With the exception of the first couple of pages that describe perfectly an Australian beach on a hot day (and which made me think that I would enjoy the book), this is a very ordinary novel. I lost interest completely in the characters, who I thought to be cardboard, and found the incident in Chartres with the priest very silly. Perhaps the problem I had was that I read this straight after reading Atonement. Conditions of Faith pales in comparison.

Alex Miller provides us with a novel that is easy to follow and hard to put down. Though it is enjoyable and touching, it lacks a depth of the parallel and lacks layers. The story is exactly what you read, there are no double meanings, no possible alternatives to the predicable unresolved situations.
The novel is set in the 1920's, yet the social attitudes in the book represent that of the modern era. As does the main character, Emily, who in separating herself from her family in order to follow her dreams, and to defy her husbands wishes presents us with a story we can relate to because we most probably are experienceing or observing situations and problems around us in the year 2003 similar to what emily is experiencing. Yet the story is quite unbelievable given the time in which the novel is set and the cultures that surround it. Such as Emily not attending church with the Elder family whilst in Charters; this just would not have been acceptable in 1920 Paris, but is quite acceptable now for people to be non-religious.
We come to know and like each of the characters, yet they too lack a depth of reality. They appear two dimentional and we see only of them what Emily sees them to be. We see Georges as almost a mechanical, unemotional figure who cares only for his bridge. We become infuriated with him being so content with his life, he ignores Emily's lack of contentment and cold behaviours, and is content suffering these as long as he can keep her, and this contentment of his makes Emily feel more trapped into a life she doesnt want to live and feels she cannot; and we then become infuriated by Georges contentment we think: why is this man such a fool? We see only his content and his dream. There is not much else to his character. Though we see he loves Emily, we dont get an insight or depth into this love and Georges emotions and feelings. We dont even get a deep insight into Georges and Emily's relationship, it lacks a realistic connection between the 2 characters and their marriage almost does not operate but is just apart of the context. They make love, but this lacks just as much emotion and detail as the sweet things emily says to georges to reassure him she is happy; which of course is not true.
All in all this is a long but light story in which we can clearly derive the value of being true to ourselves and following our dreams. We can relate to the main character being a woman searching for herself in the world and searching for her roles in life. The situation the charcter finds herself in is realistic, even if the setting of the novel and its characters lack reality; because it inevitably is about choices and how choices can rule our lives, what consequences we have to suffer as a result of our choices and how we can survive with these sufferings and be faithful to ourselves. And we realsie that it is important that people in our lives have faith in us for us to be able to acheive.

P>Alex Miller's latest novel, like his best-known book, "Ancestor Game," centers on international travels and emigrations whose starting point is his home country of Australia. His inspiration to write "Conditions of Faith" came from his mother's journal, which he found after her death. From entries his mother made about her experiences as a young woman living in Paris during the 1920s, his novel's restless heroine was born.

Emily Stanton is a bright 25-year-old Australian with eager dreams of making a brave, original life for herself. In the tradition of George Eliot's Middlemarch and Henry James's Portrait of a Lady, her story turns on the irony that a woman's very determination to transcend the world's conventional restrictions can blind her to the realities hidden behind her bravest choices. As Emily tries to make herself a character in a life story that will be uniquely true to her desires, she gets tangled in the narratives of other persons.

It's 1923, and Emily meets Georges, a promising architect ten years her senior who has come to Australia from Paris to brainstorm designs for the proposed Sydney Harbor Bridge, which will be the longest in the world. Although Emily might have embarked on a career of her own - she earned a First in history at Cambridge -she rejects that possibility to marry Georges.

This hardly sounds like an iconoclastic role choice for a woman desiring freedom. But Emily makes her decision on impulse, and very much against her father's expectation that she'll pursue a brilliant scholarly career. To her, rebelling against her father is a radical gesture that throws off a great burden. She won't surrender to family demands; she'll find her own purpose in life. And she'll do it in Paris!

