This book is a good book to get. It has a lot of useful and humorous info on finishing moves. This book I feel is not for the beginner cause it only contains finishing moves and not the positions or strategy for one to set up such finishes. I would recommend getting this book after one has had familiarity with Grappling arts instruction like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Shoot Fighting, Catch wrestling. I also recommend getting the book The Fighter's Notebook, which has positions and submissions as well as stand up fighting. Get this and the Gene LeBell book and your straight.

THIS BOOK BY FAR IS INCREDIBLE. GENE LEBELL THROWS ALOT OF HUMOR INTO THIS BOOK AND SOME RATHER FUNNY LOOKING HUMOROUS TECHNIQUES TO TAKE UP SPACE BUT HE DOES INCLUDE A BIZARRE AMOUNT OF HOLDS IN THIS BOOK. FROM BASICS LIKE HOW TO GRAB TO LEG LOCKS(AWESOME SECTION BY THE WAY) TO EVEN SOME PRO WRESTLING HOLDS YOU'D SEE ON MONDAY NIGHT. I RECOMMEND THIS BOOK TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE WHO IS INTERESTED IN GRAPPLING. THE FORMAT IS VERY EASY TO LEARN AND HE SHOWS SEVERAL TECHNIQUES IN VARIOUS ANGLES AND VARIATIONS. ITS OFF THE HOOK!

Gene LeBell makes learning fun with his humerous approach to grappling in all its forms. This volume includes techniques commonly found in Judo, wrestling, and a host of other martial arts from Asia to South America. Author LeBell commences with grips and handles, with gi (jacket) and without-after all the base of grappling is holding on to something (anything!). He moves on to slap and catch, and then a huge array of arm locks, shoulder locks, writst, hip, leg locks, chokes, strangles, cranks, counters against a boxer, and LeBell's own wide range of special tricks, many which are not commonly found anywhere else. This volume contains a wealth of information, probably easiest to assimilate for someone who already has a background in wrestling, judo, BJJ or some other art with a lot of ground practice--I had no trouble understanding most of the techniques illustrated within. You won't find much on judo-like throws here, but then this book isn't geared towards that. There are plenty of other ways to get your opponent to the ground illustrated in this tome.

This is a big, heavy book--a work this complete has never been undertaken before to my knowledge (with the possible exception of the "Fighter's Notebook"). There are many practical techniques, many "forgotten" techniques, and everything from the practical to the incredibly difficult in here. For the conoisseur of grappling or martial arts in general, you will enjoy yourself!

The Fallen Colossus is, on the surface, the story of the failure of the Penn Central Railroad. Sobel, however, takes great pains to chronicle the development of transportation in America. Starting with the the very begining of freight and passenger transit by roads and turnpikes, through the canal era, he ulitmately provides a thorough treatment of the eastern lines (and even a bit beyond when he discusses the impact of air and highway transport on the rail industry). The book is, at times, tedious with figures and balance sheets, though they are important to understanding railroads as a business and as a contributing factor to the near catastrophic collapse of the 1960s. The book was written as the Penn Central mess was just being cleaned up with the advent of Conrail and Amtrak. It is notable that the author notes the overly optimistic estimate by the directors of the new Conrail organization that they expected to take these bankrupt railroads and make them profitable by the 1980s. The author and others doubt this potential. Ironically, it worked and Conrail was reasonably successful where the Penn Central failed. Overall, an informative, if not lively, read for those looking into how not to run a railroad.

One curious item is the generic cover art. It cannot possibly be part of what was the Penn Central. The scene is one of flat desert with straight rails running toward a series of treeless hills on the horizon. It looks more like the Southern Pacific as this scene couldn't possibly be Appalachia. Details, details.

Robert Ornstein is a neurobiologist and co-author David Sobel is an M.D., and together they can write. This is a clear, readable, informative introduction to the brain and its impact on human health - surely one of the most fascinating frontiers in medicine. I read the 1986 edition of the book; some smart paperback publisher should get Ornstein and Sobel to write a new chapter summarizing the latest research in this fast changing field.

Robert Sobel wrote the best biography of Calvin Coolidge I have seen so far, which means best of five. Even better than Coolidge's autobiography. His contextualization of Coolidge included astute observations on the American economy, and on Wall Street in particular. So I searched out this out of print book on an online service and began to read. To Dillon Read.

This is the firm which gave us George H.W. Bush's treasury secretary, Nicholas Brady, whom Sobel also covers pretty thoroughly in this book, hinting that his undergrad grades were not so hot and that he may be dyslexic. But great connections.

Clarence Dillon is the star of the book, which starts with the Dutchman Vermilye and his investment trading operation in New York. Dillon joins after Read joins, and Dillon is the gutsy Jewish guy (although Dillon cloaks that in an effort to run with the WASP dominators of New York at the time) who engineers brash and bold, huge deals, then makes a lot more money by taking over companies (buying them by lending them money) and hiring "management" firms secretly owned by....Clarence Dillon.

The Pecora hearings are profiled, and Sobel gets into the 1933 and 1934 Securities laws and the SEC, giving us the impression that Pecora was a little extreme, and the SEC--although harshly received by the "Street" at the time--was a pretty good idea.

