Book Description
What Freakonomics does for understanding the economy, The J Curve does for better understanding how nations behave. The J curve is a visual tool that allows us to see at a glance why some crucial countries are in crisis and unstable while others are prosperous and politically solid. In this imaginative, playful, and practical guide, Ian Bremmer, an expert on the politics of international business, turns conventional wisdom on its head. He reveals how the United States can begin more successfully to act in its own interests.
But The J Curve is not only for policymakers and their critics. It can help investors better manage the risks they face abroad. It answers puzzling questions we all have. Why does North Korea seem to invite a military conflict it can't possibly survive? Why is India so surprisingly stable? What are the internal pressures eroding stability in Saudi Arabia? How long can China's politics resist the pressure for change provoked by the country's economic revolution? Why are Iran's ruling clerics trying to push their nation toward international isolation? What will happen to Israeli democracy when demographic pressures change the balance of political power within? And crucially, how should the United States respond to the challenges posed by these questions?
U.S. policymakers have sought to manage security threats with a simple formula: reward your friends and punish your enemies. Has it worked? The U.S. imposed harsh sanctions on Saddam Hussein's Iraq and isolated it from the international community. This strengthened the dictator's grip on the Iraqi people and the country's wealth. The world now faces a similar dilemma in Iran. Will the United States continue to try to isolate that country or can Iran be guided into the international mainstream, allowing its people eventually to directly challenge their harsh leaders?
Bremmer's tour of the nations of the world -- our friends, our foes, and others in between -- shows us how to see the world fresh, get rid of shopworn attitudes, and discover a new and useful way of thinking.
Customer Reviews:
How they govern.......2007-09-04
This book describes how countries govern now and if they have an opportunity to move towards a methodology that will bring them to a 'better' state that provides freedoms and wealth(financial and spirtual) to their constituents. The chapters on Iran and China were, in my opinion, the best laid out.
Fascinating.......2007-07-22
Case studies of Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Israel, North Korea, and others. Very thought-provoking and well-written. After reading the book, I strongly agree with his J-curve model for the stability of a country. Highly recommended for anyone interested in geopolitics or international relations.
A new way of looking at nations' identities.......2007-06-27
Nation states today are part of a delicate, interconnected global system, so one country's failure can create worldwide instability. While individual countries' problems seem disjointed, author Ian Bremmer provides a unified, overall way of explaining how nations develop in a world of constant change. He uses a "J curve" graph - featuring a center line shaped like a sans-serif J anchored in the upper right corner and tilted like a fishhook - to categorize countries according to their openness and stability. With this analytical system, Bremmer explains how each country flows along the J curve according to its unique history, culture and politics. Because his profiles make the world situation easier to understand, we consider this a major contribution to fostering a comprehensive view of world affairs. This book may not change the world, but it will help more people understand its intricate interconnections and why certain countries act as they do.
A great collection of short histories........2007-05-30
The author shares his ideas about why some nations are stable while others are in chaos. He also offers his own suggestions for dealing with these different countries. He discusses a variety of interesting places, from the Axis of Evil to New Europe, from Cuba to South Africa. I enjoyed the book very much and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in government, history, or foreign policy. The book isn't very long or difficult to understand. It is a nice read.
Level 101: Explanation of World Events.......2007-05-19
Simple to understand, informative, easy reading, straight forward explanation of why governments are they way they are, what happens when the try to change, why no one fixes some of the really repressive governments, with examples including; why South Africa succeeded, why Bosnia failed, why Russia reversed course, and why, given the current strategies in place, we will never be successful in the middle east. It is written for those of us who are not Poly-Sci majors. It should be mandatory reading for all government officials who like to dabble in world events and politics. It helps to explain some of the "whys" behind the nightly news stories.
