The 3 Keys to Empowerment revisits the three keys discussed in another Blanchard book, Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute. These three keys are: share information with everyone, create autonomy through boundaries and let teams become the hierarchy. They should be applied to each of the three stages of moving toward empowerment. Many of the actions suggested for the initial stage: "Starting and Orienting the Journey," are repeated in the discussions of the other stages, "Change and Discouragement" and "Adopting and Refining Empowerment." The authors say some areas need repeated focus so readers can implement change. Unfortunately, this is repetitive.

The book's most useful feature is the Empowerment Action Plan, a clear, easy to follow list of specific actions leaders can take at each stage of the journey to empowerment. The 3 Keys is written for CEOs and senior executives.

After reading and being intrigued by the authors' previous book, "Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute," I was curious about this follow-up book. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book was written as a complementary "stand-alone" book with a much different style than its predecessor.

Unlike Blanchard's usual simple, entertaining, and fun-to-read story-telling books, this book was a detailed, practical, common-sense guideline for individuals and organizations on their journeys from hierarchy to empowerment. Besides the credible factual and objective analysis of becoming empowered, this book confirmed for me what I always suspected about Blanchard's usual powerful parables: they are backed up by extensive research, knowledge, and experience.

This book starts with a great, concise overview of "Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute," and then moves on to common, expected questions with practical, executable answers designed to assist people and organizations going through the journey from hierarchy to empowerment. The book concludes with an outstanding detailed empowerment action plan that captures the essence of how the 3 keys to empowerment (share information with everyone, create autonomy through boundaries, and let teams become the hierarchy) can and should be applied simultaneously through the 3 stages of change (starting and orienting the journey, change and discouragement, and adopting and refining empowerment).

Designed as a guidebook, I can easily see the book being used by leaders at all levels who must deal with and implement empowering, or other major changes in their organizations. As is the case with all guidebooks, the information in this book requires the readers' judgment in applying it to the realities of their situations. If viewed as a guaranteed checklist for success by people and organizations that want a quick fix with little thought, this book will likely fall short of expectations. If viewed as a practical, common-sense packed reference, I believe this book will be an invaluable leadership tool for long-term effectiveness and efficiency.

Ken Blanchard, John Carlos, and I wrote this book as a follow up to our best selling Empowerment Takes More Than A Minute. This book is designed to help any manager or team leader or company president who wants to release the power of people for astonishing results. We know that empowerment is often viewed as a buzzword, but we also know that it works for those who stick with it. We think this book can help team leaders and team members know what to do to keep moving forward. Let us know what you think and ask us any questions you have -- we will respond.

GURPS Alternate Earths may be made to order for a dimension hopping campaign such as GURPS Time Travel, but I believe it also gives gamers an opportunity to see how our own world "might have been" if just one event in history was changed. And it provides opportunities to set whole adventures, and even whole campaigns in those worlds.

The six different "Earths" in this book are almost textbook examples of the now popular "What If" line of SF stories. The first world, "Dixie", gives us a good idea as to what might have happened if the South had won the American Civil War. It covers the time from secession to the time when the Confederate States of America became a superpower. The second world, "Reich 5" give us a chilling look at the world under Nazi rule and the resistance effort still under way years later. The third world "Rome Aeterna", assumes the Roman empire never fell. The fourth world, "Shikaku-Mon", assumes the ancient Japanese Empire conquered the world. The fifth world, "Ezcalli", has details for a strange Earth where the might of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans is unsurpassed. The sixth and final world is the strangest of all. "Gernsback" starts with a simple postulation: what if Nikolai Tesla's inventions worked and were used by someone with the financial genius of Morgan? Flying cars and broadcast power are common.

There are ideas for adventures, characters, and even whole campaigns for each of the worlds, including several paragraphs about even stranger worlds that diverged from these six. These "reality seeds" give creative GM's even more alternate worlds to explore.

People wishing to use books like Harry Turtledove's wonderful alternate earths books need look no further for ideas of how to recreate his books for a strange parallel world campaign. Highly recommended for GURPS GM's and recommended even to SF fans wanting to explore the ramifications of what might happen if...

It doesn't matter if you have no intention of ever role playing or if you have no idea what GURPS is about, this is a fascinating book for anyone who, like me, wants to see more of an alternate history than the point of divergence and a sporadic description of the world spread out across the course of a book.

