This book has great visuals, though not really centered on Brown v. Board of Education like I'd hoped it would have been.

If you all ready Have Beard on Barbeque or Cook It Out Dors ther is very little new here.I collect all James Beard books I can find and this one is well writen, with several great recipes but since he wrote so much about out door cooking very little here is not in other books.

James P. Johnson (1894 - 1955) is one of the great neglected figures of 20th century American music. He composed the "Charleston", accompanied Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, was the acknowledged champion of the Harlem stride school of jazz piano, taught piano to Fats Waller, influenced Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Thelonious Monk, and wrote some of the first symphonic music by an African-American that sought to fuse European and American music into a coherent whole.

This book is the only full scale biography of Johnson to be written so far. As such it is a valuable addition to our knowledge. It was originally written as a senior honors project at Yale, and although expanded, still bears signs of its origins. It is strong on the development of the Harlem stride piano style and has a good chapter on Johnson's pianistic approach.

However, it also has some flaws: it is based largely on secondary sources, has little to say about Johnson's "serious" music (most of which was not rediscovered until after 1986), is unbalanced in its emphasis on the 1920s while neglecting Johnson's jazz revival in the 1940s, and offers only limited analysis of his recordings.

Bob Hilbert's discography is a very useful addition, although it is now 15 years out of date and therefore omits both CD releases and some recent discoveries.

For Johnson fans or those interested in the history of stride piano or in the New York jazz scene of the 1920s, this is well worth getting. However, it is not the definitive scholarly biography that Johnson's stature ultimately deserves.

Thurgood Marshall does a remarkable job in arguing a very controversial case against all the odds. This is a classic court case because Marshall had to be very concise in his arguments due to the racial tensions of the time. This case does get a little long and may come across as quite technical for those not truly interested in the case, but for anyone who loves the law, this is a great book.

I've read this books versions both in English and in French, and to suggest that it is a terrible book in either is to miss the point entirely. Yes, it is a bit dry at times (especially if your French is bad.... cause you'd miss a lot of the subtlety...) Yes, in English it seems rough and not that well done. Yes, perhaps if you have a limited amount of time to read books regarding this subject matter, etc. this should not be the first book you read....

But it is a good story with a different viewpoint. Does one accept a common humanity and collaborate with the German-- who after all does not seem that evil.... or does one forgo that for the pride of being French.... and being the conquored....

Honestly, everything having to do with WWII is biased.... or most everything.... this portrait is at least honest about it.... and fairly nonpoliticized... though that is another topic entirely....

... below, for they know not what they read. This is a damn good book.

I too read this book for a French class, but with a teacher who had read it dozens of times and was able to point out the subtle intracies of the author's words. This is a powerful novel of a German soldier who loves France, French culture, and anything passionate or beautiful. Ironically, he is in France as its conqueror, occupying the home of an uncle and his niece. The uncle and niece are kept nameless and faceless, but representing the masses of France. The solider is nameless, representing the Nazis and Germany. The soldier believes that Germany and France will marry each other, uniting two magnificent and rich cultures. Through Vercors' stunning work, we are able to see a human light in the WWII Nazis who have been portrayed throughout history as only monsters. We are able to witness France's WWII occupation through the eyes of one. This book will make you rethink your own views and prejudices. This is a book that will make you see WWII, Germany, and France through a different perspective. It will also make you look at love in a different way--romantic, parental, patriotic, and so fourth. Which is strongest, that is what the book skillfully explores. This book can at times be a bit overdone in the melordramatics dept., but it's worth plowing through (cliff notes might help), even "en français"!

This book was on a suggested bibliography of books to read before visiting China prepared by Longitude Books. I dutifully read it. The Kirkus review is accurate-a lot of description in a non humorous way about the hassles of living in China. However, one does gain a sense of the passage of time and the many civilizations in Xian. Simon Winchester's book cited by the other reviewers is a lot better and you should read that first. Also I would suggest Death of a Red Heroine-a modern day mystery set in Shanghai for a description of modern Chinese life and how politics affects everyday life That book was one of the top five rated new mysteries of 2000 or 2001.

Down and Out in the Middle Kingdom is not the best book on China. In my Opinion "Mandate of Heaven" by Orville Schell is, and Simon Winchester's book on his journey along the Yangtze river are. But Brown is not far from the truth is portraying China as at times gray and depressing. I have been reading and interested in China for years, but my recent trip to China this summer was very anti-climatic. China has some great stuff and people, but the bottom line is that much of China is polluted, gray, and depressing. Anyone going to China and expecting Japan or the China of Mulan is in for a rude awakening. A trip to China is at times wonderful, and at times very trying and depressing. Its a mixed bag. This book acurately shows this aspect of China. Its a place of magical places and people, but its also a place of some not so great things. This book is a good read for its realism.

