This is one of the most comprehensive, objective or "bi-partisan," and current studies available to the general public. Although it is indeed an academic study and is written to influence policymakers, the educated public can easily follow most of the arguments posited by MacCoun and Reuter. Both thinkers have extensive experience in the area of drug policy, both are senior consultants with RAND (Drug Policy Research Center) and have published a considerable amount of literature on the nature of drugs and drug laws. This dynamic text attempts a comparative analysis of vices, such as gambling and prostitution, with that of recreational drug use, including alcohol and tobacco. The purpose of this study is to research whether or not there are any correlations between vices and, if so - can they assist in our understanding of how to regulate drugs and the desires of individuals for drugs. For example, of the kind of comparisons made, is that of prostitution and gambling. Both are legal in Las Vegas, NV - both are thought to be harmful vices, nevertheless, the law has provided a place for them in a legal context - can the same be done for drugs? The text also evaluates extensively, the European models of drug law enforcement and treatment and compares them to America's own models of law and treatment. The authors do not offer any solutions to the drug problem, but what they have done is contribute a comprehensive study with an extensive and diverse amount of data on the subject, something of which has not been achieved as thoroughly as it has been done in this study. The authors also analyze many of the drug reformer's arguments and parse them for consistencies and/or inconsistencies; in the conclusion, they offer a sympathetic gesture to the reformer's contentions because the authors admit to realizing the inanity and harm current drug laws are causing society, but they do so cautiously. They realize that something "must change," but what? and the future can only hold speculations. This book is highly recommended.

Another interesting companion study is the Consumer Reports study that was released in 1972. It is comprehensive and treats the many aspects of the "drug problem" in America. See:

Breacher, Edward M. et al., Licit and Illicit Drugs: the Consumers Union report on narcotics, stimulants, depressants, inhalants, hallucinogens, and marijuana - including caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. (Boston: Little Brown, 1972).

Drug War Heresies may be the best book ever written about modern U.S. drug policy. Written by a psychologist and an economist, the authors draw on attempts to control other substances (such as alcohol prohibition in the U.S.) and exhaustively examine the alternative and experimental European drug policies that most American readers will find particularly useful. The authors are careful to not impose their values and beliefs into their work, instead focusing on the consequences of alternative drug policies. The result is a persuasive case for policy reform in America that is not doctrinaire. Required reading for all who are interested in illicit drug policy in America.

This omnibus publishing of the Hitchhikers Quartet contains the first four books of the Hitchhikers Trilogy, considered the only true Trilogy by many purists. The series starts with the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, then continues with The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything and rounds out with So Long and Thanks For All the Fish. This is considered me many the core of the Guide's story, and that "Mostly harmless" takes the story in an unwanted direction and prematurely ends the series with the elimination of 3 of the main characters. Most hardcore Adams purists prefer to leave the story hanging with the possibility of the infinite possibilities possible in an infinite universe.

This is a first-rate digest of Harbison's larger work, the definitive work on Irish High Crosses. My wife and I stumbled onto the book in a Kells bookstore. She was looking for examples of crosses featuring griffins -- and they are noted herein! Harbison maps the route to all the ancient crosses and gives a thumbnail sketch of iconography. Also a great gift to lovers of things Irish and arm-chair travelers. Thank you, Peter Harbison and artist Hilary Gilmore!

The hardly 5'0 tall St. John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes in 1540 at Fontiveros in Castille, Spain. His father, Don Gonzalo de Yepes, died in 1545-when Juan was only 5 years. Growing up he had enough hindrance: his parents had no money, the father's side of the family were Jewish converts to Christianity, Juan's mother was suspected as having Muslim blood and was disowned financially and emotionally by her husband's family when he died, Juan himself looked too dark for a European-this, in turn, may have created social problems. He eventually joined up with a Christian brotherhood, the Carmelites, whose origin can be traced to the thirteenth century. At twelve, he helped in the local hospital. Nearing his death in 1591 he had by this time developed four works of poetry, between 1579 and 1586:

1. The Ascent of Mount Carmel 2. The Dark Night 3. The Spiritual Canticle 4. The Living Flame of Love.

His most famous, "The Dark Night," is mystical. It describes the journey to God as monstrously hard. At one point, the soul feels deserted by God, not unlike "why hast Thou forsaken Me?" And then, God is there.

