First I have to admit that I have read the book in Dutch. The articles at the top of every page are strange but very original!

In an era where one book after the other seems to extoll the story of the globalisation Juggernaut, the reader can all too easily get the impression that all in the economy is now globalizing. Do not borders cease to exist for one enterprise and sector after the other? Although you can argue this is true to some extent for a number of sectors and production processes, at the same time it is not quite the whole story and creates a false or misleading image. The authors argue that enterprises are not only economic but als political actors, and for me as an economist this was an interesting point.

This book then provides a sober antidote to this misperception of transnational corporations as truly borderless production systems that only seek the most efficient way to produce and where nationality does not matter. It provides a convincing overview of how even the largest 'transnational' corporations remain to a large extent 'national', if not in their economics then in their politics. With thorough empirical work it is shown that globalizing activities of transnational enterprises in OECD countries mostly still have a home bias along a number of dimensions. I confess that this was also for me (economist dealing with glabalization) a good sobering read that helped me to keep a perspective and offered a number of novel ideas. Recommended.

This study takes Godet's thoughts on the New Testament and narrows the scope specifically to Paul and his doctrinal stances. It's more of a generalized summary on Paul's letters, and doesn't get very deep or overly technical. It's a good resource for introductory level Bible students looking to go deeper into the Word. I recommend this with his other study on the New Testament, which covers tother themes and the four Gospels. Both are great suppliments for busy pastors.

For the serious study on Paul, Godet's commentaries on 1 St Corinthians and Romans are excellent, but are decidely for those with an aptitude for Greek.

After reading "All about Schmidt" I was attracted to read another book by Louis Begley. This has to be a recommendation of the author. He must be doing something right to qualify for more hours of my discretionary time. Perhaps I was attracted by his grammatical English, which is sadly becoming rarer with an almost universal expectation of little more than bare communication on the lowest level. His legal background is evident in a few periodic sentences of tedious length. There are few and they give way to a simple and wonderfully direct prose for human reaction and emotion. If you were given a finite life expectancy, how would you react? This is the stuff of TV human interest programs. What does our legally trained author offer beyond the banal? Firstly, this is a truly positive book. Nothing morbid here. It is a litany of human passion, self-indulgence and self-gratification. And why not, if you have only a few months to live. The message is Horace's old maxim "carpe diem." Live life. Don't wait. Our hero, Thomas Mistler, in fact had to wait till he had a terminal report from his doctor. But his unexpected reaction is one of freedom from what had restricted his inner-most emotions before knowing that life was not to continue in its bourgeois continuum apparently foreever. So the reader is part of his late emotional and sexual emancipation. He enjoys what many secretly dream of without the burden of middle class values and narrow religious scruple.

Don't read this if you are concerned with the thoughts of an older man who is still sexually alive and well. Don't read it if you are bound by the rules of middle class restrictions of the "apropriate," whatever that may be.

This should be compulsory reading for those with a serious, or life-threatening condition. Forget the gloom. Just for once, let your real feelings come to the fore.

Not to forget Louis Begley's wonderfully succinct and irnonic style, let me assure you that this is a book for those who appreciate irony and grit. Older readers might even find it educational!

I enjoy reading Louis Begley, but I do get a bit tired of his all conquering male sex gods. Why do women fall for these over-the-hill guys? Don't know.

The writing is excellent and insightful, however, so well worth reading. If only I understood the last sentence I might know if Mistler's Exit was to be a good one or not.

After being told that you had only a limited time to live because you had a terminal cancer disease, why would you think of your life after death? Many reasons, my friend. Firstly, because many of your fellow human beings are so egotistical that they cannot imagine a world without their presence. OK, so that is the first answer. But the second, which is a bit more subtle and not the first to spring to mind: because they have a hell of a lot of living to do in the meantime. That is quite simply the situation of our hero who is diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer and not a lot of life to fill in. So what does our hero do? He gets going in the best way for him. He indulges an artistic side of his life by going back to Venice to salivate over some of the richest art treasures in Europe and co-incidentally let his libido run its natural course. Two women help him on his merry way and why not? His wife, whom he respects in his own eccentric way, is not of the physical persuasion. So he reaps where he can, with truly male enthousiam and self-indulgence. Don't read this if you actully believe in strictly monogomous protocols. This is for the honestly weak of flesh and the lustfully strong of mind. There is no pretence and no hypocricy. The writing is direct, but never simplistic. Keep your wits about you. The legalistic periodic structure of the sentences does not let the reader slacken his attention. You will be drawn into the humanity of the scenario and the basic sexual needs of a man that knows that life is soon to end. There is no misery here because there is too much to be lived in a finite time frame. Read this if you have ever lusted after something beyond the bourgeois definition of marital fidelity. Mistler is faithful to his wife in his own way and she would not expect anything more. What he craves knowing that the Grim Reaper is at the end of the tunnel, is a sense of having lived: no regrets and no self-recrimination. Read this book if you have a feeling of not having lived your dreams. Read it because you feel that you have not yet dared to think outside the square. But do not leave it too late. Are you sexually honest with yourself? If not, don't read this book. Otherwise you will be disappointed in yourself. Question: did Mistler die fulfilled? Were his sexual escapades only a metaphor for his attempt to escape the prison of his own shortcomings? Read it to find out. Louis Begley writes with an incomparible directness that the reader has to decide for himself and is inevitably drawn into the struggle of another's final zest for life. This book made me review my own as yet unfulfilled dreams. It might do the same for you. This is powerful writing within a contained framework of logical and direct prose. No superfluous frills here.

