education-economics

Rhonda seems like a nice lady, and her book is easy to read. I teach others how to use their food dollars more wisely, and have used her book in my presentations. It is a VERY helpful book if you are trying to help someone who is new to cooking, struggles to make their budget work, to eat healthy and doesn't read. There is an emphasis here on sugar. Some of her dinner ideas seem a LITTLE odd. And my family is NOT picky. There are foods in here my nonpicky family would struggle with. Her shopping lists don't match her actual dinners perfectly. Some of her ideas are pretty basic, too basic for anyone who has been reading and using other books. I also advocate self suffiency and teach others to not be "overconsumers". That could be stressed here more. Gardening can be a viable way to save on the food bill. I grow salad greens in a whiskey barrel for example. She does offer her information in a straight forward way that is esy to understand and easy to implement. She does not seem to be complusive with odd ideas. A helpful book for beginners.

If you visit the publishers website, you will see that this book, "Feed Your Family for $12 a Day",... is an UPDATED version of her previous book,.."Feed Your Family for $50 a Week". It was not meant to be a NEW book,.. it is an UPDATED version of the previous book. You don't need BOTH books.

Most frugality-related books contain, at best, one or two chapters on saving money on groceries. Since food is one of the few flexible items in many families' budgets, it makes sense to devote an entire book to this important subject. Although much of the information is repeated from her previous books, there's enough new information to make it a helpful addition to any frugal bookshelf (even if you already own the author's previous books). BUT ... if you don't already own Barfield's other books, you'll want to buy this book right now! Your budget will thank you, your dinner table will thank you, and your family will thank you!

Here are some of the MOST OBJECTIONABLE texts in this book on India -

India: Geography, Government, and People (adapted with permission from Venturing Abroad in Asia by Robert T. Moran International Management)

Page 444 - 8th paragraph

"There is not enough work for all their people, so poverty is prevalent. With an adult population of 326 million and official unemployment rate of 15 million, the last thing India needs is labor-saving modern equipment. Over the years, India has implemented intensive population control programs but none were successful. The high birth rate has been attributed to early marriage, the emphasis on bearing sons by the Hindu religion, the security of having children to take care of parents in old age, and the low level of education achieved by the rural masses.

Climate and culture contribute to the high incidence of disease and influence the patterns of work. The hot weather season brings constant dust, which results in various infections~ and eye irritations and also limits the outdoor physical activity. The cold, damp rainy season brings on colds, malaria and rheumatism. Their practice of vegetarianism contributes to malnutrition and protein deficiencies. The people of India have a general syndrome known as "weakness" brought on by their constant exposure to epidemic diseases such as cholera and typhus, and the malnutrition factor.

CORRECTION: This are very UNHEALTHY comments and illustrate pure ARROGANCE and IGNORANCE on the authors' part. They have NO MORAL right to blame India's culture and climate for its problems. Like everywhere else, people get used and adapted to the climate. And if they endure more, they should be stronger as they tend to develop immunity! Now, it has been proved that Vegetarian diet is as healthy (if not, more) as meat. For more info, please visit the link below -

[local website]STRANGE and INCORRECT!! - Why would the wealthy and educated with more resources suffer more often with malnutrition and the so called 'Weakness Syndrome' ?? ILLOGICAL!!

Page 445 - 5th paragraph

"Astrologers play an important role in India, as the people believe that nothing is accidental and the universe and all living components have a fundamental order."

Page 446 - 3rd - 4th paragraph

"It can be said that traditional Hindus are a nation of water drinkers"
"Western food is available in all the good hotels."

CORRECTION: Except health harming drinks, Hindus drink every good drink. Again, PURE ARROGANCE and IGNORANCE - good hotel does not mean Western food!!-

Professor Moran's class at the American Gaduate School of International Management is one of the more memorable experiences at that unique multinational training institution. While the school draws students from throughout the world, as an American, I feel justified in admitting that those who grow up in the United States are generally poorly prepared for cross-cultural relationships. Although the lessons I learned in that course have held me in good stead throughout my career and personal life, parts of it were a struggle. So is it with the latest edition of the course's text book.

