What I thought would be a story about the Beach Boys turned out to be a book of piano music. I have no piano, can't read music, so therefore, it was very disappointing.

A good book for fans of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, and the ill-fated Smile album. Tends to gloss over the darker sides found in the other books but still insightful. Recommended reading.

This is not a typical biography. This book will deal with mostly music made after Pet Sounds and will either pique your interest on them, or go right over your head. If you have most or all the records post Pet Sounds, and love them and Brian Wilson!, then this is a must have book. Paul Williams goes into the asthetics of listening to their music. Where as most average fans listen with a superficial ear to the early hits and instantly relate to the all-American sounds, and sometimes are quick to pass on music made after Pet Sounds. He helps you make the transition from surf, cars, girls, to Siley Smile/Wild Honey, Friends/20+20. From Good Vibrations to Wind Chimes. There is more to this great home turf band than just the early hits and he helps you into that new territory. For those who already are in the know and are happily in the new territory, Paul Williams echoes your feelings. I found myself agreeing, with pleasure, on his accounts of listenings to certain records. The effects and nuances of the music. To my knowledge there is no other book that covers this aspect of the Beach Boys, and to me that is the main fabric of this band. How you feel when you listen is important to Brian Wilson when he songwrites, (as he states in many interviews). Paul W. deftly tells us what comes to his mind and encourages us on HOW to listen. His thoughts were always right on about the music, and in some ways brought my already deep appriciation for the music to a deeper understanding. Paul Williams writes from one fan to another. Like a friend relaying to you his accounts of all that he was fortunate enough to experience when all this music was brand new! A reviewer of many groups of the sixties, yet addicted to the positive music that just keeps coming from the beautiful well of Brian Wilson, the legendary SMiLE accetates, live shows, and to me, his precious thoughts on the records themselves. His was one of the ears who heard what was to be the original release of SMiLE. Includes a great interview with Brian at a later date, and a conversation with David Anderle, record producer. A fresh take from a fresh voice. Nothing redundant. A breathe of fresh air from all the rehashed bios. A must have for any rabid Beach Boys fan. Essential. I have read all the books about Brian Wilson and the band, including out of print biographies. I would say this book is in my top 3 favorite books.

I purchased this book after seeing the author interviewed on television and reading the reviews. I cannot understand the number of 5-star reviews this book was given. The only plausible explanation is that they were all written by Mr. Streitz himself. Whether or not Oxford was the son of Elizabeth I is irrelevant. This is one of the most poorly researched and poorly written books I have ever tried to read. I finally gave up after the third time he told of event that probably happened, but for which there is no proof yet, stating that sometime in the future "someone" should do the research. No, Mr. Streitz, that someone should have been you, and the time to do the research is before you write the book.

Bottom line - unreadable drivel.

According to this book, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is not only the author of Shakespeare's plays, but much of the rest of the Tudor canon. He, not Golding, translated Ovid. He wrote Euphues. He wrote The Spanish Tragedy. You name it. But that's just the literary part. It turns out he is not only the son of a 13 year old Princess Elizabeth but also the parent (with his mother, the Virgin Queen) of the Earl of Southampton, the young man of the sonnets.

You might think this is Oxfordianism run amok. You might be right. Moreover, the book suffers from many of the usual defects of the Oxfordian cause. The author is an amateur. His professional credits listed on the dust jacket include service in the 82nd Airborne in Vietnam, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and co-authorship of the musicals "Oh, Johnny" and "Madison Avenue, the subliminal musical". And the book is self-published and suffers from numerous typos and mis-usages, especially in the first part, where credibility is won or lost.

However...the book offers many plausible arguments and some hard data as well as speculation. If you have any interest in the Authorship Question, you should read this book. (If you don't have any interest, you should take an interest; final confirmation and general acknowledgement of Oxford as Shakespeare would illuminate and transform both Tudor history and literature.) Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James and many others long ago pointed out the implausibility of the Will of Stratford story that continues to be taught in school. Searching for the true author, the unfortunately named J. Thomas Looney fitted the glass slipper to de Vere during the First World War. And the professoriat has been trying to ignore it ever since. I suppose they fear looking foolish, and anyway the deconstructionists of the last 40 years have made clear that authorship is of no importance.

One academic, Roger Stritmatter, has recently given attention to the Earl's Geneva Bible in the Folger Library, where marginalia in the Earl's handwriting correlate very strongly with bibilical references in Shakespeare. The greatest need is to find more professors of English renaissance literature and Tudor history willing to break ranks and finally give attention to the mounting evidence in favor of Oxford as the author; they have relied on professorial hauteur long enough.

In the meantime, amateurs should carefully proofread their texts.

"Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth" by Paul Streitz (published by Oxford Institute Press, 2001) is an extraordinary and provocative book. It is likely to be considered totally unacceptable to "Stratfordian" Shakespearean scholars, who believe that plays and poems attributed to William Shakespeare can only be the work of the celebrated man of that name, born in Stratford-upon-Avon and christened "Gulielmus Shakspere" in 1564. By contrast, the book will be welcomed by "Oxfordians" who believe that the same plays and poetry should instead be attributed to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, born in 1548.

This authorship question has been growing for several decades. Streitz has now contributed to the debate by compiling historical evidence to suggest that Elizabeth I was the mother of the Bard, that the biological father was Thomas Seymour, and that the 16th Earl of Oxford (John de Vere) was his foster-father. These suggestions may be considered preposterous by many critics, but Streitz obviously would not have dared to publish his book if he did not have some substance to advance them.

Consider the so-called "Virgin Queen". Streitz notes that "in over four hundred years, there have been no critical investigations of whether or not Elizabeth had children". Evidently there had been rumours circulating in 1549, when Elizabeth was just 15 years old. In a letter addressed to Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, the princess herself referred to "shameful Schandlers" (slanders) that she was "with Child". In a second letter she appealed again to the Lord Protector, requesting that "no such rumours should be spread". Apparently she succeeded in this regard. Now, 450 years later, Streitz is the first person to link the "Schandlers" with events in the summer of 1548, when a child was born in suspiciously secret circumstances to a "very fair young lady" of about "fifteen or sixteen years of age". There is no proof that this young lady was princess Elizabeth, but Streitz considers this as a possibility in the context of events which he strings together to make a possible if not proven case. Notably, suspicions are associated with "the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the birth of the saide Edward, now Earle of Oxforde" (to quote from a late 16th century document)..

There is no doubt that the 17th Earl of Oxford was given opportunities to study in Cambridge (in 1564) and in Oxford (1566), and that he travelled to France and Italy (1575). Further, there is no doubt that Edward de Vere did write poetry, but not every modern scholar would accept that the de Vere poems correspond to the quality and style of those attributed to William Shakespeare. By contrast, Gabriel Harvey, a contemporary of the Earl, was absolutely flattering in 1578: "Thou has hast drunk deep draughts not only of the Muses of France and Italy...thine eyes flash fire, thy countenance shakes spears" (from Latin, 'tela vibrat', which can be alternatively translated as "brandishes spears"). Oxfordians venture to say that it is not coincidental that the name Shakespeare can itself be translated into Latin as 'tela vibrat'.

"Shakespeare's Sonnets", with a publication date of 1609 , have been interpreted in numerous ways. Streitz provides novel interpretations, suggesting not only that they include cryptic references to the 17th Earl of Oxford, but also that they were written by that dignitary whose dignity was diminished towards the end of his lifetime.

A poem with metaphorical references to bees is extraordinary. It includes references to henbane, hemlock and other substances, including tobacco. The line "wordes, hopes, witts, and the all the world [is] but smoke" leads to the statement "Twas not tobacco [that] stupifyed the brain". If the verse was indeed written by the Earl of Oxford, as Streitz suggests, perhaps at times he wrote under the influence of a substance more "bewitching" than tobacco: "from those [leaves] no dram of sweete I drayne, their head strong [fury] did my head bewitch"

"Oxford, Son of Queen Elizabeth" makes very interesting reading, even though one need not accept everything contained in it. There are intriguing facts, such as the Queen's grant of 1,000 pounds per annum to the 17th Earl of Oxford. That was an enormous sum of money in 1586. The obvious question is why? Was it really a gift from a benevolent mother to a playwright son? Streitz suggests that the anomalously large grant was intended to support actors and playwrights to prop up political power at a time when Elizabeth I had to be extremely careful against Catholic opposition at home, and the prospect of a Spanish invasion.

To assess the merits of the book, it is strongly recommended that it be read in its entirety. Even if one is willing to absorb and accept only parts of it, those parts may help to "flesh out" an understanding of relationships between Elizabeth I and the 17th Earl of Oxford, in the context of literary debate.

Reviewed by J.F. Thackeray, Transvaal Museum, Box 413, Pretoria 0001, South Africa

Another assembly line book on terrorism. Much of the text is essentially cut and pasted from online information. Little original groundline research was done in the book. The only redeeming feature is the author's foray into understanding how Islamic fundamentalists have 'mis'interpreted the Koran as a means to validate their activities.

I want my money back. There was nothing new in this book that CNN has not already reported. The dates for some of the attacks are also wrong. The USS COLE was bombed on OCT 12, not the 5th as written by the author. The author must have spent little time on research, it's all cut and paste text.

