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In defence of Ernst Haeckel
Robert J. Richards is a professor of the history of science and medicine at the University of Chicago. His special interest seem to be Darwin's theory of evolution and its relationship to the Romantic movement. I haven't read Richard's others books yet, but he seems to have a "progressive" interpretation of Darwinian evolution, which marks him out from Neo-Darwinism and (arguably) from Darwin himself. It does align him with the subject of the present book, however.

"The tragic sense of life" is a biography of the German evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel. Richard has a relatively positive view of Haeckel, both as a man and as a scientist, and he defends him from the usual accusations. Personally, I have a more negative view of the man, but it's still interesting to read a book with a different perspective.

The political landscape of 19th century Germany was very different from that of the Weimar Republic or the modern West, explaining why Haeckel often took positions that seems contradictory or even absurd to modern ears. Thus, German nationalism was often a *liberal* position during the 19th century. And while Haeckel's support to Bismarck could be seen as a betrayal of liberal ideals, it should be noted that Bismarck initially took a fiercely secularist position in the Kulturkampf with the Catholic Church, something that would have endeared him to an atheist such as Haeckel. As for Haeckel's racism and eugenics, those were standard positions all across the political spectrum during the 19th century and the early 20th century.

Unsurprisingly, Haeckel classified humans in a racial hierarchy with Africans at the bottom and Europeans at the top. Ironically, however, he was neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Arab. He classified the Semites immediately below the White Europeans, wrote positively about the Arabs after a visit to Morocco, and admired precisely those Jews which the Nazis later would hate most of all: well-assimilated and successful German Jews. For a while, Haeckel also classified American Indians as a relatively advanced human race or "species". Haeckel opposed war with the somewhat awkward argument, inspired by eugenics, that modern wars tend to kill off the best individuals of the race, while the bad-bred elements survive. During World War One, however, Haeckel eventually lost his nerve and began supporting the German war effort.

Of course, this is *not* a defence of Haeckel - at least not to the present reviewer. Being a child of your time isn't always positive (perhaps it never is). However, it does show that the equation "Haeckel = Hitler" isn't as simple as some people imagine. The entire Zeitgeist of the period was imbued with racism, "progressive" evolutionism and fear of degeneracy. Haeckel never managed to transcend it, but compared to the later Nazis, he was almost a liberal!

Apart from the "Nazi" connection, Haeckel has become notorious for supposedly forging pictures of embryos to prove that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". Richards believe that the charges against Haeckel are unfounded, and that other biologists (including some who criticized Haeckel) simplified pictures of embryos in exactly the same manner in their printed works.

Finally, a more humorous observation. Richards constantly implies that Haeckel was bisexual or even homosexual, but never says so explicitly. I wonder why not? Come on, Richie, say it! Instead, we are treated to a whole string of euphemism such as "They took a bath together", "the boy became totally devoted to him", "the boy looked like a Greek god", etc.

Indeed.

Once again, I'm much more negative to Ernst Haeckel and his political entanglements than the author, but as a balanced pro-Haeckel book, "The tragic sense of life" is nevertheless quite interesting.

Excellent, but too lengthy
Prof. Richards tells us about the life of Ernst Haeckel in great detail - and dispells with the myth, that Mr. Heackel was directly or indirectly responsible for the advent of Nazi Germany.
Unfortunately, for the general audience, the book is too scholarly and too detailed, it is therefore not exactly easy reading.
Some important information and profound insights into how a biography should be (e.g. the moral standing of an individual has to be judged agianst the morals prevalent at his time, not against the morals of some other period) are relegated to an appendix.

All said, an excellent biography for someone who is really interested in Ernst Haeckel, but unfortunately too "heavy" for someone with a general interest

Darwin's Defender in Germany and the World
This is a very fine biography of Ernest Haeckel (1834-1919), the primary interpreter and defender of Darwinian theory in 19th and early 20th century Germany and, perhaps, the world.But the book is far more than even this.Haeckel above all was a first-class scientist who made major contributions in biology, morophology, and medicine, while discovering many new species and establishing classification systems for them.So, first of all, we learn about Haeckel's life in great detail. When he reads Darwin's "Origin," he undertakes to defend and propagate evolutionary theory in Germany and elsewhere in a series of publications and presentations. The author suggests that more people learned about Darwinian ideas from Haeckel's relentless activity than from Darwin himself.However, Haeckel is more than just an empirical, data-driven scientist.As the author explains, unlike Victorian scientists during the same period, German scientists under the influence of Humboldt, Kant, Schelling and Goethe demanded that science satisfy aesthetic criteria as well, for aesthetic considerations were as important as empirical fact for human understanding.I found the author's discussion of this concept most interesting since this idea had not appeared in any of studies of Victorian science during the 19th century that I have read.So we alsosee from some beautiful full-color plates included in the book that Haeckel was an outstanding artist, whose scientific drawings stand as pieces of art (many are available on the internet) as well as scientific adjuncts.

Haeckel also generated quite a lot of controversy, and still does.For one thing, he was highly combative, probably eclipsing Huxley as "Darwin's bulldog."He was seen as attacking religion by his advocacy of evolutionary principles. Most importantly, Haeckel was accused of scientific fraud by his use of certain embroyo illustrations in his publications, where it was alleged he doctored the illustrations to comply with his theories.This debate has continued until the present day as well.The book, among other things, is a 540 page refutation of these allegations--a brief for the defense. Nonetheless, to me it appears at a minimum that Haeckel exercised some bad judgment in this area.Equally significant, a more damning charge continues to be asserted that because of Haeckel's interest in eugenics, he helped lay the foundation for Nazi policies.All of this is discussed analytically and carefully by the author, especially in Appendix II on the "moral grammar" of such charges against Haeckel. Finally, Haeckel alienated most everybody outside Germany by joining in defenses of Germany and attacks on England relating to who caused the First War.All and all, Haeckel was no shrinking violet and relished the opportunity to "mix it up" with opponents.

