Law Books

This was a great introduction to security issues since 9.11.01. It is a good book for someone who is checking out where the security issues of the US originate.

"Homeland Security: A Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing and Surviving Terrorism", contains two chapters addressing the Islamic aspects of the current era of terrorism and jihad activity: Chapter 4, "The Mind of the Terrorist: Why They Hate Us", and Chapter 5, "Al-Qaida and Other Islamic Extremist Groups: Understanding Fanaticism in the Name of Religion". Each chapter is complimented with endnotes (29 for Chapter 4, and 19 for Chapter 5) and the absence of a bibliography suggests that the endnotes comprise the primary sources for each chapter. There are no Islamic sources.

Chapter 4, "The Mind of the Terrorist: Why They Hate Us" addresses Palestinian Terrorism, Iranian Terrorism, Suicide in the Name of Islam, Conditions For Terrorism and other considerations such as strife, poverty, ignorance, political oppression as motivations and sources of terrorist activity. The mandates in Islamic law animating jihad and directly influencing the terrorist mindset are not addressed.

In Chapter 5, "Al-Qaida and Other Islamic Extremist Groups: Understanding Fanaticism in the Name of Religion", the authors identify the five pillars of Islam and simply state that Zakat is the Giving of Alms.

A primary legal reference within the Sunni tradition, Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri's "Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law", tells the Homeland Security Professional that there are eight obligatory disbursements for Zaket. Three of them support warfighting and impact Homeland Security: Those Whose Hearts are to Reconciled; Those Fighting for Allah; and, Travelers Needing Money.

"Those Whose Hearts Are To Be Reconciled" (Traveller, page 270-271) states that "alms" may be given to ensure propagation of the faith in initial stages. Those to be reconciled include: Chief personages of a people (with weak or fledgling institutions needing economic support to improve or whose peers may be expected to enter Islam); Heads of a people who collect zakat for Islam from Muslims living near them who refuse to pay it; and, Heads of a people who fight an enemy for Islam at considerable expense and trouble to themselves. The obligatory disbursements for those whose hearts are to be reconciled constitute funding mechanisms facilitating the establishment of Islamic footholds in non-Muslim areas and the consolidating of those footholds to increase Islamic influence.

"Those Fighting for Allah" (Traveller , page 272) includes those engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted and are to be "Given enough to suffice them for the operation even if affluent of: weapons; mounts; clothing; expenses: and, for the duration of the journey, round trip, and the time they spend there." Current interpretation and practice has been to provide expenses in supporting such person's family during this period. The obligatory disbursements for those fighting for Allah constitute a funding mechanism for combat, combat support and combat service support operations. This disbursement category is ideally suited for supporting autonomous, decentralized, asymmetrical military operations.

"Travelers Needing Money" (Traveller, page 272) include those who are "passing through a town in Muslim lands where zakat is collected or whose journey was not taken for the purpose of disobeying Allah, if such a person is in need, he is given enough to cover his personal expenses and transportation, even if he possesses money back home." The obligatory disbursements for travelers needing money defrays personal expenses and transportation costs associated with individual movement to and from conflict zones.

Continuing with Chapter 5, the authors touch very lightly on jihad failing to discuss the operational considerations both animating the enemy and whose understanding is essential to the Homeland Security Professional.

In addition to "Reliance of the Traveller," Al-Imam Abu Zakariya Yahya's, "Riyad-us-Salihee", (Darussalam, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: 1998), p. 976-1016 and Ibn Rushd's "The Distinguished Jurists Primer", (Vol I and II, Garnet Publishing, Reading, UK: 1994), 454-487, clearly identifies combat, combat support and combat service support roles for the Muslim community when one initiates Jihad. There is clear legal guidance on the following points: upon whom support to Jihad is obligatory; conditions affecting the obligation; identification of the persons to be fought; the scale of harm that may be inflicted on the enemy; conditions for the declaration of war; the identification of the number from whom retreat is not permissible; permissions for truce and the two reasons for waging war (to force the conversion to Islam and to secure the payment of the "jizya").

These essential considerations for assessing the present environment are neither addressed nor referenced in "Homeland Security" but may be readily accessed by reading Islam's legal texts.

All first editions are, in essence, first drafts. If the second edition of "Homeland Security" incorporates Islamic sources and objectively explores the influence of Islamic law on the tactical, operational and strategic elements of today's terrorist environment, the Homeland Security Professional will have a truly invaluable desk reference.

