Customer Reviews (2)

Essense of the Sixties
This book gives a great insight into the excitement of the late 60's, and their less pleasant aftermath.It's written by David Harris, the famous SDS leader from Stamford who was one of the few to actually go to prison for draft resistance-- in the midst of which he married Joan Baez.Two other people are described in fascinating detail: Allard Lowenstein, an anti-war Congressman elected in the late 60's, and speaker at my Harvard commencement in 1969; and Dennis Sweeney, activist and Lowenstein protege-- who later murdered Lowenstein.

This is a terrifically writen, hard to put down, account of the hopes and disappointments of the sixties.

Allard Lowenstein may not have been gay but..
In 1980 Allard Lowenstein was assassinated by a former "protege" named Dennis Sweeney. The two men first met in the early 60s when Sweeney was a 19yr old undergrad at Stanford. Lowenstein was a prof of Govt at Stanford and "Dean of Men". Sweeney was judged to be incompetent to stand trial by virtue of his schizophrenia. His whereabouts today is not clear but Lowenstein was buried in Arlington National Cemetery a few yard from JFK.

The early 60s was a time of great change and ideological fervor and the interactions of Lowenstein and Sweeney are chronicled for us here by David Victor Harris. Lowenstein was what we today would describe as a motivator and a charismatic speaker who helped wake up the youth of the New Frontier and inspired them to go out and make our world a better place.Harris was one such youth who fell under Lowenstein's spell as a "protege" andis perhaps best known today for later marrying folksinger and human rights advocate Joan Baez. [Baez stands alone as one of the few anti Viet Nam War protestors who spoke out against the brutal postwar human rights record of the conquering North Vietnamese in the South] Of course to David Harris him for that achievemt alone would be a disservice. He like so many young idealistic and presumbaly well-off young collegians (from Stanford but also from Yale and other Ivies back east) saw first hand the segregation and hatred of pre Civil Rights Act Mississippi. Their experiences of southern racism and the establishment liberal Democrats who sought to compromise and negotiate with racist Dixiecrats of that time radicalized these students and paved the way for the antiwar counterculture.

What I found most interesting about this book was the psychodynamics of the relationships Lowenstein formed with his many largely un-named "proteges". The young men like Sweeney presumably gravitated to the fatherlike figure of Lowenstein for understandable reasons. Lowenstein was in his 30s and his appeals to these young men met profound psyche needs: ie he sought out young men with "leadership potential" and then counted on them to provide him with transportation/chaueffeur services whenever he hit town on one of his many lectures to likeminded cause groupies.
In the case of Sweeney we see a young man who never really knew his own father. Lowenstein ably stepped up to fill that role. And protege Sweeney was as dedicated and idealistic as any young impressionable altar boy could ever be in the presence of Lowenstein, a veritable high priest of mid60s Liberalism.
Here we learn that my priest/altar boy comparison is apt indeed!!
Allard would ask a student if he could drive Allard to a student gathering/teach-in at any of the various campii of that era which were aflame with aroused ideological passions. Allard certainly knew how to work up a crowd and the young men were eager to do whatever they could to help spread the word of their priest/father figure.
Invariably the acolyte and Lowenstein would drive late into the night to reach their destination and eventually Lowenstein would suggest to his tired young chauffeur/protege that they stop for the night. Lowenstein would instruct the young man to wait in the car while he went in to get a room. Surprise surprise surprise!! They have only one room left and only one bed.
So the naive and unsuspecting youth would strip down to underwear and tee shirt and lie down on his half of the bed. Lowenstein would have the other half.

You can figure out what happened next. Lowenstein would invariably hug and get close up to the young man. Remember this was 1965 (or in Sweeney's case 1964!) Homosexual conduct was not as favorably or benignly viewed then among intellectuals as it is today. We cant know how many such "proteges" of the great Lowenstein endured such a maneuver since Harris seldom names them outright. Harris himself experienced a similar setup and learned that he and Sweeney werent the only young men Allard was able to manipulate into this arrangement.

