This book is famous for the favorable treatments given to pimps, drug addicts, litterers, counterfeiters, and the like.

Those chapters are certainly worthwhile, but for me the best parts were the clear, concise explanations of why people like the often-vilified "slumlord" and "ghetto merchant" -- who charge high prices for low quality in the inner city -- are actually worthy of praise. The simple economic ideas so clearly explained here are essential for anyone who believes in free markets to understand.

This is hands down the best economics book you will ever find. It is halarious but still teaches you why our current economic (semi-Socialist) system is a failure!

I was expecting a standard Rothbardian treatment of vices and I was shocked at this short, easily read book. I bought it in San Francisco, CA, and was finished with it by the time I stepped onto Illinoisian soil. The arguments are straight Mises - amazingly simple, yet profound. It's hard to explain how such simplicity can be found in each chapter. If you are unconvinced, just read any chapter (many are only two pages long) - concerning the miser, the corrupt cop, the pimp, and the advertiser. This isn't Rothbardian in that Murray Rothbard will argue down to the very philosophic principles to prove his point. As an analogy, you don't need to know the quantum mechanics [Rothbard] of the transistors (semiconductors) to know the functions [Block] of your computer. Sorta.

I Really liked the Escape to Murray River book. I liked it because I love to read.It was fun to read because it is mysterious.

I recommend the book Escape to Murray River to any one wholikes adventure.The book Escape to Murray River is foll ofsurprise.The only character I did not like was mr.Burke.I did not like mr. Burke because he framed Patricks father and said that he would help him in court.

We think Escape to Murray River is a great book for almost all kids. It makes you want to read more and more,you never want to stop reading once you start. It really makes you think that this is really happening to you. We think you will really like this/these books.

This is one of the most powerful, compelling, stunning, and significant books written in the past decade. In these pages, Murray chronicles the fall of evangelicalism in the late 20th Century.

Murray begins by telling his reader of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) and his brand of theology. In an effort to defend Christianity from the higher criticism of his contemporaries, Schleiermacher made a great distinction between the mind and the heart, the objective thought and the subjective passions. He rejected the objective and taught that true Christianity was solely subjective, thus unassailable by higher criticism.

After his description of Schleiermacher, Murray shifts gears to the earlier half of the 20th Century and describes the events that transpired from that time to the present day. While careful not to slander anyone, he names names and gives example after example of a shift in attitude and approach from standing upon truth to compromise in the name of proclaiming the gospel.

As one reads through this book, at some point or another Murray's connection will strike him: modern evangelicalism has fallen into Scheiermacher-like beliefs, and most of its leaders don't even realize it. It's shocking and its implications hit very close to home, but Murray's conclusions are true.

After reading this book, I was grieved by some of the compromises I had made in the past. It permanently altered my perspective, and I am thankful I read it. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to any Christian who is interested in learning from the past, and I implore pastors and church leaders everywhere to read it so that the listing evangelical church might be righted again.

This is in my current list of Top 10 Christian books. Will it stay there? Fairly good chance. I first heard of it on a tape-of-the-month from RC Sproul, who highly praised the book several times. I ordered it and read it. I agree with him. It outlines how we have gotten away from being Godly and have become focused on growth and other worldly ideals. There is much to cover and, yes, some of it is hard to digest. But, there is no ignoring that the author is hitting the nail on the head. Sometimes we all need a wake-up call.

The only words that Mr. Murray could have added would be
"manipulation" and "brain washing". Jesus says in the Bible that
He never fails to save His sheep. Why is anyone proud of 25% results that only go-to-church.

IT VERY SCHOLARLY WRITTEN AT THE SAME TIME IT VERY EASILY UNDERSTOOD BY ANY LAYITY.IT IS A CLASSIC OF ANDREW MURRAY

Pastor Murray's work "Holiest of All" could serve as either a devotional, or a commentary on the book of Hebrews.

Central to the apostle Paul's opus magnum is the Deity of Jesus Christ, and the victorious life that is available to the believer who enters into the Holy of Holies.

Andrew Murray does an excellent job of rightly dividing the Word to bring out scriputural interpretations that are applicable to the daily life of the saints.

