There has to be something lost in the translation anytime you translate poetry into another language, which is difficult enough to understand in the original language it was written in. For example, Chekov's works read radically differently depending on which translator is used.

Not to knock this work, because how else is the estate going to capture a decent return on investment unless they target a wider English speaking audience?

Yes I speak Greek. No I did not read the book. Poetry is not my thing.

Odysseus Elytis (1911 -1996) was a very gifted Greek poet who dedicated his life to a love of hope, beauty, freedom and Greek tradition conveyed in words and imagery that leave the reader thirsting for more. It is this insatiable thirst for droplets of human comfort during life's anguished moments and visionary beauty which together give rise to rainbows of hope that is shared by people of all cultures that has made Elytis a "poete sans frontiers", or a poet without borders.

The Collected Poems of Odysseus Elytis published in 1997 is the first collection of the entire body of poetry of Elytis in any language, including Greek. The translations by Jeffrey Carson and Nikos Sarris do justice to the original poems, providing the reader with the same captivating lyricism and surreal imagery used by Elytis to give voice to the universally human consciousness.

The poetry of Elytis gained the attention of the Swedish Academy which announced in 1979 that Odysseus Elytis had been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his poetry, which, against the background of Greek tradition, depicts with sensuous strength and intellectual clear sightedness modern man's struggle for freedom and creativeness."

Another honorable recognition was bestowed upon Elytis in 1964 when the renown Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis set Elytis' epic poem The Axion Esti to music and the resulting music and lyrics became so popular that today many Greeks know at least part of the song by heart. The Axion Esti was considered to be the poet's most ambitious poem and was described by the Swedish Academy as "one of twentieth century literature's most concentrated and ritually faceted poems". This poem recounts the world of Eros, including his battle against the darkness created by misunderstanding and hatred, his victory, and the ultimate justification and praise.

Elytis possessed an historical as well as a moral awareness that became a pivotal part of his poems and served as a counterweight to his deep and abiding love of the Aegean with all of its spectacular beauty. Elytis faced the prospect of his own human mortality as well as the manifestation of tragic human evil when he served with distinction at the Albanian front during the Second World War when the Greeks defeated the Mussolini's army in the first allied forces victory against the Axis. The horrors of that military campaign, followed by his brutal experiences with the Nazi occupation of Greece, a civil war and a military dictatorship, provided a significant catalyst for this gifted poet to continue to carry the literary torch in the tradition of Greece's best poetry which identified ideal beauty with moral good and truth.

The art, literature, philosophy and religion of pre-Classical Greece also greatly influenced the lifetime work of Elytis. In many of his poems, Elytis wrote about heroism in the context of the ancient hero upon whom risks, danger and even terror are thrust by Fate, after which the hero bravely confronts the challenge and is transformed by the experience. The hero, to whom the reader can relate from his own life's experiences, is given this opportunity for growth and development through the inevitable wounds, wisdom and willfulness that result from his encounter with Fate's challenge ... wounds that will heal and sculpt scars of remembrance; wisdom that is born of reflection, generosity of spirit and adherence to life's values; and willfulness of the inner strength of our spirit. A reader of his poetry cannot help seeing himself in many of these poems that at the same time serve to inspire and throw down the gauntlet.

I will always remember Elytis as the Poet of the Aegean Sea. He was born in 1911 and began writing poetry in 1929 in the Aegean islands. He later established himself as one of the leading voices of a generation of literary giants, including his fellow Nobel Laureate George Seferis and Yannis Ritsos. Unlike Seferis who spent a lifetime struggling against melancholy, Elytis is widely appreciated by his readers because he finds hope even in tragedy. His poetry clearly reflects his relentless search for the paradise that lives deeply within all of us and his conviction that the discovery of paradise is within our capability as well as our grasp. Elytis' poems celebrate the vitality and vibrancy of the Aegean landscape, the energies of man and his soul and the spirit of nature. He uses the power of language to link myth with history and to confront good and evil. His poetry clearly reflects his love of hope, freedom and the beauty that is in all.

This first collection of all the works of the great master is a must for anyone who endeavors to explore the Modern Greek culture and discover its representation of the universal human experience. This book has become a source of constant inspiration and discovery in our home.