Lowenstein's sexuality was never clearly revealed. He expressed great solidarity with Florida homosexuals battling against Anita Bryant but never actually came out himself even though as Harris narrates many young campus activists spoke of trysts with Lowenstein.
After Lowenstein's death Harris wrote about the "great work" Lowenstein and Sweeney had done with their voter registrationdrive in Mississippi. Lowenstein's fans and friends chafed at the evidence suggesting he was a sexual predator. He eventually married a gal and fathered 3 kids. One son today is a lawyer activist like his dad and worked on the disastrous John Kerry Presidential campaign.


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Product Description
Accompanying the British Army during its decisive foray into China in 1860, Felice Beato (1820-1907) was the first photographer to document a military campaign in progress. He captured not only the immediacy of war, the aftermath of battle, and strategic military positions, but also the sumptuous new Summer Palace (seen by few Chinese and even fewer foreigners) before its destruction by the British. His photographic record of the Second Opium War consisted of approximately one hundred images, including a number of panoramic views, which survive in the form of private albums originally compiled by British officers as a record of their victorious campaign. One such album, now in the collection of Jane and Michael Wilson, is presented here.
In addition to providing a strikingly beautiful glimpse of nineteenth-century China, these images also reveal how photography functioned as an integral component of British imperialism by shaping perceptions about a distant country and its culture. Essayist David Harris provides an overview of Beato's work in China, and his extensive catalog notes describe and contextualize each of the photographs.
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The theory of schemes is the foundation for algebraic geometry proposed and elaborated by Alexander Grothendieck and his co-workers. It has allowed major progress in classical areas of algebraic geometry such as invariant theory and the moduli of curves. It integrates algebraic number theory with algebraic geometry, fulfilling the dreams of earlier generations of number theorists. This integration has led to proofs of some of the major conjectures in number theory (Deligne's proof of the Weil Conjectures, Faltings' proof of the Mordell Conjecture).

This book is intended to bridge the chasm between a first course in classical algebraic geometry and a technical treatise on schemes. It focuses on examples, and strives to show "what is going on" behind the definitions. There are many exercises to test and extend the reader's understanding. The prerequisites are modest: a little commutative algebra and an acquaintance with algebraic varieties, roughly at the level of a one-semester course. The book aims to show schemes in relation to other geometric ideas, such as the theory of manifolds. Some familiarity with these ideas is helpful, though not required. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Good book!
If you're interested in learning the basics of Algebraic Geometry and Hartshorne seems too daunting, try this book instead! The authors take their time developing the material and supplement it with exercises and examples, so the student gets an intuition and a feeling for Algebraic Geometry.
Definitely a good addition to a mathematician's library.

Supplement
This book is a strategic step in my campaign to be able to read EGA.Namely, I bought "The Geometry of Schemes" in order to get a better intuition for schemes (which, sadly, Hartshorne failed to provide).So far so good.There are pictures and the Eisenbud clarity I so like.I still don't get schemes, but since I haven't really read too much of the text that is to be expected.

good for a diffrent point of few.
I like the book in a way he explains the connection between alg. geom. and com. algebra. So, if you're quiet good in on of those both theories (this is ness. for this book), then it is a good book to learn more about the other side. To be good means you had at least one good course.
It's more or less a student book (4 year or further on) to get a better few to the connection of alg geom with com algebra.

Crystal clear overview of a traditionally abstract subject
The theory of schemes is usually thought to be highly abstract and esoteric, and one that makes the study of algebraic geometry even more difficult. The authors definitely dispel this notion in this book, which could have been called "A Concrete Introduction to Schemes", because of the clarity with which the concepts are introduced and explained. After studying this book, one will understand and appreciate the power of schemes in algebraic geometry. The authors do an even better jobthan they did in their earlier and short work "Schemes: The Language of Modern Algebraic Geometry", which is now out of print.

