Mastering ASP.Net with Visual C#

Book Description

In recent years, creating dynamic, server-side web applications has become the most vital part of web development. Now, thanks to ASP.NET and Visual C#, you can build cleaner, more powerful web applications, and you can do it more quickly than ever before. Mastering ASP.NET with C# is an essential guide to harnessing the power of the .NET Framework to develop and consume Web Services of all kinds. This book is packed with the skills you need to get started creating ASP.NET applications, including using Web Forms, connecting to databases with ADO.NET, and working with XML.

Coverage Includes:
* Using the ASP.NET intrinsic objects
* Employing the ASP.NET Server controls
* Using HTML controls
* Saving state data with cookies
* Uploading files
* Sending email
* Retrieving and displaying data from databases
* Building User and Composite controls
* Building custom controls
* Managing multiple ASP.NET configuration files
* Building a custom configuration section handler
* Creating Web Services
* Consuming Web Services from Web Forms, Windows Forms, and COM applications

Customer Reviews:

leaves a lot to be desired.......2003-11-28

After many tries, I've officially given up reading this book at Chapter 17 of this 23 chapter book. This book definetely doesn't belong in the "mastering" series of sybex. I've followed along many books of this series, from SQL, to VB to Server 2003, etc, but this one just doesn't measure up to the quality of the others. Here are the problems with this book:

1. Too many samples, but not enough explanations. I'll be happy if the author presents complicated topics, as long as he explains them thouroughly. But not here, all you get, is one long-winded code after another, but only a sentense or two to explain what the heck is going on in the code. So usually as I read a chapter, I would counsult another book, so I can have some clue what was just covered. Not an ideal learning experience.
2. Too boring. The author doesn't inject one iota of humor, or any kind of real world examples, or applications for his codes. The explanations are terse and dry, and felt as if, the author doesn't really care, or care to know, that at the other end, there's another person reading this.

Not a good first ASP.net or C# book.......2003-09-28

This book tends to become scattered, and the author seems to ramble at times. I was expecting more simple explanation by example, but what examples there were seemed to contain large amounts of code that belonged in an entirely different topic. I tended to notice alot of "I'm showing you this, but I'm not going to say anything about it in this book."...

This is not to say that there is no useful information in this book, but it is difficult and tiring to get to. The content seems to drift towards generalized advice in many areas, rather than actual instruction.

I would say that this book would be worth owning only if you have a good core of ASP.net knowledge, and want a book that will increase the dsetail of your knowledge in a wandering manner.

High hopes, but needs a good pruning.......2003-04-04

I've been trying to use this book as my primary reference for ASP.NET for a couple of months now, and I'm to the point where I'm going to go out and buy another book.

This book could be dramatically improved if it had been under the kind eye of rigorous editor, one that would have pulled all the spurious soapboxing and helped refocus the book on addressing topics the author is not favorable towards.

A couple of examples:

1) Paragraphs of prose dedicated to a lengthy explanation as to why usernames and passwords are obsolete, bordering on arrogance. Finally, begrudgingly, getting to the meat of what I need to know: how to do authenticated login. I wouldn't mind so much if the author was providing relevant insight into the directions that the industry is taking, but his proposition that smart cards and biometrics will overtake passwords is the same old rhetoric expounded over the last decade... which has not come to pass.

2) An attitude of MS Access = Bad. Yes, SQL is one of the stonger solutions for the back end, and sure, you should use MSDE if you can't do SQL, but I have a client that needs it to be MS Access. To completely short-change Access is to write yourself out of a very real segement of the market.

In essence, I think this book suffers by actively distancing itself from real-world issues. A more pragmatic, non-preaching approach would have been better, one that focussed on what *I* need, not what the author feels compelled to tell me about.

Ignoring the soapboxes, the rest of the book is pretty good. The author obviously knows his ASP.NET. I'll keep this book around as a secondary reference, but I'm out hunting for a new primary reference.

I generally dislike writing reviews like this, but I dropped ... this book (a local Borders) and I would really have liked to have seen a review like this before I made that decision.

