Exports Books

As it was explained, the book is in really good conditions, it has some highlited sections, but it doesn't affect reading. The price was really good.

Book arrived in excellent condition even though it was cataloged as being used. Prompt delivery - Thank you for making my ordering easy.

Love the book. Informative and well laid out. Arrived in time as noted and at a great price reduction from bookstore prices.

This was the correct book. It arrived in a timely manner. It was very well kept. Thank you

Having used Global Business Today, by the same author, in a prior class, I knew this author to be competent and complete. International Business (7th ed) is a continuation of that same completeness and competence. His writing style is somewhat dry, but he gets the point across. My problem is that Amazon failed to ship the "registration card," required to access online content, along with the supposedly new book. This may have been mishandling on their part. Essentially, if someone purchasing this book also wishes to use the online content, it will now cost an extra $30. A feature that would be free, if the registration card were in the book.

I tried to shop Amazon to save money, but I guess I will get all of my textbooks on campus from now on.

D. Sanford

SHOULDER THE SKY follows NO GRAVES AS YET in a suspenseful family saga of the Reavley family against the horrifying background of World War I, when the British military forces gave their full measure of strength in the mud of Europe.
Chaplain Joseph Reavley, is in the trench with a unit composed of many members from his home area. These men have known each other all their lives and a trust has built among them that breaks the barriers of class and custom until one night in "no-man's land" Joseph discovers the body of a correspondent who main purpose was to destroy the British code of honor. The man was the nephew of a highly respected general and Joe knows he must discover why the man was killed and by whom.
In London, Matthew Reavely of British Intelligence continues his search for the "Peacemaker" who designed the document of surrender without honor and engineered the death of their parents.
Three chapters of backstory in the pen of Anne Perry make interesting reading, while SHOULDER THE SKY moves much faster as events collided and the Army remains unvanquished.
Nash Black, author whose books are available in Kindle editions.
Writing as a Small BusinessSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County Novel

Earlier this year, I returned to the works of long time mystery writer, Anne Perry. I had gotten tired of her earlier series, but there was something about this new work that had caught my eye, and I decided to take this one on.

Set in the harrowing years of World War I, Shoulder the Sky continues the story of the Reavleys, a solidly middle-class English family. In the first book, we had been stricken with the sudden death of the parents, John and Alys, deaths that had turned out to be murders. Now the adult children are struggling along, caught up in the year 1915, and still unraveling the mystery of the Peacemaker.

The eldest, Joseph, is a chaplain in the bloody, filthy trenches of Ypres, doing what he can to help the nameless numbers of soldiers fighting a war that is quickly turning into a stalemate. Brother Matthew is in London serving with the Intelligence services. The youngest child, Judith, has taken on the duties of a VAD -- a Voluntary Aid Dispenser -- driving ambulances and acting as the personal driver for one of the commanding generals, Owen Cullingford. Another daughter, Hannah, is struggling to hold her own small family together while her husband is at sea.

Told mostly through the eyes of Joseph, we get a first hand account of the war between England and Germany, and Joseph's relationships with the men around him. Most intriguing is the one that he has with Sam Weatherall, a major who is running a crew of sappers, men who are digging tunnels towards the German lines, to try and gather intelligence on future attacks. Joseph and Sam have known each other since their days at Cambridge, and they share what few luxuries that they have, hoping that one day soon, they will all get to go home.

The novel opens with the arrival of Eldon Prentice, a brat of a journalist, who is demanding to be taken to the front lines. He makes crass comments about the soldiers, derides a young sapper who has part of his hand taken off by a sniper and accuses him of doing it deliberately, and isn't above using blackmail to get what he wants either. Retrieving bodies after an attack, it's Joseph Reavley finds Prentice dead on the field, head down in a bomb crater. But the writer hasn't been shot -- someone has held him underwater, and everything is pointing towards it being murder, and the killer being someone that Joseph knows. Will the chaplain let it be, or take the route of finding justice, no matter how much it might cost him in mental anguish?

Perry's own viewpoint on pacifism rings throughout the story, but how she does it is what makes the story interesting. She describes the killing fields of Flanders with all of the horrors attached, swarming with the dead, the brutal life in the trenches, filled with disease, sudden attacks, rats, filth and all the rest.

