In contrast to its ubiquitous cousin, the Tarascon Pharmacopoeia, this book is infrequently used and is a relative unknown amongst my colleagues. That's a shame, because this book provides a wealth of useful, easily accessible information. Despite the fact that I carry other databases including my own notes or "peripheral brain" on my handheld, this book provides me with answers I don't find anywhere else.

The information is broad and varied including the bread and butter differential diagnoses of mixed acid-base disorders, to ventilator weaning parameters, PIOPED data, rheumatologic autoantibodies and in what diseases a given antibody is prominent as well as the criteria for fluid analysis of any type (e.g. joint, CSF, pleural, ascites, etc.), EKG criteria et cetera ad naseum. As a quick, information packed reference, it's easily worth the small amount it costs.

I bought the Tarascon Internal Medicine & Critical Care Pocketbook at the advice of my Residency Program Director. It really is an amazing book. The tables are very easy to interpet, and there is a wealth of information about all the common diseases seen in a hospital setting. As an Internal Medicine resident, I would give it 2 thumbs up. An essential pocket book to carry around.

A unique, creative volume, both a guidebook to contemporary Dublin (circa 1989) and the Dublin of Joyce's "Ulysses", and a guide to interpreting the text of "Ulysses." The book contain eight tours of Dublin corresponding (though not strictly chronologically) to the inner and outer voyages of Leopold Bloom on "Bloomsday," (June 16, 1904) the day chronicled in "Ulysses."

A great deal of the text is included, along with explanations of Joyce's historical, religious, place-name allusions, as well as information on how to follow Bloom on his walking and riding tour of Dublin. (Bloom walked, took trams, trains, and hose-drawn conveyances, today's visitor is told how to use DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to negotiate Bloom's wanderings that day. Some of the city remains as it did in 1904; others have places have changed, partially as a result of being mentioned in the fictional "Ulysses." For example, Sandycove Tower, which was a real tower in 1904, and is the initial setting of "Ulysses." It is now the site of the "James Joyce Museum." The bar of the old "Jury Hotel" (one of 60 actual establishments mentioned in "Ulysses") has been transported to Zurich and renamed the "James Joyce Pub."

Because Joyce set "Ulysses" in the Dublin he knew, and based many of his characters on people he knew, the walking tours transcend (as does the book) the objective "what's there" and the subjective "how did Joyce write about it." It is truly a remarkable book, fascinating for those familiar with "Ulysses," and/or those who are taking either armchair or actual tours of Dublin. Includes many cites from the book (with excellent annotations and references to places in Dublin), anecdotes about Joyce, maps of the walking tours, three appendices (including "The Movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus on 16 June, 1904), and a useful index. Very highly recommended.

A unique, creative volume, both a guidebook to contemporary Dublin (circa 1989) and the Dublin of Joyce's "Ulysses", and a guide to interpreting the text of "Ulysses." The book contain eight tours of Dublin corresponding (though not strictly chronologically) to the inner and outer voyages of Leopold Bloom on "Bloomsday," (June 16, 1904) the day chronicled in "Ulysses."

A great deal of the text is included, along with explanations of Joyce's historical, religious, place-name allusions, as well as information on how to follow Bloom on his walking and riding tour of Dublin. (Bloom walked, took trams, trains, and hose-drawn conveyances, today's visitor is told how to use DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) to negotiate Bloom's wanderings that day. Some of the city remains as it did in 1904; others have places have changed, partially as a result of being mentioned in the fictional "Ulysses." For example, Sandycove Tower, which was a real tower in 1904, and is the initial setting of "Ulysses." It is now the site of the "James Joyce Museum." The bar of the old "Jury Hotel" (one of 60 actual establishments mentioned in "Ulysses") has been transported to Zurich and renamed the "James Joyce Pub!" And some things apparently do not change: The brothel setting of "Circes" is still "one of Dublin's danger areas where street crime is common...and [the area] should be treated with caution." Because Joyce set "Ulysses" in the Dublin he knew, and based many of his characters on people he knew, the walking tours transcend (as does the book) the objective "what's there" and the subjective "how did Joyce write about it."

This is a truly remarkable book, fascinating for those familiar with "Ulysses," and/or those who are taking either armchair or actual tours of Dublin. Includes many cites from the book (with excellent annotations and references to places in Dublin), anecdotes about Joyce, maps of the walking tours, three appendices (including "The Movements of Leopold Bloom and Stephan Dedalus on 16 June, 1904), and a useful index. Very highly recommended.

