First I have to admit that I have read the book in Dutch. The articles at the top of every page are strange but very original!

In an era where one book after the other seems to extoll the story of the globalisation Juggernaut, the reader can all too easily get the impression that all in the economy is now globalizing. Do not borders cease to exist for one enterprise and sector after the other? Although you can argue this is true to some extent for a number of sectors and production processes, at the same time it is not quite the whole story and creates a false or misleading image. The authors argue that enterprises are not only economic but als political actors, and for me as an economist this was an interesting point.

This book then provides a sober antidote to this misperception of transnational corporations as truly borderless production systems that only seek the most efficient way to produce and where nationality does not matter. It provides a convincing overview of how even the largest 'transnational' corporations remain to a large extent 'national', if not in their economics then in their politics. With thorough empirical work it is shown that globalizing activities of transnational enterprises in OECD countries mostly still have a home bias along a number of dimensions. I confess that this was also for me (economist dealing with glabalization) a good sobering read that helped me to keep a perspective and offered a number of novel ideas. Recommended.

This study takes Godet's thoughts on the New Testament and narrows the scope specifically to Paul and his doctrinal stances. It's more of a generalized summary on Paul's letters, and doesn't get very deep or overly technical. It's a good resource for introductory level Bible students looking to go deeper into the Word. I recommend this with his other study on the New Testament, which covers tother themes and the four Gospels. Both are great suppliments for busy pastors.

For the serious study on Paul, Godet's commentaries on 1 St Corinthians and Romans are excellent, but are decidely for those with an aptitude for Greek.

After reading "All about Schmidt" I was attracted to read another book by Louis Begley. This has to be a recommendation of the author. He must be doing something right to qualify for more hours of my discretionary time. Perhaps I was attracted by his grammatical English, which is sadly becoming rarer with an almost universal expectation of little more than bare communication on the lowest level. His legal background is evident in a few periodic sentences of tedious length. There are few and they give way to a simple and wonderfully direct prose for human reaction and emotion. If you were given a finite life expectancy, how would you react? This is the stuff of TV human interest programs. What does our legally trained author offer beyond the banal? Firstly, this is a truly positive book. Nothing morbid here. It is a litany of human passion, self-indulgence and self-gratification. And why not, if you have only a few months to live. The message is Horace's old maxim "carpe diem." Live life. Don't wait. Our hero, Thomas Mistler, in fact had to wait till he had a terminal report from his doctor. But his unexpected reaction is one of freedom from what had restricted his inner-most emotions before knowing that life was not to continue in its bourgeois continuum apparently foreever. So the reader is part of his late emotional and sexual emancipation. He enjoys what many secretly dream of without the burden of middle class values and narrow religious scruple.

Don't read this if you are concerned with the thoughts of an older man who is still sexually alive and well. Don't read it if you are bound by the rules of middle class restrictions of the "apropriate," whatever that may be.

This should be compulsory reading for those with a serious, or life-threatening condition. Forget the gloom. Just for once, let your real feelings come to the fore.

Not to forget Louis Begley's wonderfully succinct and irnonic style, let me assure you that this is a book for those who appreciate irony and grit. Older readers might even find it educational!

I enjoy reading Louis Begley, but I do get a bit tired of his all conquering male sex gods. Why do women fall for these over-the-hill guys? Don't know.

The writing is excellent and insightful, however, so well worth reading. If only I understood the last sentence I might know if Mistler's Exit was to be a good one or not.

After being told that you had only a limited time to live because you had a terminal cancer disease, why would you think of your life after death? Many reasons, my friend. Firstly, because many of your fellow human beings are so egotistical that they cannot imagine a world without their presence. OK, so that is the first answer. But the second, which is a bit more subtle and not the first to spring to mind: because they have a hell of a lot of living to do in the meantime. That is quite simply the situation of our hero who is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer and not a lot of life to fill in. So what does our hero do? He gets going in the best way for him. He indulges an artistic side of his life by going back to Venice to salivate over some of the richest art treasures in Europe and co-incidentally let his libido run its natural course. Two women help him on his merry way and why not? His wife, whom he respects in his own eccentric way, is not of the physical persuasion. So he reaps where he can, with truly male enthousiam and self-indulgence. Don't read this if you actully believe in strictly monogomous protocols. This is for the honestly weak of flesh and the lustfully strong of mind. There is no pretence and no hypocricy. The writing is direct, but never simplistic. Keep your wits about you. The legalistic periodic structure of the sentences does not let the reader slacken his attention. You will be drawn into the humanity of the scenario and the basic sexual needs of a man that knows that life is soon to end. There is no misery here because there is too much to be lived in a finite time frame. Read this if you have ever lusted after something beyond the bourgeois definition of marital fidelity. Mistler is faithful to his wife in his own way and she would not expect anything more. What he craves knowing that the Grim Reaper is at the end of the tunnel, is a sense of having lived: no regrets and no self-recrimination. Read this book if you have a feeling of not having lived your dreams. Read it because you feel that you have not yet dared to think outside the square. But do not leave it too late. Are you sexually honest with yourself? If not, don't read this book. Otherwise you will be disappointed in yourself. Question: did Mistler die fulfilled? Were his sexual escapades only a metaphor for his attempt to escape the prison of his own shortcomings? Read it to find out. Louis Begley writes with an incomparible directness that the reader has to decide for himself and is inevitably drawn into the struggle of another's final zest for life. This book made me review my own as yet unfulfilled dreams. It might do the same for you. This is powerful writing within a contained framework of logical and direct prose. No superfluous frills here.

