The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life

Average customer rating:

Cooperation with no one in charge

Great subject, decent book

Political Biases?

Opens a great question, never quite closes it

A Bioeconomic Masterpiece

The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life
Paul Seabright
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0691124523

Book Description

Human beings are the only species in nature to have developed an elaborate division of labor between strangers. Even something as simple as buying a shirt depends on an astonishing web of interaction and organization that spans the world. But unlike that other uniquely human attribute, language, our ability to cooperate with strangers did not evolve gradually through our prehistory. Only 10,000 years ago--a blink of an eye in evolutionary time--humans hunted in bands, were intensely suspicious of strangers, and fought those whom they could not flee. Yet since the dawn of agriculture we have refined the division of labor to the point where, today, we live and work amid strangers and depend upon millions more. Every time we travel by rail or air we entrust our lives to individuals we do not know. What institutions have made this possible?

In The Company of Strangers, Paul Seabright provides an original evolutionary and sociological account of the emergence of those economic institutions that manage not only markets but also the world's myriad other affairs.

Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, history, psychology, and literature, Seabright explores how our evolved ability of abstract reasoning has allowed institutions like money, markets, and cities to provide the foundation of social trust. But how long can the networks of modern life survive when we are exposed as never before to risks originating in distant parts of the globe? This lively narrative shows us the remarkable strangeness, and fragility, of our everyday lives.

Customer Reviews:

Cooperation with no one in charge.......2007-06-13

A fascinating look at "the grand experiment"; why is it that human beings are the only species where genetically dissimilar individuals rely upon each other for task sharing and task completion? The author begins by quickly examining the production of a shirt. The cotton may be grown in India, from seeds from the U.S., and fibers spun in Portugal, put together with a collar from Brazil, and then distributed worldwide where a whole different set of instruments and people are involved. The author explains the concept of tunnel vision among humans that explains part of this process. Our individual actions play a part in a complex task whose outcome we may not experience or even care about. The cotton grower in India, or the seed distributor in the U.S. does not know of, or even care about my preference of cotton shirts.
In order to make his investigation complete, Paul Seabright examines not only the individual factors in humans making the `grand experiment' possible, but also examines the societal structures that are necessary and the processes that build them. We learn of the risks of nature and the natural benefits of both risk sharing and the opposing feature of specialization. I offer as an analogy that a town wouldn't want all of its eggs in one basket, and at the same time it wouldn't want all its baskets to have only eggs.
By continuing his study to include "The Flair of Great Cities", "A Price for Everything [the monetary system]", "Families and Firms" and other topics, the author attempts to examine the totality of the system that allows the "grand experiment" to succeed.
The same systems and natural laws that have allowed humans to cooperate and achieve tremendous accomplishment through cooperation have also allowed humans to cooperate and achieve tremendous destruction. As observed by the author, no species is as efficient as we when it comes to violence and mass murder, i.e. war. Most likely the author has shown that there shall always be a regression to the mean, with alternating periods of expansion and growth coupled with murder and destruction among humans.

Great subject, decent book.......2007-06-08

This book addresses the question how trust between strangers is possible to the extent that we have build a whole social and economic system on it. It reflects the renewed interest in social sciences for an evolutionary perspective, and shows how fruitful and overdue the combination of the two is.

Seabright goes back to our history as hunter-gatherers and shows how it equipped us with both reciprocal and selfish tendencies. He then discusses institutions that govern the major areas of our social and economic lives; markets, politics, cities, firms, money etc. and the way these institutions exploit and channel our calculating and reciprocal inclinations.

As is clear from the examples, the book ranges wide. This makes it both interesting and confusing. It is fascinating to see familiar topics be evaluated from a different perspective. But the fact that the institutions under discussion are so different, each with their own economic and social peculiarities that make them work the way they do, means that it is not always easy to follow the main thread of the story. The connections and bridges between the chapters are sometimes contrived. Also, since each chapter would warrant a book in itself, inevitably one now and then gets a bit restless because of the questions skimmed over, and claims made too fast.

But with a subject matter like this one cannot write a non-interesting book, and Seabright has not. All in all he has written an accessible and well-written introduction to an exciting new field in social science.

