Powerful narratives from those who survived slavery detailing their struggles as slaves, struggles for freedom, and beginnings of establishing new lives. This book should be required reading for all high school students. Insights into human nature, perserverance, and love are all touched upon and I could not believe the strengths of these slaves just getting through life. Powerful beyond any reviewers' words.

For a more complete collection of slave narratives, check out I WAS BORN A SLAVE, edited by Yuval Taylor. For the price of this volume, you get two paperback volumes with a total of twenty narratives: six of these seven, plus fourteen more, most of them unavailable elsewhere. Unlike this book, it is also extensively annotated.

This book is wickedly funny. Less wicked, but also very amusing, are Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country," Roy Moore's "Brothel in Pimlico," and even T. Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom." All happen to be British.

You must buy this book! Donaldson's hilarious letters are full of subtle putdowns (sample: "Do you only read the news or do you make it up?) You will be in hysterics reading the straight-faced answers from British notables.

Vincent Henry has written a book that is a valuable contribution to the understanding of Compstat.

Compstat was a 1996 winner of the Innovation in Government and has been listed as one of the major contributing factors to the "turn around" of police productivity in the New York Police Department in the mid-1990s.

Compstat has been the subject of several rumors, half truths and outright distortions. In a book whose audience is primarily college level students of policing and police management, Henry methodically explains the organizational context in which Compstat developed, actual implementation tactics and strategies used and assesses the future utility of the Compstat process in a variety of private and public settings.

Henry clearly establishes that Compstat is more than a "dog and pony show" or a staff meeting supplemented with computer graphics and statistical analysis. Rather it is one of several tools necessary to produce effective results in modern policing, " Compstat must be seen as one facet of a comprehensive and carefully orchestrated array of management strategies and practices".

This book is handicapped to an extent by the several audiences it serves simultaneously. First, nine of the ten chapters close with "Questions for Debate and Discussion", which serves the academic audience well but is bothersome to the general readers. Second, the use of sidebars tends to dilute the impact of the author's primary discussion at several points. However, the tenth chapter "The Compstat Paradigm: Summary of Basic Principles and Precepts" is one of the best short summaries of Compstat to be found anywhere in print. Those seven pages make the cost of the book worth very cent.

The New York City Police Department has achieved great reductions in crime through the Compstat process. Major crimes have declined 66%, and homicides are down 77% since 1993. These statistics translate into thousands of lives saved and significantly improved quality of life for all the people of New York. Those who argue that factors other than the police were responsible for this decline ignore the significant institutional changes in the NYPD and its method of policing.

It was not simply hiring thousands of cops and putting them on the street, it was a matter of changing the way those cops worked. This involved not only technological change, such as the use of computer pin mapping, but also managerial and cultural change within the NYPD. The result was a more analytical and focused NYPD, a more responsive and flexible department, better able to serve the people of New York. Compstat was driving force behind those changes.

Vincent Henry is a friend and coworker of mine for ten years, since I was a student in his class at CW Post College. While he has academic credentials, he also has the experience and perspective of a street cop. He was well placed to observe significant developments in the NYPD and its strategies over the years. He has an in-depth knowledge of the history of the agency and the personalities involved in the development of Compstat. This background provides insight into the subtleties and nuances of Compstat (and the NYPD as a whole) that an outsider may miss. The Compstat Paradigm is not only a description of the development of Compstat, but also a history of the NYPD over the last two decades. This historical context increases understanding of the political and personal forces that influenced the development of Compstat.

I have attended dozens of Compstat sessions as both an observer and a participant. I have read other books on Compstat, including NYPD Battles Crime by Eli Silverman and Managing Police Operations: Implementing the NYPD Crime Control Model Using Compstat by Phyllis Parshall McDonald. The Compstat Paradigm is the most comprehensive and thorough description of Compstat available, and provides the best overview of what the Compstat process is, how it developed, and how it works in the New York City Police Department.

Wow! Once in a while a book comes along that is so satisfying that one wonders if you really read it. I can't praise the author enough for bringing to life the life of Maine 100 years ago.

BOOK REVIEW

A Day's Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs, 1860-1920, Part I, annotated and compiled by W. H. Bunting. Sponsored by Maine Preservation, Tilbury House Publishers, 132 Water St., Gardiner, ME 04345, 1997. 380 pp., oversize, paperback, $35.00

This is a wonderful book, so don't let the title drive you away. You must read halfway through that forbidding title to find out that it's about Maine, farther yet to learn that it's photographic, and "Part I" leaves you dangling. I would have called it Maine at Work, 1860-1920: Photographs and Text; the rest is superfluous--and I have added the word "text" because the text is just as delightful as the photos. I am writing this review because it's a book that people who love Maine shouldn't miss.

