprehensive book serves as a beautiful portfolio of the plant lithographs accompanied by informative texts on all of these works as well as an insightful discussion of how they relate to the ink and pencil plant drawings that the artist has produced concurrently with the lithographs throughout his career.
Kelly has occupied the center stage of modernism since his early years in Paris in the 1950s. Distinguished for his abstract style of pure color and shape, Kelly believes that his art remains rooted in the natural world. In their simplicity of line and shape, his widely admired and accessible plant lithographs provide a critical link to the character of abstraction and are a remarkable achievement within the framework of Kelly’s lifetime of accomplishment.
Customer Reviews:
5 stars.......2006-03-09
Large sharp illustrations make this book a must for any Kelly fan. Rarely do you find such a collection of Kelly's Plant lithographs. It is great for someone wanting to study his work or for the person who appreciates the beauty of a line drawing. I have been waiting a long time for such a book. 5 stars
Book Description
Susan Cohn pushes the limits of the definition of jewelry yet preserves its core role of adornment by making objects that can be worn on the body. Her work, with its stark functionalist aesthetic and fastidious detailing, is strongly motivated by pleasure in the play of form, material, and color. Materials are juxtaposed unexpectedly and ideas collide to release humor and irony.
Essays include an examination of Susan Cohn's work and workshop practice, and an appreciation by a long-time admirer. These are set alongside full-color images of her jewelry that invariably surprise.
Customer Reviews:
Would be better if not done as Cerebus.......2007-07-21
The best part of this book is a rather incredible sequence in which Dave Sim analyzes Ernest Hemingway. Remarkably researched this would have made a really interesting graphic novel except that since he was shooting for 300 issues of Cerebus and thus laid it into the Cerebus storyline- thus you have this very realsitic( albeit non-traditional) analysis of Hemingway waeakened by the fact you have an aardvark character in it. This is a good example of how Sims desire to do 300 issues really in many ways shortchanges the artistic and intelelctual potential of the stories he wants to tell
Second part of a great story........2006-02-09
This book continues the storyline that began in "Going Home." Dave Sim turns his literary lens to Ernest Hemingway, using entries from Mary Hemingway's journal as script and inspiration. Beware. This is not the glowing review the most give 'Poppa', but a critical look at deeply troubled writer and his equally disfunctional wife. Dave Sim puts forth a well-documented argument to support his ideas. You could take him to task on his opinions, or enjoy this terrific Cerebus story without ever looking at the notes included in "To Ham or Ham Not"
Book Description
Ever since anyone can remember, grandmas have been stuck with baby-sitting while parents enjoy a night on the town...or two weeks in the Bahamas. Now there's help for beleaguered grandmas from Mary McBride, who instructs them on how to "scheme, lie, cheat, and threaten so you'll be thought of as a sweet, darling grandma."
McBride leaves grandmas in tears -- of laughter -- with outrageous helpful hints:
- A short course in baby care for grandmas who still remember when diapers were fastened by safety pins
- Creative suggestions for showing baby photos to anyone in any situation
- How to get out of baby-sitting...or, if stuck, how to housebreak the kids before they wreck the house
- How to get kids to behave at a restaurant...at least until they've ordered their food
- Reality therapy for grandmas who think their grandchildren are perfect
- How to advise the daughter-in-law without being banned from her home
- How to behave at confirmations, bar mitzvahs, graduations, and weddings so the grandchild won't be embarrassed.
Customer Reviews:
Anthony's Honey.......2002-03-18
Mary McBride offers much-need new advice for new grandma's on how to
*show baby photos to anyone any time
*Get out of babysitting...or if stuck, to houebreak the kids before thy wreck the house
*advise the daughter-in-law without being banned from her home.
The perfect gift for Grandma, it's "harder to put down than a new granchild." Phyllis Diller.
