If you like Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World and other "creepy society" books, you'll love this one. Four intellectuals find a..., well, a strange manuscript, in a... copper cylinder, yeah. It is the account of a man's discovery of a literally "backwards" civilization where the social pyramid is inverted : people strive to be poor, and the wealthiest citizens are considered bums. Life here is torture, because the ultimate goal of every person is to die. Pick up this book to be intrigued and fascinated.

I actually picked up this book on accident - I had no idea what it was about nor had I ever heard of it. A wonderful masterpiece on society and cultutre, it includes much symbolism. The book makes us question what is truth -

Fiona MacCarthy's background is in design, which brings a lovely perspective to her biography of Morris. MacCarthy also writes well, which is a plus in a book this size. She writes with affection for her subject, but without any of the bizarre idolatry with which some people approach Morris. He was a crashing bore as a poet, a mere amateur painter, a gifted fabric designer (but there are many gifted fabric designers), and a Socialist who knew only marginally more about what people actually do for a living than did Ruskin. Nevertheless, Morris was a volcano of artistic activity and heart-felt social ideas, and therein lay his genius. MacCarthy does an excellent job bringing Morris's genius to life in this first rate biography.

Most books about William Morris are like rainbows, filled with colorful images. Simply because he made so many wonderful and colorful embroideries, tapestries and patterns, and because color itself is something people like, and therefore buy.

This book doesn't have many colors inside, but it contains many black and white photographs, that are of great interest for those who like to read about William Morris and his time. And the combination of text and photographs create so many images in your mind, that you forget about color.

For the same people, this is the the final book about William Morris and his life. It's not the book to buy, if you want to know all about his printing of books in Kelmscott Press (there you have to go for Peterson's books), but it's the book about all the other stuff you want to know about Morris - and everything, you didn't know, you would want to know.

Having spent more than 5 years on this matter, Fiona MacCarthy has succeeded in making an extraordinary and therefore the final biography on William Morris.

More than 700 pages with more than 100 pages of source and reference notes.

It's a book to read and to read again and to use, when you're working with text about the period, the arts & crafts movement - or simply with Morris. Buy it, even if you don't have the money - wear the old jacket another year. You won't regret.

As long as it's out of print, you have to go to the library, where you should tell them to order some more books, so they print more.

Zizek has always been dodgy on racism and liberal multiculturalism as he seems to fall in line behind a lot of European continental theorists - from Sartre on - who have tried to describe little Others from the 'Third World' or even Outside/In the First as fundamentally constructed through absence/invisible. You could re-read Sartre's 'anti-semite and jew' to get the point, or there's a dodgy interview about the resurgent Right in Europe and anti-semitism on the Web somewhere, or even one of Vikki Bell's excellent essays on Butler and the same problem.

He's dodgy on Butler too. Zizek claims that as long as resistance to power is a direct response to the power structure it presumes to subvert, then it will necessarily fail. He then contends that the "true" act of resistance is one that will disturb the 'phantasmic core' of the symbolic order and therefore it will be an "authentic act".

So... we start from an impossible position to reach a possible. At the end of the day there are more 'real' examples of resistance, framed by a big Other/dominant power structure/hegemon that have, while coming out in response to that power, actually envisioned and/or travelled above and beyond it than there are of re-constituted Cartesian subjects upsetting the structure at it's core. In fact the core is often upset by the subversive over-statements of pre-substantiated resistance. The added advantage is that you don't have to reify dodgy discources on "race" and anti-semitism to realise this.

Lets all go back to Fanon (or visit him for the first time!) and see that a new humanism should always aim 'above and beyond' and that unfortunately we need to be much more aware and in-tune to those aspects of resistance that do. Said's been doing this for yonks and pretty much everyone in his footnotes. Paul Gilroy's "Against Race" is pretty good too. Or, maybe just some good old social science theory and volunteer activism with people who care much less about John Woo's Face/Off than we do?

If you had pretty much given up on Zizek after Metaseses of Enjoyment and Plague of Fantasies, both of which contain some embarassingly bad writing, you will be happy to rad this book. Routledge finally gave Zizek a new copyeditor, and what a difference she makes! ALthough Zizek's new concept of "the Act" smacks of Chrisitan mysticisim, the book is one of his stngest. It's otfen very insightful about academic trends and as entertaining as ever when it comes to film. he is one of the few theorists who manages to kep thinking, even if he repeats himself over and over again.