Homeland Security (The Mcgraw-Hill Homeland Security Series) by Mark Sauter and James Carafano is an all encompassing work that is a must for students and Homeland Security professionals alike. It is a comprehensive account of the evolution of Homeland Security, and the cornerstone text for a series of our continuing education courses.

Hard to put down! The work is divided into three parts, each building into the next. The first part is a historical perspective of Homeland Security from Colonial America, through today and the challenges imposed by contemporary terrorism. The second part is an in-depth look at the terrorist, their mindset, training, tactics and weapons. In a very clear manner, it enables the reader to understand Jihadists, Transnational and Domestic terrorists, and their goals. The final part outlines the issues of organization, policies, programs and concerns that have rapidly developed since the attacks of September 11th. It effectively culminates with the final chapter, The Future of Homeland Security: Adapting and Responding to the Evolving Terrorist Threat While Balancing Safety and Civil Liberties, which looks at terrorism, technology and the future of Homeland Security. The five appendices provide a wealth of reference and background material, and each chapter ends with a summary and quiz that makes it a natural choice for academic courses.

Whether you are a student, educator, law enforcement officer, first responder, CERT Team member, Homeland Security professional or concerned citizen, this book will give you a solid and insightful perspective of homeland security yesterday, today and tomorrow. It will be a key text in my reference library for years to come!

This is a great addition to the core rulebooks set. Along with the Players Handbook 2 and Unearthed Arcana as supplements to the Core rulebooks (Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual), you have a wide range of options to fully customize your D&D experience to suit your needs.

I'm not going to go into this review too much; understand that my depth of dungeon mastering goes above and beyond the norm and I can get very wordy with my critiques. The DMG 2 (Dungeon Masters Guide 2) is AMAZING and should've been the first installment instead of the second. Know this. Wizards of the Coast were under pressure to produce the 3.5 system and needed to get a guide on the shelf that cohesively conveyed game rules and mechanics. Of course there were sections to help a DM create a game world; however nothing that compares with the DMG2. As backward as this might sound, if there are any beginner Dungeon Masters out there who might be struggling with campaign/world creation - the DMG2 is going to put everything into perspective and read much more like a normal guide than stereo instructions (so to speak).

This book has several good points. It has some new material and a few new things for players and GM's alike. It's one irritating thing is the number of "after you buy the canned game book spend 4 hours reviewing it". It could have had a lot more things to help those of us with a creative mind that like to generate our own worlds. It is, overall, worth the money.

While this book is not nearly the resource that many of the more staple books are, like the Epic Handbook and PHB2, it is still extremely useful to add more flavor to the campaign. It gives some very good tips to create details and subtlties that make the campaign much more real without seeming narrated to the players. Anyone creating a new campaign could benefit with some of the examples in the Saltmarsh city, novice and veteran players alike.

There are also new and interesting traps, items, and rules that make this book very useful. I havn't read anyone talking about the Teamwork benefits, which are very interesting to me. I intend to implement them into my next campaign, assuming the players want to use any of them. The basic idea is that the group has worked and trained together, so they have studied each other to an extent that you gain special abilities and even feats when certain conditions are met. For example, a character with high Spellcraft and the Evasion ability can teach the rest of your party when to dodge a spell cast by a teammate. This means that the mage can cast fireball right on the fighter wading into melee and he gets to avoid the damage on a reflex save.

The new items, magic locations, and traps have some good ideas behind them, but nothing that a clever DM can't come up with on their own. I'm not saying they are useless, but many are hard to place into a campaign. The magic locations grant the owner specific powers and abilities, but in order for the players to get the location, it almost has to be the entire focus of the campaign. Very few are "side-quest" material, and the majority can take several sessions to get to, capture, find reagents to use them, and defend in order to reap the marginally useful benefits.

Most of the rest of the book is given over to npcs. There is a very large section of sample npcs to use for a fight. Unfortunetly, many aren't optimized, but that doesn't prevent them from being used by a lazy DM that doesn't feel like leveling up every single important npc in case the players fight him. There is also a section on making npcs more distinctive. This can easily be skipped over since DMG1 has a very similar section.

Overall, I have to say there is some interesting material and ideas to make a campaign world more interesting and unique. On the other hand, nothing in this book is game-changing. Useful? yes. Needed in any way? no

All right. Let's begin with a discussion of irony. Not irony as in the Alanis Morissette song (the greatest irony of which almost none of the things she calls ironic actually are). Instead we will talk about true irony.

