"The Divine Initiative is an invaluable resource and a major contribution to Lonergan studies... Stebbins has laid out [the] material...with a thoroughness and clarity that will be extraordinarily valuable to many people."

From: Robert Doran, Lonergan Research Institute, University of Toronto

"The care with which Michael Stebbins has exposed Lonergan's method and its results...makes Lonergan's sometimes cryptic remarks accessible to all those who have the stamina to explore these issues, and so leaves both philosophers and theologians without excuse for attending to so demanding a synthesis."

From: The Thomist, 60, 1996, pages 484 - 488

"In my judgement, this book is wonderfully accurate as an account of Lonergan. Stebbins analyzes and synthesizes with great skill. In his treatment of the operations of intellect (in chapter 1), right through to his concluding remarks about Lonergan on actual grace (in the latter half of chapter 8), he is extremely sensitive to details and distinctions that others often overlook or misunderstand. Moreover, he not only explains accurately, he clarifies. He understands the material so thoroughly that he is able to link Lonergan's claim in fresh ways, offer original examples, and thus teach the reader what Lonergan really is getting at. Given the challenging technical character of the material, this is a stellar achievement."

"I deem the book to include features of interest to systematic theologians in general, historians of theology, philosophers of religion, metaphysicians generally, persons interested specifically in Lonergan, and persons interested specifically in Aquinas. I commend it to them all."

From: Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 1996 Published by the Lonergan Institute at Boston College

If somebody loves you authentically so much so that you become better person than before, you can't help loving him dearly. It happens. And it can happen even through a book! In this incredable book called "insight", you are invited to a wonderland of a higly diffentiated intelligence, only to find that it is no other than your real self. At first you wonder, you ask, you think hard, and you get it! For the first time you come to know what is understanding. You begin to doubt, you reflect, and finally you judge that you are a knower! Now you are changed. Now you know you are consciously operating in your experiencing, understanding, judging, and deciding. Now you know what knowledge is, what it means to you, and how it means to you. You become a living, knowing, acting subject. And you come to love Lonergan, since he introduced you to yourself. To "read" Insight may take a long time, years or decades. However when you finish it, you will begin to take another long trip to yourself, where no one had gone before...

This is the definitive text of Bernard Lonergan's most important work, Insight, with over 130 revisions, based on the meticulous labor of comparing three texts, line by line, word by word! All students of Lonergan's thought owe a great debt to Frs. Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran for having executed their task with such thoughtfulness, perfection and devotion. Corresponding pages to the second edition of Insight, which has been the standard one, are given in brackets. My previous review was based on the second edition.

Rev. Bernard Lonergan, S.J.(1904-1984), though still not commonly known, was, talent-wise, certainly one of the top thinkers of the 20th century. It takes time for his thoughts to be appreciated, developed and applied. There are already numerous web-sites and hundreds of books, articles and theses written on his ideas. He might be publicly acknowledged as one of the 100 most influential thinkers by the end of this century. For more than forty years, his works continue to nourish and challenge people, initially in seminary circles, and gradually in different universities. Boston College has been a key base for over 20 years in fostering studies of Lonergan's thought and stimulating dialogue with people in diverse fields. Insight remains one of the basic books that one needs to master if we want to reach up to Lonergan's mind, just as he reached up to the mind of Aquinas. One of the perennial issues underlying human differences is our assumptions about knowing and reality. What is it to know? Is it taking a look out there? Or do we presume that we cannot know reality? Lonergan proposed an arduous journey for all of us to become aware of what we are doing when experiencing, understanding, judging and choosing. The focus is on appropriating or gaining self-knowledge of our recurrent cognitional processes and structures in knowing. "¡Kit is essential that the notion of insight, of the accumulation of insights, of higher viewpoints, and of their heuristic significance and implications, not only should be grasped clearly and distinctly but also, in so far as possible, should be identified in one's own personal intellectual experience." (p.xx) "Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding." (p.xxviii) This is a difficult, painstaking and challenging task, not achieved just by reading from cover to cover (785 pages plus 30). Lonergan's examples from mathematics, physics, classical and statistical investigations might be a hurdle to those who don't have background in such disciplines. Insight is like the Zen master's finger pointing towards the moon. One must be careful not to get lost in the sweeping and erudite visions and constantly come back to appropriating one's own knowing processes. This is not a book for the faint-hearted. One easier introduction is Terry J. Tekippe's "What is Lonergan Up to in Insight? A Primer". Then one can go on to Flanagan's Quest for Self-Knowledge, and The Lonergan Reader, edited by the Morellis, and finally come to grapple with the full original and Lonergan's later works on Method in Theology and Macroeconomic Dynamics.

