For the millions of Americans who have only ( until recently ie since the Pope's visit to Cuba ) seen Fidel as a military man this book adds a bit of humanity to that image. The imae of him as a threat to my safety is a view I could only suspect was being presented me as my government's own bit of propaganda (thinking of how recent publication's on how the Soviets used photography as a tool to control the masses) I was genuinely pleased to have my suspicions confirmed.

Nonetheless, upon opening this book, one finds that it is more than meets the eye. It is not the political treatise one might expect. I am grateful for the honesty the son (Roberto) gave in the acknowledging the irony in being both a suporter of the cause as well as a photographer/reporter of history.

Of particular interest, which I think self taught photographers may find of interest, is the many anecdotes on how Roberto and his father "made do" with what little equipment they had (both before going to Cuba and after) and how they shared equipment. Such disclosures dispell the popular belief that an aspiring photographers needs all the latest gadgetry that manufacturers pump out. The kind of "socialism they [Cubana] fought for is the kind struggling artist could practice.

From a political perspective. The book (story) of how the U.S. Government ousts individuals be they journalist or subversives is touched on. This is a book that may touch the heart and the soul of a anyone who suspects Cuba and Castro have stories to tell. Finally, it is a photographic feast of photojournalism from the inside of not only the revolution but the photographers who documented it.

Apart from the amazing photography, which captures an epoch so freqently only seen through CIA-filtered eyes, the book is a simple overview of the Cuban revolution and the real people of Cuba - not just the materialistic bourgouisie - who supported Castro and still do. Most enigmatic of all are the photos of Castro and Che, and then just Che, his magnetism shining through regardless of his beliefs.

Set your politics aside. Look at this wonderful book and ponder how close Fidel and Che came to actually getting it right.

Soon Castro may be judged by history, as he once claimed he wanted to be, and the facts point in the direction of a dark, blood-stained judgement. Nonetheless, the photography in this book is a brilliant work of photojournalist art.

They take us from the tender beginnings of a Revolution of bearded young men against a bloody tyrant. They are young gods in olive-green uniforms. The photo of Camilo Cienfuegos and another unidentified bearded guerrilla in front of the Lincoln statue in the Lincoln Memorial in DC is magnificent. What did America think of these young white men, in their dark, long hair and their huge beards? It stunned and seduced the nation and the seeds of the hippie movement were planted.

The book delivers with visual insight and power. The photographs are vivid and full of history. My highest possible rating!

I'm a senior in high school and am taking an enriched novels course. My teacher somehow discovered this book and tried to get us excited to read it by lauding all the sex and incest contained within. Well, there hasn't been much sex, and what little there is is described as "giving into passions" and other flowery phrases. My teacher would have made me more excited to read the book if she hadn't lauded the incest as much as simply telling me that it contains three main plots, all richly described and woven together, and that it doesn't feel nearly as old as it is (it was written in the 1700s). There's Ambrosio, the monk who falls in love with a cross-dressing novice monk, there's Agnes the nun who has fallen in love with a man (who in turn was almost killed at a bandit's cottage in the woods) and wants to escape the convent, and there's Lorenzo the cavalier who meets a young woman named Antonia. The author was ahead of his time, because the fairytale-like story is much more captivating than any other old, old novel I've ever read. It's an easy read, but swell nonetheless.

Matthew Lewis wrote "The Monk" in ten short weeks at the age of nineteen. Immediately the subject of controversy upon its publication in 1796, Lewis was prosecuted and subsequent editions of the book were heavily censored. Coleridge described it as blasphemous, "a romance, which if a parent saw it in the hands of a son or daughter, he might reasonably turn pale." Yet, "The Monk" was so popular that its author became a minor celebrity-coming to be known as "Monk" Lewis--and Sir Walter Scott prounounced that "it seemed to create an epoch in our literature." And whether "The Monk" truly created an epoch in English literature, or merely marked the early apogee of a genre, it stands as a stunning example of the Gothic novel.

