This book is incredibly useful to any examination of the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. Its examination of the Xhosa cattle killing is especially well done, and as a whole the book is readable, challenging, and useful for research.

Winter of The Wolf was the most awesome book I've ever read!!! It sat on my blanket chest for 2 weeks before I read it because it did'nt look to interesting, in fact I almost took it back to the library and read something else. BOY, AM I GLAD I DID'NT!!! The end of the book was so great!!! Sad, but still great. G. Clifton Wisler hit the nail on the head when he wrote this book. He wrote about the loyalty people back then had in friends and what we lack today in society. Friends like that are hard to come by. I plan to read alot more of G. Clifton Wisler's books! :)

My husband and I got this book the day our daughter was born. We enjoyed watching her eyes light up at the great stories. When she began reading she would not put the book down unless she had to. I recomend these books to any parent or grandparent.

Love is always interesting to talk about. This love stories reveal the deepest thought of the heart, the source of love. Some of the stories may reveal exactly your feeling at a particular time. Take the best of the love to enjoy your life, though not the greatest love ever told, the stories give you references of how could you understand others, especially your lovers.

A good story book, I could say, from the "World Treasury" series fit for your library to cover all aspects of life, and the most important one is love, which you cannot life without it. So, enjoy your life, to laugh often, and to love much.

The truths in this book seem so obvious when you read it, yet it's the opposite of what's been taught and praciticed for so many years. Don't waste time trying to perfect what you don't do well, you'll never make a weakness into a strength. Find out what you do well and become so good at it that what you don't do well won't matter. Unfortunately, I recognized all too well all of the clues that indicate operating in a weakness rather than a strength. The good news is that I can stop trying to perfect my weaknesses and start enjoying my strengths. A must read for managers, coaches, career counselors and especially young people trying to figure out what it is they want to do with their lives.

Dr. Clifton's "Soar With Your Strengths" has helped me to identify why my carreer has not taken off to this point. I can see now that I have a tendency to focus on my weaknesses, while at the same time making the mistake of overlooking my strengths and ultimate potential.

This book challenges the absurdity of this common mistake and enlightens the reader to a strengths approach as it relates to carreer planning, interpersal relations, etc.

I would encourage anyone unhappy in their current carreer, anyone who wants success to come easy to them, or anyone who has a hand in managing the lifes, or carreers of others to read this book.

Lastly I would like to commend the author on his writting style. This book is truly a joy to read, and to the point.

Thank you Dr. Clifton for sharing this book with the world.

This book is both an easy read and a powerful one. The idea of focusing on maximizing ones' strengths instead of working on ones' weaknesses has been incredibly freeing to me. A friend called it life-changing for him, and I'd have to agree. I'm very excited with the prospects of spending the second half of my work life celebrating and maximizing the use of my strengths and the gifts God has given me!

Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina not only challenge but indeed obliterate much conventional wisdom about organizational growth and individual development. Those inclined to challenge them would be well-advised to consider the basis of their assertions: "Ten million customers and over two hundred thousand managers were surveyed. More than three million employees were interviewed from 1995 through 2001. Additionally, more than two million talent-fit/role-success reviews were tallied. More than 300, 000 business units, in hundreds of organizations worldwide, took part in the study....All major industries, from fast-food chains to physicians' groups, were represented. A wide variety of job types was included, as were all kinds of customers. Industry and organizations of all sizes were integrated....Employees from different types of organizations were measured in terms of their talent, engagement, and outcomes."

What about customers? "Similarly, customer data included purchase information: Volume, dollar amounts spent, repurchase intentions and behavior, brand ratings, product evaluations, opinions, and other complementary patterns of attitudes and behavior were all covered in detail." Who wants to step forward to challenge the validity of Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina's assertions? Not I.

The subtitle of this book, "How the World's Greatest Organizations Drive Growth by Unleashing Human Potential," is somewhat misleading. In fact, according to Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina, cultures -- not organizations -- unleash human potential which, in turn, drives organizations. More specifically, emotion-driven, highly engaged employees ("associates" at Wal-Mart and J.C. Penney) continuously nourish and thereby sustain profitable relationships with (yes) emotion-driven, highly-engaged customers. Contrary to conventional wisdom, "Superior performance is not the exclusive product of the rational mind. no matter how appealing it is to business to believe this is so. Talent does intelligence one better, because it combines and utilizes the full circuitry (rational and emotional) of the brain's neural connections in the endless pursuit of productive outcome."

