The late henri Nouwen, of blessed memory, was one of the mostinfluential spiritual writers of the last century .His writings are rarely academic,and often are quite personal. Therse selections are taken from many of Fr Nouwens writings, put together with the appropriate scipture reading of the day, and concluded with a prayer from Fr nouwen. Two pages long each day, this book has been a faithful companion the last 3 lenten seasons for me. Nouwens own foibles make all the more poignant the struggles he expresses during Lent. Powerful reading from a good great man.

I've used this book for the last three Lenten seasons, and it just gets better each year. Each day's text is very short, usually less than 2 pages, so I don't ever feel that I just don't have time to read it. Even though the meditations are short, every day's reading is filled with challenges for me to become closer to God, and to find, as Nouwen puts it, the 'descending way'.

This year I purchased three more copies of this book to share with friends for their Lenten meditations.

This book is as real as it gets. Accurate, and moving.

This is a frighteningly real story that delivers a message that all should read and consider.
The book paints a true to life picture of the dilemma faced by all societies of the world in finding a solution to the destruction rooted in drugs.
The subject of alternate avenues to the unsuccessful "War on Drugs" is one that has not been given due debate by this nation's media.

Words on paper glow Photographs illumine new worlds Haiku becomes real.

"Ice-cream wrappers bloom

In overflowing baskets

Summer in the Park"

Jane Yolen

This is a "haiku" from the book. Each poem is matched with a memorable picture of the city. The pictures are of everyday scenes and the haiku are easy to read, yet the effect is haunting. Although the book is only 40 pages long, a person could spend hours reading and looking at the pictures.

Children and parents and teachers will read this book over and over.

When you think you know everything there is to know about American history in general, and World War I in particular, somebody like Arthur Barbeau and company comes along and educates you as to how ignorant you were. This book is a wonder and, with "The Unwept: Black American Soldiers And The Spanish-American War" by Edward van Zile Scott, provides a remarkable history of Afro-American soldiers in two wars over a period of twenty years.

Barbeau's indignation shines through when he asks the same questions a reader must ask about the injustices Black soldiers were subjected to in America as they prepared to depart for Europe, the indignities they suffered while attempting to fight a war to save democracy once in Europe while denied it in their homeland, and the suffering they experienced in Europe and upon their return to the United States after the war. But Barbeau's indignation is muted, reasonable, logical, and unobtrusive considering the horrors he describes Black troops being subjected to and the slanders against the bravery they displayed in spite of poor equipment, if any;poor training, if any;poor, non-supportive, and/or racist commanders;inadequate support; the institutionalized racism of the military that constantly demeaned them by declaring their inferiority in order to affirm white superiority;and the constant effort to develop Black soldiers as a slave-labor force instead of one prepared for combat. The descriptions of the outrages committed against these soldiers as they prepared to return to America and then after they did arrive "home" speak volumes about the all-important need to support the concept of white supremacy and enforce that of black inferiority in spite of the well-researched and documented facts Barbeu presents as to the fallacy of each.

Barbeau clearly establishes that there was more than one war being waged in Europe regarding the service of Black troops. But his documentation of the service and efforts of those troops in spite of their treatment by their own military can only cause one to marvel at the heights to which racial and national pride urged these brave men forward. The history of Black troops in WWI is known at last thanks to Mr. Barbeau's important contribution to an accurate history of warfare and the people who fight it.

Barbeau,et al, suggest that the "New Negro" of the post-World War I period was a direct outcome of the increased pride and dignity Black soldiers found during their service in Europe and which the French military saluted and honored many times with military awards, even though the US military attempted to discourage that recognition in various ways, including the distribution of a secret communication that attempted to justify discrimination against Afro-Americans by the American military and promote it in the French military and general society.

Read this book. Add it to your library. You'll refer to it many times in the future.

First published in the mid 1970's, this has been the only book on the subject for many years. An excellent treatment of the racial climate in America on the eve of the war, and the subsequent actions taken by the Army with America's entry in 1917. It provides a stark picture of the treatment given to African-Americans as they attempted to serve. It provides the reader with brief histories of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions, the two "Colored" divisions in the AEF and also gives a summation of the treatment given the returning troops. It has good footnotes and sources, and this edition has the added bonus of a forward by Bernard C. Nalty. If any criticism can be leveled at this book it would probably be that new scholarship in this field has uncovered more facts and new interpratations. Anyone interested in the American experience in World War one should read this book. It is written so that it is accessable to the scholar and history buff alike.

