Exploring the Jemez Country

Book Description

Car trips in the Jemez Mountains north of Albuquerque explore old volcanoes, tuff cliffs, mountain meadows, stream-cut canyons, ghost towns, Indian ruins.

Customer Reviews:

A great resource for Jemez Mountains explorers.......2007-05-16

This book is great. It's full of surprising facts and hikes, and well worth whatever you pay for it. Any resident of or visitor to the Jemez Mountains will find something here for them, for sure.
In addition to being clearly structured, it also has adequate maps and photographs. It's very nice.
I particularly enjoyed its discussion of rumors of gangster legend Al Capone hiding out in the Jemez Mountains, though I was disappointed that it didn't cite its sources for the claims it made.
If you live in central or northern New Mexico, just get this. It doesn't cost much, and if you make even one or two of the hikes suggested in this book, you will have spent your money well.
This also makes a good reference tool for New Mexico writers.

Information on the Jemez Area.......2000-03-19

This is a great introduction to the jemez recreational area. The maps are as good as you can get, and the author has done a great job of describing some of the most interesting places. My only regret is the sparse use of photographs, with no use of color.

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Exploring the Jemez Country
Roland Pettit
Manufacturer: Pajarito Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LHPSQS

Wildflowers of the Land Between the Lakes Region, Kentucky & Tennessee (Miscellaneous Publication / Center for Field Biology, Austin)
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Wildflowers of the Land Between the Lakes Region, Kentucky & Tennessee (Miscellaneous Publication / Center for Field Biology, Austin)
Edward W. Chester , and William H. Ellis
Manufacturer: Austin Peay State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Flowers | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1880617048

Wildflowers of the Land Between the Lakes Region, Kentucky and Tennessee (Miscellaneous publication number 15 of the Center for Field Biology, Austin Peay State University)
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Wildflowers of the Land Between the Lakes Region, Kentucky and Tennessee (Miscellaneous publication number 15 of the Center for Field Biology, Austin Peay State University)
Edward W Chester
Manufacturer: Center for Field Biology, Austin Peay State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Plants | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1880617080

Book Description

An indispensable, information-packed guide which describes everything needed to plan, take and enjoy a fabulous RV adventure.

Customer Reviews:

Disappointed.......2000-02-17

As a person just starting to investigate the purchase of an RV I believe this book provided me with quite a bit of useful common sense information. The lists provided will save much aggravation on my part and the organization addresses in the back may prove very useful. My biggest complaint as I was reading this book is the fact that the authors seemed to center on motor homes almost to the exclusion of other types of RV's (which is where my interest lies.). I also thought that there was entirely to much attention given to the subject of rentals. When they talked about things like dumping the holding tanks, or reading the control panel, or switching the propane tanks etc. I was never sure if these procedures applied to all types of RV's or just motorhomes. This was never clearly stated and I believe this is quite important considering the audience this book is supposed to be directed to. Since reading this book I have found at least one other that is much more geared to the beginning RV'er.

Book Description

James Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and inventor whose work on detecting CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) in our environment led him to develop a new theory about our planet. The Gaia Hypothesis posits that the Earth is alive-a self regulating organism in its own right. In his two other books on the subject, Lovelock set the record straight on the damage that CFC'c have done to ourplanet and its delicate balance of the interaction between life-forms. His theory has generated much controversy as it proposes that evolution is far from over and that humankind is no longer the be-all and end-all of that process. In this latest volume on the subject, Lovelock examines the health and future prospects of our ailing planet. Beautifully illustrated and presented, Healing Gaia does justice to a theory of this magnitude, while making it accessible to a wide audience of scientists and non-scientists alike. It represents the most comprehensive analysis of our origins, our reasons for existence, and our likely future.

Customer Reviews:

A more mature review.......2004-07-14

The other review on this page was written by me (Lloyd) a few years ago. I am writing this review as a second look at the book now that I am older and (hopefully) more critical - i.e. less willing to be persuaded (!). Whilst I still think that the Gaia hypothesis is a fascinating idea and that Lovelock's book is well worth reading, I am now much more sceptical about the actual evidence for the hypothesis -- empirical evidence is, after all, the final and absolute test of a hypothesis in science.

