Nothing is as interesting to me as human behavior, and it was a pleasant surprise to find that Mr. Greene feels somewhat the same. He's taken a great deal of time to break down and analyze this concept of race relations in the "Ape" films. I found his writing to be witty and revealing. An easy and enjoyable read about a difficult and confounding element of our society.

At 17, when I saw PLANET, we were constantly aware of racial issues around us, and in the news. It's been an important film series to me, and it's message remains powerful. It's wonderful to have Mr. Greene's book as an addition or companion to the 'Ape' films. I am looking forward to see what Mr. Greene will come up with when Tim Burton's version is released.

Politics and popular culture are handled in this book with an adept feel for the times the films were made. I wish the text books I read in college were as "hip" as what Mr. Greene has laid before us. I might have remembered more. I found his observations at times humorous and provocative...but always interesting. Well done.

In film and telelvision, very few things happen by pure accident. Although Greene may seem at times to "read too much" into 'Planet of the Apes', in reality he presents a clear and very detailed analysis of the series and films in relation to the time in which they were produced. The connections between the two cannot be overlooked, and whether or not you agree with all of Greene's points, it is necessary to have all possible ideas presented in this type of study. This is exactly what we do with Shakespeare, for example--analyze his "art" in historical context. Whether Shakespeare intended all of the possible connections is, ultimately, irrelevent. Television and film, as a modern art form, can be examined in the same way. This book is a fine example of such analysis. Greene is a talented young writer and I look forward to more of his work.

I'm writing this review immediately after finishing the book and I have to give author Greene a rousing round of cyber-applause. This book is a refreshingly intelligent look into not just the Apes franchise, but pop culture in general. Anyone attempting a serious examination of film (of any sort) could do worse than study Mr. Greene's method.

The real miracle here is that it's very entertaining to read while being so darn smart. Quite a trick.

Unenlightened reviews on this page criticize Eric for reading too much into Apes, but I think he presents solid arguments for every one of his points and (more importantly) supporting interviews with the parties involved.

There are scores of shallow, publicity-driven "examinations" on thousands of films and TV shows, but very, very few are this thoughtful and well-researched. I was delighted to read something substantial for a change.

I say if this book is too deep for you, there are plenty of Apes coloring books on eBay...and please try to stay in the lines while coloring .

I was disapointed to see no other books available by this author. A Greene-eye look at CLASSIC Trek, CLASSIC Outer Limits, Alien Nation, and especially Babylon 5 would be most welcome indeed.

When I bought this book I already had a pretty good knowledge of HTML and thought this book would help me sharpen my skills. Well I did learn a few things, but not much. Unless you know nothing or very little about HTML this book won't teach you much more. On the other hand, this book does come in handy; when working on my homepage I usually find myself flipping through it when I need to look up something real quick. So it's still a pretty useful book, but unless you are just beginning to learn HTML don't expect anything too special.

Everything about this book was designed to make it useful and user friendly. Even though I have a library of HTML design references, I keep this book on my desk because I know I'll find the answer to my questions quickly and with just the right amount of detail. The notebook type binding is ideal because the book lays flat and stays open while you work. I always thought HTML design was really difficult; I was amazed at how much easier it is when you can use both hands! I would recommend this book to anyone involved in HTML development, regardless of their level of experience.

I bought this book only to learn how to do frames, but I learned a lot more. There are many examples and everything is clearly described. This book is a good learning tool for somebody who doesn't know any HTML at all.

Colonial Williamsburg is an elaborate fake, run by corporate devils who mercilessly exploit their workers, while badly distorting America's colonial history. At least that is what Handler and Gable would have us believe. There is more than a grain of truth in some of their contentions, but they undermine their case by digressing into political correctness and left-wing dogma.

The authors relate how Colonial Williamsburg's political agenda has changed to suit successive generations of scholars and managers, who have massaged "facts" accordingly. Front-line interpreters (costumed characters) are trained to parry controversial questions in order to avoid open discussion of them and to maintain the "official" line. They can become impatient with visitors' ignorance of history, and may resort to insulting them. When historians convey new or corrected information to the staff, interpreters sometimes override those directions in favor of their own views.

