Phil Sheridan lacks a worthy biography, but this is the best around. It focuses on the post-Civil War period but ( I think)
could have done more to save the General's reputation from that of a 'bigot and Indian hater'.

For example, the unfair ascription of the so-called proverb 'The only good Indian is a dead Indian' is not challenged, I wonder when it ever will be. From my own limited research, I have found the first recorded public use of this phrase by a Montana politician in 1868, one year before Sheridan is supposed to have uttered similar words. Further, Sheridan's brother Mike also traces the phrase to Montana, saying 'some fool' ascribed the words to Sheridan. Finally, we only have the hearsay evidence
of a single witness (ie someone told someone else who wrote it down), written down 20 years later, that Sheridan used the words at all.

There is of course the larger accusation, that whatever Sheridan said, this is how he felt. Hutton effectively refutes that charge, I only wish he had come out and roundly stated it somewhere in the book. Sheridan shared the objectives of his contemporary humanitarian critics - he wanted Indians to settle down on reservations and adopt white ways, or just live of the bounty of the government. Where he differed was how he treated 'hostiles' or recalcritant Indians. Sheridan believed in waging war on the Indians just as he had made war in the Shenandoah Valley - devastate the enemy's resources, limit his power to make war by depriving him of supplies, with the added extra of rounding up families to be taken to where they white soldiers could watch them.

In essence, Sheridan was given a dirty job, and did in the only way he knew. But he had no especial hate for the Indians - he was not a Himmler figure, as some have made him out. He was fair to Indians who kept the peace. For example, he adjudicated in a dispute between Indians and cattlemen who had leased reservation land. Despite his personal feeling about development, he came down firmly on the Indian side, and thanks to him, the cattlemen were given 3 months to remove their herds, which humbered hundreds of thousands head of cattle.

Sheridan also sponsored early efforts to study Indian lore and customs, and was instrumental in preserving Yellowstone National Park for the nation.

In short this man was not a saint. He had glaring defects - for example, he aggressively defended subordinates even when they were in the wrong, he looked after cronies in the Army and outside. But he was totally uncorrupt in a corrupt age (his personal fortune was quite small at the end of his days, even though he could undoubtedly had many opportunities to enrich himself illicitly). Also, one feels that someone who said "If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd live in Hell and rent out Texas" can't be all bad! Right or wrong, he had a certain spirit, that Little Phil!

It is time we had books that celebrate the great HEROES of freedom like Grant Sherman Sheridan ect instead of the cowadly likes of Quantrill and his gutless backshooting ilk who would have run from a Blue Coat drummer boy or a Federal Army nurse!
It is about time that Americans honored those who stood and fought for freedom and WON. This book is a fine start.

Prof Hutton does an excellent job with the story of "Little Phil" Sheridan and the Army on the post-Civil War plains. This is well written and brings the reader along like a good historical novel -- Hutton is a good historian and a great writer.

This book is an attempt to bring to a general readership the idea that solutions to any number of human problems can, and are being, found in the wild. Thus farmers might discover naturally occurring pesticides, perhaps from the leaves of trees; doctors might use antibiotics manufactured by microbes or ants; and engineers, builders and manufacturers might learn how to make the super strong but light weight materials spun out by spiders and worms or secreted by mollusks.

(Or, more realistically, chemical conglomerates, pharmaceutical giants, and construction multinationals might better their bottom line and reduce pollution and the destruction of the environment through the use of ecologically viable solutions.)

