George Rutler is one of the shining stars of the Catholic right. He's had his own show on Mother Angelica's network, his videos are for sale in conservative Catholic bookstores, and he's written a few books that are highly touted among conservative Catholics. I haven't read all of them, only his book on St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. Frankly, I wasn't impressed with it. This book is a bad imitation of Chesterton, written exclusively for an audience of like minded persons as the author. His smug self-rightousness didn't leave me wanting to run out and buy his "complete works." You can almost hear him patting himself on the back after what he regards as a particularly clever statement. It's not a bad book if you agree with absolutely everything the author says. In fact, his world would be a pretty nice one to live in. The real world, however, the one most people live in from day to day, doesn't bear much of a resemblance to this guy's depiction of it.

It's an inspiring story, and Rutler writes a wonderful look at his life. It's a good read, but is very intellectual and philosophical - not your typical book about all the great God does thru the Saint but rather those great things in the context of life in St. John Vianney's time. Not for a lazy reader - it's too full of deep ideas.

Like most of Shakespeare's comidies, LLL involved a couple of very independent women falling in love with a couple of guys who were in love with them too. It also brought mistaken identities into play and, like A Midsummer Night's Dream, it had a play within the play. The humor was mostly in the form of puns, most of which were hard to understand the first time through. The ending was really bad, though, because the girls didn't get together with the guys like they should have if Shakespeare had planned a happy ending. All-in-all, I would only recommend this play for really serious Shakespearean scholars, as it is almost too dense for us laypeople

this is witty play about four guys who vow to sequester themselves for three years in serious study, but who are forced to forswear their vows when four attractive women show up and upset their plans. the humor is mainly in the form of wordplay, as only shakespeare can do, and the verbal jousting between berowne and his lady is especially entertaining, and anticipates the tete-a-tetes between petruchio and katherina in "taming of a shrew" and benedick and beatrice in "much ado about nothing". definitely worth a read, and if you can get it, the bbc television production of LLL is also worth seeing. last of all, i disagree with the other poster who complained of the ending. i thought it was pretty clear that the couples would get together in a year's time. so the ending was implicitly happy. only someone who is accustomed to instant gratification could find fault with it.

My school, George Fox University, recommends ("hint": requires) that all students read this book upon enrollment. This book might have been a valuable contribution to the public's outlook on character in public figures, but is incredibly dry and dull in presentation. These historical figures were real people who deserve a bit...well...a life. This book was written for a great purpose, but will never achieve a lasting impact on many people due to the poor judgment of the author in his choice of style of presentation.

by a discouraged Freshman

In a time when our nation (United States) no longer produces true statesmen with character such as Washington, Mason, Henry, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, I'm saddened that Abraham Lincoln is seen by the editor as a man of character. It would seem, if one is to be a thinking evangelical, that the horrors that Lincoln permitted in the South would un-nerve the most honest of scholars. Here, Os Guines has done a serious disservice to the orthodox Christian community. Abraham Lincoln rejected the Virginia Peace (which included former president John Tyler) accord and Sen. Critendem's compromise for peace. Surely had Lincoln accepted these plans for peace, thousands of lives could have been saved. But most of all, the total war theory Lincoln allowed is the most offensive and repugnate to any thinking Christian. Women and children were implemented in Lincoln's so called war to save the Union. He jailed opponents of his position, threatened the Supreme Court justice Roger Taney with arrest for writing against his war plan. Lincoln usurped the Constitution of the United States by declaring War against seceded states in violation of Article I sec. 8 (this is solely congress's domain). A nation birthed in secession hardly has the right to chastise those who operated from the same principle i.e. the right to govern themselves and self-determination. Os, you should be ashamed of yourself for lack of scholarship in this arena. Particularly over such a sensitive subject as the American War Between the States (Civil War). A man (Lincoln) who waged an offensive war against those who defended their rights and family against an unjust invasion has no place in a book where character matters. Maybe Robert E. Lee or Joshua Chamberlain could have saved you the embarassment. And no, Lincoln's war was not over slavery. Men do not take bullets so 10 % can own slaves. Character counts, so does scholarship.

Did the reviewer who found this "dull" read the same book as I did??? This is a very well-crafted, nicely written, penetrating look at some important topics. I greatly enjoyed it.

