This book is ostensibly about crime. Specifically the amelioration of crime by a policy of zero tolerance of minor and petty crimes which became famous for the dramatic fall in crime in New York City.

This book has a slightly different focus. Rather than concentrating on what Zero Tolerance is and does, it seeks to place the crime figures and approaches to crime reduction in a broader context of community. The concept of community developed both in these pages and within a wider research agenda supposedly concerned with the development of a civil society in which the state plays a smaller and smaller role has a particular slant to it.

Zero Tolerance is the latest in a line of books from the Institute of Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit, now a free standing institute of it's own, CIVITAS, which postulate a decline in morals and behavious which result from a growing tendency in our society to becoming more individualsitic. The model of decency and good behaviour upon which this view is based is a rather idyllic view of the English working class family as portrayed by Norman Dennis in some of the earlier books of this series. Here it's scope is widened to incorporate views on how to tackle crime which involve the wider civil society. Policing in this view is both external and internal and the police forces themselves are seen as a legitimate part of the community, reinforcing the internal rules and moralities forged in the furnace of home and family. Headed preferably, of course, by working father, stay at home mother etc.

You will not find in this book any arguments about drugs save for the superior tone about how the use of drugs has grown in our society and is therefore bad. This cannot go unchallenged. In a passage devoted to the emphasis on education and development of working men's clubs and institutes the book praises them for their contribution to improving the moral fibre of those who participated. These clubs were segregated against women drinking in the public bar and fought hard to retain that position against equality laws and became more well known for the strong and cheap beers that they sold than for moral improvement. Their innate conservatism was a major contributor to why their customers deserted them and caused the closure of many in the North East of England. While the consumption of this legal drug is condoned, other recreational drugs are the cause of much petty crime. The book ignores the setting of the laws and blithley makes assertions about theft while ignoring the basic point that laws against drugs make them more attractive to the purchasers, more profitable to the suppliers and lead many who consume them to do things out of character in order to get their drugs. I could go on but this would be a book of it's own.

Zero Tolerance is a one sided book. It excludes any consideration of the diminishing role of the church in society as one of a number of relevant institutions, and it excludes any treatment of what changing structures in our society mean for those individuals who have previously been imprisoned by those structures, in particular, for women. The supposed golden age of the working class family is a modern myth, a sociological urban legend, which did not exist for many.

Ultimately, this is yet another attack on growing individualism in our society which begrudges any positive changes and which harkens back to an age which never really existed. The causes of crime run deeper than one parent families and tower blocks. The harsh reality today is that women are valued more by society than they were which is the real reason why female wage rates are increasing while male wages rates decline overall.

Perhaps we should be looking forward and not backward to see how a healthy individualist society might develop.

This is the book required of my Intro to Programming in Java class, which is a class designed for those intending to pursue Computer Science as a major. I believe the book itself is just that: a great introduction for those serious about learning to program and then take it to a higher level with further education.

This is not an easy book to read with a light head. You cannot breeze through the code, which is explained minimally, or not at all, and expect to understand what is going on. Careful tracing and retracing of the code is what it takes me to understand some of the example programs. This said, once I've done so, I come away with a solid understanding of the concepts introduced.

Some of the chapters are especially lacking. I found the chapter on recursion to be confusing and hard to decipher until the professor gave us some solid real world examples (Russian stacking dolls) and a thorough explanation of what the code is doing. Others chapters were better than my professor in explanation, namely the chapter on loops and that on objects and primitive data.

I am taking this course with absolutely no programming experience, and am finding this book to be an invaluable complement to the lectures. However if you have no programming background and want to learn Java solely from this book, you would need more discipline than I have to do it. If you already have experience in programming, I'd imagine this book would help you to learn Java quickly and easily. If you've already done object-oriented programming some of the first chapters may be a little too basic.

Overall this is a great book for those new to programming but dedicated to through study and further education, or as an intro to Java for those with prior experience.

I think this is one of the best books for teaching java to Beginners. This is blend of programming concepts, system analyis and design, and data structures. Author has very well explained that how java has provided or can provide solutions in different areas of Computer Science mentioned above.

