George Armstrong Custer's fabled Fifth Regiment fought with great distinction throughout the American civil war and suffered the third highest total of men killed in the entire Union Calvary. James Henry Avery, a 24 year old farmer from Hopkins, Michigan was on of Custer's feared "Wolverines". He eloquently described his personal war-time experiences in journals and postwar reminiscences, providing uniquely detailed descriptions of Civil War cavalry movements, and presents the only known account addressing the escape of elements of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry on the first day of the Battle of Trevilian Station. Other battles described include Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Yellow Tavern, Haws Shop, Tom's Brook, Cedar Creek, and Trevilian Station. Under Custer's Command: The Civil War Journal Of James Henry Avery provides an astute perspective on the life of a Union cavalryman in the Civil War and is a "must" for all Civil War buffs and civil war studies reference collections.

As editor Eric J. Wittenberg expands his library of Custer-related works, they continue to improve on the already growing collection of first-person accounts of the "Boy General's" Michigan Cavalry. As the preeminent biographer of Brevet Brigadier General James Kidd, Wittenberg provides readers with a sense of "being there," and inescapable feeling that they are sharing a fireside chat with a living, breathing veteran of our own Civil War.

"Under Custer's Command" is sure to please any readers of his previous collections of James Kidd. The latest book, a well-preserved and edited anthology of the personal journals of Sergeant James Henry Avery, an enlisted man who served with Custer during his formative years, continues Wittenberg's efforts to detail the wartime activities of the Michigan 6th Cavalry. One of the most successful mounted commands during the war, the "Wolverine's" received far less acclaim and few of the accolades enjoyed by cavalry units led by men such as Jeb Stuart and Stonewall Jackson.

"Under Custer's Command" is a rare jewel among surviving first-person accounts. The language is frank, yet simple: the work of a man interested less in impressing than in preserving his personal observations of history. Avery's journals offer an invaluable glimpse into the mind and soul of a man fighting for his country, his values, and his family. This wonderful book is a fantastic addition to any serious Civil War Custer library.

This book is the best memoir by an enlisted cavalryman I have ever seen, and I read a lot of Civil War books. At the end of the book, I felt like I had just finished a long conversation with Avery. Buy this book and enjoy it.

I found this book to be an excellent resource for my practice as a mental health attorney. This book is written in an easy to read format with helpful pointers for parents with depression and those who work with these parents and families. In addition to its useful hints, the book also lets parents with depression and other mental health issues realize that they are not alone. I highly recommend this book to parents, families, and mental health providers.

I found this book to be extremly helpful and insightful. I am not a parent but do have a bi-polar mental illness.
The book has shown me a way to better manage my illness. Most of the chapters deal with subjects such as how to put together a self-care plan,a crisis plan (such as going into the hospital),how to make better use of finances as well as the importance of keeping a balanced life.
I believe very strongly that not only parents with a mental illness but parents without a mental illness and childless couples with or without an illness can also benefit from reading this book.
This is a must read book for anyone who wants to improve any area of their life.

I recently received a copy of this book from one of the authors. It is not only extraordinary in its focus and scope, but exceptional in that it addresses such issues at all. The challenges of parenting are well known, but undertaking them while experiencing depression is hardly ever discussed - despite the fact that depression is one of the most common health complaints in our nation. Learning to cope with the negative emotions, and still be the best parent you can, involves recognizing behaviors and developing skills - and this book shows you how. I highly recommend this to any parent who feels the burdens of their life are impinging on their ability to parent. If you think you might need help, this is a good place to start.

Simply very good book exploring the new paradigm in the changing technological world.

In the field of technology change appears to occur at an ever increasing rate. Through innovation in research and development new breakthroughs occur, new products are brought to market, sales brings in money to fund research and the cycle goes on and on. At least this is the way that it is generally thought to occur. In reality hostile takeovers, IPO bids and the like keep interrupting the cycle. Companies refuse to look outside of themselves for innovative ideas or the application of their technology to new ventures. So the system is actually a closed cycle within the company instead of an open one the embraces the value of processes, people, and others outside of the company.

Business innovations create potential but do not have value in and of themselves. It is the business model that turns innovation into profits. We have all seen inferior products bypass superior ones because of a better business model. Unfortunately for the consumer, it is not at all uncommon.

