Philadelphia Stories is an outstanding photo-journal chronicling the years 1920 through 1960; the photos are excellent and really took me back to my childhood days through Port Richmond, Kensington, Juniata and Frankford! A "Must-Read" for anyone interested in Philadelphia History or just to Stroll down Memory Lane. Thoroughly enjoyable - I was thrilled to find this terrific book at Amazon.com !

The I. Paderewski edition of Chopin's Piano Concerto's No. 1 and 2 is the best edition I've looked at. The orchestral part is intricately transcribed for the second piano. Like all Dover products, this book and its binding are virtually indestructible...a major plus for the monumental task of mastering the greatest concertos of them all (Concerto No.2 in F minor). A good buy!

A short novel of stunning concision -- liberating his work from the millstone of fixed character POV or time, Bowles jumps between vastly different ages (while maintaining his chosen setting: North Africa) with breathtaking fluency and a near- total disregard for realist conventions. This short novel, acclaimed by many as a masterpiece, ought to have inspired a revolution in storytelling: it is as explosive, in its own way, as Breton's *Nadja*. Instead, it simply sank from view. Some of the sections are only as long as a paragraph; others are bona fide short stories. But what endures in the mind is the way that Bowles' writing shifts, as if by magic, into the most voluptuous shapes.

Mongolia has fascinated me since I first read about Roy Chapman Andrews' 1920s paleontological expeditions there, which found some of the world's most famous fossils. Andrews drew a marvelous picture of a vast, vibrant country which once had ruled most of Asia and part of Europe, but he emphasized its archaic, exotic elements. Sandag and Kendall's POISONED ARROWS: THE STALIN-CHOIBALSAN MONGOLIAN MASSACRES, 1921-1941 does a lucid scholarly job of telling a little-known other side of the Mongolian story. Although emerging from feudalism in the early 1900s, Mongolia already had produced a class of leaders and intellectuals who aspired to make it a modern democratic society. According to Shagdariin Sandag (a prominent Mongolian historian), Soviet communism, while professing to support Mongolian modernization, actually prevented it through decades of repression which virtually exterminated its leadership, exploited its resources and left it poorer than it had been in 1920. Sandag's own father was among those "liquidated"-- he disappeared in 1939 and his fate (execution as a "Japanese spy") remained unknown until 1993. Sandag brings strong feelings as well as a wealth of detailed documentation to the story, which resembles Solzhintsyn's GULAG ARCHIPELAGO. He and co-author Harry Kendall tell the story well, although it is a horrific one. The relentlessness of Stalinist brutalities and duplicities (perpetrated not only by Soviets but by Mongolian Stalinists) seems nightmarish and insane. But the story should be known by anyone with a serious interest in central Asia, which, lying between Russia and China, is an increasingly important part of the world.

David Rains Wallace is a writer specializing in natural history and conservation. His latest book is THE BONE HUNTERS REVENGE: DINOSAURS, GREED, AND THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC FEUD OF THE GILDED AGE.

Shanghai in the 1920's and 30's must have been the single most difficult city in the world to govern. Shanghai's reputation as a center of vice and corruption was legendary in its own day. At the beginning of the Twenty First Century, the Shangai of this period still holds its own romantic appeal.

Frederic Wakeman's book is a study of the Nationalist Government's attempt to bring order and discipline to a city through a program of national renewal. Their goal was to one day recapture the city's full sovereignty by showing the West that the Government could effectively govern Shanghai. This book is the story of how this worthy goal was subverted to the political and monetary needs of the Nationalist Government.

Although written for an academic audience, Wakeman's story of the Green Gang, secret Comminturn Agents, turncoat Communist Assasins and corrupt police officials has an appeal that goes far beyond the merely academic. I loved this book because I enjoyed reading about the intricate details of some of the greatest crimes and criminals of this truly golden age of crime.

This is a beautiful edition for the price. Notes are easy to read and its an urtext version, too. A rare find for less than half the price of similar editions.

When I discovered this book shortly after it came out in the early 1980's I was thrillled. I was MORE than thrilled. I knew then that I had a treasure in my possession...the kind of special treasure which can only increase in value through the years. What IS this book? This is NOT a book very many will be crazy about. Not at all. It is a photography book---black and white photographs---portraits to be exact. Of who? Theatre people. Anyone and everyone who had anything to do with theatre in New York City during the 1970's...actually, with the Public Theatre of New York...the wonderful theatre founded by that theatre giant, Joseph Papp. Many of these represented here were just starting out in their careers, and are now well known in the entertainment industry, such as Barry Bostwick, Maureen Stapleton, Swoozie Kurtz, Meryl Streep, Stacy Keach, Neil Simon, John Lithgow, Sam Waterston, James Earl Jones, and others. Many well known individuals here sadly have since passed away too, such as Joseph Papp, Yul Brynner, Jessica Tandy, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Colleen Dewhurst, Raul Julia, Bob Fosse, Jason Robards, Robert Shaw, Tennessee Williams, Henry Fonda, Zero Mostel, Robert Preston, and others. There are approximately 125 portraits here, and at the back of the book, a brief biographical piece about each person and their career. By the way, though these are "portraits," they are not your usual studio "posed" portraits. Each person is naturally represented here. Again, this book is not for everyone. Not even all theatre lovers will delight in this book, because if they are YOUNG theatre lovers, they may very well not even be familiar with many of these who are represented here, so would not be interested in this book at all. But IF you ARE a theatre lover, and you ARE aware of WHO all the people are in these portraits, and you love black and white photography, you WILL THOROUGHLY DELIGHT IN THIS BOOK. Why, I think you may even come to cherish it as much as I do.

I strongly recommend this text for beginners and graduate students who want to understand Neural Networks. First, the text book explains the why, where, and how to apply Neural Networks, which is the most important point for understanding Neural Networks. Second, mathematical proofs, clear description of algorithms and MATLAB codes encourage me to do it myself. And a lot of mathematical foundation in the Appendix allow me to understand quite easily complex mathematical concepts.

I'm surprised with the fact that nobody wrote the review on this book.
As far as I've read on structuralism, this is the best, easy, succinct overview of structuralism. yep. the part 2 of this book is on the formalism. but my major is not literature. so I have no sufficient knowledge to assess the quality of that part. but as far as I 've read Jameson's books, it won't be the second to none. It's amazing how he could manage to write in such short volume to be understandable to layman. Jamesons's theoretical position is not that sympathetic to the tenet of structuralism. his orientation is Marxist. His assessment of structuralism betrays the title, 'The prison-house of langauge. his point is not that simple or vulgar as Terry Eagleton's. Jameson tried to syntehsize the point of Marxism's political approach, hermeneutics, and formalist approach of structuralism in his master piece, 'Political Unconsciuousness'. and his evaluation of structuralism does not lose intellectual fairness.

Library Journal: "Readers have much to gain from the wisdom and insight offered in this book."...Chicago Tribune: "This book is different because Flach doesn't offer simplistic solutions...he tries to help readers rethink how they cope with change."...American Journal of Psychiatry: "Frederic Flach is a thoughtful writer; he addresses his latest book to all who can benefit from new ways to cope with existential problems...his spirit of advocacy, of individual decision, liberates this book and the reader from the time-honored psychological cliches that characterize so many so-called self-help books."...Detroit News: "Our thanks to Dr. Flach for his sensible and inspiring words."