This book is very impressive in scope, and (as other reviewers have said) IS indispensable for any Drosophila laboratory. It is a very valuable addition to every Drosophila laboratory. The book covers virtually every area of Drosophila work. Many of the topics discussed are cutting edge, such as the chapter on RNA interference, targeted cell ablation, and biochemical preparations from Drosophila (such as soluble nuclear extracts and membrane proteins). Overall I am very pleased with the book, and glad I bought it! One section of the book I find particularly useful is the beginners guide to the Drosophila genome project. This section overviews the information available from the recently completed Drosophila genome project. It tell us what kinds of information are available about the fly genome, how this information was collected, and where we can download it from the internet (complete with internet web site addresses)!

My only criticism of the book is a criticism which applies to ALL manuals published by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press: the protocols are too superficial, and not dealt with in sufficient detail to allow a novice to carry out these techniques (which is what a manual ideally SHOULD do). This has been true of all the CSHLP manuals I have seen. Conspicuously absent from the CSHL publications is a TROUBLESHOOTING section, which can be referred to if the researcher runs into problems. As we all know, there are many small (and seemingly trivial) details to any protocol which, if not carried out properly, can make or break an experiment. Some steps in a protocol are always more fastidious than others, and it is critical for us to know which steps can be done with a bucket and which steps require an eyedropper.

For my money, the best and most comprehensive manual is the CURRENT PROTOCOLS IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY manual (Wiley and Sons), which is updated regularly, and has extensive troubleshooting sections attached to each protocol. (They have recently come out with a companion manual dealing exclusively with protein techniques.) Also, I highly recommend the METHODS IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY series (Humana Press) for its concise protocols and supplementary troubleshooting sections. If the researcher is familiar with the techniques the troubleshooting sections need not be consulted, but if the researcher is a novice the troubleshooting sections are invaluable. Unfortunately a Drosophila manual is not available from either of these publishers, but this CSHL manual makes a good substitute. I recommend this book for all Drosophilists!

The complete index of DROSOPHILA PROTOCOLS (CSHLP) is available at the publishers website given below...

This latest edition by Sullivan et al. is the best protocols manual for Drosophila that I've seen. It should be a staple for any fly lab. It provides the most up-to-date protocols for common techniques (ie staining, dissections, cytology) as well as more recent additions (i.e. DNA microarrays, neuroactive drugs, GFP reporters). Moreover, the protocols are clear, detailed, and easy to follow.

"The Good Society" is a thick book brought to us from the same people who wrote "Habits of the Heart." I never read that book, but if it is anything like "The Good Society," I think I will take a pass on it. Maybe my slightly negative opinion of this book is due to the fact that it was required reading for a class. Assigned reading often leads to disappointment and disillusionment. I avoided reading literature for years because of the Gestapo-like tactics of high school English teachers. What is surprising is that this book covers topics I am usually interested in learning about. I guess we can't win them all.

The main thesis of "The Good Society" is simple: we, meaning American society, are no longer in control of our institutions. The authors define institutions in a broad sweep, encompassing economic, political, religious, educational, law, and international organizations and bodies (while curiously ignoring the media, the most egregious institution of them all because they help prop up all of the other ones). Only by regaining control over institutions, by making them responsive to democratic ideals, can we achieve what the authors refer to as a "good society." An introductory chapter introduces the reader to several individuals involved in daily life, from a woman working for a company facing a merger to a couple attempting to help the poor in an underdeveloped urban area to an economist forced to make cost-benefit analyses with people's lives. Each of these people understands there is something wrong with the way they do things and the results of their actions. The authors point out that this is because people no longer challenge, let alone recognize, the underlying institutions responsible for our lives. For example, the woman facing problems from the company merger does not think to question the underlying economic system that reduces her to a mere number on a piece of paper. In short, people consider institutions as fixed, permanent entities impervious to change.

Central to this theme of institutional chaos is an examination of John Locke's belief in the rugged individual determining his own future in the social and economic realm. The authors argue that this old belief is no longer valid in today's world even though people still cling to those ideas. Through an examination of the economic history of the United States, "The Good Society" shows how the emergence of huge capitalist enterprises at the end of the 19th century effectively blunted any hopes that an individual could control his destiny. Even more dangerous to the Lockean ideal as it appears in the modern consciousness is the realization that corporations are not subject to democratic restrictions. Unfortunately, many institutions imitate or act as a support system (again, the media being the most rabid supporter) to corporations in today's society, with a concomitant resiliency to the type of public responsibility required in a healthy democratic state.

