Animal Farm (Signet Classics)

Amazon.com

Since its publication in 1946, George Orwell's fable of a workers' revolution gone wrong has rivaled Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea as the Shortest Serious Novel It's OK to Write a Book Report About. (The latter is three pages longer and less fun to read.) Fueled by Orwell's intense disillusionment with Soviet Communism, Animal Farm is a nearly perfect piece of writing, both an engaging story and an allegory that actually works. When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human master and take over management of the land, all are awash in collectivist zeal. Everyone willingly works overtime, productivity soars, and for one brief, glorious season, every belly is full. The animals' Seven Commandment credo is painted in big white letters on the barn. All animals are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep in a bed, or kill a fellow four-footed creature. Those that go upon four legs or wings are friends and the two-legged are, by definition, the enemy. Too soon, however, the pigs, who have styled themselves leaders by virtue of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege and power. "We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of the farm depend on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples." While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution, cynically editing the Seven Commandments to excuse their violence and greed, the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no better off than in the days when humans ran the farm. Satire Animal Farm may be, but it's a stony reader who remains unmoved when the stalwart workhorse, Boxer, having given his all to his comrades, is sold to the glue factory to buy booze for the pigs. Orwell's view of Communism is bleak indeed, but given the history of the Russian people since 1917, his pessimism has an air of prophecy. --Joyce Thompson

Book Description

Orwell's brilliant 1946 satire, chronicling a revolution staged by the animals on Mr. Jones's farm.

Customer Reviews:

"Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.".......2007-10-15

Just before he dies, Old Major, an old pig, shares a dream he had with the animals of Manor Farm. In the dream, he saw a future where animals were no longer the servants of man but enjoyed the profits of their own labor.

His dream became reality much sooner then he imagined, however. Shortly after his death, the animals spontaneously revolt against the farm's owner, Jones, a mean drunk.

With the humans gone, the animals start working the farm together, anxious to enjoy the rewards. They also form their own government, a complete democracy where every animal has a say. They create seven commandments that they will all live by to make the newly renamed Animal Farm an even better place to live.

It isn't long, however, before the pigs begin to take a place of leadership because of their superior intelligence. Two in particular, Snowball and Napoleon, rise to the top and always take opposite sides on every issue.

The first year, things go smoothly. But the second year, things begin to fall apart and a leader emerges, slowly gaining more power. Will the other animals go along with the changes?

Having heard about this classic all my life, I finally decided it was time to become acquainted with it. I can see why everyone talks about it so much. It is a powerful allegory about the dangers of Socialism. And, while some of the commentary directed squarely at the USSR may be lost on today's readers, anyone familiar with the history of that country or the other communist countries in our history will certainly get the point. It's amazing how accurate George Orwell was years before things got bad in Russia.

While it did take me a few minutes to truly get the ending, it was very chilling.

The best part is, the book is fun, too. The story moves quickly and the animal characters are so well drawn it's hard not to get pulled in to the story. I was hooked and couldn't wait to see how it ended.

Some classics are boring and hard to get through. This isn't one of them. Don't fear the classic label, but pick this up and read it today. You'll be glad you did.

Amazed!.......2007-10-15

Having read Animal Farm in one sitting, i feel that it transcends the obvious allusions to communisms and the likes to something far more poetic. Human nature, it seems, has a very deceiving quality to it. Orwell made it clear that the book was parallel with real life (Russian Revolution and such) and similarities are easily made between characters in the book and real life people. Although i'd say the biggest lesson learned is the power of mind-manipulation and how few can control many through fear.
Simply put, you can call it a process... Bad people reign--good people overthrow bad people---hunger for power consumes a handful of the good people---manipulation/propaganda is instilled and WAHLA ---Once again Bad people reign... It's a sad cycle that this book has beautifully portrayed.
Definitely worth a read, especially if you are "into" politics.
Lucas.