Cecil Spring-Rice, the British ambassador to Washington, described Woodrow Wilson as "a mysterious, a rather Olympian personage and shrouded in darkness from which issue occasional thunderbolts." At least to his contemporaries, the twenty-eighth president may well have been something of an enigma. After all, he did somehow move from a fairly conservative philosophy toward a more activist government, including a reversal on child labor laws. Unfortunately, Auchincloss contributes little to shedding some light on these riddles of Wilson's character and mind-except for the all-important (to Auchincloss, at least) reason for the estrangement between Wilson and his advisor/friend/confidante Colonel Edward M. House, which is attributed to Edith Wilson.

Auchincloss paints a very superficial picture of Wilson, and maybe that's because of the nature of the Penguin Lives series, but there was much that was mentioned in passing and not really mentioned again. For example, Wilson's southern birth and upbringing are given early and justified attention, but the consequences of this southern heritage on Wilson's life and politics are not pursued, even though the question is particularly interesting, relevant, and important for the president's views on race. Wilson's deep Presbyterian faith is given similarly superficial treatment. It did much to create the man's stubbornness and sense of moral rectitude, but how it shaped the specific elements of Wilson's idealism, Auchincloss does not explore. All that emerges is the all-too typical portrait of a man with a "divided" nature.

I did find his discussion of the 1916 election interesting, particularly the contingency plan in the case of a Wilson defeat. In this period of international crisis, had Wilson lost to Charles Evans Hughes, Vice President Marshall and Secretary of State Lansing would have resigned, Hughes would have been named Secretary of State, and Wilson would also have resigned. I had never heard this before and hope to explore the issue further.

Besides an apparent affinity for describing certain remarks as "intemperate," Auchincloss seemed to be fixated on the grandson of Henry Cabot Lodge and on Bill Clinton, both of whom he mentions twice. Lodge's grandson receives considerable scorn for trying to justify his grandfather's behavior (his "hatred" of Wilson and his reading of the Versailles Treaty in the Senate). The Clinton impeachment is mentioned as an example of the people's representatives taking action against the will of a majority, and Clinton's definition of "is" is compared to Lodge's grandson's definition of "hatred." Maybe these are legitimate comparisons (though probably not), but they seemed wholly out of place in this biography.

These Penguin biographies aren't necessarily intended to be the deepest or most insightful of books, but they should at least contain some substance. This one, unfortunately, contains very little that can't be had by reading an American history textbook.

I've always believed biographers should do three things: tell what their subject did, why he or she did it, and what it all means, or meant, ultimately. The other two Penguin Lives titles I've read so far -- Paul Johnson on Napoleon and John Keegan on Churchill -- both did excellent jobs of explaining their subjects' lives by drawing out instructive themes from those lives and assessing their subjects' impact on history. Louis Auchincloss, sadly, doesn't do that with Woodrow Wilson.

The basic biographical framework -- the "what" -- of this book isn't bad, and certainly Auchincloss is a fine writer. But while the facts of Wilson's life are presented effectively, they're not tied together with any kind of larger thesis. Auchincloss develops a few recurring ideas -- Wilson's friendship with Colonel House, the theory of "the two Wilsons," the influence of Wilson's second wife, the rivalry with Henry Cabot Lodge -- but none of them seem like more than convenient narrative hooks. Which, if any, is a key to the man's character?

What I found most bothersome is that Auchincloss's biography ends (literally) with Wilson's last word. Remarkably -- for a biography of one of the world's most influential figures in the first half of the century, and a man who is considered by some (justly, in my opinion) to bear a large share of responsibility for the ultimate onset of World War Two -- there is virtually no attempt to place Wilson into his historical context, to measure the long-term impact of his life, or to judge his successes and failures in the considered light of history. It's like Auchincloss bumped up against the Penguin Lives word-count limit and decided just to stop.

Coming off the fine Churchill and Napoleon volumes, I was really hoping for more here -- especially from a writer with such a high reputation. This title is a decent summary of the facts of Wilson's life, but the interested reader will have to go someplace else to put it all in context.

