I didn't like this book, it had no plot. I wish I didn't read it. You can if you want......mabey you will have a fun time. I am only 7 years old so i have no true taste.

This is a commonly used text in courses related to United Methodist Doctrine. While it is solid and provocative in its account of major theological themes in Methodist history, it suffers from a few historical errors.

One of these historical errors is its overestimation of the place of Watson, Miley, and Knudson in the trajectory of Methodist thought. In his limited focus, he excludes or generalizes some of the more prolific Methodist theologians, notables include Nathan Bangs, Wilbur Fisk, Daniel Whedon, Albert Bledsoe, and Borden Browne.

Moreover, he isolates and detaches his thinkers from their context, an error of much intellectual history. Chiles survey could have been deeply enriched by a discussion of these thinker's theological struggles with pivotal social issues (such as slavery or revivalism) of their respective times. It could have also been enhanced by further illustrating the theological struggle these thinkers had with their hated Calvinist adversaries, such as the Hopkinsians, Edwards, or Yale School Thought.

Chiles work has largely been replaced by Tom Langford's "Practical Divinity." Still, it does possess some strengths the latter survey does not. Whatever its weaknesses, Chiles' thematic focus and concentration on three thinkers enables him to understand some theological issues in greater depth than Langford.

Regardless, this book--originally published in the '60s--remains one of the foundational books in the study of Methodist theology. Unfortunately, there have been few attempts at this endeavor since his. We are in desperate need of a new one, especially in light of the groundbreaking work by Paul Conklin, Russ Richey, and Nathan Hatch that forces us to redefine Methodism's place and influence.

The author is a professional bibliographer with some 11 bibliographies to his credit. As such, his Titanic bibliography has both the strengths and weaknesses of someone knowledgeable in bibliography, if not necessarily in Titanic; or, at least that was my impression.

The work is split into three parts, a historical narrative, descriptive subject lists, and the annotated book list.

Parts one and two are quite well done with extensive descriptive text in general references, history, background and context. The subject lists are also extensive covering in excellent detail such diverse items as paintings, sermons, poems and memorabilia. There is excellent discussion of movies, museums, societies and journals, amongst others. An exception is the Internet, which is very poorly represented.

The book list, however, is the most important part of any bibliography, and here things are a bit more problematic. There are indexes for authors and subjects, but not for titles, for example. Another surprising omission is the lack of isbn numbers. Also missing are illustrations of any kind; there are no photos of book covers or title pages that one would expect to find in this kind of work. Neither will you find a guide to identifying first printings, nor a guide to values.

Some of the issues that crop up from, what I assume is the author's inexperience with the subject include a few humorous mistakes, such as identifying William Barnes' book as a biography of Thomas Andrews. Also Martin Gardner's book is identified as a pro-psychic work, when it is quite the opposite. A few other quirks include identifying Charles Lightoller as the ship's First Officer (he was actually the Second Officer); and the Carpathia's name gets mangled as Carpathian a few times in the text.

Other faux pas include, in the descriptive text, crediting Eaton but not Haas for Falling Star, yet crediting Haas but not Eaton for A Journey through Time (although they are correctly credited in the book list itself).

The book list contains a total of 674 entries. A fair portion of these entries are only marginally related to the subject, however. There are quite a few titles representing generic works on British history, shipbuilding, and maritime history; the Titanic connection is often minimal. There are also a number of works about other famous shipwrecks that really have nothing to do with the subject.

Of more concern than what was included is what was not. A very quick perusal turned up quite a number of titles missing in action, both recent works and some older ones.

Despite these omissions, the book list is quite extensive. It cannot be said to be the definitive list, however. Still, there is a lot more to this work than just a list of books, and on most other fronts this work does a credible job of covering the subject.

In Turning Point, the authors trace the history of economic thought from John Maynard Keynes through to contemporary neo-classical economics and the school of Milton Friedman, and later theories such as the "rational expectations" theory of Robert Lucas, the "increasing returns" theory of Paul Romer, and the work of Robert Reich. They tie in these theorists with the history of economic policy making in Canada. This may seem boring at first blush, but the authors do their best to make these sections readable and interesting.

The main argument of the book is that the government lacks a coherent economic policy for the future and needs to address this issue if Canada is to play any significant role in the new "knowledge economy". They claim that the neo-conservative solutions such as funding cuts in the mid-90s were necessary to deal with the spiraling debt and federal deficit, itself created by government policies enacted to address unemployment and later high inflation. However, in their eyes, the deficit has now been dealt with, and now the government has to move into reinvesting in several primary areas: health care, education, the information highway, and child-care. The authors believe that tax cuts do not boost spending, but rather consumer confidence. In fine Canadian fashion, they argue for a "middle road" between the neo-conservative agenda of tax cuts and old style liberal school of excessive government spending in order to sustain the robust economy.

