Jensen's "Bias in Mental Testing" has only one object: to examine and evaluate the common charge that the reason certain groups have lower average intelligence test scores is because the tests used to measure that intelligence are "culturally biased." It is not an effort to prove the "superiority" or "inferiority" of any racial group, nor is it in any meaningful sense "hereditarian," and its misuse by racialist groups, harped on by one reviewer who doesn't seem to have read the book himself, is completely irrelevant. In over 700 pages of scholarly and judicious writing, Jensen effectively demolishes the comfortable rationalization that "cultural" or other bias in the tests used offers even a partial explanation for group IQ testing differences---even demonstrating for example that minority test takers still score lower on average on tests that are specifically designed to be biased culturally in favor of minority test takers. No material in this study has been superseded or effectively challenged, and the claim made by another reviewer that it is "of historical interest only" would be ridiculous if it weren't so obviously deceitful. The book is in fact essential reading for those interested in issues of human intelligence and its testing, and should not be used as a polemical football either by "racists" or "anti-racists."

Jensen's book is the best intoduction to psychometric bias I have found. When the book was written, it was the tops in the field. Now it just needs a few chapters addendum on latent-trat methods to make it complete.

Still a very well respected work among psychologists despite what Mr. isreal (see below) wants you to believe. Don't take my word for it. Search the web for this and all works by A Jensen. Modern research has still yet to refute the well founded and scientifically supported claim that there are real differences in intelligence between races. Egalitarians are driven frantic by this but nothing is more important than truth.

This book does not live up to its title and subtitle. Very general material. For example, Denial of Service Attacks are in the news these days. Looking through the index, I find four references to DOS attacks. The first on page 45 tells me that DOS attacks can be costly. The second on page 85 describes some previous DOS attacks, including one that took place 12 years ago. The next reference is on page 304 and is a historical description of DOS attacks over the past three years. The last reference on page 452 tells me that I should conduct DOS testing for my web server. Most of the book's content is similar. If this is useful to you, please buy this book. For specific help in hardening your network, please look elsewhere.

I am a relative newcomer to the security field. I have been adding books to my library to help me in my job. I picked up Defending your Digital Assets and was pleasantly surprised. The sections on Security Verification of Systems and Networks and Cryptography were a rare read, and very enjoyable.

I also found the chapter on Biometric Countermeasures one of the clearest presentations on the subject, that I have found in print.

The authors clearly understand the INFOSEC field and their writing shows it. They make difficult concepts interesting. Too many books on this subject read like swiss cheese or with too much useless detail. Defending is the exception. I liked it. I recommend it.

As a neophyte I am tangentially aware of the importance of computer security, but reading "Defending Your Digital Assets" really brought the message home. As our world becomes more "wired", and our reliance on the information we receive through computers increases exponentially, the importance of computer security cannot be overstated.

This book is very approachable for the layperson and is an excellent primer for computer/information security overall. It was the only book I could find that that covered the topic so completely.

In addition, the book is very readable. The authors did a very commendable job in writing the book, i.e., it doesn't read like a text book.

Also, the book offers a large number of references/resources the reader can refer to for further study...as well as a glossary and a thorough appendix.

In sum, if you have a scintilla of interest in computer security, pick up this book. If you're a manager and concerned with computer security in your organization, pick up this book. If you are a student, pick up this book. In fact, if you use a computer at all, you should get this book.

The better informed we are, the harder it will be for hackers and crackers to wreak havoc on our computer systems and the information we rely on.

Thank you --Sean

I found this book to be a big disappointment; it is definitely not worth the price. Almost half of it consists of the appendix, with the full texts of the Powers Report, Enron's 2000 Annual Report, and the Watkins memo. While these are useful, they can be found in other places. The rest of the book is surprisingly "thin" and superficial. I was sucked in by the "professional's guide" description and my foolish assumption that there would be content here justifying the hefty price. Multiple choice questions are included - I suspect this was an attempt to gouge college students.

As a layperson, I found this book to be engaging and extremely informative. Arthur Berkowitz captures the essence of the "Players" as the scandal unfolds. At the beginning of the book, the author lists the numerous characters along with the position(s) they held. This was a useful "tool," helping the reader keep the characters straight. I also appreciated having the "memos" readily available to read in the back of the book.

The story of Enron was presented in a very understandable and interesting manner, and left me with a very good grasp of the whole sordid situation. However, as I am not an accountant, I really couldn't relate to all the specific financial procedures or details in the appendices. Most significantly, the book emphasized the field of ethics--for an accountant, for a corporate person, for a regular citizen. This was the most thought-provoking aspect of the book. Various scenarios and issues were presented--fairly, with differing sides, potential reforms and alternatives, and impacts explored--leaving the reader to form his own opinion on how we can all learn from the Enron debacle and help effect positive change. The case studies were realistic and the discussions very revealing--a book well worth reading!