I have been able to touch upon only some of the highlights covered in this fine book.But there are many other fascinating elements as well, such as Haeckel's reliance upon the linguistic studies of August Schleicher to buttress his defense of Darwin; his interactions with Erich Wasmann, the "Jesuit evolutionist"; and his visits with Darwin himself. Only occasionally does the science get a bit heavy here; the author writes with clarity and insight in such a way that I had difficulties only in a couple of places.The book is superbly researched, including stints by the author (a professor of the history of science at Chicago) at the Haeckel Haus and the University in Jena where Haeckel spent most of his professional career.There is a 27-page bibliography of archival and printed sources and a comprehensive index. In addition to the full color pages mentioned above, there are exceedingly helpful illustrations throughout which allow the reader carefully to follow the author's discussion of points. And bless the gods, there are footnotes at the base of the page.The book is beautifuly produced by the University of Chicago Press, which has published an outstanding series of books on 19th century science/intellectual history, and is to be commended.This is quite a book and it opens many cans of interesting worms.

A portrait of a scientific and very human life
(This review is an expanded version of my review in "Choice", the review magazine of the American Library Association).

This is an extraordinarily thorough investigation into the life of a great (and greatly maligned) scientist. It is exhaustively researched and the bibliography is extremely thorough. But it is much more than a scholarly tome. It is a portrait of a man driven by science and romanticism, as well as a window into the scientific enterprise during a different era.

Haeckel was an incredibly productive and insightful scientist; he was often mentioned as a likely recipient for the Nobel Prize in his later years. He coined many words still in use today, including "ecology", named thousands of species of marine animals, and mentored many students who became famous in their own right. His artistic talents were also prodigious, and his illustrations in his monographs describing new marine organisms are still used today as exemplars of scientific illustration. He was, to use a word that is commonly overused, a genius.

More importantly for the overall theme of this book, Richards also points out that Haeckel's publications promoting evolutionary theory, both popular and scientific, were much more widely read than Darwin's "Origin of Species". They were translated into more languages, and sold many more copies during his lifetime. Furthermore, Haeckel's blunt criticisms of religiously-motivated critics of Darwin set the stage for the current political struggles between evolution and religion in modern America. Even T.H. Huxley, no stranger to the barbed insult, is quoted in this book as telling Haeckel that he needs to rein in the polemics in his popular writings! Indeed, a good case can be made that without Haeckel's antagonism toward muddled theological criticism of science in general and evolution in particular, religion and science might have come to a better understanding than we seem to observe today. This is another, less benign, legacy of a man whose zealotry extended to all things.

Finally, Richards thoroughly debunks the thesis that Darwin's ideas, via Haeckel, were an important source for Nazi political or scientific thinkers, and thus a root cause of the Holocaust. In that regard, it is worth quoting his concluding statement, on the last page of the book. "It can only be a tendentious and dogmatically driven assessment that would condemn Darwin for the crimes of the Nazis. And while some of Haeckel's conceptions were recruited by a few Nazi biologists, he hardly differed in that respect from Christian writers, whose disdain for Jews gave considerably more support to those dark forces. One might thus recognize in Haeckel a causal source for a few lines deployed by National Socialists, but hardly any moral connection exists by which to indict him." Richards documents that the spurious Darwin-Haeckel-Hitler connection has its ultimate roots, unsurprisingly, in the religious objections to evolution that Haeckel fought against throughout his scientific career.

The tragedies in Haeckel's life, and the influence of these tragedies on his zealous scientific and political activities, add a poignant touch to the work. Haeckel's scientific output, and his championing of Darwin's theory, were driven by a tragedy of coincidence that happened early in his career, just after he read Darwin's "Origin of Species" and decided to search for experimental evidence for evolution. On his thirtieth birthday, it was announced that he had won a prestigious prize, and his wife of eighteen months passed away. His grief drove him throughout his career, and it was a powerful grief.

Beyond the narrative that gives us insight into the man and his times, and in addition to the excruciatingly well-documented historical facts, the book has one other illuminating attraction. The appendices, found both at the end of several chapters and also at the end of the work, not only enhance the reader's understanding of this specific history, but also are extremely valuable guides to reading other histories. This is a master work, and belongs in the library of anyone who has an interest in the history of evolutionary science.
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A Multi-Faceted Affair
By Richards' own account this book is not your traditional history of the philosophy of science. It is trying to please many masters, is trying to be accessible to people interested in many different types of things, and I think that it does it very well.

The first point that I wish to focus on is the biographic information presented in this work. This is the most impressive and well-executed part of the text. Much of it (around 200 odd pages) is simply and unabashedly a biography of several key figures in the history of Romanticism. The first 100 pages of the book gives an account of the lives of the main Romantics, and towards the end we get another impressive slog of information specifically about Goethe. Interspersed through the other sections, however, are discussions on the biography of the key scientists of the time, so that section seems more like an intellectual biography. The weight of information that he brings to bear on these discussions is impressive. My only concern is why Kant and Schiller were left out of this. Kant's first and third critique get continual mention throughout, and the reactions people had to the third critique was what really glued this book together. I would have liked to have seen more of a discussion of Kant, but then most people who would read this book should know it already, so its probably not a big issue. But my main concern was Schiller's absence. Many authors (Pinkard, Beiser, Henrich etc.) write books on this time, and all mention how big an influence Schiller is, and yet no-one ever dedicated a whole chapter to him. You find out a lot about him here, but its spread our throughout the work.

The second emphasis on this text is the history of the philosophy. By philosophy here I am referring to the metaphysics and the idealism of the time, rather than the philosophy of science. Given the difficulty of the philosophy he is dealing with Richards does a very admirable job of making it lucid, and treading that fine line between detail and generalisation. My only concern is that the idealist conception of nature, and how representations gain their content without referring to a thing-in-itself, though central to the thesis, was probably underdeveloped. But besides that, this is a really excellent introduction, particularly to the works of Schelling, and it has some great gems about Kant's third critique.

Finally this book is a history of the philosophy of science. This is the area I know least amount, but it is the centre of this work. I can't comment too much on the accuracy of the work, but I thought that the discussion of the development of the concept of organicism was incredibly interesting, and I thought that the concluding arguments of the book, regarding Darwin's relationship to the Idealists, was well put forward. It certainly made me interested in exploring these issues more.

