Whether you're a biologist, an environmentalist, or just someone who loves fish/fishing, this book is a must. Written for both academics and lay-persons, with easy to understand text, it includes information on methods for determining the identity of local freshwater fish, with beautiful illustrations and color plates.

This is a serious book for the serious student of both public health and geographical information systems. Not difficult, but certainly serious. Dr. Melnick does an excellent job of introducing us to GIS and then walking us through the application of GIS to various public health areas (environmental health, communicable diseases, injuries, chronic diseases, and assessment). At each point he carefully notes the applicable principles, what the data and GIS application demonstrate, and the strengths and weaknesses of the GIS approach. This should become the standard learning tool for GIS and Health.

The book probably over references and over describes specific software programs and companies (e.g. see the discussion of Maptitude and Version 3.0 and 4.0 and HUD....) - these are outdated in 12 months.

Obviously, the book needs a CD-ROM (or web site) with data sets and the capacity to play with some of the data. The main point of the book is doing the picture and thinking about what you end up with. Without a CD-ROM or web site we are left short of really being able to get it.

In summary, despite some drawbacks this book is a winner. By the end you will not know how to do GIS, but you will know that you need to find a way to know it

Berenson's classic study of Italian Renaissance painters is well worth seeking in used bookstores or through book-finding services. This collection of essays separately published between 1894 and 1907 focuses on the painters of Venice, Florence, central Italy, and north Italy. In intelligent, lively prose, the author not only analyzes the merit of scores of individual painters from Giotto to Correggio but also traces the development of Italian painting and constantly reiterates his theory that the "life enhancement" qualities of of high art are found in the areas of tactile values, movement, and spatial composition, all of which he explains in articulate detail. Movement and energy, for example, can be expressed in an arm leaning on a pillow. He correctly identifies the partnership in Florence between an intense desire for knowledge that helps to explain and control the world and the "discovery" of classical forms from ancient Rome. In painting, this led above all to a focus on the human figure (which Berenson claims as the ultimate subject of art) and a preeminent dedication to line. The intellectual rigor of Florence contrasted with Venice, the voluptuous capital of a wealthy mercantile empire distinguished by public rituals, where spectacle and color were the chief aims of art. Berenson's authority ranges through landscape, the uses of antiquity, Illustration and Decoration, prettiness versus beauty, and archaic art, whose appeal lies in its search for form and movement. The book is sparsely illustrated, so you will have to supplement it with your own visual sources, but it's a goldmine of information, useful perspectives, and thought-provoking opinions.

New Testament (Koine) Greek has long been taught as just another dead language. Black, an experienced teacher of Greek, changes the paradigm. Applying modern linguistic theory, Black shows how many of the so-called irregularities of Greek are actually normal and regular. The book covers the gamut: phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc. each section concludes with a short bibliography which can help students and teachers learn even more about linguistics and Koine Greek. An important text for newcomers and a useful review of Greek to sharpen rusty skills.

I teach three levels of Systems Engineering and Architecture courses at the Naval Postgraduate School. I have now used this book for 2 years for the Labs.

The students each study and make presentations on the different case studies; relating there results to the Systems Engineering Process and the Architecture Hueristics.

Last Quarter, one class voted this book the best book of the quarter.

Cheers

Orin

A good follow-up to the earlier book. Easy to read; a good collection of common sense actions you can take against the gun-grabbers.

For those of us without formal economics training, Card and Krueger present an easy-to-read alternative view of the minimum wage controvery. They undermine powerfully the long held assumption that minimum wages decrease job opportunities for low wage workers, and elegantly descibe what poor workers have known for years.

We are doing this book as a group. It has been very powerful for us. The author Alan Seale covers everything one needs to know. It is easy to read and understand. Many Mediations to do and it is a book to take serious. Not just read lightly but really get into for growth.

Since I enjoyed reading David Clark's "Dialogical Apologetics" and "Apologetics in the New Age," co-authored with Norman Geisler, I had to read "The Pantheism of Alan Watts," especially since it was referenced in the co-authored book above. Although, admittedly, I'm not well read on Alan Watts (which is my weakness in reviewing this book), the fact that he is a popular author provided incentive to my reading, and probably to Clark's writing, of this book. Clark's mastery of the Watts corpus is apparent, and the analysis is intellectually engaging. He is obviously careful in his presentation of Watts' evolving ideas, from his early belief as an Anglican priest that Christianity was compatible with (Zen) Buddhism and "the perennial philosophy" to his later admission of its incompatibility which resulted in his abandonment of Christianity. Clark also shows how Watts can get around some of the intellectual objections of his critics. But he also shows how Watts and other pantheistic mystics face an intellectual dilemma when making claims such as "God is unknowable by intellection". According to Clark, "Not only is Watts unable to explain human existence with its sensations of finite individuality, he has built a system which cannot be meaningfully affirmed." He continues: "It is always logically possible that there is more to 'the universe than normal experience can understand or comprehend,' but if this universe is pantheistic, there remains the thorny problem of how and why human beings came to exist, speak, think and feel as they do. Watts cannot eliminate all experience as false and conventional because his knowledge is based on experience. Neither can he differentiate between valid mystical experience and conventional pseudoexperience (i.e., our experience of finite existence) because that distinction would be a rational one. It seems that a mystical pantheism has difficulty eliminating the overwhelming experience of being a finite ego from the realm of valid experience" (pg. 104).

Clark admits that this argumentation may not convince some mystics and quotes D. T. Suzuki as an example. But he points out that dismissing logical incoherencies out of hand means that any world view becomes impossible to criticize, including the theistic world view of Christianity. Even if admirers of Watts aren't convinced by the analysis or conclusions of this book, I would find it hard to believe that they would walk away from this book without a deeper understanding of both Watts and his critics. I challenge avid readers of Watts to locate and read this book and if, after doing so, they found it lacking in any way, to provide a well thought-out critique ... I look forward to reading your reviews. This book is highly recommended, along with Clark's other two books mentioned above, and requires careful reading and reflection. For those who consider themselves "panentheists" instead of "pantheists," see Norman Geisler's critical analysis of this world view in his book "Christian Apologetics".

If you are going to buy new home..OR.. to get general knowledge.....YOU MUST READ THIS EASY BOOK. It is very easy to understand..