I have looked at a series of good books on social embedding of economic practices but I kept and am reading only this one. I am interested in the concept in order to apply it to business practices and software development in periphery countries and I needed a broader framework. The book is very clearly written. It practically reads like a novel, if this is something you are interested in. The models in the introductory section diagram constructs that were previously hard for me to pull together coherently. I haven't finished reading the individual author contributions but after the two introductory papers by the editors I have high expectations.

Illinois Issues, devoted to Illinois politics, has published its second edition of this collection of sketches of Illinois governors. A colorful and sometimes idealistic lot.

This is a book full of the interesting events the Abess Hodierna goes through. Her events include magical conjurings and taking care of fantastical animals to encounters with the Devil himself. "Providing a refreshing change from today's typical fantasy heroines, Abess of Shaston is neither and invinsable sorceress nor a princess in desguise. She is clever and compassionate with an independent spirit, sensible though easily led astray by insatiable curiosity." This book is nothing as it seem and is a perfect time to say, "Don't judge a book by its cover."

This is an "expanded edition" of a collection of thoughtful, wholly original and thrilling essays published in the 1960's. Several additional and valuable pieces appear in this new edition.

Leslie Farber was a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst (not, as the blurb on the back of the book says, a psychologist) with a private practice, professional affiliations, and a passion for thinking and writing about the ways of the psyche, culture, art and literature, and a variety of other concerns. In his life as in his practice he was nonconformist, original, thoughtful, deeply humane - and well-loved by many. He died of a heart condition in 1981. (Unmentioned in this book.)

His essays are unusual and wholly original - not just for the playful and deeply creative ways that he writes about psychic matters, but for his radical departure from the prevailing language and comparative abstruseness of most psychoanalytic writing of his time. It can be said that Farber began a trend (that Adam Phillips most of all, continues) of pleasurable and readable psychoanalytic essays that embrace literature, history, popular currents, and are intended to thrill with their elegance, their psychic playfulness (and rigor - at once) and their process - as well as for their conclusions.

Some of his writing appeared in the popular press (Harper's, Commentary, The New Republic, and others). There is a compelling playfulness to his method. Some of his pet themes are jealousy, envy, lust, sex, despair, suicide, lying and truth-telling, love and its attendant difficulties. Some titles of his essays: "I'm Sorry, Dear" - - on the expectations that the sexology movement engendered; "O Death, Where is Thy Sting-a-Ling?" - on death and dying; "He Said, She Said" - more on the life of couples. Henry Stack Sullivan, schizophrenia, will and anxiety - are additional subjects.

There are thirteen essays. To read them is to get a good picture of Farber's amazing mind and method. "Lying on the couch," first published in 1975, begins by noting that deliberate lying - as psychopathology or just bad form - has historically been ignored in the psychoanalytic literature. Freud, however, expelled a member of his inner circle for just this vice. Farber quotes the text of that pink slip, and then proceeds with a discussion on lying, on "dubious revelation," on the panoply of reasons, justification, and excuses for lying. It's a great read.

The big topic of 'will' (its predecessor is Victorian 'will power') was one of Farber's large concerns. Sexuality - its freight of complexities ("the failure of dialogue") and complications, as well as the transformational power of its full expression - are explored in several essays. "He Said, She Said" is one of many gems.

Of Farber's compelling style and substance, Adam Phillips has written: "Out of languages at odds with each other, if not actually at war with each other - the languages of Freud, of Sullivan, of Buber; of autobiography, of existentialism, of phenomenology, of a too-much-protested-against romanticism - Farber has found a way of being at once easily accessible to his readers, and surely but subtly unusually demanding of them." These essays, along with Robert Boyer's excellent Introduction and Anne Farber's Afterword (an essay that is also a tender remembrance) show us how he did it.

The reader becomes mesmerized and impressed by the thorough and meticulous process of constantly checking witness testimony with known topography and horse/walking/etc. mph rates, then time/motion studies with all possible data examined to see what plausible explanations can be more pushed forward as likely scenarios.

At the center here is the infamous Indian scout, Mitch Boyer and the testimony of the young Curly, survivor with Custer.

Amazing how the evidence Gray presents turns Custer 180o around from what is historically bantered, an aggressive disobiendent hawkish leader. Gray's reconstruction reveals soldier who emphasized and implemented what orders were given to him, to pin the Indians from left flank escape, and all the time awaiting Benteen's company and ammo train, which never arrived in time.

Disappointed that no chronology chain here shown how the followup takes place to discover the battlefield. Possibly Gray's other books on this subject cover that.

Remarkably well written, able to keep this reader's attention easily even with all the careful calculation checks, etc.

Most historians would be happy, nay overjoyed, if they located a diary, a journal or a set of letters by a participant in some historical event. In tracing some relatively unimportant activities, Gray is not satisfied unless he can find three or four itineraries, four or five journals and diaries, and two or three sets of letters! Another reviewer commented that the writing of this book took 25 years! I can well believe it. With the well-known fallibility of eyewitnesses, this overwhelming mass of documentation is barely enough to allow Gray to sift event from confabulation.

What we have here are two books in one. The first book, in 180 pages, traces the life and career of guide and translator Mitch Boyer. At first one might dismiss such a goal as impossible, but Gray is equal to the task, and Boyer emerges as a convincing, consistent and competent historical personage.

