EE Books

Lippman is sadly under-appreciated these days, I hadn't even heard his name until the past year, when, while working on my dissertation, I came across this book. Written in lucid, clear prose, yet dealing with incredibly complex theoretical and philosophical issues, Public Opinion argues that not only is there not really an agreed-upon "Public Opinion," but that people rarely even understand what they think they know, let alone what they can agree upon with other people. Lippman persuasively demonstrates that opinions are formed in such a way that they have little or no bearing upon "really existing" facts and truth most of the time, and instead are ill-informed, vague, and haphazard in their application of rational thought. Lippman closes by arguing that, since no one has the time or ability to be as informed as they are expected to be on every issue, what is needed is a group of intellectuals dedicated towards improving the quality of media we receive; a sort of "filter" which can correct misperceptions and inform the public at large. (Although, in his subsequent Lippman becomes even more pessimistic, arguing that there is no such thing as "the public".) This book is a must-read for those fascinated by media, politics, or even more general philosophical/culture questions.

No information of the publisher is available. Therefore it cannot be quoted or be of any academic use.

Lippmann is great, but the BN Publishing edition of this book is beyond terrible. Misplaced (or simply missing) punctuation, misspelled words, no italics or boldface where they are needed, random line breaks in the middle of sentences, no indented paragraphs, no margins on the pages, haphazard footnotes ... you get the idea.
The content is worth four or five stars for all the reasons that other reviewers have mentioned, but this printing is simply unreadable.

Cheaply produced and bound -- and the typesetting is shockingly poor. There are no indents after paragraph breaks, italics that were in the original are missing in this shoddy edition. I have to purchase yet another copy because this fly-by-night publisher can't be bothered to typeset an out-of-copyright text properly.

I had the good fortune to meet Walter Lippman growing up, as my father was his children's orthodontist (overbites all). Through this, Lippman and my biological mother, the receptionist, began an affair that lasted--on and off--for several tumultuous years. While Lippman the intellectual is to be respected, I cannot recommend his book without reservation. I mention this on accout of the extent to which his shenanigans with my biological mother resulted in a great deal of cruelty and psychological trauma to her fragile working-class psyche. If Lippman were around today, I would ask him about this. As I cannot, I am simply leaving this review here so others may read the "full story." You cannot judge a book by its cover, but you can judge an author by his actions in the world.

For that ones who like to be on cut of the edge, should read it.
Easy to understand and read. Seam is leaving the future choice to be one real and excellent choice for present integrating JSF and EJB 3.x and this book has filled all that I could expect about learn JBoss Seam.

Very good book. It gives good knowledge about how to write
applications in this framework. Many working examples are also
appreciated.

In the beginning authors explain what is Seam, and it is understood,
as Seam is much different than any other framework with similar
functionality. Seam is not meant for using it as "white box". It is
rather "black box", designed for just using it, without knowing inside
details. Because of this debugging Seam code is tedious task, and in
fact unnecessary. There is chapter in the book explaining how to use
debugging mechanism built in Seam, so called "debug pages". One can
check session state, stacktrace or JSF components tree. Very helpful
for anyone writing web applications in this framework.

There is also chapter about business processes and business rules.
Yes, this is also built in Seam. As an example in the book is ticket
system. User logs in, lists tasks and assigns them to herself.
Developer does not need to care about storing users tasks in database,
it is enough to set component scope to BUSINESS_PROCESS. This is very
interesting functionality, and although it is explained quite well in
the book, I would like it to be explained even better.

There is good testing support in Seam and this is also well described
in the book. Seam provides tools to do in tests what is normally done
by container, like dependency injection, database and transactions
mocking etc.

Another chapter is about running Seam applications on non-ejb3
containers (like Tomcat).

The book covers many topics, not only about Seam itself, but also
about how to use Seam, test, how to deploy applications on non-seam
container, how to connect to another than default database etc. The
book is targeted for real users, for people working with the
framework.

What I miss is more insight into how Seam internally works. Such
knowledge is not necessary to write working apps, but I just like to
know such things.

Some knowledge about JSF and EJB3 is also very useful when reading
this book. I would like some of this stuff explained, but on the other
hand it is book about Seam not about EJB3/JSF.

