I am an undergraduate student taking a course in virology, and i find this book extremely difficult to learn from. As a reference source for a particular virus it may be of use, but use of this book as a learning tool is foolish. Yes, this book is written by experts concerning a particular field, but it seems that the authors target audience is also...experts. In introducing fundamental concepts of virology, the text constantly uses examples to a particular virus. From this particular virus, it then makes reference of a mechanism of this virus. How can one make a reference to a mechanism, when one has not yet even been exposed to the virus family themselves? Its almost like talking about the stats of a certain sports figure, and then as a foot note make reference upon how the game is played.

As an undergraduate taking a course in virology, I found this book the only book I ever needed. It has all the information that you need and more. I just hope that they will continue to come out with a newer edition since this book is out of date and the field of virology has grown since this edition.

I read the chapter on prions and i found it to be really good and up to date. of course it requires you to know a little background knowledge but if you're reading this book you probably already fill out that category. definitely not for the layman...

The Hunter game is a nice addition to anyones WoD collection. This book can help one to build better characers. You know onesa that can actually live for past 60 seconds.

When I purchased this book, I was expecting something along the lines of a a player's guide or such. What I got, on the other hand, was a sourcebook chock full of information on supernaturals around the world. Be careful that you know what this is before you purchase it. It's an excellent book and I liked it very much, but it was not what I had in mind for a survival guide.

I liked this book. Its written from the point of view of the hunters, a different one for each section. The book does not have any game mechanics, its pure story. It begins with a few tips for novice hunters, something you should get your players to read through. Then it goes on to describe each continent. It spends a lot of time discussing the world outside of North America, so if your planning on running a game in a different country then this is the book for you. I liked the fact that since the information is given out by hunters, it is full of various facts that are completely not true, so your players can read through the book and still not have any of the real information. Full of great story potential and well written. A good buy if your going to run a hunter's game.

It was really boring and I didn't like how the author rambled on and on about nothing important at all. It was the most awful book I have ever read.

This book is a marvelously comprehensive collection of Doisneau's work. The photographs are beautifully reproduced, and reflect the character of a city and its people with humor, pathos, and great dignity. The text is clear, concise, and extremely insightful, with some extraordinary quotes and commentary from not only Doisneau himself, but other gifted artists of his time. A book to treasure!

Delightful photographs in fine reproduction with interesting and readable insight into the man behind the camera.

This book is great for the beginner or the semi-experienced. There is a lot of useful information and detail. Some aspects are outdated but overall the book is very accurate. Keep in mind this is a textbook and it reads like one. However, if auto mechanics is your interest then you should have no problem enjoying this book.

This is a pretty good book for either the inexperienced or master mechanic. I would recommend this book to any person who is limited in knowing the inner wotkings of their cars and would like to know what the mechanic is really talking about. The chapters in this book will give you basic information on how the different systems work in your car from engines to brake systems to drivetrain systems. the second part of the chapter will give you tips on how to troubleshoot and repair your car, if you decide to take the task upon yourself. This book provides highly detailed pictures and diagrams and explains everything in easy to understand terminology.

If modern automotive technology fascinates you (as it fascinates me), you will absolutely love it. Duffy really drives home the key points about the computer and electrical systems.

From one enthusiast to another - great job Frank.

I like Gogol - I loved "Dead Souls' and "The Nose". But Taras Bulba totally caught me by surprise - which was (ironically) both pleasant and a disappointment. The story tells the tale of the Zaphorizhian Cossacks of the Ukriane and their struggle for independence from the domination of the Cathlic Poles. Returning from university, Taras Bulba's sons Ostap and Andrei partake in their first Cossak foray into the steppe. Enroute, Andrei falls in love with a Polish nobleman's daughter, and in the seige the follows, betrays his hetman (leader) and people to defend her. Tragedy ensues.
First, I was disappointed by the lack of depth he wrote for his characters - they never really sprung to life for me. Rather, they read more like charactures - carousing, drinking, rallying to the "true, Orthodox faith", pirating and plundering. This is as true of the minor characters as it is of Taras Bulba and his sons themselves - characters you would expect more "fleshing out" given the nature of the novel. I was also disappointed by the lack of scope - for a novella about the struggle for Ukrainian independence, the story itself was remarkably thin, dealing only with the events surrounding Tara's attack upon an unnamed Polish city, and his subsequent quest for revenge.