I suppose if I expected a Bill Bryson-ish essay on China, I may have not rated this book as highly as I do....But over the last 2 years I have gotten to attend classes taught by J. D., and I became interested in his exploits in China as a result of the many episodes he related; and I must say that the book is a faithful representation of J.D.'s experience as HE experienced it. J. D. isn't Pearl Buck, nor is he a paid travel writer. What he is is a teacher/researcher without pretense. He is an articulate, highly intelligent person who happens to be from the USA....and if this clouds his views on China, is it any wonder? Aren't we all indellibly marked with the cultural heritage that we are brought up in? I recommend this book highly, especially if you are a language teacher. I recommend J.D.'s classes even more....

The layout of this book is very strange, rendering it hard to use. Only a summary Table of Contents appears at the beginning of the book. Worse, it is split over two facing pages--that is, the Table of Contents is presented as one page with the book binding splitting the page in the middle. And, though the book is organized by numbered sections, the section numbers (incredibly) do not appear in the summary Table of Contents. There is a detailed Table of Contents, but it doesn't appear until the literal end of the book. It spans the last page and the inside back cover and is mostly hidden by a fold-in book flap (now that's handy). Of course, this also means that the index is not actually at the end of the book, as you foolishly might have expected; it preceeds that detailed Table of Contents.

It is a lot of work to use this book. The content may be good, but if you're looking for guidance on something specific, you're going to have to dig to find it. A guide should be easy to use, not a chore, in and of itself.

The Little, Brown Essential Handbook for Writers is a useful guide for grammar, style, punctuation, and other writers' needs. The plastic binding makes the book easy to manage when referencing and editing your work.

It isn't always as detailed as a writer might like on usage, but if you have a strong handle on usage, then this shouldn't be a problem.

The book is small and compact, so it doesn't take up a lot of shelf space, but it is full of useful information. It's also great as a writer's traveling companion. Information is quick and easy to find. I recommend keeping this one nearby when proofreading and editing one's work.

The philosophy of mathematics contains many interesting issues. This makes it unavoidable that there should be some interesting material in JR Brown's _Philosophy of Mathematics_. On the other hand, while Brown's prose is certainly accessible, his treatment of the issues in the philosophy of mathematics does not aid but rather gets in the way of the reader's understanding and appreciation of them.

Brown is desperately in need of an editor, or at least a proofreader. There are countless grammatical and typographical errors which really ought not to be in a final edition; and while most of these do little more than make the text seem unpolished and amateurish, some obscure the subject matter: for example, because of Brown's extreme laziness in bracket-counting, his proof of Gödel's second incompleteness theorem (chapter 5) is quite incomprehensible unless the reader is adept enough at playing Sherlock Holmes to come up with the proof Brown *really* meant to give.

But Brown doesn't just need an editor to fix his mechanical errors: he needs someone to help him choose what to print. In chapter 8, on constructive mathematics, Brown fills up a full page with lengthy quotes from Brouwer, admitting that "This is pretty obscure stuff," (116) but declining to elucidate Brouwer's point except with more quotation, which he admits is "no better".

There is interesting material in this book, but the presentation is far from perfect, and often aggravating. Brown is to be credited with a sense for what is interesting, but he would put that sense to better use advising another writer than writing himself. If you can't find another introduction to the philosophy of mathematics, this book is worth reading; if you can, I strongly advise you to investigate your alternatives.

James Robert Brown has exposed with excellence in his book a very good defense of Platonism in Philosophy of Mathematics. He shows the basic premises that are shared more or less by all Platonists, including Frege, Godel, and many others.

He shows why philosophers argue against Platonism, and which are the biases and confusions they make that apparently they show a rejection to it.

It discusses subjects such as numbers, sets, geometrical objects, graphs, and even fractals, and how Platonism can recognize all of them as abstract objects, and how pictures can help us psychologically to grasp these abstract objects.

However, with all of this I have only one problem. He proposes a kind of "mind's eye" by which we are able to "grasp" these abstract objects. Although he presents a very keen argument for refuting the argument that only through sensible experience we are able to know anything about the world, I still feel uneasy and not satisfied about his epistemological account. The hypothesis of this "mind's eye" is the reason why most philosophers find the Platonist proposal so objectionable. In order to account for our knowledge of abstract objects, we must posit a kind of myserious mystic faculty of the "mind's eye".

I think that Husserl's categorial intuition and categorial abstraction (which he proposes in his "Logical Investigations") or Katz proposal of intellectual intuition (in his "Realistic Rationalism") are much more acceptable proposals than Brown's "mind's eye".

Despite this difference, I highly recommend this book, along with Jerrold Katz's "Realistic Rationalism", as a great and serious exposition of the Platonist proposal in philosophy of mathematics that I have ever found. It also serves as a good introduction to philosophy of mathematics.

I HAD READ THIS BOOK IN UTMOST BELIEF THAT IT WILL HELP ME A LOT. BUT I AM IN A DESPERATE CONDITION NOW. BECAUSE THERE IS NO SPECIAL ABOUT ANYTHING IN YOUR BOOK.

Innacurate maps, poor accomodation listings and a lack of any addresses or directions makes this guide a nightmare. We threw it away a week into our trip!