The word "idiosyncratic" was invented for books like this one. It is supposed to be about a particular cargo cult or new religion of the southwest Pacific, one of many that sprang up in response to the painful contact with Europeans from mid-19th century on. Let me say right off, if you are a student or teacher of anthropology and you need a serious book for your term paper or for preparing a class, you would be far better off looking at Peter Lawrence's "Road Belong Cargo", Peter Worsley's "The Trumpet Shall Sound" or Burridge's "Mambu". There might be some newer works to choose as well. The reason for doing so is that you will get a better grasp of the historical and cultural roots of cargo movements and the political tremors they caused for various administrations. The authors link these movements to larger tendencies in human history in a clearer way.

Edward Rice has a readable, but sometimes very annoying style. I instinctively dislike books in which the author tosses off terms like "frogs", "Frenchies", "Russkies", "krauts", "Japs", "sambo", "Kanaka", and "various types of Chows" !! And that might not be the complete list. OK, he has an ironic tone throughout, he professes sympathy with colonized peoples, and he describes his own book as a polemic, but I don't care, it smacks of those insensitive people who say "Some of my best friends are Jewish." and then tell a rotten joke about money-grubbing Jews. The author states that his work is neither anthropological or sociological, trying to distance himself from "the dreaded academic", but he has to turn to them willy-nilly, because he's discussing the same things and he hasn't got the background to stand on his own. We get a potted history of white contacts in the Western Pacific, of colonial rule and its missionary corollary, (with excerpts from missionary memoirs) and a short picture of life in the New Hebrides in the early 1970s (the place became independent Vanuatu in 1980).

However, don't dismiss JOHN FRUM HE COME totally. What I liked about this book is that the author kept an open mind towards the cargo religion. He did not ridicule it or search for inconsistencies or blow it off as 'meaningless'. He genuinely tried to show the Cargo religion of Tanna island from the believers' point of view, even if that might not be possible for a foreigner. He understood that all religions begin as mixtures of ideas from different times and places and that to an outsider, they may seem incongruous. New religions in the process of forming are still religions for all of that, to be taken seriously. Rice saw the myth and poetry, acknowledged the deeply-felt belief, and understood the soil of despair and oppression from which the John Frum religion arose. Through this effort, he certainly raised himself in my eyes (for whatever that's worth). You might try reading the last 13 pages first; you will better swallow the sometimes-puerile style of the rest of the book.

Mientras leía el libro, pensaba "ok.. esto suena bien.. de seguro pronto llega la parte impactante..."
Y desafortunadamente nunca llega esa parte.
Basicamente trata de la historia de la vida de una mujer, y en el desenlace, su transformación a la vida vampirica...
A lo que me refiero es que, por ejemplo, a Louis o a Lestat no les tomo mas de 50 paginas en contar como fueron transformados.. en cambio a Pandora, le toma alrededor de 250 paginas, y 50 mas son de sus conclusiones.
Considero que es un libro aburrido y muy enfocado (en exceso) a los detalles de vestimenta y cultura de esa epoca, el cual pudo haber sido escrito en no mas de 100 hojas, con el mismo resultado.
Si esperas encontrar algo de información de Marius (como yo esperaba), ni lo intentes.. Mejor compra el libro de Blood and Gold.

It is a good idea to write a book about Mother Teresa for kids 9-12 years old.
There is one bad thing though. When you write a book ,especially about someone's life, you have to do good research. Mother Teresa is not born in "Skopje, small serbian town", but in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia with littlte less then one million people.
Her father's name is Nikola- and that is not Albanian name and I will not say that is Macedonian too-it can be serbian, romanian.... but not albanian.

Macedonia was given away to Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Albania in 1913 and before that it was 500 years under the Turks-Otoman Empire. Skopje has never been under Albania, and it has surely not been "serbian town" just because it was given away to them by the "big forces" by the Bucurest Peace Agreement in 1913.

