I view this book as two separate endeavours. First, as economic history, and second as economic and political analysis.

In the portion about economic history, Treuherz does a very good job of pointing out the relevant factors that drove each of the crises he talks about. I found it especially useful since, though there is much information on all the 1990s crises, it is not put together in a coherent and orderly manner. As a history of latest emerging markets crises, this book is the best I have seen. There are other good ones about the 1980s debt crises, but this is the best for the 1990s.

As for the economics analysis part of the book, it is filled with comparative information, which I found very useful in helping build a framework that identifies the precursors of crises. He discusses many economic ideas, such as free trade and the benefits of globalization, providing empirical information to back his conclusions. This was quite unique, as much of the economic literature is conceptual rather than empirical.

Overall, this is an outstanding work. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in economic history, crisis management, or just wanting to better understand what happened in the last decade.

I got a great deal out of this book. No one else encapsulates financial crises in the way that Rolf Treuherz does, and I don't know where else so many crises are covered. Treuherz combines conciseness with detail in a way that reflects great judgment. It is interesting to see, from the author's perspective, how many ways there are to drive an economy right off a cliff. This book is really a compendium of other people's nightmares, but they are nightmares that any student of financial crashes and policy foul-ups had better know about.

The author has prepared a most valuable guide for our taking position towards facts that otherwise we might find out too late when arriving at an Emerging Country. It permits the reader to avoid pitfalls, to save time and money upon arrival. Cientists will go into the right direction, economists will seek the right contacts. The common traveler will find options for his preffered activity. Congratulations Dr.Treuherz for the valuable time, profound study and experience writing this book must have cost you. It was well worth it ! Respectfully Klaus Wolfgang Brazil

This is a great set of books for the serious Hebrew student. but not for the Bible teacher or pastor who is rusty on Hebrew.

There are two flaws in these books. One is that the editors have taken so much trouble to give so much information about the structure and meaning of the Hebrew, and yet have provided often mediocre, and even often, lousy, inaccurate translation. They have relied on the RSV, and have stated that where they felt necessary, they have given a more literal meaning. The interesting fact is that in many cases, they have let stand those translations of words which have NO basis in the Hebrew text. They have, in fact, gone beyond dynamic equivalence (conservative paraphrasing), and used straight paraphrashing. Why would one go through so much trouble to get to the root of the langage, and then provide a translation that misses the mark virtually or totally. So keep your Hebrew lexicons available, because you are going to need them.

The second error shows up mainly in the verb descriptions. Just looking at the 7 major verb stems, they are clearly classified in error quite frequently. I have found that this is usually between the Qal and Hiphil stems, and often on weak verbs which loose a consonant (e.g., hollow verbs). The pointing of the text will usually be a clear Hiphil, but the editors have classed it as Qal. This is quite a problem, both for understanding the emphasis of the verb stem, and at times the actual meaning of the verb.

I do not recommend this set except for those who are studying Hebrew seriously, using, for instance, Waltke & O'Connor, Gesensius, and other authoritative works. One without a decent knowledge of Hebrew grammar already in the brain will end up teaching inaccuracy in certain areas.

Moving through every Hebrew word from Genesis to Malachi, this work provides for each word its grammatical identification, its page number in the BDB Lexicon, and its English translation.

If you are like me, your Hebrew skills aren't where you would like them to be. Owens gives an abundance of help in this area.

Word-by-word, the masoretic text is analyzed and translated. Especially helpful is the verb analysis. However, one should not expect to see any commentary, since that is not what these volumes are designed to give.

This set of books won't teach you Hebrew, but it you are a little weaker in that area than you would like to be, these books will help you out greatly.