The authors gives much but also assumes much.
926743
As the title indicates, this is a group of case studies of several women and children who have disappeared without a trace in Ireland and Northern Ireland. While the writing is rather dry, the individual cases are very detailed and the author also includes personal information about the missing people and their families, which makes them come to life for the reader.

My only real objection is that Cummins invariably declares that the people he is writing about have been murdered. The book jacket, for instance, mentions "Annie McCarrick who was murdered in the Dublin-Wicklow mountains." Annie's remains have never been found, no suspects have been arrested, and there are no witnesses and no hard evidence to indicate that she is in fact dead, let alone murdered. Granted, she probably was, but the assumptions about the missing people's fates seriously detract from the author's credibility. Still, in spite of this the book's details making it worth looking at.
4752085
Although this book gives a very detailed potrait of the history of economics and the story of major economists, I find the author's idiosyncratic style a bit disorienting. Skousen maintains a very free-market perspective in his narrative, judging economists by their adherence to Smith's free market principles. The book also repeats facts and other information, leading me to believe that the book is at least partly a compliation of Skousen's previously written materials. I am not sure why we need to know that David Ricardo's teeth fell out while Skousen spends less time on the development of Ricardo's theories. The suggested musical selections are a bit strange, but they don't detract from the book.

Overall, I would suggest that you read the boook if you are interesteed in the story of economics, but be aware of Skousen's biases.

PS I listened to the unabridged version on Audible.com which has these strange music recommendations for each chapter. Hopefully these oddities are not included in the print edition.
227998
There's good stuff in this tome, but there are parts that are not so good.

The author is very opionionated.  He thinks that believers in an efficient market are incompetent.  He has similar contempt for those that believe small-cap companies have higher growth potential.  In short, those that don't agree with him are idiots.

When the author looks through data, he only sees evidence that supports his cherished theory.  By the way, this is the same accusation he levels at others.

My advice is that buy this book used and take the advice contained therein with a healthy dose of skepticism.
1706444
Without a doubt, Wilson's new book is a pleasure to read--it maps out a very enticing thesis that begs to be proven.  The problem is, the begging is in vain.  His claim that the world of human knowledge will eventually  condense into one unity,  supported under the umbrella of natural science,  is nothing short of fantastical.  The notion that science will ultimately  explain the intricacies of human behavior, from the development of  civilization to the details of social interactions, is extremely  far-fetched and difficult to prove.  Nonetheless, for readers looking to  expand their minds and think incredibly big, the book is a fun read.
927908
A lot of interesting information, but as other reviewers have stated, the author has a tendency to go off on wild tangents that seem only peripherally related.  I read a lot of studies on psychology and human behavior, so most of these I skim through. There are significant sections of the book that relate directly to the book's title subject, so I'm reasonably ok with the book.
2719133
I like where the author is going with this and agree to most of it, but not ready to buy into all of it. I think it needs more study, but well worth reading and considering.
3423416
The book has a lot of great advice but you have to sift through the author bragging on himself a lot.  I don't have a problem with people establishing credibility or using personal examples, but this book goes too far.

Nevertheless, there is still a lot of good data here so for the discounted current price, go ahead and get it.
4608687
After ordering this book and reading it, I decided to look the author up and verify his credentials.  Seems there is a good deal of controversy about this guy.  The reader may want to take his written words with a grain of salt.
169138
This is a worthwhile book that did a lot to break the stereotyped image of tightwad conservatives.  However, some of the statistical support is a bit thin, and it seems to be overwhelmed by the conservative and religious viewpoints of the author.
1222203
While I generally found this book helpful and informative, I thought it spent way too much time on author's personal hype.  Has some valuable insights.
3947579
The author spends too much time bragging about his art authentication expertise and providing a Freudian analysis of art crime. On the other hand there is an extensive bibliography of art crime books and articles.
2531527
This book has three authors; thus, that's more than a monograph but less than an anthology.  If you read the book, you would never know which person wrote what.  However, there is so much information here, and from so many disciplines, that there is no way one person could have put all this together.  Surprisingly, this book has no endnotes.  All the references come at the end of the entire book.  bell hooks does this in order to lure in everyday readers.  I assume the authors had that same goal, but this book had far too many graphs and statistical numbers for a layperson to understand anyway.  I am not sure that the authors succeeded at trying to be both accessible and academic.

Sometimes, the authors do far too much summarizing, rather than analyzing.  Still, I applaud them for showing that they did their homework.  Most chapters are approximately 20 pages long, yet in the middle of the book, there is a chapter that is 50 pages long.  The book should have been divided into parts where that chapter should have come at the beginning or the end.

This book reveals disturbing things about homophobia and prisons.  Some incarcerated teens said they would laugh and ignore any AIDS prevention messages coming from middle-aged gay men.  In another chapter, prisoners presumed AIDS transmissions in jails comes from injecting drugs because they could not accept that men were having sex together in prison.

The authors clearly have recommenations, but they come here subtly.  They want prisons to have clean needles and condoms.  Those aren't radical propositions, so they could have just come out and said it.
1490507
Some good and insightful stuff in this book. There are some parts that I do not agree with or it seems as though the authors are trying too hard to make something fit. So, while I enjoy this book, I have to read it more carefully for those reasons.
461032
The research for this book was exhaustive and the results are well-presented. The nobility and tragedy of the lives presented here were perhaps underplayed, precisely because of the author's hesitancy to claim more than can be completely verified.
1441692
The author does a creditable job to illustrate the differences between gendertrolling and general trolling. However, most of the people chosen as voices in the book will be unfamiliar to the average person, and the reason for their inclusion (rather than someone else) is often not clear. Gendertrolling is a misnomer as well, women are trolled for being women (i.e. on the basis of sex) rather than gender. This subject deserves a definitive book, I do not believe that this is that book.
4680639
This e-book has pretty good information. It's certainly worth the read. However, the author's style of writing seems like it's all over the place. Tremendous amount of guidelines that seem a bit too much at times in my opinion. But lots of reference to scientific studies and that's valuable. Check out his YouTube videos as well.
1131821
I found it very hard to rate this book.  In the end, I chose between three and four stars, and went with four.  But, at various times, I considered everything from two to five.
This book has several serious problems.  The most important is the incredible bias of the author.  This bias is evident, to some extent, throughout the book, where Schlesinger's very liberal views taint almost everything he discusses.  The last section of the book is particularly outrageous.  It is, essentially, a very biased, distorted attack on legitimate policy views held by some moderates and conservatives. (By the way, I am not an arch-conservative; I'm a moderate who agrees with Schlesinger on many political and policy issues, but who doesn't think they should warp his account of history so much.)
Still, the book is a classic, and not without reason.  It's well-written (unlike a lot of history I've been reading lately), lucid, and thoughtful.  The story of Jackson and the politics of the first half of the 19th century is fascinating and very important to ones understanding of the development of the U.S.  At the time at which this book was written, it advanced significantly our understanding of Jackson and this period -- even if subsequent research and analysis has improved on it.  And, it's a good read.
So, I recommend this book as long as you go into it knowing its weaknesses and understanding that a lot in it is colored by Schlesinger's own political views.