So, the business model itself defines the profit received from an innovation. Why? Because the business model is the single most important factor in determining a suitable market for the innovation, costs, profit margins, and competitive position. The business model determines whether the company will take advantage of all opportunities including those outside itself or just utilize those opportunities that they can produce internally. The authors detail several case studies that point out the difference between closed and open innovation and the results of each very clearly.

The finishing touch to the book is that it clearly details the path to open innovation and how to move a company from a closed mindset to an open one. This is a highly recommended read for anyone wanting to take advantage of technology to increase their profits.

As we have come to expect from Harvard's Professor Chesbrough, Open Innovation is a wealth of insight and knowledge in how organizations can transform themselves by blending the best of their internal know-how and external sources of perspectives. Beginning with an interesting historical vantage point, Chesbrough introduces us to innovation structures as they have evolved at the beginning of the twentieth century, through the establishment of central research & development facilities and beyond. It was historian Alfred Chandler who first researched the economies of scale that resulted from the internal research & development facilities. As it points out in the book, 'these R&D facilities were so successful in extracting more efficiency out of increased understanding that they created natural monopolies in many leading industries, or economies of scope'. But many erosion factors have weathered these fortresses of knowledge, and now Chesbrough maintains that innovations, however clever, are worth nothing until a viable business model is found to exploit them.

The function of a business model, according to the author and colleague Richard Rosenbloom, is to: articulate the value proposition; identify a market segment; define the structure of the firm's value chain; estimate the cost structure and margin, describe the position of the firm within the value network and to formulate the competitive strategy of the offering. So invention is not enough. Organizations most follow the path to commercialization, but that route often means it must work collaboratively with many others. This approach has many ramifications on company structure and ways of working. It is hard for organizations (and their leaders) to work on having core-differentiated capabilities, while still being open with their value network. Therefore, this leads ManyWorlds to assume that those things, which are seen as true differentiators in mature companies, must move away from a specific product advantages and more toward process differentiating capabilities. While there is always a role for product innovators, the model they operate under is not usually scaleable, and companies often grow into either 'economies of scale' or 'economies of scope'. But finding and developing that all important part of the value network becomes a crucial skill in itself.

Open Innovation is a truly excellent book that a review cannot do justice to. With detailed case studies on Xerox (and spin outs), Intel and examples from many other companies, Chesbrough has written an insightful and timely work that draws many threads together. Executives who want to explore how facets of innovation, whether internally or externally motivated, sourced or executed, would not find a better read than Open Innovation.

Compiled and edited by Christian Henry de Tessan, Expat: Women's True Tales Of Life Abroad is an engaging and impressive collection of true stories about women who have lived in diverse nations around the world, and learned firsthand the delicate balance between keeping true to oneself while accommodating the ways of a different culture. Life in Mexico, Borneo, Japan, Egypt, England, Croatian, the Mediterranean, and more is brought to life from unforgettable perspectives in this original, fascinating, very highly recommended anthology.

Expat: Women's True Tales of Life Abroad is a refreshing mix of points of view - motherhood, lesbianism, academia, the working world, religion.

It is also a wonderful patchwork of unique and pleasing writing styles, diverse cultural experiences, and even varied outcomes. Some women stayed and fully embraced the countries they lived in. Some returned to the United States with a broadened vision of the world she thought she knew. But each woman continued on her life-path filled with new sight - a renewed acceptance of her spiritual or cultural identity, perhaps...or an enlightened recognition of her role as mother, partner, student, teacher, or daughter.

As a traveler, a woman, a mother, and a former expat, I found myself nodding in agreement with so much of what I read in this book. When she finally sat back and watched her daughter flourish in Cairo, Laura Fokkena discovered a comfortable extended-family mothering atmosphere - somehow attentive yet intentionally disconnected at the same time - a far cry from the eagle-eyed, over-protective, Click-It-Or-Ticket parenting drilled into busy American families. This Egyptian philosophy I have vowed to make my own.