I think reading this book is very good for someone who wants to write
applications in Seam, even advanced ones. Seam is interesting
technology, much different than pure JSF+EJB3, and it's worth
learning, even for someone not using it at work, just to see new
possibilities.

It's not a cookbook with ready made recipes. It gives a shallow but complete overview of the Seam framework features. That is important because if you don't know it exists you will never try to use it. Examples: XHTML validation tags for Hibernate, conversation state, and much more.

It's a must read to get a good start with Seam and to learn what WebApp development should have been from the beginning.

Compared to other computer books this book is to shallow and does not cover the depths of Seam. I would like a more continous example throughout the book instead of a collection of small, rather trivial examples.

Its a great book.. It difficult to learn Seam without this book.
It may be slightly dated, with Seam 2.0 coming out recently.
But per the author, there are not significant changes in the code
ie mainly config changes.
(eg they recommend JPA with tomcat instead of embedded server option
with tomcat)

Seam(and specifically seam-gen) still has some significant bugs/issues
to iron out(but workaround exists).

The nature of a people is seldom easy to describe because the attempt is often sabotaged by either the Outsider's incorrect perceptions or the Insider's preconceptions, depending on which is constructing the definition. What we find with W.J. Cash's The Mind of the South is no different, although it is a pleasant journey. Sparkling with some of the most fluid prose ever found in historical writing, Cash's work deserves recognition for this reason alone; yet there is value in the exposition itself, even if it forgets a full two-thirds of the South's population in its description (blacks and women). What the modern reader is left with, then, is not so much a description of the "the southern mind" as it is "the white southern male mind." And while Cash's work does not quite apologize for the many neuroses of that mind, it does attempt to explain the effects it has had on our perception of the American South, with a small dash of glory added for good measure.

First, it is important for us to take into account the wonderful introduction to the work by Bertram Wyatt-Brown. Wyatt-Brown shows that Cash's battle with depression was a salient part in understanding his interpretation of the South, as was his upbringing. Wyatt-Brown seems to agree with my assessment on the Insider/Outsider effect:

"The origins of Cash's interpretation of his culture and region lay not only in the objective fact of Southern intransigence about issues of race and change, but in the very makeup of his mind. Like so many creative depressives, he stood apart from the society around him. Such a position of detachment can provide a special angle of vision that those immersed in society cannot obtain (Cash xxvii)."

Wyatt-Brown, with this statement, makes Cash an outside-Insider, by virtue of his being a manic depressive. He is a southerner, and therefore capable of the same preconceptions of his own people as any southerner; however, according to Wyatt-Brown, by reason of his mental condition, he is elevated away from this status and into a new status altogether, a presumably better one. I would agree with this, if the work itself is to be taken as proof. Cash is capable of wonderful insights into his own culture and society. However - and this is crucial! - we must not gloss over the fact that by omitting women and blacks from his work, Cash loses some credibility. It is here, it seems, that Cash could not escape the Insider mentality.

This work is characterized by one over-arching theme: southern culture, though as elusive in most respects as any other, is penetrated throughout with one defining and collective temperament. In essence, this work is interpretative rather than linear, as it attempts to analyze rather than delineate. This elevates Cash from the traditional historian (in the mold of Clement Eaton) to sociologist or social commentator (in the mold of David Halberstam). That is not to say that Cash does not know his history or pilfers it from others; it seems impossible after reading The Mind of the South for one to imagine Cash using such smooth language while pulling facts from anywhere outside his own mind. The disjointed quality usually apparent in any attempt to fuse sources without an overall voice is thankfully absent. Cash is who we hear while we read, and it is his elucidative brush-strokes that paint the image of the Southerner.

Much is left out of this short review of Cash's work, as brevity is a consideration. A more complex examination of the work would require many more words than I have time for at the moment. But I do feel obligated to at least sum up the trajectory of Cash's masterpiece. The first few chapters lay the groundwork for Cash's southern temperament - individualistic, violent, quasi-aristocratic, provincial, just to name a few - while the remainder of the work displays the evolution of that temperament while it is worked upon by forces both outside it and from within, and its own natural need to adapt. The Yankee plays his part, as does Uncle Tom and the fugitive slave, the southern belle and the Garrison abolitionist, the carpet-bagger and the scalawag, the confederate soldier and the lynch mob, the fire-eater and the bible-thumping revivalist. It is impossible for any society to exist in a vacuum, or as a prehistoric insect preserved in amber. That being said, it is still remarkable that the American south came as close as it did.

