Westerns Books

I found this book to be an excellent guide when it comes to describing the entrepreneurial process as well as how to start up a business. Not only does it cover the theorectical sections of this vast subject, it also provides guidance on how to go about getting funding, encouraging creativity and innovation within a firm etc. It details the stages of a business and has a number of case studies. A great book!

This book played a significant role in shaping a business plan that attracted institutional investment for a technology start-up I co-founded in Brazil. Great book.

This book has really helped me in class. It ties into all of the other books we use and all of the discussion in class. The book is actually interesting and easy to read unlike other textbooks!

This book is phenominal. While it is an academic textbook, it really hits home to the real world. The business plan section is extremely useful and the real life company examples and case studies are quite interesting and insightful.

Dr. Kuratko's book is positively OUTSTANDING and a MUST read for anyone who is even CONSIDERING starting his or her own business. Dr. Kuratko is considered by many to be the nation's foremost expert in the field of entrepreneurship and small business management. His book blends the structure of a course textbook with excellent real-life case examples. This is, without question, the finest book that I have ever read. I keep it by my nightstand!!!

Buy this one! You WON'T regret it!

Michael

The book I received was exactly what I was expecting! Would definitely do business with again.

Do you read to be entertained or enlightened? While most of us would answer "both", we each exhibit a preference. From the celebrated first chapter, "Odysseus' Scar", of what is widely regarded as one of the definitive critical studies of comparative literature, Auerbach attempts to trace the evolution of the representation of reality in narrative in the West. The two streams, with their sources emanating from Athens and Jerusalem, converge finally in post-Napoleonic France during the first half of the 19th century, in the realism of Stendahl, Balzac, and Flaubert. The trend continues with increasing refinement in the work of their heirs in France, England, Russia and the Americas. The thread of the evolving democratization of the criteria for understanding is traced in the most fascinating manner through this study of the influence on the emphasis on the universality of meaning first emerging in the impulse of Biblical texts and later in subjectivist trends in the early 20th century.

History often proves that good can come out of bad situations. The apostle Paul's imprisonment forcefully slowed him down and gave mankind priceless letters. Erich Auerbach's flight and exile gave him leisure to write this masterpiece of which the West is in his debt.

Every chapter is very rewarding and rich. I would like to selectively comment on my three favourites:

Odysseus Scar - Compares the truth in Old Testament biblical stories whose events force us to think of their meaning in our lives with Homeric literature and Epic that primarily concerns itself with entertainment allowing the reader to merely relax and enjoy its eloquence without threat or discomfort.

Fortunata - Explains how the New Testament introduced a new way of showing reality, capturing dialogue between regular people. It is also groundbreaking by consciously portraying a deeper spiritual truth within its text. Auerbach suggests the New Testament is clearly a development off of the Jewish style rather than the Greek or Roman. In making his points Auerbach coincidentally offers support to supporters of the traditional authorship of the New Testament and it's intended portrayal of reality rather than myth.

The Interrupted Supper - Auerbach's masterstroke in criticizing the thought of Voltaire, which depends on the oversimplification of the opposing point of view in order to discredit and smear it, opened my mind to the danger of the lovable decorous little old man whose eloquence and seemingly innocuous ideas can create a chain of nefarious events in its wake. The most dangerous evil can be that which is disguised. Auerbach who believed he paid the price of the consequences of Voltaire's technique should be treated in this chapter as a sage for 21st century man.

Before reading this book I had little interest in the topic of literary criticism. After reading the book I still have little interest in its study but for a different reason. Auerbach has given me the impression that he has touched on the point that matters most when trying to understand the classics of literature and for that I am grateful.

Written in non-self-imposed exile in Istanbul, *Mimesis* is not only a fantastically influential piece of literary scholarship, but also an interesting response to the political calamities of the 20th century. Erich Auerbach, a student of Romance literatures, covers the entire history of Western literature from Homer to Proust: his goal is uncovering the literary devices that made the achievement of literary realism possible. His analytic techniques are manifold and his technical mastery of philological detail is breathtaking, but the book requires no specialist knowledge to appreciate -- this is a truly worthwhile contribution to the discourse of the educated public, not a larder of academic in-references.

