Future Books

I am a second-year teacher working with Kindergarten special needs. I bought this book after having it recommended at a training. This book has brillant strategies for giving young children a way to do independent work, and it includes color pictures for each activity.

I have already begun using some of these work sysytems in my classroom and my kids love them. Not only do they feel accomplished but I am hoping this will help motivate them to work independently in the regular education classroom more often.

I would recommend this book to any one working with young children, whether they be classroom teachers, resource teachers, preschool/daycare, or parents. It has many simple yet amazing ideas.

This book has been a lifesaver! As a special education teacher, I am looking for ways for all my students to learn. I first started using activities in the book with my student with autism but then my other students became interested in the tasks and I use them for all my students!

I just received this book in the mail. I am currently teaching Special ED - Autism & also did so for my student teaching. Many of the activities in this book I used in my student teaching setting. They are good ideas that can be transformed & used a million different ways. Every teacher of kids with ASD needs it.

I recently purchased this book in a search for appropriate planning for a child with autism who has aggressive behavior when required to complete any academic task. This book is wonderful and has helped me plan activities that this child can complete. Recommend it for anyone searching for hands on materials to help a child learn to learn.

Really great ideas for activities in my classroom! There are 80 different matching, sorting, reading, writing and math tasks included in this book. These really help the student to learn how to work independently and stay on task. There are photos, descriptions, and list of materials needed for each task. I highly recommend this book to educators as well as parents. "So You Want to be a Special Education Teacher" is also a humorous, insightful, very enjoyable, must read for your library.

This is a great book for any salesperson, experienced or new. It can help you stay on track, or get back on, to reaching your goals. There is a lot of real-world experience that everyone can relate to. I refer back to it often, and it is helping me greatly in my new sales career.

I have had the personal pleasure of meeting Terry in a training class I took. Terry has a way of taking the most difficult things and explaining them in terms you are able to not only comprehend but understand and utilize. After reading this book I felt more focused and driven. In my opinion, this is not just a book but a "tool" to be used by everyone . If you ever feel like you are lost or have missed the correct path- read this book to help you get back on track. Most educational material I have read have just been words on a page but Terry uses personal experiences to help make the material real and understanding. With Terry's book I was able to not only read, understand but also form a picture in my mind of what some of my goals are! This book is a must read!! After reading this book you will feel so much better about yourself!

Thank You Terry,

Traci McGregor

Terry makes some practical suggestions for getting your life on track and moving forward. It's uplifting, positive, and easy to read. He combines age-old wisdom with some fresh new approaches. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Great book! This book has been a great tool for heading down the right path for a successful and promising future.

"Creating Your Future Through Self Discovery" is promised by Terry Mayfield on the cover of the book. He delivers that and more!

Similar to (Keirsey/Bates) "Please Understand Me", "How To Control Your Destiny" helps you discover yourself and people around you. Terry's personal stories and metaphors help you connect with his concepts and the simplicity of his life adjusting ideas. You want this book if your desire is to make positive adjustments in your life plan. Reading it will help you make relationships more meaningful. The benefits will be felt in your business and personal life.

This is a book you will want to read more than once.
You will want to share this book with people you care about.

Amor provides a very good book about upcoming technologies. It also provides a good outlook on the relevant services that can be expected from these technologies. One minor issue is that he also explains technologies like GSM and SMS and not only the hype stuff like wireless lan and G3. The second part of the book is even more interesting, because it provides four scenarios that give good insight on how the world will look like in a few years time.

Daniel Amor provides a very innovative way of presenting technologies and business cases of the future. Instead of describing Technology on a technology level and Business on a business level, he provides cases, which are easy to understand and include architecture blueprints for both, Technology and Business. Anyone that is interested in understanding the future of the Internet will be able to do so, both laypeople and professionals.

After his first book, The E-Business (R)Evolution, Daniel Amor created a new book in the same style as the first one. Instead of talking too much about technology and businesses, he created scenarios, which incorporate technology and business cases and put both of them into context. The book is of interest for people that want to develop new ideas on the Internet. I am eagerly awaiting the next book.

Daniel Amor provides a short introduction to the future that is about to happen. He provides some insight into new technologies, but more important into new business cases. He even provides simple ROI calculations, which is great. I am a professor at university and can use these cases with my students. A pity that there are only four in the book, but I found two more on his web site for free. Good work, keep it up!

Pervasive computing is a concept that is so broad, so inclusive, that it is hard to define. From the readily appreciated idea of personal digital assistants that are hooked up to the internet via digital cell phones to cars with GPS devices that tell computers where they are and receive back data on avoiding traffic jams, the potential for the field is vast. And exciting.

Daniel Amor, an internet expert who works for Hewlett Packard in Germany, has put together a beautifully written, elegantly thought out book on what pervasive computing will be. He covers a huge territory from the web today to the migration of wired services to wireless space: mobile architecture, mobile apps, home automation, business automation, services to be, and structures to be.

There are imaginative case studies of services that pervasive computing will permit: web-based reporting of credit card theft, objects with tiny chips reporting their whereabouts to police when stolen, even toothbrushes with medical diagnostic chips reporting to a user or a dentist what is wrong with the user's teeth.

The last case suggests the current problem with pervasive computing. The technology to make it happen exists, but users have not demanded anything like it. The talking refrigerator that orders more milk is widely ridiculed. Do we want a toothbrush to call a dentist? Socks to call a podiatrist to report a case of athlete's foot? An antacid pill that could report to an physician?

The solution is to have third party administration of all this intimate data, Mr. Amor says. Many would disagree, suggesting that the cure is not to collect it at all. Currently, wireless security is not as strong as hardwired network security can be. And even that is fragile, given advances in password cracking.

