"There's a world on my wall", writes Morton. Distant, remote, mysterious, it has been the subject of speculation, invention, misconception and investigation. Mars has provoked almost as much interest as our moon. Morton traces the early views of what this distant planet might represent and how a generation of human probing has revealed. It's a world of extremes, he declares. The highest mountains in the solar system. Immense chasms that might indicate massive water flows or something else not found in earthly canyons. The atmosphere is thin and cold, but can sustain global dust storms. In short, everything we learn about Mars raises more questions than provides answers. The world on his wall is one of several attempts to map this remote place and characterise it. Morton's account is informative and compelling as he presents what we have learned and the people who have provided the information.

Morton shows how the struggle to understand Mars is faced with limitations. The usual path of comparison with features on Earth prove feeble and vague. Antarctica is one model, the Hawaiian volcanoes another. Neither fits sufficiently to provide valid comparisons. Mars, he urges, must be understood within its own framework. That implies the picture must be built up from a fresh foundation. The foundation has only been sketched by the various probes sent to Mars during the past generation. The interpreters of data transmitted from fly-by probes, landers and surface rovers are the heroes of Morton's account.

Mapping Mars had its origins in Berlin in 1830 when two astronomers sought to establish the length of the Martian day. The 1877 "opposition" led to Schiaparelli's establishing the first nomenclature of visible features, including the famous "canali", misperceived by American Percival Lowell as "canals". When NASA sent the Mariners to Mars, it was Merton Davies who initiated the first true mapping efforts. Morton vividly describes the difficulties in translating fly-by images into realistic representations of the Martian surface. One example of the task is the eight-hour long process needed to transmit a single image the Mariner probe produced back to NASA. Morton then introduces the artists who produced the first graphic drawings made from these early images.

New tools offered additional information, allowing the artist to refine their work. Laser pictures combined with radar mapping added fresh details. The maps improved, and with them, the analysis of how Mars is constructed. The discovery of Martian magnetism offered both insights and challenges. Fresh ideas of Mars' internal structure and process had to be developed. Visible ice, long conceived as frozen carbon dioxide, had to be reassessed. Is there water on Mars, and what has been its role?

Unlike most science writers, Morton gives strong place to the speculative in considering Mars. He laces the story of science with the world of fiction. New information has transformed the writing of speculative fiction and the presentation of "space art" in depicting the planet and its features. He is an enthusiast for these efforts, imparting the struggle novelists and artists have had in "getting it right". They are to be commended for their efforts as Morton is in introducing them to us.

The water issue raises important questions about future, manned, missions to the planet Morton examines the possibilities within a clear explanation of what is plausible. He accepts that manned missions are inevitable, but can only be accomplished from a knowledgeable basis. The ultimate question, can Mars be "terraformed" to permit "normal" habitation by Earthlings, is also evaluated. Will such an effort come from a planet-wide consortium of nations? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World written by Oliver Morton is a wonderfully fascinating story about the fourth planet in our solar system... Mars.

For the better part of the book the author informs the reader on the geology of Mars along with history of mapping the surface of Mars early on with telescopes... and then later on the Mars explorer robotics that landed a few years ago.

The author's writing style is easy going and very informative. You can read the book with ease... quite frankly once you start you'll find it hard to put down, with the intellectual history and the engaging writing style you'll quickly be engrossed in the book.

Mars is cratered much like our Moon and has a most beguiling landscape. There are picture in the book that gives the reader a good sense of what the author is taking about when it comes to the geology of Mars. Only after our spacecraft reached its orbit could we see Mars for what it is, a planet with a surface area as great as that of the Earth's continents, all of it as measurable, as real as the stones in the pavement outside your door.

This book is about how ideas from our full and complex planet are projected onto the rocks of that simpler, empty one. The ideas discussed are mostly scientific, because it is the scientists who have thought hardest and best about the realities of Mars. It is the the scientists who have fathomed the ages of its rocks, measured its resemblance to the Earth, searched for its missing waters, and always wondered about the life it might be home to.

Engagingly fascinating are the two words that rightfully describe this book, enjoyable without technobable.

