Having recently visited Nepal, where I bought a copy of this spectacularly arrogant book (Thamel namaste), I have felt moved to write this review. In the fullness of time, I have no doubt that history will not kindly judge authors of Adams' genre. Ethnography, race and culturality are fraught subjects and just as the prevalent works of the late 19th century describe Africans as "unreliable and savage beasts undeserving of their upright posture..... prone to unreasonable rages.....etc etc etc ", so Adams' curious conclusions will outrage. Stop scrutinising those lovely folk please! They're as human as you and me. And no more books on other folks - this is the new millennium.

The "Tiger of the Snows" medal was awarded by the Himalayan Club in the Pre-Everest (1953) days to Sherpas who proved themselves especially able mountaineers and even worthier companions; in all given to less than 20 stalwarts. Ang Tsering (still alive today), for example, went on to gather the German Red Cross award in Nazi Germany for his role in the Nanga Parbat epics, possibly the only non-"aryan" who was so willingly decorated by a government whose ideology was infamously race-driven. To Vincanne Adams however, the tweed suits behind the desks of the Himalayan Club and other such admirers of these mountain folk would all be conforming to her curiously self conceptualised, pseudoanthropological theory of projection and counter projection of the entities of "virtual sherpa" and western sahib. A somewhat bizarre, supposed pantomime of masochistic role-play that everyone but everyone in the Adams' world of barf-driven academia apparently indulges in. To the memory of the mostly dead Tigers of the Snow, she does a special injustice as she does to the Sherpas in the other valleys of Nepal, and the desendants of the original pioneers in Darjeeling, India, whose numbers together far exceed the 3000 Khumbu Sherpas she so desparately attempts to bracket into the "seductive native" category. As a sherpa whose education and advancement has been singularly detatched from the "jindak"(sponsor)- "needy native" equation, I was able to read this book in mostly cold fascination - the strongest conclusion I could draw from her narrative being this thought that dinner-time at the Adams' household must be a somewhat macabre experience, where Papa Adams conforms to some role or other dealt him by Mama Adams, who watching science-eyed, patronises the chairs and tables for their lack of original thought. In highlighting her marvellous discovery of the clay feet in the otherwise golden climber- entreprenuer-siren type chimera sherpa, she fails to deliver anything substantial that distinguishes the common sherpa from the common westerner or the common aborigine or the common native american when the delimiters of education and culture are wuthdrawn. There isn't meant to be any, is what Buddhist luminaries have been trying to say for a long time I think. In terms of content, I once saw a documentary of the chimpanzees of Gombe that said more to me in the first 10 minutes than this book did in its entirety.

This book has lots of illustrations taken from old music catalogs and limited text. Most of the text that is there is quoted from other sources. Information on about 10 companies only and skips some of the largest including Conn, Buescher, York, and Boosey and nothing on some of the smaller old brands like Lehnert. The valuations given are for specific instruments, and the guidelines for generalized pricing are next to useless, with statements such as: "Valuing antique brass instruments is like shooting at a moving target in the dark." All in all some limited information about a number of companies, and many interesting old illustrations of historic instruments, but not of much use in determining value of instruments other than the specific ones in the book.

Focuses mainly on bodysnatching in Scotland, with excursions to England and to the even-more-unsavory practice of Burking (killing people in order to sell their bodies as anatomical specimens, from the notorious Burke and Hare case). Interesting topic, but I can't recommend the book because of an abysmal lack of footnoting, overall disorganization, and persistent refusal to translate quotes in antiquated Scots into readable English. Has some nice pictures of mortsafes, though.

The cover of this book pretty much explains its content. Despite its claims of creating a reference guide that spans all the major characters and themes in the asian mythosphere, it falls way short in its balance of information. This book basically covers the traditions of India, China and Japan, while just glancing at other mythologies. However, even the most fundamental characters in the Chinese and Japanese mythologies are curiously absent. What's more insulting is that it groups the mythologies of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines into a single category, implying that a singular tradition binds all three countries. This shows the author's lack of resources, or lack of interest. A quick glance at the book's bibliography further reinforces that the author didn't really use a wide asian base of information. Overall, this is just a handy reference guide for people who know nothing of Asian tradition, but have the itching need to know about every single godling in the Indian pantheon. Ambitious goals shold have ambitious results, unlike this book.

