If you want to understand everything about the historical backgrounds of such now well-known management instruments like the balanced scorecard, activity based costing and EVA, there is no better book to read than this book. This book started off a transformation of management accounting and of organizational performance management. Essential reading for controllers, students of management and management consultants.

Good in-depth survey of the history and purpose of Management Accounting. Classic book. You see Kaplan's thought processes as he develops the basis of his later works on new forms of accounting such as the Balanced Scorecard and EVA.

If you are a management accountant this book will put your work into perspective as well as caution you about the pitfalls of doing things the way theu have always been done.

Relevance lost of a book about the history of management accounting. The book is very well documented in that in times they were able to deduce different conclusions made by others. They start from the very beginning exploring as far back as the 18th century. They start out by discussing how textile mills started recording in their books accounting information. They begin from the very beginnings of accounting. Accounting emerged as a discipline in the early 18th century, but their underlying purpose in not for internal uses but it was created so that stakeholders can gauge the value of their investment in the firms that put out these financial statements. In the book there are a number of firms they highlight that made important contributions to management accounting. The first company they highlight is DuPont corporation in the nineteenth century. There is a theme to the development of management accounting. DuPont first staterted out as a manufacturer of gunpowder but went on to become bigger. The first companies that innovated their way of internal controls in management accounting grew out of a necessity. DuPont first came out with a measure of their business which was the return on investment measure. Because Dupont was becoming bigger and it needed to measure return on investment to measure the profitability of individual business units. It was a measuring rod to asses the different business activities of it business units. With this measure the managers of DuPont could make decisions such us which business units to invest on and do away with units that are performing poorly.
In the 1920's at General Motors they have been experimenting with using variances to measure how well they are doing in their manufacturing. In to the picture is a man named Alfred Sloan, he is one of the most brilliant thinkers in management. With implementing variances GM was able to have a uniform way to impose standards to its managers. With this system, GM's growth became remunerative.
Then there came a period as the authors put it when relevance was lost. Financial accounting accounted for the bulk of the innovations in accounting leaving behind management accounting. This is like the "dark ages" of cost accounting when companies and academics did not innovate methods and processes to advance management accounting. There were a number of reasons for this, first is the requirement imposed in companies to generate financial statements for the stakeholders of the companies. Second, the cost of putting together the necessary information was prohibitive. Technology has not yet grown mature enough to allow managers to go through the trouble of compiling the information needed to make the decisions.
The beauty of this book is that it traces beginnings of topics that are familiar to us now. Topics like variances, discounted cash flow analysis, return on investment, sunk cost, and even just-in-time inventory systems. The next evolution of management accounting is to be led by academicians according to the authors. In this stage of the life of management accounting arose discounted cash flow analysis. This is a step ahead of the return on investment method. This is also a time when economist started to innovate management accounting further. The concept of sunk cost is introduced by economist in the London School of Economics. Innovations also arose by way of the field of operations research. Operations research deals primarily of mathematics. And about this time management accounting was taking hold as a discipline of its own. Along with discounted cash flow analysis, opportunity cost is introduces as well as agency theory and residual income. Residual income is interesting in that it was a step backward in the innovations of theories. Even though, GM started using this instead of the return-on-investment measure. The driving force of this period of the growth of management accounting is the need to have better decision making. This is why economics along with operations research contributed to the growth of management accounting.
Next up, management accounting in its evolved form before 1980 falls short. Management accountants make a couple of theoretical mistakes. They are no longer providing managers of the critical information needed to make decisions. Management accounting has become obsolete in a sense. The next development is what happened after 1980. Because of bitter and growing competition because of global forces and deregulation there needed to be more changes. In this period arose what is now called total quality management, and its progeny just-in-time systems. Manufacturers needed to control their work-in-process inventory. Meaning the Japanese where beating Americans by having zero inventory. This led to changes in management accounting systems throughout the United States.