Lovelock's writing can be very poetic. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but in some cases -- such as the description of the earth as being an `organism' -- clarity and scientific precision seems to be sacrificed in favour of emotion. In the review `Reviewing Lovelock's second book on the Gaia Hypothesis' of `The Ages of Gaia' someone explains Lovelock's ideas about the earth as an organism more eloquently than I can. I find this view much less likely (and therefore not as good as a scientific hypothesis) than the more down to earth -- if you will forgive the pun! -- statement that living things sometimes modify their environment in a way that keeps conditions favourable for life.

Which brings me back to the all-important question of whether the earth is `self regulating'. It seems to me that this would be quite a difficult thing to demonstrate experimentally or by observation (although Lovelock does give examples of observations that support his hypothesis). I don't know what the current evidence amounts to (I am not a scientist!) but it seems to me that the current consensus is not with Lovelock.

In summary, I would recommend people to read the book but to bear in mind that Gaia is not a well-established theory. In particular, it might be good to also read some books about more mainstream evolutionary theory by authors such as Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould (which are, in my opinion, brilliant books) first.

Manual for the 20th Century.......2001-07-16

We are all well aware of the world-wide problems concerning humans harming the environment, such as ozone depletants and cars causing global warming. We are a great deal less aware, however, of the real damage done to the earth and whether or not the planet can recover.

In this revolutionary book Lovelock describes his profound new theory of planetary ecology. The Gaia theory views the earth as a living, self-regulatory organism in which the evolution of life is closely coupled with the evolution of the climate. The theory accounts for the remarkable ability of the biosphere to recover from planetary disasters such as the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and many other previously unexplained features of life on earth.

The book should be on the shelf of anyone interested in the planetary maladies mankind has inflicted upon the earth. In easy to understand language with the minimum of jargon. Lovelock eloquently explains his theory and suggests sensible and empirical remedies for an ailing Gaia.

Gaia : The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine
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Gaia : The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine
James Lovelock
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HM7UOK

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Gaia : The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine
James Lovelock
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKJKB6

Book Description

This book gathers together papers from a workshop held in Cortona, Italy. The contributions come from a group of outstanding mathematicians and together they cover the most recent advances in the geometric theory of singular phenomena of partial differential equations occurring in real and complex differential geometry. This volume will be of great interest to all those whose research interests lie in real and complex differential geometry, partial differential equations, and gauge theory.

Book Description

At thirty-three, obsessive, hypersensitive Susannah Rabin lives with her mother, their cloistered world providing a barrier to the excruciating torment of human contact. But then Susannah's mother tells her that they are going to have a guest-- Susannah's cousin, a young man from New York. Susannah is horrified. Until the guest arrives, looking uncannily like Percy Bysshe Shelley. Fascinated by his exoticism, Susannah finds herself going to the movies, meeting his friends, swimming at night. But then Susannah's mother becomes troubled by their friendship, and asks the obvious question--"What is he doing in Israel?"

Alona Kimhi. Weeping Susannah.: An article from: World Literature Today

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Alona Kimhi. Weeping Susannah.: An article from: World Literature Today
Gila Ramras-Rauch
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on March 22, 2002. The length of the article is 619 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: Alona Kimhi. Weeping Susannah.
Author: Gila Ramras-Rauch
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2002
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 76 Issue: 2 Page: 245(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Weeping Susannah
Alona Kimmi
Manufacturer: The Harvill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Book Description

Doris Schattschneider's classic M. C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry (1990) is the most penetrating study of Escher's work in existence, and the one most admired by mathematicians and scientists. It deals with one powerful obsession that preoccupied Escher: what he called "the regular division of the plane," the puzzle-like interlocking of birds, fish, lizards, and other natural forms in continuous patterns. Schattschneider asks, "How did he do it?" She answers the question by meticulously analyzing Escher's notebooks, and the New Scientist described the result as "a collection of detective stories whose plots are brilliantly organized patterns."

Like the first edition of the book, this new volume includes many of Escher's masterworks, as well as hundreds of lesser-known examples of his work. It also features an illustrated epilogue by the author that reveals new information about Escher's inspiration and shows how his ideas of symmetry have influenced mathematicians, computer scientists, and contemporary artists. Visions of Symmetry is a trip into the mind of a creator who continues to captivate the world.

Customer Reviews:

Not for the casual Escher fan........2006-02-04

Make no mistake. This isn't a comprehensive book for the Escher fan who wants to look at all his pretty pictures. It is a highly academic (no problem there, unless you're looking for, like I said, pretty pictures) book that focuses on basic patterns. It doesn't have many of the drawings that introduced me to his work in the first place. It's not the coffee-table book I was looking for, but that's my problem. It does have volumes of text for the so-inclined.

