Osprey's new "Essential Histories" attempts to expand from its more narrowly-focused campaign and men-at-arms titles to provide a broader overview of major conflicts. In the Seven Years War (1756-1763), Daniel Marston has written a succinct but valuable overview of what was arguably the first world war. American readers, who are more familiar with this conflict as the French and Indian War, will appreciate this volume for the perspectives it provides in tying together all the various campaigns around the world. Major chapters include a background to the war and a brief overview of the military resources available to all sides (although it ignores the military resources of the Iroquois Confederacy). The bulk of the volume consists of a 61-page summary of the war, broken down in annual sections, that are further subdivided into regional (North America, Western Europe, Central Europe, India) headings. This is an excellent organizational structure, which increases the quick-reference value of the book. There are also short follow-up chapters that address the economic costs of the war and its political ramifications. A detailed bibliography lists primary and secondary sources used. Overall, this volume is a good piece of scholarship that will allow readers to follow the highlights of the conflict without getting bogged down in detail. The illustrations and maps that support the text are also quite good. The only troubling aspect of this volume is the author's not-too subtle bias against the participation of American colonials in the war. Although Marston was born in the United States, his attitudes reflect the contempt that arrogant British officials held toward the colonies in circa 1770. This bias is demonstrated in consistently inaccurate descriptions of battles in which colonials were engaged. In the Battle of Ticonderoga in 1758, the author states that, "the provincials attacked in the first wave and were easily repulsed. Abercromby then committed his regular troops." This description is false, because the provincial units pushed in the French pickets but were not "easily repulsed." Nor did Abercromby commit his regulars, because they attacked without orders and he lost control of the battle. The author's contention about the Black Watch's attack, that "after an hour of hard hand-to-hand fighting, the attack was called off," is also misleading. Only a few Highlanders made it to the French entrenchments and the attack failed because the unit was virtually destroyed. A similar example occurs during the Forbes expedition, when the author states that "on 14 September the British suffered a setback when the French garrison attacked their position, causing their provincial units to disperse.." This description is totally false, because the action on that date was caused by a British decision to send an advance guard ahead to seize Fort Duquesne, but the detachment was ambushed and badly defeated. That detachment was commander by a British regular, Major James Grant, and consisted of regulars and provincials. Obviously, there is the traditional pattern of British 18th Century historiography, which is to downplay defeats and blame the stupid colonials if you cannot avoid discussing "setbacks." This is the same kind of contempt for Colonial soldiers that British regulars were smirking about until they discovered otherwise at Bunker Hill. Furthermore, the author makes no effort to detail or discuss the immense efforts in raising troops to fight for the Crown, or the ramifications of widespread American military experience 12 years later when the Revolution broke out. Overall, this is still a very good volume for its size. American readers will appreciate the summaries of the campaigns of Frederick and those in Hannover, which are often ignored on this side of the Atlantic. However, Americans will be disappointed by the typical condescension toward Colonial military efforts.

This book was researched and written with scrupulous care. Any reader can see this from the opening pages. There is a wide variety of interesting images, illustrating important points in the text. The author uses primary sources: there are quotations from accounts written by men who actually served in the various theaters of the Seven Years War. The narrative is rich in historical detail, and the details are all chosen to illustrate issues that the author thinks are most critical in understanding these events. The great mass of information about the war has been synthesized and compacted into clear arguments about how the war was shaped by economic, social, and political pressures, as well as by the different ways that each nation organized their military. The author also shows how the resolution of the war changed some of these structures, affecting events that followed.

Anyone except a professional historian will finish this book with more facts and figures about the Seven Years War than when he or she began. But this is not what I valued most highly about it. I closed this book with a clear sense of the shape of the war, an almost visual image, that tied all this information together. The ability to create so much coherence out of so many global events in such a small number of pages is a rare talent. I would recommend this book to anyone with any interest in learning more about this period.

