Study Guide, Volume I Chapters 1-12 for use with Fundamental Accounting Principles

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"Must reading for anyone who seeks a better understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court's role in race relations policy."
—Choice

"Beware! Those committed to the Supreme Court as the ultimate defender of minority rights should not read Race Against the Court. Through a systematic peeling away of antimajoritarian myth, Spann reveals why the measure of relief the Court grants victims of racial injustice is determined less by the character of harm suffered by blacks than the degree of disadvantage the relief sought will impose on whites. A truly pathbreaking work."
—Derrick Bell

As persuasive as it is bold. Race Against The Court stands as a necessary warning to a generation of progressives who have come to depend on the Supreme Court of the perils of such dependency. It joins with Bruce Ackerman's We, the People and John Brigham's Cult of the Court as the best in contemporary work on the Supreme Court.
—Austin Sarat, William Nelson,Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

The controversies surrounding the nominations, confirmations, and rejections of recent Supreme Court justices, and the increasingly conservative nature of the Court, have focused attention on the Supreme Court as never before. Although the Supreme Court is commonly understood to be the guardian of minority rights against the tyranny of the majority, Race Against The Court argues that the Court has never successfully performed this function. Rather the actual function of the Court has been to perpetuate the subordination of racial minorities by operating as an undetected agent of majoritarian preferences in the political preferences. In this provocative, controversial, and timely work, Girardeau Spann illustrates how the selection process for Supreme Court justices ensures that they will share the political preferences of the elite majority that runs the nation. Customary safeguards that are designed to protect the judicial process from majoritarian predispositions, Spann contends, cannot successfully insulate judicial decisionmaking from the pervasive societal pressures that exist to discount racial minority interests.

The case most often cited as the icon of Court sensitivity to minority rights, Brown v. Board of Education, has more recently served to lull minorities into believing that efforts at political self-determination are futile, fostering a seductive dependence and overreliance on the Court as the caretaker of minority rights. Race Against The Court demonstrates how the Court has centralized the law of affirmative action in a way that stymies minority efforts for meaningful political and economic gain and how it has legitimated the legal status quo in a way that causes minorities never even to question the inevitability of their subordinate social status.

Spann contends that racial minorities would be better off seeking to advance their interests in the pluralist political process and proposes a novel strategy for minorities to pursue in order to extricate themselves from the seemingly inescapable grasp of Supreme Court protection. Certain to generate lively, heated debate, Race Against The Court exposes the veiled majoritarianism of the Supreme Court and the dangers of allowing the Court to formulate our national racial policy.

Race Against the Court: The Supreme Court and Minorities in Contemporary America. (book reviews): An article from: Michigan Law Review

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Race Against the Court: The Supreme Court and Minorities in Contemporary America. (book reviews): An article from: Michigan Law Review
Melissa Nicholson Starkey
Manufacturer: Michigan Law Review Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from Michigan Law Review, published by Michigan Law Review Association on May 1, 1994. The length of the article is 3329 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: Race Against the Court: The Supreme Court and Minorities in Contemporary America. (book reviews)
Author: Melissa Nicholson Starkey
Publication: Michigan Law Review (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 1994
Publisher: Michigan Law Review Association
Volume: 92 Issue: n6 Page: 1959-1965

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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The best-selling, "excellent…poignant—and scientifically lucid—portrait" (New York Times Book Review) of the remarkable Marie Curie.

The myth of Marie Curie—the penniless Polish immigrant who, through genius and obsessive persistence, endured years of toil and deprivation to produce radium, a luminous panacea for all the world's ills including cancer—has obscured the remarkable truth behind her discoveries. Curie's shrewd though controversial insight was that radioactivity was an atomic property that could be used to discover new elements. While her work won her two Nobel Prizes and transformed our world, it did not liberate her from the prejudices of either the male-dominated scientific community or society. Here is an all-too-human woman trying to balance science, love, and the family values that constitute her legacy.

Using original research (family interviews, diaries, letters, and workbooks that had been sealed for over sixty years) to peel away the layers of myth and reveal the woman behind the icon, the acclaimed author and historian Barbara Goldsmith offers a dazzling portrait of Curie, her amazing discoveries, and the price she paid for fame. 15 photographs. Reading group guide included.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderfully Demystifies Marie Curie.......2007-07-25

Growing up, I hung a picture of Marie Curie along with those of other scientists on a wall in our living room. Until I picked up this book, I was only briefly aware of her early struggles, nobel prizes and her scientific contributions. Like for many others, she has been my role model and inspired me to dream big and overcome many socio-economic hurdles.

