I don't think this book was very good at explaining various concepts. I prefer the A&P books by Elaine Marieb. I've taken an A&P course years ago & I belive that if I had not had a background in anatomy and physiology I would have been lost trying to understand some of the subjects covered in this book.

This Anathomy book is a good resource of information, but is not the best one. It helps a little bit when studying anatomy.

Martini et.al gives excellent breakdowns on anatomy/phys. issues in this text. There are plenty of full color diagrams andthe lab accompany book is excellent to visualize anatomical elements: there are actually photos of a real human dissection. This text is essential for anyone going into a health care/human science related field.

He makes the process even scarier than it already needs to be. He exagerates. For instance, he describes the pain of the biopsy as horrible. Having just had one, I can say the pain was not noteworthy.

He goes to a hundred doctors to determine his course of action. Doesn't that, by itself, show he's at least a little bit crazy?

I read this book because of the quotes I'd read in a nutrition newsletter that seemed to capture the mind-set that was essental if one is to deal with prostate cancer successfully. I'm a pediatrcian, like the author, who was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and had a radical prostatectomy with good results. I was hoping for more wisdom from reading the book, but found most of it only in the introduction. The author's obsessive pursuit of knowledge in order to make his decision fit his personality, but perhaps not many others. His anecdotal comments about the surgical option are just that, and far from what I experienced. I'm afraid that many of his own fears will only serve to cause more anxiety to readers than is necessary and prevent them from "coming to peace" with prostate cancer and the decision they make. For those men who have decided on radiation and seeds this book might be helpful. But, for those seeking a balanced view of the treatment options this book will not be useful.

Because the author is a doctor, because of the treatment option he selected, and most of all, because of his direct and engaging writing style, Berberich's book is well worth reading.

No depth to this. Covers several areas such as flowcharts, calendars, office layout, etc. But none to any level of detail that you could be proficient at it. It doesn't even cover some of the pretty basic functions like using styles, or align/distribute shapes--things I think any beginner should learn about. I'd say you're better muddling through Visio's questionable help text than spending money on this.

This book provides a series of step-by-step lessons on how to use Visio 2000. It's not intended to be a technical manual, but rather a hands-on guide to the program. I wish it had a little more meat to it (perhaps two examples instead of the one), but it's an OK buy.

A wonderful introduction on using Visio 2000. It is very broad and covers the essentials needed to begin. I started creating my own electrical wiring diagrams within three or four hours of study. I of course wanted "Harland's Guide to Creating WDG's with Visio," and this wasn't it, but I am pleased.

I took a course taught by the 3rd author (Tudor Ratiu) at UCSC using this book; I found both good and bad in it. Much of the bad for me was overcome by the inspiring and energetic presentation by one of the authors. One may view this book as basically a detailed elaboration of the "preliminary" chapters of the book "Foundations of Mechanics" by the 1st 2 authors. The strengths of this book are (a) the treatment which is general enough to include infinite-dimensional manifolds and not just the finite-dimensional case (most books just talk about the finite-dim'l case) and (b) the attempt to cover all theorems "full strength" (in the greatest generality obtaining the strongest conclusions from the weakest hypotheses). Neither of these (not counting the many typos) recommends this as a first or even second text for students, but it's hard to find any other books that treat the material at the same level of generality and precision, which is a must if attempting "hard" global analysis in areas such as fluid mechanics (from a geometric point of view). Correction of the many typos could make this an indispensable reference book for those requiring the techniques discussed. More discussion of finite-dimensional examples before jumping to infinite-dimensional ones (e.g. discussing finite-dimensional Grassmannians before jumping to the infinite-dimensional Banach manifold version) could make this into a tolerable text.

As it is, it's problematic, aggravating, and not for the faint of heart, but not without its virtues.

Possible alternatives for the infinite-dimensional point of view are Lang's manifolds book or some volume of the expensive multi-volume treatise on analysis by Dieudonne.

