This book adds both novelty and inspiration to an otherwise dull coffee table or mind. More touristically, this is one of the special books that make you go to the place and find where the interesting buildings not in the travel guides are. The pictures are excellent, not cropping so much as to glamourise rubbish, and not putting things out of context: in short, well edited text and visuals. One note, it has nothing to do with the experience of being in a third world country, but it is for the visual pleasure only.

I own at least a dozen books in which the second word of the Title is "Style", but this is certainly one of the best. Well organized, informative and full of beautiful photographs. Looking through this book you can learn about the Architecture and Design of Myanmar. The book is divided into sections dealing with Religious and Secular Architecture, Early and Modern Architecture and Arts and Crafts. At the end of the book there is a section of Textiles and Costumes, and another entitled the Pagoda Market which shows photographs and gives descriptions of vendors of various types of handicrafts. Thus a cross section of the different aspects of the Myanmar Style are given, without adaptations by Western Interior Decorators. Some "Style" Books are misleading because they show the adaptations, primarily in the West, of Stylistic Elements. While these books are ok, I prefer to see the Style as it actually is in Myanmar, not a Architectural Digest type of interpretation. This book is free from this. The text is concise and informative. Not overloooked should be the quality of the photographs and the paper and printing, which in this case are all excellent. Some other books of this genre are not up to high quality. No worries here however. I highly recommend this book. It will make you want to visit Myanmar, or at least think about redesigning in your home.

Finally, a book on art and design in Myanmar/Burma that does justice to the living traditions as well as the colonial and pre-colonial empires. Superb photography, thoughtful text, and some quirky subjects, too, such as the chapter The Great Pagoda Alley. Enjoyable.

Nietzsche and Wagner were adept at picking on their contemporaries in a way that is so thoroughly unpopular now that I would not be surprised if this book is never again printed with the Introduction by J.P. Stern which was in the 1983 version reprinted in 1989, and which I purchased in 1990. It is clear from that introduction that David Strauss had read the first portion of this book and furnished his friend Rapp with a clear question about Nietzsche's character in a letter of 19 December 1873. "First they draw and quarter you, then they hang you. The only thing I find interesting about the fellow is the psychological point -- how can one get into such a rage with a person whose path one has never crossed, in brief, the real motive of this passionate hatred." (p. xiv) Those who are familiar with legal procedures, or how the media treats anyone who is suddenly perceived to be a fink, might enjoy this book as something that might be considered an unforgivable outburst today. Who could wish for such a triumph now, over intellectual paths which crossed twice? When Nietzsche was young, he perceived a scholar who displayed the real Straussian genius. Later, Nietzsche could only find a writer who, "if he is not to slip back into the Hegelian mud, is condemned to live out his life on the barren and perilous quicksands of newspaper style." (p. 54) I could have rated this book a bit higher, for being much more truthful than is expected of scholarly work today, but the kind of scholars who read these books might have no idea what I meant, or they know that they are better off not raising questions about those political issues which are most questionable. Nietzsche's real fearlessness began here.

Nietzsche wrote "David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer" in 1873, the first of his Unfashionable Observations, at the behest of Richard Wagner. David Strauss was an eminent theologian, whose The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1864) had had a tremendous impact due to its demystification of Jesus' life. Strauss had contended that the supernatural claims made about the historical Jesus could be explained in terms of the particular needs of his community. Although Strauss defends Christianity for it's moral ideals, his demythologizing of Jesus appealed to Nietzsche.

Nevertheless, Wagner had been publicly denounced by Strauss in 1865 for having persuaded Ludwig II to fire a musician rival. Not one to forget an assault, Wagner encouraged Nietzsche to read Strauss' recent The Old and the New Faith (1872), which advocated the rejection of the Christian faith in favor of a Darwinian, materialistic and patriotic worldview. Wagner described the book to Nietzsche as extremely superficial, and Nietzsche agreed with Wagner's opinion, despite the similarity of his own views to Strauss' perspective on religion.

