This book is about Dud Noman. Never has there been a more appropriate name for a charachter. The book takes place in the early decades of this century and revolves around a completely pathetic soul that the reader will both relate to and sympathize with. It is the story of his struggle to survive and live and really causes the reader to reflect upon their own existence. The characters are all multi-faceted and complex, but that is one of my favorite things about Powys. Like all Powys novels this one is well worth the effort.

This book was a very detailed and interesting look into some of the most amazing military blunders in history. The author has obviously done his homework, and gives surprisingly intricate detail into each situation. He does tend to ramble on a little with his explanations, and injects a lot of theory based on the facts about why he thinks certain leaders didn't see things coming, but it's very substantiated. He also seems to hold a general dislike for the job that the United States and British intelligence services do. Maybe there's some hidden issues there.

Although this book would not rank among the unputdownables, it was interesting enough for me to read it from cover to cover over several days. The author has struck a balance between riveting story telling and details of who-did-what-when.

The title is a bit misleading as it was often not military intelligence per se that led to the blunders but the failure to appreciate or act on useful intelligence.

This is one the best books about military intelligence that I have read. Having spent many years working in the area, I find that most other books on the subject are written by outsiders who never quite fully understand what they are writing about, no matter how bright or well intentioned they may be. Few outsiders appreciate, for example, the details of the intelligence cycle, the multiple layers of intelligence collectors, the rivalries among collection agencies, the correct technical jargon, the practical effects on intelligence analysis of inter-agency battles for bigger budgets, etc.

Hughes-Wilson utilizes a case study approach. He analyzes nine different events or conflicts from World War II to the present. Having read about many of the conflicts before, I did not expect to learn much that was new. However, the author presented many new factual details about the events involving the Brits, in particular, that were fascinating. He was clearly a very informed observer and/or possible participant in many of the conflicts. His analysis of the American failure in Tet 1968 is one of the most incisive and dispassionate that I have read. He is no fan of official histories. He is blunt in his criticisms. His comments (actually a very minor part of his Pearl Harbor story)about the FBI's handling of Japanese and German espionage in WW II makes one seriously question the FBI's competence to work effectively as an intelligence organization at that time. But, then has anything really gotten better at the FBI?

Bottom line: As one other reviewer has commented, Hughes-Wilson's real message is that political considerations - whether those of a totalitarian regime or a democracy - often lead to what are called "intelligence blunders." His call for truly objective and independent intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination should be heeded, but it will probably be ignored. We will see more such blunders again.

This textbook is so boring that although I made an A in the class, I couldn't wait to finish it. It uses too many technical words, it makes reference to subjects that students with a few courses in Human Resources know already. It would be better if it offered some real life examples. If you are a teacher looking for a textbook, please keep looking! If you are a student whose teacher assigned you this book..... I am sorry for you!

This is an outstanding book. It is very easy reading, organized and it communicates information to the student. It is loaded with easy following diagrams which reinforce the material, and it is loaded with real world Corporate America and Military Organizational Behavior examples to support the text work. It has an OUTSTANDING CASE Section which again reinforces the material and makes the student apply the concepts learned in the chapters. Also, this text is complete with alot of Personal Assessment Exercises which make you think about the type of person you are, how to improve yourself in working with others. I've used in now for 3 different schools and the students enjoy it...Mainly for the Easy Reading and the way it introduces the concepts. Price is IRRELEVANT. You can go spend $40 on an Organizational Behavior text and you won't get anything out of it because it is poorly written, no cases and no assessments. Highly recommend for any instructor who wants his students to learn. Great reference book also. Don't sell it!!!

I'm reading this book only because it is required for my class, but in reading it, had I known about its quality, I would have purchased it anyhow. It's a very expensive book (and I do doubt whether it's worth $100--but then, I think books are overpriced nowadays)--but the content is very good. Maybe the difference between the previous reviewer and me is that I don't know much about organizational behaviour and haven't compared it to other books in this field.

Your child will quickly recognize his/her Seseame Street friends but will soon tire of the unimaginative and drab photos.

With colorful photographs of favorite Sesame Street characters and everyday objects to count, this book will be a favorite read for both parent and child. The bright pictures and simple premise make it a wonderful choice for baby, while the sight of familiar friends and the joy of counting may appeal to toddlers.

I had thought this book was about first aid for wild animals, but as it turns out it's more like a manual for killing them. It's full of ways to kill but next nothing on healing wild creatures. This is the most disappointing book I've ever seen. I'd recommend that anyone interested in truly helping animals avoid this book...

This book is FILLED with useful advice on how to care for wild creatures. It takes a no nonsense approach to capturing, handling, feeding and caring for orphaned or injured wild animals. Perhaps the previous reviewer couldn't handle the candor with which the authors deal with the reality that some animals in some circumstances can't be helped, but if you can and are interested in effectively helping animals that are in trouble, this book's for you.

This book is boring. Reader speaks in monotone. Does not hold attention and runs in circles. More informative books available on this subject.

If you want to learn about these composers but don't feeling like reading about them, then this is for you. Each tape has 2 sides, containg information on a certain composer. Different voices are used to portray different people, and excerpts from some of the composers' most famous works are included on the tape.

The book is a disaster. I had to suffer with it for 2 semesters. None of the other students in my Calc I and Calc II courses got anything from it either, as far as I can tell. I had to scramble and seek information from other calc books in order to understand what differentiation and integration was all about. The text in no way prepares one for the exercises. There's no connection between the text and the exercises. In the exercises there appear some inane, open-ended questions that seem to be trying to make some unfathomable point. This is not a book anyone can learn from. I would strongly advise any student who must use this book as their course textbook to CHANGE COLLEGES. There are many great calculus books out there, on all levels. For those who prefer a 'calculus reform' approach, I would recommend Calculus Lite, by Frank Morgan. For the more traditional approach, I got a lot out of Anton's classic.

