This book covers the very basics of motion picture photography: lenses, framing, some blocking, lighting, cameras and more. Neat diagrams, pictures (demonstrations) and easy to read text. This book is also good for the professional who just needs to get back to basics!

I have found this text to be complete yet concise. If you are caring for patients in the SICU you can find much use for the information in this reference. It provides details when necessary, but spares you the review of the more basic concepts that you use daily and which tend to bog down other books. This lends portability to this book and I find it a very useful addition to my library.

This book is the bible for Sussex Spaniel owners. It's also the only book on Sussex in print in the U.S. If you are seriously considering purchasing a Sussex you ought to buy and read this book before contacting a breeder. It will help you evaluate if you are willing to go through the process of buying and raising this rare breed and give you the basis to ask intelligent questions. Lewis' book is chock full of wonderful full-colour photographs that show Sussex at all ages of the two body types. These are beguiling dogs and the pictures will steal your heart. Lewis provides a through history of the breed both in England and the U.S. Like the Bible, Lewis spends a large number of pages on the "begats." This is very useful information for a novice breeder but a snooze for pet owners. Lewis also provides useful, general information for new puppy owners. He suggests specific toys that Sussex universally enjoy. My only criticism is the section on health. Lewis glosses over the real health concerns of Sussex owners. Sussex are a healthy breed with few problems but there are serious problems which occasionally occur. It would have been nice if the book provided information about how to recognize the early symptoms of these health problems. One final fun fact: One of the photos in the book identifies the dog as a Sussex but it's a Field Spaniel! After reading the book you should have no problem spotting the mistake.

This book discusses in some detail John Tenniel's illustrations to Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel, "Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There". The bulk of the book makes detailed comparisons between aspects of Tenniel's illustrations and other similar illustrations and artwork by Tenniel and his contemporaries, including Dodgson's own illustrations for "Alice's Adventures Under Ground", and a lot of comparison with "Punch" illustrations, where Tenniel worked. The working relationship between Dodgson and Tenniel is discussed, and Hancher also describes the exacting extent to which both perfectionists wanted their work done as best as possible, such as the very tight correlation between text and layout of the illustrations demanded by Dodgson.

A good reference item for people interested in children's book illustrations of the period, or of the original Tenniel-illustrated editions of Alice in particular. 150 large-format (29 x 26 cm) landscape pages, with many black & white illustrations from Punch, the Macmillan editions of Alice, Dodgson's handwritten manuscript, and other illustrations and artwork, on only fair-quality paper.

Ideally, a biography is meant to give the reader a true feeling of what the subject was really like. For Willa Cather, there is perhaps no biography that does this better than the account of her life by Edith Lewis, who knew, and lived with, Willa Cather for well over 40 years.

At 197 pages (in the original edition) this book is short by biography standards; yet, reading it, I came away with a greater feeling of what Willa Cather was like than in all of the other biographies on her that I have read.

We get great personal details in such passages as: "I think Willa Cather never got so much happiness from the writing of any book as from the Archbishop; and although Shadows on the Rock is of course altogether different in conception, in treatment, and in artistic purpose, it may have been in part a reluctance to leave that world of Catholic feeling and tradition in which she had lived so happily for so long that led her to embark on this new novel." (Pg. 155)

Or, "...Willa Cather had a great distaste for luxury hotels...She was extremely gloomy and discontented, even resentful, the first day or two [at a particular luxury hotel], as if she had been cheated out of all the things she had come back to Aix-les-Bains to find. It was not until we removed to the plain, old-fashioned Grand Hotel down in the town...that she recovered her happy spirits." (pg. 159-160) (Indeed, Cather loved her extremely austere, pastoral summer cottage at Grand Manan, Canada; which was purposefully rustic and simple, but where she spent a great deal of time.)

Or, "When her [Cather's] brother Roscoe's twin daughters were babies, and she went out to Wyoming to visit him, she never tired of playing with them. She played with children, not as if she were a grown person, but as children play--with the same spirit of experiment, of adventurousness and unreflecitng enjoyment." (pg. 169)

Or, "She was a little tired that morning [of her death]; full of winning courtely to those around her; fearless, serene--with the childlike simplicity which had always accompanied her greatness; giving and recieiving happiness." (pg. 197)

This biography is recently back in print (I had to scour and search to get my edition), which begs the question: how could such a fine biography--written by Cather's life-long friend and house-mate--written on perhaps America's finest writer, have gone out of print in the first place?

This is the 7th book I've considered and the 3rd I've used for my class. The pace and subjects in this book are great for my intro to business programming class. This books has made sense for people starting out, even with **zero** programming experience. (And I see at least one every semester.)

My big reason for giving it a 4 out of 5 is I need to add material to the book. And sometimes, I look for additional detail about ideas. However, the book is better than many for a one-semester course. It allows you to pick and choose. The vast majority of my material comes directly from the book, including assignments.

