Paul Bernstein carefully examines the extremely slow and painful shifts in American work values taken from their European orgins to the present.

Generally speaking, the book describes how the individual has subscribed to the work ethic through the centuries under various types of conditions based on birth, education, skill, tenacity and pure luck.

The book also deals with "the debates related to work and welfare that has always been a controversy over public assistance to the deserving and undeserving poor."

One great theme that is illustrated quite well throughout the book is the persistent challenge for the individual, especially one taught to believe that hard work will be rewarded with opportunities, to delicately balance between work, pleasure, personal, and leisure activities. I keep asking myself (for the first time in my life) why can't people work smarter, not harder in America? Unfortunately, this issue must be resolved by reading other books since the author did not faithfully address this important topic.

This book has an incredible number of footnotes backed up with an exorbitant amount of pages pointing to other references. I found the book to be extremely difficult to read. I had to review chapters over and over again, to figure out what the author was trying to explain. Some very important parts were simply "glossed over." There are sections throughout the book that require proofreading for the next edition because it is repetitive and not carefully organized.

Credit must be given to the author for the extremely valuable gems that I did synthesize from the book. It was worth it. However, please condense it into fifty pages. This is a wonderful book!

As with all his books he weaves a spell that captures you and you can't put the story down. To me a great author is one that can do just that capture and hold you through the whole book. If I don't get interested by the first chapters end, then I won't read it. As in all his books, you can easily see, feel, and hear the story as if you were right there in the middle of it. Well written.

I am a dermatopathologist in training, and got this book for synthesis of information. The color photographs are great, but the explanations are very brief. This book is more for someone who just wants a quick overview of a condition, rather than a detailed text.

This book is packed with information that you need to know about guitars and looking through the book is as good as being in your local guitar shop, absolutely fantastic showcase of guitars throughout the years. Paul Trynka did a nice work on the book . If you love guitar then this is the book for you.

The authors make a great contribution to the need for small groups in churches today. The book is easy to read but filled with great information and principles needed in order to start and maintain an effective small group ministry.

Have you ever wanted to be a mathematician? Read this book to see what it's like.

This is a well-organized, nicely put-together textbook, with lots of step-by-step examples to give you a good base of understanding and lots of problems and section reviews to allow you to apply and extend that understanding. If you're intimidated by math, this textbook will go a long way toward easing your fears, and if you're a lover of math, you'll learn a lot about Statistics and be highly entertained along the way.
Although an introductory calculus class was a prerequisite for the course I took using this text, the only time integrals and complicated formulas showed up was in footnotes or the occasional homework problem. In general, the book aims to teach through real world examples and applications, not through pages of potentially intimidating to-be-memorized equations and formulas. As a result, the "math" parts of the book (you can't really do Statistics without math) are hidden, so that you are often using "math" without realizing it.
I especially liked the book's listing of instructions, for a variety of Statistics software packages, about how to do on the computer whatever you'd just learnt in a chapter. There are some "do by hand" problems, but just as many "use the computer" problems--helpful, given that any time most of us will be using Statistics again will be for a job or for research and will involve computer software.
There are all sorts of random facts that break up the practically inevitable "ugh" feeling of reading a textbook. In addition, the writing is very clear and informal, without lots of technical jargon (what little there is is clearly explained first--no wondering in Chapter 15 what that darned "r," which you've been seeing since Chapter 6, means). When reading, I always felt the authors were talking to me through the page, which made reading go faster and more pleasantly. (The short chapters help, too.)
I also found the "What can go wrong?" sections at the end of each chapter useful, especially when we got to interpreting data: several times, I would try to do a homework problem, then go back to the chapter and realize I'd made a beginner's mistake and done exactly what I wasn't supposed to do. The authors know what first-time Statistics students are thinking, and they do a good job of steering you along the right course.

Introducing Semiotics isn't the best of the Introducing series but it is a good read. I have accumulated several of the Introducing study guides and find them delightful. They are the right length for weekend reading and the illustrations are always amusing.

Introducing Semiotics was one of the more difficult in the series due to the busy style in which it was written. I had to reread about half of the book before completely grasping it, not because of the subject matter but because of the wording. It felt like the author was trying to hard to to make things sound nice rather than trying to elucidate the topic.

Despite the writting style, the book was very helpful. It is a must for anyone who is studying something related to semiotics, like film theory, and needs a jumping off point for research. It isn't too in depth to understand but it still covers all the major topics that you will likely have an essay question or two on.

To sum things up... If you're looking for informative entertainment, get one of the other introducing books, but if you need a semiotics study guide it is definitley worth the nine or ten bucks.

Linkage, a leader in training and development, has created a practical and useful guide in building teams. This book should be used by individuals who a creating or maintaining highly effective teams regardless of the project at hand. This is also a great resource for experienced managers who are looking for new insights in making their teams even more powerful. The book is more revelant today as corporations are moving from individual "comand and control" management tactics to more complex project management teams.

The best book for : trekers, climbers and travellers.Im red this book before my first trip to Gharwal Himalaya, Gangotri region.If you budget will be 5$ dollars per day or 30$ this bok is for you. You can find here all the best interesting pleaces for sightseeing, trekking - the beautiful region in north of India.All essential information about trip,hotel, acomodation you can get in Lonely Planet, so you have to bay this excelent book and now you will make planing your trip with yours the best friends - the autors Lonely Planet Indian Himalaya.