For readers unfamiliar with the growing Peace Studies Movement this book will provide lucid, challenging and inspiring information for understanding contemporary world conditions. The dialogue format is excellent for both general and academic reader and it contains none of the alienating, arrogant and removed discourse of academe. For the intelligent reader who is interested in the relationship between spiritual health of communities and how the world arrived at the condition it is in today, this is an excellent starting point that will leave you wanting more from both authors.

Two leading figures in international peace studies explore the applications of Buddhism in nonviolent solutions to various forms of conflict. Well presented. Highly recommended for Buddhists as well as students of peace studies. Admirers of Professor Galtung will be delighted.

In this book, "Choose Peace: A Dialogue Between Johan Galtung and Daisaku Ikeda," world-renowned professor of peace studies at the University of Hawaii and founder of the International Peace Research Institute, Dr. Johan Galtung, and Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhist scholar and current president of Soka Gakkai International, the world's largest Buddhist organization, explore the interface between Buddhist philosophy and nonviolent solutions to war and political conflict.

The two scholars share various painful memories of growing up during World War II. Mr. Ikeda suffered illness as well as the loss of his dear older brother who died in combat, adding to the anguish his family sufferred. In Dr. Galtung's case, during the Nazi occupation of his homeland, Norway, Dr. Galtung's father was imprisoned in a concentration camp in retaliation for his resistance activities.

Their shared quest inspires concrete proposals that are directly relevant to conflict resoulution today, including such hot topics as the death penalty, nationalism and regional unification, religious fundamentalism, the proliferation of nuclear arms, and the role of the United Nations in peacekeeping around the world.

"Choose Peace" is presented as a dialogue between these two scholars, and identifies the various sources of violence and unrest, while demonstrating the role of Buddhist philosophy in formulating solutions that will lead to lasting peace.

Richard Ellis has recently published a new book which at present is only available through UK distributors. You can find it at Amazon.co[m].uk

The new Title 'Reiki And The Seven Chakras' offers us a unique perspective of the practice of Reiki by drawing on the authors personal experiences and conclusions coupled with an in depth step by step journey through the seven chakras.

Highly recommended

for more information go to www.practicalreiki.com

This book is a beaurifully written resource about the practice of Reiki, an energy healing method. I recommend it to any one who is interested in alternatives to traditional Western medical practice.

As a student Reiki, I was referred to this book. As a now Reiki Master, I recommend it to students, or anyone wishing to understand this great Universal Healing Energy that we all have. It has short chapters, that are in depth, with illustrations. It is not the end of all of Reiki knowledge, but Richard Ellis has packed as much as he should have into this easily transportable book. It is sturdy, and has flaps, built into the book, at either end for bookmarking. A great tool for Reiki Masters, and an easy to understand book for newcomers to Reiki.

Bosnia has pretty much faded into the background of American concern. When the American Division of the NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) rolled in on December 1995, the spotlight was on Bosnia and Americans became aware of the military role that their forces would play in the Balkans. Out of the tragedy and confusion of war came a book entitled "Cry Bosnia" by Paul Harris which chronicled the war in Bosnia itself through words and pictures.

Inspired by the success of Cry Bosnia, Ruppert Murray decided to write a similar book which would focus on the peacekeepers themselves rather than the political elements of Bosnia. His idea was merely to write minimal text with pictures but as he began to interview the soldiers and have them share their opinions, backgrounds and experiences the book began to take a life of its own. IFOR on IFOR is the soldiers' stories of their perceptions of why and how they came to Bosnia and what they feel their presence will accomplish.

The book is divided into three sectors representing the United States of America Division, the British Division and the French Division. He interviews the men and women of the armed forces who candidly share their views with him. Listen to these young warriors as they share their apathy, hope, and naivite in sharing their views of their deployment. The voices are diverse within each division and you can see the differences of opinions that run from nation to nation. The insights you get are extraordinary.

On a personal note, I was deployed to Bosnia and stayed there for a year. Everything that you have read, heard and seen in these interviews are what I experienced with this group of international soldiers. I highly recommend this book to you in getting the story of the soldier. Six copies returned home with me and many more were purchased for friends and relatives. This is an excellent chronicle in pictures and words.

This book offers a valuable insight into the attitudes of military personnel who were stationed in Bosnia to implement the Dayton Accord. I have read many books on Bosnia which have fuelled my indignation at how the international community stood by and let the Serbs mount what is tantamount to a genocidal war against Bosnian Muslims. This book gives an idea of how military people felt about the Bosnian issue. Their attitudes range from the idealistic and noble to short-sighted and complacent ( in fact some will fill you with rage at their indifference). It is rare that one encounters a book dealing with a major historical issue which allows the ordinary person, albeit a soldier, to articulate their views so openly. The photographs are excellent and Mr Wolfe Murray's introduction is very insightful. It would, however, have been even more interesting to have a similar book which gives voice to those UN troops who were there at the height of the conflict.

