This book is one of the 2 most desirable and collectible books on classical guitars (the other one is: Collection of Fine Spanish Guitars from Torres to the Present by Urlik, Sheldon). The figures are superb and the text informative. The hard cover edition is better in the following senses:

1. The hard cover edition is a limited edition (6000 copies only).
2. It is like a textbook which can be opened fully on its back. Easy for reading and scanning.
3. It's got a hard protective slipcase

However, getting the softcover edition might be your choice for its price and availability.

If you are a lover of guitars, specifically classical guitars, you owe it to yourself to purchase this book. There is nothing else like it. Great photography, details on some of the best guitars from some of the best makers...Romanillos, Smallman, Bernabe...They are all here. Inclusively, the book covers players (Williams, Bream, Segovia) as well as an in depth look at wood and the guitar market today. Great stuff and at ..., an incredible bargain.

Any lover of the classical guitar cannot help but appreciate this gorgeous collection of instruments, as well as the way in which they are displayed on the pages. Filled with information about the guitars and their construction, the luthiers, and which players'CDs you can hear them on, I highly recommend this fine edition. I take issue only with the subtitle "A Complete History", as the guitars are based on a single collection of instruments, owned by Russell Cleveland, and not necessarily what any other person would consider "Complete". That fact does not diminish my enjoyment of this exquisite book one bit.

The Scopes Trial: A Brief History with Documents is a wonderful introduction to the Scopes "monkey" trial and its significance in history. I found the narrative history to be a quick but compelling and informative read, and was especially interested in the way in which the author shows how events during the time period following the First World War influenced the parties and helped to explain their motivations. I also found the documents, including excerpts from the trial transcript and newspaper articles of the time to be very helpful in understanding the manner in which the trial developed and the manner in which it was perceived nationally. Anyone looking for a readable yet informative work on the Scopes trial would be well advised to look into this book.

It would probably be accurate to call "After London" a botanist's delight. Richard Jefferies describes in great detail a world of the far future in which the wonders of our own civilization are mostly forgotten, or seen as fables. (Until Heinrich Schliemann dug up the ruins, the city of Troy was a legend also. Can we be certain that Atlantis was a legend?)

Much of England is covered in forests, the relics of our own civilization buried under thickets and shrubbery. London, once a centre of culture and trade, is long gone. Society has become medieval once more. Skills like reading and writing have been preserved, but these are forbidden to all but the nobles. Slavery is common and wars between cities are frequent.

It is almost certain that John Christopher has read this book. If you read the "Tripods" trilogy and the "Prince in Waiting" trilogy, you will see certain similarities.

In many of the post-technological stories I've read the one invention of ours that gets mentioned the most is the railroad, possibly because it helped us conquer the tyranny of distance, and made the world more accessible. In the early pages of "After London" the railroad is mentioned, though not by name, and references are made regarding our ability to communicate over a great distance with wires.

The main character in "After London" is 25-year old Felix, a sensitive character living in a world that has no place for sensitivity. Often ridiculed for his interest in learning rather than war and hunting, Felix carries out a plan to strike out on his own by embarking on a journey of discovery. Eventually Felix does make something of himself and greatness is thrust upon him.

A barbarous future is often imagined for us after a nuclear war or some other cataclysm, but in "After London" the cause of our decline is obscure and hazy. We can't be certain that the society in "After London" will eventually reach the heights from which it had fallen. Most of our inventions, like the light bulb and penicillin, were accidents. There was an ancient civilization that could produce metal of a better quality than we can produce now, but the skill is lost.

"After London" is a very descriptive novel with minimal dialogue. It is more concerned with the world it portrays than the characters who inhabit it. This is a pivotal work in the post-holocaust genre.

This 19th-century science fiction novel by Richard Jefferies (1848-1887), an English writer and naturalist, depicts an England of the distant future in which most of the human populace has either died from some cataclysmic event or plague or they have been removed to some other place. The people still living in England have no record of what happened, the event occurring centuries earlier. Most of the central part of the British Isle is now covered by a giant lake. A poisonous swamp covers the site of old London. Much of the novel is a description of this future England. The people live in a feudal-like environment and the hero of the story, Felix, sets out on a quest in a canoe to find fame and fortune so that he may win the hand of the daughter of a neighboring baron. This is probably one of the earliest novels (if not the earliest) depicting a future Earth following some cataclysmic event. This "sub-genre" or sub-category will form a significant portion of the science fiction literature. Any serious student of science fiction literature should read it.

After London is variously a phoenix-like rebirth of civilization, a critique of Victorian mediaevalism, a paradigm of fin de siecle fears of regression and atavism, a frontier adventure story, and an exploration of the fragility of historicism. Take your pick. Or don't. But read it.