Sobel does not stop there, though. He follows the Dillon Read firm past Clarence, and on to Douglas (who also became a Secretary of the Treasury, but who didn't have the same pizzazz of the old man, who drifted off into old age in aristocratic fashion on a huge New Jersey estate). Then on to the Bechtel and Wallenberg family connections of Dillon Read, and terminating in the mid 1980s with a glimpse of new ways-a-borning with the addition of New Court Capital and the opening of the firm to modern V.C. investment.

A great companion to this book is the very recent book "The Last Partnerships" which does the same biographical analysis of our entire economy, by profiling a whole collection of investment firms, Dillon Read included. Sobel has less range, in comparison, but Sobel's mission is to drill into Dillon Read. This book does not "sing" like Sobel's Coolidge, as I said, but forms a link in Sobel's scholarship which I'm glad to have. Next will come a read of Sobel's history of the New York Stock Exchange, to lengthen the chain.

A comprehensive history of Radio Corporation of America, from its formation in 1919 to its pending merger with General Electric in 1986. The CED VideoDisc system is only briefly discussed towards the end of the book, but this book puts it in the perspective of the corporation as a whole.

This is easily the most amazing book I have ever read. Mr. Sobel takes a single battle from the Revolutionary War, the Battle of Saratoga, changes the winner and goes on to build an entire world from the result. The loss of this battle for the Americans results in the loss of the entire war, leaving the British the victors of the American Revolution. After the British execute the leaders of the revolution, they begin to build an entirely new nation from the American colonies and Canada. Those who favored the revolution emigrate to the southwest to establish their own nation. The rest of the book is the history of those two countries and the tensions between them from the 1770's to the 1970's. The people and events are much more real than you would imagine fictitious characters and events could possibly be. Mr. Sobel footnotes the book with references from publications in his new world and includes charts and graphs. Some of the characters are based on historical figures from our own history, but most seem to be complete fabrications from the author's imagination. All of his characters have complete personalities. He also includes technical developments, such as weapons and ground cars, and social developments. When you read this book you will find yourself asking if this world actually exists. It just doesn't seem possible that an author can so thoroughly create a world, with all of its aspects and people, from his imagination. For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga is one of my favorite books. I have read the book three times in the past twenty years and I am looking forward to owning a copy of the latest edition! The last time I read this book was three years ago so my memories of the story just can't do it justice. Don't take my word for it, get your hands on a copy of this book and read it for yourself!

"For Want of a Nail" is an alternate history for those who know history. As a Bachelor of Arts in History and a former Social Studies teacher, I was absolutely fascinated by Mr. Sobel's literary, creative, and historical genius. The alternate history that he presents is completely realistic, both in suppositions and format. He even meticulously "footnotes" his book with a small library's worth of "historical sources" (which, of course, are strictly literary inventions for the sake of adding a scholarly "feel" to the book). The most amazing thing about the book was how realistic it seemed; there were times that I would put the book down (which was difficult to do) and then would have to remind myself that the utterly plausible scholarly tome that I had been reading was only a work of fiction. I have read many alternate history stories; unfortunately, most rely on either highly improbable events or outright flights of fancy (such as time travelers or space aliens). "For Want of a Nail", by contrast, is a masterpiece of plausibility, and a work of fiction that a scholar and student of history can enjoy.

For Want of a Nail is a singular work in published alternate history. Unlike the masses of fictional works set in alternate worlds, and the occasional description of an alternate history for the purposes of overt what-if questions and roleplaying sourcebooks, its format is of a nonfiction book from an alternate world. Specifically, a history book written just like a real history book, but detailing the history of an alternate timeline. The writer, Robert Sobel, is a business historian and he has written a book that (other than the fact that the events it describe never happened), is distinguishable from a real history only by the copyright page and the subtitle "If Burgoyne had Won at Saratoga". It comes complete with footnotes (and rather interesting ones), a bibliography consisting of fictional books and some very old but real works, an introductory map, and a critique by another historian (fictional, one assumes, though it may be one of Sobel's real-world colleagues in disguise).

As suggested by its format, For Want of a Nail reads like a history book (one focusing on political and economic history primarily, with occasional references to social and military history). It is thus a bit dry if you don't like reading history books, but personally I found the attention to even the smallest colorful details fascinating, while the book as a whole moved along at a good clip - it's about 400 pages of actual text, in the format of a survey history of an alternate North America. It covers 200 years, from the American Revolution to the time when Sobel actually wrote the book (1971). If it were a real history book, it would be considered a fairly interesting one.

My opinion is pretty easy to sum up - I consider For Want of a Nail to be the greatest work of alternate history that I have ever read, bar none.

While the cases referenced in this book are interesting cases to study, reading each case was difficult because much of the information is repeated and extraneous information is added. The book could be condensed to 25% of its size easily with a big red pencil.

An interesting history of some classic business failures. However the book does not really deliver on the second part of it's title, `and how to avoid them...'. It is true that it leaves you to draw your own conclusions, but I for one would have preferred some marketing analysis and some tips or rules that might have prevented these failures. Suitable primarily for business historians or others interested in this field.

I like business case studies like this book and while I enjoyed it, it did not "wow" me. The studies are clinically written and as a reviewer already stated, it really doesn't address the second part of the title, "how to avoid them". I didn't learn from the book but it was mildly interesting. I particularly like the Montgomery Ward story where you have to almost laugh at the companies stupidity. Read if you like the subject and have the time but don't expect a "bestseller".