The usual authorized biography is worthy but not worthwhile; the author has traded access for freedom to write what he damned well pleases. In this case, Foster, though not writing an "approved" or subsidized book, has given up nothing -- he knew and genuinely liked his subject, despite having worked for him. Robert Wood Johnson, NOT the Johnson who just bought himself a professional foootball team, was both a gentleman and a rebel but he did establish for one of the premier American companies a credo which helped to build it and, even after his death, to keep it on the right course during the Tylenol crisis, a triumph of responsible capitalism -- and not incidentally of well-handled public relations . The author minimizes his own role in handling this potentially widespread and dangerous situation. The book is rare in its genre -- well written, humane, interesting, and valuable to anyone interested in top drawer American companies, the economy, public health, public service, the lives of the rich, and more.

The impact of the Johnson family -- and particularly the "gentleman rebel" at the center of Larry Foster's book -- on the community, the health care industry and society at large has been documented in a way that is illuminating, satisfying and inspiring. Attention to detail, the providing of context and respect for the subject, along with graceful writing, make this book a joy to read.

It is an almanac it is real pretty it has good information and you can find it easy

This is a well-written book that exposes the inner workings of one of the great scientific minds of that era, a time when Isaac Newton was putting together his laws of gravity and men like Boyle were formulating laws that evolved into our modern day chemistry. It's important to the history of science because this is when much of the superstition and mysticism of the Dark Ages finally fell away and led humanity toward a whole new way of thinking about nature. I liked this book because it shows in some detail how this crossover was accomplished and how difficult it was for thinkers of that time to tear their roots from the past and dream a new world.

This is an insightful and well-researched biography. Using sources previously kept within the Oates family, including a collection of over three hundred of Captain Oates' letters and portions of his Antarctic diary, Sue Limb and P. Cordingly recreate many details of the explorer's life and experiences which had previously been unknown. The result is an account focusing on Oates' LIFE, rather than his famous DEATH after reaching the South Pole with Scott in 1912. Oates is shown to be not a sublime martyr, but instead an intelligent, remarkable man grounded in reality, whose life ended too soon as a result of the blunders of others.

Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is one of the classics of horror literature because it provides the paradigmatic example of the "werewolf," the human being with a monstrous alter ego. However, originally it was much more of a mystery story and that is the best way of describing this adaptation of Stevenson's novella by Michael Lawrence. The book's complex structure is simplified and Lawrence employs a narrator to help retell the tale. The adaptation is certainly competent enough, but the story clearly takes a back seat to the illustrations in this particular volume.

This Eyewitness Classics adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is full of the illustrations and details we have come to associate with books put out by DK Publishing. A two-page spread before the first chapter details The Two Face of London, contrasting the rich West End of Victorian London with Soho area where criminals stalked the poor. Background about how Victorian gentlemen dressed for evening and how women were second-class citizens is provided. Once the story commences there are not only illustrations by Ian Andrew depicting events in the novella, but the borders are usually filled with small photographs and detailed text amplifying the action. One such note might explaining the gas lighting system in use at the time while another actually explains the significance of the key Jekyll supposedly gave to Hyde. These pictures and notes are certainly informative, but they are also somewhat intrusive, especially when the reader is trying to decide when they should read each of these additional bits of information.

The attempt here is to provide something more than a straightforward presentation of the novella without going so far as to provide an annotated version. The information provided is quite useful for young readers, for the most part, but their intrusiveness may well get in the way of enjoying the story itself. The illustrations by Andrew are stylistically evocative of the shadowy, misty streets of London we associate with tales of violent crimes such as "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." A final spread in the back of the book looks at the Legend of the story, which includes the various dramatic versions on stage and screen. More interesting are the insights into how the story reflected what people were thinking about evolution, psychology, and drugs at the end of the 19th-century. The best solution might be to just try and read the story without always resorting to the additional information and then going back and filling in the details (maybe on a chapter by chapter basis). This approach is used in a pair of other "horror" classics, "Dracula" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," in the DK Classics series.