Product Description
Ever since anyone can remember, grandmas have been stuck with baby-sitting while parents enjoy a night on the town...or two weeks in the Bahamas. Now there's help for the beleaguered grandmas from Mary McBride, who instructs them on how to "scheme, lie, cheat and threaten so you'll be thought of as a sweet, darling grandma".
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Polish Film: A Twentieth Century History
Charles Ford , and
Robert Hammond
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
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ASIN: 0786413093
Release Date: 2005-05-19 |
Product Description
When the Lumière brothers introduced the motion picture in 1895, Poland was a divided and suffering nationyet Polish artists found their way into the new world of cinema. Polish pioneer Boleslaw Matuszewski created his first documentary films in 1896, and Polands first movie house was established in 1908. Despite war and repression, Polish cinema continued to grow and to reach for artistic heights. The twentieth century closed with new challenges, but a new generation of Polish filmmakers stands ready to meet them. Here is a complete history of the Polish cinema through the end of the twentieth century, with special attention to political and economic contexts. Each chapter includes discussions of important directors and films in a given period. (Yiddishlanguage films, which were made primarily in Poland, are included.) Unique reference material includes a filmography providing cast and crew information for more than 500 Polish films; information about the translation of titles; and a list of all Polish films approved, rejected, or conditionally approved by the New York State Department of Education from 1922 through 1965, during which time the Department exercised virtual censorship for the whole country. Photographs offer a look at hard-to-find Polish films, and an index provides quick access to names and titles.
Book Description
The eighteen interdisciplinary essays in this volume were presented in 2001 in Sydney, Australia, at the Third International Conference on Word and Music Studies, which was sponsored by The International Association for Word and Music Studies (WMA). The conference celebrated the sixty-fifth birthday of Steven Paul Scher, arguably the central figure in word and music studies during the last thirty-five years. The first section of this volume comprises ten articles that discuss, or are methodologically based upon, Scher's many analyses of and critical commentaries on the field, particularly on interrelationships between words and music. The authors cover such topics as semiotics, intermediality, hermeneutics, the de-essentialization of the arts, and the works of a wide range of literary figures and composers that include Baudelaire, Mallermé, Proust, T. S. Eliot, Goethe, Hölderlin, Mann, Britten, Schubert, Schumann, and Wagner.
The second section consists of a second set of papers presented at the conference that are devoted to a different area of word and music studies: cultural identity and the musical stage. Eight scholars investigate - and often problematize - widespread assumptions regarding `national' and `cultural' music, language, plots, and production values in musical stage works. Topics include the National Socialists' construction of German national identity; reception-based examinations of cultural identity and various "national" opera styles; and the means by which composers, librettists, and lyricists have attempted to establish national or cultural identity through their stage works.
Book Description
This revised and updated edition of the classic MBA guide provides a complete explanation of what top schools look for, plus a step-by-step guide to the entire application process. Included are more than a hundred successful essays and in-depth advice from more than 30 admissions directors. In addition, this guide shows applicants how to:
- Develop an optimal marketing strategy
- Assess and upgrade their credentials
- Choose the right program
- Write high-quality essays
- Choose and then manage recommenders
- Ace interviews
- Prepare for business school and get the most out of it
Customer Reviews:
Great book, but nothing new from previous editions.......2007-08-31
Needless to say, this book is now the Bible of MBA applications.
What works:
1. Lots of advice, starting from the basics.
2. Tons of feedback from Admissions Committee Members
3. Essay samples
What doesnt:
1. Essay samples are limited to people who were leaders, consultants, etc etc. I dont believe these form the majority, Instead, I think the majority applicants are engineers, investment bankers and people from Asia. So the examples should have been chosen to fit that demographic too. I am more interested to see how an engineer represented himself well to get into a B-school, rather than read an essay of someone who was in the Army asa Lieutenant. It doesnt help much by publishing essays of people who're inherently different because of a very rare background.
2. Nothing much has really changed over the 2002 edition of the book. So, if you have the old one, I dont think this is worth buying. You could just use the library.
