If you are interested in Ethiopia, this book provides a pictured guide to the country, its history and its sites. The photography is amazing.

This is an incredibly lovely book that shows the various groups of people that make up Ethiopia. A must read, that's informative, educational and thoroughly enjoyable.

This work of art in nothing less than excellent!!

I love the short stories. The poetry is also really well written. It's not like anything I've read from any new writers. He's more experimental, but he's not inaccessible.

This book is so well written, I'm at a loss for words. He writes as if he were forty years older than he is. like he's been places and seen things in a million other lives. I forgot poetry was supposed to transport you places.

I've had this book on my shelf ever since the Village Voice put Rux on the cover as one of their writers on the verge of shaking up the literary landscape. I just never got around to reading it and then lent it out and never got it back. Recently I ordered the second edition, distributed by Autonomedia.org and this time I READ it and I thought I was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez...if I had known this book was this impressive, I would've read it the first time. Few young poets today have Rux's ability to create images as vibrant as he does. It's the stories in this book that impress me the most!

"Citizens" is a vivid, readable portrait of a group of men who, by virtue of their merchant enterprises, helped to shape the destiny of the American colonies in the 18th century. The author, while not stinting on historic detail, manages to squeeze in enough lively anecdotes about the men, their times, and their lives, to make "the Associates" human -- and utterly fascinating.

David Hancock has written a striking account of the careers of twenty-three very successful London merchants who invested together in several particularly challenging and rewarding branches of British overseas trade in the eighteenth century. His masterful study is based on intense and imaginative research in Britain, the continent, the United States and the West Indies. From his rich findings, he has developed a thoughtful and probing treatment of topics such as the wholesale slave trade, the Scots element in the City of London and the large government contractors in the Seven Years War. His achievement is most impressive.
Jacob M. Price, University of Michigan (from the dust jacket)

This fascinating book has something in it for almost everyone interested in eighteenth-century history. Business historians will find keen analysis of the techniques that a remarkable group of entrepreneurs used to propel themselves from the periphery to the center of Britain's imperial economy. Cultural historians will acquire new insights into what it meant to be British at the moment that identity was being forged. Students of British and American history in general will discover how intricately social ambition, commerce, war, and slavery interacted in the construction of the first empire. And anyone at all who admires intricate argument, imaginative research, and stylish prose will find "Citizens of the World" a delight.
Fred Anderson, University of Colorado at Boulder (from the dust jacket)

A highly recommended way to sail around Cape Horn in a gale -- lying on the couch, the beverage of your choice in hand, reading Brian Hancock's Spindrift. -- Matthew

Having previously read books by Brian's friend Skip Novak, I couldn't resist picking up this book, and I wasn't disappointed. Brian knows his sailing, but also knows a bit about life in general. He is totally honest and doesn't leave out things that he probably regrets in hindsight (the currency exchange in Zimbabwe comes to mind), but that's part of the charm with this book. It's written by a real person and not someone who pretends to be something else than he is. I can genuinely recommend this book to sailors and landlubbers alike.

.... even when we were ourselves sailing back to UK from the Azores! Difficult (but obligatory) to break away from the page-turning text to scan the horizon regularly. A cracking read from a guy who has really 'gone for it' in his life: a book full of significant moments and experiences, interesting corners of the world and memorable people, altogether explaining why people who go 'out there' tend to keep on doing so.

Most writers of history - even the commercially successful ones - make the same mistake. They write books that are mere chronological recitations of fact and minutiae, with little regard for narrative. But Charles Slack deftly avoids this trap. His subject is seemingly arcane - the discovery of the vulcanization process for rubber. But, perhaps because he is a former journalist rather than an academic, Slack never loses his grip on the storyline that makes the life of Charles Goodyear so compelling. Goodyear, we come to realize, is a true American hero, who worked doggedly to solve one of the greatest riddles of the industrial age, triumphing in the end over charlatans who fought to deprive him of the money and recognition he deserved. This is a great read about an overlooked chapter in US history.

