I first became familiar with this book as I was starting out in freshwater ecology (5 years ago). I am finishing up my thesis now and have had it checked out of the University library for the entire 2 yrs I have been here!! I am in search of a used copy... The authors are some of the top researchers in their field and the information they provide here is an excellent resource whether one is in search of toxicology information or statistics. I strongly recommend this book for all interested in macroinvertebrates and biomonitoring.

This book is the ultimate guide for Infrared Testing. The author is a leading authority in the field and extremely knowledgeable of IR testing. He has presented this in a format that is as close to "hands on" as you can get from a book. I have purchased this book for new hires and experienced physicists alike. The book works not only as an intro but is very valuable as a reference guide. It is written in an easy to understand format and will not overwelm you with excessive math. I find this book extremely valuable in the field.

Evans is a fascinating man to listen to. He is a decorated veteran, but shuns the recognition he rightly deserves. He admits that some of his actions during the heat of combat "might have been foolhardy." Evans was not interested in medals, only in trying to keep his men alive. As Evans' Third Army Com mander, General George S. Patton remarked, "No one ever won a war by dying for his country. He won by making the other poor bastard die for his country."

Evans met several truly historical figures. First and foremost was Patton. After the first day of the Battle of Arracourt, Patton visited Evans' command post to commend him on a job well done. That was just the first of many encounters with General Patton. After hostilities ceased in 1945, Evans was assigned to a Prisoner of War camp near Landshut, Germany. There, while interrogating prisoners, he briefly met General Vlasov, another larger-than-life individual. Vlasov was a former White Russian officer who was convinced (some say coerced) to help the Nazis against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. Later, in Switzerland, Evans was able to get a glimpse of a compound full of Nazi war criminals, most notable of whom was Herman Goering.

Evans was also fortunate to have been able to participate in the design, testing and eventual combat deployment of the M18 "Hellcat" tank destroyer. The United States Army found that its antitank capabilities were woefully inadequate against the masses of German armor, so a new tank destroyer was desired. Evans, along with a handful of other armor officers from various posts around the US, was invited to Detroit to the Buick Division of General Motors, to offer suggestions for the design of this new vehicle. There are precious few times in a soldier's career that he is given the opportunity to impact upon the equipment he will use in the performance of his duty. Evans and these other officers seized the moment and helped to design one of the most effective combat vehicles ever. In ju! st a few short months the M18 went from the drawing board to the maneuver field and then the European Theater of Opera tions.

Academics have never been thrilled with Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943), whose polished but accessible writings--notably his magazine short stories--went straight to the heart of Everyman and Everywoman.
Everyman remembers; and in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11 this neglected master seems to have more to say than ever--about his country and the world, their history and their destiny.
One academic who is ready to listen is David Garrett Izzo. He appears to have thought about doing a collection of essays on Benet as long ago as 1998, when he played a prominent role in a Benet centenary observance in the Bethlehem, PA area. The resulting book, in which Izzo shares the editing responsibility with Lincoln Konkle, should do something at last to stir up interest in this once-famous writer on the campus. The essays cover many aspects of Benet's output and career--from the famous Civil War narrative "John Brown's Body" to his historical and science fiction stories, such as "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and "By The Waters of Babylon." But to this reviewer three of the essays are paramount in interest. They are Izzo's own piece on Benet and his literary colleageus at Yale; Thomas Carr Benet's remembrance of his father, and Patricia McAndrew's paper on the marriage of Stephen and Rosemary Benet.

In one book, you can see through Kahn's famous works, like Salk Institute of Biography Reaserch and Yale Center for British Art. Nice photos and descriptions. This book can be the beginning step for approaching Kahn's philosophy of architecture. He say, "Existence will determines the every nature of things". He used the simple forms to establish a fine-art-class architecture style. Kahn's works could be said as "Simple in FORM, but not simple in MIND."

A beautiful book...It's filled with so much information about Kahn's major projects. Interesting, well-written text and dozens of sketches and model photos accompany each major project. I'd never heard of Grant Mudford, but his big, color photos are beautiful. There's a list of all of Kahn's projects and buildings from the 1920s until his death in 1974, and a section of Kahn's travel sketches and artwork. The pages are large, the print quality is impressive, and the impeccable graphic design, by Massimo Vignelli with Abigail Sturges, suits Kahn's style perfectly. And it's a good buy, too.

