This book is an extremely superficial review of Barthes' theories. The illustrations are disgusting and totally not appropriate for this book. Roland Barthes was one of the greatest mid-20th century critics and philosophers and this is not the type of book he deserves. Whoever is interested in Roland Barthes is definitely not looking for this type of book. It is a total disgrace to his books and his persona.

I decided to pick this book up because I liked some other books of this serie. I have no prior knowledge of Barthes's theories, so I can't say whether the book itself is accurate. Overall the book is easy to follow, and the author seems very knowledgeable on the subject.
My biggest problems are the illustrations. I don't like the drawing style itself, but the content of the pictures perplex me. The drawings are somewhat crude to say the least, and I couldn't understand the relationship between the picture and the text. I can understand there being a little cartoon of people in an orgy when the text is talking about Barthes' perception of Sade's literary work.pictures. But a lot of the other illustration had sexual content where I couldn't see its relevance to the text. I expect to see that kind of art in Indy comics, not in a book that talks about semiotics and the like.

I have now read several of the books from this series and, I think it is safe to say that the usefulness and quality of the books varies greatly. I like the idea of using cartoons to assist the reader in understanding difficult ideas. Unfortunately, the illustrations in some of the books add nothing to them but confusion. In addition, the writing can be flat and thick, the writer having failed to take the playfulness of the series into account. Introducing Kant is a perfect example. That having been said, Introducing Barthes is without a doubt the best of the 10 or so books of the Introducing series I have read so far. The writer shows a deep sensitivity when discussing Barthes both as a thinker and as a person, and he illustates a great deal of personal reflection regarding Barthes' ideas--this is not stuff straight off the shelf. This book was written by someone who has a deep appreciation of Barthes, and it shows. This is what most impressed me. Clearly, this text reflects the intentions of the series in its attempt to bring a difficult subject down to earth. If you want to get a foothold into Barthes, this is an excellent place to begin.

This was a sad, dissappointing purchase. From the description, I expected that this would illustrate how to integrate Crystal into reporting applications. While a cursory attempt was made at showing you how the most very basic integration could be accomplished, this title sorely lacked detailed, useful information that could be applied to real-world applications. In addition, it rambled on about material not even related to report integration and was definitely NOT worth the money.

This book may be good for a addtional material for free in a training program of a Crystal Reports training in author's consulting company.... I do not know why they sell the manual without adding any useful material. They sell the bone without any meat. I rate the book 3 starts becaue I think it maybe a little bit useful for the person who attend the author's training program. I have not that money and time to go that kind of training....

This book could have had better examples and more screen shots but what I liked about it is that it gave alternative solutions to web enabling reports. Visual Basic and Active Server Page alternatives can save my company a lot of money over the Enterprise solution that Crystal presently offers. I do like the point and click options of Enterprise too. What I liked about this book is that it doesn't limit you to one option.

puh-leeeeeeeze! Academic career? Yeah, right. And by the way, don't go to grad school for a Ph.D. Don't even think about it. There are few academic jobs worthwhile these days (i.e, tenure-track). Take your smarts elsewhere and you'll be all the happier for it. Trust me, I know.

This is a book intended for early-career academics and advanced students who are thinking about taking up an academic career. Apart from the introductory chapter, the book deals with the nature and development of academic careers (3 chapters), and academic roles and tasks (5 chapters, on networking, teaching, research, writing and managing). The authors have drawn extensively from research into academic activities and careers, the 'advice' literature for neophyte academics, and their own experiences. The book therefore taps into a broad range of sources on most aspects of academic life and how to make and get the most out of it. A lot of the detailed material is contained in about 120 'boxes' distributed throughout the book. Each box contains a set of numbered or bulleted points or tips, or a collection of short quotes from academics, often from external sources. A typical strategy for dealing with a topic is to describe an issue (such as departmental politics), or to define some concept, in the body of the text and then refer the reader to boxed pointers or suggestions. In this way, the book presents a distillation of information from the wider literature. I found this quite an effective strategy. The coverage of the book is wide, and the style is mostly descriptive, friendly and informative. The flavour is decidedly from the UK perspective. Specific conditions and contact details of research grants bodies are of limited use outside the UK. The focus in Chapter 2 is on the UK higher education system (subsectors, enrolments, league tables and salary scales), again of more local value. Most of the issues and advice can, however, be readily translated into and interpreted within an Australasian context. Each chapter contains an annotated list of published resources, making it possible for the reader to go into depth on issues that are important to them. At the end of the book, the authors list about 30 (mostly British) organisations together with national and international journals that work towards the betterment of higher education generally. A comprehensive bibliography and a good index conclude the volume. Overall, the book makes an excellent contribution to helping budding academics develop a sensible perspective on the nature of academic work. It is a source of useful, practical ideas on becoming an academic and developing a sense of career. The tone is positive throughout, and the book is likely to be referred to repeatedly as various issues and phases arise during the course of academic life. Of course, in a book of this length (or any fixed length for that matter), choices have to be made as to what to include and what to exclude. My wish list would have included more specific advice on how to organise and manage time, on how to make decisions in favour of long term career advancement at critical choice points, and on how to balance competing claims on one's personal resources from both within and outside the institution. Blaxter, Hughes and Tight have put together a helpful, up-to-date handbook, which deserves to be available in every higher education institution. (Reproduced with permission from HERDSA News, Nov 1998, p.22.)

