I "inherited" Smith's book from my predecessor as the text for a general ecology course (junior-level). I found it to be a poor choice. The fifth edition appears to have undergone recent and massive revision; the text had far more than its fair share of typos, literature citations that were not listed in the bibliography, and perhaps most damningly, colorful figures that were often inadequately explained and sometimes incorrectly labeled. While I understand the presence of factual errors - a text with a subject as diverse as ecology would be difficult for one person to write - there is no excuse for them. All in all, this book was a disappointment.

I have used this book for several years as a text for my general ecology course. Although simple errors may plague this book, it is one of the most comprehensive for a course involving field investigations. The appendix sections on sampling plant and animal populations and life table construction are very helpful for students and instructors. The book is strong on physiological ecology, plant interactions, and case history presentations.

Fast delivery. Book was in great shape for a great price. Thanx!

If you are really interested in what happened between Turks and Armenians in 1915,i can suggest you to read Heath Lowry's The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.Professor Heath Lowry is a well-known historian in Princeton University and in his book,he proves Ambassador Morgenthau's Story wrong scientifically,shows how the book is based on rumors.A must to read for those who are interested in this matter...

The book is advisable only when one reads it with Heath W. Lowry' s "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau' s Story", published by ISIS Press, Istanbul in 1990. As Dr. Lowry describes:

"The answer is simple and relates to the fact that Morgenthau was writing a piece of wartime propaganda with the expressly stated purpose of mobilising support for President Wilson's war effort. He consciously down played the close relationships he enjoyed with the Young Turk leadership throughout his sojourn in Constantinople and sacrificed truth for the greater good of helping to generate anti-Turkish sentiment which would transform itself into pro-war sentiment."

Unfortunately the American public opinion during that time was based on such sources as the services of Dragaman (translators) between the officials of the Ottoman Empire and the American Ambassador. And these dragaman were not Ottoman Turks but Ottoman Armenians and Ottoman Greeks both were in conflict with the Ottoman Empire. Ambassador Morgenthau used two of them, two Armenians, namely Hagop S. Andonian (personal secretary) and Arshag K. Schmavonian (legal assistant). The printed copy however went through severe war time propaganda editing by the US Secretary of State, Robert Lensing and Pulitzer award winning author, Burton J. Hendrick.

One of the most dramatic incidents and the diversion of the facts were about the life insurance benefits of the deceased Armenian insurers of an American Insurance company. The book claims that Talaat, the Ottoman Interior Minister, made a request to him that the Ambassador should help to facilitate payment the insurance benefits to the Ottoman Treasury, as there were no heirs to the insurers! However, Dr. Lowry proved that after reading the actual dated letters, the request of the Ottoman Minister was to stop the American Insurance Company from transferring their capital funds from Ottoman Empire to France, and thereby preserving sufficient capitalization for any benefits claims. Such diversion of the facts is extremely dangerous.

It is therefore an important document about the wartime journalism and subsequent unfortunate diversions of the facts to base Armenian claims of 1915. We could only be grateful to Dr. Lowry that he shed light into the story with his review of the original letters stored in FDR Library and in the National Achieves.

Ambassador Morgenthau has always been one of the most reliable sources on the Armenian Genocide. No surprise that so many attempts have been made to tarnish his image, or to question his testimonies on the terrible crime committed by the Ottoman Empire against its Christian Armenian subjects. Yet, the Morgenthau version of the 1915 events is abslutely irrefutable, and I strongly recommend this book to those interested in finding out what has really happened during the agony of the "ill man of Europe".

This book does give an overview of derivatives, but other resources, such as Wilmott do a better job. In addition, the sections on credit derivatives is light. There is more to this market than credit default swaps.

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There are two ways to write a book: provide a lot of specialist information on a specialised topic (well) or provide a lot of superficial information that covers everything relevant (lake). Surprisingly, this book achieves both of these objectives.

To draw the most from this new book, you need to know already quite a bit about occupied France. The authors trace in detail academic perceptions of Vichy since 1945. Regime apologists tried to maintain in the 1950s that Petain had played a clever game in seeming to collaborate whilst plotting to maintain French independence. We now understand this was nonsense: Petain and Laval may have been interested in collaboration, but Hitler's only concern was booty. But equally in error was the Gaullist position that forty million Frenchmen supported the Resistance against a tiny number of traitors. The editors demonstrate that more recent research has shown how fragmented both the pro and anti Vichy groups were. For example, it was possible to be faithful to Petain whilst being anti nazi. Many ordinary French people, both in the cities and in the countryside, adopted an eclectic attitude according to "how the wind was blowing" in their area. The book suggests new lines for research on Vichy, especially a comparative approach with what was happening in other occupied countries such as Bulgaria and Hungary. The book is largely a tribute to Robert Paxton who wrote a ground breaking study of wartime France in the 1970s. This reviewer found the continuous adulation of Paxton, however merited, somewhat repetitive. You will enjoy this new volume if you really want to explore in depth the meaning of Vichy over the past sixty years. Given that France was still prosecuting men for war crimes in the late 1990s, Petain's regime is still a hotly debated topic in that country's academic establishment.

