Anthropologist Margaret Mead defined a nightmare as waking up one day and not knowing what we've lost. Anthropologist Wade Davis applies this to the world's languages. Though spoken by about 300 million people, or 5 percent of everybody in the world, these languages are being lost, without having been studied or written down by experts.

From 25 years worth of photographing and traveling worldwide, Davis sees each language as showing how changing and endless are our imaginations. For example, the Micmac name trees by the sound the winds make in the branches, the hour after sunset, in the fall. Native peoples of the Amazon believe that each plant sings in a different key. They've found a way of grouping, by figuring out the keys from talking with the very plants! This works as well, for them, as what botanists have come up with.

Healers, taken from all non-industrialized parts of the world, get food and healing from 40,000 species of plants. This know-how is so great that healing has always meant power. But it wasn't always used kindly.

Healers in West African countries, around the Equator, made sure their patients kept whatever laws were supposed to be followed. They used all their know-how to make rule-breakers take deathly amounts of plants. And to think that I had thought this hardly ever happened, other than the famous cases of the deathly drinks that were forced on Socrates and Tchaikovsky.

But this killing style is still around today, not too far away from the industrialized world, in Haiti. There, sorcerors give outcasts tetrodotoxin. It's a nerve poison in the skin and organs of the tetraodontiformes order of sea fishes. A pin-head size of the poison kills. Sorcerors give enough to make the outcast look dead. When the effects wear off, the outcast appears to come back from the dead. These death and near-death experiences aren't seen the same way as in the United States. Instead, they turn the outcasts into freaks as zombies, the living dead.

LIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD carefully follows the author's footsteps in ONE RIVER, RAINFOREST and SHADOWS IN THE SUN. The photography is beautiful, the organization is clear, and the writing is fascinating. Some of what's covered from the many non-industrialized cultures is chilling. So Davis doesn't get into just glorifying non-industrialized people or criticizing industrialized peoples.

From anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, he believes in finding balance in our world of opposites. The first pages told me that this approach would lead to a worthwhile read. For Davis tackles the controversial space program. It cost nearly a trillion dollars, just to bring back, in the words of a southeast Asian nomad, a basket of dust.

But a small part of that paydirt went into the stunning blood-red crystal in the stained-glass window at the National Cathedral in D.C. There, it reminds us all that it took going to the moon and back to make us change the way we look at things, for all time. Languages do that every day.

In his latest book "Light at the Edge of the World - A Journey Through the Realm of Vanishing Cultures" Wade Davis is quite frank about the motivations behind his around-the-globe adventuring. He says he is driven to the ends of the earth by "simple" curiosity and a horror of boredom. A Harvard-trained botanist and anthropologist, Davis has spent 25 years finding his way into places that most of us don't even know exist . . . and would most likely hesitate about going to even if we did.

From the high Arctic, to the Amazon, to Africa, Tibet, Haiti, Peru and Sarawak, Davis turns his camera and his intelligence. In his travels, the sciences of ethnobotany and anthropology have served him well. As an explorer he takes in the whole glorious panoply of data about people and plants, medicine, language, landscapes, history, custom, and creation myths. He records it painstakingly. Then, he deftly makes sense of it. The motifs of an astonishing array of human cultures dazzle with colour and clarity. Intricate patterns of thought, belief, myth and tradition emerge. Davis calls this body of knowing the "ethnosphere."

The ethnosphere is about those peoples of the earth whose essential humanity has been defined by the landscapes in which they are nurtured. For these people of the ice, the forests, the river deltas, the jungle, the desert sands, and the high mountain plateaus, daily life is both a precise and a fully variant exercise of knowledge and understanding - a long-accumulated wisdom that this world stands much in need of.

"When asked the meaning of being human they respond with ten thousand different voices. It is within this diversity of knowledge and practice, of intuition and interpretation, of promise and hope, that we will all rediscover the enchantment of being what we are. . ." writes Davis.