A Jewish holiday, a funny and fanciful Jewish story make this book in many ways utterly charming. Even nominally traditional Jewish dietary laws are ignored, however, when the author serves the story's assembled family latkes, sour cream, and chicken (among other things) for dinner. An unfortunate error in judgment, in this reader's view.

I happened upon this book by chance but it was love at first bite! Absolutely hilarious version of a family gathering for Chanukah. Goofy, but almost too true to life for some Jewish families at holiday times. Must be shared with all, especially those Jewish familes that tend to get a little rowdy when brought together for functions!

I loved this book. I loved the rhythm and pattern of the dialogue, and I loved being able to share that sound with my kids. The kids were engrossed in the illustrations as I read. What's not to like?

Overall, I found this book somewhat difficult to use. My focus on my first visit to New Orleans was the French Quarter and I found the maps to be very lacking. The cross streets were not listed on part of the map, so we actually had to locate another map at the hotel to take with us. We visited several of the places not recommended in the book (like the flea market in the French Quarter), and if you are looking for typical "tourist" type items, then this is by far the cheapest and best place to shop! I would definitely recommend purhasing another book in addition to this one to get someone elses perspective on the French Quarter.

I thought this was a really great book--I only wish it was longer!

The section on Mardi Gras (especially the author's personal memoir of being on a float) was particularly excellent, showing how you could enjoy the celebration in your own way--either nice, naughty, or nasty, which should include everyone on the spectrum from families with young children to raunchy college students.

The walking tour section was also really good. It was nice to have a "guided tour" through the Garden District and Esplanade Ridge, which many tourists may not get around to doing, but you should.

I also really liked the after-dark entries. I got a feeling the author really knew what she was talking about when it comes to music (which is what you're supposed to do in NO, right?).

All in all, I thought this was great. Try it. You'll like it.

I looked at a number of guides to New Orleans before selecting Frommer's 2002 New Orleans to help me with my trip. Frommer's was my favorite. It provides detailed, accurate and reliable information on attractions, hotels, restaurants, shopping, and various other topics. Frommer's was by far the most comprehensive guide I saw for most topics. I was particularly pleased with the down-to-earth discussion of attractions: museums, parks, bars, public places, etc. The maps were also excellent: a good map (in reality, several good maps) is a necessity for getting around New Orleans and making the most of the city. Frommer's guide provides better than average maps and good information on attractions that will help ensure you're making the most of your time. As a bonus, the attractions are marked on many maps near the parts of the book where they're discussed, and when you see how New Orleans streets are laid out, you'll understand how useful that is!

I was disappointed in the guide's coverage of restaurants, though. I thought they detailed relatively few restaurants, and found their descriptions and ratings fairly weak. My sister, who lives in New Orleans, took us to several "locals" places that were at least as good as the highly rated restaurants in the guide. The lesson is: don't be afraid to experiment. If you need to rely on a restaurant guide, choose another. Better yet, ask some locals. My personal favorite was NOLA (get the duck!). The Palace Café gets a strong recommendation, and if you're in the French Quarter and want a casual lunch, try Central Grocery for great mufalletas. Café du Mond (coffee and beignets) was a must for me, and I didn't find it disappointing.

With the exception of eateries, I relied much on Frommer's guide when planning my trip, and also when we were there. I found the guide's advice to be reliable and concise. It offered great descriptions of attractions, and helped us find several which were perfect for kids (we traveled with our 2-year-old). In particular, we found Audubon Park, The Audubon Zoo, and City Park fantastic for kids and adults alike. Moreover, the guide's information typically matched the things the locals told us.

Frommer's will help you get the most out of New Orleans, but equally important is a willingness to try new things and be adventurous. The French Quarter is great, but you'll likely find things you like a lot more in other parts of the city. Frommer's does an excellent job of laying out the material in a format that you can either read through, or easily use as a reference guide. Either way, it should help you find most of what you're looking for. I can unconditionally recommend it, both because it was the best guide I found before I headed to New Orleans, and because it proved its worth when I was actually there. It definitely added significantly to our enjoyment of the trip.

Richard Lancelyn Green has examined nearly a century's worth of Holmesian pastiches and collected some of the very best in this book. Stories date from 1920 through the 1980's.

Many pastiches try to parody or reinvent the originals, but theses stories affectionately recapture the flavor and tone of the canon.