I feel I ought to give a qualified endorsement of this work, given the tenor of some of the other reviews that have been posted. If your readings in general works on ancient Hellas or ancient Athens have prompted curiosity about the Spartans, this book is a fairly satisfying follow-up. A knowledge of the outline of Spartan history helps, since the narrative of this slim work is so compressed.
The most intriguing aspect of the book is where Forrest departs from the chronological narrative to write at greater length on two of the more vexing questions of Spartan history: 1) the true scope of the Lycurgan (or "Lykurgan," in Forrest's annoyingly pedantic spelling) constitution and 2) the number of Spartiates at various points in Spartan history. Forrest exhibits a healthy skepticism for the ancient sources (none of which, except for some fragments of poetry, can be said to have been written by the Spartans themselves), although he perhaps goes too far in attempting to deflate the myths surrounding the Spartans, which, whether true or not, exercised such a profound influence on ancient writers on republican government.

Make it something else. This book is far too dry for the casual reader to enjoy. I read it with a few others, namely Ernle Bradfords Thermopylae: Battle for the West and The Greco-Persian Wars by Peter Green and it provided a good source of reference, but not much else.

Also of note by Peter Green is Alexander of Macedon and if your just looking for a "quick fix" I suggest Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield.

This is a wonderful book for the person who has a passing interest in ancient Sparta, but is unwilling to spend a whole lot of time doing research on the subject. At just over 150 pages, W.G. Forrest offers a readable and informative text that gets you into Lacedamon, out of Lacedamon & on your way in almost no time at all.

What is surprising about this study is that the author does not hold the Spartans in particularly high regard. This is unusual in that normally, as a rule-of-thumb, historians either write extensively on people / social organizations that they are fervently in favor of, or utterly despise. It is evident that Forrest neither loves nor hates the Laconians; he merely writes about them.

Forrest covers the period of expansion, which is when Sparta exerted its hegemony (forcefully) over Messenia. It is little wonder that the Messenians despised the Spartans, but slaves throughout history have generally not been treated well. I am inclined to cringe at the tacit notion that the Spartans were the only culture in all of history that treated its slave workforce egregiously.

Forrest offers a nice summary of the influence of Lycurgus, but does not articulate very many of his revolutionary ideas. Forrest goes on to explain how the political machinery of Sparta worked, utilizing the Gerousia, ephors and 2 monarchs. For a people who craved simplicity, the political system of Sparta was quite cumbersome. Then again, it was likely that way by design, so that nothing would ever get done. At any rate, Forrest also discusses some different interpretations of the epoch of Lycurgus' life and the the dates of his reforms. Much of this, however, will be of only remote interest to the average reader.

The most gripping part of this book, sadly, is about the fall of the civilization. After their decisive defeat at the hands of the Thebans in 371 @ the battle of Leuctria, Sparta sent out a much smaller army to combat their enemy. However, realizing that the situation was hopeless and they were too outnumbered, the army turned around and returned to the homeland.

I have often been fixated on this about-face of a supposedly invincible Spartan army. It was at this juncture in time that group of warriors decided to turn their backs, not only on an empire, but on a way of life. Gone was the doctrine of Leonidas to "stand and fight to the last man, no matter what the circumstances, no matter the number of the enemy." Sparta would never be the same after 371, and it is with haunting detail and clarity that Forrest takes us thru that sad chapter in Greek history.

This book is highly recommended for those who wish to read of the rise and decline of group of brutal warriors who fielded the most fierce armies of the classical age. These were the men who created the boot camp which military forces still use (to varying extents) in the present day.

Before you even think of buying this book, do a little research about who Bill Kristol really is. Kristol is a flunky for rich right-wingers, whose career is underwritten by ultra-conservative, tax-exempt foundations.

