This is a very readable book on Espionage and especially demonstrates the weaknesses in our Counter-Intelligence system.

The CIA takes the heat in this book but this story demonstrates an inherint weakness in our security within ALL agencies involved in dealing with sensitive issues.

I felt this book was well written and recommend it to anyone who wants to try and understand how this could have happened.

I've read every book on the Aldrich Ames case (including a new one that recently came out) and I must say that this book was the most difficult one to put down. The story reads like one you would expect from professional journalists -- well documented, precise, and interesting from beginning to end. If I had to recommend one book on this pathetic case of espionage, it would be a "no-brainer" -- get _Betrayal_!!

Mr. Lewis and his co-author are not only great authors (their book is full of knowledge about an area of history that are often ignored in other economic history books), but Mr. Lewis happens to be a friend of mine (we go to the same church and he has given me great instruction on economic history). I am not a historian (but an amataur history student), and though the material was technical (I would recommend this especially to people either taking courses in economic history or who are interested in the subject)but it is thorough and complete. I am waiting for the next two volumes in the three volume series of economic history books.

I found it fascinating: exceptionally well researched and an fascinating topic. I will be quoting from it extensively. Great achievement!

I began to read this book out of duty: I am a pastor and a massage therapist, I have an interest in the spirituality of healing, and I try to keep up with what's written on the subject. Much of it is dreadful. Twenty pages into this book, and I was hooked. It has wonderfully icky medical stories. It has spiritual insights (from a style of spirituality very different from my own). It has a flavor of humble honesty. It has very funny moments. I was surprised: I love it. I'm buying a stack for presents.

I am a physician in training and purchased this book recently. It was exactly what I needed. With the long hours and constant stress that a resident physician is under, it was refreshing to see that The Great Physician also underwent that stress and knows what I am facing.

Dr. Stephens does an excellent job comparing Christ to the modern day physician. While, this book is written for mass appeal, it will be most relevant and understood by the medical community. Jesus, MD should be required reading for all Christian physicians.

David Lewis-Williams has developed a unique insight into the early modern humans that painted the caves of Europe. He reasons that being modern anatomically, the function of their minds that were dependent on brain anatomy must also have been comparable to ours. He makes an excellent case that what we call "altered states of consciousness" were used by ancient shamans to access the spirit world and to interpret it to others in their culture. It is not the real world that is illustrated on the cave walls, but visions and halucinations obtained in various levels of trance. All members of the community could relate to those visions because of common experiences like dreams. For the shamans, this was a source of personal and political power and signaled a stratification of society. The author's ideas are communicated persuasively and interestingly. He makes us think without ever becoming ponderous.

The author posits a fascinating explanation for the origin of art and the creation of images by early mankind: the evolution of the human mind. He theorizes that the people of the Upper Paleolithic harnessed altered states of consciousness to fashion their society and used imagery as a means of establishing and defining social relationships. Cro-Magnon man had a more advanced neurological system and order of consciousness than the Neanderthals, and experienced shamanic trances and vivid mental imagery. It was important for them to paint these images on cave walls that served as a membrane between the everyday world and the realm of the spirit. Hallucinations were instrumental in personal advancement and the development of society. He refers to the pioneering psychologist William James who already in 1902 pointed out the different states of consciousness and to Colin Martindale who identified the following different states: Waking, realistic fantasy, autistic fantasy, reverie, hypnagogic and dreaming. The sense of absolute unitary being (transcendence/ecstasy ) is generated by a spillover between neural circuits in the brain caused by factors like meditation, rhythmic stimulus, fasting etc. The essential elements of the religious experience are thus wired into the brain. Two case studies are used in support of this theory: South African San rock art and North American rock art. Chapter 8 is especially fascinating since it offers possible solutions to certain puzzles of cave art, like the mixture of representational and geometric imagery. The author believes that the trail of images from the cave entrance to the dark, almost inaccessible recesses represents a connecting link beween the two elements of an "above/below" binary opposition. Physical entry into the caves reflected the entry into the mental vortex that leads to the hallucinations of the deep trance state. In other words, the trail from the conscious mind to the deep recesses of the subconscious. This book provides much food for thought about our earliest ancestors and about the evolution of consciousness. I would like to recommend William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience," R M Bucke's "Cosmic Consciousness" and Rupert Sheldrake's "Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness" as companion reading to Lewis-Williams' fascinating text. The book includes many figures and 97 illustrations of which 27 are in colour.