This book is alright I suppose as a work that tries to spread the positive aspects of the Black Muslim/Al-Islam message. I cannot really say whether this book is compelling as a pro-Muslim work. And I am not going to even mention the political controversies surrounding many of the events and people that El-Amin writes about. However, I can say that the book is rather flawed from more than one aspect.
First, the overall writing quality is poor, to say the least. It seems like the book is totally unedited. Now, I have nothing against a "basement production" kind of book, but El-Amin sinks to such a poor level of writing that his points become obscured.
Organization also appears to be nonexistant - or if it exists, it is in a way I do not really understand. The book basically goes through the topics of Islam that the author finds interesting on a point-by-point basis. It is hard to find any central ideas, other than the pro Al-Islam message. Often El-Amin states his opinion regarding something without providing the background information so that someone not intimately familiar with the Al-Islam movement would even know what the issue is. This really undermines the usefulness of the book.
Finally, the book has a rather ...-like tone. This shows when El-Amin presents information as if it is an undisputed factual event, and does not discuss or describe the event in any sort of meaningful detail. Ultimately, many of the events that he mentions - but NOT discusses - are not at all at the level of "accepted facts." An example of this would be El-Amin's breif treatment of what happened to the Nation of Islam after Elijah Mohammad's death in 1975. El-Amin is quick to say that basically all of the members of the Black Muslim movement consolidated under Wallace Deen, Elijah Mohammad's son. However this is far from fact - and it would have been much more interesting to hear a less simplistic account of the post-1975 Nation of Islam than El-Amin seemed ready to provide.
Overall, this book is not really useful as either a scholarly work or as a popular introduction to Al-Islam.

Afrocentricity: Malcolm X and Al-Islam by Mustafa Al-Amin, focus on Malcolm's journey to the Islamic tradition. Malcolm's journey to Al-Islam began when he was recruited into the Nation of Islam, under the leadership of Elijiah Muhammed. Malcolm was in prision when he learned about the religion of Islam. His brother lectured him about the religion, and Elijiah Muhammed.

It didnot take Malcolm long to gain the trust of his teacher. Mr Muhammed gave Malcolm the okay to open new Temples all over the country. Elijiah Muhammed promoted Malcolm to a Minister position in New York, in addition to be named the first National Represenative of Elijiah Muhammed and the NOI.

A scandle, a jealous intercircle and the insecurities of Mr. Muhammed forced Malcolm X out of the Nation. Although he (Mr. Muhammed) claimed that he was going to suspend Malcolm X because of what he said regarding the death of John F. Kennedy; it was just the thing he needed to rid himself of his greatest student. Elijiah Muhammed was told by his intercircle of advisiors that Malcolm was trying to takeover the Nation. When Malcolm interviewed some of the women whith whom had romances with is leader Malcolm discovered that Elijiah was jealous of him. "He loves you brother Malcolm" one of the women told him. Then sshe said that he (Elijiah Muhammed) thought that he would betray him. When Malcolm's suspention passed the ninety day period, it accurred to him that he was forced out.

When Malcolm X was dismissed from the NOI he launged his own organizations. The programs he designed were the Muslim Mosque INC. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Some of the members of the Nation of Islam parted with Malcolm, and left a bitter, angry, hostile, and deadly atmosphere that lead to Malcolm's death on Febuary 21, 1965.

Although his life was short lived Malcolm X did discover the real beauty of Al-Islam. Short after breaking from Mr. Muhammed Malcolm went to Mecca. Malcolm's was amazed by the spirt of universal Islamic brother that he felt in the holy city. In a letter to his wife and followers Malcolm said " I have eaten from the same plate, and dranked from the same cut from men who's eye's where blue as the sky, and we are all the same. He felt that Islamic teachings can destroy the cancer of White superiority, and Black inferiority from all people.

Malcolm was and still is a grat Afro-American Icon. His love for his Family, his faih, and Black people have lead us to insire to be just like him. Some said that he was a head of his time but perhaps we were the ones who were late.

