Book Description
Vladimir Voinovich, author of the classic The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, has long been acclaimed as perhaps the greatest living satirist of Russian literature. In Monumental Propaganda, he again launches a fearless and hilarious assault on the hypocrisies and corruptions of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.
Customer Reviews:
View Soviet Russia throught the Eyes of a Dissident.......2007-03-16
Vladimir Voinovich was an official soviet writer until the late 1960s when he began to write satires that were to close to the truth and was eventually 'allowed' to leave the Soviet Union in 1980 (good riddens, pootai, and don't come back). His books about the Soviet Army and Soviet Bureaucracy are classic in their denouncement of the 'nomenklatura' who ran the Soviet Union under communism.
This story is about a Soviet Communist Party member who was part of the groups that left the cities and forced collectivization, dekulakization and war communism. Afterwards she was a regional/district leader who was a died in the wool Stalinist. During the "Great Patriotic War" she fought as a Partisan, and sacrificed her husband by blowing up an electric generating plant while he was still in it. As the Soviet Union stagnates after WW2, she is slowly pushed aside first by the changes under Khruschev (who she calls 'old baldie') and then by Brezhnev and lastly by the "New Russians" under Yeltsin (that drunken moron).
In between we are treated to several well written paens against the waste of Communism (pollution, the nomenklatura being treated above and beyond the 'people' and the stagnation of anything outside the 'officially' approved anything).
The title refers to a saying by Lenin (one of many, and some by Stalin) that are like lead ins for John Stewart of the Daily Show: what the People need is to be taught, and taught through propaganda, but now just propaganda, but Monumental Propaganda. In other words, you must overwhelm people with the information you want them to know, make it bigger than life (which is just what Lenin did, except that Hitler got better at it than the Russians ever did) so that it becomes part of the culture.
Voinovich's Latest Literary Exorcism.......2004-08-04
Most Soviet dissident authors wrote with a heavy, albeit masterful, hand. Authors such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Boris Pasternak, Vasily Grossman and Anatoly Rybakov painted on a broad canvass, penning literary frontal assaults on the Soviet regime. Vladimir Voinovich has always taken a different approach. Where the others fought oppression with outrage, Voinovich fought oppression with satire and wit. His narrower, almost miniature approach was directed at the small absurdities of an apparatchik-governed regime that lacked many things, most notably a sense of humor. From the Extraordinary Adventures of Ivan Chonkin, the Fur Hat, to the Ivankiad, Voinovich took dead aim at the Soviet bureaucracy. His writing was funny, acerbic, and acclaimed in the West. He also took steps to secure the publication of other writer's works in the West. Most notably, Voinovich was responsible, in part, for getting a microfilmed copy of Vasily Grossman's masterpiece, Life and Fate delivered to a publisher in Switzerland. We may never have seen Grossman's brilliant work if not for Voinovich. He also publicly defended Solzhenitsyn in the 1960s and 1970s although that relationship has now turned sour.
As a result, Voinovich became as much a threat to the Soviet regime as any of the other, more somber authors. By 1980, Voinovich was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and exiled to West Germany. Responding to a decree issued by Brezhnev asserting that Voinovich had brought the Soviet regime into disrepute, Voinovich issued a counter-decree that stated: "Mr. Brezhnev, you have highly over estimated my activities. I did not undermine the prestige of the Soviet Government. Thanks to the efforts of the Soviet leadership and your own efforts, the Soviet government has no prestige. Therefore, to do justice, you should deprive yourself of citizenship." Voinovich's wit, and his struggles with the Soviet government informs his Monumental Propaganda.
