This book explains the difference between peacekeepers and multinational intervention. It highlights the shortcomings and advantages of peacekeeping (PK). While the book's material is particularly relevant to Cold War-era studies of the UN, the analysis is still applicable. Diehl provides an excellent overview of 6 UN PK missions. He explains why these missions failed and suceeded for different reasons. He also provides several viable alternatives, both institutional and functional options. He brings up several ideas and explains why they won't work, while explaining clearly why some ideas would be a good policy alternative. Furthermore, this edition of Int PK includes an epilogue concerning Somalia, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslovia. Overall, this book should be read by anyone who is interested in: peace in the post-cold war world, peace in a new inter-dependent world, forming a safe world order that can effectively deal with violator states, and the history of UN PK missions. As a third-year international politics student, I would recommend this material to someone who has a fundamental understanding of the UN. This book can be read with meticulous detail or it can be read lightly for overall impressions. The book is well-balanced between honest criticism (compared to cynical insults) and thought-out alternatives (as opposed to flowerly save-the-world recommendations).

Teachers and parents will sometimes have trouble finding proper web sites for children to access. Also, they themselves may need to have access to information of high quality. This book can be a help. This book begins with "What Is the Internet?" and "Netiquettes and Nethics". After these, there are "Internet Tools" (like E-Mail, Mailing Lists, Newsgroups) and "Internet Resources". I find "Teacher Resources Sites" very useful. On its almost all pages there is a URL and a detailed description of a site and tells you what to do there. This may be a must book for teachers.

Great book on interpreting most common PFTs. Not a technique teaching book (get Ruppel or Madama PFT book if need that) but more on how to interpret PFTs. Written in semi-outline format = easier to read and absorb info. One of the best chapters, which at first does not look interesting is the last chapter which contains 45 cases of various cardiopulmonary situations (regarding PFts). This book is perfect for busy MD (usually pulmonologist) who orders and interprets these underutilized tests and Respiratory Therapists (who usually perform and initially interpret these tests).

Here is performance information for the pianist without apologies. There are numerous excellent books for organists and harpsichordists from which I have been forced to extrapolate to the piano. Badura-Skoda exhaustively covers all facets of Bach performance on the piano: rhythm, articulation, tempo, and that endless bug-a-boo, ORNAMENTS! He is fearless in expressing his insight and opinion on ornaments and their execution. Musical examples are plentiful, avoiding the need to fetch scores. Of particular interest is his section on the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, a short chapter on 18th c. organ-barrels(!), and a Gouldian Imaginary Interview on the "Urtext Problem". "Interpreting Bach" is an informative reference book reminiscent of Rosenblum's "Performance Practices" in scope and ease of use. Well worth the investment for the pianist knocking on Bach's door seeking entry. Badura-Skoda can help open it for you.

This is a well-organized, nicely put-together textbook, with lots of step-by-step examples to give you a good base of understanding and lots of problems and section reviews to allow you to apply and extend that understanding. If you're intimidated by math, this textbook will go a long way toward easing your fears, and if you're a lover of math, you'll learn a lot about Statistics and be highly entertained along the way.
Although an introductory calculus class was a prerequisite for the course I took using this text, the only time integrals and complicated formulas showed up was in footnotes or the occasional homework problem. In general, the book aims to teach through real world examples and applications, not through pages of potentially intimidating to-be-memorized equations and formulas. As a result, the "math" parts of the book (you can't really do Statistics without math) are hidden, so that you are often using "math" without realizing it.
I especially liked the book's listing of instructions, for a variety of Statistics software packages, about how to do on the computer whatever you'd just learnt in a chapter. There are some "do by hand" problems, but just as many "use the computer" problems--helpful, given that any time most of us will be using Statistics again will be for a job or for research and will involve computer software.
There are all sorts of random facts that break up the practically inevitable "ugh" feeling of reading a textbook. In addition, the writing is very clear and informal, without lots of technical jargon (what little there is is clearly explained first--no wondering in Chapter 15 what that darned "r," which you've been seeing since Chapter 6, means). When reading, I always felt the authors were talking to me through the page, which made reading go faster and more pleasantly. (The short chapters help, too.)
I also found the "What can go wrong?" sections at the end of each chapter useful, especially when we got to interpreting data: several times, I would try to do a homework problem, then go back to the chapter and realize I'd made a beginner's mistake and done exactly what I wasn't supposed to do. The authors know what first-time Statistics students are thinking, and they do a good job of steering you along the right course.

So often, when studying theology, readers are prone to seek the opinion of either (1) an author from within their own theological tradition who represents their own theological bias, or (2) an author from entirely outside of the Christian tradition who just so happens to be a specialist in that area of study. Though we should definitely not neglect such sources, it is important to study the first-hand sources written by the trailblazers from within the particular area of study. With Introducing Liberation Theology, by the Boff brothers, the reader is able to do just that.

This book offers a very good, easy-to-understand explanation of the key themes of Liberation Theology in a way that any lay person can understand. Leonardo Boff is a Brazilian theologian and his brother, Clodovis, is a Servite priest in Brazil. The fact that the authors experienced the "grassroots" development of Liberation Theology as the movement itself emerged lends much credibility to their insights for any reader interested in an "insider's" knowledge of the Liberation movement.

The reader is led to understand how Liberation Theology, as opposed to other strands of theology, is truly something that emerged from the oppressed peoples of society, not from the academic ivory towers of the universities or the Catholic Church hierarchy. Accordingly, Liberation Theology has truly become a form of Christian expression and involvement in Church and society, rather than an exercise between scholars. The authors differentiate three levels of Liberation Theology: (1) Professional, (2) Pastoral, and (3) Popular. These distinctions become important through the book as they help guide the reader's understanding of Liberation methodology, key themes, and history. Perhaps most impressive to me, a reader who comes from outside of the Liberation tradition, is the section where the authors discuss the temptations, tendencies, and biases of Liberation Theology. Such intellectual honesty helps me to take more seriously the descriptions and arguments found in other places of this book. Accordingly, I recommend this book as an important companion to anyone interested in learning about Liberation Theology.

Introducing Semiotics isn't the best of the Introducing series but it is a good read. I have accumulated several of the Introducing study guides and find them delightful. They are the right length for weekend reading and the illustrations are always amusing.

Introducing Semiotics was one of the more difficult in the series due to the busy style in which it was written. I had to reread about half of the book before completely grasping it, not because of the subject matter but because of the wording. It felt like the author was trying to hard to to make things sound nice rather than trying to elucidate the topic.

Despite the writting style, the book was very helpful. It is a must for anyone who is studying something related to semiotics, like film theory, and needs a jumping off point for research. It isn't too in depth to understand but it still covers all the major topics that you will likely have an essay question or two on.

To sum things up... If you're looking for informative entertainment, get one of the other introducing books, but if you need a semiotics study guide it is definitley worth the nine or ten bucks.

If you have little or no background in microbiology but would like to learn about bacteria, try reading this book. Its presentation of bacterial structure, metabolism, etc. is clear and accessible. This is also a good supplement to biology courses in college or even advanced high school courses. It is old for a science book (1981, I think), but most of the info is still valid as far as I know.

Williams and Torrens have developed one of the best introductory texts on the US health system. The book has clear learning objectives, useful references, and helpful diagrams. The American health system is farily and accurately described, warts and all.

I have not read the latest version of the book; however, I read the original authored by Miller. I found the recorded examples used to illustrate the ideas in the book especially useful. The original book contained a list of twenty-five basic compositions which illustrated the ideas.