This book is an essential text for anyone interested in the history of of France during the Vichy regime. It offers a superlative compilation of the latest scholarship in the field, contributed by some of its most important writers, people like Michael Marrus, Jean-Pierre Azema, Henri Rousso, Stanley Hoffmann, Philippe Burrin, etc. etc. The introduction by Fishman and Smith is a thorough map of the entire contents of the book which, again, provides a rich collection of articles destined perhaps not for the general reader without any background on the subject, although the book itself is reader friendly....

Sorry, but this book just didn't do it for me. I just got back from 3 weeks on Maui, staying with locals. Most of the available trails are indeed in the book, but the maps and descriptions are sometimes wrong or simply out of date. With today's technology, there's no excuse for hand-drawn "not to scale" maps. For the next revision, I'd suggest that the author go through the entire book, synchronize it with reality and bring it up to the same quality level as other guide books. If you're interested in some hikes that aren't in this book, see the hiking section of the excellent guidebook "Maui Revealed".

Hiking Maui is one of the best treasures that you can have if you enjoy hiking and the adventures that it has in store. My husband and I love this book. I am born and raised here and my husband has lived here for 4 years and we have found this book to be very resourceful. Many hikes take you to spectacular waterfalls and most of all, to breathtaking scenery. A suggestion: If you have the time stay in some of the cabins at the national parks!

I bought this book for my economics class at Dartmouth College, but it was a horrible book. The text is wordy, verbose, too long. A lot of times, there are unnecessarily explains simple things too long. I hope all of you will find better labor economics text book.

I bought this book to use for my Labor Economics class at Cornell University. My professor, Professor Smith, is a contributor to this book and it was a wonderful supplement to the lectures. The book is filled with useful information and practical applications, so its appeal is not limited to economics students, but anyone who wishes to know more about payroll taxes, policy applications, work incentives and the like. This easy-to-understand book benefited me a lot and I would recommend its use to other courses in labor economics at other colleges and universities.

I was a teaching assistant in a labor economics undergraduate course in Northwestern University that used this book. I found it very interesting and full of real-world examples and discussions. The mathematical level is simple and therefore the book is accessible also to students with only little background in mathematics or economics. The exposition is clear. About half of the problems and the review questions are solved at the end of the book, making it possible for the reader to practice and test her understanding of the material. I believe that most students can understand most of the material in the book even without taking a formal course in labor economics, and therefore I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the functioning of labor markets.

Overall i think the book is a good read. Hempstone does a good job of telling the times as the they were during his term in office in Kenya. Some of the things maybe slightly exaggerated but i think the important thing is that it tells what was in our minds during this time but we as kenyans were unable to say. He also does an excellent job of describing Moi; dictator, vicious, illiterate, corrupt etc. (probably would explain why Moi is suing him)
There were several things that i didn't like about the book. Everytime Hempstone mentions a person he has to tell us what tribe that person belongs to...urrrgh....if there could be a reason for banning this book in kenya..this would be it! The other thing i noticed was that Hempstone does an amazing job of making himself look good in the book. The book is filled with notes of important people or not praising him for this or that....it struck me as very self promoting. Some of the stuff about locals was absolutely untrue. For example...at one pt he says the Samburu are know to diet on meat, milk and urine like the maasai. The urine part is an outright lie, i say this a maasai born + bred deep in maasai land...maasai do not drink urine...yaaak....blood we drink urine is a no-no!
The last and minor thing is the endless repeatations in the book. Several statements are repeated over + over again through the book...i got the impression that maybe a pt was being drum into my head.
Nevertheless, this book gives an interesting insite into the political issues in kenya as well as most likely alot of the other african countries. I was kind of disappointed that the book didn't go more into depth on the sudan crisis --- that region of africa needs serious help!

Whilst the book is certainly a useful and informative perspective, and covers a fascinating and deeply perturbing subject, it's difficult to overlook the author's pomposity and self-righteousness; so much so, that, given his rose-tinted and deeply erroneous belief in wondrous US foreign policy, one begins to wonder whether his views upon events in Kenya at the time are equally skewed.

Having only lived in Kenya a very short while, and not during the time he describes, I cannot have my own understanding of events to corroborate what he says, and Hempstone certainly makes little attempt to back up any of the stories about the nefarious Biwott and megalomaniac Moi, beyond saying that he got them from reliable sources... Which is a real pity, because it would be so nice to see him truly skewer the indubitably corrupt and malignant politicians.

