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This book is craip! a waste of money.

If you're new to After Effects, I could not recommend this book. Better to go with the After Effects Classroom in a Book.

If you are a self-starter and don't mind doing some investigating, then you may love this book. The reason I'm qualifying my praise is because I'm in the middle of it and I'm having some trouble making these projects work the way they claim to. This book is not an step-by-step, procedural kind of
tutorial. They give it to you in broad strokes, and also expect you to finish some of the projects by simply describing the last few steps in a single paragraph, so you have to backtrack and see what you've already covered, and apply it to the rest of the project.

It does teach some pretty cool things, and what you learn, you learn well, because it can be painful to figure some of these projects out. They don't hold your hand here.

At the end of each project are some brief paragraphs describing variations you can do. I expect to do these eventually. I believe in reading a book three times, so maybe by the time I've done that I'll have mastered it. They do seem to know what they're doing - and they also assume that you do.

Don't get this as a beginner's book - you'll be lost in the first example! Instead, think of this as fodder for your next work of art AFTER you have a handle on the basics. I got several great tips that created ideas that I was able to implement on my own. Great complement to the Trish & Chris Meyers AE books.

I had to read this book for a Business course. Larsson meanders through the chapters, dropping and picking up points like a stream-of-concience dictation. While his Pro-globalization points are good, he disregards the arguments against globalization as if they are irrelevant. The point of the book could be made in about half the pages, especially if Larsson would leave politial bashing out.
If you want to explore the issues of globalization to make your own decision on whether you agree with it or not, choose something else, or supplement this book heavily. It's a little boring, but may be useful once you have the background on globalization.
If you have a background in business, don't waste your time with this book. The arguments are based almost soley on Macro and Microeconomics 101 priciples.
If you are looking for fuel to support your Free-Trade fire, this book will provide you with many supportive case studies. You have my blessing to read this book.

Check out the cato institutes site, much more interesting and cheaper.
Then rememember who funds cato. Maybe if they'd just come out of the closet that their ideology and analysis is slanted by contributors it wouldn't be side. Check their contribution page, too. No cheapo's are allowed.
The old truism rears it's ugly head: "He who calls the piper calls the tune." especially when it comes to politcal economy.

The world was more global prior to WWI than it is now. All industries have flourished and been rescued as a result of keynesian policies and government intervention. All the buzzwords flying around mean that labor and wages will be further destabilized and thrust downward, all in the name of returns on bonds and stock knockers, the part of the economy that receives the most welfare and protectionism. A stable, productive, and well-paid working class make for a strong economy. This one proposes slight variants on the current pyramid scheming. Should be called something along the lines of "health and happiness through starvation."

From 73 to 97 productivity went up some 37% while wages fell 14%. Fool's progress. This is the trend that people who thrive on this would like to see continue. If this is you then you'll like this book.

The book is a good read, however, there is too much focus and evidence on Asian countries. This may be due to the author's obvious familiarity with the region. However, this renders the evidence for his case rather skewed and less colourful. Also, the book gets off the track occasionally and loses its touch with the argument for globalization. Frankly, I am not sure whether I liked the book overall or not as I have a feeling that the arguments could have been put forward in less space. I wish it was written in a more succinct way.