"The Monk" tells the story of Ambrosio, the ostensibly pious and deeply revered Abbot of the Capuchin monastery in Madrid, and his dark fall from grace. It is a novel which unravels, at times, like the "Arabian Nights", stories within stories, a series of digressions, the plot driven by love and lust, temptations and spectres, and, ultimately, rape, murder and incest. It is sharply anti-Catholic, if not anti-clerical, in tone, Ambrosio and most of its other religious characters being profane, murderous, self-centered hypocrites cloaked in displays of public piety. And while it sometimes seems critical of superstition, "The Monk" is replete with Mephistophelian bargains, supernatural events, appartions, and spectres, as well as entombment and dark forebodings of mystery and evil. It is, in short, a stunningly entertaining, albeit typically heavy-handed, Gothic novel, perhaps the ultimate classic of the genre.

Lewis' The Monk is a winding Gothic tale of love, revenge, secrets, blood, the Inquisition, and pain. It discusses the fall of virgins, the wisdom of fools, and the death of good nuns, all centered around the evil of one man, Ambrosius or the Monk. Ambrosius is obsessed with his own supposed goodness and too proud of his reputation for virtue and glory in the eyes of Madrid. The clergyman has never before been tempted, and therfore never been tried, until he falls into a dark love for an unmolested virgin, Antonia. There are enough side plots and characters to complicate the story nicely without overburdening the plot.

Preserving typical Gothic elements, such as ghosts, murder, bleeding nuns, corrupt churchmen, and illegitimate children, the plot stays interesting even when a bit predictable, and it is understandable why Matthew Lewis came to be called "Monk" Lewis when this book was published c.1800. Like Shakespeare's Lear, when you think it can't get any more depressing, it does, and then it does again. A reflection of the human soul in all its glory and debasement, The Monk also manages to be entertaining and fun.

This is a fascinating account of the intellectual career of Perry Anderson, long-time editor of the New Left Review and cofounder of New Left Books. But in giving such a full survey, Elliott, probably unintentionally, exposes Anderson as arrogant, dogmatic and, practically, useless.

For a Marxist, an understanding of class is basic. What is Anderson's idea of the working class? He assumes it is just the manual workers, not seeing that as capitalism has developed, it has needed growing numbers of white-collar workers to keep it going. Elliott explains, "Given that the proletariat was a social minority in most capitalist countries ... ."

This wrong premise, never argued, made room for the notion that this small weak working class needed a separate 'socialist intelligentsia'. Its members were, according to Anderson, the 'sources of consciousness in society' - workers are not even conscious! He concluded that the "party ... must include intellectuals and petit bourgeois who alone can provide the essential theory of socialism." Workers need the 'petit bourgeois' to teach them socialism!

How do we turn a minority revolutionary movement into a mass revolutionary movement? Anderson claims that only the development of revolutionary theory can move the class towards revolution, but that the absence of a mass movement prevents the emergence of this theory - an impasse. He adheres to Trotskyism, writing smugly in 1976, "the tradition descended from Trotsky ... filled no chairs in universities" - ironic now that he is Professor of History at the University of California.

Anderson believes that progress for Britain can only come from abroad - earlier, from Euro-Marxism, more recently, from the European Union. As he wrote in 1992, "a major task of the Left will be to press towards the completion of a genuine federal state in the Community, with a sovereign authority over its constituent parts."

Anderson's ideas are the polar opposite of what Marxism should be: he is unrooted in, and hostile to, our trade union movement and to the British nation. We need workers' nationalism, not abstract internationalism.

Murasaki star system contains a duo of inhabitable planets that orbit each other: Genji - a high-gravity world with a dense, soupy atmosphere; and Chujo - an arid, wintry world of canyons and wind-swept plains. Neither is perfect for humans - on Genji they must wear pressure suits in addition to getting used to gravity levels half-again as high as on Earth; Chujo is more forgiving, though it can be intensely cold. Both planets serve home to sapient races: the Ihrdizu of Genji - low-tech amphibians that congregate in small villages; and the humanoids of Chujo - aloof, mysterious beings that ignore the humans entirely. It is here that the first manned interstellar expeditions will arrive, bearing humans of all frames of mind - Earthlings and off-worlders, atheists and philosophers, mystics and iconoclasts...