Daniel Marston's SEVEN YEARS' WAR is a well-researched scholarly account of that conflict. Marston tackles a broad and complicated subject in an comprehensible manner, producing an excellent introduction for any person unfamiliar with the Seven Years' War.

The account is split into several sections, addressing the causes of the conflict, the warring sides, the fighting, and the conclusion of the war. The fighting section deals with all of the various fronts of the war: North America, India, and Europe. Marston highlights the important battles and also focuses on important tactical innovations.

One of the greatest attractions to this book is Marston's in-depth and accurate research. Most books that are readable do not contain this level of scholarly investigation. In particular, on the conflict in North America, better known as the French and Indian Wars in the United States, Marston presents an account firmly backed up by rigorous archival research. Thus, this book represents a very readable yet academic introduction to the Seven Years' War.

This book provides a good overview of the foundations of traditional Chinese medicine and how it differs from Western medicine. A good place to start if you're trying to gain some perspective and/or an entry into alternative medicine and healing. Western trained physicians can benefit tremendously by understanding a completely different approach to healing. Highly recommended.

An accessible and readable introduction to the major aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine, including it shistorical foundation, theories of chi, the Chinese tree of life, use of herbal medicines and formulas, diet and nutrition as preventative medicine, acpuncture, acupressure, massage, and chi kung. Excellent for beginners.

As a third year student/intern of Chinese Med., I have found it difficult to convey to my patients the basic concepts and approaches used in ChMed., often due to our 'western' habits of analysis. This book is a bridge of understanding, and I plan to offer it to all of my patients.

This book is extremely useful. It provides step by step instructions for organizing a small business's accounting system. It also provides many reproducible forms that its discussions are based around. The book is very easy to read; no wasted chit-chat.This is all a small business needs.

Small Business Accounting Simplified by experienced business attorney Daniel Sitarz is a "must" for the non-specialist general reader determined to be their own boss, yet unfamiliar with how to be their own accountant. Packed from cover to cover with sage advice, clear instructions, helpful checklists, as well as "user friendly" forms ranging from ledger sheets and expense records, to profit/loss statements, inventory record keeping and tax preparation records, that can be readily photocopied for everything from invoices to balance sheets, payroll records, inventory records and much more, Small Business Accounting Simplified is an absolutely indispensable, accessible instructional reference to understanding and managing a small business accounting system.

Now in a revised and updated second edition, Simplified Small Business Accounting by business attorney Daniel Sitarz is a definitive guidebook written specifically for the do-it-yourself, non-specialist, general readers who is charged with the responsibility of keeping proper accounts for their businesses or entrepreneurial activities. Dedicated to educating novice and veteran entrepreneurs alike, Simplified Small Business Accounting explains a wide range of practical matters in simple, direct language easily accessible to all readers. Individual chapters address the tracking business assets, income/expenses, preparing a balance sheets and ledgers, analyzing financial statements and tax forms, payrolls, inventories, and much more. A solid, first-class reference for anyone in charge of a small business and/or its funds, Simplified Small Business Accounting is "user friendly" and highly recommended.

This book made me feel sad and happy all at the same time. Matt a young man given a short time to live after being diagnosed with cancer, doesn't shun away the world but opens himself to everything. He becomes very spiritual and in touch with God through his illness. I had a very hard time being able to put the
book down. The way his family, friends, and community reacted is incredible, they were very compassionate and supportive. I would suggest this book to anyone.

I don't live far from Farmington,PA and infact I have been to the Bruderhof and these ppl are so kind and wonderful..After reading this book I felt such a pain for the family and friends that had to watch there dear son, brother,husband and friend live all those months of hell..But, What a strong man Matt was and for him to live each day in pain but still carry a smile..The book was not hard to read at all and was well understood..Really made you feel like you were there throughout the days and hours with him..I picked the book up in a local resteraunt here and read within a day..My thoughts are with the family..