During the late 60s, 70s, and 80s Soviet dominated Eastern Europe was pre-eminent in Olympic sports. None was more so than the late unlamented East Germany. This account uncovers the means to that success as well as the cost to those individuals.
At the 1976 Olympics, The USA's swimming champion, Shirley Babashoff, asserted that the then overwhelming dominance of East Germany's swimmers was due to drugs and "blood doping". Many in the Western media said she had sour grapes.
When the Berlin Wall fell, the former East Geramn athletes came forward with their accounts. Many were administered drugs without their knowledge, being told they were "vitamins". Those who suspected, complied because of the competitive advantage or fear of being set off the elite squads.
In later years, former athletes had medical problems or had offspring with disabilities. The medical problems were similar in most cases, deformities in offspring, problems with fertility, or problems relating to seconday sex characteristics(deepened voices with females or breast cancers with males). Even during the 70s and 80s there were anecdotes of East German female athletes that exhibited overly agressive behavior and having masculine builds.
Many doctors who administered these drugs were or are still practicing medicine in the new reunited Germany. The author followed the efforts of the former athletes to get compenstion from these doctors through the German courts.
What is so disquieting is that there are athletes the world over(American athletes included) that are still using these drugs even when the side effects are widely known. This is all in the name of winning. To the USA's credit the government isn't systematically administering these drugs.
To think many years ago many sports pundits thought the US should try to imitate East German methods.

The drug usage or brutal training methods that GDR sport system
applied are well reported in the media. Even from 1970s, some
atheletes who escaped to western countries revealed something.
After the collapse of Berlin Wall, more have been disclosed.
If all the previous reports in magazines and newspapers are
accumulated and surveyed, you will find how narrow this book
covers. It only focuses on a trial and those swimmers involved.
From other sources, I also know something more startling for
drug use, like swimmers are forced to take 11 shots in the butt
before they are allowed to go to the USA for a competition.
Some reports said that East European countries took
uninformed children for trials of the drugs in their summer
sport camps. I guess it also happened in GDR.
Some brutal methods beyond drugs are also taken, like applying
electric current for the muscle strength, or pumping air into
swimmer's rectum to increase the float. The author fails to
investigate these things and did not describe the whole
picture inside the GDR sport machine.

After reading this book I was stunned over the extent and how deliberate the East German doping program really was. Anyone who is interested in sports or history should read Faust's Gold. The author did a phenomenal job in researching and digging through court documents, STASI files and in disclosing the full story of what happened behind the iron curtain in a country obsessed with winning.

This is an interesting book in many respecsts. It combines a vast amount of information without real evidence to connect the facts. In amny cases the book is simply not true. Eisenberg uses metaphors which are not true. For example he says that one species installed another in its gut for nutrition. It may have happened accidentally through evolution but I don't believe any creature installed another on purpose. Where is evolution. There are several examples of this sort.Eisenberg states that the human race dominates and that the bacteria(for example) have lost "market share" He should read Lewis Thomas "The Fragile Species" who makes a case (with data) that the human race is simply a small offshoot of a small branch of evolution and that the bacteria and other groups by sheer weight and numbers far outclass the human race and have survived far longer.

I read the whole book including the footnotes, the biological information was -to me- original and a number of ideas I found very plausible, tapping into my interest in symbiosis, why humans can't be separated from 'wilderness' and the interpretation of nature by other cultures. Some of it is hard going, the words Evans decorates his prose with requires a dictionary on hand...a large one and not just for scientific jargon. I found the mythology parts padded and overly convoluted but that is my bias, and the extrapolation of human interaction in future a weak point, though I really liked how Evan takes an idea -held belief, fleshes it out, then examines where this fail in practice or can not widely. Human population reduction was something I think he explored inadequatley, dismissing something which IMHO is inevitable.

I think every town planner and ecologist should read this book or at least browse a bookmarked group reference copy, the references alone are worth an institutional copy. Even if you don't agree with the ideas put forward, it will take your mind into some novel directions

I read with disbelief some of the reviews, because I thought this book a work of genius - one of the very few that bridge the gulf between a scientifc and an arts view of history. My impression is that one reviewer is a fundamentalist Christian and that the others are mostly narrow scientists unfamiliar with ideas about myth and metaphor. Each seems to slate the book because it is not written from the standpoint of the reviewer's specialist interest. My own problem with the book was the many Americanisms and analogies from baseball and other sports about which I am too narrow to be informed, but I am not willing to knock off even half a star for that. I have made it my top recommendation for students of human ecology.

