I'm not quite sure why the book costs so much. It may be because it's so old. The information is pretty good. They describe just about every Liberty ever built. There are stats, dates, times, places and everything. Some operational history as well. I would have been happier with a hardcover and more photos. Better photos would help one understand the complex changes made to some ships of the class. The book does not include current status on the 2 preserved ships-Brown and O'Brien since it was written while they were still non operational.

I've never read anything quite like Liberty Under Siege. On one hand, it is well written,intellectual, and difficult to put down. Unfortunately,the author overgeneralizes frequently and sometimes it seems like he is leaving out information damaging to his conclusion (with which I partially agree). Nonetheless, I recommend this book to anyone interested in politics, regardless of their political persuasion.

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was a British novelist, essayist, journalist, and playwright. Though not so well remembered -- at least on these shores -- as many of his contemporaries, it's not for want of effort, since he published something like 30 novels.

When World War One began in 1914, Bennett was summoned -- along with other key British writers like Doyle, Hardy, Galsworthy, Belloc, Chesterton, Wells, and others -- to become part of what became known as the War Propaganda Board. This little book, the first of Bennett's two efforts for the WPB, was first published within months of the war's beginning, initially in the Saturday Evening Post, and then as a book on the Hodder & Stoughton imprint (the secretive WPB didn't publish under its own name, and its activities weren't revealed to the public until the 1930s).

The piece is instructive, not so much for what it tells us about British war aims, but for what it reveals about wartime propaganda.

The book has many of the clichés of the time -- arrogant Prussian aristocrats, docile German masses, 'the sinister Krupp family,' 'the monstrous chicane of the military caste against the people.' But at the same time, it is reserved, intellectual, and almost gentlemanly propaganda as compared to what came later in the war (lies about Belgian babies tossed in the air and skewered on German bayonets, and so on). In the second war, Churchill could quote an anonymous saying, 'The Hun is always at your throat or at your feet.' But here, instead of those later efforts to blame both wars on a pathological evil within the German people themselves, Bennett points the finger squarely at 'the grandiose German military legend, fostered by the German military caste and in turn by repercussion exciting that caste to a fury of arrogance.'

Bennett's tone becomes somewhat more fire breathing in the third and final chapter. But strangely, the 'Liberty!' so prominent in the title really appears only in the last paragraph, where he argues that the British have no desire to live as German slaves. As was typical at the time, his emphasis is much more on Britain as a state, honoring its commitments to France and Belgium, than on the ancient liberties of individual British men and women.

This is an interesting little tract, in all. The writing is unremarkable (as government war propaganda so often is). But as a window into the official British mindset at the start of the Great War, it's a useful little addition to the historian's shelf.