I actually read this entire book--it is quite long and dense. Actually I took the course from the author Jerry Marsden at Caltech and Tutor (Jerry's friend and co-author) gave a guest lecture while visiting. We flew through the entire thing and ch 9 on lie groups of his mechanics and symmetry text in a short 10 weeks! My background in math was relatively weak when taking the course so it was a little hard to keep up; i.e. I came from an engineering background. Anyway, it is probably the most complete/diverse text I've come across on the subject. Of course, it's actually more of a monograph than a text. Since I've read the whole thing, I have to admit there are "several" typos. But as it is that most people can't even write a damn email without a typo or two, the book really does a good job considering it is 800 pages of mostly dense mathematical rigor. I imagine that if I wrote 800 pages of mathematical symbols in latex, that I might forget a tilde or put something as subscript that should have been superscript here or there! None of these errors really matter too much-they should not hinder one's understanding. All and all I think that this book is a great ref, although I've never seen the index, if one exists. For the beginner, also check out Boothby's book, which covers a lot of the same material but tones it down a bit.

Students of mathematical physics in general, and general relativity in particular, face a formidable challenge in attempting to find coherent, readable references on manifold theory and tensor analysis. I think it fair to say that for every well-written work on the subject, there are ten that do more damage than good. Very few texts can claim to (1) be clear enough to assist the person who is studying alone, (2) offer valuable PHYSICAL insight into the subject, and (3) pass the standards of rigor that mathematicians would impose. Abraham, Marsden, and Ratiu manage to accomplish all three of these goals in this profoundly useful text. I studied from the first edition and I have taught from the second. The two chapters on differential forms, Hodge star duality, integration on manifolds, and the generalized Stokes' Theorem alone are worth the price of the entire book. I am unaware of any other reference which which treats differential forms with the same combination of clarity, physical motivation, and mathematical rigor. The concluding chapter on applications offers one of the clearest introductions to the relativistic form of Maxwell's equations to be found in any text. For students of physics who want to see the mathematics "done right," one would be hard pressed to do better than Abraham, Marsden, and Ratiu.

While the content should have some value, the cost to the reader to extract the information is so high that the author should pay the reader to read his book. In the first 25 pages of "At Home in the Universe", Stuart Kauffman sucessfully introduces more than Stacey stumbled over in 282 pages. If it's an organizational perspective you want, buy Margaret Wheatley's stuff.

Stacey did a good job applying chaos theory to business in this book. He develops a very convincing and interesting conceptual framework for organizations in the future. Although the book mainly focuses on theory, he does provide some practical guidelines and case studies. He repeats the theories quite often and thus, the book is especially appropriate for students who really want to get the jist of the theory. If you read it for fun, all these repetitions might become tedious. All in all, a great book!

Organizations are adaptive structures that respond creatively to changing circumstances. This responsive evolution takes place on an official, surface level, and also on a deeper, personal level composed of interactions between people. So says Ralph D. Stacey, who combines insights from psychoanalysis, behavioral research, the new science of complexity and other disciplines to suggest ways for your organization to become better at learning and adapting. While the basic concepts of complexity theory presented in this book are steadily gaining popularity, the actual complexity of the book's content might make it difficult for non-experts to follow. Although the book's tight organization keeps chaos at bay, some of the language might leave you at "the edge of disintegration." Nevertheless, we at [...] strongly recommend this book to executives and managers looking to build a theoretical foundation for their organizational approach, in addition to the many academics who will appreciate its systematic explanation of the organizational consequences of systems thinking.

Ralph covered how to run (any) software package, and how to connect to the internet. He also reviewed, in depth, Family Tree Maker, the only genealogy software he seems to be familiar with. If you don't know much about the internet or computers, this book will be helpful.

However, most of us are familiar with both (Hey, we're on Amazon.com, aren't we?), so more than half the book is wasted. There are about ten pages of weblinks which can be had simply by going to a decent search engine, like Yahoo!. Spend your money on another genealogy book.

I guess if you know nothing or little about PCs and/or the internet this book might be for you. The author seems to fill up the book by writing about areas that really have nothing to do with Geneaology. There are finally a few pages that provide Geneaology links on the internet and most of these links are no longer valid. Those that are valid, one may find on your own using any of the usual search engines.

A must for begining genealogy researchers and new users of the internet.Well worth the price per copy.

The book shown above is the hardcover edition. It's also published, without illustrations, in five paperback volumes. I read only THE TUDORS AND STUARTS, which had no illustrations other than two or three maps and graphs. The first half of the book, about the Tudors, was written by one man, and the second half, about the Stuarts, by another. The volume was short, only 142 pages.

This is my favorite period of British history and the one with which I am most familiar, but still, I found the text confusing. I think there were several misplaced lines of type in the second half. Maybe a writer can't do much in 70 pages to elucidate a period, and probably the illustrations would have distracted from the sketchy text. The writing was not lively.

