In this book, Fry and the other contributors present gerontological data which has long been neglected in the field of anthropology. It is a great resource for people interested in the field of aging, even if not focused on anthropology. By understanding how cultural views of aging affect the physical, psychological and social status of the elderly, the reader gains understanding about how our own cultural views on aging affect our elderly.

Weine's book is by no means narrow in its subject-matter. He touches on: inter-ethnic marriage, criticisms of the United Nations, memory as a ground for social morality, the challenges of refugees in America, the construction of psychoses, the social deification of doctors, urbanism, the identity of Europe and the Balkans, the impact of communist cultural censorship, fundamentalism, the social responsibilities of psychiatrists, the need for a permanent UN war crimes court, and discontinuities in the lifepaths of trauma survivors. Any one of these issues could have been the topic for his relatively short 230 page book. But together, they paint a picture of the multifaceted chaos that is ethnic conflict. We get the sense that nothing here is simple, that everything is interconnected, and that the ethnic cleansing is not a psychiatric, geographic, military, or political issue, but fundamentally a human problem of persons.

So if you are looking for a deep and careful study of the psychological issues that afflict ethnic cleansing survivors, then I suppose that this book is not your source. If you want, on the other hand, a compelling and touching tour through a recent crisis of human history and a casual chat with a knowledgeable, connected, and compassionate person,then Stevan Weine's book is the perfect choice...END

It's fun to hear questions from other people - many of which I have had myself. It's good to sit and quietly think about these topics - the world is so fast-paced, I rarely allow myself the time to just sit and listen and think. I strongly recommend this tape for people who wonder what angelic wisdom is all about!

All of Stevan Thayer's transformational work is imbued with love and understanding. The angelic messages he brings forth in the "Ask an Angel"audio program offer a higher, broader perspective that pierces the veils of personality and conditioning that can limit one's experience of freedom and joy. The powerful insights you will gain through Ariel's loving wisdom are catalytic in the soul's evolutionary process.

I must say I find very suspicious all of those brief, five-star anonymous reader reviews below, all supposedly from different parts of the country but all praising the book with the exact same language: "a classic", "insightful" and even comparing it to the classic by Octavio Paz 'A Labyrinth of Solitude.' The 'Labyrinth of Solitude' this book is NOT. I approached this book--and the work of Stavans in general--based on the blurbs by writers and authors of such high reputation as Henry Louis Gates, Gregory Barrasa and others but I am sorely dissapointed. I'm happy if Stavans can exist as a 'Hispanic' (rather than a Latino) in the 'hyphens' Americans tend to create to label non-whites, but language is not the only force shaping cultures. This books seems to shine only if you forget the historic forces that have forced millions of Latinos to be labeled with the hyphens of compound identities. His posturing on a number of important issues--bilingual education, Latino sexuality, affirmative action--is more often than not biased and superficial, and worse of all, feels like the posturing of an academic unconcerned with the fate and the condition of Latinos in general. This makes you realize that there is no such thing as a 'Hispanic condition.' A thought-provoking but ultimately confused and superficial book. Strictly to please white 'Hispanic' academics. Read or reread 'The Labyrinth of Solitude' by Octavio Paz and 'Massacre of the Dreamers' by Ana Castillo for more compelling reading on the 'Latino Condition.'

Ilan Stavans finally breaks the mold and tell is how it is. He breaks the myth that all "latinos" are short brown people and shows how it is to grow up in a culture dominated by Spanish. He showed me the identity crisis when I came to the US and was told I wasn't white, but "latino", a word that I had not heard before. His book opens up worlds.

I think this book is a fine introduction to Latinos. It is easy to read and provocative. I learned a lot. I want to read other books by the same author.

Given that alternate states of consciousness are associated with religions--whether examined cross-culturally or historically--it is somewhat surprising that the Jesus literature has ignored this fact. Until the publication of Davies's book, that is. Why this gaping hole in the literature? Either Jesus scholars have not read widely in the religion literature, or have themselves never experienced alternate states of consciousness--or both. I suspect that the second factor is the more important one--and reflects the fact that most Jesus scholars have come from a socio-economic class that precludes their having had much, if any, contact with contemporary pentecostalists.

