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Globalization And Human Resource Management: Adapting Successful Un Practices for the Privae And Pubic Sectors
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Globalization And Human Resource Management: Adapting Successful Un Practices for the Privae And Pubic Sectors
Fatima Fernandez
Manufacturer: Hnb Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0966428684

Book Description

Developments in soil classification have accompanied parallel progress in our understanding of the soil system. However the theories behind the classifications and the purposes for which they were created have changed over time. The editors hope that this comprehensive synthesis will help to rally soil scientists around the world to develop an acceptable classification system for soils. It is only when the global soil science community agrees to such a system that we can truly say that we have science. Soil Classification: A Global Desk Reference is the first book to illustrate the current state of national and international soil classification systems. In this groundbreaking reference, distinguished soil scientists, many of whom were involved in the design of their respective national or international systems, evaluate developments in soil classification during the last century. They review the concepts, practices, and goals that led to the creation of individual classification systems and recommend modifications to classification systems to meet new demands. The documentation in this book serves as a foundation for the revision of existing soil taxonomies and the creation of new ones.

Book Description

The subject this volume is explicit integration, that is, the analytical as opposed to the numerical solution, of all kinds of nonlinear differential equations (ordinary differential, partial differential, finite difference). Such equations describe many physical phenomena, their analytic solutions (particular solutions, first integral, and so forth) are in many cases preferable to numerical computation, which may be long, costly and, worst, subject to numerical errors. In addition, the analytic approach can provide a global knowledge of the solution, while the numerical approach is always local. Explicit integration is based on the powerful methods based on an in-depth study of singularities, that were first used by Poincaré and subsequently developed by Painlevé in his famous Leçons de Stockholm of 1895. The recent interest in the subject and in the equations investigated by Painlevé dates back about thirty years ago, arising from three, apparently disjoint, fields: the Ising model of statistical physics and field theory, propagation of solitons, and dynamical systems. The chapters in this volume, based on courses given at Cargèse 1998, alternate mathematics and physics; they are intended to bring researchers entering the field to the level of present research.

Book Description

Half a century after the death of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1840, a small number of researchers, biographers, and historians of natural science suggested that the famed botanist's last name should become the newest adjective in the English lexicon. Had they succeeded, "rafinesque" would have forever been a literary tool to describe those poor souls, occasionally reaching but always aspiring to lofty heights, who brought chronic calamity and defeat upon themselves through grandiose, narcissistic visions of their own importance.

Why did some push for one man's name to become a signifier of a whole range of human behavior? As noted professor, researcher, doctor, and author Leonard Warren shows in this long-overdue biography, Rafinesque displayed unique extravagance in his behavior, his imagination, and his lightning intelligence. Among his achievements were pre-Darwinian theories of the gradual evolution of differing plant species through minute changes in response to environmental stimuli (Darwin later acknowledged Rafinesque's pioneering work in the field). Rafinesque also named more than 6,700 species of plants during his travels—mostly on foot—across the length and breadth of nineteenth-century America.

Rafinesque was the first professor of natural history west of the Allegheny Mountains, teaching at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Yet despite his accomplishments, he never lacked for detractors, and he rarely failed to provide his adversaries with rich fodder for criticism. His imagination sometimes dominated his analytic sense and rendered much of his work unreliable at best and nonsensical or fraudulent at worst. Also prone to petulance, jealousy, paranoia, and self-righteousness, Rafinesque alienated his colleagues and offended most in the scientific establishment who were in positions to influence his destiny. Their overwhelming discomfort with Rafinesque, and their repeated rejections of his often brilliant but unpredictable work, diminished his status and hurt him both personally and professionally during his later years. Tragically, upon his death, Raffinesque's wealth of unpublished writings and his massive collection of plant specimens were destroyed or scattered without regard.

Leonard Warren portrays Constantine Samuel Rafinesque as a remarkably complex and ultimately tragic figure in the annals of science. Decades after his death, when the burning questions of Rafinesque's day were better understood, a small number of scientists and natural historians began to reconsider the maverick's life and work. While still finding much to dismiss, they also found much to admire. The scope of Rafinesque's intelligence and the array of his accomplishments are widely acknowledged today, and with Leonard Warren's biography, his legacy as a brilliant scientific discoverer is even more secure.

