Social Stress and the Family: Advances and Developments in Family Stress Theory and Research

Customer Reviews:

The Other Side of Time.......2005-09-02

One of the best books ever written about World War II. I had the 1st Edition of Brendan Phipps' book and "lent" it to my Grandson who has a great interest in the war. When I finished reading "Seven Days in January", a recent acquisition, I wanted to follow up and read "The Other Side of Time" again for the umpteenth time. Rather than ask for my copy back from him I gambled and found a copy on line which is in excellent (like new) condition and also a first edition.

"The Other Side of Time" really presents the gritty side of war and does so with emotion rarely exhibited. The rememberances are those of the author from notes kept by him. The story is told so well that it leaves a lasting impression.

A Little Known Classic.......2005-08-11

Forget "Saving Private Ryan"--this is the real deal, the front lines story written by a combat surgeon without any of romantic claptrap. A bracing, funny, terrifying read--a classic of the genre. Granted, there are moments when the writing is a tad florid, but the reader quickly forgives these tangents--the core of the book holds your attention like few other books. If everyone read this book, there'd be far fewer wars.

Read the Preface........2003-03-10

"The Other Side Of Time" by Brendan Phibbs; sub-titled: "A Combat Surgeon In World War II. Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1987.

The writing in this book is superb. The insight equals the writing. Dr. Brendan Phipps was training as a surgeon when the Second World War interfered with his life. Some forty years later, after the death of his wife and after his children "scattered", he sat down with a box, full of notebooks ("...one stained with long-oxidized blood) , reports, a German soldier's paybook and a "...few pages of military jargon", to write his memoirs. He did a great job.

His book covers the end of the war in Europe, when American forces were advancing into Germany and it was becoming clear that the war was over. His comments hit the highpoints of many other books: "...they (the Germans) have dumber generals than we have". (Page 91). "An elderly Irishman ... (stated) ... that Germans learned slower than pigs at their Latin." (Page 90). American Sherman tanks burn: "Bitter commentary on American engineering. American slavish addition to high-octane gasoline; diesel-fueled , heavily armored German tanks keep right on coming." (Page 152). But, throughout it all, he is able to put a human face on the horror and terror that they experienced. Because of his ability in French and German, Dr. Phibbs also brings some of the other side into his book, as when he describes how the collaborators were dealt with in the so-called Colmar Pocket in France.

This book is, perhaps, one of the best-written memoirs of World War II. His last sentence in the Preface:
"Please, young people, listen to us before we leave."

This book is back in print under a different title.......2002-06-22

This book is no longer out of print. It has just been republished in paperback under the title OUR WAR FOR THE WORLD.

Shows you the heroism of the Greatest Generation.......2001-12-06

The Other Side of Time, is, along with Paul Fussell's Wartime, one of the best books ever written about World War II. Brendan Phibbs was a combat surgeon drafted into the Army in 1942 who saw service in Europe later in the war. The book is written from the diaries he kept at the time and re-read years later. Some of the passages in this book are incredibly beautiful, the first
story, about the burial of an ordinary soldier named Wally is
fantastic. The book pulls no punches, Phibbs talks about the anti-semitism of his fellow doctors, the incompetence of many US military officers, the evil of the Germans and the stupidity of our Department of State in repatriating Russian POWs and displaced persons back to Stalinist Russia after the war. These stories make it hard to read, you want to weep when you read about the indifference of American medical authorities to the suffering of death camp inmates and gnash your teeth at the incompetence of our officers who sent inferior American tanks into head to head battles with the superior German panzers, only to see them destroyed. But despite these stories the heroism of the soldiers that Phibbs served with shines through. I really wish that they would reprint this book, or that HBO would do a series based on it as they did on Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers.

THE OTHER SIDE OF TIME: A COMBAT SURGEON IN WORLD WAR II.

