Yet another excellent, ambitious work adapted from Shakespeare by the Shakespeare Restoration Project of the Klingon Language Institute. These guys have already done Hamlet and Gilgamesh, and they're working on the Bible and Macbeth.
Highly recommended for serious students of both Klingon language and William Shakespeare.

Dr Nicholas P. Spanos was an excellent researcher, a prolific writer and an incredible scientist. Dr Spanos provides a cogent, credible and a scientific explanation for multiple personality disorders and false memory syndrome, among others. His convincing, documented accounts return analyses to a scientific realm rather than the halls of medical sooth sayers with special insights.

Lets get one thing straight, this is not a book for a complete novice to Astrology, it assumes a basic understanding of astrological concepts and principles - which can easily be found in countless guides and manuals.

The book starts with a remarkably thorough insight into the origins of Astrology and its subsequent development to the present day, charting the major breakthoughs that helped the discipline to establish itself as the premier intellectual pursuit of ancient and more recent times.

Although practitioners do not need any justification of Astrology, the authors do go into considerable detail on psychology which helps the reader to understand the concepts and techniques of interpreting mundane charts in a much more objective manner than would otherwise be the case.

If this were all that the book explains that would be enough for it to be valuable, however, the authors then proceed not only to demonstrate chart-reading techniques, but also to explain other extremely valuable charting techniques not requiring horoscopes! All the while cross-referencing with examples and published works.

Where this book excels is that the authors present astrology in a practical, no nonsense logical way and are honest enough to admit that they do get things wrong from time to time.

For sheer volume of extremely valuable information this book has it all - An Essential text for any serious Astrologer

MY FRIEND SHOWED ME THE BOOK AND I COULDNT STOP READING IT.THIS BOOK IS SOOOOO GOOD I RECOMEND IT TO EVERYBODY.FILLED WITH EVERYTHING.YOU WILL LOVE IT.BUT YOULL HAVE TO READ IT VERY CAREFULLY IF YOU DONT WANT TO MISS A THING AND THEN SAY AHHHH! MY REVIEW? PERFECT

An outstandingly well written account of what it was like to grow up in an extended German family in 1900 in St. Louis.

In an attempt to explain the French Revolution on the one hand, and the triumph of Parliament on the other, historians have imposed a distinction of "absolute" and "limited" monarchy on early modern Europe. Henshall's book shows the problems with this distinction, and explains exactly what "absolute" power was, how it worked with representative institutions, and where it differed from despotism.

Henshall's basic argument is that certain monarchical prerogatives had always been absolute, unchallenged and unassailable. On the other hand, certain aspects of government had always been consultative. The early modern period was marked with problems of rebellion, minorities, etc, that upset this balance, and what historians generally consider a struggle over preeminence in government was really powers simply trying to maintian their traditional prerogatives. Henshall shows many examples of how traditionally "absolutist" governments relied on representative instituitions, and sought to oppose despotism. Conversely, he shows how traditionally "limited" governments often displayed hallmarks of what is traditionally considered "absolutism." Ultimately, he declares the distinction a historiographical error stemming from a backward reading of history, and the last chapter of the book is an analysis of the development of this absolutist myth.

This is a dense book, full of information, but never unreadable. From Henshall's occasional witticism, to the eye-opening of his arguments, this book is fascinating and an important work of historical research.

The world is as it appears to be through our senses - Every event has an explanation - That explanation is intelligible - There are absolute realities and it is these that science "gets back of". These are some of the assumptions of science. The question of course is how many of them can really be answered apart from specuation.

Nicholas Rescher, in a clearly written, tersly laid out, and cogent book ventures into some of these questions and ventures answers grounded in Peircean (Popperian?) pragmatism. The reason we believe the above presumptions - and presumptions is what they are - is that they enable us to do science at all. Tautology, you say? How can Rescher claim that doing science is why we make these assumptions if these assumptions are (at least partially) necessary to do science? In the tradition of pragmatists Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, we do science to gain increased control over our environment (even if that control is just more security of knowledge) and it is that end which causes us to make assumptions like these that help us in our pursuit.

Rescher demonstrates, as far as metaphysics will allow, that it is pretty well certain that some of the above assumptions are false. There's no reason, for instance, to suppose that ultimate truths exist; that is to say, that even though we can state facts and seemingly true theories about x, spaitally, x is likely able to divide into smaller units and they into smaller units ad infinitum. Thus, search for scientific knowledge must (will?) be a never ending one. Similarly, scientific realism which asserts that scientific theories describe things as they "really are" is questionable. Our view of the world changes with time; it always has. None of this is to suggest that there is no true reality or that science can get no closer by degrees of describing the world; just that the end goal will always be an end goal.

Rescher's view is of a realistic pragmatism; science is judged by utility. We use our theories because they work, they help us predict, and becasue of this they are the truest we have. Far from the "vulgar pragmatism" of Rorty or Fish which, to a degree, disavows reason as just another way of knowing, Rescher's view of science makes reason that much more important. As fallible, limited beings, it seems the best tool we have.