The very last section is called "Intellectual and Religious Life," but it was mostly about religious life. Literature is almost totally ignored throughout the volume. Pepys is never mentioned.

There is no index. Perhaps the complete, one-volume version has an index, and the publisher didn't want to go to the trouble of compiling indexes for the individual volumes. Still, a history book without an index is unthinkable.

On the whole, the book was disappointing.

I'm a half-educated American, with the vaguest notions of British history. I bought this book hoping to be able to understand the story of the British Isles, in a more or less clear outline. That didn't happen: after 200 pages, I tossed the book, wondering just who it was written for. Here's why I tossed it:

(1) It doesn't have an author. Instead, it has a bunch of authors, each apparently assigned a certain portion of British history to cover. The problem is that none of the authors seem to have consulted each other, nor did the editor seem to edit. On every other page, you see a fact or definition repeated (by a previous author), or a topic referenced (but uncovered by a previous author). History is a messy thing, but it has to be organized to be learned, and any hope of presenting material in terms of themes or movements is lost, because styles and approaches switch radically from author to author, from clear and sparse, to confusing and overly-detailed.

(2) It should have an author. This sounds like point (1), but hear me out: the editor, Mr. Morgan, claims that writing grand history, spanning the length of the British past, just can't be written anymore. It is better, rather, to have specialists write about their specialities. Sounds good in theory, but is just abominable when placed next to comprehensive histories written by single authors. Toynbee and Trevleyan wrote such history earlier. And J. Roberts writes such history now, particularly his History of Europe, and History of the World, two models of lucid historical writing that make this disjointed compilation look like an ill-considered mishmash.

(3) It should have an audience. Or at least a different audience: the average intelligent reader wants a clean, interesting exposition of the important events and currents of the past. While some chapters achieve that, the most seem to be written not to the Average Reader, but to the Rival Colleague. And so we see a few facts casually presented, and then a sudden digression into some piece of scholarly minutae that leaves the reader (me, that is) pexplexed.

(4) It should teach historical knowledge, not assume it. This is one of those histories that assumes from the onset that you know all the relevant history. That might be OK for a narrow scholarly article, but it's an awful presumption for a comprehensive history. I read dozens of pages discussing the 'Domesday Book,' its importance, and its effects. The authors never thought to enlighten the ignorant, and explain what this Domesday Book was (an very old tax survey). Things like this litter every page.

From previous reading, I've learned that good history can be written. From reading this, I've learned that very bad history can be written, too.

This is a good book for a reader who is little like me. I have no training in British history and little in Western. I read quite a bit of history and don't mind a challenging work, though, which lets me get through most histories without too much frustration. This book often lacked the context with which self-teaching historians can teach themselves, even with frequent map- and index-checking.

The chapters of this book are all written by different authors, each one clearly an expert on the subject of his individual chapter. The authors do not agree on their audience. For instance, Gillingham's chapter on the early middle ages was clearly written, had several maps and followed a timeline before ending with a thematic look at the economy and political structure of the period. The very next chapter, Griffiths' chapter on the late middle ages, skips around by dozens of years within a single paragraph, mentions towns in France without maps and assumes foreknowledge of the battles of the Hundred Year war. Unfortunately, this book contains more chapters like the latter than the former.

I suspect that a European or an American with a basic familiarity of British history would find this a very useful intermediate level book with which to learn or re-discover an overview of Britain. The handiness of one volume written by many experts providing an overview of such a long history is what is right with this book. To those with some background in the subject, this book will be extremely convenient and useful. For someone without European geographic knowledge or a recognition of the figures in British history, even a patient and attentive reading will lead to frustrating hunts for the background of many important figures mentioned once within the narrative and to pointless searches through inadequate maps.

Though shape sheets were covered, VBA was definitely not. It seems any serious application development would require at least VBA support. Basically, I need to get another book to solve my problem.

I was very disappointed that programming Visio with Visual Basic for Applications was "too advanced" for this so-called "Advanced" book.

This intermediate to advance coverage was very nicely treated (although not quite as smooth as his beginning material). I covered a number of advanced topics and explained most of them well. Exercises were educational and hints were invaluable. I'm going to look for more of Grabowski's titles in the future.

I did wish that the ODBC database section would have covered connecting existing Visio shapes to databases better instead of concentrating on connecting master shapes. This might just be more personal in nature as I had an existing 40-page project I had to modify and I need a little more direct help connecting existing shapes to databases.