This book on Al Qaeda has a useable index and references to additional research sources that you can look up on your own (including Internet websites). This gives the book an extra dimension to just being something you read and put away.

Williams manages to cram quite a bit into a compact soft-cover and does a good job of giving the reader a scare. He also tries to describe the structure of Al Qaeda and how it raises money for its activities. He could be more thorough describing the background on bin Laden and Islamic unrest but perhaps that would at least double the size of his book. His references are also a bit loose and there was at least one instance where I could not corroborate his information.

Roberts, a masterful travel writer, has brought to us once again another gem from his collection. In three successive journeys to Iraq - before, during and after the U.S. war, he compassionately brings to full force the tragedy of modern Iraq and it's crazed leader. Using a sprinkling of history and humor over sometimes dangerous travels, he reveals the plight of the common Iraqi since the inception of Saddam's self-described "reign" in 1979. Roberts takes on the west and it's policies as well, and as he describes what it is like living in a crumbling society under a demonic leader, the likes of which we have not seen since Hitler, he brings to the forefront the massive suffering of the Iraqi people under western sanctions designed to further insure their demise. This is a very readable book; you will not put it down until you're through. Although not his best work, Roberts comes through again, pulling the heartstrings as he does in his other travel adventures - "River in the Desert" and "Empire of the Soul". You may not agree with his politics, but you will come away with a new understanding of what war and megalomania are all about. Don't miss it.

The best qualities of this book were it's humor, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and its open-minded account of the realities of life in Iraq. However, if you are offended by harsh language, by irreverence towards authority, or by cynicism, then you may not like what you read. Also, some of the funniest parts were the author's (supposedly) phonetically accurate accounts of conversations with various Arab people. While I found these very funny, I was a little concerned that they appealed to a certain stereotype. But since I don't mind when my foreign friends make fun of me, I comfort myself that I am entitled to laugh at this purported butchery of the English language (matched only by my last sentence!).

I also enjoyed the book's exploration of the causes of the Iraqi situation. As an American, I found some of the author's conclusions offensive, but overall, I thought he did a good job of extrapolating some very plausible explanations out of what seemed like a limited amount of exposure (which is still infinite compared to mine). Profound and insightful conclusions were drawn out of what were often very ordinary situations, and the whole thing was woven together with an almost total lack of pretense.

Overall, I think I came away with a better understanding of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi situation, and the similarities of human nature around the world. The humor, the realism, the disregard for authority, propaganda, and easy answers -- all of these factors made the book a pleasure to read.

Earnest idealists and humorless conservatives will never get it. The book is screemingly funny, obviously written by a keen student of the tragiocomic human condition. Roberts does a fine job clubbing us over the head with the absurd realities of third world existance (and making us enjoy it), while never letting us forget the underlying human tragedy. Nothing's sacred here, not history, not his host's English skills, not the press corps, not 300 pound gay secret policeman, not George Bush, and certainly not Saddam Hussein. I particularly enjoyed Roberts' hilarious commentary on Saddam Hussein's official biography, his tripped out interview with the demonic dictator poster boy himself, and the bit where he dared the leader of Islamic Jihad to show him exactly, exactly mind you, where it says in the Koran that Israel must be destroyed. I also loved the eerily plausible conspiracy theory where George Bush orchestrated the invasion of Kuwait. On another level I cannot forget the harrowing descriptions of a clandestine trip into the heart of Bagdad in the midst of the Gulf War bombing. The book had me laughing and at the same time educated me a bit about the history of the region. I liked it immensly, but then I'm more cynical then your average third world dictator.

Many people would like to say that Shakespeare did not write this play. But this is hardly fair. Even with the world's finest writers such as Marlowe and Dickens, not every single thing they write can be a masterpiece. But what makes "The Two Gentleman of Verona" worth reading? Well, Shakespeare presents us with a valid theme. (Conflicts often exist between romance and friendship.) There is also beautiful language. Launce and his dog offer some interesting comedy as well as a beautiful and memorable passage in 2.3. The scene where Valentine is accepted amonst the outlaws is memorable. This is Shakespeare's first play where a woman (Julia) disuises herself as man to do some investigating. It is also easy to see that several elements of this play were used in "Romeo and Juliet." To be sure, this is not a masterpiece like "The Comedy of Errors," "Richard III," or "King Lear." But it is still an good study that is worth some interest.

Although few would claim that Two Gentlemen of Verona is one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, it is well worth reading in order to serve as a reference for the best of his romantic comedies. In essence, Two Gentlemen of Verona gives you a measuring stick to see the brilliance in the best works.

The play has the first of Shakespeare's many brave, resourceful and cross-dressing heroines, Julia.

