Managers who want to be leaders need good advice on how to lead. Sims and Lorenzi provide that much needed advice, offering basic descriptions of what a person can (learn to) do to lead effectively: Articulate a vision, set goals, teach subordinates the required skills and build confidence in their ability to perform, provide models of good work, empower teams, reward performance and reprimand and correct errors. Behavior and results are important. Rather than supervise closely, good leaders can offer a "super" vision that allows people to self-manage and self-lead.

And there is more than behavior that needs to be managed. The psychology of leadership also requires attention to the patterns of thoughts employed by leaders and their followers. There are "scripts" and "schemas" that provide a structure to one's thinking. Understanding and managing these basic patterns and expectations helps a leader to facilitate progress towards wok goals and accomplishment. People are comfortable with and empowered by coherent patterns of thought.

Using short stories, models, history and personal examples, Sims and Lorenzi provide a basic education for the aspiring leadership, offering research-tested, easy-to-follow and to use advice for the leader. Applications are global in nature; this is not simply a book for American, corporate leaders. Most important, the leader will learn to teach others to lead themselves.

This is a short, substantive, engaging treatise worth reading.

This textbook is all a student could ask for in a Chemistry Textbook. It has plenty of figures, pictures, graphs, and demos. The info is well presented, and there are plenty of sample and practice problems to test your knowledge. The fun approach to science along with the informative nature of this book makes it an ideal text for any student who would like to study the science of Chemistry. I recommend this book to anyone who would like a textbook in Chemistry

My good friend Antonia Martin just gave me this book for my birthday. Antonia, you are an absolute Treasure!

I have become fascinated with the Shackleton story, not only for the awesome testament to dogged determination to succeed in the face of seemingly daunting odds that it is, but because apparently my Grandfather knew him quite well and worked on the planning of the journey back in London. Somewhere we have a signed original of the book from 1919 amongst Mother's belongings, back in England.

This is a bone chilling visual and literary step by aching step trudge through the most inhospitable place on Earth. As the Endurance, their ship, died so their own endurance was born. And what an endurance that was!

As my eyes wander the pages in the warm comfort of bed my mind is wind-whipped by the Antarctic blasts Shackleton and his team ultimately survived! It is quite simply one of the most amazing stories it has ever been my pleasure to absorb. I am in awe of the achievement described and pictured in this book.

Everybody should read it!

This book is the Holy Grail of leadership principles, as far as I'm concerned. If I could just sneak a copy into my boss's mailbox... The thing I like about it is that it gives you real concrete examples of how you can give subordinates max freedom (and thus max satisfaction) while maintaining your goals as a leader. The only problem is I just cringe whenever I go to work and see my superiors violating the principles of the book. I am amazed this book hasn't sold more copies.

I had been reading, and admiring, this book for two years when I found out that Mr. Loewer worked on the same Environmental Show as myself: we are all vols, so it is no wonder we have never met. This book is truely a showcase of Mr. Loewer's talents': THOREAU'S WRITINGS ARE ALWAYS THERE, BUT THE PLAY 2ND FIDDLE TO THE WONDER OF AMERICA'S NATURAL BEAUTY. Great effort: a must for any lover of native plants.

Sir Peter Russell, late Professor of Spanish in Oxford University, has written a marvelously detailed biography of Prince Henry, commonly known as "The Navigator." Russell manages deftly to destroy most of the nonsense propagated about Henry by idolotrous biographers in the past, especially those who wrote during the period of the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal. The Salazar regime made Prince Henry into a national icon and loaded him down with numerous virtues he never had, such as scientific expertise, astronomical knowledge, etc., etc. At the same time scarcely a mention was made of his role as the founding father of the Afro-Atlantic slave trade and other far from admirable characteristics, such as his military incompetence and fraternal disloyalty. Russell's portrait puts paid to all the previous puffery. [One of his most delicious remarks is to the effect that "in Henryspeak" conversion and enslavement were "interchangable terms."] The books is based upon at least 40 years of research and is the most detailed biography ever of this late medieval figure. It is must reading for all students of European expansion and for those who wish to understand the modern world. A masterpiece!

Peter Russell's subject was one about whom, I must confess, I knew very little. I was aware that Prince Henry had initiated exploration of the west coast of Africa and was indirectly responsible for the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Vasco de Gama. These are the facts found in any general survey of Western Civilization. However, the real character and life of Henry is much more interesting and complex.

Mr. Russell opens the story with a typical background concerning Henry's family. He then deals with Henry's horoscope. Despite being on the verge of the Modern World, horoscopes at birth were common at that time. This sets the stage, and to some extent, seems to explain much of Henry's life. Henry is not the "Monastic Prince," dedicated to exploration in the name of disinterested science and the glory of Portugal. Rather, he is a live, flesh and blood, product of the late Middle Ages. He seeks fame and honor as a Christian Crusader against Islam and the forces of darkness, with, like most crusaders, an eye to profit.