This Unfashionable Observation, accordingly, was Nietzsche's attempt to avenge Wagner by attacking Strauss' recent book. In fact, the essay is at least as much an argumentative attack on Strauss as on his book, for Nietzsche identifies Strauss as a cultural "Philistine" and exemplar of pseudoculture. The resulting essay appears extremely intemperate, although erudite, filled with references to many of Nietzsche's scholarly contemporaries. The climax is a literary tour de force, in which Nietzsche cites a litany of malapropisms from Strauss, interspersed with his own barbed comments.

Nietzsche's second Unfashionable Observation, "On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life" (1874) is "unfashionable" because it questions the apparent assumption of nineteenth century German educators that historical knowledge is intrinsically valuable. Nietzsche argues, in contrast, that historical knowledge is valuable only when it has a positive effect on human beings' sense of life. Although he acknowledges that history does provide a number of benefits in this respect, Nietzsche also contends that there are a number of ways in which historical knowledge could prove damaging to those who pursued it and that many of his contemporaries were suffering these ill effects.

Nietzsche contends that history can play three positive roles, which he terms "monumental," "antiquarian," and "critical." Monumental history brings the great achievements of humanity into focus. This genre of history has value for contemporary individuals because it makes them aware of what is possible for human beings to achieve. Antiquarian history, history motivated primarily out of a spirit of reverence for the past, can be valuable to contemporary individuals by helping them appreciate their lives and culture. Critical history, history approached in an effort to pass judgment, provides a counter-balancing effect to that inspired by antiquarian history. By judging the past, those engaged in critical history remain attentive to flaws and failures in the experience of their culture, thereby avoiding slavish blindness in their appreciation of it.

The problem with historical scholarship in his own time, according to Nietzsche, was that historical knowledge was pursued for its own sake. He cited five dangers resulting from such an approach to history: (1) Modern historical knowledge undercuts joy in the present, since it makes the present appear as just another episode. (2) Modern historical knowledge inhibits creative activity by convincing those made aware of the vast sweep of historical currents that their present actions are too feeble to change the past they have inherited. (3) Modern historical knowledge encourages the sense that the inner person is disconnected from the outer world by assaulting the psyche with more information than it can absorb and assimilate. ( 4) Modern historical knowledge encourages a jaded relativism toward reality and present experience, motivated by a sense that because things keep changing present states of affairs do not matter. (5) Modern historical knowledge inspires irony and cynicism about the contemporary individual's role in the world; the historically knowledgeable person comes to feel increasingly like an afterthought in the scheme of things, imbued by a sense of belatedness.

Although Nietzsche was convinced that the current approach to history was psychologically and ethically devastating to his contemporaries, particularly the young, he contends that antidotes could reverse those trends. One antidote is the unhistorical, the ability to forget how overwhelming the deluge of historical information is, and to "enclose oneself within a bounded horizon." A second antidote is the suprahistorical, a shift of focus from the ongoing flux of history to "that which bestows upon existence the character of the eternal and stable, towards art and religion."

Nietzsche's third Unfashionable Observation "Schopenhauer as Educator" (1874), probably provides more information about Nietzsche himself than it does about Schopenhauer or his philosophy.

Schopenhauer, in Nietzsche's idealizing perspective, is exemplary because he was so thoroughly an individual genius. Schopenhauer was one of those rare individuals whose emergence is nature's true goal in producing humanity, Nietzsche suggests. He praises Schopenhauer's indifference to the mediocre academicians of his era, as well as his heroism as a philosophical loner.

Strangely, given Schopenhauer's legendary pessimism, Nietzsche praises his "cheerfulness that really cheers" along with his honesty and steadfastness. But Nietzsche argues that in addition to specific traits that a student might imitate, Schopenhauer offers a more important kind of example. Being himself attuned to the laws of his own character, Schopenhauer directed those students who were incapable of insight to recognize the laws of their own character. By reading and learning from Schopenhauer, one could develop one's own individuality.

"Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" (1876), the fourth and final of Nietzsche's published Unfashionable Observations, was intended as an essay of praise to Wagner, much like "Schopenhauer as Educator." Nietzsche's relationship with Wagner had been strained by the time he wrote the essay, however, and the tension is evident in the text, which emphasizes Wagner's psychology (a theme that would preoccupy Nietzsche in many of his future writings). Nietzsche, himself, may have been concerned about the extent to which the essay might be perceived as unflattering, for he considered not publishing it. Ultimately, Nietzsche published a version of the essay that was considerably less critical of Wagner than were earlier drafts, and Wagner was pleased enough to send a copy of the essay to King Ludwig.

Herein lie the seeds of Nieztsche's notion of Eternal Recurrence, which will germinate in The Gay Science, and bear fruit in Zarathustra.

Neitzsche's treatment of the four "types" of history in "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life" is facsinating, both in its own right, and as a prelude to the notion of eternal recurrence.

This is really a book that must be read by anyone serioulsly interested in Nietzsche's philosophy.

I've been a fan of the OUP short introdctions to various philosophers, they don't have one on Dennett, so I got this instead. I assumed that this book would be similar to the OUPs. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's much better (except for the ugly cover and poor quality printing). It's lively, clever and not in the least bit patronizing. Generally speaking, the difiiculty with analytic philosophy of mind lies not so much in the specific problems and philosophical solutions floating around, so much as with the ridiculously dense prose that most philosophers write. Symons' book is a very clear guide to the recent debates for the novice and a breath of fresh air for professional philosophers. Personally, I've gained a new appreciation for the sophistication of Dennett's view, and contrary to what you might have picked up from philosophical hearsay, he's not just saying that we're all robots. However, I have to say, I bought the book as a quick way of getting a short account of Dennett's ethics. But as it turns out, there's no real mention of his ethical theory in Symons' book! Maybe it's because the author is smart enough to know that this is the weakest part of Dennett's thinking. Aside from that important deficiency, this is a lovely little book. Symons' account of Dennett's theory of consciousness is very clear. He does in about 20 pages what it takes Dennett himself 350 pages to do in Consciousness Explained.

John Symons has produced a beautiful, small book on the philosopher of mind Daniel Dennett, which is actually a full-fledged introduction to the philosophy of mind today. A high-level introduction, mind you, which takes the reader back to the heyday of analytic philosophy with W.V.O. Quine: Symons may be the first specialist of philosophy of mind to really understand its background in the rest of analytic philosophy, and this is partly why he can write so clearly and not clog up our understanding with too much 'C-fibre firing', 'weak supervenience' and the like. Dennett's important notion of "heterophenomenology" (which may be less far removed from phenomenology 'tout court' than either Dennett or Symons think) finally becomes clear. Besides writing well and clearly, Symons makes several novel contributions to philosophical thinking on these topics. My personal favorite has to do with what he calls "the normal respect for science", in Dennett's terms "nothing special, TIME magazine standard" (note that Dennett might be thinking of TIME a few decades ago!). Symons shows nicely how philosophy, and cognition in general, should not be understood as something separate from the natural world. There is only one world we live (and think) in: the natural world. As John Dewey put it in the early 1920s, experience, science and philosophy are continuous. Science gives us the best understanding we have of this world; but philosophy and even 'metaphysics' have a job to do as well, in non-doctrinaire terms. Anyone interested in these issues, not just in the 'homuncular' philosophy of Dennett, should read Symons' book.

