This introductory textbook gives a balanced (neither overly conservative nor overly liberal) introduction to all of the classical interpretive questions. Unfortunately, many proofreading errors found in the previous edition have not been corrected in this edition. Some of these errors are substantive, such as putting all of the prophetic books under the heading "former prophets" on p.18 and putting Jerusalem instead of Samaria as the city conquered by the Assyrians in 722 (in the glossary under "transcolonization"). However, an alert teacher can compensate for these types of flaws in an otherwise very competent presentation of the contents and interpretative issues of Hebrew Bible.

In the steamboat era, St. Louis, Gateway to the West, was the fourth largest city in the US, while Chicago was little more than a crossroads. If one were to write a history, the first chapter would be the story of the railroad system built by the State of Missouri. It included a network of roads--Missouri Pacific, Frisco, Iron Mountain, and North Missouri (Wabash)-designed to fan out across the state bringing all traffic to St. Louis. Stock was sold to land owners and county governments, who hoped railroads would increase the value of land-locked land. Bonds were guaranteed by the state.

But Chicago interests, unencumbered by threats of Civil War, won the competition. Backed by Boston financiers, they completed the Hannibal and St. Joseph (CB&Q) across the state before completion of any of the state railroads. Along the way, 43 were killed on the inaugural run of the Missouri Pacific when a bridge over the Gasconade River collapsed. Those killed included some of the most progressive boosters in the state. The state railroads went bankrupt. The state assumed their debts. Missourians paid twice for their railroads. Costs that were scandalous in construction of the Transcontinental Railroad through mountainous terrain, were paid quietly by Missourians for railroads built through their rolling hills.

In the second chapter, Missouri interests hoped that Kansas City or St. Joseph would be selected as the Eastern terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad. Possibly a Southwestern route would be built from Kansas City that would avoid the difficulties of keeping a railroad passable through the mountains in Winter. Again Chicago interests won. Omaha was selected (and railroad building across Iowa took off with vigor).

Jackson's volume describes the third chapter. Chicago had built a drawbridge across the Mississippi at Davenport, IA, in 1855, but it was destroyed by a steamboat collision and fire in 1856. A young Abraham Lincoln represented the railroad in a lawsuit filed against the bridge company (and supported by St. Louis interests). He won the argument that bridges must permit free passage of both railroads and steamboats. Now forces were building to build more Iowa bridges. St. Louis needed a bridge to compete, but the Mississippi in St. Louis is a much more formidable obstacle and bridge building was still a primitive art. Enter James Eads, not really an engineer, but a charismatic, accomplished, doer of projects. He had backing from Pennsylvania Railroad interests (the leading US railroad, whose tracks ended on the East side of the river at St. Louis). Active in the bridge project were president, J. Edgar Thompson, vp Thomas Scott, and Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie is best known as the builder of what became US Steel in Pittsburgh, but he began his career at the Pennsylvania Railroad, where his business skills were noted. He was protege to Thomas Scott. In the Eads' Bridge story, he was present as representative of Keystone Bridge, a private company founded by Pennsylvania Railroad interests to specialize in the construction of iron bridges especially for railroads. Keystone constructed the bridge to James Eads' design.

Author Jackson notes the Pennsylvania Railroad's interest in the Texas Pacific and the Northern Pacific as well as the Atlantic and Pacific (Frisco) and North Missouri (Wabash) in Missouri and suggests this indicates a desire to build a transcontinental railroad system. Its more likely the Pennsylvania thought it important to take care of its feeder lines. Railroads make their money on ton miles. Freight that runs the length of the system is most profitable. Therefore, its important for an East-West system like the Pennsylvania to maintain relationships with lines to the West so they can swap traffic. They do this with personal relationships, and by lending management expertise (as board members) and prestige to assist with financing-preferably without investing the railroad's own capital.

In an age of Enron and Adelphia, its interesting to see the ethics involved in some of the transactions. Robber barons like Jay Gould are known to have bled railroads dry while operating them in bankruptcy. Usually this was accomplished by executives personally owning businesses that sold key supplies to their own railroad-coal, railroad ties, bridges, etc. Profitable construction companies was the device used in the Credit Mobile scandal related to the Transcontinental Railroad. The book suggests that executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad also engaged in these self-dealing practices, practices that would be considered unethical today.