The philosophy of St. John of the Cross hinges on discipline. The Christian religion is, after all, an exclusive one. Christ had said that very few go to Heaven. Now a Spiritualist will interperet this to mean that the spirit has to work its way up the ladder, in their case 'spheres.' "In My Father's house are many mansions..." St. John mentions two terms: "night of the senses" and "night of the spirit." As well, he differentiates "active" and "passive." The ACTIVE night of the SENSES is when a person rejects their sins. To borrow from the author, "The movement from the ACTIVE NIGHT OF THE SPIRIT to the PASSIVE NIGHT OF THE SENSES is a movement from meditation to contemplative prayer." (p. 43) The 'passive night of the spirit' is a unique mysticism in which the the soul feels weak, dark, shameful, deserted by God. But this changes when God and the soul become as one: "My Father and I are One."

The purpose of the book is plainly expressed by the author on the first page:

"John of the Cross deserves to be better known in the English-speaking world. He has a message for our age and he needs to be given a hearing. Up to now, John has not been well served by his biographers, most of whom have presented him as a remote, rather severe saint. John's humanity has been removed and religious cliches and miracles have obscured the real person."

Not surprisingly, our John was ill appreciated in his own time. I was reminded by C.S. Lewis that Christianity is not easy, in any sense. Every now and then, a silly atheist turns up with this on his mind, "Christianity is wishful thinking..." But why, oh why, would people dream up the harded journey they ever could, only to embrace it at their own misfortune? Jesus told us to 'take up our crosses.' The point? Simply that, St. John took up his cross and suffered for it. His 'dark night of the soul' is the difficulty of staying a Christian. G.K. Chesterton, who wrote "Why I Became a Catholic," said that he wanted to get rid of his sins. The 'rogue philosoper' G.I. Gurdjieff defined a Christian as one who "lives by the precepts of Christ." But we know it is something more. A Christian is one who believes that Jesus is God Incarnate, that lives in accordance with His way, and who developes a personal relation with Christ.

The author, Wilfred McGreal, himself studied theology in Rome. He became in 1957 a member of the Order of Carmelites, to which St. John was unified.

This book is very well done because it offers something new: a nicer look at St. John and what led up to the great events of his life. We see glimpses of his poetry here, and students of theology, especially, ought to read this one.

Clowney gives a straightforward and helpful exposition of this significant epistle. This series is highly readable, and Clowney's contribution on I Peter is no different. He has clearly thought long and hard about most of what he says, even if some of the argumentation for his views is left out of the book.

For a more serious exegetical commentary, look to Paul Achtemeier's Hermeneia volume, J. Ramsay Michaels' work in the Word Biblical Commentary series, or Peter Davids' NIC volume. For a more expository commentary, this book stands with I. Howard Marshall's IVP New Testament Commentary as the best you can find.

Marshall has more of a scholarly bent, and his footnotes contain much information that Clowney either leaves out or works into the text, which makes Clowney's work a little more uneven. Sometimes he devotes much attention to an issue (e.g. his excellent treatment of the spirits in prison passage, encapsulating some of the material and arguments Wayne Grudem presents in his excellent appendix on the topic in his Tyndale commentary, but Clowney does so in a more shorter and more readable manner).

Other subjects get shorter shrift, and you would need a more in-depth commentary to get more background on those. Marshall seems to give a little more depth to more issues with some exegetical help in the footnotes and for that reason may be more helpful to someone who asks questions about that sort of thing. But I enjoyed Clowney more out of the two and got more out of his work personally. As straightforward exposition, this is great work.

Carsten Peter Thiede was already a purportedly controversial and world-class scholar with his work on the roguishly new dating of Mark's gospel when he approached this unprecedented and ground-breaking investigation of the Titulus of Santa Croce, in Rome. The Santa Croce Church, having stood in the same plaque of land for 1700 years prior, regularly housed said aforementioned titulus for those same 1700 years. A titulus, which, for the uninitiated into this area of interest, is the headboard above criminals' heads on a cross, who were put to death by crucifixion, a worrisomely merciless practice of the Roman Empire. The titulus from Santa Croce is the one allegedly belonging to Christ's cross, a disputable and unproven insinuation, one that Thiede nevertheless strives to make a case for in his newest book.

In said book, Thiede submits some tantalizing and, more valuably, convincing evidence for this titulus to specifically be that of Christ's. Number one is the order of languages in which the mocking Roman inscription----which always was used to convey the charge against the criminal being executed----"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" is transcribed onto the titulus. Actually, since only a fragment of the headboard remains, this line should be modified to only state "Jesus of Nazareth". In the Bible, this order is written first in Hebrew, Greek, then Latin. This order on the Titulus of Santa Croce is one that violates the order in which the Bible documents the languages as appearing on the headboard. This permeates with credibility, because, had this order on the titulus been fabricated, no one would have crawled to producing such a glaringly bad imitation. Consequently, this can only mean one thing, that, were the Santa Croce Titulus really a fabrication, the professional forger would have been duped into copying the contraband order written in the Bible, because it was more accessible. Secondly, is the suspiciously eye-rasing direction in which the Hebrew inscription "Jesus of Nazareth" is written, which is from right to left. Once again, discounting fakes because of its horrid obviousness, Thiede believes this was inscribed by a Jewish scholar, as it was the traditional Hebrew writing style of the day, around the date of Christ's crucifixion. Thirdly, is the introduction of a specific style of abreviation on the Titulus of Santa Croce, one that died out from common use at the time after Christ's crucifixion, once more linking the headboard to the official one.

