How anyone could take the most facinating subjects in the world (the Nicholas Brothers) and make it dull, dead, BORING is beyond me! But this author has done it. I hope she has another career goal, because her writing is just awful and she conveys NO excitement, fun or even history. She glosses over Fayard & Harold's actual history and instead focuses on describing each tap step of each routine--and even to me, as a tap dancer, DULL! I want to hear their stories, for goodness' sake. I KNOW their dancing!

I would recommend purchasing Ms. Hill's treatise on the dance and historic origins of the Nicholas Brothers' dance styles and choreography. However, those who seek a detailed biography will be disappointed, as this book was aimed to be a scholarly work, not a biographical one. The book has little mention of their personal life, marriages, divorces, activities apart and completely ignored many foreign films they made in the 1950's. Harold's marriage to Dorothy Dandridge is mentioned only in passing, and his extensive career in Paris for a decade was only lightly researched. No personal family interviews were apparently done. Although excellent as a dance resource, those seeking a more well-rounded insight on the personality and life of these two genious entertainers will be better served by a biography, which Ms. Hill's book does not aim to be. It will make a great companion work to a still much-needed in-depth look at their lives.

File on the Tsar is interesting as a compilation of escape theories popular in the 1970's, most of which have since been proven to be false, particularly in Radzinsky's The Last Tsar (which would be a good book to read after this one). Still, the writing style is engaging and the photos are well chosen. Take it's theories with a grain of salt and it is a fun read.

Sadly, with the advent of DNA and the fall of the iron curtain there is less and less mystery in history.

This book is a fine example of the fog and questions which surronunded the death (or disappereance) of the russian imperial family. However, as time has moved along, we now know that most of the ideas the authors suggest never occured.

That said I liked the book and felt that it gave a good treatmeant of the context within which the last Tsar and his family met their tragic end. The reader must always exercise caution about the conclusions even as you enjoy the text.

To my mind, this volume treats too many topics to permit a meaningful discussion of any of them. The result is a discursive discussion supported by very selective use of examples. There is no systematic overview of the material culture of any of the areas discussed, and there is only a loose connection between the narrative and the illustrations. The book might have been greatly improved by a more detailed discussion of the geographic and demographic background of the area(s) to be treated, together with a more systematic treatment of the extent material cultural of each area or the region in general. As it is, the chapters seem to have no clear beginning or end. They leave you wondering how what you've seen fits into the bigger picture of the artistic output of the area and oceanic art in general.

To be fair, however, this may not be the fault of the author. This is a tough topic to treat in a book of this length, intended for a general audience. The publisher might have done better to break the topic up into separate volumes.

In his book Oceanic Art, Nicholas Thomas goes beyond the eye's view of the artwork produced from Oceania, giving the reader the background information and reasons why the distinct works of art were created. Thomas goes through each culture, giving and explaining examples to match the history of each respective culture. I was impressed by the thoroughness of Thomas, not only showing ancient artwork, but photos from Oceania today, as the respective cultures are being preserved. His analysis of the artwork was very well done as he not only explains the artwork, but gives the reader a sense of the culture also. Having studied art, I was impressed with all the examples and pictures in the book, then relating art with history. I would highly suggest this insightful book.

The best thing about the book is the title. The author discusses in length some obvious limitations on forecasting which exist simply because we are finite beings. But Rescher's formulation of this quite trivial fact sounds as follows: "the predictive venture of securing rationally warranted foresight into the future therefore faces rather equivocal prospects." (p.245) Now, this quote is representative of Mr. Rescher's heavy academic style.

I completely agree with the Finnish reviewer regarding the lack of depth in any subject and example discussed. Rescher's books on Idealism are much better -- my guess is because he is an Idealist and enjoys writing on the subject. Reading this book however I felt that the author just had to finish writing it as a business duty to his publisher.

Rescher is an internationally known professor of philosophy, not a business guru who earns his living by selling " Predicting the future" -seminars. This is partly good news, partly bad news.

The good news is that this is a serious book. It looks at the fundamental questions about what can be firmly said about the future. Rescher deals with philosophical concepts in epistemology and ontology, and discusses underlying principles at length.

The bad news is that Rescher never discusses any concrete examples at any length; as soon as discussion starts to get interesting, it is time to take a new viewpoint. There are plenty of interesting topics which could have been discussed at more length, weather or the stock market, but one page is maximum Rescher dwells on any one topic. John Casti's book "Searching for certainty" is much better in this respect (but the book is on prediction in science only). Business predictions are much better discussed by Schnaars in "Megamistakes".