I have been summering in Maine for about forty years. The mountains and the skies and the rockbound coast make one constantly aware that Maine is different--the most northern and most eastern state in the USA, with a thousand of miles of shoreline and huge expanses of forest wilderness. Its wild geography has shaped its people and determined how they live. Vestiges of the past are everywhere, from the old docks and windjammers and lighthouses to the barns and sawmills and huge piles of firewood. If one wants an understanding and a feeling for those old times, this book is for you.

William Bunting's fascination with these historical photographs is communicated through the text. He has spent decades immersing himself in local history, and he not only explains each photo but goes behind it, delving into the history and significance of what is shown. If you want to know how to make hard cider, see p. 150 opposite the superb photo of the farmyard with a pile of apples by the old barn. The complex process of logging in the wilderness and getting the logs downriver to the mills and eventually by ship to market is followed through many photos with descriptive text (see pp. 34-44, 86-88, and more). Many buildings in Boston and points south were built of Maine granite; here you can see the granite cutters and the ships and men that carried that heavy cargo to market. Would you like to know and see how in the old days lobster fishing, seining, dip-netting, and canning were done? Or railroading, hunting, or harvesting ice? They're all here, and much more.

Start reading at the Introduction, a fine evocation of Maine today in relation to the past, and a convincing demonstration of the value of photos as historical documents. You will also discover that the author raises cattle and is a bulldozer operator, which doesn't quite explain his mastery of local history (this is his third book) but puts him closer to the down-to-earth people in the pictures. The introduction takes you directly into the text; there are no breaks or chapter headings. Bunting explains that the book is like "taking a journey," one that he took himself--and fortunately it has a good index. I began by looking up the places I know best: Waldoboro, Boothbay, Edgecomb, Casco, Bath, Damariscotta, but the book is a trap--once in, it's hard to get out. You go from photo to photo and from text to text.

The content of the pictures and text is absorbing, but I have said nothing about the aesthetic quality of the photographs. These old black and whites, from the days of heavy cameras and glass plate negatives, have a crispness and wealth of detail rarely seen in today's polychromatic action photos with artificial photo-effects. Many of them were taken for the purpose of making a record, and they project an authenticity that makes the viewer a participant. They have the grip of reality. The photos are worth the price of the book, and the text multiplies their value.

A Day's Work (Part I) focuses on many economic aspects of life in Maine in the late eighteenth and early twentieth century. The author, or annotator and compiler as he calls himself, says that some topics will appear in both volumes, but Part II will emphasize the pulp and paper industries, cotton textiles, coopering, axe manufacturing, etc. Perhaps he's waiting to sit down with the photographs and see where the journey leads. If it's anything like this one, it will be worth waiting for.

Herbert S. Bailey, Jr.
Fearrington Post 248
Pittsboro, NC 27312

I read the book and saw the movie Deadly Intentions. I believe it but how can anyone be so sick? People like that are a threat for as long as they live.

It's a very good book , here we can even feel the coldness of this young doctor and his terryfied wife .Mr.Stevens did a wonderful work. It really worth reading!!!!

As an undergraduate senior, I took a course in dimension theory that used this book Although first published in 1941, the teacher explained that even though the book was "old", that everyone who has learned dimension theory learned it from this book. There are of course many other books on dimension theory that are more up-to-date than this one. But the advantage of this book is that it gives an historical introduction to dimension theory and develops the intuition of the reader in the conceptual foundations of the subject. The concept of dimension that the authors develop in the book is an inductive one, and is based on the work of the mathematicians Menger and Urysohn. In this formulation the empty set has dimension -1, and the dimension of a space is the least integer for which every point in the space has arbitrarily small neighborhoods with boundaries having dimension less than this integer. The authors restrict the topological spaces to being separable metric spaces, and so the reader who needs dimension theory in more general spaces will have to consult more modern treatments.

In chapter 2, the authors concern themselves with spaces having dimension 0. They first define dimension 0 at a point, which means that every point has arbitrarily small neighborhoods with empty boundaries. A 0-dimensional space is thus 0-dimensional at every one of its points. Several examples are given (which the reader is to prove), such as the rational numbers and the Cantor set. It is shown, as expected intuitively, that a 0-dimensional space is totally disconnected. The authors also show that a space which is the countable sum of 0-dimensional closed subsets is 0-dimensional. The closed assumption is necessary here, as consideration of the rational and irrational subsets of the real line will bring out.

