Product Description
Poker has taken America by storm. But its not just any form of poker that has people across the country so excited its no-limit hold em the main event game. And now thanks to televised tournaments tens of thousands of new players are eager to claim their share of poker glory. In the first volume of this series, Harrington on Hold em: Volume I: Strategic Play, Dan Harrington explained how to play in the early phases of tournaments, when most players at the table had plenty of chips, and the blinds and antes were small. This book, Harrington on Hold em: Volume II: The Endgame shows you how to play in the later phases of a tournament, when the field has been cut down, the blinds and antes are growing, and the big prize money is within sight. Harrington shows you how to make moves, handle tricky inflection point plays, and maneuver when the tournament is down to its last few players and the end is in sight. Hes also included a whole chapter on heads-up play, whose strategies up to now have been a closely-guarded secret of the games top masters. Dan Harrington won the gold bracelet and the World Champion title at the $10,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold em Championship at the 1995 World Series of Poker. And he was the only player to make it to the final table in 2003 (field of 839) and 2004 (field of 2,576) considered by cognoscenti to be the greatest accomplishment in WSOP history. In Harrington on Hold em, Harrington and two-time World Backgammon Champion Bill Robertie have written the definitive book on no-limit hold em for players who want to win and win big.
Customer Reviews:
Harrington continues.......2007-09-14
Excellent continuation of vloume 1. I know that reading these books will improve my game with time, it's a lot to learn and try to implement. Anyone can improve using the guidelines and tips given.
Great Book.......2007-09-08
Strategy illustrated in the book seems to work well. This is a definite need for any poker player. Highly recommend.
Terrific Book.......2007-07-25
I've now read both Harrington's Volumes I & II on Texas Hold em - terrific books. This volume (II - Endgame) is an essential follow up to Volume I. I've read Brunson's Super System. He's got some good insights, but alot of rambling too. Alot of these poker books are about the authors philosophy of poker and the great accomplishments they had - who cares? Just tell me how to make good bets! And that's just what Harrington does. Harrington's book really gives you the nuts and bolts of good poker. When I was at my first tournament, I remember most of the time not really knowing what decisions to make, whether it was pre-flop, post-flop etc. I was always going by my "instincts". Well guess what? My instincts suck - as do most people's. Yeah, you may get a good read once in a while, but that's it. I finally feel like I can make good decisions. I never had any idea the game was so complicated, but I have a much better appreciation for it now. One of the best things it taught me, and that I wasn't doing, was to try and figure out what the other players had based on their betting and their styles. If you do read this book, I hope I never have to play against you!
Please Don't Buy This Book - I Want to Beat You.......2007-07-20
My success has gone up dramatically since I have read and applied these concepts. I do not want the Harrington Way becoming well known or standard play because right now I have an advantage. Concepts like M, Q, Randomizing, and his concept review of late stages - all just brilliant.
a must read for serious players!.......2007-07-15
great follow up book to volume 1.
dives into the finer points of no limit holdem.
i'm looking forward to reading volume 3.
Book Description
For more than 100 years, the world's leading chess players and teachers have told their students to study the endgame. Now, for the first time, a revolutionary, richly instructive endgame book has been designed for players of all levels. Silman's Complete Endgame Course, by famed writer and player Jeremy Silman, is the one and only endgame book you'll need as you move up the ladder from beginner to strong tournament player and finally to master.
Designed to "speak" to a player in a very personal way, Silman's book teaches the student everything he or she needs to know at his or her current rating level, and builds on that knowledge for each subsequent phase of the player's development. Starting at the beginner's level, all basic mates are clearly and painstakingly explained. After that, the critical building blocks that form the endgame foundation for all tournament hopefuls and experienced tournament competitors are explored in detail. Finally, advanced endgame secrets based on concepts rather than memorization are presented in a way that makes them easy to master.
The basic keys to a well-rounded endgame education--Opposition, the Lucena and Philidor Positions, Cat and Mouse, Trebuchet, Fox in the Chicken Coup, Triangulation, Building a Box, Square of a Pawn, Outflanking, the Principle of Two Weaknesses--are vital. But equally important is creating a love of the endgame, which is addressed at the end of the book with a look at chess tactics, minor piece domination, and a discussion of the five greatest endgame players of all time--all things that every fan of chess at every level can enjoy.
If you have found the endgame to be a mystery, if you have found that your confidence plummets once you reach an endgame, if you have searched for an instructive endgame book that will turn your weakest link--your endgame--into your personal field of power, your search is over. Silman's Complete Endgame Course is the key to a world of essential ideas, startling beauty, and stunning creativity.