Of course, it isn't just science that happened to Davis on his way to the edges the world. Like all true pilgrims Davis has continually encountered within himself that intense inner dimension of spirit that is the nature of a human journey. In the enigmatic photographs of this book and the accompanying text, a reader can trace the writer being touched by his subjects, being himself altered by those gestures of imagination, mystery and dream imminent in the people and places he so passionately studies. It is this sense of excitement and spontaneity of learning, eloquently shared, that makes the book such a good read.

In the end, Davis' curiosity is more vast than simple, as is his capacity to absorb knowledge. As for his horror of boredom, perhaps his fears are more profound. As he tells the story, one of Margaret Mead's greatest nightmares was that one day we would wake up, look around and find ourselves all to be the same, and, what's worse, in doing so we wouldn't even remember what we lost.

This book is much more than an exciting travelogue, or a romance of far away places and exotic peoples. Davis' underlying theme is urgent and challenges the complacency of daily life in an industrial and technological society. In Davis' view, the survival of the world's indigenous cultures is crucial to our communal creativity and resourcefulness, if, as he says, those "imperatives driving the highest aspirations of our species were to be the power of faith, the reach of spiritual intuition, the philosophical generosity to recognize the varieties of religious longings." Indeed, if we are to know ourselves to be who we are.

Traveling the globe requires more than a ticket, a room and a backpack. A traveler unlike a tourist is immersed. Traveling through time and landscapes through the writings of Wade Davis is a timeless and immersive vision. Reading " Light at the Edge of the World " is a spell bounding pilgrimage under Wade Davis' guidance.

Never has the eye of the beholder held more meaning. As I gaze into the depth of his photos and ride with the resonance of his images, I am transported around the globe, immersed into the past and the future of our world. " Light at the Edge of the World " is Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and Rudyard Kipling all wrapped into one epic poem.

Even Herodotus would be provoked to wonder with envy at the worlds Wade Davis illuminates. T.E. Lawrence would ride into the desert night with adventurous hunger over this new book " Light at the Edge of the World " is a living treasure of our deepest and most cherished understandings of humanity, the stewardship of the planet, and a visionary quest for poetic diversity.

The author expended a tremendous effort in researching the Jeff Davis Legion. He has created an interesting history of this unusual cavalry unit. Any one who is interested in the Confederate Cavalry will enjoy the detail information the author has dug out of the archives.

Amazon says book has 40 pages. It has 325

The author obviously performed a great deal of research in order to extract such detailed and little known facts about the "Little Jeff". Truly a gem for all interested in the Civil War. Highly recommended.

This is a delightfully funny little book in which author/psychic Elizabeth Fuller shares her experiences with her legendary house guest - Bette Davis, who stayed with Fuller and her husband and small son for a month! Amusing episodes include Liz taking Bette to McDonald's (she promised her son a visit) and the attention Davis attracted. Bette and the author watched JEZEBEL together one evening as it aired on the telly. I liked the book because it gives us insight into the real Bette Davis, who could be very child-like and just as vulnerable as anyone. Well worth reading!

Who could ever be ready to have Bette Davis, in the flesh, come and stay in our own home? What was supposed to be a few days turns into months for our admirable author, who tries to the best of her ability to do the impossible - please Ms. Davis.

Ms. Fuller lives many of our dreams come true when she takes on what turns to be an arduous task. It doesn't take long for the movie queen to wear out her welcome. Though Bette keeps Ms. Fuller hopping, the end result is a beautiful book of an inside day to day look at one of our most beloved stars. Davis fans should love it.

If you're looking for light, airy humour, definately get this book. It portrays Bette Davis off-screen and in someone elses house and the results are hilarious! Don't pass this one up!

Rev. Audrey Craft Davis brings together many of the most important aspects of metaphysics and in plain simple english; gives us timely, constructive ways to develope both spiritually and metaphysically.

The book covers a wide range of topics; from Energy Boosting and healing techniques to Bi-location. As a teacher of metaphysics, I am normally not in favor of a "shotgun" approach to metaphysics but this book is extremely well done and an exception.

The book proceeds to lead us in the search for our higher purpose and self love. A great primer for those searching now for inner peace and a wonderful journey into the world of metaphysics.

