A Currency Options Primer (The Wiley Finance Series)

Book Description

A quick and concise guide to currency options
An understanding of currency options is essential for those working in investment and foreign exchange. A Currency Options Primer sets out to give readers a clear guide to how the currency option market functions, offering practical advice on mastering the necessary components and concepts for fully understanding the workings of this market.

Download Description

"In recent years, currencies of major industrial nations have fluctuated widely in response to trade imbalances, interest rates, commodity prices, and political uncertainty. The pressure to maintain currency parity has led to the breakdown of many exchange rate mechanisms, and has forced the need for active foreign exchange hedging decisions to prevent the erosion of profit margins. To counteract this worldwide market volatility, currency options were developed as an alternative risk management tool to the spot and forward foreign exchange market, and owe their existence to the demands of foreign exchange users for alternative hedging and exposure management techniques. This essentially practical book gives a thorough and comprehensive guide to currency options, with clear explanations of the technicalities. It should become recommended reading for many business courses, and will be of interest to new recruits and junior members in investment and merchant banks; to Forex specialist firms; to Treasury institutions; and to investors who require a quick guide within a trading and sales environment. "

Customer Reviews:

Could be condensed into 30 pages.......2007-02-14

Save your money and buy "Foreign Exchange: A Practical Guide to the FX Markets" by Tim Weithers instead. That book covers the main content of this book in one chapter and does so in a much more readable way.

Note that both of these books would really only be useful to newcomers to the FX markets. Professional traders should likely skip both titles.

extremely basic.......2006-10-30

there is this phrase in the download review "...with clear explanations of the technicalities...". I find that to be misleading and wanted to write this review. this book is only for those who never ever had anything to do with any options, and are also allergic to math. barely touches on the technicalities of fx options.

Customer Reviews:

WORST book to use for CPA Review.......2002-05-30

This book is too detailed and go off on stuff that's not relevant on passing the cpa exam. This book is for people who want to know all of accounting and not just focusing on passing the exam. It has all these unnecessary stuff that are you don't need to know for the exam. Unlike other review materials that has about 9 chapters, this book has 20 chapters. If other materials can help you pass on just 9 chapters, why does this book has 20? Who has time to remember 20 chapters on each section. In addition the book is poorly written, the materials are hard to understand and topics are all over the place. I also regret getting the audio tutor tapes, they are a bore and useless. This whole package is a total waste of money, you're better off saving some money and getting the wiley book and studying on your own or pay some money and get a real review course like becker. Like they say, you get what you pay for. Stay away from Bisk.

Helped me pass.......2001-08-07

This is a well written book with concrete examples and real, accurate questions. It helped me to pass the exam the first time I took it.

Wow I passed on my First Test.......2001-01-31

What a fantastic way to get ready for the CPA Exam. I was so overwhelmed but if you study this book it will get you ready. I passed my first time....just like they said I would!

Highly recommended!.......1998-06-01

Studying for the CPA exam can seem like an overwhelming, uphill battle. It is an undoubtedly challenging undertaking. However, this review book is excellent and will definately prepare you for the exam. The thorough chapters are well written and contain helpful exhibits and mnemonic devices. Of course, about 1,000 questions are included for practice. If you're taking all four sections of the exam keep in mind that Bisk recommends 20 weeks of study, so plan accordingly. Nathan Bisk's books are the best CPA review books I've seen.

Financial Accounting and Reporting 1997: Business Enterprises (Wiley Cpa Examination Review 1997)

Average customer rating:

Financial Accounting and Reporting 1997: Business Enterprises (Wiley Cpa Examination Review 1997)
Patrick R. Delaney
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This book will give you a good picture of what a complete earth education program involves. Even if you can't set up the program yourself, you will likely be inspired by it and find it helpful in building an earth education program for your own setting and situation.

