Libertarians talk a lot about limited government and scaling back the welfare/warfare/regulatory state and there is finally a book that lays out a detailed plan to show you how to get there.

The message in virtually every chapter of this book is "repeal!" From terminating the bloated and wasteful Department of Energy to zeroing out the budget of tiny agencies like the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, few agencies escape the Cato Institute's budget scissors. Likewise, regulations that don't meet strict tests of economic efficiency and federalism are quickly given the heave-ho.

This isn't limited to just domestic regulations and budgets. A large portion of the book is dedicated to foreign policy. Everything from immigration to declaring war is covered. Cato's fundamental principle here is "peaceful relations with all, entangling alliances with none." This means a drastic scale back, of course, with the end result being recommendations for unilateral free trade, fairly open borders, major defense budget cuts and troop and defense treaty withdrawals.

This is a terrific book, drawing on over twenty years of policy analysis from a classic liberal viewpoint. Too bad there is less than a snowball's chance in heck of getting any of these policy recommendations implemented.

Swami Nitya-swarup-ananda (1899-1992) was a famous and brilliant monk of the Ramakrishna Order who founded and developed the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Calcutta, India. Centered In Truth is an outstanding two volume testament to his life and wisdom. Volume One (654 pages) presents his fascinating biography, including two visits to the United States. Volume Two (474 pages) is collection of his personal writings, commentaries, reminiscences, and memorial lecture programmes in his honor. Shelley Brown became a Vedantist in 1953 and began a spiritual dialogue with Swami Nitya-swarup-ananda that continued until the day he died and therefore is the perfect choice for presenting this great man's life, thought, and accomplishments to a western readership. Highly Recommended.

This collection of nine essays, edited by Thad W. Tate and David L. Ammerman, examine various aspects of the development of Anglo-American culture in the Chesapeake colonies, Maryland and Virginia. The studies provide a detailed and informative consideration of life in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake.

The scholars writing in this volume have published various works on the colonial Chesapeake. James Horn, who authored the essay on servant emigration to the Chesapeake, has written Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake. Lorena S. Walsh, who herein examines marriage and family life in colonial Maryland, has written From Calabar to Carter's Grove: The History of a Virginia Slave Community. Darrett B. and Anita H. Rutman provide a startling and compelling portrait of family fragmentation and reformation due to early parental death and successive remarriage. The two also cowrote the study, A Place in Time: Middlesex County, Virginia, 1650-1750, a detailed reconstruction of life in a Virginia county, for masters and farmers and servants and slaves.

The emergence of an American-born elite is considered in Virginia by Carole Shammas, author of Inheritance in America, and in Maryland by David W. Jordan, author of Foundations of Representative Government in Maryland, 1632-1715. Carville V. Earle, author of Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System, presents a study of disease and death rates in early Virginia. Kevin P. Kelly studies the dispersed settlement patterns in Surry County, Virginia. Kelly authored The Economic and Social Development of Seventeenth-Century Surry County, Virginia. Lois Green Carr and Russell R. Menard, who have authrored and edited a number of studies on the Chesapeake, present in this book a study of the economic opportunities of freed indentured servants in Maryland.

The essays presented in this work should interest anyone researching Chesapeake history or Southern genealogy.

Africans and African-Americans were present in Virginia from early in the seventeenth century, but the essays herein concentrate on the early Anglo-American presence. The book by Rutman and Rutman, as well as the work by Walsh, should be consulted for African-American life in the early Chesapeake. See also Wesley Frank Craven, White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth-Century Virginian. White, Red, and Black is a tremendous but succinct study of the white, Indian and African presence in early colonial Virginia. Gerald Mullin, Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Virginia, as well as works by Mechal Sobel, illuminate black colonial experience in a later period.

