i had to read it for an assignment, so i didn't really enjoy it. if i had to read it for fun, i probably would have enjoyed it more. it was well spoken.

Sterling Evans' The Green Republic is a fascinating account of the development of the NP of Costa Rica. I've visited most of the parks in CR and after reading The Green Republic I have a greater appreciation for them and high admiration for the Costa Rican individuals and non-natives who through hard work, luck and perserverence have created a system of parks unique to Latin America and the world.

I particularly enjoyed the anecdotes about the indivuduals and also the tremendous amount of facts the book contains--facts that have a purpose as they paint a complex picture of a country struggling to do the right thing despite enormous pressures to cash in for the easy dollar. The book perhaps does read a bit dry at times, but the overall story is well told and worth the time and money. Great book!

This is a decent book because I love anthropology, ethnobotony, and learning about the Bushman. The beginning of this book was great, the author discusses how he and his group fall upon a thirsty group of Bushman. That part is great because it describes the interactions between the author and the Bushman. One of the author's mate on the trip, Dabe, a Bushman himself, also offers amazing commentary when they run into the Bushman.

However, in the middle, who knows what is going on. And the end was so confusing, but sorta okay. Van der Post discusses Bushman creation tales which are good in themselves because most books overlook the spiritual aspect of the Bushman--but the tales need more explanation--Van der Post talks over your head and says things don't need an explanation when they really do.

I would recommend reading 'Nisa, The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman' and 'The Harmless People' which both can be purchased online here!

Sir Laurens van der Post has a gift for story telling that we should all explore. The customs and myths of the Bushmen are simple, complex, spiritual, entertaining but always there is a lesson to be learned. This book will feed your mind and you will find yourself through Laurens' craft eager for more. If you have shut down your heart and your imagination, feel the beat of this book and get your pulse back.

This is a good comprehensive, although somewhat dry, Roman history that spans the period between the mythical founding of Rome and the final destruction of Carthage. The first few chapters go deep into archeological and literary sources, and discuss all the theories about where the Etruscans came from, when exactly a city formed on the seven hills, what the early political structure was like, etc. The rest is a straightforward narrative of Rome's rise to Mediterranean dominance--the author, H.H. Scullard, maintaining that Rome had imperalism thrust upon it, suggesting interesting parallels with American history. To complement the military-centric narrative, there are large appendixes about religion, art, literature, law, and social customs of the period.

This is a well-written, if a little dry and pedantic, book that covers all you wanted to know about Roman history until 146 b.c., which the author thinks is about the time Rome started getting nasty and lost its traditional moral and cultural pillars. The first few chapters are basically devoted to interpreting archeological and literary evidence; you'll learn a lot about all the ancient peoples of Italy and interpretations of the Romulus/Remus and Aeneid legends. The rest of the book is more straightforward (political and military) narrative, with large appendixes on religion, culture, law, and government. This is a good, but not really exciting or brilliant, comprehensive book.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky tells a chilling tale of life in Russia. The book begins with his painful and anti-social childhood. Vladimir overcame his past and began his carreer in politics. The book discusses this three-time presidential candidate's plans for the Post-Soviet nation of Russia. There is only one drawback to this book: it seems as though something was lost in translation. Th sentences are somewhat choppy and the vocabulary is poorly chosen.

I find this book to be the most enlightening books of the twentieth century. I give it the ravest reviews. Long live Slavic people!!!

I purchased this book after I developed an increasing interest in the politics and history of Central Asia. At that point, I had read a couple of books on the topic, leaving me with a feeling of general competence. This book, however, was seriously beyond my level of knowledge, and I'd like to caution readers with anything below a superior understanding of Soviet and Central Asian History. The author "jumps" around the region quite a bit, creating problems which compound themselves, particularly as no maps are included anywhere in the book. If you do not possess an intimate knowledge of the geography, I suggest waiting until your mental map is more complete (as I'll be doing).
The book is translated from French. After reading about 20 pages, this fact amazed me from the vocabularly chosen by the translator. I can't remember the last time I had to use a dictionary, but this book sent me searching on more than one occasion. Moreover, the writing style is incredibly dry, even for a work of history. "New Central Asia" is loaded with solid research and cogent argumentation, but the presentation leaves much to be desired.

