The Wonder Of Presence And The Way Of Meditative Inquiry by Zen practitioner Toni Packer is a compilation of serious thoughts about the nature of Zen, meditation, death, life, and truth. Written in simple, direct terms and drawing upon both Eastern philosophy and personal experience, The Wonder Of Presence is a careful, inquisitive and highly recommended introduction to opening one's mind to new thoughts, ideas, and all the Universe contains.

This book is great for transciptionist in the radiology field. I have found it has most of the words used in radiology and I use it as my main guide for work. It is very resourceful!

I picked up this book because I was told that learning ASP would be a good introdction to web programming. While the book is thorough, it tends to bog down in detail while not making clear what is central and what is secondary. So the authors spend one scanty chapter on control structures--absolutely crucial to any programming--and then devote the next chapter (of equal length) to a terminally detailed discussion of built-in functions--which should have gone in an appendix. This might be a good reference book for someone who is already a programmer, but by the end of the first "week," this newbie was completely lost. I had to put the book aside and learn more about programming from some better written JavaScript and beginning programming texts before I could come back and make sense of this text.

Advice: Don't purchase this book unless you already have sufficient programming background so that the introductory chapters are really "review" and that you can distinguish what is important from what is secondary.

I read this book without any previous knowledge of ASP, and after I finished reading it, I found I could understand more than I thought. The book not only has very good examples but also has a wrap up sample project every "7 days" that if you decide to do, will enforce what you've just learned. I think it is the best introductory book you can find. As a side note; I also purchased WROX Beginning ASP, and although I would also give 5 stars to that book, I'd suggest that if you want to learn and have never coded in ASP before, definitely this is the book to start with. If you already have some idea, then you might like to consider going for the WROX one which goes a little more in depth into some areas and you can always use as a reference in the future. You will definitely not be dissapointed about this book if you are a novice like myself. It begins with the logic to start coding in ASP(Control Structures) and it takes you all the way to connect to an Access Database and fully interact with it.

I picked up the book a few days ago, and from never have used ASP before, I finished the book in 3 days (I was very eager to get going and was short of time to finish what I wanted to do), and now I easily put together very advanced dynamic userbased websites with connections to databases. Needless to say that I finished my project on time. The book was excellent written and all the information was easy to understand and to learn immediately. I can't say it enough, one of the best programming books I've read since I started programming way back in the 80's on the Amiga. A huge thanks to the authors, it was a literally a lifesaver!

This was one of the first detailed books out about the Gulf War, and one I read exhaustively when it first came out, having participated as a member of the 24th Infantry Division. It is well written, suspensful, but in most cases focuses only on the "official" story as it was told by the Pentagon.

It's difficult to write history so quickly after it happens -- for example, Atkinson barely covers the post-ceasefire battle in the Rumayla Oilfield, a very large engagement which took place after the ceasefire -- and after all the reporters had returned to Riyadh.

On the whole, very solid and will give a good view of the war. Supplement by reading Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article from May 2000 to get a feel for what it was like on the ground. As a veteran, and the author of an upcoming novel about the war (Prayer at Rumayla: A Novel of the Gulf War), this is a book I would recommend.

Atkinson's account of the Gulf War has managed to outdo every participant who has written about it. He does this by exposing every significant detail of the conflict. The aspects that most fascinated me include the negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Israel, the coverage of the military campaign (in the air, land, and sea), and the allied military personalities. Atkinson covers all of these angles - and more - as well as any other journalist/author. His style and professionalism is on a level with Bob Woodward (both are both Pulitzer Prize winners).

On all counts Atkinson is fair and thorough. Probably the best example of this is his portrayal of Schwarzkopf. More critical of his methods than the man himself, Atkinson summarizes, "Even for men who had seen horrific bloodletting in Vietnam, no Asian jungle was more stressful than the endless weeks they spent in Norman Schwarzkopf's Riyadh basement."

Still, this is not a book about Schwarzkopf. Everyone and everything gets their due coverage - cruise missiles of all kinds, scuds, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, British special forces, the Israeli Defense Minister, Iraq's Republican Guard, and others. Again, the scope is impressive.

