There are full of garbages and a little bit of potentially interesting stuffs that can be scientifically validated/invalidated in this book. Intelligent design creationism elucidated by Rhawn Joseph not only lacks scietific evidence (well he does use the term "evidence", but they are not. They are mere speculations based on scientific evidence), but can be refuted by major scientific evidence (not by speculations). It is an interesting attempt to shift readers' attention from "hard-earned Darwin's evolution theory" to "creation of life by intelligent being (aliens?) theory, by invalidating some minor aspects of evolution theory. But does everyone think "if evolution is invalidated, creationism must be true"? I don't think so (I hope not). For the sake of devil's adovocate, let's assume that creationism does become prevalently popular among non-critical public. Some people with a little bit of critical thinking will eventually claim "show me intelligent beings that created us, and how they did it. Until that happens, I will not decide that this hypothesis is not any closer to the truth than other hypotheses out there." Reasonable?
Chapters by other scientits, both famous and not-so-famous, try to invalidate or validate the "reality" of anomalous experiences such as religious experiences. Evidence and scientific methods for/against those phenomenon are so thin that we can interpret in any possible way. I recommend that you buy and read this book, but read a book called "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan beforehand or afterwards to decide where you want to place your opinion in this vague area that occupies science and pseudoscience. If you would really like to know solid "scientific" studies of anomalous experiences (e.g. near-death experiences), please take a look at "Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence" by Etzel Cardena (Editor), Steven Jay Lynn (Editor), Stanley C. Krippner (Editor). It might be more worthwhile to read those books first.

NeuroTheology is an excellent, comprehensive, scholarly text which begins at the beginning (the Creation) and ends at the end (Armageddon). Some of the best, most daring minds in the science of religious experience, have chapters included in this book, including Newberg, Persinger, Alper, Albright, d'Aquili, Bruce MacLennan, and Fraser Watts of the University of Cambridge. ... this is otherwise an excellent, comprehensive text which deserves a place on the bookshelf of any serious scientist.

This is a provocative and ground breaking book. NeuroTheology contains 34 chapters written by 20 different experts, including Michael Persinger (who many consider the father of the field), Rhawn Joseph (who Newberg refers to as one of the founders of the field), Dr. Paloutzian (the editor of the International Journal of the Psychology of Religion), Dr. Albright (the former Executive Editor of Zygon the Journal of Science & Religion), and a host of others including those who do not believe in NeuroTheology. The value of this book is that it offers so many different perspectives. It is 644 pages in length, contains over 100 pictures, and addresses and answers many provocative questions regarding the nature, origin, and scientific basis of spirituality and religious belief.

I was initially put off by the fly-on-wall narrative style - direct quotations from meetings between friends or lovers and even personal and feelings and motivations being put down as fact. This is intermixed with copies of letters and diary entries that are well noted ... a trend in biography that I have a hard time getting used to.

After several chapters though, I was engaged by the substance of the story and these concerns faded somewhat for me. I also find it a bit unpalatable for a modern biography to gloss over quite so neatly the contributions or the conditions of the native people who were forced labor under colonial rule. These peoples may have little history written down, but it seems odd to not for the modern biographer/historian not to at least acknowlegement the situation.

I agree that the Amazon editor's review that Ms. Shipman is at times "overwrought" in the defense of a rather ghastly but brilliant man. Dubois turned out to be rather visionary in hindsight, but one gets the feeling of some of the other major players being slighted in this re-telling just because they happened to be wrong.

I did enjoy the book though, and I reccommend to anyone with an interest in evolutionary biology and the history of science. For the simple biography lover - my enthusiasm is lukewarm, the material is really only interesting in the context of the greaqt debate (that rages even today) about the origins of the human species. This book provides little context or additional information about that battle and would likely leave the uninitiated reader either confused or wanting more.

I recommend this book to anyone regardless of her or his interest in human anthropology. Shipman's portal to the science is well written and tinted with full details of family life. A three dimensional portrait of Eugene Dubois that Shipman has deftly produced in the manner of a Masterpiece Theatre episode. This flavors the science so it goes down like dutch chocolate. Now that I'm hooked on the science, I'm tackling her co-authored "Neandertals".

