I read this tome when it first appeared and have re-read it twice. Timothy Phelps is the reporter who broke the news story about Anita Hill charging Clarence Thomas with sexual harassment. Phelps' own liberal bias comes out in the process. But there are a few areas of praiseworthiness in the book.

Phelps tells the truth in that this entire fiasco was NOT about sexual harassment, it was NEVER about sexual harassment, but it was all about the abortion issue and the possibility that Thomas was pro-life and might overturn Roe v. Wade. Phelps does a good job of giving down the middle reporting about the conservative movement's obsession for making up for the sinking of the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987. There was no doubt that that tarnishing was still solid in the mind of conservatives in 1991.

Phelps, however, is on less stable ground when trying to portray Clarence Thomas as a right-wing sex nut. Phelps, of course, was the one who had the confidential FBI file leaked to him and blew this whole thing out of proportion. It was actually Phelps who caused the entire dilemma because he was interested in making a name for himself. After all, Phelps did say, "a reporter could make a career by sinking a Supreme Court nominee."

It also becomes obvious that while admitting that everyone he talked to who was friends with either Thomas or Hill found the charges against each one impossible to believe, Phelps decides to covertly imply that Thomas was willing to perjure himself to make it to the High Court.

Phelps also delves in dirt by stating that the first President Bush was a man who "played politics with race and worried about integrity later." Did Bush play politics with Thomas' nomination? Of course. He put the Democrats who supported affirmative action in the position of defending or admitting it was wrong. But did the Democrats also play politics with Thomas' nomination as well as his life? Yes. The simple fact that Phelps didn't want to report is that BOTH political parties play "the race card" when it suits them.

I cannot recommend this book without recommending David Brock's rebuttal, "The Real Anita Hill." Some will point out that Brock has renounced it, but he has yet to name even a single person who misinformed him. Brock's motives were no purer than Phelps', but he writes well versed on the issue.

It is probable that one's reaction to this book will be colored by one's political ideology (and I can't hold myself as being exempt from that), which is unfortunate. The book is never boring, and the authors seem to go out of their way to be scrupulously fair to both sides, perhaps even too fair. Because what this book says about the state of our judicial system and the stunted, superficial level of our political discourse, is deeply depressing. One can be ideologically opposed to men like Renquist and Scalia and Brennan, but one would be loath to question their competence. Example after example is given of just how mediocre a jurist Thomas was and of how unqualified he was for the position he ended up receiving, a tenure that will last his lifetime and insure the composition of the Supreme Court as an ultra-conservative cabal. The cynicism of the Bush administration, its callous use of race for its own agenda with little regard or respect for the integrity of the judicial process, is clearly delineated. When one reads about the cavalier and contemptible way the issue of sexual harassment was handled by the old-boy politicians who dominated (Specter and Hatch are just 2 of the most egregious examples) the nomination hearings, it's impossible to be anything but disturbed about where this country is heading, whatever the nature of one's political sympathies. Women will be outraged upon reading this book. Any fair-minded person will be outraged, as well as saddened, on reading this book. All in all, this is a comprehensive behind-the-scenes examination of one of the more reprehensible episodes in recent American history, and it seems unlikely that there could be another book on this subject that will be as cogent or sobering.

"Capitol Games" is a very revealing book that takes the reader behind the scenes in one of the most controversial Supreme Court appointments in this country's history. Phelps and Winternitz have written a well-researched tale of how Thomas was picked by the Bush White House over several more qualified candidates to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall on the Court. If you ascribe to the principle that only the best and the brightest should be appointed to the Court without regard to race or ideology, you will be surprised or, as I was, angered. Although this title is out of print, I strongly recommend finding and reading it to find the truth behind what amounts to little more than blatant manipulation of the appointment process (I will admit to having some bias in writing this review, by the way).

I have been using this book for an Intermediate Accounting class that I have to take as a pre requisite for a Master's degree. Even though the book is quite complete in explaining accounting principles it is unecessarily wordy and extremely heavy.

The first five chapters (220 pages) provide a review of what accounting is, the accounting information system, the income statement and the balance sheet. Most of the what is written here is either too basic or will be later found in the remaining chapters of the book. These pages could be easily removed without sacrificing the remaining contents and the understanding of accounting.

Later chapters, however, are also wordy and take too much time explaining concepts that could readily be understood in a couple of lines. You end up getting tired of reading the same thing again and again.