Not the Mastering Standard that I am used to.......2002-11-06

I have 3 other Mastering books and they are all great. This one is not in that category. Mastering C#, Mastering VB.NET and Mastering Cool Fusion 5.0 are all very good books. This author seems like a real C#/ASP.NET Guru but has no ability to convey that knowledge in a clear concise way. It seems to me like everything is just dumped on the pages instead of being built up step by step. This book might be good if you are already very good at ASP.NET and want to gleam some more insight into some of the deeper workings of ASP.NET, but definitely NOT as a beginner/intermediate book. I consider ASP.NET Unleashed a masterpiece compared to this book. After chapter 6, I just gave up and am going to purchase another ASP.NET C# book to meet my needs.

Mastering ASP.Net with Visual C#.......2002-11-05

This is the best asp.net with c# book for beginner and experienced web developer among the 4 similar books I bought 4 momths ago, this is the only one I read trough and do it from first to last chapter. Thanks, Russell.

Book Description

Agricultural Options Trading, Risk Management, and Hedging If you're a trader, a hedger, a speculator, or even a novice at the ag market game, this is the book for you. Written by a leading options expert, Agricultural Options: Trading, Risk Management, and Hedging gives you the principles and proven strategies you need to profit in all the ag option markers— wheat, corn, soybeans, livestock, soft commodities, and more. You'll learn:

All the mathematical background and formulas you need to win in today's ag market
All about options in general and agricultural options in particular
Risk management strategies, option pricing factors, and trading techniques

Plus, the book contains detailed case studies of option trades that illustrate the best strategies and how—and why—they work. With Agricultural Options, you're right on top of the game.

Agricultural Options : Trading, Risk Management, and Hedging

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Agricultural Options : Trading, Risk Management, and Hedging
Christopher A. Bobin
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000KWOO00

Book Description

Contested States explores how men and women invoke law in their struggles to resist gender, racial, ethnic, religious and class-based domination. The essays in this collection vividly demonstrate people's capacity to rework the content, meaning and processes of law.

The book examines how hegemony is created and facilitated through law, as well as how subordinate peoples use legal arenas to resist oppression. The essays, written by anthropologists and historians, offer rich historical and ethnographic detail as they engage these themes in such contexts as: colonial and post-colonial courts in Kenya, India, Uganda, and the Caribbean; bureaucracies in Tonga and Turkey; and judicial processes in the historical and contemporary United States.

Contested States extends the growing concern with power and social process in legal studies and argues that while states encode and enforce law, a crucial part of the power of law is its very contestability. The bookdemonstrates that theoretical insights learned in legal arenas can deepen overall understanding of sociocultural order and the processes of historical and legal change.

Book Description

Uses a problem solving framework to provide students with the means for acquiring the necessary skills in the application of economic theory. Enables them to understand that economic theory does describe authentic relationships by actual people in the existing world.

Book Description

PhysioEx v4.0 now offers a dramatically improved histology tutorial and 10 laboratory simulations that allow students to perform physiological experiements that may be too costly, difficult, or time consuming to conduct in a traditional wet lab setting. Users can adjust the variables of each lab, perform experiments repeatedly, and even design their own labs. For college instructors and students in human anatomy and physiology.

Book Description

Geosciences, Environment and Man has three major objectives, which determine the division in three parts of this volume: I. To consider the main natural geological processes interfering with and therefore threatening the activities of man: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, land movements, floods, wind and coastal risks; main prevention and mitigation measures against these natural hazards are presented. II. To examine the exploitation of earth's natural resources such as materials, ores and minerals, fossil fuels, water, radioactivity, and the resulting consequences on solid Earth balance and future. III. To assess the hold level reached by the activities of man on planet surface envelopes through agriculture, urbanization, industrialization, and communication; the local to global effects of human influence triggered by recent demographic growth on underground, soils, water and air characters are taken into account. Both deteriorating and beneficial aspects of Earth - the interactions of man are emphasized, as well as mitigation or restoration measures and perspectives.

