Sloterdijk adheres to the theories advanced by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, but begins where Kant left off by exposing the force behind dynamic individualism. In other words, the a priori of Kant becomes the a posteriori here--the experience alone mitigates life. Rather than dwelling endlessly on mathematical knowledge, as Kant did, Sloterdijk's epistemology more nearly resembles David Hume's. Indeed, in shaping his discussion of logical versus factual propositions, knowledge by acquaintance is always knowledge based upon what Hume called "impressions". The 'cynical' aspect of the title derives from the "enlightened false consciousness" Sloterdijk finds in modern society.

Sloterdijk's categorical imperative centers on the phenomenology of reason and judgment, without the excess baggage one finds in Kant. Describing an arc, for example, Sloterdijk reveals the nuances of and reasoning surrounding a curve, bending the parallax of the necessary optical effect.

Sloterdijk's humor is not lost, either, for his critique blends the effusive as well as effective. I highly recommend this book.

"Mistrust is the intelligence of the disadvantaged," or "In any form of erudition, intelligence risks its life" or "emigration has become a fact of mass psychology"--these are among hundreds of aphoristic statements that make Sloterdijk's wide-ranging studies and well-reasoned observations on cynicism, Diogenes and the search for truth, Nietzsche, Marx, and the contemporary human situation so striking. He's had enough of nihilism (and all its intellectual and industrial applications), and tells you why. And the book's illustrated with extraordinary aptness--everything from medieval woodcuts to Pasolini. In short, he clears a space to think--a rare event. To read a present-day Lucian who can shake hands with Kierkegaard, read this book.

This is a comprehensive introduction to all sorts of telecommunications (mainly telephone regulation) issues. It's probably a bit much for the novice; something like Stuart Benjamin's Telecommunications Law and Policy is probably a better match there. But, if you want all the details, this is definitely the place to go.

There isn't anything else like this on the market. It contains all the FCC and court and DOJ lore on telecom from the beginning of the century through the 1996 Act up to the present. The spicy bits apparently were written by pundit Peter Huber (who isn't identified in the listing above).

This book gives the novice a very accessible route to the world of telecommunications and gives the expert a very comprehensive reference book. Very highly recommended. The FCC wants universal service? This book is universal in and of itself.

Ever since I was about three (I'm [age] now) I've listened to almost all her stories... my parents recorded them off the radio for me, and i usually listened to them when I went to bed. I still have "jack was born a lazy baby" going through my head. For the longest time, I had memorized the entire story "jack in the army", haints and all... This is probably the most influential part of my childhood, and when I get kids, I'll give them the same tapes I used to have.

Jackie Torrrence has rightly earned a reputation as the "First Lady of Storytelling." She has elevated the art of "porch style telling" to new heights, with her expressive facial and hand gestures, beautiful diction and direct approach to her listeners. Unfortunately, because of medical concerns she is not able to perform any longer, though she continues to work with apprentices in the art.

How fortunate, then, that we have this book of her favorite stories, with wonderful photographs on every page that come very close to capturing the essence of a "Jackie telling." Sprinkled liberally throughout are Jackie's tips for telling these stories, as well as her personal philosophy about the various types of stories included. Most inspiring, though, is her sharing of her personal story, of her positive outlook on life and the will to accept and work with whatever burdens we might face. This volume is highly recommended for lovers of story everywhere.

Until a week ago I was ignorant of Jackie Torrence's existence. "I don't know how effective this book will be for someone who is unfamiliar with this wonderful lady" states an earlier review. After hearing just a snippet on NPR about the book, I rushed to get it, and have truly enjoyed it. Jackie has made me a storyteller! Parents, aunts, uncles, educators, sages, grandparents, and anyone who enjoys entertaining should open this book. Jackie provides traditional stories with cues and suggestions on how to bring the words alive. The book works. I'll never be Jackie, but my nephews love my new-found talent. The photographs are heartwarming.