After reading this book for a project in AP Psychology, I found that Robert Johnson's much-vaunted connections between mythology and the psychology of men are ultimately incoherent and insubstantial. The underlying concepts may be reasonable, if difficult to follow, but Johnson fails to achieve a solid connection between said concepts and his metaphorical writing. His writing style relies heavily on excessive repetition and oversimplified platitudes which insult the reader's ability to comprehend basic metaphor, and his constant implication that Christianity is an absolutely essential element of all masculine psychology is deeply offensive. Carl Jung has written numerous works on this same subject which are more intelligible and avoid the incomprehensible web of mythological allusions Johnson uses which bewilder and alienate the reader. In brief, Robert Johnson's 'He' is a waste of trees and effort.

1 out of 5 stars because Amazon does not offer the option to assign 0.

Robert Johnson is a life changer. I have read everything he has done several times. HE and SHE should be a required read for everyone. I recommend you read the book on your own sex first so that you become familiar with Johnson's style before prying into the opposite sex's mind. :) If you find some of the other self help books too trite and not very thought provoking, Robert Johnson is for you!

Robert A. Johnson took me on a journey through my inner world. I read it several times, and review it periodically. The book is short and concise, yet leaves me wondering exactly where I am on my journey.

I did too. I read this book with an amazement on how basic Bible priniples can me misused to the detriment of oneself and others around them. Please read this book to understand the confusion that enslaves so many Christians. If you truly seeking God, you that they way they tried to find it in this book is not the way to find him.

In this work, Paul Johnson has taken a relatively small and unknown event and used it to illustrate not only an interesting event but also an interesting perspective on the Burned-Over District as a whole. It touches on everything from sexual corruption to radical doctrinal innovations. The Burned-Over district saw the beginning of numerous religious movements such as Mormonism, Adventism, Christian Scientists, numerous smaller religions that did not survive, and even significant political movements such as Antimasonry.

This book is the story of one of those movements. The prologue introduces Matthias as he went to Kirtland to visit with the Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith. While this event occurred near the end of Matthias’ activity, it is obvious that he stole many of his ideas from Joseph Smith. Matthias initiated the practice of the washing of feet which was common to both the followers of Joseph Smith and Ellen White. He also believed that the truth of the Gospel had fallen from the earth shortly after the time of Christ another Mormon belief. In addition, he had a sword which he claimed was ancient similar to Smith’s sword of Laban, as well as naming the Priesthood after the order of Melchezidek. Likewise, his early mentor Mordecai Noah taught that the Indians were actually a branch of the Israelites which is a central idea found in the Book of Mormon. All of these ideas came out before 1830 when Matthias began his activity.

The most humorous part of this history is the anecdotes that relate to Matthias’ enemies trying to shave off his beard. Johnson has done an excellent job condensing all the most relevant information in this short work. The Kingdom of Matthias is an enjoyable read and a must for anyone interested in this interesting period in American religious history.

This is one of the exquisite books that I have read about this time. And to the writer "Orrin Judd", how dare you be such a anti-intellectual dunce? Just by holding on to the case of the Lewinsky/Clinton trial (which by the way Wilentz and Berman wrote before this happened) and other inane right-winged republican comments, if they are even worty of any name other than trash. They remark on this book as something it is far from being, a peice of garbage that can merely be thrown away as litter. As for the book itself, this is a masterpeice with pen and ink, wonderfully capturing the era. It goes behind the mind of this engrossing man and period, and includes people, such as Soujourner Truth, that were known later on, after the period the book was written. It just so awefully captures all the details and facts behind this, but still making it enjoyable. I reccomend this book highly, and give it 5 out of 5 stars. And to any creep, such as Orrin Judd, who thinks otherwise, then just consider this book one more time, the brilliance of it and the fabulous authors (Paul Berman and Sean Wilentz) who made the making of this book possible.

WROX books used to be the only ones I'd buy; after having a grand ol' time with the ASP and ASP Databases series. The Professional series has been a real disappointment (and waste of money!). The books tend to be more wordy than necessary and spend too much time on the obvious and too little on the abstract. Cold Fusion is a fairly straight-forward programming language. WROX has somehow managed to make it much more. Perhaps too many cooks in the kitchen; looks like they had 18 authors put this beast together.
Look elsewhere...

