Ever wonder how to start a fire with a bowdrill, weave a basket, build a stone oven, blow a coal-burned cup, or make reliable and comfortable shoes? Which plants are edible or medicinal, and what material makes the best bows and arrows? I've thought about these things and others, never really dwelling on them for long. None of these were on my list of things to learn to do for 2001Ñbut they should have been. I moved to the country to be closer to nature and to be more a part of it, and it's about time. So where do we start?
Take a beautiful quiet morning, before sunrise. Sit on a peaceful overlook with a view that you know will be breathtaking once the morning light touches it. Watch the stars shine until they fade into the half-light. Feel the dew on the grass and in the air. Listen to the day birds begin their chorus. Notice the smells that waft by on a soft breeze. Watch the animals begin or end their regular rituals as the morning breaks. Write a book.
This is how Pony, Montana resident Thomas J. Elpel wrote Participating in Nature. It begins before daybreak, and is written so that as you grow in understanding of many things natural, a day unfolds and runs its course. By evening, near the end of the book, you have learned how to do several things, and why.
This is not a survival book written for guerillas, though they might find it very useful. It is a book written for the average worker who wants to get away from it all or the family that wants to do something special together. It's those who want to learn something new, a new way of doing something old, or enrich their relationship with nature. It's a must-read for anyone who is interested in doing something on a personal level to help maintain and restore Earth.
Even if you don't consider yourself an environmentalist, you probably don't mind saving money, stimulating your brain, or learning a new stress-relieving habit. Learning skills such as those found in Participating in Nature could also help answer questions like "what do you want to do this summer?" or even the ever-annoying "are we there yet?"
Throughout the pages of this "Field Guide to Primitive Living Skills," you'll find pictures of the author's work with other medium also. Some of the photography is his, and most of the artwork, making it a book that is not only useful but attractive as well. Now that you understand the utilitarian and aesthetic qualities of the book, I'll move on to the style. In this, I've saved the best for last. He may describe it as a field guide, but don't let the name fool you. This is no dry instruction manual filled with only technical descriptions and directions for use. Oh, the step-by-step is there so you'll know you're getting it right, but there is so much more than that within these pages.
As I mentioned before, he wrote this as a day that progresses, and his details take you to the very spot where he sits wrapped in a blanket, leaning agaist a fir tree as the morning gradually pushes the night westward. By sunset, he has explored and explained Mind, Shelter, Fire, Water, Cooking, Plants, Animals, and Clothing. These are the chapters of the day that is the book. Of course, he adds a bibliography and a fairly comprehensive index.
"My tea is hot. I put away my journal and my pen... Then I sit back and think about what it is that I am seeking....
"I have always been drawn towards the idea of being able to move lightly, freely, almost invisibly through the ecosystem, to be like the breeze, being present, but invisible.... and I am referring to the Indian scouts from another era, is symbolic of that desire.
"...it is something I seek distinctly for myself. It is my dream to be able to move and live as the scout, to travel unhindered, hopping, skipping, and gliding through the wilderness."
Of course there are "trade-offs" that the author recognizes: "For me taking less gear means I can travel farther and faster, but it also means I have to spend more of my time providing for my sustenance....
"Thus I seek to balance what I take and what I bring so that I can have both the lightest load and the most free time."
Thomas Elpel writes from his experience with nature. "Primitive living is a metaphor we participate in. We journey into the Stone-Age and quest to meet our basic needs. We learn to observe, to think, to reach inside ourselves for new resources to deal with challenging and unfamiliar situations."
Aren't those the skills we need for everyday living even in the Space-Age?
-Deb Anne Flynt

Discover nature by using it with the help of Thomas Elpel's Participating In Nature, a superbly informative guide which covers everything from how to tan hides from a fall hunting trip to fishing by hand and using willow baskets. Any studying primitive skills or survival methods will find Participating In Nature packed with both innovative and traditional skills in this important hands-on guide for the outdoorsman.

