Frederick Billings, A Life: From Gold Rush Lawyer to Railroad Builder to Conservationist

Book Description

Frederick Billings was the first lawyer to hang his shingle in San Francisco, the man who named the city of Berkeley, and an instrumental figure in founding the University of California. An early conservationist and advocate of national parks, Billings was also president of the Northern Pacific railroad. This riveting biography captures not only Billings's dynamic life, but also the spirit and excitement of California during the gold rush era.

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Frederick Billings: A Life
Robin W. Winks
Manufacturer: Oxford Univerity Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NP0T3U

Frederick Billings, A Life: The Story of one of the 19th Century's great railway builders and early Americna conservationists

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Frederick Billings, A Life: The Story of one of the 19th Century's great railway builders and early Americna conservationists
Robin Winks
Manufacturer: Oxford
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0TGD8

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Frederick Billings: A Life
Robin W. Winks
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKP4AW

Book Description

The New York Yankees have won more league titles and World Series championships than any other franchise, thanks in large part to Hall of Famers such as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. But stars alone have not made the Yankees the greatest of franchises, though. Little or nothing until now has been written about the supporting casts that helped the Yankees dominate baseball. Lou Clinton, Rip Coleman, Russ Derry, Charlie Devens, Ryne Duren, Allen Gettel, Steve Hamilton, Billy Hunter, Deron Johnson, Don Johnson, "Little Ray" Kelly, Cliff Mapes, Bob Martyn, Lindy McDaniel, Irv Noren, Duane Pillette, Bill Renna, Steve Souchock, Bob Turley, and Dooley Womack tell their New York stories. Teammates of Ruth, DiMaggio and Mantle talk about their playing days and the men with whom they played. This is Yankee history from the early 1920s into the 1970s, by the men who made it.

Customer Reviews:

Definitive career book.......2004-11-06

THE best book to own for a complete guide to Peter Cushing's career. Most books only cover the films, this one contains extensive coverage of stage, television, and even a forgotten radio serial with Vincent Price in the 1970's - something Price books fail to mention! It would have been even better had some of his lesser known films gotten more than a paragraph or two. Also, a photo of Cushing as Holmes or van Helsing on the cover instead of one as Frankenstein with a scantily clad female would certainly have been in better taste. Still, it's excellent.

The Definitive Peter Cushing Stage/Screen Companion.......2001-02-03

When asked to name some actors that have left a lasting impression on the sci-fi/horror film genre, Peter Cushing is bound to show up on most lists and with the release of this book, fans can finally hold in their hands, the definitive guide to Peter Cushing's stage and screen works. Author David Miller has compiled a wonderful tribute to this fascinating star, from his humble beginnings in Hollywood to his international fame as Baron Frankenstein and Van Helsing for Hammer Studios to the two Dr. Who films and as the evil Grand Moff Tarkin in the first Star Wars film. It's all here...interviews, conversations with Cushing's family and friends as well as acting colleagues. Fans are also treated to a chronological listing of Mr. Cushing's work on stage, screen and TV. This is a book that easily belongs on any Cushing fan's book shelf.

Amazon.com

Clap if you believe in fairies! The Victorians did, writes Carole Silver in Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness, but she's not exactly talking about Tinkerbell here. Silver prefers the more gruesome and treacherous species of fay: changelings and vampires, brownies and goblins. The Victorians took these creatures very seriously, indeed, and according to Silver, this belief tapped into some of their society's most fundamental anxieties. Fear of physical deformity, of women's sexual power, of racial or class difference: these were the true bogeymen that haunted the Victorian imagination, and they responded with a flood of art, literature, and theater that portrayed these imaginary creatures with equal measures of fascination and horror. Silver even argues that many if not most Victorians believed in the actual physical existence of fairies, citing contemporary news accounts as her evidence. Why fairies? Creatures of the imagination and of the rural past, they offered refuge from an increasingly mechanized and empirical age. More ominously, they also provided expression for some of an imperialist nation's nastier beliefs, embodied in figures from Dr. Jekyll to Snow White's dwarves. Exhaustively researched and engagingly written, Strange and Secret Peoples is an original look at the complexities and contradictions of Victorian culture.