If you are a Robert Taylor fan as I am, you will love this book. The pictures are magnificent!! However in some areas Mr. Quirk shows a real bias. He gives lots of praise to the military films but gives little if any praise to most of the romances. Considering who the book is about this is unfortunate. Anyone writing a book on Mr. Taylor needs to appreciate the very strong romantic appeal that he had. Mr. Quirk criticized some films that women have traditionally loved. Also, Mr. Quirk got some of the names and dates wrong under some of the photographs. On the whole, however, this book would
delight any true Robert Taylor fan.

"First Cases" is a collection of the first short stories by classic private eye writers featuring their heros (or heroines). That should be the book's caveat, as many of the protagonists had already appeared in full length novel form before these stories were published. The lineup includes such luminaries as Loren Estlemen's Amos Walker, Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder, Bill Pronzini's "Nameless" and Editor Robert J. Randisi's own Miles Jacoby. All of the series characters featured are currently ongoing (or at least were as of 1996, when the book was published). Editor Randisi knows his stuff, having been the founder of the Private Eye Writers of America.

All that said, the quality of the stories varies. Some of the writers had yet to really find their voice and some (especially the older) stories are somewhat by-the-numbers. Nevertheless, the book is an inetersting historical artifactfor those who want insight on how their heros developed. My personal favorites are Block's and Estlemen's. They show again why they are, for my money, the two best and most consistent private eye writers currently working in the genre.

This is a rigorous introduction to the evolution of economic thinking in the time of John M. Keynes. Whether you approve of the General Theory or not, this provides exhaustive information about the pedigree of the theory. He also included much of the detailed mathematical proof in the appendix, proofs which Keynes did not furnish in The General Theory. But the real virtue of the book is that it provides a detailed guide to all of Keynes' economic writings. Keynes struggled mightily to reconcile what he saw in the European economy with his professional training, using great ingenuity to do so. Klein describes this struggle as if it were a great philosophical transformation, and indeed it was.

This book is, finally, of great polemical help to defenders of Keynes' General Theory against the modern current of market fundamentalism. The reason is that Keynes' process of discovery is documented against historical events--the world in which, in Keynes' words, we live. The other is that Klein exhaustively documents the vehement and absolutism of conservative economic thought of the day. So it must be understood that, whatever his flaws, Keynes did indeed make a revolutionary step in the history of economics.

Very Interesting book for those avid readers interested in the few years before and after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The book shows how England decieved the Arabs by making false promises of independence once the Arabs completed thier revolt against the Ottomans. Arabs ended up with British and French mandates instead. Lawrence was himself betrayed by his own government. The book gives a lot of detail on the daily life of bedouins, so some might find it interesting. The author should have dealt more with Lawrence's view of Zionism and the Balfour declaration and British policies in the region.

This book is the product of international work since 1994 among close to 80 professionals from 27 countries in order to re-define and bring consensus to the issue of measuring and monitoring the status of children in our societies.
For many years many countries have gathered information and statistics about their children, but mostly in the area of basic needs and survival. This book and the international project is going beyond and looking at indicators to measure and monitor the well-being of our children. A task not easy to come about, but important, because it will provide important information, knowledge, tools for better planning and make monitoring more possible, when you have hard facts to compare with.
This book has nine chapters: Rationale for measuring child well- being, existing efforts around the world, basic guidelines, five new domains, indicators, how to measure, the community level, making of policy and summary with an agenda for future efforts in this field.
The message of the book is the importance of measurements of child well-being finding indicators that you will be able to monitor over time both improvements and change. The new approach can be described as looking at well-being instead of just survival, from negative aspects to positive aspects of child life, from well-becoming to well-being and from traditonal to new domains. The five 'new' domains the authors propose are in children's activities, children's economic resources and contribution, civic life skills, personal life skills, and safety and physical status with 49 indicators.
This is an easy-to-read book with good information for professionals trying to find ways to measure and monitor well-being in today's children and adolescents.

Professor Joav Merrick, MD
Medical director, Division for Mental Retardation, Box 1260, IL-91012 Jerusalem, Israel. E-mail: jmerrick@aquanet.co.il