Appiah and Gutmann (A&G) want to arrive at the conclusion that America's blacks should be given plenty of quotas, preferences or at least pots of money; but they do not actually accept that blacks are a racial group having any special needs. Their book is replete with assurances that "the only human race in the USA....is the human race" (p. 32); that "I think there aren't [any races]" (p. 33); that there are no races at all (p. 117); and that race is a "dangerous fiction" (p. 176).

Despite generous page space, it is unclear just how A&G have decided on this self-denying ordinance that must forever cramp their style - especially since they have no reparations to propose for Amerindians. What is stopping A&G from estimating how many people are black and what actually are their characteristic problems? One might expect argument about the number of main racial groupings found in the USA -- even if the final answer has to be 'one' -- to proceed by considering expert definitions, by looking at empirical clustering, or by tracing lines of descent. More engagingly, authors like A&G might be expected to try to do battle with race realists like Phil Rushton (1995, 'Race, Evolution and Behavior') who claim it is convenient to identify three main racial groups (African, Asian, Caucasian) in the world as a whole and in America likewise.

Yet no such healthy process of argument and consideration ever begins in Colour Conscious. Simply, Rushton is not given a mention. Just as Harvard's top leftist, S. J. Gould, prefers to concentrate his critical fire on psychological positions of a century ago, so Appiah derives amusement from the concern with skin colour and 'White beauty' of the USA's "race theorist" and founding father, William Jefferson (e.g. 1781-2, 'Notes on the State of Virginia'). Apparently, anything is preferable to taking on Arthur Jensen's suggestion of the 1990's that 95% of people in the world can be conveniently said to belong to one of some six main groups (Whitney, 1999, American Renaissance, March). (Jensen was to be well supported by Chinese research which used 'microsatellites' [repeats of short DNA segments] to test human genetic variability and produced a picture of ten main types racial grouping and descent, merely recognizing more differentiation within Jensen's Oriental groups - Piazza, 1998, Nature, 15 October.) Even the geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza who works so hard to persuade the media that there are no races is mentioned by A&G only in a one-sentence footnote. Herrnstein and Murray's 'The Bell Curve' receives virtually the same neglectful treatment - with just a page from A&G deploring the "fuss" about the book and asserting there is "almost no evidence relevant to refuting the claim that the differences between American groups are entirely caused by the environment...."

Presumably there is a reason for A&G's avoidance of straight scholarly argument about race - and especially about the worldwide association between negritude and high rates of mental retardation, violent crime, illiteracy, promiscuity, single parenting and venereal disease. Avoidance of the sobering realities that might explain old-fashioned racism is plainly thought by A&G to be their safest course.

Amy Gutman argues that racial quotas are needed because of racial discrimination. There is some truth to this: for example, the Nixon administration invented quotas to fight blatant discrimination by craft unions in Philadelphia, and it's hard to imagine any other tactic working to end discrimination by unions devoted to enforcing anti-competitive, nepotistic hiring. Unfortunately, Gutman makes no attempt to distinguish anti-competitive organizations from competitive ones, which have economic incentives to not discriminate. In fact, I don't think Gutman is even aware of the distinction. She merely assumes that if blacks are under-represented anywhere, it's because of discrimination. Well, we've certainly heard that before, so what's the point of writing another book if you're just going to repeat the same old dogmas?

Appiah, on the other hand, is a more open and intriguing thinker. This may stem from the near-comic ironies of his position in life. He is a Professor of Afro-American Studies at Harvard, but he's not very Afro-American. He was born in Ghana of a local father and an English mother. He has spent a lot of his career arguing that "race" has no biological "essence," but is just a social construct.

It's not hard for him to knock down the absurd strawmen he sets up. He assumes that if there is no Platonic essence to each race, and that if each member of each race can't be perfectly identified, the whole concept of race must be discarded. Of course, reality is not Platonic, it's relativistic and probabilistic. It's humorously hypocritical for a relativist like Appiah to denounce the concept of race just because it's relativistic.