Furthermore, to prove that the titulus belonged to Christ, Thiede has to establish a definite connection between the crucifixion and that part of the cross actually coming to the Roman Empire in the 4th century, because said titulus is from Santa Croce, the church in Rome. According to legend, the titulus was recovered to Rome by Helena, Emperor Constantine's 80-year old mom. Constantine seized control of the whole Empire when he defeated his arch-nemesis, Emperor Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. The Empire had, up to that point, been ostracized into 4 regions, each governed by 4 different Roman rulers. Constantine, allegedly, had a vision of the Cross in the clouds, before crossing the Milvian Bridge in the battle against Maxentius, which implored him to paint a Chi-rho symbol---the 1st version of Christianity's symbol---on all his men's shields. Constantine embezzled that Christianity had granted him his victory-----he then started to oppress Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. As another part of his ambivalent "conversion" of himself and the entire Empire to Christianity, he procured his mom to bring the relic to 3 parts of the Empire as a rallying point for early Christians to have something palpable to believe in.

What Thiede does is to try to produce legitimate connections to the titulus which was carried back by Helena and the actual titulus of Christ by citing logical coincidences of events that could only happen during the specific range of the time of Christ. For instance, nowadays, there exists the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sitting over the place where Christ was crucified, and believed to have been the site of the titulus. In the catacombs beneath this church lie inscriptional records of early pilgrims' journeys to this site-one such from Crusaders, and another from seafarers who make a definite reference to a biblical psalm in giving thanks for their opportunity to worship at the site, believing it to be the licit place containing Christ's relics, and who wouldn't have risked catastrophic chances traveling across the sea to get there, were they not actually certain of its status. This verifies the already historical knowledge of the fact that, in the 1st few centuries of Christianity, there was NEVER any dispute over the actual holy sites. Additionally, there is evidence of Jews building tombs over this same area, even for the ones stigmatized as "criminals", as proven by the finding of a burial box containing a nail through the heel bone of a foot, and Jesus would have been libeled as a "criminal" by the Jews. Another tying of the Santa Croce Titulus to Christ's time is the fact that in the 1400s, it was discovered in Helena's "palace"-directly behind Santa Croce-hidden behind a fresco because Helena is supposed to have taken it, the 3rd fragment of the entire headboard, back with her after discovering the titulus at the previous site of, 1st, the temple to the Roman god Venus which was then promptly aborted for Constantine's building of a monumental complex to Christianity, all on the same site. Upon the uncovering of the titulus, again, in the 1400s, El Greco used it in a painting of his, further documenting its validity.

These may be circumstantial evidence, but they stimulate the next best thing towards solid proof of this titulus being that of Christ's: raising the question of a plausible feasibility that the Santa Croce Titulus could be that of Christ's.

A brilliant analysis of the micro and macro aspects of cultural organizations.

This book is the best publication on the subject within the USA. Combine this with some expert instruction and you will be skiing those big peaks and doing those long traverses like a pro! This sport is just coming of age in this country and is VERY popular in Europe, where it started long ago. If you are interested in that professional instruction, Email me and I will set up a date...maybe we will ski Mt. St. Helens or Rainier? The sky is the limit!

This is the best book I have ever read in my entire life! I hope that everyone who hears about this book should buy this. Keep this book as a bible for life. You cannot get any closer to finding answers to the ultimate meaning of life. Seriously! This book is a very good read for anyone and everyone. BUY THIS BOOK NOW! Do it! Believe me, you will not be dissapointed.

I am an expatriate manager & teacher, researcher in cross-cultural business issues, and teach international marketing and management at a university undergraduate level, in English, to students in non-English-speaking countries. This book is particularly useful to me personaly in assisting in my understanding and interactions with my studens, university colleagues & administration, and my neighbors. I have waded through many dense, poorly- written tomes in this area of study; however, the Smith and Bond book is refreshingly interesting, well-written and useful, with helpful inserts, cartoons, and comment boxes adding to one's insight. I exerpt and adapt frequently from the book in my courses in Managing the International Enterprise and Cross-Cultural Issues in Management. The book is useful for both university education, training exptraite managers, and for reading and reference by thoughtful expatriates.