My only complaint is that for those familiar with these issues, this book may come off as repetitive. Indeed, about half way through, I found myself guessing, rightly, what the author would say next. All in all, a fairly easy, yet very enlighening read. In addition, I would also reccoment Popper's "Conjectures and Refutations" and Susan Haack's "Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate".

Fans of such modern nautical fiction series such as those by Patrick O'Brian, C.S. Forester, Alexander Kent, and Dudley Pope can find within the pages of this volume (and its four predecessors) the contemporary records of the men and events later fictionalized by O'Brian and others. It is all history in the raw, written by the participants at the time of the events described. And when you've read the pages of the Naval Chronicle, you will realilze that the fictional exploits of Jack Aubrey, Horatio Hornblower, and Richard Bolitho are not fantastic at all, simply reflections of what the real Royal Navy did two centuries ago.

This volume represents an excellent up-to-date compilation of the current knowledge base regarding the endophytic fungi of the genus Neotyphodium (formerly Acremonium) and their effects on their grass hosts, invertebrate and vertebrate herbivores, and the plant communities in which they interact. Current timely research findings in many areas regarding the tall fescue endophyte and its impacts on animal husbandry and production are clearly and precisely explained. Global perspectives on the tall fescue endophyte concerns are also examined. Given the complex and constantly-changing dynamics of this research arena, this volume provides up-to-date important information regarding how the endophyte and its alkaloids manifest their influence on a variety of laboratory animals and livestock. It is an excellent reference for those currently involved in tall fescue endophyte research and also for those looking for a comprehensive first "look".

I expected this book to be good when I saw who the editors were and I was not disappointed. Although Bayne and Woolcock have different interests and writing styles, these differences work to create a stronger volume than either could have created on his own. Bayne's strong point is policy analysis and prescription. Chapters 4 and on the Practice of Economic Diplomacy and Current Challenges to Economic Diplomacy, for example, benefited greatly from Sir Nicholas's extensive experience in international diplomacy. Woolcock's strength is his broad familiarity with the academic literature. This is particularly well demonstrated in Chapter 2, which provides an excellent theoretical introduction to economic diplomacy.

The individual substantive chapters are all quite informative. Chapter 6, by Stephen Woolcock, provides a fine discussion of the evolution of the world trading system from the ITO to the WTO. Chapter 7, by Nicholas Bayne, discusses the origins of the system of international economic summits. Chapter 8, by Colin Budd, talks about the G8 summits up to Okinawa 2000. It might be good to add a paragraph on the 2001 summit for the final draft. Chapter 9, by Phil Evans, poses the question of how democratic trade policy making is or should be. It rightly addresses the under-representation of Third World interests in recent multilateral trade agreements and the potential for over-representation of the interests of nongovernmental organizations (increasingly referred to - possibly erroneously -- as "civil society organizations" these days). Chapter 10, by Nicholas Bayne, focuses on bilateralism in U.S. economic diplomacy. Chapter 11, by Matthew Goodman, is on US-Japanese economic relations. This chapter downplays the more recent tensions in the US-Japanese relationship by stating on p. 12 that it has become "more balanced with the passage of time." This strikes me as a little bit optimistic. Goodman himself cites the counterexample of the Japanese support of an Asian Monetary Fund during the Asia Crisis of 1997-8. The impact on the relationship of the domestic economic problems of Japan since 1990 in connection with the "bubble economy" deserves a bit more attention in Goodman's chapter. Chapter 12, by Stephen Woolcock, deals with European economic diplomacy. In this chapter, I missed seeing a discussion of specific issues like agriculture and audio-visual industries as they affected the EU position in the Uruguay Round, of the readjustment of EU relations with the ACP countries as a result of decisions of the WTO panels, and of the EU-US conflict over steel in recent months (Woolcock is an expert in this area). Chapter 13, by Patrick Rabe, deals with EU international environmental policy. Written by a practitioner, this chapter does what it has to do, but if it had been written by an academic, I would have looked for something on de facto environmental policies represented in EU standards regarding green production methods (ISO 14000 and EU equivalents) and the new sanitary and phyto-sanitary concerns that are likely to become part of the Doha Round. Chapter 14, by Nicholas Bayne, is a bit oddly placed in the volume, since it contains much information that a newcomer to this subject might want prior to reading the other chapters. The content of the chapter is fine. Chapter 15, by Ivan Mbirimi, lays out a few of the issues that were important to developing countries in recent multilateral trade negotiations. Chapter 16, by Nigel Wicks, rightly addresses the problem of legitimation of the world trading system in this essay and concludes with a proposal for a World Economic Council with representatives from a variety of international economic negotiating forums. Chapter 17, by Richard Carden, tackles the implications of the "Battle in Seattle" and the more recent ministerial meeting in Doha for the world trading system as a whole. It ends appropriately on an optimistic note. The concluding chapter, co-written by Baynes and Woolcock provides a short but excellent summary of the preceding chapters and makes a number of new points that are very well thought.

In sum, this is an excellent work, with many short but readable chapters on a variety of important topics that nevertheless provides a coherent overview of the subject of economic diplomacy. This book will be useful not just for academics and practitioners but also for students in colleges and universities.