In the end, we have to pay the price for so many pages. With 1300 + pages this book is the heaviest one I have ever carried around. Many people in my class have to use a wheeled backpack. I sometimes can't understand the fascination of editors in the US for such heavy books. If you go to Europe, Asia, and South America, books are usually thinner and much, much lighter.

I would recommend the book to be offered in a CD Rom (or e text) format. Carriyng my laptop around makes more sense than carrying the book.

This book for undergraduate accounting classes at the junior level was more confusing to me than the comparable book by Kieso et al. The sequence of the chapters is not entirely logical. More advanced concepts seem to be covered towards the beginning whereas some basic chapters are discussed towards the end of the book. It was especially confusing when not covering the chapter in chronological order - too bad that my class's syllabus was not outlined according to this book's chapter sequence. In a different class - when we used Intermediate Accounting by Kieso - jumping back and forth was not a big problem. This book by Spiceland also seemed to be very wordy. Studying by solving problems at the end of the book seemed to work. However, it is more important to know how your teacher designs the quizzes and exams and then study accordingly. On the CD that comes with it, there is a lot of ballast. The quizzes are the only valuable thing, I felt. There is not really a lot of use complaining about its weight - accounting books always seem to be extremely heavy and pricy. But this certainly holds true for this one as well!!! When I tried to resell the book at the university bookstore, they would not take it back because it was selling badly on a national scale. Very frustrating when you paid [$$$] just a couple of months earlier...

This book put me to sleep. It is a very bland book. This is based on the volume one edition chapters 1-14.

Hello, If you are looking for a paperback version for the hardcover book with the same name, this is not it. Actually the ISBN Number belongs only to the Study Guide to that book. I got it shipped and I am really upset about that.

I used this book for my international economics undergraduate course and found it easy to understand; it doesn't use lengthy mathematical formulas but utilizes basic macroeconomic theories. The authors organized this book well; the later chapters build upon the beginning ones. However, it would be best to have taken Intermediate Macroeconomics before using this book because the last few chapters rely heavily on a good understanding of intermediate level material.

Doesn't get too technical, but explains everything clearly. This book is one of the best economic books that I ever used.

I was inspired by the compilation of bird dog stories found within this book. If you enjoy the excitement, fear, despair, and elation associated with the training, ownership and running of all breeds of bird dogs, you will enjoy this book. The authors help you relive the moments you have endured with your own dogs in addition to helping you imagine the hunts you have yet to experience. This is a definite must read for bird dog enthusiasts.

I borrowed this book from a friend and had a tough time putting it down. Great stories from writers who truly love their dogs. A few of the essays are sad, but all of them allow us to share a part of a fellow dog lovers life with his best friend. Definitely a must read.

"Multimedia Training" is an excellent book for CBT and the techniques of making the training as effective and fun as possible. The examples are good but use Macromedia's Authorware 3 with the files using Authorware 2 formats. The current version of the program is 4. The files do not open, the features of the program do not work and with the changes make to create version 4 make the notation obsolete and confusing. Again the training ideas are great but the delivery system has to be updated. Since the heart of Computer Based Training is handling change, this book fails in its own backyard.

I found this book an excellent introduction to the development of TBL methods and software. The authors obviously know what they are writing about. My only complaint is that none of the lessons included as examples on the accompanying disk work as the book suggests. Specifically, the *.apw files which are supposed to open "when double-clicked in file manager" come up with a "feature not activated" comment. This is a pity. It would have been useful to see the working version of the example(s) before doing the lesson

... with many errors, mistakes, even typos, as well as poor research and many inconsitencies - I put it away after about 100 pages. What sounded like an interesting, real world story turned out to be a vast disappointment. Is there nobody out there who writes high quality business novels?

A brilliant piece of work - suspense and realism.

It takes a ... what? It takes more than this book recognizes to improve education. The rhetoric here implies that the so-called "reform" movement is the way to cure school ills. To most teachers, however, this is simply another year's bureaucratic fad to morph educators into paper pushers. Although I found several insights here, and detailed information on six inner-city school districts, I was somewhat amazed by two important omissions: teachers and students. Teacher unions were trivialized by the suggestion that each little school decide, on their own, if they want to unionize.The writer recommends "hiring halls" for teachers, putting us on a level with farm workers and factory hands. This writing shows absolutely no understanding about why teachers need unions or how such organizations originated.

