The research by Michael Jay Mjelde made this book possible. The Captain, Daniel McLaughlin, managed to make 42 trips around the Horn without serious incident. The Captain is my great-grandfather on my mother's side and came from the island of Gran Manan in the bay of Fundy. I would love to hear from others who have read the book.

This is a great book for the novice botanist. As a person who just recently started trying to identify wildflowers in the Monterey area, I found this book a great guide. I already have a couple of other books, including the ones from the Audubon Society and from the California Native Plant Society, but this one is so simple and covers most of the flowers you commonly see. It's easy to flip through, the pictures are clear and in color, and it certainly doesn't overwhelm you with technical jargon. I was only sorry it doesn't include some of the smaller/tinier flowers I see around. Maybe in the next edition. A great gift!

yum..........Now if only my kids will be more adventures when it comes to eating coconuts. They are terrific..the smell and the taste are exotic.

'Collision Course' is a mix of reportage, history, and economic and political speculation. One of Bryce Harland's themes is the feeling of common cause by East Asian countries as they face a United States fresh from winning the Cold War and imbued with a renewed sense of manifest destiny. Yet, the book makes clear that common cause is increasingly unable to keep the region from fractionating as their parallel economies struggle for prominence in Western markets, and as America, with the backdrop of a declining Japan, continues to leverage her political and economic dominance to assert her social and political agendas. Harland's central thesis is simple, and to my mind, convincing. The domestic politics of the U.S. are as much a factor as the regional diaspora of the South Chinese in guiding the evolution of East Asian economic and political development. It has historically been the domestic attitudes of the Americans towards the migrant Chinese and Japanese in the U.S. that account for the alternating cycles of discriminatory and liberal trade policies on the region. He cites the yearly torment over Most Favored Nation (MFN) status renewal for China as an example of the schizophrenia that grips the American polity struggling with liberal attitudes towards human rights and conservative views on trade; laced with pressures to scapegoat during times of economic want.

'Collision Course' is an attempt to explicate the oft confusing and tumultuous relationship between the U.S. and East Asia through a historical lens, and to explore the future of that relationship as the forces of history subside with the end of the Communism. As with most world history, the region and its relationship with America has been shaped by two world wars, a number of regional conflicts, internal revolutions, and healthy dose of xenophobic nationalism. Indeed, the involvement of America in East Asia can be traced back to four significant events -- the gunboat diplomacy of Commodore Perry, the American occupation of Japan, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam War. In all these cases, American materiel and capital have been instrumental in propelling the economies of the region toward modernization and urbanization. In the end, my sense is that the next collision contemplated by the author will be less of a clash between East and West as it will be between the nations of the region as they jostle for the political and economic access to the U.S.

The author goes to great lengths to show that East Asia is not a homogenous hegemony, but a collection of conflicting interests, cultures, rivalries and nationalistic tendencies that are historically at the razor's edge away from disintegrating into fractional fighting. This complex web of conflicts is largely bilateral, between Japan and China, China and the Europeans, Japan and the U.S., Japan and Southeast Asia, and America and China. Only recently, with the advent of Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) has East-West interactions been multilateral. Harland also makes the point that until the 1980s, the region has been held together by a shared sense of historical colonial victimization. However, as these countries matured, this is being overshadowed by more recent memories of Japan's expansion into Asia, and China's moves into Tibet, Mongolia, Burma, and Vietnam. To a lesser extent, recent memories of the Vietnam war, and role that the U.S. played to stop the spread of Communism in the region seems to carry more saliency with the current generation than the legacy of colonial expansionism a century ago. Today, even as the threat of Communism has diminished, an increase in intra-regional tensions has resulted. Keeping these tensions in check has been a period of double-digit economic growth, fuelled by American money to prop up local governments against the tied of Communism in the 1960s.

Mr. Harland manages to keep his promise to remain detached in his analysis, using a reporting style that is at the same time engaging and neutral in tone. The book does not pretend to explain the psychology behind the 'Collision', although it takes time to explore its socio-economic causes. For students of regional politics in East Asia and the U.S. there is nothing surprising in the book. Yet, it is the author's systematic treatment of the region's history, and his focus on economic and trade-related issues, that brings into relief the underlying reasons for today's headlines; usually obscured by 30-second sound bites on broadcast television.

'Collision Course' provides a clear road map for anyone to see why the Asian Currency Crisis of July 1997 was inevitable. Tight, opaque industrial networks, nationalistic mercantilism, and a suspicion of outsiders fuelled the lack of accountability and made possible the advent of money politics. The book hints of a warning for the future because unless East Asia breaks loose from its obsession with ridding itself of its colonial past, it cannot freely engage the U.S. without the latter resorting to the kind of forced diplomacy that characterized her first contact with the region....

You can't beat this book for an exciting quick overview of the war in the Pacific. The author has taken each of the most important events and found someone who was there to write a history of that event. You have the story of a sailor at Pearl Harbor, a Captain at Midway, a Marine at Guadalcanal, an Australian on New Guinea, a Sub captain in the Philipines, an army coorespondent on Iwo Jima, and many more. All of the stories are of decent length to cover the event and are extremely exciting. They have led me to start reading Leckie's 'Strong Men Armed' and Hough's 'Island War'. Though this book is out of print it is fairly easy to find at one of the used book stores such as abe or here at Amazon. Check this one out and don't forget it's companion 'combat:European Theater'.

This book is important book

This book offers a wonderful visual survey of myriad printmaking styles. In clear, unfussy, thoughtful text, the author shows us the hows and whys behind this special artform. A gem of a book for anyone with an eye for art.

This is a truly wonderful book. The recipes, techniques and photographs capture the authentic magnificence of the dishes at Chris Yeo's Straits Cafe (S.F. and Palo Alto), by far the best of the dozen or so Singaporean/Malaysian restaurants in the U.S. that my Malaysian-born wife and I have tried. Most of the Malaysian restaurants in the U.S. are headed by ethnic Chinese and concentrate in that third of the marvelous crossroads cuisine from the Straits of Malacca region. But Chris Yeo (also ethnic Chinese) brings the full breadth and flavor of the Malay, Indian and Nonya (a distinct group that arose from the liasons of Chinese traders and local Malay women centuries ago) dishes, which seems to have taken the best features from the fine foods of Thailand, China, Indonesia and India. As in the restaurant, everything in the book is authentic and imaginative. Searching or mailing for the correct ingredient is worth it. And following the simple but sometimes time-consuming techniques is also beneficial. One of my favorite recipes is here: Yu Sang, a festive ceviche-like salad of lemon-cooked raw fish mixed with slivered veggies and tossed with a sweet dressing.

this one is a real must. if I had to choose a single fish ID book to bring along in a dive trip, this handy book would be the one. it is probably more usefull for indo-pacific fishes but also atlantic/caribbean fishes part is pretty good. i guess it is the most complete book on fish identification i ever bought.

I grew up in the country and since I moved to a place just outside of DC, I sometimes wished to be out of it for a while. This books gives you the places to do just that. It is packed full of info on places that are all within two hours of DC. Most of them are unknown to te majority of the public and make the perfect places to get away. Anyway, this book is also pakced with info on difficulty of hikes, when the best times to take then and any number of interesting tidbits. This book is a must for those who live in the Washington DC area.