In Woodrow Wilson, Louis Auchincloss provides a useful, albeit brief account of our 28th President. The book touches on the highlights, both good and bad, of Wilson's life, and gives the reader insight into the complexity of Wilson's mind.

Readers of Woodrow Wilson will find a man of enormous intellect who viewed himself as somehow ordained by God to lead the world into a higher level of peace and harmony, but who also battled with arrogance that did not allow him to accept gracious defeat. As a history professor he was well liked by students, but as university president he was beset by strife involving administrative decisions. He appealed to Democrats who wished to cleanse the party of William Jennings Bryan's influence, and accepted the nomination for Governor of New Jersey accordingly. He even adopted a Populist position to appeal to the masses. When the Republican Party divided in 1912, he was assured the Presidency. In that office he was forced to balance personal convictions and political realities that culminated over the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. This ultimately proved to be Wilson's demise.

Auchincloss' portrait explores many of these complexities, but at times appears to gloss them over. The rivalry between Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge oddly is detailed from Lodge's perspective, but the author does not particularize how Wilson reciprocated. Auchincloss does not describe in depth the differences between Lodge's snobbish Harvard arrogance, Theodore Roosevelt's heroic jingoism of a bygone era, and Wilson's self-righteous purveyance of his own world order, and how each affected the others as well as the world around them. Auchincloss also has difficulty in describing Germany in World War One in that it was fighting a war of delaying defeat by 1916 and not turning the tide towards victory.

In the end, however, readers will find Auchincloss' work useful and poignant. He inserts comparisons to future Presidents in an amusing way while discussing the merits of Wilson's administration. Woodrow Wilson may not be a definitive work but, due in part to its brevity, should be considered appropriate reading for High School level history courses.

This book takes 2 real-life historical figures: Princess Victoria Ka'iulani Cleghorn of Hawai'i and author Robert Louis Stevenson and turns their very brief and innocent friendship (she was 13 years old)into a mumbo-jumbo of New Age romance and Science Fiction time-travel. There is no historical accuracy in this completely fictionalized account of a "romance" between these 2 real-life people. You are MUCH better off reading any of the well known biographies of them than this book. This book shows complete disrespect towards both Princess Ka'iulani and Mr. Stevenson's memory.

I am a part-Hawaiian woman who grew up in Hawai'i. The history of the Hawaiian people has been a cruel and sad testament to humanity. Princess Ka'iulani's life was one such tragedy. Hollywood and the media have distorted and exploited the Hawaiian people and the lands of Hawai'i for years. This book adds insult to injury, and is written with the utmost irreverence to the true beauty of our beloved Ka'iu. If you truly love and respect Princess Ka'iulani and Hawai'i, you will seek out the truth, not the Hawaiian-hype you have been force-fed. Respect the native people and their native lands.

It is sad to see this fanciful novel about half-Kanaka Maoli/half-Scottish Princess Ka'iulani perceived as "history" by the general public. As a member of the Hawaiian Historical Society, The Friends of 'Iolani Palace, Bishop Museum and other Hawaiian organizations,I can say there is utterly no basis for the notion that Robert Louis Stevenson and Crown Princess Ka'iulani had anything other than the briefest and most innocent of friendships. The Princess was a CHILD when Stevenson knew her, and they NEVER had contact - not even letters - again. Because this book - which people should remember is a NOVEL - makes use of Hawai'i State Archives photos as illustrations, some people make the mistake of thinking there is a basis for this notion of an "erotic" relationship between RLS and Ke Ali'i Ka'iulani; it is frightening to think this idea may be people's introduction to Ka'iulani's life...an impression that will damage understanding of Kanaka Maoli history. As for Stevenson - most scholars paint a uniform picture of him as constitutionally attracted to older women.

While cleverly written, the upshot of this fanciful "romance" is that it reinforces old unfounded gossip about a "pregnancy", and ignores many known facts about Ka'iulani's life, including the central fact that her health was broken by the trauma her country's take-over by the U.S. caused her. It manipulates the reader into serious misunderstanding, and submerges the life of a real heroine beneath fantasy. That the author constantly refers to her as "Victoria" (which her friends and family did not)seems like a denial of her Kanaka Maoli self in favor of her "white" self...a very troubling detail.

Robert Louis Stevenson and Ka'iulani were NOT "lovers"! The Princess was not the sexually precocious "south seas" stereotype the author presents, but a schoolgirl barely in her teens, and an Ali'i of great mana and dignity besides.

The recent Mutual Publishing paperback reprint of the classic Ka'iulani biography "Kaiulani, Crown Princess of Hawaii" by Nancy and Jean Francis Webb is a must-read for those interested in the REAL Princess, and the new young adult bio by Sharon Linnea is also a good intro to her life and times. Also not to be missed is Kristin Zambucka's excellent update of Hawai'i" (Green Glass Pub.). These tell the real story and don't confuse the unfamiliar with fantasies manufactured out of whole cloth.

