One of the greatest Catholic thinkers of the twentieth century, Etiene Gilson, discusses, interprets, and expounds, in his work "The Elements of Christian Philosophy," the Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas in terms that the educated laymen and student will find beneficial and fairly simple to soak in. This is a great summation of the "Summa," and should be placed next to Ralph McInerny's work and other accomplished commentators' treatment of St Thomas' oeuvre.

Liddell's book is enjoyable and well-written. However, it was written prior before a lot of relavent material on T.E. Lawrence was made public. Mack's biography of Lawrence (PRINCE OF OUR DISORDER) is much more comprehensive. All in all, however, it is a book well-worth reading for anyone interested in tracing the entire evolution of T.E. Lawrence's legend/story.

I bought a group of Sienkiewicz books with the Fredonia imprint (the covers mostly look a bit like this one) and found a lot of duplication among the group. For example, this books is the same as "In Monte Carlo". I think it's just a different translator.

To avoid duplicates, buy "On the Sunny Shore", "Dust and Ashes", "Without Dogma", "Children of the Soil", "Sielanka" and of course the Trilogy and the other books published by Hippocrene. "Hania" is also good to get if you don't have Hippocrene's "The Little Trilogy" because "Hania" is a great story and is by far the best story in the "Little Trilogy".

I found "On the Sunny Shore" a good read, but it's really a novelette and a rather slight one at that. I enjoyed it, but this is my favorite author so that's not surprising. I'd recommend this one only to Sienkiewicz completists.

This book was excellant for a report I did on Jefferson. It is a pretty simple biography, easy to read. It gives basic information on Jefferson, but is not extremely in depth. Still,it was informative and worth reading.

The entire time I was reading this, I felt like I was reading a sequel to a book I never read. Something is missing. I will keep the book on the shelf, but as of yet, I just don't get it. Unless you have some secret knowledge, don't buy this book!

This is an important book because it gives one a very good idea of the spiritual principles of a brilliant American statesman and what might be behind secret organisations who seem to rule the world.

On the subject of the crucifixion similar or different theories are found in books such as the Nag Hammadi library and Secrets of Golgotha by Dr Ernest Lee Martin. In addition the claim of the archaeologist and anaesthetist Ron Wyatt, who apparently found the ark of the covenant in a rock chamber underneath the place of crucifixion on Golgotha, with dried blood on the mercy seat, offers another perspective. All this can become quite confusing. Unfortunately the statements in The Book of the Holy Grail about the double crucifixion of Simon of Cyrene and Jesus Christ, and Christ's faked death, that contradict evangelical reports, are not proved substantially with footnotes, which makes it harder to believe this alternative story.

Jesus is reported to have rebuked people who put too much value on their biological descent from Abraham, and the Cathars and Waldensians rather believed in a purified and individualized spirituality. One gets thus the impression that this book is about a rather strange mixture of Christianity and Judaism.
The descriptions of the spiritual world and references to Melchizedek, Lucifer and Michael are interesting, but does not reveal much more than what a reader of the Bible already knows.

Perhaps we are really living in the times of the fulfilment of prophecies that were predicted in the Book of the Holy Grail, which would leave one with the hope that peace on earth might become more part of everyday reality.

I found this book by doing a search on Thomas Jefferson, and when I read the description of the book I went, "Right, as if." I think I've seen every possible conspiracy theory somewhere on the web, so the idea that there could be an unpublished manuscript by Joseph of Arimathea which was translated by, of all people, Thomas Jefferson, seemed simply ridiculous on the face of it. But ever since I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, I've been addicted to reading just about every book that has to do with the idea that there was a secret bloodline originating with Jesus, and I couldn't stand not reading this one. To my surprise, I found it fascinating. The idea that Joseph of Arimathea is Jesus' father is, in itself, remarkable. It explains the legends of Joseph taking the young Jesus to Glastonbury, which wouldn't be possible if Joseph of Arimathea was just another of Jesus' disciples. I also love the metaphysics, the idea that the reason our world is so screwed up is that the imperfections were deliberately put in to give us something to struggle against--a self-improvement therapy on a universal scale--the earth as an enormous Role Playing Game, and we're all gods who are playing the game. Fits in perfectly with the whole Matrix concept. And, what other book says that God was married to Goddess, and we are their sons and daughters? Much less sexist than the traditional Judeo-Christian creation myth where all comes from a patriarchal God. This book is hard going and it doesn't surprise me that some of the other readers get turned off by the historical claims, but once you get past that, this is a wonderful book of wisdom. Considering that there isn't any more scientific proof for the authenticity of the gospels than is offered for this one, maybe that's enough.

The role of values in public policy is certainly a topic worthy of discussion. Unfortunately, this book does not do a fine job of discussing the matter. It presents the typical think tank view of the world - rigidly ideological defenses of policy backed by a boatload of numbers. Values don't work well when forced into the defense of a viewpoint, and work even less when they are being quantified. The ideas of many of the writers, such as James Q. Wilson's notion of an underclass mentality, had been discredited even before they appeared in this work. For a serious discussion of the role of values in public policy, read a book by Rev. Jim Wallis or a like-minded soul, not by a bunch of think-tank technocrats.

Well, now it's 2002, and the the revolution has definitely not been televised. We've heard now from authors like these guys for about, oh, 10 years or so that smart cards are the next revolution. That it's just a matter of time before mag stripe cards are swept aside in this tidal wave of new technology.

Friends, it just ain't gonna happen here in the States. Despite massive attempts by GemPlus and other 'leaders' described in this book, the entire thing has been just one more marketing-driven attempt to force unneeded technology on the masses. The dog didn't hunt, and these 'visionaries' are now unwinding all their efforts here, sending thousands of programmers out on to the streets.

This thinly veiled advertisement, with very poor design and little original content, has suffered the ultimate indignity: history has rendered it all but irrelevant.

I bought this book hoping it would give some ideas on how smart card technology may offer new business opportunities for my software development company, but found nothing of the sort. I have not found an answer to a single question I had, for that matter. The laguage is horrible, information is presented poorly, lots of totally useless details and almost nothing on the subject I was mostly interested in: how (and why) a company would embrace this tachnology to make money.

Very disappointing. I am 75% through this book and struggling to finish it. Whilst the book has some good information (smart card lingo, players in the industry, trends...etc) most are useless because the materials are so badly organised. Filling up the book with charts, diagrams and detailed reference tables of smart card standards does NOT make it a useful book, all are illrelevant without much deeper explanation. Remember when you were in high school, you copied a few paragraphs from one book and a few from an other to "write" an essay --- it reads just like that, very amateurish. A lot of the so called "case study" blah about how good/bad the technology is, but no details. It's an informercial.... "Buy my stuff, and I'm going to make you lots of money. This man with only a high school education bought my tape barely over 3 weeks and he is now making $5000 a week,....blah, blah, blah".... where is the bloody proof ?! It's a damn Monday night informercial. Oh, I actually work for a smart card company so I may be bias. Amazon should introduce half a point, this book is a bit below 1.

Despite having an accurate title and being the most recent biography of George H. Thomas this book was the pits. The author relies too much on primary sources and battle reports and thus takes the exciting story of a Virginian who fought for the Union during the Civil War into an unreadable mess. I am glad to see books written on Thomas, however this one is a major disappointment.