Despite the fact that I generally enjoy comic British writing, and have on occasion watched the TV version of Rumpole with amusement, I found this collection of short Rumpole stories rather tedious. Having never read any of the extensive Rumpole series, I figured this collection of six stories would be a good place to test the waters. What I found was a series of predictable tales, populated by thin characters that offer little variety in their foibles from story to story. And while you could make the same case for P.G. Wodehouse's creations, the difference is that he had the Midas touch when it came to language and wit, whereas Mortimer's prose is generally uninspired. After a while, the curmudgeonly grumblings of Rumpole get rather old, as does the sharp tongue of his wife (She Who Must Be Obeyed), the pathetic philandering Erskine Brown, and the doddering foolishness of Uncle Tom. While the cut and thrust of the courtroom scenes do impart a sense of vigor and wit to the proceedings, they are the only bright lights in what are otherwise remarkably dull and predictable stories. Perhaps lawyers find Mortimer's prose remarkable, I, on the other hand, do not.

This is a really funny story, well told by Leo McKern, who IS Rumpole. (There are other Rumpole readers, but his is the best, even if you never saw his tv version) For Rumpole of the Bailey fans, you have all the usual cast, She Who Must Be Obeyed, Erskine Brown cheating on Portia, Uncle Tom, and Soapy Sam Ballard, head of Chambers. Lots of fun and really a pleasure to listen to. Couldn't even tell it was abridged. I'm a lawyer and I listen to mine evey fun months to get recharged

It's a good book: very good English, it treats quite everything from the point of view of CAUSES! It's full of precise references (good for the thesis!).

Expecially good topics: ionization and scintillation detectors; photomultipliers. Lacks: calorimetres and Cerenkov counters! For these topics I suggest: 'Particle Detectors' (many auth.), Cambridge University Press.

Just one thing about statistics: you have always to substitute this sentence:

''... because of the statistical nature of the process...''

with

''...because of the uncertainties related to the process, we choose to treat it as statistical...'' OK, it's a bit longer; but are you sure that all advanced physicians know that Caos does not exist as a real entity? It's just a choice of the experimenter to supply lacks in understanding and measuring the process or to simplify it. If you don't believe so, I ask you: why do you make research? Let's talk about it.

Leo's book is a good, concise and concerning standard methods especially in nuclear spectroscopy up-to-date summary of the field. The basic physics ideas are introduced, although not too deeply discussed (but this is a book for the experimentalist, therefore no objections). It is a helpful companion in simple experimental considerations which come to an experimental nuclear spectroscopist every day: The color codes of resistors and the overview over the connectors in a CAMAC crate are examples for these features.

Elaborate references are given for each section that make it possible for the reader to find additional descriptions rather easily. Additional insight on dosimetry and radiation damage and some remarks on statistics make this book an interesting alternative to G.F. Knoll's "Radiation detection and measurement".

The emphasis of Leo's approach is surely (a) on a concise overview rather than an in-depth discussion and (b) on nuclear spectroscopy (gamma and particle detection at some MeV or so) rather than medium and large-scale high-energy physics experiments. Widely used components of high-energy physics equipment are, however, presented, but additional literature might be needed.

One final remark to my fellow reviewer Fabio: One example for a "statistical process" is e.g. the number of electron-hole pairs created in the detection of a charged particle or gamma ray. This process is truely statistical, i.e. it does not depend on things that the experimentator has at hand. The intrinsic resolution of a high-purity Germanium detector with respect to a, say, 3 MeV gamma ray cannot be changed (at least to a large extent). Have a look into Leo's book if you don't believe me!

The author focuses on Texas-Mexicans, who enlisted in the Union and Confederate armies. No grand motives were involved. The enlistees joined for a variety of reasons: bonus money, clothing, food, escape from a ruthless peonage system, and because of a paternalistic tradition stemming from their Mexican heritage. Regardless, the Texas-Mexican committment was weak throughout the Civil War. An exception was the Benavides brothers, particularly, Santos, who was the highest ranking Texas-Mexican in either army.

