EE Books

Even if you decide not to seek Java Developer Certification you owe it to yourself to read this one. You won't find any better coverage of threads and RMI anywhere.

The SCJD assignments are somewhat vague and misleading. While part of the exercise is to work through imperfect requirements (as those you will find in the real world), a good set of 'must' requirements needs to be met. The Sun Certified Java Developer Exam with J2SE 5 book fills in the gaps for common questions a SCJD candidate may have on areas such as packaging, logging and Javadoc. More importantly, the authors walk through a sample project detailing key areas of importance to your SCJD assignment; including RMI, Sockets, serialization, Swing, threads, design patterns, value/transfer objects and more.

If you are going to do the SCJD assignment, you should purchase this book. You will find yourself developing the assignment the 'right' way and you will also find yourself working many of the author's suggestions into your workplace.

The code for the sample project is provided online for reference purposes.

Most of the time people who are preparing for SCJD will buy this book but it is good beyond that. Second edition give you practical example on actual project. It is kind of parallel to what you are doing in SCJD. Author is active member on javaranch and gives very useful tips to all post in SCJD forum. I think people who want to improve Java skills on application side should look into this book as well.

I am using it for SCJD exam. Good luck to all.

This book gives you all information you are serching for to start your project. This is one of the best book available right now for Developer exam

It is one of the best books on latest version of SCJD J2SE5. It gives you insight of project and way to complete your SCJD project with confidence. You should buy if you are preparing for SCJD like me.

This is a very good story about a woman of 40 with 2 grown children who has to face the totally unexpected adulteries of her husband. She tries to go on but winds up escaping to a small island in Scotland on the pretext of looking for long lost ancestors based on love letters left to her by an aunt. Her story is heart rending.

There she meets a wonderful man with emotional bruises of his own. And their relationship grows slowly to love.

The problem I have with this book, and the reason I will never re-read it, is twofold. It is far too wordy; I found myself skimming the bothersome Gaelic dialog, for which there is almost no help with pronunciations and not enough help with translations, and pages of minutia that had maybe one or two sentences pertinent to the story. And secondly, there is no way for me to get past the way Jean boinked her soon-to-be-ex, after promising her love and betrothal to Darroch, and not just once, but twice. After that paragraph I threw the book across the room.

I did finally retrieve it from behind the couch and finish it. The author tried to reconcile Jean's lapse but I just couldn't buy it. And yes, it had a, quote, happy ending, unquote, but Jean did soooo NOT deserve Darroch, who did not screw around on anyone he loved.

After reading Diana Gabaldons 6 Outlander novels,which completely engrossed me,I came across this book while searching for more Scottish related novels while I eagerly await Gabaldons 7th novel in the Jamie & Claire saga.I gotta say;I REALLY enjoyed this novel and I am waiting excitedly for the next three to come in the mail!
I specifically enjoyed the calmness of this story.As much as I was(am)enthralled with Gabaldon's novels-sometimes the adrenalin rushes it gave me were just too much!!There's no time travel involved (which I personally love)and the story is a little less complicated,but it contained beautifully written scenery,great love,smokin'hot sexy romps lots of scottish lore and language.I'm not Scottish,or even decended from a Scott(that I know of)but I found out that I love reading about them and their lovley language,country,customs etc.
The only thing I kind of missed in this book was reading in a scottish accent.Other than the Gaelic phrases,the charachters speak in pretty straight english.(I crack up when I read books with a scottish accent!)
Great book!Get it!Read it.I enjoyed it- I think you will too!

Caledoniphiles, alert! You have a treat in store. Scotch whisky, Scottish scenery, romantic history, rugged island landscapes, plenty of the Gaelic (with helpful glossary,) Scottish music (and musicians, of course,)-- they're all here.

Or rather, they're all on Eilean Dubh, Audrey McClellan's distillation of all that is most attractive and intriguing about Scotland, ancient and modern. Not exactly Brigadoon (no danger of the Gaelic-language preschool melting away!) but definitely a magical place.

At least, so thinks Jean Abbott, a Milwaukeean using geneological research as an excuse to get away from a disintegrating marriage and a life she's outgrown. Fortunately, Eilean Dubh is populated by plenty of wonderful characters, including world-class Scottish folk musicians, gourmet chefs/hoteliers, the descendents of island crofters and fisherfolk working valiantly to revive the lifestyle with the aid of modern co-ops and a Foundation, etc.

Not the least of the characters Jean encounters is the local-lad-makes-good-in-the-wide-world-and-returns, international television and stage star Darroch Mac an Righ, who also just happens to be the hereditary Laird o' the isle. But don't call him that! His socialist ancestor renounced the title years ago, and the handsome, magnetic Darroch prefers to be just one of the folks.

