The educated layperson will find Dr. Thompson's *Spirit of the Soil* to be a perfect introduction to the bewilderingly complex ethical and economic questions that increasingly surround modern agriculture. The author ruthlessly dissects politically charged and often intentionally vague terms and concepts such as "sustainability," "stewardship," the consumer mentality, and the flawed yet indispensible materialism of modern production agriculture. This book will be enormously helpful to anyone who wants to attack farm policy with a more mature understanding of the ethical issues upon which the cultural and physical sustainability of modern agriculture depends

This book describes the PGA algorithm which is used extensively in all modern SAR systems. A clear and broad treatment of SAR processing. This should be the first SAR book you reach for. It's nice to read about algorithms from the originators for a change.

Sundipper still ranks as one of my favorite books of all time. I've read it several times and its pacing and imagery are one-of-a-kind. Someone make a movie out of this book already!

Whether you are male or female, young or old, the book will find a way to touch you. The book isn't very long and can be read on a rainy afternoon. Let it seduce you and make you dream of outer space...

I really liked, then immediately lost it. I only have vague memories of what happened, so I won't spoil the finish.

A vocabulary teaching/learning tool that's both truly useful and fun? How can this be? I don't know how many vocabulary workbooks you've seen, but I've seen plenty, and they're generally just horrid. This one, in contrast, is terrific.

I don't know why Amazon doesn't provide needed information about this book. It's a workbook, and it's clearly meant to be used in a middle-school classroom. That doesn't mean it would have to be used in school; anyone between the ages of ten and fourteen could pick it up and get useful information about words and how to use them . . . and enjoy it.

Several things about this book struck me as unusual. The word lists that begin each lesson actually present solid, useful, appropriate words. The definitions are, amazingly, actually understandable instead of containing words harder than the one being taught. There's nary a diacritical mark to be found; every target word is "respelled" to clarify its pronunciation. And that's just the first page. The rest of each lesson consists of exercises, often quite clever ones, that provide opportunities to see what the words actually mean and how they can be used. There's also quite a bit of simple art and lots of jokes that use the words--all adding to the general idea that word acquisition is anything but tedious.

This book almost made me want to get back into a classroom.

If you are looking for a quick yet thorough coverage of this topic then this is the book for you. It is a relatively short book, coming in at 167 pages (not including bibliography but including notes section), yet it covers the whole spectrum of the national music of the Dominican Republic.

Mr Austerlitz covers the beginnings of this music all the way through to its current state. It also spends time on Merengue's development during the Trujillo era (a particularly interesting topic to anyone who studies the Dominican Republic).

Mr Austerlitz also does a good job of addressing the sociological issues that arise from music and manages to blend well the merengue of the campo with that of the salon.

A good read and it even comes with a CD with some very good campo (country) merengue. If you are looking for merengue at its roots then this CD should please you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1.Introduction

PART 1: THE HISTORY OF MERENGUE 1854-1961. 2. Nineteenth-Century Caribbean Merengue. 3. Merengue Cibaeno, Cultural Nationalism, and Resistance. 4. Music and the State: Merengue during the Era of Trujillo, 1930-1961.

PART 2: The Contemporary Era, 1961-1995. 5. Merengue in the Transnational Community. 6. Innovation and Social Issues in Pop Merengue. 7. Merengue on the Global Stage. 8. Enduring Localism. 9. Conclusion

Let me know if you found this useful.

Up in Manhattan's Morningside Heights and its Dominican analogs all over the US, salsa is edged out by the magnificently manic beat of the merengue, whether stirred into Dominican rap and house (the most original as well as the least known versions of the genre) or in the tear-em-down accordion of Fefita La Grande. Austerlitz has all this and a lot more, all the way from the luckless Toma' back in the 1840s (read the book!)Austerlitz covers merengue from rural to hi-society in all its fierce joviality. Read this book and you'll know there's one good thing Trujillo did for the Dominican Republic!

John Storm Roberts

Enjoyed the insight into the history of Merengue and its cultural context. This book has a place on my bookshelf along with "The Latin Tinge" and "The Brazilian Sound."

"Firstborn" is definately one of the better Dragonlance books out there. It is very slow during the beginning. Most of the book drags on, but the good thing is that it goes by quickly. The book isn't long, only around 300 pages. But the ending gets a lot better and sets up for much more action to come.

The book starts out with the birth of Kith-Kanan and Sithas. Sithas being the firstborn is destined to be the next Speaker of the Stars. The brothers have a bond that is almost unbreakable, and a love that is true. But when Kith does something that angers his family, he flees and meets friends in the outer woods. Here, he learns that life isn't the same as it is in the city of Silvanost. But, in desperate situations, Sithas calls his brother back to Silvanost and events begin to unfold that are beyond either of the twin's control.

While the book does start out slow, it is good enough to keep you reading. It is full of intrigue that most Dragonlance books are lacking in. I have read almost all of the DL books out there, and I can rate this one near the top of the list. If you can find it, it is a definate must!

First thing I must say, I did not like the text on the back cover. If presented any opportunity at all to not read it, don't. I found myself 3/4 the way through the book and felt a lot of problems because of what it says.