Shakespeare always used his fools and clowns well to make serious statements about life and love, and to expose the folly of the nobles. Two Gentlemen of Verona has two very fine comic scenes featuring Launce. In one, he lists the qualities of a milk maid he has fallen in love with and helps us to see that love is blind and relative. In another, he describes the difficulties he has delivering a pet dog to Silvia on his master, Proteus', behalf in a way that will keep you merry on many a cold winter's evening.

The story also has one of the fastest plot resolutions you will ever find in a play. Blink, and the play is over. This nifty sleight of hand is Shakespeare's way of showing that when you get noble emotions and character flowing together, things go smoothly and naturally.

The overall theme of the play develops around the relative conflicts that lust, love, friendship, and forgiveness can create and overcome. Proteus is a man who seems literally crazed by his attraction to Silvia so that he loses all of his finer qualities. Yet even he can be redeemed, after almost doing a most foul act. The play is very optimistic in that way.

I particularly enjoy the plot device of having Proteus and Julia (pretending to be a page) playing in the roles of false suitors for others to serve their own interests. Fans of Othello will enjoy these foreshadowings of Iago.

The words themselves can be a bit bare at times, requiring good direction and acting to bring out the full conflict and story. For that reason, I strongly urge you to see the play performed first. If that is not possible, do listen to an audio recording as you read along. That will help round out the full atmosphere that Shakespeare was developing here.

After you finish Two Gentlemen of Verona, think about where you would honor friendship above love, where equal to love, and where below love. Is friendship less important than love? Or is friendship merely less intense? Can you experience both with the same person?

Enjoy close ties of mutual commitment . . . with all those you feel close to!

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Maybe that's because it's one of the only one's I understand. My youth Theatre did a wonderful production of this play. I was not in it, but I saw it twice. It was set in the 60's, peasant-shirted and bell-bottomed. I think it's a wonderful story, although a bit unrealistic because of all the forgiveness that happens at the end of the play. But I think that it's a play everyone should read. This edition of the play is, I think, a very good one. If you are planning to buy a copy of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," I would advise you to buy the most current edidtion printed by the Folger Shakespeare Library. They have lots of information in the book, and many definitions of the more difficult Elizabethian words.

The "sloppy and disappointing" reviewer has it right on. If anything, the book is worse than that review indicates. The tapes were either transcribed by a particularly backward sixth-grader or someone who simply didn't care. There are mistakes on virtually every page, there is no index and narrative flow is replaced with a patchwork of jumbled memories. This is truly a crass, opportunistic rip-off.

If I see one more author write about the Sixties and excuse total unconcern for truth and objectivity with "If you can remember it, you weren't there!" ... Whenever this statement appears, you can prepare for gross errors of fact. And that's what you get with this book: A jumble of interviews with no evidence of fact-checking in site. This book isn't unique in this respect, of course. Lots of "rock encyclopedias" get birth dates, causes of death, family relationships, and other easily verified pieces of information wrong on every page. But this author solicited the help of devoted fans, some of whom are highly knowledgeable regarding the Mamas and Papas, and still managed to produce this disappointing and unenlightening muddle. Admittedly, Michelle's recount of her deathbed interview with John is not to be missed. But nearly everything else is either covered elsewhere (John's and Michelle's books, Denny's stage presentation, and Jon Johnson's biography of Cass) or questionable in integrity and intent. Particularly galling is the amount of mud slung at Cass Elliot, who of course can no longer tell her own side of the story, with no evidence of any attempt to contact anyone who might. Conspicuous by their absence are her sister, Leah Kunkel, and her last manager, Alan Carr (who was still alive when the early parts of this book were being researched). All in all, I could have done without this book. I was a teenaged Mamas and Papas fan in the Sixties: I was there, I do remember it, and this ain't it.

This book is just barely worth reading if you're a Mamas and Papas fan, but honestly you'll get more of a sense of the people and the times from John Phillips' autobiography, Papa John. The oral history format used here is confusing since there are no connecting bits by the editors to keep a strong chronological flow going. We hear a lot from Michelle and Denny, and not much from John. There are a couple of bits from Cass with no explanation--maybe they contacted her at a seance? It's made clear that Michelle wanted this book to serve as a corrective for some things that John had said over time, and I do like hearing her side of the story. But the book is so badly edited and proofread, it makes you wonder what other mistakes have been made. There are typos galore, filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker's name is misspelled, and whoever transcribed the tapes of the interviews did an especially sloppy job. Among other problems ("ideal" for "idea"), the imaginary word "innamorate" appears once; I can only guess that what was actually said was "enamored of..." Behind-the-scenes people like Bones Howe are given some space, but I would have liked to have read more about the actual music. As a big fan of the musicians, I was really looking forward to this, but it's very disappointing.

