Even though this is a text which is designed for helping churches to become better earth stewards, I bought it because its section on gardening was so helpful, especially the section on alternative lawns. It provided an insightful formula for introducing native plants into the lawn to minimize watering and care while maintaining freshness and connection to one's own area. And it worked!
My husband and I applied the forms which were designed to save on electrical bills, and while touted for churches, worked well on our home.
I recommend this book. We have consulted it frequently in seeking ways to reduce our energy consumption.

If you have ever wondered why everything in American Business history hapened at once, you must read this book. Allen takes us thru the history of an era where circunstances, capital and talent were present in many persons in the same country.
This book is a bible for businessmen.
It is the best history book i have read in a long long time. It reads like a novel, If you can't read it then youre too busy to learn where youre going.

I live in New Orleans, and was excited about reading this book written by two New Orleans Detectives. When all the news broke about the New Orleans cemetary thefts, it broke my heart. Reading this book gave me a sense of justice in that the citizens of New Orleans will not tolerate this kind of evil.

Here, for the first time, is a full biography of America's first great composer who, in the 1850s, anticipated ragtime and jazz by half a century. Meticulously researched and written in a lively and accessible style,the biography details the colorful life of an American original and the trail-blazing father of music in New Orleans. Of interest to anyone interested in Civil War era America or the cultural environment that gave rise to one of America's most original and authentic musics.

A decade ago no one had heard of Ottilie Assing or had a clue that she played an important role not only in shaping European perceptions of the US in the crucial years up to and including the Civil War but in her role as collaborator and lover of Douglass for almost 30 years. Then, Terence Pickett, a scholar of German literature doing research in Poland, stumbled on a folder of letters that revealed an intimate acquaintance and passionate involvement between the German immigrant journalist and the American abolitionist. Pickett cautiously called it a friendship, but when William McFeeley used this information in his 1991 Douglass biography, he strongly suspected that the relationship went beyond friendship. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., choosing his words carefully, has meanwhile also concluded that for "much of Douglass's mature career, Assing was his principal intellectual consort." Maria Diedrich's "Love Across Color Lines" finally gives a detailed and thoroughly researched account of the life of this extraordinary woman, her background, commitment to radical causes, emigration in 1852, involvement in abolitionism, passionate attachment to Douglass, and her courageous but tragic end. It is an amazing story, deeply embedded in the stormy social and political conditions on both sides of the Atlantic. One consistent theme is that Assing's commitment to social revolution, having been frustrated by the botched events of 1848-49 in Germany, plays itself out in her support of radical abolitionism, which she consistently sees in terms of a second American Revolution. Another suggestive argument develops the continuity between Assing's partly Jewish background and her attitude toward slavery and race in the US. Though Assing often expressed typical 19th-century racial attitudes, her experience of belonging to a despised minority in Germany helped her to espouse the cause of black Americans, sometimes with more radical passion than Douglass himself. Most original and interesting, moreover, is Diedrich's carefully argued idea that Assing's imagination was infused with the romanticized representation of a black African prince and a white European woman in a novel by one of her close German friends, who based it on Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko." With all of Assing's emphasis on rational social analysis, much of her relationship with Douglass must be explained in terms of the kind of romantic orientalism that shaped her imagination. As Diedrich makes clear in her narrative, the essential problem of writing this biography was the one-sidedness of the evidence. Assing destroyed all letters (hundreds of them) from Douglass; he destroyed all but 27 from her to him, and he mentions her only in passing in his third autobiography. The story that emerges is largely based on Ottilie's letters to her sister and friends, on her published journalism, and on a handful of manuscripts. But the circumstantial evidence--that Douglass and Assing corresponded more or less weekly for more than 25 years, that during those years Assing spent several months every summer with the Douglasses, and that Douglass often visited and stayed with Assing in Hoboken (seeking refuge there when he was in imminent danger of arrest after John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry)--strongly suggests that her passion was reciprocated and that theirs was an intense intellectual and a fully sexual relationship. Aside from these important and fascinating details (which include the highly probable fact that Assing actually ghost-wrote some of Douglass's journalism in "The New National Era"), one of the great strengths of this book is that it places these personal matters in the larger framework of social and political conditions: the abolitionist movement, women's emancipation, the Civil War, Washington politics, the crusades for the Civil Rights amendments in the 1870s, and much more. Diedrich offers us a profound and nuanced insight into how this complex interracial relationship between two committed social radicals could develop in an America rife with political turmoil as well as racial and sexual taboos. The fact that this compelling story has remained veiled for so long is yet another reminder that these taboos continue to exert their fearful power in our own time. Maria Diedrich deserves everyone's gratitude for lifting the veil so thoughtfully, tactfully, and definitively.

