This is an excellent collection of essays by the greatest preachers in the Reformed tradition today. Some of the topics include The Primacy of Preaching (Mohler), The Teaching Pastor (Sproul), Evangelistic Preaching (Alexander), and The Foolishness of Preaching (Boice). John Piper's essay on Preaching to Suffering People is one of the best things he has ever written and by itself is worth the price of the book ten times over. Derek Thomas' essay on Expository Preaching is full of very good instruction. Joel Beakes' contribution on Experimental Preaching is also excellent. I highly recommend this book for pastors. If you are not a pastor, consider purchasing it for your pastor as a gift. He will be appreciative.

The Fact that this book is excellent should be no surprise, merely take a glance at the authors. This book will probably offend pastors who are in to the modern pop pyschology, but then they probably wouldn't be reading it anyway. Granted, that was probably unfair but...
Naturally some chapters are better than others, here are a few:

"The Lasting Effect of Experimental Preaching"--the essay on spiritual formation--worth the price of the book.

"The Primacy of Preaching"--by Albert Mohler--very good, a wake up call to the church.

"Expository Preaching"--good and bad examples of expository preaching, very fun chapter.

"Preaching to Suffering People"--by John Piper. It is by Piper, enough said.

"A reminder to Shepherds"--By John Macarthur, a fitting close to a fine book.

Absolutely essential reading for upcomming (as well as seasoned) preachers. A true gem, very informative, and a must for all who proclaim God's Word.

John Byrne has presented a fascinating portrait of the fall of Al Dunlap at Sunbeam. He goes into great detail on all the irrational decisions that were made, the impossible targets, the pressure to fudge numbers and the final inevitable collapse. Byrne also spends some time on the rather unsavory private life of Dunlap (he didn't attend his parents funerals, he never meets his son or his sister). By and large I agree with the other positive reviews.

Byrne writes very well. Many business writers tend to get bogged down in detail when writing a book (as opposed to a small article) or get distracted or get stuck in flashbacks. Byrne does none of these and keeps your interest level high throughout.

If I have one gripe with the book (which is why I give it 4 rather than 5), its that it relies too much on people who dislike Dunlap or were trying to shift responsibility to him. Yes, the man is an egoist, a hypocrite, a braggart etc. But its a little hard for me to believe that every bad business decision at Sunbeam can be traced to Dunlap (or his consultants), and it seems to me that at least some of the other managers are trying to shift responsiblity to Dunlap on occasion. Also, Dunlap's attitude at Sunbeam was wrong in most ways -- still the company itself was unhealthy when he came in. The original management deserves at least some blame for the pre-Dunlap situation.

Similarly, a number of people in the book claim that they were always skeptical of Dunlap's business skills. Maybe after the Sunbeam collapse -- but I find it hard to believe they were all skeptical initially. Example -- an analyst claims that he doubted the Sunbeam turnaround story from the beginning, but he still kept on churning out positive reports on Sunbeam for his securities firm.

I found "Chainsaw" in a discounted book bin and picked it up because I wanted to learn more about the man who was hailed by Wall Street analysts as a fast turnaround artist but hated by the many employees who felt the wrath of his cost-cutting sword at the companies in which he was in charge.

Chainsaw primarily chronicles Chainsaw Al Dunlap's rocky two year tenure at Sunbeam Corp., where he closed numerous plants, fired almost half of its employees, ran roughshod over the half who remained, heaped more praise upon himself then the most conceited athlete or movie star and pretty much ran the company into the ground.

The author, John Byrne has spoken to several hundred people who have dealt with Dunlap's rage and unrealistic expectations and has been able to piece together a non-fiction work that reads like a novel. Significant amounts of dialog between Dunlap and his cronies are displayed and it basically says one thing. Chainsaw Al Dunlap ruled through total intimidation and with the exception of his right hand man, listened to nobody but himself, even though he had no experience with the products that Sunbeam sold. He fired (or actually had somebody else fire) everybody who didn't appear to him to be part of the team. Byrne perfectly sets out the tension that occurred when Dunlap was on a rampage.

The reader gets to see the desperate measures a company will go through to try to meet investor and Wall Street expectations, including accounting games which have come to the forefront as a result of the Enron debacle. I'm not an accountant, but I even have to admit that things they did were pretty shady.