In chapter 1, the main definitions are given and the basic concepts behind schemes outlined. That schemes are more complicated than varieties is readily apparent even in this beginning chapter, where they are thought of as corresponding to the spectrum of a commutative ring with identity. Very elementary exercises are given to help the reader gain confidence in the constructions involved. They authors do have to discuss some sheaf theory, but they show its relevance nicely in this chapter. They also discuss the notion of a fibered product as a generalization of the idea of a preimage of a set under the application of a function and relate it to the construction of the functor of points. The role of the functor of points as reducing schemes to a kind of set theory is brought out beautifully here.

The next chapter gives many examples of schemes, with the first examples being reduced schemes over algebraically closed fields, these being essentially the ordinary varieties of classical algebraic geometry. The authors then give examples of schemes, the local schemes, which are more general than varieties. When departing from the assumption of a field that is not finitely generated, extra points will have to be added to classical varieties. The fact that only one closed point appears is compared to the case of complex manifolds, via the concept of a germ. This is a very helpful comparison, and one that further solidifies the understanding of a scheme in the mind of the reader. The authors give the reader a short peek at the etale topology in one of the examples. Examples are then given where the field is not algebraically closed, generalizing classical number theory, and non-reduced schemes, where nilpotents are present. The chapter ends with examples of arithmetic schemes where the spectra of rings are finitely generated over the integers.

Projective schemes are the subject of Chapter 3, and are defined in terms of graded algebras and invariants of projective schemes embedded in projective space are discussed. The Grasmannian scheme is discussed in detail as an example of a projective scheme. Interestingly, Bezout's theorem, very familiar from elementary algebraic geometry, is generalized here to projective schemes.

Constructions from classical algebraic geometry are generalized to schemes in Chapter 4. The first one discussed is the notion of a flex, which deals (classically) with the locus of tangent lines to a variety. The flexes are defined in terms of the Hessian of the variety, the latter being generalized by the authors to define a scheme of flexes. The notion of blowing up is also generalized to the scheme setting, with the authors motivating the discussion by blowing up the plane. The discussion of blow-ups along non-reduced subschemes of a scheme and blow-ups of arithmetic schemes is fascinating and the presentation is crystal clear. Fano varieties are also generalized to Fano schemes in the chapter. Most of the information about these schemes are contained in the exercises, and some of these need to be worked out for a thorough understanding.

The next chapter is more categorical in nature, and deals with generalizations of the classical Sylvester construction of resultants and discriminants to the scheme setting.

In the last chapter the authors return to the functor of points, and motivate the discussion by asking for a parametrization of families of schemes. The authors show, interestingly, that using the functor of points one can more easily compute geometric information about a scheme than using its equations. They illustrate this for the Zariski tangent space. Then after an overview of Hilbert schemes they close the book by introducing the reader to moduli spaces and a hint of algebraic stacks. No end in sight for this beautiful subject..........

A very good start
This book is clear, well written, and has a nice balance of generalities and examples. If you know the basics of rings and modules, this book will show you what schemes are and why they are useful for several different problems: for example, number theory, or studying singularities. I find it a helpful companion to Hartshorne's ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY. But this book does not get to cohomology, and so cannot actually get to the working methods in the subject. For that, you need Hartshorne. ... Read more

Product Description
Although V. Gordon Childe died 36 years ago, he remains the world's most renowned prehistorian.His What Happened in History, first published in 1942, is probably the most widely read book ever written by an archaeologist.His influence and reputation endure despite the fact that many of the theoretical ideas he propounded, as well as his interpretations of European and West Asian prehistory, have been profoundly modified, or even rejected, since his death.

