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Book reviews for "Roberts,_J._A._G." sorted by average review score:

Comics Values Annual 2003 (Comics Values Annual, 2003)
Published in Paperback by Antique Trader (2003)
Authors: Alex G. Malloy, Stewart W. Wells, and Robert J. Sodaro
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Comic Values Annual 2003
The ratings of each comic is very good, however the biggest problem is that the index gives wrong pages as to the location of many of the comics. Then too the binding is coming apart after only 45 days use. It would be a good thing to offer a replacement that is correct and better bound.

Always a pleasure
Well, well, well, it must be a new year because the new slate of comicbook price guides are (finally) out. As always, the best of the bunch is the one put out by CVA. Not only is it the easiest to read, and contains a wealth of information, it is simply the best-organized book of the bunch. I highly recommend it.


Senator for Sale: An Unauthorized Biography of Senator Bob Dole
Published in Hardcover by St. Martin's Press (1995)
Author: Stanley G. Hilton
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Not That Smart of a Book
Looks like the anti - Dole forces have found their Kitty Kelly in this "Unauthorized" tabloid look at good old Bob. The book follows the normal pattern for these type of books: start out in he early years with some unsubstantiated nastiness about his personal life or ex wife, move up to "shady" political deals as he crawls his way up the Washington power ladder, and then end the book with the run down of pork spending and speakers fees. All this plus a bunch of good old Bob Dole straight talking quotes.

For the Dole fan like me this book is nothing more then a smear campaign book meant to hurt the candidate and make the author some money. If you do not like Dole, this will be a rip roaring good time for you. Overall, the book is about what you except - lowest common denominator trash written for the person with a lower then average IQ.

A must-read for open minded voters
Senator for Sale is a must read in the next two months. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who says/believes that Bob Dole has the "character issue" advantage over Bill Clinton! The book shows, with sufficient documentation, the Bob Dole will sell his vote to the highest bidder -- often making people VERY RICH in the process.

Did you know that long before the Whitewater people went to court, one of the Doles closest business partners was convicted and did jail time for illegal activities directly associated with the Doles? Why havn't the "liberal media" picked up on this?

On the down side, Hilton is a lawyer who writes like a college sophomore... not exactly the heights of prose! It also hardly touches on Dole's personal life -- another area where Dole hardly has an advantage on the "character issue."

Nevertheless, I still recommend Senator of Sale

A must read for open minded voters
Senator for Sale is a must read in the next two months. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who says/believes that Bob Dole has the "character issue" advantage over Bill Clinton! The book shows, with sufficient documentation, the Bob Dole will sell his vote to the highest bidder -- often making people VERY RICH in the process.

Did you know that long before the Whitewater people went to court, one of the Doles closest business partners was convicted and did jail time -- for illegal activities directly associated with the Doles? Why hasn't the "liberal media" picked up on this?

On the down side, Hilton is a lawyer who writes like a college sophomore... not exactly the heights of prose! It also hardly touches on Dole's personal life -- another area where Dole hardly has an advantage on the "character issue."

Nevertheless, I still recommend Senator of Sale


After the Grapes of Wrath: Essays on John Steinbeck in Honor of Tetsumaro Hayashi
Published in Hardcover by Ohio Univ Pr (Txt) (1995)
Authors: Donald V. Coers, Paul D. Ruffin, Robert J. Demott, and Warren G. French
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Very slow book...for people who love detail
I thought this book went extremely slow. If you are into lots of detail, however, you may like it. For instance, Steinbeck takes like 3 pages to tell how a turtle crosses the road. There is not much meat to the story, but it is an American classic, for some reason!

Keeping the Record Straight
This book is not Grapes of Wrath. The previous reviewer's review is not a review of this book. Hayashi was one of the most important Steinbeck scholars, and this book is a very important collection of fifteen essays in his honor.


Probabilistic Networks and Expert Systems (Statistics for Engineering and Information Science)
Published in Hardcover by Springer Verlag (1999)
Authors: Robert G. Cowell, A. Phillip Dawid, Steffen L. Lauritzen, David J. Spiegehalter, and David J. Spiegelhater
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Extremely technical book
Too synthetic and technical to be used as an introduction to the subject, even for experienced statisticians and graduate students.