Plenty of romance, plenty of atmosphere, and plenty of encounters and dilemmas keep Jean busy on the island -- but the life she left behind in Milwaukee forces her to deal with one of the biggest dilemmas of all.

Take this one to the beach, or curl up with it on a rainy afternoon, preferably with a wee dram beside you!

There is a lot in this book: romance with an island, romance with a culture, romance in this century, and romance in past centuries. Westering Home weaves it all together, seen thru the fresh eyes of a Milwaukee housewife who did all the right things, but found her marriage dissolving around her.

Scotland was the remedy for her, and we follow how she discovers the everyday life of the Scots, discovers the glories of their culture, and discovers that she feels totally at home on an island off the Scottish coast. The book swirls with music and friendship and dance and, most of all, romance.

A sweeping story.

I enjoyed this novel because of the quietness. This isn't the hustle bustle Steel style novel. This is the story of people and their lives. I enjoyed how Jean moved from her grief over her failed marriage to her emotional rebirth on the Island. However I enjoyed all the little details of the village life almost as much. That part reminded me of DE Stevenson, the Scots-English novelist. McClellan has done a very nice job with this book and has written a sequel, The White Rose of Scotland. I even shared the first book at a recent library presentation and several other readers enjoyed it too.

The book was in the new condition described at an excellent price . It aArrived earlier than expected.

Lot's of footnotes and academic prose.
Good if you want a bibliography item on your art history/museum paper.
Otherwise, an achievement in taking an interesting subject and turning it into a boring one. A reasonable number of color plates but unremarkable as they (mostly) have the same values--that is, tonally, they look too similar.
DS

A great exhibition, a great dealer and a great book. Very well documented, even though Vollard seems to have been very secretive. He certainly was at the right place, at the right time as the book very well shows . He no doubt was an opportunist, but with an eye and a love of art unmatched by his peers. He also invented the art market of his time and certainly deserved such a beautiful tribute.

My daughter was an Art History Minor and had expressed interest in this book. I bought it for her as a holiday gift and she treasures it. Amazon got it to me in time for me to enjoy leafing through it as well. It is extraordinary both in picture and text. It is truly a keepsake.

This book is jammed with fascinating information,gorgeous reproductions and is extremely well priced.Anyone interested in 20th cent.art will welcome this book!

Samuel Huntington's writings have always been incisive and animated by a spirit of the author's stupendous labor and a burning desire to project a true perspective of topics. The Soldier and the State is no exception.

Every human society and for that matter every human civilization have evolved round this single issue of striking a balance between the civilian and the miltary sector and hence the debate rages round key political thoughts like liberalism and realism. This age old riddle is diificult to solve and the lone super power of the new millennium is still searching for an answer to this on a national and international level: whither hard power or soft power?

Huntington's account of civilian and military history is studded with hard facts and comprehensive research works and this makes the book so interesting. He has picked up a topic that he felt from the core of his heart worth discussing.

On a deeper level the issue strikes right into the heart of the American political thought. This is also dealt with in the opening chapter of the undersigned's book : Tracing the Eagle's Orbit.

Professor Huntington is an institution by himself and this topic and this book is a must read for everybody. This would magnetically draw the reader to finish the pages of the book with bated breath and is sure to impact the reader's knowledge on political processes since the dawn of human history.

Gautam Maitra
Author of 'Tracing the Eagle's Orbit: Illuminating Insights into Major US Foreign policies since Independence.'

Incisive and remarkably relevant. Huntington delves into the role of the military in shaping and protecting a society. A MUST read for anyone who is in, or deals with the military.

For anyone interested in military research, this is a must have ... or must have access to. This book (as well as Janowitz: Professional Soldier) continues to be heavily referenced in the literature. It is definately a theory based book - not an easy read at times.

At the time of its original publication in 1957, Samuel Huntington's The Soldier and the State reflected a new age in American history--the Cold War era. Huntington, a young Harvard professor of government, focused on policy problems concerning civilian direction of the military under the terms of the Cold War. Basically, he contended that traditional American liberalism was outdated and in fact had begun to pose a national security danger. Until this era, the absence of an overt military threat to American security allowed for a policy of civilian control of the military compatible with liberal democratic values. Traditionally, liberal solutions to domestic problems had likewise been applied to military problems, frequently resulting in failure.