Monumental Propaganda is set in the city of Dolgov. Its two primary characters are Aglaya Stepanova Revkina (who was a minor character in Chonkin) and a large, iron statue of Stalin. The story opens in 1956 when word gets back to Dolgov of Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin at the 1956 party conference. Aglaya is horrified. She is a war hero, a life time communist, and more than anything else devoted to Comrade Stalin. The story takes us from 1956 to the present. As the world and Dolgov changes, Aglaya remains unshaken in her devotion to Stalin. Shortly after the denunciation, the town's party leaders tear down Stalin's statue and plan to haul it to a factory for smelting. Aglaya will have none of that. She manages to have the statue installed in her apartment where it remains for the rest of her life. Aglaya loses her position and her party membership because of her unflinching devotion to Stalin. The statue carries with it an almost supernatural presence, one that the town and the world, unlike Aglaya would like very much to exorcise. The book serves as a de facto exorcism of Stalin and the Soviet regime. It doesn't treat the new Russia much better.
Voinovich takes us and a delightful cast of characters, including Voinovich himself, through the Khrushchev regime, then Brezhnev, Chernenko and Andropov and ultimately through contemporary Russia. Russian life is neatly put into categories by one of Voinovich's characters: "Cellar terrorism(under Lenin, when they shot people in the cellars of the Extraordinary Commission, or Cheka), the Great Terror (under Stalin), Terror Within the Limits of Leninist Norms (under Khrushchev), Selective Terror (under Brezhnev), Traditional Terror (under Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev), and [now] Terror Unlimited.
In describing Alexei Makaraov, the book's moral compass Voinovich notes that his "postgraduate dissertation on problems of linguistics . . . was so brilliant that at first they wanted to award him a doctorate for it, but then they gave him five years in exile instead." The book is filled with casually tossed off sentences like this that left me laughing to myself. Some references may not be understood by the casual reader. For example, Voinovich has a short set piece that pretty much summarizes the evolution of Voinovich's relationship with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from admiration to mutual belligerence. It might not make much sense unless one understood the actual dispute between the two great dissidents. Having said that, these are relatively few and far between and should not detract from anyone's enjoyment of the book. The book has an explosive climax, in every sense of the word. It is in a very real sense a literary exorcism of Stalin.
Although the book's story line suffers from some weakness and the story tends to wander a bit, the brilliance of Voinovich's writing and his ability to make me laugh made the wandering all the more enjoyable. This is an excellent book that will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in good writing.
"An abundance of poets is a sign of a people's savagery.".......2004-07-29
Vladimir Voinovich, in his first novel in twelve years, begins this satiric tale in Dolgov, a small town outside Moscow in 1949, when Aglaya Stepanova Revkina, a devoted follower of Josef Stalin, persuades the Committee to erect a piece of "monumental propaganda," a statue of Stalin, in the square. Mediocre sculptor Max Ogorodov miraculously creates a statue that is extraordinarily lifelike, seeming to breathe on its pedestal. Focusing on Aglaya and the statue, from the "glories" of the Stalin Era through Krushchev, Brezhnev and his successors, including Gorbachev, and on up to the present, the novel illustrates satirically the successive changes in Soviet philosophy and focus. These new visions of reality always involve some sort of terror.
When Stalin falls from grace, Aglaya falls, too, and when the party determines that the statue of Stalin will be purged from the square, Aglaya arranges with the salvager to convey the statue to her living room, which, with its 3-meter high ceilings, is just high enough for it. She becomes a reluctant part of the poor local community, as first one version of truth and then another comes into fashion and rules the country. By 1961, Aglaya finds that "the party has been polluted by an alien element," but when Krushchev is deposed, she is saddened to learn there will be no return to Stalinism. For twenty years, as various philosophies come and go, she is like a sleepwalker, immune to her surroundings. Eventually, her party is disbanded, and, ironically, a casino is built on the premises. As the spirit of capitalism affects Dolgov and inspires some of its least admirable characters, a cottage industry in assassination evolves.
