This is by far the best treatise on tax qualified retirement plans I know of. It is concise, comprehensive and well organized, with helpful tables and finding aids (although as is usual with West publications, the index is next to useless; try finding the discussion of eligible rollover distributions using the index, for example). The book also contains a helpful section on nonqualified plans. The second volume contains model volume submitter plan documents and related summary plan descriptions. Employee benefits attorneys will be the primary audience for this work, but it will also be of value for actuaries and other employee benefits advisors. The treatise has been updated through USERRA, GATT, TRA '96 and SBJPA '97. It includes a discussion of EPCRS (IRS Rev Proc 98-22) and proposed Treasury regulations on deemed distribution of defaulted loans (Prop Treas Reg § 1.72(p)-1). Recent developments that were too late to cover in the work include the leased employee decision in Burrey v. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., 159 F3d 388, and new Internal Revenue Code section 402(c)(4)(C).

I first used this book in 1978. It is by far the best text for Qualified Retirement Plans anywhere. I highly recommend it.

This book is so comprehensive and concise that I habitually reach for it first when conducting research into the tedious and complex world of qualified retirement plan laws and regulations. Mr. Canan's text has consistently proven to be right on the money in its interpretations and is always accurate in citing primary legal sources. It is my gateway to efficient, accurate and complete legal research on retirement plans.

I urge everyone to buy this book right away. It's the best damn book on Hawaii I ever read.

Rainbow Handbook Hawaii covers history, gay communities,interviews with local gays and lesbians, places to see, trivia, and photos. Also included in Rainbow Handbook Hawaii: detailed city and island maps - the same-sex marriage battle - homo bed and breakfasts - bars and clubs - eco-tours - restaurants - shops - vacation rentals - Hawaiian language glossary - and loads of gay island facts and pictures!

Matthew Link presents a unique side to Hawaii in a complete, fun, and entertaining manner. The book is very well researched, and is suitable for anyone travelling to Hawaii or has been to Hawaii and wants to relive their experiences.

I hiked the 100 mile Wonderland Trail that encircles Mount Rainier a few years ago. The hike changed my life and gave me the quest to collect photos and memorabilia that matched the diverse and unique experience of the mountain. Until I discovered this book, what I typically found were the garden-variety roadside photos available in most coffee table books, postcards, or placemats. What Landon's book gave me was a perfect mirror of my experience. I was able to rediscover the wonders of the mountain at any scale; from glaciated peaks to the delicate flora. The photos are beautiful, and the sequence of photos nearly match the clockwise circle I made around Mount Rainier. Included in the collection are photos of places only someone deeply familiar with the mountain could create, and makes me all the more appreciative of Landon's work and Mount Rainier itself.

This book is worth every cent paid for the collection of outstanding photos of Mt. Rainier. I'm planning on climbing this mountain for my fiftieth birthday next year and was surprised to find so few books on this topic here in New York City. Mr. Landon has indeed inspired me to train for the climb knowing I will be standing on the top of Rainier viewing the breathtaking scenes depicted in his stunning photos! See you at the top!

wonderful book, outstanding photographs, worth every penny!

In The Rainy Season, Wilentz leads the reader through the world of Haiti and its people, both those who are corrupt and those who struggle each day against corruption. I will visit Haiti for the 6th time this summer but I have not previously read anything in-depth about Haitian history. This book opened my eyes to essential information that every traveller to Haiti should be aware of, out of respect to the violent history of Haiti and the people who have survived through it. No one should attempt to "help" the Haitian people without first understanding the results of "help" already rendered in the past. Wilentz makes these (often tragic) results clear, and humbles all of us in the process.

If you have gone to Haiti, or will go to Haiti, whether as a missionary, journalist, diplomat, or foreign aid worker, don't go ignorant. Read The Rainy Season (and more recent publications as well) first.

If you are trying to figure out the muddle that is Haitian political history, this book can help. Covering Haiti from the fall of Baby Doc until early 1989, Willentz gives a close-up look at the parade of dictators and terrorists running the (in theory) post-Duvalier country. She also provides a personal connection to Aristide, then a radical priest continually in hiding from a government wishing to silence him.

In addition to the internal political movements and terrorism, Willentz shows us the ties between Haiti's troubles and the United States. If you are not familiar with American policy in regard to Haiti, you will be in for a disappointing and infuriating surprise. We sucked!

The book also covers the standards to be found in every book on Haiti: voodoo, illiteracy, slave revolution rememberings, hunger, poverty, exploitation, class and racial imbalances.

Perhaps its greatest asset is the datedness of the text. Written after Duvalier and before Aristide, the view of both is fairly unbiased. If you want to learn more about Haiti's past, present and future, you should check this one out.