One last comment I'd like to make, which I see has been made by other reviewers, regards why Goethe was chosen as the focus of this book. He was a great poet, indeed, but I do think that his scientific nor philosophical acheivements were so great that fully half of the book should be dedicated to him specifically. He was an integral figure in these times, and for someone of his stature to have supported a Romantic conception of organicism would certainly have put it in good stead on the Continent, and beyond (as it seemed to have done). But I really thought more focus on Reil and the other biologists would have been welcome.

Overall this is a very impressive work, and in structure it is a testament to philosophical simplicity. Give a personal biography, then an intellectual biography, then examine the impacts on others. It is a wonderful resource for anyone interested in Romanticism, or the philosophy of science, and even, as I mentioned, for those who like to read intellectual biographies (which I love).

Science and aesthetics
The romantics envisioned a unity of science and aesthetics. Their vision can be seen as an extrapolation of Kant's theories.

According to Kant, aesthetics and science are connected as follows. "Organisms and aesthetic objects both exemplify purposiveness in their constructions---their parts harmonize and stand in reciprocal relation to one another. Such purposiveness could not arise by accident ... or at least our human reason balks at such notion." (p. 70). "In our appreciation of an artistic work, our understanding considers its various parts, allowing the free play of imagination, to get a sense of the harmony of forms; as imagination recreates those forms and compares their arrangements with the requirements of understanding, a feeling of purposiveness arises, an aesthetic feeling that we generically call a feeling of beauty. ... The situation of the biologist is comparable. When he assesses the traits of an organism, the same reflective procedure occurs: through an initial exploration of the parts, he formulates an idea of the whole---though now a conscious and articulate conception of the whole, an archetype---and thereby understands the organism's particular traits in relation to the whole. Indeed, the student of nature must, according to Kant, judge the structures investigated as if they came to exist by reason of the archetype... But in this instance the biologist makes only a heuristic assessment, and does not---cannot---presume the idea at which he arrives to have actually caused the structure." (pp. 488-489).

But elsewhere Kant had showed that the way we perceive the world is coloured by our cognitive apparatus. This prompted Fichte to claim that "Kantianism properly understood" implied the absolute subjectivity of nature: "even the manifold of sense has been produced by us out of our own creative faculty" (p. 79). Kant of course protested, as did Schiller: "The world is for [Fichte] only a ball, which the I has thrown and which it again catches in reflection!! He ought, therefore, to have simply declared his divinity, something we expect any day now." (p. 83). Nevertheless, Fichte's ideas took hold among the younger generation. Schelling, "the philosopher king of the Romantic circle," maintained similarly that "'the objective world is only the original, though unconscious, poetry of the mind.'" "Hence, the biologist's great aid in comprehending nature would be poetic, that is, aesthetic judgement" (p. 114), or, in Schelling's words, "'the common organ of philosophy---and the keystone of the whole arch---is the philosophy of art'" (p. 160).

These ideas had significant impact on biological research. "Most biologists of the period ... believed, in part due to Schelling, that teleological processes could be found governing natural phenomena and that valid laws could be formulated to capture such relationships," contrary to Kant who "maintained that biology could never really be a science, but at best only a loose system of uncertain empirical regularities" (p. 231). One example is Blumenbach, who claimed that "there exists in all living creatures, from men to maggots and from cedar tree to mold, a particular inborn, lifelong active drive. This drive initially bestows on creatures their for, then preserves it, and, if they become injured, where possible restores their form. ... I give it the name of Bildungstrieb. (pp. 218-219). He hoped to uncover laws governing this force, such as, "for instance, that the strength of the Bildungstrieb was inversely related to the age of the organism" (p. 226).

Goethe was also a scientist of this type. As the above romantics, "Goethe resonated to several features of Kant's conception" (p. 430), but he was also influenced by Spinoza. "Spinoza's conception of the amor Dei intellectualis, that deeply intuitive relation of the individual min to God-Nature, became emblematic of Goethe's own love and pursuit of nature. The identification of the self with nature meant, as Goethe came to believe, that deep within the soul pathways could be found to hidden aspects of nature and that discoveries within one world would lead to revelations in the other." (p. 377).

One philosophically motivated discovery made by Goethe was the intermaxillary bone in man. "Contemporary authorities ... had denied the existence of [the intermaxillary bone] in human beings [and] offered up this bone as a natural sign of man's radical separation from the animals" (p. 369). Goethe proved them wrong: "I have found---neither gold, nor silver, but something that makes me unspeakably glad---the os intermaxillare in man!" (p. 369). This was in line with his philosophical convictions. "For Goethe, the Spinozistic approach to anatomy meant that one had to examine the range of animal skeletons in comparative fashion in order to come to an adequate idea, or archetype, of the animal skeleton. Having achieved such an idea would then indicate how each of the skeletal parts related internally. If the human skeleton, for instance, exhibited a pattern comparable to other vertebrates, then one would expect that every kind of bone would be represented in the human frame ... Hence the expectation that human beings also exhibited an os intermaxilliaris." (p. 380).

Goethe followed the same principle in his botanical researches. During his first Italian journey, when in Palermo, "Goethe went to the public gardens in the city to relax with a copy of the Odyssey. ... But as he sat down ..., as he recalled, 'another spirit seized me...' He gazed around the garden, and inquired of himself: 'Whether I might not find the Urpflanze within this mass of plants? Something like that must exist! How else would I recognize that this structure or that was a plant, if they were not all formed according to a model'" (p. 395). This "quasi-Platonic principle ... carried enormous weight within him" (p. 416). When he tried to explain his Urpflanze to Schiller, however, "Schiller listened politely, shook his head, and exclaimed: 'that's no observation, that's an idea.' Goethe recalled being struck by this remark and not a little irritated. He replied: 'Well, I am quite happy that I have ideas without knowing of them and that I can even see them.'" (p. 424).