Earthkeepers programs are underway at both resident and non-resident sites in several countries. A mysterious, unseen character known only as "E.M." permeates the Earthkeepers program. As the "keeper of the keys" E.M. is everyone's dream of the wizard of the woods, a secretive recluse who lives alone but loves to share the marvels and mysteries of the natural world with others in special ways.

Becoming an Earthkeeper like E.M. is an important task, and each learner is rewarded after each step with a special key. These keys open real locks on boxes that contain secret meanings about the true nature of E.M. As the learners earn four keys for their keyrigs, they not only discover how life functions ecologically on the earth, they find out how they are both a part of our environmental problems and their solutions.

Earthkeepers is a program for 10-11 year olds who would spend 2 1/2 to 3 days in a natural setting and then complete the other half of the program back at home and school.

Book Description

This book is the proceedings of the Falk Symposium 143 on ‘Pancreatitis: Advances in Pathobiology, Diagnosis and Treatment’, held in Freiburg, Germany, on 14--15 October 2004 (Part II of the Gastroenterology Week Freiburg): the first time in the nearly 40-year-old tradition of International Falk Symposia that pancreatitis has been the main topic of the program. The aim of this state-of-the-art postgraduate volume is two-fold. First, it is focused on the marked progress in the understanding, diagnosis and management of acute and chronic pancreatitis that has been achieved within the last two decades. Second, it emphasizes the numerous, clinically relevant problems which are still unsolved.

Progress in pancreatology is based primarily on a close cooperation between gastroenterologists, visceral surgeons, radiologists, endoscopists and basic scientists. Unfortunately, one important discipline is still largely absent – the pathology – because the pancreas is not accessible to routine biopsy comparable to liver biopsy. On the other hand, basic science has made major contributions recently towards an improved understanding of the pathobiology of pancreatitis.

The book provides an overview of the current knowledge of pancreatology by internationally recognized experts, who also discuss open questions and different standpoints. In pancreatology like in physics we have to recognize the idea which was expressed by the physicist and Nobel Laureate W. Pauli (1900--1958): "the question is never: will the present theory remain or not, the question is always: in what direction will it change."

Average customer rating:
Allochthonous Terranes (Royal Society Discussion Volumes)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Geology | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
Structural | Geology | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Earth Sciences | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Geology | Earth Sciences | Professional Science | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0521404614

Average customer rating:
ALLOCHTHONOUS TERRANES.
J., Et al. (eds) Dewey
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WQ6BCS

Average customer rating:
The Motion of Allochthonous Terranes Across the North Pacific Basin (Special Paper (Geological Society of America))
M. G. Debiche , A. Cox , and David C. Engebretson
Manufacturer: Geological Society of Amer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Geology | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
Structural | Geology | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0813722071

Average customer rating:
Strata-bound, silver-bearing iron, lead, and zinc sulfide deposits in Silurian and Ordovician rocks of allochthonous terranes, Nevada and northern Mexico ... of the Interior, Geological Survey)
Keith Brindley Ketner
Manufacturer: U.S. Geological Survey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Rocks & Minerals | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
Mining | Civil | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006YEARO

Average customer rating:
Structural geology of parautochthonous and allochthonous terranes of the Penokean orogeny in upper Michigan--comparisons with northern Appalachian tectonics (SuDoc I 19.3:1904-Q)
William J. Gregg
Manufacturer: U.S. G.P.O. For sale by USCS Map Distribution
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00010AS8I

Average customer rating:
Tectonics of the Yakutat block, an allochthonous terrane in the northern Gulf of Alaska (Open-file report / United States Department of the Interior, Geological Survey)
Terry R Bruns
Manufacturer: U.S. Geological Survey
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Stratigraphic | Historical | Geology | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006YO7DG

Book Description

This is the first book to present a coherent theoretical and experimental treatment of the rapidly developing field of macroscopic quantum tunneling of the magnetic moment. The theory is based on the concept of the magnetic instanton and its renormalization by the dissipative environment. The book includes discussions of the tunneling of magnetic moment in small ferromagnetic grains, tunneling of the Ne'el vector in antiferromagnetic grains, quantum nucleation of magnetic domains, and quantum depinning of domain walls. The experimental part collects the majority of recent data that are, or may be, relevant to spin tunneling. Among the topics described are low temperature magnetic relaxation and its interpretation in various systems, experiments on single particles and mesoscopic wires, and resonant spin tunneling in molecular magnets. This study of an important new field in condensed matter physics by two leading contributors to the subject will be of interest to theorists and experimentalists.