Except for any secrets that may be declassified in the future, "Crusade" is still the most comprehensive account of Desert Storm and Desert Shield. If you think you know everything there is to know about the Gulf War, you are guaranteed to learn something new from "Crusade."

Rick Atkinson's work on the "behind the scenes" story of the Persian Gulf War is a first rate history of the commanders, politicians and soldiers of the war. He ably debunks the notion that this was a "clean war" as he describes how a disgustingly large number of American fatalities were the result of "friendly fire," how the military leaders were able to successfully inflate the numbers of Patriot missile "kills" and the amount of damage inflicted on the Iraqi Scud's. Atkinson covers all aspects of the conflict from basically the start of the "Air War" forward, only limited space is given to the Allied build-up and rationale for the original Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. But for an informative description of the war from all Allied points of view, this is a top notch book

I loved Army at Dawn because it accomplished so much in it's relatively short 700 pages. It provides a detailed and insightful overview of almost every facet of the North African campaign. The book is honest, does not sugar coat failure or any other tragedy. The best part of the book is that it is very readable, accessible to the public at large. Atkinson's training not as a historian but as a journalist really shines here, as he can turn history into a very engaging literary journey like few others can.

The book begins by describing the planning of the Torch landings and the early invasions. It does not spare the US Army and its leadership at all. Even people like Eisenhower are portrayed as being ignorant to what it really took to launch a major invasion. The US Army at every level was absolutely unprepared for any kind of massive fighting. Troops were inexperienced, equipment was inferior, many units were scattered and undisciplined. Just a mess. Atkinson describes all of these factors very well, showing the reader how lucky we were that the first landings were opposed not by the Germans but by their cowardly and irritating Vichy French allies.

As US forces move inland, they begin to coordinate with the British. The famous back fighting between the American leadership and the British is in full display in this book. The fights often became very serious, with several campaigns being delayed because of the feuding. Even worse than this cousins feud was the initial battles between the US and the Wehrmacht. Simply put, we were the minor leagues taking on the Yankees. For months the Germans advanced and paried, smashing American formations constantly. Atkinson describes these failures, but is careful to point out silver linings. American troops, contrary to rumor, were not given to panic. They were merely green, untrained. Once they gained experience and proper leadership was in place, they could fight just as well if not better than their German counterparts.

The massive American tidal wave of supplies and men wore down the Germans, as did Allied attacks on Axis supply shipping. The battles were still fierce however, all the way to the end. The Germans could be extremely good fighters, especially under the leadership of Erwin Rommel. The battle descriptions are top notch, some of the best you are going to find. The conditions the Allied troops lived and fought under were just horrific. Probably the most touching part of the whole book is when Atkinson takes a short look back at the homefront. It's just very powerful to read of small towns, especially in the midwest, who would lose dozens of men in single battles. Whole families were sometimes wiped out. Atkinson obviously did years of research and interviews for this book, and it shows on every page.

Another great facet of this book are the biographies and portrayals they provide. No new ground is broken, but we see these storied men in somewhat different lights. Ike is hardly the perfect coordinator. In North Africa he made mistake after mistake, something he would improve on later. Patton is shown as a mediocre commander who was often much to harsh on his staff and soldiers. Only later would he get to his storied glory. The British are leary of their American allies, never really trusting them. Derision is saved mostly for Montgomery and the French, justifiably. Also shredded was most of the pre-Kasserine Pass American leadership, many of whom were dangerously inept. Atkinson doesn't take any prisoners.

It's great to hear that Atkinson has two more books coming. If they continue to be of such quality, Atkinson could be seen as one of the best WWII historians around.

An ARMY at DAWN is a highly-readable, detailed and fascinating account of the war in North-West Africa in 1942-1943. The Allied defeat at the Kasserine Pass is in the middle of the book; the story starts well before that.

You will be amazed at how unprepared the troops were for battle. Those who survived, learned how to fight.

I love maps and this book has them. You can follow the battles from place to place. The maps help us to understand the challenges faced by both sides.

Atkinson writes about the everyday life of everyone involved from civilians to foot-soldiers and up to Eisenhower.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in history, World War Two or the military.

