This is by far the best book on religion I have ever read. The case for Christianity is stated in simple language and the basics of this religion are explained very well. Everyone should own this book.

Within these pages lies the truth about good and evil. As you read this book be prepared to be amazed at the volumes of information that is related to the reader in such a short time. This is the most compelling compact book of the century being around one hundred pages, but within those pages are inspired words that will touch the very heart of any reader. This is an awesome book and a must have for any library.

This book is an incredible step-by-step guide to finding a faith in a loving God. It is both simple and comprehensive at the same time. Extremely well written. I recommend it to any one trying to figure out how to really make that transition from a life of emptiness to a more fulfilling belief in God.

Businesses are changing shape faster today than ever before. Information technology (IT) is playing an increasingly significant part in this rapid evolution of businesses. That does not just mean the Internet, but a whole range of increasingly powerful influences from data warehousing to developments in Web services.
Unfortunately most books about business process change tend to assume that IT is merely a support player in relation to business. The continued economic downturn only serves to reinforce this mistake. At the same time most books about systems analysis and design, including those on the Unified Modeling Language (UML), are weak in their treatment of business processes. There is a widespread failure to appreciate the collaboration that must achieved between business and IT if business process change is to really work well in today's climate.

While this book will probably be of immediate interest to business managers, the refreshing thing about Paul Harmon's new book is that it speaks clearly to both IT and business camps in plain language. It reflects the need to integrate business and IT thinking. As such it is also a must read for both business facing IT people and for those key individuals who are breaking the conventional barriers between business and IT.

The book contains a wealth of timely advice. While it's range is wide and impressive, it is structured for ease of information access. This means that readers can quickly use the book for reference. Enjoy!

I spent last year creating a "Business Process Management" team for the CIO of HP. We spent much time and effort thinking clearly about how to approach business processes without the pitfalls of "Business Process Re-engineering," and worked to create both a holistic approach and an extremely simple, intuitive methodology. Through concentrated effort, without the luxury of time (in the midst of a complex, highly-visible merger), we arrived at a set of conventions for our work, policies on alignment to the office of the CIO, IT Architecture and Program teams, as well as different approaches we could supply to our business and IT internal clients. The value we've provided has been dramatic in the areas we've worked in, from Supply Chain Integration between pre-merger HP and pre-merger Compaq, to HP direct sales process design, to Global Content Management processes and re-engineering.

In hindsight, I wish I'd been able to read Paul Harmon's Business Process Change a year ago. Creating the team and its functions would have been much simpler, direct, and less time-consuming. Based on our experiences in a process architecture team in a $75B IT company, I see the book having major value to at least three audiences I deal with daily. First, the book is for managers considering major business change. It will provide a blueprint to why they might be changing (Part 1 - Process Management), specific ways they might change (Part IV - Patterns section), and if/when they use external consultants, a way to specify with formidable detail what they're expecting to receive (Part II - Modeling, and Part III - Managing).

Second, it is for IT people who are seeking to regain architectural and analytic skills, which ERP and packaged workflow may have supplanted. This book provides both modern idioms for approaching business with what might be termed 'object-oriented' analysis (Part II - Modeling), as well as a summary of the field of implementation techniques (Part V - Automation and Part VI - E-Business).

Third, for the consulting function to both IT and business, it provides a well-rounded blueprint for marketing (value propositions), tools, techniques, and implementation approaches. I cannot imagine a consultative team which doesn't have virtually all the elements of Paul's book as part of their basic operations. Certainly, no state-of-the-art team would want to be without them.

For the futurists (which I don't deal with daily), the book provides an implicit narrative of how the nature of business is changing (I myself feel we're on the edge of a dramatic change in business structure.) It begins with the disappearance of organizational models - which in the book are artifacts of a process model - and the focus on quantifiable outcomes for transactions (I'm thrown back to hierarchy-disrupting transactional analysis from the '70s). It continues by looking at virtual business structures - the 'extended supply chain' example which Paul walks through -- a linking together of transactions. And it ends by building IT - automation -- around process elements instead of traditional 'systems' architecture. Traditional labels, capsules, and hierarchies change and shift, and I see the book in a more 'future perfect' tense.

Paul Harmon has provided a guide for a manager to improve and redesign processes. In the introduction, Paul overviews business process change and the manager's job. He gives a brief history of corporate business process change initiatives including organizations as systems, systems and value chains, process reengineering, the Rummler-Brace methodology and ISO 9000 and the six sigma methodology, Harmon discusses organizational goals and how they can be tied to competitive advantages. In Chapter three he introduces the process architecture. The book is full of process chart, examples and case studies. In addition, I found the Glossary to be most helpful. The book is a partial guide for the Performance Improvement professional. The concepts are presented straightforward and easy to follow. Paul provides a holistic state of the art approach we have been looking for.