In a developing world of wireless services, pervasive computing is likely to grow in unpredictable ways. At the threshold of this new world, Daniel Amor's Internet Fuure Strategies has done a masterful job of mapping what may be. His work is superb, his insights often remarkable. If pervasive computing is part of your work, get the book.

This is a book I find it difficult to rate highly enough, if there was a six stars category it would be needed.

Western ignorance of Islam is a huge impediment to our understanding of the events of these countries and perpetrates all kinds of misunderstandings. It is not helped by the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and its involvement in terrorism. Books like Samuel Huntingdon's "Clash of Clvilisations" too have and continue to perpetuate misunderstandings, as the UN has recognised in its call for a "dialogue amongst civilisations", a call initiated first by the Muslim world.

Hans Kung states cogently that peace between peoples is only possible if there is peace between religions, and that such a peace is only possible if there is a situation of respectful dialogue between different religious faiths. It is the message of Vatican II, and Kung has dedicated his life to this task.

Without doubt this volume on "Islam: Past Present and Future" is possibly his most important work to date. His method of using "paradigms" to understand the historical development of the 3 Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is very useful in helping us all discover what is the core of "abiding truth" and what is "determined by contemporary context", of the specific paradigmatic circumstances of a time and place.

An intriguing part of this book is Kung's own deep researchers that the pre-Hellenic Jewish Christianity paradigm may have survived in Arabia to the 7th century and may have informed Mohammed's own highly favourable views about Jesus.

Kung has long practiced what he preaches, and a particular strength of this book is its use of Muslim voices and extensive research into what sincere and practicing Muslims say about such issues as interfaith dialogue, "jihad", and Islam's adaption to the developing post-modern world. These sections of the book are especially powerful, as it shows the developing tensions between fundamentalist "traditionalists" (who wish to return to the "classical" Abbasid understandings of Shariah and Caliphate), and (I hesitate to use the term) "moderates" (who wish to look at the original message of Mohammed as an example of being appropriate for time and place, and being prepared to understand the true historic development of their faith). As he clearly shows, Jews and Christians, concerned about the equivocal place of violence within Islamic tradition, need to look at the ways in which "The Wars of Yaheweh" can be appropriated to political use in Modern Israel, or the way in which "Crusades" have been used in colonial and post colonial times to capture the resources of others for ones own use, in the West.

He clearly shows that in a nuclear armed world, all religions need to examine their past, in order to "put their house in order".

Finally, this book is important because it is a clear message of hope. A hope that we need not become locked once again into a series of inescapable holy wars, a hope that there is a path forward that addresses a polarising world between those that have and those that have not, a world soon to have eight billion inhabitants living on fewer resources than we have today. And more than that, this book has clearly practiced what it preaches, peace and respect between religions is possible.

Hans Kung is again very thorough in his analysis of Islam. He relates it's history in a manner similar to his earlier works on Christianity and Judaism, describing the evolution of the religion in terms of paradigm shifts in which older sometimes stagnant forms persist but are enriched by efforts to relate to changing cultures. He continually compares the similarities in the changes that take place in these three Abrahamic religions. While complex, he still makes a very readable and comprehensive story.

Hans Kung is Hans Kung and nobody is at all similar to him. His expansive knowledge base and critical thought processing are exceptional to say the least. His scope of Islam is enormous and detailed. He is fair in comparisions, questions and ultimate reasoning. For anyone who would appreciate an in-depth treatment of this topic, this book is the one!

A Christian theologian has written a 700 page book about Islam and he doesn't have a completely negative view about the religion. Does that mean he is ignorant or an apologist for Islam. That is most likely what some people will accuse Kung of, but their argument will be obliterated by the book itself. It spends a lot of time on the history of Islam, but it gives the practices and beliefs a good share of thought. The reason why he is not an apologist for Islam is because he himself argues against those who present a soft version of Islam. He says on page 598 that the apologetic argument that jihad is only for self-defense purposes "cannot be maintained." In other words, jihad is offensive in addition to defensive. I agree with Kung and many Islamic scholars agree, jihad for Muslims is a duty at any time. Now how does that coincide with the theory that Kung believes that Islam was not spread by the sword? He says that early Muslim armies only invaded for territory, not for spreading the religion by the sword and this makes sense as it coincides with the Quranic injunction that there is no compulsion in religion. The answer is that while Muslims may never force anyone to convert, they are obligated by God to ensure that the message of Islam is heard and seen by everyone. In other words, Muslims must do their best to give people a fair choice between Islam and whatever other belief systems that exist. That choice was not there at the time that Mecca was polytheist dominated and to be a Muslim meant to be tortured and threatened with death. Jihad needed to be done to give Islam the room to be practiced which is how it can be offensive, to clear the path for allowing people to freely choose Islam.

Now as I was reading this book, I was trying to decipher where Kung stood in terms of accepting the Prophethood of Muhammad. He says on page 68 that the Prophet could not have gathered the Quran and put it together because "as it is assumed by Muslims" he could not read or write. He then ends the chapter asking if some people have a special charisma or is the message of the Prophet not his words or the word of God. This is where the dividing line is drawn between believing in Islam and rejecting it. Did the Prophet make up this religion called Islam or was he only a mouthpiece or a bridge for the Creator of the Universe? I am on the side which believes the latter and I assume that Mr. Kung is on the other side or else he would have converted to Islam. Now if we take a close look at the argument that the Prophet made this religion up, we will find that it has holes in it large enough to push a meteor through it. He did not know how to read or write and he was not a philosopher or a scientist or an astronomer or a historian or a theologian yet the Quran presents information that all of these fields would provide. What does that mean? It means that this Quran could not have been compiled by one man in the desert who was illiterate. He needed someone who knew everything already and this was none other than the Supreme Being that we call God. If there is one book I recommend in addition to this one, it would be After Jihad by Noah Feldman. He explains that religion is not the problem in the Islamic world today, but it is politics that has put a straightjacket on the Islamic principles of justice that are inherent in Islam.