Customer Reviews:
One of the best chess books........2007-08-23
I have been studying chess (with a coach) for eight months, and I have found that most chess books are written for players way above my current ability. This one, though, is terrific. It takes you from beginning endgame stuff steadily through more difficult material, building on itself as it goes.
Good endgame book, especially for the beginner.......2007-08-23
I have found this book to be helpful and useful, especially for the beginner. It separates each endgame "course" according to rating, so that the beginner is not trying to learn moves for a class A player, and a class A player doesn't have to slog through stuff they've known for years. I highly recommend it.
Gives you what you need and don't need to know.......2007-08-16
I'm not going to repeat what everyone else has said in their reviews.
Yes - brilliant concept, sorting endgames by playing strength. Stroke of genius. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before. Etc
I'd just like to say how liberating it is to read an instructional chess book and know that I can stop after a certain number of chapters because I already know more than enough.
There are not many chess books that explicitly state: "you already know enough about this - now go and practise some tactics and come back when you get a few games under your belt".
The hardest part about studying the endgame is knowing when to stop.
This book tells you what you DON'T need to know as well as what you DO.
Lucena position - don't worry about it just yet - get your rating up first.
Knight and Bishop versus Lone King - it ain't gonna happen.
How refreshing!
Wonderful.......2007-08-13
This is a step by step guide to the endgame. There has been a competition between two types of endgame books - those that want you to memorize thousands of positions and those who want you to understand various concepts and memorize only a couple positions. The problem becomes that the first is very time consuming but straight forward and the later is much faster but very difficult to understand.
This book gives the speed of learning concepts with the straightforwardness of memorizing positions. Silman has out done himself this time.
The only downside to this book is that it does not show how to checkmate with Knight and Bishop vs King but how many times have you actually been in this position? My guess is none and if you have been in it, odds are you never will be again.
I recommend this book for people of skill level from beginner to master.
Superb book to learn endgames.......2007-07-23
This was the second endgame book I bought. The first, "Just the Facts Winning Chess Endgames" was organized by endgame type (e.g. Rook Endgames). Silman's is truly a course, with chapters for beginners on up by rating. So rather than trying to master everything there is about rook endgames, Silman gives you what you need to know for your ability level. You revisit different endgames as you progress through the chapters.
I love all of Silman's books that I've read so far, and this one is no exception! If you're already a top-notch player, maybe any endgame book will work for you. But if you're learning, Silman's can't be beat!
Book Description
An indispensable guide to strategic best practices for business mergers
Thirteen years ago, the experts at A. T. Kearney embarked on a landmark, worldwide study of business mergers. Encompassing 25,000 companies across 24 industries in 53 countries, the study revealed much crucial information that was previously unknown about business consolidation. This book shares those revelations and insights with senior executives, consultants, and industry analysts involved in the merger process.
More important, it builds on those findings to present readers with a solid game plan for winning the consolidation game.
Readers learn about the consolidation cycles through which industries pass, how to identify where in the cycle their industry currently lies, how to leverage that knowledge in determining which organizational changes they need to make and when they need to make them, and how to develop and deploy the most successful merger strategies.
Download Description
"An indispensable guide to strategic best practices for business mergers. "
Customer Reviews:
Original thinking on M&A.......2003-02-12
This is the first original thinking on M&A that I've seen recently. Most of the M&A books go on and on about why mergers work or don't work. Winning the Merger Endgame talks about M&A in terms of its effect on industries and how they consolidate and change over time. The endgames model is intriguingly displayed as an S curve. I would only quibble slightly over the horizontal time axis, which makes the time span for each stage seem more specific than it probably is. But the research is solid and long-term.
Great book, compelling paradigm.......2003-02-07
In a glut of milquetoast business books, "Winning the Merger Endgame" stands out as a gem. The combination of solid research, analysis and writing style results in a credible, useful book that anyone interested in business should read. The heart of the book is a model that describes and predicts how industries consolidate. It's a compelling discovery that will undoubtedly change--and chart--business strategies for years. Bottom line: read it and use it.
Consolidation rules discovered.......2002-12-22
I read this book with great interest. Working in retail for more than 10 years now, this book matched my experience and helps me to forecast what might happen in my industry over the next couple of years. Although I - as well as many other readers - have an idea of what could happen or what is probably, this book with the underlying research of thousands of companies over more than 10 years and the expertise of a consulting powerhouse brings the findings to the point and quantifies them. The only small disadvantage is the title: as the book is not only focusing on mergers, but on consolidation trends as a whole (therefore also valid in times where consolidation trends are fought via price wars and organic growth).
