Hydrologic and Hydraulic Modeling Support with Geographic Information Systems

Book Description

Explains how GIS applications can be used to study water models such as watershed delineation, topographic characteristic extraction, and flood-plain extent determination.

Customer Reviews:

The future of H&H Modeling.......2002-10-05

This book provides an overview of not only the theory and computational methodologies of both Hydraulic and Hydrologic modeling in ArcView, but provides real world modeling examples. This publication is a great quick overview of cutting edge modeling. Note that most of the Corp of Engineering extensions show cased in this book require that you are using ArcView 3.x and they currently do not run on ArcGIS 8.

Book Description

In the last few years, traders have experienced fundamental changes in the markets as many global exchanges, financial institutions, and brokers have migrated to electronic platforms. Psychology of Electronic Trading gives investors the tools and knowledge they need to understand and make the most of these new technologies. This book helps readers understand new approaches to cash management, decision-making, and controlling emotions; introduces and explains the key processes used when trading through an electronic interface; and discusses how technology is changing the way we do business.

Customer Reviews:

Another sub-standard online trading book for beginners.......2005-11-28

Forgive my being naive but I did expect something different or unique promised by the words "electronic" and "The Power to Trade" in the book title/front cover. I had been very disappointed. Disorganised, lack of focus, bad writing skill, were phrases that regularly jumped out of my mind when I tried very hard to read it on. Content wise it is no different than the many trading books in the market that covers FA, TA, trading psychology...except the inclusion of Chapter 4 "The Trading Environment" and Chapter 5 "The Electronic Trading System" from page 57 to page 140 of this 205 page content book covering extensively about IT hardware and software, which to me, was simply a waste of time and paper that gave little or no value to readers/traders at all.

In short, dont waste your hard earned money and valuable time on it. In case you want a compleat trading book, read "High Probability Trading" by Marcel Link and "Trend Following" by Michael Covel. In case you simply want to learn focusedly on trading psychology, "Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing" by Hersh Shefrin and "The psychology of Finance by Lars Tvede" are much better choices.

Book Description

This volume of essays, together with its companion Conceiving the Embryo: Ethics, Law and Practice in Human Embryology (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1996, ISBN 90-411-0208-6) is the result of a concerted action in the BIOMED programme of the European Commission, which was coordinated by the Editor. Clinicians, lawyers and philosophers explore the theoretical and practical problems presented by the new technologies in assisted human reproduction in Eastern, Central and Western Europe. The essays reveal considerable dissonance in existing and proposed legislation, both within and between European countries, and examine the rights of parents and children involved in these new procedures.

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Entrusted to my care,
Grant MacEwan
Manufacturer: Modern Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Agricultural Sciences | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006BY0C2

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Entrusted to My Care

Manufacturer: Western Producer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000CZ32V2

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Entrusted to My Care
Grant MacEwan
Manufacturer: Western Producer Prairie Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000VSXDVY

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Radioactivity and geology,: An account of the influence of radioactive energy on terrestrial history
John Joly
Manufacturer: A. Constable & co., ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006FESOS

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Don't buy this book

The real deal on pursuing your MBA

Enjoyable & informative

Honest and Humorous

The Blushing MBA: Secrets from Graduate School
Feddy Pouideh
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Snapshots from Hell

Business School Confidential: A Complete Guide to the Business School Experience: By Students, for Students

Year One: An Intimate Look Inside Harvard Business School, Source of the Most Coveted Advanced Degree in the World

Your MBA Game Plan: Proven Strategies for Getting into the Top Business Schools

How To Get Into the Top MBA Programs, 4th Edition (How to Get Into the Top Mba Programs)

ASIN: 0595372872

Book Description

[Excerpt from the admissions interview]

I can't remember anything on my resume. Oh my God, I've gone blank - what am I doing here?
My pulse is racing, my throat is tight, and I'm sweating. Move out of my way, I have to get out of here!
After 20 minutes, my nerves finally begin to calm (which would have been great if the interview hadn't finished in 10).
The interviewer concludes with, “How do you want to be remembered by your classmates?”
Remembered? I gulp. Because this program will surely be the death of me?
He hands me his card when we finish. “Call me if you have any questions. It's over.”
The interview is over.
Over?
I am numb as I leave his office, stunned that the moment I have worked a lifetime for is now history.
Wait! When he said, “It's over,” was he referring to the interview…or to my future in business?

