Hall tries his best to debunk the famed 19th century medium Daniel Home. Unfortunately, much of the book is concerned with tedious and irrelevant minutiae. Hall spends many pages trying to prove that Home invented his middle name (Dunglas) in order to fake a connection with Scottish nobility that allowed him to advance in European high society. Even if true, this says little about Home's purported mediumistic abilities. A later discussion of the publication date of an obscure book brought out by Home in 1869 or 1870 goes on for multiple chapters and succeeds in establishing that 1869, not 1870, may be the correct date. So what? Hall makes no attempt to deal with the bulk of Home's alleged phenomena, ascribing the hundreds of eyewitness reports to group hallucination or collective hypnosis. He does not discuss Sir William Crookes' controlled experiments with Home, carried out in good light and in the presence of various witnesses. He does expend a great deal of energy on Home's purported levitation in front of three young friends, under non-controlled conditions, in the dark. This is one of the weakest cases, and serves as a straw man by which Hall can profess to have discredited all the stronger cases without actually addressing them. He does, however, succeed in casting great doubt on the alleged levitation, for what that is worth. A much more complete analysis of Home is found in Stephen E. Braude's "The Limits of Influence," now out of print but worth tracking down. Braude's detailed and careful approach makes Hall seem sloppy and disingenuous by comparison.

This book says it will show you how to care for people from a Biblical perspective. What it truly does is gives you a program of social minsitry that ministers very little to the spiritual needs of individuals. Aleshire wants to convey Christlike principles but I feel that he spends too much time on practicality and not enough on meeting the true need which is spiritual.

Shawn Fallot Book Review
Senior English #4
18 February 2003

Daniel E. Harmon wrote The FBI; in it he describes how the FBI works. The book begins by describing in great detail what happened in the Oklahoma bombing. I was really engrossed in the book while it was giving details about the events that happened but when he started talking about how the FBI was formed I got board.
The FBI was mainly used to enforce the laws of the government. The FBI helped stopped the "bootlegging" of alcohol and enforce prohibition. He went into some details about what the FBI does now and how they help police officers. It could have been very interesting when he talked about people on the most wanted list and the highly publicized crimes but he really didn't give enough details.
Over all I really didn't like this book and felt he could have done a better job of keeping the reader in suspense.

On the plus side, this book is very well organized and is easy to read and understand. It goes through major sections of Daniel and then proceeds to Revelation.

However, the author fails to explain key points in some of his more controversial interpretations. For example, one of his first statements is that the time, times, and half a time is equal to 3,278 years. As this is not an interpretation that I have seen before for this particular item, I would very much like to know how he come up with that number.

This is a pattern that I find throughout the book: the author makes a number of interpretations without backing them up. While this is not a bad description of what one person believes the book of Revelation, if you are looking for an indepth study on prophecy, look elsewhere.

This book develops a great understanding of post Cold War global security and its affects. It filled in many questions that I had concerning global secuirty in today's age. I definately recommend this read.

This was an ok book (if you believe these tales) but I picked it up for the chapters on Elvis and TV Superman George Reeves because I am a fan of the two. It was a different type of read is about all I can say about it.

If I tell myself that the $.. that I spent on this book was a donation to the OSS folks to help keep free software alive then I do not feel so bad about buying this book. Otherwise it is most certainly not worth the money. The book is very small and slim, all of the information in it can be had from the internet. The software on the CD can all also be found on the internet and downloaded for free.

There is not much substance in this book for anyone really interested in thrills or chills. Might be good to passify your very young child for a few days, but that's about it. It leaves you wanting more information and more facts.

Daniel Wyatt has chosen for himself an intriguing theme. Centering on Rudolf Hess' flight to Britain, it postulates the existance of a doppleganger who is sent on a similar mission by Heinrich Himmler. The plot contains some twists and turns which are really quite good, and much of the book is entertaining. Unfortunately, the work suffers from some flaws which should never have seen the light of day. For instance, at one point Himmler appears on the doorstep of his chief of staff dressed in civilian clothes, which the author remarks, is quite unusual. In the next paragraph but one, Himmler, still on his front porch, draws a pistol from his uniform pocket and shoots the man to whom he is talking. Another rewrite of the manuscript would certainly have been in order. Perhaps the most distracting thing is the misuse of hominyms: i.e. bare instead of bear. Such things are inclined, at best, to startle the reader. My hope is that the author will take more time with his next manuscript and that his editor and proofreader will be of more help to him.

The book covers topics in high level synthesis very clearly and easy to understand form. The book needs a revision as there has been tremendrous development in this field since 1992.