Hiking the length of the Continental Divide takes a lot of physical and mental strength, and Karen Berger was up to the challenge on both counts. I think the author is a better writer than many who have written about the long thru-hikes.

Hoping to hike this trail myself someday, I bought and read this book to learn what I could, and I learned a lot. I wish there had been more written about wildlife, of which they certainly must have seen plenty. I could have used a little less discussion of trail politics, history, grizzly bear fear, and the pain of steep climbs, and more on gear, camp life and the magic of the trail: the smell of wet sage, pines, and alpine tundra; or watching meteor showers in a black sky while camped along babbling brooks.

On the other hand, the trail is different things to different people, and Karen did a good job of painting the experience as she saw it. This book is well worth reading.

Karen Berger and Dan Smith report from their 3,000 mile trek about issues that are near to the heart of any hiker. They discuss issues around cattle on public land, about the use and misuse of water and about the way hikers influence the land and the people around them. The narrative includes information on the history of the American West and historical 'hikes' such as the Lewis and Clark expedition. By mixing these tidbits with a delightful report of the difficulties and wonders of their hiking they create a book that is best read by candle or flashlight in the comfort of your tent. The only problem is that it is too heavy to take on a long-distance hike. Recommended for anyone contemplating the Continental Divide Trail or any other long distance hike.

Karen has succeeding in writing an intimate, lively book. She succeeds in taking the reader along with her on the trail. Her descriptions are immediate and rich in detail. It is a shame they have elected to leave out Daniel's journal entries. I thought they were a great part of their book about the Pacific Crest Trail. Karen and Dan try to see both sides of the issue, even when they are passionate advocates. This is a rare trait, much to be valued. I think she may need to read Edward Abby's Desert Solitaire again, he is more complicated than she sees him. She paints truly beautiful word pictures of the high country along the divide. I disagree with her on one point. She seems to have compassion and understanding for most wildlife but a pathological dislike for cattle. As an example is her description of the cattle running down the trail ahead of her, looking back in fear. She sees the animal as stupid for not just running away from her. Perhaps she has not recognized this as a herd animal, used to being herded by humans. Maybe the cows were in reality wondering if this crazy human really knew where it wanted her to go! It may be more exasperated than frightened. Just a thought. If you want a sense of what it would be like to hike the Continental Divide this book is for you. I hope Karen & Dan keep hiking and writing.

This book did a wonderful job of comparing the differences from generation to generation, and decade to decade. It was very interesting to find out the events in the various decades and how they affected people's lives. I didn't realize that the Great Depression was so bad until I read this book.

This book helped me to better understand why my grandparents, my parents, and why I and people my age are the way they are. Events of our time really shape who we are. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression and were concerned about money. They were extremely patriotic as both of my grandfathers fought in WWII. My parents grew up in the baby boomer generation, and I'm "Generation-X". I even understand why my husband and I have some differences (we're 8 yrs apart--he's a boomer, I'm a buster).

The only reason I didn't give this book a 5 star rating is because I felt that the authors were too hard on working mothers. I remember reading that the X-ers were resentful from having parents who emotionally weren't there for them and gave working mothers as an example. I'm a working mother for several reasons, and I'm emotionally there for my baby. It was unfair for the authors to be so negative towards working mothers. I know that the intent was to show how different events effect different people, yet, I felt that the authors were giving working mothers a guilt trip.

All in all, this is a great book. It will help you to learn more about yourself and others.

A well crafted and researched book, Boomers, Xers and Other Strangers helps us understand how those of "that other generation", whether they be older or younger than we, look at the world. Even more fun is reading about your own generation and saying, "Yes, yes, that's Me!"

A clever combination of narrative, listing of facts pertinent to different decades, and strightford information all combine to communicates information you can remember and use. Very valuable for those in management, teaching, ministry...for just about anyone who deals with people from multiple generations.

