A couple of months ago I began a new career as an economist for the USDA-AMS Dairy Programs. Although I have a master's degree in economics, I had no specific knowledge of the dairy industry. One of my colleagues recommended this book. Reading it helped me to quickly gain basic knowledge of pricing and marketing in the dairy industry.

This little book is an excellent introductory text to the changing economic policies applied in Britain in the 1980s and which exemplified the changing policies which came to be applied throughout the world.

Two of the authors, Brian Snowdon and Peter Wynarczyk, developed some of the ideas contained herein in more advanced texts also available through Amazon.

Markets, Intervention and Planning is set in the context of the decline of economic liberalism being supplanted by the Keynesian revolution which itself was overwhelmed by the monetarist counter-revolution. The authors, all members of the economics faculty of Newcastle Polytechnic (now the University of Northumbria at Newcastle) offer differing approaches to the central problem of the extent to which government should be involved in the economy. Writing this review in 2002, one cannot help but ask the further question of how does one define government and it's limits but I digress.

There is a considerable degree of variety in this book, described as a reader not a textbook, variety of perspective, variety of rigour, a variety of styles but for me the variety itself is one of the strengths of the book and it's attractions. Economics is a discipline which is hard to pin down. There are many competing schools of thought and no right answers yet despite it's pretence at being a science. This book should alert people to the fact that there are considerable differences within the subject and those differences should be valued.

Some highlights of the book for me are the two chapters by Roper and Snowdon for their succint and balanced overview and incisive concluding remarks, the Snowdon chapter on the changing fortunes of macroeconomics and Wynarczyk's considered exploration of the feasibilty of a pure market system. There are many good points to this book and all the authors are to be commended for their clarity of thought and comprehensible exposition.

There are very few economics departments who could work together in such a fashion to produce a volume of such a high standard as this. It seems however, that there were no others produced by this particular group.

This book is a useful starting point for anyone interested in tracing developments in economic policy in the UK during the 1980s. Whilst it is not necessarily a rigorous text, it certainly points up many of the issues and raises many questions which the serious student can pursue elsewhere.

I've never been to Berlin but with the colourful description and athmosphere of Marlene Dietrich lived here I feel like I have. The story tells mainly of the brothers, Erich and Max, who try to come to terms with life both in their own way. They struggle to set the past so the present if not the future will be more endurable. The view of Berlin is exceptional and the characters refreshing, European and very believable. They are modern in a way that I have rarely seen before and the story leaves you short of breath and longing for more. It's a story of love, betrayal, a story from the past and of the future but mostly in the presence. A story about two brothers who need to come to terms with themselves and each other.

I warmly recommend this unique story.

fun images; high-end computer-generated graphics

nice simple story for the 7-8 year old who "doesn't like to read" and, yet, jammed through this book. I'm buying more of them, since the focus is getting boooks they like to read.

any younger-reader kid who likes rockets, space, etc., will like this.

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.

To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Mickey Takes a Bow was one of her picks.

Mickey is the youngest child in a family of trapeze artists who perform with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Unlike his siblings, he finds physical things hard to do. He was slow to walk, tends to be clumsy, and is afraid of heights. When he Mother encouraged him to be in the act by carrying the family's banner, disaster follows! His costume is too large, and he falls down. What makes it worse is that people laugh at him. Poor Mickey is miserable.

But Mickey has a good quality -- he likes to help people. Jody, the chimpanzee trainer, also points out that he's good at making people laugh. And making people laugh makes them feel better. Mickey points out that it doesn't make him feel any better.

Pretty soon the lion tamer is having trouble getting the lion to perform. The lion had a tooth pulled and is in a bad mood. Mickey did imitations of other animals for the lion, and pretty soon the lion was grinning. Boris, the lion tamer, complimented him as "brilliant." Then he found his friend, Molly, crying because her ostrich wouldn't take its head out of the sand. Mickey gently tickled the ostrich, and pretty soon the head popped out. Then Jim, one of the tumblers, was laid up with a sprained ankle and was feeling sad. Jim asked Mickey to keep him company. Mickey told some jokes and started juggling. Jim was soon laughing very hard. Jim felt better, and so did Mickey. After that, Mickey was pretty busy because everyone came to Mickey whenever they needed a laugh.