If Amazon. com cares about "equal time" and free speech, and multicultural issues in general it will print this. Four glowing "reviews" ought to have some counter balance

The Dictionary tends to place emphasis on the more "popular" martial arts such as Karate and Judo, and in Japanese styles in general. Although the information given pertaining to Japanese styles is very thorough and comprehensive, "definitions" given on many other arts (Chinese Gung Fu, Brazilian Capoera, Phillipino Eskrima, etc.)is often lacking. In fact, some, such as French Savat, are completely left out.

First written in French in 1988 then translated in 1991, this is the fourth printing of A Dictionary of the Martial Arts. This book is a great little reference dictionary to the martial arts, especially those pertaining to Japan. Even though the book is quite detailed in its many definitions, and is filled with numerous diagrams, photos and several Hokusai prints. I would not recommend this work to those seeking to study an individual martial art for the first time. Instead this work touches upon the understanding of and the historical significance of the martial arts. A definite book for the shelf any martial art enthusiast.

I own three martial arts dictionaries and this one is the most detailed of the three. It does not cover every martial art in existance, but it does provided depth in the arts it does describe. Almost all of the terms are listed in Japanese, so finding the Japanese term when you only know the English term is sometimes difficult.

its a nice book altough somthimes confusing because the different personages being discribed in a thirth person while the writer talks about himself in first person reads easy azltough the book is rather small

the book reads fast altough its rather small but it gives another point of view it the author talking about onperson who looks at all the person in a thirth person view wich makes it confusing from time to time but its a good book.

The sole purpose of this book is to convince parents to vaccinate their babies when and how the medical establishment/drug industry wants them to.

My baby girl's pediatrician loaned me this book stating that "it presents both sides of the issues." She mistakenly left inside a form letter from the MERCK VACCINE DIVISION saying that they highly recommend the book for parents to "dispel all of the misinformation" out there. In my opinion, everyone should proceed with caution when a multi-billion dollar conglomerate gives their stamp of approval on a book.

Don't bother using this book as a reference. It doesn't even tell you about the ingredients (like mercury, formaldehyde and aluminum) contained in vaccines. It truly insulted my intelligence by being so one-sided. There are other books I've read (i.e. The Vaccine Guide, by Randall Neustaedter, OMD) that give both sides of the story.

I just finished reading "Vaccines: What Every Parent Should Know". It was as I suspected; the usual arguments and half truths and snide comments about parents who choose not to vaccinate. I guess what surprised me is they are *still* saying that DPT doesn't cause permanent brain damage or death and there is no such thing as a hot lot! They also say that no one has *ever* died from the hep B vaccine -- I know a man whose 5 week old daughter died within hours after the injection! Everything else is pretty standard partyline fare. They do a neat trick with the references. They don't use footnotes, they just put a list of books in the back that they got their info from. That way you don't know what they are quoting and what they are twisting/making up (unless you are educated in this area). Who's going to take thetime to hunt through 5 books to find a reference? The book will very easily mislead a lot of unsuspecting, trusting parents. However, a couple of statements are so ludicrous it seems like anyone with a brain will figure it out. But parents looking for reassurance that vaccination is safe/effective will find it here. It's a good book to have on hand just to know what a pediatrican is likely to hit you with when you go in for a check-up or to use in a debate with uneducated friends and family when they question your informed choice not to vaccinate (or selectively vaccinate.)

While the credentials of the authors are good, do not be misled. This is not the objective scientific book I was hoping for. It is no better than the worst of the reactionary anti-vaccine books. It makes statements about the absence of side-effects which are clearly untrue. After reading many scientific papers and the excellent IMMUNIZATION by Kassianos, I opted to get Hib and DPT. However, my biggest misgivings were not from the vaccine opponents but by the blatent falsehoods in WHAT EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW (e.g., Hib vaccines have no serious side-effects-- p61-- BALONEY-- seizures are possible -- Kassianos p. 80). The book is riddled with errors that exaggerate vaccine safety.I think my choice to get Hib and DPT was probably good, but this political piece masquerading as an objective book did nothing to help me in my decision. The medical literature is clear that the long-term side-effects of vaccines, if any, are unknown. The authors pretend this is not true, presumably to "protect" us. Why would I be reading up on this if I wanted to be protected from information? This book is a waste of paper.

Before you buy or read this book, you should know that this is NOT the same author of _Teach_Them_Diligently_ or _The_Heart_of_Anger_. The author of this book is Louis A. Priolo, not Louis Paul Priolo. I made the mistake and found myself on a wild charismatic ride of Christians who must speak in tongues to be authentic Christians, Christians and even automobiles who can be demon-possessed and other tales colored by what I consider bad biblical discernment.

I don't discount the story, but I do want people to be aware that this is not only a different author, but a different theology as well.