This novel was such a change of pace from the usual romance novel and I loved it. Reading the synopsis, I didn't think it would be too good but it was great. Her writing was so sensual and beautiful, matching the actual climate of the Amazon, and it was one of those love-hate novels that just pulls at your heart-strings. Every time I go to the library I look it up and I am a pretty fussy romance reader. So if you want a beautiful read and like authors like Judith McNaught, Jude Deveraux and Elizabeth Lowell [who I just love], give this one a try and you'll be surprised at how it pulls you in.

Do you like action? Do you like romance? Then you'll love THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST by Darv Johnson. It's a manly, two-fisted story of the friendship between two women water-skiing the Amazon River. The story is told so seamlessly that you'll think this is a science book for children. Oh well.

The fish included with each copy are good with a nice onion wine.

this was a realy great book, i hope all the people who look at this book really enjoy it!

There was never much debate in the United States over why we're going to war against Iraq; administration rhetoric was always accepted at face value by critics and supporters alike. Still less were questions raised about why America is so deeply involved in the politics of the region. Most Americans probably aren't even aware of the depth of US ties to Middle Eastern dictators or the history of American interference in regional affairs.

This book, surveying US policy from 1948 to 1983, is the kind of reading we should all be doing to overcome these blind spots. As Stivers makes clear in a mere 125 pages of rigorously documented but concise history, American policy has frequently been dressed in the same rhetoric of nobility that our leaders are now using, but has always been motivated by the cold interests of power.

During the Cold War, American policymakers above all sought to maintain the status quo they inherited from their imperialist predecessors, what they called the "maintenance of the special political, military and economic interests comprising the Western position in the area". Doing so meant excluding external powers (the USSR) from the region, suppressing the growth of independent regional powers that might challenge American dominance (first Nasser's Egypt, then Khomeini's Iran), and maintaining access to oil "on reasonable terms".

Cheap oil was always what made the Middle East important to the US, because the continued operation of the global economic order would have been impossible without it. As Britain relinquished its power in the region, though, Western control over the region's resources came increasingly under nationalist attack by Middle Easterners who often looked to the Soviet Union for support in reducing US influence. Some American officials sought accommodation with these nationalist currents; others believed unbridled violence was a better option. But the goal of the nationalists - self-determination in political and economic affairs - was incompatible with America's desire to control the region's oil and its need for reliable allies who would guarantee that control. Thus even the most accommodationist administrations eventually turned to policies of repression and militarism to preserve their position in the region.

Though this study ends in the early Reagan administration, it's not hard to see that the US government's fundamental aims in the region have not changed: the US used Iraq to cripple Iranian power in the 1980s, then used the horrific sanctions to cripple Iraqi power in the 1990s, all while establishing permanent military positions in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states and continuing the flow of weapons and aid to those willing to obey its commands. The current administration, coming out of the tradition that sees violence as the most efficacious means of consolidating and expanding American power, will soon go to war for time-honored reasons: so that we can further control Middle Eastern oil, so that we can cement our position of hegemony in the region, and so that the inequities of the global economy can be protected.

This volume includes information on the Southern Region cities. I'll list, since Amazon does not provide details.

These are the cities covered in this volume:
Atlanta, Ga
Austin, TX
Baton Rouge, LI
Birmingham, AL
Chattanooga, TN
Columbia, SC
Dallas, TX
El Paso, TX
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Fort Worth, TX
Houston, TX
Huntsville, AL
Jackson, MS
Jacksonville, FL
Knoxville, TN
Memphis, TN
Miami, FL
Nashville, TN
New Orleans, LA
Orlando, FL
Plano, TX
Saint Petersburg, FL
San Antonio, TX
Savannah, GA
Tampa, FL

As in all this series, this volume provides well laid-out information in an array of categories. Not only statistical information, but factual information as well (What are the hospitals in the area? Where are the large event centers?)

Broken into two categories: Business Environment and Living Environment

Business Environment information includes:
Municipal Finances, Population, Income, Bankruptcy, Employment & Earnings, Taxes, Commercial Real Estate, Residential Real Estate, Transportation, Roadway Congestion Index, Business Headquarters, Hotels & Motels, Convention Centers

Living Environment information includes:
Cost of Living, Housing, Residential Utilities, Health Care, Education, Major Employers, Public Safety, Hazardous Waste, Culture & Recreation, Media, Climate, Air & Water Quality, and Election results

Plus, it includes additional comparative tables in the appendices.