Henry did not initiate the Slave trade. It is worthy of note to see how a people, who believed that all men were descended from Adam, could justify the abomination of slavery. "Though in natural law there may be no distinction between a free man and a slave, for the practical working of society natural law in this case had been superceded by man-made law which treats freemen and slaves differently" (p. 249). Looking at our own day I can find instances of where Constitutional Rights have been sacrificed to the "higher good" of expediency. The Orwellian expression that "All men are created equal, but some men are more equal than others" applies.

In our current rush to dispel myths of the past we often leap from one extreme to another. We are quick to turn unvarnished heroes into despicable demons. The fallacy of unmixed blessings is replaced by one of unmixed curses. We sit upon our arrogant, high throne of judgment of those in the past, forgetting that there will be those in future who are apt to sit in judgment of us. Just as the Portuguese and Europeans mistakenly thought what they did was right, so too will future generations see our faults. Let us hope they will be fair and not politically motivated in their judgment.

Mr. Russell has written an excellent biography of the Prince, dispelling numerous myths, without falling into the currently fashionable morass of Political Correctness. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the period of European exploration and discovery.

This is the definitive English language biography of Prince Henry of Portugal, known as "The Navigator." The author, a retired former director of Portuguese studies at Oxford, has researched his subject as thoroughly as the source material allows. As is the case with other exhaustively researched biographies, this one makes its subject appear less heroic than legend implies. Though Henry did sponsor the early Portuguese exploration of the West African coast, his motives were commercial and religious rather than scientific. Russell, describing Henry's failures as well as his successes, concludes that the Prince was essentially a man of the late middle ages, not the Renaissance. Nonetheless, Henry initiated the astonishing adventure of a small country extending its reach around the world.

Suberb! I especially like his sermon on Mary,the Mother of God. I'm a Roman Catholic and lately have lost interest in Mary to some extent, probably due to the cultic practices of Roman Catholicism. It took the insightful Peter Gomes to give me a better understanding and appreciation of Mary's blessedness in her response to God. Thank you. This is a great book for reflection and meditation.

Peter Gomes has earned a reputation as one of America's finest preachers, and this book -- a collection of 40 of his sermons, many of them delivered first to the Harvard College Memorial Church -- proves that his reputation is well earned. A sense of peace and grace will overtake you as you are seduced by his words.

Reading "Beyond Tragedy" I was reminded of the powerful imagery associated with Palm Sunday; reading "When Life Begins" I was comforted by the reminder that Christianity tells us not to fear death; reading "Getting to Yes," I was reminded of the spiritual emphasis placed on changing one's mind. The language Gomes uses is poetic and simple; the ideas he expresses are brilliant musings on the true meaning of many Bible stories.

Above all, it is Gomes's understanding of the Bible, his ability to makes sense of its sometimes inscrutable stories, that makes him such an effective preacher. I can't say I've ever heard a sermon in the variety of churches I've attended that has illuminated Christianity in the way this book does.

The tragedy is most of what they "write" is never written down, it is delivered orally, the great news is that one of the best has written 40 of his, and created "Sermons". Mr. Peter J. Gomes has collected this group of his sermons, and now people outside of his place of speaking may enjoy the words of this great communicator.

I am not suggesting this book because a member of the clergy has written it; religion is an individual and very personal choice. I enjoyed this book as I feel some of the greatest users of our language speak rather than write, or rather speak but with no written record, and this is truly a loss. Whether or not the religious denomination of which Mr. Gomes is a member that you have adopted as your own, is not the reason to read this work. An appreciation of language is all that is required.

Mr. Gomes is considered to be one of the finest "Preachers" speaking today. I have never heard him speak, but if his written words are any indication of his live presentations, they must be special indeed. If you have never had the experience of being amongst those present to hear one of these orators you have not enjoyed a singular experience.

I have had the privilege of enjoying some sermons delivered in tiny churches, in parts of our Country where I was the minority, and a "Yankee" in a good-natured way. I attended what I had been raised to refer to as Church in buildings that were anything but conventional Churches. I was not in massive structures, in one case it was an old converted fire station, in another a school. But the "Preachers" I heard were remarkable, and while they most certainly are in the profession of spreading The Message as their denomination practices it, they are unique purveyors of the spoken, and in this case the written word.

The speeches of Mr. Gomes are excellent reading, and regardless of your faith or lack thereof, you will find more common sense ideas, and more useful information than you will find in a dozen self-help books, be they personal or business. All of these books I refer to can be accurately described as how to conduct yourself as an employer, a manager, a person. None of these books hold any great mysteries; none hold a thought that is not derivative. Being happy with your life, running a company that retains employees because they have no desire to move, being a positive contributor in any manner you choose, all these manners of personal conduct are known to us all, placing them in books that give them new names is just repackaging, it's not new. Want to keep employees, guess what, treat them well. Want to be a better person, listen more, the hundreds of books on how to behave are presentations of what in many cases you already know.

