"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him." (Votaire)

"I do not agree with what you are saying, but I fight for the death in your right to say it." (Voltaire)

Without knowing why, I like Voltaire. I want to learn more of him. I even have seven plays of his, which are so narrowly distributed. Apart from anything he wrote, the man himself was to all ends a jumping soul. He knew how to stir things up. He knew how to seduce or how to aggravate. Yes, Voltaire had a sense of humour. But his social criticisms were important enough to land him in trouble. His twelve month stay at the Bastille was no comfort, though unlike other prisoners he had priviledges of everyday visitors.

On to Candide and Zadig. I never much liked Candide: it was too unbelievable and too episodic. Here, Voltaire shows that all is NOT for the best in 'the best of all the possible worlds.' The philosopher Leibnz, who held that our world is fine, is wrong says Voltaire. So, then, in the book he shows all the misfortune he can muster. But I came to see that Leibniz had meant, simply, that our world has possibility, growth, apparent free will, and a search-for-God. Even though things go wrong, this world is better than one of 'automatic goodness." T. S. Eliot urged the same thing to the behaviourist B. F. Skinner. Surely, then, the world is not so bad. The conditions, yes, but the gift of fighting for a greater good is of itself a greator good. Voltaire seems to have forgotten this, I think. And yet, he did not hate the world. He sneered to his France, but he lived in England for a year or two, where he praised English culture. Imagine a Frenchmen, of noteriety even, praising England, especially in that time! Voltaire had courage and is thus a kind of hero.

But Zadig I like: it had a gentle humour which can be read to small boys. It deals with morality, like the allegory of Adam and Eve do.Another story, called I think 'the Child of Nature' is as well smoothly written. It describes the development of a young man who discovers Christianity on the one hand, and Christendom on the other!

Voltaire has a touch of a poet in him. He can dress up language in clever little ways. One can tell, instantly, that he writes fast and wants to entertain. Some will say this wit not even Shakespeare had (at least not in person anyway).

His technique is satire: he likes to make fun of his enemy via mockery. He does not simply tell us freedom is the way, he goes on and on in bringing home the message that the men in power are laughable idiots.

Voltaire himself was a kind of showboat, with flashes of conceit I suspect. But I would have liked to have met the man. He seems to have known how to live fully.

I hope I have helped.

Although, perhaps, it wasn't ment to be, Volatire's work is uplifting. Sometimes a man faces something that enraged him to such a depth, he either has to cry or laugh about it. Its good to be able to laugh about injustice, betrayal, and every other inborn, basic flaw of the pompous human race we all have the pleasure to be part of. This is one of the best satires I've ever read.

Candide is one of my most favorite philosophical works because of the humor, honesty, and original perspective that Voltaire brings to this story. This translation is recommended because it also contains many other excellent works from Voltaire, such as Zadig and Micromegas. The translator's notes are very helpful, and in many cases shed light upon Voltaire's intended meaning when the English is not able to convey everything.

This book has to be the best of its kind. The information is enough to give you a basic understanding of each saint listed in this book. Very good book for preachers and history majors to have handy.

Of the three dictionaries of saints that I use (Delaney's Pocket Dictionary of Saints and the Oxford Dictionary of Saints are the others), this possesses the most benefits. It not only includes the usual capsule biographies (don't expect any book of saints to include the same information) and appendices about Patron saints and symbols, but also a glossary of terms used in hagiography (the study of saints), something which neither Delaney nor Stone offer. If the book has any weakness, it is that the list of patron saints is too brief and incomplete. (Delaney's appendix is the best of the three, but his work has other faults.) Attwater and daughter also do not treat us to discussions of saintly relics (one of the joys of Stone's excellent work). Despite these minor flaws, I would choose this volume over the other two were I able only to own one of the books. (It is better, still, to own all three.)

