A 1988-book presenting woods used in musical instruments,compiled by one of the foremost wood anatomists of ourtime. Hardcover, 22,9 x 30,4 x 1,2cm, 44 pp, illustrated by black&white halftones. The woods treated are separated in six categories, by application. For each application a brief survey is given of what wood properties are desirable.

Amount of data given per wood varies. At best is provided: German trade name, scientific name, (occasionally) a synonym, other trade names, natural distribution, general appearance of the wood, properties, typical use. Most woods are illustrated by a 8x12 cm photomicrograph of the end grain (transmitted light), of excellent quality.

By today's standards of lavishly illustrated books perhaps a trifle sober. Color photographs of flat sawn and quarter sawn woods would have been nice, as would have been photomicrographs of tangential and radial sections. Might also have contained a little more in the way of detail useful in identifying the treated woods. Nevertheless it does contain a great deal of information, presented very concisely.

The designs in this book are totally outdated (talk about the 80's!), but the commentary in it is valuable for any person who is searching for a way to relate interior design with Christianity. Andersen offered much wisdom on the subject, and left me with new understanding.

This is not a great book. The story is simple, the characters are clichéd, and the message hits the reader with the subtlety of a caveman's club. It is reminiscent of a teen hero pulp novel; a socialist "Red Planet" perhaps. Based on that assessment this book probably deserves two stars. On the other hand, Sinclair did do an effective job of researching and documenting the labor injustices of that era. Also, his writing style is remains remarkably fluid, even if it is not a showcase for the beauty of the English language. I enjoyed this book and learned something from it, even if it is not Sinclair's highest art.

This, along with vols II and III, is a remarkable and admirable work of scholarship. Hegel delivered his then unique course on the Philosophy of Religion on four occasions between 1821 and 1831. These three volumes essentially present all four lecture series. Although similarities run throughout, it is the development in his thought and change in emphasis (depending upon who was attacking him at the moment) that add to the fascination of this work. The footnotes are thorough. Comparatively easy to follow. Uniquely Hegelian mind stretching thought. Permeated with Hegel's own encyclopedic knowledge of everything (our Aristotle). Complements the Phenomenology and Logic. The Divine Spirit sees via us, and the resultant backflow is the Holy Spirit: that trinity again.

This is an excellent book. It is perfect for the lay reader who has an interest in the functioning of the brain. "Left Brain, Right Brain: Perpectives from Cognitive Neuroscience" includes a survey of how researchers learn about the brain through cognitive experiments and medical imaging techniques. I am a neuroscience major in college and this was required reading for one of my courses. It was very enjoyable and very informative.

I would suggest it for anyone who has ever wondered how our brain allows us to speak, think and remember.

Georg Kuehlewind an avid scholar of Goethe and Rudolf Steiner expounds his ideas regarding language and reality, is there a language akin to the human one but spoken by the world, trees, animals, plants, rocks, the whole universe ? Kuehlewind says that there is and that the human being can "read" this "book" of nature. This language is very subtle and the person must wake in him/herself the organ of perception waiting inside of him/her to speak this language.

Although on first reading this book is difficult and is written in a way not easily followed, upon my second reading I think the concepts had had time to digest and it became far easier to follow the text. One does feel that, no matter how much is said of this language or the ability to read or speak it, an ordinary language such as English with its strong noun based structure, resulting in a static kind of thought, does not completely allow the free flow of Kuehlewind's ideas. I feel there are two options available to resolve this problem, either use another language which expresses movement as true movement rather than composed of non-moving parts, eg Eskimo or Blackfoot Indian, or use this language of nature itself to describe such ideas, this is often expressed as a sense from mind to mind or if writing is used at all through contradictory or paradoxical statements such as Zen koans which break the habitual thought cycle of ordinary language.

A remarkable book which both deepens and elucidates Goethe's original insights with input from Steiner.

This book concerning the mechanistic paradigm so prevalent in science today and for the last 200 years or so is something which reminds one that life is not just a congregation of characters or a genetic reproducer ie a machine but rather something far more interesting and vibrant. The old mechanistic paradigm is in its last throes as the combined weight of relativity, quantum mechanics, new biological insights such as Goethean science, the ideas of wholeness, complexity theory etc etc forcfully remind one of the creativity not only of the human mind but all of nature. Is this so new ? Of course not, new ideas have appeared all throughout history but it is the mechanical way of thinking which confines the human being ie his/her own thinking is the culprit and this of course is then automatically supported by the construction of ideas or the manipulation of creative new ideas into mechanical form. As a good friend of mine says "the machine is taking over". The mechanical way of thought has gone so far as to allow the creation of a machine society he would say. Is this so far from the truth ? Maybe not, but there are ways to elude this process. The person's own mind can achieve it. Edelglass, Maier, Gebert and Davy propose to do just this.

The book has probably one of the best introductions I've seen, when it discusses how mechanistic science would describe the human smile as : "a widening of the oral aperture, caused by the contractions of the cheek musculature", in other words such a science could not possibly hope to understand the "warmth" of a greeting or the "gladness" associated with it. It basically dehumanises the human experience. This book attempts at least to find a way to alleviate this situation through understanding how such a science came about and how to avoid this dehumanising approach without loosing objectivity. They discuss the senses used in scientific investigation noting especially that the sense of touch is most prevalent although many other senses exist other than the known 5 eg kinesthetic sense : awareness of our body, somatic sense : sense of well being of our body, sense of balance. It is the apparent separateness of the sense of touch which seems to create in the mind the idea that everything in reality is separate and made of parts. Piaget has shown such a learning takes place in small children and also gives rise to a construction of the self separate from everything else, people and nature. The book describes Galileos ideas of primary and secondary properties constructed through his own studies of phenomena such as the components of velocity in the moving object, periodicity of pendula etc, Descarte's "Cogito Ergo Sum" is discussed as well as the devlopment of the new science through the scholar and the craftsman, the enigma of quantum reality and the ideas of conscious participation of Goethe. In other words can the whole human being be used to understand a phenomenon ? Does it make sense without the loss of objectivity ? They believe it is possible to avoid the machine-like aspects of "normal science". They give examples of such attempts eg Brian Goodwin, Jochen Bockemuehl and finally conceive of a science which expresses the whole in all its subtlety and as such evoke a new way of living itself, the mind, the body are now not separate things but all part of a whole. Part looses its separation and can only be defined through the whole.