However, there is much to like about Taras Bulba. As one would expect from Gogol, the imagry is fabulous - vivid descriptions of Cossack life from their humble steppe homes, to their flamboyant dress, to the very way in which they drink themselves into a stupor. For this alone, the book is worth the time and effort to read it.

This is an epic novel in which the action takes place in the XIVth century. It is the first relevant novel written by Gogol, and he came up with it as he intended to write a history of Ukraine, the country where he was born. It narrates Ukraine's struggles against Asian invaders through the adventures of Taras Bulba, a tough, brave Cossack and his young sons.

Those readers who are fond of writers such as Dostoievsky, Turgueniev or Chejov may find that Gogol lacks the depth of other Russian writers when it comes to characters construction. Far from what we see in subsequent novelists, here the characters are merely outlined to serve the purposes of the saga. They are simple devices to depict what Ukraine's situation was at the time and to develop the feats of the Cossack army in the countless battles they held against Tartars, Poles, etc.
Resembling The Iliad or The Odyssey, the gory and scary scenes are abundant and the author uses no euphemisms. Yet, the novel misses the richness of characters and situations Homer builds in his epic poems. Taras, the Cossack lacks Ulysses sagacity and appears to be a brutish when he is put side by side with the Greek hero. However, I grant that I may be balancing things that have nothing to do but I am to blame since I haven't read much epic literature and I lack references to make good comparisons.

There are some details that confer the story its value, though: Cossack' disposition portray of towards war. The idea of granting life a sense: that of patriotism, or preserving national values. And how in a land where nothing but coldness, hunger or alcohol is left to its inhabitants, war arises as the only raison d'être for men who are confronted with their insignificant lives day after day. Dying for the sake of religion or the land is what makes a man a hero, as Taras himself says "Shall men end up their existences as dogs, without having served their country and Christianity? What do we live for then?".

Love also emerges as a conflictive element. Like Helena in Homer's Iliad, there is a Polish woman who is capable of giving birth to uncontrollable passions or mad actions, such as betraying blood and roots or even the murder of a son. And, fairly enough for a romantic character, her powers rely on her overwhelming beauty rather than on any other trait.
There are also beautiful metaphors and descriptions throughout the story, which taint the characters with nobility no common man would ever deserve, but suitable for an epic hero and to make the Slavic race immortal.

