I really can't explain how helpful Beth Moore's workbook studies have been in my life. They've helped me to find a discipline with God that I never had before. I've learned so much about the Bible, and more specifically, about the real, true, loving God who cares so much for me and for you. If you're at all considering this study, please try it. I think you'll like it. Beth Moore seems to really try hard to keep her studies accurate, relevant, meaningful, and NOT shallow. They're as deep as you want to go with them. They're not fluffy stuff, they're studies that honor God and the women who love Him by assuming that you have a brain, that you love God, and that you want to be closer to Him, and frankly, that you're human with human weaknesses. Beth understands women, because she doesn't seem to be afraid to really be a real woman after God's own heart.

What an awesome, in-depth look at the life of Paul! Beth Moore has obviously studied scripture with a prayerful heart to allow God to reveal this study through her. I have been challenged and enlightened through her words. Be ready to have your heart changed and experience a greater love of the Lord.

Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest and most encyclopedic minds of all western civilization, living in the thirteenth century when Christendom was divided politically between the East and the West. He undertook to write a compendium of Aristotlean philosophy, Christian theological tradition, and a comprehensive survey of all knowledge up to the thirteenth century. That masterpiece is the "Summa Theologica," which is available in English in either five, densely typed volumes (English Fathers) or in the sixty-volume Blackfriars edition for Oxford.

Tying to tackle such a wealth of information on one's own, most likely the only way short of catholic university in which to do so, is a hard nut to crack. Aquinas writes in a style very different from today's writers. While his work is very systematic, its breadth and depth can sometime cause one to lose their way. What did he say? is often a rejoinder by modern readers.

This is where Fr. Glenn's "Tour of the Summa" becomes a Godsend. In a single volume, Fr. Glenn condenses the "nugget" of each chapter and question in the multi-volume work into a sentence of two -- sometimes, when necessary, into lengthier paragraphs. Stripped from the original is the "pro" and "con" arguments that Aquinas uses to introduce and conclude each of his arguments. Instead, Fr. Glenn focuses entirely on the position Aquinas took that is central to each question.

With this book side-by-side to the complete Summa, the reader will not get lost in the forest for the trees. The Tour gives the reader the core thesis, while allowing the reader to develop the thesis-antithesis parts and the argument itself on his own. So Glenn is not doing the work for the reader by explicating each question and answer, but rather is nudging the reader to stay on track with core ideas while exploring the argument and the thesis-antithesis for himself.

Despite its age and antiquity, the Summa Theologica still speaks to those who devote time, energy, and effort into the endeavor. There is no comparable book in all of history, and for that reason, it remains a "Great Book of Western Civilization." But to tackle such an encyclopedic work without the aid of Glenn's "Tour" is needlessly adding to the difficulty. This is one of those books one reads over a lifetime, and thanks to Fr. Glenn, one can do so without fear of getting lost.

Anyone who has struggled with the scope and the style of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, will immediately appreciate the accomplishment of Msgr. Paul Glenn in his, A TOUR OF THE SUMMA.

As the Preface says, "A TOUR OF THE SUMMA is not a translation, not a digest, not a selection of parts called basic, or best. It is a journey through the entire SUMMA . . . a condensed paraphrase of the essential teaching of the SUMMA, so presented as to enable the reader to turn instantly to the exact locus in St. Thomas for a full treatment of each point discussed."

While following the original outline, Glenn avoids Aquinas' ponderous approach of laying out objections and replies, and instead, extracts and distills the meat of Aquinas' points in a manner that is useful to both theologian and layman. A comprehensive index makes topical study a pleasure.

An excellent reference book, and very helpful in study and preparation for teaching on the great religious/philisophical themes that have dominated Christian thought since the 13th century.