While American-Mexican soldiers served in various state units - Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Vermont, et. al., this book is about the Texas-Mexicans who served along the Rio Grande River, dividing Texas and Mexico. In the course of their service, these confederate soldiers were chiefly involved in border incidents, fighting bandits, chasing rustlers, etc. It's clear Texas officials used Texas-Mexican soldiers not to fight the Union but to protect Texas land and property.

Approximately 2600 Texas-Mexicans served the South and 950 served the Union. The illiteracy rate for Texas-Mexicans was as high as 95% and their lack of English kept them in the lowest ranks throughout the war. Of the 62 men in one confederate regiment, only 3 were born in Texas. Many had been born in Mexico and ranged in age to 50 years. The Texas-Mexicans thought of their army service as a job through which they could send money to their families in Mexico - an early Bracero program.

When pay and morale deteriorated, the Texas-Mexicans deserted the confederate and union armies. They simply rode out of camps carrying clothing, arms, and riding the best horses. The desertion rate was of serious concern. In some units it ran as high as 100%, as Captain Adrian Vidal's "Independent Partisan Union Rangers" deserted in its entirety.

Prejudice against the Texas-Mexicans soldiers was overt and contributed to the desertion rate. One officer's comment is pertinent, "I consider them (Texas-Mexicans) as dishonest, cowardly, and treacherous." His feelings were supported by many Anglos in both armies. In this context, the Texas-Mexicans were given old and outdated arms and scrub horses - those not considered good enough for other army units.

The author knows the framework of his subject. Where he fails is in trying to put the results of his knowledge into a semblance of lucidity. The book is hard to read and doesn't hold a casual reader's interest. There is no explanation of the relationship of the battles described to the overall strategy of the South. Further, there are no maps with which to follow the battles narrated by the author.

Another defect is that there are no accounts of the daily lives of the Texas-Mexican soldiers: how they behaved under fire, what they ate, what they thought, how they spent their leisure time, and so forth. The book is also cluttered with footnote references as if the author believed 271 footnotes bestowed literary merit on 120 pages of text. The index is rudimentary and of limited value to the reader. In the author's defense, he obviously did a lot of research. However, no writer can enlighten a subject when the subject is presented with little form and substance.

The military events in the Civil War numbered 10,455 which doesn't include naval actions or countless other scrapes and clashes that didn't find their way into official records. This book adds nothing to the history of the "Vaquero" and does a disservice to Texas-Mexicans by denigrating their will to survive despite the foolishness foisted on them by the Anglos.

One irony that escapes the author is that the war between the states may have ended slavery in the United States but the Texas-Mexicans who fought in the Civil War continued in peonage well into the 20th century. They lived as they did before the war, clustered in small villages along the muddy waters of the Rio Grande, many in poverty, and many others suppressed economically and politically.

More than 60,000 books, monographs, pamphlets, et. al., have been written about the Civil War in all its aspects. This book adds little value to that vast body of work.

The book Vaqueros in Blue and Gray provides an insightfully resource of the contributions made by Hispanics to both the United States of America (USA) and the Confederate States of America (CSA) during the American Civil War. From an Anglo standpoint, I feel that this book better helps Civil War researchers better understand the Civil War and the contributions made by Mexicans and others with surnames like Sanchez, Martinez, and Moreno to both the CSA and USA.

Some have compared this book to Robert Cormier's "Tenderness" and there are some similarities: teenaged boy who is not quite right in the head kidnaps teenaged girl with homicide in mind, but spares her, and in their time together they develop an affinity for each other. However, there is a crucial difference: "Tenderness" is good. "The Long Night of Leo and Bree" is not.

I really found the ending unbelieveable. Sometimes kidnap victims do end up falling for their captors. But Leo and Bree just didn't quite make the mark. In "Tenderness" it easy to see how Lori could fall for Eric in spite of who he is, because Lori is incredibly screwed up. Bree isn't. The book did not do an adequate job of explaining how a level-headed if slightly spoiled girl could lose her head that badly.

In addition, both characters tasted of corrugated cardboard -- not quite two-dimensional but not well-rounded either. There are girls from wealthy overbearing families, and there are boys who drop out of school to care for their moms, but there's got to be more to the picture than that. Leo and Bree both felt sort of cookie cutter.

