The front cover says "Everything you ever wanted to know about the unknown"
They were not kidding. This is a series of short essays packed with profound questions and a powerful amount of knowledge to back the questions up. If you are a Gary Zukav fan then this will defiantly be to complex for you.
The contributors are too numerous to mention; however they include information from Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Just as you think this is a past cutting edge physics book, it switches to "What is consciousness and do we really need it?" You will find augments for and against your favorite theories.

Some of the Contents are

Why
O. R. Frich

The Lure of Completeness
Sir Hermann Bondi

Nature of Knowledge
R. A. Lyttlen

Is Physics Legislated by Cosmogony?
J. A. Wheeler and C. M. Patton

Is Space Curved?
I.W. Roxburgh

Relativity and Time
T. Gold

Mathematics in Social Science
C. W. Kilmister

Learning and Memory and the Nervous System

H.A. Buchtel and G. Berlucchi

Sleep
W.B. Webb

The Veils of Gaia
P. Cloud

The Design of Novel Replicating Polymers
A.G. Cairns-Smith and C.J. Davis

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Plan on some thinking time.

Custer was a great military strategist, WA Clark was an honest man, The buffalo were not killed off by the white man, The Indians were murdering godless savages, Henry Plummer was a ringleader of desperadoes that killed 101 people in a year---------NOT! So much for the Hollywood style myths perpetuated by less than thorough historians. This book brilliantly debunks the Henry Plummer myth through careful reasearch, and demonstrates that the Vigilantes killed numerous innocent people (along with a few crooks) with nothing more than a desire to eliminate whoever got in their way. This is a well documented read that for the first time demonstrates that the truth indeed is more fascinating than the myth covering up the mob mentality of the Vigilantes. I grew up in Montana and looked at these Vigilantes as heroes. But after reading this brilliant delivery of the facts.....I find myself somewhat feeling burned by the history writers who self-servingly smeared everyone they hung (after they hung them).......including a verifiable honest hardworkding hispanic in Bannack that the Vigilantes referred to as the "Greaser". Of course there is author bias contained in the book, but behind the style and content of the authors are hard undeniable facts........facts that tell perhaps one of the most fascinating stories in the history of the west--a story untold until these two authors presented it. Read this book if you can get your hands on it. I did, and I am glad I did!! Was Henry Plummer a victim? Well if Custer was a Brillilant military strategist, then he was not. But only you can answer that question.

I cannot recommend this Christian Classic enough! For those who are interested in those "so-called" deeper truths of a Christian's walk with the Lord it cannot be beat! I say "so-called" because as this wonderful Quaker lady points out there is such JOY when we are WALKING with the Lord Jesus Christ, our God, as God intended us to do: as His obedient and fully trusting child!

This book is NOT only highly accurate theologically, but is very practical, and written on a level that the average person would find extremely readable. It starts out good and gets better with each chapter!

It is written to be highly encouraging, using many examples of our relationship with God as found in human relationships with each other: especially realtionship of child to parent.

It becomes readily apparent that Hannah speaks from experience, NOT just head knowledge. She writes with the same JOY that she must have lived her life on earth. Want JOY as a Christian? Then READ and APPLY! A highly practical and delightful book, easy to read for the ones seeking, The WAY, The TRUTH, and the LIFE (John 14:6)

Hokusai is my second favorite Japanese print artist whose art reflects mostly nature. I have two pictures of his hanging on wall. 100 Views of Mt. Fuji is one of his most beautiful works. It depicts the seasonal changes and the things done on Mt. Fuji. If you are intrested in Japanese woodprint and love nature, I'd strongly advice you to get this book. Awesome!

What a heart warming story of such a interesting lady whom led what appears to be a very fullfilling life. I enjoed it tremendously.

This is a first rate book on poetry. Its breadth is satisfying large, but more importantly its originality and insight are enormously rewarding. Like most any good book on poetry, it uses prosody effectively to help the reader see and hear things in the poems themselves. Anyone interested in poetry-not just devotees of free verse-will find much in this book to enjoy. It has that rare quality of actually teaching you something about things you thought you might have already known, so that when you turn again to read familiar poems, they are likely to reveal more about themselves. Also, this book is written with enormous clarity and good sense.

This anthology is as exciting and interesting as McDowell's M and W; Stroud's Quest; Crary's The New Wittgenstein; and Brewer's Perception and Reason. This anthology contains new material from some top-flight folks in the field.

M and W is an important text; it engages, as very few contemporary philosophy of mind texts have, the serious and neglected dualisms of conceptual scheme and empirical content; spontaneity and receptivity, which are, needless to say, Kantian concerns. McDowell is a proponent of conceptual content (within the realm of a 'minimal empiricism') and appeals to Kant and Wittgenstein to buttress his descriptive approach to philosophical inquiry. M and W has some brillant and evocative insights (with more than a few expensive obscurities), and some of McDowell's metaphors are splendid indeed, such as the teetering 'seesaw' and the 'sideways on picture.' Of course, it attempts to negotiate Kantian insights concerning human cognition with certain contemporary discussions on the Myth of the Given (Sellars), The Third Dogma (Davidson)and the Tribunal of Experience (Quine), and Rorty's attack on epistemology.

