This book explains how utterly different ancients were from us in how they saw the world and themselves in it. And how - without assistance by unnatural applications of reason and science - we're precisely the same if allowed to be. It raises questions of how we can possibly save our natural world and truly believe in a spiritual reality if we and the natural world are subjected to modern thinking found to be so successful.

Focusing on Sumer and Egypt we find the ancients didn't separate man from nature. Man was part of society embedded in nature, dependent on cosmic forces. Long before Old Testament declarations of conquest over nature, man was not in opposition. They obviously struggled "against" a "hostile" environment, but this account is our language describing their situation, not their state of mind. Reminiscent of Campbell's clarification between modern and ancient perspectives as "it" vs. "thou", our authors describe this difference as "subject" vs. "object". The ancients had one mode of expression, thought, speech - the personal. Everything had a will and personality revealing itself. They could reason logically but such intellectual detachment was hardly compatible with their experience of reality. Impersonal laws did not satisfy their understanding. When the river doesn't rise, it's not due to lack of rain - the river refused to rise. You'd not hurt yourself in a fall - the ground chose to hurt you, or not. Their view was qualitative and concrete, not quantitative and abstract.

In science we apply a procedure, progressively reducing phenomena until subjected to universal laws. We "de-complicate" systems to understand them. There's a hierarchy of complexity making planetary motions simpler systems than say, living cells, thus more or less complete theories of each, but we've proven since Galileo initiated modern science that we're so close to the truth of nature (the judge of our understanding) that our theories can earn our acceptance through success of their predictions and utility. We really did build Voyager to that understanding and it really did what we thought it would when released to nature's command - three billion miles from earth, still obeying our grasp of nature. Furthermore, accurate theories are able to predict things never dreamed possible when created. Relativity still yields such surprises. We see phenomena as manifestations of general laws, not by what makes them peculiar.

The ancient mind is termed "mythopoetic". Their perspective is why scriptures were written when they were and not anymore - writings imbibed with mystery and inflation of life one assumes we've lost to critical reason and economic forces. But the mythopoetic mind is still here, the natural mind we are born with. It's why we have palm readers, cults, astrologers, ghosts, UFOs, Creationists, pet psychics, TV conversations with the dead, best selling books on how to "know" God and beliefs that flying jets into buildings will send their pilots to heaven. All expanding lives otherwise sterilized by 9-to-5, traffic jams, ignorance, poverty. In Mexico women are advised to remain inside during a solar eclipse, least they become spontaneously pregnant. As my Aunt said of Columbia, "If God wanted us to be in space he'd given us wings." If God wanted us to drive cars he'd given us wheels, or to live under roofs, he'd have put shingles on our head. What some battle as absurd is also quite natural, dangerous and capable of elevating life, avoiding deconstruction and reductionism applied to humans made of more than carbon and water. A dilemma revealed by this book. And if Tattersall is correct, this behavior may have a lot to do with our messy brain structure, a condition we're stuck with.

Create unique products which appeal to individual taste while using the process of making the craft as a relaxation exercise with the use of this guide, which tells how to make candles, soaps, pillows, potpourri and fountains. Plenty of space for notes may make this inappropriate for library lending collections, but perfect for at-home purchase and ongoing use.

The collection of essays in this book are by far brilliant examinations with fit evidence. It is great for the reader interested in Ancient religions of Egypt and Mesopotamia, it provides fundamental views on ancient mans perspective of the world, gods, and himself from myth. This is not a text book, nor a history book but it does provide adequate literary evidence and footnotes. I wish I had read this before studying ancient philosophy, it would have greatly helped my understanding of the mind of these ancients. It's amazing to read about the development of mans theories through mythopoeic tales. Well worth it for the Philosophy-, religion- or ancient studies - student. Or if you really enjoy myths, find out how man came about with these stories. Covers Egyptian, Babylonian and Assyrian (in some detail) and Mesopotamian thought and myth.

In reading this book I was amazed how the authors got into prisons across the country to interview sex offenders. It was frightening reading to see how rapists think about women --how none of us are safe from these creeps. Most amazing of all, many of these rapists didn't think they did anything wrong -- that women "asked" for it. I was also surprised to learn how many sex offenders were molested or abused by women when these guys were young boys. This is the classic work on rapists -- a must read!

I need learn English and I looking for a good course, for me SPECTRUM IT'S THE BEST.

INTRODUCTION (first paragraph) (fragment)

Welcome to the new edition of Spectrum! Spectrum 3 represents the third level of a six level course designed for teens and adult learners of English. Levels 1 and 2 are appropiate for beginners and false beginners; Levels 3 and 4 are intended for intermediate classes; and levels 5 and 6 are intended for advanced learners of English.

