This textbook is lively, explains complex issues with clarity and memorable examples. Solso's writing is as engaging and interesting as he is. Lots of helpful diagrams and photos. An easy read, suitable for both undergrads and grad students. This book and Margaret Matlin's are the two best in the field, I use them both. Also highly recommend Solso et. al.'s Experimental Psychology textbook for the nuts and bolts of research design and experimentation.

An easy-read book with a magnificent layout. Good structure of the contents. It backs up a lot of it's saying on experiments performed and show the reader a bit about them. Nice "Recommended reading"-section closing every chapter.

This is an excellent text on cognitive psychology by one of the leading authors in the field. The chapters are well written and easily comprehended by all levels of students. Cognitive Psychology is also a great reference text due to its comprehensive review of cognitive psychology.

The Cinema Of Robert Zemeckis by Hollywood cinema historian and expert Norman Kagan, is an informed and informative survey and analysis of award-winning filmmaker Roger Zemeckis' life and his dazzling, memorable, and often pioneering works of cinematic excellence, including "Back to the Future", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "Forrest Gump", and more. Part biography, part film study, The Cinema Of Robert Zemeckis is a truly fascinating work and especially recommended for fans of Zemeckis' cinema who want to learn more about the ideas and the man that crafted such enduring silver screen favorites.

Norman Kagan has written another highly readable yet scholarly work -- this time on Robert Zemeckis. An excellent mix of background, content and criticism -- this book is thorough, well-organized and entertaining.

(sorry for my poor english, I'm French-Canadian)

As I entitled this review, this is a must for every serious and lucid social scientist (by the way, to many domains of research as well). In the early years of the twentieth century, prominent psychologists such as Allport, Lewin or Murray advocated that research should concentrate on the individuals rather than on the variables. Contemporary scholars such as Block, Cairns, and Magnusson continue to try to convince the scientifc community of the necessity to undertake research based on the holistic, interactionist, and person-centered perspective. I read a lot peer-reviewed scientific communication, and as I see it, researchers continue te be reluctant in adopting a person-centered perspective in their research (Jack Block (2000) proposed a number of reasons for that) ...

Here at amazon, I have read a number of reviews about controversial books on topics such as intelligence, personality, adjustment problems, behavioral genetics, etc. ... But do you know that nearly the totality of the results we dispose to date in social sciences are based on variable-centered studies ... thus, we only know about the "average person" ... Before doing interminable debates about the average individual, we should make more research that help us to understand the person we want to understand ... after that, we could go on with great (and exciting) debate about controversial issues in psychology and other social sciences. Do you know that the statistical parameters on which many debates are based (the parameters of the "average person" in a given sample) often do not apply to any of the real persons in your sample ... think about that ...

By the way, modern statistical methods are very powerful tools and the person-centered analyses will not answer to all the quesstion we can have ...

If you are a researcher in social sicence, and particularly if you are a student (undergraduate or graduate) planning to make a career in research, please, please, read that book !

This is probably the best book I've seen about Nicaragua and the Cold War during the 1980's. I did a research project there for several months and found Kagan's book to be very helpful and very accurate. Too bad it's out of print.

A very describetive account of USA intervention in Nicaragua begginning with The Knox Letter ending with the closing of the Iran-Contra scandal. Before picking up this book you should relize that it is very long and VERY detailed; however, it is very interesting if you are at all interested in the cold war. (note: also helped raised my SAT vocabulary score to a 700)

The book is a rather good introductory book upon behavioral genetics, covering various emotional and behavioral disorders. It is stimulating and interesting, and very academic in nature. To a reader searching for practical implication of behavioral genetics, there may be little appointment. No matter what, I do agree that the behavioral genetics is a subject that every psychologist, or even every person, should have some ideas about this new development in science.

The problem with neoconservative foreign policy is not that it is conservative and realistic but rather that it is liberal. The descriptions of problems here presented are real enough but the policies advocated in response are simply unrealistic precisely because they are imbued with a kind of moralizing and crusading liberalism that is not going to solve America's foreign policy problems but rather exacerbate them. Doubtless American intervention is required in many areas (and not in the form of social work as advocated by the UN and the Left), but proclaiming complex problems to be simple forces of good and evil that can be solved with the revolutionary and forceful imposition of democracy is classic Wilsonian liberal nonsense. It is simply a liberal-minded fantasy that you can import democracy and human rights to places that do not have the historical and institutional background to support it. Granted a realisitic foreign policy that encourages intervention without the aid of some rhetorical flourishes of high-minded but naive and impractical principles will fail to be legitimized in the mind of the demos; however, to go so far as to actually implement these principles as policy is not only doomed to failure but will most certainly result in "blowback" against American interests. Much more prudence and the reassertion of realistic geopolitical strategies wrapped in the rhetoric of Wilsonian fantasy worlds is needed in place of the actual implementation of crusading liberal ideologies when it comes to foreign policy. We should expect much more especially from William Kristol, being the student of the great Machiavellian scholar Harvey Mansfield.

This is undoubtedly one of the most important books on US foreign policy published in recent years and should be read by anyone who cares about the future of the United States and the rest of the world. This is the manifesto of "conservative internationalism" whose proponents, including many of the books authors, now infest the Bush administration and are his loudest ventriloquists. Here, then, is the current administration's strategic vision.