Book Description

A Nobel Prize–winning chemist explains the nature of radioactivity and the structure of the atom in nontechnical language in this classic scientific text, appropriate for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. Beginning with the discovery of radioactivity, the text covers radium, the rays of radioactive substances, and radium’s emanation. Additional topics include helium and radium, the theory of atomic disintegration, the origin of radium and its successive changes, radioactivity and the nature of matter, radioactivity and the evolution of the world, the thorium and actinium disintegration series, and the ultimate structure of matter. Concluding chapters examine the nuclear atom, isotopes, and x-rays. 1920 ed. 44 figures.

Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom 4th Edition

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Interpretation of Radium and the Structure of the Atom 4th Edition
Frederick Soddy
Manufacturer: G P PUTNAMS SONS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VYZ8Z2

The interpretation of radium,: Being the substance of six free popular experimental lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow, (The Science series)

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The interpretation of radium,: Being the substance of six free popular experimental lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow, (The Science series)
Frederick Soddy
Manufacturer: G.P. Putnam's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B000864FPM

Absurdistan: A Novel
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Seriously Funny

If Adam Sandler were a Book

Disgusting, pollution of the mind

Satire like a ton of bricks

"Absurdistan" in 20 Words

Absurdistan: A Novel
Gary Shteyngart
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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The Emperor's Children (Vintage)

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Russian Debutante's Handbook

The Lay of the Land (Vintage Contemporaries)

ASIN: 0812971671
Release Date: 2007-04-03

Book Description

“Absurdistan is not just a hilarious novel, but a record of a particular peak in the history of human folly. No one is more capable of dealing with the transition from the hell of socialism to the hell of capitalism in Eastern Europe than Shteyngart, the great-great grandson of one Nikolai Gogol and the funniest foreigner alive.”
–Aleksandar Hemon

From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook comes the uproarious and poignant story of one very fat man and one very small country
Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don’t even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost.
Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.
With the enormous success of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Gary Shteyngart established himself as a central figure in today’s literary world—“one of the most talented and entertaining writers of his generation,” according to The New York Observer. In Absurdistan, he delivers an even funnier and wiser literary performance. Misha Vainberg is a hero for the new century, a glimmer of humanity in a world of dashed hopes.

From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews:

Seriously Funny.......2007-10-09

This is, at times, a densely written book, with joke after joke, some of them slapstick, others self-referential and not obvious to anyone not well read. If you liked Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" then you will enjoy this novel.

The book goes on perhaps too long and the ending lacks the emotional impact or humorous outcome needed for this to be truly successful. But laugh for laugh this one is hard to beat.

If Adam Sandler were a Book.......2007-10-05

If the typical Adam Sandler movie were a book, you'd have Absurdistan. This is a horribly written, vacuous, at times boring book. If you like Adam Sandler's humor, you might like this book, but then again if you like Sandler's humor, you probably can't read.

Disgusting, pollution of the mind.......2007-10-03

This novel has far too much sexually oriented content that doesn't add any substance to the plot. It is a distraction from the main idea of the novel. Also, the author fails to resist the urge to use vocabulary whose definitions only a wordsmith would know and not the majority of the general population. Using uncommon vocabulary ruins any chance that the reader can get absorbed in the story. At this point, it is unclear whether this reader will even finish reading this horrible piece of writing.

Satire like a ton of bricks.......2007-10-02

Notable book of the year notwithstanding, I just couldn't get through "Absurdistan"--and I love parody and satire. I read the first 100 pages or so, but the initially amusing hero quickly became boring, and the grossness was piled on a little too thick for my taste. After awhile, I felt as if scenes started repeating--we hear of the hero's raptures over Ruenna, and a hundred pages later, hear of them again--but over a different girl. There are too many thieving Russians and bumbling bureaucrats in the book for my taste--one or two would have gotten the point across. I just had to cry "Uncle" and leave it unfinished. Perhaps I should try the first book?

"Absurdistan" in 20 Words.......2007-09-11

Vulgar, profane, hilarious. A Confederacy of Dunces meets Still Life with Woodpecker in a post-Soviet dystopia. Plus: white men rap!