The Blushing MBA is a funny, candid chronicle of one woman's adventure inside an Ivy League business school. It's an inspirational tribute to college, graduate school, and to anyone who has ever dared to enter the wild world of business.

Download Description

Enjoy a funny sneak-peek at life inside an Ivy League business school from someone who's been there and lived to tell the tale.

The Admissions Interview:
I can't remember anything on my resume. Oh my God, I've gone blank - what am I doing here? My pulse is racing, my throat is tight, and I'm sweating. Move out of my way, I have to get out of here! After 20 minutes, my nerves finally begin to calm (which would have been great if the interview hadn't finished in 10). The interviewer concludes with, 'How do you want to be remembered by your classmates?" Remembered? Because this program will surely be the death of me? He hands me his card when we finish. 'Call me if you have any questions." The interview is over. Over?
I am numb as I leave his office, stunned that the moment I have worked a lifetime for is now history. Wait! When he said, 'It's over," was he referring to the interview.or to my future in business?

The Blushing MBA chronicles one woman's adventure in business school and is an inspirational tribute to anyone who has ever considered, or dared to enter, college, graduate school, or the wild world of business.

Customer Reviews:

Don't buy this book.......2007-08-16

I couldn't even finish this book it was so bad. I was looking for an in-depth view of someone's experiences at MBA school. Instead, it was a novel so loosely based on fact that it's gives you a totally inaccurate view of the MBA. It states that Tuck gets 10,000+ applications for 200 places and this is false. It states that the Harvard MBA is offered in an 18 month accelerated format starting in January. This is totally false.

Judged as a purely fictional account bearing no resemblance to reality and judged as a work of fantasy, it also falls terribly short. It's written in the oh-my-gosh-as-if style that you would expect from a 15 year old girl circa the mid 1990's and is so annoying that it's difficult to read. It's painful reading this book.

The real deal on pursuing your MBA .......2006-01-22

Can a smart, kind-hearted woman survive "The School," an Ivy League college she attends to earn her MBA?
Feddy attends The School armed with a passion for business and a goal of making the business world a better place. She quickly finds out that b school is a lot harder than she ever imagined it would be. The workload is unbearable with 6 days a week of classes, marathon nine hour study group sessions, endless presentations to prepare, and entire books to read in one day, all resulting in an average of four hours of sleep a night.
Filled with facts and statistics about women in business, this book is funny, sad, and always real. If you are considering pursuing your MBA, you would be wise to read this book in addition to the glossy brochures the Ivy League schools will send you. Feddy's honest portrayal of life at The School will give you a good idea of what to expect.

Enjoyable & informative.......2005-12-16

Nicely done!!! This book succeeds in entertaining as well as in capturing the essense of business school. It's an essential (and enjoyable) read for anyone thinking about an MBA. For women considering business school...and all the professional women who SHOULD be contemplating MBAs.....this book describes the journey and the rewards.

Honest and Humorous.......2005-12-15

Thank the author for her honesty, humor and talent. I loved it! I absolutely loved it.

I was surprised by the honesty of the story and I believe it will be a helpful tool for women (and men) to better cope with the strain, self-doubt and confusion that b-school makes people face. At least the human ones! I also personally have a better appreciation of what people put themselves through to achieve their goals. And I also appreciate how on MBA can be applied to all ventures - from altruistic to strictly profit based endeavors. I think as a result of reading The Blushing MBA a wider range of women will consider getting their MBA's. They can use them as a force for good! And I hope that she finds a large market for her book because it ought to be read

Plus, I feel like I know and appreciate the author, Fedra Pouideh, even more after reading it.