We used Lonely Planets for holiday travel in southern France for the first (and possible last) time. The recommended restaurant of Peter Mayle fame, Gu et Fils, on Frederick Mistral in Aix was either a typo or non-existent as we located the street but no restaurant to be found. Restaurant Le Merou Bleu of Marsailles was a mediocre tourist trap with despicable service. The impersonal nature of the LP recommendations for hotels merely define the facilities, but do not say enough about the character or level of cleanliness. We checked in (and out of) one of Lonely Planet's recommended two star hotels in Avignon and for about five euros more per night, found a potential three star hotel that was much better siutated, cleaner, bigger and quieter.

Boy was this book a disappointment. Other LP guides weren't this bad. It seems this book only tries to get you to those places every other tourist is at, and only by public transportation. It skips out-of-the-way places that locals know and love, chooses hotels in noisy central sections of larger towns only. Worse, my 2002 edition still didn't give costs in Euro! Thanks to friends living in various areas of France, I was able to visit wonderful places that aren't even mentioned in the book. Restaurants were poorly chosen, and almost always tourist traps. If you rented a car (which is a really smart way as a group) you won't find any info in this book about getting around, or doing such duh! activities as wine-tasting routes, swimming holes, you-pick farms, sound-and-light shows. LP, if you're reading this: ever heard of the Puy-du-Fou? Everyone in Europe seems to have been there!

I expect to use a book like this to help me plan a trip. It should be organized by region so I can decide among things that are close by. And I need the kind of information that goes beyond just listing the sites: is it crowded, charming, dangerous, special?

This book tries to answer these questions with a personal tone. As I read it I start to get a sense of the writers personalities and tastes, so that I can gauge my agreement with their opinions.

I wish the hotel and restaurant reviews shaded towards the high end a bit more. But I haven't found a series (I also have their guides to Europe and Mexico) that I can trust as well as this one.

This is volume one of a series, and perhaps should be read first to obtain the background for the other volumes. The author has trouble completing scenarios he creates. In some instances, the writing is clumsy. I have previously noted in reviews of books by other publishers that publishers should employ readers (people knowledgeable of the subject). This is another example of a book rushed into print without adequate proofing.

The book is three separate related novelettes. The first story features Isaac Biggs, captain of the foretop on the merchant bark Anne in 1810. It covers a time period of several days and deals with the problems and seamanship aboard the bark. There is a thieving third mate who intends to kill or injure Isaac. Having created this problem, the author extracts Isaac by having him pressed into service aboard an English frigate. No more is heard of the Anne or how the problems aboard were resolved. An additional chapter could have closed out this tale.

The second part of the book is a story about service aboard the British frigate Orpheus from 1810 to 1812. Isaac Biggs is a maintopman and plays a supporting role. The action skips forward rather quickly from 1810 to 1812 when the Orpheus leads a small squadron against a French convoy. Here the writing goes off track. The Orpheus is attacking a French brig, almost wrecking it completely with a couple of broadsides; then the brig is fighting like a frigate; then they board the brig; then they take off the captured officers who seem to be the complement from a frigate, etc. The author seems to lose track of where he is in the storyline, and seemed to forget that a brig was a lieutenant's command with perhaps 40 to 50 in the crew, no significant number of marines, and perhaps 12 four-pounder popguns for its armament (the light structure of a brig could not take the recoil of heavy guns). The story of the action against the French convoy is never completed, and the tale skips forward to a scene in a tavern in Nassau.

The third part of the book is about an American privateer commanded by Captain Smalley, formerly captain of the bark Anne. Isaac Biggs joins the tale at the midway point. Eventually Isaac is able to return to the United States. By placing three stories in the same book, the action becomes superficial at some points, jumping between points where action is very detailed. The repeated nautical commands for sail handling can get a bit tedious.

Part of my disappointment in this book stems from the fact that I am naval historical fiction nut and have been really looking forward to something other than a British hero. As an American, I've alway thought that the War of 1812 would provide the perfect fodder for an American Hornblower. Unfortunately, that is not what we get here.
Clearly the author, Mr. White, knows his ships and his sailing. But that's like the special effects in a sci-fi movie, you have to care about the characters or else it's just a bunch of flashing lights. The author shows some potential as a writer, but it all reads a bit too amatureish -- like a first submission to a creative writing course. There are are way too many point of view shifts, so it can become difficult to remember who is who. Perhaps it was an intentional attempt at subtle parody, but I found it annoying to have very similar personality types in the role of junior officers on the the American Anne and the British Orpheus. And then, the story final seems to get going with a privateering raid -- and then they go home. Yes, it's the first book in a triology, but the story just stops -- it does not end.
I've also got to get this off my chest. The forward was written by someone who is supposed to be a professor of history at the Naval War College, yet his historical facts are wrong! James Barron, captain of the Cheasapeake during the Cheasapeake/Leopard affair was not killed in that action. He was courtmartialed and temporarily suspended from duty in the navy as a result of his role in the affair. His other claim to fame is that he was the one who killed Stephen Decatur several years later. Of course, none of this really matters since the none of the provocations for war (other than pressing sailors) was even mentioned in the novel --wasn't there something about "orders in council?"
Anyway, I don't recommend this book. I do not plan to purchase or read books two and three.