The second book, in about 200 pages, uses what Gray calls "time-motion studies" to trace the troop movements from June 9, 1876 to and through the culminating Battle of the Little Bighorn. His "time-motion patterns" are what physicists call "world lines," with one space dimension as the vertical axis, and time as the horizontal axis. Where these diagrams indicate the interactions between a dozen separated groups they virtually amount to the classical equivalent of Feynman diagrams--- tools used by theoretical physicists to disentangle the various processes occurring in the realm where relativistic quantum physics hold sway.

The Mitch Boyer connection between the first and second parts of the book occurs because Boyer was the only scout who chose to stay with and die with Custer's columns. Much of Gray's reconstruction of Custer's movements and strategy depends upon Gray's extraction, from the mass of confused interviews with Curley, the 17-year-old Indian scout who was the last to get away alive from Custer's troops, of a fairly consistent and highly plausible set of events.

There is one place, at the book's end, where Gray's thought patterns betray him. With no documents to guide him, he chooses a completely absurd counterclockwise movement of Army forces, from Calhoun Ridge, to Custer Ridge, to Custer Hill (where Custer was found), on to the "South Skirmish Line" (where Mitch Boyer's body was found) and thence to the "West Perimeter," where the last survivors (Gray assumes) died. But this movement actually takes the troops TOWARD the river and the Indian camp, from which braves and even squaws were literally boiling, like thick clouds of hornets from a disturbed nest, in the last half of the battle!

In this case, I think the reconstruction by Gregory F. Michno, based on a collation of a vast number of Indian accounts, is infinitely more plausible. It shows Custer's surviving companies driven roughly northwest, parallel to the river, along Battle Ridge to Custer Hill, with companies on Finley Ridge and Calhoun Hill being cut off and quickly destroyed, leading to a traditional "Last Stand" indeed being made on Custer Hill. See Michno's LAKOTA NOON for details. I might mention that comparison of all accounts of troop movements in the six or so "Little Bighorn" books I have read is made incredibly difficult by a complete lack of consistent nomenclature for the topographic features of the battleground!

Grey is remarkably even-tempered in his discussion of the many command problems and highly questionable command decisions that arose in this campaign, including the inexplicable behavior of Gibbon and Benteen. Somewhat ironically, it is Custer who comes off best from this all-around debacle. He was about the only commander who made any effort to follow orders, and about the only commander who tried to strike a balance between total inaction and suicidal total commitment of his forces.

I can't praise this book highly enough.

I absolutely agree with the other reviewers on the quality of Gray's work--it is astounding. I would like to emphasize what I took away from the book: a new picture of G.A. Custer. For a hundred years it has been the "customary wisdom" that Custer, being a flamboyant, egocentric, arrogant commander, rushed into battle at the LBH because he wanted the glory of defeating the Sioux all to himself, and met his doom because his hubris blinded him to the Indians' superior forces. Part of this "customary wisdom" came with an implied view that this hubris was due to a belief in racial superiority of the white soldier vs. the Indian. As is so often the case, the "customary wisdom" is superficial, and when held up to rigorous analysis, proves wrong. Gray's trenchant logic make it clear that Custer was attempting to follow his orders from Terry, found himself in a battle situation that was not favorable, but due to the perception that the 7th Cavalry had been discovered, had no alternative but to attack. His battle plan was improvised at the moment, and was thwarted not because of Custer's hubris, or his false belief that his soldiers were fighting "only Indians", but for the reason many battles are lost: the failure of one of his unit commanders (Benteen) to follow orders and coordinate his actions with the actions of the remainder of Custer's command. I expect, however, that the old, comfortable, politically correct view of Custer will die hard, if at all--to some, logic means naught.

I was extremely disappointed. The book was quite expensive and I felt it was 90% Ads promoting his Pyrography equipment! He belittled equipment made by other manufacturers, which I felt in poor taste. With the exception of the demonstrations on birds, the remainder of instruction was quite superficial.

Robert Boyer's book, though entitled "The Amazing Art of Pyrography" has a cover illustration of a wood carving -- this should likely have been my first clue that something was amiss. Unfortunately, not only is the title of the book misleading, the content is poorly written and apparently completely unedited by anyone other than Mr. Boyer. Again and again we hear about the DetailMaster -- a company Mr. Boyer owns. His general message is (surprise!) the DetailMaster is the ONLY tool for woodburning and all of its competitors are cheesy amatuers whose products will allow you to do grade-school level woodburning at best. As if the insults and the fact that a great portion of the book is devoted to woodcarving (NOT woodburning) isn't bad enough, this book is completely useless unless you use Mr. Boyer's woodburning system. There are no how-tos related to any other woodburning tool, nor are there many truly artistic examples of woodburning in his "gallery." One word comes to mind when reviewing "The Amazing Art of Pyrography": ripoff. ...my advice to book buying pyrographers is, don't bother...

I have purchased the "Amazing Art of Pyrography", and I must say that it truly is the most comprehensive book on the subject of pyrography. Mr. Boyer discribes in great detail the different media to which woodburning can be implemented. The electronic pyrographic burning system can be used on wood, leather, buckskin, plastic, tree fungus, wooden eggs, gourds, velvet, etc. This truly is the finest "how-to" book for this timeless art.

I also read Al Chapman's book on pyrography, and he states that Robert Boyer is the "grandfather" of pyrography!