I am a native of Quincy, MA which is known as the City of the Presidents because both John and John Quincy Adams were born and buried here. This is where my long fascination with the presidency began. This particular book provides detailed breakdowns for each presidential administration from Washington through Clinton (ending before Clinton's impeachment). The end section (which is really more for trivia buffs) is also enlightening and informative (and makes you wonder how much time and research went into trite comparisons like how many Presidents were born on a Sunday). Again, a valuable guide book that provides just the facts and not politically motivated analyses of the presidents. Worth owning.

I bought this book *solely* for geneological research, and I got a whole lot more. It is packed with tons of trivia about all of our presidents up through Clinton. It also tells us what Congress was up to, important dates in the lives of the presidents, etc. I highly reccommend this book for both history and geneological buffs like me.

Disregard the Booklist review, this impressive compendium has been updated to reflect the deaths of Dick and Pat Nixon, as well as, Jackie Onassis. Everything is here that you could possibly imagine on the Presidents. If you ever go on Jeopardy, this is the book for you!

This is a short and precise introductory text to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). That is probably the book's main strength - the fact that is short and that it condenses the topic very well. However, I did not find this book to be an easy read because somehow, the topic seemed scattered and not well defined. It failed to provide a usable framework to structure the material with the result that it seemed that one page of text after another, none of which taking me anywhere.

However, by the end of the book, you have a reasonable idea of what NLP even if it seems a little jumbled and mixed-up!

A very, very good basic introduction to NLP. This book is good for those who want an "executive summary" of the basic principles of NLP. It doesn't go into the techniques. Just enough to help you decide if NLP is right for you. If you want to get into basic techniques, best to skip this one and go right into "An Introduction to NLP."

This is the best introduction to NLP on the market today. Based on practical skills used by consummate communicators.

This book is unnecessarily verbose, incoherent, and nowhere close to what its title suggests.

This book is a collection of articles/chapters written by different authors. As a result of that, not only there is no connection and coherency among chapters but also topics covered in the seemingly related chapters are different and unrelated. The coherency and relationship among chapters are just limited to their names not what is inside them. For example, in "Part 5: Item and Industry Practice" there are separate chapters on "Raw Material", "MRO Materials", "Software and Intellectual Properties", "Capital Equipments" to name a few. I would imagine that each of these chapters will discuss purchasing process, nuances, and best practices for these items. But unfortuantely, all these chapters are independant and adderess totally different issues.

I guess, if you want to learn about purchasing, you would be better off searching on the web and reading different articles on purchasing then spending money on this book.

This book is the procurement bible for both purchasing beginners and professionals. It is necessary for anybody related to procurement, even for IT people. Well, I am into IT ! I strongly recommend this book.

As a person who developes Purchasing/Inventory Software, this book has brought to my mind a deeper understanding of the process of Purchasing and how it relates to Inventory and Procurement methods, worldwide purchasing problems and methods. Things that, after many years in the business, I have never thought of or considered before.

The scope of this book is fantastic! A true bible of Purchasing...

This is a definite resource of anyone in the purchasing environment (or even programing environment)! A must Have!!!

I felt sorry for the duke, he must have been such a lonely man.....He never got any compliments from his father or his family. They all seemed so far away from each other. No wonder he fell in love with Wallis, she paid attention to him, this is what he needed, someone to treat him with respect and high regard, no wonder he abdicated....He wouldn't have to abdicate,but the P.M. at that time was a very vicious and ugly person who was JEALOUS of King Edward, he wouldn't even allow the king to speak to the other members on his own behalf...Queen Mum was also jealous and vicious, she did not like Wallis, because she was divorced and an american, she would not allow King George to communicate with the duke after he was exiled. The people all wanted King Edward to become King, they all loved him because of his charistma and his feelings for the common people.Edward and Diana were very much alike and treated VERY BADLY by their so called "royal families". Edward and Diana had more "guts" than all the royals together. King Edward would have been a "great" king, thanks to Queen Mum and her coldness toward Edward and Wallis caused him to live in an empty wrld. All the worl loves "lovers"and the Duke and Duchess were the lovers of the 20th century. How many people can have such a love????????I really loved this book and read it over and over.....

