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Book reviews for "Robert,_Paul" sorted by average review score:

Clotel or the President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States (Bedford Cultural Edition)
Published in Hardcover by Palgrave Macmillan (1900)
Authors: William Wells Brown, Robert Levine, and J. Paul Hunter
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rediscovered classic, gets the treatment it deserves
This, reader, is an unvarnished narrative of one doomed by the laws of the Southern States to be a slave. It tells not only its own story of grief, but speaks of a thousand wrongs and woes beside, which never see the light; all the more bitter and dreadful, because no help can relieve, no sympathy can mitigate, and no hope can cheer. -William Wells Brown, Clotel, or The President's Daughter

Clotel would have historic interest simply by virtue of the fact that William Wells Brown appears to have been the first African American to write a novel. But it's not merely a literary curiosity; it is also an eminently readable and emotionally powerful, if forgivably melodramatic, portrait of the dehumanizing horrors of slave life in the Ante-bellum South. Brown, himself an escaped slave, tells the story of the slave Currer and her daughters, Clotel and Althesa, and of their attempts to escape from slavery. The central conceit of the story is that the unacknowledged father of the girls is Thomas Jefferson himself.

There is an immediacy to the stories here--of slave auctions, of families being torn apart, of card games where humans are wagered and lost, of sickly slaves being purchased for the express purpose of resale for medical experimentation upon their imminent deaths, of suicides and of many more indignities and brutalities--which no textbook can adequately convey. Though the characters tend too much to the archetypal, Brown does put a human face on this most repellent of American tragedies. He also makes extensive use (so extensive that he has been accused, it seems unfairly, of plagiarism) of actual sermons, lectures, political pamphlets, newspaper advertisements, and the like, to give the book something of a docudrama effect.

The Bedford Cultural Edition of the book, edited by Robert S. Levine, has extensive footnotes and a number of helpful essays on Brown and on the sources, even reproducing some of them verbatim. Overall, it gives the novel the kind of serious presentation and treatment which it deserves, but for obvious reasons has not received in the past. Brown's style is naturally a little bit dated and his passions are too distant for us to feel them immediately, but as you read the horrifying scenes of blacks being treated like chattel, you quickly come to share his moral outrage at this most shameful chapter in our history.

GRADE : B

The Reality Hits Us ALL
This is a exemplary novel that also deals with the harsh realities of slavery. This novel distinctly tells a true story, which is relevant to ALL Americans (believe it or not. This is a must reader for ALL.


Data Structures and Problem Solving With Turbo Pascal: Walls and Mirrors
Published in Hardcover by Addison-Wesley Pub Co (1993)
Authors: Frank M. Carrano, Paul Helman, Robert Veroff, and M. Helman
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More for advanced users
Came across this book when I'm browsing through a whole range of Turbo Pascal books. The illustrations are clear with reference from detailed examples especially those on the difficult topics. Pictures are also helpful in illustrating the more hard to visualize topics like those in ADT and trees. Generally a more helpful book compared to most other titles emphazisng on basic concepts only.

Great Book
Use the book for introductory data structure, elementary software engineering, or advanced programming and problem solving. It fill up a lot of missing links that other data structure books trying to provide. Read it up.


The Economics of Organisation and Management
Published in Paperback by Pearson Higher Education (01 February, 1992)
Authors: Paul Milgrom and John Roberts
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A textbook on the firm.
This book is probably the first textbook on economics of organization. Since published in 1992, it has been widely used in classes. The main framework of the book lies in the conception of the firm as a system of incentive/coordination to allocate efficiently resources. So this book is an extension of neoclassical approach to the area of organization, though such concepts like bounded rationality and transaction cost are incorporated deeply into the architecture of the book. Unlike usual textbooks, this book has the overarching coherence with theoretical depth over various subjects like centralized/decentralized organization, moral hazard, rent, ownership, human resource management, investment, corporate governance. Such consistency is possible for its theoretical position: neoclassical approach. In that stance, the actor is motivated in its rational calculation, in other word incentive, although it¡¯s bounded in terms of information. How to organize such actor into an organization is the problem of coordination in the theory of the firm. Such an approach was widely adopted in the 1980s. But these days, resources/capabilities approach and evolutionary economics dominate the discourse on the firm. Capabilities, resources, dynamic capabilities, organizational learning, routine, tacit knowledge, knowledge creation, those are buzzwords to date. If you are to be specialized in the theory of the firm, this book should be read. But if not, I recommend Besanko, Dranove, and Shanley¡¯s ¡®Economics of Strategy¡¯. It takes trendy approach and that, it explains each subject with live examples from business world.

