This is a detailed and extensive biography of Abraham Robinson, from his chilhood to his life in Yale. A well-writen and most carefully researched text that is a plesure to read. I love this book, specialy chapter four, Robinson war years, and chapter eigth, when he was is UCLA. You don't have to read Robinsons "Non-Standard Analysis" to apreciate this book, but knowing the implication in modern mathematics of it will help. All in all, a superb biography and specially great for epistemology of non-standard analysis.

The author has discovered the life behind the art during years of research. He consulted original documents and living descendents. Including one color and many b&w plates, the large format hard bound volume covers Highmore's prosperous and well educated youth, his art, his family, and his courage as a Christian freethinker.

Cary has not only thoroughly researched one of the towering figures of the early Revolution, but he writes in an engaging, readable style similar to that of Richard M. Ketchum's Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill. This is an invaluable resource for anyone who is interested in the fascinating early period of the American Revolutionary war and the pivotal characters who propelled thirteen small colonies toward independence from one of the world's great powers.

"...My overall assesment of this book is quite positive... I believe Miller and Rodgers' discussion will be of interest to personal relationships scholars from across the epistemological spectrum. One reason is that nearly every type of personal relationship is attended to, in some way, in the OBS; there is insight in Miller and Rodgers' discussion to be found on friendships, marital and sexual relationships, and parent-child pairs. Bonding is at the heart of attachment, relationship development, affection, and other processes that are often the focus of research in the personal relationships field. As such, I expect Miller and Rodgers' book to be a useful contribution to these endeavors." - Kory Floyd, Arizona State University

It is a well written and very usefull book. I reccomand it espetially to those entering the field of musculoskeletal disorders. Each test is explained in short and precise manner with short guideline to diagnosti thinking. Excellent book. It's a must for students and residents. Once you go threw things are much more clear. It's an excellent book.

The recent publication of Robert Penn Warren: A Biography by Joseph Blotner may very well announce the definitive biography of one of the most famous American men of letters, a work which is both eminently readable and thoroughly enjoyable, imitating to a great degree the work of Mr. Blotner's subject.

The work is readable because the biographer uses the strictly chronological method, introducing the book with a calendar of important events in Warren's personal and professional life and repeating relevant dates at the top of every page. The reader is guided from RPW's birth in Kentucky to a poetry-loving father and a school teaching mother through a lonely childhood when the frail undersized youngster lived in a self-contained world of books. We learn how the 17 year old lost his chance for a naval career at Annapolis, his fondest dream, when his younger brother flung a piece of coal over a hedge and hit RPW in the eye, the left eye which he would later lose to surgery, and how he entered Vanderbilt University and met John Crowe Ransom, his teacher, the first poet he had ever seen, his idol with whom he shared his own poems in private.

Aided by the vehicle of Blotner's lucid prose style, we travel with Warren as he wins assistantships, fellowships, and scholarships from Vanderbilt to the University of California to Yale and finally to Oxford. We watch him settle into married life, become editor of the Southern Review, and earn fame with his novel All the King's Men.

Like the best biographers, Blotner does not avoid the dark side of his subject. He shows Warren's poetic preoccupation with the loving but aloof father figure, a reflection of his own. He tries to explain Warren's attempted suicide in college as the result of an emotional breakdown because he had fallen so far behind in his studies. He describes the often heart-rending details of Warren's relationship with his first wife whose neurasthenic personality forced her to spend most of her time bedridden and the rest of it fighting with her husband. He devotes the latter part of the book to a detailed description of RPW's last years when, his body riddled by cancer, he wished for death, which arrived mercifully in 1989.

Besides being readable, Mr. Blotner's work is highly entertaining, made more so by his vast research and his way of scattering quotations from letters and works of RPW into the biography's running commentary. We see the human being, not the literary giant, in his letters to friends, such as the following written to Katherine Anne Porter when he was struggling with All the King's Men: "At times I feel that I see my way through the tangle; then at moments, I feel like throwing the whole damned thing into the Tiber." We learn where his passion always was when, being awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, thereby gaining long desired financial independence, he writes: "I've stopped writing anything I don't want to write. Poetry is where my heart is."