This book holds the background information for six alternate histories, each at different points in their timelines. In each section you'll find maps, histories and descriptions for each of the major powers involved in that world along with sidebars that cover some small details of those worlds (rock & roll in the Confederate States of America? It's in there. How to tour in Gernsback? Yep). These are not stories, these are the actual histories involved.

If you're not interested in the gaming aspect, then the tables and charts referring to character types and the likes will be of minor interest, but don't let that stop you.

This is a rare time when I wish that Steve Jackson Games had a fiction line to explore each of these scenarios...

This guy must do nothing but read and write. I'm not even sure he takes time to eat. He knows more and more obscure facts about the history of our planet than anyone I've ever met.

Whatever the case, though, I'm grateful, because he's come up with some pretty terrific rpg sourcebooks. This is one of them.

This book offers six alternate Earths, each an imagined world in which something is different from the world we know. Some are set in a past in which something is different; others in a present in which something in the past went a different way.

Such settings make for great fiction--and for great adventures. It's not hard to come up with ideas for such settings, but it is nice when someone's taken the trouble to do the development work for you. A modern Confederate America, an ancient Roman campaign in the New World. Wonderful!

The book can also help you design your own alternate earths by example.

This book is definitely worth checking out if you're looking for a new and different setting for your campaign. If you're done with high fantasy, but you still want magic; if you like metropolises but long for a radically different social structer; if you have any interest in things NOT as they are, then this book's for you.

Newspaper stories about the oil spill created the impression that the cause of the accident was simply that the captain was drunk. This book shows that the real situation was far more complex. The captain was definitely not drunk. He did have a few drinks, which is against regulations. Even after all the analysis it is not clear what exactly went wrong. The fact that the captain had a few drinks was not the only breach of regulations. None of the officers had a six-hour off duty time in the twelve-hour period before departure. The ship was single hulled instead of double hulled as was foreseen when the oil terminal was built. When Congress granted permission to build the pipeline and the terminal one of the conditions was that there would be a state-of-the-art contingency plan for oil spills. There was nothing of the sort. A Vessel Traffic Services station was supposed to monitor the movement of the ships through the strait. Due to cost cutting measures the station was unable to monitor the movement of the ship. A major cause of inefficiency in the clean up was the lack of clarity about who was in charge, the Coast Guard or Exxon. It is not just the captain that acted irresponsibly, so did all parties concerned. This is described in one part of the book. The second part of the book describes the impact of the oil spill and especially of the clean up on the communities affected. Each of the communities split in the middle. Half of the members took the position of trying to squeeze as much money out of Exxon as possible whilst the other half did not want to have anything to do with Exxon. Exxon did not succeed in engaging the communities in a positive way. The third part describes the nature in Alaska. These descriptions are wonderful and make you want to go there. These three parts are interwoven. The advantage is that the reader gets a three dimensional understanding of what happened: the responsibility for the disaster and the clean up, the impact on different members of the community and the impact on nature. The author places the ultimate responsibility on the consumer. He writes, " the American population prefers to live in a fog and is willing to accept almost anything in return for the opportunity to keep its gas tanks topped up" (with cheap gas). The combination of corporations maximising short-term profits and consumers closing their eyes to the consequences of their behaviour makes one worried. There must be a better way.

Out of the Channel should be required reading for anyone who thinks environmentally ... not just environmentalists, but students, political and economic theorists, and most of all, writers. I had the good fortune to learn a great deal about writing from John Keeble, and reading his book is an education all by itself. As a rigorous study of the physical and human impact of the Exxon Valdez disaster, Out of the Channel is a comprehensive anatomy, a text that does not shirk any of the heavy load its vast subject demands. Without taking the easy route of righteous anger, Keeble explores every nuance of the oil spill, and he follows that tenacious blot of Prudhoe Bay crude as it seeps out of the tangible world and into the minds and spirits of the permanent and temporary inhabitants of Prince William Sound. This tenth anniversary edition, with the expanded coverage allowed by the perspective of time, is a gift that should not be overlooked.