Being a ColdFusion user group president, I give this book my seal of approval. This book is well written with easy to understand examples. It will help someone with no CF knowledge all the way to the experts. This book is well laid out and is enjoyable to read. I didn't know what to expect from Wrox on this. I have been a huge Ben Forta fan but this book is just as good as his (if not better)! If you want to learn CF, or just want to get better, buy this book. You will be very happy with it.

This is a very good book!
Vale a pena galera!

I was very disappointed in this book. The portion sizes are very small. I certainly could not satisfy anyone in my family with a half cup of beef stir fry (noted as the serving size for this receipe). The receipes were good but you must figure on two serving sizes for each person for most main dish receipes. Explanations of food exchanges was very helpful.

This is my favorite diabetic cookbook. My response to the unfavorable review about the portion size is that you have to adjust your eating habits to less meat and more starch and vegetables. You don't have to go hungry!

This ccobook has very simple, easy to prepare meals. ALL the ingredients are things you would find in a normal pantry. Not items that need to be purchased at specilaty stores. EXCELENT!

Luke Johnson in The Real Jesus does something that all whom he criticizes does not: he emphatically states the limitations of his own field. He attacks the hubris with which scholars (or, those who refer to themselves as such) wield the mighty tool of the historical method of determining what is real, not just about the man, Jesus, but the foundations of the Christian faith. For faith it is: a belief based on a religious language and hermeneutic, in the same vain as the Gospel narratives. The title of the book is apt, not only because it reflects a similar sensationalism that those of the Jesus Seminar use with their literature. It is clearly tongue-in-cheek, for he is emphatic that there is a distinction between the sum of probabilities of historical events and "knowing" what is "real" about Jesus. In the end, he does not write about how the historical records or the events portrayed in these records tell us about the "real" Jesus, but how they in fact cannot one way or another. Jesus is a Jesus of faith, directed by the records, but having been brought alive through the presence of the "real" Jesus who works through Christianity today.

What so few people understand (including JS scholars, if I may use that term) is that the biblical text is ONLY text and not the Bible unless read within a community of faith. This is basic theology. Without faith, you can tear apart the text and force out parts of it you don't want.

Johnson sets the record straight on the use of scholarship, obliquely (or, perhaps overtly) scoffing at the attempt of the Jesus Seminar to assume that what is scholarly is what is true and, moreover, far-reaching enough to make statements on the validity of religious claims. There is no doubt that as a believer in the traditional Jesus as espoused by the creeds, Johnson is biased. His genius is in showing that this also can be most emphatically said about the interests of the participants of the Jesus Seminar.

Luke Timothy Johnson is a heavyweight in Christian scholarship and in this clear and concise book, he exposes the "misguided quest" of the Jesus Seminar. This book strengths lie in that Johnson, a first rate scholar, explains why the quest for a historical Jesus often fails.

The book introduces the Jesus Seminar and some of their most popular teachers and scholars. One reviewer clamims that Johnson is Polemic, but I am curious what he considers polemic. Johnson is not polemic, but honest in his assesments of this group. He informs the reader which Seminar folk are actual scholars and which ones are not.

Johnson then reminds the reader the "limitations of history" in trying to develop a historical Jesus. This area examines the limtations of this social science. He then develops what is "historical about Jesus" and the "Real Jesus." This book is an easy read, yet has enough depth that it adequately deals with such an important topic. While I cannot completely agree with Johnson on every detail, he has produced a great work which is neeeded as a counter-balance to the media circus that surrounds the Jesus Seminar and the often lack of serious scholastic response by "litarlist Bible Christians."

