This book is badly flawed because of the author's rabid Germanophobia,which practically drips off of neary every page.Stay away from this one.

This is one of the most amusing books I have read about fallen European dynasties. Extremely biased, but makes up for inacurracy with humor to spare. Not for serious academic research, but very entertaining. I highly recomend it for anyone who knows their history, and is looking for a few good laughs!

I was very disappointed with the book. After the initial excitement of the promise to "extend" Girard's understanding of mimetic violence to a multireligious context, I soon realized the limitations of the author's understanding (or rather misunderstanding) of Girard's most important thesis-the uniqueness of the Gospels and the Triumph of the Cross. Girard's understanding is therefore gutted by the author's approach.

There is a great need among Girardian circles to come to terms with the problem of violence in non-Christian religion, specially after the attacks of Sept. 11th. Leo Lefebure attmpts to do this, but largely fails. The goal of this book is to analyze perspectives on violence in a multi-religious context. Lefebure claims he grabs on Girard's mimetic theory to do so. However, Girard's thought roughly covers 5 or 10% of the book. The book also has some basic problems in structure. Too much theoretic material a included, thus the ideas become disconnected from each other. The book jumps from Girard to Nicholas of Cusa to Buddhism without a smooth transition. Lefebure has an ambitiuos view; prior to this book, no one had attempted to extend Girard's thought to explore mimesis, sacrifice and revelation in a multi-religious context. But, because of its ambition, the book looses its central focus. Don't get me wrong, the book has some valuable information. I just had some very high expectations and felt dissapointed after reading it. A 'beached whale' would be good metaphor to describe it.

Cooper has strung together a string of selective facts and quasi-facts, with the obvious intention of creating anti-Polish feelings in the reader who is unfamiliar with the full scope of events in Polish-Jewish history. He tells, for instance, of the decades-old boycott of Jewish businesses in prewar Poland without mentioning at least the possibility that this was provoked by Jewish businesses banding together to put Polish gentiles out of business. He mentions the numerus clausus, at Polish universities, without considering that, using today's parlance, one group's numerous clausus is another group's affirmative action (in this case, getting more Polish gentiles into traditionally Jewish-dominated fields such as law, medicine, finance, etc.).

Cooper focuses on the szmalcowniki (blackmailers) who denounced Jews without also noting that they also betrayed Polish gentiles to the occupying Germans. He dwells on Polish collaborators' preventing more Jews from being saved with hardly a word said about the Jewish collaborators--the Judenrate. It was members of the Judenrate who played the main role in sealing off the ghettos, murdering the fellow Jews who tried to escape or who did escape, and discouraging further escapes (and revolts) by spreading untrue assurances about the safety of the Jews in German hands. (For an extensive and balanced account of BOTH Polish and Jewish collaboration, see Piotrowski: POLAND'S HOLOCAUST).

Cooper half-acknowledges the fact that many Jews were Communists, but then gives the familiar rationalization that they did so only to protect themselves from the Nazis. But this will not wash: Extensive Jewish involvement in Communism, which provoked Polish antagonism, long preceded the Nazis and continued long after their defeat. In fact, Cooper (p. 219) later gives the store away by noting that many Communist leaders were Jews.

Cooper's ignorance of the basic conditions under German-occupied Poland is nothing short of astounding. For instance, he tries to deflect charges of Jewish passivity by alleging that the Polish gentiles were even more passive. Nothing could be further from the truth. When, for instance, the Germans began a campaign to uproot large numbers of Poles from the Zamosc region in 1942, sending them to concentration camps, and replacing them with German settlers. The Polish peasants vowed: "We won't be taken as you took the Jews!" and began a guerrilla war. Despite the brutality of German reprisals, the Germans suffered so many losses that they called off the operation until after they won the war, which of course never happened. Cooper's rehash of charges that the Polish underground did not do much to assist the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 ignores, among other things, the fact that guerilla actions were generally expected to be locally-sufficient. Thus, for instance, Polish gentiles living in eastern Poland had to form their own defenses against murderous Ukrainian nationalists. They did not expect, and generally did not receive, substantive assistance from Polish-gentile guerilla groups located in the western part of German-occupied Poland. Cooper notes that Jews were usually not accepted into Polish guerilla organizations because their physiogamy gave them away, and insists that this proves that Poles were prone to turn Jews in. Yes, as if Germans were incapable of recognizing Jews by their features!