What makes this book work so well is the psychological drama in each of the various characters as they cope with warfare that has become industrialized. Two sequences are particularly wrenching to read -- the gas attacks on the British at Ypres, and the slaughter at Gallipolli. Effective as well is Judith's complicated relationship with General Cullingford -- in the hands of a lesser writer, there would have been a sexual affair, no doubt told in great detail, but Perry doesn't take the easy way out either -- Judith and Cullingford come across as adults, not idiotic teenagers, and that's very refreshing to read.

Those readers who persevere will find this to be rewarding. While the subject matter is certainly grim, and told in language that spares nothing, there are moments when it all fits neatly together. You start to care very much what happens to the characters, and by the end, several truths come home about the nature of friendship and heroism. Perry does this without hyperbole or mawkishness. It's some of the best fiction that I've read about the nature of warfare, and it has me waiting to reading the next book in the series, Angels in the Gloom.

Four stars. Recommended.

I could read Perry's descriptions of a English countryside for hundreds of pages, but I can not say the same about the way she goes on about the emotions the characters are experiencing in this book. When Perry did give descriptions of the horrors of the first World War the book picked up very well, and even the side excursion to Gallipoli was done well. The story does get sidetracked from original murder mystery, but not to a point of no return. The ongoing chase of 'The Peacemaker' still entertains, but his machinations do not seem overly inspired in this book. If the third novel goes the same directions, in terms of exploring the emotional side of the characters, vice historical fiction and mystery I will give up on the series. Instead, I will pick up on the new Arturo Perez-Reverte series sooner then I expected.

In her second book of her World War I series, Shoulder The Sky, Anne Perry delivers another stunning story revolving around the Reavley siblings. The death of a young war correspondent, Eldon Prentice, at first seems to be one of the many casualties of war. Upon closer inspection, Joseph Reavley, a Chaplin working on the front lines in Ypres, suspects Prentice was not a casualty of war, but murdered. Meanwhile Matthew Reavley, a diligent employee of the Secret Intelligence Service, continues to track down the elusive Peacemaker. While the plot line itself is fantastic, it is Perry's ability to paint a vivid picture of life during the war that captivates the reader. Perry is unrelenting in her description of life in the trenches. She has a unique ability to convey the horrors of war, but at the same time express the fierce companionship between the men fighting for what they believe in. Even if the plotline does not interest you, her meticulous research and dramatic presentation of the war effort is well worth the read. I find it hard to believe that after writing so many novels Anne Perry is still able to present us with fresh storylines, incredibly realistic characters and a vivid reconstruction of life during World War I. This is definitely one of Perry's better works.

I am not usually an Anne Perry fan, but this series is wonderful, can't put the books down. I have read all three books in the series, starting with Shoulder the Sky. I can't wait for the next one. I am now an Anne Perry fan.

I thought Mr. Nelson did a wonderful job covering the myriad topics involving Importing / Exporting. He did a WONDERFUL job covering the topic of "How to Obtain Financing"! I never knew there were sooo many sources out there to help. He also did a GREAT job covering and diagramming banking processes like Bankers Acceptances.

I could not believe some of the bad reviews--- did those people read the same book??!! No one person is going to be a panacia for any topic--- but Mr. Nelson comes close! Hats off to him for all the effort, research, and expereice that went into this book..........

I have bought and read the book. And I can say that this book provides great insights to the reader. I recommend it to everybody who wants to gen involved in international business.

I ordered this book knowing absolutely nothing about import/export. This book is great for novices. It does a fine job explaining the many facets of import and export. However, before attempting to start your own import/export business, you will need to do a lot more research. This book attempts to cover a great deal of info in just a few pages. Nelson's book is a great place to start your quest for import/export knowledge.

It has alot of info and facts. But doesn't help you make any decisions. Read: "The Maui CEO" by John Tennant instead.

This is a very good starter book for anyone who is thinking about international trade.

As other reviewers have pointed out it is less than a fully developed novel but a bit more than a short story. For one thing there is only a single character--Jonathan Noel. There is hardly any dialogue, and almost no interaction between Jonathan and any other human. Even the pigeon of the title makes only a cameo appearance. This is a tale of Jonathan's mind, spirit, emotions, and imagination. Jonathan, a committed recluse, goes through a kind of nervous breakdown one morning due to the presence of a pigeon sitting in the hall outside his meager room. Although we are drawn into Jonathan's world and his psychological distress is real for the reader, I find it odd and unbelievable that his nervous breakdown occurs and runs its course in the span of little more than twenty-four hours.

