The 3 Keys to Empowerment revisits the three keys discussed in another Blanchard book, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute. These three keys are: share information with everyone, create autonomy through boundaries and let teams become the hierarchy. They should be applied to each of the three stages of moving toward empowerment. Many of the actions suggested for the initial stage: "Starting and Orienting the Journey," are repeated in the discussions of the other stages, "Change and Discouragement" and "Adopting and Refining Empowerment." The authors say some areas need repeated focus so readers can implement change. Unfortunately, this is repetitive.

The book's most useful feature is the Empowerment Action Plan, a clear, easy to follow list of specific actions leaders can take at each stage of the journey to empowerment. The 3 Keys is written for CEOs and senior executives.

After reading and being intrigued by the authors' previous book, "Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute," I was curious about this follow-up book. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book was written as a complementary "stand-alone" book with a much different style than its predecessor.

Unlike Blanchard's usual simple, entertaining, and fun-to-read story-telling books, this book was a detailed, practical, common-sense guideline for individuals and organizations on their journeys from hierarchy to empowerment. Besides the credible factual and objective analysis of becoming empowered, this book confirmed for me what I always suspected about Blanchard's usual powerful parables: they are backed up by extensive research, knowledge, and experience.

This book starts with a great, concise overview of "Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute," and then moves on to common, expected questions with practical, executable answers designed to assist people and organizations going through the journey from hierarchy to empowerment. The book concludes with an outstanding detailed empowerment action plan that captures the essence of how the 3 keys to empowerment (share information with everyone, create autonomy through boundaries, and let teams become the hierarchy) can and should be applied simultaneously through the 3 stages of change (starting and orienting the journey, change and discouragement, and adopting and refining empowerment).

Designed as a guidebook, I can easily see the book being used by leaders at all levels who must deal with and implement empowering, or other major changes in their organizations. As is the case with all guidebooks, the information in this book requires the readers' judgment in applying it to the realities of their situations. If viewed as a guaranteed checklist for success by people and organizations that want a quick fix with little thought, this book will likely fall short of expectations. If viewed as a practical, common-sense packed reference, I believe this book will be an invaluable leadership tool for long-term effectiveness and efficiency.

Ken Blanchard, John Carlos, and I wrote this book as a follow up to our best selling Empowerment Takes More Than A Minute. This book is designed to help any manager or team leader or company president who wants to release the power of people for astonishing results. We know that empowerment is often viewed as a buzzword, but we also know that it works for those who stick with it. We think this book can help team leaders and team members know what to do to keep moving forward. Let us know what you think and ask us any questions you have -- we will respond.

This is, as they say, the definitive work on classic big band and swing music, full of profiles of bands and band leaders large and small, from the Artie Shaws and Glenn Millers to the Will Bradleys and Hal Kemps. The scope of the book is very well-rounded, including information on often-neglected "sweet" band musicians such as Isham Jones, along with pre-big band acts like Ted Lewis. The downside is that Simon -- a jazz music critic for "Metronome" magazine during the big band years -- wears his insider credentials on his sleeves, and is a bit of an insufferable name-dropper. Nonetheless, this is a great reference work, and a nice look back at the glory days of swing.

This book occupied a prime spot on my fathers bookshelf while I was growing up. I frequently heard this music as a kid, and was intrigued by its swing and feel. I had the pleasure of befriending George Simon, and found him to be a first class gentleman. I visited him at his home, and we would discuss the music and his experiences. It gave me tremendous insight into the times, and was always interesting. George was about fifty yeasr older than I ( I have lost touch with him after his move to Florida) but due to his involvement with the Grammys he could go from Harry James to Bob Dylan to Jimi Hendrix with ease. An interesting and insightful book by someone who loved the music and all it stood for.

George Simon was an intimate part of the big band scene. He was there when it was born and he was there when it atrophied during Word War Two. He was an original member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra (he played drums) and one of the first writers for Metronome Magazine, the trade mag for the music industry in that time. I have a hardcover copy of the 9th printing. The original copyright is indicated as 1967. I also have an accompanying three record set that is unique in that it was a cooperative effort by three competing companies: RCA, Decca and Columbia. It's a shame that this isn't available too! Over 400 bands are mentioned, some extensively. It is full of first-hand accounts, anecdotes and many photos. I felt as if I was there! George Simon gave us a true window into this piece of music history. If I had an extra thumb, I would give it three thumbs up!

This is a really fun little graphic novel, loaded with great artwork and a decent storyline. I wouldn't recommend it as a first-time read for anyone unfamiliar with the X-Men - taken out of context from the overall series - it might be a somewhat confusing introduction. But for those who know the characters and have a general idea of what is going on, believe me, this one delivers the goods.