It was a good idea but something went badly wrong in the making. I was very disappointed in this book; I recommend "Hard Love" by the same author instead of this novel.

On the one year anniversary of his sister's brutal murder, Leo finds himself going slightly mad, along with his mother, who has never been the same since. Rather than stay in the house with his mom, Leo goes out driving and when he spots Bree, a rich kid who decided to take a walk on the wrong side of town, he wonders why she lived and his sister didn't. In a fit of insanity, Leo takes Bree hostage and plans to kill her, but when he and Bree begin to talk, he finds his saving grace.

Ellen Wittlinger, author of Razzle and Hard Love, tackles a tough subject with this book and pulls it off quite well. The story itself is very short - just over 100 pages long. Almost the entire book is dialogue, and it takes place in only a couple settings. It's a quick read, but rather grim material. If you're looking for a happy ending, don't read this one! I enjoyed reading The Long Night of Leo and Bree, and my only complaint is I would have liked it to be longer - I'd love to find out what happened afterwards!

Imagine your sister being brutally murdered by her boyfriend and everything changing so fast, you didn't even have the chance to blink. That's what happened for Leo. It's the fourth anniversary of her death and he can't get the images of her being stabbed out of his head. Especially with his mother in a rage and showing him the pictures over and over. So he flees into his car and drives until he sees Bree, in her short skirt, high heels, and ruby red lipstick. In a rage, Leo kidnaps Bree, persistent that she should have been the one to die, not his beautiful and perfect sister. . What happens the following night changes the way both Bree and Leo look at things. I loved the emotion in this book because it felt so real. One thing, I didn't understand was why Bree didn't report Leo when he kidnapped her. For all she knew, he could of done these type of things to everyone. Other than that, this book was great.

Note: My rating is for all three of the Leo Atkins novels taken as a whole, not just this one. Had I stopped after one, my rating would have been higher.

I've now read all the Leo Atkins (aka Clay Harvey?) novels, and he can't seem to choose between schmaltz on the one hand, and gratuitous & graphic violence on the other. (He also has an irritating penchant for throwing in words he seems to consider "erudite" but which make it seem as though he's writing with a dictionary at his elbow.)

I think Mr. Atkins needs to decide who his target audience really is, and stop trying to have it both ways. Does he want to show positive relationships between men and children (with a bit less sentimentality, please), or does he want to stick to numerous gore-fests in each novel? To use both is really an abuse of reader patience.

If Leo Atkins wanted to write a story about Ninja warriors, he should have. The original story is a good idea. A little boy goes to a private detective in the hopes of finding his father. The good ideas end right there. Between the graphic descriptions of the fighting (all the characters except the little boy himself are portrayed as expert Ninja type fighters), and the horrible choice of words, there just is NO hope for this book. Here's a good example: "...his objet d'amour rolling away to perform an excretory function..." or how about this one: "Faces turned, lips curled into contumelious sneers." What the heck is contumelious? I didn't even bother to look it up. If you have to look up a descriptive word, the author should not have used it. And the best one: ""Groan," he said, onomatopoeitically." I am not kidding. This book was an absolute literary disaster. Author Leo Atkins should not give up his day job. I do not recommend buying or borrowing this book, and I am not even going to pass this on to my sister, as I do all of my books, it is going right into the trash.

I purchased this book because another reviewer indicated that it was written by Clay Harvey, under the name Leo Atkins. I was not disappointed. This is a great book. It is a little over written but that adds to the charm. The book is filled with well written action and humorous puns. More tongue in cheek than a Spenser novel but every bit as enjoyable. Since purchasing this one I have bought the others as well. They were also good.

David Mamet is certainly an excellent story-teller and an accomplished writer. No one can take that away from him.

But this story - which in Mamet's mind is intended to combat bigotry and racism toward Jews - actually enhances bigotry and racism toward other groups that are being marginalized in current American society.