Kaspar is the kind of play of truly incredible depth that only comes along once in a great while. In my mind it is on the same level as the tragedies of Shakespeare and the Greeks. At first glance, this is a rather pretentious play about language and language aquisition, but it runs much deeper and has all sorts of implications for all sorts of people. If you are at all interested in language, society, psychology, psycho, socio, or antho-liguistics, human development, if you have ever worked with mentally [handicapped] or autistic children, or if you are interested in what it is to be human, check out this play. One caveat, though: One reviewer commented that the play consists of two columns of text designed to be _read_ simultaneously. This is not true, the play is not meant to be read at all, it is meant to be performed. Unless you put considerable energy into penetrating the text, you will get little out of reading it without seeing it performed.
The other plays in this volume are also interesting and worth checking out, although a bit self-referential to the theatre. I have heard that the translator has changed the new edition, including altering the title of "Offending the Audience" to "Public Insult" wich, to me, ruins it completely. Anyway, check out this book, but go see a performance if you can.

Found on the shelves of Book World in New Haven. Seen on the stage in Chicago. Still in my hands years later. Read in excerpts often and in entirety every few years - because I'm not sure why the play Kaspar has such a hold on me. And because it thrills me.

Perhaps because it points back to before my mind was stuffed with concepts. Perhaps because I sense my thoughts are in a rut. I don't know. What words to choose? What choice?

I know no similar work of literature. Wonderful to see performed. A challenge to read being 2 columns per page meant to be recited sometimes interleaved, sometimes simaltaneously. But even though it is not performed often, you can nevertheless benefit by reading it alone. I certainly did until I saw the play 4 years after reading it. Even better than reading it to yourself, find some friends and recite it together. You probably won't capture all of the staged play's power, but you may have more fun than a lone read. Still, the theatrics are only a part of Kaspar's challenge. Why do you think as you do? How much of one's thinking is explanatory fiction? Where did the store of phrases come from? Is it helping?

In some strange attachment, the play Kaspar figures deeply in my self-definition. Foolish, to let a powerful warning about language define me. I don't even think I understand it that well. But long after I have set aside many books, this one continues to challenge and amaze me.

...goes to Peter Handke's Kaspar. I first read the play because I had been cast in the show, and frankly I thought it was another psudo-intellectual work intended only to confuse the audience with bitter attempts at meaning through poetry which, at the time, I had seen and worked on all too much of. Kaspar was different. Seven years later, I'm still reflecting on the experience I had with that text, re-reading it, discovering new things, and marveling at the genius of Peter Handke in every regard. I have never known any contemporary playwright to be so didactic yet at the same time so evocative. Most writers with this kind of material just dish out a pile of footnotes in dialogue form. Handke does neither; rather, he paints many unseen facets of profound themes surrounding socialization, language development, and object recognition, to name a few. The way Handke deals with concepts of learning and how we take a typical learning process for granted is illuminating in ways that no theory book or psychology text can offer - and shouldn't that really be the point of theatre? To offer the audience something they can't get anywhere else?

This is a directors play, an actors play, even a designer's play - but most triumphantly it is Handke's play. I can think of few writers outside Shakespeare who can manage to leave so much to those producing the work while still leaving an indelible thumbprint on the final product. My only lament is that the english language is deprived of a writer of this magnitude.

This is a an exceptionally well written book that will teach you all you need to know about taking your health to the next level. Clearly written, and easy to understand, this book will change you life for the better. I cannot recommend it enough.

This is the best book I have read for anyone who is truly concerned about their overall health. This book is all about understanding health. A wide variety of topics are covered including; how the body works ,the food your body needs to work best, causes of disease, how to exercise, and the morality of what we eat. This is a clearly written book which will change your life for the better.

Peter Burwash has delivered a book which busts all the myths of the vegetarian diet. This book is written in small bites which are easily digestible for anyone who is interested in taking charge of their health and wants to help the planet in the 21st century. If you are considering making changes in your life then Total Health is the ideal starting place - read this book!