Besides the Bible this is the best book I have ever read. Very helpful for a new christian.

This work is perhaps the most thorough and consistent exposition of capitalist economics in existence. Murray Rothbard built his work upon the epochal contributions of the Austrian school of economics, primarily the ideas of the great Ludwig von Mises. However, Rothbard did not merely rehash what they had taught him, he also ironed out their ambiguities and shortcomings in order to construct a mighty, rock solid edifice. Despite the size of this work, it is as well suited to the needs of nascent libertarians, as it is to those of more advanced students. Rothbard begins with the very foundations of human action, and builds upon them logically in order to explain in depth the complexities of the market economy. At the same time, he provides a powerful assault upon socialism and other forms of anti-market ideology by contrasting these systems to capitalism and refuting widely held anti-market myths. The only significant shortcoming that I can think of is the truncated form of Rothbard's brilliant critique of all government action. Apparently, the original publishers of this work were taken aback by his anarchistic conclusions, so, in order to comprehend the full weight of his analysis, it will be necessary to seek out his path-breaking work, "Power and Market." Together, these works represent one of the greatest defenses of individual liberty and civilization ever to be produced.

Man, Economy and State is more than a refined rehashing of Mises' Human Action. It includes thorough analyses of many topics Mises did not tackle, or did not tackle so well. Most notably, Rothbard exposes the logical absurdities embedded in Keynesian and monetarist theories.

I found the work both more satisfying and more intellectually invigorating than I expected. Rothbard's clear, deductive prose, aided with just a touch of humor and sarcasm, makes for some wonderful reading. I know I will read this one many, many times before I feel I have really absorbed everything this book has to offer.

I especially urge educated laymen and students of economics to give this book a good reading before mindlessly accepting the trendy mathematical scribbling that has become the code language of ivy-league economists. Purposive, motivated individual ACTION is the ultimate cause of all economic phenomena. Therefore, economics must be described in terms of cause and effect relationships originating in the attempts of individuals to employ scarce means to satisfy unlimited wants.

Economics, when described through functional equations, can never contain any meaningful insights that could not be expressed more precisely through verbal logic, as functional relationships lack information on causality. In the social sciences they are likely to be the source of false deduction and inference. The result is a hopelessly confused pseudo-science that ignores most of what makes economics useful.

Because Rothbard understands this from the get-go, he is able to give us 900 pages of meaningful logic.

Thank you, Murray Rothbard!

Why not try this book? You may never finish it, but even a cursory glance through it reveals a beautifully elaborated economic system, built on von Mises's utilitarian base. An in-depth read will offer everything one needs to know about the modern Austrian School of economics and the system it promotes. Rothbard not only informs the reader of the system he believes in; he makes you become stimulated by every last word. As usual, his writing is clear and enlivened, making 900 pages go fast.

If you have ever read Marcenkos high on myself, I'm just marvelous stories, this series is a breath of fresh air. With a genuine talent for writting dialog, Murray tells a great story where we actually like the characters with the flow not slowing as gun barrels cool. Action sequences add to the readers enjoyment, but the story is what keeps the book in your hands.

I am not really into "military" books, but this one was fantastic. I loved the development of each of the characters and the situations they came across. I have now since read the entire series and I am hooked. I am waiting for a new one and I hope this time there is a female hero!!

I'm impressed w/ the author's use of description. I've never been in the military and am not familiar with the weapons, training and slang used in most action books. I appreciate Mr. Murray's ability to explain what is going on and who is doing what for a reader, like me, with limited knowledge.

Good book, good use of women on the team and was glad to see Getts and Peach back in action.

The villian was so thoroughly evil that I was surprised when the team did not make sure he was dead prior to exiting the castle.

Perhaps in another book, we'll see Getts learn the true identity of the Rabbi.

A better book could not have fallen into my hands! An American professor in Venice recommended it, and after I read it I was only sorry I had not read it before going to Italy. The mystery of its medieval, rather Renaissance cities (Florence, Venice, among others) would have been clearer; even today's Italians' ways and personality. So much a product of Renaissance Italy...and its wonderful heritage from Ancient Rome. I truly recommend this book for Italy lovers, anyone going there soon, or for the sheer joy of reading a good history book. Jacob Burckkhardt is one of the most intelligent, enlightened historians I know.