Book Description

Comprehensive Introduction to Manufacturing Management text covering the behavior laws at work in factories. Examines operating policies and strategic objectives. Hopp presents the concepts of manufacturing processes and controls within a "physics" or "laws of nature" analogy--a novel approach. There is enough quantitative material for an engineer's course, as well as narrative that a management major can understand and apply.

Customer Reviews:

It was a good deal too.......2007-08-16

The Book was in Excellent shape. It was a good deal too

thank you

Theoretical background for Operations Management - setting a new standard.......2006-10-03

This book provides you with the fundamental insights of manufacturing and assembly. Even though I do not like statistics to much, the book is written in a understandable manner and provides the fundamental knowledge to understand what is going on in manufacturing. Based on this knowledge, the flaw of MRP-systems are even explained as well as the basics of JIT/Lean. The book provides mainly the hardfacts of this science and for practical people, reading first Quick-Response-Manufacturing (from Rajan Suri) might be the easier way for many of us and gives you the motivation to take a deeper look later on - as provided by Factory Physics.

Factory Physics describes not only how to describe a single workstation and the interactions between many of them, than as well the great importance of variability reduction in a production line and how to analyse it. CONWIP-lines, as a mix of push-pull, are a central key in this book and a simple way to analyse the performance of any system is provided by the book. This book, together with Quick-Response-Manufacturing (this book includes important softfactores as well) have changed drastically my way of operational thinking and given me a sense, which system to apply (QRM or JIT/Lean) and why. The insight can even be used for services as well. One central point is the utilisation of a workstation and the knowledge, that the more you reduce variability in arrivals and processing, the higher the utilisation can be - still achieving low lead times. You will find as well important and simple laws helping you out in the daily business (Little's law and queueing theory).

As for JIT/Lean, lead time reduction can use the same japanese tools:

- SMED: setup-time reduction (lot sizes for reduction in lead time and WIP)
- TPM: productive maintenance (higher machine availability and decrease of variability)
- ZQC: fool-proof quality inspection for Zero defects (against capacity lost and to decrease variability)

All the books mentionned above, have a big advantage over traditional SCM-books: they provide you with a framework how to trim a single chain-element of the supply-chain and therefore how to built the whole supply chain. The operational strategy should be derived from the overall company strategy and with this new insights you can tailor a unique production system that fits your company's goals - or even give you an advantage over your competition. Anyway, it will not make obsolet the importance of having a sound and consistant overall business strategy (for your markets) first!

Enjoy reading, Best Regards

written with the heart of a teacher.......2006-03-13

Though the two authors are consultants, they are foremost - teachers. What is useful, and kind to a degree, is they put an effort to explain the numbers as pragmatic as possible. That idea made this book very accessible. To the industrial engineers or those who are involved (and passionate) in operations or in understanding systems - next to the Industrial Engineering Handboook, this should be in our library.

Exceptional enlightened and insightful!.......2006-02-18

I found this book to be very insightful. It helps to explain many of my own observations in my factory. The authors did an excellent job of explaining the key concepts using only average use of mathematics and in simple layman's terms. The readers will only need basic mathematics/beginner calculus, and basic statistics. Reading it was like discovering new ideas to implement in the factory to quickly realize efficiencies and cost savings. It was one of the best books I have laid eyes on in a very long time.

I highly recommend this book for every mfg and production engineers working in assembly or automation-driven factory. This book is not applicable to chemical processing, thus may not bring significant values to chemical or petroleum engineers.

Excellent and valuable book.......2005-12-23

This is the best course textbook I have had so far over about ten industrial engineering courses (and I have had some very good textbooks and courses). The book basically describes how to analyze and improve manufacturing operations through examining key areas that include: variability and its sources, push and pull systems, and supply chain management.

The authors approach is to present ideas in a very clear and relevant way. What I particularly like is that they do a great job putting things into perspective in a style that is highly readable. While there is some math involved if one wants to delve into the details that are in side notes, a basic understanding of calculus is more than sufficient. The authors are clearly very bright and, more importantly, are able to communicate very effectively and with a sense of humor.

