This is a superb book for anyone interested in alchemy. For those interested in alchemy and its connections to literature-- it's even better. The articles are bursting with relevant information and insight into this often perplexing subject matter in an accessible, readable style. A "must have" for anyone interested in alchemy. The only thing I don't like is the price, which may prove prohibitive for some.

An awesome book on Discrete Math. A must read for an undergrad CS student.

This series of legal documents, decrees, orders, instructions or live accounts describes better than any litterary form the progression in horror which our Jewish parents, brothers, sisters, nieces, and nevews had to suffer from April fools' day of 1933 when waring the David star was enforced to this community until the end of the second world war in mid 1945.

As a Christian I was surprised to discover that the trauma resulting from the horrifying murders is so deep in the Jewish community that, for most, its members if they do know about the holocaust, actually don't have a real view of it. Naturally the massive and sadistic aggresion against the Jewish people screens, in this book, the fate of the ones who shared their fate for having protected them or for having fought the Nazis.
After all Jewish people suffered between two third and three quarter of the enormous human non-military losses under surrealistically inhuman conditions.

This book should be handled with the respect normally due to religious books: it represents the steps of the martyrdom of the Jewish families under Nazi madness.

The content of the book should be remembered in details by every western culture including Israel's right wing (after all "Nazi" represents the danger of mixing nationalism and socialism...) Americans should learn from this book that being more powerful doesn't mean being better. Europeans could find in it how non elected "public servants" laugh at democratically elected representatives (elected ones disappear over the time, bureaucrats remain and never have to respond for diffused results).

For the content of this book to be fully meaningful, it should be enlightened by Milgram's explanation of how "Obedience to authority" made it possible for these horror to happen.

A major book which supplies everything Jewish and non Jewish need to know. A reedition with a lot of proper photographs of the murders by the Einsatzgruppen, of the Gettos and of the concentration camps conditions would be welcome.

The graphics in this remarkable little book are cleverly designed to awaken imagination to the psychic and physical kinematics behind resultant images. Thus the authors are able to hide their calculus on a single page in the Appendix and concentrate on the visual calisthenics involved in translating quantitative data into meaning. Seating themselves comfortably in Chaos, they succeed in making conventional order appear strange and wonderful "accidents," and thus enable us to think about it without conventional straight-jackets. I can't imagine an academic study which these ideas would not enrich. A valuable introduction to the new millennium, and an indispensable "traveling companion." (Ernest McClain, author of The Myth of Invariance and The Pythagorean Plato).

As it is known, Albert Einstein is the leading creator of the relativity theory, that's right? It's right, but this is not only a stereotyped image, it's also a very simplified image of the geniality and the psychological complexity of one of the major savant among all the savants. An excellent overview of the Einstein scientific work is presented in that many people consider the best biography of this genial scientist. I'm referring to the Abraham Pais book "Subtle is the Lord", published in 1982. Although an incontestable bibliographical source, "Subtle is the Lord" is not at all accessible to the layman. With the present book, "Einstein Lived Here", Pais help the general public, from the relativity theorist to the absolutely layman. While not discarding a rigorous historical approach, Pais priority is on Einstein human dimension, and gives us a fluent and very agreeable text in which he deals with polemic questions, as the supposed involvement of Einstein in the American atomic bomb fabrication. Among all those that have written about Einstein, Abraham Pais seems to be the most qualified. Theoretical physicist of recognized competence, emeritus professor at the Rockefeller University, New York, Pais have been acquainted with Einstein from 1946 to December 1954, when he visited him for the last time; at the Einstein death, in April 18, 1955, Pais was not in the USA.

Even for the reader reasonably up to date with the pertinent literature, Pais discloses interesting facts. For example, in the first chapter there is an admirable description of the dramatic marital life of Albert and Mileva Maric, his first wife. Pais discusses the very controversial participation of Mileva on the Einstein's scientific work, particularly on the relativity theory. For the author, the only evidence for a possible role of Mileva in the creation of relativity is Einstein's remark in a letter of March 1901: "Together we shall conclude victoriously our work on relative motion". The followed discussion arrived at the author's suggestion that the remark was no more than a love declaration.

