This book is not so significant for its detailing of racism in America, which both white and black surely know of. Rather, it is a lovely view at how American foreign policy holds Africa and the Carribean to be simple pawns in their games, not caring for the countries involved nor their residents. Mr. Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, does a fine job criticizing policy to Rhodesia, Haiti, Rwanda, Zaire (now the Congo once more), Jamaica, Nigeria and more. Angry at times, but often rightfully so. Robinson does a fine job using personal experiences to highlight his message. Worth reading for Americans of all skin colors and backgrounds.

I read this book because I was intrigued by the interview that Brian Lamb did with Randall Robinson on CSPAN's Booknotes. Superficially, this book falls into the genre of "an angry black looks at America". If I had I browsed this book in a bookstore I probably would not have been interested in it. However, while Mr. Robinson is certainly both angry and black, this autobiography is much more than a complaint about 20th century America. It is an emotionally powerful story of an individual who changed both America and the world.

Randall Robinson's experiences clearly demonstrate that America has yet to recover from the abhorrent behavior patterns engendered by decades of slavery and discrimination. Ironically, the original draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a strident denunciation of slavery as violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty. That clarion call for the equality of all men, black and white, was deleted from the Declaration in the interest of political expediency. When America turned its back on equal rights for all people, the effects of slavery proceeded to devastate the ethical sinews of the nation, directly degrading blacks and indirectly debasing the consciences of many whites. The blatant examples of racism that Randall Robinson experienced in settings ranging from Alabama back roads to the halls of Harvard Law School are startling to a middle class white such as myself. It would be easy for Randall Robinson to justify rebelling against a system which allows the stereotypes and prejudices of slavery to infect its social structures.

Randall Robinson chose a different path; he chose to do what is morally right rather than what portends short term political expediency. Randall Robinson decided to change America's wholly unjust and racist foreign policy towards African and Carribean countries. The impact that he and his compatriots had on US foreign policy towards both South Africa and Haiti is stunning. They didn't just nudge the lumbering ship of state on a small course change. They stopped the US in its tracks and caused it to support democracy rather than totalitarian dictatorship. Why is it that in the country of the Declaration of Independence, private citizens have to stand up and tell our government to advocate democracy over totalitarian rule in other countries? Both the occupation of the South African embassy and Randall Robinson's hunger strike over Haitian policy are compelling narratives. These two stories alone make the book worth reading.

The book also documents the warm family relationships Randall Robinson enjoyed. Growing up in materially impoverished conditions was never an excuse to underachieve. Randall Robinson makes it quite clear that strong family values are needed and nurtured by all races. The insight he provides into the daily life in many African countries stands in stark juxtaposition to the common stereotypes of dumb, lazy blacks. That Alexander Haig could "beat tom-toms" during White House cabinet sessions on Africa is appalling for its ignorance. Many African countries are slowly and assiduously building democratic societies, more than can be said for Mr Haig's atavistic contributions.

Overall I'd recommend this book as fascinating reading. Randall Robinson is a shining example of the power of an individual to change America and the world.

"Defending The Spirit" was extremely enlightening and at the same time painful for me to read. I applaud the lifetime dedication and courage of Mr. Robinson 's commitment to a worthy cause. South Africa,s exclusion and distancing of the very people who struggled and fought for their freedom brought tears to my eyes. I can only imagine the hurt experienced by Mr. Robinson.

I am an African American fully aware, I thought, of the racism that exists in this country - my country, but reading about the extent of government and corporate manipulation and support of apartheid and inhumanity comes as a direct rejection of me. It is disheartening to know that so many in the country I call home would be happy if I simply did not exist.

I can only agree with Bill Cosby, "This is a very important book that should be read by everyone in America".

I am currently using this book to review for the PE exam. The main chapter material is wonderful and very straight forward. I wish I had this book when I was in school. Several reference tables and figures are great for making quick work of routine problems and problems a young engineer like myself normally solves with a computer. The main downside is the end of chapter problems. If you're reviewing for the PE, you MUST buy the solutions manual to make the questions worth while. Some of the problems aren't stated clearly and you'll need the manual to clarify what is being asked for. It is common for problems to use ambigous units such as psi (instead of psia or psig) and unit in terms of other variables (per cubic foot of bed, or per pound formula weight). When you do get the solutions manual, the problems are solved without units. This is difficult on problems with mixed english/SI units (but a good review). Dispite the difficulty with the problems, this is the best of the review manual in my opinion and I wouldn't want to go into the exam without it.

I found this book to be extremely helpful both in preparation for and in taking the Chemical Engineering PE examination. While the practice problems are a good review, I thought they tended be more difficult than the actual test. Additionally, the book covers all the high points that are on the exam. The layout is excellent and with a little familiarity (and some page tabs) I was able to find every reference I needed in very little time during the test.

I wrote this book soley as a study guide for preparing for the professional engineerng exam in chemical engineering. When I teach the course for this subject, I tell my students that the only way to learn how to prepare for the exam is to do the problems. This book is not intended to be the "single sourcebook" for the exam. Instead, as you do the problems, you will determine what other standard books YOU will need. I am aware that Engineering Economics is now not part of the PE exam, but I keep it in the book because there still have been questions on the exam that have some aspects of econcomics in them. I rate this 5 stars not only because I wrote it but I have seen how it gives confidence to those preparng for the exam in my classes. I have all but finished the next edition-expanding to 42 chapters from 19- but its publication is still in doubt with the same publisher at this time. The few remaining chapters will be finished after completing my PhD in 1999. We'll see what happens then.