This book can definitely be read on a stand-alone basis outside of a school environment. Many of the central ideas are very valuable.

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COMPANION TO TEUTONIC ORDER
Interesting overview of a relatively unknown period of history
History as it should be written!
No need to read more....
Good Survery of little know part of European History

The Northern Crusades: Second Edition
Eric Christiansen
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Eastern | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Medieval | World | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0140266534

Customer Reviews:

COMPANION TO TEUTONIC ORDER.......2006-02-28

THE NORTHERN CRUSADE IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK TO UNDERSTAND THE LITTLE KNOWN CRUSADES IN GERMANY, POLAND AND LITHUANIA. THIS BOOK, AND THE BOOK TITLED, THE TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, GIVES AN EXCELLENT OVERVIEW OF THIS CRUSADE IN NORTHERN EUROPE

Interesting overview of a relatively unknown period of history .......2006-01-06

_The Northern Crusades_ by Eric Christiansen is an attempt to shed light on a relatively poorly known aspect of European medieval and early modern history, that of the Northern Crusades. Less well known than the Spanish Crusade and certainly less known to the average non-specialist reader than the Crusades in the Middle East, the Northern Crusades of the Baltic Sea region can essentially be summed up as the struggles of Scandinavian rulers - chiefly those of Denmark and Sweden - and German military monks (the Teutonic Knights) to conquer and settle non-Christian Finland, Estonia, and Prussia before coming into conflict with the considerably more powerful and organized eastern empires of Orthodox Novgorod and pagan Lithuania (and later Catholic Poland). The period lasted roughly from 1147 (the launch of the First Northern Crusade, against the Baltic Slavs) to at least as far as the book is concerned 1562 (the partition and secularization of Livonia, ending the rule of the Teutonic Knights there, their last outpost).

Though less celebrated than the other crusades, the Northern Crusades were far more successful. Initially many areas were only thinly Christian after their conquest, as for centuries in many regions for instance Teutonic outposts existed like "knots in a net," a net that was full of holes and encompassed areas where "alien subjects lived unredeemed lives within sight of the steeple" and castle, thin scraps of Christian settlement squeezed between the coast and primeval forest, though in the end vast areas became and remain Christian to this day. In stark contrast to the efforts of the Crusaders in the Middle East, the Order and the Scandinavians were able to establish lasting settlements in formerly very hostile areas in the wilderness, lands with difficult terrain, fearsome winter weather, impassable roads (if they existed), and unwelcoming natives. The Order for example established over ninety towns and a thousand villages in Prussia and Livonia. Sweden was able in the course of two centuries to transform Finland from a mainly non-Christian, illiterate, and ungoverned world into a society recognizable as European and Catholic. Even though these outside powers lost the lands that they colonized, they still held them much longer than the Crusaders held the lands of the Middle East (Denmark held on in Estonia for more than a century, the Teutonic Order kept Prussia and Livonia for nearly 300 years, and Sweden remained in Finland for nearly 600 years).

In this book Christiansen sought to show what the world of north-east Europe was like before the Crusades, chronicle the history of the Crusades themselves, detail a little about the personalities involved, detail in particular the history, role, goals, and organization of the Teutonic Knights, the reasons for the Crusades, and the theological debates and political struggles associated with the Northern Crusades as well as the concept of crusade in and of itself. I found the book interesting and fairly well written though a bit dry and sometimes difficult going in parts. I was hindered a little by the many very unfamiliar place names and had to reference many times one or more of the six maps at the beginning of the book, though by the end of the book several places I had once never heard of were quite familiar.