Gogol's 'Taras Bulba' is a good example of how a literary work can return to topicality with a vengeance; not so much news that stays news, as it were, as news that re-emerges as news. Accompanied by a brief introduction by professional geo-pessimist Robert D Kaplan (reprinted in the April 2003 Atlantic magazine), this novella confronts the reader with an account of a pre-modern mindset which is only too relevant to understanding current international events.
Set sometime in the 17th century, 'Taras Bulba' describes the life of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, a people so accustomed to war that it has become the focus of their existence. Taras is a Cossack colonel, an old fighter who has survived into middle age and fathered two sons, now themselves on the verge of manhood. Far from slipping into complacent quiescence, however, he is as warlike as ever, and his sons' return home from their seminary studies rouses him to return from semi-retirement to full-time work (i.e. raiding and pillaging). His overriding motive is to initiate his sons into full Cossack manhood. The military ' or personal ' consequences are irrelevant. What matters is that his sons must learn war.
After an interval at their stronghold, the Sech, an all-male enclave where the Cossacks practise the arts of peace (i.e. getting roaring drunk), Taras is able, with little difficulty, given the nature of his audience, to foment a campaign against the neighbouring (and therefore enemy) Poles. This situation exemplifies a clash-of-civilizations scenario wherein the Orthodox Cossacks are engaged in chronic conflict with the Catholic Poles on the one hand and the Muslim Turks and Tatars on the other. Taras' war goes swimmingly at first (the Cossacks kill many of their enemies), and later not so well (their enemies kill many of the Cossacks).
Gogol's account is a subtle blend of folk tale and modern storytelling. The traditional picture would have shown the Cossacks in brighter, more heroic colours, their cause justified by the outrages of their wicked enemies, and their defeat brought about by treachery and betrayal. In Gogol's more nuanced presentation, Taras is an out-and-out war-monger and the Cossacks are shown in full, their weaknesses and vices detailed together with their nobility, strengths and virtues. The sorry fates of those lower in the social order, specifically Cossack women and Jews, are not allowed to escape the reader's attention, even though these observations are accompanied by a casual anti-Semitism. At the same time, however, Gogol also preserves the magical atmosphere of the folk tale: the horses are swift, the warriors are fierce, the young women are beautiful and the doomed are doomed.
In the end, Taras' sons reap the full measure of what their father has sowed. Taras shares their tragedy, of course, but so do all the Cossacks. The geopolitics of endless sporadic warfare have made them a culture where military prowess is the supreme human attribute. In such a context, Taras' most natural and benevolent paternal instinct ' to see his sons become fully established members of the community ' is diverted into starting an unnecessary war which ends in disaster. Yet in the aftermath Taras does not even think of changing his ways. Rather he intensifies them, draining the bitter cup of war to its dregs. There is no other way: a Cossack cannot become a peacenik.
As Kaplan points out, the mentality of a Taras Bulba is only too relevant to the modern world. Just as recent events have shown that infectious disease is not a vestige of an archaic past, so the various ancient tribalisms, ethnic, national and religious group identities, and the diabolical passions they engender, only recently dismissed as obsolete, are now boiling up again as vigorously as ever. The role of religion in the story is particularly noteworthy. Although the Cossacks place great store by their faith ' 'a rock rising from the depths of a stormy ocean' ' its role in their lives is purely totemic. It is the symbol which identifies them and distinguishes them from their enemies. The actual doctrines of this faith ' specifically its injunctions against violence ' are entirely ignored; the devoutly Christian Cossacks can throw Jews into the river or skewer Polish newborns without a second thought. Religion, we see, is both remarkably protean and plastic in its interpretations, and whether a faith becomes the talisman of war or peace seems to depend mostly on the culture, circumstances and interests of its adherents.
The world of Taras Bulba, while it may appeal to our desire to be free of the burdensome complexities of modern reality (which likely accounts for the enthusiastic back-jacket blurb by Hemingway), is at least as oppressive as our own, and not simply by virtue of the ever-present threat of violence, but also because of the stultifying force of an all-encompassing group identity, inescapable except through heavy drinking or unconsciousness, and the remorseless sacrifice of humanity to the fighter's ethos. Those of us who no longer have to live this way should be thankful.

Modern Library has produced a handsome hardcover edition, but the full price for a novella of only 140 pages will probably only appeal to cosmopolitan sophisticates. The wretched of the earth will have to wait for the paperback version.

If you are really interested in what happened between Turks and Armenians in 1915,i can suggest you to read Heath Lowry's The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.Professor Heath Lowry is a well-known historian in Princeton University and in his book,he proves Ambassador Morgenthau's Story wrong scientifically,shows how the book is based on rumors.A must to read for those who are interested in this matter...

The book is advisable only when one reads it with Heath W. Lowry' s "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau' s Story", published by ISIS Press, Istanbul in 1990. As Dr. Lowry describes:

"The answer is simple and relates to the fact that Morgenthau was writing a piece of wartime propaganda with the expressly stated purpose of mobilising support for President Wilson's war effort. He consciously down played the close relationships he enjoyed with the Young Turk leadership throughout his sojourn in Constantinople and sacrificed truth for the greater good of helping to generate anti-Turkish sentiment which would transform itself into pro-war sentiment."

Unfortunately the American public opinion during that time was based on such sources as the services of Dragaman (translators) between the officials of the Ottoman Empire and the American Ambassador. And these dragaman were not Ottoman Turks but Ottoman Armenians and Ottoman Greeks both were in conflict with the Ottoman Empire. Ambassador Morgenthau used two of them, two Armenians, namely Hagop S. Andonian (personal secretary) and Arshag K. Schmavonian (legal assistant). The printed copy however went through severe war time propaganda editing by the US Secretary of State, Robert Lensing and Pulitzer award winning author, Burton J. Hendrick.