Emily soon discovers family demands everywhere. Georges takes her to Chartres, where she meets his mother. This woman has always dominated her son's life, and she makes sure Emily knows that his ancestors' names appear in the 12th-century records of the great cathedral. Emily, vexed at her mother-in-law's arrogance and at her husband's blindness to her misery, has a fling at Chartres that complicates the rest of her life. The story is full of unexpected turns that take Emily all the way to Tunisia and the archaeological dig at Carthage, where history finally becomes more than an academic subject and takes on vital meaning for her.

Throughout the novel we meet intriguing characters, including Emily's powerful yet vulnerable father, and her mother, a woman of moral weight and wit who sees clearly and won't mince words. Georges' friend Antoine becomes Emily's confidant in Paris, and he's a terrific talker. So are others who play major supporting roles in the book, like the Paris doctor Leon, the Arab archaeologist Hakim, and the scholar Olive Kallam.

This strength is also a weakness in the narrative. You'd think a heroine in a novel full of conversation, who is described as assertive and intelligent, would speak up. But all the other characters talk more than she, and more interestingly.

Still, regardless of who's speaking at a given moment, the writing is provocative and absorbing on subjects ranging from Arab politics to the politics of motherhood, from freedom of choice to purpose in life.

For example: Is finding no purpose in life more frightening than finding a purpose that wholly takes it over? Can ambition substitute for purpose? Georges' ambition to build a fabulous bridge doesn't lead him to ask about what purpose it might serve - - a question that "'involves a kind of moral uncertainty ' for which Georges possesses no curiosity.'"

But is purpose really different from ambition, or desire? Perhaps "'all passions are the same passion'" in that "'our passions always require from us a betrayal of our former state.'"

This kind of talk makes you glad "Conditions of Faith" can't be described as a page-turner. You want to put this book down and think about it.

Overall, this strikes me as a somewhat lazy book. Rather than offer any original writing, the editors simply cobble together previously published writings by Alex Haley (actually a "Playboy" interview of the young Ali by Haley), Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Peter Richmond, along with a very short introduction by James Earl Jones. The book jacket also boasts of "contributions from" the likes of Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson, George Plimpton, Jim Brown, and numerous others, but this turns out to refer simply to brief quotations that pepper the book, mostly as photo captions.

The quality of the text by the four featured writers is fine. Certainly you can't go wrong with Norman Mailer. His book "The Fight," from which the chapter in this book is excerpted, was one of the first serious works about boxing and Muhammad Ali that I read back in the 70s, and the first thing I ever read by Mailer. I was a big fan of Ali going in, and a fan of Mailer as well coming out.

One can always quibble with editing decisions in a book like this, but being familiar with Mailer's "The Fight," I found some of the choices made here rather peculiar. For example, in Mailer's very lengthy account of the Ali-Foreman fight itself, he presents the fifth round as the most dramatic, action-filled, significant round of the entire fight. In this excerpt, the editors choose to include some of Mailer's set-up for that round (e.g., "[Foreman] came out in the fifth with the conviction that if force had not prevailed against Ali up to now, more force was the answer, considerably more force than Ali had ever seen."), but then simply replace that entire climactic round with ellipsis.

I don't believe I had previously read the other three selections, or at most I had read excerpts from them. But none of them are newly rediscovered gems that will come as revelations to serious Ali fans. They are not weak or uninteresting, but they are recycled material with which many readers will already be familiar.

Similarly, there are many fine photos in the book, but little that has not appeared in one or more similar Ali books in the past. (In terms of both text and photos, I strongly prefer Wilfrid Sheed's superficially similar picture book "Muhammad Ali" to this one.) One exception is that this book includes many fight programs, posters, and tickets that I had not previously come across.

The book is marred by many factual errors committed by the editors in their photo captions. There are many things that a proofreader even minimally familiar with Ali's career should have caught, so one must unfortunately infer considerable sloppiness or laziness on the part of those who put this book together.