Rescher is one the co-inventors of the Delphi-method (with Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey) but his discussion of the method is a dissapointment. It is very cursory, and their is a strong pet-theory bias: a 1960 Delphi study about the world in year 2000 includes, among others, predictions such as: -world population 5.1 billion -ocean farming -fusion energy -minerals extracted from oceans -regional weather control -manufacturing in the Moon -men will have landed on Mars -global ballistic transport on Earth -effective anti-missile defence -correction of hereditary defects by molecular engineering

Rescher's analysis is that "the accuracy and utility of that particular study still looks quite respectable".

Rescher has the annoying habit of using overly simplistic examples which diminish the value of his otherwise interesting discussions on fundamental principles (a philosphical educational method ?) e.g. Who will the president of the United States in 2100 ? Will there be more than three letters "e" on the front page of the Wall Street Journal tomorrow ?

I was forced to read this for a college course. It is harder to read than it needs to be, and the book could actually be half as long as it is. There have GOT to be better books than this one on the same subject.

This book is appropriate for an upper level philosophy seminar in the major, and will also be of interest to graduate students in political science and law. The debate between Audi and Wolterstorff is not really about the entire multifaceted topic of the "separation of church and state" in the United States (a lot of which concerns the scope of freedom of religious practice and strict limitations on public funding of religious causes). The debate is actually about a much more focused topic central to democratic theory: in a nation governed by a legitimate democratic process of law and policy formation through open debate and voting, what sort of considerations is it morally legitimate for citizens invoke in deciding what laws and policies to support, and appealing to others to share their views? (Thus the question is about moral norms of citizenship, not legal norms governing actual democratic processes). In Rawlsian lingo, this is a question about the content of "public reason." Audi believes citizens in a democracy ought not invoke religious beliefs, whereas Wolterstorff thinks such beliefs are on the same epistemic footing as all other considerations on which citizens must draw in making rational judgments about the common good of their society. Other authors who have contributed to this debate include Michael Perry, John Rawls, Phillip Quinn, and the authors featured in Paul Weithman's collection. The biggest drawback of all this literature, including this book, is that the interlocutors on both sides are unfamiliar with the growing body of work on the deliberative theory of democracy coming out of the republican tradition in jurisprudence and out of discourse ethics in continental philosophy. So they to not address the implications of deliberative models of democracy for the issue of appeal to religious convictions in political action.

Ten-Thirty-Three is an interesting story. However, without a detailed indication of the author's sources and how he checked and verified the information, it remains just a story, rather then the fact it purports to be. Written in the novel style apparent in Dead Men Walking (the similarities with which suggest it was ghosted by Nicholas Davies), Ten-Thirty-Three puts, often facile, words in the mouths of the characters without any way of knowing whether they are recollections, supposition or merely fantasy. The brief author's introductory note states that the sources were former members of the security services. No details are, however, of the High Court injunction brought against its publication, nor of any other sources used. The lack of an index compounds the feeling that there is little verifiable in the material.

Apparent discrepancies are common. For example, we are not given any explanation why a UVF man was involved in a UDA attack. Similarly although the murder of Ian Catney was claimed by the UVF, the author goes on to say other murders were planned by the UDA and Brian Nelson, as if the two were the same. Unsubstantiated comments abound such as "there could only have been one reason why McKee was murdered and that was because he was a Catholic", when presumably there could be many reasons, although none are discussed or discounted. The key most controversial assertion that Margaret Thatcher was completely aware of and sanctioned organised, regular State murders is based on the "fact" that there was a reporting line of committees to one she chaired. This is unconvincing and insufficient for such an important and crucial claim. In the end, this book, while interesting, and showing some flashes of insight, can only be viewed a good story without much more detail and evidence. As such it compares very badly with the meticulous work of authors such as Martin Dillon and Peter Taylor.

While it is still possible that any or all of the assertions in the book could be true, what is certain is that it offers little or nothing in the way of proof, or even convincing argument that this is the case. Conclusion: case not proven, file under fiction.

Again, this is like Sean McPhilemy's "The Committee". It is interesting as it reveals collusion between the Loyalist paramilitaries of Northern Ireland and the British security forces only this time though, its the Military Intelligence unit Force Research Unit (FRU)and not the RUC. It doesn't reveal too much, relying on a narrative account conversations between Brian Nelson and his handlers. It does, though, reveal facts which are convincing. More books should be published like this. It details how the FRU gave Nelson, the UDAs chief intelligence officer, information on targets he and his organisation sought, usually resulting in the death of the intended victim. There is also an interesting chapter of how the British saved Gerry Adam's life twice in 1987. Its worth the cash.

This is an account which does not delve enough into the psychology of Nick Leeson personally (as opposed to traders generally) to be interesting, and is too apologetic for the management debacle that was Barings. Skip it. Nick's disingenous account is better. Lefevre's story of about stock operators is better still

Unlike the previous reviewer, I found the book to be a captivating and educational read! The plot held my attention throughout the book, even through the technical descriptions of how investment futures work. I felt that the book was a balanced blend of story and analysis. If you want more than a superficial account of the Barings debacle, this is a good book for you.

