This book started it all for me. It stood out in the sociology section of floor 3 at the library. They say that you can't judge a book by its cover, but often, a cover will tell you a lot about the book.

That's how it was with this one. The cover was funky, with half-finished etchings. What was written inside was even better. It was a beautiful discourse on the nature of Love. From Agathon's (it was Agathon that told of Achilles and Patroclus...wasn't it?) tale of devotion, Aristophanes' haunting fable about our "other halves" (and the interludes in between, especially the one about hiccoughs) to Socrates' speech on love "involving the mind and not the body", this is a timeless and highly accessable study.

Read it a few years ago, and have been into philosophy ever since.

Not only should this book be the literary book-fellow to any Classics student, but an absolute must for every human being on the face of the planet. Griffins' translation is not only beautifully rendered/translated but extremely funky and contemporary. It is so applicable to our own modern interpertations of life, the universe,and everything, that you will easily forget than it was written over 2,500 years ago. In addition, the book design values are astounding. The fonts, both English and Greek, are lovely that even the reader who has never studied Greek will fall in love with the flowing lines.

I love Tom Tomorrows's THIS MODERN WORLD, read it avidly in the local alternative press, and so was delighted to find a copy of this particular title at our local public
library.

These cartoons are a bit old now...circa the Gulf War & aftermath. But they're still quite funny...We need Tom's
insights now more than ever with the war-hysteria that is
once again gripping our nation (the Gulf War segments in
this collection take on an eerie ring of familiarity in
recent days).

I've kept up with Tom's latest cartoons and he hasn't
missed a beat. Thank you Tom!

For anyone sick of anything in this modern world that we live in, prepare to be entertained.

Tom Tomorrow writes his comic with a well-crafted wit that is for anyone who is tired of the misguided politics and organizations of America. It will make you laught, cry, and wince as you come to realize the pathetic and scary state of our United States, and will inspire you to make a change.

Tom Tommorow is a true rebel--unlike most of today's hipsters and ironists, he has the guts to stand for something and stay committed to"outmoded" ideas like peace and social justice while holding on to a damn good sense of humor and an eye for the truly absurd(aka the rich and powerful). His honesty, wit, and,yes, stridency puts him a few notches above any other cartoonist I've seen. Buy the book and you'll look at the culture we live in with new eyes. Peace out

There probably isn't much I can add in a scholarly vein to what people have already said about Plato. So I thought I would make a few personal observations from the standpoint of a somewhat philosophically literate, 21st century man who is reading such an august classic in middle age.

I came to this book with more of a background in modern epistemology and the philosophy of science than in classical philosophy. So political philosophy isn't exactly my strong suit, but nevertheless I found the book interesting reading in a way I hadn't really thought of before.

Actually, I had read portions of this book 20 years ago when I was a young student first studying philosophy, and I have to say, there is something to be said for having a more mature outlook in approaching such a venerable work. At the time I thought political philosophy pretty dull stuff, and besides, I felt there was no real way to answer any of the important political questions that get debated here, despite the easy way Socrates disposes of everybody else's half-baked opinions and theories.

The fact is, if you move ahead 2400 years and read something like Karl Popper's "The Open Society and Its Enemies," an advanced modern work, you can see how much, or how little, political philosophy has progressed in the last 24 centuries.

Well, that may be true, but at least with this book you know where it basically all started. The best way to decide this issue is to read the book and decide for yourself.

Although entitled "The Republic," this society isn't like any republic you've probably ever read about. Plato proposes an ant-like communism where there is no private ownership of property, philosophers are kings, kings are philosophers, people cultivate physical, moral, and ethical qualities, and the idea of the good takes the place of political and social virtues.

Another odd facet is that the bravest citizens are permitted more wives than those less brave in battle. And then there is the infamous proposition that all poets and artists are to be banished since they are harmful purveyors of false illusions.

I find the Socratic method as a way of moving along the dialogue between the participants sort of interesting, and it is certainly an effective device. However, none of these people, even the Sophist Thrasymachus, are really Socrates' intellectual equal, so he really doesn't have much competition here.

