This guide was just a perfect tool to beat Quake II for me. It reminds me so much of the Doom II Guide by Prima ; a lot of helpful strategy with a sense of Marine humor. I probably wouldn't have beaten the game without it. The add-on disk was awesome!

This book is is slightly dated - a revision is in the works from what I can tell of Web based updates.It is still the most comprehensive and detailed guide available to both kayakers and rafters (although it is written primarily for kayakers). Dozens of rivers are covered as well as many of their indvidual rapids, peculiarities, specifications, and best times to run. By teaming a scientist up with Raphael Gallo (paddler and President of one of the top river outfitters in Costa Rica - Rios Tropicales) you get a balance of technical information as well as practical information with some good photos to boot. This book is mandatory if you are a serious paddler who wishes to explore Costa Rica.

Roots in the African Dust Michael Mortimore is best known for his extensive studies of farming systems, environmental change and human adaptation to drought in the drylands of northern Nigeria. Mortimore's focus is on local, populist human adaptations to a harsh and complex environment. He developed his research focii when teaching geography at the universities of Ahmadu Bello and Bayero in Nigeria for over twenty-five years, before moving to the UK in the late 1980s where he is now a consultant. He has produced several influential and thought provoking texts; these include Adapting to Drought (1989), Working the Sahel (with W.M. Adams, 1999) and a revisionist account of livelihoods in Machakos, Kenya entitled More People, Less Erosion (with M Tiffen and F Gichuki, 1994). Roots in the African Dust is a synthesis volume, accessible to students, scholars and policymakers, that reviews some of the empirical material contained in these and other works. The book offers a forceful argument that the sub-Saharan drylands (the natural environment, and the people) are still coping under conditions of environmental, monetary and demographic stress. Ten well-presented, liberally illustrated chapters respond to questions posed in the introduction. If we believe expert views, Mortimore says, the Sahelian peoples should have been engulfed by an expanding Sahara many years ago, livestock markets should have collapsed due to overgrazing, farms would have been obliterated by land degradation, fuelwood should have run out, and entire areas depopulated for lack of economic opportunity. Since rural communities farming systems clearly still exist, the author uses several local examples to challenge these erronous crisis discourses. The second chapter addresses the legacy of worries about desertification and its impacts. Mortimore concludes that desertification is usually short-term, and reversible. Chapter three responds to the need to earth the global discourse in the realities of dryland households objectives (p38) since the majority of decisions about farming in Africa (outside the major commercial farms and ranch areas) are taken by smallholders. Defining farmers goals in terms of welfare and the reproductive needs of households, he offers a rich selection of material on labour, crop mixes and land use systems, technical change, trees, water management, and the importance of livestock (walking resources). Three chapters examine risk management. Systems primarily dependent on pastoralism are shown to use opportunistic stocking and herd mobility in an unstable, but resilient environment. Farmers exploit rain and moisture, and manage technological and biological diversity through sequential decision-making. Holding to a broad definition if the African household as a network of implicit contracts (following Robert Netting), Mortimore shows how risk is negotiated through maintenance of household numbers, a focus on flexible food production, and famine avoidance. He recognises that catastrophic policy errors and economic greed contributed to recent famines, but concludes that Sahelian farming is resilient (p111). This is partly due to non-farm activities, and the vigorous marketing of crops and animals (despite price and demand fluctuations and political uncertainty). Wage labour (involving circulatory migration), asset liquidation, agricultural sales, and exploitation of social networks also help to see people through hardship, and diversification away from agriculture and pastoralism is not the act of desperate people. A clear policy recommendation here is the necessity to keep borders permeable to migrants; in the absence of a rich industrial or commercial sector in most African countries, individuals will still keep their links to their rural homes. A further three chapters examine the extent of soil degradation, merits of agricultural intensification, and conservation of biotic resources. Mortimore claims that high population densities fuel intensification of agricultural production, if other constraints are absent. His well-known Machakos studies are used to demonstrate how commercial opportunities and population pressures drive resource conservation. The highlight of the book is the last chapter, where he speculates on the driving forces behind the transformation of rural African land use systems, again trying to demonstrate resilience and diversity in locally managed livelihoods. Africa's environmental and human systems change at different rates, but their trajectories are closely linked. Transitions are underway in land uses, and these are economic, demographic and institutional. Policy must, for Mortimore, follow a populist model by nourishing local creativity and adaptability (a version of Paul Richard's indigenous agricultural revolution). All interventions must be technically and culturally appropriate, and the goal of environmental management might be best served by protecting local innovation and investment against crises, for example through improving access to markets and recognising the need for free circulation of people and capital. Mortimore's project is, therefore, an intriguing and a potentially controversial one. In holding to a notion of strong (Boserupian) human adaptation to environmental and economic stresses, there is an open invitation for the political ecologist/economist (some cited above) to wade in with countervailing evidence of class exploitation, conflict, the systematic prevention of intensification or human development, or economic crisis brought on by commodity markets or corruption. Social and political conflict is downplayed (but not excluded) in the book. Not much is said about struggle and open resistance and why such struggles (often gendered, or to do with access issues) might have been necessary. Although at no point does the author say that rural Nigerians and Kenyans are always capable of solving problems without the state or any external assistance, but his view is that they usually are, and that the state and development agencies may not be suitable agents of positive agricultural transformation. Nonetheless, I have great faith in the author's experience, his findings, and his main recommendations. So much hinges on whether Northern Nigeria and Machakos (in particular) are typical of other regions and situations. Intensified agricultural systems have not always developed elsewhere, because different social and environmental histories apply. What is most gratifying is that Mortimore retains an attachment to rigorous comparative fieldwork that, frankly, few other scholars can demonstrate; a dedication to supporting the African smallholder; and a methodology that places equal weight on the natural environment, and the relationship between environmental change and human response. The book is an example of the real contribution of the committed geographer to African agrarian and development studies, and it is pleasing to have a single volume that offers such a breadth of analysis in a holistic, wide-ranging view of rural livelihoods and landscapes.