This tale reveals nothing can warm a person more than winter's arrival. Walks in the cold, warming beverages and the aroma of something baking combined with interaction among people we love makes for a compelling read. Thank you Ron for taking me to Germany and bringing back memories of my boyhood in East Central Ohio, where the Bavarian influence is hard to overlook.

In this first person account, told with gentle humor and much love, Ronald L. Harmon relates his fascinating experience as a quasi-member of a wonderful German family he has known for 30 years, who live in a Bavarian farm community. Once Upon a Bavarian Winter, a heartwarming story that takes place in the picturesque rural village of Oberammergau, Germany, explores the Bavarian landscape through language, culinary delights, customs and lifestyles. The small village is well known for its woodcarving industry, and Harmon's anecdotes catch the essence of this intricate art: dedication, commitment, and beauty.

Once Upon a Bavarian Winter gives a compassionate account of living in the community where the famous "Passion Play," performed every ten years, provides a notable backdrop for the entire village. The "Passion Play" came into being because of a vow to God during the 16th Century when the Black Plague threatened to wipe out the entire village. The people of Oberammergau promised to provide the world with a remembrance of the martyrdom of Christ, if they would be saved from the Plague. The Plague did, in fact subside and today people from all over the world come to the village to see the play created from a promise made to God nearly 400 years ago.

Throughout the book, Harmon, a well-known artist, and photographer, paints colorful verbal portraits of the neighbors, shopkeepers, and the family about whom he cares so much. The vignettes are sketched with humanity, warmth, and great appreciation and respect for the customs and culture of traditional German life. In the best manner of "innocents abroad," Ronald Harmon knows how to make light of his own blunders and through this descriptive style, allows the images to effortlessly Appear in one's mind's eye, inviting the reader to be an intimate companion on this journey of discovery and wonder.

The chapters contrast the iron-cold of winter snowstorms with the atmosphere of a warm-cozy kitchen and the delights of sumptuous regional cuisine. Recipes sprinkled throughout the book offer the readers a chance to try, for themselves, the German cuisine that brings an extra interest to the book.

The scene on Christmas Eve, when the author stands alone in the living room of his "German's Family's" home, reflecting n a quote by J. M. Barrie, as spoken by a minister when Harmon's father passed away, is really the crux of this remarkable book.

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."

This charming, beautifully written book takes the reader on a double journey -- a journey through a tiny German village, where the breathtaking scenery, as well as the kind, friendly, hard working people, warm the heart, and a journey through the life of one incredible German family, as seen through the eyes of their long-time American friend -- artist, photographer and writer, Ronald Harmon. Join Harmon as he celebrates Christmas and New Years with his "adopted" family, and you will experience these holidays in a way you never have before. With each page, you will feel like a child opening his presents on Christmas
Day. In this deeply moving testimonial to love, faith and the important of family, Roald Harmon has given us a wonderful gift.

As the head teacher of a school for ADD/ADHD boys this book has served as the most valuable tool that I currently use. Many of our boys have been labeled ADD but in reality have never been made to persevere through challenges, or have never been made to complete a task with diligence. This book not only discusses practical ways to help all students of education, but it discusses the guiding principles behind all true education. America will never find the solution to its problems with education as long as its view of education is limited only to an intellectual study of science, math, verbal skills, and reasoning skills. As quoted in EDUACTION pg. 13, "Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range...It has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period of existence possible to man. IT is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers."

The book Education broadened my vision of what true education is really about.

This book has been in my library for years - from when I was a student in high school. Later when I had children, it became yet more important to me in developing guiding principles for their educational process.

I have found that I use Education as the standard to keep from wandering off track with trendy theories, or to lose sight of what true education is meant to be.

For parents, for expecting parents, for teachers and educators, for home schoolers - don't miss reading this book!

This is the book to read if you want a broad, Bible-based view of education. For example, the first paragraph reads:

"Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range. There is need of a broader scope, a higher aim. True education means more than the pursual of a certain course of study. It means more than a preparation for the life that now is. It has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period of existence possible to man. It is the harmonious development of the physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers. It prepares the student for the joy of service in this world and for the higher joy of wider service in the world to come. "

There is much in this book for everyone who would like to develop physically, mentally, and spiritually.

