I am a college professor who just finished teaching ORGANIZED CRIME to twenty college juniors and seniors. I selected Abadinsky's book as the text because it is carefully and thoughtfully "choreographed." The information provided flows in a sensible and clearly written design. Some texts appear to be designed for Rhodes Scholars and are virtually impossible to read. This is not the case with this great book! I recommend it to teachers and those who have in interest in this fascinating subject.

If you (the reader, the researcher) is interested in Organized Crime, I strongly recommend this book (Howard Abadinsky's Organized Crime, 6th Ed.) This book is the only detailed book I have come across in studying Organized Crime. I am currently a criminal justice graduate student attending the University of Central Florida. RSB

In this revised edition of the classic text on organized crime Abadinsky provides a comprehensive overview of organized crime groups, traditions, operations and the impact on American society.

If you truly want to understand the Bible Days this is a must have book. This book brings the Bible to life again. You can see every detail of how people really lived. This is not a dictionary but more of an Advanced Encyclopedia on how people really lived. I believe the Illustrated Version with the Photography is very important to have here. The Photography is so amazing and detailed. I also ordered, Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary : An Authoritative One-Volume Reference Work on the Bible, With Full-Color Illustrations... Using the two of these together you can really understand the meaning of phrases and words in the Bible.

Take for example if I said, "This is a really cool book". 1000 years from now you would think I was saying this book is very cold. But really I meant this book is very useful, neat, or exciting. These Two Nelson books go hand in hand.

This is a great book about not just helping people find a job, but helping them find themselves and fulfillment in their career. For the job seeker this book is also a great tool for understanding both yourself and the career counsel you may seek.

As a rookie in the field of Career Development I was in for some major surprises. As many Americans in today's society, I thought that the most frequently utilized tools of any professional career counselor would be assessment tests and occupational forecasts. Instead, I learned that these tools should be be used sparingly and with caution. Although still frequently used, the the highly skilled and professional career counselor makes it his/her mission to help the client use introspection, and ultimately, assume the responsibility for her/her own career development. I learned a lot about the field of career counseling, material which can not only be used when working with clients but also material that will be beneficial to my own career development. My two least favorite aspects of the book were the last chapter which dealt with "Hanging it up as a Career Counselor". Not that this Chapter shouldn't have been included, but I felt as that it was a downer of an ending. Also, it was recommended that the Counselor be ready to bring God and sprituality into the counseling session(s) if the client seems ready to do so. Maybe it is because I am new, but I find religion and spirituality to be so personal and unique to the individual, that I would be uncomfortable doing this. Religious values and beliefs are so varied that I think one would have to be highly knowledgeable about both world religions and the world of work.

When I purchased this book, I found myself inspired, refreshed and enlightened by the contents. After doing career counseling for over 20 years, I am delighted to be caught up anew in the possibilities. I called up four colleagues and started a book discussion group. We are working our way through the ideas herein, beginning with the authors' distinctions between information, knowledge, and wisdom. Brilliant, and very helpful! I recommend this to career practitioners who wish to sharpen their skills and focus. Bravo!

The book is worth reading, but although I haven't seen the movie I can't help wondering how they managed to get a movie out of it. I will probably watch it out of curiosity more than anything else. The characters are only semi-interesting at best, the most well-developed one (Ann Campbell) being dead; I found myself in mourning for her. I love Brenner's quirky C.O. and their love/hate relationship. The circumstances surrounding the murder are a bit unbelievable, and the murderer's reaction upon getting caught was disappointingly predictable. As to the mystery itself, I have to admit I shifted blame several times before the culprit was revealed. I applaud DeMille for leaving a few loose ends instead of needlessly adding another chapter to explain minor details as you see in so many other books. After all, life is full of unsolved mysteries. I wouldn't call this book a literary masterpiece, but DeMille is a fine storyteller and I look forward to reading more of his work.

Demille is a wonderful storyteller and only receives one complaint from me: too many irrelevant descriptions into the past of lead Army CID investigator Paul Brenner. While some of this detail does help to develop Brenner's character, there is no relevance to the main plot and investigation into the murder of Captain Campbell - The General's Daughter.

The main plot brilliantly unfolds as layer upon layer of dark secrets and corruptions unfold on a Southern Georgia Army post. Going by forensic evidence, the initial search of the vicitm's property , and the half truths told by the victim's family and colleagues, the criminal investigation team attempts to recreate the sequence of events the night the murder occurred. The mystery behind the murder will leave you guessing!

An intelligent and suspenseful book that I highly recommend to my friends and family.

