As someone with an interest in the Viking ways and Norse mythology I was given this book to read by a freind. Upon completion I felt almost enlightened into the Norse ways of life as well as the actual stories of the Norse Gods such as Thor, Odin, and Freyia. The enormous strenght of Thor is admirable and amazing, yet he is as honorable as one man can be. At times the reading can be a little slow but this seems to be more of a difference realized from the translation as well as the difference between 1200 AD (approx. time it was written) and today, both in familiar written form as well as over all cultural differences. Despite these factors this book is necessary reading for anyone interested in some of the more popular stories of Thor as well as the rest of Viking and Norse mythology.

The purpose of McDermott's book is to show the vast difference between each one of the three presidents. He takes these differences and later shows how they give off a dissimilar reactions from the Egyptians. To prove the distinction between them, he explicitly shows the decisions, taken by each president, and how the implementation of these resolutions ends up affecting the country and nation.
To clarify his objective McDermott clearly explains the differences between each president. He wants to explain how each president differed in his viewpoints, and how those views brought about problems to both the current president and the successor. The book does a great job in achieving McDermott's goal, because he clearly lays out the dilemmas each president entailed, then he describes how they solved this problem. Starting off with the charismatic chief, who launched the monarchy, Jamal Abd el Nasser. In October 1954 he called for the evacuation of British troops from Egypt. All of these events emphasized Nasser's position as the first native Egyptian ruler for some centuries to have asserted Egypt's rights and position, and to have won recognition for them. As a historical personality he was able, even without it being his intention, but through his direct contact with the people, to bypass all institutions and go direct to the people. That was his charm, his appeal and his charisma. Two of Nasser's decisions in particular sealed his fate; his demand that the UN should remove its force from the Sinai, and the announcement on 23 May that the Straits of Tiran were closed. UN moving out of Sinai opened the way to invasion; and by closing the Straits of Tiran Israel felt itself to be hemmed in so now Israel obtained three weeks of preparation. Nasser knew what he wanted and how to change his stance and seek reconciliation with opponents when he is over-extended. Those were the qualities of a master tactician unlike the other two presidents. He clearly dislikes making definitive long-range bargains, because the Egyptian revolution is still groping for a clear sense of its purposes. Nasser's decision left Egypt defeated, economically weak and unconvinced that it had been a revolution which had carried out in 1952.
Sadat taking over Nasser's death, as many found later, was a much-underrated man. Sadat finally brought about the expulsion of the Russians. This act jeopardized not only the prevention of Israel's deep penetration raids but also the supply of arms to forces, which at that stage had virtually no other sources. Kicking out the Russians was one more clear-cut step in an 'Egypt-first' trend which ended in Sadat's journey to Jerusalem. This differed tremendously from Nasser's Pan-Arabism. It was in short, an appeal to Egypt to be itself, and with it came the implementation that Nasser had mismanaged the revolution and the man to bring about the necessary changes was Sadat. McDermott achieves his objective clearly by comparing the evaluations of Nasser and Sadat. Nasser was the great charismatic father figure, but he was also greatly feared. He was moved by high, but for Egyptians, exhausting ambitions. By contrast, Sadat seems natural, approachable, human. Sadat not only had to deal with the bad economy that Nasser had left behind, but with the coming of the 'infitah' the open door policy ultimately had a counterproductive effect by encouraging a small section of the population selfishly to make money. Differing actions taken by Sadat than Nasser, abled the latter to take over a country, which was economically exhausted. From the military and political point of view, Soviet assistance had become an overbearing liability. With the 1973 war being won, albeit with Soviet arms, any progress towards a solution made American involvement rare. So it was a time when the choices were far more complicated than those of the preceding decade. Nasser left Sadat with a much more intricate task, but Sadat does the same to Mubarak.
Mubarak, stepping up after the assassination of Sadat, dealt with all the problems that had been passed down by Nasser and weren't taken care of by Sadat. He was concerned with Egypt's problems in a way that Sadat had not been. His approach was that 'no one should rely on the efforts of the government alone, we are all citizens with equal rights and duties.' This definitely diverged from Sadat's claims ands pretensions. Mubarak had to fix relations with Moscow after Sadat had ordered the expulsion of the Soviet ambassador and six members of the embassy in September 1981. Mubaraks purpose was to restore calmness, and with security as his priority, to keep under control any potential challenges from within to his rule. Mubarak tried to keep the tension between Egypt and the other Arab states to a tolerable level by eliminating abusive rhetoric and by avoiding policies which Arab countries would find provocative. He restored relations with President Hafez Assad of Syria, who was deeply hostile to he peace treaty with Israel that was enacted by Sadat. Mubarak is a good example for McDermotts goal of elucidating how each president differed. Differentiation wasn't just his primary objective; he wanted the readers to view how this differentiation in action produced a different nation with each president. As a result we see that Mubarak varied his approach towards opposition groups, consequently he gained their respect unlike Sadat who just battled with them.
A strong point in this book is the efficiency that McDermott implements with every example. He achieves his objective by characterizing each president separately and proving that they each affected Egypt in a positive and negative manner. Then he goes on to elucidate how the succeeding preceding deal with these oncoming dilemmas that were past by from their predecessors.