Dan Poynter, ParaPublishing.com

Rick Atkinson has been writing military history for about a decade now. He started with books on West Point (which covered Viet Nam rather thoroughly) and the Gulf War, and now he's turned his sights on World War II. He definitely has a modern appraisal of war: the one previous reviewer who complains about Atkinson not recounting any acts of "selfless heroism" by U.S. troops is basically correct. The difference is in focus, though, not that Atkinson doesn't want to portray American soldiers as brave. He doesn't recount any instances of selfless heroism on the part of Germans, Italians, or British soldiers either. To Atkinson, war is a nasty, merciless, vicious, bloody mess, where mistakes cost lives, and almost everyone makes these mistakes, at least starting out.

For one thing, while the book does concentrate a good deal on the front-line soldiers and their ordeals, it spends more time concentrating on the command structure of the U.S. Army, and its compatriots and opponents. While he doesn't name *every* regimental commander, he sure names a lot of them, and the division commanders in the American army at least are described in some detail. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., son of the first president Roosevelt and cousin of the second one, gets a wonderful portrait that makes you sympathize with him, and almost gives you the feeling you know him, though he died in 1944. The author's particular favorite among the generals (he's said this in an interview) is Terry de la Mesa Allen, the commander of the 1st Infantry Division (and Gen. Roosevelt's boss), but even he isn't spared when he makes an unwise attack and loses several hundred casualties.

There are things the book doesn't cover, that's true. It makes almost no mention of the technical difficulties American troops had when first confronting the Axis armies, and almost no mention of the inferiority of early equipment like the Stuart tank or early tank destroyers. When later equipment arrives (the M-10 Wolverine for instance) you only know it when the American army has some destroyed. Atkinson, however, is much more interested in the people, and especially the leaders, than he is in the gizmos.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's not that long (less than 600 pages of text) and the narrative flows wonderfully. There are numerous anecdotes that are priceless: Italian soldiers surrendering carrying dirty pictures in their pockets along with the address of a cousin who lives in Detroit or Brooklyn, Patton complaining at Casablanca that the president's Secret Service agents all smelled of liquor, Ernest Harmon (the second commander of the 1st Armored Division in the campaign) is described as a cobra without the snake charmer. The narrative flow is wonderful, the maps illustrate the action well. The only quibble I did have was wondering which actions involving the British Army he was choosing to include, or exclude. Never could tell what his criteria was. That aside, and the note about the author not wanting to emphasize heroism, this is an extraordinary and compelling book, perhaps the best on World War II in a decade, perhaps even longer.

After picking up one or two other candymaking books, the process continued to appear daunting. I found this book and everything clicked into place.

The pictures are particualarly helpful in getting an idea of what you're going for (sometimes the descriptions aren't enough) and the section on tempering chocolate is one of the best I've encountered (although it still lacks some of the details I needed to really understand the process)

Regretably, the book doesn't really mention that as chocolate constricts it tends to force centers out through weak parts in the chocolate, so there are a few surprises like that, but everything remained quite tasty.

The recipes are generally excellent (I've made a wide range of them and used many others as a base for my own) although in a few cases, when I was first starting, I was a bit uncertain as to what I was supposed to be looking or waiting for.

Since starting with this book I've learned other techniques of dealing with some of the candies that don't really get mention (such as getting a softer/lighter truffle using methods such as piping bag) so it's good to keep perspective.

The sources at the end of the book are good but the lack web sites (the book is old enough that this isn't surprising).

All and all if you're looking to take the plunge into candymaking, this is a great place to start to turn out excellent candy starting with only a yearning to know how.

If you like mouth-watering pictures along with your recipes, Candymaking by Ruth A. Kendrick and Pauline H. Atkinson is the book you've been looking for. I have used this book a number of times for excellent recipies for caramels, truffels, hard candy etc. Not only does this book have delicious ideas for tastey treats, but also a wonderful explaination about the supplies needed to make your sugary sensations.Candymaking really will you feel like the owner of your own candy store!!

Candymaking is full of pictures for the recipes, clear instructions, great section for trouble shooting. Some sleeper hints are golden - using the electric skillet for dipping, adding small bits of chocolate to quick temper the chocolate for dipping. The pictures of hand dipping were great. It was like standing at the back of a candy shoppe and gleaning all the tips from the pros. Thanks. We can't comment on all the sections, suckers or jellies, but the recipes we tested were awesome. In the Bay Area, Ghiradelli does sell chocolate in blocks of 10 lbs. available at Trader Joe's.