Everyone can find something to benefit them from this work of Love. I strongly recommend this book for anyone wishing to learn the inner mysteries of the Universe.

Mrs. Davis' book is the layman's metaphysical textbook. Metaphysical techniques are explained in the book in easy to understand language. I read the book two years ago, and my life started to change for the positive from the first day that I applied the techniques. Also, my level of happiness has continued to grow since reading the book. Seek and you will find. If you are reading this review, you are meant to read the book. Read the book and happily enrich your life. Thanks and bless you, Audrey Craft Davis.

the review that you see on the screen from the 28th of july was us. just wanted to let you know take care.

Every so often, you read a book that makes it all come together for you. In this brilliant and densely footnoted volume, Chela Sandoval identifies the "academic apartheid" that keeps poststructuralism, postcolonial theory, ethnic studies, queer theory, hegemonic (white) feminism, and, especially, U.S. third world feminism isolated from and in limited conversation with one another, despite their common undercurrents. By introducing the concepts of "differential social movement" and "differential consciousness," she makes these spheres mutually intelligible and reconcilable in a way that can facilitate coordinated action for democratic social justice (rather than simply more academic pontification). What is particularly helpful is that she situates her analyses within postmodernity, noting how the dimensions of this historical space at once warrant, demand, and permit new and dynamic forms of activism. You will never think the same way about "theory," U.S. third world feminism, or the possibilities for a democratic future in the era of globalization after reading this book.

Chela Sandoval, a professor of Chicana/o Studies at UCSB, first introduced what she characterizes as the "methodology of the oppressed" in 1991 with her essay "U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World," which is the central to her book "The Methodology of the Oppressed." In the mentioned essay she unravels the meaning of"U.S Third World Feminisms,"why and where such movimientos came about , and what different forms of feminist practice it employs to bring social justice. She labels the tactics used by the movimientos as: equal rights, revolutionary, supremacist and separatist. U.S Third World Feminism is then "differential consciousness," which means possessing the faculty of mapping the circumstances one finds herself, and acting accordingly out of the four forms of tactics. By specifically reviewing the works of Western theorists such as that of Frederic Jameson, Roland Barthes and Michael Focault, Sandoval deconstructs and challenges the hegemony of these eurocentric thinkers within 'the Academy' on postmodern resistance and consciousness. She exploits these theoretical faults so that women-of-color continue constructing U.S. Third World Feminism as a legitimized theory and practice. Such hegemonic puncturing movidas by Sandoval, are then examples of the inner/outter technologies that the oppressed use for emancipation: "radical semiology, deconstruction and meta-idealizing." Sandoval can employ these various technologies because of her "differential movement;" the ability of differential perception and deployment of consciousness, or what many Chicana/os know as "la conciencia de la Mestiza." These technologies are guided by her commitment to equity for the marginalized inside/outside the master's home, to make "the system" accountable to our voices. This commitment is what she characterizes as "democratics," the love for people which drives one to pursue social justice, which constitutes the technologies, which are essential for the methodology of the oppressed, which is the methodology of love. Although the "Methodology of The Oppressed" is a rigorous read because of the high theory, it is an extremely brilliant book that gives us hope in laying out possibilities for us to build coalitions across race, class, gender and sexualities to enact social movements to bring social change. This book masterfully makes the connection between the political struggle within the academy, as well as outside, and assist us in strategically negotiating the terms of engagement to meet our normative goals of social equity.

