14 month sojourn of the author's in-depth profiles of the very diverse regions and people throughout Italy. Beautifully descriptive, with a full open-hearted portrayal entertaining from the first to the last page.

The author integrates the fantastical and historical in a dream on dream - layer on layer of a book. The character may have a dream - and in the dream a character will tell a story and in that story you encounter a mystery that envolves another dream - etc. etc. And you think that you will never find the thread to lead you home - yet all is kept meticulously on track from Faust to Alice in Wonderland - this book is engrossing and bewitching - I can honestly say that I have never encountered a more startlingly original book. It deserves the Daedalys Award it received. If you like David Foster Wallace, Madeline L'Engel, Lewis Carroll - you are assured of a satisfying and brilliant read.

Critics of the federal government--especially conservative critics--are fond of saying that government agencies are almost never abolished. "No matter how ineffective they are, they just go on forever," is the oft-heard complaint.

In 1974, Herbert Kaufman tried to find out whether government agencies do go on forever. The result, ARE GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS IMMORTAL?, has to be the most interesting volume ever to come out of the Brookings Institution and the best 79-page book ever published.

Briefly, Kaufman compared the number of federal "organizations" (a larger group than bonafide "agencies") in existence in 1923 with the federal organizations of 1973. This was more difficult than it sounds, as Kaufman had to account for agency-mergers, name-changes, and changes in mission, but eventually he came up with some reasonable rules for what constituted the "same" agency over the span of half a century. He also supplemented his two agency censuses with data from various government reports to determine agency founding dates. All in all, the only real flaws in the study were that Kaufman eliminated the "independent commissions" as well as everything in the Department of Defense. He also failed to incorporate the agencies that were both created and abolished in the years _between_ 1923 and 1973, which may have skewed the results somewhat.

What Kaufman found was that federal agencies are indeed "immortal" for the most part, and that the number of agencies keeps on increasing like so many layers of sedimentary rock. The agency head-count went from 11 in 1789 to 123 in 1923 to 394 in 1973. Between 1923 and 1973, only 27 agencies were abolished. This gives government agencies an 85 percent survival rate over 50 years. Equally important, Kaufman found that the longer an agency was in existence, the better chance it had to survive. In other words, the federal offices created under Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had a better chance of still being around than the ones created under Eisenhower and Kennedy.

If there is any surprise here, it is in what Kaufman calls the "death-rate." F.D.R. and Truman presided over an expanding federal government, but during their administrations 12 agencies were abolished--a very high figure for a 20-year period. And no agencies disappeared between 1957 and 1973, making these years quite unusual.

At the end of the book, Kaufman discusses how the agency death-rate might be increased. Among other proposals, he deals with "sunset legislation," at that time a fad idea for getting rid of institutions that had outlived their usefulness or never been any good to begin with. Under the simplest version of sunsetting, first proposed by William O. Douglas, every government agency would have an expiration date; at that time, if Congress didn't specifically vote to keep the agency alive, it would be abolished. But Kaufman was if anything more skeptical of the sunset idea than he ought to have been. Since this book was published, some form of sunset review has become routine--though perhaps more at the state level than at the federal and local levels. What the long-run effects will be are uncertain, of course.

We need more books like this--at the very least a follow-up study to cover the last 25 years of administrative history. In a footnote on page 77, Kaufman laments that we have so little information, and he says we need more. "The journey," he writes, "has barely begun." Alas, 25 years later, it has still barely begun, even after Kaufman's brilliant start.

These two guys are nutty. If you enjoy the work of Tom Friedman, Tim Hawkinson, Roman DeSalvo, and Eric Rosciam, you probably already know about The Art Guys. If not, get this book as quickly as possible!!!!

It covers all important topic which are not covered in general c textbooks. I find the following topics are most useful: Computer Graphics, RS232 Communications, TSR and ISR, etc. I like it but i don't know where to buy it. Can anyone give me suggestions?

Art, Alienation and the Humanities: A Critical Engagement with Herbert Marcuse
By Charles Reitz. SUNY 336 pp.

Alienation, reification, estrangement, disempowerment, and exploitation, are some of the concepts Charles Reitz addresses. Reitz presents an elaborate and lucid discussion of Marcuse's misplaced emphasis on aesthetic dimension as a purportedly disalienating dimension and as a means to overcoming the one dimensionality of existence. Reitz's discussion of Marcuse's aesthetic finds a parallel line of discussion regarding Marxian beliefs in the causes of alienation and the means of effective dealienation leading to the dissolution of Marcuse's. The philosophical discussion is complex and requires a good knowledge of the competing philosophical orientations such as those of Dilthey, Comte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schiller, Goethe, Nietzsche, Marx and Heidegger among others.

Reitz's unique contribution lies not only in presenting Marcuse either as a non-Marxist or even as an anti-Marxist, but in attempting to "recall" viable and promising "theory and conduct of education" embedded in Marcuse's critical theory and work even though he finds Marcuse's argument flawed with contradictions.

