The dictionary of names isn't much to write home about. It's thorough and well-done, but doesn't include any statistical depth (e.g. when was a name most popular, where does it 'rank' nowadays, etc). However, the historical background covers some of this information quite well, so that compensates somewhat.

I collect name books, and can recommend for purchase only a scant few. One, by Britons Leslie Dunkling and William Gosling, has been published under at least two different names. The other such book is "American Given Names".

Both books tell you not only the meaning and derivation of the name, but when it entered the English language, when it became popular, disappeared, and came back into fashion, which segments of the populace used the name most-- and the reasons behind it all. Next to these two, almost all other name books available in the U.S. today are junk.

Whereas Dunkling/Gosling has many more names (and is much, much cheaper!), Stewart sticks to fewer and goes into more depth on many. He also concentrates on American practice, rather than the entire English-speaking world. There are quite a few Puritan names here (ever heard of Preserved Fish?), making this especially useful for U.S. genealogists.

Finally, every literate person should have a name dictionary on his reference shelf next to the regular dictionary and the thesaurus. If you just want to name your next kid, Dunkling/Gosling is good enough, but if you're a student, writer, historian or genealogist, get Stewart's too. It's worth it.

I found it great. I decided to come here because I thought u would be the best of the best. I was doing a project for my school about my name and it's history and what is meant so I thought maybe this book would help, and that maybe I could check it out on-line.

Our view of the Civil War is extremally biased. There are few books aviable in English making any serious attempt to understand the White point of view. The reason is simple: for seventy years the Bolsheviks tightly controlled all the relevant materials on which various, supposedly scientifically neutral, histories of the Civil War were based. Steward, writing in the 1930's, was one of few authors who realized that only one side of the story was being told. His book is an attempt to preserve and present in English the accomplishments of the White fighters. Steward did not claim to be a professional historian and his book might seem a bit amateurish, but he trod the difficult path which our more professional historians neglected to examine.

Excellent campaign maps of Russian Civil War...Written in 1933, provides a "White" perspective on the conflict...a lot of detail regarding generals, troops sizes, campaigns ... highly recommended for any serious military history student of the subject

The Donner Party's ill-fated trek to California is a fairly well known story. This book satisfactorily covers all the details. However, if anyone wants to get behind the lurid headlines of cannibalism & try to understand the nature of the folk that made the perilous crossings of the US in the 19th century, then this could be the right book for you. It's a faithful, well reseached & readable account of a group of people banded together for a journey that, whilst knowing it was going to be tough, actually expected that they might enjoy the experience. Not a fanciful notion considering that the vast majority of settlers of that time came through the passage with few major problems. The Donners, sadly, were different! Their ordeal was exceptional in it's harshness & suffering & there is an awful inexoribility about the events & circumstances that lead them to their ultimate terrible fate in an unforgiving wilderness. They were probably the typical mix of backgrounds & personalities one might expect from casual travellers united for mutual protection. They had their full share of heroes & villians, brave hearts & cowards, stalwarts & slackers, rich & poor. For each admirable behaviour example, like Reed, Stanton & Eddy, is a contrasting character like the sinister Keseburg or the nefarious Woodworth. The author is totally non-judgemental & deals with all of them with laudable objectivity. I found this an emotional read. Ultimately an uplifting experience. The way most of the chidren, especially the toddlers, respond & bear up to their hardships is extremely moving. Recommended! One point deducted (as mentioned by previous reviewers) for annoying, unreadable maps. Not sure why, but this is a common failing in so many books?

This account of the doomed Donner party reads like a thriller, especially if you use a map to follow its route. There is something of the Titanic in reading of their descent toward death. They could have survived one mistake, but they made many. They started late to cross the country. They moved slowly. Taking bad advice, they had to blaze a new route through the Wasatch Mountains. They came apart trying to cross the desert west of Great Salt Lake. Finally reaching the eastern slope of the Sierra Range, they rested too long and were trapped by deep snows at the crossing we now call Donner Pass. Their subsequent starvation and cannibalism gets most attention when you hear about the Donner party, but the real story is what happens when well-meaning people make mistakes, due to lack of knowledge. There is also tremendous heroism as families try to survive and rescuers from California try to reach the marooned people. Stewart tells a masterful story.