Olivier Roy is a well-known expert on Islam, the Arab world and Central Asia. His The New Central Asia is an excellent examination of the creation of new nations that emerged from the end of the Soviet Union in 1992. He contends that while these new republics are in search of identity (in essence creating new nationalisms), they have also inherited the older Soviet system of rule and institutions, which were not democratic and more oriented to personality cults and heavy-handed treatment of the opposition. This explains the difficult path countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have had through the 1990s and into the next decade. For anyone looking at the problems of development as well as wishing to obtain a better understanding of a pivotal geo-political zone, Roy's well-researched book is worth the read.

The Dominican Republic government has allowed most of the agricultural land to be concentrated in the hands of large landowners, including the state itself. Its GINI index shows the D.R. as one of the most unequal ownership structures in the World.

Vargus-Lundius spends 350 detailed pages supporting her accusation that "poverty and unemployment [in the D.R.] are mainly the result of a land policy that concentrates the best lands in a few hands, a credit policy that mainly benefits the large producer, a pricing policy that tends to discourage agricultural production and a labor policy that encourages labor imports [for Haiti]. Her well documented research is a scathing denouncement on a government that purposely remains indifferent to the plight of the peasants. She has done all those who are interested in economic justice in the Dominican Republic a great service.

Yet, for all of her critical analysis she fails to deal with four critical aspect that keep people in poverty: lack of education, transportation [paved roads included], electricity and tele-communication. The irony to these omissions is that Rosemary was raised in the D.R. on in a very poor home. Her own portage out of poverty came via education; "Dona Diga, my first teacher used to say 'education is the answer to everything'. Recommend

The Dominican Republic government has allowed most of the agricultural land to be concentrated in the hands of large landowners, including the state itself.

The GINI index shows the D.R. as one of the most unequaled ownership structures in the World. Vargus-Lundius spends 350 detailed pages supporting the accusation that "poverty and unemployment [in the D.R.] are mainly the result of a land policy that concentrates the best lands in a few hands, a credit policy that mainly benefits the large producer, a pricing policy that tends to discourage agricultural production and a labor policy that encourages labor imports [for Haiti].

Her well documented research is a scathing incitement on a government that purposely remains indifferent to the plight of the peasants. She has done a great service to all those who are interested in economic justice in the Dominican Republic.

Yet, for all of her critical analysis she fails to deal with four critical aspects that keep people in poverty: lack of education, transportation[ie paved roads], electricity and tele-communication.

The irony to these omissions is that Rosemary was raised in the D.R. in a very poor home. Her own portage out of poverty came via education; "Dona Diga, my first teacher used to say 'education is the answer to everything".

I have been teaching the history of Russia at Cornel University for many years and have never found a completely satistfactory hisitorical atlas. Channon's work is defintely the best available. The maps are in color and deal with most of the main issues. A notable omission is a map showing the climatic zones which moulded the life of the Russian people.

The Penguin Historical Atlases are a great resource for those that are new to countries or perhaps are somewhat younger readers. In John Channon's version of Russian history, you'll find a concise, colorful and informative collection of articles spanning Russia's origins, the Tatars and establishment of imperial rule, through the Revolution, reforms and restructuring of the 20th Century. In a way it resembles something of a compilation of articles from a good illustrated encyclopedia.

The appeal of the volume is in it's size, illustrations and charts- I think of it as a kind of annotated "table of contents" to Russian history. It's a great resource to get the basic synopsis of a period, person or event that you can then take to a larger volume for greater detail. If you are looking for a great coffee table book or in depth Russian history, this isn't it.

As a neophyte to all things Russian, I found this to be the attractive appetizer that inspired me to really delve into Russian history and affairs.

While visiting a friend a few years ago in Siberia, he was struck by the readability, illustrations and usefulness of my copy-- yes, I brought it with me... He loved it so much, that I just had to leave it with him when I left. I now have purchased my second copy.

It's a great little introduction to Russia.