I would already speculate that this book will become a real classic and I recommend it to any strategist, CEO or CFO interested in the mechanics of consolidation trends and finding long term survival strategies.
to the point.......2002-12-10
Finally a book that is "to the point". Simple, short, with new ideas and interesting examples.
Book Description
Why is it that most amateur chess players love opening and middlegame tactics but hate endgames? Why do you usually look at only a couple of pages in any endgame theory book you see? Sit back, forget about theoretical endgames, and enjoy the entertainment of real life chess in Endgame Tactics! There is no substitute for hard work in getting better at chess, as a wise grandmaster once said. But you always work harder at something you enjoy. Make the first step towards improving your endgame play (and beat more opponents) by learning to love the endgame. Endgames are fun, and the examples from everyday practice in Endgame Tactics prove it.
Customer Reviews:
A good book could have been better........2007-05-30
This book got the English chess federation's book of the year award. This book is not an exhaustive manual but focuses on endgames that occur frequently in practice. The positions chosen are entertaining and educational; the positions were checked using Fritz, a strong computer chess program; that's the good part about the book. Unfortunately, the positions with 6 pieces or less were not checked with tablebases which play endgames *perfectly*. For example, diagram 287 on page 135 gives white's move 1 b6? as an error. This is not true. The win is still there until 4 Kb3? which should be drawn but then black plays 4...Rh3+? handing the win back to white. The final position is still a white win which the book claims is a theoretical draw. Perlo says "I refer you to the manuals". He should have said "I refer you to the tablebases". If the editor Peter Boel had taken this one last step the book could have been even better.
Fantastic book.......2007-05-10
Still going through this book...interesting endgame situations that I had never seen before this.....highly recommended...I find myself setting up most of these problems on my board....
introduction.......2007-01-21
this book doesnt have inroductions it has only positional analysis likes a computer program. a good program gives better then its
The most enjoyable endgame book I've ever read.......2006-12-17
I'm well into this book, and it's great fun. I've always loved tactics books, and this is the first endgame book I've ever encountered with this approach. Middlegame tactics books like this helped me reach master level; I wonder how far an endgame tactics book could have helped me go? I never found endgames as much fun to study (til now). :-)
Probably one of the 25 best chess books I've seen in over 30 years. I highly recommend it to players and fans at any level!
PS - This book has been named the English Chess Federation Book of the Year 2006. There's a great discussion of Endgame Tactics on Mig Greenguard's Daily Dirt chess blog, if you search for the book title there, too.
Excellent & Amusing!.......2006-09-07
"Endgame Tactics" is an amusing romp through the part of a chess game that most of us agree is the most boring. Van Perlo presents many tactical positions, organized according to the remaining pieces, displaying tactical motifs. Van Perlo also engages the reader with a level of banter uncharacteristic for a chess book, making "Endgame Tactics" much more enjoyable that those typical dry chess tomes that we are all too familiar with. Although there are better books to read if you want to actually learn proper endgame technique, this book is still worth reading. You will obtain a tactical perspective into endgames that I have not seen anywhere else.
Average customer rating:
- Great comic book!!
- Must have for Star Wars fan
- Great ending to Clone wars
- Finally!
- Darth Vader, nuff said!
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Endgame (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Vol. 9)
John Ostrander ,
Welles Hartley ,
Jan Duursema ,
Doug Wheatley , and
Others
Manufacturer: Dark Horse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 Popular Culture | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Comics & Graphic Novels | Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery & Horror | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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Science Fiction | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
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Star Wars | Characters | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books
Ostrander, John | ( O ) | Authors, A-Z | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
Star Wars | Media Series | Series | Science Fiction | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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When They Were Brothers (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Vol. 7)
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ASIN: 1593075537 |
Book Description
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Customer Reviews:
Great comic book!!.......2007-05-14
This is a great series! Absolutely worth to begin an excellent Star Wars series! The art is great and there are a lot of details and things to watch in these magazines.
Must have for Star Wars fan.......2007-04-11
The book is a good collection of stories on how the fall of the Old Republic and the fall of the jedi order after Episode 3 of the movies. I will admit that most of the stories are a bit short for my taste and a bit open-ended to boot, but overall not to bad. Great artwork and compelling stories.
Great ending to Clone wars.......2007-04-03
This was a great ending to the whole clone wars comic series.
Finally!.......2007-01-26
I loved the artwork, of course, and Quinlan's story was quite interesting. Bcuz the story takes place during, and immediately after, Order 66, it was touching to see old characters revisited, like Mace Windu and Dooku/Tyranus.
"Into The Unknown" is a story of several surviving Jedi, and their separate destinies. It was a VERY moving story (I almost cried). But even better than the story is the artwork!
