If you're a thinking baseball fan you need to read this book. It covers every player you've heard of, and most of those you haven't. After reading this book, your next step is to go to their website ... on a daily basis for more of their top notch writing and analysis.

Their team articles are insightful, witty, biting and entertaining. I find myself grabbing one of my three copies from my shelf and enjoying them, even if I pick the one that's three years old. How many other baseball annuals can you say that about?

Thanks guys...keep up the good work.

Baseball Prospectus opens up a new world for the uninitiated and continues to inform those of us who've studied the game. Just put it on your springtime shopping list each year, kind of like grass seed.

After years of withdrawal symptoms from missing my annual dose of Bill James, I have at last found a substitute. These guys are not always on the nose -- their obsession with positions is a bit limiting to my mind, for one thing -- but they're right a helluva lot more often than they're wrong, and they've already proven themselves prophetic in many instances (for example, the White Sox's migrating back to the middle of the pack and the Mets' collapse). Plus, they're good writers -- not only are their analyses far more cogent than most sportswriters (admittedly, not a difficult task, since most sportswriters, not to mention analysts, can't tell their rear ends from their elbows), but those analyses are great fun to read for aesthetic reasons.

Anybody who really cares about the game will love this book.

I like the style in which this book is written. Each chapter is self contained, i.e., you don't have to read earlier chapters for any other chapter to be useful. Thus, the book need not be read cover to cover if certain topics are not of interest to you. Each chapter deals with a specific topic such as drinking and driving, motivation, taking responsibility, date rape, eating disorders, etc. Each chapter starts of with a realistic scenario in which a problem dealt with by the chapter is set forth. Then, the authors discuss the general subject matter of the chapter in analytical terms. Finally, the discussion returns to the scenario and how the problems can best be dealt with and resolved.

The scenarios include dialogues between a teen and friends, teachers, parents or others who would play a role in the situation set forth. The authors later analyze how well the subjects of the dialogues handled the situations in the scenario. The book is very readible and the advice is genarally good, albeit not always in the greatest depth. As a parent and a school board of education member, I find the book useful and recommend it.

Many books of this genre fall into the trap of either being too clinical or too cynical. Thankfully, Drs. DiPrisco and Riera provide us with a wonderfully accessible and beautifully crafted inquiry into the American teenager. Having been a teenager once, (if I still trust my memory) I find their insight trenchant. While I cannot claim complete objectivity--I defy anyone who has read either DiPrisco's poetry or Riera's earlier books on teens to remain impartial--I am thankful for their effort and think it a national prize.

As the subtitle indicates, FIELD GUIDE TO THE AMERICAN TEENAGER is all about Appreciating the Teenager You Live With. That's a big concept: Appreciating the kid (not always an easy thing to do when you feel like you're at your wits end). Not dictating behavior or choosing career paths or keeping your kid from harm's way -- as if any of that were even possible by the time s/he's a teenager.

Riera and DiPrisco make it clear that there is no way to 'follow-the-dots' and come up with pat answers to the difficult subjects they tackle. Instead, this beautifully written book presents teens in their natural habitats. Real situations are depicted -- ones that anyone can identify with -- but rather than attempting to proscribe behavior, Riera and DiPrisco discuss each topic and scenario in an insightful section called Notes Home that will surely help parents bring a new slant to their thinking. It definitely opened my mind to new approaches.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with a teen -- or a soon-to-be teen. You won't be disappointed.

This book can be characterized as a list of attached examples, or a collection of notes. It is difficult to follow and not thorough. Rather than explaining concepts the authors give examples, one per chapter. Furthermore, most of the material is repeated in each chapter since they apply to all the examples. This is a book made in a hurry by compilation of the authors notes. My major interest was in AMT implications which were ignored. After trying to read it for 2 days it went to a corner of my bookcase.

A reader from Westborough reviewed the book and did not find it helpful, I disagree. I think the book is intended for the reader like me who has a limited knowledge of their options. In addition, the stories/examples within the books were the best part of the book. If you have an advanced knowledge of options this book might not be right for you, but if you need a simple, easy to read and enjoyable overview of options - I suggest you read this book.

I was lost with my options until I read this book. I feel that I am able to guide myself through the maze of options with help of this book.