I like the level of the reading. Students find it understandable. I would not use this as my only Java reference book, however it is my choice for a introduction of programming to many types of people.

Recently, I received a telephone call to see if I could teach a university Java class. While I had to pass on the opportunity, one of the topics that came up was which book to use as a text. "Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design" is just such a book. If you've been looking for a textbook to use in a beginning programming class, that starts from ground zero, check this offering out. About my only complaint here is I had trouble accessing the supplemental material from the website. Starting from basic computer processing, working your way through objects and classes, and finishing up with data structures (with lots in between), you'll find an excellent text for a first semester Java programming class. While this book is from Addison-Wesley, it is not part of the JavaSoft series.

I think this is one of the best books for teaching java to Beginners. This is blend of programming concepts, system analyis and design, and data structures. Author has very well explained that how java has provided or can provide solutions in different areas of Computer Science mentioned above.

Secondly, most important thing is that it is the best book for teaching because it has a lot of practise exercises and small and workable projects at the end of each chapter which I think are missing in most of Java books.

Java is powerful because of its APIs (already built classes in java). This book has given major classes, their variables and methods at the end which help the programmer very much when he is programming.

I think this book is a must-have for teachers as well as students.

A lot of USEFUL INFO for a beginner or Junior level HR and Recruiting professional.... like the URL's of career websites and HR organisations but no indepth information for seasoned Recruiters.

When your new HR folks report to work, this is one of the books to have sitting on their desks. A good reference. As the title says, this is a book for employers, not external recruiters. I would recommend it for internal use.

Wayne D. Ford, Ph.D., author, "Breakthrough Technical Recruiting" docwifford@msn.com

Every field of study needs an "introductory text", a book which clearly lays out all the basics of the field in a clear concise manner. This book is that text. It not only fully describes the field of Internet Recruiting, it is written in a funny, engaging manner, that will keep the attention of my reluctant HR staff. That is why I give it 5 stars. It is what it says it is: A guide for Employer's about recruiting on the Internet. I echo the words of the individual from LA. If you what advanced sourcing strategies then take a course from Tiburon or AIRS. But if you want to bring your HR staff up to the level needed to take these advanced classes, then have them read this book. I would also recommend that as a companion to this book you also purchase Careerxroads by Grispin and Mehler. Both books together make an excellent starting point to fully understanding the Internet Recruiting Marketplace.

John Beversluis's book _C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion_ has a number of promising elements to it: his writing style is often fluid and enjoyable, he pledges to stick to a balanced, moderate treatment of Lewis, and he quotes extensively from Lewis's works when appropriate. Unfortunately, his arguments against what C.S. Lewis has to write are sadly mistaken. Though I think there are good points to some of his arguments, and his caution towards exalting Lewis as a near-god are justified and welcome, the very shallow and near-sighted interpretation he takes on the works themselves is unfortunate, unjustified, and ultimately flawed.
He takes C.S. Lewis to be of the most ignorant or devious nature in setting forth his views and assumes that Lewis was either blissfully ignorant of the true nature of the positions he was attacking or dishonestly ignores their philosophical weight to make his task easier. The fact of the matter is that C.S. Lewis's critiques are rather often right on target. John Beversluis reads Lewis in his poorest light imaginable and then attacks straw men throughout--something he often accuses Lewis of doing himself. A more sophisticated and developed work is needed if C.S. Lewis's positions are to be attacked with the force Beversluis imagines he has used. This book was out-of-print at the time this review was written, and I think that is so for good reason.

I was rather surprised that someone believes this book is guilty of the straw man fallacy. On the contrary, Beversluis first systematically described each of Lewis's arguments in such a way that I was being convinced all over again, until of course, he continued on with his objections. This book served as a key turning point in my life so I'd be more than willing to listen to particular details concerning where Beversluis falls short in his critique. (I can be reached at johnku@uiuc.edu) Being a devout Christian and a huge fan of Lewis at the time, this book had a profound impact on my life and I think it's a shame that it is no longer in print.

Author John Lewis Gaddis taught for many years at Ohio University and is now on the faculty at Yale. He is a long-time, thoughtful analyst of the great confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union which dominated world events for nearly five decades World War II. Since the end of the Cold War, Gaddis has had the opportunity to survey the English-language literature, as well as documents which, by the mid-1990s, were beginning to "trickle" out of the "other side" of the Cold War, to determine which aspects of the history of the Cold War, if any, require reassessment. Although this book primarily discusses the "high Cold War," the period from the end of World War II through the Cuban missile crisis, it is an important contribution to the literature.