For example, contrary to what this book tells you, Ali did not defeat Joe Frazier by fifteen round decision in their third fight. Ali was awarded a technical knockout when Frazier's handlers conceded between the fourteenth and fifteenth rounds. Ali's 1972 fight against George Chuvalo was not a fifteen round decision, but a twelve round decision. (He had defeated Chuvalo by fifteen round decision in an earlier fight in 1966; that might be what confused the editors.) The book states flatly that Ken Norton broke Ali's jaw in the second round of their March 1973 fight. Maybe, but different parties have claimed anything from the first to the twelfth round, so the matter is not without uncertainty. The photo identified as being from Ali's 1971 fight against Jurgen Blin is in fact a photo from the 1974 fight against Foreman.

Though flawed, this book still has worthwhile elements. With such a compelling central character, you would expect nothing less. It's not the best Ali book out there by a long shot, but insofar as it recruits a few more young newcomers into the legions of Ali fans, and gives the rest of us an excuse to reminisce about an extraordinary man and his extraordinary life, it cannot be all bad.

A great book for Ali fans and boxing fans alike. It is a fun trip through the boxing exploits of one of America's, and the Worlds, greatest athletes. A fun table book that you can pick up over and over again. If you want the complete book of Ali's life- this isn't it. What it covers is Ali the Champ fight by fight!

If you're a boxing fan or just an Ali fan, this book will help you relive memories like no other photo book or biography will. If you're NOT, you will still marvel at the art and the wonderful writing on page after page. The text is not sappy, faceless writing like so many other photo or art books. Instead, these are well-written essays from people who know boxing and know Ali -- and their appreciation will make you appreciate Ali's achievements, charisma, and larger-than-life persona that has led so many to name him the athlete of the century. (If you're looking for more of a narrative, Davis Miller's new "The Tao of Muhammad Ali" is the perfect complement to this book.)

The negative comments re the first edition are justified, but for this much better second edition clearly a lot of work has gone into improving the Yunnan section (the bit I can comment on).

A couple of the reviews below complain that the coverage of South-West China was just lifted from Lonely Planet's China guide and this is really misleading. To prove a point, the following destinations are covered only in the SW China book and are not covered at all in the China guide:

YUNNAN - grottoes of Shibaoshan, stone city of Baoshan, Weixi county, Tiger Leaping Gorge trek map, Birang Gorge, Dondrupling monastery, Cizhong Catholic Church, the Nujiang Valley, Menglian, Chengjiang, Jiangchuan, architecture of Jianshui, Gejiu, terraces of Yuanyuang, Luxi Caves
SICHUAN - dinosaurs of Zigong, Yibin, Bamboo Sea, Bo Hanging Coffins, Yi people of Xichang and the Cool Mountains, Tibetan area of Muli, Tibetan monasteries around Tagong and Ganzi, Dzogchen Monastery, Pelpung, Dzongsar and Kathok monasteries around Derge, trekking around Derge, Daocheng and Yading Nature Reserve, Woolong Nature Reserve, Barkham, Wenchuan, Langmusi, Aba
GUIZHOU - Xingren, Miao towns of Leishan, Taijiang, Fanpai, Shidong, Huangping, Shibing, Zhenyuan, Tongren, Fanjing Mt nature Reserve, the Dong settlements of Ronjiang, Congjiang and Zhaoxing, waterfalls and caves of Chishui,
Guangxi - Nanning, Beihai, Chongzuo, Detian Waterfall on the Vietnam border, Jingxi, Baise, Guiping

The bottom line is that if you are planning a trip around China and/or only have a week or two in SW China, then take LP's China. But if you want to get off the beaten track, have more time to explore SW China and/or have an interest in Tibetan monasteries, hilltribe villages and minority nationalities in general, then SW China is DEFINITELY the guide to take.

