Teri Daniels' Math Man features Timothy Bush's whimsical drawings as it tells of a class which visits the Mighty Mart looking for math problems. A healthy dose of math savvy ranges from dividing a watermelon to fit in a fridge to dividing family snacks. The realistic, practical applications of math is refreshing.

Great, if you like poetry!

As a family physician and behavioral scientist with strong interest in the "placebo effect", I can say without reservation that this is one of the best all-around reviews available. The "placebo paradox" has confounded reductionist thinkers for decades: if there is nothing in the pill, then how can it cause health effects? Dan Moerman doesn't have to take us far out of the conventional box to show that - of course - it isn't the inert pills, but instead the meanings attached with them that have influenced outcomes in so many scientific experiments. Meaning, belief and understanding govern how we think and feel, which in turn effect our physical and psychological health. Empty colored pills, sham surgery and suggestion lead to real health effects, even under the most rigorous of settings: randomized, double-blind, controlled trials. While reasonably comprehensive and highly accurate, this book is also accessible, as it is written with a style and flair that should prove attractive to most readers. Highly recommended it is!

Bruce Barrett MD PhD
Department of Family Medicine
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Wonderful book containing a ton of information and health hazards that we should start to recognize. Mold is coming to the forefront as a major cause of health problems. It's in the air and we should seriously look at this problem exactly as the Medallion Team has.

This book is a great resource for anyone interested in the "Lewis and Clark" account of how the use technology began to be incorporated in the organization of media and information sciences in the mid 1980's.

A great tool for your thesis! A must have for your office bookshelf.

Although Czitron tackles an ambitious subject, mapping the history of the media, he succeeds where so many others have failed.

Czitron traces the media not as separate and discrete events, but as arenas wherein we as a society have sought to confront some of the more fundamental issues of our time. To me, the value of the book lies precisely in this uncovering of social themes. Unlike other media history books, which show how one medium influenced another's development (e.g., the telegraph sparked the radio) and then move on, Czitron shows us that most of the issues that arose early on are still very much with us (e.g., social regulation).

As a college professor, I frequently refer back to Czitron whenever I bring media discussions into my classes. My copy is dog-earred from several reads. And each time I read it, I capture some new nuance that I overlooked before. But, even though I say I am a professor, I can honestly admit that the book is easily accessible to students of mass communication at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

For those outside academia, this may or may not be the book for you, depending largely on your interest in issues of power and/or social thought. If, for example, you have read any of the Chicago School theorists like John Dewey or Walter Lippmann or are into any of the contemporary cultural theorists, you will like this book. If you are looking, on the other hand, for quick and dirty armchair reading, try something else. Also, if you are looking for someone who provides "THE one-and-only history of the mass media," this book is not for you.

In sum, Czitrom manages to provide several new vistas into contemporary media, challenging some conventions and engaging actively all who are willing to engage him. This isn't to say that you will always agree with him. But he makes his case and yet manages to leave room for ongoing discussion...just what any good author is supposed to do.

I've used this and the previous edition of Greenberg's text for my epidemiology and literature interpretation course for Physician Assistant students. I've found the text very readable and nicely linked to clinical practice. Each chapter starts with a clinical case around which the chapter is focused. The study questions at the end of each chapter also are useful.

It is an excellent introductory text for clinicians/health professional students. Probably would not be the best choice for a epidemiology course in an epidemiology graduate program or career epidemiologists.

I read this in a university library and found it so engrossing and useful that I needed a copy of my own. An almanac initally sounds very dull, but Varisco's extensive commentary provides so many details on so many subjects, its simply amazing. It's not simply about science or even agriculture, it also contains a great deal of anthropolgical data that you don't find in other similar works. All too frequently, books dealing with the past dwell on the history, rather than the reality of the time. This work really captures the feel of the time period with its lavish details and research. Much of it could really qualify as trivia, but that's really what makes it such a wonderful piece of work, as it isn't just concerned with the big issues of the time, but with what every man knew. If you're at all interested in what the period was like, beyond simple history, this is a great book. It's largely concerned with things related to agriculture as it's a very protracted translation and explanation of an almanac, so covers crops, the weather (a topic everyone's always discussed, past or present), health, astronomy, sex, the environmental, and many things in between. This presents a real portrait of the time period beyond what the title implies. This is a very thorough yet wide ranging work. It's very light on religion, but there's scores of books on medieval Islam, so this is not a great flaw. This is not quite like any other book you'll find on the period and thus why it is so great.

I'm currently using Frankforter's Medieval Millennium as the textbook for my survey of medieval history. It's the most successful textbook I've ever assigned! (And that's not just me; the students agree.) The book is highly readable, catches people's interest well, is comprehensive in its coverage, and even has interesting pictures. This is definitely the text I'll be using in the future. I'd recommend it highly to anyone who wants a one-volume overview of medieval Europe.

Sir. Daniel provides an excellent overview of the issues related to distance learning and the impact it will have on society.