Carroll and Shiflett have done a good job of trying to set the record straight in this book about Christianity, Christians, and the impact of both on human history. It was very refreshing to read a book that goes beyond superficial caricatures to really explore the history honestly. I think the authors mostly succeed in balancing the scales a bit and demonstrate a proud history of the faith that is based on many facts that have long since been forgotten by much of society.

The authors devote one chapter to each specific issue that is analyzed. One of the major strengths of the book is the authors insistence on devoting the first part of each chapter to present the view of the anti Christian forces, whether they be in the media, academia, or cause advocacy. The summation of the anti Christian view is especially illuminating and piques the interest of the reader to hear what the authors have to say about such strongly held views. In my view, the authors succeed pretty well in taking the criticisms on in a succinct and factually based way. Where appropriate, they acknowledge the shortcomings of the church and do not attempt to rationalize these shortcomings away. They lay them out there for the reader to digest. But the authors also introduce a tremendous amount of supplemental evidence that goes a long way toward factually deconstructing many of the more popular negative one liners that people trod out to discredit Christianity.

After reading this book, I think a number of people, if they are open minded and willing to be challenged where their preconceived notions are concerned, may find themselves modifying or even completely rethinking some of the reflex opinions they have held to in regards to Christians and Christianity. When reading this book, I found myself amazed by how completely it seems some people are looking to find a way to blame Christianity for any injustice or ill that troubles them. What I found by reading this book is that in our modern day emphasis on surface level scholarship, Christianity fares much better than the efforts of its critics to discredit it.

Having said all this, I feel the need to comment on what I perceived to be one significant weakness of the book that compels me to give the book a 4 star rating. In all frankness, the authors were very sloppy in their referencing approach, and in a book like this, this is a huge problem. In every chapter of the book, there are quotes the authors use to try and advance their points which are not referenced back to any source material. This serious oversight leaves the book very susceptible to criticism from those who don't like what they read in here. In particular, the chapter that discusses the relationship between Christianity and the Third Reich contains a number of quotes that Hitler allegedly made which were hostile to Christianity that are not referenced to any source material at all. This is a serious problem because someone reading this book could easily dismiss the authors entire line of argumentation by saying that because these quotes aren't referenced back to any source material, there's no way to verify their accuracy, and maybe the authors made them up completely. I'm not suggesting that this is what the authors did, but by not doing a better job in their referencing, they unnecessarily leave themselves open to charges like this and provide opponents of their book with an easy way to dismiss much of the content. This is particularly inexcusable in a book like this which attempts to take on and refute societal views, since the authors had to know that their book would strike at some sacred cows. As such, it is even more critical to write a book that is airtight in terms of its facts in order to really challenge people to rethink their views in light of factual evidence that they themselves can personally verify if they choose. But because the authors did not thoroughly reference their material, the book comes up short in this area to a degree that causes me to lower the rating from 5 stars to 4.

But while the book is clearly deficient in its source material referencing, it is sufficient enough in this area that both sincere believers and open minded skeptics can read this book and validate enough of the facts presented to make it an effective tool for setting the record straight. It's not perfect, but it's good.

"Christianity on Trial: Arguments Against Anti-Religious Bigotry" by Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett

Modern skeptics enjoy repeating the old story about Christianity whenever given the opportunity. According to them, Christianity is anti-science, pro-slavery, anti-progress, and anti-intellectual. It was this stereotypical view the Washington Post repeated when it asserted Christian conservatives were "poor, uneducated, and easily led." To these people, Christians are backwards individuals relying on a psychological crutch to see them through the storms of Darwinistic evolution and Jeffersonian separation of church and state. In other words, Christians are trapped in the permanent caricature of believer William Jennings Bryan being cut to pieces by atheist Clarence Darrow on the witness stand during the Scopes Trial.

If you're looking for an easy to read volume that brings together the best answers to the standard objections to the faith, then "Christianity on Trial" fits the bill exactly. The authors strike the perfect balance between writing for a popular audience and documenting assertions with footnotes so more ambitious readers will be able to dig more deeply if they wish. In this book, you'll find more than enough ammunition for your armchair and watercooler debates about Christianity, history, philosophy, and science.

In essence, the authors are calling for a contemporary reevaluation of the contributions of the Christian faith. Their narrative paints a picture of a church that ended slavery, created hospitals for the poor, and brought about the modern conception of the individual as a creation of God worthy of dignity and equality. Hopefully, Carroll and Shiflett's work will remove the veil of ignorance both mass media and its consumers still wear.

