EE Books

Nana Star and the Moonman is a delightful children's picturebook about Nana Star, who has taken it upon herself to return a homesick baby star to the heavens where he belongs. With the help of the Moonman, who is always watching over her and guiding her even when she can't see him, she comforts the baby star as she returns him to his rightful place in the sky. An accompanying read-aloud CD with a bonus "Nana Star and the Moonman Song" enhance this wonderful children's picturebook with simplistic color illustrations, ideal for bedtime reading.

Nana Star and the Moonman is a charming story that centers on how the Moonman provides comfort and guidance to Nana Star. The watercolor illustrations are distinct, with brilliant colors that bring the story to life. This book contains an audio cd with a reading, as well as the song Nana Star and the Moonman - as sweet as the story itself. Treat yourself and your children to the enchanting vidlit too, free for the viewing at [..]
Nana Star is a little girl who has found a lost baby star and is determined to help the star find his way home to the heavens. The second book in a delightful series, Nana Star and the Moonman begins with Nana Star and the baby star enjoying a day of joyous wonderment with her little friends in the forest, beautiful flowers and a "scrumptious feast of sweet berries". Nana Star and baby star contently fall asleep in the forest, but upon awakening, discover that it has gotten dark and they are alone. Nana Star is scared until she looks up and discovers "there really is a man in the moon"! With gentle reassurance, the Moonman comforts Nana Star and calms her fears, letting her know that he is always there for guidance and support. She now feels safe and secure, ready to continue her important mission of returning the baby star home.
Especially in today's world, our children need to know there is someone watching over them, leading them through life. As with their first book, the authors fortify a delightful story with underlying values and lessons of love. My children and I are very happy to see Nana Star continue on her travels; we will be traveling with her!

John Hicks wrote this, the original classic, of the populist movement. It is easy to read and flows smoothly from page to page. It is very thorough and is the most in-depth book I know of about the Farmers' Alliance. An excellent history! Begin with this classic, then read Goodwyn and McMath and you will have all you ever need on the history of the Populist movement! A must have!

Though little more than a label today, Populism once stood for something specific - a movement of farmers and workers pushing for political and economic change in Gilded Age America. Published over seventy years ago, John Hicks' book remains one of the seminal works on the history of this movement, tracing its origins and following it through to its demise at the end of the century.

One of the keys to understanding the Populists as Hicks sees it is in understanding the role that the American frontier played in America during the late nineteenth century. It was to this vaguely defined, constantly changing area west of the Mississippi that thousands of farmers flocked, setting up farms in the upper and central Midwest. Lured by the massive advertising campaign of the railroads and local promoters, these people came in search of cheap, bountiful land that could be purchased with easy credit.

This massive spurt of growth came to an end with the crop failures of 1887. As the rains disappeared and the land dried up, the price of real estate dropped precipitously. The effects were felt not just in the Midwest, where tens of thousands fled the region, but the South as well. Here, the region was still recovering from the aftermath of the Civil War, with many farmers working as tenants under the crop-lien system, which gave merchants a powerful hold over them. Their resentment of the system added to that of their counterparts in the Midwest, who felt victimized by the economic system. For many, their crops never brought in enough revenue to meet their needs, and blame was increasingly directed at the banks, railroads, and grain elevator operators which seemed to be profiting exorbitantly from their misery.

These farmers sought organization as a solution to their problems. The Farmers' Alliance, a loose organization initially founded in the 1870s, grew as members sought to protect themselves from their economic situation by organizing business cooperatives and pushing to use the power of the government to address their concerns. Though tactics differed - some organized independent political movements, while others sought to take over the dominant political structure from within - by 1890 the separate Midwestern and Southern branches of the Farmer's Alliance were actively involved in politics, enjoying successes that emboldened their membership.

Initially the Alliance sought enactment of a complex "subtreasury" plan of government-managed cooperatives designed to alleviate the farmers' plight, but the constant political obstruction resulted in frustration. Faced with the combined opposition of both the Democratic and Republican parties, many members sought to overcome it by forming a party of their own - the Populist Party. This new party put forward James B. Weaver as presidential candidate, wining six states in the Electoral College and scoring a number of victories in down-ballot races across the country. The depression created by the Panic of 1893 led the party to adopt the "free silver cause," only to be undercut by the Democrats' nomination of William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election. Though signaling the demise of the party, Hicks argues that the Democrats' adoption of many of the Populists' ideas was proof of the ultimate success of the Populist revolt.