Customer Reviews:

Tremendous conclusion.......2005-09-17

Having just finished this final book of the Trilogy, I feel like I'm saying goodbye to close friends I have lived with, fought alongside, and laughed with for years. I suppose that statement, all by itself, is testament enough to Sienkiewicz's skill as a writer.

Although I loved this book very much, I must be objective in reviewing it. Truth is, Sienkiewicz's plot deployment was a little scattered this time out. The first part of the book is political, then there's a romance, then a short section depicting life at a Polish outpost (which dragged a bit and at times almost descended to burlesque), then there's the adventure of Basia's flight, and finally a battle against the Turks. Each section is very well done, of course, but there's no character, tone, or narrative thread tying it all together. It ends up being rather disjointed, so I have to give it 4 stars rather than the 5 stars I want to.

All that aside, the writing here is unbelievably masterful. The battle against the Turks stands toe to toe with Homer's Iliad in it's grandeur and power. And the end of the book was a shattering surprise (no spoilers, don't worry), and I was deeply affected by it. The translator's afterword has a few sentences about Pan Zagloba that made me feel like I swallowed a rock. I'm a 38 year old man not given to sentimental outbursts, but I totally lost it at the end of this story.

I started reading "With Fire and Sword" for the first time almost ten years ago, and I would love to keep reading about these characters for another 3,000 pages. Luckily, I have all these books in hardcover so I can rejoin these wonderful characters whenever I like until I'm so old my eyes stop working. Well done, Henryk, and kudos to the translator for bringing this literary masterpiece into the English language.

Memorable ending to a great trilogy.......2002-06-25

I still get a feeling in my gut when I remember finishing this book. It is that good and that powerful. The characters are easy to get attached to -- and like many 19th century novels the author is not sparring in playing his reader's emotions. This is a worthy culmination to an amazing set of books (starting with "With Fire & Sword"). While no book is for everyone, I have recommended this series to a diverse group of friends and family members and always been thanked for doing so. There is romance, drama, and action all rolled up into a real page turner.
If you are reading this review, my guess is you have not read the first two parts of this series or else you would be hooked by now. If that is the case, track down a copy of With Fire & Sword and start there. You will not be disappointed.

One of the greatest historical epics of all time.......2002-05-14

If you like history and epic stories (Dumas, Walter Scott), then "The trilogy" (this being the third book after "Fire & Sword" and "Deluge") is definitely a must-read - great story, battles, romance are all there and even though the events that are covered in the trilogy are probably unfamiliar to most US readers, that should not detract from enjoyment.
As many other people said, this is an abashedly partisan view of history, from one side only and you should not try to use this book as your guide to Eastern European history. I don't see that being a problem for a fiction novel, though.

The translation, I thought, was decent but definitely less than perfect and the cutting out of epilogue is really just too bad

Wonderful Epics and Don't be Afraid of Epics.......2001-12-10

I am not Polish or of Polish descent nor does one have to be to read and enjoy these masterpieces.

I could not put down any of the books in this series. The heroes, the villians and the women were enthralling. I particularly enjoyed the Catholic Christian aspect of the books and the importance of the spiritual to the soldiers involved. I would most highly recommend Sienkiewicz to any person who loves adventure, fidelity and God.

Wonderful Book.......2000-09-28

Like the other two books in the trilogy, this is a sweeping epic. The characters (many of them drawn from Polish legend) are extremely compelling and despite it's 1000 plus pages, the book reads like the wind. You are thrown from one adventure to the next. A must read for anyone who likes swashbuckling, war, history or lovestories. It's all in there. I definitely recommend reading the earlier books in the series. However, the book stands on its own.

