For a man of whom Gen MacArthur stated "I believe that no, repeat, no officer suggested for promotion to General has rendered more outstanding and brilliant service than Kenney... Nothing that Spaatz or any other air officer has accomplished in the war compares to what Kenney has contributed and none in my opinion is his equal in ability", surprisingly little has been written about this innovative and charismatic air power proponent. Griffith changes that with this well written, fast-paced biography. While not a comprehensive biography, Griffith focuses on Kenney's leadership in the Southwest Pacific Area during World War II. Taking command of a weary, demoralized group of flyers in which MacArthur had lost confidence, and turning them into an offensive-minded, hard-charging unit was perhaps Kenney's greatest victory. Griffith clearly explores Kenney's philosophy of how to train and treat his men as well as the five point of his air power formula. Over and over again Griffith points out how Kenney stuck to his formula with resultant success against the Japanese war machine. While lacking the depth and completeness of an exhaustive biography, Griffith's book is nonetheless the best and most balanced account of General George Kenney's life to date; especially regarding his role as air component commander in the Southwest Pacific. The rather abrupt ending of the book at the conclusion of WW II leaves the reader wanting more and perhaps some future writer will examine Kenney's post-war life. Regardless, MacArthur's Airman is an excellent place for one to start any research on this superb, somewhat neglected air commander who was instrumental in turning the tide against the Japanese in World War II.

Extremely detailed description of military life and protocol. Insider knowledge (reminiscent of Tom Clancy) of Special Operations selection process and operational methods. Very timely topic as public interest in the U.S. anti-terrorist campaign is peaking.

Preamble: "The Other Balkan Wars" is a reprint of the Report of the International Commission To Inquire into the Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). It was published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in May-June of 1993, under the presidentship of Morton Abramovitz.

Professor George F. Kennan has written the Introduction only for this book -date unavailable.

Quite a long time ago, almost twenty years before CEIP president, Morton Abramowitz, has brushed this book from the shelf, I have had the original in my hands, and this with the greatest care. My father, as a volunteer telegraphist was in the midst of the first book's subject.

Giving an opinion of the first and the second edition in English -I have no knowledge of any translation- is a task of the utmost seriousness. Let Good Lord help me to condense my view in less then a thousand words. At that point I will more than gladly respond to your kind offer and continue along this lines.

Sincerely, DJGB Popadich

This quaint but charming tale is by the beloved and respected Scottish storyteller, George MacDonald (At the back of the North Wind.) Originally titled, "My Uncle Peter" this Victorian Christmas story was published in 1870 and recounts the heart-tugging adventures of a badly-abused street urchin who is adopted by a kindly gentlemen, then viciously, greedily kidnapped.

MacDonald 's literature (mainly for adults) exerted a great influence on subsequent writers, who freely admit the importance of his literary legacy. C.S. Lewis regards him as his master, claiming to have quoted from him in almost all his books. JRR Tolkien used his work as a measuring stick for his own writitng in Lord of the Rings. MacDonald himself claims that he writes not for children, but for the childlike.

Named Little Christmas this pitiful waif is a character out of Dickens; she inspires both evil and generous reactions in those she meets, while suffering great injustice with stocisim. This story transports the reader back into violent times, with an ingenuous heroine and a tender benefactor. A delightful book to remind us of Christian charity and rekindle the flame of Christmas generosity.

The Vinland Map purports to be a 15th century map depicting Vikingexploration of North America centuries before Columbus. If genuine,the Vinland map is one of the great documents of Westerncivilization; if fake, it's an astoundingly clever forgery and Yale University has egg on its face. The first edition of the book in question, The Vinland Map and Tartar Relation, announced the discovery to the world in 1965. To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary, YUP published a second edition, adding a few new essays in support of the map's authenticity.

Of the controversy over its authenticity little more can be said in this review. The book itself covers some of the important objections (e.g. the presence of titanium in the ink), but slights or ignores much of the philological and historical criticism of recent years. (The web contains a certain amount of such criticism.) Lay readers may come away with the impression that the academic world is solidly behind the map, although this is far from the case.

Nevertheless, if you're interested in the Vinland Map this is the one essential book to own. It includes high-quality black and white plates of the map, together with text and translation of the legends and suchnot. The map was at one point bound with a manuscript known as the Tartar Relation (Historia Tartorum), itself a fascinating specimen of medieval geographical knowledge. As the circumstances of its production and replication are critical to the authenticity of the map, a full text and translation is also included.