Book Description

Teeming with creatures, both real and imagined, this encyclopedic study in cultural history illuminates the hidden web of connections between the Victorian fascination with fairies and their lore and the dominant preoccupations of Victorian culture at large. Carole Silver here draws on sources ranging from the anthropological, folkloric, and occult to the legal, historical, and medical. She is the first to anatomize a world peopled by strange beings who have infiltrated both the literary and visual masterpieces and the minor works of the writers and painters of that era. Examining the period of 1798 to 1923, Strange and Secret Peoples focuses not only on such popular literary figures as Charles Dickens and William Butler Yeats, but on writers as diverse as Thomas Carlyle, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charlotte Mew; on artists as varied as mad Richard Dadd, Aubrey Beardsley, and Sir Joseph Noel Paton; and on artifacts ranging from fossil skulls to photographs and vases. Silver demonstrates how beautiful and monstrous creatures--fairies and swan maidens, goblins and dwarfs, cretins and changelings, elementals and pygmies--simultaneously peopled the Victorian imagination and inhabited nineteenth-century science and belief. Her book reveals the astonishing complexity and fertility of the Victorian consciousness: its modernity and antiquity, its desire to naturalize the supernatural, its pervasive eroticism fused with sexual anxiety, and its drive for racial and imperial dominion.

Customer Reviews:

Dark Victorian Obessions (And Present-Day Fears).......2002-06-04

Carole G. Silver's Strange & Secret Peoples: Faries & Victorian Consciousness (2000) is the best serious book on the subject of fairies and fairy lore to be published since Patrick Harpur's broader, belief-based study, Daimonic Reality (1994).

Silver believes that the Victorian love of fairy-themed plays, stories, paintings, and operettas actually reflected several dark and ugly obsessions for which the fairies were perfect symbols and potent conduits. These included mistrust of female sexuality and independence, fear of racial contamination, and a horror for birth deformity and child-stealing. For Silver, all Victorian thought and feeling on and for fairies had a decidedly downward pull. The fairies were not only easily and readily dismissible: they were something to actively fear.

Not all of Silver's chapters are equally good, but the author has a keen methodical writing style and a thorough understanding of the abundance of material she has gathered together. Especially satisfying are Silver's citings of fairy-related stories by neglected authors Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Fiona MacLeod and others; Silver briefly summarizes each story and places it within its sociological and historical context.

The major problem with Silver's work is the relentless political correctness, which rears its head whenever the author approaches a 'sensitive' issue; Silver would have been wiser to hold herself to a higher intellectual standard. It is fairly difficult to believe that, thirty-five years ago, she would have so heavily underscored the same objections she does here.

Is it really so difficult to understand how and why African pygmy tribes 'discovered' by Victorians were initially suspected to be less than fully human? Instead of allowing those scientists credit for the groundbreaking work they did, and allowing for--or at least rationally acknowledging--the genuine scientific ignorance of their time, Silver approaches the subject with a highbrow "I shudder to think" attitude which seems like willful historical stupidity itself.

The same applies to her awkward chapter on swan maidens: Silver writes defensively, as if exploring and elaborating upon the misogyny of the Victorian era will be misconstrued as her own misogyny, merely because the author is addressing the subject.

Though it takes itself and its subject too seriously on occasion, this is the best book likely to be published on the subject for some time. Students of folklore and myth will find it interesting and highly readable, if its uniformly dark conclusions not consistently persuasive.

A fascinating read.......2000-12-18

In this strangely different work, Professor Silver examines the British fascination with Faeries and other imaginary creatures from 1798 to 1923. She examines such sources as literature, fairy tale collections, anthropologists, newspapers, ballet, and a host of others. The book is encyclopedic in its reach, covering dwarves, mermaids, fairies and more. The author traces the evolution of fairy lore, and how its changes reflect changes in Victorian attitudes. She shows how fairy concepts reflected Victorian views on women, race, childhood, industrialism, and more.

This book is a fascinating read. In particular, the fairy brides/gender and goblins/race chapters were absolutely fascinating, and impossible to put down. My one complaint is that the hardbound book was printed in a very small font, which made for some irritating reading sessions. That said, though, this is a very good book.