Customer Reviews:

A Voice in the Wilderness of Rafinesque Biography.......2007-09-17

Botanists will be surprised to learn from this book that "almost none" of the roughly 6,700 Latin plant names devised and published by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840) "were listed in any botanical indices, including the comprehensive Index Kewensis" (p. 63). B. D. Jackson, the editor of that great compendium, did miss a few, but I occasionally take down the two folio volumes of my facsimile reprint of the 1895 Index and, as an exercise in bibliomancy, invite a skeptic to insert his finger at random between any two of its 1,299 pages. "I'll bet you money, marbles, or chalk," I challenge the doubter, "that somewhere among the six columns of tiny type on those two pages you will find a plant name attributed to Rafinesque." I have never lost the bet.

Sadly, misinformation such as this about the Index Kewensis characterizes this long-awaited biography. Next to Audubon, Rafinesque has had more written about him than any other American naturalist of his time, but a competent book-length biography has not yet been published. Issued in parts, 1893-95, the two-volume Index Kewensis was completed in England the same year that the first life of Rafinesque was assembled by Richard Ellsworth Call in Kentucky. The product of Call's effort has been considered a book because its large type, wide line spacing, broad margins, and extra thick paper puffed it up to resemble a book. The author himself modestly called it a "brochure." In 1911, T. J. Fitzpatrick prefaced a 50-page "Sketch of his life" to the Rafinesque bibliography he had lovingly compiled, and the resulting book often was called a biography by reviewers who had little interest in bibliography. Finally, for Transylvania University's 1940 centennial commemoration of Rafinesque's death, Francis W. Pennell delivered a keynote address that, two years later, was published as a 60-page article, "The Life and Work of Rafinesque." Despite some inaccuracies corrected by the subsequent research of Pennell himself and by others, his article remains the most reliable single account of the remarkable career of America's most challenging naturalist.

These three writers, as well as the author of the present book, all based their narratives on the slim autobiographical account published by their subject in 1836, A Life of Travels. Professional biographers assume all autobiography is self-serving to some extent and seek confirmation elsewhere for anything they take from it. But these biographers have been amateurs (in the non-pejorative sense of the term). Some of their resulting errors arise from a misunderstanding of the nature of Rafinesque's Life. Call considered it the equivalent of a private letter to let his family in France know what Constantine had been up to, a view that Warren unfortunately endorses (p. 183). Since 1987, however, it has been known that the little book was merely an outline prepared to whet interest at the Société de Géographie in Paris for the extensive narrative of his foreign adventures Rafinesque hoped to complete. The manuscript of that précis, sent to Bordeaux for his sister to transmit to Paris, never reached its destination. Three years later the author translated his file copy, and published it in Philadelphia at his own expense. Knowing this, and above all knowing there are 624 variants between the French and English texts, should give pause to biographers who use either version.

Confirming what is stated in A Life of Travels requires, first, some wariness, and second, considerable investigation in primary sources. For instance, Rafinesque wrote there that when he and his brother returned to Europe in 1804 after 32 months in the United States, they "sailed in the Ship Two Sisters, Capt. Evans, going to Leghorn and thence to Calcut[t]a" (A Life of Travels, p. 25). All the biographers have remarked on the departure of the Two Sisters. The Lloyds Register lists more than 50 vessels named Two Sisters in 1804, but from records of the port of Philadelphia now at Philadelphia's Maritime Museum we can learn that departing on the date Rafinesque correctly stated, under command of Captain David Evans, was the good ship Sally & Hetty. After the passage of three decades, Rafinesque's usually reliable memory had failed him. Knowing this, a biographer ought to question other recollections. Rafinesque tells us also that in 1815 he returned to the United States from Sicily on "the Union of Malta." Only by consulting the Connecticut Gazette (8 Nov. 1815) will we discover that the ship wrecked outside the harbor of New London, Connecticut, carrying most of Rafinesque's worldly possessions to the bottom of the ocean, was an English vessel out of Malta named Union--not the Union of Malta, as Warren was led to believe.

