Zolo writes a fairly devistating critique of current democratic practices and thought. The book is written fairly compactly. Zolo does not bandy words. This is one of the few books on political theory I find myself rereading repeatedly. While Zolo's analysis leaves one a bit somber about the future of democracy, his analysis at least brings light to the fundemental problem facing governance today, namely social complexity. This understanding gives a foundation from which to explore how democratic institutions need to be organized in the future.

A terribly interesting book for anyone interested in well-written and throroughly researched biographies written on four people-Louise Weiss, Leo Szilard, E.P. Thompson and Danilo Dolci-whose ideas for peace in the post World War II world have altered the way we think about today.

"Recurrent Neural Networks for Prediction: Learning Algorithms,
Architectures and Stability," approaches the field of recurrent neural networks from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. Starting from the fundamentals, where unexpected insights are offered even at the level of the dynamical richness of simple neurons, the authors describe many existing algorithms and gradually introduce novel ones. The latter are convicingly shown to yield better prediction performances than traditional approaches, when applied to real-world data. They also dedicate a considerable amount of time on the (practical) issue of nonlinearity analysis of time series, which is or should be, indeed, the cradle of all proper modelling and/or filtering solutions: nonlinearity should be assessed prior to choosing the appropriate model and/or filters, since linear ones are to be preferred if sufficient for the problem. I would recommend this book to any researcher who is active in the field of recurrent neural networks and time series analysis, but also to researchers who are new in the field, since the book offers an extensive overview of the current state-of-the-art approaches.

Sean Scully is of the finest painters in art history. Written, this book is half in Italian and half in English. All the writing within is wonderfull. A good portion is Hans-Michael Herzog interviewing Sean Scully, so you hear from Scully personally in regards to his work. This isn't the kind of book you borrow, this is the kind of book you own and keep for all time.

This is an interesting collection of essays, interviews, and commentaries, which has been well put together by Susan Sontag. The advice to young writers section is particularly amusing as are Kis's thoughts on his self-chosen exile. I recommend reading the Tomb of Boris Davidovitch before hand because much of the book deals with the controversy Kis faced over that novel, as well as his break from the Belgrade literati.

Kis was a brilliant writer, but as these essays show, completely apolitical. He did not have time for nationalists, internationalists, communists, capitalists any of it, which is why perhaps he went to France to live the quiet life of a University Professor.

Considering that she claims to be a friend of Kis and actually put this work together, it is shameful that Sontag insists on putting a political spin on this collection. She actually claims that the 'gingerbread heart of nationalism' section ranks along with, she claims, Andric's Letter from 1920 as early warnings against Serbian Nationalism. As someone who has translated Andric's story, I can tell you that Ms. Sontag should consider re-reading. The Andric story makes the case that Bosnia is a land of ethnic hatred, ready to explode at anytime, which it obviously did. There is no mention of Serbian aggression or nationalism. Nor does Kis ever pay tribute to any idealized multi-cultural Bosnia, Sontag's cause celebre throughtout the early 90's and repeated in the introduction. Enough politics, however.

Read this work because it tells us a great deal about a wonderful literary stylist, who knew and loved literature. The fact that others would try to co-opt Kis to champion their political philosophies is embarrassing. The book speaks for itself.

Kis is a giant of world literature. This book of biographical pieces, interviews, and essays by Kis allow the reader to see some of the inner workings of that fine mind. His early death was a great loss to literature. What he has achieved, however, will live on forever. I've read A TOMB FOR BORIS DAVIDOVICH perhaps five times, and I'm looking forward to reading it again, and again.

I read Danilo Kis' books " Tomb for Boris Davidovich", "Hourglass" and "Encyclopedia of the Dead". The glory and greatness of this eastern European writer can be comprehended fully only after understanding Kis on the personal level. ""Homo Poeticus" does just that: writer pours his soul to the world by revealing his influences (literary and personal), - and brings reader closer to the great writers of this century such as: Nabokov, Flaubert, Borges, Marquis de Sade...Kis even wrote an essay on the Serbian painter Velickovic. I always respected Danilo Kis' fictional works. Collection of Danilo Kis' essays and interviews made me even more fond of him as a person - and his work. Book's editor, Ms. Susan Sontag, wrote emotionally powerful introduction. Her selection of the work published on this non-fiction masterpiece is absolutely wonderful.

I saw his exhibit in Paris a few years ago and I was intrigued about this artist.This book will give more explanation on his work and why he does it. Some of the writing can be too academic and hard to understand. There's an interview with Boltanski which I loved. He's very opinionated and an interesting artist. There's not much info on him on the internet so I'm really glad that was made.

A good book on an excellent artist. Why, then, only 8 / 10 ? Because the authors/contributors do not deal in-deep with certain AMBIGUITIES in Boltanski's life and art. Everybody always focusses on the quote >official< unquote biography and bibliography of Boltanski (e.g. in Lessons of Darkness). But CB himself is constantly re-arranging and reconstituting these 'facts'. Critics and curators, though, always seem to take the information for granted.

I think that CB plays a game with us, and that (t)his game is a very important part of his oeuvre. As such it should be properly documented and studied.

Han Geers

I have extensively researched Christian Boltanski and would highly recommend this wonderful book. It reads like an exhibition. Five stars *****

The concept of the generational personality holds that each age cohort has certain characteristics separating it from other people born before or after and that these distinctions persist throughout life. The last seven words in the preceeding sentence are usually overlooked. It is one thing to identify differences between younger and older workers. It is quite another to view those differences as markers that will define and separate people born between certain years for their whole life span.