A Most Comprehensive Study of M. C. Escher's Works........2005-06-30

It is most gratifying to note that at large, it is a professor of Mathematics who was inspired to collect the materials and compile this most penetrating study on the works of M. C. Escher. That professor is Dr. Doris Schattschneider and her latest publication "M. C. Escher : Visions of Symmetry" is a life's labour of love at collecting, classifying and indexing the works of M. C. Escher in a single volume. The book opens with a stunning photograph of M. C. Escher and a penetrating one-page foreword by Douglas R. Hofstadter.

Who then is M. C. Escher and what is his global appeal? Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) was a Dutch graphic and wood-cut artist, who for decades working in isolation, single handedly produced the most haunting, fascinating and intriguing works of tesselation, the kind, the world had not seen before. His obsession with visual patterns built by the intricate interlocking of shapes that repeat and repeat forever, filling every crack in the regular plane, made it almost into a visual poetry. What is remarkable is that an artist single handedly learned by himself, the mathematical laws of the plane symmetry group including all it's isometries (i.e. translations, rotations, reflections and glide reflections) as he produced year after year patterns with interlocking shapes of unmatched beauty and provocation. He saw symmetry and beauty where others saw only a senseless repetiton. One can spend hours describing the various feelings brought out by a single image, suffice to say it would require a multi volume encyclopedia to describe in detail all that is collected in this single tome. I am flabbergasted that this book sells on the internet for as low as US $11.00. It is worth it's weight in precious diamonds. Thanks a million Doris, for doing such amicable justice to a great artist, and for providing us such a timeless treasure.

Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and Related Work of M.C. Escher

Average customer rating:

The definitive book on Escher's repeating pattern work.
A must for Escher fans interested in the maths of his work
An excellent example of the method to the genius
A good look at Escher's tessellation research.

Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and Related Work of M.C. Escher
Doris Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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The Magic of M. C. Escher
Escher on Escher: Exploring the Infinite
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M.C. Escher : 29 Master prints

ASIN: 0716723522

Customer Reviews:

The definitive book on Escher's repeating pattern work........1999-08-28

As a child, Maurits Cornelis Escher fitted together irregular pieces of cheese in his sandwiches so that they would completely fill the space between the slices of bread. From the very beginnings of his career as an artist, in 1921, he devised ways of interlocking images so as to leave no empty space, and then of making these images repeat infinitely in increasingly complex ways. Professor Schattschneider's magnificently illustrated volume analyses this critical aspect of Escher's work, focussing on a series of 137 symmetry drawings and watercolors created from 1926 to 1971, which the artist kept in five folders throughout his lifetime and which he used as references for his continuing work on the regular division of the plane. Included are analogies from each of these works (which now sell for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each) to his original prints and projects. As owner of and dealer in the main body of Escher's original prints, drawings and watercolors, which were previously on loan to the Hague Museum, I make extensive use of this book and commend it to all. Some of the text is written for the layman; other portions of the writing are technical and will be of interest to mathematicians and crystallographers. In addition, the quantity and quality of the full-page color illustrations, few of which are to be found in any other publication in print, contribute to making this book, which serves as a catalogue raisonné of the symmetry drawings and watercolors, eminently collectable.

The other key books on Escher are M.C. ESCHER: HIS LIFE AND COMPLETE GRAPHIC WORK; THE MAGIC MIRROR OF M.C. ESCHER; THE GRAPHIC WORK OF M.C. ESCHER; and ESCHER ON ESCHER. Persons technically inclined may also be interested in ART AND SCIENCE, which constitutes the proceedings of the 1985 Escher conference in Rome.

A must for Escher fans interested in the maths of his work.......1999-07-02

This book answered a lot of questions I had about Escher's regular division of the plane. It has highly enlarged my understanding of his work, and thus made me enjoy it even more. My initial interest was deepening my mathematical knowledge on tessallations, and I can tell I did.

An excellent example of the method to the genius.......1999-03-17

This book has beautiful full color reproductions of Escher's notebooks, along with erxplainations and diagrams showing how Escher accomplished such a volume of work. It also includes anecdotes told by his friends, and reproductions of all three of the metamorphosis. Truly Brilliant! You can't go wrong with this book, be you mathemetitian, or artist

A good look at Escher's tessellation research........1999-02-16

Doris Schattschneider's book takes a look at Escher's research on the regular division of the plane.