"Purge" was interesting, but I didn't see enuf of Vader. The story focused more on the trap-laying Jedi, not Vader. I'd like to get into his head, like "Rise of Darth Vader" did, but visually. See how he's coping w/ his new "body" and his feelings about the life he lost, and his true feelings about Palpatine, knowing that Anakin was lured into a lifetime of servitude to the true monster, the one that trapped him in the suit.
Darth Vader, nuff said!.......2007-01-10
An exciting and chilling end to the Clone Wars as the SW galaxy is transformed by the repercussions of the events from Revenge of the Sith. Several strong characters emerge as lead-ins to other SW series from Dark Horse comics.
Book Description
Whereas Volume 1 of Endgame presents the problem of civilization, Volume 2 of this pivotal work illustrates our means of resistance. Incensed and hopeful, impassioned and lucid, Endgame leap-frogs the environmental movement's deadlock over our willingness to change our conduct, focusing instead on our ability to adapt to the impending ecological revolution.
Derrick Jensen, activist, author, small farmer, teacher, and philosopher, is the author of A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe. A finalist for the 2003 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize whose writing has been described as "breaking and mending the reader's heart," Jensen's speaking engagements in recent years have packed university auditoriums, conferences, and bookstores nationwide.
Customer Reviews:
Fits Like a Gun in Your Hand.......2007-02-25
Derrick Jensen is one of those authors that people love or hate. As for myself, I have mixed feelings about the guy and his message. Despite these mixed feelings, though, I never fail to read his books when they come out - and Endgame was by far an away the most anticipated and climactic one yet due to its highly controversial subject: taking down civilization. That's right, taking down civilization.
But why would anyone want to take down civilization, you might ask? At this point, I should say that if you have not already had the pleasure of receiving a formal introduction to the man and his work, you might want to start with one of his earlier publications, such as Listening to the Land, A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Strangely Like War and Welcome or the Machine. In fact, I would recommend reading them all. They lay the groundwork from which Endgame both springs and builds upon: specifically, that civilization is F-U-B-A-R and doomed to collapse in the near but not too distant future, if not from climate change, then from resource depletion, soil erosion, toxic buildup or any other of the common environmental factors outlined in Jared Diamond's Collapse or the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World reports.
Or you might want to just dive right in, since in Volume I of Endgame Jensen outlines many of the fundamental flaws of our cherished civilization. And although each page reads with the power and relevance of an anarcho-primitiveist manifesto, Endgame, the two-volume summation of Jensen's writing career, amounts to nearly 1,000 pages in total - a lot of lumber for a strident call to arms. In fact, under the right circumstances, the book itself is large enough to be used as a blunt instrument to aid the deconstruction of civilization. All jokes aside, though, the net result is a rather awkward flow: a seemingly never-ending concatenation of ideas that, although related by theme, often contradict each other - by the author's own admission:
"Why do you think I laid out the premises explicitly for you, put you in a position of actively choosing to agree or disagree with them? Whey do you think I've approached this form so many directions? Why do you think I've expressed my own fears, expressed my own confusion? Why do you think I've made points, undercut or contradicted them, and then made them again? ... The point is the process I am trying to model. The point is that you puzzle your own way through, and figure out for yourself what, if anything, you need to do." (p 886)
Although I enjoyed the book thoroughly, and often recommend it to friends, Jensen does not come off as being genuine here. By this, I don't mean that he is purposefully deceiving the readers so much as himself. Along with all the interesting environmental science, psychology and poetry the book contains, the underlying current of rage and despair that makes his writing so profound reaches an all time high in Endgame - to the point where he calls upon the reader to "go on the offensive," imploring us to blow up dams, tear up concrete and knock down cell phone towers. Just "don't get sloppy," he advises. "Don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know. Don't get caught" (Dams: Part IV).
Of course, the minute some 16-year-old kid is locked up for taking Jensen's advice and demolishing a dam - or worse - I am sure Jensen will quote something from the 2-page chapter entitled "Responsibility" in his defense - a chapter which, remarkably enough, is little more than an apology for doing such things as blowing up dams to protect your "land base". Or perhaps he will quote one of the many disclaimers ("but don't listen to me, follow your heart") he so sparingly peppers throughout a book predominately dedicated to inspiring illegal activities. Considering the average age of his readership is probably around twenty-four, devoting only two pages to responsibility in a book of this nature is, in my opinion, an abominable abrogation of balance. But, hey, like most geniuses, Jensen is not known for his emotional balance.
