This wonderful book contains alphabetical and bibliographical entries for topics associated with Victorian England. WHile it truly does cover the broadest of ranges for various topics like Charles Dickens, Disraeli,and Peterloo, it omits various "secondary" figures like Forster and other less literary but nonetheless notable characters of the time. Over all, it is a great browsing book full of interesting data for the general reader. If it does not cover all it could have done then it does at least offer a wide number of bibliographical entries for additional reading.

Superbly, beautifully illustrated through truly exceptional watercolor paintings by M.P. Robertson, Meredith Hooper's The Endurance is the true story of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition across Antarctica. Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men fought their way through some of the most extreme conditions and hardships imaginable in a near legendary feat of exploration. This true tale of exploration, survival, and rescue will thrill young readers and is a very highly recommended addition to all school and community library collections.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The storyline is clever in its simplicity, and is thought provoking. It makes you understand Kevin's rash act, but also leads you to ponder the interplay of family relationships and responsiblities. The book seems to purposely end on an uncertain note, which again forces you to explore the ramifications of the situation in which the characters find themselves. It is as though the author is inviting you to put yourself in the characters' shoes, and explore what your own reactions would be. Plan on reading this book in one sitting, because the plot keeps pulling you along.

I have 1962 edition of this book. Although it does not contain many numerical examples,it is one of the key books in applied mechanics field.If you are interested in this field,I advice you to buy this book.

As the parent of a high school student who will be taking the SATs for the first time in March 2000, I acquired several different test-prep materials to help him prepare.

My son, who has a low tolerance for "boring" study guides, found this book to be the most useful, even though it was quite intensive and not a quick fix - not just as a preparation for the SAT but for his semester finals in English. He went out of his way to tell me this book was great. For the price, it's well worth it.

This book contained a wealth of information that is very difficult to find anywhere else. I truly enjoyed reading it, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys mythology or folklore. It was surprising to see how much information the author was able to accumulate into this little book. I read it straight through from the time I picked it up to the time I returned it to the library. All I have to say is, "wow."

This book (recently re-printed and updated in 1992) is an excellent supplement for both the world history student and teacher. Written by former high school histroy teachers, it contains nover one hundred stories that are fictional but based on accurate historical truth. Each story teaches a specific lesson in world history and contains introductory and postscript material to the stories as well. Perhaps its greatest strength is that the book contains stories that span from prehistoric man through today and covers many different cultures as well (not just western civilization cultures). The stories contain a remarkble and expansive range, such as: a debate between the benefits/drawbacks of hunting vs. farming between two ancient people in 8000 BC; an Indian mother arguing with her daughter about why she (a Brahman) cannot associate with children of the lower castes; a French husband and wife watching the fall of the Bastille in 1789. This reviewer has personally typed the stories fromt he book onto sheets and wrote questions on the back for my students to answer once they've read the stories. The lengths of the stories typically range from one-two pages in length. I heartily recommend this book for the history teacher who wishes to enhance and enrich their curriculum. Check out their second book for US history teachers called Enjoying American History.

The Enlightenment in America by Henry F. May is a serious work about how and why eighteenth-century enlightenment occured. This book works two main themes or ideas in early America. The enlightenment and protestantism, but this book goes deeper as enlightenment with protestantism always in the background as matrix, rival, ally, and of course enemy. This book is about Enlightenment as religion.

This book is divided into four sections: The Moderate Enlightenment, 1688-1787; The Skeptical Enlightenment, 1750-1789; The Revolutionary Enlightenment, 1776-1800; and The Didactic Enlightenment, 1800-1815. The author takes us through each of these time frames and gives the reader a basic comparitive analysis as to the times and events of the day. Politics, law, education, science and epistemology all are interplayed and are important in general discussion. To understand the political thought better we start with religion.

Men of the late eighteenth century, no matter what their calling, seldom thought about any branch of human affairs without referring consciously to some general beliefs about the nature of the universe and man's place in it. So, with this tome, enlightenment is itself basic.. to believe in two propostions: first, that the present age is more enlightened than the past; and second, that we understand nature and man best through the use of our natural faculties. We find that in the years that enlightenment and protestantism were either allies or rivals neither was simple or undivided.