Effects of dormant- vs. growing-season fire in shortgrass steppe: Biological soil crust and perennial grass responses [An article from: Journal of Arid Environments]

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Effects of dormant- vs. growing-season fire in shortgrass steppe: Biological soil crust and perennial grass responses [An article from: Journal of Arid Environments]
P.L. Ford , and G.V. Johnson
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Elsevier | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B000RRA1Q4

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Arid Environments, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This research experimentally examined seasonal effects of fire on biological soil crusts and perennial grasses in shortgrass steppe. We predicted dormant-season fire would have greater negative effects on biological soil crusts than fire during the growing season, but less of an impact on perennial grasses than fire during the growing season. Treatments were dormant- and growing-season fires and unburned reference condition plots. Response variables included biological soil crust and grass percent ground cover, and crust nitrogen fixation and chlorophyll a content. Results indicated shortgrass steppe can recover from fire in three to 30 months, dependent on fire season. Burning during the dormant-season had little effect on grass cover, but decreased nitrogen fixation and reduced chlorophyll a content in crusts. Growing-season fire negatively impacted grass cover, but reduced the impact of fire on soil crusts. Most of the fire effects in this study were of relatively short duration and strongly tied to weather patterns.

Modelling plant growth dynamics in sagebrush steppe communities affected by fire [An article from: Journal of Arid Environments]

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Modelling plant growth dynamics in sagebrush steppe communities affected by fire [An article from: Journal of Arid Environments]
R. Mata-Gonzalez , R.G. Hunter , C.L. Coldren , and McLen
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000PC0JWW

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Arid Environments, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The EDYS model was used to simulate plant production in burned and unburned communities dominated by Bromus tectorum at the US Army Yakima Training Centre, Washington. Model results were validated with 4 years of field data obtained in experiments designed specifically for this study. Subsequently, 50-year simulations of plant production were conducted with normal precipitation for the area and with no disturbances such as grazing or military training. Our simulations of plant production were not significantly different (p>0.05) from observed results of burned and unburned communities in 90% of the comparisons, indicating that EDYS adequately simulated the dynamics of this system. Long-term simulations indicated that annual species, primarily B. tectorum, dominated burned and unburned plant communities for 13-15 years, after which, annuals were replaced by perennials. B. tectorum, however, remained five years longer in the burned than in the unburned community, suggesting that fire favors the persistence of this species in invaded areas. Although B. tectorum dominated both plant communities during the initial simulation period, its production fluctuated greatly. The main perennials that replaced B. tectorum were Chrysothamnus nauseosus, Artemisia tridentata, and Agropyron cristatum. Our long-term modelling results are supported by previous field observations in which annual species are replaced by perennials in the absence of disturbances.

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Pan Wolodyjowski [Fire in the Steppe]
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Manufacturer: Wydawnictwo 'zielona sowa'
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O0ACMW

Fire in steppe vegetation of the northern intermountain region (Technical bulletin / Idaho Bureau of Land Management)

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Fire in steppe vegetation of the northern intermountain region (Technical bulletin / Idaho Bureau of Land Management)
Bertie J Weddell
Manufacturer: Bureau of Land Management, Idaho State Office
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006RUGFG

Villians United #2 : A Fire in the Steppes (DC Comics)

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Villians United #2 : A Fire in the Steppes (DC Comics)
Gail Simone
Manufacturer: DC Comics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition
Average customer rating:

Every American needs to read this book.

Essential reading for our time

never dry!

History as entertainment

An essential, action-packed story of water policy (yes, you read that right)

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition
Marc Reisner
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0140178244

Amazon.com

The definitive history of water resources in the American West, and a very illuminating lesson in the political economy of limited resources anywhere. Highly recommended!

Book Description

Part One Of Two Parts

The story of the American West is the story of the relentless quest to control and allocate nature's most common, and the West's most precious, resource: water. CADILLAC DESERT recounts this dramatic saga.

The early settlers were lured by free land. But there was not enough water to sustain them, and they drifted on. Only the Mormons stayed, carefully tending a system of irrigation canals that tempered perpetual drought. Their success gave birth to federal aid programs, principally the Bureau of Reclamation. Without the bureau, without Hoover, Shasta and Grand Coulee, the West as we know it would not exist.

Customer Reviews:

Every American needs to read this book........2007-09-07

Or anyone thinking about moving/living west of the 100th meridian.

One of the best modern non-fiction books ever written, period.

