"Stephen Glazier's book ... is a field manual for the intellectual property strategist to start thinking and acting ... Glazier's book is one of the few sources which makes the effort to approach the patent field as a matter of strategy rather than as a matter of ... how the authorities line up on each particular legal issue ... Glazier's book lets the reader understand in a brief and manageable way how things work in the patent field ... The writer wishes Glazier would convert his book into a multi-volume loose leaf series for which there is surely strong need and probably no better potential author or editor." -- review from Intellectual Property Rights News, vol. 2, no. 3.

This is an excellent book. Good for both managers and patent lawyers

The author makes available complimentary update articles regarding current developments in internet service patents, financial service patents, patent strategies, and other topics related to the book. See email contact indicated above. The author is a patent and technology transactions attorney in Washington DC.

I am confident that Glazier's Handbook will soon become a standard in the field of anthropology of religion. The contributions are all first-rate, intellectually sophisticated, and challenging. Highly recommended. James Houk. American Anthropololgist, vol. 100, no. 1 (March 1998).

This collection should be in all college libraries and on every serious professional's shelves. James V. Spickard. Review of Religious Research, vol 40, no. 1 (September 1998)

This volume is a useful source for the anthropological study of religion. Glazier includes valuable contributions dealing with a variety of topics of interest to anthropologists. Especially noteworthy is the section on ritual. Highly recommended.

This timely collection of papers by a number of eminent anthropologists explores patterms of ethnicity in the Caribbean. A valuable contribution to current literature in the field, these papers greatly increase our understanding of Caribbean societies. The variety of theoretical approaches to the processes that shaped Caribbean ethnic relations make this work a fascinating and vital study of the region as a whole. Table of Contents: "Caribbean Ethnicity Revisited; Editor's Introduction," by Stephen D. Glazier. "Ethnicity in the Spanish Caribbean:Notes on the Consolidation of Creole Identity in Cuba and Puerto Rico," by Jorge Duany. "Race and Ethnicity in the United States Virgin Islands," by Klaus de Albuquerque and Jerome L. McElroy. "To Be or Not to Be Chinese: Differential Expressions of Chinese Culture and Solidarity in the British West Indies," by Thomas A. Shaw. "Ethnic Particpation in Orange Walk Economic Development," by C. Thomas Brockmann "The Caribs of Dominica," by Anthony Layng. "New Ethnicity, New Horizons," by Morton Klass. Epilogue: The Meaning of Ethnicity in the Caribbean," by Leonard B. Glick.

"This fresh examination of actual practices causes us to reconsider some earlier impression of African-American religion." Professor Henry Warner Bowden, Rutgers University.

"Trinidad's Spiritual Baptists are described in rich and loving detail in this study, with special attention to placing it in the traditions of the sociology of religion." Professor Donald R. Ploch, University of Tennessee.

Professor Erika Bourguignon in The Journal of Psychoanalytic Anthropology: "This study is particularly valuable in that it makes clear how the author's findings are influenced both by historical changes and by his own distinctive approach."

I do not write without it. Together with J.I. Rodale's The Synonym Finder and DK's Ultimate Visual Dictionary it completes the Trinity of word desk references. If you are trying to decide between this book, Facts on File's Descriptionary, and Writer's Digest's Flip Dictionary, go with this book. I have all three and I use Word Menu 40 times to every one time I use either Flip Dictionary or Descriptionary, both of which are trying to do the same thing. Flip Dictionary comes close, and tries to do things a little differently, but Word Menu is my preference.

Has anyone heard of Eschatology? I hadn't until my writing instructor used that word in a letter he sent to me. Baffled, I looked it up in the Webster's Dictionary, but didn't find it. I checked with The Synonym Finder, but it wasn't listed there either. Finally, I turned to this book and found it in the table of contents. Eschatology is the study of afterlife.This book has been a godsend for me as a creative writer. There were times when I was writing a scene and couldn't think of a word to describe something or a term I couldn't remember. Most of the time, I found what I was looking for in these pages.Word Menu is broken down into four parts. Part One deals with Nature­­The human body, living things, and the earth. Chapter One (The Human Body) is then divided into five subcategories­­Anatomy, Medical Problems, Health/Fitness/Enhancement, Hair and Grooming, Phsyical Appearance. Under these, you will find hundreds of definitions, terms, and cross-references.This dictionary covers everything from everyday items, customs, religions, etc. to the obscure and strange. For example, Eschatology. Word Menu is an indespensible tool for any type of writer, student, or anyone who wants to learn something.

This is the book to use if you don't know the name for an object but know the general category to which it belongs.

The idea behind this book is to group words into menus just like computer commands are grouped into menus. Glazier implemented this basic idea fairly well when he arranged this book.

The book is split into seven parts (Nature, Science and Technology, Domestic Life, Institutions, Arts and Leisure, Language, and The Human Condition). Each of the parts, in turn, is split into three or four chapters (a total of 25 chapters in all). Each chapter contains one or two levels of subject categories. The words contained in each subject category are listed in alphabetical order.

For example, you need to know the name for a phobia. Look up Part 3 - Institutions, Chapter 13 - Social Sciences, Psychology, Phobias. You can then skim the alphabetical list of phobias for the phobia you're looking for.