If there is any fault to Mr. Blotner's presentation, it is that, like many other biographers, he has become enamored of his subject. He sometimes interrupts his story with subjective praises, such as, "America's preeminent man of letters, master of genres, prodigiously creative, heavy with awards and prizes honoring his genius, Robert Penn Warren was also that rare being, a genuinely good man." In this case, Mr. Blotner perhaps should not be blamed. RPW was, after all, the only writer ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for two genres, fiction and poetry, and twice for the latter. How many other writers excelled in so many genres, including essays, poems, novels, historical fiction, biographies? Perhaps Mr. Blotner's passion for RPW can be forgiven when we consider his subject's view of art and life, "What is man but his passion?" (Audubon: A Vision).

Two-time Pulitzer prize winner Barbara Tuchman may be the pre-eminent historian of our age. What makes her so good isn't just superior scholarship, but superior presentation - she's eminently readable. She has an eye for anecdote and a lively sense of humor that frequently has the reader laughing. My intent here is both to discuss General Joe Stilwell and to provide a taste of Tuchman for the uninitiated.

General George Marshall, who directed America's war effort, considered Stilwell his best corps commander before the war. But Stilwell never commanded US formations in Europe, where he would have excelled. Reading of his personal habits and professional preparation, one is reminded of Erwin Rommel. Had Stilwell been at Kasserine Pass, things might have turned out very differently than they did.

Stilwell never got to WWII Europe because he was also the US Army's best Orientalist at a time when his skills were needed to train the Chinese Army to fight the murderous Japanese invaders. Stilwell had a high regard for the Chinese soldier as fighting material; but his fate was to work at the highest levels, with Chiang Kai-shek and Company, and his impatience and refusal to accept the second-rate made for tough sledding during the Kuomintang era of corruption, ineptitude, and clashing cultures (Chinese and other powers') that set the stage for the Communist takeover following WWII. At every turn, Stilwell's attempts to get the Chinese Army on its feet were frustrated by Chiang's double-dealing. There were cultural reasons for this-the identical problem would later frustrate US efforts in Vietnam-but it seems an unusually cruel fate for one of Stilwell's disposition to have to deal with it.

Just as devilish, for other reasons, were his allies. Stilwell detested the British, and Tuchman seems unimpressed by them, also. "No nation has ever produced a military history of such verbal nobility as the British. Retreat or advance, win or lose, blunder or bravery, murderous folly or unyielding resolution, all emerge clothed in dignity and touched with glory. Every engagement is gallant, every battle a decisive action, every campaign produces generalship hailed as the most brilliant of the war. Other nations attempt but never quite achieve the same self-esteem. It was not by might but by the power of her self-image that Britain in her century dominated the world."

Americans and Brits of course had to work together in the CBI, and friction was continuous, as much because of personal pique as differing institutional approaches to leadership. "Mountbatten took an intense interest in publicity, especially his own. When he visited the troops he liked to give an impression of 'spontaneous vitality.' He would drive up in his jeep, vault nimbly, jump agilely onto a packing case carefully placed in advance, and deliver 'an absolutely first class and apparently impromptu speech-simple, direct and genuinely inspiring. The men loved it.'"

Stilwell did things differently. A direct, plainspoken man, spartan of personal habit and shunning many of the perquisites of position, he "liked to talk to the men unrecognized, which frequently occurred. Once riding in a jeep wearing his long-visored Chinese soldier's cap like a hunter's and holding a carbine across his knees, he passed a group of Merrill's Marauders, of whom on growled, 'Christ, a goddamn duck hunter.' A GI in an engineer unit was more sympathetic. 'Look at that poor old man. Some draft boards will do anything.'