All books have weaknesses, just as all authors have weaknesses, and having met Jensen on more than one occasion and sat in on many of his lectures around the country, I am very much aware that the overall importance of his thought far outweighs the single-minded, dam-demolition-obsessed demagogic carelessness of his presentation. In conclusion, I highly recommend that you read this book - but be careful not to leave it lying around where one of your curious, trigger-happy kids might find it unattended. The content is dangerous enough to require parental discretion - which I advise.
Some books you might also want to check out of a similar theme: Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism, Against Civilization, My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization, and Igniting a Revolution.
j.w.k.
Karl Marx, Thomas Paine, Fredrick Douglass, Derrick Jensen-a call for responsibility beyond fear.......2006-07-13
It's a daunting task to begin to distill 908 pages (with very funny footnotes)into an online review. Essentially, I think this work takes its place among other great works that are often recognized and revered from a historical distance. We look at history and say, yes, I would have definetely been part of the Underground Railroad, or the German resistance against the Nazis, or the Zapatistas. But what of now and the crisis that we face? Maybe you can't see the clearcuts or the dying salmon. But maybe you teach in the public schools and see children that are destined for prison. Maybe you know someone that's suffered and died of a rare cancer that didn't exist in your grandparent's time. Maybe it's feeling like a whore for a mortgage company. Or maybe you're finding that all the pharmaceuticals in the world can't make up for the lack of a local community.
Jensen begins with the premise that civilization is destroying the planet and that its very nature is to continue to do so. He is relentless in his analysis and use of sources to prove this. What is also shocking is to be reminded that pacifism as a method of real social change is mostly symbolic. "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will." (Douglass)
Not only are these two volumes beautifully written and often very humorous, but I believe they are visionary before our time. Our lives are so inundated with messages of corporate compliance and fear of speaking out. But I think these volumes are a necessary call to something beyond ourselves, as members of a certain time in history, and of this planet. Read this book and think about it and think of those who have given themselves for something greater than self preservation.
Warning: these book are very dense,I found it helpful to draw little diagrams so I could keep everything straight.
Landmark work of moral philosophy.......2006-07-07
This seems to be Jensen's ultimate manifesto. It is basically a declaration of war against agricultural and industrial civilization.
But Jensen's point is not only that ultimately humans will have to surrender all their jazzy tech toys (including indoor plumbing) due to inevitable general collapse of industrial civilization, but that we should be glad to surrender them, and we should do so as early as possible to prevent what bit of species extinction we still can. But even more important than any individual "personal lifestyle" type of remediation is to actively fight industrial civilization's more destructive artifacts with explosives.
What's really interesting and surprising about Jensen is his essential optimism! Yes, despite 2,000 pages or so of griping and groaning about how bad it all is, Jensen still seems to think that some small number of humans, living in just the right way (as originally exemplified by North American indigenous peoples) are compatible with the survival of the rest of the biosphere. But I do have to wonder whether humans in the long term are genetically programmed to destroy as much as they can whenever they get the chance. Or at least, some humans will have this tendency, and then the bad will drive out the good - as we have seen with the 500 year European domination of the planet. So I tend to think that long term, humans and the earth biosphere are incompatible. It is a deadend species, and as long as we are building castles in the air, and wishing on a star, I guess I'd throw in my lot more with the Voluntary Human Extinction crowd.
But Jensen would VEHEMENTLY disagree with the above paragraph, and say that any such talk of genetic programming is at best nothing but scientistic gooblygook serving the master power Matrix, and at worst just one more excuse to put off the work that is crying out to be done (blowing up Columbia river dams to restore naturally spawning salmon).
In any case, once you have read this or any other Jensen book, you'll be in the mental grip of his moral absolutism - forever. (Of course, in Jensen's view, you already are in its grip, as you need clean water, don't you?) I don't mean his moral absolutism is necessarily bad or good. I'm still pondering that question. Nor do I mean that you'll necessarily accept his unrelenting assertion that the triumvirate of naturally clean water, freely spawning salmon, and reciprocally sustained landbase trump all other conceivable human values. I mean it literally - in that Jensen poses a moral and practical absolute principle that is so starkly opposed to every other activity, relationship, possession, plan, "hope", or value in your "normal" human life as you conceive it within the existent Matrix of industrial civilization - the Culture of Empire - that you will be unable to mentally reconcile the two. If Jensen is right, your whole "live long and prosper" mindset - as conceived and instantiated within the current paradigm - is flat wrong and must be jettisoned.
Thus you'll need to either accept Jensenism (then prove it by blowing up a dam), or reject it (implicitly rejecting clean water and allying yourself with child rapists), or descend to the intellectual purgatory of pure 24 carat Doublethink - forever. None of your quasi-religious New Age blathering will cut any ice with this guy.
