Then And Now Stories is a wonderfully presented anthology of ten enjoyable and original stories for children and young adults. The imaginative, diverse, and adventurous stories by Gertrude Stonesifer include An Unexpected Visitor; A Frightening Incident; Midnight; Kim's Wish; A Cat Named Grizzly Griswold; The Adventures of Whisker, Templeton, John Paul II; Mary Lou's Adventure; Jonathan's Walk in the Woods; Timmy Tadpole Grows Up; and The Cricket's Song. A fun book, and ideal for reading aloud at bedtime, Then And Now Stories is enhanced with occasional, whimsical, "blue-and-white" illustrations by William Nelson and Gertrude Stonesifer.

I had to use this textbook for a college anthropology class recently. I found that reading the book every night was actually enjoyable--it has an incredibly easy reading-style! Also, the authors are very careful to offer numerous opinions on most subjects so that the reader can draw their own informed opinions. I think this book is excellent for anyone interested in learning about anthropology or archaeology for the first time. Enjoy!

I don't know how I missed Algren, but I had never heard of him before I picked this book up. I only bought it because of the title. The darker days of my own youth have made me skeptical of books dealing with alcoholism and addiction. They never seem to get it right. This one nails it, seemingly without effort. Unlike other books of the genre, this one does not romanticize the ugliness it deals with. Frankie Machine's life is a tour through poverty, loveless marriages, addictions and hopelessness. It is not exaggerated. This is what it's really like. Algren's realism and intelligence make this one of the finest novels I've ever read. The details are so vivid and accurate that one has to wonder how many demons Algren shares with his characters. The Man With The Golden Arm is simply fiction mirroring life. It presents a side of life that many of its readers will never experience first-hand. Of that, you will be grateful. A combination of poor choices, bad luck, and lack of opportunity has overwhelmed the characters so completely that most of them don't know that they are already dead. I am a writer...this is one of those books that will always keep me humble. For most, their greatest achievement of words will never come close to to Algren's harrowing tome. Do not read this while distracted. It requires your full attention. It's that rich, that brilliant. This is not just a book about morphine, booze & the ghetto....it is a book of suffering, pain, betrayal, neglect & spite. Mr. Algren has been graceful enough to supply the compassion that most of characters seem to lack.

The Man with the Golden Arm is a beautifully complex tale that explores the experiences of the poor and powerless in mid-century Chicago. Frankie Machine returns to his old neighborhood after a stint in prison, having kicked a heroin habit and dreaming of becoming a drummer in a nightclub band. But all the old opportunities and constraints that worked on him before -- pressing need for cash, his skill as a card dealer, guilt over his wife's disability, temptations of drugs and petty crime -- kick in again, and he is inexorably pulled back into old habits and behaviors he had hoped to resist. Some call this a 'dark' tale, but it isn't really: yes, Frankie and friends are stuck in precarious, marginalized circumstances without real power to change, yet their lives unfold in ways that entertain contradictions that people of all circumstances face, between hope and despair, struggle and defeat, trust and betrayal, compulsion and choice. Algren is a uniquely gifted writer; he takes you inside characters' heads to see their thoughts and dreams (often off-kilter), and their humanity feels real and immediate. This is the edition of the book to buy -- it has wonderful essays about Algren and his work.

The great Nelson Algren's powerful tale. A work of art. Chicago, down-and-outers struggling with their various demons. One of the finest of all novelists. Algren, as a human being, had heart, wit, intelligence...and it shows. Not many writers today can touch him, although I can think of one or two covering the same turf: trying to make sense out of this insanity called life: Charles Bukowski, George Orwell, Henry Miller, B. Traven (The Cottonpickers), Kirk Alex (Working the Hard Side of the Street), Dan Fante (Chump Change, Spitting Off Tall Buildings) et al. You might want to give N.A's Neon Wilderness a try as well, a terriric short story collection. Algren's books last because his words have meaning to us--and always will.

As a computer teacher, I like this book because it is a well-written and easy to understand reference book on the newest Mac. I would have liked to have seen more step by step illustrations and less babble. The next version will hopefully read less like a college textbook and more like a how-to.