Auerbach's signature move, undoubtedly influenced by his Jewish faith but also a wise assessment of the material realities of the history of literature, is to reverse the traditional critical valuations of "Hebraism" and "Hellenism" -- for him, the realistic spirit in literature begins with the Bible and not with the ancient "novels". He analyzes the progress in realism along two axes: a rhetorical one concerning the end of the "separation of styles", found in medieval realists like Dante who began to depict "low" occurrences with the same seriousness and dignity aristocratic tragic heroes had traditionally merited, and a syntactic one in which the revival of connective precision in language overcomes the poverty and ambiguity of the literary Dark and Middle Ages.

Auerbach is almost as famous for what he neglects as for what he favors: he thinks poorly of French classicism and German literature in general, and knows hardly anything at all about historical English literature beyond Shakespeare. But the scope of the book is nevertheless so encylopedic that it could not but help the reader to achieve a clearer view of European literature in its entirety; the political asides from a serious scholar with decidedly socialist sympathies, looking on at genocidal execution he narrowly escaped, are of great documentary value. Any educated person will want to read this book.

this book is excellent and one of its kind, erich auerbach commanded a veritably deep understanding of philology and languages which he used to cunning effect in analysing various works, e.g. gregory of tours' "history of the franks." there he informed us that bishop gregory's latin was something midway between roman latin and early vernacular french, somewhat crude and grammatically obfuscated. auerbach was a lot more alert to the dynamics of cultural and language change than was his contemporary ernst robert curtius, the latter was held back (i suspect by his aristocratic background) from appreciating the fact that many tectonic shifts of culture start from the bottom-up -- this auerbach took great pains to demonstrate, e.g. in the very first chapter when he compared the odyssey to the hebrew bible. curtius' view was a static, fossilized one, consisting of a select circle of literary greats convening together "in the mind" and influencing world-history. auerbach's view was more egalitarian and generous toward those works which might not be "rightfully" called literary (e.g. works that fail to satisfy the classical rules of rhetoric, as stipulated in curtius' ELLMA) -- to this category belong the nibelungenlied and other germanic epics. one walks away from "Mimesis" feeling considerably enriched by Auerbach's insights into languages and different Weltanschauungen and not least of all by his pervasive spirit of humanism.

When one starts to study western literature, and puts all of his effort to an neverending task of unravelling mysteries of European literature, one has sooner or later stumble upon this book. Sooner the better. Auerbachs work is on of the most influential works in comparative sciences of literature, it spans for Homer to Virginia Woolf, covering large variety of authors and styles. Main point in the books is recurrence of "realism" troughout the entire history of literature. "Realism" here stands for platonic and aristotelian term of "mimesis" which is, roughly said, (and as the title indicates) manner of representation of reality.

This was one of the greatest, and on the other hand, most disputed theory. Question of style related to function and age where it emerged are unanswered up till these days and will remain so in quite a few years to come.

But I am not here to debate about the contents of this book. I am here simply to note that, no matter if you agree or not with Auerbach, Mimesis is fundamental piece of work that has to be read if you are even thinking of spending your life buried inside books and start to think in a manner of literary criticism. Together with Ernest R. Curtiuses "European literature and middle ages" it stand highly above the average piece of work that you can stumble upon.

You don't have to be particularly educated for this one. It can be read on many levels and with many kinds of understanding, considering of your education, but never diminishing its value, allways offering you some more to look upon, and some new perspective to think about.

And if you are aware that this book was written in Istambul, almost without any secondary literature avaliable, admiration for this work may only go higher.

I bought this book as a additional resource to a basic plant science course that I was taking. It has great pictures, and explanations on the basic proceses in plants. This is not a book that a begining self taught person could learn from easily. This is a textbook, not a home gardener's type book. The only drawback is the binding. All the books that I have seen have been falling apart. I would recommend the spiral bound edition or just live with the binding

This book was extremely useful in my plant science class. The prof. taught from it and the images inside are great. Everything is well laid out and I like the chapter summaries and information. This book was expensive, but for me it was worth it!

