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Originally published in 1991, The Nine Giants is the fourth in a series published by Poisoned Pen Press of The Queen's Head, The Merry Devils, and The Trip To Jerusalem. Set in London during the period of romance and swashbuckling, The Nine Giants is a story of love, murder, the stage, and politics all rolled into one. Westfield's Menis a theater group sparked by the genius of the handsome and naughty Laurence Firethorn, whotranslates his enthusiastic performances to trysts with select female admirers, whether marriedor no. It is up to his book keeper, Nicholas Bracewell, to keep everything afloat. But whena body washes up on the Thames, and Nick's girlfriend Ann Hendrik's house and life is threatened, that Nick actually swings into high gear.. Not only does Nicholas minister to the needs of fickle actors around him, he also discoversthe rather elaborate plot hatched by a greedy politician, involving murder, intrigue, and conspiracy. The Nine Giants is a witty and ribald frolic, with the intensity of murderous greed at its core. Marston's characters are hilarious, the action is non-stop, and his use of language is pure bliss to the reader's inner eye. Elizabethan London resembles the political intrigues of today's world. This is a delightful read, with constant action and entertaining insights.

Shelley Glodowski
Reviewer

When the Marines faced potentially hostile crowds during UN troop withdrawals from Somalia, they were equipped with weapons designed to incapacitate without maiming or killing. They had foam laced with tear gas, guns that ejected a sticky, quickly hardening material to slow the crowd's movement, small rounds of wooden pellets and hard sponge that could knock rioters down, temporarily disabling them. According to Nick Lewer and Steven Schofield, the two British authors of this highly readable and comprehensive monograph, such non-lethal weapons could in future include acoustic, chemical, and bacteriological agents that could incapacitate crowds (or terrorists) ever more effectively.

In conventional regional conflicts, our chief concern becomes destroying the enemy's equipment while minimizing civilian casualties. Lewer and Schofield explain that the technology exists for weaponry of this kind, which could be used against rogue states, such as Iraq. It might include cruise missiles with electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads to render command and control centers inoperable; lasers to blind an enemy's optical equipment; caustic materials to disable tanks by fusing their moving parts or devouring their gaskets.

The authors argue that these weapons are not simply capabilities in search of missions. Rather, they think, technology is converging with operational necessity, as the revolution in military affairs (RMA) allows us to improve our ability to deal with today's increasingly unorthodox and irregular battlefields. U.S.forces trying to draw order from chaos, respond to terrorist threats, operate in urban areas, and attack a regional bully's army but not his civilian population will continue to see the advantages of non-lethal weapons.

This book presents a whole host of ethical, legal, and operational issues raised by the development of such weapons. Can the expectation of minimal casualties be met? What percentage of bruising ordnance may inadvertently kill? What international laws or domestic statutes - passed in an earlier technological environment - might the use of such weapons violate? How might the public react to weapons that blind but do not kill? These issues need exhaustive analysis as the Pentagon threads its way between operational advantage and domestic acceptability in deciding which non-lethal weapons it will incorporate into its post-Cold War operational doctrine. Above all, it will have to consider what constraints should exist on the development of weapons that would be more likely than their deadlier counterparts to be used against domestic dissidents?

To ensure that its non-lethal arsenal not only complies with international and national law but registers domestic and global sensibilities, the Defense Department has established an interdisciplinary research and development advisory group. This new Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate will receive counsel from a Human Effects Advisory Panel whose members will cumulatively have the scientific and medical expertise to judge some of the issues non-lethal weapons development raises. The Panel will itself receive analyses from the Pennsylvania State University's Institute for Non-lethal Defense Technologies. The Institute has assembled experts from throughout the university community. From the College of Engineering come scientists who will test the technologies; from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, geologists who will evaluate their effects on the weather; from the Environmental Resource Research Institute, analysts who will assess their environmental impact; from the College of Medicine, physicians who will consider their medical effects; from the College of Health and Human Development, researchers who will provide estimates of their biomechanical and neuroendocrinal effects. The Department of Political Science will provide scholars who will try to anticipate the domestic political consequences, while lawyers from the Dickinson School of Law will warn of legal implications.