Secondly, most important thing is that it is the best book for teaching because it has a lot of practise exercises and small and workable projects at the end of each chapter which I think are missing in most of Java books.

Java is powerful because of its APIs (already built classes in java). This book has given major classes, their variables and methods at the end which help the programmer very much when he is programming.

I think this book is a must-have for teachers as well as students.

Recently, I received a telephone call to see if I could teach a university Java class. While I had to pass on the opportunity, one of the topics that came up was which book to use as a text. "Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design" is just such a book. If you've been looking for a textbook to use in a beginning programming class, that starts from ground zero, check this offering out. About my only complaint here is I had trouble accessing the supplemental material from the website. Starting from basic computer processing, working your way through objects and classes, and finishing up with data structures (with lots in between), you'll find an excellent text for a first semester Java programming class. While this book is from Addison-Wesley, it is not part of the JavaSoft series.

Anyone who's seen the movie knows that Gladiator has a strong story and script behind it. But, when it comes to novelizations I like to see a little extra background, perhaps more character development than you can have in the film. And that's where this book is a bit of a let down. This is a straight retelling of the screenplay with a couple of scenes that didn't make the movie, which where kind of nice to see. I remember when Commodus finds that Maximus is still alive and he was lied to when he thought he was dead, his sister tells him that the legion should know that lies should not be tolerated. In the movie, nothing really comes of that, but in the book it then later goes to a good scene where Commodus oversees the execution of those who told him Maximus was dead. It's just little touches like that.

When I read a book, I want to feel like I'm experiencing something a little different than the movie. I felt that way when reading Terry Brooks novelization of The Phantom Menace or even Raymond Benson's novelization of Tomorrow Never Dies. I really didn't get that feeling with this one.

So, in short, if you go into the book expecting the movie to be expanded on, prepare to be disappointed. However, if you really enjoyed the movie's great story as is and are expecting nothing else, this is a fast, fun read.

Maximus Meridus, the great Roman General, begins the book by fighting for the Roman Empire against the Barbarian tribe in Germania. Maximus is the emperor's most trusted General and the emperor has him in mind to be the next man to rule the Roman Empire. Commodus, the emperor's jealous heir, is outraged by his father's decision and murders his father, emperor Marcus Aurelius, to gain control of the throne. Commodus's first order of business as emperor is to make it so that general Maximus Meridas can never deceive him, so he has Maximus's wife and son slautered and then sends Maximus into exile. Devastated and Deeply wounded by the murdering of his family, Maximus finds a new way of life that makes him even stronger, emotionally as well as physically, than he was before. Maximus begins the hard and enduring life of being a gladiator. Maximus makes new friends and pays close attention to what his heart and his soul tell him while he is a gladiator. As Maximus rises to the top of the gladiator world, he plans a heroic and defiant way to gain his revenge. I really enjoyed this book. It was a gory, cut-them-up book as well as a movie. However, there was a lot more to the story than just the fighting and death. The author, Dewey Gran, did a really good job of introducing the readers to the main character, Maximus. As you read about his family getting killed, you get a big lump in your throat. It makes you feel the outrage that the main character is going through as it happens. The one thing that I didn't like about the book is that it was written to follow the movie, and I had already seen the movie when I read the book. My recommendation is to read the book, then go see the movie. There were no surprises to what was going to happen. It is a great book for anybody who doesn't mind some gory details.

Either read this book first, then see the movie or see the movie first, then read the book. I saw the movie Gladiator 3 times before I read the book, and each time I had seen the movie, I saw something new. After I read the book Gladiator, I saw the movie 2 more times. In My Opinion, the book Gladiator is a great read if you want to learn alittle more about the characters. It also gave me a better view of what each of the characters were thinking in each scene. Some of the parts of this book filled some of the gaps, that the movie didn't show. Also, the dialogue in the book was very helpful for me when I saw the movie again, because there were some words and sentences I had missed while watching the movie. This book is just as powerful as the movie, because it explains every scene with the same details, if not more. It gives me alittle more aspect of Maximus as a Warrior, General, Husband, Father and Friend, which is one of the reasons that I really enjoyed reading this book and seeing the movie.