I can't help it. Even though I believe that the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor were probably two of the most self-serving people ever to exist on the face of the planet, I find them totally fascinating. And this book lets us into their domaine. Imagine a man so totally mesmerized by this woman, that not only did he leave her a fresh flower on her pillow every night of their married life, he slept surrounded by photos of her (separate bedrooms). There were 10,000 photos of them in his bathtub (covered with a mahogany top. He ONLY showered.) that were discovered after her death. That means for the duration of the time that they were married, they were photographed approximately 300 times a year. Every year. The photographs of the refurbished decor in the Paris house were fascinating. Too bad everything was sold after Dodi & Diana's death. This book is truly a window into a lifestyle that no longer exists.

I was very impressed with the photography and the information contained in this book. Wallis Simpson is amazing, she comes off as more chic and more royal than any of the royals. Fascinating inside look into that very glamorous era, and it's most powerful couple.

Before this book, I'd only heard of Michael Oakeshott through name-dropping from conservative friends. No one but that small conservative circle ever mentioned him and after reading this, I can and can not see why.

As noted below, this is an expanded collection of essays ranging from Oakeshott's views of political rationalism's follies to exegesis of Hobbes. The common thread of all of these essays is Oakeshotts distaste for the rationalistic tendency of, not faith in reason, but overconfidence in it. Reason, Oakeshott reasons (ha-ha)is an instrument. Life is a collection of emotions, faiths, conquests, mistakes, and a vast array of experiences that may or may not have to do with reason at all. Thus, the mistake made in political thought is its overreliance on utopian, "I know better than you" reason. Oakeshott, with this as a springboard, makes his case for a conservative libertarianism.

Oakeshott hints that this rationalism is all the most relevant on the 'left'. I'm not sure this is quite accurate, after all, how could we explain John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse and Richard Rorty, but as I said, Oakeshott only hints. Scott Ryan brilliantly points out that someone like Ayn Rand and I'd suggest, Plato, give the 'right' a tainted legacy of rationalism as well. The problem with Oakeshotts essays in the section on rationalism in politics is that after he expounds his view that with rationalisms inadequacies, political philosophy becomes muddy, he spends 300 more pages on political philosophy. It's like a bad joke!!

What this book is good for is section 3 (on Hobbes) and section 4 (on conservatism and politics). As Oakeshott is more conservative that liberarian, this book is a great exposition of why conservatives (or those true to the label) are how they are preferring big government where social tradition is concerned but small government in economics. Why does conservatism put such high value on tradition? Why does it see welfare centralization with skepticism? Why the religious tendencies? All of these are, advertently or not, elucidated in section 3 and 4.

Beware, Oakeshott has a tendency to be wordy - not in the sense of content, but in the, "If I can say it effectively in 100 words, I'll tack on an extra 300 for kicks," kind of way. About the physical book; as noted below, "The Liberty Fund" makes a habit out of publishing inexpensive, impressively beautiful books. The print and binding quality are phenomenal and if this is available in "Liberty Fund" hardcover, spend the extra money - it's worth it!

Rationalism in Politics is a book of political philosophy. Those who have read philosophy know what to expect: defining and re-defining of terms, endless distinctions and debate, preference for the vague and abstract, dislike of plain language, and a near-perverse resistance to drawing useful conclusions. All of which suggest a degree of skepticism and compulsiveness which will frustrate the average reader, especially those engaged in the practical activity of making a living. I suspect that many readers find such books not worth the effort.

But for those patient few, and those, such as professors and students, who fill their time with abstract pursuits, Rationalism in Politics does have something to offer. I would argue that it does hold some valuable lessons, particularly about the limitations of politics and the impossibility of the quest for perfection.

