When I point out that James K. Polk and Jerry Ford were the two Presidents who promised only what they could deliver and delivered all they promised, people generally reply "James K. Who?" The man who stretched the USA from sea to shining sea has got to be fascinating. All Kudos to the author for a much-needed book.

Particularly fascinating in it is the hilarious story of the negotiation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave us California et al. It proves the Mark Twain saying that God protects fools, drunkards and the United States of America.

Polk is frequently ranked in the top third of US presidents. The years of his presidency fall between Jackson and Lincoln - a period where the presidents around him were generally considered among the worst in history. Polk clearly learned lessons about management and control from the failures of Tyler before him and these lessons led to a most effective presidency. While sectionalism begins to tear apart the preceding presidency and those that followed, the Polk presidency sees a chief executive who manages to be in charge of events during his 4 years. This book was a good read about an import man in a dangerous and exciting time and perhaps a lesson in not promising only to serve one term.

There is enough information here for a book, but the authors seem to be obsessed by all the information which has not been officially released. The most they can say about some things is, "One was a plan to inject nerve gas into the Egyptian leader's office. The scheme was allegedly approved by Eden before he suspended it in preference for military intervention." (pp. 70-71). As a reader who finds secrets enticing, I found their comments on the more exciting topics, which this book is not supposed to be about, entirely in character. Sometimes I found the terminology a bit confusing: "The RAF flew operations to drop propaganda leaflets on the Egyptian population. The problem was that the `leaflet bombs' were designed to explode at 1,000 ft, using an altitude fuse, and scatter paper over a wide area. However, because of barometric differences in Egypt, the bombs exploded at just 6 ft causing death or injury to any Egyptian in the vicinity - a real own goal." (p. 71). If this book is to be a guide for government activities in Arab parts of the world, the story of a British director of a station broadcasting Arabic propaganda is a lesson that should impress some people:

Then, as D-Day for Operation Musketeer arrived, he was told to change the name of the station to The Voice of Britain. Grasping exactly what was about to happen, the director of the station went on air and warned the Egyptian audience that it would shortly be hearing lies and might experience bombing. It was not to believe the lies and must endure the bombs; these acts were not those of Englishmen who knew Arabia and cared for Arab people. He was promptly arrested by the British military for his trouble. The director was brought back to England and removed from any public platform. (p. 73).

There was also an Arab News Agency, "secretly funded by the British government," (p. 72) which had been "the short-lived and now defunct Balkan News Agency." (p. 72). It had been evacuated to Egypt when the Germans invaded the Balkans. It provided an Arabic language teletype service, charging "very little for its service and frequently gave it away without charge." (p. 73). When England was ready for its pre-emptive strike, "Tom Little and his Cairo team were not in favor of Anthony Eden's military intervention and thought that the British cabinet was misreading Nasser. This stance must have been pretty clear to the Egyptians as Little managed to retain a friendship with Nasser throughout these difficult times." (p. 73). This book is supposed to be about the activities of people like Sefton Delmer, who was added to the Cairo staff "as the Suez crisis worsened in the summer of 1956, the British cabinet's plan for toppling Nasser called for several months of psychological warfare to be followed by military intervention if this did not work." (p. 70). "Delmer and Stevenson's propaganda objective was to equate Nasser with Hitler, which was Eden's view." (p. 70).

Chapter One is called "Indonesia: Prelude to Slaughter." The simple explanation of everything has always been: "As a result of Sukarno's overthrow some 500,000 Indonesians - suspected Communists - were killed." (p. 1). In late 1965, "Britain sent a Foreign Office propaganda specialist with 100,000 pounds `to do anything I could to get rid of Sukarno.'" (p. 1). "By 1959, Britain's investments in Indonesia were in the region of 300 million pounds." (p. 2) The Indonesian Communist Party, "which by 1965 had a membership of over 10 million - the largest Communist Party in the non-Communist world" (p. 3) was supporting Ahmed Sukarno, who had been declared Indonesia's first president in 1945. "And in 1955, Sukarno held the Bandung Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement, increasing suspicion in both Britain and the USA. . . . On May 18, 1958, the Indonesians shot down one of those B-26s and captured the pilot, an American named Allen Pope." (p. 3). If you didn't know anything about "those B-26s," you might be unaware that CIA planes were carrying out bombing missions to aid insurgents, something that the British and Americans now do openly over parts of Iraq, since the last failure of everybody to rebel against a leading enemy, in Iraq. In Indonesia, the biggest support for regime change was in the army. According to BBC correspondent Roland Challis, "So it's not particularly surprising . . . you would get army people saying, look, this old fool is past his time. You know, he's going gaga, he's in bed with 700 wives. And of course, one would get rid of him." (p. 5). At the start of the coup, "Six key army generals were killed," (p. 6) but Soeharto had been at a military hospital visiting his son and set about eliminating those Communists who would be the main obstacle to military rule. Sukarno "attempted to preserve his power and to prevent an all-out bloodbath," (p. 8) but the slaughter seemed to favor British and American interests. Roland Challis noticed how propaganda "was managing to transfer the whole idea of Communism on to the Chinese minority in Indonesia. It turned into an ethnic thing." (p. 8). In 1990, American investigative journalists revealed that the CIA supplied "as many as 5,000 names of suspected senior members of the PKI . . . In effect it was a hit-list which helped the army in its bloody task of physically eradicating the PKI: US Embassy officials followed the progress by checking off names as reports arrived of individual murders and arrests." (p. 9). This book is mainly about the people who were supposed to make it seem like a good idea at the time.