Particularly striking to me in the book was though that particularly in the early centuries the religious aspect of the Northern Crusade was important, in the end the wars were basically examples of imperialism and fought for temporal reasons, for resources and for geopolitical considerations. Though Christiansen cautioned in his concluding chapter that one should not view the wars as fought for "matters of interest disguised as matters of conscience," and indeed until close to the end the religious pull of the Northern Crusade drew in outside forces, whole retinues of warriors or individual knights, absolutely vital to the survival of in particular the Teutonic Knights, it is obvious that religious considerations were but one of many for those who fought. Often political control could only be established by changing the religious affiliation of the inhabitants, owing to the general lack of any other shared cultural identity between ruler and ruled; what type of Christianity prevailed in a region (Latin or Greek) was a way of staking political claims (important in the continuing struggle in later centuries between the Latin Crusade lands and Orthodox Novgorod). In Sweden new lands gained in Finland meant more people paying the tithe (good for the Swedish church and for the Pope in Rome to fund his various goals in Italy) and more fiefs and offices for the more adventurous of the lesser nobility. The Danes went to war in the 1100s as much or more to stop Slavic piracy and slave raids than anything else. The rich fur, feather, wax, amber, fish, whale, and seal resources of the Baltic Sea region were highly sought after by many in northern Europe; the "fur-clad, pickled-herring eaters lolling on the feather-beds" of Western Europe (mainly those of the Hanseatic League) were one of the chief beneficiaries of the Northern Crusades. The Teutonic Knights towards the end of their existence in Prussia were often more concerned with ruling than with crusading and many were hardly monastic, with new ordinances forbidding them to hoard money, keep packs of hounds, to use private seals, to wear fine clothing, and otherwise act as traditional feudal lords appear to have often been ignored.

A very interesting aspect of the book was as noted the discussion of the nature and organization of the Teutonic Order. Christiansen described its existence as both a military organization and a monastic order. From the Order's beginning to near its end there was a continual debate about whether or not one could be a monk and a warrior, if Christianity could be spread at the point of a sword, what the nature of a just war is, and if even the original papal orders establishing the Order were legally or spiritually correct.

History as it should be written!.......2005-07-19

Eric Christiansen's 'The Northern Crusades,' is much more than just a global over-view of a particular time and place. With mind-numbing erudition and almost painful attention to detail, Mr. Christiansen has single-handedly resurrected an extremely important chapter in the European story, that of the Baltic 'Crusades.' Not only does he give the reader fact upon fact, but more importantly, he has laid out the ideological background as to why thousands of Europe's noble sons sought glory and salvation in the crusade for the North.

The work's strongest part is its beginning. Christiansen put downs the base: where did these 'crusades' take place and against who. He meticulously outlines Baltic geography and ethnography, although the latter runs a little thin. Then, the story travels eastwards, starting from the very first crusades which the Danes took against their Wendish neighbors. What was later to become a defined struggle of the 'faith' against the 'heathen,' was not so at the beginning. Christiansen points out that the Danes were more interested in securing their coastline from Wendish pirate attacks than converting the pagan to the Roman church. Soon though, as the Wendish coastline was secured, land-hungry German nobility sought to expand eastwards. This drang nach osten soon acquired a singularly religous flavor. Meeting the strong and vibrant pagan cultures of Prussia and Lithuania, the German knights realized that they couldn't defeat such stalwarts on their own. A fanatical ideology was needed to feed the war machine. Christiansen details how a monastic war-machine was built up to combat the heathen. These German knights needed to know that what they were fighting was a 'holy war' and who they were fighting against were abominations in the eyes of the true faith. Thus was born that most foul of medieval brotherhoods, the Teutonic Knights. Armed monks dedicated to the spreading of the Roman church, they followed a crusading creed not unlike their 20th century descendants, the Waffen SS. They blindly believed in their own cultural and spiritual superiority over the non-Christian peoples of Prussia, Lithuania, Livonia (present-day Latvia) and Estonia and thus had no qualms about slaughtering, pillaging and raping, all in the name of the Cross. Christansen states that the knights (and their mercenary friends from all across Europe) were motivated to participate in such atrocities by the promise of absolution of sins. The Papacy had longed preached the gospel of atonement through action even if that meant singularly un-Christian action.