With contributions from such distinguished prehistorians as Kent V. Flannery, David Harris, Leo S. Klejn, John Mulvaney, Colin Renfrew, Michael Rowlands, and Bruce Trigger, The Archaeology of V. Gordon Childe is an attempt to evaluate Childe's achievement from different "partly national" perspectives and to assess how far, and why, his work remains significant today.The contributors examine such persistent themes in Childe's thought as the nature of culture and the role of diffusion in cultural evolution and debate the question of whether Childe anticipated "processual archaeology" in his famous models of the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions.Also included are evaluations of Childe's early career in Australia, his relations with Soviet archaeology, including a previously unknown letter from Childe to Soviet archaeologists, and his impact on American archaeology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

At times intriguing, at times baffling...
This book contains papers presented at the V. Gordon Childe Centennial Conference held at the Institute of Archaeology in 1992.While the book does deal with Childe's theoritical archaeology, it also addresses his early life before embarking in archaeology.

Contributors to this volume are Bruce Trigger, Michael Rowlands, John Mulvaney, Leo Klejn, Kent Flannery, and Colin Renfrew.Trigger's and Renfrew's essays are forceful pieces on why archaeologists should stilll read Childe today.They alsostrip away the myth of him just being a 'Marxist' archaeologist; their essays demonstrate his theoritical contributions are much richer than that.Flannery takes a much more aggressive tone and is critical of Childe for his lack of interest in the New World and critical of his theories and models.Attacks like these should best be launched while the author is alive in my opinion. The essay by Mulvaney looks at Childe's life before archaeology, and Klejn's essay deals with a letter from Childe to Institute of Archaeology in St. Petersburg.

The target audience of this book is not clear though.While centered on Childe, these essays present a variety of facets concerning his life and works.Overall, its enjoyable and intellectually stimulating reading. ... Read more

Product Description
"A long-awaited collection from the much-admired editor of the fourW anthologies, Death and the Motorway traverses intimate and intellectual ground here and abroad with surety and insight. Several poems deal with David's experiences of life in Japan and the tensions between a busy academic life and the urge to create poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
Written for both specialists and non-specialists, this concise, practical guide presents comprehensive information on the clinical care and management of chronic kidney disease through dialysis treatment.

• Accessible format distills important information into easy-to-read lists and tables
• Management protocols are highlighted throughout to provide step-by-step guidelines for patient care
• Ideal for medical students, residents, and nurses

Product Description
The authors argue that the effective leaders of the future will be those who are able to share responsibility, build positive relationships and offer stakeholders - teachers, parents and students - an opportunity to work together to improve their schools. The book is based around four key areas of concern: the changing context of leadership, leadership and school improvement, building leadership capacity, and future direction and implications. In each section, the authors discuss current theories and issues, and put forward alternative ideas and perspectives.
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Product Description
Spend less, see more. This is the philosophy behind Pauline Frommer’s guides. Written by travel expert Pauline Frommer (who is also the daughter of Arthur Frommer), and her team of hand-picked writers, these guides show how to truly experience a culture, meet locals, and save money along the way.

• Industry secrets on how to find the best hotel rooms

• Details on alternative accommodations, great neighborhood restaurants, and cool, offbeat finds

• Packed with personality and opinions

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Customer Reviews (1)

Experiences, not things
I love that the focus is on "spending" more on experiences, as opposed to things.It was very helpful in planning my recent trip to Spain. ... Read more

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It was the first colony to declare independence, and Samuel Wilson, the original "Uncle Sam," was born here. Robert Frost took the road less traveled in New Hampshire, and it was here that Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda rowed on Golden Pond. This illustrated tribute to the tradition-rich Granite State explores its history, politics, stunning scenery, and tourist draws, from the soaring White Mountains ("the Alps of America") to the famed MacDowell and Cornish colonies that have inspired writers and artists from Thornton Wilder to Maxfield Parrish to Leonard Bernstein.