Enchanting and trustworthy account of British fairy lore........1999-09-04

An enchanting book with a great deal of curious and interesting information. It's written with enough clarity and charm to appeal to nonspecialists, though it is also an authoritative and trustworthy resource for scholars. Investigating everything from the survival of ancient beliefs (especially in the Celtic fringes of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland) through the work of anthropologists and folklorists to the cute designs for nursery wallpaper, Carole Silver demonstrates the ways in which the widespread nineteenth-century interest in fairy lore exposes fears and fantasies close to the Victorian unconscious. The author draws on an extraordinary range of sources: newspaper accounts, legal cases, theology, linguistics, the new social sciences of anthropology, ethnology and psychology, and texts ranging from the essays of Thomas Carlyle to the literary fairy tales we still read to our children. She explores in depth the belief in changeling children, the rendering of goblins and other dark primitive creatures, and the gender and power relations revealed in stories of fairy brides. This is real scholarship to illuminate the current and continuing popularity of fairies and their stories. -- Sally Mitchell, Professor of English and Women's Studies, Temple University

A must-buy!.......1999-05-22

Enchanting, illuminating, and clear-headed, Carole Silver's study of the Victorians and their fairy obsession is a warehouse of treasures for anyone interested in fairy lore and the humans who hoard it. A born storyteller and endlessly smart, Silver brings to life the ideas and images that made up what we know of Victorian culture, showing how their reality and unreality differed from our own.

Not all it could be, but an interesting work.......1999-02-12

This is an interesting study of a subject which has perhaps less attention than it deserves. In spite of the exceedingly ill-mannered review in the New York Times, the contention that at least some people in Victorian times believed in fairies is a perfectly valid one; after all, people today, many of them quite intelligent and well educated, hold similar beliefs. The author is to be commended for largely refraining from the cynicism about other peoples' experiences which mars too much academic work in fairylore and related fields. That said, it isn't quite all it could be. References to Antonio Gramsci's writings were not properly cited, making it difficult to track down the specific translation and edition used. Most importantly, the author failed to make her work fully accessible to those of us who work in related fields; particularly irritating was her use (outside period quotations) of mutilated anglicisations of words from the various Celtic languages. While these barbarous concoctions may have been in common use in Victorian literature, they obscure the connection of this literature to the folkloric source material. Embedded in modern prose, they are not only ugly and confusing, but border on the the offensive. Modern scholars of Victorian ethnography generally use accepted present day romanisations in their own writing, retaining the crude phonetic attempts of the nineteenth century only in quotes. Surely the Irish, Scots, and Welsh nations deserve the same basic courtesy as the Arab, Chinese, and Bantu peoples.

Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness,

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Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness,
Carole G., SILVER
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKSOMC

Book Description

Mathematics can be fun for everyone, and this book shows it. It grew out of the author’s popularisation of mathematics via live, call-in TV shows and widely published articles. The questions, comments, and even the answers here come largely from the callers and readers themselves, and so the book covers the kind of mathematical problems that people are interested in, not those that professional mathematicians, writers or even publishers think people should be interested in. The book makes no attempt to fit any mould. Although written by a research mathematician, it goes where the callers and readers have directed it, over a wide range of topics and levels. Everyone paging through it will be captured by something of interest, whether they consider themselves interested in mathematics or not.

Customer Reviews:

Fun problems submitted to a call-in show.......2001-03-16

Despite the math phobia that afflicts so much of the population, it is limited in extent. All but the most committed hater of mathematics understands how valuable it is and respects those who can use math. This book is a catalog of questions submitted to a call-in show, which is certainly one of the most unusual ways to solicit mathematics problems. The world seems to be overpopulated with call-in shows, some of which get downright weird. To many people, discussing personal problems over the airwaves is the preferred way to deal with them. This is clearly a case of a call-in show that adds something to society rather than airing some of the ills that afflict it.
The problems presented in the book are fascinating, in that they start with simple ideas concerning how the world works. My two favorites are "Do Airplanes Get Lighter as Passengers Eat Lunch?" and "Can a Computer Have Free Will?" These are the type of problems that kindle the interest of lay people. Interesting, sometimes profound questions where the answers require a bit of deep thought. Some of the best brain teaser problems with simple solutions that you will ever find are in this collection. I have used a few of them as test problems to try the patience of my students.
It is gratifying to see such an endeavor succeed. Mathematics has so much to offer our society, but like artisans throughout history it is truly the society in general that supports the practitioners. Programs like this convince us all that, despite the occasional spouting of math phobia, our society does indeed respect mathematics as a pillar of human achievement.

Book Description

Scott Kelby and Felix Nelson (the creative team behind Photoshop User magazine) take their best-selling Photoshop Killer Tips books to a whole new level with their update for Photoshop CS2.

