Alpha Teach Yourself Retirement Planning in 24 Hours

Customer Reviews:

Great stuff to learn in here!.......2001-10-20

This book is so helpful and wonderful. I bought two and gave one to my daughter who has just gotten married and she loved it too. A must-read for people to need to get straight with their financial planning!

24 hours to learn financil planning!.......2001-10-14

This book completely lives up to it's 24 hours expectation. After reading it, I feel as though I know exactly what to do with my financial plans. This book has intelligent information with quite a touch of humor to go along with it. I think everyone planning for their future whether they are old or young should definitely read this book. Take it from me, it is incredibly helpful!

Customer Reviews:

Examining both specific instances and general issues that pose a high threat to future biodiversity.......2005-08-08

Biological Pollution: An Emerging Global Menace is an anthology of essays by learned authors that discuss a very real problem in the increasingly globalized twenty-first century: biological pollution, particularly the domination of non-native species to the extent that they risk exterminating native wildlife and permanently upsetting delicate ecosystems. From exotic weeds out of control, to the spread of parasites from other continents, to tactics that can be taken against non-native invaders, Biological Pollution is a timely and much-needed resource examining both specific instances and general issues that pose a high threat to future biodiversity. Highly recommended, especially for environmental studies and ecology shelves.

Book Description

A complete and up-to-date presentation of the fundamental theoretical principles and many applications of solvent extraction, this enhanced Solvent Extraction Principles and Practice, Second Edition includes new coverage of the recent developments in solvent extraction processes, the use of solvent extraction in analytical applications and waste recovery, and computational chemistry methods for modeling the solvent extraction of metal ions. Offering sound scientific and technical descriptions in a format accessible to students and expedient for researchers and engineers, this edition also features a new chapter on ionic strength corrections and contains more than 850 up-to-date literature citations.

Book Description

Defines the state-of-the-art in interface science for electronic applications of organic materials. Updates understanding of the foundaiton of interfacial properties. Describes novel electronic devices created from conjugated polymers and organic molecular solids.

Materials, Physics and Devices for Molecular Electronics and Photonics (European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings)

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Materials, Physics and Devices for Molecular Electronics and Photonics (European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings)
J. Zyss , and F. Garnier
Manufacturer: Elsevier Science
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

Applied | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0444205195

Book Description

Symposium M was presented at the combined 1997 International Conference on Applied Materials/European Materials Research Society Spring meeting (ICAM'97/E-MRS'97) held in Strasbourg (France) from 16-20 June 1997. Molecular materials and devices are reaching a maturity level in terms of fabrication technologies, stability-lifetime issues and functional properties, as well as in the basic understanding of their properties, that increasingly captures the attention of wider circles of the scientific and industrial communities. Electroluminescent polymers are at the fore-front of this upsurge of interest in view of recent breakthroughs in the fields of displays or light emission. Considerable progress was reported at this meeting in terms of operational lifetime and long term stability, in particular at polymer–metal interfaces under electron or hole injection conditions.

The aim of this Symposium was to provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of new work in the field. More than eighty papers reflecting broad and intense activity in the field have been gathered in the proceedings.

Book Description

"...features over 1000 stories arranged alphabetically under 400 subject headings. The index provides further subject access, particularly to the people (usually famous) referred to in the stories...Rees...uses his years of lexicological experience to good effect, augmenting his pithy, humorous renditions of the stories with footnotes examining versions attributed to other people."--Library Journal.

Amazon.com

"War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention," claimed Sir Henry Maine in the middle of the 19th century. In his short, polemic book The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order, Michael Howard develops Maine's argument, and while not completely endorsing it, he convincingly argues that peace "is certainly a far more complex affair than war."

At just over a hundred pages, The Invention of Peace is more of an essay than a book, and its massive historical sweep will undoubtedly irritate some readers. Beginning in A.D. 800, when war "was recognized as an intrinsic part of the social order," it extends to 2000, when "militant nationalist movements or conspiratorial ones" suggest that in the near future "armed conflict becomes highly probable." However, Howard's credentials for writing this type of macro reflection on war and international relations are impeccable. Having fought in Italy during the Second World War, he has held several chairs of History and War Studies, and remains the president of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. His many books include War in European History and a translation of von Clausewitz's classic On War.

