If you are looking for a quick yet thorough coverage of this topic then this is the book for you. It is a relatively short book, coming in at 167 pages (not including bibliography but including notes section), yet it covers the whole spectrum of the national music of the Dominican Republic.

Mr Austerlitz covers the beginnings of this music all the way through to its current state. It also spends time on Merengue's development during the Trujillo era (a particularly interesting topic to anyone who studies the Dominican Republic).

Mr Austerlitz also does a good job of addressing the sociological issues that arise from music and manages to blend well the merengue of the campo with that of the salon.

A good read and it even comes with a CD with some very good campo (country) merengue. If you are looking for merengue at its roots then this CD should please you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1.Introduction

PART 1: THE HISTORY OF MERENGUE 1854-1961. 2. Nineteenth-Century Caribbean Merengue. 3. Merengue Cibaeno, Cultural Nationalism, and Resistance. 4. Music and the State: Merengue during the Era of Trujillo, 1930-1961.

PART 2: The Contemporary Era, 1961-1995. 5. Merengue in the Transnational Community. 6. Innovation and Social Issues in Pop Merengue. 7. Merengue on the Global Stage. 8. Enduring Localism. 9. Conclusion

Let me know if you found this useful.

Up in Manhattan's Morningside Heights and its Dominican analogs all over the US, salsa is edged out by the magnificently manic beat of the merengue, whether stirred into Dominican rap and house (the most original as well as the least known versions of the genre) or in the tear-em-down accordion of Fefita La Grande. Austerlitz has all this and a lot more, all the way from the luckless Toma' back in the 1840s (read the book!)Austerlitz covers merengue from rural to hi-society in all its fierce joviality. Read this book and you'll know there's one good thing Trujillo did for the Dominican Republic!

John Storm Roberts

Enjoyed the insight into the history of Merengue and its cultural context. This book has a place on my bookshelf along with "The Latin Tinge" and "The Brazilian Sound."

This is a brand new book by Paul Kidd, the author of numerous popular novels. The Rats of Acomar is fast reading, with vivid word pictures of the events taking place when the mythical Rats rise up to take what they feel is rightfully theirs. I enjoyed reading this science fiction, fantasy and could readily relate to how the mythical events described, really remind one of events actually taking place in real life. Only the players have been changed. Worth reading.

In the broken wasteland of Acomar, a land teeming with starvation and death, the rat Itheem live. Their bones litter the waste, fallen in the endless battles over territory and food. In terror of the Itheem, the canine Uruth built the great wall to keep them imprisoned in Acomar. But with the rising of an overlord, G'Kaa, everything is changing. The Itheem clans are uniting, planning to take the lands of the other races. But what can a free-spirited coyote, Tupan, her greyhound companion Surolf, the pony Hern, and the rebal rat Ra'sish do to stop them? A very good read, simultainously exciting, sad, and laugh out loud funny. Terrie Smith's illustrations are excellent as well. :-)

After reading Paul Kidd's other new book, "A Whisper of Wings", I did a search here on Amazon and came up with The Rats of Acomar. After the delightful experience I had with Whisper, I picked this one up at Barnes & Noble, too. Talk about a slam-bam exciting storyline that grabs you in its teeth and runs! This book is the first in a new series, and if they're all half as good as this one, I suspect it'll be one of the best sellers ever. This series is sort of like, well, a really COOL version of Brian Jacques' Redwall series... but with ten times the excitement and none of the boring food fetish that chokes his books (and their readers) from stem to stern. This story has it all... action, adventure, humor, great villains, quirky heroes and a rich, detailed world. Paul Kidd really seems to have a talent for bringing characters to life, which is only helped by all of the full-page illustrations in the book! You just never see that in most books these days. As a matter of fact, Whisper, Paul Kidd's other novel, was the only other book I've seen with that sort of thing in my last five years of reading. This book, and Whisper, are the two best Paul Kidd books I have read since "Mus of Kerbridge", from TSR. I totally recommend this book. Five gold stars!