One of the most dramatic incidents and the diversion of the facts were about the life insurance benefits of the deceased Armenian insurers of an American Insurance company. The book claims that Talaat, the Ottoman Interior Minister, made a request to him that the Ambassador should help to facilitate payment the insurance benefits to the Ottoman Treasury, as there were no heirs to the insurers! However, Dr. Lowry proved that after reading the actual dated letters, the request of the Ottoman Minister was to stop the American Insurance Company from transferring their capital funds from Ottoman Empire to France, and thereby preserving sufficient capitalization for any benefits claims. Such diversion of the facts is extremely dangerous.

It is therefore an important document about the wartime journalism and subsequent unfortunate diversions of the facts to base Armenian claims of 1915. We could only be grateful to Dr. Lowry that he shed light into the story with his review of the original letters stored in FDR Library and in the National Achieves.

Ambassador Morgenthau has always been one of the most reliable sources on the Armenian Genocide. No surprise that so many attempts have been made to tarnish his image, or to question his testimonies on the terrible crime committed by the Ottoman Empire against its Christian Armenian subjects. Yet, the Morgenthau version of the 1915 events is abslutely irrefutable, and I strongly recommend this book to those interested in finding out what has really happened during the agony of the "ill man of Europe".

A good example of today's lost souls screaming for guidance. It's unfortunate that today's artist' have no imagination and that so many trees had to loose their lives to print this garbage.

As an illustrator I highly recommend this book for all character designers... great book.

Art books are reaching new heights and Pictoplasma is one of the first I've seen. The book is a showcase of contemporary art created by international graphic designers, animators, artists, and production companies.

The art attempts to convey the artist's message emotionally while reaching out to its viewer in the hopes of bonding. The entire book is pure eye candy in every free hand drawing, pixel, vector graphic, 3-D objects, and an encyclopedia of resurfacing motifs. Even non-Internet surfers will recognize many of the colorful and creative designs because they are found other media including television, books, and video games.

The index lists all the titles of the art, contributors' names along with their email and Web addresses. As a confessed non-artist, I'm amazed as I flip through pages of expressive and colorfully rendered art. The book can be much more than just another art book, it can be an inspiration for those in the process of creating. This is the coffee table book for geeks and Web designers and it'll go just fine with the books containing the Monets, Picassos, and Renoirs.

The book has a companion Web site and you can view pages at the publisher's Web site.

This book is no better than any of the other graduate level marketing books that are available. You might think that since this book has 15 authors it might have something that books with only 3 authors lacks. But, if you thought this you'd be wrong. This book offers nothing new and its extremely high price makes it even less appealing.

This book combines the knowledge of excellent scholars of marketing in a clear and structured format which is accessible to undergraduates. In addition, the cases and other teaching materials provide excellent support.

It is to bad that someone so capable of telling a good tale could take a dive with such vivid subject matter at his disposal. It is extremely over priced for such a dismal read. Anyone who has purchased the Box set has read pretty much the same info given in this minute pamplet of wash. We need a vision of this man not a paint by numbers acount of times,places and song verses. Then again If you do not know the tale of johnson then this is the book for you. let me also highly recomend Robert palmers book Deep Blues. Also the finest attempt to give an acurate portrayal of such a god is the book LOVE in VAIN by Alan Greenberg...

The recent packaging of the Complete Recordings of Robert Johnson has shown this bluesman to be one of the most influential musicians in American history. He is more popular now than he ever was in his lifetime. It is his life, rather than his legacy, that is the subject of music historian Peter Guralnick's book. Little is know about Johnson's life, but Guralnick brings what little there is to light in a fascinating work that is more like a ghost story than a biography.

The 96 pages of this book are pack full of information about legendary bluesman Robert Johnson. Virtually everything that is known about Mr. Johnson is vividly detailed in this work. Makes for excellent reading.