Book Description

Meet Vinnie Agita -- the Raging Bull of Home Repair, the Hunka-Hunka Handy Love, and all around Godfather of Do-It-Yourself-Soul. If you've ever had an uncontrollable urge to grout the bathroom tiles ... if you've ever said "don't call a plumber, honey -- let me handle this!"...then you'll see goggle-to-goggle with Vince Rause's outrageous alter ego in Handy As I Wanna Be.

Here are the hilarious and poignantly obsessive yearnings of a Handyman's Everyman, a humble guy who hasn't met a home repair project he didn't have to tackle. Vinnie Agita's tool-intensive tale is a marvel of handydom packed with excellent, practical home repair advice, which has prompted critics to proclaim, "It's riveting, magnetic -- will lock you in with the power of its viselike grip!"

Well, not really.

Vinnie is a man whose life revolves around two great passions: his bottomless love for his wife -- the luminously beautiful but increasingly irritable Angela -- and his tireless quest to push the limits of home repair to the ridiculous extreme. For Vinnie, handiness is no hobby -- it's a gestalt, a defining credo. In his own words, "It's the halogen worklamp that brightens the long dark night of the soul."

For Angie, it's more like a big, throbbing pain in the keister.

That's because misadventures plague Vinnie -- he is falsely arrested while trying to break into his own home (testing his new home security system); he innocently mistakes a holy man's ashes for Portland cement, and he takes out the neighbor's garden gnomes with a few misfires from a lethal nail gun.

Things finally come to a head on the day when longsuffering Angela returns from the hair salon to find her home nestled beneath the bloated latex loins of a three-story inflatable chicken plundered from the Thanksgiving Day parade. At Angie's insistence, Vinnie consults a shrink, Dr. Nick, the one person who may help him get in touch with his wounded "inner handyman" and win back the woman he loves.

Customer Reviews:

Unfortunately not as FUNNY as you want it to be.......2002-08-20

Vinnie "The Tool" Agita, this book's bumbling but well-intentioned protagonist, has more tools than common sense. That's the one-note joke behind Handy As I Wanna Be. Since Vinnie knows everything about home repair except when to stop, at least the reader comes away with a few handy tips, if not so many laughs. Vinnie's misadventures are presented in episodic chapters, and though they string together into a sort of limp story arc, this is really a collection of light-hearted how-to articles masquerading as a novel. The formula for each chapter is that Vinnie encounters a home repair dilemma, dispenses conventional handyman wisdom, invites disaster by taking things absurdly far, and is banished from the bedroom by his long-suffering wife. There's a good helping of handy know-how, a few laugh-out-loud funny moments, some clever throwaway concepts, and a lot of labored silliness peppered with tired pop-cultural references. Vinnie's exploits might make for the magazine world's most creative and humorous how-to column -- which isn't necessarily saying much, except that this sort of thing works best in small installments. Sadly it's not enough of a foundation to build a novel on, even one that's not meant to be taken seriously.

It's hard to compete with the great reviews on this page........1999-10-24

It may be mediocre, it may be horrifically tedious and painful to read, it may be the epitome of all that is wrong with books these days, it may be amauterishly written and imaturely handled, but it's still an excellent book.

If I die, I want Rause to handle the punctuation on my grave.......1999-10-24

What will immediately strike you is the impeccable punctuation; deft and daring, his overpoweringly accurate placement and distribution of commas, periods and the like is simply magnificent. I would even venture to say that Rause's punctuation, in the height of its innovation and refinement, even surpasses God at his best.

