Overall a good book, because it covers most topics related to planning and budgeting.

Some chapters need serious updating. For instance Chapter 32: "Computer applications in Budgeting, 'Microcomputer' Overview and needs assessment.." is totally out of date with respect to software applications in budgeting (Who still uses the term "Microcomputer" ?.
I have found this to be unnacceptable for a book with this price tag.

As a new financial manager I was searching for a book which will show me to prepare a budget and understand a budget process. No doubt understanding budget is the most immportant role in this field and this book I found was most helpful. I strongly recommend this to all finaltial professionals.

This classic is the best single volume reference for the identification of fossil invertebrates. It was a staple for working field geologists for decades. This is because the identification of "index fossils" was, and is, the handiest way to date strata in the field.

The book is organised by phylla: Protozoa, Porifera, Coelenterata, Echinoderma, Annelida, Conodonts, Bryozoa, Brachiopoda, Mollusca, and Arthropoda. There are also sections on fossil plants and miscellaneous objects of probable organic origin. Everything is illustrated by crisp, sharp, photographic plates, clearly indexed to the corresponding text.

By today's micropaleontological standards, the Protozoa section is pretty thin, but otherwise this is still a very useful volume.

When I first set out to read this book, I was dubious. I barely remembered having heard of his most famous strips, Terry and the Pirates & Steve Canyon. However, once I picked up this book, I found it hard to put down! It kept me interested with highly informative interviews, select comic strip excerpts and more. I was intrigued by Milton Caniff's innovative style in cartooning, from his insistence on authenticity to his cinematic scene style. The man was an incredible cartoonist and a born patriot, incorporating both in his strips. Some interview compilations tend to be repetative, but the editor's choices of interviews are different in style and information, making the reader anxious to read the next one. If there are some points repeated, the reader hardly notices! Definitely a book to read whether you are an avid comic strip fan or an aspiring cartoonist! I find myself wanting to read reprints of his strips and feel like I missed out by being born in the wrong era and not witnessing them first hand.

Mr. Karolevi traces the life of an amazing American Illustrator and Artist. From his humble beginnings as a sod buster, on the Dakota prairie, to his rise and stardom as an American celebrity. Karolevi's book enthralled me, I felt as though I knew Mr. Dunn, and had the chance to study his philosophies and work ethics. This book will continue to inspire and produce many great artists, and continue the legacy of Harvey Dunn.

And in the center ring, standing somewhere between 5'8" and 5'11", Lee "The Assassin" Oswald!! And right there beside him, the man who has solved the Kennedy assassination more times than swiss cheese has holes, Robert "The Brain" Groden!! Now after a certain point, everyone feels that way. Bob Groden must be given his due: He has managed to squirrel away quite a collection of JFK visual materials, and the results are pretty stimulating. But the biggest problem comes in the text. Some of the sources and conclusions in this "definitive" text are open to quite a bit of speculation. Interpretation (this picture shows this, here we see Clay Shaw, and OHMYGoodness a Grassy Knoll shooter) could be easily contested.

This book is great for the coffee table as people WILL pick it up and WILL have great fun discussing it. Just be careful what kinds of words a picture can put into your mouth. Bob, I'd love to hear from you.

There's a lot in this book which the reader will see repeated in other books on prosody -- an introductory chapter dealing with the relations between form and rhythm on one hand and content and meaning on the other; an analysis of the changes between Romantic versification and the modern period, beginning with the work of Dickinson, Hopkins, Hardy, and Whitman; the importance of the Imagists; the opening shots by Pound and Eliot in the Modernist revolution; and a few other topics.

Most of the book is handled very well. It's refreshing to see an analysis of Browning's pentameter style which emphasizes not his "colloquial" approach, as so many others do, but instead lauds the extent to which he moves AWAY from the colloquial style and more toward roughness and jaggedness. The Modern period is handled with finesse as well. The drawbacks to the book, in my opinion, begin with the period closer to the present. Some of the analyses on free verse do not make as much sense as similar analyses in Paul Fussell's "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form," despite the more recent volume's indebtedness to the former. As D. H. Lawrence said, it is no use manufacturing fancy laws for the governing of free verse. Too much weight is given to some poets who are clearly minor, such as Maxine Kumin, and too little to poets whose craftsmanship is unquestioned, such as Robert Lowell. Most oddly, there is no attention given to two of the finer formal craftsmen of recent history, James Merrill and Derek Walcott; these two use free verse but also expand the boundaries of traditional metrical approaches, and their efforts here should not go unnoticed. And I might take issue with the expanded coverage given to the most recent trend in prosody, the New Formalists, simply because, as I noted in my review of "Rebel Angels" for Amazon, they aren't that good and they haven't ADVANCED metrical techniques that much.