A clue to this can be found on the title page which, in place of an editor, lists an "Editorial Coordinator." This book could benefit from some serious editorial rigor. It is marred by many typos, including such unfortunate ones as, "the Qur'an, the scared book of Muslims." Virtually every page has a totally useless pullout, quoting some profound phrase from that page. Selectively used, pullouts are supposed to increase the reader's interest in the material, but when it is carried to this extreme, it just wastes margin space that could otherwise be used for jotting down notes. One short but deadly paragraph manages to use the buzzwords 'empowered,' 'actualize, 'synergy,' and 'connect', which a good editor would have surgically removed. In spite of these execution flaws, I do feel that the book has merit, and recommend it for those who are interested in being more effective in cross-cultural situations.

The book is divided into three units. Curiously enough, the first two units both have the same title, "Cultural Impacts on Global Management." The first cultural impacts unit begins with an introduction building the case for greater cross-cultural skills on the part of managers. It concentrates on the particular problems that American managers have working outside of their culture. The chapter on communications starts getting into some real meat, introducing concepts such as communication context. Anthropologist Edward Hall's illuminating concept of high -- context vs. low -- context communications is described here, and used throughout the book. (This concept was particularly significant to me, and I have also reviewed Hall's book, "Beyond Culture," on Amazon.) The chapter continues with descriptions of important communication conventions that differ between cultures, and concludes with a set of practical guidelines on how best to make yourself understood when speaking with people whose native language is not your own. The unit continues with some management cultural ideas that are not necessarily limited to multi-ethnic situations, but are applicable to any large organization. This was interesting to me, although it is oriented specifically towards managers who have direct reports.

The second cultural impacts unit begins with a section on common characteristics that typically vary from culture to culture, such as appearance, food, sense of self, beliefs, and time of consciousness. The concepts discussed here are applied in the final section of book, so this provides important background information. The unit includes a section on culture shock, and re-entry shock, which should be mandatory reading for all overseas assignees and their managers. I found a checklist of desirable characteristics for foreign employment candidates especially useful, and several of the expatriates I work with agreed that it was consistent with what they had observed. This is followed by a very nuts and bolts section on preparing people for international assignments. The next chapter is entitled "Managing Diversity in the Global Work Culture." I have to say that I found the book to have a persistent politically correct theme, and I'm not sure that it is necessary to constantly harp on the value of diversity. This was a very popular HR activity at the time this book was written, but I found it distracting.

The final unit, which at 200 pages amounts to one-half of the book, is entitled "Culture Specifics and Business/Service Abroad." Choosing several representative cultures in each continent, it provides detailed discussions on their unique characteristics, along with helpful tips on dealing with people within that culture. This is similar to those books you may have read on "how to deal with X," but unlike those books, it is built on a strong foundation of sociological, anthropological, and organizational behavior disciplines that are introduced in the first two units.

Interestingly, the first chapter is on doing business with North Americans, which through self reflection, can help American readers better understand what it is like to look at a culture from the outside. I'm sure the chapter would also be helpful to non-American readers, but the book is generally aimed at North Americans. While constantly pointing out how important it is to avoid generalizations, each one of the individual cultural studies contains information on the people within those cultures that could be considered just that. One of the balances that I was never able to manage in professor Moran's class, was maintaining a safe distance between sensitivity and prejudice. Attempting to apply these lessons over 15 years, I've learned that cultural sensitivity can help you understand why someone acts in a particular way, and it can also help you anticipate their feelings or reactions, allowing you to better connect with them. The trick is in avoiding either value judgments, or in assuming that cultural guidelines will always be predictive. This helps explain why it is difficult in a book like this to highlight cultural characteristics that may be considered negative. Continuing their politically correct agenda, the authors identify several cultures as being "hard working." No culture was identified as being lazy, so presumably everyone is above average. A difficult balance, but a necessary one.

Such a whirlwind tour really obviously can't do justice to an entire world. It isn't meant to cover the entire world--it is meant to help you apply the lessons in the book yourself, and it succeeds. Although the treatment of various cultures is somewhat uneven, I did find this a very useful and helpful unit, and I will keep if for reference. I do think there are many flaws in this book, and I don't find it particularly easy to read, but in spite of that, I strongly recommend it for everyone who finds themselves in a multi-cultural situation. If you will be dealing with a multi-cultural environment, I recommend reading this book first, and then finding several books on the specific culture you will be exposed to. I highly recommend also finding the time to read Edward Hall. He's entertaining and enlightening.

