As this book is 1550 pages long, I have not read the whole thing. But as a textbook and thanks to its clear structure it is possible to read parts of the book without getting lost. It is also useful to get an introduction into a specific topic on which one might do further research. Taken into account that this is a book for studying, it is almost fun to read. It is very comprehensive and covers not only the basics of environmental problems, and the international environmental law itself, but also a lot of cross cutting issues. The chosen excerpts are from the many different influential scholars and practitioners and fit very good into the particular sections. The book deals with the traditional views and the needed basic information on international environmental law. But it also points out alternative views and progressive developments in this area. I liked in particular the introductory chapters on environmental problems and their relation to philosophical, development and social issues.

This work should be of more than passing interest to those who more and more find themselves beset on every side by urban sprawl. The author sets out in many ways to preserve an old family homestead; but, more important, seeks ways to make the place profitable. His attempts are often hilarious, the more so when they fail, and they never lack meaning for others who share his feelings about the need for ways to protect ourselves from the menace of an urbanization that has rapidly got out of contol.

Not much needs to be said----Its the Bible of plains archaeology

Often referred to as the Hand Therapist's Bible, this 2 volume set covers virtually every area the Occupational therapist or Physical therapist requires when preparing for the CHT exam. It includes sections on the shoulder and modalities. An excellent reference for the practicing Hand Therapist. Receives the highest recommendation from the HAND THERAPY NETWORK

This is simply a great book. It deals with the Cree living in northern Quebec near James Bay and how in the late 1960s and early 1970s there traditional livestyle, already negatively affected by the workings of the Canadian government, was under attack again. This time it was the government of Quebec led by Robert Bourassa; they had this grand idea that they would turn northern Quebec, which they viewed to be barren and useless land, into one major power generating station. This meant daming rivers and flooding huge tracts of land, land which happened to be the traditional hunting ground for several thoudand Crees, who, despite facing years of injustice and discrimination, continued to subsist to a large degree off of the land. Prior to this period, the Quebec government would likely have been able to proceed unhindered, but by the late 1960s the Native people of Canada were beginning to assert their rights, and Bourassa soon found himself facing very strong opposition. The issue went to court and after a long legal battle, the courts ruled in favour of the Cree. It was a victory that was, however, very short-lived, as within days the ruling was overturned. The Cree intended to continue the fight, but it soon became evident that nothing would become of it; it would take years before the matter would be resolved, and by that time the James Bay project would be complete. So the Cree reached a settlement with the Quebec government.

Although the book's central focus is the struggle between the Cree and the Quebec government over the James Bay project, the book also provides the reader with a very intimate and compelling portrate of the Cree people and their lifestyle which was then dying out. It should be noted too that the author was also responsible for several documentary films about the Cree: "Job's Garden" and "Cree Hunters of Mistassini" both of which provide an excellent visual account of the Cree people and the "barren" land that they inhabited and were fighting to save.

This book was reprinted in 1991 with an additional chapter updating events since the book was initially published in 1975.

This compilation provides students and professionals with a fine overview of 20th century politics in Montana. Recommended for upper-level undergrads, graduate students, and those seeking a deeper understanding of a legacy of injustice. A must!

Congratulations to all that contributed to this outstanding book. The history of the Places was carefully and completely researched and presented with beautiful photographs.

This was the first of several excellent novels (Solo Faces, Light Years, A Sport and A Pastime) by this author. Based on his own experience as a fighter pilot in Korea, The Hunters is the story of an American pilot who wishes to become an ace. Written in direct, deceptively simple, and precise language, The Hunters is an examination of the demands of wartime viewed through the prism of this relatively solitary pursuit. Salter conveys the experience of the Korean war and dog-fighting beautifully. Unlike most war novels, this book is a psychological novel preoccupied primarily with moral issues. The key questions are what is the appropriate way to live, and its obverse question, what is the appropriate way to die? This is the type of novel that Hemingway tried to write in For Whom The Bell Tolls. Where Hemingway failed, Salter succeeds. This deceptively modest book is much better than most of the serious American literature published over the last 50 years.

This is one of the finest books about men at war that you'll ever likely come across. Salter, a Korean War fighter pilot, spins the tale of Cleve Connell, a highly praised pilot off to his first war. The books starts slowly, but gathers momentum, almost a mirror for Connell's struggles with himself, and with a cocky ace named Pell. Salter's precisely chiseled and finely crafted prose provides a rare intellectual and emotional momentum. While few books have been written about America's forgotten war, "The Hunters" is not only a moving monument to Korea, but to the test all men face in combat. Truly a "Red Badge of Courage" for Korea.

