unclear search methods. not specific.

This book is designed in the same format that most of the BRB Publisher texts are. Opening chapters are of general interest, moving into state by state phone and online information followed up by several appendixes describing online vendor information companies, government URLs, and privacy information. The State chapter which is 80% of the book, is broken down as: State Agencies County Courts Federal Courts Local Courts and County Record Retrievers This section is very resourceful, giving in detail what is permitted in that location and who can get the information for you. It appears that several of the BRB publications have been combined, and added to, to create this excellent source.

I've worked with public records for some time and have bought many books . . . some good and some bad. This is the best I've come across. The information is current and the format is easy to use.

The depth of information provided, particularly in the county court and state agency sections, is very comprehensive. This book provides more locations and more details than anything else I've seen and I have them all.

If you work with public records, forget the other guides and put your money here . . . you won't be disappointed

Now in a fully updated and expanded second edition, The Sourcebook To Public Record Information profiles more than 20,000 record keeping agencies including county courts, real estate recording offices, state agencies, and federal courts. Here detailed are addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, web addresses, access procedures and restrictions, fees, turnaround times, and more. The Sourcebook To Public Record Information is an essential, core reference for librarians, background investigators, journalists, attorneys, genealogists, law enforcement officials, private investigators, policy makers, pre-employment screeners, and academic researchers.

Most often some of the most influential men in politics are ignored. This book on David L. Lawrence shows how important the man was to changing the way Pittsburgh and cities did businesses. Kudos to Mr. Weber on this biography of one of the finest mayors of the 20th century.

This book should fall into the lap of everyone involved in the fishing industry, ie. government officials, policy makers, lobbiests, commercial fishmen, recreational fishermen, concervationists etc. Anyone concerned with the oceans and the fish which live in them, this thoroughly researched book is an absolute must read. It is the greatest eye opener as to the decline of fish stocks around the world, how it happened and still continues.

What a magnificient analysis full of profound and original insights.This book was done with such exemplary clarity that one need not be a student of philosophy in order to comprehend the ideas that are discussed.I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in discovering the important pathway into the lives and thoughts of the great minds.

The authors, among other things, dealt with problems like pollution and over-fishing in dollar terms, expenses and lost profits. This kind of analysis is extremely important when policy decisions are made by "the bottom line", and reminds us that environmental issues are not just a problem for long-haired weirdos that hug trees.

This book was an excellent way for my children to learn more of American History. After finishing this book, they are asking for the next book in this series ( The Young Republic ). Without a doubt, we will be buying the entire series.

"Confessions of an Internet Auction Junkie" is a very informative and handy book to own. The book demonstrates the author's firm grasp of selling on Internet auction sites such as eBay. How to information about the explosive on-line auction venue is badly needed and this book most certainly fits the bill. The book is informative, easy to read and complete. I especially appreciated the many screens shots of actual auctions that moves the subject beyond theory and into real life. The included CD has dozens of useful software and HTML templates to get you started. Interested in selling on eBay or any of the many auction sites? Then buy this book!

For anyone who has things or can find things to sell and wants to make money, this book gives you all the info you need for doing so on the internet. Also gives insite to anyone who buys on internet auctions. The information you need is in a concise and organized format with lots of humor making it easy and enjoyable to read.

"Confessions of an Internet Auction Junkie: How to Sell Virtually Anything on the Internet" is absolutely the best guide to Internet auction selling (and buying) that I've read. It is highly readable as well as entertaining, and provides the common sense, guidance, and ideas necessary to being successful in the online auction business. The CD-ROM supplies hands-on tools to help launch and successfully manage online auctions. This is one terrific book, and I highly recommend it to anyone in the online auction world, buyers and sellers alike. It has been an invaluable tool for me in starting and managing my online auctions. I just hope that not too many people buy this book and find out how easy it can be to make money in the online auction business. Or I'll end up with alot of competition!