Kudos, again, to Robin Williams! She has taken information that can be intimidating to intelligent computer novices and made it utterly accessible! The tone is warm and humorous. The layout masterfully draws the eye to the material. And the content is substantive. This is not a book for dummies. It's a book for intelligent novices who want to have a little fun along the way. If you want a big clunky four-door touring sedan, buy somebody else's book. If you want a two-seater convertible, get "The Little iMac Book!"

"The Little iMac Book" is wonderfully non-threatening for beginners, and even experienced users will find some helpful hints in its pages. The book has a beautiful layout and is quite entertaining. It even manages to look iMac-like. I loved the author's use of humor. The book begins by introducing the reader to the Mac OS and proceeds on to what one can do with an iMac. Chapters cover using a web browser and AppleWorks, an integrated application suite. My mum recently bought an iMac and, being a novice user, found this book to be very helpful. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone with an iMac, novice and expert alike.

This book would be great for someone brand new to the macintosh world and has the new flat panel iMac. The authors have another book The Little Mac OS X Book which has about 400 more pages of info about OS X, while this book goes into much more detail about the programs the iMac ships with, like iPhoto,AppleWorks, ITunes etc. There are tutorials on doing basic spreadsheets,word,paint and drawings and it is explained in a very informative and fun manner, so that you know HOW to use ALL the features of your new mac and when you want to know more they tell you where to find that information. The book is very easy to read and it is fun to read.

A reviewer below states that Shakespeare's literary value is unquestioned. This is patent nonsense. Every year, untold numbers of people (students, etc.) are forced to read him by trained teachers and they still end up questioning his value. Let's examine the Shakespeare cult:
1) Any author who needs an interpreter, explainer, or support from the educational system to keep readers is simply not a vital author. If Shakespeare was a vital author, people would love him without the brainwashing and spoonfeeding of a vast educational system that insists on teaching these tired plays year after year because everyone has done so year after year.
2) Silly romances and boring dramas driven by improbable plots and vulgar jokes are not great literature. These plays are the work of a man who spent far too much time on scandal and trivial junk to be taken seriously.
3) The Shakespeare nuts want it both ways and they can't have it either way. On the one hand, they insist that Shakespeare be regarded with the reverence one would give to holy scripture. No one must dare question its greatness, truthfulness, or entertainment value. If you do so, you will be attacked as a philistine. On the other hand, when people believe this nonsense and stay away from Shakespeare because they do not want to be bored, the cultists insist that we are taking it too seriously and that Shakespeare is simply great theatre (when it is nothing of the sort) which can be enjoyed with as much gusto as a rock concert or a stand up comedy act (which is a lie).
4) Any book that needs a glossary for the reader in order to be understandable must either be abandoned as dated or translated into modern English. The Shakespeare nuts wouldn't insist that anyone read Beowulf in Old English or argue that its Old English language is so beautiful that we all must learn what is now a foreign language to us but they do this when it comes to Shakespeare. This is beyond irrational. Imagine being forced to read a viking saga in Old Norse with only a glossary to assist you because the professor happens to love the cadences of Old Norse. This is no different from the nuts who do the same with Shakespeare.
5) I judge literature on two, and only two, criterion: Is it intriguing? Is it entertaining? I don't give a fig about some academic telling me I need to read something because it is hitorically important. I doubt that Shakespeare's audience paid to see his plays because they had historical importance and neither will I. Alas, what was entertaining even twenty years ago seems dated and boring today, nevermind what may have been entertaining hundreds of years ago. Old jokes lose their punch, old romances become foolish and insipid with time, old dramas about historical figures become irrelevant and sleep inducing, old concerns no longer concern us. Shakespeare is dated, unfunny, boring.
And no amount of forcing the issue will change that. Free Shakespeare from the support of the educational system and watch him become forgotten as quickly as last years fashions. And I say, "good riddance" to an author who should have been relegated to the trash heap at least a century ago.

