As an amateur prop and model builder I stumbled across this book after first reading Thurston James' bible on molding and casting. Although not as comprehensive as that book, and feeling a little dated, this book nonetheless is packed with useful, surprising and inspiring information. Some of the projects he describes do rely on a pretty well equipped workshop but there is still plenty here that anyone could attempt.

As an amateur prop and model builder I stumbled across this book after first reading Thurston James' bible on molding and casting. Although not as comprehensive as that book, and feeling a little dated, this book nonetheless is packed with useful, surprising and inspiring information. Some of the projects he describes do rely on a pretty well equipped workshop but there is still plenty here that anyone could attempt.

This is a decent academic analysis of the witch hunts of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Thurston investigates the origins of what he calls the "Persecuting Society" that eventually lead to the mass torture and execution of suspected witches. He clearly shows that so-called witches and magic users such as healers and herbalists were generally tolerated throughout most of Europe's history. The origins of the hunts begin in the early 13th century, only here the targets are suspected heretics such as the Cathars and the Waldensians. Later, the targets shift to include Jews, vagrants, and other "Plague Spreaders" as the Black Death spreads disease and fear across a devastated continent in the mid 14th century. He follows as the stereotype grows to include its traditional elements of flying, secret orgiastic sabbats, and pacts with the Devil himself. Thurston argues that many earlier theories regarding witch persecution are flawed or completely wrong. He refutes, for instance, the long held belief that the hunts were simply a form of social control employed by the church or secular governments. He also takes task with the prevailing views of modern pagans that it was a delibrate campaign to eradicate secret Neo-Pagan groups practicing their religion in the opposition to the Chruch. This theory, put forward by the famous British Egyptologist and author Margaret Murray, is still widely held by the general public today, despite it's rejection by many modern witchcraft scholars. Thurston shows that the hunts tended to take place in times of upheaval (such as the English Civil War when the infamous Matthew Hopkins had his reign as WitchFinder General) or in places where local government and authority were weak. He also offers an interesting discussion of the Salem Witch Trials, probably the most famous and also the last of the major witch trials. The witch hunts were a curious and horrible event that seem to belong to a certain time and place, as he shows that the height of the hunts peaked between 1580-1630 but had virtually ended by the early 18th centiry. My only complaint is that he nearly glosses over the connection between the witch sterotypes and the role that they play in the birth of the modern fairy tale, which had its origins in France at the time that the hunts were finally dying down in Europe. It is interesting to me that as the witch made the transition from flesh and blood evil to fantasty, it has changed our perception of the witch image in our modern times. The witch is still with us and we continue to be fascinated by the dark powers that seem to touch the dark corners of our psyche.

I really liked Thurston's Jade Phoenix trilogy which gives us the major and most detailed description of Clan society in the btech universe.
But 'Freebirth' is an absolute pain. It's chaotic, it makes no sense, it is full of logical mistakes, it's simply embarassing.
You want facts? How's this:
2 LAM's destroying 2 front class clan omnis pilotted by elite clan MW's...go dreamin'.
A proven clan officer who goes whack, acting like Jim Carey, and flopping around like Lieutenant Harris in Police Academy?
A solahma mechwarrior who's all of sudden competing like Natasha Kerensky herself (SCom Buhallin).
Oh, dear...you gotta wonder who's been the freeborn editor of this novel. So if you wanna do yourself a favor: Don't read this book, even if you're a die-hard btech reader. And its story doesnt even play any role in the subsequent novels of the Twilight of the Clans series. Go figure.

I actually think this is an important book, and while Thurston was at his best with the Jade Phoenix trilogy, i believe this fits in with series. Yes, the LAM vs MECH scene was a bore, but a lot of the character interaction between Horse and Howse was great, sometimes really funny.

