It is a wonderful idea to make available recordings of great speeches. I hope we have more of this in the future.
In the case of older speeches, the selection is very good, considering the restraints of time, and the readers are uniformly excellent.
As for the modern speeches, it is a marvel of technology that we can hear these speeches as delivered. It is incredible that we can hear the voice of William Jennings Bryan. I can listen to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" a thousand times and never tire of it! How I wish I could listen to the voice of Patrick Henry! But this selection is too heavily weighted to the modern, and many of those do not deserve billing as the GREATEST speeches of ALL TIME. Also, some of the modern speeches which are included are abridged, e.g. Reagan is cut off in the middle of a sentence, while lengthy and undeserving speeches are played out in their entirety.
Also, with only a few exceptions, the selection is almost entirely American. It is hard to understand why Jimmy Carter's lengthy speech on energy policy is included, while Pericles' funeral oration is not; or why only a small portion of a single Winston Churchill speech is included; why while Bill Clinton's complete 1993 pulpit address, in excess of 20 minutes, is included.
It would be helpful if the complete list of speeches were available to online buyers, as it would be to shoppers in a brick and mortar store.

I have listened to this collection twice now, both times with pleasure. Hearing the acutal voices of Amelia Earhart, Rev. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill and Neil Armstrong made a deeper connection than simply reading their words. The collection showcases different subjects and many times contrasts opposing viewpoints of the ideas. This volume is a fantastic introduction to the moving ideals and sometimes sad truths that have influenced Western Civilization.

The nice thing about this book is that you can quickly find what you need and apply it. It is well ogranized and comes with reproducible pages, should you decide to apply a strategy straight out of the book. When you're searching for solutions but don't have time to read through chapters of philosophy on education (what teacher does!), this book is great. There are also some helpful lists of do's and don'ts, which are great for new teachers.

As a beginning teacher of secondary grades, I'm on the hunt for good advice about classroom management. Unfortunately, most of what I read seems to directly conflict with the other materials! This book has a pick-what-works-for-your-own-style approach, rather than an entire management system. I found it helpful for finding specific strategies to incorporate into my own teaching and discipline style.

As many of these books are, this one is especially well suited toward the elementary end of the spectrum, but some of the concepts can be successfully adapted to secondary grades as well.

This is a very good biography of Michelangelo that ranks along with Irving Stone's "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (fictional bio). Bull includes numerous letters to and from Michelangelo that involve friends and family. One is left with a good overall picture of Michelangelo and his times. I would have given it 5 stars if Bull was a little more inquisitve about painting and how painters of the time went about their work (including Michelangelo).

This book is actually a reprint of a 1935 edition of the work. As I am only learning about Plato, I cannot say whether this is really out of date. I can only say that it seemed like a good presentation to me, still having important points to make. It attempts to be a general introduction to the works of Plato, but it is not a simple read. As the author points out, "Plato himself never wrote any important dialogue on a single topic... [consequently, to understand a topic] it is always necessary to refer to several dialogues, and one should in most cases refer to all his works." Nevertheless, if one is willing to slog through some of the complexities of Plato's thought, this is a very good book for that purpose.
Grube writes well, avoiding academic phraseology for the most part, and gives us an in depth understanding of Plato's basic theories on several subjects. He interprets Plato, but does not try to correct him. It is a very sympathetic reading of Plato, and this comes through in Grube's comments about Greek homosexuality and Plato's presumed preference for state authoritarianism.
Grube covers eight subject matters in separate chapters: The theory of ideas, pleasure, eros, the nature of the soul, the gods, art, education, and statecraft. In each of these chapters, Grube discusses the important dialogues associated with each topic.
If you are not familiar with all Plato's works (as I am not), this is a very good reference to the important dialogues covering each subject. ... it is a good buy for your Plato library.

When Bennett first wrote this book he was unable to complete the manuscript, so in effect, this book is not complete. Neverthless, it represents a good introduction to spiritual practice in the Gurdjieff tradition, and also one that transcends the Gurdjieff Work into a wider arena. It covers different kinds of work on oneself, including Struggle, the often misunderstood form - Sacrifice and the magic and mystery of Grace. I first read the book back in 1982, and I find myself referring to it over and over again, both for myself and my students.

I guess if you enjoy reading Rolling Stone, then this is a great reference. However, if you listen to slightly more challenging, but equally essential music and are one of the ones complaining about the lack of a new edition, then look no further than the fifth edition of the Trouser Press Guide. Available right now from Amazon. But don't expect to read about Led Zeppelin or the Eagles in the TPG.

