George S. Schuyler was one of the premier black journalists of his, or any other, day. Between his own acerbic style and being published in The American Mercury, he was referred to as the Black Mencken. In addition, he wrote one great satirical novel, Black No More, and a fair amount of pulp fiction. Two of those pulp titles, The Black Internationale : Story of Black Genius Against the World and the sequel, Black Empire : An Imaginative Story of a Great New Civilization in Modern Africa, are reproduced here in one volume. Written under the pseudonym, Samuel I . Brooks, for a black weekly newspaper, The Pittsburgh Courier, these sixty two serial installments in an ongoing adventure story originally appeared between 1936 and 1938.

Reminiscent of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, Schuyler tells the story of Carl Slater, writer for the Harlem Blade, who accidentally witnesses the murder of a white woman. The black assailant forces Slater into a waiting car at gunpoint, whereupon he is drugged. When he wakens, the murderer reveals himself to be Dr. Henry Belsidus, leader of the Black Internationale, an elite organization of black professionals whom the Doctor plans to lead in his mission to liberate Africa and restore blacks to their rightful position of dominance on the world stage. He explains that the woman had been one of his agents and her murder was punishment for failure. It turns out that Slater was on a list of blacks whom Belsidus planned to eventually recruit to his cause, and now circumstances force him to choose between joining up or being killed. He joins.

Dr. Belsidus is clearly maniacal, but he is also possessed of a compelling vision :

My son, all great schemes appear mad in the beginning. Christians, Communists, Fascists and Nazis were at first called scary. Success made them sane. With brains, courage and wealth even the most fantastic scheme can become a reality. I have dedicated my life, Slater, to destroying white world supremacy. My ideal and objective is very frankly to cast down Caucasians and elevate the colored people in their places. I plan to do this by every means within my power. I intend to stop at nothing, Slater, whether right or wrong. Right is success. Wrong is failure. I will not fail because I am ruthless. Those who fail are them men who get sentimental, who weaken, who balk at a little bloodshed. Such vermin deserve to fail. Every great movement the world has ever seen has collapsed because it grew weak. I shall never become weak, nor shall I ever tolerate weakness around me. Weakness means failure, Slater, and I do not intend to fail.

In the ensuing chapters he realizes this vision, along the way utilizing such visionary technological wizardry as solar power, hydroponics and death rays, and such social measures as as his own new religion, the Church of Love. Carl Slater witnesses it all and--at the behest of Schuyler's editors and readers--falls in love with Patricia Givens, the beautiful aviatrix who commands the Black Internationale's Air Force. The serial ends with Belsidus and his followers triumphant and white Europe expelled from Africa.

Stylistically this is pretty standard fare, following the over-the-top, melodramatic, cliff-hanging, conventions of the pulp fiction formula. It's well written and exciting, though overwrought. What really makes it interesting though is it's politics. Schuyler, particularly late in life, was a conservative. He moved farther Right as he became more vehemently anti-Communist and finished his career writing for publications put out by the John Birch Society (see hyperlinked Essays below). Part of this evolution entailed becoming generally hostile to the Civil Rights movement and to African Nationalism, but apparently in the 1930's he was himself a Pan-Africanist, especially concerned with the fate of Ethiopia after the Italians invaded and with liberating Liberia. There's a tendency to dismiss black conservatives as somehow self-loathing, as if conservative values are necessarily at odds with the advancement of the black race. And you can see something of a dichotomy in Schuyler's writings if you take for instance one of his comments on Marcus Garvey, of whom he was generally skeptical :

Marcus Garvey has a vision. He sees plainly that everywhere in the Western and Eastern hemispheres the Negro, regardless of his religion or nationality, is being crushed under the heel of white imperialism and exploitation. Rapidly the population of the world is being aligned in two rival camps: white and black. The whites have arms, power, organization, wealth; the blacks have only their intelligence and their potential power. If they are to be saved, they must be organized so they can present united opposition to those who seek to continue their enslavement. (George S. Schuyler, writing in the Interstate Tattler, August 23, 1929)

and compare it to what he had to say about the success of Black Empire :

I have been greatly amused by the public enthusiasm for 'The Black Internationale,' which is hokum and hack work of the purest vein. I deliberately set out to crowd as much race chauvinism and sheer improbability into it as my fertile imagination could conjure. The result vindicates my low opinion of the human race. (George S. Schuyler, from a Letter to P.L. Prattis, April 4, 1937)

Taken at face value, he seems to be criticizing his black readership for enjoying stories based on the vision he had extolled in Garvey.

But perhaps this conflict is more easily reconciled than critics would have us believe. Throughout his career, Schuyler seems to have been entirely consistent in his hostility towards those who sought to speak for blacks. It is this general stance which explains his opposition to Garvey, Communists, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and so on. In Black Empire, he presents Belsidus as quite a monster, willing to use mass murder and near genocide to achieve his ends. It's easy to read the story as reflecting both his most treasured dream--the triumph of blacks over racial oppression--and his inherent pessimism about the leaders and means that would be required to achieve that goal.