Finally, the PM profession has a follow-on to Linn Stuckenbruck's "The Implementation Of Project Management: The Professional's Handbook." Lew and Dave have packaged the esentials of the PM profession in one excellent book. The only thing lacking would be some templates for examples. I now have a replacement text, to accompany the "Guide to the PMBOK," for the PM courses I teach. This book is where the PM profession is going.

David and Lew and achieved a great deal in project management. Now, they are practicing what they preach. This book, much like a Work Breakdown Structure, is a thoughtful, logical (and very readable) decomposition of the work to be done in establishing and maintaining individual projects or a vast project management enterprise.

The Best Feature? The annotated bibliographies are peerless in terms of adding value and pointing toward other quality project management information.

Good detail from the work package to the program level.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough if you are a member of a Pentecostal type church. It gives a lot of information on how to have a revival leading to a real "end-time" victory for your church. Gives hope in these last days to those who may be wavering in their faith. There's even a great prayer on page 103 that I do not recommend you try unless you are -serious- about battling against "princes and principalities". A absolute must have for every true believer.

A Must Have! A Need To Know

DuBois goes state by ruthless state describing the atrocities committed upon black folks by white folks. In one story he tells of a black man riding a mule and a white man wants the mule so he walks up to the black man and shoots him off.
In another story he describes a husband and wife who have traveled miles on foot after the wife (who is pregnant)was beaten unmercifully by her ex-master. Her skin has been ripped to the bone by the cat-o-nine tails

David Prescott's treatment of bonsai is highly recommended. The Bonsai Handbook is a fine example of how bonsai should be presented. It depicts both young trees and fine specimens. It makes bonsai approachable to the beginner as well as creates intrigue for the advanced collector. The plates are clear and finely photographed. Illustrations are well executed and helpful. The text is well written, although, at times, a bit complex. The author thoroughly descibes the art, science, and technique. He includes excellent information concerning tools, pots and general horticultural practices. As a bonsai artist and horticultural botanist, I find this book to be a great value and superior to many bonsai books presently in-print.

I question only minor elements: the use of cut-paste on pruning wounds. One photograph (p.104)is mislabeled (Larix larcina should be Thuja occidentalis).

"Counterfactuals" is not for the kiddies, or even the "interested general reader", if such a person exists. It is a book by an analytic philosopher, for analytic philosophers. Even among them, it will interest only the mandarins, the true devotees of contemporary analytical metaphysics and modal logic. But, for that select audience, this book is a treasure. It is a paradigm of philosophical analysis, lucid, concise, rigorous, and informed throughout by a luminous clarity of vision. The book concerns itself with a single problem of fundamental philosophical interest and importance: what do counterfactual conditionals mean, and when are they true? And such is the author's consummate brilliance that he manages to solve this problem, in its essentials, in less than a hundred and fifty pages. In this review, I will not attempt to detail its contents, since Amazon already has information about that. I will simply give my own opinion of its significance. The reader who wants to know more should get a copy.

"Counterfactuals" is that rarest of things: a truly original philosophical work that actually *succeeds* in its stated aim. To my knowledge, the only person, in the whole history of philosophy, to have developed an even remotely similar approach to the problem of counterfactuals is Robert Stalnaker, and Lewis' work is I think indisputably superior, subsuming Stalnaker's approach as a special (and doubtful) case. (Both works were, historically speaking, made yesterday--a mere generation ago.) If I am right in thinking that Lewis' theory is substantially correct, then he would seem to be the first man in history to have achieved a philosophically adequate understanding of counterfactuals. This book, in my opinion, represents a fundamental breakthrough in logic and metaphysics, for which we owe its author a debt as great as that owed to Kripke, perhaps even comparable to that which mathematics and logic owe to the works of Frege.

It's good stuff, take a look!