These are trivial errors, but representative of the hundreds of mistakes that mar this book. Consider the naturalist's mother, whose native language surely would have important biographical consequences for her children. Her son declared that she was "Grecian born, but of a German family from Saxony" (A Life of Travels, p. 5). Hence, we may reasonably ask, did the infant Constantine prattle at his mother's knee in demotic Greek or in Plattdeutsch? Warren is right that the woman actually "was born in Constantinople" but dead wrong about her having been "reared in Greece." From this error he infers that the naturalist "could probably speak his mother's Greek tongue" (p. 7). Actually, the woman never set foot in Greece. Since her merchant family had resided in Constantinople for several generations, it is likely that they had become Francophone, for French was the language of commerce in the Levant. Rafinesque had been disingenuous in his autobiography. He knew very well that Constantinople, his own birthplace and that of his mother, had not been a Greek city since the Ottomans made it their capital in 1453, but, as a Protestant Christian, he was determined to distance himself from all things Islamic. When he addressed the citizens of Lexington, Kentucky, to raise money for the Greek war of independence, he called himself "Constantine, of Byzantium." As an example of the ethnic prejudice he wanted to avoid, at the start of one of his many lawsuits, the opposing Philadelphia lawyer tried to rattle him by declaring that "This infidel" from a Muslim land "cannot swear on our Holy Bible. Let him swear on his own Koran!" (unpaginated, unsigned MS notes, Rafinesque's lawsuit against the estate of Zaccheus Collins, 1831; American Philosophical Society).

Other writers, observing several titles in the Rafinesque bibliography in the German language, have concluded that at least he wrote the ancestral language of his mother's family, and Warren, who gullibly accepts the errors of his predecessors, also includes German among her son's linguistic accomplishments. Yet, careful inspection shows that all these articles were translated by others from their original French. Rafinesque had a talent for languages, but German was not one of them. Replying in French to a letter he had received from the paleontologist G. A. Goldfuss, he remarked (my translation): "Your letter of 3 November 1821 has reached me, but being unfortunately written in German, I could not read it" (Lexington, Mar. 1822; Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin).

Rafinesque's Protestantism has caused additional confusion, partly because he never mentioned in print his brand of Christianity. In his so-called autobiography he never alluded to his domestic life in Sicily either, nor to the two children he fathered there. Only in his last will and testament did he remark that he "deemed" himself "lawfully married" to his children's mother, probably hoping that his honorable intention would enable his illegitimate daughter to inherit from his estate. He felt obliged, however, to explain that such a marriage was still prohibited in Sicily by the decrees of the 16th-century Council of Trent. One needs to know that those decrees forbade the marriage of Roman Catholics with Protestants. Nevertheless, Warren refers throughout to Josephine Vaccaro as the naturalist's wife, and adds that she later married a man named "Pizzalour." The naturalist's only surviving child, his daughter Emilia, was in the best position to know. She called her stepfather "Mr. Pinzarroni"; and Rafinesque thought the man's name was spelled "Pizzarrone." The puzzling "Pizzalour" is a signal to be on guard for other bungled names, which abound in Warren's book: Richard Harlan, a well-known Philadelphia zoologist, is here called "George Harlan"; Rafinesque's friend Dr. James Mease is sometimes called "John Mease"; James A. Spencer, who tried to exhume the bones of Rafinesque in 1924, is confused with his son Robert Spencer. Elsewhere, thorny proper nouns such as Heckewelder, Brongniart, and Chillicothe are misspelled. When not misspelled, Chillicothe is located in the wrong state (p. 139).