But Goethe did not willingly call himself a romantic, famously saying "The classical I call healthy and the Romantic sick" (p. 458). "With the Romantic there is nothing natural, original, but something contrived, labored, overblown, overdone, and bizarre, descending into the grotesque and into caricature." (p. 458). In science, the antidote to such "Schwärmerei and obscurity" (p. 463) was to be empiricism, while maintaining the unity of art and science. "'These great works of art are comparable to the great works of nature; they have been created by men according to true and natural laws. Everything arbitrary, imaginary collapses. Here is necessity, here is God.'" (p. 402). Goethe's emphasis on empiricism was surely healthy, but he went too far. The culmination of his empirical work is his optics, where he thought that "Newton sinned" in that he "selectively employed a few experiments to prove what he had already assumed" (p. 437). "He believed that as a result of the multitude and variety of experiments he was conducting that Newton's hypothesis would 'collapse like an old wall as soon as I will have undermined its foundation'" (p. 441). This of course did not happen and "with blighted hopes..., Goethe returned to literature to expiate his depressed cynicism about human folly" (p. 441). In the end he revised his views on empiricism (p. 438) and had to admit that he was a romantic after all. "Schiller 'demonstrated to me that I myself, against my will, was a Romantic'" (p. 458).

In the epilogue, Richards notes that Darwin had a rather romantic outlook. "Darwin never referred to or conceived natural selection as operating in mechanical fashion" (p. 534), instead natural selection "was cast in the image of a divine Being, whose 'forethought' might teleologically produce creatures of great 'beauty' and with progressively intricate 'adaptations.' Natural selection, in its original, metaphorical conception, was hardly machinelike, rather godlike" (p. 536). "Indeed, one might even say, without distortion, that evolutionary theory was Goethean morphology running on geological time" (p. 407).

Hidden dimension of evolution
I got a lot more from this book than I expected, though it's less than it promises. It reads like droppings from the author's hobbies of researching German romanticism and evolutionary theory. It comes in disconnected chunks that could be separate books.

But I loved learning about "Bildungstreib," the romantic root behind Humbolt's travels and his journals of those travels that so inspired Darwin. It accounted for the "grandeur" Darwin saw in his evolutionary theories that is so at odds with the grubby mechanism of natural selection he came up with. That sense of grandeur Darwin got from German romanticism he used to sell his mechanism along with the really-grand theory of evolution itself.

I have long been curious about Goethe, but the extended treatment in this book read as if for specialists. In general I felt there was material here for a popular book on the German-romantic contribution to biology pre-evolutionary theory, but this book isn't it. There is in fact little about Humbolt.

Well-meant but unbalanced
Richards presents two major theses here. First, that German Romantic science was not a dead end, but led directly to Darwin's theories of evolution.Second, that the personal sexual behavior of the Romantics was linked to a view of nature itself as sexualized.The present reviewer actually agrees with Richards on these points, yet still found this a disappointing and unbalanced book.

Richards is obsessed with Goethe.This is all very proper and German, and no doubt leads to brownie points in the form of research grants.It is also a woefully unfair and lopsided view. We get all the details about Goethe's mistresses, such deathless poetry as "I have fallen so in love with her/It's if I had drunk her blood" (where is Buffy when you really need her?), the intermaxillary bone, the Urplanze, and so on and on. This maximization comes at the price of minimizing every other contemporary thinker.Herder is dismissed as merely a sidekick of Goethe - indeed, since the bibliography doesn't list the Suphan edition (page 562) one may wonder if Richards even bothered to read the "Ideen" in full.Among the younger Romantics, only Schelling receives anything like a fair discussion.Alexander von Humboldt, who as a scientist and explorer had enormous and lasting influence not only on the German but European and American scientific scene, and whom Darwin himself credited with inspiring him, is given particularly derisive and cursory treatment, and one suspects more than a whiff of homophobia here.Chamisso, who was inferior to Goethe as a poet, but overwhelmingly superior to him as a scientist, doesn't even get so much as a footnote.

There could be a good book written on romantic science and its continuing if unacknowledged influence - but this isn't it.

Orthodox neo-darwinist view on Darwin is an evident false an
Robert J. Richards is the only scholar that has offered a huge and conclusiveamount of evidence on the Darwin's true anti-mechanistic prespective. His previous little book showing albeit succintely a similar perspective, "The Meaning of Evolution",was injustely ignored. Now Professor Richards offers us a long, vivid and brilliant reconstruction ofthe german romantic frame we need to undertand adequetely de meaning of Darwin's true evolutionary prespective. Orthodox neo-darwinist an neo-sythetic (mechanistic) views are still jailed into the positivistic received view. Kuhnian trends haven't produced here a significative conceptual turn because their inability to cope with the "internalistic" challenges the natural selection theory actually posses. Richards displays masterfully in the book the socio-cultural dimensions of the problem, but knows also very well how to go far. If we undestand a conceptual problem we can reconstruct their socio-institucional history, the reverse not being true. The unprejudiced conceptual commitments Richards assume on evolutionary theory, particularly on natural selecction's concept, enables him to show us conclusively the strong and commnly ignored bonds that brings together Kant, the Romantic conception of life and Darwin work. Nobody concerned shoul ignore this book and perspective in advance. ... Read more

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The text provides students a study of the processes involved in managing and controlling a variety of business operations from high-tech manufacturing to high touch services with a balanced treatment of the manufacturing and service aspects.Chase/Aquilano and Jacobs, 9/e (CAJ9) covers the latest and most important issues facing OM managers such as ERP, Supply Chain Management, E-Commerce, Process Analysis, and provides tools and techniques to effectively manage operations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

George
Having a study guide made following the course 100% easier. It was also instrumental in helping me get an A in class. Luv it....

Very basic
For a person with some business process experience, no great process improvement findings/insight can be found in this book.A bit dissapointed on this book.The information was pretty basic.

A Good Operations Management Book
This is an excellent text for a graduate or advanced undergraduate course on operations management. The ninth edition is very comprehensive; however I recommend you get the most current (tenth) edition in which the authors have emphasized recent innovations in e-commerce and the internet. The text is well written, with less obfuscation than most books of this genre. The organization is quite good, with numerous graphs, charts and photos to illustrate the thrust of the subject matter.