Those of you who have read my previous reviews may have noticed a certain resistance to a phenomena I call "prestige class bloat." DMG II arrived at my door a bit late for a review copy, and I had some time to think about how I would view the prestige classes in this book. Every other book has drawn my anger, my disdain, sometimes even my pity for their prestige classes. But this book, I thought, "You know . . . I'm gonna give them a pass on this book. They might put the contents into the SRD at some point (it's possible). I'll let this one go."

And there are no prestige classes in this book.

I might weep. I might actually weep.

Anyway. We won't hold that against them. We won't. My review will be objective. Honest.

Actually, that won't be very hard. There's a lot to like in this book. Almost everything is useful. Some of it is downright insightful. When I reviewed the first DMG all those year's ago (all right, the first 3.x DMG . . . I'm not that old, people) I was amazed at how good the advice was. This wasn't just a set of DM specific rules, it really was a guide to being a good DM.

So here we are, years later, holding DMG II.

Chapter 1 deals with the actual running of a game. Now, in many ways this chapter resembles the Gamemaster's Law product from ICE. For years I've said that was the best book on GMing ever written. I'm friends with one of the authors. I'm crushed to say this, but, I like this one better. The bits on how to actually run are pretty blaise, although if your DM routinely shows up surly, sleepy and unwashed you might make him read this book. No, the true genius is the treatment of the different play styles. There was a lot of insight here I've missed over the years. In this section they talk about the different type of players and how to tailor a game for them . . . most importantly, they talk about how to avoid the pitfalls caused by these players. For instance, I've had problems with "Outliers" over the years. These are the players that choose strange class/race combinations, bizarre backgrounds, and seem to set themselves up to fail. An outlier can cause a great deal of trouble in a game if they go out of control at a bad moment. This book gave the simplest advice, to give the outlier the opportunity, a specific set up, to allow him to fail spectacularly early in the session, when it won't hurt anything. By doing this you'll avoid the problem of the character imploding later and taking your plot line with him. It's the simplest advice, but I've missed it for years, and now I know. I'm anxious to put it into use.

Chapter 2 deals with adventures. Now, this was sort of a ho hum chapter for me. When it's useful, I expect it to be very useful, but otherwise I doubt I'll ever look at it. It gives a section on using published adventures that I hope no one needs to read (but if you do, study it. I'm going into business as an e-publisher). It follows this up with some new traps, which are probably the most consistently useful thing in the chapter. Then it moves on to strange locations, such as the tree top city and all the rules necessary for play there. Then it moves onto special encounter rules, such as how to deal with mobs, which again, could be useful. Finally it wraps up with miniature and encounter advice, which was fine.

Chapter 3 deals with building a campaign. Most of the advice is pretty good, but the detailed examples of some medieval environments was truly spot on. I've studied a lot about medieval culture (I'm no expert, but above the gamer layman) and I thought they did a fine job here, especially in examining the fine line between realism and the style of play that is conducive to a good game. You absolutely need to compromise to find the perfect ground between the two, and I loved this book for even trying it. The rest of the chapter treats with general subjects like building a city or magical events and I looked upon it and I called it good.

Chapter 4 outlined the city of Saltmarsh. You know, I could have done without this chapter. I mean it was fine and all, but I thought the locale was a little too evocative of specific images to be as universal as a city in a book like this needed to be. We needed a Homlet, or better yet, a location that doesn't carry the baggage of roleplaying history with it (either good or bad). This chapter just didn't work for me as is. No offence to the writer. I believe this one went astray at conception (and as a game designer, I know the feeling. I've taken the fall for decisions that weren't mine in at least one book.)

Chapter 5 deals with NPCs. Its starts with a treatment of contacts and hirelings, plus a section on unique abilities. Then it hops into my favorite part, the complex NPCs. Lets face it, when you suddenly need a Blackgaurd, you need it now and it's not something you can wing and do it justice. This section gives a nice sampling of these types of difficult-to-improvise characters.

Chapter 6 is the character chapter, it starts with apprentices and mentors and moves on to running a business. Then it hits on teamwork benefits, like those given by special training in Heroes of Battle. I'm still glad these were added into the D&D system and I'm anxious to see more. Then it moves onto prestige classes. Sigh. Now, I was willing to see a few prestige classes in this book, hoping they'd make it into the SRD. Let's face it, only so many people can create versions of the Knight before you're accidently stepping on a half-dozen copyrights. I doubt anyone would sue you over retreading the same ground as everyone else, but we need to stop beating this poor horse. Still, they went a different way. This section is on how to build even more prestige classes. When I read the words, "Why make your own prestige class?" I wanted to find a set of precision needles and stick the one after another into my eyes. Flash forward ten years. "Why did he kill so many people, officer?" "Well, prestige class bloat was bad enough, but then they came out with DMG II. It was the beginning of the end." The chapter wraps up with some stuff on PC organizations.