I too used this book for my introductory botany class and actually worked for Tom Rost several years later (as my both interest and understanding of the subject grew, neither were affected in anyway but a posistive one from the use of this text). I used an older version which included a rudimentary section on fungi (I'm not sure if this edition does) as the book was written to mirror the original content of course taught a UCD but other than that it has just what you'd want to know to get you feet wet in botany. I have this book in paper back - the binding is cracking and I have officallly had pages fall out but I still pull this book out occasionally for use.

I'm a UC Davis student who took the plant biology course that uses this book. The professor doesn't even follow the book because it's so bad. It's unorganized, confusing, and useless for my class. Even some of the illustrations in the book are wrong. Don't buy this book if you just plan to learn plant biology. If you have to buy this book because course requirement, good luck

This text is essentially a concise summary of the work accomplished by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, in which the great thinker answers the following: 1)How is pure mathematics possible? 2) How is pure natural science possible? 3)How is metaphysics in general possible? 4) How is metaphysics as a science possible? These are of course the most crucial topics in all transcendental thought, and this volume is possibly the most successful microcosm of Kant's thought. However, for all real students of Kant, the Critique must be read in its entirety.

This book is a very good overview of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and a very good introduction to Kant's thought.

Simply put, modern philosophy begins with Kant. If anyone wishes to understand the development of philosophy after the 18th century, you must have some grounding in Kant. That said, his works are not easy to read, nor are they well-suited to leisurely reading. While most individuals try a stab at the Critique of Pure Reason, many seem to get lost in his argument.

For all you such individuals, the Prolegomena offers a handy guide to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This work is relatively short and far more accessible compared to the Critique. However, for a serious understanding of Kant, you must read this alongside the Critique of Pure Reason. Whereas the Prolegomena gives us a taste of the whole picture, the Critique provides us with all the details and nuances of his argument.

Lastly, the Hackett edition of this is quite nice in that it provides, at the end, a list of major words/phrases and the corresponding German.

People always think I'm making some sort of joke or being funny when I tell 'em they should read this here book if they're having trouble sleeping. I'm not. I tell them that the key to conking out while reading this book is to not merely skim along, reading it at a surface level, but to try to understand it. Put as much energy and effort into understanding it that you can. That will knock you out for a full night's sleep. Yup. If it doesn't put you to sleep, then you will have gained a critical understanding of one of the most influential works of modern philosophy...a field so dead that something written in 1772 is considered modern.

In contrary to the other reviewer, I dont believe the item was supposed to come with a cd. There is a website where all the files are uploaded. You really need to know what your doing or have other accounting and excel textbooks to use this book. Its easy to read, but it doesnt offer much help in the way of formulas and formating.

The book did not come with the CD (even though it was supposed to). It was noted on the packing slip that no CD was found. They should have contacted me instead of shipping the product. I had to pay shipping charges back to Owls Books. I WOULD NOT recommend using them.

Very good text for any statistics student. Clear and concise explanations. Ten times better than the text I used in undergrad by Newbold.

Basic information is all covered in the book. Great if you are taking AP Statistics or a statistics course in your undergrads.

I have a basic statistics background before I read this book. For me, the book is useful for my basic quantitative research. Last few chapters apply the statistics rules in earlier chapters to the real business environment, which I think it's really practical and interesting. The most I like in this book is the practice questions at the end of each chapter, which apply to everyone's daily life. However, first four chapters cover too many unnecessary topics.

This book tends to jump off topic (most aren't explained well). For example, they talk about one thing but the exercises are a bit different than the chapter's topic. Most of the information isn't fully explained. If you are in a class where the instructor assigns the exercise questions for homework, you are screwed. You may not know what to do unless you seek outside help (study guide, tutor etc.) or read beyond the chapter.

The book has a lot of examples and is a must have for those majoring in Finance. Some Universities use this for Intro to Statistics and this book is very didactic. The way it's written out in a form that takes you a another level of reading which makes you feel you're in a rainbow... a reading rainbow... Anway... The book has answers in the back so it's good enough for whenever the professor assigns Homework.

This is a good and comprehensive book if you are taking any 17th and 18th century philosophy courses. There are helpful intorductions beore each philosopher which give a bit of background on them as well as briefly summarize their main theories.

This item came fast and in great condition! Thanks! LOVED doing business with you!

Good work, thanks for delivering a great product in a timely fashion.