Political Biases?.......2005-10-29

"The Company of Strangers" is heavily dependent upon author Seabright's interpretation of human evolutionary history and sociology and hence the material is sensitive to his world-view. Thus his universal use of "she" and "her" instead of the conventional "he" and "his" for anonymous third persons alerted me to the likelihood that his version of political correctness played a role in his views. Then his comments early in the book on WWII, "... that many individual soldiers even on the Allied side were involved in ... atrocities ..." set me to questioning all of his judgments. He goes on (in the interests of colorful writing?) to describe "A mother (who) sees her son return at the end of a war ... (but) what can she say to another mother ... whose daughter's corpse lies in an unmarked grave ... after rape and torture by a platoon of advancing soldiers drunk with lust and fear?"
It seems that Seabright has no personal experience of war. I did serve for many mean-lives (I was very lucky, for a while) in an infantry rifle platoon in WWII and after my luck ran out, I spent a year in an army hospital with other wounded soldiers where we talked candidly of our war, and I can say that criminal behavior among the men in service who fought in that war was, if anything, less common that among civilians. Moreover, I am sure that the British and French soldiers -- and (excepting some SS units) the German soldiers I fought -- were equally well behaved.
Thus I found the book interesting and erudite but laced with Seabright's politics and therefore to be taken with reserve.

Opens a great question, never quite closes it.......2005-07-29

This book is organized around a fantastically interesting question. How did human groups develop the social capacity for exchange? A simple answer about the evolution of cooperation (etc., etc.), suitable for the broadest of outlines, will not really do the trick. The development of exchange and economic relationships did not move in step with the gradual or the punctuated changes in human evolution. This book's idea is that institutions and social conventions must have been crucial. They had to build on and interface with the evolutionary baggage humans brough to the organized societies of the pre-historic world, but they added something of their own on top of it.

Having opened that question the book never really nails it shut. In part that's because it is intent on serving two distinct purposes -- of addressing this question, and of popularizing various strands of economic literature. Most of the content is about the latter, but the literature in question deals with fundamentally modern (on an evolutionary scale) institutions like banking, business firms, states, labor markets, etc. Having been convinced that hey, yeah, there's something to explain here, I thought it was a disconnect to jump to accounts of the things to be explained. Naturally, some comments are included about how these things might have taken shape from proto-forms, but that stuff -- which *is* what the book sets out to address -- is completely speculative (and never presented otherwise).

If you're into this sort of thing, the substantive chapters are redeeming enough, though a nontrivial portion of the material (e.g., the self-organizing capacity of markets, at their best; the importance and durability of reciprocity as a gut instinct people follow even when it can't help them) has been well covered for years or decades in similar popularizations.

So that's pretty much the value. Still, it would have been not just good but great if that interesting question had been settled, or even addressed consistently.

A Bioeconomic Masterpiece.......2005-07-11

Despite the rough treatment handed to Edward O. Wilson's call for a unification of biology and the social sciences some three decades ago, and despite the hostility still aroused by the notion of "sociobiology" by some traditionalists, the process of integrating social science into natural science appears to be in full swing. Paul Seabright's new book is a welcome and important contribution to this process.

The idea behind sociobiology is that there are many social species, and our understanding of ourselves will be enhanced by analyzing the similarities and differences between human and non-human social systems. The main title of Seabright's book, "In the Company of Strangers" isolates a unique characteristic of human sociality: while several species evolved a highly complex and decentralized division of labor, humans are the only species with extensive cooperation among unrelated individuals.

The maturation of sociobiology since E. O. Wilson's call to arms has included several key strands of research. One is a broadened concept of sociality, in which it is recognized that from the emergence of multi-cellular organisms to the rise of Homo sapiens, major evolutionary transitions have required novel mechanisms facilitating the cooperation among the complex parts of biological wholes. It is now routine, for instance, to note that the disciplining of an aberrant cell in an organism, an ovipositing worker in a bee hive, and a shirking worker in a business enterprise are modeled in a similar manner. A second contribution is gene-culture coevolutionary theory, important because human sociality has been far more cultural than that of any other species.