I read Davies's book several years ago (shortly after it was published), and the book sticks in my mind because I can't think of another book about Jesus that displays more creativity than Davies's book (not surprising given that creativity is not particularly welcomed in academia, "normal" research being what's prized, as Thomas S. Kuhn has argued). Granted that a creative book is not THEREBY a good book; but Davies's book IS a good book--and for two reasons.

First, it makes a very plausible argument for a facet of Jesus's ministry that has been all but ignored by Jesus scholars. My main complaint is that Davies goes too far in arguing that he is presenting an ALTERNATE view of Jesus. I think, rather, that he should have stated that he was presenting a COMPLEMENTARY view--and then indicated how his particular puzzle piece fits into the larger picture of Jesus, as presented by critical scholars.

Second, one of the problems of the dominant scholarly view of Jesus (that he was an apocalypic) is that it renders Jesus virtually irrelevant for the modern. For why should one today be interested in an individual who, 2000 years ago, (1) made a false prediction (i.e., that God's arrival was imminent), (2) offered an ethic that was premised on the assumption that God's arrival was imminent, and (3) whose ministry was a "bust" (given, e.g., that the "orthodox" Christianity that emerged to dominance had--and has--virtually no relationship with his ministry)? Insofar as Jesus attained alternate states of consciousness, and we can do the same today (also through "natural" means), we can emulate some aspects of Jesus's ministry. (Davies does not state this, but such a conclusion is implicit in his discussion.) Thus, Davies's thesis helps us arrive at a picture of Jesus that makes Jesus relevant for us moderns. Which picture is the only one that is of ultimate interest anyway.

With rare exceptions (the late John A.T. Robinson comes to mind), the Christian gospel of John is usually assigned a comparatively late date and its understanding of Jesus regarded as a pretty well-developed "high" christology. It is therefore usual, at least among theologically liberal scholars, to dismiss it as almost entirely unhistorical. (Interestingly, this dismissal is usually performed by Christians, of whom I am not one.)

Stevan Davies, himself a secularist New Testament scholar, here makes an interesting argument that such dismissal may be unnecessary. His claim is that Jesus sometimes underwent spirit-possession, speaking and healing while in a "trance state" known as the "kingdom of God."

This view has a number of advantages. First, it allows us to recognize John as a possibly historical source of at least some of Jesus's spirit-entranced speeches. Second, it deals neatly with a problem that faces those who attribute the Johannine speeches to early Christians "speaking in the spirit": why would anyone think they sounded like Jesus if Jesus himself never talked that way? Third, it links Jesus's speech closely to his healings and exorcisms, and therefore resists the tendency to reduce Jesus to a merely "ethical teacher." And fourth, it offers us at least the beginning of a way to assimilate even the Johannine Jesus to the Judaism of his time -- not, indeed, as an academic-Marxist "empowerer of the oppressed," but as a charismatic holy man announcing (perhaps mistakenly) the eschatological reign of God.

Davies may overstep a bit in arguing that even Jesus's parables were therapeutic in nature. Nevertheless there is a foundation even for this claim, at least if we allow that Jesus's parables were not merely tales to be listened to passively but little "story-bombs" intended to bring about spiritual transformations and paradigm shifts.

I do not think Davies provides a full picture either of Jesus or of the "kingdom" he announced; nor does Davies claim to do so (in fact he expressly acknowledges that he has _not_ done so). Nevertheless, though there are parts of the New Testament record that resist assimilation to Davies's account, he has provided a new window into the gospel of John that may prove helpful in the task of placing Jesus properly into his own time and place -- i.e., as the faithful Jew that he was, and not as the "liberation theologian" some modern readers might like him to be.

'Jesus of history as a spirit-possessed healer whose healing was effected by induction of spirit possession analogous to the psychotherapeutic techniques of Milton Erickson'

The are only a handful of books dealing with evidence of the practice of hypnosis in the Ancient World. This is one of the best. Well-written, intelligent and orignal.

I thought this was a great book. It was easy to relate to in many parts. I would recommend this book to girls who want to learn about growing up.

I use this book in a college course I teach on work and family. Students tend to really love it - they don't even sell it back! I have also recommended it to friends and family. The book is soundly based in the research and theoretical literature of social sciences and work and family; it makes a great companion to Arlie Hochschild's The second shift. The strength of the book is that it urges the reader to apply the information. The authors have developed numerous checklists and exercises for couples to do to make decisions about work and family that reflect the readers' values.