Before this book, I'd only heard of Michael Oakeshott through name-dropping from conservative friends. No one but that small conservative circle ever mentioned him and after reading this, I can and can not see why.

As noted below, this is an expanded collection of essays ranging from Oakeshott's views of political rationalism's follies to exegesis of Hobbes. The common thread of all of these essays is Oakeshotts distaste for the rationalistic tendency of, not faith in reason, but overconfidence in it. Reason, Oakeshott reasons (ha-ha)is an instrument. Life is a collection of emotions, faiths, conquests, mistakes, and a vast array of experiences that may or may not have to do with reason at all. Thus, the mistake made in political thought is its overreliance on utopian, "I know better than you" reason. Oakeshott, with this as a springboard, makes his case for a conservative libertarianism.

Oakeshott hints that this rationalism is all the most relevant on the 'left'. I'm not sure this is quite accurate, after all, how could we explain John Dewey, Herbert Marcuse and Richard Rorty, but as I said, Oakeshott only hints. Scott Ryan brilliantly points out that someone like Ayn Rand and I'd suggest, Plato, give the 'right' a tainted legacy of rationalism as well. The problem with Oakeshotts essays in the section on rationalism in politics is that after he expounds his view that with rationalisms inadequacies, political philosophy becomes muddy, he spends 300 more pages on political philosophy. It's like a bad joke!!

What this book is good for is section 3 (on Hobbes) and section 4 (on conservatism and politics). As Oakeshott is more conservative that liberarian, this book is a great exposition of why conservatives (or those true to the label) are how they are preferring big government where social tradition is concerned but small government in economics. Why does conservatism put such high value on tradition? Why does it see welfare centralization with skepticism? Why the religious tendencies? All of these are, advertently or not, elucidated in section 3 and 4.

Beware, Oakeshott has a tendency to be wordy - not in the sense of content, but in the, "If I can say it effectively in 100 words, I'll tack on an extra 300 for kicks," kind of way. About the physical book; as noted below, "The Liberty Fund" makes a habit out of publishing inexpensive, impressively beautiful books. The print and binding quality are phenomenal and if this is available in "Liberty Fund" hardcover, spend the extra money - it's worth it!

Rationalism in Politics is a book of political philosophy. Those who have read philosophy know what to expect: defining and re-defining of terms, endless distinctions and debate, preference for the vague and abstract, dislike of plain language, and a near-perverse resistance to drawing useful conclusions. All of which suggest a degree of skepticism and compulsiveness which will frustrate the average reader, especially those engaged in the practical activity of making a living. I suspect that many readers find such books not worth the effort.

But for those patient few, and those, such as professors and students, who fill their time with abstract pursuits, Rationalism in Politics does have something to offer. I would argue that it does hold some valuable lessons, particularly about the limitations of politics and the impossibility of the quest for perfection.

This is a revision of the 1962 edition. The essays are arranged thematically rather than chronologically to show the consistency and continuity in Oakeshott's work. The early sections define rationalism, show how it has crept into politics, and examine how reason can be misused and misunderstood, both in politics and in the study of politics. The long middle section examines the work of Thomas Hobbes, while the latter parts deal with human conduct and poetical thinking.

The title essay, first published in 1947, probably has the most to offer the average reader, as its subject matter is ubiquitous and recognizable, both in and out of politics. Call it the triumph of technique. I believe what Oakeshott calls rationalism can also be called ideology, a preference for ideas and intellectual constructs over custom, habit, and tradition. Like the ideologue and the revolutionary, the rationalist thinks little or nothing has been done before his time. Skeptical and optimistic, he brings all issues before his intellect as though he is the first to have considered them, as though starting with a tabula rasa. The rationalist views the world more through the veil of ideas than with his five senses.

The persistent problem-solver, he is fully prepared to legislate for the whole world without ever leaving his armchair. From that isolation, the sort of ideas he has in mind are those which can be reduced to rational principles or formulae and set down in books. He fails to recognize any knowledge except technique; he believes technique leads to certainty and that making conduct self-conscious is always a gain - that what one discovers on one's own is always better than what one has inherited. He favors standardization over liberty, rules over experience, reason over tradition, uniformity over variety, and certainty over ambiguity.

Oakeshott wrote a complex, extended essay in definition, but I believe it is one in which many Americans will see aspects of their own lives, assuming they have the patience and the free time to dig into this heavy, sometimes difficult book.