In the past, I have generally hated the X-Men's adventures in the Savage Land, or whenever they would go to outer space or get into really super sci-fi type situations. I always felt the X-Men stories worked much better when they were grounded in very normal, down-to-earth settings, because it made the X-Men themselves stand out and seem that much weirder. But this book is an exception to the rule. It's a big, crazy, larger-than-life adventure, part of which takes place in the prehistoric Savage Land, and part of which gets hyper technological, and it works out OK.

The artwork is tough and gritty. Jim Lee draws a mean, shadowy, ugly Wolverine who kills lots of villains and looks like he needs to take a shower very badly.

And Lee's women - whoa. This book contains more gratuitous cheescake shots than any X-Men graphic novel I've seen, but it's all very pleasing to the eye. Especially the scenes with Rogue, whose bare skin can kill anyone she touches and thus, understandably, was always the one major female character who kept herself completely covered at all times. This was the first storyline in the series where they finally drew her as a scantily-clad, sexy heroine. A real treat for male Rogue-fans who'd been reading the series patiently for years.

This storyline also chronicles the transformation of innocent young Psylocke into a mature woman trained in the art of Ninjitsu, and she becomes an ultra-violent, sexy bad girl. And then there are cameo appearances by other Marvel superheroes, namely Captain America (from the Avengers series) and The Black Widow (from the Daredevil series). All in all, it's a satisfying, action-packed, well-drawn, crowd-pleasing comic book in trade-paperback format.

X-Men Visionaries Jim Lee trade paperback Is a great X-Men graphic Novel by Jim Lee! the book reprints Uncanny X-Men issues #248,#256-258,#268-269,#273-277 are reprinted together in this wonderful Marvel book collection! This book contains the early Uncanny X-Men issues that made Jim Lee famous! All the issues are written by Chris Claremont with artwork by Jim Lee. These issues lead to the popular Claremont/Lee colaboration on X-Men#1 in 1991. Most of the artwork was done by Jim Lee. Uncanny X-Men #273 was done by various artists. Buy this book if your fan of X-Men and Jim Lee. Highest Possible Recommendation!

This is a great X-Men: Visionaries Jim Lee graphic Novel! This is Jim Lee's early work on the Uncanny X-Men series! This Marvel Tradepaperback reprints Jim Lee's early years when he was the comic book artist on Uncanny X-Men. In this book reprints Uncanny X-Men#248,#256-258,#268-269, #273-277. His early work on the Uncanny X-Men in the early 1990s, lead to to the critically aclaimed Clarmont/Lee work on X-Men #1 in 1991. All the Uncanny X-Men issues are written by Chris Claremont. Most of the artwork is drawn by Jim Lee. Unncany X-Men#273 is drawn by various artist. Buy this book if your a big fan of X-Men and Jim Lee. Highest Possible Recommendation.

ALL RECIPES VERY HARD TO MAKE. TOO MANY STEPS & EXOTIC INGRIDIENTS.

This beautiful book is loaded with exciting recipes that will make you famous at your next dinner party.

The best recipe book I've ever bought. You'll be more than satisfied with this creation. If only everyone could cook like Alan Wong. Here's your chance!

Alan Wong does a great service to all of the culinary professionals out there such as myself by nearly creating a cuisine. His interpretations of hawaiian regional cuisine meld flavors together like no other....each recipe is described for the layperson and the pictures of the final products make one's mouth water. BUY-THIS-BOOK!

Habsburg Monarchy was in an awkward geopolitical situation in 19th and early 20th century. And she was a multi-national political entity. In such a situation, true independence is impossible. A. J. P. Taylor analyzed the situation excellently and his analysis helped me understand not only Austria(-Hungary), but also Germany(Prussia) and Russia.

After the revolution of 1848, Hungarian nationalism grew more and more. And after the Austro-Prussian War, Dualism of Austria-Hungary was established. While Habsburg Monarchy was European necessity, Hungary became Bismarck's necessity to check German liberalism. 'Empire of seventy million(ie, unified German-Austria)' was a threat not only to Bismarck but also to Francis Joseph. Francis Joseph hated liberalism and called in nationalism against liberalism. (It is interesting that the same liberalism can have different political meanings according to places.) And the nationlism encroached his empire.

Taylor simply omitted many important issues and concentrated on what he wanted to write. So this book is not recommendable to casual readers. But if you have some background knowledge of 19th century European history and are interested in nationalism of European countries, I believe you will never regret after reading this book.

