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Book reviews for "Roberts,_Robert_B." sorted by average review score:

Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Exhaustive Scholar's and Collector's Descriptive Bibliography of American Periodical, Hardcover, Paperback, and Reprint Editions
Published in Hardcover by McFarland & Company (1996)
Author: Robert B. Zeuschner
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Compete bibliography of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Bob Zeuschner has produced the best bibliography of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs since Henry Heins. A constant and often accessed resource, it is my most utilitized ERB reference. Even more special, I have an autographed edition!!!

Brilliant Burroughs bibliography.
This is just about the finest bibliography of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs ever compliled. Close attention is paid to all editions and the illustrators. A necessity for anyone seriously interested in Mr. Burroughs' work.


Environmental Law and Policy: A Coursebook on Nature Law and Socierty
Published in Hardcover by West Wadsworth (1998)
Authors: Zygmunt J. B. Plater, Robert H. Abrams, William Goldfarb, Robert L. Graham, and Zygmunt J.B. Plater
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The Bible of Environmental Law Books
This book is probally the most influential environmental law text in the nation. It is used by over 150 ABA approved law schools in the country. The reason for its influence is that it also happens to be the best written environmental law text. The beauty of this book is that it provides incredible amounts of information in a relatively easy readable format. Keep in mind this book is not an easy read, but it is certainly worth the effort. The text covers such subjects as what environmental law is to how groundwater laws are different in various parts of the country. The book also does a nice job of explaining the Federal/State battles over jurisdiction. The cases presented as illustrations to the various subjects make the text worth the purchase price alone. If you want to study environmental law or need the perfect reference text, then I heartily endorse this book. This book would make a perfect addition to any personal library for future use.

excellent choice for interesting environmental law cases
highly recommend this book for anyone interested in classic cases of environmental law and policy


Ernst & Young's Personal Financial Planning Guide: Take Control of Your Future and Unlock the Door to Financial Security, 2nd Edition
Published in Paperback by John Wiley & Sons (13 September, 1996)
Authors: Ernst & Young LLP, Robert J. Garner, Robert B. Coplan, Barbara J. Raasch, and Charles L. Ratner
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Ernst & Young's Personal Financial Planning Guide - 3rd Edit
As a tax professional and tax educator, I recognized many years ago that tax & financial illiteracy is a major problem amongst taxpayers. For example, consider: 1. how many wage-earners do not even understand all the deductions posted on their pay statements -- or that net pay is not the same as taxable income; or 2. how many people do not understand that the basic tax equation is "tax liability = tax base x tax rate" -- and that tax rate alone is not enough information to calculate one's tax liability; or 3. how many people think capital gains taxes paid are a "bad thing" -- when in fact, they are frequently a "subsidy" provided to wealthier taxpayers at the expense of wage-earners; or 4. how many people are eligible for some form of deferred compensation [401(k)plan, 403(b) plan etc] but they either do not participate or do not participate fully; etc, etc, etc.

In an effort to promote "Basic Tax Literacy," I highly recommend the EY-PFP Guide as a highly accessible & understandable guide for teens and above. This book makes a wonderful gift for all life events -- coming of age ceremonies, graduations, marriage, birth of child, divorce, mid-life crisis, pre-retirement, retirement. It could even serve as a textbook for certain courses and seminars.

E&Y Personal Financial Planning Guide(3rd ed.)- a good tool
This 3rd edition is a useful tool for people who are either starting to understand personal financial planning or those who have years of practical experience but want the latest information available. Complex concepts are explained clearly and concisely. There are no major gaps in the information provided. The book is well organized. Part II which uses a life-event approach to financial planning will be most helpful for people beginning to understand personal financial planning or facing a major life-event.

I enjoyed reading the book and found it filled with exactly the information I was seeking to improve my own personal financial planning. The format was very understandable and will allow me to continue using the book as a reference.


Essentials of Emergency Care: A Refresher for the Practicing Emt-B
Published in Paperback by Prentice Hall (1995)
Authors: Daniel Limmer, Robert Elling, Michael F. O'Keefe, and Edward T. Dickinson
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Excellent resource
For anyone who used the AAOS's "Orange Book" for their EMT-B course, this book is an excellent choice because it gives you a different perspective on the same things. Of course, the Brady series is solid reference material anyway.

Excellent reference
For anyone who used the AAOS's "Orange Book" for their EMT-B course, this book, under the Brady name, is a good book to have because you get a different perspective on the same things. Of course, the Brady series has always been solid anyway.