With this book, I have rediscovered some of the Marie Curie I knew as a child, some images of Marie Curie as an ideal career woman have been shattered but I have been able to perceive the pieces of Marie Curie that I can choose to be or not be in my remaining life. This book is much more than a chronicle of one scientist's life- you will read about Marie's jealousy and meanness towards another leading woman scientist of her time, Lise Meitner, you will perhaps wonder whether everyone who has ever won the Nobel Prize deserved it and also whether some who did not ever win actually deserve it more. The craze and myth that came to surround Radium at that time will sound all too familiar for those keeping up with new technologies of our time.

This is a great book for everyone (wo/man, non-/scientist) who has ever been curious about Marie Curie and the people behind the evolving story of particle physics at that time.

Great read.......2007-03-26

I read this book for background on Marie Curie because I'm working on a project related to her - this book far surpassed my expectations. It was engaging, informative, and a great story.

Obsessive - Yes. Genius - Yes.......2007-02-01

The title is both descriptive, and very apt, for it sums up the story of this remarkable lady in two words. Barbara Goldsmith gets under the façade of Marie Curie, and gives some thoughtful insights into her life, and perhaps the reasons she worked in the way that she did. For, make no mistake, here was a very purposeful, driven lady.

Most would know Curie as a scientist, the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize (in 1903, jointly with her husband and Henri Becquerel) but also one of very few to have been awarded this accolade twice. Her second award was an individual award (after the untimely death of Pierre), announced just before a scandal broke in France concerning her relationship with another in the field of radioactivity. Goldsmith gives a more rounded picture than the usual view, concentrating both on her achievements, and her short-comings.

After her rise to prominence with the isolation of radium and polonium (named in honour of her homeland and beloved Poland), Curie was there to be shot at. She was successful, and she was a woman. Society delights in bringing such individuals down, but Curie's behaviour would have attracted scant attention in a man. Goldsmith goes some way to disentangling the woman from the myth, which was perversely a myth that Marie Curie deliberately fostered.

Curie is remembered for radium, but Goldsmith also highlights her contribution to the development of x-ray technology, particularly mobile x-ray in the First World War. She was also a noted peace activist, and a campaigner for women's rights, and is held aloft as an inspiration to women the world over. But Curie was intensely driven, at the expense of both her family, and those she worked with. A reader is also tempted to ask if Curie was aware of the dangers of radiation exposure, and if she was, would she have acted in the same way. Goldsmith does not ask this question directly, but leads readers to ask it for themselves. I would postulate that she would have acted in the same way, and was aware of some of the dangers, and still acted as she did.

Curie achieved remarkably results in spite of the fact that she was a woman. She had continually to overcome prejudice because of her ethnicity or gender. Goldsmith convinces me that it was not easy to work with this woman, or have her as a mother. Part of her legacy is that the elder of her two daughters was the second woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize. Even though this was after Marie Curie's death, Goldsmith intimates that she would not have been surprised or pleased. She would have expected it!

Obsessive. Yes. Genius. Yes. That sums up Marie Curie very well

Peter Morgan (morganp@supanet.com)

precise and brilliant!.......2006-10-08

I just have good words for this wonderful book. A concise book with just the information you need to know and a story, the real story of this remarkable woman. The life of Marie is kind of sad, but the accomplisment she made, outstanding. This books is also, a good portrait of the story of particles and radioactivity.