1/8 on an iceberg is visible while 7/8 is hidden. Escher's prints are like this. The visible image is only a small part of the thought and preparation that lies beneath the surface. Schattschneider takes us beneath the surface and shines a light on this hidden behemoth.

This volume is more demanding and difficult than other Escher books. But it is rewarding to delve into.

Meticulous, tenacious, thorough, playful. My adjectives for Escher are driven home even more forcefully by this book.

Ms Schattschneider did a fine job putting this book together.

M C Escher Visions of Symmetry
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M C Escher Visions of Symmetry
Dor Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W H FREEMAN & COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000SNKCRU

M.C. ESCHER Visions of Symmetry
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M.C. ESCHER Visions of Symmetry

Manufacturer: Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000H0TKD6

M.C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry
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M.C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry
D. Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W.H. FREEMAN AND COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WTD056

Visions of Symmetry notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and related Works of M. C. Escher
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Visions of Symmetry notebooks, Periodic Drawings, and related Works of M. C. Escher
Doris Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O51PFU

M C Escher Visions of Symmetry
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M C Escher Visions of Symmetry
Dor Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W H FREEMAN & COMPANY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000PXT0CG

M. C. Escher Visions of Symmetry : Notebooks, Periodic Drawings and Related Work
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M. C. Escher Visions of Symmetry : Notebooks, Periodic Drawings and Related Work
M. C, & Schattschneider, Doris S. (Editor) Escher
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PS2BH2

M.C. Escher, Visions of Symmetry
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M.C. Escher, Visions of Symmetry
Doris Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W.H. Freeman & Co.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000TXWUCO

Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings and related work of M. C. Escher
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Visions of Symmetry: Notebooks, Periodic Drawings and related work of M. C. Escher
Doris Schattschneider
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000MXWW06

Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942
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Meticulous Military History

The Story of What the Carriers Did at Guadalcanal

Richly detailed

Long on detail, short on analysis

Historically accurate! Entertaining! Engrossing!

Carrier Clash: The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons August 1942
Eric Hammel
Manufacturer: Zenith Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Aviation | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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First Team And the Guadalcanal Campaign: Naval Fighter Combat from August to November 1942

ASIN: 0760320527

Book Description

Beginning with detailed descriptions of the history of the aircraft carrier, the development of carrier-air tactics, the training of carrier pilots, and numerous operational considerations that defined the way carrier battles had to be fought, Carrier Clash takes the reader into the air with brave U. S. Navy fighter pilots as they protect their ships and the Guadalcanal invasion fleet against determined Japanese air attacks on August 7 and 8, 1942. Next, Hammel sets the stage for the August 24 Battle of the Eastern Solomons, by putting the reader right into the cockpits of the U. S. Navy Dauntless dive-bombers as they drive on the Imperial Navy light carrier Ryujo - and hit the ship with 500-pound bombs! Carrier Clash is the definitive combat history of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons' third battle (of only five) between American and Japanese aircraft carriers. Had the Navy failed in this battle against the Japanese fleet, the 1st Marine Division's invasion of Guadalcanal would have been defeated almost before it began.About the AuthorEric Hammel is the author of almost thirty works of military history. He is also a frequent contributor to various military journals including Marine Corps Gazette and is currently working on an illustrated history of the Marine Corps in World War II to be published by Zenith Press. Hammel lives in northern California near San Francisco.

Customer Reviews:

Meticulous Military History.......2005-12-25

Despite the book's title this is really a history of the Solomons campaing up to the battle of the Eastern Solomons, the first carrier to carrier clash of the campaign. It certainly has its center of gravity placed on the operations of the American carriers, but includes much of the actions of both navies in and around the slot, the fighting on the ground, and the aerial duels between the Japanese coming out of Rabaul and the Cactus air force.

Foremost this book is an account of what happened in a very comperehensive manner. After explaining the aircraft and ships the Japanese and Americans possesed, and delving into an interesting comparison of their air wing make ups and tactics, the author takes you chronologically through the Solomons campaign.

The reason this book only merited four stars instead of five is that sometimes this can be a bit dry. There's a lot of " . . . and then at 1350 the Wasp launched two more Hellcats on CAP. At 1415 a Mavis was shot down by a Hellcat from the Enterprise. Japanese records indicate that this was from their base in the Shortland Islands. At 1430 four planes from the Hornet CAP returned to refuel. At 1435 planes from the Wasp sighted another Mavis but were unable to pursue it. At 1440 . . . " Stretch this amount of minute by minute detail out over several weeks worth of operations and you get a sense of what the book is about, and it's a marvel it's not longer.