Sterling satire with incisive social commentary.......1999-07-22

This underrated little gem of a novel has enough scathing satire, probing wit and dark humor to satisfy even the most jaded cognoscenti of humor. Truly a bravura performance from Rause, perhaps the funniest American humorist since Dave Barry.

Book Description

The Ottoman Empire and its conflicts provide one of the longest continuous narratives in military history. Its rulers were never overthrown by a foreign power and no usurper succeeded in taking the throne. At its height under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Empire became the most powerful state in the world - a multi-national, multilingual empire that stretched from Vienna to the upper Arab peninsula. With Suleiman's death began the gradual decline to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 in which the Ottoman Empire lost much of its European territory. This volume covers the main campaigns and the part played by such elite troops as the Janissaries and the Sipahis, as well as exploring the social and economic impact of the conquests.

Customer Reviews:

A Clear Look At Over 300 Years Of History.......2006-06-15

This is another great book in the Essential History series. One point that sticks out is that Stephen Turnbull clearly and concisely pulled together over 300 years of Ottoman history. The obvious shortcoming is the fact that many battles are given only a brief description. The reader is left wanting more. Given the size limitation of Osprey books, however, there is really no way to overcome this minor shortcoming. If more attention were given to one battle, then something else would have to be taken out.

The book contains some notable bits of information that the average reader will find fascinating. The activities of Vlad Dracul, the Impaler, are particularly interesting. The author does a splendid job of describing the real life activities of the man who became the literary inspiration for Count Dracula, the vampire.

The history of the Empire is told in chronological order. Thus, it is easy to follow. The author also expands on certain topics by devoting two chapters to a Serbian janissary and a civilian Grand Vizier. This adds a unique perspective and prevents the book from becoming nothing more than a list of battles. Bottom line: the author achieved his goal of writing a brief account of the Ottoman Empire, its battles, and the associated political motivations. This is no small feat given the expansive period covered. The book is a great reference on a part of history that is rarely taught in school.

A good starting point in learning about the Ottoman Empire.......2005-03-29

"The Ottoman Empire 1326-1699" by Stephen Turnbull is a good introductory book on the Ottoman Turks. I would recommend reading this volume on the Ottomans before the other Osprey books on them. The book chronologically covers the history of the Ottomans and the reader gains a sense of who they were and who they fought. As you may expect, the volume is richly illustrated with photographs, woodcuts, paintings, and maps.

Taking into account that the Osprey military books really are concise volumes and are limited to a specific number of pages, the fact that much of Ottoman history is quickly reviewed or even omitted is understandable. However, the fact that several pages have white space without illustration is less excusable. The 1683 Siege of Vienna is quickly glossed over leaving a half blank page at its conclusion. Without a doubt, there was room to expand on this battle.

My interest in the Ottoman Empire was learning who this foe was that attacked and troubled Europe, particularly Poland. Interestingly enough, details of wars between the Ottomans and Poles are throughout the book. On the cover of the book lies the dead king Wladislaw III at the battle of Varna 1444 and toward the end it briefly mentions King Jan Sobieski's assistance in the Siege of Vienna. If you are hoping to find many of the details of the Polish and Ottomans, you are going to be disappointed as they are few and far between. The lack of details is almost excessive as the book even fails to mention Sobieski was Polish.

A Vivid Military Narrative.......2004-03-05

Stephen Turnbull's The Ottoman Empire 1326 - 1699, Osprey's Essential History volume #62, is a lively and well-written narrative of a critical and brutal phase of Medieval warfare. Indeed, this volume is one of Turnbull's best efforts since his samurai efforts. Turnbull succeeds in bringing three centuries of Ottoman conquests into sharp focus and he adds great drama to this historical survey. However, Turnbull's otherwise fine effort is marred by two critical deficiencies: lack of sufficient maps to support the narrative and a neglect of Ottoman operations in North Africa and the Mideast.