Extraordinary Lives: The Art and Craft of American Biography: Robert a Caro/David McCullough, Paul C. Nagel/Richard B. Sewall, Ronald Steel/Jean str
Published in Hardcover by Amer Heritage Pub Co (1986)
Authors: William Zinsser and Jean Strouse
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Help for the Biographer
This book, based on a series of talks given at the New York Library, biographers Robert Caro, David McCullough, Paul C. Nagel, Richard B. Sewall, Ronald Steel and Jean Strouse explain how and why they went about writing biographies in the way that they did.

Each biographer explains well how the life of the biographer becomes intertwined with that of the person they are researching. In each case, they stress that biography writing is both intense and time-consuming.

Lyndon B. Johnson biographer, Robert Caro, recommends Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" for two reasons. One, to show that the job of the historian is to try to write at the same level as the greatest novelists. Second, that the duty of the historian is to go to the locales of the events that will be described, and not to leave, no matter how long it takes...until the writer has done his or her best to understand the locales and their cultures and their people.

In the end, it means that the biographer must not only understand the person, but also needs to intimately know the area where the person grew up and lived.

So, You Want to Write a Biography
This book gives its readers new insights into the lives of some of this nation's most prominent figures, through the eyes of six well-known biographers. In "The Unexpected Harry Truman," David McCullough shows the life of Truman through new eyes. McCullough stresses that a biographer must genuinely care about his [or her] subject because you are living with that person every single day. The process is like that of choosing a spouse or roommate, therefore, the subjects that he chooses must have a degree of animal, human vitality. In Truman, he said, as with Theodore Roosevelt, he found no shortage of vitality.

McCullough created a detailed chronology, almost a diary of what Truman was doing from year to year, even day to day if the events were important enough. He also used primary sources, such as personal diaries, letters and documents from the time period. Truman poured himself out on paper and provided a large, wonderfully written base of writing for McCullough to sort through and "find" the man.

McCullough says that the magic of writing comes from not knowing where you are headed, what you are going to wind up feeling and what you are going to decide.

Richard Sewell's "In Search of Emily Dickinson," research process took twenty years and he says, "In the beginning I didn't go searching for her, she went searching for me." The process took him two sabbaticals, years of correspondence and meetings with Mabel Loomis Todd's daughter Millicent Todd Bingham to uncover the whole truth.

Paul Nagel's "The Adams Women," gives readers a sense of how important the women in the Adam's family were. Nagel said that contemplating the development of ideology is good training for a biographer. After all, he said, the intellectual historian takes an idea and brings it to life. For Nagel, working with ideas establishes a bridge into the mind and life of the people who had the ideas he studies.

Nagel said that he likes and admires women and this is why, after writing about the Adams' men, he wrote about the Adams' women. Nagel also said that he has learned and taught his students that our grasp of history must always remain incomplete.

Ronald Steel said, that the hardest job a biographer has is not to judge his or her subject, however, most fail to keep their judgements out of the biography.

In Jean Strouse's, "The Real Reasons," she explains that the modern biography examines how character affects and is affected by social circumstance. Biography also tells the reader a great deal about history and gives them a wonderful story.

In writing about Alice James, Strouse found that there was not an interesting plot line to her life other than that her brothers were writers Henry and William James.

Strouse, when asked by another writer about the descendents of the three James' children, she said that William's great-grandson in Massachusetts, tired of being asked whether he was related to Henry or William, moved to Colorado where he was asked whether he was related to Jesse or Frank. Strouse reported that he stayed in Colorado.

Strouse realized that in order to tell the story of the James' family, she was going to have to use her own voice to give life to the family, especially Alice. This is not recommended for all biographies, but in a case such as hers, it needs that biographer's voice to connect all the information for the reader.

In Robert Caro's, "Lyndon Johnson and the Roots of Power," he talked to the people who knew Johnson to get a sense of the former President from Texas and what made him worthy of a new biography. He wrote the biography to illuminate readers to the time period and what shaped the time, especially politically.

This book will help writers understand the steps he or she will need to take to write a biography. It shows the difficult research processes and makes the reader want to either write a biography about an interesting person or never want to write again. Either way, this book provides new insights that one may have never thought about before. I recommend this book to both beginning and seasoned writers