Byrne wraps the book up with the final straws that led Al Dunlap to go down in flames at Sunbeam, ending in his firing at a secretive board meeting in New York City. I see that a paperback version is coming out soon, which I hope will bring the story of Dunlap up to date, including his required payment to a trust fund to settle civil lawsuits against him.

Byrne's only fault is that he is not totally objective. It's easy to tell that he despises Dunlap (he calls him a loudmouth, comments on the large size of his teeth, attacks his love of his dogs over everything else), so I knock the rating to four stars, but it's still a pretty good business case book. Bryne would be a great candidate to writeup the Enron story as he does have a way with story telling and research.

If John Byrne's "Chainsaw" were a work of fiction, it would likely be considered unpublishable because its main character is so absurdely evil. Unfortunately -- especially for those who had to endure his wrath -- the story of Al Dunlap is all too true. Byrne's portrayal of Dunlap, who was hailed by Wall Street as a turaround genius before his leadership of Sunbeam ended in debacle, is that not of an admirable business leader, but of an hysterical, violent sociopath who, if his life had turned slightly differently, might well have ended up in prison, a mental hospital, or an early grave. "Chainsaw" paints a portrait of a man who was abusive -- mentally, emotionally and even physically -- to nearly everybody in his life, from his business associates to his family to the few whom he considered friends.

"Chainsaw" chronicles the rise and fall of "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap so compellingly that even those who wouldn't think to read a business book will be hooked. However, the book is in many ways fascinating the way that a car wreck is fascinating. The reader will marvel at the amount and intensity of abuse Dunlap hurls at even his closest friends and allies, the coldness with which he treats his family (he abandoned his son at age 2 and couldn't be bothered to attend the funerals of either of his parents), and the near-perverted bounds of his ego. In fact, as Sunbeam lurches toward collapse, his only apparent interest was in signing copies of his autobiography.

Defenders of Dunlap will say that he did the dirty work of downsizing and layoffs to save dying companies, sacrificing the needs of the few for the good of the many. And true, the modern business world is filled with harsh realities and tough decision-making. But Dunlap's approach to downsizing in "Chainsaw" teeters between indifference to those downsized and pure sadism. At points in the book, he actually seems to enjoy cutting jobs and closing factories (though he usually had others do the dirty deeds). As the author says, there is a business world between being tough and being cruel -- and Byrne leaves little doubt about where he places Dunlap. Worse, Dunlap's moves at Sunbeam didn't seem to have been done with any level of intelligence, other than to get Dunlap a quick win so he could cash out fast. The result was the near-total destruction of Sunbeam rather than long-term gains from short-term pain.

In "Chainsaw," Byrne stresses that either through fear, greed or naivetee, others enabled Dunlap. The way that each of these characters is drawn creates a fascinating if morbid portrait of a dysfunctional, cannibalistic organization revolving totally around Chainsaw Al.

Byrne is a terrific writer, and "Chainsaw" is a great read. My only quibble is that, since Byrne and Dunlap apparently have had great animosity toward each other, Byrne often sacrifices any attempt at objectivity. But perhaps objectivity isn't possible when chronicling such an extreme personality.

It's good to see "Chainsaw" returning to print in paperback. Now, in the era of Enron and WorldCom, Sept. 11 and the War on Terror reminding us what real toughness is all about, and with the Wall Street euphoria of the '90s in the rear-view mirror, its perspective is needed now more than ever...

I chose this book because one day I had nothing to do so I went to the library and saw this book. The book was about Albert Einstein. I thought about some things about him, but didn't really find something important about him so that made me want to read this book. I wanted to know how his life was and how did he become so smart. I learned many new things in the book about Albert Einstein. The book was really easy to understand and had some pictures of him doing things.
I recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn more about Albert Einstein. There are many surprising things in this book. One thing was that when Albert was taking his first violin lessons he flung a chair at his teacher. His parents quickly hired another teacher. When Albert was little his parents complained that he was too heavy and also that his head was too large and square shaped. They worried that their son was going to become retarded, but they were wrong. At the age of twelve Albert was really interested in math so he asked a medical student named Max Tameley to lend him some books on math. By the age of thirteen Albert was already past the level of Tameley's.
My favorite part of the story was when Albert Einstein was about at the age of six and taking his first violin lesson. He got mad and all of a sudden through a chair at the chair. I never knew that Albert had a really bad temper when he was a little kid. I always thought that he was a nice little young boy who liked to study and work. The book also says that whenever his sister, Maja, saw that Albert's face was pale she would run away and find cover because she knew that he would throw things. Once Albert almost hit her with a bowling ball and once he did hit her with the handle bar of a hose.

john severance is a good nonfiction writer besides this book he has wroght books like gandhi:great soul,artist and thomas jeforson.Most people in the world know the name albert einstein and the famous E=MC2, but the theory of relativity and his life in general is on known of but with this book will help you under stand it a bit better,did you know he won the nobel prize well he did for physics.