A remarkably lucid, concise, and comprehensive introduction not only to Dennett's work but to the last 60 years of philosophy of mind--and in less than 100 pages. It frames debates with such clarity and evenhandedness that it makes you wonder how the field ever became as muddled as it is today. (Though the book's dextrous avoidance of jargon suggests an answer to THAT question.) Most current philosophers are more like philosophy critics, quibbling ad nauseum about their colleagues' interpretations of their interpretations of an earlier generation's interpretation of a doctrine whose original proponents abandoned it years ago. Dennett is one of the few who tackles the big questions in philosophy of mind head on. Because he doesn't waste time negotiating among all of his discipline's various voguish "isms," and because he defends his positions with so much evidence from the hard sciences, he tends to get classified as a cognitive scientist, or a cognitive psychologist, or an artificial intelligence theorist, or even an evolotionary biologist (when he's defending Darwin). But with this judicious overview of more than 30 years of evolving thought, on everything from free will to the question of whether machines can feel, Symons reclaims Dennett for philosophy. And not a moment too soon.

Wildcat has given practical understanding to Deloria's chant that Indian education should honor the essential tenants that define American Indian approaches to learning. Where the book, Primal Awareness, looks at the psychology that underlies this approach, Power and Place seeks to convince decision makers about Indian education that to replace indigenous priorities about power and place with "western" priorities is to continue cultural genocide.

Power And Place: Indian Education In America is a selection and compilation of sixteen thoughtful, informative essays by authors Vine Deloria, Jr. (a Standing Rock Sioux and a retired university professor of political science and history), and Daniel R. Wildcat (a member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and an American Indian Studies faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University). Both of these learned authors present their perspectives on Native American education from public school through college levels, the challenges presented by the modern educational system and the question of self-determination as it affects young minds and futures. A book of thoughtful and thought provoking observations, Power And Place is a highly recommended contribution to Native American Studies and American Educational History supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections.

In Power And Place: Indian Education In America, Vine Deloria, Jr. (a Standing Rock Sioux, history professor, and former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians) effectively collaborates with Daniel Wildcat (a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, co-director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center, and American Indian Studies faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas) to examine a range of pertinent issues facing Native American students as they progress through school systems, colleges, and move on into the professions. The philosophic, practical, and visionary aspects of contemporary Native American educational experiences are laid out in an impressive collection of sixteen essays. Power And Place is concise reference that is especially recommended for Native American Studies reference collections, as well as reading lists for those directly involved with American Education Studies as related to Native American experiences and concerns.

Roger Daniels presents us with a book that speaks not only to those of Japanese American ancestry, but to all Americans. It brings into question our civil liberties and freeedoms. The Japanese American relocation during WWI serves as the first time that the American government has violated the rights of an ethnic group (the 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese Americans) to which its Constitution had given citizenship. The Japanese American incarceration was an example of the Anglo American propensity to react against non-whites. Not only did it violate the spirit of the Constitution, but it ironically took place within a nation which was simultaneously fighting for the release of another ethnic minority, the Jews from concentration camps across Europe.

In 114 pages on actual text and several pages of pictures Dr. Roger Daniels shows the reader the plight of Japanese Americans through the war years and after. Dr. Daniels, who has written several books on the Japanese Concentration camps, shows us how discrimination against the Chinese led to later discrimination against the Japanese. He shows us how America reacated to Japanse-Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He shows us How the American Government can imprison its own citizends because of their racial heritage. This is a really good little book that will give the reader a good outline of how racial tensions with Japanese immigrants began, dealings with Japanese-Americans after the bombings, life in the Concentration Camps, and the redress movement. A book to be read by those who want to know the underbelly of American History

With "Prisoners Without Trial", Roger Daniels provides an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the internment of Japanese American's during World War II. This well regarged historian has crafted a splendid little book that is a compilation of years of work, yet extremely clear and concise. The chapters are chronologically ordered to make this book easy to read for those who are not thoroughly versed in historical texts. There is an abundance of cleanly presented primary evidence along with interesting analytical viewpoints. This book was a quick, informative and interesting read, and I would highly recommend it.

-Molly

This book is really good for process engineers. I don't know if there is a different edition of the one I have but there's little about CHEMCAD, the book is too focused on other simulation softwares and if you don't have one of those; solving some proposed problems gets really difficult and frustating. Packed with heuriustics on process and equipment design.Excellent choice!