Huntington offered a theoretical framework for modern civil-military relations. He insisted that liberalism was fundamentally opposed to the proper military ethic; the application of subjective civilian control over the military actually aimed at weakening military professionalism, which was viewed as a threat to democracy, liberalism, and American values. The Cold War, though, required America to keep a large national army during peace time; the army could not return to its traditionally subordinate role. There was perpetual tension between the demands of national security and the values of American liberalism: either American security must be compromised or the influence of liberalism weakened. Only a conservative environment allowed for equilibrium between political influence and the military professionalism that ensured national security. This balance could only be achieved, Huntington argued, by objective civilian control of the military. By maintaining independent spheres of power, with no fusion of civil and military control, national security goals could be maximized with a minimum sacrifice of social values. Objective civilian control allowed for the proper growth of military professionalism while keeping the military a subordinate tool of state policy. The fulcrum of civil-military relations was the relation of the officer corps to the state.

Huntington was successful in presenting the military as inherently conservative and unwarlike. The military prepared for war but never sought such engagement. Huntington encapsulated the premise of the military mindset as conservative realism. This mindset "holds that war is the instrument of politics, that the military are the servants of the statesman, and that civilian control is essential to military professionalism." This military ethic contrasted with the stereotype of the military as dangerously warlike. A weakness of the book is Huntington's description of military trends between the Civil War and the Great War. Huntington argued that the officer corps remained isolated during this period, allowing it to develop a professionalism free of civilian interference. This isolation theory has been largely disproved by pointing to the military's involvement in putting down labor strikes, relations between officers and the business community, etc. This defect should not detract from the importance of this book as a virgin exploration into a comprehensive history of the American military tradition. With its conservative thesis, it remains in my mind the seminal work on civil-military relations.

Everything is bad news if it comes with a deadline that isn't met. This book, THE SOLDIER AND THE STATE: THE THEORY AND POLITICS OF CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS by Samuel P. Huntington, a young Harvard professor in 1957, when the book first appeared, attempted to establish assumptions that would allow respectable consideration of policies that, in our world, might be used to define who we have become. My differences with this book might be ascribed to a theological framework in which this book is seen as having assumed the existence of hell on earth as the situation which people who voiced political aspirations that did not coincide with the prevailing superpower mentality would have to put up with. The famous Winston Churchill once said something about assumptions up with which he would not put, and the success of this book might be measured by how its views are assumed to be the American views in those parts of the world where America as a superpower is most unpopular.

This review is being written in a short window of time in which the rulers of Saudi Arabia, whose success, so far, has been contingent on the opposite of liberal policies (they previously granted religious authorities who were considered the most conservative element within Arabian society a veto power over anything the government might do) are hoping that an American victory in Iraq might allow all American troops to be removed from Saudi Arabia, so that democracy might be granted to the people of Saudi Arabia (at a time when the average age is 15 years old) without fear that the anti-American views of Arabian young people will be the dominating political force determining the shape of the parties who will soon be able to demand more control than their government has ever been able to apply to society. As the situation in Venezuela at the moment illustrates, fights over how much oil is being pumped, and who ought to benefit from the economic miracle that oil provides, can do strange things in a nation with a democracy that attempts to let a majority of the people rule.

Huntington considers America an exception to such class considerations. Though not specifically concerned with the role of Blacks in American society, he assumes that their politics has been entirely liberal in nature. "No nascent group ever developed a radical ideology challenging the established order: it was always too quickly assimilated into that order. . . . Radicalism and conservatism were equally superfluous. Incipient and established groups both adhered to liberalism." (p. 145). The few attempts to establish conservative values in American history were mainly ignored by a society that was exuberantly growing in spite of any ideology which might attempt to exercise some form of control. The early part of the twentieth century had produced few instances in which policy had needed an exit strategy, and any attempt to find one in the index of THE SOLDIER AND THE STATE leads to the following entries:

Expertise, a characteristic of a profession, 8-9; of officership, 11-14

Extirpation, U.S. policy of, 155-156

Even page 154 has a bit on professionalism. As Woodrow Wilson said during World War I, "America has always boasted that she could find men to do anything. She is the prize amateur nation in the world. Germany is the prize professional nation in the world. Now, when it comes to doing new things and doing them well, I will back the amateur against the professional every time." The lure of popularity in a liberal society can easily produce this result. "In domestic politics each liberal group tends to identify the military with its own particular enemies. Without any recognized function in a liberal society and standing outside the ideological consensus, the military have been a universal target group." (p. 154). Extirpation is the name given to such a policy in this book. "Liberalism's injunction to the military has in effect been: conform or die. On the one hand, American liberalism has supported the virtual elimination of all institutions of violence and thus has attempted to do away with the problem of civil-military relations entirely. This is a policy of extirpation. On the other hand, when it has been necessary to maintain armed force, American liberalism has insisted upon a rigorous subjective civilian control, the refashioning of the military institutions along liberal lines so that they lose their peculiarly military characteristics. This is a policy of transmutation." (p. 155). There are no entries in the index for hyperbolic topics like sex, soldiers, or swearing, so there is little opportunity in this book for the ideas which strike me most, considering the unique psychic characteristics of the transmutation of the typical swinging Richard into a short-term ...assassin at Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993, or less notoriously, of any Naval doctor who kept a copy of the Kennedy autopsy photographs at Bethesda Naval Hospital in the ten years after this book first appeared, but I'm convinced that such ideas are within the realm of what is considered conservative in this book. Some people are sick of this kind of thing, and keep projecting its insanity on me, of all people, who tries to keep tying everything to the new direction of American society. I wonder if this makes us the entertainment capital of the world, or what?