I was around twelve when my grandmother mentioned having heard a speech delivered by Woodrow Wilson.

For me, until that moment, Woodrow Wilson had been in the same category with Julius Caesar: people who lived a long time ago. But for my grandmother, only Caesar could be in that category: Wilson was an early contemporary of her own. I began to realize that the citizens of the past were real people, that the lives of the past were lives as large and rich and strange as our own.

Everybody who survives high school can remember at least one teacher who made the study of history look like a matter of memorizing names and dates. Such teachers often manage to create in their students a permanent allergy to the study of history. But it has been two hundred years since they could do so with a good conscience.

Voltaire was the first modern writer of history--we might say, the first historian of culture. Chiefly through his masterpiece The Age of Louis XIV, he established the principle that history is not just about who ruled when and who killed whom--that it is about all the aspects of human culture, all the means--arts and entertainment, philosophy and religion and science, as well as economics, politics, and war--by which we seek to create permanent triumphs of mind over the natural forces of chaos and entropy.

We need not fool ourselves: those forces will finally destroy us and all our works. But while we live, we can make life richer for ourselves and for those who will follow us. The writer from whom I first learned that historical writing could be such an enriching force was Burckhardt.

The Renaissance was indeed the modern rebirth of ancient culture, but what makes it important is that through that rebirth people rediscovered a truth that the ancient Ionians had known and that had been lost sight of for more than a thousand years: that the natural world, and people as part of it, were worthy objects of study and understanding--not just creatures and tools of God. With this discovery, made permanent because it could now be broadcast by the new technology of printing, begins the process of modernity--the process that still continues to increase our world's psychological distance from the ancient and the medieval world.

Jacob Burckhardt had one of those rare minds who could construct a new synthesis out of thought, government, art, and culture -- and who, for the first time, made it possible to talk about the Renaissance as a moment in the history of Western man.

This is a very dense work with flashes of genius as well as long scholarly footnotes with extensively quoted Italian and Latin. In a book by a dullard, this would be excruciating. But Burckhardt is anything but as he manages his material like a Moscow taxi driver: by accelerating and then coasting. When you least expect it, another epiphany draws you in.

Burckhardt's Renaissance was an incredible high in the history of mankind. The Medicis, Sforzas, and Malatestas strut their way through the history of the period; Dante, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bramante create works of the imagination that still overpower us; popes like Julius II, Alexander VI, and Leo X combine worldliness with spirituality (sometimes); and even the average man has a face and a voice for the first time.

This book will make your blood race.

I got this book in the 8th grade because my teacher required it. I was not exactly extactic about learning 350 SAT words. Infact I did not even remember probably more than 50 of them. (that's a fact) But I actually do hear them used a lot and they are not incredibly tough but they are not easy words. In fact I never even did any of the excersises yet it is a great reference book and study utility. This is a must for any middle-schooler/high-schooler. I still have it and after a year of being in my backpack it is quite tattered. (still useful though) A teacher will inevitably make you get it for a class though. Probably a good chunk of high school students own a copy or have it in their household. It is also great for studying grammar. You have to learn the words so you need to figure out how it goes incontext. Very Useful and high recommended!

This is a must have for anybody taking the SAT I (this or the Barron's comphrensive prep book). This helped my verbal score go up 40 points, and on the test, I was able to get all of the sentence completions, and missed only one analogy. If you want a great score, this is the your book!

Quite simply, this is an invaluable book for the person who desires to improve their SAT scores. My personal experience saw my scores rise from a 1220+ to a 1340+, and the only subject that I really worked on was vocabulary. Obviously, the vocab helped with vocab sections, but it also worked for reading sections.

I attribute my rise in scores to this book. I did spend hours with it, but that is part of the studying process.