These book will help the executives of your company or under your command to climb cultural walls and make successful negotiations with businessman's overseas. Also it will help understanding other cultures and becoming more culturally humble: much of the problems we have today as humans rely on the egocentric way we see the world, a lot of problems would disappear if we could just sit on a table and learn the way others think. A most read for international sales managers and embassy personal. Enjoy.

This book is a disappointment, but it was very close to good. The articles are mostly anecdotes and project descriptions by Wirth's students. I, too, was expecting more direct descriptions of Wirth's teachings. The glimpses shown here were almost enough, but in the end, unsatisfying.

I'm giving it three stars. If you will do anything to learn more about Wirth, you should certainly read this. For general programming insights of similar ilk other books, such as The Practice of Programming or Meyer's Object-oriented Software Construction, are better places to look.

Echoing the previous reviewer's sentiments, I expected to learn more about the person. Instead, you get some short articles (of uneven quality) by his students. Remarkably, the one most aligned with my current job--the Clint network--was the one I found most tedious.

As a minor plus, the book has a really *nice* cover.

I donated my copy to the local library.

This is the first nerd-book that I've read in a _long_ time that I could call inspiring. It got me back to my roots of computer science and applying Occam's razor to everything I see, think, or do. I only gave this a 4 star because one of the chapters is not congruent with the goals of the book. Chalk that up to the ego of that author and ignore it. The rest is great.

If you are an older generation software engineer and feel like you are drowning in the needless complexity of modern day languages like C++, perl, or java, then I think you owe it to yourself to give this book a try.

If you are a newer generation software engineer and haven't seen what some of your predecessors were doing before and around the time of your birth, then you REALLY owe it to yourself to give this book a try.

I was born the same month as Smalltalk. It's one of my favorite languages. When were YOU born?

This book fails to offer one single argument against vouchers and charter schools. The so called 'teachers' like Breidner, which are mostly active union members and are against teacher accountability, are the same people that always ask for more money for public schools but less responsibility on the part of the schools. The likes of Breidner are the ones that teach our children garbage and except fat pay raises. I say, to hell with this book. It was a major waste of time.

"To Hell With School Vouchers, Charter Schools, and Merit Pay," by Samuel Breidner is a short book that's well worth reading and probably won't reach much of the audience it should. To begin with, it's mistitled. The book is a proposal for Theme-Based Academies in public schools, in which teams of teachers design curricula around themes that keep the students interested in learning. Vouchers and the rest are used as a threat to justify the need for this change if we are to save the "marketability" of our public schools. Otherwise, the concepts in the book's title aren't addressed at much length, and the description of the book on its back cover is absurdly misleading.

The book starts out with a couple of other strikes against it. It promotes patriotism on the front cover and religion on the back (neither of which I care for, though I'm aware many others do). The book is full of bad grammar, typos, and arrogant grand pronouncements, and it starts out in a rambling stream-of-consciousness manner that barely managed to hold my interest.

Getting through it was worth the effort, because the book's proposal makes a lot of sense. Thirty percent of American kids drop out of high school, and it's hard to blame them. The education provided is often lousy and does not even seem well-intentioned. It bears little relationship either to what students expect to be doing after graduation or what they would prefer to be doing right now.

Breidner makes some proposals that would probably help, and are already helping in some places:

Theme-based education (themes include: "liberal arts, small business, financial/banking, law, aviation, bio-medical, advertising, television, woodworking, art/design, maritime, wildlife/ecology, and the like."); Teacher teams with a Lead Teacher for each academy, and team control over what other teachers joins the team; Teacher control over lesson plans; Apprenticeship programs; Higher teacher pay; Higher teacher qualifications; Renaming principals "administrators," separating their duties from those of teachers, and paying them less than teachers; School choice for parents; Requiring student attendance and parent participation; Requiring that parents be financially responsible for students' behavior; Reviewing students' progress on the basis of a portfolio of work.

These excellent proposals are explained in a disorganized but persuasive manner, and at only 89 pages the book's drawbacks don't amount to much trouble. I think it should be read by anyone thinking about the problems with our schools.