With this volume, the Catholic theologian Hans Küng has completed the trilogy with began with his `Judaism' in 1991, followed by his `Christianity' in 1994. Each of these three books is arranged in a similar way, dividing the history of each religion into Paradigms, the shift from one Paradigm to another coming about chiefly through major historical events which forced corresponding changes in the intellectual history of those faiths. There is no need to be scared by this slightly pompous conceptual framework: the story is clear even without it. As Küng himself admits, there is a difference between paradigms in science (to which Thomas Kuhn applied the concept in the first place) and paradigms in religion. While it does not take long for a new paradigm in science totally to replace an earlier one, in the history of religion, old paradigms retain an extraordinary vitality even after new ones have been established; so that, for instance, in the Moslem world the intellectual notions of Muhammad's Islam and of the Islam of the medieval Caliphates still powerfully challenge those of more modern forms of Islam.

As he goes along giving an account of the development of Islam, Küng frequently makes comparisons with the developments in Judaism and, in particular, in Christianity, pointing out similarities and differences. Perhaps because he is a Roman Catholic, he is particularly interested in the comparison between al-Ghazali and Thomas Aquinas, to which he devotes many pages, while being very much briefer about Avicenna and Averroës, in whom most western writers have been more interested than in al-Ghazali. Küng's case for this disparate treatment is that unfortunately the former two, for all the influence they would have on Western thought, had no lasting influence in Islam.

Küng is not afraid of praising and of criticizing Islam: there is a particularly outspoken criticism of Islam when, at the end of the 12th century, that great and high-achieving civilization turned its back on further philosophical or theological developments. Its last great thinkers had far more influence on the West (which learnt a great deal from the Arabic `Renaissance') than they had on the Islamic world. The West went on to construct, on the base of the Arabic Renaissance, a Renaissance of its own, while the Islamic world did not experience a further Renaissance, nor a Reformation or an Enlightenment. The Scientific Revolution (which contributed so much to the development of technologies in the West) had no parallel in Islam, which had been preeminent in mathematics, medicine and science during its golden age. As a result the Islamic world was in due course humiliated by the greater might of the European powers.

But between the end of the Arabic Renaissance and that humiliation, there were some powerful Islamic empires - the Moghuls of India, the Safavids or Persia, and especially the Ottomans. The greatest weakness of Küng's book is that these three empires receive very cursory treatment. In particular there is no examination whatever of what made the Ottoman Empire so successful for some four centuries.

Only when the dynamism of the West impinged on the Islamic world in the 19th century did some Islamic thinkers make an attempt to modernize Islamic thought, though meeting great resistance. Indeed, because the modernizers were unable to protect the Islamic world against western political and then economic imperialism - and were indeed often accused of colluding with it - the traditional thinkers of Islam were able to identify their cause with angry nationalism, and so were able to gain even greater influence.

Rejecting the ideology of `a clash of civilizations', Küng is passionately interested in how, without fudging difficulties, the differences between Islam and the West and between Islam and the other two Abrahamic religions can be bridged. After 470 pages of describing the history of Islam, he devotes the remaining 190 pages largely to reflections on this topic. The suggestions he has for reducing the political tensions (for example about the Arab-Israeli issue) is fairly run-of-the-mill for those who are looking for the `reasonable' solutions that men of good will should be able to achieve.

As for his ideas about how the theological tensions between Judaism, Christianity and Islam might be reduced, he points out that the Hellenistic doctrines of the divinity of Jesus and of the Trinity became official Christian teaching only in 325 at the Council of Nicaea; and he suggests that all the three Abrahamic faiths should be able to find common ground in the Jewish Christianity of the time of Jesus. Yet he affirms that he himself accepts the decisions of the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople and is not suggesting that Christians should reject them. But if they don't, I can't see myself where the common ground would be in this area.

What might also help to establish common ground would be if the Muslims could see the Qur'an in the way that all but fundamentalist Christians and Jews now see the Bible (and as the suppressed Mutazilites of the 9th century once did): as divinely inspired, but created by human beings who have interpreted the inspiration in the historical context in which they lived. But Muslim exponents of such ideas (and Küng names several such) still run great dangers in the Islamic world.

Though Christianity has long had a bad record of intolerance, barbaric punishments, and subjection of women, it does now subscribe to the doctrine of human rights; and common ground between the religions would require that those Islamic countries which still do not respect human rights should reform. Similarly, Christianity has abandoned its military crusading mission, and there can be no common ground with those Muslims who still interpret jihad not simply as sanctioning the use of force in defence of Islam, but also as the duty to expand its rule by force.

In his conclusion Küng expresses his `unshakable hope' ... `that all three world religions together will [N.B. not `can'] make an indispensable contribution to a more peaceful and more just world.'

I own this book in the electronic format (Adobe Reader and DRM-locked) and finish my reading a couple of months ago. Suburbia is, in my modest opinion, a very good-looking place for a family life and this is why it is appealing for anyone who wants to live in one. Having your own large and greened piece of land with a large house on it is a dream coming true. No other thing symbolizes better the achievement of the American Dream than owning a house in the suburbs.