For all those engaged or interested in this project, Non-Lethal Weapons: A Fatal Attraction? Military Strategies and Technologies for 21st Century Conflict will make an excellent primer. The authors describe the daunting range of capabilities that could be placed in the R&D pipeline. They explain the essentials of each technology, and set it against the background of the medical, legal, and ethical restraints that could limit development and use. They show how such weapons have been used in the past, describe current, experimental programs for their development, and discuss how non-lethal weapons might be incorporated into future military doctrine. The book ends with a Bosnia-type scenario - both plausible and imaginative -- in which an interventionary force uses many of the capabilities they have been discussing. In sum, this book is vital reading for anyone with a professional interest in military affairs or a wish for a better understanding of a serious emerging issue that may have profound implications for the future of civil-military relations.

This book has everything you need to know about NPPV. Its practical and evidence-based approach makes it a must-have for any unit utilizing NPPV in patient care.

This book will give you goose bums all over your skin. Never in my dreams, have I thought so many environmental dangers are out there. This book makes you take a look around, it's surprising how many new things you see. It changed my life. The book takes you through all three different examples of solving enviornmental issues - legal action, thorugh NGOs and political action, and through community organizing. A great book. For anyone interested in further reading, read Environmental Action by MArtyn DAy. Also great.

hi guys
at last i found a book which i 'm happily suggesting all of you to follow , if u really want to exploit the powers of STL for building robust , object oriented software components.
the author approaches the subject of STL in a brilliant fashion , moreover i 'd suggest u to go through the example questions at the end of each chapter to grasp this subject .
shuaib (Pakistan)

My favorite picture book. Combines the beauty of the West with the saga of the pioneers.

Never before did I know a man could explain the heliocentric universe as well in this book. Of Course, Copernicus explained it centuries before my birth. But, it seems so foolish to believe the geocentric view, and I'm Catholic. Read "Dialogues" by Galileo to get the full picture of what these two men said, it it truly fascinating.

Seventy-year-old English writer John Charles lives a comfortable life in France. However, John's quiet lifestyle is abruptly shattered when a bullet is fired at his cottage from an unknown assailant. Subsequently, a man dressed in threads similar to what John enjoys wearing is found dead. Finally, John's beloved home is burned to the ground.

Rather than visit the police, the invigorated John flees across the continent to escape his enemies, even as he tries to learn their identities. However, his unknown foes are in close pursuit and they know a lot about what makes John ticks as his past threatens to catch up to him. His enemies will kill him if they ever catch up to him.

ONE MORE RIVER is great personal thriller that digs deep into the mind of the victim. The story line hooks the reader early and never lets go until the novel is finished. The book effortlessly switches back and forth between first and third person without missing a beat and, in fact, propels the terrific tale forward. Nicolas Freeling demonstrates the depth of his talent with this brilliantly written, fast-paced novel that is outside the author's normal realm (police procedural starring Inspector Castang). This reviewer recommends this novel and the author's Castang books because they are all quite enjoyable.

Harriet Klausner

Fr. John Meyendorff is generally known as one of the greatest scholars on Orthodoxy of the twentieth century. A professor and dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, he was also author of many texts dealing with Orthodox history and spirituality. This book, 'The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Its Role in the World Today' is perhaps the foundation for understanding his writing.

Originally published in 1960, it was reissued in an American edition in 1981, and is currently available in the revised fourth edition, produced in 1996, four years after Meyendorff's death. This latest edition includes revisions and corrections by Professor Nicholas Lossky.

In our presentation, we will follow the historical development of the Orthodox Church from the apostolic time to our own. It is the interpretation we will give to the stages of this history which will permit the reader to understand the essential dogmatic positions of Orthodoxy. The basic dogmas about Scripture and Tradition, about the Church and about ecclesiastical authority will thus be defined in the opening chapters. At the conclusion of the book, we will return to certain other doctrinal aspects in the forms in which they are expressed today.

