I had to get this for school and ended up keeping it for my personal collection. Some of the stories are a little poorly written, but most present a very entertaining cross-section of vampire stories from the eighteen-hundreds up through the end of the twentieth. As an intoduction to Western vampire myth, I found it very enlightening and entertaining.

This is one of the best collection of vampire stories i've ever read. This book combines traditional vampire tales with those having more psychological or sci-fi elements. I especially recommand reading Shambleau by C.L.Moore, The Girl w/ the Hungry Eyes - F. Leiber, Bite-Me-Not - T. Lee and Unicorn Tapestry -S. M. Charnes. However, all the stories defenetly deserve to be read.

I have a little ritual I perform every year as the calendar slumps towards the solstice in December. I pull out the Magnus Magnusson translation of Njal's Saga, and this volume of short stories. They are my constant companions as the nights get longer and colder.

Alan Ryan has assembled here both a history of vampire short fiction and a compelling collection of never-lose-their-edge stories. The volume contains the very first vampire story to appear in English, fragments of Byron's vampire stories, a chapter Stoker never included in Dracula, excerpts from the "penny-dreadfuls" popular at the turn of the century, and several of the most important works for the genre, including the full text of the story Carmilla. The last story in the collection, Bite-Me-Not, is perhaps among the 10 best short stories I have ever read in any genre, hands down. Ryan introduces each story with a bit of background information and the author's place in the pantheon. He includes one of his own stories as well, a tale about the vampire legend and its similarity with the eucharist (very tongue-in-cheek, but deadly serious at the same time), that is one of my favorites.

I have read this book cover to cover, and one story at a time, over fifty times, and I never fail to find something new each time I read it. The quality of the literature transcends the "horror" genre. If every vampire story were as marvellous as these, interested in "saying something" beautiful, even if through the mouthpiece of a scary story, then this sort of writing would be seen as the art that it is. I love this book, and every story it contains.

While the previous reviewer is correct, that Strauss's "history of political philosophy" is more in-depth, one benefit of this book is its lack of a Straussian angle. Not that Strauss's views are bad or wrong, but it is a bias.

This work's sheer amount of entries is very useful. While some articles are somewhat brief, it is a good starting point for students of political philosophy. Done by among the best minds in the field, any political philosopher who wants to have a handy reference to terms and authors should order a copy of this book.

Very useful book for the students of political philosophy, together with Strauss' _History of Political Philosophy_, which is richer in content (but less entries). (^^;

In the course of a long life beginning before the Civil War and extending to shortly before the election of President Eisenhower, John Dewey (1859-1952) made large contributions to philosophy and to American public life. Dewey wrote extensively for both an academic and a public audience. He developed a philosophy of pragmatism and contributed significantly to American education. He was a socialist and was publically engaged througout his life in addressing the issues of the day. In particular he criticized the President Roosevelt's New Deal for what Dewey thought was an inadequate response to the Depression and a misguided attempt to preserve capitalism. He supported United States participation in WW I but shortly after the end of the War, he became an isolationist. He retained this isolationist stance until Pearl Harbor.

Dewey's thought resists easy summation. His writing style, particularly in his philosophical works, was long, winding, obscure and difficult to follow. As did many thinkers in the 20th Century, Dewey changed and modified his views with some frequency during the course of his life.

Alan Ryan has written an exellent study of John Dewey which explores Dewey's life, the influences upon him, his philosophical writings, his political activism, and the rises and falls in Dewey's reputation after his death. The book is somewhat dense and repetitive, but this too is a characteristic of the writings of its subject. Ryan writes insightfully in trying to place Dewey as philosophically somewhere between the despair of European existentialists such as Heidegger and Sartre and the English-American analytical philosophy of the 20th Century which denied that philosophical thought had a distinctive contribution to make to human intellectual endeavor.

I thought Ryan was good in discussing Dewey's early Congregationalit upbringing and his falling away from Christianity. I also thought Ryan placed good emphasis on the Hegelian idealism which Dewey adopted early in his career. The book could have used a fuller discussion of the nature of Hegelian idealism. As I read Ryan's book, I thought that Dewey retained even more of a Hegelian influence in his later thought than Ryan recognized. Dewey's emphasis on holistic thinking and on the relationship of the community and the individual remains Hegelian -- a naturalized Hegelianism as Ryan points out.