With such qualifications, it is hardly surprising that Howard remains tied to the beliefs of the European Enlightenment, while also acknowledging that "the peace invented by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, an international order in which war plays no part, had been a common enough aspiration for visionaries throughout history, but it has been regarded by political leaders as a practicable or indeed desirable goal only during the past two hundred years." As Howard thoughtfully picks his way through the complex negotiations throughout European history that led to the brief eruption of peace into an otherwise uninterrupted state of war, he hopes that "Kant was right, and that, whatever else may happen, 'a seed of enlightenment' will always survive." Let's hope that he's right. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk

Book Description

Throughout history the overwhelming majority of human societies have taken war for granted and made it the basis for their legal and social structures. Not until the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century did war come to be regarded as an unmitigated evil and one that could be abolished by rational social organization, and only after the massive slaughter of the two world wars did this become the declared objective of civilized states. Nevertheless, war in one form or another continues unabated. In this elegantly written book, a preeminent military historian considers why this is so.

Is war in some sense still a necessary element in international order? Are war and peace in fact complementary? Does not peace itself breed the conditions that will ultimately lead to war? And if nuclear weapons have made war ultimately suicidal for mankind, what can be done about it? Having devoted half a century largely to studying these questions, Michael Howard offers us his reflections. Unless they can be answered, he notes, the twenty-first century is unlikely to be any more peaceful than the centuries that preceded it.

Customer Reviews:

A pocket guide to the history of political engineering.......2004-05-04

This is barely more than a pamphlet-sized survey of world history, from a Eurocentric perspective if only because it aims to trace the roots of modern power underlying the basic paradigms of government and control. Certainly, when it comes to the lenses through which the world views the instruments of authority, the world is now in the grips of Europe's dubious gifts. This book is not so much about political science, although it repeatedly gives Kant, Hegel and others their due credit, as about political engineering: how the ideas of before, during, and after the Enlightenment were applied, and continue to be tried out, by the world powers. He pays particular attention to the revolution in how European people thought about what government means, from the inexorable impressions made by the French Revolution and Napoleon, through the rise of Prussia and the German and Italian nations, to the collapses of world order into the first and second world wars and the Cold War.

Naturally any reasonable thinker could deplore the sweeping generalizations inherent in any condensation of world history and its ideological signposts into 113 ridiculously short pages. Then again, the distillation is potent and leaves a powerful impression, difficult to refute.

Beginning with the American and French Revolutions, a number of different ideas began to be experimented with in alternative to the traditional aristocratic grip on power, with warfare a limited, almost mere game. The defense of such traditionalists fell under the umbrella of the Conservatives. Some of the alternatives, under the umbrellas of Nationalist, despite being radical in their inception, slowly inverted into alignment with the Conservatives, ultimately leading to the Nazis, while the variety of Liberal forces took their darkest form in the Soviets. The branch of Liberal ideological heirs to the American revolution, however, formed the root of the educated professional class who have risen to cross national boundaries in their common, rational search for peace, and form the best hope of peace actually reigning among nations: "A genuine global transnational community with common values and a common language... Does not this at last provide a firm foundation on which the architects of peace can now at last build a new world order?" (pp. 108-09)

Modern, liberal democracy is no cure-all, however: in much of the world, "Capitalism, or the rule of the market, is effective only when practised by communities where there already exist stable civil societies held together by efficient bureaucracies and common moral values, conditions that the market itself is powerless to create. Democratic elections have often had the effect of destroying such social cohesion as already existed." Echoing Fareed Zakaria, it's hard not to take a second look at this conjecture given today's events.

The greatest remaining enemies to peace in our age, after the Cold War, are identified as religious/dogmatic scholars and unemployment - providing a toxic mix of boredom and its worst exploitation - another telling diagnosis from before 9-11. "There is something about rational order that will always leave some people, especially the energetic youth, deeply and perhaps rightly dissatisfied. ...Militant nationalist movements or conspiratorial radical ones provide excellent outlets for boredom." (pp. 112-13) Even allowing for the rightly dissatisfied, though that is accurate as far as it applies, is terribly generous as applied to the world in general.

Sir Howard is not wanting of a solution: "The estblishment of a global peaceful order thus depends on the creation of a world community sharing the characteristics that make possible domestic order, and this will require the widest possible diffusion of those characteristics by the societies that already possess them." As for those characteristics, going beyond institutions and organizations to include cultural dispositions, "Their creation and operation require at the very least the existence of a transnational elite that not only shares the same cultural norms but can render those norms acceptable within their own societies and can where necessary persuade their colleagues to agree to the modifications necessary to make them acceptable." (p. 105) Peace and democratic freedoms cannot merely be imposed from outside; they must be made to evolve palatably from within.