Covering the main topics in chemical process synthesis an design, this book present a broad view of the state of the art techniques and methods to achieve an optimum design.

With this work, Dr. Seider, et al, have given an invaluable contribution to the teaching of this field, presenting a logical an principle based approach for the "basic plant design", in contrast to the experience based traditional view.

Focusing on the extensive use of commercial process simulators, the book presents an overview of the conceptual basis of process simulation and optimization,but not its mathematical detail, giving the engineer the opportunity to focus on the process instead of focus on the mathematical and computational problem.

The ultimate book for process synthesis, that combines the synthesis and design of chemical processes.

Written with furious urgency, sharp economy, and timeless resonance, Nelson Algren's Nonconformity: Writing on Writing is an often bleak, yet always sentient book-length essay on the role of artists, particularly writers, who work from, about, and for an American culture that doesn't value the significance of artistic contribution, and that actually rejects and fears artistic expression when it moves against the forces of pious consumerism, blind nationalism, and disconnected apathy. Back in Algren's day, those forces were personified by names like McCarthy and McCarran, Sheen and Oursler; today they're Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, Limbaugh and Savage. And the Red Scare of Algren's world had turned into today's "Arabic threat" that fosters needless suspicion and faith in puppet leaders who call for roundups of the innocent. Algren Bolsters his insights with a barrage of memorable quotes from the Masters: Dostoevsky, Twain, and most importantly, Fitzgerald--none of whom, it seems, ever worked in the comfort of societal/institutional trust and acceptance, no matter how well known they were. Will there ever be comfort for the writer? "A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is for armed robbery," Algren explains. There are many, many more forces working against the writer today, especially against the young and unknown: fewer venues to reach the respect of an audience, and a culture that would much rather spend its time in front of the television, at the movies, or on the internet--but rarely on moving works of complex, serious literature. No writers have ever had it easy, and if you're in for the long haul of lonely obscurity, this book is good company to keep. Algren is empowering. His thesis is louder, clearer, and more important than ever.

This book stalks sure footed through the dense thicket of modern American literature, with The Novel and Nelson Algren firmly at its center. It is at once entirely personal and, sonehow, universal at the same time. What it has to say about about writing evokes the kindred spirit shared by all great writiers, vastlty differing though thier style and temperments might be. Each exquisitely realized chapter is peppered with excerpts of their prose in such a way that it fairly leaps off the page, providing a critical mass of context and vibrancy to the very difficult subject of what it is that writers do and do best. Get it. Read it. Love it. I certainly did.

I've been writing for ten years and this book has become a bible for me. I planned on reading one chapter one night before going to bed, and instead stayed up until dawn reading it and thinking about what the author's compelling essays. It's the best book I've ever read about the art of writing and the responsibility of writers.

It used to be much easier to submit reviews. These days every company pretends like its website is the only one people will ever visit on the web. Gack.

Sass's view of Schizophrenia as an illness that is capable of being characterised as an excess of rationality misses what is the central feature of delusions - their fixity. He does so through his own belief that schizophrenics do not really hold to their delusions. There may be of course inconsistencies in action - between delusions of grandeur and say leading an ordinary life. However the use of Wittgensteins criticism of sense data as induced through a static staring, introduces an "as if" quality to delusions and moreover a voluntarist aspect or interpretation. So someone who thinks that his wife is the devil's agent and murders his wife under this delusion, is in some sense choosing this interpretation. This seems, at least wrong and dangerous. Interpretation engenders communication not dismissal. Sass does not offer any systematic interpretation only appeals to excesses of rationality and illustrative interpretations in Schreiber of the solipsistic viewpoint. This is but a starting point. Finally, invoking a refusal to enter the everyday as an aspect of the solipsistic,(a constant description and appeal in his book) reinvokes a meaningless imperative - be more involved in the world and your delusions will cease to be of relevance. But this suggests that the schizophrenic is somehow fixed in their focus. That is firstly to reintroduce the fixity notion and secondly to ignore the content of delusion (anything can become its focus) and possible structures of translation rather than interpretation (Jean Laplanche). Sass's book is fascinating in its diversity, but for those who have to work with people with acute psychoses not much use and errs on the dangerous. People do act on their delusions.