This book is a great addition to the library of anyone who wants to know more about the lives of the great men and women of the Christian Faith. It includes Saints from the New Testament/Apostolic Age until the modern day. Each entry gives an excellent description of each Saint's life and work. It also has the reason for canonization (martyr, bishop, etc.) and the date it occurred, the date of birth and death, and the person's feast day in the Church (usually in the western calendar). Although the entries usually include only the basic information (about half a page on average), at the end of each entry the authors have added a reading list for those who wish to learn more about each Saint. The book also has an introduction that addresses such issues as sources, confessors, martyrs, and canonization. A glossary of terms is present, which includes a basic definition of words that may be difficult for some (e.g. Monothelism and Cenobite). The Dictionary has a useful appendix that contains a list of patron Saints, emblems, and a calendar of the feast days of the Saints listed. Although The Penguin Dictionary of Saints is very useful, I should mention that it includes mainly Roman Catholic Saints. Many of those canonized only (or deemed more important) in the Eastern Orthodox and Anglican Churches are not present, although the authors have included most of the universally accepted Saints (and even many minor ones) from both the East and Great Britain. Overall, this is an excellent resource that no Christian should be without; I use it all the time.

when will come new publish of this book ?

There are many excellent textbooks about Internal Medicine on the market, and I own a lot of them. But the Kelley's book is the one I look up more often. It stands out, since it gives you the broadest and deepest clinical coverage of the internal medicine you can find in a two-volumes textbook. The forthcoming 4th edition, which is scheduled for 8/2000 and will be edited by Humes, will expand furter the coverage, reaching an unprecedented range, at least as can be judged by the anticipated index. For the sake of clarity and completeness, each subspecialty (cardiology, endocrinology and metabolism, and so forth) is divided in three parts: the first group of chapters is devoted to the pathophysiologic foundations, the second to diseases and the third to the diagnosis and treatment. This format is clever, because allow you to study each section separately without being overwhelmed by the astonishing amount of information it contains. A lot of chapters are devoted to the approach to the patient with different symptoms, to the interpretation of instrumental data and to the treatment: they are another distictive feature of the book, making it invaluable. If you are a physician or a serious student searching for an authoritative, encyclopedic textbook with broad pathophysiologic coverage and wide sections about the management of the patient, the Kelley's textbook will not disappoint you. For many of us, it is a must buy. For all, it is a bargain. This textbook is the gold standard as Internal Medicine textbook: it got 5-stars from Doody, and as far as I know, it was the only one awarded with such a high acknowledgement. I agree: five stars.

most comprehensive work ever.an edge over Harrison &Cecil.must buy.

O'Hara was a brilliant poet who seemingly had nothing to write about. His language is incredibly imaginative, and his productivity was astounding. But in the end the vast majority of his poems were little more than frivolous ditties about his friends and the artsy scene around New York City. It's almost a shame that with his amazing talents O'Hara didn't live in a somewhat more challenging set of circumstances - it would have been interesting to hear what he had to say. But reading his poems is like reading the work of an incredibly gifted, yet ultimately vacuous, artist.

An earlier reviewer describes O'Hara's poetry as shallow and vacuous. Shallow, maybe. But not vacuous. O'Hara's interested in the minutiae of daily life - buying a pack of Gauloises on the way to friends for dinner, seeing a headline about Lana Turner collapsing, the hard hats worn by construction workers. Read one poem and you might come away thinking it's trivial. But his life's work - taken as a whole - is an intelligent, alert, funny and perceptive record of a life lived to the full (I think someone else may have said that before me, somewhere). Thing is, O'Hara's interested in surfaces - things, events, trivia - because they have meaning. So his poetry is shallow in a very real and virtuous sense. He's not trying to make big statements, a la Charles Olson or Robert Lowell. What I find amazing is how moving his poetry can so often be, as in The Day Lady Died. On one reading, it's simply a list of things he does on the way to friends for dinner. But the impact is enormous. The poem gets you right up close to O'Hara as he learns of Billie Holiday's death and remembers hearing her sing. Nothing vacuous about that.