This might be slow at some points but it does allow some interesting insights that many other more easily read, and more exciting books can obscure. First is the sometimes monotomy and boredom of war. Second is the ridiculous degree to which kills of enemy aircraft and ships were overstated during the battles that occured. By comparing accounts of both sides the author makes it clear that most engagements resulted in fewer losses than the participants thought took place. (Clearly the engagements must have been emotionally draining and fierce.) If the after action reports are to have been believed it would seem as though the Japanese thought they wiped out the entire American force several times over and vice versa.

Certainly interesting for people with a passion for WWII history, especially the pacific campaign, but too much like pure history to really recommend for the casual reader.

The Story of What the Carriers Did at Guadalcanal.......2005-04-23

The Invasion of Guadalcanal and the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, August 1942.

The Battle of the Eastern Solomons was history's third carrier clash. A collision of U.S. Navy and Imperial Navy carriers in the wake of the invasion of Guadalcanal--whose airfield the United States desperately needed and the Japanese desperately wanted back--the battle was waged at sea and over Guadalcanal's besieged Marine-held Lunga Perimeter on August 24, 1942.

These battles were the result of the US deciding to draw the line in the pacific at the Solomons. If the Japanese had been able to complete the airfield on Guadalcanal, their planes would have been able to prevent the sailing of ships to Australia via the Pacific. So it was here that the Americans drew the line. Before the Guadalcanal battle the Americans fought the Battle of the Coral Sea stopping the Japanese southern advance.

Remember that this was a time before the Americans brought out their newer aircraft. This battle was fought with Wildcats against Zeros. And the dive bombers were the old SBD Dauntless.

This is not a history of Guadalcanal or of the overall place of this battle in the war, it is as the title says, a description of the carrier vs. carrier battles. This is only part of the story, but it is well told here.

Not a companion book, but anyone interested in the stopping of the Japanese advances should also read the new Australian book "A Bastard of a Place." This covers the stopping of the Japanese advance across Papua New Guina a fierce and deciscive battle little known in the US.

Richly detailed.......2001-07-02

CARRIER CLASH is the first of a two book set detailing the campaign in the Solomons from Aug-Oct 1942. The reader is familiarized with aircraft carrier doctrine, operations, and the aircraft types used by both combatants. The book takes the reader through the opening operation (the initial landings on Guadalcanal)right through to the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in late August. As in the second volume CARRIER STRIKE, this book follows an almost minute-by-minute account of the tension and confusion of aerial combat.The reader is thrust into the midst of the action. I was hardly able to put the book down.

Long on detail, short on analysis.......2000-05-29

The man has definitely done his research - this is the most detailed account I've ever read of any Pacific theatre battle.

However, although the book describes Guadalcanal and the battle of the Eastern Solomons, Savo Island is all but ignored. There is no discussion of the significance of the battle, nor even of who won it! Essentially, the book stops when the fighting did, which is a bit odd.

If you like blood-and-thunder dogfight anecdotes you'll like this book, but some more of the big picture would have been nice.

Historically accurate! Entertaining! Engrossing!.......1998-08-14

This book details a small section of history from World War 2. It describes the equipment, the men and the battles, but it does it in such a way that you are unable to put the book down. By the time you've finished you have a feeling of some of what it must have been like to be involved in the struggle for that 'terrible' island. You also begin to believe that you know the men who fought there. This book is unmissable.

Book Description

Governing with Judges elaborates a theory of constitutional politics, the process through which the discursive practices and techniques of constitutional adjudication come to structure the work of governments, parliaments, judges, and administrators. Focusing on the cases of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the European Union, the book examines the sources and consequences of the pan-European movement to confer constitutional review authority on a new governmental institution, the constitutional court. Detailed case studies illustrate how and to what extent legislative processes have been placed under the influence of constitutional judges. In a growing number of policy domains, these judges function as powerful, adjunct legislators. As constitutional courts have consolidated their position as authoritative interpreters of the constitutional law, and especially of human rights provisions, the work of the judiciary, too, has gradually been constitutionalised. Today, ordinary judges seek to detect violations of the constitution in their application of the various codes, and to rewrite statutes that they deem unconstitutional. Constitutional politics have not only provoked the demise of traditional notions of parliamentary sovereignty, they have organized profound transformations in the very nature of European governance. Stone Sweet argues that constitutional adjudication constructs complex causal linkages between rule systems and normativity, on the one hand, and the strategic behaviour of individuals, on the other. The theory constitutes a novel synthesis of normative and rational approaches to politics. The book also addresses central questions raised by a wide range of ongoing theory projects, including the 'new institutionalism,'rational choice, principal-agent theories of delegation, and the new constitutionalism in Continental legal theory.

