The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia

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Mozart's enduring popularity, among music lovers as a composer and among music historians as a subject for continued study, lies at the heart of The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia. This reference book functions both as a starting point for information on specific works, people, places and concepts as well as a summation of current thinking about Mozart. The extended articles on genres reflect the latest in scholarship and new ways of thinking about the works while the articles on people and places provide a historical framework, as well as interpretation. The book also includes a series of thematic articles that cast a wide net over the eighteenth century and Mozart's relationship to it: these include Austria, Germany, aesthetics, travel, Enlightenment, Mozart as a reader, and contemporaneous medicine, among others. Many of the topics covered have never been written about before in English-language Mozart publications or in such detail, and represent today's greater interest in previously unexplored aspects of Mozart's life, context and reception. The worklist provides the most up-to-date account in English of the authenticity and chronology of Mozart's compositions.

Customer Reviews:

A Big Book, A Big Price, But It Really Is Worth It!.......2006-07-14

For those brave souls who are willing to see this beautifully written and designed volume as a major investment for the library, the treasures in store here are plentiful. As the title suggests this is a compendium of all that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote - operas, chamber works, choral works, symphonies, overtures, concerti - they are all here.

Wisely Editors Cliff Eisen and Simon P. Keefe did not venture to write all the entries themselves, but instead solicited some superb essayists, historians, musicologists, and academicians to take us through not only the various works Mozart composed, but also the bits and particles of his life and legacy (e.g. the Salieri Scandal, his medical history, even the omnipresent Austrian Mozartkugeln!) that contribute to the readability of this volume.

Plan to spend time as you wish to pick up this heavy tome and turn to any page at all. Whether analyses of his opera plots and characteristics or performance practices or various composer's plagiarisms or just good gossip suit the tone of the time allotted, there is something to treasure on every page. This is a very fine book, well bound to support a long shelf life of repeated readings, and certainly worthy of inclusion in every Mozartean's library! Highly recommended. Grady Harp, July 06

THE CAMBRIDGE MOZART ENCYCLOPEDIA.......2006-07-10

I shall need time to appreciate the book. Entries already read are excellent.

The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia.(Book review): An article from: Notes

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The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia.(Book review): An article from: Notes
Laurel E. Zeiss
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Notes, published by Thomson Gale on March 1, 2007. The length of the article is 1554 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: The Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia.(Book review)
Author: Laurel E. Zeiss
Publication: Notes (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 63 Issue: 3 Page: 584(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

This comprehensive reference guide reviews the literature concerning the impact of the automobile on American social, economic, and political history. Covering the complete history of the automobile to date, twelve chapters of bibliographic essays describe the important works in a series of related topics and provide broad thematic contexts. This work includes general histories of the automobile, the industry it spawned and labor-management relations, as well as biographies of famous automotive personalities. Focusing on books concerned with various social aspects, chapters discuss such issues as the car's influence on family life, youth, women, the elderly, minorities, literature, and leisure and recreation. Berger has also included works that investigate the government's role in aiding and regulating the automobile, with sections on roads and highways, safety, and pollution. The guide concludes with an overview of reference works and periodicals in the field and a description of selected research collections. The Automobile in American History and Culture provides a resource with which to examine the entire field and its structure. Popular culture scholars and enthusiasts involved in automotive research will appreciate the extensive scope of this reference. Cross-referenced throughout, it will serve as a valuable research tool.

Customer Reviews:

Essential resource.......2003-02-13

This is the essential, basic, first resource anyone should use when doing research on automobiles.

Average customer rating:

too flat and conclusion based

Pretty Decent Military Synopses for Laypeople (whew!)

Just didn't seem exciting

Interesting Military History

Fraught with historical errors

How to Lose a Battle: Foolish Plans and Great Military Blunders
Bill Fawcett
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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What Were They Thinking?: Really Bad Ideas Throughout History

ASIN: 0060760249
Release Date: 2006-07-03

Book Description

A remarkable compendium of the worst military
decisions and the men who made them

The annals of history are littered with horribly bad military leaders. These combat incompetents found amazing ways to ensure their army's defeat. Whether it was a lack of proper planning, miscalculation, ego, bad luck, or just plain stupidity, certain wartime stratagems should never have left the drawing board. Written with wit, intelligence, and eminent readability, How to Lose a Battle pays dubious homage to these momentous and bloody blunders, including:

Cannae, 216 B.C.: the bumbling Romans lose 80,000 troops to Hannibal's forces.
The Second Crusade: an entire Christian army is slaughtered when it stops for a drink of water.
The Battle of Britain: Hitler's dreaded Luftwaffe blows it big-time.
Pearl Harbor: more than one warning of the impending attack is there, but nobody listens.

