Expansion Books

This is a classic analysis text from french mathematician edouard goursat. This books covers topics such as integration, differential equation and multiple integral and etc. The proof are rigorous, and the development of proofs are much more make sense than today's delta-epsilon proofs. You could see the theorems in the book are proved in a much more natural and intellectual way. Of course delta-epsilon could bring you a "rigorous" proof too, but somethimes the development of the proof is just so awkward.

This book for me atleast is a fantastic look at the new collaberation of organized crime on an international level.She starts her investigation with the sicilian clans and their efforts in spearheading the frightening cooperation of a new global mafia.when i started reading this book i couldnt put it down i read it within 10 days claire sterling has taught me things about the russain mafia i could never have known and she has done wonders for my investigations into organized crime. All the major organized crime figures and cans are here with knowledge of what their buisness interests.are in the new internatiional conglomerate that has now become organized crime.also claire tells us in great detail of who is doing what and what their importance is in the brotherhood of inernational organized crime.The pax mafia is no longer mere speculation and with the demise of ussr russia has become a massive breeding ground and a massive target for all the crime organizations throughout the globe and this book gives you a frightening account of what the relationships of the international mafias are to each of the other.A fantastic read and one which opens your eyes to the new world order of organized crime.

Demonweb is the most recent, and sadly last, expansion for the D&D Minis (DDM) game line. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has decided that they are going to be making less random (non-random and semi-random) packs in the future, and while they will contain cards for the 4th edition role-playing game, they will not be making any new cards for the DDM Skirmish game. However, this aside, they are still going to be revising all of the older sets to 2.0 rules, which is nice, but at this point you don't really want to be new to the game (unless you have a group who likes to play casually) because there will be no more support what so ever after Feburary when D&D Experience ends.

Taking that as you will, the product is amazing in almost every way compared to the last two DDM 2.0 sets (Against the Giants and Dungeons of Dread). While the paint jobs and sculps, overall, have not gotten any better, there are some very nice looking and inspiring models. There are 3 "true" dragons in this set, all of which are very attrative and quite usable in the DDM game and in the 4th ed game: The Iron Dragon Prowler, the Black Dragon Lurker, and (my favorite) the Stormrage Blue Dragon. There are two more Dragonborn, which is great for people who want to play in the RPG as a Dragonborn, but they are still both rares (which is bad for people who want to play a dragonborn in the RPG). Sadly, this set has a host of reprints, all of which are very unnessicary: A bearded devil, many more drow, a draegloth, a stirge, a dire bear, and the list goes on and on. I believe that this may have been one of the major causes of the downfall of the DDM line because, really, who needs more and more drow, more and more bears, and so on?

As far as the game and its rules go, this set goes on to clarify the "Dominated" ability and to fix its game balance. Also, the almost undesputed weakest faction, Underdark, gets a massive boost, making it finally competative with the other factions' warbands that hit GenCon this year. Pieces that are of note for their playability are the Thoon Hulk (WOW!), the Stirge, the Soulrider Devil, and the Black Dragon Lurker. Many others in the set help out Underdark a lot, I've not gotten to use enough of the set to tell you all of the good pieces.

Its very sad, because overall, this set is simply amazing. It rebalances the game (in my humble opinion), has unique models (though, as has been the trend, their sculpts and pain jobs are horrible compared to previous sets) and the themes and ideas of the DDM stats are all really fresh and interesting. If you love DDM and like to play with friends and such, I don't need to tell you to pick some of this product up (as I'm sure you've probably done that already). If you are looking to start a new game, this isn't the one to pick up because it is going to officially be a dead game in about 3 months (from this post).

This expansion set is absolutely essential for championship tournaments. The dragonkin dice it contains are brought "free" to the table, in addition to the normal army health-points. Don't go to a game con without it!

The authors explore various possibilities for the future of the nation state. Is it even possible for empires to now exist? Or might nations fragment into ever smaller entities? The book tries to put a long historical perspective on these and other questions. There is reference to the Treaty of Westphalia, which is commonly considered to demarcate the rise of modern Europe as a collection of sovereign states, while prior to it was feudalism.

The future of states is also explored for Africa. With the end of colonialism, existing nations are very young and often subject to deep internal stresses, with civil war being the most extreme of these. This is compared to the countervailing idea of Pan Africa, and its attempted instantiation as the African Union. A huge contrast with the current state of Europe.

This is a fine book if one wishes to understand the impact of Wilberforce, More, [in fact, many more!] and others on England, the new world, and Christianity.

It may appear somewhat dry and overly scholarly to some readers, but it does a fine job of presenting what it intends to discuss as indicated in the title.

The reviewer's only criticism is that it does not reference some of the best U.S. scholarship on the evangelical movement by Dr. William Ringenberg and others.

My great great grandfather wrote this book. So, I am a bit partial. I found this book to be so interesting in some chapters, and a little dry in others. However, to be fair, Charles W. Allen, was the only reporter at Wounded Knee. His reports went directly to the NYT and other papers.

I did find my grandfather's other book, Autobiography of Red Cloud, to be extremely interesting. Not only Red Cloud's stories, but the way my grandfather came about them.

I recommend for information it provided. And eyes into that time in our history.