Mamet gives us a story where an innocent Jewish man is mistakenly convicted of rape and suffers a harrowing fate at the hands of a lynch mob. Mamet tells us that this happened because of anti-Semitism. Fair enough.

Mamet's character then goes on to deliver a two-fisted verbal assualt on Christians of the "evangelical" variety ("they say they've been saved. Saved from what?"), who he portrays as evil, stupid, and lazy. (They bask in "inherited glory," although they've contributed nothing to society, "invented no vaccines," as Mamet puts it.)

First of all, there is no evidence that the historical killers in this case were "evangelical Christians." It's a big stretch to say that just because a murder occurred in the south, that it was committed by Bible-thumping Southern Baptists.

Second, "evangelical Christians" comprise about 7 to 10 percent of the current American population (a number that is consistently revealed in polls by Gallup, Barna, Smith, etc.). That's about the same as the number of Jews and Muslims in America combined. They are consistently villified as "right-wingers" who want to take over the government, impose a theocracy, and kill homosexuals - none of which is true. (The typical evangelical is a moderate Republican of the John McCain variety.) Aside from the rather sympathetic portrayal of Ned Flanders on the Simpsons, the entire media establishment is arrayed against this one segment of our population. The lies and stereotypes directed against these people are as pernicious and hateful as those directed against the Jews in Nazi Germany. (The Jews, too, were out to take over society, according to the Third Reich.) Mamet's hateful scree against people "who say they've been saved" is just fuel for the fire. It takes a feeble-minded coward to throw himself wholeheartedly into society's accepted mode of bigotry, and well, Mamet lives up.

Third, evangelicals are hardly stupid people who bask in "inherited glory" from the Pilgrim days. Evangelical accomplishments are many - from revolutionizing the field of linguistics (Kenneth Pike) and Philosophy (Alvin Plantiga), to improving the lives of millions of Latin Americans after the abysmal failure of Roman Catholicism to confront oppression and injustice, to helping freedom of religion and freedom of speech spread throughout the globe, Evangelicals have contributed much to modern society. Of course, they haven't contributed much to the Entertainment industry, and perhaps that's the only industry Mamet cares about.

In The Old Religion, historical figure Leo Frank, a Jewish factory owner in the old American South falsely accused of rape and murder, then imprisoned and eventually lynched by an organised mob, is turned by Mamet into a religious philosopher, an all but obssessive turner over of truths and half truths, propositions and the voices within voices of a disputatious mind from a disputatious people. But the heart of it is still the same: "To be a man," the Rabbi said, was to behave as a man in that situation where there were neither the trappings nor the rewards of manhood: scorned, reviled, abandoned, humiliated, powerless, terrified, mocked. "Now be a man..." the Rabbi said."

And in The Edge, a movie by Mamet, the millionaire played by Anthony Hopkins is an obssessive learner and compiler of facts, a man detached from his emotions, who through the forces of a melodrama plot, (a plane goes down stranding him in the wilderness with his wife's lover, the fashion photographer Alec Baldwin who wants him dead) is forced to confront himself and, stripped to his essentials, survive. In a sense, The Edge is the opposite story to The Old Religion in that the former has as its central motif a canoe paddle on whose two sides a rabbit and a ravenous beast, I cannot quite recall what, co-exist. Why is the rabbit not afraid? "Because he knows he's smarter then the.." Fox, I believe the beast is. It is significant that the line, among the best in the film, is not quite memorable enough to hold the mind. And the central, memorable sequence of the film is millionaire and adulterous rival being forced to collaborate in killing a bear. That bear was more memorable than the characters or the dialogue. In The Old Religion the opposite moral is operative, Frank is in no useable way smarter than his employee Jim, who uses the white Southern mob's unwillingness to believe in the intelligence of a "nigro" to fool them and gets away with murder, dooming the outsider Jew. You cannot be smarter than the fox and disruptive nature, chaos; the forces of darkness cannot be conquered - you must only stand and face them as you may, that is the true heart of Mamet's reveries.

The trouble is that this does not always amount to a compelling fulcrum, in and of itself, it must accompany colour or is bland, a blank stare in the face of onrushing doom - Mamet's stoic glance in the face of the cancer look.