I read this book pretty rapidly because it was so unbelievable. The experience of the Donner Party is one that is impossible for most of us to imagine. If you are familiar with the book (or movie) Alive, by Piers Paul Read, then you will have some sense of what takes place. Many passages brought tears to my eyes.

If you are not familiar with the story of the Donner Party, they were a group of 87 pioneers who set out for California from Illinois in the spring of 1846. They traveled via a passage (which was essentially untried at that time) that was being hawked by a man named Hastings. The trail led them through an ordeal that included near death from thirst, marauding Indians, at least one murder, and, finally, their entrapment in the Sierra Nevada through the worst-ever recorded winter in that region. Sadly, most of the party that survived did so by yielding to the necessity of cannibalism. About half of the original party got out alive.

If you are as fascinated by true tales of extreme survival as I am, then this book will certainly prove gripping. One is reminded of the story of Shackleton's Endurance, or of the Uruguayan rugby team which suffered a plane crash in the Andes of South America. I recommend it without reservation to anyone who can stand it - but it is a most depressing saga.

This book is simply the best for students of the battle. Stewart brings the reader along through a journey in time with his unbiased, simple narrative. It's an informal read that will tempt the reader for more. Along with Harry Pfanz and Edwin Coddington, an excellent addition for that Gettysburg library.

This fine book goes into detail about what has become known as "Pickett's Charge" without becoming boring. There is complete coverage of the connonade which preceded the charge and a discussion of the damage which was done. We learn of the different types of artillary and ammunition used by both sides in the canonade and the placement of these guns. The author also gives detailed coverage of the placement of troops and how they marched in formation. Ultimately, under heavy fire, the Confederate formations break up and in the ultimate "charge" it became almost impossible to map out where each regiment was as they fell apart. Therefore, to a great extent, the Confederate army on Cemetary Ridge was each man for himself.

Although we know the outcome in advance, the narrative is still thrilling as we read about Confederate troops breaking through and penetrating the Union defenses. Through the author's masterful story telling, the outcome, for a while, almost seems to be in doubt. In addition to documenting, almost regiment by regiment, the action which occured, the author provides many interesting, and often amusing, annecdotal tales of individual experiences. The carnage was terrible and the Confederate army suffered a horrific loss of officers, including generals.

The author also gets us into the heads of the key players in this event. He gives a lot of coverage to Lee's steadfastness in ordering the charge and Longstreet's serious misgivings. Written in the elegant, highly readable style of other Civil War historians of that era (the late 1950s), such as Bruce Catton, this is historical writing which almost reads like a novel. I highly recommend this classic history of this key event in American history.

Having been a Civil W buff for years, and having read many of the more common titles dealing with Gettysburg in particular I found this to be the most detailed book I have read. Opinions are expressed, and backed with explanations, yet never placing blame. After having read this book, if you had been there, even knowing what you do today and that the charge was going to be a tragic failure, agreeing with Longstreet that, "no 15,000 men ever lived could break that line", you would still have giving the orders to make the charge.

I first read this book when it was published in 1984 and was very impressed with the author's creativity and originality. I have never read anything quite like it in the years since then, although if you liked Stephen King's The Stand you will LOVE this one. The author's descriptive power makes the situations so real you truly cannot put the book down. With the millenium so close, this is a timely and chilling read!

This was one of the best books I have read, that scared me and made me look over my shoulder whenever I heard a sound. This book is the "ONE" "READ IT, WILL SCARE YOU FOREVER".

If you liked Stephen King's "The Stand", you'll love this book. I couldn't put the book down. The way that it all comes together in the end is frighteningly brilliant. I have recommended this book to many people. All agree it has a unique storyline that makes it so captivating.