Essential reading for our time.......2007-08-23

AKA...those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. It's essential reading on the mismanagement of arguably our most critical resource: drinking water.

Meticulously researched and quite well written, it's rare to find a non-fiction book that can be classified a page-turner, but this it it.

never dry!.......2007-08-20

The American experiment in democracy has degenerated into a plutocracy, in which wealth and power preempt democracy's ideals of equality and freedom [cf Kevin Phillips' Wealth & Democracy]. While Phillips gives a depressing history of the decline, and its corruption thru the centuries, Cadillac Desert focuses on perhaps the biggest corrupter of all - the sprawling water projects of the American West, in which water is diverted at huge cost to grow crops no one needs, all to support giant corporations that threaten to wipe out the family farms that were the rationale for the projects in the first place. Taken together, these books demonstrate that ideology or the party in power matters little - elections become a charade, masking the control of government by capital and its corporate controllers.

History as entertainment.......2007-07-21

Many people often find history to be a boring subject, whether in school, as a TV show, or as dinner conversation. And within the broad subject of history, few are considered as boring as the topic of public works. Wars, great leaders, sex scandals, spy stories, and scientific revolutions are the common topics of history shows and history best-sellers. Yet so few history books are as entertaining or enjoyable as this tome from the now-deceased Marc Reisner. This book's subject matter is man's attempts to control water flow in the US west of the Appalachias. This includes dams, canals, reservoirs, river diversions, and numerous other public works projects related to water. Some mention is made of irrigation by Native Americans, but most of the text is on public works done in the 20th century by the US federal government, and occasionally some state governments. The book explores the politics (local and national) behind various dams and other projects, and shows how these human constructions affected local economies and ecologies. Names like Hoover Dam, Grand Teton Dam, Central Arizona Project, and San Joaquin Valley are covered here. The author also highlights key individuals involved in dams throughout US history; such as LBJ, Floyd Dominy, Carl Hayden, and John Powell.

The book's chapters flow in a chronological order, with some chapters backtracking in time to cover different regions of the US. The text itself flows quickly and is written very well with the author taking time to include comedy in the form of irony, shortsightedness and outright stupidity on the part of many public servants. Several black and white photos provide the only illustrations. The only drawback of the book is the paucity of maps. Many of the rivers mentioned in the text are not immediately recognizable to the lay reader. But all in all, I consider this one of the best history books of the 1990's.

An essential, action-packed story of water policy (yes, you read that right).......2006-11-27

In "Cadillac Desert," Marc Reisner tells the story of how the American West destroyed its rivers with unnecessary dams. Environmentalists are often accused of opposing economic growth, but Reisner shows that the dam-builders - - and not their opponents - - were the ones ignoring economic criteria. As a result of the "beaver complex" of the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, we have a bunch of money-losing dams providing subsidized water to grow subsidized crops at high prices.

In other words, the beavers destroy wealth and jobs at the same time they destroy rivers, wetlands, and Indian reservations. Indirectly, they also contribute to the farm crisis in wetter areas such as the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys and the eastern seaboard.

It would be easy to unleash an army of econometricians to document the phenomenal waste of these dams. However, Reisner manages to provide us with an action narrative of these two out-of-control bureaucracies and a demented, pork-addled legislature. Let me repeat this, because it's the most remarkable feature of the book: an action narrative of two bureaucracies. The man can write.

He also gives us capsule biographies of leading figures - - including a full chapter on Floyd Dominy, the high priest of dam building. These people destroyed our rivers, not in the pursuit of growth, but in the pursuit of corporate welfare and back-room deals that move wealth around without creating any new wealth. Every environmentalist and anti-environmentalist needs to read the book.

In short, this is a riveting story, very well told. Not only is it highly recommended, but I join with many other reviewers in saying that this book should be required reading for all American citizens.