Seabright's book exemplifies a new breed of economic analysis, seeking answers to fundamental question wherever they are best found, ignoring disciplinary boundaries. A transdisciplinary approach to economics life is nothing new. Adam Smith, for instance, not only wrote The Wealth of Nations, but also The Moral Sentiments, which is perhaps the greatest work of psychology prior to William James. But this tradition was all but buried in the early years of the Twentieth century, only recently to be rediscovered.

Seabright provides elementary, but nonetheless richly fascinating, introductions to such standard economic topics as the division of labor, prices, money, and firms, and addresses such perennial economic problems as unemployment, poverty, environmental destruction, and economic instability. The novelty is that he consistently does so from a long-run evolutionary perspective. This is decidedly not a book on economic policy. Even such traditionally central questions as capitalism versus socialism, the balance between competition and regulation, and the distribution of wealth and income are mentioned only in passing.

The innovation in this book lies in its treatment of the psychological prerequisites of modern economic life. As Seabright notes, "[M]odern society is an opportunistic experiment, founded on a human psychology that had already evolved before human beings ever had to deal with strangers in any systematic way." (p. 4) This psychology has two elements, one of which is well known and the other relatively novel in behavioral science. The well known is what Seabright calls "rational calculation," by which he means a capacity for logical reasoning, information processing, and technique mastery that far exceeds that of any other of Earth's creatures. The novel is what he calls "reciprocity," which is "the willingness to repay kindness with kindness and betray with revenge, even when this is not what rational calculation would recommend." (p. 27)

Two terminological issues are important to set straight from the outset. First, by "reciprocity" Seabright means what has been called "strong reciprocity" (Bowles and Gintis, Nature 415 Jan 2002). The "strong" adjective is meant to distinguish the behavior from the self-interested notion of reciprocity common in the biological literature. Second, Seabright follows a long tradition in economics of considering reciprocity to be non-rational, using the term "rational" when one means "caring only about oneself" as though the terms were synonymous. There is nothing "irrational" about such other-regarding elements of strong reciprocity as returning kindness with kindness and retaliating against someone who has harmed one, even when these behaviors involve net material costs.

Seabright's treatment of human society is innovatory because both biologists and economists have long maintained both that humans are selfish when dealing with non-kin, and their cooperation can be explained by long-term self-interest. Moreover, there is a long tradition, especially on the Left, of faulting capitalism for promoting greed and selfishness, which is at best a partial truth, since market economies at least tolerate, and probably promote, strong reciprocity. Experimental economics, as described by Seabright, has shown that most people are indeed reciprocal and in fact neither economic nor biological models of self-interested cooperation are rarely plausible when they involve groups of more than a few individuals.

Seabright also analyzes the "dark side" of strong reciprocity, which is the tendency to exhibit hostility to "outsiders" in the name of "insider" cooperation. "Cooperation within a group," he observes, "can make the group more lethally aggressive in its dealing with outsiders... [the] systematic killing of unrelated individuals is so common among human beings that... it cannot be described as exceptional, pathological, or disturbed." (pp. 209,53). He concludes that "what Adam Smith famously described as the human propensity to 'truck, barter and exchange' has always coexisted uneasily with a rival temptation to take, bully, and extort." (p. 233).

This book is highly readable and will be accessible to a wide audience. It is, however, weak on details, eschews formal model building and extended analytical argumentation, and hence will serve only as a stepping-stone to the field for those interested in the economy as a dynamically evolving system.

The man of the crowd.(Scientists' Bookshelf)(Book Review) : An article from: American Scientist

Average customer rating:

The man of the crowd.(Scientists' Bookshelf)(Book Review) : An article from: American Scientist

Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

The New Sales Game is a highly interactive, one-day, facilitated program that uses presentations, group discussion, games, and activities to help sales representatives better understand their customers and develop strategies to become more effective solution providers. Participants will evaluate where they are, and where they need to be through a creative Customer Focus Tool and an easy-to-implement Action Plan. The training concludes with an entertaining group game to drive home key points.

A comprehensive Leader's Guide with clear objectives, a complete course outline, a detailed script, questions and answers, and overhead transparency masters makes it simple for sales managers or trainers to facilitate the program. The New Sales Game is an easy-to-deliver one-day program that will energize and add a powerful new dimension to your sales meetings.