Eve Darian-Smith's book, Bridging Divides, does a good job of getting to the core of English questions about identity. Using the Channel Tunnel as both symbol and monument, she constructs a good argument on the changing face of the way the English view themselves. She says that land, or more specifically, how we experience and relate with our land, serves as the foundation for the principles we choose to organize ourselves by. That is to say our social order, or as she says, our legal code is a function of the landscape around us. And it is this code in particular which forms the identity groups of people use to label and differentiate themselves by.

The best part of her book comes as she initially puts forth her research on the matter by detailing the importance of the English Garden in history. She covers it's evolution and it's meaning over time reflecting upon concerns such as gender, property law and sensory engagement.

But the book weakens as it moves through the history of the tunnel itself, a progress she calls "repetitive and boring." But she arrives at the end of the book by pressing the correct questions drawn from the study: which histories will the English choose in the future, and which sorts of new identities will these new histories reveal?

Some of her logic fails to overcome opposition arguments, such as her comments regarding Foucault's differing opinions on territory and power. She does succeed in using a solid amount of research to support a streamlined argument. However, the folks she chooses to study tend to be those who have made the most fuss over the matter of the tunnel. She mentions in passing that there is a huge block of people which do not see the tunnel as a threat at all, but still goes on to quote unverifiable interviews with (sometimes nameless) townspeople who clearly have a bone to pick. The strength of her study, the research, is severely diluted because of this unfortunate narrowness of focus. If the English identity is so widely at risk, that risk should be felt far more widely than the retired Conservative mayors and MP's that she relies upon.

Though it gets to be a little think at sometimes, and goes crazy with the details, this is an excellent analysis of the issue or sovereignity and nationalism in the new Europe. Great anthropological study with LOTS of outside resources.

This book showcases how people can work to come to collaborative agreements over natural resource issues - if they get tired enough of fighting. Set in the West over the battle for water, stakeholders ended lawsuits and tried to reach win-win situations on their own. They succeeded in several instances, no small miracle. A great book of interest for those interested in collaborative decision making and natural resource conflict.

I thought this book was really good. It was very discriptive and I really like it a lot.

In "Crossing the Great Divide," Ms. Smith explores four organizations and sizes up their employment and personnel practices against the rhetorics of social science and global economy theorists. What she finds is a much more complex picture than the theorists allow for. In and of itself, this is a great service to readers interested in the "Brazilianization" of the Western work force(see Ulrich Beck's "The Brave New World of Work for a good companion read), because, as Smith notes, most of the writing on this phenomenon tends to either demonize those companies who practice "perma-temp" strategies as exploitative, or to praise them as leading-edge companies which are reacting to the exigencies of global capitalism.

An example from Smith's book may be helpful. One of the companies where she conducts research, a new company which she pseudonomously calls "Reproco," contracts with firms (such as law firms and other organizations) to provide copying service -- a complete service including copiers and copy machine operators. The machine operators are paid a little more than minimum wage, are shuttled from one location to another every six months, are given little chance of advancement, but they are given training in interpersonal relations, scheduling, business goals, etc. For many Reproco employees -- most of whom worked in low-paying jobs in the service industry flipping burgers and have a high school education or less, this training gives them insight into business and handling business relationships that they never had before. So, while the constant shuttling from location to location works to prevent the formation of unions, the lessons in business practices activates a new sense of self-regard and potentiality the employees have rarely experienced.

Smith then contasts these workers at "WoodWorks" an old economy "extractive" business in the Pacific Northwest which manufactures building materials (plywood, studs, etc.) The workforce has been downsized through technology upgrades and in reaction to the global market, and employees hopes for lifetime employment are coming to an end. "Woodworks" has employed a quality control program which attempts to engage workers more fully into all aspects on the business -- from understanding balance sheets, improving manufacturing quality -- as a means to creating teamwork. Theorists have charged that the devolution of authority makes workers work harder than ever, that it disrupts traditional worker/employer identities in ways that privelege employers and disadvantage workers, and Smith does find evidence of that. Yet at the same time, she notes that workers, under the gun of the global economy, choose the quality program as the best option in that it demonstrates their desire to keep the factory productive so that they can maintain the lifestyles and their local economy. Many workers to whom she spoke claimed to have learned much about business from the training programs, and some thought they could use this training if (or when) the plant finally shut down. While middle-class managers found the quality program an affront to their business acumen -- just another program cooked up by some distant consultant that didn't understand their business -- the plant workers, with some notable exceptions,were willing to try and some found the knowledge they gained useful.