A 22-year-old's battle against cancer might seem an unlikely topic for an uplifting book -- but Six Months to Live is certainly that. It's the story of Matt, a young man who, faced with death, refused to quit living. Matt wasn't a hero, and the writer of his story doesn't make him out to be one. Six Months to Live steers clear of the cliches and catch-phrases we often use to help us "make sense" of terminal illness. Instead, the book is realistic: it shows us Matt's darkest hours as well as his triumphs; his doubts as well as his faith. That's why, at the end, the reader is not left feeling Matt's life was "wasted"; rather, that it was used for a cause bigger than any one of us. We're all dead men, the movie Gladiator reminds us. Like as not, we don't get to choose how or when we die. But we all can choose how we meet death. Six Months to Live can help us choose well. Thanks to Matt.

The Katz and Kahn classic provides readers with an in-depth look at the systems, and modalities prevalent in organizations. It provides a clear map of the impact organizations have on their people, and consequently the impact the people have on the organization. Of particular usefulness were the chapters on power and authority, and role behaviors. While the perfect organization may never exist, Katz and Kahn have gone a long way towards giving their readers a better way of asking the right questions of organizations. Many of their points are germane not only in the era during which it was written, but will become more critical to e-commerce businesses as they realize that there is business to conduct after the initial honeymoon with the product.

I first read The Social Psychology of Oganizations, by Katz & Kahn, in Spring 1973, as a required reading for Organization Theories Core Course at New York University, Wagner Graduate School Of Public Administration. Based upon my readings and use of this text book for both academic and later business research, I strongly believe that this structurally detailed, powerful and insightful book is a required core, basic studies reading for High School, College, University, Graduate Students and Post Graduate Studies.
The Key Stone to this book is the concept of the Ying, Yang, the polarized interaction,interrelationship(s) of both the Formal and the Informal Organizations within both Public and Private Economy Sector Organizations.
"The formal Goals of the Formal Organization are not necessarily those of the Informal Organization and vice a versa."
This landmark research work by Katz & Kahan, greatly enhances, sensitizes and helps the reader to conceptually organize, catalogue organizations and individuals by both types of organizational hierarchy and types of individuals' characterietics, so that we may more easily deal with both Formal and Informal Organizations and Individuals in a smoother, more rational, less emotional manner.
I teach an Executive Project Managment course in both the Public and Private sectors of the Economy. When teaching Project Management to the US Department of Defense, the US Navy, NAVSEA, I have always recommended the supplemental research use of The Social Psychology of Organizations by Daniel Kats, Robert Louis Kahn, as I do when teaching and consulting within the private sector of the economy.
Katz & Kahan's, The Social Psychology of Organizations, provides the reader with a rich, detailed, structured framework,indeed a structured compartmentalized baseline, against which we can compare multiple types of diversified organizations and multiple types of diversified individuals, as we meet them throughout the lifetime course our public and private lives.
Since a corporation is indeed a Formal Organization, and the corporation is a "Living Entity", then this work allows the reader to understand the diversified (sometimes disfunctional) personalities of the Formal Organization vs. the Informal Organization, corporate culture as they relate to us as the individual having to work and live wihtin their corporate contexts, paramaters and according to their unique set of corporate cultural rules and their respective formal and informal regulations.
From a Psychological perspective, The Social Psychology of Organizations by Katz & Kahan, both fore-warns and fore-arms individuals vis a vis their interactions and inter-relationships with, within large corporations, large social structures and one on one with individuals.
What a true treasure-trove of organizational knowledge, behavior, insights this organizational research really is. This is a timeless piece of organizational research work, as relevent today in 2002, as it was in 1968, 1973 and will be in 2013 and on.
Thank you for the opportunity to review thie fine piece of work.

Clearly the bible of organizational psychology

This is a great book for the Jr High set. Cohen has several books aimed at several age groups and this a fun look at uban legends without too much analysis...which is a good thing for the target group.