John Keeble, whose writing focuses on the issues facing the American Northwest, paints a memorable picture of the Exxon Valdez oilspill and its aftermath. Asked by the Greenwich Village Voice to write an article on the spill, he travels to Alaska and observes first-hand the efforts made to restore the land and the wildlife. However, the more he observes the more he is haunted by two observations: 1) that the size of the oil companies, and the entangled relationship between the companies and the government, is enormously greater than we have suspected, and 2) that the vast amounts of money poured into the clean-up effort causes many to view that money as their goal. His investigations into the clean-up follow a theme he develops in his other works: that the intrusion of a company or government upon the land inevitably causes exploitation; and those who live in that land must invariably suffer the consequences. Torn between the desires to make money, to clear the oil, and to downplay the scope of the incident, the people involved with clean-up waste a good deal of their effort. The more damage Keeble assesses, the more in tune he becomes with the suffering of the people and animals truly hurt, and ultimately, the reader, too, feels the chill that shakes the author at each new discovery.

I have always disliked one volume commentaries on the bible because there is never enough detail. This goes one better and is at least two volume. It is an abridgement of the excellent 12 volume Expositor's Bible Commentary. If you are not likely to buy the full set or even the CD then this 2 volume series is a good buy. I was very impressed by the 100+ pages on the book of Revelation. There are six pages devoted to Mat 24. It will represent a good start to a layman's library although in later years you will want to buy individual commentaries.

This is an excellent interpretive commentary. It is actually one of a two-volume set. Volume 1 covers the Old Testament; volume 2 covers the New. (It is hard to tell this from the amazon.com entries for the two volumes, which have the same title, and differ only in the miniscule volume number listed with the ISBN information. However, if you click on "larger image" you can see the cover of each book identifies its topic.)

The perspective of the commentary is moderaterly conservative Christian. (The commentators exert a lot of energy at some points in trying to explain how the Bible could be historically accurate throughout.) However, even more liberal interpreters will find the scholarship impressive. Sometimes there is so much information that it is almost daunting, but you can read selectively (of course). Pictures are included where relevant (e.g., a reconstruction of what the Ark of the Covenant may have looked like).

I have enjoyed consulting volume 1, and learned a lot from it; on that basis, I am buying volume 2 now.

This book is an abridgement of the Expositor's Bible Commentary written in 1991. Of all the Old Testament commentaries I own this is the one I like the best and use the most often. There are lots of maps, pictures and charts which aid understanding and break up the text. The comments are well organized and work through each verse of the OT systematically. If you like this book you will also enjoy THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE BOOK OF PROVERBS by Cody Jones. This new (1999) and in-depth commentary points out numerous Biblical characters who illustrate King Solomon's witty observations on human nature. There are abundant historical drawings and photos and 6 popular translations of Proverbs in parallel. Many of the mysteries and riddles of Proverbs are explored with surprising new answers.

Families of Fortune is very good at depicting the rise to wealth and power that accompanied the businessmen of the Industrial Era in America. The Gilded Age homes and lifetyles are lavishly depcited, using hundreds of photos and basic, supporting text that will adequately portray the subject intended in the book. Overall, it is useful, but would not be helpful for a person trying to specialize solely on the well-known names of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and others.

The American Gilded Age (1870-1929) and the wealthy few businessmen who profited exorbitantly from it is royally portrayed in Families Of Fortune: Life In The Gilded Age, a beauteous book lavishly illustrated on virtually every page with artwork, photographs, and images of how the nouveau rich of that era made and spent their fortunes. The straightforward text contains an immense wealth of economic and historical information, concerning how a few famous "robber barron" families (a questionable term, since they technically weren't breaking laws against theft and certainly were not blood aristocracy) amassed such incredible fortunes, as well as how they ultimately spent those fortunes. Families Of Fortune is truly a combination of art, economics, and historical storytelling; highly recommended for anyone with a keen interest in the lifestyles of the rich and famous of the Gilded Age.

John Kenneth Muir's "Horror Films of the 1970s" is a great reference guide for all horror movie fans. Covering 228 horror films from the 70s, the book is crammed with with detailed information within its 662 pages.

The book begins with a "History of the Decade" and then breaks down the horror films by year, ending with a brief conclusion and several appendices, which include "1970s Hall of Fame," "Recommended Viewing," and "Memorable Movie Ad Lines."

Muir tackles most of the films in the book (I say most because not all of the films reviewed follow this format....some are just given a brief mention and are not even rated.) by breaking it down into sections. First, he provides excerpts from critical reviews of the film. He then provides a cast and crew list. He then provides a POV section (where those people associated with making the film offer their thoughts on the film.) Next comes a synopsis of the film's storyline before moving on to the author's own commentary and review of the film. Finally, there is a Legacy section which details any important (good or bad) contribution that the film may have made to the genre as a whole. The author also provides a rating system (one to four stars) ranking the over-all quality of the film.