I am a book snob. I refuse to see a movie of a book I really like. I also seldom read a book after it's been made into a movie. That explains my reluctance to read "The General's Daughter". I was however going into Demille withdrawal and having read all of his other books had no choice. This is a great book. The story grabs you and you can't put it down. It's a fairly complicated story with a lot of villians. If fact almost every character in the book is a real jerk. All of Mr Demille's main characters are the same people with different names. The men are caustic, mid 40's, strange sence of humor. The female lead is about fifteen to twenty years younger and madly in love with caustic 40 year old men. I don't find this to be a problem. This book is a page turner. I didn't expect the ending which is unusual. I thought he laid the ground work for assisted suicide.
Read this one, it's not as good as Plum Island, The Charm School or Lions Game but it's a great book from a great author. Actually read everything he's written it's worth the time.

Nelson's Bible Manners & Customs is a very solid addition to any serious Bible student's library especially if one seeks a deeper knowledge and understanding of the cultural, economic, and socio-political environment of biblical times. It clearly explains how the people of these times lived and provides valuable information that will expand any student's understanding of the Bible....

A good book for your library. The many photographs, illustrations and brief sidenote articles are well layed out to make it an interesting read. It covers life from Abraham to the Roman Empire of Jesus' day. Each chapter is divided into the following parts: The Land, Government, Religion, Warfare, Housing and Furniture, Diet and Foodstuffs, Dress, Family Life, and Work/Travel/Commerce. The only drawback is that it does not contain a comprehensive index for looking up specific topics.

This is an excellent book for readers interested in the cognitive psychology of math and science education. The 11 contributed chapters in this book are all valuable contributions to the field. The reader, however, will not find comprehensive reviews of important areas in math and science education such as teacher education, curriculum reform, career choice, self-efficacy, or parent/community collaborations. Though not every book must be comprehensive in its scope, the main title and the editorial review from Book News imply a comprehensive treatment. In addition, the use of the word "challenge" implies change and policy orientations. Although the word "challenge" has market appeal, the chapters are not primarily change or policy oriented. In short, this is a valuable book for the reader focused on cognitive psychology.

For another view of math and science processes, see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, Talented Teenagers. This book is not focused on math and science, but presents an insightful examination. Csikszmentmihaliyi argues that at novice levels, the processes of learning math and science are fundamentally different from learning arts and language. At higher skill levels, however, he argues that these differences may not be so markedly different.

I won't bother to write a synopsis of the book since many others have done so. I always look forward to Demille's books and waited with great expectations for "Up Country". I was sorely disappointed. The character, Paul Brenner, returns to Vietnam to exorcise his demons. Mr. Demille, I feel, has written this novel to exorcise his demons. If I were going to Vietnam to visit battlefields, this would be an excellent book to read as a guide. As another reviewer said, there's about 54 pages of plot. The ending feels hurried and incomplete. Unless, of course,it was written this way because there's a sequel in the works. I did find some of Paul Brenner's stories horrendous and difficult to comprehend but if you've seen "The Deerhunter", "Apocolypse Now", or "Full Metal Jacket", you've seen Paul Brenner's stories. Even though Paul says he keeps learning things about Susan (was her name Susan?), I found her character to very undeveloped and the plot sorely lacking in putting forth her motivations for what she was doing. This is all due to the emphasis on travelogue and catharsis, rather than plot. I'm giving my book to a Vietnam vet friend of mine.

For my tastes, Nelson DeMille writes good books and marginal ones. Thanks to "Up Country" arriving in Hong Kong a month or so before its U.S. release date, I've read the book and thought I would offer a few observations to fans and new readers alike.

"Up Country" is billed in the blurb as a military murder mystery that took place 30 years ago in Vietnam. Paul Brenner, of "General's Daughter" fame, is back, called upon by his old commanding officer to return to Vietnam and investigate the killing of a U.S. lieutenant by his captain during the Tet Offensive.

The reason I say "billed as a murder mystery" is because the action of that plot line takes up only about fifty pages of this 654-page novel. The rest is travelogue, war history and personal reminiscence.

DeMille at his best does description and dialogue well. The fact that Paul Brenner of "Up Country" is indistinguishable in attitude and conversation from John Corey in "The Lion's Game" doesn't detract too much. I like cynical, sarcastic characters, and I suspect that it is DeMille's personality coming through, which makes me like him more. And since the author was in Vietnam at the same time as his protagonist, I'm even more convinced that we're listening to Nelson DeMille strolling down memory lane. That is not necessarily a bad thing if you approach the book from this angle.

What was troublesome for me, having read many of his other books, was turning the pages looking for a little action. Don't hold your breath. It's a travel book - good for those who never served and want to know how it was, or for those who served and never returned but would like to from the comfort of their sofas. But it was a let-down for someone who was there and imagined that when he finally went back it would be by plane rather than by book.

