This book was a delightful read! It gives an up close and personal view of what the priesthood is like for so many that have answered God's call for their lives!

I no longer think of the priesthood as a "lonely" life.....this book has proven what "fulfilled" lives these men lead and that they truly do have lives in addition to their ministries of preaching, counseling, administrating parishes, performing weddings,funerals, baptisms, Holy Communions and Confirmations!
What an inspirational read, especially for those interested in vocations, young and old alike! Tom Kane is to be applauded for his work!

This book is a delightful compilation of very heartwarming stories depicting the human side of priests. With all the recent scandals surrounding the clergy in the Catholic Church, it was a pleasure to hear from the "silent majority" of good priests. If you ever thought priests were "holy" all the time, this book provides a refreshing look at the human and often humorous side of our church leaders.

THE CONTENTS OF THE BOOK ..WHILE WELL WRITTEN AND ENTERTAINING..WAS A
COMPILATION OF SURVEY REPLYS THAT SHOWED SOME VERY SINCERE MEN AND... LIKE ALL HUMANS...SOME PRONE TO THEIR OWN EGO...
THE BOOK WAS WELL PACED AND KEPT YOU GOING...HOWEVER..SLOWLY...SOMETIMES !!
I HAD THE MOST FEELING READING THE HILTON RIVET SJ.SECTION PG 167 AND DONALD KANE PG 139...THEY WERE UPLIFTING FOR ME !!!
FROM MY PERSPECTIVE...IT WOULD BE A WORK THAT ANY YOUNG MAN SHOULD READ IF HE IS PROSPECTING FOR A LIFE STYLE.....AND... THE BOOK SHOULD BE IN EVERY RELIGIOUS ARTICLE STORE..

This book examines the ongoing (1655-1680) conflict between Thomas Hobbes and Oxford's Savilian Professor of Mathematics, John Wallis, over the squaring of the circle and related problems of Euclidian geometry. To the end of his long life, Hobbes asserted that he had succeeded in squaring the circle, and Wallis refuted him again and again. This "war" extended beyond mathematics, to, to each man's religious beliefs and politics.
What interested me most immediately was the cast: the people involved and their intellectual and personal relationships. Hobbes' first public involvement with squaring the circle, was his intervention in the dispute between the Danish mathematician Longoburg (Longomontanus) and John Pell. Interestingly, Hobbes demonstrated that Pell was correct in rejecting Longomontanus's claim to having squared the circle. Pell was author of an essay regarding establishment of a library of mathematical books and instruments. That essay was published as an appendix to his friend John Dury's The Reformed Librarian. Pell and Dury were part of the Hartlib circle, as was Theodor Haak, who reported Hobbes' role in the Pell/Longomontanus dispute to John Aubrey. After that we see Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, asking Hobbes to make up a list of mathematical texts. Presumably, the list was for Robert Boyle. In 1658 we find Thomas White and Kenelm Digby carrying communications between Fermat and Fenicle de Bessey in France and Lord Brouncker and Wallis in England. White, a Jesuit, had headed the English College at Douai; he had engaged Hobbes in debate over Galileo's Dialogues; and, at the end of a long life of intellectual distinction, he was caught up in the Popish Plot fabricated by Simon Oates. Etc.
It's worth describing the problem of squaring the circle, because it accounts for so much. Simply put: can a square be constructed that has the same area as a given circle, or vice versa? The key to the answer is in the word "constructed." By means of certain curves, such a square or circle can be defined. But those curves cannot be constructed using the classical instruments: ruler and compasses. Essentially, we're dealing with the transcendental character of pi, something that wasn't proved mathematically until the early 19th century.
Jesseph asks the question: why did Hobbes insist so long, to the end of his life, that he had squared the circle? Wallis refuted him again and again, but Hobbes hung on like a snapping turtle. Answering the question opens a window on the political, philosophical, social, and mathematical developments of the time. To summarize:
Hobbes's materialist philosophy brought him to support Isaac Barrow in Barrow's contention with Wallis over the primacy of geometry over arithmetic. These were the two components of classical mathematics, geometry dealing with continuous quantities and arithmetic with discrete. Barrow held that geometry was primary because it dealt with real physical reality, like distances and area, whereas numbers were abstractions: 1, 2, 3, etc. are concepts drawn from one egg, two brothers, three ships, and the like.
Hobbes' Erastianism--his contention in Leviathan that the king should be ruler over the religion of his subjects--placed him on the side of the Independents (congregationalists) against the Presbyterians in Protectorate religious politics. Hobbes, himself an atheist, felt that the Independents could be more easily be brought to heel by the King than the Presbyterians. Wallis was a Presbyterian, had even been Secretary of the Westminster Assembly.
Hobbes shared with the eduicational reformer John Webster and the Independent preacher William Dell a mistrust of the universities as temples to the scholasticism deriving from Aquinas. Wallis and his friend Seth Ward, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, were both actively involved in defending the universities from these attacks.
Of particular interest is the first of these issues. The debate between geometry and arithmetic came to the fore at this time because the distinction between the two was breaking down. Descartes (1637) and then Viete (1646) had defined analytical geometry. Napier (1620s?) had derived the logarithm from his work on the geometrical problem of the parallax. Cavalieri (1635) developed a "method of indivisibles": parallel slices of a geometric figure which, taken together, define the figure. Where this all is going, it seems to us in Whiggish hindsight, is toward notions of infinity, infinite series, and Newton's calculus.
I'll close by noting that Jesseph responds to Shapin and Schaffer, who, in their Leviathan and the Air-Pump, make "the success or failure of a scientific research program entirely independent of the truth or falsehood of the program's central claims." Jesseph calls their approach Wittgensteinian, but it was recognized when the book came out as post-modernist radicalism: science as pure social construct, without necessary basis in either the physical world or agreed canons of reason and method. The fact that Hobbes persisted so long in his claims is certainly less important than that after 1670 he was no longer taken seriously as a mathematician, except insofar as Wallis took the time and effort to refute him in the Transactions of the Royal Society.

