This is a book is quite good as most Norton Critical Editions are. It has a lot of what is needed by students for a course on Blake or, more likely, a course that spends part of a term on Blake.

It has some biographical material and some maps of England and London at the time Blake lived. There are also a good helping of black and white as well as color plates of Blake's illuminated works. The color plates are only good - the color is not produced beautifully. The student will only get an impression of the true power of Blake's artistry. However, a good teacher will point the student to the Blake Archive at:... so the students can see the works more completely with variants and in better color (if you have good video cards and monitors).

One of the best parts of this book begins on page 176 where working drafts are shown and compared to the final versions. There is also a nice selection of critical writing on Blake - criticism from Blake's time through the present. There is also a useful bibliography.

In some ways this is "Erdman Lite", but it is much more portable than Erdman and for an introductory course on Blake it is probably sufficient. I am glad that I have it in my library.

But please don't stop here!

Nice book, but too bad its front picture cover is defaced by Norton's double-layer of big gold stickers with high-tack adhesive that makes them impossible to remove without adhesive remaining on the cover.

This is absolutely the best compendium of Blake's work which articualtes an outstanding range of his vision. This edition acknowledges the poetry and color paintings of a consumate craftsman of the imagination on high quality, acid free paper and is nylon stitched and bound in signatures to last a lifetime. Books are rarely made this way but the Norton edition is a beautiful rendering of the first, and perhaps, primary British Romantic poet.

Christian Mythmakers is a good overview of some of the thoughts and ideas of various Christian fantasy writers. While the chapter on John Bunyan is basically little more than a summary of Pilgrim's Progress, the rest of the book is interesting and thought provoking. The chapter on Charles Williams is a "must read" for anyone interested in or confused by Williams' work.

This book is a fascinating look at ten Christian mythmakers, that is authors who have used the power of myth to convey Christian truths in a new way. The narrative begins with John Bunyan and his seminal Pilgrim's Progress, continues through George Macdonald, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and finishes up with Madeleine L'Engle, Walter Wangerin, Robert Siegel, and Hannah Hurnard.

Professor Hein begins with a short biography of the author, and then proceeds to explain the author's work, examining its theology and significance. I found this book to be quite fascinating, with the author giving me a look at these masterpieces of Christian literature in a way that I had never thought of before. If you are a fan of any of the authors above, then I highly recommend that you get this book!

I had the privilege of taking courses under Dr Hein in the early 90's at Wheaton. He is a very knowledgeable teacher and has great affection for the people he is writing about in this book. If you have any interest in these authors, this book is a must read. I wasn't aware that he had written this book when I came across it looking for books on George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis. As an Economics major, I somehow ended up taking four Lit. classes from Dr Hein because he is such a good instructor and passionate about his subject matter.

The author attempts to introduce a science that present scholars in the academic community that study Dante Alighieri's La Divina Commedia are completely unaware of. Dantists are people that study the La Divina Commedia more as a social status than seeking to improve the knowledge of the race. Meegan failed to take that into consideration in his presentation. Failing to have seen that demonstrates his ignorance of the social status of the academic community. The mathematics are wonderfully simple. A calculator is not needed but I know Dantists that won't touch these claims of the author because they claim they are not mathematicians. A fifth grade grammar school student can grasp the simplicity of these mathematics. It is the concepts that wrap themselves around the author arithematical calculation that startle the academic. If the author is right and it would take a brave mathematician to come foreward and declare he is, the Dante Societies around the world are going to have to rethink their position on the author work. Most Dantists say they are mathematicians and the mathematicians say they are not Dantists. It is a vicious circle that academics use to protect themselves. The author has taken issue with the historical data. That is quite curious because he is saying and not giving any quarter concerning it that he is right and the historians are wrong. He claims his mathematics is the empirical evidence that is needed to overturn the popular belief systems. Personally I love his attack on the DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS. Here the author without a doubt destroys the historical point of view. If the mathemaics are beneath the surface of these great literary works then history can not be true. I personally have not check the evidence but his mathematical presentation is convincing. So I'm not agreeing or disagreeing but I do know someone is going to have to take up his challenge. Here he talks about how present scholarship believes the Torah and other volumes in the Old Testament were products of scrap heaps of ancestral documentation until a curator comes along around the time of Ezra to knit it all into a readable text. Blowing this Documentary Hypothesis right out of the water the author leaves no doubt that a precision science exist even in the Torah that present scholarship is unaware of. I admit though that this matrix that the author basis most of his theory on needs to be studied. The simplicity of it seem to take away from it respectability it deserves. Remember the author is claiming that great literary works were built upon it. Yet, it boils down to 2nd & 3rd grade grammar school arithmetic. Who would think that the most complex works in the history of Western civilization comes down to casting-out-nines and the multiplication tables up to nine? The author talks somewhat about the theory of chaos and the UNIFIED FIELD THEORY. Talk about complex mathematics. Yet, he insist that they all boil down to simple mathematics. I give him 4 stars because of his numerous diagrams that enable the reader to follow along with his though. The 4 stars are for keeping his mouth shut and letting the reader catch his breath and keep up with the thought process. This is unfashionable in our day and age. Too many scholar want to talk their thesis to death. The author allows his thesis to come alive and allows it to stand or fall on its own merits.

As the author of this work I am very proud to have discovered the mathematical matrix (Diagram #3) that underscores Dante Alighieri's entire mathematical system in his La Divina Commedia. Professor Franco Boni a philosophy teacher in New York City was the first to see my research was valid and we had hundred of conversations on the phone that lasted for hours. Franco Boni has done me the honor of writing the Introduction to my work. Most of all Franco Boni heard years of my lamenting that Dante had to have an overall model to his La Divina Commedia. I was not ever comfortable with the idea of writing a manuscript without having secured that prize in my hands. It just seemed that Dante's mathematical system would be so very incomplete without it. You can only imagine the years of agonizing searching to find that matrix and finally when I did find, walla, a whole new world open up to me.

I put so many diagrams into my work because I had a wonderful teacher in Mary Baker Eddy the Discover and Founder of Christian Science. She insist that one should keep quiet unless demonstrable evidence is available to demonstrate what you are talking about. She died in December 1910 but her works are very powerful as teachers today. She taught me a great deal.

My discovery of Dante's mathematics coming out of the Judeao-Christian Scriptures was sendipitous but as accidental as it was I was able to take up the cause against the DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS which I consider another feather in my cap.

The reader should read my work very slowly going over each diagram carefully until he completely understands it before venturing on another. It is unfashionable in our day and age to take things one step at a time. We want so much to know the ending now or never. This is the only sane advice I can give to any of my readers and I can only hope they take it to heart.

The author opens his work with a PREFACE that places the reader in the realm of mysticism. Going against the very fabric of society and everything that humanity stand for Meegan tell the reader what is prerequisite to reading his work. This is an encellent study for historians that are willing to accept the evidence of precision mathematics that overturns their most cherished beliefs that history actually took place as recorded by the ancient historians. Both history and the mathematics can not be valid. Since the mathematics can not be challenged then the histories as handed down to us have to be examples of mythologies no matter how cleverly they are written. The mathematics outlined in this work not only definitively demonstrate that the medieval period had used esoteric knowledge to code sophisticated mathematicals systems within and beneath the folds of their literature but they were successful in keeping that information away from their contemporary historians. It is obvious that these mathematics which are locked into an extremely tight matrix give no leeway as to error creeping in. The authors many diagrams is what places his system above the theorist that loves rhoteric without substance. Meegan's 45 or more diagrams leisurely allows the reader to follow his thought to its logical conclusion. Dante Alighieri's work La Divina Commedia is the perfect work to introduce this science because of its reputations throughout the world. If Meegan is wrong, and that I found is not possible, scholarship will let us know about it quickly. But notice I have not seen them rear their ugly heads yet. Meegan's challenge to the "DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS' is a bit windy but for what had to be explained I would have loved to have seen more detail though his explanation is sufficient to drive away the sceptics. Meegan has once and for all, in a single stroke of the pen, put to shame the academic & religious communities on this topic. Meegan is right, only an atheist could believe in such nonsense. Finally I believe, if Meegan's "General Introduction" is any indication, to hear a great deal more from him in the future and to see his research generate far more powerful theories into this ancient esoteric science he seems to have gotten a handle on.