This aptly titled work carries an idea (all thy titles thou hast given away), and an implied challenge. In a period when a postmodern traffic jam of formerly modern millies and New Age bedouins and their high-priced gurus have changed the course of history in favor of more exciting Spenglerian fare, the gesture of invoking a renewed project, toward a new Enlightenment, represents a brave effort to go down fighting, or else simply stand and watch the frittering away of a significant heritage, suddenly defenseless against the triumph of new obscurantisms. But then the Enlightenment proposed would hope to bypass the splitting dialectic in the original project, well indicated in the original query of Kant. One need not agree with the actual proposals of this viewpoint then to see the cogency of the idea. Nor does a now defenseless rationalist need to feel put upon in an environment of pompously 'enlightened' New Age pied pipers, for the issue of the Enlightenment remains to haunt its wiseacres. And of course a dozen meanings certainly not intended by the author have already been three-card monte-ed onto the term, and the question of Kant. Like the sufi tale of the crows and the sweet pie, the very notion is almost stolen merchandise. One problem is, how would we initiate social change along these lines? Wasn't Marx a dabbler in this field? Seize the bull by the horns and start a social movement-no, the New Agers have filled the void.
More directly, I found the essays in this book to be a useful and ironic commentary on the past generation's confusion, and the amnesia about modernism its detractors need to repropose a new social conditioning. While I would find the skeptical humanism proposed not quite to my taste and too limited to withstand the predestigators now at work, and a bit underpowered in the flood of substitute sugars flooding the market, its basic gist confronts the postmodern entropies with quite a direct dialectical 'quo vadis'.

I loved his earlier book -in defence of secular humanism .this cotinuation of the same with greater clarity and flair . must read to better understand our life`predicament I wish Icould meet the proffesor and discuss with him .

This book was recommended to me by a friend. When I received the book, I thought I would read a bit that night and then go to bed. I could not put it down!! It was written very well in a way that held my interest. I truly believe that it will be of interest to all veterans and their families not only in regards to what our soldiers deal with on a day to day basis when they are deployed to protect our county, but also in dealing with the boundless red tape involved in dealing with the bureaucracy of our military. Mr. Perrone did in no way denigrate our military, but he did show that in their attempt to not disclose information that should have been made available to each and every soldier, the powers that be are not always right! He gave facts and backup for every thing he wrote and persevered no matter what obstacles were put in his way. I believe he is honestly trying to help all the many thousands of veterans who have become ill and cannot explain the whys and wherefors of their illness. This book will give them the help they need to find the answers and the knowledge that you can "fight city hall" and win. My son is a career military man and I have just sent this book to him and also one to my brother who served in the Gulf at the same time as Sergeant Perrone.I highly recommend this book.

As the wife of a disabled veteran I found Sergeant Perrone's Story both comforting and informative. I truly wish my husband had a book like this available to him when he was struggling to obtain recognition from the Departemnt of Defense and the Veterans' Administration for his service connected disability. If you or someone you care about is a veteran or thinking of joining the military get and read this book. Sergeant Perrone makes it clear he loves his country and is proud to have had the opportunity to serve but he also makes it clear his top priority is supporting the troops when they return home and need care. He accompishes this in a roller coaster ride of humorous stories and heart breaking personal setbacks. Sergeant Perrone is both talented and quick witted. Well written! Great Job!

Two very good friends of mine bought me this book last November and I can't get tired of it at all!

The book is systematically grouped into categories such as Desert landscapes, ancient landscapes etc which necessarily makes it an easy read for a light reader or those who love pictures.

Most of the pictures depict natural features in the U.S.A. and some from Canada and islands in the Indian Ocean. Even though many, such as the Delicate Arch, are very well-photographed, the lively colors seem to want you to pay attention to the pictures again. For example, Delicate Arch was taken with a backdrop of a brewing thunderstorm. Due to the presence of other comparable features behind or near the main focus, one will be kept intrigued, truly appreciating the sheer size of each of the features and marveling at the wonderful hand of God.

The captions are informative, and I would say, rather detailed - so much so they can pass for simple Geographic text. Some even add a sense of humor, describing huge corestones on the Bowling Balls Beach to have "roll[ed] over to join its companion".

My only complaint is that there are too few photos. There should be more on Grand Canyon, and other beautiful features not covered such as Big Horn Canyon, Gates of the Mountains, Yosemite Falls, Crater Lake, Shoshone in Wyoming and Niagara Falls, whose histories can be equally alluring.

The Earth has many lessons to teach us. These lessons are written on the ground at your feet, on the mountains across the river from my house, in the rocks of a riverbed, in the trees all around us. Once you learn to read them, you'll see them everywhere.