Amazon.com
Theodore B. Taylor was among the most ingenious engineers of the nuclear age. He created the most powerful and the smallest nuclear weapons of his time (his masterpiece, the Davy Crockett, weighed in at a svelte 50 pounds) and also spearheaded efforts to create a nuclear-powered spacecraft. But in his later years, Taylor became increasingly concerned that compact and powerful bombs could be easily built not just by nations employing experts such as himself, but by single individuals with modest technical ability and perseverance. McPhee tours American nuclear installations with Taylor, and we are treated to a grim, eye-opening account of just how close we are to witnessing terrorist attacks using homemade nuclear weaponry. The Curve of Binding Energy is compelling writing about an urgently important topic.
Book Description
Theodore Taylor was one of the most brilliant engineers of the nuclear age, but in his later years he became concerned with the possibility of an individual being able to construct a weapon of mass destruction on their own. McPhee tours American nuclear institutions with Taylor and shows us how close we are to terrorist attacks employing homemade nuclear weaponry.
Customer Reviews:
books can kill.......2007-07-22
I picked up this book to learn something about the risks associated with nuclear technology in the hands of terrorist states. What I read instead was an unexpected cautionary tale about the risks of irresponsible journalism.
The Curve of Binding Energy is an early piece by the talented essayist, John McPhee. McPhee explores the psyche and experience of a nuclear engineer, Ted Taylor, who in the 1950's made substantial contributions to the miniaturization of fission bombs and then became an advocate for "nuclear safeguards" - i.e. methods and policies to keep weapons-grade material or bomb-making technology out of criminal or terrorist hands.
Mr. Taylor's involvement in the book is highly ironic. Like most in the nuclear weapons community, he originally justified the work for its deterrent potential. Looking back two decades later, Taylor tells McPhee that the original rationale was naive. But unconsciously applying the same logic, Taylor was now willing to publicize all that he knew about the easiest ways to make a cheap A-bomb in the hope that proliferation of that knowledge would scare governments into adopting more effective safeguards.
Throughout the book, McPhee relates conversations in which he pumped Taylor for technical details about bomb construction. Each time, Taylor states that he has gone into just as much detail as he can on various subjects without breaching official secrets. This of course is nonsense. Any attempts to delineate the bounds of official secrets, and especially the juxtaposition of related methods and means are expressly forbidden by the security oath that Taylor once swore. If a terrorist nuclear bomb is ever detonated, Taylor will bear direct personal responsibilty.
Fortunately, the value of Taylor's technical insights is much less that McPhee implies. He reports many kind comments about Taylor from distinguished nuclear physicists who worked on the same projects. But none of these scientists express particular respect for his technical skills. And at least one of Taylor's important judgments in this book - that successful fission detonations are easy to achieve - was proved untrue last year when a DPRK demonstration fizzled.
No, to date no one has been killed or injured by one of Ted Taylor's creations. But the same cannot be said of John McPhee. The most intriguing details in The Curve of Binding Energy are its repeated speculations about the attractiveness of the WTC towers as terrorist targets and their vulnerability to destruction from a sub-nuclear explosion. It appears highly likely that this book was the original motivation behind O. A. Rahman's truck-bomb attack in 1993 and K. S. Mohammad's follow-on attack in 2001.
This is not a personal criticism of John McPhee. The point is that journalists - even great journalists - plying their own craft can do just as much unintended damage as any of their usual suspects.
The story of Theodore Taylor, nuclear bomb designer, and problems of safeguarding of nuclear materials in the 1960's and 70's.......2007-03-11
This book was first published in 1973 and its basic premises are straightforward. Plutonium is an almost unavoidable byproduct of a uranium based nuclear power industry. It is incredibly easy to make a working atomic bomb with plutonium. It is also incredibly easy to steal plutonium. It is possible to make a nuclear bomb as small as a rugby football. Terrorism with a plutonium bomb seems to be inevitable.
Much of the book is about Theodore Taylor, who was one of America's most brilliant nuclear bomb engineers. Technically, he was a physicist, but he was really lousy at true theoretical physics, and he ended up working at Los Alamos as a nuclear bomb designer only because he had flunked out of the Ph.D program at UC Berkeley. Taylor was more of an inventor with the mentality of an engineer in the way he focused on using best estimates and trial and error experimentation to solve difficult practical problems.