Some of these errors may be typos (which also abound, and include among them the eponymous genus of Compositae plants that honors Rafinesque); in the biography of a botanist, such errors as "cryptogram" for "cryptogam" seriously erode a reader's confidence in the book's reliability. Rafinesque's own incomplete mastery of English also has caused misconceptions. Warren took the naturalist's word for it that in Palermo he "lived in a palace," but Rafinesque was unaware that "apartment house" would be a more apt translation for palazzo than its English cognate. A more serious blunder concerns Rafinesque's much criticized Florula Ludoviciana (1817), a book based on the travel account of the amateur botanist C. C. Robin describing plants from coastal Louisiana. During the last year of his life (1840), in answer to critics who had roundly condemned him for naming plants he himself had not examined, Rafinesque wrote (The Good Book, p. 42) that "I have seen some plants of Robin," presumably subsequent to the publication of his book. Warren inflates this simple declaration into "he claimed that while in France he had seen Robin's collection of Louisiana plants" (p. 61). Impossible! After he left Marseilles in 1800, at age 17, Rafinesque never again visited France; and Robin only began his tour of Louisiana in 1802, the same year Rafinesque arrived in Philadelphia. Warren concludes from his own misconception that "Rafinesque was caught in a lie" (p. 61). Since Rafinesque's veracity has been questioned elsewhere, this gratuitous and erroneous accusation is all the more regrettable.

The index of this book is incredibly shoddy. The title of a magazine Rafinesque published in Sicily is first listed as "Mirror of Science," then again as "Specchia [sic] delle Scienze," followed immediately by "Specchio delle Science" [sic]. The naturalist's father is entered twice, once with the cedilla on his name François and once without it, as though these were two different persons. Constantine Rafinesque, who published under the name Rafinesque-Schmaltz in Sicily, gets listed also as "Schmaltz, Rafinesque." And there is no explaining why this wholly imaginary branch of the Rafinesque family tree appears at all: "Lanthois, Emily Louisa."

Nor are the book's endnotes any more reliable. They seldom reveal whether the author is quoting from a document printed by somebody else or from the manuscript itself, and when the latter they sometimes locate it in the wrong repository. In the notes there are citations to authors by last name only who are never identified in the bibliography. The abbreviation of ibidem is used with such abandon that it loses entirely the meaning of "in the same place." Additional gaffes are introduced when Warren misapprehends secondary sources. An example appears in the treatment of Rafinesque's compensation at Transylvania University. Instead of being paid a salary to teach there, he had the privilege, like the medical faculty, of selling tickets to his lectures. In the 1820s, professors were compensated that way at other American medical schools as well, since it was expected that, unlike the other teachers, they also would enjoy a lucrative medical practice. I was surprised to read here, however, that the Transylvania medical professors "were . . . on a real salary" (p. 83), and chagrined to see that the related endnote attributes this revelation to one of my own publications. Well, no! In 1824, when Kentucky's General Assembly published a Report, on the Transylvania University, and Lunatic Asylum (separate enterprises but, to the legislative mind, both custodial institutions), the university's budget showed no salary costs for any of the six medical professors, who, moreover, complained that they had to pay the rent for their own lecture hall.

I hasten to conclude this dreary recital by listing only the most egregious of the many remaining errors: on page 13, the epigraph attributed to Rafinesque is, rather, a sarcastic comment about him by an anonymous author, whose essay is further discussed (pp. 143-144), where its satiric thrust is naively overlooked; on page 60 the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural History is confused with Rafinesque's own Annals of Nature; an eyewitness description of Rafinesque's appearance (p. 85) seems to be attributed to W. D. Funkhouser, who was born 41 years after Rafinesque's death; Transylvania's president, Horace Holley, never "fought to permit Rafinesque to teach science" (p. 110), but instead Holley's attempt to discharge him was thwarted by the university's trustees; it was the Owenite community at Valley Forge that offered to pay the costs of Rafinesque's removal from Kentucky, not William Maclure at New Harmony, Indiana (p. 112); the portrait (facing p. 130) is not "of Rafinesque" nor is it "by Mat[t]hew Jouett"; though it is still an open question whether the Walam Olum, an alleged masterpiece of Amerindian poetry, was a hoax by Rafinesque or a hoax on him, he assuredly did not offer it "for a prize of twelve hundred francs" and he made only one attempt, not "several unsuccessful attempts to obtain a pension from King Louis Philippe" (p. 154). We are told (p. 174) that from Rafinesque's "pen came the works of poetry The Universe and the Stars," etc. However, one needs to go no farther than the title page of The Universe and the Stars (1837) to learn that this book--prosaic in both senses of the word--is a reprint of an 18th-century treatise on astronomy for which Rafinesque merely supplied explanatory notes. It does help to examine a book before pronouncing on its content.