A Brilliant Satire of Government Politics!!!.......2007-10-07

George Orwell was not only the author of 1984 but Animal Farm as well as written numerous essays, articles, etc. about his take on politics. In 1984, society was in the future under a totalitarian dictatorship where nothing was sacred or left to chance. In Animal Farm which I think it's more effective and definitely better reading material than 1984 is the story about a farm of animals who take over the farm against Jones, a drunken, abusive farmer and master of Manor Farm. At first, the rules were applied but slowly changed according to the leaders' rules. The animals in charge were symbolically pigs named Napoleon and his right-hand man, Snowball. Napoleon begins breaking the rules by sleeping in the main house and having parties with the other pigs. The rules or commandments are representative of Moses and the Jews when they were going to the promised land and received the ten commandments. Also, the rules begin to change when the pigs in charge become more like Jones by abusing alcohol and even killing other animals when they disobeyed. Slowly, the animals that were once united by their hatred towards Jones were becoming divided again amongst themselves. The story is quite a classic novel and better suited for younger readers than 1984.

The Rise of Totalitarianism.......2007-10-07

Animal Farm is a strong metaphor for the rise of tyranny using the model of a failing communism after the deliberate overthrow and subsequent breakdown of capitalism and democracy. In Orwell's story oppressed farm animals rebel against their masters only to find themselves falling prey to the inherent problem of an escalating despotism following emancipation that culminates in an even vaster gap of inequality between upper and lower classes with the wants of the very few outweighing the needs of a neglected majority that are slowly turned into isolated brainwashed slaves controlled by fear.

The ideology of equality is sound but in overthrowing the ruling elite who cannot say that yet another privileged will not emerge? An even stronger dictatorship that can control the masses with the intimidating thought that if the populace doesn't obey any order then the old ways can come back? What makes Animal Farm so good is that it explains how revolutions designed to close the differences in rank can be easily exploited. This is the inevitable dilemma faced by all civilizations that desire governed order and is especially true of socialism and communism. Nobody has captured the difficulty of the exploitation of trust and power any better than Orwell has done with Animal Farm.

Animal Farm doesn't answer any questions but makes lots of them and is all about awareness of these possibilities, a conundrum born out from our systemic need to consolidate power socially.

Orwell based his work on a combination of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and Stalinism but the overall message is a one of warning about how any system of political control can become corrupt if it is allowed run with carte blanche.

It is also a message about how awareness of one's own strength can suddenly change the balance and for this reason has been seen as subversive material. Animal Farm is often banned by most totalitarian regimes and even some governments had banned it because they didn't understand it or believed that its anti-communism message was considered too strong for public consumption.

A historical commentary.......2007-09-30

Best book ever written. It's important to note that it is not only about Russian Communism but equally about the French revolution. Orwell himself was a disillusioned socialist, so to view this book (as conservatives do) as a simple polemical against Communism is a distortion. Rather it is a tragedy about many years of history.

Orwell correctly never denies that Mr. Jones abused his animals. He correctly recognizes the socialist dream as exactly that. It's worth noting that the theme song of the revolution, "Beasts of England" is an exact parody of the old Socialist poem "Men of England" by Percy Shelley from the early 19th century. The character Napoleon the pig is both Napoleon Bonaparte and Stalin. Orwell's relentless cynicism portrays most of the animals as far too stupid to realize what's happening as the revolution betrays its original principles. The most sympathetic character is the old donkey who knows better, but can only watch helplessly as the dogs and pigs establish their tyranny. Its ending corresponds closely with Napoleon (Bonaparte) crowning himself king.

As far as advice, Orwell offers none. Figure it out yourself.

Vector Mechanics for Engineers, Dynamics

Average customer rating:

Worthless
Run away
Disappointed
Good Book
?

Vector Mechanics for Engineers, Dynamics
Ferdinand P. Beer , Jr., E. Russell Johnston , William E. Clausen , George H. Staab , Ferdinand Beer , William Clausen , and George Staab
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0072930799

Book Description

For the past forty years Beer and Johnston have been the uncontested leaders in the teaching of undergraduate engineering mechanics. Over the years their textbooks have introduced significant theoretical and pedagogical innovations in statics, dynamics, and mechanics of materials education. At the same time, their careful presentation of content, unmatched levels of accuracy, and attention to detail have made their texts the standard for excellence. The new Seventh Edition of Vector Mechanics for Engineers: Dynamics continues this tradition.