Be a smart consumer and an educated reader. Know the bias of an author before you read their work. To review a full report on Kristol's background, go to:

http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/bill_kristol.htm

The only reason this book has any value is because of the opinions from the courts that take up the first half of the volume. The rest of the book is filled with op-ed pieces from various newspapers and magazines, liberal and conservative. They are all pretty much worthless. They are too short to offer any real insight, and instead simply seek to use very abrasive rhetoric to whip their respective troops into a frenzy. Reading the court cases however, is clearly an essential part of understanding what happened in the election of 2000. To me, it is fairly clear that what happened to Gore was blatently undemocratic and unfair, but also completely legal under Florida's statutory scheme. So the fundamental question that the book raises, though it never directly address it, is, should we be pursuing a basic sense of fairness, or strictly adhereing to laws, even when it is apparent that they are not functioning in a democratic way, or to the benefit of the citizenry whatsoever. If you think that op-ed columnists will adequately answer that, think again. But at least this book allows thoughtful readers who want to ponder the question for themselves the opportunity to see some source materials.

The Brookings Institution is a rabbit warren of liberals raised for food, who are, it seems, preserved so that the elite can think well of themselves; Nixon contemplated fire-bombing the joint, and ever since its denizens have been somewhat cautious. For some time, neoconservatism has been the real political philosophy of the elites of The Beltway and Manhattan, but for purposes of public relations the pretense is made that we would be liberal if we could, were it not for dose foreign terrorists and dem welfare queens who take advantage of us.

My experience from Eastern academia and elsewhere is that in actuality liberals in our society tread a narrow path and must avoid giving offense to what William Jennings Bryan called, and which remains, the dollar power.

One way in which they do this is by being "fair" and "balanced." Now to some diehard liberals, such as John Rawls, fairness is being just to the least well-off, and is constituted in such deeds as slipping the local wino the contents of the poor-box. However, fairness has been redefined in recent years by neoconservative pressure as "balance."

Thus Bush v Gore, rather than presenting ONLY E. J. Dionne's liberal, pro-Gore viewpoint, presents (1) the text of all relevant court cases and (2) a balanced selection of views from liberals and conservatives.

The problem is that there really is no common ground.

The case for Bush, it is obvious from this book, is incoherent, wrong, and based on force majeure and Gore won the election by the generally accepted standards of modern democracy, which are on record in the United Nations' founding documents and which the US has helped to enforce in Haiti and elsewhere...but not in Florida last year.

Scalia's majority opinion of Dec 12 is incoherent because it has to maintain, against the entire trend of American history, that we really are a Roman republic, in which the vast majority of people have a limited choice of top man every year by grace and favor of successful used-car salesmen; for Scalia leans heavily on his claim that we, the people, are dependent upon the grace and favor of the moneyed bozos in our STATE legislatures for our right to vote.

In this Animal House model the country is run as a toga party by George Bush's fraternity brothers; I mention the Belushi film advisedly because these films manufacture consent to the superior wisdom of dyslexic clowns.

But this model is not Rome, it is at best, Byzantine. In this model our elections become like the ability of the citizens of Byzantium to root for sports teams named after primary colors; a meaningless diversion. Indeed, and as Chomsky has suggested, the programs of the Democratic and Republican candidates are so close together that random numbers may determine how we vote, there being no strong arguments or differences presented, and this, to Chomsky would naturally bias the results toward close ties, with the result that Bush v. Gore was not a fluke; the problem may recur as long as candidates do not present clear alternatives.

The Roman republic was maintained by the collective ability of the Romans prior to Octavius Caesar to maintain, over and above personal appetite, a distinctly Roman legal culture. The Roman stance was that of a Brutus (not the one who killed Caesar but an earlier Brutus) who allowed his sons to be killed rather than violate the Roman Republic's law. The theme was sacrifice of personal advantage to the commons.

The early Brutus manifested republican integrity because he was willing to sacrifice his sons to abstract legal principles. It might seem that the later Brutus had the same integrity (and a superficial reading of the Shakespeare play would indicate that this is so): but Shakespeare ultimately makes Plutarch's point that murder had no place in republican Rome and that Brutus' form of integrity was actually a form of corruption. Brutus and Cassius, after all, violated their own laws by killing Caesar and their rebellion was morally and legally equivalent to that of Spartacus.

The last time republican integrity was celebrated in popular political culture in France and America was not a conservative time at all. It was instead the revolutionary climate of France in 1789, and, to a lesser extent, in America of 1776. The paintings of Jacques-Louis David and Benjamin West celebrated a political willingness to sacrifice bourgeois interest for the greater good. They state visually that if we want a res publica we need men like Marat, General Wolfe dying on the Plains of Abraham, and Brutus catching hell from his old lady for his sacrifice of his sons.