How to Lose a Battle includes more than thirty-five chapters worth of astonishing (and avoidable) disasters, both infamous and obscure -- a treasure trove of trivia, history, and jaw-dropping facts about the most costly military missteps ever taken.

Customer Reviews:

too flat and conclusion based.......2007-07-12

I dont like this book. It judges success and mistakes of battles by outcome and result of the battle, and not hte porcesses that took place in a dynamic of fog of war.

The things that took place, had a history of their dynamic and how things went, and how htey expected things to go.

They couldnt see 3 feet ahead therefore, but this book judges them by 3 miles backward.

Its too undeep, too much on the surface and wheres the fun in it?

in short and simple - THE ARROGANCE of knowing better afterwards multiplied wiht an undeep and short scratch on the topic of the battle.

If you want warstories pick "the Lanzer" or so.

Pretty Decent Military Synopses for Laypeople (whew!).......2007-01-02

What follows is a sentence from HOW TO LOSE A BATTLE ("The Easter Rising" chapter):

"The quest for Irish indendence had begun many years before, almost as far back as the first spawn of an English king in the days of the Norman conquests, when they tainted the lands of the Emerald Isle for the first time, and had included such hare-brained schemes as helping the French to invade, and even more so, the plot by several Irish expatriates who hoped to invade Canada and trade it to the Crown for Irish independence."

That sentence is a felony of tortured syntax. I include it to point out that while HOW TO LOSE A BATTLE has a promising premise, the editor was asleep at the wheel. Lines like, "What did [Commander X] do wrong? It might be easier to list what he did right," seem to recur endlessly. I liked the idea of this book, and much of its content is interesting and well-written. But a masterpiece it ain't.

Just didn't seem exciting.......2006-11-12

Reading this book was like reading a history text, which I guess is what it is, but it kinda lacked excitement. And every synopsis seemed to be "so and so was overconfident, and that's why he lost."

Bought it for a plane ride, but didn't finish it. Just didn't capture me.

Interesting Military History.......2006-11-11

This book has 37 chapters written by 5 different authors. Despite this, the authors' writing styles are quite similar, i.e., simple and friendly prose that is generally engaging. However, as a result of this multi authorship, some chapters are short and concise such that a given event is recounted in 5 to 8 pages, while others are rather long-winded and occupy over 20 pages. Several of the events in this book have been recounted elsewhere by other authors in an equally short, concise but frequently in a pleasant tongue-in-cheek style - something which is not as pronounced in this case. I have given this book 4 stars simply because, although it is a good read, to me, it seems to lack that tiny spark that would make it a 5 star work. The several editorial mistakes that it contains may have contributed to that less than perfect score. This book could be of interest to anyone, although some detailed analyses may be of particular interest to military history buffs.

Fraught with historical errors.......2006-10-01

The title and premise caught my eye, but having read it I agree with the previous review that suggests that the author check his facts. He has a French King John fighting at Agincourt and being held captive afterward. The French king was Charles who was not present at the battle. This is one of dozens of easily checked factual errors that completely undermine the credibility of the author. Who edited this book, and how did it get published in this form? His other titles also look interesting. I hope they are more workmanlike in their execution.

The Price of Folly: British Blunders in the War of American Independence

Average customer rating:

Did America win, or England lose, the Revolutionary War?

The Price of Folly: British Blunders in the War of American Independence
William Seymour , and W. F. N. Watson
Manufacturer: Potomac Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

Did America win, or England lose, the Revolutionary War?.......1996-12-30

Why didn't the English Army crush the colonial forces at Bunker Hill, Harlem Heights, or a dozen other places where their superior numbers and weaponry should have brought the day? The author, a direct descendant of British General John Burgoyne (who surrendered at Saratoga), details interesting English political aspects that affected the conduct of the war, including the desire senior military leaders held for reconciliation. A must for students of American or Military History

The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder

Average customer rating:

Why Mihailovich Mattered
A riveting account of the betrayal of a great Serb ally

The Web of Disinformation: Churchill's Yugoslav Blunder
David Martin
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

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Customer Reviews:

Why Mihailovich Mattered.......2005-03-23

At the close of World War II, David Martin, then a Canadian-born, American-bred Socialist (read: Social Democrat)journalist investigated the sordid tale of the abandonment of Drazha Mihailovich, the great Serb Patriot and anti-Nazi fighter in his chilling "Ally Betrayed" - the uncensored story of Tito and Mihailovich.