All of this high falutin' talk sounds interesting to those who live and breath politics or believe that corporations are out to run the world. But the book goes beyond mere political discourse to include analyses on education, religion, and law. Time and time again, the authors discover a sense of powerlessness among citizens when it comes to dealing with public institutions. A chapter on education shows how students who should come away with a broad area of knowledge end up as stooges for the business world. The section on religion reveals very little about deep theological discussion but much about how to cope in a world run by elites operating with the agendas of profit and politics. What ultimately emerges is how little effect real people are having on any social system existing today. The individual is dead, replaced by Howard Beale's humanoids, creatures that look human but are not as we gamely try to keep abreast of our chaotic, soulless institutions.

The book concludes with some recommendations about how to restore sanity. I do not really want to insult the authors, but these points for the recovery of our institutions are about as useless as Saddam Hussein running for president of the United States in 2004. For any type of sweeping change to work in this society, a devoted and dedicated populace is paramount. Instead, we have some 200 million couch potatoes, work dodgers, and celebrity worshippers. As long as the ballgame is on television, the mall is open, and the car is in the garage most people are content to let things ride.

The biggest problem I had with this book was the dense language. It seemed as though the authors had a problem paring their ideas down to a manageable length. I personally do not have a problem reading a big book with difficult prose, but if the authors wished to stay true to their goal of informing the public about institutional problems they failed miserably. "The Good Society" is just not accessible to the general population. Many people I know would read roughly one page of the text and put it down in a hurry. How are you going to solve the problems of unresponsive institutions when people will not turn off the television long enough to realize they need to become a force for change?

"The Good Society" covers interesting ground, but the treatment needs some serious editing in order to reach a wider audience.

This book is required reading for our Organizational Psych program as we look at the context in which organizational dynamics, and problems, develop. If you thought Bellah et al. made a case about communitarian values in Habits, then here you can go forward with them... Something to ruminate on.

This book by Robert Bellah and his colleagues elaborates upon the need for re-thinking the relationships between individuals and social institutions. Each of the major topical chapters includes an historical overview and practical suggestions for institutional change.

Thomas Sullivan provides a clear, consise, and easy to use reference guide for anyone to use. This book not only contains actual text of some major environmental laws, but it also sites case studies and court decisions, all in an easy to read format. This book is a must for anyone dealing in environmental matters, and is a good source of reference for anyone concerned with the environment and public policy.

"Habits of the Heart" is the authors' attempt to conduct a sociological study of "middle-class" American ideals and values. The book was somewhat revolutionary when first published (the early 1980s), primarily for exposing the pervasive individualism (and resulting alienation and isolation) in modern American life. The authors show how the classic myth of the rugged American individualist has been compounded by the modern pscyhotherapeutic culture, and simultaneously stripped of the more communitarian aspects of civic republicanism and biblical religion that provided an historical counter-balance. The result is the now-common (but poorly understood) view that one is totally autonomous, entering and conducting all social relations on the basis of pure self-interest - a view that is doing a great deal of damage to families and to the American social fabric as a whole.

The book, however, has a number of flaws. For a study based upon interviews with hundreds of individuals, the authors fail to support their assertions with either statistical data or detailed case studies (except for the first chapter, which is the most interesting part of the book). Instead, the text is a steady stream of broad generalizations, occasionally sprinkled with carefully-selected examples, and the authors' historical analysis. And, unfortunately, their analysis clearly reflects their positions in establishment-liberal academia. They reject (especially in the new Introduction) the logical suggestion that the rejection of traditional religion and morality is largely to blame for rampant individualism and social break-down. Instead, embracing an economic determinism worthy of Marx himself, they suggest that free-market capitalism and the decline of labor unions are to blame. Similarly, they call for greater communitarianism, and note that modern "therapeutic" worldviews provide no sound basis for such communitarianism. However, the authors are unwilling to embrace a sound basis for it, either, repeatedly pointing to the civic-minded and caring values of "biblical religion" (a.k.a. Christianity), but then declaring that a return to traditional religion is no longer a viable option. In short, the authors of this important work betray the same relativism and postmodernism that is behind the very individualism they decry.

HABITS OF THE HEART is a tour de force whose insights into America are as relevant today as they were nearly twenty years ago when the book was published. It was hailed at that time as an instant classic of sociology, and compared to such influential works as MIDDLETOWN and THE LONELY CROWD. If anything, its insights are even more pertinent now. It endures because it wrestles with America's eternal contradictions. Given the persistence of these contradictions and their cynical exploitation by those in power over the past two decades, it remains as fresh and compelling as the day it was published.