I really like the excellent applicable case studies cited as examples in the text. These really helped with comprehension on the material. The CD has some expanded spreadsheets, presentations for the various chapters, and miscellaneous other items of interest. Candidly, I have really not used the CD much, but it is a nice resource to have.

Detractors for the book include the degree of statistical background and comprehension that students are presumed to have when they begin using the book (and the relatively poor mathematical explanations given for various formulas), the excessive price of the book, and the lack of clarity of some of the illustrations.

Overall, this is a good book, and I would recommend it, especially to a student with a strong mathematical background.

Operations Management for Competitive Advantage Review
This was my first exposure to operations management, as a senior MBA student; though I am familiar with many of the concepts from earlier coursework in statistics and accounting.I found the text to be well written and easy to understand.The sample problems within the chapters were straight forward and easy to follow.Having taking this class as a summer course, I was able to read the majority (75%) of the textbook within a 4-week period easily. The only drawback may be in how the actual theory pertains to real life models.I would recommend this text for anyone who is new to the field as the overview is excellent.A background in statistics and accounting (at least from coursework standpoint) would also be helpful in comprehending the material.

The Text Poorly Explains the Mathmatical Formulas
Let me say that I am an Mechanical Engineer with 15 years experience, and possess a MS.I work in quality engineering (test design). My exposure to this text was in a recent MBA class.

Positives: The text, in each chapter, does a respectable job describing how OM applies in the various workplace environments. Though it is more manufacturing oriented, the service sector is addressed. Also, many of the problems at the end of the chapters are quite good.

Negatives: First the book is written by college professors. What more needs to be said! Due to this fact, I believe the main problem of the book lies.This is not a subject which can be taught or written about unless you have some significant real-life experience.In the latter part of the book the chapters pertaining to forcasting,aggregate planning,inventory control,and material planning,the mathmatical models were poorly explained that study groups had to be formed and the professor, to his credit, devised some alternative approaches which were more realistic. The engineers and accountants in the study groups were a valuable asset to some students due to their math backgrounds. Most students in the class who came from various backgrounds; medical and business were lost/confused. The primary problem was not being able to understand how the models worked and applied to the material. Many of the students commented that they just gave up trying to understand the material, and mindlessly plugged values into the various formulas. Granted, many of these models are worked out on Excel programs in the business arena, but for one to understand their meaning, in an educational setting,you need to do the preliminary organization and calculations. I correlate this with a 3rd grade student "learning" their multiplication tables with a calculator.What have you really learned? ... Read more

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Michigan State Univ., East Lansing. Extensive text offering a multidisciplinary overview of the practice of osteopathic medicine. Includes the philosophy, principles, and clinical perspectives shared in this field. For students and clinicians. Edition has been updated and revised. Previous edition: c1997. DNLM: Osteopathic Medicine--methods. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Very pleased!
Fast delivery. The book is new as described. Will definitely do business with this seller again.

An improvement
Here is an honest review:
Foundations 2 is a much better book than Foundations 1.However that doesn't say much.Foundations 1 was basically an overpriced doorstop.Foundations 2 is a better read with significant improvement in writing style and applicability.However it still does not address very significant shortfalls in the original text.Namely that evidenced based applications of OMM and specific osteopathic evaluation techniques in the various specialties are not addressed adequately. The specialties are addressed entirely too theoretically with little real-life doctor applications.It does not flow as a text should but rather sputters and stops only to chug back to life a few pages later sounding in need of a serious oil change. The principle reason this book sells is because it is required by most of the DO schools.Otherwise students would not buy such a Titanic book. Unfortunately the new edition of the book should be out soon (next two to three years) and doubtfully will be much of an improvement.

Comprehensive resource
This book is well worth purchasing. It is very logical and comprehensive. It provides a holistic framework for effective health care regardless of the health practitioners profession.

Great for beginning and experienced osteopaths.
This is the long awaited basic textbook for osteopathic medicine.It is surprisingly complete, covering philosophy, history, research, and manipulative techniques.The beginning osteopathic student may find itmost useful for its practical discussion on the techniques--high velocity,myofascial release, etc. I believe it is also helpful in standardizing ourterminology, which will make it easier when taking board exams or talkingwith colleagues from other osteopathic schools.It includes contributorswell known within the osteopathic community, including Michael and WilliamKuchera, Melicien Tettambel,Eileen DiGiovanna, and many others.As a family practice resident I frequently turn to this textbook first whenI want to know more about how to treat a patient or when preparing lecturesfor students and housestaff.

The osteopathic manipulative therapy bible!
This text is actually required reading for most if not all osteopathic medical students.It is a 'textbook', however, and hence completely (sometimes exhaustively!) comprehensive. But it is easy to read so thatanyone with an interest in OMT will get a methodic how-to for myriadtechniques, also a thorough history of osteopathic medicine to boot!Oneof my OMT professors at the University of Health Sciences College ofOsteopathic Medicine wrote or co-wrote a few of the chapters so of course,I think those are the best! If you are looking for an educational approachto learning manipulation and the reasons behind it, this is a valuableresouce. ... Read more

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This book provides a clear methodology for school leaders, teachers, and school board members to follow as they redesign their schools for the benefit of students. ... Read more

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This manual, now available in paperback, offers a detailed, up-to-date explanation of how to carry out economic valuation using stated preference techniques. It is relevant for the application of these techniques to all non-market goods and services including:air and water quality; provision of public open space; health care that is not sold through private markets; risk reduction policies and investments not provided privately; provision of information as with the recorded heritage, the protection of cultural assets and so on. The resulting valuations can be used for a number of purposes including, but not limited to:demonstrating the importance of a good or service; cost-benefit analysis; setting priorities for environmental policy; design of economic instruments; green national/corporate accounting; and natural resource damage assessment.

