It is a fundamental truth that information is an asset. Unfortunately, most managers aren't very technical and convince themselves that they therefore cannot manage information or technology.

Nothing could be more wrong, or more deadly. Strassmann examines how to exert management control over technology, information, and ultimately the organization's success.

This book is a MUST for any manager who may have responsibility for any technology project, and is doubly useful for more senior managers who must formulate the rules by which their subordinates will manage information.

Have you ever wondered why introducing state of the art information technology into an organization can fail? Whether you are a first time IT project manager or a wiley veteran, this book offers keen insights into the dynamics of introducing IT projects into an existing organization. Most of his "war" stories are based on his experiences both in private industry and the Pentagon so there is wide applicability. I found his insights into "governance" of an organization particularly useful. He describes how the relative roles and responsibilities at each level of an organization need to be carefully negotiated and documented much like our Federal, State, and local government roles are differentiated.

Many of the cartoons published in the Irreverent Dictionary came from this book, and I was among those who suggested to Paul that he should publish the cartoons separately. They were, however, essential to this otherwise intimidating book that is nothing less than an operating manual for the Captain of the Virtual Network. The bottom line that I took from this book is that Kevin Kelly is right, our national and international information systems are "out of control" and our policy leaders have abdicated their responsibilities to technicians who do not have the political, economic, or common sense of two ducks and a chicken. As Paul alludes in one of his footnotes, the Network today is somewhat in relationship to the "horseless carriage" stage of the automobile, and we have a very long way to go before policy helps make computers as user-friendly and reliable and interoperable as the telephone and the automobile are today.

In this book Vanderwood achieves what he sets out to achieve and does so in colorful style. What stands out in this study of the 1892 religious revolt in Tomochic, Mexico is its fullness. Good historical scholarship is always an exploration of cause and effect. Here Vanderwood hunts down every person/group thought to be involved and searches for motivation - it's like a busy painting in which every detail is attended to. The conflict involved such a complex clashing of beliefs and values that a solid context is needed to even begin explaining it - fortunately the author realizes this and dives in headfirst. He gives a quite vivid account of the political, economic, social and religious aspects of the incident. What mixture of circumstances could have led 50 townspeople to so resolutely reject modernity and Mexican government and place their trust entirely in God? And why did the bloody culmination happen as it did? Vanderwood addresses these questions and, in many ways, answers them. He falls short, however, in that he doesn't really get to the philosophical and ideological roots of the conflict. (I'm not criticizing Vanderwood's execution as much as his choice of approach itself). At bottom this conflict was about vastly different views of the world. It was about what it means to be Catholic, Mexican, an individual in a society. It was about the nature of property rights, social/political autonomy, religiosity. It was about reason v. faith and modernity v. tradition. Vanderwood doesn't tackle such intellectual matters; I realize they are enormous issues and beyond his scope, but some mention of them would've been nice, especially given their glaring presence (and fundamentality) in the incident. In short, to truly understand what happened we need to know how and why those involved thought what they thought. Vanderwood's account is exhaustive but lacks this kind of depth. Another drawback is the author's general tone of admiration for the religious rebels. Whether their cause was admirable is not within his scope and certainly not supported one way or the other in the text, nor is it uncontroversial. Nevertheless, Vanderwood's book is an engaging read. He really has a wonderful writing style and a nuanced sense of presentation. And for sure, he displays excellent scholarship. Given what he sets out to do, his execution is beautiful.

Dr. Vanderwood, a recognized authority of the Mexican Revolution, has produced yet another valuable work for this segment of history. His ability to gather primary source information written in Spanish and miraculously transcribe into beautiful English prose not only compliments but also lends respect to the Mexican social consciousness that he knows all too well.

This is a "must read" for any student of modern Mexican history.

WINNER OF THOMAS F. MCGANN MEMORIAL PRIZE FOR BEST BOOK of 1998. The prize committee said in part: "Vanderwood's beautiful prose can only be compared to Mario Vargas Llosa's The War at the End of the World. The primary difference between these two grand books is that Vargas Llosa made it up. Vanderwood, by contrast, provides solid archival evidence for every line for his insightful reconstruction of Mexican popular religion and mentalidad. In short, Vanderwood's book is a classic. It sets the parameters for practioners of the New Cultural History, and is a model for the highest standards in historical reconstruction for Latin American scholars, indeed all scholars, everywhere."