The Mac, unlike Win-doze machines, feels and operates as if it were almost human. But even human-like machines need friends. That's what Robin Williams is to both the Mac and the novice computer user when the latter opens the informative and fun THE LITTLE MAC BOOK. The author may be a Mac guru, but it's her ability to translate the most confusing concepts and tasks into tasty morsels of information, complete with humor and insight, that makes her book an invaluable aid to anyone booting up a Mac for the first time. Users who posses the basics shouldn't despair that this book isn't for them. They will find a wealth of computing gems, tips, and tricks in this delicious, and deliciously funny, guide to the best computer in the world.

Having never owned a computer before, I bought every book I could find about iMacs and Macs in general. What a waste of money! Robin Williams' book is the only one I or anyone needs! It not only is comprehensive, but is easy to understand and to use. I particularly enjoy the way she uses real- world analogies to explain what a hard disk is or what memory is. I really believe that Apple should endorse this as the "Official Apple Handbook," enclose it with every iMac they sell and give everybody a big break, after all, Jeff Goldblum's charisma and Steve Jobs' Nehru jacket only take you so far. Buy this book before any of the others pretending to teach you iMac or Mac. PS: I got a strawberry.

Nelson Lichtenstein's Sate of the Union is a superb study of the current crisis of American labor. If it is not as finely researched or as densely rewarding as his biography of Walter Reuther or Steve Fraser's biography of Sidney Hillman, it is an excellent introduction to the problem and to possible solutions. Lichtenstein demonstrates the vital necessity of trade unions. The average wage of American young families stands at only two-thirds of the their counterparts in 1973, "even though their total working hours were longer and the educational level of the head of th ehousehold higher than a generation before. In the first years of the new century median wages and family incomes were still below their 1989 level." In the decline of civic committment and political life, the untramelled sway of corporate hegemony, the failure to confront health insurance, public transportation, and childcare in the United States and basic civil liberties in much of our brave new globalized world, the decline of American trade unionism truly is an injury to all.

Lichtenstein, notwithstanding his title, starts with the thirties. He tells the story of how mass industrial unionism boomed during that decade. The story he tells is not particularly new, concentrating on the famous struggles, as well as the fatal limitations of the CIO on race and gender. But he also goes on to point out that the partial welfare state, far from creating the dreaded dependence of conservative rhetoric, actually gave millions of workers the opportunity to exert civil rights and real power that they did not under the mythology of a producer's republic. Although he is scathing abou the flaws of the AFL's short sighted and often openly racist stratgey he duly notes that their craft unionism did have some advantages in some places.

The next two-thirds of the book are much more interesting. Lichtenstein denies that there was ever a "Labor-Management Accord," the belief that labour problems were essentially solved held in the sixties by complacent liberals and confused leftists. Lichtenstein points out the exceptional qualities of American management that differed them from their European counterparts and made them less amenable to compromise. He points out the continent wide nature of their businesses, the absence of cartelization and self-regulation, the increased power of big businesses, who were not tained with collaborationism, and the increasing stress placed on smaller companies which made them blame the federal state. He points out the dead weight southern segregation had on trade unionism and other liberal hopes, He notes how Taft-Hartley legalized right to work laws, as well as banning supervisory unioism making the unionization of many service industries like insurance or engineering "virtually impossible."

Lichtenstein goes on to discuss the increasing complacency of the AFL-CIO, under its spectacularly unimaginative leader George Meaney, as well as the calcification of the grievance system, the dissipation of shop-floor pressure, and the strategic disaster of supporting a private welfare state via union contract. This would not stand the ruptures of the eighties and which dissipated efforts to create a national social wage for all. He also reminds us that Kennedy's Keynesianism was the most conservative form on tap, while LBJ's war on poverty failed to confront the structural roots of poverty and thought that if could be fought on the cheap with training programs.

Lichtenstein then goes on to discuss the decline of the union ideal among liberal and leftist thinkers, and notes how even the Warren Court hampered trade unions. Lichtenstein is most helpful in discussing the limits of "rights consciousness." He is unflinching on the complacency and bigotry of many trade unionists that made this necessary. But he quite properly notes that it cannot be a substitute for trade unionism. First off, the legal-regulatory system is not self-supporting and it needs a coherent voice from workers themselves--ie a strong trade union, to support them. Secondly, rights discourse puts the emphasis on regulators as opposed to the workers themsleves, an unhealthy sign. Thirdly, rights consciousness does nothing to change or alter managerial authority. Finally, rights discourse by itself cannot solve the structural crisis that confronts American society. Lichtenstein provides the example of the steel workers where African-Americans challenged and beat Jim Crow, only to end up with fewer steelworkers as the industry collapsed.