To begin with, this is really a biographical essay, not a complete biography of Woodrow Wilson in any sense of that word, even discounting the shortness of the book. (In fact, it is only 128 pages long--not 176 pages, as Amazon's listing indicates.) Auchincloss presents at best the highlights of Wilson's life, with hardly any insight or analysis. The essay would have had more merit if published in a larger volume on Wilson or his times; standing alone, it is of questionable merit.

In fact, I cannot imagine what possessed the publisher to select this author or to issue the book after they received it in draft. Auchincloss is primarily a novelist and a man of letters and quite obviously lacks the credentials to write a biography of a major political leader; his product is extremely superficial.

In light of this, his decision to devote an entire chapter--12 pages of digression from the Wilson life story--to Henry Cabot Lodge, Wilson's nemesis at the end of his political career--seems highly questionable. (Had the biography of Wilson itself been more complete, this might have been justifiable.) It would have been better to include more detail on Wilson's two wives--especially his second wife, who essentially took over the Presidency after his major stroke.

The book is replete with the author's opinions of how Wilson should or should not have behaved, with little or no justification for these positions. An example: In discussing American intervention in Mexico prior to World War I, Auchincloss characterizes Mexican leaders Carranza and Pancho Villa as "not too much better" than President Huerta--for whom Wilson showed "moral disapproval"--and in fact notes that Villa was "worse." No rationale whatsoever is given for these comparisons. He notes that "Wilson probably handled a messy situation as well as could be expected," but does not explain why.

Fortunately, there are numerous good biographies of Woodrow Wilson available. It seems difficult to believe that the author really consulted many of them.

Washington and Lincoln were the great presidents, though this book points out that "It may be well to remember of our two most revered presidents that Washington fought a war to affirm the doctrine [of self-determination], and Lincoln one to deny it." (p. 95). Having a great president appeals to the kind of people that truly believe it makes so many states worthy of uniting into a single country, though Lincoln, who preserved the Union, might have been a deeper thinker than anyone in the pellucidly placid times in which we ought to live would realize. Hundreds of years later, we should be grateful that we don't have the problems they faced, particularly the wars fought on American soil in their times. Woodrow Wilson is the first (or the first American president after Polk, McKinley, and Teddy Roosevelt) to think that the power of the United States might be so great that fighting a war in other parts of the world could settle the hash of the rest of the world so well that all nations would be forced to see things our way. I'm afraid the book, WOODROW WILSON by Louis Auchincloss, makes it easier to count the ways in which Wilson ended up being wrong, even when he counted up to 14 points, than any history could show how compromising could have helped, on a few important occasions.

Louis Auchincloss seems to be well informed about the leading cultural figures of Wilson's time, and the book contains a number of quotations from people who were paying attention, as well as clear descriptions of the positions of Colonel House, Henry Cabot Lodge, Walter Lippmann, and Edith Bolling Galt or Wilson. There are ten chapters and no index, so it is not easy to look up anything specific, such as who considered Roosevelt Dionysian in making emotional appeals to the people, while "Wilson was the Apollonian, favoring the primacy of reason." (p. 47). Not everyone thought so. "Lindley Garrison, his first secretary of war, described him as a man of high ideals but no principles." (pp. 47-48). Wilson had prepared for the presidency by studying and writing, speaking well to crowds and offering policies that people might vote for. He cut tariffs so much, he had to institute the income tax to provide sufficient government revenue, and tariffs went back up after he was no longer in office, but it worked: people could import cheap sugar for a few years.