The major weakness of the book is the focus on "dual career" couples; there is a real social class bias toward professional couples who have education and financial resources. To be fair, the authors state this limitation early on. Still, the choice of such privileged couples means that the guidebooks presents options that are not relevant or useful for many of us. I long for a guidebook for single mothers, for example. Other than that, I find the book to be insightful, useful, and provocative to most students. It is way better than typical "self-help" books.

I especially appreciate the way the authors write about gender roles and behaviors, and their even handedness on family values. Students find the book entertaining; for example, the chapter related to household tasks in entitled something like, "I'd rather see a man do dishes than dance naked." Information is presented in an accurate, humorous, and personalized way. It is also upbeat and hopeful. Readers are inspired to construct more rewarding ways of managing work and family.

At slightly over 100 pages, this book, pamphlet really, is hardly worth its hefty price tag, particularly since the first 90 or so pages are an incredibly abbreviated and rather unobjective account of Tito's life and post-WW2 Yugoslav history. This summary-style makes it possible for Pavlowitch to make a number of sweeping generalizations and questionable statements without the need for backing his claims or citing evidence in footnotes. In a reductionist style suited to the book's format, Pavlowitch basically says that Tito was a rather unremarkable man of middling intelligence and ability who only achieved anything through a combination of cunning, conniving and luck. It is only in the last chapter (the only one worth reading by the way) that he concedes that Tito may have had some real political and diplomatic skills despite his many shortcomings. While I have nothing against demythologizing Tito and Titoism, this "reassessment" offers nothing new - the first cracks at the Tito myth were taken almost immediately after his death in the former Yugoslavia, while a number of non-Yugoslav scholars and analysts have produced excellent works that dissected the nature of Tito's seizure and maintenance of power. Pavlowitch's overall conclusion seems to place most of the blame for Yugoslavia's collapse squarely on Tito and the socialist system he set up - a point worth discussing - but he cites mainly superficial reasons for this. He also grossly oversimplifies the nature of the Yugoslav economy, which he seems to imply only remained viable due to massive Western support. In the end, despite extensive discussion of Tito's many failings, there is no real substanstial assessment of the actual failures of his leadership of the former Yugoslavia or the system he and his ruling clique set up. Also, Pavlowitch completely fails to account for Tito's charisma and the genuine affection that many in the former Yugoslavia felt, and still do feel, for him.

It is well written and informative, but reads more like a survey than a biography. It almost seems as if the book is written for journalists who need a crash course on Tito and some background information before they are shipped off to the Balkans to cover the latest mishaps of that region. Thus, the biography seems to short and feels lacking of details that would make the interpretation and understanding of certain events clearer. For example, more background and detail should have been put into Tito's relationships and subsequent breaks with Djilas and Rankovic or the purges of Inform Biro (Comintern) supporters after the break with Stalin. I also found the World War II chapters confusing and lacking in the explanation of the partisan and chetnik struggles against Germans, and their subsequent rivalry. From the limited information provided one is almost lured into viewing these two groups as two big groups caught into the 1940's version of a gang war.

Pavlowitch's 110-page overview gives an excellent account of Tito's early life, the development of his political acumen in the crucible of Comintern machinations in the 1920s and 30s, his slavish devotion to Stalinist ideals, and his stubborn adherence to his own closely-held vision for Yugoslavia. This vision was the integrating theme that maintained Yugoslav unity during his long rule, but it also contained the seeds of its own ruin in that Tito's inability to respond effectively to economic crises beginning in the mid-1960s and the subsequent societal disaffection with the Communist program gave sustenance to the nationalist fever which exploded in Croatia and Bosnia in 1992 and Kosovo in 1998.

Had Tito been a truly effective unifier, he would have done more than postpone the day of nationalist reckoning until ten years after his death, he would have addressed the fundamental forces underpinning nationalist yearnings.

This book provides an excellent look at Tito and his contributions to Yugoslavia. Pavlowitch is especially strong in his analysis of Communist party politics and Tito's schizophrenic relations with the Soviet Union. I only wish the author had provided a more detailed explanation of Tito's economic planning. The "self-management" economy receives only a dozen words of attention. It is difficult to fault Pavlowitch on this point after he heroically struggled to compress a mass of dense material into this fine short volume, but a cursory understanding of Yugoslav economic dynamics would be invaluable to a reader who might not buy another volume about the country. Surely a few paragraphs on economics would not stretch the book unreasonably.