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THE OTHER SIDE OF TIME: A COMBAT SURGEON IN WORLD WAR II.
Brendan. Phibbs
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WAOO3W

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A fascinating, unfortunately true book about massive greed and corruption

A must read

A little skewed but pretty sound

A FEAST FOR THE CHINA READER

Seagrave Proves that Chinese Politics Haven't Change Much

Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

China | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books
General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
General | China | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0060913185

Book Description

An inside account of the Soong family, whose wealth and power have dominated China and U.S.-Asia policy in the 20th century.

Customer Reviews:

A fascinating, unfortunately true book about massive greed and corruption .......2006-07-21

I became interested in learning more about the three Soong sisters after seeing the Chinese film, "The Soong Sisters." What I learned from reading this book was two of the sisters were far worse than as portrayed in the movie.

Sterling Seagrave in "The Soong Dynasty" reveals the unbelievable greed and corruption among most members of the Soong family and many of their associates. Given the widespread and often lengthy quoting from primary sources to support his conclusions, this is a better documented book, in my opinion, than some reviewers have claimed. Such highly regarded persons as the journalist Theodore White and United States General Joseph Stilwell, as quoted in the book, were highly critical of Chiang's regime.

It has been thoroughly demonstrated by numerous historians how Chiang's incompetence and corruption led to the downfall of his Nationalist government in 1949. However, after reading "The Soong Dynasty," one must conclude that he was one of the worst villians in modern Chinese history. As one example, as the author says and this is also pointed out by numerous historians, Chiang refused to order his armies to fight the Japanese, who were guilty of atrocities in China comparable to the Holocaust. One of the great tragedies in modern Chinese history has been the very negative effects Chiang and Mao had upon the Chinese people.

The first few chapters in the book focus upon the incredible rise to wealth and influence by Charlie Soong, the founder of the "Soong dynasty." Of the three Soong sisters, Ai-ling and May-ling were preoccupied with power and hardly imaginable greed. Seagrave shows how certain very greedy members of the Soong family embezzled hundreds of millions in United States military and humanitarian aid to China during the 1940's.

The other sister, Ching-ling was the only member of the Soong family, that also included three brothers, who actually cared about the people of China, as well as who was not greedy and selfish. I wish there had been more information in the "Soong Dynasty" about Ching-ling's life after the 1930's.

A must read.......2006-06-30

for anyone interested in China, history, politics. After reading this book 5-6 years ago, I now buy a copy for any of my friends that are traveling to China. An amazing story that reads like fiction, but is factual.

A little skewed but pretty sound.......2005-12-07

Sterling Seagrave, a decent China scholar, has produced a punchy history of the Soong family and its marriages to the rich and powerful of republican China. This includes Chiang Kai Shek (Jiang Jie Shi, actually, aka CKS) and Sun Yat Sen.

The work is generally accurate about the dynasty's incredible greed, the tales of the three sisters including Dragon Lady Madame Chiang. The mainland Chinese still like to sum them up with the bon mot, "there were three sisters; one loved power, one loved money, and one loved China." This volume explains why.

The book is a splendid introduction to modern Taiwan and why it is as it is, why the Chinese Republic failed, and how drug dealing and corruption brought it down. It is a wonderful introduction to Tuchmann's classic "Stilwell and the American Experience in China."

The book is perhaps too hard on old CKS who had great strengths as an organizer and mollifier, and did make some attempts at land and fiscal reform. But it is broadly accurate and is a must read for any scholar of modern China.

The Soong Dynasty is why the mainland and Taiwan are what they are today!

reviewer note: I have lived in both places and speak excellent Mandarin.

