The exhibition was full of wonderful paintings. These were paintings that could be easily borrowed from American museums. The catalogue tries to justify the exhibition beyond a collection of beautiful paintings. The authors do a good job of providing essays that are of interest. Of patricular interest to me was the essay on the academic tradition in Spain. The reproductions are of varying quality. The single figure of the Prodigal Son was way too dark. If you saw the exhibition in Fort Worth or Los Angeles you might want it.

This is a very good review and extremely helpful.

It is my good fortune to be in a college program aimed at the adult learner. I had heard much about today's college atmosphere molding many of our young people into politically correct animals and was glad that type of teaching was not reaching me. Unfortunately it found me in a Business Ethics course which uses this book. Messrs Shaw and Barry, in a writing style that is very familiar to me, do a rather unethical job in an attempt to bring you around to their point of view. In the book they cite single sources with assurances that others must feel the same, use the famed, 'many have said' frame of mind, and introduce each chapter with one of societies ills, the entire purpose of which seems only to be to cast a negative light preparing the reader to dislike something that follows. In a specific example, a section on the natural right to property (p 146, 2nd paragraph) in a part of the chapter that is supposed to show the moral justifications of capitalism has a sentence that reads as follows: "Although we are no longer permitted to own other people, we are certainly free to own a variety of other things, from livestock to stock certificates, from our own home to a whole block of apartment buildings." I was so bothered by this one sentence that I had to put the book down for an hour. There were no statements on slavery in the beginning of the chapter and after looking there was nothing that would indicate a disclaimer about not being able to own people in the entire book. Yet here was a statement in a section that was supposed to show the morality of capitalism that gets shot down in the second sentence. If this were the only example of questionable writing in the book I would not have written this review. Another section that was supposed to define capitalism spent more that half the section discussing socialism. Much of this book seems to be designed to incite a person's emotions. As an adult learner it seems silly to me to attempt to coerce my viewpoint in such a manner. My open mind is better reached through logical discussion of facts and views rather than this unethical attempt to work at my underbelly. I'm insulted and disappointed by the attempt. What bothers me more is that other students not my age (33) are being influenced or coerced by material of this type in advanced learning institutions. I'm concerned that these are the types of texts and the professors that teach from them that drive children to throw tofu pies and yell 'shame on you' at officials just for eating meat.

Well, I happen to disagree with previous comment. Not only did I like the course, I also liked the book. It wasn't an easy reading, I got to tell you. Sometimes it took more than one reading and several minutes or reflecting to figure out what the authors were talking about. But in the end it all made sense. And as a bonus the book went into great detail on philosophy, psychology, political science, and economics which I found quite helpful, since as a business major I didn't have a chance to take courses in first three subjects mentioned. The best thing, however, was, that almost a year later in packed Helsinki bar, I was able for about 15 minutes to talk about greatest German and French philosophers - all about them I learned from this book.

If you would like to know what the poorest exam guide could be, this one is an excellent sample. You could found all errors in your imagination and even more errors out of you imagination.
An definite guide for Java Exam candidate who would like to failed.

This book [is bad]. Even the basics they have got it wrong. Like Arithmetic operators postfix and prefix notation. This is not only misleading but also did confus me. I did not expect this from a professional publisher

The true test of the Java 2 Certification Exam Guide is to actually take the Java 2 Certification exam and see if you pass.

But that's something I'm not going to risk after reading this book.

While there's thoughtful treatment of many Java issues, from the mundane to the esoteric, the presentation of these issues suffers from errors in both substance and typography.

Consider chapter 2, Java Programming Essentials. As you read through the chapter, you manage to ignore the various typos, after all, you already know Java, you're just trying to study for the exam. (It's just annoying to have to put up with them.)

You work through the exercises, and get philosophical as the authors ask you a question about a method that isn't even defined in the code sample they present. Are you supposed to use your imagination? I don't think that'd be a good idea on the actual exam.

Finally, you get to the end of the chapter to check your answers. Chapter 2 has exercises numbered 1 through 17. But the answers are numbered 1 through 19 ... and the answer for 17 doesn't have anything to do with the question for 17! You toss the book down in disgust.

That's unfortunately representative of much of the rest of the book. It seems pretty clear that the authors, the editors, and the publisher were rushing to get this text out. More's the pity, the book had real potential, with a lot of breadth. Maybe these problems will go away in a second or third edition ... but maybe Java 3 will be out then, too!

Unfortunately this book is not really about EF! I was looking forward to learning about the operations and organization of EF! but instead was confronted by the authors own autobiography, largley about his work as a private detective. I wish the book had dealt only with EF! and extremists environmentalists instead of the author himself. I feel like the author missed an opportunity to provide an interesting account of his dealings with EF! Aside from obvious content flaws, the book was also written poorly making it a confusing and monotonous read. At the same time, I am glad I read this book because it seems to be the only one of its kind.

This is a laughable account of the author, a self-styled private investigator, and his "infiltration" of Earth First! His writing is not entirely coherent, he bounces around from from subject to subject and periodically launches into rants about the evils of the environmental movement. He also tries to make a lot of connections that simply aren't there: for example, implying that the actions of underground animal liberation groups are directed by Earth First! and by extension, by the more mainstream ecology groups. All in all this reads like a Eustace Mullins conspiracy rant more than anything believable.

This is really an autobiography written in the third person - the first 80 pages have nothing to do with Earth First! but describe the author's partly successful career as an informant in Montana gathering evidence against marijuana users. The middle part of the book discusses the author's year-long paid infiltration of Earth First! on behalf of the Washington Contract Loggers Association (who are also the publishers of the book) in the early 1990's and his failed attempts to interest law enforcement in his inside information. The end of the book discusses things he learned about EF! and the environmental movement by reading newspapers and magazines after he stopped participating actively, and goes into considerable detail about a legal dispute in Montana entirely unrelated to EF!. (but, curiously enough, perhaps tangentially related to Leonard Peltier and the Pine Ridge trials)

The book provides interesting insight into someone who's operating on the margin between different political/social groups - first drug users and cops, then loggers and environmentalists - but it's short on information about the radical environmental movement.