The subtitle "Individualism and Commitment in American Life" is the main trope guiding the book, a bipolar perspective that neatly describes the American inability to reconcile the "utilitarian individualism" of Hobbes' "war of all against all" as exemplified in the liberal economic philosophy that grew up with America, with the "expressive individualism" of Whitman and Emerson which developed as a reaction to (in Henry James'' words), the "grope of wealth." The final chapter which elucidates "Six American Visions of the Public Good" describing them as three pairs of conflicting visions: "The Establishment versus Populism," "Neocapitalism versus Welfare Liberalism" and "The Administered Society versus Economic Democracy." But because they are dualistic does not mean they are exclusive categories. As Bellah and his fellow authors describe it, these competing visions often hold as many similarities as differences.

Specifically, from the latter 19th century until the depression both The Establishment and Populists recognized there was and needed to be a moral component in American public life. The Establishment side was represented Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," while on the Populist side were economic socialists such as Eugene Debs. The mores of the that time, de Toqueville's "habits of the heart," were still moralistic, still partaking of the ideal of the legacy of Jefferson's freeholding citizen even capitalism shook America off its foundations.

Of the next pair, Neocapitalism (which rose to its greatest heights in the form of Ronald Reagan) and Welfare Liberalism (exemplified by FDR), while they have different means look to the same ends according the authors. The first seeks to empower citizens through the "war of all against all" and keep the country competitive by unraveling the safety net. Slackers and failures must not be encouraged to take advantage of the winners because it is morally debilitating for society as a whole. Welfare Liberalism on the other hand believes that the net should be stronger because it has less confidence in the Market God believes in better chances and social justice, but still views Americans as individuals who must be encouraged in the Hobbesian war.

Of the last two visions, Felix Rohatyn, is the poster boy for the Administered Society -- a continuation of the Progressive ideal of scientific "mastery" a la Lippman, while Michael Harrington represents Economic Democracy. As compared to Rohaytn, who endorses a "partnership" of elites who work to adjust and balance the multiplicitous machine of political, economic and social interests, Harrington would spread out the decision making to at least nominally include the people. Harrington admits this would require a massive reorientation of consciousness -- an unlikely event in the view of the authors. But ultimately the authors say both sides endorse a similar kind of governance by expert, without moral content. The authors saw this last pair dimly stirring when they wrote this book in the mid-80s. Their prediction is perhaps half true as we have also witnessed the covert reassertion of NeoCapitalism in the last three administrations, if especially the current administration.

Along the way they also trace the politically neutralizing penetration of the individualistic "therapeutic mode" into religious life, the loss of "communities of memory" based on shared values, along with the "second language" of religious and republican virtue. All have which have acted to depoliticize American culture. Where once there was a language of sin and redemption, there is now only the therapeutic language of the self, a radical self which is encouraged by the therapeutic mode to consider one's self and one's happiness as paramount and thus mirrors and supports the ideology of the free market. We richly deserve the oxymoronic label of "private citizen."

This dualistic strategy is supplemented by the touchstone use of Alexis de Toqueville's political and sociological insights to show how the seeds of much of American life today were sown early on. A fairly effective narrative trope, it serves their often stated goal of showing that it is through our shared history, our communities of memory, that we may see how others confronted the shifting landscapes of political economy, that we may today find a way to stop or at least hold at bay, in the words of Habermas, the "invasion of the lifeworld by systems logic." They maintain that such a course cannot be found through nostalgia for older institutions that once stood athwart the Mega-State. Many of those institutions, such as traditional churches, were paternalistic and discriminatory. Still social movements such as abolitionism grew out of them and were sustained by them. To recognize how the message of freedom forged by the founding generation has been reforged into a double-edged sword to enforce radical individualism, and destroy religious and republican morality and virtue. Government by a managerial elite, a kind of "democratic despotism" which de Toqueville saw as a potential of individualistic American mores has arrived.

As an example of the earlier language of America, they cite as an example Martin Luther King deployment of the language of the Bible and republican virtue in his "I Have A Dream" speech. His ringing biblical cadences, his use of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and the words of the old Negro spiritual: "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last," evoked our foundational civic and religious language. Bellah, like King, helps us remember and recapture the earlier language of America.

HABITS OF THE HEART is a tour de force whose insights into America are as relevant today as they were nearly twenty years ago when the book was published. It was hailed at that time as an instant classic of sociology, and compared to such influential works as MIDDLETOWN and THE LONELY CROWD. If anything, its insights are even more pertinent now.

