The title above is what my great-uncle inscribed on the inside cover of this book. He is the Tommy Morris whose story is told in the pages of this book. Like many more famous sailors and soldiers, Uncle Tommy (who died only two weeks ago after a long decline, for those readers who might be interested)used to tell me and my grandfather (Tommy's brother) that it was impossible for him to think of people as "civilized" having seen how we turn our new discoveries and technology so easily to the unhappy task of killing each other. He also said to me once that his role in the Quincy sinking was that of a "damsel in distress".. which description was follwed by that sort of masculing deep-seated chuckle which only come forth from heroic men who have seen hell on earth.

I am biased, but I wer I not, I would still think this an excellent book!

Gary Morris

Between August 1942 and February 1943, a land-sea and air battle was waged for an island in the south pacific called Guadalcanal. The six-month long battle for the island would be one of the definitive battles of the war. It was also one of the costliest. Thousands of Allied and Japanese soldiers died. And a channel north of the island had so many ships go down there that it was renamed Iron Bottom Sound.

It is possible that more men died in the waters off Guadalcanal then on the island itself. But for many years, most of the ships were out of reach to divers and eventually were all but forgotten. Then, in 1992, Oceanographer Robert Ballard, who had found the Titanic and the Bismarck, decided to explore the area using the latest in technology. It is quite an experience to see a past battlefield on land like Normandy, Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg or Guadalcanal itself. But the battlefields were obviously cleaned up afterward and don't look the way they did when the battle concluded. But time knows no boundaries in Iron Bottom Sound. The paintings by Ken Marshall and the photographs show many of the ships still upright on the ocean floor; Their guns and torpedo tubes still trained outward as if firing at a long gone enemy. But some of the ships are not so beautifully preserved. The Battleship Krishima, for example, lies upside down in two pieces on the ocean floor. And the Destroyer Barton is broken in half and lying on its side from two torpedoes. Nevertheless, most of the ships appear ready to rise up and continue fighting.

Lavishly illustrated and with a detailed text, The Lost Ships of Guadalcanal will make a welcome addition to the collection of any War, Naval or Shipwreck enthusiast (If you can find a copy that is).

Dr. Bob Ballard discovered the Titanic in the mid 1980's using cutting-edge underwater technology. For this book, he turned that skill and knowledge to lead an expedition to examine the wrecks of one of the bloodiest naval battles of World War II, one so full of death and destruction that veterans of the battle gave the waters of Gualdalcanal the nickname of "Iron Bottom Sound" because of the number of ships and aircraft that lay underwater. Guadalcanal was the linchpin of American and Japanese military strategy for control of the south Pacific islands. The Americans controlled the airfield, but the Japanese controlled the island and the waters around it. The Japanese couldn't resupply its army because of attacks to its freighters by Allied aircraft and the Americans couldn't resupply its airfield because of attacks to its fleet of ships. In one single battle in the pitch-black darkness of night, the mighty Japanese fleet engaged a weaker American destroyer group where American guns were aimed by radar and Japanese guns were aimed by looking for the flashes from the American weapons. The American fleet was destroyed but it was a Pyhric victory because the Japanese supply ships failed to reach the starving Japanese troops on the island. Dr. Ballard does a remarkable job of capturing both the essence of the battle and the essence of underwater archeology to create a wonderful book filled with full-color pictures of the wrecks and period black-and-white pictures of the war. He also includes the fantastic paintings and maps in the style that has adorned his other books to show how the wrecks would look if there was absolute clarity underwater and with a "God's Eye". This book is one of the better ones I've found that deal with the ships of Guadalcanal and underwater archeology. I've noticed copies adorning the workbenches of many model-ship builders (including mine). Its a great gift idea and sure to please anyone interested in great battles, maritime history, WW2, underwater exploration, or tales of bravery (by those who fought and those who study the ocean).

I was very pleased by the large number of high-quality reproductions. Still, as far as I'm concerned there should have been *more*. The book contains (a rough count) about 280 pages containing text or mostly text, out of about 630 total pages. However, I'm very happy with the book.