The book tells the full details of the construction of the bridge including the use of caissons to sink the pier foundations to bedrock and the discovery of the bends as the affliction of workers who worked in high air pressure and decompressed quickly. The bridge is mostly iron but used some of the first steel, and fabrication of this steel was troublesome. Numerous difficulties were encountered. The book includes copious illustrations. Its well written and tells the story well.

The book ends in chapter four of our railroad history. Jay Gould becomes the owner of most Missouri railroads and leasee of the Eads' Bridge. He assembled the structure (after years of delay) that finally created a terminal railroad association to construct the first Union Station and the necessary trackage to connect the bridge and the railroads of St. Louis. Other sources indicate Jay Gould's railroad empire in Missouri was assembled to force admission to the Iowa Pool, a revenue sharing arrangement for the lines that connected with the Transcontinental Railroad. He failed in that aspect, but succeeded in being a robber baron, though his empire collapsed soon after his death.

In the end, Eads' Bridge probably came too late to have much impact on the St. Louis-Chicago competition. It did alleviate a serious bottleneck that otherwise might have been a limitation, but the bridge was expensive, and the tolls charged by Jay Gould were high. According to Jackson, the bridge still had $5MM in bonded indebtedness recently-even now long after it is obsolete, but it still is a much deserved landmark to the Spirit of St. Louis.

I have always admired Romulo Betancourt from what I have read and heard about him. I decided it was time to read a biography, funny enough I was looking for one in spanish without any luck in the web (I found later that Manuel Caballero wrote one), but I found this one in English. What I liked the most about the book is that it is very well documented and facts are well supported. I liked also the structure and how the author chose what issues to write about and dedicate special attention. One thing to keep in mind is that the author was friends of Romulo, so I am wondering if this biased a little the approach of some of his conclusions. I am eager to read another biography and research on some of the bibliography he is referencing to, then I can draw my own conclusions.

Other than that, the book is very well written with so much information in it that I had to read some parts twice to digest it properly.

Many people know about Robert Henri the leader of the Ashcan School of American painters. Few people know about Robert Henry Cozad the son of a professional gambler and wheeler dealer. This is a fascinating and touching true story of a family and their struggle to stay together.

I was introduced to this book during a Systems Analysis and Design class as part of a Master's Degree program. I was impressed with its thoroughness. Anyone serious about learning and maintaining about SDLC and techniques in systems analysis and design should keep this book.

True to the the game was one of the best books i have read in a long time. Robert Scoop Jackson did a might fine job of writing this book. I couldn't put it down. At times I thought I was one of the characters.

I guess I'm one of the little old ladies, but I could not finish this book. All the scatology would appeal to 8-year-old boys, but they are too young for the sexual scenes. I just found this book too stupid to waste my time reading it. It is too bad this review system does not allow for negative stars.

Although the LJB "Cat Who.." books are PG and for children, this parody is not for kids. Besides the detailed pornographic actions of the main character, the way she was murdered is pretty gross.

However, the parody is terrific. The writing is funny. And every aspect of the LJB books are made fun of. For example:
Instead of country town it's in NJ. Wholesome characters are far from that. And the cats are irrelevant when it comes to solving this case. Also, I found a great pun of LJB's style of using common items as murder weapons. Instead of butter knives or fireplace pokers, we have a shaver and dildo!

It's creatively cleaver and fast-paced reading. But it can be disrespectful to serioius LJB fans and even perhaps her family?
To repeat: NOT FOR CHILDREN!!!

My mystery reading group recently chose this title for our discussion. About half the people loathed it; the other half absolutely loved it. I was one of the second group, one who definitely was able to "read and roar." I think the readers who were alarmed by the novel found it "too risqué" and "not enough about LJB", but as the people on my side of the room kept insisting, that was the very point. Kaplow's book takes the polite little world of LJB and completely turns it on its head. Instead of a cute little eccentrics in white-washed little towns, we're given a book-length Eric Bogosian-like screed against the fraudulence of novelists like LJB, but, more specifically, we're given a smart literary parody that begins even before the novel starts. There's a "By the Same Author" page that includes such gems as "The Cat Who Mistook His Wife for a Litterbox." Then, on the copyright page, amid all the tiny legalese, we find: "All of the jokes in this novel were originally rejected by The New Yorker." This is really what the book is about: a sly send-up of books, authors, literary prizes, popular culture, and sexual mores. It's done at high volume and high intensity. It made me cry with laughter. If you're looking for a tame little tasteful send-up of LJB, then be prepared to drop your bifocals and your dentures in alarm. But if you've got a taste for something madder and wilder and smarter, this book is for you. (I particularly recommend you reread "The Maltese Falcon" as the last quarter of this book is a delicious send-up of that novel.)