I often prefer political books to action books. How many times can you read "He fired his PPC straight into his centre torso, blasting away tons of armour.."? Page after page of combat can become tedious. Political intrigue is gratifying, and what this book does is give the world of Huntress, and Smoke Jaguar, a personality. Otherwise it would have been Task Force Serpent raiding just another planet. At least you get some familiarisation. And i honestly believe there is no better interaction between two characters in Btech, than that of Horse and Joanna. So Thurston deserves some credit. However, if your an Inner Sphere goody-two shoes who has no interest in the clan way of life, then you can afford to give this book a miss

This book is awesome for one lacking battles. Sometimes it concentrates on how drunk Galaxy Commander Russou Howell can get. Although he has 2 poorly armed galaxies almost all Galaxy commanders only control 1 galaxy. I think the last battle was stupid though it was smart of howell to use horse. If I were Horse I would not know what to do. Horse helped get himself labeled dumb by choosing to attack the jade falcon forces but having like 20% accuracy and hardly doing anything. For an action less book it deserves a 5. for an action book a 1.8. for an overall book it should be 3.4 but I'll give it a 4.

Wow-- what a disappointment this book was! Usually, I enjoy books from ARE Press; out of all the New Age books published, its selections are almost always the most insightful and mind blowing. This book, however, was the exception. It not only barely went into a deep explanation of synchronicity, it had very questionable and weak "readings" for each of the hexagrams in the second half of the book. This is a very poor, shoddily put together work on the I-ching, and the publishers should be ashamed to have even brought it to light.

A light introduction to synchronicity that pays more attention to the prophecies and teachings of Edgar Cayce than the theories of Carl Jung, this book is far from an absolute text on the subject. The author even refers to occurences as being "synchronous", instead of the proper "synchronistic". It also contains a poor translation of the I Ching. I didn't find this one very helpful, and would recommend instead "The Power of Flow", a book that has much more of a grasp on the essence of synchronicity than this one.

Unlike other reviewers of this book, I liked it. Mark Thurston's guidebook teaches how to use synchronicity to access our inner wisdom and answer our questions. I didn't have three weeks to practice the eight-step program, so I tried the method in a shorter period of time. By the time I had finished the book, I had learned about synchronicity, focused on my spiritual goal, formed a question, practiced the exercises and had a meaningful response from the I Ching "with parallel wisdom from the Edgar Cayce readings." If that offends you, don't buy it. If you are open to Cayce, the exercises are powerful. For example, how do you identify your spiritual ideal? Thurston had me recalling peak experiences and remembering feelings from when synchronicity had worked in the past. The energy from this and the other exercises helped me receive and trust my insights from the I Ching/Cayce messages. I will keep this book and refer to it often.

The new strain of "history from below" is on us, and it is truly postmodern in its attempts to fight retreating battles against the clear lineage of destruction in the Soviet State.

This book is horrible. I was hoping to find some good Left Revisionist histry to give students, but I will not find it here.

And that's the problem. I can't seem to find good left revisionist history. Anywhwere. It took two pages to see it in this book.

Left Revisionism is seen here in its pure and pathetic form. Looking hard to find some kind of scholarship to work some kind of sophisticated view of the disgusting events that took place in Stalin's Russia, I will have to go back to general Volkogonov to find anything worth reading on Stalin.

I always suspect I should give two chances to anyone who disagreees with me ideologically. And I am always leery of events which reinforce my political views, as I suspect that they are leading me down the same type of path that Believers hold everywhere.

But here I shouldn't worry. This is leftist tripe. You might want to read this book if only to confirm how bad the revisionist school has fared up against the Conquestian and Pipean view of the Soviet world. It is instructive to note how good the Anti-Soviet crowd was and how much of a vomiting rercord the crowd of Revisionists has accumulated.

Want some lively and plausibe history? Read "Stalin, Tragedies and Triumphs" by Volkogonov. This book is only good as a high seat for Junoir.