Chela Sandoval, a professor of Chicana/o Studies at UCSB, first introduced what she characterizes as the "methodology of the oppressed" in 1991 with her essay "U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World," which is the central to her book "The Methodology of the Oppressed." In the mentioned essay she unravels the meaning of"U.S Third World Feminism,"why and where such movimiento came about , and what different forms of feminist practice it employs to bring social justice. She labels the tactics used by the movimientos as: equal rights, revolutionary, supremacist and separatist. U.S Third World Feminism is then "differential consciousness," which means possessing the faculty of mapping the circumstances one finds herself, and acting accordingly out of the four forms of tactics. By specifically reviewing the works of Western theorists such as that of Frederic Jameson, Roland Barthes and Michael Focault, Sandoval deconstructs and challenges the hegemony of these eurocentric thinkers within 'the Academy' on postmodern resistance and consciousness. She exploits these theoretical faults so that women-of-color continue constructing U.S. Third World Feminism as a legitimized theory and practice. Such hegemonic puncturing movidas by Sandoval, are then examples of the inner/outter technologies that the oppressed use for emancipation: "radical semiology, deconstruction and meta-idealizing." Sandoval can employ these various technologies because of her "differential movement;" the ability of differential perception and deployment of consciousness, or what many Chicana/os know as "la conciencia de la Mestiza." These technologies are guided by her commitment to equity for the marginalized inside/outside the master's home, to make "the system" accountable to our voices. This commitment is what she characterizes as "democratics," the love for people which drives one to pursue social justice, which constitutes the technologies, which are essential for the methodology of the oppressed, which is the methodology of love. Although the "Methodology of The Oppressed" is a rigorous read because of the high theory, it is an extremely brilliant book that gives us hope in laying out possibilities for us to build coalitions across race, class, gender and sexualities to enact social movements to bring social change. This book masterfully makes the connection between the political struggle within the academy, as well as outside, and assist us in strategically negotiating the terms of engagement to meet our normative goals of social equity.

I met the writer for a job interview, he is a great guy... but who cares? this is a boook review right? I work for a computer emergency response team and we use this book as a "security crash course" and as a hard reference. If you want to know about windows 2000 security this is seriously the book to have. It is very technical and not for script kiddies. If you are just looking for something to use as a basic refresher then skip this, get a microsoft book or something tame. This is grassroots hardcore good.

This book easily complements my Win2K manuals. Most notable chapters are 28-29, i.e. Penetration Testing: Hack Your Own System and Writing Secure Code. Highly recommended for anyone trying to secure their Win2K environment. Pity it's not available in PDF.

While most security books are simple walk-through guides, Mr. Schmidt's text contains all of the details that the others leave out. While parts were well over my head, I appreciated the focus on technical completeness and understanding of security concepts. This book was an excellent addition to my bookshelf and I highly recommend it.

In "MiracleMan" (UK vt. "MarvelMan") Alan Moore places a classic superhero type in the "real" world - a world very much like this one, in which people who see a man in tights are not going to think "super".

During a terrorist hijacking at a nuclear plant news photographer Michael Moran suffers a debilitating headache and mutters a word he sees from the wrong side of a glass door. And is transformed.

But people don't know what to make of a man who is invulnerable and can fly, and that includes Moran's wife. She asks why she'd never heard of MiracleMan and his now-remembered superfriends, and he has no answer. And the truth of the matter is world-shaking, literally.

This is just an outstanding book. The series hit a very dark spot in a later volume, one which I found personally distasteful, and it seemed to lose its focus by the time Neil Gaiman took it over; unfortunately it was never finished. Nonetheless, an excellent and enduring deconstruction of the idea of the superhero.

I'd recommend Moore's "V for Vendetta" to those who like this book.

One point: the graphic novel edition (the one that I have anyway), is missing several pages which were included at the beginning of the original comic. The comic began with a deliberately cheesy Captain Marvel-style story about time travel, but suddenly froze at the end of the story and zoomed in on MiracleMan's face, panel by panel. "Behold I teach you the superman: he is this lightning, he is this madness!" -Nietzsche, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". The next page was the beginning of the graphic novel, with a far more realistic art and writing style. A very effective demonstration of what Moore planned to do to the cliches of the superhero genre. I don't know why it was eliminated.

There is a weird feeling you get, reading Alan Moore's Miracleman stories-the feeling that you're not reading a comic book. The story takes place in the real world-not the comic book universe. As the story opens, we find middle-aged Mike Moran being haunted by dreams of flying. During a terrorist raid, he is taken hostage and suddenly remembers his magic word and becomes a super-hero again. Having forgotten his past for twenty years, it all comes flooding back to him: which presents him with his biggest problem-how to explain things to the misses! As he does, she (famously) begins to laugh at him! The inconsistencies of his super-hero past begin to become apparent to him. Of course something is wrong here. Just what that something is, and how Alan Moore explains it are left for you to be seen.