I also suggest "The Headless Roommate" by Cohen, which is aimed at High School kids.

I loved this book. Me and my friends loved reading all of the scary and funny storys. I wish I could have a copy to read around the campfire! Read it and you'll love it!

l liked the book alot, l have read it many times, l even remember my teacher reading it to me when l was in grade school. l wish there were more copies of it, because l would love to have a copy of it for myself.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the most commonly used statistical methods in atmospheric research. It is written at a level that is suitable for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students with only a moderate level of mathematical ability, but is suitable also as a basic text book for researchers with moderate experience in statistics. It lacks some depth in some sections, such as in discussions of multivariate methods, but for students the coverage is ideal, and I would strongly recommend the book as a standard text for any course in research methods for atmospheric scientists. Topics covered include empirical distributions and exploratory data analysis, data distributions, hypothesis testing, forecasting and verification methods, time series, and multivariate analyses.

Statistical methods are introduced in the context of their application. The emphasis is on solutions to meteorological problems rather than on the statistical methods per se. Although I see this approach as a major strength of the book, one result is that the book may be of less interest to non-atmospheric scientists. Limitations of the methods are discussed, and the reader is given considerable assistance in interpreting the statistical results of the methods covered. The mathematical back ground is kept at a level that should be digestible by most students. Equations are relatively few, but not lacking, so the mathematically shy should be able to gain a lot from the book. The text is excellently written: very clear and the logical development is very smooth. I think in time this book will prove to appeal to a wide range of atmospheric scientists.

Wilks brilliantly covers the fundamentals of statistical methods for atmospheric data with clarity and precision. This book is a classic, and a much-needed successor to the 1958 text by Panofsky and Brier. Moreover, the book's coverage is applicable to other geophysical fields, such as hydrology, which broadens its usefulness for researchers, practitioners, and students.

Need more be said? A comprehensive guide to the most useful statistical methods in the fields of oceanographic, meteorological and climatological research. This is the bible for atmospheric research and a neccessity on every research scientist's bookshelf.

Steinhoff and Burgess's 6th edition is a good book but not inclusive compared with Pickle and Abrahammson. Also, there are some concepts and points that seem to be inconsistent with specific texts in other fields. For example, while there are 4 Ps in marketing, Steinhoff has a fifth. There are lots of discussion questions and good cases. However, the answers to some of the end-of-chapter review/discussion questions can't be found in the text. The section on risk management does not get into the four major ways of dealing with it, as per Boone and Kurtz, "Contemporary Business." Steinhoff and Burgess have a text that students like but it is too short and skimpy. Again, the cases don't have enough information and the students have to make too many assumptions in many instances. For an upper-level course, it isn't in the same "league" as Pickle. I am using Boone & Kurtz's "Contemporary Business," '94-95 as a supplement.

I am a nurse practitioner in solo practice. The book, "Small Business Management Fundamentals" calls me back again and again to those things which stimulate and sustain growth. Though I am in the "inelastic" business of health care, the conceptual precepts of Burgess and Steinhoff's books have helped me immensely.

This straightforward guide to establishing, manageing and owning a small business has been thoroughly updated and revised while preserving the readability and practical flavour past editions.

"Who tucks you in at night?" a little boy wonders as he plays with his new pals, a band of orphan snow children. In this story about the importance of family, a small boy worries about the welfare of his new friends, the snow children.
The lighthearted rhyming text of this book gives it a feel of fun and warmth. Children will enjoy listening to the melodic rhythm of the words as the book is read aloud. The illustrations are truly beautiful paintings done by Kirk on canvas. The texture of the canvas is clearly visible, giving depth to the illustrations. The pictures do support the text in that they use vibrant, exciting colors to enhance the mood of playfulness. The reader can also readily identify the expressions of each of the characters in the story, allowing him/her to capture the true feeling of the story. This is a great family read, one to really snuggle up to during the long days of winter!