As a memoir it's certainly entertaining enough, as long as you learn to flip through Hempstone's self-promoting blather, which at times begins to sound like a curriculum vitae. It gives you plenty of fascinating historical background, and a decent understanding of the beautiful country Kenya is, but as reliable reference material, however... Who could say?

I was in Kenya when Amb. Hempstone was there and all included in the book is highly accurate. It is a very good read about life in Kenya during those years.

THIS BOOK IS REALY VERY POOR, I DID NOT GET NOTHING FROM IT.THERE ARE A LOT OF GOOD ONES SUCH AUTHORS AS ALBERT ELLIS,BACK,ROY HUNTER.

This book just dosent make the reader excited and thus makes reading this book a chore. At this time all that has been said int this book has been said elsewhere in a much more interesting format.

This is a thoughtful work on the nature of beliefs, especially as they result to health and wellness. As a psychiatrist who works with very ill clients, I found the ideas presented to be helpful in structuring my clinical work. Those who gave the book poor reviews may have been looking for a self-help manual. This book is definitely worth reading, especially if you work with clients and need an intellectual model to approach changing their self-limiting beliefs. The writing is clear and accessible. I would highly recommend it.

The context in which this book must be read is given in the first chapter. The author says, and I paraphrase, "This book doesn't ask the question, 'Did Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon?' This book assumes that he did, and addresses the question, 'How did Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon?'"
In short, don't look for a fair approach to the first question. That's not what this book is about.

Anderson has a great handle on Mormon history. The insights that he offers into how certain traumatic events in Joseph Smith's childhood could have affected his personality are often enlightening, and always interesting. i.e. The trauma associated with the near amputation of Smiths leg, and the public humiliation of being on trial for being a glass looker. Anderson does a nice job of helping us reflect on Smith's humanity. He helps us see that these events are indeed difficult for a person to go through, and that they can shape how one views the world.

That said, I thought this book also had some fundamental problems. For example, at times Anderson uses the Book of Mormon text to help determine the order or details of certain historical events in Joseph's life. Other times he seems to claim to know exactly what motivated Smith on certain occasions, because of what is written in a part of the Book of Mormon. This seemed too speculative to me. Some of this speculation is interesting theory, other portions seem specious.

Nevertheless, an interesting read. A intriguing theoretical approach.

I wish I could give it four and a half stars. Dr. Anderson takes a fine point to the early life of Joseph Smith. With impeccable care and documentation, he leads us through the childhood of a man who would exhibit a type of genius rarely seen in charismatic leaders. Anderson wisely limits himself to the effects of Joseph's experiences in the composition and contents of the Book of Mormon. By the time the "semi-retired psychiatrist" gets to the end of the book, he barely needs to justify or explain his diagnosis since he's already done so from a variety of angles previously. My only criticism is that occasionally Dr. Anderson extends his theories and suppositions quite far, but he usually does so with qualifications.

Not for the initiate into the arcane world of LDS theology and history. Try "Mormon America" first. But for a guy like me who spent 40 years (two as a missionary) in "the Church," it's a haunting trip into the mind of a very famous, unique American religious leader.

The value of the insights in this book cannot be overstated. The author makes an extremely convincing case that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon himself, and in the process inadvertently let items from his [Smith's] own life color the narrative, providing a sort of "free association" setting during the dictation. Although the author uses these "colorings" to form a psychoanalytical profile for the Mormon prophet, the listing of parallels alone are well worth the price of the book.

The author's intent is to provide a tentative diagnosis, and he fully explains the inherent weaknesses in such an approach. Although there may be alternative diagnoses for Smith, the evidences themselves outlined by the author that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon are *not* so weak and will be much more difficult for the apologists to refute.

Much material about Mormonism, pro- and con-, has been hashed and rehashed. This book does not contain any of that. This book offers a refreshing and unique dimension to the pro- vs. con- dialogue. Often I caught myself saying, "Why didn't I think of that?"

I heartily recommend this book.

Save your money; this is a ludicrous book, poorly written, disjointed, and riddled with factual errors large and small. Even Thompson's main premise, that the U.S. was just another evil imperialist power seeking to subjugate the helpless Chinese, is not made clear until the last chapter, and never really supported by any reasoned arguments or new facts. The most jarring aspect of the book for me, were the numerous errors and instances of invented history. For example, to support the assertion that the Pearl Harbor attack was not unprovoked, Thompson takes a study done by some Army Air Force officers in late 1940 and blows it up into a plot by the U.S military and government to use B-17's to firebomb Japanese cities, presumably without warning. He even supplies details about bases to be used and asserts that the Japanese "somehow" found out about the plot and resolved to attack the U.S. as a result!