A day in the life... of a man using primitive, and some non-prim skills. This book really is done in an interesting way. Combining philosopy, skills, aquired wisdom, and a "day in the life" kind of story telling method, I can say this book is a really wonderful addition to any outdoorsmans library. I dare say it's one of the top three books that one should buy if they're interested in primitive skills.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn more about the safe use and enjoyment of personal watercraft. It is especially handy for Texas watercraft enthusiasts because it contains so much useful information on places to go in the state and what to expect when you get there. The author also does an excellent job in the areas of preparation and planning, equipment, maintenance, and rules and regulations.

I bought the book three weeks ago and have already been on three of the author's recommended adventures. They were terrific! This book will add a whole new dimension to your personal watercraft experience.

I hope that Thom Bell will follow this guidebook with another one full of even more fun trips and adventures!

Today I read your book ont he plane while returning from Portland, Oregon. I cannot tell you how long it has been since I read something so pleasurable as your book. I found your advice so valuable. You grought up things that i haven't even begun to think of. What a great resource. My greatest challenge is deciding which trip to do first! Thank for all the research, time and effort you must of put into this fine book.

Patrick Fitzgerald Genreal Sales Manager Federal Signal Corporation

This is a great book for anyone who loves to ride PWCs and a must-have for anyone new to the sport. The detailed information on specific locations tells what to expect there, as well as hotel and campsight names and phone numbers. I found the chapters on Equipment and Planning and Preparation especially helpful in evaluating how ready we are for a trip. The whole book is packed with useful information. We refer to it often.

Written for children who are independent readers, Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt was, nevertheless, a fascinating introduction to Ancient Egypt for all my children. My younger daughter was in first grade at the time and needed some help with the reading, but the stories themselves were of great interest to her. It was fun for me to see all three of them learn about the Rosetta Stone and other archaeological discoveries, most of which I hadn't learned about until I was well past childhood. It's amazing what the children will find interesting when it comes wrapped in a story. Although some may regard the story-telling as somewhat fanciful (obviously we don't really know what most of these people really thought or felt), the author has succeeded in her quest to bring the attention of the reader into the context of the history she describes.
We bought this book along with the Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Eqypt, which listed it as one of its primary text for children's history. I recommend that book, along Tony Allan's Time Traveller Book of Pharaohs and Pyramids, if you are going to teach your children the history of ancient Egypt. The Greenleaf book helps you organize your children's study with questions and projects (along with recommended resources), while the well-illustrated Time Traveller book helps the children visualize what they're reading about.

In this book, the author examines the important discoveries and the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. She gives a description of the infamous Rosetta Stone, then continues with a brief history of the Ancient Egyptian civilization and religious beliefs. She also reports on the pharaohs and their accomplishments, including those of Akhenaton, Ramesses II, Cheops, Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. An interesting book for children ages 9 to 12.

This is a wonderful general introduction tot he study of ancient Egypt. Caution: This is really meant for grades 7 and up. The langauge is difficult for younger ones,even as a read-aloud. Also, the first chapter is mostly conjecture about the beginning of civilization in the Nile River Valley. You can skip it. Overall, it is fascinating reading.

McDonald is not only a great scholar, he is a storyteller without peer. He presents the Jeffersonian presidency in an objective and even-handed manner, highlighting both the successes and the tragic shortcomings of the Jefferson administration. Despite Jefferson's reputation today as a civil libertarian and a champion of liberty, McDonald shows how his heavy-handed tactics and his disregard for the Constitution led to disaster both at home and abroad. Despite ushering in the Republican Revolution of 1800, by 1808 Jefferson had lost control of the party he helped create and found himself at the mercy of John Randolph and his ilk in the House. McDonald never attacks Jefferson, however; he simply tells the rather sad story of a man consistently unable to meet the challenges with which he was faced. Another masterpiece from America's foremost historian.