What makes the South unique as a region has virtually disappeared since this book was researched and written. What Cash describes is what made the South unique to begin with -- its blend of agrarian culture, 18th century British cavalier society, and Scottish individualism. As Cash writes, "the Southern world, you will remember, was basically an extremely uncomplex, unvaried and unchanging one." How the South approached the complexities of the modern era, and dealt with the ideas of industrialization and multiculturalism, is not his focus. Certainly the book should be read in the context of its times (America had yet to enter World War II) and with the realization that much has changed since then. His book is not an apology, nor is he blind to the clash of racial and social issues that the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction left unresolved, either. The fact that Cash's work has been vilified and re-evaluated over many years, even by the reviews here, is an indication that the concepts and issues he described more than sixty years ago are still debated today -- a true picture of the mind of the South in the 21st century.

For Boomer aged Southerners, there was no formal Southern history. At school you got Yankee cant; at home you got Lost Cause and Jim Crow. That doesn't fit the Chamber of Commerce image of cities too busy to hate, but that was the reality for all but the most miniscule minority of white Southerners. Through public school and college in The South, I never had a word from Southern thinkers with the minor exception of Faulkner - not much of a thinker, but a good describer.
Cash was my introduction to Southern intellectual history, and by the time I found him I was far from the South in both space and time. I can feel Cash in my very bones; a dose of Tom Watson populism, a dose of Mencken's cynicism, and a whole bunch of the self-loathing that a defeated and impoverished people wore like tattered old clothes every day. Some neo-Southerners call Cash a South-hater, but they miss the point; Cash wanted desperately to love The South, but could find little to love except myth. You get much the same with Woodward, though in finer clothes. "Strange Career" is nothing but myth, yet it propelled Woodward to the heights of the Academy. The key to both these books is that they are Yankee approved mythology. The publishing houses are not on Peachtree Street, they are on 5th Avenue. For anyone wishing to begin exploration of Southern thought, Cash, the Nashville Agrarians, and Strange Career are the places to start. If you go no further, you won't know anything about The South, but to go further, you must start here.

W. J. Cash is hard to pin down. Liberals, from C. Vann Woodward to Nell Painter, seem to have little use for him. Conservatives, like Donald Davidson and the other Southern agrarians, also had little use for Cash. Yet Cash's book is still in print and being read sixty five years after his suicide. There are reasons for this. First there is the unique Cash style. In his excellent introduction, Bertram Wyatt-Brown advises the reader to imagine Cash as a country lawyer presenting a case in court or perhaps sitting in the town square swapping stories with friends. There is much merit to this advice. Cash's style is often folksy, sometimes sarcastic and, at other times, completely his own as he summons unique and usually spot on phrases to describe aspects of Southern culture. Cash is a product of his time though he does not spend that much time on the Old South and rather focuses his energy on "The Frontier the Yankee Made." But do not think Cash is an old South apologist. He has little use for the hagiographic tradition of the Dunning school or the Nashville circle of Agrarians and his book clearly reflects it.

But Cash is no traditional liberal either. He was a man of his time and place as is shown in his comments on race on gender. Cash clearly feels that continuity was the chief hallmark of the Southern past and shows it again and again, from the planters leading the "man at the center" in the Old South to the lack of success of the labor movement in the 20's and 30's.

Cash's interests as a newspaperman are also reflected in his book. Cash handled book reviews and foreign affairs editorials during his tenure at The Charlotte News. His comments on authors and books remain some of the more interesting and lively parts of his magnum opus. The threat of tyranny, which Cash wrote about in great length in his columns, was on Cash's mind as he wrote the book as can clearly be seen in the last pages.