However, I never liked the feeling of loneliness and isolation that places like these offer its inhabitants. While it can provide a comfortable living and a strong sense of ownership, it lacks convenience and community sense. I agree with the author that the effect of these downsides are much more relevant than the good ones. Some people can deal with it, but many people cannot. And for those who cannot, life becomes a struggle and the dream becomes a nightmare.

Despite its beauty, suburbs do not promote human interaction due to its large dimensions that makes difficult for people to communicate with each other in a regular and informal way. The lack of such interaction really can make someone to be less tolerate and more aggressive and fearful of somebody else. Human interaction can only be learned if it is commonly practiced.

The book does a good job on explaining briefly the origin of the suburbs, why it has grown so fast, why it is still so popular and, with more details, what the consequences of living in such places are. After reading the book, it is perfectly possible to recognize that well-being and life in the suburbs aren't things that are necessarily connected to each other, although this is what your next door real estate developer says to a prospective buyer...

When I read this book, I found it very interesting and informative. I was interested to learn about how and why sprawl came about in the first place, as well as how it has affected people's lives and our society generally, and the solutions to it. I really like books that offer solutions to major problems and/or better alternatives to the status quo!

It is interesting that sprawl is a major contributor to the high crime rate in the U.S.! According to this book's author, suburban sprawl and crime are worse in the U.S. than in Canada. I live in Canada, and if sprawl and crime are not as bad in Canada as they are in the U.S., even in Canada, both of those things are bad enough!

In his book geared at helping the everyday person understand the alienation and environmental/physical dangers of urban sprawl, Doug Morris also extends his prescriptive understanding, allowing the reader to grasp how he/she might help reduce the negative affects and correct this phenomena through individual and community efforts toward recreating community through smart urban design. As an anthropologist can objectively observe other cultures, Morris can reflect on his personal experiences of growing up in Europe and other places abroad where urban spaces are designed to embrace and foster community spirit, and help us understand how sprawl is both unique and destructive to the U.S. I highly recommend this book. Dena Hawes

Suburbia has changed from an American dream into a nightmare of violence: Douglas E. Morris 's IT'S A SPRAWL WORLD AFTER ALL is the first book to consider why, drawing some important connections between sprawl and violence. The lack of connections between people living in small areas has left suburban residents isolated, alienated and afraid of strangers. Sprawl involves more cars, more malls, and more in-home interaction replacing social events and community feel, and has evolved a culture of violence in turn. Examples provide case histories outside the country where sprawl problems have been changed.

In the tradition of Robert Putnam's seminal 2001 book "Bowling Alone" author Douglas E. Morris offers "It's A Sprawl World After All". Although the focus of the two books is a bit different the conclusion that the two authors reach are strikingly similar. To quote the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) "The unplanned growth of sprawl has left Americans isolated, alienated and afraid of the strangers that surround them. Suburbia has substituted cars for conversation, malls for main streets, and the artificial community of television for authentic social interaction." Douglas Morris opines in his book that Americans are growing tired of the lack of community and the absence of civility in their day to day lives. Some may challenge his premise. But "It's A Sprawl World After All" presents a compelling case for the proposition that we as a nation need to reverse many of the policies that for the past 60 years have benefited a few at the expense of the rest of us.
The United States and Europe have taken very different paths since the conclusion of World War II. Spurred by an amalgamation of big money interests that included the construction industry, the automobile industry and the airlines, the U.S. government promoted policies that unleashed what would ulimately result in the unchecked growth that we have experienced over the past several decades. In the meantime the folks in Europe have largely rejected these approaches our government so unabashedly promotes. "It's A Sprawl World After All" cites example after example why the quality of life in Europe is so much better that it is for us in the U.S. Even the most skeptical reader would have to cede Morris some points here.
Having been born in 1951, I am old enough to remember what real community is like. I grew up in a blue collar neighborhood where I knew just about everybody. People rarely moved. There was a neighborhood grocery store (we did not need 30000 items!) and a variety store with a soda fountain. In the summer we played baseball three times a day in a vacant lot. We used to cut the grass ourselves! I am still in touch with many of the folks from that neighborhood. Contrast this to the way most youngsters are growing up today. They are rarely home and even when they are they never go outside. The houses they live in are much bigger than they used to be and equipped with all sorts of gadgets. But are these kids really happier than we were? Douglas Morris agrees with the preponderance of data that would suggest that they certainly are not.
If you have never taken the time to consider the subject of sprawl and the social, economic and psychological effect it has on all of us then "It's A Sprawl World After All" would be a great place to start. Douglas Morris has done a great job of explaining how sprawl came to be and why it is so destructive. He goes on to make numerous practical suggestions on how each one of us can help to reverse these trends. Finally, there is a valuable appendix included that cites a number of websites for those who wish to explore this subject more extensively.
"It's A Sprawl World After All" challenges the way most Americans live today. Unlike some books that are prone to be full of jargon, Morris makes his case in easy to understand language. A great book to provoke discussion in high school and college classrooms or at the dinner table with your teenagers. Highly recommended!

When my father-in-law was preparing to die, he told me "it sure is hard work to die!" When my mother died, she was ready and new how much time she had left. I was with them both and was left with questions and confusion. When I read D. Catanzaro's book, it helped to answer my questions and showed me how important it is to be ready when our life is ready for the next step.

After reading this book it has set my mind at ease when it comes to death and dying and a book I recommended to my family and friends.

This book of hope assures the reader of peace at the time of death with a benefit beyond. Dr. Catanzaro explores our natural avoidance of looking at death, as well as the emptiness of pseudo-answers that can haunt the final hours. He explains the powerful solution - a lifesaving step.

Dr. Catanzaro's book explains in a way that is easily understood a step that we all must someday take.