After a short introduction and chronology, Turnbull's The Ottoman Empire 1326 - 1699 briefly examines the rise of the Ottomans and the nature of the Ottoman army. It is interesting to contrast modern armies in the Mideast with Turnbull's description of an Ottoman military system built on discipline, military efficiency and a willingness to adopt new technology and tactics. The bulk of the 55-page campaign narrative focuses on Turkish advances into the Balkans, with only slight asides for other areas. Turnbull also provides interesting sections on portrait of a soldier (a Serbian janissary), portrait of a civilian (a grand vizier), and a discussion of terror and toleration in the empire. Turnbull's bibliography is a bit skimpy. Certainly the weakest aspect of the volume is the limited number of maps; normally Osprey essential histories have ten maps but Turnbull provides only five and they are not particularly useful maps. Readers will note that very few of the battles or sieges listed in the narrative are depicted in the maps. The five maps include: the early Ottoman conquests (1291-1389); the major crusades to halt Ottoman expansion (1396/1444/1448); the expansion of the Ottoman Empire under Mehmet the Conqueror (1451-1481); the expansion of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1683; and the Ottoman Eastern European Front in the 17th Century.

Turnbull's descriptions of the Turkish advance into the Balkans is exciting and vivid, with excellent descriptions of the victory at Nicopolis (1396), the defeat at Ankara (1402), and more victories at Varna (1444) and Constantinople (1453). One of the more interesting personalities that Turnbull highlights is Prince Vlad Dracula from Wallachia, who used terror and guerrilla warfare to contest the Ottoman advance into modern-day Romania. Dracula's terror tactics actually succeeded in intimidated even the Turks - a rare occurrence - and deterring invasion in 1462, although Dracula was later killed by the Turks. Turnbull also discusses the great Ottoman victory of Mohacs (1526) at length, and how this reinforced a tendency for land expansion. Throughout the narrative, Turnbull downplays economic, social and political dynamics in the Ottoman Empire and he attributes Ottoman decline in the 17th Century to poor leadership, internal divisions, and the growing professionalism of European armies.
Readers should note that Turnbull virtually ignores the Ottoman wars with Persia, and their conquests in the Arabian peninsula and North Africa, which renders this account overly Euro-centric.

What Turnbull presents in this volume is a dramatic and well-illustrated summarized account of the centuries-long struggle between the Ottomans and various European states for control of the Balkans and lower Eastern Europe. However, this account is far from comprehensive in either geographic scope or thematic depth, and should not be used as introduction to Ottoman history for those readers requiring a broader canvas.

Book Description

Nobilities in Transition explores the transformation of the nobility in the late 16th and 17th centuries. This book looks at political and social changes, examines the impact princely courts had on noblemen and women and their way of life and analyses issues such as the 'refeudalization' of state and society in southern Europe or the increasing urbanization of noble elites in the period under discussion. While paying due attention to the great heterogeneity of the nobility in Europe it nevertheless shows how the adherence to common values and ideals nevertheless gave noble elites coherence and a shared sense of identity.

Customer Reviews:

Age of privileges: revival and rejuvenation of noble power.......2005-04-26

A wave of recent studies shows that the nobles, small in absolute numbers, were dominant much longer than we suspected, controlling most of the land and all of the politics on the Continent for centuries. In this line, and pursuant to this work, i) although the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of profound change for the noble elite of most European countries, the process of formation put new resources at their disposal, successfully employed by them for their own ends; ii) it is truth that the authority and status of noblemen was defined less in terms of autonomous power and more in terms of privileges granted by the state, and that the emphasis on physical and military prowess was toned down, and social pre-eminence was based on cultural superiority; however iii) there were decisive elements of continuity: noblemen continued to define their position in society by reference to a specific code of honour intended to set them apart from the rest of society.