Malcolm's committment to Al-Islam lead him to greater spirtual hights.

The precautionary principle (PP in short) has become a scientific and political instrument attracting a host of organisations and individuals giving their viewpoints adding to the international discussion. Indeed, how to deal with environmental and human health risks is not a simple matter. Science and technology carry both real benefits and real risks. And a 'better be safe than sorry' strategy -as a translation what precaution is- seems the wisest thing to do.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) adds to this discussion by looking into the past. Always a good thing to think historically about risks and technology. The presentation of those historical examples of technology gone wrong leaves one wondering, however, whether or not the scientific representation is up to par.

Clearly it is not. However, not to the layman. One needs to be aware of all the scientific ins and outs to spot the possible biases. One example I myself am quite familiar with is the antibiotic case discussed by the EEA (chapter 9 in the downlodable version). Blatant omissions from the scientific discussion (leaving out essential scientific literature) spurs the authors of this chapter to a banal and trivial conclusion (p. 98 of the downloadable version):

'As the risks involved are of uncertain magnitude, the decisions on risk management are particularly difficult. The risk can obviously not be excluded with certainty, nor can it be de-termined as acceptable. In a climate of uncertainty it is preferable to show caution. In this situation decision-making needs to involve precaution, particularly when it is unacceptable, inhuman and unethical to wait for ultimate proof, when human fatalities could be involved.'

Of course this conclusion can be drawn for any case, not just this one. Moreover no amount of scientific research will ever result in certainty. The conclusion presented here in the EEA report is not in need of any scientific deliberation. It could do well without ten pages of scientific reviewing, whether or not biased in nature. Furthermore, the authors revert to the fallacy of an appeal to motives in place of support. They regard not invoking the PP as unacceptable, inhuman and unethical. Of course this is beside the point as it has very little to do with the scientific discourse at hand.

This brings me to the philosophical side of the issue. Any type of human action or inaction is fraught with uncertainty and therefore prone to the PP. So how to chose? The problem is that risks of one kind or another are on all sides of regulatory choices, and it is therefore impossible to avoid running afoul of the principle. The PP promotes irrational behaviour by the assumption that regulating target risks (the historical examples presented in the EEA study) is overall beneficial ánd that the costs of risk avoidance with only the specific target risks in view can be met on any scale -which is clearly not the case. Moreover, this asymmetry is enhanced by the fact that those who invoke the PP -the policymakers- do not need to adhere to it themselves despite the fact that any human intervention holds uncertainties for the future.

The EEA treats the PP as though it were an exogenous panacea for environmental and social ills. In other words: market risks warrants governmental regulation. But government regulation is not an exogenous solution to environmental risks; it is itself an endogenous and fallible human activity, and as such it can create risks. Risks that are as real as the risks of market (economic) activities: care can cure but care can also cripple.

The odd thing is that no discussion what so ever is presented by the EEA on the problems of the PP. Not a single reference to the ever growing scientific literature highly critical of the PP. Whichever side one choses, within the scientific discourse one has to deal with scientific criticism from both sides.

My conclusion therefore must be that the EEA did not so much present a scientific piece of work on this issue but made a political statement on how to deal with risk. It is part of the 'ecological critique' of the Western World which Anna Bramwell described so well in her 'Ecology in the twentieth century'. The PP fits well with a misanthropic view of progress combined with a relativistic perspective on science. Therefore the PP empowers bureaucracy as the scientific check and balances are side-tracked in its implementation. Indeed a recipe for increasing social and political struggles and stagnating economies.

The book takes a matter-of-fact approach to the subject, getting contributors to give detailed answers to four key questions on specific hazards that were subsequently addressed, starting with when was the first credible scientific warning of potential harm. It's not a light read, and an understanding of the scientific method, chemistry, and statistics will prove invaluable.

The book received a warm welcome in the scientific press, and the quality of the writing shows why. Where there is doubt in research, the book discusses it honestly. It also shows why problems frequently aren't addressed until after financial or health damage has been done, for example the compound (government) system failures that caused the BSE crisis in the UK. Of note is what has been omitted: the low-hanging fruit of (say) second-hand smoking, thalidomide, DDT, and lead in petrol would have made a separate book.

Another of the questions asked of the contributors concerns costs versus benefits -- for example, there is a discussion of whether the health (and, ultimately, financial) problems of asbestos were offset by the safety benefits, employment opportunities and so on. Combined with an unbiased and non-accusatory tone throughout the book, it makes an invaluable contribution to a field overrepresented by polemics.

This book just moves slowly from one topic to another with no clear reason of where its going. I found it shallow on facts for the length of the book. Its like a magazine article was teased and pulled into a book.