I am not quite familiar with American politics and culture, but I am with Freudian theory. And to be honest, I don't see the relevance of Torrey's fuzz. Frank Sulloway et al. have given abundant evidence of the fact that the influence of biology on psychoanalysis has been underestimated grossly, even during Freud's lifetime. In fact, in his Three Essays on the theory of Sexuality, Freud claims that "Education will not be trespassing beyond its appropriate domain if it limits itself to following the lines which have already been laid down organically and to impressing them somewhat more clearly and deeply" (Freud 1905, 178). If I am right (though I did not read any of Torrey's other writings), such statement could have been pronounced by Torrey as well.
The scientific value of Freudian theory is something quite different. Since Freud has been influenced thoroughly by contemporary biology, in particular Lamarckism and recapitulationism, it is no wonder psychoanalytic theory has never been able to develop into a 'real' scientific theory. But again, this does NOT imply psychoanalysis is a worthless theory.
I think Torrey is wrong, and he should have known better. It is a shame such books are still written, after Sulloway's 'Biologist of the Mind' (Sulloway 1979, 1992²).
As far as I know (and this was what I actually expected when I bumped into Torrey's book), there has not been written one book on Freud's real frauds. For example, Freud's studies about Dostojewski, Leonardo Da Vinci and Moses are based on crooked readings of written sources. Freud lied about the outcome of his therapies (of the Wolf Man, to mention just one),... There has been written a book on such topics in Dutch ('De Weense Kwakzalver' - which could be translated as 'The Viennese Quack', written by Han Israëls). These are Freud's real frauds. But Torrey is a quack.

That Freud knew next to nothing about severe mental illness and gave absurd analyses of schizophrenics and other severely disturbed people, and that he even preferred to treat clients who were in no need of psychoalysis or psychiatric treatment (it's easy to "cure" someone who isn't ill) have now been established to my satisfaction, thanks to the writings of the author of this book. Thank you once again, Dr. Fuller.

This book should be required reading for all mental health professionals, both medical and talk therapy oriented professionals. Freud [altered]psychiatry from the thirties thru the seventies and society is still in recovery from Freud's warped and misguided ideas. The book discusses how Freudian trained psychoanalysts were run out of Europe by the Nazis. Most came to the USA after the war and set up shop after WW2 and made Freudian psychoanalysis a household word in the forties, fifties, sixties thru early seventies. Mixed in with this Freudianism were strong left wing, Marxist political views and a belief that one's environment was more important than biology and genetics with regards to mental illness.

The book also discusses how Freudianism created "misguided resources" with regards to the treatment of the severely mentally ill. Freudian thought overemphasized the environment and psycho-social aspects of mental illness, leaving the severely mentally ill (who respond mainly to medications and ECT) discriminated against.

Eric

Disappointed with this text because of the single project through which this publication teaches After Effects. Compared to previous AE: Classroom in a Book books (earlier versions of After Effects) in which multiple creative projects unfolded as the learner used the tools, After Effects 5.0 teaches the program through one long project. The authors clearly guide the learner through important aspects of After Effects. However, if you are seeking a learn-and-do book that exposes you to a range of creative uses for After Effects, this book may be a disappointment.

This would not be the first book I would buy if you're just learning AE, but if you've been using it for awhile this is a fantastic book.

Beginners will probably agree that it's not the easiest way to get a handle on AE, a lot of the book is written in very simplistic terms .. not really explaining things. But if you're an intermediate to advanced user it's a nifty read that has many good idea's for designing in AE.

The design firm "Belief" wrote the book and take you step-by-step through one big project, breaking it down into pieces along the way. I for one, loved the way the book was set-up. However (and thus the reason for 4-stars and not 5), I don't think this book would be very beginner friendly.

For newbies, check out Trish and Chris Meyer's book on AE. Much better if you want to learn the in's and out's of AE.

But if you're looking to take the next step in you AE skills, this is a definite "must-buy!"