At any rate, the story is great fun and Schuyler's personal conflicts only serve to add a few layers of tension. The reader is often unsure whether he's writing with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek or whether he's allowing characters to speak his own forbidden thoughts. That you can read it on various levels merely adds to the enjoyment. There's also a terrific Afterword by Robert A. Hill and R. Kent Rasmussen, from which I gleaned much of the information in this review. Altogether, it's a marvelous book and the Northeastern Library of Black Literature is to be applauded for restoring it to print. Schuyler's reputation among academics and intellectuals declined in direct proportion to his increasing conservatism, but his is a unique and valuable voice, deserving of revival.

GRADE : A-

This is an incredibly interesting (to say the least) story ofthe rise of a Black dictator who takes over Africa (and the Blackdiaspora). Sort of "The Turner Diaries" meets "TheSpook Who Sat By The Door." It is noteworthy that Schuyler (asthe notes in the introduction indicate) did not intend for this workto be taken seriously. But many did, and I'm sure that many modernAfrocentric readers would also.

it's a complete book, not to deep, but enough to over view advetising.

presents theory and practice in a easy-to-learn form.

i use it with my students, with very good results.

George Box is one of the statistical giants of the 20th Century. He started his career in chemical engineering in England where he learned the importance of experimental design and statistical methods. He came to the US in 1953 and spent time at North Carolina State College and later came back to be part of the statistics group at Princeton. After that he founded the Department fo Statistics at the University of Wisconsin. This history and other important career decisions icluding the founding of Technometrics are detailed in the brief section "My Professional Life" that he wrote for this volume.

Box's contributions to statistics are diverse and large. He developed many practical statistical designs including the central composite design. He is responsible for evolutionary operation and wrote a book on it with Norman Draper. He has also made major contributions to response surface methodology.

With Gwilym Jenkins he systematized the application of the ARIMA models and led the development of software for easy application of these model building techniques. He championed the concept of parsimonious models and insisted that model building should be an iterative and continually evolving technique. He contributed to the area of control through his stochastic time series models and found ways to incorporate it in manufacturing process control.

With David Cox he developed the Box-Cox family of transformations. These simple power transformation can be used to make the data have an approximate normal shape. he gave a prescription for how to estimate or pick the power to use based on the data.

These enormous contributions can be found in the volumes of collected works that Tiao and others have edited. His contributions can also be seen from his books on evolutionary operation, time series analysis, automated process control, empirical model building and response surfaces, and practical experimental designs ("Statistics for Experimenters").

However in the decades of the 80s and 90s from age 60 to 80, instead of retiring, George Box took on the challenge of developing a center for quality and productivity at the University of Wisconsin. This volme, edited by Tiao, Bisgaard, Hill, Pena and Stigler provides a collection of articles by Box. These are mostly articles written in the 1990s covering the subjects of A) continuous process improvement, B) designing experiments to gain quality information, C) sequential investigation and discovery (including response surface methods), D) quality control and E) learning how to identify and reduce variation or be less sensitive to it by constructing robust processes (i.e. processes not sensitive to minor changes in process parameters). The articles are mostly directed toward quality issues and are mostly articles that were published in the 1990s or 2000 with a few from the 80s. Some are important technical contributions but many are also very philosophical.

George Box is one of the great thinkers of the 20th century and his philosophy on statistics and scientific inference is as important as his many technical contributions. There are 46 articles in total 4 on topic A, 12 on B, 10 on C, 11 on D and 9 on E. Each topic area has a brief introduction identifying a unifying theme in the papers in that section.

Box has a terrific sense of humor that often comes out in his lectures and sometimes in his writings. One gets a good appreciation of it by reading the three songs on statistics that are included in Part F of the book. This is only a sample of several that he has written that are parodies of familiar tunes. Of these three my favorite is "There's no theorem like Bayes theorem" to the tune of "There's no business like show business."

There is a nice bibliography in the back of the book that is followed by a biography on Box and a list of his books and articles published between 1982 and 1999. This includes 3 books and 91 articles! Believe it or not he published even more in his earlier years.

Someone should make a movie of the main story here because it would be a classic! Simple enough for the very young child but with heart enough for the older reader who has a heart to feel with. I like to read it to myself if I can't find a child to read it to every Christmas.

I have read all Jane Austens books. They are funny and colourless. Most of all I liked the book: Pride and Prejudice.But Emma is funnier. I have seen the movie:Emma,and the movie: Pride and Prejudice.They were very funny!