Sam Breidner comes across as a dedicated educator looking for a progressive way to improve our public schools. He gives concrete arguments against school vouchers, charter schools & merit pay. His constructive suggestions for improving our schools with theme based instruction is clear and of proven value. Hooray, for a champion of public school education, the American way.

The title of this book is very misleading! The overwhelming majority of the programs listed require some time on campus. Although the program descriptions are good, the title doesn't deliver what's promised. If you want a guide that delivers spend your money on Bear's College Degrees by Mail & Modem instead.

I just received the "revised" 1999 version and find it is the 1998 edition (went to press in late 1997). There are NO new schools or NEW degree programs. The old edition was good but it needs to be updated. Get Peterson's at Amazon (updated annually) or Distance Degrees at www.collegeathome.com (updated every six months). Thorson has 31 schools offering MBAs, e.g. Distance Degrees has over 85! Peterson's have over 60. If this book was updated annually it would be great. Good info on too few schools.

Save time & money, learn from home! Get a Degree and possibly earn more! Good Read!

The authors seem to assume that by the time most graduate students complete and defend their dissertations they are bereft of the simplest social graces. Doctorally prepared adults who can't keep themselves from being obstreperous with prospective colleagues, chairpersons and deans need therapy and not "strategic rhetorics." This is a poorly written and highly dispiriting book. You'd do well to stay away from it.

Maybe this book is not for everyone, but I truly found large portions of it helpful when I was on the market last year. Women and men-of-color may find it more useful than white men. I especially recommend the chapters on the interview itself. I took this book along in my suitcase, would re-read the interview chapters, and then leave the hotel room, ready to communicate my main message. Only for the socially challenged? Gee I don't think so. One of the important messages of this book is presenting one's authentic self in a stylized way which makes interviewers perceive you as real but fits within the structure of a formal interview. The discussion of the type of school you would prefer and how to fit was useful as well. I requested that our local public library buy this, they bought 2 copies which are usually checked out.

I think the other reviews are much too hard on this book - I found it an extremely helpful resource. Certainly it duplicates a certain amount of information found in other academic job search guides (why is this surprising? 90% of any job search books on the market probably share about 90% of the same advice), but what is valuable about this book is the perspective that its authors bring to the topic. Formo and Reed have been on the market recently, and understand the experience very personally. For me, this made the book more useful than what I would consider the closest runner-up, the also excellent _The Academic Job Search Handbook_ by Heiberger and Vick (their advice is great and they are very sympathetic, but their distance from the personal experience of the job search occasionally made me resentful of how easily they talked about this difficult process). What I found particularly helpful about the Formo and Reed book was how they were able to discuss and provide examples of how necessary it is to get a real sense of oneself across in job applications. Using the Heiberger/Vick book, I produced applications that looked just like anyone else's; using the Formo and Reed book, I was able to come up with applications that looked like me. Finally, if, as one reader comments, these books are filled with information that any advanced grad student would know already, I advise her/him to check out any number of graduate programs that do nothing to prepare their graduates for the professional process of job applications, and in which students honestly in fact *don't* know much of what this book explains (it amazed me too, but I've been at conferences with such people...).

This book proposes to be an 'learning' tour de force, however i was disatisfied with its intellectual nous. I found the full volume, a collection of tired and hackneyed cliches, the example tests are unfulfilling and frankly at points, patronising. This author simply exploits common consultancy buzzwords. This appears to be a book in a time warp. All in all, this is a very ordinary publication. My advice is steer well clear of this and any other 'enpowerment' authors.

I'm a senior partner in a successful consulting firm and so naturally I have read many books about knowledge management and empowerment etc. This book was recommended to me by an ex-colleague and so I tracked a copy down for myself. It seemed to me that the content of the book was mainly promo material for the author. I didn't feel that he was working with me and my business so much as trying to sell me something. The author goes to great lengths to tell the reader that this is not some sort of training manual. This is, however, some sort of training manual. You could say it is the wool that has been pulled over the eyes of middle management but this would probably be too punishing a metaphor to be fair. The book serves little practical purpose but escapes just one star by being enthusiastically written. The author seems to believe his own hype and this at least affords the book a sense of energy and momentum which is so important in business. In summary, there are far superior texts available but I'll leave you to discover these for yourself!