Now, nothing further from modern conservatism could be imagined, which demands that people NOT be made to sacrifice for the greater good of the Republic, or the Revolution. No, in modern conservatism, lesser folk only sacrifice for dear old Enron...not the republic. And the top men are never discommoded at all.

The game is so deeply cynical that many honest American voters are completely unaware of what's being done to them. Liberals who've run "focus groups" to study the opinions of voters have found that many voters are not aware of how far to the right the in-group Republicans have drifted and the minimalism of their commitment to representative government. The Brookings Institution has dropped the ball, for its "balance" and its retainer of Bill Kristol shows institutional cowardice in which the FACT that the election was a bloodless coup d'etat becomes a meaningless opinion.

It's amazing to think the author needed the services of a ghostwriter to write this badly. You'd think a reasonably intelligent twelve-year-old could have accomplished it by himself. Those who "[assume] the TRUTH [sic] will be 'good enough' [sic] entertainment for any sensible reader" may appreciate the Andy Warhol documentary in which the exterior of a building is filmed for twenty-four hours--the film itself lasts twenty-four hours. The art of the memoir is knowing what to leave out. McCartney's habitual trick is to damn John Lennon with faint praise. He loves to tell (and retell and retell again) how John Lennon contributed to his "It's Getting Better" the line "It can't get no worse", while completely ignoring the sophisticated and innovative harmony of "Julia" and "Because", etc. Rather a coincidence then that George Martin treats us to here to yet another rehearsal of this insipid story. (John Lennon was murdered December 1980. Interviews with John Lennon appeared in the December issues of "Playboy" and "Rolling Stone". In neither of these interviews does John Lennon attribute any bit of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to Paul McCartney. In 1965, on the other hand, the Beatles were still pretending that the attribution "Lennon-McCartney" necessarily implied a collaboration.) I can't help suspecting that in this case "research"--in contradistinction to believing your own eyes and ears--meant letting your book be edited by Paul McCartney's propensity for dissimulation and enormous ego.

While this book is ostensibly about the making of Sgt. Pepper, it's more revealing of George Martin and his view of The Beatles. The sections detailing album production (coupled with Martin's musical analyses) tend to be rather dry, and the divvying of songwriting credit provides little more than grist for the Lennon-McCartney argument mill. What turns out to be most interesting is Martin and Pearson's ability to communicate some of the feeling of the times, some of the extra-studio influences that brought the Beatles to the making of Sgt. Pepper, and subsequently led to the creation of the album.

With the huge number of books written about The Beatles, one could easily point to other volumes that cover some or all of this ground. But Martin had a unique position in the Beatles coterie, and though this volume is far from a tell-all, it does leverage his vantage point. It's not explosive in a way that radically redefines one's view of The Beatles or their times, but it does provide some first-hand perspective that adds shades to the ever aging picture. How much of this is accurate, and how much is shaded memory, is hard to say. Beatles fanatics may find the so-called McCartney-esque slant infuriating, but those who simply lived through times will find Martin's writing pleasantly evocative.

This fascinating, thorough, and accurate book about the making of the Sgt. Pepper album is the British edition of Martin's With A Little Help From My Friends. It's the same book: same text, same photos, different title. Martin did a tremendous job researching this book, combining his and others' enjoyable first-hand recollections about the making of the album with extensive research at the EMI studios, relistening to the session tapes (including the unreleased alternate takes), checking the detailed notes written on the original session sheets, and so on. (In contrast, for All You Need Is Ears all those years ago, he relied on his memory, and the results were much less complete.) Amazingly, this was the first Beatles book to reveal that Paul McCartney played lead guitar on the "Sgt. Pepper" title track (yes, he sure did), and also the first to thoroughly dispel the tired myth that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" was "all John": it was a true cocomposition by John AND Paul (as John said himself in at least two interviews). It's refreshing to see a book like this that assumes the TRUTH will be "good enough" entertainment for any sensible reader. Martin, thankfully, simply ignores rock writers' relentless post-Lennon rewriting of Beatles history, which has magnified anything negative Lennon ever said about McCartney while ignoring anything positive (such as Lennon's praise of "When I'm Sixty-Four" to interviewer Anne Nightingale)... and has consistently seized on Lennon's MOST mistakenly exaggerated or misleading claims about his own role in the creation of songs, while "forgetting" about all the many times John happened to give Paul completely fair, due credit (such as his 1965 interview with Valerie Wilmer, in which he described "Ticket To Ride"'s melody as cowritten by McCartney). George Martin, who admired and liked both Lennon and McCartney, has no axe to grind about them, or the other two Beatles... and he finds the right balance of modesty and candor in describing his own important role in the creation of this album, too. The previously unseen session photos are a fine bonus. This book is a keeper.