This is a revision of the 1962 edition. The essays are arranged thematically rather than chronologically to show the consistency and continuity in Oakeshott's work. The early sections define rationalism, show how it has crept into politics, and examine how reason can be misused and misunderstood, both in politics and in the study of politics. The long middle section examines the work of Thomas Hobbes, while the latter parts deal with human conduct and poetical thinking.

The title essay, first published in 1947, probably has the most to offer the average reader, as its subject matter is ubiquitous and recognizable, both in and out of politics. Call it the triumph of technique. I believe what Oakeshott calls rationalism can also be called ideology, a preference for ideas and intellectual constructs over custom, habit, and tradition. Like the ideologue and the revolutionary, the rationalist thinks little or nothing has been done before his time. Skeptical and optimistic, he brings all issues before his intellect as though he is the first to have considered them, as though starting with a tabula rasa. The rationalist views the world more through the veil of ideas than with his five senses.

The persistent problem-solver, he is fully prepared to legislate for the whole world without ever leaving his armchair. From that isolation, the sort of ideas he has in mind are those which can be reduced to rational principles or formulae and set down in books. He fails to recognize any knowledge except technique; he believes technique leads to certainty and that making conduct self-conscious is always a gain - that what one discovers on one's own is always better than what one has inherited. He favors standardization over liberty, rules over experience, reason over tradition, uniformity over variety, and certainty over ambiguity.

Oakeshott wrote a complex, extended essay in definition, but I believe it is one in which many Americans will see aspects of their own lives, assuming they have the patience and the free time to dig into this heavy, sometimes difficult book.

This handsomely-bound expanded Liberty Fund edition of Michael Oakeshott's essays features some material not included in the earlier edition (notably, but not only, Oakeshott's introduction to Hobbes's _Leviathan_). But the greatest treat is still the title essay.

In "Rationalism in Politics," Oakeshott sets out to dissect the sort of modern "rationalism" that reduces reason to explicit technical knowledge and has no place for the sort of "traditional" knowledge we soak up through imitation. (Readers of F.A. Hayek will find a parallel here, though not an exact one, with Hayek's own view of implicit knowledge and its role in market processes.) His deft characterizations of such "rationalism" will no doubt remind many readers of many leading lights of the political left, but they also remind me -- perhaps surprisingly -- of someone else.

I have a friend who insists, with much justice, that Ayn Rand was essentially a "leftist" despite her defense of views that have generally belonged to the political right. In support of his claim, he cites a number of well-known features of Rand's thought, including (of relevance here) her utter rejection of tradition and religion, her deep distrust of "implicit" reasoning, and her almost messianic plans to "remake" the world in accordance with her own explicit conceptual scheme while riding roughshod over basic human realities that might interfere. (For more on this general topic, see Paul Johnson's _Intellectuals_. Though unfortunately he does not take Rand as one of his targets, his remarks on what happens when such "intellectuals" put their ideas into practice could practically have been written about the "Objectivist" movement.)

This thesis gains a great deal of plausibility from a reading of Oakeshott. Rand's hideously inadequate understanding of "reason" is remarkably consonant with the variety of "rationalism" which he skewers here, and which she more or less enshrined in her own feeble attempts at epistemology.

And as her journals and letters show, she deliberately pitched her philosophy of "Objectivism" toward left-liberals, presenting it as a non-Statist replacement for traditionalism and conservatism while basing it on essentially the same "radical" empiricist-nominalist-materialist-secularist worldview (up to and including a remarkably similar view of "reason") as Marx and Lenin. (Readers will find further discussion of this last point in John Robbins's imperfect but helpful _Without A Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System_.)