Possibly the best applied economics text ever.
Bluntly, this is the best university text in economics written in the 1990s. This may also be the best university text in useful economics ever written. You will learn a great deal about getting incentives right, about corporate governance, and about the labor market for managers. Its only flaw is that it overlooks the fact that the tools it teaches, and the arguments it lays out, can be used to formulate a powerful critique of government as well as of the modern corporation.


Five Miles High: The Story of an Attack on the Second Highest Mountain in the World by the Members of the First American Karakoram Expedition
Published in Paperback by The Lyons Press (2000)
Authors: Richard L./ House, William P./ Houston, Charles S./ Petzoldt, Paul K./ Streatfield, Norman R. American Karakoram Expedition 1938)/ Burdsall, Charles Houston, and Robert Bates
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A certain style of expedition...
Well written and with occasional engaging flashes of humor, Five Miles High gives a well-drawn picture of the large Himalayan expeditions of the past. At the same time as expedition members are having their food cooked for them and having their gear carried by numerous "coolies", they are walking a much greater distance, and in some ways subsisting in harsher conditions, than climbers do today. The contrasts with the present day are perhaps the most interesting thing about this book. "Boy's First Adventure Book"-ish illustrations at the chapter headings add a charming retro touch.

1938 American Expedition to K2
Five Miles high is an extremely interesting and very readable firsthand account of the 1938 American Expedition to climb K2, the second highest peak in the world. The book is a reissue of the original book describing the expedition and is authored by two team leaders with additional contributions by the other four team members. Of particular interest is their description of their trek through the Karakoram just to reach the mountain in the days when the primary hauling of supplies was done by ponies and porters. The contrast between the preparations and efforts involved in this expediton and the efforts described in all of the current Mt. Everest books is amazing. All in all, you'll find this a very enjoyable book to read. The same authors also wrote a second book describing their 1953 expedition - K2, The Savage Mountain. This one also has been recently reissued.


The Geography of Childhood (Why Children Need Wild Places)
Published in Hardcover by Beacon Press (1994)
Authors: Gary Paul Nabhan, Stephen Trimble, and Robert Coles
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The landscape through a child's eyes
Gary Nabhan and Stephen Trimble have penned a fine collection of essays on how children perceive and play in their environment. References are made to psychological studies that support a child's need for wild places, but the real value I see in this book comes from the authors' own anecdotal experiences with their children. If you are a parent of small children, you will especially enjoy the ideas you will get for places to take children to play and explore. Read this book and you will begin to learn why children need to experience wild places. And why, as adults, if we share the "hands-on" experiences with our kids, our own connection to the landscape becomes more deeply rooted.

I loved it!
At first glance, this book seems to be another in a long line of published material telling parents how to be good parents. But it really seemed like a personal reflection of what makes life great through a child's eyes. Instead of trying to raise a child through adult methods, this book shows that through simply remembering what being a child was and why it was fun is enough to help you understand what your child is thinking. Through this understanding, you will become a great parent. I was very pleased with my purchase and recommend this book to anyone that has had any contact with children.


Internet Security: Professional Reference
Published in Paperback by New Riders Publishing (1997)
Authors: Derek Atkins, Paul Buis, Chris Hare, Robert Kelley, Carey Nachenberg, Anthony B. Nelson, Paul Phillips, Tim Ritchey, William Steen, and New Riders Development Group
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Good. Does not provide a "how to" way to protect a Business.
This book provides very good advice on how security works, and some way hackers had invaded systems.

Includes, Java, CGI, SATAN, Kerberos but lacks an step by step advice to protect networks. The book is all about Unix...

Excellent books for make penetration testing...
This book cover a width range of themes, include security for winnt, unix. Also cover security with CGI, Java.. Excellent !!!


Killdozer!: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
Published in Hardcover by North Atlantic Books (1996)
Authors: Theodore Sturgeon, Paul Williams, Robert Silverberg, and Theodore Sturgeon
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A once famous author slowly vanishing.
Stories by Sturgeon inspired movies, episodes of Star Trek, & even the New Twilight Zone. I'm not a Sturgeon fan, but I'm baffled by how an award winning author (indeed an author with an award named for him) who had links to the media is disappearing. Talking about the author is Very relevant since this & other such collections are about keeping his work in print. Anyway this a mixture of fantasy, SF, horror & Mainstream. The standouts are said to be the title peace (Killdozer! is mentioned a lot in MST 3K's early seasons) "Abreaction", "The Chromium Helmet", & "Mewhu's Jet". This collection gives you a good feel of this stage of Sturgeon's career. If you like Sturgeon or just have an interest in older science fiction & fantasy this is worth trying out

