This book is actually an unfinished novel Wilson started to write but put aside before it was published. It contains many ideas that will not surprise people who are familiar with Wilson's literary criticism, particularly his distrust of popular culture. The book is best when it deals with a character that is clearly based on Dorothy Parker, who Wilson knew and liked. It gave me insights to Parker's personality that were fascinating. Even though parts of this book are sketchy and were clearly meant to be expanded, by the end I was caught up in the narrative and found this volume ultimately quite involving. For anyone interested in peek at Jazz age life New York this book is well worth reading.

This is a very readable book dealing with Husserl's quest for certitude, which made him arrive at phenomenology. The author's insights and explanations are helpful and clear. The fact that the book is fairly brief and that the author writes in a smooth style makes it an easy read.

The book is neatly divided into three parts, "The Ends," "The Means," and "The Achievements." Though I do not agree with everything the author writes, many points are well-taken and help to clarify WHY Husserl engaged in phenomenology, HOW so, and what it all resulted in (and FAILED to result in).

Myself being a critic of Husserl's phenomenological method and its supposed achievements, I very much welcomed Kolakowski's own critical comments towards the end. No doubt, Husserl's search for absolute certainty failed, and it had to, despite his reductions and what he termed "transcendental consciousness." This book makes a nice addition to the library of anyone seriously interested in Husserl's thought or simply the beginning of the phenomenological movement.

This is the first book I read on hypnosis, but not the last. I have had friends very effectively hypnotized by stage hypnotists in the past and recognize it's validity but have always wondered about the effect. Reading this book has made me wonder about the nature of human personality and consciousness. Sounds a bit heavy and it is. The book contains many compelling accounts of strange but not outlandish psychic phenomena that I would truly like to have verified by other sources. I have yet to read other reviews of the authors methods.

The authour does provide verification via a criminal court case in France of a hypnotized subject performing criminal acts as well as other histories that are verified by other sources as well making for believeable reading.

Andros has always had a bit of controversy, if only because he appears as the great symbol of British imperialism in the northern North American colonies. At the same time as he appears as an unabashed imperialist, carrying out the mission for the last of the Stuarts, it is also easy to see Andros as in a role of attempting to create a large enough nation or colonial enterprise that in some respects, like Benjamin Franklin and the Iroquois Confederation, he presages the eventual Federal republic. This particular book is an interesting read. Its only flaw is its bias in favor of all political happenings being instigated in the mother country. Local politics seemingly plays a lesser role. The work makes it clear that there was still a large and powerful Dutch presence in the community, which was relatively willing to go along with British policy. The best thing about this book is that it is wonderfully readable, the kind of academic text you can kick back with a six pack and some good music on a CD player, and in a few hours actually read the book, as long as you don't get off on the footnotes. We need more academic history that is readable and less pretentious, postmodern or structural nonsense. This book makes me want to go back and read the writer's previous efforts. Lustig does for New York and Andros what Morton did for Vienna and Viennese society.

well this is obviously a book with a lot of content on Husserl and is based on scrupulous scholarship..but also maybe too ambitious for an introduction..the references to Husserl's works contain those works that are little known to the general reader or actually the student of philosophy.. such ambitious study of Husserl'as nachlass is naturally praiseworthy, but it can be confusing and overcomplicating rather than illuminating for those only familiar (hopefully) with some major works of Husserl available in English. Better read for advanced researcher than the average reader of Husserl.

Edmund Fuller does an excellent job explaining the life of John Milton. John Milton is a famous author that lived in England during his life span from 1608 to 1674. Milton led a very interesting life ranging from his suspensions from Cambridge to his role in the English Civil War. John Milton is most known for his book, "Paradise Lost." This book explains the fall of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.
Edmund Fuller does an excellent job in portraying the thoughts of John Milton. The reader understands the excitement and anticipation as Milton waits in the lobby to see Galileo Galilei. The reader also experiences sadness when Milton can not win the heart of a singer from Italy.
The only complaint I have about this book is that Fuller does not tell often enough when an event happens in Milton's life. This leaves the reader often to guess the year in which an event happened. Other than that, Edmund Fuller does an excellent job explaining the life of John Milton.

As an attorney with a keen interest in the area, and both a practice and academic interest in the same, I was very pleased with the book. Mr. Kwaw provides an excellent overview of the structures, methodologies and other important information in the subject matter. I especially enjoyed the chapter on Eurosecurities financing. My only gripe with the book is (and I do find this annoying) is the misnomer title. Although the book is titled "... Offshore Banking & Finance", perhaps a more appropriate title would have been "... Eurocurrency Banking & Finance". Though this may seem like a minor quibble, the practical implications are quite important, as offshore banking and related activies are not necessarily structured in euro-currency, and this book deals exclusively with aspects of the eurocurrency market. Still, an excellent book. Recommended.

this book keyed on most of the points in kenpo karate...if you have the time to wait for the book it is a perfect buy for any martial arts fanatic

In spite of all their fervor, I have come to regard reading the Romantic poets as something akin to slogging through the great mystics. You have to keep going on--no matter how the author drones through fifty pages of needless verbosity--you will, in the end, find the jewel that you had hoped to discover in picking up the book. Such is the case with the letters of Thomas Lovell Beddoes.

Though one jewel (a description of Shakespeare) comes early--

"'A star' you call him. If he was a star, all the other stage scribblers can hardly be considered a constellation of brass buttons."

--others are buried deep within. Yet with Beddoes, the mining is half the fun. Try staying awake, much less interested in the prose works of certain other Romantics.

