This is the nearest thing you'll ever get to an idiot's guide to corpus linguistics. It is a collection of papers which discusses everything it says on the label - corpus, concordance, collocation, and more. Corpora are now very much part of mainstream linguistics; this book opens the door to the 'uninitiated', explaining the fundamentals in the lucid prose that characterises all of Sinclair's writing. Although there have been many advances in the field since this book was first published (nearly a decade ago), the basic principles remain the same. If you've heard of corpus linguistics, but don't know what it is, then this is the book for you.

A thoroughly engaging and informative read. Numbers and Stenhouse have compiled papers that challenge the conception that vervent religious beliefs are incompatable with evolutionary thinking. A particularly brilliant essay on the impact of evolutionary thought on early feminists clearly illustrates the main point of the book: evolutionary logic was used to justify many different (and sometimes antithetical) political positions. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of evolution!

For more than a decade, 'Ecosystems of Florida' has become the standard by which all other books on Florida's unique ecology are judged. The flora, fauna, soil, climate, and hydrological characteristics of all of Floridas ecosystems are explained in exhaustive yet accessible detail. The book also has general information about the soil, climate, and geological history of Florida that helps the reader explore the ecosytem chapters with a broader understanding of the ecology of the state as a whole. Concluding chapters tie in the influence of people to the history of Florida's ecology and explain the role people will take in shaping or breaking Florida's natural areas in the future. This book has become more than a reference to me. It presents a very complex set of information in a clear, easily-read, and entertaining format that makes it hard to put down.

this book is incredible....funny, interesting, educational, great drawings and very entertaining! great as a unique one-of-a-kind gift, but i bought one for myself. I was at first kind of reluctant to buy it due to the subject, but what i received in the mail was a very pleasant surprise....! highly recommended.

William Ronald Dodds Fairbairn made an enormous contribution to psychoanalysis in the early part of this century although he was little known in his own lifetime. This fascinating psycho-biography of a great man of the mind gives insights into his own development and the reasons why he gave up ideas of working in the clergy, to study medicine and arrive at his Object Relations Theory, which is now receiving much wider attention around the globe. It is a fantastic book - but then I would think that: WRD Fairbairn was my grandfather.

A Guide to Middle-Earth is an A-Z guide to the names and events forTolkien's The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings Trilogy and The Silmarillion. Also, every entry contains Translation (of the name from Eldain Languages to English), Also Called (+ the other meanings of the name) and Identificatin Coding (page references to 21 editions) sections. In Appendix, there are Chronology of FA (First Age) and Genealogical Tables sections. You can't find another book like this, it's the only and best guide (excluding The Atlas of Middle-Earth) for a Tolkien Fan. But a new -updated & revised- edition of this book is published; it's called The Complete Guide To Middle-Earth...

This book is a must for all univesity chemistry libraries! The subject of conducting polymers is of great interest in chemical research; this book covers comprehensively the important facts and findings. This book is suitable for students and researchers who are interested in this subject, and will serve as an excellent general introductory, or an encyclopedic source.

The definition of a classic is a book that is read and bought many years after it's publication. The hobbit is a book that thousands of children have been enchanted by all around the world, and will continue to for generations to come.

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit living a normal hobbit life. Then Gandalf the grey turns his quiet life into an adventure that will impact the rest of his existance. Encoutering races of men, elves, trolls, orcs, dwarves, dragons and goblins, he tries to change the way people forever look at the somber hobbits.

Tolkien will never be forgotten with classic characters that will live forever in the minds of thousands.

Ron Allen is a professor of preaching and New Testament at my seminary, Christian Theological Seminary, and the author of many books on preaching and biblical exegesis. For this volume, he teamed with John Holbert, who teaches preaching and Hebrew Bible at Perkins School of Theology, SMU. One of the perennial tasks of a preacher is to faithfully use the scriptures that came before the four gospels and rest of the Christian era writings. This books addresses that issue head-on.

One of the issues, which comes to the forefront at the very start of such an inquiry, is what to call it? There are issues with the terms 'Old Testament', 'Hebrew Scriptures', and other commonplace terms we take for granted. The assumptions built into the term 'Old Testament' conjure up negative images and an implicit second-class status. Thus, the authors adopt the terminology, still imperfect, of First and Second Testaments.