Mapping Mars covers more ground than its title would suggest. Not only does it give an enjoyable account of the attempts to describe Mars' topography, it also tells of how scientists, artists, and authors have grappled with the red planet over the years. Mars seems to be dear to Morton's heart -- he turned down the opportunity to be a founding member of the Planetary Society -- but he provides a very balanced view of the sometimes abrasive personalities behind Mars exploration.

This massive trade paperback (in excess of 980 pages) is printed in an eye-blastingly illegible font (somewhat like the old IBM Selectric letter gothic). I was mainly interested in its coverage of the classic SF TV shows of 1949-60, and it turns out there is info here not readily available elsewhere. Coverage ranges from 11 pages for SPACE PATROL to half a page for BUCK ROGERS. Info seems generally accurate, which cannot be said for most books on this topic! Recommended with reservations.

You mean there were THAT many Dark Shadows episodes? Night Gallery was ORIGINALLY an HOUR long? I Dream of Jeannie aired on THOSE dates? There were a MILLION series I never heard of before? These are things my wife has to listen to just before going to bed while I read this book (she has since bought ear plugs). This is an AMAZING piece of work! Unfortunatly, by no fault of the author, it's not all complete. A few thing were omitted such as airdates on some series, but hey if the archives didn't keep records, they didn't keep records! There are MANY things that make up for the minor shortfalls. For example he does list several airdates on syndicated programs such as "Friday the 13th the Series" from Chicago independant TV stations. Sure, this isn't an official airdate, but leaving it in does give the viewer an idea of about what week it aired in, which is better than leaving it out all together. Within the gobs of information in this book the author does slightly add his own opinion from time to time on certain shows, but at the same time giving it that "but this is only MY opinion" feel to the review. My most major gripe is the page size of the book, I'd rather it be a standard 8 1/2 x 11 size, but that's just a nickpicky gripe. Oh, and also I wish it came with a free set of earplugs.

I couldn't wait to get my hands on it, and I wasn't disappointed when I finally got it. You can easily call this book the "bible" to Sci-Fi TV. Every genre series ever on TV has it's own episode guide and background info ...

The only thing that could have been better is the font the book uses, which isn't very eye-friendly in my opinion. But if you let THAT stop you from buying it, you're definitely missing something.

I first read this book during the 7th grade and once again just recently as an adult(I'm 21 right now). For the most part, this book seems well written, but I realized upon reading it for the second time that the book doesn't mention Friedrich Nietzsche at all. He played an important role in influencing psychology, especially the theories of Sigmund Freud. I found it unbelievable that nothing was mentioned of Nietzsche. Apart from this flaw, however, the book still proved to be an interesting, informative read. Recommended.

This is an absolutely first-rate book. Moreover, how delightful to find an academic who knows his way with words. The book is authorative, deliciously well-written, and thorough. A must for any student of psychology.

In the last year I have become interested in psychology. I have read Freud and Jung, besides being familiar with philosophy from the ancients to the present. This book has been the first organized work on psychology that I have read. And it has changed my perceptions of the purpose of science.
My former conceptions of psychology brought images of a patient being analyzed using free association. This, although important, is only one substratum of psychological research. Theories that influence our every day lives, such as how we learn, are an integral part of psychology that I had never imagined. I now understand the significance of laboratory tests that we are all familiar with (mice in mazes, chimpanzees trying to reach bananas) that have formerly seemed without worth, and merely pedantic dissertation.
It is important, when beginning study in any field, to have an historical background from which to begin. As I have learned from this book, human learning forms itself into structures that can be easily referenced. Without structure, everything humans learn is without meaning. This informative book provides the historical structure needed to understand the importance of modern discoveries, and should be read by anyone interested in beginning study of psychology.

This textbook is excellent. It has an in-depth theory part, that explains everything!!! and it also has lots of challenging exercises and problems. I strongly recommend it for Engineering and Science undergraduates.

I used this text for my undergraduate freshman year physics course. This was a recommended text and pretty soon I found out why it was popular with students. I have come across few books with such clarity and depth as this one.

The way the material was presented, and the way the ideas were pushed through as well as the pace was as if this book was written with someone like me in mind.

An indispensable book for any physics student...

