Where to start?....Blue Baby is where John started by connecting a nursery rhyme with tetralogy of Fallot; An Infected Heart (which I've read to my students for >10 years now.....sometimes half the class is in tears by the time I reach the end where they inevitably gasp with comprehension of their own relationships with patients); Breath; Missed Signals; Balloon Man, it's a long and enjoyable list.

Reading and re-reading these gives you a sense of place within medicine (and reminds you exactly how grand those little events really are), it's a solid base from which to teach, it's wonder at the craft of an excellent wordsmith like Stone.

If you are in medicine, if you teach, if you are human.....read this one, you'll be glad you did.

It is difficult to address the questions of Islam, the Arabs and their relations with Israel and remain nonpartisan. But Business Week's Ronald Taggiasco called Pipes' scholarly explanation of events and faith in that little-known, volatile, and important part of the world well worth reading.

Pipes' reasoned, literate explanation of what generated the Islamic resurgence goes a long way to explaining recent events. Written in 1983, this book provided the first comprehensive political study of Islam's extraordinary role in modern world. We are fortunate indeed that Transaction has rescued the political and global implications of the Islamic revival, revealed here, from the out-of-print category, complete with a new preface for 2002.

The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the premodern legacy of Islam's sacred laws and its failure to implement the public ideal represented by those laws--as existed in the single state for Muslims (Dar al-Islam) from 622 to 753 A.D. According to Pipes, for most of Muslim history, traditional Muslims were willing to accept the gap between the ideal and the actual, to live with a less-than-complete implementation of Shari'a, although the Muslim approach to politics derived from the "invariant premises of the religion" established more than 1,500 years ago.

The second section covers Islam's encounters with the West, beginning with the matched powers of Crusaders against the Ayyubids, and proceeding quickly to Napoleon's 1789 invasion of Egypt. (This prompted the Ottoman Sultan Selim III to declare Jihad against the French and join the infidel British and Russian empires to keep his own in tact).

Muslims had ruled millions of Christians in Europe for 450 years before being displaced by Turkey. Then the western cultural onslaught began in the first half of the 18th century, and ran from Umma's eastern end (China and Indonesia) to its west (Crimea). By the end of 1919, only Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Arabia and Yemen retained political independence, the first three by balancing the claims of Britain against those of Russia and the latter two simply by being remote and completely barren. Meanwhile, the Muslim Empire had also lost battles of scientific, technical, mechanical, geographic and historical knowledge. Even daily Western life differed markedly from that of the Islamic east. Thus fundamentalists began lobbying for strict Shari'a everywhere in the Umma.

In contrast, reformist Muslims argue that traditional Shari'a is hopelessly illiberal and conflicts with the true Qur'anic values. They reject Shari'a traditions emanating from Hadith, consensus of the 'ulama and reasoning by analogy as inauthentic and outdated, respectively. Similarly, they approve of parliamentary systems of government, but view hold their record in Islamic society in contempt. On some fronts, liberal views conflict with themselves. While they admire pan-Islamic solidarity they are not committed to it; and they recognize national interests but disapprove of Muslim states fighting one another. And as for non-Muslims, according to Pipes, reformists are caught by ambiguity, between their desire for equal status for all and the wish for Dhimmi laws that traditional Islamic states use to bestow a special place on Muslims, while relegating all non-Muslims to inferior, even slavish conditions. The fact that Westernization did not markedly improve the Muslim world in the 1970s led to increasing fundamentalism.

Pipes devotes the third section to Islam in current affairs, detailing the effects of the fundamentalist surge on 22 Muslim-dominated nations from Indonesia, Afghanistan and Pakistan in Central Asia and Asia to Algeria, Morocco and Egypt in Africa and Syria, Iran and Iraq, in the Middle East. In at least 8 other nations, from Malaysia to Nigeria, Muslims vie with non-Muslims for power. In one of these--the Sudan--the conflict has grown bloody since this book was written, forcing millions into subjugation and slavery. Pipes also reviews 20 areas, including the former Soviet Union, where Muslims account for less than a quarter of the population but are asserting themselves. Pipes includes an extensive 50-plus page look at the means that the oil boom provided to promote Islam. Oil is behind the political importance of Saudi Arabia, and the Iranian Revolution, for example.