Of course Miracleman (Marvelman in England) is the British version of Captain Marvel. In reincarnating him, Alan Moore (as is his want) completely reinvents him for a new age. Miracleman is 'aufgehobened' for a new era. For me, the best superhero comics like this, The Watchmen, and Marvels, try to portray their larger-than-life heroes as realistically as possible and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, put them in the real world, populated by real people, with real consequences for their actions. In Mike Moran's universe, Superman is well-known...as a comic book character. When Miracleman bursts onto the scene (literally) we imagine what it would be like if a super-hero really appeared in our world. But then, the adventure begins...

There's a hint of disdain in Moore's Marvelman (renamed Miracleman for distribution in the US, for obvious reasons) for virtually every aspect of the comic "super hero". His response? Laugh a bit, have his fun, and then go on to analyze what a super hero would REALLY mean to our world.

His hero isn't some rock-jawed alien or identity disassociative with a predilection for flying rodents. He's a normal person, and Moore doesn't forget this for a second; when Moran, or Miracleman, is being laughed at by his wife (obviously the voice of Moore in this instance) as he describes his absurd past as a superhero, he shatters a table in frustration.

This book, along with it successive volumes The Red King Syndrome and Olympus, are Moore's legacy to the world of the super hero. Neil Gaiman ties up the package nicely with The Golden Age. In the end, you're left with a lot more questions than answers...but then, that's the point, now isn't it?

I have been looking for a version of the shah nameh that both adults and children could enjoy, for years. I was first exposed to these stories as a child by my grandfather and I have never forgotten them. The Heroism, Romance and Tragedy that one is exposed to in these stories is truly exhilarating. It is simply but lyrically translated.The book also has beautiful reproductions of the persian paintings on the shah nameh which are an added treat.
I eagerly await the two volumes which are yet to come.

In this first of three planned volumes, Dick Davis begins his effort to provide a fairly broad translation of the Shahnameh. He effectively utilizes the prosimetrum form, a mixture of verse and prose (naqqali in Farsi), where verse is used to accentuate periods of heightened tension.

In addition to being a fine literary accomplishement, this series of volumes is quite beautiful and heavily illustrated throughout with reprints from 16th and 17th century manuscripts. The books are very sturdy and make for excellent display.

I recently saw this book as well as the second volume in the planned three-volume set in the gift shop at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., in connection with an exhibit of art work from various Shahnameh manuscripts currently on display. In all fairness to the publisher, it should be pointed out that this is a gloriously illustrated art book, not simply a text. The full-color enlargements of miniature fragments from medieval Persian manuscipts are breathtakingly beautiful, and the high price no doubt reflects the fact that this book was very expensive to produce. It is exquisitely produced and for those who can afford it well worth the cost. The rest of us should urge our public libraries to acquire it!

Doris Walker works at Macy's. She's in charge of choosing people to be in the parade, but when her Santa Claus shows up drunk she fires him and hires Kris Kringle on the spot. Kris believes he's Santa Claus, and Doris not believing in anything ignores his insistent opinion.

Of course, Doris has her 6 year old daughter Susan thinking there's no Santa Claus either, and Kris makes sure he changes the little girls mind. But trouble begins when he is admitted to Bellevue, a mental institution, and now with the help of his friend Fred, he must try to get out or Christmas will be ruined for everyone. Especially little Susan.

This book is truly wonderful, and it shows that if you just believe anything is possible.

We've all seen the classic black and white movie. And, as part of the holiday tradition, we watch it again and again.

But the original story is what makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. It tickles the buried child in all of us. The magic, the wonder...this story never gets old.

The presentation is delightful, too. The cover, the type, the book size ~ are all as close to the original as state of the art technology can get it. What a wonderful hostess gift or stocking stuffer this would make!

I believe! Do you?

This book captures the spirit of Christmas. It is a book that warms the heart, for people young and old. It is a Christmas classic, and should be in every Christmas lovers collection.