I bought this book for my AP US history summer assignment, and although i've only read the first 10 chapters of this book i think it is very comprehensive and has many quality features. This is definitely a good book for history teachers and students.

American history can best be understood if the fundamental conditions that control both the social lives of ordinary people and the practice of politics are investigated through the decades. This means moving beyond conventional ways of organizaing a book around political events that historians like to think of as "turning points". Social change has a pace and rhythm of its own, and understaning its flow enables us to see poliitical changes in a new light.

The authors have divided American history into three unique periods: Preindustrial America, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the 1820s; Industrializing America, from the 1820s to the 1920s; and State and Society, from the 1920s to the present. Each of these periods has its own logic and contains special kinds of human relationships that prodice a distinct history of the United States.

I grew up reading political and military history; that's what I was taught in high school and college, for the most part. When I took over my school's Advanced Placement program in US History, I decided that while I could teach the traditional forms of history, such as politics and the wars, I simply didn't know enough social history. Given the fact that social history is the dominant form of history today (and realizing that there simply wasn't that much new to say about politics or wars), I turned to this masterful textbook. My students love this book: it's readable, entertaining, and thorough. I add in the political and military stuff, when it's needed. About the only major hole in the text is some short-changing of the Monroe Doctrine, which is the biggest error that I could see. Teachers have to choose textbooks that address their shortcomings; if you don't know your political or military history, choose another textbook. But if you have the same background I do (and most people over thirty do), then choose this one. It's been very successful in my classroom.

If you're new to networking and are looking for a book to adequately teach you the basics, avoid this one. Although the text does a fine job of introducing the essential topics, it provides five (5) types of information about these topics: Contradictory, Incorrect, Incomplete, Incomprehensible, and Decent. Since NE is a mnemonic and acronym driven subject, here are a few mnemonics to help you remember this: IDIoCy and DICey. The book is very poorly written; I read 3 other books on NE in the same time it took me to get through this book's garbled syntax and errata. The decent part is the summary tables provided throughout the book on cabling, architecture, protocols, etc. The "limited version" Transcender test CD provided with the text is OK, but it is essentially a teaser to get you to buy the "full version." Instead, I recommend the Sybex NE Study Guide (Chellis and Perkins), NE Unleashed (Sportack), and Accelerated MCSE NE Study Guide (Kinnaman). Using these, I just passed the 70-058 exam with a 900.

While this book wasn't written specifically for CompTIA's Network+ exam, I found it extremely useful and informative. I have read many networking books, and this one explained the concepts very well, especially at what layers various hardware devices work. I bought it for a college networking class and kept it after the class was over because I thought it was so useful. I passed my Network+ exam a couple of weeks ago with the help of this book.

Learning the foundation and fundamentals of networking is most important to passing the Network+, CCNA, MCSE, CAN, CIW, Inet+ exams and this book will get you started towards the certification success you are looking for.

Updated to cover Windows 2000 and Linux, this book is made for the classroom setting. The authors include hands-on projects and case projects to help the student learn in more than a self-study and lecture setting.

With topics like network concepts, design of VLANs and topologies, media, nics, protocols, architectures like 10 and 100 mpbs, token ring, apple talk, FDDI, CDDI, ATM and SONET, simple and complex networks, WANS, and troubleshooting, you have everything you need to gain a great foundation for the networking arena.

With everything in the book there is also review questions, chapter summaries and key terms for each chapter. Overall this is the perfect teaching guide.

Logical errors run rampant throughout this book. Definitely stay away from it.

If you have just one week to study, and plan to spend less than $30. This book with ETS Official Guide is what I recommend you to get. Cliff Notes gives a brief review, give you one diagnostic test. If you have $100 budget and months to study for the test, this book would like be as helpful as other books. However, If you only have one week and just want to have a brief prep, this is a must have.

It's worthy every cent you invest on it. Despite the fact that it's not as fashionable as some others like Kaplan, Princeton, etc. Cliffs does a very serious job, covering all GMAT subjects and providing many good questions with explanations.