The book opens with Jacob, a small boy, and his dairy farmer parents, making a snow child in a field. The snowman comes to life to join a wandering band of other parent-less snow children. Later Jacob joins the children for a rollicking game of snowball. But Jacob notices that there's no one to take care of the snow children. "Jacob frowns, you lost your glove. You tore your hat it isn't right. You need someone to care for you. Who tucks you in at night?"

When the snow children wake a sleeping bear, there are some tense moments as the bear chases Jacob up a tree. However, Jacob's parents arrive, chase off the bear and rescue him. The next day Jacob returns and builds snow parents for his friends.

My 21-month-old daughter really enjoys this book. The rhymes are engaging, "Whoosh! Blows the winter wind, 'Caw!' laughs the crow. Crunch! go the little boots on fresh-fallen snow." And while she seems to be a bit anxious when Jacob's being chased by the bear, she's very interested when his parents rescue him.

I love Daniel Kirk's illustrations and they are of the same style as other books of his we own, "Hush Little Alien" and "Chugga Chugga Choo Choo". However, my husband doesn't like his style. It's hard to describe, but the illustrations seem to be slightly darker than most of our other children's books. On our first read through, when "the child of snow comes to life to join a wandering band", my husband's reaction was, "Creepy." But I remember he had a similar reaction to a clown in "Chugga Chugga Choo Choo", so I think it's Kirk's illustrations more than the story. As I said, I love them, but to each his own.

This children's story is wonderful for a family to read together and is sure to be a favorite for any child. The story focuses on the importance of family and caring in a most endearing way. Everyone needs someone to look out after them is a theme that has been used before but Daniel Kirk has found a new way to express an old sentiment. The illustrations are vibratant and full, though the story could stand on it's own. This is a seasonal book that will be fun to read any time of the year!!!

This was a thouroughly interesting story that held my attention for its duration. The 3-D sound was great and listening with headphones made it come alive! What bothered me about it was that the story is comprised of log entries and letters so that there is virtually no interaction between the actors. It therfore gave the impression of being closer to an audio book than an audio drama, except that the readers read their parts in the first person (mostly). I was hoping for more, as I suppose I'd been a bit spoiled with all the wonderful Doctor Who audios out these days, but I am certainly looking forward to the others in this series and hope that Star Trek uses the full cast audio realm more in the future.

Star Trek: Transformations -- A Captain Sulu Adventure. It was an intriguing title. It was on audio. I had only heard one other recording like it, so I decided to buy it. I'm glad I did. About 6 months before my listening to this tape, I had heard the CD Cacophony. The plot deteriorated in the middle of the recording, the casting was awful, most of the characters were unbelievable. All except for one outstanding personality and voice. He was familiar with his character, and did an outstanding performance. This character was Captain Hikaru Sulu, as played by George Takei. Takei delivered an even better performance in the first Sulu adventure, Transformation. This time all the characters were all believable. All three of them. The plot was great. I loved every minute of it, except when I had to exert energy to turn the tape over. Overall, Transformations is the audio tape to get! It is extremely awesome in the dark with headphones on. The 3-D sound and your imagination will bring the story to life.

Ambassador Worf out.

As a big fan of the original series and of the character of Sulu, it was great to see him made Captain at last in Star Trek VI. These wonderful audionovels allow fans who want more to get just that. Mr. Takei is a wonderful actor who has a great distinctive and effective voice. The excellent vocal cast on this audio novel also was a pleasure to listen to. It definately transported the mind to the final frontier... It is great to listen to on long drives or trips on planes or trains. Much like the now 'ancient' radio programs of old, audio novels let you use your best entertainment center, your imagination to it's fullest. Having a familiar and treasured character like Sulu connects you to the story in a great way. This was one of the best of the Captain Sulu audio series. Scary at times, a great mystery to unravel. All of the Captain Sulu stories in fact are quite good and I'd love to hear more...even better let's see a Captain Sulu series! Afterall the Adventure should always continue!