Martin's well-researched work showed how a combination of factors, including alledged collaboration with the Nazis on the part of Mihailovich and his deputies, (some of his associates DID indeed collaborate with the Italians - in order to save Serbian lives, and some - in extreme cases may have also worked with the Nazis but not Mihailovich nor his immediate entourage)a sense of impatience on the part of Winston Churchill believing that Mihailovich was "doing nothing" to aid the Allied war effort, stubborness on the part of Mihailovich in refusing to undertake risky operations when the lives of Serbian civilians was at stake - plus the romantic image of Tito and his Partisans caused the Allied Powers - the United States and Britain to abandon Mihailovich in favor of Tito.

In this earlier work Martin too offered the suggestion that Leftist American and British officers also worked against Mihailovich, preferring a Socialist - read Communist - state in Yugoslavia and an end to monarchy at war's end. Martin didn't - or couldn't name names then.

45 years on, the end of the Soviet bloc and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, plus the accessbility of the Intelligence archives of Britain and the United States, Martin was finally able to paint the full picture of the Mihailovich betrayal - and how the "End Justifies the Means" philosophy of the British Communist James Klugmann, an acolyte of the traitors Donald McLean and Anthony Blunt, and himself a key officer on the Balkan desk of SOE (British Intelligence) Cairo, and his sidekick, the fellow travelling Basil Davidson, alledgedly falsified reports of Chetnik resistance and sabotage operations against the Nazis and gave credit to their beloved Tito and his Partisans. One of these operations, the successful assault and destruction of the Visegrad bridge, was witnessed by British liaison officers with the Chetniks who heard on the BBC the very next day that Tito and his Partisans were responsible for that action.

The end justified the means, as both Klugmann and Davidson wanted and worked for a Socialist (read: Communist) Yugoslavia.

Furthermore, Klugmann and Davidson made sure that allied airdrops to the Chetniks were minimal, or of equipment that didn't work, or tropical military dress to men fighting in the bitter cold mountains of Bosnia and Montenegro. On the other hand, Klugmann and Davidson made sure that Tito got the best - including tanks and artillery pieces by the time Mihailovich got the boot by Churchill and Roosevelt in 1944.

Even with this betrayal, Mihailovich continued to rescue American and other Allied personnel forced down in Yugoslavia - close to 1000 in total - and 500 in one operation alone, Operation Halyard. Furthermore the OSS officers and Colonel Robert McDowell who were flown into Chetnik territory witnessed how the Chetniks, abandoned by the U.S. and Britain, continued to fight the Nazis - while being stabbed in the back by Tito and his Communist-dominated Partisans. McDowell, fellow officer Gus Musulin, rescued Airman Richard Felman, and other rescued Allied personnel came home and testified on behalf of Mihailovich, but to no avail.

In the end, the Chetniks were annihilated - those who escaped to Austria were handed back by the British to Tito to be slaughtered in the pits of Kocevje. 15,000 fortunate Chetniks were able to escape to Italy, where the British surprisingly allowed them to remain, perhaps because by then Churchill too, was having doubts, too late, about his friend Josip Broz. Mihailovich too, ended up judicially murdered by Tito in 1946.

Martin not only updates "Ally Betrayed" in "Web of Disinformation", he is also able to point fingers at Klugmann, Davidson, and other officers both British and American who helped to engineer Tito's rise to power, like George Wucinich, an OSS officer who had fought in Spain with the Lincoln battalion, and if not a Party member, was as close to them as Davidson was - you might say they were cheating Marx of his dues.

This is not a pretty story, and it can be said that with history's hindsight, we might have been better off with a Mihailovich-ruled Yugoslavia than the totalitarian, one-party state of Tito, that despite his aversion to his former friend Stalin, led straight to the Milosevics and the Tudjmans who brought further pain and bloodshed and massacre to a country that had had its fill - and to a Serb people that saw 2 million men, women, and children slaughtered by the Nazis and their allies, especially the Croat Ustashi, but also Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Bosnian SS led by the notorious Grand Mufti, and after all of this sacrifice to fighting Hitlerism - ended up unhappily ruled by a Broz who chose more murder upon taking power than practicing benevolence towards his opposition. But after all, the end does justify the means...

"Web of Disinformation" is a must read to those who wouldn't believe that Allied officers would put their Communist beliefs over the future of a people already battered and bloodied, or why Yugoslavia has turned out to be the bloody, strife-ridden, broken entity it is today.