Ironically though the Teutonic Knights heavy-handed tactics eventually backfired. While eventually subduing the Letts to some degree, and all but completely exterminating the ancient Prussians, the Lithuanians remained firm and independent. When they eventually took up the cross for political reasons (the last European people to 'convert' to Christianity), they did so only superficially, their indigenous culture and language remaining strong to the present day. If the Teutonic Knights had truly practiced what they claimed to believe, Christianity might have taken a much stronger hold in this region than it did.

With the prickly question of the moral merits of these crusades, Christiansen strives to remain unbiased, presenting both sides without preference, warts and all. The chapter on the most significant crusade---the Lithuanian---is comprehensive and the gives the facts, but a more in-depth examination of Lithuanian paganism would have been a helpful addition. Moreover, the extremely important battle of Grunwald/Tannenberg in 1410 which effectively castrated the Teutonic Order, is given only cursory discussion. Despite the his objective tone, Christiansen attempts somewhat to rehabilitate the Order. He attempts to insinuate that despite the barbarity of the Order, it did bring 'civilization' (read here Catholic Christianity) to the Baltic. This 'we helped the savages by offering them baptism or the sword' argument is specious indeed, not to mention, anything but humane. Christiansen implies that the pagan cultures were even more barbaric than that of the knights, thus forced conversion and cultural annihilation was, in a way, the right thing to do.

Christiansen ends 'The Northern Crusades' with an interesting aside about the crusade's ominous and unsuccessful clash with Orthodox Russia. Here, Western Europe's crusade lost its ideological raison d'etre. How could the Christian knight fight against his fellow (albeit very different) Christian brother? The Northern Crusade failed to provide an answer to that very prickly question which has continued to dog Europe up to the present time: Does Russia belong to the idea of Europe?

Another fascinating element of Christiansen's work is his examination of the ideological and theological wars which waged within Western Christendom over the idea of 'crusade.' At the Council of Constance, Western theologians supported the idea of force against the non-Christian. The heathen must be violently stripped from his/her idolatrous surroundings (on pain of death even) before true proselytizing can begin. First, the sword, then the Gospel. Christiansen mentions that Polish lawyer, Paul Wlodkowic, posed a heady challenge: Is the true Christian ever justified in using force to spread the Good News? As apt a question then as now, as the West once again seeks conversion (this time to 'democracy') at the point of a gun.

Despite its shallow patches, 'The Northern Crusades' is a must-have for those interested in the history of this forgotten corner of Europe. What makes it stand apart from others written about this topic is Christiansen's colorful and sophisticated language. While you'll flaunder sometimes in the sheer mass (oft-times morass!) of detail, the language always pulls you through to the next page. Always erudite, Christiansen does go over the top in places. 'Bureaucracies have their jargons, and the eloquent Italian lawyers who formulated papal policy in the thirteenth century were presumably able to sleep the sounder for knowing that the chancery clerks would convey instructions in this rhythmical flow of officalese.' Ouch! But luckily, the good outnumbers the bad. About the Teutonic Sword Brothers in Latvia, 'They were dumb dogs, but at least they were able to bite.'

'The Northern Crusades' is anything but a dumb dog and more than that, one full of unexpected bites. Read it and learn how history should be written!

No need to read more...........2004-01-12

This was the only book I ever read on Crusades along the Baltic states and after reading this book, I realized that I really don't have to read too much more. This book proves to be very nicely written, well researched and clearly unbias in nature. The writing prose flows very nicely and I was pretty much engrossed by the subject, material and information the book provided. Since it covered a subject matter not well known in the United States, we can considered it as a blessing that there is such a book like this to enlightened us. For any military historians out there, this is a "must have" book for your library.

Good Survery of little know part of European History.......2003-11-20

While I remember being taught about the Teutonic Knights and Hanseatic League, I really knew very little about Baltic history. Eric Christiansen has done a great job in filling in the blank spaces of medieval history. My only complaint is that, at times, the author was a little too academic, but the wealth of information contained in this THE NORTHERN CRUSADES more than makes up for any minor complaints this reviewer might have. Finally, this history lays out the foundation for understanding the 20th century conflicts between East and West.