As Henry Drummond noted in 1883, "This is the age of the evolution of Evolution. All thoughts that the Evolutionist works with, all theories and generalizations, have themselves evolved and are now being evolved."
This remarkable work on the Vestiges of Robert Chambers is itself a history of the evolution of evolution, describing in wonderful detail the context of a book that perfectly fits Drummond's description. Springing from eighteenth century intimations, first theorized by Lamarck, the idea of evolution finally bursts into public consciousness with Chambers' Vestiges, whose sudden popularity, if not notoriety, made it one of the first modern bestsellers in an age of technological breakthroughs in communications, transport, and printing. Laying the groundwork for laters theories, it nonetheless is too often dismissed as pseudo-scientific when, in fact, the author was aware of certain aspects of the pre-Darwinian ideas of evolution that only now are resurfacing, after being shunted aside by the Darwin tide to come. The account in this work is an engaging hybrid of cultural history mixed into the biography of Chambers' book, and is useful for the student of evolution in its account of the social relations of science, from the gentleman scientist to the grub street popularizers, and indirectly brings to life the later relationship of Huxley to Darwin. The age of Darwin in which we live has made him the sole authority and source of a science of evolution and this distorts the facts, and has obscured the reputation of this and other books. Indeed part of the confusion over selectionist theories sprang from the need for Darwin to artificially separate himself from previous ideas of evolution, by a novelty of claims, since the idea of evolution had seen its foundations laid. It is good to remember the full tale. The reality is that Vestiges was the first thunderclap of the evolutionary idea, whose correct intimations mixed with much speculative confusion were filtered out of the positivist account of Darwin, that provoked its own firestorm of reactions, for not the least reason that it was as evolutionary as the work of Chambers, and did not truly foot the bill for a theory of descent.

From the Sunday Times, 18 February 2001

Bigger than Darwin

VICTORIAN SENSATION: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation by James A Secord Chicago U P pp624

MIRANDA SEYMOUR

Tennyson, with whom this accomplished work begins and ends, was an avid reader. In 1844, he spotted a review of an anonymously authored book which, according to the critic, convincingly linked the natural sciences to the history of creation. The poet, like many other readers of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, had already formed what we might consider advanced views on this subject. Man had resulted from a slow gestation beginning with simple invertebrates; man's ability to reason and distinguish between good and bad was part of his development. Tennyson had already completed much of In Memoriam, arguably the most powerful of Victorian poems. After reading Vestiges, he used its notion of an ever-ascending condition to celebrate the idea of a link "Betwixt us and the crowning race".

Tennyson's readers knew exactly what that reference meant. It is we who have lost it. Hailing Darwin as the great originator, we have forgotten that Vestiges, in the mid-19th century, had a greater impact, reaching far more readers and being discussed at all levels.

This is the central point of James A Secord's book. The idea he illustrates in a hundred entertaining ways is that we, as readers, like making narratives. We want things tidy, with beginnings and ends. It's reassuring to suppose that the concept of evolutionary culture began with Darwin's Origin of the Species in 1859. Reassuring, and wrong, not just because Darwin's grandfather had been writing about evolutionary matters in the previous century, but because geologists had reached Darwin's conclusions on evolution - not natural selection, which blew up a storm rather later - years before he published his turgid and, in many respects, quite cautious book.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, first published (anonymously) in 1818, was not directly responsible for the upward surge of new ideas about creation and spontaneous generation. Shelley's extraordinary book did, however, provide the creationists and their opponents with a potent image. Discussions of man's origins were regular among the circles in which she herself moved; her own interest in fossil history led her to consider writing a book on the subject. The suggestions made by Vestiges were, then, original only in the elegance of their formulation. (Even its opponents conceded that the prose was superb.) Revealingly, the gossips and critics were able to produce at least 10 authors who might have produced such an argument. Two of them, intriguingly, were women.

"Sensational" was the description always given to Vestiges. In Britain alone, it went through 14 editions and sold 40,000 copies: why? It helped, of course, that Vestiges looked small and user-friendly, its scarlet cover causing one irate reviewer to compare it to "the accomplished harlot". It was, unlike Darwin's later work, easy to follow and illustrated with homely analogies. Above all, it was a curiosity. The anonymity by which the Scottish publisher, Robert Chambers, screened himself for 40 years became one of the book's hottest selling points.

Not even Secord, whose knowledge is impressively omnivorous, is certain why Chambers continued to hide his identity for so long. The decision was first taken, it seems, from a combination of prudence and shrewdness. He wanted to sell copies; he knew that his unscientific status would be held against him. Anonymity, while frequent in fiction, was unusual in the fields of biography and history. To be anonymous in this area was to attract attention and speculation. Guessing the author became part of the enterprise in a period that extended into decades during which Vestiges and its authorship were passionately discussed. An anonymous sequel, published in 1845, may have sold only 3,000 copies, but it achieved the more important goal for Chambers of keeping up interest.

Transmutation was the brand-new theory of creation that Chambers put on offer in his book, prefacing it with the bold, Frankenstein-led query: "In what way was the creation of animated beings effected?" The notion of endless ascent was not received with unanimous respect. Florence Nightingale joked that she found it impossible to climb down again, "and was obliged to go off as an angel". Darwin, scratching for fleas while he furtively studied the British Museum's copy, thought the geology and zoology were hopelessly amateur, although he agreed with the general conclusions. Philip Gosse, rejecting the idea that fossils indicated a pre-biblical history, wrote a response, Omphalos; 75% of the published copies were pulped through lack of demand. Vestiges continued to sell. Punch joked about a lonely book that is spurned at the door of every famous author who might have claimed it. Chambers, confronted with an inquiry about "that horrible book" and whether he had read it, kept his counsel.