The received view about German saboteurs in US and in UK is that they were all captured soon after arrival on foreign soil, then executed or turned into double agents The author makes out a fair case that this was far from the truth. The most interesting case is perhaps that of Hans Hansen who parachuted into England in 1940 and appears to have fooled British Intelligence right up to 1945. There are also some intriguing accounts in the book about nazi spies in Latin America, the IRA connection with the Abwehr and the double dealing of FBI director J Edgar Hoover who continually overstated his own success. One caution: the bibliography contains only secondary sources. An excellent read rather than a work of scholarship.

This book seems like it is not a typical documentation of spying and sabateuring as most government and FBI files have publicized to America. It seems to be the "untold" story. A plus for this book is that it presents not only it's perspective upon the spy stories, but others' perspectives as well. Johnson chooses the stories well and alternates between different stories throughout the book, and thus held my interest.

...The problem is that this books seems like it was written for high school students. The first chapter opens with a self-diagnosis: "I clarify the group's goals and ensure that the goals are formulated so members 'sink or swim' together and are committed to achieve them." Or how about, "I advocate my views and challenge the views of others in order to create high-quality and creative decions."

It never gets better. On page 231, for example, in the chapter "Using Power," the authors state, "Even though we sometimes do not like to admit it, power is a basic aspect of social life. It can be seized or given up, increased or lost. It can be used for good, evil, or trivial purposes. All relationships -- with family, friends, lovers, co-workers -- involve power and influence. Yet many person are unaware of the influence they exert on others, and many people are unaware of how necessary and constructive mutual influence is in building effective groups and collaborative relationships among members. Being skillful in influencing other group members and taking responsibility for such influences are important parts of being a member of a group."

Ya think?

The book goes on to identify "the process by which group members mobilize their power in order to accomplish their goals..." Each "action item" is followed by a paragraph of fluff just in case the heading isn't clear enough (not included here):

1. Determining Your Goals.
2. Assessing Your Relevant Resources.
3. Determining Your Needed Coalitions.
4. Negotiating a Mutual Support Agreement.
5. Implementing the Contracts.

I was really disappointed with this book because I was hoping for a book that analyzed the psychology of group behavior and offered practical rules based on that analysis. This book, however, is just too shallow to accomplish that. I imagine it was written for undergraduates, but I would think that even a sophmore would feel insulted.

I read this book as an assignment in a university sociology course. It is a great resouce to have on hand if you work with teams or are intersted in organizational/group behavior. Some of the activities have been used in my "Effective Social Relations" class and we found them not only fun, but educational. I have not read the 1999 edition, but am hoping to get it for a graduation present this April!

This book omits several important events in U. S. History up to 1865. But is sufficient for introductory classes in U. S. History. While it does a sufficient job as a survey source, it is not recommended for an in-depth study of any period in U. S. History. Further, Roark seems to emphasize some events that seem less important to U. S. History.

This book is very well written, quite long, though

I originally meant to buy Exam Cram not Exam Prep. When using Exam Prep I thought it did not prepare me for the tests. I have used one of the Exam Cram books for TCP/IP and thought it prepared me quite well. If your looking to take your MCSE test buy EXAM CRAM not Exam Prep.

I've been teaching the MCSE courses and on of my students brought the Exam Crams and Exam Prep books in the class, asked me to read and rate them. After reading through these books, I found these books are just excellent. They are full of technical stuffs, written in real English, and in a readable manner. I have even "talked" to one of the authors of the book as well (and his name is Ed). Ed was expert in the field and he was very fun to" talk" to. I definitely would recommend the books to all my students, friends.

There are two phases to preparing for an exam: learning the basic material first and getting an overall picture of the subject, then intense review. I would recommend this book only for the first phase. I would use Exam Cram or something else for the intense review phase. This book appears to have been written as a textbook and looks like it would actually make a pretty good textbook. It has case studies which might be good for thinking through how NT actually would be integrated into an enterprise, and I saw only a few errors. I did not read all the case studies though. I felt one study did not teach good practices; the "right" answer called for creating a peer network of 40 workstations, which is twice the maximum size I've seen recommended anywhere else.