The book was given to me by the author himself with dedication and as soon as I read it it became my absolute favourite. IFOR on IFOR has the largest accumulation of reviews, interviews and facts as well as interesting thoughts not only by the author himself but by the interviewed soldiers as well. As the author is in Bosnia from 1993, he knows the situation so if you need a close-up look on our rugged country check this book out.

This is an excellent book especially for newly diagnosed kids and their parents. It was easy to read and understand. I have implemented many ideas from this book and I highly recommend it.

A wonderful book that took me through the hurdles when my grandson was first diagnosed. I referred to it again when researching my own book about type 1. I recommend it highly.

This book contains the most common sense, practical information I have found yet for helping manage my toddlers diabetes. This is not a medical text, but an easy to read guide for managing insulin, meals and the behavioral problems related to diabetes. There are excellent suggestions on how to not let the behavioral problems develop. I highly recommend this "down to earth" book

Over the course of a busy day, parents may find themselves in situations that they don't know how to handle. This is where stress plays a part - it's very easy to get caught up in the day's craziness. When parents reach this point, even the simplest ideas and solutions are easily forgotten.

The book, "The Don't Sweat Guide for Parents," will help parents when life gets a little crazy! This book is filled with stress-reducing ideas and solutions for situations involving children of all ages. The ideas in this book are easy enough to put to use, and they may just make you a less-stressed parent!

My ParenTime recommends "The Don't Sweat Guide for Parents" - it's convenient pocket size makes it easy for parents to carry around it's wisdom and ideas on how to remain sane :-).

As a fulltime work-at-home mother of three (including one toddler), I have my fair share of stress -- kids, house, husband, pets, dinner, laundry -- you name it, I get stressed! I have previously enjoyed other versions of "Don't Sweat The Small Stuff" and was thrilled when I received a copy of "The Don't Sweat Guide For Parents: Reduce Stress and Enjoy Your Kids More"! I read this wonderful book in an evening because I couldn't put it down. Every section seemed to speak to me -- such as # 50: When Super Mom Feels Less Than Super. Did they know I would be reading this book?

This book, while small and compact, is a must for all parents. I think it is especially great to give to an expectant couple. It will give you lots of great advice, soothing thoughts, and superb strategies for coping with the up's and down's of parenting. I highly recommend!

Enjoyed reading DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF FOR MEN by Richard Carlson . . . this is the latest in Carlson's "small stuff" series, and it does not disappoint . . . he continues to offer simple ways to minimize stress in a competitive world . . . they seem to make sense, at least to me, and can be applied to virtually any situation . . . although directed at men, I think women would also benefit from reading it . . . by the same token, methinks men could benefit from reading the companion DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF FOR WOMEN (written by Carlson's wife Kristine) . . . I know that I'll be looking for it.

I liked many ideas that I got from the book; among them:
Have an affair. . . .The idea is to reignite your passion for living, and to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Remind yourself how precious and how short this adventure really is. I read a great book called A PARENTHESIS IN
ETERNITY . . . What a great way to think about the duration of your
life--as a blip on a passing screen. We're here for a moment in
time--and then we're gone. Why waste one second of self-pity,
frustration, and all the rest? Our lives are so much more important than that.

Consider how you would respond to the following two sentences spoken by a spouse, lover, or friend. First, "I hate my stupid job; (its bad)." Or, "Do you know what I'd really love to be doing?" Wow--what a difference. In the first sentence, you, as the listener or receiver of the complaint, want to leave the room. Your instinct is to pull away. In the second, however, you want to hear more; you want to engage in the conversation because it brings you closer to the person who is sharing.

Be for something rather than against it. . . . You can see how easy it is to be working with very positive intentions, yet still find a way to drive yourself nuts. Some environmental activists, for example, are doing great things-choosing to be vegetarians, picking up litter, cleaning up the beaches, planting trees, recycling, and raising awareness as well as money for the causes they believe in. Others, however, yell and scream, block traffic, chain themselves to trees, and starve themselves in an attempt to accomplish their goals.

I am a female who recently bought this book as a gift for a relative. Before wrapping, I skimmed the book to see if it had the same Richard Carlson quality. Indeed it does!

This book, just like the other don't sweat the small stuff titles, includes ways to overcome difficult times. It will give you a positive attitude and help you gain peace with yourself, and uprooting events.

Good Christmas gift!

