This examination of Western languages provides an illustrated history which examines the evolving nature of language and world influences on vocabulary and idiom. Enjoy a revised, redesigned new edition which features newly drawn maps, photos, and insights on the latest linguistic issues.

Mr. Stevenson has put together a stimulating buffet of Western Language details. If you are a language, etymology or tree buff, this is exciting reading. It also makes a great intro to Western history through its languages. I kept flipping back and forth visualizing history's time line, and the fate it deals to its speakers. This makes as good a textbook as it does periodic reading or reference. But for me who loves language and its history.....aah!

This book, by the late Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley, is a very interesting and at times humorous account of the life of U.S. Navy gunboat sailors on China's Yangtze River from the time of the American Civil War through the mid-20th Century. During that period, China went through a tremendous amount of upheaval that included revolution, civil wars, major wars with Japan, and smaller wars with western countries. In the midst of China's upheaval, small American gunboats and those of other foreign nations tried to protect the lives and commercial interests of their citizens living in China.

Kemp Tolley, who passed away in 2000 at age 92, was himself a young Naval Officer in the 1930s when he was assigned to the Yangtze River Patrol. From that vantage point his tales of U.S. Navy life on the Yangtze--both on duty and off duty--in the 1930s make for some interesting anecdotes, whether they deal with U.S. sailors battling the river and Chinese bandits, romancing White Russian and Chinese women, or brawling with British and Italian gunboat crews in the bars of Yangtze River towns.

"Yangtze Patrol" is a great true adventure story and captures some of the same spirit as the novel, "The Sand Pebbles," which dealt with one U.S. gunboat crew during the Chinese Nationalist Revolution in the mid-1920s. However, any American reader of "Yangtze Patrol" needs to keep in mind how most Chinese viewed the Patrol. That view is well summed up in "The Sand Pebbles" where an American missionary asks Jake Holman, a gunboat sailor, how he'd feel if, instead of American gunboats on the Yangtze, there were Chinese gunboats sailing up and down the Mississippi River.

A fogotten chapter of Naval history is brought to life in this fabulous volume. Kemp Tolley, once a sailor in the Yangtze river patrol, outlines the Navy's service in China from its humblest beginnings prior to the cival war through the loss of the last gunboat in 1941. For those of us interested in Navy history, This book brings a lively and action packed legacy from our "China Sailors"

This book is the Retirement Distribution Bible! I use this for many clients. Combined with their software makes it an invaluable tool.

This book is full of reasons to make you want to become a vegetarian. And if you already are one, then it will renew your faith in the lifestyle you have chosen and know is right for the world.

Why disappointing? Because when I ordered it, I expected new stories rather than reprints from The Blue Lantern (see it for a review of the stories). However, if you've never read Pelevin, this is a small collection to get you started. The mystical chickens Hermit and Six-Toes are unforgettable. A commune from the perspective of a shed, the transformation of public bathrooms to trinket store ... Pelevin provides a funny and deep insight into human nature, especially the Russian variety.

Victor Croizat, a retired Marine Colonel, has written an excellent history of the LVT (Landing Vehicle Tracked). From its original purpose as a rescue vehicle known as the "alligator" and designed by Donald Roebling of Florida, it was modified and pressed into service as a tracked cargo carrier in WW II. From this modest logistic beginning at Guadalcanal and Bougainville, a handful of visionaries began to see the craft's full potential. The reefs at Tarawa prove to be the watershed event for the LVT. When tide and coral prevented the Higgins Boats (LCVP) from bring men ashore, the LVT merely lumbered forward, carrying men and material where the Higgins Boat could not go. From this point forward, in the Pacific Theater at least, the LVT and its many variations became a key element in every amphibious assault. From the Gilberts to Kwajalein in the Marshalls to Saipan, Tinian and Guam in the Marianas and on to Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the landing craft of choice was clearly the LVT. By war's end, over 18,000 had been produced.

Tactics evolved and each island invasion incorporated lessons learned from the ones that proceeded. The familiar pattern developed quickly. After increased naval and air craft bombardment, the rocket firing gunboats, LCI(G)s, would cross the line of departure. Following closely behind were the armored versions of the LVTs, firing as they lead the troop carrying LVTs ashore. Once the assault troops were ashore, the LVTs reverted to their cargo carrying role, bring ammunition, water and supplies to land and carrying the wounded to hospital ships. Several continued carrying men inland hundreds of yard engaging the enemy with the their four MGs as the situation demanded. The armored LVTs would then protect the flanks, firing their 37mm and 75mm canons. Having been found too light to serve as tanks, they would be ashore deployed as self-propelled guns, assisting the artillery batteries or on the reefs serving guard duty.

The book traces the evolution of the vehicle and the tactics utilized in a logical fashion by following the chronology of the War in the Pacific. Two concluding chapters deal briefly with the LVT in Korea and Viet Nam and the state of amphibious operations as they existed in 1989, when the book was printed. In this final chapter, the ancestry of the modern amphibious vehicle is clearly traceable to the Roebling "Alligator", the modest LVT.

Of the 34 major landings during WW II where the LVTs were used, all but 4 took place in the Pacific. Of these few others, three involved river crossings and North Africa. Given their extreme versatility, the added ½" steel protection, the armored versions providing close support at the moment men are most vulnerable, and the ability of the vehicle to carry troops across the 400 yards of open beach and barbed wire, one has to question why they were not used at Normandy. Croizat does not address this beyond saying that in the ETO "...the amtrac was not needed to land assault troops from the sea."

One suspects that the men of Co. A, 116th, might feel otherwise.

This book is a useful brief review and compendium of diagnostic neurological information. The paperback version is small enough to carry around or put in a briefcase. The book packs a considerable amount of information into about 400 pages. There are a couple of dozen chapters, organized according to the usual neurological disease categories, and there are a number of nicely done charts and tables that make good, quick references. Keep in mind this book is not intended to be exhaustive and is meant as a quick review or reference. It is intended for practicing physicians, so familiarity with the technical and medical terminology is assumed, and most technical terms are not explained. The book benefits from recent research, and contains up-to-date information on such rapidly changing areas as Alzheimer's. The book has references into Adams and Ropper's larger neurological handbook for those who want more information. Overall a good, concise reference work in neurology.

Professors Jules Masserman and Victor Uribe present Sexuality in teenagers with readibility, clarity and brevity. They discuss the genetic, developmental and psychosocial influences on sexuality from concepcion to adolescence, and effective therapies of sexual problems. Of a particular interest are the clinical vignettes through which they illustrate the manifestations, causes and treatment of common deviations of sexuality. This book provides direct, pragmatic, and expert guidance to teens and their parents, and to any person interested in helping them.

This book is an introduction to celestial mechanics. It assumes some knowledge of calculus and vectors; given the subject matter, an unavoidable assumption. It contains a number of nicely chosen numerical and mathematical examples in each chapter so that the reader can see both application and extension of the results presented in the chapter. Each chapter ends with some problems, without answers, that continue to extend the basics from the main text. Each chapter contains references to books and papers that supplement and extend the subject matter of the chapter. It ends with a glossary, an appendix of physical constants, and an annotated list of books for further reading for the very interested reader. The book list is particularly valuable if the reader wishes to continue learning celestial mechanics; it covers elementary to advanced texts.

The first chapter provides a historical review of progress in celestial mechanics with a list of notable (dead) practitioners of celestial mechanics. A subjective list of living practitioners might have been helpful in this chapter. Chapters two through six establish the basis of orbital motion, starting with circular motion in chapter two. The mathematical basis for orbital motion is established in chapter three using the law of gravitation and Newton's laws of motion. Successive chapters generalize and expand on the results of chapters two and three. Chapter five introduces rockets and powered flight trajectories. Chapter six introduces parabolic and hyperbolic orbits.

Chapter seven discusses two topics of great practical importance, Kepler's law and Lambert's theorem. While both of these topics are several hundred years old they continue to be rich areas for current development in celestial mechanics. These two crucial topics are well covered. Chapter eight applies the previous material to the subject of orbital transfer; this chapter is the basis for flight between planets. Chapter nine digresses into spacecraft attitude dynamics, a complete discipline in its own right. It introduces the mathematics of the physical motion of a spacecraft about a local reference system. At 25 pages, it is a tight and tidy introduction to the subject. Chapter ten is titled "Planetary Exploration" although it also covers the creation of the solar system and trajectory modification by gravity assistance. More heavily illustrated than the other chapters, chapter ten's main topic is exploration of the solar system by spacecraft. Chapter eleven introduces perturbation theory; what happens to an orbit when more than two bodies make up the gravitational system. Chapter twelve applies perturbation theory to artificial satellites of Earth. (Chapters nine and twelve ought to make you appreciate how hard it is to get those great Hubble Space Telescope images.) Chapter thirteen must have been both the easiest and hardest chapter to write since Szebehely was one of the masters of this subject. It introduces the three-body problem and solar system stability with a nod to chaos theory.

All in all, this book is an excellent introduction to the topic of celestial mechanics. To the depth that the subject is explored, there are no loose ends. (The reviewer does regret that the Introduction from the first edition of this book was omitted from the second edition.)

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