On the surface, this book seems an unlikely candidate for my enthusiasm. It appears to be 500 pages of minutia. In fact, the author starts out by saying it is an expansion of a footnote to an early work on the relatively obscure Calvinist mathematician Wallis. How perfectly academic! If that doesn't put the book out of reach, look forward to reading about 1000 footnotes.

Regardless, I think this a great book. Once I got comfortable with the terms, I realized this might be construed as something much more interesting than the traditional 'discovery' of mathematical truths. I'm still not exactly sure how to characterize it, but I'm having fun thinking it a history of science fiction. After all, 'squaring the circle' is the 17th century equivalent to predicting the winner of the Kentucky Derby or tomorrow's change in the Dow Jones Industrials. I may be stretching a bit here, but there is clearly more on the plate than justifying 17th century mathematic revolutions with apples falling on the head of a reclining Newton.

Rather than placing the subject matter in purely mathematical terms, Jesseph considers his material in a wider context, one that makes room for Restoration style science fiction. Keep in mind that Newton's alchemy was an early form of teleportation and the monads of Leibnitz took advantage of an early warp drive. Despite overtly humiliating Hobbs for his mathematical errors, its clear that Jesseph finds Hobbs the ultimate winner. Hobbs suffers no more from his lapse of academic rigor than any contemporary science fiction author. And like Jules Verne, the spirit of his ideas has won if not his details. The political science advocated by Hobbs in Leviathan is hard to distinguish from contemporary standards. Hobbs advocated severely limiting the legal authority of church bishops, scientific materialism and the notion that good laws could produce a good society. Meanwhile, Wallis would be known as a dogmatic right-wing Christian fundamentalist. Further, most of us are convinced that science has 'solved' the problem of 'squaring the circle' which is all Hobbs was advocating, anyway.