Atkinson does a nice job describing a time, place and experience.
His description of the shifting climes of Methuen since his HS
days are particularly insightful. Just when you are enjoying the
book, though, Atkinson tends to interject some borderline
self-promotional prattle about his own hockey stats or die-hard toughness. The stats are irrelevant, and the toughness, if relevant, should be self-evident.

Overall on a scale of 1-10, a hat trick shy of perfect.

"The most ephemeral and intriguing aspect of hockey is its spontaneity; each rush down the ice blossoms into something different, a new constellation of passes and positioning that happens only once and then melts away, like a snowflake," writes Atkinson in this moving, hilarious and lovingly detailed story of a year in the working life of the Methuen (Massachusetts) High School hockey team. A gifted observer with an eye for character (as in, "Now, there's a character!"), he captures the players, coaches, school officals and parents around the team in living color and salty dialogue. In addition to that, he weaves in memories of his own time as a goalie for the same team 25 years earlier along with his hopes and dreams for his 5-year-old son Liam, whom he is just getting on the ice to participate in league hockey. The mix of spirited reporting and personal memoir, with its evident (but not sappy) love of the sport and everyone involved, is irresistible. For hockey fans, this is a must read. For those who love memoirs, this vivid chronicle of a place many have never been and may know nothing about is a beauty.

My Irish mom, still back in Methuen with a few of my siblings, would surely cringe at me being referred to as the "Big, tough French guy" on page 31 of this fine book. At least Jay had the courtesy to leave my name out of it. I'm grateful, particularly since my recollection of the event in question is somewhat of a departure from his. No matter....

This is a fine read, and finer still as it captures so accurately the rabid fervor that is hockey in Methuen, my hometown. Though I had the pleasure of playing for the Rangers' archrival, Central Catholic, Jay and I did play together, along with Dave Martin and Dennis Dube, Bob O'Donnell, Tom McGurren, and a host of other hockey lunatics, for a couple of years on Herb Edwards's team, the Blues. It was a terrific time to be a teenager, without much of the madness that has somehow insinutated itself into youth sports today.

Jay's memory is sharp (in most respects... :) and he's drawn the supporting cast in remarkably accurate detail. I can see our former teammate, the boisterous Dave Martin, exhorting his charges to dig deeper in an effort to get at the core of the game, which is all about stripping away the self to serve the greater good of the team. I can also, by the way, easily imagine Dave weedling in, as we used to say, with the officials.

What a refreshing, uncomplicated, non-political book this is. No pronouncements, no agenda, other than "this is my memory of a wonderful time." When I find myself staying late, alone, at our local rink to shoot just one more bucket of pucks, I now know I'm not alone, (and my 45 year old elbow also reminds of that the morning after). Somehow, though, I can't imagine not doing it, and it's nice to know that there are a bunch of "old guys" like myself doing the same thing back home.

Thanks, Jay, for making it all so real again, and sorry, again, for the dust up that night in the Frost Arena, that hallowed hall of hockeydom. We had some fun.

That "Big, Tough, French guy" (all 5'8" of me...), and former Central Catholic hockey captain,

-Herve Pelletier

Friends sharing books they love usually means you're in for a treat. Thanks, Anya! BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE MUSEUM is a total triumph of a book. Voted a Whitbread Book of the Year when published in 1995 this extraordinarily entertaining novel was the first novel by Kate Atkinson and she surely knows her stuff. Not only is the writing of the first caliber, but the technique of storytelling is invigorating and fun and warm and tragic and in short, about as fine a coming of age novel as anyone has written.

Ruby Lennox narrates this delectable tale of her life in a dysfunctional geneology from the point of her conception ( thoroughly entertaining view of life from within the uterus) through her childhood and young adulthood up to the age of 41. Atkinson divides her book into Chapters and Footnotes: the Chapters are the chronological tale of the wonderfully crazy Ruby and her sisters and bizarre mother and father and the Footnotes after each chapter explore the history of her English family for the past century. This affords the reader with a history and an interpretation of that history by wily little girl who is wise beyond her antics. Ruby knows there must be a Lost Property Cupboard (her theory of the afterlife) 'where (when we die) all things we have ever lost have been kept for us - every button, every tooth..library books, all the cats that never came back...tempers and patience...meaning and innocence..dreams we forgot on waking, nestling against the days lost to melancholy thoughts....' That is just a sample of the beauty of Atkinson's writing gifts.