So this book is a carry vector that will infect you with the above mental virus, and once infected you'll never be free of it. The shadow of the dead or never-spawned salmon will dog all the rest of your days on this earth.
Abolitionist-Online.......2006-07-03
Endgame is a book for our time. It is an important contribution to radial environmentalism, direct action and understanding the underlying subterranean currents that transpire to make up western culture as we know it today.
Endgame asks the question and then attempts to solve it: Do you believe that our culture will undergo a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living? If the answer is no what then is to be done about it?
Willing or not, ready or not the human species is involved in an all-out, no holds barred war against the dominant culture, western culture. Most people are not competitors, they are the stakes. The spoils, no less, is every living, beating heart and every soul of sentient life upon the planet. The effects of the dominant culture are obvious in every polluted river, the devastation of wildlife, destruction of habitat, the loss of the Coho salmon, dioxin in every mother's breast milk and the habitat of great grizzly bear to name but a few examples from the book. Derrick Jensen wants that turned around. No one can be exempted from the dominant cultures effects. No sector of our lives remains untouched. No sector of any non-humans life remains untouched. Endgame invites us to fight back.
From the standpoint of the traditional left, the vices of contemporary culture - the Machine - what Derrick Jensen uncovers might be all too easily explained away to that old devil capitalism. Another mundane interpretation might centre around the evils stemming from the unrestricted pursuit of profit and the manipulative deceptions of the few profiteers as a major corrupting influence. Endgame isn't like that thankfully.
Sure, Jensen recognises that to ensure the bone and marrow of the dominant cultures value system, the central mechanism must exclusively fixate on human worth and human values exclusively and to achieve this end, indoctrination or "education" from womb to tomb is mandatory. On one hand there must be a constant reinforcement of the dominant cultures ideals with an emphasis on each individuals total dependence on a system that has a death urge and is killing us, the land, the non-human animal kingdom and sentient life all at once.
Endgame's piece de resistance is in exploring this death urge and then finding ways to resist it. The author has gone there before us and saw that mid-wifed by the entrepreneur, the banker, the technocrat, the scientists and ultimately the lawyer of the dominant culture, this sane and sustainable way of living can not, will not, be born from between the printed sheets of pacts and agreements; joint ventures and mergers; contracts and covenants and international treatises signed and countersigned by the political bureaucrat.
Endgame neither lacks cultural resonance or political closure. It engulfs both.
In the Abolitionist's interview with the author, Derrick Jensen notes that even when our best efforts are applied, both eco and animal activists always seem to lose. Although emancipatory promises are possible, they are not being realised by activists around the globe today and the problem is on this battleground, this landscape, the contenders are not prepared to fight the culture itself as a whole. Localised actions, no matter how noble and while still important, do not seek to address the power structures already in place from the dominant culture. The dominant culture itself knows as surely as any lethal cancer that to "win" all you need to do is plughole the power base, the essentials for life such as the utilities, electricity or oil for example, and then what is extraneous to that kind of control is allowed to wither and die or if resisted, is then politically sought out for extermination. In short, western culture's agenda is a ruthless form of materialist monopoly playing itself out.
Jensen's genius is such that he is capable of providing a spiritual dimension to the ecological project. The Machine's lifeblood sets anonymous abstractions like `productivity' and `efficiency' far above human, non-human and planetary needs and it's this the kind of culture Jensen seeks not to reform but to demolish.
Endgame identifies vested interests which survive by controlling the state, the western "productive" apparatus and the institutions of "civilized" life that are by their very nature parasitic and predatory. This in turn plays upon the consciousness of the individual that sets up expectations with strategies of repressive normalization that imposes false needs on individuals. True needs are clean water, air, food and lodgings at some ecologically sustainable level of culture.
The world is on the brink of a human catastrophe of unprecedented proportions and the critical mass, the western intellectuals, along with activists working within the system have fallen prey to malaise and inaction. An unspoken theme running throughout Derrick Jensen's work is how to connect the microcosm with the macrocosm. In this he articulates a type of spirituality that is not transcendent as such, but is based squarely on our connection with the land and defending that same land-base and the ones we love. His work fosters biodiversity, respect and responsibility for the land and for indigenous people. He knows that indigenous peoples demands for rights to their biodiverse environments are direct challenges to the way in which hegemonic political discourse of the Machine and traditional critiques of capitalism are framed today.
Endgame recognises the living force of new ideas or a voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living incarnated into political culture, as it now stands, is impossible. What Endgame proposes is the antithesis of the dominant cultures political structure and therefore has to be worked at from outside the system.