Luke Timothy Johnson is no fundamentalist. Johnson works in the milieu of critical scholarship while still maintaining a vibrant faith, much like the late Raymond Brown. Therefore, his observations in this book should not be dismissed as the rantings of rabid anti-scholar. There is much more to this book than criticism of the Jesus Seminar. The issues involved in contemporary biblical scholarship in general are articulated well. The main point of the book is that there are such severe limitations in historical research that any historical reconstruction of Jesus, i.e. "the historical Jesus" cannot be "the real Jesus" that is worshipped and followed by the church. The real Jesus is the one presented by the Gospels, and indeed by other sections of the New Testament (the letters of Paul, James, I Peter, etc.) Although the Jesus Seminar takes the brunt of the criticism here, Johnson also points out some of the methodological missteps of less radical scholars such as John P. Meier. This book makes some valid points and is essential reading to get another view in the lively area of contemporary Jesus scholarship.

Robert Dallek has the right idea about LBJ. In his forward, he addresses the problems with villifying him, and sets out to do him justice. In this he succeeds. But LBJ does not come alive in Dallek's work, as he does in Caro's. Despite good intentions, Dallek disappoints.

Dallek's biography has the virtue of being written by someone who clearly admires Johnson. As such, it is somewhat of a counterweight to Robert Caro and I suggest both be read for balance.

Nevertheless, in presenting the "good Lyndon", Dallek downplays the worst of Johnson. There is nothing particularly wrong with this (Dallek certainly doesn't ignore the flaws, just tends to gloss over them a little), but it does lead to a fairly tepid book, one that is nowhere near as much fun to read as Caro's. Thus, if I could only read one (which of course many readers will do considering the length of both Caro's and Dallek's presentations), I would read Caro's. Caro's second and third volumes (covering the 40's and 50's, roughly the second half of the Dallek volume being discussed here) are possibly the best political biography ever written. It is against that "competition" that Dallek's book must be weighed and I found, in the balance, that Dallek's work is merely ordinary.

Dallek's two-volume examination of LBJ is a dramatic and nuanced examination of one the most complex figures in 20th century American history. Even almost three decades after his death, there are no shortage of people who see LBJ as the ultimate villan of American politics. Many people of this camp dislike Dallek's work, because he puts his subject in his context.

While Dallek does not excuse the sort of election fraud in which LBJ engaged, he does explain that it was wide spread. Some find this an unacceptable defense, but one should note that the sorts of tricks he describes have been wide spread in the US for most of the 19th and early 20th century. To dismiss LBJ for engaging in such activities who require similar condemnation of every US president from Adams to FDR.

Dallek in fact, is unflinching in discussing LBJ's negative side. His pension for strong arming opponents, his abuse of his staff, his womanizing and drinking, and his dirty tricks are all layed bare. At the same time, Dallek reviews how crucial LBJ was as part of the New Deal and his brave role as a champion of civil rights.

The other major LBJ biography by Caro is far less balanced in its approach to this complex and ultimately tragic figure. For a truly great and complete biography of LBJ, I suggest that you read this one.

Wrox Press continues their time-honored tradional of piling as many authors into one 1200 page volume that they can in the hopes that they will end up with a definitive treatment of the subject. The authors range from seasoned professionals with real-world experience to pimple-faced hacks with nothing but a year or two of college computer science courses behind them. .... I must confess that I am not sure what I was expecting in these chapters but since JSP Tag Libraries seemed to be one of the more challenging and interesting areas of JSPs I was hoping for some more meaningful, 'meaty' content.

The assembly of these 18 (yes, 18!) authors wind up generating a book that essentially could have been put together with more precision and continuity if it had 15 fewer authors. It very much comes off as a rushed effort, without any tightness whatsoever. The writing style of this second edition can only be described as amateurish. This, fortunately, can be a little easier to swallow if you accept the spirit of the book (in Wrox's words 'Programmer to Programmer'). Take the text as quickly put-together material from programmers that have been through it (even if it was brief or only in school) and you should be fine.

Many unnecessary forward references exist throughout the text and, because of the unusually large number of authors, there is a large amount of repetition in the body of most chapters. The book's page count could also have been greatly reduced had the authors not consistently given condensed introduction to material that ends up being the subject matter for entire chapters later in the book. For example, two early chapters describe the basics of Tag Libraries, only to have them surface as the primary topic of chapters 8 - 11.