This inspired collaboration between Photographer William Neill and the Staff of San Francisco's acclaimed science museum, the Exploratorium, Traces of Time, beautifully illustrates the effects of time on our natural surroundings.

The Exploratorium was the one place in the Bay Area where I could take my chickadees for an entire day & know we would all be learning things that were both strange & curious about everyday objects & events. It is the only hands-on museum where you never hear a discouraging word & are invited to play. There are now over 650 exhibits which people can investigate with impunity.

This is a gloriously illustrated, thoughtfully written introduction to how the passing of time can be seen in the moment - rushing rivers captured in the camera's lens & over the eons - geology explained.

Traces of Time will make an excellent gift that will keep on giving. For my full review do check out: [my website].

The stated purpose of the authors in this book is to bring order to the variety of models that have appeared in the analysis of international trade policy in imperfectly competitive markets. Throughout the book they rely on partial equilibrium models. When there are cases in which general equilibrium effects alter conclusions, the authors point them out.

The three central issues that recur in this book are the effects of trade policy on market power, the strategic effect of trade policy on competition and the effect of trade policy on consumer choice.

The defining feature of imperfect competition is that firms do not take prices as given. As a result they do not regard the sole effect of selling another unit of output on their revenue as being the price of that unit; they have some conjecture about what effect selling more will have on the revenue they get from inframarginal sales. The end result is that price normally exceeds marginal cost.

The ratio of price to marginal cost is one measure of market power. A trade policy may alter the markup of price over marginal cost in ways that are benefitial or harmful to the country that initiates the policy.

This book shows that problems involving market power can be analyzed by focusing on perceived marginal revenue -- the increase in revenue that a firm expects to receive by producing one more unit, which is always less than the price (because of the effect on intramarginal sales) but may exceed the true marginal revenue that would prevail if the industry acted in concert.

An aspect of the new literature on trade policy under imperfect competition is the possibility that interventionist trade policies may have beneficial strategic effects. A strategic move is an action that is not profitable viewed in isolation but that alters the terms of subsequent competition to a firm's benefit. For instance, a firm may invest in excess capacity that it does nor intend to use, but whose presence deters potential competitors from entering the market. Government trade policies may serve the same kind of role.

Some questions that this book brings up in this regard are: How likely is it that a government will be able to have the information necessary to conduct a successful strategic policy? and Are there likely to be offsetting effects in the kind of industry to which the strategic trade argument might apply?

Making a commodity is costly, but if its price exceeds its marginal cost, then the resources used to produce it might not have an equally productive use elsewhere. In priciple, policies that induce consumers to purchase domestic goods whose price surpasses marginal cost may raise national income.

Protection can under some circumstances induce an increase in domestic production that actually lowers prices to consumers.

Arguments based on imperfect competition, external economies and factor market distortions have substantial empirical support and are the most powerful professionally respectable arguments against free trade.

In international trade policy analysis, distortions that could justify government intervention were superimposed on a theoretical structure whose logic was that of competitive equilibrium. In the new theory the imperfections are built into the structure from the get go.

The reasons for treating trade policy conclusions cautiously are: 1) Uncertainty, the effects of a given policy may depend crucially on the details of the market. 2) Domestic political economy, there are people eager to appropriate the result of new trade theories to support dubious causes. 3) International rivalry, a policy that benefits one country acting unilaterally may be harmful if everyone does it.

Since quantitative analyses seem to indicate that the gains from even optimal intervention are small, many economists have suggested that free trade remains a useful rule of thumb, even though it is rarely optimal in modern trade policies.

The book develops the arguments gradually, starting with market structures that exhibit one-sided market power and moving on to those that show two-sided market power. After providing background on trade policy in a competitive environment, the authors discuss import protection by a country with a domestic monopoly or oligopoly. Then they deal with import protection in an economy that faces a foreign monopoly or oligopoly, while domestic supply is nonexistant or competitive.

Later in the book strategic interactions come in to play beginning with an export-market scenario whereby domestic firms with monopoly power compete with foreign firms with monopoly power too. This is followed by an exploration of the role of strategic interactions in a domestic market in which domestic firms with market power compete with foreign firms with market power as well.