How good is this book? Another guidebook recomedns reading it! This book gives great insight into the history of Las Vegas as well as the individual hotels. While it is a little short on specific information, this guide more than makes up for it with specacular color photography and well written articles. A must read for those who want to know more than what the Chamer of Commerce or the Convention and Visitors Bureau will admit.

This is not your typical tour book. The author acutally suceeds in being entertaining as well as informative. Las Vegas is made tangible and not just rated in terms of good or bad.

The typical tour book stuff is here including hotel rates and restaurant reviews. However, if you want to know more, it's there. It provides the description of a hotel as well as detailing its history. In Vegas, even the hotels have personality. Every subject is handled in a like manner. This has the added bonus of making the book feel more like a narative.

There are small excerpts from popular authors for even more perspective. Perhaps, perspective is the right word for this book. The reader is treated to a point of view and not just a vague recollection of facts and figures. This is the first tour book I ever read cover to cover.

Though it has some slow parts, over all it is a great quick history / guide of Las Vegas. Even if you've been there, you'll find amusement in some of the tales or info included. I did.

I work in tourism, so I'm required to know all I can about Vegas. Castleman's Las Vegas is more than another guide. It can be read like an exciting novel that you don't want to put down. Or it's index makes it a quick reference tool. It's all here. History, the characters, the gaming, the hotels, weddings, maps, side trips, bargains - everything in a good size to carry and read on the plane.

By the time you land, you will feel like a Vegas veteran and save time and money.

Besides a great read, this book is worth the price simply for the fantastic photography.

Michael Goulder is the most insightful voice I have encountered in the study of early Christianity. His hypothosis of two Christian churches, one headed by Peter and James in Jeruselum and the other headed by Paul during his travels is nothing short of genius. He draws almost exclusively on biblical texts to paint a picture of early Christianity struggling to remain true to its Jewish past (the Petrines) while drawing an ever-growing number of gentile followers (the Paulines). The tension in Goulder's dichotomy sheds a fascinating light on many of the more troubling passages in Acts and Paul's letters, making them instantly come into focus. This is a book which will have you wondering why you never made these connections in the first place. It will also cause you to rethink the traditional views that Paul was writing to oppose the influences of traditional Jews, gnostics, or some other faction. Goulder's insights are simply breathtaking.

Michael Goulder is an outstanding biblical scholar, who usually writes for a scholarly audience, but this book was written for the general reader interested in the history of the Bible and of Christianity. Goulder is no Isaac Asimov, but he does manage to write a book the interested layman can understand. It requires more effort on the reader's part than it would if Asimov had written it, but the effort is still not excessive, and is well worth it.

Paul, a Jew who had been strongly opposed to the "Followers of the Way" (the proto-Christian movement within Judaism) experienced something on the road to Damascus which converted him from an opponent of the Jesus movement to an ardent supporter. Paul was convinced that Jesus' message was not just for Jews, but for all humanity. He took his mission out of Israel, where most of the people were Jews, to Turkey and elsewhere where there were few Jews. He wisely realized that few Gentiles would accept circumcision and the strict Kosher (food) laws of Judaism as a condition of joining the churches Paul was founding, so he downplayed these tough requirements, and did not seek to enforce them. Peter and Jesus' brother James, meanwhile, remained in Jerusalem and kept the Jewish Law entirely. They sent out pairs of missionaries to the churches Paul had established, and these missionaries tried to bring the far-flung churches into line with Jewish law, which Peter and James saw as essential, but which Paul saw as superseded by Jesus.

It will likely never be possible to determine which position the historical Jesus would have taken in this controversy (quite possibly somewhere between Peter and Paul), but it is clear that the Pauline position won out; it has even been suggested that Paul, rather than Jesus, was the founder of Christianity, and in a sense he surely was.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to know and understand the beginnings of Christianity. Read it and make up your own mind!