I first used this book as a student-I found it useful then, today I insist that all managers reporting to me review, and use, the concepts and techniques provided by the authors.

The book is useful, in that concepts are well explained, the examples are relevant, but most important for me is that it provides managers who have little or no experience in determining project costs with a handy means (including formulae and worked examples) of doing so.

I have tried to get copies of the most recent edition, the popularity seems to be such that the book is sold out. I most readily recommend this to anyone who needs to justify capital expenditure, who needs to do project costing, and who has to prepare proposals for submission to the boss (or the board of directors)in order to obtain funds for capital expansion, refurbishment or simply equipment upgrades.

In purchasing this book, I was expecting to find something similar to the second volume of the Norton Anthology of American Literature. Unfortunately, I found this book to be far inferior. It has works by some of America's most highly commended authors, and has some great short stories. However, the excerpts from authors' longer works seem to be lacking; there should either be longer excerpts or more poingnat scenes should have been chosen. The anthology spends far too much time describing eras, and not enough in inserting major works. Some of the breakdowns/characterizations of the peices included are awkward, and tends to underrate the authors by putting them in sectionss that degrade their work.

This book provides an excellent quick reference for any busy CT office.The broad spectrum of reference studies and protocols are an excellent platform to create and build a well rounded protocol base. This book also provides the basics to the first time spiral users and provides a quick information base for the experienced tech.

It takes a ... what? It takes more than this book recognizes to improve education. The rhetoric here implies that the so-called "reform" movement is the way to cure school ills. To most teachers, however, this is simply another year's bureaucratic fad to morph educators into paper pushers. Although I found several insights here, and detailed information on six inner-city school districts, I was somewhat amazed by two important omissions: teachers and students. Teacher unions were trivialized by the suggestion that each little school decide, on their own, if they want to unionize.The writer recommends "hiring halls" for teachers, putting us on a level with farm workers and factory hands. This writing shows absolutely no understanding about why teachers need unions or how such organizations originated.

This writer clearly identifies a target audience -- mayors, civic leaders and school board members. By decision, it excludes teachers and students. It's sad to think -- and I've seen this happen -- that ivory tower bureaucrarts actually make decisions based on this type of dubious theory rather than getting down in the trenches with the reality of the classroom.

Content here is peppered with educratic jargon which twists other terminology into bastardized educational theories. School "incubators" make me think of premature babies."Real dollar budgets" make me wonder if bureaucrats are playing Monopoly with our taxes. "CEO Strong Schools strategy" pretends that a principal, who is middle management, is a CEO. Get real. The only CEO in the school district is the superintendent who is hired by an elected school board.

This book, to it's credit, recognizes the inability of reform to reform anything (last paragraph, page 84). Any good book offers new insights and "policy churn" gets my prize here. Teachers are jaded by bandwagon bureaucrats who recycle new versions of old ideas, one after another, never saying, "stop this" or "drop that."

Hillary Clinton quotes the African proverb, "It Takes a Village." This book spins the idea into, "a city." I'm waiting for the next trendy realization for someone to discover that, "It takes a teacher."

This package presents a generally helpful array of methods to approaching your inner self - the true you. In the company of Norman Vincent Peele, I find it supplementary, but still worthy for the price. Enjoy!

I'll start by saying that I did pass the test, so it's apparent that this isn't just sour grapes. But, having passed the test, I can assure you that, for the most part, nothing in this book applied. The labs are fine, but they just take you through one or two canned scenarios per subject, and nothing in the book or the labs actually contributes to your understanding of the subject matter.

I know that the point isn't to be a paper MCSE. You need experience to pass the test. The study guide should be either a starting point that gives you the theory so you can implement it and experience it, or it should be the reference that fills in the gaps in your existing experience. This book is neither.

Sure, this is pretty late for a review of this book. If you are just now buying a book to prepare for this test, you have problems. However, I am still fairly upset with the lack of depth to this book, and I would like Sybex to know about it.

In most cases, what I would consider crucial topics are only covered in the slightest detail. In fairness, the two chapters on TCP/IP and RRAS were fairly decent. There was a good amount of explanation as to WHY to configure things a certain way rather than just HOW.

Plusses: Not very many errors at all. Errors in previous Sybex books were frustrating, so it's nice to see this go.
Minuses: Too many bulleted lists and tables, not enough good meat. Reminds me more of a Test Success book than a Study Guide.