This edition will take the traveler beyond the main sites detailed in the China 2000 Lonely Planet. Ignore the other two reviews as they criticize the earlier edition for being out of date. This edition will be very helpful for those exploring the diverse regions of Yunnan and beyond in the Southwest of China.

I confess I picked up this book based on my usual criteria of pleasing-title-and-cover-design-gestalt, but I felt that the synopsis showed promise.

Sadly, The Ancestor Game turned out to be one of those books in which the 'action' consists almost entirely of characters realizing things. And realizing that other characters are realizing other things. And thinking about realizations, theirs and everyone else's. There's not a lot of present-time action to draw the reader along, nor very much to grab hold of in the main character.

And yet, I did read it through, despite not caring about any of the characters or what happened to them. Miller has judiciously sprinkled in enough flashback exposition and really almost melodramatic action to pull you back in just as you feel yourself teetering on the edge of a trip back to the library. The action of the flashbacks is at such variance with the non-action of the present that the present feels like a commercial break.

So I followed him through, but ultimately got nothing much from what was essentially a dry and self-conscious 'novel of ideas.' Presumably he was saying something about children and their fathers, and the right or ability of descendants to create their own ancestors, but I just didn't care enough to figure out exactly what.

I thought the Vault Reports Guide to Management Consulting provided a better inside view to consulting firms, and also had actual consulting case interview questions and answers. In contrast, the Harvard guide was primarily a compilation of information from firms' recruiting brochures.

We still use this book in Knoxville, TN, but not because of popular demand. Not updated in over a decade; old examples, old theories and unrefined concepts; excessively wordy without imparting much knowledge. Need I say more?! What are the choices? In Knoxville, not many, as Alex Miller teaches in the Executive MBA program, but elsewhere -- how about Hill or Wheelen/Hunger or Prahalad?

Miller should stop insisting that participants in the University of Tennesee's Executive MBA programs use this outdated and wordy book with decade-old examples.

When Miller wrote this book over a decade ago, the world had still to experience the Internet boom and collapse, the Asian financial crisis, the fall of the yuppies. I used this book in introductory strategic management classes but have now abandoned it as most of my students were in primary school when it was written. This book has limited applicability and the theory needs to be polished tremendously. I understand they still use this book in Executive MBA programs at Miller's school, the University of Tennessee, though. Go figure!

All of the first-hand experiences which led me to purchase this book are crammed into just nineteen pages. The remainder of the book is full of very brief summaries of a zillion consultancies most of which I had never heard of. I got one page on McKinsey, 1 1/2 pages on BCG and two pages on Bain. That works out to about $3 per useful page.

The information on consulting firms just comes from the consulting firms themselves. I found the same info on the firms' Web sites. I found the VaultReports.com book on consulting firms to be much better, since it gave insider information direct from employees. There are other good books out there, too.

I am frankly surprized at the interest in this out-of print (?) certainly unremarkable book. Professor Miller has done very little to get this kind of attention, and probably contributed nothing to the field in at least a decade. The book is dusty as remarked by others and is not used anywhere, except in the University of Tennessee's Executive MBA program where Miller teaches. I would pass on this book -- but then I think almost any one who can, already has.

We stopped using this text at our university about 5 years ago as there are several other textbooks on the market that are more up-to-date on current issues and theories of concern to managers and academics.

I teach Strategic Management at a Pennsylvania university. We no longer use this book. Although the coverage of strategic management theories are adequate, though a bit simplistic, the coverage of international issues is almost non-existant. Miller either does not understand that businesses outside the USA march to a different rhythm -- or does not care. Indeed, the book is laughably parochial.

Another serious problem affecting acceptance of this book is its extremely dated nature. Miller has not cared to update even the examples for over a decade! Entire industries and geographical regions have risen and fallen in the meantime. Theories are old (again dating from the early and 1980's) and Miller seems completely out of touch with the latest theoretical debates.

Unless this book gets a very serious rewriting, pass on it. Otherwise, your students will complain as mine did.