Customer Reviews:

Worthless.......2007-09-04

I was unfortunate enough to use this book. If you are an undergrad run away. Yes if you study the book excessively it might help but it has crummy examples and getting specific information without reading the whole chapter 2-3 times is like pulling teeth.

Run away.......2006-05-11

I found this book difficult to read and the example problems did not help with the homework problems. I went to return this book after taking Dynamics to find out that an 8th edition is being released and the book store would only offer my $7.25 for a book I paid well over $100.00. The fact that an 8th edition is being release so soon tells me that this book is flawed and being rewritten.

Disappointed.......2006-02-15

While the theory is somehow digestible, the problems are way too difficult and out of the real world. TO THE AUTHORS: When you imagine a mechanical system to be analyzed, try to make it real, not weird. Set as unknown the parameters that cannot be measured not those that can. Please, don't distort the engineering thinking of our students. (By the way: Fig. B.1 on page 1297 shows a crankshaft not a camshaft! Your solutions to problems 16.107 and 16.108 in the Instructor's Manual do not include the normal acceleration of the clamp. Energy Conservation when applied to Prob. 16.108 gives a term in omega^2).

Good Book.......2005-10-16

I used this book for the course of Dynamics in Civil Engineering. It was the textbook of my class. The examples are basic, and show you how to use the basic principles of dynamics to solve the more challeging problems at the end of each chapter. I enjoyed a lot this book, and I recommend it to everyone.

?.......2005-01-07

It amazes me how someone could not find this text incredibly useful? It provides elaborate in-chapter examples, numerous practice examples, and a description on how to attack a given problem at the end of the chapter. I am a Senior and I can honestly say that this is the best text I have used.....

Average customer rating:

Great book, would be great with soln manual
Vector Mech Engin Statics
Very clear and well illustrated
Decent Book, you get back what you put out
Statics is silly, take calc III instead.

Vector Mechanics for Engineers, Statics
Ferdinand P. Beer , E. Russell Johnston Jr. , Elliot R. Eisenberg , and George H. Staab
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0072930780

Book Description

***Book is published and available as of 6/03!!!

Customer Reviews:

Great book, would be great with soln manual.......2006-03-10

This is a great book (aside from the one by Meriam and Kriege). Illustrations are clear, examples were clear with no steps missing. However...some problems are on the challenging side--great for training engineers, but not cool for homework without a solutions manual for the sticky (and usually even numbered) problems. Recommended nonethless!

Vector Mech Engin Statics.......2005-09-14

When I receive that book, it is packed with plastic sheet. It seems brand new because it is not opened yet. But, actually it is not because there are a few pages missing at the back of the book. Those pages are assumed as "The Answer Pages" of the problems from the whole book. I had to copy those pages from one of my friends. It is mestery!!!

NAY OO
SOE OHN

Very clear and well illustrated.......2005-08-28

Maybe, I just pick up these concepts easily. I found this book very useful and extremely easy to understand. The sample problems are detailed and very easy follow. The "Solving Problems on Your Own" at the end of the each section provides an excellent review and will be a terrific reference. It is one of the best textbooks I have read.

I can only think of a couple things that would have made it better for me. For instance, I think they could improve there coverage of finding centroids with integration. By my old calculus book covered this very well.

I am not a big fan of photographs in textbooks that only dress things up. That said, the authors really need to fix some captions. It is just wrong to call a crankshaft a camshaft, and there is a picture with a 'bollard' that sure looks like it is a capstan rather than a bollard. (Now I am being real nit-picky)

All in all, a terrific textbook. I wish more textbooks were as clear and succinct.

Decent Book, you get back what you put out .......2005-06-17

As a course statics isn't an easy class, and it isn't easy to explain a lot of times. This book shows enough of the steps in the example necessary to at least get started. Although it forces you at times to make conceptual connections/leaps, it is necessary because once you see the logic, you can do any problem. Statics is a class where you get a lot of different problems, but the logic/steps to solve the problem never changes.

