I enjoyed learning some of the local history of Texas from an ordinary person's view, especially since this person was my great grandfather. I had never heard the stories from any family member before. The descriptions of events and locales really brought home a sense of family. It shows that small events shape a country as well as large events. It also reminded me how much history can be lost unless someone takes the time to write it down.

Based on diaries written in the late 1800s, Under The Texas Sun tell the story of a young boy, born during the Civil War, who grows up in East Texas and goes to work on the big ranches in West Texas. True stories written by his granddaughter who inherited his diaries and who recalls sitting by her grandfather's side as he reminisced about his youthful escapades.

This book really helped. After injuring myself went to the doctor who suggested lot's of medications, etc. Skeptical, I went to bookstore and came across this book. Found other treatment ideas in it and took it back to the doctor with me. He was shocked at my audacity, but agreed with the recommendation in the book. Saved me thousands of bucks and lots of grief. Doc said he was going to buy a copy. WOW

Well thought out book. It takes every ache and pain and tells you how to fix it. Easy to read and clear in its directions. I stumbled across this book in store and am glad I did. It's a reference I will use often

I loved this book! It really makes you think about how the world works: not only in nature, but also in human society. Who really has knowledge? Read this book to find out. It has given me a much broader perspective on the world.

Although this book is out of date, it still offers a great review of the best actors, actresses and films of 1927 to 1985, including such classics as Gone With The Wind, Casablanca, The Godfather and Rocky. (Note: Les Fox is a NY Times bestselling author, and one of millions of people fascinated with Oscar winning films and movie stars.)

BOOK REVIEW The Adaptive Design of the Human Psyche: Psychoanalysis, Evolutionary Biology and the Therapeutic Process By Malcolm Slavin and Daniel Kriegman by Don Greif, Ph.D. The Adaptive Design of the Human Psyche: Psychoanalysis, Evolutionary Biology and the Therapeutic Process, by Malcolm Slavin and Daniel Kriegman, is a profound and creative work and an awesome accomplishment. The fact that it is brilliant is almost beside the point. For what Slavin and Kriegman have accomplished in this book is that they have come as close as anyone writing from a psychoanalytic point of view has ever come to capturing the essential nature of the human condition. They have provided a highly compelling and lucid description of human nature, in all of its complexity and paradoxicalness, that is inspiring and moving. It is also hard to read. But, and this is an understatement, it is well worth the effort. I can almost guarantee that you will be richly rewarded if you invest the time and energy necessary to understand what Slavin and Kriegman are saying. They use an adaptive theoretical framework, one which is largely based on contemporary evolutionary biology, as a vantage point from which to critically examine the basic premises about human nature which are contained within each of the two major psychoanalytic paradigms -- the classical and relational narrative traditions. Using an evolutionary framework, they elucidate the two narratives= respective assumptions about the nature of the human psyche and of the relational world, and they reveal the important truths about human nature and the psyche contained within each tradition. Through a process of examining and deconstructing important metaphors from both classical and relational traditions (repression, endogenous drives, and the true self) into their basic meanings, and then reconstructing those meanings into an evolutionary narrative, Slavin and Kriegman provide a new paradigm for psychoanalysis, one that synthesizes the essential truths contained in each narrative into a comprehensive framework or whole. The new evolutionary narrative which results appears to embrace, in a way that has not been achieved before, the inherently valid pieces of each narrative tradition. The evolutionary narrative which results from this synthesis depicts human beings, according to Slavin and Kriegman, "as innately individualistic and innately social; as endowed with inherently selfish, aggressively self-promoting aims, as well as an equally primary altruistic disposition toward those whose interests we share. We are, in short, never destined to attain the kind of highly autonomous individuality enshrined in the classical tradition, nor are we the "social animal" of the relational vision. We are essentially "semisocial" beings whose nature, or self-structure and motivational system, is inherently divided between eternally conflicting aims." (p. 281) Since Slavin and Kriegman use an evolutionary framework to evaluate the validity of the basic premises of the classical and relational models, one must wonder about the validity of evolutionary theory itself. It seems that evolutionary theory has widespread acceptance and credibility within the scientific world. It is perhaps close to having attained the same status as more familiar and broadly accepted scientific theories. In the November issue of Natural History the evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stated the following: "As for the claim that evolution is an unproved theory, that's nonsense. Evolution is a fact, established with the same degree of confidence as our theory' of the round earth, our germ theory' of disease, and the atomic theory' of matter. Yes, there is lively debate about the particular evolutionary mechanisms that caused particular changes, but the existence of evolutionary change is not in doubt" (p. 19). For the purpose of evaluating Slavin and Kriegman's ideas, it is significant to note that evolutionary biological theory has a far different scientific status than psychoanalytic theory. As a scientific theory psychoanalysis has achieved little credibility in its first hundred years. It has achieved far more credibility as a method of treating psychological problems, and there its adherents consist mainly of its beneficiaries, that is, those who have gained personally from it, or from its offspring, psychoanalytic psychotherapy. It is contemporary evolutionary biological theory, largely through the work of Robert Trivers, that has vastly increased our understanding of the social environment. It is this theory that is most relevant to Slavin and Kriegman's work and to psychoanalysis, for it is understanding those forces that shape social evolution that has made it possible for Slavin and Kriegman to fulfill an aim that Freud sought but failed to achieve; mainly, to link the universal, underlying features of internal psychic structure to ancestral interpersonal experience. Slavin and Kriegman demonstrate that those psychodynamic features that comprise our "deep structure," such as the capacities for repression, regression, and transference, have evolved over the course of millions of years as adaptations to our environment, in particular to the unique and complex realities in our social or relational environment. The complex inner design of the human psyche has been shaped by the same forces that operate within the natural world to shape living organisms, mainly those that constitute natural selection. The basic universal features of the human psyche are a result of their having conferred an adaptive advantage on our ancestors; those humans who had these features were more successful at negotiating the complex relations dilemmas and paradoxes that faced them and were more successful, ultimately, at reproducing and surviving in that social environment. Robert Langs, in an article in the October 1993 issue of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, ("Psychoanalysis: Narrative Myth. or Narrative Science") criticizes Slavin and Kriegman for adopting a teleological position in their use of certain concepts. Referring to their conceptualization of repression as serving to safeguard aspects of an individual's "true self" so that they can be retrieved when relational conditions change, Langs states, "The ideas of a true self (all moments of selfhood are interactional in nature) and of the goal of self-actualization are teleological no matter how they are stated" (p. 580). It seems clear that Langs has not understood several central ideas in Slavin and Kriegman's book nor, it seems, has he understood evolutionary theory. Slavin and Kriegman see the existence of something like the "true self," some core, "endogenous" or independent source of motivation, not as an end in itself, but rather as a basic feature of the human psyche, part of its deep structural, adaptive design that has evolved over millions of years as a functional solution to a highly challenging and complex dilemma that has faced (and continues to face) the human child since the time of our prehuman ancestors, namely how to construct a self in a world where it is highly dependent for its identity on others whose interests not only overlap and converge but also necessarily diverge and, at times, conflict with its own. Slavin and Kriegman state, "Evolutionary theory suggests that even responsive, attuned, facilitative familial environments will inevitably be characterized by a highly ambiguous mixture of overlapping mutual interests, intrinsic conflict, and ongoing deception" (p. 121). Slavin and Kriegman believe that the "true self...may signify a dimension of our overall adaptive design...that seems to provide us with an absolutely critical source of information about our individual interests" (p. 176). In their view "a design element such as [the true self] became a critical, functional necessity for a species in which our s