I'll preface this by noting that I have only skimmed this book, reading the bits that automatically interest me.

However, what I've seen impresses me. The first convention books (especially _ItX_, _Prog_, and _VE_) seemed to have been designed solely with the idea that the Technocracy should be made out to be soulless and distateful as choices for PCs. _Guide to the Technocracy_ turned all that around, and ever since then, I have been waiting desparately for the new series of Convention books.

_ItX_ delivers. It's one-person narration, but the one person seems to be broad-minded enough that you can take his views as being somewhat repesentative of the convention. The authors seem to be trying to play down the whole "soulless machines" idea and playing up the "engineer" idea, bring the convention back around to its roots from _Sorcerer's Crusade_.

On the whole, an excellent book. Highly reccommended to anyone who is interested in the Techs. I hated ItX, but this book makes them interesting, and (more importantly) playable.

The Clockwork Convention has been reworked, for the better! Not only are Iteration X characters more 3-Dimensional, the entire philosophy of the convention has returned to its roots. They are once again the men and women who are out to empower humanity. Though the convention is still the Technocracy's main source of firepower, they have expanded their horizons significantly. In the first Iteration X book, it seemed as though the human spirit was lost in the machine. In this book, the spirit has been found. I highly recommend this book to Technocracy fans with Rose-colored mirrorshades. We are not the adversaries of humanity, but the ones who empower it.

i found this book at my store and was immeadently smitten by it, i had allways loved implants, so i buy it and i go into more details. it answers almost every question out there about the Clockwork Convention.

this book is awsome and is a must by for anyone who is interested in The Technocracy in the whole.

This is the Revised Brief Thirteenth edition, not the full edition. The paperback version comes with a plastic ring binder that is not suitable for heavy use. In short, this is not the version that a professional editor would want, although it might be fine for students.

I found this book to be a wonderful reference when writing anything from a short paper to a forty page research paper. Neither would have been possible without this text. A great buy!

The only reference you will need for everyday professional and proper usage of the English language. Very well organized and extremely easy to use. I highly recommend this book.

RE: A History of World Societies, Vol. B, by McKay, Hill, and Buckler.The following was taken directly from the pages of this text; chapter 14, page 460, last paragraph, left column:

'The average runner could cover about 50 leagues or 175 miles per day ' a remarkable feat of physical endurance, especially at high altitude ' but the larger the empire became, the greater the distances to be covered.'

I had always supposed that genuine scholars wrote textbooks, and that they were intended as works of non-fiction. Instead, this text is more akin to Paul Bunyan; it's a sort of South American version of American Folktales.

Upon reflection, I don't know whether the appropriate response is outrage at the ignorance of the authors, or amusement at the gullibility of the (what ' apparently sleeping?) editors. Is the ubiquitous filter of political correctness the only scrutiny to which textbooks today are subject?

In my view, this passage calls into question the reliability ' indeed, the credibility ' of the remaining information. If such fundamentally simple information as this is worthless, to what level of factual scrutiny were the socio/political ideas subject?

This extraordinarily well written book contains every essential fact with which we all need to be familiar. No other book on the market offers so much information at such a low price. Furthermore, the structure of the book facilitates reading and also makes it more interesting. Needless to say, many history books nowadays present biased accounts of historic facts (after all, it is a well known fact that winners write history books). This book, on the other hand, provides a relatively unbiased and balanced account of world history. I have read a number of history books but none of them is nearly as well written and well structured as this one. In my view, this book should be a part of every student's book collection. Highly recommended.

The book came in good cond.and on time!... Do business anytime..referred them to other classmates

This book was the primary text in a university workshop I just took on "Philosophy in Children's Literature." Being a big fan of Benjamin Hoff's "The Tao of Pooh," I approached the book with great hopes. Williams' tongue-in-cheek conceit is that the Bear of Little Brain is, in fact, the greatest philosopher that ever lived. All of western philosophy before Pooh was mere preamble and the twentieth-century existentialists were familiar with an heavily influenced by the "Great Bear."
I felt that Williams was more interested in being clever than in whatever other goal he had in mind. He presents the philosophical concepts too briefly and dismissively to be of much value. Worse, it seems he spends more space extolling the brilliant Pooh that really discussing how the (sometimes stretched past the breaking point) passages from A. A. Milne's stories relate to philosophies. Like any one-joke movie or TV series, it just got repetitive and annoying after awhile.