The world finally focuses for Ruby but to tell how would alter the joy of discovery this wonderful little character. 'I'm in another country, the one called home. I am alive. I am a precious jewel. I am a drop of blood. I am Ruby Lennox.' This is some of the best writing you'll find. After you've spent a rewarding time reading it, share it with someone you love. Again, Thank you Anya!

I could just kick myself for letting this book sit on my shelf for as long as it did before I picked it up to read. Behind the Scenes at the Museum has all the makings of a phenomenal book -- a little bit of mystery, humor, intriguing characters, and an enjoyable writing style. The novel is, in theory, a catalog of the life of Ruby Lennox from birth to middle age, but Ms. Atkinson manages to include the history of Ruby's mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother through her clever "footnotes." I would disagree with those reviewers who refer to the book as being about a "dysfunctional family"; it's more of a chronicle of four generations of women, all distinct entities who struggle with similar problems of family and self. Behind the Scenes at the Museum examines what it means to be a mother, a daughter, and a sister, as well as leading the reader through half of the 20th century. I can't wait to get my hands on more books by Ms. Atkinson -- I've been recommending this one to everyone! It's a pure pleasure to read.

I knew nothing about this book before I read it - I didn't even know anyone who had read it -- but now that I've finished it, I can't stop recommending it to people. This book is one of the best surprises I've had this year.

It's the story of Ruby Lennox ("I exist!" she shouts in the first line of the book, describing her own conception): the York, England-born daughter of disappointed Bunty, granddaughter of disappointed Nell, and great-granddaughter of the mysterious but still disappointed Alice, all of whose stories are told and interwoven with Ruby's own.

The story, which manages to cover almost the whole of the 20th century, from World War I to the present, is both hilarious and achingly sad at the very same time. It is rich with details and backstories in a way that does not crowd out Ruby's own story, which is essentially that of a girl trying to grow up in a family that all but conspires to forget she even exists. Her mother, Bunty, can't stand the sight of her philandering husband (and Ruby's father) George, the disappointment of a man that she married after the let-down that, for Bunty, was World War II. Anyone with a sister will recognize the simultaneous disdain and wise counsel that Ruby's dark older sister, Patricia, has for her, and will recognize the torture that Ruby's other older sister, the beautiful, mean Gillian, puts her through.

If it were just a portrait of Ruby's family of assorted losers, even that would have been enough to make a good book, but Kate Atkinson has done us the favor of giving us the stories of Ruby's maternal relatives, from her great-grandmother Alice Barker, who ran away with a travelling photographer, to her grandmother Nell Cook, whose fiances kept on dying on her before she could get married, and all of the other cousins and aunts and uncles in between. Their stories are intertwined with that of the major events of the 20th century, giving the story a sense of meaning and context.

This book is just a great read. Do yourselves a favor and read it. You'll thank me that you did.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a classical story about a girl and her dog that get trapped in a twister. She wakes up in a magical land and asks how she can get home. They tell her she has to follow the yellow brick road. She meets people on her way to the Wizard. The Scarecrow needs brains, the Tinman needs a heart, the Lion needs courage and Dorothy needs to go home. They meet strange things on the way to The Good Witch of the South. I like the book because it's interesting and exciting and that's why I think you should read it.

L. Frank Baum's enduring story is wonderfully presented in this elegant edition and the Washington Post called Lisbeth's The Wizard of Oz "the loveliest edition imaginable."

However, the assessment of the local kids is the drawings are "weird." Perhaps intended for a more adult audience, the illustrations are beautiful--I enjoyed them--but their idiosyncratic style may not appeal to the younger set.

The characters pictured in the illustrations are dramatcially reinterpreted by the artist, however this may disappoint some viewers. The Scarecrow will look nothing like any scarecrow you've imagined. The Witch of the North is difficult to identify. This fresh point of view will be enjoyed by some but is sure to disappoint others.