While this book is useful, I found it to be very entertaining as well. Flipping through its pages is like going through a linguistic museum of curiousities. (Just reflect on what words you may find under the subject category "Insults, Slurs, and Epithets", and you may get an idea of what I mean.) It is perfect for people who think that vocabulary study is boring.

Two things to consider, though.

1. To get full use out of the book, you must have a feel for how the book is organized. The learning curve is slight, but it is there.

2. Because you are required by the book's format to scan through lists of words, this book was formatted to make it easy to scan. This means that the definitions are sketchy and and there is no pronunciation guide. This is OK so long as you have an excellent dictionary to fill in the gaps left by the Word Menu.

This encyclopedia is a beautiful production---well-illustrated, with fascinating little excerpts from contemporary accounts, religious writings, etc. It is also full of fascinating information about a wide swath of religious experience. Most of the articles are very well written; they average 2-5 pages in length, so issues are reasonably well developed. But the work is rather unbalanced. It has less about African religion (whether indigenous or syncretic) than I had hoped to see, and, most notably, endless repetitive entries about very similar African-derived religions in the Americas. The same explanations of Yoruba orisha, protection of African religion by adopting outward aspects of Catholicism, etc. appeared in too many articles.

An A-to-Z encyclopedia containing some 150 entries discussing the religious movements and churches of Sub-Saharan Africa, including major indigenous religious such as those of the Zulu, Yoruba, Akan, and Nuer peoples; North America, including black churches within mainstream religions, African-American religions and churches, and associated institutions such as the Rainbow Coalition; and South America and the Caribbean, including major religions such as Rastafari, Santeria, and Vodou and the more localized Umbanda and Tambor de Mina. Also surveys African-derived religions in a number of other nations. Coverage includes the growing world-wide influence of African and African-American religions; general topics, practices, beliefs, and institutions such as music, material culture, deities, healing, slave religion, theology, and religious-based political movements. Entries are written by anthropologists, historians, religious scholars, sociologists, and others and include sometimes fuzzy but well-chosen b&w images.

Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

This encyclopedia is a good starting point for understanding the complex interrelationships among African, African American, and European religious beliefs, practices, and traditions in a global context. Recommended for all libraries. Marc Meola in The Library Journal (December 2000).

This is a terrible book, a scam if you will. In the first place, charging [$$$]for a under 200 pages, and with very small demensions, is outright theft. Secondly, the book is merly a summary of court cases, which can be obtained freely on the internet or from the US patent office web site, in greater detail. Thirdly, the author repeats himself many, usually entire paragraphs worded in slightly different ways. I can only think is is an attempt to "pat" the book and add more pages.

This book provides a little over 80 pages of easily read advice on patent strategies involving software/internet-based business methods. It provides a quick overview of two landmark cases. More importantly, it suggests areas for patenting and checklists for IP strategy. The book was helpful as a broad overview. However, I thought that more detail should have been included. The last 100 pages were filled with "Tech Trends" and reprinted case data. The "Tech Trends" chapters were the author's predictions on the future of tech, and while interesting (and occasionally incorrect), don't include any patent-related analysis. Also, the book dates from late 1999 and an included survey chapter analyzed patents up to Jan 1999. Given that the State Street Bank case wrapped in 1998, it's a shame that more recent analyses weren't provided either in the book or on an associated web page, especially since many patents had just been filed before the survey.

The bottom line: useful, informative book but could have used more detail, newer data, and incorporated information from the companion volume. The author refers to strategies such as "submarining", "picket fence", and "leap frog" without giving a single line of explanation, instead plugging the companion volume. I have encountered those strategies in other legal readings/coursework, and I believe a few pages for each concept (in replacement of the chapters on Tech Trends) would have greatly enhanced the value of this book.

The new practical ideas in this book are very valuable. The case studies of how real businesses have used patent strategies in software and business methods bring to life how this can affect my business today to help the bottom line. The latest legal developments and cases are analyzed, but there is no useless lawyer-speak, instead the author brings out the rules for running a business profitably that are buried between the lines of the cases. Obviously, this author is on the front lines of the patent wars, and brings back here what he has learned that we can all use. Good for the CEO, Chairman, or General Counsel of any business that uses software or the internet, about how to use all that new patent mumbo-jumbo for revenue, profit and shareholder value. A great e-companion and update to the classic "Patent Strategies for Business" by the same author.

I particularly liked the chapters on 'Patent Denial' [a laugh-riot, and it's not easy to be funny about patents], and the updated rules on 'Virtual Genius and How to Invent on Demand' [the author makes it sound easy, but he as invented several patents himself, and he is a patent lawyer, so he must know-- I am glad he decided to tell the rest of us]. It will be interesting to see how the 'Tech Trends' and forecasts play out. The survey of the new patent practices in banking [yes, that's banking patents] was surprising and enlightening -- and I look forward to a more in depth survey by the same author. The 'Patent Audit' chapters are also useful.

I expect an ROI on my investment in this book of about a zillion percent.

Sorry, but this isn't much of a book. Only 160 pages without the index and other stuff in the back, mostly self-promotion by a few architects of their own projects -- ok, some nice hotels and good color pictures in the middle -- only a little technical information. Other books have much more content, or more pictures of a wider variety of hotels/resorts. Way too expensive for what you get.

Great Book, I am an architect new to hotel design and I found this book filled with lots of valuable information, especially in chapters 2 & 3 where they discuss some awesome projects. Nice photos and diagrams throughout the book.