Expansion Books

This book covers the period from 11th to 15th century. It offers a very good and profound summarizing study of the European travellings and discoveries to Asia, Africa and America before Columbus. I, personally, liked it very much for the detailed account given for Asian countries visited by Europeans (for me it was especially Odoricus de Pordenone, that I liked, but I got some new information of Giovanni di Piano Carpini, William Rubruck or Johann Schiltberger). Very interesting is the account about African travels and the American pre-Columbian voyages. There is a numerous summary of literature, but there are no editions of sources in original cited, only English translation. At least the writings in Latin or other European languages should be there. I highly recommend it to anybody who is interested in the Middle Ages and especially the East (the Asian part is the most detailled).

This is quite an interesting collection of historical data concerning Islamic imperialism in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, as taken from both contemporary accounts and historians who subsequently studied the subject.

In both cases, much of the content includes written observations of ther eras' contemporaries, making for very interesting reading, particularly in the case of the excerpts from rare documentation made in places like Timbuktu, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Hindu Kush.

The chief problem with this collection is that it does not fully relate the brutality of the Islamic conquests, although one exception is in the four-page section describing the Ottoman devshirme, that is, the annual child-tribute system that compelled the parts of Christian Europe under Ottoman control to "pay" yearly tribute to their rulers with their very children. These slave boys were then forced to convert to Islam, and to sever all ties to their families and original faith.

The Koran may state that there is no compulsion in religion, but it also certainly encourages the utter subjugation of non-Muslims, and for hundreds of years in Europe, actual practice compelled hundreds of thousands, if not millions of boys, to surrender all but their lives and convert, as this volume attests.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

I recommend this manual because you can easily add a useful and creative technique to your playing. Muted notes (sound) great and really make your licks stand out in funkiness. The many pages or pre exercises are a little boring and repetitive but I you can always intermittently skip to the groove section and learn the easiest ones to keep the course interesting.
The exercises are not difficult but there is a chapter at the end of the book that contains entire arrangements for bass that are worth the challenge.
What a relief: The CD is a "play along" not just a lame demo disc.

This book is a novel, or historical fiction as the long introduction will point out. The author Smith wrote this and had the publishers say it was the journal of Davy Crockett. It isn't. Smith read some books ghost written by Crockett, and then wrote this story in a similar fashion. That being said, it is a good and entertaining read. However, it is not true, so fellow historians beware.
Crockett is a colorful figure in American history. I can't say I know much about him, but this story places him in a very favorable light. The saying much attributed to Crockett about the voters of Tennessee going to hell, but he was going to Texas is one of my favorites. This is a great short read and I much recommend it.

This book is not really meant for beginners. That's not to say that a programmer who is just learning how to write working code will not benefit from this material. On the contrary, the many working examples of useful source code should be valuable to anyone who plans to do serious programming for PCs or PS/2s. Nevertheless, the broader your programming background, the more tools you will have for solving the diverse and exacting problems involved in video programming. In short, this book is what I wish I'd had when I started to program PC video hardware.

It's a door of normalization method. A good introduction!

This book represents a classic in the world of local business retention and expansion programs. While a couple of the chapters are now somewhat dated, the principles remain the same. Persons who are serious about implementing community-based business retention and expansion programs should make this part of their library. The community approach outlined in this book is very different than the "expert" model many economic developers apply in their retention efforts.

What most impressed me in this book is that John L. Evans showed how the Crimean War helped Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, N. N. Muraviev to encroach Amur River inspite of the Treaty of Nerchinsk(1689). Through the Treaty of Aigun(1858), Muraviev gained the left bank of Amur River and the right bank of Ussury River. And the Tsar Alexander II bestowed Muraviev an epithet 'Amurskii' and the title of Count.

Because the Chinese Emperor refused to ratify the Treaty of Aigun, Russia had to strain her diplomatic muscle utilizing Taiping Rebellion and Allied(English-French) invasion of Peking. A young soldier-diplomat, Ignatiev showed tremendous diplomatic skill and succeeded in concluding the Treaty of Peking(1860).

As appendices, there are contents of Treaty of Nerchinsk(1689), Treaty of Aigun(1858), Treaty of Tientsin(1858), Treaty of Peking(1860) ect.

My complaint of this book is that it is too [pricey] even though it is short of 250 pages including appendices and index.

As an avid collector of all things to do with the realms this was a must buy. The book itself is very much in the style of Faiths and Avaters being a weighty tome full of detail but in an easily accesible style. The premise is setting out an underwater campaign setting in the Sea of Fallen Stars complete with individual histories, cultures and new PC races.

As such each part is very well written and thought out but unfortunately the writer tries to do too much within this one product.

I hate to say it but this one occasion when the good old fasioned multiple book boxed set would be handy.

To top it all a few other products are really needed to help round this setting out fully, especially for newbie DM's, the complicated environment will be difficult to play out.

All in all this is a great book if your campaign is looking for something different, however, it needs an experineced DM with plenty of time to flesh out the myriad of ideas contaoned within.

Up there with Faith and Avaters as one of TSR's more thought provoking supplements.

As a US History teacher, I always like to have texts like this one laying around. Kids like to look at the pictures and they always screw up and learn something. =) Even if they only read the subtitles for the pictures.