When I write "one of the most memorable books I've read," that's saying something, because I've kept up a pace of reading at least four books a week since before entering Kindergarten and am now 67. I borrowed EARTH ABIDES from the library a year after it came out, in 1950, when I was a 14-year-old high school sophomore, reading everything and anything labeled "science fiction." I didn't own the book until fairly recently, but it stayed vividly in my memory. I could call up characters like fussy Maureen, stolid George, loyal Em and the tragic genius child, Joey. I remembered the fascinating journey across America, the vague frustration I felt (even so young) over Ish's passive character and the generally negative slide of the tribe from scavenging off civilization into what appeared almost to be an Upper Paleolithic lifestyle at the novel's end--not even qualifying as barbarism.

But it's Stewart's refusal to tread the usual Golden Age sci-fi path and make Ish a superscience hero that makes the novel very special. Ish may be a scientist, he's academically bright, but like many people he's low in energy, street-smarts, and foresight. By and large his motley clan possesses even lower survival skills. They aren't much different from the Valley Girls in another good story in the end-of-the-world genre, the movie NIGHT OF THE COMET. Both are based on an understanding that if the human race's average IQ is 100, half the people who are likely to survive a major disaster aren't going to be awfully competent. Stewart certainly knew that, and it provided both the uncanny realism and the rather depressing pessimism of this story. It's fascinating to note that the other reviewers have noted both aspects of EARTH ABIDES.

George R. Stewart weaves at once a beautiful and hauntingly believable tale with this novel, one that I've never been able to forget...or wanted to. Once considered dated, with the lessening of global nuclear tensions, the scenario Mr. Stewart envisions for a possible worldwide catastrophe, one brought about not by bombs but disease, has once again come to the forefront and become the most plausible ingredient in mankind's demise. More even than the fact that this is a truly enjoyable read is the deeper message Earth Abides shares with the reader as it reaches down and touches our very hearts, defining what it means to be human in an inhuman environment. The symbolism involved in Isherwood Williams' desire to keep a hammer with him for the future as a tie to the past is obviously an unconscious comment on his personal hope of rebuilding a fallen civilization. A hope that goes unfulfilled in his life time and maybe many lifetimes to follow. The insight into the human psyche that Mr. Stewart demonstates as he carries Isherwood from his youth at the beginning of the book to old age and finally death at the end and Isherwood's subtle change of attitude during that process, rings exceedingly true and speaks volumes about Mr. Stewart's keen and perhaps unique ability to put into words what it really means, or at least should mean, to be human. I've rarely read a book more than once because I just don't have the time, but I've read Earth Abides several times since I was a teen and I know I'll read it several more times before I too reach that stage in my life that Isherwood assures us won't be the calamity our youth oriented culture would have us to believe.

First published in 1949, this novel won the 1951 International Fantasy Award in Fiction (the first one awarded) even though this is not a true fantasy novel. The International Fantasy Awards were originated by four British science fiction and fantasy fans (Leslie Flood, John Beynon Harris, G. Ken Chapman, and Frank A. Cooper) for the 1951 British science fiction convention. The awards lasted between 1951 and 1957. George R. Stewart (1895-1980) was a Professor of English at the University of California in Berkeley. This well-read novel is about life after a plague has killed all but a few people on Earth. Isherwood Williams, a graduate student in geography, returns from a trip to the mountains to find everyone dead. He travels throughout the land and finds a female survivor. They settle down in the Bay Area around San Francisco and a small community grows around them. As time goes by, Isherwood tries to teach the children reading and the knowledge of the past. As the decades go by, he discovers that he is the only one who recalls the greatness of the past. Humans have become a band of hunter-gatherers. History has come full circle. "...men go and come, but earth abides." Carl Sandburg considered it one of the best novels of its time. It is regarded by many as a masterpiece and was a precursor for many later disaster novels (note that one of the voters of the International Fantasy Award was J. B. Harris, whose pseudonym was John Wyndham and author of another classic disaster novel, "The Day of the Triffids." One of the earlier reviewers suggested that Wyndham was a better disaster writer. But, "Triffids" came out in 1951, and Wyndham still chose "Earth Abides."). The name "Isherwood" is a direct reference to Ishi, the last surviving member of a California Indian tribe who was brought to the University by Kroeber of the Anthropology Department (many science fiction enthusiasts are very familiar with Kroeber's daughter, Ursula K. Le Guin). Ishi is still quite famous in the study of native American cultures. This book has had such an impact in the development of the science fiction genre that it is now required reading for all serious students of science fiction and speculative literature.