This small monograph is an early "inside" view of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee, where it was first born, written some twenty years after the events of Reconstruction, augmented by an introductory essay written in 1905 by noted historian Walter L. Fleming. Ostensibly written by D. L. Wilson in collaboration with Captain J.C. Lester, one of the six founders of the Klan, it is predictably a decidedly pro-Klan document. Written in 1884, it serves as the first published "inside" story of the Klan. The authors refrain from the use of names, and there is no documentation. The book is essentially a story of the Klan, with which Lester attempts to gain popular acceptance for his description of events. The attempt at moderation serves to trivialize the Klan's deeds and to cast doubt on the degree of central organization of the Klan movement. The Klan is described as being founded for amusement, never shaped by political motivations or thirsts for violence. The society only took on foreboding characteristics as dictated by social forces of the time. The Klan sought to enforce law and order, but members soon found themselves compelled to combat violence with violence in kind, thus rendering impotent the more admirable aspirations of Klan leadership. Illustrative of the inherent dangers of counter-violence was the admission of reckless terrorism being inflicted by rebellious Klansmen following the disbanding of the true Klan in 1869. In closing, Lester and Wilson ask men to judge the Klan's actions on the basis of the conditions of Southern life, but they clearly seek to glorify the Klan for the good it accomplished, namely a stabilization of social order. In essence, the book is an apologist document, but it does provide for an illuminating, fairly contemporary look inside the Reconstruction Klan by men closely connected to the movement. As such, it is of great historical significance.

Reprint of a book published in 1905 which includes the original privately published 1884 edition of this history of the Klan from inside sources. The introduction to the 1905 edition identifies some of the Klan's leadership and briefly discusses its relationship to other secret socieies of the era. The Klan's chief judicial officer, Albert Pike, 'stood high in the Masonic order'.

Written with a pro-Klan spin, the book is a terrific resource for understanding the first incarnation of the KKK from the perspective of those who were in it. Worth looking at whether you love them or hate them.

I bought a used copy of the book and software at the beginning of the term, for a class. Now that we're starting it, I find out that a) we will be using the CD's software, including the online grading service, and therefore b) the copy I bought is useless to me.

The grading service records one email address (i.e. that of the previous owner) per book number. That email, necessary for submitting homework and for sending you the results, cannot ever be changed. In my case, it turns out the CD (which includes a .pdf copy of the textbook anyway) was the important part of the purchase . . . and will not work since it's been used before.

So be warned: don't buy the package used if you will need the software.

Stanford uses this book in its two introductory philosophy classes (philosophy 57 and phil 159). It is appropriate for students without much exposure to math or computer science, as it is very verbose--much more so than Enderton's _Mathematical Logic_ for example.

Students found the software initially frustrating, and the instructor interface can also be harder to use than it should be, but in the end it is worth it. I handed out a survey at the end of one course and the students generally thought the software was helpful and shouldn't be omitted. Showing the students what to do can be helpful. I just took part of a class period and went through (using laptop+projector) installing the software, building a world, writing a sentence, submitting a few exercises, and getting feeback by email.

Oh, and even if the software [was bad], instructors w/o TAs would probably still love it, as 2/3rds of the exercises can be graded automatically.

This text is written in a very clear (shall I say logical?) manner. It covers all a first order logic course can consider.
The exercises are very well thought out and doing them gives the reader a thorough understanding of the subject matter in a chapter.
I disagree with another reviewer (John Rocklin) who did not like the software. There are adequate help files (he said there were none). The software is understandable, especially with 1) using it, 2) help files and 3) manual. It is extraordinarily useful to construct a "world" in which to test the truth of logical statements, prove the truth of a series of statements and devive a truth table for a given statement. The opportunity to send exercise answer files over the net and have them graded in minutes is a great feedback mechanism. The student can send files for grading until they are correct and then also send them to the professor for credit.
All in all, highly recommended.

Dr. Craft has really done his home work. This is the only book I have found that gives complete and accurate information on ALL the models of cars promised. Complete and accurate information along with good color photography make this not just a coffee table book but an enthusiasts reference guide as well..

