A book that seeks to clear the muddle of distorted African history, especially as found in the bible. The book starts by explaining the origin and meaning of the word Negro as an introduction. It then informs the reader of the many black people of the bible like, Zipporah the Ethiopian (wife to Moses), the great pharaoh Taharqa, Absolm (David's son) and the great Candaces (Black women warriors) of Sudan, just to mention a few. The chapters are short yet very informative. Although I was not that convinced regarding the identity of Moses: ie was he a black jew or otherwise? Yet a good book of black history especially in the old testament.

This is a great book for those interested in WW2 bomber development. Although not large or exhaustive in detail it contains many nuggets of information that are hard to find elsewhere. Highly recommended.

My late father was a bookie in his younger days so I could relate to the story better than most. Dad purchased a copy of this when it came out in the 1970's and laughed all the way through it.

Some of the sports references are dated now (the book is about 30 years old) but a realistic insight into a bookmaker's life and incredibly funny. The writer has a great style and really enjoyable.

I bought a new copy and re-read recently. Glad I did. ...

Reading of the Democratic party's enfranchisement of immigrants in our 1996 presidential election, specifically the Mexicans illegally coming across the Rio Grande, parallels the story of the big city political machines doing the same thing around the turn of the 19th century and thereafter. Because of shifts in the composition of the labor market, reflecting the advancing information age, and for other reasons, these Bosses have seen their political power continuously diluted. They have in turn been replaced by race baiting demigogues such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan. 20% of the Democratic party base is made up of potential Black voters, and the most effective way of getting them to the polls is to practice the politics of divisiveness by lying to them. What's changed?

The book is a facinating insight into political machines and their place in the political arcana of America. A must for poly-Sci majors.

Reading the empiricists is a rare treat. Because of their style, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume seem to be more accessible to the novice and general reader than much of philosophy. However, the three essays included in this volume are welcome additions to the Oxford University Press's "Past Masters" series, and anyone reading this book will gain a greater appreciation for the empriricits. Highly recommended.

I have owned and read several times the David and Charles publication of this book (as a Pan Books paperback) since it first appeared in 1969.
It is an outstanding work written by a distinguished mechanical engineer very familiar with his subject. In clear language which even the non-technical should understand, the design and workings of the steam locomotive in Britain is made clear. Much of it is applicable in its fundamentals to steam locomotives anywhere in the world. It is definitely not a hagiography of some enthusiasts favorite designs but an objective account of the continued and successful development of the steam locomotive to the much improved state it reached after about 50 year's development in the 20th century. There is a rare but proper examination of compounding, superheat, boilers, cylinders, valve gear, and adhesion and many other relevant subjects. Also of experiments with ultra-high pressure and steam turbines and the author shows how the final designs tended to gell around a certain relatively simple but effective and efficient conformity in both Britain and the USA. Unusually there is a proper emphasis on maintenance and its costs, a subject often neglected.
I thoroughly recommend this book especially to provide the reader with a useful reference for a clesr understanding.
My own copy is now falling apart and I would be glad to find a robust hardcover edition.

The world's oldest subway tunnel, the second largest art museum in America, and the greatest concentration of historic houses in New York. These are just three of "Brooklyn's Best" described in this book. Every time I visit New York I always spend time in Brooklyn and with this excellent guide in hand, I now have even more reasons to visit. Brooklyn is huge-it would be the fourth largest city in the States on its own. The authors, both Brooklyn residents, manage to pack an enormous amount of information in its compact 160 pages: shopping, sightseeing, restaurants and "happy wanderings." Few guides to New York City spend much time covering Brooklyn except for the three "B's"-the huge Brooklyn Museum (which has a real mummy), the Botanical Garden (go in May for the cherry trees), and the most famous bridge in New York (which happens to be named after Brooklyn.)