But Pipes also concludes that an Islamic revival dependant on oil constitutes a mirage, for the cash that oil provides cannot last forever. This, Pipes predicts, will leave the Islamic world with a choice that has become increasingly urgent--to adapt and come to terms with global Westernization, or to accept apologetics, introversion and poverty.

This broad treatment remains as helpful in understanding current events as when it was written nearly 20 years ago. Alyssa A. Lappen

Along with all the hard-hitting research that Matthiessen brings to his writing, he's also at home with the natural history of Indian lands. He is subtle in the way he takes you with him on a walk through a working village or a ride to Black Mesa to get a truckload of household coal. Matthiessen spends time among the people living on the reservations, observing the slow encroachment of capitalism into their traditional ways of farming and trade, and ultimately seeing tribes divided into progressive and traditional factions.

Matthiessen is guided by the self-described, "half-baked detribalized Mohawk...," Craig Carpenter. Carpenter serves in many instances as the ambassador between Matthiessen and the locals on the reservations. And because of Carpenter's national reputation many doors that are generally closed to white writers are opened for Matthiessen.

Indian Country covers some dozen or so reservations in the United States. The sad revelation when you read through this book is every one of those reservations is confronted with a serious threat to the land they call home and a way of life they have know since being put on this earth.

And how could anyone, journalist or not, remain disinterested in the face of such things? More journalists and writers should have Matthiessen's courage and conviction.

This handy 3 volume cross-cultural reference of sexuality around the world is truly one of a kind. No sex researcher or educator should be without this impressive set.

Furthermore, any sex therapist who has an international client base (or who works in a culturally-diverse city) will find this reference set essential to their work.

Bravo to Francoeur and Company!

William J. Taverner

Editor, Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality

I thought I knew the history. But like the author points out so many times in the book, the "knowledge" most parties have on the struggle between Islam and Christianity is generally based on mis-information and complete falsehoods resulting from the historical separation of the two social systems.

I now feel better prepared to listen and deal with all the news and information that we face in the continually complex Middle East. I no longer feel dependent on the historically biased slant one gets from the social and religious environments that we live with in the Western world. This book will help a person interpret and better understand the information that presents itself from the evolving Middle East events.

Assistant Phd Adem Uzun Ahmet Yesevi University Turkistan/Kazakstan

Industri perbankan islami saat ini telah berkembang pesat di negara negara dengan penduduk majorotas muslim,termasuk juga dengan Indonesia,malaysia,dan Brunei bahkan Pilipina,yang dengan demikian mengharuskan setiap banker untuk memahami apa dan bagaiman Bank Islam itu sebenarnya?

Banyak orang yang masih berpendapat bahwa pola operasional islami yang berpagu pada prinsip loss and profit sharing systems adalah sesuatu yang sulit,akan tetapi ternyata dalam praktek system ini berjalan dengan baik.Pemahaman mana seharusnya juga di miliki oleh setiap insan perbankan,termasuk didalamnya bank central atau di Indonesia disebut sebagai bank Indonesia

Bahwa namun demikian kita sadari keterbatasan resources tentang hal hal yang berkiatan dengan bak islam dalam bahasa Indonesia,dan atau yang mendekati approache khas Indonesia.Untunglah kemudian M Arref seorang Lecture pada University Malaya,berkenan mengenalkan pola islami pada dunia perbankan dengan judul bukunya ini,dan salah satu dari resourcesnya adalah buku buku atau artikel artikel tentang perkembangan bank islam di Indonesia

Buku ini sangat penting,karena tidak hanya membahas tentang instrument invesment islami secara definitif tetapi juga membahasa dengan lancranya semua hal yang berkaitan dengan perkembangan bank Islam di Asia tenggara,Memiliki buku ini adalah sangat penting bagi kita para banker,karena bagaimanapun perkembangan insudtri perbankan islami merupakan sesuatu yang patut dipertimbangkan

Tentu saja sekali lagi saya berharap,kepada siapapun yang berkenan untuk menterjemahkan buku ini dalam bahasa Indonesia,bahkan saya mohon kepada Tuan A.Areef agar berkenan menulis ulang buku ini dalam bahasa melayu yang tentu saja difahami oleh Banker atau pecinta buku Indonesia

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