Best book, I have ever bought

The problem with art books is that they go out of print too quickly. This is a beautifully presented book on Rauschenberg that was released with the big retrospective at the Guggenheim in 97/98. Barnes and Noble still had copies avaiable as of Sept. 99, so check there -- they were even discounted!

This book is used as the primary text in my university's introductory Philosophy course, and I think it's an excellent choice. It includes classic texts written by well-known philosophers and the writings of scientists, novelists, religious figures and many others. The inclusion of philosophical writings from such unlikely sources is a great illustration of how philosophy is woven into all aspects of our lives. Reading this book will help you to realize how many philosophical issues you already deal with in your own life and will also help you to find new ways of thinking about and dealing with them.

I ordered this book as a requirement from a great professor during college. Having only read just more than a handful of chapters in that semester I became hooked. I have since moved on and really started to appreciate the ultimate questions of life. Not that this book answers them. That is still the uniqueness of humanity, individual thought. I would highly recommend this to anyone wanting to be a better skeptic. We so readily just accept things that our ancestors accepted without a thought as to how reality really is. The wide array of topics is to be applauded and a great concept to take a look at may arenas of thought. Thank you professor Buenter(Binter).

This is a really good book. It really shows the bacics of philosophy. When i came home i have been wanting to read the rest of the book badly.

The book tells us about what happened to John F Kennedy during World War two, how the Japanese sank his boat, so how he became a hero. There is a short biography( 1917-1940) too, with cute photos. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. I suggest it to all Jack Kennedy fans or not.

Dr. Ballard lives in Lyme Connecticut, 10 miles from where I live. I saw this book in a local bookstore window this weekend, and realized that he was coming to town in 4 days to speak on the subject. Being a history buff, and certainly a Kennedy history buff, I bought the book (locally, so that he would sign it for free!), and read it last night. It's a short read, with only one or two chapters covering the actual exploration for the PT-109. The rest of the book contains Kennedy family history dating back to the Kennedy's in Boston from 1850. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. There was also nice information on the crash that proves that the Hollywood movie on PT-109 took some liberties concerning his rescue of marines on a beach ... go figure ... Hollywood taking liberties...

The bottom line ... I believe Ballard has found the PT boat ... even though he couldn't quite prove it ... The fact a future president's boat was lost in this region has left a closeness with the locals towards the United States ... and the two local's that discovered Kennedy and his crew are still alive and still very much influenced by their part in history. This will be Ballard's last modern historical ship find ... after this he will move on to work on the Black Sea project ... I'm glad he found John Kennedy's boat before he moved on. Read the book

Dr. Ballard lives in Lyme Connecticut, 10 miles from where I live. I saw this book in a local bookstore window this weekend, and realized that he was coming to town in 4 days to speak on the subject. Being a history buff, and certainly a Kennedy history buff, I bought the book (locally, so that he would sign it for free!), and read it last night. It's a short read, with only one or two chapters covering the actual exploration for the PT-109. The rest of the book contains Kennedy family history dating back to the Kennedy's in Boston from 1850. There was a nice chapter on the Solomon Islands, the local people, the influence of Western culture, and the culture today. There was also nice information on the crash that proves that the Hollywood movie on PT-109 took some liberties concerning his rescue of marines on a beach ... go figure ... Hollywood taking liberties...

The bottom line ... I believe Ballard has found the PT boat ... even though he couldn't quite prove it ... The fact a future president's boat was lost in this region has left a closeness with the locals towards the United States ... and the two local's that discovered Kennedy and his crew are still alive and still very much influenced by their part in history. This will be Ballard's last modern historical ship find ... after this he will move on to work on the Black Sea project ... I'm glad he found John Kennedy's boat before he moved on. Read the book.