Even today Hicks' argument for the origins of Populism must be taken into account when studying the movement. Using the wealth of publications that the Alliance and the Populists produced, as well as other primary and secondary sources, he makes a persuasive case for the importance of the economic background to the movement, one that remains generally accepted today. As such, this book continues to be required reading for any student of American history, though one that needs to be balanced with more current scholarship on the subject.

This book is an invaluable resource for any Java EE architect, or sysadmin working in this environment. It exposes in great detail all aspects of performance tuning and management, providing excellent advice on how to plan, develop and monitor your applications ensuring that they perform as expected.
My favorite parts are the authors approach to application server configuration and JVM heap tuning. A lot of examples with great expert advice, definitely worth it!

This is a one of a kind book. It is the only one that discusses performance maintenance and optimization for all your Java EE applications, from code to servers.

The first section covers processes that you need to have in the full lifecycle of your application. Starting monitoring and performance tuning early on in the process to make it easier to keep your app performing at its best.

The second part covers performance tuning, where to best tune your application for the biggest bang for your buck, from the JVM, first place to tune, to your pooling and other configurations.

The third part covers tuning your production environment, which should be easy, as long as you have statistics already from your development to test server load balancing.

And finally the last part has tips and tricks.

For just the 10 pages on JVM Heap/Garbage Collection and tuning alone is worth the price of the book.

This book should be your single source of performance tuning and monitoring for all Java EE Applications. It is your bible on performance.

Great Book focusing on the "baba nyonya" chinese. Give a refreshing view and angle of the strait chinese. A reminder of historical past to the straits chinese themselves.

Oon Soon Teik

Dr. Khoo has gathered and set to paper an amazing body of knowledge about a little known but vital part of the history of Southeast Asia. The photography and sources alone are more than worth the price of the book. This book is required reading for anyone wishing to have a complete view of the history and dynamics of this region.

Albert Jay Nock was a profound champion of the classical Liberal Arts education which served Western Christendom for centuries. Such "education," as distinct from "training," is for a very small select elite, and runs counter to conventional educational dogma, from John Dewey to No Child Left Behind, where egalitarian ideology masks as pedagogy.

Highly recommended!

In this book, Nock discusses in full length his theory of education in general, and the state of education in the United States in particular. Nock's main objectives are to delineate the differences between education and training and to describe what constitutes true education in his view.

The best review of the book can be found in the introduction, written by his son Francis.
To summarize, Nock's main flaws are his lack of scientific education (he would refer to it as scientific training), and more important, his lack of understanding of the importance of science in societal evolution and progress. It is sad to read a true man of letters like Nock regarding science and technology as unrelated to education.

Nonetheless, Nock's main observation is correct: being a great scientist, physician, or inventor does not preclude one from being an uneducated brute when it comes to the philosophical aspects of life. If you are a member of academia, just look around you and see the veracity of Nock's claims: how many ingenious professors, scientists, researchers, doctors and engineers do you know who are ignoramus nincompoops when it comes to history, philosophy, economics, and political theory?

Despite its flaws, this book is a must read for every person wishing to become truly educated.
As a companion to this book, I recommend Nock's great essays "The disadvantages of being educated" and "The value of useless knowledge".

Mrs. Roosevelt is no doubt one of the greatest women of American history. Her book, TOMORROW IS NOW, is a collection of Mrs. Roosevelt's ideas about our country which are still very prevelent in today's society. I suggest that you read this book.

The ideas which she explores are as relevant today as they were when this book was first published in 1963. While some facts have changed (for example, the Soviet Union no longer existing), the pressures on young people have changed little. She was a strong believer in people taking responsibility for themselves and their world, but realised that certainly at the time of writing the general education of young people was not giving them enough of an opportunity to think for themselves. It would be a safer, kinder world if more people were to take on the ideas presented by Eleanor Roosevelt in this book.

His approach is varied and usually thought provoking. For a former member of the establishment his out spoken views on war and serving in the military came as a surprise.

I had already decided to give this wonderful book to both my father and my mother-in-law for Christmas, when my mother-in-law found it on my reading table after our Thanksgiving dinner. After reading the first several entries, she exclaimed "This is what you can get me for Christmas!"

The book is exhaustive, exhausting, and huge fun. The author, Bart P., has researched yodeling better than any human being in his right mind should, and that statement should tell you a lot about the author. His style is comprehensive, engaging, and humorous, always treating yodeling lovingly but never, _ever_ taking it too seriously.

If you are a yodeling fan you should have already stopped and ordered this book. If you are not one - go ahead and read it - it will turn you into one whether you like it or not.

Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo is the first book to provide an analysis of the art of yodeling as a world-wide phenomenon. From the Swiss mountains to the African Pygmies and beyond, this provides regional surveys of yodeling styles and yodelers, showing that the art has its roots in many countries and throughout the musical world. Add discographies of featured yodelers and you have a lively reference unparalleled in the music industry.

There is no denying the superstar talent of Alla Pugachova, the only true superstar in Russia and the former USSR. Until the mid-1990s, though, most details of her private life existed only in the tabloids. Belyakov went through a painstaking process to gather the real facts about Pugachova's life, both on and off the stage, highlighting both triumps and scandals, in this book, which can be considered one of Russia's first-ever unauthorized biographies of such a powerful and beloved figure in Russian society.

James Bryce's "The American Commonwealth" is a basic text of American government and politics, one of three such texts, the others being Hamilton, Madison, and Jay The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics), and de Tocqueville Democracy In America (Complete). These three works, two by foreigners, form the groundwork of a basic understanding of the American system of government. Such an understanding is basic to good citizenship. The lack of such an understanding is sadly demonstrated every day by America's journalists, professors, politicians, and average citizens.

Reading Bryce's "Commonwealth" seems a formidable task at the beginning, since it is two volumes with a total of over 1600 pages. Yet once you begin, Lord Bryce's style is so natural, almost conversational, and the material so interesting to anyone with the slightest interest in American history and politics (and shouldn't that include every American citizen?), that it is actually a very easy book to read.

Bryce was Scottish, born in Belfast, Ireland. He became an attorney and a professor of law at Oxford, then a member of Parliament. He was Ambassador to the United States from 1907 to 1913, became a viscount in 1914. He was very well-traveled and well-known in the US, about as well-qualified as anyone could be to write a description of the American form of government. Because of his reputation as a friend of America he had an important influence on the US entry into World War One on the Allied side.

The first volume covers the national and state governments, the second volume covers the party system, public opinion, and various aspects of American political and social life. The first edition was published in 1888, and it was last revised in 1914. Over the years Bryce made many revisions as his observations and knowledge of America broadened and deepened.

Bryce explains exactly how American government works. A listing of some of the more significant chapters will give an idea of the subjects covered:

Chapter 3: The Origins of the Constitution
Chapter 8: Why Great Men are not Chosen President
Chapter 33: The Interpretation of the Constitution
Chapter 34: The Development of the Constitution by Usage
Chapter 53: Political Parties and Their History
Chapter 78: How Public Opinion Rules in America
Chapter 84: The Tyranny of the Majority
Chapter 85: The Fatalism of the Multitude

Of special interest are three appendices. The first is a review by Bryce of the predictions of Hamilton and de Tocqueville. The second is a review of "The American Commonwealth" written in 1889 by Woodrow Wilson when Wilson was a professor of political science at Weslyan University in Connecticut. The third is a review by Lord Acton.

Bryce believed that had the Constitution been put to a popular vote in 1787 it would never have passed. As it was, the only reason the Constitution gained popular support was because of the fear of foreign powers. As Bryce puts it, in the years following the Revolution and the collapse of the Articles of Confederation, Americans felt very vulnerable to foreign intervention:

"The fear of foreign interference, the sense of weakness, both at sea and on land, against the military monarchies of Europe, was constantly before the mind of American statesmen, and made them anxious to secure at all hazards a national government capable of raising an army and navy, and of speaking with authority on behalf of the new republic."

His comments on the relationship between the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the American people are very timely.

Of the Presidency he says, "The president has developed a capacity for becoming, in moments of national peril, something like a Roman dictator."

His description of the development of the political parties is equally timely, and is the best I have ever read.

Some final quotations from Bryce:

"Someone has said that the American government and Constitution are based on the theology of Calvin and the philosophy of Hobbes. This at least is true, that there is a hearty Puritanism in the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of 1787. It is the work of men who believed in original sin, and were resolved to leave open for transgressors no door which they could possibly shut. Compare this spirit with the enthusiastic optimism of the Frenchmen of 1789. It is not merely a difference of race temperaments; it is a difference of fundamental ideas."

He ends on this pessimistic note, echoing Benjamin Franklin:

"To expect any form of words, however weightily conceived, with whatever sanctions enacted, permanently to restrain the passions and interests of men is to expect the impossible. Beyond a certain point, you cannot protect the people against themselves any more than you can, to use a familiar American expression, lift yourself from the ground by your own bootstraps."

Highly recommended in this authoritative and economical edition.