I also felt the illustrations don't tell the story as well as the edition by Michael Hague or the original edition with W. W. Dinslow. (This is more important to the younger, read-to crowd, than the older, I can read it myself crowd.)

My daughter asked that we return the book and get a different edition for her. I would urge you to carefully consider the sample pages, except the sample pages don't cover a broad range of the illustrations included with this edition. The sample pages do include an image of the dramatic and striking cover. Unfortunately, in the judgement of several reviewers from 4 to 40, the other illustrations were noticably more "weird" than the cover and I don't think the sample pages represent the overall reading/viewing experience scrupulously.

The Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum is a wonderful book about a young girl who goes on an adventure full of excitement and fun. Dorothy the main character lives on a small country farm in Kansas with her Aunt, Uncle, and small dog, Toto. One day a twister comes over their country farm and whisks Dorothy along with her little dog away to a make believe land called Oz. There she is greeted by the people who live there. She asks them how she can get home to Kansas. They tell her that the Great Oz will help get her home. But before she heads on her way to Oz the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead and says that with that kiss no one can harm her. So she and Toto head on their way to Oz. On her way she meets The Scarecrow who wants a brain, a Woodman made of tin who wants a heart and a Cowardly Lion who wants courage. These four new friends eimbark on an adventure to the great city of Oz. Will they all get their wishes? Find out when you read the Wizard of Oz. I loved this book because not only did it have fantasy but it is a great book for all ages. I recomend it to anyone who loved being a child.

Decline of The West is a book squarely beyond the range of typical modern literary critique.

The fact that Dr.Spengler discovered a true existence of a living form in the history- and life-cycles of civilizations has been deliberately ignored by critics. The importance of this discovery for History as a science is on a level of Copernican helio-centric (Sun-at-the-Center) discovery in spatial sciences which inaugurated the modern advance of physical science. Yet it has not brought the official recognition that is its due.

Today, as it was 500 years ago in "The Middle Ages", the ruling spirit of the establishment feels threatened by the new revolutionary discovery and is trying to find ways to live with it without the consequences and implications of Dr.Spengler's discovery presented in this book. The Roman Catholic Church tried to spread ignorance of Copernicus as well, but will its modern-day equivalents be more successful in hiding the discovery?

It is up to the interested reader not to let this crime happen any longer.

Having in mind the huge scope and distance both in Time and Space that Dr.Spengler's book covers, the enormous energy and time spent by him in creating the material presented in this book becomes even more astonishing considering that the book is so deeply involved and touching upon the daily events of the times we live in.

Dr.Spengler in his work definitely belongs to the realm of the modern "TABOO," and precisely uncovers all the important facts and ideas, that our "accepted" intellectuals of the day DARE NOT touch upon, and prefer to avoid and misinterpret and misrepresent Dr.Spengler's thought and observations---for these are all too unnerving to them and too uncomfotably revealing about the character and direction of the times we live in.

Even though the Author has died many years ago, his insight and thought is squarely present in our every day problems, troubles and uncertainties.

Seldom will one find a philosopher, political scientist and a natural scientist-all in one and yet so penetrating in his thought and truly relevant and accurate to the daily life many years after his death.

Despite our civilization's boasting about the hitherto unheard-of levels of progress, creativity and prosperity unimaginable only a few dozen years ago, "Decline of the West" deals with the significance in them. The vision, understanding and practical forecasts of Dr.Spengler's scientific discipline of History encompass all of those and go beyond, at all times maintaining the "eagle's view from above" of life.

The 20th century is known for its false prophets and broken ideologies, yet amid all the storm and dust raised in the conflicts of this century, people have not noticed that all this time there existed a profound voice of calm unshaken in his beliefs and unmistaken, unshakeable in the strength of his experience and position, always proven right by facts beyond his control.

This is Dr.Spengler, and that makes him a lone example of a true scientist of politics.

This revelation then has to tell us something profoundly significant about the nature of our Western civilization's Information Age stage and the direction it is heading in, when a person from a 100 years ago can tell us so much more intimate and relevant things about the politics, science and life of people many years after his death, than the leading historians of the day can.

The average person's inability to tell truth from faleshood in the news goes beyond mere wealth of information phenomenon, and the popular Computer represents the vehicle of the Information Age, nothing more.

