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First of all, my respect for Gufeld is unquestionable. I like the way he writes, and I love his attitude about the game. The other book of the same authors "Secrets of the Dragon" was perfect for me, since it's a book about the ideas behind the opening, and not about rigorous knowledge of the different variations.
On these grounds, I wanted to try this book too. What the hell, the same authors, similar title, I should like this book as much as the "Dragon" one, right? And indeed, the content is of the same value, although of course the king's indian is much harder to generalise on in camparison to the sicilian dragon.
Unfortunately, the similarities don't stop at the value of the content. Same front cover (showing Gufeld playing the sicilian!!), same preface by Schiller(only changing the word "dragon" to "KID"- King's Indian Defense), same back cover (where at the bottom of my copy they even forgot to change the word "dragon" to "KID", so it reads "the Dragon hall of fame" instead of "the KID hall of fame" !), same introduction to the opening.
Don't get me wrong, I 'm not saying that this book is not worth buying, it serves the same purpose that "Secrets of the dragon" served. It's a book about the ideas of the opening, and I 'm sure that it's not only me who's looking for opening books like these two. But I just wanted to warn you about the "copy-paste" method that these guys are using, so that you wouldn't be disappointed as much as I was.
The only real unpleasant thing with this book is the quantity of typing errors. Surely the authors didn't revised it neither the responsible for typing was a chess player.
It strikes me as rather strange that my co-reviewer would admit to enjoying the text and deriving benefit from it, but seeks to warn potential buyers about deficiencies in the cover design, lest they be "as dissapointed as he was." I will take the liberty of speaking for all serious chess players in saying that content is what counts, and furthermore, "you can't judge a book by its cover."
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Nevertheless this is the only book on Mr. Shevardnadze(the only one I could find). SO its an important document. It seems to glossy to me. It seems to not get at the beef, the meat of what was happening from 1980-1990. I wish it detailed the afghanistan ending, I wish it detailed the various new nations created in the breakup of the Soviet empire. I wish it detailed the new voices that came to the fore in eastern europe. I dont think the book answers the question: How did so much happen, so fast? Obviously Shevardnadze was key. But then why arnt we told more about his role in shaping policy throughout the Russian sphere of influence. I feel that the book approaches the topic from a political scientists analytical eyes, disregarding the historical questions. Lacking flair and literary greatness the book is doomed, and yet essential for those who want to learn more about the Gorbachev era.
Considering that the jury is "still out" on Shevardnadze and his deeds, especially as president of Georgia, I found the author tended to lean towards a typical Baker/Schultz (and US foreign policy) pro-Shevardnadze conclusion.
Minor criticisms aside, I'm glad the author wrote the book, and I glad I read it.
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This work sought to revise Marxism and suggest that revolution was not necessary for a Workers' Party to come to power in the governments of the world--they could be elected to office. Thus the title of the book--evolutionary socialism as opposed to revolutionary socialism. This became the predominant ideology of the Second International and was roundly condemned as heresy by Kaul Kautsky, Rosa Luxembourg and Leon Trotsky among others and resulted in a breaking away of members from the Second International to form the so-called 2-1/2 International. Later following the Russian Revolution, the Third International was formed which once again espoused the requirement of revolution to bring the workers' parties to power.
This work then stands as a marker for a special time in European History. It adds much to the understanding of Europue during that time.
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Lassalle met Countess Sophie Hatzfeld of Dusseldorf, Gernmany in 1846. He lived with her the rest of his life. Her financial support of him made him financially independent and allowed him the leisure of working on his political activities on a fulltime basis. Involvement in the revolutionary unpsurge of 1848-49 followed and then in 1864 as president German Workers Association he became one of the leaders of the International Working Men's Association (First International) with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Later in 1864 his life was ended when he was shot in a duel.
If Bakunin and Proudhon were criticized by Marx and Engels as being too far to the left ideologically, then Lassalle was criticized for being to far to the ideological right. Therefore, it is significant that the author of this book originally published in 1893, was Edward Bernstein, founder of the Second International, who himself was accused revisionism during his lifetime.
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Each topic is built like Arnold Schwarzenegger: powerful, yet compact and scientifically engineered with a distinct German accent. The bad side; the subjects are told with the same amount of humor as Arnold displayed in "Conan the Barbarian".
The Germans have a knack for maintaining the discipline of getting to the academic bottomline without starting to ramble. But this did not come easy: The beginning editor, Professor Grochla either died or retired or both during the process and it took more than 10 years to complete the books, sort of a biblical comparison.
Amazing breadth of related topics.
Not for how-to fans, browsing the mall bookstore for get-rich-quick recipes, but an excellent reference, especially for students of the subject who don't want to look through tons of books, but prefer one-stop-knowledge shopping. Sort of the business book version of the Kelloggs variety pack. $250 seems kind of pricey, but think of all the other business administration and management books you don't have to buy anymore...
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Much more asthetic than using a computer screen, the printed version allows you to view all 5 volumes at the same time, even without electricity! Though it cannot compare with the search power of the CD version. The main text is in a two column format and all of the fonts are easy to read.
These volumes will become the standard Hebrew Bible lexicon. Unfortunately! However they should be supplemented with other works because:
(1) They do not show all of the needed etymologies, many entries display no etymological data. (Ernest Klein's work is recommended here). The data from North/West Semitics could be expanded, it is lacking in many entries. Hittite data seems deficient as well as some Sumerian data -- let's face it, they are early influences on the Semitic languages. The Koehler-Baum. work only skims the surface when it comes to etymologies.
(2) Many important works by evangelical scholars (such as S. P. Tregelles, Gleason, Archer, Kyle Yates, E. Young, Robert Dick Wilson, et al) were not even utilized. Too much emphasis was given to the popular works done by secular scholars.
(3) Ugaritic, Phoenician, Arabic and other fonts (scripts) are simply transliterated. They should have been printed out in their original script. Transliteration tables could have also been included for the scholars who are not familiar with these languages, but accuracy can be jeopardized when the original scripts are just transliterated, and it takes time and effort to "recompose" them. Perhaps they were transliterated so that the digital search engines could be simplified. Poor trade off!
(4) Some important definitions are missing for some entries! Thus other lexicons are needed. For example: sh-r-Ha (shin, resh, he) in volume 4, pages 1652f does not show the meaning as "to shine" (from a possible Arabic root) nor as "chains" or "bracelets" as in Isaiah 3:19.
(5) Textual variations are often not listed, and the Qumran literature and data could have been better utilized.
(6) Foreign word indexes could have been supplied, and an index of Biblical passages could have been added. Several hands worked on the 5 volumes, and a variety of abbreviations are used for the Biblical books, making Biblical book cross references difficult even on the CD version.
All in all, a very useful addition. The price is quite high and the folks at Brill often ask too much for their publications. The work NEEDS to be supplemented, and some entries are woefully deficient -- giving only a partial definition. Coupled with the poor etymological data -- this is not acceptable. Gary S. Dykes