I credit this book hands-down with inspiring and introducing me to the beautiful art of glass etching. Page after page of breathtaking sophisticated etched glass carvings are interspersed with photos of smaller examples easily within reach of a beginner. The authors have had over 25 years in the business and now hold beginner through master level classes at their art studio in New Mexico.

This is a thorough book describing the various methods of etching, the materials, types of glass, types of techniques, etc. For example, etching cream - which is what I'm learning to use as a beginner is only capable of surface etching. Even so, this simple technique can make very beautiful designs on different types of glass. I've been practicing on jelly and juice jars I keep after finishing off said jelly or juice. That way, if or when I mess up it doesn't matter as much like it would had I practiced on an expensive wine glass or bowl. Soon I'll be ready to move on to the next project and type of glass to practice on. The authors discuss in particular detail surface etching, carving and shading. Applying and cutting various types of resists and etching creams, numbering patterns so you know which order to etch for a proper 3-dimensional effect, beveling, how to hold the carving/blasting wand, etc. is all here. Most of these techniques can be done now (at least on a small scale) with a small air compressor like the ones used for airbrush, portable blaster and tabletop sandblasting cabinets. Chapter 8 gives extensive advise on the various types of equipment (from hobbiest tabletop units to industrial room-sized) used for sandblast etching along with each piece of equipment's pros and cons.

I'm looking at one tabletop unit that is moderately priced (less than $270). With this one tabletop unit (which the book shows a photo of and discusses) anyone can start recreating even the most sophisticated designs and projects included in this book for beginners and beyond. Detailed step-by-step photos for each project are shown in each chapter and the patterns for each project are provided in Appendix B. The other Appendices cover a glossary of terms, suppliers of etching machines, stencil sources, sources for glass, further reading and handy reference charts covering Moh's hardness scale, volume/linear/pressure measurements and abrasive grit sizes including microgrit powders. It really presents a very broad overview of everything one needs to get started making beautiful glass etching/carvings.

And I want to stess again that page after page is a visual feast of gallery designs of what professional glass etchers can do. The cover of the book does not even begin to show how beautiful the artwork displayed inside really is. I can not stress this point enough. The artwork shown inside is truly worthy of anyone's coffee table. The fantastic thing is that I'm having a ton of fun learning this beautiful art - and all thanks to this one comprehensive book. Bravo! I want a sequel!

It was a boon to have this book Mr. Dobbins!! I have been able to etch and carve glass successfully and beautifully just with the help of the detailed instructions in the book! Today, if I am successful it is because of this book. Thankyou Mr. Dobbins for putting in your heart and soul into this book!! Aarti Jhawar(India)

This book fills a gap in the literature out there for people with AIDS/HIV and the law. This ACLU handbook will prove invaluable to people living with HIV and their lawyers. If anything, this book accomplishes the task of showing people how to take advantage of protective laws, particularly antidiscrimination laws in the workplace. this handbook makes it clear how to take advantage of protective laws.

Did any of the people who gave this book good ratings even bother to read Goldhagen's book? I sincerely doubt it. 'A Nation on Trial' is simply a collection of lies and falsifications, false quotations and appalling misrepresentations.
Let me give you one example, out of the innumerable cases, and I challenge any of the fans of Finkelstein and Birn to come up with any justification whatsoever for this.
In one of her delirious critical outbursts, on page 204 of 'A Nation on Trial', Birn writes, referring to Goldhagen: "He also overlooks the fact that millions of Soviet POWs were starved to death before it dawned on the German authorities that they had a problem with a labor shortage."
On page 290 of 'Hitler's willing Executioners', Goldhagen writes: "Despite the ardent and until then decisive ideological opposition to the employment of Russian 'sub-humans' within Germany - a purely ideological stance that had led the Germans to kill, mainly by starvation, 2.8 million young, healthy Soviet POWs in less than eight months - the policy was reversed during this period. In 1942, owing to ever more pressing economic need, the Germans stopped the decimation of Soviet POWs through starvation and began to use them as laborers, leading by 1944 to the presence of over 2.7 million Soviet citizens (many were not POWs) working in the German economy."
Did Birn even read the book she was supposed to be 'reviewing'? Or, just like her fans, she doesn't bother to read the books she talks about? And this is only one out of dozens of cases where the authors (I must suppose willingly, unless they really cannot read) ignore, distort, falsify and manipulate Goldhagen's work to fit their preconceived destructive agenda.
Throughout the pages of this book, all principles of scholarly critique are torn to pieces, humiliated, and annihilated. This book cannot be taken seriously.

Like the reader in the customer review above , I came to this book after having read Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners", a little uncomfortable about quite a few of the points he made. I was keen to see what the authors of this book had to say in refutation. In the event, I was somewhat disappointed.