Predictions all correct. Writing clear and prophetic. Coming true in vivid detail. Could be instrumental immediately in averting disaster in the West.

That Great Man been constinted his entire life.
What he said in 1975, he repeated in 2005.
The only thing is that this particular product is in a poor condition.

Read this book if you are wondering how polical correctness got this far. He nails the pseudopacifist in their feel good rush from responsibility. I believe he is right in questioning the ethos of the persuit of happiness. What does it mean to be an American? If we have nothing we will die for, don't be suprised when others who do, kill us.

Solzhenitsyn wrote this work at a time when there still was an Iron Curtain and a Cold War. His warning was an effort to somehow reinstill in the West, spiritual values and an awareness of its true duties. The essence of his message was given in his famous Harvard Commencement address,
"If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the President's performance be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism."

This rejection of Western materialism is also for Solzhenitsyn a rejection of what he sees as too great a focus placed on legal rights, on individual happiness, on a freedom to seek after pleasure.
He believes that all this has ' weakened the West' and that it therefore stands threatened by what he believes are the stronger characters of those who have lived in systems of oppression in the East.
This of course has, as we have seen with the fall of the Soviet Union and the threat Solzhenitsyn so feared, proven to be illusory. The people of the former Soviet Union and especially those in Russia and Ukraine have revealed no special powers and skills in confronting the world.
However the warning to the West ironically does have relevance today in relation to the new threat to Civlization, that from Radical Islamic Terrorism. Here there is something to be said about ' the best lacking all conviction and the worst being full of passionate intensity'. I do believe that the internal divisions within the West itself, the kinds of self- defeating trends Solzhenitsyn noticed are still here.
One more point. Solzhenitsyn fell into a certain disfavor after his warning to the West, because many secular liberals who had supported him were dismayed to see that fundamentally and most deeply he was a Russian Orthodox Christian whose view of the world is far from that of post-modern relativists.
My own sense is that Solzhenitsyn somehow missed the special spirit of freedom which is at the heart of American greatness. My sense is that he somehow did not 'get' America.
But his warning is powerful and strong and certainly touches upon many points of weakness there is much to say and think about.
One other point. The great Solzhenitsyn is not the Solzhenitsyn who is making a Warning to the West, or who is as it were being a Prophet of Mankind as a whole. The great Solzhenitsyn is the one who told of the horrific world of suffering which is Archipelag Gulag. In doing that he was one of mankind's great writer- witnesses.

It is a somewhat daunting task to attempt to write an articulate review when Solzhenitsyn is so incredibly articulate himself. Suffice it to say that this book should be required reading for all world citizens, but especially those of us who carry American citizenship. We have much to learn from this book and we have a great deal to offer if we choose to engage.

The book is actually a collection of five speeches given in 1975 and 1976; three in the U.S. and two in the U.K.

There are numerous lessons and insights that are highly relevant. Perhaps a selected quote from the author's last speech provides a glimpse at why this work is so worth reading and contemplating. "We have become hopelessly enmeshed in our slavish worship of all that is pleasant, all that is comfortable, all that is material -- we worship things, we worship products. Will we ever succeed in shaking off this burden, in giving free rein to the spirit that was breathed into us at birth, that spirit which distinguishes us from the animal world."

In an unusual departure from most thrillers, protagonist DS Dennis Milne is a both a cop and a killer. The story starts with Milne assassinating two custom agents and an accountant, not the drug dealers that he was expecting. Years earlier, Milne started walking on the shady side of the law when he helped the brother of a girlfriend out of trouble. With his principles compromised, he starts dishing out his own brand of vigilante justice with a nice cash bonus for his efforts. His conscience does bother him about the three innocent deaths; he normally only kills the bad guys. Milne investigates the death of a young prostitute uncovering not only a web of serial killing and child pornography, but links to his own case.

THE BUSINESS OF DYING explores the darker side of human nature. In Milne, Kernick has created a complex human being; the line between good and bad is hard to define. He is a contradiction, an idealist who doesn�t believe in the death penalty, but is a killer who dispenses his own brand of justice. The story is compelling in its gritty, realistic details of London�s underbelly of society. Solid debut novel from Simon Kernick.

