In all honesty i had high hopes for this book,i was mildly disapointerd at the lack of real vision.Though true to its calling (NEW TRANSLATION)it doesnt go beyond updating the song into the language of the day.I did however like the fact that they used hebrew lettering on the opposite page of the english trans, verse by verse.I would recomend this book to one who wants to speculate,disect,and tinker with the greatest love poem ever.Could have had more pictures/illustrations for readers to visualize this visualy intensive poem.

The Blochs' translation is concise, elegant, and strikes the right balance between contemporary explicitness and classical reserve. Some of the textual choices are debatable, and the translation often departs from literalness, sometimes omitting entire lines -- but the overall result is fresh and exciting; this nuanced rendition really brings the Song to life.

One thing to be aware of is that, other than the poem itself, a brief introduction, and some brief remarks by Robert Alter, the text consists mostly of very detailed translators' notes analyzing the verses line by line, even word by word. This material will be of interest to scholars of ancient Hebrew but perhaps not to the general reader. I read the book (sans notes) in about forty minutes -- and I have to wonder if I should have paid [amt] for the privelege. Nothing against the Blochs or their fine work, but I would have preferred more supporting material of more general interest.

This book of the Old Testament is first of all a beautiful poem. The subject is love, love for a woman and love for a man. It is the love song of two lovers.

It is never erotic or pornographic, but always poetic. That is probably why it was used over and over again by composers in vespers dedicated to the Holy Virgin, particularly the first poem : « I am black but lovely, daughters of Jerusalem » with the famous songs « Nigra sum » and « Pulchra es ».

This book has always been considered by the Catholics as an emanation of King Solomon and as prophecy about the coming of Jesus, about the Holy Virgin.

It is of course possible to see a metaphor in that lovesong, the Bride being Israel, the people of God, who have neglected their vineyard and were punished for it, who have sinned and are now repenting after the fair punishment. Then the Bridegroom is God himself.

But what remains - above and after all - is the marvellous poetic language to describe love and the loved ones. It is probably the Book that demonstrates best the fact that the Bible is speaking of real men and women and not of unreal, virtual ones. They believe in God, which gives them a higher vision and deeper meaning, but they remain human with their attachment to love, justice and peace, the three main virtues Jesus will bring us in the New Testament.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Authors included are Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Hesse, Heidegger, Marcel, Jaspers, Kafka, Gide, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, Rieocer, Berdygev, Buber, Tillich, Pinter, Beckett, Mailer, Laing, Bellon Bach, Weiss, and Muller.

This is a diverse and engaging collection of excerpts from a range of works, many of which I have never seen collected in "existentialist" compilations. A good cheap overview of the major writers. I believe these are still first edition paperbacks, and as far as I know, only Amazon.com still has them. So if you want it, you'd better get it now. And if you just want a single volume, inexpensive intro. to Existentialism, then this is what you want.

_Existentialism_ includes excerpts from 26 existentialists, from a couple pages in length to over 40 in the case of Jean-Paul Sartre. These excerpts are each preceded by a brief biographical introduction. If the purpose of this book was to pique my interest in further reading of the included authors, it accomplished its purpose. I found myself really touched by the excerpts of Kierkegaard, for example, and have since read much more of him. Editing the work of these great thinkers, might on the surface, seem like a simple task, but now that I am more specifically aware of body of work by Kierkegaard and to a lesser extent, a few of the others, I appreciate the job Solomon did of selecting these texts. Athough I am pleased, I am sure Solomon didn't please everyone!

Robert C. Solomon begins this book with a fine eleven page essay on existentialism. Here are a few excerpts:

"It is a commonly accepted half-truth that existentialism is a revolt against traditional Western rationalistic philosophy. It is also a demonstrable half-truth that existentialist philosophy is very much a continuation and logical expansion of themes and problems in Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Husserl. Existentialism is not simply a philosophy or philosophical revolt. Existentialist philosophy is an explicit conceptual manifestation of the existential attitude--a spirit of 'the present age.' It is a philosophical realization of self-conscious living in a 'broken world' (Marcel), an 'ambiguous world' (de Beauvoir), a 'dislocated world' (Merleau-Ponty)..."

"So long as we think of philosophy as a set of (hopefully) true propositions, we will continue to be tempted by notions that philosophy can be a 'science,' that there is a correct way of doing philosophy, that philosophical judgement or body of judgement can be true. If instead we allow ourselves to think of philosophy as expression, these rigid demands seem pointless or vulgar."

Some might consider it twinkish to read through a book of excerpts, but had there not been such a text, I don't think I would have been exposed to many of the writers that are featured. My appreciation and thanks goes to Robert C. Solomon.