This poet changed my life. This poet had style, made his own breaks (luck), had great friends because he gave a damn about them, and loved art unconditionally in any form but with a special love for the city, for the life and art and noise (music) of the city. This poet wore a tie and jacket and swiveled out the door of the Museum of Modern Art with more hip in his pocket than you, Bro. This poet was gay and and every man considered him their best friend and every woman wanted to sleep with him. This poet grew up near Boston, went to the Navy and Hafvard and spent a year in Ann Arbor but was New York all the way, the very heart and soul of New York and the New York School of poets. This poet extends the line from Keats to Rimbaud into the American future.

This book is good for people who have minimal experience with VB.NET and ASP.NET. It's very easy to read and understand and find what you need. With little background of VB.NET and ASP.NET, you will be able to write your first database driven web applications. This book is good as a starting point on the subject matter. The book goes through the items in short simple to understand paragraphs.

For experienced developers, you may want to skip the first two chapters. Chapter 2 gives an overview of realational database, how to use the database to retrieve and store the data. Chapter 3 covers methods for connecting to several different data source such as SQL Server, Excel, and XML. Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 have lots of examples in reading and displaying the data using Data Reader and Data Set objects. All the examples in the book use Data Grid control for displaying the data. Later in the book, it discusses ways of using the data grid control for creating,inserting, editing, and deleting records. I tried several of the examples in the book and they worked fine. That is one thing I have come to like about the WROX press books is their examples are very understandable and easy to learn from.

Also, the experienced developer who is interested in learning the subject matter may find many other sections in the book boring because they will go through material they already know. It would be very nice to see a book such as this that can cover the subject for people who are already experienced as developers.

This book is well written and has the information that a junior programmer can use on his/her first programming language and the VB.NET/ASP.NET fundamentals for the experienced programmer to get a first look. ---Reviewed by Michael S.

This is a great book which covers most of technique to write an ASP.Net web application using VB.Net for database access. All the examples are quite easy to follow and understand. I highly recommend to any person who wants to learn and build web application.

It is not until you read a book that is dedicated to using databases in ASP.NET that you realize just how much there is to learn. This is a very readable & well structured book with excellent 'Try It Out' examples that provide easy to follow step-by-step guides.

Obviously understanding data readers, datasets, command objects and web server controls is vital but there are some rare and extremely useful chapters: componentization - leveraging class libraries for data access, performance, and a chapter that discusses Data-Driven ASP.NET application in the Real World that raises some very interesting issues; for example security tips, raising your own database errors & organizing your code.

The authors not only provide information that you would expect but they offer every encouragement to raise the bar by discussing ways to do things even better; for example 'A Better Connection String', creating Data Access classes, and fine tuning dataset & datareaders.

I felt that the first three writers were the strongest. Mintzberg promotes an idea that leader is just a role in his advocated all mighty manager. Zaleznik brings this down with his idea that managers and leaders are different kind of people and talk about managerial mystique. But maybe best advice how to solve present leadership dilemma comes from Kotter, who says that companies should pick up talented individuals and then put them to grow into leaders through tough challenges.

Gives an insightful view of a manager's job. It enunciates traits and behaviors of leaders and managers very well, and explains how it is important for a manager to have both traits. The material triggers a manager to look within to understand one's leadership and managerial styles. If one wishes to change or develop leadership and managerial skills this material is a great beginning.
It also points out that organizations and academic institutions are good at developing organizational specialists but not at training managers. The author thinks that these institutions should provide management programs that also focus on developing leadership and managerial skills. But to do that it's important to understand what managers and leaders really do.
Overall a very good read for a traditional manager to be introspective and effective.

Excellent book with eight fantastically different views on Leadership. Describes fundamental differences between leadership and Management and brings forth thought process which can help professionals in all fields. Contents are 1) The managers Job (folclore and fact), 2) What leaders really do, 3)managers and leaders (are they different), 4) The discipline of building Character, 5) the ways CEO's lead (5 different ways gathered from study of 160 CEO's),6)The human side of management, 7) the work of leadership, 8) whatever happened to the take-charge manager, also contains brief background about the contributors. Each chapter is from a different contributor

When a friend of mine showed up for work with Echoes and Evidence I couldn't believe it. How can anyone take the fictional writings of Joseph (multiple murder) Smith seriously?