Other contributors, too, wrote from places in their lives that felt familiar: Karen Rosenberg, who comes "from a family of reluctant Jews," followed a path from Amagi, Japan, back to her spiritual roots. Stephanie Loleng found her own Asian identity in Prague, where the food of home would have to be prepared herself. And Emmeline Chang, raised in the United States by Taiwanese parents, struggles to belong on either continent.

And perhaps most recognizable, each woman in Expat expresses her frustration at linguistic difficulties. Each woman is a writer, after all, someone who depends on language - perhaps more than on people or money or timing - to make things run smoothly. And, certainly, as a foreigner, that taken-for-granted skill is slippery at best, even for bilingual expats. Editor Christina Henry de Tessan folds this phenomenon easily into her introduction: "...accustomed to being efficient, competent, articulate, and able to navigate the various logistics of American life," these women found themselves at sixes and sevens with everything around them.

But armed with determination, great tolerance, a readiness for change, and often dozens of books, they learn to color outside of the lines they used to know, to create themselves anew.

This book, unassuming though it may appear, is a powerhouse of writing, emotion, adventure and literature. The women writers are strong voiced, sure of their actions and their words and they range across our globe in nimble sentences...looking for blankets, looking for chicken, looking for the quintessential puzzle pieces that make it all fit--the pat and ex-pat selves-- together in one... On the way they write of finding new identities, loosing old identities, and becoming who they really are. It is American travel writing at its beat best--On The Road, Travels With Charlie, Dharma Bums.... It's modern travel writing at its best, too--Bryson can't write as well as some of the writers in this anthology could--especially as these women are ex-pats, not merely tourists. My favourites were "First The Blanket" (Kate Baldus), "Never Never" (Juleigh Howard-Hobson) and "Before and After Mexico" (Gina Hyams) All in all, after reading these essays, you felt as if you, too, had just gotten back from where they were....ninety thumbs up, womyn!

I'm a medical student whose school uses Bates' guide... I must say that this book FAR surpasses Bates. Not only is the information complete, but the pictures and "jewels" it presents are wonderful. This is also better than the Schwartz (which I own also). If I could choose all over which book to buy of the three, I would DEFINITELY buy this one.

Excellent book, superior picture and graphic, good explanations, If you want to buy an excellent book of semiology...here it is. The CD bring usefull information, and friendly interface for students. A recomendation for the Authors could be insert video of each maneuver and sign, as well as clinical interviews of each capital syndrome.

More explanations, more detail, even more color than its rival (Bates). However, lacking in the area of psychiatric diagnosis, which would have been immensely useful in the evaluation of "Robin of Lockslay"...

This book is really excellent and helpful.
Sr. Mckenna make us see her devotional life in every pages and it's incredible the way we can feel God's presence....

Sr. Briege McKenna's simple style and her faith make me feel that I am having a conversation with the author. She appeals to faith and simple logics, instead of theology and doctrine, to bring Christ to us.

I grew up with a lot of Catholic educational background, but it was only after reading Sr. McKenna's book that I really appreciated the Sacrament of the Eucharist and of Confession. Her language is simple but her words are powerful. You can really feel Christ's healing presence just by reading the book....

Sam Fuller is a filmmaker unknown to most Americans, but for years a favorite in France, thanks to such fervid acoyltes as Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut. Such 50s classics as "The Steel Helmet" and "Pickup on South Street" made Fuller, along with Nicholas ("Rebel Without a Cause") Ray a favorite of the Cahiers du Cinema crowd.

But Fuller was more than just a director. He had been a newspaperman in New York's tabloid era of the 20s and 30s. He was an infantryman on Omaha Beach on D-Day. He had met just about everyone worth meeting -- from Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone. And he is, as his autobiography "A Third Face" most eloquently demonstrates, a magnificent storyteller.

The section of the book dealing with Fuller's experiences in World War II make for amazingly gripping reading -- and I would like for people like Donald Rumsfeld to take a gander at Fuller's account of what warfare is really like before they send young Americans into combat any time soon. Fuller writes about war in all its hallucinatory insanity (as he waded through the blood and body parts to get onto Omaha Beach he saw a man's mouth -- just his mouth -- floating in the water), and it's not a story you're likely to forget.