My sense is that The Pigeon is a novel about more than just a lonely man's mind. It is about the Holocaust and the damage that it did and is doing as it's effects ripple down the decades. The story begins, in a flashback, where Jonathan suddenly loses first his mother then his father to the Gestapo, and is then shipped off with his sister to strange relatives. His desolate life is a result of the psychological damage from these childhood events. Seeing the story as metaphor for the damage to Germany and Europe in general engendered by the Holocaust is not too far-fetched. Another deep and disturbing (and lengthy, truly a novel) about the personal damage done to Holocaust survivors is The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. Damage to minds and hearts ripples from the center of such cataclysmic events and continues to ripple. This is the underlying text of The Pigeon.

I read the original German edition. I only checked the translation by John E. Woods sporadically, but it appears to be excellent. Süskind writes simple, clear, direct German. For those who enjoy reading German, or want to tune-up their German, I recommend reading Die Taube.

After a rocky childhood as a result of World War II, Jonathan Noel had a good two decades of plain existence. He has been renting a room for that time and even though he does not even have a private bathroom he has decided to buy it. He works as doorman at a bank and day after day he follows the exact same schedule. But now that he is in his fifties, things are about to change.

One Friday morning in the month of August 1984, while he was on his way to the bathroom, Jonathan sees a pigeon outside the door of his room and goes into panic. He is afraid that pigeons will overtake the apartment and he does not dare kill it. The pigeon causes a revolution in the main character's life that is baffling, but the metaphor is hard to miss. Jonathan embarks in a series of crazy plans to evade the object that causes his strain, going as far as moving into a hotel, even though he cannot afford it.

Once more Suskind shows his ability for delving into the psyche of his characters and providing his readers with awesome insight. When we add to this author's writing ability to the mix, the result is more than satisfactory. This book in particular reminded me of the works of my favorite writer, Dostoevsky, since the Russian's main characters often enter a vicious circle in which they thinking something bad will happen and this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, which can only be prevented through great determination and effort. For those that have not read Suskind before, this is a good a place to start as any, and of course, make sure to not disregard his masterpiece "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer". Those that do know him already understand what I am talking about!

From time to time you find yourself getting stuck in a comfortable rut, only to have your routine broken by the most trivial of events. Such events can be painful at first, but ultimately liberating. That's as simple as I can make it.

Great book!

The central achievement of Süskind's novella is the way it articulates the social anxiety of a man whose childhood fear of abandonment has played out as a lifetime of limited scope, controlling routines and self-imposed isolation. That might sound heavy but it isn't - mainly because Süskind wisely chooses the "free indirect" narrative style (mastered by Henry James). The story is told in the third person, but is nevertheless filtered through Jonathan Noel's gaze and consciousness so that external reality exists only as refracted in his mind. The result is that we see the world as he sees it, but without the unreliability that such a point of view entails. Süskind is thereby able to show us precisely what he wants us to see - both the horror and humour of Noel's experience - and to deliver a climax which remains somewhat objective and thereby inspires hope. Other reviewers seem to have found the ending cloying and unrealistic, but I think they're assuming more than Süskind suggests. Noel and his life are not utterly transformed at the end - he has an epiphany, he loses his fear, but it may or may not last.

I had to get a copy of The Pigeon used after reading Perfume. I read it in one sitting. It's such a gem. I don't know how many pages go by where the main character is just standing in front of this bank thinking, not doing anything. It's riveting. He eats a meal towards the end of the book and I've never read such tasty descriptions of food. And rain, and peeing in the tub, and ripping your pants in public.
I'm going to have to do some searching to get my Patrick Suskind fix. This is one of the most satisfying books I've ever read. It left me on a high for a couple weeks. It's since worked it's way somewhere deep in me, I won't forget it.

Brilliant analysis of a World beating economic system
Reviewer: Patrick Walsh from Amsterdam, North Holland The Netherlands
Don't pay any attention to the detractors of this author.
He lives in Japan.
He has worked as a successful financial journalist around the world.
His correct forecasting of the Japanese economy is on record (e.g. Euromoney Magazine).
Has been widely praised (see two sites, unsustainable dot org and, fingleton dot net).
Check out the above dot org site for current articles from
this author.
You will be surprised at the articles on there that deal with the press, who widely report a slump in Japan that never seems to happen
- if Japan is in a slump, why such continued strong export performance in the hi-tech area?
Japan may have "crippling" debts, but you can be sure its not
foreign debt and,
therefore much less of a problem, unlike the USA which is burdened by a debt with a large foreign component.
Fingleton rightly points out in this book that the Japanese economy cannot be understood
without looking at it in terms of a big picture.
Read the content on the above sites, think a little,
read this book and, his more recent work "In Praise of Hard Industries" and, you will be a lot farther along the road to understanding where the World economy is going.