Ryan discussed Dewey's educational work at the University of Chicago. This is the aspect of Dewey's work that is best known. As Ryan points out, Dewey is often criticized for the shortcomings of American education. He is blamed, probably unjustifiably, for a lack of discipline and academic knowledge in too many American students. Ryan does point out, in fairness, that Dewey's actual educational theory was obscure in many points and undeveloped in specifics. It is hard to know just what Dewey had in mind, but it surely was not laxness and a deference to the wishes of young children.

I thought the strongest aspect of Ryan's book was his discussion of Dewey's mature philosophical writings, in particular "Experience and Nature" "A Common Faith" and "Art and Experience." In these works, Dewey tried to develop a philosophical pragmatism which was based on science and secularism. He denied the existence of an objective independent truth which science tries to capture and also denied subjectivism. Dewey recognized that human experience could be viewed from many perspectives and he struggled to explain how many of the goals of the religious and artistic life were consistent with science and secularism. He wanted to show them as perspectives equally important to the scientific perspective and to disclaim a concept of truth as "out there" rather than as sought,developed and made through human social activity. Dewey's position is difficult and, to his credit, Ryan does not simplify it. Ryan's exposition is challenging and made me want to read some of Dewey for myself.

A great deal of Ryan's book is devoted to Dewey's career as a public intellectual commenting on the issues of the day, as he saw them. Dewey travelled to Russia and China, investigated the Russian show trials of Trotsky and others, supported American participation in WW I, and advocated social liberalism. Ryan discusses Dewey's positions fully and intelligently and explores how Dewey's issues remain alive in the late 20th (and early 21st)century. The discussion of American political life and of the role of ideas is fascinating even though I frequently did not agree either with Dewey or with Ryan.

Ryan recognizes the paradoxical nature of the work of this American thinker. Dewey was a philosopher who critized sharply thought and reflection separate from action. He was a secularist who saw the importance of religion. He recognized the nature of industrial society but stressed the importance of art and culture. Dewey was, as Ryan points out in his conclusion
something of a visionary of the everyday. Ryan writes (page 269): "It was his ability to infuse the here and now with a kind of transcendent glow that overcame the denseness and awkwardness of his prose and the vagueness of his message and secured such widespread conviction. .... He will remain for the forseeable future a rich source of intellectual nourishment for anyone not absolutely locked within the anxieties of his or her own heart and not absolutely despondent about the prospects of the modern world."

Ryan, from a British perspective, offers a detailed biography of Dewey the philosopher while enveloping the reader in the context of Dewey's varied and shifting America. Ryan also wrestles with the issues America wrestled with and continues to struggle with today. The work blends nicely the intricacies of Dewey's tremendous ideas with detailed and insightful references to Bertrand Russell and contemporary Democratic politics in America. The greatest contribution Ryan has made is detailing the arguments, philosophy, and problems Dewey felt significant without epitomizing and reducing Dewey as many have done since Dewey rose to prominance at the turn of the century at the Chicago Univeristy Lab School.

Educators, graduate students in education and philosophy, politicians, and anyone genuinely interested in American thought will be inpsired by Ryan to dig further--to read more by Dewey, to read more of the history of American ideas not just events in America

Deacons Kill is a town that I would not like to visit. It seems to have more than its share of creepy events going on in this small town in the Catskills. While the term "kill" refers to a stream or river, the other meaning would be quite appropriate in the case of Dead White.

Anyone who has ever been snowed in knows the sense of clautrophobia that can accompany such an event. Sound is muffled, individuals cling to their home, the entire face of the world is changed. Cabin fever refers to the anxiety that can happen during such an event.

Now, into this alien white world in Deacons Kill comes an antique circus train on rusted, unused tracks. And the horror begins.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy a compact dose of grue-- especially recommended if the reader happens to be snowed in at the time!

This book is very much worth reading, if only as a diversion. It is a fun well paced read that doesn't aim to be anything but that. If you happen to run across this book, read it. After all, who can resist killer clowns with floppy feet?