As a holder of physics degree and I used to teach physics in high school, I have many textbook in physics. I found this book is the best one explaining the concept of physics. The examples and the solved problems cover most of the principals and concept of the explained material. If you're a beginner just pay more attention to what is the book said and you will increase your skills and ability to understand physics. If you use the book as a reference in my opinion this is the best textbook in introductory physics courses you can get.

I am allergic to milk and am always on the lookout for new cookbooks. I spent some time looking through this one in a kitchen store recently and decided not to buy, mainly because of the use of non-dairy cheese in many recipes. Yes, these cheeses are good for the lactose-intolerant, but they are not good for anyone allergic to milk. All of the good ones contain casein, a protein in milk that is often the cause of allergic reaction. There are truly milk-free cheeses out there, but they do not tend to melt well, and, therefore, often can't be used successfully in cooking.

I'm disappointed that someone who writes a book like this would title it "Totally Dairy-free" when it's not. "Non-dairy" or "Lactose-free" would be more appropriate.

That said, it was a nicely presented book and had some recipes that looked really good.

I have had this cookbook for awhile. Unlike most cookbooks - these recipes have been tested very carefully. There isn't a bad recipe in the book. You will be amazed at how excellent everyting tastes. I am a recent dairy-free convert. And I can honestly say this book has made the transition for me very easy because the food tastes so great. You will not miss dairy after you try these recipes.

I bought this book almost 2 years ago, and I cannot get enough of Louis' recipes!!! It is so obvious, to me, that each one took a lot of time and tasting in development!! Every time I want to knock someone's socks off with a dairy free recipe, I make something from this cookbook. Louis Lanza is truly a genius!!!

Last week I tried the Pumpkin seed, Basil, and Miso Pesto for the first time...UNBELIEVABLE!!!

This is a beautiful book, showing the ins and outs of being an olympic skiier, which started as a dream for the main character, and turned into reality. It is written with skill, showing that the author knows what he is talking about. John Morton takes you to the Olympics showing exactly what it's all about. Just as the title says, an insider unveils the agony and the ecstasy of the Olympic dream. The skiing scenes are exciting, and it depicts skiing well. As a skiier, I really liked this book, and I know lots of other people who did too!

A young man named Matthew Johnson driven by the memory of his fathers dream of making a medal at the olympics, trains extensively, and is able to make the olympic team. He has his good races and the bad, while trying to console his mother who is home with a sister that seems unable to stay out of trouble. Finally, when it comes down to the final race in the olympics, will he be able to help the team make a medal, or will he turn to a greater immediate cause?

My wife started the book before me and she stayed up most of the night reading it. I finished it a few days later. The book gives the real perspective of what really goes on in search of the Olympic dream from the perspective of the athelete. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who yearns to learn more about skiing or the Olympics than the pre-packaged made for TV bunk we have to live with every 4 years from the major networks. John Morton has seen it all and gives us a thrilling insite and fun story that makes reading the book real pleasure.

This book kept me up late reading to find out what would happen next to young Matt in his quest for personal excellence and Olympic glory. It was great to have a real authority on the world of Olympic sports give the inside view of what it's like to train for elite competition. I'm short on sleep, but very happy that I took the time to read this book. I was entertained, but I also learned a great deal about the life of top athletes and it made me think about what sacrifices are reasonable to be the best and which ones are evil. I highly recommend this book.

Bob Gore loaned this book to us in response to our plea for information about Austria and Switzerland. I was unsure of its interest for me at first, fearing that it might be little more than a condensed version of the scholarly work that kept popping up on all my book searches called The History of the Hapsburgs from way too long ago until 1918 (I paraphrase from memory). On the other hand, I had to admire an historian who limited himself not only to one city, but to a nine month time period. That's like having a jazz musician limit herself to a ten-second solo.

The limitations paid off, however, mainly because Morton's selection of those few months enable him to cover a highly significant moment of Austrian history, but also to bring in a cast of characters that would normally have been only peripheral to the usual story of history. The reader, thus, gets a sense of not only the political tenor of the times, but also an insight into the medical (through the description of a young Sigmund Freud), the literary (Theodor Herzl and Arthur Schnitzler), the musical (Johannes Brahams and Anton Bruckner), the artistry (Gustav Klimt), and the everyday (a street-player known as the King of Birds). History is not a novel, so these lives do not intertwine as they would in a fiction, but each does bring an expanded understanding of what Vienna was like.