I just finished reading a copy of this book I found in a second-hand store. It's too bad it is out of print, because it is brilliant. It covers the period from 1986 to 1989, so it is a bit out of date -- a lot has happened in Haiti since then. But it remains relevant because it paints a vivid portrait of how challenging it is to change Haiti, something that remains true today. If you can find it, read it.

this book allowed for one of the nicest vacations i have ever taken. more than bourbon street indeed; if you're into historical along with fun, good food, and the infamous celebratory attitude then this is the book you're looking for! it covers everything you can imagine plus the historical information with the descriptions that follow the maps for the various tours is priceless. we didn't take one tour save the plantation *oak alley* tour; didn't need to! the maps along with the additional information is all you need to create your own walking tours, driving excursions and much much more. i would also allow that personally i did read another book: Fabulous New Orleans by Lyle Saxon. the combination of the two really compliment one another. just my opinion. again, great book; i sincerely can't say enough.

Having visited NO before and having read three other "Guides" I was suprised by how different this book was from the others and how everything I personally wanted to know about was adressed in detail. Walking the Faubourgs is the best way to appreciate the very unique city behind the tourist hype and Mr. Delahanty tells you how. Other guide books are collections of data gathered from many sources, but this is a story told by someone who knows and loves his subject. Our morning walks through the Bayou St. John neighborhood for coffee on Esplanade Ave. were greatly enhanced by the information in the "Esplanade Ridge" section. The history is so much more amazing than the garishness of Bourbon St. My daughter, a six year resident of NO, is planning her wedding there and has found this an invaluable resource. There is an address and telephone number for everything. I am recommending this book to all of her wedding guests and buying a second copy for myself, having given mine to her. If you plan a trip to New Orleans, read this book before you go and carry it with you while you are there.

New Orleans' unique food, music, architecture, and people have been justly celebrated and explained to out of towners and locals alike in many, many books. Why one more?

Randolph Delehanty's answer to that question would be, I suppose (I have never spoken with him), that most guidebooks miss the essence of our city: the varied streets - from the carriage-wide alleyways of the Vieux Carre to the grand boulevards of St. Charles and Esplanade Avenues - which tie together our rich architectural heritage and cultural history.

At once public and private, street walking is an old tradion in New Orleans and this book introduces novice and old pro alike to the tricks of the trade.

Delehanty, director of the University of New Orleans' Ogden Museum of Southern Art and author of nine books, including the definitive coffee table book of New Orleans'interiors and patios, New Orleans: Elegance and Decadence, takes readers inside New Orleans buildings and gardens on over a dozen walking, transit, and (when necessary) car tours of the city and its River Road environs. Neighborhood by fauborg, he explains the special points of history that make this a city of towns, unlike most Southern cities. While your eyes are drawn to the architecture, he points out the lives of the inhabitants of these old homes, shops, and mansions - often writers and musicians. A few pages on "New Orleans House Design and Sociability: Stoops, Balconies, Galleries, and Porches" explain how climate, architecture, and sociability were intimately intertwined before the age of air-conditioning, cars, and television reduced urban life to a fraction of its potential for gracious living.

This walker's "ultimate guide" to New Orlean's architecture and culture is a must for locals who hope to become "New Orleans know it alls" and an inspired choice for those out of towners who hope to live like a native, if only for a few days.

Excellent and detailed maps, extensive cross-references, and select listings of all the basic tourist needs (restaurants, music clubs, bars, etc.) round out an excellent guide: the best of its kind (in the opinion of this City of New Orleans' licensed walking tour guide and life long resident of the Big Easy).

Using accurate, verified documentation, confirmed by subsequent Congressional hearings, Douglass, a career NSA employee and US War College professor, records the 1960s Soviet buildup of South American drug cartels and their infrastructure. The goals were to obtain funding for local wars of liberation, destabilize the US military, US inner cities and youth with drugs, and compromise South American politicians. Ironically, liberals sometimes like this information, as it provides a clear rationale for the US countermeasures, which allegedly included similar tactics.

The shocking inside story of how the Soviet Union bosses contrived, plotted, planned and then put into action a world-wide drug offensive against the West would be unbelievable if the writing were not so scholarly and well-documented. Douglass's careful work that gets at all the horrible details of the story of our undoing by drugs is worthy of careful reading and rereading by intelligent people everywhere. Beginning with the very effective initiative against our soldiers, up to the present, there are very few families that have not, by this time, been touched by the awful epidemic. But embarrassment, guilt and other intensities apparently have crippled our abilities to even talk about the problem, much less fight an effective war against it. And then there is our government's impotence if not collusion. We are in denial and in the closet. It is time we came out. This unique book helps immensely in that effort. By seeing how the drug plague is really a war being waged against us, we are in a position to come out of the closet of denial and begin to take appropriate action. Red Cocaine is a must read for parents, helping and medical professionals, religious people, educators, employers, the military and our law makers and enforcers. Roberta Gilbert M.D.