Aside from these qualms, "Sound and Form" is a good survey of prosody of the ! last century.

When I read about the publication of Mel Robert's photos in the Advocate, I was anxious to get a copy for I fondly remembered his photos of All-American young men from The Young Physique and other publications of the 60's. California Boys, unfortunately, doesn't represent the Roberts' style or subjects that I was hoping to see again. Within the pages of this--admittedly--well presented book is a collection of teeny-boppers and twinks that might represent the period, but not the style that I so fondly remembered. Only a four-page spread of model Gary Seegar represented the Roberts that I had longed to see again. If I had been able to preview this work, I would never have wasted the money.

My first quick perusal of this book lead to a mild sense of disappointment, but the more I studied the pictures, the more I came to appreciate their artistry. And while the pictures may be from the '60s and '70s, some poses seem very 1950's style. I would also prefer one picture of each model--and therefore more models. But the pictures are of high quality. All in all, a real Mel Roberts fan-either for eroticism or nostalgia-might easily enjoy his videos much more

You will have the most fun with this volume of Mel Roberts' work, if you pick it up without any expectations. It's been over 20 years since Roberts' work has been available to the public, and the collection here is different than any other collection of his work in the past, which mind you, were put out by the author with whatever funds he had available. This time, the guy's got a small-press publisher behind him footing the bill, so there's a sleekness to the presentation that never existed before.

What I loved the most about this book was not the models, or the settings, though both are beautiful and interesting, but the most intriguing element for me was that Roberts' work seems to have captured an innocence of a "time," a time which will never be again. So many photographers today are trying to photograph that "retro" look, and failing miserably at it. Mel Roberts has done it because he was there doing it, capturing the essence of the 1960s, in the 1960s. Besides, the whole thing is very erotic, a must have for serious collectors. I've already bought 3 prints from the book and plan to buy more! Bravo! to Mel Roberts and whomever (FotoFactory Press) had the inspiration and intelligence to bring this man's work out of the woodwork!

The cover says it's the Creme de la Crumb.
I disagree.

When Crumb is at his best, as in Fritz the Cat,
the Mr. Natural/Flakey Foont tales, or in
_Plunge_Into_The_Depths_Of_Despair_, he's alternately
angry, funny, thought-provoking, and Zen.
If I were emperor of the universe,
his "A Short History of America"
would be given to every kid in school.

This collection misses most of what made Crumb
a sometimes delight, and includes much mediocre
material (pages of tiny panels that don't tell
a story -- of interest to amhphetamine freaks,
I guess).

this is a great collection of crumb work from his best art period. classics such as 'my first LSD trip','R.Crumb vs the sisterhood','honeybunch kominsky','dale steinberger the jewish cowgirl' and much more are in this book. it contains 4 mr. natural stories including the 'on the bum again' adventure (adults only) and some of his most disgusting and contreversial comics. if you like R. crumb's early work i suggest this is the book for you.

reading this book you're gonna be dipping into some heavy nostalgia. get into the twisted mind and world of robert crumb and you'll probably never forget the disturbing impression it left on you. this is weirdness at it's peak.

This book is readable and gives a good narrative history of the career of Robert Clive. It is however disappointing. The reason for the disappointment relates to the scope of the book and perhaps it is unreasonable to expect a book of its length (the text is about 380 pages) to cover a subject of such complexity in any depth.

Clive was given a number of military commands when England had a number of small outposts on the Indian Coast. The armies were for protection mainly against the French who were also competing in the area. India at that time was broken into a number of independent states which each had vast armies far outnumbering the English.