It is hard to overpraise this book. Magnificently illustrated, erudite, thoughtful and stimulating, it has the added bonus of a wickedly subversive style. I liked, to single out a small example, Secord's throwaway description of a Punch journalist: "Douglas Jerrold was a known infidel (and ate his peas with a knife)." One of the illustrations shows a group of "advanced thinkers" chatting by the fire. The light catches their faces; they look intensely alive, and enthralled. Reading Victorian Sensation gives you the illusion, at least, of joining them.

This was a well written biography on a forgotten soldier who is just getting his due. Highly recommend this fine historical study of Confederate division commander in action!

Robert Rodes finally gets the biography he has deserved for years. In James Swisher's fine book the casual Civil War buff will be introduced to one of Robert E. Lee's best Division commanders. Historians have stayed away from a book on Rodes because of a perceived lack of information, but Swisher's passion for fellow Lynchburg, Virginia resident Rodes gave him the patience to unearth much undiscovered material on his subject. Like all Civil War Generals, Rodes had his good days (Chancellorsville, Wilderness, Spotsylvania) and his bad days (Gettysburg), but his superb leadership and bravery put him in high esteem with both his men and his superiors. Many felt there was no better commander in the Army of Northern Virginia. Because Rodes was killed at 3rd Winchester in September of 1864, and because many of his principle subordinates were killed during the war there was no one to write his book. James Swisher's biography of Rodes, besides being a great work of scholarship, is highly readable. Swisher has a great writers gift of taking cold facts and making his subject come to life...warts and all. This is a long overdue biography that every Civil War student will want to read. Many good maps and photographs. I recommend it highly!

Unfortunately their is so much revisionist junk history about the atomic bomb and the cold war. Nuclear diplomacy, racism and other unfounded theories about the bomb have found their way into textbooks and classrooms. Anyone who does not think Truman used the bomb to end WWII quickly and with less lives lost is simply ignoring the obvious and the evidence. This book helps set the record straight. The decision to use the bomb was simple: to get Japan to stop fighting. Truman wanted to save lives and end the war: end of arguement. This book helps set the record straight.

Mr. Maddox has done a great service in analyzing the decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan. He systematically demolishes the arguements used by those who (for whatever reason) think that the bombing was unjustified. He shows through intercepted transmissions how the Japanese were ready to commit themselves to a bloodbath to fight off an invasion and how the Japanese military still wanted to fight even after Hiroshima was destroyed. Overall, the book is great work and should be required reading in schools and the Smithsonian Museum.

With all the books published on the Civil War, it's hard to
find something NEW, but this book brings to light a collection of soldiers' letters unpublished since the Civil War. Not only are the letters themselves new and fresh to
Civil War scholars and enthusiasts, but Bill Styple has done
an excellent job of editing them. The Civil War is presented
in a new light. One of the best Civil War books in many years; if you like to read about the Civil War, buy this book!

This book is a great addition to the serious Civil War reader's library. Being able to read the battle descriptions, thoughts and feelings of those who actually participated in the war is always enlightening, bringing the reader a different reality than that of the historian who writes about the Civil War with the benefit of hindsight and without the benefit of personal experience. The compilation of letters in this book - in chronological and logical order - brings alive the crucial battles in the Eastern theatre of the Civil War. The only slight deficiency is that very few letters from the Eastern soldiers fighting in Western armies are included. My suggestion: have this book at hand and read what the soldiers had to say about a specific event or battle immediately after reading narrative descriptions of the same event or battle by today's leading historians, for a complete view. Overall, a wonderful book and highly recommendable to the "advanced" Civil War reader.

In this continuation of a wonderfully written series of Bible study guides, Dean and staff have once again done an outstanding service for God and for Christians everywhere. If you are alone, or in a small study group, Dean's work will guide you as you walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The book is extremely well organized, easy to read and follow, and provides an excellent foundation for Bible study sessions. In this series, we follow the gospel of Matthew and are given thoughtful insight into the holy scriptures. The book is chock full of useful suggestions for the leader or instructor, and comes complete with pronunciation guides and suggested group activities. A must if you are considering leading a bible study.

I find this book very interesting about accounting theory and principles. He base his structure about a revenus-expenses method, instead of the usual assets-liabilieties approach. Furthermore, the Author develops his structure starting from some declared principles, instead of implicit or misunderstood assumptions or preconceptions. He derives some operational concepts starting from these principles. His assumption about satisfying principle is most insteresting. The Author considers this satisfying principle as opposed to the maximisation principle as firm's objective. See also an article in Harvard Business Review, 1960. A book to buy, to study hard and to remember.