The text, written by Australian biologist Andrew Beattie with perhaps more than symbolic assistance from famed population biologist Paul Ehrlich, is unpretentious enough to be accessible to high school students; indeed it seems in some respects, by using a minimum of jargon and technical language, to be aimed at young people. There is an emphasis on the positive aspects of bioremediation and biotechnology rather than sounding any alarm bells about our misuse of the environment. Thus when animals are to be employed as biological monitors of pollution (as the canary is used in the coal mine) the text assures us that rare or endangered species will not be used. Or when pigs are employed (on islands north of Australia) as sentinel animals that might warn of disease traveling south, we are told that they live in pens under "palm trees that rustle in the balmy sea breezes" and that the pigs "snooze or root about in the sand and coconut husks" and are tossed leftovers by passing villagers several times a day "from the family meal or some other delicacy." (p. 160)

The authors follow the introduction with these important words, "The majority of species on Earth have yet to be discovered." (By the way, those who think that the identification of species is like glorified stamp collecting, as I recently read in some book, are very much mistaken. An accounting of life forms, at the very least, will give us a basis for examining change.) Beattie and Ehrlich follow this up with an exploration of how species live in, on, and with one another, laying the groundwork for an understanding of biodiversity and ecology while showing how dependent we are on the smallest creatures for our survival. They recall the failed Biosphere 2 experiment some years ago in Arizona and use a thought experiment on what we might take to the moon to establish and maintain a natural community, thereby demonstrating beyond any doubt just how complex and connected and dependent are all forms of life. They evoke the concept "the natural internet" to illustrate this interconnectedness and to show how natural cycles, food chains, water and nitrogen cycles, etc., work. Particularly interesting was the chapter on garbage and how the myriad creatures of the soil break down waste and return it to use. The remainder of the book suggests ways that humans can work within natural systems to both our advantage and the advantage of the planet as a whole. It is sorely hoped that this message reaches a lot of people, which is obviously the intent of the authors.

The text is enhanced by appealing black and white illustrations of insects, worms, spiders, microbes, fungi and other living things by Christine Turnbull, done in a way that makes the creatures look almost lovable. Turnbull combines a serious attention to detail with the light touch of a cartoonist. Or at least this is my impression. I imagined, for example, that the immobilized ant on the title page with a fungus growing out of its body had an cartoonist's "x" in its eye; but that was merely a misapprehension; there was no "x." Yet the death of this ant eaten from the inside by a fungus seemed almost benign. Perhaps this is a felicitous way of understanding "nature red in tooth and claw." Furthermore, (and I mean this seriously) maybe if people in general saw ecology in something like the rosy way Disney depicted it in Bambi (but without the distortion) we might be the better for it.

Anyway I admire the attempt by the authors to show how the use of natural products and processes are preferable to the use of artificial and man-made ones whenever possible, and for suggesting the incredible range of what is possible. I wish that all high school students and CEOs of multinational corporations would read this book. Or better yet, heads of state (even dictators and ruling theocrats) and elected representatives whose education has been primarily in law, business and the military, should read this book. Maybe we ought to buy an extra copy and send it to our representative in Washington. Couldn't hurt.

Bottom line: the text is a little pollyannaish at times and the material is familiar to those trained in the life sciences, but the message is an important one, and that message is expressed in a vivid and easily assimilated way. The drawings by Turnbull are wonderful.

Wild Solutions is a beautifully written little book containing a well-reasoned, passionate argument for the conservation of all the creatures in the natural world, not just the ones that look cute on T-shirts or postcards. The over riding theme of this book is not that we should save nature because we can make a quick buck off of it; rather, we should save nature because the natural world is one big laboratory, available to humanity free of charge, that not only supports us with a variety of ecosystem services but also continuously shows us new and better ways of living. The message is that species must be conserved because it is impossible to determine which will be vitally important in the future. Humanity tends to judge the worth of a species based on its value to us now without knowing fully or even considering the role the species may play in nature. We really do not know what species will be important in the future. Moreover, we do not know yet to what extent how important the known species are in ecosystem processes. Too often we learn of the organism's role and importance in ecosystems only after it is gone. One important point of the book is that we do not realize or even appreciate the extent to which we are dependent on the natural world.

As the case of Biosphere Two clearly showed the world, placing a value on the importance of a species without knowing its role in ecosystems and food chains, merely based on arrogant and selfish notions of whether or not we derive some value from it is foolhardy. Biosphere Two also showed us that humanity can not do without Nature, but Nature, given its multi-billion year history, can and has done without us. The authors liken the world's creatures to a natural internet that is responsible for the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, and the rich fertile soil that we depend upon for the food that we eat. All of these gifts from Nature, unfortunately, are being tainted, damaged and destroyed by the greedy and selfish actions of humanity. Although many of the example organisms may not be new to some readers, the way in which these organisms interact, and the way in which Humanity has taken advantage of these interactions to enrich our lives gives all a deeper understanding of the importance of these and other organisms.