This anthology could offer disenchanted graduate students a reason to complete doctoral studies in philosophy. It is that rich and exciting. I am seriously nervous with glee (nerd alert!).

The most important and interesting articles here are: M. Friedman, "Exorcising the Philosophical Tradition" (previously published); R. Pippin, "Leaving Nature Behind" (on subjectivism); B. Stroud, "Sense Experience and the Grounding of Thought" (always a pleasure to read Barry); R. Brandom, "Non-Inferential Knowledge, Perceptual Experience..."; G. McCulloch, "Phenomenological Externalism" (see A. Brueckner and/or K. Falvey on this topic); H. Putnam, "McD's Mind and McD's World" (also see his Three-Fold Cord on McD and his soon to be released UW lectures from Columbia UP); C. Larmore, "Attending to Reasons."

This is my highest recommendation.

The name Leo Cherne is not universally known, but though he was never elected to public office, the man was enormously influential. His work can be found all through American endeavors in the last century; he was an advisor to nine presidents. He did remarkable humanitarian work for refugees with his International Rescue Committee. He died in 1999, and his life story reads like a history of the Cold War. His first biography is now out, _Rescuing the World: The Life and Times of Leo Cherne_ (State University of New York Press) by Andrew F. Smith. Smith first met Cherne the year before he died, because Cherne supposedly needed advice about writing his autobiography. Cherne was an accomplished writer, and had started the autobiography a few times. He certainly had plenty of material. But it never happened; "In the end I concluded that the apparently gregarious, outgoing Leo Cherne simply could not write a book about himself because it was unseemly for him to do so." This is a biography of his public life; Cherne refused to discuss stories others told of his private life, so subjects such as his marriage are barely mentioned, and will have to be included in the inevitable future biographies. Cherne was sufficiently busy in the public sphere to make this first attempt a valuable chronicle.

Cherne was born in 1912 of first generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. In high school, after a hurricane devastated Puerto Rico, Cherne appointed himself the head of a "Hurricane Committee," addressed a special student assembly on the issue, and started collecting the food and money that poured in afterwards. It was a model for future years: "... quick intervention in seizing the public platform, altruistic motives, positive responses of others, and record-breaking results." After law school, he began advising businessmen on taxes and governmental issues, and became a consultant to companies and to Congress. He advised business how to gear up for war, and gear up for a consumer economy afterward. He became interested in working with refugees after the war. He had humanitarian interest, to be sure, but he also thought of the refugees as political weapons against totalitarianism. If the regime was so perfect, he would point out, why were refugees fleeing? Cherne chaired the International Rescue Committee for forty years, seeing the organization through many financial problems and often personally taking part in relief efforts for refugees from Hungary, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Cuba. Cherne was able to unite diverse talents to support the aims of his International Rescue Committee, and through the book wander helpful volunteers like Rock Hudson, Liv Ullmann, and Joan Baez. Cherne got to speak up on behalf of Hungarian refugees on the Ed Sullivan Show, not a likely forum for humanitarian efforts. He was also a songwriter, and achieved fame as a sculptor. His busts of Kennedy, Lincoln, Churchill and other famous people are known all over the world.

_Rescuing the World_ is a record of remarkable public service. Cherne never had a fortune, and he never held office, but he had passion for freedom and an insistence on liberty for others. He was able to inspire others to good efforts for the world's refugees. Read this book and if you ever hear people bemoaning the world's woes and asking, "What difference can just one person make?" you can ask if they have heard of Leo Cherne.

With several editions of this book available, this review refers to the original 1920 publication. The book is an enjoyable and delightful account of Jedediah Smith and the men in his immediate circle who, over a period of eight years, explored and trapped the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific during the years 1823-1831. Although I did come across a few historical inaccuracies, this can be attributed to the fact that some documentation, letters, journals, etc. did not surface till later dates. For instance, James Clyman was with Smith during many of these exploits, and his "Journal of a Mountain Man" wasn't published until 1928. Dale Morgan's "Jedediah Smith And The Opening Of The West" which was published in 1953, gives the reader a more in depth study (with more historical documentation available at the time) into the character, achievements and defeats of this remarkable man. Neihardt's writing style is to be commended though, as he is very descriptive and expressive.

Smith is clearly an academian yet tackles some rather fun topics like Wild Bill Cody and the prototype American spaghetti western plot. Alongside in this book he recounts the many historical perspectives flawed in their historical accounts by the most famous writers of their time through the period of manifest destiny. Lastly, he takes on the romatic images of the homesteaders in a re-worked story of their evolution as pioneers showing the earliest prejudices from the east.