This book is definitely one of the better dragonlance books. It tells the tales of waring nations, the undying love of twins, and the ancient forest of wildwood. Descriptions of this book are incredible, but there is not too much physical combat. If that's what you are looking for, read something else.

Love and tradition are important plots in the book. It starts with Kith-Kanan loving Hermathaya. However, Kith-Kanan's father, the speak of the stars, unknowningly choses Thaya to be the bride of Sithas, heir to the throne of Silvanost. Kith-Kanan begins a new life.

Definitely read this book after you have read the Chronicles and Legends. You will have a greater appreciation for the elven nations.

This is my favorite dragonlance book that was not written by Margaret Weis or Tracy Hickman, and I've read a lot of them(I have 103). This book was very well written. It's definately better than the other two in the trilogy. The short prelude in the beginning pulls you right into the book. I highly recommend this one!

Great reference for all aspects of this subject. Use it every week. Highly recommended for novice-expert.

Its even better than the previous edition. Check my comment in the previous edition's review. Good work Roger Jennings and Group.

Along with Robert Cowart & Kenneth Greg's book on the WindowsNT Bible which is for beginners, this book by Roger Jennings is the BEST that is available for NT.

It's one of the ironies of modern Christianity that the churches claiming to make the most of the Bible in their theology make the least of the Bible in their worship. Evangelicals, for all their insistence on the authority, infallibility, and God-givenness of the Bible, have the least biblical worship in Christendom. It is unbiblical not in the sense that it breaks this rule or that, but in the sense that the Bible itself plays little or no role in the language and content of worship.

If you visit a "Bible church," for example, you may find that the Bible is a closed book, liturgically speaking. It isn't sung. It isn't prayed. It is a springboard for the sermon, and no more. But if you step into, say, an Anglican or Orthodox church, you find a way of worship much more explicitly biblical. The people hear two or three readings from both the Old and the New Testaments. They sing the Psalms and the Lord's Prayer, and the service includes hymns shot through with scriptural language.

The point of the comparison isn't to vilify one church and idealize another. Every tradition has its liabilities. But it does raise a question: What are evangelicals missing that many other Christians aren't? The answer: The other Christians have not forgotten that the Psalms are the church's first and greatest hymnbook.

The Psalms have always occupied a central place in private devotion, of course. Jerome, the great fourth-century translator and scholar, reports hearing them sung by people in the fields and in their gardens. But the Psalms were also central to public worship. Psalm-singing churches are following a tradition rooted in the Bible itself. Jesus prayed the Psalms. They were twice on his lips when he was dying. He even said, after his resurrection, that the Psalms really speak of his own suffering and glory. What greater incentive does the Christian need to pray and sing them?

"By Flowing Waters" is a collection of biblical songs -- mostly Psalms -- set to some of the most durable and attractive music that the church has produced. The melodies are basically what we're used to calling "Gregorian" or "plainsong" -- unison and unaccompanied. (It's astonishing that churches haven't capitalized on the success of all those popular Gregorian chant CDs. Why don't we get to sing the best examples of plainsong in church? The appetite for such music is clearly there.)

Paul F. Ford's settings are intended for antiphonal or responsorial singing. That is, a cantor or choir chants the Psalm, and the congregation sings a brief response (usually a sentence from the Psalm) after every verse or two. But there's nothing to keep a church from learning to sing the whole Psalm.

Not all of the Psalms are here, and many that are have been truncated. The translations, from the New Revised Standard Version, will not suit every ear. But one great virtue of this humble music is that it can be adapted to any translation. It could be adapted to the phone book, for that matter. So even if you don't like the New Revised Standard Version, you could use Ford's settings as guide for your own arrangements with another translation. His introductory essay explains how the chants are structured and makes helpful suggestions about singing them.

The author and publisher are Catholic, but musicians from other traditions who want to add sung prayer to their churches' worship will find plenty to draw on. Ford invites them to use what they wish. And for anyone who reads music, "By Flowing Waters" wouldn't be bad for private use either.

The General Instructions for the Roman Missal indicates that for Opening, Offertory, and Communion the preference should be 1) The Antiphon from the Roman Gradual 2) The Antiphon from the Simple Gradual 3) Another psalm 4) Some other song consistent with the above.

Until now, unless one was singing Latin, options 1 and 2 were eliminated, and option 3 was ignored, and option 4 all too often took the form of some banal hymn.

"By Flowing Waters" is an english edition of the Simple Gradual (which was prepared under a mandate from the Second Vatican Council), opening the door to the use of sung Scripture in worship.

Most definitely worth your time, although compared to the original Dragonlance it does not measure up. If you are into fantasy, then this has everything to offer. Not the best idea to read this novel as a first fantasy book. I recommend it to anyone who has read Dragonlance or loves these kind of non-stop action stories.

Very provocative!! I loved the characters but I think the world needs to be a bit more original... The adventure the characters embarked upon were interesting as well. The main character needed to develop a better personality, although some of the situations were very humorous. As far as being a Dragonlance book, it didn't match up, but different authors can change a novel drastically. I did like the cover design, though!

It had been so long since I had read Dragons of a Fallen Sun that I had almost entirely forgotten about it, when I finally bought this book. I was glued to the book the moment I started reading it.

Weis and Hickman are truly amazing... I've said it a million times and I'm sure I'll say it again.