This book brings into play ideas, ideas of Voltaire, Hume and Paine; Rousseau, Locke, Samuel Clarke, and Montesquieu all work toward the final outcome of the enlightenment that worked through to the Founding Fathers. Most of the Founding Fathers were deists, but perplexity of the American culture has always been deeply Calvinistic.

Your brain will get a workout reading this book, as this is the most comprehensive survey of enlightenment as it relates to the eighteenth-century America. When reading about the Founding Fathers and their lives and times, reading this book about the history of ideas will put things into perspective.

The ongoing detection of the mysterious author of the huge erotic classic _My Secret Life_ has advanced a step further (although the sources of information are only slightly better) by Ian Gibson, in _The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee_ (Da Capo Press). Ashbee had a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence as a successful London businessman, travel writer, and paterfamilias. He also tended his huge collection of pornography. It was so large a collection that he rented rooms in Gray's Inn especially to contain it (and perhaps to keep it from being a family concern). Ashbee was no supporter of the suffragettes, but he liked the idea that women took pleasure in sex and could actively participate in it, ideas that were unfashionable or obscene at the time. In his own writing, Ashbee railed that "the English nation possesses an ultra-squeamishness and hyper-prudery peculiar to itself." He was furious that missionaries were trying to intrude this morality into societies where sexuality was more open.

It is clear that Ashbee's books ridicule these notions, even when Ashbee made it seem that he was supporting them. He is the author of three books, magnificently produced private editions cataloging his own books and those he was interested in. The titles give away his game: _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ ("Index of Books Worthy of Being Prohibited," mocking the Vatican's own catalogue, 1877), _Centuria Librorum Absconditorum_ ("A Hundred Books Worthy of Being Hidden Away," 1879) and _Catena Librorum Tacendorum_ ("String of Books Worthy of Being Silenced," 1885). Ashbee produced his volumes under his scatological penname Pisanus Fraxi; he seems to have enjoyed rebuses of his name, and Pisanus Fraxi is an anagram of the Latin words for "ash" and "bee."

When it is known that Gibson has produced this biography after being allowed the first glance at Ashbee's diary, one might expect that there would be many personal revelations. Sadly, with some exceptions which Gibson quotes, the diary is discontinuous, and mostly dull. Ashbee was too busy reading and buying books to spend much time on a diary. If Gibson is to be believed, he spent a good deal of time writing _My Secret Life_, too. The final third of _The Erotomaniac_ is an amusing list of correspondences of style, phraseology, and philosophy between the writings of Pisanus Fraxi and those of the "Walter" who wrote _My Secret Life_. Gibson allows that someday electronic scansion of the texts may make the identification more positive (and perhaps someone will pay literary sleuth Don Foster, of _Author Unknown_, to take the case). To me, the most compelling evidence is that Ashbee's volumes all have an obsessively inclusive index, just as "Walter's" book hilariously does. Under the gerund form of the most shocking verb in English, Walter has seven columns of entries, including: in masks / wheelbarrow fashion / modesty hinders complete pleasure / is the great humanizer / in a grotto / in cabs / in a church / in a calf shed / in a cow shed / against trees. On and on the list goes, a tribute to someone obsessed with sex, with lists, and with compilations. As Gibson says, if Ashbee didn't write it, who on Earth did? Gibson's own book, meticulously researched and genially entertaining, has just about as much of Ashbee as we will ever know, as well as genuine insights into Victorian times and morals.

This "essay" is a tour d'force of the force of the power of inferential versus deductive reasoning. This is an unique aposteriori argument for the existence of God, but unfolds an argument in a manner wholly different from the past, such as Aquinas, for example. Newman is a very persuasive author, who uses his evidence judiciously and validly. People of faith will find this exposition worth the perspective.

But, this book can stand on its own as a superlative example of brilliant exposition, using Newman's usually elegant style, and enjoying a journey that seems unlikely from its impetus. The first chapter is particularly difficult, but after that, the reading is engaging and remarkable.