Though this book contains more thoughtful analysis of significant events in Rafinesque's life than do the studies of earlier biographers, when the analysis is based on inadequate or inaccurate factual matter it is bound to arrive at untenable conclusions. Warren believes that "one can only conclude that as his Kentucky days drew to a close and he could not find a [new academic] position anywhere, Rafinesque suffered serious mental derangement" (p. 108). I, for one, do not conclude that, because I have read the manuscript evidence of his many extensive farewell visits to a wide circle of friends on the eve of his departure, including the recorded sentiment of a teenage girl who wrote that "Dr. Rafinesque is packing his goods & chattels for Philadelphia.... He leaves us forever. Lamentable thought!" (Margaret Leavy in Lexington writing to her father in Philadelphia, 29 March 1826; University of Kentucky Library). Hardly documentation for a nut case.

This book's chronology, patterned on A Life of Travels, is interrupted from time to time for these discussions. A really fine analysis of Rafinesque's views on classification, and the distinctions between the French-inspired "natural system" of botanical classification that he espoused in opposition to the Linnaean "sexual system" of most American botanists, occupies all but about six pages of chapter 2, a chapter treating the period 1802 to 1805. Warren identifies this dispute as one reason Rafinesque was ostracized by his colleagues. The problem is, however, that this conflict did not arise until more than a decade later, when Rafinesque made himself the principal reviewer of botanical books in America and castigated their authors for not sharing his views about classification. I suppose the subject was dragged into chapter 2 because the secondary sources Warren relied on so heavily have little to say about that earlier period. Yet, right in his own home town, at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, there is an untouched cache of Rafinesque's 1803 letters to Henry Muhlenberg that reveal a very different person from the cocksure book reviewer of 1818. In these 1803 letters, Rafinesque was respectful and deferential to the correspondent 30 years his senior. Without any qualms about it, he discussed with Muhlenberg the identification and classification of plants purely in Linnaean terms.

Surviving letters such as these are a valuable supplement to the scanty biographical information in A Life of Travels, which, among its many limitations, ends while its author had four more years to live. Sixty years ago, in his address at Transylvania's centennial symposium, Francis Pennell made good use of letters by Emilia Rafinesque to give some human dimensions to her father's story, as well as good use of the detailed letters Rafinesque wrote during his western travels to apprise Zaccheus Collins about his discoveries. Once back in Collins's Philadelphia in 1826, Rafinesque had no further need to write to him, so this source of biography dried up. Neither Pennell nor Warren took the next step beyond the Collins letters--that of fleshing out the last 14 years of the Rafinesque story through the major collection of Rafinesque-Torrey letters at the New York Botanical Garden Library. John Torrey outlived both Collins and Rafinesque. Warren does make some use of Rafinesque's letters to William Swainson (Linnean Society of London), of which there has been a microfilm at the American Philosophical Society since 1959, but he appears to be unaware of the equally large collection of Rafinesque-Candolle letters at the Conservatoire Botanique de Genève, which are not available in this country. Nor are the personal letters that remain with the Rafinesque family in France. Warren considers that an article published 60 years ago by E. M. Betts "contains all of the correspondence of Jefferson and Rafinesque" (p. 216). It does not, and moreover, errs in the identification of some of the people mentioned in those letters.

Finally, though I cannot recommend this book to anyone seeking to know the factual details of Rafinesque's life, I do find of interest its author's explanation for why we continue to be fascinated by that life, even if I am not wholly persuaded by it. Warren surmises that Rafinesque "remains memorable, and perhaps unique, not so much for his scientific contributions, which tended not to have a lasting impact, but for the fantastical person that he was" (p. 210). The book may be worth reading for the author's analysis of the nature of that personality. Warren is the first to see a connection between the subject's spiritual life and his performance as a field naturalist, and he offers the surprising explanation for Rafinesque's "creative genius" as the consequence of "a kind of insanity" (p. 210).