The subtitle "Individualism and Commitment in American Life" is the main trope guiding the book, a bipolar perspective that neatly describes the American inability to reconcile the "utilitarian individualism" of Hobbes' "war of all against all" as exemplified in the liberal economic philosophy that grew up with America, with the "expressive individualism" of Whitman and Emerson which developed as a reaction to (in Henry James'' words), the "grope of wealth." The final chapter which elucidates "Six American Visions of the Public Good" describing them as three pairs of conflicting visions: "The Establishment versus Populism," "Neocapitalism versus Welfare Liberalism" and "The Administered Society versus Economic Democracy" is the best example of this dualist view of America, but as Bellah and his fellow authors describe it, these competing visions often hold as many similarities as differences.

Specifically, from the latter 19th century until the depression both The Establishment and Populists recognized there was and needed to be a moral component in American public life. The Establishment side was represented Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," while on the Populist side were economic socialists such as Eugene Debs. The mores of the that time, de Toqueville's "habits of the heart," were still moralistic, still partaking of the ideal of the legacy of Jefferson's freeholding citizen even capitalism shook America off its foundations.

Of the next pair, Neocapitalism (which rose to its greatest heights in the form of Ronald Reagan) and Welfare Liberalism (exemplified by FDR), while they have different means look to the same ends according the authors. The first seeks to empower citizens through the "war of all against all" and keep the country competitive by unraveling the safety net. Slackers and failures must not be encouraged to take advantage of the winners because it is morally debilitating for society as a whole. Welfare Liberalism on the other hand believes that the net should be stronger because it has less confidence in the Market God believes in better chances and social justice, but still views Americans as individuals who must be encouraged in the Hobbesian war.

Of the last two visions, Felix Rohatyn, is the poster boy for the Administered Society -- a continuation of the Progressive ideal of scientific "mastery" a la Lippman, while Michael Harrington represents Economic Democracy. As compared to Rohaytn, who endorses a "partnership" of elites who work to adjust and balance the multiplicitous machine of political, economic and social interests, Harrington would spread out the decision making to at least nominally include the people. Harrington admits this would require a massive reorientation of consciousness -- an unlikely event in the view of the authors. But ultimately the authors say both sides endorse a similar kind of governance by expert, without moral content. The authors saw this last pair dimly stirring when they wrote this book in the mid-80s. Their prediction is perhaps half true as we have also witnessed the covert reassertion of NeoCapitalism in the last three administrations, if especially the current administration.

This dualistic strategy is supplemented by the touchstone use of Alexis de Toqueville's political and sociological insights to show how the seeds of much of American life today were sown early on. A fairly effective narrative trope, it serves their often stated goal of showing that it is through our shared history, our communities of memory, that we may see how others confronted the shifting landscapes of political economy, that we may today find a way to stop or at least hold at bay, in the words of Habermas, the "invasion of the lifeworld by systems logic." They maintain that such a course cannot be found through nostalgia for older institutions that once stood athwart the Mega-State. Many of those institutions, such as traditional churches, were paternalistic and discriminatory. Still social movements such as abolitionism grew out of them and were sustained by them. To recognize how the message of freedom forged by the founding generation has been reforged into a double-edged sword to enforce radical individualism, and destroy religious and republican morality and virtue. Government by a managerial elite, a kind of "democratic despotism" which de Toqueville saw as a potential of individualistic American mores has arrived.

As an example of the earlier language of America, they cite as an example Martin Luther King deployment of the language of the Bible and republican virtue in his "I Have A Dream" speech. His ringing biblical cadences, his use of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and the words of the old Negro spiritual: "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last," evoked our foundational civic and religious language. Bellah, like King, helps us remember and recapture the earlier language of America.

Along the way they also trace the politically neutralizing penetration of the individualistic "therapeutic mode" into religious life, the loss of "communities of memory" based on shared values, along with the "second language" of religious and republican virtue. All have which have acted to depoliticize American culture. Where once there was a language of sin and redemption, there is now only the therapeutic language of the self, a radical self which is encouraged by the therapeutic mode to consider one's self and one's happiness as paramount and thus mirrors and supports the ideology of the free market. We richly deserve the oxymoronic label of "private citizen."

I first used this book as a student-I found it useful then, today I insist that all managers reporting to me review, and use, the concepts and techniques provided by the authors.

The book is useful, in that concepts are well explained, the examples are relevant, but most important for me is that it provides managers who have little or no experience in determining project costs with a handy means (including formulae and worked examples) of doing so.

I have tried to get copies of the most recent edition, the popularity seems to be such that the book is sold out. I most readily recommend this to anyone who needs to justify capital expenditure, who needs to do project costing, and who has to prepare proposals for submission to the boss (or the board of directors)in order to obtain funds for capital expansion, refurbishment or simply equipment upgrades.