The basic argument is that the US needs to exercise world domination, here spun as "benevolent global hegemony" and that there are a number of external obstacles which stand in the way and must be dealt with. These are Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, the Middle East peace process and an independent Europe. In its clear and reasoned enunciation of strategy and future plans, it both rivals and surpasses the later chapters of Mein Kampf. Here is the game plan which must be read to understand where these people intend to take the world next.

If we ignore the desirability of this mission, its feasibility (the cost in money, lives and freedom) certainly merits discussion, but here the book is thin, relying on fairy story assumptions (budget surpluses!!!) and wishful thinking.

The one distasteful aspect of the book is the attempt to wrap the entire endeavour in the cloak of "American morality", understood as protecting citizen's liberties. This is breathtaking stuff from accomplices in the most extensive attempt to incinerate the Constitution in recent history.

Stripped of its ideological air cover and romantic fantasies, this is still an important, timely and lively document since this is the future course of foreign policy which the Bush administration plans to pursue.

Whether you agree with the American foreign and defense policy of the Bush administration or not, this book is essential reading for those interested in the topic. It's a series of essays on different foreign and defense policy issues written by people who are highly influential in the Bush administration, including Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz.

The central thesis seems to be that the US is (or maybe WAS immediately after the Cold War) at an unprecedented position of influence and power over the world, and should use it to secure the safety of the whole world before those who wish to threaten the free world acquire the means to do so. The book was written at the end of the Clinton administration, but many parts of the book are extremely prophetic including the need to confront the members of the "Axis of Evil" about their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the palestinian uprising against the stalled peace process which had not yet begun when the book was written. Like I said, even if you're not in agreement with Bush administration policy, you'll learn what some of the influential minds are thinking (and why their right!).

This book forces you to rethink the common world view and the relationship between Europe and America. Kagan's prose is very clear, well-written and easy to follow and he argues quite convincingly. He has a good point that Western Europe has lived under America's protecting umbrella since WW2 and made the Europeans to believe that machtpolitik, that is the necessity to use military force, no longer is needed and that laws and international cooperation is the only way to build a better world. It worked fine for civilized and well-behaving European states in the EU, but it obviously doesn't work that well with more badly brought-up leaders as Kim Jong-Il. Or Hitler for that matter.

Clearly the rift between Europeans and Americans is deeper than many think, and clearly both sides have some serious issues to discuss. But I don't agree with Kagan's implicit conclusions - that the rift is almost impossible to heal and that Europe and USA have different roadmaps that are bound to clash an increasing number of times in the future.

Kagan is exaggerating the differences. Europe lacks the Americans' military power and is occupied with the European integration most of the time, but it does not mean that they will disagree in all important matters in the future. They still share the same visions. But I think that Europe, and especially France, feels a strong threat to be sidelined and ignored by America. Europe is not as important for America as it was during the Cold War. Instead, it is directing its interest towards Southeast Asia where the next superpower, China, is. Kagan's opening phrase - "It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world" - more or less feels like an excuse to cut the old traditional ropes with Europe and start building new alliances that are better suited for the coming world order. If this is true both Europeans and Americans have a reason to be worried about the future, espacially as Kagan will start working for vice president Cheney this summer.

It doesn't matter what political stripe you wear, Kagan's book is a fascinating look at current-day international politics. Kagan presents a wonderfully logical argument about the relationship between Europe and America. And while he doesn't necessarily present any information that is new or surprising, he does help connect the dots in a manner that makes most readers go, "Aha!" Kagan's writing style is very user-friendly, unusual in a field known for its clunky style and obscure historical references (Thomas Friedman notwithstanding). He uses wonderful anecdotes and analogies to help paint his picture of the differences in the ways that America and Europe view world-wide threats (A bear roaming in the woods is viewed differently by a man with a rifle as opposed to a man with a knife). And given these acknowledged differences, is it any wonder that America and Europe increasingly find conflict over the way we resolve these problems? America wants to quickly solve the problems with arms (we have lots of over-powering weapons and a strong distaste for any American deaths); Europe would much rather discuss the problems over time and come to a non-conflict resolution (they don't have the weapons and have come to appreciate the power of discussion). As a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, one who attended the numerous spring anti-war demonstrations throughout my hometown, I now look at the world in a different way after reading this fine book -- and what could be a better compliment to any author? And while I continue to feel America's heavy-handed approach is ultimately wrong, this book has given me a more balanced perception of the way things work.

This essay is extraordinarily insightful and persuasive regarding the current state of American-European relations and the political and historical factors that have contibuted to these parties' view of the world and it's problems from such differing perspectives.
Kagan's historical analogies help to explain the responses of both sides of the Atlantic to a growing disparity in power and the ability to use power effectively. Of course those who are incapable of wielding geopolitical power would find the entanglements of multilateralism more attractive than the US who finds itself at the end of the cold war as the only power with the ability to use the hammer. Kagan objectively states that the danger in that unique ability is the tendency to perhaps view every problem in the world as a nail.
Having read this the events of the past few months in the UN and the reaction of Europe to the conflict makes more sense to me as part of a broader historical trend in US-European relations and not the suddenly appearing fissure that it may have seemed during the UN debates. We may well be at a turning point in history .Examingng these questions in such a logical and dispassionate essay is of great value in these turbulent days.