Samuel Truett's Fugitive Landscapes traces the history of the borderland between Arizona, United States and Sonora, Mexico. Truett divides his analysis into four parts. Part one paints a broad picture spanning from colonial attempts at domestication until the coming of the railroad in the nineteenth century. Part two narrows the focus, switching from a broad, regional scope to a narrower view focusing on the interactions between the state and local inhabitants during the turn of the century. Part three focuses even more narrowly on the narrative of a few men and their attempts and failures at empire building during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Truett states that Fugitive Landscapes "is a forgotten story of failed dreams, of the messy and often unintended consequences of crossing national borders to control nature and people...it is the story of people and places that endured, and why."
Part one offers the narrative of Spanish conquest and a push to secure a continental empire. Truett offers a dualist approach to the narrative. Truett tracks the movements of empire. Spanish missionaries and military governors carved out official spaces on the map of the Sonora/Arizona borderland. Simultaneously, however, unofficial spaces existed: spaces where locals existed despite imperial efforts to bring `civilization' to the `empty' spaces on the map.
Truett begins by looking at the journal of John Russell Bartlett, an ethnographer from New York City who in 1853 set out to survey the new U.S.--Mexican border. What Bartlett found was an empty space--regardless of the fact that many peoples (Yaqui, Opata, Mexican) existed within that space. Bartlett's `empty space' was punctuated by the crumbling remains of prior imperial intrusion. Desecrated catholic missions and crumbling corrals dotted the landscape.
The imperial narrative opens a cyclical history of the region. The Spanish Jesuits and military governors claimed the land in the sixteenth century effectively stealing it from native inhabitants (Apache, Yaqui, and Opata). Imperial and clerical control failed to retain its grasp and--as evidenced by Bartlett's surveyed ruins hundreds of years later--were eventually displaced and reclaimed by locals and nature.
Part two shifts from considering the failure of colonial ventures to the rise of capital interests. Truett traces the shift from expansionism to mercantilism as "Americans were beginning to `value dollars more, and dominion less.'" A new empire desired to tame the wild borderlands for its own ends. Rather than seeking political control, capitalists wanted to enrich themselves from the rich ore veins which riddle the Sonora/Arizona borderlands.
The silver and gold mining moguls worked closely with state officials in Sonora to secure rights to establish transnational links. Telegraph lines, roads, and shipping links to ports were key to ensuring a profit from the mining ventures. Establishing mining empires proved to be as troublesome for companies such as Phelps Dodge as establishing political empire had proven for the Spanish. The borderlands were a `fugitive landscape' which "was distinguished not only by isolation and mobility, but also by lawlessness...not all border crossers sought respectable fortunes. In the early 1880s, a shifting group of outlaws and cattle thieves known as the cow-boys haunted the countryside around Tombstone."
The composition of a `fugitive landscape' is the primary focus of Truett's argument throughout his work. Landscapes are `fugitive' when they are isolated, mobile, lawless, `uncivilized,' and difficult to fix spatially. Both colonial ventures and mining barons faced the same problems of attempting to impose `civilization' and spatial fixity in an area dominated by patterns of mobility and resistance to fixity. New technological innovations--including the railroad, telephone lines, and improved mining/smelting processes--should have increased the capacity for the mining companies to solidify their regional control. However, resistance by labor and indigenous resentment served to undermine these attempts. As part two closes, so do the mines.
Part three further narrows its focus to concentrate on individuals rather than corporations. Emilio Kosterlitzky and William Cornell Greene both sought to bring a renewed order to the region. Greene re-established the dream of successful mining ventures while Kosterlitzky served as a liaison between Mexico (his adopted homeland) and the mining elites. Personal relationships underpinned the imperial venture, yet ultimately Greene's new mining empire fell just as both the Spanish colonial empire and the Phelps Dodge silver empire had fallen.
Truett's overarching claim is that `fugitive landscapes' are resistant to empire. The inherent mobility, independence, and local-centric culture is identified as linked with nature. Empires come and go while the local people, their backwoods trails and migration patterns remain. While relating an interesting--albeit oftentimes fairly lackluster--narrative Truett argues that the cyclical failure of imperial ventures should serve as a caution to the current transnational/global corporations seeking to impose stronger commercial foundations which cross the borderlands. Historically, such ventures have failed again and again.
Truett's analysis contains several troubling elements. Primarily, the overarching narrative, while offering both Mexican and U.S. perspectives, largely recreates Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier mythos in terms of Othering indigenous people. The Yaqui are divided into `peaceful' (those who work for the mines) and `wild' (those who resist both Mexican and U.S. incursion into their historic homeland). Apaches are bandits who threaten both Mexican and U.S. settlers. In fact, Truett points out that one of the binding relations between Mexicans and U.S. mine managers is their shared heritage as `Indian killers.' Both sides of `civilization'--Mexico and the United States--construct their identity through the oppression and displacement of indigenous people.
Overall, Truett's analysis is interesting and thoroughly researched. Truett's ultimate argument would perhaps have a stronger impact had less effort been devoted to meticulously telling a story and more effort been devoted to deeper analysis. Ultimately, however, Fugitive Landscapes offers an interesting insight into the impact of subaltern voices on imperial failures in the borderlands.

This book, although out of print, can be found at some stores, and at many libraries. Therefore, it is still a very useful resource. It is basically broken into 2 parts. The 1st part, about 1/3 of the book, is a breakdown of all the known Germanic tribes, their origins and movements until about the 10th century. This part is not the most in-depth that i have ever read, but it is still very useful for basic information. The 2nd part of the book is about the cultural aspects of the Germanic tribes. It is separated into several parts about clothing, language, religion and much more. This is much more in-depth, but, to me, a little less interesting.
Also, none of the book is really written to be read for enjoyment. It is a pure information resource, and not really light reading. Still, I highly recommend it.

An out of print book that is a great find. Each chapter has a new technique, tip, or method for increasing your awareness of both the world around you and of your inner self. It could be simply listening to everything that surrounds you, or a breathing exercise, or something a bit more advanced. He has a gentle, smooth writing style with great quotes to guide you on your way to enlightenment. He approaches a wide range of subjects, including the nature of time and our perception of it. Some of this will require strong reasoning skills-this is no magic carpet ride! However, he does keep it quite accessible by using non-technical language. Straight out of the 60's, but still a very relevant tool. I highly recommend it.