antiquated, inadequate
584733
Professor Alexander is a pioneer is the field of sports history, but his short history of baseball pales in comparison to what has cme since. He never fails to take a potshot at his betes noire, nor cackle over his pet theories, making this a hard read.
1107738
The author appears to have a knack for making overly complicated that which should be easily grasped , eschewing the readily comprehensible in favor of a profusion of arcane terms of art, circular reasoning, and needlessly drawn-out redundancies.  Like Clarence in his Malmsey he lurches to and fro, chapters marked by an airy, over-the-river-and-through-the-woods approach that seldom leaves the reader feeling any more informed than he was before he started.  And as a previous reviewer noted, the tome is riddled with typographical and grammatical errors which do little to ease the put-upon reader's sense of frustration.  Repeated and highly focused attempts at critical reading succeeded in educing little more than a profound sense of mental lassitude, with nary a smidgen of enlightenment to reward my efforts.  As the ashes settle, I find this little more than an errant vanity work foisted upon the captive audience unfortunate enough to have it assigned as a text.
4872292
While the title of this volume promises much, I found that it did not deliver. This is not to say that there aren't some interesting ideas in these critical essays. However, some problems stand out:

1) Time and again the ideas of the "first" generation that are held up to criticism seem more like straw men than real (much less generous) contextual readings of these important works.

2) The lack of theology (a 'logos' about 'theos') in many of the essays. Considering religious themes within the disciplines of the social sciences does not constitute theology--at least it didn't for the 1st generation. The lack of theology here reinforces caricatures of liberation theology.

3)The audacity of the claim that this is "the" next generation. How comprehensive is the 'new generation' represented here? Is there enough geographical diversity to say that this is the new generation of Latin American liberation theology?

In sum, it is a book not without merit, but I would hate for it to be the one volume people pick up and characterize liberation theology with it. Look elsewhere.
4138455
I have to admit I am disappointed with the overall text. As an introduction to the field of geographic information analysis, I find the writing less than informative and the "Thought Exercises" provide no utility since there is no legitimate check on learning. The text is littered with vocabulary and formulas, which might be useful, but I found they failed due to lack of context and a real flow to the literature.  Perhaps the book is more useful as a supplement to other material.
43005
There is perhaps nothing worse than a Spanish neo-gothic gone awry.

At this point I feel like I've read enough Arturo Perez Reverte and Carlos Ruiz Zafon to appreciate the heavily stylized genre, which for some reason always seems to involve fires and disfigurement, but Gustavo Faveron Patriau abuses his Gothic privileges by drowning what could have been a fantastic narrative (three year old murder mystery! antiquarian books! life in an asylum!) in pretension and overly-wrought prose.

What's worse, to my mind, is that this supposedly "literary" novel seems to have very little to do with literature - this antiquarian could have been trafficking snuff boxes for about as much as it would have mattered to the plot, and the author preferred to make his own tales up rather than referencing existing works. In fact, about the closest thing there is to a literary allusion is a fairy tale of six sons where the sons names seemed to be taken from major Spanish language writers (Borges, Llosa, Cortazar, Marquez, etc.), and honestly that could have been a coincidence.

The Antiquarian clocks in at 209 pages, which is almost absurdly short for a novel, but believe me when I say I felt the dead weight of each of those pages as I dragged my way through. I suggest you save yourself the effort, unless you're looking for an over the counter equivalent for Lunestra.
1903864
The design of this book is superb, and the approach to explaining a complex subject in a manner approachable to beginners and laymen is clever. Unfortunately, the execution is so flawed that the book is nearly worthless as a learning tool. The text often reads like a partially edited first draft, full of distracting inconsistencies, digressions, repetitions, and discussions that elaborate on concepts introduced later on, if ever. The index is grossly inadequate and references are often hazy. For example, on page 24, a quote is attributed to "Baddeley, personal communication." There is no entry in the index for Baddeley, but there are 5 entries in the bibliography for what would appear to be 3 different authors named Baddeley (A., A.D., and T.C.), although given the quality of the editing, they could actually refer to the same person. The book also desperately needs a glossary.