My British girl-friend is presently taking a German course, as I am German. We are currently living in North America, where her German teacher uses the above book.

Being German and a German teacher and linguist for 13 years I was interested in the book my partner is learning the language with. So I went through the book and was appalled at the amount of grammatical mistakes and usage errors used in the book. The book was apparently not written by a German person, based on the type of errors I assume it was written and revised by a native English speaker.

Countless expressions and phrases are completely outdated, many have never been used and/or are simply wrong. Students learning German with this book will be ridiculed when speaking German in any German speaking country. I could not believe that a book like this does even exist for official language courses.

It has even been revised by a Mr. Robert D. Vanderslice and according to its cover "over 1/2 million copies" have been sold or issued.

To be very honest, apart from the wasted money and time people spend on a course and this book (I am sure a lot use it for self-instruction), I think it is even irresponsible to use, publish and sell this book. I will be more than happy to provide you with a list of examples of such linguistic errors and misuses of the German language.

I am presently working as a German language specialist with an international American company, and I am herewith offering you to completely revise this book for you to make it fit for the market. The way it is I can only advise you to please not distribute it any further.

I have not actually read this edition of the German Made Simple books, but I wore out my first book and bought a second one a few years later. It was identical. The last time I looked at these books the content hadn't changed noticeably. But I consider this to be a great book for getting started in German and progressing to an intermediate level. As for me, I have been studying German as a hobby for over 20 years and am in the process of working on my undergraduate degree in education for the purpose of teaching German. Considering the low price at which these books sell, most people could easily buy this book, a German-English/English-German dictionary, and a phrase book (if you plan to travel) or two and be well on their way to learning the language. My only complaint about the book I had was that the binding didn't hold up--pages started falling out after a couple of years of use.

I've searched for some time to find a quality self-teaching German language program. This is the first to make learning German fun and easy. Each skill is analyzed into small, manageable steps, followed by adequate application. I highly recommend the book.

Spanish made simple gave me a very solid foundation in Spanish. It helped me to read Spanish in a short while, and to pronounce clearly.

However, it did not help me to construct sentences and speak fluently.

Certainly not a one-star book. It can be very helpful, but you have to be willling to devote time for memorization. It is not for everyone. This book is very dense in information and will give you a solid background in Spanish, but you must devote time to studying it like you would any textbook, and limit yourself to one lesson a day, or it will frustrate you with all you cannot remember. Also, I do not like the 8-1/2 x 11 format.

Spanish Made Simple is the absolutely best book for learning to speak and read contemporary Spanish. The book is written in the form of a interesting novel with the vocabulary and grammar seeded into the captivating narrative. Beginning with absolutely no knowledge of Spanish, I was able to converse on everyday topics within a few months. After two years of self-study, I tested out of 8 hours Spanish at the local community college. If you want to learn Spanish, this is the book to get. It worked for me. It will work for you.

Gunner With Stonewall is a typical and valuable first hand account of life in wartime. Filled with intersting atecdotes and personal details, it is closer in perspective to Henry Kyd Douglas' "I Rode With Stonewall" than Foote's or Catton's histories on the same period. This lends and air of timelessness and similarity with WWII- and Vietnam-era first -hand accounts. Written many years after the fact, the book contains some minor innaccuracies ultimately clarified by the Editor. All in all, considering the dirth of books about Confederate Army Artillery, it is a good read that diserves a place on the historian's bookshelf.

Poague reminds me of Porter Alexander in his occasionally acerbic tone and his willingness to tell it like he thinks it is with regards to generals and their foibles. Maybe it's an artillery thing. Also like Alexander, he's refreshingly bloodthirsty -- no Gordon-esque blandishments about chivalry here. His account of the death of Federal Gen. Kearny contrasts interestingly with other accounts I've read, and his description of the surrender at Appomattox is particularly evocative.