I read this easy to read book in one single afternoon. I found the writing wonderful and colorful. This book is a must read for anyone that is going to die someday! Oh, wait... that would be YOU too!

Please don't wait till that final second - read this book before it's too late! It might be the most important book, other than the Bible that you'll ever read!

I was entirely happy with the transaction. The book was as described, I got it in timely fashion and at a price I was satisfied with.

This is another great book from Hans, but, I wish he'd answer his own questions, like the chapter about reincarnation. He makes it appear as though he's going to explain what he thinks, but only presents a wide-ranging amount of theories. I personally would like to know what he believes in.

Upon the sudden death of a very close loved one, I found this book in the library, in my search to find out what death is all about. That's really the subject of this book. Holzer, who I believe is now in the great beyond, was an intellectual of the highest class and devoted his life to the study of paranormal psychology. Well written, compelling, enlightening, and not at all new-age, this book was a great comfort to me in understanding death, why we die, how life goes on. The title says it all, he tells you and then shows you through stories how he has arrived at his conclusions. This book was written towards the end of his career. All but the most dogmatically religious and die-hard haters will appreciate and be enlightened by this book.

Dr. Holzer has been investigating paranormal incidents for over 30 years. In this book he presents his conclusions about the nature of life and death and what lies beyond. It is very well written, even scholarly at times. You may or may not agree with his ideas but I highly recommend that you read the book, it contains much food for thought.

After reading Dr. Holzar's book I was most impressed by the intellectual caliber of his writings. Its first class. He also raised and comparatively discussed the religious vs. straight science points of view concerning survival of biological death. He gives good advise on how to be skeptical and ask the right questions, have doubts where you should when dealing with psychic mediums. ( I just found one who was reading me through asking questions, but definately not communicating with the beyond)

I was amazed by how many chapters Dr. Holzar devoted to anecdotal stories his respondents had told. I found some of them, especially the spooky ones with faces inside orbs just a bit beyond the pale. Perhaps he should recognize, having a first rank mind and apparently some training in science, that such tales should be treated with the highest of skepticisms. For example he relates one tale of two teenage girls who for some undisclosed reason, decide to bunk in an old house over night. The girls are terrorized by alleged foot steps tramping up stairs. Later on a subsequent evening they get a boy friend to sleep down stairs while they again bunk up. The whole footstep scenario repeats.

Doc Holzar, have you never been a father of a teenager? Do you not know their fascination with such imaginary bumps in the night and hysterical need to tell frightful chilling stories? Not saying it didn't happen, but when folks tell such extraordinary tales, it needs extraordinary proof.
However, this soft spot in the book did not detract from its over all fine quality.
The Doc asks us to be skeptical, but I guess its a case of do as I say, not as I have done.

Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah, and the other authors of Macrohistory and Macrohistorians demonstrate yet again that each generation may give new perspectives to ideas that we thought we understood. From Ssu-ma Ch'ien and Augustine to Marx, Sorokin, and Sarkar, these authors give us brilliant, 21st-century insights into theories of social and civilizational change. Throughout, the authors maintain views that are both sensitive to the coming future and informed by an understanding of the worldwide unities of humankind. This is a book that belongs in the library of every scholar.

Wendell Bell, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Yale

Macrohistory and Macrohistorians is a rich exploration of patterns in history through the works of twenty macrohistorians from a variety of cultures and eras. The book is particularly valuable for the way it synthesizes the contributions of each and includes interpretative chapters that explore their significance. This is a coherent and rare guide to big picture thinking and hence essential groundwork to underpin the long view ahead. A magnificent achievement

Remarkable ... The best think of its sort I've ever seen and destined to become the classic reference in history and futures studies.

David Loye, Board of Editors, World Futures.

Richly eclectic, Macrohistory and Macrohistorians is an indispensable addition to the historical, sociological, peace and futures literature. It invites dialogue on our ways of knowing about social change, historical dynamics and violent and non-violent futures. Drawing on the writings of macro or big-picture histories, it offers fascinating insights about various civilizational traditions and theorizing about social change processes. It highlights the limitations of Western-centric claims to correctly know the patterns of history whilst raising the challenge of moving beyond hard deterministic thinking.