I doubt that Mr. Gomes sets out to create anything more than people who are more cognizant and sensitive to those around them. But then that describes just about every self-help book, personal or professional I have read.

Great reading from a brilliant orator.

Henry James, The Aspern Papers (Laurel, 1888)

One of James' shortest novels, and one of his least-known, The Aspern Papers is a (supposedly based on a true) story about a young biographer of famed poet Jeffrey Aspern (based, depending on to whom you talk, on either Browning or Keats) who contrives to get his hands on the love letters Aspern wrote to a mistress by presenting himself at the now-ancient mistress' Italian villa and passing himself off as a wealthy traveller and author looking for lodging. The mistress lives with her spinster niece, whose age is never given (one assumes mid-forties, a few years older than the narrator), and the two are impoverished. Things go as planned until the narrator finds himself starting to like the niece a bit more than he bargained for.

The novel runs a bit over a hundred pages, which makes it an excellent introduction to James' extremely dry wit; it's much lighter-weight than the ponderous tomes he's known for. The prose here has an agility which is absent from works such as The Bostonians or The Wings of the Dove, but still manages to convey emotion quite well with only a few words and a gesture. The novel's last pages are a triumph of minimal writing, and probably deserve closer scrutiny than the works of James' that are normally assinged in English classes around the globe.

Oddly, the one major failing of this novel is that James abandons the minimalism every once in a while, and his characters go overboard with hysterical crying and the like so common to Victorian literature. In a book that's otherwise so controlled, these episodes-- never longer than a few sentences-- seem absurd more than anything; perfectly composed people suddenly collapse into tears as if shot with pepper spray, and then within the space of a paragraph are back to their cool, collected selves once again. These intrusions are minimal, and while they detract from the scenes in which they're placed, the novel overall is still a worthy one. If you've been turned off by James through exposure to one of those million-page drawing room comedies, you may want to give him another try with this. *** 1/2

"The Aspern papers" is a surprisingly short, sexy and suspenseful novel. It will completely change your opinion of Henry James; he shows himself to be an master of suspense and well played out drama instead of the ambiguous pussyfooting plodder that most people think him to be. There is a definite touch of evil in this novella. It takes place in a stuffy interior world dominated by an old sinister woman in a green shade. The narrator's intentions are quite amoral and evil. The narration is deftly created through sure touches of insecurity and self pity. The trick of the unreliable narrator is used to great effect. And at no point does it seem anything other than a seamless and effective method of narration.

Such is his facility with the essentials of theatre - concentrated narrative action; lengthy, dramatic scenes of dialogue; vivid characterisation; pointed use of interior space, exits and entrances, and the revealing image - you wonder why James failed as a playwright.

Of course, there is a defining element of James' art that is impossible in the theatre - narration. The nameless narrator of 'The Aspern Papers' is one of the greatest monsters in James' teeming gallery of inglorious masculinity - the editor of a revered American literary poet, who tries to wheedle important documents from a celebrated lover, the now-decrepit Juliana, by installing himself as a lodger, and flattering her aging spinster niece. Like most James heroes, who treat life like a selfish game, he has no idea what emotional havoc he is wreaking on the woman.

The tale has all the drive and tantalising delay of a crime story - the hero is both detective and criminal, and the suspenseful climax suggests what a great genre writer James could have been. As with Stendhal, just as exciting are the intricate, agonising dialogues between the narrator and the niece, each wildly misunderstanding the other.

But if 'Aspern' is a crime story, than the the criminal is of the order of Freddie Montgomery in Banville's 'The Book of Evidence', a brilliant, charming, frighteningly amoral man, whose check of social scruples is dicarded with shocking ease. His seemingly over-detailed account is full of gaps, self-defence, self-pity, evasion, vagueness, misremembering, disarming honesty and wild misinterpreations of others' characters and motives. He is a man who can't see beyond his own narrow goal, behind whom we always sense an unseen, all-seeing eye.

He is the forerunner to a second modern anti-hero, 'Pale Fire''s Charles Kinbote, another literary editor whose devotion to his subject has become mad and murderous. In a Victorian age full of cant about the ennobling power of art, James asserts, disturbingly, the opposite - repeated exposure to sublime poetry (and the book is full of ironic references to religion and glorious war) has only made the narrator emotinally dead, unable to respond to the humanity of others. This 'portrait' of an aging muse, malevolent and concupiscent is a stark warning to literary idealisers, and a sad study of human decline, but should also be seen as a reflection of the narrator's own desires.

'Aspern' is incidentally THE great Venice story, its watery decay somehow seeping through the narrator's blind egotism.