Fantastic Guide, we call it the MBA admissions bible.......2007-08-15
This is a fantastic book. I used it while in the Peace Corps to write my application to a top 5 MBA program. It has great advice on how to organize your application and your thoughts. It is not a 'shortcut' to getting in, but helps you put yourself together and show all of your background and your ambitions in the best light possible. If you're looking at even a top 10 program, this book is required reading. I can safely say probably 80% of us here used it to help us write our apps.
Wrong Title.......2007-08-10
I just think this book's title is misleading to someone who has already decided to get an MBA, researched schools, and selected the top schools to which apply. I was looking for something that was going to help me AFTER all these events have taken place as the title suggests. If you're saying: "I already know exactly what I want to do, now give me some tips to make it happen;" then this book is not for you. I found SOME tips, while skimming this tomb, and I think they're all common sense, widely available on the web, or easily obtainable simply by looking at the MBA schools' websites.
A complete guide to readying yourself for an MBA.......2007-07-07
Immediately upon receiving this book, I was shocked at it's sheer size. When I ordered it, I had neglected to notice how many pages it includes, and I assumed it was going to be relatively short since it is not expensive.
Then, I wondered how much there could be to say about the MBA admissions process, and if the book would become too repetitive. Well, as it turns out, the book doesn't repeat itself and Montauk takes advantage of every page to guide you through what it takes to get into a good MBA program.
I am still in the process of applying, but what I have found is that this book has given me a great outline of what I should be doing to prepare myself, and provided detailed steps of how to navigate each step. Studying for the GMAT, getting letters of recommedation, writing the schools' essays, interviewing, it's all covered in great detail.
I continue to use this book as a reference guide as I am going through the application process, and I find that whatever I am confused about, the answer is provided in the book.
Not yet received!!!!!.......2007-07-04
This is below par service from Amazon!
I was promised to get the book from 18th June to 26th June.
I have not yet received the book, today being 4th July!!!
Worst part: The IMEX receipt number is also not provided by the customer service representative, Santosh.
Please help!
Amazon.com
Dinesh D'Souza rates America's 40th president as one of its greatest, right below Washington and Lincoln. He makes a forceful case for this rank, probably the best yet and perhaps the best possible. In the process, he analyzes Reagan's leadership style with remarkable clarity and subtlety. Reagan seemed ordinary in so many ways, still, millions of people believed in him and followed him. Moreover, he is the patron saint of the modern conservative movement--something that he did not create, yet nonetheless came to embody. Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader is for readers already well-disposed toward the former California governor. It may not change minds, but it will deepen the appreciation felt by Reagan's many admirers, who seem to miss the leader more with each passing day.
Book Description
In this enlightening new look at one of our most successful, most popular, and least understood presidents, bestselling author and former Reagan aide Dinesh D'Souza shows how this "ordinary" man was able to transform the political landscape in a way that made a permanent impact on America and the world. Ronald Reagan is a thoughtful and honest assessment of how this underestimated president became a truly extraordinary leader.
Customer Reviews:
What can anyone say - a great president.......2007-09-20
In a way, I always thought that authors who write about Reagan have it easy. How hard could it be to write interesting and inspiring words about a man who was both?
However, the author of this book has taken a bit of a different approach with this book by focusing as much on the "Reagan movenment" as he does Reagan himself.
History is going to be very good to Reagan and it will be because of the movement he created - it spite of the spineless Republicans of today.
I really enjoyed reading the book. It flows easily through the Reagan years and, if you are a Reagan fan, you will close this book, sigh, and say, "God I miss Ronald Reagan!"
Reagan the Man.......2007-06-22
I never lived through the Reagan years. Never knew the old Gipper personally, aside from old videos. I only began to learn my multiplication table in the second grade, when Bill Clinton was reelected. Assuredly, we elementary students snickered silently at the fact that the president of the United States was caught, in our own words, "playing naughty" with a girl who was younger than he was and of course not his wife. Gee, the president is quite a strong role model for the world, but WHO KNEW he was capable of receiving free women for himself at the drop of a hat? Elementary students cannot conceive much of a response more mature or more informed than this. It's an amusing highlight for youngsters as they get to learn and know their presidents, but those who don't pursue increased knowledge after this most likely will not recall much of anything else about Bill Clinton.