Generally, I am not an avid reader of historical fiction, but I read this book on a recommendation from a freind. I truly enjoyed White's work, so much so, that I found myself participating in the action, rather than reading it. I could feel the salt spray in my face and the boom of the cannon against my chest. Truly a wonderful read!

"the prophet who prophesies will be recognized as one truly sent by the Lord ONLY IF HIS PREDICTION COMES TRUE."(Jer.28:9)

This is the inerrant litmus test of Bible prophecy: 100% Definitive Factuality in ADVANCE of freely chosen agent decisions, 0% error rate. Openism is DOA,AWOL,Mene-Mene-Tekel-Uparsin at this point! The handwriting is on the wall!

"Hear the Word of the Lord all you exiles in Babylon. This is what the Lord Almighty says about Ahab and Zedekiah who are prophesying lies to you in My Name. 'I will hand them over to King Neb. and he will put them to death before your very eyes. Because of them, all the exiles from Judah in Babylon will use this curse: The Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.'"

An irrefutable case of EXHAUSTIVE DEFINITIVE DIVINE FOREKNOWN FACTUALITY about the future free decisions of Ahab; Zedekiah; King of Babylon specifically using fire for execution; and all exiles using the exact, precisely predicted curse based on the free decisions of Ahab, Zedekiah, King (all inextricably interlinked) in the OMNI-Mind of God, freely played out in time

Openism's 'extensive indefinite forecasting' cannot account for such prophecies. (Too many to list here - see separate reviews for 'Beyond the Bounds'; 'God Under Fire'; 'Bound Only Once'.)

Why must Gregory Boyd set up a hyper-Calvinist view as straw antagonist, then make his 'case' for why his Open Theory is the 'most Biblical' (compared to what??)? Ajarism (Free Futures are seen by God as through an ajar door darkly) can't help but seem more palatable by comparison with the ultra-Calvinist
'Closed door known but to God' or Liberal Process 'Wide-Open door unknown to God'.

The nebulous argument for 'Infinite Intelligence' to compensate for 'Non-infinite knowledge of free futures' (known as Divine Nescience,i.e Ignorance) is verbal legerdemain for denial of genuine, meaningful OMNI-science as the Bible teaches.

God is, according to Boydian theory, MULTI-scient or MAXIMI-scient (God knows a lot, more than anyone, the maximum logically knowable, but not quite EVERYTHING as the Bible says).

Instead, Gregory makes God out to be of such great intellect to work around His deemed lack of Infinite Foreknowledge of all future mortal free Shalls and Shall nots, Wills and Will nots. Boyd invents a new sub-Attribute to compensate for eviscerating another Attribute to allow God to come out O.K. in the end.

But it backfires. It only creates a deity in a limited human's intellectual image. In exchange for the Biblical Jesus of Infinite awareness, foresight, prescience and precise knowledge of all Space-Time events/decisions from Eternity Past to Eternity Future and all in between, we are left with a supreme weather forecaster or chess grandmaster. However as we all know, weathermen are often surprised, wrong, erroneous and mistaken. Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue have both lost against each other. Is this the sort of Jesus that Gregory Boyd sincerely believes in, trying to persuade others to accept,too?

'Infinite Intelligence' is woeful consolation for 'knowing' free agent futures as predominantly possibles, maybes, contingents, risky what-ifs, potentials, probables, likelihoods,
projections, indeterminates, variables, random chance, unpredictabilities, uncertainties that may after all not materialize to divine expectations/forecasts.

It is here that the equally nebulous Boydian concept of 'Theo-Repentism' must be triggered to explain how Jesus handles free futures that don't work out as anticipated. When confronted with new information, or in relating to free decision makers, the Eternal Lord Jesus then changes the divine mind, repents (of wrong-doing, wrong-guessing,wrong-imagining, wrong-thinking,wrong-prognosticating, wrong-speaking,wrong-predicting, wrong-prophesying, etc.) or regrets, rues prior decisions based on incomplete data, wishing they could be do-overs or in need of retraction or repair. Infinite Intelligence kicks in at this stage for 'divine damage control' to salvage a draw and prevent checkmate from all the free-ranging opponents who act/decide contrary to the limits of divine predictability in the chaotic chessgame/meteorology of life.