The characteristics of a generation are said to be influenced by the major societal events occurring during the time that a generation came of age. The generation coming of age in the 1980's, for example, has been labeled by some as "skeptical" due to witnessing such events at the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger; the theorists of the generational personality hold that this generation will always be skeptical until they pass from life sometime about mid-century.

The theory of the generational personality was famously described by William Strauss and Neil Howe in 1991, in their book, "Generations." At the time, Al Gore called it "the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read." The major proponent of the generational personality in the workplace is the author, Ron Zemke. He is joined by lesser-known writers such as Claire Raines, Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman.

In reading Zemke, you can learn such "facts" as that the American population actually shrunk during the 1800's; that the Americans born between 1922 and 1945 won the second World War; and, that Americans born between 1960 and 1980 grew up amidst mega-corporations routinely announcing lay-offs of 40,000 people. He refers to workers born before 1943 as "old farts." In addition to all this type of error, hyperbole and disrespecful language, Zemke appears to me to lack a firm, verifiable, data-based foundation for his work as do the others.

The notion of the generational personality gets a more thoughtful airing in a recent book by Hank Karp, Connie Fuller and Danilo Sirias, "Bridging the Boomer Xer Gap: Creating Authentic Teams for High Performance At Work." Please note the subtitle, it is crucial to understanding this book.

This book is based on two studies conducted by the authors who note that "much of what has been written and discussed to date about generation differences has been more anecdotal than scientific in nature." The authors also concentrate on two generations, rather than the four identified by most authors. It takes only a moment of reflection to realize that this is commonsense and that most people don't come to work with their grandparents and great-grandparents.

The conclusion of their studies is straightforward: "Generation X is significantly more individualistic AND significantly more team-oriented than the Baby Boomer Generation." From this thesis, the authors proceed to build a book around creating high performance teams.

I believe a professional researcher would be more qualified to assess the validity of these surveys. As a nonspecialist I am troubled by certain aspects:

1. The two studies might be seen by some to contradict each other. The first claims that Gen Xers are more individualistic than Baby Boomers ; the second that they are more team oriented. Rather than resolve this contradiction, the authors essentially link them into one compound thesis.

2. The second study may be skewed by mixing college students into the study. Up to 25% of the participants were from classes taught by the authors. It would appear, then, that college students may have been up to fifty percent of the Gen Xers and therefore significantly influenced the results. Moreover, the students may have been from the younger sub-group among the Gen Xers influencing the results further. Again, this is more a matter for a specialist to assess.

Much of what they have to write about teams seems practical. However, one is still left with some of the same complaints that stand against any of the generational personality theorists:

1. There is too much stereotyping.

2. There is not sufficient indication of how strong the personality differences between Xers and Baby Boomers may be.

3. There is no consideration that these differences between Gen Xers and Boomers may just reflect differences on where they currently are in the life cycle. One fact elicited to support the differences between generations is that the median tenure for workers between age 45 and 54 was, in 1998, more than twice the tenure of workers between age 25 and 34. I am not sure that this reflects different immutable values or just the greater tendency of younger people to be at organizations less time than older people. As to Karp et al's conclusions that Gen Xers are more individualistic than Baby Boomers, I know that a generation ago, the Baby Boomers were considered more individualistic than the older generation. Is that just because they were young?

My own view is that this book does not make a convincing case that generational personalities are a significant factor to be recognized. However, by using the usual tools of social science and avoiding the hyperventilating writing style of previous books on the topic, Karp et al move the subject ahead. The major value of this book is that it makes some very interesting points about work teams no matter what age groups are included. I think the writer of the Foreword section acknowledged this when he wrote that the book "will provide you with a framework you can use in achieving a sharper focus for dealing with both Gen Xers and Baby Boomers - INDEED FOR DEALING WITH ALL PEOPLE....." (Capitalization added by reviewer for emphasis)

Here is how I would say it: in Human Resources, people, not age cohorts, are our concern.

Bridging The Boomer-Xer Gap, the collaborative effort by Connie Fuller (Organization Development Specialist, AG Communication System, Lucent Technologies) and Danilo Sirias (Assistant Professor of Management, Saginaw State University) is a dynamic and informative work, enhanced with research from nearly 400 surveys, and specifically written to aid business leaders in uniting supervisors and workers from both the Boomer and the Generation X generations. Stereotypes about Boomers and Xers are justifiably dismissed and replaced with solid strategies for promoting teamwork expressly created to bring the generations closer together for a more productive corporate future.

APPEARANCE is essentially a catalogue of an exhibition in Bologna in 2000, an indepth survey of the works of the "bizarrists" Mariko Mori, Yasumasa Morimura, Luigi Ontani, Andres Serrano, Tony Oursler, and Pierre & Giles. Each of these interesting artists begin with photography and transform their worlds via costume, settings, art history, and a heavy dollup of kitsch. The results are variably gratifying and self serving. But at least they are always interesting! The text is in both Italian and English and is informative while not probative. A good selection to add to your fine art photography library, but chances are it will decorate your coffee table more than your reading desk...........

Hundreds of color photographs enhance this reasonably priced, large-format book on Venetian history, neighborhoods, festivals, and neighboring islands. The aerial views are some of the best I've seen in any Venice book, at any price. - Durant Imboden, Venice for Visitors, http://govenice.miningco.co