Echoes and Eveidence attempts to prove that Smith's 1830 novel 'The Book of Mormon' is history. I'm waiting for the one that claims 'Lord of the Rings' is history.

I was then accused of being "close minded." So I started reading the book. The other employees and I couldn't stop laughing as we read the book cover to cover it's very entertaining.

Probably the funniest chapter is when they try to explain how Smith must have had god's help in "translating" BOM since it was done in only 60 days. They argue that surely an Egyptologist would have taken years to translate the book. Of course they never even address the theory that Smith made the whole thing up in 60 days.

Many outragious claims are never backed up by sources. For example they insit that horses lived in pre-Columbus America (they didn't) and that the scientific community has established this. As a source they cite an unknown science journal, and fail to cite the issue or story they are refering to.

They also go the great legnths in attempting to prove that the Jaradites (fictional Hebrew tribe) came to California by locking themselves in a giant boat for a full year with enough food while the ocean current swept them East.

The book is deviod of any real research or rational logic. I is clearly meant to preach the the Mormon choir who will believe anything they are told no matter how farcicle.

This volume consists of 13 essays by LDS scholars, providing an excellent survey of current research. Essays by Apostle Neal Maxwell, and convert Alison Coutts emphasis the spiritual values of the book. John W. Welch provides a thoughtful discussion of "The Power of Evidence in Nurturing Faith." Other essays discuss the Old World context of the Book of Mormon, the New World context, and Joseph Smith's information environment. For example, including S. Kent Brown provides "New Light From Arabia on Lehi's Trail" including mention of the 1998 finds of three 6th century altars that"secure the general location of Nahom." Various essays compare the Book of Mormon with ancient Hebrew language and literary forms, rituals, newly discovered documents, legal practices, and doctrines. John Sorenson survey's the Mesoamerican setting. John Gee's "The Wrong Type of Book" compares the Book of Mormon with the Dogberry's "Book of Pukei" satire, Spaulding's Manuscript Found, and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews. John Tvedtnes surveys "Ancient Texts in Support of the Book of Mormon." The volume includes a 29 page Appendix of quotes from Hugh Nibley, an "Alphabetical Listing of Hits" meaning aspects of the Book of Mormon that accurately hit the ancient world, and a scripture citation index. All essays include extensive footnoted documentation. It becomes an essential volume for any serious student of the Book of Mormon. Very readable, very timely.

The book is well written and informative about the events of Powell's life and the geological survey in which Powell played such a major role. My primary disappointment with the book was that I felt I didn't know the person John W. Powell much better after reading the book. The book provided very little information about Powell's life outside of his work.

Reading this book was like being present at the creation of America. It will appeal especially to U.S. history buffs and to anyone interested in the American West. Worster's telling of the feat that won Powell fame, leading the first expedition down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, has definitely renewed my passion for exploring the West. Powell was a man of ideas, as well as action. For a quarter century he was at the forefront of debates over reserving land for American Indians, how to foster family farming in the arid West, and the thorny issue of water rights. For many years, Powell was a prominent official in Washington, as head of the U.S. Geological Survey, which he helped create, and in other positions. From what I gather in this book, Powell may have been as important as any single individual in making support of scientific research a normal function of the Federal Government. From the perspective of one man's career, Worster touches on a multitude of topics: railroads, telegraph, photography, landscape painting of the West, Mormon settlements, and many more. For the comprehension one gains of American life in those times, this biography is the equal of a first rate novel. Although a work of scholarship, it is written to be enjoyed by the general reader.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Thorough, evocative, thrilling, and comprehensive in its scope, it was a delight from beginning to end.
I completed a major in Geography at Illinois State University many years ago, where Powell taught at one time, and I am embarrassed to admit the sad truth that in all the courses I took nary a word was ever mentioned about the great man. Considering his extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the natural world, it is all too sad.

