As a London Underground enthusiast, I just couldn't resist what this book had to offer. The sections on the history of the Underground were very informative and easy to read.
But there's more to the book than that. I thoroughly enjoyed every page. The author's conversational (and often amusing) tone lend a lightness to a subject that could otherwise be very dull. The book runs the gamut of subjects--from the underground and now mostly mysterious Fleet to the high-speed cables of British Telecom. It's all there.
This book is an excellent resource for anyone doing research, and a great read if you're fascinated by things beneath the surface.

This is a fantastic history of what's underneath the ground of today's London. Blending history, geography, and engineering, this book describes the smothered streams and covered rivers, the water pipes and sewers, and the tunnels under the Thames.

A major section is devoted to the London Underground - the "Tube" - and its history. The Post Office's automated mail-handling railway is briefly touched on as well.

The role of London's underground spaces during wartime is reviewed including the underground factories and the Cabinet War Rooms of the Second World War.

The book is profusely illustrated with a heavy emphasis on contemporary cut-away and explanatory drawings. The pictures make the text come alive.

A really great book for the Anglophile or London-buff.

It's a great book if you're interested in this sort of thing. From the early beginnings of London's sewers to the modern day tube and postal networks, this book covers it all in a remarkably easy to read fashion. Of particular interest to me were the sections on Londons 'lost' rivers as well as the Underground, both covered in this book. Highly recommended.

A wonderful way to relax over a rainy weekend. If you've been to London, it will take you back. If you haven't, the tape will prepare you for when you do go. Powell livens up the tour with interesting, amusing, and startling facts and anecdotes. The contemporary and historical information, the accents, the readers, the mood - all make for a quick trip to the U.K. in one little box. Very much enjoyed it.

Great book. Tours are easy to follow and take you into some really great parts of London that even locals don't know. I got to school our host on Aldephi.

Having read London by Rutherfurd made the tours even better.

LONDONWALKS Audio tours was the high point of our quick trip to London last month. We did two of the four walks and now we must return to do the rest. We will be looking for more Sound Travel Audio Guides. What a great idea!

Ok... I'm still trying to learn British English, so excuse the expression on the title, hehe Get this little book, lots of good phrases and very fun to read. Very helpful for traveling or just to learn the interesting Ryhming Slang, this is for you. Cheers ;)

Nice one! I'm not a native speaker of English, but have learned English as a foreign language. What is the best about this book, the sections on those dialects. Also it's a good fun to sing some football songs like George Best the Superstar! Many more resourceful pages you will find in this book from Mr Blair's way of speaking to how to say "hello" in Welsh. You can always carry this book in your pocket, which is nice, too.

As an ex-pat American living in London, I find this book essential when trying to decipher the large number of different words and phrases that the Brits use: I can honestly tell you that the Phrasebook saved me from the horrors of a zucchini dinner when I found out what 'courgettes' really are. I also finally understood the meanings of 'put paid' and 'punters' and enjoyed the section on British sport: while I still don't fully understand cricket and have absolutely no idea about rugby, I now know a bit more than nothing, which is helpful the next time you're in a pub and a Test Match is on.

The less helpful sections of the book were the bits on more obscure language usage like Cockney rhyming slang and Scots Gaelic: I've never heard any rhyming slang in London and when I was in the Highlands the only time I heard Gaelic was on the radio. However, I'm not complaining: it's a whole lot of fun to be able to know how to say 'caite am bheil an t-amar snamh' ('where's the swimming pool'), even if the Scots themselves don't understand, and now I know that nothing beats a good dinner of Lillian Gish (fish) with gay and frisky (whiskey).

Anyway, the Phrasebook also contains a section for each part of Britain plus sections on pronounciation, accomodation, entertainment and society (how to address the Queen when you meet her) and, most important of all, a mini American-British dictionary.

All in all, highly recommended.