At times the images are wrenching, but always a page turner. Harmon paints a vivid picture of a young boy coming of age in the rural South. Laced with tender and funny moments, Henry is caught in a battle between his mother's aspirations and his father's history, all the while struggling with his own changing body. Not your typical piece of regional fiction, A House All Stilled is timeless, poignant and elegantly written.

Here is a novel that introduces us to three generations of men all seeking to find approval and understanding. The young boy wants his fathers approval but the pressure put upon him make it difficult. He is forced to reach maturity at an early age.This is not always pretty but it has its uplifting moments. The book is a page turner, and I know we have a promising new writer on the scene.

This is a new literary voice that will most certainly not go unnoticed. A House All Stilled is a fast-paced, suspenseful,at times hauntingly lyrical novel set in rural Mississippi. A divorced father finds himself between unresolved conflicts with his father, now lost in alcohol and old sacred harp music, and his moody and vulnerable son, on the cusp of adolescence. The three men share a house and a tangled web of lies and manipulations, brutality and tenderness--in unlikely communion with each other. From the outside comes a mysterious assault, an ambitious mother's suspicions, and the threat of a family coming apart. A reader fed up by the psychologically simplistic endings of many recent novels will not be disappointed by this novel's resolution.

This book is the most practical layman's book on health I have ever read. It's not a silly home remedies book. Nor is it a hard to understand technical manual. It gives plain and simple advice on how to live a healthy life. Everything from how to care for yourself and others when ill to what simple steps you can take to keep from getting ill to what kind of diet is best to how to take care of yourself when you're pregnant.

Examples: Did you know it is best not to mix fruits and vegetables in a single meal? Do you know what difference in diets manual laborers and mental laborers should be for optimum results?

Whomever you are, whether a searcher for physical health, mental health, or spiritual health, you will find this book both fascinating and easily applicable to your life. This book even contains practical advice for medical doctors!

I've used this 19th Century book in a health seminar. It is a pioneering work, and its truths have been adopted with little credit given by the wholistic health movement in general. Ellen G. White was one of wholistic health's earliest proponents. This book is still modern; nothing in it is out of date. Kloss cites the Author Ellen G. White as a major influence, in his book Back to Eden. Ministry of Healing presents a wholistic approach to health, emphasizing a simple lifestyle and fundamental health habits. Ellen White, the author, is a good wordsmith. She avoids tangents, and sticks to the basics that provide 99 percent of what is necessary to live a healthy, fruitful life. She presents clear discussions of family values, community approaches that preserve community health, exercise, whole vegetarian foods, food preparation that preserves food values, avoidance of vices including alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, and stimulating foods like black pepper and mustard, avoidance of unnecessary medicine, simple layman healing methods (she pioneered the use of water, hot and cold and sunlight as an adjunct to healing), and she searches the scriptures to find clear modern-day applications to health issues. You can heal yourself with the truths in this book. There is a health institute, Weimar Institute in California, that is based on the teachings of this book. As you read this book you'll experience an atmosphere of incredible light, both spiritually and physically. Her writing style is excellent, and very loving. She's helped me with my health, and I've passed on the truths she taught to many others.

The book, "Ministry of Healing" is not only a book which helps to cure sicknesses, but it prevents sickness. This book is clearly an inspired book which centers on spiritual sources of power for all healing. This book is the first, alternative to the bare New Age healers. This book centers on God as the sole source for power, and offers a 100% guarantee that all problems will be cured if taken to God. That guarantee in the book has urged many readers to read the other books by E.G.White. Her books are excellent sources of strength. All of her books are available at Amazon.Com

If you have a question about English or American literature, chances are you'll find the answer here. William Harmon, professor of English at the University of North Carolina has revised and updated this handbook, long popular in academia. He's added more than 100 entries which reflect current trends in literature and criticism.

If you don't have a student at home, get this book anyway. Read it. Just the outline of English and American literary history in the back of the book is worth the price. You undoubtedly will find books here you never knew existed. I thought I'd read all of Eudora Welty, for instance, but I found a "new" title listed here -- new to me, at least. I also discovered a James Gould Cozzens book I'd never heard of.

The handbook is actually an encyclopedia of words and phrases pertaining to the study of literature. Listings are defined, explained and often illustrated. There are cross references. Appendices include complete lists of Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction, poetry and drama. The index of proper names in the back lists over 2,300 authors and prominent literary figures.