Now, I certainly don't mean to suggest that the _only_ reason for reading Oakeshott is to disabuse oneself of Rand-worship! Far from it; all of Oakeshott's immensely learned essays sparkle with insights that will be of interest to political thinkers of all stripes. But I do think he will be of special interest to the growing number of conservative libertarians who wish to recover classical liberalism from the spell of one of its most dangerously bewitching "defenders."

The enemies of liberty on the political left are fairly obvious, and most classical liberals are unlikely to be taken in by them. The greater hazard is posed by those "friends" who borrow more or less classical-liberal _conclusions_ and try to place them on a foundation which will not hold them, indeed which leads to their very opposite if (unlike Rand) one starts from the allegedly foundational premises and works forward.

I also don't mean to imply my own complete agreement with Oakeshott. But those who wish to exorcise Rand's demonic influence from the politics of classical liberalism will have a hard time finding a more powerful antidote than the opening essay in this volume.

I just reread it in a collection of Nobel Prize winning authors--their acceptance speeches etc., and this story and "As I Lay Dying" were chosen as examples of his work. This story!!! It's such a mundane little macabre "gotcha" story, over-anthologized for high school students (along with other tired stories like "The Most Dangerous Game"). Faulkner is such an incredible writer--I'm reading Fury in the Dust right now, and his sentences--the Nobel Prize committee described them as being "as powerful as Atlantic rollers". What was he thinking when he wrote "A Rose for Emily"? Obviously not much. Read anything else by him, you'll have a better time.

This is one of those books that are force on you at school. The basic story is of a Southern belle driven mad by isolation and her ties to the past. If this is your first reading of something representative of Faulkner this is the best example, as it is short and the story is intriguing. You can enjoy reading it for what it is and not have to analyze the thing to death. Even if you do not particularly cotton to Faulkner's style or subject matter, this book will transcend both. In 1982 they made this story into a movie with John Houseman and Anjelica Huston.

this book is about a very good short story on the changes of the south during a very representative period!

It is astonishing to me that this book was published at all. Much less by a scholarly small press. In Mr Itiel's defence it must be acknowledged that his writings will be of some value as source material for students of gay men and class dynamics. What makes this volume as revealing as it is disturbing are the insights offered unwittingly. Mr Itiel exhibits boundless pride in confiding his expert technique for scoring more sex for less dollars. In one memorable entry he shares tips on how best to train boys not to expect gifts - blithefully unconscious of any parallel to guidebooks on training spaniels. Almost in the same breath he asks we take special note that some of his rent boys grow into friends of a sort - even 'virtual boyfriends'. He urges us to follow his example.

So fevered is the author's earnestness some readers may not consider that his voiceless young men friends might have very different 'insights' to offer. In the seemingly improbable event any of them will ever be afforded opportunity to author how-to books.

Mr Itiel candidly portrays himself as a financially successful middle-aged white man with a preference for dark-skinned youths typically from lower income backgrounds (but always of 'legal' age, he carefully emphasizes - rather conveniently ignoring the fact that his books endorse activities which are illegal in his native California and are harshly punished in every state in the US). Some would see his sexual predilection as inherently exploitive. That is not my viewpoint. What does alarm me is that Mr Itiel appears so far beyond even contemplating the ethics of older men of means bartering with boys from the barrio for pleasures of the flesh.

Readers with a conscience should take note of several earlier books by Mr Itiel. PHILIPPINE DIARY : A GAY GUIDE TO THE PHILIPPINES offers tips on how to win over the parents of an island 'call boy'. As for PURA VIDA! : GAY AND LESBIAN COSTA RICA the two reader reviews posted here on Amazon.com are a character reference which the publisher of this book should have heeded.

As a former sex worker, I want to praise the author of "Sex Workers as Virtual Boyfriends" for his insightfulness into hustlers' lives. For two difficult years I put myself through college as a parking valet. The work was hard, the pay miserable, and I breathed in a lot of polluted air. Then I started escorting. The job was easy for the most part, the pay excellent, and my health was not in jeopardy. Like the author says, a few clients did also become good friends. ... Of course, it is older dudes paying for the services of the younger guys. They get paid *because* they are younger and nobody is being exploited. We, young escorts know exactly what we are doing, and the older clients spend their money to fulfill their needs. I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand the life of sex workers.