Later in his life, Taylor was involved in the abortive Orion project (a space ship that was to be powered by hundreds of small nuclear bombs), and became a strong advocate of improved safeguarding of nuclear materials in the nuclear power industry. It should be clarified that after he quit as a nuclear bomb designer, Taylor never became an anti-nuclear activist. I say this mainly because this book does seem to have been used by the anti-nuclear movement.
The remainder of the book is mostly devoted to describing just how lax the safeguarding of nuclear materials was at the time, as well as brief descriptions of the chemical processes needed to isolate enough plutonium from these byproducts to make a crude bomb.
One annoying aspect of this book is its coy squeamishness at revealing the secrets of making hydrogen (fusion) bombs. Hydrogen bomb design is actually pretty straightforward once you have a fission bomb to ignite the fusion materials - other books like "Dark Sun" lay out the basic details that this book would not.
A major concept missing from this book is that, while stealing several kilograms of plutonium and making one or two plutonium bombs might be fairly simple, when it comes to governments building a nuclear bomb, it is clearly more advantageous to have a complete nuclear industry, so as to be able to build an endless supply of nuclear bombs with either uranium or plutonium. And so these states would want to start by first developing a uranium enrichment capability together with nuclear power plants. This is in fact how things have played out today.
And so, this book turns out to be somewhat myopic in its fears. Its warnings against the production of plutonium by the nuclear power industry, while important, and salient at the time (1970's) to the fears of terrorism by small radical groups, pale in comparison to the much greater current problem of global nuclear weapons development by nation-states. The book misses completely the fact that today, almost any technologically advanced country, and many that are not so advanced, can build entire arsenals of nuclear bombs if they want to.
Is nuclear war inevitable? That possibility seemed to have faded with the breakup of the Soviet Union, but has risen again as the numbers of conflict states developing nuclear weapons increase.
But then look on the bright side, for all of you liberal, anti-growth, anti-nuclear, anti-people environmentalists out there. The nuclear winter first predicted by Carl Sagan, together with an accompanying drastic reduction in the numbers of homo sapiens defiling this planet, could be just the cures for global warming and global over-population that you are seeking.
Nuclear Bombs for Dummies.......2006-07-08
Theodore B. Taylor, the physicist who was the subject of this book died in 2004, but not before he had completed his spiritual journey from nuclear bomb maker to nuclear protester. Even though the text of this book originally appeared in "The New Yorker" in 1973, Taylor was still driven to publish his own works on the dangers of nuclear proliferation. McPhee has a very understated style ("just the facts, ma'am"), but this book is still the most frightening I've ever read. I can't decide whether I would want him to write a sequel, because the threat of a nuclear bomb explosion is even greater today than it was in 1973. Just ask yourself the following questions:
Is there more plutonium available to terrorists in 2006 than there was in 1973? Yes.
Do more nations have nuclear capability? Yes.
Can a nuclear bomb be built that is even smaller and more efficient than its 1973 counterpart? Yes.
Are the instructions for building a nuclear device more readily available than they were in 1973? Yes.
Do some people hate America even more than they did in 1973? Decide this one for yourself.
John McPhee, staff writer for the "New Yorker" and Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of twenty-seven books on subjects as various as oranges and the merchant marine, has written a nuclear explosion of a book in "The Curve of Binding Energy." It's one of those books that is even more relevant now than when it was written. Essentially, it's a blueprint of how to build a nuclear device using materials at hand, along with a chunk of rather easily stolen U-235 or plutonium. Theodore B. Taylor, himself the creator of smaller, more efficient nuclear bombs, tells us where to steal the plutonium, how to assemble a bomb, even gives hints on where to plant it--one of the eeriest parts of this book has Taylor and McPhee exploring the now-vanished towers of the World Trade Center, trying to pick the spot where a nuclear device could do the most damage.
"The Curve of Binding Energy" is a must read for every man, jack, and paper-pusher in the Department of Homeland Security, not to mention both houses of Congress. I imagine the first reaction of many Congresspersons would be to ban this book, but it's way too late for that, my friend.