Participants will learn how to:
Focus on the real needs and perceptions of their customers
Proactively become solution providers
Determine your company's value-added services
The complete training package includes:

A comprehensive Leader's Guide, one participant booklet, one Customer Focus Tool, sixteen overhead transparency masters, game board and playing materials

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Surface activity is present in living systems; for example in body fluid or cell soup and molecules of surface-active nature are crucial to living matter and its organization. Surface Activity in Drug Action proposes "a liquid membrane hypothesis of drug action" for surface-active drugs. Chapters 1-7 contains an account of the hypothesis and chapter 8 contains a general account of the application of surface activity in therapeutics. The methodology and presentation of the information makes Surface Activity in Drug Action valuable reading for students and researchers interested in surface activity.

* Is clearly written
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* Contains a general account of the application of surface activity in therapeutics

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The book deals with collective and stochastic processes in astrophysical disks involving theory, observations, and the results of modelling. Among others, it examines the spiral-vortex structure in galactic and accretion disks, stochastic and ordered structures in the developed turbulence. It also describes sources of turbulence in the accretion disks, internal structure of disk in the vicinity of a black hole, numerical modelling of Be envelopes in binaries, gaseous disks in spiral galaxies with shock waves formation, observation of accretion disks in a binary system and mass distribution of luminous matter in disk galaxies.

The editors adeptly brought together collective and stochastic phenomena in the modern field of astrophysical disks, their formation, structure, and evolution involving the methodology to deal with, the results of observation and modelling, thereby advancing the study in this important branch of astrophysics and benefiting professional researchers, lecturers, and graduate students.

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The huge growth in the use of geographic information systems, remote sensing platforms and spatial databases have made accurate spatial data more available for ecological and environmental models. Unfortunately, there has been too little analysis of the appropriate use of this data and the role of uncertainty in resulting ecological models. This is the first book to take an ecological perspective on uncertainty in spatial data. It applies principles and techniques from geography and other disciplines to ecological research. It brings the tools of cartography, cognition, spatial statistics, remote sensing and computer sciences to the ecologist using spatial data. After describing the uses of spatial data in ecological research, the authors discuss how to account for the effects of uncertainty in various methods of analysis. Carolyn T. Hunsaker is a research ecologist in the USDA Forest Service in Fresno, California. Michael F. Goodchild is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Mark A. Friedl is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. Ted J. Case is Professor of Biology at the University of California, San Diego.

Average customer rating:

Lacking in practical training value

Put half inch on upper arms in 2 months

Encylopedia for Weight Training

Best Book on Bodybuilding I've seen yet.

rigid programme

Hardcore Bodybuilding: A Scientific Approach
Frederick C. Hatfield
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0809237288

Book Description

"If you're really into the great sport of bodybuilding, getting massively huge and 'shredded' is great. If you're an athlete from any other sport, getting as big as you need to be in order to improve your total sports performance capabilitities is the name of the game. Dr. Hatfield has given you the ultimate bible of bodybuilding greatness." -- Tom Platz Two-time Mr. Universe Dr. Fred Hatfield, bodybuilding guru and bestselling author, brings together the latest advances in bodybuilding science in this comprehensive guide to achieving optimum gains in muscle mass and power through personalized nutrition and training programs. Based on the premise that strength is the foundation upon which you can build the ultimate physique, Hatfield presents an innovative training system, using his state-of-the-art "ABC workouts" (muscle-specific, targeted-set, and holistic-set workouts). Add the most up-to-date information available on nutrition and exercise technique to this highly personalized training system and you have a breakthrough program that guarantees explosive growth and strength--achieved naturally, without the use of drugs. Loaded with photos, training logs and charts, psychological strategies for staying motivated, tips on contest preparation, and solutions to common problems bodybuilders face, Hardcore Bodybuilding also presents methods for determining body-fat percentage and metabolic rate and reveals the truth behind many bodybuilding myths--making it a must for anyone interested in serious weight training. Frederick C. Hatfield, PhD, has written more than 50 books and hundreds of articles on sports training, fitness, bodybuilding, and nutrition, including Bodybuilding: A Scientific Approach, Power: A Scientific Approach, and Ultimate Sports Nutrition: A Scientific Approach to Peak Athletic Performance.