For example, all his criticisms of the concept of race apply with equal, if not greater, force to the concept of family. Nobody can agree on the precise numbers of races? Nobody can agree on the precise number of extended families either. Are some people descended from more than one race? Well, everybody is descended from more than one family. There's no single gene that proves you belong to one race or another? Well, there's no single gene that proves you are your father's child either. Paternity testers examine a host of genes in order to increase the probability of a correct attribution. (In fact, the exact same DNA techniques are used by forensic scientists to inform police of the probable race of criminal who left a bloodstain at the crime scene.)

Why does family provide so many perfect analogies for race? Because they aren't analogies: a race is an extremely extended family. There are no hard and fast borders between families and races -- the only qualitative difference is that races show a degree of endogamy (in-breeding), which means that races are actually somewhat more coherent and definite, and less fuzzy than families.

This is a terrific book. In clear and persuasive terms, Appiah begins the book by explaining how "race" is a fiction, but "racism" is a fact. This seeming paradox presents the difficult challenge that Gutmann then addresses in the second half of the book. On one hand, she recognizes that social justice seems to require that we not define people in terms of their so-called "race." On the other hand, she also shows how social justice demands that we eradicate racism, especially insofar as it affects people's civic life. This leads to the central problem of the book: If we don't take account of people's race, how can we respond to the social injustices stemming from racism?

Gutmann makes a powerful case why fairness demands that we be "color conscious," at least for some purposes and for the time-being. She also explains why class-consciousness cannot resolve the problems stemming from racism, nor can proportional representation based on race.

These conclusions may raise the hackles of those who believe that our country should be color-blind, but the arguments that lead there are carefully constructed, logical, and in the end, largely persuasive. Moreover, they are chock-full of concrete examples that drive home the theoretical points. Whether she is talking about the attributes of a successful program in affirmative action at AT&T or data on S.A.T. scores analyzed by both race and class, Gutmann makes a powerful case from which even honest critics will have much to learn.

Both Appiah's and Gutmann's arguments are nuanced, theoretically sophistocated, and informative. Moreover, they are a pleasure to read. Gutmann's essay, in particular, has an impressive style in that it uses concrete examples to illustrate her theoretical points, as well as solid theoretical arguments to illuminate thorny areas of public policy. Wilkins' introduction and Appiah's epilogue are also well-written and valuable. This book is important reading for all people interested in responding to racial injustice.

I do not recomend this book one bit!, it is full of mistakes and the explantions for the answers are not there. All the sections contain serious error and the phrasing of some questions is vague to say the least. The answers provided for most of the questions is wrong!, and that applies for the science section as well as the math and perceptual ability sections. You are better off taking the test without prepartion than taking it studying for it with this book.

This book has great suggestions on how to prepare for the DAT, and it can help you increase your self-discipline if you decide to not go with at standard DAT preparation course. It doesn't, however, have any summaries of important facts for the science section. The PAT section of the practice test they give you is shortened and it has several wrong answers. You can go ahead and buy it if it makes you feel any more secure about your approaching test, but I wouldn't recommend it.

There's very good examples and review on the quantative analysis part of the exam. But if you're hoping to review over the biology part of the exam, you're not to worry about this book. It only gives you an outline on the natural science part of the test. You can even get the outline from the DAT application booklet. This book does have some full length mock DAT tests though.

This book is the same book as the Betz Guide 2nd Edition (which is also printed by Williams & Wilkins), but with a different cover. I do not understand how they claim it to be a "Complete Preparation" for the OAT. As someone who has written the OAT, I'm astounded at how this book manages to completely fail to teach any science whatsoever. Biology, chemistry and organic chemistry are "taught" by a small number of multiple-choice questions (the book suggests to the reader to find other sources as additional science review). Only in the physics section does the book make an effort to present actual "material" - but it goes into very specific and excruciatingly useless detail. The only useful thing this book will provide is in the appendix where they reprint the "Scope of Examinations", taken from an old AOA-OAT application brochure. I tore out those pages and used the summary of topics to guide my studies through textbooks, class notes, and an advanced placement study guide for biology. I strongly suggest others do the same. But I guess buying this book will provide someone with peace of mind - the knowledge that they have the only OAT study guide on the market. Unfortunately, it won't do much else.

