The first half of the book is written by Seamus MacNeil, who passed away a few years ago, and was very much responsible for spreading knowledge of the Highland Bagpipe around the world. Unfortunately, much of that knowledge is less than accurate. The second half of the book is much more entertaining. It is written General Richardson, who studied with John MacDonald of Inverness. Richardson has also passed on, sadly. But he is a great story teller, and even though he is not as technically minded as MacNeil I found his half of the book most useful because he manages to get his love of the music across without puffing himself up in the process.

I was very disappointed with this book. I served with the First Cavalry during Desert Storm so when I saw this in my book store, I was immediately interested in it so I bought it.

There isn't any creative writing in this book and the author does not share with the reader his thoughts or opinions of his experiences. This is a simple rehashing of his daily diary that he kept while in Vietnam.

This makes for rather boring reading. I found this book to be very tedious reading and I forced myself to finish it as I spent $35 on it. I recently donated it to my local library as I knew that I wouldn't be picking it up again.

As a former member of the "First Team", I was very disappointed and recommend to any reader that he or she would be wise to spend their money elsewhere.

I was not impressed by this book, particularly by the title. Only a small portion is dedicated to explaining kuru and its causes/effects on the Fore. The rest of the book is an ethnographic description of the life of the Fore, their reaction to kuru, and the ultimate outcome. In short, kuru is a disease of the CNS caused by cannablism (similar to mad cow disease). The studies take place around the '70s, and by then cannablism was on the decline, and resultingly the disease also became rare. This dry read was hard to get through and quite disappointing because of the decieving title. I would not recommend it unless the reader is genuinely interested in learning more about the Fore of New Guinea. It's interesting for a medical anthropologist, but not a casual read.

This book is interesting but seems incomplete. Toward the end of the book the author begins relating a sequence of events, then stops in the middle and explains that she doesn't know the outcome because her fieldwork ended at that time. I found this odd. I would have liked to have read more information concerning Kuru, how it changed the Fore' and (as would be the natural course of the disease if the cause (cannibalism) had in fact been removed) if there are no new instances of the

disease. The book makes the point of attaching the incidence of cannibalism to a shortage of protein in the diet of Fore' women and children. Has this protein shortage been remedied, or are the Fore' merely claiming to have given up cannibalism to appease authorities?

Although the above item is listed as a paperback book, it is indeed a poster. The "Little Book Series" label is misleading. Do not order if you are expecting something to read.