This is a study guide, and it teaches through essays, followed by questions. The subjects are thought-provoking, and are presented in a preview/questions/review-and-explanation format. The writing is thought-provoking: How, one is asked, has God spoken to you, personally? Faith is presented as a process, one which is life-long. This book is not meant for a solitary reader, it is meant to be taught to a group which is guided by an educated director. Also, it is meant to cover certain basic doctrines, not to be a complete catechism. I wish I could find a class with whom I could share this book. It is a good experience when read alone, but it would be greatly enhanced by group discussion and sharing of thoughts.

I have used this book for the past five years in teaching an adult confirmation class in my parish. I especially like how it is organized: essay, questions about the essay, responses to the questions, the experience of the Christian community, and personal profile. Best of all it quickly gets to the heart of Christian Faith - one's relationship with God and in particular Jesus. I have yet to have a class that did not benefit from using Becoming Catholic.

Rather than a general theory or explanation of either economics or religion, Weber attempts to draw a specific link between what he sees as the conjunction of the work ethic of Protestant (mainly Calvinist) spiritual teachings, and the success of Western European Capitalism.

Weber is an astute analyst, in many ways. He rightly notes that often the 'sine qua non' of Capitalism is thought of as "greed". Arguing against this notion, Weber points out that all societies have had greedy people within their particular economic system-greed is thus a factor irrespective of economic systems. Replacing this, Weber proposes that the "spirit" of Capitalism be thought of as a particular moral attitude towards work and idleness-an attitude that holds that constant and diligent work for its own sake is a moral imperative. In the face of what Weber calls "the radical elimination of magic from the world" this work ethic was the existential option left for people in terms of atonement and personal compensation for inadequacies. I believe that these two insights are right on target.

If there is a weakness involved in his characterization of this Protestant "Ethic," it lies in the fact that Weber attempts to draw a strict dichotomy in the origins of this ethic. He states forcefully that this ethic does not come out of any Enlightenment thought. The problem with trying to separate this ethic from the Enlightenment, is that this ethic which posits diligent work for its own sake is clearly found in the ethics of Immanuel Kant, who classified this kind of work and labor as a "duty" (ethical rule) that the self has to itself. In other words, how much of this is the legacy of the Reformation and how much of this is the legacy of the Enlightenment?

The necessity for this kind of work also appears in the ethics of Hegelian philosophy. Hegel characterizes work as a means of the realization of Spirit within the human self, since the performance of duties which one would not normally choose to do can be thought of as a deliberate placing of oneself in the context of alienation. The individual then, through diligent "work," attempts to convert that which is foreign (antithetical) to the self into that which is of the self. Work is thus a means of overcoming a system of deliberate self-alienation, and is vitally necessary. Kant and Hegel, clearly two giants of Enlightenment thought, both maintain that the essence of diligent work is to become, not acquire-acquisition is a by-product and consequence of work. This is very similar to Weber's characterization of this ethos.

Another problem arises when we attempt to draw a strict separation between the worldly attitudes of Catholic monasticism and this "Protestant Ethic." While it is certainly true that Catholic monasticism placed a high degree of value on contemplatio, Catholic dogma, from Augustine through Gregory the Great and onwards, held explicitly that one must always return to work in the world-contemplatio was always insufficient in itself as a mode of being. Biblically, this was often seen in light of the Hebrew story of Rachel and Leah, as well as the Greek story of Mary and Martha. The contemplative life is certainly of "higher" value in Catholic thought, yet it must be seen as returning the soul to the life of activity, lest the soul run the risk of the heresy of "Quietism." Some forms of Catholic mysticism ran into heretical issues precisely because they held that the life of activity should be abandoned. So, while there may be a difference in degree, we should be careful not to draw a stronger split than is there. Weber writes as if only Luther or Calvin has the concept of a life's "calling," when this was always already part of Catholicism too.