London DS Dennis Milne is assigned to look into the death of an eighteen year old prostitute, Miriam Fox. She was found near a canal with her throat slashed. As Milne investigates, he becomes romantically interested in Carla Graham, manager of the hostel where Miriam lived. However, Carla is much more than she superficially appears to be. Of major concern to him is the ongoing investigation into a purported mob hit against three men- two of whom were custom agents. What worries Milne is that he was the hit man on the three killings. He did it for money but was told the men were hardened criminals who got what they had coming.
Far from the typical British detective novel, Simon Kernick goes for true originality- a detective and a hit man. Kernick manages to pull it off admirably with superb characterizations that possess great depth and feelings. Kernick manages to achieve this by spending great care in the first half of the novel establishing these characters- especially Detective Milne, of course. The second half of the book is a violent tour de force where plot twists and surprises keep the pages turning as fast as possible. There is a great sense of control the author exhibits in plot progression and pacing. The writing style is slick. I cannot imagine he did not know exactly where the story was going. A superb debut.

In England Detective Sergeant Dennis Milne is a tough, dedicated yet sordid and depraved cop who moonlights as a hit man. He takes out the dregs of society for a fee paid by other scum. On his latest non-police assignment, he and his partner kill three nasties and easily escape the scene.

The brass assigns Milne to investigate the triple homicide in which he was the trigger. To his shock he quickly learns that two of the victims were customs employees and the third deceased was an accountant. Realizing he killed the good guys, an angry Milne decides he needs real answers from his clients who apparently double-crossed him. He also is involved in inquiries into the vile murder of a teenage girl. As his criminal employers demand he cool it, his law enforcement associates begin to investigate Milne. He, on the other hand, simply thirsts for revenge against those who set him up, but to cleanse his soul he must find who viciously committed the teen atrocity.

Milne is a complex protagonist who learns that a conscience is a pain in the butt, as he does not mind killing society's lowest residue, but not those he considers decent. The last hit bothers him badly and though he cannot clean the slate he can try to eliminate those who caused this atrocity. THE BUSINESS OF DYING pairs a prime hard boiled detective theme parallel with a police procedure subplot that when they connect the antihero star is caught in the crosshairs.

Harriet Klausner

Simon Kernick has written a fast-paced novel about a good man doing ambiguous things for the right reasons. Sgt. Milne is a detective with the Metropolitan Police, and he supplements his meager income carrying out hits on criminals (as requested and compensated by other criminals). His conscience isn't bothered, especially given some of the bums he's asked to eliminate. After a big hit described in the first chapter, however, our narrator discovers that the victims seem to be honest civil servants. Now, he has to watch his moves carefully as he works with the same police force that is investigating his crime.

All while this is going on, Sgt. Milne is investigating the brutal murder of a street walker--eventually, these two stories converge into a satisfying, action-packed conclusion. Kernick has a nice, wry, and fast-paced style that suits the storyline and the main character. There are even a few laughs! The plot is nicely devised, and a lot of bad people get what's coming to them--although Milne is enforcing a renegade justice, it's quite appealing to see the criminals in this novel pay for their injury to society. Give it a go--you won't be disappointed!

This book offers a highly digestible introduction to how fiction works and tempts the reader with some great exerpts from (modern) classics. It's also a nice opportunity to look at literature through the eyes of a professional, both at studying and practicing writing.

David Lodge states in his introduction, "This is a book for people who prefer to take their Lit. Crit. in small doses," and this, indeed, is an accurate categorization for Lodge's, The Art of Fiction. This is a collection of articles on various topics of writing that he wrote during a stint with the Washington Post. While more experienced writers may find his fifty topics of writing, ranging from quite literally "Beginning[s]" to "Ending[s]" and some "Metafiction" or "Sense of Place" in between, somewhat elementary in their discussion, a beginning writer may find his book more useful.

Lodge is a fan of the classics. This is apparent in his choice to begin each chapter with an excerpt from authors such as Henry James, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce, though more contemporary authors like Martin Amis and Anthony Burgess are slipped in every so often. And arguably, it was a wise choice of Lodge's to use classics as his examples if the beginning writer is his target audience so as to transmit a sense of what is conventional before launching off into magic realism. But be forewarned-Lodge terms his topics "doses" in the introduction as though implying his discussion will provide some sort of cure to the ailing writer-when, in fact, we all know the writing process does not have solutions or cures that suddenly make it easy to sit down and type away for two hours. Roughly three to four pages are devoted to each topic which give the book, as a whole, the feel of "Learning to Write in Twenty-Four Hours." In Lodge's defense, however, he does provide a quick, concise discussion that will serve as both a quick introduction to the beginner and a quick refresher to the more advanced writer.