Marcuse's work in the United States introduced the American academics to the Frankfurt School's views of Marxism. Later Marcuse came to believe that both the Hegelian "dialectic of historical progress" and historical materialism found in classical Marxism (the inevitablity of the transition from capitalism to socialism) were not sufficiently convincing. Marcuse instead suggests the "aesthetic arguments" as a substitute for the Marxist structural and historical analysis of social change. That is, he opts for Dilthey's belief in "emotional" and "political" potential of humanities and intellectual history as opposed to Marx's historical materialism with labor as its foundation. To Marx, in a commodity driven market "art" finds its highest level of appreciation like any other commodity by the need for it and its price.
In his later years as contrasted with his middle period (1932-1970) and indeed throughout his intellectual life, Marcuse was in Reitz's estimation suffering from a crippling contradiction between Hegelian idealism and Marxian materialism. In Marcuse's estimation according to Reitz,knowledge and particularly educational knowledge is ontological and the word spirit occupies a central position in the pursuit of philosophical truth (ala Dilthey), replacing the core of Marxism -- Historical Materialism. Thus the selection of idealism and the rejection of materialism and the substitution of ontological aesthetic based on the classical German Idealism from Kant to Heidegger for the historical materialism (p.234).

The discussion in "The Future" section is very insightful. Reitz skillfully applies the core of the critical theory and specifically Marcuse's concept of "one dimensional man" to current realities of consumerism, alienation, reification and apathy. Globalization of production, grueling labor process, sold out politicians and politically, economically, and socially overpowering transnational corporations are reasons for Reitz's suggested course of ction.
On many issues regarding Marcuse's Marxism, anti-Marxism, idealism etc., Reitz is tormented between the pole of respect for an intellectual giant whose ideas appear to be timeless and the pole of distrust of a "third way" or approach to analyzing society that shakes the foundation of Marxism, historical materialism, by introducing the "libido" and the "erotic will" as meaningful substitutes categories.

Neither Marcuse believes nor Reitz is accusing him of arguing that aesthetics are free from political influence, and or neglecting the impact of commodification of sex, and the impact of abuses of the sensual and the sublime on the alienation process. Marcuse sees technical progress and the advancement of science as prerequisites for freedom, provided that their direction is altered and their goals are redefined free from the influence of alienating forces so they may become a vehicle of liberation -- "technology of liberation" -- an aesthetic morality which is vehemently opposed to the pollution of life by the "spirit of capitalism." The revolution demands a solid "real foundation" composed of the historical and the sensuous -- life instincts which must be rescued from crude materialistic reductionism. It is difficult to see these as anything but revolutionary and I am sure that Reitz agrees that it is all good materialism.
To Marcuse "The radical social content of the aesthetic needs becomes evident as the demand for their most elementary satisfaction is translated into group action on an enlarged scale...from...drive for better zoning regulations to...decommercialization of nature...control of the birth rate.....The quantity of such reforms would turn into the quality of radical change..." sufficiently so as to "weaken" the structural power which stands in opposition to them (An Essay On Liberation, p. 28). Here Marcuse is the Green of the late twentieth century, or is it the Greens including Reitz who reiterate Marcuse of yesteryear.

Marcuse however is walking a fine line between idealism of greater good for everyone and Marxism and its emphasis on structural causes of mass misery and alienation. Marcuse adds an interesting statement regarding the interplay of objective and subjective realms which are discussed in detail by Marx. To Marcuse "[T]he term 'aesthetic,' in its dual connotation of 'pertaining to the senses' and 'pertaining to art,' may serve to designate the quality of the productive-creative process in an environment of freedom" (Marcuse p.24). To Marx, aesthetics and in particular art in an alienated (capitalistic) environment cannot function beyond the realm of consumption. In order for arts to be liberating and disalienating, the social environment in which art is relegated to mere objects of consumption must be transformed into a free society in which art becomes art in itself. But Reitz is certainly looking at broader issues of exploitation and reification disguised and sadly presented as individual freedom regardless of the means (escapism in the form of sex, violence, sports, and consumerism) by which the whole structure is reproduced and in the spirit of postmodernism the wholehearted acceptance of these as inevitable.

In the 1930s Aldous Huxley predicted the rise of sexual freedom, promiscuity, warfare, militarism and aggression accompanied by reduction in political and economic freedoms. Well aware of these similarities, Reitz presents the reader with hope and aspirations by increasing the level of anxiety as did Marcuse's lecture on the ills of capitalist societies back then.

Mehdi Shariati

Germany's No.1 in hematological morphology provides the reader with a first class book on the microscopy of peripheral blood and bone marrow smears of normal and malignant hematology. It's one of the books you will look at regularly, even as a skilled morphologist. Whether looking for acute megakaryoblastic leukemia, NK-cell leukemia or epitheloid granulomas, you will find excellent pictures and a short but precise explanation of the most important cytological features. Covering the whole spectrum of hematology, this book is a valuable companion to every practising hematologist

This book should be read by everyone who is interested in civil rights. Dubois was the pioneer of the civil rights movement and anything he had to say deserves to be read. This book is just as important as the Autobiographies of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. After reading this book I realized what bravery was all about. Dubois didn't have the luxury of a "movement" behind him, he stood alone. He spoke his mind to whomever he felt was hindering the progress of blacks in America. Not only did he stand alone and speak his mind but he did it in a time when a black man would be lynched simply for looking at a white person the wrong way. This book is written with the same poetic style as most of his other work and continues the story of his battle against oppression where "Souls of Black Folk", and "Darkwater" leave off. You will definately benefit by taking the time to read the almost century long journey of one of the greatest thinkers and writers the world has ever seen.

This is a great book if your a beginer with cars. It really talks alot about the way the engine works and how to service and fix your car. I am a car mechanic and this book even tought me some. It is really interesting.