In the end, Howard is pragmatic but optimistic: On one hand, "Peace, as we have seen, is not an order natural to mankind: it is artificial, intricate and highly volatile." On the other hand, "whatever else may happen, 'a seed of enlightenment' will always survive." And hopefully, after all, continue to grow.

Another wonderful book from Michael Howard.......2004-01-03

This is,without question,my favorite book from Michael Howard. The book is under 100 pages and is very easy to understand. The ideas presente in this book are truly enlightening. Everyone should read this book! In a world where violence and war is becoming more acceptable, this book will offer a perspective that can give us hope of achieving piece. I have nothing negative to say about this book. It's worth twice the amount of what it cost. I would even go as far as saying you can't put a price on this book. In short,read this book!

A beautiful intro to the history of peace.......2003-08-31

In this short book, Sir Michael Howard, a professor at Yale, discusses the history of peace; starting with a quote from Sir Henry Maine, "War appears to be as old as mankind, but peace is a modern invention," the author narrates how the concept of peace has evolved over time.

The first chapter starts at the crowning of Charlemagne in 800 AD and reaches up to the outbreak of the French Revolution; the second chapter goes up to the end of the Great War; the third chapter discusses the ideological conflicts of the twentieth century up to 1989; and the last chapter outlines some of the author's thoughts on what the future might hold in the quest for peace.

One of the book's drawbacks is that is often assumes prior knowledge: certain historical events are simply mentioned without background information (philosophies and ideologies, on the contrary, are thoroughly explained). A second, and more serious, drawback is the book's inexplicable starting point, with excludes both the Roman Empire and the era of Alexander the Great. Finally, the author has no notes or bibliography; for such a work, a "suggested reading list" or "selected bibliography" would have been greatly appreciated.

Still, the book is splendid and will appeal both to the expert and the layman. And its ultimate message, that peace is neither natural nor guaranteed, should be taken at heart by scholars and politicians alike.

The Invention of Peace.......2002-04-05

The most important thing for you to know is that yes, peace was invented. It is a relatively new concept that is not clearly defined, and yet we strive for this idea that contradicts essentially all of human history. Michael Howard does a beautiful job of narrating this book, its' brevity hides the true depth of the authors' work. I must wholeheartedly recommend this to everyone.

Slim, Pointed, It's About Culture and Obedience to a State.......2001-10-28

This is an essay with deep insights, but it is not a portal to other knowledge as it lacks any notes or bibliography. The author is one of our top strategists, historians, and teachers of war and peace and this is very much a capstone presentation.

The settlement of disputes among groups whose grievances are so great they are willing to die rather than accept impositions from others, are a fact of life. As 11 September has shown us, we are vulnerable to unconventional attacks against civilians, within our own borders--this book is relevant and readable.

The core idea is that only organized nation-states that can command the loyalty and obedience of their citizens, are capable of preventing war and championing peace. The concepts of corporate peace and non-governmental peace are explicitly disavowed.

Legitimization and brutality are recurring themes in history--peace among nations occurs when mutual respect or fear legitimize the status quo, and incredible brutalities, including routine massacres of "infidel" civilians, occur when states fail to control themselves or their populations.

A major disruptive factor in today's world is the combination of educated but unemployed masses within the Arabian and Islamic nations, and the globalization of communications--but it is a one-way globalization, firehosing the Muslims with corporate consumerist visions and impositions, while a Muslim Press Service has yet to form. Individual states--one could suggest that the United States is among them--failing to nurture a clear definition of citizenship, and the requisite loyalties--are destined to suffer internal fragmentation and external attack.

Strong militaries are needed to win wars, but overt military intervention is not the route to a sustainable peace in today's complex environment--only diplomacy, cultural outreach, and mutually agreed consensus can create and sustain peace....this is the simple yet brutal message of this book, one our leaders have yet to grasp.

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The Invention of Peace Reflections on War and International Order
Michael Howard
Manufacturer: Yale U.P.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000J0XESQ

Average customer rating:
The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order
Michael Howard
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSDZXM

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The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order
Michael Howard
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000QY4W1S

Average customer rating:

Not quite what it purports to be

Confronting the Wrenching , and Doing It Very Well Indeed

A Book For Our Times

probing analysis of how nations cope with past tragedies

Memory and Justice

Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History
Erna Paris
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Holocaust | Jewish | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
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The Power of Israel in the United States

ASIN: 1582342105

Book Description

Winner of the Pearson Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, the inaugural Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing, and the Dorothy Shoichet Prize for History from the Canadian Jewish Book Awards.