Liberty's Daughters is really the combined collection of two books. Part I: The Constant Patterns of Women's Lives, sets the reader up for Part II: The Changing Patterns of Women's Lives. In a way, Part I explains the life of the prewar colonial woman. Part II discusses the changes that would occur for women during and immediately following the war. Norton makes a convincing argument that women's lives were forever changed by the Revolutionary War. Chapter 1 was extremely interesting as Norton details the differences between rural women of the colonies with urban women. She details the lives of rural women of the North in comparison to women of the rural South. Plus, Norton discusses the even harsher life of the female slave. In a way, there is an underlying sentiment that life was very difficult for both men and women during this period of time. I appreciated Norton's realization that men also experienced plenty of toil during this time in history. In other words, there was plenty of hardship to go around. One main theme that the reader quickly notices is how important spinning was to the women of colonial America. The first chapters detail how women would have to spin to make clothes for themselves and their families (and sometimes very large families). To pass the time, women would often spin in groups. This activity gave them a sense of companionship. This community would lay the important groundwork for their support of the men during the Revolutionary War. The second part of the book informs the reader how women formed formal spinning groups that actively worked to help the patriots. In a way, women now took up spinning as a part of the campaign for freedom against the British. Sewing gave women a sense of nationality as they could actively contribute to the defense of colonial liberties. Norton explains in the first chapters how women needed a certain degree of conversation. Women loved to talk, most particularly while they spun. In Part II, Norton explains how politics is all anyone could talk about during this era, so why would women want to be left out? Indeed, they were not left out of the conversation, and they were even more than willing to take part in the action. After all, it was their families who were at stake. Women actively took part in the mobs and spoke out against loyalists - partially to avoid from themselves becoming targets of the patriotic fever that swept much of the colonies. Just as in any other civil war, not all women agreed. Political differences caused breakups and differences in friendships and marriages. Though we read from other sources that Washington held contempt for the women who traveled with his army - taking precious rations and supplies, Washington also displays his gratitude to Ester Reed and her girls for this organization's contributions. He put these girls, "to an equal place with any who have preceded them in the walk of female patriotism." The significant sign of change in the lives of colonial women is found midway through Part 2 when the postwar female generation led political discussion and even took part in activism. This was completely alien to most women born before 1760. Nineteenth-century women took pride in the contributions that members of their sex had made to the winning of independence. The existence of such public-spirited models showed that women could take active roles in politics without losing their feminine identity. It was not by chance that in 1848 the organizers chose to use the Declaration of Independence as the basis for their calls for reform in women's status. They understood the relevance of the revolutionary era to their own endeavors. This is a far cry to the woman detailed in Chapter 1 who had no idea about even the financial state of her husband. Here is another profound change from Chapter 1: As time went on, women learned more about the family's finances while at the same time their husband's knowledge became increasingly outdated and remote. In a way, the soldiers increasingly delegated responsibility of the finances to their wives. Women received freedom from the British - just as did men. However, women also gained certain freedoms for their gender. Following the war, female children consequently began to expect the right to decide for themselves in marital matters if they so desired. Many girls continued to seek their parents' and friends' assessments of potential spouses. However, some women made up their own minds, and this is a revolutionary concept. After all, even today in some countries, women have yet to acquire this freedom. Not only were they given more choice in who they were to marry, the increasing use of contraception in the last two decades of the century can also be seen as a reflection of women's improved status within marriage. This came as quite a surprise to me as I had not been aware of any such methods of contraception at this early period of time. I had always assumed that people of this era had only one method of contraception: do not do anything! After the war, women grew increasingly willing to challenge the conventional wisdom about feminine faults. Women finally stood up against the arguments about their nature - particularly against negative aspects of their nature. They were less inclined to allow remarks about their "natural state" pass without harsh comment. This is, in my opinion, the true birth of a P.C. culture! Norton's argument is successful. The lives of women were forever altered by the Revolutionary War. Further, women had just begun to seek liberties for their own gesture. In a way, this book should be read before one begins to study and attempt to understand the feminist movement of the 1840's, before the Suffrage movement that gained women's right to vote, and before the feminist movement that would begin in the 1960's. Indeed, we still live with the consequences of the changes in women's society during the Revolutionary War.

Frost believes that Pennsylvania functioned as the primary model for religious freedom in other colonies and states and for the nation as a whole. This is the first full study of Pennsylvania's pioneering beliefs about religious liberty. Frost traces five topics from 1680 to 1860: church autonomy, institutional separation of church and state, individual freedom of conscience, state support of religiously fostered civic morality, and natural law as the basis for government policies. Government leaders, political theorists, and clergy are the players in this intellectual, constitutional, and political drama. Frost claims to find a consensus of belief about religious liberty in Pennsylvania, but he does not provide evidence from below to support the claim. "Religious liberty" and "religious freedom" are never adequately defined or separated. Clearly written with thorough endnotes and a helpful bibliographic essay, this book will appeal to those interested in the First Amendment, religious pluralism, and Pennsylvania history.

I think that there is an error in the directions for the Prairie Stars quilt. I would like a reply if possible.

She has valid things to say, but seems more intent on demonstrating her intellegence with grammatical gymnastics. I have to read this for class, and it has been an excruciating experience. Very disorganized thought, poorly edited.

After reading and then re-reading this book, I am impressed only by Ms. Greenes ability to ramble on for 134 pages without making a point.