AS fate would have it, i was given this book at the tender age of 12 by my best friend's mother. Growing up in a house with 2 sisters i was clueless to the minds of young men..a mystery..never understood why the neighborhood tough guys felt the need to pelt us girls with grapefruits from the safety of their fortified clubhouses and armed camps. I love this book..Robert Smith has captured the innnocent and fearful thinking process of young boys that transcends the generations..haven't we all put our fists to our eyeballs in the dark of night to see the flashing lights??

Through it all he maintains a dry wit and subtle humor than endears the reader. I re-read it once a year just to get perspective on the youth in America...a treasure not to be missed..his narrative on losing at marbles to the town bully is a classic.....fears and joys..isn't that what childhood is all about?With a wry perspective and total honesty, Robert Smith manages to ring a bell of truth in this slice of life.

This timeless collection of childhood memories is a classic. It can be read at any age, because everyone, boy or girl, man or woman, can relate to its tellings of childhood memories, dreams, and shenanigans. This is the best book ever written, aside from the Bible.

As a young man, I found this book among some of my Father's collection. It seems it has been twenty years since I read it, but the images of life portrayed by the Author are still imprinted on my mind. I can remember the wholesome, innocent feeling that came over me, even as a rebellious youth, as I read each chapter. Even the detail of each story has escaped me now, but the impression it has left is inescapable. And now after all these years, Through Amazon.com, I am able to rekindle this friendship, between that old book and I. It is a "must read" and should be considered a classic for young people in school.

It is not so easy to determine where Foucault is attempting to go with his published books. In this sense, the books from "Madness and Civilization" to the 3rd "History of Sexuality" can be thought of as practical works that have specific institutional and discursive aims. Thus, they are short in explanation of the methodology and instead such intentions are available as they are practiced in the texts. For example, philosophers such as Nietzsche and Marx, to name a few, are hardly mentioned in Foucault's book; however, they are often evoked and utilised without obvious references or footnotes. As Deleuze once commented: Foucault doesn't say what to do, he just does it.

Thus, Foucault's occasional essays, covering academic journals, popular press, lectures, introductions, and so on, serve to clue us, the readers, as to where Foucault is coming from, and, furthermore, in which direction his thought is heading.

This edition, covering Foucault's superb writings on literature, his mentors, music, as well as other philosophical movements, situates a thinker within an intellectual context from his very own words. In "The Archaeology of Knowledge" Foucault begins by saying "do not ask me who I am..." To be sure, with this volume, we can begin to better understand Foucault without the interface of commentators and scholars. Directness of discourse is an important element in Foucault's thought...

Although much of the pieces that appear here have been previously translated and released in a variety of formats, I predict that any scholar or occasional reader would be pleased to accept this redundancy for the very convenience that this collection presents.

Some most interesting pieces include, the previously hard to find Foucault's response to Derrida's reading of "Madness and Civilization"; Foucault's responses to the Epistemology circle; and an illuminating interview in which Foucault situates his thought in 20th Century French intellectual life. In addition, this collection includes popular 'staple' such as "Theatrum Philosophicum," "Nietzsche, Freud, Marx," and "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History," all of which provide endless insight into Foucault even despite numerous re-readings.

While serious followers of Foucault's works would benefit greatly from this collection, this would also serve as a good introduction to Foucault--maybe second only to the cartoon books on Foucault!

And to close: if Nietzsche was the greatest philosophical stylist, this collection demonstrates conclusively that Foucault was a close second...

Michel Foucault , i think should be read by anyone read and liked Nietzsche.

Very interesting elementary book. A little bit too simple for indepth school report requirements but overall well writen. Easily understood and great illustrations. Better then the average Nature Company books on other subjects.

An imformative children's book with the basic history of Ancient Rome. Filled with colorful and hisorically correct pictures. A perfect book for the future historians.