This book has been rightly praised as a guide to an individual's philosophy, as if we can all accept that Hegel had an individual self entitled to pick and choose among the many reactions to the intellectual currents which had been generated in his time by Kant, Goethe, Schelling, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), who is discussed in a section on pages 85-96 of this book but is not listed in the index. I had intended to count refernces to Fichte in this book before writing my review, so customers would have some idea how often I looked at the pages of this book, but that would have been tedious. Most often Fichte was merely mentioned as another self, whom we are expected to believe was entitled to choose from the intellectual currents of his time much as a chairman at a political convention might officially state, "The chair recognizes the floor." Of course Fichte thought he could do more than that with Kant's philosophy, as Solomon shows in his typical comment: "And it is in this morass of ambitions, hostilities, and mixed interpretations that the seemingly simple progression, from Kant to Fichte to Schelling to Hegel, has to be viewed" (p. 85). Note 41 at that point mentions "one of the best-known post-Kantians, Arthur Schopenhauer," who was omitted in the simple progression because his "notoriety" came later. Those who have criticized Schopenhauer (see Witold Gombrowicz, PHILOSOPHY IN SIX LESSONS AND A QUARTER, for someone who considers a lot of these philosophers Polish, and still criticizes them) are likely to picture Schopenhauer going through the roof as a primary feature of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Hegel, as a professor, does not have quite that much freedom, and involvement in philosophy might be considered his greatness because it is obviously his effort to cling to the floor in the midst of mounting outrageousness. Solomon does a pretty good job of staying on the floor, too. Only a poet would read this stuff and think, "We shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped," as Paul Celan wrote in a famous poem after World War II, only in German.

Solomon gives a lucid and clear picture of Hegel's ambitions in his Phenomenology. For ever obtuse, dense, snide paragraph Hegel wrote, Solomon delivers clear, intelligent, and at times funny explanations of Hegel's motivations and plans. An essential companion when burrowing through Hegel's magnum opus.

This is the best single volume on Hegel available. In plain, and often sparkling, English, it does a wonderful job of explicating this tremendously difficult thinker. It also provides a convincing argument that Hegel is not merely a historical curiosity but a very contemporary thinker. It includes a valuable intellectual historical summary that places Hegel within the literary, philosophical, and political thought of his day, a remarkably lucid glossary that translates Hegel's notoriously difficult terminology into plain English, and a fabulous chapter-by-chapter explication of what is arguably Hegel's most important work, The Phenomenology of Spirit.

I don't understand why this book never got "big". It is so comprehensive, with all its references to history and cultures and even mythology, and so balanced and insightful. I read this book over ten years ago and just recently pulled it out to reread the many parts I had highlighted. That's a rare thing. I wish more people knew about it. For anyone who is fascinated in analyzing and thinking about what love is, it's a very important piece of work that really makes you think and see things differently. Though the author is not offering his insights as facts, just the fact that they are offered opens up new doors from which to view love in your life and in general. One of my favorite works of non-fiction.

About Love is a welcome burst of genius on the topic most in need and deserving of it. "Relationship" books are a category where sloppy reasoning abounds and where simple selfishness is often offered as a legitimate approach to meaningful intimacy. This book however, is a genuine masterpiece. More than any other writer on this topic, and more than most writers on any topic, Mr. Solomon enters the big issues and emerges with, in my opinion, the Truth. About Love is about, as it must be, people, history, intimacy, respect, loyalty and fulfillment. In short, it is about the things which matter most and the things which form the raw materials of romantic love and meaningful relationships. This is not a book which can be properly digested in one pass. Rather, it offers the more intense satisfaction of new and interesting insights from repeated readings. It is best digested a little at a time and held up as a lens through which to view one's personal landscape. A degree of dedication is required (just like love itself) as early portions of the book review the history of romantic love in a rather scholastic and philosophical light. Little by little however, the insights build upon each other and become more personal, leading to compelling insights and philosophies on all the big issues of love including love at first sight, romantic tension, loyalty, and making love last. Sprinkled throughout is also a series of inspired quotations: Lauren Bacall's observation on the importance of fidelity is worth the price of admission in itself. In the years since I was fortunate enought to stumble upon this book, I have not read or heard reasoning on the topic of romantic love or human relations which equals that found in its pages. Overall, it is the finest book I have ever read, and for the motivated reader, I highly recommend it.

This is a great book for ALL levels of experience.
If you're just starting your career as an account executive this wonderfully outlines many things you can do to instantly improve your client relations. And if you've been working with clients for a long time this will serve as an invaluable reference. You shouldn't just read it once, but over and over again!
It's a quick read that can make a huge impact on your career and clients.