I feel that the Jowett translation is superior to others (especially for students) because of its easy-reading quality. As anyone who has read the Platonic dialogues is sure to know, they are often somewhat dry, with key points strewn amongst seemingly endless dialogues. This makes the fact that the Jowett translation is written in layman's terms that much more appreciated. For this, the translation earns its three stars. Otherwise, it has a horrific layout, with no numbering for reference to lines (making it hard to use for writing papers and difficult for reference in a class that uses a different translation because the page numbers most likely will not coincide). Besides this, there is no reference at the top of each page to denote who the speakers are, which is often helpful because it is easy to forget who is speaking due to the work's length and number of characters. The Bloom edition has these notes but I would not recommend this either because it is a more difficult read and has a commentary essay included that is half the length of the Republic itself. So, unless you don't mind the extra bulk when it comes to carrying it around, don't take the mention of the Bloom edition as a recommendation.

Here is an essential compilation of works from the philosopher Emerson hailed as the "Euclid of holiness". Along with the full 'Death of Socrates' tetralogy (including the "Euthyphro", whose argument on the nature of piety gets to the heart of why Christianity is not, as Nietzsche suggests, 'Platonism for the masses') this Doubleday edition also includes the esoteric late-phase "Parmenides" and of course the "Symposium" and "Republic", all in Jowett's long-standard translations. Reading the "Republic" in full, one can savor the loftiness of Plato's vision of human nobility, a merging of aesthetic and ethical criteria which still accounts, more than anything else, for our conception of the transcendent quality of ancient Athens (again, contra Nietzsche and "The Birth of Tragedy"). While the communitarian (and perhaps totalitarian) aspects of Plato's political vision may or may not be ironic, the deepest wellspring of Plato's utopia can best be found in the formula "beautiful minds in beautiful bodies" which he has bequeathed to us as a supreme ideal in love and education. Throughout, it is Plato's obsessive consideration of ethical ideals-- and the rationalist metaphysics in which he grounds ethical imperatives-- that galvanizes the reader to ponder the reconstruction of self and society in the light of higher truths. And his (deliberately undwelt-upon, if we can accept Letter VII) hints of the mystical, which have haunted the Western imagination ever since, make Platonism perhaps the most essential, most truly global, spiritual tradition in history. It is one which encompasses the sensual as well as the intellectual, the worldly and the other-worldly, and it accepts and encourages the freeplay of skepticism; as one can see in reading these works, Plato is usually his own best critic.

Cunningly masterful in the analysis of the authoritarian rule in Iraq, I throughly admired the author's inexhaustible illustration of the "Republic of Fear". Samir al-Khalil depicts Iraq as a ruthless and nightmarish regime that plants the seed of terror within the general populace in order to maintain its political hegemony. This book informs the reader of significant events that accompanied the uprising of the Bathist regime, and the portrayal of Iraqi society with evidence of the encompassing features of the regime are explained in monstruous detail. Essential reading for those who harbor an interest in the effects of totalitarianism in present-day nations.

Samir al-Khalil depicts Iraq as a ruthless and nightmarish regime that plants the seed of terror within the general populace in order to maintain its political hegemony. This book informs the reader of significant events that accompanied the uprising of the Bathist regime, and the portrayal of Iraqi society with evidence of the encompassing features of the regime are explained in monstruous detail. Essential reading for those who harbor an interest in the effects of totalitarianism in present-day nations.

This book was easy to read and to follow, had a number of helpful illustration and provided an fair amount of information pertaining to the foundation of the Empire and the running of both Rome and the provinces. While this book would be excellent for novices in the field of Roman antiquity, it was not an adequate read for any student of the ancient world. The lives of emperors were summed up in a few pages (usually around 2-5, some as short as 1/2 of a page), the governing of the country was presented in a superficial manner, and the general history was bland and without depth. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn the 'basics' of the Roman Empire, however, more serious scholars should look elsewhere.

This book is an insightful summary of the Roman empire, and the way it worked. Professor Goodman's analysis of the underlying power structure of the empire and how the subjects persuaded themselves to accept what today we would call a military dictatorship is compelling, and contains insights for our own time. For example, a) just why did the Romans need such a large army anyway ? b) why would anyone want to be a senator, when it's the emperor who calls all the shots ?

If you want to know the answers, but this book.