With the release of the movie 'Eleven Days' and the holding of Al Queda prisoners at Cuba's Gauntanamo Bay, this story is very timely, despite being 40 years old.

Robert Thompson Smith pieces together the story of how the Cuban missile crisis unfolded and how it became resolved and the resolution may not be the way many of us understand it to be. Thompson Smith uses reports from the time and also official U.S. Government documents released in 1992 to give as true an account as possible about the secretive meetings between politicians, diplomats and bureaucrats. What I found most interesting was the decline of the relationship between the U.S., U.S.S.R and Cuba post WW2, which explains why the crisis developed in the first place. It also gives an excellen history of U.S./Cuban relations.

His writing style is humorous, if at times a little disjointed, and he's not afraid to make quips about a public figure's weight, personality or sexual activity (JFK in particular). It's one of those stories where even though you know what happens in the end you still are held in suspense, a credit to the authors ability to maintain the intrigue. There are comments and interpretations which have to be questioned given that we, nor the author, were there, but on the whole the author keeps an objective view on the situation. The aggressive nature of some of the military heirarchy and their willingness to go to war is astounding. No matter what you may think of Kennedy his ability to resist these advisors is admirable.

The only down side is that he seems to drag the early part of the crisis out, where the reader is keen to get into the nitty gritty we're still in the preliminaries at page 200. As a reader I was running out of steam by the end as there are so many names, places, dates and times it's hard not to be confused.

I will hand it to Thompson Smith as he finishes the story of the crisis with JFK landing in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Without any comment he leaves us with that and given all that was presented before we're left to think there were plenty of people who had motives to take part in Kennedy's assassination.

In Robert Smith Thompson's recounting of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Missiles of October, the
whole story of the tense standoff between the United States, Russia, and Cuba unfolds into a
suspenseful, detailed, yet sometimes confusing story. Although reading the book's jacket cover,
or having some knowledge of world history, lets the reader know how the story ends, The
Missiles of October still reads more like a suspense novel than a non-fiction history book.
Thompson leaves no details out, and makes sure that readers are well informed of all the events
that led up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The book starts in 1945, as the United States is dropping
the atomic bomb on Japan, and ends on November 22, 1963, the day JFK is assassinated. The
material in between covers the missile crisis in its entirety, and brings new details to light that the
public was not aware of.
While The Missiles of October is chock-full of information, it sometimes feels as if too
much of it is given. For instance, on page 344, Thompson writes, "On Sunday afternoon,
television viewers watched their beloved Washington Redskins up in Yankee Stadium, receiving a
49 to 34 shellacking at the hands of the New York Giants." Information like this is littered
throughout the book, but it does not really enhance the story, or the reading experience.
Furthermore, at some points, so much information is given that it is not only an annoyance, but
also confusing for the reader. Another problem is that Thompson alludes semi-frequently to the
"TFX Scandal" only to touch on it briefly at the end of the book. Despite these shortcomings,
though, The Missiles of October is a very enjoyable, well researched piece of work.
What will probably strike any reader of this book the most is how close the United States
came to an all out invasion of Cuba, and possibly a nuclear war. Thompson knows this, and
focuses much of the book on that topic. He even contends that the U.S. was within hours of
launching a strike at Cuba at one point. Thompson also shows that President Kennedy's rejection
of advice from many of his trusted advisors is what kept a war from erupting. Thompson is also
aware that many readers may not know some of the history that led up to the Cuban Missile
Crisis, and he goes out of his way to let readers know what happened.
When the book ends, readers will have to seriously reconsider what they thought they
knew about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Thompson's writing and overall accounting of the crisis
leads the reader to believe that no one really won the tense standoff; both sides had to make
concessions. The people that Thompson writes about also provide a interesting list of characters,
some of whom may have had a motive in the assassination of JFK. Overall, The Missiles of
October is a good read for anyone with patience and a yearning for a suspenseful, amazing, and
truthful tale of American History.

This book is so good because it is very action packed and has good facts

This book is an absolute must-read!!! The story of the pioneers' unwavering impetus to conquer all the elements of the West was very compelling, I thought. When I read of how North American politicians and other citizens were so preoccupied with an easy election victory of William Aberhart and his Social Credit Party, I questioned what all the contention was about. Perhaps they perceived the Social Credit Party as some radical, left-wing party, and sympathizers to the Communist cause. I read this literature when I was twelve, and at that age I felt an odd obligation to study Western history, for some reason...

I thought this book was very informative, although I did not find the history of the political parties during the Depression years that interesting. This book is very in depth about the Prairies political and economic history.I became annoyed at how Prairie residents are so arrogant. Toronto will always be the financial capital of Canada, not Calgary, as quoted in this book.Generally I could summarize this book as a story of the Fur Trade, western migration and farming, farmer political parties, and economics.

