Poor "Colonial Home" magazine. After decades as the premiere magazine of antique American homes, it changed its name to "Classic American Home" and then was out of business in the ad-pages slump that followed September 11th, 2001. It was a great loss to those who love viewing and learning about historical American homes.

Fortunately, even if you were never a "Colonial Homes" subscriber, you can still indulge your love for classic American style via Rosemary Rennicke's lovely "Classic American Decorating." The homes features herein are all taken from the pages of the magazine, and they amply show the magazine's high quality and standards. There is no country-kitschy stuff here--everything is distilled to its purest essence, whether it is a keeping room in an 18th century Connecticut home or the bedroom in a high-rise Manhattan apartment building.

The book is divided into chapters covering architecture, furniture, accessories, and so on. The photography is handsome, and the book design is pleasing to the eye. Rennicke's text is admirable not only for its insight, but for its restraint. She leads the reader gently along, pointing out what is of interest without being intrusive or overly pedantic. This is a coffee table book home-lovers will turn to again and again for a sweet indulgence in domestic day-dreaming.

Excellent book that showcases postcolonial India. Great for Reference about such issues.

Ms Connor's premise made more sense to me than a lot of what I'd heard in art history lecture halls in my youth, and fit the psychology of the era. Piling precious pigments on top of precious materials was very common then in religious objects, and ivory was valuable, although not an endangered material. When we assume our own sensibilities were also true in the past, we lose sight of things that would otherwise be right in front of us and visible. Ms Connor has made a very good case for polychrome ivory objects, and the book is rich in gorgeous description and examples.

THE COLUMBIA BOOK OF CHINESE POETRY : From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century. Translated and Edited by BURTON WATSON. 385 pp. (Translations from the Oriental Classics). New York : Columbia University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-231-05682-6 (hbk.)

Burton Watson has always struck me as an eminently civilized scholar and as a fine translator. Unlike certain others, he wears his scholarship lightly, and doesn't overburden the text with extraneous matter. His many translations from Chinese and Japanese Literature are of uniformly high quality, and are well worth having as they are books one often wants to returns to.

The present anthology has always been one of my favorite books. In contrast to the more recent mammoth anthologies of Victor Mair (1335 pages) and John Minford (1176 pages), Watson's, at a mere 385 pages, is a far more modest and manageable proposition.

Unlike the Mair and Minford, it can be held easily in the hand while reading, and it is printed in a large clear font on spacious pages in which the lines have room to breathe. Modest in size it is also modest in presentation. Selections are preceded by only the briefest of introductions, and footnotes have been kept to an absolute minimum.

In his brief but extremely well-written and informative Introduction, Watson tells us that : "The present anthology is intended to give a representative selection of Chinese poetry in the 'shih' form from the first two thousand years of China's long literary history ... as well as outstanding works in the 'fu' and 'tz'u' forms and a few other works such as the 'Li Sao' or 'Encountering Sorrow' that are unique in form" (p.13).

His book includes selections from 'The Book of Odes,' 'The Ch'u Tzu,' Early Songs, Poems in Rhyme-Prose Form, Poems of the Han and Wei, T'ao Yuan-ming, Wang Wei, Li Po, Tu Fu, Han Yu, Po Chu-i, Han Shan, Su T'ung-po, Lu Yu, and much else besides.

Here, as an example of his superb style, is his translation of Liu Tsung-yuan's 'River Snow' (with my obliques added to indicate line breaks) :

"From a thousand hills, bird flights have vanished; / on ten thousand paths, human traces wiped out : / lone boat, an old man in straw cape and hat, / fishing alone in the cold river snow" (p.282).

The truth of Burton Watson's statement that the "Chinese poetic world is one that is remarkably easy to enter.... Even works that are many centuries removed from us in time come across with a freshness and immediacy that is often quite miraculous" (p.3) is very much in evidence here.

Anyone who would like to get a good idea of what Chinese poetry is all about, and to actually enjoy the experience of finding out, should certainly consider the present anthology. Anthologies such as those of Mair and Minford are all very well in their way and can serve as useful references, but they are hardly books that one can sit down and read with pleasure from beginning to end.

Watson's, however, is just such a book, and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who would like to begin exploring some of the richest and most interesting poetry in the world.

This is one of the clearest commentaries on Romans.Melanchthon was a scholar and freind of Luther.He was there at the reformation and brings the teachings from the book of Romans in a authoratative but understandable study.This is a must reading for all who are interested in the book of Romans.

Indespensible edition of one of the most important books of late antiquity. If you like this, don't miss his translations of Martianus Capella.

It has been nearly a century since Books 1-10 of Origen's Commentary in John have been published. Heine's translation of the last extant books is clear and readable, an achievement given Origen's propensity for dense prose. In any case the Commentary in John shows Origen at his best, digging deeply into the text, trying to make the Gospel relevant to his contemporaries. Since less than 200 years passed between Gospel and Commentary, he has insights that, in spite of his much critized method of interpretation, we tend to lose today. Origen, for the weaknesses of his system, still deserves Jerome's moniker as "the greatest teacher since the Apostles."

This is an abriged translation of the famous tafseer of Ibn Jarir al-Tabari. This commentary is the most important commentary of the Muslim World. The translator explains his methodology that was used to prepare the book. It is part of a planned four volume series. This book is up to the middle of the second chapter of the Qur'an. The book includes the Arabic Text of the Qur'an plus transliteration. The book is well thoughout and the translation is sound

This is probably the most quoted book on the history of the Shenandoah Valley. It was a landmark publication debunking the myth of self-sufficient farming in the Shenandoah Valley. Commercialism was an important part of Valley life. Modern scholars now realize what an important contribution this book was to the history of western Virginia. I have been trying to obtain a copy of this book for more than a year. If you are a serious student of Virginia history, this book is perhaps one of the most important studies of the Shenandoah Valley ever written. I would even be happy with a xerox copy of the book. rdmartin

I had the pleasure of studying under Dr. Humphries during my junior year abroad at NUI Maynooth. His passion for the ancient world was evident in all his lectures, from the fall of Rome to Latin language.

Unfortunately, I don't own a copy of this myself (being a poor college student), but if it's anything like his lectures, it is well-researched, well-written and full of gorgeous pictures and illustrations. Please, support a wonderful teacher and buy this book!!