It has rarely been my experience that a picture is worth a thousand words -- the best pictures often elicit no words at all. Maps, however, are different -- these, when well done, I would gladly substitute for the best prose. And those in Mapping Boston are absolutely superb, giving greater clarity to a wide range of topics than words ever could.

Boston, of all cities, must give historical cartographers fits -- the city's boundaries have changed so greatly over time as to render historical comparison a great challenge. But Mapping Boston succeeds wonderfully in helping the reader to understand the city's gradual evolution from peninsula to metropolis. The growth of the city, the changes in population and land utilization, Boston's shifting ethnic and economic face are all elucidated colorfully and clearly. The bottom line is that the lover of Boston history will revel in this volume; indeed, I expect most every resident of the area will derive considerable pleasure from it.

For those who do, I would also recommend Diana Muir's Reflections in Bullough's Pond, which does for the region around Boston what Mapping Boston does for the city itself: places it in context, gives it color, brings it to life.

This book beautifully portray's Boston's physical past, present and future through maps and photographs. The book does an excellent job showing how streets and shorelines through the years match to the present topography (a huge interest of mine when exploring the city). This book is for you if you love history and maps of Boston and New England. VERY WELL DONE!

Collects in one place excellent plates of all the great historical maps of Boston, as well as some rarities. Ranks up there as one of the necessities for anyone with a passion for Boston's topographical history.

Although there are probably as many theodicies as there are people in the world, Stephen Davis does a fine job selecting scholars who represent various, major viewpoints on the classic problem of evil to elucidate their positions. John Roth represents a theodicy of protest whereby it is insinuated that God may not be totally good. God, says Roth, has a dark side and so must be persuaded by human protest and prayer to do what is right. Hick, of course, represents the position of an Irenean theodicy where God is portrayed as simply unable to stop all evil since evil is born our of free will and God cannot contradict the free will He gave us (lest it cease being free will). More than that, however, God has created a world in which trouble and evil exist in order that, by virtue of our free will, we might grow in character through the hardship. God, says Hick, is in the business of soul-making and has an overall plan for us as His creation to grow into spiritual maturity through the joys and sufferings of this life. Davis takes the classic Christian perspective position that evil is the result of human sin, that Jesus died to redeem us of that sin. We are responsible for the evil in the world, but God has created a way to redeem the world by taking sin on Himself in the form of Jesus Christ. By recieving Christ into our lives, not only are we promised a future in eternity without evil, but we are able to grow through the sufferings of life instead of shun them as worthless. He argues that there is no logical contradiction between the Biblical God (omnipotent and omnibenevolent) and the existence of evil in the world. Griffin represents the process theology position that God is evolving with the creation and so is learning as He goes. Matter, says Griffin, is eternal like God and has its own kind of "free will." Complexity in the arrangement of matter, furthermore, is tied to the amount of free will something has. Thus a rock can do less evil and yet God is less able to use it for good, but something as complex (and thus having more free will) as a human is capable of doing much more evil by resisting God and much more good by submitting to God. Finally, Sontag takes a highly skeptical position about God's goodness. God is unpredictable and violent at times and all we can do is hope for the best. We must acknowledge God's existence and power, but Sontag's god is semi-demonic in nature which explains evil in the world and why he doesn't stop it.

Of course, this small review doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the indepth and well written arguments of each of these scholars. The book is complex enough for college and graduate classes but written with the lay-person in mind as well (the writers are careful to define their terms in most cases). Also, I really enjoyed the fact that each contributor has the opportunity to critique the other's theodicies and then the chance to defend against the other's critiques. This point/counterpoint approach was excellent and informative.

My only critique of this book is the subtitle ("Live Options in Theodicy"). While the five views represented in this book are indeed reflective of five major worldviews of the problem of evil, they are not the only *live* options. To suggest so implies that any theodicy significantly different than those represented in the book is not a valid option. But because the problem of evil is more of a mystery and less of a logical problem to be solved with a fancy syllogism, it can be approached in a number of ways -- not just five.