Iannarelli's story tells of the short battle for Guam against overwhelming odds. Captured and taken to Japan, Iannarelli and his fellow prisoners were forced to work as slaves at the Nippon Sietesu steel mills (Nippon Iron and Steel, as NKK was known as before the war).

Iannarelli gives a detailed and stirring account of bravery by fellow prisoners as they endured endless days of starvation, savagery, and brutality at the hands of the Japanese guards. Iannarelli had the advantage of speaking Japanese and was able to prevent much of the savagery against fellow inmates by interpreting Japanese commands. Like his 80 fellow POWs from Guam, he learned to steal food and supplies in order to live. Being caught meant a savage beating with baseball bats and mass punishments of the entire camp.

One of the singular best books written about the Hirohata POW camp. Worth acquiring for the serious student of World War II history.

This is not a story only for children. It is an introduction to the painting details too. As the complete works for children Anthony Browne has developed, this book also contains the easy vocabulary to be understood by children and the baroque drawing of every element in each picture, so you can introduce even some famous paint masterpieces to the visual memory of every reader. In this case is Velazquez. Don't think the short number of pages is for a speedy reading, you can pass slowly every page looking the multiple details subjetively put on each square.

A couple vacationing in France go for a walk along the beach. Somehow they catch fire and burn to death. How did it happen? The police are satisfied it was a freak accident, but the couple's daughter doesn't believe it. She hired ex-CID detective John Webber to find out what really happened.

After such a bizarre opening, it takes good, solid detection to find out the identity of the killer. I found the story and characers very interesting, but sometime the story moved a little slow. I skipped around during some of the descriptive parts. Although this story is old and out of print, if you do come across it, you may enjoy it. But it wasn't so great that I'd recommend scouring the used bookstores until you find it.

Aveni's book is a fascinating portrait of the rhythms and roles of time keeping in a variety of cultures including the Aztec, Inca, Maya, and ancient Chinese. A fascinating exploration of a topic we all too often don't bother to consdier.

This book offers a simple introduction to Financial Mathematics and Economic Engineering most of the chapters has wonderful examples for understanding and comprenhend the matters of this subject. If you are really interested in advanced skills on Financial Evaluation situations or proyects this is the perfect book to begin with. Start to read it and enjoy doing all the exercises this is real Analitic bussines and economic cases.

In this book Anthony Smith does exactly what he sets out to do, namely show how important ethnic groups have been for setting the foundation of modern nations. Neglected by such modernists as Anderson, Hobsbawm and Kedourie, ethnic groups have been around for as long as the written word: Smith digs into the past and comes out with gobs of them in the ancient Middle East alone, some of them quite obscure: you definitely deserve a prize if you've heard of the Arameans, Hurrians, Urartians and Amorites.

Smith creates a whole typology about ethnic groups. He claims that all ethnic groups (or, as he calls them, 'ethnies', from the French for 'ethnic community') have several key aspects, including a name, common myth of descent, shared history and culture, territory and a sense of solidarity. They also fit into two main categories: lateral ethnies, which are based on an aristocracy and clerisy and rule over an indefinite but often large area, and the vertical ethnies, based on a urban, priestly or artisan class which rule over a small but clearly marked area.

Smith discusses the development of nations in the context of the French Revolution, when the modern concept of citizenship entered the picture, and here his narrative lets up a bit. Devoting most of the book to ethnicity, when he comes to discussing the two main types of modern nations - territorial (or non-ethnic) and ethnic - he spends too much time on the latter and not enough on former. This is an important flaw, since he thereby almost dismisses those nations like the U.S. which do not have an ethnic foundation and thus do not fit his theory.