Robert Thurston has written an interesting --if flawed--history of the Stalinist terror. Correctly criticizing previous histories of the period, Thurston falls into the trap that awaits most revisionist historians: he spends more time looking for information to disprove their arguments than building his own case. A major problem is the author's use of Soviet archival material. Dr. Thurston uses Soviet statistics to build his case often neglecting their obvious bias. For example, he notes that only 63,889 people were arrested for counterrevolutionary crimes in 1939 (119), while later noting that in the same year more than a million Poles from the eastern Ukraine were deported to Siberia (218). Nevertheless, the book is important for students and academic interested in the impact of the terror on Soviet society.

What generally has dominated the conversation about Stalin's regime has been recognized as a "Totalitarian Paradigm" by Philip Marsh, outstanding non-Marxist scientist in his essay "Stalin And Yezhov- An Extra-Paradigmatic View". His definition of this paradigm is that when researching this historical period, Western historician always proceeds from the assumption that Stalin was a dictator and his rule was monolithic and tyrannic, thus always negating new evidence that would suggest otherwise. A good example of this is Robert Conquest and the case of Kovalev. Conquest's standard accusations against Stalinist regime have traditionally been that it was elitist, bureucratic and priviledged, suppressed workers and peasants with ruthless force, was only interested with fabricated harvest records etc. When Conquest then found that these people who practiced this were the main targets of the purges and were considered as unbearable burdons for Leninist party (demonstrated in the case Kovalev who was purged for exploiting toilers) he simply whitewashed these people as "victims of lynching mood" while not grasping that he was himself protecting tyrannical strata which was the remnant of Czarist rule. He was later espoused for this- but still remains among the most respected scholars on Stalin, while more responsible research- based on archival data rather than rumors and gossip, basic sources for information respected in mainstream - has been simply downplayed as an attempt to "absolve Stalin from his crimes" while these critics themselves suffer from all-too-typical paradigm blindness. They don't understand that this new research questions whether we can even talk about "crimes", which is useless term and out of historical context. This work contains good deal of original material and is thus very respectable and reliable- but still, those who simply consider "Stalin The Tyrant" as absolute dogma won't accept new evidence that conradicts their beliefs- not because this evidence would be invalid- but because it CONTRADICTS this almost religious belief.

I, personally, have a story to tell: One of my friends- Russian emigre whose parents had to flee so that Khrusthev would not execute them- as he did to all those who he considered "Stalinists"- had a relative who is actually here in (United States of America) right now, who was unemployeed in the Soviet Union in the 40's. He found that there was a building work going on in Vorkutta, Siberia, examined and found it was GULAG. The only way to get there was to get arrested by NKVD. So, he went to NKVD and ASKED them to sent him there. They asked, "did you do a crime?", he replied "no, I'm looking for a work". In the camp, there were hundreds like him. You wouldn't even know who was a prisoner and who was a guard, and ordinary workers would form relations with prisoners and have children with them. They even had strike -guards, prisoners and everyone- when Khrustchev pulled coup de'tat and murdered Beria!

Thurston's work is as good and responsible than bourgeois one can be- and he deserves full recognition for it. The so-called "Getty-Ritterspon-phenomenon" throws new light to this period, during which Russians achieved more than probably any other nation in history.

No software can be found on the DVD. Just a useless book. Basic info that you can find from sun site already.
Contact author and publisher trying to get the new DVD with softwares and codes that the book said it has.

No one reply.

The table of contents and the DVD are very attractive at the first glance. However, I find that this book is poorly organized and all the materials are just copying from the SUN web site.

This book claims that the evaluation copies of SUN ONE application server, SUN ONE web server and Sun One directory server can be found in the DVD. However, I cannot find these softwares in this DVD, but only a bundle of useless code and installation guide.

This book is nothing more than a collection of basic security topics and some plugs for Cisco security management applications. If you are looking for an indepth technical reference guide or anything vaguely related to actually implementing security solutions using Cisco products, then DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK.