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These are people forging a new world view
Dr. Schumacher, author of "Small is Beautiful" died in 1977 but supporters were not prepared to let his memory die as he will go down in history as one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century. His "A Guide for the Perplexed" told us that our traditional philosophical map makers pass to us a map of life that is not only inaccurate and misleading but without reference to any of the really important matters such as what we should do with our life. Schumacher's essay "Buddhist Economics" threw mud on convention by saying that it is not the Third World which should learn about the high technology of the west, but rather that the west should learn from the spiritual perception of the east. One observer said of Schumacher; "His influence was in his presence which was magnificent, his character, which one can only describe as loveable, his rock-like common sense, his freshness of approach and constant probing into new realms of thought and new ideas. I don't believe anyone ever listened to him talk without coming under his spell. No matter how inimical an audience was to his ideas it could not listen to him without considering those ideas. He addressed, directly, probably tens of thousands of people in Europe and America and Australia - some of them the most influential in the world. He affected them all, every one of them."

Editor Satish Kumar said in his introduction: "The challenge E. F. Schumacher has left for us to meet is not to stop at the generalities of the goodness in 'small', but to take the concept in concrete terms and see how, in practice, small is workable and possible in health, in education, in agriculture, in commerce and industry. One danger we face in this world of specialization is that we tend to take only one aspect or one dimension of reality and think of it as total reality ... Therefore it is an apt tribute to Fritz Schumacher that we have six lectures, and two shorter papers, which individually and collectively represent the totality - the holistic vision. Here we have the vision of R. D. Laing, whose ideas and experiences of reality are in total harmony with the external realities of our planet. In the same way, the concerns of Amory Lovins for soft energy and Ivan Illich's concerns for deschooling, medical nemesis and conviviality touch the core of personal, social and cosmic existence. Similarly, John Michel's plea to take a long view of history and not get hooked on Darwin, Fritjof Capra's call to liberate ourselves from the Newtonian past, andEdward de Bono's warning to guard against straight-jacket thinking all form part of that same holistic vision. What is the sign of a great man? A person whose head is high above in the clouds, whose vision can reach the ultimate reality, but at the same time whose feet are grounded in the soil of intimate experience, who is practical, simple and able to communicate with people of every kind. E. F. Schumacher was one such great man."

Man has two natures - the materialistic and spiritual. We are not unique today in over-emphasizing the material and neglecting the spiritual as John Michell points out in 'The Ideal World-View': "'The earth is not a dead body, but is inhabited by a spirit that is its life and soul. All created things, minerals included, drew their strength from the earth spirit. This spirit is life, it is nourished by the stars and it gives nourishment to all living things it shelters in its womb. Through the spirit received from on high, the earth hatches the minerals in her womb as the mother her unborn child.' Those were the words of a medieval alchemist, initiate and philosopher, but they might have been spoken by a shaman or elder of a traditional society in any continent on earth. In civilized times when philosophy becomes detached from experience, there are, as we know, occasional outbreaks of the mechanical universe idea. Epicurus tried it out in ancient Greece, and we ourselves are still plagued by bits and pieces from the Newtonian mechanism; but as Schopenhauer put it, 'This fundamental error (materialism) .. raises its head from time to time afresh, until universal indignation compels it to hide itself once more.'"

By decision we can make the world that best suits our interests. People justify their activities at any particular time by making a cosmology that reflects their own particular ideas and obsessions. No society which is based entirely on rational or single-minded principles can endure for any great length of time. Although these lectures were given more than twenty years ago, they are as relevant today as they were when given. Most of the lecturers have gone on to make significant contributions in their fields and are still active. These are people who have been willing to think out of the box and forge a new world view. We should listen to these people who are forging the new paradigm. ... Read more

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Fast Eddie Feslon, "The Hustler", returns to the game of pool only to find that it has changed. The author has also written "The Man Who Fell To Earth" and "The Queen's Gambit". ... Read more

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From the Cover:
The story is that of the best-forgotten crime of the century; the holocaust of the Armenian people by the Turks in 1915.Yet here it is both history and fable, told in a sequence of beautifully written conversations and stories, polished by exotic myth and vivid imagery.It takes the Armenian Thovma Khatisian back to the past to see the atrocities as his forbears saw them, tracing his father's life from an idyllic mountain village to the torture chambers of the Turkish rulers, delving far back into Armenian history, vividly recreating the folklore, legends and traditions of an early Christian people.[The Author was a Holocaust survivor of a Ukrainian Nazi death camp.] ... Read more

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This text has photocopiable assessment sheets for each "Abacus" unit (or pairs of units). Each sheet is accompanied by guidance on how to use and interpret the sheet, including: advice on delivering the test; diagnostic advice; remediation activities; and oral mental maths questions. ... Read more

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Long gone are the days of simply treating children as small adults. It is now well understood that they often require very different clinical management than the general patient population. Reflecting the special needs of the pediatric patient, The Pediatric Abacus: Review of Clinical Formulas and How to Use Them brings together - in a single resource - the basic mathematical formulas required for treating children in the clinical setting. Combining the convenient format of Dr. Rifkind's The Medical Abacus with Dr. Cohen's pediatric expertise, the book presents key clinical formulas with clear explanations and guidelines on how to interpret their results and use them for children. Each entry provides use, formula, interpretation, comparison between adult and child values when applicable, and references.Topics include:·Blood gas values ·Height and weight norms for drug dosing and nutritional assessment·Erthyrocyte indices for differential diagnosis of anemia ·Nitrogen balance and its relevance for assessing adequacy of protein intake·Recommended protein requirement·Pharmacokinetics and digoxin dosing ·Creatinine clearance and estimating glomerular filtration Designed to meet the needs of pediatricians and other clinicians involved in treating pediatric patients, The Pediatric Abacus: Review of Clinical Formulas and How to Use Them is a comprehensive yet concise reference that gives you quick and easy access to vital information. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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These fun mental maths activities, puzzles and questions provide on-going practice of key mathematical skills. This extra practice means children are constantly revisiting important mathematical skills. The activities require little or no preparation, are brief enough to be done in minutes. ... Read more