From Stilwell's diaries Tuchman recreates the US Army of the period. On a trip to Washington, Stilwell wrote that he was surrounded "by clerks rushing in and out of swinging doors, people with papers rushing after other people with papers, groups in corners whispering in huddles, everybody jumping up just as you start to talk, buzzers ringing, telephones ringing, rooms crowded, clerks banging away at typewriters. 'Give me ten copies of this AT ONCE.' 'Get that secret file out of the safe.' Everybody furiously smoking cigarettes, everybody passing you on to someone else. Someone with a loud voice and a mean look out to appear and yell 'HALT! You crazy bastards. SILENCE! You imitation ants. Now half of you get out of town and the other half sit down and don't move for one hour.' Then they could burn up all the papers and start fresh."

There is plenty to admire in this man. He was decades ahead of his time in his approach to physical conditioning and preparation. His career largely represents a bright man with exemplary self-discipline and dedication. For all his excellence, he did have one major professional defect: he did not "play the game" in ratings and awards, so that his subordinates didn't get as good ratings or as many medals as their peers in other units. This cost them promotions and professional chances later on. Stilwell himself actually turned down medals and never sought promotion, but few ordinary mortals are made of such stern stuff. He owed it to his men to do right by them according to the system they all served.

But he was an extraordinary man during extraordinary times. It's our good fortune that his biographer was the extraordinary Barbara Tuchman. This book should be on the reading lists of professional historians and military men alike, and of anyone who wants to learn something of Chinese culture.

I read an Anne of Green Gables many, many years ago and immediatly fell in love. At once, I went out and bought the entire series, loving each book more than the one before. This is a line of books I would highly recommend to anyone, of any age. It is truly my favorite set of books. No matter how many times I have read it...and my first copy had fallen apart years ago...I laugh and cry just as hard as I did the first time. Anne of Green Gables 2, or Anne's House of Dreams, is a wonderful story of a couple just starting out in marriage. Moving from their friendly town of Avonlea, they started out anew, in a little cottage by the seashore. Gilbert, Anne's husband, is a young doctor, beginning his practice. They make many new friends, each more interesting than the last. There is even a mystery to unravel in their midst! Romance galore, love, friendship and dreams unfold before our eyes. Even when we read of their tragedies, we hurt along with them, feeling their pain. That is how well this book is written. Read it, enjoy it and buy the whole set. You will never regret it!

Anne of Green Gables is one of the first books to make me fall in love...with it. I mean, it was cute, it was lesson teaching (hehe, that sounds strange), and Anne was just such a good character. She sort of reminded me of me: bad temper (I've gotten much cooler now, haha), big words, amazing imagination, smart (haha, well, I was and am PRETTY SMART, at least, I think, haha). Gilbert reminded me of this guy at school...haha, well, I won't get into details there, but the book was charming, and I've already read it over four times in only like three years, which is sort of alot. I loved this book, and I believe that many other people will learn to appreciate its cuteness and truth and stuff over the years, hehe. Enjoy!

When I first read this book many years back, I loved it, and was sad for it to end when I finished reading it. I loved every single part of it...I simply couldn't put it down. Anne is such a character...you can't help liking her more and more, and wishing that she was your own "bosom friend" just as I did. While reading, I was transported back to that time, and I could just see Avonlea and Green Gables, the school which Anne studied in, and I could see Diana and Miss Stacy and Gilbert just as if they were my own friends.

I loved this book, and read it many times over again after I first picked it up, and it still delighted me. Lucy Maud Montgomery is a stunning writer, and I believe that she must have been like Anne, for no one could create such a realistic character and write everything that poured out of Anne's mouth...her made up stories, the things that she she thought of, her wild yet delightful imagination...all in all, Anne of Green Gables is one of the finest books I've ever read, and were ever written. I strongly recommend it to anyone, old or young. Everyone can relate to Anne and she could make you smile like she did for me.