In The Old Religion, Frank's habits of dissecting, homelitically commenting on and generally discoursing throughout and over every event of his downward course lend the book the air of a series of absent minded sermons, underpinned with occasional colourful clues as to motive, projection through space and narrative to fate, the taste of life. As Mamet points out somewhere in his book of actors' sermons "True or False"- intentions are not interesting, a person's qualities are not interesting, only actions are interesting. Hence the only memorable thing about the Rabbi, a key figure of the last third of the book, is the way he lights a match, his way with a cigarette. This is actual character. Mamet doesn't give either Frank or the Rabbi or any of the other characters quite enough internal colour, a personal smell or feeling, to make them anything - an actor could not successfully play them without addition and a reader cannot happily create them in the mind's eye because aside from the endless discourses- as Mamet's Frank asks himself at one point "what part of reason is not simply the recoil of fear?" - there is nothing much going on. The only thing which defines Frank's response in the face of the onrushing catastrophe is his reversion to the "Old Religion" of Judaism away from the "Old Religion" of the South, of America, of the belief in progress. This is not really, in itself, much that you can play. As Mamet the actor would put it: What's the objective? And it cannot really be said that Mamet the novelist has given the actor or reader much in the way of lines on a page to sustain the illusion of character.

At the novel's early parts, before chaos unfolds, one feels a little like the inhabitant of a Aharon Appelfeld novel, where bitter laughter and irony is beneath every casual detail of the lives of comfortable Jews on the lip on an abyss. And Mamet's skill is always wordily present - for probably two thirds of the novel he manages to keep you reading, keep you turning the pages, despite very little meat between his odd moments of concrete detail. This is no small skill. But his aesthetic position about acting is disproved in his own work, in this particular book. Not enough blood in these characters to sustain the book.

I love David Mamet's plays (recently, I laughed my way through the movie adaptation of State and Main), but this novel was disappointing. The event itself (described on the book jacket) is much more interesting than a fragmented interior monlogue by a less-than-fascinating protagonist. The idea invoked The Stranger, but unlike Camus who does a brilliant job, Mamet is much less brilliant. This read more like a literary experiment in a writing workshop than a polished piece by Mamet. If you want to read the master of this genre, stick to Camus.

I found this book to be extremely informative on the many issues a twin mom-to-be needs to be aware of that a singleton mom-to-be does not. There were areas that did not apply to my pregnancy, but to have the information available was invaluable.

As someone who had an "event free" pregnancy... all the way until my 28th week, I was able to focus until that point on all the exciting things happening (and not happening) to my body and those of my babies. When the unexpected and unexplained happened during a routine ultrasound, the discovery that one of my twins had died, I found the section on the loss of one twin to be an invaluable resource. When I had subsequent bedrest, preterm labor, tocolytics, then was able to deliver both babies naturally 8 weeks later, this book continued to keep me informed. This book was something I could turn to during each of the very different stages of my pregnancy. I strongly recommend it. And I attest the health of my surviving twin to the teamwork between myself, my OB and my perinatologist. I would not have been such an educated patient, able to participate in my and my surviving daughters care, without this book.

My midwife advised us to get this book as soon as we found out we were expecting twins. I am a Lactation Consultant and already had it as a reference for clients.
I found the information to be extremly truthful and very informative. I too followed their advice on nutrition as also advised by my midwife. It was difficult to consume so many calories and protein but I did it for the health of my babies and myself.
While reading this book I found out why I was experiencing all these different things with my body that I never experienced with my other 4 births and pregnancies. I also was very prepared and informed of all the things to expect with multiples.
Between my midwife and this book I felt totally confident and positive about my pregnancy and birth. Without it I would have been in the dark and frightened!
I ended up delivering vaginally and totally natural at 39 weeks and 4 days. My b/g twins weighed 7lbs 14oz and 7lbs 15 oz. I never had any problems the whole pregnacy (absolutely NO BEDREST) and my babies stayed with me the whole time and went home with me. If I did not have such great resources the outcome may have not turned out so great!