Compiled by the leading experts in the field, this manual starts by explaining the concepts. It shows how to choose the most appropriate technique and how to design the questionnaires. Detailed advice on econometric analysis is provided, as well as explanation of the pitfalls that need to be avoided. ... Read more

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Exploring Photography is an easy-to-understand text designed for use with beginning photographers at the high school and middle school levels. It presents basic coverage of photographic fundamentals in the major areas of equipment, materials, methods, and processes. The current edition includes updated information on the Advanced Photo System, electronic flash, and digital cameras. Chapters devoted to Careers in Photography, Video and Movies, and Displaying Photographs broaden the scope of the book.

- Teaches basic photography skills with a clear, easy-to-understand approach.
- Includes numerous photographs and line drawings to enhance content.
- Color is used to highlight safety precautions.
- Includes material on both still photography and video/motion picture creation. ... Read more

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EXPLORING PHOTOGRAPHY
Got the book a little later that expected. But the book is fully composed and readible.THANKS

Exploring Photography
This is a great book but, I think that you should have the chapters online so that if a child forgets their book at school they can always get on the internet to do their work. ... Read more

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Recent advances in hardware performance and software technology have made possible a wholly different approach to computational mathematics. Symbolic computation systems have revolutionized the field, building upon established and recent mathematical theory to open new possibilities in virtually every industry. Formerly dubbed Scratchpad, AXIOM is a powerful new symbolic and numerical system developed at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. AXIOM's scope, structure, and organization make it outstanding among computer algebra systems. AXIOM: The Scientific Computation System is a companion to the AXIOM system. The text is written in a straightforward style and begins with a spirited foreword by David and Gregory Chudnovsky. The book gives the reader a technical introduction to AXIOM, interacts with the system's tutorial, accesses algorithms newly developed by the symbolic computation community, and presents advanced programming and problem solving techniques. Eighty illustrations and eight pages of color inserts accompany text detailing methods used in the 2D and 3D interactive graphics system, and over 2500 example input lines help the reader solve formerly intractable problems. ... Read more

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Human Development and Criminal Behavior proposes an extensive agenda for crime research. The book is part of a pioneering effort to understand the causes of crime, particularly its developmental course. It defines and sets the conditions necessary to conduct an accelerated longitudinal study of individuals at risk to become engaged in criminal careers. This work offers a blueprint for research to elucidate and possibly prevent crime in our society. ... Read more

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University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. Third edition of a textbook for dental students on the practice of dentistry in children and adolescents. Focuses on behavioral and developmental aspects as well as diagnosis and treatment. Color and halftone illustrations. DNLM: Pediatric Dentistry. ... Read more

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There has been a growing awareness of the plight of the earth at the hands of human beings over the past several decades. An important theological contribution to this discussion over the past two decades has been the work of Dianne Bergant, C.S.A. She brings first of all a deep concern for the earth and its creatures. As a professor of Hebrew Bible, she also brings the contribution of the Wisdom literature of the Jewish tradition. It is at the intersection of these two resources—concern for the earth and the Wisdom literature—that much of her work has been done. The Wisdom of Creation, written to honor her, takes up the themes of creation and Wisdom from a variety of perspectives, both biblical and theological, to think along with Bergant about the challenges of caring for the earth and for those who dwell upon it.

The work of a theology that will contribute to the care of and the future of the earth is still in many ways in its early stages. Dianne Bergant’s own work on themes of wisdom, creation, prayer, and preaching has made a significant contribution to that theology. It is hoped that these essays will continue that important task of making a better world in which the next generation will grow and mature.

Essays and contributors are "The Creatures Know!" by Walter Brueggemann; "Redeeming ‘Gospel Feminism’ From Anti-Judaism," by Mary C. Boys, S.N.J.M.; "The Divine ‘I Am’: Wisdom Motifs in the Gospel of John," by Barbara E. Bowe; "Creation as a Divine-Human Collaboration," by Herman E. Schaalman; "Creation, Revelation and Redemption: Recovering the Biblical Tradition as a Conversation Partner to Ecology," by Carol J. Dempsey, O.P.; "Three Who Loved Wisdom," by Agnes Cunningham, S.S.C.M.; "’Charged with the Grandeur of God’: The Created World as a Path to Prayer," by Anthony J. Gittins, C.S.Sp.; "The ‘Myth of the Garden’ and Spiritual Ministry in Postmodern America," by Mary Frohlich, R.S.C.J.; "Nature’s Parables and the Preaching of the Gospel," by Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P.; and "Preaching Morality without Moralizing," by Andrew L. Nelson. ... Read more

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Wisdom and The Care of Our World
This book gives very interesting insights by many learned people into how we can use the collective wisdom of our forefathers and the enlightenment of God to better understand and preserve this world in which we live.

Presents significant and seminal theological contributions
Under the careful and collaborative editorship of Edward Foley (Professor of Liturgy and Music, Chair of the Department of Word and Worship, founding Director of the Ecumenical D.Min. Program, Catholic Theological Union) andRobert Schreiter (Vatican II Professor of Theology, Catholic Theological Union), The Wisdom Of Creation presents significant and seminal theological contributions to the effect of humans have had (and continue to have) upon the natural resources and ecosystems of the Earth. The contributions by eleven colleagues and friends of Dianne Bergant, C.S.A., Ph.D. (who as a professor of the Hebrew Bible and the Wisdom literature of the Judaic tradition) comprise an academically impressive and sagely diverse body of perspectives that make for informed and informative reading. The Wisdom Of Creation is especially recommended reading for members of the Christian community who have an abiding interest with respect to theology as relevant to past, present, and future environmental issues.
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In READINGS IN COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Sternberg and Wagner balance classic with contemporary research. With readings chosen specifically for their significance to the field, this comprehensive reader can be used on its own or be used as an accompaniment to another cognitive psychology text. ... Read more

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At a time when intelligence successes and failures are at the center of public discussion, this book provides an unprecedented inside look at how intelligence agencies function during war and peacetime. As the direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, the volume draws upon many documents declassified under this law to reveal what U.S. intelligence agencies learned about Nazi crimes during World War II and about the nature of Nazi intelligence agencies' role in the Holocaust. It examines how some U.S. corporations found ways to profit from Nazi Germany's expropriation of the property of German Jews. The work also reveals startling new details on the Cold War connections between the U.S. government and Hitler's former officers. ... Read more

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The 'good Nazi'
Why would the US government, which had just fought a war against Nazism, protect its former enemies, war criminals by any standards?Professor Breitman, and his fellow scholars, have pored through the eight million pages of US government records declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act of 1998, and these new archival sources suggest some answers, none of them pretty, about the use of Nazi war criminals by US governments after the war.