Perhaps it is because they see us naked that physicians, like the boy in Hans Christian Andersen's tale about the emperor, often are keen judges of character. Leonard Warren is a physician. Should we heed his conclusions about Rafinesque's character? Warren is not the first to attempt a psychiatric diagnosis of Rafinesque, whose contemporaries more bluntly declared him crazy. William Baldwin said Rafinesque was a "literary madman"; "crackbrained," sneered L. D. von Schweinitz; and Edward Barton pronounced him a "maniac." It remained for a later generation's Leon Croizat to pontificate that Rafinesque "wrote botany because he was of unsound mind," the same generation that also, in the person of the psychiatrist J. M. Woodall, decided he was a "paranoid neurotic," who had an "enlarged and hypertrophied" ego; yet for all that "was a genius" nonetheless.

Siding with the odd judgment of Louis Agassiz that Rafinesque "was a better man than he appeared," Dr. Warren wrote this diagnosis (pp. 206-207) for our generation:

"At the end of the twentieth century, Rafinesque might have been diagnosed as suffering from a bipolar, predominately manic disorder--chronic hypomania (mild mania), not violent, and therefore fully capable of functioning outside a mental institution, but becoming highly irritable and aggressive when challenged. Further, there were times when he seemed to manifest schizoid and paranoid tendencies. . . . Rafinesque's complex behavior, puzzling to all, may not only be ascribed to a manic disorder but also to a condition known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. . . . He could operate effectively with incredible energy and persistence within a rational, scientifically accepted framework, and only occasionally did he reveal underlying psychopathology when he ignored or grossly violated the accepted values of society and the bounds of reason."

Perhaps so. However, Warren's posthumous diagnosis of Rafinesque's "bipolar disorder" is not the discovery he thinks it is, because it was anticipated nearly two decades ago by Joe D. Pratt, whose name is never mentioned in Warren's book.

Four years before his death, Rafinesque himself granted with surprisingly little rancor that "I have been . . .laughed at as a mad Botanist by scornful ignorance" (New Flora of North America, p. 11). As those who scorned him slip one by one into oblivion, his own last laugh--crazed or not--does continue to command attention. His life deserves a more reliable biography than it has so far received.

A Famous Kentucky Eccentric.......2005-08-16

This biography is of great interest to anyone interested in famous Kentuckians. Rafinesque was among the earliest scientists in the Commonwealth, and he was interested in nearly everything. Perhaps his major interest was botany, but he collected fossils, Indian artifacts, and shells. He wrote a huge number of books and articles, including a most interesting one on the fish of the Ohio River. He wrote on planting vineyards in America, and a Materia Medica of American plants. He was particularly interested in languages, and held theories linking the American tribes with other linguistic groups in Europe and Asia. He began the first botanical garden in Kentucky at Lexington, which was chartered by the state legislature. He left a memoirs of his travels and scientific work in Europe and North America.

He was a professor at Transylvania University and was influential in the professional lives of a number of its alumni, though many of them considered him an odd fish, as did Audubon when he met him. The author of this book also considered him, for all his genius and originality, to be a psychologically unstable individual. His tomb is found today in the crypt at Transylvania, though he left a curse upon the university because the president fired him after an argument.

An awesome book!.......2004-09-20

This is the best book ever. Rafinesque is cool. He is cool and named plants. I love Rafinesque. (...).

Racing Tactics for Cyclists
Average customer rating:

Informative

DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!