A FEAST FOR THE CHINA READER.......2005-11-12

This book is truly a feast for the reader with an interest in China as it has evolved in the previous century. This is the story of the Soong family and their enormous influence on modern China. The six Soong children, three sons and three daughters, were the offspring of Charlie Soong and Ni-Kwei-tseng. These two Chinese were very religious and God-fearing Christians. Charlie was educated in the US and made his fortune selling Bibles in China. This book tells the story of these children and their almost unbelievable lives. To quote the author "Few families since the Borgias have played such a disturbing role in human destiny". One son, T. V. Soong became perhaps the richest man in history and exerted enormous influence over US foriegn policy towards China. He was also the finance minister of China. Of three Soong sisters, one, Mai-Ling, married Chaing Kai-Chek, another, Ching-Ling, married Sun Yat-sen, and the last, Ai-Ling, married into one of the richest banking families in China. Mai-Ling was educated at Wellesley and was long regarded as one of the ten most influential women in the world. An understatement, if ever there was.

Covers the chaotic years of modern China and the long brutal wars against the Japanese and the savage conflicts between the Nationialists and the Communists. Has a lot of great information on the American involvement here, Stillwell, Claire Chennault (who was almost the only American in China who was not a fool) and the Flying Tigers (the Flying Tigers are venerated in the China of today), Hurley, Morgenthau, Henry and Claire Booth Luce and many, many others. This book is so jam packed with information that it is almost mind boggling. The Green Gangs, Big Eared Tu, a host of warlords, the dreaded gangster Tongs, drug empires, murderers, adventurers, Soldiers of Fortune, prostitutes and thieves. The cast of characters in this book is almost endless, however it all fits together very well and will leave the serious reader a changed person as far as China and our own endlessly bumbling government is concerned. Everything I have read in this books dovetails nicely with the study I have done on China.

The author, Sterling Seagrave, spent most of his life Asia and knows his subject well.

I can only say read this remarkable book. It is an absolute must have for the China history buff and scholar.

Seagrave Proves that Chinese Politics Haven't Change Much.......2005-01-18

I've read this book several times since it was first published, and while I agree that Seagrave's sources aren't always documented as well as they should be, the author's conclusion is inescapable: the Soongs were largely as bad for China as were the communist leaders they struggled against so ardently. Even Ching-ling, who I agree, was used as a pawn by the Soviets, however unwittingly.

Most of the negative reviews of Seagrave's "The Soong Dynasty" that state that it is too partisan maybe correct. However, the opinions and writings of General Joseph Stillwell, and the results of Freedom of Information Act inquiries by researchers (revealing the investigations by the by the Truman Administration and the F.B.I) are difficult to dismiss. My wife is Chinese, and her paternal grandfather was a member of Chiang Kai Shek's officer corps. We also have friends who married into the extended Soong family in California, and all of them bridle at this characterization of Chiang, his wife and her siblings. However, the Soongs' collective behavior as leaders of modern China cannot be so easily excused by those who cite that all of this occurred "during a difficult period of Chinese history" so they should be judged less harshly and/or more fairly. Of course it was difficult; they helped to make it so along with their communist counterparts.

Having lived and worked in Taiwan for a number of years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was able to observe first hand how modern politicians conduct themselves and how the elections are handled, and I must state that little has changed since the halcyon days of the Soong clan. Government goon squads are sent out by the incumbents, prior to the actual elections, intimidating potential dissenters and reporters, party campaign volunteers travel door-to-door offering voters cash in exchange for their support, opposition party members die in mysterious accidents, etc. These incidents, I saw personally, and read about in the daily periodicals. Even today with a different party than the Kuo Ming Tang in power, there are dubious things afoot such as the questionable 'assassination attempts' on the eve of a potentially disastrous election for the incumbent.

Yes, again, I would state that little has changed in the way the Chinese conduct themselves politically since the 1911 Revolution and the establishment of Communist China. The subsequent economic successes of Taiwan and now Mainland China are a testament to the resilience, diligence and inventiveness of the Chinese people, rather than the foresight and thoughtfulness of their politicians (e.g. Chinese tanks at Tiananmen, Taiwanese boxing matches in sessions of their Parliament, etc.).