Christianity is often blamed for horrible atrocities in human history, for repressing people, and for holding back the advancement of civilization. The authors do a wonderful job of setting the historical record straight. And they don't do it by white washing history and saying that Christians are completely innocent. They start each section giving the harsh anti-Christian view point. Then they give a balanced presentation of both the faults and strengths of Christians during history.
The book deals with eight topics:

Christianity and the Foundation of the West: Which addresses Christianity's contributions to the ability of the west get out of the Dark Ages and develop the civilization it has in contrast to non Christian areas of the world.

Christianity and Slavery: Which addresses Chritianity's involvement with the slave trade and the contributions Christians made to help end slavery.

Christianity and Science: Tired of hearing how Christianity is anti-science. Here the authors address how Christianity has helped to influence the development of the positive scientific environment that exists.

Christianity and the Slaughter of Innocents: Whenever I am talking with critics of Christianity they always bring up the Crusades, the Inquisition, the killing of Indians in the US, etc., to show what a blood thirsty lot we are. This part of the book addresses the facts related to many of these periods in history. We see the Christian involvement, but we also see the horrors they were fighting and how most of the Christian world was actually doing a lot to prevent deaths.

Christianity and the Third Reich: Was Hitler a Christian and was the Nazi cause a Christian one? The authors show how Christianity was not the foundation of Hitler's theology and how Christians were often fighting the Nazis and being persecuted by the Nazis. There is also a nice section on Pope Pius XII and how he was not the Nazi sympathizer he is often made out to be. Quick fact, he opened up the Vatican to hide Jews from the Nazis, and that is just part of what he did.

Christianity and Charity: Christians, especially clergy, are often called hypocrites who bilk their parishoners of money and are sexual deviants. This section deals with these issues and shows the incredible amount of charitable work Christians do. Can you imagine a world without hospitals? That is what we had until Christians started building them.

Christianity and the Environment: A great section that reclaims the rightful place of Christianity as an environmentally caring religion.

Christianity and American Democracy: The authors show the important role that Christians made in the development of American democracy.

The only problem with the book is the authors' failure to reference every quote and reference they make. They really need to fix this in the next edition if Christians are going to be able to use these items and have support. Otherwise this was a very helpful reference, which I have found myself often referring to as I am having to deal with critics.

The book was much better then the movie, but, like in the movie, they should never have killed off Newt or hicks, or Riply for that matter. I didn't understand why they felt the need to put one of those things inside her. in the last movie, she had nightmeres about it happening to her. It was an unjust thing to do to such a strong, surviving charracter. What's worse it only opened the door for Reserection. It was a good movie, but only braught the series down. For it's entertainment value, 3 was great, but it's one movie that I try to avoid watching.

Would you buy the book of the first Alien movie after watching it? Nope, me neither. But with this book things do change. Not because the movie is bad (though it was not; if you think the opposite, it may be time to refine your cinematique taste) but the story is so capturing and well told that you never regret your time and money spent at the bookstore.

Alien 3 is a bad movie, and is definitely the worst of the four. But the book is fantastic. It is much more in depth than the movie and easily explains everything that the movie didn't. This book is suspenseful to say the least. You won't be able to help yourself from reading on.

I heard about this book on Howard Stern and it's very--NICE. It's POSSIBLY the CLEAREST book ever. I was best man at his wedding--despite the fact that he actually has a brother--at a charming little Italian Village. Some may say the book gets a litle "hot and crusty," but I say, "Listen, pal! He has a -- RIGHT -- to protest!" He reduces the issue of "Rory and the Hamburger" to a lovely Chinese meal; the most difficult problems are no more than a "sweet breakfast" of the soul. He says don't cry over spilled milk--unless, of course, you're the one who spilled it, all over the table in a restaurant in New Hampshire. Again, the theme of New Hampshire: Most powerful are the book's tragicomic visions of a bufoonish man, running helplessly after a car, as he is mocked. Eventually, he throws a newspaper.