I recognize that their are no easy solutions to the plague of drugs. It has spawned numerous criminal and social pathologies that erode the freedom and stability of the West. America's war on drugs has only contributed to the growth of a police state, which has been wholly ineffective at curbing the drug trade while eroding our constiutional freedoms in the process. One solution is that the public began to understand the concerted communist involvement in the drug trade, both past and present. Reading this book is a good way to start.

Dr. Joseph Douglass brings the hidden truth to light about the large Sino-Soviet role in the drug trade designed to demoralize and weaken the West. He does a good job at tackling a difficult and largely untouched subject where credibility is at stake. Red Cocaine proves to be straight-forward, well-documented and meticulously footnoted by Douglass. Douglass offers disturbing revelations from interviews with high-ranking communist defectors within the Soviet intelligence establishment.

Perhaps in the next decade, when the U.S. escalates its drug war against "Marxist Narco-Terrorists" in South America, people will rediscover this ever timely ground-breaking classic.

Ripsnorting Whoppers is a great book to read!It's really funny & enjoyable.I got to eat lunch with Mr.Sowash last year at my school.He has a good way of putting things,and he is really funny.I think everybody should get a chance to meet him.He also has another good book out that you should read called Ohio hero's.They are both Great books & once you read them you will be temted to put in a revew!

Rick Sowash is a very intelligent and unique individual and I am glad that he takes interest in the history and the famous people that have come from Lebanon. He taught my whole school about the book for right to read week and it was very exciting.

Enjoyed this book. The stories are appropriate for people of all ages. Definately recommend this book.

A REVIEW OF
"RITUALS of POWER and REBELLION"
November 26, 2001

A masterpiece of social history, Dr.Liverpool's book, "Rituals of Power & Rebellion -The Carnival Tradition in Trinidad & Tobago 1763-1962" is an invaluable addition to the scattered body of literature available on this topic. Hollis "Chalkie" Liverpool, has successfully managed to put into context, the social, political, economic and cultural forces which inadvertently came together to create the greatest show on earth. Rituals of Power & Rebellion is an in-depth study of the development of Trinidad carnival. It reveals that what appeared to be simply a musical bacchanal, was in fact the struggle of an oppressed people to maintain their cultural identity in a land of foreign domination, class struggle, economic deprivation and political strife, The Trinidad carnival provided an outlet for the maintenance of sanity and a powerful weapon to resist oppression & injustice.

Dr. Liverpool has done the people of Trinidad and Tobago a tremendous favour by making this book available for posterity. He has set a standard in a West Indian context, that is rivaled only by Dr. Williams' "Capitalism & Slavery" and Walter Rodney's "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" in terms of his documentation of historical events. The extensive research that went into the writing of this book is beyond impressive and the fact that is was written by a son with the caliber of "Chalkie" as opposed to a foreign observer is a credit to West Indian scholarship.

This book should be read by anyone interested in the history of Trinidad and should be compulsory reading for students of West Indian history at the University level. To a griot and historian, I say Chuba Dubai.

J. Michael De Gale

Toronto, Canada.

Only in Trinidad could a serious historian also be a serious calypsonian. This is a great, original, absorbing book. Get a Chalkdust album as a companion to the book.

