Negotiating Limits on Unitary Taxation in the United States ((Pew Case Studies in International Affairs))

Book Description

Represented for the first time since their original publication, The Maze Agency, Vol. 1 collects writer Mike W. Barr's first adventures of private eye Jennifer Mays and her boyfriend, true-crime writer and amateur sleuth Gabriel Webb. Their expanding relationship plays a backdrop to the cases they investigate, all of them whodunits that the reader can solve along with Jen and Gabe-if you're quick enough!

Customer Reviews:

refreshing change from all the other comic books.......2007-07-11

Almost all comic books now are either spin offs of the same few superheroes, or mindless violence mixed with blood, gore, and nudity. The Maze Agency was a refreshing journey away from all of that. Yes, there are some murders, but it is a detective book. If you like mystery, suspense, and following clues, then this will be a great read. It collects probably the first 5 comics from the original series. It kinda reminds me of the old Remington Steele detective series (TV show). Jennifer Maze is the real detective, but her untrained boyfriend always manages to do or find something to help her solve things. The only other comic series to interest me now is the new CSI one from IDW. Since I am the first review on here, feel free to not believe me if you want. But, I recommend this as a good detective read.

Book Description

A new title in the Arcane series of trivia books, Lore of Averages offers facts and stories that explore both meanings of the word average. Statistical averages (the average weight in turkey eaten each Thanksgiving) preface stories that prove to be anything but average (the annual Turkey Drop in Arkansas's Ozark Mountains). The uncommon origins of common phrases like "it's raining cats and dogs" are revealed, and fascinating anecdotes of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances abound. Over twenty illustrations complete this fascinating little compendium.

Customer Reviews:

Fun reading, poor editing.......2006-09-09

The book has an amusing collection of anecdotes and figures, and I recommend it for some light reading.
But I am surprised by the poor editing. For example, the book insists on using both metric and imperial measurement, which is good, but sometimes the numbers are just plain wrong.
For example, on page 96, it says average double beds are 1.8 metres (or 6'2") long. That would be about 5'11".

Elsewhere, there are some possibly interesting facts, like the work statistics in Europe on page 78, but no source is mentioned, it just says "statistics show that..."
And, in the same page, France is missing from the list of European states.
All in all, makes for a relaxed afternoon, but I would not take anything too seriously.
Oh, according to the author, the Euro is not "proper money" like the UK pound or the US dollar (page 120). British snobbery?

This Book is so much Fun!.......2005-07-12

I feel sure my husband and daughter are sick of hearing me read from this book, but I can't help it. This book is full of great little witty facts that will keep you smiling for days. For example, did you know that 1 in every 3,400 Americans is an Elvis impersonator? How about that 1 in every 200 men alive today are descended from Genghis Khan? This book is full of delightful details, i.e., how many cars American buy; how many hours the British work per week; that 3 out of every 100 pets in Moscow is hooked on hard liquor. Well you get the idea! If you like knowing little tidbits of information no one else (except Jeopardy contestants) seem to know then buy this book. I highly recommend it and had a lot of fun reading it.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Music Library Association, Inc. on June 1, 1999. The length of the article is 1665 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: Soundtracks: An International Dictionary of Composers for Film.(Review)
Author: H. Stephen Wright
Publication: Notes (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1999
Publisher: Music Library Association, Inc.
Volume: 55 Issue: 4 Page: 942(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

"A lot of people seem to have the wrong idea about me. In fact, pretty much everything I read about myself is totally ridiculous.... I've finally decided to let the world know: Okay, I get it."

Paris Hilton has a lifestyle most girls dream about. Her name is on everyone's lips, but can she help it if she was born rich and privileged? Now, with a sly sense of humor and a big wink at her media image, Paris lets you in for a sneak peek at the life of a real, live heiress/model/actress/singer/it-girl and tells you how anyone can live a fairy-tale life like hers.

Featuring more than three hundred fabulous color photos of Paris, Confessions of an Heiress is a look at life from the unique perspective of a young woman who has the whole world at her stiletto-clad feet.