The third case study "Computech" looks at a high tech firm with "MicroSerf" temporary/permananent employment practices. The fourth, and the most dispiriting of the 4 organizations examined, is a special job search service for out of work executives based in Sacramento. It is the most dispiriting because the executives -- for instance a nuclear engineer, an environmental consultant -- are told they must become non-specialist multi-taskers, remodeling themselves in lieu of the latest buzzwords of the employment market. Smith points out that this rhetoric is a roundabout way of telling the mostly 40 years plus people who frequent this organization that they need to lower their sites and to get used to lower wages and less job stability. She also notes that most of them do not find the jobs at the salaries with the benefits they want. There is no upside for these workers, it's almost all downhill.

Smith does a good job of putting a human face on the Brave New World of Work. She demonstrates today's workers are more resourceful, and their reactions to their new work situations more complex than are presumed by theorists. Not exactly earth-shattering -- people are always more complex than theorists would have it, but a nice corrective to the high-flown rhetorics and partisanship usually encountered in such discussions. In short, Smith shows us examples of the willingness of business and government to renege on the "worker-citizen" model(the post-war Keynesian model) and substitute to "worker-capitalist" (the post-modernist conservative, Friedman model). She treats the devolution of risk downward, examines the American "jobs miracle" (where lots and lots of low-paying service jobs are created for those who can stay out of the vast penal colony) through the real work lives of real American workers.

Cal and his companions must save the Kingdom of Tronholm when a vampire looses his zombie hordes on the land of the living to secure the region for his Dark Lord.

A serious study of the social impact of those who have access to new information and communication technologies and those who don't, have to consider this book to analyze the importance of the technology adoption in the economic and cultural develop of all countries. The book represents a force guide to anyone who studies the paper of the government to spread technology benefits to all and the social impact of this hard work.

This book is a study of that traditional trick of British diplomacy, partition. Dividing countries is a way of controlling them, before and after independence. The US and British states have divided Yugoslavia, then Bosnia, and now Kosovo. 'Ethnic' divisions suit imperialism. Carlos Westendorp, the High Representative in Bosnia, has said that Kosovo's warring factions must be told, "Kosovo doesn't belong to either of you. It's ours. It's the new empire. It's the new colonialism done in the name of the international community."

Kumar examines other examples of partition and addresses the difficulties of reversing it. For instance, Blair's bullying tactics have now stalled the Irish peace process. He set five deadlines for implementing the Good Friday Agreement; he blustered that 'there was no Plan B'. According to the Agreement, the IRA did not have to decommission its weapons: then Blair said they would, then he said they wouldn't. As long as the British Government has not set a date for withdrawal, all the Irish parties remain dependent on Britain, relating primarily to the British presence, either loving or hating the 'Brits'. Once the Government sets a date, then they will all have to focus on their common task of rebuilding their beautiful country.

In an ironic reversal, partition could now be visited upon Britain; the European Union is regionalising 'Euroland', to break up sovereign nation states. It fosters identity politics, puffing up cultural and regional identifications at the expense of class and national realities.

Kumar points out that the way to reverse partition is to achieve peace through development. But the US-British-EU aim of strengthening 'market democracy' cuts across this goal, because it generates divisions and inequalities. Every country needs to create a common commitment to a strategy of rebuilding; they each need a workers' nationalism to unite and liberate their country.

"Divide and Ride" is a great way to introduce your children/students to division. It has fabulous illustrations and written in a kid-friendly manner. Students can relate to the idea of going to an amusement park and/or carnival and they can start to see patterns as the book continues.