Chapter 3 considers spaces of dimension n, the notion of dimension n being defined inductively. Their definition of course allows the existence of spaces of infinite dimension, and the authors are quick to point out that dimension, although a topological invariant, is not an invariant under continuous transformations. The famous Peano dimension-raising function is given as an example. The authors prove an equivalent definition of dimension, by showing that a space has dimension less than or equal to n if every point in the space can be separated by a closed set of dimension less than or equal to n-1 from any closed set not containing the point. The 'sum theorem' for dimension n is proven, which says that a space which is the countable union of closed sets of dimension less than or equal to n also has dimension less than or equal to n.

A successful theory of dimension would have to show that ordinary Euclidean n-space has dimension n, in terms of the inductive definition of dimension given. The authors show this in Chapter 4, with the proof boiling down to showing that the dimension of Euclidean n-space is greater than or equal to n. (The reverse inequality follows from chapter 3). The proof of this involves showing that the mappings of the n-sphere to itself which have different degree cannot be homotopic. The authors give an elementary proof of this fact. This chapter also introduces the study of infinite-dimensional spaces, and as expected, Hilbert spaces play a role here.

The Lebesgue covering theorem, which was also proved in chapter 4, is used in chapter 5 to formulate a covering definition of dimension. The author also proves in this chapter that every separable metric space of dimension less than or equal to n can be topologically imbedded in Euclidean space of dimension 2n + 1. The author quotes, but unfortunately does not prove, the counterexample due to Antonio Flores, showing that the number 2n + 1 is the best possible. These considerations motivate the concept of a universal n-dimensional space, into which every space of dimension less than or equal to n can be topologically imbedded. The author also proves a result of Alexandroff on the approximation of compact spaces by polytopes, and a consequent definition of dimension in terms of polytopes.

Chapter 6 has the flair of differential topology, wherein the author discusses mappings into spheres. This brings up of course the notion of a homotopy, and the author uses homotopy to discuss the nature of essential mappings into the n-sphere. The author motivates the idea of an essential mapping quite nicely, viewing them as mappings that cover a point so well that the point remains covered under small perturbations of the mapping. This chapter also introduces extensions of mappings and proves Tietze's extension theorem. This allows a characterization of dimension in terms of the extensions of mappings into spheres, namely that a space has dimension less than or equal to n if and only if for every closed set and mapping from this closed set into the n-sphere, there is an extension of this mapping to the whole space.

In chapter 7 the author relates dimension theory to measure theory, and proves that a space has dimension less than or equal to n if and only if it is homeomorphic to a subset of the (2n+1)-dimensional cube whose (n+1)-dimensional measure is zero. As a sign of the book's age, only a short paragraph is devoted to the concept of Hausdorff dimension. Hausdorff dimension is of enormous importance today due to the interest in fractal geometry.

Chapter 8 is the longest of the book, and is a study of dimension from the standpoint of algebraic topology. The treatment is relatively self-contained, which is why the chapter is so large, and the author treats both homology and cohomology. The author proves that a compact space has dimension less than or equal to n if and only if given any closed subset, the zero element of the n-th homology group of this subset is a boundary in the space. A similar (dual) result is proven using cohomology.

This book includes the state of the art of (topological) dimension theory up to the year 1940 (more or less), but this doesn't mean that it's a totally dated book. Quite the opposite. If you read the most recent treatises on the subject you will find no signifficant difference on the exposition of the basic theory, and besides, this book contains a lot of interesting digressions and historical data not seen in more modern books. If you want to become an expert in this topic you must read Hurewicz.

Please read my other reviews in my member page (just click on my name above).

The Naxos production of Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings offers the listener a unique and superbly presented compilation of some of the greatest recordings of Shakespearean material dating from the very beginnings of the recording era. Here you will find Shakespeare being recited by such legends of the stage as Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, John Barrymore, John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, Hugh Cassohn, Laurence Olivier, and many more. Also included are performances by such unlikely but gifted Shakespearean performers as Charles Laughton, Edith Evans, Laurel and Hardy, Bransby Williams, Dylan Thomas, Sarah Bernhardt, and others. In addition to Shakespeare enthusiasts and scholars, Great Historical Shakespeare Recordings is highly recommended to students and the non-specialist general listener who would enjoy sampling the variety of impressive performances over the past several decades.

Of especial interest to students of the theatre and certainly to actors is a Naxos collection of (NA 220012) on two CDs or tapes.

The first one gives us the voices of such Shakespearean luminaries as Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Arthur Bourchier, Lewis Waller, Frank Benson, Johnston Forbes Robertson, John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, Lewis Casson, John Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Henry Irving, Edwin Booth, and Ellen Terry. The last three are preserved on cylinders and the Booth one is scarcely audible. All of these readings are in the grand style, and it is instructive to compare the "Once more unto the breach" of Waller and Benson with that of Olivier. Terry's youthful delivery belies her age, but too many of the readers came to the recording session far past their prime. Still, this is living history and utterly fascinating as such.