David Ray Griffin's essay on Hartshorne is more than worth the price of the book all by itself.

What a great way to teach science. Children learn best when they can relate to what they are learning and they can relate to most food. Tell them, they forget; show them they remember; but once they've made it and eaten it they will understand(paraphrase of a chinese proverb). I consider this a significant book in our collection for teachers and future teachers.

I've had fun with this book as a teacher in my own classroom, as a parent and grandparent in my own kitchen, and best of all as a substitute teacher using it for filler in high school chemistry classes and sometimes wowing advanced chemistry students with how much I know for "just being a mommy." My kids have more vivd memories of this book than they do of video games.

Cobb and Griffin wrote this book in the mid-70s to fill a growing need in American theological thought, namely, a clear exposition of the trend known as "process theology." Based on the work of Whitehead and Hartshorne, process thought takes seriously the ideas many have come to take for granted today, such as the interconnected nature of reality, the subjectivity of science, and a more holistic and biblical idea of a God that responds and reacts to creation with creativity. Process theology developed these themes, with varying degrees of success. It is still trying to develop these themes, three decades after this book.

It must be said that Cobb and Griffin both were indebted more to Hartshorne's development of Whitehead's philosophy than a more strictly Whiteheadian point of view. Because of this, the idea of God as a single "actual entity" gets turned into the idea that God is a "serially ordered sequence of occasions," not Whitehead's view at all, and only remotely monotheistic (or even di-theistic or panentheistic). The best chapter in the volume is the one on Christology. The worst is the one on eschatology. There are few things in theology more helpful than a process christology; there are few things less helpful than a process eschatology, at least as Cobb and Griffin outline it. See Ted Peter's God: The World's Future for an excellent use of process thought in the area of eschatology.

Those of us working in the area of process theology today look back to this book as a wonderful example of how we should conduct our own work, trying to carry on its successes and trying to avoid its shortcomings. The racist, materialistic, and sexist remarks in the review below point to why this book, even with its methodological and theological shortcomings, should continue to be read by people wanting to answer the questions raised by theology within the framework of a creative modern philosophy.

Even many people who have never heard of process theology have heard of its central concepts, most notably a limited and evolving god, so an introductory book on this subject is quite useful. Professors Cobb and Griffin are advocates of process theology and provide a balanced overview of both the history and ideas of process thought as well as a defense. In the introduction, the authors set forth 5 "connotations" of the word "God" (which are somewhat caricatured views of orthodox theism) and then state of each: "Process theology denies the existence of this God."

The authors provide a useful background study of process theology, beginning with Whitehead and his student, Charles Hartshorne. It also contains a lengthy "guide to the literature." Unfortunately, the book came out in 1976 so these sections are a bit out of date. Speaking of the 70's, what strikes me as interesting about the book is how "70's" it is. It's all there - environmentalism, women's lib, "authenticity," "realizing new possibilities," Buddhism, etc. If they book had come out in the 80's, we probably would have heard that the American Indians were process theologians.

Those seeking a different view might consider D. Bloesch's GOD THE ALMIGHTY and M. Erickson's GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY.

This book was a great help during college while majoring in Religion. Great reference tool for your research. Not easy reading, however. You will find yourself re-reading paragraphs now and then, but once you grasp it, you will have a challenging time criticizing it whether you are a traditional God believer or a free-form spiritualist. Quite compatible with most monotheistic religions, in my opinion.

Do not waste your hard earned money on this book. I bought it thinking short stories about WWII would be a great easy read book with very exciting story lines. In no way was this book even close. The only thing that keeps you going to the next story is the hope that the next one will be a little better than the last, which never really happens. Out of all the writers there is one or two that keep your attention but for the most part the writers have done a very poor overall job. You buy this book thinking you will be reading about hero's of WWII and you get stories about a little boy who helps in an aircraft hanger building an experimental aircraft. Not to spoil the ending the little boy turns out to be an alien and goes back to his home planet via a bicycle space craft. "WOW GREAT STORY"