Gaddis begins with Alexis de Tocqueville's intriguing observation, made in 1835, that "[t]here are now two great nations in the world...the Russians and the Anglo-Americans." Gaddis observes that there were several historical sources of "Russian-American antagonism" which predated the "power vacuum" that separated the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War. More important were the attitudes of the countries in 1945: the U.S. was determined, according to Gaddis, to "seek power in the postwar world" Stalin, the "Soviet leader, too sought security," but Gaddis asserts that, to Stalin, "[n]ational security had come to mean personal security." The role of Stalin in the Cold War's origins is central to Gaddis's thesis.

According to Gaddis, "the nature of the post-World War II international system" was characteristic of empire. In Gaddis's view, Stalin fused "Marxist internationalism with tsarist imperialism" and this prompted the Soviet Union's territorial acquisitions and establishment of spheres of influence." For the United States, according to Gaddis, "Pearl Harbor was...the defining event for the American empire," and its post-war goals were to maintain "a substantial peacetime military establishment and a string of bases around the world from which to resist aggression if it should ever occur." Gaddis writes: "One empire arose...by invitation; the other by imposition." According to Gaddis, "the Cold War through the end of 1948 remained primarily a European conflict," as a result of which "the Cold War's sudden expansion into Asia in 1949-50 caught everyone by surprise." According to Gaddis, "Korea turned out to be the most bitterly contested of all Cold War battlegrounds." Gaddis observes that the origins of the conflict remain complicated and controversial, but, writing about Stalin, Gaddis asserts that "the normally cautious Soviet leader" authorized the attack on South Korea as a result of "Stalin's new optimism about the prospects for international revolution." Nevertheless, according to Gaddis, when Stalin and Mao Zedong met to discuss the prospects for war in Korea, "Stalin warned the Koreans "not to 'expect great assistance and support from the Soviet Union, because it had more important challenges to meet than the Korean problem.'" Gaddis remarks: "Stalin...was determined to have the Chinese confront the Americans but at the same time so determined not to have the Soviet Union do so that he would have sacrificed North Korea altogether had Mao refused to intervene."

Gaddis writes: "By the time Truman left office and Stalin died, early in 1953, the basic patterns of the Cold War were firmly established. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union would accept the other's vision of the postwar world....Cold War history is, at least in part, the story of how what was thought to be unendurable became endurable; how order and stability, if rarely justice, evolved from bitter and sustained rivalry." Gaddis asserts that the "German question...did more than anything else to delay" the Cold War's settlement. By the middle 1950s, Gaddis suggests, the "continued division of Germany was...a convenient, perhaps even a comfortable option for the Americans, the Russians, and their respective allies." While the Cold War settled into a comfort level in Germany, it threatened to ignite nuclear war in Cuba. Gaddis asserts that, after Khrushchev came to power, he "hoped to improve relations with the United States," and "Castro's insurgency had attracted little attention and no support from Moscow." But Khrushchev seized the opportunity and by July 1960, according to Gaddis, the Soviet leader "was openly threatening to the United States with a Soviet missile attack if it should try to invade Cuba." That was mere bluster, but the missile crisis in October 1962 brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Korean War. Gaddis asks: "What is there new to say about the Cuban missile crisis?" Despite numerous "revisions and reconsiderations," Gaddis asserts that "the central place the Cuban missile crisis occupies in Cold War history" has not changed. The missiles were removed in what is generally regarded as a "great victory" for the United States, but Khrushchev later insisted that the crisis was a triumph for the Soviet Union because it was "able to extract from Kennedy a promise that neither America nor any of her allies would invade Cuba."

In his concluding chapter on "New Cold War History,"Gaddis acknowledges that he is offering "first impressions," which he states as hypotheses. Perhaps the most interesting is Gaddis view that "the United States and the Soviet Union built empires after World War II, although not of the same kind." With respect to responsibility for the Cold War, Gaddis writes that "the 'new' history brings us back to an old answer: that "as long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union a cold war was unavoidable." That accounts for the Cold War's origins, but it does not explain why it continued for over 35 years after Stalin died. As Gaddis observes: "Tocqueville had predicted bipolarity but not necessarily hostility." What was the principal cause of the bitter hostility essential to the Cold War? Until that is understood, there will be plenty of work for Gaddis and other practitioners of the "new" history of the Cold War.