The code included throughout the book is variable in quality, as you might expect. The book doesn't pretend to be an academic tome of best practices or a showcase for some top-flight, brilliant programming but you end up thinking that many of the examples could have been made much more effective with more thought put into them. As with many other programming books out there, this one is definitely not without its errors. You'd hope, however, that with the 21 technical reviewers and 3 editors that worked on this book that it would have fared better than most.

In summary, if you take the text for what it is and skip over the segments of fluff and numerous poor code examples I think that most professional programmers new to this technology will find enough material to make the hefty price tag almost worth it (especially if you share it with others on your team!). ....

Professional JSP (2nd) is a huge book with over 1000 pages and 18 different authors. This book is aimed at developers seeking
intermediate and advanced knowledge about JSP.
The first 4 chapters cover the basics of web development, servlets and JSP. These chapters could have been taken out to focus more on advanced topics (such as integrating with EJB). Chapters 5 and 6 present JSP pages working with servlets and JavaBeans. This includes a simple implementation of the MVC design pattern using JSP, Servlets and JavaBeans.

Chapter 7 focuses on the Web Application Architecture wih more detail about designing JSP based applications. Chapters 8 - 11 go into detail about Custom Tag libraries, from building a simple tag library to custom tag idioms.

Chapters 12 -17 include topics such as Java and XML, JDBC, Security, Filtering and good practice.

Chapter 18 goes through the implementation of a maintainable database explorer.

The rest of the book covers
debugging JSP, improving performance, Jakarta Struts, WAP, Generating Binary Content and using JSP within the Java 2 Enterprise Edition. Many JSP developers will want to read this book to learn about Struts and other ways of producing maintainable JSP based web sites.

This is not the kind of book you would read from start to finish but as a quick overview and reference of some advanced topics. Don't expect to become an expert by reading this book but you will have a good idea what you can and should do with JSP. Most JSP developers will find something new in this book but some will require more detail. We would recommend this book to JSP developers who have read the beginners JSP books and want to learn more about JSP.

Well, i bought this book with one aim: Be able to learn and actually write JSP in limited terms. Since I found a job where they wanted me to do JSP, and I was doing ASP for last 2 years. This book has even section for ASP developers on how to move to JSP. So, with this book, I was able to write jsp in a week or so. ok, Now, actually about the book:

a) Great code explanation provided, as usual in any WROX books

b) Great code examples (especially voting application and database explorer one)

c) Tomcat and MySQL tutorial make my life easier, so i don't have to browse their sites for help - I have everything in one place (well, not everything -- but still, better then nothing)

d) Yes, price is kind of high, but, they got so much in one book, so i'm pretty sure that you will be glad once you buy it

I'd recommend this book for people who have to move from ASP (or any other programming language) to JSP. I would not recommend it to someone who is new to programming.

Thanks for all authors. Great Job.

As always, Johnson allows the reader to find their own wisdom. We all need to face our shadow before it consumes our psyche. The Jungian "shadow" is a critial subject for modern American society. Perhaps Johnson's most important book.

Author Robert A. Johnson has written (yet another) powerful book with "Owning Your Own Shadow". Writing in a clear, elegant style, he has plumbed the depths of Jung's concept of the shadow and emerged with pithy insight for all of us. One of the things I most appreciate in Johnson's work is his accessibility. So many Jungians can intellectualize concepts to a dizzying degree of confusion. Not so with Johnson. His important work is always instantly readable, full of insight and compassion. This guide to recognising one's shadow, honoring it and finally, balancing it within our selves to become more wholly (holy) human is a quiet little masterpiece. Also: Check out his book "Transformation" for further reading on integrating the shadow at mid-life. ~Karri Ann Allrich, author of A Witch's Book of Dreams

I've read all of Johnson's writings, and consider this book one of his best. After reading it I realized that rather than owning my shadow, I've always projected it on others. I guess it was easier having someone else tell me than finding out on my own.