This juvenile biography shows that John Paul Jones did much more in his life as a naval commander than utter the immortal words, "I have not yet begun to fight." Norman Jean Lutz tells the story of how a young boy born in Scotland named John Paul ended up being buried at the U.S. Naval Academy as the Father of the U.S. Navy. Always having a strong love for sailing on the seas, he became the captain of his own ship when he was only 21, even though he did not have any family connections to aid him in his career. The famous battle between the "Bonhomme Richard" commanded by Jones and H.M.S. "Serapis" is usually mentioned in American History textbooks, but Lutz gives more details about the story, in which Jones wins the battle although he loses his ship. However, what proves more fascinating are the exploits of "Pirate Jones" on the U.S.S. "Ranger," which actually attacked English coastal towns and shipping. Certainly these exploits were as important as his more famous sea battle. The idea that Jones is the Father of the U.S. Navy basically comes down to the fact he advocated a naval college, along with the assertion that other ideas have been adopted and are still used by the U.S. Navy today. Lutz touches on both the ambition and pride Jones evidenced throughout his naval career, telling about the various slights Jones felt he had received in terms of commissions. The controversial side of Jones's nature is not explicitly developed, but young readers will certainly get the idea. This book is illustrated with historic paintings and engravings, most of which actually have to do with Jones and his naval career (this is not always the case with these books). Other titles in the Revolutionary War Leaders series include Nathan Hale, Thomas Paine, Betsy Ross, and George Washington.

Josefina's Story collection is a very nicely done book. It is edged in gold, has a ribbon bookmark, and a transparent dust jacket. It contains all six of her stories. My only complaint? That all of the Peek into the Past sections have been removed except for the last one, the one from Changes For Josefina. If this were truly a keepsake edition, it would contain all of the Peek into the Past sections as well as the stories.

While it may be difficult to comprehend every word of Sartre's infamous play if one is not a fluent french speaker, those who understand moderate amounts of french can easily visualize the characters and symbolism through the play. As Sartre wrote his play during the time period in which France was occupied by German troops, other works similar to his were commonly contraband. However, because Sartre disguised his message of contempt towards German troops through the Godly characters of Jupiter, Electre, Oreste and Le Pedagogue, it got past the German'guards.' Readers encounter prime examples of humor throughout the passages, one of my favorite examples being that in which Electre discusses her disgust of Jupiter and hopes that his statue breaks into two. Sartre's Les Mouches allows individuals to enjoy the thrill of reading something which only fifty years ago would have resulted in punishment.

Flynn, a professor at Emory does a really nice job at elucidating a common problem. Foucault is casually lumped together in the structuralist/post-structuralis school because of his association with Althusser and Lacan. While that particular methodology is obviously an influence on Foucault, he distinguishes himself from them in various interviews which can be found in the plethora of collections that contain interviews and articles with or written by Foucault. Foucault (as I maintain and Flynn seems to imply) is more of a "constructivist" (a word I've heard him use to describe himself). In his genealogoy and approach to history he CONSTRUCTS clearer model of of the discourse surrounding our typical views of the social construct. He does more than elucidate the structure, he constructs some sort of history about it...HOWEVER, not to give any kind of conclusion, but rather as a disruptive act to spawn analysis and discourse.

In this way, he is like Nietszche (which he himself claims). He much prefers to be a disruptive force, or a catalyst for change and discourse than a scientific systematic philosopher. In many ways, this is his relationship to the Western Marxists (and Sartre, whose existentialism does owe a great deal to Nietzsche, which Foucault seemed to be proud of in some ways...i'm referring to both thinker's appreciation for Nietzsche). Sartre maintains subjectivity, and the ability of the subject to choose its own history, much as Engels asserts in Marxism, however, he admits like Marx claims, that there are a series of pre-determined factors that influence those choices (within the subjects environment). Flynn explores the TRUE subjectivity of existentialism...not as a will to power (though to an extent, this certainly is the case), but as the starting point for the intersubjectivity that molds our history, and its relationship to the Marxist project that elucidates the ills of captialism, the force behind the mode of production (which is the will of the people), and how we construct our history and discourse, and what that means about ourselves as individuals and our place in the world. Ultimately, reading Flynn's incredible and original book will offer a more thorough, documented and scholarly interpretation. He even pulls on some more obscure later Sartre (like the oft forgotten biography of Flaubert, "The Family Idiot"). His research is astounding, his understading of this very difficult material astounding. He makes a cohesive synthesis between existentialism and post-modernism, better than the post-modernists themselves.