On a cold winter's night, the citizens of Deacon's Kill find themselves at the mercy of a snow storm. The few who are not snowed in come together in the town hall to draft a disaster plan and create a temporary shelter. But something else has arrived in their town. Something more ominous than any blizzard. An old circus train rolls in on railroad tracks that haven't been used in nearly a century. And inside the train are vengeful phantoms that want the town to pay in blood for a forgotten sin. Ryan's novel has all the elements of a classic horror novel. In a simple, but compelling writing style, he delivers one of the creepiest and most entertaining horror novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Highly recommended...especially for a cold winter's night!

This is a good book for the "armchair traveler", and represents the Havana experience. For real adventure, Havana-style, read "Holiday in Havana", by Malcom Massey, 0-595-09466-X. It will rock your socks!

The Reader's Companion to Cuba is one of an excellent series in the Readers Companion books from Harvest. Edited by Alan Ryan, who edited all of the books in this series, this book is required reading for anyone expecting to travel to Cuba or to any student that is studying Cuba to any degree. The book is a chronicle of Cuba from the mid 1800s to the 90s seen through the eyes of various witnesses including such literary greats as Langston Hughes, Amiri Bakari(formally Leroi Jones, poet and playwrite of the such works as the Dutchman ). One simply can not write a book about Cuba without including something about the late legend, Ernest Hemingway. Arnold Samuelson, Norman Lewis, and Martha Gellhorn, one of Hemingway's many former wives fulfill this task beautifully. It also includes an account from sports great Tommy Lasorda who played in Cuba during the off season. There's even an account about mob activities during the reign of Fugencio Batista by Frank Ragano and Selwyn Raab.

I bought this book just before my first trip to Cuba and found it a great way to take a historical look at the ways in which tourists have thought of Cuba for the past 300 years. I highly reccomend it.

Isaiah Berlin, in his work "Karl Marx," concentrates on the philosophical development of one of the most influential social thinkers in modern history. Through an examination on Marx's critical analyses of the ideas of his intellectual contemporaries (including Feurbach, Fourier, Saint-Simon, and Proudhon), Berlin explores the many influences that helped shape Marxian thought. Although Marx's immediate successors minimized the impact of Hegel upon Marx's ideas, Berlin maintains that Hegel's influence was essential for the formation of Marx's socio-economic philosophy.

I read this book for a college course and found it very challenging. Often I would have to read over passages several times to even begin to understand the gist of it (and maybe not even then). Of course, the subject matter is very complex. One just beginning to study Marx may want to seek out a more simplified overview of Marxian thought first before tackling this one.

Let me say that if you are looking for a biography of Marx's life you had better look elsewhere. There are no long chapters about his school days, his relations with his Sisters, Mother or Father. You will not find detailed references to every argument Marx had or every aspect of his squallid and, at times, extremely personally irresponsible lifestyle. You must look elsewhere for those details.

This book is about ideas and the struggle between ideas. It is about Marx emersed in the ideas of his time and how those ideas shaped his thinking, whether changing his ideas, borrowing or regjecting them outright Berlin has a wonderful, at times unique grasp of the issues and the ideas of the times that Marx lived.

Starting with a broad description of the Rational-Empiricist debate and the Hegelian reaction to empiricism, Berlin describes Marx as a unique German Hybrid of British Empiricism married to a searching German Hegelian spirit, dissatisified with the traditional historical interpertations offered by Hegel and his German offshoots, the Young Hegelians.

Along the way Marx comes across a uniques set of millenarian and social theorists of his time; Proudhom, Bakunin, Engels, Lasalle, Feuerbach and others, whom all, even though perhaps disliking Marx personally, respected his argument style, his learning, and his deep insight into the problems of the time.

I would not classify this as a beginning book on Marx. There is a lot of ground covered here and if one does not have at least a thumbnail sketch understanding of the times, the social and political issues, then there will be a chance that the author will loose some of his readership. Berlin's prose has been described variously as dense and hard to understand. It may be for some readers. But Berlin is not excessively wordy (it is a slender volume), but he does have the ability to cover a lot of ideas and currents in a single sentence. It is this juggling and keeping in mind of a lot of ideas and concepts in a single sentence that may necessitate one to reread certain sentences, or at least know the concepts to which he is referring.

If you do have general outline of the ideas of the age then you will love this book. I sat down thinking that this was my "serious reading." I fully expected it to be a labourious process to get through this book. Instead I was profoundly surprised by the breath and depth Berlin covers in his lucid prose.

I found it hard to put the book down.