While some may criticize the call to save the natural world for economic gain, no one can argue with the authors' assertion that the natural world has served and will continue to serve as a basis for the development of new industries. Nor can it be argued that the natural world will become more important as a springboard for the solution to some of mankind's most pressing problems. While I firmly believe that the preservation of species and habitats solely for present or future economic exploitation is both arrogant and shortsighted, it tends to remain the only way to convince the world powers and corporate sultans to tread lightly around environments and habitats. Such a state of affairs is at once both deplorable and depressing, but I am optimistic that sane minds will rise above the current economically inspired rapacious environmental pillage and eventually prevail.

I fully acknowledge that our callous interference in natural evolutionary processes is a foolish gamble, and this book serves as indisputable proof. Many lifetimes of benefits are waiting to be discovered among Nature's bountiful gifts, and this book inspires me to find a few of them.

Beattie and Ehrlich propose that nature represents an enormous reservoir of capital in the form of chemicals and genes that, having evolved over millions of years, can serve people by providing solutions to such things as diseases, better crops, mining, and energy. In support of their thesis, they've written this book, which is filled with dozens of examples of natural solutions for such things as human illnesses and pest control. A secondary and supporting thesis is that natural ecosystems are complex, with hundreds of interdependencies that link sub-populations in the ecosystem in unpredictable ways. As a result, it's often difficult, if not impossible, to predict how a seemingly minor alteration of an ecosystem will ripple through at different levels.

It seems that one of their goals is to encourage the listing of natural ecosystems as valuable assets. Too often, they argue, the true value of natural ecosystems is lost in economic policy, with the serious loss of important natural solutions that might otherwise have greatly benefited humankind. While I agree that natural ecosystems should be appreciated for their capitalistic value, I think the book's arguments are only moderately persuasive in that regard, and unlikely to convince many capitalists to deal more gently, or responsibly, with earth's natural resources. I also think their argument places the environmental movement on a slippery slope. By asserting that natural ecosystems should be protected for their capitalistic value, they open the door to counter arguments that natural systems with limited, or no, capitalistic value need not be protected. I'm personally more persuaded by holistic and ethical arguments, like those of Native American culture, which views humanity as an integral part of nature; a part that cannot remain morally and ethically whole without showing respect and care for Mother Earth.

However, I'm not so idealistic as to think the Alaska wildlife refuge will be saved by appeals to ethics, beauty, solitude, and spiritual oneness with nature. So, in retrospect, I suppose if Beattie and Ehrlich can convince even a few Texas oil men in the new administration to go easy on the environment "for the money" it will have been worth it.

I didn't buy this book because of its main thesis. I bought it because it is chock full of interesting tidbits and information about how animals interact with each other and their environment. The book is easy to read, captivating, and well written. The illustrations, by Christine Turnbull, are abundant and add considerably to the book. Each is artfully composed in simple black and white with detail and clarity that brings additional insight to the text (there are 40 all together).

In one sense this book might have been called "The Second Earth." There isn't a whole lot about the big animals that people think of. There are no accounts of tigers or bears. Discussions about animals larger than a cat are few. Mostly its about bacteria, beetles, ants, worms, grubs, and things like that. The stories tell how these animals have evolved the most interesting interrelationships, and how the crucible of evolution has resulted in some truly amazing chemical and genetic solutions that animals use - and that we can adapt and use, as well.