One of the most urgent issues facing the world today is how countries shape historical memory in the aftermath of calamity, making decisions that cast long shadows into the future. Combining gripping storytelling with sharp observation, Erna Paris takes us on an extraordinary journey through four continents to explore how nations reinvent themselves after cataclysmic events. She travels through the United States, with its long-buried memory of slavery; to South Africa, where the Truth and Reconciliation Commission struggles to heal the wounds left by apartheid; to Japan, France, and Germany, where the unresolved pain of Hiroshima and the Holocaust still resonate; and to the former Yugoslavia, where she exposes the cynical shaping of historical memory. Through its insightful analysis, Long Shadows compels us to question where we stand as individuals in relation to our own collective histories.

Customer Reviews:

Not quite what it purports to be.......2006-04-23

My initial impression was that this was going to be a serious work about historiography. Instead, it is more of a personal journey to confront the issues of guilt, memory, and reconciliation. Yes, there are many thought-provoking interviews and recollections, but the author is clearly too close to the subject and it affects her objectivity at times. I was hoping for a more serious study. It's not bad for what it is, however, its just more of an Oprah's Book Cub book and less of a book you might want for, say, a graduate school course.

Confronting the Wrenching , and Doing It Very Well Indeed.......2002-07-18

Ms. Paris writes with the immediacy of a novelist and the analytical qualities of a philosopher. She is clearly enormously intelligent, well-read, introspective, synthetic in the best sense, and probing. I would not call her analysis of the experiences of memory and history optimistic; on many levels, it is starkly cynical. I would call it fascinating and deep, not only from the many interviews she did but from the background research that informs them. Her treatments of Germany, Japan, South Africa, the United States, the Balkans, and the issues of UN tribunals and international criminal jurisprudence are balanced, percipient, and compelling. She is a voice for dogged determination in the process of incrementally improving our species and its approach to conflict, against the culture of silence and looking the other way, against atrocity with impunity. Read her. Find motivation in her stories. Then act as best you can to further a better and different world. Humanity is, and always will be, a work in progress. Ms. Paris contributes mightily to an appreciation of the costs, tradeoffs, and nuances that entails.

A Book For Our Times.......2001-09-25

Erna Paris has done something very important: gone behind the scenes of the usual historical process, and met with people directly affected by the horrid events in Nazi Germany, Hirohito's Japan, apartheid-era South Africa, Vichy France and the disintegrated Yugoslavia. It's a personal history, but it works perfectly, because she asks the right questions and pursues the truth among the legends and fairy tales we have been told about these homicidal, genocidal regimes.

If you're fed up with the usual 'names and dates' types of history, and the 'just so' stories they convey, dig into this book. You're sure to be surprised at every turn. Seriously, you can't go wrong, if you're looking for an insight into how history is rewritten to fool us.

probing analysis of how nations cope with past tragedies.......2001-07-23

Having just caught the author on C-SPan2, I was motivated to comment on this very important book. Paris, a Canadian, has made a career out of examining, often with great inisght and sensitivity, the impact of tragic historical events on future generations within afflicted generations and she doles out her compassion equally to the children of victims as well as to the children of oppressors who seem to carry a blood-guilt down through the generations. Her specialty has been covering and analyzing the impact of WWII but this book covers that ground and more in the area of Slavery, Apartheid, The Rape of Nanking and more. Her conclusions are much what you'd expect but that's no reason to avoid this book. The strength in her writing is conveying a very personal involvement with her subjects, permitting us as readers to get to "know their pain" (to use an overemployed but apt phrase) and see all the survivors as human in their frailty and in their need to find some way to live with the past. She shows us that there is an entire range of coping mechanisms in dealing with atrocities from total official denial as in Japan to spasms of grief as in Germany. In between are nations just beginning to acknowledge their painful pasts and trying to find their own way of putting those memories to rest while still keeping the message of past lessons. She stresses the need for a system of Justice to bring out the truth or nontruth of events so that groups of people can know and accept the truth. I feel she makes an accurate case that where this no accounting, there is very little healing. I found most fascinating her description of her meeting with a Hiroshima survivor and what that revealed about a specific culture predicting how a nation might choose to react to discussions of the past. This is a fine effort and one worth handing to any Highschool age student who is far too young to have experienced any fallout from the tragedies discussed. In light of all the World War II Revivalism going on and with HBO's upcoming BAND OF BROTHERS dealing with the European theater, this work would make a nice supplemental reading requirement.