And so, Jesseph does a subtle job of indicting my modern sensibility. Painting Hobbs to be the fool, he is actually pointing a finger at my happy secular humanism. Bravo!

So, why is squaring the circle so tricky?

In short, an attempt to find the circle which is exactly 1 square foot in area forces us to confront conflicting intuitions about how we prove the existence of 'real' objects. Try it out for yourself. It is something you can attempt with pencil and paper, or better... try it with a home computer. One of the great things about this book is that it lays out the mathematical issues clearly enough that anyone with high school algebra and maybe an ability to write an excel spreadsheet, can play the 17th century geometer and mathematician. I had a great time doing a 'quadrature' in Excel. If you are interested, I'll email you the spreadsheet (see users.htcomp.net/markmills).

In summary, I think Jessup's book fits into a broad, ongoing reappraisal of mathematical history. I can identify 3 trends, 'Squaring the circle belonging to the 3rd and most important of them:

1. Bringing non-western mathematics to western readers. The best of this is the ongoing research into ancient Chinese mathematics. See 'Chinese Mathematics: A Concise History', Li Yan, Du Shiran, John N. Crossley, Anthony W.-C. Lun, Shih-Jan Tu or 'Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: The Zhou Bi Suan Jing', Christopher Cullen. In short, most of what the Europeans called 'new' math in the 1500s had been around for 500 years in China.

2. Finding a physiological basis for mathematic intuitions. Check out the cognitive research described by 'Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being', George Lakoff, Rafael E. Nunez, Rafael Nuñez. All you really need to read is the first chapter. The rest is rather speculative.

3. Reappraising the conventional myths about heroic ancient European mathematicians. Unless your ambition is a tenured job teaching the history of math, you will have a great time reading sensible inquiries into pre-modern western math. Take a look at 'Biographies of Scientific Objects , Lorraine Daston (Editor), or Pappus of Alexandria and the Mathematics of Late Antiquity, Serafina Cuomo.

One cannot help wondering why two scholars did engage in such a fiercely dispute for half of their intellectual life. John Wallis, Oxford's Savilian professor of geometry had no trouble in exposing time and again the mathematical short-commings in the preposterous claims of so ill equiped an amateur mathematician as Thomas Hobbes. But why was the battle so intense and why should it cover nearly a quarter of a century, producing hundreds of letters, books and publications? Even more bewildering is the fact that the subject of the debate, squaring the circle, was later proved to be impossible and that neither the claims of Hobbes nor the rebuttals of Wallis contributed anything significant to the field of mathematics. Fortunately, Douglas Jesseph provides adequate answers to these questions in this excellent work on 17th century history of mathematics. A study of these important controversies sheds light on the reform of mathematics in the 17th century and exposes the widely divergent philosophical conceptions of mathematics to which both antagonists adhered.