This book, should be required reading for a multiple-birth pregnancy. Noble assumes you're looking for detailed information, and provides it. Unfortunately, having an unexpected multiple-birth pregnancy IS scary, and I don't think a chapter on death is out of place--particularly now that women are having higher-order multiples. I was actually grateful to read about other women who weren't especially thrilled to find out they were having twins. (Of course, many women who were absolutely thrilled were also included in the book.) It's a hard happiness for many women. Finding out other people had difficulty accepting the news helped me a great deal.

Noble's view on sea vegetables might seem a little weird, especially for people who've never traveled. Surprise--people are finding out that the "traditional" American diet may not be the healthiest, especially for a pregnant woman. I live in a rural area and wasn't able to get sea vegetables, but if you're sick of milk and cottage cheese, you'll try anything. The calcium requirements for a mother carrying multiples are amazing. She also is a great person to read if you feel pressured into "not eating" during pregnancy for fear of gaining too much weight. The health of the babies is what's paramount, and she does a great job of supporting women. Doctors in America are much more likely to do c-sections for multiples --that's a proven fact, and it's also been proven that might not be neccessary. The more informed you are, the better your choices. Get this book if you only buy one multiple-birth book--it's the most complete.

I appreciate what the author was trying to do with this book, introducing us to his own list of the 25 best investment books of all time. Although I am no worse for the wear after having read this volume, the exercise left me somewhat dissatisfied upon reflection.

The collection of books is haphazard, looking at areas of the market and investing that are widely dispersed. This is not a weakness in itself, but the disjointed way the author jumps from work to work with no transition gives this volume the flavor of reading a stack of unorganized book reviews. The writing quality is not terrible, but it does not hold attention well and could have used some serious editing in places. The book's main strength is its brief distillations of the 25 works it covers.

The author, a financial journalist, provides no evidence of any special competence or authority in any of the subjects he covers. This is a significant contrast to a work like Dean LeBaron's Treasury of Investment Wisdom, where Mr. LeBaron brings a lot of expertise in various areas and makes no bones about where he stands on various topics.

One quote that stood out for me near the end of the book was the following (p. 207):

"...He (Wittgenstein) was ever conscious of our inability to be certain. This is one of the great existential riddles, and I have every sympathy with the majority of people, who feel uncomfortable at this thought and prefer to find refuge in the arms of any number of ideologies and belief systems."

No, Wittgenstein is not one of the 25 authors covered among the investment classics (for an exact list, check the book's editorial reviews in detail). Wittgenstein is simply a manifestation of the author's wishy-washiness. He does not believe in technical analysis, is not quite sure he believes in fundamental analysis, and does not appear to have any shockingly special insights on these works.

Because some of the books he covers are very good, the wisdom of the 25 authors cannot help but affect you, no matter how buried in the author's prose. The few direct quotes from works that he inserts provided the fresh breaths of air I needed to keep going through these pages.

Hopefully digesting this book will inspire the reader to read the underlying "25 Investment Classics", which will be ultimately much more rewarding.

I believe this is a good book for beginners seeking investment advice. If you are an investment professional who is well read, this book isn't for you. In this book the author tries to briefly describe each book and the relevant points of each book, with some excerpts taken from each.

He is very negative on technical analysis (the author), as his tone and comments about this form of analysis is negative throughout the book. I personally find this very distasteful as technical analysis would have bailed you out of the market at most of its peaks (when money flows turned negative - it did in telecom service in April 2000)

I do believe the wide array of books utilized is a very good collection for a beginner. Some other good books, which actually talk to individuals is Market Wizards : Interviews With Top Traders by Jack D. Schwager and John Train's Money Master and New Money Masters (2 different books). I believe everyone should read Peter Lynch's first book, Beating the Street. A good book on managing your money is Suze Orman's 9 Steps to Financial Freedom

Having worked with portfolio managers as a research analyst I hope this helps everyone.

I appreciate Mr. Gough's book for the valuable insight offered by the 25 "masters" of finance. Indeed it is his choice of experts and his obvious appreciation for their accumen, moxie and well yes, success that makes this book a good read. Mr. Gough has a fine, clear writing style and we leave the book a bit smarter and perhaps a bit more interested in some of his muses. I recommend it!!