Space limitations forbid discussion of many more errors and omissions of inconvenient facts by Cooper. Other facts listed by Cooper can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, Cooper estimates that only 2% of the Polish population was involved in rescuing and hiding Jews, and uses this to "prove" Polish anti-Semitism. But, considering that the death penalty was given by the Germans for assisting Jews, and that heroism must by nature be exceptional, one could argue that 2% is a very high percentage.

In conclusion, both Polish anti-Semitism and Jewish anti-Polonism deserve long-overdue deaths. Unfortunately, this will not happen as long as inflammatory and inaccurate books like Cooper's are published and passed off as fact.

This book offers nothing new. The author seems to forget, in his discussion of Polish anti-Semitism, that there has hardly been any nation on Earth where Jews were particularly liked, and where peoples of different cultures lived amiably. The umistakeable extensive Jewish involvement in Communism is also a fact that is insufficiently developed in terms of the provocation of Polish anti-Semitism. As for contemporary anti-Jewish feelings in Poland, Cooper does not seem to understand how offensive many Poles find it to be told that the murder of 6 million Jews by the Germans be immortalized, while the murder of 3 million Polish gentiles by the Germans be marginalized. Despite past Polish-Jewish tensions, Jews had it better in Poland, over the long haul, than just about anywhere else. No wonder that 80% of the world's Jews had at one time lived in Poland. And, despite the frictions and mutual prejudices, Polish society allowed the Jews, at 10% of the population, to acquire over 40% of Poland's wealth. Cooper fails to appreciate the fact that charges about Poles not doing enough to assist the Jews during the German occupation and Holocaust fail to take into account the wartime conditions--which included not only the death penalty for any Pole who assisted the Jews, but also the destruction of entire villages by the Germans in reprisal for ANY single Pole who assisted the Jews. In spite of this, more Poles are honored at Yad Vashem for hiding Jews than members of any other nationality.

Dr Cooper has compiled an extraordinary case whereby he claims that Poland was and is one of the most (if not the most) anti-Semitic countries in the world. Dr Cooper begins with a section detailing anti-Semitism in Poland before, during and after World War II. He puts forward the thesis that most Poles did nothing to assist the Jews in WWII, and instead were actively involved in collaborating with the Nazis by locating Jews in hiding and blowing their cover. This is quite a serious charge, and Dr Cooper seems to do his homework quite well. In fact he refers to an enormous number of books, newspaper articles, documents and oral evidence. Which brings me to an important point. A substantial amount of evidence presented in his thesis is obtained from personal experience and interviews with holocaust survivors. He himself admits that oral accounts may easily be modified and distorted over time. Nonetheless he insists that his own recollections and those of other survivors are relevant to his case.

