It is a great work of this book. I think it is very useful to readers with all kinds of levels. But it is a pity I can't buy it in my own country-mainland of China. Could you give me a chance? Thanks!

Although over 15 years old, this book is the best, most comprehensive treatment of available data (which has grown some) and theories (which have grown but not multiplied) on land vertebrate extinctions of the last 100,000 years. If you are a mammoth/sabertooth extinction hound, this book will feed you better than any other. It does require some specialized knowledge in a few chapters, but the gist is accessible for the educated layperson. It's worth hunting for or buying used.

A more recent offering still in print (though briefer) is "Extinctions in Near Time," Ross MacPhee, ed.

I appreciate the candor in labeling two of the major sections, entitled 'the theoretical marketplace: geologic-climactic models' and 'the theoretical marketplace: cultural models' which encompass variations on each of the two main theories for the extinction.

In addition to theories, the book describes the various mammals as well as their pattern of disappearance region by region worldwide. At 867 pages, it will keep you going for a while, but it's worth every page.

There is only one chapter on birds, only passing references to a tortise, lizard, or fish, and nothing on plants. I would love to find similar treatments for changes in characteristic flora for the same time period.

This book is a must read for anyone studying film. It completely challenges the eurocentric doctrine of the mainstream film industry. It takes Third Cinema to another level, with articles from film makers who are pioneering this work. Great references to films. Redefines film language in non-western and western terms. Important to understand that Hollywood is First Cinema, Independent film is Second Cinema and Third Cinema is completely outside of that, redefining the technology and aestetics.

This book will really help you out!

I enjoyed this book as it reveals the stories behind the stars. It is suprisingly inspirational. This wonderful book prompted me to read Barbara Barrie's equally wonderful book, Second Act about her bout with colon cancer. Both Books givew great insight into life. Fame, beauty and Stardom matters not. One does not feel alone after reading these two wonderful books. One never knows what waits.

As a lover of cats and the written meaning of words, this book is extraordinary. The contents express the true thought of the cat, plus the siteful interpretation, of man, thru photograph and word. The strength of picture and meaning leap at you, as you turn the pages. Drawing you in deeper and deeper, as you rush to finish viewing your first siting, of this adventure. Encouraging you to view immediately, once again the site of photo and word. This collection is a great gift and a great addition to anyone's collection.

i have yet to read this book.send me some edited part

Social interaction and belief systems converge in this provocative extension of consumer analysis by Paul Mullins. In his award-winning study of African-Americans in Annapolis, Maryland, 1850Ð1930 (Mullins won the 1999 John L. Cotter Prize given by the Society for Historical Archaeology for best book published by a young scholar in the field), Mullins departs from models of consumption based solely on exchange value (price) or on essentialist notions of material symbolism and cultural identity. Mullins asserts the Ôcentrality of desireÕÑÔthe belief that an object will realize or contribute to some idealization when it is consumedÕ (p. 31; emphasis in original) is critical in the construction and contestation of subjectivity. Subjectivity occurs when members of a subgroup forge and renegotiate a cultural identity within the bounds of specific physical conditions and power relationships that are not under their control. Subjectivity is neither essential nor imposed; it does not increase or decrease status, although it enables the development of new personas. The book is finely written and thoroughly researched, combining historical research with analysis of archaeologically-recovered material culture. Mullins's research makes it clear that there were no universal African-American consumption patterns. Instead he found "strong consistencies in African-American consumption [that] suggest how African Americans negotiated common structural conditions and constantly transformed a shared heritage" (pp. 187Ð88). The objects Mullins studies are ordinary ones as likely to be found at Euro-American home sites as they are at African-American sites. MullinsÕs interest, however, is not in the artifact patterns per se but in the clusters of beliefs that African Americans projected onto, saw reflected in, or as flowing from material goods. Setting this form of consumerism within its racial setting, Mullins links consumption with African-American desires for full citizenship. His work departs dramatically from the emphases of earlier consumer studies in historical archaeology. It is a call for archaeologists to avoid reductionism, and to question materiality in and of itself. Mullins asks us to revise our ways of thinking about racial ideologies and the mystification of ideas about race by taking a novel and rewarding approach to African-American consumerism.

Submitted by Mary C. Beaudry, Department of Archaeology, Boston University

"History must be told through the eyes of people that have experienced it..." wrote Vine Deloria, Jr., American Indian author, in his 1972 book Of Utmost Good Faith.

Taking a similar documentary approach in his new book A RACE AT BAY, journalist Robert G. Hays looks to the past for some answers to understanding the cultural conflicts between the Native American Indians and the ever-expanding population of white settlers in America during the late nineteenth century.

Using well-selected editorials from the New York Times between 1860 and 1900, Hays skillfully focuses the reader's attention on the role of the press in defining and influencing public opinion on what the editorial writers called the "Indian problem."

But what was the Indian problem? To most non-Indians of that time, particularly economic opportunists and frontier settlers, the American Indian simply was in the way of national expansion and progress. Indians were either to be contai! ned or exterminated if efforts to "civilize" them failed. And civilization, as Hays amply illustrates, "was defined in the whites' terms."

Many Americans in the "civilized" eastern states of that time held the belief of the nineteenth century historian John Fiske that the race of aboriginal Americans could be identified by three cultural classifications: "barbarous," "savage," and "half-civilized." As Robert Hays points out the Times editorial writers also were not immune to these popular xenophobic expressions and added a few of their own like "greasy red men," "dusky savages," and "Lo." It is not surprising, therefore, that the editors of the Times used the typical "we/they" attitude in their otherwise critical reporting of the treatment of the American Indians.

A RACE AT BAY is well organized in eleven short chapters each presenting a topic that can be read in or out of s! equence of the others. Hays begins each of his chapters wit! h an insightful overview of his selected editorials. At the end of the book is a complete index that should prove particularly useful to readers who want to focus on selected issues within the same thread of discussion.

In one of his longest chapters Robert Hays covers the contentious topic on Indian policy--as debated and (re)defined by the U.S. Congress, as implemented by the Department of Interior, as discharged by the Department of War, and as defended or ridiculed by the New York Times as in the following editorial excerpt from May 22, 1870:

"There is a white problem to be dealt with along the whole of our vast frontier, in order even to get at our Indian problem...why the Russians and French and English have always succeeded better with the Indians than we have, is, not that they are more humane or more just than we are, or have more tenderness for the red race than we have, but that their system of governing the white race is different...they do not permit t! he sparse and half-civilized communities which collect on their frontier to govern themselves as we do under our Territorial system."

A clear, consistent, and equitable national policy for the American Indians was never realized then, and remains just as elusive today, as a Times editorial writer on October 7, 1879, admonishes with the question "What has Congress ever done to define the course of conduct which should be pursued toward the Indians?"

Perhaps the enigmatic answer lies in an old Indian quote: "The only promise that the Government kept with the Indian was the promise to take the Indians' land, and it did."

Many books on race deal extensively with social and economic issues. While not ignoring these issues, this book concentrates on the powerful psychological factors that influence race relations. It explains the vicious circles that blacks and whites are caught in that perpetuate racial problems. The book explains how both blacks and whites participate unknowingly, and often innocently, in maintaining these vicious circles that inhibit progress. Besides presenting the many problems and difficulties to be overcome, the book provides hope and guidance for resolving many painful issues.