This survey book is not nearly the slanderous piece that many of the reviewers of this site would have you to believe. Instead, Professor Shadia Drury, who is a Canadian political theorist of a liberal democratic stripe, admittedly sets out to demonstrate the differences between two ostensibly related ideologies: "neo-conservatism" and "classical liberal democracy." According to Drury, the former is the logical "American" manifestation of Leo Strauss's philosophy and the latter is the worldly stalwart & hegemonic target of Strauss's attack. It must be said that Drury seems to spare, on the whole, the tradition of European Conservatism from analysis, although Drury does reference this tradition in order to contrast it with neo-conservatism. This absence is the weakness of an otherwise fine survey.

Drury may be called a popular corrupter by some (indeed, the repetitious writing leaves a thing to be desired), but this book is an honest survey of Straussian Philosophy and Classical Liberal Democracy, in the sense that the book contrasts Strauss's ideas against the backdrop of his enemy, classical liberal democracy. It is true that many modern conservatives (but usually not libertarians) may take offense to Classical Liberal Democracy, but so do modern liberal democrats. To illustrate this, allow me to give two examples and one comment: (1) Modern Liberals may be disturbed that the source of MODERN governmental welfare may not be Marx or, even, Enlightenment Liberalism, but the European conservative political ideologues of the 19th century--for example, Bismarck. (2) Likewise, American Conservatives may wince at the idea that they are really a new breed of ideologue who are only distantly related to the European Conservative Tradition and who have, instead, adopted the ideas of late 19th Century Social Darwinism and 20th Century nationalism. Modern Libertarians, on the other hand, may nod their heads to Drury acknowledging the bastardized lineage of both modern liberals and neo-conservatives, although ultimately Drury drops hints of an affinity for modern liberalism.

As one may see, Drury's descriptions and conclusions may disturb many modern political ideologues. Consequently, Drury's book is a valuable, although not unprecedented, contribution to the American canon; however, it may face opposition from modern liberals and neo-conservatives.

The chief insight offered by Shadia Drury in LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT is that Leo Strauss's political philosophy is a radical variant of conservatism whose assumptions and strategies are at odds with traditional conservatism. While both Straussian and Burkean philosophy appear similar in that they both make the assumption that the only choice is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy, the Straussians are unsentimental about the past, rejecting the older conservative view that naturalizes pre-modern hierarchy and the inequalities preserved therein as intrinsic to and representative of mankind. Straussians are instead post-modern activists, who use the past as repository from which to cull whatever elements are necessary to build whatever institutional machine is necessary to regulate lesser mortals. They imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of liberalism - that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice.

According to Drury, Strauss's philosophy accepts the death of God, (unlike traditional conservatism) and then moves positivistically (unlike traditional conservatism) to fill the vacuum with elite group of self-elected philosopher kings. This elite, alive to the nihilism of the liberal ethos and its potentially anarchic consequences, believes it must act forcefully to paper over the hole left by His demise. Their esoteric/exoteric readings of philosophy tell them they must forge from the ashes a seamless, monocultural machine to encourage obedience and staunch chaos. This nationalistic machine must be equipped with a religion (any religion) and a mythic culture based on flag-reverence and knee-jerk patriotism. This is necessary because pluralistic, liberal societies cannot meet the challenge posed by well-organized, culturally cohesive states. Because the mass of men are primitive, credulous, prone to error and evil, the state with the best machine necessarily will win. Straussians, unlike traditional conservatives who see the state as malevolent, justify their activism by insisting that as philosophers they are immune to temptations of power.