Goulder shows how, by appealing to the gentiles, Paul usurped authority from Peter, ending the mission set in motion by Jesus. After reading "St. Paul versus St. Peter," you may agree with A. N. Wilson, who says at the conclusion of his book, "Paul: the Mind of the Apostle," that "Paul, and not Jesus, was...the 'Founder of Christianity.'" Goulder, a professor of Biblical Studies at the U. of Birmingham, U.K., is a gifted writer, making some fairly complex ideas very easy to understand. His book is in need of a bibliography and an index, and this is frustrating if you wish to further explore his ideas, but it is well worth the buy.

This is one of the first books I bought when I started collecting arms and armour. The color photographs are detailed and of good quality, and there is a fairly good range of swords from European to Indian/oriental. I have found myself reaching for this book as a resource many times. I highly recommend it.

As a child I took weapons, swords, daggers, Sgian dubhs, dirks hanging on the wall as the norm for decor. My Grandfather's home was covered with this items that looked wonderful. As I grew I came to appreciate the beautiful and craftsmanship in weapons that dominated warfare for millenniums, until the coming of the more clumsy equaliser guns. Anyone can pick up a gun and fire it, but to use a sword with proficiency was something akinned to a ballet. Thrust, parry, block, defence and offence, from claymore to épées were breathtaking to watch, even more so was the feeling of hold these metal wonders in your hands. So it was not surprising I went on to collect swords. And this book satisfies that love of the weapon. With various contributors, they trace the earliest origins from stone area, bronze age and bronze age to the swords of World Wars I and II. It covers swords from the Middle East, the unsurpassed Japanese Samurai blades, Swords used in China and Central Asia, even into India, Africa and Pre-Conquest America.

It is LOADED with colour pictures of the weapons, historical paintings showing them in use, even details spectrograms on the composition of the swords, how they were made, used from the most basic to the most ornamental dress swords. Every page just is simply amazing.

Highly recommended any any sword collection, anyone interested in knowing more about these weapons that forged our history and especially of interest to historical writer and historical romance writers. An Absolute MUST for them.

This is the most complete reference I have seen on the subject, rife with good photographs and superb research. Each chapter is written by a different person (experts I assume) and provides exceptional detail. It has sections on Bronze and Iron Age weapons; western weapons from Rome through WWII; Japanese swords; Indian weapons; and Chinese and Southeast Asian weapons; it even covers African weapons quite well. If you are starting a library of edged weapons, or already have one, this book must be in it!

A masterpiece of Norwegian literature. It's an exploration of the boundaries between madness and "normality", and the story of a young man's sacrifice on the altar of common sense and social unwritten rules. How much reality can we stand before loosing our mind? And how much nature, with its power that dances on our fears and on our weaknesses. It would be a great book to read in the language it was written: a bodily and full consistent Telemark dialect. Something goes lost in the traslation, though it couldn't have been otherwise and the trans-cultural re-codificatoion must have been a hard work. I suggest this book to everybody, especially to those who sometimes ask themselves questions about life.

This is a norwegian classic. The book is a painful reminder of the impossibility of being a human. It's warm and intense and has an exciting perspective. Vesaas was not far from a nobel prize with this book.

In September 2000 at the time of the Jewish High Holidays, the editors of this book published a statement in the New York Times titled, "A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity." The statement recounted how, in the years following the Holocaust, Christian denominations had expressed sorrow over the Holocaust and over Christian anti-semitism over the ages. The editors believed these outreach and healing efforts by Christians merited "a thoughtful Jewish response" and an attempt by Jewish people to rethink and reconsider their own attitudes to Christianity. They offered eight statements in an attempt to show common grounds for understanding and respect between Jews and Christians.

This book is an outgrowth of the initial statement of September, 2000. The editiors are part of an organization known as the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, an organization composed of both Christian and Jewish scholars, with the goal of promoting Jewish-Christian understanding.

The goals of the Statement, the Institute, and this Book are of great importance and worth. The effort which is undertaken in this book (which, as the editors indicate as hardly a new one)should continue to the benefit of both Jews and Christians.