We didn't learn much about Ronald Reagan, either, of course, other than the fact that he was a president. For younger students, most presidents, especially the ones not named "Lincoln" or "Washington", emerge almost magically interchangeable at the behest of the studier. If one's television set routes toward recent Republican presidential debates, Ronald Reagan's name surged passed not only the ideals of a "great president", but perhaps even into the divine realm. Associate yourself with "Ronald Reagan", and you can be qualified for being titled the 'conservative', though not necessarily 'Republican', favorite for president. Even former television actors are receiving the "Reagan" treatment, outlandish, as it seems to me. This guy must be a saint, obviously, although I don't appear to remember finding him finely produced as a marble sculpture in my church...yet.
In all seriousness, the people who invoke Reagan's name are appealing to a "truly great president who belongs in the elite company of Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt," as author Dinesh D'Souza describes it in his book "Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader." Reagan's administration was less great, much more problematic than its leader, of course, but D'Souza doesn't care about that. This book is more of a portrait rather than an apologetics text for the Reagan presidency's blunders, such as Iran-Contra, the bloated budget deficits, etc. Guaranteed is it that you can find a large quantity of books analyzing those issues, but not here.
What D'Souza describes best are all of Reagan's slight idiosyncrasies, like how the man always seemed to laugh off many of the harsh criticisms inclined against him, or about, when White House meetings steered toward being drawn-out and wearisome, Reagan reached out toward a bowl of jellybeans in the middle of the table, which indicated the dialogue was over. Also, despite potential protest or objection from his nearest and clearly more "elite insider" advisors (James Baker, George H.W. Bush, etc.), Reagan usually had the upper hand. What the president said went. Did, however, the president say to sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages? What about the fact that the administration used the profit to fund anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua? We'll never know, of course, but by lining these decisions up side by side against the images of Reagan conjured here by D'Souza, the conclusion appears highly unlikely.
The author is a fan of President Reagan, having served as a young domestic adviser inside the White House nearing the administration's end in office. The book can look favorably upon the subject it is dissecting if the operation yields either interesting and logical ideas and/or useful facts. D'Souza's book contains exactly these things. A book sharply critical of Reagan which produced the same advantageous qualities could be equally insightful or entertaining, although whether it cared about the truth remained a puzzler. I think D'Souza cares about the truth regarding Ronald Reagan the man.
A great book about a great President; captures Reagan in a way others don't........2007-06-19
Most biographers who attempt to write about Ronald Reagan typically get frustrated at some point in their effort and throw up their hands saying, "I can't get to know this man!" Indeed, the man that some many of us felt close to without ever having met him was apparently a very tough nut to crack if you wanted to get close to him in person.
As a result, many biographies supposedly about Reagan offer very little insight into the man and what made him succeed and fail. They talk about his life and history, his advisers and their ideas, but they don't capture anything about the man that you wanted to learn about when you picked up the book in the first place - D'Souza does and that's what makes this book different and better from the rest.
D'Souza was a young aid in the Reagan White House and maybe that gives him a bit of an advantage in capturing the essence of Reagan, but I think most of the credit has to go to something far more fundamental; D'Souza hasn't lost the ability to see Reagan the way most Americans saw him, he hasn't lost sight of what America was like before Reagan compared to what it's like now. That gives D'Souza a perspective on Reagan that most academics (which D'Souza is) neglect. It makes all the difference in this book.
D'Souza really captures a man guided by a vision and a philosophy rather than by polls, a real leader rather than someone who went whichever way popular sentiment carried him. Reagan's ideas about America and its relationship to the rest of the world were positive, contrary to popular thoughts and, as it turns out, right.
