When you fall you will learn it is ok as long as you get up brus yourself off and keep going Stick-to-it ness as Peterson states

"Placeways" should be on the reading list of every city planner and architect. Sociologist Eugene Walter pulls from history, environmental psychology, architecture, and philosophy to show the importance of building places that stimulate people's imaginations and senses. He warns that we will make a world of dead places, if we continue to create built environments that exclude human expressiveness. Nondescript cities, suburban developments, and glass highrises don't energize us because they have no soul, no connection to our social and inner lives. A well-designed place conjures a sense of history and "evokes images, feeling, sentiments, meanings, and the work of imagination."

Walter's exploration of how sense of place influenced ancient cultures forms the bulk of the book. Though I scanned the detailed discussions of Aboriginal, Greek, and Roman place-making, I was moved by his passion for returning feeling and meaning to modern architecture.

The author does an excellent job of covering the subject of the matchsafe by discussing the major types that exist and then by illustrating (through several thousand crisp colorful photos) more matchsafes than one could hope to see in a lifetime. The book is arranged by collecting area and is a virtual handbook for the matchsafe collector. Price ranges are given as well, to give the new collector a basic understanding of the relative values.

This book is written by a Catholic priest, theologian and missionary who has obviously struggled with the differences between his church's official position on polygamy and what the Bible says about it. This struggle was particularly important to him as he saw that the insistance on monogamy was hampering his effectiveness in countries where polygamy was popular. The really interesting thing about this book is watching someone squirm as they try to defend something the Bible allowed, but their Church banned, whilst at the same time he tries to remain faithful to that Church and its effective claims to supremacy over the Bible.
The author is in a fix. He is stuck in a religious system which, on November 11 1563 at the Roman Catholic Council of Trent said 'If anyone says that it is lawful for Christians to have several wives at the same time, and that it is not forbidden by any divine law, let him be anathema.' So that would be him!
To get out of this he tries to say that:-
a) they weren't really considering ordinary polygamy
b) They didn't think about missions and the pastoral question
c) They were only out to get the Reformers (some of whom said polygamy was not sinful) with specific reference to Europe where it was against the custom. (They thought they would win a greater market share of believers!)
d) 'anathema' and 'divine law' were used so much by the Council of Trent that they didn't really mean anything by them.
Sadly it is a particularly unconvincing sight. The priest has spotted that the Bible doesn't have a particular problem with polygamy, and that therefore the Roman Catholic Church is left having a problem with the Bible. Work it out for yourselves.
This is a good book and an interesting read. There are plenty of intriguing facts in here, even though some of them are out of date. The history is particularly interesting - the biblical coverage is basic but just about sufficient for the book's purpose. The author is too concerned with polygamists not being 'baptised', but this is unsurprising as he sees it as necessary for salvation. The author is also too concerned with driving a square peg into a round hole, but its fun to watch!

The book is split up as follows:-
Introduction - The principles and methods used in the book together with a definition of African polygamy and other mating forms.
Chapter 1 - The historical missionary and pastoral problem of African Polygamy
Chapter 2 - Cultural Presumptions of the West

Chapter 3 - Demography
Chapter 4 - Anthropology
Chapter 5 - Biblical texts
Chapter 6 - Theological Rationale
Appendix - On the Council of Trent

I've found it a pleasure for reading and, what is more, very interesting and useful for my work.

This tome is simply required if one desires a complete review of the basic physics and chemistry of analytical x-ray techniques (emphasis is on x-ray fluorescence spectrometry). The only caveat is that this version is over 20 years old, and many incremental (and some major) advances in the field have since come to pass. There are more recent (though less clearly written) works by Ron Jenkins which fill in the gaps. Charles Smithhart, Ph.D

This is an introductory textbook on microeconomics. When one reads some intro text on micro, you will find nothing new. But the stress of this book is the scientific method behind economic theories, associated with many real life examples, which are good for those who would like to learn applications. There are excellent discussions on property right and transaction cost constraints, that one may not be able to find in some other texts. But this book doesn't include indifference curve analysis, which should be one major topic in intro micro. In summary, it is not just a standard textbook.

Perhaps the most interesting distinction Stanley Fish makes in this book is the one between what he calls "plot-thinking" and "being-thinking," if I remember the terms well enough. The first sort is a kind of tactical thinking--what do I need to do to get my points across right now? The second is a bit slower, it is the sort of thinking that says "what do I need to do for myself, given the sort of person I am?" Essentially, what Fish is saying is a kind of lecture of the "new historicists" and the other radicalisms that have become so important in the academy. A great many of course will hate him for saying this, becauseit means a delay in the sort of confrontation with Power that so many seem to desire these days. The theory operating for these people is that our metaphors are bad, and thus we must change them, which is why we need writers. This, or so it seems to me, is a very American sort of solution, yet it does not appear to bother the new historicists, nor do they appear to care about the destruction of the liberal, reasonably well-read public that used to form the backbone of support for leftist causes--schoolteachers, social workers, etc.--that is proceeding today as those who might have entered into such careers in previous times are relentlessly told that their work simply serves to reinforce "the Anglo-Saxon warrior brotherhood" that apparently runs things around here, at least according to one of these scholars. For all anyone knows, of course, this might be true, but to give young people the choice between being English professor and being a tool of power is not, I don't think anyway, very helpful. Stanley Fish's counsel of moderation, therefore, is I think of great value, which is to say that even if inside the academy he is thought of as someone who does not respect difference, from the outside looking in he looks a lot better than some I could name. Anyway, in the days to come, which are increasingly looking like they will be made up of a vast, illiterate population ruled by an equally illiterate stockbroker class, policed by a group of "discourse specialists" whose job it will be to censor the books and declare their meanings too obscure for the public, which come to think of it is what we have now, Stanley Fish might be remembered by some few of us as, perhaps, the last man to write in English.

This book is about the current thinking about how stars and planets form. It a compilation of review articles by theorists and obervational astronomers, about the latest advances made in their fields. Each article almost stands by itself and can be read separately. The book is thorough and lucid enough to bring beginners up to speed. This is a science which is still quite young, and the book puts forward a huge number of questions. The beginning researcher will find lots of easy points of entry into the field, but at the same time find that very little is known very precisely.

Had John Singleton Mosby fought on the winning side in the American Civil War then I'm sure his exploits would now be the stuff of legend, committed a long time ago to celluloid. As it is he fought on the wrong side and was branded a "bandit" for his disruptive activities in Northern Virginia.

This book is a marvellous account of the life of a great man. Small in physical stature, he was nevertheless a giant of a man in all other respects and was both feared and respected by those who fought against him in the war between the States. Kevin Siepel's book tells the story of the man behind the myths; his childhood, wartime exploits and controversial post-war views which saw him shunned by the same 'South' who had worshipped during the conflict.

I enjoyed every last page and was almost sad to get to the end. There was so much to Mosby that I feel the book could have been double the size it actually is - and that's where I draw my only criticism. I felt there should have been more details of his war time exploits. There's plenty there but I feel there could and should have been more.

Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I was always inclined to like it because Mosby is a hero of mine, but it does do justice to the telling of the story of his incredible life. Kevin Siepel is to be congratulated for his magnificent efforts and I would heartily recommend this book not only to any American Civil War enthusiasts but to anybody who would like to read about an extraordinary man and his equally extraordinary life.