This book is funny. The author has a great sense of humour in making his arguement. I found it enjoyable even though there are philosophers that he obviously enjoyed writing about more. As a bonus, it serves as a great indroductory "philosophy for dummies" sort of book for a beginner to the subject like me.

"In which it is shown that all of western Philosophy is merely a preamble to Winnie-the-Pooh." This book proves, once and for all, that Pooh bear is in fact a Bear of Enormous Brain. It also shows how Eeyore is obsessed with the Platonic Forms, and how Christopher Robin is indeed stupid compared with the Great Bear. This book will delight all readers, not just Ursinian scholars (students of Pooh) and philosophers.

In his preface to this book, Irving Younger applauds Darrow's systematic annihilation of poor, befuddled Bryan. "Analysis of this kind of drama is irrelevant. One can only smile, admire, and wonder," he says. Although Younger declined to analyze Darrow's examination of Bryan, the contemporary press (most of whom staunchly supported teaching evolution) were not so reticent to judge. Edward J. Larsen, in the Pultizer Prize winning history of the trial, "Summer for the Gods," summed it up thus: "[T]he nation's press initially saw little of lasting significance in the trial [whose centerpiece was Darrow's examination of Bryan] beyond its having exposed Bryan's empty head and Darrow's mean spirit." p. 202.

Some quotes from contemporary sources found on page 207 of Larsen's book: Walter Lippman of the "New York World": "Now that the chuckling and giggling over the heckling of Bryan by Darrow has subsided it is dawning upon the friends of evolution that science was rendered a wretched service by that exhibition." The New Orleans "Times Picayune": "Mr. Darrow, with his sneering 'I object to prayer!' and with his ill-natured and arrogant cross-examination of Bryan on the witness stand, has done more to stimulate 'anti-evolution' legislation in the United States than Mr. Bryan and his fellow literalists, left alone, could have hoped for." The Vanderbilt University humanist and champion of evolution, Edwin Mims: "When Clarence Darrow is put forth as the champion of the forces of enlightenment to fight the battle for scientific knowledge, one feels almost persuaded to become a Fundamentalist."

As Larsen explains in "Summer for the Gods," Darrow's examination assumed the status of a legendary victory only after the release of the McCarthy-era morality play "Inherit the Wind," which took great dramatic license in depicting the examination as having "won" the Scopes Trial.

When a lawyer performs as mean-spirited an examination as Darrow did of Bryan, the lawyer's rabid fans are enthralled, his enemies are enraged, and those on the fence are encouraged to join the enemy. Darrow's examination of Bryan should be studied as a fine example of how not to perform a cross examination.

The public recollection of what happened when Darrow questioned Bryan in the case of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes is a mixture of topics and outbursts. Most accounts of the trial, as well as the fictionalized version in "Inherit the Wind," include the discussion of the Bible Stories of Jonah being swallowed by the whale/big fish and Joshua making the sun stand still. The crucial point of the exchange comes when Darrow forced Bryan to admit the days of creation in Genesis were not 24-hour days, thereby forcing Bryan to deny the Fundamentalist's literal interpretation of the Bible. Scopes himself called it the "great shock that Darrow had been laboring for all afternoon." However, the actual exchange does not support such an interpretation. Darrow specifically asked about the number of days involved in creation. A fuller examination of the transcript, which this volume provides, indicates Darrow was trying to get at not only the length of creation but the DATE as well, intending to get Bryan to endorse Bishop Usher's infamous calculation the earth was less than six thousand years old in order to confront Bryan with evidence of civilizations considerably older. The key to the exchange is that Bryan gives a preemptive answer, declaring the days of creation were not 24-hour days BEFORE Darrow asked the specific question, in order to avoid agreeing to Usher's flawed calculations. More importantly, Bryan volunteered the information twice, each time cutting Darrow off from a particular line of question.

Moral of the Story: When there are primary documents available, such as this volume which provides the entire transcript of the trial as taking from the stenographers record, you are better served by reading them rather than secondary sources that tend to privilege a play/movie rather than what really happened.