The very idea of reviewing or giving stars to Shakespeare in this format is superfluous: he is the epitome of English literature. The source and inspiration for many subsequent classics, the well from which many popular expressions have sprung, the basis for many brilliant (and not-so-brilliant) stage and film renditions of these classics -- Shakespeare's literary greatness lies universally ackwnoledged and unquestioned. In reviewing any edition of the man's works, then, the reviewer's task is not to comment upon the work itself, but the presentation. This Gramercy edition of The Complete Works (yes, that's all 37 plays -- comedies, histories, and tragedies -- as well as all of the poems, sonnets included) is the most popular and widely-available -- and inexpensive -- version available. Is it the best? Well, no. Other reviews of this edition have commented upon its shortcomings -- extremely small print; very tight and hard-to-read layout; no margins for notes; no footnotes or annotations; no background information on the plays; errors, typos, and generally questionable editing. That said, this edition may have what you're looking for. It does indeed contain the complete works; it also has a few other small incentives: a hard cover that looks great on a bookshelf, a built-in bookmarker, and various illustrations. Clearly, this is not an omnibus for the Shakespeare scholar. If you want an edition of the bard for in-depth study or for academic use, you are better off buying more expansive editions of the individual plays themselves, with plenty of background info, notes, annotations, and space for your own writing; or else one of the more expensive editions of the Complete Works. That said, if you are just looking for a Shakespeare book that has all of his works in one place, that is convenient and, above all, inexpensive -- or you just want a Shakespeare tome sitting on your dust-ridden bookshelf to impress friends -- then you could do worse than picking up this.

Few writers in history have been able to come close to matching Shakespeare's astounding flair for writing, and this volume is the perfect compliment to his talent. The engravings inside are beautiful, and the plays, even without their numbers and their footnotes, are still as incredible as they ever were. To those of you who say that Shakespeare is boring, you're not really understanding his work, or you are simply unable to appreciate anything this old. I highly recommend this particular edition

This book gives only a few new insights into Laura Ingalls Wilders life. You learn she was a private person and she must have been because most of the information about her life seems to be from records of what organizations she belonged to. I did not like the way that the book seemed to turn into a bio about her daughter Rose Wilder Lane about halfway through. Not only did the author talk more about her than Laura he painted a picture in my opinion of a depressed unhappy woman who did not really care for her mother deep down. I also felt that since most of us "know" Lauras' family from the Little House books the author could have given the readers some more detailed information about how their lives turned out. That would have interested me more then hearing about Roses' depressed and seemingly unhappy life.

I read with interest the reader reviews on this book before I purchased it and saw mixed opinions and many comments, but the one that stood out the most was something to the effect of "this book might be too much for the casual Laura fan, but great for those who want to dig a little deeper." I heartily agree with that and think that needs to be stressed. If you've only ever read the "Little House" books, perhaps you should start with some of the lighter books and biographies about her. If you are like me, however, and can't get enough information about the true life of Laura, this book is fantastic. Its focus is a bit shaky at first, as it breezes through the first 20 or so years of her life in first third of the book. At that point it changes focus so much that it is almost like two books in one. Here is where we meet Laura the writer and witness her long path from town columnist to published national author. Throughout this section of the book her daughter, Rose, plays a pivotal part and has her own biography of sorts within these pages. While at first I was reluctant to read about the controversy over how much Rose actually helped her mother write the books, once I got into it I was fascinated and hooked. This book is a biography, a history book, the story of a young pioneer, and a look into a complex and conflicting mother/daughter relationship. And for those out there who simply can't get enough of Laura, curl up and dive in.

One other note: I learned a lot of new information about facts that were left out of the Little House books or changed to make the story flow better for children. John Miller even goes so far as to call her Little House books fiction. I don't completely agree with him on that point, but I did learn a lot and wanted to know more about the actual accurate early life of Laura. Miller makes reference in this book to Laura's first attempt at novel writing; an unpublished manuscript called "Pioneer Girl." I did a little research and found that copies are available from the Herbert Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa. It is costly, but worth it for the biggest fan. It is definetly an adult read, though, don't plan on reading this to your children as a bedtime story.

Hope this review was helpful - enjoy!

Miller pretty well refutes the contention that Rose Wilder Lane ghostwrote the "Little House" books. There is no question that she edited her mother's manuscripts, and without her connections in the publishing industry there is a good chance the books might not have been published at all. However, the books were and are Laura's.