The sentences in this book have been so elegantly crafted that they flowed like a smooth running brook. Since my wife and I like to alternate reading chapters from anthropology adventure stories out loud to each other, we were captivated by the editorial polishing that allowed us to pick up speed with nary a fumble (except for the occasional technical, Dutch or Indonesian words). While we had expected rough and tumble science, we were pleasantly surprised by how much this one was about Eugene Dubois's human relationships and the ups and downs of his feelings. (Perhaps there is a sex difference among biographers that accounts for this.)

The first half of the book describes Dubois's family and friends to the exclusion of much of his science, with somewhat of an opposite imbalance in the second half. For example, early on we gleaned from the occasional aside and bibliography (annoyingly given mostly in Dutch without an English translation) that he wrote several papers and a book on the evolution of the sun as discerned from studying the earth's geology. Unfortunately, the author does not tell her readers how or why he did this, or how much of his time this took up, or even what he hoped these efforts would accomplish for him, though we are told that he was achingly ambitious. Instead we find excruciating details of his relations with his family and friends, and how he traversed the flora and geography of Java. Eventually, he discovered Pithecanthropus erectus, the "missing link" between man and ape.

Later, after Dubois and his family return to the Netherlands, we do get excellent blow-by- blow accounts of the scientific in-fighting as other fossils like Peking Man and other Java men are discovered that cause reinterpretation of his finds and provoke controversy about them (later they are relabeled Homo erectus). By then, despite ourselves, we were hooked on his family relations and so frustrated to suddenly be left hanging about what happened on that front. Shipman tells us how and why Dubois separated from his wife, but not explicitly why they got back together or how they get along after they did. While his children tragically die, or wander off, or or make bad marriages, we get little information about how he does end up with descendants.

Even the scientific story has some inexplicable gaps. The big debate rages over the status of Java Man and Peking Man along with Neanderthal and other finds. Even Piltdown Man takes center stage at one point. But the debates over Taung Child and other discoveries in Africa are never mentioned. Did I miss something? We both came away feeling that the book got too long and instead of editing it down, section by section, a production decision was made to simply delete some of the chapters!

Despite these glitches I learned a lot from this book. Dubois did more than find a great fossil. He wrote a great deal on encephalization quotients (i.e., the ratios of brain size to expected body size) anticipating much current work in the evolution of the brain. He also put forward daring alternatives to Darwinian gradualism, like saltations that occur in brain size and so create new species. He has major triumphs and tribulations, and then triumphs again. And most of all, The Man Who Found the Missing Link illustrates the old adage that a man's greatest strengths are also his greatest weaknesses. The independent, bold, ambitious tenacity of the younger Dubois that enabled him to abandon an early professorship to seek his fortune in Java, renders him a needlessly arrogant, stubborn, recalcitrant scientist and lonely man in his later age.

I picked this up on recommendation that it was an interesting response to some of nihilism's growth. Instead it was just the typical religious backhand against revolutionary thought. Nihlism and productive socialism as the sane thing? Huh?

Rose doesn't seem to notice that much of nihilism's point would seem to be to rid us of antiquated philosophy and religion before paving the road for a more cohesive thought. "Absurdity" is not the end result of nihilism, it has no goals except to clear the way...perhaps for constructive philosophy, perhaps not. What that constructive philosophy will be is unknown, but it will not likely be Christianity...and that seems some of Rose's concern. Just because nihilism may slowly wipe away religion doesn't mean that there will be only 'coldness' left.

Still, to be fair, it was interesting to read Rose's discussion on the relationship between nihilism and religion. He's a very thoughtful writer (and hard to read at times) just perhaps a little to one-sided, but hey it's a book.

Father Seraphim (Eugene Rose) could write about this pernicious spirit, the spirit of nihilism, because he lived intoxicated by it himself. This brief expose describes that which drives modernity and is really a sign post for those genuinely searching for Truth from a philosophical angle. It will really only be interesting for those with a philosophical bent as it is rather 'brainy' in its whole premise. The author describes the philosophy from his Orthodox Christian worldview, he describes a modern, worldwide, cultural, philosophical, spiritual formation that can only be understood as a clear indicator of the world's place in history now, a time refered to in the Holy Scriptures as the Apostasy. Something I found interesting was Father Seraphim's reference to Hitler as simply a 'magician.' Nazi Germany (as well as the communist experiments) for Father Seraphim, was a massive and shocking manifestation of the spirit of nihilistic praxis, a manifestation that will culminate at the end of time in the person of the antichrist, who will also have magical, demonic powers to manipulate his following. Father Seraphim's book teaches us of the present to remind us of Truth, and warns us of the future, a darker, and more malignant image of today. It's worth the read, if you are inclined.

