Seeking enlightenment? Seek somewhere else? This "update" to the classic is a classic waste of time. Unlike the original, you will give it to your library to write it off on your taxes.

This book is a collection of a series of lectures Charles Taylor gave reflecting on the legacy of William James. In thinking about James' work, Taylor reflects on the tensions between private religous experience and public religious expression; the problem of belief and unbelief; and the implications our religious beliefs have for our political organization. It is almost impossible to do justice to the richness of Taylor's thought in a short review.

Taylor's first task is to situate James within his own religious context. James inherited the strand of religious belief that was quintessentially Protestant -- with an emphasis on private feeling as against public expression. For James, the ultimate religious experience is private and fundamentally individual. This precludes James from fully grasping the types of religious expression that are more communally-based.

Taylor's second task is to reflect on James personal struggle with the question of belief and unbelief. In James' day a strong argument was being made that religious belief is intellectually dishonest. Taylor offers a good summary of James' defense of belief as a viable choice.

Finally, Taylor integrates James' thought with the question of how our religious belief interacts with our political structures. Taylor offers an invaluable historical narrative of the variety of relationships between religion and state that we have seen in the past. In doing so, he makes our current dilemmas much clearer. We are moving from a country that has a broad consensus in some sort of belief, but which allows individuals to join whatever church best gives expression to that experience, to a country in which there is no such broad consensus. If there is no shared understanding of the sacred, we are forced to ground our political structures in the purely human. It is not yet clear whether the new project will succeed, but in his reflections on the tensions between belief and unbelief and their relationship to our political organization, Taylor can only enhance our discussions as we move forward into this virgin territory.

Taylor's book does presume that the reader has a fairly sophisticated historical sense. And he often makes reference to the situation in France, which can be a bit opaque to those who lack a basic familiarity with French culture. Indeed, he often quotes from French writers without offering a translation. Still, the book offers valuable insights, even to those without the background to fully grasp everything he writes.

The 4th edition of this "Collectors Handbook" is a reprint of earlier editions rather than a much needed rewrite.

The background information provided in this book IS very interesting and helpful. HOWEVER, the first question asked on the back of this book is "What is the value of an Audubon Print?" This book answers that question with print by print price information (almost 1/3 of the book) that is over 20 years old. NO price information is even given for the Octavo prints.

As a guide for collectors looking for current value information for Audubon prints this book is worthless.

For those who are interested in Audubon prints, this book is a good introduction, but if you are serious about collecting or very interested in Audubon, it could raise more questions for you than it answers. Don't expect a comprehensive or 100-percent accurate treatment of Audubon or Audubon prints from this rather short book.

Unfortunately, some of the areas of weakness are important to collectors. For instance, the approach to authentication is simplistic and by no means comprehensive. The book doesn't really address how to distinguish hand coloring from printed color, or the fact that hand-colored reproductions of Havells exist. The authors barely mention plate mark, which is an extremely valuable tool for authenticating Havells. In spite of these shortcomings, the book provides a nice overview of all the major editions of Audubon's prints with a good mix of biography, history and nitty-gritty details.

Beware, however, that brevity comes at a price -- this book has some gaps. Bannon and Clark do not mention the second issue of the Imperial Folio edition of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, or the existence of a restrike of the Imperial Folio plate, The White Wolf. (You can find more information on both topics in the recently published book, John James Audubon in the West, edited by Sarah Boehme).

Information in Bannon and Clark is not always accurate -- e.g., the later edition octavo dates. (Try Ron Tyler's book, Audubon's Great National Work, for a more detailed account of the octavo Birds). There are also more significant errors. For instance, the number of prints from Nagel and Weingaertner in any given octavo quads set varies; the set that Bannon and Clark looked at just happened to have seventeen plates by Nagel and Weingaertner, but they give that as the number for all sets.