I spent the same time in the same places and saw many of the same paddy fields (they mostly look alike) as Paul Brenner, but rather than experiencing camaraderie with this character, I felt he had taken me hostage for a returning-veterans tour. To paraphrase one of the statements in the book -- Been there. Three times. Done that. Six times - and I hadn't planned on doing it again.

If you'll forget you just read "The Lion's Game" and get in the mood for in-country musings and meanderings, you just may enjoy the trip. After all, the man can still write.

On a nitpicking level, his two main characters are always smiling. They say things followed by: "He smiled." or "She smiled." Smiled, smiled, smiled... but then they're in love, or are they just good enemies? It got a bit old, but that's just personal taste because the author is doing it deliberately. And I noticed that "none" is too often used with a plural verb, as in "None of them are going...."

I like Nelson DeMille and I look forward to his books. And he's certainly allowed to change the pace. But in this case, forwarned would have been forearmed.

So that you can gauge my taste in "DeMilles," I've read "The Charm School" three times, "The Lion's Game" twice, "Word of Honor" twice and enjoyed the "The General's Daughter." Even in a foxhole with nothing else at hand, however, I wouldn't reread "Plum Island" or "Spencerville." "Gold Coast" is somewhere in the middle, now joined by "Up Country."

Vietnam veteran and author Nelson DeMille reacquaints his readers with Paul Brenner, former CID investigator and primary character of THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER. The year is 1997, and his former boss, Colonel Karl Hellmann, asks Brenner, who completed two tours in Vietnam, to investigate a thirty-year-old crime that occurred there.

Allegedly, in February of 1968, a U.S. Army captain shot a U.S. Army lieutenant and killed him. The only witness was a soldier for the North Vietnamese army, named Tran Van Vinh. In a letter to his brother, Tran Quan Lee, Tran Van Vinh describes the occasion. An American soldier discovered the letter on the body of Tran Quan Lee and recently unearthed it in an old trunk and sent it along to Vietnam Veteran's of America. Paul's mission is to locate Mr. Tran Van Vinh and discover if he remembers the murderous incident.

Reluctantly agreeing to this mission, Paul flies to Saigon where he meets up with American Susan Weber who claims to be making contact with him to aid a friend. Susan's savvy knowledge of Vietnam helps Paul as he journeys across the countryside, ostensibly as a vet and tourist reliving old memories. As an airport confrontation with Colonel Mang leaves a cloud of suspicion over Paul, Susan's relationship with Paul aids his attempt to lessen Mang's suspicion. Paul's reawakening journey across Vietnam is not a history lesson, but a craftily worded journey that leaves the reader grasping for more in anticipation of the next clash with police and finally, the discovery of Tran Van Vinh.

Seasoned veteran Brenner is fully aware that there is more to this mission than meets the eye, but what, he has yet to discover. And Susan proves to be an enigma, as her abilities to squirm out of the most difficult of situations, are inconsistent with her status as an ivy-league American businesswoman. As Paul and Susan approach Tran Van Vinh's village near the Tet holiday, they must decide whether love and trust are codependent.

With seven hundred plus pages of text, many a reader might be concerned that the description of places and battles in Vietnam would cause the read to drag. Not so, as De Mille is a skilled enough author to carefully integrate the present and past in a combination that encourages the reader to seek the compelling conclusion.

This book is a great idea with an appealing format, but the author, although purporting to write for lay-people, writes like a scholar. The prose is dry and turgid; interesting stories are rare in the book. _Christian History Made Easy_ by Timothy Jones covers all of the same data as this book in a way that lay-people can appreciate.

This book is a solid overview of church history with helpful headings and boxes of key terms that provide a good review. However, for the reader interested more in learning than refreshing, this book can be a bit dry.

This splendid little book gives a lot of information for an introduction to church history. It does two things well. It covers the important events of church history. And it tells you why those events were important to the church, so you can feel the influence of those events today.

I did not find the book too scholarly, but maybe that's because I'm a nerd. I don't know. I wouldn't use this as my only church history book, but I would highly recommend it. I would give it 4 1/2 stars, which rounds up to 5.

I bought this book expecting a real debate between the three views mentioned, namely, Young Earth Creation, Old Earth Creation, and Theistic Evolution. The reason I found it disappointing is for two main reasons. None of the contributors really talk about the evidences for their position, but instead ramble on about their philosophy of science. Van Till spends most of his time trying to convince people to call his perspective the "fully-gifted creation perspective" instead of theistic evolution. To me, it really was just playing with words in order to avoid the negative Christian response to evolution. Does Van Till believe in Darwinian evolution or not? He says he does, so why not Theistic evolution? His view, as he expresses it, is really Deism, although he protests that it isn't. Read what he says and decide for yourself. My other major complaint with the book was that instead of the proponent of each view responding to the other two views, the responses were made by a third party "panel". I found this to be extremely unsatisfying.
The book wasn't totally without merit, and all three perspectives had some good things to say - but it got lost in a lot of wordiness about "words" which really took away from the book as a whole.