Obsessive Genius.......2006-04-17

Marie Curie tried to lead a private and austere life causing many myths to be formed around her life story. Many revered Curie for her remarkable work as a woman in a male-dominated science community, thereby causing people to see her as the ideal mother, wife, and scientist. Fans at the time went so far as to credit her with curing cancer. In her book, Obsessive Genius, Barbara Goldsmith sets the story straight using such sources as Curie's journal, accounts from friends and families, and old letters. Goldsmith shows the complexity behind the personality of the woman known for her discovery of radioactivity and the elements polonium and radium.
Born in Russian-occupied Poland, Marie Curie was raised by her parents who taught her dedication, a desire to learn, and strong patriotism towards Poland. Suffering from a lower social class, Marie struggled to teach herself in physics and chemistry before she finally had enough money to move to Paris where she enrolled in the Sorbonne as one of twenty three women in the School of Sciences. Throughout her career, Curie battled sexism which presented itself in critics of her work. In the late 1800's, Curie was studying Becquerrel rays when she discovered radioactivity, a new property that could be used to identify elements. At the same time she discovered two new elements. When the Nobel Prize was given for the discovery of radioactivity, it was originally suggested that it be given solely to Marie's husband and Henri Becquerrel and several scientists made claims that her polonium and radium were not elements but rather compounds. As Marie Curie's ideas were accepted, they paved the way for future discoveries concerning artificial radioactive elements and medical treatment. Scientists such as Lise Meitner, Neils Bohr, and Ernest Rutherford would use Curie's research as background for their own.
In presenting Curie's life story, Goldsmith clearly explains the science behind Curie's experiments as well as others at the time. She does not write her novel as a scientific and technical biography, but presents the story behind the superhero. This book is an easy read but fascinating at the same time. It gives a new appreciation for the difficulties in the science community particularly during this time period. I strongly recommend Obsessive Genius for anyone with any interest in Marie Curie or her discoveries.

Obsessive Genius; the inner world of Marie Curie.

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Obsessive Genius; the inner world of Marie Curie.
Marie] GOLDSMITH, Barbara. [CURIE
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000TOKGZG

The Inner Marie Curie.(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

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The Inner Marie Curie.(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist
Mary Jo Nye
Manufacturer: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This book provides an introduction to the analysis and the control mechanism of physical, chemical, biological, technological and economic models and their nonequilibrium evolution dynamics. Strong emphasis is placed on the foundation of variational principles, evolution and control equations, numerical methods, statistical concepts and techniques for solving or estimation of stochastic control problems for systems with a high degree of complexity. In particular, the central aim of this book is developing a synergetic connection between theoretical concepts and real applications. This book is a modern introduction and a helpful tool for researchers as well as for graduate students interested in econophysics and related topics.

The Concept of Probability in Statistical Physics (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory)

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Conceptually misleading and confused book

The Concept of Probability in Statistical Physics (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory)
Y. M. Guttmann
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

Foundational issues in statistical mechanics and the more general question of how probability is to be understood in the context of physical theories are both areas that have been neglected by philosophers of physics. This book fills an important gap in the literature by providing the most systematic study to date of how to interpret probabilistic assertions in the context of statistical mechanics. The book will be of particular interest to philosophers of science, physicists and mathematicians interested in foundational issues, and also to historians of science.

Customer Reviews:

Conceptually misleading and confused book.......2002-05-23

As a specialist on statistical physics and its history, I found this book rather disappointing, misleading and conceptually confused. Be warned that the book is evidently written from a specific perspective of a philosopher who strongly prefers an ontic ("frequentists") interpretation of probability, basically in a spirit of the old Boltzmann-Ehrenfest ideology and its conceptual difficulties. Consequently, Guttmann puts undue emphasis on struggles with ergodicity, coarse-graining, etc., whilst not showing too much sympathy and understanding for epistemically thinking schools of statistical physics (Gibbs, Bohr, Schroedinger, Jaynes, etc.).

One of principal Guttmann's mistakes was his choice of a language he uses for labelling different interpretations of probability. His labelling by the terms "objective" and "subjective" is doomed to failure from the very beginning, and just adds to some old confusions and misunderstandings. In the real-world statistical physics, it is easy to show that the ontic nterpretations of probabilities always possess many "subjective" aspects whilst the epistemic views of probabilities bring some important "objective" aspects. Thus, any finer discussion of different interpretations of probabilities in physics can hardly be rationally based on the naive and misleading "subjective" vs. "objective" labelling.

The book is particularly far from reality when dealing with Edwin T. Jaynes and his information-theoretic interpretation of statistical mechanics. It almost seems that Guttmann's major motivation for writting the book was his obvious hostility to Jaynes' ideas. Guttmann is double-wrong concerning Jaynes: he is wrong about true Jaynes' probabilistic legacy, opinions and interpretations. But he is also confusing the very rationale of statistical physics. It is just paradoxical that Guttmann uses a label "ultra-subjective" for a man who contributed more than anybody after Gibbs to clarify, rationalize and generalize the whole subject of statistical physics. Guttmann is just repeating some old misunderstandings and naive attacks (e.g., by Uhlenbeck, Shimony, Friedman or Seidenfeld) which Jaynes analyzed in details in his many papers. However, these important papers are not even mentioned by Guttmann.