Rather pointedly, there is kind of a running joke in Taiwan and China comparing the economic successes of the Japanese with that of the Chinese. It goes something like this (I'm paraphrasing, of course):

10 Chinese entrepreneurs start 10 different small businesses as do 10 Japanese entrepreneurs. However, by the end of the year, the Japanese businessmen have consolidated each of their individual operations into a conglomerate, to take advantage of the economics of scale which benefits all, while the Chinese continue to operate their mom & pop ventures, individually, each owner unwilling to relinquish the reins of ownership and power, regardless of the potential benefit to the group.

This may be a cultural pathology of the Chinese, and how this behavior often manifests itself politically can be disastrous for a nation. That's how I see the Chiang Kai Shek, the Soongs, and Mao and his cronies: interested in bettering things for themselves first, with the welfare of their nations' populace a distant second.

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The Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NURRNA

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Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O689BC

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The Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: HARPER & ROW
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UYLOFG

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The Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: Sidgwick & Jackson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LGH0QK

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The Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seaqgrave
Manufacturer: Sidgwick & Jackson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LZQO2C

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The Soong Dynasty
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: Sidgwick & Jackson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORYO1K

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The Soong Dynasty -
Sterling Seagrave -
Manufacturer: Harper Publishing -
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000T8HOGG

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The Soong Dynasty / Sterling Seagrave
Sterling Seagrave
Manufacturer: New York : Harper & Row
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WVNTVE

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The Soong Dynasty.
STERLING. SEAGRAVE
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEYL34

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Frustrated by grouped species

Pocket Life List: A Birdwatcher's Life List and Diary of North American Birds
Bernard A. Fashingbauer
Manufacturer: Syren Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books
Ornithology | Zoology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0929636244

Book Description

This is the essential companion to your field guide, whether you're a serious or casual birder. Each North American species is listed by common and scientific name. Space is provided to record when and where a specimen was sighted, along with other essential notes. Silhouettes in the margin key the sections containing each bird Order. Each species is also indexed by common and scientific name.

Based on the American Ornithologists Union Checklist,
Sixth Edition, 832 Entries.

Customer Reviews:

Frustrated by grouped species.......2007-07-12

A useful tool for organizing, but I'm finding that Fashingbauer's decisions on merging and omitting various species don't quite fit with my own records (or my field guide!)

Still, a nice little book for keeping track of a life list.

Average customer rating:

Australian Birdwatcher's Diary
Ted Schurmann Wendy Jennings
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LS7N9C

Birdwatcher's Companion (Pocket Companion)

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Birdwatcher's Companion (Pocket Companion)
Ronnie Sellers Productions
Manufacturer: Sellers Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Birds | Animal Care & Pets | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1569063516

Book Description

This pocket-sized hardcover journal is designed for bird enthusiast. It has 180 lined pages divided by 6 colorful, subject-specific tabs; Sightings, Observations, Events, Behavior, Field Guides and Rresources. Each companion also features a nameplate and clear, zippered pocket for easy storage of notes and sundries.

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The Birdwatcher's Yearbook and Diary
John E. Pemberton
Manufacturer: Buckingham Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Diary

General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books

$THE BIRDWATCHER\'S YEARBOOK: AND DIARY$
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THE BIRDWATCHER\'S YEARBOOK: AND DIARY
JOHN PEMBERTON
Manufacturer: BUCKINGHAM PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S7XD8G

Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher (Harvest Book)

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A Sleeper
bird watchers bible
Poet's prose "diary" is a marvelous hybrid.

Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher (Harvest Book)
Leonard Nathan
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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The Potato Eaters

ASIN: 0156005387

Book Description

Writing with “luminous clarity” (Kirkus Reviews), an award-winning poet brings to life his all-consuming quest to catch a glimpse of Plectrophenax nivalis, the elusive Snow Bunting.

Customer Reviews:

A Sleeper.......2004-05-22

This book was so boring that I didn't finish it. I forced myself to read 70%, but couldn't continue. While Mr. Nathan has plenty of historical facts, poems and other tidbits, this book feels more like a literary exercise than a book that truly captures the spirit and delight of birding (or bird watching).

bird watchers bible.......2002-10-28

My grandfather has made a stunning book and it truely lets the reader see his deep passion for bird watching and his religious meaning to this hobbie. He captures real passion and makes this book a must have for birdwatchers everywhere.