Statics is silly, take calc III instead. .......2005-06-04

I do not recommend this book. This textbook is difficult to follow, it is difficult to grasp new concepts from the book. This book is not detailed enough, it often does not show all the steps that are taken in an example problem; this makes it difficult to understand many of the problems, especially the more difficult ones. I would also suggest that if it is possible, take calculus III before you take statics.Calculus III gives a much better and more thorough explaintion of the basis of vector mechanics. If you want a book that lays a better mathmatical base for vectors and vector mechanics, try reading "Calculus, 5th ed." by James Stewart. This book is an excellent indroduction to statics and it explains in much clearer language the derivations for of many of the equations presented in vector mechanics.

Vector Mechanics for Engineers, Statics and Dynamics

Average customer rating:

Great Book!
Great book
Ok service
A poor example of engineering mechanics textbook
This book could be a lot better.

Vector Mechanics for Engineers, Statics and Dynamics
Ferdinand P. Beer , Jr., E. Russell Johnston , Elliot R. Eisenberg , William E. Clausen , George H. Staab , Ferdinand Beer , Elliot Eisenberg , William Clausen , and George Staab
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0072931108

Book Description

Customer Reviews:

Great Book!.......2006-01-29

Easy to understand with ample well-explained examples to help follow the subject. Great book overall!

Great book.......2005-11-30

This is really a great book in a hard to grasp subject.It is easy to follow ,has a lot of excellent sample problems and examples ,student-friendly and it is ideal for selfstudy.

Ok service.......2005-10-10

Took awile to get here and they put a huge sticker on the front and back that had the website info on it. I didn't pay them so they could use my book as free advertising. That made me angry, but other than that and a few wrinkled pages, it's a good book.

A poor example of engineering mechanics textbook.......2004-06-23

I was forced into purchasing this group of books for my university engineering program as all of the homework problems required were straight from this book.

Additionally, the books were packaged with schaums problem sets that were particularly useless (schaums outlines are usually excellent, but their problem sets did not contain all of the detail and had nothing extra to offer over Beer and Johnston's textbook) and therefore a waste of my money.

With that said, the only redeeming value of this book is the sheer number of exercises and answers (numerical answers with no explanation, however).

The writing quality suffers what english majors call overuse of passive voice. Overuse of the words "is," "will," "are," etc. characterize this style. With the lack of acting verbs in sentences, the book effectively numbs the mind and puts the reader to sleep. This passive use of verbage also serves to take the emphasis off of the important parts of sentences.

Aside from stylistic issues with the english language, the book also suffers from a lack of vision. The authors did not provide a good methodology to approaching problems at all. They hint at it, by telling the student to draw pictures. However, in examples, the authors jump from one step to the next without much explanation of how a person would discover the techniques themselves. This makes the homework problems particularly difficult when a completely different approach than the one in the examples is required.

There are also derivation and explanation issues. For instance, in the handling of the precession of free bodies (this example sticks out in particular), the author provides a diagram and some equations. However, students cannot precede merely from what the author explained. The student, in order to approach the problems, must assume the validity of the vector diagrams and their relationships, along with equations, seperately. The diagrams and equations WERE NOT UNIFIED in the discussion. This gives the impression that the authors seperately wrote different parts of the book, and later simply pasted the pieces together without any greater plan.

I would not recommend these books as something colleges should use.

This book could be a lot better........2004-04-21

Not enough examples. You would have to buy another book with more examples or get a tutor.

The New World of Mr Tompkins: George Gamow's Classic Mr Tompkins

Average customer rating:

An excellent update to a classic introduction to modern phys
Physics=awesome!
Good Book but Needs an Index & Bibliography
The New World of Mr. Tompkins
Physics is Fun !!