Customer Reviews:

Horrible!.......2007-08-20

It's true what another reviewer said . . . there are people who live only for image, without substance, then you've got those who are intelligent and stay out of the limelight. And like the reviewer said, the first type of person, the "image" type, "gets old" fast -- both literally and figuratively. What is left once the person gets old and has nothing left to show? Answer me that. It is very disconcerting to me that young girls look up to this creature or humanoid named Paris, whatever term you prefer. It makes no sense. When I was younger there were no such crass and base people to be idolised, and thank God for that! We idolised Joan Jett or The GoGos or even Cyndi Lauper -- these were truly creative and interesting women. Things then seem so innocent now, don't they? I feel so sorry for young people today, they are bombarded with Paris Hilton and other forms of cheap, worthless entertainment daily, without respite.

Paris the Heiress/Author.......2007-08-08

This book was awsome! People writing bad reviews either just hate paris and were just trying to down her overall book reviews (and most probably didnt even read the book). Or they read the book expecting some philisophical journey.

Hello, people, it's paris hilton!!!

Her book is really good. I read it cover to cover and couldnt put it down! She gives advice on how to channel your inner heiress while giving you a look into her personal life. The book isn't like some books about celebrities that just restate tidbits about their lives from magazines. It's original material i've never read before.

Some people might say the reason she didnt put in a whole long chapter about the sex video is becuase she's scared. The truth is, she has a lot of young fans whose parents probably wouldnt let them read the book if it had sex-related things in it.

She stats at the beginning of the book "I haven't tried to correct whats been written about me so far because, well, gossips believe whatever they want anyway."

I love that because it's so true!

Even if she did try to say "I didnt do that." or "that's not the whole story." or "That's totally ridiculous!" Most people wouldn't beleive her anyway because everyday we've got things shoved at us from the media about how horrible she is. Everyone loves to trash Paris and yet she goes about her life, not hiding because of what people think about her but embracing it and laughing along with us about her screw-ups and hook-ups.

This book is definatly on my Favorites list. Paris keeps things fun, light-hearted, and glamorous and if you are so-serious-you-walk-around-all-day-with-a-scowl-on-your-face-reading-the-New-York-Times-and-constantly-checking-the-stock-market, you probably won't appreciate this book. But if you love-life-and-ridin-in-your-car-with-the-top-down-putting-on-lip-gloss kind of thing, this book will soon become a fav. for you.

Give it a chance. Give Paris a chance.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!

I'd give it a billion stars if possible!

A transcendent scrumptulescent chef d'oeuvre.......2007-07-11

This was a great literary work. It really stimiulated my mind, it reminded me of the complex converging story lines of Charles Dickens best works. Her use of the full lexicon of the English language rivals that of William Shakespeare. In fact, she was even able to invent some new vocabulary, that was not in any dictionary. Her marvelous use of metaphor recalls that of the great Russian master Dostoyevsky. There were even some clearly outragously allegorical chapters, in the style of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." By the last chapter the mastery of Paris brought me to tears! I RAN OUT OF TISSUES!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGG I WISH I COULD GIVE IT A MILLION BIGIZILMONION STARS!!!!

I'm 14, not under 13........2007-06-21

I LOVE Paris Hilton so I thought I would give her 5 stars to increase the book rating. This book is definately worth $15.00 if you are a true Paris Hilton fan.If you just know of her, then this isn't the book for you. I figured she would really go into her life and say things that we could learn from her.She puts useless and (I hate to say this BUT...) ridiculous things in her book.For instance, on her top 23 steps to being a Heiress she puts that you should be born into a rich and famous family. She says if you can control everything in your life, why not control which family your born into? That is really stupid...there is no way on earth that you can choose that. She talks about the simple life and everything. It is a real page turner and it's kinda addictive no matter how stupid and useless it is. It kinda reminded be of a little girl's diary, because she really just puts things that happened in a childish way.Her grammar and everything is really bad, because it's hard to get into a book whenever the things the person is saying is stupid.Hopefully, Nicole Richie's book will be better. Some people say that Nicole didn't really write hers, but I know for a fact that Paris wrote this.If she didn't, the person who DID write it must be just as ditzy as her. If I were you, I would stick to watching the Simple Life if you wanna know more about Paris Hilton. This book won't really do much for you.

