I'm a genealogist, and since recently uncovering a lineage that takes me back into Tudor and Stewart times in several rural English counties, I've been reading about and hunting up photos of small English towns and villages. It's hard to find views that don't include motorways, television towers, and supermarkets, but this splendid book brims over with gorgeous, glossy color photos of many varieties of the "classic" English village. Even better, the text identifies what you're looking at in considerable detail, gives a capsule history, and explains the differences between traditions and cultures in (say) Somerset, Norfolk, and Yorkshire -- which is important for us Yanks, even those of us who are well read in history. For instance, I've heard the term "black and white architecture," but really didn't have a mental picture of what it referred to. A lively piece of work.

This work is the first major study of language and law in a non-Western society (Huli, Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea). It falls within the burgeoning field of legal anthropology and makes a strong case for assigning a central position to law-and-language approach. In line with Goldman's previous studies of Huli disputes, we are presented with a welter of ethno-linguistic information that is continuously referenced to various approaches to explanations of accident and the ethnographic background, which renders the linquistic analysis meaningful and alive. In an appendix of ninety two pages we find a very readable transcript of a dispute over the death of a woman, Gegai, who burnt to death while in her house. Her friend, Ngaulime, managed to retrieve many of her personal belongings and livestock before the house was destroyed by the fire. The deceased woman's son accepts the event as an accident, something waiting to happen. For Gegai's two stepdaughters, however, Ngaulime had deliberately locked Gegai in the house, following some early quarrel, and set the house and Gegai on fire. The discussion between the disputants turns on possible motives that Ngualime might have had. The resulting conflict is that between murder and accident, each encompassing quite different views of responsibility and liability. The antithetical nature of these two angles allows 'accident' to stand out in bold relief and Goldman's subsequent painstaking analysis of linguistic form and practice results in a detailed account of Huli socio-legal epistemology. That the deceased's son is claiming 'accident', while his stepsisters cry 'murder' becomes less remarkable when Goldman successfully unravels the Huli socio-legal system, where liability takes account of mental states. This Huli case thus challenges some received anthropological wisdom that at least goes as far back as Evans-Pritchard. In many of these studies African and Melanesian societies appeared as systems where mishaps and misfortunes were implacably and mystically reductionistic in nature (where man seemed to act at his peril), disregarding the mental element. This leads Goldman to argue that the cultural definitions and the interactional rhetoric of 'accident' in Huli and Western legal systems 'appear similar in a way that draws relationships between demotic and forensic reasoning, and which may well be rooted in a universally understood, and linguistically realized, distinction between agentive and non-agentive happenings' (p.271-2). The lion's share of the book is devoted to formal analyses of the grammar of excuse and exoneration in Huli and the various linguistic routines of subjugation, sarcasm, sympathy evocation. Goldman furthermore examines the role played by cultural stereotypes of 'male' and 'female' and how the agendas of murder/accident as 'whole meanings' are linguistically developed through the course of the debate. At times this microscopic view into Huli philosophy of the accidental is hard to digest. The dedicated reader, however, is rewarded by the valuable insights and analysis provided. In the last chapter Goldman explores the implications of 'intention' in forensic language. It investigates Huli notions of person and mind, and looks to the place of 'accident' in the wider cosmological and eschatological philosophies of fate and fortuity. In unpacking the omnibus notion 'state-of-mind' in terms of Huli ideas about desire, will, purpose, intention, premeditation, etc., Goldman highlights the benefits to be gained from bringing together linguistically oriented disciplines and anthropology. The interesting findings challenge one of the most recurrent observations in Melanesian ethnography: a belief in the lack of direct access to events of the inner life of another, remaining occult to everyone else. In his attempt to understand the concept of accident in Huli Goldman finds that in Huli 'fortune's wheel is not spun by supernatural ordination' (p.317). On the contrary, 'accident' emerges as a culturally constituted understanding of an eventful world, as one option for imposing order on the relationship between humans and happenings. In sum, this ethnography is a challenging and valuable contribution to our understanding of accident and absolute liability and of method in anthropology and linguistics.

Mary Leefe Laurence' childhood experiences on various military posts during the American Indian Wars, 1878-1890 was facinianting because it "fleshed out" the American soldier of the period and filled in the blanks of life on a remote Western post when the men were not fighting Indians. Ms. Laurence' Victorian politeness still left gaps that today's writers would have filled in. Mr. Smith's excellent editing and annotations caused me to read this book with two bookmarks to gather every bit of inforation available, much the same way I would read one of Dan Thrapp's books on this period.

William Laurence was a newspaper reporter, that was one of the first in now what we are used to routinely seeing: a tagalong. Laurence was allowed to tour some of the Nuclear Weapons facilities, interview the key players, and even was present for the dropping of the device on Nagasaki. It is fascinating to listen to a reporter who is pro-nukes, and how he tries to retain secrets that we now all know. The book ends on a positive note, listing the many proposed uses of nuclear power, many of which we see every day, such as nuclear medicine. This is a hard book to find, and a good addition to a nukeheads' shelf.

a nice review of irish archaeology

A perfect mix of illustrations and simple text. We've read it again and again and again. It's much better than the complex encyclopedia type books that have too much info for our 3 yr old.

THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA is one of Shaw's most biting critical commentaries...this time on doctors. Shaw hated doctors, as a result of a botched operation on his foot, so here he portrays them as a group of ignorant, bull-headed windbags. All, that is, except for one doctor, who has actually found a cure for tuberculosis. The "dilemma" in the title is whether to use the cure on a talented young painter who is a moral and ethical sleazebag, or on an upstanding middle-aged physician who is a good soul, albeit a boring and relatively mundane one. All this is complicated by the fact that the doctor is in love with the painter's wife! The biggest problem with the play is that it has lost some of its impetus in the last century. Antibiotics can now cure tuberculosis, and the medical profession is far more restricted in its use of "experimental" treatments than it was then. However, Shaw's wit and invective is still poignant even at the end of the twentieth century. A must-read for Bernard Shaw enthusiasts....

As a beginning classical actor, this book was well worth the time and money. The section on 'thou vs you' alone justifies the book.

Laurence Meredith's technical review of the 190SL and Pagoda Benz models is very good in what in presents, yet falls short in the detail I was expecting. This series is good for a Mercedes novice, but offers little detail about the insides of these models and what makes them unique and different. The book is awash with wonderful color pictures, and serves up correct statistics regarding the technical specifications. Perhaps I am just disappointed in that I was expecting more tips and details about restoring these cars. Information is both accurate and complete, and well presented.

Good books on Ghias are difficult to come by - This is definately the best I've seen or thumbed through. Details the Coupe's and Cabriolets seperately and covers all the major changes to details through the cars production, backed up with some excellent photographs. Also covers type 3 Ghias.