Brilliant analysis of a World beating economic system
Reviewer: Patrick Walsh from Amsterdam, North Holland The Netherlands
Don't pay any attention to the detractors of this author.
He lives in Japan.
He has worked as a successful financial journalist around the world.
His correct forecasting of the Japanese economy is on record (e.g. Euromoney Magazine).
He has been widely praised (see two sites, unsustainable dot org and, fingleton dot net).
Check out the above dot org site for current articles from
this author.
You will be surprised at the articles on there that deal
with the press, who widely report a slump in Japan that
never seems to happen.
If Japan is in a slump, why such continued strong export performance in the hi-tech area?
Japan may have "crippling" debts, but you can be sure
its not foreign debt and,
therefore much less of a problem, unlike
the USA which is burdened by a debt with
a large foreign component.
Fingleton rightly points out in this book that
the Japanese economy cannot be understood
without looking at it in terms of a big picture.
Read the content on the above sites, think a little,
read this book and, his more recent work
"In Praise of Hard Industries" and, you will
be a lot farther along the road to understanding
where the World economy is going.

I was speaking to a friend of mine who is in the insurance sector in Tokyo. During the course of our discussion, we came to the topic of economic slump and how people who visit Tokyo on business are led to believe that the slump is much larger and more devastating than what the press reports.
My friend laughed it off and said the Japanese are good artists of deception and he went on to give me an example. India ( like most developing countries of the region ) takes loans from ADB. apparently ADB is funded by Ministry of Finance, Japan to a large extent. Now an ADB loan is used for infrastructure development like say laying of roads.
Japanese cos. are given the contract for providing the raw material and equipment for the same like Mitsubishi Tar and Sumitomo cement and so on citing that Indian cos are below par for such raw material ( its a different matter that L & T cement is used in construction of airports in many countries )

Finally for the repayment of the loans, the Japanese Govt formally issues a soft loan to repay the ADB debt. In the larger scenario not only has the govt benefitted from this but Japanese cos also are benefitted in the longer run. So the money given out as loan by the govt reaches Japan through the Keiretsus.

A lot of this may not be available in the open to be proved but is definitely the source of speculation and thus may never be proved.

On reading Blindside such practices only come out in the open.

Overall, one of the best books i have read - both in fiction as well as non-fiction.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s a number of journalistic books appeared which purported to explain how Japan was eating our lunch. "Blindside" is typical of the genre.

These books tended to be based on simplistic anecdote-based economics. Their starting point was Japan's strong postwar economic growth (exagerrated by Japan's asset price bubble of the late 1980s). They uncritically ascribed this to Japan's unique economic institutions or "the Japan model" and then extrapolated forward.

The subtitle of the book "why Japan is still on track to overtake the U.S. by the year 2000" hints that by the time this book was published in 1995 that something was going wrong. Indeed, by 1995, it was apparent to close watchers of the Japanese economy that something was seriously amiss, putting cheerleaders like author Eamonn Fingleton on the defensive. This one was past its "sell by" date the day it was published.

The intervening years have not treated Japan or this book gently. Rather than overtaking the U.S., Japan's economic performance between 1990-2000 was the worst decanal performance exhibited by any industrial country in the postwar period.

This book provides only inadvertant insight into why things went right in Japan for an extended period of time and then began going horribly wrong beginning around 1990.

for anyone wishing to understand the Japanese economy and the people that make up that economy, this is the book. Fingleton gets beneath the surface-view of Japan that so many Westerners use to describe the country. those who label Fingleton as alarmist or racist follow the lead of typical Japanese thinking that equates criticism of the government's policies with anti-Japanese sentiment.

Fingleton has a deep respect for the Japanese government's ability to manipulate both its own citizens and the U.S. in order to strengthen its economy. The premise of the book is to reveal the mindset of the Japanese government and people so that Americans can better understand how they are viewed by Japanese and respond more adroitly to the challenges of the ever-expanding U.S.-Japan relations.

