If you're looking for an exposé against Dave Hunt or Constance Cumby, which I wasn't, then you've come to the right place. Most of the book contains problematic attacks by these two, and is dated to the late 80s. And even then there's way too much. The point could have been made with half the pages. I struggled to get through the whole thing, but finished because usually the Passantinos write quality stuff. The best thing I learned was just to avoid Hunt and Cumby altogether. There are many good counter-cult authors out there, including the Passantinos, such as Walter Martin, Elliot Miller, and Douglas Groothuis.

If you're looking for good discernment techniques or the ability to recognize poor analysis, just read the first and last chapters.

Far better than Spencer's Heresy Hunters: Character Assassination in the Church, this provides a useful check for those involved in the biblically crucial, but potentially perilous, task of discerning true doctrine. See Robert Bowman's critique however for balance...

The written part of this book is not terribly interesting, but the data, which occupy the bulk of its pages are on very interesting topics and appear to be very carefully put together. Their summary indices should be ignored since they seem to be derived in some ad hoc fashion rather than by factor analysis or other systematic index construction technique. I expect to be using the material in multi-level analyses on a variety of topics. It is a book to dip into again and again. Ideally, it should come with a cd-rom presenting the data in some readily searchable format. Perhaps in the next edition?

While the book does present an accurate and unbiased view of world religions, the text itself is less than gripping (the writing is dry), and the book's organization is a little confusing. This may not be the best text to use if you are interested in getting a clear, overall picutre of a particular religion. It includes studies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Kenneth Janken hads written a very informative book about Walter White. What's good about it is that it rectifies the dearth of good books that really delve into the gravity regarding the history of America's racial sickness. Walter White had a front row seat to this reality. He was able to investigate some of the most gruesome lynchings in American history because most people thought he was Caucasian. The extent of the racial pogroms detailed in this book is amazing. It dramatizes how throughout U.S. history African Americans have had to beg, borrow and steal our way to a modicum of respect. It is especially revealing with regard to the condecension displayed by Jews who called themselves helpful in advancing African American civil rights. And it shows how all people labled as oppressed minorities strive to join the majority group where ever they live. Yet African Americans are the sole group in U.S. society for whom a concerted effort has been made (and continues to be made) to keep on the outside. There are flaws to the book, however. For example, like so many Caucasians, Janken refuses African Americans any right to complexity. By that I mean that he denies us the right to class distinctions by chastising White for looking down his nose at African Americans at the bottom who didn't do their best to improve themselves. This is a common attitude amongst so-called liberal and leftists Caucasians, who seem to feel that all African Americans at the bottom are noble. Yet these same Caucasians do their best to identify themselves as "white," as in separate from African Americans, the implication being that racial distinctions that really aren't legitimate, indeed, are legitimate. Such people simply can't seem to accept the fact that ever since the end of slavery there has been a significant cadre' of African Americans at the bottom who have no interest at all in improving themselves. It is this "noble savage" element which continues to fascinate most Caucasian Americans, who just can't seem to accept any African Americans who seek assimilation and self-improvement as "true blacks." In addition, there is at least one error in the book. Janken discusses the struggle to build the VA hospital in Tuskegee Alabama at the end of World War I. In his discussion he erroneously states that efforts to ensure that the staff of the hospital was all Caucasian were temporarily successful. This was not true at all. From the very beginning, the president of Tuskegee, Robert Moton, and school physician John A. Kenney Sr., successfully resisted all efforts to staff the hospital with Caucasians. The other criticism I have of the book is that in many passages it is overwritten (example: "[White] was no Pollyanna, and he was the angry black soldiers' amanuensis." What the h... does "amanuensis" mean?). Too often Janken strives for words that make a reader run to his dictionary unnecessarily. In this he is like fellow historian, David Levering Lewis. Overall, I recommend this book for informativeness only.

Wings of Omen, the sixth in the Thieves' World series, brings more of what one expects from the series. Featuring 8 stories from talented authors (including Asprin, Lynn Abbey, Diana Paxson, and C.J. Cherryh), Wings moves the town of Sanctuary into an open guerilla conflict on the street. Like the other Thieves' World books, the format of different stories occurring in the same location has strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, it is intersting to see the different perspectives each writer brings. On the other hand, interesting ideas generated by one writer or poorly followed up, or not at all. Too, there have been so many authors writing about so many characters that a glossary has become a must to keep track of who is whom. Nevertheless, Wings of Omen is an enjoyable, if somewhat dark and depressing at times, read.

This book is really bad. Dry, long, small type, Don't buy it

"The Lincoln/Douglas Debates" is a collection of speeches and debates that two candidates for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, held in the summer and fall of 1858. This edition is a fantastic anthology of transcribed debates that focused on the issues of slavery, popular government, and popular sovereignty. It is interseting to notice how Lincoln gains in prominence as the debates progress and the extent to which both of these men discuss important moral and constitutional issues in the setting of small towns in Illinois. This text is absolutely essential for understanding the Civil War as well as American history and politics.

This collection is a travesty indeed. Great poems no doubt, but abysmally read. Furthermore they should have put all the introductions together separate and apart from the poems. It's nice to hear intros the first time around. But who wants to hear the intros everytime you listen to the poems? Sometimes I want to hear just a stream of poetry without any interuptions and this format makes that impossible. It's incredible that such a great concept could be so terribly executed.

I could not get this back to the store for a refund quickly enough. While the poem selection is great and the poem introductions are narrated well, the choice to use "modern poets" as the readers made this compilation utterly unlistenable. The only one that I found acceptable was Anthony Hect--the others were notably bad. In particular, I found Jorie Graham's "readings" to be abysmal. She reads each poem as if it were simply a string of unconnected words, giving equal stress to each, with halting pauses between them, never breaking out of a drowsy monotone. Other readers were not much better.

There are three major flaws in the readings:

1) The readers are no better than the average untrained person, and often much worse. (You've just got to hear them for yourself to appreciate how bad they are.)

2) Successive poems by the same poet are read by different "readers." It's jarring to hear 3 or 4 poems from Poet X, each in a wildly different voice.

3) No regard is given to matching the sex of the poet and reader. In general, it is really annoying to hear your favorite poet read by the wrong sex. In particular, making this mistake on "gender specific" poems (like having a woman read Poe's "Annabel Lee") is unforgivable.

Why is this all so upsetting? Because it is practically impossible to find poetry collections on CD, making this a serious waste of limited resources. If you are looking for a good collection on CD, buy "81 Famous Poems CD" by Audio Partners (ISBN 0-945353-82-0). It's a good collection on two CDs and is read by professionals: Alexander Scourby, Bramwell Fletcher, and Nancy Wickwire. In the meantime, we can only hope that the producers of this collection will eventually come to their senses and re-record the poems with the services of trained professionals.

If you are prepping for the GRE in literature or are trying to gain a basic understanding of literary periods and poets, this audio-collection is a must. It features a brief introduction about each poet's life. It also includes a brief introduction about the theme of each poem. The fact that you have to listen to these introductions before listening to the poem inculcate the poem and aids retention. If literature has turned into a cumbersome and overwhelming task, this collection will not only provide you with a sense of direction but will also make literature far more pleasurable.

The author could have written a better textbook by leaving out the "fluff." The author either had to add "filler" to create a larger textbook or he "likes to hear himself talk." I suggest buying a study guide, if one is available.

Clearly these authors have never been in a classroom in the last ten years! Activieis are outdated; current research on constructivism lacking.

There is too much rambling, not enough specific help and examples, and the index is terrible. Please read the review of this in "The Library Quarterly" vol 67, Oct 1997, #4, pp406-408