The historical message is contaminated further by interference from corporate officials, who are more concerned with boosting attendance and competing with theme parks than with running an historically accurate museum. The authors condemn Colonial Williamsburg as a museum that has abandoned its educational mission in favor of showing tourists a good time by building more hotels and golf courses, and which has crassly expanded retail merchandising to compete for tourist dollars. Ironically, Colonial Williamsburg sold Anheuser-Busch the land on which the Busch Gardens theme park now stands, thus helping to create its stiffest competition and spurring its efforts to increase attendance.

The authors make a number of telling points against Colonial Williamsburg's version of history, but they lose credibility by suggesting that the existing presentation merely be replaced with one designed to serve their own politically correct agenda. Although Colonial Williamsburg has come a long way in portraying the role of slaves in the colony, it isn't enough for Handler and Gable, who view those efforts as half-hearted, if not hypocritical, even on the part of some African-American interpreters. While criticizing Colonial Williamsburg for speculating about unknown areas of history in order to create a seamless presentation, the authors promote use of just such hypothetical, unsubstantiated "information" as part of a more politically correct view of 18th Century Williamsburg. For example, whether or not it can be proven that Williamsburg patriot George Wythe kept a female slave as his mistress, and perhaps fathered a child by her, the authors believe that Colonial Williamsburg should tell visitors that he did, since so many white slave owners were guilty of miscegenation.

The book bogs down badly during a lengthy leftist harangue against capitalism and corporate structure, which the authors dislike and consider inappropriate for Colonial Williamsburg, but for which they offer no alternative. Although that digression is followed by a valuable discussion of the struggle between corporate and educational priorities, the authors often confuse issues of education and history with those of corporate policy and labor relations without convincingly linking them. The result is a muddled examination of Colonial Williamsburg as a place of learning.

The work suffers from a lack of systematic data collection, relying instead on anecdotal information gleaned from interviews with officials, interpreters, visitors and others, and there is no sampling or survey data to support the book's broad contentions. The final chapter provides a lucid summary of the book's major points, but the authors have rambled for too long before reaching that point, and many readers will find the preceding chapters heavy going.

Moreover, Colonial Williamsburg is not really a museum, and it is doubtful that patrons expect to see a flawlessly accurate reproduction of the late 18th Century city. Visitors know that the costumed interpreters they encounter are performers and they accept the convention. Even with its shortcomings, Colonial Williamsburg can stimulate interest in the people and ideas that dominated political discourse on the eve of revolution and encourage visitors to learn more about them on their own.

Allen J. Wiener

This book was assigned in one of my classes and I was very impressed by it. It, despite the opinions of the above reviewer, clearly strove to be balanced and sympathetic in its discussion without losing sight of its academic aims. I found it extremely helpful in finding another way to look at the history I have been presented with at every museum or class I've been to, not just Williamsburg. I went to Williamsburg for the first time after I read this book and was much more interested in what I was seeing than I might otherwise have been -- actually thinking about what I was hearing and reading rather than simply swallowing it whole. The book itself is very well written and enjoyable as well as informative to read -- a rare thing among scholarly works. Handler and Gable did an excellent job.

This is an invaluable study of the representation of the American past at Colonial Willimaburg. It shows us that as much as CW presents itself as a reproduction of the past, it nonetheless refelcts the social positions of its present-day curators, visitors, and financial backers.

Do not confuse the 3 star rating with a negative evaluation. Quite the opposite is true. However when reading a series like this one must put them all into perspective.

I thouroughly enjoyed this book. It was just too short, it was overpriced for the length of the text and it is simply the tip of a much larger iceburg of political, social and historical thought that makes you close it saying "is that all there is, I want more, give me MORE!" Very well done actually, because it draws you into the other eight books in the series, and if you do not have them I highly recommend getting them all before you start.

I began by reading Mr. Maybury's "Are you Liberal or Conservative, or just confused?" Which I rated at five stars and was instantly hooked. I ordered the rest of the collection (the other eight) in one batch so as to get them all together so I could get started reading them in his recommended sequence as soon as possible.

This book however was no more than an hour read or so and left me starving and anxious to get into the rest of the soup.