If ancient Athens disproportionately had so many towering intellects, relative to its small population (about 20,000 people, most of whom were slaves anyway), you'd think they would show up in Plato's dialogues more. But all we seem to get are second-raters who are really no match for the clever Socrates.

Yet I would say this is still a great book. Classical scholars say there are more perfect, less flawed dialogues than Plato's Republic, but none that are as profound, wide-ranging, and as influential and important for later philosophy. As someone once wrote, in a sense the entire history of western philosophy consists of nothing but "footnotes to Plato." After finally reading it, I can see why there is so much truth to that statement.

Plato's The Republic, is not only a classic work of the fourth century B.C., but a masterpiece of utopian literature as a whole. Mr. Lee's translation brings into light the political and poetical wisdom of Plato into English from the original Greek. In The Republic, Plato raises questions that are still at the heart of many modern conflicts and heated debates. What is justice? What is goodness? What is the right political authority? Plato examines these questions as aspects of a single theme. He offers a portrait of an ideal state in which power is entrusted to the philosopher king(s), and other men and women accept the authority of the wise and the good. If no one has read The Republic, then he or she has not read anything!

Plato's "Republic" is probably the most important work in the history of Western Philosophy, or atleast I believe it is. The reader can literally flip from page to page counting how many subsequent philosphies arose from interpretations of the words on each page. Of all Western Philosophers, Plato was one of the greatest writers. Even though some readers may find the dialogue style exhausting, I find it enjoyable because it turns the real-life participants in the arguments into literary characters who can, at times, be quite humorous. All literary merits aside, the overabundance of profound thoughts to be found in "The Republic" make it a must-read for anyone who likes to think.

A great reference for learning how to manage the water in your pool.

Although I found the book to be somewhat outdated, it is clear and consise and easy to read. I am not a pool "expert" as some of the reviewers are, I am new to the pool business and in that regard i found it very helpful.Remember, this is a refence book published a while ago and pool "standards" continue to change.

I've been in the pool biz for twenty five years and this is the only pool related book I've read that didn't put me to sleep. It's clear,concise, and very understandable for people at ALL levels.

The pool business is a tough, comprehensive subject and Tom Griffith has done a masterful job at tackling all the issues.

i bought this book because a)i colelct quotes and b)it sounded controversial. Boy was i ever disappointed

Do you know what an anarchist is? There are punks who sing down with the government. There are workers who hate government rules and taxes. There are business men who want an end to regulations. And then there are "intellectuals" who use big words to fill hundreds of pages on steady state economies and the like. Remember Karl Marx, the long winded Marxist who droned on about the proletariat, the bourgeious (sp?) and the formation of capital? This book reads just like that

While i suppose these are, technically, quotes, most are several paragraphs long. Is it really a book of quotes when each quote is half a page long? You certainly aren't going to be memorizing any of these - they are way too long

These quotes aren't controversial, unless of course your audience loves to use the word proletariat. Most of these quotes are just plain confusing. And they're all boring. Boring, boring, boring

The book is horribly one sided. It's not biased towards liberals, it's biased towards long winded "intellectuals" who like big words and vague concepts

Bottom line, you won't be quoting these in conversation, using them in term papers or discussing them at group functions. i'm hard pressed to say when you would ever use these quotes - they're just so long and elitistly boring. i really wanted to like a book with a name like "the heretics book of quotations", but i just couldn't

I purchased Bufe's eclectic collection of banter and agitprop some three(+) years ago, and haven't tired of it one bit. Initially, I thought it might be a good resource for writing, which it is, but was surprised to find myself constantly picking it up between projects, thumbing through it while on the phone, etc.

My only misgivings, as mild as they are, concern Bufe's, at times, transparent partisanship. Favoring Anarchism, he seems to present its patron saints (Bakunin, Goldman, et al.) in a more generous light than Marxists and other Socialists--and his representative sample of Christians and Christian thought flirts (tirelessly) with the straw-person fallacy. (Don't believe the hype--Jesus was a Socialist)

All in all, 'The Handbook' is a progressive's gold mine; I highly recommend it to any thoughtful person.

