What struck me is that this book analyzes natural law within a legal context: many of the contributing authors are attorneys as well as philosopher. This is particularly helpful to our nation today, as I think more citizens will have to reassess the role of the judiciary these days.

For the latter half of the 20th century, worries over "judicial acitivism" and judges' making decisions that should be made by legislatures have been the domain of conservatives, with Roe v. Wade probably being the chief example. But now liberals have said similar things about the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision. It is high time for intelligent discussion, and this book is a solid foundation for a dialogue.

By looking at natural law historically, legally, and philosophically, the authors of this book examine how natural law works and various challenges to it. This book is a very good introduction, and I have come away with a greater respect for natural law and its vital role in our nation, and also new questions to pursue (and more books to buy...).

The contributing authors are an impressive team of formidable thinkers, and while most of the writers clearly come from a religious background, the are pretty good about keeping what they say applicable to a secular society (the last two essays tend to be more theological than philosophical, and I thought that hurt their impact).

I think MacIntyre's essay on the role of the ordinary person in natural law is particularly valuable: if the American citizenry cannot execute sound moral judgment, our nation as a constitutional republic is in grave danger. Fuller's essay on Locke's struggles with natural law is an honest and challenging look at natural law's theoretical chinks. Riley's essay on tort law gave excellent lessons on liability, but with lawsuits being as common as they are nowadays, I would have hoped for more practical insights on today's situation, and possible remedies.

On the whole, this book is a good read and a good challenge. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in ethics or concerned about the present condition of the United States.

Common Truths: New Perspectives On Natural Law is a collection consisting of cogent remarks and prescient essays: Are There Moral Truths That Everyone Knows? (Ralph McInerny); Natural Law: The Legacy of Greece and Rome (J. Rufus Fears); Aquinas, Natural Law, and the Challenges of Diversity (John Jenkins); John Locke's Reflections on Natural Law and the Character of the Modern World (Timothy Fuller); Theories of Natural Law in the Culture of Advanced Modernity (Alasdair MacIntyre); What Dignity Means (Virginia Black); Natural Law and Positive Law (Robert P. George); Natural Rights and the Limited of Constitutional Law (Russell Hittinger); Natural Law and Sexual Ethics (Janet E. Smith); Contract Law and Natural Law (Edward J. Murphy); Tort Law and Natural Law (William N. Riley); Criminal Law and Natural Law (Ian A.T. McLean); and Natural Law in the Twenty-First Century (Charles E. Rice). Common Truths is scholarly, intellectually stimulating reading for anyone wanting to better understand and appreciate the permanent norms of human action and their relationships to a moral and political life.

Charles E. White's "The Enlightened Soldier", is an awesome military leadership book and a must read for senior military/corporate leaders. The views, principles, and fundamentals of stratigic thinking and implementation are more relavant today than when this book was first written. I had to re-read some of the passages to get the full meaning of the author's intent -- that is why I only gave it 4 stars.

If you want to find out where the future of leadership should/is heading, read this book!

JWC

Scharnhorst, the Hanoverian officer who transferred to the Prussian service, bringing with him new ideas of professionalism, excellence, and the education of officers, was one of the guiding lights in Prussia after their catastrophic defeat by Napoleon and his terrible Grande Armee, that, in three weeks of marching, fighting, and pursuit, destroyed the old Prussian Army of Frederick the Great.

This excellent volume, however, is not of the reform period, nor does it chronicle the decisive campaign of 1806. What it does tell us, is of Scharnhorst's efforts to institutionalize excellence in the Prussian army, especially its officer corps, and to move it into the era of modern warfare as exemplified by Napoleon and the French experience in the Wars of the Revolution.

Scharnhorst, as a new lieutenant colonel with a new patent of nobility, launched into the old ideas of Prussia's methods of waging war, and gathered about him like-minded souls that saw the shortcomings of the Prussian system and wanted to improve the army, especially the officer corps that was dominated by Junkers, the landed Prussian aristocracy that thought it their right to provide the army with its officer corps. To that end, Scarnhorst established the Militarische Gesellschaft, or Military Society, in Berlin. While not a school, it did become a think tank, and most of its members went on to become members of the revamped and reorganized Prussian General Staff, which was attempting to come into the modern world of the nineteenth century, based on the French staff example.

Before 1806 there was only partial success, Scharnhorst meeting opposition from most of the older generals and many of his peers. Still, there was success. Many papers and studies were published, including a noteworthy one by Scharnhorst on the Marengo Campaign of 1800, which noted the reforms in organization, tactics, leadership, and staff functioning that were being employed by the French. It also noted the numerous shortcomings of the Austrian Army.