Today it is easy to be unaware of the profound and deep metaphysical roots underlying our advanced technical civilization's materialistic developments, yet Dr.Spengler in this work masterfully uncovers them.

That is why this book, Decline of The West is so important, and will help the modern reader understand much better, than through any other immediate means, the true scope, understanding and meaning of the age we live in and of the age our descendants will live in.

It is a true example of the intellectual nihilism of our times when works such as those of Dr.Spengler are deliberately passed by the intellectual elite keenly aware of its inability to deal with the disturbing insights of Dr.Spengler's mind, and consequently of its inability to rise to the rank of Spengler, prefering instead to sometimes select quotations from this great thinker in order to make themselves look bigger and wiser, --thinkers such as Hughes, Fischer and Connelly are among those.

To paraphrase Spengler, nobody can escape from History's all-encompassing reach, we humans only have a luxury of pretending that we can, and like a grotesque Ostrich we bury our heads into the daily mass-circulation media training our minds, making us increasingly less capable of exercising independent thought and judgement.

In the introduction, Spengler quotes his spiritual father, poet-philosopher Goethe with the description of confidence in life:"Inward form of significant life which unaware and unobserved inspires every thought and every action." That this description is no longer adequate for the life of Western Man provides a food for thought, since everything genuine in the way of feeling and thought is left open for unrestrained dissection and criticism by the standard-bearers of the modern intellectual inquisition which stifles any richness in the modes of thought in our universities, and has assumed the role of the judge, prosecutor and the jury in Media's daily virtual courtrooms, alias mass-circulation news. Hence the public truth of the moment holds sway.

The lack of inward form in our daily personal lives should not therefore come as a surprise since we are trained daily to seek programmable inspiration from the external world of the macrocosm, shunning away from our own inbred microcosm and the wealth of inspiration it could have provided us with, had we given it a chance.

At the very least "Decline of The West" enables the interested reader to form his or her own conclusion, which is something that Spengler's past critics could not afford to do.