When Thomas Jefferson, no less, describes someone as 'a man of the first order of wisdom ... of expansive mind, profound judgment, [and] cogent in argument,' you know you have someone worth paying attention to. And when that man's influence is still being felt today -- not just in his native country but around the world -- it makes the neglect into which he has fallen all the more shameful.

The man Jefferson described so admiringly was George Mason of Virginia (1725-1792). Almost without exception, his contemporaries in America's real 'greatest generation' considered Mason one of their leading lights. Helen Hill Miller's excellent biography -- first published in the 1930s, reissued in 1966, and reprinted again in 2001 -- makes it clear why their assessment is correct.

One reason he is so little remembered today is that he consistently shunned the limelight, and usually refused public office. He wasn't a spellbinding orator like Henry, a natural leader like Washington, a 'character' like Franklin, or a renaissance man like Jefferson. What he was, was a man with a keen insight and penetrating mind, who had thought deeply about government, society, and how the two interact. This leads Miller to give Mason the apt label, 'constitutionalist.'

Mason was the author of the Fairfax Resolves and the Virginia Declaration of Rights -- a document that not only anticipated and inspired the Declaration of Independence, but also the Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen -- and he was central to the crafting of the post-Revolutionary constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 'the first American constitution to be prepared with a view to the establishment of a permanently independent state' [p. viii]. Later, his writings framed the Northwest Ordinance, possibly the most significant act taken under the Articles of Confederation. He was a key participant in the Mount Vernon Convention, which led directly to the Annapolis Convention of 1786 and, in turn, to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

One of Virginia's delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Mason was a key participant in debates. Ultimately, however, he could not sign the document he helped create. In the Virginia Ratification Convention (one of the most fascinating moments in American history, in my opinion), he led the fight against the Old Dominion's adoption of the Constitution.

Mason's key reasons for opposing the Constitution included its lack of a bill of rights and its continuance of the slave trade. Miller does an excellent job showing us the workings of Mason's mind on these questions.

Mason's passion for anonymity -- which led him to refuse the offer of one of Virginia's two seats in the U.S. Senate -- was one of the defining characteristics of his life. In his will, he advised his sons 'to prefer the happiness and independence [of] a private station to the troubles and vexations of Public Business.' Two centuries after his death, however, Mason deserves not anonymity but celebration. He is one of the truly great figures in American history ... not just for his passionate love of liberty, but also for the concrete ways he worked to make sure that liberty would be enjoyed by later generations. Helen Hill Miller's excellent biography is a centerpiece in the effort to win Mason the thanks he deserves.

The savage fighting that burned across the rolling terrain of central Adams County, Pennsylvania, during the first three days of July 1863, has frequently been recounted by participants in conflicting ways. Though the veterans are long gone, many of the debates continue to captivate Gettysburg enthusiasts. One such little-described polemic involved men of Colonel Samuel Sprigg Carroll's Second Corps brigade, the Gibraltar Brigade, a "western" unit composed of regiments from Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana. The hard-bitten veterans of the Gibraltar Brigade had little time to relax after their hard march to Gettysburg. Early in the evening of July 2, three of Carroll's regiments were ordered from where they lay near Ziegler's Grove toward East Cemetery Hill which was under Confederate assault. The tired Ohioans, Indianians and West Virginians arrived at the Evergreen Cemetery Gate on the Baltimore Pike to find part of General Howard's Eleventh Corps line retreating up the east slope of the hill. The fiery Carroll deployed his men into line of battle and drove more than 50 Confederates from Captain R. Bruce Ricketts' Pennsylvania battery thereby securing this part of the Federal line. Or so it seemed, for unbeknown to those involved, disparate opinions of what actually happened in the July 2 gloom were soon to erupt into a sometimes caustic feud that pitted Second Corps veterans against General Howard's men and partisans. The dispute over who actually saved the Federal batteries on East Cemetery Hill commenced before the start of the Spring 1864 Campaign and endured into the twentieth century. Though such debates as the Meade-Sickles and Hancock-Howard controversies have received extensive coverage, little has been written on the Carroll-Howard quarrel. More than anything else, the protracted disagreement between the Second and Eleventh Corps veterans recounted in The Gibraltar Brigade on East Cemetery Hill reveals how comrades in battle could differ on specifics of that fighting and for such a long time. It also demonstrates how fervently these veterans contended for the honor of their regiments and corps.

This is a great book once you get used to Mark Twain's diolect. From the very beging to when they fill the prize frog with Buck Shot so he couldn't jump as high. Anouther A+ short story by Mark Twain

whenever I find a used copy of this or MacDonald's "The Princess and Curdie" I buy it and give it away. Both books are full of religious symbolism if you think about it, and old other-worldness if you don't. "The Princess and the Goblin" can be enjoyed by early elementary school children, while the language of "The Princess and Curdie" is more challenging and suited for 5th grade and up, though anything is possible with a bit of extra effort. Worth trying. George MacDonald (deceased) has a loyal following as do, of course, Tolkien and C.S.Lewis who were his friends. These are lovely books to read aloud.