Okay, why a book of nothing but tips? Because that's where all the really slick, really useful, and really fun stuff is. It's true! If we're looking through a book and we see the word "Tip" we're all immediately drawn to it, because we know we're about to learn something great. Maybe it's an undocumented keyboard shortcut, a hidden inside secret, or just a faster, better way to do something we do every day. The only problem with the tips in these books is that there are never enough of 'em. That is, until now.

That's because this book is packed cover-to-cover, wall-to-wall with nothing but those cool Photoshop CS2 sidebar tips. Every tip is designed to make you work faster, smarter, and have more fun using Photoshop CS2. There are no detailed descriptions of CMYK separation set-ups, or long boring discussions on color management theory. It's just tips--short, sweet, and to the point.

But we've done the "tip" idea one better, because every tip has a full-color graphic to make the tips even more accessible, even more fun, and even easier to use. Most importantly, to get in this book they've got to be "Killer Tips." The kind of tip that makes you smile, nod, and then call all your friends and "tune them up" with your new status as Photoshop guru.

If you've wondered how the pros get twice the work done in half the time, it's because they know all the tips, and all the tricks. Now with this book, so will you.

Customer Reviews:

Quick Tips.......2007-08-14

If you like straight to the point tips, this book is for you. It helps speed up your work flow and learn all the misc stuff associated with Photoshop.

Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips.......2007-05-09

This book is not designed to be read cover to cover. Rather, it is a reference book organized more like an encyclopedia of photoshop techniques. Want to convert a color photo to Black and White? Look up Black and White in the index, go to page 98 and there it is, step by step. The index is well thought out and easy to navigate. The writing style is straight forward and easy to understand. A great gift or addition to any photo library.

It is decent, not essential, but nice to have........2007-03-10

This was a quick read. It covers new features of CS2 and the book is basically all about keyboard shortcuts and few hidden tips. Honestly, most of these "tips" can be found on the internet search engines or tutorial sites but if you need a book that complied it for you in a accessible format, it is a good purchase. I noticed some of the tips came straight from the CS edition and was not updated (not a big deal). It's a nice desktop reference. I like David Blatner's CS/CS2 Breakthroughs because of it's question/answer format but both are very nice addition if you are a power user. The title fits the content of this book, it is all about speeding up your workflow.

Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips.......2007-03-09

Awesome book. Full of amazing tips-could not
use the program to it's fullest without this book.

For the commited photoshopper! AGAIN!!.......2007-01-10

Now,this is a book for the ones who already know the basics,then and only then you will truly appreciate what Mr.Kelby is revealing here. Or dont get it and go into hard lobor for years through 'trial and error' techniques of your own invention.Eventually you will find them all out! I mean the 'Killer Tips',but you are risking your life on the way,you will most probably get killed without Kelby's wise shortcuts.That's all Folks!

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PHOTOSHOP CS2 KILLER TIPS
Scott Kelby
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Adobe Photoshop | Digital Photography & Video | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000N6OIXQ

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Photoshop CS2 Killer Tips (Killer Tips)
Felix Nelson Scott Kelby
Manufacturer: New Riders Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Adobe Photoshop | Digital Photography & Video | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000OUE16A

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An entertaining read, but what defines a "battle?"

Interesting collection of short essays, but there are problems

A great read, even for the novice!

The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History's Most Influential Battles
Michael Lee Lanning
Manufacturer: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Reference | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Strategy | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present

The Military 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Leaders of All Time

The Battles that Changed History

Dictionary of Wars

50 Battles That Changed the World: The Conflicts That Most Influenced the Course of History

ASIN: 1570717990
Release Date: 2003-05-01

Book Description

A fascinating and thought-provoking ranking of the battles that have shaped history and changed our world.
The Battle 100 ranks the world's most important battles from ancient times to the present according to their influence. In dramatic narrative style, this military history evokes and describes each significant battle, providing commentary on who won, who lost and why. The Battle 100 also includes an evaluation of the battle's influence both on the outcome of its war and on the society of the time.
Over the span of more than 3,000 years, battles have helped to determine the history of the world. The Battle 100 covers the entire spectrum of recorded military history, from Megiddo in 1479 b.c. to Desert Storm in 1991. The text also offers an afterword on the recent terrorist attacks in 2001 against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
A map of each of the 100 battle sites assists the reader's understanding of the action and its results.