In fact an influx of living ideas, such as Endgame has produced, into the existing political structure is a direct threat to that structure. Derrick Jensen has said that what he wants is the fall of civilization and he's not kidding. He's not interested in "democratic egalitarianism" or a style of "liberal democracy". He's called for a revolution but who, the next question is asked, has heard the call?
Endgame knows that the dominant culture has no moral base and never did have, as a mooring point for any system of government, because it does not require it for its specific functioning. What currently passes for a moral base is nothing more than pressing needs calling for immediate action that are responded to on a situation by situation basis. Jensen makes a convincing case for its opposite - a relationship that is symbiotic, constant and intimate with the earth, others and living nature.
If not we are left with competing systems and the inexorable paradox of humans deprived of an essential dimension of their being as market forces alone determine the price of what's good and what's valuable.
Nothing short of the rudest shock of ultimate reality - of life and death - will change the mindset. Jensen asks where is our wrath in all of this? Why ask for mercy on a system-the Machine- that shows no mercy? And then he offers us a robust challenge of our time.
Anarchists and existentialists both know that if the dominant culture has made the world confused, ambitious, greedy by seeking power, position and prestige and if the dominant culture is aggressive, brutal, competitive and has built a culture that is equally competitive, brutal and violent then our responsibility lies in understanding ourselves first and then to act dynamically from out of that knowledge source.
The dominant culture is a malignancy that will keep devouring new resources even if that means undermining the very body - nature herself - upon which it depends. How are the specifics of that to be best understood?
Endgame Volume 2 Resistance
Derrick Jensen wondered, "What resistance would look like and what it would accomplish - what the world would look like - if those of us who care about life on the planet leveled the playing field?"
He goes on to say, "What if we said, "In the war you are waging against the world, you will kill some of us, but mark my words, we shall destroy all of this civilization that is destroying the planet"".
I'll bet money on it that the author gets a lot of flak for that statement alone. Destroying civilization?
However, I'll also bet equal money that holocaust survivors and those who are living or have lived in the extreme know exactly what he is talking about. Docile acquiescence and abdication of will and judgment can be found well beyond the concentration camps; they are everyday behaviours. The young rabbinical student who stood at the door to an Auschwitz gas chamber and cried, "We must submit to the inevitable" did nothing shameful. Obviously today however, the radical eco-environmental and animal liberation movement has a choice to make. What side are you on?
This is an exceptional book that is potent enough to change lives and revolutionise within. Essential reading.
Customer Reviews:
Great as Far as it Goes.......2006-12-05
This is one of the few books around on actually trying to solve the energy problems, and he puts up enough thinking and new concepts that the book is definitely worth reading. For instance, his main thrust is for the auto industry to develop untra light vehicles that get double the gas mileage.
Having watched the auto industry over the past few years go on a spree of building bigger and heavier SUV's I am not encouraged that they are willing. The auto industry fought the CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) rules that were in place, and they got the Republicans to kill it. The auto unions fought it just as hard because building SUV's required more workers, so they got the Democrats to kill it. Now this book says that we could give the auto companies government backed loans to help them do what other companies (Toyota, Honda, etc. have already done). Maybe I would agree if you cut management and worker incomes.
Hey, if you want to get double the gas mileage, reduce the speed limits. You save 40% by reducing speed from 70 to 55. Or take a penny or two out of the highway trust fund and put it into Amtrak - perhaps free travel for students, military, seniors and greatly reduced fares for anyone riding the train rather than driving.
This book was at least partially funded by the Defense Department and they state: 'We adopt only options that provide 2025 mobility transparently to the user, with no change of lifestyle or loss of convenience.'
Sorry guys, it isn't going to work that way. Maybe, again MAYBE, you can get what you want by 2025, but by 2050 or 2075, this is an out of date plan.
Better Sooner Than Later.......2006-01-10
This study was funded partially by the Pentagon and written by scientists from the Rocky Mountain Institute, led by Amory Lovins. According to them, the US could end the need to import oil by 2040, and not need oil at all by 2050. "Winning The Oil Endgame" talks a game of improved efficiency, making cars out of lightweight carbon instead of steel, powering them with hybrid engines, substituting with biofuels, and using saved natural gas until Hydrogen fuel technology takes over in 2050.
Unfortunately, some data indicates the oil will already be all gone by 2040.
Lovins's plan requires extensive subsidy input from lobby-infested Congress. At the same time (for those businesses that would profit), it's business oriented and would create business savings and profits.
BTW, before I forget to mention it: No wonder the Pentagon is concerned about oil usage: every tank that proceeds at 1/2 mpg is followed by two fuel trucks. Enemy artillary units have quickly learned to target those trucks first.