According to Drury, a particularly striking strategy of Straussian conservatives is their struggle to identify and mythologize American traditions. She points out that while Burke had the last remnants of feudalism to extol as a naturally just system, American conservatives have been forced to create a "traditional" America out of whole cloth. To do so, according the Drury, Strauss's followers have invaded history departments across the US where they have been working hard to uncover "tradition" in the beginnings of America - a difficult task given that America was the first truly modernist state. Nevertheless, these historians, depending upon which ax they are grinding, rewrite American history either to prove that colonial America was feudal, or to prove the Founding Fathers were not Deists and creatures of the (Liberal) Enlightenment, but rather Platonists. Drury notes that like postmodernists on the left, Straussians believe there is no ultimate truth, but that instead there are only discourses of power and that whoever controls the discourse wins. She notes that this is what makes American politics so narrow and so tedious -- the right and the left both operate from the same morally bankrupt premise.

This goes a long way toward explaining the bizarre combination of libertarianism and fundamentalism in neo-conservative thought. Like other dogmas which have been used to support those in power -- Social Darwinism and eugenics come to mind -- neoconservatism is just the latest apologia for the up-to-date reactionary. Notably, its adherents are generally unaware of the contradiction. This does not deter them from defending this instrumental hodgepodge of Ayn Rand "objectivism" and millenarian "revivalism" however. Such a philosophy is, of course, its own best self-satirization.

Well-written, its conclusions careful and amply defended, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT, is not the ravings of conspiracy theorist. It does not imagine that Straussians have come to run the United States, nor that they form a secret cult which pulls the strings behind the scene. It exposes rather the infiltration of post-modern intellectual cynicism into the once decent, and even honorable, Republican Party.

This book is stuck somewhere between authentic scholarship and a popular television-type investigative report. I cannot help but thinking Shahida Drury was duped into updating her earlier, more scholarly executed work on Leo Strauss, by the publisher who wanted to cash in on contemporary, and now out of date, political moods. The book is very short (included in the total page count is her Notes section and her Index), skimming the surface and regurgitating thread-bare arguments; however, I think she truly believes what she writes. The good professor is the 'city' and she comes up against 'the philosopher' and accuses him of unjust things in a more sophisticated and learned way than the political men ever could. She is Thraymachus, her anger at Strauss is honest and not totally without cause, for Leo Strauss, the little old, refugee Jew, really was a dangerous man. He was dangerous because philosophy is dangerous and this book testifies to how constant and true or perrenial that fact remains. I encourage anyone to read this book to see that I am not simplifying or rationalizing the text. Here is the clash that has marked civilization since the death of Socrates.

This book is completely devoid of bibliographic references. There is no bibliography at all, and whatever occasional footnote one might find is merely Woolley elaborating on his own thoughts. I do not remember Wooley once referring to a particular archaeological find or text that is supposed to support his ideas, other than a vague mentioning of the famous Stele of Hammurabi, and in this case he provides no physical data. The book has nothing to offer anyone who wants to seriously research the Sumerians for the purpose of drawing independent conclusions. The book might be interesting to those who simply want to hear Woolley ramble about his interpretation of what happened in the time of the Sumerians and what life was like for them, but even then the book is no use as Woolley's theories are dated, inaccurate, and unsupported.

This is not scholarship. It is just Woolley telling stories.

Professor Woolley's relatively short book (194 pages) is divided into seven chapters:

I. The beginnings II. The early history of sumer III. The Period of civil wars IV. Sumerian Society V. The Third Dynasty of Ur VI. Isin and Larsa VII. The claim of Sumer

The first and second chapters are thrilling, introducing the reader to the history, peoples, and ideas of Sumeria. The last chapter summarizes the contributions Sumerian society has made to Egyptian, Greek, and Western Civilization, and I found this particularly fascinating as well. In between, however, I found the text dry, the writing style obtuse, many of the details too cumbersome for the lay reader (but perhaps of interest to the archeologist), and, as a reader below pointed out, the lack of citations disturbing.

One of Woolley's goals in writing this books was to debunk the myth that the Egyptians were the most advanced ancient civilization. In this respect, he has succeeded admirably. His discussion of the development of law was similarly fascinating. However, unless you are particularly interested in law or are an avid reader and collecter of books on Sumeria, I would recommend checking this book out from the library rather than buying it.

Woolley said it was the Semetic people who ruined the purity of the Sumerian race and therefore caused the destruction of Sumerian civilization. It was written in the 1960s. Easy to read, less than 200 pages, informative...