NIHILISH: ROOT OF THE REVOLOUTION OF THE MODERN AGE was written by Russian Orthodox monk, Eugene Rose, (a convert to Orthodox Christianity) in a San Fransisco basement during the 1960's. It is a small part of a much larger work that was never brought to fruitition--a text on the theme of man's war against God and His revealed Truth. The form of Truth discussed here concerns what is eternal, not worldly, what will bring life beyond death.

Nihilism's basic credos are "all truth is relative," and "there is no absoloute truth." This is in direct opposition to traditional Christian thought, and the two are diametrically opposed. Friedrich Nietzsche is identified as the prophet of nihilism. Nihilism, of course, has developed into different stages according to the degenerate process of modern society. Libralism is a form of nihilism (and I might add, the ascendant political theory in the US right now, either GOP or Democrat) which pretends to be Christian, but only in rhetoric and in its emotional appeals, and which at heart does not care about the truth. The second, Realism, tries to find the truth and sometimes "does," but Realism's truth-seeking automatically rejects Divine Revelation and thus goes off on hopeless philosophical and scientific tangents. Vitalism is the third form of nihilism, and in my opinion by far the most popular among average people, and the form I personally hate the most. Vitalism does not teach anything, just what the individual feels, and there is no search for truth, just "hot-tub" coziness with oneself and the mundane excitements of life. This is omnipresent in our popular culture and mentality right now: fast cars, violent movies, pseudo-worship of sex, "getting high", and complete ignorance of any higher spiritual truth or ideals. The Nihilism of Destruction is the final form, manifested in Nazism, Bolshevism, Marxism, Communism and Anarchism. They believe in open Satan-worship, and the destrution of anything that is standing in order to pave the way for a "new order." Lenin described it well, as "one factory, with one office." I disagree with Rose's assessment of Nazism, as the Third Reich might have brought a genuine reversal of modernity, and a return to traditional Western ideals. These nihilists of destrution are condemned by the less hard core (especially the liberals), but they represent rebellion against God taken to its most extreme form, without any false pretenses about "the dignity of man," and "universal brotherhood."

In the end, it is the Christians who are the true Nihilists. Christians keep their sights one the Etenal, and not the petty concerns of this world which were created by God out of nothing and will return to nothing at the end of time.

This book is very poor indeed. It is very badly written, inaccurate, poorly organised and woefully out of date.

This book is a bible for lawyers who wish to practice international criminal law. It is the only text which provides summaries of the precedents of the ICTY and ICTR. The authors organize and index the book well, and their own commentaries into the decisions provide the insight of experienced trial lawyers in these courts. It would be malpractice for any lawyer to set foot in these courts without Ackerman and O'Sullivan's book.

Being familiar with the importance of the ICTY to the growth of international criminal law, I am pleased to see a book which details the actual functioning of such a Tribunal through its case law. To be able to easily access information regarding the Statute and the Rules of Procedure as it has been laid out by Ackerman and O'Sullivan places this volume head and shoulders above its competition.

Those who teach in the domains of internatonal criminal law or humanitarian law would be remisted from not including this volume on their required reading list. It provides students with an in-depth understanding of the first court to try international criminals since Nuremburg. This effort is a must for any law library.

Dr. Jean Allain is Assitant Professor of Public International Law, The American Univeristy in Cairo

this was a really cool story about r.e.m. i really like the picture portfolio of michael stipe and dennis rodman. stipe is a wus, but his spanish is pretty good, and i learned a lot from his comments about selena. a good read, but watch out for those idioms. they can be pretty tricky, especially if you haven't read murmer.