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The Crusades: A Masterful Synthesis

The Crusades Second Edition
Hans Eberhard Mayer
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Medieval | World | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0198730985

Book Description

See hardback file

Customer Reviews:

The Crusades: A Masterful Synthesis.......2000-07-06

The second edition of Mayer's work on the crusades should be a basic text in any course dealing with the subject. It is lucidly written with a particularly good translation by John Gillingham.

Mayer has succeeded in explaining the crusade phenomeon within in the context of its own period by focusing on the societies which produced the crusaders. Mayer eschews the mono-causal explanations that too frequently pass for informed judgments in text books of medieval history. He turns instead to the numerous contemporary circumstances that led Christian men and women to make the long and difficult journey to the East. In particular, Mayer's effort to explain the problem of remission of sins and indulgences granted to crusaders is a model of clarity attained by few other historians dealing with the problem.

Although Mayer is at his best in dealing with the First Crusade, his treatment of the later crusades is also valuable.This is the only work of its kind that deals with the first century of crusading warfare as a unified whole.

Book Description

By 1540, piracy, with some encouragement from the English and French governments, was thriving in the Caribbean. Much has been written about the pirates who infested that bubbling cauldron, but very little about the hardiest of them all: the ones who crossed the jungles of Central America and sailed through the perilous Straits of Magellan or around Cape Horn to sack the ports of New Spain and capture the Spanish galleons loaded with riches.

At least twenty-five expeditions of foreigners reached the Pacific shores of Central America or Mexico during the period covered by Peter Gerhard’s book—from 1575, when John Oxenham left England for those waters, to 1742, when Commodore George Anson sailed against the Spanish fleet in the War of Jenkins’ Ear. Pirates of the Pacific brings to life Francis Drake and less civilized English privateers and smugglers, sea-roving Dutchmen like Black Anthony, buccaneers like Henry Morgan, and unnamed but no less vigorous pirates who suffered all manner of hardship for riches and generally died young and poor.

Customer Reviews:

An often forgotten chapter in the history of the New World........2000-02-01

Peter Gerhard's "Pirates of the Pacific" constitutes a serious, well documented study on the most daring, but less studied, of all pirates and privateers: those who were brave enough to cross the Isthmus of Panama, the jungles of Central America, the Straits of Magellan and the Cape Horn, to plunder the Spanish Colonies in the Pacific Coast. There were aproximately twenty five plundering expeditions during a period of two hundred years. Gerhard covers the Elizabethan Privateers, such as Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish. Also the notorious expeditions of the "Pechelingües" or Dutch Privateers who menaced to conquer the Viceroyalty of Peru for the Prince of Orange. It reviews the exploits of the Buccaneers, late English Privateers and Smugglers. And ends with the first expedition of the Royal Navy during the "War of Jenkin's Ear". Gerhard emphasizes and gives detailed accounts of the exploits in the Coast of Mexico, but lacks to explain in detail the adventures of these pirates in the Pacific Coast of South America. Even though, this book constitutes a good source of information in this theme, and one of the few studies on the Pacific Pirates.

An often forgotten chapter in the history of the New World........2000-02-01

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Pirates of New Spain, 1575-1742
Peter Gerhard
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Mexico | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Travel | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Captivating, well-documented study focuses on piracy among Spain's Pacific coast colonies, ranging from Panama to points north. Gerhard traces the exploits of the Elizabethan pirates — most notably, Sir Francis Drake and the crew of the Golden Hind —Dutch raiders, mercenary buccaneers like Captain Morgan, and the incursions of English smugglers.

Book Description

This report is part of the OECD Environmental Performance Review Programme which conducts peer reviews of environmental conditions and progress in each Member country. It scrutinises efforts to meet both domestic objectives and international commitments. Evaluating progress in reducing the pollution burden, improving natural resource management, integrating environmental and economic policies, and strengthening international co-operation is also central to these reviews. The analyses presented are supported by a broad range of economic and environmental data.

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