Lichtenstein's book is concise and well documented, if largely based on secondary sources, and it contains useful apercus about globalization, the disaster of concession bargaining, the fraud of "quality of life" initiatives, and about the folly of the construction workers. Tthey supported Nixon, beat up anti-war protesters, but were still shafted by him anyway). He also discusses the health insurance debacle, and notes some promising signs of renewal in the last few years, especailly among Hispanic Americans. One might feel he is trying too hard to end on a positive note, but one can only agree when he says that "At Stake is not just an effort to resolve America's labor question but the revitalization of democratic society itself."

The backdrop for "State of the Union" is the "labor question" that the author finds Progressive Era reformers confronting. They regarded the disproportionate power that corporate capitalism wielded relative to citizens and workers as unjustifiable in a democratic society. Changes in workplaces were most troublesome. Skilled workers were bypassed by work-simplifying machinery, an autocratic foreman system enforced Taylorism, or speed-up, and wages hovered at subsistence levels. But American workers, drawing upon a republican legacy, seized upon the WWI rallying cry of making the world safe for democracy to insist that industrial democracy be established within workplaces. Even President Woodrow Wilson recognized "the right of those who work, in whatever rank, to participate in some organic way in every decision which directly affects their welfare." Interestingly, the author does not take note of the fact that Wilson's call for workers' participation did not mention unions. But it is the relationship of unions to this "labor question" and to the notion of industrial democracy that most concerns Lichtenstein.

The lack of a legal and institutional basis for industrial democracy virtually ensured that industrial democracy would fizzle in the post-WWI era. But the major slip-up of American capitalism in the 20th century, that is, the Great Depression, opened the door for a tremendous, pent-up surge of American worker activism. In the Wagner Act, the most significant piece of New Deal legislation, workers were given the right and even encouraged to self-organize or select a representative to bargain with employers. In unionized workplaces, vibrant shop-floor steward systems ensured that workers' concerns received an expeditious hearing. Many labor activists from the Progressive Era were in the forefront of this politicized offensive to push for legalized industrial democracy. In addition, some of the Progressive social-democratic platform such as unemployment insurance, social security, and fair labor standards were part of the New Deal package.

The backlash against this resurgence of worker empowerment began immediately. Conservative justices, hostile corporate managements, racist Southern oligarchs, and anti-statist AFL unions - all opposed state intervention in the private domain of workplaces. But with the onset of WWII, the labor movement was drawn even more tightly into the state web as a participant in peak-level bargaining with the War Labor Board and industry leaders for the purpose of stabilizing industrial relations. For example, to curtail the spontaneous and disruptive strikes that were a part of the self-help tradition on the shop floor, multi-level grievance arbitration systems became standard sections in most bargaining agreements. But that tripartite bargaining did not extend beyond WWII. Some of the agreed to provisions proved to be more debilitating than helpful to trade unions and workers in later years.

With the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, conservatives were finally able to accomplish the dilution of the Wagner Act. Unions suffered major setbacks in that legislation. Communists and radicals were purged from union rolls, "right to work" laws were enacted in some states; employers could now denounce unions in organizing drives; and secondary boycotts were mostly prohibited. The author refers to the exclusion of supervisors and the subsequent exclusion of tens of millions of professional and technical workers in today's workforce as the "ghettoization" of the union movement.

As the author indicates, Taft-Hartley guaranteed that collective bargaining would be both limited and firm-based. A variety of barriers and penalties now existed to derail broader, classwide mobilizations. Negotiated contracts did not venture outside "mandatory" subjects of wages, hours, and working conditions. The prerogative of management to make virtually all corporate decisions regardless of any impact on workforces was a privileged topic. Industrial democracy received scant consideration as the courts generally held that a grievance clause in a contract overrode the statutory right of workers to strike.

The author takes particular care to debunk the widely held notion that the post-Taft-Hartley industrial relations era through the 1970s was a time of labor-management accord. A companion idea was that collective bargaining represented "industrial pluralism" in action. But classes with opposed interests and distinct ideologies could no longer exist; society now was defined to consist of competing interest groups who engaged in "non-ideological conflict." It was a theory that eschewed the idea that "alert citizen-workers" were the basic political actors of society. Industrial pluralism required that "competing elites bargain, compromise, and govern." Labor unions were only fulfilling their legitimate role when led by unassailable officers of long tenure. In addition, capitalism was now a benign force; it had been transformed into a rational planner for industrial society.