(taken from the book's INTRODUCTION)

This is the sixth edition, which means that the still probably useful fifth and previous editions are now good for landfill duty. The price is hefty. (Why don't textbook publishers offer financing?) That said, this is a usable book, one that the reader might be tempted not to sell after class is over. The research and statistics chapters are well-written and placed in logical order. The material is comprehensive, and strikes a nice balance between not being too technical without being too elementary. What appealed to me was the by-the-numbers approach, with numerous lists embedded in the text throughout. (For example, if there are seven factors to consider in reference to the internal validity of a research design, they are boxed off and numbered, after being discussed in the text.) The book comes with a disk containing a 1996 general survey of social science issues. This is provided by way of example, and is referenced at the end of most chapters as a real-world example and 'how to' guide to research methedology and design. Nonetheless, you can do as I did, and read without using the disk (I used it once), and still come away with complete understanding. This book is also free of the filler that crowds and obscures useful information in the garden variety textbook. This book would have gotten five stars, had it not been for the authors' annoying habit of using liberal examples. In a social science research text, reference to politically sensetive issues is to be expected. What annoys is that virtually every example, whether derived from real life, or an admittedly ficticous example, is given a liberal slant. If the factors being researched are education and political orientation, then liberalism correlates with higher education (read: conservatives are dummies). If the subject is nominal variables, the example is party affiliation in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans two-to-one. In other words, the examples serve the standard orthodoxies of our time. Don't expect to see any on race and abortion, or the use of guns to deter crime. That said, since the main users of this book are college students, and as such are getting much heavier doses of campus radicalism and causes du jour, this book's bias is relatively mild. If you are going to study research methodologies, you could do much worse than this text. -Lloyd Conway

I used this book for methodology class, thou the official textbook was the more common book of Bailey. I did so for several reasons.
1.incidentally I had not Bailey's but this book because I used this book to prepare graduate entrance exam.
2.as u know, there are not much differences among textbooks on research methods for this field might be the only area in consensus on social sciences.
This book has some weak points just like other textbooks including Bailey's. this book concentrates on quantitative methods and not much deal with qualitative methods which occupy mere 20 pages.
But I have to mention 2 strong points
1.The author presents concepts in graphic way with vivid details of research examples and illustrating live logic of field. Thou good researcher could be only with practices, it will be good to have some touch of real logic of concept in real field
2.the author put the system over various methods like observation, survey, interview etc with the logic of causation. This is why this book begins research design part with experiment which is rarely used in social sciences except psychology. Experiment is not practical one in social sciences but it's the model of all other research methods for its design meets all the condition of causation. So when we design out research, we should bear the experiment in mind. This point is maintained throughout the book. And this made the content of the book systematic

I have used this text in my introductory level research class for several years. I find it to be well designed and clearly written. The authors make good use of real life examples to claarify complex topics. The text almost teaches itself.

I'm a teacher in Chile, and I've using this series since 1995. The texts indeed follow the rules of the notional functional aproach. As a T E F L tool, it is focused mainly to be used in the U.S.A. There are some exercises in which the students in the classroom, supposedly, are from different parts of the world, notwithstanding, in my classes there are only Chilean students, so we must pretend that they are from different nationalities. I'd suggest that the editorial, or much better said, the authors, should bear in mind that for future editions. With respect to the videos, they should be interactive, i.e., there should be opportunity to respond questions, or the appropriate phrase or sentence, for example: a person in the video could say: "Hi, I'm John Sanders", and the students answer:(chorally or individually)"Hello, my name's Arturo Perez" and then: "Nice to meet you, Arturo." "Nice to meet you, too, John",etc.

I'm a teacher in Chile, and I've using this series since 1995. The texts indeed follow the rules of the notional functional aproach. As a T E F L tool, it is focused mainly to be used in the U.S.A. there are some exercises in which the students in the classroom, supposedly, are from different parts of the world, notwithstanding, in my classes there are only Chilean students, so we must pretend that they are from different nationalities. I'd suggest that the editorial, or much better said, the authors, should bear in mind that. With respect to the videos, they should be interactive, i.e., there should be opportunity to respond questions, or the appropriate phrase or sentence, for example: a person in the video could say: "Hi, I'm John Sanders", and the students answer:(chorally or individually)"Hello, my name's Arturo Perez" and then: "Nice to meet you, Arturo." "nice to meet you, too, John",etc.

Don't get misled by the slim aspect of this book: it is a very good introduction - and, as the author himself said, more properly "an interpretation" - to ancient Egyptian religion. Very light to read and written in a simple language, it aims to provide a global overview of the beliefs and creeds of the dwellers on the Nile in times of the Pharaohs. For anyone interested in knowing more about this subject; for the learned, it is still a source for opening new-directed reseach.

I used this as one of my references for a course in Jewish Studies. It was very helpful for a basic overview of some Near Eastern thought patterns.