If you like Reagan, you will love the way D'Souza articulates how the man accomplished everything he did. If you don't like Reagan, D'Souza's look at Reagan offers the best argument I've encountered that you'll have to counter in order to sway his supporters to your way of thinking.
Highly recommended. A great book about a great President.
Excellent.......2007-02-11
Very informative. This book will give you a new appreciation for our recent history.
A good book about character but not much about Reagan the man.......2006-12-17
D'Souza does a decent job in his biography on the character of Reagan. My biggest complaint with this book is that it does not actually tell us anything about Reagan and his presidency. So much times is spent on the character that by the time you are done understanding Reagan's moral values the book is over and I felt I learned nothing about what Reagan did and how these values played out. For those who have really studied Reagan it is a great addition but if you are looking for only one book try Richard Reeves.
Average customer rating:
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Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.: An article from: Presidential Studies Quarterly
Robert Previdi
Manufacturer: Center for the Study of the Presidency
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ASIN: B0009882I0
Release Date: 2005-07-28 |
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This digital document is an article from Presidential Studies Quarterly, published by Center for the Study of the Presidency on March 22, 1998. The length of the article is 1443 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader.
Author: Robert Previdi
Publication:
Presidential Studies Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1998
Publisher: Center for the Study of the Presidency
Volume: v28
Issue: n2
Page: p444(3)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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Messerschmitt P.1101 (X Planes of the Third Reich)
David Myhra
Manufacturer: Schiffer Publishing
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Focke-Wulf Ta 183 (X Planes of the Third Reich)
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Heinkel He 162 (X Planes of the Third Reich)
ASIN: 0764309080 |
Book Description
X PLANES OF THE THIRD REICH SERIES An Illustrated Series on Germany's Experimental Aircraft of World War II
Powered by a single HeS 001A turbojet engine, Woldemer Voigt, who had artfully crafted the Me 262, ran out of time before he could make the 1101's design "jell" as he struggled to produce the world's first variable wing sweep, ultra light weight interceptor, and armed with Germany's state-of-the art wing-mounted air-to-air guided missiles. Post-war, Bell Aircraft sought to carry on Voigt's planning and resolved to make the complicated mathematics of light weight, variable wing sweep and wing-mounted weapons come together in a single aircraft design. The result was the Bell X-5, and it too, was disappointing. This photographic history of the Me P.1101 by David Myhra features mostly previously unpublished photos, three-view line drawings, and stunningly realistic photos of a 1101 scale model., over 100 b/w photographs and line drawings, 11" x 8 1/2"
Book Description
The story of how Lenin and Stalin's propaganda agent, Willi Munzenberg, manipulated the Western intellectuals and politicians into effectively collaborating with the Soviet Union.
Customer Reviews:
Unconvincing.......2007-01-10
The problem with Mr. Koch's entertaining thesis, that Hitler and Stalin colluded on releasing Dimitroff and having him exchanged for Germans in prison or detained in the Soviet Union is that Mr. Koch offers not a single name of somebody exchanged. Göring did want certain people exchanged (he wrote to the Foreign Office), and mentioned among others the names of Flaischle, Rohden, Wehrmann and Asche, but: as far as I can ascertain, these persons were not returned to Germany.
And: the scholarship is otherwise shoddy. On p. 104 Mr. Koch refers to the building behind the Reichstag as the 'official residence of the Reichspresident', whereas it was the official residence of the Reichstagspresident, i.e. the speaker of the house, i.e. Goering. That Mr. Koch doesn't know the difference between the Reichspresident (the Head of State, at this time Hindenburg) and the Reichstagspresident (the head of the Reichstag, the parliament, i.e. the Speaker of the House) says much about how sloppy the book is.