In this volume Richard Lancelyn Green has assembled some of the best of the noncanonical Holmes short stories as of 1986. I personally think _The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes_ by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr is a slightly better collection overall, but this one comes close.

Adrian Conan Doyle is represented here as well, the adventure of "Arnsworth Castle" being simply a republication of "The Red Widow" from _Exploits_. (I disagree with the reviewer who thought the story was a "complete failure," but I also disagree with anthologist Green that it is the strongest of the younger Doyle's Holmes pastiches.)

The highlight of the collection is undoubtedly Denis O. Smith's "The Purple Hand." This is the first of Smith's Holmes tales (of which another -- "The Silver Buckle" -- appears in _The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures_); in general they are among the best pastiches in the short-story genre. (Smith has published them in three volumes under the title _The Chronicles of Sherlock Holmes_.)

Other high points include "The Tired Captain" and "The Green Empress," based on two unrecorded cases mentioned by Watson in the first paragraph of "The Naval Treaty." The latter of the two cases requires a brief explanation.

"The Green Empress" is the new title of the tale mentioned in a review below under the name "The Second Stain." Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course, wrote a story of that title as well, but the version he published does not match the description in "The Naval Treaty." Some Sherlockians (according to Green) also claim to find a reference to another "Second Stain" case in "The Yellow Face," though I do not happen to know the foundation of this claim. There would thus appear to have been at least two and perhaps three Holmes cases catalogued by Watson under the same name.

F.P. Cellie's tale fills in the details of the one mentioned in "The Naval Treaty." In 1967 it won a contest in South Africa under its original title of "The Second Stain," and its title has been altered for publication in the present volume. End of explanation.

Another highlight: this volume is the only one currently in print -- so far as I know -- in which Vincent Starrett's classic "The Unique _Hamlet_" is collected. In my own view this pastiche is somewhat overrated (being among other things ludicrously easy to solve), but at any rate it's a good one to have; at least it was one of the first, having been privately published in 1920.

And another point which may be of interest to Amazon shoppers: the larger and more recent collection _The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures_, edited by Michael Ashley (and with a foreword by Green), does not include _any_ overlap with the present volume. Owners of one may therefore feel safe in purchasing the other.

I've just finished this and am amazed by how much I enjoyed it - I'd bought it expecting to hate it but not so. It's very patchy but no more so than Conan Doyle's original stories, and the only really terrible bit is one effort by his son Adrian which is a complete failure, although a very involved thing about Scotland (which left me wondering, why couldn't he have just put the brooch in his pocket? - you'll know what I mean when you've read it) tries the patience rather. Best are the 'Purple Hand' and 'Second Stain' stories, both of which the man himself would have been very proud of, but all are honourable additions to the mythos, hugely enjoyable and very sensitive to the much-loved originals.

....where Koestler's solution for global conflict is so patently chemical that one is left stupefied that such a brilliant and creative mind could arrive at it.

What an enigma Arthur Koestler was! His books range from Zionism to telepathic powers, as well as novels about the Stalinist trials. The Ghost in the machine was my introduction to his writings and it is an astonishing approach to evolution -explained simply leading to frightening and telling conclusions about man and his capacity for war. It is the work of a mind that cannot keep still and keep taking one step further on. Read it and I hope that it opens this exciting and daunting author to you as well. I was never the same after reading it and it has coloured all my thinking ever since. Read it and understand the Taliban, World War One and the Ku Klux Klan. It is nothing less than an evolutionary argument for our collective insanity.

When I first read this book I was stunned... and as one of the other reviewers said, baffled by why he produced that ending! (it's the ending which has "taken" one star off my rating). Always the polymath, Koestler starts by covering psychology, including Skinner's experiments with rats and subsequent theories on human nature which he pulls apart thoroughly. Koestler then comes out with the unfashionable theory that the human brain may have evolutionary flaws in it, since it was merely built on the older more primitive brains of its ancestors and the new and old parts do not always communicate well with one another. Partially because of this we have a lot of the problems of human life such as the urge to self-destruction and violence, which emanate from the older parts of the brain. He ties this in with history and if I remember, results of some shocking experiments. It has lost some of its immediacy since the end of the Cold War (nuclear bombs are still with us more than ever in Israel, Pakistan, India, China etc).

While I have simplified some of the book's ideas above, it is not always light reading, but it can be read by a layman. I think some of the subjects Koestler tackles are taboo (such as the idea humans overall are instrinsically "evil") rather than innately good, and he dismisses wishful thinking. Some people do take issue with his ideas... unfortunately some of the attacks are ad hominem... but where they aren't I suggest you examine very carefully both sides of the story. The message in this book is still pertinent enough, even if the proposed solution isn't.

