This book is welcome principally because it is the only systematic discussion of the life (or a good portion thereof) of one of the important musical figures in the second half of the 20th century. Unfortunately the author fails to capture the essence of what made Robert Shaw successful as a performer and how his inspiration largely fueled the "choral renaissance" in this country. The definitive critical biography of this singular talent remains to be written.

People who think Robert Shaw was something special and who come across this book will be delighted with its readability. While it certainly captures Shaw's unique ability to command your respect and warm your heart, it is especially successful in putting the phenomenon that was Shaw into the context of music in America in the Twentieth Century. One often doesn't think much about what it must have been like, especially in the earlier part of the era, to champion and perform the "modern" serious music repertoire; this book forces us to think about it, to put ourselves in the places of those who felt, like Shaw, compelled to do it. Along the way, there's a good overview of the evolution of recording, and how Shaw fit in there, not so much exploiting the medium as using it to serve the larger purpose of his art. Compelled throughout his career to make popular recordings, Shaw's final one for RCA ("Irish Songs," August '67) is in fact finished by a capable associate while he runs off to do more important things with his latest love, the Atlanta Symphony. The "popular" Shaw was to always dog the "artistic" Shaw throughout his career. He was once stung by a critic who said of his light encores, "They drew lots of applause mingled with the soft plash of the cognoscenti being quietly sick in their hats."

Everyone will have their favorite quote from Shaw after reading this book. Mine is a long, affectionately comic poem on Mahler's Eighth Symphony, which concludes, "So, grieve not, Gus! Our new Apollo! // Where you lead us, we will wallow!" Indeed, the many quotes from Shaw as he speaks and writes to his choruses are the principal glories of this book.

But always, always the music. You can feel the march of performances as they are roll-called before your eyes. This may not be the most authoritative, most definitive book on Shaw possible, but it is the one I wanted most to read. A real five star recommendation, and no apologies to the cognoscenti!

The late Robert Shaw had an incredibly long and distinguished career. This authorized biography by Joseph Mussulman, a one-time Shaw chorister, covers Shaw's life and career up to 1979 in detail, with a Foreword added in 1996 which briefly covers those later years. But a revised edition, with full detail in the period 1979 to Shaw's death in January, 1999, would fill in a lot of blanks for those who know him best through his Telarc recordings with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and his Chamber Singers and Festival Singers, or through his Carnegie Hall Choral Workshops and Tanglewood appearances in the later years of his career.

I came by my appreciation of Shaw relatively late in life, and by a somewhat unusual means. When he founded his Collegiate Chorale in 1941, I was all of two years old. I was still way too young to latch on to him seven years later, when he had disbanded the Collegiate Chorale and founded the Robert Shaw Chorale. For three decades after that, I had a somewhat different musical agenda, and he was a musical "ship passing in the night" for too many years.

The signal event which brought Shaw to the forefront of my musical consciousness was the launching of Telarc's digitally-mastered LP's by Bob Woods and Jack Renner, in 1977. The second of these LP's was a performance of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances by Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw had earlier assumed the directorship of the ASO in 1968, and Woods and Renner had been associated with Shaw during the period when he was assistant conductor and choral director for George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. In a very real sense, Woods and Renner were, by bringing this new technology to Shaw, thanking him for past friendships and associations. And the history of his role in leading the ASO, and bringing it to prominence with its recorded repertoire, was dramatically changed by this event. But much of this later history, and what followed Shaw's "retirement" as active music director of the ASO, has unfortunately been compressed into the all-too-brief Foreword, and the last three years of his life are not documented at all.

It is fair to say that the Telarc "gift" which Woods and Renner presented to Shaw made the difference between a career which would have been insufficiently documented by recordings (except for a handful of earlier RCA Victor recordings of the Robert Shaw Chorale) and one which will now stand the test of time. The ASO, good as it became under Shaw's leadership, served as much during his tenure as the recording instrument which would provide support for the "ultimate" Robert Shaw Chorale, the remarkable, and totally amateur (in the best sense) Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, as it would as the civic orchestra for the greater Atlanta area.

I could wax eloquent about the dozens of recordings this orchestra and chorus produced over a 20-year period of Telarc support. But there is one recording which stands out above all, of a work which was the closest thing to a cornerstone for Shaw's career: Bach's B Minor Mass. His professional life with this work is well-documented in Joe Mussulman's book. There is a wealth of anecdotes about how his performances of this work could reduce folks to tears, from Alaskan Aleuts to college kids everywhere to Soviet apparatchiks at the height of the Cold War.