I love this book. I originaly bought it just for shits and giggles- but I've ended up using it for spicing up many articles and countless e-mails. An essential piece of reference material for the anarchist, atheist, dissident and all around provocateur.

Tom Griffith's book is an indispensible guide for all would be back packers. His straight forward and friendly approach in giving hints, tips and sound advice while on long or short term travel makes the book appealing and engaging to read. Of particular interest are the chapters on health and safety, finances, male and female solo travel, making friends and dealing with unexpected problems. More informal than many other travel books and more refreshing by far.

For those readers interested in both history and geography, this book should be of interest to them. Great journeys is a BBC production and the seven writers describe their journeys, with differing opinions and viewpoints. The seven journeys are: 1) the Silk Road, 2) the Polynesian Triangle, 3) the Pan American Highway, 4) the Burma Road, 5) the Baltic to the Black Sea, 6) the Salt Road, and 7) the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Terrific writing by all the writers, although I can't say I agree with all their viewpoints. This is especially the case with Philip Jones Griffiths who wrote about the Ho Chi Minh trail. I found him too guilible to the Communist cause.

The book is not meant to be like Plato's major philosophical works. It is about the nature of love, discussed with a frankness about homosexuality not seen until thousands of years later. For anyone interested in what the Greeks thought of love, it's all there. I found them interesting, also revealing the nature of Plato's writing that is more artistic than technical. Socrate's talk of love being a divine madness or the myth of man and woman once being one are beautiful. The Greeks had a tendency to discuss everything in rational terms or in relation to their mythology, so that some of their ideas seem nonsensical or naive, but that is just from the perspective of someone living centuries later.

The Symposium was a great book but it was a little hard to understand. I like the way opinions were expressed of the topic of "love!" It makes a person think about "love" in general. What it really is and what it really means. There are many opinions of "love" and not one person has the same idea of love in the book. There are creative ideas expressed in the book about what a person thinks "love" is. It is hard to agree with just one person in the book because all their ideas are great and they all make sense in one way or another. A person may agree or disagree with a speaker in the book because they may not agree with the speaker or they may like the idea of a speaker and agree with him. A person may also agree or disagree with some parts of the idea from a speaker because they may think that the idea starts off great but does not end. A reader may compare and contrast ideas of all the speakers and they may come up with another idea of what "love" is or how it is felt. The Symposium was great to read and it makes you think about what everyone else in the world thinks about "love!"

Symposium, Plato's most dramatic dialogue, skilfully interweaves six voices together in a discussion of love. More than any other dialogue, this work creates effective characters and provides insight into the Athenian culture's view of love while blending humor into the text. Phaedrus, a later dialogue, is less dramatic in nature but continues the inquiry into the nature of love. Juxtaposing the two in the same text gives the reader a sense of how Plato's style evolved over time

The title implies that there are sections that show HOW to build and Landscpe a pool..There are not. There a ton of beautiful pictures of other people's pools. The book tells you what to tell the person that is building your pool. It is the only book I have ever returned to Amazon.

This book does not contain the information necessary for building your own pool as it implies. This book contains only general inforomation on building and designing a pool. If you want someone else to design and build your pool and would like to have an understanding of what professionals are talking about, this book is good. This is by no means a "how to" book.

this book is the least technical,yet, most informative book I have read concerning swimming pools. The quality of pictures and settings is second to none. As a matter of fact I used the idea of a post and beam cabana with a built in bar to incorporate into my own pool area. Pick up this book and enjoy.

I first saw this book about a year ago and bought imediatly because of this beeing rumored to be one of the better books out there on the subject but to my surprise I found that this book is filled with ALOT of mistakes, Figures are listed under the wrong names and some of them didn't come with the accessories that the author claims that they did - If you are thinking of buying this book then don't - amazon has ALOT of books that are much better at describing the this toyline!