The fourth edition claims to have these advantages: it includes (1) a selection from Rousseau (2) additional material from Locke's Essay and (3) a new translation of the Meditations.

(2) consists of a short chapter on faith and reason. In exchange, we've lost II.11, on abstraction. Since there's little material from Book III, and nothing from III.vi, it's very hard for the reader to make sense of Berkeley's extended attack on abstract ideas in the introduction to the Principles.

Re. (3): Inexplicably, the editor has decided to replace John Cottingham's standard 1986 translation of the Meditations with a `new' translation by Laurence Lafleur, first published in 1951. Perhaps the editor had no choice, but it seems disingenuous to present this as an improvement.

Moreover, the third edition included a crucial selection from Kant's first Critique (the transcendental deduction); this has been deleted.

This is a big step down from the third edition.

I don't usually like anthologies and rarely teach from them -- I tend to prefer a primary text approach, partly because it allows students to see the development of ideas in their full context and because I expect philosophy students to be interested in developing their personal library of philosophy. This volume, however, is an exception and I've been using this volume for several years (and three separate editions) to teach my "History of Philosophy: 17th and 18th Century." Since I try to cover quite a bit in the course (empiricism, rationalism, social contract theory, transcendental philosophy -- in the works of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Pascal, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant), but don't have the time to read everything by every thinker, this volume is almost perfect. It has almost everything I cover and includes both good brief introductions and fairly broad excerpts from each thinker. There is enough, at least, to illustrate the general approach and broad themes and key issues from most every thinker it includes. I've looked at a few other anthologies of Modern philosophy and they are usually either too specific (e.g. focused on 17th but not 18th century philosophy) or too broad and narrow in their coverage. This one is just right, and would be an excellent volume to get for an orientation to the basic problems of modern philosophy that sets the stage for both 19th Century continental thinkers like Hegel and Schopenhauer and Marx and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, as well as for 20th century developments in both analytic (that picks up from Hume and to a lesser degree Kant and largely bypasses the German Idealist movement) as well as continental philosophy (in Heidegger, Sartre, etc.).

One quibble: I do wish there was more from Rousseau -- the latest volume has excerpts from the Social Contract and while that may be his most historically important work it doesn't show as clearly as some of his other works his distinctive approach to thinking -- that does not fall clearly under a rationalist or empiricist label. To give a better flavor of Rousseau I supplement this volume with Hackett's translation of the Second Discourse (On the Origins of Inequality).

False pride
The author performs no meaningful in-depth analysis of current or historical contexts and events, applying instead personal opinion. He violently massages the facts in order to portray an overwhelmingly favorable picture, thus encouraging pride in place of humility.

Bad science
Wittingly or not, the author attempts to manipulate the reader with what he calls reason, which in reality is nothing more than tempering with logic and producing faulty conclusions in matters where logic probably should not be used at all. While doing this, he contradicts himself on so many occasions, that reading the book becomes an exercise in self discipline.

Arrogance
Worst of all, the author explicitly states that, according to aforementioned "reasoning", no religion, philosophy, nothing other than Catholic Christianity is capable of producing a civilized society. This arrogant point of view is expressed so many times and in so many ways, that it seemingly becomes the unproven thesis of the book, which brings us back to bad science.

The text is a messy collection of every and any argument for ultimate superiority of the Catholic, which in itself is both heresy and non-scientific. I can not believe a true Catholic or a scientist can write something like this.

I saw this guy on EWTN espousing his revisionist propaganda. Illuminating only for its psychological revelations about the author and his attempt rehabilitate the Catholic Church's doctrinal contribution to the darkest ages of mankind. I mean come on, the scientific and industrial revolutions were a product of the intellectual freedoms born out of the Reformation. Give it a rest, the truth shall set you free.

You can't read this book without thinking of the famous Monty Python scene from Monty Python's Life Of Brian - The Immaculate Edition where the People's front of Judea inadvertently lists every improvement that the Roman have ever brought to their land. This would be a great modern description of the politically correct view of the history which would like to forget all of the contributions of the church in everything from Science to Law to ethics, education and even the preservation and copying of books via the monks.