One anecdote stands out above all others regarding his mastery, as well as his unassuming modesty in the face of it all, regarding the B Minor Mass. It occurred after a performance that must have really come together in a very special way. Following the concluding "Dona Nobis Pacem" of the Mass, Shaw left the podium and darted behind the curtain, awaiting the applause. He waited, and waited some more. Finally, not understanding why it was that the applause never arrived, he poked his head out from behind the curtain, only to find both the audience and the musicians facing each other and bawling their eyes out from what must have been a rendering of the final "Dona Nobis Pacem" of the Mass for the ages. Those who were at that performance carry a very special event around in their memories.

This single, simple paragraph of an anecdote says volumes about Shaw's largely underrated mastery. When you read this book, you too will cry. And you will laugh. And you will likely do both simultaneously. For all the right reasons.

Now, if only someone would fill in the final missing 20 years or so of "Dear People," we'd have it all.

Bro. McConkie tried to glean current church doctrine from the B. of M. but in my opinion he missed the point. I give five stars for the verses he quoted from the B of M and zero stars for the commentary which comes to three overall. Our people do not need another so-called "commentary" by an "expert" to understand this most simple of books. Read it, the B of M that is, and you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the message.

This is a fairly good series of commentary for the begining Book of Mormon Reader. These books provide a good basis to start from. Having sat at the feet of these two great scholars, I was a little dissappointed in the depth of their commentary. However they are both reliable sources.

The last Book of Mormon commentary war written in the late 1950's Elders George Reynolds and Janne Sjodahl, so it was about time that another Book of Mormon commentary was written, especially since President Ezra Taft Benson placed such a pointed emphasis on this Book of Books.

This commentary is also an improvement upon other books, since its focus is primarily upon doctrine, and not on archaeology or culture. I think someone once referred this at to "likening the scriptures unto ourselves."

The books contain both the text of the Book of Mormon, followed by the specific commentary. It is, therefore, similar to Elder Bruce R. McConkie's "Doctrinal New Testament Commentary."

This book has a good spirit about it, and I feel myself smarter and more spiritual as I have read it. I have read a lot of books, and each book has a degree of light, and this book is rather bright.

It is great for Sunday School teachers and quorum instructors, or just for personal edification.

Palermo's study of RFK on his own is well-researched and well-written, but it pays scant attention to the issue which dominated Kennedy's senatorial career - his attempts to do something about poverty in the U.S. While Vietnam is what drew him into his presidential run, poverty is the issue Kennedy spent more time on.

"In His Own Right", describes Robert Kennedy's political journey in the years after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Robert Kennedy suffered through a time of deep sorrow and grief after the death of his brother, and began a struggle to find his own political voice. RFK was in a unique position of national prominence, and many people looked to him to take the place of his slain brother. This book tells the story of how his political views began to change and evolve through very turbulent times both at home and abroad. Robert Kennedy had always been in the shadow of his brother, but he gradually began to stand in his own right. His own unique heart and spirit began to emerge, and it ultimately revolved around a sense of compassion and justice. By the time that he ran for President in 1968, there was much that Robert Kennedy could have given to America and to the world. This book explores that final political campaign, and the path that RFK always strived to find and follow.

While reading this fine book, I found myself immersed in the politics and social upheavals of the 1960s. My understanding of Robert F. Kennedy's role in the mid-1960s as a leader of a coalition of social movements was greatly enhanced. It was a joy to read!

I just finished reading "Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862"
by Joseph L. Harsh.

Ouch!!!! Talk about painful!!! Harsh (a history professor who grew up in Hagerstown) simply cannot write!! Some people can write well; others write poorly. Harsh is at the bottom of the latter group. (I feel sorry for his students -- they probably suffered severe ear and brain trauma from his lectures. And he writes as if he were lecturing!!)

He LOVES R.E. Lee. (According to Harsh, everything that went wrong was someone else's fault -- without exception!!) Then there are Harsh's numerous "moments" when he tells you what a particular person MUST have been thinking at any given time -- as if Harsh (or anyone else!!) could know! Finally come are his analyses of various events and situations. In Harsh's eyes, all ideas that contradict his opinions OBVIOUSLY MUST be wrong -- it's just plain "foolish" to think otherwise.

It's too bad that Harsh just didn't tell what happened and allowed us to form our own judgements. (By the way, he plays pretty "fast and loose" with the facts. Plus, he omits vital information that doesn't correspond to his interpretation.)
In his preface, Harsh even has the audacity to state that, besides his book, there are only one or two other books that cover the Maryland Campaign in depth. Well, I have been studying Antietam for over 35 years, have been there several hundred times, and have read literally thousands of books, articles, and documents about Antietam. Harsh is full of it!!