In deference to my longstanding crush on Patrick Stewart, my husband gave this to me as a joke, and a joke it is! If I were to gather up a pile of fanzines, tabloids and talk show video clips, I could have written this book (although I hope I would have proofread it a little better. The typos are legion.) The "authors" did nothing except cut and paste previously published material -- no additional research or interviews went into producing it. Faithfully repeating what Mr. Stewart said to Jay Leno is about as insightful as it gets. All my Amazon pals who gave this 5 stars might want to try reading a real biography some time!

Authors Hatfield and Burt sifted through mountains of press clippings and hours of interviews to give their readers a solid foundation of facts about the life of actor Patrick Stewart. These facts, however, are often couched in an "En-quiring minds want to know" writing style that does a great disservice, at times, to their subject as well as their own hard work. Tales of Stewart's violent childhood are harrowing enough without the Dickensian embellishments by Hatfield/Burt. The star's private life (an oxymoron?) as "documented" in tabloid headlines gets an extra dash of spice by the smirking account supplied by the authors. Stories of conflict with Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry show Stewart as a canny operator not unlike some of the Shakepearean villians he has portrayed. Hatfield and Burt didn't need to resort to tabloidization; the truth is colorful and fascinating enough. Stewart fans hungry for information will find facts and documentatio! n in plenty here, and overlook the dramatizations.

I found the biographical information on Stewart very interesting and well done. Plus, the book gives a great look at the happenings behind the scenes during the making of the Next Generation television series. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and had a hard time putting it down.

If you want to know how to use or develop on an AS/400, this is definitely not your book. If, however, your goal is to develop a basic understanding of what an AS/400 actually is and what it does, it's not a bad choice.

This is a book that I think would sit well in the office of a manager who has only peripheral involvement with the management of an AS/400 system. It's also not a bad introduction to the AS/400.

I still keep this one in my office along with my other related books, but I've never been happy with what I got for the money.

This book is an excellent training reference and is structured much like a classic school text. It's printed nicely, large pages, good diagrams, and enough white space to off-set the important points in each section. This is very easy to study and scan for answers when you need a quick reference in fundamental AS/400 areas. Much of the contents are presented by IBM in their manuals, but we all know how stimulating they are! George Lin presents the lessons in a methodical manner. I have tons of highlighted sentences and dozens of bookmarks. This is a necessary text for anyone beginning in AS/400 operations. As I write this, the newer OS/400 dates this text somewhat. Perhaps George will refresh this for OS/400 V5R1? I'd buy it!

A very useful book giving an overview of AS/400 system and commonly used utilities/programming tools.

The concepts are explained in simple terms. There are many examples, lab excercises etc to make the reader comfortable with the system.

An essential book for any person who is just getting in to As/400 system.

This, along with vols II and III, is a remarkable and admirable work of scholarship. Hegel delivered his then unique course on the Philosophy of Religion on four occasions between 1821 and 1831. These three volumes essentially present all four lecture series. Although similarities run throughout, it is the development in his thought and change in emphasis (depending upon who was attacking him at the moment) that add to the fascination of this work. The footnotes are thorough. Comparatively easy to follow. Uniquely Hegelian mind stretching thought. Permeated with Hegel's own encyclopedic knowledge of everything (our Aristotle). Complements the Phenomenology and Logic. The Divine Spirit sees via us, and the resultant backflow is the Holy Spirit: that trinity again.

Georges Simenon, that most prolific of writers, strikes literary gold once again with this charming "policier." Maigret finds a seemingly unimportant homeless man on the dark streets of Paris. The man and his story are more important than we think, however. The plot is intriguing, the character studies are astute, and the language is elegant. I highly recommend this short detective novel.