Breitman documents how US intelligence agencies "found it desirable to make post-war intelligence use of a substantial number - at least some dozens - of their former intelligence or police enemies - against the new threat of `Communism'".Former Nazi intelligence personnel were protected by their new American employers from prosecution for war crimes and put to work against the common enemy of the Nazis and the CIA - the communist and non-communist left.

Hatred of communism, and claims (usually unfounded) of special knowledge of Soviet espionage, became assets for many former Gestapo officers.When captured, the clever ones sensed what their US interrogators wanted and offered up an anti-Red past whitewashed of the more uncomfortable bits - such as their supervision of the Einsatzgruppen, the genocidal SS mobile killing units in occupied areas of eastern Europe, and their involvement in the deportations of millions of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps.

Whilst there was, says Breitman, no overarching policy by American spy outfits to employ Nazis, his extensive list of examples shows that "the contention that US intelligence agencies employed only a few bad apples will not stand up to the new documentation".Breitman argues that confusion or inexperience in the immediate postwar period was not the root of the problem because the practice of hiring of Nazis, in full knowledge of their monstrous crimes, continued for many years.

Breitman suggests that Washington's lack of attention to the Holocaust was part of the problem.Information on the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews flowed from many sources including intercepted diplomatic pouches, the Polish underground, refugees and escaped prisoners, yet this intelligence was dismissed by Allied governments as a distraction from winning the war and, more cynically, as unwanted evidence for loosening tight immigration controls on Jewish refugees.Thus, personal participation in genocide was downgraded from a serious war crime and did not automatically rule out a Nazi's chance of employment with US intelligence.

Another answer, with more explanatory power, is skirted around by Breitman.Although he documents the anti-communist mindset which made Nazi war criminals acceptable to Washington in the Cold War, Breitman doesn't integrate the new revelations into the broader context of US collaboration with the Nazis.Breitman's example of participation by a major US bank (Chase National) in a Nazi scheme to earn foreign exchange in the US, for example, isn't analysed within the broader practice of the extensive profiteering of many major US corporations (including Standard Oil, ITT, DuPont, General Motors and Ford) who invested in and traded with Nazi Germany, with its cheap slave labour force, in some cases well into the war.

Nevertheless, Breitman's book is an important addition to our knowledge of how, and why, Washington provided "a back door to tranquility and fat pensions for men who had committed - or at least abetted - the worst atrocities of the twentieth century".The `good Nazi' had arrived.

Great at detail; Poor at putting in context
The American interaction with the Nazi personel at the end of WW II was very uneven. Some Americans did their job. While others treated these most horrible Nazi's with undeserved deference. This book contains individual articles by one or more ofthe co-authors. The information in each article is very important, drawing on the latest declassified (at the time of publication)documents. However, the book is weak at putting the info in context and in drawing conclusions.

Better than no book at all
This book is a direct result of the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. Why it took legislation in 1998 to uncover "secret" documents of collusion between the United States and Nazi war criminals is outrageous on its face. Still, that a book like this finally exists is better than no book at all.

It's badly written, and full of long, run-on sentences that practically require decoding to get to the point. That in itself is frustrating. There is a lot of U.S.-apologist logic in attempting to explain why thoughtless, careless, and short-sighted decisions were made to hire Nazi war criminals in the United States that not only defied justice, but put American citizens at ongoing risk -- a point this book never gets around to making. Did Nazis stop being Nazis because they were working for the U.S.? Did their belief system suddenly change because their paychecks did?

The book makes the point that Nazi criminals were deluded by their own self-importance, that the U.S. bought into it, and that their incompetence was purchased with tax-payer dollars and were a waste of time and money.

And what else? What else can the book say (other than what is documented) but that the documents are pretty much useless. Probably why they were released at all. What else don't we know?

What was not reported (besides the fact that, for example, the Gehlen organization refused to report the names of the SS criminals they hired or what they were doing)? Look at all the insidious (and networked) crimes that were taking place in the 1950s and 1960s, and it makes one wonder what the connections were. But there will be no documentation of that; largely because the U.S. does not want to be "embarrassed" in front of other countries it must have credibility with, particularly now. In the interest of National Security, don't you know. For the same reason, other countries with documented information keep that information secret. For shame.

Never again! is the rallying cry whenever the holocaust is mentioned. Perhaps in 1945 not enough was known of the depths of depravity that comprised the holocaust. There certainly wasn't the scholarship that there is today. Still, that is no excuse. Those who refuse to learn from the past, as it is said, are condemned to repeat it. And we cannot, and will not, learn from the past while there is any support for keeping any of it secret.

The holocaust continues, as its supporters and defenders continue to exist, influenced to a great extent by Nazi criminals that were never brought to trial, and who continue to peddle their ideology in this country and others. Now more powerful (and high-tech) than ever, the danger of keeping war crimes a secret should not escape the authors of this book, the people who read it, and the scholars who are impressed enough to go on from there.

Painful truth about an unholy collaboration
This is a Congressionalpress release that accompanied the publication of this book. I put this here before adding my own remarks because it tells what the book is about in a clear and comprehensive way.

"Historians' Book Reveals Insights on the Holocaust and Significant New Information about the Relationship of War Criminals with Allied Intelligence Services

: The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) will hold a briefing on the release of U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis, a 15-chapter book that discusses hundreds of the millions of documents located, declassified, and released by the CIA, FBI, Army, State Department, and other U.S. agencies under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. The IWG also will announce the availability of additional records declassified under the Act and open to the public at the National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis demonstrates how the newly declassified documents alter and enhance our understanding of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War. The book reveals new information about Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators and about the role of intelligence services, especially the use of war criminals by U.S. intelligence organizations after the war.

