I have never seen such beautiful slides of the Southwest. If you have never seen the Southwest this books brings to life the true beauty of this enchanted land to life. I highly recommend it.

This is a great book for collectors of Scientific Instruments.
In the back of the book it has all famous makers names alphabetically listed and the dates they manufactured items and what they manufactured from the 1400's to 1800's.This book has World Globes,Telescopes,Navigational Instruments,Land Surveying instruments,Microscopes,Sundial's,Compass's and many more items.
It has great color and Black and white photo's throughout the book also.The Index to makers in the back of the book alone makes the book worth buying to the collector of these types of instruments.The book gives history on all of the item's it shows throughout the book. It has 320 pages and published by one of the largest antique auction houses in the world.

To the publisher I would appreciate it if the publisher could produce an audio adaptation of this book. I would love to listen to this while I drive to work and to let my 16 month old son listen to it as a bedtime story. Arnold D Veness

I read this book for a report, and I have to write a persuasive letter to a movie producer. I dont think it will be hard at all with this great book. It's different and I've never read a book quite like this. It's very descriptive,and I could picture everything. Read this book and you won't be dissapointed!

Gordon Turner has written a worthy tribute to Canadian Pacific's flagship RMS Empress of Britain of 1931. This splendid looking vessel was the first large liner built for both crossing and cruising and the author has done an excellent job of telling the ship's story from inception to construction and then a year to year account of her world-girding cruises and Atlantic crossings (from Quebec to Southampton) and her glamourous passengers. The book is extremely attractive with superb photographs, many never published before. The illustrations of the ship's magnificent public rooms are of special interest. Fascinating appendices give all of the ship's technical details. The saddest part of the book, of course, is the complete account of her tragic loss during the early days of the Second World War when she was bombed by the Luftwaffe. Empress of Britain was the largest Allied merchantman sunk the war. The likes of her will never be seen again and Mr. Turner is to be congratulated for telling her story with such affection and attention.

Charles Coulter had a passion for the Gods. For 10 years, he collected books, magazines, reference material and devoured all the information about the dieties of the ancient worlds.

Coulter painstakingly cataloged and cross-referenced every bit of information about the Gods. Many times, he would find stories and references about Gods under a variety of names - but he was able to identify them as the same diety. So, often, you'll be able to see if your favorite mythical god had counterparts in other cultures and other lands.

This really was the work of a lifetime. When he finished the book and selected the art for the cover, Chuck decided that he was too ill to go on. And he went to join the Gods.

The book was published two years after his death.

What a great place to start exploring the foundation of today's cultures, societies and frames of reference.

Oh yes, along the way, Chuck's sense of humor being irrepressible, he wrote a total spoof about the romping of the gods in modern-day Greece - if you want to laugh out loud while you're reading, pick up a copy of 'Ponce's Fountain" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1569015074/ (and NO, it is not totally out of print. His wife still has about 100 copies, plus about 30 that were autographed before Chuck died.)

Of the four textbooks on the subject I've been through, this one scores the best credit. Within ecological economics there are two schools of thought. One is basically environmentalist in the sense that views the causes of environmental degradation, as being the economic system AS SUCH. Herman Daly is propably the most wellknown representant of this school. The other school deals with environmental problems as being a 'problem of getting the prices right'. This book is mostly concerned with the latter approach. Several aspects of this book ranks it above average. These are: 1) Although the book primarily deals with the market-approach, it actually covers all aspects of environmentalism, ranging from standard economics to deep ecology, treating each of the in a sober manner, 2) the book is very goos at pinpointing the problematic aspects of different theories, 3) The conclusions are supported by empirical evidence, presented in a readable and realevant manner 4) it really covers the breadth of the field, leaving you with a great overview of the topics you can specialize in, 5) it avoids some of the most common misunderstandings of the field, e.g. by specificly stating the difference between non-property resources and common property resources. All In all: It is a very recommendable book for those who are about to be introduced to the field of ecological economics.

