Hermes

You don't need to be Catholic to understand this book, only to have a depression and a faith that could use some support during these struggles.

I ordered it directly from http://www.pauline.org/store and received it within a week at my house.

Asclepius (English translations of these works --
with copious, useful footnotes).
The third volume (or book) contained in this
one volumes is: Excerpts and Fragments -- and
contains: (I) Excerpts by Strobaeus; (II) References
and Fragments in the [Church] Fathers -- which
includes Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Clement of
Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Arnobius,
Lactantius, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria,
Suidas, Anonymous; and (III) References and
Fragments in the [Pagan] Philosophers -- which
includes Zosimus, Jamblichus, Julian the
Emperor, Fulgentius the Mythographer.
And finally, there is a Conclusion.
This is an excellent compendium of useful and
provocative readings and sources. The reader
may then want to branch out and read other
compilations and introductions to the Hermetica
(such as Brian P. Copenhaver, Cambridge Univ.
Press) or concentrate also on Gnosticism, such
as the works of Kurt Rudolph (GNOSIS, Harper/
San Francisco) or Hans Jonas (THE GNOSTIC
RELIGION, Beacon Press).
G. R. S. Mead in a faith-full man, but he is
also an in-clusionist. He sees the great mystics
and illuminators and God-filled questers as all
being "Sons of God" -- with not just one particular
one being more "divine" than another. But this is
a God-centered group, not a demonic one. Each man
has the divine spirit -- the spark of the eternal
light -- within him, and the degree to which he
listens to it and is guided by it serves as the
touchstone of his insight and his piety.

There are couple books about cancer that I have found very thought provoking. One of those is Lois Lowry's A Summer to Die. The other is this one. The story is excellently written and is certainly recommended.

Each recipe was clearly and concisely presented. The few recipes that need special ingredients are the most intriguing! Who doesn't want to try something new and different? In fact, the author recommends Nutella if you don't have or want to deal with hazelnuts!

The Chocolate Macaroons were a treat one would die for. If you love chocolate, and I mean GOOD chocolate, you can't pass up this book. Because Cocolat contains many other recipes besides chocolate recipes, I much preferred Chocolate Desserts for its chocolate intensity and inspiring recipes.

Ok so now we get to the real meat of the review, did the authors do a good job of presenting the Clinton Presidency? I think they did, this book is one of the few I have read that did not spend more then a few pages on the personal scandals and the right wing witch-hunt that took place. The authors spend a good deal of time on the domestic policies issues that Clinton worked on. I think they also did a good job in bringing out the working relationship Bill had with Hilary in regard to the heath care program and subsequent defeat. I would have liked it if the authors had spent more time on the foreign affairs section of the book. I felt they skimmed the Middle East section and could have spent more time talking about Europe. Also completely missed was the issue of terrorism and what the administration did or did not do.

Overall the book was good. It was a well thought out and written book that is a good overview of the first 7 years of the Clinton Administration. It can be a bit dry and it is not a book that can be read with an eye on something else. The authors main point, inserted maybe a bit too freely, was that by always moving to the center and governing by public polls produces an average result and truly great Presidents follow an agenda based on philosophy regardless of public opinion. As for how the authors summed up the Clinton presidency I will leave you with a quote from the book. "If Clinton truly aspired to presidential greatness, the strategy he had chosen ensured that he would never achieve it."

The book also suffers from the fact that it was published before Clinton actually left office so issues like his last minute pardons are not touched on. In contrast to The Natural, where Hillary comes off as a villain, here, for virtually the same reasons Klein criticizes her, she is the star of the Clinton Era. An oasis of ideolgical purity, striking in its contrast to the vacuous desert of the"the Third Way" centrism that enslaved Clinton and Gore. A bit hyperbolic, but that's the gist of the epilouge, incidentally written before Hillary's run for the Senate so perhaps Burns and Sorenson were on to something.

The book deserves kudos for focusing on substantive policy issues and evaluating Clinton on those rather than getting caught in the trap of focusing the many personal scandals and confusing them with his professional failings. Burns and Sorenson on one page offer one of the best retorts to the vicious, partisan and very often malicious attacks on Clinton. Yet,they aren't soft on him themselves and therefore one can not dismiss this book as propaganda. Rather, it is a truly substantive study that may be driven by the authors policy concerns but makes evaluations based on substance not smoke.

A good academic book. The Natural's conclusions, I think, will stand up as being more historically accurate than Dead Center's but for a really detailed look at the Clinton Presidency this book is indispensible.

However, I think the authors miss the point that whilst Clinton did promise change and succeeded in some ( balancing the budget, welfare reform, NAFTA) and failed in others (health care reform,arguably race, campaign finance), the political environment he was in and also the post cold-war era constrained such sweeping changes. The Gingrich revolution forced Clinton to think more pragmatically and more tactically as re-election loomed. Impeachment (his own doing) poisoned Congress to a standstill in enacting any later reforms. In fact, whilst I agree that Clinton failed to deliver the high hopes he had promised from the start of his presidency, the situation changed to such a degree, that to survive politically, he had to govern from the centre ( see his triangulation). To a small degree, Clinton's presidency was a product of its times; there was no Cold War or major crisis to display "principled" leadership as with Reagan.

Not everthing is bad news of course. They outline Clinton's foreign policy successes in Ireland and the Middle East but also his hesitant meandering in Haiti and Bosnia.

The overall picture is one of a work in progress - a President learning on the job, trying to enact "bold change", later displaying tactical and political skill and subtly reforming the people's view of government. At the very least, this book strongly initiates the debate on the Clinton legacy and his leadership. It is by no means the end.

It has the best lay-out & breaks down everything in the simplest way. I haven't been in high school for 8years and this book totally refreshed (& probably even taught) me on 95% of what appeared on the SAT.

Get this book if you need to know HOW to do the problems. Get another book or look online if you want to know about the extremely debated "techniques" for improving your scores based on not what you know, but on how you alocate your time during the test.