Customer Reviews:

An entertaining read, but what defines a "battle?".......2006-06-26

Attempting to rank important events or individuals in history always ignites debate, and this book is no exception. There are numerous reasons why-how do you compare the importance of something that happened, say, 2000 years ago, with something that happened in the last century. Events from thousands of years ago have demonstrated their effect on history, but many recent events may prove to be more or less significant as time progresses. Thus one has to always take into account the author's bias, and a certain set of standards must be applied when judging the impact particular battles have had (or will have) on history.

This particular author's bias seems to lean toward the importance of the United States. The number one battle is Yorktown, and several other battles, ranging from the Civil War to the Spanish American War to battles on the Western Frontier have prominence in these pages. That's well and good if you consider the establishment and continuation of the United States as one of the central events in human history-if you don't, well, the rankings lose a lot of their value. I for one agree with the author's assessment of the United States's importance, and thus find his ranking system, for the most part, appealing.

Of course I disagree with some of the rankings (that is, I believe, part of the point of these books), but I do have to take exception to one thing. What exactly does the author define as a "battle?" This, I believe, is an important question, and one that would certainly change the makeup of this list if it were examined more thoroughly. Shouldn't military action that actually PREVENTS the shedding of blood but still accomplishes the military goals qualify for this list? It seems to me that, by limiting the scope of the work to actions where blood was actually shed is being a bit nearsighted, and the avoidance of bloodshed should not disqualify military action from this work. That the nuclear bombing of Japan is included, when little actual fighting took place, further puzzles me-why include that when other military action is excluded, unless its inclusion to the list has something to do with the hundreds of thousands of casualties?

An example is General William T. Sherman's taking of Atlanta and March to the Sea in late 1864 and 1865. Many prominent historians have argued that Sherman's actions did as much or more to bring about the end of the Civil War than anything else, yet no action in those campaigns gets treatment in the book. Had there been an epic battle outside Atlanta, with tens of thousands of casualties on either side it may have been ranked, but why should the fact that Sherman accomplished his objectives with relatively little fighting disqualify him from the list? One can also certainly make the argument that the entire face of warfare was changed, as European commanders in both World Wars at various times employed Sherman's tactics with success.

This is simply one example of how the lack of an actual clattering of swords produced great military success. There are more, to be sure, and in my opinion disqualifying these great accomplishments for the simple reason that casualties were limited makes little sense. In doing so this list seems lopsided, and I think the subject would have been better treated had the standards for "battle" been better defined. Regardless of this flaw I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a casual and thought-provoking read.

Interesting collection of short essays, but there are problems.......2006-05-02

Anytime you put together a list of the "100 Most" anything, you can expect to start arguments, and this collection of two- and three-page summaries of military and naval engagements is no exception. The coverage ranges from Megiddo, around 1479 BC, to only one more recent than the Golan Heights in 1967. All the obvious choices are here, including Gettysburg, Inchon, Trafalgar, Plassey, Normandy, Stalingrad, and Hastings, but many others are probably new even to many military history buffs, like Alexander's victory at Arbela-Gaugamela in 331 BC, which spelled the end of the Persian Empire, or Muhammad's success in battle at Mecca in 630, which virtually guaranteed the continued existence of Islam in the Near East, or Yenan in 1934, where Mao Tse-Tung ended the Long March by destroying the Nationalist Chinese army and ensured the survival of the People's Republic of China, with enormous repercussions on the second half of the 20th century. However, Lanning shows an uncomfortable America-centrism in ranking battles. The Number One spot goes to the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 -- which, while a key event in establishing the United States as an independent nation, may turn out to have been considerably less important if it's looked back on a thousand years from now. On the other hand, without Charles Martel decisively bringing to a halt the Muslim advance into Western Europe at the Battle of Tours in 732 (only no. 24 on his list), Medieval and Renaissance Europe would never have taken place and the entire cultural and philosophical milieu which gave rise to the American Revolution -- or even, perhaps, to the colonization of the New World in the first place -- would never have happened. I count twenty-two battles in the list -- nearly a quarter of the total -- in which the U.S. or the American colonies played a major role, and that's far too many when you consider the whole history of the world. While I don't see any important engagements that were omitted, some, like San Jacinto (which is certainly important to Texans like me), are much too minor on the global scale to be included on this list in the first place. Likewise, Desert Storm in 1991 is turning out to be much less significant in the long run than the present U.S. administration would like us to believe.

A great read, even for the novice!.......2003-09-24

This was a most engrossing book. It lists the 100 most important battles, in the author's order of importance. He begins with the Battle of Yorktown in 1781, where the colonies won their independence. (The Battle of Saratoga is #15, and ths shots fired at Lexington and Concord are #74.)