By way of a preface to "the healing Pages;" we should all remember that we are all interested in the future...for that is where you and I will spend the REST OF OUR LIVES. What do I mean by that -- and; less importantly; what does that have to do with The healing "Pages"? Glad you aksed. The future -- not the Passed, rather, "THE past," but The future-is where, after all, you And i are going to spend what? Why, the rest of Our Lives. And that's what David Dex's eksellent book is trying to say: The Future is Where YOU AND I are Going To Spend The Rest of -- OUR LVES. And "The Future" is no place for goats! Not in the Jooish Testament sense of "scaped goats" -- "scapegoats," get it? But "Goats" -- the "scapegoats" (see explanaytion) of their families, if you will -- or even if you won't -- have come a long way, baby! I think that's what Dayvd Deks is triing to say. GOATS BE FRE! and; GOATBOYS -- there human counter=parts!!! -- be FREE! Daddy wood you like sum sausage?! PLEASE?!

Coming from an alcoholic family myself, I felt that the poems, stories, etc. in this wonderful little book were taken straight from my own heart. I carry the book with me wherever I go and whenever I feel depressed, I take it out and read one of my favorite passages.

The author is clearly in touch with his feelings. He is much further along on the road to recovery than I am, although I am well on my way also, partly in thanks to his inspiration.

I recommend this very brave and soul-bearing masterpiece for anyone who seeks to improve their life: narcotics, alcoholics anonymous, or anyone with weight issues, anorexia and general depression.

Baseball Almanac ([website]) has the most extensive collection of All-Star related data on the Internet. This book has even more! Incredible research, great sources, tons of data, and an annex that by itself is worth the price of the book. Four stars instead of five due to a few inconsistencies between the rosters, lineups, & boxscores, but a must have resource for the hardcore baseball fan interested in our Midsummer Classic.

This book presents each All-Star game (1933-2000) with textual background, box score, rosters & starting lineups, complete play-by-play, and a photo or two. The book has great reference value. The text, though, is fairly wooden : useful but gracelessly flat - a real disappointment considering the colorful and often dramatic subject matter. Still, a highly recommended purchase for all baseball fans, not just historians.

I collect baseball reference books and this one is right on the shelf closest to my desk by my Total Baseball, my Baseball Encyclopedia and my Baseball Biographical Encylopedia. It contains wonderful leaderboards of all-star information and play-by-play of every all-star game. For instance, the area describing Pete Rose's mad dash home to win the game has the full inning summary: Torre grounds out, Clemente grounds out, Rose singles, Grabarkewitz singles (Rose to 2nd) and Hickman singles (Rose scores). Every inning of every All-Star game has this level of detail. Nowhere else is this information available.

My only complaint is the lack of pictures. While it kept the cost of production down, it does seem to be a feature you would want to have.

I found the author's tone supercilious and condescending, and the people I met and places I visited MUCH more warm and inviting than this book would suggest. The only place I found people a little "snotty" in the whole country was Bucharest - and they were nicer than the average Manhattanite, that's for sure! Your ideas about poverty and wealth WILL be challenged, your sense of humor will be expanded and thoroughly spanked, and if you don't try to buy everything that isn't for sale (or haggle over already [low] prices) you'll be amazed at how generous people are, too. Yes there are tourist traps galore, with inflated prices and rotten service, but not nearly as many as in say, the average coastal town in Maine.

After having spent two weeks last summer as well as several small ventures in and out of the country in the fall, I have to say that this guide is by far the best one to use for travels throughout Romania. There are a few inconsistencies here and there regarding buses, restaurants and hotels (most notably price-wise...quite forgiveable), but overall the book is extremely well put together and informative. I had the Rough Guide for Romania throughout my travels, but I always found myself using LP's guide instead. The only thing I would recommend for an improvement is the inclusion of a few more "off the beaten path" areas such as the Csango enclave in Moldavia and the Kalotaszeg region in Transylvania (the brief mention of the Kalotaszeg is rather insubstantial), as well as the oft-ignored Danubian town of Braila, which has a very pleasant and attractive town center. Perhaps it could use more expanded sections on Wallachia and Moldavia as well, since Transylvania is by far the most covered region in the book (an understandable decision, though it sometimes seems as though coverage of other areas is too skimpy in comparison). Regardless, for the first edition of the guide, LP has done an excellent job, and I'm sure the next edition will see a few more additions to fill out the book.

The guide section on Moldova is exceptionally helpful and accurate. It can be depended upon for correct and accurate information. A couple latebreaking items of information: The Wam's burger outlet is now closed. McDonalds has opened in Chisinau. The current enxchange rate is L4.58 = US$1. The exchange rate for the currency of Transdniestr (the Kupon) is now 846,000 Kupon = US$1.