This is the best book I have read about what the average young man entering the war in the air force experienced in WWII. It takes you from college years to combat to missions and being shot down, then a prisoner of war for almost two years. You experience the real feel of the effect the loss of comrades had on these young men taken from homes, and colleges etc. to fight in a war. They had no fighters to protect them as they went over German targets in occupied and German countries. Day by day they saw more and more fellow airmen go down in flames. It is real and gripping to read and the emotions you experience stay with you long after the last page is turned. What heros they were.
Many details, many photos, a book we all need to read.

Many books have been written on the air war in the ETO but none have captured the detail of the early raids of the 8th Air Force as does Frank Murphy's book, "Luck of the Draw". The early portion describes his younger years up until joining the USAAC. His descriptive powers and keen observations of events and missions leading to his final one on the Munster raid, have a clarity and insight on what it was like in those early days of combat, without the benefit of fighter escort. His time in Stalag Luft III is graphically recalled with an almost detached view of what was going on around him as he and his comrades struggled to survive. His observations and detailing of events for one so young, is truly remarkable. To be able to relive them in his writings marks this as one of the finest historical accounts of WW II combat from a man who saw it all. He was fortunate enough to be blessed with the ability to write it for the benefit of those who have followed WW II air combat history. If this book is kept along side the "Munster Raid" by Ian Hawkins, you don't need to have any other books to cover what it was like in the horror that was the air war in its early days over Europe. The sacrfices of those "teenagers" who made up the majority of the aircrews and those in their early twenties, makes one realize why they are looked upon as a remarkable generation.

Ken Wright

Luck of the Draw is the best personal account of the strategic air war over Europe that I have ever read...and I have read a lot of them. It is much better than Ambrose's Wild Blue and it is a shame that Wild Blue get's all of the attention. In addition to the usual personal account, Mr. Murphy provides a lot of very interesting technical information unique in books of this type; such as layout of the box formations, records on the fate of the Bombers and crews, descriptions of German attack strategies. Highly recommended

This is an outstanding atlas. The book's size is very convenient, it is easy to carry, and fits nicely into a purse or a coat pocket. The map scale is excellent. All details that a visitor would need such as car parks, metro and RER stops, post offices, churches and every possible building and landmark are clearly marked on each page of the atlas. The detailed maps show all side streets so we never had any fear of getting lost on our walks. There are also separate pages for the bus, metro, and train lines serving the Paris area. The atlas is limited to the central Paris area so a visitor would need additional, larger scale maps of the Paris region if travel plans include driving to the city or around its various extended suburbs. This is the only set of maps you would need if your travel plans include the usual tourist attractions (the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, etc). However, this is not a guide book, so you will need a separate tour book of the city.

Excellent for walking, driving, and even taking metro. I purchased the 2000 edition and it's very easy to read and also has a metro map and regional train map. Valuable indexes for all streets, museums, schools, landmarks, etc. as well as for emergency phone numbers. If you're going to Paris and are buying only one book to prepare for the trip (highly unlikely...!), then get this one!

This is the best one that can fit in your pocket. Michelin always puts out maps of fine detail and great color, yet easy to use. I've tried a number of street atlases in Paris but I found this to be the best and most useful.

This is not a book I would have read six months ago since I am typically not very interested in economics or political theory. But a required class in modern political economy helped change my outlook and introduced me to what thinkers such as Adam Smith actually said, which is quite different from what libertarians claim today. Muller's book fed my new found interest and then some.

Muller examines how some of western civilization's greatest minds have thought about capitalism and the market. He includes thinkers that are both traditionally viewed as economists (Smith, Hayek, Schumpeter) and others not usually identified with economics (Burke, Voltaire, and Arnold). Each chapter provides an excellant summary of these thinkers and can be read alone or out of order if one wishes. One has to admire Muller for his objectivity, he studies the individuals according to their own terms and doesn't seek to judge them. Every theorist has identifiable faults and Muller points these out without bias. My personal favorite chapters were those on Smith, Hayek and Matthew Arnold.

My only (minor) criticism is that I thought Muller could have dealt with Keynes in more detail. I feel he short-changed the man who in many ways defined much of the mid-20th century. I also thought a chapter on Amartya Sen might have been interesting, but it makes since to pick those theorists who are dead since their work can't develop any futher.