Prophetic, scary and still important.......2006-06-19
John McPhee is a writer for the New Yorker with a particular focus on science and nature. His heroes tend not to be the pure scientists but the engineers, the doers. His 1987 profile of the Old River Control Structure, the enormously complex and epic-scale engineering works that prevent the main body of the waters of the Mississippi from spilling down the Atchafalaya as they really want to, was widely linked at the time of the New Orleans floods last year and deservedly so -- search for "McPhee Old River Control" to read it, it's well worth it. He has a love for the concrete that doesn't prevent him having a good understanding of the underlying science that his engineers use and writes clearly and with energy.
The Curve of Binding Energy is about Ted Taylor, a physicist from Los Alamos, his efforts to develop the lightest fission bomb that he possibly could, and how his research pushed him in the direction of proper oversight of post-fission materials. The writing is excellent, pacey and readable, though at times tending too much to the New Yorker structure of "At facility Y I was ushered in to meet Expert X. He had shrewd eyes and an expansive, welcoming half-smile at the corners of his mouth. He said Z." The basic message is: (1) plutonium is easy to get access to; (2) with current (1974) practices and volumes the amount necessary to produce a bomb (15 kg) would be lost in the statistical noise; (3) this will only get worse as volumes produced go up, and they're projected to go up massively.
This is all from the perspective of 1974, of course. Since then, prompted in part by the concerns this book raised (and in part by independent factors such as a fall in the price of oil), the US cut back hugely on reactor starts. Nevertheless, nuclear power in the US grew from 114.0 billion MwH (out of a total of of 1867.1 billion MwH) in 1974 to 763 out of 3721 in 2004, in other words from 6% to 21%. Global annual plutonium production has gone up by a factor of 4, which granted is a lot but isn't the exponential increase predicted by the book. This is in part because the US contributes much less plutonium than you'd expect, in part because it hasn't adopted fast breeder reactors.
So the good news is that the US seems to have taken the issue relatively seriously. The bad news is that the UK and France between them hold 50% of the civilian plutonium in the world. I'm shocked by the lack of serious public awareness and serious official response in those two countries -- the protests seem to have died down a lot since the 80s but the problems have just got worse. The other bad news is that nuclear material keeps going missing in Russia, though under a 1994 agreement the US is continuing to pay some of the costs of shutting the relevant reactors down and moving to fossil fuels.
Ultimately, given that deterrence works against states, the question is how to prevent terrorists from getting the bomb? One part of the answer is simply increased vigilance, which has the advantage of protecting against all attacks: the terrorists don't necessarily need the bomb, after all. Another part is increased spending on counter-proliferation measures like the Russia program. Another part, perhaps, is engaging with countries that want to develop nuclear power to make sure that their plants are efficient and safe. And another part, unfortunately, is probably to accept that in the future there will be the occasional bomb in a major city and people will die but life will go on. All of these conclusions are reached in the book: they haven't dated, and in an important sense neither has the book itself.
Absorbing, Fascinating and Still Pertinent .......2006-06-16
Despite being written 30 years ago this is still an amazing and pertinent book about all things nuclear.
First off it is another McPhee homerun. His style of just following tangents, paying attention to all the interesting details that paint the full picture and which most authors would ignore, until the tangents all coalesce into a bigger story works incredibly well. So well that I'm surprised he seems to be one of the only authors to use it, but he does it masterfully.
This book is about the life of Theodore Taylor, a brilliant nuclear engineer and weapons designer. And about mining nuclear material, and processing it into fuel (not only how, but WHERE, what the plants look like, how big they are, how many people work there, what comes in one end and what comes out the other end and where does the stuff go after that), and transporting nuclear materials, and the Manhattan project, and nuclear weapon testing, and nuclear reactor design, and nuclear safety, and the Orion spaceship design, and building coast to coast underground tunnels with specially designed nuclear bombs, and a thousand other incredibly interesting topics.