I picked up this book from a shelf in a bookstore and I just had to have it. It is neatly organized by keyword and has both a Spanish and an English side. Each entry consists of a keyword, a brief definition, and the most common expressions using that word along with an example using it. People often face the problem of hearing a word in the context of an expression and finding it in a dictionary that gives its literal meaning. This book solves that problem. There are too many expressions, and no book could have every one imaginable, but this book makes a great attempt. I recommend this book to anybody who is at all interested in Spanish, in any stage of learning it.

Any additional reading material other than a text book is always helpful when studying a language. Idiomatic expressions always present difficulties or challenges especially if they cannot be translated word for word. The objective of this book is to provide the reader with an explanation of the meaning and an example of how some common idioms are used in the Spanish language. I found that the book is well organized, divided alphabetically, concise and covers a broad range of examples non specific to a country, region or group of Spanish speakers. Once again NTC Publishing Group has provided readers and learners of Spanish with a useful and handy reference that can definitely enrich one's knowledge and understanding of Spanish either written or spoken. Here are some examples of the range of idioms that are outlined in the book:

1) de hecho = in fact (cannot be translated literally)
2) sin embargo = however (cannot be translated literally)
3) a primera vista= at first sight (common, everyday expression. Easy to understand)
4) dar la lata = to make a nuisance of oneself ( cannot be translated word for word, common expression)
5) tener mala pata= to have bad luck (common everyday expression)

This book not only contains idioms but everyday short frases that sometimes are hard to express correctly if one has not learned the correct way or has not heard it used prior. An example of this would be #1 and #2 above. These types of short frases are important because they are of everyday usage and the more one knows the more authentic the Spanish will sound. If you are looking to enrich your Spanish regardless of your current level, this book will definitely be of great help and will broaden your overall knowledge and understanding of the language.

"Almayer's Folly" adequately introduces the theme of culture conflict, an angle that is expressed more fully in Conrad's later works. I would certainly recommend this to anyone familiar with Conrad's body of work, which is not to say that readers new to his work should avoid this novel.

This tale, set in the colonial-era East Indies, narrates the brief rise and slow descent of a man's search for fortune and adventure. Quite simply, the treasure never appears and Almayer is left to ponder what could have been. His woes are intensified by the departure of his daughter, one of his few links to "civilised Europe." Classic symbolism occurs late in the novel, as Almayer erases the footprints of his daughter the day of their parting. While "Almayer's Folly" doesn't reach the heights of Conrad's longer (read: better) works, this effort still captures the romantic essence of the Far East in the classic Conrad style.

Although not to be compared with his major works, this is nonetheless a most impressive first novel. Perhaps because he was already well into his thirties when he wrote and published it, the book contains all the major themes that one associates with Conrad. If one has not read any Conrad at all, I would recommend going to his great masterpieces first (VICTORY, NOSTROMO, THE SECRET AGENT, UNDER WESTERN EYES, HEART OF DARKNESS, THE NIGGER OF THE 'NARCISSUS', or LORD JIM). But for anyone who enjoys the work of Joseph Conrad, this book can hardly fail to fascinate.

BEYOND THE HORIZON was Eugene O'Neill's first full-length play. The tale of two siblings who take off on very different and unexpected paths in life, the play explores how fate and our own decisions can doom our lives. Robert and Andrew Mayo have grown up on a farm somewhere in the United States. Robert is the dreamer and intellectual of the two, a lifetime of frailty preventing him from working as a farmer, and he dreams of seeing the world and living in places beyond the small confines of his family's farm. Andrew, however, is a man of purely practical concerns who is happily following in his father's footsteps and taking care of the farm. As the play opens, Robert has just been offered as change to go to see with his merchant seaman uncle, an opportunity that would fulfill his wanderlust. However, a woman creates a conflict between the brothers and Andrew takes the trip while Robert stays on the farm. From here, the play opens to show how one's best-laid plans can be dashed by the unexpected, as both brothers lead lives of despair.

While BEYOND THE HORIZON won O'Neill the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes, it doesn't survive the test of time very well. He insists on spelling out everything for the audience, resulting in some of the most ridiculous and just plain unrealistic dialogue I have ever seen. Readers who grew up in the tradition left by Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter will also find O'Neill's lengthly set design annoying, as in some parts he spends up to two pages laying out each and every detail instead of leaving it up to the director as is done nowadays. Finally, BEYOND THE HORIZON is rather provincial and has none of the refinement that readers today will have become used to. American theatre at this time lacked any figure to make it matter on the world stage, and while O'Neill was to become this figure with his later plays, this work shows him still very immature.

