Plant growth habit and culture notes are all too rare in succulent and cacti volumes. This expertly assembled book captures the succulent plants at their optimum phase and accurately records botanical names and growth requirements. I also utilize to accurately identify plants that I use to create living succulent wreaths. The section of 'Bringing the Desert Indoors' is a welcome invitation to indoor gardeners every where to enjoy these sculptural beauties year around.

One of few books dealing with gardening in the dry southwestern climates. Most of the book is devoted to "Plant Selector" which describes the plants, hardiness, cultivation needs, etc. Other sections deal with "Garden Design", "Techniques" (cultivation etc.), and, " Special Conditions." If you have one book on succulent gardening, this should be it.

Packed with historical context, supporting research and the comfortable style of a confident writer, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone who finds themself thrust into the precarious position of media management. It is also currently used as a college textbook for graduate-level journalism.
All major dimensions of management are addressed in this authoritative work. From the "evolution of a Free Press" and the role of "motivational fit" to corporate financial budgeting and legal regulations of libel and the Federal Communication Commission, "Balancing on the Wire" gives its readers a broad view and an insider's edge into the dynamic world of media leadership.
For those who've worked inside an adrenalin-soaked broadcast station or a raw-nerve newsroom, slip a copy of this humanistic survival guide into the holiday stocking of the company's CEO or your favorite upper-level Scrooge. It's a spoonful of potent medicine that mixes common sense and artistic inspiration in just the right pleasing proportions.
Cheers to Redmond and Trager for making special a topic that is hackneyed by the pseudo-bestsellers of MBAs in retirement.

James Trager has written a book chock full of what is normally left out of history classes--the facinating tidbits of real life. Best of all, this book shows that women weren't just staying at home and raising children, but were active participants in life. Well researched, thoroughly cross references, this is a book that can provide hours of browsing pleasure. For any writer, this is a must-have on the reference shelf. For any feminist, this is also a great way to realize that women haven't been invisible people in history.

What a great idea: take nearly every year of human history and discuss the events as they unfold into a chain of causality. The effect on the reader is unparalleled.

However, there are historical innacuraccies throughout the work. The reader is best advised to get a "twenty-thousand-foot-level" view of the era that interests them from which to pursue more exhaustive texts.

Every time I pick up this book I am sucked in, following one historical trail through the years and being distracted by another path, and then another. It is set up so brilliantly, each year broken down by category--politics, music, food, religion, etc--and covering both Western and some Eastern history, that it puts all of history into accessible context and perspective. After looking up a detail in 1099 about English royal politics, it is easy to trace the repurcussions year by year, and to quickly glance at the music, the French situation, the new foods, the new theater, the global exploration, the current Chinese dynasty, and myriad other details all the way up to the present. Or just follow Mozart's career, or the Industrial Revolution, or agricultural innovations. Sure, it is not intensely detailed on each event, but it makes a great jumping off point towards other reference material. It is also the most appreciated gift I have ever given. Let's just hope the publisher decides to reprint!

As soon as you receive this book take a few minutes to reinforce the binding because (a) it's big and thick for a paperback, and (b) you'll find that it will spend very little time closed once it's opened. This book is an absloute necessity for those of us who are fascinated by not only the major landmarks of history, but the everyday flavor of past times. This book presents an eternal well of interesting notes and accounts that are organized ingeniously by subject, within years, across time. The cross-referencing that accompanies most entries makes the book nearly impossible to put down. The thoroughness provides a much needed perspective on almost any of today's pressing issues. The international scope only serves to make it that much more interesting for those with a thirst to know something about everything. Truly, you will learn something new everyday - for a long time.

The reviewer from Japan was right in noting mistakes. This book is riddled with them, especially typos, skewed facts and sometimes real gaffes. (But begging your indulgence, fellow reviwer, eggplants are not from the Americas.)

Well, my daughter borrowed it from the school library and when I first saw it I was enthralled and soon started browsing and could not stop reading, but then I fell onto some rather mistaken informations which, I am afraid, put the seed of mistrust in me. If I find such mistakes about subjects that I know well about, how many other people will also find other mistakes in this book about the subjects that they know well ? For instance, page 62, year 1274, we find: THe Japanese continue their relatively peaceful lives, shopping at the markets of Edo, Kyoto and Nara for (....)aubergines (.....) strawberries.(...).In those days Edo was a tiny village and Kyoto was certainly not called Kyoto either, as it was the capital, it was still called Heian-kyo or Miyako. Also, aubergines belong to the capsicum family and together with tomatoes, peppers, chilis, potatoes, they came from America, and certainly did not exist in Japan in those days. As for strawberries, are not they also one of the delicacies that we owe to America, as it appears on page 117 of the same book ? (1620) Regarding the Japanese peaceful lives too, this sounds a bit odd because this period is still troubled by feudal wars and plots and revenges, with lots of murders, castles burning, fields ravaged and people exiled... Hum! So much for peace! From a reader in Japan.

This book is a great read, and very entertaining. It wouldn't be used in any college history course, but probably was not intended for that. I was also rather disappointed that the 20th century took up so much of the book; plus inclusion of trendy-at-the-time-the-book-was-written restaurants in a supposed history of food seemed to be a bit gratuitous. Finally, though this may be something to be expected, ,the book (especially for later periods) is very Amero-centric, with most of the rest of the attention going to Europe, and just a snippet here or there of other food cultures.