But the worst problem for a book that relies heavily on visual representation to get across its message is the frequent disconnect between text and illustrations. Some examples: In Figure 1.7, which introduces the major landmarks of the brain, the upper and lower portions are reversed from the way they are identified in the text. The framework upon which the entire teaching experience is based is introduced in an unnumbered figure at the front of Chapter 2, but what is labeled "Response output" in the figure is then called "motor output" in the text. The note under a truth table on page 459  ("Notice that the third Input column correlates with the Output") makes no sense because the input columns have been collapsed and appear to be a single 3-digit number. This kind of disconnect happens time and again throughout the book.

As an attractive coffee table book, this volume is not overpriced. As a textbook, the idea is great but I'd suggest waiting for a corrected second edition.
635300
Tendentious, full of omissions and distortions. Follows in the worn footsteps of Adam Badeau. McFeely's older book on Grant was the much better book on the subject, but the upcoming book "Grant under Fire" by Joseph A. Rose will be the new standard. The 700+ pages backed up with exhaustive scholarship don't leave many hairs left on Grant's head. McFeely's book remains useful, but this book by Simpson, already useless, is now worth nothing.

If you think my opinion is unduly harsh, then see the many 1 star reviews of the hardcover edition. Consider that there are already more than 50 sellers here offering the paperback edition used, although it was printed less than a year ago. Could it be that Simpson identifies with Grant's "personal hollowness" (McFeely)?
1160832
Graphis has long been a showcase of commercial work in a variety of media. Graphis, via its editiors, drops off the map with this issue as mediocrity, at the very most, is established.
Graphis Nudes is surpassed by the cheesecake of the Pirelli Calendar; at least there are only twelve slices on the calendar.
Graphis has always struggled with its main invention; itself. Setting one's self up as an 'authority' usually takes a little more than Graphis currently brings to the mill.
The problem with Graphis is its appeal to 'collectors'. Advertisers have never really used, or considered, Graphis as an 'index' of talent;
As this edition affirms, there's not a lot of talent out there being shown which should be good news for anyone in art school at the moment: There's a lot of room at the top. But, do we need Graphis to demonstrate it at a cost to us? After all, isn't buying a book of 'commercial' images a validation of the lowered bar?
That leaves Graphis Nudes as a lacking, uneventful, unprovocative, sterile collection of inked images we've all seen somewhere before
Skip this edition in favor of something from Aperture's press.
3304765
I hate to sound a sour note, especially in the face of unanimous five star ratings.  However, Phantom Islands does not live up to its billing.  To read the title and the book jacket, one would expect the book to be primarily about *legends* - tales of mysterious islands inhabited by wondrous people and creatures.  One would think, too, that the cartography of the Atlantic would be secondary - an interesting side-note, but not the focus.
The opposite is true.  Johnson gives an all-too brief description of the "phantom island" at issue, then launches into an exhaustive recitation of the island's appearance on maps; how so and so in 1524 put the island here, while such and such twenty years later moved it ten miles further south.  It quickly becomes old.
Let me emphasize that my grievance stems largely from feeling misled.  I opened the book expecting X and got Q instead.  If one is looking for a history of cartography, this book probably deserves the five stars others have given it.  But if you are looking for tales of legendary, vanished isles look elsewhere.
3943630
This textbook written by Dr. Cooper, a professor at Indiana University of Pennsylvania is purposely broad, vague and lacks focus. The textbook attempts to address the evolution of policing throughout the 1960s and 1970s - which was the pinnacle of the civil rights movement the war in Vietnam. Police marginalized African Americans in the south and brutality took its course in the north in response to protests against the Vietnam war. Cooper fails to acknowledge the socioeconomic factors that were related to crime during this era and the discrimination against those who stood up to the United States government. Police in the United States acted through fierce nationalism and bias against protestors from both movements. Cooper omits key data and facts regarding the demographics of police officers and those accused of crimes. Throughout the entire book, he mentions the constitution a handful of times. Dr. Cooper has written this and other textbooks in pursuit of profit, assigning them as required texts in his classes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania  drawing a sense of impropriety and conflict of interest among his students. Its also very expensive compared to other, significantly better textbooks on twentieth century influences on policing in the United States.
3564545
The "Dummies" collection of textbooks are very uneven in quality, and range from the absolutely opaque to the sublime. Only a few are good substitutes for textbooks - and this effort is not among their number.

