This book presents a reasonably objective "warts and all" account of Phi Beta Kappa. This publication is certainly a cogent and comprehensive history of this society, the progenitor of all U.S. Greek-name honor organizations that followed (perhaps, most notably, Phi Kappa Phi, established in 1897 as the now preeminent national collegiate honor organization to recognize and actively promote excellence in *all* academic disciplines).

Phi Beta Kappa, beginning as a secret fraternal and literary society in 1776, officially became an "honor society" only in 1898, and was/is still limited (in membership selection) to the narrow 18th century classic liberal arts criteria. Thus, scholars whose major (e.g., engineering, business, architecture, pharmacy, nursing, agriculture, computer science, electronics, geography, teacher education, archaeology, commercial art, & many, many other state-of-the-art majors & specialties) is not very strictly considered "liberal arts" (the term is becoming more blurred with each passing year) are sadly denied the coveted Phi Beta Kappa gold key, even if they have a perfect grade-point average! Life ain't fair, as the adage goes.

Nevertheless, the book itself is indeed quite a positive and revealing recollection/compendium of this liberal arts society's ups & downs. One might expect a literary history of a collegiate honor society to be tedious and boring, but that is just not the case here. This book is engrossing and interesting. In many ways, it sheds invaluable light on the broad history of all American higher education!

I rate this book as a "must buy" and certainly a real "keeper". It is wonderfully written, and I recommend it most highly. A worthwhile read!

William Wright's charting of the life and sadnesses of the late Christina Onassis makes compulsive reading. A wealth of detail is coupled with a racy narrative style to produce a book that is for once, in that much overused phrase, unputdownable.

It would be easy to dismiss Christina as an empty-headed, affluent and cocooned woman. What Wright does is to shine a light into all the corners of this complex woman's life - her battles with the megalomaniac shipping tycoon who was her father, the war which ensued with Onassis's last wife the profligate Jackie Kennedy, her failed attempts at love and acceptance and the volatile dynamic that made up the Onassis clan - while allowing Christina to emerge as a vulnerable and very human figure and not the spoiled, hedonistic brat of popular acceptance.

A riveting read of unusual dimensions - the glitz and glamour more the habitat of Jackie Collins suffused with a bible-black Greek tragedy - a tragedy that was to cast its shadow across the entire Onassis dynasty and which threatens to darken Christina's daughter Athina, the richest little girl in the world.

I was never one to enjoy history much until my college history class used this book for the main text. I found this book great reading (interesting and kept my attention most of the time). I must say that after that class and this book, I have become much more interested in aspects of history. This book is wonderful and I would recommend it to any college professor of history or high school student with even a slight interest in history!

I used this book for self-study after many years away from any formal courses, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find myself engrossed in the lucid and engaging descriptions, the beautiful illustrations and photographs, and helpful index. It covers, at just the right level of detail, American History from the colonization of the Americas to Clinton's presidency. It gives a big picture without being condescending and simplistic, but also without assailing you with inessential jargon and names.

I looked at many different American History surveys and this is my favorite by far. On the other hand, if you already know the main outlines of American History, and want detailed analyses of particular periods, then this book will not be as helpful, as it is merely an overview and the bibliography is not very detailed or well annotated.

This book has been a great aid in writing my research papers! I really liked the way the book was broken down between chapters and sections, it made choosing a research topic much easier. The book was also very well written and to the point, it was not at boring at all!

this book deals with tha end of the civil war, 1865. you would find how the reconstruction took place, how slavery end, how the people suffer with many changes, how some presidents and government political wasn't all that helpful in restoring the united states in those years of battle. you would get a better understanding on how the presidents and political parties put a stop to those hard times people face, in those day. I use this book for a history class and I really learn about american history.

As a big fan of both the Jerky Boys and The Onion, I decided to give Tough Call a try. On the plus side, there are some really funny transcripts in this book, especially the finale where Mike tries to set up an arms deal with a Brazillian weapons dealer. The minus side is this: It's not as funny in print as it could be in an audio format. The book is pretty slim, so I'd advise prospective readers to check out the sample pages above to see if it's their cup of tea.

This book is strickly bathroom reading, and I only found one or two call transcripts to be genuinely funny. A few more gave cause to grin. Some were simply cruel for no good reason. Fine for three minutes at a stretch, but this does not compare in quantity or quality to any of the Onion volumes. Should you buy? That's a tough call...

Oh boy, this book was funny. I saw the ad for it on the Onion web page and immediately was interested. The Onion just represents quality and a writer for the Onion is going to write something of quality. I did have my doubts, however. A book of phone pranks? I thought of Jerky Boys and cringed. Maybe it'd be funny to hear the audio of the calls in progress, but written transcripts? I wasn't sure it was going to work. I took the risk and bought the book. And boy did it work! It was hilarious. It's like the themes, attitudes, philanthro-satirical force of the Onion, but in ACTION! -- the onion's mentality physically applied to the real world! The manipulation of their targets directly - molding and forming, creating and shaping from the very substance of the real! Truly performance art! Sculptural! Sorry, temporarily lost ability to form complete sentences (without use of exclamation points)! You will too. It's that funny.

The review from Atlanta said he was tempted to staple entire pages together to eliminate the gushing in this book... I actually went through with a marker and crossed out what irritated me (about a third of the book).

Aside from that, this book does an excellent job at giving a beginner a handle on phi. Many of his examples either don't work out (as the other commentators have indicated) or more often, aren't spelled out well enough for the novice. Nonetheless, it's a book worth having. The relationships between E, Pi, and Phi, the three constants for the three dimensions of numbers, are well treated.

Mark Vedder

For the most part an excellent, easy to follow work. However, on page 99 (item #3, bottom of page) the author states the incorrect equality: 2(phi+1+1/phi)=4, for the surface area of the golden cuboid. Correctly, the surface area of the given cuboid should be equal to approximately 6.472. This error could be overlooked except for the fact that the author extrapolates on this incorrect result (next page, item #4) and hints at a connection between pi and phi. The author uses his incorrect constant of proportionality, namely "4", which appears in the figuring of the surface area of the circumscribing sphere and the cuboid, as evidence of this "connection". Thus, in the guise of some illusive geometric "hint", leaving the reader with the idea that a tie between these two constants may exist in this geometric figure. The significance of this error cannot be overlooked.

This book is perfect if you enjoyed the movie Pi and want to learn more, or if you are researching connections between math and religion, art, quality (per R. Pirsig), or aesthetics. One downer is that Huntley tries, and fails, to explain how math can be beautiful just like poetry can be beautiful. I personally think that you either dig math or you don't. Huntley should assume that anyone reading his/her book is at least interested and therefore skip the "math can be pretty too" lesson. Beyond that, though, the book is a thorough introduction to phi and the golden ratio. Huntley more than makes up for his mentioned faults by providing numerous equations, proofs, plots, and diagrams. The math level is pre-calculus with emphasis on geometry. I recommend reading this with plenty of scratch paper handy so that you can work along with the text and prove to yourself how deep this rabbit hole goes.