Inbound Tourism to the Middle East and North Africa: Special Report Number 23

Book Description

This is the first study to analyze the problems of Eastern Europe's convertible currency external debt situation and its impact on the financing of East-West trade in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dr. Zloch-Christy addresses four main issues. First, she examines the recent reforms in Eastern Europe's economic political relations. Secondly, she assesses whether convertible currency debt problems are an inherent part of the economic development of Eastern Europe and if the problems are regionwide, and she discusses the strategies adopted for dealing with them. The author then explores the extent to which the problems arising from indebtedness have affected the financing of East-West trade. Commercial and production compensation, various forms of credit and funding from international financial institutions are the main financial arrangements discussed. Finally, Dr. Zloch-Christy assesses medium and long-term debt prospects both for Eastern Europe as a whole and for each country within the CMEA.

East-West Financial Relations Current Problems and Future Prospects

Average customer rating:

East-West Financial Relations Current Problems and Future Prospects
Iliana Zloch-Christy
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N7EOB6

Book Description

The International Working Men's Association, now called the First International, was the first successful attempt to organize labor on local, national, and international levels. It emerged after the great outpouring of socialist ideology, primarily French, prior to the 1860s and before the rooting of labor unions and socialist parties in the latter part of the nineteenth century. "The First International in France" is designed to serve as a history of the First International in France, as well as serve as a basic reference for those whose interest or research touches on the International. When used in conjunction with key texts by Roger Morgan, Henry Collins, and Max Nettlau, it will be useful in producing a much-needed synthesis of the International as a whole.

Product Description

For as long as an American naval force has existed, black sailors have served it with bravery, distinction, and little or no recognition. They have since earned praise for service in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, and more recently, they were integral to the development of the U.S. Submarine Service. Their roles limited by segregation, black submariners nonetheless were a key element of the Silent Service throughout World War II. With desegregation came expanded opportunities, and black submariners witnessed the birth and evolution of the nuclear-powered submarine, and some of the tensest moments of the Cold War. These men paved the way for those who followedtheir contributions deserve recognition, and their stories deserve to be told. This exploration of the role of African American submariners chronicles their service from World War II through the Cold War era. An historical overview of black sailors and the evolution of the Stewards Branch, to which black sailors were eventually restricted, precede descriptions of becoming a steward and a submariner, and of life as a submariner during World War II. An account of black submariners in post-war service during desegregation, the development of the nuclear submarine, and throughout the Cold War follows. Oral histories of over fifty black submariners who served in World War II and post-war form the heart of the book. Photographs of the men profiled, including wartime photographs, complement the text. Appendices outline the naval steward rating system, list all black submarine stewards serving in World War II, top stewards by number of war patrols, and those lost or killed during wartime service. Rear Admiral Melvin G. Williams, Jr., submarine fleet commander and son of one of the men profiled, provides a foreword.

Customer Reviews:

Sure to engage the casual reader and avid military historian alike.......2005-08-08

Black Submariners In The United States Navy 1940-1975 by author, lecturer, and military historian Glenn A. Knoblock is an exploration of the role of African American submariners who served in the U.S. Submarine Service from World War II through the Cold War era. Black-and-white photographs, biographical portraits of 82 men (many of whom provide oral histories), and appendices listing such things as the names and data profiles of black stewards during WW II round out this impressive and impeccably researched resource. Written in plain terms, Black Submariners is sure to engage the casual reader and avid military historian alike.

Average customer rating:

Finally, a non-pop music book for the twenty-somethings of today

excellent overview of the mag's first 20 years

Interesting in parts, but often almost impenetrable prose

Could've Been Better

Spin: 20 Years of Alternative Music: Original Writing on Rock, Hip-Hop, Techno, and Beyond
Spin Magazine
Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Reference | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
History & Criticism | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
Rock | Musical Genres | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
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The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Essential Lexicon of Rockological Knowledge

Seven Seconds or Less: My Season on the Bench with the Runnin' and Gunnin' Phoenix Suns

A to X of Alternative Music

SPY: THE FUNNY YEARS

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

ASIN: 0307236625
Release Date: 2005-09-27

Book Description

Twenty years ago, SPIN magazine began with the promise to feature uncompromising writing about the music that was turning on/freaking out the Reagan generation. Through the introduction of MTV and the alternative rock revolution, it's been many things. Rude. Brilliant. Soulful. Snotty. Angry. Delirious.