Finally, the finishes with expanded magic item rules. The book needed this section, and I was happy with it. Of particular note is the section on magical locations which are essentially giant, immobile magic items. These types of locations have worked their way into my campaigns several times over the years. I was happy to see them here.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I would recommend that everyone who intends to run a game read at least the first chapter. I thought it alone was worth the cover price, and so if you can find a good use for the other material in the book, so much the better. Now I'm going to take a nap an imagine a world where prestige classes are few, balanced, and in some way prestigious.

Having read Patricia Cornwell's and then all the Jefferson Bass (Jon Jefferson and Bill Bass) novels, it was a foregone conclusion that I would have to read Death's Acre and I'm glad I did. Bass and Jefferson are excellent a writers as well as researchers and this book kept me page-turning far into the night (and yes I slept well afterword). It reads just like a novel and keeps you interested with facsinating information but never grossed out. I'm now over halfway through their next one printed in 2007 "Beyond the Body Farm". What's next?

I do not question this Author's intelligence or scientific knowledge. I do however, find this author's racial biases at times to be a little more than I can handle. Had he just stayed with pure scientific explanations regarding skeletal differences among the three main classifications: caucasiod, negroid and mongloid this book would have been rated by me as 6******'s However, when one is subjected to hear that the reason there are no black olympic swimmers is because their skulls are a tad thicker than a white person's I get more than annoyed and irritated.
I would think the Editor should have been a little more diligent and deleted the more obvious comments.

Death's Acre
Dr Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson

I am fascinated by forensics and the details that can be discovered through forensic work. So, when I got a chance to interview Dr Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson on a book panel, I was thrilled. I have to admit that neither of the men were what I expected, but that's all right. But, I was very impressed with both of them and I've enjoyed the books they have written together.

For people who aren't familiar with Dr Bill Bass, he is a world renowned forensic anthropologist and he has worked on a huge number of cases. At one point in those cases, he realized that it would be beneficial if there was a scientific way to determine how long a body had been dead. This would make it much easier for police, attorneys etc to make a case against a suspect. If the time of death is narrowed down to several days - it can be hard to debate an alibi, but if the time of death can be narrowed down to a more limited time frame, that makes an alibi more necessary and more useful.

This is one of the things that prompted the development of the "Body Farm" at the University of Tennessee. The Body Farm was started by Dr Bass and it was originally an acre - therefore "Death's Acre". Dr Bass and the UT students study the various stages of death and decomposition in a wide variety of conditions. It is fantastic research which is very helpful in crime solving.

I could rattle off all kinds of great stories and examples that were in the book, but that would take the fun out of it for you. I will tell you that there is death, gore and sorted details. It could be more gory, but there is plenty of detail. I think it was handled very well and should appeal to many people who are interested in forensics and forensic anthropology. I highly recommend the book and it gives you an interesting overview of many aspects for Dr Bass' life.

I admit that I had a tough time getting into the beginning, but give it a chance. The case studies are great. When I talked with Dr Bass, he looked at my copy of the book and noticed all the paper clips on the pages (there are a lot). He asked me what they meant. When I told him those were all the examples that I want to include in my future mysteries. He gave me a huge smile and said he was very glad he could get me thinking. Its a fantastic resource for mystery writers and entertaining for people who are interested in forensics.

Nikki Leigh

This book keeps your interest the entire way. The information was fascinating, informative from a science perspective, and gross all at the same time. Definitely a great book! I also enjoy reading about Dr. Bass' career.

Despite its title and subtitle, this book is really a chronicle of some of Dr. Bill Bass's professional experiences in the world of forensic science. In recounting these fascinating stories, Dr. Bass, an anthropologist, briefly explains how the idea of the Body Farm was conceived and how that facility evolved into reality. Some of the scientific research that takes place within the Body Farm is described but not belabored; it is made clear that the Body Farm is an important scientific tool (one of many) that is used in solving crimes. Consequently, most of the book is comprised of gripping descriptions of some of the cases in which Dr. Bass has been involved and in which he used everything he could in his forensic science armory to solve them, including the Body Farm. Also included in this book are a few tragic episodes that have occurred in Dr. Bass's personal life. The writing style is friendly, lively, authoritative, accessible and quite engaging. This is a book that can be enjoyed by anyone, although those fascinated by true crime and forensic science would likely relish it the most.