Charles Goodyear's do-or-die quest to solve the riddle of vulcanization is a compelling slice of history and an American industrial triumph that will now not be forgotten. Among other things, Charles Slack should be commended for recognizing the value of Goodyear's contribution to society and for bringing the inventor's 19th-century to life so lucidly and with such good humor. Among the fascinating camioes here is that of the great lawyer and orator Daniel Webster, who represents Goodyear and helps him claim his rightful place in history against greedy usurpers in the U.S. and Britain. As Slack cleverly observes, "Webster the actual man rattles around in the attic of our national memory as a famous but oddly hard-to-place New England statesman, who gave important speeches on matters that . . . have long since receded into the historical haze." Slack has proved here that he is one of the fine new writers of serious but popular history who are helping to clear away that haze, and helping America to better appreciate its national heritage. The Wall Street Journal called Noble Obsession, "utterly absorbing." Add to that remarkably edifying. Well done!

Most writers of history - even the commercially successful ones - make the same mistake. They write books that are mere chronological recitations of fact and minutiae, with little regard for narrative. But Charles Slack deftly avoids this trap. His subject is seemingly arcane - the discovery of the vulcanization process for rubber. But, perhaps because he is a former journalist rather than an academic, Slack never loses his grip on the storyline that makes the life of Charles Goodyear so compelling. Goodyear, we come to realize, is a true American hero, who worked doggedly to solve one of the greatest riddles of the industrial age, triumphing in the end over charlatans who fought to deprive him of the money and recognition he deserved. This is a great read about an overlooked chapter in US history.

First some disclosure - I am acquainted with Hal Rothman in a professional capacity and I saw a couple of chapters before publication.

Neon Metropolis is the best book I've read that explains the city I've lived in for nearly 3 years.

Sure, it's easy to be ironic about Las Vegas and offer postmodern gobbledygook about what the city means. There are dozens of third rate writers and poets making unoriginal observations about Sin City. Hal tells it like it is for the folks who live here - in and outside of the gambling industry.

Rothman is rigorous in his academic asessment of the city, yet the book is highly readable in explaining why Las Vegas is so successful at convincing ordinary folks like me, that I deserve to be strolling the lobby of the Bellagio with a Cosmopolitan in hand, contemplating a meal at a restaurant equivalent to a weeks pay.

This is the one book I'll be recommending to newcomers to the city to get a grip on Las Vegas.

An insightful work. Neon Metropolis is an essential antidote to the many critics who fly to Las Vegas for a quick visit, and leave with biases undisturbed and nothing useful to say.

What sets Rothman apart? He combines academic investigation with close observation, over time, of how this resort town is turning into one of the most successful and popular cities in the United States.

Key to the success of this book is the fact that Rothman lives in this city, where he teaches history at UNLV. He has lived in the brand new subdivisions which excite the derision of tourist-critics who cannot fathom that such planned communities could be anything other than hideously pathological. Rothman, on the other hand, has watched these communities grow with time. His children have played in the nascent sports leagues; he has ridden the mass transit; he has seen how people carve a real community to raise families - for two or three generations now - out of unconventional and even unlikely material. He has tracked political movements and talked to his neighbors at Starbucks. And while these communities may not be perfect - Rothman has an academic's balanced powers of evaluation - they do work. This information is of wider interest as well; Rothman discusses the many ways that Las Vegas is a prototype in developing the emerging urban-suburban cities that we find across the nation.

This book reveals an intriguing urban landscape. We learn how the earlier Las Vegas of the Mob shaped not only its gambling economy, but created its hospitals, churches and other institutional urban infrastructure. We then learn how the Las Vegas of Wall Street (after Hilton, Holiday Inn and other corporations became the major stakeholders) built the foundations for the enormous growth in size, prestige and influence over the last twenty years.

Along the way we see how the many threads of a real city - unions, immigrants, a strong middle-class economy, civic and business leaders, and the city's self-conceptions - have been woven together. Rothman helpfully compares Las Vegas to Detroit's growth along with another booming new industry earlier in the century.

This book is a dose of well-researched reality which should be read by anyone concerned with the health and direction of American cities.

that upsets convention in all the best ways. It takes assumptions of the elite and inverts them. This is a book about how real people live in an unusual city. I like it very much