These letters, published in "Albert Einstein-Mileva Maric, the love letters", by J. Renn and R. Schulmann, Princeton University Press, 1992, revealed an absolutely unknown fact until 1986: In April 1901, before the Einstein's marriage, Mileva was pregnant. The child, born in January 1902, was a girl, named Lieserl. But, what became of Lieserl? Nobody knows! Apparently Einstein ever even saw her. In the summer of 1903 Mileva went to visit her family. From Berna Einstein wrote to her expressing concern about Lierserl's attack of scarlet fever. This is the last known communication between the parents about their daughter.

The Einstein's life was a great target of the public curiosity. As such he had to pay the price of receiving numerous messages from strangers. It is a safe bet that among scientists no one received more such letters than him. The true amount it is not known, but over 600 is now in the Einstein Archive at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Einstein referred to this collection as "die komische Mappe". In chapter 8, Pais presents a lot of strange, funny, sometimes pathetic envelopes and letters.

Chapter 11, almost a half of the whole book's content, is concerned with the press interest on Einstein's work and life. This kind of approach is the first in the vast Einstein bibliography. For Pais, "Einstein, creator of some of the best science of all time, is himself a creation of the media in so far as he is and remains a public figure". The beginning of Einstein's mythical role dates from November 1919, after a joint session of the Royal and Astronomical Societies, in London, in which the results obtained by British observers of the total solar eclipse of May 29 were discussed. The observations were decisive in the verifying of the prediction of Einstein on the bending of light when it approaches a large body, like the sun. By the way, the Einstein's work was so ample and full in geniality that its perception depends strongly on the observer cultural profile. For the layman the Einstein's Nobel Prize is associated to the relativity theory, but in Chapter 6, Pais discusses how the photoelectric effect, and not the relativity theory, enables Einstein to get the Nobel Prize. Pais explains why Einstein did not win the Nobel Prize because of the relativity theory. Besides these fabulous works, Einstein published in the same annus mirabilis of 1905 three other marvelous works. For Pais, any single one of "these theoretical discoveries would have sufficed to guarantee Einstein a prominent and lasting position in the history of science". However, none of these contributions caused even modest mention in the press before 1919.

In conclusion, "Einstein lived here" is a highly recommendable book for any educated layman and indispensable for any scientist, by the complex personality of this renowned savant and by his splendid scientific contribution.

Perhaps one of the broadest accounts of the violin ever written, An Encyclopedia of the Violin is a well-written, fascinating, and at times nostalgic account of violinmakers, performers, violin literature, and more. This is truly an epic and groundbreaking book that covers more information than one would expect from a volume several times larger. Published in 1925, it contains rare photographs of distinguished violins and bows, as well as well as vivid descriptions of intricate details of these instruments, as well as a guide on how make them! Another section is devoted to violin technique, including advice on how to play difficult passages from the violin literature. In addition, there is also a massive dictionary of violinists, containing the author's often insightful analysis into the style of the performers, and also includes their biographical information. An Encyclopedia of the Violin is so all encompassing that it could easily be split up into several fine books-Great European Violins and Their Makers, Guide to Violin and Bow Making, The Art of Violin Playing and Teaching, and Violin Performance from 1800-1925 are just a few of the hypothetical titles that the reader can create exclusively using the material in this unique and monumental book. To top it off, the introduction was written by the famous Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye, one of the greatest players of all time, and the author's idol as a performer. While some of the material and ideas in An Encyclopedia of the Violin may seem dated to the modern reader, there is much that is timeless and invaluable and will appeal to professional violinists or anybody else that appreciates the sound and beauty of the violin.