Many of the accounts describe how natural solutions can be used to solve problems with crop infestation. Often, the stories illustrate how these natural solutions not only work better, but are also less expensive and less damaging to the environment. One example is found in the story of Opuntia, an ornamental cactus plant that escaped from Australian settlers and infested the countryside. According to the authors, the cost of clearing the land mechanically, or poisoning the plants, was greater than the value of the land itself. Furthermore, the cactus grew so densely that it crowded out indigenous plants. To solve the problem, Australian biologists went to South America to search for natural enemies of Opuntia. The solution turned out to be a cactus-eating moth called Cactoblastis, which quickly cleared most of the Opuntia from the countryside.

Another interesting story tells how Australian aborigines would take a cloth and hold it over a nest of bull ants. The ants would swarm over the cloth, whereupon they were shaken from it, and the cloth was then use to bind wounds. These aboriginal people had discovered that wounds bound in such cloth heal without infection. The reason? Bull ants, being social animals, suffer from diseases (much like our social species). To combat the microbe hordes, bull ants have evolved antibiotics that coat their bodies. Their swarming bodies transfer some of this antibiotic to the cloth, which then serves to protect the wound.

Overall, this is a great book, but I wish the authors had included references for some of the things they discuss. Several times I found myself beating back feelings of genuine aggravation when the authors would make claims, with no way to verify or expand on them through chapter endnotes. They do, however, have a generic list of recommended reading material and a useful index at the end of the book.

If you find nature fascinating, and love to read a well-written book on the subject, then I heartily recommend this one. It will make you think, and more than once, while reading it, I'm sure you will say, "Gee, I never knew that! How interesting."

Lessons Learned is a long-winded tome on DIA and the complexities of airport management and design. Most of the book's facts and information are derived from already published sources. I would have liked to have seen exclusive interviews with the actual people involved in the making of DIA (politicians, workers, et al) -- this book is simply devoid of the investigative touch. Nevertheless, a lot of time and work went into writing Lessons Learned, of which the authors deserve credit. DIA is a story worthy of the 500 plus pages of material, unfortunately Lessons Learned drifts off into territory that will only interest those involved in airport design and management -- some of the technical discussion is boring and does not pertain to DIA directly. The book does explain in detail the political maneuvering within Denver that went into the making of DIA -- this material is the most interesting part of the book. In conclusion, if you share an interest in DIA or airports, get this book. I did and I don't regret it.

I had the extraordinary good fortune to have Paul Dempsey as a professor at the University of Denver College of Law. DU Law School is nationally, if not internationally, recognized as having one of the best transportation law programs in the United States. Paul Dempsey is, more than anyone, responsible for this honor. He regularly travels the globe as a consultant in all areas of transportation law. In the year I had Professor Dempsey, he went to China and Italy to consult with the local governments. Dempsey is also a founding and continuing member of the board of Frontier Airlines. If you are a CNN junkie, you've probably seen Dempsey testifying before Congress. In short, if you want the definitive inside scoop on the airline industry, and the building of DIA, you're not likely to find a more informed person than this guy.

Dempsey is a prolific author, and a highly respected academic. He has published far more than what you see listed here at Amazon.com.

For more information on Paul Dempsey, check out his exhaustive listing of publications at http://www.law.du.edu/support/facbibs/dempsey.htm. For even more information on Professor Dempsey, you can see Frontier Airlines latest 10K report at http://www.sec.gov/edaux/formlynx.htm

Dan Lobnitz, 2L, DU Law

As I first time reader of Fielding I found this book unexpectedly comical. In the same line as going to church to hear a boring old pastor and finding your self humoured throughout the sermon. The charactors keep their distance through the third person narrative which allows the reader to judge, pity and find in the case of Fanny and Joseph perfection which is annoyingly unreal.

As for Parson Adams he well may be a saintly man but surely someone other than myself finds his lack of tact, condenscending tone and total innocence extremely irritating.

This is an incredible book about real friendship,chastity and honesty written in the most humorous fashion.Fielding brings out the true values of friendship beteween Parson Adams and Joseph and true love between the latter and Funny.He points out the sad but true "false" nature of the upper class and brings out questions about real life.I like this book because it encourages chastity and esteems honesty.

This is a memoir with chapters written in and after the 1880's.