This entire issue actually has its roots in Greek political philosophy, where we see a clear tension between the "practical life", and the "contemplative life." The issue persists into Roman life. We can even see some evidence of this type of Protestant ethos in Stoicism, which held that the active pursuit of virtue and public activity was the highest good. Contrast to Epicureanism, which held that the private, quiet study of philosophy and other pleasures, away from worldly life, was the highest good. The issue, of course, reemerges in Christian thought. But for all of its force in Protestantism, we must not take a myopic view that this was somehow unique to Protestantism in Western intellectual thought. Other factors than religion must have also played a role in the development of capitalism.

The role of Judiasm is Weber's biggest problem. According to his own endnotes, Jews enjoy more economic success and motivation---so why would Protestantism give birth to Capitalism?

We should nonetheless congratulate Weber for attempting to take a close look at the interactions between religious and economic thought. Like Marx, his work serves a good framework to examine the way religious thought influences and inteacts with factors like world economics.

Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is CLASSIC - and should be a mandatory read for every student of sociology. Unfortunately, the classic literature of sociology isn't emphasized enough in today's educational institutions. Students are entering the real world without the foundation of social prophets and coming up with their own ideas of "what the world is coming to," and taking credit for ideology that has long been debated and written down by masterminds such as Weber. Pay attention! What is this book really about? This is a revolutionary work discussing critically the causes and effects of sociological chance, and how the sociology of religion has changed meaning because of the philosophy we now base our ideas on. Anyone interested in postmodern theory, the iron cage of bureaucracy, rationalization, and even symbolic interactionism should read this before continuing to literature of modern sociological thought.

THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM by Max Weber is the kind of book which I imagined was important in my youth. I find it difficult, now, but not because anything which is says is any less true than it ever was. As history goes, it is some of the most thoughtful. The problem is that we are no longer living in history. Comparing ourselves to the contents of this book confirms that society is now at the level of farce, and likely to remain so. This conclusion might not strike anyone starting the book for the first time, but it ought to grab anyone who is capable of comprehending Chapter 3, "Luther's Conception of the Calling."

My point of view works best if it is accepted that, as America now stands, it can only be understood as a nation of shoppers. The large and still growing amount by which imports exceeds exports requires that the entire world maintains this view for monetary stability. The political parties might pretend to be theoretically split between those who use the government as a means of shopping for people's needs and those who would enhance the ability to make big bucks, but neither party can, in actuality, represent with their whole heart those who picture government as the ultimate shopper, which ought to be able to provide people with what they would not otherwise have, whether through liberal social programs or by imposing rigid security provisions and covert activities. Thinking about how well secret military tribunals or jailing users of illegal substances actually functions, as applied to "others," strike me as being an absurd application of Luther's "observation that the division of labour forces every individual to work for others." Both parties, to maintain their existence in such a tipsy world, must appeal to those who would maintain "the privileged position, legal or actual, of single great trading companies." Only the American ability to convince the world that everyone who takes our money for their products fully shares the ability of Americans to benefit from such great wealth can maintain such a situation as "a traditionalist interpretation based on the idea of Providence. The individual should remain once and for all in the station and calling in which God had placed him, and should restrain his worldly activity within the limits imposed by his established station in life. While his economic traditionalism was originally the result of Pauline indifference, it later became that of a more and more intense belief in divine providence, which identified absolute obedience to God's will, with absolute acceptance of things as they were." The uses of two "Absolute"s in that sentence is what frightens me. Any sign of inability to adapt to a future which includes vast changes is a bad characteristic for a modern society, and the modern economy seems to be headed in a direction that will no longer provide great wealth to all who expect it. In such a situation, anyone might consider the words of Milton in "Paradise Lost," as quoted by Max Weber, which points out that people are able:

To leave this Paradise, but shall possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far.

The next paragraph suggests, "The appeal to national character is generally a mere confession of ignorance, and in this case it is entirely untenable." The difference between what Max Weber is trying to describe and what I'm thinking is what makes this kind of book so difficult to read, and I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't read it.