The men commanded by Clive were armed with smooth bore muskets and some cannon. The muskets had a slow firing rate and had a very short range. The armies he fought had some artillery. In each battle Clive was outnumbered by huge amounts. It was common for him to face odds of over ten to one in each battle. Despite the fact that he had no marked technological superiority over his opponents as later imperialists did Clive won each battle and conquered a country that was bigger than France. This book does not really explain how except to suggest that the armies he faced were not efficient combat units. Something which would in the face of what happened seem obvious.

Despite the continual mystery of why Clive kept winning the book follows his campaigns and his problems with the English government. The reality is that Clive allowed the English to recover from the loss of the American Colonies and to recover as an Imperial Power. His victories unlike that of Napoleon did not fade away after a short time but allowed England to dominate India for two hundred years. He clearly was one of the most important figures of his age. Whilst readable the biography tends not to scratch the surface and give us the nuts and bolts of the process.

Whatever one thinks of the subsequent history of the British Raj, there's no denying that the life of Robert Clive is a remarkable and exciting story. As Robert Harvey states in this short biography, "few authors of fiction would have the imagination to encompass such an adventure." From Clive's unruly early days to his mysterious death, the story is astounding.

This book is a good introduction to the life of Clive and the beginnings of the British Raj, but I was left with several important questions unanswered. Clive's lfe was so action-packed that condensing it into under 400 pages means that inevitably rounded analysis has to give way to mere descriptions of events. For example, why did Governor Saunders of Fort St David agree to Clive's request to strip the garrison of all but 100 men to give Clive men to attack Arcot when the plan was "irresponsible in the extreme"? And what evidence had the author for stating that Warren Hastings "was, like Clive, incredibly popular among the Indian population in his lifetime"?

This exposes another weakness of this account - the Indian viewpoint is never really examined (apart from the Bengal famine, the effect of British policies on ordinary Indians is never alluded to, and the Indian Nawabs are portrayed either as unbalanced despotic bogeymen or pawns on the Europeans' chess table). What was interesting was the ambiguity of the British political establishment to Clive, although one got the feeling that they were more disturbed about the methods than the results.

I short, this book is a good introduction to Clive's life, but I felt the need to read more widely on the British Raj to get a more balanced view.

It was the best material I have read on Clive, and it was a noble effort at parting the clouds of mystery that surround his life.

History is written by the winners, and this is British journalist Robert Harvey's attempt to rewrite it from the losers' perspective. Highly readable (often compellingly so), Harvey's account of the American Revolution has much to recommend it, and his narrative offers a nice refresher course in military history. The volume also includes extensive excerpts (with modernized spelling) from contemporary chronicles, lending the book a "you are there" touch.

Throughout, Harvey inveighs against Americans' "heroic view of the Revolution" and "the remarkably enduring nature of the myths." But many of his versions of episodes in American history seem to have been culled from textbooks written fifty years ago. (Of the more than 160 works listed in the bibliography, only 14 were written after 1980.) Not once does Harvey identify the writers with whom he is arguing: his summary of the "prevailing myths" are always prefaced by "It is asserted," "It is claimed," "It is widely believed." For example, he claims that "one of the darkest and least researched corners of the American Revolution was the treatment of the loyalists," but he seems entirely oblivious of the scholarly studies by Christopher New or William Nelson or even of the standard popular account by Christopher Moore. Although Harvey seems to regard his revisionism as startlingly original, there is little that is new here. Instead, he seems to be debating the ghosts of such long-dead historians as Carl Becker and George Trevelyan.

At times, too, he is so intent on offering a contrary view that he traps himself in a corner. For example, he argues that historians "have traditionally ascribed" Burgoynes's disastrous expedition to Albany and surrender at Saratoga "to massive incompetence on the part of the British." Instead, Harvey contends, the British loss "can be more readily explained by the professional jealousy of two rival commanders." Let's set aside the hair-splitting question of whether military leaders who favor spite over victory can still be considered "competent." I defy anyone to read the subsequent fifty pages and still conclude that Burgoyne, Clinton, and Howe were anything other than stupendously inept. Even Harvey seems to abandon his initial claim, finally admitting that defeat was "due to Burgoyne's suicidal impulse to advance and attack."