If you have any interest in baseball--or if you were ever a devotee of H. Allen Smith's THREE MEN ON THIRD--you'll have trouble putting this one down. Yes, you will add tremedously to your factoid collection and probably never again pay for another glass of whatever you drink at your local watering hole. But that's only half the story of this book. Salisbury loves his subject and that sympathy for facts is contagious, reminding us that "fan" does come from "fanatic." Yes, some of the collection tells stories that are not very happy, and Boston fans are going to struggle reliving the part on Conigliaro, but Salisbury does an excellent job throughout. I finally forced myself to a chapter a night just to prolong things.

This is a great book about baseball. The author does not ask stupid questions that anyone could look up for themselves. He doesn't treat baseball trivia like it is an answer to be found in an encyclopedia. Why is this book not in print?

Robert Cole's "The Book of Houses" provides a unique and personalized system to really understand your natal chart. Out of print until recently, I have used Cole's book for years to help focus and manifest my personal goals, by utilizing the natural solar progression through my natal houses over the course of a year.

Cole provides an easy-to-use chart to calculate the dates of your natal houses. For instance, my "rising sign": occurs at 25 degrees Libra. According to Cole, this is equated with the day which occurs 25 degrees (or days) into the sign of Libra - or October 18th. Every year, this is the day when the Sun crosses into my 1st house & spends approximately 30 days there. Working with the solar progression as a process of "bringing to light", I would spend this time focused on "1st house issues".

Assigning 365 days on the 360-degree circle of a natal chart is easy, when Cole provides you with the key. His system allows you to spend approximately one month per year in each of the 12 houses, working to bring to fruition a set of goals you chose on the appropriate day.

Actually, I have blended Cole's system with the annual choosing of a tarot card to create an integrated and personalized magickal pattern of self-actualization, which I have taught to others.

Cole's book is fun to work with and each individual's house-seed system is unique unto themselves. You do, however, need to have an accurate natal chart to use the book since it does not provide you with one.

If I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one astrology book - this is it! Have been using this cycle of houses in my life for over 15 years - it's amazing!

introduction to cost control and what is a cost control

This is just what I needed to get started on my breakdown sheet for costs of job site work. Thank you.

North and Thomas seek to explain the "rise of the Western world" by illuminating the causal importance of an efficient economic organization that guarantees a wide latitude of property rights and both incentives and protection for economic growth. Although they pay homage to both Marxian and neoliberal theory, they take a theoretical middle ground that privileges the sociopolitical backdrop of economic affairs (as opposed to solely private or class-based activity) and in doing so identifies the roots of modernization as far back as the 10th Century. To justify the novelty and originality of this approach, they write that most analysts have misidentified the symptoms of modern economic growth (technological change, human capital, economies of scale) as the causes. In doing so, previous scholars have failed to answer the question "if all that is required for economic growth is investment and innovation, why have some societies missed this desirable outcome?" (2). Their answer is that some societies (England and the Netherlands) were better than others (France and Spain) at providing an efficient economic organization that could guarantee conditions favorable to per capita economic growth among a rapidly growing population.

These conditions are conceptualized as mechanisms to reduce the gap between "social" and "private" rates of return, the key operating concepts in the analysis. Indeed, any old economic undertaking can provide private gains, but the "social" costs or benefits of this undertaking will affect the society's well-being, and a given discrepancy between the two rates of return means that a third party will absorb benefits or costs of this undertaking (an example would be the lack of intellectual property rights for inventions, leading to copying and piracy by third parties). A lack of strong property rights gives these third parties the institutional incentive or imperative to absorb social costs or benefits, and if private costs exceed private benefits then no rational chooser would ever undertake any risky new private economic activity (trade, inventions, investment, etc.). In a sense, then, the analysis becomes a refreshing neoliberal justification for strong government power.