Due to his primary authorship of the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson is widely viewed as a strong civil libertarian. The words of the Declaration and the American constitution speak so strongly about the limitations that government has when dealing with the citizens that they are just as valid over 200 years after they were written. He was also the primary individual around which the fledgling Republican party coalesced. In fact, McDonald commonly refers to the party as the Jeffersonian Republicans.
Less well known is the manner whereby the Jefferson administration callously ignored those rights so clearly stated in those magnificent documents. People were arrested for their political persuasion and he attempted to have Federal judges removed simply because he was unhappy with their Federalist philosophy. This really was a sad time in history, as it was the first case where a president openly interpreted the law as it suited him. In my opinion, the clear statement of these actions of Jefferson while president is what makes this book. Since the Louisiana Purchase was the greatest event in the United States between independence and the war between the states, it tends to overshadow many of the other things that Jefferson did during his presidency.
Jefferson's wholesale destruction of the American military left the country defenseless when it was being drawn into the wars between Napoleonic France and Great Britain. The consequences of these errors were monumental to the new country and his diplomatic mistakes contributed to a senseless conflict between the United States and Great Britain that served no useful purpose and could easily have destroyed the United States. Once again, McDonald is right on the mark in explaining what Jefferson did.
Thomas Jefferson is often held up to mythic proportions as a champion of liberty and as an early statesman. In this volume, he is described as he truly was, a man who professed liberty for all, but practiced it only when it suited him. This is a superb account of what he did while president.

Forrest McDonald has produced a succinct, penetrating and fascinating history of Thomas Jefferson's Administration.

This book is part of the Univ. of Kansas' history of the presidency series and the second effort from McDonald (he wrote a wonderful history of Washington's Administration). This book is about the policies, international relations, politics and style of America's third chief executive. Running at less than 200 pages, McDonald manages to be both thorough and interesting in his telling of this period.

Jefferson and his Administration produced wonderful contradictions. His party espoused a "Republican" philosophy that basically wanted to liberate Americans from Hamilton's financial system and Adam's heavy handedness as witnessed by the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Jefferson's early term saw him implement much of his program. As McDonald points out, few if any other Presidents have had their way so successfully with Congress. Jefferson also added greatly to the US through the Louisianna Purchase, despite his concerns with the Constitutionality of the aquisition.

Jefferson and his Administration reached rough shoals in foreign affairs. Blinded by anti-British sentiment, the Administration prooved less than adroit at negotiating the position between Napolean and England. America was buffetted by this struggle and it reverberated back on our domestic situation. Suddenly, Jefferson's first term accomplishments became liabilities and were revealed as short sighted. The scheduled reduction of America's debt through the slashing of the Navy budget left us without the ability to challenge foreign powers. The abolition of Hamilton's system of internal revenues that left us entirely dependent upon tarriffs and thereby upon the grace of the British (who had the ability to determine how much trade our country could enjoy)for government revenue.

In the most surprising irony, Jefferson -- who had decried Adams and his anti-liberal legislation (Alien and Sedition Acts) would go much farther than Adams in restricting liberties and in executive arrogance through his Embargo Acts and various executive orders designed to limit trade with the European powers.

This is a fascinating story well told. Besides the policies, McDonald gives insight as to how Jefferson governed, his relations with Congress and the Judiciary as well as the toll of the office on the man himself. A good book.

I used the 23rd edition of Stobo for my internal medicine rotation as a 3rd year medical student and also as a quick reference for several other rotations. I think it is the best mid-size medicine text I have seen. The content is broken down into bite-size chunks that are easy to read in one sitting--the short chapters make it easier to retain the material. Each section begins with an introductory chapter that gives a concise overview of the approach to take when evaluating a problem with a particular organ-system. Each chapter also ends with a list of summary points that are very helpful. Excellent tables are easy to reference. The actual information contained in the book is in more than enough depth for MS3 level, and the text emphasizes pathophysiology in many chapters, which helped me learn to integrate what I had learned in basic sciences and apply it to seeing patients in the clinical setting. The last section also has some good summary chapters for things that fall outside the realm of each organ-system section. This is a truly outstanding book. I highly recommend it, and I can't wait for the next edition.

Easy to read, contains pertinent info in a concise fashion. Great to study from, easily read during a clerkship.

I started my 3rd year medicine rotation with Appleton and Lange's Current Medical Diagnosis and Therapy but soon found this book to be more appropriate. It clearly and concisely explained pathophysiology of disease as well as clinical aspects, such as presentation, diagnosis and treatment. I also really enjoyed how each organ system began with a general approach to the patient. I am now using this books counterpart for my surgery rotation.