The bulk of Harvey's book focuses on military strategy and the specifics of various battles. He gives relatively short shrift to the ideological, social, economic, or political underpinnings of the conflict. When he does offer such analysis, though, his reliance on work published in the United States undercuts his thesis that Americans have an uncritical view of their own origins. His section on the frontier war is little more than an abstract of Colin Calloway's "The American Revolution in Indian Country," and the chapter on the hypocrisy of slave-owners fighting for liberty summarizes Benjamin Quarles's 1961 study, "The Negro in the American Revolution." (The author seems unaware of the dozens of studies published since Quayle's that recount in far more critical terms the treatment of blacks by American rebels.)

Harvey characterizes American complaints against British rule as whining hypocrisy, and he (correctly) points out that British colonial rule was so minimal as to be hardly "oppressive"--in large part because London was unable to rule the colonies effectively from across the Atlantic Ocean. He also claims that the rebels barely won the war and, if it weren't for the French, probably would have lost it. Yet, even if the British had prevailed in the 1780s, it is certain America would have won independence in some future decade--as did Canada, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, India, Iraq, and every major colonial possession ever governed by the United Kingdom. Harvey never pauses to step back and look at the bigger picture: that while British rule may not have been so bad, it was untenable, unwanted, unnecessary, and ultimately doomed to failure.

Overall, then, Harvey's stirring prose and strident arguments can't overcome the fact that his book is both fifty years behind the time and ill-considered in its implicit defense of colonialism.

The American Revolution and the constitutional settlement that followed it have come to serve as a sort of Rohrschach Test in which anyone can see whatever vision he or she is disposed to see by way of ideological inclination. American political movements from the very time of these events have often evoked the revolution and Constitution as a rhetorical shorthand for whatever public virtues they happen to be hawking at the moment. But then comes the rare bird who seeks not to misappropriate the revolution and Constitution for his own political aims as much as to discredit it in toto. Until now, that role had been reserved for National Socialists, Communists and Islamist absolutists, who believed their own political legitimacy rose in proportion to "debunking" the story of the founding of the United States.

It might never have occurred to any average American that the outcome of the American Revolution could sting so deeply in the British psyche that it could spur an English heart to spend a considerable amount of time and effort trying to settle out scores nearly two and a half centuries after the fact. Thank goodness we have Robert Harvey to plead the British version of what happened prior to, during and after the American Revolution.

Contrary to what the professional reviews say, this is not an even-handed, balanced account of the American Revolution. No, what we have here is nothing less than an Oxbridge version of a drive-by shooting. The merit of this book, however, is two-fold. First, Mr. Harvey has a deft hand when it comes to narrative and that alone would lead me to recommend the book. Second, Mr. Harvey provides us with plenty of first-hand documentary evidence from the actual participants themselves. Those strengths, however, must be balanced against Mr. Harvey's incessant attempts to discredit every aspect of the American side of the revolution. This leads to some fairly strange -- and strained -- conclusions. Mr. Harvey will no doubt be shocked to find out that the Eastern Band of the Cherokee nation prospers in its original homeland in the North Carolina mountains. He may also be surprised to find out that Scots soldiers were not seen as menacing brutes by the colonials since, well, you see, thousands of Scots -- highland, Gaelic-speaking, Jacobite Scots -- had settled in the colonies in the decades before the revolution erupted.

This book is a delight to read and Mr. Harvey's contorted efforts to put paid to the colonial record make for some laughs. I eagerly await his book on the Irish potato famine, which will no doubt go to equal lengths to show how enlightened British public policy was toward its Irish Catholic minority and how the bastards threw it back in London's face by dying of starvation in their millions or emigrating to foreign shores in search of enough to eat.

A very enjoyable and thought provoking book. This is definitely not how we teach the origins or the progress of that lengthy struggle here in the US. Our dearly held romanticized view of the founding fathers motivations and methods takes a bit of a beating, as does the early generalship of Washington. King George III and the other Parliamentary leadership are portrayed not as bumbling oppressors but as overindulgent uncles really unwilling to harshly punish the transgressions of a wayward nephew.

While I don't buy it all its certainly another viewpoint that is quite valid and the book is well worth reading.