Trade policy in the presence of two-way trade, which may arise from monopolistic competition in differentiated products or for strategic reasons, is also examined in this volume. Finally, the authors review the recent literature that tries to quantify the effects of trade policy in noncompetitive environments. The new methodology and the numerical results are discussed.

There are four main areas in the analysis of trade policy under imperfect competition that deserve further investigation: 1) Models of market structure that make size distribution of firms endogenous. 2) Models of cooperative behavior to reflect some real-world activities of oligopolists. 3) Models with real dynamics in which trade policy can change the long-run rate of growth. 4) Quantification to confront the models with data so as to narrow down the possibilities.

In its time, this was a ground-breaking book. Hopefully, since its publication in 1989, economic researchers around the world could have taken note of the fields where deeper work was needed and made significant progress in constructing better models. By now, there should be already something in print that sums up the gains in the past decade, so it would be advisable to try to look up these updated books too.

This slim volume presents the normative theory of international trade under imperfect competition in a systematic manner. One cannot help but come away from it with a profound sense of caution about the advisablility of policies aimed at shifting rents. This ought to be required reading for all policymakers interested in "strategic trade theory." Unfortunately, it is not.

A one-of-a-kind book! I've never seen any other book on the shelves that discusses this topic. Certainly not as thoroughly as Mr. Paradise covers it. It's obvious he's done his homework. The research and time spent talking to the experts is also apparent.
I'm a librarian and I read a couple of hundred books a year so I don't waste any time on books I don't find interesting. I couldn't put this book down! Despite the catchy title this is a fun book to read. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in keeping abreast of current events of anyone who just wants to read a darned good book.

the definitive guide to commercial counterfitting available on the market.

Paul really delivers the goods in this page turning expose'.

I like this book very much because it starts with the basics of Adobe Photoshop, and it also starts with learning different effects and techniques you can start to use right away. This is a fun way to learn - you really feel like you are accomplishing something. Perkins and Grant use layman language without making the reader feel like a dummy; illustrations and examples of what is being talked about are plentiful.

I turned to this book many times when I needed to learn a Photoshop technique in a hurry, although I have several Adobe Photoshop books on hand. I knew with Tradional Photographic Effects With Adobe Photoshop I could do what I needed to with little confusion and searching.

Along with clear and concise instructions for working on your photographs, a section covers input and output techniques.

This is a great book for Photoshop beginners and a nice book for Photoshop pros to have on hand to a technique up in a hurry.

This book pulls out all the stops, presenting helpful, practical information vital to creating perfect prints. It is well illustrated with color images and screenshots, making any digital-photographic endeavor--from sandwiching to vignetting to creating "infrared" images--a quick and painless process. I especially appreciated the reader-friendly organization of the book. I could flip to any page to find a great technique, mastering the steps at my own pace without wading through a maze of unimportant, high-brow digital jargon. This book is inspiring!

Baraka's "Best Of..." collection is quite simply a must-read for any person with an interest in 20th century poetry. The words almost leap out against you when you open the book, and the language is mind-bending. Try to read these poems aloud to yourself, and you might just get the word-kick of a lifetime. Oop Bop Sh'Bam...

This book is not for those sensitive to raw material. But if you're a fan of Mr. Baraka, this book is a 40-year collection, and a definite must for your bookshelf. In the words of Mr. Baraka, "Can you stand such beauty? So violent and transforming." This line from his poem "Return of the Native" encompasses all that is Transbluency. This book is for the true fan of protest poetry. Mr. Baraka uses blues and jazz rhythms as well as the natural essence of words to express himself in amazing ways. I enjoy this book not only because I am a fan, but because it is rare to find a poet who has mastered the art of poetic language and imagery.

The Transendence of the Ego is the heart and soul of Sartre's philosopy. It is a classic and a must for anyone who wants to delve deeper in his/her understanding of Sartre's other philosophical views. It is a wonderful thesis, more or less an expanded introduction to Being and Nothingness.

transcending the ego, is the state to which 'organized' religions preach, whether christian, jew, muslim, hindu, buddhist, shamin. this little book is so deep, with so few words, it is astounding. read this and the second half of Flatlander by Abbott.