His books are actualy fun to read and easily pull you into the world of "Uncle Eric." His considerable talents to educate, fasincate and bring the subject down to a desktop level of understanding, helping you to contemplate what was, what is and what should be in poltics, the economy, morality, education, justice and many other subjects is refreshing.

I have since moved on to "What ever happened to penny candy?" and am just as captivated by it as the last two. This first book sets the basic foundation for all his others, which is that there are models out there that we each react to. Regardless if it is moral, social, poltical, educational, family life, community standards and the like. There are good ones and there are bad ones. There are historically proven models and there are new age individuals who want to tear many of the existing models down and rebuild them sort of speak in their own image or opinion of how things should be. This can be good or it can be devistating on our citizenry and our children. So it is vitally important to understand models in general and to create beneficial models for ourselves and society. Needless to say we are not doing very well in many areas, but fair in others.

In any case this is the starting line and the finish line is eight books away. I highly recommend Mr. Maybury's books for anyone from any background, persuasion and/or political party. If nothing else they make you think. Aristotle said, or was it Socrates? In any case one of them said, "an unexamined life is not worth living," so read these books and ponder his simple assertions against your own beleifs and ideals.

I understand he is writing more books along this same line about the world Wars and such, for our future enjoyment, I will more than likely order them as well.

A great series to read and enjoy. Good job Mr. Maybury.

This is the kind of book you'll want your kids to read. It's short, sweet and simple. Maybury points out how we build mental "models" to understand the world. The two best ones for economics and law (and the ones that Maybury uses) are the Austrian School of Economics and the British Common Law. Essentially they're two sides of the same coin, so they reinforce each other. If you understand the basics of both of these models, then you'll have a leg up on 99% of the people in the world in understanding how things work. You'll be doing your children a great favor by teaching these models to your them. They certainly won't learn them in public schools, which pour masses of facts into students heads but don't tell them how to related them to each other, and the world. Maybury shows you how to correct this major--and tragic--error in education.

A must for a counting book esp. if your child likes Sesame Street. It is an older book so the new characters like Elmo don't show up. However, you see the Count and Big Bird a lot, also, Grover, Oscar, Kermit, Tully, Cookie Monster. Very little of the books scenes are actually on Sesame Street. You see a merry go round, a farm, a train, cars while you are looking for Big Bird who is semi-hidden in many of the pictures. Its simple and fun and counting books esp. this one had my son counting to 12 at two years old.

I have continued to read Mr. Maybury's books and the first five have filled me with knowledge and wonder at how uninformed I have been in the past about simple and basic issues that touch, influence and determine the coarse of a persons life each and evey day.

I have learned a great deal from his obvious intellectual prowess and his all encompassing views on many subjects and how they mesh together to form, affect and manipulate this world we live in.

One gets a sense of awe at how little they can trust those in power but how immensly important is it is that those without it stick together and ensure we be ever vigilante in our observations of elected officials. Those people we used to call public servants but who hav become nothing but self-indulgent life lont politicians. In other words they have become exactly what our Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to prevent.

In this book, "What Would Thomas Jefferson Think About This?" I have found yet another source of knowledge that I must thank Uncle Eric for. Yet after reading the great book "John Adams." I do not find that I have the awe and inspiration that allows me to make Jefferson my number one hero. Yes, he is a great man and I believe he was one of the greatest founders, however I find that I still place him behind George Washington and Adams on that account.

It is my philosophy just like it was Reverend Johathan Mayhew's and John Adam's that "The people, are required to obey their government's law only when it is in agreement with Higher Law. And if the government violates that charge, it is our duty, and we are bound the fight it with every resourse at our disposal."

In a related topic Mayhew was a true Reverend, and it is unfortunate that the term has been turned into such a basphemous title today for those who use and claim the name are anything but Reverend.

In any case this 6th book in Mr. Maybury's series is yet another collectors item and gives the reader a sound foundation by which to judge the literature they choose to obsorb and contemplate in creating their own ideological awareness and positions of items of critical importance to our country and our people.

I loved the first edition of this good book. It made me a better searcher with AltaVista, which is what it's designed to do.