Sound puzzling? It is. Especially when you read the seminal book by Gregory Boyd that started it all: 'Trinity & Process' (see separate review), based on Hartshorne's 'Omnipotence & Other Theological Mistakes' (see review where you discover that Boyd's Omnipotence is no less limited than his Omniscience).

It seems OMNI (Latin for All) cannot mean OMNI anymore, at least for Open Theorists. What then becomes of OMNI-presence? Infiniteness? Eternality?
Transcendence? OMNI-sapience (ALL-Wise)? What happens to all the Historic-Evangelically understood Trinitarian Attributes? How are they Openistly redefined/updated for modern consumption? Only God knows (or, maybe He doesn't? Stay tuned!)

Most unfortunate that books like this which incorporate non-evangelical 'theology' alongside historic Christianity are distributed for uncritical consumption by a non-discerning readership. Seeking wider respectability, Openism/Ajar Theory merely shows with every published page how far Boyd-Pinnock-Sanders have headed AWAY from the Bible and TOWARD a vivid, free agent imagination a la borrowed elements of Hartshorne's Processistic, non-Scriptural philosophic fabrications.

The LORD said it best in Job 42:7 "I am angry with you..because you have not spoken of Me what is right."

This book rates 3 stars for including 3 Biblical/Evangelical views, but subtract stars for Gregory's use of contemporary philosophic presuppositions applied to selective misinterpreted Bible texts to provide a marginal audience the latest heterodox option to counter the straw antagonist of hyper-Calvinism.

Ultimately can't persuade in any cogent, balanced, unbiased way.

The OMNITrue One Who has Eternal Exhaustively Divine Definitive Foreknown Factuality of ALL Free Futures, Infinitely Uninformable ,Unrepentable,Inerrant, Incorrectible, Infallible, OMNI-Present (Ever-Present I AM in ALL point-moments of space-time: Length-Width-Height-Past-Present-Future), Eternal, Limitlessly Aware,OMNI-Relational,Interactive LORD Jesus said,

"Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?"

Just one Scripture from Jesus settles the Foreknowledge Issue once for all:

"I AM TELLING YOU NOW BEFORE IT HAPPENS SO THAT WHEN IT DOES HAPPEN YOU WILL BELIEVE THAT I AM HE." (John 13:19)
Not forecasting, possibilizing, but TELLING. Not if, but WHEN.
Not may,might,could,perhaps should, but DOES happen. 0% Uncertain. 100% definite. That's genuine Omniscience. Amen.

Interesting that this book would present as one of the "evangelical" options of what God knows and when He can know it:
the curious notion that God possesses EXTENSIVE INDEFINITE FORECASTING (a la weather prognosticator or chess grandmaster) subject to all the iffiness and unknowable randomness of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Chaos Theory working themselves out in a fallen world unbeknownst in advance to the Creator! Boyd's presupposition is THE FUTURE DOES NOT EXIST YET, EVEN FOR THE OMNISCIENT/ETERNAL CREATOR GOD, except as mere possibilities yet to be freely actualized.
Therefore He is the deity of what is humanly,logically possible.

Boyd's Neo-Processistic philosophical theorizing becomes more incoherent with each book. How can God know how He will definitely act in the future if He doesn't know how sinners and demons will definitely behave? If our decisions don't exist until we freely make them, how can God's decisions exist until He freely makes His in response to ours in response to others in response to the devil's in response to... ad infinitum?? If all God can know are ultimately possibles (not actuals, definites), then ALL He can know about future agency is INDEFINITE (MAYBE). Thus Boyd teaches EXTENSIVE INDEFINITE FORECASTING - which he calls Omniscience! Talk about verbal legerdemain! God can only know what is humanly,finitely knowable

A careful study of the Bible shows rather the truth that there is NO LIMIT to the extent (past,present,future) of God's knowledge. It is ETERNALLY EXHAUSTIVE DIVINE DEFINITIVE FOREKNOWN FACTUALITY OF ALL FREE FUTURES-OMNIPRESCIENCE
His understanding is INFINITE. That God definitely knows in advance precisely what sinners and demons WILL/WILL NOT do doesn't mean therefore that they are thus forced to, or thereby lose their agency/moral responsibility. Neither is God to blame for the foreknown exercise of their agency. He retains full final say, ultimate control and awareness as definite in advance of ALL they will choose to do. Because some mortal minds can't reconcile this profundity, Open Theory (Ajarism) is the misbegotten result. With all due respect to sincere but sincerely wrong Gregory Boyd, there is little about Neo-processism or EIF (EXTENSIVE INDEFINITE FORECASTING) that can be understood in any sense as Biblical or Orthodox Truth about God's Attributes such as OMNISCIENCE/OMNIPRESENCE. God is ever PRESENT at every point/moment of space/time, including ALL the FUTURE. The I AM is ALREADY THERE/THEN waiting for us just as He IS with us HERE/NOW.