From the very beginning of his book, it seems that Cooper has a personal bone to pick with the Poles. He relates many stories of his encounters with anti-Semitic poles that are portrayed as being equivalent to the Nazis. In fact almost 90% of his book is dedicated to putting forward evidence that incriminates Poles, whereas bits and pieces throughout the text refer to the very infrequent cases of "good" Poles. To be fair to Dr Cooper, he does devote one chapter to Poles that were commended for bravery and for saving a countless number of Jews (Poles are commended for saving the 2nd highest number of Jews in Europe). BUT...and there is a BIG BUT, he STILL picks fault in those Poles that risked their lives to save Jews. He speculates that many Poles were "in it for the money". Personally I believe that a little bit of compensation for risking one's own life is a small price to pay for an act of heroism. It is evident that Cooper's personal experiences have soured him to the extent that he is unable to present an objective and unbiased look at the Polish-Jewish situation. Furthermore, for most Jews, this book will be a "confirmation" of all the things that they have heard about or speculated on with regards to Polish-Jewish relations. In fact, due to the negative nature of this book it seems Cooper has gone a step in the wrong direction with regards to Polish-Jewish reconciliation. Having said all this, I still believe that the atrocities he has mentioned, such as the horrendous Pogrom at Kielce, definitely prove that many uneducated Poles were anti-Semitic, however on the other hand there were many brave and righteous Poles that should be acknowledged with greater vigor. All in all, Cooper's book is very powerful and is excellent reading even if it is quite biased.

Roessler and Gomez have made a sincere effort I'm sure, but they are they make some assummptions and conclusions that are a bit off the mark. While both are civilian light aircraft pilots, their primary involvements appear to have been in aircraft maintenance. It is amazing to see the strong endorsements by well known aviation personalities, who exposed themselves as either not having read the book or not being familiar with the details of Earharts last two attempts at oceanic flying and some of the much better written and more accurate books published about the Earhart/Noonan disappearance. There are many mistakes in the book

There is this joke about the guy who is a speed-reader. He walks up to his friend and says "Hey, I've just read War and Peace in 90 minutes." "Wow," says his friend, "what is it about?" The speed-reader gives him a puzzled look. "Uh, Russia?"

In a way, this ebook reminded me of the joke.

I don't want to complain too much about a product that comes at such a low price. But some things have irritated me quite a bit.

First of all, this ebook was photocopied from a "real" book, and to my dismay the digitalization erased many of the dots on the letter "i" as well as a good deal of full stops. This slows down reading quite significantly if I don't magnify the text to a letter size that I hope to use only when I reach my 80s. In addition, the text comes in two columns, so when I reach the bottom of column one I have to scroll up all the way to the top of column two on the same page.

Secondly, there are a couple of embarrassing editorial lapses, the worst of which is to give Tolstoy's birthday as September 9, 1928. "War and Peace" was written in the late 1860s when Tolstoy was approaching 40. There are quite a few photos of Tolstoy in his late 30s available. I'm mystified why the editors chose a picture of Tolstoy in his late 60s. Some lapses are quite funny, though. My favorite was "the French Revolution swept through France" (wow, how astute!).

Thirdly, this guide must be somewhat dated. Under "Themes" the ebook chooses to discuss "Class Conflict" as the first theme. If I remember it correctly, this theme was all the rage in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but the excitement about it tapered off after that.

Fourthly, I have a soft spot for the Boris Drubetskoy character, a brown-noser who talks his way up in the military hierarchy by expertly changing his opinion at the appropriate times. He does not come from a wealthy background and personifies, for me, the successful Everyman in hierarchical organizations. Under the section "Characters" the e-book states tersely that "Drubetskoy's rise in the military is due to the social machinations of his mother, who is a wealthy society widow and not afraid to ask, or even peg [sic!], highly-placed officers to give her son a good position in the army." That is not only a half-truth, it also says nothing about Drubetskoy as a character. The section "Characters" is the worst of the book. Platon Karataev, the character who embodies the Good in the shape of a Russian peasant (in China he would have been a Daoist saint) is portrayed superficially with the sentence "Platon is a Russian soldier who gives spiritual comfort to Nicholas." Uh, spiritual comfort? Now, what is that supposed to mean? And again, this explains nothing about Platon as a character.

The redeeming part of this Study Guide is the helpful section "Criticism" and the suggestions for further reading, which list not only the obvious (like Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Turgenev's Fathers and Sons) but also the arcane: "Thomas Hardy was an English author who lived approximately the [sic!] same time as Tolstoy. One of the crowning achievements of his later life was a long poem, The Dynasts, written between 1903 and 1908. It is an epic drama with nineteen acts and 135 scenes that are impossible to produce for the stage. The work focuses on England's role in the Napoleonic Wars."