This book is easily the best and most important book that I have read since I started going to graduate school in 1996. It has truly changed my way of seeing certain things. Dr. Green's vision of freedom is presented by examples from books and other media, and makes the subject both understandable and affecting. If a teacher were to follow her vision and her suggestions, his or her classroom would be the most dynamic one in almost any school. If one is a teacher, or if one merely likes good writing, get this book. It is truly visionary.

This book trying to cover everything among three-tier design within 470 pages, which is impossible. In order to understand this book, I need to read other books, like "Javaservlet" and "Beginning XML". But after I finish those reading, this book is not necessary anymore, so why wast time on this book? Some of the programs in this book are not executable and even worse.....some figures (screen shot) are misplaced.
My opinion of this book is "terrible"!

I haven't finished the book yet but found it confusing. The examples are not completed, the reader doesn't have an example of the completed exersize. The author assumes the reader is using apache and tomcat servers. I don't know anyone using them, most developers I know use windows 2000 or NT, running IIS. JDOM is still beta and there's a whole chapter dedecated to JDOM, where it could have been spent on explaining SAX and DOM in further detail by applying useful simple examples. Overall I'm not impressed with the book. Better to read it at the book store and look for something better to purchase. Look for a text that uses IIS and not tomcat and apache, unless you are running those servers. This is not a beginners book, also purchase a JAVA/JSP text.

The pace of this book was its best feature, starting with HTML and CSS and then slowly adding in XML & XSL before jumping into the enigma of server side transformations using Java. You may want to pick up "Java 2 From Scratch" or another intro to Java book prior to reading this. I think this book was a great attempt at fusing two complex languages and sets up a good foundation to move on to more detailed books.

While it wasn't the most exciting book I've read, "The Cost of Rights" was a refreshing twist on the taxes issue. It challenged opponents of the current tax system or any tax system to think critically on the subject. I felt that Holmes' and Sunstein's approach was more effective than a listing of statistics. Rather than explaining economic reasons for taxes, they brought it to a level that related more to readers. Everyone has a reason to be interested in the preservation of his or her own rights. Without taxes for government support, we could not be guaranteed equal representation before the law. Taxes pay for law enforcement and other government services that are vital to our liberty. Without taxes, no one would every truly own property. Taxes serve as the standard for American's to exist and be governed by. They do not discern our morals, but instead preserve our rights. In "The Cost of Rights", the case for taxes was presented in such a way that I couldn't see liberty without some sort of tax system.

It is the fashion to disparage government and all its works these days. Sunstein and Holmes have given this timely reminder that Constitutional and property rights only have meaning if they can be enforced BY the government (that is, by courts, executive agencies, police departments, disaster relief, and the like). The book is flawed to the extent that seems to call for affirmative rights to public services (social workers, police) to be enforced by judges. Such a state of affairs would totally undercut the majority-rule principle of democratic society. However, the book is a welcome antidote to the trendy, bumper-sticker diatribes against the evils of government. We need a serious dialogue on the proper (and limited) functions of government in the new global economy, not more slogans. If you like this book, also look at Garry Wills's "Necessary Evil" (which does a better job with historical background) and Brinkley's "New Federalist Papers."

This book covers an important issue that is rarely bought up: liberty, rights etc. depend of an enforcement mechanism.

And this enforcement mechanism is government. Weak governments (such as those of the current Russia) cannot guarantee property rights or any other rights for their citizens. Anyone who feels they can establish their rights without government should visit Somalia and see how easy or difficult it is in the absence of government.

How would you establish right to a plot of land, for instance, without a title, some means of enforcing property laws ?

The Founding Fathers most certainly recognized the value of government -- thats why they wrote the Constitution, because the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate. They also provided the government with the means to fund itself -- through tarrifs, which are just another form of taxes. This is something the authors do indeed support, and at least two of the 1-star reviews lead me to conclude the authors never got beyond the title.

Finally, the Constition does indeed provide powers to the States. But is unclear why this should necessarily please someone who claims that governments take away all rights, since the states are also run by governments. In fact, historically, the states have had practically all the powers (public schools, eminent domain, property taxes) etc. etc. that libertarian types find distasteful.

This book is NOT a call for higher taxes, and it recognizes the tax-and-spend problems as well.