I didn't think that you could come up with a whole book just about the Boss line of Mustangs. Great pictures and history of this classic car.

This book has great pictures and tells of the 1969-1970 trans am series seasons with great detail recalling the great camaro/mustang battles of that era. Includes some information about the shelby road racers and the 1968 Tunnel Port Mustangs. Has an abundance of 1969-1970 Boss 302, Boss 429 pictures and deatails about the cars. Some information on the Cobra Jet cars too. Buy it!!

The Story of My Life, an autobiography of Helen Keller, is a motivating story of perseverance and struggle. On July 27th 1880, Helen Keller began her extraordinary life in Tuscumbia, Alabama. As a perky, young child, Helen was quick to learn. On the day of her first birthday, she began to walk, and she had been imitating speech since the age of six months. But tragedy struck, and Helen became severely ill. The doctor pronounced that she had "acute congestion of the stomach and brain," and that Helen would not survive (19). Then, one morning, the fever was gone, but it had left its mark upon Helen. From that day on, she could no longer see or hear and lived in a world of silence. As the months after her illness passed, Helen was shut out from the world she had only shortly known. On March 3, 1887, a teacher came and unlocked the door that held Helen away from the world. Helen's tale inspires the reader to persist and never give up because, by overcoming her challenges, Helen became her own hero.
Throughout the book, Helen's eagerness to learn is clearly depicted. She writes, "The desire to express myself grew. The few signs I used became less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself understood were invariably followed by outbursts of passion" (18). Without this yearning, Helen would have become quiet and naive, floating through life, unaffected. But, this was not Helen. Desire was the spark that kept Helen's mind alive, longing for a way of expression. "When her fingers were too tired to spell another word, I had for the first time a keen sense of my deprivations. I took the book in my hands and tried to feel the letters with an intensity of longing that I can never forget," Helen remembers, about a book that her teacher had been reading to her (64). Helen's strong need for knowledge and her difficulty in receiving it is passed to the reader who finds a sudden gratefulness for all that he knows.
Helen was faced with the many challenges that her physical disabilities brought to her. One of her earliest obstacles was overcoming her strong dislike for mathematics. "Arithmetic seems to have been the only study I did not like. From the first I was not interested in the science of numbers," Helen remembers (27). At first glance Helen's hatred of math appears to be simply a dislike common to many young children. On closer examination it is found that this is not the case, and Helen's hatred may stem from her difficulty in comprehending mathematical concepts. "I could not follow with my eyes the geometrical figures drawn on the blackboard, and my only means of getting a clear idea of them was to make them on a cushion with straight and curved wires, which had bent and straight ends," Helen recollects (55). With much determination, Helen looked beyond her hatred of math and worked harder, to overcome her obstacles and eventually graduate from Radcliffe College. By doing this Helen accomplished something that individuals often struggle with, and she taught others not to hide from their problems, but to analyze them, and try harder only then will they go away.
With increasing knowledge in Helen's life, her thoughts were open to greater parts of the world, such as feelings. "Knowledge is love and light and vision," Helen stated (19). On April 5, 1887, Helen became frustrated and tore through the house. In doing so, she shattered her new doll, a present from her teacher. She had no feelings of regret because she did not know the feeling of love. Later that day her life changed and her mind was opened to love and knowledge. She recalls, "On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow," (21). With Helen's realization of grief she also discovered love because in life one new idea often sparks another.
Through hard work and perseverance Helen's strong desire for knowledge helped her to overcome all her problems. Contradictory to ancient heroes, pride was not a part of Helen's personality. She dedicated the entire closing of her own book to the people who paved a way for her and taught her to how to make life wonderful. As Helen ends her story, "Thus it is that my friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation," (81). In her modesty Helen neglects to mention herself when stating the heroes of her story. This story by Helen Keller is motivating and inspiring, a wonderful tale of success.

I first read this book in 6th grade. I have read it several times in the intervening years, the most recent time being within the past one year.

Helen Keller, blind and deaf since the age of 1 1/2 has offered, in her own words an accounting of her life experience. It is incredible to imagine how this woman, unable to see or hear can give such a strong voice to descriptions of nature. The book is replete with beautiful, articulate metaphors that draw the reader into the world as Helen knew it. One wonders how a person with no language can "think," and Helen provides some clues. During these "dark days," prior to the arrival of her "Teacher," Annie Sullivan, Helen's life was a series of desires and impressions. She could commnicate by a series of crude signs she and her parents had created. She demonstrated early on that she could learn.