This book is structured essentially as a conversation among Jewish and Christian scholars. Following the Statement and two introductory essays, the book is organized by topic. There is an initial essay on the topic by a Jewish writer followed by two essays, one by by a Jewish writer the other by a Christian writer. The topics chosen for discussion are serious and important for inter-faith understanding and include the Holocaust, concepts of God, Scripture, commandment, the place of Israel, the nature of prayer, the attitutes of Jews and Christians towards suffering, incarnation, redemption, and sin and repentance. There is also a discussion of the meanings each faith finds in the Biblical statement that man is created in the image of God.

These writers treat theses topics with respect, with humility and with depth. One can only be awed by the complexity of the teachings included in each tradition and by the learning shown by the participants in this venture. The essays will teach readers the complexity of the tradition of which they are a part as well as suggesting the overlaps with the sister tradition, the possible agreements, and the core of areas in which Judaism and Christianity simply differ.

As would be expected, the essays are not of uniform quality. In some instances, I thought the writers got sidetracked into discussions of matters such as political activism and feminism which, to me, detract and don't add from the questions Jews and Christians need to discuss one to another. Also, although there is some discussion of Kabbalistic themes in Judaism and attempts to relate these themes to Christianity, the book could have used much more. I think there is room for discussion of how the contemplative tradition in each faith can work to promote a sense of sharedness. As it is, the book is deep, thoughtful, but perhaps too (if this is possible) intellectualized.

I was particularly impressed with Irving Greenberg's essay "Judaism and Christianity: Covenants of Redemption" and the reponses. I liked the impression given to Philo's writings as a source of common ground between Jews and Christians in Hindy Naiman's essay. And I thought Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer's essay "Redemption:What I have Learned from Christians" showed me I had much to learn as well.

This is a book that promotes an attitute of understanding and shared respect that has antecendents but still is long overdue. It encourages one to pursue in one's life the tradition of "prayer and study" common to both these venerable religous traditions.

This is one of the most important books available, not just for those already initiated into J/C relations. Every Christan Pastor in every denomination needs to use this book as a new source of balance as they attempt to nourish their congregations in an accurate understanding of God, scripture, and a host of other central faith topics, note the word "central."

The light that eminates from this collection of writings is profound. This balance is what you will not recieve in Seminary training, except from a very few knowledgable educators. The Christian world must listen, and this book is one of the most important collective "voices" to hear from.

I wish I could give this book six stars. I can't remember the last time a work of Jewish-Christian dialogue seized my mind, challenged me, and opened up new avenues to understanding. It's a series of essays penned by Jewish scholars, each of which is followed by a pair of response-essays, one by another Jewish specialist, the other by a Christian. Topics include the law and ethics, salvation history and covenantal pluralism, liturgy and worship, suffering and martyrdom, incarnation theology, and redemption -- all explicated in Jewish and Christian terms, but with a focus on Jewish origins.

All contributors (thirty-two, by my count) steer clear of the common errors which poison religious dialogue: triumphalism, proselytization, syncretism, relativism. (1) Triumphalists believe that no commonalities can be found between the two religions, Jews claiming that Christianity is a deviant form of its parent faith, Christians that Judaism was only a precursor to (and is now superseded by) its successor faith. The authors affirm many commonalities between the two religions, and that denying them is as much a distortion of one as the other. (2) Proselytizers use Jewish-Christian dialogue as a venue by which to persuade the other side to "convert". The authors, while allowing that either side might naturally wish for the conversion of others, do not approve of using dialogue to realize this hope. (3) Syncretists attempt to construct a new religious reality out of various elements of Judaism and Christianity. The authors reject this as idolatrous and trivializing. (4) Relativists deny that some things are true everywhere for everyone. The authors, while recognizing commonalities between the two religions, also know that the ultimate truth claims of Judaism and Christianity are different and thus mutually exclusive.

The dynamic interactions throughout this book show that authentic Jewish-Christian dialogue can succeed without both sides offending the other and (equally important) without both sides becoming one. As an orthodox Jewish theologian puts it, "True dialogue is dialogue that respects difference and is animated by it." This is essential reading material for any who are actively involved in Jewish-Christian relations, or for any who have an abiding interest in the Jewish origins of Christianity.