This handsomely-bound expanded Liberty Fund edition of Michael Oakeshott's essays features some material not included in the earlier edition (notably, but not only, Oakeshott's introduction to Hobbes's _Leviathan_). But the greatest treat is still the title essay.

In "Rationalism in Politics," Oakeshott sets out to dissect the sort of modern "rationalism" that reduces reason to explicit technical knowledge and has no place for the sort of "traditional" knowledge we soak up through imitation. (Readers of F.A. Hayek will find a parallel here, though not an exact one, with Hayek's own view of implicit knowledge and its role in market processes.) His deft characterizations of such "rationalism" will no doubt remind many readers of many leading lights of the political left, but they also remind me -- perhaps surprisingly -- of someone else.

I have a friend who insists, with much justice, that Ayn Rand was essentially a "leftist" despite her defense of views that have generally belonged to the political right. In support of his claim, he cites a number of well-known features of Rand's thought, including (of relevance here) her utter rejection of tradition and religion, her deep distrust of "implicit" reasoning, and her almost messianic plans to "remake" the world in accordance with her own explicit conceptual scheme while riding roughshod over basic human realities that might interfere. (For more on this general topic, see Paul Johnson's _Intellectuals_. Though unfortunately he does not take Rand as one of his targets, his remarks on what happens when such "intellectuals" put their ideas into practice could practically have been written about the "Objectivist" movement.)

This thesis gains a great deal of plausibility from a reading of Oakeshott. Rand's hideously inadequate understanding of "reason" is remarkably consonant with the variety of "rationalism" which he skewers here, and which she more or less enshrined in her own feeble attempts at epistemology.

And as her journals and letters show, she deliberately pitched her philosophy of "Objectivism" toward left-liberals, presenting it as a non-Statist replacement for traditionalism and conservatism while basing it on essentially the same "radical" empiricist-nominalist-materialist-secularist worldview (up to and including a remarkably similar view of "reason") as Marx and Lenin. (Readers will find further discussion of this last point in John Robbins's imperfect but helpful _Without A Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System_.)

Now, I certainly don't mean to suggest that the _only_ reason for reading Oakeshott is to disabuse oneself of Rand-worship! Far from it; all of Oakeshott's immensely learned essays sparkle with insights that will be of interest to political thinkers of all stripes. But I do think he will be of special interest to the growing number of conservative libertarians who wish to recover classical liberalism from the spell of one of its most dangerously bewitching "defenders."

The enemies of liberty on the political left are fairly obvious, and most classical liberals are unlikely to be taken in by them. The greater hazard is posed by those "friends" who borrow more or less classical-liberal _conclusions_ and try to place them on a foundation which will not hold them, indeed which leads to their very opposite if (unlike Rand) one starts from the allegedly foundational premises and works forward.

I also don't mean to imply my own complete agreement with Oakeshott. But those who wish to exorcise Rand's demonic influence from the politics of classical liberalism will have a hard time finding a more powerful antidote than the opening essay in this volume.

This quotation from the introduction by Michael Hofmann, poet and translator of four Roth novels, highlights both the delights and limitations of this book. Like the Radetzky March, it has all the ingredients for a greatly exciting read and touches on all aspects of society in the Austro-Hungarian empire--worlds of the court, the army, journalism, night life, the law, popular entertainment, and even prostitution. Unlike the Radetzky March, however, it is sketchy, and doesn't draw you into the action or involve you with the characters. There's a curious disconnect between the characters and the reader, akin in many ways to the disconnect between most of the characters and each other, perhaps because there are many of them in this short novel, and perhaps because Roth himself felt disconnected, living in exile and dying of alcoholism at the time he wrote it.

The visit of the Shah of Persia and his one-night-stand with a young Viennese woman provide fertile ground for wonderful dialogue and lyrical descriptions, but the characters are like exhibits in the wax museum which plays a part in the conclusion of the novel. In short, this novel is intriguing primarily for its detailed and exacting recreation of an historical context, but its large scope and small size act as barriers to reader involvement.

I enjoyed this book very much. Roth is a much under appreciated author today and his style of writing is as modern as anyone's. While the plot meanders along a trite line, the heart of all Roth's work is the Austro-Hungarian Empire and all it's failings in morals, people and politics. This, along with Roth's Radetzky March, and you will have all you'll ever need to know about that important era.