Steepen the learning curve & skip the road rash

Good book for first time racer or for big cycling fans

Good coaching material

Racing Tactics for Cyclists
Thomas Prehn
Manufacturer: VeloPress
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Cycling | Individual Sports | Sports | Subjects | Books
General | Sports | Subjects | Books
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Bicycle Road Racing: The Complete Program for Training and Competition

ASIN: 1931382301

Book Description

Written for the experienced road cyclist, this illustrated book shows team riders how to ride in a race, explains the importance of position, and discusses individual and team racing tactics. Each type of road race — one-days, stage races, criteriums — is covered, along with the technical riding skills and mental strategies needed to succeed. Also included is information on handling prologues, recovering from a crash or flat tire, resting during a race, and evaluating the competition.

Customer Reviews:

Informative.......2007-01-28

This book has given me, as a beginner bicycle racer, many ideas as to what to do and not to do at the races. The book is very well written and has many good illustrations.

DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!.......2007-01-23

Since reading this book is likely to make you a more competitive racer, I can hardly suggest that you read it. Afterall, that would be like giving myself a flat, or forgetting to put my rear wheel on before I lined up against you. I want to win just as much as you, so stay away from this book and all its excellent information. There are few books like this available for racing cyclists, thankfully.

Steepen the learning curve & skip the road rash .......2006-04-25

I've been racing for 20 years and this book is a very well-written, very concise summary of many basic skills that every cyclist needs to know. Perhaps more importantly for the beginner, former US Pro champ Prehn explains outstanding tactical moves from his racing days as well as more recent races. Not all races are identical, but the examples help the reader begin to think "outside of the box" and begin to recognize and consider the multiple team/personality/individual talent dynamics that exist in any road bicyle race.

Good book for first time racer or for big cycling fans.......2006-01-04

I am an avid cyclist who rides 75+ miles a week but has never raced. I found the book to be very interesting and I am a much more knowledgeable fan after reading the book. When watching the TDF on OLN I can now understand what is going on during a mass sprint at the end of a flat stage. Prior to reading the book it looked more like total chaos. Diagrams are simple, concepts are well explained and the book is very easy to read in general. Given all the simplicity it might be easy to see why the book might not be as valuable for someone with lots of race experience.

Good coaching material.......2005-10-28

I recommend this book to anyone who is trying to learn bunch racing skills or teaching them to younger riders.

While the experienced rider may read the skills and think "I've been doing this for years, but I'd never thought of suggesting that to a younger rider".

It doesn't have alot on team tactics but I have a few chapters I have my juniors read while travelling to events.

Book Description

Seeking a tropical paradise that's also an outdoor-adventurer's fantasy island? Come to Kaua'i, where nature lovers, water babies and beach bums alike come to escape. Whether hiking the velvety green Na Pali cliffs, helicoptering over the blood-red Waimea Canyon or floating in the blue bliss of Hanalei Bay, the very best of Hawaii's colorful Garden Isle is revealed in this in-depth guide.

o FOLLOW THE LEADER - our expert, Native Hawaiian author provides insider tips on the top beaches, hideaways, tour operators, luau, shave ice
o BE INSPIRED - full-color themed highlights, custom itineraries, thorough directory and 43 detailed maps
o GET OUT! - unleash your inner adrenaline junkie with the best outdoor-activities coverage of any Kaua'i guide
o EAT WELL, REST EASY - opinionated reviews of accommodations and eateries, from campsites and plate lunches to five-star resorts and five-course feasts
o KAUA'I 101 - extensive coverage of local culture, arts and language, and specialist-written history and environment chapters

Customer Reviews:

Not as good as other lonely plaent books.......2007-09-30

This book is thin and not as well done as other lonely planet books. For a trip to Kaua'i, I'd recommend another publisher's travel book. I purchased this book along with "the blue book" on Kaua'i. I found the blue book to be much more comprehensive as well as more entertaining to read.

Excellent Kauai guide book.......2007-06-09

I'm just back from my first (and not my last) trip to Kauai. I bought 7 Kauai travel guide books to plan my trip (yes, I was overly excited). Of the 7, this and one other were head and shoulders above the rest. I strongly recommend it.