This is an absolutely wonderful book!!! And definitely a must read for clients as well as sex workers. I myself am a sex worker in San Francisco and I really applaud Mr. Itiel for writing this book. The very title is what caught my eye to begin with. As a sex worker, I have always strived to create the same type of "sex plus" relationships with my clients that Mr. itiel has created with his sex workers. So I am delighted to finally see a book that emphasizes what the client/sex worker relationship is really all about - a mutual respect for one another as well as a caring friendship, besides the obvious good fun! The book contains many interesting stories about Mr. Itiel's experiences over the years with various sex workers. I really only found 1 area in which I strongly disagreed with Mr. Itiel - he feels that, in general, sex workers charge too much for their services. While I feel that what a responsible sex worker can offer to his client certainly justifies the cost, I can also understand that, as the client, Mr. Itiel would like to be able to find sex workers as inexpensively as possible. And he has managed to do this quite successfully, proving there is a market for all of us.I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a greater understanding of the dynamics behind the sex worker/client relationship. I think both sex workers and clients will benefit from reading this book - and both will benefit from enhancing their relationships with one another.

I found this book to be disappointing. I did not see it as a motivator at all. If you have the will-power to quit smoking than you can manage to stay thin without this book.

After several failed attempts at giving up cigarettes, I tried this book's approach and I am happy to report the plan works! I recommend this title to anyone who really wants to stop smoking without pain -- and without gaining weight.

I have recommend this book to several clients, and everyone has found it helpful. Other books with similar titles lacs the science which this one has. I suggest giving it to all your friends who are still hooked. I edited a book with a similar title years ago, but this one is much better in all ways. Don Wigal, PhD

This book does have good content but for those of you who are in your first semesters of Radiology technology it clearly does not simplify the information. It does not produce good examples or diagrams to make learning easy. It is also very cut and dry and makes it very difficult to read. It has no glossary and is poor in producing definitions. I highly recommend Bushong not only is the book fun to read but makes some of the more complex principles easier to understand. The workbook is really great also to help you prepare for your test and the end of the chapter quesions are nice because it helps to check see if you got the understanding of the chapter.

I find this one a "better" overall textbook than Christensen and Bushong. More inspiring, cosier and fairly well written. Downside : I personally found myself wanting some radiation physics tables that I had to find elsewhere ("Medical Imaging Physics"), and think the authors left out many interesting aspects physics wise, but your average student might find this works out just fine. Almost perfect starter.

Overall, this is an excellent text for radiography students and also physician residents in radiology. The text is comprehensive and easy to understand. We particularly like the abundance of drawings and tables. The special imaging chapters are very detailed and provide excellent information for students and others who use this text for reference purposes. The chapter on mammography is particularly good as it is the only chapter of its kind in any textbook. This chapter is excellent for those programs that teach comprehensive mammography. The mammography art and images are superb. Seasoned radiography educators are authors of this text and that makes this a unique book and one that is accurate technically.

Bertolini uses the driest of styles to discuss a rather basic theory of American individualism through some fictional works. In the end, his ideas, which are based on the work of other scholars, fail to yield any real insight.

As a student of Dr. B, as we all call him, I held his ideas in high esteem. His view of political science, is a bit different than mine, but his arguements are well made. If this was used in softer language, political science majors would be able to stay up all night, and whats the fun in that. Buy Dr. B's book, he could use the money to update his wardrobe

I found the book very informative. Not having read many political or literary works ( I had read a little Hobbes and Locke, but none of the novels dealt with), I found almost every page interesting and filled with new ideas. I look at America in a different way now than I did prior to reading this book.