Check this quote out from the book on the symbolic institution:) "The mysterious character of this moment can best be illustrated by a funny thing that happened during the last election campaign in Slovenia, when a member of the ruling political party was approached by an elderly lady from his local constituency, asking for help. She was convinced that the street number of her house (not the standard 13, but 23) was bringing her bad luck--the moment her house got this new number, due to some administrative reorganization, misfortunes started to afflict her (burglars broke in, a storm tore the roof off, neighbours began to annoy her), so she asked the candidate to be so kind as to arrange with the municipal authorities for the number to be changed. The candidate made a simple suggestion to the lady: why didn't she do it alone? Why didn't she simply repaint or replace the plate with the street number herself by, for example, adding another number or letter (say, 23A or 231 instead of 23)? The old lady answered: "Oh, I tried that a couple of weeks ago; I myself replaced the old plate with a new one with the number 23A, but it didn't work--my bad luck is still with me; you can't cheat it, it has to be done properly, by the relevant institution." The 'it' which cannot be duped in this way is the Lacanian big Other, the symbolic institution." :)

I read this book as an undergrad, and was impressed overall with the clarity and sensitivity of the writing. Though I admit to being less than interested in some of the topics covered, and to being somewhat cold to the loads of statistical data brought in in some places, I especially find now that Michael Weiner's introduction and chapter on "The Invention of Identity," and Millie Creighton's excellent article "Soto Others and Uchi Others" reverberate more with time. Weiner provides a great summary of the history of the making of "Japan" as we think of it today, and I find myself going back to it often as I read other books.

As a member of a minority group in Japan whose existence was unexplored by the contributing authors, I was somewhat dismayed upon reading my copy. The topics addressed in this book made for fascinating reading. One would hope that future editions would include a chapter,or perhaps more than a passing reference to the problems of the Konketsuji, or mixed race groups of Japan, whose members include some of those whom the Japanese most despise and who face some of the more insidious forms of discrimination in Japan.

"The Centre of Magic" is the final in the three Floramunde books, beginning with "The Willow Tree's Daughter" which told of the love between King Max of Floramunde and Salixia, the dryad of the willow tree, their child Princess Betony and her romance with the gardener's boy Basil. In "Windrider" we learnt of the chance Betony was offered by the dragon Windrider to "put down roots" and become a dryad herself, and her friend's and family's efforts to bring her back into their world. Finally, in "The Centre of Magic" we are introduced to the wizard Colchis, who has been expelled from the Wizard's Guild in the next kingdom from Floramunde, and his search for power and revenge. Knowing that Floramunde is filled with Wild Magic rather than the less potent Human Magic, he crosses over in order to tap into its source and restrain it for himself.

To do so requires him to find the Centre of Magic in Floramunde - an ancient comet that crashed to the earth and became the founding of Floramunde's power. With this he adds two young dryad trees - mercilessly pulling them from their forest homes, and the power of necromancy to pull Wild Magic into his control. But the Centre of Magic is on the land of a farmer and his wife, and their children are quite curious as to what Colchis is getting up to - and so his experiment is interrupted at a crucial point, and the Wild Magic spills out over the land...

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of the palace are well aware of some of the mischief that Colchis has been up to. With the ability to hear and speak to the wind Betony, Salixia and their fairy godmother-and-gardener Rosie know that two dryads have been pulled from the soil and that trouble is brewing. Betony and her husband Basil set off to search for the uprooted trees, followed by Rosie's assistant Jo who has her own aspirations to conquer her fear and display heroics. But with the unleashing of Wild Magic upon the earth, there are some very unexpected side effects occuring - people are transforming into their true selves, whether it be a weasel, a centaur, a cat or a griffin. And most seem to be enjoying it - so what should the final decision of the three adventurers be? To reverse the magic, or to let people remain as they are? Perhaps Jo has the answer...

I will always be thankful I picked up "The Willow Tree's Daughter" at the library, as it swiftly became a favourite of mine with its clear, inventive stories, comic moments, and its ability to make astonishingly profound comments for what is considered 'children's books'. This trend continued into 'Windrider', but unfortunatly, though I still enjoyed it, I did not quite think 'The Centre of Magic' lived up to the first two books. Some characters did not appear as much as they did previously, such as Windrider, Ralph and Cassandra, and Clover did not appear at all! Furthermore, since the story was told from the point of view of Jo rather than Betony, the story seemed to be taking a different direction than normal.