The book is a wonderful read being only short, 136 pages and can easily lead one to further interest in such ideas. Its well thought out without the annoying speculative reaches into insubstantial ideas which is the usual approach when objecting to current scientific dogma. Highly recommended for the scientist and layman alike although scientific concepts mentioned can confuse someone completely unfamiliar with them.

I bought this book when I took the course OO Database. It seems a little expensive for this book, but later I found it sure worths that much. This book has every detail and enough examples for an OO database beginner. I now have a very good understanding of OO database and can start to work on some OO database projects on Jasmine.

This edited volume is a collection of papers prepared for the International Conference on Multimedia and Regional Economic Restructuring, held at the Center of Technology Assesment in Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart in October 1997. The overall theme of the book is the impact and challenge of the information society for regional economies. The book focuses on empirical observations of the most recent evolution of the multimedia segment of the global information society. The empirical case-studies of regions are put into a common framework elaborated by the editors Braczyk, Fuchs and Wolf in a helpful introduction which gives a short definition of the term multimedia, discuss the process of the formation of the multimedia industry theoretically, and summarize the main links between multimedia and industrial clusters. Contributions are devided into three main parts. The first part addresses regions which host multimedia industries which can be classified as pioneers. These pioneer clusters are located without exception in the US, California and New York. In the second part emerging multimedia clusters are described which do not command the pioneer status of the American regions. Case studies of such routine producers are located in Canada and Europe. The third part analyses regions which try to establish multimedia clusters. In the first part Edmund Egan and Annalee Saxenian, exploring the multimedia cluster of the bay area in San Fransisco, ask some basic questions on the dynamics of agglomeration and dispersal in multimedia industries. The paper of Allen Scott on the southern california's multimedia industry lies emphazise on the form and logic of the local labour market. Scott shows that the multimedia industry is one of the driving forces behind the continued growth of urban cultural industries and that Los Angeles is a major centre of this industry. The remarkable case study of multimedia networks of Silicon Alley by Wolf Heydebrand describes the evolution and present processes of multimedia networks in New York. Through emphasizing the historical trajectories and the significance of the communicative capacity of networks their dual role of being part of economic globalization and at the same time constituting the backbone of reactive regional development strategies in the face of global competition is highlighted. The development of the new media industry of New York's Silicon Alley is also described by John Pavlik. He focuses on the institutional development and the innovations networks within the multimedia industry. The second part of the book contains six case studies of emerging multimedia clusters. The Toronto multimedia industry is analysed by Shauna Brail and Meric Gertler. The implications of their research are twofold: First, it supports and reinforces that industries based on information and communication technology rely heavily on interpersonal networks and strong backward linkages leading to agglomeration in urban centres. Second, the research demonstrates that the industry in Toronto has developed despite lacking local depth or institutional thickness that might engender inter-firm cooperation. The industry's growth has been largely a function of favourable policies supporting cultural industries nationally and provincially rather than strong institutional structures. The next two chapters include analysis of German multimedia clusters. The case of North Rhine-Westphalia, notable Cologne, is described by Josef Hilbert, Jürgen Nordhause-Janz and Dieter Rehfeld. By presenting data of the whole state the authors demonstrate that together with Bavaria North Rhine-Westphalia can be regarded as one of the German multimedia centres. Further the emerging clusters in Cologne and in the Ruhr Area are analysed in initial stages. Detlev Sträter describes in his paper the profiling and regional restructering of Munich as a cluster of the media and telecommunication industry. The paper of Richard Naylor on the Internet industry in the Netherlands is a reflection of this industry in a whole country. It gives an overview of the distribution of Internet suppliers and possible factors influencing agglomeration. The particular reasons for the growth of the South-east England high-tech corridor in the Sussex region are analysed by Puay Tang. After an interesting overview of the British multimedia sector Tang describes the main activities undertaken by local organizations and councils in the south-east part of the region, the fastest growing segment of the corridor. Further she discusses the main entry barriers to the sector and the resources required for sustaining market presence and concludes with some policy implications. The findings of this article are primarily based on several interviews. Therefore beside structural characteristics of the industry the paper makes also statements on social networks and its impacts on the development of multimedia firms in the region. The last case study of emerging clusters is the paper of Åke Sandberg on the multimedia industry in Stockholm. The last part analyses regions which try to establish a multimedia cluster. Most of the cases included (Cardiff/Wales, Scotland, Stuttgart, Tampere) concern the intensive support from public agencies. The book ends with a discussion of political efforts in the multimedia industry in Japan and Singapore. Overall the book is a valuable collection of papers. Most of the articles are interesting and worthwhile to read. Among the weaknesses we find some case studies which only give a broad socioeconomic description of the cluster in question. Therefore there is too little room for an explicit analysis of processes, politics and networks.

This is a concise, lucid, well written account of Haydn's life and career with a balanced assessment of his works and of his character. It contains a complete list of Haydn's works and a valuable bibliography for further reading and research. It is an excellent introduction to Haydn. Those wanting to learn more about Haydn's life and works will look elsewhere but will want this book for its listing of his works and its bibliography.