This is a valuable work for any understanding of what the Prussian Army, or rather, certain of its members, were trying to do in the rough days before 1806, and in the even rougher ones after. Based on much primary German sources, including Scharnhorst's personal papers, it is a necessary work for both the study and understanding of the period, and it places the nucleus of the responsibility for the Prussian reforms squarely on Scharnhorst's shoulder, where they evidently belong. This is a necessary work for any student of the period and is very highly recommended.

I am happy I spent the money on the How to Do Your Own Divorce. It is easy to read and gives examples of all the forms you may need to use and how to fill them out. The laws regarding divorce in California are made easy to understand. Also, if there is a law you don't understand or have a question about something you can call the divorce help line for $10.00 a call and $3.50 per minute (kind of steep and I hope I don't have to use this). Once you get the book you will need to download the latest forms. If you want a cd you will have to spend another $5.00 to have it sent to you. Also, if you have a messy divorce you will need to buy a second book to get those questions answered. After looking through the book I've decided I don't have the time to do my own divorce and am going to retain a paralegal to file papers for me. In the back of the book there is a list of paralegal located throughout California. The positive is that what I have learned from this book will make my own divorce a lot easier.

I found this book to be very helpful. Don't get me wrong, California doesn't make getting a divorce easy and there will be a ton of paperwork, but this book makes it possible to get through it yourself. In particular I found the included CD to be extrodinarily useful. The process involves filling out several dozen forms. The included software automatically fills out the route form information for you and is much/much faster than typing them by hand.

This book makes a comparison between effectiveness of analysis and play of power in making public policy. In this book, the author raises the hand of the play of power because he thinks that the most objective analysis also must be influenced by the opinion, selection and personality of policy analysis professionals. I agree. I believe that the human being is not the God. If there are socialists or analysis professionals say that they have perfect analysis, I regard them as ambitious people being eager to control and suppress the public under so-called the flag of truth. Therefore we have to find other ways in order to explain the policy making process. The author finds the way in the political counteraction among interests who are affected by the policy. He named this situation as the play of power. In this rule, they ultimately enjoyed the policy favoring them as everyone takes an effort to effect particular policy. He also argues that the inequality in the play of power is natural. Because there are many differences-for instance, organization, manpower, available money, accessibility to the policy-making process, etc-among social groups. Generally these differences are under hand of the elite and constantly are reproduced and reinforced by educational condition, wealth and socialization. Also he criticizes contradiction of the voting process. The reason is that there are many policies but voters have only one vote. He says, therefore voters are naturally excluded in the policy-making process. In this book, Lindblem shows his insight into policy-making process. Although he emphasizes the political counteraction in the policy-making process, he does not ignore the effectiveness. What he really emphasizes is the harmony between analytical and political approach. When we look at the policy-making through this harmony between two opinions, we will reach the real understanding of one. But he leaves difficult problem to us. That is a solution about overcoming the inequality in the policy-making.

The Policy Making-Process is a classic primer on the policy making process in the United States. The author, Charles Lindblom is considered a classic thinker in American Policy, who emphasizes diversity in decision making in order to create "intelligence." In short, he advocates getting more people involed in the process, as well as soliciting a wider point of view.

The book is set up in four parts. First, he introduces the nature of policy-making, writing of the challenges, limits, and potential of American policy-making. Second, he writes about the impact of government and politics on the policy process in creating change, or more often holding on to the status quo. The third section describes the broader influences of polciy making, and articulates that policy making by "The People" is often an up-hill battle. In the fourth section Lindblom offers advice how to improve the policy process.

I believe this is an excellent primer on the topic because it simplifies a very difficult process, and creates a broad understanding, which a reader may use as a basis to delve further into policy-making.

Lindblom's work is very reader-friendly. It is short, to the point, and easy to read.

Eric Linklater was a natural choice of author for a book and documentary film about Bonnie Prince Charlie, when the idea came up in the mid 60s. Compton Mackenzie might have been an equally obvious choice - he had already written one book about Charles Edward Louis Philippe Casimir Stuart. However, regardless of the choice of author, the style of the text was somewhat fixed from the start, since it was meant to back up a documentary film (as a published book) and so was not an individual writer's earnest appraisal of either the history or the legend.

Nevertheless, settling upon Linklater ensured a certain native expertise and charm, so to speak, since by the time he wrote this, he was a very able writer with numerous books to his credit. So "The Prince in the Heather" followed its predicted path and became a sort of odyssey, as Linklater and a film crew revisited the major haunts of the Prince during his lengthy (and often recounted) escape through the islands off Scotland's west coast. It is not a book that can be read as history so much as a story of now and then. The author intrudes (somewhat apologetically) from time to time, in order to periodically give the story a modern angle. Most of the text is devoted to the doings of 250 years ago, however, and under the competent pen of this first-rate Scottish writer, the Bonnie Prince once more comes out from the shadows. It is not an original work, and I do not think it is mandatory reading for historians. Yet it is a perfectly good read (a bonnie book shall we say) and if you pick up the original edition from somewhere, as I did, you'll find it is a well presented volume complete with a number of pertinent photographs.