Instead of being a collaborative novel, "Murasaki" is a mixed bag of science fiction stories that share a setting, each written by a different award-winning author. Mind the fact that the only interesting part is the fairly in-depth world-creation notes (included as appendices), and that the stories are pathetically shallow and lead virtually nowhere...

...That is precisely what I though about this "science fiction novel in six parts" prior to reading the last two parts, which are so refreshingly, profoundly excellent that I almost wept with awe. A mystery of interplanetary proportions is suddenly built up and then revealed in flying colors.

It's really a pity that the rest of Murasaki doesn't follow suit.

I became interested in this book after reading Otherness by David Brin. One of the short stories in Otherness is actually a chapter in Murasaki. The book itself is has a very intruiging storyline and I enjoyed reading much of it. The only problam I had was the mental transition I had to make with each chapter of the book, as they are all written by different authors.

All in all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who likes the work of Brin, Bear, Anderson, Pohl, Kress etc etc etc.. They all wrote parts of it.

A good read.

An interesting and somewhat ambitious collection of stories. Most of them are not, in fact, "hard" SF in any meaningful way.

In general, the stories are more interesting than truly entertaining, with a couple of exceptions; the authors and editor seem more interested in impressing critics than in old-fashioned sense of wonder. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does suggest that those of us who lack highbrow tastes should approach the book with some caution. (Also, most of the stories are on the downbeat side, which is typical of the literary approach.)

This contained "Wang's Carpet" which I believe became part of "Diaspora" & "Recording Angel" which is set in the world of "Child of the River". It also contains other good stories enjoy!

What a joke that a misleading impression of this book has to be left on visitors to this site based on the ridiculous "reviews" of the first two "reviewers."

This book is a wonderful, comprehensive overview of one of baseball's best teams of the 1970s (ranking only with the Charley Finley A's dynasty) that succeeds because it is willing to go into each season from 1970-78 in depth and provide more than just a skimped over rehash of events. You get the full picture of how the "Big Red Machine" was put together on the field and off, and also get candid insights into how the dynasty ultimately declined as the free agent revolution hit baseball in the late 70s.

My only complaint with the book is the authors decision to stop their study after the 1978 season with the departure of Pete Rose and the dismissal of Sparky Anderson. The Reds won a division title in 1979 with most of the "Big Red Machine" still intact (Morgan, Bench, Foster, Concepcion) and also put together baseball's best record in 1981 and this final phase of Reds quality baseball merited analysis as well, and not just the quick, casual dismissal the authors give it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The Big Red Machine of the 70's dominated my childhood. They are my all-time favorite team and I found this compilation entertaining, enlightening and well-researched. This is my #1 reference book for the Reds of the 70's. Great going guys!

There are great photos and anecdotes that I'd never read before. It's an entertaining and easy to read book.

This book covers a lot of topics - but lacks in-depth explanation on many important stuffs. I tried to reference the book to help me with some Excel automation. However, the 40 Excel pages in the book helps only a little. Not a single word on 'charts', poor presentation on 'Range', no mention of Excel built-in functions... MS user's guide or online help is much better. The coverage on other parts look just like the Excel.

This book shows at a very high-level, what you can do with VBA in all of those MS Office applications.

The only problem with this book is that every piece of information can be gathered from MSDN.

If you are not sure what VBA is, or how you can use other Microsoft Products in you Visual Basic projects, then get this book. It will be a real eye-opener.

This book is a good starting point before you go out and buy that 2 inch thick book on your individual office component. This book does not go into advanced concepts, it is moreover a guide to Office's object model. I felt that it left many important concepts out. The selection of what was important in Excel was sporadically helpful. I started out with this book, but needed additional references to drill into the specifics. I've *never* accessed data the way they say to in Access, nor would I. There is a discussion section in the back with suggestions on how to use the Office suite to solve problems, but no specifics.

Born of Elven Blood was an okay book, but I wouldn't recommend purchasing it. Alot of it seemed rather cliched, and the writing style just wasn't that compelling. The characters and the world of Faery are likeable enough, but rather dull compared to all the other great fantasy books out there! To sum it all up, if you are looking for a great novel that will keep you hooked and last more than an hour, read something else.