Famous Men of Rome
Published in Paperback by Greenleaf Pr (1989)
Authors: John H. Haaren, A. B. Poland, and Robert G. Shearer
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An Effective Way to Introduce Your Kids to Ancient Rome
I have a confession to make. One of the really cool things I'm enjoying about homeschooling in general, and teaching my kids history in particular, is that I get to learn right along with them. I'm playing a bit of a trick on them: I stay just enough ahead to maintain my credibility as their teacher. Truth is, I'm really their fellow-student. That's one reason the Famous Men series and their companion guides from Greenleaf Press are so helpful to me. Short, informative chapters that quickly capture the story of history as lived through the lives of influential individuals. In my opinion, biography is at least as important as event, because biography lets us in on the "why" and "how" of history more effectively than covering dates and events. And isn't that what we most need to know? Famous Men of Rome is faithful to this vision of learning history through biography. There are thirty chapters covering over 29 people and 11 centuries, from the legendary founding of Rome to its slow unraveling in the early centuries after Christ. Each chapter is a fascinating read. For those who plan to use Famous Men of Rome in teaching their children, I recommend also getting the Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of Rome. It provides ideas, discussion questions, of most help to me, comprehensive lists of additional resources. I also recommend Laurie Carlson's Classical Kids and The Classical Companion, by Charles F. Baker III and Rosalie F. Baker. They will help you transport your children back to the days of ancient Rome and Greece. My children, who admittedly are avid readers, love these books. So does their father.

A Classic Collection of Biographies for Elementary Children
Famous Men of Rome continues to effectively introduce children to ancient history.

The author states in the 1904 preface: "The former practice in many elementary schools of beginning the detailed study of American history without any previous knowledge of general history limited the pupil's range of vision, restricted his sympathies, and left him without material for comparisons. Moreover, it denied to him a knowledge of his inheritance from the Greek philosopher, the Roman lawgiver, the Teutonic lover of freedom."

Your child will be captured by the fable of Romulus and Remus. He or she will wonder at Cincinnatus who chose to be a farmer rather than a dictator. And your child will admire Marcus Aurelius, a noble emperor who lived simply, used his own money to help the poor, and walked the streets greeting people and listening to their troubles so he could be a better leader.

Older students may read Plutarch but elementary children will gained a foundation for history by reading about "Famous Men."


Forgotten Valor: The Memoirs, Journals, & Civil War Letters of Orlando B. Willcox
Published in Hardcover by Kent State Univ Pr (01 November, 1999)
Authors: Orlando B. Willcox and Robert Garth Scott
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Willcox-Not Forgotten Anymore
This is truly an enjoyable book. I certainly got a "kick" from his letters. I read two or three of the chapters several times. One thing I noticed about him from his writings was the hidden and totally unintentional secrets he exposed regarding his personality. I think the man was a "saint," because he revealed absolutely no vices or bad habits, as well as he was the ultimate possessor of Victorian manners. I spoke with a friend of mine, who also read the book, and he had the same impression of Willcox that I got. This book will make you appreciate the man once you get to know him more personally. I have quoted Willcox before, in my own writings, gleaned from other books, and from the Official Records, but until I read his personal letters, I never knew who he was. Mr. Scott should be commended for all of his hard work bringing these letters to life.

Forgotten No More
Orlando Willcox's voluminous memoirs, letters, and correspondence are an important, valuable contribution to our understanding of the Civil War. Covering his life in the army from his days at West Point in the 1840's through divisional command in both theaters of the Civil War, this magesterial compilation will interest specialists and buffs alike. Willcox's keen observations and trenchant comments on persons and events are reminiscent of the classic recollections of Charles Wainwright, E.P. Alexander, and Robert McAllister. Robert Garth Scott's judicious editing (footnotes are blessedly placed at the bottom of pages rather than the end of the book) greatly enhances what will instantly become a standard source for anyone seeking a greater knowledge of the American conflict. The price may seem hefty, but it is well worth the cost.


A Fraternity of Arms: America and France in the Great War (Modern War Studies)
Published in Hardcover by Univ Pr of Kansas (2003)
Author: Robert B. Bruce
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a very interesting thesis
Bruce's thesis is that it was the French and not the British who were the main American allies during the First World War. During their period of training the American soldiers easily mixed with the French soldiers while having a diffcult time with the British. Moreover the French were the main trainers of the American forces and provided them with artillery peices, tanks, and guns. The French also were the main defenders of an independent American force while the Britih wanted to assimilate the Americans into British units. Bruce concludes his book by stating that all of the American actions in the closing phases of the First World War were heavliy supported by French infantry divisions and artillery. I would reccomend this book to anyone who wants a new and interesting perspective of Franco-American relationship during the First World War.

An excellent account of the AEF
Bruce's controversial thesis is that it was France and not Britain who was the main American ally during the First World War. French generals such as Joffre supported an independent American force while the British wanted the American forces to be assimilated into the British army. According to Bruce, the French trained the Americans in the techniques of trench warfare and use of artillery. Bruce believes that all American operations in the closing days of the First World War were based on close cooperation by the French army such as supporting the Americans by protecting their flanks, providing artillery support, and using planes to spot German army formations. Plus the French and not the British supplied the AEF with its weapons such as tanks and artillery peices. I would reccomend this book to anyone intereted in a controversial thesis about the clost days of the First World War and Anglo-French relations.