This book (recently re-printed and updated in 1992) is an excellent supplement for both the world history student and teacher. Written by former high school histroy teachers, it contains nover one hundred stories that are fictional but based on accurate historical truth. Each story teaches a specific lesson in world history and contains introductory and postscript material to the stories as well. Perhaps its greatest strength is that the book contains stories that span from prehistoric man through today and covers many different cultures as well (not just western civilization cultures). The stories contain a remarkble and expansive range, such as: a debate between the benefits/drawbacks of hunting vs. farming between two ancient people in 8000 BC; an Indian mother arguing with her daughter about why she (a Brahman) cannot associate with children of the lower castes; a French husband and wife watching the fall of the Bastille in 1789. This reviewer has personally typed the stories fromt he book onto sheets and wrote questions on the back for my students to answer once they've read the stories. The lengths of the stories typically range from one-two pages in length. I heartily recommend this book for the history teacher who wishes to enhance and enrich their curriculum. Check out their second book for US history teachers called Enjoying American History.

This book challenges much of the poly-genesis consensus regarding the origins of the Anabaptist or Wiedertaufer movement. It focuses primarily on the intellectual origins of the movement and points to Erasmus as the progenitor of the Anabaptists' teaching on baptism. Friesen makes the fascinating claim that Erasmus' argument, which proposed using the Great Commission as the paradigm for understanding all other baptismal passages, did not occur before Erasmsus and is utilized by all would be Anabaptists. He also uses this argument to separate Anabaptists proper from their more controversial contempories like the Zwickau prophets whom he says were influenced by Luther and not Erasmus. I think that Friesen offers a convincing argument and helps counteract Harold Bender's view that Erasmus had little to do with the Anabaptist movement. Without a doubt, Friesen has discovered a cave of inquiry which needs to be explored thoroughly for a better understanding of why there was ever a group called Anabaptists.

"The Evolutionary Mind" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy

As stated by series editor Manuel London, "the current volume, edited by Allen I. Kraut and Abraham K. Korman, explores how changes in the work world during the last two decades have altered the nature of human resource management (HRM). Economic, global, and marketplace changes have led to flatter organizational structures, reengineered jobs, team processes, and methods for continuous, customer-driven quality improvement. The chapters in this volume show how the practice of HRM and I/O psychology has adapted to these challenges and contributed to organization development...The chapters -all written by expert practitioners who value research- describe success stories and emerging strategies in key areas of HRM such as career development, recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, teamwork, leadership development, and organizational surveys."

In this context, as a sample, in third chapter of this book, "Is Job Analysis Dead, Misunderstood, or Both? : New Forms of Work Analysis and Design", Juan I. Sanches and Edward L. Levine argue that the obsolescence of job analysis is really the obsolescence of some of the traditional forms and applications of job analysis. Thus, they :

(1). discuss the basis of traditional job analysis,

(2). outline the business trends that have called that basis into question,

(3). propose revisions in traditional job analysis practices in line with emerging trends.

They begin by comparing and contrasting 'the factors' that shaped the job analysis methodology that has been used successfully in the past with their emerging counterparts, which make some traditional forms of job analysis obselete.

I. Traditional Factors :

* Division of labor and clear-cut labor-management distinction.

* Static job.

* Minimal interaction with coworkers.

* Accountability to superiors.

* One-way relation to technology.

* Long-term employement.

* Cultural homogeneity.

* Tolerance for budgetary slack.

II. Emerging Factors :

* Cross-functional responsibilities and blurring of labor-management distinction.

* Dynamic work assignments.

* Maximal interaction with coworkers.

* Accountability to internal and external customers.

* Two-way relation to technology.

* Short-term employement.

* Cultural diversity.

* Cost containment.

After describing these factors, and changes in work analysis and its building blocks : sources of data, methods of data collection, types of data, and level of analysis; finally, they suggest that unlike traditional job analysis, instead of being overconcerned with documenting molecular tasks and job boundaries new forms of work analysis should focus on contributing useful inputs to the process of continuous organizational innovation.

Not only this chapter, but this book as a whole is higly recommended for HR practitioners.