Thomas Beddoes was a rather death-obsessed author who unfortunately never figured out that it only takes one point of light to dispel the deepest darkness. Yet for all that, I find a very human persona that is not the least bit inaccessible in his letters. In fact he is, to me at least, very engaging.

Do yourself a favor: pick up a copy of Beddoes' letters and make the acquaintance of this wonderful and tragic man.

Basically, a well annotated primary source, the book: 'LOG OF THE UNION: John Boit's Remarkable Voyage to the Northwest Coast and Around the World 1794-1796' (c.1981) edited by Edmund Hayes; is the sloop's log of a two year circumnavigation by a nineteen year old sea captain during the initial stages of the American republic just after the revolutionary war. The UNION was a 65' 5", 94 ton topsail sloop with a crew of 22, heavily armed with cannon, and was fitted out in Newport, RI for a two year voyage to the fur trade in the Pacific northwest, then to the tea & porcelan market in Canton China, and a return trip to Boston. The development of the maritime fur trade along the northwest coast was one of many incentives for that coast's early exploration in the late 1790s.

Primarily of interest to the scholar, the LOG OF THE UNION contained no lessons or instruction in ship handling or navigation, but a word-for-word transcription of a fascinating account of a topsail sloop's journey around the globe. The LOG OF THE UNION is of special interest because it documented the first American sloop to sail around the world; and described, in meticulous detail, an extended sea voyage that was undertaken just before then president George Washington signed the naval act of March 1794 which authorized the construction of America's six original frigates (the USS CONSTITUTION; USS CONSTELLATION; USS UNITED STATES; USS CHESAPEAKE; USS CONGRESS; and the USS PRESIDENT).

The age of captain Boit was not particularly noteworthy in an era where the average lifespan was just twenty-four years old; a nineteen year old merchant sea captain would not have been unusual. British subjects became midshipmen in Her Majesty's Navy at age ten, then became lieutenants at age sixteen. Lord Nelson at age twenty-four was a full captain (equivalent to an Army colonel) of a fifth rate frigate.

The LOG OF THE UNION documented the typical sailing strategy employed by 18th century sea captains in capturing all the prevailing winds, seasons, and ocean currents during the age of sail. To get to the Pacific northwest, the sloop UNION left Newport in January 1794; sailed across the Atlantic to the Canary Islands; down the coast of Africa to the Cape Verde Islands, then crossed the Atlantic again; sailed down the South American coast to the Falkland Islands. The sloop UNION made the bumpy passage around Cape Horn and steered north to reach the Pacific northwest and then landed on Vancouver Island. After completing her trading business in 1795, she steered for the Hawaiian Islands from the Vancouver Islands. From Hawaii the UNION sailed to Canton China to sell its furs (150 sea otter; 300 beaver; and other land furs), pick up a consignment of tea and porcelan, and to recondition the ship for the trip to Boston, Massachusetts. She departed Canton for Boston in January 1796, down the China sea; through the Strait of Sunda, past the 18th Parallel; south in the Indian Ocean; then sailed directly west to take advantage of the south east trades and the south equatorial current. Upon leaving Mauritius, she passed south of Madagascar, around the Cape of Good Hope; up the west coast of Africa, until she entered the northeast trades which pushed her across the Atlantic to Boston.

Of special note are all the detailed drawings by artist Hewitt Jackson showing the UNION, stern to, with her sweeps extended, and all of the sail plans and points of sail of captain Boit's ninety four ton topsail sloop. Hewitt Jackson recorded all of the structures and details of the UNION's ground tackle, armament, storage capabilities, long boat, various cross sections of the hull, and of crewman (the 'people') engaged in various duties as briefly described in the captain's log.

Not only do the excellent drawings by Hewitt Jackson enhance the LOG OF THE UNION, but more importantly are the photostatic copies of the actual pages of the log itself. Captain John Boit had a fine 'round' hand and kept an impeccable record of the two year voyage in copperplate penmanship. The traditional 1794 era handwriting itself would make the LOG OF THE UNION a valuable historical artifact let alone its informational content. There are also copies of John Boit's hand drawn charts of the Falkland Islands complete with soundings.

To add to the scholarly interest, the editor, Edmund Hayes, saw fit to explain the 18th century grammar found in the log. Throughout the journal is found captain John Boit's use of the familiar 'ye': e.g. log entry Nov. 2nd 1795: "Caulker on ye main-deck.", which is actually a contracted form of 'the' and it is pronounced the same. And 'ye' is an ancient runic letter (known as 'thorn') which designated the 'th' sound in English. (Only the Quakers in America have been known to pronounce 'ye' as 'yee'.)

The editor included interesting incidental information in subsequent chapters such as the method of keeping the log at sea (p. 135) or the short comings of the 18th century use of tangential arcs when ship builing (p. 129). Similar to other ship journals, the brevity of the UNION log entries is typical of the seagoing profession (where the less said, the better) and captain John Boit's two longest journal entries for the entire voyage are found in photostat on page seventy-one.

After the completion of his successful two year voyage in 1796, John Boit was still a sea captain when he passed away in 1829. The LOG OF THE UNION is a fascinating account of life at sea during the initial inception of the young American republic. The captain of the sloop UNION, who completed the commercially successful two year trip without a single loss of life, is generally regarded by historians to be one of the outstanding sea captians produced by the early republic and his log is mute testimony to that talent.

The LOG OF THE UNION is a brilliant document which should be read by both scholar and practical sailor alike. Its only shortcoming is that the editor, Edmund Hayes, should have included much more photostatic copies of the original sloop's log alongside the transcription for readers to learn and compare from captain John Boit's own handwriting itself.