This volume is a handy collection of three of the most important books he wrote for general consumption. The translation is clear, and the 19th/early 20th century flavor of the writing comes through without sounding archaic.

Some historical figures are known to all cultured persons. Leo
Tolstoy, Johannes Brahms, Vincent Van Gogh -- these are names of
which most of us would be embarrassed to be ignorant. On the
other hand, few of us would think to add the name of Jules Henri
Poincare to this list; and yet, if we did, it would tower over
all the rest. For Poincare was a mathematician of the very
highest rank, an astonishingly fertile creative genius whose
prescient insight and technical mastery utterly transformed the
art to which he devoted his life. Among his predecessors in the
three-thousand-year history of mathematics, only Archimedes,
Newton, Euler, and Gauss can be said to have equalled or
exceeded him. By any standard, Poincare was one of the truly
great.

If for no other reason than this, THE VALUE OF SCIENCE is well
worth reading. It is, after all, quite rare to find a book that
collects the thoughts of one of the very few genuinely profound
intellects in human history. But what makes THE VALUE OF
SCIENCE truly wonderful is that it is not merely worth reading:
it is, in fact, a joy to read. For in addition to his uncanny
mathematical gifts, Poincare had the knack of expressing
himself beautifully in writing. Even in translation, his prose
has an admirable lucidity and grace, and his aphoristic style
often makes him highly quotable. When he speaks of mathematical
creation, as he does in a celebrated essay of that name, he
offers general readers a fascinating glimpse into the depths
of his own extraordinary mind at the peak of its imaginative
frenzy; his (scrupulously non-technical) account of one of his
greatest mathematical discoveries supplies an unforgettable
intellectual thrill, a sort of electric shock for the soul. For
anyone interested in the psychology of creation, this is simply
irresistible stuff.

A final brief caveat: although Poincare was clearly the greatest
mathematician of his time, he was not the greatest physicist. A
curious wrong-headedness kept him from beating Albert Einstein
to the creation of special relativity, and general relativity
eventually proved Poincare wrong in some of his opinions on the
relation between physics and geometry. So when Poincare speaks
of physics, bear in mind that some of his positions no longer
seem really tenable.

But this is no reason not to read every word of THE VALUE OF
SCIENCE. It's a marvelous book, and its author was a marvelous
man. Get to know them both. You'll be glad you did.

Fr Henri Nouwen and Sr Helen David Brancato,IHM have combined their talents for this book of the stations of the cross.The Stations comemmorate the 14{or 15 it differs} Stations of the path to the Crucifixion of Jesus. Sr Helen david has updated this byusing contemporary scenes{in striking color drawings} ofa man in prison{ Jesus is condemned} a campesino carrying wood{Jesus cariies his cross}an abandoned vietnamese child{Jesus falls the first time},etc. Fr Nouwen then relates each picture to the station of the cross. Very powerful meditative reading. Simple,honest and quite beautiful.

This book combines the beautiful drawings of Sr. Helen David with the meditations of Henri Nouwen to present a look at the sufferings of Jesus through the experience of human suffering in the world today. From Central America to Katmandu, the human experience is united to the suffering of Jesus Christ for all people of the world, and to the joy of His Resurrection. This is a truly new look at a traditional devotion, and an invitation to the Christians of today to "Walk With Jesus".

An absolutely fascinating read, at a level suitable for both professional scientists and academics but easily accessible to the layperson as well. This is essential reading for anyone with an interest in holism, holistic science and the limits of science. Bortoft provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of Johan Wolfgang von Goethe's approach to science, clearly showing the contemporary relevance of his entirely different way of coming to an understanding of the natural world. He underpins this analysis by his own philosophical research on the relationship between the whole and its parts.

In our daily thinking we tend to be stuck in what Bortoft calls analytic consciousness, through which we try to understand the phenomena in our world by analysing them into parts and then building them up again from those parts. In this way, the whole becomes an entity, which stands alone, albeit constituted from its parts. Goethe's way of science, however, draws on a very different conception of the whole, as being intimately entwined with its parts, in such a way that, in a sense, the whole comes into being through the parts, while at the same time the parts come into being through the whole. We can only really understand this by experiencing it and drawing on our intuitive mode of consciousness.