Muir's love of the genre is evident in the text, although his commentarys can sometimes be lengthy (he seems to have a gift for gab.) This reader found that Muir can sometimes "over analyze" a film, reading things into the script that I don't think were ever really there to begin with (not even by the makers of the film). The commentarys, however, have helped me to view a film differently, shedding light on aspects of the film that I may have otherwise overlooked. I am now much more aware of how camera techniques, lighting, editing and score (critical in all films but probably even more so to the horror genre) can contribute to the success or failure of a film. Muir even points out how some film's subtext points directly to the fears and concerns of the audience in the "disco era." (Again, something I may have overlooked.......especially 30 years later.) All these small points add up and can make watching one of these movies a much more enjoyable experience. This makes the book a remarkable success in my opinion.

On the whole, the book is a very enjoyable read and most horror lovers will probably find it quite satisfying. I am now in search of many of the films included in the book that I haven't yet seen. Some I have never even heard of until being introduced to them by Mr. Muir. Hopefully, a sequel (Horror Films of the 1980s)is somewhere on the horizon.

John Muir's filmbooks are really in their own genre -- they're not quite film analysis, they're not quite fan appreciation -- they're somewhere in the middle, and that's what gives them their special appeal. Ever watch a DVD with director's commentary? That's what it's like reading one of Muir's film books -- you're discussing films with someone who loves them, and it's infectious. The end result is it's not dry film criticism (do we really need another Freudian analysis of anything?) -- it's sharing the joy and wonder of great films and not so great films and some downright guilty pleasures with someone who really brings experience, humor, knowledge, and enthusiasm to the subject matter. As a major fan of horror films from the 1970s, this book jumps right to the top of my list of "must-haves". It's not a reference book -- it's a cover-to-cover read that's just formatted like a reference book. You'll find old favorites in here as well as get a little exposure to some films you haven't seen and probably should. It was the "best of times" for horror films (its only competing decade would be the 1930s, IMHO), and this book ranks with the "best of books" for a great decade for creepy movies. It does a great job of putting these films in their proper context (it was a fascinating decade, and its horror films really mirror that). This is a book that will make you smile, and throw you back a few decades into a time that was simpler and more confused...If you like horror films, you'll love this book. This should be a daily calendar! 365 Great Horror Films a Year!

JFK, a magical name in history. This book provides a way to investigate this man's life from other people's letters. You may want to read it.

This is a compilation that in and of itself is quite mundane. The letters are not the most eloquent nor powerful prose that you are likely to have read. However, this is the correspondence of two of the biggest figures of their age.

The letters regarding the Vietnam war are the most interesting and provide some recognition of the clarity & forsight of Galbraith's mind.

Buy this book if you are interested in these men and the age of Camelot.

I work in Public Health in Pakistan and have used this book as a reference a few times. Every issue is discussed in detail and the technical information is impressive but, it is focused mainly towards developing countries. It could become much more informative if regions where public health and preventive medicine are needed most were also covered.

The price is also steep.

I am doing my master in Public Health. I have searched so many books that will give me clear overview on Public Health. Then I found this book. I read most of the chapters. It is a great book. Not only it gives the general overview of the Public Health but most of the topics were discussed in great detail. If you can only afford to have one book for public health, then this is the book.

Galbraith explains banks & money as wittily as the Motley Fool demystifies stocks & Wall Street. Too bad Galbraith was way ahead of his time. Too bad it is out-of-print. Please bring "Money..." back ASAP.

This is JKG holding forth on that most perennially fascinating of topics. The subtitle ("Whence it Came, Where it Went") may bear a relation to the question on everybody's mind during the early and mid-seventies: why is our money behaving so badly?

"In the twenty years before the founding of the [Federal Reserve] System there were 1748 bank suspensions; in the twenty years after it ended the anarchy of unstable private banking, there were 15,502."(p144)

"...the Democrats...could authorize it [the central bank] without being suspected of evil."(p239)

"...the [German] inflation of 1923, with its euthanasia of the "rentier" class...had almost certainly a far greater [than the 1945 inflation] effect on relative wealth. ...The loss of assets makes a deep impression on an impressionable class of people. The loss of jobs is accepted more philosophically."(p303/304)

"... the higher oil price [in 1973] was considered highly inflationary ... in fact, it was deflationary ... the revenues... accumulated in unspent balances. Thus they represented a withdrawal from current purchasing power..."(p363) (The rest of the paragraph is relevant. The basic point is that the oil producers took money out of circulation, since they made it far faster than they could spend it.)"