I believe BEYOND THE HORIZON is a work worth reading only if one has a particular interest in the evolution of American theatre or the works of Eugene O'Neill in general. Its poor writing makes it quite unentertaining.

Beyond the Horizon was O'Neill's first major full-length play and its release is considered a significant turning point in the history of American theater. Its main characters are two twentysomething brothers, Rob and Andy, who have both spent their lives on the family farm and have quite opposite dispositions: Andy is excruciatingly practical and hopes for little more in life than to take over the farm and make it successful; whereas Rob is something of a bookish dreamer who hopes to see what life is like "beyond the horizon." He gets this opportunity when his uncle invites him to come along on a three year trip to South America and Asia, but the night before their departure, a woman with whom both Rob and Andy are in love professes her love for Rob, causing Rob to stay behind to marry her while Andy, unable to bear the idea of living alongside the new couple, takes Rob's place on the trip. The bulk of the play deals with the long-term consequences of this one night in which the brothers ignored their callings in life.

As is often the case in O'Neill's plays, the premise is fairly simple and unoriginal and the development of the plot is relatively predictable, but the intensity with which the characters are developed is excellent and truly memorable. We see in Rob the same sort of futile hope that O'Neill would develop so well some years later in The Iceman Cometh, and the despair of the other characters is quite moving. At times, the pathos in the play can almost be over-the-top (and I imagine that in live performances this might be something that the actors have to be all the more careful to avoid), but O'Neill manages to avoid going into the realm of melodrama and create very real, touching characters.

O'Neill would, of course, go on to write many other deeply emotional plays, a number of which are still better known than this one. Beyond the Horizon shows us many of the talents for which O'Neill is now universally recognized, and the almost-universal acclaim that it received upon its 1920 premiere seems equally apt today.

Beyond the Horizon is the story of 2 very close brothers, Robert and Andrew, who choose opposite paths in life. Each unfortunately, chooses a path better suited for the other. The deeper meaning in this play is what happens to a man's soul when he doesn't follow his dreams.

The Message is a new translation of Proverbs (1995) that favors modern slang and often replaces original proverbs with a new proverb. Proverb 1.17 "When a bird sees a trap being set, it stays away" becomes 'Nobody robs a bank with everyone watching". Proverb 1:31 "They shall eat the fruit of their own way" is rendered "Well, you've made your bed-now lie in it." In Proverbs 31.14 when the wife goes shopping she no longer brings home "food" but rather "exotic surprises". If you would like to understand Proverbs better but would like better accuracy read THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE BOOK OF PROVERBS by Cody Jones. Six authoritative translations are laid out in parallel to aid comparison and understanding. There is also an in-depth commentary that is easy to read with many illustrations and photos to give you a sense of the culture of the time.

VERY EASY TO READ. THIS BOOK TAKES THE INTIMIDATION OUT OF READING THE BIBLE

Eugene Petersons interpretation of Proverbs makes for practical wise living, just as the author (God) had intended. It would be good advice if everyone on the planet would pick it up and read just one chapter per day for a healthy mind and a new outlook on life. No more excuses that say "I can't understand the bible". Any of Petersons versions take that excuse away but especially this rendition of the Proverbs. AN EXCELLENT READ. Can't say it enough!! Get it and read it EVERYDAY - You'll be the wiser for it.

Fish's approach to texts, including statutes and the US Constitution (he is perhaps better known for jurisprudence than for lit crit) moves the text off the page, and into the class -- the interpretive community. But this is always a tricky move, and the way Fish executes it leaves us with no glue to prevent the fissioning of "interpretive community" into factions of one, just so many obstreperous individuals with nothing more to say to each other, because each has his own (mutually contradictory) inward disposition, a self-reinforcing dogmatism in the light of which all evidence is interpreted.

This is not law nor is it literature. This is the chaos of competing autisms.