It's also important to remember that the "Little House" books only cover Laura's life up to her marriage, and that she in fact lived less than 15 years in DeSmet. She spent the remaining 63 years of her life in Missouri. I always thought that Missouri was an odd choice of destinations, but there in fact were compelling reasons, and Miller does explain them.

Some have criticized this book because they feel that it almost becomes a biography of Rose Wilder Lane about halfway through. A more careful reading gives an explanation for why this seems to be the case; Rose left massive amounts of personal archives, letters, and other documents when she died. On the other hand, Laura ("Mama Bess")left very little of this kind of information behind, and were it not for Rose's archives there would be even bigger gaps in the narrative. Miller does mention that a roomfull of possessions left behind in Laura's parents' home in DeSmet was discarded by the new owners of the house, and it's just possible that some of her letters were lost there.

If some people wish the book provided more in-depth detail about Laura's life in Missouri, then they should also wish for even more information about Almanzo. At the end of this book we know only a little more about him than we did at the end of "The First Four Years." He was apparently a man of few words, either spoken or written, so he largely remains an enigma. What little we do know about him comes from either Laura or Roses's writings.

One thing we do learn is that Laura never lost her pioneering spirit. In 1925 she, Rose, and a good friend of Rose's drove all the way to the West Coast from Missouri. A transcontinental auto trip in 1925 was sitll a major adventure, and even more remarkable when undertaken by three women. An account of this adventure surely would have made for good reading, but apparently neither Laura nor Rose thought of it.

This has been something of a rambling review, so I will conclude that Miller did very good work, and that any true fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder or her daughter would do well to read it.

ASP XML is simply not well written. I shall compare it to an EXCELLENT wrox book 'Beginning JavaScript' to explain myself.

Beginning JavaScript has a superb index, in 5-10 seconds, I have a reference to information I need at any time. ASP XML has virtually no index - it has been useful exactly 0 times. This means you have to read all 800+ pages to get good information.

ASP XML has a decent object reference, but no cross-reference to code (you have to scan the whole book to find applications), BJS has excellent code samples in the Core object technology appendix.

ASP XML has out-of-date and inaccurate information on XSL (more accuratly, it is missing info on XSLT), BJS describes differences between JavaScript versions much better.

ASP XML's chapter categories are rather convoluted, BJS's categories are very straightforward and follow the proper pattern for any description of a programming environment.

ASP XML is still a beginner/intermediate book, so it should have: Introduction, DOM, XPath, XSLT, XML and CSS, String Functions, Database Functions, and then the advanced topics. The book skipped details on XPath (trust me) and details on string functions, making my knowledge inadequate to understand the rest of it. Translation, the book felt incomplete.

It may be that all of what I needed to understand XML really is in the book, but I can't find it because it is so disorganized.

I know the authors are brilliant (Having seen some of their programs) but if I can't understand them, it doesn't matter.

Donald Derrick

I would be unfair to say that the 883 pages were a total waste, but it wasn't worth it for me.

The title of the Book is "ASP XML", and from this title I choose this book, because I wanted a book that would help me to use XML in ASP. That wasn't the case in some of the book examples.

The book content (without the case study) is only 15 chapter that spans 366 pages covering all different aspects of XML and XML integration of ASP. The information presented is very basic and lacks basic knowledge of XML, for example XSL was covered very poorly in the book ( MSDN was more helpful to me than the book). Chapter 11 through 14 were very useful though, especially chapter 14 that covers useful XML procedure libraries.

The case studies spans around 180 pages, there are 6 case studies. They were very confusing to me and none of them helped me solving any of the business requirements I was tackling.

The rest of the book contains appendices that are useful to have them all in the same book, but you can get them over the Internet for free.

Last word to say is that I was disappointed with this book.

The chapters are laid out properly and are easy to understand. It helped us to learn a great deal about incorporating XML into ASP.We recommend this book to anyone who wants to further expand their knowledge of XML in ASP.The authors did a really good job on explaing XML for ASP developers.The depth explainations of the case studies & examples and XML are really great and relate to real world examples.The chapter explaining about the SOAP is really good which helped us a lot personally to implement an in my current project . We personally thank Dinar Dalvi for his help and support to answer our questions and immediate feedback for our emails.