The most interesting part of the book are the 40 pages devoted to the history of U.S.-Japan relations in the chapter "The Will to Win".

If you need one book to give a well-documented overview of the Japanese economy, this is it!

There was a plot running through all this, but it went off in so many directions, it was difficult to follow. And running like an irritating itch through it all was the constant, unending, repetitive description of the rain, rain, rain, ad nauseum, along with one other thing. the author could not bring Inspector Insch into the story at any point without telling about him eating candy. I challenge the reader to find a single moment when Insch enters the story without a reference to him reaching into his pocket and eating one of any number of kinds of candy. Enough, already.

I won't delve into the plot of this book, as you can find that by reading other reviews.

I do want to say that the character of DS Logan McRae is a refreshing change from the "usual suspects" of the angst-ridden, misunderstood-by-his-superiors protagonist.

The story takes on some gritty issues (child murders) and is by no means a "cozy" but you can tell that Stuart MacBride doesn't take his characters too seriously. MacBride has given Logan some laugh out loud dialogue and I especially enjoyed the relationship between Logan and the corpulent, no nonsense, candy addicted DI Insch. I hope DI Insch is a regular character in the ongoing series.

The only main character I didn't particularly care for was Logan's potential love interest - WPC Watson. Watson tries too hard to compensate being a "woman in a man's world", runs roughshod over people and is gratuitously vulgar. I hope to see more depth to her character in future outings.

If you enjoy British police procedurals or mysteries, make sure to check out the Logan McRae series. Highly recommended.

This is an exceptionally mature and complex book considering it is MacBride's first novel. His comfort with the material and sureness of plotting remind me of Jim Kelly, whose first novel The Water Clock was another spectacular debut that has borne out over several follow-ons. I know that MacBride has written more books since but this was only recently recommended to me so I'm going to try and review it in isolation.

On the face of it, this is a really good police procedural that has a strong cast of characters, including the requisite flawed protagonist, who is a just-back-from-horrible-on-the-job-injury Detective Sergeant Logan McRae. He's a bit of a head case (natch) but he's also bright, insightful, and his earlier scrape with death has given him a perspective that few other experiences can provide. The main storyline involves the abduction and murder of young children. The introduction of these murders is handled with respect and compassion by the author but also with unflinching directness. Some of the murders have obviously common threads but others are far outside the profile and are deeply frustrating for the investigating team. There may or may not be an association with a known thug who has been fished from the local waters, quite dead and minus his kneecaps. With so much going on, it would be easy to make hash of the story, but MacBride weaves it all together with deftness; he doesn't waste a word. For those of you who are familiar with the Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries of Reginald Hill, there is a police supervisor named Insch that bears more than a passing resemblance to Dalziel...and that's a good thing.

Finally, as if there isn't enough going on (and, believe it or not, I never had a problem keeping track - unlike some other books that require backtracking to keep straight), there is a marvelous turn on how the media can, by the stroke of a pen, manipulate the facts of an investigation and influence the opinion of a willing public that is always happy to believe the worst.

There is some awesome writing coming out of Scotland these days and the Tartan Noire movement is extremely well-named. I'm not sure MacBride is ready for official membership yet, but, based on this, he has his feet in the water.

The Chamber of Commerce should pay this guy not to write. Never, outside of a sci-fi hell, ever been less likely to visit a setting. Cold, wet and uninviting. Even a careless reader can find half a dozen suspects. They all did it.

This was my first venture into the Scottish police procedural, though I guess there are quite a few titles out there if the category has its own name: "Tartan noir". In any event, I enjoyed the tough but likable law enforcement officers of Aberdeen, Scotland and the creepy yet engaging crime story in which they move about. "Cold Granite" also benefits from interesting supporting characters, including an ambitious reporter who keeps getting in the way of the police investigation yet still sort of becomes friends with the central invesitigator, Detective Sergeant Logan MacRae. There's even the occasional romantic scene, between Logan and one of his female officers, to lighten up the dark story from time to time (though the scenes don't so much as depict a romance as Logan's desire for one). I liked the energy and vibrant images of "Cold Granite", as well as its easy readibility. I'll be sure to look for Stuart MacBride's second offering.

Actually, there was nothing particularly shocking. The scandal of Halliburton's involvement in Iraq is pretty obvious, and the author adds no information about that. I would guess the more scandalous aspects will come out in the future. When it is clear that we went to war solely so that Halliburton could have the pipeline work, then I'll be mildly perturbed, but not surprised. There must after all have been some real reason.