The medical information in the book is specific. The president had a doctor, and also a wife who protected his health, after September, 1919, in her fear "that any frank revelation of his health might have been fatal to her husband." (pp. 2-3). The anger that overwhelmed Wilson at the end of his life was related to the disability he had suffered, but it seems to relate as well to the intellectual sense of being stymied, after winning his big war, by the big questions, why?, for what?, that retained some religious significance for him, humbled though he had been in so many ways. This book provides more than an outline of Wilson's character. It is a tragedy that could spook the daylights out of anyone who thought some plan had been prepared for the situation that the world faces today, if not sooner.

Louis Auchincloss provides an interesting introduction and overview of Wilson's personality and presidency. He touches on the major issues Wilson faced as President of Princton University as well as President of the US and shows how Wilson's intransigence was evident from early on. Auchincloss has reviewed the more recent literature as well, and provides some interesting information as Wilson's health. As a lawyer, Auchincloss also provides interesting analysis of the evidence on various issues still in dispute (was Wilson really signing those documents after he had a stroke and his wife wouldn't let anyone see him?). Finally, he produces a nice little portrait of Wilson's nemesis, Henry Cabot Lodge, as well. I doubt that any real student of the Wilson Presidency could learn much in a volume that barely exceeds 100 pages, but for others who wouldn't mind spending a couple of hours learning something about Wilson and his presidency, it serves its purpose admirably.

This book takes 2 real-life historical figures: Princess Victoria Ka'iulani Cleghorn of Hawai'i and author Robert Louis Stevenson and turns their very brief and innocent friendship (she was 13 years old)into a mumbo-jumbo of New Age romance and Science Fiction time-travel. There is no historical accuracy in this completely fictionalized account of a "romance" between these 2 real-life people. You are MUCH better off reading any of the well known biographies of them than this book. This book shows complete disrespect towards both Princess Ka'iulani and Mr. Stevenson's memory.

I am a part-Hawaiian woman who grew up in Hawai'i. The history of the Hawaiian people has been a cruel and sad testament to humanity. Princess Ka'iulani's life was one such tragedy. Hollywood and the media have distorted and exploited the Hawaiian people and the lands of Hawai'i for years. This book adds insult to injury, and is written with the utmost irreverence to the true beauty of our beloved Ka'iu. If you truly love and respect Princess Ka'iulani and Hawai'i, you will seek out the truth, not the Hawaiian-hype you have been force-fed. Respect the native people and their native lands.

It is sad to see this fanciful novel about half-Kanaka Maoli/half-Scottish Princess Ka'iulani perceived as "history" by the general public. As a member of the Hawaiian Historical Society, The Friends of 'Iolani Palace, Bishop Museum and other Hawaiian organizations,I can say there is utterly no basis for the notion that Robert Louis Stevenson and Crown Princess Ka'iulani had anything other than the briefest and most innocent of friendships. The Princess was a CHILD when Stevenson knew her, and they NEVER had contact - not even letters - again. Because this book - which people should remember is a NOVEL - makes use of Hawai'i State Archives photos as illustrations, some people make the mistake of thinking there is a basis for this notion of an "erotic" relationship between RLS and Ke Ali'i Ka'iulani; it is frightening to think this idea may be people's introduction to Ka'iulani's life...an impression that will damage understanding of Kanaka Maoli history. As for Stevenson - most scholars paint a uniform picture of him as constitutionally attracted to older women.

While cleverly written, the upshot of this fanciful "romance" is that it reinforces old unfounded gossip about a "pregnancy", and ignores many known facts about Ka'iulani's life, including the central fact that her health was broken by the trauma her country's take-over by the U.S. caused her. It manipulates the reader into serious misunderstanding, and submerges the life of a real heroine beneath fantasy. That the author constantly refers to her as "Victoria" (which her friends and family did not)seems like a denial of her Kanaka Maoli self in favor of her "white" self...a very troubling detail.

Robert Louis Stevenson and Ka'iulani were NOT "lovers"! The Princess was not the sexually precocious "south seas" stereotype the author presents, but a schoolgirl barely in her teens, and an Ali'i of great mana and dignity besides.

The recent Mutual Publishing paperback reprint of the classic Ka'iulani biography "Kaiulani, Crown Princess of Hawaii" by Nancy and Jean Francis Webb is a must-read for those interested in the REAL Princess, and the new young adult bio by Sharon Linnea is also a good intro to her life and times. Also not to be missed is Kristin Zambucka's excellent update of Hawai'i" (Green Glass Pub.). These tell the real story and don't confuse the unfamiliar with fantasies manufactured out of whole cloth.