Finally, you don't have to hear someone else's take on one of the most spectacular court cases this country has ever seen. Decide for yourself who outwitted who in this battle of the courtroom titans. This book includes only the exact words from the cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow. A must read for all those who wish to know how the cross-examination really ran.

In 1926, the Barren Lands of the Canadian Northwest Territories were rightly regarded as an inhospitable region of appalling weather coupled with the threat of starvation, accident, and loneliness, a place where men (meaning Europeans) would be tested to the limit. Jack Hornsby, a troubled veteran of WWI, drifter, and adventurer, had been there, and liked it. He put together an expedition with Harold Adler and Edgar Christian, two young and inexperienced friends, with the intention of wintering north of the Great Slave Lake. They would hunt and trap to support themselves and pay for the expedition, and Hornsby would collect scientific data. Hornsby was knowledgeable about the region, but apparently was unable to organize effectively and failed to make basic preparations despite warnings. After many hardships and colossal mistakes in judgment, all three died. Mounties found their bodies, letters to parents, and the detailed diary kept by Christian, two years later. The author has used the diary and a number of surviving letters to reconstruct the adventurers' trip in great detail. Counterpoint to stories of survival under harsh conditions, but rather depressing. An absorbing read for anyone interested in arctic exploration, and a thought-provoking sidelight on Canadian history

In recent months there have been several books written about polar exploration, and their success indicates that the reading public seems to have a continuing fascination with these expeditions. This spring, the A and E cable network produced "Shackleton", a cold-country-frontier saga. In this tradition, Clive Powell-Williams has written "Cold Burial."

This book is an engrossing page-turner and a quick read. You will be caught up in the tale of 18 year old Edgar Christian and his mother's double-cousin, Jack Hornby, an experienced Canadian-Northwest Territories outdoorsman. Experienced he may be, but seasoned he is not. Impulsive, improvident, and arrogant to boot, he takes his cousin on what will be their first and final adventure together. Having relied heavily upon luck and upon the help of natives, Jack finds his luck has run out. He does try to spare his young cousin, but events proceed inevitably
to a tragic end. Powell-Williams relies upon the diaries of young Edgar to put together a chilling story of their days in a climate hostile to human life. Female readers may be tempted to ask, "Why would they want to do that?" The only answer is the famous one, "Because it's there!" Apparently that insouciant reply makes sense to males; but to a mother, it rings hollow.

For anybody that has read and enjoyed some of the adventurer books released in the last few years (Into Thin Air, etc.), Cold Burial is a must.

75 years ago, 3 British men set out on a journey up the Thelon River (in Northern Alberta) and into the Canadian Arctic. None of them made it back alive. When their bodies were discovered by the RCMP, the investigators also found a diary. This diary, written by the youngest member of the party (Edgar Christian, age 18) chronicled the shift from courageous optimism in the early days of the voyage, into hopeless abandon as the 3 men starved and froze to death.

Clive Powell-Williams has taken this diary and researched the history behind the 3 adventurers. In Cold Burial, he tells the whole story; from their original meetings at school in Britain, to Edgar's last days, alone in the cabin.

Cold Burial is a tremendously well-written account that will certainy rank with the top adventure/disaster books of all time. An extremely good read. Highly recommended.

"Cosmic Thunder" is an also ran. Initially, story had a lot of promise. Two young men join a religious cult to eat regular and get a roof over their heads during a '00-somthing great depression. Oddly, the story is told in the first person, and you never find out the narrator's real name. While they are scamming the cult they come in contact with mystical aliens who roam Earth at will. Most of the narrative involves the other man Nastor or Theshei (his cult name) who has near superhuman capabilities. He should be wearing a cape and a mask.

The two guys joining a cult to get out of the rain and the narrator's real conversion being played off against the rogue Threshei was interesting. Theshei's rush to contact the aliens wrapped the story around an axle of metaphysics and aliens. The ending reminded me of a Trek episode.

This is and excellent book which includes my three favorite elements in a story: Science Fiction, Happy Endings, and something that can test my intelligence.

In response to the review above, in my opinion the narrator's original name was William Watkins.

We've been passing this one around among the Religion students. It is a rare mix of good writing, humor, thoughtful understanding of cults - and a really luminous understanding of Gnosticism.