However, the 'Floramunde' books are a rare treasure, and also they are not as sophisticated as Harry Potter, I loved their whimsey and the deep meanings to be found under the simplicity. Please, please, do yourself a favour and track these books down.

The Clinton Presidency, the first term is a must for one who want to know about Clinton and his administration. Clinton administration was the first post Cold War President that facing many new domestic and international issues. However, Herrnson and Hill were able to explain it in a very simple way with many deep information.

I have owned - and read - this book for many years. For anyone who has had an interest in delving in to the world of theatre which is on the very edge of discovery, read this book. Take a group of ethnically diverse actors, a carpet, a pair of boots, a very rough idea and a collection of small African villages, some of whom have never encountered anyone from outside their own small community, and you have the perfect mix for rediscovering the true meaning of theatre. At one and the same time massively amusing and wonderfully inspiring, enter into the world and the mind of the 20th century's most creative forces - Peter Brook.

In the Sucevita Cloisters in Sucevita Romania a painted vault depicts a repeated rhomboid design in the shape of a pillar. Wooden funery columns in Loman Cemetery in Hunedoara, Transylvania, Romania also exhibit the rhomboidal design, albeit on a much more articulated, differentiated, and elaborate scale.

The Romanina artist, Constantin Brancusi brought the image of the rhomboid pillar to his wonderful sculpture the "Endless Column." For Brancusi, the rhomboid pillar was the embodiment of the "axis mundi", the world's axis, the tree of life, the pillar of the sky, the pivot of the universe. He once referred to these columns as stairways to heaven. Peoples all over the world have used the metaphysical pillar to link the earth and the sun, the source of all life.

The pillar image may not seem as fresh today as it did when arrived on the Paris art scene in the early 20th Century, but today, many art critics view the Romanian-born Parisian sculptor Brancusi as a major player in the Modern art movement. Along with Picasso, Brancusi introduced the notion of using traditional art forms in Western art--including 'totem' poles or sacred pillars, stone plinths, and other metaphysical carvings.

BRANCUSI was published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in conjunction with a major retrospective of his work. Brancusi apparently deplored analytic attempts to understand his art (he felt his works should simply be "enjoyed" i.e. the fill the viewer with joy). However, the book is filled with material designed to help the reader "understand" and to a great extent, I feel it accomplishes it's goal.

The layout includes photographs showing how Brancusi may have found inspiration for his many birds, heads, and other organic and metaphysical works, including his rhomboidal columns. For example, one series of photographs shows Brancusi's famous "Muse" series executed in marble, bronze, and other media, and includes possible sources of inspiration such as a photograph and self-portrait of Margit Pogany. The various "Muse" may have evolved from a semi-formal bust similar to those executed by more traditional artists to a fully evolved "essence" of "head" more akin to Modern art.

I recommend this book to anyone who desires a pictoral record of the artist at work as well as many flat representations of his wonderfully formed three-dimensional sculptures and carvings.

The Cornell's study will be considered an important and different view of the study of households in the Americas; specially in the Andean area. It's a new point of view of the marxist perspective; so distant to the mexican and latinamerican school.

Elena Lackova was born in the Northeastern region of Slovakia, a wild and ancient region settled long ago by Saxons and later, Hungarians. The Slovaks made up the peasantry and--as Lackova tells it--the Roma (Gypsies) were the underclass, at turns serving and being oppressed by every other social class/ethnic group. Lackova's voice is not as historical as it is personal and the book is not traditional history but rather oral history, historical events as lived by Lackova, her family and her settlement. The stories offer a series of impressions at turns shocking, humorous, joyful and sad. The reader can gleam a lot about Roma culture from Lackova's memories, about the struggles and setbacks but also the patience and humor of a much maligned people.

I spent the last two years in Peace Corps Slovakia and can best describe the situation of the 500,000 Slovak Roma as a kind of de facto apartheid. In Slovakia the "townships" are called settlements, and Lackova points out a fact scarcely recognized in modern Slovakia--that settlements were created in World War II through zoning laws inspired by the fascist-leaning Slovak government. Those familiar with South Africa will find other simularities, as well, including linguistic/educational oppression and routine police brutality.

Ilona Lackova's book bravely sheds light on a deep problem urgently demanding redress.