This book is hot!!!!.......2007-06-12

Well, actually I'not saying this cause I'm a Paris fan, I wasn't when I read this book. It was from a cousin and I started to read the front page, and then the next, I simply couldn't stopped! I started to read the whole thing and it's one of my favorite books ever! Now I see her TV show, I have the DVD's, I haver her 3 perfumes for men, I have her record, I buy every single magazine in where she appears,'I'll buy a watch soon and can't wait for her world tour and her new stuff. She's releasing shoes, a clothing line, new handbags, jewerly, sunnies, wigs, new perfumes, OMG this gir is amazng, she's gone so far...

so haters, better start liking Paris because SHE CAME TO STAY!!!!!!

Confessions of an Heiress A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose

Average customer rating:

Confessions of an Heiress A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose
Hilton Paris
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UF56TA

Average customer rating:

Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose
Paris; Ginsberg, Merle Hilton
Manufacturer: Random House Australia
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1740513428

Average customer rating:

Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose
Paris Hilton , and Merle Ginsberg
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WMJ6GA

Book Description

Got a couple of minutes to spare? Then test your smarts with this latest entry in the Mensa series-short, thematic, no-pencil word puzzles that really exercise the brain. Some of the subjects include "Special Days," "Celebrities," and "Hidden Things," and there are kid-friendly bonus sections, too. Fill in the blanks of the Q Puzzles: "A q __ __ __ __ __ at a meeting is a __ __ __ __ __ q __ __ __ __ __ __ for voting on motions," would make sense with the words quorum and prerequisite. Or try synanograms--a fun mix of synonym-finding and anagram solving. At the end, compare your results with those of Mensa members--the smartest two percent of the population.

Book Description

The SANS Institute maintains a list of the "Top 10 Software Vulnerabilities." At the current time, over half of these vulnerabilities are exploitable by Buffer Overflow attacks, making this class of attack one of the most common and most dangerous weapon used by malicious attackers. This is the first book specifically aimed at detecting, exploiting, and preventing the most common and dangerous attacks.

Customer Reviews:

Great book to start with........2006-09-14

This is a great book to start understanding buffer overflows with. You do need some fimiliarity with assembly or you are not going to understand the code that is through out this book, almost every other page.

This gives step by step examples in reading, creating and disassembling shellcode and buffer overflows. I'v read some of the other reviews which suggest their was not much proof reading done it seems like it. I myself found many spelling erros but technical wise I have yet to see any. Maybe my second read I will find some.

Proofread? Editorial and Technical reveiw?...........2006-03-04

For a book dedicated to such an important topic, my experience with this book was at best disappointing. This goes both for the authors (as they are primarily responsible for the material), as well as the publisher (Syngress). One would doubt whether the book has gone through any meaningful editorial review process. The errata posted on Syngress' site (bad site-design with a great deal of broken URLs in the book's relevant-links page by the way, and one "has to" sign up to obtain the errata) are utterly incomplete. The book at the time of this writing lacks an accompanying website (no reference in the errata or in the book itself).

This is an unfortunate development that one certainly notices in the recent publications pertaining to security topic, perhaps as a result of the urge to push content out to satisfy the hot-market demands.

On the technical front, the choice for the topics seems to be reasonably covering most corners; however, throughout the book there's a focus on pre-SP2 release of Microsoft Windows XP; why? If one of the objectives of the authors was to educate the audience on the topics (by providing practical and working examples), wouldn't such choice defeat the purpose?

Finally a book on BO attacks.......2005-03-30

Buffer overflow attacks have been around for over 30 years, finally there is a book on the topic.

this is a valuable title and worth the wait!

Disturbing.......2005-02-27

This book upset me. Not really the book itself, that's great, but what it implies: that this type of exploit hasn't gone away. I thought things were getting better, but the author explains that is an illusion: it's just that the reporting slacked off.