If you were thinking of buying this book, don't bother. You can gain just as much by pulling out all your teeth with a pair of pliars, then dropping a 200-pound lead weight on your foot.

I agree with much the prior reviewers have said. Although I am not a Civil War buff, I found the book readable. I appreciate his methodology also. Harsh attempts to reconstruct the intelligence available to Lee when he made crucial decisions and to assess his decisions based on the moves he could have made given what he knew and in light of his strategic aims for the campaign. All historians should stick by this method. He also does a very creditable job in his attempt to ascertain what Lee knew. On balance very well researched and well argued. I especially enjoyed the end in which he places his argument within the context of existing historiography on the subject. One criticism I have relates to the maps, which is discussed in the review of one of Dr. Harsh's other books. I bought Landscape Turned Red as the result of reading Taken at the Flood. And the maps are much more helpful in that Sears's book. When you are dealing with a lot of different place names and different corps moving around, it makes the flow a lot easier.

(Disclaimer: I sat in on a few classes of Dr. Harsh's as an undergraduate).

Much praise has been heaped on Dr. Harsh for this defining work on the Maryland Campaign of 1862. Awards have rolled in - perhaps the setup for the Pulitzer Prize for his planned upcoming works on the Union Side of the first two years of the American Civil War in the eastern theatre. Certainly, Harsh's approach of - what did they know, when did they know it, what did they do with information? - represents a step forward in understanding this critical campaign. Perhaps this method is taken a little too far, perhaps the author is too contrarian, eager to dispel existing notions and overturn previous judgements, but that's the fun of it - great academic arguments will result. Harsh's academic method - he is currently Professor of History at George Mason University, a school that he originally lobbied to be called "The University of Northern Virginia" (non-ACW fanatics didn't get it) - is unquestioned. A critical, thorough survey has been conducted of available original source material as well as established secondary sources. All told, it is an amazing story. This work is the result of decades of labor on this subject (Harsh is a native of Hagerstown, MD). One of the great points to be made here is that Lee was human after all, he made some significant mis-judgements. If you didn't know it from other exposures to Dr. Harsh you couldn't deduce from this work that Harsh consider Lee to be one of our countries finest soldiers. Even the best have their bad days - or campaigns, in this case. This is an absolutely first rate work on one of the most important (Harsh obviously believes the most important) campaigns of the ACW. Unfortunately, because of its academic format and size, it will not reach wide audiences. For those willing to make the effort, they will be richly rewarded.

This is a good entry level book for a class. Easy to read and has great graphics. Good starting point book for project management. Would like to see them update a little bit as it is 10 years old

A well researched book with excellent templates to help put all this knowledge into place. I am currently using it to help me manage the development of a large power plant in Brazil. I highly recommend reading and following the principles outlined by Wysocki and Weiss. A valuable tool for any project manager.

This book was extremely helpful in providing a framework for structuring my work group's projects. After implementing some new methods, our efficiency and productivity increased by at least 50 percent. It is easy to use and understand. Also good for training.

With it's tipped in plates and beautiful end papers I think this book is a bibliophile's dream. Being a big fan of Cornell's work I was very impressed and pleased with the overall packaging, which I find to be quite lovely, and the quality of the writing. Finally I was really impressed when I found out that the editor put it all together while he was still in college. I think this is a great book for fans of Joseph Cornell's boxes.

I received this book from an old friend who I hadn't seen in nearly twenty years--she showed up unannounced, spent a few hours sitting in the sun, and then disappeared just as unexpectedly. I still don't know if she meant to leave the book behind, but I've decided that I won't give it up. Cornell's boxes have a strange beauty that seems to attract strange birds--deceptively simple, at first you barely realize how quickly you can slip into these lost, overlooked, forgotten worlds that seem hum along according to an amusingly skewed logic. Many of the stories and poems show writers who've successfully crossed over and have sent back postcards filled with the fresh and unfamiliar voices of travellers far from home.

IÂ'm a huge Joseph Cornell fan, and own every book that has anything to do with him. This is the best! Not only are the images beautiful and plentiful (and many new to me), but the stories and poems are so unbelievably entertaining and different from one another. IÂ've never seen a book quite like this one, and IÂ'm going to give a copy to everyone I know!