Memory and Justice.......2001-06-13

Erna Paris has produced an excellent summary of the current understanding of the way people in various socieities use memory to come to terms with past traumas. She addresses memories of historical wrongs in Germany, France, Japan, South Africa and the United States. She takes off from the abundant current literature on how societies remember. Her princicpal contribution, however, are the many interviews she conducted in the various countries under consideration. She has an excellent eye for the telling detail and the dramaitc quote. This is one of the most accessbile books on memory and justice I have read.

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Long Shadows, Truth, Lies and History
Erna Paris
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K7DD70

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Simple and Easy

Simple and interesting

Why Nothing is Easier Than This Book

Why nothing can travel faster than light

Interesting reading!

Why Nothing Can Travel Faster Than Light... : And Other Explorations in Nature's Curiosity Shop
Barry E. Zimmerman , and David J. Zimmerman
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0809238217

Book Description

The Zimmermans range broadly across the enormous spectrum that is nature: from how the universe began to its probable fate, from microscopic viruses to dinosaurs, from the effects of radiation to the depletion of the ozone layer. This collection of essays is instructive, entertaining, and just plain fun.

Customer Reviews:

Simple and Easy.......2007-08-07

This book is quite an entertaining scientific book and is easy to read. Although a couple of the answers may be outdated now, such as traveling faster than light, the book still has a lot of great useful and totally un-useful scientific concepts and information that are spoon fed.

Simple and interesting.......2001-07-16

This book addresses many intriguing scientific questions. The Zimmerman brothers address the various topics in a way that non-scientific minded people can easily understand the explanations.

My favorite essays included: Earth Without a Moon, Why is the sky blue, What is the most venomous animal, How did it all begin, Are we alone, What happens to us when we die, Can people be put in cold storage, and of course the essay from which the books gets its name: Can anything travel faster than light? This book is highly recommended for those curious minds out there that might not have quite the scientific background.

Why Nothing is Easier Than This Book.......2000-04-08

No matter your level of expertise in any of the many subjects covered in this book, the way the essays are written makes anything from blackholes to evolution easy to understand.

Why nothing can travel faster than light.......2000-02-06

This is a simply and understandably explained book for people who want to have a pleasure for scientific reading. Giving proper examples is also one of great things about this book. It is a must reading you can ever find on the shelf.

Interesting reading!.......1999-12-16

Believe it or not, Barry Zimmerman is my physics teacher. That's how I found out about the book. They approach interesting questions and give all kinds of information about topics we all ponder (plus a little humor). Get this book, it's awesome.

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Awesome explanation of the science world

Nature's Curiosity Shop
Barry E. Zimmerman , and David J. Zimmerman
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0809236567

Book Description

A fast-paced look at important concepts and trends in astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics.

Customer Reviews:

Awesome explanation of the science world.......1998-04-25

This book, though is said to be for those without a background in science, is for anyone interested in science. Even if one is an expert in one field, these books have so many fields, the reader always has something to learn. Two thumbs up!

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NATURE'S CURIOSITY SHOP
RICHARD KERR
Manufacturer: RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000RZFV3E

Nature's Curiosity Shop : Explorations in the Mysteries and Wonders of Science

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Nature's Curiosity Shop : Explorations in the Mysteries and Wonders of Science
Barry E.; Zimmerman, David J. Zimmerman
Manufacturer: Contemporary Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NY7YT8

Nature's Curiosity Shop, or Recreations in Nature Study

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Nature's Curiosity Shop, or Recreations in Nature Study

Manufacturer: Boy's own paper office Of The RTS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000B9P758

Why Nothing Can Travel Faster Than Light and Other Explorations in Nature's Curiosity Shop

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Why Nothing Can Travel Faster Than Light and Other Explorations in Nature's Curiosity Shop
Zimmerman Barry E
Manufacturer: Contemporary Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LBVEJO

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Curiosity Shop Kit: A Drop of Water
Ann Ross
Manufacturer: Susan Kovalik & Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1878631470

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Curiosity Shop Kit: Amazing Insects
Pattie Mills
Manufacturer: Susan Kovalik & Associates
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Insects & Spiders | Field Guides | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1878631462

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