Most of what Western journalists, academics and politicians have said or written about Eastern Europe since 1989 is nonsense. It has been based largely on self-serving Western cultural stereotypes of a barbarous East wracked by atavistic nationalism and ethnic hatreds, whose inhabitants are congenitally unable to adapt to or understand democracy, the market and civil society - the values of the civilised West. At a stroke 'Eastern Europe' has been transformed from the Cold War image of a prison of 'captive nations' enduring the Soviet yoke to a source of political instability, dangerous fanaticism, crime and illegal immigration. Despite its pretensions, Western expert analysis of Eastern Europe has been little more than a rehash of the 'civilisational' theories of the late 19th century, albeit shorn of the latter's explicit racism. Such thinking tells us more about the West's declining sense of moral and economic superiority and need to conceal its own deep-seated social and economic problems than about the countries former Soviet bloc. It is above all a convenient ideology for a new post-Cold War domination of these countries of the by the West. The army of Westerns consultants, advisors, aid workers, academics and 'civil society' professional employed in various projects and NGOs expensive and ineffectual resemble nothing so much as well-meaning but patronising 19th century European missionaries and educators in colonial Asia and Africa. Such are the provocative and iconoclastic conclusions of Divided Europe: The New Domination of the East by Adam Burgess, a British academic based at the University of Kent. Divided Europe deliberately drives a coach and horses through unspoken assumptions widely shared by both Western academic specialists and political and intellectual elites in East Central Europe itself. Historically-rooted cultural divides between 'East' and 'West' so often used as explanations of present events and future developments are, the author argues, little more than self-serving historical myths. Such imagined divides oppose Christendom to the Islamic world; the Orthodox world to the Catholic; 'Hapsburg Europe' to the parts of Balkans once ruled by Turkey; and of course, ultimately the liberal-democratic West itself to the backward, unstable nationalistic post-communist East. However, the idea of a backward, irredeemably barbarous Eastern Europe contrasting with the civilisation and enlightenment of the West has little to do with the real history of the continent. Rather it originates in the 18th century and, fed equally by intellectual discourse and popular culture and runs more or less uninterrupted through the 19th century, the interwar period and the Cold War to our own time, picking up various embellishments on the way. Since 1989 Burgess argues, such pseudo-historical stereotypes of Eastern and Western Europe have served to veil Western unpreparedness, disinterest, self-interest and hypocrisy. For, the criteria set for Eastern Europe by the West - the creation a coherent 'civil society', a prosperous market economy and a tolerant community free of xenophobia and nationalistic populism - are standards that most Western states fail to meet. Not only that, many 'established democracies' suffer as much, if not more from the typical 'post-communist' problems as the 'East'. The stagnating economies and high unemployment of Western Europe; the derisory electoral turnouts and phenomenal levels of crime and social breakdown in the US; the crisis-ridden party systems and nationalistic far-right parties in Austria or France; xenophobic and inward-looking tabloid newspaper nationalism in Britain puts put most of East and Central Europe in the shade. The real difference between Western and Eastern Europe, Burgess argues, is that the former is richer and more powerful and can set the terms of poltical discourse. In reality, however, it is economic, political self-interest and Realpolitik that rule the West is, knowingly or unknowingly, using Eastern Europe for its own ends. However, such stereotypes are not simply the preserve of Western academics and opinion formers. Intellectual and political elites in the East and Central Europe have also seized upon it. Isolated from their own peoples, they are quite happy to concede the 'civilisational incompetence' of the mass of their own population. The role of intellectuals of politicians and intellectuals as educators and enlighteners of an ignorant benighted populace is a well-worn one in the region. At the same time local elites also use historical and cultural stereotypes to back up petty nationalism. While neighbouring countries (to the East) are irredeemably nationalist, backward and 'Eastern, their own country, despite apparent similarities is- for reasons of a specific cultural and historical legacy (rooted in the Middle Ages, if not earlier) - is an outpost of 'Western/Central European Christian civilisation'. Such a role is claimed with equal vehemence by, for example, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, Croatian and Ukrainian intellectuals. Divided Europe is a refreshingly partisan. Its bravura demolition of academic and journalistic stereotypes of 'Eastern Europe' will strike a chord with many fed up with stale and hackneyed terms of debate about East and Central Europe almost a decade after 1989 . As a critical writer on the (seemingly) on radical Left, the author highlights much conventional liberal thinking on democratisation and marketisation skates shy away from, above all highlight unequal economic and power relationships within and between states and the emergecne of new post-Cold War ideologies. In tracing Western discourses on 'Eastern Europe'Divided Europe points up, for example, how crucial decisions shaping the future of the East Central European states, once made in Vienna, and later Berlin and Moscow, are now being made in Brussels and Washington. Its suggests that rather, than a fast lane to prosperity, integration into the West may leave former Eastern Europe economically and politically peripheral. It highlights that democratisation and marketisation are not simply neutral processes of institutional reform, but also huge and grabs for political and economic power in which the 'manufacture of consent' rather than coercision is the order of the day. However for all its iconoclasm and well-researched historical passages, as a piece of serious analysis the book is a flop, its insights marred by some sweeping oversimplification and a resort to a new set of stereotypes. Its analysis marred by slapdash rhetoric and casual historical analogies. Turns of phrase concerning 'virtually neo-colonial relationships' between the West and Eastern Europe and the 'Great Power rivalries' between modern Germany, the EU and the United States etc. are a poor substitute for serious analysis of real, emerging unequal relationships in post-Cold War Europe. Such sweeping and hasty 'polemical' writing blunts and discredits even the author's strongest arguments. Despite occasional disavowals, the book thus quickly descends into a implausible and simplistic exercise in blaming all of East and Central Europe's problems almost on external (Western) influences. Moreover, in dismissing stereotypical conception of the legacies of communism, the book bizarrely ignores the possibility that communist experience might have left any specific imprint on the societies of East and Central Europe.