The central "story" to the book is Crown Prince Rudolf and his frustration with being heir to the Austrian empire with nothing to do except ceremonial duties. Morton depicts Rudolf as a freethinker who might have changed the course of history had it not been for Emperor Franz Joseph's wonderful health. Instead, Rudolf, in the course of nine months, goes from being a revolutionary who must have his writing published under someone else's name to a drug-addled conspirator, who, with his nubile, fashion-setting mistress, decides to commit double-suicide. The tragedy is heir-apparent (pause for groans to subside), as Rudolf would have likely been much more palatable to the subjects of Sarajevo than Franz Ferdinand.

I must admit to being fairly ignorant of European history (okay, I was schooled in America--I'm pretty ignorant of history, per se), so when Morton drops the fact halfway through A Nervous Splendor that Rudolf commits suicide, I was surprised. But such is the difference between history and fiction. Morton expects the reader to already be aware of the high points in his narrative, and seeks to illustrate the base of those icebergs (this is also why I don't feel guilty for discussing the suicide myself). He succeeds, and I now am quite interested in his follow-up to this book, a volume called Thunder at Twilight which depicts Austria right before World War I.

With the use of a wide range of source materials, including newspapers, periodicals, memoirs, and unpublished diaries, Frederic Morton presents an intriguing account of a short, yet important, period in Vienna's history. Morton chooses July 1888 through April 1889 as a watershed period because these years marked the time when "the western dream started to go wrong." Morton paints the Austrian Empire of the late 1880s as backward (many still used gas lanterns) and stagnant, still obsessed with protocol, tradition, and keeping up appearances. The Habsburgs still hung on to their monarchy and modern classes like the industrialists had little to no access to the court. Morton looks at the elite of society in a number of areas like science (Freud), music (Brahams, Strauss, Buckner), and theatre (Herzl, Schnitzler). As another reviewer noted, it is a very "gossipy" history written with a novelists' flair. Through private diary entries, Morton is able to keep a running total of how many times Author Schnitzler (who inspired the Kubrik film Eyes Wide Shut) and his girlfriend "commit acts of love." The rise in prophylactic sales during carnival season is described as is the pursuit of the Crown Prince's affections by the girls of the fashion crowd.

What I found to be the most interesting is the chapters on the Crown Prince Rudolf-the liberal-minded heir to the Austrian throne. The progressive Crown Prince was stifled by the traditions of the court. He was forced to entertain guests he did not like (such as Kaiser Wilhelm II) and was only able to voice his ideas through unsigned articles in a newspaper. His choice of the Mayerling incident to solve his problems still seems odd for an intelligent, 30 year-old prince. His choice of taking Mary Vetsera with him seems more for convenience than for some love tragedy as she was willing to go along with his plan whereas his regular mistress laughed it off. Morton's account of the aftermath of Mayerling was very interesting (the rise in the stock market and the foreign gossip pages lent out by cab drivers). The real impact of Mayerling may not have had as much impact on history as one might expect, especially since Franz Joseph lived until the midpoint of World War I. Considering the years and the nation covered, the ending is very predictable (I guessed it before I started reading the book).

Morton finds the earliest cultural roots of twentieth century "angst" in early Fin-de-Siecle Vienna. He transects a single 9 month period which offers a cross sectional view of the nascent stems of an organism which will grow into liberalism & communism and which will leaf out as the artistic "revolutions" of german expressionim, atonal music (the "second" Vienesse school), the architectural theories of Loos and the Bauhaus, the theater of Beckett & Brecht, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein and Mach.

Morton focuses his analysis around the death by suicide pact of Kronprinz Rudolph, heir to the Hapsburg empire. The event is intrinsically intriging; Rudolph's suicide and it's aftermath cover an emotional landscape that ranges from the tragic to the bizarre and goulish.

Vignettes in the life of important cultural figures, including Freud, Herzl, Klimt, Brahms, Bruckner, Schnitzler and Mahler, dramatize the trend toward the dissolution of conservatism and the collapse of upper classs domination.