Eric Linklater was arguably Scotland's finest historian of the last century (the 20th). In this book, Linklater not only traces the journey of the "wanderings" but places the land and the culture in a greater perspective. What is particularly appealing about this work is his examination of the people of the Highlands and Islands who risked their lives and turned away a great fortune to shelter and protect a leader whom many of them knew was championing a losing cause. Linklater puts this steadfastly loyal Highland character in historical and cultural context in a way that other writers have not. The fine writing is accompanied by stunning photographs which together create an evocative and deeply moving book.

After reading the book I am left with the view that here's another guy trying to cash in on the Manson name...I'm surprised that he stopped short on blaming the sinking of the Titanic on Charles Manson! A near drowing and a broken nose and the fingers start to point at Manson? The last section of the book is the regurgitated court transcripts of the parole hearings...at least we can read what Charles Manson had to say straight from the horses mouth!The rest of he book is too bizarre...

A well done project.I really liked the author,and liked the way his kind nature contrasted with that of evil man-sin.A must for those curious about this subject,it will be a good addition to your collection.plus the side story about a guy named pincushion is bizzare ,yet hilarious

I read Helter Skelter decades ago and watched the gripping television mini-series and was fascinated by both. Since then, no other Manson book has compared until this one. Taming The Beast takes off right where Helter Skelter ended without missing a beat and shows us what Manson has been doing since. Despite being in prison, his family remains alive after all these years and both he and they are just as frightening as ever. Great book!

This book is definetely worth the price (very inexpensive). Except for the outdated notation, I would recommend this book for advanced calculus course.

This is a beautiful combination of the linear algebra and the analysis... is a original book in the sense that I have just named: a treatment of Calculus with a extensive use of Linear Algebra. It won't be easy to read it if you don't have enough tools of the elementary calculus. It is replete of carefully selected exercises and although I have not worked the book completely, I am sure along all the chapters preserve the same spirit with which it was conceived initially. You should have present that their reading leave much of the conventional style of other book types like Widder, Wylie, Kreyszig, and inclusive the elementary classic texts as those of Thomas and Leithold. It is, simply, a work where the unitary idea of two potent branches of the mathematics is shown, and that in definitive, there is not branch of the mathematics that is not connected with the other ones. This book is a combination Mirsky and Widder, if we can say, in a single complete and rigorous book.

This book is a very clear exposition of the standard material covered by an advanced calculus course. I found the text neither overly abstract nor oversimplified.

The many problems helped me understand difficult points in the text that escaped me on first reading.

All in all, an excellent book.

Mark Jaffe's account of the infamous feud between Cope and Marsh is neither as well written nor as well researched as D. R. Wallace's book on the same subject (The Bonehunter's Revenge). But it is a fairly enjoyable read and paints a reasonably accurate and lively portrait of vertebrate paleontology (and the life of paleontologists) during the second half of the 19th century.

Not a bad book--and certainly the material's exciting. The best past was at the beginning, when both men were working the field every year. My main problem was the weight the author gave to different parts of the story. For example, he states almost casually that it was Marsh who made the "biggest palentological error in history" by putting the wrong head on the Brontosaurus, causing the Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus confusion, but never gets back to who figured out the error. He gives a disporportionate amount of weight to parts of the story that just weren't as important, such as Cope's financial problems and the silver mines. Also-I do have a sneaking admiration for Marsh--he may not have been writing touching letter to his daughter, as Cope did, but he did much more to promote fair treatment of the Indians, etc. As I said, not bad, but still not the definitive book.

I found this book to be very well researched and interesting, but unfortunately somewhat poorly written. There are many grammatical errors and typos that should have been caught by the editors but weren't, which made me feel like I was reading a rough draft. Other than that annoying flaw, it's well worth reading.

Three ghosts, a recluse and an initial apparition. Dickens, right? Wrong: Edward Gorey does his own take on "Christmas Carol" in "The Haunted Tea Cosy." Delightfully verbose and filled with Gorey's surreal drawings, this is a picture book that adults will adore.

Recluse Edward Gravel is going about dreary tasks before Christmas. Then sudden an enormous insectile creature leaps from beneath the tea cosy. (Never mind what a tea cosy is) It is the Bahhum Bug, which has come to "diffuse the interests of didacticism." To escort the Bahhum Bug and Mr. Gravel, three subfuse but transparent personages appear to show him the Christmas That Never Was, The Christmas That Isn't, and The Christmas That Never Will Be. They show him distressing scenes around the grey town of Lower Spigot. It's written in a wry, twisted style, this book includes delightfully dour illustrations by the late and much lamented Gorey.