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Donald R. Maxwell analyzes the concepts of time, memory,self, and thought in Proust'sla recherche du temps perdu and in thephilosophy of Henri Bergson. Dr. Maxwell introduces thedigital-analogic opposition (abacus and rainbow) that permeatesBergson's philosophy. Bergson's analysis of memory is distinct fromProust's, but resembles that of contemporary neurophysiology. Hespecifies two aspects of being, as well as the twinning of self inmemory, which are both present throughout Proust's great novel. WhileBergson uses linguistic imagery to communicate his philosophy,Proust's use of language is more to suggest, evoke, and create.BothBergson and Proust describe the process of artistic creation inrelated yet contrasting ways. Dr. Maxwell provides new insight intothe origins of the similarities between Bergson's philosophy andelements of the Proustian universe. ... Read more

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A Computer Science Reader covers the entire field of computing, from its technological status through its social, economic and political significance. The book's clearly written selections represent the best of what has been published in the first three-and-a-half years of ABACUS, Springer-Verlag's internatioanl quarterly journal for computing professionals. Among the articles included are: - U.S. versus IBM: An Exercise in Futility? by Robert P. Bigelow - Programmers: The Amateur vs. the Professional by Henry Ledgard - The Composer and the Computer by Lejaren Hiller - SDI: A Violation of Professional Responsibility by David L. Parnas - Who Invented the First Electronic Digital Computer? by Nancy Stern - Foretelling the Future by Adaptive Modeling by Ian H. Witten and John G. Cleary - The Fifth Generation: Banzai or Pie-in-the-Sky? by Eric A. Weiss This volume contains more than 30 contributions by outstanding and authoritative authors grouped into the magazine's regular categories: Editorials, Articles, Departments, Reports from Correspondents, and Features. A Computer Science Reader will be interesting and important to any computing professional or student who wants to know about the status, trends, and controversies in computer science today. ... Read more

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In his early 20s, Malachy discovers his stockbroker father is not his actual father. This revelation prompts Malachy to travel from New Jersey to London where he finds he has a second family. The author has also written "The Eleventh Summer" and "August in July". ... Read more

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This kit contains: teacher cards; photocopy masters; teacher's bok; lower junior simmering activities book; warm-up activities book; activity book; assessment book; challenge book; numeracy support book; and an answer book. ... Read more

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A collection of the poems Robert Nye wishes to preserve from his four previous collections. It also includes a number of new poems never published before, in a roughly chronological order. The author has won both the Hawthornden Prize and "The Guardian" Fiction Prize. ... Read more

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Genius from the World War II generation
I first encountered Arthur Koestler after watching a video about a month ago on the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, made in 1995, titled "I just wasn't made for these times." Wilson mentions a book written by Koestler on creativity. Koestler was of the World War II generation, but I have probably ignored him to my
own detriment. Still, I doubt that anyone will read this review. Most of his books are now in storage at my public library. He was an eclecticwriterparticularly in his later life, and his early life was extremely interesting and perilous. But he has since been replaced by other contemporaryauthors of high intellect,men like Stephen Hawking or Carl Sagan, to name two. He was born in Hungary and lived in several different countries in the years leading up to World War II. He was an intellectual journalist, particularly interested in science, who was an early opponent of Naziism, but an early supporter of Communism in the 1930's, later abandoning his faith in Stalin. From this era came his most famous book, "Darkness At Noon" also a successful play on Broadway. He supported the Communists and was imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, and was later placed in a dentention camp by the French. Later he travelled to Jerusalem, but he spent most of the World War II years as a soldier in Britain. As I recall, he was married twice before meeting Cynthia, who worked as his secretary. He met most of Europe's leading intellectuals including Sartre, Camus,de Beauvoir, Bertrand
Russell, Dylan Thomas, and was frequently involved in and wrote about intellectual causes which would most accurately be described as pacifist or in the interest of worldwide intellectual freedom and peace following World War II. In the 1950's as described in the book he supported a British movement to abolish the death penalty and later supported a euthanasia movement.
He lived in Paris, in London, and also in the United States for several years. He wrote several volumes of an autobiography which was quite complex. In his latter years, beyond the scope of this book, he became interested in research in the sciences, some of which one might describe as obscure, such as parapsychology, others such as psychological theory were merely current. His wrote historical biographies of famous scientists. All in all an interesting life,and though he was a writer by trade, his life was perhaps more like a movie star, perhaps Elizabeth Taylor. He had many female companions , and part of Cynthia's role was to protect him and his interests. The book alternates chapters in part one between Koestler and Cynthia; part two is written entirely by Cynthia.

Koestler aged and lost
Koestler led an interesting life, but here is perhaps the duller part of his life. The biography is quite clearly unfinished, and unpolished. Cynthia, his wife who wrote the second part of the book is quite obviously besotted and under the control of Koestler (Koestler's relations with women were seldom sympathetic). It talks of the more mundane middle class lifestyle that Koestler got into, perhaps compensating for all the upheavals of his younger days. But by the time this was written most of Koestler's creativity was over and done, with even on scientific matters and capital punishment. Euthanasia and suicide was his last cause and one that overshadows this book... as it does unconsciously his relations with females...
Both Arthur and his wife, died in a suicide pact while this book was being written. AK was greatly dehabilitated and in pain at the end, but the controversy remains as to why Cynthia joined him in death and did AK bully her into it? ... Read more