Bill Gulick gives a command performance in this book of the Nez Perce Indians. He depicts the life and times of these Indians so clearly...from the time they befriended the Lewis and Clark Expedition in September of 1805 and the years to follow, including all the historical documentation leading up to the plight of Chief Joseph and hundreds of his people into exile. The story doesn't stop here either. He also documents what happened after the famous 1877 Battle of Bear's Paw in Montana and how they were all sent off to reservations in Kansas and Oklahoma, soon to be subjected to other hardships. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in this part of America's past. Mr.Gulick indeed did his homework!

This book-length, narrative poem by the late Robert Penn Warren is beautiful and historically accurate. Warren recounts the history of the peace-loving Nez Perce through the voice of their most famous leader, Chief Joseph. Warren's stark and forceful poetry combined with the tragedy of the historical event and the personal decency of its hero made this one of the most moving and memorable poems I've ever read. It is certainly the best I've run across in the last twenty years.

The story of Chief Joseph is one of the most important and disturbing chapters in American history. In this book, Bill McAuliffe provides an excellent introduction to Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce, and the amazing story of their flight to escape the American Army. The book contains some excellent photographs and a time line of events. It concludes with words from Chief Joseph, "The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it." This is a man and a subject that we all should know more about. This book is an excellent begining.

If you are an attorney, judge, or social worker who works in this area, this book is a must. It will save you time and guide you to the correct answer.

Drs. Steen and Mirro and the many other contributers from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have made a significant contribution to the clinical care of children with cancer in their editing of this new book. The chapters cover many topics to give parents an overview of the current scientific understanding of childhood cancers, along with state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment procedures. This will be an invaluable aid to the unfortunate parents who have to face along with their children an often overwhelming battle for their precious little lives. The authors highlight the magnificent progress that has been made in the past 40 years as many childhood cancers can now be successfully treated almost 80% of the time. It covers spiritual, psychological and social aspects of treatment and even the topic of alternative therapies. It includes testimonials of success and a chapter dealing with the hardest topic--letting a child die when there is no longer any reasonable hope for curative treatment. It informs parents about the testing procedures their children will have and talks about the research-related issues that they will likely encounter. It provides useful address and links for support groups and additional information. I would highly recommend this book for parents and the professionals who deal with those parents who have children with cancer.

This book contains an analysis of the economic and social effects of the Pinochet dictatorship by John Lear and Joseph Collins around 1990 and an epilogue by Stephanie Ronsenfeld from around 1994.

The authors show the effects of deregulation on all aspects of Chilean life. The public health system--which seventy percent of Chileans as of 1990 belonged to--has been rapidly defunded , farmed out to municipalities. Relatively few Chileans can afford the relatively new HMO-type companies whose primary focus is accomodating people who can pay the most i.e. the well-off. Thyphoid fever and Hepatitis rapidly expanded to epidemic proportions from the mid-70's until a decaded later--short term profit, absent government restraint, makes dumping industrial waste and chemicals into rivers into the water supply a reasonable cost-effective mean as does neglecting to ensure adequate sanitation standards in the food you sell. The government finally enacted some regulations in the mid-80's to try to roll back the epidemics. The authors point out the declining infant mortality rate, which neoliberal advocates point to with pride is, apart from the expanding birth rate in the upper classes, in large part due to "socialistic" government programs targeting new mothers and infants. The health of the infants and mothers after they conclude the program is, of course, another story. The authors show that Chile's privitization and municipilization of education has grossly skewed the benefits towards wealthy municipalities able to generate the resources and high-income students to be "self-financing."

They show that the privitized social security accounts are of scant benefit for a large number of Chileans who cannot generate enough income to meet their stringent minimum requirements. This great mass of people inevitably have to fall back on the scant package offered by the government which, combined with required government payments to those who retired before the early 80's when privitization was implemented, promises to bring severe fiscal probolems for Chile in the next few decades. They show that wages have stagnated or declined relative to pre-1973 levels--per capita income did not return to its 1970 level until 1989. They show that the monumental economic crises in the early 80's which admirers of Pinochet's economic policies like to forget, was very much due to the extreme neoliberal policies of the junta. In the late 70's Chile's economy took off. Tarrifs were eliminated, restrictions on foreign investment lifted and the Peso was pegged at 39 to the dollar, considerably overvalued. The result was a flood of ultra-cheap imports, mostly luxury items and little productive inbestment. The banks, freed from regulation, recklessly loaned out. Then at the end of 1981 all of the suddent there was recession in the U.S. and thus restriction of its market, capital flight, corporations and banks under enormous debt went under and the economy was on the verge of collapse. Pinochet took over the bankrupt banks and corporations using the resources provided by Chile's immensely profitable government owned companies to get back into shape and then sold them to his friends and foreign corporations at grossly undervalued prices. During this process some unkind critics labeled it--"the Chicago road to socialism"--government ownership was as high as it ever was during Allende's term--after the proteges of University of Chicago free market gurus like Milton Friedman who took over Chile's economic policy after 1975. The immensely profitable public companies then followed into the private sector, again grossly low prices.

The show that working conditions, wages and living conditions have largely gone down hill, helped enormously by Pinochet's extreme anti-labor policies. The rapid elimination of native forests and fisheries protends serious problems. Miss Rosenfeld points out that the democratic governments since 1990 have eliminated some of the harder edges of Pinochet's policies by increasing spending considerably for housing and other social services and increasing the minimum wage and have shown more success in narrow statistical indicators than he ever did. But the structure of his society is still more or less intact; Chile is still primarily an export-oriented economy, largely by exploiting non-renewable resources. Its over-reliance, for instance, of grape exports, the workers in whose industry are mostly temporary laboring under bad conditions and low wages, makes it very vulnerable to new competitors who are discovering more cheaper ways of production and can pay even lower wages. Government funding for research and development and funding of infrastructure before 1973 laid the basis for the industry's prosperity but since that time it has been eliminated.

The book is a little bit dated and I didn't understand one or two points but it is a very important book and, for an economics book, lucidly written.

A wonderful quick read with a great touch of humor to a historical journey! I strongly recommend it!

Death Merchant is an action series taken to the ultimate extreme. Joseph Rosenberger takes his readers into James Bond country and then kicks it up into high gear. Every other chapter in the beginning of the novel is filled with multiple killings until the denouement which becomes one big slaughter. This time Richard Camellion is up against a Nazi/Chinese plan to start WW3 between the US and Russia. The Death Merchant is captured and has to fight his way out of the Chinese Embassy in Canada, before heading into the Arctic Circle to free a kidnapped scientist and destroy a Chinese sub. This book is just one action scene after another. Definitely not for the reader looking for a philisophical discussion or artistic merit.

If you are contemplating the construction of a Chinese garden, or are just interested in their history or development, this is an excellent, concise introduction to the topic. It presents the history, philosophy, and guidlines for construction in a clear way. It condenses a large number of references down to a readable form. The bibliography of related works in Chinese and English is worth the price of the book.

This is a step-by-step, easy to follow 10-point, 10-week program of eliminating the environmental toxins that threaten your health. Exciting, enjoyable, eye-opening book!