I like the way Helen herself takes her readers past that water pump when she learned that "all things have a name." Instead of getting stuck there, Helen takes her readers on the journey of her life to that point.

In addition to having a good linguistic base, Helen also demonstrates having a phenomenal memory. When she was twelve, she wrote a story she believed to be her own. Entitled "The Frost King," it bore a strong resemblance to one written by a Ms. Canby called "The Frost Fairies." Many of the sentences are identical and a good number of the descriptions are paraphrased. In relating this devasting incident, Helen and Annie recall that Annie had exposed Helen to the story some three years earlier and Helen had somehow retained that information. This plainly shows intelligence.

Both the "Frost" stories are reprinted in full, thus giving the reader a chance to see just how amazing being able to remember such a work really was.

Helen describes her work raising money for other deaf-blind children to attend the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston and in so doing, embarks upon her lifelong mission as a crusader for multiply challenged individuals.

Helen Keller (1880-1968) is a revered figure in American popular culture. Struck deaf and blind by illness at the age of 19 months, she still managed to get an education and become a writer and activist. Her story was further popularized by William Gibson's play "The Miracle Worker," which was also adapted for both film and television.

Keller's autobiography, "The Story of My Life," first appeared in installments in "Ladies' Home Journal" in 1902. This book is truly one of the great American autobiographies: an inspiring story of a courageous individual who overcame tremendous odds.

Keller writes about many things: her childhood in Alabama; her relationship with her beloved teacher, Anne Sullivan; her attendance at the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf in New York City; and meeting such eminent figures as Mark Twain. She especially stresses her love of literature, which she describes as "my Utopia."

Along the way are some fascinating details and profoundly moving passages. Her tribute to the Homer, the blind poet of ancient Greece, is particularly powerful. I also loved her interpretation of the biblical Book of Ruth: a story of "love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices."

I think that many will regard Keller's autobiography as a mere historical or sociological document. But I think the book deserves a place as a great work of literature, and moreover as a work of literature in the great American tradition. Keller's poetic, often sensuous words about the natural world are comparable to the work of Emily Dickinson. And her stirring account of her revelatory awareness of language reminds me of Frederick Douglass' account of his first awareness of the power of literacy. The book as a whole is enhanced by Keller's charming, likeable literary style.

"The Story of My Life" is a wonderful book by an amazing individual. Helen Keller still has, I believe, much to say to contemporary audiences.

The only thing that Mr. Albert has accomplished in writing this book is that early on in the book he confesses to be a Christian. So then why does he proceed to write a book that proves beyond any doubt that he hasn't the slighest clue as to how someone becomes a Christian. This book blasphemes God and glorifies Satan as does any new age book.

This book was very interesting to say the least.It gave me new ways to look at life that seem to be very freeing. I would like to read more of this guy.

This is a book that I would recommend to anyone interested in discovering more about themselves and the world around them, regardless of religious background. Albert clarifies the methods by which people can sincerely improve themselves simply by taking a new and enlightening perspective on life and God. If you're ready to clear some fog from your own introspection and get to know yourself better, then be sure to grab this book! It reads smoothly from cover to cover and will be sure to leave a lasting impression.

I found this to be excruciatingly boring. The material is at best obsolete and of little value. A waste of time and money and not appropriate to one searching for a history of Jesus.

I hold this book high and dear, despite a few disagreements. Anyone doing Jesus research should have this tome in their library. While I do feel this book is outdated (being it was written at the end of the First Quest and we are now in the Third) I do feel that better scholarship has been done out there that is more reliable and less blasphemous (such as John Meier, N.T Wright, Ben Witherington) and basically, while Schweitzer really did have a VERY good overview of the entire spectrum of historical Jesus studies, this book can be considered somewhat "outdated". The Jesus Seminar, as well as such scholars as Robert Funk, J.D. Crossan and Marcus Borg in both collaborated and singular efforts have claimed to not only carry on the legacy of David Freidrich Strauss, the supposed pioneer of what came to be the First Quest for Jesus, but they claim to take it further. While I heavily disagree with the Jesus Seminar and many of these "scholars" out there, I agree that they do take it further than any work in this book.