It is hard to believe that programmers keep making the same mistakes over and over again. This book shows what those mistakes are and how hackers exploit them. You need a good understanding of assembly language to get much out of this, but if you do have that background, this is a real eye-opener.

Extremely detailed, and some of this is a bit of a reach for me (it's been many a year since I did any C or Assembler), but it is fascinating, though in the same sense that watching a tiger stalk you would be: it's scary.

Certainly recommended for people who are writing code today, and I hope more of them pay attention, though the authors attitude seems to be that these problems will continue to plague us.

practical advice.......2005-02-07

Typically, a text on computing might give a cursory few pages (if even that!) on explaining what buffer overflow attacks are. This book takes a far more detailed look. It emphasises the writing of assembler. Which may put you, the interested reader, in a minority amongst programmers. Most of whom never write assembler.

The book teaches the writing and testing of shellcode. Very hands on. You learn to go back and forth between C source and its assembler equivalent, and how to use these when trying to induce stack overflows or attacking format strings, for example. Gritty and practical exposure. Analogous to working on a car engine. You have to get your hands dirty.

Most of the book's examples cover the Intel assembly language and the Microsoft operating systems. The book explains that this is certainly not because these are inherently riskier than alternatives. But a pragmatic reflection of Microsoft's and Intel's market dominance, which attracts attackers. For balance, examples are also shown of attacks against linux and HPUX.

Customer Reviews:

The Triumph of Historical Facts.......2006-02-22

This is an excellent read. As a historian myself, I know how difficult it is to sort historical fact from fictional bias. Evans' presentation of the evidence is well thought out and structured, making a very difficult, complicated, and emotional subject easier to understand and appreciated. For anyone interested in WWII history, the pitfalls of historical interpretation, or simply in the presentation of historical facts in a legal context, this book is a 'must'.

EVANS HAS MORE QUESTIONS TO ANSWER THAN IRVING.........2005-12-19

Richard Evans got paid $140, 000 to testify at this trial. If that doesn't seem sinister to you, then there's more.
Lipstadt had millions of dollars of external funding (from the likes of Steven Spielberg), and a team of dozens of lawyers & historians to fight one man.

Yes, Irving brought the trial. Why? Well, what Lipstadt accused him of (holding different views on certain aspects of WW2, e.g. the holocaust), could have led to his future arrest. In fact, he has been arrested recently for looking to lecture in Austria. He has also suffered legal harassment in Australia and Canada, amongst numerous other places.

Ernst Zundel, a writer who also has alternative views on the holocaust, rots in solitary confinement on dubious charges, and is being deported from Canada to Germany to face trial.

If Irving hadn't challenged Lipstadt, he too could have ended up in jail. (and recenty has!). Evans and his team (given rock star like payment to conduct his research, he could afford an entourage of his own...) dissected Irving's work and found some statistical discrepancies.

That's history for you- it evolves, and as new facts and dats come to light, any half decent historian revises his work. Every historian also makes mistakes, if not, every brach of history would only need one text book, by a historian who could every single fact correct. (obviously, these texts have never and will never exist).

The variation in, say, Irving's figures on Dresden fatalities, fluctuate much less then the official figures of Auschwitz victims over the years. (once claimed at 6 million, now 1 million).

One of the greatest works on WW2 in recent years, Alan Bullock's "Hitler and Stalin, parallel lives.." actually accepted, verbatim, the East German works on Hitler's autopsy, universally aacepted as erroneous. Does that detract from the majesty of Bullock's work? No, it does not.

Almost every historical work on the ww2 era will have a large number of Irving's works in its bibliography. He has contributed more data, and from the most diverse and unique sources, than pretty much any other historian in the world today.

As his views on certain elements of this era differ from the projected norms, he has been suffered dicrimination across the world, now his liberty is jeopardised. Evans was paid thousands of pounds to join the witch hunt, and his objectivity is thus fundamentally flawed.

A triumph.......2005-05-31

This excellent book succeeds on a number of levels:

Firstly, it's a fascinating detective story. Evans' lively descriptions of how he and his researchers dug into Irving's footnotes and compared his sources (or the lack thereof) against the actual historical evidence make for great reading, with the result that the book is a real page turner.