Then one night the ringmaster came to see Mickey. And Mickey went on to become the youngest clown in the circus.

The beauty of this story is that the child who is the butt of taunts and feels down on her or himself can see that people excel in different ways. This can be the beginning of learning to find one's own special self and what one's special talents are.

The myths of any society tend to favor some types of excellence over others. Yet balanced excellence across the society is the best for all. And this is what we are most likely to be able to produce, because we are all so different. Are you working at what you love to do? If not, use this wonderful book to rethink your work . . . as well as helping children to find the right roles for them.

Millenium Scrolls is action packed excitement from cover to cover. You'll be swept along a roller coaster ride of political intrigue, romance and history in a contemporary setting known to us all.

Set in the Middle East, this novel captures the reality of politics in this part of the world. One can hardly believe it is fiction.

A great read which will have you guessing to the end and wanting more. Enjoy.

This book is top quality. It is mostly a pictorial but really gives an insight as to the tone of the civil rights era. I would recommend this book highly and I bought several copies for friends. The author is well respected and is the founder of the National Civil Rights Museum.

Mr. Speaker: The Biography Of Tom Murphy is the story of the man who was Speaker of the House longer than anyone in Georgia's political history. Murphy was powerful, controversial, enigmatic, effective, influential, and a consummate politician complete with a front-page image and political bravado. Georgia Journalist Richard Hyatt has applied all of his investigative and research skills to provide the reader with an engaging, informative, and insightful portrait of a legislator who was intimately involved in the political affairs of his state for decades. Mr. Speaker is highly recommended reading for students of political science and Georgia history.

There is a saying that, "A Picture is worth a Thousand Words." In this case, that is more than true. Words alone could not describe the beauty and emotion that is alive in these pictures.

With this book, Jack Kotz takes the "reader" on a journey though his life, and the lives of people that have influenced him greatly. The title of the book concerns his grandmother, Myrtle Booth, and the garden is, to put it simply, her world. The photographs show a mixture of the desolation and the beauty that can be found in rural Mississippi and Tennessee. Words don't really describe the effect that the morning fog has as it slowly rolls across the gardens and the sunlight breaks through the clouds striking the differing textures of the vegetables in all their variety of colors so Jack has attempted this with his camera.

You are taken on a journey here with Ms. Booth as she visits the church where she performed her duties to the community and the Lord as organist for 70 plus years, You see the ladies and their quilts which vibrate with color. You meet what seems to be plain country folk who, as you get to know them through the pictures, come alive with a variety of experience that would astound the casual person.

You see the beauty that Jack has grown with as the sunlight reflects off the moss of the dark green pond and then note the lights of the few lamps as dusk slowly falls across the town or the storm approaches over the plains.

You are taken over a journey through a town kept alive by its grocery store and the church and then you find the strange beauty of a household freezer as you see the colors of all the vegetables spring into your eyes.

Finally you see the spirit of Ms. Booth as she is constantly on the move. Age seems to have slowed her but not stopped her. First she is with a cane, then a walker, then a wheelchair but always she is moving forward and facing life with a zest that seems to have strongly affected her oldest grandson.

I say that with knowledge and pride being Ms. Booth's youngest grandson. I received the book today and looked at it at my office. The pictures brought many memories and emotions rushing back to me. At times I just stopped and felt myself drawn into the picture. I felt the air as it closed around me, sometimes hot with humidity and sometimes cool. I heard the birds in the background and sometimes even the logging trucks as they roared down the highway. I smelled the air, sometimes redolent with auromas that can be found in the country and other times full with the smell of corn bread, fried chicken, and peach pies. I saw my grandmother as she would slowly march forward through life stopping to inspect and everything until she was satisfied and then moving on to her next stopping point. I also saw Jack. I saw him walking through the country and stopping as the mixture of light and shadows caught his eye. I saw him driving down the road and having to stop to take a picture as he saw the clouds slowly obscure the mountain that he was viewing. I saw Jack and Ms. Booth walking hand and hand through her garden...and it was breathtaking.

Contexualizes the concept of instantaneous composition better than anything else I've ever read.