The price information in this book is out of date even though the authors include some appendices that attempt to give an idea of price inflation. Still, the lists do provide an indication of relative prices. As long as you realize that these lists represent a single dealer's opinion and experience, and that other dealers do not necessarily rank the plates in the exact way that Clark ranks them, you should find this information very helpful.

In the end, I have to say that I like this book, and often find myself turning to it for background or price information. Right now, it is the best book -- really, the only book -- available that is specifically geared towards Audubon collectors. Although that will change over time as more books come out, I doubt that Bannon and Clark will become superfluous...it is a good addition to any Audubon library.

This handbook fills a void in the vast library of Audubon publications. It focuses on the various publications of Audubon and his family, such as the double elephant folio, the imperials, the miniatures, and the Bien edition. Accurate dates of publication are given along with very helpful clues to distinguishing between various editions. Our 1998 copy contained welcome revisions to the pricing of the double elephant, Bien, and imperial prints. I have found that in the few years since publication, the prices of the larger images have about doubled, and smaller images are about 15 to 20 percent higher in price than what is stated. In fact, whereas a complete folio sold for about $4,000,000.00 as correctly stated in Addendum C, page 128, (back in 1992), a complete folio recently sold at Christies for about $9,000,000.00. One should use this handbook as a handbook. We make regular notes in the margins in the price pages. For example, plate 376 (Trumpeter Swan) was valued at $30,000 in 1997, when I assume the information in the book was assembled. A plate 376 sold in 1999 for $93,250. We have entered this corrected information in our copy.

We highly recommend this handbook for any who wish to collect the work of a master artist/naturalist. The information will assist you in making intelligent purchases from sites such as eBay.

We recently traveled through Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia and found this guidebook practically useless and certainly frustrating--definitely not worth its weight. We have used other LPs in the past and found them to be at least adequate but this one doesn't even rate that well. It lacked many important details--such as the time/distances between many points, availability of various transportation options and routes, decent maps--the list goes on and on. Even though prices change often and currencies fluctuate, even a vague idea of prices (is it $10 or $100??) would have been quite useful to help us plan better. Although we ran into many people all 'armed' with the LP, they all had the same complaints.

This book is an adequate guide but it needs improvement in several areas. I used this book during Janurary and February of 2000 when I traveled through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. Last year I used the Lonley Planet-India and found it was much better than Southeast Asia. Here are the weaknesses. 1. The numbers of the locations on the maps should be used in the text describing the location. This would grealy improve you ability to plan your day or route. 2. Maps should be improved. I would be willing to spend a few dollars more for better maps. 3. Hotel, restaurant, etc. names are not printed in bold type. This makes it more difficult to use. 4. It would be very helpful to grade the sites with a priority to reduce the time one spends reading fine print and get on with seeing the country. When I return to this part of the world next winter I will try to find additional books to correct these weaknesses.

I travelled through Thailand, Philippines and Hong Kong using this book. I initially bought this book with weight in mind. I did not want to carry three more LPs along with the other country books (LP Taiwan, Japan). Although much of the information needed to survive was written in the book, it certainly did lack the detailed maps and background information needed to have a care-free journey. SOmetime it certainly was a struggle , especially in Thailand. The Thailand Section prices were extremely outdated. Even in the height on the "asian economic flu", I had to triple the prices listed. The Hong Kong section was adequate, but HK is an efficient and easily travelled city. Of the three, I found the Philippine section the best, but some of the hotel quality ratings are out dated. Please do not stay at the Hotel Mercedes in Cebu!

I'm looking to buy a 2002 and found some help in reading this book. Nevertheless, there is a lot of detail here that may be of some interest to enthusiasts, but was a little more than a novice like myself needs to know. Utlimately, the book is what it promises to be, "a comprehensive guide".

The book was authoritive in its portrayal of the 2002's history and gave very good advice in what to look for in purchacing one. In my opinion too much of the book was spent covering extremely rare 2002s and ones that were not imported to the US. I would have rather seen more detail on the more common US models and more detail pictures of what the original (US) equipment was like. Some of the pictures and English terminology were not very clear to me. If you're interested in buying a 2002 it is a good book to have, but you may want to supplement it with others.