The writing style is immensely absorbing, and perhaps the biggest theme is safeguarding commercial nuclear material so that terrorists cannot get a hold of it and build a bomb that could topple the World Trade Center. Considering this book was written in the early seventies its foresight is unbelievable, and in a post 9-11 world where nuclear power is again receiving attention as an oil alternative the information in this book is still relevant.
Highly recommended!
Book Description
The World's Bestselling AutoCAD Resource Fully Updated for 2008
There's a reason why Mastering AutoCAD is so popular year after year. Loaded with concise explanations, step-by-step instructions, and hands-on projects, this comprehensive reference and tutorial from award-winning author George Omura has everything you need to become an AutoCAD expert.
If you're new to AutoCAD, the tutorials will help you build your skills right away. If you're an AutoCAD veteran, Omura's in-depth explanations of the latest and most advanced features, including the exciting annotation, notes, and layer properties features, will turn you into an AutoCAD pro. Whatever your experience level and however you use AutoCAD, you'll refer to this indispensable reference again and again.
Coverage includes:
* Creating and developing AutoCAD drawings
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Drawing curves and applying solid fills
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Effectively using hatches, fields, and tables
*
Manipulating dynamic blocks and attributes
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Linking drawings to databases and spreadsheets
*
Rendering realistic interior views with natural lighting
*
Giving a hand-drawn look to 3D views
*
Presenting 3D models with cutaway and x-ray views
*
Making spiral forms with the Helix and Sweep tools
*
Exploring your model in real time with the Walk and Fly tools
*
Adding hyperlinks to drawings
*
Converting multiple layer settings and other layer translator options
Master the New Text and Table Features
Explore the Layer Manager Enhancements
Annotate, Secure, and Authenticate Files
Track Your Projects with the Sheet Set Manager
Publish Drawings over the Internet and eTransmit Your Files
Customize the New Dashboard and Control Panel
Customer Reviews:
A 'must' for any comprehensive collection........2007-10-18
MASTERING AUTOCAD is a very popular reference for any engineer using Autocad, and its complete update for 2008 keeps it high on the list of 'must have' references on the topic, packing in tutorials to build new skills for beginners while offering veterans explanations of the program's latest, advanced features. From developing AutoCad drawings and using dynamic blocks to presenting 3D models and making spiral forms with new tools, MASTERING AUTOCAD 2008 AND AUTOCAD LT 2008 is quite simply a 'must' for any comprehensive collection.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Product Description
8.5x11.5", color laminated hardcover.
"The first truly World War began in 1749 and was actually triggered by feisty Americans in a bid for control of the Upper Ohio River Valley. The Great Railroad War, in the event a struggle between B&O and PRR for dominance of the same valley, began in 1827. Pittsburgh became the focus of these two conflicts.
"This book tells the dramatic adventure story of these history-changing events and covers the evolution of the Region through 2006.
Hardbound, UV laminated five-color cover, 8-1/2 x11, 400 pages with 577 photos, maps and illustrations (13 in color), enamel paper."