These facts are stubborn things and Mr. Woods wastes no time diving in showing over and over again how things that we take for granted have their base in Catholic belief and practice and the actions of faithful Catholics in particular and the church in general. The list is very long and the presentation is a celebration of the Civilization that these faithful catholics helped build and the results that all of us enjoy today without a thought.

The best way to understand where you are is to understand where you have been. This book does that job very well.

A great and badly needed volume. Beautiful cover artwork.
I wish I could donate scores of this book to our high schools and colleges in the U.S. where the decidedly skewed Protestant and Atheist version of history is being taught. Basically little or nothing good existed before the frenzied cries of Sola Scriptura! in the 16th century using the Bible - a document assembled by the Catholic Church as the center piece of this new man made tradition.
One wonders how an institution so evil and corrupt could last almost 2000 years and be the largest and universally (catholic) dispersed Christian group on the planet? Luther, Calvin and company's spiritual children have been around for 500 years and look at how many denominations have formed from that mindset and those splits and yet more splits
Catholicism and it's echoes surround us every day in our legal system, architecture, agriculture, art, literature etc.
Somehow Mendel (the father of genetics) was left out of this volume but another great companion piece to this book is "Catholic Churchmen and Science" by James J. Walsh.
Thank you for the research and enlightenment.
We as Christians and a Church have typically taken the stance that we are called to be Christlike and transform the World with no publicity sought or given for most of what we do. The unfortunate reality is that we live in a World which deals out a great deal of "noise" and erroneous facts, so intelligent rebuttals like this are needed to educate those willing to seek out the fullness of Truth.

Woods has written a book which is generally excellent.He demonstrates that the Catholic Church has been at the center of positive developments in the sciences,arts,architecture,education,law,and ethics over the centuries.One minor complaint is Woods' decision not to explicitly connect Galileo(discussed on pp.69-74) and Kepler(discussed on pp.110-113).Woods gaves the impression that each worked in isolation from the other. In fact ,both Kepler and Galileo closely followed the work of the other.There was a good deal of correspondence between the two.Galileo's mistake,then,is to have not taken Kepler's work more seriously than he did,especially since Kepler's work was directly based on the generally accepted observations made by Kepler's instructor,Tycho Brahe (not Tyco,p.268).
The major problem in the book appears in chapter 8.First, Murray Rothbard is not a great Twentieth Century economist.Murray Rothbard is a great Twentieth Century Libertarian-Austrian economist.Second,the 16th and 17th Century Spanish "Late" Scholastic philosophers cited repeatedly by Woods throughout chapter 8 are not in the same class as the 13th century great Scholastics of the School of Paris(1200-1350 AD).NONE of the ECONOMIC discussions of St.Albert the Great,St.Thomas Aquinas,and Duns Scotus are referred to anywhere in chapter 8.This creates a severe problem for the potential reader who will not realize that the question Woods is dealing with had already been analyzed in detail by the Great 13th Century Scholastics. Albert the Great,Thomas Aquinas,and Scotus had all agreed that the fair and just price was the price determined in the market place at the particular time that the transaction between the buyer and the seller was proposed .However,there were 3 very important qualifications that the latter, minor,Spanish Scholastics failed miseribly to comprehend.The market price is NOT a fair and just price if there is any compulsion,coercion,or uncertainty existing at the time the transaction took place.The standard " Lemon Problem " discussion of asymmetric information ,taught in all basic microeconomiic courses, impacts falls directly into the uncertainty(partial uncertainty)category.The negotiated or agreed upon price of a good carried out under conditions of asymmetric information is NOT a just and fair exchange.

Only John Maynard Keynes and Adam Smith,both of whom are considered the greatest two economists of all time,except by Libertarians, understood the nature of the original arguments put forth by the School of Paris Scholastics .Keynes makes it quite clear on pp.351-352 of his General Theory (1936)that the 13th Century Scholastics had a very good intuitive understanding of the differences between making decisions under risk versus making decisions under uncertainty and/or ignorance.Smith's position [See Wealth of Nations,pp.290-340,Modern Library(Cannan)edition] is practically the same as the positions on the rate of interest,usury laws,and speculation held by the 13th century Scholastics ,but rejected by the 16th and 17th century Spanish Scholastics.Woods needs to totally rewrite this chapter(chapter 8) of his book.It is an intellectual mess that detracts from the rest of the book.