The novel illustrates fifty years of change in Soviet political theory through exaggerated characters. Because they serve a satirical purpose and their thinking and experiences are so different from our own, it is difficult to see them as humans and to identify with their actions. Aglaya herself is a caricature who does not change. The narrative is told in simple, often amusing, episodes, but the names of the characters follow the Russian tradition of three names and usually one nickname, and are difficult to follow. Although the prose is formal and the speaker is remote, this satire is often very funny, however, and ironies and absurdities abound. Thoughtful and full of profound observations, the novel should appeal to those with a strong interest in Soviet history and literature and a curiosity about contemporary Russian life. Mary Whipple
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Monumental Propaganda
Komar & Melamid
Manufacturer: Independent Curators International, New York
ProductGroup: Book
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Release Date: 1995-02-02 |
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Edited by Dore Ashton. Instigated by Komar & Melamid- projects to salvage Russia's remaining monuments to totalitarianism. Mixing levity and seriousness presented here are 26 proposals by among others Arman, Ericson & Ziegler,Joseph Kosuth, lesLevine, Ch
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Monumental'naya propaganda
V. Vojnovich
Manufacturer: EKSMO
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ASIN: 5699084479 |
Product Description
Roman Vladimira Vojnovicha ''Monumental'naya propaganda'' udoctoen Gosudarstvennoj premii Rossii po literature za 2001 god. Dejstvie razvorachivaetsya v znakomykh chitatelyu znamenitogo ''Chonkina'' mestakh, i glavnaya geroinya, nesgibaemaya Aglaya Revkina - rodom ottuda zhe. Ona i drugie geroi zhivut v prozhitye mnogimi iz nas gody - ot surovogo sorok devyatogo do nashikh dnej, s novymi russkimi, raz'ezzhayuschimi, kak govoryat mestnye starushki, na ''serdimesakh'' i ''merdisesakh''. ''My zhivem vo vremena, kogda tol'ko u krajnego skeptika est' shans okazat'sya mudretsom ili dazhe prorokom'', - pishet Vladimir Vojnovich. I vse zhe v ego knige vdostal' ironii i yumora, dobroty i optimizma.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on March 22, 2002. The length of the article is 553 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Vladimir Voinovich. Monumental'naia propaganda.
Author: Philippe D. Radley
Publication:
World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2002
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 76
Issue: 2
Page: 226(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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- Who's Captain Marvel?
- Graphic SF Reader
- Fine Story with Beautiful Art
- Mightest Mortal finest Dini/Ross Book
- Loved it
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Shazam!: Power of Hope
Paul Dini , and
Alex Ross
Manufacturer: DC Comics
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Customer Reviews:
Who's Captain Marvel?.......2007-10-04
Take it from someone who had barely heard of Captain Marvel before now, this book is GREAT! I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. It's a fitting homage to an amazing and all but forgotten character.I don't think I need to further praise either Paul Dini's storytelling(he did both the Batman and the Superman Animated Series, Justice League, Batman: War on Crime, Superman: Peace on Earth, etc.) or Alex Ross' artwork(Kingdom Come, Justice 1, 2, and 3, etc.); the other reviewers have already.This is a simple, short, and touching story which directly contradicts just about everything else DC has done lately. And what a relief THAT is! Forget the whole Infinite Crisis mess and stick with stuff like this; it's the result of honest hard work and effort. As a matter of fact, I advise avoiding all continuity. Stand alone graphic novels and Elseworlds are the way to go.
Graphic SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Here, Alex Ross and Paul Dini take a crack at the Big Red Cheese, and he is definitely in Big Red Cheese mode in this book. Ross has again done a fine job with his artwork, and so this is very nice to look at, as we see both Captain Marvel and Billy Batson enjoy their lives and take down the odd villain in the process.
Fine Story with Beautiful Art.......2007-08-15
Dini and Ross really capture what the Big Red Cheese is all about beautifully. It's also very moving-the Cap's struggles as a nieve hero in the complex world of today is nicely handled, with some suprising and powerful emotional pay offs. The action is terrific as you'd expect. Highly recommended!
Mightest Mortal finest Dini/Ross Book.......2003-10-24
Shazam! Once again, Alex Ross and Paul Dini take a look at the human side of DC's greatest heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Cap. Marvel). I think that this is the best book of the series, even if it is dealing with one of the lesser known characters of the DC universe.
