I do not regret taking the time to read this book, and it is a well-intentioned worthy effort--however, given a new choice, I would probably go with the alternative, by an intelligence professional, "The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War."

I give the author, not an intelligence professional, high marks for the research, the story-telling, and the consistent themes. I give the editor and publisher low marks for the terrible maps (many seem to have lost their unit location markings and other key annotations) and the lack of tables showing "who knew what when..."

Three themes stayed with me as I put the book down:

1) A great deal can be accomplished in terms of intelligence with even a very small number of people--as few as 1-2 on staff, 3-5 behind the lines. We in America have substituted billions for technology and a cast of close to 100,000, for rather poor intelligence and counterintelligence.

2) Maps, especially "information maps," are worth their weight in gold. I was reminded by this book that intelligence has in the past been an off-shoot of topographical engineering and map making, and do believe that we must restore the "hard-wired" connection between geospatial information and the "data" that our human, imagery, and signals professionals seek out.

3) Deserters, prisoners, and legal travelers are a gold mine of information and must, must, must be systematically exploited. No matter the degree to which they may offer up untruths and deceptions, the bottom line is that any commander who fails to plan for the systematic exploitation of these human resources, and to do so in a timely fashion, is derelict in their duty. As I recall, we do not yet have a proper table of organization or equipment in the U.S. force inventory for handling such individuals--the worst battalion, or the over-burdened military police, or some kludge collection of reservists, seems to end up being the solution each time. This dereliction is even more costly in "low intensity" environments.

I will not make too much of it, but I was especially pleased to see how much of Grant's intelligence came from enemy newspapers.

The author seeks to make much--perhaps too much--of how Grant did not allow himself to be immobilized by a lack of intelligence, substituting initiative when intelligence was lacking, but I for one don't buy it. What I see in the book is a substantive appreciation by the General Commanding of the role of intelligence, however poorly manned or funded, and that makes all the difference.

The production quality of this book is immpeccable - heavy guage paper, beautifully crafted hard-covers, color pictures glued onto the pages, etc... The only problem is this: the book is essentially of interest only to collectors of fancy books. Virtually no material of any worth is presented inside, though the artwork is quite nice and could perhaps be of use for meditative purposes. Also, over the years, the glue holding the pictures on has started to grow weak around the corners and edges. All in all, if you collect nice editions of Thelemic books, or are a great fan of Kenneth Grant, you'll want to pick this up. If not, use the money to pick up the latest issue of Starfire.

Love is the law, love under will.

But 590 pages? Why so many? Oh...it's a reference book, another API treatment that re-documents some classes, and adds some light code examples. I'd estimate 460-70 pages of the book do that and only that. The opening text tells the reader it will reveal the power of event handling -- which to me is like learning a meal will be best when it's hot -- but then concludes that learning by doing is the only way, and delegates many important side-trips to other sources.

There's little graphic relief, and no visual modelling at all. Discounting the lists of class methods, there are 2-3 class hierarchy diagrams in the book, and one screen shot. The latter is located somewhere after the bulky reference section -- bad placement, in my opinion.

There is no mention of how events drive JavaBeans, nor any satisfying description of local versus remote event-handling. That's not a crime, but that's what I wanted in place of another javadoc rewrite. The Jini overview is only two pages; and it's now somehow been covered? Even the Jini code samples themselves are borrowed from Core Jini. The reader is referred to that book for an explanation; it's unreasonable to think the reader can make that leap easily.

An example using RMI would be simpler and more appropriate. Remote event-handling has been covered for years in the periodicals. Why not cross the tee on those discussions with a full-length treatment here?

This book feels like it lost its way through the tedious business of describing classes. The event handling book I hope for is suggested in these pages, but doesn't materialize. I think the real work got left off until the end, when there was no time to think and the deadline was in sight.

If events were "new," this book might have reason to be an API reference. But they aren't new, and certainly not mysterious. To write API treatments, you need an eager, information-deprived audience, and it's essential in my opinion that the author show a reading of the source behind the API in order to comment with authority. javadoc is not completely helpful, sure, but the shortcomings aren't so egregious we need to publish every "better" set of class definitions either.

If you are a Bible Study teacher and would like one reference book on the NT, Raymond E. Brown's may be the most scholarly, but Barton's book is more friendly and, ultimately, more useful from the standpoint of your students.

However, if you're looking for excursions outsiode of Boston, or are, like me, a new resident of Boston, you may not want to get this book, becauise it focuses on the Boston area. In that case, get Lonely Planet:New England, or a new resident's book. And for a shorter, cheaper version of this book, get Lonely Planet Boston:Condensed.

Hope it helps.