Ralph Hammond's Personal Encounters features interviews with some of the era's most notable literary figures, from Carl Sandburg and T.S. Eliot to Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, but it's not in your usual interview form. Instead Hammond takes the results of his interviews and creates poems which serve as homages to each, providing a creative and unusual exploration.

This brilliantly written history of Western philosophy constitutes the ideal gift, not only for phi1osophy undergraduates, but also for the general reader who wishes to come to grips with major issues in phi1osophy that have a bearing on everyday life, hence the book's title. The author is a historian by background who now teaches philosophy in adu1t education. The book is dedicated to his students who have provoked quest ions over the years about ethical, politica1 and epistemological issues. He points out that he has concentrated on those aspects of phi1osophy that touch most closely on contemporary concerns and a novel feature of the book is that his students' pre-occupations and his own are recorded in each chapter in a separate type from the rest of the text. This encourages the reader every now and then to stop and think about the issues involved before moving on. The book ranges chronologically from the Greek cosmologists all the way to structuralism and post-structuralism. Philosophy is not narrowly defined: Burke, Darwin, Marx, Isaiah Ber1in, Freud and Jung are discussed with great clarity and verve. Though not thought of chiefly or at all, as phi1osophers their work nonetheless has great bearing on phi1osophy, on the history of ideas and on political science.
To have produced such a comprehensive work on so difficult and wide ranging a subject which is such a pleasure to read is a remarkable achievement and it will surely become a standard text in this field. Students about to embark on phi1osophy courses shou1d race to the book-shops before term starts.

The information contained in Phoenetic Readings of Songs and Arias is an absolutely necessary tool for every student of classical vocal repertoire. Not only do the authors understand what the novice singer needs, in terms of word order and pronounciation, but the information is also a very handy reference for the advanced singer and teacher. The best thing about this volume is that translations of the original word order of the original language is given, so that the student can see "how the language works" in its own word order. A great book!.

It is now over 19 years since I bought/read this book.
I believe the book had managed to change my "normal eyes" to the "photographer's eyes".

I must say my past 19 years of amateur photography life was mostly contributed from the knowledge I gained from this book.

A paperback with 240+ pages with beautiful black and white photos for samples and illustrations.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to turn himself from a photography dummy to a professional within a week.

C.N.T. Law
Hong Kong Decemebr 2002

This book is the best summary of the field of Physical medicine & Rehabilitation available to date

This book covers all the princples of going about conducting a surveilance and tailing by car in a covert manner. It also is good reference on how to do a surveillance report write-up so know one can punch holes in the report. Thomas seems to know his stuff.

I studied under Professor Sims. He has a lifetime of experiences and his knowledge and insightful analysis is offered here in this volume, which should be used as a practical guide and a source from which to develop methodologies.

This 140 page little book includes "Foundations of worship," "Morning Devotions,""Morning Prayers,""Evening devotions,"Evening prayers,""The Holy Communion,""Special Prayers,""The Christian Life,"and "Prayer in the Scriptures" as its chapters. It has taken a place next to My Utmost of His Highest and the Bible as a daily tool for devotion, prayer and rest with the Lord. Please, for its size, it is truly incredible and well worth it. Many of the prayers are from important people throughout the history of Christianity, and have helped me put my own prayers into words. Prayers are listed for specific needs such as Forgiveness, praise, lonliness, resolution, fellowship, adoration, fortitude...and it goes on and on. Wonderful!

An excellent resource for anyone of any faith becoming involved in the political process. Also handy for those interested in starting or enhancing their own grassroots political organization.

The band of historians working on the history of Portugal and its worldwide extensions has never been large. Many of the senior researchers today, especially in the English-speaking world, owe a great debt to one man, Charles Ralph Boxer, virtually the founding father of the field. This volume is his finest work, known and used by scholars everywhere since its publication in 1969. It is simply one of the great works of history in our times. By reading it, you will learn an enormous amount about how a small, unimportant kingdom on the Atlantic Ocean managed to construct a trading and military network that extended from Brazil to Africa to India, China, Japan, Indonesia and all points in between. Boxer discusses the motivating forces that led the Portuguese to dominate the spice trade. It is shown that with its small population, Portugal had to rely on slaves or mercenaries. Often their forces were composed of Africans, their pilots Jews or others, their sailors a mix of Asians and mestiços. He breaks two common myths: 1) that the cross closely followed the traders---it took several decades before even a start was made (by the Jesuits) in conversions; and 2) that the Portuguese, unlike other European colonial powers, were color blind. Several Brazilian socio-historians have written to emphasize this, but Boxer shows that it was untrue. After a chapter on sugar and slavery in Brazil, the rest of the book deals with the decline of Portugal's empire in Asia over the centuries from 1600 to 1800, when only a few tiny, misgoverned enclaves were left. The more efficient Dutch, among whom ability outweighed family background, challenged and defeated the Portuguese everywhere; Portugal itself stagnated and turned inwards. Brazil, however, grew and prospered, eventually outshining the mother country and providing a refuge for the royal family during Napoleonic times (it wasn't until 1821 that the Portuguese royal family returned to Lisbon---perhaps the only instance of a European country being ruled from America).

With the vast amount of social and economic information on a wide variety of subjects---the use of the Portuguese language, the rise of Oman along the African coast, Pombal's dictatorship in Portugal, intermarriage and color prejudice in the widely scattered empire, the quality of Portuguese seamen--- with its eminently well-written, clear prose, and its sweep of vision, THE PORTUGUESE SEABORNE EMPIRE deserves to be on the shelf of every person interested in history. If you are interested in Portugal or its offshoots in Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Goa, Malacca and Macau, this book is a must. I am stunned to see that I am the first to review it for Amazon.