I had not been a Captain Marvel fan until I picked up Kingdom Come and was introduced to Billy Batson by Alex Ross. This is another great work with the character. I was impressed by the actions and thoughts of the character and I love the human take on him. What would a boy with super powers like Captain Marvel do with them? Being a hero is more then just saving people, it is also inspiring them and giving hope. The most touching moment in any of the books came at the hospital with Captain Marvel and the terminal girl, making her feel safe. Dini and Ross's best work so far, here's to hoping that the upcoming JLA work gets better.
Loved it.......2003-03-20
Being a fan of both Captain Marvel AND Alex Ross, I was at the comic store the day this came out knocking the door down to buy it. This is an excellent story of Captain Marvel as he visits a hospital for dying children and he struggles to realize that he can't save everyone. He meets a young boy who is abused by his father and after the wise old SHAZAM tells him that Marvel will meet someone in need of hope, he feels this boy is that someone. But is it?
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- I love this character!
- shazam
- not bad
- Great read
- Captain Marvel returns again in The Power of Shazam!
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Power of Shazam
Jerry Ordway
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ASIN: 1563891530 |
Customer Reviews:
I love this character!.......2007-09-29
Thanks to all the reviewers who bought this book and liked it well enough to write. It was a labor of love for the author,trying to recapture the thrills of the 1940's Republic Pictures serial and has had a nice long shelf life. If you like this, please seek out the comic book that followed, or request that DC comics collect those issues into trade collections. Thanks, JerAdventures of Captain Marvel
shazam.......2007-03-09
thi book was on great condition and was send to very quickly
thanks
not bad.......2006-12-06
I LOVE Cap Marvel. Which is why I was a bit dissapointed with this read. The art is fine. Nothing to marvel at. I finished in twenty minutes. I personally love long reads, so don't let that deter you. I guess I've just been so spoiled lately to titles like "Identity Crisis" and "Astonishing X-Men," and "Y, The Last Man," that I was hoping for something on that grand of a scale.
Great read.......2006-02-25
Captain Marvel would have to be one of my most favorite superheroes in the DCU. Not only is he nearly as old as Superman in how long he has been around. Captain Marvel to me represents every childs imagination. While your outside playing superheroes (for those of us that did) we were imagining that we were "growing" up and being a Superhero. Not just becoming someone else with powers. Well, at least I did.
Captain Marvel is the corner stone to the childs imagination it taps into the dreams of all of us that wish to be superheroes and with in the pages of "Power of Shazam" we get to watch as a fellow child can become what we only can play at doing.. He becomes a Superhero.
The Power of Shazam is worth the read. PS I think if this is done correctly "The Power of Shazam" would transfer over to the big screen easily.
Captain Marvel returns again in The Power of Shazam!.......2002-07-30
The Power of Shazam! is the updated origin on one of comics' greatest superheroes, the original Captain Marvel. Writer/artist Jerry Ordway recaptures the magic of what made this character work, while also adding some modern twists.
A beautifully painted story, The Power of Shazam! is a terrific updating of a classic hero who was once so much popular (and even outsold) Superman back in the Golden Age of comic books. Highly recommended to all Captain Marvel fans.
Product Description
Direct sales edition comic book published by DC Comics. Premiere issue starring the original Captain Marvel (Shazam).
Product Description
Direct sales edition comic book published by DC Comics. Part of the "One Million" event that ran throughout DC's titles in 1998, featuring the adventures of DC super heroes in the far future. Starring the original Captain Marvel (Shazam).
Customer Reviews:
Is He MAD.......2007-08-10
The owner of this comic is either mad or has an over-inflated view of its worth. $159.99 for a 1998 Power Of Shazam comic is just rediculous. I have seen it sell for $5. It is neither special nor a rarity. Come on, stop trying to con the public.
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- Review of Orbital Resonance by John Barnes
- Unusual coming-of-age novel
- The First of the "Meme Wars".