134 illustrations, 115 in full color ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Grandeur of the Granite State
Years ago, when preparing for my three-year 50-state road trip I'd purchased a load of travel guides to help me plan what to see in each state, and was satisfied with guides until I stumbled upon my first ART OF STATE book in an Iowa museum. This unique book made all other travel books pale by comparison. Although small and slim the books throughout this series are packed with meaningful information. Beautifully designed and written, they are thoroughly engaging and a joy to read--like finding an ancestor's scrapbook or diary in the attic and reading a fascinating family heritage while viewing the images of a buried past.Each ART OF STATE story is lovingly told by someone with a deep appreciation of the state--and not just its good features, but the blemishes, too, all described evenhandedly and complemented by photographs of architecture, landscapes paintings, crafts and memorabilia. Each book presents the state's history, climate, landscape, traditions, symbols, recipes, must-see destinations as well as a statewide calendar of events. I've since purchased all the books in the series (19 of the 50 states as of 2007). If your budget won't allow you to buy all 19, at least buy two: one of your home state and one of your adopted state.You'll be amazed at what you'll discover about your former and current home state.

I apologize for raving so much about THE ART OF STATE series, but it was such a find for me, like discovering a diamond in a sea of glass. I can't help but gush.

The frontispiece of each book has a wallpaper design featuring a state motif. For New Hampshire, the motif is a moose: tiny golden brown moose, like polka dots, stand against a robins egg blue background. Sweet.

Now about the New Hampshire volume. Although New Hampshire is my adopted home, I never knew so many artist colonies began here the 19th and 20th century, from followers of sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Cornish to the Hudson River School camp in the soaring White Mountains (called "the Alps of America" back then) to the renowned MacDowell Art Colony in the west that inspired writers and artists from Thornton Wilder to Maxfield Parrish to Leonard Bernstein, and continues to offer a sanctuary for creative minds. I learned that New Hampshire was the first colony to declare independence from Great Britain. (Rhode Island makes this claim, but New Hampshire was first by five months), and the significance of the OLD FARMER'S ALMANAC and YANKEE magazines, the Mount Washington Weather Station, Portsmouth harbor and the difference between lakes, kettles, potholes and basins. I met the first Granite State inhabitants, the Penacook Confederacy. Or were they predated by even earlier inhabitants who left their mark on Mystery Hill in Salem, a 4,000-year-old rock formation nicknamed "America' Stonehendge." Each historic entry, art commentary, poetic observation made me excited about my adopted home, a place I had previously thought boring and lackluster. This book makes me want to pack my bag and visit every section of my state. A fantastic reference book and escape into the grandeur of the Granite State. ... Read more

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Why racial profiling is not just wrong, but ineffective too.

Racial profiling—as practiced by police officers, highway troopers, and customs officials—is one of America's most explosive public issues. But even as protest against the practice has swelled, police forces and others across the country continue to argue that profiling is an effective crime-fighting tool. In Profiles in Injustice, David Harris—described by the Seattle Times as "America's leading authority on racial profiling"—dismantles those arguments, drawing on a wealth of newly available statistics to show convincingly that profiling is not only morally and legally wrong, but also startlingly ineffectual at preventing crime or apprehending criminals.

A new chapter considers how the events of September 11 have recast the racial profiling issue, tipping public opinion in favor of the policy as a tool in fighting terrorism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Accurate, Eloquent, Searching Look at a U.S. Stain of Shame
This masterpiece of legal scholarship, clearly and eloquently written for the general public (plus police officers, politicians, and lawyers) lays searingly bare the United States's collective shame of the evil practice of racial profiling and stereotyping.The first 3 of the 9 chapters lay the groundwork of the author's thesis via extensive anecdotal evidence, thoroughly supported by direct quotations and direct observations, many of them from police officers as well as innocent victims.Chapter 4 provides a convincing and well-reasoned [I'm a professional statistician] statistical validation of the author's thesis, plus proof that racial profiling actually decreases probabilities of intercepting criminals.Chapter 5 exposes the hidden but corrosive costs of racial profiling, such as disunity among Americans and the cancer of chronic distrust of police and courts.Chapter 6 extends the discussion beyond African-American victims to East Asian, Hispanic, and Near-Eastern victims.The last three chapters provide the encouragement of a road to improvement, including examples of municipalities and police departments already following that road.
Throughout, the author's prose is objective, quietly restrained, and superbly organized and enunciated.