"Skaz is a rather appealing Russian word used to designate a type of first person narration that has the characteristics of the spoken rather than the written word. In this kind of novel or story, the narrator is a character who refers to himself (or herself) as "I," and addresses the reader as "you." This is the first paragraph after an excerpt from J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and quintessential of Lodge's process throughout the book. He defines the topic to his reader straight and immediately which gives the collection its quick feel. As long as the reader keeps in mind that his definitions are not the be all and end all of the writing topic at hand, this collection of definitions (with a human voice infiltrating the definition) can be useful.

I purchased "The Art of Fiction" as a companion to other reading materials required for a class on Modern American Fiction. This is, as others have described, fairly lightweight in its language and/or depth of treatment. However, this is the book I use most often as a guide when writing short papers & essays. David Lodge is a master at clear and concise commentary. His purpose in this collection is to convey specific literary principles in a precise format (many appeared as newspaper columns). The preface states that this book is for people who like literary criticism in "small doses," and this is meant to be "a book to browse in, and dip into." The format is very convenient, as you can read an entire piece on-the-go, during lunch or in a waiting room. (Some examples of "chapters" are The Unreliable Narrator, The Non-Fiction Novel, Time-Shift, Magic Realism, and Metafiction.) I recommend this book for anyone who loves literature and wants to add more depth to their reading experience.

I discovered this book 3 or 4 years ago and have read it at least three times -- parts of it more often than that. I use it as one of several texts in creative writing workshops. Lodge's essays are witty, engaging and smart, and the brief excerpts at the beginning of each chapter are wonderful for "mirroring" exercises. My students enjoy the book as much as I do, and all seem to learn quite a bit from it.

Three selections from the End of Ideology are worth the price of the book. First, the essay Bell wrote for this latest edition in which he makes a strong case that with the end of ideology, "history" has begun anew. Next, the new introduction he wrote in the mid-70s which discusses the critical reception of this book. Finally, the last chapter of the original book, a masterful history of Marxist thought.

In essay on the resumption of history, Bell clears away much of the underbrush that has grown up around the notion of "global capitalism" by pointing out that the end of empire (and that includes the Soviet Union) and the colonial era has had the largest impact on world politics over the past forty years. The reignition of various ethnic groups whose identities had been suppressed under various Uber states and ideologies is just as important a part of the story. The 1975 introduction is a fascinating refutation of his, mostly Marxist, critics. For instance, C. Wright Mills, the maverick sociologist, apparently came after Bell for his review of Mills' "The Power Elite" (included in "The End of Idelogy"). Bell neatly dissects Mills' both in the essay and in his answer to Mills' criticisms. Bell, the empiricist, is the clear winner in these two rounds. The last chapter on Marxism is worth re-reading and re-reading for Bell knows the subject and the players intimately, as only a former boy Socialist born in New York's Lower East Side could. He explains how Marx's transmutation of Hegel's ideas into "dialectical materialism" set the stage for generations of leftist intellectuals to misinterpret or reinterpret events into Marxist prattle according to their understanding or lack of understanding thereof. It's a post-graduation education on Marxism in 35 dense, but, brilliant pages.

Two juicy chapters on the American "mafia" and the inflation of crime statistics and the stoking of public fear by law enforcement, although somewhat dated contain some remarkable insights: among them that the "mafia," like American business in general had to move from "production" to the "consumption" mode, i.e., turning toward the consumer to make money through gambling, and away from more traditional, less lucrative businesses such as prostitution. These two articles, written when he covered the labor beat for Fortune magazine, still have an edge now, as the same "crime wave" and "mafia" hysteria continue to be generated by the media and law enforcement.

Bell's wide-ranging knowledge, his clear-eyed appraisal of the American scene, his tenacity in trying to discover the real levers of power, are qualities one rarely finds in this era where shouting and sloganeering still suffice -- although much of this now comes not from the left-hand side of the spectrum, but the right.

Read this for graduate American history course.

Daniel Bell's book examines the rhetoric of the "radical right" and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s 1949 book, The Vital Center, which illustrates the burgeoning Cold War political divisions in the U.S. that had come into prominence in the 1950's. Bell explained that the discourse had become polarized into two camps--"hard" and "soft." People were deemed "hard" if they believed that both international and domestic Communism posed a grave threat to the security of the U.S. Conversely, People were deemed "soft" if they believed that the danger from domestic Communism was nil. Although Bell lamented this seemingly amorphous division in U.S. politics, his research proved that conservatives were not the inventors of this new rhetoric. Actually, Schlesinger's book introduced the hard /soft dichotomy in his defense of liberal anti-Communism. This new polarizing language had a gender component to it as well. The analogy was that a hard stand against all forms of Communism was masculine, and that it was feminine and a real danger to the security of the U.S. to be soft on Communism. It was this gender-based language that helped to push Cold War politics to grow more divisive and mean spirited. Thus, the purpose of Bell's book was to identify and explain the: "excessive preoccupation with--and anxiety about--masculinity in early Cold War American politics."