Macrohistory is the study of history itself. While the historian tries to understand events and processes in a chronological order, the macrohistorian stands back and tries to find a pattern in the histories of civilizations. Macrohistory is not a summary of histories; nor is it a vast collection of detailed histories of countries, periods or civilizations. It is an abstraction from such histories. Its focus is on the way civilizational units behave over time. As such, it is a challenging, deeply philosophical and, of course, theory-ridden enterprise. Indeed, for those with a bias for empirical evidence, many of the abstract laws or patterns detected by macrohistorians would not be valid because they refer to the future which, they would reason, need not be conditioned in ways the macrohistorian predicts. And yet, despite these limitations, some of the world's most original minds have turned to macrohistorical theorising. Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah, both well known scholars in many fields, have now brought together twenty important macrohistorians in this book. The selected macrohistorians are as follows: Ssu-Ma Ch'ien (145-190? B.C) Augustine (354-430); Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406); Giambattista Vico (1668-1744); Adam Smith (1723-1790); Hegel (1770-1831); Auguste Comte (1798-1857); Karl Marx (1818-1883); Spencer (1820-1903); Pareto (1848-1923); Weber (1864-1920); Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925); Spengler (1880-1936); Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955); Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968); Toynbee (1889-1975); Gramsci (1891-1937); P. Rainjan Sarkar (1921-1990) Riane Eisler (b.1931) and James Lovelock. `It is not possible even to give a brief summary of the major theories of these macrohistorians in this review. The book, however, has a section on each comprising a brief biographical account followed by the major theories. The editors' real interest is in the relevance of these theories to the human condition; to the future of human beings. Thus, chapters 3 to 6, half of the book, is about comparison of the grand theories of the macrohistorians and trying to find out what insights they offer in the human condition. The most fascinating aspect of these grand theories is that they offer a pattern of movement through time which, in spatial terms, takes different forms: of a straight line (linear); curves (cyclical); semi-circle (arc) and steps (ascent or progress) etc. For instance, Ssu-Ma Ch'ien, the Chinese thinker, taught that historical change is a cyclical succession of eras in an order of growth and decay. The decay is a consequence of loss of virtue (which we would probably translate as legitimacy). Ibn Khaldun, the philosopher of Tunis, also presents a cyclical theory but one in which asabiya - togetherness, in-group feeling, solidarity, ethnicity - plays a great role. A primitive group, like a Bedouin group, has asabiya and conquers decadent urban groups with less asabiya. Khaldun has contemporary relevance because ethnicity is one of the most important concerns nowadays. Another imporant concern is modernity. At the centre of the notion of modernity is the idea of progress. Hegel, Marx, Comte, Spencer, Weber and Toynbee have all presented theories which contributed to the world view which we associate with modernity. Hegel's idea of the spirit working out 'through a dialectic resolution of theses and antitheses' is central to Marx's view of this process resulting in the establishment of communism. Comte's three stages of history leading to positive knowledge and Spencer's general law of evolution have all contributed to the idea that progress is the destiny of mankind. And, since all these theories were created in Europe, the unexpressed assumption among Western people was that it was their destiny. Spengler was the only major thinker to suggest that each culture has a life cycle and that Western civilization will not progress or dominate forever. While on the subject of cultures it is useful to read Sorokin's typology of cultures. He mentions thirteen types of cultural mentalities of which the Ideational and Sensate are the most important. Western culture, then, is sensate. Weber explains why it may be so. His concept of the rationalisation of world views and social relations leading to disenchantment, explains modernity and its profit-and-loss utilitarianism better than most other theories. Toynbee added to this the idea that elites exploit their own working classes, the working classes of the periphery and nature. This, then, explains the tension at the centre of modernity - it is not sustainable. From this we can go on to our own theories about how elites can create policies which can enable them to sustain their lifestyles longer. In a sense, post-modernists contribute to this ongoing intellectual process. There are, of course, outright rejections of capitalism - to which the thinking of Adam Smith is relevant - of which Sarkar, Raine Eisler and Lovelock are exponents. Sarkar, an Indian philosopher, tells us that historical movement takes place through struggle with the environment, ideas and the attraction of the Great. These struggles take the form of varna, or socio-psychological stages of history. Eisler, a feminist, includes women in her understanding of history. Moreover, she emphasizes the emergence of partnership rather than domination in human relations. Lovelock tells us that the earth, Gaia, is a living ecosystem which tries to accommodate changes so as to enable life to go on. But whether this can go on at unprecedented levels and degrees of change is questionable. The focus of the book is not only the history of ideas but comparison of ideas. Another focus, this time utilitarian rather than purely intellectual, is that of the future. The authors are cautious about speculating on the future. However, their last words can be taken as useful advice:

And yet there is something absolute about trying to remove unnecessary suffering (negative peace), to enhance well-being (positive peace and development) and to make peace and development sustainable. More than the positive advice from macrohistorians, their warnings of what can go wrong should be taken seriously (p.244).

Sohail Inayatullah and Johan Galtung have done us a great service that they have produced a book which summarizes knowledge of some of the most important ideas of the world's greatest thinkers in one volume. If the book is ignored it will be unfortunate for us.

Gregory Rodriguez describes the fluid, malleable, race formation that allowed Mexicans to move up the white supremacist hierarchy by shedding their Indian and Black bloodlines. In contrast, mixed-race Americans were locked into a rigidly segregated white-black binary that defined as black anyone with a trace of black ancestry, i.e. the one-drop rule. To confront legal segregation, American blacks organized. But, the civil rights movement would not have happened if America had the kind of racial dynamics that existed in Mexican society. I'm absolutely convinced of that. American blacks could not escape segregation and stigma by breeding whiter or buying a lighter, whiter census designation. The only way to confront jim crow was with a unified community. And, the civil rights leadership, as well as its rank and file participants were full of mixed-race blacks, many predominately white.
Since then, post-civil rights generations have taken on the one-drop rule. But, the census designations they've sought: mixed race/multi-race/bi-racial/other, many deemed as troublesome as the one-drop rule. Americans of all races said that mixed race/multi-race/bi-racial/other doesn't acknowledge or affirm their ancestry. Blacks, in particular, understood how such amorphous terms can make most of the black race-which is at least 80% mixed- simply disappear (at least on paper). American Blacks feared the same fate as Mexico's blacks which a latino academic declared were "bred out"(Why isn't this called what it is: a form of genocide?). So, the census department told us to "check all boxes that applied". That seemed to quiet most people, for now. But, maybe genetic testing will provide a better way to describe people in the future. If the census defines us by the percentage of our white/black/Indian/Asian etc. bloodlines, we might discover we're all cousins, after all.

Almost from the very beginning, the United States has exhibited a schizophrenic attitude toward Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants living in the United States. On one hand we have often been desirous of the advantages they have offered, be it as agricultural migrant workers, inexpensive alternatives for domestic tasks, or a host of other job-related activities that our society demands but has trouble filling. Balancing these favorables are at least an intermittent fear of a quickly growing minority, if not a downright xenophobia about our neighbors to the south, especially during economic downturns.