Nonetheless this book is useful for the sole but important purpose of reinforcing the link between many nations and their ethnic pasts.

Anthony Pagden's 1993 book, "European Encounters with the New World," is a socio-cultural historical study of the ways and means by which the 'discovery' of the New World left indelible impressions upon the Old World. The book revolves around European attempts from Columbus in 1492, to Alexander von Humboldt, in 1799, to understand what the discovery meant - from how Europeans thought about the New World itself, its original inhabitants, and whether any approach could sufficiently provide them with an understanding of themselves in light of the discovery. Concerned with the themes of 'newness,' 'authority,' and the seeming impasse of 'cultural incommensurability,' Pagden very clearly lays out the stakes for a wide range of disparate, often conflicting European ideas about what America meant in the Early Modern Period. Pagden's approach was at once comfortable to me - he works almost exclusively with the products of cultural production - letters, histories, philosophy, dialogues, and fiction. Subtly, Pagden as a historian seems to dispense with a radical dependence on statistics and data, in favor of a history of representation. One strength of the book is that it works, simultaneously, as informed and interesting literary criticism and as a cultural and intellectual history.

Chapter 1 takes on the history of European encounters with the New World at the level of the processes by which Europeans actually came into contact with the New World. From Columbus through Humboldt, Pagden argues, a 'principle of attachment' governed these encounters. In order for a traveller, migrant, colonist (and other varieties all finely delineated) to come to grips with the alienness of the new world - he first attempts a kind of mental transference, mapping the startlingly new with familiar forms, from rocks to native people. This is the attempt, which haunts Early Modern Europe, of trying to make the incommensurable commensurable with European experience and epistemology, which comes out of an explicit history of textual interpretation. Beyond the individual experience of America, the next problem, as Pagden sees it, is how to relate these wholly unique experiences to Europeans in Europe. In light of the tradition of textual interpretation, which depended upon the Bible, the Church Fathers, and finally the Ancients - all of whom the very concept of a 'new' continent is beyond conception - how does a person legitimize and authenticate his experience and make it legible? Using the writings of contemporary Spanish writers and missionaries, principally Las Casas and Oviedo, Pagden argues that a new tradition of 'autopsy,' which he defines as appeal to the authority of the eyewitness. In line with recent developments in philosophy, the time was ripe for such a literature in which a named narrator claimed the truth of his observations. However, according to Pagden, as the Early Modern Period continued, the focus on observational authority became increasingly dependent on concomitant claims to objectivity.

Chapter 3 deals with the reckoning which the discovery of the New World brought to bear on religious and intellectual history, and how the intellectual establishment coped and adapted to the assault on the integrity of its big three - the Bible, Chruch Fathers, and Ancients. Pagden also takes up the developing mythos surrounding Christopher Columbus - they way that images of Columbus as a 'culture-hero' shift and change from Columbus' own time through Humboldt's appropriation of him. Chapter 4 finds Pagden dealing with the linguistic encounters between the Old and New Worlds - the ways in which European languages found difficulties relating their authority, political and religious to natives and their own languages. It also takes up issues of temporality - how the Old World envisioned its investment in the New World as providing a peek into some kind of common human history. Chapter 5, centering around Diderot's "Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage," Humboldt's "Kosmos," and the writings of Herder examines the way in which Enlightenment and early Romantic writers represents the difficulties inherent in crossing into New World spaces. 18th century debates range from vehement anti-colonialist discourse, to absolute incommensurability, to the impossibility of a universal good, to Humboldt's belief that he was the objective explorer that the European imagination had been awaiting since Columbus.

Dealing only briefly with developments in critical theory over the past 20 or so years prior to 1993, including post-colonial studies, Pagden acknolwedges the use of studies which claim the 'other' is always a construction. Similar omissions, acknowledged or not, include the absence of African slaves, and sustained emphasis on commercial and religious discourses from his cultural history. On the whole though, Pagden's clear writing style and deep engagement with his cultural source materials, spanning different languages and historical moments is impressive, informative, and highly entertaining.

It's been a number of years since I read this book, but I still refer to it often. For the person who is trying to figure out his or her mission in life, Tony sets out some great principles and guidelines for doing so. This is a must-read for people trying to determine what they're going to do with their life career-wise.

The second half of the book is much weaker than the first, as Tony gets on his soapbox about caring for the needy, a worthy cause but not necessarily the "calling" that everyone will respond to. Still, the first half of the book is strong enough to make it worth buying. You can always just skip the last few chapters if you wish.