In the past two decades, genres have spawned like mad, from goth, indie rock, and gangsta rap to emo and the garage rock revival. This twentieth-anniversary tribute celebrates the passion and fury of the music, with original essays, quotes, and photographs by contributors who are as hopelessly obsessed with it as you are.

SPIN: 20 Years of Alternative Music features: Alan Light on Beastie Boys, Ann Powers on U2, Charles Aaron on R.E.M., Dave Eggers on The Smiths + Morrissey, Marc Spitz on Goth, Simon Reynolds on Depeche Mode + Synth-pop, Dave Itzkoff on ’80s Teen Movies, Chuck Klosterman on Weezer, Will Hermes on Radiohead, Neil Strauss on Nine Inch Nails + Industrial, Sacha Jenkins on Public Enemy, Andy Greenwald on Emo, RJ Smith on Gangsta Rap, Jon Dolan on The White Stripes, Chris Norris on Nirvana, Doug Brod on Oasis + Britpop, Jim DeRogatis on Smashing Pumpkins, Laura Sinagra on Courtney Love, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Tupac

Customer Reviews:

Finally, a non-pop music book for the twenty-somethings of today.......2006-10-13

I have been reading SPIN magazine off and on since I picked up my first issue at age 15. It has been one of the more compelling periodicals available about music that tends to adhere to a non-biased approach that all journalists claim but none practice.
When I heard of a book from SPIN commemorating 20 years in the alternative music scene I was very excited. When I bought and read this book I was even more thoroughly pleased.
Mixing big name staying-power acts lie Prince and Modonna with live-in-the-moment scenes/groups like Nirvana and NWA, this book finally gives a great perspective on music and it's effect on American culture, just like SPIN magazine has been striving to do for decades (but not always succeeding).
I felt it covered all pertinent points of alternative music throughout the past several years and was well informative on music movements that I had missed out on.
I especially enjoyed reading about hip-hop legends like Run DMC, Public Enemy, NWA, and Tupac as I can be easily classified as a southern white boy sheltered from the extremities of rap music.
I also enjoyed the essays written about outside-music influences like ecstasy, heroin, and MTV (all equally mind-numbing)
Things I did not like was the fixation on Nine Inch Nails as the sole pioneers of industrial music (have we never heard of Ministry, KMFDM, or My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult). Also thought the piece on Radiohead was a bit much, I think they can easily be classified into Britpop along with Blur and Oasis.
This is definitely a great read, something new at each turn of the page to fuel both excitement and nostalgia.

excellent overview of the mag's first 20 years.......2005-12-29

i just got this the other day and have already spent a fair amount of time browsing thru it. sure it would have been great to have collected the best articles from the last 20 years; however the problem with that (and something the book acknowledges) is sometimes what is viewed at the time as important and groundbreaking turns out to have been not such a big deal. the great thing about this book is the advantage of perspective, being able to go back and identify what really turned out to have been influential and then weeding out the chaff. in the appendix section the editors show some magazine covers that in retrospect demonstrate that sometimes the "next big thing" often ends up in the "where are they now file" ie Lisa Stansfield, Creed, etc.

i found the book to be immensely readable, one you can pick up and start anywhere, jump to whatever interests you, and even learn about music or artists that at the time you didn't care about.

a great book about a great magazine, and should be of interest to any music fan, especially one like myself who when i was younger read SPIN religiously.

Interesting in parts, but often almost impenetrable prose.......2005-10-20

Spin: 20 Years of Alternative Music is certainly interesting in parts (I enjoyed the bits about Courtney Love, Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, Foo Fighters, etc.), but my God the prose is almost impenetrable! These writers seem to know little about creating a flowing sentence. Run-on sentences abound. And many sentences are filled with so many asides that I was left glassy-eyed after one paragraph. Information dense and pretentious prose!

I was also very surprised by the inclusion of Madonna in this book. I love Madonna, but since when is the biggest selling female artist of all time an "alternative" act?