This is the second edition of this particular tome, and for somebody trying to get a sense of the history of rock 'n' roll and which old albums by artists are worth tracking down (and which ones aren't), it's a very valuable thing to have around.

Now, I mention this 2nd edition bit because I first stumbled upon this book sometime in the mid-late '80s, and the 1st edition from '79 or so did great coverage of old albums from the '50s-'70s, but good luck on getting the latest word on John Cougar or Def Leppard or the King of Pop or those other '80s artists we loved so much! Some solace was to be found when a 2nd edition came out in 1992 -- you could now find out what Rolling Stoners thought about '80s albums you had aleady purchased by then (in addition to the '50s-'70s albums, naturally).

Well, I think you see what I'm getting at. This is a great guide to what's out there at the time of publication, but it rapidly goes out-of-date. Sure, you'll find out good information about (yes, I'll go ahead and call him what I know him as) Prince's older albums, but as far as learning about the 348 albums he's released since 1992, you're out of luck. This is a book that really needs to come out in annual editions -- though that would be a difficult and likely unprofitable option for the writers. Too bad -- I may actually be willing to plunk down the money once a year for this thing.

Excellent and good fun. The New York Dolls review sums up the tone of this guide nicely. Definitely not for the Top 40 crowd though. If you're one of them, stay away as you'll probably get somewhat insulted.
A drawback is that out of print albums were omitted, which makes the guide incomplete as soon as these albums are reissued. And of course the guide is outdated. Any guide is the moment is goes off to the presses.
That said, we want an update now.

I'd like to read the opinions of some fluid dynamicists, fractal geometers and quantitative ecologists on the ideas put forth in this book.

Thanks in advance.

This book takes an interesting look at chaos theory and complex systems theory (especially self-organizing behaviors) and promotes a new theory, Chaotics. Chaotics is seen as a bridge between the shortcomings of chaos theory and ideas surrounding complexity in today's rapidly changing world. Using chaotics, the authors look at a wide range of areas in which the application of the theory can be used to provide new insights into how current, degrading societal and business systems can be re-thought in order to facilitate the saving of or recreation of those failing systems.

The authors spend a great deal of time in the first chapters of the book explaining their view of chaos theory and complex systems theory. This examination includes an interesting look at the history of not only chaos and complexity, but the deterministic scientific theories which, they say, have led to the decay of many of our world's current societal, educational, and environmental beliefs. Building upon this foundation, proposals are offered for re-thinking the way problems within these decaying systems are examined. Examples include viewing unemployment as a natural state of one's working life, an educational system shaped by the shrinking time-space compression of today's technological environment, and the possibility that 'advances' realized by today's information driven countries may, in fact, be in declines and not advances.

In terms of education, which is my focus, the implications for using chaotics to address the monumental changes required of this aging and inefficient system may be significant. That our educational systems may be pushed towards more effective and efficient methods of operations by orchestrating changes within it, using chaotics, is certainly intriguing. That our educational systems need to undergo radical change if we are going to attempt to educate our children is not in question. Inserting chaotics into our education al change strategies is neither 'new fangled' nor 're-done', and could have a dramatic impact upon how we begin turning the bow of this monstrous ship we call education in America (for real).

A bit of a tough read, Chaotics is certainly worth a close examination by anyone new to chaos or complexity theories. The ideas put forth in this book are worthy of consideration and will minimally alter the reader's perspective of change, happenstance and decay within complex systems.

As a die hard Redskins fan, I was very sorry to see this excellent concept so badly muffed. The idea behind this book is to cash in on the Washington Post vault, providing great photos and articles combined with new pieces by long-time Skins beat reporters to tie it all together. Sadly, whoever edited and proofread this thing reeeally dropped the ball. Sentences at the bottom of the page are repeated at the top of the next, photographs are mislabeled, pieces of sentences are missing, words are chopped off in the middle. Probably still of some value for the die hard Skins fan, but a real black eye for the Washington Post. If their newspaper were produced as shoddily, Richard Nixon would have finished his second term.

Yes, there are some typos and such in the early chapters but the book isn't as lousy as described in the 2-star review. Most of the problems are hyphen-ated words that are not at the end of a page or line. It is like the typeset was changed but the book was not reproofed.

Still, there is a lot of good information in the book. I think it covers items that Loverro's book (very good as well) ignored or glossed over-- how Gibbs wanted to sign and trade Riggo and how Joe Jacoby ended up sticking around in that first camp. The Times summary makes it sound like Gibbs and Beathard were geniuses building a team. This book shows that they were also lucky geniuses. If you are a Skins fan, you should own this book.

I see there is also a newer edition out with the Synder years (ugh).