Relatively more successfull, original and interesting appears the Ch. 4, Measure and Topology in Statistical Mechanics.

In summary, Guttmann's book does contain some valuable reference material, and the very topic of the book is extremely important. Unfortunately, Dr. Guttmann did not succeed to elaborate a concise and logical view of the topic, but rather added his own confusions and misunderstandings concerning different conceptual aspects of probability theory in statistical physics. Fundamentally distorted and biased is his treatment of Jaynes' ideas, his interpretation of Gibbs method, and his perception of epistemic probabilities in physics in general.

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very complete

One of the best textbooks ever written for graduate students

A must for understanding complexity

Critical Phenomena in Natural Sciences: Chaos, Fractals, Selforganization and Disorder : Concepts and Tools (Springer Series in Synergetics)
D. Sornette , and Didier Sornette
Manufacturer: Springer-Verlag
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Binding: Paperback

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Modeling Complex Systems (Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics)

The Statistical Mechanics of Financial Markets (Texts and Monographs in Physics)

ASIN: 3540674624

Book Description

Concepts, methods and techniques of statistical physics in the study of correlated, as well as uncorrelated, phenomena are being applied ever increasingly in the natural sciences, biology and economics in an attempt to understand and model the large variability and risks of phenomena. This is the first textbook written by a well-known expert that provides a modern up-to-date introduction for workers outside statistical physics. The emphasis of the book is on a clear understanding of concepts and methods, while it also provides the tools that can be of immediate use in applications. Although this book evolved out of a course for graduate students, it will be of great interest to researchers and engineers, as well as to post-docs in geophysics and meteorology.

FROM THE REVIEWS:

PHYSICALIA "A broad class of approaches are presented: statistics, fractal geometry, statistical mechanics, and physics of critical phenomena and dynamical systems . . . [The book] is highly recommended to graduate students and researchers directly involved in one of these topics. It gives an overall view of wide and active research fields. In addition, it will be very useful to all those who wish to know about recent approaches to large complex systems. The application domains (with an emphasis in geosciences) and the methods are extensively covered providing a synthetic view of some 800 articles contained in the bibliography." ZENTRALBLATT FÜR MATHEMATIK "The global view and the vast amount of topics covered by this book may be of value for engineers, physicists, and for other scientists, in particular from geophysics and meteorology. For mathematicians the book may be useful in order to get an idea about how mathematical results are appreciated from the applications' side, and what mathematics is expected to do for applications."

THE PHYSICIST "This is an excellent book, a timely and vital contribution written with a great clarity of style, which describes important concepts and tools in the newly emerging interdisciplinary field of Nonlinear and Statistical Science. There is no area of modern science that could not benefit from this knowledge."

Customer Reviews:

very complete.......2005-08-11

As I am teaching the statistical mechanics part of a graduate class in mathematics,I was looking for a textbook on complex systems & statistical physics with derivations, intuitions, and some physical examples. I did not realize that I was looking too far --Sornette, with hom I correspond regularly, is well known for his contributions and his prolific output (actually some physicists make fun of the quantity of papers he writes). So his book did not come to mind. I once stumbled on a problem with the derivation of preferential attachments;he recommended his book, which I took with a grain a salt. After spending some time working the derivations on scalable laws, extreme value theory, renormalization groups in this book, I elected to use it as my textbook. There is no equivalent. I have a dozen such yellow manuals; this one is complete and ultimately clearest.
I do not know of a better textbook.

One of the best textbooks ever written for graduate students.......2004-04-09

Didier Sornette who is potentialy nobelisable realises with this book a great present for everybody interested to the recent progresses toward the physics of critical phenomena.
Particularly, it shows the way that some seismologists follow toward the ultimate goal to predict the event of large earthquakes. If this task was impossible yesterday,Didier Sornette shows that it is now became realisable.