A first fundamental issue concerned Hobbes' materialistic foundation of mathematics where Wallis reasoned from the traditional account that mathematical facts do not depend on the structure of the material world. A second source of dispute was the completely different concept of ratios: Wallis defended that those ratios could only be applied to homogoneous quantities. Thirdly, the angle of contact between a circle and its tangent was a subject of wilful misunderstanding from the part of Wallis. Finally, the important 17th-century debate on infinitesimal small quantities was heavily criticised by Hobbes and although he did not develop an alternative, his objections to some of the obscurities of Wallis' arithmetic of infinities were well justified. These disputed foundations on the philosophy of mathematics were not the only sources of the irreconcilable conflict. Wallis and Hobbes also held opposing views on methodological issues such as the nature of demonstration and the centuries-old discussion on analytic and synthetic methods. For Hobbes all demonstration must arise from causes and as such he rejected techniques from algebra and analytic geometry in which one starts by assuming the truth of the proposition that is ultimately sought and deduces consequences from that assumption. In doing so he tossed aside the tools that might have helped him in his desperate attempt to make his mark as mathematician. Apart from diverging views on the fundaments of mathematics and methodological issues, religious and political positions play part in explaining the controversy. Wallis fitted neatly into the reformed tradition while Hobbes' religious opinions stood far apart. Hobbes was excluded from the newly established Royal Society for ideological and personal reasons and as such was deprived from a forum to respond to his critics. His political opinions and his vitriolic polemics at universities brought him into conflict with many important people and explain at least some of the vehemence with which the dispute was conducted. However, Jesseph refrains from pursueing sociological reductionist account and spends part of the last chapter convincingly demonstrating the inadequacy of a purely sociological explanation of the dispute. By uncovering the conceptual gulf dividing Hobbes and Wallis, Jesseph succeeds in demonstrating important differences in the philosophy of mathematics in the 17th century and explains why these two men engaged in such ferocious fight. Objectively, Hobbes miserably failed attempt at the solution of classic geometric problems makes him the loser of this dispute. But one can feel in this book also some sympathy for the consequent way in which Hobbes rigorously applied principles of his philosophy to mathematics and ultimately rejected classical geometry to avoid an even worse fate: the refutation of his own philosophy.

This superb collection of views from Leelanau County is a delight for anyone who has spent summers in northern Michigan. It's rich with hundreds of beautifully reproduced real photo postcards, supplemented with maps, early tourist ads, and an informative text constructed from Byron's and Wilson's research and excerpts from travel literature.

"Vintage Views" is a must for Leelanau County lovers and postcard collectors alike. You'll spend many enjoyable hours with this book, traveling from the comfort of your favorite chair.

Everything about VINTAGE VIEWS OF LEELANAU COUNTY is a spectacular journey. Anyone with a nostalgic bone in their body must view this book? For me, it "conjured" up so many memories of vacations to resorts where being with family and enjoying the area was the "why" you were on the trip.

This is an absolutely wonderful book about Leelanau County history, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and northern Michigan tourism of days gone by. It's a must have if you vacation up north and would make a very memorable gift for those who visit that area. I highly recommend it. I wish a book like this existed for the entire west side of Michigan.

Incredible. Everything you've ever wanted from a band that time forgot, but never get. Really well written, with the ring of truth and a great sense of humor. Some great cold war stuff too. Maybe this is what Johnny Rotten was refering to when he talked about going under the Berlin Wall. Such a strange, interesting story, that now I've read the book, listened to the CDs over and over, even saw one of the guys walking around NYC with a baseball cap on and still have a hard time believing all this really happened. But right there in the book is a photo of a tonsured Dave Day comparing notes with a spit-curled Bill Haley; and there's even a German poster advertising, in clockwise order, an album from The Who, Hums of The Loving Spoonful, Fresh Cream, and lo and behold, black monk time.

After reading this book and listening to the CD of the same name, readers/listeners will say "The Velvet who?" This is rock and roll at its strangest, most twisted and rebellious. Mr. Shaw's story borders on the fantastic, but it really happened! Five GIs shaving their heads and dressing in black and pumping out punk music a decade before the Sex Pistols, the Clash et al. Who woulda thunk it? This is truly an essential addition to any rock musicologists library.

Eddie Shaw's book, BLACK MONK TIME, is an in-depth look at the mutation of a standard 60s rock n roll group into the first punk band. As bassist for the Monks, he is able to give readers an inside look at the dynamics of a working rock n roll group. His prose really starts to catch fire, appropriately enough, when the band begins to undergo radical changes; both musically and satorially. Fans of the Velvet Underground to the Sex Pistols should give both the book and the Monks sole album (entitled BLACK MONK TIME also) a whirl.

I have a 5 and 7 year old. We all think this book is great! It's colorful and informative and Up-To-Date! One feature I enjoy pointing out to my kids is the little images which compare the dinosaurs size to a human child's size. That way we get an even better idea how big the creatures were.