THE MIND AND THE MARKET is a compulsively readable history of economic thought which deserves to be a best-seller. I am not an economist or a political philosopher but rather a writer about the arts and culture, and I am devouring this book. The chapters on Hegel, Marx, and Matthew Arnold are each alone worth the price of admission. Muller carries his erudition lightly, and his prose has the calm, effortless, sparkling lucidity of a great teacher lecturing in his prime.

Capitalism is the world's most powerful idea about political, economic and moral relationships between people, enterprises and the state. It has brought immense opulence to hundreds of millions of people and hope for economic liberation to hundreds of millions more. But capitalism is not just a way of doing business. No culture nor any state can harness capitalism with a management school curriculum. Capitalism is a complex tapestry of economic arrangements, governmental obligations, cultural traditions, personal behavioral norms, concepts for production enterprises, methods of management, public acceptance of investment, encourage of competition, religious and ethnic tolerance and ideas of personal property. It is a historical fact that secular states with individual economic liberty and free markets harvest the most from capitalism. Capitalism is not just economics.

Capitalism, as a global culture that defines our modern civilization, is therefore too important to be left to the economists. Jerry Z. Muller, a historian, has given us a book which in its sweep and breadth is up to the task of giving us a deeply thoughtful and insightful analysis of the evolution of capitalism's political, economic, social, ethical and psychological threads from early European thinking through the big intellectual ideas of the late Twentieth Century. He tells the story of the idea of the market, as it is formed and transformed by the great socio-politico-economic intellectuals - Voltaire, Adam Smith, Burke, Hegel, Marx, Simmell, Schumpeter, Keynes, Marcuse, Hayek, and others. As a historian, Muller interprets each man in the context of his time and culture. Muller's analysis is even handed, one of the great virtues of the book. There are thousands of political economy books, each with its own agenda if not unground axe. For me, The Mind and the Market is a level-headed guide through that thicket of thought. Muller coolly lays out the case for each ideology and clinically assesses its successes and failures, giving the devil his due, even if that devil is Marx, who while foisting the evil idea of collectivism upon the world did have empathy and voice for the terrible treatment of workers under early capitalism. Muller's trip through the minds of the great thinkers gives us the insights we need to understand how today?s manic anti-competition forces diminish our personal wealth and how governments with moral agendas weaken capitalism.

Even while Muller brings us tidal historical and economic insights, he also salts this book with one liners and anecdotes that illustrate the anatomy of capitalism. Here are a couple I liked.

- "Cultures that favor equality in poverty over greater but unequally distributed affluence tend to be less market oriented." Muller

- From Schumpeter: "The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for the queen but in bringing them within reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort."

- Burke voicing the dilemma of capitalism: "It is hard to persuade us that everything that is got by another is not taken from ourselves."

- Fascists and socialists exploit resentment of those who succeed under market systems. Muller relates how Hungarian communists took control in 1919. The Hungarian Soviet nationalized private enterprises, made wages uniform and guaranteed employment. Labor discipline and productivity declined steeply. The communist experiment failed after 133 days. I gather from subsequent world events that no one was paying attention.

The Mind and the Market should be read by every world citizen to understand how we got the flow of wealth we enjoy and the roles of the state, individual liberty and market competition necessary to sustain our affluence. Capitalism is fragile. It does not come automatically with democracy. US capitalism is buffeted daily by well funded or popular pleas for the state to intervene in the market. They come under banners of anti-globalism, criticisms of the World Trade Organization, preserving the American family farm, special tax breaks to lower costs of domestic producers, Buy American Act, requirements for domestic content, special tariffs, quotas or restrictions on foreign-made products, protection against exporting jobs, closed shops, sustaining the American manufacturing base, regressive income taxes, and dispensations to monopolize trade, among other anti-liberal policies. Jerry Muller's marvelously well-written and colorful story of the road to capitalism helps us understand the essential roles played by open, competitive markets, personal liberties and a secular state in preserving and expanding our wealth.

I commend The Mind and the Market to you without reservation.