Michael S. Cullen, Berlin, Germany
Double Lives: Double Cross.......2007-01-04
Stephen Koch makes clear through the device of tracing some of the life of Willi Munzenberg that Stalin and Hitler were in cahoots through most of the 30s. Hitler's Anti-Bolshevism and Stalin's Anti-Fascism were merely window dressing to fool the democratic opponents to one or the other regime. Stalin's Soviet Union aided the Wehrmacht during the time when the Treaty of Versailles limited the size and capability of the German Army. Koch makes it clear that Stalin's duplicitousness continued right up until Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The cluelessness of many, if not most, Western intellectuals during this period is breathtaking from the vantage point of the post-Cold War world. What is more disturbing is the post-fact absolution of Stalin from complicity in Hitler's rise and his conquest of Western Europe. Anyone interested in the true history of post-WWI Europe should read this book.
Lies without end.......2006-04-12
Anyone interested in the ideas that have shaped the cultural and political face of the 20th century should read this book, because it sheds an uncompromising light on the activities which went on behind the scenes and identifies the strings which were being pulled to move the actors on the stage. More often than not the players remained completely unaware of the objectives they helped to promote, and their public was led by the nose, impressed by the cultural celebrities that showed them the way.
Stephen Koch's book, now available in its second printing (may there be a third!) highlights the communist undercover propaganda activities in the West that formed Moscow's ideological spearhead in the 1920s and 1930s. It tells the often tragic stories of the men and women doing the work who thought they were helping to create a better world and often ended up dangling from Stalin's gallows or as non-entities in the endless plains of the Gulag.
In the early days of the Bolshevik empire, this propaganda was aimed primarily at the capitalist countries, it was to promote the cause of the forgotten masses, to fight the lost but glorious causes of victims like Sacco and Vanzetti, to eliminate local rivals and to establish goodwill in intellectual circles. Capitalism was, obviously, the class enemy number one, but intially the campaign lacked a political foe, although Italian fascism, another liberatory ideology that sprang up after the first World War had at least given the enemy a name.
From that point of view, Hitler's sudden rise in Germany, spurred by the Depression which struck Germany hardest of all industrialized nations, was a godsend for communist cause. Now there was a way for Moscow to get a free entry ticket into the ruling circles of the Capitalist world. Stalin could now sell to the society he was trying to eliminate a glossy magazine describing Hitler's evil deeds, and the pitch was made so much easier because the claims could be verified on the spot - not many people toured the Soviet Union unaccompanied by local "guides". Anyone, more or less, was able to travel to Berlin or into the German provinces to view the astonishing - and to many people threatening - changes that were taking place there. For most observers it was preferable to get their goosebumps closer to home, in an environment they knew fairly well rather than attempt to satisfy their curiosity by visiting the Red Empire.
The person who had forged Moscow's propaganda organization abroad from the very beginning and who had immediately identified the new objectives by producing the "Brown Book" which blamed the Reichstag fire on the Nazi's themselves, was Willi Muenzenberg, a man born in Germany and one of Lenin's personal aides. Stalin supplied him with whatever means he needed to seduce the intellectual elites, both in Europe and in America, leaving to Willi the choice of the treatment - money, women, publicity - to be aplied in each particular case, be it Bertolt Brecht or Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway or Picasso, Andr? Malraux or the Mann family.
Anything that would disparage Hitler and his ideas would be used to advantage; the result was a world-wide political constellation of strange bedfellows, fundamentally opposed each other. At a critical moment it created a common groundswell which engulfed the center of Europe and pushed the rest of the continent to the edge of an abyss where it was to remain for half a century. To achieve his ends, Willi and the all-too-willing writers he had bought in one way or another were not afraid to use the Lie on a grand scale. Paris was their HQ. According to Stephen Koch, Malraux' report of a trip to Berlin he undertook in early 1934 to secure the release of Dimitroff was a fabrication and a fraud (p. 129f). Koch states that the "Oberfohren memorandum", supposedly a German account of the horrors perpetrated by the SA and published in the Manchester Guardian, was a "pure piece of black propaganda" (p. 157) written by one of M?nzenberg's men. Countless other such fabrications were circulated and poisoned the soul of western culture and civilization.