Fascinating reference for personal or professional use.

Terry G. Jordan and Matti Kaups studied America's frontier culture to discern its ethnic heritage. Most historians of the American frontier locate its origin in the vicinity of the Delaware Valley.

Jordan and Kaups consider evidence from literature, anthropology and architecture. The authors discussed the equipment carried by frontier hunters, the primitive and ecologically exahustive farming and homesteading techniques, the building of log cabins and even the notches in fence rails to trace the possible origin of American frontier culture.

Anyone interested in frontier or colonial history should consult this work, as should anyone studying the history of ethnic diversity and racism in North America. This book is a particularly good supplement to David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, which considers localized seedbeds for four regional cultures. The authors repeatedly acknowledge the Indian contribution to the frontiersman's capability. The debt to Native America is clear. Sadly, the authors illuminate few particulars in this regard.

The scholarship is meticulous, the investigation fastidiously detailed. The authors were determined to prove their case; they have done so in a style that is both interesting and convincing.

Eastern Phocis is in the tradition of Leake's and Frazer's accounts of the area during the 19th century. The book is a good travel companion, short and readable. But there are too many acronyms, as in the pottery descriptions. Should the author need new information about an ancient site not mentioned in any literature on Phocis, he could indicate so in this forum.

I have 8 nieces and nephews, ranging in age from 1 to 12, and bought a few of these books for them as a gift. THEY LOVED IT!
The younger ones loved all the colorful pictures and drawings, and the opportunity in the back of the book to "Draw their own Dream", and the older children loved the adventure and excitement as the journey unfolded. It made for great nighttime reading with the children for several nights in a row during my visit, and will be a keepsake amongst their collection. Fantastic!

This new book combines Charles Laseron's 1947 "South With Mawson" and Frank Hurley's 1948 "Shackleton's Argonauts" in one volume, continuing the wonderful flood of reprints relating to the heroic era of Antarctic exploration. Laseron's account of the 1912 Mawson expedition is full of human interest, and makes a useful adjunct to Mawson's own, somewhat drier account in "Home of the Blizzard." Laseron was a careful observer of his surroundings and his fellow expedition members, and his writing style is vivid and often humorous. This half of the book includes photographs by expedition photographer Frank Hurley, whose own memoirs of the Endurance voyage make up the second half of the book. Frank Hurley's "Shackleton's Argonauts" is a gripping description of the Endurance expedition, also illustrated with some of Hurley's magnificent photographs. Having served with both Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Ernest Shackleton, Hurley compares the two men in a couple of wonderful paragraphs, concluding "Shackleton grafted science onto exploration; Mawson added exploration onto science," a very good way of summing up the differences between the leaders. Hurley also shows himself to have been an early environmentalist, and expresses in no uncertain terms his horror of the South Atlantic whaling industry and its slaughter of those great animals, commenting "I had marvelled at the devices that enabled man's ingenuity to triumph over nature's moods and most powerful creatures, but I marvelled still more that man was unable to triumph over the seemingly more potent monster of his creating; its name is greed," to which I can only add, "amen." Anyone interested in Antarctic exploration will want to add this valuable reprint to their library, and I cannot recommend it more highly.

Jennifer Owings Dewey spent four months in Antarctic sketching and photographing wildlife, and writing this wonderful book about the “last great wilderness on earth.” The trip was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The book jacket claims that it is appropriate for age 7 and up… well perhaps for a precocious child. I think that ( ) has it right. Age 9 to 12 seems more appropriate.

Written as a cross between a diary and letters home, and interspersed with drawings, and photographs, this is a small, almost intimate book. I read the “Antarctic Journal” out loud to my 11 year-old daughter. We talked about each journal entry or letter home, and looked at all the pictures together. We were introduced to the Adelie penguins, nesting gentoos, blue whales, Weddell seals, and krill. We were given a little history lesson starting 200 million years ago with Gondwanaland, and many lessons in nature. Antarctic has only one year-round land-resident, a mite. It’s the size of a pinhead. Also, male and female penguins share parenting, and they are absolutely devoted parents. A “parent penguin suffering heat stroke will not abandon its nest. It will fall dead in a heap first.” Antarctica has its own etiquette. Human visitors to Antarctica are not allowed to touch any wildlife. However, penguins did check out the author, her clothes, and typewriter.

So many nature books are dry. This one is clever, well written, and interesting. It is a wonderful addition to our home library. I highly recommend it.