Robinson builds on the premise that African Americans have "black" identities which have been shaped by centuries of oppression. In other words, a black man today is less an individual than he is product of his genetic lineage (race). It's a tenuous premise, but if you buy it, then the book will build a convincing case that a black person born today has little chance of rising above second-class status in America.

It is a demoralizing book because it seemingly strips humans of self-determinism. If you are not hip to the multiculturalism movement, this argumentation might strike you as racist and insulting.

And yet I recommend this book, especially to conservatives and libertarians who generally disdain multiculturalism. It probably won't change your mind, but there are some insights that may help you bridge the gap with the liberal perspective. I hope liberals read this book too. This book is so divisive, so racist, that you can't but notice the striking similarities between multiculturalism and the tragic nationalism and racism that led to WWII.

I'm so pleased that Randall Robinson has written "TheDebt." While I thought the book would focus exclusively onreparations, I was pleased to get an education on many other related issues impacting Africans in the Diaspora.

I believe that in due time the debt will be paid by the heirs of those who gained from the enslavement of Africans in American, and by the United States government which also benefited from that tainted system.

"The Debt" has already opened up important dialogue required for Americans of all persuasions to understand that slavery was a crime against humanity by modern and historical standards. This dialogue will help many realize that the vestiges of slavery (substandard education, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, racial profiling, etc.) will begin to dissolve through reparations and restitution. Furthermore, without these remedies, wounds like Black academic under-achievement, Black Rage, White Rage, and White guilt will remain open and festering.

Rational people know that it takes far longer to fix a thing than to break it. Three hundred and Fifty years of "breaking" Africans in America to accommodate slavery and White privilege requires more than thirty years of Affirmative Action to "fix."

Reparations and restitution via the efforts Robinson proposes in "The Debt" are viable approaches to ending the cycle of inhumanity and unjust enrichment by truly improving the lives of descendants of enslaved Africans. All Americans will benefit from this overdue transformation.

I highly recommend that Americans concerned about the future of this nation read this book.

I was impressed with the author's respectful, noninflammatory tone, despite his obvious passion for his subject. Tells about the rich cultural heritage of Africa from antiquity, the connection with which has been collectively wiped out from the memories of African-Americans (and caucasion Americans). This is part of the tragic legacy of slavery that continues to impact blacks and whites in America today. Well worth reading.

I finished reading this last night. Perhaps I should read it more than once to "get it." The premise of Blacks uniting to solve the current problems of massive imprisonment and fratracide among the youth is a sound one that needs much attention. However, this is dealt with in a series of meandering and confusing essays that just don't seem to hang together and lessen the effectiveness of its message.

For example, one essay deals with the spectualtion of what life would be like in the Black America of 2076 with Robinson's great-granddaughter and the problems she faces. Obviously written before 9-11, this minimizes the effectiveness on today's readers as the fictional descendant reads newspaper clippings from 2000 and 2001 to where America went wrong. This kind of fictional specualtion is more Derrrick Bell's forte than Robisnon's.

The essays with the hip-hopper "New Child" and Robinson's 50 -year old "homeboy" from Richmond Va, whose life of crime Robinson tries desperately to understand contains too much stream of -consciousness type dialougue and obscure symbolism to have much of an effect on the reader. A more straightforward rendering, as James Baldwin did with similar material in "Nobody Knows My Name" and "The Fire Next Time." would have certainly helped in getting his point across.

Robinson's points about the unwillingless and inability of so called Black "leaders" of today to solve the true (as opposed to symbolic) problems of African-Americans are sound and he is to be commended for bringing up the issue of our supposed leaders "selling out" to the political parties. Unfortunately, the job could have been done better by dealing with these issues in a straightforward fashion without the confusing stories, such as Earl Ofari Hutchinson's "Disappearance of Black Leadership."

Now this is the book I was hoping Randall Robinson would write. The topic of what blacks owe each other has been discussed in other books but Robinson's work is bound to have a wider audience. It didn't seem as passionate as THE DEBT and it doesn't go far enough but this book will get you thinking about how black people treat and see each other.

Kimberley Lindsay Wilson, author of Work It! The Black Woman's Guide to Success at Work.

Since they changed the format for the ChE PE Exam, this bookisn't completely worthless, but you would serve yourself better bygetting the sample test book from the NCEES.

This book isn't bad forstudying and doing example problems, but take into account the testhas changed...

This title is billed as the Sixth Edition, and reflects the coming and going of co-authors. It is too bad that the editor had so little influence. Sections of this book that stick to their cartographic knitting are excellent. Historical information is very intersting. Basic explanations, such as the evolution of ellipsoids is very well done. Some of the writing is so bad it could have been extracted from a sophmore term paper, sprinkled with such inept phrases as "such as", "similarly", "however" and "in fact". The most glaring deficiency is in the area of computer technology. Either this material has not been updated since some earlier edition, or the author(s) are very uncomfortable with the subject matter. As examples: "Most common procedures used by cartographers have been translated into software programs written in special computer languages such as FORTRAN and C." "Today's well-rounded cartographer is routinely involved with these 'canned' (prewritten) mapping programs..." "The professionsal cartographer should, therefor, have a working knowledge of at least one computer language." We are regaled with three pages of detailed obselescent material on computer structure, but only 23 lines of overview on current instrument technology. There is a whole chapter on fonts and lettering, but no algorithm for conversion from Lat-Long to UTM. The central meridians for the UTM zones are not provided, nor is the DoD lettering scheme. One of the responsibilities of a text book is to arrange the subject matter in a structure where it can be easily referenced. This book reads like a series of articles of varying quality published under one cover, with overlap resolution left as an exercise for the reader.