An interesting positivist take on the war--also interesting how politically conscious Kidd appears to have been. My general observation is that the Northern accounts seem to be more politicized, more likely to talk about politicians and political beliefs, than Southern.

Kidd started the war as captain of Troop E, 6th Michigan Cavalry, and ended up in command of the regiment. He spends a lot of time discussing recruiting and training, details fighting at Gettysburg and Williamsport, Trevilian Station, Third Winchester, et cetera. Kidd's admiration for Custer, his brigadier, is clear.

A useful account, but not an especially anecdotal or vivid one.

This reprint of the classic "Recollections of a Cavalryman" is a valuable addition to the military history of the nation. It also offers a view of Custer by someone who actually served with him in combat -- extensive combat. The view of Custer that emerges is not that penned by a fawning subordinate; Colonel Kidd simply recounts the battles and activities of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade in a straightforward manner. His later controversy notwithstanding, Custer was an exemplary cavalry commander and arguably the most successful and brilliant cavalry officer on either side in the conflict. This book opens a window on the past and is an excellently written account of the brutal battles fought by our ancestors. The book also offers an unintentional balance to Custer's historical legacy. It's unintentional because at the time it was written, Custer was still considered a national hero. This book explains why he was. Read it.

What a book..."The Book of life." Why it's a modern cartoon book of paleontology. Though its wonderful life-like illustrations and tree-of-life charts are delivered as scientific facts, they are simply graphic theories that illustrators doll up into hypothetical reality. If you like science and fiction, here is a book for you. The realistic pictures belie the text, which says: "We do not even know how to conceptualize, much less to draw the worldview that would place Homo sapiens into proper relationship with the history of life."

Its authors caveat is that "science can only operate as a work in progress without perfect knowledge, and we much therefore leave a great deal out from ignorance --- especially in a historical field like paleontology, where we must work with the strictly limited evidence of a very imperfect fossil record." It's that fossil record, that the book presumes is accurate in its layer-by-layer record through time, that requires scrutiny. The oldest fossils are found in the bottom layers and the youngest in the top layers of rock, but little or no evidence is presented to provide skeptical readers information they can decipher for themselves as to the accuracy of fossil dating by rock layers. Are we to believe, without exception, that the fossil record is progressive from bottom to top? What about fossilized trees that protrude through millions of years of time? They are conveniently omitted. Michael Benton of England's Bristol University, one of the book's contributors, says "All the periods in the geological time scale receive their names in recognition of obvious changes in the fossil record." Yet, to the contrary, Benton adds, "the history of Earth's crust has been far too violent to preserve much more than a random sample."

Its general editor, Stephen Jay Gould, is magnanimous in his promotion of a single theory of man's origins, from monkeys he and most other fossil hunters say.

There may be missing pieces to the paleontological puzzle, but the bone diggers cliam they have finally filled in the evolutional blanks and can conclusively attest to the idea that life evolved from simpler single-celled organisms into modern man. The book's most ardent opponents are taken head on by Gould: "The lack of fossil intermediates had often been cited by creationists as a supposedly prime example for their contention that intermediate forms not only haven't been found in the fossil record but can even be conceived." But Gould holds a trump card. He says: "a lovely series of intermediary steps have now been found in rocks.... in Pakistan. This elegant series, giving lie to the creationist claims, includes the almost perfectly intermediate Ambulocetus (literally, the walking whale), a form with substantial rear legs to complement the front legs already known from many fossil whales, and clearly well adapted both for swimming and for adequate, if limited, movement on land." Oddly, the book never shows a drawing of Ambulocetus, but does have an illustration of a skeleton of a 400-million year old fish with a small underside fin bone the authors claim "must have evolved" into legs in four-legged animals. Man's imagination is not found wanting here. Out of millions of fossils collected and stored in museums, is Ambulocetus the main piece of evidence for evolutionary theory?

Richard Benton says that Charles Darwin had hoped the fossil record would eventually confirm his theory of evolution, but "this has not happened," says Benton. Darwin hoped newly-discovered fossils would connect the dots into a clear evolutionary pattern. The book attempts to do that with its fictional drawings of apes evolving into pre-humans (hominids) and then modern man. Yet the book is not without contradictions. It says: "It remains uncertain whether chimpanzees are more closely related to modern humans or to the gorilla."