This book's title is misleading, as it appears to feed off the familiarity with the Applied Programming series of books from Microsoft Press. It is truly a mixed-bag, as the above editorial review admits. After expounding on the 'revolutionary' idea that software should be people oriented, it dives into pages of code that lays out an Asp.Net application. It then sandwiches in a C# fundamentals tour, and then dives right into more code. If there is a purpose to this book, I couldn't distill it. It truly appears as if each author wrote their portion of their book without talking to the other, and then the editor mashed them together the night before the deadline hit.

If you have kept up with the .NET revolution, you have no doubt seen and read a lot of books on .NET and the .NET languages. Most of the books on C# deal with the basics of syntax with a couple of small samples applications. Very few, however, deal with any sort of real world situations.
While this book does cover a few of the basics, it is more focused on the people aspect. I feel this is an important, often overlooked, aspect of software development and the fact that it is overlooked is why so much software is hard to use.
If you are looking for a best practices book, this tome is not quite there. The same goes for a book strong on code. While you can use the CD to look at a good amount of sample code, the book is rather thin. This is not, however, the focus of the book; and, since so many other books cover this, the niche filled here is rather nice.
If I had to pick the proper audience for this book, there would be two categories: 1) Anyone who has ever had a piece of software fail as the end-users never bought in, and 2) anyone who wants to ensure this never happens. While it is not an excellent book, I have to laud the publisher for taking a chance on this subject matter selling. I hope it does.

I cannot deny the fact that this is a well-written book. But the authors had a way of getting on my nerves for the gradation between the examples and the exercise problems was too steep that if you did not grasp the underlying concept in the first place, you never ever will understand it. Most of my friends felt that way too.

However that does not mean that the book is not good. At times you will be flabbergasted at how well the authors can push a difficult concept through. The section on 'Dynamics' was perhaps one of the best in contemporary entry-level texts on the subject.

Engineering mechanics is a hands-on course. It won't help you any good to read the textbook for 10 hours at a stretch if you don't attempt to understand the problem and solve it yourself. The best thing about this subject is that once you get the basics, you can pretty much read it on your own and understand everything. There are only three laws (thanks to Newton) and everything else is deduction. This book has lots of problems and they are very practical too. You can see most of the problems around you, like the one on a safety mechanism for a construction worker and there are many such problems. I am not in any way affiliated or related to the publishers or the authors. In summary, a great book for a TOUGH subject. (Yes it is tough because it is different from other subjects, where you can get by after cramming before an exam. E Mech. is the bread and butter of mechanical engineers, so you better understand it well)

Well, I'm not new to those authers. All their books represent one of the best in field, and their mechanics book is one of them. The text is well-organized, the material is presented professionaly, the problems help to understand and grasp the subject that you feel quite confident in your ability. A smart textbook. No one can recognize what he/she misses in engineering mechanics untill he/she has the opportunity to study this book.

I am a hich school junior and use the unabridged version of this textbook in my A.P. U.S. History class. Since my school's Advanced Placement courses use college texts, I assume America Past and Present is also used in undergraduate history classes. (I had to rate this book to post this "review." Please do not consider my rating if you are trying to assess this book.)

The authors do an excellent job of covering American history. Highly readable, comprehensible, with interesting special essays in each chapter. My only complaint is a lack of study aids or chapter summaries. Also available in two briefer editions, covering American history through 1865 in the first and after 1865 in the second.

This makes an excellent undergraduate textbook in US history -- also good just for a general read.