A comprehensive advanced study book for graduate students
This book starts with basic probabilistic concepts, graph theory, junction trees, conditional independence, to advanced topics related to learning Bayesian network. Many practical examples are clear and helpful. Good for graduate students of computer science and statistics.


American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges
Published in Hardcover by Johns Hopkins Univ Pr (1999)
Authors: Philip G. Altbach, Robert O. Berdahl, and Patricia J. Gumport
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Good Textbook
I had to read this for a class, and as text books go, this is a good one. Covered all the major topics involved in higher ed. Easy to read.


Crucibles of Leadership (HBR OnPoint Enhanced Edition)
Published in Digital by Harvard Business School Press (28 June, 2003)
Authors: Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas
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The impact of defining moments on leaders
Warren G. Bennis is distinguished professor of business administration at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Robert J. Thomas is an associate partner and senior fellow with the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change. This article was published in the September 2002 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Why are some people natural leaders, while others fail time and time again? It is a timeless question without a simple answer. Based on interviews with more than 40 top leaders, the authors conclude that one of the most reliable indicators "is an individual's ability to find meaning in negative events and to learn from even the most trying circumstances." The authors term these intense, often traumatic, always unplanned experiences that shape leaders as 'crucibles', "after the vessels medieval alchemists used in their attempts to turn base metals into gold." These leadership crucibles can take different shapes and forms. One of the most common types of crucibles involves the experience of prejudice. And some of the harshest crucible experiences illuminate a hidden and suppressed area of the soul (for instance, episodes of illness or violence). But, luckily, not all crucible experiences are traumatic. They can involve a positive, if deeply challenging, experience such as having a demanding boss or mentor. So, how do leaders cope and learn from these difficult situations? Bennis and Thomas believe that great leaders possess four essential skills: (1) The ability to engage others in shared meaning; (2) A distinctive and compelling voice; (3) A sense of integrity (including a strong set of values); and (4) "Adaptive capacity". They see this fourth skill as by far most critical skill. "This is, in essence, applied creativity - an almost magical ability to transcend adversity, with all its attendants stresses, and to emerge stronger than before." This "adaptive capacity", in turn, is composed of two primary qualities: the ability to grasp context and hardiness. The article is complemented with some, almost mythical, leadership examples. In addition, there is an introduction to the authors' book "Geeks and Geezers" (2002).

Interesting article on leadership which is in line with the latest thinking and research into emotional intelligence. The authors use some interesting examples, but they fall short on their explanation of the four essential skills of leadership. The 'crucibles' mentioned in this article remind me of Joseph Badaracco's 'Definining Moments' (1997). I believe that readers are better off with Warren Bennis' masterpiece 'On Becoming a Leader' (1994) or Daniel Goleman's 'Primal Leadership'(2001). The article is written in simple business US-English.


Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy
Published in Hardcover by PublicAffairs (1999)
Authors: Robert S. McNamara, James G. Blight, Robert K. Brigham, Thomas J. Biersteker, and Herbert Y. Schandler
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No redemption yet for McNamara, but better than last book.
McNamara continues his quest for both personal redemption and additional explanation to back his conclusions from his last book, that "we were wrong, we were terribly wrong." THe book unites a vriety of US historians, government officials and academics with some of their counterparts from Vietnam. On paper the idea seems to be a good one, but the book does not read well nor does it contain the hoped for insights that one might have expected to take place about a war that is now some 20 years past. THe fault is not entirely McNamara's; the Vietnamese are recalcitrant and unable to get past the dogma of the one-party state they come from, they admit little and are far more willing to blame rather than pursue any meaningful discourse. There are a few good revelations; for one McNamara finally admits that the war, except at the very beginning, was never really about the Vietnamese, it gradually became more about us saving face and presenting a tough exterior to the Soviets and Chinese. Also, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the basis for escalation of the war, rather than being an orchestatred effortt by the Soviets or CHinese, was actually just a Vietnamese low-ranking official protecting the harbor. Mcnamara and the other participants show how misperceptions by both sides about the other's motives resulted in gradual escalation, and how these perceptions destroyed many diplomatic opportunities. THe Vietnamese indicate they were more willing to negotiate than we had thought, but only if we agreed to stop the bombing, something we never did for any length of time. Also interesting is that the Vietnamese, early i nthe war, were more than willing to consider a coalition governemnt in SOuth Vietnam, providing the NLF was part of it. This of course was the sticking point, any NLF involvement was a no-no for the US. But the book is constructed poorly, alternating between oral history, transcripts of actual discussions, and McNamara's own opinions and those of other Americans. Indeed, it often gets so confusing that we do not know who's opinion we are listening to. McNamara tells us that he undertook the project so we can learn from our mistakes, yet he fails to address the critical lesson of the war, that it had no moral basis, was inconsistent with our stated principles, and never amounted to anything other than mass devastation of a foreign land. And despite his oft repated ststement that the war was America's mistake, there is more and more evidence coming out that men like McNamara ignored the bulk of the evidence about the effectiveness of the war and the bombing during their time in power. THus the book still seems, like the first one, to be an attempt to cleanse his conscience than really uncover the truth. Finally, it is also clear that McNamara had no head for politics and still doesn't. So while the book answers some questions, it also raises some new ones. If any lessons are to be learned fro mthis book, they should be played out over decisions about future conflicts, but the authors seem unable to draw them. Ultimately, the book is a failure. especially when compared with some of the new one's coming out such as American TRagedy by Kaiser, or Choosing War by LOgevall. Buy these instead.

nightmare re-visited
To me, only three people should take the blame on Vietnam. Jo McCarthy, Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. McCarthy's witch-hunt created in the American psyche an unnatural and unrealistic fear and hatred for Communism. Jack Kennedy brought in and Lyndon Johnson kept inexperienced and naive men to conduct American foreign policy. These men, most notably Bundy and McNamara with their Harvard and Yale degrees and professorships fouled up American policy and got the U.S. into the longest and most disastrous war.
Foreign policy should be run by experienced diplomats. Hopefully, this nightmare will never be repeated.

A difficult, but inportant read
I am sure that many will rate this book, based upon McNamara's performance during the Vietnam era, probably awarding only one or two stars. However, this is an important book that reveals the many and complex reasons and way that we became involved in the Vietnam war.

The book is a difficult read but is packed with insight into the thinking (or lack thereof) by senior personnel on both sides. There are also many interesting references into the behavior of the Chinese and Soviets.

This may not be the definitive book on the Vietnam war, but it should be one of the major written analyses. Read it.


Fraud Auditing and Forensic Accounting
Published in Hardcover by John Wiley & Sons (15 January, 1995)
Authors: G. Jack Bologna and Robert J. Lindquist
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Fraud Auditing and Forensic Accounting
This was not what one would expect from the title. There were no methodologies provided to research and detect fraud and very little in terms of accounting controls was addressed. The book is a collection of anecdotes and cases with very little practical information that transcends the most basic concepts. The book spends too much time discussing behavioral aspects of fraud as opposed to legitimate financial investigation. Overall, a huge disappointment.


Victims of Crime
Published in Hardcover by Sage Publications (1997)
Authors: Wesley G. Skogan, Arthur J. Lurigio, and Robert C. Davis
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I haven't read the book, nor am I likely to.
The price is prohibitive; it must be a textbook. Perhaps this extensive subject can be broken down for general readership into five or six categories under two main ones: 1) victims of violence: murder, assault, rape; and 2) victims of non-violence: prostitution, drug use, burglary. Or whatever. And divvied up into three or four separate books. I would be interested in reading about particular types of crime victims such as those that have affected me, but I certainly am not willing to spend that much money on a book three quarters of which would not interest me in the least unless I were a victims' rights advocate.


Diagnostic Strategies for Common Medical Problems
Published in Paperback by American College of Physicians (15 May, 1999)
Authors: Edgar R., Md. Black, Donald R., Md. Bordley, Thoams G., ,Md. Tape, Robert J., Md. Panzer, and Thomas G. Tape
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