Promising high interest and educational quality alike is this dinosaur 'field guide' for all ages, which packs in museum-quality dinosaur illustrations, expertise by two paleontologist authors, and details on dinosaur digs and places to see fossils in the field. Web sites, museums, and bibliographies are also included in this highly visual, appealing guide.

This is a great book, its got the most info on dino discoveries after about '95, plus interesting facts on previously known about dinos. Its also a very interesting and fun book to read, and is very educational. It has a cool fold out poster too, wich makes it even more fun. I strongly reccemend this book to any one of any age who like dinosaurs.

It's a fantastic book. It is about the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem -- from the donkey's point of view. The events that happened during the first Christmas are told in a different light. It's a funny, inspiring, and feel-good book. If you want to get into the Christmas spirit, this book is the one for you.

It's the story of Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem and their struggles as told by the donkey who has been purchased to carry Mary.
Its a warm and inviting book. Great read especially around the Christmas season. It's a family tradition at our house.

I Love this book. It is my all time favorite. I first read it in Reader's Digest Consensed books several years ago, then had to buy the actual book. I loan that copy to my friends and family. I read it every December, and once I start, I can't put it down. It tells the story of Jesus' birth from a whole different point of view. It is a wonderful story for people of all ages. I highly recomend it!

Dr Hugh Curtin is probably the most prepared head and neck radiologist of the world.

I will be assisting Dr. Curtin and of course find the cases comprehensive, from the archives of the Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary. The pathology spectrum is exhaustive.

*However, it seems that other reviews on this page are likely a practical joke, by mental infants.

YEEEHAW, that was great, gosh golly what work on the editing, by Hugh Curtin, I was amazed at the super job he did

I just finished reading this book cover to cover and feel very confident about moving on to the next stage of my CCNA preparation, practice tests and simulation! I've been using the CCExam software from CCStudy.com as well as a few other practice tests and am amazed how easy a lot of the questions were after reading this book. Just an indication of how comprehensive this book is.

More important, in my opinion, is the book's "readability"! I'm sure there are numerous books that cover the exact same information as this book yet might not be written in a manner that is clear and simple to understand, especially for Cisco newbies like myself. This book is just a lot of fun to read.

Finally, I really enjoyed the "real world" tone of this title. It isn't written for someone who's bound for the testing center, but rather for someone who needs to apply the knowledge at work in the field. I'm certain that I'll constantly be using this book as a reference even after passing the exam. Very cool.

All in all, I'd like to recommend ICND to the Cisco neophyte who's looking for that great "First Book" to start off his or her Cisco library. I'm really glad I got this book and I'm sure you will be too.

Good luck on your CCNA!

I read ICND by Cisco Press before. I found this book used on Amazon and bought it just because it was cheap. Now I can not put it down. This book is far better than Cisco Press' ICND. It has about 100 more pages than Cisco's. To me it is worth every minute spent to read this book.
I passed CCNA in December. So, I don't have the exam pressure. I am reading this just for fun and enjoying it.
I strongly recommend it over Cisco's ICND if you intent to take CCNA test.

I pass ccna2.0 with 935/1000 today. All I have is this book and Boson exams. I've read my friend's Todd Lammle book. I think this book is much better than Todd's. Todd's is written for passing the exam. For the ICND book, you actally learn the CCNA stuff in depth. I strongely recommend this book for everyone who want to pass the CCNA2.0 with FULLY understanding.

Comments on Profit Beyond Measure by Tom Johnson:

Tom Johnson's overview of business thinking is astoundingly clear, the beginning of the revolution that Dr. W. Edwards Deming demanded for so many years.

The Toyota story is told beautifully in chapter 3; now I begin to understand what happens in that Kentucky facility.

Chapter 4 is the weakness of the book; there is no there there. The Scania "secret" is not in the same universe as that at Toyota. What more evidence do we need than the sale of the company?

Chapter 5 is fascinating. Tom Johnson the heretic! A modern day Martin Luther! No one on Wall Street will want to know about orderline analysis. However, if those using it prosper...