Nostromo is a novel that stands comparison with War and Peace. Widely seen as Conrad's greatest work, it contains amazing - one might say appalling - insight into the human condition in the century that was just beginning. Conrad's father had served time in Siberia-like exile with his young family in tow, for participating in revolutionary, patriotic Polish politics. The experience had shortened his parents' lives and left Conrad an orphan at an early age, giving the writer a personal preview of what the new century was going to be like for so many others. The novelist's modern insight was not only on the political and social front but also into man's sense of identity. With Godot-like despair, Decoud, the character closest to Conrad in Nostromo, "beheld the universe as a succession of incomprehensible images." Stranded by himself for several days he becomes suicidal, realizing that "in our activity alone do we find the sustaining illusion of an independent existence as against the whole scheme of things of which we form a helpless part." At the same time it is beautifully written and is a gripping adventure - so can work on many different levels. Anyone who reads novels should read this classic.

The crisis in Somalia, the genocide in Rwanda, why do so many well-intentioned development assistance efforts fail so miserably? As America has been drawn in yet another asymmetric conflict with a collapsed state and Western governments are already discussing ways to implement democracy in order to prevent the conflict from escalating Conrad's timeless tale of idealism and greed suggests that changing the world is an almost impossible task. Many articulate magazine articles or specialized books have attempted to explain how a series favorable trade, free markets and respect for human rights can result in long term positive change. Yet, despite the abundance of information we're still left wondering; logical arguments and historical accounts have proved insufficient in satisfying the need to understand why the development process is so complicated. Although written in 1904, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard represents Conrad's ultimate opinion of the world. It's a long book, 465 pages in the Penguin Classic edition, but it's rich in observations on human nature as well as Conrad's typical lively landscape descriptions. In the former regard, Nostromo is superior to Conrad's more famous novel Heart of Darkness as he tells the story of very believable characters that are familiar to most readers.

Joseph Conrad is one of the most effortlessly cosmopolitan writers in the English language, and "Nostromo" finds him in a fictitious South American country called Costaguana whose mountains are a bountiful resource of silver. And Conrad is probably the only writer who can transform his novel's hero from an all-around tough guy to a heroic savior to a sneaky thief to a tragic victim of mistaken identity through plausible twists of fate without ever letting the story fall into disarray.

The main action of the novel takes place towards the end of the nineteenth century in a town called Sulaco, which is the base of operations for the San Tome silver mine up in the nearby mountains. The administrator of the mine is an Englishman named Charles Gould, whose primary challenge is to find American and European speculators to invest money to keep the mine in business. The other problem he faces is a civil war between the present government and a faction of rebels led by a general named Montero. Gould's wife Emilia is a prominent figure in town, an elegant matron with a philanthropic attitude towards the downtrodden native mine workers and townspeople.

The hero, Nostromo, is an Italian sailor who settled in Costaguana for more lucrative work and is now in charge of keeping the dockworkers -- the "cargadores" -- in line. When Montero's troops invade Sulaco, Nostromo and Martin Decoud, an aristocratic Frenchman who runs Sulaco's newspaper, escape on a boat with the town's silver treasury to protect it from the marauders. Their boat is sideswiped and damaged by a ship commanded by a rebel colonel named Sotillo, and they are forced to moor on a nearby island and bury the treasure there. This island is the future site of a lighthouse to be maintained by the Violas, an Italian family whose patriarch, Giorgio, once supported Garibaldi and still reveres the man like a deity. There is obviously much more to the plot, too much to reveal in this review, and there are many additional important characters, but these are best left for the potential reader to discover.

Narratively, Conrad keeps the story moving with plenty of action and suspense combined with the typical excellence of his prose. Structurally, though, is how Conrad's novel intrigues its reader: He frequently shifts viewpoints, in both place and time, to give the effect of different perspectives of both the immediate events and the long-term history of Sulaco. Contemporary reviewers of the novel apparently saw this technique as an artistic flaw; in retrospect, it seems well ahead of its time.

Thematically, the novel presents a debate about the benefits and problems of imperialism and colonization, using Costaguano as a model colony and the Gould Concession as model imperialists. When Sotillo accuses foreigners of robbing his country of its wealth, Gould suggests to him that a country's resources (i.e., Costaguana's silver) can be used as an asset only from the cooperation of the native workers and the capital and technical knowledge of the colonists. Such a concept seems relevant to global economic development throughout the twentieth century.