The Secret History of the South Seas Bubble, written by Malcolm Balen, a television journalist who has worked for the BBC and ITV, recounts the first great stock market scandal involving a purely financial company known as the South Seas Company which occurred around the year 1720 along with the Mississippi Bubble that occurred in France at about the same time.

Though a number of books have been written about the Bubble, this one is written as a narrative which revolves around three different personalities: John Law, John Blunt, and Robert Walpole. Balen uses these three and other people who lived through the time of the Bubble to give the reader an idea of what the atmosphere of those heady times were like. One quickly sees many parallels to the tech bubbles of out own time, with its grand promises of easy wealth before reality rudely crashes the party.

The Secret History is an excellent primer for those readers that have never read about the South Seas Bubble before and is very enjoyable reading even for those who are well acquainted with the facts. After reading this book, you may never see scandals like Enron, Worldcom, and others in quite the same light again.

A very thin storyline, stretched out over 400 pages. Most of the first half of the book is taken up with the hero's (James Walker's) journey to the USA by rail and ship and his experiences in New York. The author introduces characters who pop up later in the book, and revisits the well-worn theme of the innocent Englishman in America (compare Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit"). Even when you remember that this book was written in the mid-1960s, it still feels a very tired subject.

The second half of the novel is a satire on American academia (with more culture-clash stuff thrown in).

There are amusing moments, but the story is stretched beyond its proper length and becomes less and less interesting as a result. The only saving grace is the style of writing - very easy to read.

If I could give this 3.5 stars, I would. Bradbury's "Stepping Westward" strings together many comic scenes--some of them cheesy, but some downright hilarious--and takes a satirical westward stab at American campus politics at the outset of the sexual revolution; however, there never seems to be enough tension scraped together to congeal into a viable, inviting plot.

Englishman James Walker, a struggling writer, is invited to Benedict Arnold University, in the American town of Party (oh, the hilarity of invented names), to be writer-in-residence for the year. He accepts the offer and moves to the States, where the English department is peopled with all brands of stereotypical American academics, from tight-collared traditionalists to spouse-swapping wannabe radicals. Comedy ensues.

There is a great deal of situational humor in this book, largely of the fish-out-of-water, culture-shock variety, with America representing the free-wheeling bedlam and Walker the congenitally repressed Brit, but it's simply not enough to drive the novel to its end, and the later chapters drag. When, at the story's close, Walker boards his England-bound ship, it is quite unclear whether the book's events will leave any lasting impression on him, or on the novel's reader.

As an American academic, I appreciated much of the humor in "Stepping Westward," and found myself nodding my head in agreement, even at some of the sillier moments. If you have an interest in these sorts of academic gags (like the novels of David Lodge, for example), then I'm guessing you'll enjoy this book (if and when it comes back into print). If not, I really wouldn't recommend it too strongly.

Warning...this book is very very very pro-DLR. Very. It is so slanted towards that viewpoint, it's almost unreadable to a really big-time VH fan. The only good part is the pictures.

An excellent book if you feel the lead singer is the only band member that matters. As a picture source the book scores big. However, if you are a fan you will love it in spite of its shortcomings.

I'm not sure why there was a need for this book?! The ground it covers is not new, and has been done as well--- or better by others! The many b/w photos are faded looking, and the very few color pictures are of often seen brochures...or rather uninteresting VWs. This soft-bound book is printed on good heavy glossy stock, and the content is fairly factual. My advice is to take your $$ and buy the superb VW bus book by Seume/Steinke, or the also fairly good VW bus books by Schiffer/Zeichner or Meredith.

My name is Yvon (18 years) from the Netherlands, and since I was 15 I dreamed of having a Volkswagen Bus. I think it'll be great to go on vacation with friens and drive for many hours. When you see a very happy girl, driving a car like that...then you know...it's me. I hope i'll get a car like that.

Why do I like those cars? I set in the back of a bay window devon once, and it maked me feel like I was in 'the old times'. People smile at you, say that you have a nice car. And you don't see them much. Enough reasons? I think so. Bye to all you lucky people with a VW Bus!!!

I bought this book to learn how NHL hockey is played. I read the Complete Idiot's Guide Football and found it to be a very well organized, comprehensive description of the game. This book about hockey is nothing at all like that. If you don't know how hockey is played, you won't be any smarter after reading this. There are 298 pages of history and only 18 or 19 pages on the rules. You will learn what icing and offside penalties are and which way players are not allowed to hit each other with the stick and that's about it. Nothing at all about strategy and tactics and no glossary of terms. I was disappointed. If you want to learn the basics of hockey, look elsewhere.