If one is looking for dirt on Cheney, there really isn't much. He is completely overshadowed in this book by LBJ, Herman Brown, Alvin Wirtz and others, and actually, Robert Caro's books on LBJ are much more enthralling accounts of all that. Still, it's fun to read about these tough Texas mothers with their whiskey and bags full of hundred dollar bills. In fact, now that I think about it I highly recommend all of Caro's books about LBJ.

Coming back to this one, it kind of fizzles out. Halliburton and Brown & Root have interesting histories. People who naively suppose that modern day public officials are honest and that their words are related to their motives in any way may be alarmed, but I would guess that most people reading this book in the first place aren't expecting a tale gleaming with moral gems. And Cheney as a rogue is a humorless dud. The most surprising thing I learned about him was that he had his first heart attack at 37!

It was a good read. Pretty scary stuff. As far as Chaney goes, the only thing that would have been more of a surprise would have been that he was identified as one of the founding members of the Log Cabin Republicans but for someone who spends so much time at undisclosed locations, stranger things could happen.

Bud Brown

Did I get the wrong book from Amazon.com? The book is advertised to be a book about Cheney and Halliburton - it is about Halliburton but not Cheney. For example, pictures of Cheney appear on both the front and back covers of the book jacket. But that is very misleading. The book is not about Cheney per se; there are in fact only a dozen or so pages dealing with Cheney near the end of the book and he plays only a minor role; he finally appears on page 191 of the 237 added seemingly as an afterthought. Surprisingly, the dominant politician in the book is the former president and Texas native Lyndon Baines Johnson or LBJ. By my estimate and it is confirmed by looking at the index, LBJ takes up three times as much space in the book as Cheney, and furthermore he plays a much more important role in setting any "agenda" at Brown & Root - a subsidiary of Halliburton. Even though the book even if falsely promoted it is still an interesting read about two old US companies and their eventual merger; but at just 237 pages long in medium font is not a 5 star effort, just 3.5 stars, maybe only 3 stars at best.

The first company described is the oil well services company Halliburton started in approximately 1920 by Erle Halliburton in Oklahoma. Erle Halliburton died in 1957 leaving a successful and financially strong and independent business enterprise as his legacy. The second company is Brown & Root (B & R) that developed from being a Texas road construction company that was started around 1917 to become a major defense contractor. The business grew through political connections and after many decades B & R had become the largest engineering and construction company in the USA, boosted by the Vietnam war effort, and fed by a series of domestic and foreign construction and defense contracts stretching around the globe.

The book tells (very briefly) how these companies developed, merged in 1962 with R & B being bought by Halliburton, and how they became a major defense contractor. It also contains many side stories such as the influence of the rising political star LBJ in Texas, dam construction, back room operators such as A.J.Wirtz, political intrigue, the milking of Roosevelt's New Deal money, navy boat building, the fall of Leland Olds who was a bureaucrat blocking their expansion, the Johnson Space Center contract, Vietnam contracts, the LOGCAP contract, the Dresser merger, Henry Waxman's congressional charges against Halliburton and the sole sourcing, etc. Cheney appears near the end of the book and I did learn that Cheney flunked out of Yale and was arrested twice for DWI in his youth. There are a number of insights and comments on the current contracts to Halliburton. But since Halliburton had the LOGCAP contract before Cheney, it seems to me that Cheney played no more a dramatic role - I suspect - than any other good CEO or "rainmaker" might have played at Halliburton to boost its revenues.

As a book I would say it rates just 3 or 4 stars since as the author acknowledges that he uses and number of existing books such as "Erle P. Halliburton: Genius with Cement" and other publications, and most of the book is about the older history - as I said Cheney does not even appear until page 191 out of 237. So even when he appears the information is scant. Having said that it is clear the author has done extensive research, he has a nice reference section for further reading, he brings the story together, but overall it seems like a short collection of historical facts and tidbits. As it stands, it is more of a "gateway" book or introduction and it would have been a 5 star book if it was about 400-500 pages long and was more complete. But some of the references and 40 pages of notes at the back are worth a follow up read.