The New World of Mr Tompkins: George Gamow's Classic Mr Tompkins
George Gamow
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521630096

Book Description

Mr. Tompkins is back! The mild-mannered bank clerk with the short attention span and vivid imagination has inspired, charmed, and informed young and old alike since the publication of the hugely successful Mr Tompkins in Paperback (by George Gamow) in 1965. Now, this highly affable character returns to embark on a set of adventures that explore the extreme edges of the universe--the smallest, the largest, the fastest, and the farthest. Just by following the experiences and dreams of Mr. Tompkins, readers discover and come to know the merry dance of cosmic mysteries, including: Einstein's theory of relativity, bizarre effects near light-speed, the birth and death of the universe, black holes, quarks, space warps and antimatter, the fuzzy world of the quantum, and that ultimate cosmic mystery--love. The story of Mr. Tompkins' journey to the frontiers of modern physics will delight and inform all readers. Russell Stannard is a best-selling popular science writer and the author of the critically acclaimed Uncle Albert series of science books for children.

Customer Reviews:

An excellent update to a classic introduction to modern phys.......2004-09-19

My introduction to the world of the mild-mannered bank clerk with an interest in modern Physics came through copies of the original 1940s books rescued from a school library "disposal" pile. Unlike the school librarian I treasured those books, which presented hard science in a humorous, accessible way, and learned a lot from them.

George Gamow brought his original material up to date for "Mr Tompkins in Paperback" shortly before his death in 1968. However, since then Physics has moved on still further, and a new update was appropriate. Russell Stannard took on the challenge, and has done a superb job.

The new version brings both the science and the charming human back story fully up to date, and also addresses some inconsistencies in the earlier text and illustrations caused by their derivation from a group of separate magazine articles.
The books tackles all the main areas of modern Physics, from relativity to particle physics. Each topic is presented by both a serious (but straightforward) lecture text, and also by analogies in a dream experienced by one off the main characters. The two reinforce one another, and should leave the reader with a good basic understanding of all the key concepts. Familiarity with basic arithmetic and elementary concepts of classical physics are the only prerequisites, but the text should also be enjoyable for those with greater background knowledge.

I am very glad to see this classic developed for a new generation, and thoroughly recommend it.

Physics=awesome!.......2004-04-13

I normally do not like to read, but i didn't mind reading this. It only took a week, which is good for someone who does not like to read. Never before had I had such an incredible grasp of physics. This really helped to understand the concept of space-time and other areas. This is Gamow's best and everyone is encouraged to to read it. Take it from someone who does not read often. For those of you who may be misunderstanding the concepts and experiments in physics, this book will help you. It mentions a topic more than once and allows one to understand it. Thanks Mr. Gamow for writing this book. I would also like to thank my physic's teacher, Mr.Mike Lanham of Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Georgia, for developing love and passion of physics and reading!

Good Book but Needs an Index & Bibliography.......2003-11-16

This was an enjoyable book, but it would profit by an index and bibliography. I keep wanting to refer to material read earlier, and foundd it difficult to find. I finally used the glosary as the basis of an index. When I thought there was a term in the book that might also be in the glossary, I wrote the page number down in the glossary. It'll be useful when I return to the book, which I'm sure I will. I can understand why they didn't provide a bibliography, but even a one pager would help. It only needed to be topic driven and not historically driven. Don't need a chronicle of events. I'm sure they didn't want to add to the expense or turn the book into something of an academic book.

Much of the material in the first few chapters is available in books like Epstein's Relativity Visualized, which I highly recommend. I really like the last three chapters, which were added to the book. The chapters on how particle accelerators work and on elementary particles were very good. The later was a very insightful treatment on how the particles got their properties. Very well done. Also liked the chapter on space curvature. A reference might be good here on non-euclidean geometry, or naybe a reference to Abbott's Flatland or Ian Stewart's Flatterland, although they aren't on non-euclidean geometry.

The introduction of fictional characters in the Tompkins book is quite useful and helpful. It somehow makes the facts more appealing. That alone perhaps encouraged me to read it from cover to cover. It softened the material at appropriate times rather than keep it on a hard track.

The book had some trouble with the Andromeda Galaxy. In two places it had the distance wrong and in disagreement with one another. 800K ly (circa 1950s value) and 1M ly (not sure where that came from). I believe the accepted value is 2M ly. In one place it called the galaxy The Great Andromeda Nebula. It's not a nebula.