Secondly, this is probably the most accessible book currently availble on how historians ply their trade. By comparing Irving's methodologies to those used by professional historians Evans' clearly describes how historians should best conduct their research and justify the conclusions they reach. The clear examples he provides are both realistic and highly instructive.

Thirdly, the passion with which Evans writes and the clarity of his arguments are highly refreshing. After having utterly discredited Irving during the court case, Evans' quite rightly has no time for those journalists and historians who continue to accept Irving as being a professional historian, and the arguments they put forward are subjected to the same blowtorch of logic he applied to Irving.

In short, this book succeeds as both an entertaining read and as an introduction for non-historians into the world of professional historians, and I'd highly recommend it.

Clouded by hatred of Irving.......2005-02-17

Professor Evans's broadside against David Irving just will not fly. Not that Irving is completely right on each and every point he has made over the years. But Evans is not really a historian to match Irving's indefatigable researching and presentation skills. He commits numerous errors, makes statements that were long ago discarded by more modern historians of the Holocaust. Yes, Irving lost his (in)famous--and perhaps unwise---defamation suit against Deborah Lipstadt; but the verdict was a Pyrrhic victory of sorts. True, Irving's books soon "disappeared" from various libraries and bookstores, but his essential worth as a historian of the World War II period remains significant, even if it is not acknowledged as frequently as before "the trial." Like Sir John Keegan and Professor Gordon Craig, if you are going to study that period seriously, you MUST study Irving. Not so Evan....

Fundamental.......2003-03-11

Professor Evans recounts the events of the Irving trial, with the accuracy that is typical of his historical work. With a good amount of detail, obviously not as complete as the trial transcripts (which would take thousands of pages), Evans takes us through some of the evidence that helped prove beyond any reasonable doubt what Lipstadt had said in her book: Irving is not a historian, he regularly lies, and distorts facts for the benefit of his anti-semite, right wing agenda. A great book for all those who are interested in dismantling the Holocaust denial lies, and for those who took interest in the Irving trial in 2000.

Telling Lies about Hitler--The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial. (Book Reviews).(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Capital & Class

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Telling Lies about Hitler--The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial. (Book Reviews).(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Capital & Class
Andrew McCulloch
Manufacturer: Conference of Socialist Economists
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008DB3L4
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Capital & Class, published by Conference of Socialist Economists on March 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1311 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: Telling Lies about Hitler--The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial. (Book Reviews).(Book Review) (book review)
Author: Andrew McCulloch
Publication: Capital & Class (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2003
Publisher: Conference of Socialist Economists
Page: 179(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Jewish youth learn about their heroes from Brody's book --Jewish News of Metro West, N. J.

Customer Reviews:

American Jewish heroes .......2005-06-16

One- hundred and fifty Jewish heroes are chosen as having made significant contributions to American life. The author Brody who is of a military background himself devotes more than the usual space to Jewish military heroes and participants in all of America's wars. He does the commendable work of making known to a larger public many quiet heroes whose deeds have been far greater than their public names.
The book is excellent, but far, in my opinion, from perfect. It does not include enough of the cultural heroes , the scientists, writers, and other creators who have so enriched American life. It does not in my opinion always include the best examples from a particular area of endeavor.
Nonetheless it is a wonderful compilation which can only deepen the appreciation of the Jewish contribution to American life.

Should be in every Jewish library.......2005-01-20

I found this book during a Web search on astronaut Judith Resnik, who was the first Jew in space and the second woman in space. (Sadly, she perished in the Challenger explosion -- may she rest in peace.) Judith Resnik is included in this book, along with 149 other American Jews who, in many different ways, are real heroes that we can all look up to. The biographies are well-written and easy reading, suitable for classroom or home. A wonderful resource that should be in every Jewish library.