There is no analysis of whether Marx was right or wrong. Of how his ideas become to become the bible of the oppressed on the earth or how it eventually was transmogrified in some cases to justify the mass killing of those who stood in the way of historical materialism. This is a book of ideas, and as such the ideas discussed of Marx, his contemporaries, and his intellectual primogeniteurs are a ripping good read.

The philosophical side of this book might be a strong support for the idea that philosophy was in bad shape when Nietzsche found it. The political side of the book ought to establish that it was no wonder. Before I bought this book, I had a copy of THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY by Karl Marx, which was written when Nietzsche was quite young. It was an attack on the thoroughly political view of economics which had been adopted by Proudhon. According to Berlin, "Marx was convinced that Proudhon was constitutionally incapable of grasping the truth; that, despite an undoubted gift for telling phrases, he was a fundamentally stupid man; the fact that he was brave and fanatically honest, and attracted a growing body of devoted followers, only made him and his fantasies more dangerous;" (Berlin, p. 87). In a move that is sure to remind historians of how often Communists turned against others who thought that they were on the same side, Marx's book attacked the roots of Proudhon's system in Chapter 2, The Metaphysics of Political Economy, with his usual summary of Hegel. "As to those who are not acquainted with Hegelian language, we would say to them in the sacramental formula, affirmation, negation, and negation of the negation. . . . Instead of the ordinary individual, with his ordinary manner of speaking and thinking, we have nothing but this ordinary manner, pure and simple, minus the individual." (Marx, p. 115).

Berlin is capable of providing summaries of the issues, even admitting that "Marx took immense trouble to demonstrate that Proudhon was totally incapable of abstract thought, a fact which he vainly attempted to conceal by a use of pseudo-Hegelian terminology. Marx accused Proudhon of radically misunderstanding the Hegelian categories by naively interpreting the dialectical conflict as a simple struggle between good and evil, which leads to the fallacy that all that is needed is to remove the evil, and the good will remain. This is the very height of superficiality: to call this or that side of the dialectical conflict good or bad is a sign of unhistorical subjectivism out of place in serious social analysis." (Berlin, pp. 85-86).

The current clash of civilizations might be considered as stupid as anything that Marx analyzed in Proudhon's system, by those who are sure that philosophy is a style adopted by the good side, while anyone who has adopted the politics of mounting destructiveness has all the faults which the free world has always attributed to communism. Plenty of poisons have entered this contest in the last 155 years, since Karl Marx tried to side with the rising class while arguing against their unexamined notions of good and evil, but philosophies have been as powerless on this kind of question as Nietzsche might be considered absurd for attempting to encompass powerful ideas. People who can't relate to this book must lack an appreciation for something that philosophers always wanted, even in the days of the pre-Platonics. It might be considered tough to read, having been revised little since it was Isaiah Berlin's first great book in 1939. I thought it was better than a lot of what I have tried to read about Hegel, and I wasn't trying very hard.

I recall with pride the sure comfort, during the years of struggle against the American war in Vietnam, afforded by Bertrand Russell's pungent opposition to the same war for the same reasons, all of his astonishing intellectual gifts poised like a sword against the daily lies and betrayal of ideals perpetrated by Washington. While Russell's mathematical exegeses are beyond me, the thrust of his intellectual activity has remained attractive. This concise book (indeed thin, but not incomplete), while not diminishing that attraction, comes a bit like a diatribe exposing those elements of Russell's character that were no doubt conflicted, and yet were more likely an integral part of his intellectual capacity. Ryan's writing is informative, but not terribly appreciative. One feels distanced by Ryan's doubts, rather than educated by his conclusions. Clearly Russell was a complex fellow, inconstant and, in a certain respect, embittered by a life of singularity; it seems however that Ryan does little to penetrate the conflicts down to the bone of understanding them and integrating them into the whole picture of Russell's turbulent life, rather he presents the externals as elements sufficiently interesting in and of themselves, a disservice, I think, to one with a legacy as lingering and controversial as that of Bertrand Russell. The prose is intelligent and clear, and the volume is a typically attractive Oxford Univ. Press offering, small and supple, the presentation suiting the book's tone and content perfectly. I recommend this volume, but it's not everything it could have been.