Nations are proud when they have big souls born on their soil and that is the only reason I am writing this: Mother Teresa was born on Macedonian soil, in the capital(then and now) of Macedonia-talking about what she was by her nationality is another matter.

This novel, originally published as multiple parts in the All Story Weekly in 1914 and 1915, is an example of a genre popular at the time: The Graustarkian novel. Works of this type typically deal with political intrigue, heavily laced with adventure and romance set in some mythical eastern European kingdom. Anthony Hope's "The Prisoner of Zenda" and George Barr McCutcheson's "Graustark" are the most famous examples.

In this reworking of the theme of a commoner filling in for the missing ruler of the country, we have Barney Custer of Beatrice, Kansas taking the place of the 'Mad' King of Lutha. While far from original, Burrough's use of action and adventure make this an enjoyable tale. If Anthony Hope hadn't written what is essentially the same story 20 years earlier, it would be even better.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this book is that another of Burrough's novels; The Eternal Lover (aka The Eternal Savage) takes place between parts 1 and 2 of this novel and deals with events that occur to Barney's sister.

Despite its quirky graphics, this book could be a gem for small business entrepreneurs just getting started. It's easy to read, with bullet-style writing. While some advice is obvious and intuitive, there are some more creative ideas for establishing and building a customer base using good public relations and customer service as the primary tactics. These are definitely tried and true means of positively impacting sales. What's missing is a more modern twist (e.g., web & internet methods) because the book was published in 1989, but remember: you can't discount the benefits of traditional business-building! The personal touches and creative marketing strategies suggested by Rice can mean a critical difference (for the better) in your bottom line.

It is somewhat hard to keep a focus as the text refers to many studies. I like plain and simple language I can understand and not all the "study" statistics!!

I really would like to see the third edition of this book. I would have given four stars but the material is not as current as I would like. Still, it offers a good foundation for health communication campaigns. My favorite chapter was the last by Wallack: a critique of the field and the future of health communications. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in health communications but would suggest they also find more recent research and scholarly articles.

Having survived divorce with 2 young daughters myself, it was interesting to hear the childrens thoughts on their parents and their divorce. Sometimes the way we adults remember things are not quite the same as what our children remember and it was nice to see that the writer included the letters from his daughters even when their memories cast some shadows on his own perspective.

This book details Castro's use of Marti, the Cuban patriot, in his speeches and his rhetoric to try to legitimize his regime. It would have been nice to compare this to how the Cuban-Americans in Miami also claim Marti as supporting their views but Rice's study prefers to focus on Fidel's speeches. A rare balanced book on Cuban affairs. Unfortunately, a very dry account as well.

In the preface, the author admits that the main body of this book is the fourth of its five chapters, entitled "Rice Transformation", an area in which the author is an undisputed expert. This topic is preceded with Chapter 1 which summarizes the worldwide importance and general botany of rice, and chapters 2 and 3 which present a historical overview of tissue culture in rice. The author rounds out this book on rice biotechnology with Chapter 5 which addresses the introduction of rice genes into other crops via genetic engineering. With this book, the author strove to present a comprehensive and up-to-date review of rice biotechnology. Some new and significant accomplishments are herein presented. The portion of the book dedicated to the author's specific expertise was laced with several interesting comments from the author's own experience, but was somewhat difficult to read due to intentional repetition as well as some unintentional errors. The sections on rice transformation, as the "meat" of this book, could be said to be "plentiful and tasty but a bit gristly". However, the "top slice of bread" on the "sandwich", Chapters 1, 2, and 3, was "stale" and had some holes. This book contains much important information, but I would suggest that readers supplement its reading with the following sources: (1) Khush, G.S., and G.H. Toenniessen, eds. 1991. Rice Biotechnology. CAB International, Wallingford. (2) Ayres, N.N. and W.D. Park. 1994. Genetic transformation of rice. Crit. Rev. in Plant Sci. 13:219-239.