Since this is one of the few OAT books out there it is better than nothing. The problem with this book is the fact that it is a little hard to read, it looks like it was typed with a typewriter. Other than that, it has good practice items in it, but don't expect to learn very much, it only itemizes what areas of each subject you need to learn (basically everything). This book is overall good because it has many practice items and help increase your speed.

With each film, the book presents facts and quizzes that are interesting from the standpoint of everyday trivia, but they really do not place enough emphasis on the Christmas themes that the movies portray. I would expect that a fact/trivia book written expressly about Christmas films would certainly want to include that feature. Quizzing about the color of actors' eyes or what type of model bridge they are building as a scene opens is not Christmas trivia. Instead, quiz more along the lines of how the tree was decorated, or what carols were sung, what gifts were bestowed, etc. Word searches also accompany each film, but I get the impression that they were thrown in as an afterthought and appear out of place. Even though the book is light and meant to entertain, it does present factual data. Hence, a bibliography (lacking in this case) would have been helpful so that interested readers could confirm the facts or pursue the subject in greater detail, if they were so inclined. More thorough books about Christmas movies have been written.

Or McClouds of Minnesota or Nevada. The setting of this book was totally irrelevant, much to my disappointment. I bought it because of the logo on the front, thinking it was set in my home state and that would be neat. It was so generic the story and characters could have come from anywhere. And I know that's usually true of romances, but the logo emphasized location. And, it appears from the little map this fictional city would have been located in the Delta area, home of the Blues as well as extreme poverty. Never mentioned in the book along with African-American characters or Mississippi icons like Ole Miss.

I was never clear on the time of year this story took place. But, no one sweated and we're humid down here! No one ate catfish, griped about the kudzu or said ya'll. None of the characters, even minor characters, spoke like Southerners. I was like what?

Overall, the story idea was a good one and despite the fact that Mississippi was just on the cover, I liked how the story started out. The main two characters, Caitlin and Nathan were likable, although the sexual chemistry was miniumal.

What ruined the book for me was the 3 year old kid who talked and acted 30. She was so unbelivable she pulled me right out of the story. The author kept emphasizing how brilliant, adorable and poised she was. I suppose this was to convince the reader the kid was real? Why not put an average 3 year old in the story? Instead of one who wants the square wheat cereal instead of Coco Puffs, because they have too much sugar??? I nearly fell out of my chair as well as out of the story that I had enjoyed up until her arrival. After that, it was a chore to keep reading because this "Perfect Shirley Temple Child" was in the story constantly and she grossed me out.

This was my first book by this author. She has another one to follow this one, the hero is a writer. However, I think he's going to be taking care of the Perfect Child, so I'll pass on it. I hope she did more with Mississippi in the second book
especially since he's a writer. The author might want to get
Willie Morris's book, My Mississippi for reference.
This was my first book by this author.

As an experienced medical transcriptionist, I was disappointed overall with the format. Terms were listed alphabetically, but drugs, clinical trials, instruments, equipment, surgical and diagnostic procedures, and laboratory tests were intermingled, and not divided into separate sections. While including such detailed information as name and location of a specific drug's pharmaceutical company, the source of the information described, and instructions for usual dosages of medications, i.e., swish and swallow 10 ml (100 mg/10 ml) twice, for a total dose of 200 mg, it made simple, speedy use of this text next to impossible. This book would not be one I would recommend for your transcription reference library.

My first reaction to this book is "where was the editor?" Many of my criticisms of this book are forgivable problems for an initial draft, but shouldn't show up in a book on the shelf. For example, on page 10, Mr. Wilkins says:

"Users who decide to hide software by renaming the EXE file will have no luck in their attempt to avoid detection, as the file header won't lie. Files can also be collected and then stored on the site server. (Ouch! I guess noontime game playing is out.)"

This passage has a few problems. First, it's trying to describe a nuance of software inventory that doesn't belong in the introduction. Second, the file collection idea is out of context here. Last, of course, the first person comment about games is not only silly, but in bad taste.

The book, at least the portions I got through before returning it, is filled with things like this. Cute comments can be distracting to a serious reader. Here's another (page 2):

"...SMS works tirelessly in the background, providing administrative support, and to the best of my knowledge, it will not ask for a raise or quit on you suddenly."

