I have the 1999 version of this book so my comments are based on that. The book is useful but I would recommend "Eyewitness Travel Guide to Great Places to Stay in Europe" much more. The EyeWitness book has pictures and the maps are more detailed. I probably would give this particular book 3.5 out of 5. One other thing to note is that the book is for Continential Europe and does not include the United Kingdom (perhaps reasonable as the euro does not encompass the british pound). However, the DK Eyewitness book above does include the UK... You know my vote on that one....

This book is a textbook for teaching introductory epistemology. The book is organized in a thematic manner with chapters addressing basic terminology, perception, aspects of knowledge, moral knowledge, probability, and several other topics. This is not the usual historical sequence that would be used by most. The chapters are written clearly but do not cohere well. The organization and structure of the book reflects its origin as a text for an introductory class. In addition to the thematic organization, each chapter is followed by a set of questions for students. There are brief but adequate paragraphs suggesting further reading at the end of each chapter. This book is really the armature a good teacher would use to present a basic course on this topic. With additional assigned readings, good lectures, and appropriate use of the questions, I can imagine easily that this book would be an important part of a good course. As a stand alone book on this topic, however, this book is less successful.

According to Angus Konstam, author of Osprey's Campaign Series volume 109, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in 1781, "marked a turning point in the war [the American Revolution]." Konstam has written an interesting and detailed account of the clash of American General Greene's army with British General Cornwallis' army near an obscure North Carolina courthouse in March 1781. Konstam's account is decent, but should be given the plethora of secondary and primary sources on this subject. However, readers should be forewarned that this author has a tendency for exaggeration and bizarre interpretations of fact.

Guilford Courthouse 1781 begins with a fairly lengthy 20-page introductory section that outlines the background to the campaign. The standard sections on opposing commanders and opposing armies total 14 pages and offer a decent synopsis of the two armies that fought at Guilford Courthouse. The campaign narrative itself is divided into two separate chapters: a 13-page chapter on the maneuvers of both armies in the weeks prior to the battle and a 34-page chapter on the battle itself. The author concludes with a short aftermath section, notes on the battlefield today and a bibliography. The campaign narrative is supported by five 2-D maps (the war in the south in 1780-1, the race to the Dan River, the road to Guilford Courthouse, the battle at Weitzel's Mill, and the initial deployments at Guilford) and three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps (one for the British attack on each of the three American defensive lines at Guilford Courthouse). There are also three excellent battle scenes depicting actions at each of the three lines. Overall, the graphic quality of this volume is quite good.

There are a number of important omissions in Konstam's campaign narrative. First, the author provides no breakdown on casualties for either side. A quick search on the internet provided this information, in the form of the post-battle casualty reports from Greene and Cornwallis, broken down by individual units. This is a significant omission, particularly in a battle that involved less than 7,000 combatants. Second, the American order of battles appears to be inaccurate; Konstam does not list the Delaware Battalion or North Carolina militia cavalry, although they both suffered casualties in the battle and are mentioned in other sources. These flaws may seem minor, but seem to indicate a slap-dash approach to the subject.

The author also betrays an annoying tendency for exaggeration throughout the text. During the early phase of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Konstam uses a contemporary source which claimed that after the first volley from the North Carolina militia that, "one half of the [British] Highlanders dropped on that spot." Yet if one bothers to look up the casualty data for the British 2/71st Highlanders - data the author neglected to include - one can see that this battalion suffered only 29% casualties during the entire battle, not 50%. Konstam then exaggerates, claiming that when the Highlanders returned fire, "great gaps were blown in the American line." Again, the casualty data indicates that the North Carolina militia suffered only 11 casualties out of about 1,000 men during the battle, so the reader might question if losing one man out of every 100 constitutes "great gaps." Instead, the North Carolinians ran as fast as they could, which is why so few were hit. Indeed, the missing casualty data would demonstrate just how badly the American militia performed at Guilford Courthouse: 11 of the 18 militia deaths occurred in one of the Virginia brigades, meaning that the other three ran after suffering only 1-2% casualties. The author also clearly exaggerates the strategic significance of the battle when he claims that, "by failing to defeat Nathaniel Greene's army, Cornwallis had committed a strategic error which cost Britain the very southern colonies his men fought so hard to keep." The turning point in the American Revolution occurred with the victory at Saratoga in 1777 and subsequent French intervention, not due to some indecisive clash in the backwoods of North Carolina. It is also a non-sequitor to argue that the Battle of Guilford Courthouse inevitably led to Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown seven months later, since Cornwallis had many options that might have changed the result. Konstam's contention that Guilford Courthouse was a British victory is equally exaggerated, if not absurd. If the British won the battle, why did they abandon their wounded and retreat 200 miles to coast! All six British battalions suffered over 20% casualties and Cornwallis' army had become almost combat ineffective. Guilford Courthouse was truly indecisive; neither side accomplished their mission and both armies retreated.