Best part of the book -- Part Two: A Program for the French Revolution. For anyone who has had to deal with trade union brass who caution that the union membership must be careful not to alienate the friendly wing of management, for anyone who has had to suffer through debates in parties such as Canada's New Democratic Party, this book helps straighten things out clearly. As Europe thrashed its way through the 1930s, socialist revolution or fascist victory was put on the agenda in country after country. Trotsky goes over all the key issues as they arose concretely in France: elections and picket lines, workers armed defense versus reliance on the middle class, the relationship of general strike to the fight for a revolutionary change in government, how to win over the farmers. He hammers away at the fact that while capitalism was degenerating before everyone's eyes, nothing was automatic, nothing would inevitably change for the better without conscious action and organization by the powerful French working class. He pointed out that he was fighting for the lives of French workers who went into the streets in strike waves, who occupied their workplaces, who fought the police and fascist gangs over and over throughout the decade. And went down to defeat. Difficult to read simply as a historical document since so many issues are of burning relevance today.

Paris, February 1934: tens of thousands of rightists attempted to overthrow the French government in a violent demonstration. The Radical government was soon replaced with a Bonapartist ruler. How could the powerful working class movement respond? The French Communist Party was moving to the "Peoples Front" alliance with the Socialists and the Radicals, in reflection of Stalin's search for alliances with one or other of the imperialist powers moving towards war to redivide the world. Together with the Socialists, the Stalinists politically disoriented the French workers. Six years on from the 1934 demonstrations, Hitler was able to crush France, and the fascist Petain ascended to power. "Leon Trotsky on France", a collection of writings from throughout those six years, brings the light of Marxism and the experience of the Russian Revolution to bear in showing the way for workers seeking a revolutionary way forward. As the 21st century takes us deeper into a situation like the 1930s -- economic depression, political volatility and instability, rapidly sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry, the rise of ultrarightist forces -- the lessons of the 1930s loom large. With each passing year, books like this one are becoming more relevant for workers and fighters for social justice.

More than a history text, this is a compelling day-by-day analysis of the great political developments in France during the 1930s depression-- and incisive arguments for what working class parties needed-- and failed -- to do to fight their way victoriously out of the crisis. The brutal economic depression and the crisis of capitalist political rule, the approaching world war, the fascist uprising in 1934, the rise of Bonapartist-police state regimes, the great workers strike wave of 1936, the stakes in organizing a workers militia, the political basis for alliances in working class struggles-- all are explained clearly and logically, with the aim of helping working people understand and organize to defend their interests.

Trotsky writes with the experience of a leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the early years of building an international communist workers movement. He was particularly familiar with the French workers movement from years in exile before 1917, and spent time in France in the 1930s after being expelled from the Soviet Union by Stalin and his henchmen-- this experience helping him give rich political detail to his writings.

Above all, the questions posed here do not belong just to the 1930s. The perspectives of the capitalists, the petty-bourgeoisie, the workers and the peasants, and the question of leadership of the working class, of the forging of a revolutionary party with a correct program and the confidence to act are issues for today and tomorrow. Trotsky's writings here are invaluable in helping understand and organize in today's world.

Iam thrilled to own this fabulous book; it is a work of art. I feel such a connection to these spectacular images. The reproductions of the photographs are wonderful. The simplicity of the silvery gray book jacket enhances the volume. I just love having this book. The Light of Ireland is a complete treasure!

The Light of Ireland is a portfolio of twenty-five black and white photographs made in the west of Ireland over a period of nearly thirty years. Rosenstock's stunning images, rich in detail and range of tones, are exquisitely reproduced in a handsome volume in which the binding and typography contribute to its overall artistry. The few words of introduction are also carefully chosen; permitting the eloquent voice of the visual to command the attention of the reader.

This book is a MUST for the serious collector of photography. The 25 finely crafted images on the highest quality paper focus on Mr. Rosenstock's unique perspective of Ireland's mysterious landscape. Each page is a calming meditation. The people of Ireland ,among them notables, are already singing the praises of this book.