The section on searches one can make with structural elements in the URL makes the book worthwhile, but all of that is handled in a single chapter.

Why anyone would need Appendices on the most common words searched on AV, the frequency of words used in AV searches, or a sample of 1,000 queries is beyond me. The same goes with the chapter on the history of AltaVista. The subtitle is "How to find anything on the Internet." Nobody is buying a history of AltaVista.

As good as the early pages are, the book runs out of gas about halfway through and loses itself in a lot of padding.

I'd think twice about going for the second edition because I'm suspicious it's just more padding and that the essential stuff hasn't changed much. If you don't have the first edition, however, you might find even the first half of the second edition worth the price.

Let me say upfront that Alta Vista is my #1 search engine, and part of the reason I purchased this book was to become a better searcher. But the real reason was to optimize the chances of my web site getting Alta Vista hits. The book helped me on both counts--especially pointing out the need for Meta tags in the HTML header (but you won't find meta tags in the index). The development of Alta Vista by Digital makes for good reading, as well as the appendices on search word frequencies. The low point of the book is Ch. 6--106 pages of search examples that are not very interesting. I wish the book had been written with a bit more technical detail and much less filler. Given the book's low price, I would still rate it a good value

This book is very cool for people that are both new to the web as well as for those that have been on for like four years now. There are definitly things in it that will teach everyone something cool and useful about the web. You will be a far better web searcher and sufer after reading this--I keeep it close to my PC!

Related to the Philosophical Strangler. Stories overlap, but this book focuses on Gwendolyn, Benvenutti & the Sorcerer. Story of events in these characters' lives before, during, and after, Phil Strangler. Found the language a bit much to wade through a second time, and not as funny. If you loved Philosophical Strangler, you'll probably love this one, but if you were growing weary by the end of the Strangler, you should probably pass this one up.

When a powerful wizzard learns, to his surprise, that he has enemies, he accidentally destroys a kingdom and sets off in search of the one woman who can tell him who his enemies are. His voyage becomes a quest tied up in Ozar plans for world conquest, the world's greatest strangler, and God's eternal battle to rid himself of the Joe heresy forever. In a parallel adventure, an artist joins a revolutionary in a journey to love and the perfect anarchist state. Yet, even this perfect state is threatened by the power of the Ozar rap-sheet, and the wizard seems intent on protecting the power of the powerful rather than on their overthrow.

Set in the same universe as Flint's THE PHILSOSOPHICAL STRANGLER, FORWARD THE MAGE combines adventure with humor. The wizard Zulkeh is as unlikely a hero as can be imagined with a combination of pedantic pseudo-scholarly language and abusive behavior. In contrast, the likely hero, artist and mercenary Benvenuti, never really gets into the story, providing a bit of romantic diversion. Still, authors Eric Flint and Richard Roach make it work. MAGE occasionally tries too hard, but often delivers a Terry Pratchet-like belly laugh.

Flint and Roach slide a bit of the revolution into their novel, and offer some insights into basic liberties that will create a few grimaces from conservative readers, but they do so with good spirit. Clearly FORWARD THE MAGE has some political messages to deliver, but Flint and Roach manage to deliver them in the context of an amusing adventure.

Eric Flint and Richard Roach's Forward The Mage is fantasy writing at its best: an artist-swordsman faces an evil sorcerer, arrest, and politics when his artistic ambitions are rerouted in a struggle for survival. Both feature fast-paced action and complex, believable settings.

If you know very little about Roman history, and you like to read conspiratorial books about the evils of government, this may be your cup of tea.

No historian, drawing from a few resources, Maybury spins a tale of the genesis of large, centralized governments spawned from fascist Rome, plaguing libertarians such as himself even today.

God help the person whose primary experience of history is books such as this

This is one of a series of facinating books made by Uncle Eric.One very good point he makes is that history can seem like a meaningless arangement of dates unless we have a model to base it on.The book also discuses the history of the roman model and its influence through WWII.A very interesting point in this book is the power matrix. What is the power matrix you ask? Well the power matrix is the main powers that are fighting today. The old power matrix used to be Soviet Socialism vs. US Democracy.The power matrix today is Fuedalism vs. Facism vs. Islam,if your wondering why it has changed I recomend you read the book.It goes in to much more detail. Many more points are brought up in this book and I recomend it to anyone who wants to gain further knowledge of Gov. and Econ!