In this book, John Lewis Gaddis sets out to describe the major structural features of the Cold War, identify their causes, provide a narrative overview of the Cold War from its inception to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and embed the Cold War in the larger context of 20th century history. Gaddis succeeds in accomplishing all these ends in a well written book of less than 300 hundred pages. This is a considerable achievement. A good part of this book is driven by the fact that the end of the Cold War has resulted in access to Soviet, Chinese, and Eastern European sources that provide information about key events and decision makers. Much prior work concentrated one sidely on Western policies and policy makers. The new archival information allows reconstruction of important decisions and a more complete picture of the Cold War. It is important to note that not all the new information relates to Communist sources. For example, based on the availability of new documentation, Gaddis presents an account of John Kennedy's behavior in the Cuban Missile Crisis that varies considerably from the standard accounts.
Gaddis addresses a number of key issues. Why did the Cold War begin? He sees the Cold War as a result of Stalin's insecurity and brutal Soviet conduct in Eastern Europe. Given the conduct of Soviet Armies and Stalin's aggressive foreign policy, the USA and its Western European Allies had no choice but to respond to Stalin in some form of confrontation. Was the Cold War a conflict just between the USA and the Soviet Union? Gaddis is careful to emphasize the autonomy of many decision makers during the Cold War. Some of these are surprising. An early and important event was the declaration of independence issued by Yugoslav communists in 1948. This event infuriated Stalin and played a large role in precipitating the Stalinist repression that occurred in many Eastern European Soviet satellites, further scaring Western European governments and pushing them closer to the USA. The emergence of NATO is presented very much as driven by Western European governments with the British playing a particularly important role. Gaddis contrasts the wisdom of American policy towards Europe and Japan with the ultimate failure of the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. The Americans nourished European recovery with the Marshall plan, planted democracies in Germany and Japan, and tolerated a good deal of independence by important European partners. The Eastern European Soviet satellites, in contrast, were a chronic source of dissent and required diversion of considerable Soviet economic resources to maintain Soviet hegemony. This latter phenomena was actually predicted by the American diplomat George Kennan in the late 40s.
Gaddis deals very well with the problem of divided Germany and the expansion of the Cold War into Asia. He treats the Chinese and North Koreans as important independent forces and describes nicely the complexity of relations between the Soviets, the Chinese, and the North Koreans. Similarly, Gaddis provides a nice analysis of the expansion of the Cold War into the Third World, revealing very well how American policies, so successful in Europe and Japan, were mistaken in the Middle East and Latin America. Another topic dealt with very well is the role of nuclear weapons in the Cold War. In Gaddis' view, nuclear weapons had a dual role. They reduced the chance of direct conflict between the US and the Soviet Union but provided the only arena in which it was possible for the Soviets to maintain some sort of parity with the West. The last effect considerably prolonged the Cold War.
Gaddis finishes after the Cuban missile crisis. This is a good choice for several reasons. It is likely that important documents relevant to the post-Missile Crisis period are only now emerging, so reassessment would be premature. It may be true also that in many important respects, the Cold War was over. The USA had triumphed in Western Europe and Japan, the Eastern European satellite states were a chronic headache for the Soviets, nuclear weapons had stablized the conflict, and conflicts in the 3rd world would never be crucial.
Finally, I have to address some comments made by other reviewers. Gaddis is not a right wing bigot. This is an evenhanded and fair book. It is written concisely and without literary flair but I would not describe it as dry. It is very difficult to combine narrative and analysis in a concise manner, especially when dealing with controversial topics like these. Gaddis has done an admirable job and deserves our thanks for bringing his analysis of the Cold War before the broad reading public.

If anyone is in New Haven during the fall semester, they should definitely try to drop in on Gaddis' Cold War class for undergraduates - he is an amazing speaker with a very deadpan sense of humor. He also is passionate about Cold War History, and it shows through in this book - this was probably the most thoughtful and enjoyable book to read among a course reading list that has been described as a "best seller". The book is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of the Cold War, but a reflection on the major themes, causes, and ramifications of a war that polarized much of the 20th century world.

Yes, Gaddis is a Reagan fan, but a very objective one if you hear him speak about it. And while he is very pro-USA, he remains very objective, for the most part, when describing the virtues and the faults of both sides. The book as a whole is very well written, with elegant and thoughtful prose, and stands as a powerful assessment of the Cold War.

The author claims to have spent time in an underground parking lot eating ice-cream cones with Oswald. The assassin of JFK supposedly bared his soul and details of the conspiracy to the author prior to the shooting. This one just doesn't have the ring of authenticity to it.

I had the good fortune to meet and interview Ron Lewis during the ASK conference in Dallas 1994. I found Ron Lewis to be very direct and honest. His story is worth reading. Ron has a document that could prove he was there in 1963, maybe he will print it in his next book. Bye John

I have read the book Flashback: The Untold Story of Lee Harvey Oswald, by Ron Lewis. I have read other comments on the book and most of them were favorable.

It is clear that a warren Commision suporter would not like this book. However, the author asks the readers to judge for themselves whether they wish to believe Mr. Lewis or not.

It is noteworthy to mention that Ron Lewis served as technical adviser to Oliver Stone for his movie "JFK." Also Oliver Stone gives his endorsement on the cover of Flashback: In my mind, this gives the book authentisity and credibility. Because I know Mr. Lewis personally, I choose to believe his story over those who contridict the conspiracy aspect of the assassination aftermath.

The book is probably the most indepth book into the life of Lee Harvey Oswald as any I have ever read. The book still remains available even though it was published in 1993.