This book is a must for the home library. Also, it's entertaining as well as informative reading. You may well find yourself curled up with it, unwilling to tear yourself away.

I love this book because it has complete, concise definitions of every literary facet you can think of. I have used it as a study tool for my certification tests, as a quick look up tool before tests, and as a way to explain difficult literary terminology to my students. I cannot stress how badly English teachers (and anyone else who loves literature) needs this book!

With the possible exception of my Roget's Thesaurus, this was the most useful reference in my pursuit of a BA in English Lit and Art History. This was recommended by one of my professors and it served me very well.

Easy-to-use alphabetical format allows reader to look up terms essential to the analysis of literature, and is highly useful to students of other humanities. The definitions are easy to digest but are quite thorough and supply sufficient context. Take this to college and use it often. An excellent tool for your research and writing.

This book is a detailed story of the life of Christ while on this earth. Skeptics have read it and many have had to admit that He was more than just a man, he was God.

Out of all of the books that I have read on the life of Jesus, this one is by far the best. The author has a vision of which I have not seen the likes outside of the pages of Holy Writ (the Bible). When reading this book I feel like I am walking with Jesus and the disciples. My favorite chapter is called "The Invitation". Michael Sammons

The very best account of the life of Christ that I have ever read, aside from the Bible. This author brings a seemingly eye-witness perspective to this work. The characters come to life in amazing detail. It makes reading the Bible itsself more understandable. This book give the reader a feeling of "personal contact" with the Man whose birth divided time into BC and AD. Who was / is Jesus? I am so glad that I read this book. Like a magnifying glass to The Gospels.

Over the years I have read hundreds of books about America and this book is clearly one of the most stunning. In general, the book is well researched, well organized, and very readable. It explains America to Americans and to the world in a different and very clear and convincing way. Through most of the book I was enthralled. Most of his examples are well chosen, precise, concise, and convincing. But it is not perfect.

There are, in my opinion, two areas in the book which fail to match the high quality of thought, reason, and rationale found through most of it. First, in the chapter about Social Beliefs, McElroy appears to see America's history from the perspective of the proverbial WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) and thus he ignores the lack of inclusion in the American mainstream at various times of such groups as Eastern European immigrants, Catholic immigrants, non-Christian immigrants, Asian immigrants, and Hispanic immigrants. He also neglects to mention that, in general, Americans of mixed raced were/are denigrated by both of the races from which they were/are descended. And he concludes the chapter by saying that if immigrants fail to succeed socially and economically in America it is no one's fault but there own. How amazingly naive.

Second, all of his fairness and impartiality and perspective seem to fall apart in the concluding section in which he views a very narrow period of time in America (the last 40 years or so) and suggests that many of the values on which this country was founded and built have fallen to the wayside. He concludes by saying there are some signs that things might get better over time. Certainly damning with faint praise. He sounds like an ultra conservative radio commentator. It spoils the flavor of the entire book. It is almost as if the rest of the book was just a way of reeling the reader in so that he could present this final diatribe. A sad finish to an otherwise excellent book.

Beliefs A book review

Its been said that we learn nothing from history. This appears to be true, but only to the extent that history is ignored. When we pay attention to history, we are bound to learn something. A good dose of history can sometimes put us back on a road we've tended to leave. This may be the case while reading a brief account of how America and the American way of came to be.

In some 230 pages John Harmon McElroy reminds readers of the various reasons America developed as it did. McElroy, in American Beliefs (1999) from Ivan Dee Publishers, Chicago, expounds upon twenty-five beliefs or ideas that have contributed to America's development. The book, subtitled: "What keeps a big country and a diverse people united," has ten chapters. McElroy, professor emeritus of English at the University of Arizona, would have his readers look at the things which have kept us, as a people, together instead of the things which have so often divided us.

The 24 beliefs are listed under seven of the ten chapter headings: Primary Beliefs of American Culture, Immigrant Beliefs, Frontier Beliefs, Religious and Moral Beliefs, Social Beliefs, Political Beliefs and Beliefs on Human Nature. Along the way in his treatment of these beliefs McElroy shows how it came about that the land which developed into America was different from developments in Canada, Central & western South America and in Brazil. All of these areas were receiving European emigrants at about the same time, but development here was much different than in the other regions. So the author works to give a broad overview of history and how America came forth in a unique way.