(if you would like to read more on Koestler, read my review and others, about Cesarani's biography of him on this site)

The problem that I have with this book is that it is outdated. 1984 was a long time ago in the scientific world. The Bohr model of elements is no longer the gold standard. I would love to see this book updated. However, I have found it to be invaluable as a study guide.

I enjoyed the first 9 chapters of basic chemistry but my interest slowed with the steady diet of formulas. I think it's an excellent reference book and a book that would go very well with an outline course. I miss some of the examples given in standard books. But a very good primer.

For the person who needs to understand enough Chemistry to help their child get through High Scool Chemistry it is most helpful. It is a very logical presentation of the basic ideas. It can be used as a supplemental book to a Chemistry course.

One of my professors (Josh Angrist) said once that a lot of peple can run regression, but very few understand what regression is. This book can help you to understand what you actually estimate by applying regression. The problem with this book that it's outdated. Discussion of asymptotic theory is unsufficient, there is nothing on IV or GMM estimation. I would recommend to buy Davidson and MacKinnon "Estimation and Inference In Econometrics" instead of this one.

It is an essential book if you study econometrics at a PhD level, otherwise maybe it is too complete and not easy to understand without previous knowledge.

This is one of those rare textbooks that manages to be both a good introduction to the subject and a useful reference. Readable on the first try and well organized. Highly recommended.

'The Eagle and the Sword' is an incredibly heavy-handed dull book. Attanasio uses a running narrative for the entire 340 pages, so that instead of feeling like a part of the action, the reader is treated to a history lesson. (Example: This happened, then this happened..and then this happened..That's the basic gist of it)

At several points I found myself wondering whether English is Attanasio's original language, or whether this book had been translated from another tongue. It's hard to believe that this is the same author responsible for the stunning Adam Lee 'Dominions of Irth' trilogy.

The eagle and the sword proved to be a very entertaining continuation of Mr. Attanasio's very literate version of the Arthurian legend; however, I must say that it did not fully live up to it's predecessor, the dragon and the unicorn. The book has less of the beautiful mysticism and focuses more on the life of Arthur (I suppose it is Arthurian legend after all). To me, the best ingredient in this book is the character of The Demon Lailoken, aka Myrddin, aka Merlinus, aka Merlin. The characters of Arthur, Morgeu the Fey, and The Furor are well thought out and vivid, but Merlin and Prince Bright Night(a prince of the Daoine Sid) steal the show. For me, the most fabulous section of the story was when Hannes (an unlikely apprentice of Merlin) enters the shadowy twilight world of the "hollow hills" to bring back Excalibur. The preternatural, eerie scene almost wails it's otherworldly ululation right off the page. Overall, the book is a very interesting read. I reccomend it (and the series) for anyone interested in Arthurian Legend that is tired of the same old, worn out stories endlessly circulating through the halls of bookstores everywhere. This is a fresh, creative and ingenious new take on the once and future King. Finally, I must say that the archaic and oft difficult to comprehend language of The Dragon and the Unicorn is not carried over to the Eagle and the Sword. This book is a bit easier to read, but just as entertaining.

Lailoken, a.k.a. Merlin, Aquila Regalis Thor, a.k.a. Arthor, and Morgue the Fey are the three main characters in the book. In this book, a demon-turn wizard in a human guise, creates the glorious kingdom of Camelot, while looking for a true king, despite complications by the powerful sorceress Morgue who seeks to avenge her father who had accidentally been killed by Merlin. However, as Arthor takes his title as king, Merlin discovers that Arthor is but a callow youth whose only joy is killing and destroying; can he be stopped? I was greatly entertained by this fantasy novel with all of its action and suspense. The way the author displayed the legendary events in Arthor's time was very detailed and vivid; it allowed the book to come to life. I could see and feel Merlin's long battles with Morgue. It felt like I had a front row seat as a spectator when Arthor pulled the sword Excaliber out from the giant stone! I also enjoyed how the author created distinct, unique, and bold personalities for each of the main characters in the story. What the characters wore was interesting because their attire had come to symbolize each of them: Merlin with his glamorous and magical robes, Arthor with his sharp and heavy suit of armor, and Morgue with her light and seemingly swift sheets, appearing and disappearing with the wind. I thought the characters were magnificently done. So, I would like to conclude my review of The Eagle and the Sword by congratulating the author, A.A. Attanasio, on doing a great job of compiling all of the widely known, as well as some not-so-well known, characters and events into one fabulous book. I highly recommened reading this book to anyone at or above the age of 12! I assure you that you will enjoy this book as much as I did!