What about knowledge and skills? Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina duly acknowledge that they are required by quality performance. However, "In essence, talent and engagement are emotionally driven. In tough economic times, talent and emotional engagement are the only natural competitive advantages." Emotional engagement is thus the "fuel" that drives the most productive employees (approximately 20% of any workforce) and the most profitable customers. Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina seem almost surprised by the fact that there is an unlimited supply. "The most amazing thing about it is that it never runs out."

The word "path" in this book's title refers to a sequence of "steps" to be taken:

1. Acknowledge the role that emotion plays in driving business outcomes.

Comment: Keep in mind that emotions can be either positive (e.g. appreciation) or negative (e.g. resentment).

2. Acknowledge that all employees possess innate talents that can be emotionally engaged.

Comment: Workers generally do best what they enjoy doing most.

3. Understand that unique talent combinations lead to increased profits and growth.

Comment: Because needs change, different talents may be needed and in different combinations.

4. Understand and appreciate the power of the Q12 and accept what it can do for an organization.

Comment: Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina focus on the Q12 in Chapter 4 and explain how to manage the Q12 in Chapter 5.

5. Understand what it means to manage to develop and sustain engaged employees.

6. Understand the economic implications of engaged, not-engaged, and actively disengaged employees.

7. Acknowledge the role which emotions play in customer engagement.

8. Understand the eleven indicators of customer engagement and how they will impact on your brand, product, or organization.

9. Accept what managing to enhance and sustain customer engagement means.

10. Understand the economic implications of fully engaged, engaged, not-engaged, and actively disengaged customers.

NOTE: The chapter in which this step is examined, Chapter 10 ("Emotional Economics, Part 2") develops in much greater depth the material provided in Chapter 6, "Emotional Economics, Part 1."

Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina devote a separate chapter to each of the ten steps of The Gallup Path, explaining precisely how it can enable any organization (regardless of size or nature) to "drive growth by unleashing human potential." Taking each of these steps will fail, however, unless and until when doing so supervisors REALLY DO understand (a) that talent drives performance and supervisors are totally committed to engaging the talent of every employee, (b) that emotionally engaged employees are invariably the most productive employees, and finally (c) that emotionally engaged customers "always come back for more" and thus are the bedrock of any organization's sustainable profitably.

In their concluding remarks, Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina observe that "It's time to see your world in a different way." In fact, by the end of this book, they have urged their reader to see the world in dozens of different ways. It is important to supervisors to know that, once embarked on The Gallup Path, they will be guided and informed by Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina every step of the way.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out First, Break All the Rules which Coffman co-authored with Marcus Buckingham. Also, Hammer's The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade; Bossidy and Charan's Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done; O'Toole's Leading Change: The Argument for Value-Based Leadership; Collins' Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't; and Connors and Smith's The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual & Organizational Accountability.

I work in a very competitive industry, where practically everything has been maximized -but the human factor, employees and profitable relationships with customers. This book has taught me that real and sustainable growth is attainable, without the accounting or false methods that plague companies today.

Great job, Gallup!

I'm not easily impressed. As a management consultant, I must read more than 50 business books a year. After a while, they all seem to blur together into one large mass. Imagine how shocked I was to come across this fantastic book while in Japan (of all places). The information on employee-strategy alignment and employee satisfaction is dead on. There's something in here for almost every manager. However, equally impressive was the way in which it was written. If you like straight forward no B.S. facts and "how-to"s, its here. If you prefer to learn through brief case studies, they're here too. Regardless, the writting style is easy to digest. No academic or overly-technical pretense. Just common every day American English. I read through it like a novel -- practically cover-to-cover without putting it down. If you're interested in increasing the satisfaction of employees and/or improving the alignment of your employees and strategy, definately run out to the nearest book store (or Amazon) and pick up a copy. You may also want to consider a copy of Smallwood, Ulrich and Zenger's "Results-Based Leadership" or Gubman's "The Talent Solution." Overall Grade: A/A+

I feel compelled to respond to the person who found the opening poem "racist" because the speaker says "another child has killed a child / and i catch myself relieved that they are / white."