This translation by Jeffrey Carson is a delight for the senses. The poetry of Elytis has stimulated a great number of intellectual reviews, but there can be no true appreciation without experiencing the context of his work. These poems present a life that could be lived only in Greece. No translator who has not tasted that life would be able to capture this essence of Elytis. Carson was chosen for this task partly because of his own life in Greece: because he truly does understand.

This book gives a convincing and well researched thesis that the conventual chronology for the years roughly 1000BC to 500BC have been inflated by about 250 years. It also demonstrates that the problem is with the standard egyptian chronology which is throwning off the dating. This is a thesis put forth in other books notably PHAROAHS AND KINGS by DAVID ROHL however this book goes into greater depth and covers more areas than any other book I have seen on the subject. But frustratingly it stops there and totally fails to give the authors thesis on what the correct chronology for this time is. The impression left is that this only half the book. What's here is very interesting but is like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces left out.

Centuries of Darkness is, to me, an unusual work, in that the authors seem to be serious historians, who are still willing to stand up and point out the emperor's got no clothes. In this case, the emperor is the convoluted house of cards made up of middle eastern chronology which has been developing, in good faith, for over a century, and the fact that there appear to be flaws in this structure. The descriptions of these flaws and their suggestions for ways to handle them are well presented, even if they are not all immeadiately compelling. In short, this work is truly nutritious food for thought, and well worth the time to read it.

This book gives you a dynamic look at the movements of the 20th century. Some of the entries are a bit lacking and stale. The transition between different writing styles proved unfavorable, but the book is useful as reference. I do not recamend it as an introduction to modern art. It focuses more on the events that shaped movements as opposed to the idealogy of them. If you are already familiar with modern art, this book will prove useful in building on a foundation of knowlage. I found "The 20th century Art Book" useful in reading this book. It helps compensate for the black and white pictures.

This book is a compilation of essays on all major art movements of the 20th century. It offers a comprehensive review with very elaborate information on movements, ideas, artists and artworks. Furthermore, it explains the artists' concepts of art, thus enabling the reader to understand why and how artworks were created. The book is very helpful and detailed. It is a must for all those interested in 20th century art, both for students/enthusiasts and experts on the subject.

James does an excellent job of confronting the problem of chronology in archaeology and ancient history. Is our understanding of the ancient world hopelessly confused because of a confused chronology? James looks at research on the entire ancient Mediterranean, comparing building and pottery finds, writings, and artwork, and the dating techniques used to place them in context. As others--from Immanuel Velikovsky (Ages in Chaos, 1952) to David Rohl (Pharaohs and Kings, 1997)--have argued, James sees the source of the problem in Egyptology. The dates calculated for the reigns of certain pharaohs and dynasties have been used as the foundation on which to cross-date finds throughout the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean. If this foundation is rotten, it throws the chronology of the rest of the ancient world into chaos.

This is a scholarly book, and its very thoroughness makes it a rather dry and seemingly repetitive read. This is mainly because the same kinds of errors have been made or borrowed in all the studies--Greek, Hittite, Egyptian, Israelite, etc.--that James critiques. Still, it is an excellent reference work for anyone trying to understand where our studies of ancient history went wrong and where they need to be corrected.

Now, here is a book about the Internet that you won't regret to have read. A well-researched, no-hype-attached exploration of the ups and downs of the European Internet economy that doesn't stop at the "Internet will change everything" slogans and doesn't just point fingers. And a very necessary book, which draws technology and telecom policy lessons that should not be ignored.
When Niko Waesche started researching it in 1997 (primarily as a Ph.D. thesis at the London School of Economics) Internet entrepreneurship and venture financing were novel concepts in Europe, familiar only to a few initiated. Words such as "start-up" and "IPO" hadn't made the front pages yet. Things were to change extremely rapidly, with the Frankfurt technology stock market leading the charge, the media multiplying the noise, greed playing a key role, and the whole Internet economy in Europe experiencing a spectacular development. After the bubble exploded, there was much indifferentiated blame but Niko Waesche is pretty much the first to draw any policy conclusion.
Niko Waesche (whom I have known for several years) has been directly involved in much of this, as a venture capitalist in the UK and Germany and an influential newspaper columnist. This first-hand experience and a wealth of original information make for a remarkable analysis of Internet entrepreneurship in Europe.