- Shallow Juvenile Story
- Enjoyable, classic SF reminiscent of Heinlein
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Orbital Resonance
John Barnes
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0312852061 |
Book Description
For the last thirty years, the survivors of the collapse has tried to exist Earthside. Space colonies like the Flying Duthman offer the last and best hope for the mother planet's future; the adolescents on board the Dutchman really are humanity's last hope, but knowing is a heavy burden - especially for Mel who has plans of her own.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Orbital Resonance by John Barnes.......2005-08-06
Life aboard a space station is explored in many modern works of science fiction and most of them have two elements in common. First, there is little or no privacy. Living in close quarters with one's family and colleagues makes for a public life. Secondly, life in such closed environments leads to rigid social organization and extreme pressure toward conformity. With the technology available under these conditions someone will inevitably monitor the actions of others. Especially in space stations meant for long-term or life long inhabitation, leaders act as "Big Brother", able to see and monitor every move of the inhabitants.
Orbital Resonance by John Barnes includes all these elements but in a deceivingly benign manner. A group of humans have been selected to begin a new life in a space station away from a dying Earth. The initial colonizers, realizing the children are their hope for survival, use genetic engineering, electronic monitoring, and psychological manipulation to socialize and control the actions of their children. Life on the "Flying Dutchmen" requires conformity. This conformity is enforced via socialization of the young such that conformity is second nature; genetic tinkering is used to ensure that this socialization works. The children growing up on the "Flying Dutchman" are truly denizens of space, seeing Earth as a distant, foreign environment. They are completely different and alienated from their parents.
Finding out her life has been closely scripted whereby seemingly free choices were really genetically and psychologically predetermined does little to deter the teenage protagonist, Melpomene. Unfortunately Barnes does not use this strong character to question the cleverly inconspicuous totalitarian nature of the society he creates. Instead, Melpomene goes about her daily routines and the eventual climax has more to do with the unbreechable generation gap than it does with the social control exercised by her parent's generation. The story itself is rather bland but is saved by the interesting characters Barnes develops.
It is odd the lack of attention Barnes devotes toward the worst invasions of human dignity perpetrated by his characters. The children are genetically engineered with certain abilities and are psychologically manipulated to respond certain ways to stimuli. Yet little discussion of the moral or social implications of genetic engineering ensues. Melpomene's father rationalizes the actions of his generation as being necessary for the survival of humans and the children of the "Flying Dutchmen", seeing himself as a benevolent guardian of their future. The normative questions opened by this rationalization remain unexplored. This makes Orbital Resonance less satisfying.
Book Review by C. Douglas Baker
Unusual coming-of-age novel.......2005-07-04
Melpomene ("Mel") Morris, born on the converted-asteroid space freighter Flying Dutchman, is thirteen and only six months from becoming a Full Adult. She's writing this book at the request of her psychologist as a way of introducing the ship's somewhat peculiar orbital society, of which she and her friends are the carefully planned carriers, to the people still surviving on a war- and disease-ravaged Earth. Individualism has been proven not to work, so their new social system is based strongly on cooperation and teamwork, and being an "Uncooperative" is a criminal offense. Things start to change when Theophilus joins their class -- a "groundhog" whose parents have joined the company that owns the ship -- and he thinks in a very divisive way that challenges their view of what's right, and he's a jerk besides. Mel, together with her brother and her new boyfriend, are destined for a different sort of role, though. Barnes lets Mel tell her story on her own terms, so the reader has to figure out and try to understand the differences between her world and ours, and he's pretty successful at it; I'm tempted to compare this book to a Heinlein juvenile, but it's not really like that. For one thing, it's not really written for adolescents. Pretty good anthropological science fiction.
The First of the "Meme Wars"........2005-02-05
John Barnes assembles a vision of the future in the best tradition of true science fiction visionaries.
What happens if society decides to experiment on itself by altering the fundamental manner in which it raises its children, with the intent of producing vastly smarter and more responsible youngsters capable of entering the workforce at an earlier age with adult-like attitudes and skill sets that would make a modern college graduate green with envy? What happens to the adults upon whom the responsibility falls to raise the children in such a manner?
Whatever does happen, it had better work, because the Earth is failing rapidly as a result of ecological warfare on an unheard of scale, with the biosphere's state swinging first one way, then another.