My choice for Greatest American Novel of the 20th Century is this Robert Penn Warren classic. Unfortunately for Warren (and us), this novel got off to a rotten start. The New York Times hailed it as 'The definitive novel about American politics,' and doomed it to be shelved with other drab tomes in that otherwise unimpressive genre. The Times, sad to say, widely missed the point on All the King's Men.

Jack Burden is the point. Jack Burden, the politician's hack, makes this book. His is an evolution from disaffection to purpose, from carelessness to thoughtfulness. Willie Stark-the politician-is merely the means to Warren's greater goals. Warren originally set out to show, through Stark, the Dionysian allure of power and the grand effect it has on those who attain it. And he did; Stark himself is a great literary character.

But Warren fooled himself: he created a character much greater than Stark, even though he planned Burden only to be a sort of an omniscient narrator of little value to the novel except as the storyteller of Stark's rise.

In the end, Burden says (paraphrase), "This has been the story of Willie Stark. But it has been my story too." And thankfully, it was. The novel is brilliant, Warren is brilliant, and political books are still boring-but this is not one of them!

Within the confines of a bookstore one is often overwhelmed with the numerous topics and choices available to them. A solution to this problem, if a reader is interested in an engaging, magnificently written piece of literature, then take a few steps and find All The Kings Men by Robert Warren Penn.
The theme is one of uncanny importance and relevancy to this stage in American lives despite the fact it was written in 1946. The story is told in the first person, the narrator is Jack Burden; a right hand man to the leading political figure in the story, the "Boss." Interestingly, the "Boss" is based on the real life story of Huey "Kingfish" Long of Louisiana.
The story encompasses Jack Burdens revival from a involuntary life, as well as the metamorphosis of Willie Stark's, the "Boss", idealistic political views to the lust for power and fame. Robert Warren Penn won a Pulitzer Prize for this book, and within the last few months I can not recall a book that would equal it in quality and purpose. Penn utilizes his characters to develop and provide insight on the issues of forgiveness, power, and corruption, and the consequences of leadership.
Within a bookstore there are many choices, and many possibilities to choose from, but in the busy lives of the average person today why waste the time just pick up a copy of All the Kings Men by Robert Warren Penn today.

In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren proves he knows more about writing than just the simple mechanics. Strongly defined characters and a setting so real you can taste the air provide the foundation for this literary masterpiece, yet the real genius of the book is in Warren's understanding of the reader and his use of style to convey a personal tone in the reading.

The main characters in All the King's Men are Jack Burden and Willie Stark. Jack, the narrator, was a reporter before joining Stark's bid for political power. Stark began as a small country lawyer who saw something wrong and tried to change it, but he eventually becomes a politician in the truest sense, so much so that the narrator can only think of Stark as "the Boss," an ominous title indeed. Accompanying these two men is an array of equally fascinating minor characters such as Sadie, a saucy married woman influential in developing Stark's position as a politician, and Sugar Boy, an Irishman so named for his affinity for sugar. Every character has depth and realism and can stand alone as a fully-developed individual.

While the characters are clearly an enjoyable part of the story, the setting is even more compelling. Warren's word choice is superb; he chooses to include and omit just the right combination of words to paint a realistic picture in the reader's mind without becoming too cumbersome. It is a balance few authors are able to achieve with such proficiency and yet another way in which Warren demonstrates his almost supernatural understanding of the reader. The best part is, it only gets better.

If characters and setting can be described as masterfully crafted, then Warren's grasp of tone is inexplicable. Simply put, the story truly speaks to the reader and could never have been as effective were it written any other way. Sentence structure, word selection, and dialect coalesce into a tangible atmosphere that projects a strong sense of familiarity onto the reader. The book is hard to put down because of this sense of familiarity.

Overall, All the King's Men is a book enjoyable in many more ways than one, with intriguing characters, realistic setting, and a true understanding of the needs of the reader. Even after fifty years, this book remains a classic appealing to all generations.