A riveting account of the betrayal of a great Serb ally.......1998-02-05

Martin provides much need insight into this poorly understood theatre of World War II - the Balkans. Using recently declassified British intelligence documents and radio transmission transcripts from the field, Martin builds a strong case for the defense of General Draza Mihailovich, the Serbian guerilla leader who was abandoned by the British in favour of the Communist leader Tito. British field documents show that Serbian Chetnik forces carried out large scale attacks against German and Croat Nazi units up to 1944 - long after they stopped getting Allied aid. Importantly, they continued rescuing downed Allied airmen, culminating in the rescue in June, 1944 of more than 500 US and British airmen who were evacuated by US Airforce aircraft from Serbia in an operation codenamed "Halyard" - the largest rescue in US Airforce history. All round a tremendous contribution to WWII history. I might add, that just last year, more than 50 years after the fact, the official British archives have admitted that Communist moles working for SOE (Special Operations Executive) manipulated and falsified field transcripts from the Serb Chetniks thereby resulting in official British support switching to Tito. Martin's thesis has been proven correct. Nicholas Tintor Toronto

Average customer rating:

A most curious collection.

Blunders and Disasters at Sea
David Blackmore
Manufacturer: Pen and Sword
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1844151174

Book Description

As any sailor knows, life at sea is hazardous under even normal circumstances. In times of war with an enemy intent on killing and sinking you it is infinitely more so.

David Blackmore has researched 100 extreme cases over the span of history and written graphic descriptions covering the background, the events and the tragic consequences.

Many were the result of enemy action, others (too many) straight human error and the remainder were caused by act of God, not least the weather.

Examples include the Syracuse Harbour disaster (BC413), the rout at Aboutir Bay (1798), and the Prince of Wales/Repulse sinking due to lack of air cover (1941). All make for fascinating and informative reading.

Customer Reviews:

A most curious collection........2007-05-03

If you like short stories, especially short stories about shipwrecks and the sea, then this might be the book for you. Containing a collection of sea-going catastrophes, the book commences with tales from 1176 BC and brings the reader right up to date with more modern disasters. The book is divided into 8 parts which are headed; Antiquity and the Classical Epoch, Medieval and the Renaissance Ages, Early Modern Times, Late Nineteenth Century, Recent Times (which covers the period 1904- 1923), Second World War (Axis), Second World War (Allies) and finally the Current Period.

This is a hard-back book which the author also describes as an anthology. I don't quite understand the use of that word because the content does not match the description of "anthology" found in my dictionary - that said, the word is irrelevant. Altogether, I did find the book to be quite good. In several cases the detail was far too little for such a tragic event and this left me wanting to know more. Unfortunately the absence of any bibliography did not show me where I might look to find those further details.

The reader who knows his subject will find a few elementary errors (for example; the Birkenhead did not have the "HMS" prefix because she was a troopship and not a warship! Furthermore, she is described in the book as "a brigantine rigged sailing ship" when, in fact, she was a "brigantine rigged steamship." It is because she was a steamship that the author is able to describe how her captain put her "auxiliary paddle wheels full astern."

My final problem was the way in which the author uses explanatory notes. Every so often a small number appears against the text. In order to discover the additional information associated with each number, the reader must turn to pages 232-235 in order to look up that number and read what is says. There are 57 such numbers throughout the book and (for me at least) that was 57 interruptions to the flow of my reading. Far better to place each note at the bottom of the relevant page where I can glance at what it says - and carry.

Nevertheless, this is a good read and a few minor errors should not spoil any reader's enjoyment.

NM

Average customer rating:

Interesting, but not well fleshed out
light reading
Madness

Great Military Blunders
Geoffrey Regan
Manufacturer: Diane Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0756774047

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, but not well fleshed out.......2007-04-16

This is an intriguing volume, one that promises much and does not quite deliver. The focus is, as the title would have it, "Great Military Blunders." And this volume includes a number of these. However, the selection is open to some question, and the detail is not quite what it might be to make the case. Nonetheless, a good read and a fascinating subject.

Chapter 1 looks at those "Unfit to lead." Historically, there is a long list of those who were incompetent as leaders. This chapter only includes four vignettes, and one could argue that it does not include some real incompetents. However, it does make its case that leaders who are incapable create great problems for their countries. Herman Goering is one example, and there is no question that his ineptitude cost Germany dearly in World War II (to all our benefit).

Another chapter (2) explores poor planning. One case study is the Schlieffen Plan at the outset of World War I. It is not altogether clear that one could blame Schliefen himself, since he created it years before the war; one could argue that von Moltke too slavishly stuck to it, but that is like 20-20 historical hindsight.