In general, I found this book readable and informative. I am not an economics major, but I found their analysis of economic theory and overview of policy implementation concise and interesting. What the authors argue seems to make much sense. However, I suspect that if you are a libertarian or very right wing economic conservative, this book will not be convincing. Conversely, if you fall on the left hand side of the economic spectrum, the analysis and solutions might not seem radical enough.

The authors propose some solutions that seem fairly simple yet may be tough to implement. For example, with respect to education, they believe Ottawa should lower the cost of tuition on the assumption we need more, not less productive and innovative workers. This might be a tough sell politically. Perhaps not as tough would be increased investment in health care, something the government seems more amenable to.

I did have some problems with a few of their arguments. For example, with respect to social programs, they argue that the government should view social programs as economic assets and not "largesse to be given to the masses by a benevolent wealthy elite." (p. 195). However, one might argue that with globalization and increasing mobility of workers, firms don't care as much about hiring talent from local areas if they can parachute in highly educated workers from other countries. Thus, why should a multinational worry about locating in Canada or hiring Canadian workers and pay higher taxes if the alternative is to locate in the U.S. and have access to a highly skilled labour market and pay less taxes as the same time?

Also troubling is their advocacy of a major child care scheme. In essence, they argue that because most parents are both working longer hours, child care has suffered in Canada. As a result, the government should reexamine creation of a national daycare system. However, I wonder if parents are really happy working longer hours and not being able to raise their children? While I don't presume to be an expert, the response seems a return to the "big government" style solutions that seem to be out of vogue. Perhaps more flexible work regimes are the answer, and not handing over care of one's children to strangers.

The only other problem I had with this book was the writing style. They often use awkward phrases and descriptors; they refer to various "think tank" theorists as "media yackheads" and "cardboard thinkers," yet declaim that "they serve an important purpose for politicians." (pp. 146-147) I am unsure how to take this. There are many examples of this kind of "popular" writing style used in the book, and I found it annoying and more akin to ad hominem attacks.

In summary, if you want to understand more about the economic policies and issues that have shaped the country since the Depression, this book is a good introduction. It is a welcome resource and will hopefully produce more debate on the issues.

I have used this book for a college course, "Applied Electronics". This course is available to all students, from English, History to Computer Science and Business majors. The book is not to be used in the Engineering school because there is no Calculus requirement. Can you teach Electronics without Calculus? You bet. This book provides a good introduction to the world of electronics, resistors, capacitors, inductor coils, amplifiers, gates, flip flops, microprocessors, then the complete system. I added four "hands-on" labs in Semiconductor devices, Operational Amplifiers, Microprocessor Starter Kit, and Oscilloscope. The student review has been excellent.

War, Central Planning and Corporations, a new book by Dr. Eugene Schroder and David Schechter, was the basis of Dr. Schroder's presentation at the Western Economic Conference in Seattle July 12. Dr. Walker F. Todd, formerly with the Federal Reserve, served as editor.

Provocative acumen into how government control,

Bureaucracy, centralized supremacy and the gigantic corporations operate together as a team. The book Details how

they affiliate to use egregious and unconstitutional powers accepted during feigning of national emergency.

Extremely well researched, footnotes from Senate Studies, the Congressional Records and Rulings from the Supreme Court.

A landmark study.

The journals, diaries, and other primary accounts of the men and women that settled the American West occasionally describe exciting events, but more commonly these historical records detail the routine life of an isolated settler surviving in a harsh and unforgiving land. I marvel at the courage and perseverance exhibited by so many common men and women.

In "Wild Animals and Settlers on the Great Plains", Professor Fleharty has compiled primary accounts (not reminiscences penned years later) from newspapers and diaries to detail the impact of settlers on the native fauna of Kansas during a short, critical period, 1865 -1879. His reports, while specific to Kansas, can be generalized to the settlement of the extensive Great Plains of western America.

I was pained by some of the detailed accounts of uncontrolled hunting, of unwitting habitat destruction, of seeming obliviousness to the irreversible changes that were occurring. The newspaper accounts seemed so real, because they were.

Professor Fleharty does more than report the decline of the buffalo, bear, deer, antelope bobcat, and other animals during this period of intense settlement. He also shows, again from primary accounts, that a concern for the diminishing wildlife gradually developed, leading to hunting regulations and protective legislation. Our modern understanding and appreciation for protecting wildlife and the environment did not suddenly emerge a few years ago, but evolved steadily from these early concerns.

The strength of this book - its extensive quotations from newspapers and other primary sources - is also its weakness. I commend Professor Fleharty for his extensive research. However, as might be expected, many of these reports are similar, some even repetitious. Some, possibly a sizeable fraction, could have been relegated to an appendix, or possibly footnotes.

Possibly because Dr. Fleharty was trained as a zoologist, and not as an interpretive historian, he seemed reluctant to offer interpretations and extrapolations based on the rather sparse and anecdotal reports. And yet, as a zoologist willing to undertake historical research, his interpretations and insights, even speculations, would have been very interesting indeed.