James Ramsey has written the ideal introductory statistics text for those with inquisitive minds. Ramsey's The Elements of Statistics with Applications to Economics and the Social Sciences presents an insightful, but accessible approach to the processes of statistical reasoning and problem solving. There are plenty of well-developed and realistic case studies that offer the reader straightforward explanations of the statistical reasoning used in setting up the problem solution. Ramsey does not just present statistics as facts and numbers; the why's and how's behind the use of specific statistical tools required in case studies and other examples are addressed in a straight forward and simple to understand manner. This contrasts most contemporary introductory statistics texts where it seems there is always an attempt to be the biggest encyclopedia of statistical examples. Ramsey's style of exposition offers the reader the depth and perspective required to facilitate both the current and future statistical requirements of the reader. In short, this is one of the few introductory texts that allow the reader to attain a stable grounding in the field of statistics on one hand, and on the other, will still be a useful reference throughout one's professional career. I highly recommend Ramsey's text as both a starter text and as a reference for those looking to clarify their fundamental statistical queries.

This book is a wonderful introductory statistics text. In contrast to the usual extensive approach in which students are exposed to a large cookbook of statistical procedures that end up being memorized 'for the exam,' this text operates on the intensive margin in a successful effort to provide the conscientious student a far deeper introduction to statistical reasoning and practice.

Each chapter contains a large set of exercises and the text comes with a simplified student version of S-Plus. Most of the computational work required for these exercises can be carried out through a menu-driven GUI interface. To help facilitate learning, many worked examples are also provided.

The mathematical requirements include a little beyond what a student should have upon entry into a first calculus course in an American university, i.e., little beyond basic algebra. An appendix explains all the mathematics used in the text.

I enthusiastically recommend this text!

The Elements of Statistics: with Applications to Economics and the Social Sciences by James B. Ramsey is an innovative and excellent undergraduate level text on the foundations and reasoning of statistics estimation and inference. This book is written for the curious student who is interested in understanding the basics of statistical analysis, the intuition behind statistical and information processing, and the process of decision making based on some data. Most importantly, in this book Ramsey takes the student through a fascinating voyage of discovery. In this voyage, Ramsey devotes significant effort to explaining what are the fundamental rules underlying most data analyses within the social and natural sciences. This is done without requiring much prior knowledge of calculus and with almost no formal mathematics. Ramsey accomplishes this task by building on a large number of real world examples, some of which he re-evaluates at the end of each chapter. By doing so, he allows the reader (student or researcher) to see the real value of the knowledge just acquired in the most recent chapter. That is, "what can I understand now about that specific problem that I could not understand before." In that way the student is going through an on-going learning process. A process that allows one to understand the data by recognizing what is observed and what is not observed, what is random and what is not random, what process may have generated the data, and what one can infer from the data.
To summarize, once Ramsey expresses his philosophy of approaching statistical analyses, he proceeds to teach statistics in a completely new and innovative way. First, unlike existing undergraduate textbooks, Ramsey teaches the students via a "discovery" approach where each step starts with a new set of questions and the students are guided toward discovering the relevant answer, given the information they have. Second, the text is easy to read and is full with real world examples taken from a large number of disciplines. Finally, the book is equipped with complete software (S-Plus) that provides the necessary tool for the students to practice and understand how to work with real data. This is an ideal undergraduate level textbook. It is a very useful statistical text for the open minded and advanced undergraduate student and provides the teacher with a perfect teaching tool. It is highly recommended.

Amos Golan
Research Professor

Growing up in this section of New Orleans, I was pleasantly surprised to see several homes of my childhood friends. No other city in the U.S. has such distinct and diverse neighborhood architecture. Another great volume in a GREAT series.

This volume in the N.O. Architecture series by the Friends of the Cabildo is, in my opinion, the best of the entire series. Perhaps it is because this is the section of the city in which I spend most of my time, a place to which I've become rather attached. Anyone who enjoys architecture will probably like this book, not just New Orleanians.

Reading these poems will make you understand why Mandelstam is so highly regarded. All 50 are well-translated works of genius. It has the best version of his (suicidal) lampoon of Stalin that I have read in translation. Reading these will make you hungry for more of his work.

It should be said right at the beginning: Mandelstam is perhaps the best 20th century poet. Joseph Brodsky maybe share his place, but Brodsky is also co-author of this book - he wrote great preface for it. This anthology of Mandelstam's poems is not perfect only because it is not a collection of his complete works. However, this is a book which contains some of his best poems. Both Mandelstam and Brodsky are great examples of how true are the verses by Marina Tzvetvaeva: "In this most Christian of all worlds/ All poets are Jews." The perfection of this poetry is an evidence of the fact how great poetry once was - not a long time ago. Unfortunately, today the world have very little poets even close to Mandelstam.

