This is a valuable text for the economical traveller who wishes to enjoy the people,customs and natural beauties of this country.

It has all the usual features many have come to expect from the 'Lonely Planet' guides.Good area/city maps,travel details, pointers for the culinary delicacies of particular areas,good information on inexpensive places to stay,as well as fascinating sights,places and people to visit,a brief introduction to the(amazingly simple and easy to learn)language,and interesting cultural,religious and other useful notes.

This edition and it`s excellent predecessors have played a major part in assisting me in all of my travels to Indonesia,in both the planning and research stages,and during the travel itself.I am certain that I would not have travelled to some of the unique and rarely visited places that I was privileged to see without the aid of this weighty and at times indispensible tome.

However,the most important thing to take with you is an open mind and heart,a friendly nature,and a desire to get to know the people and their customs.(Language is a great help too.)These ingredients(and the book !)tend to make for a most memorable and enjoyable stay. Bon Voyage !

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So far I plan a 2 month trip to indonesia. Fly to hong kong, spend 1-2 nights there. Then fly to malaysia or jakarta (whichever is cheaper). Then take a boat to Pontianak, spend some time there and sinkawang (probably a week). Check out the islands between kalimantan and sumatra (1-2 weeks). Then go to the todgean islands, getting their via ujung padang to ambon and then spend the rest of the time (probably a month) chillin and snorkeling / scuba diving. Then go back trhough jakarta or malaysia, spend another 1-2 nights in hong kong, and then come home.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.

Awe. Admiration. Amazement. Marvel. Delight. The Psalmist, the poet Wordsworth, the child who looks up at the night sky and lisps the nursery rhyme, all speak of that passion of wonder which Aristotle taught is the beginning of philosophy. It is something we have all experienced in seeing a thunder storm roll in on a spring day, looking at the sun set afterwards, or watching a quarter horse race across a pasture, its muscles rippling in the light.

The immediate, direct apprehension of reality that inspires wonder and awe is called by the ancients poetica scientia, poetic knowledge. It is this neglected, even distrusted way of knowing that is the subject of Poetic Knowledge, a book published in 1998 by the State University of New York Press.

The author, Dr James Taylor, explains that poetic knowledge is
not merely a knowledge of poetry, "but rather a poetic experience of reality."

He writes: "Poetic experience indicates an encounter with reality that is non-analytical, something that is perceived as beautiful, awful (awe-full), spontaneous, mysterious. . . . Poetic knowledge is a spontaneous act of the external and internal senses with the intellect, integrated and whole, rather than an act associated with the powers of analytic reasoning. . . . It is, we might say, knowledge from the inside out, radically different from a knowledge about things. In other words, it is the opposite of scientific knowledge."

If this passage seems like heavy going, abstract and difficult,
it must be said straight away that it is, and that it is not the only one. The author has made an exhaustive study both of what poetic knowledge is, using the language and categories of scholastic philosophy, and of its history from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages down to its deformation since the time of Descartes in the 17th century.

However, the book is not only or principally a philosophical
treatise, of interest solely to academics. Consider these passages:

"When Wordsworth writes 'My heart leaps up when I behold / A
rainbow in the sky' . . . , something of the rainbow's reality is truly known, but rational explanation alone is insufficient, in fact impossible, for this is the gaze of contemplation, of love. It is the difference between being unexpectedly moved by an unknown attractive face--desiring to know the person better--and the desperate premeditation of computer dating.

"Knowledge at the poetic level considers neither ends nor means. . . . For example, in the case of furniture there are chairs and tables placed together in such a way that we may sit and have a meal. Sometimes we consider these things in themselves apart from any purpose as in the case of their beauty: a Shaker-style chair, for example, set on a polished wood-plank floor, against a white-washed wall with the sunlight from a bare window fallings in beams and shadows across the room. It is a serene view, and for that moment completely without purpose, yet the viewer is certainly filled with a profound and mysterious sense of the real and of the beauty of this reality.

And a marvelous section, too long for quotation here, where Dr
Taylor comments on these lines from Rousseau: "Love childhood, indulge its games, its pleasures, its delightful instincts", and "May I venture to state the greatest, the most useful role of education? It is: do not save time, lose it".

As Dr Taylor says above in defining poetic knowledge, "it is the
opposite of scientific knowledge". The scientific knowledge he speaks of is not science in the ancient sense of metaphysics, but knowledge which is empirical, quantifiable, dialectical. It is the kind of knowledge demanded by Professor Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens' Hard Times.

"Now what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing
but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."

Beware, beware of the Gradgrinds of this world.

This book rediscovers a traditional mode of knowledge that remains viable today. Contrasted to the academic and cultural fads often based on the scientific methodology of the Cartesian legacy, or any number of trendy experiments in education, Poetic Knowledge returns to the freshness and importance of first knowledge, a knowledge of the senses and the passions.

"Poetic knowledge" is not the knowledge of poetry, nor is it even knowledge in the sense that we often think of today, that is, the mastery of scientific, technological, or business information. Rather, it is an intuitive, obscure, mysterious way of knowing reality, not always able to account for itself, but absolutely essential if one is ever to advance properly to the higher degrees of certainty. From Socrates to the Middle Ages, and even into the twentieth century, the case for poetic knowledge is revealed with the care of philosophical archeology. Taylor demonstrates the effectiveness of the poetic mode of education through his own observations as a teacher, and two experimental "poetic" schools in the twentieth century.