I've had this cookbook for ten months now, and for the most part it now sits on the shelf, gathering dust. Why? Although the recipes are unique and creative and the pictures look great, the results for almost all of the recipes I've tried are a great disappointment. I believe that healthy, fat free, low sodium cooking doesn't have to be bland, but that's what the majority of these recipes are. And while other readers have found the recipes to be quick, I found them to be quite time-consuming. There are a few recipes in the book that I like and frequently return to, but too few to justify owning the book.

There are lots of wonderful recipes in this beautifully edited book, my only concern is the use of non-stick sprays instead of real and HEALTHY fats. I just wonder when this whole fat scare will end - are we to believe that using artificial but low - fat products is going to make us healthy? Otherwise, a very enjoyable cookbook....

When it comes to being inspired to create a culinary masterpiece, there is really something to be said for seeing beautiful photographs of the food you are soon to be preparing. This book draws you into the sensuous side of these dishes before you even hit the grocery store.

This book is an example of petite histoire, the account of particular households and villages, set in the larger context of early colonial New England. Demos tells the story of an Indian raid of 1704, in Deerfield, Massachusetts, and its aftermath. In the raid, prominent minister John Williams, his family, and many others are taken captive and transported to Quebec, near Montreal. Some die in transit; many others are returned or "redeemed" to their homes. Williams' daughter, Eunice, remains "unredeemed", a convert to Catholicism and a new way of life, now married to a member of the capturing tribe. Demos does a marvelous job in reading and explicating the meager original sources which survive, and applying a judicious historical imagination to reconstruct this story, both in the larger context of time and place and the smaller context of the Williams family. As a resident of Northern New York, close to both Quebec and the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation, this story has significant local interest for me. Despite these attributes, however, I found the book often lost my interest, I think because Demos tries too hard to be writerly, with his narrative devices (ellipsis, enjambment, etc.) getting in the way of the story. For this reason, I must qualify my recommendation, at least for this general reader. I must say, however, that my wife, Carol, loved this book, stayed up late reading it, and enthused about it for weeks after a late night conclusion. Other critics also have been very enthusiastic.

This book tells the story of an Iindian raid on a small Massachusetts town in the later 1600s and how one 7 year old girl, the daughter of a respected minister, was captured and eventually chose to live as an Indian and a Catholic. It is not clear which conversion was more troubling to her Puritan family.

Demos uses the story to paint a pentrating picture of three cultures living close together, Puritan New England, French Canada and Native-Americans. The research is very thorough.

The only limitation is that the book is not a particularly easy read. In the introduction Demos says that the book is a return to his first love, narrative history. While the book starts out that way, with the thrilling tale of a French/Indian raid on a frontier village and the tale of how the captives dealt with the situation, before long you are reading about Indian kinship systems and the average age that males and females marry in different cultures. Fascinating information, but not much of a story. Still, if you are interested in the New England colonial culture in the 18th century, this is a very worthwhile book to read.

While Demos's book focuses on Eunice Williams, the "unredeemed captive" who, unlike other family memory members, chose not to return to New England following her abduction in the 1704 Deerfield "Massacre," it is also a detailed look at the interfaces between Indian, French, and English cultures in colonial America. As Demos tells the story of the Williams family, he also relates the complexities of such things as Indian childrearing practices and spirituality, as well as the particular situation of the Kahnawake Indians, converted to Catholicism by the French but moving constantly back and forth across the shifting borders between English and French. Demos writes history that is impeccably researched but never tedious; this book can be read with great pleasure by anyone with an interest in history.It's in the same class as Ulrich's A Midwife's Tale.