Schlesinger's book, "The Vital Center is habitually cited as a turning point for American liberalism, an unequivocal rejection of extremist politics and an articulation of a new liberal anticommunist political realism." Schlesinger's opening premise was that the industrial revolution put mankind in a state of fear and anxiety, and thus made mankind more apt to turn to utopian and totalitarian forms of government to assuage their fears. Only in the aftermath of the terrible events of WWII were liberals forced to recognize that humankind indeed had the capacity to do evil. This recognition made liberals give up their long held belief in humankind's perfectibility and rationality. Schlesinger realized that the history of appeasing Hitler prior to the war, and the dangers that loomed in making the same mistake with Stalin in the days ahead, made it important to construct a liberal response to Communism that could stand up to the criticism of the political right in America. He wanted to prove that a new liberal doctrine would in fact occupy the vital center in American politics.

He attacked the conservatives for their unwillingness to tackle social reforms during the industrial revolution, and he saw insipid conservative capitalists meeting their responsibilities by hiding behind destructive tariffs and monopolies. Schlesinger observed that historically, conservatives turned their backs on robust men, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill; men who acted masculinity. Instead, conservatives embraced the effeminate Neville Chamberlains of the world, men who traded responsibility for isolationism. Thus, Schlesinger charged conservatives of becoming "impotent" men politically.

On the other hand, Schlesinger ridiculed the progressive left, which he named "Doughfaces," because they were too pliable and "hopelessly and irrevocably feminine." Doughfaces live within utopian beliefs and do not recognize the harsh realities of the world. For Schlesinger, Doughfaces had a genuine concern for the betterment of humankind but could only muster up enough energy to be dreamers and critics; they were not masculine enough to be doers. Thus, "Schlesinger took the progressive's politics as evidence of emotional maladjustment, what the postwar intelligentsia so frequently and indiscriminately called `neurosis.'" Schlesinger's conclusion was that the reconstituted postwar liberal leaders would occupy the vital center politically by proving that they were doers and not just complainers. Schlesinger argued that these new leaders were the only people capable of producing "a secure and restored American masculinity."

Bell astutely concluded that despite "Schlesinger's effort to masculinize the liberal reform tradition...it did not prevent liberals (including Schlesinger himself) from being accused of softness." Bell noted that the hard right's political rhetoric became much cruder and targeted such men as Secretary of State Dean Acheson and presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson as paragons of pompous "eastern establishment liberalism," too soft to stand against the pernicious evils of Communism. Thus, Bell research proved that throughout the 1950's, hard right political leaders such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy successfully put Democrats on the defensive with their accusations that they were soft on Communism and guilty of not working diligently in ferreting out Communists from government agencies. The hard right even had some success in convincing the American public that Communists had a higher propensity than other segments of society to be sexual deviants and homosexuals, and if Democrats were unwilling to go after them hammer and tong, then they must be guilty by association. In the fallout from the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections, the bleeding-heart liberal egghead superseded the image of the pragmatic, educated, manly liberal bureaucrat of earlier years. If Schlesinger and Democrats who believed in his thesis were to prove his point, that liberals were masculine leaders that were hard on Communism, then they would need a new young vigorous standard-bearer to propel their political party to victory in the 1960 presidential election. Thus, for the Democrats John F. Kennedy became not just the incarnation of the virile `vital center' liberal whose template Schlesinger had created ten years earlier, but the antidote to the nation's crisis in masculinity.

As a graduate student in philosophy and history, I recommended this book for anyone interested in American history, foreign policy, Cold War history.

Although first published in 1960, just before a torrent of social change drenched the US and the world, sociologist Daniel Bell's insightful collection of essays comprising "The End of Ideology" still has much to offer, even as the 21st century approaches. From his thoughtful assessment of the apparent failure of European-style socialism in the United States to his vivid description of the numerous psychological strains burdening the average American worker--the latter still sadly true in our current "information age"--Bell believes that the day of traditional airtight ideological solutions and posturing, for all practical purposes, has ended.

According to Bell, much of what sustained the old "urban progressivism" which, despite its flaws, was a force for much positive social change in the US, has largely disappeared. Bell predicted conditions peculiar to American society combined with trends like the steady decline in labor union membership, the steady progress of workplace automation and, even then, the emergence of mass electronic communications would make humans less willing to accept the singular utopian pronouncements of what he called "millennial" movements. Instead, ongoing social fragmentation, diversification and conflict would make coping with major socioeconomic problems along traditional "party" lines unrealistic and self-defeating if not impossible.