One star for this obscure reference and another for the "Criticism" section!

This book has superb photographs, yet there is no mention of who the photography editor was. The content is arranged in five chapters describing different geographical areas, but the 1st and 5th chapters are not very representative of their areas. The text and photos are not linked in any way: some of the lighthouses shown are not mentioned in the text and vice versa; some photos are from countries which are not otherwise mentioned at all. The text is very unsystematic, so that the writer's angle on lighthouses and navigational aids remains vague. Snippets on history, technical development, legendary rescues, etc., while interesting in themselves, are all mixed together. The book has no list of references, recommendations for further reading, or index. Most annoyingly, the text has not been properly copy-edited, so that names are misspelt, words missing, usage rules violated, and phrases poorly formulated.

If you want a better-written, more professional, yet easy-to-read book on lighthouses, I would suggest F. Ross Holland's Lighthouses (Magna Books 1995). In comparison, Marriott's book can only be recommended by the fact that all its photographs are different from Holland's.

You know, for someone who's written as many sports books as Eskenazi, you'd think he'd have done better.

For one thing, this sizable Durocher biography lacks depth. In many cases Leo's statements vary from those of others. The author definitely did some research into who was lying and who was not, but he doesn't take a stand very often. In a book about someone like Durocher, this is an unfortunate weakness.

For another, it doesn't reveal much that we didn't already know. Peter Golenbock, in _Bums_, was far more candid about Durocher. For another, it's not funny or even very entertaining. How one could make a subject like Leo Durocher dull is a difficult question to answer, but Eskenazi succeeded.

What's far worse, though, is the weighting of coverage. My copy is 315 pages. Eight years of Durocher's managerial career were spent managing the Cubs and Astros in the late sixties; dozens of players and executives from that era who worked with Leo are alive, well and probably willing to discuss it, but Eskenazi seemingly didn't think that was worth his time: the part about the Cubs begins on page 292. 292 pages for childhood, Yankees, Reds, Cards, Dodgers, Giants and Dodgers again; 23 for Cubs, Astros and Durocher's penile implant.

I recently ordered another baseball book by Eskenazi. I sure hope it's better than this.

This essay is a frontal assault on capitalism, socialism, industrialism, the division of labor, urban life, imperialism, law, government, social contract theory, and political economy, an outburst against just about every principle used to justify and uphold social life as we know it now or as other people knew it in any previous period of history. It is a strange and bizarre synthesis of agrarianism and utopian anarchism which blames every ill of society on the existence of an organization (the state) which employs violence - contrary to the Gospels, and thus in violation of God's will. The solution to the endless array of problems caused by the state (no distinction is of course to be made between autocratic tyrannies and the "nominally" free countries such as the United States, England, and France) is to avoid military conscription and government employment, evade taxation, and forego government protection of one's person and property. All this from one of the greatest novelist, a man with a towering intellect whose ability to analyze human nature was second to none. This is a strange and disquieting paradox, exemplifying the problem of an intellectual's mind run amok due to a peculiar infatuation with ideas detached from anything common people could identify as the real world.

I loved Leo's first book and it (along with many other reasons) helped draw me to Alaska. This second book seems to have all of the flaw and none of the passion of the first book.

The "Book" was a let-down. It failed to satisfy even my most basic expectations for this subject matter.

Unfortunately what seemed to be a promising resource in a highly dynamic and important field such as telecommunications turned out to be a huge disappointment. The authors present their subject in dense, hard to follow language that does little to make the field either accessible to novices or useful to practioners.

On the bright side, it makes for a nice door stop!

Considering that this textbook was intended primarily for law school students, it is equally applicable to telecommunications graduate programs. The material presented is both interesting and helpful in understanding the law and regulation of telecommunications carriers.