The way out of this chaos would take us through history. It would involve the realization that history is not simply a collection of texts. The execution of King Charles I was not a sentence in a book, "King Charles was beheaded today," but was a real fleshy neck on a real block, as an axe swung through its downward arc. As a literary theorist, literary critic, and legal theorist, Fish has consistently dismissed the importance of such physical extra-textual events. It is no wonder that the texts become insubstantial if the world in which they are written is rendered insubstantial, too, so all we have is a group of graduate students sitting around in our own day gabbing about their own gabbling.

Stanley Fish takes an extremely hard line in this at-least-twenty-years-in-the-making study. Besides the terrific close readings, what's most amazing here is Fish's suggestion that Milton (as either the most or at least the second-most important writer in the English language) might actually have known what he was doing. The fact that this is today a radical stance is a comment on the bizarre orthodoxy of current critical thinking. One of the most hillarious set pieces of this book is a too-true list of "What Liberals Believe," after which Fish points out that Milton believes exactly none of these things. By the end of the book I was ready -- despite being a committed atheist -- to join the Creator's angelic hordes in a rousing chorus of "Amen!"

The outline of Fish's acerbic standing often eclipses his critical innovations (nearly 35 years ago now) in the invention of reader-response theory in his reputation setting initial study of Milton in Surprised by Sin. Now he returns to study of Milton in this magisterial book. Fish is popularly known for inadvertently setting off the most embarrassing scandal in the science wars when Alan Sokal's hoaxing contribution to Fish's journal, Social Text was denounced by Sokal as a paradoy of postmodernist cant. Fish's own pathetic comeback dampened the brief hegemony of postmodernist political trends. Fish is also a controversial legal theorist (The Trouble with Principle) and a glib combatant in the culture wars (There's No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's a Good Thing, Too), but it is as a reader of John Milton that he first made his most enduring mark, with 1967's Surprised by Sin.In the wake of the Sokal disaster, Fish has left the demoralized English department of Duke University for the University of Illinois, Chicago where he has returned his attentions to his once-revolutionary reader-response criticism in this surprisingly jargon free study, How Milton Works. This book concentrates on the whole range of Milton's oeuvre in prose and poetry. Fish asserts that the core of Milton's significance is richly theologically, in that "there is only one choice to be or not to be allied with divinity." In various chapters Fish reworks the rich mythic structure of Paradise Lost to show how the Fall that separated Satan from Heaven parallels Adam and Eve loss Eden. So the meaning of human existence is the attempt to find restoration in the Divine image. This is perhaps ironically the single foundation of meaningful action, politics, individuality, and poetry, including Milton's own. It is obvious that not all readers of Milton will so easily agree with Fish's premises or conclusions but it is likely to quicken Milton study as his earlier study did. Also his painstaking close readings and carefully wrought arguments, enough so that perhaps many will be encouraged to return and read anew this most British of our poets. The rich architecture of Milton's epics, it abstract phrasing and taut moral reach and ambivalence that is at once immobile in its traditionalism and radical in it modernism makes Fish's readings and argument another milestone in Milton studies.

This book does have good content but for those of you who are in your first semesters of Radiology technology it clearly does not simplify the information. It does not produce good examples or diagrams to make learning easy. It is also very cut and dry and makes it very difficult to read. It has no glossary and is poor in producing definitions. I highly recommend Bushong not only is the book fun to read but makes some of the more complex principles easier to understand. The workbook is really great also to help you prepare for your test and the end of the chapter quesions are nice because it helps to check see if you got the understanding of the chapter.

I find this one a "better" overall textbook than Christensen and Bushong. More inspiring, cosier and fairly well written. Downside : I personally found myself wanting some radiation physics tables that I had to find elsewhere ("Medical Imaging Physics"), and think the authors left out many interesting aspects physics wise, but your average student might find this works out just fine. Almost perfect starter.

Overall, this is an excellent text for radiography students and also physician residents in radiology. The text is comprehensive and easy to understand. We particularly like the abundance of drawings and tables. The special imaging chapters are very detailed and provide excellent information for students and others who use this text for reference purposes. The chapter on mammography is particularly good as it is the only chapter of its kind in any textbook. This chapter is excellent for those programs that teach comprehensive mammography. The mammography art and images are superb. Seasoned radiography educators are authors of this text and that makes this a unique book and one that is accurate technically.