Missing Joseph is testimony to Elizabeth George's ability to take the reader through the complex web of relations that constitute social life in an English community while keeping him/her enthralled with the mystery at hand. Missing Joseph is the story of the death of a small town priest. George has Lynley and St. James together with the indubitable Havers solve the problem of who killed the priest while conducting a very complex sub narrative about Deborah St. James' struggle with her preoccupation with having a child of her own. I read George's novels because I am a dedicated mystery buff and she is among the best. However, I also read her because of her downright honest sometimes brutal portrayals of women. To the already initiated, this book is a must read, for those new to the author or to the genre, it is a masterful introduction

Elizabeth George has some of the best prose in the business. It's elegant and evocative. But it's so long winded! A lot of it's unnecessary, when she could have got the same effect using far fewer words, and much shorter sentences.

However, i still really really enjoyed this book. As a long-time devotee of Agatha Chrisite, i have yet to find anyone who comes close to being a modern day model of her. George's novel are of the right style, the right topic, the right mood, and always feature the right sort of mystery. I have no doubt that if Christie was still writing today, these are the sort of books she would be writing.

George is able to craft great mysteries, with great well drawn plots, and always manages to create a cast of colourful and realistic characters. That is why i like her books so much, i think. Her intricate and puzzling plots, and how well she draws her characters. You may not like them all, but they are still interesting and colourful, human and well developed. She concentrates not just on the mystery, but on the lives of the characters as the mystery goes on around them. Which is what i admire, because while a mystery effects lives, it does not stop them.

Here she goes back to A Great Deliverance country with a "whydunnit" rather than a "whodunnit". We know from the start who killed him. There is a little room for doubt, but not serious doubt. The mystery is more focused on why the killer did what they did.

With her resolutions and solutions, George is a master. Always has good motives and an unexpected and clever answer to the mystery.

She falls down on one point. Always.

Her depections of English life.

Her books are similar to Christie, and a bit too similar. they not only follow some of the same principles, but they seem set in the same time zones as well, when George's novels are supposed to be set in the present day. The English life she depicts may well have been that of fifty or sixty years ago, but it is very rare you find things like this now. We simply don't live as she writes we do.

However, her English way of life may not always be realistic, but if you just forget it's supposed to be set in the modern day and think of it as being a novel set in about the thirties, then you'll be fine.

I have been working my way through Elizabeth George's Havers and Lynley series, and I seem to enjoy each book more than the last. This book is a masterpiece. It's the finest piece of fiction that you can find, and it has a mystery too! Ms. George's plots have the trademark of seeming to be apparently simple at the beginning, and as the reader delves into the story, she peels away layer after layer of personal history of her main characters, and the ones that just appear in this particular installment. This unravelling continues until the end when the mystery is solved and all the characters inner torments are revealed. Her writing is hypnotic, unforgettable, and totally addicting. This book is no different, but somehow I felt it was even deeper than some of the previous ones I've read. For one thing Ms. George examines Human sexuality in more detail than she has in other books. The emotion in this one seems rawer and more real too. In this book we don't see as much of Havers as we usually do, and that's a loss, since she's so great, but Lynley is totally awesome here, so it makes up for it somewhat. Elizabeth George is a true artist and is fast becoming a real favourite of mine.

his great novel, written in 1771, is one of those books that is written so much in the present moment of its own time that it becomes a valuable and fascinating time capsule for future generations. There is no more entertaining way to visit another time and place. There is no need for you to come to the novel already knowing anything about the eighteenth century, because Smollett has his sharp observant mind and all five of his senses open to his world for you--here you will read all of the sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and most memorably of all (for better and for worse) the *smells* of what surrounds him.

The grumpy-old-man-with-a-heart-of-gold Matthew Bramble takes his family and assorted hangers-on for a tour of Great Britain, visiting Bath, London, and many other places along the way. For lovers of Scotland, you are in for a treat here, as Smollett writes this novel as an important "P.R." job for his homeland to his skeptical English readers. The descriptions of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Hebrides make you want to book your airline tickets right away; Smollett has an eye for those aspects of the Scottish landscape and Scottish people that haven't really changed in the last 250 years.

This is an epistolary novel, written entirely in the form of letters with no central narrator.
The strength of this format is that it allows the reader to see the same places and events from the (sometimes radically different) perspective of more than one person. As a result, you get comedy, tragedy, farce, romance, satire, and a good adventure story all in one enjoyable package.

One word of caution, though: because of the epistolary format and the travelogue format, you shouldn't really approach "Humphry Clinker" with the expectations of finding a strong unified plot. This is something that we get mostly from the novels of the late eighteenth century and certainly the Victorian novels of the nineteenth century. There IS a plot--a good one--but just don't expect the plot to be the star of the show. If you read it as a series of memorable and sharply drawn sketches and characters and places, and for how well it captures what is unique to the time and place in which it is written, I think you will enjoy it a great deal.