The problem with using advoates as authors is that you only get one side of the story. In the case of EMDR, for instance, there is research that says a) the eye movements are unnecessary and b) its effects do not last as long as Cognitive-Behavior Therapy based exposure procedures. This really undercuts the second part of the title of this book "for Long-Term Change". Stories and anecdotes are often entertaining but for true treatment help see a professional who reads the scientific research and is not a cheerleader for every fad that comes along.

I found this book to be a remarkable and consise description of a complicated topic. The authors summarized the state of the field of short term dynamic therapy. They held no information back and identified the areas of controversy, particularly conflicting opinions and data on the use of confrontation in the Davanloo approach versus the approach preferred by McCullough and Alpert. Furthermore, the inclusion of EMDR as a dynamic treatment was inovative and exciting. Neborsky and Solomon's chapter on "Changing the Love Imprint" explained how EMDR and the STDP's may have a common therapeutic action, which was helpful to me as was their integration of attachment theory. Finally, David Malan's chapter on the science of outcome evaluation and what we might learn from his career was an inspiration to read. I hope this group continues to write and create more material for clinicians like this!

The recent no-name reviewer from Atlanta who attacked Short-Term Therapy for Long-Term Change's lack of research must have bought some bootleg copy that omitted its hundreds of endnotes and citations. Its dozens of pages of transcribed therapy sessions will hardly be dismissed as "anecdotes" by any mindful reader. The book's six contributors are tops in their fields. Calling them "cheerleaders," as no-name does, is a whooper bordering on delusion. This book is the best available overview of the latest breakthroughs in short-term psychotherapy available.

This is as good a book as has been written about the World War II battle for the island of Gaudalcanal. That's faint praise because the definitive history of this turning point in American military fortunes has not yet been written.

Guadalcanal was the first American ground offensive of World War II against a Japanese army that had swept aside all opposition and a Japanese navy that had been beaten at Midway but still had parity in numbers and advantage in experience over the Americans. Several thousand young, untested marines were dumped on this big jungle island, abandoned by the Navy and left to fight nearly by themselves. Fortunately for them, Japanese strategy and tactics were self-deluding and, frankly, stupid.

Leckie gives a competent account of the 6-month long battle, bringing a lot of color into his story, and introducing himself into the text unobtrusively on several occasions. (He was a machinegunner on Guadalcanal.) But the maps in the book could be better; his explanations are sometimes hard to follow; and his descriptions of the hardships and horrors of battle on Guadalcanal could be improved upon.

I've read other books with more facts about Guadalcanal, although Leckie is good at eye-witness detail. But Guadalcanal was a epic struggle and deserves an epic of its own. Some might find it in the novel and movie, "The Thin Red Line."

Robert Leckie, like Xenophon before him, undertakes to write about a campaign in which he participated. Leckie hit the beaches with the First Marine Division and lived through the privation, hardship, and carnage to tell a gripping story of this pivotal Pacific campaign.

Leckie gives good character sketches of the principle participants on both sides and details great acts of courage by many of the rank-and-file warriors who participated in the campaign. For example, Leckie recounts the tale of Sergeant Major Vouza of the Guadalcanal constabulary. Vouza acted as a scout for the Marines and was captured by the Japanese. He was tortured, stabbed in the throat, and left for dead. When he came to his senses, he crawled back to the American lines in time to warn of a planned Japanese attack. During that arduous journey, Vouza prayed that he live just long enough to get back and bring the warning. Vouza survived and later act as a scout for Carlson's Raiders.

When he describes the "big picture," Leckie doesn't do quite as well, and the reader will occasionally succumb to spells of confusion in trying to follow major troop and ship movements and understand their strategic significance. Despite this minor flaw, the reader will come away from this book with a clear understanding of just how close the United States came to the brink of unmitigated disaster on Guadalcanal.

Arrogance, incompetence, and blind staggering luck contributed to the cliffhanger nature of the conflict, as did courage, tenacity, and toughness. Both sides had more than their share of all six. The argument could be made that if the Americans had not had more good luck than the Japanese, the War in the Pacific would have taken a much different course. But then, that brings to mind the old saying "The harder you work, the luckier you get."

The Bethesda System for Reporting Cervical/Vaginal Cytologic Diagnoses has greatly simplified and standardized the nomenclature for reporting the spectrum of pathologic as well as non-pathologic conditions of the cervix and vagina. The pictures are helpful, although it would have helped more if there are more than one picture for every condition to show the spectrum of any said condition. This would help guide the cytotechnologists/cytopathologists in naming, reporting the condition. What is exemplary in the system is its integration of the reporting of the adequacy of the specimen. This has a lot of impact in the clinical corelation as well as alerting the physicians of the possible limitations of the diagnosis. All in all, it is a well made system.

There were quite a few major variations from the film this was adapted from, but its for the better. I love the movie, but the book stands on its own as a real fun read. Recommended for sure!

A summary of his statement on p. 125 on "Russell's Mathematical Logic" describes the "vicious circle principle: forbids a certain kind of circularity which is made responsible for the paradoxes. The fallacy in these, so it is contended, consists in the circumstance that one defines (or tacitly assumes) totalities, whose existence would entail the existence of certain new elements of the same totality, namely elements definable only in terms of the whole totality." This led to the formulation of a principle which says that "no totality can contain members definable only in terms of this totality, or members involving or presupposing this totality." (The vicious circle principle). (Also a "not applying to itself principle to keep the vicious circle principle from applying to itself p. 126

In describing Russell's theory of types he says, "The paradoxes are avoided by the theory of simple types which is combined with the theory of simple orders - a "ramified hierarchy""

Godel argues that the vicious circle principle is false rather than that classical mathematics is false.

p. 202 "A remark about the relationship between relativity theory and idealistic philosophy (1949a) (Note that this view supports my usual presentations in class on this!)

"The argument runs as follows: Change becomes possible only through the lapse of time. The existence of an objective lapse of time 4, however, means (or, at least, is equivalent to the fact) that reality consists of an infinity of layers of "now"

p. 203 which come into existence successively. But, if simultaneity is something relative in the sense just explained, reality cannot be split up into such layers in an objectively determined way. Each observer has his own set of "nows", and none of these various systems of layers can claim the prerogative of representing the objective lapse of time. 5"

Having first encountered this book at university it has been helpful ever since as a quick reverence tool as well a being the ideal recommendation to anyone interested in getting to the meat of the modern philosophical condition.

Very well written - I commend Robert Solomon on a job very well done.

This book is part seven of a larger study of the history of Western Civilisation but in a way it deals with the core issue of Western thought -the individual identity and its relationship to the world. It plots the rise and fall of the Transcendental Self starting with its Renaissance birth as described by Rousseau . From there the book progresses in a logical and roughly chronological manner to a very informative discussion of Kantian ethics and the Self as well as German Idealism. ( great reading for scholars interested in Germanic development in the last 300 years.) He devotes about ten short but information packed pages to the apex of the Transcendental Self as represented in Hegelian Thought. His attention to "der List der Vernunft" - the cunning of reason - as Hegels' reaction to the despair and Dostoevsky-like bitterness of post Napoleonic Europe is very well laid out. In a world no longer willing to accept the Will of God argument as a explanation of the brutality of mankind Hegel gives the world a grim consolation. Behind it all there is a rational process, a teleological argument - its is the Cunning of Reason. It is a wasteful but purposeful process that manifests in the Hegelian Dialectic.

But this process also ultimately have expanded the idea of the Transcendental Self beyond the indivudual of Schelling and Fichte. This individual is no longer important - the dialectic development deals in the Cunning of Reason not with individuals but only with nations/peoples. At this point it would have been apt of the author to point to the obvious - the development of the nation state (think of National Socialism and Communism in the twentieth century)as a type of reactionary effort to rediscover the Transcendental Self albeit in Hegelian form.

In such a way Hegel sows the seed for the collapse of the Transcendental self as exemplified in the thoughts of Schopenhauer, the British Empiricists and of course Nietsche. His chapter on Nietsche is a high point and my favourite. His handling of Feuerbach Marx and Kierkegaard is concise but sufficient in their attempt at dealing with the loss of a Absolute.

The book them moves eloquently to the next evolutionary phase - that of the Self rediscovering the self ( the individual ) Stripped of its Absolutes ,the magnitude of the Hegelian dialectic as seen of nation level gets personal. Husserl and his desperate search for a logical method to discover the Absolute fails in it epistemological fantasies. In the end Husserl declares - Der Traum is ausgetraumt -the dream is finished (loose translation) He then progresses to Freud and Wittgenstein as classical examples of the Hegelian outer world becoming a equally vast and cunning inner world where man is not always master of his own house.

The book then reaches another peak with the discussion on Heidegger and Hermeneutics. His explanation of Dasein is the clearest that I have read but his handling of Gadamers' refinements of Hermeneutical thought is not adequate enough for me.

The final Death of the Self is brilliantly concluded in the discussions of the French existentialists and Structuralism (mainly Derrida) His critique of Derrida is insightful and makes one desire more from the author

The ending paragraph sums it all up:" Between the Self as Absolute Spirit and the Self as nothing at all there seems to be very little difference."

Solomon strives to make philosophy as it should be: about everything from the Three Stooges to horror films to dogs to love. (Not all philosophy is the gobbledygook of Sartre and Wittgenstein, or the pseudo-philosophical nonsense of Ayn Rand.) Solomon obviously loves what he is doing and looks as he is on a mini-crusade to convince the public that philosophy is for _everyone._

This (lucture note series) book have important points to acquire in your Dermatology rotation. starting with history and physical examination then discussing diseases in an organized waywhich makes it interesting to read. Still not comprehensive and can not be used as a text book.