Attendant to this, and highlighted in the opening of the first chapter, is the tendency on behalf of Christian preachers to trivialise the First Testament, recasting it as at best less important than the Second Testament writings, and at worst, recreating a Marcion-esque trait of leaving it out altogether. Marcion recast the Bible as a small document that included only a few of the major Pauline letters and the gospel of Luke.

'Ironically, Marcion's ideas led to the formation of the Christian canon as we know it. He forced the church to consider the question of what should be in the canon and what should not. The church ultimately and wisely voted against Marcion and said that it could not live without the First Testament. Nonetheless, Marcion's ghost still haunts the Christian pulpit.'

In approaching the First Testament as a document worthy of preaching, Allen and Holbert look toward images of God and God's relationship with humanity that are able to stand alone while reflecting a message consistent with the gospel message. 'The First Testament does not always need the Second to give it meaning and importance for the Christian community.' Allen and Holbert give a systems of twelve steps to follow to build a credible and useful sermon from First Testament passages. (Readers of Allen's other texts will know that he is big on step-by-step methodologies for sermon construction.) In addition to this process, the authors give various thematic approaches that could be appropriate for use of First Testament texts in preaching, such as creation, covenant and steadfast love, deliverance and justice.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is the fifth chapter, 'Texts that Apparently Offer Little or Nothing to the Christian Pulpit.' To the astute reader, the word 'apparently' in the chapter title is an obvious give-away. Taking on texts such as regulations about circumcision, dietary restrictions, Temple rites and regulations, Allen and Holbert recommend various techniques and modes of thinking that can make them more relevant and useful. Above all, the authors caution against using these texts merely to dismiss them.

'The preacher may be tempted to criticise or dismiss difficult passages because they do not appear to measure up to Jesus Christ or the Second Testament. This tactic is often problematic. It probably misrepresents the relationship between Christ, the Second Testament, and the First Testament. It presumes that the picture of God and religion in the Hebrew Bible is inferior to that of the church and that the First Testament is discontinuous with Christ and the church.'

Allen and Holbert then take a brief survey of the current state of biblical scholarship and criticism, particularly as it applies to the connection between the Testaments. The authors then look at five different sermons, the texts of which are presented in their entirety, with notations and important points highlighted in the midst of the sermons by commentary set off in italics.

One of the tasks of Christian Theological Seminary over the past few decades has been a deepening Jewish-Christian dialogue and recognition on the part of Christian preachers and leaders of their responsibility in making Jewish-Christian relations difficult. This text helps in the process of reconciliation, by helping to limit the misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the Jewish people and the Hebrew scriptures in Christian pulpits.

This is a useful text for anyone who wants to a greater understanding of the significance of the First Testament for current Christian preaching and practice.

The cataclysmic events both inside and outside the Muslim world since 9/11 have caused some serious collateral damage. Inter-religious dialogue has suffered a severe setback as a result of the increased antagonism between Muslims and non-Muslims. Especially progressive Muslim thinkers are now in an even less enviable position than before. In their attempts to find ouvertures these potential bridge-builders between modern western thought and Islamic discourse are often vilified by less open-minded fellow Muslims. In today's climate poisoned with suspicion, these intellectuals face a real danger of being stonewalled or considered mere apologists in the West as well.

The only way out of this deadlock of mistrust is to take note of the views and ideas of these often original thinkers. "Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond" is a volume of essays in which some innovative Muslim thinkers are either presented and interpreted by Islamic studies specialists or given opportunity to speak for themselves.

After an introduction by Derek Hopwood, sketching the intellectual climate in which the debate on cultural heritage and response to outside influences is grounded in the world of Islam, followed by an essay on modernist influences on 19th century Urdu literature, John Cooper analyzes the contributions of Iran's controversial philosopher of science, 'Abd al-Karim Soroush, to the debate on the "Islamization of knowledge". A pharmacologist by training, Soroush also engages in penetrating studies of traditionalism and Islamic philosophy. Although he was very much involved in the educational reforms taking place in the wake of Iran's Islamic revolution, Soroush has nevertheless been able to retain an independent intellectual stand. Cooper explains that he succeeded in doing so because "[h]e began to present a more personalized discourse, in which his intellectual autobiography came to figure prominently [..]". In his argumentations for new trajectories towards knowledge Soroush uses elements from the entire Islamic intellectual spectrum: Persian poetry, ideas borrowed from revivalism, mysticism, and scriptural studies are employed to trace genealogies and suggest a new Islamic epistemology.