The "Miscellany" is a mixed bag indeed. We have pairs of actors such as Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in "Private Lives," Fred Terry and Julia Neilson in a poorly chosen scene from "The Scarlet Pimpernel," John Gielgud and Edith Evans in the marvelous handbag scene from "The Importance of Being Earnest," and even Laurel and Hardy recording in London. (Strange bedfellows indeed.)

Solo "turns" are performed by Tree as Svengali, Bransby Williams imitating Irving in "The Bells" and several (then) notable theatre personalities in his monologue "The Stage Doorkeeper," Henry Ainley reading "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and Charles Laughton reading (of all things) The Gettysburg Address (from the film "Ruggles of Red Gap").

The last foreign-language selections will not be of great interest to many listeners and of immense interest to students of European acting styles. We have Sarah Bernhardt reading "Phedre," Jean Mournet-Sully as Oedipus (in French), Constant Coquelin, the original Cyrano, racing through the Ballade of the Duel, Feodor Chaliapin reading a poem in a language I cannot identify, and Alexander Moissi doing excellent readings from "Faust" and the "Erlkoenig."

The notes are brief but informative and were written by David Timson, whose "History of Theatre" is also available on Naxos and reviewed on its appropriate web site.

It has been great! listening to Shakespeare acted out or watching it is far better for those who find it hard to wade through reading it cold. Once the love is developed reading it cold is fun. But you have to start them somewhere and this is just wonderful. Whether you are just learning or already love Shakespeare this is delightful. We love the Saint Crispin's Day speech.

The title is taken from the book and William could not have been speaking of himself when he wrote this, he had plenty to say. It is hard to write a review about the best book in the English language.

I once saw, in the credits of a particularly poor Shakespeare film (and most are), the astounding words of - 'written by William Shakespeare, additional material by The Films Director' I forget his name now - but it struck me as strange that you would even mention youself in the same sentence as Shakespeare when discussing credits for writing. Something like 'written by Shakespeare - ruined by the Films Director' would have been more appropriate. Anyway - if you haven't read this book by the time you are 50 - then I can only envy you - I would pay a Kings Ransom to find an undiscovered Shakespeare play.

'The drama is full of singularly beautiful detached passages: for example, the reflections of the King upon ceremony, the description of the deaths of York and Suffolk, the glorious speech of the King before the battle, the chorus of the fourth act, remarkable illustrations of Shakespeare's power as a descriptive poet. Nothing can be finer, also, than the commonwealth of bees in the first act. It is full of the most exquisite imagery and music. The art employed in transforming the whole scene of the hive into a resemblance of humanity is brilliant'.

I have been in the public community MH system for 30+ years and find this to be the best resource I've ever encountered. I also have used it in the community college basic counseling skills class I have taught for the past four years. It is filled with great resource material, clinical vignettes, role plays. It doesn't get any better than that. One of the few college texts worth the price in my opinion.

This is by far the most useful textful I have ever used. As a graduate student in psychology, I have often used this text as both a training resource for my education and a problem solving guide in my clinical work. Written in language that you don't need a degree to understand, this book presents clinically applicable strategies for working with both children and adults in a variety of "helping" settings. That is, it reviews many of the basic skills one needs to talk to people effectively as a counselour or therapist. Each chapter includes detailed explanations, relevant examples, and exercises for integrating the discussed skills and/or interventions for your own use. It's one of the few resources that presents useful and relevant approaches to relating to people in a readable and understandable context. Best of all, this textbook makes an effort to discuss many of the issues facing "helpers" in the modern world of managed care. It's absolutely the best resource out there for developing and honing intelligent clinical skills!

The Man Who Knew The Medicine: The Teachings Of Bill Eagle Feather by Henry Niese (who has participated in more than one hundred Native American ceremonies, including dancing in thirty-seven Sun Dances) showcases the Lakota shaman Bill Schweigman Eagle Feather who in the 1960s defied a U.S. government ban on Native American religious practice and performed the Sun Dance ritual with public piercings and continued on as a Sun Dance chief and instructor in the Lakota way of life until his death in 1980. Niese first met Bill Eagle Feather during a Seat Lodge ceremony preceding a Sun Dance on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in 1975 and now carries on the work and legacy of Bill Eagle Feather by performing healings and giving seminars and workshops on medicinal plans and Native American healing practices. The Man Who Knew Medicine is a unique and enthusiastically recommended addition to Native American Studies collections, and an invaluable contribution to Alternative Medicine reading lists as well.

It's a testament to the writer's humility that this book is not a how to in the Ways of The Lakota. More honestly it is a loving and skilled tribute to Bill Eagle Feather. I cried through much of this book..everything so vivid and real. I only wish it had been twice as long.