I am re-reading The Hunters by James Salter for about the fourth or fifth time, and continue to be amazed at its density and subtlety, and the truth of its story. Almost nothing in the history of air warfare has been written that compares with it for quality or maturity. It is the best psychological profile on the character of the fighter pilot and especially the mammoth ego of the fighter ace, ie, one who can claim 5 or more victories in aerial combat. Readers may want to compare The Hunters with Salter's more recent memoir Burning The Days, since the latter book includes the non-fiction story of Salter's own F-86 Sabre tour in Korea in an equally evocative way, but written more than 40 years after the event. The Hunters is an essential read for anyone interested in the history of air warfare, the Korean War, and the personality of the fighter pilot. It is an excellent work of high literary standards, that foreshadowed the achievements of Salter's non-aviation books that came later.

The Servant is a fable. The author sends his depressed and frustrated manager to a monastary for enlightenment by a CEO turned Monk. Along with other cardboard characters (the cynic, the coach, the teacher) our hero learns the true meaning of leadership.

While this story approach can be off-putting and even annoying, the reality is the reader will learn a great deal about leadership. The key, at least for me, is to get past the genre (story as business lesson) and to the substance of what Hunter offers. And Hunter offers a lot. He's thought a great deal about leadership and it shows. He offers thought provoking insights and a worthwhile perspective on what it means to be a leader, what commitment is required to lead and what challenges a leader must face.

This book is a good buy for a plane trip or as a gift for a new manager. It is an easy read, but is likely to spark some serious self-appraisal.

What do you think about attending a week long retreat at a small, relatively unknown Christian monastery built on a magnificent sand cliff a couple of hundred feet above and overlooking lake Michigan? While there, you will attend classes on leadership taugh by the legendary Fortune 500 executive turned monk, Len Hoffman. I've attended the seminar and I'm inviting not just you but all of my family and friends to go. Actually, I don't know if such a seminar exists, but what I described above is the setting of this superbly written, easy to read book. True to claim, it is a quick read! I could hardly put it down. I felt as if I, too, was there at the leadership retreat along with the characters in the book. Everyone should read this book because it not only teaches us how to be good leaders, it also teaches (or reminds) us how to be good people. Thank you, James C. Hunter, for your invaluable contribution!

This book is a lesson in maturity. John Daily is sent by his psychologist wife to a seminar at a monestery as a last ditch effort to get a grip on his life. The reader is allowed to reflect on the experiences there that bring him to the notion of true leadership- - - Developing others. Developing others is a selfless task, turned into a way of life. John first learns he must give up his ego, then how to encourage, reward, and coach others to be the most they can be. He leaves the seminar believing he has shortchanged all the people in his life and is motivated to make it up to them. He has a new inner voice to follow, and can once again think out of the box. The book does have some religious overtones, but they are very subtle. Whatever your role in life, this book can make a difference for you. It is the type of book that can be re-read at a different point in your life and bring new awareness to an old problem.
If you are involved in motivating individuals at work, at home, school or in any community setting, this is the book for you.

Hogg's book was one of many 'Gothic' doppelganger novels produced at the time, as editor Cuddon makes clear in his introduction. What sets 'Sinner' apart is the fierce, unforgiving, saturnine, phlegmatic, terse, Biblical, paganistic, ugly beauty of the vocabulary and phraseology (Hogg was a shepherd and a poet), suited to a narrative lashed with hate, murder, bigotry and terror, whose sheer violence connects it with another shocking Gothic one-off, Lautreamont's 'Maldoror'; the way the 'double' theme of the novel is embedded not just in the plot, but in the rich formal patterning, from character groupings to the religiously and politically divided Scotland of its setting; and the wide literary adventurousness as a whole which, in its proliferation of stories, framing devices, and self-reflexivity create a labyrinthine, elusive, very modern text.