The streak continues
This is the third volume of the serieis and I'm reading the fourth now and I have to say that if you have ANY passing interest in science-fiction, literature, basically anything related to writing and the art of the short story, you owe it to yourself to hunt down these volumes, they're about the best service the publishing industry has done for one of its writers in years. You won't get genius each time but each volume has its own gems to treasure. This one has of course the masterful Killdozer among other things, the stories are branching out more here, most are touching in some way but all are at the very least entertaining, my favorite might just be the unpublished "August Sixth, 1945" which distills brilliantly the thoughts of a generation realizing the power they had with atomic energy and coming to grips with just what it meant. You can see a shift in his stories at that point and especially with the later "Thunder and Roses", as with most science fiction writers, the future was now and it wasn't all rosy and they felt they had a duty to show that it could be good that the shining stuff they showed in their stories could come true. Sturgeon believed that because he believed in people and he loved everyone and nothing shows that better than his stories. Read them and you come to know the man. And he's worth knowing.


Managing Windows 2000 Registry
Published in Paperback by O'Reilly & Associates (2000)
Authors: Paul Robichaux and Robert Denn
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Mostly good
Really I would give it 4.5 stars if I could.

It's a good book, but it should be titled 'NT and 2000 registry'. It discusses both. This might be a bonus to some (who would like info on both) and a disadvantage to others (who already own stuff about NT registry). There are a few errors and some things I would change, and I wouldn't say it's as good as some other Oreilly books I've read.

There are sections just about policy settings which is good and a nice set of appendicies.

Fun for all levels
Regardless of your experience with the registry, this book can be of value to you. Despite the title, there are references in almost every section of the book on the Windows NT 4 registry, which can be helpful if you are working in a mixed environment or are coming from the NT 4 side of things.

The author starts the book by assuming you have no previous experience with the registry, and takes you on a 5 chapter tour, covering topics such as the history of the registry, how to navigate, what each part does, how to back it up and restore it, the different editors you can use, etc. From there, the book progresses for a couple of chapters on configuring policies - using the Policy Editor and GPO/OU policies within Windows 2000.

The author does include a surprising chapter in the middle entitled "Programming with the Registry" (Chapter 8) in which he covers many of the API calls for the registry and the Shell Utility, and then gives demos in C/C++, Perl and Visual Basic. My personal opinion is that that chapter is a little advanced for the book as a whole, but if you're not into it, it can be skipped without much loss to you.

The book also spends 2 chapters covering administration and tweaks (plus a great index section on the Group Policy Objects), and the final chapter documents what each hive in the registry does.

All in all, it's worth a read.


Max Factor's Hollywood Glamour, Movies, Make-Up: Glamour, Movies, Make-Up
Published in Hardcover by General Pub Group (1995)
Authors: Fred E. Basten, Robert Salvatore, Paul A. Kaufman, and Peter Hoffman
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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
The story of Max Factor as he rose from Russian immigrant to Hollywood royalty-the man who brought glamour to the stars and regular folks alike with the invention of pancake makeup, no fade lipstick and the idea that makeup should fit a woman's coloring. (He had rooms in his store for blondes, brownettes, brunettes and redheads-all color coded and enhanced to work with the skin tones of the women in each category!) The star of this book is definitely the photographs, however. Make-up test shots, his early years in Russia, wig making contraptions, print ads of the stars endorsing his products-the pictures tell a better story than the text!

Beauty For Old Hollywood
Filled to the brim with glamour shots of some of the Western World's most beautiful women, this book shows us the man beind the mask, the incomparable Max Factor. Almost every shot is shown behind the scenes, how the look was created, etc. . .Truly a masterpiece work.


Russel Wright: Creating American Lifestyle
Published in Hardcover by Cooper-Hewitt Museum Design Museum Shop (2001)
Authors: Donald Albrecht, Robert Schonfeld, Lindsay Stamm Shapiro, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and Paul W. Thompson
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Interesting historical overview
This is a great book for the Russel Wright collector who wants to know more of the backstory and history of the man and the pottery. But do not confuse this book with a collector's guide. This book will probably not help you to decide if a piece is RW or not, and certainly will not help in pricing or deciding rarity.

Bravo!
This book is a great compliment to the exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt, but more than that. The information here is not more of the same, of what's already been said about Wright in other books. Although some overlap is necessary to tell his story, there are many new details of his design life and philosophy, and marvelous photos of some of his products and drawings, not seen other books. There are also great pictures of Mary as well. I feel that this book was very sensitively done and that all involved in creating it (and the exhibit) deserve applause. It would be hard to imagine any R.W. fan not loving this book.


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