"Houseboy" is a stimulating story of life in Arica. It carries you to heights and depths of emotion as the story unveils. It is brief but thorough and easy reading. I could not put the book down!

This is a very interesting book. It was used for a class I took in African-American Literature. The book gives an account of a boy, named Toundi, whose dad would beat and curse him. The story is based in Africa. Toundi eventually left his parents home to stay at the European mission. He worked with a priest named, Father Gilbert. Toundi learned how to read and write English. His name was eventually changed to Joseph. His life was filled with changing situations and instability. Upon the death of Father Gilbert he eventually became a houseboy to the Commandant for the area. Certain individuals distrusted him because of a female in the story. The root cause of Toundi's problem was based on a male-female relationship including rumors of emotional affairs. The book shows that beauty on the outside can be misleading. The story has a twist of deceit, adultery, accusations, and power struggle. The setting and storyline is based in Cameroon during a period of colonialism that affected the culture of the people and the society. Toundi had written his story in a diary. It was found during his quest to escape to the Spanish zone from the mission. Unfortunately he died in his quest for freedom from bondage. He should have listened to his mother!

Often the protagonists of such colonial novels are caught between two worlds (e.g., Ngugi wa Thiog'o's "The River Between", or they are seen watching the colonists invade the traditional boundaries (e.g., Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"). This book is different. The protagonist rejects his traditional life in the first two pages. What happens then is the interest. The question is can an African ever be accepted as an equal by the colonizer? While you probably know the answer, Toundi's journey - as told by his journal - is an enthralling read. I read this book in about two and a half hours and missed a Red Sox playoff game on TV when I couldn't put it down. My only reservation is that I could not read it in the original French. I do not put it as a must read; but, if you enjoyed either "The River Between" or "Things Fall Apart," I would highly suggest you read it.

The setting is the Cameroons. Toundi Ondoua is to be whipped by his father and so he runs off to become Father Gilbert's servant. After Father Gilbert's death, he becomes the houseboy of the Commandant. From the Europeans he has acquired the name of Joseph. The Commandant's wife, Madame, arrives at the Residence. All of the white people desert the European Club for the reception at the Residence. Father Gilbert is referred to as a martyr because he died on African soil is the kind of talk overheard by the houseboy in his work at the Residence. He accompanies Madame to the Dangan market. She tells him his work is highly acceptable but then she accuses him of showing a lack of the joy ordinarily found in African workers. In Dangan the European quarter and the African quarter are quite separate. The houseboy knows Madame is having an affair with M. Moreau, the most distinguished European in the enclave, a prison director. The Commandant tells his wife all the houseboys in Dangan now know she sleeps with M. Moreau. The houseboy is falsely accused of a crime and is whipped. The false accusation emerges from the hysteria at the Commandant's house. The houseboy is taken to a hospital for his wounds, but he resolves to escape to the Spanish territory to save his life since M. Moreau is hungrily waiting for his release from the hospital to punish him in his own way. The novelist is an artist. The scenes presented are horrible, doom-ridden.

Houseboy, was written from an African perspective of colonialism by Cameroonian-born Ferdinand Léopold Oyono and is an examination of the complex relationships between Africa's colonialists and catalysts for economic and social change. Considered risqué when first published in 1956, Houseboy added to the growing body of African political literature beginning with the Negritude Movement launched by the Francophone writers in the late 1930's which advanced the idea that literature could serve as an important ideological instrument for African emancipation.

Seemingly innocuous on the surface, the story is derived from the diary and observations of a rural African boy named Toundi Ondoua during the pre-independence period from the colonial and missionary occupation of Cameroon. The tale of a young man growing up during this historical timeframe is meant to be systemic of Africans in general, as they too struggle with the impact of colonialism on their identity, society and culture.

In conclusion, Toundi's story is ironic and tragic as he gives up his traditional identity and is inevitably drawn into the web of servitude, standing transfixed as his fate and ultimate demise approaches. Toundi's fragile self-esteem and idealistic preconceptions about the Europeans begin to flake and peel like paint from an ancient fula fula (taxi).. Toundi realizes in the end that he belongs not to the world of his village nor to the one of the whites, but is caught in the groundswell of those Africans whose fate became inextricably tied to that of the colonialists and the changing world. Toundi inquires on his deathbed...."Brother, what are we? What are we blackmen who are called French?"