Comments on Profit Beyond Measure by Tom Johnson:

Tom Johnson's overview of business thinking is astoundingly clear, the beginning of the revolution that Dr. W. Edwards Deming demanded for so many years.

The Toyota story is told beautifully in chapter 3; now I begin to understand what happens in that Kentucky facility.

Chapter 4 is the weakness of the book; there is no there there. The Scania "secret" is not in the same universe as that at Toyota. What more evidence do we need than the sale of the company?

Chapter 5 is fascinating. Tom Johnson the heretic! A modern day Martin Luther! No one on Wall Street will want to know about orderline analysis. However, if those using it prosper...

The stock market vanish? That is precisely what will happen if Tom Johnson's thinking catches on. And that can't happen too soon. It may already be too late to preserve our culture as we know it. But then, it may be time.

Most in business will not want to hear the last two chapters. But no one wants to hear that they have cancer either, right? This patient (the world economy) has cancer, and no one knows if survival is possible.

I can't wait for the next iteration of this "stuff." The books that Johnson (and a few others, like Dr. Ed Baker) are going to write could make all the difference in our future. Dr. Norman Borlaug and his cohorts are trying to feed the world in spite of potentially deadly water shortages; Johnson and a few like-minded intellectuals are trying to feed the world correct thinking in spite of potentially deadly shortsightedness.

Since the day Amazon delivered my copy of Johnson and Broms' Profit Beyond Measure,I have taken delight with every page. This book is a wonderfully brilliant, masterful book that may be the serious business book of this decade in the way Senge's Fifth Discipline was for the 1990's. Insightful writers such as Margeret Wheatley and Danah Zohar have artfully open our eyes to the potential of viewing organizations as naturally evolving living systems. Notwithstanding their powerful insights, the actual application of these ideas left a lot to the imagination as to how they would actually be applied. Johnson and Broms, however, provide the substance and put the meat on the bones of the many complexity and chaos theory books available today. Johnson and Broms tell us with precision and in entaintaining detail the stories of Toyota and Scania Truck and how, respectively, they have gone forty and sixty-sixty years without losing money---how, they manage by means, as part of living systems, not trying to orchestrate management by the results (a notion of believing that you can fix future events to happen within a management plan) as America's Big 3 auto companies have over the past century. Johnson and Broms take us inside of the Toyota and Scania plants and board rooms, helping us see how they produce only according to actual orders, how they design and set up assembly and modulated processes to avoid waste (not eliminate it, avoid it in the first place!), how they treat their employees, how they see customers and market and more. Drawing from the principles articulated by Gregory Bateson, Johnson and Bohms help us see the unique milieu and overriding philosophy and work culture that is reflective of an open, living system, that relies on "balanced, cyclical patterns of continuous flow of the work for every person in the organization." Before reading this book, I only had a vague notions of how chaos, complexity, and new science theories applied to the emerging organizations of today. As a result of reading this book, however, I believe I now can grasp what it means, in real and substantive terms, for an organization to exist, evolve, and succeed as part of living system. This is a book for the new century. Every business can learn from this book and those that don' will perish while Toyota, Scania, and others of this fabric will thrive in our increasingly complex and interdependent world. I recommend this book to any one interested in business theory, organizational development, or building a better organization. Tom Coens

For manufacturers the 20th century was the story of Ford and Toyota. The story of the transition from mass production to lean production has been told many times, but often focusing on the techniques, not the strategy. Professor Johnson has developed a profound insight into the strategy behind Toyota's approach, framed as management by means, rather than management by results.

This is the most important insight into the Toyota Production System which has come my way in the last ten years. Johnson demonstrates why the Toyota Management by Means approach gives superior long term value to customers, shareholders and employees.

Profit without Measure is essential reading for any manufacturer building a strategy for World Class Manufacturing.

This book is excellent!

I run a web site design, hosting, and web application development company and use this book as a reference tool when questions or situations pop up. It packs great information into each chapter and has real-world case studies at the end of each chapter (that most project managers can relate to).

I use this book for my Web project management class at Mercy College's MS in Internet Business Systems program. It covers all the details of a web project life cycle. Students find the book very informative.