If somewhat dated, Cash's book remains one of the most interesting and controversial looks at the South. While often critical of his home region, Cash remains very attached to it and its virtues. Above all, Cash believed in the South as a unique and interesting region. In this age of mass communications and moving around the country, Southerners looking to understand their region before its completely submerged into a common culture should look at Cash. For if the South is to survive, it will not be a sense of place, it will be a sense of mind. In an era when we can order the same food, listen to the same music, watch the same television in Asheville, Oak Park, Denver and Trenton, Cash may be more important than ever to Southern survival.

Cash ultimately committed suicide because he was torn between (and fell between the stools of) a) critiquing his beloved South, and b) defending his beloved South.

On balance, I think he makes excellent. insightful, and SUPERB points!
At a minimum, he establishes that only Southern men are real men.

(And all the Yankees are tutti-frutti's!)

I bought this book, but was somewhat disappointed with the format. There were still a lot of photographs of Balenciaga's and Ghesquere's designs, which I liked. However, the text was rather clinical and chronologically formatted. The format was almost scrapbook like, and the quality of paper was akin to thick newspaper with too many black and white photos. I would have appreciated a decent quality paper, sharper photographs, and a more engaging text. Unlike the other reviewers, I liked a lot of Nicholas Ghesquere's work, since it was less structured and assymetrical, whereas Balenciaga's work was a bit too architectural.

This book is good if you are interested in contemporary reviews of Balenciaga shows and information about the house and the designer. But it is not as well illustrated as I might have wished. For fashion retrospective books such as this, I want hundreds of clear color photos of garments! I am not as interested in reading about fashion as I am in looking at it. At the risk of sounding like a kid who can't read, this book has too much text and not enough pictures.

A beautiful history of the great Balenciaga. His work was wonderful.

A true artist and a fine gentlemen.

As a history of Cristobal Balenciaga, the founder of the original Balenciaga house of haute couture, this volume is quite good in its informative and studied approach to the origins and success of M. Balenciaga. However, as an exhibition catalog it is, in a word, worthless. Nowhere in its 227 pages does it show any of the creations displayed in the Parisian exhibition. All associated with this publication should be ashamed for offering this as an exhibition catalog and should have paid heed to such genuine exhibition catalogs as The Philadelphia Museum of Art's 2003 Shocking! The Art and Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli by Dilys Blum (at this juncture the absolute gold standard for Costume exhibition catalogs) or The Costume Institute's 1996 Christian Dior by Richard Martin and Harold Koda. Ms. Blum accomplishes what Balenciaga is unable to accomplish, the mix of history within the context of a present reality. By this I mean, she offers the reader a detailed, exciting read by supporting her text with specially commissioned photographic examples of the creations actually displayed at her museum during the exhibition. For me, such exhibitions are marvelous, as one is afforded to see just how certain creations have weathered the storm of time, something not afforded in the Balenciaga catalog.

Also, while I grasp the marketing reason behind this particular catalog, it should be pointed-out that Balenciaga, as it exists today, is no longer a house of haute couture, but a resurrected brand of ready-to-wear apparel. Anyone viewing the original creations of M. Balenciaga should be able to see at once, how ill-suited is Nicolas Ghesquière to be passed-off as the torch bearer of Cristobal Balenciaga. It's perfectly horrendous to view page after page of M. Balenciaga's exquisite creations to then be faced with the ugliness of M. Ghesquière's.

This gigantic book by Pamela Golbin (author of the excellent overview "Fashion Designers") really tells the story of two houses of Balenciaga - the original, helmed by the great Cristobal Balenciaga, and the modern-day couturier. I'm not a huge fan of the 2000's Balenciaga lines, so I won't say much about them here - though, in all truth, this book does cover modern-day Balenciaga quite thoroughly for anyone who's interested.

The real heart of the book for vintage-fashion mavens, however, is the first half of the book, detailing the work of the illustrious Senor Balenciaga. The gentleman was probably the finest designer of the "New Look" era after M. Dior himself, and worked for much longer than Dior did. He excelled particularly, in my own opinion, at lush, silken, flowing gowns, which are copiously - and beautifully - detailed here. It's all here; biographical information, design sketches, behind-the-scenes photographs, catwalk shots. If you've been having trouble finding Marie-Andree Jouve's huge (and very expensive) Balenciaga retrospective, this is a perfect way to satisfy your desires!