His exploits in Hollywood, while not as gripping, are equally fascinating. Fuller clearly pines for the old days when moguls like Darryl Zanuck would protect a writer's vision and a deal could be counted on even if it was only a handshake. And while Fuller made his share of career mistakes (he turned down both "The Longest Day" and "Patton," for example), his filmography is an eloquent tribute to a man who wanted to make his films his way -- no matter what the cost.

The book is not perfect, though. It is marred by many factual errors (to give just one example, he discusses meeting French film critic Andre Bazin at a time when Bazin had been dead for years), and at times he seems suspiciously eager to belie his reputation as a right-wing filmmaker. His use of language can get a little repetitious (if I had a dollar for every time he uses the word "yarn" in this book I could buy everything on my Wish List), and I found myself wondering just how much of the text had actually been written by Fuller's wife, Christa (one of two credited co-writers), and not by its putative author.

All those reservations aside, this is a book that will keep you up late (that is, if I'm any indication -- I finished it at dawn), and that truly earns the description of "impossible to put down." You should put it on your bookshelf alongside Frank Capra's great (and equally inaccurate) "The Name Above the Title." Assuming that you don't take the author's word for gospel, and you're willing to accept the fact that he will never let the facts get in the way of a good story, it's an engrossing and unforgettable read.

An amazing man, an amazing life, an amazing body of work. Sam Fuller was the real deal, he lived the life of 10 men. As a boy selling newspapers, to being a teenage crime reporter to a writer of pulp fiction. At age 29 Sam joined the army, he turned down the cushy army journalist job to be in first infantry "The Big Red One". The book covers his fighting in N. Africa, Italy, and his role in the third row of boats landing on Normandy. Later, he went to Hollywood and directed films, his way, one of the first independent filmmakers. He made "Merril's Mauraders, I shot Jesse James, Run of the Arrow, Pickup on South Street and the Steel Helmet. In the 60's he made the classic pulp films "Shock Corridor" and "The Naked Kiss" ...

He was offered "Patton" but wouldn't do it because he though Patton was an jerk. He was offered John Wayne movies, but wouldn't do it because he thought Wayne was a phony. He had full control of his films, when that was a rarity.

In 1980, after 20+years of wrangling, he finally made the film based on his battle history, "The Big Red One" with James Coburn. Probably the most realistic WWII film out there.

Fuller died a few years back, unknown to many, but loved by those in the know.

Sam Fuller lived the life of 10 men and his book is the best read I've had in years, go get it.

Samuel Fuller did have a full life and you read about it here. His details of his life while in the Army during WWII is one of the best as is his teen years learning the newspaper reporting business. He had too many valleys in his life (don't most of us?}and the peaks were short lived. There is no gossip in this book, but an interesting story for all...not just movie buffs.

This is the Apollo 13 story almost exclusively from the Mission Control perspective. It very thorougly and completely details what went on in Houston from the moment of the "accident" to the recovery of the astronauts. This book helped me to understand how critical Mission Control is to space flights, how the astronauts are not necessarily piloting their spacecraft but that it is a joint effort. I was surpised by many facts given here such as that Mission Control had more information about the status of the spacecraft than the astronauts themselves. The author does an outstanding job of expalining the technicalities of what happened and why without making you feel like a dummy.

Through the lens of 25 years, it is very interesting to read this account and feel some of the respect and almost naivete the author and the public felt for NASA and the government at large that has long since been lost. I also enjoyed how the book was divided into three sections "Out" "Around" "Home".

I did feel the book suffered from its narrow focus on Mission Control only during the duration of the "event," and no pictures -- none and only one line diagram. These are small complaints, however. The book makes a wonderful companion to Jim Lovell's account.

The first detailed account of the Apollo 13 accident (this book originally came out in the early 70's) and one of the best (second only to Lovell's "Lost Moon"). Cooper tells the entire mission story and uses many of the Mission Control transcripts that (in my opinion) are the difference between a third person telling of a mission story or a feeling of actually being there. This book has been re-printed, so it's availability isn't an issue. Read this along with Lost Moon and you'll see the blatant errors in the movie "Apollo 13". Highly recommended.

A short anecdote:

After reading "A Man on the Moon" by the great A. Chaikin (space author, god-like genius) I developed a ravenous hunger for any reading material relating to the early space program (and Apollo in general). So when I saw this old book, "13: the flight that failed", in my school's library, I HAD to read it!