Holding the MCSE title I'm using this book for preparing the 70-240 exam. But this is the worst book from Sybex I ever read! The book skips around the themes, repeats whole paragraphs and has a lot of errors in it. I reported quite a lot to Sybex. But until today, none of them have been put onto their web site! Also there's NO such electronic version of the book on the enclosed CD-ROM as they say in the Readme.txt. This is a big misstake too! It's a pitty, really not worth the whole money!

Just passed the 70-240. I used this book to study for the whole thing and it was the best of all the books I saw. If you want a concise guide (most of them are just too long) that will give you all the essentials then this is it. You have to know every little bit that is in here because it doesn't repeat things but the text, exercises (on CD-ROM) and Exams (also on CD-ROM) are all spot on - very clearly explained and not riddled with mistakes like some others. I did also use a 4 day Wave bootcamp to reinforce the material and fill in a few gaps before passing the exam.

I would recommend this book, but only with grave reservations -- don't use it as your only study material. I have been using Sybex's excellent study guides for years (all the way through my NT MCSE certification and now on Windows 2000), and this 70-216 study guide is definitely inferior. The material presented is handled well, but numerous omissions make it unreliable. The chapter tests are particularly atrocious. Questions are badly worded; several tests contain duplicate questions; there are numerous questions on material that is not covered at all in the book (e.g., WINS proxy, DNS round robin, DHCP database migration). I've come to expect far better from Sybex; this has been a major disappointment.

Exams are a way to make "money for nothing and checks for free." This book is barely discernable from the NT books and I am sure the XP will not be long off. I did not buy it for the exam as People that pass exams only show that they can remember questions. However windows 2000 seems to be with us for a while and this book does a good job of pointing out problems before they happen allowing for a preventive plan. Networking is networking is networking However Windows 2000 is not intuitive and is convoluted. So without this or a similar book your goose is cooked.

The book has 14 chapters and an appendix. In them they seem to take you from ground zero to an administrator with a few diagrams and a few pictures. Most of the contents seem to be written by someone who already knows the subject well enough to leave out what he thinks you should already know.

As stated before one reason for using this book is to cut through the convolution. On a UNIX based host the use of DHCP is as simple as filling out a form with base information all in one location. This book takes 20 pages to describe where and how to use DHCP as if it was a separate process than the operating system.

There are better books but this book is better than not.

Using this book and the Virtul Lab they sell I was able to pass the exam. I also briefly looked through a friends' Transcender. This, though, was the toughest MCSE exam for me. Know DHCP, WINS, and DNS well. While it's true that the author gets a bit verbose at times, I, like several reviewers below, like the fact that such depth was given to the topics. The exam is hard and you need to work hard to pass it. Don't expect it to be a breeze. Anyhow, the book did the trick for me.

I liked it, yes, but, I liked "Hollywood Lesbians" a bit better. It is a wonderful premise, talking to stars about their homosexuality, but, I believe that it should not have been written unless it was a bit more revealing in it's topic. Kudos to Mr. Hadleigh who is a knowledgable writer. I would have liked to know more though (a lot was hidden even still. the reader is told this. that right there gave me a sign that all is not right with this book).

Books like The Celluloid Closet and Hollywood Babylon abound with rumors about the sexual appetites of Hollywood stars. Boze Hadleigh's Gays in Hollywood, however, seeks to provide first-hand reports. An entertainment journalist since the 1960's, Hadleigh conducted volumes of off-the-record interviews with celebrities reputed to be gay or bisexual such as Cary Grant, Paul Lynde and Anthony Perkins, as well as less well-remembered actors like Randolph Scott and William Haines. In these interviews, often given only with the understanding that they would not be published during the star's life, Hadleigh attempts to get normally secretive actors to speak about their guarded sexual lives. The results vary widely, but even the "unsuccessful" interviews can be fascinating. Some stars like Paul Lynde, James Coco and Cesar Romero, speak freely and provide valuable accounts of what it was like to be gay in an industry filled with double lives and convenience marriages. Others like Cary Grant and Anthony Perkins are more elusive, but not without revelations about co-workers and peers. And one in particular is not so kind: at the end of his interview, an exceptionally ruffled Liberace expels Hadleigh from his mansion with imperial fury. Like his earlier volumes Conversations With My Elders and Lesbians in Hollywood, Hadleigh's work is somewhat journalistically suspect. He claims that for most of these interviews, he was not allowed to tape record or take notes, and frequently the questions seems stiltedly reconstructed and retroactively self-righteous. Still, the interviews are highly entertaining and provide an important alternative view of the film industry's social history. Recommended for both general readers and scholars of gay history / film studies.

Many reviewers seem quite upset by Grant's "out-ing," but if he wasn't at least bisexual, then PLEASE let me know why he lived with Randolph Scott--rather than his wives--throughout all five of his marriages (Only one of which lasted more than 5 years). He shared a house with his (male) lover fom 1933, a year before his first marriage, until his death in 1986--most straight pairings don't last that long--his didn't! And, while you're at it, explain photos of the two topless men hanging all over each other by their swimming pool. Being gay was as much of a career-booster as being communist in his Hollywood. There's a reason the man has two Oscars....