Chapter 3 looks at instandes of underestimating the enemy. Here, classic examples include the French underestimating the Vietnamese and their subsequent disaster at Dien Bien Phu and the English contempt for the Japanese precipitating the fall of Singapore.

Other categories of blunder: Hubris and nemesis; Politics, and Technology.

All in all, this volume does provide some brief case studies of military blunders. However, the case studies are too brief and the examples seem chosen in somewhat of an arbitrary fashion. Other works treat the subject in a more magisterial fashion, such as Tuchman's "The March of Folly."

light reading.......2003-12-28

the book is composed of a series of short essays covering military events grouped by topic: failures in leadership, failures in planning, intrusion of politics into military decisions, etc. selection of the events is rather random: some are important, some are secondary. one can hadrly argue with the taxonomy of the events selected. nice one evening reading while having a glass of wine. definitely not a book for a serious history buff: the book is lacking serious analysis and details of execution. PS. there is a subtle undercurrent of contempt for the american military.

Madness.......2000-06-28

A fine, sardonic compilation of some of the more regrettable military decisions (or lack thereof) of the last two thousand years, this book is well-researched, sharp as a button, and has a nice line in understated mockery. Regan's style combines amusement (the endless pompous Napoleonic-era dukes and their rampant egos) and horror (the first ten minutes of the Somme, during which one hundred allied soliders were killed every second) at the same time, and doesn't restrict itself to the obvious examples - the American Civil War seems to have been packed full of idiotic decision-making, and the crusades were arguably one long blunder. That said, there is copious material on the insane, otherworldly killing grounds of World War One, a war that deserves somebody like Anthony Beever to write a big book about.

Book Description

Get cracking! Here's the hardware hacker's guide to banishing boring beige boxes
ExtremeTech readers aren't timid about cracking the case and voiding the warranty, and they'll love these detailed instructions for PC extreme makeovers that add lights, shapes, windows on the works, and more individuality to standard PC cases
Modding is hot; a multimillion dollar industry has grown up around the hobbyists who modify their computer cases with way-out windows, neon and lighting displays, custom cooling systems, and more
Modding is also mainstream-major computer retailers now stock light kits and fan kits, while some PC vendors offer out-of-the-box cases with personality
Written by a serious modder who took a Dremel to a computer case long before it was fashionable, the book provides materials lists, identifies necessary tools, and supplies all the directions for over a dozen cool case mods

Download Description

Get cracking! Here's the hardware hacker's guide to banishing boring beige boxes
ExtremeTech readers aren't timid about cracking the case and voiding the warranty, and they'll love these detailed instructions for PC extreme makeovers that add lights, shapes, windows on the works, and more individuality to standard PC cases
Modding is hot; a multimillion dollar industry has grown up around the hobbyists who modify their computer cases with way-out windows, neon and lighting displays, custom cooling systems, and more
Modding is also mainstream-major computer retailers now stock light kits and fan kits, while some PC vendors offer out-of-the-box cases with personality
Written by a serious modder who took a Dremel to a computer case long before it was fashionable, the book provides materials lists, identifies necessary tools, and supplies all the directions for over a dozen cool case mods

Customer Reviews:

All the skills you need, plus 9 cool projects.......2004-11-20

If you are tired of your boring beige box, then this is the perfect guide to tricking out your PC. Russ Caslis - the guy behind those cool mods you have seen online like the Millennium Falcon and Aircraft Carrier mods (both included in the book, by the way) has written an excellent guide that is broken into 2 main parts. Part I is called Basic Training, and covers all the skills you need to mod your case -cooling systems, cable management, windows, blowholes, soldiering, even working with acrylic, and a brief guide to overclocking.

Part II has 9 complete mods with step by step instructions. Looks like there is also a website with the book that has color photos for all the projects and other stuff - www.wiley.com/go/extremetech.

This is the most complete book I have seen for learning casemodding skills, and highly recommended for anyone who has seen a cool mod on the web and wondered, "how'd they do that?"

Cool mods.......2004-11-10

Caslis gives us 9 mods, where he came up with ways to personalise, and I mean, REALLY personalise a PC. He's reaching out to the user who is not satisfied with have a unique background bitmap on the screen, or some strange arrangement of the icons. Rather, you need to be of the hands-on ilk.

He also gives you a good overview of the general techniques you need to be facile in. Like drilling holes in the computer casing, without trashing it. Or soldering. Or putting in extra fans for cooling. This latter ability is important if you are into overclocking your machine, with its concomitant extra heat dissipation needs.

The cutest mod may be that of turning your PC into a baby UFO. Sorry, it doesn't fly. But it looks really cool.

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