First of all, the fact that a poem depicts a certain attitude or feeling does not mean that the poet endorses that attitude or feeling. In this case, the sentiment is honest even if it is not morally admirable. Poetry does not always depict life or human nature as we would like them to be, but rather as they are.

Second, the last line of the poem says "these too are your children this too is your child." So the poem has corrected the speaker's own withdrawal from the scene. It ends, I think, with a rejection of racism...but it could be a good poem even if it did not.

I have admired Lucille Clifton's clear, strong poetic voice for many years, and I was really impressed by her book "Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000." Clifton covers a lot of ground in this collection: racial violence, surviving cancer, language, drug addiction, the female body, and more. There are many poems inspired by biblical characters. Some highlights are as follows:

"Sorrow Song": a global vision of human evil and suffering. "female": a poem that declares "there is an amazon in us." "shapeshifter poems": a powerful sequence. "here be dragons": a poem that begins "So many languages have fallen / off the edge of the world / into the dragon's mouth." I also loved the poems that celebrate (and sometimes mourn) the female body: "poem in praise of menstruation," "poem to my uterus," "to my last period," etc.

When she's at her strongest, Clifton attains a truly prophetic quality. I recommend this book both to those who've read and loved her for years as well as to newcomers to this important poetic voice. If you like Clifton, I also recommend the writings of June Jordan and Audre Lorde.

Some books excel beyond the 5-star limit offered here. This is one of them. Lucille Clifton has a magical, inexplicable way bring the most unpoetic subjects to life--including incest, racism, Lucifer, Eve, and the human body. Clifton's poems exude truth and she isn't afraid to write from the somewhat underrepresented perspective of an African American woman. Even the poems that seem to have a narrow audience (Wishes for Sons, To my Last Period) manage to have a universal quality about them. I've been extremely fortunate to hear her read twice--the only thing that improves upon the purchase of this book is hearing the sublime Ms. Clifton in person. Her voice captivates and reasonates from the pages of her books. Anyone who finds these poems offensive should consider the element of truth in each and every one of them.

To my knowledge there is not other book like this one in print. It's a 1300+ page book that contains poems from all over the world from ancient Sumeria to the present. You will find poetry from the Bronze age; odes from the Ottoman empire; Latin American and Native American verses, and more from just about every country that has ever produced a poet. There is religious poetry from India and Asia, translations from Sanskrit and from medieval Russian. Vietnamese, Icelandic and Finnish poets are all represented.

The book is bulky yet with a scope so immensely broad it still has to be a sampler. Major English poets like Alexander Pope end up with half a page while, strangely, Victor Hugo gets three-and-a-half pages.

This is a book not just for those who love poetry, but for those who want a taste of history and culture. It's fascinating to go through these old texts and get a glimmer of the interests and feelings of people in different lands at different times throughout history.

Now for the clinkers. A work like this requires a large number of translators, and some of them have been a little too free in their conversions to English.

A poem of Martial (40-104AD) reads thusly: "Ted's studio burnt down, with all his poems./ Have the muses hung their heads?/ You, bet, for it was criminal neglect/ not also to have sautéed Ted."

Hipponax (around 540BC) supposedly said, "Big Daddy/ no scrumptious feast of partridge and hare/ no sesame pancakes/ no fritters drenched/ in honey."

And that most frequently translated of all classical poets Horace (65 -8BC) is accused of coming up with the lines "Dazzled though he be, poor dope, by the golden looks/ Your locks fetched up out of a bottle of Clairol.."

Fun is fun, but I want a serious book of trustworthy translations when I buy an expensive anthology like this. Still, it is a remarkable book, and one of the most important additions to my library.

I noticed, in this mostly excellent anthology of world poetry, that a single word, "weird" has been spelled incorrectly as "wierd."

This would be unmentionably minor. However, the misspelling is in a translation of the old English poem The Wanderer.

"Weird" (spelled something like wyrd in the original, perhaps) is the single most important word in the entire poem. This is because the Wanderer himself, the speaker of the poem, is "weird", "set apart in thought."