I found this book to be a very Compelling Introduction to the World of Enochian Magick. ... My brief encounter with the Enochian method impressed me and Lon Duquette's book encouraged my research--therefore, I purchased this Enochian Dictionary and found myself literally Devouring the introductory material (historical aspects, etc.) of "The Complete Enochian Dictionary: A Dictionary of the Angelic Language As Revealed to Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley."
I would certainly give the book 5 stars, if not for the fact that it is, mostly, a Dictionary / Reference book. I read the introductory material in one sitting, but the rest of the book is intended as reference material. However, this reference material is Brilliantly categorized as either original "Dee" words and definitions, or attributed to the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Goetic, etc.--thus, creating a clearly defined listing of Original Enochian and that inspired by Crowley and his own workings with this system of Magick.
... Regardless of the issues surrounding the historical creation (or revelation) of the Enochian Language, it seems to work. The words, of whatever origin, seem to produce a powerful effect upon the atmosphere surrounding the Magickian.
I have not, personally, worked with Enochian, yet--I am only researching the effects I have witnessed, first-hand. From what I have seen, thus-far, I believe Enochian is, in fact, a powerful and Magickal Language.
The origins of the language, although fascinatingly depicted in this book are moot--much like Gravitation and The Theory of Relativity, even if you do not understand the science behind it, it Works.
I highly recommend this Dictionary of Enochian to anyone interested in Magick, Anthropology, The Occult, etc.--the subject is quite interesting.

This book is great! It is user friendly and is good for both the beginner, intermediate and advanced prationers of Enochian Magick. This has helped me in some of my ceremonies when I wanted to speak only Enochian to lest say the Seniors. Unfortunatly I could not find a few words I wanted to use so I would say 98 percent was used in the Enochian language. But dont be fooled Enochian is not only "the language of the Angels" it is also a system of magick so you will eighter need a teacher or other books on this subject. This book is excellent as it is a companion to any book you buy which deals with the subject of Enochian magick. Lon Milo Duquette makes a wonderful introduction by sharing his experience with the reader. He realy brings the book to life. This is one of the better books on the subject of Enochian. You will also find the Enochian keys which are very important in the Enochian magickal system.

For over 20 years Enochian magick has been my passion and magical "drug" of choice. I've evoked many of the elemental spirits and am continuing my personal initiatory career by systematically exploring the 30 Aethyrs of the system. There are four or five texts that are absolutely indispensable if one is serious about taking up his complex art. The first one I would recommend is "The Enochian World of Aleister Crowley" by Lon Milo DuQuette and Christopher Hyatt. Next would be Laycock's Complete Enochian Dictionary. I am so happy to see that this has been reissued. My first edition has nearly turned to dust. A new introduction by DuQuette, where he actually describes an evocation of an elemental angel, is priceless...and a bit reassuring. My highest recommendation.

Great photography and sculptures, but the writing style is fool's gold. Too expensive as well, even with the Amazon reduction. It's great but not that great.

as good as the book is, i must say that it pales in comparison to seeing his work in person. i saw some of it at the renwick gallery in washington d.c. and it's just incredible. he's come out of his shell in the last few years but has been producing great stuff for a long time.

nevertheless, the book is worth it. but if you ever get the chance to see his work, by all means do so. there was an interesting piece on him by the "sunday morning" cbs news show. you may be able to get a tape of it from them.

As a professor of Art History at an Afghani University, I would like to congratulate, extol, and exult Daniel Brush's masterpiece of a monograph. Its insight and vivid explanations are invaluable and I am discussing with my colleagues about including it as an elective course for my students. Its sheer brilliance exemplifies its utter domination over any other art book. Congratulations to Daniel Brush for enhancing the art world. He will surely go down in history as the pioneer of gold sculpting and as example for all.