And throughout the period examined, the fisco-militaries exigencies of the age brought monarchy and nobility into close interdependence: the exploitation of the population to the mutual profit of rulers and ruling classes underlay much of the co-operation between them (as shown by Hillay Zmora's "Monarchy, Aristocracy, and the State in Europe, 1300-1800").

The book is no very engaging, but it is not dry either. It can be savoured by the professional historian, and perhaps, by the educated layperson too.Therefore, my rate is 5 (content) and 2/3 (pleasure of reading).

In addition to Hillay Zmora's work, other books that I would recommend to read would be "Myths of Power. Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court " and "Vienna and Versailles : The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780 (New Studies in European History)" by Jeroen Duindam (whose books present a more accurate view of monarchy, nobility, the court and the state contrary to that provided by Elias's "The Court Society"); "State and Status: The "Rise of State and Aristocratic Power in Western Europe", by S. Clark; and "The Persistence of the Ancient Regime" by Arno J. Mayer (covering approximately the 1815-1914 period).

Book Description

From the acclaimed author of Life and Trilobite!, a fascinating geological exploration of the earth’s distant history as revealed by its natural wonders.

The face of the earth, crisscrossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds, has changed and changed again over billions of years, and the testament of the remote past is all around us. In this book Richard Fortey teaches us how to read its character, laying out the dominions of the world before us. He shows how human culture and natural history–even the shape of cities–are rooted in this deep geological past.

In search of this past, Fortey takes us through the Alps, into Icelandic hot springs, down to the ocean floor, over the barren rocks of Newfoundland, into the lush ecosystems of Hawai’i, across the salt flats of Oman, and along the San Andreas Fault. On the slopes of Vesuvius, he tracks the history of the region down through the centuries?to volcanic eruptions seen by fifteenth-century Italians, the Romans, and, from striking geological evidence, even Neolithic man. As story adds to story, the recent past connects with forgotten ages long ago, then much longer ago, as he describes the movement of plates and the development of ancient continents and seas. Nothing in this book is at rest. The surface of the earth dilates and collapses; seas and mountains rise and fall; continents move.

Fortey again proves himself the ideal guide, with his superb descriptions of natural beauty, his gripping narratives, and his crystal-clear, always fascinating scientific explanations.
Here is a book to change the way we see the world.

Customer Reviews:

Marie Curie belongs in this book.......2007-09-26

This is an excellent work, and I give it five stars

But I need to address one reviewer who gave it one star and wrote: "For example, a color plate of Marie Curie looking at a test tube - connection please?"

from the book:

"...But the major use of pitchblende had to await detection for nearly half a century, when the mines of Jachymov were crucial to a discovery that has changed the course of history. Working in Paris in 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie processed thousands of pounds of pitchblende from the same glass-factory tailings in order to isolate two radioactive elements that had hitherto been unknown: radium and polonium. Uranium's radioactivity had been recognized for a couple of years prior to this, but this pitchblende was too active to be accounted for by uranium alone. The Curies deduced that another radioactive element had to be present to make up the balance; they reasoned the existence of highly active radium before extracting it. But it was present in the tiniest quantities: a gram in seven tons of ore. The labour involved in refining a tiny visible grain from the unforgiving black ore is difficult to imagine. But they convinced the scientific world with sufficient material evidence of the elusive element to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903." (page 212)

Obviously, the reviewer did not read the book. I don't need to rehash what the other five star reviewers wrote; I just wanted to answer the one star, and thought it I put it in as a comment, it'd be missed by other readers.

garrulous bore.......2007-08-28

A good number of anecdotes and photographs are unrelated entirely to the object of the book. For example, a color plate of Marie Curie looking at a test tube - connection please? Who needs organization when there's no point? Even "facts" are wrong in some cases. For example, the author confuses Virginia City, NV with Carson City, NV.

Good reading.......2007-08-23

The book provides a very readable overview of the eath's evolution. I stress overview since it is not intended to be a petrological or mineralogical treatise, but rather a view from a distance. I found it very informative for me despite having a fair degree of understanding from the outset. It could be an excellent book for folks with some knowledge, but little vision of what out earth has gone through and how it made the trip.