Andreas Christmann presents a micro-level study of the Damascus-based preacher Shaikh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti. The essay is based on field-work in which he has researched the biography of this representative of the traditional 'ulama or religious scholars, and the influences his ideas have had, mainly through the modern media of radio and TV.

Nadia Abu-Zahra's survey of the liberal writer on Islam, Husayn Ahmed Amin, shows that his main focus is on the importance of correct knowledge of Islamic history and consideration for social circumstances in the development and implementation of Islamic law or Shari'a. Together these will make Muslims aware that Shari'a law developed centuries ago and that its stipulations have failed to keep pace with new social conditions. In adapting to these new circumstances, Muslims can enhance their confidence in their Islamic identity. That such a reform has failed sofar is, among others, due to the misconception of the Prophet's infallibility, ignoring the fact that many of the Prophet's actions were driven by political and economic interests, and the isolationist attitudes of later generations of jurists. In a detailed analysis of Amin's argumentation on the basis of historical and scriptural studies, the author points out several inconsistencies in Amin's reasonings.

The Sudanese reformist Mahmud Muhammad Taha has paid the ultimate price for his modernist thinking: in 1985 he was condemned to death on charges of apostacy and executed. Mohamed Mahmoud's essay focusses mainly on the thinker's most influential work: "The Second Message of Islam". Taha may be characterized as a universalist and gnostic, as such his thought was not so different from certain strands of Sufism.
Taha's philosophy is permeated by two interrelated problems: the relationship between individual and society, and man's relationship to the universe. Taha's starting point that "in Islam the individual is the end. Everything else, including the Qur'an and the religion of Islam itself, are means to that end.", makes him a true humanist. Further on Mohamad Mahmoud explains that Taha's evolutionary perspective on religion induces him to take Islam as a living, endless process rather than a doctrine pregnant with dogmatism.
The author then takes us through some intriguing concepts that Taha's philosophy touched upon: original and subsidiary revelations, jihad, gender, slavery, the position of democracy.

According to Ronald Nettler, Tunesian-born mediaevist Mohamed Talbi has made a significant contribution to modernist Islamic religious thought in the later half of the twentieth century. Central themes in Talbi's thinking are the contextuality of scriptural exegesis, man's innate pluralism, and the provisionality of all knowledge. Interestingly, Talbi acknowledges his intellectual debt to the Christian theologian Hans Kueng for his views on interreligious relations.

The Moroccan Mohamed Abed Jabri is a professional philosopher, who has engaged in the debate on how Muslims can accommodate concepts like democracy and human rights in their conceptional world. Central to his thinking are notions such as ethical princple and rationality. Abdou Filali-Ansari's essay contains an interesting exposition on Jabri's view of secularism, serving as an illustration of the invasion of the theological field by 'secular' intellectuals.

From a similar mold, but decidedly post-modernist in tone, is the essay by Mohammed Arkoun, an expert on Islamic philosophy. He makes a case for differentiation between 'Qur'an-as-fact' and 'Islam-as-fact' on the basis of historical, sociological and linguistic research, without losing sight of the influence that ideologies have on the formation of 'meaning'.

Another thinker who has suffered the consequences of his innovative approaches to Islamic studies is Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, who had to seek refuge in the Netherlands after being sued for apostacy in Egypt. He suggests that semiotic methods can be fruitfully applied to the study of Qur'an. His essay, dealing with the textuality of the Qur'an, illuminates Islamic notions of 'text', 'language' and 'semantics'. He emphasizes, however, that textual particularities must be studied in their historical context, and that the text's interpretation is absolutely human and therefore infinitely diverse.

All in all, this collection of essays makes an excellent companion volume to any of the vast number of books on political Islam.