Average customer rating:
- A remarkable mix; adventure and deeply felt love
- A Nice Surprise Read
- The Curve of the World
- Beautiful writing and compelling read
- A Must Read
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The Curve of the World
Marcus Stevens
Manufacturer: Highbridge Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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Useful Girl
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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel
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ASIN: 1565116348
Release Date: 2002-04-18 |
Amazon.com
Marcus Stevens's debut novel, The Curve of the World, opens on a cinematic note: An Air France flight rapidly descends over the dense African landscape. The cockpit fills with smoke. Passengers brace for an emergency landing. Although the unlikely premise of this adventure tale--an American Coca-Cola businessman named Lewis Burke is lost in the rainforests of the Congo; his estranged wife and blind 7-year-old son fly to Africa to rescue him--sounds straight out of Hollywood, the story itself is surprisingly well written, unfolding with the grim beauty of a modern-day Heart of Darkness. Even Lewis's inevitable bout with malaria and the attentions of an elderly ndoki (witch) seem believable, set against the author's deft depictions of war-ravaged villages, the poverty and resourcefulness of the rural Congolese, and the complicated politics of the region. Stevens is less sure-handed where ordinary human relations are concerned. He underestimates the caution of mothers (it is hard to believe that Lewis's wife's own elderly mother urges her to go to Africa to find Lewis, and harder still to imagine the young woman bringing her handicapped child to a war zone) and overestimates the kindness of strangers. This is a gripping story nonetheless and a complex, accomplished debut. --Regina Marler
Book Description
"Where?" someone yells, "Where are we landing?" "Africa. Somewhere." A plane in trouble, a terrifying plummet into the depths of an African jungle, and capture by rebel military troops—all in just the first chapter of this brilliant debut novel by Marcus Stevens. The Curve of the World, a page-turner in the truest sense of the word, is a riveting story about survival and losing and regaining love across both physical and psychological borders. Lewis' day begins with a bitter quarrel with his wife and ends on a crumbling, overgrown jungle airstrip somewhere deep in war-torn Congo. With the cockpit on fire, the pilots of his plane make an emergency landing and within hours the plane is seized by rebel troops. Lewis' flight into the rainforest saves him from one danger only to propel him into an even more terrifying place—a world without rules and no apparent way out. His desperate struggle to survive hunger, intense heat, and thirst forces Lewis to confront his deepest fears and greatest disappointments: his failing relationships with his wife and his blind seven-year-old son. When his wife makes a daring decision to search for him in Africa, The Curve of the World becomes a gripping, heartrending tale about regaining love and conviction.
Customer Reviews:
A remarkable mix; adventure and deeply felt love.......2007-03-09
I picked this up as a random choice at the library, and found it to be one of the best novels I've read in years. Although I agree with other reviewers that there are some implausible plot devices, I literally had to force myself to stop reading it so I could go to sleep. There are many passages which capture the inner experience of genuine love in a way that's rarely articulated. The author also portrays life in a ravaged country in a way that captures the beauty of the life there without skirting the horror. Altogether a remarkable book!
A Nice Surprise Read.......2006-07-02
I bought this online in the bargain section and I had no idea what sort of book I was getting! Then when it arrived there was no synopsis or 'blurb' to describe the book - it was a complete mystery! It turned out to be a great story about a Coke executive who gets stranded in the Congo jungle after his plane crashes.
You will have to suspend your disbelief a little bit when the exec's wife travels to Africa with their blind son to see what she can find. Other than that, everything else is completely believable.
I thought the characters were great. My favorite character was Kofi - he was so selfless and inspiring.
This book is beautifully written and I highly recommend it.
The Curve of the World.......2005-12-13
The author is unable to develop the characters and is completely inconsistent in his storytelling (third person but not objective but not insightful either) and therefore unable to secure the readers investment in the outcome. I was completely disapponited in this book.
Beautiful writing and compelling read.......2005-10-06
This book is not only a page turner, but leaves an indelible mark on the memory. Stevens opens new doors on the mysteries of Africa, midlife struggles and relationships. A great book.
A Must Read.......2005-03-31
I loved this book so much, it was my book pick when it was my turn to host our book club and my book club loved it as well. I appreciate the research that went into writting this book - it takes you into the African Congo for survival yet offers a human touch that is touching. This was one of those "read in 3 days" books, because I could not put it down. I could not wait for Stevens next book "Useful Girl" to come out and it was equally pleasing.
Average customer rating:
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At The Curve Of The World
Rita Gonzalez
Manufacturer: Smart Art Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 1889195413 |
Book Description
A fresh and provocative look at feminist strategies in contemporary art. Working in many media, the eight featured artists - Marianna Botey, E.V.Day, Laurie Dahlberg and Anne Fishbein, Diana Lopez, Gertrudis Rivalta, Elena del Rivero and Sandra Vivas - are fiercely dedicated to shaking up the status quo of social order and conventional history. Dimension: 8 x 8 inches, 30 b&w and 40 color reproductions.