It is true that this author focuses as much on the role of management in the fall of Barings as on Nick Leeson's role in it, which is fine. It is an opinion that she substantiates somewhat persuasively throughout the book. The reader gets the sense that Nick was just an opportunist who took advantage of a glaring management weakness at Barings. (The author will not be able to persuade you, however, that Nick is just a good guy who slipped. He's scum. I think the author was too lenient with him.) But through her account of Baring Bank's mismanagement of its Futures division, the author provides a very useful lesson for senior management out there.

Computer books seem to break down into one of three major categories: theoretical concept overviews, exhaustive step-by-step learning guides, or pinpoint reference guides (e.g. O'Reily In-A-Nutshell). This book is a muddled mix of all three without achieving the benefits of any. It's too lightweight and disorganized to be a reference manual and too cursory to be a learning guide.

I am over 100 pages into this and I am not quite sure if I have learned anything useful. It was clearly written without an objective in mind, which is evident chapter after chapter. It was comforting to see that many others share my opinion. I wish I had read these reviews before purchasing.

I was asked to develop some simple web pages for a database project using Visual Interdev and Active Server Pages, which I had never worked with. I usually learn a new RAD tool by taking code examples from a book an adapting them to my project. After becoming flustered with the lack of helpful examples in the "Using Visual Interdev" book, I switched to "Inside..."

I skipped to the chapters on the data form wizard and database development and got list and form pages up within a few days using the Data FOrm Wizard and other development tools. It did a good job of explaining the basic idea behind ASP and how Visual Interdev works.

It does waste time covering the basics of things like menu navigation, but I did like the step-by-step through the code generated by the Data Form Wizard.

I would recommend this book to database developers making the switch to web development who need a jump-start, but not to the seasoned developer who will find the majority of introductory chapters a waste.

I read what the other reviews said and must say that they miss the point. Visual Interdev is not the same as FrontPage98. It is not for beginners. What the reader should be seeking is a way to add database interaction to a website (which is not the same as interactivity!). I found myself turning to this book again and again as I switched to Interdev. I had to fight with coworkers over the CD from it. I would say it is a "must have" book for its intended audience.

Ok, I didn't have any high expectations when I purchased this book. After all, any project with Jerome Holtzman involved is going to be hit or miss. Unfortunately, this one misses much more than it hits.

I've always heard that some of the greatest stories don't come from the superstars. Sometimes, they are found in the lesser stars or the ones who had just a brief moment in the spotlight. Unfortunately, many of these players and their experiences are sacrificed for long-winded accounts of players that had been written about in excess over the years.

Don't get me wrong -- there is some interesting information here. However, I've found a number of errors in dates, statistics and references. In addition, the book seems to have been rushed to print without the benefit of thorough proofreading.

The good thing? It's fairly inexpensive. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for here.

When the first edition of this book came out, it was a breath of fresh air. It carved a niche in the market by covering not just baseball players but baseball people. But it also had loads of mistakes. I had looked forward to the second edition hoping that the factual errors would be fixed. Unfortunately, very few of them were fixed. Incredibly, this book still clings to myths such as the story of Ford Frick attaching an actual asterisk to Roger Maris' home run record. Dewey and Accocella's writing is certainly more consistent than that of competing volumes, so it is unfortunate that they didn't take advantage of the opportunity a second volume presented them to fix the mistakes that are almost inevitable in a first edition. Also, some of ther additions/subtractions are puzzling - why was Dusty Baker in the first volume and not in this volume when his baseball career has only gotten more significant since the first edition?

I found this book to be one of the worst I've read about Nicholas II. Blatant errors make it obvious the author didn't do his research, which in turn makes it difficult to take anything "new" he comes up with seriously. All in all, I'd say this book is *extremely* unreliable, and lacks any other special qualities to make it a worthwhile read. There have been any number of reliable, interesting, entertaining biographies of Nicholas II written-- I advise you don't waste your time with this one.

It began with Nicholas II (for a paragraph) then went to his great-great grandfather, then to his great grandfather and then to his grandfather and then to his father. You get all this before they even mention anything about the guy the biography is about! I felt as if i was reading a fiction story - all the discription of each event (like the hunting.) There was no biographical facts - it's all stories.

A rather basic biography. Nothing terribly new. One major problem though. Page 27 says that Nicholas didn't want to marry Alexandra, but his parents wanted him to marry her. From Nicholas' own diaries we know this to be untrue. A (somewhat) redeeming quality is that it's the only book (besides the letters of Nicholas and his mother, Marie) that I have been able to find out anything about the Greek/Turkish conflict in. I need that information for my independent study.