One of the great things about these Amazon customer reviews is that they can alert you to wonderful books that you would otherwise not consider reading. "Humphry Clinker" is a prime example. An eighteenth-century epistolary novel may not sound too enticing and I would guess that few people other than students whose courses oblige them to, would read it these days. Well, I am here to tell you that you should! It is social satire at its brilliant best. Smollett satirized English society mercilessly, but was even harder on his fellow Scots. The result is a novel that is a continual and wicked joy to read.

The characters are finely drawn and their correspondence is written in very individual voices. We follow their adventures as they journey through England and Scotland in the years before revolution in America and France changed the world forever. It is a world obsessed with social class, money and advantageous marriage (so why did I say it changed for ever!). There is plenty of sharp humor and a deal of profound insight into human nature. Smollett's last and best novel, it is a wise and mature journal of Mankind's folly.

Incidentally, the graphic description of the spa town of Bath will make you never want to drink spa water again. Reading that particular chapter requires a strong stomach.

Full of social satire. A comedy with pathos. Insightful verbal blunders. This picaresque book of travel letters is a hoot with a most satisfying conclusion as the characters get their come-uppance and rewards. I love the distinct and lively images that shine through the puns, word games, and allusions.

I bought this book assuming it was the solution guide to the Alternate Edition book (since Amazon.com had it listed as the solutions manual for the Alternate Edition) but it is completely different problems. This is to accompany ONLY the 10th Edition.

The solutions manual is helpful IF you already know what you are doing for the most part. The explanations are sometimes step-by-step, but many of them are not. This manual does not "hold your hand" like some of the others that I've had experience with.

I would still recommend purchasing this book because of its low price.

IS THERE AN ANSWER BOOK for the EVEN NUMBERED PROBLEMS? I need help with the EXPLORATIONS problems.
- Yi Sun

The examples worked in this manual are a great help when used along side of the text book. A must have for everyone purchasing the test book.

It was very helpful and useful. This solution manual is a great way for students to check their work and learn from their mistakes. I found some (minor) typo errors that needed to be fix.

I am gamely trying to admire these books as much as everyone else seems too, but if George doesn't get on with it in the 5th, I'm going to hang it up.

George is a talented writer. The problem is that she writes as though she believes she is a talented writer. The plots are engaging, and the characters are anything but cardboard, but the drek that one has to slog through in order to get to those plots can sometimes be impenetrable.

I learned after the first book to skip the interminable soap opera that was Havers and her family (I was actually pleased when her father died in the third book so that I wouldn't have to read any more about him). But the fourth book takes "wallow" into a whole new dimension. Simon and Deborah. Deborah and Tommy. Tommy and Simon. Simon and Helen. Helen and Tommy. Tommy and Peter. If you loved Wuthering Heights, you'll love this book. Otherwise, you may find yourself screaming by half-time.

I'm hoping that all of these emotional cripples get down to business by the fifth book. Otherwise, the Elizabeth George fan club will have to carry on without me.

*****Perfect for all: old fans and New to Elizabeth George,too: This could be read as the "first" in the series, although it wasn't written first.
*****It is definitely one of her best.
This book, in time sequence, "happened" before any of the "Lynley/Havers" mysteries. Excellent for those Lynley fans who want to know: What did happen between Thomas and Deborah? Simon and Deborah?
----AT the start, Deborah has just returned from college, home to her father (living with Simon). She announces her engagement to Tommy Lynley. They are going to his ancestral home, bringing a reluctant Simon, and a grimly cheerful Lady Helen as guests. Meanwhile Simon's young sister Sydney,has troubles with an abusive man. Tommy's younger brother may be using drugs. Why are Tommy and his mother alienated? Who's the mysterious woman that disappears without a trace?
****
When murder happens on the estate, all these story lines converge and intertwine in a way that explores the relationships, old and new of this extended "family" .
The resolution of the mystery was one of George's most inspired. As usual, the story is so intricate, it's difficult to imagine the difficulty of spinning this web.
Even more important to me, was the resolution of, at least some of the interpersonal conflicts.
*****ok I admit, I cried at the "happy" ending***********
This is an outstanding book for all mystery fans.

I absolutely love Elizabeth George's writing and her characters. This book was interesting because it told us about the earlier life of Lynley, St. James, Lady Helen and Deb. We got bits and pieces of the whole situation in her previous books, but never the whole story. It helps explain a number of things and different character traits and undercurrents from previous books. And Ms. George can write! Her novels are so much more complex than simple little "who-dunits". The story takes the reader along on Ms. George's own little Magic Carpet ride, and nothing exists for us except Lynley and his friends. We even get a short preliminary look at Barbara Havers in this book. She is by far my favourite character, and I miss her absence, but realize that she wasn't part of Lynley's life during the time setting of this book. I look forward now to continuing with the storyline in subsequent books, and feel that I have a better understanding now of why Tommy thinks and acts the way he does.