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The lecturers proceed through the phases of the life of Jesus-- or rather, chronologically as they would through the life of any person. The lectures deduce from archeological information the politics of the times, and reason to the kind of message Jesus must have delivered in order to attract a following. They are not afraid of the implications of, for example, the fact that Jesus came from Galilee. They dismiss with granite hard logic, the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew as fiction, and then proceed to deal with the fact that Jesus' origins in Galilee meant certain things, and here in what they are.
The gospels are not dealt with as historical documents, but they are dealt with as texts that contain valuable information of the nature of Jesus message, (or at any rate, the public's reception of it) and therefore what made him attractive as a missionary figure. Several of the lecturers peel away layers of the texts to show different historical additions and interpolations. Jesus' eschatological message may not have been part of his original message after all, we learn.
This book is full of tightly packed prose, with little "paradigmatic" lecturese to wade through-- it's actually exciting to read. If you have the opportunity, you may read it in one setting.
I guess that the lectures must have come from notes, and not transcriptions, because they are chatty to different degrees. Some almost seem to be transcriptions, and some read like book chapters. I found this jarring at first, but as I read more, I found that it helped me distinguish among the lecturers, and that this was helpful.
My only reservation is Stephen J. Patterson's "Sources for a Life of Jesus." There is nothing new here. He gives the usual information about the historical question of the primacy of Matthew, the Markan Priority Hypothesis, the Q Hypothesis, the interpolation of Josephus, the Talmud Sanhedrin, etc. Anyone who has read a book on the historical Jesus before can skip this lecture.
And anyone with even a cursory interest in the Jesus of history should read this book.
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Also of note are the stunning photographs of the wildlife, land, and natives. They add immensely to the book, although it can be argued a good book needs no pictures. The pictures, in addition to the large font, make this book a short, but enjoyable read.
This book is also gives a micro-social look at British imperialism in Africa around the turn of the century...an interesting slice of Africana, especially through our arguably hypersensitive, politically-correct modern eyes.
Generally, an easy read, filled with local color, hunting, and excitement.
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If you are not a serious student, this book will be difficult to work through. If you are lazy and unwilling to really sit down and think about the material here, you won't be able to comprehend it well enough to solve the problems.
But, if you have a desire to learn this material and approach it with an open mind, you'll be delighted with the content. I wish it went more in-depth into modern processor design issues, but it lays the groundwork for understanding not only where we have all come from, but leads to where we're going, and why.
No other single book covers such a huge and complex topic so clearly and simply. But if you're unwilling to work at it, be prepared to hate the book.
This book walks you through the evolution of the computer architecture, touching on all the core concepts: basic operation in an ALU, cache systems, memory management, branch prediction, multiprocessor interconnects, specific processor designs, pipelining, and so much more. There's no better book to put on your desk.
For introductory textbooks, rather go to the other one from Hennessy and Patterson "Computer organization and design : The hardware/software interface" or Tanenbaum's "Structured Computer Organization".
However, with considerations about the scope of the book, it is excellent even if not easy. I don't think there something better on the market in the subject.
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However, while using this book in a class, I have come to realize how poor of a job it does at explaining said topics. I almost gave this 2 stars for an educational text, but for overall use I gave it 3.
The examples in the book give the answer immediately and provide hardly any explanation as to the answer. The most explanatory portions of the text are figures, which you have to reason through with little help.
An analogy to an example in this text is this:
Problem:
"Addition is the sum of two numbers. As an example, add 3 + 3."
Solution:
"3 + 3 = 6. Hence, addition is a useful operation and we'll use it from now on."
This is slightly exaggerated, but is not much different from how this book treats topics that a student needs explained.
I congratulate the authors on their knowledge and credentials, but they need to do a better job at instructing their readers.
In any case, this text is one of the best text I've seen. (And I have seen lots of computer books, from compiler design to VLSI design) If you're interested in how hardware works, get this book!
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