This is a nice compendium of Chinese achievements, but it is seriously hampered by the chip on Temple's shoulder. In order to prove the genius of China, he constantly denigrates European achievements. A good half of the entries end by calculating how many years in advance of Europe the Chinese were with the achievement in question. This could have been done once or twice for effect, but to repeat it so often is needless (and pointless) piling on. Every Chinese discovery is shown to be the root of a European discovery, however tenuous the link. Thus, the Chinese invented a toy helicopter and a kite, therefore modern aviation is totally derivative of them. But if the Europeans were the first to come up with an idea that they did not translate into practical use, then it is to Temple a mere trifle that only the Chinese developed to its full potential.

Another issue with the book is that it doesn't give any kind of chronological account of scientific developement in China. It's not what the book sets out to do, so this is more a remark than a criticism. It set me wondering about who Chinese scientists were, what was the relationship among science, engineering, and tinkering, when were the key periods of scientific innovation, whether they had a prolific early period comparable to the Greeks, and other issues. I'm especially curious because so much of Chinese science seems, like European alchemy, to be only half a step removed from magic and another quarter step from pure silliness. It's always astounding how people who believed in alchemical ideas could be great inventors, and the same held in China (where Taoism produced the leading scientists, from what I can gather from this book).

It is an interesting book, covering a wide range of scientific topics. (Of course, it's just culled from Needham, so it's not as though the author had to do a lot of research.) Subjects as diffuse as mining, medicine, number theory, and warfare are covered in different chapters. I'm not an expert on science, so I often learned a lot about the individual inventions -- as so often happens in the modern world, we take for granted the extraordinarily ingenious inventions of an earlier age, which seem simple only in comparison to the even more wonderful machines we have today.

Personally, I am a bit disappointed in its coverage which seems not so in depth... But nevertheless sufficient for the layman to at least catch a glimpse of what the ancient Chinese has achieved. By profession, I am a trained Engineer and am currently seeking a Masters in Theoretical Physics. And of course I am a Singaporean Chinese. From young, I was taught alot of Chinese Maths and Chinese algorithmic methods .. which were dry and boring then..and which was more often than not confusing. Now it was confusing not because it is not good but rather we were taught Western methods that stresses different computational methodology.. But the difference is that the Chinese method can sometimes do it faster!!..For example: what is 1 + 3 + 5 +..+ 17? Chinese method would just point to the 9th finger and give the answer as 81. I have often wondered just what do the Ancient Chinese know that I do not... And so I set a course to find out as many things I could about my ancestors..(which many people may look down on)..First.. I needed to find out about Chinese Mathematics Achievments, the extent of their knowledge..I am not at all convinced about the allegation that it was imported from elsewhere.. simply because China was geograpically isolated and there are no countries around which it could borrow knowledge from ...At its height, it was the most advanced .... (until Qing Dynasty and the jesuit input: By then the Chinese had deteriorated...). that China had indeed some impressive achievements: that of discovering Zero...( shown in 2002) the knowledge of Phythagoras, that of being the first in solving n-Degree Equation..that of solving Similar Triangle..and more.... And all these could be gathered from the net.. Second, I wanted to find out just how advanced the Science were... THere were readers who alledged that it seemed magical and perhaps foolishness.. I beg to differ. Isn't modern Chemistry playing around with different chemicals or mixing anions with cations that reacts to give a different compound?? And more than that, I wanted to find out the extent of knowledge importing and exporting from China.. if.. I am wrong... But I was then led to a few books :
The year the Chinese discovered America :1421 by Menzies, and when China ruled the seas.. by Louise Levathes..
And I was led to more sites in the internet.. and more recent discoveries in Singapore itself that proved that China has had extensive trade with her neighbours.. And readers of the following books will find that China has had perfected the technique of latitude and longitude crossing...that implies that China was not isolated...A check with Temple's findings were done in 2000.. when I went to China on an "expedition trip"...I admit I was very impressed with the Great Wall.. even as an Engineer...So.. I guess I have to give my forefathers some credit here... And this book serves as a beginning.. No less!!
I recommend more reading on the subject though... for those interested..

I really don't know much about Chinese history and ancient technology of the world. But this book gave me lots of information about ancient technologies of Chinese and Greeks.
Although I believe many Great inventions Chinese made does not get credited to Chinese such as Crossbow and firearms. But this book seems give too much of credit to Chinese invention and how it affected western technologies because many inventions are done independently.

Overall it is a good book and Chinese people should be proud of what their ancestors acheived.