It's a good book. Only thing I don't like about this book is it doesn't have answers for review questions. This book will be good for somebody tracking an MCSE course and tired of Sybex's.

Officially, this book is taken for the work of Captain Charles Johnson. It is a compilation of narratives about various individual pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy, names like Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts (the dread pirate Roberts, from Princess Bride fame), Anne Bonny et al.

The conclusion that Defoe and Johnson were one and the same has come under fire these last few years and is not the accepted fact it once was. This text includes portions of the original volumes by Johnson, but not the whole, although it can be argued that it includes the stories that most readers would want. There is also some question about the validity of the stories, but we may never know whether they are true or fiction. P-)

This is yet another of the knock-offs of Captain Charles Johnson's General History of Pirates. It includes narratives of all the old favorites: Blackbeard, Kidd, Roberts, Bonny and others. As usual, Johnson's prose is preserved and some of the original illustrations grace the pages. The editor/publisher has includes a glossary, bibliography and notes to the original text.

However, the down side of this particular volume is that it includes only a subset of Johnson's original writings. And, there is no added index with which to quickly reference particular names and such. While I don't quite agree that the editor has ruined the original, I do find that this version falls short of its potential. P-)

As in the case of all Daniel Defoe books, the work is of exceptional quality though in places, the tone is unusually harsh & chillingly descriptive of the havoc that a twisted mind can wreak in the world.

When I scheduled the tests for MCSE. I didn't give enough time for this test, and I had no other choice but using exam cram books which I highly trust. They tend to cover most with a few mistakes. I finished this book within 2 days and passed the test. I read other reviews that this book is to read after TCP/IP and IIS4, but that's not really true. I only had basic knowledge of TCP/IP and IIS, and MS Proxy test doesn't require you to know corelated subject in depth. The book covered enough basics for me to pass the test. Save some time for yourself, too.

MCSE, A+, Network+, i-Net+

This is the best Exam Cram books I have ever read. It contains all the information you need to pass the test, and it contains very few errors. I read this book over the course of a week, combined with some hands on at work, and passed the Proxy test with a very high score.

The lack of talent and ability among the test takers should not reflect poorly on this book. This Exam Cram, like every other one I have used, worked fabulously. Some people have made the effort to vilify this book for their inability to pass the test. Ultimately I can only assume that these are the people who have lowered the MCSE certification to something less than entry level by flooding the market with MCSEs that require assistance in putting their pants on and assume they deserve six figure salaries.

I had no intention of reviewing this book, since I passed my Proxy test back in the summer of '98, but after reading these absurd reviews I felt compelled to defend the book. Some people have made the effort to defend the book by stating that IIS is something that should be taken/mastered first. What a crock. I've never taken an IIS test and I never will. I couldn't possibly care less about being a web master, or web server baby sitter. I'm a network engineer, and using a proxy server to manage traffic flows is part of what I do. If you don't understand TCP/IP, don't bother. If you are naïve enough to assume that the world begins and ends with Microsoft Windows NT, don't bother. Take another elective.

I took the Proxy test to complete my MCSE because I thought it would be an extremely easy test, and all I would need to pass is the Exam Cram and Exam Prep books, with about a week of study time, and boy was I right. I had used MS Proxy 1.0 at a previous job, but had never touched Proxy 2, and wouldn't any time soon. With no experience with the software (which is to say that I never saw MS Proxy 2.0, ever.) and no practice test software to fall back on I used nothing but the Exam Cram and Exam Prep books and walked in and blew away the test. This is one of the BEST Exam Cram books I've ever used, and to be frank it wasn't a big deal since the MS Proxy Server 2.0 test is far and away the easiest certification test I've ever taken, to include the Citrix CCA exams and the CompTIA Network+. If you used this book and didn't pass the test, odds are that the book wasn't the problem and you should consider a new career field in the housekeeping or fast food preparation industries.

Exam Cram rocked, as usual.