Book Description
A compelling story of exploration and adventure, politics and war, told through the quest for one of the most purely majestic of Africa's animals, caught amid the upheavals and brutal savagery of Angola's wars
The great animals of Africa have long been under siege—once routinely slaughtered as trophies by big-game hunters, their habitats are now slowly being choked off by the relentless encroachment of human development, and increasingly the efforts to preserve them are hostage to the warfare that ravages the continent. In A Certain Curve of Horn, veteran journalist John Frederick Walker tells the story of one of the most revered and endangered of these regal beasts: the giant sable antelope of Angola, a majestic, coal-black quadruped with breathtaking curved horns over five feet long. It is an enthralling and tragic tale of exploration and adventure, politics and war, the brutal realities of life in Africa today and the bitter choices of conflicting conservation strategies.
A Certain Curve of Horn traces the sable's emergence as a highly sought-after natural history prize before the First World War, and follows its struggle to survive in a war zone fought over by the troops of a half-dozen nations, and its transformation into a political symbol and conservation icon. As he follows the trail of this mysterious animal, Walker interweaves the stories of the adventurers, scientists, and warriors who have come under the thrall of the beast, and how their actions would shape the course of the history of the giant sable antelope and the history of the war-torn nation that is its home.
Culminating with a heart-pounding voyage into the heart of rebel-held Angola in search of the first scientific confirmation of the animal's existence in decades, A Certain Curve of Horn is a thrilling blend of history, natural science, and adventure—and a fascinating look into the world of a magnificent beast that has haunted the imaginations of hunters and naturalists around the globe for generations.
Customer Reviews:
Fantastic Post Colonial History.......2005-10-15
This book is mainly about the giant sable. But even more interesting are the descriptions of Angola, the history of the country during Portugese rule and the descent into civil war. I love it.
thorough but boring account.......2005-07-13
a very tedious, exhaustive treatise of african colonialism, politics, war, and oh, did i mention, the search for the giant sable antelope. having had interest in this magnificent, but rare species, i had picked the book up at the local library hoping it would divulge its secrets and whereabouts. instead, over 80% of the book deals with the aforementioned topics and the author tries hard to interlace this history with the sable, unsuccessfully i might add. there is so much detail and tedium that if i wanted a historical book i would have bought one. he goes on to great lenghts the describe written and biographical accounts of explorers and hunters that i could barely keep my heavy lids open to continue reading. bottom line: best left for the armchair historian rather than naturalist.
Wildlife & War.......2003-03-06
Casting the giant sable antelope as a modern day unicorn, John Frederick Walker's Certain Curvature of Horn is at once a tale of mystery, wildlife biology, and potboiling politics. Anyone with an interest in Africa's megafauna will enjoy this carefully researched saga of the sable's precarious existence through Angola's long civil war. The first part of the book is not for the squeamish as one antelope after another is felled by trophy hunters and museum collectors. Walker's obvious reverence for the iconic beasts makes each shot and each death feel like a personal loss. But it is the mano a mano of Angola's warring leaders - Eduardo dos Santos and Jonas Savimbi - in the book's second half that causes the most discomfiture as the conservation world agonizes over the sables' fate on battlefields that have bled for over 30 years. The question of the sable's survival among so much human bloodshed is the book's big unanswered question. Walker tries mightily to get a flesh and blood glimpse of the endangered animal, making numerous trips to Angola and finally, a furtive dash into the war zone itself. Not to give away too much, his disappointment is tempered by what seems like the end to Angola's civil war and the beginnings of new animal sanctuaries where decimated wildlife, like the giant sable, can begin anew. Walker manages to make you care for a magnificent animal that like the country it symbolizes, is a tough survivor.
Books:
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Men We Never Knew: How to Deepen Your Relationship With the Man You Love
- The Miracle Ball Method: Relieve Your Pain, Reshape Your Body, Reduce Your Stress
- The Mirror of Her Dreams
- The Mixed-Up Chameleon
- The One I Love
- The Registration of Baroque Organ Music
- The Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy 2006 (Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy (Sanford))
- The Snowy Day
Books Index
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