Tired of relentless holiday cheer? Looking for a dash of Halloween's darkness in the chirrupy holiday season? Then check out "The Haunted Tea Cosy," and then carry on to "the very edge of the unseemly"!

"The Haunted Tea Cosy" shows Gorey's esoteric humor at its best. Loosely based on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," we follow Edmund Gravel through a series of affecting scenes rendered in flat pen and ink, many involving wallpaper and other absurd Edwardian commonplaces. In the end he builds a mountain of fruitcake and carries a celebration "to the very edge of the unseemly." Fans of Gorey will treasure this addition to the canon, and those unfamiliar with his brilliant "Amphigorey" collection may begin to see what the fuss is about by reading this offbeat gift book.

This book is a wonderfl antithesis to all the forced jollities of Dicken's beloved chestnut. Old Scrooge should only meet this Bahum Bug! Instead, the Yuletide Bug takes the dour Edward Gravel through a tour of Christmases that Never Were, Isn't, and Never Will Be, all shown in wonderfully ambiguous terms. Of course the Moral Lesson Is Learned, and Mr.Gravel learns to sheer cheer with the equally grey people of his town of Lower Spigot. But the delight is that nowhere does Gorey force the lesson on us, never do the odd little tragedies, even in cemetaries, force one to See the Real Meaning of Christmas--until we have finished the story, and even then it is a droll little moral. This is one story I intend to make a holiday standard in my family.

Tanizaki's 1933 essay is an excellent introduction to the Japanese aesthetic. True, it IS the personal reflection on one man who, were he anyone else, would probably be dismissed as a curmudgeonly crackpot. However, 'western bashing' is not the issue here -- a point that he makes repeatedly is that had Japan remained closed to the influences and technology of the west, those things that have developed in Japan (and, arguably, later developed Japan) would have had a very different complexion. Although he does not speak for all Japanese, the points he makes -- tastes in architecture, decoration, etc -- appear over and over in ordinary Japanese people's homes and lives, even today, 70 years later. (I recommend this book to anyone going to visit Japan -- it gives most Westerners an entirely new perspective on how to view Japanese art.)

The ideas in Tanizaki's essay on the Japanese appreciation for shadows and nature-based arts and architecture should come as little surprise for those familiar with the Japanese culture and tradition. Tanizaki's suggestion that these inclinations came from practical origins made sense (a lot better than the still-common theory that the Japanese idea of aesthetics is a result of different, Japanese genes). It also seemed to me that the Japanese were more inclined to resign themselves to fate and find beauty in what was at hand (like the shadows) than to fight nature and create light at the expense of beauty.

What interested me most was the fact that Tanizaki has a "us versus them" mentality, not so much that Japan or the West is better than the other, just different. However, it seems that if a young Japanese person were to read this essay today, it would seem just as "foreign" as it does to an American.

Nevertheless, it was interesting to read Tanizaki's essay, which discusses everything from the theatre to the bathroom, gold and lacquer, women and race. One cannot help but read Tanizaki's essay without feeling his loss at the erosion of traditional society and the innate beauty within it. At the same time, it makes you look around and notice the lack of beauty in our everyday lives (in terms of art and architecture). America, too, was once a land of shadows and a people who we probably able to appreciate their beauty. Tanizaki probably never considered the fact that his culture and ours are really not so fundamentally different.

If you read this essay, don't get caught up in Tanizaki's occasional bad-mouthing of Western culture (remember that he probably would have never dreamed that this short essay would be translated and read in the West!) Instead, treat this as a rare look into a common Japanese mindset and an opportunity to see for yourself whether Tanizaki's praise of shadows is a worthy one or not.

Reviewers are treating Tanizaki's essay as a self-righteous narrative. It is, rather, an exposition of one man's aesthetic, which, perhaps mistakenly, he attributes to a nation. At the same time, he derides this nation, Japan, for relinquishing traditionalism, in favor of utilitarianism. Tanizaki did not use this essay to belittle western civilization- he used it to emphasize how western civilization was not, according to his perspective, complementary to eastern civilization. This essay is a powerful opinion piece, reflecting one man's disdain for, or arguably bewilderment at, the changing times and the dissolving of a time and place he loved. Tanizaki is a brilliant essayist; his work is revealing of passion and insight. To take this essay as an insult, or as "boring" and "whiny," is the crudest possible assessment. At best, demeaning the essay by ridiculing it as foolhardy words written by a grumpy old nationalist does nothing but prove Tanizaki's points about the incompatibility of western and eastern aesthetic. I don't believe all of what Tanizaki said to be true, either of aesthetics or of ethnic predispositions to given aesthetics, but I believe he had a valid case as foundation for his essay, and I strongly recommend reading it.