Second is the Battle of Hastings in 1066, with the Norman Conquest of England. This would be the last time that England was every invaded. (The Spanish Armada in 1588 is #16, and the Battle of Britian in 1941 is #40.)

Third is the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942-43, which was the turning point of World War II. (Normany in 1944 is #13, the Seige of Moscow in 1941 is #22.)

Fourth is the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, which was the first significant cooperation among European nations against Napoleon.

Fifth, is the Battle of Antietam, where the United and Confederated States suffered 23,000 casualties, the most of any day in history for America, outnumbering the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War combined. (The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 is #17, and the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863 is #49.)

Sixth is a battle that I had never heard of, the Battle of Cajamarca in 1532 where the Spanish were able to claim most of South America. (The Battle of Tenochititlan in 1521, where Mexico City was captured, is #12.)

Seventh is the Atomic Bombing of Japan in 1945. (The Battle of Midway in 1942 is # 44, Pearl Harbor in 1941 is #62.)

Eighth is the Battle of Huai-Hai in 1948 which was the final major fight between the Chinese Communists and the forces of Chiang Kai-shek.

Ninth is Waterloo in 1815, after Napolean escaped from his exile in Elba.

Tenth is the Ottoman Turks' unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1529 which marked the end of the march of Islam into eastern Europe. (The Battle of Tours which halted the Muslim invasion of France in 732, is #24, and the Battle of Granada in 1491-92 which ended seven centuries of Muslin control of Spain, is #35.)

Book Description

"The Civil War was the defining event in American history. To explain why this is, The Civil War 100 uses a truly novel approach to analyze the respective importance of the events, leaders and battles of America's most important war.

Starting with the Battle of Antietam, celebrated veteran and military expert Michael Lee Lanning explains why it is the war's single most influential occurrence. Thus introducing the war's various causes and its primary players, Lanning embarks upon ranking the remaining 99 entries as a way of evaluating their relative influence over the outcome of the war. These subsequent entries include more battles, outspoken politicians, military heroes, causes of the conflict as diverse as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin and, of course, monumental events such as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address.

With its totally unique approach, The Civil War 100 presents an unprecedented perspective on America's transformative event. "

Customer Reviews:

Introduction to the Civil War.......2007-02-12

The CIVIL WAR 100 is history with a twist. Instead of merely delivering dates and places as they happen, author Michael Lee Lanning has created a comparative reference introducing the top one-hundred people, happenings, and battles that shaped the Civil War.

Leading off are,
1) Antietam: This marginal Northern victory marked the turning point of the war; opening the door for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and closing the door on any chance for English and French aid to the Confederacy.
2) Lincoln: This man and his unique qualities may have been the only person capable of leading the North through the Civil War and reuniting the Union.
3) Grant: Was a general who would use his superior numbers to grind away at sorely outnumbered Confederate forces. A quality lacking in a startling number of Union Generals.
4) Gettysburg: The most famous of Civil War battlefields, it demonstrated that the South could not be victorious without European aide.
5) Lee: Military hero, whose strategies are still a model for fighting larger, better supplied forces.

Notable other rankings,
38) Black Soldiers and Sailors: By the end of the war over 180,000 African-Americans had fought for union and freedom.
42) Andersonville Prison: Deplorable conditions led to the deaths of over 12,000 Union prisoners in just fourteen months.
49) Uncle Tom's Cabin: This bestseller introduced the world to the everyday horror and degradation of slavery.
50) General McClellan: Union commander who twice squandered opportunities to defeat much smaller southern forces during the Peninsula campaign and Antietam. He serves an excellent example of how ineptness can become a major factor in shaping history.
54) John Brown: Northern radical who hoped his raid on Harper's Ferry would incite a slave rebellion. Instead it heightened Southern fears of remaining in a political union with an increasingly radical North.
68) Music: Highlights the affect stirring songs such as "The Battle Hymm of the Republic" and "Dixie" had on the morale of soldiers and civilians in both the North and the South.

While a great introductory title and bookshelf guide for novices, the CIVIL WAR 100 may also interest some history buffs who will undoubtedly enjoy arguing the placement and ranking of each item on the list. If you are looking for a wealth of details, look elsewhere. But if you are interested in an engaging Civil War overview, look no further.