This book is in the same classification as the Combat book.In
this book you have ten authors write stories about World War II.
Stephen Coonts writes about a Catalina flying boatwho are doing battle with the Japanese in the Pacific.Harold Coyle does a story about the battle on Guadalcanal with the Japanese that earned this area the name of Bloody Ridge.Jim Defelice tells about an American pilot who parachutes into Germany to gather
intelligence and gets decieved.Harold Robbins tells a story about someone whi is sent to kill Hitler.Dean Ing tells a story about an effort to build an interceptor to stop a Nazi super weapon.Barrett Tillman tells of the role of a flamethrower operator in a battle at Tawara against the Japanese.James Cobb
tells of a Catalina searching for Japanese radar in the Pacific.
David Hagberg tells of allied agents trying to stop a Nazi superweapon that can cause havoc in the United States.R.J. Pineiro tells of an American pilot who trains Russian pilots in new Aircobras.Ralph Peters tells of a German soldier going home on foot after the war has ended.All in all this was an interesting book.It ranked as an equal to Combat.

They really aren't around anymore, but from the 1930s through the 1970s, there was a proliferation of what became known in the trade as "adventure" magazines. These ranged in quality from the semi-respectable (Argosy) to the not so respectable (a veritable slew of titles, such as Stag and the right-out front For Men Only). They featured stories of spies, derring do and jungle intrigue, but they primarily contained war stories. Lots and lots of war stories. The covers often told the tale regarding the type of quality you could expect within; this was particularly true of Stag, which featured damsels who were either in distress (especially with respect to the state of their undergarments) or inflicting distress upon U.S. soldiers who were tied to chairs and doing their best to appear panic-stricken. All of these magazines, alas, are long gone, or at least don't seem to have the circulation they used to. I was reminded of them, however, by the publication of a mammoth volume of war fiction titled VICTORY.

VICTORY is a companion volume to COMBAT, both of which are edited by intrigue-meister Stephen Coonts. VICTORY is a doorstop of a volume, weighing in at well over 700 pages and consisting of ten previously unpublished pieces by masters of the war story. The stories in VICTORY range in length from fifty to over one hundred pages; if they had appeared in any of the adventure magazines, they would have been serialized. Most of the stories in VICTORY would or could have found a home in Argosy, though one --- "Blood Bond" by Harold Robbins --- is definitely Stag material. More on that in a minute.

The stories in VICTORY do not glorify war. Far from it. All of the stories are set during World War II, with the exception of "Honor" by Ralph Peters, set immediately thereafter. It is difficult to pick an immediate favorite; the average reader may have several, for different reasons. Coonts's own "The Sea Witch," which opens VICTORY, begins as a fairly predictable tale with an unpredictable ending and that utilizes an unexpected technique to catch the reader flatfooted.

"Blood Bond" is typical Robbins. It is a spy story, dealing with a plot to kill Hitler, and stands apart from the other tales due to its unrelenting scatological narrative. Robbins writes the way James Bond really thinks. Though Robbins, gone for several years now, had his share of detractors, he never inflicted boredom on his audience, and this previously unpublished work continues his streak, even in his absence.

David Hagberg's "V5" concerns the German rocket that could have turned the tide of World War II and the Allied military and espionage components that feverishly work together, though at some distance, to ensure that the project never makes it off the ground.

Peters's "Honor" deals not with Americans in the war but with a German officer in the war's aftermath, trudging through the nightmarish ruin that is postwar Germany as he tries to return home to his wife. The conclusion of "Honor" is predictable, almost from the first paragraph; it is the journey, not the close-to-foregone destination, that is important here.

The biggest surprise in VICTORY may be "The Eagle and the Cross" by R.J. Pineiro, a tale of an American pilot who is sent to the Eastern front to train Russian aviators during the final months of the Battle of Stalingrad. The bittersweet ending is perhaps the most haunting of any tale in the book.

With VICTORY Coonts again demonstrates that his talent as a writer is matched by his editorial abilities. While this volume is aimed at a more narrowly defined audience, the quality of the stories involved should, for the most part, satisfy the more discerning reader of any genre. Recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub