Though not his best in the outstanding Sir John Fielding series, Alexander's ninth provides a lively view of British outrage and bafflement at the fractiousness of the American colonies as well as a rich portrait of crime and policing in 18th century London as the blind Bow Street Court magistrate Fielding oversees his Bow Street runners and investigates a murder/robbery with ominous political overtones. Young narrator Jeremy Proctor, Fielding's eyes and legs and increasingly mature assistant, tells the tale with verve, initiative, and wit, indulging in a little romance of his own along the way.

The case involves the theft of inflammatory letters and the collateral murder of a footman at the home of an arrogant British lord, secretary of state for the American colonies. Though Lord Hillsborough refuses to divulge the letters' contents, it's clear they connect with the rising colonial foment. Dinners with Samuel Johnson and Benjamin Franklin speed Fielding's cogitations while Jeremy scouts the back alleys and low taverns for the hired miscreants. The central mystery is a bit weak, but it hardly matters as Alexander brings history to life from the perspective of those making it and Jeremy continues to charm and provide the action, from disarming a mob to battling a ruthless assassin. Franklin appears in all his warts and brilliance and only the British aritsocracy comes off worse. Well-written, atmospheric and intirguing, the series continues to delight.

Most series go into a decline long before they reach the ninth installment. Not so with Bruce Alexander's wonderful creation. This latest volume is my personal favorite thus far. The characters and richness of period detail would be enough to make the books worth reading, even without the mystery plots. The characters have become like old friends. The books have an appeal much like Sherlock Holmes, which make you want to visit just for the atmosphere and interaction among the characters. Jeremy is back, but alas, he has outgrown his green coat. Sir John is as formidable and perceptive as always. Bruce Alexander has the ability to include actual historical figures (Ben Franklin in this case) without seeming contrived. Since the plot has already been summarized, I will only add that these books are worth buying--in hardback--because you will want to re-read them and pass them to friends. I hope this series continues, because I am hooked!

This series has replaced Anne Perry's series as my choice for the best historical detective fiction around. The mysteries are always tightly plotted and believable and the characters, from the stars to the supporting players, are intricately drawn and unforgettable. These books are just a tremendous reading experience.

I enjoy all of Alexander Key's books. Ronnie is the blue boy, who has the gift of a perfect memory. He is pursued by sinster men. Not sure where to turn, he finds aid and help with two other special children: Ana Maria Rosalita and Black Luis, both who are in danger because of greed; and Marlowe, who is--well, you have to read it to find out.

I read this book in grade school and loved it! Highly recommended to any young person to start a hunger for reading. It's about a young person with unique abilities that overcomes obstacles with the aid of unusual friends. This would be a great book to bring back to print!

I read this book when I was in sixth grade, straight through in one sitting. It is a fantastic jounrney. I have been looking for this book for 10 years now; since I have had children of my own. If you can, read it!

This is an extraordinarily informative and entertaining book that sheds light on the problems and differing worldwide attitudes toward conversation and preservation. The author decries the rapid disappearance of historical landmarks, statues, buildings, art and sculpture - as do most of us. The modern effect whereby observation leads directly to degradation he has named the "Heisenberg" principle, based on the German scientist's observation that the very act of viewing affects the properties of light. Moisture, oxygen, germs, exposure - all of these are detrimental agents and all are associated with people.

He also decries the loss of those items that are elusive - tribal customs now recorded in any medium that have been passed from generation to generation for thousands of years, languages such as Latin, even - and surprisingly - outmoded technology. It is estimated that an enormous collection of data in the National Archives is for all intents and purposes lost since we have lost the technology required for viewing/hearing such data.

The differing cultural views on preservation were examined, from the rather recent Western one whereby objects remain in their natural state to the Oriental practice of repeatedly copying (in detail) ancient objects to the oral history of Africa. He rightly recalls that this process has been recurring since mankind recognized ancient works as something different.

But this book was also a personal journey since the author became intimately involved with the participants of this saga. From taking Latin classes in Rome to visiting Chinese and Italian scholars to reviewing the new National Archives and the Vatican Library, this is a "hands on" book that reads like a labor of love.

Our prosperous culture has created such sins as urban sprawl, deforestation, pollution, crowding, fast food - all of which directly affect not only the objects of the past but our view of the importance of past people's and events. It is this latter problem that seems all the most disturbing. A close reading reveals that the modern urge to preserve is directly related to the rise of industrialism.

What the book lacked were definitive solutions and perhaps that is not by accident. What is NOT needed are quick fixes or top down solutions. One of the things he has documented with sorrow is the repetitive nature of socialist dictatorships to screw things up with top-down solutions - whether it be Egypt, China or any number of African countries. Solutions should be from the ground up and must be in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants of the affected area.

Not only cultural but religious views have affected our past. How much knowledge was destroyed when the library in Alexandria was burned or how much religious statuary was destroyed in the first five centuries of Christiandom? And how many hundreds of thousands of paintings and statues have followers of Islam defaced or destroyed in the recent past? Rare is the culture or religion that demonstrates reverence for alien peoples and the products of their culture.

The final chapter sums up what we know, what we don't know and where we go from here. An important book that should grace the libraries of every literate American. Get the book, contemplate its message.

It's hard to put this great book down. Each chapter is more fascinating than the prior one. A must read.

Stille's work is fabulous, insightful, intelligent...whether you have just acquired a taste for history and preservation, or whether you are a seasoned professional in these subjects, there's something for you in every one of the essays that make up this fascinating--and often disturbing--book. Neither pandering nor mired in technical jargon, this book will satisfy amateur and professional alike.

Stille's experience ranges from one corner of the world to the other and his reportage demonstrates that no matter how disparate the cultures, all are struggling with the insistent presence and immense pressure of The Past.

I've gone back to this book over and over since first reading it and I anticipate that it will remain a permanent fixture of my library.

Highest recommendation!

The dear friend who gave me this book two years ago died suddenly last week. In reading the book again, within this new context, I am struck by the wisdom given freely and simply, beautifully demonstating the importance of the moment, the simplicity of quality rather than quantity, the gift of being truly present in our own lives. What else could possibly matter? Time can be used rather than abused, a friend instead of an enemy. The photos are well chosen, contemplative, restful and speak volumnes. I'm ordering copies to give as gifts as he did, while I have Time.

The Gift Of Time: Making The Most Of Your Time And Your Life is an inspiring compendium of insightful and poetic commentary combined with duo-tone photography that will enable the appreciative reader to create more meaningful time for themselves; to find serenity in a hurried modern world; to become patient, balanced, and aware within the moment; to let go of the past and turn dreams into reality; and best of all, to embrace very moment of life as an irreplaceable gift. If you only have time for a single self-help, self-improvement, inspirational, life enhancing book, make it Alexander Anderson's The Gifts Of Time.

I agree with the July 25,2001 review in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Reviewer Mary Ellen Grossman wrote, "If you're looking for a wise and beautiful gift book, this is it...". This book teaches the reader how to slow down, how to find serenity amidst chaos, how to meditate and, most important, how to live in the present moment. Bob Firth's photos, which Grossman said, "...are integrated into the text in a lovely way..", are a perfect complement to the text. I love this book! It will be my gift book of choice this year.

This beguiling work opens with the statement, "Hegel is not a philosopher". As we go further we see this is to mean that Hegel is expressing the perspective of Absolute Knowledge, in the echoes of the Hermetic tradition. This book is a bit of a tour de force, although perhaps unsettling to those who inherit the Hegel reshaped in the nineteenth century by the Young Hegelians and others, indeed by the reticent stance of Hegel himself whose interest in Bohme and Eckhart, and early contacts with Rosicrucianism, the Masons, and study of a host of occult and theosophical subjects, tends to be factored out of his biographies. This component of Hegel's philosophic odyssey might never meet the approval of an age of science, yet the context is important to an understanding of Hegel's sources and development, and also on the grounds that much that is obscure clarifies at once if seen in this light. In fact this analysis hits the spot. Too much logical bandwidth is wasted on a sort of logical positivist recoil at the glyphic Hegel. Seen in this light, he is another man entirely and can be taken on his own terms, and with a proper caution that the seeker with a mystic triangle argument stands in ghostly shadows near the dialectician hoping to explicate a law of history (read Left Hegelian, Marxist). It is important to know what you were up to!
Very well documented text, with good historical snapshots of this side of Reformation history, made to disappear from most philosophic treatments of Hegelian subjects.

Professor Magee has added a crucial dimension to our understanding of Hegel by showing in abundant detail the deep and life-long influences of hermeticism, alchemy, the Kabbala, and various forms of theosophy (the ancient wisdom) on Hegel's metaphysics. He quickly dispatches the absurd idea that Hegel was primarily a hermeneute and that he was not 'really' interested in hard-core metaphysics, and he further distances Hegel from the postmodern displacement that would reduce him to a negative genealogist of finite self-consciousness (e.g., in Julia Kristeva's reading of "negativity" in Hegelian consciousness via the later Freud). Combining close historical studies with internal categorial analysis, Magee exhibits the power of Swabian mysticism and its correlary, local pietism on such Hegelian ideas as: 1) the self-return of the absolute from its own concentration and condensation in the realms of finite reciprocity, 2) the reconstructed Aristotelian idea that all selves contain potentia of the fullness of absolute Geist in a mirroring relationship, and 3) the doctrine of dynamic internal relations that permeate the manifest cosmos. The "Phenomenology of Spirit," so often seen as a detached "we" consciousness of the regathering of shapes of self-consciousness (gestalten des Selbstbewusstsein), is thought theosophically as an initiation ritual in which the individual self shatters its provincial illusions and prepares to become a true Adept on the edges of absolute knowing (das absolute Wissen).
Hegel scholars will especially appreciate Magee's detailed treatment of the way the concept of "aether" functions in Hegel's "Philosophy of Nature" as a primary background meta-material substance (hints of Paracelsus and Bohme here), which has dynamic and life-generating potencies in the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water understood in the classical Greek sense). Further, Magee's analysis of the "Earth Spirit" opens up a dramatic vista on the mythos underlying Hegel's understanding of messmerism, telepathy, and the earth-like unconscious (shades of Heidegger's earth/world struggle).
For those who came to Hegel through French phenomenology, Protestant theology (e.g., his conflict with Schleiermacher), analytic philosophy ("what was Hegel's epistemology and did he really beat Kant at his own game?"), or Heidegger's destructuring of the opening gambits of the "Phenomenology," Magee's hermetic approach will provide a far more historically accurate and balanced perspective on the mystical and robustly metaphysical heart of Hegelian dialectic. The rose in the cross is an image that Hegel uses in "The Philosophy of Right" to balance his reconstructured Lutheranism with his commitment to the pansophia found in the Rosicrucian Movement (toward which he had friendly relations). Magee gives us a Hegel that Hegel would have recognized on the spot, and we are much in his debt for his doing so.

This new study of Hegel by Glenn Alexander Magee is a brilliant piece of work on numerous levels. Those who have been daunted by the language of Hegel's philosophical system, or who find it otherwise obtuse and impenetrable, will do well to reapproach him from Mr. Magee's perspective. Unfortunately Hegel's name has furthermore been tainted from his later appropriation by the political "Young Hegelians," most famous among them Karl Marx. This has probably caused some to look askance at Hegel as a thinker whose ideas eventually lead to marxoid Gulags (one can see a similar negative type of effect in the world of music, when some folks cringe at the sounds of Richard Wagner, since Hitler was a Parsifal fan).
Mr. Magee's book forces a radical new reading of Hegel, and one that is very much at odds with the materialist or politically motivated interpretations that have been commonplace for over a century. Here the argument is offered that Hegel was, in fact, thoroughly immersed in the Hermetic Tradition, and his "speculative philosophy" is a discourse of mystical conceptions about man's relationship to the divine. The book is clearly written and Mr. Magee states his case with precision and a fascinating wealth of evidence, circumstantial as well as internal. This is not only an illuminating study of Hegel (and you will never look at him the same after having read it), but also an informed explication of the core ideas of Hermeticism, as well as a history of its proponents throughout the centuries, especially in the German speaking lands. Not just a book for philosophy scholars or students of German Intellectual History, it has much of value to offer anyone interested in Hermeticism and its ramifications in the larger world of Western thought.

This book proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the "good doctor" was completely guilty of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth. Despite the way the Mudd family has manipulated the story and the media for decades, the truth is finally coming out!!!

A True account of Mudd's involvement. Though he cried foul, "The guilty dog barks the loudest".

The Notes' section alone is worth the cost of the book!

Having been turned on to Ballard's witty and insightful prose through his frequent contributions to Maxim (check out his article on Russia!), Men's Health, and Point of View, I was ecstatic to finally sit down and read Hoops Nation. While the format does not allow the reader to fully appreciate Ballard's entire literary arsenal, it does nevertheless reveal his unmatched love for the game of round ball. I guarantee you will not be able to put this book down. Whether you find yourself frequently thumbing to the back for one more look at his devilishly handsome photo, or merely get caught up envisioning yourself as one of the road crew, you can be assured of the ride of your life.

Hoops Nation is not just for the basketball fan. As a reader with no previous interest in hoops, I can attest to its universal appeal. My ribs are still aching from laughter and I need to catch up on my sleep. I wait for the sequel with baited breath, now and forever a junkie of pick-up basketball and Chris Ballard!

Here's the drill: hit the road in a van; crisscross the country in search of pick-up basketball,wherever it's played with passion and verve; then write a lively and informative guide to the Hoops Nation that is America. That's what former college player Chris Ballard did. His guide judges the five best pick-up courts in the country, then continues on its full-court press to critique pick-up hoops games in every region. With descriptions of more than 700 gyms, parks, and schoolyards in all 50 states, this is the most comprehensive look at neighborhood basketball ever undertaken. The ratings system, complete with graphic symbols, covers such criteria as type of court (indoor or outdoor), level of competition, court quality, rough play, dangerous areas (only exceptional pick-up games in dangerous areas are included), and the regularity of female players. But this is so much more than a field guide. Ballard relates basketball lore and myth from all over the country, profiles pick-up legends, and, for rookies, covers tips on etiquette and basic play. Whether looking for a good game when out of town or just curious about hoops in other places, this fun and useful guide will put visions of jump shots in your head and get the adrenaline pumping.

Chris Ballard should be lauded for his wonderfully concise and sophisticated written journey through America's hoops heartland. Chris successfully boiled down a subject of extreme complexity into a an easy to use reference guide that has something for everybody. Of special interest is Chris' reasoned analysis of the changing nature of the sport and his expertise on the issue of basketball as a cultural and societal gap bridging mechanism. Hoops Nation is a rare jewel of humor, anecdotal variety, and thorough research. I'm quite pleased to have discovered this literary treasure and can be assured of Jordanesque status on Christmas day when my friends and relatives receive their own paperbacks. Anyway I can get an autograph?

The focus of this book is the Collection in Trafalgar Square but is not exclusive to it. It contains works of art that either picture a representation of Christ or allude to Him. I found my reading to be a delightful and awe-inspiring theological journey. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of how Christ is perceived. Several authors have compiled brief descriptions of the works that explain their significance and meaning. The book traces it course through predominately Catholic art. This may have been done mostly out of necesity because the plethera of art from the 13th to 20th centuries is largely by Catholics. However, it would have been nice to see some more Protestant imagery to complete the respesentation of Christ in art.

I have noticed that Christian Art books have been growing in popularity. Many of these are cheap opportunities to jump on a commercial bandwagon in an attempt to make a quick buck. This book is the REAL THING. It is outstanding. The pictures are large and sharp. The articles are informative and written well. This book values its subject and covers a wide spectrum of Christ centered art. I found this book both thoughtful and moving.

This book is equivalently the catalog of an art exhibit at the National Gallery London from February to May, 2000 on how Christ has been portrayed in art from a fourth century Good Shepherd statue to Stanley Spencer's 1926 Resurrection, Cookham. The magnificently illustrated 79 items in the show are supplemented with photographs of 52 additional pieces of art that develop the theology out of which each set of images arose. It is a thing of beauty and pleasure, useful for prayer and theology, and the sort of thing needed in today. Too many postmodern art students have lost contact with the Christian symbols of the western world and are unaware of the depths of their own cultural heritage. This book will be very informative for them and even for the already theologically educated.

I chose this title, because it was true, at least for me. As Americans, we (some of us, not all) "think" Russians are not "very intelligent", "backward" and even, "less than human."
After reading this book, I tend to "get on my soapbox" to help people understand what few choices, the Russian people ever had in the outcomes of their lives! I never knew this before purchasing and reading Mr. Lincoln's book!
If you cannot be convinced by the poverty imposed on the Russians through Mr. Lincoln's words, you will be convinced by the heart-wrenching photographs; the children who appear as hopeless, hovels designed as homes with animals living within, death from starvation was not uncommon. And all the time, Russia refused (those in power prior to the Revolution)to feed her people, wheat was being shipped to other European countries.
And the Russians never questioned the motives of the Tsar; after the Revolution, they still starved and were murdered by Stalin and Hitler.
We need to change our attitudes and this book did it for me.

In the forward, W. Bruce Lincoln states the book is "...an effort to explore the lives, thoughts, hopes, and dreams of the men and women who lived in the world's largest empire and to convey some sense of the tensions that tore at the fabric of their existence on the eve of the Great War and the Revolution of 1917." In this effort he succeeds brilliantly.

We see portraits of Tsar Alexander III, Nicholas II, Pobedonostsev, Lenin, Rasputin, and a host of other generals, officials and ordinary people who shaped that era.

We get an insider's look at what life was like in a peasant community, inside the peasant's izba or house, and their attitudes towards schooling, medicine and religion. We go inside the growing factories and the slums the workers inhabited in the cities with rapidly developing industry. We see the new nobility of the industrial barons, the revolutionaries fighting the tsarist autocracy, the defenders of the Old Order...all come to life in these pages.

Graphic descriptions are given of the vicious pogroms against Jews. The impact of the Trans-Siberian Railroad in both economic and a political aspects is covered. The 1904 war with Japan is there with its criminally incompetent generals and and admirals and the war's impact on the development of the Revolution of 1905 as well as the mood of the populace as the nations slides toward the Great War.

This well written, illuminating, detailed and well documented book is a classic work on the Russian society of those years and fleshes out the soul of Russia as few other books do. 16 pages of photos. Highly recommended.

The book I ordered, In War's Dark Shadow, was exactly as the seller described it - in perfect condition. Since the book is not longer in print, I feel lucky to find one that looks as if it has never been used. The book was shipped promptly, and the seller was a pleasure to work with. I highly recommend this seller!

thanks!

This book describes the way creationists approach evolution. If they can find just one thing that evolutionary biologists have yet to explain, they figure that one thing is enough to throw the whole thing out. Such a view is just wrong, and shows an abysmal understanding - or abuse - of science. There are more than enough transitional fossils to convince a fair minded skeptic, but no creationist would ever agree to classify anything as a transitional fossil. Not Archeoptryx, not Acanthostega (sp?), not the mammal-like reptiles. The beautiful documention of the evolution of the mammalian jaw from the reptilian jaw should convince anybody, but it will never convince a creationist.

Of course, there is a lot that scientists don't know about evolution. But there is a lot that we DO know, and there is just too much evidence to simply toss out evolution. This is a theory that will not go away, although I wouldn't be surprised to see it change as we learn more about genetics.

This book is not written for creationists, but for people who might be sympathetic to their cause. If people would learn more about the nature of science, they would be offended by the utter dishonesty and lack of integrity you find in scientific creationism.

FGTG is a 200-page overview of the 2300-year history of the development of the E/C dispute. As an overview, it has the typical advantages and disadvantages of that genre, being written in very simple language, with only a minimum of technical detail. It would be a good introduction to the subject for someone with little prior knowledge of the history of the dispute, but it might not be very satisfying for people looking for a discussion of the most up-to-date, scientific analysis.

The Preface states that science rests on two principles: (1) scientists must base their analysis about how the world operates, not on idiosyncratic, a priori beliefs, but on empirical data; and (2) scientists must subject their analysis to testing and confirmation by others. In this two-step process, scientists failing to follow step 1, would be caught and exposed by other scientists in step 2. The self-correcting nature of the scientific enterprise is perhaps its most important feature. Any human enterprise is subject to error, so having a built-in, error-correction mechanism is essential.

FGTG describes young-Earth creationist organizations, like the Institute for Creation Research, that do not follow the error-correction methods of traditional science. The logical conclusion from that is inescapable.

FGTG analogizes the E/C dispute to the on-going dispute over the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man skeleton found in Washington. Scientists want to use traditional scientific methods to identify the remains, but local Indian tribes insist that such tests are unnecessary, because their ancient, tribal, religious beliefs have already led them to conclude that the skeleton is the remains of one of their ancestors; and conducting any scientific tests at all would violate the Indians' religious beliefs. The point here is clear: injecting religion into a debate brings science to a halt.

FGTG reviews some of the differences between religion and science as knowledge systems. Beliefs based on religious considerations have a very strong emotional basis and may produce strong feelings of personal satisfaction. Beliefs based on scientific considerations tend to have a much weaker emotional impact. Scientific beliefs, by their very nature, are tentative, because all such beliefs are based only on the evidence acquired to date, and that evidence is ALWAYS incomplete. No matter how much data has been acquired to date in support of Theory X and no matter how compelling the inferences from that data may be, it is ALWAYS the case that evidence discovered next week may totally invalidate today's "unassailable" theory. Ptolemy gave way to Copernicus, Copernicus gave way to Newton, and Newton to Einstein. Science marches on, and that may be threatening to people craving certainty in their lives. For such people, unchanging, superstitious explanations may be more satisfying emotionally than any rational analysis, no matter how brilliant it may be.

FGTG sketches the development of biological explanations, both supernatural and scientific, from ancient Greece to the present. One interesting tidbit reported that religious groups sometimes incorporated scientific work into their religious beliefs. Galen's scientific studies on anatomy and Ptolemy's on astronomy were incorporated into the religious doctrines of some Christian denominations (Protestant and Catholic), changing their character from tentative statements about science into unchallengeable religious doctrines. So when Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician, pointed out mistakes in Galen's anatomical descriptions, the Catholic Church burned him at the stake in 1553. Giordano Bruno met the same fate in 1600 for preferring Copernican over Ptolemaic astronomy. So empirical data and analysis can be incorporated into religious systems, but the data and analysis are then no longer open to question, which violates the second characteristic of genuine science as described in the beginning of the book.

Another interesting chapter compared the dramatically different versions of creation given in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. If creationists believe that the Bible is inerrant in all its parts, then it is difficult to reconcile the fact that these two chapters are diametrically opposed to each other.

FGTG also points out that none of the original Biblical manuscripts survive and that the copies that do survive are significantly different from each other in many aspects. In the story about Noah's Flood, another key, creationist concept, one version says that only man, land animals, and birds will be destroyed, while another version says that all animals, apparently including even whales and fishes, will be destroyed. Again, if the Bible is supposed to be error free, it is difficult to explain why the Bible contradicts itself.

The history of the study of fossils and early attempts to reconcile them with the Bible was also interesting. The idea that a species could ever go extinct challenged belief in God's "perfect" creation as described in Eccl. 4:14.

FGTG reviews the early history of evolutionary theories, and very briefly reviews the data that evolution explains: sequential order of fossils (including Precambrian organisms); classification of organisms into nested categories (based on both gross anatomy and genetic data); data related to embryonic development (specifically recapitulating the embryonic evolution of the mammalian ear from its reptilian predecessor, and the vertebrate kidney); numerous intermediate forms (especially Archaeopteryx and horses); and radioactive dating.

The last quarter of the book reviews some of the major court battles over evolution education, especially the Scopes and McLean cases. One of the editorial reviewers complained about Moore's presenting evolutionists as "fearless truth seekers," but the sad fact of the matter is that evolutionists really have had to be fearless in opposing the religious bigotry that kept legitimate science from being taught. Michael Servetus, Giordano Bruno, John Scopes, and Bill McLean were indeed demonstrating fearlessness in opposing the religious bigots of their day.

The book's conclusion that both religion and science have a place in human affairs, but that the place of religion is not in a science classroom will come as no surprise. What may be surprising is the list of religious groups that agree with that conclusion, including Presbyterian, Jewish, Episcopal, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, and Methodist organizations.

Very interesting book, easy to read, and full of worthwhile insights. I recommend it!

What a breadth of knowledge this man has! What humanity! What generousity of spirit! I read it in one sitting because I found it so fascinating. It was worth sacrificing a weekend.