A must for understanding complexity.......2001-09-06

Sornette's book is quite an achievement both in quantity and
quality. The presentation remains informal and quite readable; it reads like a physics textbook, not a math textbook. The references are very extensive (a total of 832! altogether) and they are a very valuable component of the book. In fact much of the book is about the reference material. You might choose to read the book instead of the 832 references... I think this is
the point...

There's probably nothing wrong with this book besides the fact that it throws it all at you at a high degree of sophistication and in as terse a way as possible, it seems. It's a unique and beautiful achievement but because it is so dense with information and insight, it seems every word counts for ten and you'll want to read several chapters again and again. Also, even though there is a clear unifying theme from chapter to chapter, the book simply ends almost like in the middle of a sentence. After machinegunning out 392 pages of material at research level spanning quite a few scientific fields, there is absolutely no attempt to put it all together. It's up to you to do it and it almost seems like the author is indirectly suggesting you start reading it all over again to "get it"... So, for the second edition, perhaps the author will be bold and add ten pages of wrap up material at the end so that this will read less like an atlas. Apart from that, it's the best!

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Statistics: Concepts and Applications for the Sciences, Workbook
David C. Leblanc
Manufacturer: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0763722200

Book Description

Bruce Jay Friedman is the reigning don of the ironic comic novel, a man of whom The New York Times has written, "His writing is so funny -- and deceptively effortless -- critics often liken it to a stand-up comedy routine." Now he triumphantly returns to the form with Violencia!, a crackling satire of show-business pomposity, flimflam, and dreck in the spirit of Mel Brooks's The Producers. Paul Gurney is a struggling civilian clerk working the desk at a major New York homicide precinct who runs a department newsletter, The Homicider, that covers the goings-on at the precinct, dispenses advice, and disseminates interoffice gossip. But Gurney is newly divorced and dissatisfied, and abruptly decides to retire from the force, not knowing exactly what he'll do next. When he meets a shady Broadway impresario who wants to create a stage musical from his newsletter, he soon finds himself plunging headlong into the world of actors, agents, singers, songwriters, hacks, hams, and con artists. As the show Violencia! moves from rounds of financing from suspect sources to questionable casting calls to a disastrous out-of-town opening (at each stage getting progressively -- and hilariously -- worse and worse), Gurney enjoys the high living, romantic flings, and glamour of the entertainment industry. But he also comes to realize that show people aren't that different from other people he already knows: the thugs, lowlifes, and cutthroats he's encountered during his career on the homicide squad. Packed with unforgettably reprehensible characters, unimaginably turgid lyrics, and unimpeachably funny dialogue, Bruce Jay Friedman's Violencia! is a sidesplitting farce about the dark underbelly of the Great White Way.

Customer Reviews:

Where's the cd?.......2002-05-26

Paul Gurney, Bruce Jay Friedman's protagonist in his comic novel Violencia, torn by his recent divorce and suffering from a mid-life crisis of sorts quits his day job as clerk for the New York Homicide department and editor of a homicide newsletter. While adrift in his search for himself and a new job, Paul is recruited to write a musical play about a homicide department. Norman Welles, a composer who has read Gurney's newsletter feels he will be the perfect author of such a play. Gurney lets himself be convinced and he is off on his quest for fame and fortune along Broadway.

Gurney who is a novice, fits easily into the role of although he is rudderless and easily mislead. He quickly finds himself surrounded by strange and interesting characters, and quite at home with them. There is Norman Welles a composer who seems to think that an opening number for a homicide movie should be a light romantic number which is about Paris in the off-season. Gurney's personal hero is director Clement Hartog who comes with the extra baggage of a mother who must be in each of his plays. Essie Hartog, Clement's mother an aging star who performs all of her roles on stilts will play the detective bureau chief. Then there is the unlucky producer Undertag who has never had a successful Broadway play. It makes perfect sense that Gurney will fit right in with them.

The descriptions of the behind the scenes work on the play are intriguing. Of special interest is the passages about the songs which Welles had ineptly prepared for the musical. Odd scenes as restaurant odors offending playgoers, dancers on stilts and telegrams from the dead add to the humor of the novel.

Friedman has a talent for creating strange characters, and amusing situations while providing commentary on philosophy and life. Paul Gurney, who begins working on the play directionless and insecure seems to gain perspective and confidence working on a project which seems doomed from the start. This is not a novel of great depth nor was it meant to be. It certainly is an amusing way to spend an afternoon. I have only one question, where is the CD?

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