DON'T BUY THIS BOOK IF YOU ALREADY OWN "BRAIN SURGERY FOR SUITS." This book is excellent, but it is almost the exact same book as "Brain Surgery for Suits," another book by Robert Solomon. When I saw that he'd come out with a new title, I was very excited to purchase his new book. But when it arrived, and I saw that it was the same thing as the old book, I felt robbed. I can't be the only person this has happened to.

Forget Attila the Hun. Ditch Machiavelli. Stop thinking about your corporation in terms of a football game or a war. There is a better metaphor, and you will be happier and more successful if you adopt it. According to Robert Solomon (and he quotes Nietzsche among others, to prove his case!), many of our personal values seem to be in conflict with those of the corporation where we're employed, because our way of thinking about business success has been poisoned by the mental models we use, and the leaders who we are asked to emulate (football coaches and 'The Scourge of God'? ).

"A Better Way to Think About Business: How Personal Integrity Leads to Corporate Success" delivers exactly what its title promises, and has already helped me through a couple of ethical dilemmas that I've had to resolve in the course of my job. This book is very clearly written and provokes clear thinking on the subject of business ethics. It does not insult your intelligence by stringing slogans together and calling the result a 'business ethic'. (Personal note: I am so bloody sick of books that proport to teach me 'Managing by Values' and turn out to be fluff and slogans and bad writing to boot. Business ethics is a very complex and gut-wrenching subject, and some authors need to treat their readers with a bit more honor and dignity.)

Sorry for the above tirade. Read this book. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, dip into the 'Catalog of Business Virtues' at the end of the book and try to schedule a virtue per day to think about on the long commute home. I'm sure I'll keep going back to Robert Solomon for a 'better way to think about' the really tough business situations.

Robert Solomon offers a practical, clear and systematic approach to thinking through the place of integrity in the success of any enterprise. It is as applicable to your life as to your business.

This is a remarkable book in that it lays a sensible, philosophical foundation and builds a compelling, practical case for the place of virtue in business. His definition, that "a virtue, in essence, is a value embodied and built into action", leads the reader to understand the true basis for a successful strategic planning process. Solomon emphasizes the need for corporations to see themselves as communities, people- rather than profit-driven, and, thus, to change to "a better way of thinking". An excellent, careful, scholarly treatment presented in a linear, holistic, engaging style, this book, taken to the boardrooms of the world, can only change business for the better. It is a must-read for those who care to maintain their sanity in the multi-faceted corporate world. The book is aptly named!

October 10, 2000 Finally a book that makes understanding all aspects of NFPA 13,13D and 13R easy. Text of the codes appears in black and the helpful explmation text, line drawings and/or photos appears in red. The Editor really focous on the intend and interpertations in which the code was written. This is a must have for system designers, engineers and installers.

Solomon/Higgins "A Passion for Wisdom" is a small but rich book outlining the history of philosophical ideas, including Chinese, Buddhist, Native American, Arab and other cultures. It is a useful reference and witty in writing style which encourages one's own philosophical or investigative studies. Philosophy is openness to the world. We are excited, yet disturbed. We need to be better listeners to be more open.

I recommend reading "A Passion for Wisdom" first and then a more in-depth study by reading Solomon/Higgins "A Short History of Philosophy" second. Other book recommendations following Solomon/Higgins: Durant's "The Story of Philosophy," T.Z. Lavine's "From Socrates to Sartre," and perhaps Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy."

I am an engineering professor and have spent the last 30 years trying to compensate for my weak liberal arts education.

Robert Solomon has been a godsend in terms of providing clear, insightful teachings on philosophy. He's written overviews as well as some very nice books and tapes (The Teaching Company) focused on existentialism.

This particular book (written with his major collaborator Kathleen Higgins) is not a typical superficial survey. Rather, it is a distillation of their catholic knowledge gained through years of study and teaching philosophy. A real tour de force filled with the insights and connections that only great teachers can give. I highly recommend it for students of all ages.

The authors are gifted with an objective detachment from their subject so that every philosopher discussed seems to be their favorite...until they move on to the next.

The absence of polemics makes for a light reading in an otherwise onerous subject.

This is the best introduction to philosophy that one could hope to begin from.

Sincere thanks to the authors!