In _The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures_ (Harvard University Press), J. Scott Turner gives plenty of surprising examples to show that animals indeed use the environment outside in ways that would qualify the outside as part of their physiology. He intends us to take a broader view that organisms are not just tangible things wrapped up in skin or chitin or scales. An organism is, instead, an ephemeral collection of organized matter and energy. An organism is busy all its life influencing the flow of matter and energy through itself, but also through the environment. He argues that the reductionism of molecular and evolutionary biology may give way to a more holistic view, and winds up with the controversial idea of Gaia, the hypothesis that earth can be viewed as a single living organism. He says he doesn't want to air the arguments pro and con of this idea, but if organisms modify their environments into becoming part of their physiology, then it is not much of a step to saying that the Earth has a physiology of its own.

Perhaps. Turner's book is well argued and full of good ideas, and it may presage a neo-holism. Whether it accomplishes that, though, is less important than what it does manage to do. Turner is astonishingly encyclopedic in his explanations of his many surprising examples of out-of-body physiology. He draws upon thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, chemistry, electrical circuits, fractals, acoustics, and much more to put his audacious ideas onto a sound scientific foundation. This does not make for easy reading, but he is a genial guide and he tries his best to explain complicated ideas simply; the book is not for those, however, who can't stand equations mixed with the text. The best parts of the book are the examples of animals that have as good as made their surroundings part of their innards. There are lots of examples. In addition to the beetles that grab a bubble of air to use as scuba gear, there are beetles that not only do that, but if there is a current moving over them, their hydrodynamic form causes a suction, so that if they face into the current (which they of course habitually do), a bubble forms, pulled out of the water itself. They make this their gills, and they never have to go to the surface. Spittlebugs make a frothy white spittle attached to plants. The spittle isn't spittle, of course, but a froth of sap from the plant, processed by the digestive tract, excreted, and inflated with bubbles. Turner makes the case that since the bugs have a diet of protein-rich sap, they have a lot of ammonia as a waste product, and they cannot detoxify it as other animals do. The spittle enables the ammonia to be carried away; in other words, it functions as an exterior kidney. Earthworms, Turner shows, are fundamentally aquatic animals that only manage to get around when the water content of soils is perfectly balanced for them. (Turner reminds us that Darwin got enormous satisfaction for his last great work concerning earthworms and what they do to soils; before Darwin, earthworms were regarded as pests which ate plant roots.) The burrowing activities of the earthworm actually make the soil itself more favorable to the narrow needs of their own survival, and they use the soil as an organ to maintain a proper salt and water balance inside them.

There are many examples even before Turner gets to bees and to termites, which are his own particular enthusiasm and which use their homes to regulate temperature, oxygen content, and more. It is inarguable that these creatures really do shape their environment, and in ways that are not obvious. With clarity, humor, and a broad scientific understanding, Turner has done much to advance an argument to his holistic view.

This short magical book, with 30 intmate photographs, does a great service to all who may have wished they had known Mrs. Roosevelt(The "Mrs.R" of the title). The author, William Turner Levy, reveals, in the affectionate telling of his longstanding friendship with Mrs. R, very touching and human dimensions to the already very detailed and historic portrait of Mrs. Roosevelt. It is through his enchanting and loving memoir, told through short delightful anadotes, that I gained new insights and perspectives into the private life and personality of Mrs. R. Indeed, not only did I gain nuance, I gained a strong emotional sense of who this woman really was. The excellent comments incorporated throughout the book of Cynthia Eagle Russet, a professor of history at Yale University, provided valuable historical and contextual insight into the significance of the role of Mrs. Roosevelt in shaping history and politics. I highly recommend this charming book to all those interested in Mrs. R and a part of American history coming alive in new and fascinating ways.

In "Faith Ringgold," author Robyn Montana Turner has assembled a superb introduction to the artist for whom the book is named. Turner combines a well-written biography of Ringgold with a wealth of photographs from all phases of the artist's life, full-color reproductions of many of her classic creations, and other interesting materials.

An African-American artist who blends African, African-American, and European themes and techniques in her work, Ringgold is a fascinating multicultural creator. This book gives the reader a good sense of the journey she has taken towards her comprehensive artistic vision. It is fascinating, for example, to see a reproduction of da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" together with Ringgold's mixed-media portrayal of African-American children dancing in front of "Mona Lisa" at the Louvre museum in France. Turner's "Faith Ringgold" is a visually stunning book which just may inspire a few artists of the next generation.