I bought this book just because Professor Ebeling was my economics professor, but I finally got to reading it and it has really made me think. They do a very good job of impeaching the accomplishments of each war since the Spanish American war -- particularly the Second World War which is seen as a great, heroic war. They ask an important question? Was the second world war nothing more that a war between competing forms of fascism? Was all of that blood shed so that the Soviet Union could dominate Eastern Europe? A lot of paper is wasted trying to prove that FDR had a conspiracy the cause pearl harbor for political support for the war. This reflects a trait of the book that is a trait of Prof. Ebeling's lectures: a little too much emotional rhetoric at times, but that is OK there is plenty of reason to make up for it. There is a logic to this collection of essays that will make you question whether US hegemony promotes freedom.

Starting with the Spanish-American War in 1898 and covering virtually every foreign conflict up to and including the Gulf War, this densely-packed volume of essays levels detailed and devastating criticisms against America's interventionist, and often brutal, foreign policies.

Culled mostly from the pages of "Freedom Daily", no punches are pulled as even "good" wars such as World War II are subjected to withering critiques: bashing the fire-bombing of Dresden, the use of atomic bombs against Japan and post-war repatriations.

This book is a must-have for your personal library if you are interested in defending a strict, non-interventionist foreign policy from a moral and practical standpoint. No other book covers such a range of conflicts so well.

This book changed the way I see God. I saw that the "Gospel" of Peace or the "Good News" of Peace is that God has made peace with human beings through His Son. We don't have to be afraid of the one who went to so much trouble to have relationship with us. I loved this book, and it caused me to fall in love with God all over again. Don't miss it!

This book isn't as normal as it looks--the theology is backwards from what many of us have learned in church, but it is completely consistent with the Bible and really ministers a gospel of PEACE and not of guilt. It has really opened my eyes to what the scriptures really mean. I recommend this to absolutely everybody--it has completely changed the way I see God and my walk with Him. If you have the opportunity to get this book, do it and you'll know why you did in the first chapter. It says what my heart knew but was afraid to say. It's incredible.

You don't necessarily need to have an anthropology degree to read this "psychocultural analysis" of Korea--the author is an excellent writer and I found his approach, style and analysis to be very intriguing, provocative and powerful. At any rate, a work like this is precisely (desparately) what is needed. There is such a dearth of material that examines how north and south Korea think about each other as similar/different in terms of unification. Most people just assume it is a given without looking at it more closely. I found it fascinating and informative to catch a glimpse of how post-war south Korea problematically depicted the north through school books, student demonstrations, and museum exhibits. And yes, I agree with the other reviewer: The chapter on the thoughts of north Korean defectors was something I was hungry to learn about it and it didn't let me down.

It is so hard to think about the two Koreas--they are placed in such a reductionist, bi-polar context that any nuanced or multifacted view or outlook is hard to discuss. The author demonstrates how complicated, contradictory and ultimately unprepared Koreans are for this "sacred goal" of unification. I was struck by how limited and "stuck" Koreans have been in their assumptions about national identity, defining themselves in opposition to each other all the while pushing for unification. A great virtue of this book is that it avoids the typical approach of other scholars, pundits and news commentators who take a dry, "political science" approach to north Korea, limiting their analysis to geopolitics, regional power dynamics, diplomatic strategies, nuclear prolliferation issues, blah blah blah. The author uses museums displays, children's textbooks and TV shows, as well as real life interviews with defectors. Quite a good book with excellent analysis that will leave you feeling that you learned to realize something oh-so-human and fascinating about a deadlocked political situation in an illuminating way.

I'm not aware that there is an comparable book on Korea. Some may find it too "academic" (I don't) but the prose is still lucid and it is a unique book. Anyone interested in north-south Korea relations should read this. The material on defectors is especially good.

Books that portray an objective, fair and unbiased assessment of Israel's 'Operation Peace For Galilee' are very difficult to find..

In my experience most books on this subject appear to have a hidden agenda of vilifying Israeli military involvement in Lebanon whilst casting aside the wholesale, indiscriminate cross-border terrorism of Palestinian terrorist entities that caused such an involvement in the first place. Other books appear to be dedicated to the de-humanisation of then Defence Minister, Ariel Sharon, for an alleged connection to the horrific massacres of Palestinians at the Sabra/Shatila refugee camps by Lebanese 'Christian' Phalange militia.

This book is refreshing and perhaps unique in that it seeks to provide as balanced an analysis as is possible.

Richard Gabriel, Professor of Politics, only proceeded with this book on the understanding that he was able to avoid any involvement with the Israeli censors and that he was permitted to obtain a neutral publisher. The final results of Professor Gabriel's study only being seen upon publication by any interested parties at the very same time as everyone else.

Professor Gabriel was able to draw upon interviews with many journalists - Lebanese, European, British, American and Israeli. The author was also able to spend unsupervised time with 'PLO suspects' detained in Israeli and Lebanon to gather the personal impressions and opinions of these prisoners in relation to their treatment and the conflict itself.