Almost completely useless.......2007-01-10

Please relate to my comments on the other guidebook about Queensland.
Kauai Guidebook was not as deceiving as that one, may be because being so thin, we didn't expect very much from it, and... come on!!! Hawaii anyway!!
We got an address for a place to stay, the rest was decided either thanks to comments from colleagues who had been there already, or from the REAL guidebook series for Hawaii, the blue series. A colleague loaned it to us. At the beginning, being so used to Lonely Planet we thought we will sticked with it. Truth is we, never used it there, only the blue book which offers detailed descriptions, interesting comments and very useful maps.

Book Description

Growing up comes hard and fast in the barrio. . . .South Chicago gives you lots of reasons to join a gang. Like, if you say no, they beat you up, follow your little sister home from school, and torch your house. Pretty soon, wearing your tattoo and colors, you learn what gangland means: Kill or be killed. Maybe both.High school seniors Tony and Carlos are determined to resist the call of the streets. For years theyve watched helplessly as blood from drive-by shootings covers the pavement, as friends get strong armed or seduced into the Knights or Devils.All Tony and Carlos want to do is leave the ghetto and go to college. But now the gangs have targeted them, and they find themselves abandoned on the urban battlefield. Tony and Carlos must take desperate measures to safeguard their futures and families from gangland vengeance.Richly textured, poignantly detailed, told in a voice of raw authenticity, Daisies in the Junkyard is the story of the Mexican-American community struggling to maintain its culture and integrity against a backdrop of urban warfare.

Customer Reviews:

A remarkable debut.......2004-03-03

In South Chicago gangs thrive. They wreak violence and death upon all that oppose them. It is within this bleak urban landscape that we meet Tony and Carlos who are attending their last year of high school. They want to pursue their dreams of leaving the ghetto and attend college. However, the gangs will not let them go in that they are witnesses to the violence that runs rampant on the streets and in the alleys. This is a chronicle of their struggle.
Michael Enright is a priest who has worked in the Hispanic community in Chicago for over fifteen years. He very much succeeds in bringing to life this heart wrenching tale of two boys who just want to turn out good. Father Enright knows how to set the scene well and provide just enough conflict to keep the pages turning. This is not an overly sentimental or didactic tale but is actually a direct straightforward narrative that drives relentlessly to its inevitable conclusion. The sympathetic characters add to the pathos of this quite remarkable debut.

...........2003-02-28

Enright gives a voice to two boys trying to survive their teenage years and stay one step ahead of the gangs that roam their neighborhood. Tony and Carlos know if they can escape the ghetto the world is better on the other side. Everday a war is fought on the street outside their front door. Each gang claims it as their own and they get what they want using whatever violence is necessary to secure their kingdom. Enright has lived in these trenches as a priest and tells first person a vivid and disturbing story of growing up in the crossfire of turf wars. As a reader you will fill Carlos pain as he loses friends to the
gangs and to heavens above us daily. All he wants is to graduate and leave this place far behind and he keeps hounding Tony to have the same dream. In this story you will feel the pain of parents losing their sons to a society they don't comprehend, friends mourning a lost childhood and you will see through words the life of a gangbanger. In the end you will find a peace with this book that gives you hope that Tony and Carlos make it out of
the south side of Chicago.

Interesting.......2002-06-09

For the most part i did enjoy the book. The events and hardships that the charencters experienced were expressed nicely. It is very easy to read, yet there are glimpses of complex behaviors. You can read the whole text on one sitting, but i was a bit not happy. But what i did not enjoy is that the interpretation of events seem to be one-dimentional. It's the type of book that you read for fun, and almost forget that the book existed.

Could be better.......2002-06-04

It is well written, the author includes components of life's struggles in a Hispanic "hood", however, it seems as if He is only writing to an audience that knows what it means to live in such "hood", I was able to picture the situations, but i felt no emotions. Only people with experience with gang warfare will be able to FULLY understand and relate to this book.

An Amazing Story!.......2002-05-12

What a great story! A real page-turner - I couldn't put it down. A rare mix of violence and spirituality that turns the south side of Chicago into a surrealist painting: bizarre, but beautiful. You feel can't help feeling compassion for these characters. I was actually sad when I finished - I hope there's a sequel in the works!

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