What Gregory Rodriguez has offered us is a nicely written history of Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants from the arrival of Hernando Cortes in 1519 to the present day as seen through the filter of mestizaje-the racial and cultural synthesis of Mexican descendants into larger cultures.

In his political and cultural account of over five hundred years of Mexican/American relationships, Rodriguez covers many of the main historical elements of this time period: Indian-Spanish interaction, the Spanish racial system, Mexican independence, the western expansion of the United States, Texas independence, and the Mexican-American War.

In his concluding chapters, Rodriguez goes on to cover key elements of the past hundred years and their impact on our history: the Nativist movements, WWII, the bracero program, the Chicano movement, multi-culturalism, Cesar Chavez, bi-lingual education, and the rapid growth of Spanish language media.

Despite the periods of anti-immigrant fervor that tends to re-emerge on a regular basis in the United States, especially during difficult economic times, Rodriguez has a decidedly optimistic outlook. He feels quite strongly that just like the Spanish racial system was undermined by the assimilation of Mexicans into the larger Spanish culture in colonial Mexico, that Mexican-Americans are well on the way to usurping and eventually destroying the more pernicious parts of the Anglo-American racial system as well.

Armchair Interviews says: An important read to understand the change in America.

Gregory Rodriguez tells the true story of the Spanish, Indian, Anglo & Mexican history of the Southwest. He does so dispassionately and without taking sides but neither does he just quote boring statistics. He fills out the facts with the true richness of the history of our country. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a bird's eye view of the history of the people of the Southwestern United States. A must read for every member of La Raza.

This book was absorbing. As a person of Mexican heritage myself, I have never read a book that understands the ethnic dynamic from the ground up the way this book does. It starts with the human elements that drive (or don't drive) the political. It is fascinating to see the narrative unfold, and to witness the political and social cycles that have taken place over the years; to see how we got where we are. As others have stated, it is an antidote to the hysterical, earnest, hyper-political screeds on race and culture in the US. It is common sense yet profound, because we don't always see the obvious or learn from the past. As a result of this book, I understand myself and my community better.

If you are skeptical about books that either argue that new immigrants can't assimilate or that they are overwhelmed by a tidal wave of American culture, Gregory Rodriguez offers the antidote. He shows that Mexican-American immigration resembles in many ways the patterns of other immigrant groups but that Mexicans have embraced a broader Hispanic or Latino identity as their circumstances have evolved. At the same time, businesses like Univision and professional activists have tried to homogenize the actual course of Mexican immigration to serve their own economic and social ends. The author's history of immigration is richer than his discussion of contemporary trends, but this only raises the reader's hopes for a sequel.

I have just finished reading Lowell Feld's and Nate Wilcox's new book "Netroots Rising" describing the growth in importance of the netroots and the blogosphere in the our democracy. It is a fascinating read. I was especially fascinated at the description of the contribution of the blogging community in causing the downfall of Tom Delay and the description of the Jim Webb phenomenon.

Lowell Feld was one of the leaders of the draft Jim Webb movement. Using his blog Raising Kaine Lowell and his band of merry bloggers built a groundswell of support that convinced Jim Webb to enter the race. This groundswell of support translated into a "ragtag army" of committed volunteers that enabled Webb to win both the primary and the general election despite being outspent over 2 to 1. Lowell was in the middle of all this from the beginning and the account in the book is a fascinating read.

Having worked in the Jim Webb campaign as a volunteer during the primary I can attest to the accuracy of the account. I can also attest to the difficulty that the volunteers had with the paid staff that the book so accurately describes. That difficulty was brought into sharp relief during the Obama campaign which handled volunteers in a uniformly outstanding fashion. I heartly recommend the book to you.

In 2006 I joined those fed up with the bush administration and stumbled into the netroots movement. Other than vote, I had never done anything in politics. However, I discovered Raising Kaine while doing a google search and soon joined Webb's "ragtag army" of volunteers to unseat George Allen. Raising Kaine became the center of my election activities. RK not only had discussions of events and issues, but flyers that you could download and print to distribute. A great endorsement from Webb's company commander in Vietnam was posted. I literally printed out hundreds of copies and distributed them throughout my neighborhood. Netroots Rising is a fascinating behind-the-scenes history of the whole netroots movement.

NETROOTS RISING: HOW A CITIZEN ARMY OF BLOGGERS AND ONLINE ACTIVISTS IS CHANGING AMERICAN POLITICS comes from two veteran online campaigners who analyze political campaigns in which netroots activism was decisive or instructive. Their survey offers insider and first-hand accounts of the power of the netroots to determine political outcomes and also offers chapters covering how activists build movements and insiders kill them, and how the passage of time affects political and internet movements. A 'must' for not only computer libraries, but any collection strong in social issues.

This book analyzes, through narrative, anecdote and commentary, the convergence of grassroots organizing/activism with the decentralized power of mass communication available through the internet. The stories are great and provide a unique perspective on recent political events. More significant perhaps is the identification of this emerging reality for political campaigns at all levels -- the reality of a newly democratic process, of citizen activism making a difference. The issues involved are reminiscent of the growth in community organizing in recent years through organizations such as the IAF.

By the end of the book, I had a renewed sense of possibility, if not hope, for local political activism. Perhaps citizens can influence candidates, campaigns, and, ultimately, policy. Now that sounds interesting; sign me up.

Political Science has a concept known as "empowerment theory." The idea is that, among other things, giving people an opportunity to participate meaningfully in campaigns is one way of showing respect for their skill, energy, judgment, and intelligence. As formerly frustrated political outsiders begin to perceive such an opportunity for empowerment, many of them will seize that opportunity. As a result of their action, they will feel more efficacious, their lives will seem more meaningful to them, and their belief in democracy will deepen.

