This is an excellent textbook for surface anatomy. Large, full-color photos of models. Pages are glossy magazine stock. Each chapter, per major body area (neck, pelvis, back, etc), includes similar photos of very clear cutaneous nerves and dermatomes - as clear as I've seen. Effectively, the text is broadly clinical, offering more than just rote surface descriptions. As its title suggests, the flow of the text relates surface anatomy to clinical examination and brings it to life.

In addition to very clear depiction of surface anatomy, each chapter includes separate photos for muscle attachments, major nerves and vessels, viscera and, interestingly, standard incision lines for major surgical procedures (eg nephrectomy, liver biopsy, peritoneal cath or laparoscope entry, etc) from head to sole. As a physician, teacher of physical examination, and thermologist, this book is an excellent resource - the cover of which is becoming well worn.

Why not 5 stars? The perpetual quest that there's always a book just that much better is the plague of most medical bibliophiles. Keeps Amazon alive...

The title of the book says it all, A Question of Character. This is one author's attempt at looking at the political life of President John F. Kennedy's, before and during his time in the White House. It details the differences in what the spin is and the private life that is described as being close to Hugh Hefner's. We also get a very detailed and for me, somewhat troubling, view of the constant controls his father, Joe Kennedy's had of JFK throughout his career. Not that comforting given the somewhat dubious reputation of Joe.

The author came close to a Kitty Kelly sex scandal tell all, but did not completely let himself drop that low. I thought the author was almost sad to be telling me, the reader, some of the less then faltering truths here. Almost if he was a firm believer in Camelot and this book and research pained him. Overall this is a well-written book that has some interesting conclusions. The author could have spent more time on the domestic policies and international issues that faced JFK to make the account better rounded. I do not think it is the one-volume definitive story of JFK, but it is a very good start.

As he cuts through the myths of Camelot, Thomas Reeves could have been content with dragging the name of JFK through the mud. That certainly would have been easy enough to do; all the affairs, the dubious origin of the family fortune, the murky ties with organized crime...it all has the makings of a wonderful chop-job, a character assassination.

However, Reeves rises above this. He acknowledges that good morals do not necessarily make for a good president, and that an effective president does not always have a scandal-free private life. This book was written before the Clinton presidency, which would have made for an interesting comparison.

Reeves is not content to throw one prurient revelation after another at the reader; that is Kitty Kelly's job. He is interested in good history. How did these moral defects apply to the man's ability to be an effective president, and how did the president's effectiveness have an impact on the course of our nation's history?

Reeves believes that important theme here isn't the questionable behavior in and of itself, but the fact that Kennedy's lack of any real commitment to anything but the acquisition and wielding of power ultimately made him an overall weak president. Despite Democratic control of Congress, Kennedy could get barely 25% of his legislation passed in Congress in 1962-63. Members of Congress had little regard for the man as a leader, and his luke-warm commitment on various issues did little to induce the Congress to act on his legislation. Compare that with LBJ, whose legislative success rate and mastery of Congress between 1963 and 1966 stands in stark contrast.

Reeves does observe that JFK was beginning to grow into the office by the time of his death, but stops short of predicting a glorious Kennedy legacy had the man lived. It was far from a given that JFK could have won re-election in 1964, and Reeves knows this.

Overall, this is an excellent example of a measured, critical biography that contributes to the scholarly dialogue, rather than simply being a "tell-all" book.

To those who want to get past the hype and drivel, Reeve's well written and researched book makes a convincing case that yes, character does matter. The argument that John Kennedy was a great, but flawed, leader is shown by Reeves to be erroneous. The seeds of the Bay of Pigs disaster was sown in Kennedy's youth. PT-109, interestingly, was the first and only PT boat ever rammed by an enemy destroyer. Not on a foggy night with the men topside, but in clear weather and daylight, with Kennedy and his men below decks sleeping and swapping war stories.

"My story about the collision is getting better all the time," Kennedy told a friend after launching his political career. "Now I've got a Jew and a Nigg-- in the story and with me being a Catholic, that's great."

Kennedy's bringing the U.S. to the brink of war was typical of the disasters he'd made in his personal and military life. The real reason the Soviets put missiles in Cuba was because of U.S. missiles in Turkey. School children are seldom taught that the U.S. had to withdraw its nukes from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets "backing down" in the Western Hemisphere.

From the Kennedys' dealings with the mob to the wiretaps of Martin Luther King, Jr., the fact that Kennedy could not remain faithful in a marital relationship is hardly a dichotomy in leadership.

So yes, Virginia, character does count. Now and in the latter part of the 1990s. Those who say it doesn't are probably also lacking in this area.