Mankind needs new crews to man the great interplanetary transports that are hoped will be able to ship enough people off Earth and enough food back to keep everything from the brink of collapse, and the only way to get enough competent crew, crew who are willing to spend their lives in space and want to stay there, indeed, have every reason to stay there, are to raise them there, so that is their home from the beginning.
And how do you get a crew like that quicker than the 25 to 30 years a typical top-flight astronaut takes to develop? You take a new system of learning that completely revolutionizes the education process. The technical results are impressive, but the social results are interesting, to say the least.
The characters of the novel are the children of the experiment, and a few adults. For the most part, it is a coming of age story told anew, for it is a coming of age to adulthood far earlier than any children in history. It is told with bright-eyed clarity and absolute precision. The author tells of pre-adolescence from the point of view of those going through it.
The technology, its assumptions, and the society built by the expediency of need, and its assumptions, all drive the combination of assertions that create the knitted whole that is Orbital Resonance.
Those who are well-read enough to know of Alexi Panshin's book Rite of Passage (Nebula Award winner for best novel, 1969), will appreciate this book even more.
Orbital Resonance was a Nebula Award nominee for best novel, 1992.
Shallow Juvenile Story.......2004-04-19
I like well written stories written from a child's perspective. _Ender's Game_ is a great example.
So why did I find this book such a major disappointment?
First, all the characters were names attached to concepts rather than people. You the concept called "Bully", "The Reformed Bully", the "Girl Who Is Growing Breasts", the "Shy But Smart Kid" and on and on. Those descriptions basically sum up the whole character development that you get for all the characters introduced in the book.
Second, the main cardboard character has empathy for people, and the writer shows by the character continually hugging and kissing everyone, but we don't get to see or hear why this character is empathetic, or what she's thinking, or why. I guess it's "enough" that if a character hugs every other character, this is a wonderful empathic character.
Third, the dialog is so shallow in most cases. Here is a typical example:
"I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry."
There was a hushed silence, then a the main character tittered a laugh.
"Gosh, um, I'm so embarrassed."
"It's all right. I like you."
"Wow, that's a relief, I really like the fact that you like me."
"Me too."
The characters hugged each other and wiped away a few tears.
This type of writing that spews from the page, on and on. A few instances of this, I can take, but if the entire book is devoted to scenes like this, it gets real boring and insulting real fast.
Fourth, the whole notion of the characters being "smart" doesn't come across well in the writing. All the writer does is spout a lot of titles of subjects that he's familiar with, such as Godel's Incompleteness Theorem (not very well), but the kids' knowledge of anything other than the subject titles or understanding doesn't seem to correlate with the buzzwords that the kids are spouting.
As a sharp contrast, in Card's _Ender's Game_, you really did feel that the characters did have a preternatural understanding of the world, and it showed in their actions and thoughts.
In _Orbital Resonance_, the kids spout off the buzzwords of the subjects their studying, but their actions are like kids in a kindergarden playground, with no maturity, with no insight to the reader as to why they are supposed to be smart or what they're thinking. This is just lazy writing.
Lastly, if you thought the main story was bad, the ending is the worst. The resolution to all the problems of society involves something so out of the ordinary that I sat with my jaw open. The characters to reaction to this was "oh, this makes sense - I'm happy with that." In reality, most children who are put into that situation would be wailing with abject grief and terror. I threw the book at the wall at this point since I was so mad at how unrealistic and how lazy the author became at the end.
Avoid this if you can.
Enjoyable, classic SF reminiscent of Heinlein.......2003-11-04
This book is a worthy addition to the sub-genre of SF which focuses on the young man or woman growing into themselves within a new frontier of space. It stands well alongside books like Heinlien's immortal "Have Space Suit, Will Travel" and "Space Cadet," Or Clarke's "Islands In The Sky." I have found it to be entertaining, stimulating and as good as anything written in SF in the past 5 years. Anyone who enjoys this particular sub-genre will enjoy Orbital Resonance immensely.