"Lyndon Johnson and Europe" provides a fresh reassessment of Johnson's foreign policy. Thoroughly researched and clearly written, "Lyndon Johnson and Europe" uses solid historical analysis to tear down the notional, knee-jerk response that Johnson's presidency put the U.S. in a foreign policy funk. Schwartz also avoids overstating his point. Johnson was not perfect, but, like every President, he worked within the international context in which he found himself. In Johnson's case, Schwartz provides enough evidence to show that given the circumstances, Johnson actually enjoyed a good measure of success. On one level, Schwartz's work is an academic revisionist history of Johnson's foreign policy with Europe, attractive in and of itself. But more broadly it reads as a diplomatic/political history of America, its friends, and its foes, during the turbulent 1960s. Easily forgotten cross-Atlantic spats (the Multilateral Force, France's break with NATO, the Kennedy Round, Prague Spring, et al.) all spring back to the relevancy that they held during Johnson's presidency through Schwartz's skilled hand. Schwartz's ability to capture the big picture while proving his point make this book not only an important reappraisal of Johnson's foreign policy, but also of great use to every student of American history, politics, and diplomacy.

I found "Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam" to be insightful and relevant to U.S. policy toward Europe. In light of this last conflict over war in Iraq, I believe Mr. Schwartz provided a thought-provoking narrative of a previously unknown and volitile time in U.S. politics. Lyndon Johnson was brought to life skillfully and with obvious attention to detail. I would highly recommend this book, not only for students and history buffs, but for everyone who should understand more about Lyndon Johnson and his administration.

A reexamination of Johnson's European foreign policy, that puts him successfully at the helm'

In contrast to the traditional view, Prof. Schwartz presents a convincing and extremely well written case that President Johnson successfully guided American foreign policy towards Europe. The book tells a story of a talented power politician whose astute understanding of his allies and foes domestic political environments, enabled him to hold NATO and the Atlantic Alliance together, while maintaining a viable global economic system and effectively moving towards détente with the Soviet Union.

The book weaves together the complexities of Johnson's personality and the dynamics of his inherited administration into a compelling and clear historical narrative shedding new light on the usual uninspiring vision of the president.

The book attempts to break away from the Vietnam bias of historical accounts of Johnson's foreign policy. However even for someone interested in Vietnam, this book provides many missing pieces of the puzzle and clarity of insight into the functioning of the Johnson Administration's foreign policy that are invaluable in understanding the era.

Well worth the read!

I found this book to be a little bit dry at times, though on the other hand, the descriptions of the violence at the hands of both the IRA and other republican groups and by the Unionist/loyalist groups were quite graphic. Still, it was quite easy to keep up with who was who and who was on which side, something that can sometimes be a problem in a history book. The authors gave a pretty balanced perspective--I do think they were a little more on the Catholic side, but overall, it was balanced. I do wish they had gone more into the background. Why did the British send the Protestants to Catholic Ireland in the first place, and how did the two sides get along before the 20th century? This is glossed over, though I guess what information is given is sufficient. It does whet my appetite to know more, however.

David McKittrick and David McVea present a thoughtful, excellent overview of sectarian strife in Northern Ireland since the 1960's, giving a balanced look at both the Protestant and Catholic communities. They begin with a superb brief historical sketch on the origins and early history of Northern Ireland, chronicling its major events from its inception in 1921 through the 1960's. They offer many fascinating portraits of prominent British, Irish and Northern Irish politicians and terrorists, ranging from the likes of diehard Protestant minister Ian Paisley to former IRA member Gerry Adams. This is quite simply one of the best books I've read on recent Northern Irish history and may be the best historical overview on the origins and current state of "The Troubles".

If you are like I was before I read this book knowing only that Northern Ireland was about some kind of Religious Conflicts and the IRA then you have so much more to learn about Northern Ireland as I have learned with this book. This book covers everything in an informative way to help one absorb the information and yet not feel inundated. The book also features a chronology of events for quick references, tables and a glossary section that serves as a refresh section for the mind when the abbreviations of political parties and organizations become to much to remember. I recommend this book highly for personal or academic reasons in learning about the troubles in Northern Ireland.