After picking this book up at the library, I am now purchasing it for our home. I found this book to be very helpful. It is very well organized and is easy to find answers to specific questions. The recipes contained were delicious and easy to prepare. The author uses encouragement instead of guilt to motivate his readers. I think this book is an excellent place to start when searching for a healthier eating style.

This is a well organized book with lots of useful advice and good dietary recommendations. I just have two complaints: 1) There is an assumption that heavy kids are heavy because they eat junk food and don't exercise. I'm living with a heavy kid who rarely eats junk food and has always exercised a lot. This message is frustrating, to say the least. 2) The title is a problem. My daughter is already hyper-sensitive about her weight, were I to buy this book (I read it at the library), the title itself would confirm to her that I find her "fat." In fact, I would purchase this book, were it not for the title because it is among the best of the books covering the subject, and I've read a number of them. I appreciate the books emphasis on physical fitness. I think a person who is physically fit has a better life and feels better in every way. Parents have an obligation to promote such well being as far as I'm concerned.

A life with 50-150 extra pounds is not a very good option. I hope to pass this on to my kids. I've also read don't eat your heart out, which is also a good reference (although I believe heart problems are mostly genetic, up to a point). I was carrying 30 extra pounds which were lost through excercise. I would like to try to teach my kids to not 'eat with the masses'.

I had to read this book for an introductory programming class and didn't find it at all helpful when going on to Java. It wasn't worth the time I spent working with it. You'd be better off just beginning the object-oriented language you're interested in. If you want my advice, try Beginning Java Objects by Jacquie Barker instead.

This book reminds me of the older LOGO programming language. You have a small "robot" that explores his world. You tell him how to move and what to do. The only reason this is good is that it helps you think of object oriented programming. (The robot is considered an object). There are also special editions of the book in case you want to specifically move to C++ or Java later. Basically, the book is a good start. If you have any programming experience - skip it. Otherwise, it will get you in the rate frame of mind to move toward OOP.

This book is meant for the earliest of beginning programmers. If you have any programming experience whatsoever, even with macros, the information in this book will seem extrememly remedial. Also, some of the terms used aren't even real C++ code, so you'll have to adjust your thinking just a little when you move on. Finally, the price is pretty steep for the amount of information you get. I would probably only recommend this book for someone needing a very, very, VERY gentle intro to programming.

The book is mistitled as 'Principles' since it does not really do justice to the foundations of the field. It is more of a compilations of the research work of a 'few' investigators in the field.

This is a great book, covering most details of its field. It describes the physicians (and their patients) dream of substituting organs and cells and it also shows, how mankind could not solve problems ' up to now. History of artificial organs lacking the full function is one point, but the focus is on cells and their ability to build complete organs ' and therefore the book looks on the pathway for the future of organ substitution.
The introduction covers some main ideas of tissue engineering ' what do we want ' what are we able to do ' what do we still have to get knowledge of. After a short review of the history, the essentials of cell biology (Growth, Differentiation) are being introduced. The reader should have an idea of developmental biology to be able to follow topics like induction and morphogenesis. The authors emphasize the importance of the extracellular matrix as one of organ-prosthesis' main building blocks (ECM = scaffold; cells = function; cell signalling = integration and physiology).
The second part describes technical aspects of in-vitro organ synthesis: tissue culture and ECM, tissue culture und growth factors, bioreactors and vascularization. The third part continues with in-vivo techniques of organ reparation, exemplified by methods for substitution of the ECM of skin, peripheral nerves and meniscus.
Parts 4 ' 6 develop models for the substitution of the ECM (Collagen, BioPolymers), their implantation in the receiving organism and the resulting immunologic problems (emphasized).
Parts 7 ' 20 are concerned with the organs themselves. After few words about stem cells and gene therapy the book explains reconstruction and substitution methods for breast, heart and blood vessels, Cornea, endocrine glands, liver (very good), kidney and haematopoietic system. Biomechanical problems are outlined in the part about the musculoskeletal system. On this place tissue engineering celebrates its oldest success (cartilage substitution). Today innervation processes are being focused.
The book continues with substitutes for the senses (ear and eye), nerve cells, nerve regeneration and neural stem cells. Dents and skin could be all to make an ill patient 'healthy' by substitutes, one might think. But no, western medicine also knows something about substitutes for womb and placenta'
On me the book made a good impression. The only point is: it's quite too much text and too few pictures. It addresses medicals after their exams, practicing physicians and biologists. Chapters focus on the basic principles. There is a large number of links to more detailed publications.

A vast, detailed summary of the latest advances in tissue engineering.