A NERVOUS SPLENDOR is entertaining, informative and well written. Morton's style of writting is sophisticated, elegant and, yet, in a sense that is hard to define, unusual and piquant.

I found this to be truly one of the best books I ever read.
My sister bought it for me, for my birthday, and I have read
it many many times. I highly recommend it to anyone. They are
really beautiful true stories of people meeting Jesus Christ
in real life. I'd give it 100 stars if I could!

G. Scott Sparrow, a man of our century, met the person of Chrsit. Christ visits a young girl in a dream. He tells her not to eat the Easter eggs in the morning because they are poisoned. A lady dances with God in a park. Another woman is taken back to the crucifixion. The list goes on. And they all happened in the latter half of the twentieth century!

What they have in common is remarkable: a wholesome feeling of profound love, a message, a feeling that 'this' is reality. They come in differnet forms, says Sparrow. In some instances Christ is disappointed or a little on the serious side. With other people, ranging from Christians to atheists, Christ is wonderfully happy. Most of the time, though, He has something vital to say. And the recipient never forgets.

If this book is true, as I feel it is, then Christ indeed kept his promise: "Lo, I am with you always." We talk of a Second Coming, but in hindsight we are forgetful of His being here, already, in spirit.

When I started this book I was a little disappointed. I had expected something like the "Chicken Soup" books. This book gave a very indepth study of Jesus encounters and I enjoyed it very much! Now I need a good book on how to meditate!

There exists a New Yorker review of this book (June 2,2003 issue). It is absolutely fascinating - the review, that is, not the book. It exposes the book as "pedestrian rehash that reads like one of the Victorian hagiographies". The book has ignored all the intervening research and accepted as fact Stanley's self-serving and now-discredited accounts. Most of the New Yorker review is about Stanley and Livingston themselves and chockful of realistic info about these fascinating and utterly dissimilar characters.

With an encompassing narrative, and detailed descriptions of people, circumstances, and places, "Into Africa" is a worthy read for simple entertainment. Learning about Livingstone and Stanley, was engrossing, and learning about their respective journeys through Africa was harrowing and at times defied belief. If ever anyone needed an example of pure determination and pursuit of a goal, and then accomplishment, this book delivers. Showing an emotional aspect, Mr. Dugard demonstrates that attaining a near impossible goal can also result in more intangible rewards, such as Stanley's maturation through his ordeal in Africa to find Dr Livingstone. If you never think history can be exciting, read this book and you will be disabused of that notion. Warring tribes, hostile natives, opportunistic chieftans, Arab slavers, constant disease and inummerable parasites (non-human), all combine to form a formidable obstacle for these intrepid adventurers.

I picked up this book after reading a glowing review of it by Bill Bryson. I'm so glad I did. It's a true page turner. The research is original and powerful and balanced, documenting the obstacles and horrors encountered by Stanley and Livingstone. I was amazed that a book packed with that much information could be such a riveting read. As one who has traveled extensively in Africa, I also thought this book captured the epic sprawl of that wonderful continent (and made me realize how brave Stanley and Livingstone were to venture in alone). This is a story I thought I knew, but realized that I knew very little about until reading Dugard's book.

This book is compact, yet explains the generalizations of linear tranfsormations in a thorough, concise way. This makes it a nice "transition" text from vector analysis and introductory tensor courses into more advanced expositions on tensors. I can't vouch for Malvern, and this probably isn't the forum to "correct" other reviewers. All in all this is one of the better math books out there.

I have read this book from cover to cover and have done all the exercises in it and cannot find a better book to recommend to other scientists wishing to learn continuum mechanics! I believe the book contains enough details, though one definitely has to complete the exercises after each chapter to get an understanding of how brilliant is the author's approach to the subject. It is a concise, yet at the same time a very complete introduction into the topics in Continuum mechanics. Every student studying mechanics should be proud to own this classic!

This is a classic book in continuum mechanics, for many reasons including those given by the reviewer from Leipzig (it also provides a unique and rigorous treatment of certain mathematical concepts that are not presented well in undergraduate level mathematics texts). The reviewer from England does not understand that in the study of continuum mechanics there is a place for a book like Malvern's (which is indeed an excellent book), and a place for this book.