On a recommendation, I ordered this book as I am interested in history. Upon receipt, I honestly thought it would be like many historical accounts I've read: dry, long, a battle to read through. How absolutely wrong I turned out to be!!!! This book was amazing and I couldn't put it down. I completed the book in one sitting...

In fact, Capt Slavick's writing style and story telling was so captivating, I FOUND MYSELF ROOTING FOR THE GERMAN RAIDERS against the Allies!!!

This is a story of perseverence, leadership, integrity, dedication-to-duty, experience, job knowledge, "can-do" attitudes and yes, even discipline. The crew of the Atlantis displayed all of these time-honored words that the military holds so dear. The terms themselves may be cliche to some, but to the military, they mean "mission accomplished." When one reads this book, one will have a better understanding of what these words truly mean.

Capt Slavick also captures the essence of WWII naval warfare for the reader. He brings the reader onto the ship and deftly includes us into the nuances of inaction and wildly takes us along during the explosive interruption of combat and chaos...

Read this book, you won't be disappointed!

Sadly, Amazon didn't post the full title of this book, so anybody who does a search for Alexander Winton won't easily find this book. The full title is: "Famous but Forgotten: The Story of Alexander Winton, Automotive Pioneer and Insustrialist."

In short, this is a biography of one of America's first automakers, Alexander Winton. Winton built his first car in 1896 after reading about the Duryea brothers win in the Chicago race of 1895. In 1897 Winton took his car on an 800 mile endurance run from Cleveland to New York to prove its durability to the public. The run was so successful that the Winton Motor Carriage Company became the leading U.S. maker of automobiles during the late 1890s (It was overtaken by the Electric Vehicle Company in 1899).

The Winton Motor Carriage Company continued making automobiles until the early 1920s. At that point the company was absorbed into the General Motors monolith, and the Winton name died. The company still exists as a division of General Motors, but today it produces only marine diesel engines.

This is a good biography of a man who deserves to be recognized alongside other early industry leaders like Henry Ford, Ransom E. Olds, and Henry Leland.

its a short book in which the author reveals many of his experiences, and in what he belives...

This is, by far, the most informative manual on thin-layer chromatography that I have encountered. It is very well written and easy to follow, even for a novice "thin-layer chromatographer". I give it two thumbs up!

I obtained a copy of the play from my local library think that it would resemble the movie; it did not. This play was so riveting that I read the play 4 more times while in my possession. The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance follows the tragic life of Joseph Merrick. Pomerance wrote everything just right to complete a masterpiece. Pomerances use of diction and dialogue took the read right into Merricks hospital room in turn of the 20th century London.
While reading the play, I found myself becoming emotionally attached to Merrick as he transformed from a horrid animal to a person of intelligence and wisdom. Each time I read the play I picked up the little things Pomerance wrote about how cruel humanity can be to things they don't understand.
I found myself finishing the play and then turning back to page one. The play was enthralling. Expanding my mind to the world before me while ironically keeping me away from it. The Elephant Man should be dispersed to high schools nation wide, so teenagers have the chance to read and annotate a great piece of literature. This play is great to read for your own pleasure. It will expand your mind, and rethink your position in society.
A strong worded masterpiece like a cannonball ripping through the literary cannon. I recommend this play to anyone of any age looking to expand their mind and thoughts of the society around them.

I obtained a copy of the play from my local library think that it would resemble the movie; it did not. This play was so riveting that I read the play 4 more times while in my possession. The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance follows the tragic life of Joseph Merrick. Pomerance wrote everything just right to complete a masterpiece. Pomerances use of diction and dialogue took the read right into Merricks hospital room in turn of the 20th century London.
While reading the play, I found myself becoming emotionally attached to Merrick as he transformed from a horrid animal to a person of intelligence and wisdom. Each time I read the play I picked up the little things Pomerance wrote about how cruel humanity can be to things they don't understand.
I found myself finishing the play and then turning back to page one. The play was enthralling. Expanding my mind to the world before me while ironically keeping me away from it. The Elephant Man should be dispersed to high schools nation wide, so teenagers have the chance to read and annotate a great piece of literature. This play is great to read for your own pleasure. It will expand your mind, and rethink your position in society.
A strong worded masterpiece like a cannonball ripping through the literary cannon. I recommend this play to anyone of any age looking to expand their mind and thoughts of the society around them.

This play by Bernard Pomerance is one of the most moving and beautiful scripts I have ever read. The dialogue is richly textured and has many layers of subtext, including implications about British colonialism. I chose to see the play as, among other things, a metaphor for the British view of the "white man's burden" and their fascination with the idea of the "civilized savage", but I think the most brilliant works of art are open to myriad interpretations. Although a play needs to be performed to fully come alive, Pomerance's script stands alone well, as a poem or novel would. Its words go to the core of the human experience.