The New World of Mr. Tompkins.......2002-04-30

This book is a great way to explore physics outside of the classroom and outside of the textbook. This book allows the reader to take Einstein's Theory of Relativity and see it in a way that is vivid and allows the reader to understand the concepts behind Einstein's great theory. The author that revised the book added extra adventures that helped the context of the book. The added illustration and charts are an added bonus that help the reader gain more of an understanding.

Physics is Fun !!.......2002-04-30

"The New World of Mr.Tompkins" is I think, a really interesting fabulous book. George Gamow uses a character Mr.Tompkins an creates an interesting world, at the same time increasing the reader's knowledge and interest in Physics. You can clearll imagine as you are travelling with Mr. Tompkins and the book really makes Physics fun for you.

Mr.Tompkins and George Gamow transforms Physics into a fun interesting subject while really teaching you the mechanisms of Physics and going in Quite deep into the world of Physics.It will spark your imagination to look at things with different perspectives. It talks about quarks, Einstein's theory of Relativity, Speed of Light, Closed Universe,space warps, the Quantum World and lots more!!

I would definately recomend this book to everyone. From people that are really interested in Physics to the people who are a little reluctant to read anything about Physics. this is the book that will wrap you up into the world of Physics.

Average customer rating:

Essential Reading but...

The Lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization for improvisation: For all instruments
George Russell
Manufacturer: Concept Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Acoustics & Sound | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007GYIO6

Customer Reviews:

Essential Reading but..........2007-09-27

This an amazing book on improvisation. Just buy it brand new from the publishers for less than half instead of this grossly inflated price and you'll be straight.

Standard Catalog Of United States Tokens 1700-1900: One Comprehensive Catalog In Which May Be Found All These References : Early American Tokens, Hard ... (Standard Catalog of Us Tokens, 1700-1900)

Average customer rating:

Great resource for token collectors!
Standard Catalog of U.S. Tokens 1700-1900
The all around best reference book for United States Tokens.

Standard Catalog Of United States Tokens 1700-1900: One Comprehensive Catalog In Which May Be Found All These References : Early American Tokens, Hard ... (Standard Catalog of Us Tokens, 1700-1900)
Russell Rulau
Manufacturer: Krause Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0873419898

Book Description

This 4th edition of the Numismatic Literary Guild?s award

winner features updated, revised pricing, hundreds of new

token listings, and detailed photographs. Author Russell Rulau,

one of the most respected medal and token authorities in the

world, explores tokens from colonial days to the dawn of the

20th Century. Includes expanded coverage of post-Civil War

tokens, as well as Civil War cardboard chits.

Collectors, dealers and students alike will need the new edition

of this all-time best-selling token catalog, which combines

Early American, Hard Times, Merchant, Civil War, Trade and

Gay Nineties pieces into a one-volume token library.

Customer Reviews:

Great resource for token collectors!.......2007-03-09

Put on your reading glasses and your back-brace! This updated volume (4th edition) is huge, heavy, and filled to the brim with small print and b/w pictures...but those are necessary evils considering the breadth of information covered in this book. I wondered if the $35 price would be justified and I suppose it is. There may be easier ways (e.g., on-line) to find information about individual tokens, private merchant coins and cards, commemorative US coins, campaign tokens, as well as territorial gold and silver, but for serious collectors of early American exonumia or anyone trying to identify or establish the value of an unusual US coin, this volume is indispensable. I only wish my eyes were better! I'm glad I bought the book. Beyond its usefulness as a field guide, it is chock-full of interesting historical information and trivia, making it a very cool resource for anyone curious about how commerce, politics, and territorial expansion took place in colonial and post-colonial times. It also covers the Civil War era and after, up until the turn of the 20th century. Collecting these rare coins can be a gratifying hobby. Many of the coins are quite affordable and all are interesting snapshots of the mindset of our forebears. Also, by using this guide one might discover that the weird coin or faded store card found in Grandpa's sock drawer is a unique treasure which could yield big "bucks" (an exonumia term: buckskins were used as currency in the colonial period) at the next coin show or in an online auction. I gave the book 4 stars only because there are no color pictures, even though the details of coins are often easier to see in black and white. If there were color plates, however, I might not have been able to afford to buy this book.