The horse is shown as evolving from a small, four-toed to a large one-toed animal over millions of years. There are different varieties of horses, yet there is no evidence that a horse ever evolved from another lower form of animal, nor that horses evolved into any other form of animal.

Another evolutionary puzzle that goes unexplained in the book is the pollination of flowers. How did bees and flowers arrive simultaneously in nature? What directed the appearance of one separate kingdom of life (insects) with that of another?

The book describes 6 1/2-foot millipedes and dragonflies with the wing span of a seagull, but gives no explanation for them. Life was unusual in the past and not all forms fit evolutionary patterns. Consider the popular supposition that life evolved from the sea onto land. That would make more advanced forms of intelligence land bearing. But the aquatic dolphins defy that model, since they are among the smartest mammals.

The book maintains an "out of Africa" scenario for the geographical origins of man, but recent fossil finds in Australia challenge that theory and even the book's authors admit that "a single new skull in an unexpected time or place could still rewrite the primate story." Consider Java man (Homo erectus), once considered the "missing link" and dated at 1.8 million years old. Modern dating methods now estimate Java man to be no more than 50,000 years of age, a fact that was omitted from this text.

Creativity, invention and language are brought out as unique human characteristics. Yet the true uniqueness of man is not emphasized. Humans biologically stand apart from animals in so many ways. Humans can be tickled whereas animals cannot. Humans shed emotional tears, animals do not. The book does not dare venture beyond structure and function, beyond cells and DNA, to ask the question posed by philosophers --- does man have a soul? The Bible speaks of a soul 533 times, this "book of life," not once.

Gould's temple is science. He calls the scientific method "that infallible guide to empirical truth." Science works by elimination. It can only work from experiment to experiment, eliminating what is not true. It can say what is probable, it can never say what is true. Gould appears to begrudge the shackles of science by stepping outside its boundaries in overstating what it can accomplish. Whereas creationists await the day they will stand in judgment before God, for the evolutionists Gould says "Someday, perhaps, we shall me our ancestors face to face." Imagine, standing there looking at a man-like monkey skeleton.

One cannot fault the flaws in this book. After all, it was written by highly evolved apes.

You would have expected more time and detail to the ermergence of the nervous system and the Cambrian Explosion. A more up-to-date section on human evolution (no mention of Ardipithecus Ramidus) but on the whole the book is a good synthesis of the state of the knowledge in this field.

This singular book gives a very nice popular overview of the state-of-the-art in paleontology, chronologically covering everything from the Archean to the evolution of man. It is a beautifully illustrated and well-written book, although the text is perhaps sometimes a bit too technical and dense for the paleontological novice.
And please don't buy some creationists' claims that this is science fiction. The contents of this book is based on material from thousands of scientific articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as "Nature" and "Science", representing the fruits of the hard labour of paleontologists from all over the world. And the fossil record, even if it is convincing in itself, is far from the only support for evolution. Independent evidence for evolution can also be found in biogeography, development, molecular analyses (gene DNA, junk DNA, mtDNA etc), anatomical analyses, and even field observations of new species evolving. This large amount of evidence is why evolution is considered an established and undisputable fact. Of course, if one rather than facts wants comic book fantasies such as humans coexisting with dinosaurs and evil scientists conspiring to hide the truth, then one should look for creationist books instead. Or comic books.

The BIG BOOK OF BAD- the 13th book in the series presents an interesting read- until you reach the "Bad Lite" Chapter- after that- it's all downhill. The Editors wasted space in dedicating pages to the likes of "Vanilla Ice" and his Ilk- when they could have put in more of the real BAAAD guys- such as Idi Amin, Ferdinand Marcos, Adolf Hitler, Peter Kurten, Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, Erap Estrada and the like.