Having written training material myself, I know how difficult it is to write for every contingency, considering everything a novice might do wrong. The authors of this book have done a great job at presenting instructions clearly and completely, so that even an absolute newbie at After Effects like myself can follow every lesson. Various checkpoints allow you to verify that you are on the right track. The lessons are very clear and easy to follow, and I appreciate the continuity in presenting an entire project throughout the book, so that I feel I am really accomplishing something. After just a few lessons, I feel that I am grasping what After Effects is all about.

In general, these series of books are a great way to get hands-on experience with highly technical products, and I recommend them enthusiastically.

While Singer's book may provide some useful information about the global warming debate, it's overshadowed by shoddy organization and a weak writing style. The repetition of the same key information makes it appear as if Singer has ample evidence for his claim; however, his three major points appear in the foreword. Don't waste your time reading the whole book!

There is little to argue about on this issue when the simple facts already exist. Millions of scientists across the world run hundreds of thousands of tests to examine the man's effect on global warming. Most of this collection is unnecessary, however, as the idea behind man-made global warming is simple enough for anyone to understand. The carbon cycle is the process required for attaining a safe equilibrium inside any water-based planet's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a natural heating agent which is periodically absorbed into water (the ocean) and later released back into the air. A certain amount of carbon dioxide should exist in both mediums, however this amount must remain relitivly undisturbed for an equilibium to exist. If humans constantly pour carbon dioxide into the air from burning fossil fuels, then the equilibrium will shut down, with the water absorbing as much carbon dioxide as possible and the air being overloaded, heating things up quite a bit. Many scientists believe this is what happened to Venus, a planet with an atmosphere overloaded with carbon dioxide.

This is one of the easiest books to follow that tell the truth about the non-existence of so-called "global warming." Here, Mr. Singer analyzes the Global Climate Treaty and shows how damaging it could be to our economy, if adopted. He goes on to review the relevant facts and figures that clearly indicate the lack of overall warming of our globe in the last decade. His conclusions regarding the effects of man-made carbon dioxide are also clearly justified and documented, showing that the media claims are simply not supported by known facts.

This book clearly explains why we should NOT sign the Kyoto treaty, as Pres. Bush insists, and for the same reasons, that it would decimate our economy without doing anything that useful for our worldwide environment. Americans of all parties should read this book and be prepared to resist the media fear-mongers who try to get us to run from their chicken-little-like scare tactics into the arms of economy-destroying legislation.

Why did I have to even give it one star? The problem that someone should point out is that McKibben's book has as its core basis a fallacious argument. The United States, like every other developed nation is not growing because of the rate of reproduction of its population but because of immigration. If he had chosen to focus on a way to slow population growth and improve economies in the developing nations and thereby probably reduce the rate of immigration his argument would be stronger but since he didn't it doesn't matter what he says because once the core reason for his book is proven wrong, why should we believe any other argument he wishes to make?

Maybe One is an important book that is sure to ruffle a lot of feathers. Bill McKibben's background might for some evoke a walking contradiction and, indeed, his argument for single-child families could perpetuate that image. However, I prefer to view McKibben and his "argument" as complex, not easily lumped into a neat category, and willing to be unpopular--compelling qualities in both books and people. I have recommended (highly) this book to friends who, like my husband and me, have determined to raise an only child and whose decision has been met with disbelief or disdain. I have also praised it to people in my life who have been unsupportive of our decision to have one child. So if McKibben had simply taken on the role of only-child cheerleader, I must admit that I would be first in line to buy Maybe One if only for a validation of my own life choice. But McKibben is not in the easy business of validation. His scientific, historically grounded appro! ach is first and foremost about irrefutable consequence, whether the reader has ten children, one, or none at all.

Maybe One by Bill McKibben

The importance of this book to the near future of the United States is hard to exaggerate. It is a must for every young American, and everyone who cares about the quality of human life and of the environment.