A little military analysis might also have gone a long way in this volume. Konstam mentions that Greene's troops established defensive positions after the battle to inhibit a British pursuit, which raises the question - why didn't Greene establish obstacles or defensive positions prior to the battle? Greene occupied the battlefield the night prior and had at least 12 hours to prepare, along with ample manpower and certainly plenty of trees. Readers should recall that the Massachusetts militiamen were able to construct a sturdy redoubt atop Breed's Hill in 1775 that cost the British attackers dearly. Nor is there much analysis of the American battle plan. Why did Greene fail to form a reserve, despite his 2-1 numerical superiority? Cornwallis' did have a small reserve - only about 18% of his army - but he used it to influence the battle at critical moments. Greene wasted half his cavalry (Lee's) by deploying it in wooded terrain on the flank, when it could have been massed to provide a mobile reserve. Finally, Greene negated his 2-1 numerical superiority by placing his troops in three lines that were not mutually supporting or even visible to each other, thus allowing Cornwallis to attack each line sequentially and defeat it.

It could be useful to netry-level students, but not for engineers. I can tell the author tried very hard to cover all the materials new to his time. I don't think the author did a great job from today's point of view.

My first note is that the editorial reviews attached to this book by Amazon seem to apply to a different illustrated volume of Hansel and Gretel, not the one illustrated by Monique Felix.

I ran across this on a search for the perfect edition of Hansel and Gretel. The illustrator does an excellent job, but her illustrations are far too frightening for young children. At times, Hansel and Gretel's eyes seem to glow, and the witch is horrifying... her long tangled hair has bones in it. You can almost hear shrieks and groans as you look at the pictures. I showed the picture to a friend of mine (a graphic artist), and she found it very disturbing.

I cannot give the book fewer than three stars, because it is so well done. But I cannot give it more than three, because I think it would scare the daylights out of young children. Granted, Hansel and Gretel is a scary story, but I remember coming across less frightening versions when I was a kid.

In some ways one could use the word "transmission" instead of "imputation" for those who can't get their heads around the legal terminology common in Reformed theologians. This book attempts to examine how Adam's sin is credited to the entire human race, thus imputation. The book is dry and a lot of work to read. The theological concepts themselves are not so difficult to grasp as Murray's wooden prose. Unless you're willing to navigate hard-core Reformed theological writings in a stuffy mid-20th century academic style I'd recommend Henri Blocher's scholarly but far more readable Original Sin as a primer for Murray's ideas and for a thoughtful critique of some of their limitations.

Joining the ranks of Michael Innes, Amanda Cross, and many, many other writers of academic murder mysteries, Nora Kelly offers this first look at historian and unwitting sleuth, Gillian Adams, who returns to her alma mater of Cambridge while on sabbatical from her position at the University of the Pacific Northwest in Vancouver (She is half Canadian, half American.). The title _In The Shadow of Kings_ is ambiguous: it refers first of all to the literal shadows of King's College, where the much esteemed but little adored historian Alistair Greenwood is murdered, awkwardly and publicly, at Gillian's guest lecture. Gillian assists her boyfriend, a Scotland Yard detective, in solving the murder, while she simultaneously confronts her ambivalent feelings toward the relationship and fears that her old college chums may be implicated.

First of all, the strength of the novel is in Kelly's style. She writes beautifully, almost poetically, as she lovingly describes the hallowed halls of Cambridge through the eyes of one who returns after a long absence. The dialogue is natural and yet full of subtexts. And she knows when to use humor (a must in academic mysteries, I think) and when to pull the plug on Gillian's sentimental journeys.

Unfortunately, Kelly does not lavish the same attention to her plot, an unforgivable lapse in a mystery. The novel's solution is unsatisfactory, even disappointing, and the motives of one character (the colorful Fiona Clay) are never really explained. Moreover, the old ploy of pairing up the amateur sleuth romantically with a cop is handled badly here, with too much of Edward without Gillian. The reader starts to wonder who, after all, is the protagonist.

The most interesting theme in _In the Shadow of Kings_ is that history is both alluring and an embarrassment. This idea aligns nicely with Gillian's real (however tiresome) struggles with career and personal life, with modernism and tradition.

I've always been fascinated by ancient Indian temples, so I ordered this book assuming that it would be a coffee-table/art book filled with large beautiful pictures with some descriptive text spattered about here and there. It turns out that it was not a coffee-table book at all, but instead is academic textbook for serious architectural study. Instead of the beautiful color pictures I was expecting, the book contains many pictures (black and white unfortunately) and hand-drawings of details after details. Just the shear number and detail of the hand-drawings is quite impressive. One annoyance is that all the text is in the front and pictures in the back, so you will have to keep flipping back and forth. In summary, the book was not for me (a reader with a casual interest in temple architecture), but probably is an excellent source for the academic architect requiring an in-depth study of the subject.