If Amazon. com cares about "equal time" and free speech, and multicultural issues in general it will print this. Four glowing "reviews" ought to have some counter balance

The Dictionary tends to place emphasis on the more "popular" martial arts such as Karate and Judo, and in Japanese styles in general. Although the information given pertaining to Japanese styles is very thorough and comprehensive, "definitions" given on many other arts (Chinese Gung Fu, Brazilian Capoera, Phillipino Eskrima, etc.)is often lacking. In fact, some, such as French Savat, are completely left out.

First written in French in 1988 then translated in 1991, this is the fourth printing of A Dictionary of the Martial Arts. This book is a great little reference dictionary to the martial arts, especially those pertaining to Japan. Even though the book is quite detailed in its many definitions, and is filled with numerous diagrams, photos and several Hokusai prints. I would not recommend this work to those seeking to study an individual martial art for the first time. Instead this work touches upon the understanding of and the historical significance of the martial arts. A definite book for the shelf any martial art enthusiast.

I own three martial arts dictionaries and this one is the most detailed of the three. It does not cover every martial art in existance, but it does provided depth in the arts it does describe. Almost all of the terms are listed in Japanese, so finding the Japanese term when you only know the English term is sometimes difficult.

its a nice book altough somthimes confusing because the different personages being discribed in a thirth person while the writer talks about himself in first person reads easy azltough the book is rather small

the book reads fast altough its rather small but it gives another point of view it the author talking about onperson who looks at all the person in a thirth person view wich makes it confusing from time to time but its a good book.

The sole purpose of this book is to convince parents to vaccinate their babies when and how the medical establishment/drug industry wants them to.

My baby girl's pediatrician loaned me this book stating that "it presents both sides of the issues." She mistakenly left inside a form letter from the MERCK VACCINE DIVISION saying that they highly recommend the book for parents to "dispel all of the misinformation" out there. In my opinion, everyone should proceed with caution when a multi-billion dollar conglomerate gives their stamp of approval on a book.

Don't bother using this book as a reference. It doesn't even tell you about the ingredients (like mercury, formaldehyde and aluminum) contained in vaccines. It truly insulted my intelligence by being so one-sided. There are other books I've read (i.e. The Vaccine Guide, by Randall Neustaedter, OMD) that give both sides of the story.

I just finished reading "Vaccines: What Every Parent Should Know". It was as I suspected; the usual arguments and half truths and snide comments about parents who choose not to vaccinate. I guess what surprised me is they are *still* saying that DPT doesn't cause permanent brain damage or death and there is no such thing as a hot lot! They also say that no one has *ever* died from the hep B vaccine -- I know a man whose 5 week old daughter died within hours after the injection! Everything else is pretty standard partyline fare. They do a neat trick with the references. They don't use footnotes, they just put a list of books in the back that they got their info from. That way you don't know what they are quoting and what they are twisting/making up (unless you are educated in this area). Who's going to take thetime to hunt through 5 books to find a reference? The book will very easily mislead a lot of unsuspecting, trusting parents. However, a couple of statements are so ludicrous it seems like anyone with a brain will figure it out. But parents looking for reassurance that vaccination is safe/effective will find it here. It's a good book to have on hand just to know what a pediatrican is likely to hit you with when you go in for a check-up or to use in a debate with uneducated friends and family when they question your informed choice not to vaccinate (or selectively vaccinate.)

While the credentials of the authors are good, do not be misled. This is not the objective scientific book I was hoping for. It is no better than the worst of the reactionary anti-vaccine books. It makes statements about the absence of side-effects which are clearly untrue. After reading many scientific papers and the excellent IMMUNIZATION by Kassianos, I opted to get Hib and DPT. However, my biggest misgivings were not from the vaccine opponents but by the blatent falsehoods in WHAT EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW (e.g., Hib vaccines have no serious side-effects-- p61-- BALONEY-- seizures are possible -- Kassianos p. 80). The book is riddled with errors that exaggerate vaccine safety.I think my choice to get Hib and DPT was probably good, but this political piece masquerading as an objective book did nothing to help me in my decision. The medical literature is clear that the long-term side-effects of vaccines, if any, are unknown. The authors pretend this is not true, presumably to "protect" us. Why would I be reading up on this if I wanted to be protected from information? This book is a waste of paper.

Before you buy or read this book, you should know that this is NOT the same author of _Teach_Them_Diligently_ or _The_Heart_of_Anger_. The author of this book is Louis A. Priolo, not Louis Paul Priolo. I made the mistake and found myself on a wild charismatic ride of Christians who must speak in tongues to be authentic Christians, Christians and even automobiles who can be demon-possessed and other tales colored by what I consider bad biblical discernment.

I don't discount the story, but I do want people to be aware that this is not only a different author, but a different theology as well.