In my 7 years of post secondary education, I can honestly say this is the worst book I've ever had to read.

Why?

1. The writing style is horiible. You'll have better luck understanding books on the synaptic reflexes of sub-Saharan lizards than you will this book. Many sentences are structured poorly and the authors' choice of words make understanding their point very difficult.

2. The Socio-Technical System (STS) described in the book is a complicated methodology to reengineer a company, division, etc. What it really is is a "MOTO" method - a Master Of The Obvious method. This is not to say that book doesn't have many good points about reengineering a system, it does. However, it complicates reasonable methods into an overall complex system that obscures their value.

3. In practical terms, the STS system described in this book is impossible to implement. Afterall, have you ever heard of STS before? Of course not... because it's not used in practice.

4. It's expensive, very expensive.

If you are hoping to learn more about reengineering, I would recommend another book. As much as I'd like to be able to offer one, I cannot, sorry.

If you have to read this for a college class, make sure you have plenty of time set aside since it will take you longer than you think.

This represents a one of a kind. Socio-Technical Systems has been around for a long time but never a better read if you are really interested in designing for performance. Taylor and Felten have a proven track record and have done a great job with a difficult subject. They take you through the process of design step by step with a case study of examples. It's focus on systems thinking and defining organizations as a living system helps us redefine our view of organizational life. For organizational development and training practitioners this book is a must read.

A rather unexciting book for Land Rover enthusiasts. It's a very basic overview and lacks the excitement of what these amazing vehicles can do. No colour pictures which is essential for this topic.

I just adore sheet music and no sheet music is complete without a title from a favorite artist is it? I gave this gift lovingly to my mother, who really enjoys his music. There is something very powerful in his lyrics and music. The lyrics transcend generations. When Taylor says in "Fire and Rain," "I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end," we don't know if he was overjoyed at the warmth of the day or if he was mad at the world and he didn't want it to be a happy place. Either way, it's brilliant. Don't take my word. See for yourself.

If you buy this book for the song "You've got a friend", don't buy it. The song is not in this book which they called the best of James Taylor. This title is incorrect because his greatest hit "You've got a friend" is not in it. I was very disappointed when I finally received this book.

The songs are ok but don't call a book the best of when the greatest hit is not in it.

I wish this book was available years ago. When I started playing guitar 20 years ago, my goal was to learn to play like JT. This book features guitar tablature arrangements that are very faithful to what you hear on JT's records. The only reason I don't give the book 5 stars is that it lacks some of the songs most of us would expect given the title. However, the book DOES contain the all-important "Fire and Rain", "Carolina in My Mind", "Sweet Baby James", and my personal favorite, "You Can Close Your Eyes"

... Mostly unenganging, poor on historical details, and basically your boring coffe table book about BMW. I got the feeling while reading this book that this must be your standard issue info book at BMW's musseum in Munich. (I got as close as the Olympiad Colisseum so I cannot testify to that personally.)

On the plus side, you get a list of BMW's internal model codes. That you'll need in anyway in order to follow the book's poorly written structure.

The book has some excellent color photography but is let down by lack of detail in the text and photo captions. Some of the cars used for photographic reference, especially in the Federal section, are not totally original. The worst part is the captions and text do not point this out. The most glaring errors are the under hood shots of the Federal cars. Examples are: Page 80, one has a rotary air conditioning compressor, the original is a York twin cylinder; incorrect ignition leads, no fan cowling, plastic cooling fan (should be metal), there were other shots that did not show original components. The ironic part is the paragraph in the front cover inset, it states "Several cars, such as a remarkable Mk 1 photographed in the United States, have been preserved throughout their lives by just one careful owner, making them exceptional survivors in unrestored and correct condition". This statement is far from the truth. Mr Taylor's other Stag books were very good, this was very dissapointing. This is especially so when people purchase this book as a reference document.