I was browsing my local library and happened to spot this book on the new arrival section. Normally I would have written it off as more of the unbalanced tripe that passes for educational material these days but I noticed the opposing viewpoints series label and decided to give it a try. The book itself is a collection of essays, interviews and articles by leading proponents and opponents of various opinions. In this volume the GENERAL TOPICS included : WHAT IS THE STATE OF RACE RELATIONS. IS RACISM A SERIOUS PROBLEM and others. Sub catagoires involved topics as diverse as Anti-semitism in the black community, Support of bilingual education, and Apologizing for Slavery. Each topic was argued on both sides and the line up was a strong one. Clarence Page, Charles Krauthammer, Naomi Wolf and the Advisory board to the President's Initiative on Race (Clintons). I was pleased to see that prominant black conservatives Deroy Murdock, Walter Williams, and Thomas Sowell were also included. (None are specifically identified as black by the editor but both Williams and Murdock self identify in their respective articles. ) This developemnt alone is a giant step forward. At the end of the book is a list of 15 orginizations to contact for more info and here is the only place were the balance is a bit off. The list includes of course the NAACP, ACLU, Amnesty International and the National Urban League, It ALSO includes the Heritage Foundation, The Cato institute and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. The list itself is pretty balanced , however in the write ups on each group Heritage & CSPC are identified as "Conservative" and Cato as "Libertarian", however none of the "Liberal" groups are identified as such. It is a small point, worth mentioning but not enough to overcome all of the benefits of this book. When both sides of an arguement are presented then knowledge is truly born. This book achieves this and if it is used as a school text then it will be a small step in the right direction. I look forward to examining the other books in the series. Well done Mary E. Williams!

I was very surprised when I ordered this book and found out that yes, indeed, it was merely a very tiny portion of what I had expected. I suppose I should have known from the price, but the description (at least at that time) did not make it clear that it wasn't the entire dictionary.

While this may be a very thorough source for the words it covers, it should be noted in the basic information that this is ONLY 128 pages of a 15,000 page work. The description above is very misleading.

itz a dictionary. what more can i say

The majority of the discussion in this book revolves around the history of Hollywood. It repeats itself often discussing the McCarthy Era and how it affected Hollywood. It also provides useless lists of big names in Hollywood. If you are any kind of movie lover you already know the works of Spielberg and Lucas and how the McCarthy Era affected cinema.

The book also promised to provide an in-depth look at the process of making films. The concepts were provided however, they were not given in-depth. Lists of movies were provided to illustrate the concepts in the book. However, if I had wanted a list of movies to watch, I would have found one on the net.

Basically this book is a waste of money to anyone that has a basic understanding of Hollywood and show business.

A great introduction to the entire world of film -- not just Hollywood, but a host of world cinemas from European to Latin American to African and Near Eastern. The examples used are well explained and are always pertinent to the points at hand. My favorite chapters were one on film theory (which made obscure concepts accessible to the beginner) and one that used all the concepts introduced in the book to explain the German silent film "Nosferatu." I had just seen the new movie "Shadow of the Vampire," which is based on the making of "Nosferatu"; this book made me understand for the first time what a complex piece of art that early movie is. I highly recommend this book as an affordable intro to film criticism that, while accessible and fun to read, does not talk down to its audience.

This book is part of a long series of point-counterpoint essays ranging from pornography to immigration to developing nations. So many books either talk about desegregation alone, mixed-race marriages alone, or multiracial children alone. This book brings all those themes together under the interracial label. The essays in this book are short. In fact, some are quite choppy. They are mostly reprints from magazines and oftentimes the title in this anthology does not fairly represent the words of the specific contributors. Still, this book has some well-known, excellent writers here. For people sensitive about racial mixing, the point-counterpoint approach may be painful: you have been warned. Still, this was a good introductory book for people, especially young students, to start thinking about various race-related issues. I would have edited this anthology much differently, but it's still a kiind okay book.