Great book for families, lirbaries..........2004-10-19

And one of the stories in the book, one of the 150 illustrated true stories of American heroism included in "Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America : 150 True Stories of American Jewish Heroism", which was published in 1996, is now the main focus of an entire book by Oregon newspaper columnist Bob Welch, who has written the story of Lieutenant Frances Slanger of the U.S. Army Nurses Corps during WWII. She was a nurse who died in Normandy while serving as an army nurse there. The book by Welch is titled "American Nightingale: The Story of Frances Slanger" and is also available via amzon.com

A PERFECT GIFT FOR HANUKAH.......2001-09-26

Last year when Mr. Brody was a guest speaker at a B'nai Brith meeting here in Century Village, Boca Raton, I purchased a copy of JEWISH HEROES & HEROINES OF AMERICA. After reading it from cover to cover, I realized that this book should be in every "JEWISH" home. I highly recommend it as the perfect gift for HANUKAH. Since I write a monthly column in our community newspaper I would like permission to review it.In my last column
I reviewed JUDAISM & VEGETARIANISM by PROF. RICHARD SCHWARTZ.

Also if possible I would appreciate 2 or 3 complimentary copies to pass around at our Living Room Learning Club, and at our next B'nai Brith meeting.THANK YOU.

Judy Lipman -3031 Wolverton B - Boca Raton, Fl. 33434 (Phone (561) 487- 4281

Excellent blend of historical portraits of Jews in America........1999-03-17

Every generation of children needs heroes: people to look up to, admire, respect and emulate as one is growing up. At a time when intermarriage rates are rising and assimilation is a growing phenomenon, it is important to instill in our youth a strong sense of Jewish pride in the Jewish men and women who have overcome adversity to become legends in their own time. Seymour Brody has provided a wonderful biographical tool to teach Jewish and non-Jewish children about the important contributions American Jews have made in various ways in this wonderful update to his Jewish Heroes of America. Brody has made this edition more egalitarian by adding biographical profiles of an additional fifty women (including Jenny Maas Flexner).

Brody's brief (2 pages), but informative, biographical sketches highlight where the heroes have lived and worked, what awards they have won, what professions they have worked in and what accomplishments have brought them fame and the respect of both Jews and non-Jews in America. When known, he also mentions whether they are Ashkenazi or Sephardi and their religious affiliation. Brody's book covers the whole span of American history from the prerevolutionary years to the present. Examples of Jewish soldiers are given for every war that the U.S. has fought. Among the people that are represented are lawyers, rabbis, politicians, businessmen, entertainers, athletes and health care workers. Each entry is accompanied by an illustration by award-winner Art Seiden.

An improvement over the previous edition is the inclusion of a name index, although a subject index and bibliography / reading list are still lacking. At times, the entries read less like narratives and more like resumes. Sometimes, Brody is too vague, using phrases like "played an important role" instead of telling what the specific accomplishments were. It would have been better if Brody has chosen a greater number of stronger role models (he includes Jews who rarely acknowledged their faith and Jews who intermarried).

Overall, the book does an excellent job of paying tribute to Jews from most of the states who have left their mark on America. By including first-generation Americans, Brody also demonstrates that what has made America thrive for centuries is its willingness to accept people from every nation and from every culture, letting them live in a home of freedom where they can fulfill their every dream. This book is very highly reccommended for public, school, synagogue and general Judaica collections for both young adult and children's collections

Book Description

Must children born with socially challenging anatomies have their bodies changed because others cannot be expected to change their minds? One of Us views conjoined twinning and other "abnormalities" from the point of view of people living with such anatomies, and considers these issues within the larger historical context of anatomical politics. Anatomy matters, Alice Domurat Dreger tells us, because the senses we possess, the muscles we control, and the resources we require to keep our bodies alive limit and guide what we experience in any given context. Her deeply thought-provoking and compassionate work exposes the breadth and depth of that context--the extent of the social frame upon which we construct the "normal." In doing so, the book calls into question assumptions about anatomy and normality, and transforms our understanding of how we are all intricately and inextricably joined.

Customer Reviews:

More PC than analytical.......2006-10-26

More of a celebration of political correctness than
a well thought out study of conjoined twins.
If you follow the author's ideology through, any body
modification--including braces for teeth or body-- is
damaging to a child's psychological health.
If you want facts--give this one a miss.