Nikos Kazantzakis is another one of those fascinating, neglected 20th-century writers who are pretty much known for only a couple of books nowadays (usually not their best). In Kazantzakis' case, it's "Zorba the Greek" and "The Last Temptation of Christ", both of which were turned into second-rate movies that by and large ignore the serious, bone-crushingly provocative nature of the books.

Kazantzakis was more than just a novelist: he was also an astute traveler and journalist. During the 1920s and '30s he traveled all over Europe, Asia, and North Africa working for various Greek newspapers. His articles are some refreshing journalism. Kazantzakis had a sharp eye and a keen ability to capture the "spiritual" essence of whatever it was he was writing about. What makes his writing so unique is that he's not just interested in retelling the bone-dry facts: he's also interested in the greater human, even "cosmic", significance of things -- above all, the importance and value of human agony, agony as a creative process. He constantly sought to depict the spiritual struggles of man, even if that "spirituality" amounted to no more than faith in man himself (as was the case in the Soviet Union). His interest in all this stuff can be pretty overplayed at times, even verging on mysticism (he compared Lenin to the Messiah once and in his introduction to this book he harps about some kind of "invisible cosmogonic Force" at work in Russia -- oooh!), but it's definitely a different way of looking at things.

Kazantzakis traveled through Russia on three trips between 1925 and 1929. He offers some uncharacteristically optimistic insights into what was going on in Russia just before Stalin let loose his horrors in the 1930s. Kazantzakis is unlike most other serious writers about Russia at the time in that he refuses to lose faith in the ultimate redemptive value of the Russian Revolution: he doesn't bail out on the Revolution just because things aren't going perfectly.

Still, Kazantzakis IS capable of criticising the Communists. For example, he praises the Revolution for making a place for the Jews in the new Russia, but then, at the end of the chapter, does a deft about-face, prophesying that, as so often in their history, disaster will eventually befall them: "A class that until now has known only oppression and injustice is rising and wants to be free. [In Russia] many great scientists, philosophers, economists, journalists, men of action, are Jews. How long will this intellectual dominance of theirs prevail? Just as long as the transitory period through which we are passing. One day they asked the Jewish economist, Rathenau, 'What will be the consequences of Russian communism?' 'A terrible massacre of the Jews,' he answered." And Kazantzakis proved to be right.

Some of these articles are less interesting than others and Kazantzakis' annoying habit of cramming way too much mysticism into the book detracts from it, but overall this is a great read. 4 stars.

As with all his books, rich imagery. Not as good as "last temptation of Christ" I was stuck by the cruelty that the hero Manolios did to the woman who sacrifice her life for him. He is all politically correct and lukewarm to her. Even when she died he didnot feel slightest trace of sadness but went around saying that he envied her because she is in heaven. If that is what follow Christ lead to I want no part of Christianity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think there is no doubt that in this book the writer tells the story for the whole world not just for Greece.The story happens in a little village that is a sign of the whole world. Kazantzakis tells us a story of a cruel man who just likes to kill people.We can clearly see the scream of the author for liberity.He tells us that living like Jesus has it's own way which is fighting for truth and against the lies.
I think that by reading this book we can not stay silence anymore against the lies in our world.

Kazantzakis masterfully transcribes the many trials and tribulations of a Greek Mountain Village. He definitely digs deep into the contradiction that is religion and life. While many have been turned off by Kazantzakis' realism(commotion raised by "The Last Temptation of Christ" being turned into a movie), it would most certainly be to their advantage to read Kazantzakis for the characters which he creates. To this end Kazantzakis is unparalelled(If you haven't already, score yourself a copy of "Zorba the Greek" to see what I mean. His concentration on the evils that guide men through their actions really makes this novel move. In the end we are left to ask ourselves if these characters, and this mountain village really exist or not. The answer--You tell me.

This book was a big disappointment. The topic of temporal databases is one that should be of great interest and widespread application. However, this book won't advance the science or the application in my opinion.

The authors seem to continually have an ax to grind, to the extent that it detracts from the good ideas they do have. I don't recall having seen so many political opinions in a technical book in a long time: it appears that no other author or researcher has ever done anything right! It seems to me that they want to rename a bunch of database concepts just for the sake of having their own names on them.

Most readers are probably better off to keep their money.