Customer Reviews:

The Best Explanation for the European Court's Power.......2003-12-09

For Stone Sweet, initially, diplomatic representatives of member state governments bargain rationally to create institutions that begin to take on a life of their own, eventually resembling those of a domestic polity. Thus, Stone Sweet shows how theories of international relations and intergovernmentalism become less and less relevant to the European Union, as the reach of EU law grows. Because any explanation for the power of the European Court of Justice relies on institution building and institutional effects, the most powerful current theories of EU politics are "institutionalist" in nature, bridging the divide between domestic and international politics.

For Stone Sweet, these institutions (principles, norms, rules and procedures, which make up the "judicialization" of policy-making) can themselves be taken as explanatory variables that "organize ongoing normative deliberations that seek to define and redefine the nature of the community" (10). In other words, institutions have the power to "constitute" individuals and construct their preferences to some degree. That is, institutions shape not only strategies, but also goals and norms of behavior, arising, in Stone Sweet's case, from constitutionally binding case law.

Much of the earlier work on EU integration, including neofunctionalism, had claimed that actors could be socialized into EU processes and identities, but did not offer much in the way of testable causal mechanisms. Stone Sweet can thus be commended for giving us a concrete causal model explaining how "judicialization is the process by which legislators absorb the behaviour norms of constitutional adjudication, and the grammar and vocabulary of constitutional law, into those repertoires of reasoning and action that constitute political agency" (204). Thus, when studying the (initially economic) impetus for European unification, Stone Sweet shows how studying the (rational) economic and political interests of member state governments alone is a poor starting point for understanding nature and effects of the emerging European polity.

These same economic interests are at the root of Stone Sweet's second key contribution to the EU literature; namely, his support for a renewed use of neofunctionalism, a neo-neofunctionalism, if you will. Originally, neofunctionalism took taken heavy criticism, because it allegedly postulated an automatic rationality and inevitability to the integration process, without offering falsifiable propositions about when integration might slow down or even reverse, due to political change.

These are heavy allegations, but Stone Sweet's use of neofunctionalism counters these charges quite well, by specifying and demonstrating a normatively-based "rationality" to the process (a community of norms that frames rational action), offering a theory of how this process works (constitutional conflict, leading to delegation to the constitutional court, leading to constitutional decision-making/rule-making, leading to "judicialization"), and carefully assessing the feedback effects of institutional integration on domestic structures: "in today's multi-tiered European polity, the sovereignty of the legislature, and the primacy of national executives, are dead" (193). As the new standard-bearer of EU functionalism, Stone Sweet makes a persuasive case that IR theory cannot explain the "top-down" nature of EU constitutional politics; that is, how initially rational economic preferences turned into a seemingly inexorable process of legal dialogue, "socializing more and more actors-private litigants, judges and politicians-into the system, encouraging more use" (165). Through the vehicle of "rights," the ECJ used the logic of economic integration to enhance its role as dispute resolver. Initially, member state governments had no interest in supranational rights protections: "their purpose was not so much to create rights claims for individuals, as to remove potential sources of distortion within the common market" (171). But to fulfill this "function," rights claims had to be put into action, leading to the process of judicial governance. Looking at member state preferences alone cannot explain this phenomenon, and thus Stone Sweet's supranational functionalism proves superior to the intergovernmentalism of a scholar like Moravcsik.

Governing With Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe
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Governing With Judges: Constitutional Politics in Europe
Alec Stone Sweet Alec Stone-Sweet
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLEF6U

Book Description

The environmental movement today is at a critical crossroads. Crossroads: Environmental Priorities for the Future is an in-depth assessment of the movement's successes and failures, and also offers prescriptions for the future. Crossroads is written by some of the country's top environmental leaders and activists, including Barry Commoner, Stewart Udall, William K. Reilly, Gus Speth, Jay Hair, Lois Gibbs, Michael Frome, Chuck Little, and William Futrell.

CROSSROADS ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITIES FOR THE FUTURE
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CROSSROADS ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITIES FOR THE FUTURE
Peter (edited) Borrelli
Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JWBLTS

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