This Spanish textbook worked very well for my third year Spanish course. It does an excellant job of reviewing many of the previous concepts in later chapters. However, it tends to pack too many new concepts in one chapter. I would not use it for anything below the Junior year.

The Eiffel Tower has had a digital clock mounted on it for several years which has been counting down to January 1st 2000. Each day the counter is reduced by one until at midnight December 31st 1999 the new Millenium is launched (yes I know it's all in how you count it) The Fireworks display that was started as this countdown switched from days, to hours, to minutes, to seconds and finally to the moment of the turning of the century was the most fabulous of all the celebrations held world wide. And I and my Son were there to witness it. Directly across the Seine from La Tour Eiffel.

This book, written in both French and English is a photo record of the last year of that countdown. The text is charming and informative (and could help you learn some Francais)the photographs of this most photographed of French Monuments are original and imaginative. Each photo of La Tour Eiffel has the digital clock displayed so the day/date is fixed.

If you are a Francophile or just a lover of the Tower, this is a wonderful book.

I'm not an anthropologist or Bisayan, so I cannot comment with any authority on the author's treatment of these topics. I am an amateur student of the Bisaya language and Filipino culture, and I very much appreciated the author's effort to understand his subjects and their culture through revelations embedded in their language. Literally every page has examples of the language and the insight it help to provide in understanding/clarifying the people and how they viewed their lives. The book raised an obvious question - "how can a people be understood and described without making their language central?"

The main title of this book can be a little misleading, for the entries date from 1939-40, before the war in France really heated up. Sartre saw no action during this period (he was in his early 30s), but he WAS in military service on the front during the "phony war." Mostly, he had a lot of time to think and write.

Sartre worked on some of the foundations for _Being and Nothingness_ and existential theory in general, so there's some of that here, but this is a marvelously HUMAN document. As well as the sort of intellectual blasts one expects from him (Flaubert's _A Sentimental Education_ is deemed to be "clumsy, disagreeable ... utterly idiotic"), Sartre writes of his insecurities ("In relation to Gauguin, Van Gogh and Rimbaud, I have a distinct inferiority complex because they managed to destroy themselves"; "It's true, I'm not authentic. With everything that I feel, before actually feeling it I know that I'm feeling it ... I fool people: I look like a sensitive person but I'm barren ... I am nothing but pride and lucidity").

There's a lot about his love of women and burning desire for beauty -- to be IN something beautiful; and his total failure at friendships with men, save for what he termed women-men ("an extremely rare species, standing out from the rest thanks to their physical charm or sometimes beauty, and to a host of inner riches which the common run of men know nothing of ... I'm a woman-man myself, I think, for all my ugliness").

Sometimes he is flip, sounding more like he's trying out aphorisms for size ("I would condemn someone definitively for a linguistic mannerism, but not because I'd seen him murder his mother"), and sometimes simple and sincere ("A day begun with a breakfast is a lucky day"). Above all, he broods on the nature of freedom and authenticity. This is a much more accessible work than much of his fiction or polished essays.