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Imaging of Orbital and Visual Pathway Pathology (Medical Radiology / Diagnostic Imaging)
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 3540279881 |
Book Description
This is one of the first books to deal with imaging of pathology of the entire visual system. It is divided into two parts, general and special. In the general part, the most important basics of modern imaging methods are discussed, but with less emphasis on the physical background than in purely neuro-/radiological textbooks. Chapters are devoted to the meticulous presentation of imaging anatomy of the orbit and intracranial visual pathway. The latest knowledge on the indication, technique, and results of functional MR imaging is presented. Visual system impairment in the pediatric age group is also discussed. The special part of the book provides detailed descriptions of the symptoms and clinical and imaging findings in individual patients with orbital and intracranial pathologies. This book is specifically designed to be of value not only to neuroradiologists but also to ophthalmologists, neurosurgeons, oto-/rhino-laryngologists, and neurologists who require more detailed information on these special diseases.
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Mri of the Eye and Orbit
Manufacturer: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0397513828 |
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Orbital Disease: Imaging and Analysis
Daniel S. Casper ,
T. Linda Chi , and
Stephen L. Trokel
Manufacturer: Thieme Medical Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0865774307 |
Book Description
The “Gale Encyclopedia of Science” is written at a level somewhere between the introductory sources and the highly technical texts currently available. This six-volume set covers all major areas of science and engineering, as well as mathematics and the medical and health sciences, while providing a comprehensive overview of current scientific knowledge and technology. Alphabetically arranged entries provide a user-friendly format that makes the broad scope of information easy to access and decipher. Entries typically describe scientific concepts, provide overviews of scientific areas and, in some cases, define terms.
Book Description
This historical introduction to Buddhism presents readers with an engaging exploration of the diversity of thoughts and practices of a wide segment of followers of the Buddha. It covers five main aspects of Buddhism: ritual, devotionalism, doctrine, meditation, practice, and institutional history.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Overview.......2006-10-31
I have taught from this book for several years, and I believe it is one of the best Buddhism survey textbooks available. The current edition is as much the work of Thanissaro Bikkhu as it is Willard Robinson. Bikkhu incorporates much of the most recent scholarship in Buddhist studies from scholars such as Gregory Schopen, Donald Lopez, etc.
There are no grammatical mistakes I am aware of in the current edition. I suspect the book's only one-star rating came from a disgruntled student. This is not a book that dumbs down the Buddhist religion, or attempts to please everyone. It uses sophisticated language and presents a definite pont of view. As such, it may not be appropriate for underclassmen at some colleges.
Strong's anthology "The Experience of Buddhism" is paired by the publisher with this text, and it too is excellent.
best overview of the Buddhist tradition.......2006-05-04
The one star review below was likely made by someone who read an early edition of the book - the past two editions have been an ambitious re-write by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The result is a book whose clarity is unmatched by any other text I've come across that addresses the history of Buddhism.
an excellent resource.......2006-05-02
I used an earlier edition of this book and the companion Experience of Buddhism in an introductory buddhism course in college, and found (and still find) both to be exremely useful as overviews and wide-ranging sourcebooks for information about the full spectrum of buddhist practice and thought. I'm not sure what grammatical errors the previous reviewer refers to -- perhaps peculiar to the present edition -- but I grew up to be an english teacher and recall no such dramatic flaws and logical inconsistency. As textbooks, both are definitely expensive, but actually are the best resources I can think of for an overview of the whole religion rather than one specific branch of it. (Though it is true that the writing in this particular book is a bit dry -- it is a textbook, after all).
Impossible to read.......2006-02-20
Its filled with grammatical mistakes that translate into logical fallacies. It is extremely long winded and repetitive. The author goes no where with the material. I recommmend stabbing your eyes out rather than reading it.
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Heart of Buddhist Wisdom: A Translation of the Heart Sutra With Historical Introduction and Commentary (Studies in Asian Thought & Religion)
Douglas A. Fox
Manufacturer: Edwin Mellen Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0889460531 |
Books:
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- Nomads and the Outside World
- Nothing's Fair in Fifth Grade
- One Step Closer to Home
- Paddle Whispers
- Perma Red
- Portrait of an Englishman in His Chateau (Dedalus Europe 1998)
- Riding the Rap
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