To begin with, I must say that this book took too long to get to the meat and potatoes of the interview...the interview questions and possible responses to these questions. It drags the reader through over 100 pages of meaningless common sense issues that any high school student already knows based on the experiences they have had with their first job. Some examples of dribble...I'm sorry, words of wisdom... from these initial pages include 10 Ways to Win an Interview: 1. Be Prepared, 2. Dress Appropriately, 3. Be Confident, 4. Make Eye Contact, 5. Show Your Enthusiasm, 6. Know the Position, 7. Know the Industry, 8. Know the Company, 9. Practice, 10. Follow Up; and 10 Ways Not to Win an Interview: 1. Arrive Late, 2. Appear Bored, 3. Forget to Do Your Research, 4. Speak in a Long-winded Manner, 5. Speak in Too Brief a Manner, 6. Speak in a Negative Manner, 7. Talk about Money, 8. Appear Conceited, 9. Share Unrealistic Goals, 10. Appear Unkempt. "Wow thanks Mr. Wizard is there anything else I should know?" What kind of horse sense dribble is that? Do I need a book to tell me this? It is the readers life that is being robbed by wasting a single second reading this garbage.

The final section of the book, does pick up the slack a little bit by delving deeper into the interview questions and actually sounds intelligent when asking and answering the questions...at least when answering in the affirmative. The questions are answered with sample examples of how you should and should not respond and a general explanation of the question. As I mentioned, the affirmative answers are good and the description of the questions are good, but the negative answer are down right embarrassing due to the fact that they are so ridiculous. Here is one of my favorites: "If you were allowed to run the company, what would you do differently?" Recommended answer: "I might investigate whether to sell off the light-manufacturing business and start an aggressive supplier-relations program." Non-recommended answer: "I would make the company more like a school. We would have a three-month summer vacation and catered lunch every day. I would make Friday game day where - instead of working - everyone would be allowed to play games within their department." Wow! Thanks for telling me I shouldn't say that, cause that was on my list of possible responses! What kind of response is that? A response that belongs in a joke book. And that is not any exaggeration either. It's on pg. 181 if you want to look it up. And that is a very common set of responses for all of the questions in the book, the affirmative answer is smart and the negative answer is stupid and flippant.

I give this two stars on not one, because the positive answers to the interview questions had valuable advice offered in them and the explanations behind the questions were solidly stated. But I strongly advise not throwing money away to buy this book. Go to the library and check it out if you must read it; that's what I did and am sleeping pretty well at night because of it.

To the serious leadership professional, the first reaction to this book may be skeptical and negative. This book is part of the Everything® Series book collection. This collection is obviously a direct competitor to the innocuous yellow-covered "For Dummies Series". To put it mildly, most would not consider any of these paperback books a serious reference in the educational world. However, The Everything Leadership Book does have some merits for a specific audience, and is proof you should not judge a book simply by its cover.

Adams covers a very broad perspective in regards to leadership in this publication. The twenty chapters deal with expansive and complex issues such as definitions, communication, motivation, coaching, power, organization/time management, change, employee hiring/management, volunteering and personal success. Like all books of this genre some of its answers and solutions are rather simplistic and too dogmatic. Yet, an important area of the book that needs more thoughtful discussion are ethics and values.

However, in spite of its obvious weaknesses, The Everything Leadership Book does have some strengths as a basic introduction to the world of leadership. It is well organized and easy to read. It has numerous leadership "Profiles" of individuals, leadership tips and "Words of the Wise" quotations. It incorporates the needs and attitudes of the growing number of independent, creative and self-reliant workers known as the New Workforce. Adams provides some interesting personal assessment tools. He also leads the reader to a number of helpful websites to learn more about volunteering opportunities and further leadership resources.

This is not the kind of book one wants to read in order to develop the serious skills or traits of a leader. However, if one is a novice or simply wants to learn the very basics of leadership, The Everything Leadership Book has a place. It has the ability to prompt the reader to want to learn more about this vital topic and does fill a niche for those who need or desire to begin their personal journey of leadership development at step one.

This is a good book if you are a fantasy football novice that wants to learn how to set up a non-computerized league. All the basics are covered, but that's about it. Experienced players won't find anything interesting except perhaps the cartoons and old photographs of players that are scattered through the book along with historical tidbits about the NFL.

This is an alright book i suppose. I had to read it for english class so you can understand my disgust with it. I found it very confusing and hard to understand....... Give it a go though for your own. I hate reading most books. Sad to say I find manuals more interesting thatn reading novels....Laugh as you may..o well

bob

This book develops a great understanding of post Cold War global security and its affects. It filled in many questions that I had concerning global secuirty in today's age. I definately recommend this read.