Very well written and practically laid out. Superior to Novak's, Kistner, or Danforth.

I found Comprehensive Gynecology to be the best text I have read in this field. It is clear and consise yet comprehensively summarizes the current literature on each topic. Each chapter begins with a glossary of terms and ends with an excellent point by point review of key concepts. The text covers basic sciences, comprehensive evaluation of the female, general gynecology, gynecologic oncology, reproductive endocrinology and infertility. The chapters are well organized and include a synopsis of the current literature. I would recommend this text to anyone studing for fellowship exams. I have also read Copeland's Gynecology and in comparison found Comprehensive Gynecology to be superior in organization and readability.

A "lucid and entertaining history of the concept of energy," as well as "accessible to all (no math required) and (I am sure) rewarding to both naïve and highly sophisticated readers." I could not have put it better myself. I have to say the first two chapters on the workings of steam engines made me drop my expectations of the book, but after those first chapters the book became enthralling. It greatly exceeded my expectations. It delivers a forceful attack on Sir Francis Bacon, as well as addressing the line between science and pseudo-science. The book gives the narrative of how Joule got credit for thermodynamics over Mayer, all the while exploring the way credit is given in science. The book even goes on to discuss metaphysical reasoning v. empirical evidence! Truly a wondrous book that not only explains energy, but tells the interesting story of it's discovery, and explores the philosophy of science all in one.

The two titles of this book (The Story of Energy, 1934 and The Concept of Energy Simply Explained, 1964) are accurate descriptions of its contents. Above all, it is a lucid and entertaining history of the concept of energy, accessible to all (no math required) and (I am sure) rewarding to both naïve and highly sophisticated readers. Its explanation of the Carnot cycle and its narrative of Mayer's tragic life are simply delightful. It deserves to be published again, so that new generations can enjoy it. If you find it, buy it. It is a rare gem.

"The Secret Gospel," unlike so many other books with similar titles, is hard facts and superb scholarship.

It tells the amazing story of how Morton Smith (an American professor) stumbled across an 18th century inscription on the end-papers of an old book in a monastery (Mar Saba) in the Holy Land. It turned out to be a large fragment of a letter written by a VERY well-known man, Clement of Alexandria (well-known, that is, to those who study the early Christian church).

World scholarship later came to accept the letter as genuine Clement, and it has been added to the newest editions of his collected works. But the amazing part was this: in the letter, Clement quoted a "secret version" of the Gospel of Mark. In other words, the letter contained information about what SOME early Christians thought was in the New Testament.

So question #2 was: "Did the gospel citations seem to be genuinely by Mark?" It's a very interesting question, because the secret gospel revelations were dynamite: they directly implied that Jesus had a secret practice, of baptizing his followers and thus enabling them to enter the Kingdom of God. While this may or may not be true (probably not), it is a definite sure-fire indication that CLEMENT had such a practice in his early church, where baptism led you into the "great mysteries" and resulted in your acheiving human perfection at that moment.

I go on too long. This is a fabulous, interesting book. If you get REALLY interested in it, Smith also wrote a much longer, scholarly analysis of what he found (with pictures and all). That was published by Harvard University and is a bit more expensive.

I find it shocking that this book has gone out of print.

Highest recommendation!

In an age of innovation, William Smith's unique devotion to fossils and understanding of geological structures allowed him to break the scientific mould and produce the first ever map of the rock layers beneath our feet. Two centuries on, the scientific world still owes a debt to the 'Father of Geology'. Yet Smith himself saw little recognition in his lifetime, earning his keep through canal engineering work where he could get it and scraping together the finance to publish his precious magnum opus.
Charting his travels across England, his changing employment and his personal misfortunes, this book shows how the sometimes penniless son of a blacksmith became a pioneer in the science of geology. John Morton, in combining Smith's personal history with the genesis of a new science, has created a fascinating history of an extraordinary man who was devoted to mapping the geology of England.
John Morton was a pilot until his retirement in 1990. After retirement he read for a degree with the Open University, studying, among other subjects, geology and the history of science where his interest in 'Strata' Smith was first awakened. This is his first book.

Jesus the Magician is a thoroughly documented and fascinating account of the multiple parallels of ancient Pagan Magic practices and how these practices are woven into the "Gospels", or "gods spells" and the "magical spells of Jesus the Magician". Morton Smith's care to show "what makes a magician", to then showing how Jesus was a magician is well done and logically presented. Only the lack of information available to the author from a larger historical base prevents this story from really jumping out at the reader.

Such is hardly the fault of the author.

For those who seek to understand the personality cult that has become known as "Christianity", Morton Smith's exhaustive research is a great primer as Mr. Smith fully exposes the source documents of the "mythos" behind this ancient Jewish fabricated personality cult whose roots lie in Pagan philosophies.