From Lady Macbeth to the admittedly lewd practices of the Roman emporers, this book has it all. Where else could one find the full account of Mr. Sawney Beane, the father of an inbred Scottish family who dwelt in coastal cliffs, frequently preying on travelers and eating them? Or the atrocities committed during the Bataan death march? Beautifully - or gruesomely,depending on who you are - illustrated, this book, another masterpiece by Factoid, satisfies that dark sweet tooth in all of us. A must-have for horror hounds and psychofilm buffs.

Another gem from the crown of Paradox Press! This book examines just what it is to be bad. But we don't just see "bad" as evil: we also see "bad" as in "bad taste." Learn how each story needs a bad guy! And you'll also see how history has its share of bad guys as well! It takes good writers and artists to discuss "bad" like this!

Paul Laurence Dunbar's novel "The Sport of the Gods" describes the experiences of an African-American family in the years following the abolition of slavery. According to the introduction by William L. Andrews in the Signet Classic edition of the novel, "Sport" first appeared in "Lippincott's" magazine in 1901 and was published in book form a year later.

After a disturbing turn of events, the Hamilton family leaves their home in the southern U.S. and makes their way to New York City, where they try to start a new life. But the pressures of urban life have serious consequences for each member of the family.

"Sport" is a story about injustice, innocence, and temptation. As he follows this family's story, Dunbar looks at many different relationships: parent/child, husband/wife, black/white, etc. Particularly interesting is his look at the relationship between the media reporter and those who are the object of media reports. The book also presents an ironic view of artists and their connection to larger society.

"Sport" is a dark, moralistic tale. Although the characterizations are fairly shallow, Dunbar's narrative moves along effectively. I actually found the most intriguing character to be Skaggs, a white reporter for a "yellow" newspaper. This novel serves as an ironic complement to those slave autobiographies (such as the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass") which depict a flight to the north as a liberating experience; the north in "Sport" is a cold, amoral place full of dangers for black people. Overall, this is a compelling book that I regard as a significant milestone in African-American literature.

Have you ever wanted to yell out to the heroes of your favorite movie "DON'T DO THAT YOU IDIOT!!"? This book is sometimes frustrating because you, the reader, can see where the plot is going and want so badly to help the story's characters avoid what seems to be the inevitable. A naturalistic picture of life, and an often-missed text which deserves more attention. It doesn't make you feel good-- but it does make you want to be sure that people have choices, that this sort of thing isn't allowed to happen, that life isn't a series of "sport" that the gods (a vindictive type of gods) play with us. Powerful, powerful writing, vivid details and characters you just want to smack. Read it!

My point being if we're going to require our nation's youth to read Huckleberry Finn in public schools, it is a shame that this book is often left off of the course syllabus. Perhaps because African-American literature doesn't receive as much attention as it should expains this oversight, but regardless of which authors you consider early American classic writers, this book will appeal to all demographics.

An interesting story revolving around a black family that is forced out of the South after being falsely accused of crime. The story is a narrative of their actions and reactions to a new lifestyle in urban New York City. Great philosphical moments such as the bartender teaching the young man the ropes of life.

An interesting and quick read. It's hard to put down this book.

As a Java Developer I was looking more for a reference and minimal set of abstract examples on how to use the syntax of jsp directives, jsp structures, and servlet practices. EJB and XML coverage was very minimal and despite my previous WROX book Professional ASP 2.0 (which was excellent) this book fails in regards to teaching the foundational practices of JSP and Servlets. It is indeed loaded with lots of examples including a good case study called, El Weeds of Limon. The explanations were very surfacy and didn't have enough of the technical details. The type of detail missed should be assumed from books that try to cover too many topics which spread the "meat" of the matter very thin.

Rather than getting you started on the right track it gets you started by making you copy examples which IMHO is a poor way to learn especially if the examples are not very generic.

I recently picked up a better book which includes all the jsp and servlet best practices, perfect amount of HTML mixture in handling forms, etc. and also a broad coverage of the currently available JSP/Servlet Containers like the Jakarta group's Tomcat 3.1 Container.