This is an excellent study of the highest levels of the German Army during WWII. But I think the main lesson is that there was no high command, at least in the sense the British and the Americans had one. Hitler and the generals around him spent their time micromanaging the Eastern Front with occasional interference in African and European battles. Hitler acted as if he were the counterpart of Eisenhower, not Marshall or Brooke. It is as if Rosevelt were to have sent Eisenhower daily detailed instructions on where to attack and what to defend.

The problem was only partially Hitler's. The Germans never really created a staff to manage a global conflict. Hadler resented Hitler's inferference, but because it was usually stupid, not because Hitler should have been managing the war, not the battles. The Germans were superb at what they considered the "operational" level of command--the control of armies on a single battlefield. But they never looked at the "big picture."

The book also proves that the German army high command, such as it was, had serious failings. They simply did not understand the logistics of a campaign as vast as the Eastern Front. Nor did they have the intelligence gathering capacity to estimate what they were getting into when they attacked the Soviet Union. Worse, they did not even realize their problems.

This book can teach a lot about why people frequently fail to understand and act upon hard facts. Learning this can help avoid future disasters of any sort.

This book is an attempt to re-write what has been the conventional view of the relation between Adolph Hilter and the German General Staff. After the war, Hitler was conveniently dead and that allowed the German Generals to put out a version of history that was accepted for some years but was at odds with the truth. The German Generals had towed the line that they were politically neutral prior to the 1930?s and that they had not been supporters of Nazi aims. Further that they opposed some aspects of Nazi war aims and acted in a professional way. Lastly they were highly competent and might have won the war if it had not had been for Hitler continually interfering with their operational plans.

Megargee argues convincingly that the German Generals had a political agenda similar to the Nazis. That is they supported the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles, they wanted an end to democracy and they wanted Germany to rearm and to become a great power again. A large number of Generals such as Rommel, Guderian, Zeitzler and Reichenau were if not committed Nazis, enthusiastic barrackers yelling support from the sidelines.

One interesting point is Megaree?s estimation of the ability of the German Generals. After the war a large number wrote memoirs in which they modestly estimated themselves as pretty good. Megaree concedes that from an operational point of view the German army did well. However it was vulnerable in a number of respects. The key mistake made by Germany in the war was the attack on the Soviet Union. It would seem clear that the planning for operation Barbarossa was deeply flawed. For instance the Germans knew nothing of the actual strength of the forces against them. (The Soviets had 5 million men, 20,000 tanks and 20,000 aircraft to the German?s 3million 3,200 and 3000 respectively) In addition the Germans had no clear plan of defeating the Soviets. Barbarossa was based on the hope that the bulk of Soviet forces could be destroyed near the Polish border. It was then hoped that the Soviets might give in or the government would collapse. However if this did not eventuate the Germans had massive supply problems. They had limited fuel, and they could not use the Soviet railway system until they changed the gauge. In fact when the Soviets failed to collapse the Germans suffered massive supply problems, not being able to supply their troops with winter clothing and struggling to maintain ammunition levels and fuel and spares for their vehicles and planes.

Thus throughout the war the German Army acted as if intelligence was not really worth worrying about and that supply was a problem which could be overcome by an act of will. This deficiency was not a problem in initial war in the west, as the distances were so small and the French and British acted incompetently when faced by the German advance. However against the Soviets it was fatal.

Megargee summarises the weakness of the German generals as one of a strategic weakness. It was one that they shared with Hitler and in fact it is clear that they had little insight into the reason for their defeat even after the finish of the war.

Another issue dealt with by the book is the question of the role of Hitler?s leadership in bringing about the loss of the war for Germany. Megargee clearly shows that it was only in the later part of the war (1944) that tensions arose between Hitler and the Generals. By this time the war was lost. Over the big decisions there was not a lot of disagreement.

This book although expensive is short and easy to read. It is interesting not just for those interested in the war, but it illustrates how history can be distorted by over reliance on self serving material.