Jessica Mitford leaves no headstone unturned in this exploration of the American funeral industry. Not only is it interesting as a study of funeral practices, but it also offers insights into business psychology, marketing, and sociology. Mitford's style is piercing and humorous (The chapter about emblaming often made me laugh out loud!) while remaining very respectful of the deceased and their loved ones. Classics are never out of date -- and The American Way of Death is a classic.

Ms. Mitford does a wonderful job of presenting details about the funeral industry. Published in 1963, this book is even more relevant today than ever. It causes one to look at the American view of death. Our society is one of fear and consumption, and there is nothing we fear more than death. This is a great read for anyone considering a job in the helping professions. We highly recommend it.

Mitford is an able observer who chronciles the psychological vampirism and crass profiteering of the funeral industries in America. The observationed recorded in this book in 1963 are still true today in 2005. Recently my own state was forced to pass a law barring cemetaries from "graveside solicitations"--the disgusting practice of trying to drum up business from vulnerable people in mourning while they are visiting the grave of a loved one. That such depolrable practices even require state intervention speaks volumes about the depth of pitiless greed that motivates this industry. Also implied in this premise is the fact that the funeral industry goes largely unscrutinized due to the American public's reticience in openly addressing matters of death and dying. This flaw in our culture has given the funeral industry enormous power to charge fees that are grossly disproportionate to the services they render. In addition, this industry has suceeded in fooling the public to believe that embalming is environmentally safe, and necessary for hiegenic reasons or able to preserve corpses indefinately.

I know first hand the revelations in this book are not out of date. As part of a death studies class I went to a local funeral home on a tour. The undertakers openly bragged about manipulating their clients and their price list clearly showed that their least expensive funeral service (without cremation)would cost nearly the same as two year's worth of college courses!

Probably the most fascinating insight to result from this book is how little our culture has changed since then, how Americans still seem to be ignorant of funeral industry sales tactics and how the industry of the dead still results in exploitation of the living.

while mitford claimed that funeral directors prey on and profit from the grief of survivors, she, like most so-called muckrakers, preyed on and profited from the fears of ignorant consumers who would believe anything in print. she was an anti-business communist and proud of it. i have no issue with that. i have issue, however, with the fact that she employed her own political and economic beliefs in the service of scandalizing and vilifying an entire industry, which by and large is populated with good, hard-working individuals who provide a service that very few would be willing to provide. her anti-business rhetoric works only because death itself is a sensitive subject. so, naturally, to make a living providing a funeral service is considered taking advantage of greiving people. interesting. do your local grocers -- or your local supermarkets that are owned by large multinational corporations -- take advantage of you when they make livings off of your need to eat? aren't they exploiting the needs of those who would otherwise starve? see this for what it is: communist, anti-business rhetoric built into a muckraking style of jourmalism that can only be seen as the predecessor of our ridiculous nightly news and their scare tactics: "next on your local news . . . ten things in your kitchen that can kill you!" read it with the same skepticism with which it was supposedly written.

Jessica Mitford leaves no headstone unturned in this exploration of the American funeral industry. Not only is it interesting as a study of funeral practices, but it also offers insights into business psychology, marketing, and sociology. Mitford's style is piercing and humorous (the chapter about emblaming often made me laugh out loud) while remaining very respectful of the deceased and their loved ones. Classics are never out of date -- and The American Way of Death is a classic.

It's way beyond disconcerting having to read a reactionary hack like Stanley Crouch sneak his introduction into a book like Harold Cruse's "Crisis of a the Negro Intellectual". In trying to co-op and explain away the radical thought Cruse exemplifies, Crouch comes off as an interloper trying to mute the legacy of an independent intellectual giant.

I prefer any version of this classic other than this latest New York Review of Books printing which gives an unoriginal literary lemur like Crouch free reign to propagandize his views into legitimacy. Get your hands on an "Apollo Edition" or the version published by "Quill"!! Stanley Crouch could easily find a home for his essay in the neo-liberal journal of his choice, but including his introduction as part of the book itself is a travesty. It's the intellectual equivalent of having had Martin Luther King Jr. write the introduction to Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth."