Decline of The West is a book squarely beyond the range of typical modern literary critique.
The fact that Dr.Spengler discovered a true existence of a living form in the history- and life-cycles of civilizations has been deliberately ignored by critics. The importance of this discovery for History as a science is on a level of Copernican helio-centric (Sun-at-the-Center) discovery in spatial sciences which inaugurated the modern advance of physical science. Yet it has not brought the official recognition that is its due.
Today, as it was 500 years ago in "The Middle Ages", the ruling spirit of the establishment feels threatened by the new revolutionary discovery and is trying to find ways to live with it without the consequences and implications of Dr.Spengler's discovery presented in this book. The Roman Catholic Church tried to spread ignorance of Copernicus as well, but will its modern-day equivalents be more successful in hiding the discovery?
It is up to the interested reader not to let this crime happen any longer.
Having in mind the huge scope and distance both in Time and Space that Dr.Spengler's book covers, the enormous energy and time spent by him in creating the material presented in this book becomes even more astonishing considering that the book is so deeply involved and touching upon the daily events of the times we live in.
Dr.Spengler in his work definitely belongs to the realm of the modern "TABOO," and precisely uncovers all the important facts and ideas, that our "accepted" intellectuals of the day DARE NOT touch upon, and prefer to avoid and misinterpret and misrepresent Dr.Spengler's thought and observations---for these are all too unnerving to them and too uncomfotably revealing about the character and direction of the times we live in.
Even though the Author has died many years ago, his insight and thought is squarely present in our every day problems, troubles and uncertainties.
Seldom will one find a philosopher, political scientist and a natural scientist-all in one and yet so penetrating in his thought and truly relevant and accurate to the daily life many years after his death.
Despite our civilization's boasting about the hitherto unheard-of levels of progress, creativity and prosperity unimaginable only a few dozen years ago, "Decline of the West" deals with the significance in them. The vision, understanding and practical forecasts of Dr.Spengler's scientific discipline of History encompass all of those and go beyond, at all times maintaining the "eagle's view from above" of life.
The 20th century is known for its false prophets and broken ideologies, yet amid all the storm and dust raised in the conflicts of this century, people have not noticed that all this time there existed a profound voice of calm unshaken in his beliefs and unmistaken, unshakeable in the strength of his experience and position, always proven right by facts beyond his control.
This is Dr.Spengler, and that makes him a lone example of a true scientist of politics.
This revelation then has to tell us something profoundly significant about the nature of our Western civilization's Information Age stage and the direction it is heading in, when a person from a 100 years ago can tell us so much more intimate and relevant things about the politics, science and life of people many years after his death, than the leading historians of the day can.
The average person's inability to tell truth from faleshood in the news goes beyond mere wealth of information phenomenon, and the popular Computer represents the vehicle of the Information Age, nothing more.
Today it is easy to be unaware of the profound and deep metaphysical roots underlying our advanced technical civilization's materialistic developments, yet Dr.Spengler in this work masterfully uncovers them.
That is why this book, Decline of The West is so important, and will help the modern reader understand much better, than through any other immediate means, the true scope, understanding and meaning of the age we live in and of the age our descendants will live in.
It is a true example of the intellectual nihilism of our times when works such as those of Dr.Spengler are deliberately passed by the intellectual elite keenly aware of its inability to deal with the disturbing insights of Dr.Spengler's mind, and consequently of its inability to rise to the rank of Spengler, prefering instead to sometimes select quotations from this great thinker in order to make themselves look bigger and wiser, --thinkers such as Hughes, Fischer and Connelly are among those.
To paraphrase Spengler, nobody can escape from History's all-encompassing reach, we humans only have a luxury of pretending that we can, and like a grotesque Ostrich we bury our heads into the daily mass-circulation media training our minds, making us increasingly less capable of exercising independent thought and judgement.
In the introduction, Spengler quotes his spiritual father, poet-philosopher Goethe with the description of confidence in life:"Inward form of significant life which unaware and unobserved inspires every thought and every action." That this description is no longer adequate for the life of Western Man provides a food for thought, since everything genuine in the way of feeling and thought is left open for unrestrained dissection and criticism by the standard-bearers of the modern intellectual inquisition which stifles any richness in the modes of thought in our universities, and has assumed the role of the judge, prosecutor and the jury in Media's daily virtual courtrooms, alias mass-circulation news. Hence the public truth of the moment holds sway.
The lack of inward form in our daily personal lives should not therefore come as a surprise since we are trained daily to seek programmable inspiration from the external world of the macrocosm, shunning away from our own inbred microcosm and the wealth of inspiration it could have provided us with, had we given it a chance.
At the very least "Decline of The West" enables the interested reader to form his or her own conclusion, which is something that Spengler's past critics could not afford to do.

History ebbs and flows. The illusion that we are somehow at the 'end of history' and that civil organization and values as they now stand are beyond history's broader and deeper currents might be the great popular Myopia of our time. Spengler in this book has applied his voluminous knowledge and interpretive skills to the rise and fall of civilizations. Does the 'West' conform to the definition of a civilization in the age of global communications and entertainment? If so, are its prospects different than those of its predecessors? Schools no longer prepare the mainstream student for learning and argument at this level. Spengler's thesis hinges on the leading intellectual & aesthetic edges of the last 1000 years of our culture as compared to those of civilizations of antiquity, notably the Greco Roman.

There are scholarly contrasts to Spengler's study. William McNeill's 'Rise of the West' provides a direct challenge to many of its conclusions. Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' or Werner Jaeger's 'Paedeia' (on Greek classical culture) might be good comparative reference books, but these have now been relegated in public familiarity to dusty and esoteric academic departments. Spengler's work, however, falls squarely and uniquely into the realm of a great work of the Deist tradition of Western social philosophy, from which its reputation for skepticism comes. Its apparent mysticism emanates from the deep investigation into the intellectual attitude of the Western mind. There are, of course, other traditions in the 'Western' mix which have broad and predictive implications. This opus should not be misconstrued of as a work of pessimism. Constructive action and faith are, in fact, its basis for the prospect of vigorous and sustained regeneration of the human cause.

This is an exacting study. It requires a critical attitude to penetrate and to see that it has a fundamentally human and hopeful (and debatable) message. Decline of the West does in fact provide drama, grandeur, context and understanding to the sweep of history. It is accessible, though, to the determined general reader and constitutes a significant contribution to 20th Century thought. Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.