This book consists of essays by proponents of each of the three views (Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution) and commentaries by practitioners of four disciplines: Biblical studies, theology, philosophy, and science. The entire discussion is concluded by summaries by Philip Johnson, an advocate of intelligent design, and Richard Bube, an advocate of theistic evolution.

The result is only partially successful. I am particularly impressed with the essays by Paul Nelson and John Mark Reynolds (Young Earth Creationism) and Howard J. Van Till (Theistic Evolution). Both give lucid and reasoned presentations of their views. I was pleasantly surprised to see Nelson and Reynolds, neither of whom I have read before, forego some of the more common but already discredited scientific arguments for a young Earth. Van Till presents a well thought-out and challenging integration of science and theology.

I am very disappointed by the commentaries, however. My first complaint is that the commentators sometimes seem unwilling to critique the essays primarily within their own expertises. For instance, John Jefferson Davis spends much of his space discussing the fossil record. On the one hand, none of the other commentators talk about this important piece of evidence. On the other hand, I wish the editors could have found someone other than a theologian to do this.

My second, more serious complaint is that each of the four commentators speaks entirely from an Old Earth Creationist perspective. In fact, Walter Bradley (who is supposed to provide criticism from a scientific perspective) uses the space allotted for commentary on the Old Earth Creationist perspective to attack the positions later presented in the Theistic Evolution essay. The reader is deprived of any scientific critique of the Old Earth Creationist view and instead finds a philosophical objection to a view not even presented yet. I find that entirely inappropriate.

As a brief introduction to the thinking in the three perspectives on creation and evolution, the primary essays in this book are very good. They each present some of the strengths and weaknesses of their own positions. These are not explored fully, but each essay is well referenced for further reading. The commentaries could have benefited by a better selection of commentators, however.

i've read in the field of creation-evolution for nearly 30 years now, from the _genesis flood_ to _darwin's dangerous idea_. that certainly doesn't make me an expert, only a concerned layman. this book is addressed by christian's to christian's, not that anyone outside of that community won't get a great deal out of the discussion only that the emotional desire/impetus to seek answers pushes christian's with a high view of scripture to try to reconcile the two biggies in their lives: science looking at general revelation and theology looking at scriptures. if you're not part of this community it is much easier just to ask "so what?" and not to understand why this is such a personal topic.

this is a first book, that is suitable for educated people to delve into a topic where many of the other books in this field/topic presume a background in either science or theology, or where the books are so stridently biased as to be "preaching to the choir" and put off 'newbies' with their presentation.

the issues are presented well enough that i think if someone finishes the book they will have a reasonable idea of what the problems are and where the different parts are most concerned in the discussion. it is not a scientific or theologically based book but rather philosophic. it presents concerns from each viewpoint, thus showing relative priorities in what each person discusses first and critisies as lacking emphasis in the other viewpoints. this is one value in a debate type of format, it can leave you with a prioritized idea of what people find important in the issues.

one problem however with this debate framework is that each person reading the book who already have committments to issues or positions tend to cheer for their side and boo down the opposing sides. this is evident from the reviews posted here, the young earth creation team is not the big names in the field, so it looks like in suffers from lack of heroes. nay, the two philosophers defend the position well given the page constraints they faced.

there is one issue running through the book i wished everyone had addressed in a more explicit matter, that is the difference in accepting the functional materialism of science versus the uncritical acceptance of a materialist world and life view of scientism. there is much confusion between the two, you can see it in much YEC criticism, in this book as well, of both progressive creationism and theistic evolution. naturalism is the idea that what we see is what we get, no god's behind the curtain, no skyhooks to come down and rescue us. there must be a distinction between how science uses this idea as a working hypothesis, as a functional means to an end, versus how a philosophy uses it as an axiom. of the 3 viewpoints, only vantil talks to the separation of the two. the YEC's fault the other two positions as if they accepted the materialism/naturalism as a deep committment in their systems. which as christian's is simply unacceptable from the beginning.

i liked the book. i think if you need a place to start it supplies one. however if you are already committed to a position you would be better off served by jumping straight to one of the major works in each viewpoint. and interact with that author without the polemics that form the debate structure of the book.

This was an enjoyable book, both in its ease to read and in the author's ability to take you back in time. He was able to explain how life used to be so that I could understand its hardships and ways of doing things. I recommend this book to readers who are interested in the history of common people who lived a common life in the west.