Standard Catalog of U.S. Tokens 1700-1900.......2007-03-08

Catalog was rec'd promptly and in good condition. Contents are everything we thought it would be.

The all around best reference book for United States Tokens........2007-02-20

This is the absolute best reference book for collectors of United States Tokens and exonumia. The detailed pictures make identification easy and the index works extremely well. This is a must have for any United States coin/token collector. A++

Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment

Average customer rating:

Building a case that political judgement is both emotive and rational.
Why Emotion Improves Political Participation.

Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment
George E. Marcus , W. Russell Neuman , and Michael MacKuen
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226504697

Book Description

Although the rational choice approach toward political behavior has been severely criticized, its adherents claim that competing models have failed to offer a more scientific model of political decisionmaking. This measured but provocative book offers precisely that: an alternative way of understanding political behavior based on cognitive research.

The authors draw on research in neuroscience, physiology, and experimental psychology to conceptualize habit and reason as two mental states that interact in a delicate, highly functional balance controlled by emotion. Applying this approach to more than fifteen years of election results, they shed light on a wide range of political behavior, including party identification, symbolic politics, and negative campaigning.

Remarkably accessible, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment urges social scientists to move beyond the idealistic notion of the purely rational citizen to form a more complete, realistic model that includes the emotional side of human judgment.

Customer Reviews:

Building a case that political judgement is both emotive and rational........2007-03-07

This is an informative, thoughtful, academic presentation of a model of political judgement that may compete with the rational choice model that has dominated political science.

The authors present a model whereby two domains or process facilitate decision making, a rational deliberative domain and a threat surveilance domain. Politicians must appeal to both domains when conducting a campaign. In the area of the rational deliverative domain, the politician must build enthusiams for their leadership while reducing the enthusiams for the leadership of their opponent. At the same time, the threat surveilance domain must be activated, creating anxiety. Thus a successful campaign must ensure that anxiety about the candidate is kept at a minimum while raising anxiety about the other candidate. This model would explain why negative campaigns work and have become a standard operating procedure in political life.

The model also explains that whereas the deliberative logical rational aspect of measuring political opponents may be appropriate for a subset of our society, that other subsets in the society will not respond to political stimuli and information unless it is formulated in a way to raise anxiety.

This approach would indicate that we can not divorce emotion from reason and that successful political campaigns recognize this and develop a multiple strategy approach to influence the processes of voter enthusiasm or lack thereof or of anxiety or lack thereof.

Why Emotion Improves Political Participation........2006-06-08

For many generations, both academia in various disciplines and journalism in the news and editorial departments have widely adhered to the idea that the ideal citizen is detached, disinterested, and well-informed. This ideal has persisted despite the generally observable phenomenon that people who are detached or disinterested very frequently lack the motivation to become well-informed.

The authors of this book--two professors of political science and one professor of communications--seek to rehabilitate the reputation of those political actors who are motivated in significant part by an emotional commitment to one vision or another of significant societal improvement. They succeed admirably. No one who reads and studies this book will look at the politically passionate the same way again.

"So when do we think about politics?" the authors ask. "When our emotions tell us to," they answer. "We posit that individuals monitor political affairs by responding habitually, and for the most part unthinkingly, to familiar and expected political symbols, that is, by relying on past thought, calculation, and evaluation. But the central claim of our theory is that when citizens encounter a novel or threatening actor, event or issue on the political horizon, a process of fresh evaluation and political judgment is required."

The authors revise the traditional research paradigm. Political attentiveness, generally thought to be static in frequency, is seen as dynamic, along with affect, or feeling. Concepts of attitudes and party affiliation--traditionally thought of as having both thoughtful and habitual elements--are seen instead as being merely dominated by habitual behavior. Opposition between affect (feeling) and cognition is replaced by interaction between affect and cognition.

The "intrumental orientation to political behavior" is replaced by a "mix of thoughtless reliance on habit and explicit calculation of interest." The "idealized notion of citizenship" is replaced by "political ideals and institutions informed by realism about psychological dynamics."

Political issues, traditionally considered equivalent, are now considered a variable by issue type. Similarly, attentiveness and self-interest are no longer assumed to be considered contstansts but are considered variables.