Thought-provoking.......2006-06-22

This book raises questions about peoples' reactions to conjoined twins that may have important implications for many other unusual traits. It eloquently questions common assumptions about the desire to seem normal. It has led me to wonder about the extent to which healthcare is used to make people more normal at the cost of making them less healthy.
The book presents strong evidence that conjoined twins who remain conjoined are at least as well off as those who are separated, and some evidence that separations reduce the twins' life expectancy, possibly by a significant amount.
Remarkably, of the twins who remained conjoined to adulthood, only one pair requested separation (they didn't survive it), and among those whose refused separation are a number whose twin had just died (which meant that separation appeared to offer the only chance for the remaining twin to survive).
This doesn't mean conjoined twins are better off that way (those who have been separated seem equally satisfied with their status), but it strongly suggests that decisions to perform separations are motivated by something other than concern over the twins wellbeing. And it suggests that people who claim things like "The proposed operation would give these children's bodies the integrity that nature denied them" are imposing their values on others in ways which would be considered unacceptable if the victims had a little political power.
The book reports a fair number of statements by doctors (and occasionally parents) which suggest they consider a normal appearance worth risking health to achieve. The book also theorizes that having a normal child is an important enough part of parents' identity to override their interest in their children's' wellbeing. The book also reports some indications that surgeons are biased toward surgery for unusual problems by the fame if can bring them.
Unfortunately, there isn't as much evidence as there ought to be about the health effects of separations. The book claims (plausibly, but without supporting references), that "most medicine is not yet evidence-based", with most surgical decisions being based on storytelling rather than careful studies.
The book raises some important questions about cases where doctors think the only way to save one twin is to kill the other. The author points out some strong similarities between the medical killing that is done in some of these cases and a hypothetical case where a heart is taken from a live singleton (i.e. not conjoined) donor to save another (which all would agree is wrong). One difference that she fails to consider is that if you consider the heart property, it looks like jointly owned property in one case and individually owned property in the other, and we should expect some differences to result from that (although doctors may still be more willing to kill one twin than that perspective would justify).
One interesting example that the book provides of medicalizing a difference is the attempt to get doctors to recognize Drapetomania, a "disease" which causes slaves to run away.
How widespread is the practice of impairing health to make people more normal? Surgeries on intersex children probably create modest health risks. Commonly used medicines to deal with ordinary colds suppress annoying symptoms that are tools the body uses to fight the disease, and tend to make the disease last longer (see the book Why We Get Sick : The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph Nesse). A child with 3 arms makes doctors want to chop it off, presumably at some risk.
Are these part of a wider pattern that would help explain why increased healthcare spending doesn't seem to make us healthier?

An analysis of children born with anatomical abnormalities.......2004-09-10

Conjoined twins, ambiguous genitalia, and birth defects are some of the issues considered in Alice Domurat Dreger's One Of Us: Conjoined Twins And The Future Of Normal, a hard-hitting analysis of children born with anatomical abnormalities, and the lives they lead. Unusual here is the viewpoint of those living with these anatomies, as well as the larger social and political perspective of what Dreger terms 'anatomical politics'. Chapters consider the results of separation on the hearts and minds of kids, and the elements which make for 'normalicy' in their lives in the intriguing study One Of Us, recommended especially for college-level collections strong in health and sociology.

From a Descendent of Conjoined Twins.......2004-05-18

As a descendent of Eng Bunker (1/2 of the Original Siamese Twins), I was thrilled to read this well thought out and compassionate book. I would highly recommend this book to anyone striving to understand the issues that are faced with conjoinment and "singletons" need for privacy and individuality. An important book that helps "de-freak" the humans that are born with unique anatomy. Thank you!

One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal

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One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal
Alice Domurat Dreger
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UMUSLO

Book Description

Part of the Mac's Field Guide series, with more than 35 different guides to the birds and mammals, trees and wildflowers, fish, reptiles, and other wildlife in specific regions throughout the United States.

Full-color, detailed illustrations on laminated, waterproof 7-1/4" x 11-3/4" cards. Each card includes common and scientific names, and information of size and habitat.

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