Bortoft shows how Goethe dwelled in the phenomena he studied to such degree that he was able to understand these phenomena, without needing to explain them. Moreover, Bortoft does an excellent job at showing how this mode of science is objective in the exact same way as conventional science is objective, in that it is verifiable by others, but dependant on a shared way of seeing the world.

Having read many parts of the book over again, I am in awe of the wholeness of this work, in the Goethean sense, so that each section forms both a part of the whole, but at the same time contains the entire work within itself. Once read as a whole, each section brings to life again the entire work, revealing each time new aspects and helping me to think afresh, with thought-provoking ideas. Striking in all this is how Bortoft has managed to bring the entire subject to life by showing so clearly how Goethe's science comes into being.

The relevance and importance of this work will no doubt increase over the years.

I don't know when I will have the chance to sing this books praises with more details, so here I will just say the following:

This book is a masterpiece on several fronts. Here we have the best articulation yet as to why modern science must reject the healing tonic which lives in Goethe's approach. Here we have the best articulation yet of how an alternative approach to science is possible- one that is systematic and exact, yet open and participative with nature.

The methodology presented in this book is epistemologically sound, unlike the on-looker/representational epistemology that modern natural science is necessarily bound to.

This book shows us how to begin taking a step in a beautiful, true and necessary direction. more later

No praise is adequate for this book with its strong unsentimental philosophical approach tempered with a relaxed style and exceptionally clear explanations of the material. It opens up a completely new way of viewing and doing science one not easily acceptable to a rigid interpretaion as it stands today. Very broad in its scope discussing very deeply the idea of world view, it is an essential read for any scientist even applied mathematicians such as myself. Unlike other books in the same vein eg metaphysical etc, in whose domain it does not belong, there are no fantastical explanations with no grounding but rather well researched arguments in favour of an almost a Socratic perspective, refering here to Socrates's character and life rather than Plato's use of him in his arguments. Recommended for all open minded readers and those who would like to have theirs opened.

The author continues his excellent overview of computational number theory in this book. And, as in the first volume, the writing is first-rate and gives the reader a comprehensive overview of the more advanced algorithms in the subject. Contrary to the first volume, I have not used many of the algorithms in this book and cannot attest to their quality, but the author gives the detailed background on each of them, enhancing their credibility. I read this book mostly to gain more insight into algebraic geometry and its connection with coding theory and cryptography. The following algorithms were ones that I found helpful and interesting but only a few of which I coded myself: (1) The algorithm for generating a random element from an ideal. (2) The compositum of two number fields (3) Valuation of a prime ideal. (4)Ideal factorization. (5)Smith normal form for finite groups. (6) Quotient of groups. (7) Group extensions. (8) Right four-term exact sequences. (9) Image and inverse image of a subgroup. (10)Subgroups with prime index. (11) Solving linear systems in integers. (12) Algorithms involving p-adic logarithms. (13) Computation of the Dedekind eta-function. (14) Unramified Abelian extensions using complex multiplication. (15) Computation of quasi-periods for elliptic functions. (16) Computation of the sigma-function for an elliptic curve.

Henri Troyat's "Alexander of Russia" (1980)serves as a nice sequel to his "Catherine the Great" (1977). Alexander I, Emporer of all the Russias (1801-1825) succeeded Catherine the Great (1762-1796) to the throne of the Russian Empire separated only by the brief reign of Alexander's father, Paul (1796-1801). Troyat's presentation of Alexander is a wonderful, vivid portrait of man known to history as the "enigmatic Tsar." Alexander had been provided an "enlightenment education" by his grandmother Catherine the Great. He had a fondness for liberty and a hatred of despotism and serfdom. Yet Alexander was frustrated in his hopes for reform of the Russian nation throughout the entirety of his reign.

Napoleon came to power in France and proceeded to conquer much of Europe. Suddenly, France, the traditional ally of the Russian Empire was an enemy. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 but was defeated. Alexander then played a major role in the restoration of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars. Meanwhile, reform was postponed.

Troyat has a lively writing style that holds the interests of the reader all way to the end of the book.

The book covers all types of Alkan's output, from his piano music, organ/pedal piano, chamber music, and even Alkan's music for just 2 feet on the pedal piano. Smith offers great analyses to Alkan's greatest works. A Wonderful book!!!!