I chose to read this series in chronological order and not the order in which they were written. This being the third to be written but last in order, I read this one last. I must say that I was surprised at how enjoyable a read it was seeing that the last two I read (The Pathfinder and The Pioneers) were pretty disappointing. This novel has excellent descriptions of the prairie setting and the characters involved without weighing the reader down with page upon page of needless descriptions or rhetoric. The story line was very well-conceived, plausable, and coherent; qualities which not many books can boast. Of course, this being the last book in the series, I was concerned about how the author would conclude the saga of Natty Bumpo. Not wanting to spoil anything, I must say that I was very impressed with the way Natty's character was handled. There is nothing worse than reading five or so books and having the author ruin them all by messing up the character at the end. No need to worry here. This novel pretty much has all the ingredients which make The Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans exceptional: indian warfare, revenge, some romance, the differences and similarities between Natty's and the American Indian's religious views and philosophy on life, and of course just some good ol' action. I would recommend reading this series in chronological order, but if you do have to skip one of them, The Pioneers can be that one and you would not really miss a beat.

Third in the Leatherstocking Tales series, The Prairie finds Nathaniel Bumppo beyond the Mississippi as the encroachment of civilization pushes him further and further afield. There are five books to the Leatherstocking Tales. Cooper did not write them in chronological order. Accordingly, The Prairie relates the close of Bumppo's career among the Pawnee and Sioux of the Great Plains. As with The Pioneers, The Prairie starts slow and takes time to develop. Additional concessions must be made for a least one plot twist that tickles the limits of plausibility. It should be remembered, however, that the age and the romantic style of writing then in vogue permitted latitude today's novelists are not afforded. Be that as it may, once past this questionable plot development, it matters little for the book is that grand.

Sioux and Pawnee, contesting the plains, find Bumppo, a wagon train of shifty settlers, and a bee-hunting suitor caught between them. What follows is a historical novel which includes every ingredient required for a masterful yarn. Bumppo, in this case "the trapper", represents the ultimate antiestablishmentarian as he longs only for freedom and the space to enjoy it, despising the restrictions of polite society. It is a message that has not lost it's power. Indeed, James Fenimore Cooper, through the Leatherstocking Tales, exquisitely captures a period and place in a manner so evocative that the reader longs to range beside "the trapper" through thick and thin , through the length and breadth of the fledgling American frontier. Having read more than my share of historical fiction, The Leatherstocking Tales rate as one of the finest examples. The Prairie is no exception.

Fare thee well, Natty Bumppo.

This large, very elaborately written book is the first of the Leatherstocking tales Cooper wrote. It is, however, about Natty Bumppo's (aka Deerslayer, Leatherstocking, Hawkeye) final days. In this novel, he's more of a peripheral character, witnessing at least 2 other, very intriguing adventures.

The story is integrated in fantastic descriptions of the prairie; reading it you can almost feel the beauty and power of the unenslaved American wilderness.

This is a well organized book full of useful facts that show how our political history has evolved over the years. Full of antdotes and trivia, the book reveals quite a bit about America. Very well condenced stories of each election. Reports things as historical facts rather than a political leaning (except for the 1988 race maybe). Overall a very good read.

Paul F. Boller Jr. turned in a milestone effort with "Presidential Campaigns," combining an excellently developed historian's eye along with an objective presentation.
This informative work reads like an entertaining novel while providing all kinds of fascinating information about America's presidential campaigns from Washington to the present, from which we can learn so much about our nation's history, using famous elections as an evolutionary guide to understanding the peaks and valleys of the Ameican experience.

In that some of the subject matter is about heavy topics such as war and peace, domestic political conflict, and America during economic panics and depressions, Boller's humor is needed to lighten the heaviness and he delivers superbly. This is understandable since much of his career as an author involves books of anecdotes regarding American and British history as well as Hollywood's film world.

This is a book that crisply and entertainingly tells us so much about America, as revealed through its presidential compaigns.

This classic chronicle of Presidential campaigns, from the get-go to contemporary times, has the unusual virtue of being useful either as a collection of short readable chapters - each just the right size for a daily bus or train ride - or as a reference source. Reading this in the wake of Monicagate and the Florida Recount, it's instructive to read the history of Grover Cleveland, who seems to have features of BOTH past Democratic candidates. Like Clinton, he had his scandals - fathering an illegitimate child. Like Gore, his career was rudely interrupted by an election which he won on popular votes but lost, in a hotly contested, knife-edge electoral college tally.