The stock market vanish? That is precisely what will happen if Tom Johnson's thinking catches on. And that can't happen too soon. It may already be too late to preserve our culture as we know it. But then, it may be time.

Most in business will not want to hear the last two chapters. But no one wants to hear that they have cancer either, right? This patient (the world economy) has cancer, and no one knows if survival is possible.

I can't wait for the next iteration of this "stuff." The books that Johnson (and a few others, like Dr. Ed Baker) are going to write could make all the difference in our future. Dr. Norman Borlaug and his cohorts are trying to feed the world in spite of potentially deadly water shortages; Johnson and a few like-minded intellectuals are trying to feed the world correct thinking in spite of potentially deadly shortsightedness.

Since the day Amazon delivered my copy of Johnson and Broms' Profit Beyond Measure,I have taken delight with every page. This book is a wonderfully brilliant, masterful book that may be the serious business book of this decade in the way Senge's Fifth Discipline was for the 1990's. Insightful writers such as Margeret Wheatley and Danah Zohar have artfully open our eyes to the potential of viewing organizations as naturally evolving living systems. Notwithstanding their powerful insights, the actual application of these ideas left a lot to the imagination as to how they would actually be applied. Johnson and Broms, however, provide the substance and put the meat on the bones of the many complexity and chaos theory books available today. Johnson and Broms tell us with precision and in entaintaining detail the stories of Toyota and Scania Truck and how, respectively, they have gone forty and sixty-sixty years without losing money---how, they manage by means, as part of living systems, not trying to orchestrate management by the results (a notion of believing that you can fix future events to happen within a management plan) as America's Big 3 auto companies have over the past century. Johnson and Broms take us inside of the Toyota and Scania plants and board rooms, helping us see how they produce only according to actual orders, how they design and set up assembly and modulated processes to avoid waste (not eliminate it, avoid it in the first place!), how they treat their employees, how they see customers and market and more. Drawing from the principles articulated by Gregory Bateson, Johnson and Bohms help us see the unique milieu and overriding philosophy and work culture that is reflective of an open, living system, that relies on "balanced, cyclical patterns of continuous flow of the work for every person in the organization." Before reading this book, I only had a vague notions of how chaos, complexity, and new science theories applied to the emerging organizations of today. As a result of reading this book, however, I believe I now can grasp what it means, in real and substantive terms, for an organization to exist, evolve, and succeed as part of living system. This is a book for the new century. Every business can learn from this book and those that don' will perish while Toyota, Scania, and others of this fabric will thrive in our increasingly complex and interdependent world. I recommend this book to any one interested in business theory, organizational development, or building a better organization. Tom Coens

For manufacturers the 20th century was the story of Ford and Toyota. The story of the transition from mass production to lean production has been told many times, but often focusing on the techniques, not the strategy. Professor Johnson has developed a profound insight into the strategy behind Toyota's approach, framed as management by means, rather than management by results.

This is the most important insight into the Toyota Production System which has come my way in the last ten years. Johnson demonstrates why the Toyota Management by Means approach gives superior long term value to customers, shareholders and employees.

Profit without Measure is essential reading for any manufacturer building a strategy for World Class Manufacturing.

This book was very interesting and suspenseful. It takes you right along, so that you feel involved. I live in Phoenix and some of the action took place in familiar settings. The way some philanthropic organizations can front for illeagle money laundering was a revelation to me. A well written book. Good reading.

After vacationing in Phoenix the places were described just as I had seen them, except for all the action. I have missed several dinners and hours of sleep over this book. I simply could not put it down! The size of the type was especially appealing, making it even easier to read. The 'flow' of the book is very good. A couple of times I thought I had a part figured out but soon discovered I was totally wrong. I hope the author writes a lot more. He's like another John Grisham!!!

This book is fast paced and exciting with likable characters. The author draws you in and never lets go. You're left wanting....MORE!