My son really enjoyed this book. Not only does it have a story that keeps a 7 year olds attention, but it also teaches a lesson. It teaches children not to "jump to conclusions" without knowing all the facts. We really enjoyed it and I would recommend it to everyone with children.

Marchand and Postman do an excellent job with this biography on an unusual media prophet/quack. Reading about McLuhan's childhood, education, and work helped explain a lot about the man and his ideas. The book reads very well, and puts a lot of his ideas in a context that makes them easier to understand. If you're just starting to study McLuhan, this book is a great starting point. Also check out "McLuhan for Beginners" for a very quick and fun overview.

Foundations of the (brief) American Century

The Marshall Plan, By Charles L. Mee, Jr., Simon & Schuster Inc., 1984. Mee's masterful book uses the Marshall Plan as window into not just the economic and political reconstruction of Europe after World War 2, but also into the ideological and diplomatic creation of a bipolar world called "containment" and Cold War. Along the way, he tells us something of the people who engineered this process, and of the maneuverings they undertook to shape it. European economic recovery and social reconstruction were not spontaneous or pre-determined. Solutions to the economic destruction of Europe had to be found in a political environment of domestic instabilities and international disagreements on questions like the place of Germany, the role of the Americans, and the relationship between Europe East and West. The Americans came to see that the best way to overcome Western European bickering was to unite those count! ries against a common Soviet foe, smoothing over the worst inter-European disagreements by orchestrating economic recovery as a political emergency requiring American leadership. This book is really a study of America's coming of age as the leading political and economic power in the world, made manifest by the insertion of the United States into the heart of European economy and "security." The Cold War was the ideological and diplomatic pavement over which American capital, ideas, and guns were made to dominate the "free" (market) world. Mee sets the scene for this pax Americana with an exposition of Kennan's "Long Telegraph" and "sources of Soviet Conduct" paper. Kennan proved to be a brilliant ideologist for the American ruling class, pointing out real weaknesses in the Stalinist system in a way that dismissed a strawman Marxism while inspiring American feelings of moral superiority and political emergency. Ignoring the Stalinis! ts' liquidation of the original Bolsheviks, Kennan turned t! he international class struggle described by Marx and Lenin into a conflict between American morals and freedom against a neurotic Russian insecurity and fanatical subversion campaign. Mee doesn't critique Kennan as I have, but he rightly places the Marshall Plan into the larger policy of "containment," which really called for "the containment of Russian expansionism, for rebuilding and containing Germany at the same time, for rebuilding and containing France and England, for rebuilding and containing a whole new array of economic relationships in such a way that the United States could exercise influence over them all.... As an extra, but by no means negligible, bonus, the policy would also --by bringing economic and political stability to Europe and saving the governments there from a crisis of confidence or collapse-- keep in power those classes that had traditionally ruled on the Continent and with whom Americans had become accustomed to doing business.&quo! t; (p.92) The Marshall Plan itself was cleverly presented as a generous aid plan open to the Russians and East Europeans as much as to the West, but constructed to ensure their refusal of participation. Mee quotes Kennan on one of the prices of Soviet participation, which "would have been cooperation in overcoming real barriers in East-West trade," which Mee then says "would have meant subjecting themselves to the influence of a more powerful, American economy." (p. 136) Eastern Europe was essential to Russian recovery, argues Mee, because the United States had blocked the two preferable Russian options: an American loan or reparations from Germany --"so the third Russian alternative came into play --the industrial output of Eastern Europe. Czechoslovak and Polish output is being integrated into with the Soviet economy." (p. 137, Mee is quoting from Spectator magazine.) The execution of the plan itself is given only one chapter. The most! important and immediate effects were psychological, combin! ing a feeling of hope with an insinuation of the saving powers of friendship with America. Europe was overrun by American capital and experts, who came to displace European leftists in the battle for Europe's future. The Marshall Plan was "swallowed up" (Kennan's words) by the Korean War, which meant that "soon, 80 percent of American aid to Europe went for defense." (p. 260) But by then the Marshall Plan had a new sister, the NATO alliance created in April 1949. The postwar world had crystallized into an American world: "And where the Truman Doctrine had failed, the Marshall Plan and NATO succeeded: America broke out of its historic, self-imposed isolation in the Western Hemisphere and engaged the rest of the world --economically, politically, and militarily-- as a global power." (p.261) --Reviewed by Will Wilkin

I found the book very informative. Much of it is very common sense. Dr. Marshall is right when he said, "Thin people never has an obsession with food." They know that food is fuel. Thin people are very selective in their food choices. If they are craving an ice cream cone, then a milk shake is not what they are going to order. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to end their weight problem once and for all.

The students who enter the field of economics, or any other social science disciplines that employ mathematical models in explaining the world around us, may start being suspicious about the explanation power of these models at some point. How could the messy and complex issues be reduced to ONE simple model?