Ruggedo is back, with yet another attempt to conquer the Land of Oz. As usual, Thompson does a good job with this character, making him a threatening yet childish and humorous villain. In this book, he temporarily teams up with Peter Brown from Philadelphia, who is not one of my favorite American visitors to Oz, but does have a well-developed personality. When Peter turns against Ruggedo, he uses his own talents to conquer the former Nome King. (Incidentally, in case you're wondering, Thompson used the traditional spelling of "gnome," hence the book title, but I prefer to use Baum's spelling.) The Patchwork Girl also makes an appearance, and Peter helps her to escape from Patch, another one of the tiny kingdoms scattered throughout Oz (and the second to emphasize sewing). After the escape from Patch, the timing suffers somewhat, with Peter and Scraps, along with the less interesting Grumpy the bear and Ozwold the oztrich, visiting the irrelevant villages that appear in most Oz books. While these villages are fairly clever Thompsonian creations, I found myself wanting to get back to Ruggedo's attempts to conquer the country. I wouldn't call this one of the better Oz books, but it is worth reading just for Ruggedo, and there's a lot of other good stuff in the book as well.

Scraps the Patchwork Girl finds herself crowned Queen of the Quilties, but her new position is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. So she runs away, heading back to her home in the Emerald City. At the same time, Peter, a boy from the United States, is conned into helping the evil Gnome King regain control of the underworld. But when Peter figures out what the Gnome King really has up his sleeve, he changes sides and helps save the Emerald City from a Gnome invasion. Ruth Plumly Thompson again cooks up a breezy story full of off-the-wall jokes and lively characters. It's a treat.

Is it possible that the fairyland of Oz is really a fictional metaphor for the Christian Heaven, or a fantasy parallel of broader Western conceptions of the afterlife? Ruth Plumly Thompson's Handy Mandy In Oz (1937) begins with young lass goat herd Mandy being propelled into the atmosphere by the sudden eruption of a spring under the mountain on which she lives. Sudden, potentially fatal acts of nature or abrupt, violent accidents that drive girls and boys into the stratosphere and beyond like corks are common in the Oz books, beginning with the first book, The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, in which Dorothy is famously carried to Oz by a cyclone. In the same title, the Wizard has reached Oz by similar means; his hot air balloon has been blown off the face of the Earth by high winds. In 1908's Dorothy and The Wizard In Oz, Dorothy falls through a fissure in the ground during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and in The Scarecrow Of Oz (1915), little Trot and her adult male companion Cap'n Bill also reach the 'other world,' if not Oz directly, by being sucked into a whirlpool. In John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky In Oz (1942), young lad Bucky is propelled into the lands surrounding Oz by an explosion on a ship in New York Harbor. Does Oz act as a kind of conduit that attracts the living like a magnet under such circumstances, or have Dorothy, Trot, and Bucky passed away into paradise?

Interestingly, Baum, who adapted European fairy mythology and Theosophical beliefs for the Oz books, also had a backdoor method for entering Oz: in 1919's The Road To Oz, Dorothy, again back in Kansas, finds herself more or less 'pixie led' - inexplicably lost in a familiar place - while on the road to American city Butterfield. Since the fairies were partially identified with the dead in Ireland and Scotland, Dorothy's "straying off the path" is open to a number of interpretations.

To small Christian children then as now, Oz must certainly seem like Heaven, or least a happy, comforting purgatory where no one goes hungry, wants for anything, or ages; every one of its inhabitants lives forever in almost complete peace and serenity. In fact, Oz, with its minor greedy, power-lusting villains and occasional upsets, is perhaps more akin to Heaven before Lucifer's rebellion and expulsion. For Dorothy, who is eventually and permanently joined in Oz by beloved animal companion Toto and parental guardians Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, Oz is paradise, a place with just enough novelty and tension to make infinity enjoyable forever.

If Oz enjoys a god figure, then it is child fairy Ozma; but Ozma, relatively mature sorceress Glinda the Good, and especially over-conceived sky voluptuary Polychrome are more akin to the traditional image of Christian angels. Outside its own borders, Oz has its hell and its devils too. Every Oz reader knows about the underground cavern kingdom of the Gnomes, which lies across the burning, fiery-hot desert in Ev (Evil?), and of Ev's demonic, shape-shifting Phanfasms, most malevolent of all Oz and Ev tribes.

Handy Mandy in Oz is one of the lesser Thompson titles, enjoyable enough in itself but not quite developed enough in its narrative to join the classics in the Oz chronicle. Thompson introduces Mandy, who has seven arms, but, in clever conjunction with illustrator John R. Neill, doesn't make this apparent until the book's third chapter. Suddenly discovering herself in a Gillikin kingdom lorded over by a domineering false king, Mandy meets "royal ox" Nox, and the two escape in search of deposed boy king Kerry, who has been missing for two Oz years. Handy Mandy, who has a decided Protestant work ethic, is a solidly built, self-reliant, no-nonsense lass who, all things considered, makes an excellent role model. Thompson wisely fails to stress whether or not Mandy is beautiful, and allows Mandy a certain toughness of mind: Mandy has to be the only heroic Oz character before Jenny Jump who is suspicious of Ozma's buttery sweetness and perceives her Magic Picture to have negative, Big Brother-like potential. In one early chapter, Mandy, resolutely prepared to face any opposition, takes up not only a sword but a rifle, surely an Ozian first. Curmudgeon Nox the Ox, like Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant before him, is a similarly well-conceived character; Nox realistically loses his temper on occasion and doesn't suffer fools gladly.