Population growth serves as a convenient control variable for this analysis, because by holding population growth constant across all the countries concerned, the authors are able to pinpoint their causal variable (parity between private and social rates of return) in the cases where it spurred the rise of capitalism (England and the Netherlands). Population growth serves as a control because the authors show that the rise of the Western World happened only after the second population boom in the period being studied (16th Century) - the fact that it didn't happen during the first population boom (10th through 13th Centuries) means that population growth alone cannot be seen as accountable for modernity. But how did the two population booms differ from each other? Only during the second one were England and the Netherlands able to provide per capita growth by providing a climate of incentives and protections (rule of law, property rights, insurance companies, joint stock companies, etc.) that reduced the gap between private and social returns and laid the groundwork for the industrial revolution to begin.

The evidence provided to back up this causal argument comes in two primary forms: citations of historical scholarship (often quoting large passages out of encyclopedias) that are given a "new" economic spin, and a great deal of quantitative evidence, in the form of graphs and charts, to verify the cycles of population growth and economic growth and recession being identified. The authors admit that the quality of statistical data from the early period under study is rather dubious, but if one can grant the integrity of the historians that uncovered such incomplete and partial data then one can probably take this data as high-quality evidence of the trends being identified.

The authors are intentionally ambiguous about their theoretical implications. Clearly, they seek to refute Marx by showing that technological change alone could not have been the cause of capitalist development, since this change itself was a symptom of both population growth and a favorable institutional climate (what Marx would dismiss as the superstructure). However, it's not clear how much they wish to refute neoliberal theory, since they follow much of its logic regarding the role of incentives in economic growth. They admit that Adam Smith himself went too far in his laissez-faire beliefs, since a weak state would not be able to provide the kinds of efficient economic organization that our authors advocate. But their analysis does not clarify just how strong of a state is required for such organization, especially in the information age economy.

An outstanding book that clearly explains how 'our' current understanding of property rights can be found and more fully understood through the feudal history of western Europe. The breath and sweep of this book is truly impressive. The roots of how nations protect property rights are found in western feudal history. The case is made that economic efficiency, or more specifically economic prosperity, is dependent upon how a society defines and protects property rights. Therefore, differences in economic performance among nations can be in part explained by how that particular nation's notion of property rights evolved. North and Thomas compare and contrast the development of property rights and the resulting economic performance during the feudal period in several nations, such as France and England, to make their point. Transaction costs, intellectual property, and negative and positive externalities are also discussed.

I read this excellent book in preparation for the writing of my senior thesis. It is the most thorough and comprehensive tretment of the economic reasons for the rise of the western world. Every sentence is information dense, and I often found it necessary to reread sentences or even whole paragraphs to digest the wealth of information and analysis. That said, it should be kept in mind that firm backgrounds in both European history and economics are necessary prerequisites for a full appreciation of this book. Moreover, this book is a crucial but nevertheless incomplete explanation for the rise of the western world. In this sense, it has everything on something (economic history), but nothing on anything else. For a broader analysis, see McNeill, "The Rise of the West." (McNeill has something on everything, but everything on nothing. Get it?)

My biggest problem with this book was that it didn't cover alot of things I dreamed about. Great for a first time user because of the easy to use format and language. I myself could have done without the biblical references(after all we're not all Christians)

This is a very insiteful and valuable book. It goes into detail of all that is involved in the making of dreams. Where they come from, how they develop and how we can make sense out of their nonsense. Definitely worth reading a few times.

I found this book a great tool. It gives practical tools for breaking apart the symbols of your dreams. I bought this book two years ago and didn't read it right away. I did write down a few dreams at that time. Recently I picked up the book and looked back at those dreams and was blown away at the timing of the dreams to what was really happening in my life at the time. If you want a deeper understanding of yourself and a guide of being led by the Holy Spirit looking at your dreams is a must. As a Christian it was refreshing to have a book that spoke to me instead bordering on fortune telling that alot of dream books lead to these days.