I bought "Child Behavior" in 1990. I read about it from a magazine. "Child Behavior" gives advice on problems of child behavior, from age 4 weeks to ten years. This book has helped me stay ahead of every stage my children would soon enter. I would read about a stage not believing it would happen, the WHAM! there they go! When I heard my first "I HATE YOU!" I didn't have a breakdown feeling like I was the worst parent in the world. Instead, I cracked up laughing to myself because I had read about this stage and couldn't imagine my children actually saying this! "Child Behavior" has kept me ahead of every stage and makes me feel like a great parent because I am prepared. My children appreciate this, because then I don't freak out thinking no other children act this way! People see me react to these stages thinking I have a lot of patience. I explain to them, I am just prepared from reading "Child Behavior."

In Chile's Political Culture And Parties: An Anthropological Explanation, Larissa Lomnitz and Ana Melnick collaborate to examine Chile's political culture in terms of Chileans functioning within social categories and rules which they called the "grammar" of the national Chilean culture. They argue that political parties in Chile are a conglomeration of horizontal networks of friends and that class is succinctly established within Chile's social fabric and defined by a mixture of variables (including an individual's position in the economy, social network, religious beliefs, and life-style choices). Chile's Political Culture And Parties is a seminal, scholarly, original, and highly recommended reading for students of Chile's history, politics, and contemporary culture.

This exciting recent publication is a compilation of Chinese maps from the archives of the Beijing Library and many Chinese libraries and museums, as well as the British Museum. The fine pictures of the maps show that the ancient Chinese not only made the world's first maps, but they also had laid a foundation for mapping techniques far ahead of other existing civilizations.

The first map entry in the book dated around 300 BC was a bronze-plate map inlaid with gold and silver threads from Hebei. It was unearthed from the mausoleum of King Xi of Zhongshan between 1974-78. The second entry in the book was a set of seven Qin kingdom maps dated around 299 BC made of lines drawn on pinewood boards. They were unearthed in 1986 in Tianshui Fangmatan at Gansu showing villages, hills, streams, valleys and passes. Other early maps were those of the Western Han Dynasty, including a topographic map in silk, a military map in silk, an astronomic map in woodcut, and a city map carved in brick.

The development of Chinese cartography can be divided into four stages; viz. Primary map stage before 476 BC, Territory map stage from 475 BC to 265 AD, the stage of Mapping by Girding from 265 to 1600 AD and the stage of Field mapping by latitude and longitude measurements. The beautiful pictures of the Chinese maps from the second stage onwards, with interesting explanations, make this book worthwhile to read and to keep. This is a book for both the lay-man and the expert.

Chokwe! Art and Initian Among Chokwe and Related Peoples, is a stunning accomplishment! This exhibition catalogue shows some of the finest works of Angolan art by the Chokwe people. Significant, because much of what is in this book has been selected from not only museum collections but from top notch private ones as well. the one hundred fifty pieces selected include Royal Art (figures of chiefs) origins that can be traced back to the Luna migrations of the 16th century, Weapons, Snuff mortars, Whistles with bird figures and figurative heads, Masks of female ancestors, Divination baskets, Headrests and other magnificant pieces. Prestel has created a lavishly illustrated volume with excellent historical, religious and cultural insights. This book is a must for anyone who loves African Art!

Christian Marriage: A Historical Study is a superbly presented compendium of eight insightful essays exploring and surveying the historical development of marriage within the context of the Christian community and gospel. The essays include: Marriage in the Old Testament and Intertestamental Periods; Marriage in the New Testament Period; Progeny, Faithfulness, Sacred Bond: Marriage in he Age of Augustine; Marriage in Barbarian Kingdom and Christian Court; Fifth through Eleventh Centuries; Marriage, Body, and Sacrament in the Age of Hugh of St. Victor; The Reformations of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; The Emergence of the Modern Family; The Contemporary World. A highly recommended contribution to Christian Studies reference collections and reading lists, Christian Marriage is further enhanced for the reader with an "Index of Selected Scriptural Texts" and a General Index.

A quick reference book that is practical and easy to read

A glorious book! If you are searching for a book with easy-to-play carols, this is it. The added bonuses: with each carol you get beautiful and diverse Christmas artwork and a short history of each carol, all on pages with a nice, glossy finish in large, easy-to-see print. This book has all the standards, a few not-so-common but lovely carols, plus some secular favorites. All these things in a very pleasing layout make this a must-have book.