Hogg's novel is about 150 years ahead of its time. Published in 1824, the work has everything readers of post-modern novels could ask for, including clustered narratives, self-reflexive point-of-view, unreliable narrators, unsympathetic-protagonist, etc. Hogg is engaging in a highly playful exercise, yet at the same time the novel can be read as an entirely chilling depiction of what may happen to the human psyche when it is given absolutely free-reign. The story takes place in Scotland in the early 18th century, a time of political and religious foment. It chiefly concerns the religious "progress" of Robert Wingham. Robert's mother is a religious enthusiast who has left the household of her husband, George Colwan, laird of Dalcastle, because he does not meet her stringent standards of pious behavior. Before she leaves, she delivers a son, whom Colwan names after him and names him his sole heir. A year after she has left she delivers another son, Robert, whom the editor-narrator who first tells the story is too polite to say is illegitimate, but it's evident by all appearances and intimations that Robert is the son of Lady Colwan and the Reverend Wringhim, a dour, intolerant, "self-conceited pedagogue," who is the polar opposite of the easy-going laird. Reverend Wingham undertakes the instruction of young Robert and eventually adopts him. Robert, like his father, is a cold fish, who abhors the presence of women and anything else that he thinks will lead him to sin. Young George, on the other hand is naturally open and fun-loving, engaging in the "normal" activities young men of the time preferred. This attitude piques the ire of Robert, who sees any activity that is not directly related to religion as frivolous. He starts showing up uninvited whenever and wherever George and his friends get together. When they try to play tennis, Robert stands in George's way and interferes with the game. The same thing happens when they play a rugby-like game on a field outside Edinburgh. Even after George loses patience and punches Robert , the younger brother keeps on insinuating himself, uninvited, every time George and his friends meet. When the Reverend Wingham learns that his precious boy has been roughed up, he incites his conservative faction to retaliate against the liberals with which George and his friends are in league. A full scale riot ensues, reminiscent of the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet. Neither the editor nor Wingham ever give full assent to the fantastic elements in the story. Events are depicted in as realistic a light as possible, which lends weight to the storyline and keeps things from drifting off into never-never land.

Everything about this novel "works." The editor's framing narrative subverts Wingham's "confession" narrative at just the right points, so the subversion actually adds to the solidity and texture of the work as a whole and adds to its plausibility. The comic characters are wonderfully depicted (including Hogg himself, who puts in an appearance as an unhelpful clod who's too busy observing sheep at a local fair to assist the editor and his party when they want to dig up Wingham's grave). Wingham's descent into fanaticism and his subsequent psychological disintegration is handled as well as it possibly could be. It is also a perfectly drawn cautionary tale about the pitfalls of antinomian religious beliefs. Hogg describes for the reader a splendid representation of just where the path of predestination can lead a susceptible mind. That's where the comparison's to Crime and Punishment evolve. Wringhim, like Roskolnikov, considers himself above the common rung of humanity. Unlike Rodyan, however, Robert never does discover the full import of his megalomaniacal doctrine until it is entirely too late. Readers might be interested to note that Hogg's novel had a direct influence on Stephenson' s Jekyll and Hyde and on Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray. Hogg was considered by his contemporaries to be something of a rustic genius, and the poetic successor to Robert Burns. He was known as the Ettrick Shepherd, because he did earn his livelihood from raising sheep and was entirely self taught. He was a friend of Sir Walter Scott. He's still highly revered in his home country. If more readers become familiar with this one-of-a-kind book, he will be revered more universally. It really is that brilliant a novel.

James Hogg's "Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" is a claustrophobic, terrifying spectacle of a novel. First published anonymously in 1824, the novel centers around the manuscript of an obscure Scottish Laird who lived in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Robert Wringhim is a well-educated, but illegitimate child of the Laird of Dalcastle. He leaves the estate to live with his mother, also estranged from the estate. Raised by his adopted father, a zealous Calvinist preacher, Robert grows to despise his biological family. When, on his 18th birthday, God reveals through the preacher, that Robert is one of the elect, the true action of the novel begins.

The novel has an unusual and provocative structure: an editorial recounting of the story envelops the text of Robert Wringhim's actual 'memoirs and confessions'. The novel's temporal structure hinges on the 1707 Act of Union which annexed Scotland to England, forming Great Britain. With the editorial apparatus (and its debt to an oral tradition), and Robert's first person manuscript, Hogg seems to question the methods by which history is written and passed down. Several versions of Robert's story, from himself, his contemporaries, and the 'editor' who lives over 100 years after the events gives a startling, disturbingly incoherent vision of history.

This novel is great for its wranglings with the problems of reconciling money with morality, and religion with the law. Hogg's primary concern is with the religious issue of antinomianism - the notion that God's elect are free from the dictates of human law. Robert's election and subsequent relationship with the wildly mysterious, fantastically rendered Gil-Martin put antinomianism to the harshest test.

"The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner" is a rather short novel which I recommend highly. It is an entertaining historical, religious, psychological rollercoaster. Its blend of sublimely dark humor and social comment is a high achievement in any century.