Scweitzer, however, outlines the book MASSIVELY well. He does not skimp on details and progress of the studies for each scholar he mentions and being a Theology professor himself, I do tip my hat to his studies. He does them well. He states more the studies of other scholars and does not go so much into what he has discovered. But I do feel that since this was written, there is much evidence against claims made in the book and, if you agree with the progress of the Historical Jesus studies, much better work out there, even by the Jesus Seminar.

This book is a great read, I recommend that if what I wrote interests you, buy it. However, you will definitely need much supplementary materials from both liberal and conservative scholars to revise your frame of thought.

Albert Schweitzer wrote this great classical study in 1906, back when historical criticism was predominantly a German enterprise. "The Quest of the Historical Jesus" eulogizes the quest of 1778-1901, indicting every scholar of this period for making Jesus over in his liberal self-image, for replacing the original Jewish apocalyptic prophet with a moral and ethical teacher suited to the Protestant temperament. As the reviewers below have observed, Schweitzer demonstrated that everyone had been peering into the well of the Gospels only to see themselves at the bottom. It's now become a cliche in historical-Jesus studies to speak of the painting telling you more about the painter than the subject being painted.

So who was the historical Jesus? For Schweitzer, he was an heroic, albeit deluded, messianic prophet dominated by the conviction that he was God's chosen instrument to announce the imminent end of history -- burning with apocalyptic zeal, marching to Jerusalem, confident that he could compel the Kingdom's arrival on earth through a voluntary death. But the anticipated divine intervention failed to occur, and Jesus was crushed by the system he defied, the entire drama ending on the cross. No resurrection.

Even if Schweitzer's portrait of Jesus is a bit extreme, he at least got the basics right -- that is, Jesus as an eschatological prophet -- and he rightly sounded the death knell for the liberal quest of the historical Jesus. And Schweitzer was a true prophet, for there has been a resurgence of the liberal quest, particularly in the work of the notorious Jesus Seminar. Just as the quest of 1778-1901 made Jesus into a liberal German Protestant, so now the Jesus Seminar has made him into a liberal North American humanist, fitting this mold in the guise of a non-eshatological cynic-sage divorced from Judaism. This Jesus is, as Schweitzer could have easily predicted, made over in the image of the Jesus Seminarians.

For more up-to-date works which follow Schweitzer in depicting Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, see E.P. Sanders' "The Historical Figure of Jesus", Paula Fredriksen's "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews", and Dale Allison's "Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet". Allison's book, in particular, is worth its weight in gold.

Actually I would give this book 3 and half stars. This book represents an effort to give a comprehensive introduction to modern nuclear attack submarine. This effort itself is respectful. But just like most other military technical books you find in an average bookstore, Clancy's work is filled with technical inacurracies. One obvious example: the side view of Kilo sub at the end of the book is totally out of proportion. And Clancy's USA-always-No.-1 arrogance is a bit annoying. In his tatical senarios, which are entertaining to read, he just assumes too little of the enemies' intelligence in blunt statement such as "the captain of the Russian boat tries the same evasion tactics as his American opponent, but they are probably not as effective." At another occasion he calls the Soviet Union a "babarian country."

In short, this book is adequate in providing amateur knowledge on attack submarine and is entertaining as a leisure reading. But maybe it's just not worth the money of serious collectors. The easily accessible accurate info. could be found in the menu of Jane's game 688I, Hunter/Killer (although it's quite dry to read), or US Submarines since 1945: an Illustrated Design History by Friedman and Chritley.

The book's strong point is the way Clancy takes you inside a US attack submarine and gives you all the inside details. You are there with Clancy, he also describes the missions and future roles of submarines. The bad part of the book in my opinion it was a little out of date. But it is a great book to learn about subs and their tactics, roles, and history.

I encountered this book as I was trying to decide whether or not to join the US Navy as a submariner; one of the main things I was wrestling with was the fact that I knew virtually nothing about submarines. This book was an excellent introduction to a range of topics: the role of submarines in the Navy, the various types of submarines out there, a little bit about the weapons systems and sonar equipment, and most importantly for me, a glimpse of life aboard a submarine. I wasn't expecting a super-detailed report on every facet of submarines, but it delivered some interesting things that I didn't expect (particularly the parts about other people's navies and various combat scenarios). If you already know quite a bit about submarines, this would probably be rather boring, but as an intro book, it's an excellent choice. Heartily recommended for people considering joining the Navy, as well as civilians who want to know a little more about the lives of their submariner friends.