Author Dan Briody has written a book that goes beyond pundit finger-pointing over the controversial "no-bid" contracts relationship between Halliburton and Vice President Dick Cheney. This is a serious examination of the high-octane blend of profit and politics that fuels the Bush administration's agenda. Briody begins with an extensive history of two Texas companies, Halliburton and Brown & Root (now KBR). He deftly portrays how they made their fortunes despite Great Depression hardships, World War II and political intrigues aplenty. Briody pulls no punches while maintaining a reportorial (if not totally objective) tone, although people who hold different political views might argue with his opinions and conclusions. We recommend this saga to anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the ongoing tryst between corporate America and its politicians. While this book is not presented as a smoking gun, it portrays insider politics that smolder like an oil fire you can't quite extinguish, leaving sort of an ugly haze.

I actually enjoyed his book about Carlyle and it's the reason I bought this book. But there should have been another 300 pages. It did a pretty good job of describing the origins of Halliburton and Brown and Root and described the relationship both Brown and Root and later the combined company had with Lyndon Johnson. But it's other political relationships of the time were not fleshed out, and only briefly mentioned. Basically anything about the companies histories after the late 1950s was brief and I felt shortchanged once I got to this part of the book. (3/4 of the way into it) The change of name to Kellog, Brown and Root was not mentioned, nor were contracts such as Guantanomo or the base on Diego Garcia which sounds to me like it could have warranted quite some ink. Also Kellog, Brown and Root's bankruptcy was glossed over leaving me wondering what the story is on this. The asbestos issue was only briefly mentioned, and Cheney's attempts to reduce these losses by changing the laws wasn't mentioned at all. Information about the companies contracts in Iraq is almost non-existant and the reputed contracts the Company did with countries in Cheney's era under US sanctions (ie Iran) by diverting the contracts via it's overseas subsidiaries gets not even a fraction of a page.

Basically if you after information on these companies after 1962 you're better off researching it on the internet.

I believe there are many hints in this novel that it is meant to be a "literary parody" (an actual phrase lifted from the book). The teacher/protagonist chastises his class for its "run-on sentences" followed by one of the same from our esteemed, loquacious author. Hilarious, twisted, maddeningly entertaining, "Master of the Delta" is good to the last drop. Whatever you do, don't skim and don't skimp. You won't be disappointed. I found myself missing the mayhem the day after I put it to bed.

The Master of the Backstory has done it again -- Cook has created a novel infused with a mystery that does not become solved until the very end. As I said in a review of another of his books, it is impossible to second guess this guy. His stories, set in the present, have been set in motion by events of the past, but every angle is not revealed until the final page, despite references to the outcomes of how the lives of subsidiary characters pan out, indicating that the story is being told from a perspective even further in the future.

Jack Branch has returned to his father's Delta estate to teach at the local high school. During his class on historical evil he's shocked to discover student Eddie is the son of local murderer the Coed Killer - and tries to mentor the boy to help him set a good example. When a friendship with the boy's father ensues, danger evolves in this masterful mystery recommended for any general-interest collection strong in novels and mysteries.

I believe that Thomas H. Cook is the best writer in his genre writing today, and I have read everything of his. This is in keeping with the high literary qualaity of his work and did not disappoint me. I would hope that more people discover him and may write a book about him someday soon to help that happen.

Thomas H. Cook revisits familiar territory in Master of the Delta: The very first paragraph tells you this will be a tragedy of Greek melodramatic proportions. He does not disappoint. In this beautifully written novel, Cook again explores his well worn themes of family conflicts, lost love, tortured souls, misunderstanding with devastating outcomes, winding down to the appropriate somber ending. I especially liked his use of time changes and different voices troughout the story. The plot twist at the very end also took me by surprise. Some may find these themes excessively dark, but that is precisely why fans of Cook come back again and again for another dose. Nobody can put together a modern tragic/mystery like Thomas H. Cook.

'Night Witches' is a history of Soviet women's fighter and bomber units in World War II. It is based on extensive interviews with the survivors. Myles has worked these interviews into a remarkably entertaining and informative read that is marred only by what the text is lacking: maps, more details about their planes and the planes of their enemies and other Soviet units, more detail about how the Soviets used these planes in conjunction with other units and an over-arching historical narrative to place these women in their historical context.

My copy was published in 1990 and I was disappointed to find that it literally fell apart as I was reading it - the binding was very fragile and the pages fell out individually and in chunks.