"Our research leads us to conceptualize affect and reason as two complementary mental states in a delicate, interactive, and highly functional dynamic balance," the authors state. "We...argue that affective systems manage both our response to novelty and our reliance on established habits. More importantly, our work suggests that in addition to managing our emotional reactions to things that are novel, threatening, and familiar, affect also influences when and how we think about such things."

The authors invade the field of psychology and the neurosciences to present detailed findings. They discuss the brain's limbic region, which "governs behavior by monitoring primarily positive reinforcers and establishing dispositions."

These dispositions are "attached to previous experiences (which) governs people's behavioral repertoires....The disposition system relies on emotional assignment to control the execution of habits: we sustain those habits about which we feel enthusiastic and we abandon those that cause us despair."

The disposition system is contrasted with the surveillance system, "which acts to scan the environment for novelty and sudden intrusion of threat. It serves to warn us when we cannot rely on past learnings to handle what now confronts us and to warn us that some things and some people are powerful and dangerous. This system uses emotion to signal the consequences of its ongoing analyses. It generates moods of calmness, on the one hand, and anxiety, on the other...."

After a detailed foray into the neurosciences to document these conclusions, the authors return to more traditional political science, analyzing in depth the detailed survey data in the 1980-1996 American National Election Studies, which focus on the attitudes of the American people towards the various Presidential candidates during this time period.

They focus on the fluctuating levels of enthusiasm and anxiety towards various Presidential candidates, and find that as the level of anxiety towards a candidate that the voter would traditionally support on the basis of partisan affiliation rises, the voter searches the candidate's character and issue positions in far greater detail to see if the candidate is worthy of support. This provides a theoretical explanation for the power of negative campaigning, despite the fact that it is so very widely detested.

The affective intelligence theory is contrasted with the normal vote model and the rational choice model. Under the affective intelligence theory, the attentive voters are those who are either "habitually attentive" or those who are "anxious" about a candidate they would otherwise be inclined to support. "Those for whom new information generates anxiety" are "receptive to new information."

In short, the decision on who to vote for is based on "either reliance on habituated cues or reasoned considerations when unfamiliar or threatening situations preclude routine reliance on habit."

These conclusions are backed by statistical data from the ANES studies. Complacent voters place a 44% reliance on partisan cues, the find, while an anxious voter places only an 8% reliance on partisan cues. An anxious voter places almost twice as a great a share on reliance on candidate qualities than a complacent voter (35% to 19%), and almost twice as a great a share on policy preferences (57% to 35%).

After their research was completed, I believe President Clinton helped prove that this intense focus on candidate qualities and policy preferences can ultimately work to benefit a candidate who makes voters anxious: the Democrats broke a long historical pattern and scored net gains of Congressional seats in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandals.

This book is well worth reading and intensely studying by anyone who is active in political campaigns, by any journalist covering political campaigns, or by anyone studying political survey data. The authors seem to recognize the difficulties of penetrating the jargon they employ, and deal with the problem by frequent repetitions of the points they are making. A better written book would have been clearer and shorter. But the book is neither impenetrable or of excessive length, and the time it takes to master the points the authors are making is well worth the effort.

The authors deserve credit for their success in both conceptualization and research design. Integrating the neurosciences with political science and communications is a useful innovation. The combing and combining of twenty years of Presidential polling data is also a useful and rather rare accomplishment. It will be difficult to find a more substantive and profound book on the creation and monitoring of public opinion than this one.

Sails and Steam in the Mountains: A Maritime and Military History of Lake George and Lake Champlain

Average customer rating:

Quite the bloody history for a peaceful lake!

Sails and Steam in the Mountains: A Maritime and Military History of Lake George and Lake Champlain
Russell P. Bellico
Manufacturer: Purple Mountain Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

ASIN: 0935796320

Customer Reviews:

Quite the bloody history for a peaceful lake!.......1999-08-31

I'm enjoying reading this book and am learning all sorts of neat things about an area I love visiting. Since at the time I last studied the French and Indian wars I'd never even been to NY, it has a fresh relevance to me.

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