I would recommend this book if you're looking for examples, period. However if you want to learn JSP and Servlet technology the proper way pick up Core Servlets and JSP by Sun Press. It's also more up to date with the JSP 1.1/Servlet 2.2 spec.

Pro:

*) Covers a lot of ground on up to date (01/2000) server side tech, Servlets, JSP, RMI, XML, EJB, JINI, CORBA, JNDI, LDAP, JDBC, Mime, cookies, Internationalization.

*) Lots of hands-on details with many examples.

*) Very fluent and usually clear.

Con:

*) Very little on theory, concepts, server architecture using these technologies or trends, goes straight to the details.

*) Many exercises don't work without some hacking (they could still fix it, the code is on their site).

*) So much is about Java Servlets you would think Sun published it.

*) Not all the chapters are in the same level, you can feel many people wrote the book.

This book is outstanding! It covers the new features of JSDK2.1 wonderfully. It introduces JSP and other J2EE features. I recommend this book to all current Java Server programmers and to all who want to learn about Java Server Programming. The depth is wonderful and the examples are very good. The only knock is that it is expensive and you don't get a CD. However, there is a web site to download the source code, nice touch Wrox Press! Even though the book is expensive it is well worth the money! Knowing what I know now, I still would buy it again. But this time I would by it through Amazon so I get a discount. :-) Note, I paid full price and still think I got a great deal.

Content Studio would be a good book if it went into more depth on the topics detailed inside. Dynamic Studio tries to do too much. You will find that the book will give you a general understanding of a topic but this will then need to be followed up with some more detailed research (which to me defeats the purpose of buying the book in the first place!).

I have also noticed that all the 'Friends of Ed' publications are rather repetitive of each other. If you buy the whole set of books you will see recurring examples, explanations and ideas frequently, especially in regards to the Action Scripting Topics. Again, as detailed in my review on 'Foundation Actionscripting' by Sham Bhangal in the same series, I would suspect they are selling more on appearance rather than content.

Do not even attempt to buy Dynamic Studio if you think it will help you design a fully functional dynamic Flash site. All the book will do will introduce technologies that you could use to build such a site and give brief examples on their use.

An excellent book! Well worth the investment! It transitions well from more basic concepts to more complex topics -- With lots of substance for people at all levels of experience. Even those with more expertise can learn a thing or two from the different conceptual approaches presented. The book is not just about "here's how to do the same old boring X, Y & Z, just in the updated version of Flash", it also says "here's some different ways of thinking about solutions that takes greater advantage of new features of Flash". I also really enjoyed the mini math and geometry lessons... it's good to know that years of high school algebra and geometry could be put to some use!

The interface design chapters were particularly outstanding; judging by how awful so many Flash sites are at integrating interactivity, PLEASE!! I BEG YOU!!! everybody read the chapters on designing interfaces! They are a "must read" for anyone who wants to improve their site's interactivity.

The game design chapters are also incredibly helpful as well, and I think are some of the first useful explanations of game design I've ever seen for Flash. Even if you're not designing games in Flash, using a familiar game like Asteroids as a vehicle for explaining some pretty clever design elements works very well. Not to mention, it's very cool to be able to make your own video games! Flash isn't just for dull corporate websites anymore!

I'll be incorporating the lessons learned from those chapters into all the stuff I do... even though I only get to do very boring stuff for a corporate site. And if I use what this book teaches, maybe someday I can get hired to make games and do cool interfaces!!! :)

I've bought numerous books on Flash and the Dynamic Scripting that can be intermingled with Flash.... Flash 5 ActionScript F/X and Design, Flash 4 Creative Web Animation, and different Wrox books on ASP, ASP databases, and ADO. This book ties ALL of them together. It explains motion scripting for beginners, and then it shows how to import variables from ASP, PHP, Perl, and Cold Fusion. These 1000+ pages contain EVERYTHING you want to know about Flash, it it with out a doubt, THE BEST FLASH BOOK EVER CREATED!!!! It even branches out Flash to other programs like Dreamweaver UltraDev and Generator, it explains how to display information from databases using Flash Turbine. If you read this book, you will be a master at Flash.