Night Witches is a pioneer and readable non-fiction book about Soviet airwomen in combat in World War II. However, it is bad journalism as it was written in a somewhat sensational manner and is full of petty mistakes, such as misspelled names, and airwomen assigned to wrong photo captions, ranks, appointments, and even regiments. The appellation "Night Witches" itself, coined by the enemy, was considered offensive by Soviet airwomen. Night Witches has been largely superseded by books written or edited by the following: Anne Noggle (A Dance with Death: Soviet Airwomen in World War II, 1994); Kazimiera J. Cottam (Women in Air War: The Eastern Front in World War II and Women in War and Resistance, 1997 and 1998); and a forthcoming book by Reina Pennington (Wings, Women and War: Soviet Women in Military Aviation in the Second World War, University Press of Kansas, 2001).

I'm a pilot and also someone who was dating a Russian girl, so I may be a bit biased, but I thought this book was just great. It has humor, romance, flying, sadness, reality, and history. It's told in a captivating manner. Highly recommended!

I like this book very much. I am waiting for the movie it is being filmed right now in Russia. It will be in Russian and English language. The heroines deserve to have their stroy told so everybody will know about them. I enjoyed the story of Lily Litvak who shot down the famous Nazi. The Nazi didn't believe it was a girl who had defeated him until he met her and she described the fight. Then he just put his head down in disgrace! This book tells her true story and the story of other Russian women who fought in World War 2.

I like this book very much. I am waiting for the movie it is being filmed right now in Russia. (..) The heroines deserve to have their stroy told so everybody will know about them. I enjoyed the story of Lily Litvak (...) This book tells her true story and the story of other Russian women who fought in World War 2.

This book is an excellent work treating the current hydrocarbon depletion issue. Readers will be well rewarded for their money. This book, however, should be read with two more:

"Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage", by Kenneth S. Deffeyes

"The Oil Factor: How Oil Controls the Economy and Your Financial Future" by Stephen Leeb, Donna Leeb

One thing the author does not treat is the transitional period from hydrocarbon to renewable sources. Since these are hard topics, and the uncertainty is very high, their omission from the work is quite understandable.

As to the comment by the reader from Portland, OR, I have worked on the floors of the largest energy companies in Houston, currently working for the California energy markets, and yes, C. J. Campbell does have a pretty good understanding of how the energy markets work. Although I do not quite share the author's a bit doomsday view of the years to come, we will be up for a significant challenge.

This book is no literary masterpiece and could use a good edit but it definitely should be read. Campbell uses a lifetime worth of professional experience to try and tabulate when world oil demand will exceed production. What's important here is not that this is happening now, 5 years from now or 20 years from now, but that this day will come and we are doing nothing to prepare for it. As long as no preparations are made, the shock will be just as severe no matter how far in the future it comes. A major thrust of the book is that oil is a finite resource and supplies cannot be indefinitely extended as prices rise. He states that yes, as prices rise, more oil can be recovered but the big problem occurs when demand cannot be satisfied. This is a matter of geology, not economics or politics.

Campbell is the 43rd author to warn us about the impending doom reulting from "running out of oil." If any of the 43 authors would bother to learn basic economics, the public might have a decent book which explains the coming transition to alternate sources of energy. In Campbell's book, you not only find a basic lack of understanding of how the oil market works, but interviews with doctors and charlatens which need to be excised from the book in a future edition. Maybe he can write this edition in 2015; "The Coming Oil Crisis: This Time I Mean It"

Save yourself time and money and go to his free website before buying: http://dieoff.org/page131.htm

This is a fascinating book, one that dares to go to examine the very core of the mechanisms which make our society function. Our way of life depends on fossil fuels for about 90% of all the energy we produce. Without oil and the other fossils, the planet would never been able to support 6 billion human beings, to say nothing of the extravagant lifestyle of the fraction of them living in "rich" countries.

Campbell's book is an attempt to foresee how long this bonanza can last. The uncertainties in the field are enormous, already the estimates in the amount of "recoverable resources" vary of almost a factor of two depending on who is doing the estimate. Then, there comes the need to estimate the rate of consumption which, in turn depends on complex and economical factors. Nevertheless, reason can guide us to determine that in no case we can expect more than a few decades (at most) of oil abundance. It is time to think seriously of alternatives.

Campbell's book is written by one of the foremost experts in the field, it is well balanced, entertaining, and overall fascinating. Highly recommended!

I purchased this book with the understanding that it was published in 2004 (as it was mentioned on amazon.com), but it is the same 1998 publication!