In Alan Ryan's book there is good, overdue criticism concerning Russell's view of world-government And on the subject of government in general, an interesting observation is that "Russell takes no interest in the creation of legal obstacles to government misbehaviour; he does not suggest a Bill of Rights, for instance. On the whole, Russell assumes throughout that what checks government is the power of social groups rather than the provisions of the legal system...". Russell's exact views on inheritance have always been of interest to me, but they can be confusing.As far as other biographers' reports are concerned, on one hand, one reads that "he rejects the institution of inheritance, and proudly earns his own living" and that "He had given away his inheritance because he thought it wrong to have such an unfair advantage" On the other hand, Russell himself explains that "While I was writing Principia Mathematica I felt justified in living on inherited money, though I did not feel justified in keeping an additional sum of capital that I inherited from my grandmother. I gave away this sum in its entirety...to various educational objects." There are also reports that "he...lived on the income...he had inherited at twenty-one," at that at the turn of the century, at least, "the kind of life led by Russell obviously depended on a small but sufficient independent income" I think this book provides the most concise description of the Russell and his inheritance saying that "He always treated his own money as a social fund,...not in the least alarmed at the prospect of earning his own living once it was gone." A point brought out in this book more than any other biography of Russell is that "For much of his life he plainly felt a contempt for uneducated people which is entirely at odds with the sentimental profession of solidarity with humanity's sufferings....Max Eastman recalled an alarming moment when Russell observed, after a very successful public debate in the 1920s, 'Anyone who takes these debates of ours seriously must be an idiot.'...Russell was more vulnerable than most to the temptation to treat his readers like fools." Moreover, he evidently felt that the financial hardships of Beacon Hill School were such as to be "making him give pot-boiling lectures to stupid audiences and write silly little articles for American newspapers." I was interested in reading Ryan's accounts of how Russell loathed American universities as "departmental, hierarchical, uncollegiate places, dominated by the kind of professionalism which might be acceptable in a law firm but hardly in the groves of academe," and how "Russell was right to think Huxley had stolen almost every idea for his novel from him" Interesting tidbits I learned were that during his 1918 six-month prison term "He read 200 books and wrote two." He acknowledged "the social value of dancing," and that he was "something of a cinema addict." There is confirmation of his belief that "fresh air" is better for children than "towns," and that he "had always taken refuge in his passion for the sea and the mountains." Regrettably, there are reports about Russell that "Many men found him unbearable at close quarters." Also, this biography is quite clear about how Russell had "in 1892...a freedom from acrimony which would have tested...Russell himself in later life." In short, "Russell got angrier as he got older." Things don't seem to change much considering a statement like "what passed for American democracy in the 1920s and '30s was a sham where businessmen pulled the strings which made the politicians dance."

The short story anthology, Bones Wizard, is a trip into an extreme twilight zone. On the surface each story is bizarre and shockingly original. Read them a second time and you'll be twice shocked.

This text offers a good selection of both ancient pagan and modern agnostic readings on justice. Selections range from Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero to von Hayek, Marx, Nozick, and Rawls. The notable gap is in the Christian period that came in between the 30s B.C. and the 19th century; for that, I guess Ryan expects you to find other readings on your own. In addition, the very last selection on the book -- on the topic whether Marx believed in justice -- is out of place among the works by heavyweight authors that make up the balance of the book.

Above average comic book fare, but not even in the same plane as Watchmen or V for Vendetta. I would suggest looking elsewhere. From Hell and Swamp Thing are also both supposed to be very good.

Above average comic book superhero fare, but unfortunately that's not saying too much. Enjoyable, but no depth--but not even in the same plane as Watchmen or V for Vendetta. I would suggest looking elsewhere. From Hell and Swamp Thing are also both supposed to be very good

This book (or these books, as this is a collected edition) are great stuff - Alan Moore crafts a wickedly poignant tale around the return of the original C.A.T.s from their homeworld of Khera. While they originally went to Khera thinking it a utopia of paradise, they leave when events turn bitter. Arriving home on Earth, they find themselves right in the middle of the crime war the new WildC.A.T.S. have started. The conclusion is classic Moore, and the art (a mix of Travis Charest and Kevin Maguire) is top notch, Charest's in paticular. If you are a fan of Alan Moore, WildC.A.T.s, or just good old fashion intergalactic superhero action, this book's for you.