Christoph Lohmann Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies, Indiana University

At first I became interested in this book due to my interest in Feuerbach but was immediately overwhelmed by Engels' command of the history of European philosophy from the Greeks to his present time. From what little I have read of Marx himself, it seems an irony that history has placed Engels subordinately to Marx. Engels is a first rate intellect not to be overlooked. This brief, content filled book, "Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy," is an excellent overview of continental philosophy and the brilliant zeitgeist that permeated pre-turn of the century European thought, and which has lamentably fallen into disuse in our own time. This book, published in 1888, takes us from Hegel to Feuerbach, to the most sublime manifestations of idealism and pragmatic materialism (hence Marx's dialectical materialism), conditioning for us all along the way religion and ethics; and all of this in the span of 50 pages. This book is well written, informative, and highly recommended for any student of European history, philosophy, sociology, and political science. It rather poops out at the end as Engels makes his final sales plug, but this weakness is tertiary to the overall scope and historical exegetics offered here.

The book really reads like a collection of four essays.

I). From Hegel to Feuerbach: This chapter is an overview of the failure of Hegelian thought that German philosophy was so imbued with in the mid-19th century, which also serves as a kind of marker for the beginning of modern philosophy.

II). Idealism and Materialism: This chapter is Engels version of sociology and psychological anthropology. His expectation of the emergence of a pragmatic materialism parallels that of Feuerbach's. This chapter leads through the death of idealism to the birth of materialism.

III). Feuerbach's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics: As the first chapter gives us an overview of Hegel, so this third chapter outlines the successes and failures of Feuerbach's thought. We also see the emergent thrust that led to Marxism in its organic position at the time of its advent, not as the polemics of conservative, Christian historians of today have painted it.

IV). Dialectical Materialism: Finally, chapter four outlines Engels's sociological expectations in the context of the preceeding three chapters; from feudalism to the industrial modernity of his time. Not only does Engels scetch out how Christianity became the possession of the ruling class as a means of government, but how philosophy too became a tool of their hegemony. His expectation that science would eventually meld with the worker rather than commercial interests belies the naivete that saw the failure of modern Marxism. His conclusion that philosophy too would emerge victorious along with the worker is certianly puzzling in hindsight, and can still be seen in the tenacious frustrations of post-modernism over the failure of Marxism.

Feuerbach aside, this little book is an excellent read full of vitality.

LYCANTHROPIA

By Frederick Bloxham

Lycanthropia is a new novel by Frederick Bloxham (Robert D. Reed Publishers. ISBN: 1-885003-40-4. Price: $25. Hardcover. August 2000) based on the fantasy subject of werewolves. Bloxham has woven a suspenseful, sophisticated, and largely believable tale that does not take place in an out-of-the-way haunting, but in the middle of dynamic, modern Los Angeles, where werewolves take on human forms and may be responsible for a crime spree. "Lycanthropia" is the study of werewolves. Bloxham did extensive research on the origins of the fables and legends of werewolves, which led him to some surprising conclusions. His story combines European legend with the Native American tradition of "shape-lifting" to create an intriguing tale that captures the reader's imagination and asks, "What if...?" The main characters, Natalie and Jean Pierre, are involved in two worlds. After running with arctic wolves for dozens of years, Natalie moves to the more sedate environment of Van Nuys, California to attend college and get in touch with her more human side. Jean Pierre is a dog catcher with a unique understanding of the species that he pursues. His success as an animal control officer for Los Angeles County stems from his own lycanthropic tendencies. Natalie and Jean Pierre develop a love for one another but only from a safe distance. They fear their shared animal passions may destroy them. Their lives are intertwined when they become prime suspects during an investigation of unusual killings involving wolf bites. Readers follow Natalie and Jean Pierre as they hunt and are hunted. They take on alternate human and animal forms while risking everything to destroy the ancient curses that keep them apart. This dynamic, suspenseful, and fast paced thriller captures the imagination with all of the essential elements of a great story: love, legend, action, and mystery.

this is a wonderful tape filled with beaty,love and lagher for me and my friends.

In 1982 I found this book at The Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, Colorado and I treasure it!! It works beside my copy for Ancestral Roots of 60 Colonists Who Came to America by Frederick Weis. My family documented our pedigree to Anne Dudley Bradstreet through our Hazen bloodline, so upon finding these books we were able to document Anne back to the barons who signed the Magna Charta and many other Royals.. How interesting history has become to us!! Someday I hope to buy both these books for my five grown children...and a couple grandchildren. Dorothy Sherwood Bevard

These Maigret stories are full cast productions by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) from the mid-1970's. Dramatized by Frederick Spoerly, " Maigret and the Reluctant Witness" also includes "Maigret Hesitates" and "Maigret in Society." Fans of Georges Simenon's Chief Inspector Maigret can join Maigret aided by Sgt. Lukor and Inspector LaPlant as he conducts his investigation. Enjoyable listening from a world famous mystery writer.