Given the persisting belief among many that traditional "government" and its obsolete solutions are failing us and the continued rise, diversification and notable influence of vocal, single-interest splinter groups with considerable access to a variety of powerful communications media--despite their familiar revolutionary noises--it is hard to disagree. There is much Bell couldn't have foreseen given his vantage point at the very end of the placid 1950s, but his perceptive yet readable critique of our traditional way of looking at many of our pressing social issues and our political history still has a compelling, hopeful freshness, its basis being, as in his quoting of Thomas Jefferson, "is that the present belongs to the living."

Bell writes clearly about complex issues. His thesis that the world seems to come to an ' end of ideology'has not really held up in time. We see today a kind of total ideology ' radical Islamic fundamentalism' at the center of conflict throughout the globe. This however does not in my judgment diminish the value or quality of the outstanding individual essays that comprise this volume. One brilliant essay alone on the various Sovietology theories is worth the price of the volume. So many learned analyses were provided to understand the Soviet Union at that time, and so few understood the kind of structural weakness which would lead to its self- disintegration. Bell writes convincingly about diverse problems of the advanced industrial society as it is moving in his understanding from a production to a service economy. The essays written in the fifties often show an excellent understanding of the ' information society ' as it is about to enfold. The main thesis is that the world has come to an age where the great Ideologies no longer hold sway is as I have said challenged by present reality. However the book itself is so rich in ideas and social understanding that one can nonetheless read it with great profit.

This book contains dozens of dinosaurs. All are beautiful and easy to fold. The only (and probably the crucial) disappointments of this book are the following two: almost all models here are not created in one single paper, and most are flat models. But if you do not care about the mainstream rule of origami world---one square, no cut---than this is a pretty good book for intermediate folders.

Most of the models in this book are modular: This means that you make the head and body sections separately and then glue them together. There is also some cutting involved, but only in one or two of the designs.

The benefit of modular origami, is that it is possible to get more detail into the models and these dinosaurs really do look great once they are finished. They are quite easy to adapt, so you can put them in different poses.

Another good thing about this book, is the scale chart at the back. This tells you, in centimetres, which size squares to use if you want to produce dinosaurs that are to scale with one another. So your Veloceraptor won't tower over your T-Rex.

This book has 20 different models of dinosaurs from the Jurassic period. Most of them do require 2 sheets of paper but they are the most realistic dinosaur models I have ever seen. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to make origami dinosaurs.

Lucky me! I was fortunate enough to read this book while the author was looking for a publisher. I found it so utterly delightful, it was an honor to encourage her as she went through all the usual hassles of finding a first publisher.

Ee Lin's own wonderful energy and enthusiasm flows into everything she writes. In real life, she has a wealth of friends from around the world visiting her Manhattan apartment, and her love for people comes through in her marvelous knack for creating funny and interesting characters, people who come alive and don't fit the usual teen-book stereotypes. (Some, I freely admit, are people you love to hate.) She even illustrates her work with her own school-girl art. I'd never be that brave! Not in a million years.

Ee Lin has kept in touch with what it means to be teen far from home and a family she loves. Read her, and you will never imagine that she studied economics at one of the most elite universities in the U.S. and has a demanding job trading stocks and bonds on Wall Street. This is a book about growing up by someone who has been successful at growing up. That's important.

I wish her all the best in life and hope this book isn't her last. She is a joy to read and a joy to know!

I came across this book completely by accident. I caught the word 'kiasu' and being an Indonesian working for Sg company and understand pretty much the culture in Singapore, I was very interested to know what's inside. I bought this and did not regret it. I read it the whole book in one sitting and was very sleepy at work. Hee hee.

The book is basically about the edu system in Sg and the kiasuism of Singaporeans which though in some points admirable, can also be depressing up to a point frightening. Everyone tries to get the best mark, be the best in everything. The Singapore education is expensive, however, it also presents great opportunity for students who have talents and abilities.

The life of students in Sg is described quite vividly. It's funny to read many familiar words or places in the book. Some parts of the books made me laugh out loud too..
Too bad the ending is not very exciting and pretty abrupt. I was expecting some 'closure' to the life of the main character there, but it just ended.

But overall, I would definitely recommend this book to all the prospectus students or students who are studying in Singapore. It's very enlightning and could even be used as a guide on how to live and study in Singapore. Cheers!

"Ee Lin See's sweet personality shows through in her debut novel with a diverse set of characters. I laughed a lot while this book sped by." -Amanda Fields, actress, poet

"I like it a lot - it's like reading someone's journal, but guilt free!!" -David Tang, lawyer

"Wacky, in a good way!" -Javier Vargas, trader

"It's a fascinating insight into a part of the English-speaking world few Americans know anything about." -David Miller, world traveler