Global economic forces beginning in the 1970s undermined this supposed labor-management accord. Increased global competition, OPEC, inflation, and reduced corporate profits triggered new assaults by businessmen, conservatives, and various pundits on unions, casting them as "self-aggrandizing interest groups." Meanwhile a new rights consciousness, fueled by the civil rights movement, coupled with a loss of credibility and trust for unions persuaded workers to look to state regulatory legislation for workplace protections. But it was a pursuit for protection of individual rights based on gender, race, age, etc and not collective rights to industrial democracy. It was a focus that left unchanged the basic power structures in workplaces. Worker solidarity and workplace democracy no longer resonated with workers.

The author clearly regards the collective bargaining regime of American industrial relations, as it has evolved, to be a "product of defeat, not victory." Obviously material gains were made by many through collective bargaining, but the trade union movement has mostly failed in facilitating the democratic voice for all of the American working class.

What does the author suggest? It is a simple list: militancy, internal union democracy, and politics. There really is no assessment of the feasibility of the labor movement solving the labor question and establishing industrial democracy. Unlike the 1930s, there is no pent-up demand for workplace democracy. Consumerism seems to be the operant ideology of the American working class. This is an important book that leaves little doubt as to the state of unions. One is left wondering about the future of trade unions in the U.S.

Nelson Lichtenstein's new book, "The State of the Union," gives a history of labor unions in the United States by way of arguing for the need to restrengthen them, and I think the case is very persuasive.

Lichtenstein weaves together a number of themes to explain the decline in union membership and power. One is increased reliance on individual rights and legal protections. Federal laws ban all sorts of discrimination, endangerment, and abuse, but the federal government does not do an effective job of protecting workers from retaliation for asserting their rights and almost nothing to maintain other important elements of the workplace, such as wage levels or the prevention of mass layoffs.

We have learned to think of ourselves as individuals protected by laws, rather than brotherhoods and sisterhoods protected by our strength in numbers. We have a long list of rights, including - most notoriously - the "right to work." So called Right to Work laws clearly hurt unions but are not too far afield from modes of thought that labor supporters have engaged in themselves.

Unions are now seen as ways to protect individual jobs and proper grievance procedures following individual wrongs, not as cross-company efforts to lift the wages and benefits of entire industries. If the purpose of a union is simply to protect me from specific injustices, surely I ought also to respect my coworker's right to not be coerced to join, right?

But if the purpose of a union is to change society and improve the lot of all workers, then clearly the "right" of my coworker to be a freeloader and drag us all down is not to be respected.

The case Lichtenstein makes is that in the process of making fantastic gains in the Civil Rights, Feminist, and other movements, leftists unwittingly sacrificed a conception of the labor union that is badly needed today. No doubt, this analysis will annoy some people, but it ought to be taken as encouraging. The right didn't defeat us; we beat ourselves. Therefore, a reconstituted labor left can successfully fight back.

This book provides very good advice on how security works, and some way hackers had invaded systems.

Includes, Java, CGI, SATAN, Kerberos but lacks an step by step advice to protect networks. The book is all about Unix...

This book cover a width range of themes, include security for winnt, unix. Also cover security with CGI, Java.. Excellent !!!

This is a wonderful collection of patterns that can be completed by scroll sawyers of all skill levels. Each basket is made by cutting a single layer of wood and then stacking and gluing the layers on top of each other. The end product is a basket, candydish, or napkin holder that appears to be woven in the style of those expensive Longerberger baskets now popular on the "Tupperware Party Circut". I have now completed three of these baskets. The amazing thing is no one has yet been able to figure out how they were made. Even my woodworking friends were amazed by this new technique. Patterns for 10 wooden baskets are provided in this 60 page full sized pattern book. Each pattern is accompanied by a photograph of the finished basket and the book opens with a chapter explaining the entire process through text and photos . The patterns call for wood between 1/4 and 1/2 inch in depth, but I have successfully made baskets with 1/4 inch plywood and 3/4 inch pine. The patterns can be enlarged or shrunk on a coppier and wood types and thicknesses can be varied to create a wide variety of objects. A scroll saw or fret saw is needed to complete these projects.