The villain of the book is fey sorcerer Wutz the Silver King, who Neill hilariously portrays as a slightly decadent, late-period John Barrymore. Wutz frees Ruggedo the Gnome King from his latest in a series of many enchantments and the two unscrupulous beings, ostensibly in partnership, plot against Ozma and one another. The story of Handy Mandy In Oz is, in pattern, so much like other previous Oz titles that the reader will easily guess not only who has captured the missing Kerry but what the outcome of the nefarious plot will be. The resurrection of Ruggedo alone will cause readers to pause to suppress a yawn.

As a seven-armed wonder - three on one side, four awkwardly on the other - Handy Mandy may remind readers of an archetypal Indian goddess reinterpreted as a clog-wearing Dutch milkmaid. John R. Neill's illustrations are terrific throughout, including one depicting the futuristic, Art Deco interior of the Silver King's throne room, and another of frenzied Scraps the Patchwork Girl attacking the unprepared Mandy. Unlike some of the other Thompson titles, there are few elements of the book which reflect the influence of the Alice books. However, one of Neill's pictures of Mandy and Nox treading water, heads barely above the surface, appears to be a homage to Tenniel's illustrations for Alice chapter The Pool Of Tears, especially since, as in Carroll, the 'pool' is generated from the body of one of the swimmers.

Better than the book Wizard of Oz by far. Imaginative. A very special book for girls. A very resourceful heroine without being too sweet, unusual for the time. Young boys will like it also, plenty of action.

This book gives a major role to Jack Pumpkinhead, a character who never really had one in the Baum books. In this story, Jack must test the capacity of his pumpkin seed brains, and he really does come up with some clever ideas. With the help of the Red Jinn (who becomes a more important character in later books), he eventually manages to save all of Oz from a restless and ambitious baron. As is usual for Oz books, this one contains a lot of clever new creations, including an Iffin, a baron with a never-ending beard, and a runaway Christmas tree intent on finding new ornaments. There are also many new magical items, and some well-written sequences, including the description of the main characters' entrance into the fortress city of Baffleburg. While not one of the best or most important Oz books, it is definitely a fun read.

The Emerald City is under attack by the forces of the evil Mogodore the Mighty and it's up to Jack Pumpkinhead and an American boy named Peter to save Ozma and her friends from enslavement. Once again, Ruth Plumly Thompson spins an enchanting yarn full of colorful characters and wild situations. A delightful addition to the Oz series.

I used this commentary as a resource to lead a Bible school course on Jeremiah. It was the most useful of all the works I consulted, and yielded many valuable insights.

For everyone who is interested in matters of ideology and public opinion it is a very useful guide into past and current discussion on the concept of ideology. In the second part of the book you will find quite interesting elaboration of the development of media industry based mainly on data from Braitain, neverthenless vey elucidating. Finally the author's media theory which is trying to consider the inner dynamics of media development against the mainstream of New-Left critics of the mass culture tyranny. The style very clear, so you can follow the author's pace of thoughts quite easy but you can find yourself quite bored going thru three fields of reaserch which will finish in final synthesis.

The Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas presents the first detailed state-wide survey results for breeding birds. Detailed species accounts are provided for more than 150 birds known to breed in Iowa. These are accompanied by maps showing the distribution of the birds. Several introductory chapters summarize information about the vegetation, geologic origins, and history of the state. Summary statistics include tables showing the most common species, the most frequently confirmed breeding species, and correlations between species groups and the different landforms. The data in this volume includes key information on both common and rare species. This book is an excellent reference for anyone interested in birds or bird atlases. The species accounts are extremely well-written and informative. I highly recommend this book.

This book is a take on Ripleys "Believe it or not". I found it humorous and enjoyed the art work of John Thompson. I like a book you can set on the table and pick up to read a page or two for a good laugh at the end of a hard day....this one did it for me.

This is an excelent resource for those individuals who are interested in Participatory research. It is a virtual "how to book" The authors have carefully assembled a workbook that helps teach many of the skills needed to learn through participation. Whether you are a researcher, facilitator, or someone who just works on the grass roots level; you will appreciate the variety of topics and activities that are discussed.

Chapter headings include: -Adult Learning -You, The Trainer and Facilitator -Group Dynamics and Team Building -Principles of Participatory Learning and Action -Training in Participatory Methods in the Workshop -The challenges of Training in the Field -Organizing workshops for Training, (Orientation and Exposure) -Plus: 101 games and Exercises for Trainers

I recomend this book to anyone interested in participation, participatory research, Planning (especially advocasy), people who work with unempowered peoples, those who want to empower people, anyone interested in methods of learning.

On a personal note: I am a planning student at the University of Tennessee and I have found that books like these (workbooks) serve as a valuable tool when trying to implement or exercise participatory learning reasearch. I have been facilitating for about a year now and although there is no suppliment for practice and experience, books such as these, help.