On the nitpicking side, the book seems to have both British and American editors, as financial figures are given alternately in the British "$3,400 million" (p.77) and the American "$20-21 billion" (p.91). Also he sometimes assumes the reader has significant pre-knowledge, as when he introduces Tito's three senior lieutenants by last name only, "In the spring of 1938... he set up a provisional leadership around Djilas, Kardelj and Rankovic" (p.23) without providing further background on these individuals. I can only assume the relevant background material was left on the editing-room floor. However, these are quibbles, the book is excellent.

Harrell is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington and Acting Curator of Asian Ethnology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. He is author of Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China (forthcoming) and Human Families (1997).

The government classifies all minorities into one of 56 minzu ("ethnic group"). Nearly seven million Yi people live in Yunnan (the majority), Sichuan, and Guizhou Provinces, with a few in Guangxi Province and Vietnam. That's more people than Danes, Israelis, or Cambodians. The Central and Western dialects of Yi are more closely related to Lisu and Lahu (languages of a separate minzu) than they are to the Northern, Eastern, Southeastern, and Southern branches of Yi. Although a large body of written material exists, there has been little produced that would hold up to the standards of Western scholarship.

In order to introduce the world to the Yi, Harrell convened a conference in 1995 made up of Chinese, Americans, French, and German scholars who attempted to understand each others' "discourse" about the Yi. In the (very) recent past, Westerners could hardly believe that the Chinese could be so dense in insisting upon the history for this category they call "Yi"; Chinese scholars couldn't believe that the Westerners could be so arrogant in ignoring the local knowledge they possessed of the area. The conference certainly did not minimize these differences, but it allowed both sides to begin to listen to each other. The book is definitely a hybrid (the two discourses do not reach a consensus and are confusing if the reader does not understand where the authors are coming from) and should be read remembering these two widely divergent discourses.

The chapters in section one draw primarily from Yi-language documentation to understand social and cultural history. Section two focuses on the Yi of Liangshan (a region that includes areas of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Panzhihua Municipality, and adjacent parts of Leshan and Ya'an Prefectures, as well as Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan; and in adjacent parts of Yunnan, most particularly Ninglang Yi Autonomous County in Lijiang Prefecture). Almost all of these Yi belong to the Northern Dialect Group; they call themselves Nuosu. In fact, when one encounters material written about the Yi, it usually refers to the Nuosu. Section three covers Yi societies in Yunnan and Guizhou. Section four covers the Yi today and the unique problems that face them.

There are a number of really good articles in this book, particularly chapters 3, 4, 10, 12, 14, and 16. It seems that the Western authors try to speak the same language as the Chinese, refering to specific groups (such as the Lolopo, Nisu, or Nuosu) as Yi. Read carefully to understand that they do not view the Yi culture, language, and history as a monolith. I wish that this book contained more information about other Yi groups rather than focusing so much on the Nuosu but there probably hasn't been a huge amount of research done amongst the other 100 or so minority groups...

With a foreshortened historical perspective, Harrell describes changing patterns of employment, internal stratification, social grouping, family types, and ancestral cults in a former mining town in Haishan that became involved in manufacturing, both in local, small, subcontracting enterprises and as a source of labor for larger enterprises in and around nearby Daiba (Taipei) during the 1970s. He attributes the absence of lineage organization to the difficulties involved in collective ownership of property other than land and the ease of migration for those not tied to landholdings. (Many Taiwanese villages were exclusively or predominantly comprised of persons with the same surname. The one he studied was atypical in its mixture of surnames.)

Harrell discusses the social and economic co-operation of unrelated persons, the simplification of ancestor worship in a locale without established lineage organizations, and the relatively higher status of women in a place where the household is the predominant unit of social organization. Rates of uxorilocal marriage are higher (15%) and rates of minor marriage are lower (35%) than in peasant villages in which the lineage is the major unit of social organization. Harrell attributes the relative lack of "dependency" symptoms (stratification and comprador capitalism) to the expansion of the (manufacturing) core to such villages, while avoiding examination of politics, local, national, or international. (In earlier work, he credited Japanese development of transport infrastructure and agriculture for providing the base for decentralized industrial development.)