I am not a dialysis patient but a good friend of mine is and I really got a lot out of this book. David keeps his story on a light and informative note. His endurance and strength are an inspiration to many people who have to deal with illnesses or even with everyday life challenges. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it to anyone who needs a boost and a few hours of quiet time and reflection. Thank you for sharing your story, David.

This book will be an inspiration to all who read it. I picked it up and didn't put it down until I was finished. Be sure you have a box of kleenix by your side. The ups and downs of the auther and the love and concern shown by his family and friends will keep you reading and inspired to the end.

I found this book to be motivational! David showed my family how to be optimistic when everything seems to be slipping away. The book was well written and easy to read. I have referred it to people I work with as well.

In this fine volume, David Boucher and Andrew Vincent introduce the reader to the thought of seven major British idealists: Thomas Hill Green, Francis Herbert Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, David Ritchie, Henry Jones, Robin George Collingwood, and Michael Oakeshott. And they do it by approaching these seminal philosophers through their political theories.

It's a good book on a subject on which there aren't too many good books. Another one in its class is William Sweet's _Idealism and Rights_, which is also excellent but specifically devoted to Bosanquet.

The two of them more or less take turns -- Vincent writing on Green, Bradley, and Bosanquet, and Boucher writing on Ritchie, Collingwood, and Oakeshott, and the two working together on Jones (on whom they've cowritten an earlier book). Each is a respected scholar in this field; each is a reliable guide and expositor.

This focus on political theory strikes me as a good idea. For one thing, it gives the reader new to idealism a way to get a handle on these philosophers. For another, it makes clear that the British idealists really _did_ have social issues in mind and _weren't_ just philosophizing in a vacuum. For a third thing, the range of political opinions represented here makes clear that metaphysical idealism doesn't, in and of itself, commit anyone to any particular political theory or outlook (a lesson that needs to be learned by some present-day libertarians who think Hegelian metaphysics is a recipe for totalitarianism).

These two gentlemen write clearly and well. Oh, they misspell the last name of my favorite philosopher Brand Blanshard -- as "Blanchard" -- but that's not as unusual as it probably should be, and I forgive them. At any rate, the exposition is sound and thorough, and each of their subjects is placed in his proper historical and philosophical context; Bradley, for example, is discussed largely in relation to Henry Sidgwick. And they are not, let's say, subjected to any undue reverence; we meet them warts and all.

It's well done. I recommend it to any reader who wants to learn more about idealist philosophy in general and British idealism in particular.

This is a very enjoyable collection of stories based on scripts from the original radio plays.

Basil Rathbone was a "softer" version of Holmes. The original Sherlock could be hard and unfeeling - a machine as Watson often describes him.

That probably didn't play to audiences so, by comparison, Rathbone is just mildly eccentric. He's far more tolerant of the inability of Watson and others to keep up with him than is the original Sherlock.

It's a little as if someone had found the dichotomy betwen Hamlet's magnificent spirit and his fatal flaw disconcerting and had rewritten Shakespeare's classic to make Hamlet just a typical troubled young adult struggling with newfound freedom and responsibilties.

And Nigel Bruce's bumbling Watson is largely comic relief and equally unlike the original Conan Doyle version.

But at least the original radio playwrights kept the two heroes in late 19th century/early 20th century England. I think that most of the movies that Rathbone and Bruce made were set during World War II. I mean, no one could be a worthier contender against the Nazis than Sherlock Holmes, but still...

The story of how Holmes and Watson first meet Moriarty is unconvincing, as is the portrayal of Moriarty, and equally unconvincing is how, in "The April Fool's Adventure", Holmes finds all of the clues that the pranksters leave for him to find but doesn't see how they were intended to point to himself as the culprit. His inability to recognize himself is bewildering, and he must have forgotten to use his magnifying glass to look at the calendar.

But so what? When a classic is changed for mass market effect, the result is often disastrous, but not so here.

The bottom line is that all of the stories are very enjoyable. For all of the merit of the original Conan Doyle classics, they were written as a disagreeable chore to satisfy the public's demand for a character that Conan Doyle himself had quickly grown tired of.

These stories were crafted with a lot of love and care, and that might be why the two main characters themselves draw more affection than do the original versions.

Our debt to Conan Doyle for bringing us Sherlock Holmes is incalculable, but equally incalculable is our debt to his contemporaries for forcing the author to resurrect the great detective from (what we were led to believe was) the bottom of Reichenbach Falls. Perhaps the public also deserves credit for rescuing Holmes's humanity as well as his life from the clutches of his original creator, and perhaps this kinder, gentler Holmes is an example of this second rescue effort.

And speaking of Holmes's life, the last story in this collection provides a plausible explanation (entirely consistent with the Conan Doyle concordance) of why Sherlock Holmes cannot die. Literally. That's worth the price of admission, in and of itself.