Many people have siad this book was a black in black prose. Unfortunately, this book missed so many aspects which added to the Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. Cruse focused basically on Harlem whne most who know anything about black culture know that communities in Atlanta, Wilmington, NC ,and Tulsa, OK were just as if not more prosperous than Harlem. He never even mentioned those communities. People like General Benjamin Davis deserved many more pages than someone like Lorriane Hanesberry. To think of Negro intellectuals and not to mention people like Bayard Rustin or Charles Hamilton Houston is atrocious. I agreed with the fact that the movements must be social, political, and economic all at once. Conversely, he didn't mention the Negro leagues were all black and one of the largest businesses in black America. In addition, the race riots that killed off economic progress in Tulsa and Wilmington(Wilmington even had a powerful black influence in city politics). His book is over 560 pages full of holes because with all his pessimism he barely mention how blacks actually did but his doctrines of belief into use.

In this sparwling 500 page book, Cruse lays out his polemics against the Civil Rights movement for ignoring the economic issues that plagued us then and now,acusses black artists for betraying their own cultural gifts to gain wider credibility and lays down the basic ethos of American captialist life.. Every racial group for themselves. And on top of that goes first after black ministers who were more concerned about their own power than uplifting American- Americans and Norman Podhoretz practically calling him a fascist (he is) and the scared cow of all... Saying the so-called Black- Jewish alliance was a sham seeing all this by 1967. Unlike Black intellectuals of today, Cruse spares no one institution in American life in one of the great books in American Thought.



This one book I read 10 years ago along with the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" changed my life and committed me to a life of reading and seeking truth wherever it led me.Cruse who died last year, was America's last great intellectual unlike those today who appear on C-SPAN, Fox and other news outlets being "pop intellectuals" Cruse was searching for truth and solutions in the lives of African- Americans and for that we should be grateful.

after 11 years, i finally got around to reading this book....what i liked about it was cruse put it bluntly that the main job of the negro intellectual/artist was not to be a politician unless they were a politician of culture..at times, it seemed that they book was a 500+ page advertisement for the communist party...i didn't realize that so many blacks were marxists....i found the segments of the books where he revealed the shortcomings of paulrobeson as a leader and lorraine hansbury's unwiillingness to write black plays interesting....he also get into detail about the black arts movement, and it's leader, leroi jones. the only complaint i have about books like this is that sometimes reading them feels like your dragging around a ball and chain....but the subjects rewarded my patience...this is a good place to start for the beginning black intellectual...

I don't think Black people can ever have a real conversation about unity until they read this book. Especially the chapter called 'Idealogy in Black'. The book is extremely honest about West Indian, African and African American behavior towards each other which ultimately leads to implosion. He covers everything, The Harlem Renaissance, Communism and many other critical topics but I think his thoughts on why Black movements fail (internal strife/lack of cultural, political and economic direction) are dead on.

The book repeats lots of things. Its not well written. Don't buy this book. You will fall sick reading this in a few days.

this book was the recommended textbook for parallel architecture course which i took, it is a great book,since it covers the latest fields in parallel computers.But too difficult for a beginner, cause topics are explained in an advanced way, assuming a previous knowledge in parallel processing subjects.I find it more suitable for graduate or profissionals in this field rather than undergraduate students.

I guest lecture in a graduate level architecture course, and I always enjoy using this book as reference material when I want to lecture on cache coherency. This book is written from the correct perspective that obtaining parallelism is not easy, and so most of the book is spent on the various issues that come up when building a parallel machine. It is probably a good idea to read this book if you want to write parallel code, or if you just want to know why large scale supercomputers are not in wide use today.

Previous uniprocessor architecture knowledge is required for the more interesting chapters. Thus, this book acts as a nice sequel to Henessey and Patterson.

I have read this book and its a very good book which explains all the details ranging from cache architecture to the basics of parallel computer programming. I have not seen any book that talks in detail about SMP and cc-numa.

I think the book is not especially well written. Sentences
are long and in some cases unprecise or directly wrong.