I was surprise to see so few reviews of this seventh book in the nine book series from Mr. Maybury. It astonished me even more to find a library review that seemed to attack him. This could not have been a person who has given the "Uncle Eric" series a fair and balanced hearing.

To attack Mr. Maybury for presenting a compressed view of history on the grounds that they put forth, proves that they do not fully understand nor comprehend the overall spirit and intent of his books. As a matter of fact I found that review rather childish, inept and unjustifiable.

In any case I find this book no different than all the rest, a good read, informative and thought provoking. Mr. Maybury tells us way back in his first book of this series...that they are all simply one man's opinion of how we have arrived where we are today. It is up to the reader to research futher and consider whether they want to accept his evaluation or not. Surely tolerance itself would dictate he get a just hearing in that regard. Big government does oppress the people, and anyone who does not agree with that is just plain simple-minded.

I found this book thought provoking, challenging and educational on a level that I guess the library in queston cannot comprehend.

As a primer to history, economics, moral issues, government, polictics, money and countless other subjects Mr. Maybury brings a method that should be more widely used to educate our children. At least on the most basic level to spart their interest and bring such matters down to a level of simplification that does not turn the young reader off.

Surly we must instruct them that they should never take one persons opinion as a gospel to the truth or history or anything but to deny them the benefit of his rather extraordiary talents is a much worse sin upon enlightenment than anything Mr. Maybury has perpetrated.

All writings, no matter how well cloaked or clothed in the dust jackets of the historian, journalist, constitutional scholar or other famous authors is after all "just opinion" derived at by looking at something someone else has produced, and trying to glean what was in their minds when they put pen or quill to paper or parchment.

Librarians should remember that and not be so harsh upon people like Mr. Maybury for there is no more truth and fiction in his works than in many many others that sit upon the library shelves.

Great introductory book to history as it relates to todays world. I would strongly recommend it to the beginner.

This is strictly a book for beginners, as it covers only the rudimentary concepts of visual basic. You'd benefit from it if you've never written a line of code in your life. Even for total greenhorn, it's very tedious to read page after page about addition/subtraction/multiplication/division operations.

The greatest problem with this book, as with many, many other programming books, is that the authors just throw large chunks of code at you without bothering to explain why or how they work. For instance, on page 138 of the paperback edition, the author would write "Exit Sub" on line 44, without telling you why you would want to do that at that point. You WON'T find it explained in its context in the entire book. For beginners (as this book is obviously targetting at), this is plain bad practice. You'd have very many "whys" knocking around in your head, and you'd be left hopelessly lost. You'd even begin to doubt yourself, and think it's your fault, which of course it isn't. It's just bad writing.

In addition, in some cases, the authors seem to hate using the properties window, and wouldn't tell you that it may be much easier to use the properties window (for design-time properties)than writing laborious codes. The MoveIt example at page 98 illustrates my point.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend it to beginners, even though this book is written with beginners in mind. It'd put you off using visual basic, maybe forever. Try another book. There're many good ones lying around.

There is no easy way in evaluating this book. One can always say the classic response, "It was all right" and just walk away.
The book had much more examples to look at than in had tutorial type examples. It was fast reading. In the sample code the book teaches you the code by mixing it with other new concepts that will be explained later on and only explains the code that it is currently teaching you while the other code has to wait for a future lesson. This somewhat leaves one with a funny feeling that the whole is not yet fully understood. Most of the sample applications, though sometimes very long in code, are not exactly real world applications. The book seems much easier than what it appears to be. A number of chapters, such as Activex components and database forms, cannot be done with the Learners Edition of Visual Basic.

I have a shelf full of books on Visual Basic. Many of them are over-priced thousand page monsters that simply collect dust because the information I need is too hard to find. This book is not only a great value at a reasonable price, it is also a useful reference for a beginning to intermediate level programmer. I can easily find the information I am looking for. The steps are spelled out clearly and code examples are provided as well. This book would be a worthy addition to anyones Visual Basic library. I highly recommend it.