From Exegesis to Exposition: A Practical Guide to Using Biblical Hebrew
Published in Paperback by Baker Book House (1999)
Author: Robert B., Jr. Chisholm
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Bridging the Gap Between Biblical Languages and Ministry
In laying the foundation to his basic thesis, Chisholm elaborated on what is probably the quintessential paradigm for pulpit ministry: mastery of the ancient text. It is unfortunate that many language professors do not incorporate active learning techniques to help students make the crucial connections and applications of the languages, nor do they attempt to relate it to the importance and credibility of practical ministry. There is most likely too much assuming on the part of the professors. They think the students will naturally make the proper cognitive connections, but as Chisholm stated, "Many students come away from the process weary" (9). Chisholm rightly states that knowledge of the ancient text is essential for those who preach and teach God's Word (7).

In building on his theme, Chisholm supports his claim by relating it to the overall background of proper hermeneutical processes, or in his words, proper "exegesis" (11). A fundamental principle of hermeneutics is the study of backgrounds, which includes geography, manners and customs, archaeology, language, as well as other related subjects. It is important to realize that the text is grounded to the historical-cultural context, which is inextricably connected to its meaning (151). The point he makes relates not only to discerning the "text," but also understanding the "context." "What did the text mean to the original audience?" is a necessary question in proper exegesis, and goes against the ever-popular Reader-Oriented techniques (150) employed by many preachers today. This leaves the message devoid of biblical authority and the audiences are left spiritually malnourished! I found it particularly interesting that even the Bible invites the reader to step into the original text by employing the interjection "hineh" (look) in many of its passages (160), thus illustrating the point of putting oneself into the shoes of the biblical characters. This is a fundamental key to unlocking the meaning of the text.

The book achieves its purpose on two levels. First, Chisholm focuses on the mechanics or building blocks of the Hebrew language, such as syntax, pronouns, verbs, in addition to semantics and such. Secondly, he deals with the field of linguistics and how one should understand narrative, poetry, anthropomorphisms, prophecy and the like. Chisholm refers to the latter as "beneath the surface" interpretation (149). Chisholm makes a convincing approach that a mastery of the Hebrew language (and linguistics in general) is imperative for any preaching-teaching ministry and is inextricably connected to "truly biblical" preaching-teaching (223). Of course, Chisholm does point out that multiple perspectives on a passage are okay (224). He is really referring to application, for applications can widely vary and are sometimes a personal issue. But the preacher must never force a modern issue or theme on the ancient text if it does not relate to the author's original intent. This would be considered as "hermeneutical pluralism" (150) or a "postmodern reader-centered" interpretation (8,150).

Chisholm states at the outset that many people feel that language is secondary to "practical" ministry or is simply a luxury and not an essential. To change this perspective, the paradigm shift must come from within the colleges. An institution established on Bible education will suffer academic deficiency if it compromises a high standard for biblical language. Many colleges do this by structuring their academic program in such a way as to provide students the road of less difficulty. If the Bible is the foundation, a mastery of language must be of the highest priority! This book provides an excellent treatment on Hebrew by virtue of its success in bridging the gap between language studies and applying it to preaching-teaching. Certain sections may be a little tedious to read, especially if the reader has not utilized Hebrew over a substantial period of time. I think this book should be in the library of every preacher, and it really should be required reading for college Hebrew courses.

A good book
This is a good book to study biblical hebrew and theaching biblical theology in the church and in the society.


Gattefosse's Aromatherapy the First Book on Aromatherapy
Published in Paperback by The C.W. Daniel Company Ltd (1993)
Authors: Rene-Maurice Gattefosse and Robert B. Tisserand
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synapsis
After reading this book, I felt like I could better understand aromatherapy. It is very descriptive, and easy to follow.

An essential reference tool for aromatherapists
With so many books on aromatherapy available, it's difficult to know what's really valuable. The authors of so many books have few medical or scientific credentials and take a highly impressionistic approach. For this reason alone, to find a book like this written by a chemist is a rare treat. And, since this is a chemist writing in 1936, we find the source of much of today's common knowledge of the discipline - from the man who made it a discipline and coined the word 'aromatherapy'. Translator Louise Davids and editor Robert Tisserand offer us a natural-reading translation with the added benefit of an editor's introduction which places the book in its historical context. Tisserand points out that "as a chemist Gattefosse was not a part of the natural therapy movement and he did not share [today's] holistic, 'alternative' approach." That comes as a great relief to those of us who want some reliable chemical basis for our choices of oils. Even more useful are the copious notes Tisserand provides throughout the book, sometimes to explain terminology, more often with comments on Gattefosse's observations in the light of today's knowledge.


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