And the piece de resistence: "To see economic policy as a problem of choice between rival ideologies is the greatest error of our time."(p368)

MONEY

OK, do I have your attention? Well, this book will not demystify money - like love it is resistant to that, but like love we can't let it go. And its progress through our culture is a fascination, attended by hopes, frauds, inventions, and, not least, desperate invocations.

Galbraith is a writer of enormous wit, intelligence, learning, and sympathy. But he is, of course, a liberal, so to many anything he says will be suspected as not arising out of a proper deference to the efficacy of pure market forces. Just as daunting, his strong, ironical style requires a neophyte a few pages to adjust to syntax shock. Once comfortable with the language, though, one can sit back and enjoy the colorful cavalcade of rogues and fools, madmen and prophets, as they invent and wreck institutions, impoverish whole nations, and pay for wars with worthless paper.

A Harvard economist, a former ambassador, and a leading Keynesian in the Roosevelt administration, John Kenneth Galbraith is at home in the twentieth century's public life as few others are, and has a firm intellectual grasp of his sometimes slippery subject. This book is a witty, but intellectually serious, history of a concept absolutely central to what we are pleased to call modern life, and how it has grown and changed from exchanging pieces of something shiny to now encompass powerful banks, puzzling foreign exchange markets, and tottering Ponzi schemes. Vast frauds separated by centuries appeal to the same base motives and use the same crude stratagems to separate us from our bit of money in hopes we'll get more. With money, like love, it seems we will never learn. But there is much enjoyment in the lessons, anyway.

I cannot express to you the satisfaction I received as I read this book. Terry Goodkind, in my humble opinion, is simply a wonderful writer because he evokes emotions out of his readers. I love his characters. They are the opposite of wooden and flat. After reading through the Sword of Truth series up until now, I feel so familiar with Richard and Kahlan, and Cara and Verna, and all the characters - when they feel pain, I feel pain, and when they feel joy, I feel joy. Mr. Goodkind brings out so many themes in his books...Faith of the Fallen does it in such an outstanding way it left me shocked and completely in awe. When I closed the book, I felt like I had just finished one of the best experiences I've ever been lucky enough to have. An excellent book is not meant to be read passively. An excellent book connects the world and characters and story with you. It weaves a web that leaves you completely spellbound, and the thread for that web comes from your own thoughts and emotions that the book draws out of you and that you put into the story as it progresses in your head. Faith of the Fallen is an excellent book, and much, much more. I cannot recommend this book enough - this is THE highest recommendation possible - 100%. People may judge a book by how well themes are worked with, or how well this or that is portrayed, or any other standard... To me, the important standard is how REAL the people in the book seem. The evidence for that realness in Mr. Goodkind's book is that REAL HUMAN EMOTIONS are felt for these fictional characters, as if they were standing before me instead of conjured creations from someone's imagination. The fantasy and the reality mixed together, and they blended and meshed into one. It was so inspiring to feel that power of his words come to life inside my head. Mr. Goodkind should be applauded for his efforts. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK. IT IS TOO RARE TO MISS.

I really enjoy reading the Sword Of Truth series. After I finished reading this book, I found myself smiling with pleasure. Terry Goodkind has again masterfully advanced the story of Richard, Kahlan, Zedd, and all of the other characters in this book. True to form, Goodkind develops the main characters of this book to the extent that you, as a reader, can understand their motivations and actions.

The pages of this book (as well as the entire series) are full of captivating content and rich story lines to keep the reader reading way past bed time.

As others have said, there is a very prevelant social comment about humanity and its spirit running through the entire novel, which serves as the perfect backdrop for this story. So, be it there to open people's eyes, or just to create background and motivation, the comment fits perfectly into this tale.

If you like to read fantasy full of well developed characters, rich and continuing story lines, suspenseful and emotionally captivating action, then this book is one to own and read several times over.

I will keep this brief. This book made the entire series worth wild. Many fantasy writers focus on all the characters walking great distances and fighting impossible battles and winning. I was tired of this!! It gets old, quick. I must compliment Goodkind for telling a story. It is rare to see an author explore the people we read today in fantasy writing. Only George R.R. Martin has done it better in recent years. Worth reading more then once!!!!