One example of the beliefs McElroy presents is one we might think is only common sense: everyone must work. Such an idea or belief, it seems, developed in contrast to what was usual in England and much of northern Europe, the areas from which most people came. In the old country there was an aristocracy in which certain people, because of their birthrights, were expected to be served by others, those lesser-born people. This system did not work on these shores as there was simply to much to do, to survive...no place for lazy bones. So those who expected to be served were told, in effect, work or die. (Sounds like: 2 Thessalonians 3:10 "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.") So those who had wished to be served, worked..and the belief that everyone must work became a part of our culture, and pretty much remains that way today. While people reach different economic stages, none is considered a nobleman by birth.and this was a new idea.

McElroy takes a little different twist on the idea that America is a chosen land, as being chosen of God. On page 131 he says: "The United States is God's country in the sense that Americans for many generations have felt that their nation has been especially blessed by God, that it could never have been established and endured so successfully without God's favor and protection. The belief is also true in the sense that, as a people, Americans have believed that God has wanted to use America as part of a divine plan for the redemption of mankind, by the creation of a new nation modeled on new principles of behavior. America is also a 'chosen country' in the sense that those who created it were mostly those who chose to emigrate to it and descendants."

Of special interested in these days of much discussion about the idea of Freedom of Religion, McElroy addresses the 'free exercise' clause of that first amendment to the U-S Constitution. Like many who insist that the Constitution only makes sense when its original intent is maintained, he makes this statement which needs to resound in many courts and public places today: "No provision of the Constitution protects any citizen from being offended by the religious practices of another citizen." How often we have instituted some legislation because someone is offended by religion, but the Constitution says there shall be 'freedom to exercise' our religious positions, regardless of any offense received., perhaps limited only to the extent of causing some public hazard. This clearly points out the value of history because as we have gotten away from initial Constitutional meanings, we have wandered off the road into confusion.

The books concludes with some observations, that much has happened in this culture in the past 40 years or so, perhaps instigated by the Supreme Court's decision to eliminate school prayers. "It is certain," he says, " that since WW-II some principles of American culture have been emphasized to the detriment of others. The principle of freedom, for instance, has been promoted without regard to responsibility, calls for improvement have been made without regard to practicality, and equality has sometimes been demanded with a zeal that ignores differences among individuals. Too often in the last 40 years of the 20th century, it seems, America's cultural history has been set aside in favor of uncompromising ideologies."

The book is an easy read and recommended for anyone interested in American history, especially high school and college students needing a better appreciation of what it means to be an American.

Dan Schobert August 29, 1999

I agree that every American should read this book -- and everybody else for that matter. I don't agree that it's scholarly. Rather, it's a joy to read -- easy to understand even for a person with two master's degrees! Between McElroy's chapter on How American Culture was Formed and Ken Burns' Lewis & Clark, I don't know which makes my blood run red-white-and-bluer. And as a child of the anti-establishment `60s, it's done a lot toward helping me understand why we Americans do what we do. It's the best history book I've ever read, the best history course I've ever taken or taught. I'm buying it for my home library for my grandchildren to use as a resource. We're also using it as a resource for a book on urban planning.

The market for books on terrorism has flourished in the months following September 11th. This has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, quality works of enduring value have had increased exposure, on the other hand we have seen a flood of books of extremely dubious merit and sensationalism. This book belongs in the first category and deserves more exposure than it has had.

Harmon (a lecturer at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College) provides a readable and wide ranging overview of his subject; with coverage of the politics and effectiveness of terrorism, terrorist groups, counter-terrorism methods and a section debunking some of the many and varied misconceptions and popular myths regarding terrorist groups. The text is scattered with thumbnail descriptions of various leading terrorist groups, terrorists and important works of literature in the terrorism canon.

This book serves as an excellent general introduction to the subject and acts as a solid foundation upon which the newcomer to the subject can build. It belongs alongside the serious academic texts on terrorism rather than the sensational journalistic mush that is now common on the shelves of mainstream book shops and yet is still readable and easy to get into.

If you only ever read one book on the general theme of terrorism you could do worse than making it this one. Undergraduate students studying terrorism should make a point of giving it a look too.

Within the broader framework of outlining the goals, motives and strategies of modern terrorist groups, Harmon documents some very specific examples of people, places and events.

This is not a catalog of terrorist groups or a chronology of individual terrorist acts. Rather, it is an in-depth look at the problem as a whole. Harmon uses examples from groups all over the world and in the process discredits such notions as "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

In the chapter dealing with future threats, Harmon all but predicted the events of September 11th.

Anyone interested in a scholarly look at the terrorist threat since the end of the cold war, should read this book.

difficult subject explained in terms a non-Jesuit can understand.