Paul Wardlaw coaches at Iowa and formerly coached at Kenyon College. He is a well-known college coach and is well-respected.
His "Directionals" system is original in how it is organized/structured. Teachers before him also taught directionals but didn't articulate it as well. His directionals is a form of high-percentage tennis. Some players are not mentally wired to perform directionals and will express confusion when confronting a player who violates directionals (what do you do?). Directionals also sometimes conflict with creativity (or genius, like McEnroe or Hingis) and automaticity (being in the zone). There are a few lesser tactical problems with the "Directionals", e.g., situations where "Directionals" break down. "Directionals" do, however, help many players to understand "high percentage" tennis. "Directionals" also help players to anticipate based on geometry of the court and high-percentage play. It also allows coaches to present tactical ideas in an organized manner. There are many fine coaches who like "Directionals". Most players should be exposed to the concept of directionals...but it is for them to conceptualize their own style and tactics. Still, it is a very fine, original (although hyper-organized?!) contribution to tennis theory. And, every good player usually incorporates a good portion of "directionals" (high-percentage tennis) in their game. A final plus is that there are a wealth of tactical drills many of which don't involve directionals. In fact, 2/3 of the book is based on tactical drills. Recommended for coaches and teaching pros. Recommended for those advanced players looking for systematic tactics or just simply for more drills. Not recommended for beginners and low intermediates (below 3.5 NTRP) since they won't be able to execute many of the tactics and drills.

This book was useful. I am an advanced player, but learned a lot from it, especially a lot of useful drills to emphasize his "directionals".

This book is for anyone that wants to improve their play. It shows you how to pick appropiate shot selection so that every shot becomes automatic and you won't have to think about it. These are called "Wardlaws Directionals" and any tennis coach worth anything or aspires to be needs to know. There are also practice schedules that can be used by coaches. A Great book!

This book is an excellent example of how art critique can be used to analyze politics and history. Paul Zanker does an exceptionally thorough job as he systematically works his way through the end of the Republic to the heights of Augustan Rome. The book includes tons of photographs, coins, maps and reproductions to illustrate appropriate points in the text. The thesis of the book is to show how art was used to convey the importance and dignity of the new Imperial system. Despite the breadth of material presented here, the text is smooth and understandable.

There really isn't enough space in a review to adequately cover this book. Zanker's main thrust is to show how Augustus rebuilt and remodeled Rome with himself at the center. The styles that Augustus used were quickly picked up and duplicated by the Roman upper classes, as well as those in the provinces. My favorite section of the book concerns the coinage. Augustus minted coins closely linking himself to Julius Caesar in order to establish himself as the heir apparent (which he was) to Caesar. Coins were also used to commemorate Augustus's triumph at Actium over Antony, and also to promote Augustus's conservative legislation concerning marriage and childbirth. Although Augustus slowly consolidated power under the title of princeps, he took great pains to show Rome that he was bringing about peace, prosperity and honor, all things that had been missing during the civil wars. Is Augustan art propaganda? It could certainly be interpreted that way, even though there was no "Ministry of Information" in Rome.

An excellent book, although there are a few problems. One of them is the tendency of art critique to see things that others may not. Zanker's descriptions of statues of Augustus are a good example. While I can agree with his depictions of the later Augustan busts as showing a calm, sort of omniscient demeanor, I have a tough time agreeing with his assessment of an earlier bust of Augustus as nervous and power hungry. This is a small problem with an otherwise great book that will make you think about Rome in a different way.

A wonderful tour of the early Roman empire framed within a rigorous theoretical discussion. Zanker skillfully illustrates how an empire was built by the manipulation of public thought through the use of images, or in other words, propaganda. Shapiro contributes with a lively and nearly transparent translation.

Zanker offers a fascinating reconstruction of Octavian Augustus' agenda for consolidating his position as leader of the Roman world. He does this by careful analysis of the buildings, statues, coins and other physical objects made during the rule of Rome's first emperor. Zanker understands well the impact of visual communication and uses it insightfully. He doesn't simply catalog artifacts, he interprets them and connects them within a broad system of consciously articulated ideology. In two decades of academic reading, this is one of the two most memorable books I read.

This is a good book which is a good reference for me. However, when I got the book and was working through some of the real world exercises. I wanted to download the files that are referenced by the book for the excercises. This is because the book explains more things related to the files than are in the snippets in the book. Anyway, I went to the site referenced and I am continuously getting the page of Death "page can not be displayed". Needless to say I am left wanting.