The editorial reviewers have done more justice to this beautiful book than I can. It is everything they say it is: a bittersweet delight to read.

This is a book that collects the better stories of the immensly succesfull "Cry for Dawn" series by Joseph Michael Linsner, the serie that was the breakthrough for Linsner and the first Dawn-series. People who liked 'Dawn' must surely pick this up (also because the original issues are near impossible to find AND darn expensive if you do find them). I personally think it's not as good as the later six-part miniseries "Dawn" (later in TPB renamed as 'Lucifers halo') but that's not a negative point, it says more about the quality of the latter series. It's still very close though.

The stories within this trade aren't related to each other, there's no continuity. The only things they have in common is that the stories center around Dawn, the goddess of life and death. Tales with a lot of symbolism and surrealism in them. It's more a collection of loose stories which are especially suitable for the Fantasy/Horror lovers.

This is great for any intellectual out there, its a compilation of the Cry for Dawn comic book series, which was writen in the end of the 80's, all black and white work, except for the cover (which has Dawn the character herself, who latter on becames a heroine in some of his comic book series) its very melancholic, somewhat depressing, very dark, but that goes with his style which is very gothic indeed, if u like gothic, you'll adore this, intelectual and with some good art work, I found it to be a classic comic book compilation, represents a side of the eighties all too well, for those who experienced the darker side of it, and for those who havent, you'll grasp some of it with this book.

This book provides excellent outline, but lacks practice questions. The book only have limited questions at the end of the Unit, and even then, the questions are sparce (~35 per unit of 5 or 6 chapters), instead of questions PER chapter.

This book has just the right amount of detail for course review, and it has a good, logically arranged layout. It's like an ideal set of class notes.

Don't bother buying this book unless you 'absolutely' have to have it for a class you might be taking or for special research. I found this book to be better than most, however it is ridiculously overpriced and would best be left on the shelf to collect dust than to fork over a whole days' wages on this book.

This book is a detailed investigation of strategic management in the context of globalization and competitiveness. An integrated approach is used, but firm-based theory of strategic management is stressed throughout the book. Cases included in the book are chosen properly in relation with the topics, that is theory is clearly connected to the real experiences. Especially, topics titled as "Cooperative Strategy" , "Corporate Governance" , "Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation" will be very useful to better understand the planning dynamics.

The book is divided into two sections. One is assigned for theory and the other is assigned for cases. Cases are updated and includes the most popular and fabulous companies such as "Amazon.com". Overall, I recommend this comprehensive book (1008 p.) to readers who wish to have a grand source !

This is a promising book that is thoroughly researched.

Unlike every other supreme court justice that has had the opportunity, neither Justice Brennan nor Justice Marshall ever voted to affirm a death sentence.

The first third of the book covers familiar territory as it recounts the lives and possible influences on Brennan's and Marshall's approach to the law, including their consistent opposition to capital punishment.

The remaining two thirds of the book tries to place Brennan's and Marshall's approach of dissenting for the same reason for about 20 years, in historical and jurisprudential context. It does not fully succeed. In some sense, neither Brennan nor Marshall were writing to recapture the past or to have death penalty cases decided according to established legal approaches; they wrote for the future. They believed that at some point the rest of this country would "mature" and, like them, renounce the death penalty as a legitimate penal sanction. It would have been more meaningful if the book contained a detailed examination of Brennan's and Marshall's influence on capital punishment in the 20th century -- both nationally and internationally, notwithstanding their "relentless dissents." That is, I would have desired that the book look in detail in what occassion their dissents eventually became the law of the land, or the compromises that had to be made by the other justices to accommodate or rebut their views.

The book could use a little more editing, as in several places the thoughts contained in some paragraphs are repeated a few pages later.

This star, you're lucky it got that.

Grizzly Bear, Megalisgirl@aol.com

I had a slight interest in radio before enrolling in a class at the University of Southern California. One day, I went to the bookstore to get my course books early and picked this one up. It's a true eye-opener and such a good reference text. If you have any desire to learn about radio in any facet at all, pick this one up - you won't regret it.

No doubt the best book ever on this subject. Wonderfully worthwhile.