"With pithy brevity he has managed to provide both a history of the treatment of poetic knowledge and to develop his own very persuasive account." -- Ralph McInerny, University of Notre Dame

Alan Taylor's WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN: POWER AND PERSUASION ON THE FRONTIER OF THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC is an outstanding biography of an archetypical American character, an extraordinary social history of life and politics on the late eighteenth-century frontier and a brilliant exercise in literary analysis.

This is a wonderful read. Taylor's lively prose, compelling narrative and original, fresh story sustained my interest from cover to cover. I never would have imagined such a dull title could cover such a marvelous book. WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN certainly deserves the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded.

Taylor not only describes William Cooper's rise from rags to riches and even more meteoric fall but analyzes Cooper's political odyssey in America's frontier democratic workshop.

"As an ambitious man of great wealth but flawed gentility, Cooper became caught up in the great contest of postrevolutionary politics: whether power should belong to traditional gentlemen who styled themselves 'Fathers of the People' or to cruder democrats who acted out the new role of 'Friends of the People.'"

Taylor argues "Cooper faced a fundamental decision as he ventured into New York's contentious politics. Would he affiliate with the governor and the revolutionary politics of democratic assertion? Or would he endorse the traditional elitism championed by...Hamilton." "Brawny, ill educated, blunt spoken, and newly enriched," writes Taylor, "Cooper had more in common with George Clinton than with his aristocratic rivals." "For a rough-hewn, new man like Cooper, the democratic politics practiced by Clinton certainly offered an easier path to power. Yet, like Hamilton, Cooper wanted to escape his origins by winning acceptance into the genteel social circles where Clinton was anathema." Taylor concludes "Cooper's origins pulled him in one political direction, his longing in another."

James Fenimore Cooper's third novel, THE PIONEERS, is an ambivalent, fictionalized examination of his father's failure to measure up to the genteel stardards William Cooper set for himself and that his son James internalized. The father's longing became the son's demand.

Taylor analyzes the father-son relationship, strained by Williams decline before ever fully measuring up to the stardards he had set, and the son's fictionalized account of this relationship.

James Fenimore Cooper spent most of his adult life seeking the "natural aristocrat" his father wanted to be and compensating for his father's shortcomings. It is ironic that the person James Fenimore Cooper found to be the embodiment of the "natural aristocrat" his father had longed to be and that he had created in THE CRATER and his most famous character, Natty Bumppo, was the quintessential "Friend of the People"--Andrew Jackson.

I enjoyed this book immensely and give it my strongest recommendation!

The book does what good books should: it makes you think.

However, the authors are (1) derivative in some cases (much of their work can be found in Thomas Handy's explorations of how the world of work is changing, such as in his book, The Age of Unreason, c. 1989); (2) don't footnote/cite their statistics (eg, 12 percent of Americans trust public-interest messages from large corporations - says who?); and (3) are somewhat "new-agey" (Part Four uses subheads pulled from the Noble Truths of Buddhism, not to imply that Buddhism is a new age religion).

They criticize macroeconomics, stating "when consumers control the market equation, they can have whatever it is that they want." Huh? Consumers have unlimited resources? Since when?

A good fast skim if you are familiar with changes in the world of work. Neat trivia (list of things that existed in 1960 that no longer exist today). Wild projections for 500 years hence.

I found on my second review that I argued more with the authors (in the margins of the book) than on the first take (which was on an airplane). That said, I'm surprised the book is not on Amazon.Com's top 50 business or computing lists.

The challenges he faced are real to us all and the inspiration he offers with Sai Baba is nothing short of a miracle.

I look forward to his next book.

If you want to develop systems for your clients, keep surfing!

The author did say that "this is not a tutorial", he's right, it's not a tutorial, it's not even a reference text. Save your money!

Taylor began using heroin in 1966 (p. 117), during which time he was playing his music for burgers and fries (p. 117). After moving to London, Taylor was discovered by Paul McCartney, who signed him to Apple Records. "Wow, he's great," the former Beatle said (p. 135). It was in London that Taylor's career really started. As he was recording his first album, the Beatles were recording "Hey Jude," "Revolution," and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" in the same Apple studio. White's biography succeeds at offering insights into many of Taylor's songs. Written after the suicide of a friend, and in part while Taylor was again in a mental hospital, I will listen to "Fire and Rain" now with new depths of meaning.

After his relationship with Joni Mitchell (p. 178), Taylor met Carly Simon at a Cat Stevens' concert on April 6, 1971 (p. 189), and during their ten-year marriage, we find Taylor making music with his wife and friends, Mitchell and Carole King, while partying with John Belushi and drinking volcanoes with Jimmy Buffett in 1979 until he passed out (p. 268). James and Carly were divorced in 1983. Page after page, White's biography reveals the secrets of Taylor's life, even down to the tattoo he shares with his family (p. 315).

I've listened to James Taylor's music all my life, and I've listened to his "Secret o' Life," well, maybe hundreds of times. Not only is he a "guitar virtuoso" (p. 304), his songs have always been relevant to the passing times of my life. This prompted me to read White's well-researched biography. As a result, I not only have an even greater appreciation for Taylor, the singer-songwriter, but also for his music.

G. Merritt

This book on Taylor tells the whole story of JT's life and career, with respect but with few punches pulled. The input of James himself, plus family and friends helps flesh out the portrait. JT's important but often neglected place in the pantheon of popular music is firmly established here. I could have done with a little less of the 400 years of Taylor family history, but it does add an interesting background to the story. Highly recommended.