Published in 1948, this concise book is a good overview of the Habsburg monarchy over the last century of its existence. It is written with the wit and sometimes sarcastic judgements for which Taylor was known well. Taylor's theme is the attempt of the Empire to cope simultaneously with the internal pressures exerted by the awakening of nationalism among the subject peoples of the regime and the external pressures of dealing with the rising powers of Germany and Russia. This is primarily a political history but draws astutely on relevant social and intellectual history. This book can only be read by individuals with a good basic knowledge of 19th century European history. Taylor shows that the survival of the Habsburg state was a paradoxical function of internal and external conflicts that embroiled it. The aggressive Hungarians, for example, wished to preserve it because it provided a vehicle for their domination of other ethnic groups within the historic borders of Hungary. Bismarck wanted to preserve the Habsburg state to avoid the diplomatic and internal political complications that would follow its dissolution. For decades, external and internal conflicts existed in uncomfortable equipoise punctuated by recurrent conflicts that never resolved any of the basic issues. Taylor provides a sophisticated analysis of this problem and interesting characterizations of the major interest groups and political figures involved. A particularly interesting aspect of this book is the concise analysis of developing nationalism. While this is not the main theme, Taylor provides some interesting insights into the development of nationalism in the various parts of the Habsburg state. He shows, in particular, the dynamic quality of nationalism, its origin in most cases as Romantic intellectual movements, and its development as being tied up in many cases with the organs of the Habsburg bureaucracy. There has been much written in recent years about the social construction of nationalism and recent events in the Balkans have given this topic a great deal of relevance. Taylor's analysis antedates by decades the writing of scholars like Benedict Anderson, whose book Imagined Communities has been very influential, but these recent scholars would have taught Taylor nothing. An interesting example of rediscovering the wheel.

This was the first book I read on the topic that later became the basis for my dissertation. Taylor captured the big picture best, wrote the best, brought in enough detail to tell the story vividly, stated his biases and viewpoint clearly, and did it in far fewer pages than most others. Absolutelyl necessary, but not for beginners. This should be your second book. All the more important today as the Soviet Empire breakup and discussion of the American "empire" bear close comparison with a REAL dynastic empire.

This book was the primary text in a university workshop I just took on "Philosophy in Children's Literature." Being a big fan of Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh," I approached the book with great hopes. Williams' tongue-in-cheek conceit is that the Bear of Little Brain is, in fact, the greatest philosopher that ever lived. All of western philosophy before Pooh was mere preamble and the twentieth-century existentialists were familiar with an heavily influenced by the "Great Bear."
I felt that Williams was more interested in being clever than in whatever other goal he had in mind. He presents the philosophical concepts too briefly and dismissively to be of much value. Worse, it seems he spends more space extolling the brilliant Pooh that really discussing how the (sometimes stretched past the breaking point) passages from A. A. Milne's stories relate to philosophies. Like any one-joke movie or TV series, it just got repetitive and annoying after awhile.

This book is funny. The author has a great sense of humour in making his arguement. I found it enjoyable even though there are philosophers that he obviously enjoyed writing about more. As a bonus, it serves as a great indroductory "philosophy for dummies" sort of book for a beginner to the subject like me.

"In which it is shown that all of western Philosophy is merely a preamble to Winnie-the-Pooh." This book proves, once and for all, that Pooh bear is in fact a Bear of Enormous Brain. It also shows how Eeyore is obsessed with the Platonic Forms, and how Christopher Robin is indeed stupid compared with the Great Bear. This book will delight all readers, not just Ursinian scholars (students of Pooh) and philosophers.

My father has an original copy of this book that I grew up reading. I was so very glad to see it back in print. The way that the book is arranged (railroad songs, chain gangs, blues, reels, cowboy songs, etc.) makes it easy to navigate. The bulk of the songs cataloged are not the familiar ones that one is used to seeing in other collections.

Not a bad book... Not the best, though. The Lomaxes put together a very complete and exhaustive volume of folk music, that's for sure. However, some of it manages to contradict their other books, or has some songs more or less complete than they are in those works. Some of their choices of songs as "folk music" are a little odd, too; "Beautiful" would be a good example of this. I would suggest Folk Song USA as a better reference, if you can find it.

This is not an exhaustive catalogue of ballads nor does it always contain the same version of a ballad that are published elsewhere under the Lomax name. The ballads are arranged by subject matter: Working on the Railroad; The Levee Camp; Southerrn Chain Gangs; Negro Bad Men; White Desperadoes; Mountain Songs; Cocaine and Whiskey; Blues; Creole Negroes; Reels; Minstrel Types; Breakdowns and Play Parties; Songs of Childhood; Vaqueros of the Southwest; Cowboy Songs; Songs of the Overlanders; Miner; Shanty-Boy; Erie Canal; Great Lake; Sailors and Sea Fights; Wars and Soldiers; White Spirituals and Negro Spirituals. Often there is a short story of the song in addition to the collection notes.

A decent introduction to the ballad form and its music precedes the collection. This is an essential reference to anyone interested in ballads in America.