The Power of Learning is a practical book written with implementation in mind. It's full of insightful ideas that can be immediately appropriated and put into practice by immaginative readers. Useful for anyone looking for inputs to make training and education really work in organizational settings. It could point to some more "academic references" for people interested in furthering their research.

If you are a mountain bike racer who knows little to nothing about sponsorship, you'll be fascinated by this book. If you are not, you'll be disappointed. Not being the former, I am the latter.

The good thing about this book is that it offers a step by step explanation of what to do to find and negotiates with sponsors. Nothing earth shattering here but it nice to have a check list to work on to make sure you are doing the job properly.

As a family man, earning serious moola was not the reason I bought this book. And that's the great thing about it. Whether your goal is to pay the bills, raise some funds or simply get some swag, this book will get you going in the right direction with *realistic* expectations. Highly recommended.

With a book title like Marketing Minds - you would think you would get some keen insight - but that is not what you get from Marcia Layton Turner's brief, unsubstantial book. Surprisingly she does not seek out these marketing minds to speak to them and only offers us a short bio and some quotes from third sources. It really reads like a high school book report and offers zero insight. There is one passage which stands out. She writes, "Remember the Tylenol tampering scare? In contrast to executives in that situation, Nike made all the right moves (with sweat shop negative PR)" - are you kidding me - that is completely backwards. Unbelievable - a published book with this kind of a factual error! Don't waste your time.

First of all, I am really appreciated the good job the author has done. This book is very suitable for marketing student like me. It gives me many insights and I have learnt so much from the book. Let discuss them in detail.

1.Well-organized structure
The book is divided into 2 parts: Doers and Thinkers. In the Doers part, the author tells me the action the Doers have done in order to success. In the Thinkers part, the author explained clearly the concepts of each Thinker. Besides, with the heading in each chapter, it is really easy for me to catch the main point.

2.Famous example
The people and the companies involved in the 11 cases are very famous, for example, Nike, Coca-Cola etc. These topics really draw my attention and arise my interest. Moreover, as I am quite familiar with the parties involved, it is much easier for me to understand each case.

3.Future trend of the marketing
The book informs me with the latest theories of Marketing such as CRM, High-Tech Marketing. I think it is very useful for me (marketing student) to understand the future trend of marketing.

However, there is a major drawback of the book, the author didn¡¦t link up each chapter, it would be much better for us to remember if there is connection between each case. For example, the author should tell us the common points of Guru Doers.
Thus, a summary should be provided.

Marcia Layton Turner presents a compelling compilation of ideas from well-known marketing gurus. Some have been the heads or marketing directors of major companies; others are primarily known as consultants, speakers or academics. Even Madonna, successful marketer of herself as a product, is included in the mix, along with Martha Stewart. After a brief introduction of those profiled, Turner focuses on how they succeeded. She offers their main ideas for marketing effectiveness, followed by a summary listing the main marketing principles derived from each profile. The book is clearly organized, so that even those who are already familiar with the individuals profiled will find helpful, interesting highlights. Those who are not familiar with these luminaries will enjoy this excellent introduction. We ... recommend this book not only to executives, managers and company owners, but also to worshippers of Madonna and Martha.

resource.

The point of writing the application essays is to emphasize your candidacy while presenting yourself as unique "fish" among the "school" of applicants. While the examples and critiques are mildly interesting, they don't do that much to help you be yourself.

A better, and more holistic analysis of positioning your entire application is presented in the Richard Montauk book, "How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs."

If you're interested purely in the essay portion, the Harry Bauld "On Writing the College Application Essay" is much better because it adds a human (and humor) element to writing. (Don't be misled by the undergraduate flair: Harry Haggard and Sarah Bleary review B-school applications, too!)

These essays are outdated, answer irrelevant questions and are entirely too long. They are good only to read and say - "I can do better than that." Besides, reading other people's essays is not as useful as a good book full of advice on which topics to cover and how to write. Save your money.

While not as good as Montauk's "How to Get Into the Top MBA Programs," this book is much shorter (1/3 the size) and may be better if you're on a tight deadline. Found that the essays provided some good guidelines. Helped me get into UCLA, so it was definitely worth the read.