McKibben's premise is this: if large numbers of people choose to limit their families to one child, the maximum population of the United States will be lower by a critical amount.

Most environmental thinkers recognize the central role of population growth in environment issues, including in this country. The United States is the third most populous country in the world, and the fastest growing industrialized nation. Bill McKibben has the courage to tell the truth: the only way to limit population growth is to choose small families. Deciding how many children to have, like it or not, is more than a private decision. It is very much a decision that will effect the quality of life of all Americans over the next 100 years.

McKibben gently demolishes long-held beliefs in the poor adjustment of only children. He also argues against legislated population control, though one might make the case that such measures may become necessary if voluntary family limits fail.

McKibben's relaxed, peppy style makes this book accessible to everyone, and his topic is the most important one for contemporary America.

Okay, you bought every book out there on how to create animation and you have a project you're trying to produce. Well, up until now you would have to track down [costly] freelance producers to put together your budgets and schedules and lose a big percentage of your creation to people who don't hand out trade secrets for free.

Not anymore! This book is packed with charts and diagrams of animation production that can be fit to whatever type of project you are planning on pitching. To the purist this book would seem to be the end of the world. Just because the book describes top heavy management doesn't mean we are obligated to follow [along]. "Producing Animation" lists every job out there, so we can pick and choose which ones are redundant and need to be streamlined.

This book has no place in a purists library. If all you want to do is have your work viewed at experimental film festivals keep working with your small group of volunteers. But those of us who need a resource to take our ideas to TV or the theater need look no further, because as of yet there is nothing else.

Thanks to Catherine and Zahra, you've probably taken much flack for putting this info out there for animators to buy.

Contrary to some of the reviews posted on this book, this book is NOT the death of art NOR is it a book designed to "beget executive monkeys". In fact, at the 2001 World Animation Celebration (sadly, there was no WAC this year!), the book was singled out as THE resource on the topic of producing animated entertainment. Much better and more specific to the field than buying a book on film or TV producing and adapting the concepts. Just because the book is more practical, business-minded and analytical than it is artistically oriented does not mean that it isn't relevant to the field. More to the point, it is ESSENTIAL to the field. THESE PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT.

To the artistic types who seem to be bashing this book on the basis of it not being written from a creative-end point of view, I'd just like to say that without a producer, your idea is just that, an idea. If you want your property to be seen by someone besides friends, family and the occasional festival judge, grow up and realize that the "business of the business" is inseperable from the art of animation. It's kind of like the old "if a tree falls, in the woods..." cliche.

If you want a book that discusses the actual PROCESS of animation, this isn't the book for you. But then again, it doesn't puport to be a book on how to animate.

This is an extremely helpful guide for those interested in learning the production process of an animated television show or film. The book begins with the development phase and describes the steps all the way through post production, also detailing the various people involved in each step and their specific roles. It distinguishes the differences between traditional 2-d vs. 3-d animation, and is also careful to point out differences between television, direct to video, and feature film. Also included in "Producing Animation" are helpful schedules that outline when different departments (such as backgrounds, animation, ink and paint, etc.) are working in relation to the the overall production schedule. The information on budgeting is limited, but overall a great way to start for the aspiring animation producer or production manager.

Easterbrook, while still maintaing a pro-environmental stance, points out the flaws of modern eco-philosophy. Anyone who feels they're a supporter of the movement should read the book.

I found that this book presented a more well rounded perspective of our environement. It is not writen from a conservationists view, but rather in a more open minded analytical way. It represents a open analysis of our interaction with the envrionment. I recomend this book to anyone who takes interest in our surroundings and the effects we place upon it. If you feel our world is being destroyed by human utilization, you MUST read this. Easterbrook leaves his audiance with a happy outlook to end on.

Highly recommended for serious students of environmental policy. Easterbrook is one of the recognized experts - and founding thinkers - on environmental optimism. Whether you agree with him or not, this is a must-read.