Customer Reviews:

Lacking in practical training value.......2006-05-31

Dr. Hatfield's enthusiasm is infectious, his attitude positive, and his anti-steroid stance a very, very good thing. The photography was likewise above average. Beyond that point, however, the value of this book falls off rapidly. The training seems rather random and not at all soundly reasoned in it's structure; in determining his recommended set/rep/workout frequency combinations, Dr. Hatfield even reassures the reader he's "done the thinking for you". Pronouncements lacking solid rationale (excepting an occasional referrence to the Eastern Bloc trainers with whom he studied) on the "hows" & "whys" of training like so abound. The section on nutritional supplementation contains a bit of what can only be called Dr. Hatfield's personal voodoo. As one example, he stands virtually alone in recommending inosine supplementation, the value of which has long ago been debunked and summarily forgotten amidst bodybuilding's "latest and greatest". For the positives listed above, it certainly doesn't warrant a single star rating. For the negatives that come along with them, however, I can't justify more than two.

Put half inch on upper arms in 2 months.......2006-05-11

I got good results with this book. Carefully following his diet and workout plans, I increased my upper arms measurement by half an inch in just 2 months. I'm not promising it will work that well for everybody, but I am one satisfied customer.

Maybe you could find all this information on the web, but because of the nature of the web, information tends to be in small articles or discussion groups and mixed in with a fair amount of misinformation, conflicting opinions, and advertising. So, I think it is best to read a few books like this one and then supplement with the internet information.

This book is not just an encyclopedia of every conceivable exercise and variation (if you want that, there are other books out there), it's not just a bunch of unrelated magazine articles shoved into a book format (there are plenty of those kinds of books too), it's not just a bunch of fluff with a picture of a grunting bodybuilder on every page (although it is adequately illustrated), and it's not just the expression of one person's bodybuilding philosophy based purely on anecdotal experiences (Hatfield has tremendous experience, but also makes every effort to modify his methods based on the latest available scientific information).

Hardcore Bodybuilding shows you how to cycle intensity, how often to work out, recovery time for different body parts, recommended exercises for different body parts, how to do the exercises, what to eat, how often to eat, how to cycle your diet to lose fat and gain muscle, how long it will take, how to estimate percentage body fat, what supplements to take, etc. You are expected to develop your own plan of attack to fit your schedule and goals, but all the concepts are there with examples to get you started.

Hatfield's honesty may scare off some people. He makes no bones about how hard it is to be successful at bodybuilding with no drugs and does not promise over-night success. If you are not willing to put in a significant amount of time and effort, you may not be satisfied with his approach. On the other hand, he does present work out plans for beginner-to-intermediate bodybuilders too, so you can grow into it. However, that is not the focus of this book.

The book could stand some updating. For example, the author promotes the use of aspirin during training, but recent studies suggest aspirin (and other similar pain killers) may inhibit protein synthesis. Also, Hatfield recommends not eating immediately before or after a workout since this supposedly inhibits growth hormone. However, more recent scientific studies seem to suggest that a post-workout meal actually has the opposite affect. (This still seems to be a controversial subject on discussion forums.)

Also, I have noticed that for some reason, the book doesn't discuss neck specific exercises. I am talking about exercises using a neck harness, wrestler's bridges, or other exercises specific to the neck. I'm not talking about traps. (I think it is interesting that Hatfield includes trap exercises in his shoulder section and another famous author, Bill Pearl, puts these into the back category. Many people seems to think of them as neck muscles.) Maybe some of these neck exercises can even be dangerous and Hatfield just considers them unnecessary. However, it seems to me that a book on hardcore bodybuilding should not ignore this body part.

Don Ross's book, Muscleblasting!, refers to a technique he calls "Breakdowns", saying it was a "...variation of step-bombing... devised by Dr. Fred Hatfield and Mike Quinn..." This is essentially what Hatfield says to do for "C" workouts in his ABC system. You can read about the ABC system on Hatfield's web site, but I think it would be difficult to fully understand the system without reading this book.

Anyway, this is still an excellent book (I think one of the best on the topic). So, buy and read the book, then check the website (and/or other books) for additional guidance. Just keep in mind that science does not stand still, so even a scientific approach cannot be written in stone.