This writer clearly identifies a target audience -- mayors, civic leaders and school board members. By decision, it excludes teachers and students. It's sad to think -- and I've seen this happen -- that ivory tower bureaucrarts actually make decisions based on this type of dubious theory rather than getting down in the trenches with the reality of the classroom.

Content here is peppered with educratic jargon which twists other terminology into bastardized educational theories. School "incubators" make me think of premature babies."Real dollar budgets" make me wonder if bureaucrats are playing Monopoly with our taxes. "CEO Strong Schools strategy" pretends that a principal, who is middle management, is a CEO. Get real. The only CEO in the school district is the superintendent who is hired by an elected school board.

This book, to it's credit, recognizes the inability of reform to reform anything (last paragraph, page 84). Any good book offers new insights and "policy churn" gets my prize here. Teachers are jaded by bandwagon bureaucrats who recycle new versions of old ideas, one after another, never saying, "stop this" or "drop that."

Hillary Clinton quotes the African proverb, "It Takes a Village." This book spins the idea into, "a city." I'm waiting for the next trendy realization for someone to discover that, "It takes a teacher."

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

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

In his new book, Blinded by the Right, here's in part what Brock says about his writing of this book:

".... Tainted by bias, and already committed to a flawed interpretation of events in print, I got no closer to the truth in the book.... I failed to weigh my findings against the fact that all of my sources were pro-Thomas partisans..... I had no access to Hill's supporters, and therefore no understanding of their motivations, no responses to any of my charges, and no knowledge of whatever incriminating evidence they might have gathered against Thomas that was not introduced in the hearing..... As for the traits ascribed to Hill that might have motivated her to lie -- ambitious, willful, and even vengeful -- they were all culled by me from the Thomas camp. Everyone I spoke to HATED that woman."

It is truly sad, and frightening, that not only was the book published, and believed, but that, as far as I'm aware, none of the conservatives who continued to rip Anita Hill to shreds based on the falsehoods contained in this book have come forth to apologize to her. Partisanship seems almost always to trump truth and plain human decency.

this book is of course dreadfully bad as journalism; read it only as a window on the recent upsurge of rightist political fantasia, and as a supplement to brock's latest, *blinded by the right*.

in reading his latest, he will explain what the score is for this one, what he called "character assassination."

i am somewhat disturbed by some of the other reviews, here, though....witness brock: "i could see that my reportorial method for *the real anita hill* was shoddy, not only in the sources i had trusted, but in the obvious fact that i had missed significant evidence that showed that hill's testimony was more truthful than thomas' flat denials after all. my version of the thomas-hill controversy was wrong, my belief in it as truth was a delusion. perhaps the errors of *the real anita hill* could be attributed to journalistic carelessness, ideological bias, and my misdirected quest for acceptance from a political movement. in the review of *strange justice*, however, to protect myself and my tribe from the truth and consequences of our own hypocrisy, smears, falsehoods, and cover-ups, i consciously and actively chose an unethical path. i continued to malign anita hill and her liberal supporters as liars. i trashed the professional reputations of two reporters for reporting something i knew was correct. i coerced an unsteady source, i knowlingly published a lie, and i falsified the historical record" (brock, d. *blidned by the right* ny: crown, 2002. p. 248).

as can be seen here, the author of *the real anita hill* is admitting that it is not true.

This is a book that that caused emotions to run high when it was first published, and still continues to cause readers to break out into impassioned argument, some of it not very polite. My own perspective is that Brock got it right on this one, a well researched investigative report on Anita Hill and the left's campaign to discredit a man whose only crime was being black and conservative. Of course those who believed Hill and dislike Thomas will have a totally different viewpoint, which is fine. My own advice to both groups would be to read both this book and the "Strange Justice" which was the hatchet job commissioned by the vast left wing conspiracy. Contrary to what some have said, Brock did not disavow this book, rather he said that he went into writing it with the purpose of looking for evidence against Hill and for Thomas. Of course the author of "Strange Justice" did just the opposite. Until we actually have an unbiased look at the Thomas hearings (and we may not have that anytime soon) then this book still deserves to be read. Some other authors to try after this book are Paul Johnson, Ken Hamblin, Shelby Steele, George Will, Dinesh D'Souza and David Horowitz. All of these present a viewpoint that tends to support Brock's conclusions in this, his first book. However, be warned that you're either going to hate the book or like it. Unfortunately there appears to be no middle ground in this long lasting debate. Regardless of your political views this book is a must read, if just to find out what all the hullabaloo was/is about.