Thompson obviously didn't research this very well, as he would have found that, in December, 1940, the Army Air Force had only a handful of early model B-17's, 58 to be exact, and did not consider them combat worthy. They were being used for pilot and crew training, equipment testing, and development of strategic bombing doctrine. The bases Thompson mentions, Kunming, China, Singapore, Cavite in the Phillipines, Hong Kong, Guam, and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians were, with the exception of Guam, all well beyond the B-17's combat range.

The author makes one egregrious error after another; on pages 121 and 122, he describes the sinking of the British capitol ships Prince of Wales and Repulse, claiming that "nearly 1,000" Japanese planes "from nearby carriers" attacked the two ships and that a British destroyer was dragged down with the Prince of Wales when she sank. Somehow these facts seem to have eluded other historians. Every other source I have seen, says the British did not lose any destroyers that day and the bulk of the Japanese carrier fleet, the six largest fleet carriers, was still in the central Pacific, returning from the Pearl Harbor attack. At any rate, the Japanese Navy could muster a total of only about 650 carrier aircraft from all of their carriers combined, in December, 1940. Most sources agree that the somewhat less than one hundred planes that attacked the Prince of Wales and Repulse were all land-based. One wonders where Thompson found his "facts", and why they are so at odds with other accounts.

The author also weighs in on the atomic bomb controversy at the end of the war, claiming it wasn't necessary to drop them, since the Japanese were trying to surrender anyway. This position has been rather thoroughly demolished by Richard B. Frank's research. The Japanese weren't trying to surrender so much as negotiate a cease-fire, not on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, but on their own terms. Terms which would have left the militarists in power and led to another war in the next generation.

I picked up this book in the hopes of reading about some new research or at least a new interpretation of existing knowledge: I got neither. It is sorely disappointing to see the same tired, and mostly discredited, arguments offered up as a "truly important and complex new interpretation" of the Pacific War. That is one thing this book is not.

Nothing new here but only, as noted by other reviewers, a superficial rehash of the war in the Pacific. The book also contains a surprising number of factual errors which indicate to me a less than complete mastery of the material by the author. He even drags out the old chestnut about South Korea having provoked the Korean War. Even most revisionist historians have given up flogging that particular dead horse. By the way, Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972 and while the people there may resent American extraterritoriality, I believe they are more concerned about the control of their country by Japan than by the U.S.
As I came to the final chapter of the book, I expected to find a substantial conclusion which would sum up the author's evidence for his thesis that America's involvment in Korea and Vietnam was the result of American aspirations in China and a bungled foreign policy. What I got was 13 pages of nothing. American foreign policy in China was certainly bungled until set right by Richard Nixon, but Mao never regarded the U.S. as an enemy and as soon as he was approached in friendship by the Nixon administration he embraced closer ties with America. America's adversary in the Far East was always the Soviet Union and not China. The Soviet Union armed, trained and financed the North Korean Peoples Army and helped plan their attack on South Korea. China only became involved because it could not tolerate a foreign army camped on it's border. Even then, Mao had to borrow money from the Soviets to buy arms from the Soviets to equip his soldiers. Mao never forgave Russia for this episode. Similiarly, the North Vietnamese Army was trained, financed and armed by the Soviet Union. North Vietnam would have collapsed without Soviet aid and at that time China, suffering from the chaos and destruction of the Cultural Revolution, was in no position to offer anything but rhetoric and a few 'volunteers'. Despite the public invective at the time, China's leaders never regarded the U.S. as an old British style imperialist power. As Mao told his personal physician in 1969, "The United States and the Soviet Union are different. The United States never occupied Chinese territory. America's new president, Richard Nixon, is a longtime rightist, a leader of the anit-communists there. I like to deal with rightists. They say what they really think-not like the leftists, who say one thing and mean another".
Events in the Far East since WW2 are clearly the result of the post war rivalry between America and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union saw China as a threat and, as it did in Eastern Europe, attempted to place buffer states and spheres of influence between itself and it's enemy. The Soviet's use of Chinese troops as cannon fodder in Korea completely alienated Mao from his Marxist motherland. While the U.S. was fighting Soviet backed troops in Vietnam, the Chinese were fighting Russian troops along the Heilongjiang border. For the U.S. China was always a ally waiting for American diplomacy to catch up with American power.

there are books too detailed and there are those too succinct for their topics. this belongs to the latter group. however, it is a fascinating read about china, japan, the united states, britain, the ussr all vying to control the pacific over the last 20 centuries in about 300 very small pages! it can be digested in a few evenings. i would buy it again unless i taught imperialist theory of the first two milleniums. dr vestal