I have known and admired Bob Ballard since his early years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution - and for good reason. Too many professional ocean scientists tut tut Ballard as a showman (the same was done more cuttingly to Capt. Jacques Yves Cousteau by French scientists). But Ballard's scientific achievements alone put him among the scientific elite had he never taken a step as a popularizer. Thank God he left the ivory tower and used his incredible gifts to utilize and innovate with ocean technology. Without him finding the Titanic, Bismarck, and PT 109 would have been unlikely for reasons of both cost and extreme logistic difficulty.

The recognition that no-oxygen, hydrogen sulfide deeps of the Black sea preserved many important ancient wrecks and hold untold insights for future study of the past opens up breathtaking future vistas. Ballard is an optimist and an idealist. His Jason project, bringing tens or even hundreds of thousands of school kids into ocean exploration is an island of healthy excitement into an otherwise discouraging educational world in the U.S.

Ballard can be interesting talking about rigging or paint cans. I don't know how he does it. He's an inspiration and role model, and deserves the Nation's highest civilian honor. I hope he achieves it while still vigorously at work creating more excitement and knowledge of our ocean realm!

A FAST PACED FIRST PERSON NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF CAPTAIN THEODORE CANOT, TRADER IN GOLD, IVORY AND SLAVES ON THE COAST OF GUINEA CIRCA 1854. CAPT. CANOT HAD QUITE A LIFE AND THE BOOK IS WRITTEN IN A MANNER THAT SEEMS TO DEFY DATING IN THAT IT IS EASY TO READ; TO GET INVOLVED IN, AND GIVES ONE MAN'S VIEW OF AN ERA THAT PLAYED A LARGE PART IN HISTORY. NOT AS ROUGH AS ONE WOULD EXPECT.

Before Organic farming and gardening, a product of the 1960's revival of awareness of the importance of healthy food and environmental awareness there were already healthy roots in Western Mysticism. (Read also Blavatsky, Besant and Leadbeater) In 1926 Rudolph Steiner delivered a series of lectures to a loyal group of Anthroposophists in Koberwitz, Austria. Reading the text of the lectures is a rare, deep draught of the river of arcane knowledge. In order to absorb it, you must float yourself in it and sink down into it, perhaps to drown. This is not a how-to book. There are some very successful applications of the principles and processes described in the lectures in Australia and North America, which includes the Biodynamic Association in Kimberton, Pennsylvania. Organic gardening is only the first step in reclaiming sustainable and healthy agriculture, and the application of the principles outlined in this book may be an important next step.

The late Dr. Malcolm McMillan, Head of the History Department of Auburn University, offers the only thoroughly-researched documentary of Alabama's role in the Confederacy. Utilizing the painstaking research for which he was well-known, Dr. McMillan manages to assemble a multitude of primary documents in a highly readable and valuable history. Providing his own short narratives as a segue, he produced the most comprehensive work on Alabama as a Confederate State. Just as his "Constitutional Development In Alabama" remains the most authoritative work on Alabama's six constititutions, his "Confederate Reader" is of such value that its mere existence has warded off foolhardy attempts by modern historians to duplicate or enhance it. This reviewer would also recommend Dr. McMillan's last work, concerning Alabama's three Civil War governors. Together with the "Confederate Reader", Dr. McMillan managed in his lifetime to achieve that level of pre-eminence occupied by Thomas Owen and A.B. Moore. Today's historians would do well to emulate the devotion of Dr. McMillan to research, the fundamental element of quality in historical writing.

Malcolm Nichols hits the proverbial nail on the head in his award winning "The Micro Diet" Never before have so many been helped with such a wonderful concept. Full nutrition, great taste and convenience. The testimonials were close to my own heart.