I've read a couple of other books on the subject, and though they were all excellent judged on their own merits, Shelford and Remillard's book stands out in at least three ways:

First, the emphasis placed on the practical aspects of web project management is invaluable. They just don't talk about what should be done, but also show how to do it. For instance, one knows that in order to be an effective project manager, s/he has to get along with all the players on the team. That's common sense, but what really helps is tips on how it should be done, as the authors do. In the quality assurance section, the importance of bug tracking is mentioned. Then they go on to talk about how to track the different bugs, the tools to use, information to keep etc.

Second, as someone before me has already mentioned, the case-studies in the book are really helpful. They give insight into how web projects are handled in the real world, ie corporations and smaller companies. If you're going to be working as a web PM, it certainly helps to know about the experiences others have had. In one example, the situation of an indepedent consultant is described - he has to deal with three or four different, non-complying, business units within the same company to simply obtain a copy of the the marketing email distribution list needed for the project. If you find yourself having to deal with problematic clients, you'll have a head start on how to handle the situation. We as readers can benefit from years of acumen developed and distilled by other project managers by simply reading the case-studies.

Thirdly, the templates and other documents provided in the CD are a good starting point for your own projects. You can put them to use immediately with minor modifications. Samples for various mock projects are provided, so you know what kind of information to collect.

All in all, a good book.

I think Origins of the Urban Crisis is the best book about deindustrialization, white resistance to open housing, and Detroit that I have ever read, but I am not sure if Origins fully explains the urban crisis. I still recommend it, but I am not sure if Sugrue proves what he sets out to prove.

In the early 1960s people had cause for optimism about Detroit. The city had a building boom and racial divisions from 1943 were supposed to be healing. Also, Sugrue never addresses the increase in illegitimate births in the African-American community. A very high proportion of the 1967 rioters were from female-headed households.

All of the following are from 1960s studies of Detroit. These quotes are from From Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence

From a U MIch and Wayne State study:

Long before the enactment of the Fed Civil Rights Act of 1964, and even while the State of Michigan adopted its own civil rights act there was much evidence that the disadvantaged minorities were beginning to break out of their ghetto patterns and establish first class citizenship in many areas.


From Fortune magazine:

the most significant is the progress Detroit has made in race relations. The grim specter of the 1943 riots never quite fadesfrom the minds of city leaders. As much as anything else, that specter has enabled the power struture to overcome tenacious prejudice and give the Negro communitiy a role in teh consensus probably unparalleled in any major American city.

Negroes in Detroit have deep roots in the community, compared with the more transient population of NEgro ghettos in Harlem and elsewhere in the North. . . . more than 40% of the negro pop own their own houses.

nor was Detroit doing so badly economically

From the National Observer

The evidence, both statistical and visual, is everywhere. Retail sales are up dramatically. Earnings are higher. Unemployment is lower. People are putting new aluminum sidings on their homes, new carpets on the floor, new cars in the garage.

Some people are forsaking the suburbs and returning to the city. Physically Detroit has acquired freshness and vitality. Acres of slums have been razed, and steel and glass apartments, angular and lonely in the vacated landscape, have sprung up in their place. In the central business district, hard by the Detroit River, severely [sic] rectangular skyscrapers - none more than 5 years old - jostle uncomfortably with the gilded behemoths of another age.

Accustomed to years of adversity, to decades of drabness and civil immobility, Detroiters are naturally exhilerated. They note with particular pride that D has been removed the the Fed Bureau of Employment Security's classification of "an area with substantial and persistent unemployment."

This book is essential for anyone who really wants to understand the roots of urban decline in the United States since World War 2. Too many books focus solely on the debilitating effect of the welfare state. Urban decline is far too complicated to blame factor alone. The author of this book does an excellent job in examining the combined effects of housing and job discrimination, deindustrialization and the racist attitudes of many white Detroiters. To his credit, the author tells all sides of the story, so that no one side garners all the sympathy or hatred. Neighborhood associations are not mobs of angry, unthinking whites motivated solely by hatred of blacks; nor are blacks criminally-minded characters too lazy to find work. Once you look at everthing, you realize how intractable Detroit's problems were in 1970 and how they remain so today.