This book presents perhaps the first rigorous analysis of the issues surrounding the use of temporal data in a relational database. Temporal data may be thought of as information contained in relations (i.e. tables) which changes over time. This situation most often arises in data warehouse environments, but the authors rightly point out that current data (e.g. in an Operational Data Store) must be integrally related to the history of that data over time.

This book is not for the faint-hearted. Its approach is quite rigorous and abstract. In order to comprehend this book in any meaningful fashion, the reader will have to develop an understanding of predicate calculus, which is a specialized version of set theory and its logic. Previous exposure to "Foundation for Object/Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto," by Date and Darwen, is highly recommended. While their approach is necessary, it does entail endless dry proofs of the prerequisite material needed to develop a general theory of temporal data. The authors leave few issues not covered in an effort to present a fully rigorous analysis of the issues. The book practically begs for a companion book to present a simplified summary of their findings and to contrast them with current data warehouse practices.

The book begins with a review of relational concepts and an introduction to Tutorial D, which was first presented in "The Third Manifesto." The authors then develop a theory of time in the database, which is based on earlier work by Lorentzos. Their approach is to create a new data type for timestamped data and, more importantly, for intervals of time. After developing a relational model for these temporal constructs, they propose a generic design for current, historical and current and historical databases using the Supplier-Parts Database which readers will likely have been exposed to in previous writings by Date. They develop methods to implement integrity constraints, queries and updates, and make a valid comparison between stated times, which are beliefs about the data, and logged times, which are facts the database records about these beliefs. Since our beliefs about time can change, this is an important distinction.

The overall approach is to develop a model of data which is highly related to an audit trail, which should be viewed distinctly from the concept of a database transaction log. Unfortunately, in order to implement the model, an interval timestamp is required for every attribute, and historical data must be presented in the Sixth Normal Form, which they introduce as a decomposition of each historical record into a relation for each data attribute, with its associated timestamp.

While their approach is entirely correct, realization of their ideas would be a prohibitive task in current databases. A database that provided an automated construction of current and historical values would be necessary to implement their model in a consistent and economical fashion. Their solution is in many ways radically different than the typical "Facts and Dimensions" approach of star-schema data warehouses which are the most popular current tool for the analysis of historical data. The utility of the dimensional "slice and dice" approach to data analysis is beyond doubt, and the authors would need to provide some mechanism to allow for this type of analysis to be performed under their alternative approach in order for a commercial database vendor to consider supporting their propositions.

Still, there is much original insight to be gleaned from the author's analyses which will reward anyone who has the talent and perseverance to thoroughly read this book. I especially like the way in which the book provides an integrated means of analysis for current and historical data. Far too many other authors in the data warehouse literature have ignored at their own peril the undeniable link between transactional and analytic data. I can only hope that database vendors are sufficiently inspired by this book to implement their eminently reasonable and logically correct answers to the questions of temporal data.

I really wanted to like this book; normally I just love this sort of outrageously long term speculation. Unfortunately it's mainly a summary/historical review of other people's ideas, and if you're interested in this sort of thing then you've probably seen most of it before. On the other hand, if you're new to this kind of speculation then this book might be a good place to start (so add a star) as it covers a lot of ground without too much detail. The frequent references to science fiction (in particular Olaf Stapeldon's cosmological novels, of which the author is obviously a huge fan) in what initially appears to be quite an academic text is quite unusual, and could lead you to add a few titles to your wish list. The book was originally written in French and I suspect that part of the problem is poor translation; it's just not all that compulsive reading.

Professor Prantzos analyzes the evolution of the universe and examines what some thinkers have forseen about its ultimate fate. The most interesting sections of Our Cosmic Future was the colonization models to be undertaken for the Solar System. The Lunar colonization efforts look very practical indeed. But the moon is only the start. This effort to populate the solar system, will not cease until the 10-Trillion worldlets of the Oort Cloud (named after Dutch astronomer Jan Van Oort) are inhabited. Count on this to be a long term project. The essay continues with the habitation of the Galaxy and the fate of the Cosmos and intelligence. This work compliment's Marshall Savage's Millenium Project, Freeman Dyson's Infinite In All Directions.

I liked his research on the ethological movement. If you are interested in psychology and this kind of research/studies...this is a good read