Whistler in the Dark is a great historical mystery book about a twelve-year-old girl, Emma Henderson, who is sad because her father was killed in the Civil War, and her mother has no time to spend with her. When her mother decides to wear a Reform Dress and move to Colorado to start a newspaper, Emma is even more upset. But her troubles become even worse when they arrive in Twin Pines. The gold rush town has no houses, no schools, and no other girls Emma's age. Someone also doesn't want the newspaper to succeed and sends them a threatening note, dumps their ink, and does awful things to try and scare them off. Emma is also scared because a ghost-like figure has followed them from Chicago and, each night, goes by her window at the boarding house and whistles a tune that her dead father used to whistle all the time. At the end of the story, Emma figures out who is trying to scare them away from Twin Pines, and who is the secret whistler. Emma also learns to admire her mother for going West where she could be more than just a mother.

I read this book for my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Maull (who rocks!) The book was a little bit scary at one point, but it was still really a great book. I loved learning about how women couldn't wear pants or do a lot of jobs other than be a mom or wife! My grandmother read the book and loved it, too. So I recommend this book to all girls of all ages!

Baudrillard does think the Gulf War happened - the title is just a provocation (it was clearly effective, since people who didn't read the book fell for Baudrillard's little joke and gave it one star).

This book is a great European perspective in the changes that war has undergone, which places it in the same tradition as the work of Paul Virilio's STRATEGY OF DECEPTION, which is a vaguely Baudrillardian take on the Kosovo conflict, written in the same style.

What Baudrillard has begun to see is that war isn't what it used to be. It's not about two countries getting in a political argument that breaks out in violence and all-out war. Baudrillard observes that Mutually Assured Destruction has brought war into the realm of virtuality. No longer is war the simple clash of brutes. Instead, it is a programmed operation that is executed according to a pre-defined model. The UN troops were not responding to the actual capabilities of the Iraqi army, Baudrillard says, but simply executing a plan that had already been decided upon. Thus, you didn't have the UN responding to Iraqi fire, but instead to the signatures on their infrared and radar, satellite images, coordinates, etc. The UN was essentially fighting a virtual reality war using real guns, pointing their missiles at dots on a radar and killing people in the process.

Thus, the Gulf War dissociated the image from reality. The Gulf War was a war of images: intelligence images, news images. A media phenomenon for the world and for the military and for the world. For the military, because virtual reality replaced war as we used to know it, and for the world, because the media phenomenon of the Gulf War became a prime-time exposé of America's technological might, and of the threat of Saddam to the New World Order. Beneath the proliferation of images were thousands of dead Iraqis. But all we saw was the images. The real didn't matter.

This is what Baudrillard is talking about when he says 'the real is no longer real.' Reality has become images - the real behind the images is no longer relevant. Did the Gulf War really happen? Eh, who cares. We saw the images.

This isn't necessarily a profound or true statement on the war, but the subtlety of Baudrillard's perspective is very interesting, because I think Americans don't really see the difference between old and new warfare. Americans don't perceive the way in which détente moved deterrence into the realm of virtuality by turning the Cold War into a scary period of hostility to a game of let's-try-and-be-really-scared. As an intelligent foreigner, Baudrillard notices, and this quick book contains a host of very interesting observations such as the ones discussed above.

Too bad it's so brief. Sometimes Baudrillard is too brief. But this book really has a great deal of very novel perspective. Read this, and then read Virilio. I think you'll like them.

Thelonious Monk said Kennedy was killed because he liked jazz. Try to disprove that. Postmodernism can be infuriating especially when it touches 'serious' topics. The writing style of Baudrillard (and translators) is not as dense as Derrida's but is not to everyone's taste. Still I think this is an important book. We are about to (maybe) have a sequel to the Gulf War. When I first reviewed this book I expected the new war would have minimal actual reporting from the field. It now appears that the press may be invited to the front lines.Apparently they have demonstrated sufficient loyalty or credulity in the last year to be trusted, or maybe the troublemakers have all been replaced.Anyway we will still be in a position of not knowing what to think, as usual. Since 9-11 it seems that many people are too craven to question anything at all in whole or in part. It behooves us as 'free people' to exercise some critical thinking. Personally I only believe the moon landing happened because the production values of the TV show were so poor.

Very well-written and mind-provoking. Certainly a MUST read!