Poet's prose "diary" is a marvelous hybrid........1998-01-16

Jim Schley, South Strafford VT: Leonard Nathan is the author of nine fabulous collections of poems, and the book here reviewed is a hybrid, written in prose, neither fiction nor nonfiction precisely. I use the term "precisely" on purpose, because Nathan's work is replete with exact connections and combinations, images and phrases that defy passing quickly over.

In design and presentation, Nathan's new book is beautiful and compact. In plot, his meta-fictional [ital] Diary is oblique, left-handed in more ways than one, built up like a montage of ruminative passages such as those in a personal diary. One ostensible purpose of Nathan's "entries" is to record the excursions of Thursday's Children, an otherwise unaffiliated gang of aspiring naturalists who gather once a week to carpool to promising sites with their field guides and binoculars. The narrator - a version of Nathan himself, bookworm and unabashed amateur - insists upon the distinction between the serendipitous [ital] birdwatcher and the more zealous [ital] birder, who is "more hunter than looker-on, more passionate about having seen than seeing," and whose Life List is paramount. Nathan playfully interlaces in these pages accounts of hilarious field-trips (grown men and women piling into cars to hurry somewhere because someone has reported sighting), snatches of dreams, poems from various writers, and meditations upon the allure of finally seeing - really [ital] seeing - an elusive exemplar, the snow bunting, which he believes he's only glimpsed once from the edge of an eye. Running through the other diary entries is a series of conversations between poet and scientist, in this case an ornithologist who scornfully questions the idea that an artist could make any genuinely useful contribution to comprehension of the avian world. Our poet is bewildered by the scientist's rebuttals, and he repeatedly tries to reformulate a precept that the scientist will accept. This philosophical confrontation is fierce and grand, even as the genuine friendship of these two men of contrary sensibilities is insightfully dramatized.

I cannot recommend [ital] Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher more delightedly. This is one of the most unusual and evocative books of prose I've read in a long while, as likely to please lovers of poetry as devotees of superb nature writing.

I'm impressed that my own group of friends in New England has become avid for birdwatching. Many of these are people who formerly lived seasonally in different houses, renting or house-sitting or even tenting, and who now have children and homes they've built. We've grown more alert to the other residents of our territory. The activities of the birds around us, arriving and nesting, mating and feeding and fledging then moving on in the fall, keep coming up in conversations as we pass on the sidewalk or in the aisles of a store - the first vireo heard, or last warbler; an unexpected glimpse of a scarlet tanager; the enormous gray goshawk on a maple bough.

In Genesis, Adam undertakes responsibility for assigning a name to each creature in existence, and ever since, poets have defended their task as comparably essential. In actual practice, even poets as skilled as Nathan are less likely to invent than refresh - using the shared vocabulary of our working-day language, to show all over again how bracingly words plunge us not [ital] out of but [ital] into what Denise Levertov calls the life around us. If the aim of scientific taxonomy is to be exhaustive, comprehensive, categorical, and discriminating, the aim of poetic rendering is to crisscross and blend. These are different but complementary modes of precision.

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Australian Birdwatcher's diary
Ted Schurmann Wendy Jennings
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LS92FU

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Birdwatcher's Diary
Roger & Peter Barrett Lovegrove
Manufacturer: Hutchinson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OGLK4K

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The Birdwatcher's Log

Manufacturer: Viesti Collection
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Stationery

General | Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
Blank Books | Journals | Accessories | Formats | Books
ASIN: 1583581286

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The Birdwatcher's Yearbook and Diary

Manufacturer: Maney Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Almanacs & Yearbooks | Reference | Subjects | Books | Almanacs | Yearbooks & Annuals
Birdwatching | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books | Excursion Guides | Field Guides | General
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ASIN: 095503390X

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