Encylopedia for Weight Training.......2006-02-01

Great book for all levels. Great fundamentals, and more indepth coverage than most can handle (lots of biology). I first bought this book in college, but a few moves later it was lost. I recently bought this book thru amazon as a handy reference, especially when I get bored of a routine and need to look for alternative weight exercices. I'm not trying to get bulky, just toned and fit ~ this book is great even if you don't want to be Mr/Mrs Universe. On the down side, it is a bit dated, and could include new research and weight routines.

Best Book on Bodybuilding I've seen yet........2006-01-12

I can't believe the people that have complained about this book. I will answer them all. First off I have owned this book for 10 years and still get new information out of it. It has been the best 15 dollars that I have ever spent.

One guy said the program is too rigid.

What? You are supposed to use the information to come up with your own program. Didn't you even read it. This book will tell you "how" to create a great body. It is not a simple do this type of book. No. This book is for people who want to know why they are supposed to do things, not just a simple recipe to follow. But even then, yes, the most in dept routine (as an example) is there for you to study. It is there so you will understand the concepts so you can create your own system. Why do you think there are 425 pages on information in this book? It is not so you simply follow the example routines on pages 55-60. It is so you will learn how to develop your own system depending on what your goals are.

One guy said there are better books out there.

Yeah right, I've been looking for ten years. I foolishly bought books from other "name" people in bodybuilding and they were almost useless. Sure they went over how to do certain exercises and had many pictures in them, but did any of them have a break down of every type of skeletal muscle fiber and the best way they respond to movement (exercise)? No, not one of the "other" books did. The only books that I saw that anything even near the amount of fundamental knowledge about bodybuilding in them were medical in nature and cost over 50 bucks. None on the market have this much vital information for only 15 dollars. That's why in ten years it's the only bodybuilding book that I still have. I gave the other ones away to people who wanted some info. I have showed my book to about 30 people but I will not lend or give this one away.

If you want to work on your body and you have 15 dollars, then there is no better book out there. Period. There are certain section that you may want to get more information on, which is how the web site is helpful and why there is so much information there. Together, you can't bet it. The web site is free and the book is only 15 bucks.

rigid programme.......2005-09-27

I leafed through this book in a store and was impressed by the workout. I carefully analzyed the programme and attempted to do the routine. Although I found the workout solid and logical, it was very rigid. My body recovered at different stages and i found it very confusing to stay on target. I was often faced with being too sore to do this part of the workout but not the other. Delaying the sore parts a day would impact future workouts to the point that I could not keep the workout on track. You would be left with too much or too little to do on a given day because you were monitoring your body's recovery. After a couple months, I gave up on the book. If you do not do the workout in the book, it has little reference value.

Hardcore Bodybuilding; A Scientific Approach

Average customer rating:

Hardcore Bodybuilding; A Scientific Approach
Frederick C. Hatfield
Manufacturer: Contemporary Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000K4SQ84

Average customer rating:

Sell your house and buy this book!

Simply the Best

Comparison with "501 Spanish Verbs"

Better than the standard Big Red Book of Verbs

I'd give this 50 stars if I could

Spanish Verb Manual : Correct Conjugation and Regional Use
Alfredo Gonzalez Hermoso
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spanish | Foreign Language | Dictionaries & Thesauruses | Reference | Subjects | Books
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Book Description

This is the ideal verb reference for intermediate and advanced learners. It includes over 5,000 verbs, cross-referenced to model conjugations that have irregular forms highlighted in color. It also features verbs taking prepositions, verbs used in idiomatic expressions, and the regional use and meaning of verbs across the Spanish-speaking world.

Customer Reviews:

Sell your house and buy this book!.......2007-03-07

I have purchased and used a number of Spanish language resources and, without question, this is the best and most useful.

Not only has SVM helped me with the obvious, Spanish verb conjugation, it has also given me hope. I'm quite serious about this. By reducing the number of verbs that are actually conjugated to around 80 and by connecting nearly 5000 verbs to "families" or patterns of conjugations, it makes Spanish appear MUCH more attainable than the 501 Verbs resource (where every verb is conjugated completely, creating the impression that every verb is a unique conjugational event).