Toland's oft-cited Deistical work reads as apologetic rather than truly controversial. The actual rhetorical attacks on Christianity are found not in what Toland says, but rather what he doesn't. Toland frequently sets up strong, reason-based objections to fundamentally held religious "truths" only to excuse them with deliberately weak responses. The burden of truth carefully remains with the defenders of revelation and is never realized in this debate Toland pretends to have with himself.
Other than the occasional questioning of clerical interpretations (Toland frequently expounds a commonly held truism and after defending it philosophically on it's own "merits" he often adds at the end, as if to paralyze the Church with indecision regarding his infidelity, "if it be true.") he pretends agreement with the Church in nearly every doctrinal detail.
In this pre-pantheist dissertation, Toland's words are nearly silent with respect to a true rebellion against the established dogma of the Church, but the unwritten screams to a deafening crescendo for an immediate ascension to unrevealed reason.
With cunning and an apparently insatiable appetite for controversy, Toland does a marvelous job of appearing to walk the literary fence dividing the heathens from the faithful. But an occasional glace between the lines will leave no doubt as to where he truly stood.

An excellent book! The most wonderful fact is that it was written in the time when people were killing for religion. I am not sure how sensational this book would be if it were written in the 20-th century when people stopped assigning such great significance to religion, but for his time and place (especially Ireland!) a man had to be really brave to write something as contraversial as this.

The book focuses on the famous Toland work "Christianity Not Mysterious". Toland tried, in his opinion, to clean the Christianity of all strange elements that destroy his original purpose. Toland thank that the correct way to realize his purpose was the strictly use of reason. But Toland, at the same time, reflects a strong rationalism, if we use a common expression in philosophy of religion, that cause an enormous opposition of the stablished Church in Ireland. The book also contains another texts that complement that work. The big merit of this publication is to put in only one book some critical views, that gives unity to it. I think is higly recommended for persons that want to study seriously the English deism.

Having read "Golf's Mental Hazards" by this author (a sports psychology book) I wasn't surprised as to how the characters were developed. Their psychological makeup was built from the "Mental Hazard Profiles" expounded in "Golf's Mental Hazards". While this isn't bad, the characters are rather stereotypical in personality resulting in their interactions being predicable.

While not a bad read, this book is not in league with "Golf in the Kingdom" and "The Legend of Bagger Vance." I would recommend "Nine Iron John" as a light read for those who enjoy golf stories but don't expect enlightenment.

After reading Shapiro's brilliant, "Golf's Mental Hazards," I had to check out the literary skills of this noted sports psychologist and I must say, was quite impressed. Nine-Iron John is a tale about a golf outing to a mythical island off the coast of South Carolina, where a young man and an older friend of his, set out to par a hole - known as the Savage - that has NEVER before been parred. That's right - NEVER BEEN PARRED! Now, this sounds awfully silly, but in the context of this fast-paced, quick-read, it is all entirely believable. This is a book that gets into the heart of the male psyche and does so with poignant moments and a whole lot of very funny scenarios. Shapiro proves that in addition to being a masterful psychologist, he is also a very gifted writer. Nine-Iron John will make you laugh and make you cry, and every golfer who who has ever looked to find himself in his golf game, who has used golf to avoid problems in the "real world," who questions the nature of his place on this planet, will love this book. A wonderful fantasy, that seems entirely real, I rate Nine-Iron John right up there with "Golf in the Kingdom" and "The Legend of Bagger Vance." Bring on the movie!

Its a good thing that Doc Shapiro's writing skills far exceed his golfing ability ! If you are ready for a rugged journey into the mentality of the golfer and the plight of the common man, this book will not disappoint. So grab your xanax and a shot of tequila and enjoy the ride.

This book starts to fill a gap sorely lacking on political economy in the Middle East. At times, it suffers from what most surveys of regions do - overlooking particular experiences of individual countries and other important factors determining important cause and effect relationships.

Nevertheless, it provides a good starting point for the student of the Middle East and the general reader who has a curiosity concerning the lack of non-oil wealth in the Middle East.

I have read and used sevral books in my research on the Middle East. I find this book to be the best to gain a bird's eye view of many social, political and economic problems in the region. R & W discuss problems of nation - building, state types and formation, competing ideologies, socio-economic crisis and oil politics (among other things). It's an excellent place to start for serious approaches to the subject. I have read both editions and look forward to future books form these authors.

I

This authorative work was monumental when first released, and the second edition updates the first well, addressing many new contemporary developments. At times, the book can be daunting; however, for the material it covers, it is often suprisingly readable. It is great a launchpad for a multifarious number of other studies because it integrates and discusses so many other concerns. The charts, graphs, and tables which are employed generously are helpful as well. Overall, the book succeeds well at being balanced, practical and straightforward about the problems facing the Middle East, including their source and future.

Recommended for students and professionals seeking specialized knowledge of the M. E. which presents a solid framework for seeing the interelatedness of many aspects of Mid. East society. Casual readers will be overwhelmed by it analytical style and attention to detail. A general knowledge of economics as well as politics is of course recommended before reading this as well.