Could've Been Better.......2005-10-07

When I read that this was coming out, I was pretty excited, because there have been some amazing articles in Spin over the past 20 years. I thought that it would be a compilation of some of the best articles that they had published.

Instead, it's new writing on various topics and artists, with snippets of what I consider the classic articles thrown in. It's frustrating to read the R.E.M. chapter, for instance, and see two--and only two--paragraphs from an article from 1987 that you remember being really good.

Even so, it's still a somewhat interesting book. I just feel that if it had included all of content of some of the classic articles, it could've been so much better.

Book Description

Telefantasy is the first book-length study to consider the place of fantasy, science fiction, and horror dramas in the history of British and U.S. television. Looking at two periods--the 1950s and 1960s, and the 1990s and 2000s--when telefantasy was particularly prevalent on television, this book provides detailed historical accounts of the production of key telefantasy programs: the Quatermass serials, The Prisoner, Star Trek, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Randall and Hopkirk.
Telefantasy engages with current debates about television history, genre, narrative, and spectator theory while providing case studies that will be of interest to students of television and fans of telefantasy. Each case study is situated in relation to the development of the British and U.S. television industries and the regulatory and critical discourses surrounding them, offering a new understanding of the individual programs and the historical development of television as a medium. Telefantasy argues that these tales of alien invasion, futuristic space travel, and vampire slaying challenge the dominant notion that television is an intimate medium unsuited to the display of visual style.

Customer Reviews:

Inside Information On The Greatest Television Series Of All.......2007-03-06

In my humble opinion, Mission: Impossible is the most imaginative television series of all time. This book is the perfect companion, giving
much information on the gestation of the series, the creator, Bruce Geller, the actors, directors, writers, producers and a list of every episode made, including the 1980's revival of the series. What is not apparent to the viewer but comes out in this history of the series, is that the series underwent a number of major crises, any one of which could have finished it off, yet it survived to last for seven seasons, while generally maintaining its quality. For example, not many know that creator Geller actually only wrote one episode, the pilot (the story of the nuclear bombs stored in the vault of a hotel in a Latin American country). Although he rode herd on the show for several seasons, he was finally forcibly ejected from the studio. Original star of the series, Steven Hill was forced to leave the show due to matters of concience.
During season three, when the finest episodes of the series were being
produced, the top writers got into a fiery dispute with Geller and quit in the middle of the season leaving no scripts ready to be filmed. Fortunately, Paul Playdon, possibly the best writer of all to work on the series was recruited at this crucial moment and saved the show. At the end of this same third season, stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain both quit the show. In spite of all this, the show survived and more or less maintained its quality.
One of the best things in the book is that it lists the stuntmen-doubles who appeared in the show. In the first-season episode called "The Confession", there is one of the most amazing stunts I have ever seen on television....Rollin Hand (played by Martin Landau) and bad-guy Andreas Soloweichek (David Sheiner) are hand-cuffed together and jump out of a moving vehicle. According to this book, the stunt was performed by Buzz Henry and Chuck Wilcox. It is about time these two heroes got credit for doing one of the most dangerous stunts I have ever seen...as you see them rolling around on the road, it is amazing that they didn't break every bone in their bodies and have their arms dislocated. And for all this, they weren't even mentioned in the credits! Kudos to Mr White for giving them and their colleagues their due.

Now that Mission: Impossible is being brought out in DVD, it might be time
to bring this book out as a reprint.

Mission: Impossible Review.......2002-06-19

This book is a perfect companion for any MI fan. Includes plot details and breakdowns and actor bio's and series reviews. Everything is here. Definetly worth buying and now all i want is for Paramount to release series on DVD. Life would be perfect then.

A very thorough, detailed, entertaining book!.......1999-02-10

This book is outstanding! I own 4 copies myself. If you like entertainment, or research, this is the book for you. It's full of pictures, details, information, and synopsises. I love it! A classy, intelligent book, for a classy, intelligent show!

Excellent reference book for the popular TV series.......1997-03-30

The book delivers as promised. Filled with interesting facts about the actors, plots, creators and devices of the series. Comments critically on each show. I wish there was a multimedia CD ROM available

Book Description

A visual explanation of networking technologies

What you always wanted to know about networking but were afraid to ask!