Accurate, Eloquent, Searching Look at a U.S. Stain of Shame
This masterpiece of legal scholarship, clearly and eloquently written for the general public (plus police officers, politicians, and lawyers) lays searingly bare the United States's collective shame of the evil practice of racial profiling and stereotyping.The first 3 of the 9 chapters lay the groundwork of the author's thesis via extensive anecdotal evidence, thoroughly supported by direct quotations and direct observations, many of them from police officers as well as innocent victims.Chapter 4 provides a convincing and well-reasoned [I'm a professional statistician] statistical validation of the author's thesis, plus proof that racial profiling actually decreases probabilities of intercepting criminals.Chapter 5 exposes the hidden but corrosive costs of racial profiling, such as disunity among Americans and the cancer of chronic distrust of police and courts.Chapter 6 extends the discussion beyond African-American victims to East Asian, Hispanic, and Near-Eastern victims.The last three chapters provide the encouragement of a road to improvement, including examples of municipalities and police departments already following that road.
Throughout, the author's prose is objective, quietly restrained, and superbly organized and enunciated. ... Read more

Product Description
This book provides information on noise control technology, materials and systems for industrial, commercial and institutional use. Strategies are provided for reducing vibration, silencing, meeting acoustical standards in offices, and more. Numerous guidelines and worksheets are provided to save time and reduce paperwork. Contributions by many highly respected noise specialists keep professionals on top of assessment and control methods in the field. This book should be of interest to acoustic consultants and engineers; environmental engineers; and industrial health and safety managers; manufacture noise control professionals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Some chuckles, but not much more
Much of the material here duplicates that found in the Big Book of JewishHumor (1981) but somehow manages to make the jokes worse with time.Thereare a few nice ones but I went pages without so much as a giggle.If youwant Jewish humor or even soviet Jewish humor try out the 1981 bookmentioned earlier. ... Read more

Product Description
This book describes basic engineering principles in a funand easy manner using simple physics and mathematics.Historicrailroad trusses are used as examples.Perfect for projects for highschool and early college students.Also ideal for hobbyists andhistorians.

Students will learn basic engineering principles from the easyto understand, step-by-step, text, and over 100 figures.Historicphotos and drawings are provided from extensive research to show theprinciples discussed.A workbook is included as the last part of thebook with fun, hands-on projects, and problems to aid in theunderstanding of the principles.The projects range from "the carrottruss", a few minute simple project, to more advanced ideas.Researchideas are suggested, including on-line sources such as the extensiveLibrary of Congress InterNet resources.A computer program foranalysis of trusses is printed in the text, and spreadsheet examplesare used.Text and problems are classroom tested.

Hobbyists will gain new insight into engineering principles.Historic drawings are included with illustrations of conversion foruse in models.Many different types of trusses could be produced fromthe provided pictures, drawings and illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good work
With many examples of Basic codes for checking stresses on trusses' bars and several historic notes and blueprints. Good for classrooms notes and teaching. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Why we are what we eat and so much more
The companion to the PBS Television series hosted by Marcus Samuelsson, The Meaning of Food is the collaborative effort of Patricia Harris, David Lyon, and Sue McLaughlin and is not only a recipe book, but dwells upon what truly makes a meal, why some food is considered sacred or inseparably tied to emotions, connections between food, culture, and family, and much more. Full color photographs illustrate this narrative global history of the role cuisine has played in cultural evolution and expression since ancient times. A bibliography and index round out this involving chronicle recommended for anyone interested in a matter-of-fact overview of why we are what we eat and so much more.
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