For me, a 50-something dinosaur with years of Selectric experience behind me, Fingerman has made sense of a lot of Internet jargon and scary technical stuff. I have been "on the Net" for a while now, but being self-taught, had a fool for a student, and there was an awful lot of really basic stuff I had missed. The tips and hints in the book are real time-savers, and there are some excellent Web sites referenced as well. Worth reading!

"The Internet: an Ethnographic Approach" represents the very best of academic thinking and theorizing on the subject of the 'internet'. Miller and Slater provide us with a remarkable perspective on the ways in which real people, in this case Trinidadians (at home and across all the far flung points of the globe), use the internet. I was lucky enough to read this book in draft and have been eagerly waiting for its release so that I can share it around.

Here the internet is not just about the dot.com economy and the rush to get rich, rather it is an amazing constellation of technologies that help strengthen and reinvent families, that create new idioms and icons of identity, that allow new places and spaces to be Trinidadian. The book is rich with stories of mothers who can now keep in daily touch with their daughters in the UK and the US; of messages that pass from pieces of paper to email and back to paper again as they are transmitted between households without internet access; of websites all over the world that employ the same set of coherent Trinidadian symbols to project a nation's identity onto the world screen.

This collaboration is the first, hopefully of many, between Daniel Miller - a British anthropologist whose previous work theorizing consumption is just starting to be read in the US - and Don Slater - a British sociologist who most recently conducted fieldwork in online communities in the UK. It represents the emergence and convergence of several important trends: (1) the serious study of 'the internet' as a set of social practices (not just a piece or pieces of technology) that map onto real, rather than virtual geographies; (2) the possibility for new kinds of field methods that map onto these new technologies and new social practices - perhaps 'fieldwork' isn't 2 years in one place anymore; and (3) the potential for collaborative research and writing across between disciplines and between diverse practitioners with a range of experiences and expertise.

As an anthropologist working in the technology industry in the US, the ways in which this book also challenges the centrality of the US as a consumer of technology is particularly helpful. As it turns out, Trinidad is a big site for the consumption of the 'internet' - while everyone may not own their own computers, people are finding a variety of ways of accessing technology and their demands and desires for this new medium are instructive.

In this analysis of the internet, Miller and Slater provide not only a rich and nuanced ethnographic account of the internet in Trinidad (and beyond), but also important models for doing collaborative work, studying 'up' and across, and for using ethnography to understand technology.

Anyone working at the intersections of new technologies and social practice should own this book, and probably will. However, anyone working in the technology industry (from the dot.coms to the more traditional manufacturers) and around its extensive peripheries (from researchers to policy makers and funding bodies) should also buy this book and read it!

Dr Barrow did surgery on my head 2 months ago. I know for a fact the man is wonderful!!!

Everyone with any interest in probability or combinatorics should take a look at this book, and at least read Chapter 1, on the Buffon needle problem. It gives a beautiful conceptual solution, quite different from the more well-known solution using integrals to get conditional probabilities. I find it hard to imagine anyone reading Chapter 1 and not deciding to read the entire book.

I heard Rota lecture on this material, and the book has much the same feeling as his lectures: it is clear, elegant, and concise, full of illuminating examples. Relatively little background is required, and it should be easily accessible to beginning graduate students (or undergraduates with unusually strong backgrounds).

Too often Marx and Engels are reduced to philosophical caricatures in order to serve an author's own agenda. Richard Schmitt's book is noteworth for his careful analysis of the enduring issues and insights of Marx and Engels. I enjoyed this refreshing reminder of what all the fuss was about.

There are three ways of knowing truth: Revelation, Experience, and Abstraction - reasoning from the first two. This is called "Philosophy". Over the centuries, as the expression of Dogma developed, so too did Philosophy, creating where necessary the proper language to express the Church's teaching. False philosophy held by Catholics inevitably results in heresy. In this clear and easy to follow book, the main outlines of the philosophy held by orthodox theologians down through the centuries is made accessible to the average reader. Especially useful for saving the faith and reason of college students confronted by strange philosophical ideas.

This introductory book covers an unusually complete list of topics for such a complex subject. The first three chapters (Risk Analysis; Functions, Models and Uncertainties; and Regulation)are perhaps the most valuable. They cover the basics of risk analysis, defining essential terminology and concepts as they go. Risk is defined on page 1 as "the probability of a future loss", and this definition is applied consistently throughout. It is highly useful for prospective risk assessment, although -- as the authors acknowledge -- it is not a universally accepted definition. By contrast, *retrospective* risk assessment concepts (such as attributable risks calculated for litigation)and definitions that attempt to combine probability of a loss event with the probable severity of loss if it occurs (e.g., F-N curves and risk profiles) receive relaively little attention.

The discussion of ethical systems in regulation is welcome and illuminating. Formulas and numerical expressions throughout the text are kept elementary and the authors develop them carefully, assuming little more than high school algebra as a prerequisite.

Introduction to Risk Analysis follows the tradition of dividing the field into three major components: assessment, management, and communication of risk. It explains (without endorsing) the famous Red Book and Presidential Commission paradigms. The authors are careful to distiguish between risk analysis and processes of safety assessment and public health advocacy.

The ten chapters after the three introductory ones cover risk assessment(exposure assessment, dosimetry, extraction of potency estimates from epidemiology and toxicology data, risk characterization, comparative risk, and ecological risk), risk management, risk communication, and case studies.

The book emphasizes environmental and health applications as its major case material. Given the extensive use of risk analysis by federal regulatory agencies, this emphasis should be interesting and helpful to a wide audience of students and practitioners. While most of the text is devoted to chemical risks, the principles explained in the book apply broadly to other areas of applied risk analysis such as infectious diseases, radiation hazards, insurance, and financial and engineering risks.

The relatively sophisticated and detailed methods and models of risk in modern finance and other areas are not covered. Such details would be appropriate for a second course in risk analysis. This introduction provides general concepts and frameworks that may be useful in many applied areas but it can only introduce many topics and areas (e.g., decision-analytic approaches) that invite further study in a follow-up course or book.

The easy style and broad coverage make reading the book attractive. It is to be hoped that the authors follow with a second book for those whose appetites are whetted by this stimulating introduction to the field.

Anyone looking for a good chapter-by-chapter summary and commentary on the Lotus Sutra should look no further than this book. Rev. Suguro (he is a priest of the Nichiren Shu) also covers the two sutras that open and close the Lotus Sutra, the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings and the Sutra of Meditation on Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. He also highlights the seven famous parables of the Lotus Sutra, including the Parable of the Burning House (which is well known from Hui-Neng's discussion of it in the Platform Scripture) and the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Rev. Suguro also highlights those passages which are of particular importance to Nichiren Buddhism and also discusses the T'ien-t'ai system of analyzing the sutra according to the diffent functions of its various sections. There is also a brief discussion of Nichiren's reading of the Lotus Sutra in an appendix. I hasten to add, however, that this book was not written from a sectarian point of view. Rather, it was written to open up the Lotus Sutra for all Buddhists and non-Buddhists who wish to get a better understanding of what this most famous of Mahayana sutras is about. A valuable introductory work like this is especially important for the Lotus Sutra, since even famed Zen Masters like Hakuin had difficulty appreciating the depths of the Lotus Sutra simply by reading it on their own without a guide and/or a few satoris under their belt. Many Zen practitioners should also know that Dogen also frequently quoted from the Lotus Sutra in his monumental work the Shobogenzo. So I would recommend this book to anyone who might be wondering why Hui-Neng, Hakuin, and Dogen found the Lotus Sutra so fascinating. For Nichiren Buddhists, it should go without saying that a guide to the Lotus Sutra would be invaluable. The only drawback to this book is that it sometimes takes for granted that the reader has already had a basic eduction in foundational Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism. So this book is not a good introduction to Buddhist itself - but it does give a cursory explanation of basic Buddhist and basic Mahayana concepts as they appear within the Lotus Sutra. One last note, this book uses passages from the English translation of the Lotus Sutra by Rev. Senchu Murano. This translation is available from the Nichiren Shu and is highly regarded as a very authoritative and readily understandable translation.

Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, Rev. Ryuei McCormick

FINALLY! A true and honest look at what the bible says concerning the end times! The authors do a wonderful job of dismissing myths about the need for Babylon to be rebuilt. My favorite chapter was chapter 5 in which they gave valid proof to disbelieve that Russia will ever attack Israel. Excellent. I would recommend this to everyone.

Finally, a book about Political Risk Insurance that presents the basics in a well-written and easily digestible text. Wagner provides an insider's view of PRI and lets the reader know how the underwriters underwrite the insurance. I think the potential applications for information presented in this book are far reaching. I intend to use the information to help grow my business and protect myself against those unforeseen risks that every international business faces.

Political risk insurance is essential for a company with assets at risk overseas. This book is a quick but essential read for these company managers.