"Rituals Of Power and Rebellion" by noted historian and calypsonian, Dr. Hollis "chalkdust" Liverpool, is a masterpiece of scholarship, insight and impressive research. An in-depth study of the evolution of Carnival in the Caribbean and in Trinidad & Tobago in particular, "Rituals Of Power & Rebellion" is that history lesson, which needed to be told and which now needs to be read by all people of the African Diaspora. Dr. Liverpool uses his wonderful skills as a storyteller to keep his readers enthralled as he unravels the many layers of social, anthropological, cultural and musical history, which have contributed to the survival and evolution of Carnival. As a history of Carnival, "Rituals Of Power & Rebellion is unparalleled. It covers all aspects of Carnival's growth and evolution. The book takes the reader beyond the shores of Trinidad & Tobago as it examines the strong cultural and social ties, which kept the displaced and enslaved African closely connected to his African traditions, as evidenced by the nature and characteristics of the Caribbean masquerade. "Enslavement, then, did not cut the cultural rope linking Africa to the New World. Rather, there was always continuity and change. ... The Carnival in Trinidad then, was filled with African traditions of mask, masking, masquerading, singing and dancing." Dr. Liverpool shows how European and other ethnic traditions also influenced the manner in which Carnival evolved. "The tradition of Carnival, it will be seen, was utilzed by the people as part of their organized cultural resistance, to check the imposition of European values and customs on Africans generally." "Rituals Of Power & Rebellion" is a wealth of information. It brings together many of the elements - positive and negative - which have contributed to the social and cultural evolution of the displaced and enslaved African. It gives the reader an in-depth look at the traditions and customs of Africa, which survived the Middle Passage -- those African myths, customs and rituals, which are so important to the heritage of the displaced African wherever he happens to be. "That the Carnival tradition survived from 1783 to 1962 was due in no small measure to the resilience of the Africans in Trinidad and their determination to carry out their West African traditions despite the attempts of the dominant elites and the Colonial Government to rob them of their memories and legacies." Calypso is traditional Carnival and Dr. Liverpool gives his readers a master's course on this subject as he shows the direct relationship of calypso to the music of Africa in technique, rhythm and style. "The roots of music and dance as contained in the Carnival of Trinidad go back therefore to Africa, where music is integral to almost all aspects of community life". The book gives a detailed look at the various musical instruments and the patterns of music, which have influenced the development of calypso, as well as other forms of Caribbean music. It is a fascinating account, which gives, in great details, evidence of the strong connection, which the music of the Caribbean still has with the African continent. We are told that, "Singing in the Caribbean followed the African impromptu style and call-and -response pattern." Dr. Liverpool gives such an in-depth analysis of the subject that this book becomes a most useful reference for students of Caribbean/African musicology. "RITUALS OF POWER & REBELLION" educates the reader on the evolution of Carnival, the music and the masking and, in so doing, gives a remarkably in-depth historical review of the period in question. Not only does it provide the political and cultural aspects of the celebration of carnival from 1763 to 1962, but it also gives an insightful account of Trinidad's history during that period.It shows the indubitable spirit of the displaced and enslaved African in the struggle to survive the harshest of conditions in a place far removed from the land of his forefathers. On reading "RITUALS OF POWER & REBELLION" one becomes acutely conscious of the important role of a people's heritage on their cultural and social evolution, often in ways not usually considered. Dr. Liverpool has written an exceptional book. To his credit as a storyteller, this remarkable historical account flows beautifully and becomes an easy read. It will, no doubt, become an important part of the scholarship for students of Afro/Caribbean studies. It should also become a much-used reference on bookshelves in the homes of anyone interested in the evolution of Carnival in the caribbean and in the cultural history of people of the African Diaspora. Hats off to Dr. Hollis "Chalkdust" Liverpool for such an impressive tour de fource...Kanchan Gilfillian & Anthony County... New York, N.Y.

River of Memories: An Appalachian Boyhood by David L. Thompson is an excellent book for all people of all ages. It really allows the reader to understand the way everyday life was in Appalachia. It reminds us of the importance of family, friends, hard work, and God's influence. It brings out the best of a time that has passed, but will never be forgotten.

In order for us to truly understand ourselves, we must look to our heritage. As Mr. Thompson recalls to his readers the vivid memories of an Appalachian childhood, he entangles them with the warmth of a heritage that may someday be forgotten. This work will possibly answer many questions of future generations who may ask "what is Appalachia?"

Mr. Thompson's is a wonderful tale of a young man growing up in rural America. It tells of a wonderful childhood filled with loving memories in a time when a child was still allowed to be a child. It has both good and bad memories that add up to the formation of an interesting individual and family that anyone would enjoy getting to know. If everyone could only be so lucky as to know someone like this it would improve the world as a whole.

I was so completely engrossed in this story that I had dreams about it each night as I was reading it. I found myself charged to learn more about mid-19th century California history. I looked at maps, researched the history of Indians in my area, found web sites on the Donners. I also felt completely horrified, on a physical level, at Ms. West's depicton of how white settlers raped and pillaged the people and the land. I felt compelled to somehow change history...the mark of a well-written and effective historical novel.

I also appreciated the author's choice to present her perspective of events from women's points of view (not to mention an ancient oak tree and the trickster, Coyote.)

I have a renewed inspiration to honor the land on which I live, and to honor those who lived here before me.

(a warning: be prepared for much sex...I started reading this with my young teen, and then opted out...he can read it in a few years!)

As a great, great grandaughter of a 49er (JOHN GARLAND RICKER) I can now more fully appreciate the absolutely deplorable living conditions in the mining camps that Naida so eloquently describes in her wonderful narrative. Now I can understand why he spent less than two years seeking an elusive fortune in the gold camps of the Sierra Nevada foothills.

I feel this book is a reading must for my daughters and grandchildren so that they too, can better understand and value their heritage

Carleen Leise, Shingle Springs, California

Ms West makes California history come to life in her tales of the Donner party and Sutter's gold. The characters paint a vivid picture of early California -- mexicans, indians, norte americanos, and the movement West. If you think you know California history -- let Ms West broaden you area of interest and pose questions for you to ponder. What a story -- difficult to put down once you read the first sentence. The characters may not be real, but you will never forget them!