Sass presents an unorthodox view of the workings of the schizophrenic mind in his comparison of Daniel Schreber and Ludwig Wittgenstein. He explores schizophrenia not as a disease to be treated, but rather as an alternate view of reality whose credibility cannot be fully discounted. This blatantly contradicts traditional conceptions of the essence of this disorder. Sass virtually ignores the biomedical aspects of schizophrenia, opting for a more philosophical interpretation of the symptomatic delusions. He makes a unique correlation between solipsism's self-focused tendencies and the mental isolation of the schizophrenic. Sass employs several metaphysical analogies to illustrate the paradoxical nature of schizophrenia. Many of Wittgenstein's theories on literal tautologies and their place in schizophrenic thought can be difficult to grasp but are worth the extra words used to explain them. The nature of subjective and objective realities is analyzed in relation to the standards by which we judge consensual reality. The organization of the book is conducive to a clear understanding of the inherently complicated paradoxes that are central to Sass' argument. Endnotes enhance the points presented by providing more detail, context, and additional support. Sass presents a detailed glimpse into the mental turmoil of the schizophrenic mind through the lens of his own unconventional stance.

Sass offers a beautifully written and densely textured close reading of schizophrenic experiences in this book, adroitly weaving a fabric of connections between Schreber's bizarre subjective world and Wittgenstein's lucid philosophical writings. Through this juxtaposition, certain frequently ignored features of the worlds of schizophrenia are brought to light, such as the quasi-solipsistic structure of the schizophrenic's experiential world and the intricately tangled web of psycho-logical paradoxes that this structuring entails. Though Sass speaks little about the interpersonal, historical, or biological contexts in which delusions arise, such is not the point of the book. We need, Sass argues, to get clear on what a delusion IS if we are to accurately interpret why one shows up. And to do that, we need to do this sort of close phenomenological reading of schizophrenic experience. The previous reviewer misses the point. Not only is it flatly untrue to attribute to Sass the idea the schizophrenics do not act on their delusions (he simply does not say this), whether they do or don't is not what Sass is trying to determine. What is important here is the phenomenological texture of the delusion itself, and Sass explicates that admirably.

This is a great book with really interesting recipes. The photographs are beautiful and make you want to try the recipes. There's a good introduction to each grain and enough variety of recipes that there's a bread for just about everyone. My only disappointment is that almost all the recipes require at least some white flour.

This books has excellent recipes in it and is a must for anybody with a bread machine. This is an excellent introduction to a new baker looking to work with whole grains. I am sending it as a gift to others. It's beautiful as well as fun to use.

love the format/design of the book. and the recipes that i've tried so far have worked out great. the masa biscuits have already assumed a regular spot in my repetoire. the barley blueberry muffins are great too. can't wait to try more of them.

If you are, like me, a huge fan of the William Butler Yeats then you will find yourself slowly accumulating the 'Collected Works' volume by volume and not concern yourself with the cost. You will probably start with this volume, enjoy reading every poem written and feel this is an excellent volume.

If, however, you are looking for a volume to study Yeats or enjoy the best of his verse you may be better served by 'The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats" or "The Yeats Reader: A Portable Compendium of Poetry, Drama and Prose", both edited by Richard J. Finneran and less expensive, more portable paperbacks.

This is a must have book for any Yeats lover, or some one studying William Butler Yeats for a school report or such. The Book has almost everything you can possibley want, tuns of poems. Although I found Volume 4 of the collected Yeats poems the best, because its short, but full, warm and inviting, and has 4 plays. (but i can't find it on amazon to review)

W.B. Yeats is one of the greatest poets of the English language. If you're not sure why, then get this book and find out. It is a staple of any poetry library.