Coastal Alert: Energy Ecosystems And Offshore Oil Drilling (Island Press Critical Issues Series, No. 2)

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Coastal Alert: Energy Ecosystems And Offshore Oil Drilling (Island Press Critical Issues Series, No. 2)
Dwight Holing
Manufacturer: Island Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Real Estate | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Tidelands | Ecosystems | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

Coastal | Ecosystems | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1559630507

Book Description

Book Description

Despite the increasing globalization of many aspects of social, economic, and political life, the state remains the fundamental element of contemporary governance. This lively and accessible new book provides a broad-ranging introduction to the origins, role, and future of the modern state and makes its own distinct contribution to tracing out continuities and changes in its development.

Beyond Science: The Wider Human Context (Canto original series)
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An excellent science writer with intriguing ideas.

Simple, but profound, thinking about science and religion

Beyond Science: The Wider Human Context (Canto original series)
John Polkinghorne
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion

Science & Theology: An Introduction

The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker (Theology and the Sciences)

Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality

ASIN: 0521625084

Book Description

John Polkinghorne has had a distinguished career as a particle physicist and as an author of books exploring themes in science and religion. In Beyond Science Polkinghorne examines the nature of scientific inquiry itself and the human context in which science operates. The book looks at issues of meaning and value, such as scientific competition and subjectivity, as well as more practical aspects of the discipline such as the conference circuit and the nurturing of new research.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent science writer with intriguing ideas........1998-05-08

Polkinghorne is a splendid writer of science and a formidable mind with wonderful ideas. He has a control of language rivaling any science writer I have read. His "Quantum World" is a beautiful work. In "Beyond Science" he continues along similar lines with a particularly charming chapter discussing the personalities of great physicists with whom he has associated. He does a superb job describing what science is and how it works. Unfortunately he descends into scholarly ambiguity in his chapter on the human mind, with bloated sentences that run on and can easily confuse even the careful reader.

The ultimate purpose of the book is to present allowance for belief in a divine creator. Mostly this revolves around the Anthropic Principle (AP) - the idea that the existence of life is so sensitive to variation in physical constants of the universe that they must have been set by a creator for such life to exist. AP embraces evolution as the machinery for God's work. Polkinghorne is in a minority among physicists but the idea should cause some pause for reflection. He limits credit to the idea that since we are products of those constants it should not be surprising that they are what they are. As one who appreciates the power of science he understandably holds dear any notion based on reason that allows for God. But he appears to hold the idea too dearly, as adherents of AP often do. Attempting to make apparent improbabilities of constants set by chance understandable he notes Leslie's philosophical story of a fly hit by a bullet on a vast wall. He allows it two possible reasons for occurring, 1) because very many bullets were fired or 2) because a marksman took careful aim. Thus with intent, as a creator would have for tuning the constants with the aim of creating humans. Surely he knows but ignores two other possibilities, that the fly and bullet just happened to be at the same place in time or that the fly and bullet have some as yet undiscovered attraction for one another requiring they meet. This last is analogous to the constants having the values they do for as yet undiscovered requirements within the fabric of the Big Bang or Inflation or some other mechanism. Probabilities against events can sometimes carry too much weight. The probability that any four hands of thirteen cards are drawn in specific order from a deck of fifty-two is 1 in 4 billion trillion. Yet each time you draw four hands of thirteen cards, it happens. The cards dealt are completely determined by their position in the deck. We don't know what that is but it is fixed. Polkinghorne makes a few similar, but generally lesser transgressions to preserve his belief. I was repeatedly surprised and relieved to see him admit this on occasion and discuss opposing views.

The only unfortunate result of such a book will be that creationists use such material against science through misunderstanding and convenient abbreviation. Which is not a reason to stop such inquiry. I recommend "Beyond Science" for those at least mildly aquatinted with the field.

Simple, but profound, thinking about science and religion.......1997-06-17

Polkinghorne had a career as an academic physicist, and has also been theologically trained. He examines science from a religious viewpoint. He doesn't find a warfare between science and Christianity, but he does believe that scientists sometimes claim to know more than they should about metaphysical issues. Polkinghorne deals intelligently with both physics and biology. One chapter gives capsule evaluations of the legacies of important scientists, including Stephen Hawking. This book does not claim that the earth was created a few thousand years ago, but it does claim that science has by no means ruled out an Intelligent Designer.

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