This volume contributes to the movement to revive the reputation of the English historian and philosopher R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943). He is probably best known for "An Autobiography", one of the classics of the genre, for his views on historical method (the logic of question and answer) and for his research on Roman Britain. His books include "The Idea of History", "The Principles of Art" and "The Idea of Nature". Two frequently neglected aspects of his thought are his metaphysical speculations published in "An Essay on Metaphysics" (1940) and the political philosophy expounded in "The New Leviathan" (1943). This collection supplements the latter work because half of the papers have not been in print before and their publication called for extensive negotiations with Collingood's literary executors.

The essays in the first part of this volume are concerned with political activity and the forms of practical reason. These include three pieces on politics and political action, two on punishment, two on duty and goodness, one on 'monks and morals' and a paper on economics which notes the absurdity of various conceptions of a 'just price' independent of market forces. The arguments in these essays are somewhat technical and many are directed at philosophical targets which have long since quit the scene such as G. E. Moore.

'Professor Moore has not so much denied the existence of rational action as assumed its non-existence...Professor Moore has publicly described his own life's work as "A Defence of Common Sense", and "Common Sense" by long-established usage is the accepted name for low-grade thinking, thinking below the level of reason, below the level of science...the kind of thinking which is content to think "this is so", and when asked for a reason replied "this is so because it is so".'

In "Political Action" he pursues a subtle line of argument asserting that politics is concerned with the principles required promote the "good life" , that is, "a life which is lived under good laws well administered". This can be read as an anticipation of Hayek's thoughts on the "extended order of rules" and Collingwood defends it against two rival tendencies, on the one hand to see the state as the creator and arbiter of these rules; on the other to see political rules as merely one set among many others that operate in society.

A recurring motif in Collingwood's writing is the presence of sinister and destructive forces beneath the surface of civilised life. In his autobiography he sketched a theory of 'encapsulation' to explain the persistence of undesirable attitudes (such as the glorification of violence) despite vigorous attempts to eliminate them. He argued that attempts at censorship or repression are likely to induce in children a fascination with the 'unacceptable' impulses and so they survive in a particularly dangerous subconscious form. In An Essay on Metaphysics he described the corruption of the life of the mind by various influences, including the war against metaphysics waged by the positivists and the misguided aim of the psycholoogists to capture philosophy as a part of their own territory. One of his central propositions concerns the overwhelming importance of Christianity as the cradle of Western civilisation. In his opinion the mainstream of Christianity provided the framework of metaphysical ideas which made possible the emergence of modern science and liberal democracy as well.

During the 1930s Collingwood turned to explore political and moral first principles due to his alarm at the collapse of civilisation that he perceived on the Continent. Some apparent changes in his thinking and the tone of strident urgency in his writing gave rise to a 'brain tumor' theory to account for the disjunction between the 'early' and the 'later' Collingwood.

The second part of the book contains several tantalizingly short essays exploring various aspects of the modern attack on civilisation. He considered that our categories of thought had become contaminated by what he called 'the Baconian heresy' that the pursuit of knowledge should primarily serve the purpose of power and control. In the political domain this obsession is expressed as 'the Prussion philosophy' of domination which Collingwood regarded as the guiding principle of both communism and fascism. Parallel with the rise of the 'Prussion philosophy' has been the loss of what Collingwood calls the 'punch' of liberal humanism. In 1940 he wrote

'All over the world liberal or democratic principles, having lost their 'punch' and having become mere matters of habit, have lost their initiative and have been thrown on the defensive.'

This repeats the mournful commentary by Yeats in his poem "The Second Coming":

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity...

In his essay on "The Utilitarian Civilisation" he defends certain forms of Christian magic and mystery because they nurture the spiritual and emotional vitality that is required to defeat the barbarians. Secular humanists may regard this as a reactionary stance but this need not be the case because Collingwood does not consider that reason and science should go out the window, merely that we recognise the limits of our knowledge and our rationality. His views tend to support much that Hayek has written subsequently in criticism of the hubris and folly of the "constructivist rationalists" who subvert all respect for tradition and the delicate system of myths and practices that sustain civilised life.

The book is primarily a work for scholars though there is much of value for general readers, especially in the commentary supplied by David Boucher of the History of Ideas Unit at the Australian National University. It may be that the time is ripe for a more wide ranging overview of Collingwood's achievement across the range of disciplines which his tireless and versatile mind encompassed. John Passmore has provided a good introduction to this study with his commentary on Collingwood in "A Hundred Years of Philosophy."

This book was unfortunately a disappointment. The pictures were pretty cool, but the writing was weak. I heard good stuff about the book, but I was really disappointed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this reading this book which reflects in words and pictures a chronology and history of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. I was impressed by the number of historic photo's that help to bring the entire work to life. I believe that anyone reading this book will gain an appreciation of the role the LA County Fire Department has played during the last century in minimizing the impact of many potentially devastating fires in the S. California area.