By 1939, once the Hitler-Stalin pact had allowed the great European War to start, however, Muenzenberg became expendable like so many other communists who fell from grace. Stalin eliminated the international activities which Moscow had so strongly promoted for more than two decades. When the German army moved into France, Willi fled south from Paris but never reached a safe haven in Switzerland or Spain. Many months later, his dead body was found in a forest on his escape route. Stephen Koch is hesitant as to how Willi died, whether by his own hands or by those of Stalin's men. He also allows for a Blitzaktion of the Gestapo, but this is unconvincing, because the Wehrmacht had not yet reached that area and even if the Germans had been looking for him and been aware of his whereabouts in those tumultuous days of the collapse of France, they would certainly not have failed to interrogate such an important personality before any act of revenge, whereas the Soviet Union, for both political and tactical reasons, would have been most eager to silence him at the first opportunity.
In spite of a few questionable theses, "Double Lives" is a highly recommendable book which can be placed alongside Christopher Andrew's "Mitrokhin Archive" and St?phane Courtois' "Black Book of Communism" without any reservations.
Messy but interesting.......2004-04-03
This book is badly edited and loaded with typographical errors; if it were a toaster, I'd call it defective and return it. Yes, it is an interesting addition to the literature of the Soviet revision. But the editing and the typos are horrible. You are left to figure out what word was meant -- does "writing" mean "writing"? is "ind" really "find"? -- and doing so continually interrupts the narrative.
An eye opening and very interesting.......2004-01-08
This is the kind of book that makes you ask yourself every few pages "did you know that?!", "how come I didn't know this!", and "how come nobody talks about this!"
It is really a good portrait of those grim times in Europe. It exposes the workings and everyday life of the real spies. It gives the "bad guys" you heard about or saw only in movies a real face. Full of detail that does not bore but expand the palette of colors.
Even if you are not interested in history or politics you should read this. I have tried to find other books on Muezenberg and I recently came across "The Red Millionaire" by Sean McMeekin, which I intend to read soon.
I think more investigating journalism should be done about other dark myths of our recent history. We have to look more critically at the people who want to mold our minds.
This is a very valuable book.
Book Description
Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 1 (Ostrich to Ducks)
Customer Reviews:
A bird lover's bible.......2001-09-24
I own all six volumes published until now (ostriches to hornbills) of this series and I find it the most amazing source of information on birds. You find a very complete description of every bird family with beautiful pictures of birds in every family, followed by a thorough uptodate description of every single species of bird, including taxonomy, distribution, habitat, feeding, movements, conservation, bibliography... The text is adjacent to a distribution map for every species. You also find gorgeous plates with drawings of each species and important subspecies, male and female plumages.
This is a truly gigantic enterprise, testament to the love that birds inspire on mankind. You don't have to be an ornithologist to apreciate this magnificent work, you just have to enjoy the variety of birds in this world.
This handbook is a work in progress, with many volumes still to come (all passerines plus woodpeckers and allies). Each volume gets better! It is an embarrassment of riches. It is also a wake up call, for it is to be feared that many species described here will desapear before this handbook is completed. I have just received the sixth volume and cannot wait for the next one!
Books:
- Extreme Bodies: The Use and Abuse of the Body in Art (Skira Paperbacks)
- Fanfares: Programs for Classrooms and Libraries
- Field Guide to the Aesthetic Experience
- Fireside Orgies
- Five Hundred Years of the Art of the Book in Ireland: 1500 To the Present
- Form and Function : Remarks on Art, Design and Architecture
- Francisco Goya: The Tapestry Cartoons and Early Career at the Court of Madrid
- From Rembrandt to Vermeer: 17Th-Century Dutch Artists (Groveart)
- Gauguin: Artists in Focus
- Gilbert and George: Obsessions and Compulsions (Contemporary Artists)
Books Index
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