Today, the word refers to oddballs. But it appears that in old English the word referred to a man's soul, his "wyrd." "Weird" may have meant "great of soul" and, perhaps, able to reflect as does The Wanderer on a long life.

Today, a society that is unconsciously other-directed does not encourage the chap who does this and instead we are supposed to get direction from our mates.

Therefore, it is possible that collectively and as a group (where lowest common denominators tend to emerge) the editors were tone-deaf to the word, and the need to preserve its exceptional spelling (which modern dictionaries confirm.)

The editors, in a world-multicultural spirit, may have thought that the word, "weird" needed to conform to a generally-accepted, trumping rule of modern English orthography whose relative antiquity is shown by its rhyme: "i before e, except after c."

In so doing, they exhibit how a group of people, anxious to be be Politically Correct, are more apt in the French fashion to be dirigiste, and to make and to follow abstract, general rules. This *mission civilisatrice* is considered in such circles somewhat superior to a system, whether of law, or orthography, with many exceptions...as found in English spelling, or on those English and American juries permitted, in increasingly rare circumstances, to show mercy or severity, and ignore the black letter of the law.

Now, I have no brief against Political Correctness. I have seen first-hand (as a minor participant in its enforcement on a network at Princeton) how it spares feelings previously violated and gives voice to the voiceless.

But all social systems have besetting sins. The besetting sin of the older systems was the prime of place given to dead, white males.

The besetting sin of the modern system is that the lowest common denominator, here, the tone-deafness, is silently given equal time to an older sensitivity to the music of the Wanderer.

Many neo-conservative conscientious objectors to Political Correctness may be not so much paleo-conservative as anxious about the position of the indvidual author and reader in a *dirigiste* system, in which abstract rules trump local custom. Paradoxically, one of the goals of Political Correctness happens to be respect for local custom.

I am reminded in far more serious venues of how the feminist critique of the use of sex as power becomes, in the corporation and the academe, the syntactical and relatively mindless application of rules. The feminist narrates how a woman has a right to a job free of unwanted advances, even by future justices of the Supreme Court. The narrative becomes a rule in which the very mention of our sexual being becomes a terminating offense.

And in the same way, a marvelous exception to a rule that's hard enough to remember in itself, an exception self-reflexively weird and an echo of ancient times, becomes barbarously forgotten.

Where is the horse? Where is the rider? Where is my car?

This is the best,most readable,comprehensive anthology of its type I have discovered. The selections are great with fine translations.The single column typography is very appealing.It is a hefty tome,over 1300 pages,so that I need a lecturn at times.The entries are chronological so that Chinese Poetry is in various periods rather than being all together.I wish I could read these poems in the original languages,but since I cannot,this volume will do nicely.Savor the poems, give a copy to a sensitive,dear friend.Well worth the price,new or used.

Imagine yourself a 12 year-old boy, enlisted in the army as a drummer boy,at the ruins of an old mill,smoke rising, soldiers hurrying to reas-semble. Above all the yelling and whizzing of musket fire, you hear the moans and groans of wounded. How would you feel?
Willie Johnston of G. CLIFTON WISLERS Mr. Lincoln`s Drummer feels exactly like you would. The war turned Willie from a scared kid to a brave, hard- working young man. He wasn't like the other boys who ran away like cowards. He stayed and drummed out the calls of war. Willie is hard working because he always helps the doc after any battle and helped save many lives. I would recommend this book to any one who likes to read about the Civil War and likes to learn about challenges the soldiers faced!
6 grade student at OHES

Imagine yourself in evil war times. When you imagine, do you see warmen that have tents with security systems on them? Or do you see just tents with little feather cots . If you imagined the cots then your favorite book has to be Mr. Lincons Drummer.

In a time where you have no money, clothing, short on water and food, and ammunition. In a time where entertainment was music and serving your country. One boy's sprit stands in an army.

Willie Johnson is a ten year old boy with a problem. He decides that he wants to join Mr. Lincons army. His problem is that his mother dosent her son to be killed in action while banging a drum. So he goes to sign up with his mother and looks at the spots he could fill in. They needed a drummer boy.

The decision stumped him but he thought and hard. Surprising or not? Well he thought that his descendants would be happier because of that, he would bring out the patriotism of the soldiers. But he could get killed. That wouldn't let him stop trying...