How the Internet works
How e-mail, e-learning, and telephony work on the Internet
What makes a network safe
How traffic gets from here to there
Disaster recovery and other ways to keep a network running
How businesses share data
See the world of Cisco networking with this illustrated guide's visual approach to learning
Useful for both novices and networking professionals
Covers a broad variety of internetworking topics-from e-mail to VPNs

At last-an illustrated guide to the world of Cisco networking. Cisco Networking Simplified breaks down the complicated world of internetworking into easy-to-understand parts. Learn quickly and easily the fundamentals of a variety of topics, such as security, IP telephony, and quality of service, from the full-color diagrams and clear explanations found in Cisco Networking Simplified.

This book is part of the Networking Technology Series from Cisco Press, the only authorized publisher for Cisco Systems.

Customer Reviews:

take a real class.......2007-06-03

you need to take a real class before you get into cisco networking.

Good overview for Business/IT directors.......2006-11-12

This is a great book for the right person. Real techies will be displeased with it, as it is not a technical manual for Cisco products.

It is, however, a great book for overviewing current networking products, services and potential uses by business and IT directors.

The book highlights the current popular uses for networking beyond connecting your computer to your printer. The book includes VoIP, IP conferencing, e-learning and quite a bit more.

If you are a business manager and wondering what the network might do for you OR you are an IT manager and trying to expand your department's uses then this book is a great place to start.

Good for a novice, but not as your only reference........2003-11-14

Everything about Cisco Networking Simplified screams accessibility: the landscape layout, the softback cover, the illustrations drawn without a ruler that literally take the sharp edges off of computers, servers, and switches (router icons, fortunately, are already round). A note on the cover indicates for the curious that the book is in full color. Each short chapter is broken into "at-a-glance" subsections on each topic, headed "Why Should I Care?" and "What Are the Problems to Solve?"

This book is clearly written for two types of people: executives from a non-technical background who get flustered when speaking to network engineers, and networking novices looking for a friendly introduction to the subject before they begin serious study for, say, the CCNA.

When I first opened Cisco Networking Simplified, I was a bit put off by the intensity with which I felt the authors and illustrator were trying to convince me just how down-to-Earth they are. The organization of the book is such that it's so easy to flip through, the pithy explanations so easy to digest, that one might grow quickly suspicious that here is a book designed more to make the reader feel at ease than to actually teach her anything.

But one would be wrong. CNS is a good basic reference book. It's short because it sticks to the essentials. It's weirdly-inked illustrations do make the concepts clearer. And the friendly tone never gets smarmy. On the contrary, Maggiora and Doherty anticipate a newcomer's reaction to the material well enough to know when to be terse, and when to insert whimsical asides. The unofficial eighth (political) and ninth (technical religion) layers of the OSI model and the use of ISDN to mean It Still Does Nothing are fun tidbits, well-placed, and perhaps even useful as mnemonic devices. The paragraph explaining that "routers switch and switches route," is appropriately illustrated with two people scratching their heads. That the authors make room for "Algorhyme," Radia Perlman's poem describing the Spanning Tree Algorhythm (which she also wrote), shows that they know the difference between cute and distracting, and cute and relevant.

There are some problems, though. For example, the discussion of classful addresses is outdated. The class A, B, and C system is presented as the solution to a problem caused by unanticipated Internet growth. That may have once been true, but now the time when the class system was itself perceived as the next wave of that problem has already come and gone (gone, because outside isolated or masqueraded networks, class addressing has been replaced with CIDR). An executive who reads this book and then asks his engineers whether the company has been assigned a class A, B, or C address isn't going to get a lot of respect. A more serious problem is the confusing definition of the term DCE. On page 209, it's "data circuit-terminating device." On page 210, it's "data communications equipment." The first definition is more popular according to a google search, but makes less sense (where does the "E" come from?). Perhaps both definitions are somehow valid, but in a book like this, it shouldn't be the reader's job to figure out which one. And IDSN gets two detailed pages with illustrations, while the more popular (in the U.S.) DSL gets little more than a paragraph.