What a GREAT Planet!.......2007-01-04

I get very tired of Textbooks compiled by 'committee', so every year I search for a "Good READ" from an excellent author which covers the topic well. Richard Fortey is such an author and "EARTH: An Intimate History" is the kind of book you want to read. Rather that pages full of pictures, graphs, sidebars, interted Tables, and excessive questions at the end of each chapter, Fortey is a man writing a story about the Planet he knows and loves. It is a well developed story with a thread of logic which you can follow from the first page until the concluding remarks, and, it is about a GREAT Planet!

Fortey takes the reader from the interesting and obvious of Mt. Vesuvius, to the core of the earth on a descriptively written journey which tells of the history of Geology and many European scientists which don't appear anywhere in American textbooks. He explains what was thought and why, and how only later did evidence mount up for the current interpretation known as Plate Tectonics. He develops the geologists as characters in a plot of mystery and discovery, through controversy and politics to insight and understanding. Best of all, however, is that this is a a single, concise story, told by a master of prose.

Really a personal diary .......2006-06-20

I got this book expecting that it would be about the development of Geology, or the development of the Earth. I was surprised to find that it is really a travel book about his experiences going places of geological interest. I am sure that this will be of interest to many people. It wasn't to me. I could not read past the first chapter. There were too many wanderings and side issues. It was like reading a fashion column to get the political news. Someone will like all of the extraneous and unrelated details about quaint places they might visit and appreciate. I was looking for something less personal and more informative about a more limited topic.

The Global & the Intimate: WSQ : Spring/summer 2006 (Womens Studies Quartley)

Average customer rating:

The Global & the Intimate: WSQ : Spring/summer 2006 (Womens Studies Quartley)

Manufacturer: Feminist Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

WSQ, a journal dedicated to multi-disciplinary, cutting edge perspectives on women's issues, builds on the impressive achievements of its predecessor, Women's Studies Quarterly, in an exploration of how we think locally and act globally. The term "global and the intimate" is shorthand for an array of issues pervading the twenty-first century's brave new world where hyper-technology continually erodes the space between "public" and "private": for example, how the internet and surveillance technologies penetrate the sanctuary of our homes; mass market branding vs. choice in the globalized marketplace; the intimacy of collaboration across transnational spaces.

Intimate Universality: Local and Global Themes in the History of Weather and Climate (Science-History Studies on Atmospheres)

Average customer rating:

A top pick for college holdings strong in science in general and climate history in particular
Fascinating Collection of Essays on the History of Weather and Climate Studies

Intimate Universality: Local and Global Themes in the History of Weather and Climate (Science-History Studies on Atmospheres)

Manufacturer: Science History Publications/USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Rivers | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

Weather | Environment | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0881353671

Product Description

The history of meteorology is a history of the artifacts and insights of modernity. It is, in some measure, a history of imperial aspirations and invention; a history of attempts to understand, predict, and even control phenomena that extend far beyond the local horizon and that change constantly on time scales ranging from geological eras and centuries to decades, years, seasons, and moments; a history of how individuals, immersed in and surrounded by the phenomena they study, attempt to construct privileged positions and address social and political imperatives. These essays, from eight of the leading historians of weather and climate, illuminate the hopes and struggles of researchers and practitioners from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, across a diverse set of issues, and on a vast array of spatial scales. If the book raises new questions or provides a measure of insight into old ones; if it stimulates in the reader a sense of the "otherness" of a bygone era or a sense of empathy and continuity with the past; if it conveys in any measure the contingency, curiosity, excitement, and frustration of the science and politics swirling around issues of weather and climate, we will deem it a success. We offer it with our sincere wish that it serves as a stimulus to related explorations in other areas of the history of science and technology that juxtapose the intimate and the universal, the local and the global.