Get serious - SMS is simply a product; it doesn't deserve to have personality ascribed to it. These attempts at casual tone are far too overt and serve no purpose.

Another obvious problem is a relatively shallow depth of understanding. How about this quote (page xvii):

"For years, [Novell's] IPX protocol had been the standard in the computer industry."

Right there I question just about everything else in the book, which has the feel of being generated based on other documents rather than real experience. You have to dig to find hard facts, and dig further to find those facts accurately described or applied.

For this book, I'd wait for the second edition if you're looking to actually be an SMS administrator. It may be okay for non-administrators who are interested in the topic, but other titles are sure to give more concrete information to admins who are in the trenches day to day.

Ok, all computer books are rushed to press. They have to hit the market asap after the release of a software- or they are outdated (especially with MS) in 6 months. But it did lack a good editor.
The author does give conflicting info, and also try to find specifics in the book! What is the chipset that is the minimum required by MS! He mentions in passing maybe a 166? Then states you need a 450. Well which is it. He could have used a better format as other books do- state the required MS hardware, then give the recommended real life needs. He also goes of on tangents that are not imperative to my knowledge of SMS- why explain for pages Windows 2000 and it's use of trees, forests... etc.
The book is not a quick read- I want something that says what SMS is, what it will do, and how to do it in the fewest words possible. I have a stack of books to read and by gosh don't need filler! This book could easily have been half the size it is, and not lost the content.
Ok it is also not something I would consider remotely being a book to pass the MS exams either. There are better books for that.
Basically, if you have time to just read about SMS, the book is good info. But it is not concise in it's approach. And it did put me to sleep once or twice.

I am managing a SMS Site. I bought the book to refresh my memory and it didn't dissapoint me. I don't believe that this book was written to prepare you for the SMS test. However, the title states that it is for administrators of SMS. There are a few mistakes -In a rush to be printed?. If you manage a SMS Site you will probably find some good points for before and after the implementation.

This is quite possibly the worst book I have ever read. And I have consumed Thosands, which might come as a shock to the authour, who considers anyone who has ever glimpsed a television an addle brained halfwit.Her hysteria is matched only by her juvinile simplicity. All electronic media, according to this book, is demonic, and has no value at all! To make her point(?) she quotes such indisputible moral leaders as Al Gore (Nuff said?), and Dr. Spock, who blames television for everything from Vietnam to diaper rash. Need I remind the good doctor that his feel-good disipline free approach to parenting is responsible for two generations of mewling self-important nymphomaniacs? In the real world, you alone must choose all you study. Who's to say you can't enjoy 18th century novels, and MST3000? The Tao Te Ching, and NewsRadio? Those who follow Neo-Luddite dogma will never be truly enlightened, for they have closed themselves off from a fountainhead of knowledge. True, vast cesspools of thought free frivolity must be navigated past, but there are also to be found, ceasless works of history, life, and true art. "Getting Unplugged", teaches you to throw the baby out with the bathwater, while sporting a smug, puritanical, reflectionless grin on your unthinking skull. I'll admit, there are a few parts in this book where I didn't want to drive a rouqe mallet through said unthinking skull of anyone who whould find this schoolmarmish drivel uplifting, but these are few and far between. If you want a thought provoking book on media, read "Virtuous Reality", by Jon Katz. If you used Dr. Spocks methods to turn your children into intellectual and moral midgets, then by all means, buy this book! it will teach you the fine arts of scapegoating, and blaming inanimate objects for your own shortcomings.

This book takes the prize as the worst book I have had the misfortune of reading. It is absolutely horrible. Don't waste your money or your time...it is five hours of your life that you can never get back.

The book was helpful as additional set of questions for practice. The test questions, however, were misleading and tricky, which was not true of the actual PCAT. Each section seemed to be written by a different person and there was no consistent method to the presentation of the material. The Biology section did not explain the answers at all, so there was no opportunity to learn from mistakes. Other sections were somewhat better. I found the study skills and test taking tips section to be of little or no value. The overview of the mechanisms that have been developed to describe how people learn was of no value at all.