The book often does often not provide sharp and good definitions and
it is not easy to extract the information contents, compared to many other books within this or related fields,
for an example "Computer Architecture and Parallel Processing"
by Hwang and Briggs, or books by M. Morris Mano.

Dealing with an unbelievable 120 mega-watt/sec discharge - even though its only 250 nSEC wide - generates EMI issues way beyond anything I have ever had to deal with. As a result I have looked for technical help anywhere I can find it. The "EMI Troubleshooting Techniques" book is written in a very easy to understand and apply hands on format, much more for practical application than theoritical. It contains sound ideas and methods and is a useful book when working on EMI/RFI problems. I would buy it again, even though it doesn't have a chapter on 120 mega-watt noise sources (LOL)

If you're in my situation, I do not recommend this book. I have been in electronics for about 10 years, but never had to deal with EMI issues. I switched jobs and had to (and still have to) learn EMI in a hurry.

I found the drawings hard to understand and the tables lacking explanation. I can't expand much because I typically got lost early in each chapter. I learned more on how solve my immediate problem from the Fair-Rite web site.

After struggling through the book, I realize that I need more of an introductory book to EMI with practical solutions. Any suggestions are welcome.

This book is by no means the definitive guide to EMC. The advance reader seeking such a book should consult Clayton's R. Paul book (Intro {yea right} to EMC). Nonetheless, for what it is, it is outstanding. The author covers in a general and simplified format a wide array of topics. What I most liked about the book was that the author address installations and other non-PCB related EMI issues. Basically, issues not covered by similar books that have a tendency to address only the PCB and its related IO.

This is a great, practical guide to EMI testing and troubleshooting. Includes basic fixes, utility of those fixes to resolve observed issue(s), and estimates regarding the improvement those fixes might provide. It also includes a section on in-house, "confidence" testing (without shelling out for test chamber and all of the expensive test equipment... though you'll still need some)

My background - BSEE, 15 yrs commercial and military experience. I think the text would be especially useful for Test, EMI and project engineers. It avoids deep derivation of formulae and would be useful to technicians and designers as well.

First-rate analysis of the dynamics of power in the shaping of an American city. The analysis benefits from the specificity of having choosen a single city: New Haven, CT. But the results of the analysis would be enlightening to the process of understanding the function of power in any community. The scholarship is of the highest quality; the discussion is insightful and thought-provoking. A great resource for those aspiring to shape/influence direction of community growth.

This book continues to be the best example of an application of "Decisional Method" research on Community Power which tends to yield an answer of Pluralism in the way New Haven Connecticut was governed.

Now, how much Dahl's results matter to you is another case--many believe his results are faulty due to the use of the Decisional method. The method itself is considered to be of limited use. The polar opposite of this book is Floyd Hunter's (1953) "Community Power Structure." Hunter used a "Positional" method and determined that the elite govern in Atlanta.

Dahl's book is good for what it is, but it is not what experts on local political power believe now. To get a well-rounded education on local political power, read Hunter. To get up-to-date, read Stone (1989) Regime Politics (used Decisional and positional approaches together), and read Logan and Molotch (1987) Urban Fortunes. [Revised edition] 2007.

another well done piece by dahl. he brings you into the everyday runnings of an american city and lets people see how politics can run and ruin everything.

A good look at Botero's work. The experience with Amazon was another story. Book arrived damaged and Amazon's customer service is pretty awful. It is impossible to speak to a customer service rep and when I tried to return the book, their web site would not allow me to code the book as a personal purchase, only as a "gift", so I had to find something else I wanted to use their amazon "credit" for since they did not permit me to receive a cash or charge card credit. Again, it is impossible to email or call anyone at amazon. Therefore, this is a good book, so if you want it, it would be a good idea to buy it somewhere else, like [...], which is probably cheaper and at least they care if you have a problem.

Most important in such a book is that the reproductions are well done and these are. Excellent reproductions of Botero's masterful paintings, drawings, and sculptures. If you aren't able to see the exhibit firsthand, the catalogue is not a bad substitute. The text is interesting and succinctly written. Even the orange ribbon page-marker is a nice touch. This luscious book is a shining example of what an art catalogue should be.