First things first. What a beautiful child this is on the cover.The message that the author is trying to get across is quite clear. The devotion this man has to his son is unique. This book is an easy read, so any reader can relate, no matter what age. Great effort for a first time author. Great experience for first time reader.

Unbelievably useful and packed with details. Many thanks to the author and I can't wait for the next edition!

This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. I wish they would have given details on the printing process for this book. I've never seen such vibrant, sharp, photographs in a book. They look almost as good as professionally done prints on photographic paper. As for the artistic merit of the photographs themselves, they are wonderful, something to get lost in.

A very big and beautiful book on the nature of water around the glode. Plentifully and beautifully illustrated with photos. A must have companion volume to the other three: air, earth and fire.

Wildlife Restoration: Techniques For Habitat Analysis And Animal Monitoring by Michael L. Morrison (Field Station Manager, White Mountain Research Station, University of California - Bishop and Adjunct Professor, School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University) is a scholarly and authoritative look at the practical and scientific methods as well as the problems of ecological restoration. Individual chapters address sampling methods, designing a reserve, lessons of history, and much more in this fascinating and technically detailed, treatise, written for professional conservationists but completely accessible for wildlife enthusiasts and environmental activists.

My kids find the Fandex format easy to use, and the information on them accessible. We have several, and they're fun for all of us to use together.

This Fandex covers a number of wild birds of North America. Each page has a large photo of the bird in question, its Latin name, a description of it, and the following Field Note categories: Habitat; Range; Diet; Nest; Eggs; and Status. Mind you, this is not a scientific, adult field guide, but a fun way to introduce children to the joys of birding.

The only quibble I have about these decks is that sometimes when they're completely fanned out, the edges of the illustrations get caught up in each other, making it hard to close them properly. But other than that, they're cute, informative, and a nice format for kids.

A fantastic "quick & dirty" reference tool! The PERFECT aid for persons in the online auction selling business. For example, I had a lovely antique plate that I wanted to put up for auction. This particular plate featured a bird sitting in a tree. I got out my trusty Fandex Bird Guide and there it was ... a Yellow Warbler. I then got out my equally trusty Fandex Tree Guide and there it was ... the Downy Hawthorne Tree. Therefore, instead of describing my treasure as a plain ol' "Bird Sitting in Tree - Plate", I was able to give it the justice it deserved and described it as a "Lovely Yellow Warbler Nesting Atop a Downy Hawthorne Branch - Plate".

These books are so much fun! They are great gift items for adults or children. I try to keep one copy in my car on Trees and Birds. What a great idea!

Nobody thought that Ernesto Che Guevara, born in an argentinian burgeois family could develop advanced ideas in the revolutionary palaestra. A latinamerican traveller, a dreamer. Later, the great revolutionary that made a whole story in the guerilla warfare which still many leftists all over the world. Bolivia was the begining of the leggend and in the daily we can found the meaning of phrases as "Forever until victory". Never surrender. A book that equals a summary of guerilla tactics and the deception of 60's latinamerican politics, a sadness that never ends.

Che went to Bolivia because he (and the Cuban leadership) thought that the situation was ripe for revolution. It tells the story of how he built a cadre of fighters with dedicated youth who wanted to fight until freedom or die. He wrote this diary in the mountains, fighting the Bolivian army as well as hunger and asthma. Despite everything, he was always focused on the goal, not his own pain or suffering. He was constantly evaluating their situation, politically and militarily, and determining the next move.

I first read Che's diary in the early 1970s because I wanted to learn more about him. At the time I thought it was interesting, but it didn't make much sense to me. This new edition is far superior to the Ramparts edition I read back then. The Pathfinder editors went to Cuba to collect photos and maps to make the diary come to life. This book includes accounts by surviving guerillas who fought with Che in Bolivia. There is a chronology and a glossary so you can understand who everyone was, where they came from, and what happened to them. If you want to read this famous book, make sure to read this edition!

If you read this book, THIS edition, you will begin to know the real Che-- who gave his life building an embryo of the kind of leadership required to rid the world of Yankee Imperial domination and military dictators.Bolivians,Argentines,Peruvians, and Cubans fought side by side, changing themselves as they fought, with food and water and ammo and BOOKS in their knapsacks.Studying indigenous languages, among other things--- with the full support of Fidel Castro and the Cuban government.

And they fought to take the heat off brutalized,heroic Vietnam, even just a little.They were defeated in combat, but victorious in the example they set : "the highest form of the human species" , yes they were.To defeat this monster in the USA, working people will have to emulate these men and women.Not in the mountains, but on strike picketlines, street demonstrations,studying together, as we fight the Imperial march towards Depression, fascism, and war. Excellent introduction points to struggles in Argentina,Bolivia,Chile, afterward :now it begins again...