The newly released records include materials from the FBI, CIA, and U.S. Army:

-- Approximately 240,000 pages from the FBI on espionage, foreign counterintelligence, domestic security, and treason. Highlights include files on the FBI's interaction with Nazis who immigrated to the U.S. and files on U.S. corporations that profited from dealings with the Nazis.

-- 419 additional CIA Name and Subject files, bringing the total number opened by the IWG to nearly 800.

-- More than 3,000 pages documenting the U.S. Army's involvement with German spymaster Reinhard Gehlen, whose post-war intelligence organization received U.S. funding to spy on the Soviet Union.

There are other disclosures int he book. The CIA employed and shielded five close aides of Eichmann. J. Edgar Hoover was responsible for direct orders protecting Nazi War Criminals and enabling them to live untouched in America.
More painful and damaging is the revelation in this book that the US authorities knew about the Holocaust earlier than has been previously indicated. And did their best to do nothing about it.
The book as a whole will for many readers raise questions about the way the US is working now, and has worked in the past in many different places with criminals and evildoers of various kinds.
For me the book connects in mind with John Loftus ' book the 'Secret War Against the Jews' which reveals how the State Dept. helped with the spread of Nazi propaganda into Saudi Arabia. And how the anti- American Saudi school system that brought into being Al Quaeda is in part a legacy of that cooperation.
This book brings proofs of US cooperation with those who not only oppose its ideal and fundamental principles but have taken place in great and horrendous crimes.
As a person born and raised in America I feel a deep anger and shame at these revelations. If the best country in the world, the one who has done the most to preserve freedom and protect democracy in two great world wars, if this country engages in such evil practices then what can be expected of the rest of humanity?
Reading this work will not I am afraid bring those who love and take pride in America much joy.

Cross checking newly released documents
Inevitably some reviewers will see this book as repeating things they think they know and most of the time do. We are aware of former nazis working for the CIA, We are aware of the nazis having forged Sterling Pounds. We are aware of the sightings of Bormann in Argentina, we are aware of the searches for Gestapo Mueller: so what's the difference.
The difference is double.
First it's in the proving value of the details.
There are things that we do know by inference about the nazis but the authors of this book have found their proofs in the documents. Readers should realize the unbelieveable amount of work it takes to get through thousand of fragile documents so that one can match a little point in a huge field of knowledge. Naturally these document do not come nicely and timely in the right order for a specific study. The researchers need to have an enormous and thorough knowledge of several subjects to notice the proper value of one document. Having been through this on Walter Schellenberg, this reviewer can only be very respectful on the work reported here ad on its result.
The second difference lays in the honest capacity of writers to reconsider pre-existing writings (sometimes including their own).
Reporting on documents which reconsider what we thought had been well established: that's another feat which this book achieves namely on the Red Orchestra, on the cooperation of some Americans with the nazis, or on the looting.
Admittedly the reader would appreciate less of an American slant for these studies (which succeeds here not to become a bias). History is neither American nor European it aims at remaining factual and global.
Anybody interested in documented important facts about the war of intelligence services will be fascinated. The book covers documents recently declassified on a lot of names which are known but rarely documented.
Furthermore the authors have not been satisfied in just making a name index, they have rebuilt the context for the readers.
A superb work for specialists on a subject where nothing is black nor white, where most agents work for two or three powers, where interrogations are twisted both by the captive and the victor.
This is not a book for beginners looking for true spectacular spy stories, it is a no BS book on the spies war: a war which saved (and sometimes costed) thousands of lives.

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Forbidding, but probing
Long. Dense. Detailed. The author reviews battles of long ago as if they were part of comtemporary theory. He's making two points. One is, he believes those battles are indeed part of contemporary theory. Second, he believes evolution itself provides a favorable framework for the telling of history and he uses this book to demonstrate the thesis.

Coverage is not even. He accounts for evolutionary theory in terms of the motivations and personalities of individuals, particularly those involved in what he sees as the major disputes. But there's little mention of such eccentrics on the edge of the story as Samuel Butler, for example. He does, though, try to do justice to Herbert Spencer. ... Read more

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Integrating complementary treatment options with traditional veterinary practice is a growing trend in veterinary medicine. Veterinarians and clients alike have an interest in expanding treatment options to include alternative approaches such as Western and Chinese Herbal Medicine, Acupuncture, Nano-Pharmacology, Homotoxicology, and Therapeutic Nutrition along with conventional medicine. Integrating Complementary Medicine into Veterinary Practice introduces and familiarizes veterinarians with the terminology and procedures of these complementary treatment modalities in a traditional clinical format that facilitates the easy integration of these methods into established veterinary practices. ... Read more

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An essential, key reference to any studying or working in the veterinary science field
Robert S. Goldstein edits INTEGRATING COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE INTO VETERINARY PRACTICE, an in-depth reference recommended for college-level veterinary library holdings and for practicing vets and clients. It covers complementary treatment options from Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture to therapeutic nutrition, and takes a systems-based approach to familiarizing vets with terminology and processes of these alternative options. From key diseases to behavior issues and all the common physical problems of animals, a range of detail on key integrative treatment options from experts in herbal medicine, acupuncture and therapeutic nutrition provide an essential, key reference to any studying or working in the veterinary science field.
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Univ. of Texas, Dallas. Text assembles comprehensive information about the psychosocial and physiological influences affecting those who undergo spinal surgery. Drawing on cognitive-behavioral techniques, text establishes a treatment framework for those with chronic back pain. For orthopedists, surgeons, and psychologists. ... Read more

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Comprehensive
This book is a must-read for behavioral medicine psychologists working in a multi-disciplinary program - especially those working with patients with back pain.The data regarding pre-surgical evaluations is comprehensive.The guidelines regarding conducting pre-surgical evaluations are simple and thorough.And the pre-surgical preparation guidelines and recommendations benefit the surgical patients in stimulating a more favorable long-term outcome.Share this book with surgeons, as it has been my experience that they are quite responsive to this data and information, and helps them see the person behind the pain. ... Read more