Teaching with this text - which I've been doing for the past two semesters - is an uphill battle, to say the least. It's a text designed for non-majors; I teach business and social science students. Instructors of these sorts of students need to convince their pupils that they DO need to know how to reason mathematically, and that math IS relevant to their life plans - they can't just rely on their calculators to do all their work for them. When the textbook seems to disagree, our job is all the more difficult.

The authors of _Calculus_ don't seem to have made up their minds regarding whether or not it is necessary to introduce the notion of mathematical justification in this book. On the one hand, the examples feature sound arguments for why a curve looks the way it does, or why a critical point is a maximum or minimum - but on the other hand, alongside Newton's Method and the Bisection Method for estimating roots, is a "Using the Zoom Function on Your Calculator" primer on how to estimate the zeroes of functions. Offhand remarks about "and you can use your graphing calculator for this and that" serve to seriously undermine any attempt to explain to first-year students the concept of mathematical argument - which is unfamiliar to many.

The organization of the chapters is also somewhat questionable. Differentiation is broken up into two sections: one dealing with the concept of a derivative (complete with pictures), and the other pertaining to computing them. While the idea of introducing differentiation through a concrete example - measuring instantaneous velocity given a displacement function - is a good one, by the time students actually get to work with derivatives, they're no longer focused on what they actually represent. Curve sketching is introduced vaguely at the end of the second chapter - before the shortcuts to differentiation are mentioned - and then revisited only in chapter 4.

The section on integration is even worse: again, it's introduced in a concrete manner - this time, by asking how displacement can be computed from a velocity function. But for some bizarre reason, the authors don't take this opportunity to explain that the area under a velocity curve - the integral - is that same displacement function whose derivative was the velocity. It's a perfect opportunity to do so, as it's an interesting and surprising (to the beginner) result, and one that's accessible at this point in the course. But instead, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is relegated to a later section, long after the "integral as an area" idea has been abandoned and students are just working with integrals as antiderivatives. (Even more curiously, there's a section entitled "The Second Fundamental Theorem of Calculus", but none called "The First Fundamental Theorem of Calculus".)

I'd highly recommend James Stewart's _Calculus_ instead of this text for a first-year calc course: the material is far better explained, and there's even a section on the inadequacies of graphing calculators (which are expensive, and which most first year students don't have the mathematical background to use properly).

When I took Multivariable Calculus, we used "Multivariable Calculus" by James Steward in class. I personal like Steward's book very much because it made me understand without the help of my professor. With a supplement of this book, I found I understand Multivariable Calculus in a more comprehensive way. All in all, I like this book a lot.

The book contains much interesting, moving and no doubt correct information about its subject. That is valuable in itself.

Corns and Hughes-Wilson don't just offer information. They also argue for a certain thesis: 'Spilled water cannot be replaced in a smashed jug' (Arab proverb), and so any idea of retrospective pardons should be strongly opposed.

The book's presentation of its thesis is so slovenly, that it would be a fine text for use for practice on a course in critical thinking. Suppose you want to form your own opinion on this controversy. Here are a few examples of the kind of obstacles Corns and Hughes-Wilson put in your way:

1There are gratuitous sneers here and there about their opponents who advocate pardons. The reader has to be alert to separate sneer from substance.

2In presenting one of the main pillars of their argument they rely mainly on Arab proverbs and poetic aphorisms such as 'The past is another country'. The thoughtful reader will hope to find a clearly reasoned statement of the authors' position on the tricky question of moral judgements about other times and places. But once you cut away the book's vague rhetoric on this point there is nothing left.

3There are some whopping contradictions to be found if you keep your eyes open. For example.
The authors seem to be saying, albeit rather impressionistically, that the executions were basically OK by the standards of the time. However, the jacket of the book states that the executions were 'Controversial even at the time'.
On the issue whether executions were necessary because they discouraged mass desertion that might otherwise have occurred, sometimes the authors seem to be suggesting that this was indeed so, and in other places the opposite.

4There is also scope for spotting important inferences from the facts which the authors unaccountably fail to draw. They state (p. 103) that 'the death penalty was used only in a minute percentage of cases', and they back this up with ample evidence. Do they conclude that those few who were executed were therefore treated unfairly - perhaps even so unfairly that they deserve a pardon? No, Corns and Hughes-Wilson don't seem to notice that this possible line of debate even exists. As a reader, you will have to spot it for yourself.

On a frivolous note, I can't resist recording that the acknowledgement at the beginning to 'our eagle-eyed copy-editor' contains both a spelling mistake and a punctuation mistake in the same sentence.

In short, recommended to two classes of reader: those who want a library of all the main works on this subject; and those who want something for a good workout of the critical thinking faculties.
Definitely not for someone who wants just one thoroughly reliable work on the subject.

Hughes does a decent job of analysing Priestley's plays, but a much better grasp could be easily found by reading Priestley. Very little except drama is given treatment here.

There are few books more disappointing than a history book that doesn't adequately explore its thesis. Such is the case with Pontiffs. Hughes mentions in his introduction that he selected popes who "...made a difference." He then goes on to profile eleven pontiffs, from the obvious (St. Peter and Gregory the Great) to the more controversial (Pius VII and Leo X). However, these profiles barely, if ever, explain the reasons why these popes "made a difference." As a result, one finishes the book wondering why Hughes chose these eleven instead of others who have made equally powerful impacts on the papacy.

Pontiffs is good as an introduction to the accomplishments and failures of the discussed popes. If read on that level alone, it serves as a handy, easy to read primer on their lives. But, the book advertises itself as an exploration of popes who "made a difference" in the Church. By failing to explore the thesis more fully, Hughes ends up diminishing his power of his subject.