Book Description

In Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance, John Riddle showed, through extraordinary scholarly sleuthing, that women from ancient Egyptian times to the fifteenth century had relied on an extensive pharmacopoeia of herbal abortifacients and contraceptives to regulate fertility. In Eve's Herbs, Riddle explores a new question: If women once had access to effective means of birth control, why was this knowledge lost to them in modern times?

Beginning with the testimony of a young woman brought before the Inquisition in France in 1320, Riddle asks what women knew about regulating fertility with herbs and shows how the new intellectual, religious, and legal climate of the early modern period tended to cast suspicion on women who employed "secret knowledge" to terminate or prevent pregnancy. Knowledge of the menstrual-regulating qualities of rue, pennyroyal, and other herbs was widespread through succeeding centuries among herbalists, apothecaries, doctors, and laywomen themselves, even as theologians and legal scholars began advancing the idea that the fetus was fully human from the moment of conception.

Drawing on previously unavailable material, Riddle reaches a startling conclusion: while it did not persist in a form that was available to most women, ancient knowledge about herbs was not lost in modern times but survived in coded form. Persecuted as "witchcraft" in centuries past and prosecuted as a crime in our own time, the control of fertility by "Eve's herbs" has been practiced by Western women since ancient times.

Customer Reviews:

It's good, but not..........2003-01-29

If you are looking for do-it-yourself abortion information like I was, this is not a good book for that. It is a history book. It's good, but not an abortionary (abortion dictionary).

A work of history which also excels as an herbal.......2002-05-24

As a person who enjoys the study of social history (how people lived) and herbal medicine, this book exceeded my expectations on both counts.

Riddle is an historian, so the scholarship in the book is historical scholarship. He moves deftly between conflicting theories of demographics and actual family sizes, at home with his contemporaries and able to argue his somewhat novel opinion on a level playing field. Not surprisingly, historians tend to go along with modern medical thought that there were no effective systems of personal or professional health care prior to our own allopathic tradition in the past few centuries. Herbalists, homeopaths and the like are still fighting for legitimacy against exactly this mindset.

What surprised and delighted me was the thoroughness of Riddle's information on the herbs in question. It must be noted that he does NOT provide recipes for readers to use at home. He isn't playing (herbal) doctor. Regardless, a person with some experience in herbalism or access to alternate texts can easily take the list of herbs from this book and find appropriate dosage and other how to information from that other source--including the important caveat that herbs are not always safe and shouldn't be taken without professional advice or lots of research. Riddle's emphasis is on pointing out which plants have been indicated, by whom in the ancient world, and what science has (or has not) done to test for actual efficacy.

One interesting side note for readers who allow for the possible effectiveness of today's most revolutionary complementary medicine modalities is Riddle's reporting of the fact that, historically, chants (magic) were often listed together with the herbs (medicine) in any given herbal recipe. Riddle is careful and respectful of the potential for narrow-mindedness when he admits that, to our Western minds, there can be no believing in the usefulness of the magic side of the equation, but he makes no disparaging remarks and he allows for future scientific work to prove said "magic" effective. Of course, to a modern practitioner of Reiki or any other mental/spiritual healing system, it is certainly possible to suppose the intent of the healer and/or patient was a necessary or beneficent part of the ancient cures.

I expected to enjoy this book's subject matter, but I was actually delighted by how well Mr. Riddle covered both aspects of the topic, and even more so by the easy readability of his style. Any person who enjoys reading well-written history for pleasure will find this a work worth spending some time with.

awesome.......1998-10-19

The best book out there thus far on herbal contraception and abortion.

Brave scholarship upon the "secret knowledge" of women........1998-08-09

An outstanding work of scholarship. Riddle has gathered buried historical evidence of reproductive control through the ages. A must read for those who feel that we live in the most "enlightened" age, in regards to reproduction. Riddle will prove you wrong. Women have been in control of their reproduction for centuries. Readily available herbs have been more effective than "modern science" throughout society.

Book Description

Auditory Scene Analysis addresses the problem of hearing complex auditory environments, using a series of creative analogies to describe the process required of the human auditory system as it analyzes mixtures of sounds to recover descriptions of individual sounds. In a unified and comprehensive way, Bregman establishes a theoretical framework that integrates his findings with an unusually wide range of previous research in psychoacoustics, speech perception, music theory and composition, and computer modeling.

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

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Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound
Albert S. Bregman
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQPVFO

Demonstrations of Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound

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Demonstrations of Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound
Albert S. / Ahad, Pierre A. Bregman
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQT9P2

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