I was not disappointed. Mr. Cooper's book is THE story of Apollo 13.

I appreciate the fact that Jim Lovell's book "Lost Moon" was written as a first hand account but it seems a little mishandled (most likely Kluger's influence) and didn't live up to it's full potential. Furthermore, It is more of a biography of Jim Lovell. "13: the flight that failed" sums it all up nicely in a gripping yet thoughtful manner.

btw: "A House in Space" (i think by Cooper also but i'm not sure) is a great story of the Skylab space station

A book you can still dream on.

This was written and rewritten when Victorian erudition was in the making. Some authors in the long series of its well parsed institutional writing would still like to see it continuing in THAT well established tradition.

Alas, the times have changed. Recent anatomy texts are dwarfs not even climbing on the shoulders of the likes of Gray, Braus and Testut. Those authors professed ideals of "seeing through the skin structures", "synmorphy" and "mentally reconstructing the living". Today we do all this with machines...

I stopped reading the huge text linearly at the complicated review of angiogenesis, but still browse dedicated chapters for standard, if somewhat elaborate descriptions. Comprehensive knowledge parsing seems to have lived a fruitful life and then exit the scene to enrich scientific obituaries. But if Gibbon were still an example of style, the fifth star would be added when that clarity, in my view mandatory for monuments, will be eventually reached.

This book is absolutely amazing. It was the required reference text for a gross anatomy class I took in graduate school and it made studying so easy! I used to go through and take notes out of it in order to have a solid base of what I should see when I would dissect. This book also described a lot of the abnormalities and variations that we would regularly see in the human body. A MUST HAVE FOR ANYONE WHO WILL BE STUDYING ANATOMY!!!!!!

This book is truly a masterpiece. The writing and layout is good. Descriptions and illustrations are clear and well done. I am not a medical professional and yet I find this book fascinating in its breadth and scope. To better comprehend some of the anatomical structures I first read relevant portions of this book and then go to Netter's Atlas Of Human Anatomy. One point of caution though - get the 38th British Edition. This is by far superior to the American Edition which costs half as much. The extra money spent will be well worth it. After all there is a lifetime of adventure embedded in this volume.

"...Best of Intentions provides a timely and well-reasoned history of U.S. attempts to prevent the spread of nuclear materials. Henry Sokolski has succeeded in setting forth the current dilemmas facing present-day decision makers and making a compelling analysis of where past policies have gone right or wrong."
Representative Edward J. Markey, (D-Massachusetts), Co-Chairman of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation

"...informed and trenchant...offers valuable insights and presents important challenges - not only to those who have advocated prior non-proliferation initiatives, but to those who contend that there are better options..."
Alton Frye, Vice President, Council on Foreign Relations

"Henry Sokolski has done us all a great service by parsing, briefly and succinctly, the tangled history of nonproliferation, and relating it to the problems we face today."
James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency

"This is an outstanding survey, analysis and critique ...a vitally important addition to the reading lists and libraries of scholars, policymakers, and others having an interest in U.S. national security strategy, technology transfer, arms control and proliferation."
Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

"For any Democrat or Republican wishing to rethink what our nonproliferation policies should be, Best of Intentions is the place to begin."
William Kristol, Editor, The Weekly Standard

"...an indispensable primer on a long and crucial battle we may now be losing."
Peter W. Rodman, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

"A fascinating history and penetrating critique of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy."
Frank Von Hippel, Princeton University, former arms control advisor to the Clinton Administration

"...raises fundamental strategic questions that must be addressed...a thoughtful, welcome provocation."
George Perkovich, author, India's Nuclear Bomb, director of the Alton Jones Foundation

"The Scrapbook is pleased to report the publication of a fine new book by Weekly Standard contributor and weapons-technology expert Henry Sokolski. Best of Intentions is a significant work of scholarship: the first comprehensive history of American efforts to stop the global spread of strategic weapons capabilities since World War II. Any self respecting grown-up will want to buy a copy immediately."
The Weekly Standard

"...This sobering analysis is must reading for scholars and policy makers alike."
Henry Rowen, Stanford University, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

"...a reference work no serious student of these matters should be without."
Gordon C. Oehler, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency's Nonproliferation Center

The Weekly Standard May 7, 200l Scrapbook, page 3 Book Notes

The Scrapbook is pleased to report the publication of a fine new book by Weekly Standard contributor and weapons-technology expert Henry Sokolski. Best of Intentions is a significant work of scholarship: the first comprehensive history of American efforts to stop the global spread of strategic weapons capabilities since World War II. Any self-respecting grown-up will want to buy a copy immediately.

Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation -- A Practical Primer

As reviewed in ORBIS Summer 2001, By Mark T. Clark,Ph.D., Director of National Security Studies, California State University at San Bernardino.

Henry Sokolski, in his Best of Intentions, expressly eschews the search for the causes of proliferation and instead prefers to evaluate efforts to prevent proliferation in the first place. A former military legislative analyst in the Senate and an official in the Department of Defense during the first Bush administration, he currently heads the nonprofit Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. His interests, therefore, lie in the search for practical answers to policy questions, not in the development of theory per se. He proposes to determine how effective U.S. and international efforts have been in curbing proliferation, and specifically intends to "identify and weigh the premises of U.S. nonproliferation policies (p. xii).

His book is divided into seven chapters, the first and last of which deal with the history and future of nonproliferation. The five central chapters are analytic histories of the major nonproliferation policies: the Baruch Plan, the Atoms for Peace Program, the NPT, proliferation technology control regimes, and the U.S. Counterproliferation Initiative. According to Sokolski, each of the initiatives had distinct assumptions that were built upon an assessment of the strategic dangers that needed to be avoided at the time, and each was designed to correct the failures of its precursors. He further argues that "[t]o the extent each characterized the strategic threat properly, they produced nonproliferation measures that were sound. To the extent that they did not, they encouraged measures that were impractical or that actually compounded the proliferation threats they were supposed to reduce" (p. xii).

How U.S. leaders characterized the strategic threat makes for an interesting approach to the periods under examination. It also reminds the reader that there is always a strategic context to policy, and favored solution to perceived problems. In other words, policymakers' assumptions about the world tend to influence their responses to it. For example, after World War II, American policy makers worried that the spread of nuclear weapons would inevitably generate undeterrable wars against which no defense was possible. Since the United States would not be able to deflect potential offensive nuclear wars, it sought to retain sole ownership of nuclear weapons. The Baruch Plan that was offered to the United Nations in 1946 provided, among other things, that anything critical to nuclear bomb making be turned over to the control of an international atomic energy authority, a meritorious proposal in itself. However, the United States' exaggerated fears of undeterrable offensive nuclear wars made it crucial for the country to maintain it sole nuclear monopoly until thorough safeguards were in place - and that condition alone provided the Soviets with the reason to reject it.

The drafters of the Nonproliferation Treaty of l968 had their own strategic assumptions, which continue to fuel debate over nonproliferation policies today. At the heart of the first three articles of the NPT are concerns about the horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons, that is, the spread of nuclear weapons to nonnuclear states. The original Irish proposal in l958 reflected the early fears that the addition of new nuclear powers would lead to international instability, making nuclear war more likely. Before the NPT was finished, however, negotiators began fearing the effects of vertical proliferation, that is, the accumulation of nuclear weapons by the superpowers targets against one another, which could lead to accidental or unauthorized nuclear war. Today some states refuse to sign the NPT unless and until the major powers move more drastically toward disarmament. In the meantime, the dangers of horizontal proliferation continue to grow.

Sokolski's history and analysis would seem to be premised on political realism. In the concluding chapter, however, his prescriptions for new nonproliferation policies reflect a different theoretical bent. Since there are limits and weakness to all the previous policies, he argues, new initiatives must focus on issues more lasting than technological or military contingencies. The next counterproliferation campaign must be anchored in larger policies that distinguish between liberal and hostile illiberal regimes in an effort to broaden, over the long run, the "zones of peace" and shrink "zones of conflict." In other words, Sokolski relies on a form of the "democratic peace theory," which suggests that democracies do not wage war against other democracies. This idea has broad acceptance among American political leaders, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.