Love this book - as a seasoned web developer with heaps of experience I find this book a great reference tool, fantastic prompter when I'm struggling with XML techonologies, all round very well written and did I mention already PRACTICAL.
If your confused now or then by XML or you know nothing and want to learn from scratch then BUY this book.
Chapters are well defined and organised, it covers everything from css - to XSLT, client side, server side applications and good practices. Well written - without this book my XML nappies would be on the floor.

There are dozens of books on XML, the difference is that this is solely focused on the web and very practical oriented; it's not that much about XML theory but it's full of real world examples. The most valuable chapters in my opinion are the ones covering XML support inside the various browsers, the info about client-side XSLT, XML and CSS and DOM manipulation with JavaScript are something that you will not find elsewhere

Dr. Cho and his collaborator R. Whitney Manzano have written a very concise and readable book on prayer.

I especially appreciate the references to prayer as a dialogue and not a monologue. The chapters on meditation and listening to God's voice are models of clarity and will be helpful to anyone who wishes to do a better job of communicating with God.

Dr. Cho gives us a clear and useful explanation of prayer in PRAYER:KEY TO REVIVAL. He divides his subject into five sections beginning with a discussion of various reasons to pray such as prayer produces power, prayer brings health and prayer opens the door for the Holy Spirit. In Part II Dr. Cho describes the three types of prayer which are petition, devotion and intercession. In the next section he explains the forms of prayer including fasting and prayer and waiting on the Lord. Then Dr. Cho discusses praying in the Holy Spirit and other methods of prayer. The final section is devoted to the subject of powerful prayer based on the blood covenant of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Cho founded the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul in 1958. It has become the largest congregation in the world with more than 700,000 members. The church was built on prayer and has continued to thrive as a shining example of the power of prayer.

The Yoido Full Gospel Church is probably most famous for its Prayer Mountain which provides a secluded place of prayer for those desiring to be alone with God.

It is not the methods or forms of praying described in this book that I admire so much. It is rather the great importance which Pastor Cho puts on the value of praying and the amount of concentrated praying he and his church members do daily.

I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to learn about prayer and at the same time receive added inspiration to do more praying.

Excellent resource. Check "Properties of Sections" area. Check equation for finding value of "I" for a hollow rectangle. I found that the values of "h" and "k" were reversed. This can be a hard-to-find error with great consequences. I would like more information on support lug design.

This book has everything that I've needed to know (so far) about pressure vessels as a plant/maintenance engineer. It contains numerous useful formulae, tables, diagrams, descriptions and worked examples. It is a must for any engineer working with pressure vessels!

This book is a must of Mechanical Eng.and other specialists in pressure vessels.I know this book as a little ASME

The selection of the chapters and the overall coverage of this book are excellent. It provides an outstanding and detailed description of MR physics and of how MR signals are generated and processed. However, not being an engineer or a physicist but a MD interested in MRI, I had some problems with the mathematical background required to understand the formulas used in this book. I feel that the book would be greatly improved if a more detailed explanation to the mathematics were given. At this point, I would recommend this book to graduate students or Ph.D.'s in physics, in biomedical or in electrical engineering, who want to understand in detail the principles of MR signal generation and processing. Because of the somewhat complicated mathematics, the book might be somewhat less destined, but still of interest, to radiologists and MRI physicians who, like me, want to enhance their understanding of MR physics and signal processing.

The selection of the chapters and the overall coverage of this book are excellent. It provides an outstanding and detailed description of MR physics and of how MR signals are generated and processed. However, not being an engineer or a physicist but a MD interested in MRI, I had some problems with the mathematical background required to understand the formulas used in this book. I feel that the book would be greatly improved if a more detailed explanation to the mathematics were given. At this point, I would recommend this book to graduate students or Ph.D.'s in physics, in biomedical or in electrical engineering, who want to understand in detail the principles of MR signal generation and processing. Because of the somewhat complicated mathematics, the book might be somewhat less destined, but still of interest, to radiologists and MRI physicians who, like me, want to enhance their understanding of MR physics and signal processing.

Magnetic resonance has recently recieved many riches in the form of excellent, definitive texts that have bundled together the advances of the last 20 or so years. Drs. Liang and Lauterbur have added to this trove by writing a text that goes beyond the standard descriptions of magnetic resonance image formation and including many advanced techniques available today, some of which they originated. The ideal audience for this text includes scientists, engineers, and physicians actively developing MRI applications from the physics on up. Though containing many recent developments it contains a core of medical imaging information that will not be outdated. The mathematical depth is sufficient to serve as a reference of basic and sophisticated methods but with enough pedagogical information to tutor the interested student. Liang and Lauterbur should be on the shelf of any serious professional or insightful student.