Access was also provided to numerous Palestinian Doctors and Nurses in Lebanese camps and also to many high officials in the Lebanese Government and combatants/members of the 'Christian' militias, the Druse militia and the Amal Moslem milita, thus providing some 'enlightening' information on the nature of the ethnic and religious hatreds prevalent within Beirut and Lebanon.

Similar access was provided to the Israeli side which also included interviews with the battalion & company commanders in the field together with the 'common' soldiers who bore the brunt of the combat.

The author was provided with his own transport and able to travel throughout the Lebanese battle zones, retracing by car or on foot, all the major routes of advance taken by the major Israeli units. This included the Bekaa Valley, Damour, the outskirts of Beirut itself and the region overlooking Damascus.

The author, having access to the actual terrain of the battle sites and with some eighteen years as a former Army & Intelligence officer, was able to comment in knowledgeable context about the operations at first hand.

One is left in no doubt about the horrors of this conflict and the traumas of having to frequently fight against an enemy hiding in civilian areas, with the harrowing experience which unavoidably ensued, of seeing civilians die as a result of military actions.

The author analyses the Sabra & Shatila massacres in some detail and credits the Israeli Government for not following the path of the debatable US Government reactions in relation to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and instead proceeding to condemn the action outright, whilst also convening an immediate tribunal of investigation.

(Might I respectfully direct those interested in Ariel Sharon & the Sabra/Shatila incident to the excellent work by Uri Dan entitled "Blood Libel". This book covers in depth the trial/court-case against Time Magazine for it's allegations against Sharon in relation to the episode. Oft ignored information is aplenty in this particular work.)

As is the nature of this book by Professor Gabriel, the main features involve the immediate context surrounding Israeli operations in Lebanon. Of necessity therefore, I suppose many aspects of the Lebanese conflict are unable to be included in any detail.

For example, the massacres at Tel az-Zataar and the Lebanese Christian towns of Damour, Aishiye, Beit Mallat and Tall Abbas. Massacres committed at these places by Palestinian militia under the control of Yasser Arafat, where it is estimated that about 100,000 Lebanese civilians were killed. I was disappointed that attention could not have been paid to important issues such as these, and also indeed to the Syrian massacre of civilians at Hama where some estimate that 30,000 or more Lebanese civilians were killed. These innocent victims still needing a voice to speak out for their plight.

All in all this is a splendid book which portrays a human aspect to both sides of the conflict sadly lacking in other books on the Lebanese conflict.

If you are looking for a politically-skewed analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict or an overly biased account of the war, this is not your book. I say overly biased because all author have an opinion that is expressed overtly or covertly in their writing.

Richard A. Gabriel, a well-respected professor of politics at St. Anselm College, former US Army intelligence officer, and consultant to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees as well as the Pentagon, has written what is probable the most objective and well-written account of the 1982 War in Lebanon between Israeli, Syrian, Lebanese, PLO, and other forces. He has written numerous books about military actions including several books that constructively criticized the American actions in Vietnam. Several of his books have since become requred reading for courses at military academies.

Prof. Gabriel went out of his way to write an objective analysis of the combat, going so far as to interview PLO officials, IDF soldiers, and others. He also toured the battefields as they occurred as a guest of the IDF. Even more to his credit, he made a stipulation of his touring the front with the IDF that IDF miltary censors not be able to review his transcripts at all until after publishing. This means that he was able to effectively write whatever he wanted.

The book itself is brilliant. Within its' 242 pages are numerous analyses of various tactical and strategic conflicts of the 1982 War. He lists grievances and events of all sides into the war and yet hesitates to make value judgements about any of them short of miltary stance. While avoidings making the book a massive judgement of the political stance of any of the fighters, he doesn't hesitate to list political factors that the combatants considered at the time of the war.

One of the greatest treasures of having toured Lebanon and the conditions there is that he was able to disprove many of the false accounts that the media of the time forwarded to the public. Being a meticulous researcher also means that he always quotes sources and provides appropriate background. For instance, the PLO (through the Lebanese newspaper "An Nahar")claimed that Israeli forces killed 17,825 civilian noncombatants killed and wounded 30,103 civilians. Mr. Gabriel analyzed all of the data available from various sources (including interviews with village mayors and other on-the-site witnesses) and came up with a more likely figure of 4,000 to 5,000 killed and 12,000 to 14,000 wounded.

If you are looking for an account of the 1982 war that objectively evaluates military actions of the combatants then Prof. Richard A. Gabriel's "Operation Peace for Galilee - The Israeli-PLO War in Lebanon" is unparallelled. I highly recommend reading this book whether you are looking for more background on the Arab-Israeli conflict, are a military historian, a wargamer, or just someone interested in knowing more about the Middle-East.