The book comprises two separate parts, each written by one of the authors. About Finkelstein's part of the book, the less said the better. He fails to address any of the central issues raised by the Goldhagen book, and instead makes a series of tangential points. He intersperses personal attacks on Goldhagen with a scattershot technique of refutation: many of the arguments he raises either support Goldhagen or are totally irrelevant. The words juvenile, badly-written and scatterbrained pretty much sum up his part of the book!

Ruth Bettina Birn's part of the book makes for much better reading. Using a more restrained tone of voice, she faults Goldhagen primarily on this major point: that his data does not support his conclusions. Citing his selective interpretation of German legal transcripts and his heavy reliance on secondary sources, she demonstrates Goldhagen's retrofitting of data to support his conclusions. In the case of Police Battalion 101, this is especially telling. Goldhagen bases a large part of his conclusions on selective interpretations of another book (Christopher Browning's "Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland"), while in the same breath, discrediting the author of the book whenever his conclusions differ from Goldhagen's.

In the end, I would judge the debate a draw. Goldhagen's book, while thought- provoking, seems fraught with misinterpretations. (Personally, I find his monocausal "eliminationist antisemitism" theory a little wild-eyed). On the other hand, if you're looking for an incisive criticism of "Hitler's Willing Executioners", and a more believable explanation of *motive* in the Holocaust, then this book doesn't quite fit the bill, either!

Two means are primary in infuriating a critic: (1) stating facts that the critic doesn't want to admit and (2) a style that feels like salt in a wound even if the facts comply with the critic's need. Unfortunately--though sometimes amusingly too--Professor Finkelstein practices both.

The book is a response to Goldhagen's Harvard dissertation--which certainly challenges Harvard's academic credibility in my book--which asserts that the "ordinary Germans," a phrase frequently used by Goldhagen, though not defined by him, knew of and actively endorsed the mass slaughter of particularly Jews throughout the Third Reich. It consists of two separate essays, the first by Finkelstein and the second by Birn, the former the son of concentration camp survivors and the latter a professional in investigating crimes against humanity.

Both authors challenge Goldhagen's use of evidence. Finkelstein offers more "commentary," some essentially calling Goldhagen silly and inept. Finkelstein himself offers reams of contradictory evidence to the meager claims suggested as proof of Goldhagen's thesis. Many even of the Nazi officers were perfect bureaucrats more than they were ideologues. Anyone who has worked in a partisan political environment knows the tendency of many a staffer to do that. It's how promotions are allocated more than on the basis of competence or capability! So, because such and such an officer did what the Fuehrer said, didn't make him an inherent anti-Semitic, mass murderer.

And both authors criticize Goldhagen's contention that the "Holocaust" was unique in human history, and particularly suited to German brutality. Both offer several examples of similar activities undertaken throughout history.

As for the average German, there is more evidence of their helping out victims of the Reich than of their active complicity in the slaughter. Of course, these are petty items Goldhagen didn't use because they would have contradicted his angle.

Finkelstein has had a bone to pick with Goldhagen, and to some other hyper-Zionists for some time. His "The Holocaust Industry" showed something he reiterates more briefly in this text that "The Holocaust," while of less major political note before then became a veritable industry after the 1967 war. At that point to challenge anything about the Israeli state or about Judaism in general--even by Jews!--was proclaimed to have an anti-Semitic motive. Finkelstein, offering countless examples of that by "writers" such as Elie Wiesel, accuses Goldhagen of capitalizing off that sentiment and blatantly political motive.

Birn's is a very sober analysis of Goldhagen's selective use of evidence--pieces chosen simply because they fit his thesis. She even credited an earlier critique of Goldhagen of her work in which Goldhagen disputed her statements; apparently the quotation marks weren't in the right places. Her fine summary comments on the "trivialization" of the holocaust, which seems to be happening now that the number of actual survivors of that catastrophe dwindles.

I have a weakness for Finkelstein's matter-of-fact style. But if I were to be in a privileged enough position to have my work criticized by either Finkelstein or Birn, I would prefer Birn's criticism. My ego would be less bruised.

This book is important for those who have read Goldhagen's book and wonder about Goldhagen's--or Harvard's--integrity. It is important for those interested in the critical thinking process, and how someone of ostensible credibility, an Ivy League doctoral student, can make some awfully weak arguments in defense of his claims. And it is very important for those who want to keep contemporary politico-Zionism in context. Read it. But don't expect any soft pedaling by Finkelstein.

By the way, I would not have granted Goldhagen his Ph.D. for the sloppy, ideological work in his book. As Birn points out, his thesis is fit for those who want a simple answer to a more complex situation. I add that it resembles hate literature, that "those Germans" were like that. It is, therefore, a mirror image of what Goldhagen claims to despise: propaganda. I would not enroll in a course he teaches, or spend a minute reading anything he'd written.