I think it was Spurgeon who said one should never preach on hell without tears in one's eyes. Do not be worried - none of these men presenting their views would disagree with that quote. None disavow that there is indeed a hell and that some people will end up there. What they are debating is how to read the biblical texts about hell, it's nature, etc. The book starts with the most traditional view, which it seems to me is the weakest one presented (or the weakest presentation) followed by the metaphorical - which seems so close to the traditional (especially when compared to the last two) as to render the differences nearly useless. Whether or not there are actual flames? Is this a burning question (pun intended ;))? After these two are the most interesting essays. A Catholic writer defends the idea of purgatory (technically not about hell, but about suffering in the afterlife) and makes a fairly good case. To do so, he must address differences that are basic to Catholic and Evangelical soteriology - justification and sanctification. I learned a bit I did not know. Finally, comes Clark Pinnock and the conditional view. Dr. Pinnock takes quite a bit of heat for some of his views including this one. He believes that the biblical data and what we know and believe about God tell us that the unrepentant sinner will not be kept alive merely to experience punishment and torment forever, but will be annihilated - eliminating rebellion from the Kingdom of God. Many tangential issues such as post-death salvation and redemptive suffering are addressed, especially in the last two essays. This volume really opened my eyes and made me dive back into the Bible to see what it had to say. I won't divulge my opinions - but they were different than what they were before I read this book!

A useful reference to different views and a plus for the Counterpoints series.

This book accomplishes its objective of presenting four differing views on hell. Obviously, it consists of four authors submitting defenses of their particular positions. A couple of the writers are more persuasive than their colleagues. This persuasiveness, however, stems more from the positions themselves rather than from the skill of the persons penning them.

Walvoord begins with a simplistic, fundamentalist position of literal, eternal fire. Walvoord does a decent job of making his point. The issue is muddled, unfortunately, with the mantra of literal interpretation as the only method for persons who believe the Bible is inerrant. The connection with dispensationalism is apparent in the frequent, literal application of passages in Revelation.

Crockett steps to the plate next with the metaphorical view. His presentation is the most convincing of the four, partially because of his skill but mainly because of the strength of the argument itself. Crockett sticks to the point and drives it home.

Hayes takes his turn defending the purgatorial position. I was a bit surprised to find a serious consideration given to the idea of purgatory in a work of this nature. Hayes deserves credit for making a valiant attempt to communicate a Catholic belief to a predominantly Protestant audience. He offers little Scriptural support for his position, simply because there is little Scriptural support to be found.

Pinnock concludes the presentations with his view of annihilation. Pinnock is not as convincing as Crockett, but gives some substantial Scriptural evidence and theological reasoning to support his position. Crockett does an excellent job of refuting Pinnock's argument in the brief response he offers.

I intially planned to give this volume three or four stars, because at least two of the arguments presented are extremely weak. On second thought, however, the presentations are all fairly well done -- the problem is with the positions themselves. For anyone wanting a good overview of four doctrines of hell, I strongly recommend this book.

Four Views of Hell is one of the best books available on the subject. Unlike other books on the same topic, the book dares to allow differing voices to be heard. But, this book may tell us even more about the prejudices and preconceptions of those who contributed to it than about the afterlife.
John Walvoord is dogmatic in his "Literal" view that hell is a place of actual flames combining physical pain with mental and emotional depression and misery. I believe that literal is a particularly bad naming and this should have been called the "Traditional" view instead.
William Crockett allows more credence to other views but still suggests that his "Metaphorical" view, hell is a state of mental and emotional depression and misery without physical features, are the only reasonable views.
In the "Purgatorial" view, Zachary Hayes, gives an excellent synopsis of the development of this controversial idea, but the reader is left to wonder whether purgatorial is 'hellish' in the traditional sense or merely cleansing and refreshing. His treatment of the Roman Catholic doctrine is historical, fair, and unapologetic.
Clark Pinnock writes one of the best articles, to date, on the "Conditional" view. This view holds that in the end, most of the unsaved will become saved, and those who persist in rebellion and hold fast to doing evil will enter a state of oblivion and annihilation. Pinnock's article and counterpoints are excellent and by far the least prideful of the lot.
The flaw, not with the book but with the contributors, is that they don't seem to read what the others have written. In their rebuttals they pick and choose their attack points often missing the very solutions to the problems they point out.
I would be delighted if this book were revised in the future to include views on "Soul Sleep" and deeper coverage of the included views. Despite the pugnatious attitudes of some of the contributors, I would want to read a broader and deeper coverage of the different views rather than avoiding them or this book.
While Hell-ologists (to coin an understandable term) may be dogmatic and sometimes arrogant in their views, the book allows the reader to see what their views are about and to fairly weigh the views. I've yet to find another book on the subject which accepts counterpoints as well as this book in Zondervan's Counterpoints Series.