Customer Reviews:

A top pick for college holdings strong in science in general and climate history in particular.......2007-02-06

Human beings interact with the climate constantly, but the science of meteorology is often routine and quiet. INTIMATE UNIVERSALITY: LOCAL AND GLOBAL THEMES IN THE HISTORY OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE traces the history of meteorology and how its strategies, methodology and findings have mirrored and influenced human attempts to understand and control phenomenon on a world-wide basis. College-level students receive essays from eight leading historians of weather and climate, making for a top pick for college holdings strong in science in general and climate history in particular.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Fascinating Collection of Essays on the History of Weather and Climate Studies.......2006-12-12

"Intimate Universality" is a collected work that James Rodger Fleming, Colby College, has edited along with Vladimir Jankovic, University of Manchester, and Deborah R. Coen, Columbia University. The eight chapters of this book offer a set of fascinating snapshots of historical episodes suggesting a broad perspective on the manner in which humans have understood climate since the Enlightenment. While all of the essays were quite useful I found a few of them especially provocative. Well familiar with the work of William Herschel in astronomy, I was taken by Greg Good's analysis in chapter 2 of Herschel's climatic studies. Equally helpful were the two chapters by Roger Turner and Greg Cushman tying together the need for accurate weather prediction and the development of aviation in the Western Hemisphere. Cushman's linkage of atmospheric sciences and aviation technology to American colonial aspirations in the first half of the twentieth century is an especially intriguing idea that should not be accepted blindly but offers truly exciting prospects for future historical investigation.

Then there is perhaps the signature contribution of the volume, Fleming's "Global Climate Change and Human Agency: Inadvertent Influence and `Archimedean' Interventions," which comments on the nature of global climate change, and especially actions being debated in the public policy arena to counteract our warming planet. He discussed how some have advocated the use of giant sunshades in space or "geoengineering" with orbiting dust and other proposed countermeasures as countermeasures to the pattern of global warming that scientists warn about.

I was reminded in reading this essay of the remarks of Al Gore at the X-Prize Executive Summit that I attended on October 19, 2006. He said of these schemes, "In a word, I think it is nuts. If we don't know enough to stop putting 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every day, how in god's name can we know enough to precisely counteract that?" He had even stronger words for those who denied the reality of global warming. "Our planet has a rising fever. If the crib catches fire you don't say: `Hmmm, how fast is that crib going to burn? Has it ever burned before? Is my baby flame retardant?'"

I think Fleming also sees a similar danger in the public policy considerations of global climate change, noting that the proposed cure through geoengineering may be worse that the disease. Better would be invoking the first law of holes, when you are in one stop digging. As his analysis shows, continued pollution of our planet should be curtailed, stopped entirely in the near term, and counteracted in a more distant future.

This foray into public policy history and analysis is a welcome addition to an important and useful book. I congratulate all those responsible for the publication of this fine volume. I am certain that it will become an important benchmark in the historiography of climate change and weather studies.

A restless planet.(Earth: An Intimate History)(Book Review) : An article from: American Scientist

Average customer rating:

A restless planet.(Earth: An Intimate History)(Book Review) : An article from: American Scientist
Michael Novacek
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books

History of Technology | Technology | Science | Subjects | Books

Science & Technology | Subjects | e-Docs | Formats | Books

Average customer rating:

Earth-An Intimate History
Richard Fortey
Manufacturer: HarperPerennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8R3S0

Book Description

Toward Sustainable Development is a comprehensive and wide ranging exploration of the theoretical and practical aspects of the concept of sustainable development. Internationally known scholars present an in depth critique of traditional economic methods and ideas, and a new framework for analysis of issues of development and environmental policy. The book:

outlines the historical development of the concept of sustainable development
clarifies the many interpretations of what sustainable development is
presents new and detailed assessments of the concepts, methods, and implementation of sustainable development policies

As well as explaining the conceptual and theoretical background, the book discusses methods and techniques, and examines issues of policy and implementation. It offers both critical observations on old approaches, and valuable guidelines for recent innovations.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books