Also, to call this book Cisco Networking Simplified is not really accurate. A better title might have been: Cisco Presents: Networking Simplified. Cisco has no special claim to, say, IP addressing, which is discussed in some detail. Of course, to write a basic networking book without discussing IP would be silly, and Cisco makes a lot of products that deal with IP addressing. But so do a lot of other companies.

In short, I recommend this book (three of five stars), but with caveats. Technically-minded people who already have some experience in the networking field will probably be put off by the coloring book look and feel (but then, it wasn't written for them). Novices who are reading this book as the first step on their way to certification may find that, ironically, it provides much more information on certain subjects (voice-over IP, for example) than may be sought. It's hard to imagine anyone reading this book straight through of their own volition. It's a beginner's reference. If you're confused by a topic as it's dealt with in another networking book, you can be fairly sure that if CNS covers it, then CNS contains the simplest explanation of that topic that you're likely to find.

An excellent addition to your IT library..........2003-11-04

Cisco Networking Simplified, published by Cisco Press, ISBN# 1587200740, Pages=288, Paperback, no CD-ROM included

When most folks hear the word Cisco, the first thoughts that come to mind are routers and the Internet. But what this book does is introduce you to so much more. You'll see that Cisco networking as a whole includes a vast array of hardware, software, telecommunications gear, protocols, and cutting edge technologies. Authors Paul Maggiora (CCIE, a former Cisco employee) and Jim Doherty (a current Cisco marketing manager) bring Cisco networking direct to you with an illustrated approach to learning a myriad of internetworking topics. If you're the type of person who prefers a visual approach to learning, the colorful illustrations and easy-to-understand diagrams should make you feel right at home.

Before obtaining this book, the question I had was "what does this book have to offer?" As I found out, a little bit of everything. For example; are you interested in learning more about optical networking, ATM, broadband networking, or how frame-relay works? Are you interested in network security, hackers, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems? Perhaps you'd like to understand what being a network administrator is like with respect to bandwidth monitoring, routing, switching, or high-availability networking? Other topics of interest include: explanations of how information is moved along that "information superhighway" we've all heard about, what Storage Area Networking is, how you can create networks without wires, and why your organization may be utilizing VPN's or MPLS. You'll find the answers to these questions and hundreds more in this book.

I believe the target audience for this book is "rookie" technical or help-desk staff that have some experience with computer networking, although those readers who are completely new to this area of computing shouldn't be "bulldozed-over" with tons of technical jargon. Seasoned IT professionals shouldn't pass this book up as being too easy either, because we all need a good refresher course on the basics from time-to-time, and that's the niche that this book fulfills.

A common complaint among IT professionals is that many books written nowadays are filled with "real-life" situations the author has experienced. I find that many of these situations aren't useful to me, and find myself rather distracted from understanding the books intended content. "We just want the facts" is what many technicians and networking professionals are saying. Thankfully, this book gives you nothing but the facts accompanied by clear and concise explanations.

The only criticisms I have of the book are that it didn't contain specific references to additional information and that it wasn't bigger! It was so easy to read and understand that when I finished studying it I thought, "Well what about this technology, what about that protocol, where's the best place to go for more info?" Published in June 2003, I've found it contains many of the hottest topics out there today including IPv6, ECDN (Educational Content Delivery Network), IP convergence (voice+video+data), VoIP (voice over data networks), disaster recovery planning, and web content caching - just to name a few. Overall, I was very pleased with the books contents and the formatting of the text and illustrations made for excellent knowledge retention. I've seen that the authors have previously released other networking titles, so you may want to check them out if you're looking for additional technical details on topics covered/not-covered in this book.

Cisco Networking Simplified won't prepare you for any Cisco networking certification tests, but you know what? I've always said that you can't comprehend advanced networking functions and methodologies if you don't have a clear understanding of the basics and fundamentals. This book is a good starting point.

On a rating scale of 1-5 (worst-best), I'd give this book a 5. I truly believe that the very reasonable cost of this book will be some of the best money (under $30.00) you'll ever spend on an addition to your IT library bookshelf.

Disclaimer: This is an honest review and I do not benefit from it in any manner.

An easy read.......2003-10-08

A really easy read. A little like reading a comic book on networking - Except this comic doesn't shy away from touching complex concepts. Pretty extensive in its coverage of the applications of networking.

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