So you love C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles? There people who don't are few and far between. One of the biggest influences on C.S. Lewis was this man, George MacDonald (1824-1905). It was MacDonald's talent for telling fairy stories that inspired Lewis in writing his own. Like Lewis, MacDonald has a remarkable ability to tell a delightful and enchanting story for children, layered with strong Christian themes and imagery by means of allegory and symbols. 'The Princess and the Goblin' is one of his most beloved works for children, and an excellent introduction to his style and success.

'The Princess and the Goblin' features a heroine ' a princess called Irene ' and a hero ' a simple miner's son called Curdie. While working overtime in the mines to earn money to buy his mother a red petty-coat, Curdie chances upon the goblins who live in the mountain, and discovers that they are hatching an evil plot against the king and his palace. Meanwhile the princess makes a discovery of her own ' high in the castle she finds a wonderful old lady who is her great-great-grandmother. The problem is, nobody else knows of her grandmother, and nobody believes her. But the princess does believe, and it is by her faith in her grandmother and the magic thread that she receives from her, that she is able to rescue Curdie. Together they rescue the entire palace from disaster at the hands of the goblins.

In telling the story, MacDonald has an enchanting conversational style, wonderfully suitable for reading aloud to enraptured children ' an ability perfecting in telling stories to his own eleven children. But 'The Princess and the Goblin' is more than just a story. Before pursuing a literary career, MacDonald was a Congregationalist minister, and so integrates important underlying Christian themes. Believing in the great-great-grandmother despite the fact that many cannot see her, is a symbol of believing in God. MacDonald uses this to show how the Christian faith involves believing without seeing, and that not everyone has to 'see' something for it to be true. The grandmother's lamp and magic thread are the guides on which the princess must depend, much like the Word which is a lamp on our path. It may sound tacky, but it works.

Children are not likely to grasp the deeper underlying themes that MacDonald is working with. Nonetheless the story has a clear message for children. The clear conflict between the royal powers of light against the goblin powers of darkness is unmistakable. Moreover, the princess is presented as a model of virtue, and MacDonald frequently asserts the importance of moral virtues such as always telling the truth, keeping your word, and admitting your faults ' moral virtues that are equally important for princes and princesses of God's kingdom. Courage, honesty, grace, dignity and beauty are timeless ideals for children of all times to strive for. If you love Narnia, you're sure to like this one, and you'll find yourself quickly grabbing the sequel, 'The Princess and Curdie.' 'The Princess and the Goblin' was one of J.R.R. Tolkien's childhood favorites, highly regarded by C.S. Lewis, described by W.H. Auden as 'the only English children's book in the same class as the Alice books', and generally considered as a classic example of nineteenth century children's literary fairy tales. So if you haven't yet read this book, it's about time you did. With admirers such as Tolkien, Lewis and Auden, if you become a MacDonald's admirer you'll find yourself in good company!

Dang, but this is good! I can see why Lewis and Tolkien, the acknowledged kings of fantasy, loved it. Written long before the Hobbit, I'd say that this might be the first kid's fantasy book still published today.

Young Princess Irene is kept in ignorance of the ghastly goblins that live under the mountains--neither she nor any of the castle staff are allowed out after dark. But when she and her nurse Lootie accidently stay out too late, a hideous creature chases them and nearly catches them. Because of that, Irene meets the young miner boy, Curdie, who knows the weaknesses of the goblins.

After her narrow escape, Irene is drawn up into abandoned parts of the castle to where her great-great-grandmother lives, surviving on pigeon's eggs--also a wonderful character, somewhere between a guardian angel and a grandmother. Her shifting forms, subtle magic and enigmatic speech are mesmerizing. The enchanted bath scene is worth the book alone!

Irene and Curdie are human yet excellent role models for kids. Irene appears to be only seven or eight, but tries to carry herself as a princess at all times, with bravery and dignity (she doesn't always succeed, but it's never shown as being a GOOD thing). Curdie is also brave and dignified, a prince in the spirit with humble roots.

And the goblins? Well, I got nightmares when I was little from some of the descriptions, but if you can read, say, Harry Potter (not as good) without freaking then you should have no trouble.

This is probably the earliest fantasy, and one of the best.

A good book for high level description of the structure of Sybase System 11. When concerning details, there are many places the explanations are confusing. Pretty often two or more contradiction view of points appear in the same page. Considering the lack of good Sybase books, I would like to give this one a favorable recommendation, but don't expect too much.

I've got more than 30% improvement in my Server , After reading & use the concept which is describe in this book

This books gives an insight into sybase internals and how to get the best out of your server. The material on locking included in this book is one of the best I have seen so far.