Readers interested in learning a subject at an introductory level should have no problems locating a plain, clear textbook - after a brief search and review of different offerings - that is far more helpful than this vague effort.

I have written 5-start reviews for some "Dummies" book, so I'm not against the concept in general. However, most
people are not "Dummies" and should not be intimidated by a subject matter to the point where they feel obliged to
take this path rather than using a standard text, which, if only be sheer volume, will present more material in more
detail.

 "Dummies" books can also cause a false sense of confidence in one's perceived level of expertise. After having
read two high-quality "Dummies" book rigorously in one subject, and mastered their contents, I was shocked at how little I really knew when I went back to a college textbook to explore minor details. I'm glad I did....

Skip this one!
332905
I am quite amused by the complaints I hear from students and professors about this text.  Perhaps these folks who exude grunts and groans about this text have not had the grave misfortune of encountering Gauldin's bare-bones tonal-harmony survey.  I would jump quickly to recommend Piston's original text, but the deVoto bastardization destroyed any sense of "fun" or instructional continuity present in the original version (which I am lucky - and old enough - to own).
Let's face it: expository writing is tedious.  It is not meant by nature or design to be a page-turning writing device.  Nonetheless, Kostka's survey is complete, providing adequate and clear examples, and written in a very succinct manner.  True, Kostka does dwell in a few places, but these minutiae-explanations are necessary (if you have ever taught elementary theory, you will understand immediately).  The organization of the text is second to none, and the authors are consistent in explanations and refrain from "inventing" jargon or becoming unnecessarily nebulous (Gauldin, for one, is notorious in this regard).
44034
Over simplistic, out-dated and lacking sufficient relevance to anyone except the uneducated and the inexperienced.
Deeply dissapointing in many respects.
2688785
This book was a disappointment not only in its poor writing style, but all in the fact that it does not break any new ground.  It is little more than a string of regurgitated self-loathing diatribes written to target an already pre-defined and well-established group of readers who scoop books up like this so that they can cite secondary sources to justify their world view.  Rather than taking a balanced approach with each of the topics they addressed, these authors rush to a conclusion unsubstantiated either in fact or analysis and little true "discovery" is ever made.

I have much more respect for authors who seek to do some spade work in uncovering a new point of view, balanced and justified with deductive reasoning,  not recitations of pre-packaged pabulum already in circulation in dog eared white papers written by disenfranchised college professors.

Fortunately, I bought this book used and my personal loss, other than the time I spent reading it, was minimized.

Bytes
3712284
A superficial and, due to its brevity, inaccurate overview of an extremely complex subject.  Not even a good undergraduate term paper.
3202554
Benjamin Hoff wrote "The Tao of Pooh," which was a wonderul introduction Taoism by way of Winnie the Pooh. Williams in this book tries to do much the same for a survey of Western philosophy: Plato and other Greeks, Descartes and other 17th-c. Rationalists, Locke and other British Empiricists, Kant and other Germans, and the post-Pooh Existentialists. He doesn't really succeed as well as Hoff did, partly because he tries to cover too many different schools of philosophy, and partly because he just doesn't have the same spark. Also, his coverage of the Pooh canon is very uneven: the Introduction, Eeyore's Birthday, and What Tiggers Have for Breakfast are mined over and over again; while the Search for Small, for Eeyore's Tail, and Why Tiggers Don't Climb Trees get barely a mention even though they have promising content. I should have liked to see Eeyore's House compared with Theseus' Boat, for that matter.

Not much good as an introduction to philosophy, more a review for people who once studied this stuff in school and might enjoy a light-hearted reminder. (And even then, will raise more of a chuckle than an outright laugh.) Useless as a study of Pooh, of course. Little to no replay value.
2402424
A bunch of rich snobs complain about how boring life is while putting down or bullying poorer people. Wow, great literature. I read about 30 pages, skimmed ahead, still didn't see anything of value, and gave up. Life is too short too waste on overrated crap.