I love to read reviews of books on amazon.com but this is the first time I am writing one. In response to the person in Colorado, I too an a Cuban Jew who grew up there before coming with my family to the US in 1961. I found the book to be sensitive, well-written, and compassionate. The photographs alone are worth the price of the book.

This book hits home. I am the son of Cuban Jews who came from Turkey to Cuba in 1911, faced hard times, finally did well enough, but then had to leave when Fidel took over. The book offers a poignant look at the misfortunes of the early arrivals and explains how they were treated.

I'm surprised at the earlier reader's comments. This book, by an author who usually writes about Brazil but who is enormously informed about Cuba and Jewish history, offers a sensitive portrait of Jews who found refuge on Cuba only to be forced to leave to the US after Castro took over. It is very well written and very worth reading!

I used this textbook for a course in statistics. I must say that it was better then the first time that I had taken statistics 5 years ago. The book uses one or two data sets per chapter that helps you focus your thoughts while learning the different techniques. A nice feature about this book that wasnt available 5 years ago is the Excel and Minitab examples which saves a lot of time that is ordinarly spent on copious number crunching. I would have given the book 5 stars, however I found some obvious errors in the book that should have been edited out before the release. Good starter book for sats.

The author uses rare photographs by a North-American camerman who maintained a studio in Havana during the 1850s. Although the photographs are not crisp (they were taken during the infancy of photography!) they ae very interesting. The background provided by the author is excellent.

This book is made mostly from second sources such as already printed books, but uses very few primary ones. In fact, it is missing key authors such as Hakluyt, he uses only the 1724 edition of Captain Johnson book (neglecting the 1726 which is the most complete), and it seems he used only a resumed version in one volume of Labat's massive work of more than 6 volumes, among other shortcomings. Then he puts in his bibliography the __Don Quixote__, but this novel has nothing to do with piracy in the Americas. I bought this book because it was advertised as being composed of many Spanish sources. But sadly, it has very, very few. In fact he only uses _one_ primary Spanish source (Alsedo), and about two or three books written by Spaniards of our time. His "select bibliography" is very short (68 books in all), and I doubt he read any more. In general terms, the information he provides is okay, and he is carefull not to make mistakes. Problem is, it is not an original book, nor it keeps up to what it promises. Readers that expect to find in it a rich quantity of Spanish references, archives, chroniclers, etceteras, do not be misleaded.

Kris Lane apparently grew up with the same wide-eyed awe of pirates that most of us grew up with. His "Pillaging the Empire" does it's best to reshape our opinions of pirates as a fun-loving bunch of misfits and saucy rogues, but like many recent works on the subject of piracy, he doesn't quite do it. One can't help but retain a skewed view of pirates, despite the unpleasant tales of how dirty ships were, how rotten the food was, how murderous the population was, etc. Like David Cordingly's excellent "Under the Black Flag", the pirate myth is largely debunked, the truth is revealed to be stranger than fiction, but you can still tell that at the end Lane (like Cordingly before him) still gets a kick out of recalling the pirate lifestyle.
The book itself tells the story of American piracy in a fun manner, but everything is presented scholarly; sources are cited and there are enough annotated footnotes to keep dorks like me happy. The sidebar pieces are handy, and cover related topics like gambling in the 17th century, a typical pirate's diet, etc. Interesting stuff for the curious and a good awakening to those who think pirates are all guff-talking, one-eyed parrot owners with scurvy and gangrene.

This book is bad. Aside from being historically inaccurate in several areas, the authors quote newspaper clippings and "anonymous", uncorroborated, negative citizen comments as fact. The authors "preach" their perspectives and beliefs based on their "theory" of how minorities have been abused or mistreated over generations. Very little, if any, of the information presented as factual is substantiated by historical evidence. Ninty percent of the book is pure speculation, conjecture, and biased opinion against law enforcement. It is a very slanted and liberal writing. I do not recommend it unless you are mandated to read it. For a better perspective on the real world of managing in law enforcement, try Proactive Police Management. It is also a liberal slant of view, but a much more accurate and interesting read.

Authors give insightful ideas on how to police with a variety of different cultures now facing America. The book offers almost a "how-to" for Departments considering a need to implement a more culturally sensitive process for their city. Cultures considered include the obvious African American, Hispanic, Asian, Indian as well as "lifestyle" cultures.