Although this book is about Detroit, this book also sheds light on the fate of other American cities (i.e. Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, NJ) that also experienced massive deindustrialization and population loss in the last third of the century.

This is quite a remarkable book. It attempts to explain the riots that occurred in Detroit in the late 1967. These riots were racially based and some of the most brutal in America.

The book basically is about racism. It describes the history of racism in Detroit between the 1930's and the 1960's. Unlike other books that tend to be anecdotal this book attempts to look at the mechanics of the process and to provide empirical material to illustrate and validate the material in the text.

The story of the book is that racism is a complex phenomenon. Detroit in the 1940's had a vast appetite for labor. This lead to it being a city in which Afro Americans could be employed. Large numbers began to migrate and to fill the more lowly paid jobs in the auto industry. The book explains the sorts of mechanisms, which governed this process. How employers would discriminate against blacks, to keep them in lowly paid positions and the fights that some unions engaged in to overcome such practices.

The book goes on to explain how housing was one of the main ways in which blacks were able to be limited to certain areas. The widespread use of housing covenants permitted blacks to be excluded from more affluent areas. This meant that blacks became concentrated in small areas which subsequently became ghettos. The action of courts and legislatures to overcome the use of discriminatory covenants was opposed violently. The book shows how populist politicians would ply the race card to gain election at the expense of the more principled. How they would exploit the fear of residents about the alleged nexus between Afro Americans and crime. This in turn led to violence being unleashed on those Afro Americans who were able to afford housing in more affluent areas.

With the 50's and 60's came the widespread use of automation. The number of jobs in the auto industry began to decline. As the jobs dried up the position of Afro Americans eroded further. As employment fell away the areas they lived in began to run down and become the stereotypical ghettoes, wracked with decay and unemployment. This decay occurred against a background of a society which battled hard to exclude Afro Americans from good housing, employment and the political process. The violence of 1967 was thus hardly a surprise.

The book is extremely good. Often books dealing with such subjects can rely on cliché and assertion. This book consists of fact after fact and it is full of tables and maps. It is one of the more interesting studies to come out in years. No wonder it won a prize.

Padre Pio, one of the most renowned modern-day Blesseds, was a very holy man loved by many people. The charisms he was blessed with by the Holy Spirit are truly amazing to read about, including bilocation, the odor of sanctity, as well as his most famous gift, the stigmata. The accounts of miracles attributed to his intercession are unbelieveable, and I'm sure they're just a small amount of the great deeds this man has done. This man seems MORE than a man, forgetting to eat meals, having great favor with the Lord, and sometimes being invisible from others. He comforted many dying souls in their last agony. This is a great compilation of the wonders of the great Blessed Padre Pio.

This was an excellent book, Examples of many, many miracles, Many insights to the wisdom and knowledge of heaven. Wonderful book.

Padre Pio was canonized St. Pio of Pietrelcina on June 16, 2002. There are many books written about him, and this is one of the best and most complete. He was a Capuchin friar born in southern Italy in 1887 and died in 1968. He bore the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, for 50 years. He also possessed other unusual qualities, such as bilocation, odor of perfume, the reading of hearts, miraculous cures, remarkable conversions and prophetic insight. Because of his ability to read hearts many people sought to confess their sins to him. Although he heard confessions for 12 to 14 hours a day, it was necessary to register 10 days in advance because so many people desired his spiritual direction.

I highly recommend this book and also "Stories of Padre Pio" by Madame Katharina Tangari.

Read this book for Freshman English in high school. nice alternative to a textbook. Wouldn't really want to read this outside of class.

I have this book for a college level English class, and I absolutely love it! The best part about it is the depth and quality of its selection of poems and stories. I found it to be a comprehensive collection of the best that literature has to offer.

I have not yet read this particular book, but I have read the majority of this material in the Norton Anthologies. I did take some time to browse through the index; I was impressed by the variety of authors represented within. It is a general literature book intended for lower level literature classes, yet it includes many classic novellas and poems. I feel this book will provide a solid foundation for those who are interested in familiarizing themselves with the works of classic literature that have set the standard for the English language.