Jesus the Magician provides a great deal of cross reference material for the serious scholar as well as the weekend historian who wishes to have a greater understanding of the enigma which came to be known as Jesus.

Morton Smith was a brilliant historian, and a brilliant thinker with a mordant wit. A tremendous scholar whose knowledge of the ancient near east was unrivaled. If you had to debate him, it would be best to wear red clothes so that your wounds wouldn't show. This book was intended for a lay audiance, not the scholarly elite, which some take as a methodolgical weakness in his arguments. He did not suffer fools gladly, and made a lot of enemies in the field of religious academia. His big weakness was the obvious joy in which he went about provoking others with his unorthodox views, which has led some to suspect his motives.

For centuries The Secret Gospel of Mark has been a pink elephant in studies of reconstructing the gospel. Without the plethora of strong denials of this document's existence, there would be no reason to suppose it exists, but with these denials one could be led to a "the lady doth protest too much" conclusion. In the 1960's Morton Smith discovered a letter from Saint Clement of Alexandria to one of his followers, regarding the Secret Gospel of Mark. In this letter he corrects certain comments the follower had heard but instructs him not to reveal the existence of this document. What's interesting about these few passages we have from the longer version of Mark is that all of them revolve around quasi-magical practices. In other words was Mark part of a longer work, and the magical material censored out? Since Morton Smith was unlikely to trip over gold again and find more of this lost book, he begins investigating the nature of magical practice in 1st century Palestine using texts like the magical papyri. What did people mean by magic? From this study we are able to understand much more clearly what verses like, Matt 9:34, "It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons ", meant to the speaker which as it turns out is quite different than what they mean to a modern audience. A very good book, I wouldn't recommend it as a first "true life of Jesus" but it makes an excellent contrast to the Crossen, E.P. Sanders school which tries to place Jesus in a fully Jewish context by ignoring everything that doesn't fit.

This is a book I loved and hated. Its topic is wonderful and the scope and conception are great. It gives lots of detail on most all of the Southern Presbyterian theologians of Union (VA) and Columbia (SC/GA) seminaries. I appreciated Dr. Smith's sympathy for the figures he studies. His evangelical and Reformed commitments allow him to often see men like Dabney and Thornwell with great understanding.

This is a reprint of Dr. Smith's doctoral dissertation from Free University, Amsterdam. P&R has packaged it very nicely.

I don't know how I can possibly list all of the disappointing features of this book, however. The pickiest problem -- in 40 years nobody has bothered to catch all of the embarrassing factual errors in this text! For example, several pages are dedicated to William *Swain* Plumer (correct spelling *Swan*). There are literally dozens of these type of errors which undermine the credibility of the author.

Far more serious is the poor approach to history that Smith takes. He has a chip on his shoulder and this makes him look, well, silly. He goes to huge lengths to try to show that the Southern Presbyterians were superior to the Old Princetonians. The evidence he gathers on this is really very, very weak.

Further, he wants to argue that all the Southern Presbyterians were in lock-step agreement on full-subscription, no-exception belief in the Westminster Standards. Anybody who has spent any time at all reading them knows that this is not true. Yes, the major figures, at least, were all ardent Calvinists and did not waver on Biblical authority or the major doctrines. But they also reflected the diversity of any significant school of Reformed theology. Especially on secondary points of theology. Smith does not do these wonderful men a service by artifically restricting their very interesting theologies.

Another problem is that Smith seems to have gathered very poor information on some of the minor figures. But this does not stop him from making conclusions which he has not demonstrated. Smith will state things like this (I'm making this example up): *Dr. Jones taught at Union Seminary from 1902-04. He did not publish any articles. But we know he must have been an advocate of full subscription to the Westminster Confession and a 24-hour day creationist because he taught at Union. In addition, this author's uncle once took a course from him and commented that Dr. Jones was a fine conservative gentleman.* Give me a break!

Further, Dr. Smith lets his disgust for the Northern U.S. show every so often and this really doesn't help his case.

This book did help me gain some insight into Dr.Smith's attitude in his denominational politics. I can see where the extreme rigidity comes from when he seeks to supress good, solid, Calvinist zealots in his own denomination, simply because they may have one or two very small differences with the Westminster Confession.

Anyway, I did read this book cover-to-cover and even bought a second copy for my church office. I loved the topic, the orderliness of the book's arrangement, the Reformed theology, and the attractive packaging, but I found the scholarship to be extremely weak and the poor documentation to be very sad.

If you are doing work in character recognition, I think you will find something useful here. Otherwise, skip this book and read Theodoridis's "Pattern Recognition". You will find a wealth of practical and theoretical information from all walks of pattern recognition in his book.

In short, Nadler's book seems overly specialized, superficial, and dated.