This book serves largely as introduction. The purpose is largely to introduce concepts and history of the Orthodox church to a western audience; while it is a common assumption that the first half of Christian history is a shared history between East and West, in fact that history is viewed very differently in the perspective of the continuing Orthodox from the 'traditional' history taught viewed by Roman Catholics or western Protestants.

The Orthodox view is held up in contrast to prevailing Western senses of meaning in Church and Scripture:

'The Orthodox Christian East has always succeeded in avoiding the tragic pitfall of considering any human institution, or even any human formulation of Christian dogma, as being absolute and infallible as such. Indeed, even Scripture is God's word, but spoken by human beings, so that the living Truth which it contains must be understood not only in its literal meaning but also through the power of the Spirit, which inspired the authors and continues to inspire the faithful in the body of the Church.''

Meyendorff is certainly not writing from an objective view. His view is thoroughly Orthodox. Despite the hoped-for unity of Church among the Orthodox, however, Meyendorff presents the reality of different and separate institutions and hierarchies in the past and in the present.

One key theme that is developed early in the book is that the schism between East and West was not due to one event or even one issue -- while the issue over the filoque clause might have been the last straw, in fact the dogmatic and hierarchical issues between Rome and Constantinople were growing in intensity and conflict for centuries before. Like many in the Western churches, Meyendorff speaking from an Orthodox perspective concedes that the final schism need not have happened and probably owed more to misunderstanding rather than deliberate attempts at disunion.

Meyendorff includes brief chapters on the structure of the Orthodox church, Orthodox monasticism, Orthodox relations with Islam, and Orthodox relations with Communist states, particularly in Russia, the largest remaining unified Orthodox church after the fall of the Eastern Empire. Chapters of general principles of faith and spirituality, as well as ecclesiology, round out the discussion of general Orthodox history.

The chapter which has undergone the greatest revision is chapter 8, 'The Orthodox Church Today.' Included in this chapter are subsections on each of the major branches of Orthodoxy, which gives a good sense for the breadth and complexity of the subject. Included are sections on each of the major geographic divisions, which are in communion but independent in administration.

'The Orthodox Church is at present a decentralised organisation, based partly on centuries-old traditions and partly on more modern conditions. It consists of a number of local or national churches, all enjoying an 'autocephalous' status, that is to say, possessing the right to choose their own heads, the bishops (Greek auto-, 'self', kephale, 'head'.)'

These groups cooperate with each other and hold to a common history and sense of liturgy and doctrine, and have participated in councils well past the medieval period. Meyendorff tends to see a new age of Orthodoxy occurring in the shift between nationalism, modernism, and a re-examination of those things which are fundamental and crucial for Orthodox faith.

Professor Lossky provides an extensive postscript beyond the 1981 edition updating the particulars of the autocephalous churches. Among many interesting facts presented is the idea of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople's consideration of relocating outside of Turkey -- an astonishing idea, still denied by the local Orthodox church despite its difficulty in dealing with the local, non-Christian government in Turkey that tries to keep the patriarchate from exercising an international role.

In 240 page, an amazing amount of history and general Orthodox principle is contained, distilled, interpreted, and presented in accessible and interesting fashion for general readers, religion students, and theologians.

'With the fall of Communism and the newfound freedom of Eastern Europe, the Orthodox Church is met with new challenges and opportunities. It has become apparent that its history and its current reality are either unknown, extremely unfamiliar, or laden with cliches.'

As it becomes important to understand the culture and history of those countries that are striving in their newly-won liberty to make a mark on the world stage, this book will provide unique insights into how to understand the 100 million + people in the world who hold the Orthodox faith, and how to relate to those people as people of history, faith, and integrity.

A war poem in the great tradition of 'Three German Officers Crossed the Rhine'...