On the battle he had palms of sweat, frustration, well he thought back. The rules of battle say you cannot kill the drummer, so he got his confidence back.

This wonderful book by G. Clifton Wisleris a moving book of the Civil War. What will happen? What do you think will happen? Don't ask me, READ!!
6th Grader from OHES

"A drum is the heartbeat of the army. It tells soldiers when to get up, When to eat, when to assemble, when to attack, when to retreat, And when to go to bed. Without a drum, the army falls apart." This quote is from G. Clifton Whistlers award winning book, Mr. Lincoln's Drummer. The book takes place during the Civil War.
Willie Johnston Lives in a small Vermont town with his mother, his father,and his two brothers. His father is a tailor, and they run a family business. Willie, his mom, and his older brother help.
One day, a strange colonel and his company walk into town. The colonel is trying to get people to sign up for the war. Every day he comes out, and every evening he leaves. One day the colonel comes into their shop and tells them that he needs them to make uniforms. They went to work on the uniforms right away.
After a fortnight, the colonel had gotten 11 people to sign up. Willie follows him back one day. They arrive in a campsite, about a mile out from town. Willie meets a drummer boy, and they become fast friends. The boy teaches him some of the drum beats. Willie starts to see some of his friends at the camp.
Willie is banging assembly one day, without thinking about what he is doing. The colonel hears, and Willie ends up banging a drum in the middle of the street to attract people. Every day more sign up.
Eventually Willie and his dad sign up, too. How do they do? Does he die? Does he live? What is his fate?

Who doesn't love Sam Cooke? Well, a lot of people, but they are a misguided bunch. This book provides finely researched insight into the talented mind of Mr. Cooke. Why hasn't his story been made into a major motion picture? And I don't mean one of those crummy VH1 movies, either. Sam's life was a story of scandal, faith, outstanding talent, women, shady record deals and murder. Author Daniel Wolff writes with flair and honesty throughout the entire book. I loved his descriptions of Sam's songs and their different stages of creation. For fans of Sam, as well as devotees of pop and gospel music, "You Send Me" is well worth reading.

I didn't know Sam Cooke beyond a few of his old hits (I was born in 1971) but picked up this book on the advice of a friend. 'You Send Me' is a fascinating study of the man and his music.

There is stuff in there for everyone... his religious roots... early fame at the helm of the most famous gospel group of his day... the illegitimate children... his tragic marriages... his relationships with Aretha, Lou Rawls and Muhammed Ali... his refusal to play to segregated audiences, blazing the way for integration across the South... spirited, behind-the-scenes stories of his recordings and live performances... his everlasting love of soul and gospel music and how he founded his own label to showcase otherwise overlooked talents. And, of course, his controversial death in a cheap motel and subsequent investigations.

'You Send Me' is a wonderful picture, as well, of the South at the turn of the 20th century, Depression-era Chicago and a teenage America finding a common love of rock and roll.

In the end, the reader is left with a satisfying read as well as a sense of tragedy over a life so filled with potential cut so short by misadventure (he was not yet 34 when he died). I almost cringe to draw this comparison, but like Princess Diana, another charismatic celebrity, Sam Cooke is beloved because despite the glamour, he was altogether too human.

This book stands up to repeated readings. Then, listen to his music. You will smile, because Daniel Wolff will have taken you there.

When I first read this book,I was so entranced that I stayed up all night reading.Sam Cooke had long been my musical idol and many stories about him are a) sketchy or ;b)center around the bizarre circumstances surrounding his death.Granted this book doesn't answer many questions about his cause of death,but it does open up alot of things about his life.It showed a human side to the man behind the voice(fathering many illegitimate children,his shrewed business instincts,the death of his son Vincent,and the heavy drinking before his own death),as well as a detailed account about the genisis of his greatest songs(guitarist Cliff White thought You Send Me was repetitive during the sessions for the song,Wonderful World was a demo which was rushed released by his former record label to cash-in on his RCA success,and A Change Is Gonna Come was inspired by Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind).You Send Me, like the now deleted Man and His Music CD are essential to any Cooke fan,especially when many of todays music stars could never hold a candle to this talent.