Also, in each chart SVM notes verb irregularities in red. Thus, rather than panic at the thought of another irregular verb, it is possible to see that, for example, 'conocer' breaks a regular "er" pattern in only one point in all forms of the indicative and, consequently, only in the present subjunctive. "Hey, I can do this!"

Additionally, this book includes a helpful guide to prepositions, to idiomatic expressions, and regional variations in verb usage.

Simply the Best.......2006-08-27

This is way better than 501 Spanish verbs, 15,000 Spanish Verbs and all the rest. It gives you the correct verb conjugation (irregulars highlightd), the translation, correct prepositions, and the spelling changes needed to be done on each verb.

Simply the best.

Comparison with "501 Spanish Verbs".......2006-06-22

In comparing the two books, here are some points to consider:

1. 501 Spanish Verbs really does conjugate 501 Spanish verbs. Spanish Verb Manual conjugates 82, and identifies lots of others as falling in the conjugation pattern of one of the 82. I don't doubt that 82 is enough to show all patterns. Regardless, 501 actual conjugations are better than 82.

2. 501 Spanish Verbs is a lot bulkier than Spanish Verb Manual -- somewhat more than twice the bulk, I would say.

3. Spanish Verb Manual has the verbs in a logical order rather than an alphabetical one. 501 Spanish Verbs has the verbs in strictly alphabetical order, which makes it quicker to find a verb.

4. Spanish Verb Manual has irregularities printed in red, a great feature.

So which is better? To my mind, Spanish Verb Manual, but someone who weighs the features differently could reasonably conclude otherwise.

Better than the standard Big Red Book of Verbs.......2006-02-02

When you first pick up this book, it looks difficult to use. But look up three different verbs, and it's a piece of cake.

Because of the format of this book, it has about 5 times as many verbs as "the big red book", and it's about 1/3 of the size. Put this in your bookbag, and carry it with you.

I'd give this 50 stars if I could.......2005-10-29

The format, method, and organizational aspects of this book are FAR superior to nearly every other spanish verb book out there, especially Barron's(Kendris') 501 spanish verb book.

I have used many verb books (here are a couple of the more common that I've seen here): Kendris' (ugh, he arranged it so that it looks cute and simple, but it does NOT accurately illustrate the verb moods in spanish, i.e., indicativo should be grouped together not thrown into the soup of 14 subgroups of simples y compuestos), Living Language's 2,000+ (much closer to González Hermoso's book, but one of the biggest differences, among others, is the lack of color for irregularities -see below for more on this).

Simply put, if you want a desktop reference EACH and EVERY time that you need to conjugate a verb in spanish, buy Kendris' reference...on second thought, his book still can't compare; more about that later. But if you want a compact, informative book of verbs that will allow you to LEARN how to conjugate verbs in spanish on your own, buy this book. Gonzalez Hermoso's book delivers on what this long-term student/teacher of spanish has always looked for in a spanish verb book: it has about 80 tables of fully conjugated verbs (irregularities in red!); the tables are organized into 3 parts (-ar,-er,-ir verbs); approx 5,000 additional verbs that refer to the previously-mentioned tables; rules (yes, rules...in order to be able to actually learn verb conjugation, we must learn some basic rules) that break down how to work with the irregularities of many spanish verbs; tons of extras like commonly-used verb/preposition combinations (this is one of the keys to sounding like you get the language); verbs and their many expressions as they pertain to specific regions/countries, etc.,...

Word of advice for those with not-so-great sight: One of the reasons that I prefer this book is its size; it makes it very portable, unlike the others out there. Barron's mini verb book is super tiny but, blech, it's nearly identical to its biggie-sized brother. Without measuring, the smallest font in this book is found within the ~80 basic verb tables: it looks similar in style to Times New Roman with about an 8/9-point font. The rest of the book uses at least 3 different font styles and are larger, 10+. If you think this might be too small, I STRONGLY suggest that you at least take this book for a spin, especially side-by-side with the other books. If you are certain that the font is too small, try Living Language's book.

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The Cognitive Neurosciences III : Third Edition (B
Massimo Florio
Manufacturer: Mit Pr 30/11/2004
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MBW0JG

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