This book is a confirmation of empowerment theory. It is a true story of how outsiders to an established campaign process found a new way to become effective participants in the system. As the authors suggest, this may be the beginning of a real revolution.

Who are the netroots? They include men and women, paid website designers and managers, bloggers (paid and unpaid), and especially the readers of these information sources. It is these readers who participate early in campaigns by using the net to seek and to spread information, and to contribute funds to favored candidates, whether in or out of their own voting jurisdictions. By no means monolithic in their opinions, the netroots lean both liberal and libertarian.

For well over 100 years the US has had a political system with a relatively closed campaign and election process run by the rich. Until, that is, 2002 when Howard Dean began his presidential bid.

As the authors show, the Dean campaign listened to its supporters in several ways. It took suggestions made in comments on its blog and in emails to its website. It conducted online voting. It joined with Meetup.com, and encouraged its supports to meet together, unsupervised by the campaign, and brainstorm over ways to support the candidate on their own initiative. This was authentic democratic empowerment.

People who felt frustrated by a perceived lack of empowerment saw an opportunity to exercise some significant power by using the Internet. Some started their own pro-Dean blogs. Daily Kos took up the Dean cause early in 2003. Dozens of Yahoo Groups came together, many self-organized by states.

As the narrative suggests, two of the major moving factors in this period were anger and frustration. The anger was over what they saw as the Bush theft of the presidency in 2000, and even more so at the unprecedented preemptive invasion of Iraq in response to 9/11, which they thought was justified by lies and deception.

The frustration came from believing in the ideal of democracy, while in reality being locked out of the political system, which was dominated by the military/industrial complex, as well as other rich corporations and individuals.

No one proclaimed "let's use the Internet to storm the barricades!" It just happened spontaneously. As the book shows, it happened at the same time in the Dean campaign, and in the Clark campaign. Never mind that both campaigns ultimately failed. Lessons were learned, people gained new and valuable experience, and precedents were set for a truly new politics.

One of the recurring themes in the book is the conflict between, what I call, "the pros and the joes." At one point, for one of the authors, it nearly came to blows! We see numerous examples of old style control freaks trying to shape the message put out by independent-minded bloggers. It just can't be done.

That conflict haunted the "Webb for Senate" campaign in Virginia. Here is the story of a hard fought campaign against a seemingly invulnerable incumbent. Remember the word "macaca"? All the details are in the book.

Other effective uses of the net in politics will be found in a variety of well-told vignettes. These include the story of Tim Kaine's victorious campaign for governor of Virginia. The netroots also played a big part in bringing down "the hammer," former House majority leader Republican Tom Delay. These authors speak from experience, because they were in on the action.

Another theme of the book is that the Internet is not neutral; it has a progressive bias. At first you might think that the Internet is just a tool, to be used as well by conservatives as progressives. But that's not the way it works out in practice. Because of, in part, its uncontrollable blogosphere, this technology is an instrument for changing, not preserving, the present campaign and election process, it is biased in favor of both progressives and libertarians. Libertarian because it liberates individual participants. Progressive because it connects people equally; hence, it elevates the value of all users. All users are equally empowered, and limited only by their own personal skills, drive, and wit. That is why progressives, like the anti-war pro-reform Deaniacs, were the first to put the Internet into effective political use. Progressive minded people are more energized by the net's possibilities than are conservative minded folks.

The writers of Netroots Rising are well aware that Internet technology also tilts progressive because it confronts one of the premises of consumer culture. That is, passivity. Most Americans get their political information from watching TV. Listening to the radio, and reading newspapers and magazines, are a distant second. But Internet technology requires its users to ask questions, and to actively seek answers. As the book suggests, the netroots are the advance guard of the new political activist.

While the authors sense the revolutionary potential of the netroots, they could have sketched in a little more vision in their last chapter. How, for example, can the netroots lead America towards a fuller realization of its potential for a more direct democracy?

Can the new net technology make the direct election of the president possible (that is, without the Electoral College, which contributed to Gore's loss in 2000)? Can the Internet be used to create a virtual republic in each Congressional district, or each state?

What is the full potential of the Internet and its related electronic technology? Is the political potential of this technology maxed out by the speed of communication it allows, or by the efficiency of its computerized record keeping? Is it maxed out by the profitability of its fund-raising efforts? Is it maxed out by its ability to publicize and to popularize a progressive candidate, or to let everyone know about the faults of an incumbent or an opponent of a progressive? Is it maxed out in its role as gadfly to the mainstream media?

One might also ask the authors, "what is the netroots long-term strategy?" Do the netroots want to become merely accepted as equals in the money-dependent presently dominant system, or do they want to find a way to compel that system to break out of its current wealth-serving mold altogether, and use Internet technologies to create a new system, which greatly magnifies the degree of democracy we progressives now find so frustrating? Are the current uses of the net the final realization of its full potential for democratizing our politics?

I would only add that as people become more sophisticated with e-commerce, and other forms of Internet usage, they will become more prepared for increased participation in e-politics. Mistrust and reluctance are currently high about the prospects of online voting; yet, as we have seen, this too was done by Dean. But once the electorate is as comfortable with the prospects of e-politics as they now are with the use of e-commerce and e-banking they will be more receptive for a great leap forward.

Attention teachers. This book is not only excellent as current history, it is a fantastic stimulant for critical thinking. Almost every page makes a claim for a causal relationship between netroots action and some political success, such as fund-raising, drafting a candidate, or winning an election. Your students will have a ball refuting or defending these claims. The book is easy to read, and the authors provide material for both sides of the arguments.

Read this important book and you will see just how a new chapter in American politics has begun to unfold. I highly recommend this book.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.