The book's chapters are short-usually two pages-and conducive to browsing. Before you know it you've read half the book and learned that Brooklyn has 93 ethnic groups, the Park Slope area has one coffee shop per adult resident, and the tallest building is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower which, by the way, is every bit as impressive as anything in Manhattan. You'll also learn where to find the colonies of parrots that thrive in Brooklyn, or the floating barge that hosts chamber music recitals. From its colorful cover to its list of web sites, this is a handy and attractive guide to the best of Brooklyn.

This book is the standard text for college level real estate course RE101. An excellent book with many walkthru examples to help understand difficult situations. GREAT BOOK!

Camera Work was the most important publication in the early development of modern photography. Camera Work was the first primarily pictoral periodical.

Edited by the indefatigable Alfred Steiglitz, the publication was the voice of the important Photo-Secession, but operated independently of it. Through Camera Work, early aficionados of great photography were able to discover the works of the first geniuses in this field. Later the publication also introduced Americans to the works of Marin, Matisse, Picasso, and Cezanne.

Please realize that I am rating this book for its value as a historical reference. This is not a coffee table book, and many of the images will not attract the casual observer. If you are looking for a book of beautiful and wonderfully reproduced photographs, this is not your book.

Before going further, please also realize that this book contains many tasteful nudes and would be "R" rated as a motion picture.

The book's strength is that it contains all of the illustrations (and even some of the advertisements) from the entire 50 issues of Camera Work. For most people, this book is the only way you can observe that work. Although many people have heard about Stieglitz's work in advocating photography, few have seen what an issue of Camera Work looked like. You will also benefit from seeing the essays that Stieglitz wrote about the photographers. These were done in New Yorker style and are very accessible variations on the essays often found in catalogues for exhibitions. In fact, Camera Work increasingly doubled as a summary of exhibitions at 291, Stieglitz's gallery.

The book comes with a fine essay (in English, German, and French) that explains many valuable details about Camera Work.

Stieglitz was very dedicated to quality and sought out the best reproduction processes for the images involved. Unfortunately, these reproductions as done for this volume will fall short of the expectations of most viewers. The pages are quite small, making many images appear differently than they were probably intended.

Stieglitz liked photography that included a soft focus or the diffusion of light that fog and rain can provide. In many cases, these effects are enhanced by other techniques to make the resulting images more abstract. In this book's format, these images often don't look their best. In particular, it seemed to me that many of the images were overinked in this printing, which would create more obscurity than was intended by the artist.

Here are my favorite photographic images from the book:

Bartholome, 1903, Edward Steichen

Letitia Felix, 1903, Clarence White

Ely Cathedral, 1903, Frederick Evans

Storm Light, 1904, Will Cadby

Illustration to "Eben Holden," 1905, Clarence White

Katherine, 1905, Alfred Stieglitz

Experiment in Three-color Photography, 1906, Edward Steichen

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, 1907, Sarah Sears

The Rudder, 1908, Alvin Coburn

Spider-webs, 1908, Alvin Coburn

Still Life [glass bowl with floating flowers], 1908, Baron A. de Meyer

Portrait Group, 1912, H. Mortimer Lamb

The Balloon Man, 1912, Baron A. de Meyer

Ellen Terry, 1913, Julia Margaret Cameron

Dryads, 1913, Annie Brigman

New York, 1916, Paul Strand

Photograph [shadows on geometric objects], 1917, Paul Strand

After you finish enjoying this remarkable collection, I suggest that you think about how the styles represented here have affected modern photographic methods and our concepts of photography. In a sense, these images are the dinosaur bones of modern photography.

See the truth, the beauty, and the pain!

Captain Blackman is an American soldier in Vietnam who is seriously wounded. As he drifts in and out of consciousness he hallucinates back in time, as an African-American solider in each of America's wars from 1775 to 1975. John Williams is a superb craftsman whose novel is as engaging as it is original. The blending of fantasy and history is superlative and his message as entertaining as it is compelling. Captain Blackman is authentic, accurate, and detailed in its background details, compelling, appealing, and completely entertaining in its story.