Sutton's book is a very nice piece of work that would help resolve tthis puzzle. Start with the STANDARD PARADIGM commonly used in modeling complex issues in social sciences, particularly in economics, Sutton pins down the limitations of these paradigm in a very easy understanding yet profound way. The next chapter starts some models that work, from a game theoretical perspective. Chapter 3, however, emphasizes the difficulties of constructing a complete model. Finally, the last chapter provides a vivid example of Sutton's argument regarding the pitfalls of modeling and its application in real life.

This nice little book is by far the best I have read in terms of explaining why social sciences are so messy, even with the introduction of nice, elegant mathematical models. It is hard to find "black-and-write" answers in social science, indeed. However, bearing in mind the importance and limitation of using mathematical models would help social scientists face the and frustration in a constructive way.

I checked this book out of the library and was so impressed I am asking Amazon.com to find me a copy (it is out of print). It presents Marshall's strengths and weaknesses and those of Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, De Gaulle, Truman, MacArthur and many other powerful people from 1914 through 1959. Five stars!!! I am now going to read as many other of this author's books as I can find.

I enjoyed this book very much. It is about a young female duck, that is a telephone operator. A lot of people know her and she is almost famous. One day while manning the phones, and stating the time, she heard a cry of help. She went everywhere trying to figure out who it was because she really wanted to help. When it all came down to it all it was, was a little kid playing with her doll on the phone. Her doll was saying, "Help, help."
I would recommend this to people because it shows how much people care for little things like someone saying help. Mary Alice was a very good duck and more people should be like her. This would be a very good book for little kids that like to read funny stories.

As an early elementary school teacher, I read a lot of children's books. Mary Alice is one of my all-time favorites. She is a very efficient telephone operator who tells people the time. "At the tone, the time will be 1 o'clock exactly. Quack". (Did I mention, she's a duck?) Mary Alice catches a cold so Boss Chicken insists that she go home to take care of herself. Her boss tries to assure her the position could easily be filled by someone, but Mary Alice is hurt by the remarks and frets over someone permanently replacing her. Boss Chicken interviews and hires a series of different operators, who, for various reasons, don't fit the bill (no pun intended). The snake hisses and scares the customers, the dog can't tell time, an armandillo has trouble seeing the clock, and the beaver is so eager that she can't wait for people to call her so SHE calls them. In the end, Boss Chicken fully understands the difficulty of the job and appreciates Mary Alice.
The story and the pictures are wonderfully funny. I especially love the picture of Mary Alice wearing her pink bunny slippers.
What makes this story even better is that it lends itself to dramatic storytelling. I use different voices for the various characters in the story.
My kids and I thoroughly enjoy Mary Alice Operator Number 9 and I know you will, too.

Originally published in 1951, The Mechanical Bride: Folklore Of Industrial Man by the influential philosopher and cultural observer Marshall McLuhan is a thoughtful and thought-provoking treatise that seeks to unveil the subtle and sometimes venomous effects of media and modern mass communication. Thoughtful, sometimes philosophical, sometimes prediction with deadpan seriousness, The Mechanical Bride is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago and highly recommended reading for students of Mass Communications and Journalism, Contemporary American Sociology, and Modern Philosophy.

If you are reading this review, you are doing exactly what Marshall feared most and predicted back in 1969 when laying his thoughts, joys and fears of electronic media and the de-evolution of arts and humanities. Yes HUMAN-ities are soon to be completely erased from whatever fast food culture is left in 2000 and beyond. Humans slowly have evolved over time from human beings to Humans doing. And Marshall McLuhan was an early genius well aware of the dangers of our lust for quick and immediate gratification and results from all life's pleasures, lessons, fate and present moment circumstances. Unfortunately our insane need for convenience (as McLuhan predicted) will further class struggle, unemployment, depression, progress to a "un-culture" with limited & empty human expression, creativity, emotion & feeling. .We think the internet would be the next doorway to Utopia? Wrong! As Marshall points out throughout this beautifull, yet dangerously close to g! od-like premenions this e-culture will erase physical interaction & contact to family, friends, and ultimately ourselves. We will be transscribed and altered by our 100% adaptation, manipulation and masterbation of the electrons McDonalds! McAmazon! McArt! McPeople! McNothing! McGoodbye! McAbsolute clear and correct predictions and thoughts fill the pages of Mechanical Bride regarding YOU, right here, right NOW! McLuhan!, baby. Buy it online today (while you still can!) This book will strengthen your coffee shop banter while the painted canvas, beat poet, and free form jazz players are gasp for life. I think Marshall would agree that Bill Gates should be respected and consulted ASAP on how to FIX this impeding doom, similar to Andrew Carnagie way back when his workers cried for freedom. (We don't know that were slaves yet) How strange that our culture's intellectual ellites throw crass judgement upon a Gates & his world we all celebrate and beneifit from (again right! here, right now) Marhsall McLuhan knew that this would ha! ppen. He just did not know his name would be Bill. Amazon indie bookstore killers, romans and countrymen lend me your modem! buy this book NOW.