Conventional wisdom regarding the fate of the Wehrmacht in World War Two has always been that it was Adolph Hitler's maniacal meddling in the day to day affairs of the armed forces that created the catastrophic defeats along the eastern front that lost the war. Indeed, many of the first hand post-war memoirs of those German generals and other staff officials supported this point of view, giving one the idea that if only the generals had had their way, Germany would have been victorious. There is much to commend such a view; certainly Hitler's decisions were often counter-intuitive and counter-productive, and he often seemed to change his mind and the tactics associated with a campaign in mid-stream. The results of these actions were indeed often disastrous. Yet, as the author of this scholarly investigation into the machinations of the General Staff and its decision making process brilliantly argues in this fascinating and informative book, the evidence supporting such a theory that Hitler single-handedly lost the war through his incompetence simply does not exist.

In fact, this book is quite well written; it is authoritative, informative, and extremely well documented. The author has managed to turn what could have been a historical curiosity for the amusement of other academic historians into a terrific reading experience for a more general audience. He approaches the subject with verve and a plethora of telling examples of how the general staff were involved and complicit in the day to day decisions that were so disastrous for the Wehrmacht; far from being helpless factotums who merely carried out Hitler's demands, they initiated debates and discussions in which Hitler often played the provocateur, attempting to gain a better idea of what each of the participants in the discussions really thought regarding a particular course of action. Also, in employing the kinds of primary evidence used here, he illustrates how involved and enthusiastic many of the generals were in making fateful decisions. As the author maintains, there is no credible evidence that they did in fact take any serious issue with Operation Barbarossa or with its conduct until things began to go awry.

The simple truth of the matter seems to be that they shared Hitler's myopic faith in the invincibility of the Wehrmacht, and seriously underestimated the capabilities, endurance, and determination of the Soviet forces. The fateful decision was the first one, the effort to invade the Soviet Union without recognizing the serious logistical and tactical problems that were ensue when prosecuting a fight over such a vast distance and with a front that was thousands of miles long. Likewise, the decision by Hitler and General Staff to declare war against the Americans seemed more the result of an arrogant disregard for facts in favor of self-serving ideology. Of course, to argue that the general staff itself was complicit is not to deny the degree of sloth and banality associated with Hitler's command and control of the armed forces. He brashly demoted men who had failed him and his wildly unrealistic expectations while promoting incompetent sycophants based solely on their loyalty. Such policies compounded the difficulties associated with attempting to execute a war that had turned into a much wider and more complex effort than Hitler or the General Staff had ever envisioned.

This is a wonderful book, one that gives fresh evidence of the dangers inherent in consensus management. Hitler's fateful problem was that by demanding the outrageous and the unrealistic, he increasingly gathered around him the worst liars, game-players, and toadies in the history of modern warfare. He consistently winnowed out anyone who told him the unvarnished truth, especially if it was negative. By doing so he guaranteed the desperate failure of his most audacious and precarious adventures into the realm of war, and brought the heavy weight of ruin and destruction upon himself, the General Staff, the Wehrmacht, and the German people. Of course, along the way, he managed to ruin most of Europe and kill tens of millions of people, as well. This is an excellent book, and is one I heartily recommend. Enjoy!

This is a wonderful, heart-wrenching short book, a fictionalization of the migration of a lone Eskimo Curlew from the arctic to South America and back.

The Eskimo Curlew was once a plentiful shorebird that was highly sought after by hunters because of the succulence of its flesh and the ease with which it could be taken. Usually flying in dense swarms, a score or more birds could be brought down by a single shotgun blast. In some cases so many were killed, that the hunters left those that could not be transported to market in massive piles. And so it came to pass that by the late 19th-century, the Eskimo Curlew population declined rapidly, to the point where it was virtually extinct at the time Bodsworth wrote the book.

Although a work of fiction, this is a book that should be read by everyone who has an interest in Nature and the environment.

Bodsworth is brilliant in his capacity to provide the reader with an emotionally arrousing text, supported by fascinating technical details of bird migration. I cannot imagine that anyone having even a remote interest in birds, nature or life, would not be moved by this great piece.

I doubt anyone will ever see this review, but I thought I'd submit one anyway. Never have I experienced a book that so forced me to put it down every few pages, from its overwhelming sadness and beauty. Merwin, who championed this rare gem, once wrote: "If I were not human, I would have nothing to be ashamed of." Truly, this is the kind of reading experience that cuts to the core of our species' tragic history.