If Dr Fleharty does revise this interesting book, I would like more discussions on how and why things happened. Tell us more about animal population dynamics in Kansas from 1865 to the present. What other ecological trends were set in motion during this short, catastrophic period? Could more steps have been taken earlier to mitigate the negative impact of the extensive settlement on the Great Plains?

Also, while I recognize that we cannot recreate the Great Plains of the 1860s, I am curious about Professor Fleharty's views on the ongoing movement to create large, natural grasslands preserves in the mid-continent. We cannot change the past, but we may be able to shape the future.

This book was a bit disappointing to me. The description of the book tells you that the 3 biggest steam locomotives would be compared and I hoped for a technical comparison as well. Although there is a lot of information in this book, there is no overview of technical details and no drawing with some dimensions on it. So if you want to know for instance the diameter of driver wheels of the different design, it is very hard to find (and then often not direct, but in term that the diameter was 1 inch greater then...). Often in long sentences is referred to other books, where a footnote in my opinion could have done the same and should have save space for more interesting text. Now the text looks sometimes more a chat at the round table about these locomotives.
In the photo part there are some very nice B&W pictures and therefore the book will get in place in my collection. Some of the color photos are rather poor. I know that in the fifties it was difficult to make color pictures, but perhaps whit the aid of modern techniques some colors could have fressed up a bit. The recent picture of the Allegheny in the Ford museum should have been taken with the aid of professional flash equipment (I have been there and know that the light on the locomotive is very poor, but I have seen better pictures).

I'd never had any accounting courses before. This textbook was required for my financial accounting course in an MBA program. The book does a good job of logically explaining all the important topics. Unfortunately, it takes a Herculean effort to sit down and study the material due to the dry subject matter.

The authors did a good job of using examples from real firms, which, I think, makes it more interesting. I've decided to keep this book after the course for a reference.

Many people get this book wrong. This is a book for graduate students, not for undergraduates. It introduces the concepts of financial accounting in a condensed way, which does require more time and patient to understand it, like the way we study in MBA program. Since this book assumes its reader as future statement readers, it introduces finanical statements, including balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement,in the first few chapters to let student understand the linkage among them. It is usually very difficult to understand for those without background, though. Plus, given the fact that this book is required by most of top MBA programs, like Chicago, Columbia, and NYU, I'd like to say that accounting professors have told us the quality of this book. For those who have a hard time on this, I would also recommend its accompanied study guide and solution manuals (used one available on amazon website ISBN 0030269695& ASIN: 0030182697; make sure get the right edition!!). After all, this is a good book, but requires more practices. Good luck.

I recently used this book for an accounting class. I am not really an "accounting head", having come from a computing background, and I had to do the course as a graduate degree requirement. I found the book to be very thorough and well written. The authors took their time to explain every new term throughout. The book also has numerous exercises [maybe too many]. I do not expect to "do accounting" in the future, but if I have to, I'll get a copy of this book again. In reading this book, I found my professor's advice quite handy: 1. start off with the learning objectives for each chapter; 2. read the chapter summary; 3. check all the diagrams in the chapter; 4. read the text; 5. practice as many exercises as you can; 6. finally, review your work. I did this and smashed the course [B+--not bad for a "non-accounting head"]. I found the accompanying study guide [By LeBronne Harris and James Moon] invaluable also. This is probably the best book out there on Financial Accounting.

All of you who are saying that CASE makes characteristics obsolete: show me how to write a pivot query that does not use a temp table using the CASE function - and without having to hardcode the column headings! Avoiding a temp table can make a huge impact on the scalability of your application.

To me - this was the only value of this book: the first three articles. The rest consisted of the esoterica described by the others.

Somebody took my copy of this book, which I've owned for years, and now I MUST get another copy! I feel naked without it!
It's helped me do things never considered possible previously. I guess I'd call it "Quantum SQL".

Read all the reviews. I've read all of the public articles that Rozenshtein wrote. Those of you who read the book and did not value the content, I wonder about you. "Impossible" "Skip this one" "Esoterica" Did you miss the most important point of the book? Think differently and you just might find a simple elegant solution to your data access problem.

I can hear the groanings now, "cross table joins, elegant"? What you do not know is that when Rozenshtein proposed the solutions you read about, the companies he worked with set down expectations under which Rozenshtein worked. He was to find a one-pass method of solving the data access problems of a company who had poorly designed very large databases and a limited time to assemble the data needed for daily reporting. Rozenshtein only had enough time to make one-pass through all the databases at once to collect the data for these daily reports.

What you read in this book is about brilliant problem solving that produces results businesses value. Rozenshtein is a mathmatician sought out by large companies to solve data access problems that their staff could not solve.

This book is about data access problem solving to produce results. I believe most everyone could stand to improve their results.