In 1992, Osprey's Campaign Series #14 entitled Zulu War 1879 by Ian Knight and Ian Castle, covered the dramatic Battle of Isandlwana. Ten years later, Ian Knight thought it would be a good idea to cover virtually the same ground in the new Osprey Campaign Series #111, entitled Isandlwana 1879. Granted, the focus is narrower than in the earlier volume and the graphic quality of the maps is superior, but this book essentially covers much of the same ground that the first book did. While the original title only spent 30% of its length on the Battle of Isandlwana, this new volume spends 55%. Overall, Isandlwana 1879 is a decent if not very original summary of that British military disaster, but it certainly lacks any real value-added quality over the original.

Isandlwana 1879 begins in standard Osprey format with the usual short sections on origins of the conflict, a campaign chronology, opposing commanders, opposing armies, and opening moves. Readers will certainly be impressed with the author's in-depth knowledge of Zulu leaders and units, but might have benefited from a short pronunciation guide on how to handle names like "iNgobamakhosi" or "uKhandempemvu" or just what the heck these names mean. At times, Knight seems to have the zealot's assumption that everyone in conversant in African tribal terms and hence, further clarification is unnecessary. Overall, these sections get the job done but in somewhat boilerplate fashion, as if Knight merely dusted off material from his other books. Readers familiar with the classic, "Washing of the Spears," will doubt that Knight is making a real effort to be incisive. The volume includes six 2-D maps (the war in Zululand, the attack on Sihayo's Homestead, Isandlwana Camp, initial dispositions, the British collapse, Chelmsford's movements and the British withdrawals), three 3-D "Bird's Eye View" maps (British movements around Isandlwana, climax of the battle and the British collapse) and three battle scenes (Durnford's auxiliaries stumble on the Zulu army, the British collapse and the final stages of the battle).

Knight notes that none of the Zulu commanders had any experience fighting British regulars and that, "a practical ignorance of the destructive potential of the modern weapons they [the British] possessed, had led to a dangerous over-confidence at the middle and lower levels of command." On the other hand, the British commander Lord Chelmsford was influenced by preconceptions gained in previous frontier warfare in Africa. Knight notes that in Chelmsford's earlier campaign against the Xhosa tribe that he, "faced only an elusive foe who showed a marked reluctance to engage in decisive combat." This sounds remarkably like the preconceived tactical mindset that influenced Custer three years earlier at the Little Bighorn. Yet if both sides were over-confident and didn't appreciate their enemy's strengths - as Knight claims - why was Isandlwana such a lop-sided battle?

The battle narrative comprises the bulk of the book and it also gets the job done, but with much effort to address the reasons for the British defeat. While Knight makes it clear that British pre-battle reconnaissance was a bit sloppy and based on too many false assumptions, he fails to address issues like faulty British tactical dispositions or ammunition resupply problems. Based on what happened elsewhere in the war, it is clear that the Zulus could not defeat British regulars who were defending in square or behind obstacles. The only enlightenment that Knight adds about the battle concerns the final moments of the British infantry, which he deduced from participation in an archaeological dig on the battlefield in the 1990s. Knight demonstrates that clumps of British infantry survived the overrunning of the camp and slowly tried to fight their way back to the border, but were overwhelmed enroute.

Modern military professionals could use this volume as an excellent starting point for a study of regular forces fighting less well-developed opponents, and might see parallels with contemporary operations in Afghanistan or Somalia. It is interesting to discern how over 1,300 British troops - including the battle-experienced 1st Battalion/24th Infantry - could be annihilated in the space of four hours by an opponent that was regarded as hopelessly inferior. The root cause of the defeat at Isandlwana was the same as at the Little Bighorn in 1876 or Mogadishu in 1993 (or Bunker Hill in 1775): professional soldier arrogance. While the Zulus were ultimately defeated - at much greater cost in resources and time than the British had bargained for - they did demonstrate that not all indigenous military forces merely sit around waiting to be picked off like clay pigeons by superior military technology.

That's an autobiography, right? No, in this case, this book is truly what it says it is: James Bishop Peabody edits a collection of original source material, puts it all in chronological order according to the events it is discussing, rather than the order in which it was written, and provides connecting and explaining paragraphs of his own. What we are left with is truly a biography rather than an autobiography; Peabody really should get the credit as author, rather than editor. Still, probably 2/3 to 3/4 of the book is actually written "in his own words": excerpts from his incomplete autobiography, his correspondence, and his diary entries detailing his life in very thorough and exhaustive detail.

The book is a bit dry, and because it is in Adams' own words, its style is somewhat archaic, so it may not be for the general reader. But for the amateur historian who would like a close look at the source material, it's marvellous.