Falling Behind contains nine excellent essays exploring different aspects of why Latin America and the United States have different income levels. The key points in those nine essays are nicely summarized in Francis Fukuyama's conclusion, the tenth essay. The authors were well chosen to reflect both Latin American and U.S. perspectives.

I found that some of the arguments were more persuasive than others, especially the time series work that showed much of the loss of relative economic performance occurring during the time when Latin American countries were establishing their governments. That evidence seemed to be the smoking gun that shows that economic development requires stable, effective government.

Of equal interest were the investigations of the factors that don't seem to explain the differences, including religious culture, tropical climate, and disease.

The book is short on prescriptions. But Latin America seems likely to profit from improved government policies for economic development, better educational results, more inclusive two-party politics in democracies, improving security of property rights, making entrepreneurship easier, and avoiding regime changes.

Historical data make it hard to test everything, but I did wonder if geography might not have played a bigger role in falling behind the United States than this book suggests. A lot of the economic development of the U.S. in the early industrial revolution depended on having lots of cotton growing and the raw materials to make steel-based goods that could be inexpensively shipped across the North Atlantic to Europe. Latin America mostly lacked those same resources and access to the European markets at the same time.

I'm sure the debate over what went wrong in Latin America will continue as long as Latin America's prosperity lags behind the United States. It's a subject well worth considering to provide guidance for other developing regions, especially in Africa.

Great writter amazing book,
You go thru this book as he was talking to you.
I have read most of his books and he always keeps amazing me,amazing knowleadge, great writter.

First off, I have to say this book is absolutely perfect for all first-time freelance graphic designers. My business partner and I recently started our own design agency at [...] and didn't have a clue about where to get our hands on the legal forms needed. We were referred to this book from another source. And since my partner's father-in-law is a lawyer, we decided to let him take a look at it to see what he thought. He said everything was solid. He couldn't find any holes on any of the forms inside. So after making a few small changes to custom fit our business, we were set. I can honestly say this book should be on the shelf of every aspiring freelance graphic designer. I highly recommend it.

I have only serious clients who are willing to pay me because I take a contract to our first meeting and make them sign it. These contracts will protect you and your clients! They are worded with the legal stuff but easy to understand. He even explains what it all means. It even has a CD so you can pop it in your computer right before your meeting (as I have done) and print a contract.

This book has EVERYTHING you need ... and then some. When you think you're not going to need one of the forms in this book, you later realize that YOU DO! As a freelance artist, using these forms made me feel as though clients noticed that they were dealing with a real professional. Absolutely a great investment.

In starting out and gathering information it's hard to determine what books will be helpful. This is great. It is filled with tear out forms you can make copies of and use over and over. Great information. And the CD-ROM includes all the forms in pdf format, as well as Pagemaker and Quark XPress so that you can make changes to fonts and style, logo additions, and more, to suit your own home business. Files are compatible with Mac and IBMC platform, which is great for me being a designer working mostly on an IBM computer. Excellent book!

Our small graphic design firm had been relying on the legal forms and contracts from this book for about one year. Finally, we decided that perhaps we ought to visit with a lawyer to make sure we were doing it right...$560.00 later for an initial consultation, we realized that this $29.95 book was the best business investment we'd ever made! The lawyer confirmed that the contracts that we had been using were airtight and were great (he had a few other pointers...but, none worth $560.00).

We have had many comments from our clients that over all the creative teams they'd worked with over the years, our design firm had surpassed them all in business professionalism. If you are serious about running a firm, or just want to protect yourself, you really can't go wrong with this book! Such a small investment for such a large return!

This is exactly what is required by several states to assist with the masters exams and continuing education classes, for master gas fitters licenses.

One benefit of this book is that it contains articles, commentary, and discussion questions all in one text. It also covers a wide variety of issues, which is good since business ethics is a vast subject. On the negative side, I don't think the organization of the sections is the most effective way to approach the topic. The sections are organized based on a 1991 survey of CEOs in which the participants ranked their most important types of ethical dilemmas. As a result, there isn't the logical flow or progression of ideas from chapter to chapter that one might expect from a philosophy book. Unfortunately, the pragmatic interests of CEOs are not the same as the educational needs of students who are new to business ethics. There is also no discussion of ethical theories and no direct interaction between the articles. On the whole, this book may be beneficial if used in conjunction with a survey of ethical theories and ethical decision-making, but taken by itself it makes for a rather uneven introduction to business ethics.