Otherwise well-written. 1 star for attempting to resurrect the long-discredited 'Nescience' pseudo-theology of the late 19th Century (with some elements of 16th Cent. Socinianism) via a self-refuting misunderstanding of how God interacts with ALL FUTURE MORTAL AGENCY: Comprehensively, and for Open Theorists, Incomprehendible.

Most of the reviews on this page miss the boat entirely. Rather than actually reviewing or recommending DF the reviewers are merely venting their anger because their particular view is challenged.

Pay them no mind. DF is an excellent book. Buy it and read all the views with as much of an open humble mind as you can. It's better than the alternative spoon feeding that is rampant in many circles of Evangelicalism today.

The glossary is a great idea more publishers should follow.

Keep em coming Eddy, Beilby, Gannsle ....etc.

Want to know why the US and other countries have had such up-and-down economic problems for the last several decades? You can thank Paul Samuelson and other incompetent buffoons like him (I don't mind buffoons that much, but incompetent ones are just too much). Samuelson and his ilk operated on the false assumption that mathematics actually describes economic activity. Once you believe this, the next logical step (in Wacky World, at least) is to have math-oriented "economists" (most of whom are failed wannabe mathematicians, anyway) plan and run the economy.
Fortunately, free markets are stable; they only destabilize when the government intervenes. No neo-classical "economist" understands this, and mathematicians certainly don't (see review
below). The only economic school that describes the real world
is the Austrian school; they are of course are taught in very, very few colleges. Government interference has never worked, and it
never will. And Samuelson got a Nobel Prize? You might as well give me one, too.

When I was required to take econ as undergrad physics student and used this text, the professor made a big deal of econ students not understanding 'curves', by which assertion he implicitly meant the plotting of y=f(x) when f is smooth and invertible. Well the professor didn't understand 'curves' at a higher level: he failed to note that nearly all the 'curves' presented in the text were only 'cartoons', mere mental constructions not based on real data, and agreeing with no real data (excepting corn flakes sales in British supermarkets, if Paul Ormerod is correct). The idea of 'utility' is a useless fabrication that has no basis in empirical data. Those mental constructions represent instead the expectations of neo-classical economic theory, the religion of the IMF, World Bank, and a host of other neo-classically-educated economists. To be specific, the price-demand, price-supply 'curves' touted in the text do not exist in reality and also not in theory: e.g., see Osborne's book Finance and the Stock Market from a Physicist's Perspective for the explanation why. See also the economists' own proof that aggregate price-supply demand-suppy curves 'can be anything' even if individual supply-demand curves would behave as they expect! Furthermore, no real market is approximately in equilibrium, all real markets are examples of far from equilibrium systems. Unregulated free markets are unstable. None of this is hinted at in the text, where equilibrium and stability are implicitly and unfairly assumed without warning the unsuspecting reader. Worse, in the introductory chapter Samuelson uses a hokey, irrelevant pictorial argument to try to convince both himself and the reader that physics is as unscientific as neo-classical econ theory. For good information about econ theory, see the following books: Ormerod's The Death of Economics, Mirowski's More Heat than light, and Osborne's book. For those with enough intellectual stamina, there is also Giovanni Dosi's Innovation, Organization, and Economic Dynamics, a collection of essays that also points out that the emperor wears no clothes and tries to find a reliable ruler to replace His Uselessness. Instead of propagating misleading mythology it's now time for economists to face the facts and explain why, after convincing governments to follow their advice and deregulate, we face one big financial instability after the other: LTCM, Argentina, Enron, .... .

As text or as literature, this book is terribly written. Unsystematic, like a hodgepodge of review articles. Samuelson has noted that economists (like Galbraith) who write too well may be suspect by other economists, but this is an unfortunate viewpoint. The best writing is done by the clearest thinkers: Einstein (in both German and English), Feynman, V.I. Arnol'd, and Fischer Black are examples. Bad writing, in contrast, often reflects sloppy thinking. In short, this text could have been cut to half it's size, to the benefit of the reader who wants to understand what Samuelson has to say.

For the story of how neo-classical econ won out academically, see Mirowski's 'Machine Dreams'.

This book is very famed in China.
The reader of the book is not college student but postgraduate.
The publisher in China have translated and published the textbook for above 4 times, The lasted one in 16th edition.

i am a editor.
who can help me that i want to know the top 10 or 20 business textbook in the world? it's including Economics?

liuhui@wise-link.com