This book has idea very good about you use your scroll saw, the patterns are easy to follow, they are simple idea but very very ingenious, excellent, buy it, you won't waste your money

As a descendant of William L. Manly, and as an avid reader of history, the book appealed to me. It is a tale of raw survival and heroism, as well as a testament to the pioneering spirit of people from our American past. It is also a book of human triumph over one of Mother nature's most trying environments on Earth. The easy-going narration of the events in William L. Manly's life draw you into the scenery, the essence of the beautiful, yet enigmatic desert which lures yet imposes such harsh demands on the body and soul. It seemed that the nearly intolerable conditions that William and his fellow pioneers endured were a kind of "Offering" to the desert, which is one of Mother nature's testing grounds of the human spirit.

First hand account of pioneers crossing the American west in 1849. Epic and heroic in scope, Manly describes hardships and an America nearly lost to history. Where it survives is in the deserts and wastelands of Utah, Nevada and California. One will never be able to travel these regions without thinking of Manly, Rogers and the Bennet-Arcane party.

Jean and I edited the Heyday Books edition of Manly's monumental work. This edition has foreward by Dr. Limerick and Jean and I added a preface, 400 notes, an epilogue, and an index. We, of course, are biased and think this is the best edition of his book. Needless to say, the original edition is the best. We hope you enjoy Manly's words and our additions.

I have always liked the Schaum's series of books. They are straightforward and to the point. This text was no exception.

The most important aspect of this book is that it can be used as a supplement to most of the popular texts. I used it along with Beer & Johnston and Shames.

Quite a useful book on a difficult, hands-on subject.

I wholeheartedly recommend this treatise on statics anddynamics, one which I am surprised has not been nominated for aPulitzer Prize. The explanations of the concepts are impeccable, butbuy this book for the cool Venn Diagrams that illustrate most pages.

Of course, one should expect this book to be of high quality, as one of its authors is Dr. Charles Best. Dr. Best is famous for having taught in the Engineering Department at Lafayette College for decades, chairing its Bachelor of Arts in Engineering degree program.

I have had Statics and will be taking Dynamic's next semester. I bought this book so I could get a head start on next semester as I heard the professor is tough and the material is difficult.

The parts that cover Statics were a very good supliment to what I had learned last semester. Kind of like the Reader's Digest version, I couldn't figure out what parts they had left out. It seemed pretty complete to me. They even covered stuff we didn't. We didn't have anything in our class wrt differential equations, but this book did. Since I have had diff eq, it was nice to see it being put to use and I learned something.

On the Dynamic's side, it is a bit of a tough go. I am using this as a primary/only text and do not have the benifit of an instructor. I am wading through slowly. I wish there was a bit more explination before the examples. This is where an in class text book would be helpful. I believe that this book will be a valuable resource when I actually start the class.

This is a highly distorted and poorly researched book written by liberals with an agenda. Readers should first see "Missionary Capitalist: Nelson Rockefeller in Venezuela"(2002).

The authors of "Thy Will Be Done" are examples of those described in "Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiots" and "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War".

This is one of the half dozen best books I have ever read. It answered a lot of questions as to how the power brokers operate. I found some answers to the Kennedy death.

I agree with all the reviews above, especially the last writerwho said to buy it and keep it.

I would only add that the authorsof Thy Will Be Done did an outstanding job of illuminating the intense conflicts between the Kennedys and Rockefellers on almost every business and government issue. Each well-sourced fact paints a picture of how much Big Business, Big Oil and Big Banks hated the Kennedys.

Col. Fletcher Prouty (Man X in the JFK movie) and the makers of the movie Executive Action pointed to a cabal of Big Money as the group that set the JFK assassination machinery in motion. I have always thought this a plausible theory but it needed more facts to support it. Colby's book provides them, in bits and pieces, scattered througout its chapters without ever announcing any belief in a conspiracy to kill JFK.

Yet, when I finished the book, I had a much clearer picture of these Big Money fat cats sitting around, discussing matters of mutual interest, including the fate of the Kennedys. And, there, at the head of the table, sat the Rockefeller Brothers.

Anyone interested in finding out more should consider reading a book by Donald Gibson called Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy Presidency.