I don't want to take anything away from Peter Singer's celebration of Henry Spira's life or work in pursuit of animal rights. However, I would point out that this book is a development of Singer's essay on Spira's work in the earlier "In Defence of Animals" collection. From the perspective of pragmatic demonstration of beliefs and empirically verifiable harm, it is a good book. If Singer publishes a second edition, could he refer to any corroborative evidence that Spira used in more detail? I am not an animal rights activist, but I thought this provided a good description of practical activism

Peter Singer's "Ethics Into Action" is a must read for every activist -- no matter what your area of activism. Dr. Singer relates how one person, Henry Spira, made a difference for animals. We have all at one time or another pondered "how can I, one person, make a difference in this world?" Read how Henry Spira made a positive impact, again and again, and you will begin to believe that one person can perhaps make a change for the better, whatever one's cause may be. Henry Spira is truly an inspiration. It is ironic that Peter Singer who many years ago inspired and motivated Henry Spira to forge ahead in fighting for a good cause, now many years later writes a powerful, illuminating book on how Henry Spira did just that and instigated major changes for animals along the way, again and again . The path has never been easy, but this one man has moved some big stones going down the path. Henry has influenced society's view regarding animals at large and has had a major impact on how certain corporations treat and regard animals. Whether one agrees with his philosophy or not, one cannot but admire Henry for going down this difficult route and making changes for the better along the way. Whatever your cause, Henry's story will change how you think and what you think. You will believe that you too, one person, can make a difference, whatever your cause. Read the book...make a difference. Push the peanut forward.

This book is truly amazing. It is a very exciting book to read, and the enthusiasm of Henry Spira can not help to rub off on your own life. Peter Singer has done an excellent job of giving the reader an easy to access look into the life of a man who inspired thousands of people to think more about all forms of suffering for all types of animals.

Thank you for such an amazing book! It is a must read for anyone involved in activism. It shares a lifetime of wisdom. Enjoy!

The book descriprion on this page is good and I enjoyed this edition of the book with the help of the glossary provided in this edition which contains definitions of sailing terms and and few archaic usages that are in this book. It made it much more enjoyable and understandable.

I liked the grueling portarit of life at sea, reading some first written observations of early California, a fine and admiring description of a very able-bodied seaman that Dana encountered and many other points.

I think to that this challenging adventure for Mr. Dana restulted in restored vision for his failing eyes after he removed himself from life perhaps largely behind a desk. Could the neccessity of challenge and needed to see have contributed?

There are many facets and admirable points in this book. I think you would enjoy it.

Why should you read this book? Yes, it is a classic. Yes, it documents the wonderful, adventurous time of the clipper ship. But that's not why you should read it.

Richard Henry Dana must have been a most extraordinary man. While attending Harvard as a young man, his eyesight became weak and his health declined. He decided that the austere prescription of salt air and plain hard work would be the cure. Not many would give up comfort and privelege, but for two years, Dana served as a common sailor, given no special treatment as the gentleman he was, and lived in the forecastle of the Alert, eating the mess of salt beef and common hardtack, risking his life and serving under a captain crueler than most.

Dana was able to write in such a way as to re-create the life on board a sailing ship, down to the smallest details and that's what makes this book so real and touching. You can feel the cold of Tierra del Fuego, taste the salt beef, and feel the wind and damp. What's more amazing is that Dana's carefully-kept journal was lost along with his other mementos of his voyage when he landed back on shore in Boston, due to some tragic carelessness of someone he entrusted with his chest of belongings. Yet he was able to recreate his voyage in loving detail and in some very excellent writing.

Dana's later life as a lawyer was far from happy, though he made some critical contributions to maritime law. He died a poor and disappointed man, but left us the richer with his book. I just re-read it again for the tenth time, and it is fresher than ever. Read it along side of Moby Dick. It's American literature and American history and culture at its very best.

I'm a Californian who has seen the entire coast described by Dana. He has painted a remarkably true picture of that coast still recognizable. Jackson was president when Dana sailed in 1833. It was also the age of the Mountain Men some of whom were seen in CA while Dana was there. In San Diego Dana met professor Nuttal who taught at Cambridge and was known to Dana. Nuttal crossed the continent the hard way, as a naturalist, then made his way to CA, and eventually returned on the same ship with Dana to Boston. Both Dana and Nuttal, and their respective pursuits, were precursors to Manifest Destiny. Their trips also were descriptive of the times. Two years after his leaving Boston, Dana returned as an accepted 'foc'sle' sailor, a man cured of whatever ailed him when he left home. His exploits are remarkable for their daring. He never shirked his duty as a shipmate. His is a remarkable tale which could only have been told by one of his character. If read in conjunction with the landed history of the time, 'Across the Wide Missouri,' by DeVoto, it becomes a historical masterpiece significant for its truth, sadness, and moments of supreme beauty of expression.