I don't share Lovins's optimism about voluntary Congressional, political, corporate, or personal compliance with this plan. I have noticed, however, that every time gas prices go up, fewer people buy SUV's and more hybrid vehicles are sold. I believe most of his technologies will occur as societies become convinced that we really are ruining the atmosphere - and especially when they find oil really is running out and is pricing itself out of reach. They will then be forced into making do with less oil - and eventually doing without it altogether. Meanwhile, PV solar panels are way too inefficient, I don't see wind power taking off, biofuels are inefficient to produce (and their production uses energy), and I wouldn't discount prematurely the need for many more nuclear plants.
Very much worth reading - you can read it on the internet as I did - downloaded from RMI homepage.
A highly over-rated "book", with dubious assumptions...........2005-12-24
I have always admired Amory Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute, but this book does not impress me at all. I recommend instead "The Long Emergency", by James Kunstler, and Richard Heinberg's latest two books on peak energy ("The Party's Over", and "Powerdown").
Also, Winning the Endgame is availabe free as a download, from the RMI site, so I can't imagine why anyone would purchase it.
Look, the energy problem is insurmountable.....just two examples are enough to make this point. First, Lovins' book (in the Executive Summary) says that we can again "make natural gas abundant and affordable...". This is an absurd statement and doesn't even deserve more of a response.
Secondly, within the next ten years or LESS, the world will have consumed an additional amount of oil, EQUAL TO the ENTIRE proven, recoverable reserves of Saudi Arabia, and Arabia has for years been considered the world's swing producer!
Finally, Lovins' dreams of building millions and millions of ultra light-weight vehicles are just that, DREAMS! The remaining world supply of crude oil and natural gas are simply not great enough to bootstrap our efforts to create a new, pervasive light-weight transportation fleet, even if government and private industry had the money to capitalize the effort. And what exactly would we DO with the billion or more "inefficient" vehicles that exist in the world now?
As for bio-fuels, and other alternatives, there is no way they will or can provide anything close to the future energy-density that the world needs. Furthermore, growing "bio" fuels requires massive amounts of crude oil (for fertilizer, pesticides, processing, not to mention the vehicles needed to harvest and transport these crops, plus the energy required to pump the water to irrigate them).
Just read Kunstler's book, and Heinberg's books...the party IS over....
Winning the Oil Endgame.......2005-10-27
A rather technical report consisting of suggestions for government agencies to enact to aid in the transistion from oil to alternative energy sources. There's not a lot of practical material in the book for things the average citizen can do to survive the transition.
The Pentagon is smarter than the Bush Administration.......2005-05-30
This study was co-funded by the Pentagon -- a plan for reducing U.S. oil use by 50% by 2025, and ending foreign oil dependency. Amory Lovins has been pursuing energy efficiency and renewable energy since the 1970s, when he wrote the influential SOFT ENERGY PATHS. That initiative was thrown off-track by the drop in oil prices in the 1980s. Now Lovins is back in demand in the post-9/11 world with the global Hubbert's Peak for oil upon us.
This is not a radical strategy. It is market-based, and is all based on existing technology. According to Lovins and his co-authors,
"...it will cost less to displace all of the oil that the United States now uses than it will cost to buy that oil. Oil's current market price leaves out its true costs to the economy, national security, and the environment. But even without including those now "externalized" costs, it would still be profitable to displace oil competely over the next few decades. In fact, by 2025, the annual economic benefit of that displacement would be $130 billion gross (or $70 billion net of the displacement's costs)."
WINNING THE OIL ENDGAME involves 4 shifts -- 1) doubling the efficiency of using oil, through measures such as ultralight vehicle design, 2) applying creative business models and public policies to speed the profitable adoption of superefficient light vehicles, heavy trucks and airplanes, 3) embarking on the crash development of biofuels, cellulosic ethanol in particular, and 4) applying efficiency measures to save 50% of the projected 2025 use of natural gas.
Lovins goes on to elaborate necessary policies, such as feebates as incentives for consumers, government acquisition plans, federal loan guarantees, and so forth. He notes that while eminently practical and market-based, the plan will not benefit all companies. He points to the examples of Shell and BP, oil companies that are in the process of tranforming themselves into energy companies, as models for success in this energy transition. (see www.oilendgame.com for more)
I admit that I am not by nature optimistic about the human condition, but Amory Lovins is, and he always makes me feel more confident about the future. Despair and fatalism produce nothing of value, so each and every one of us should join Amory Lovins and the Pentagon and fight for an end to foreign oil dependency, and fight for renewable energy! That will certainly mean fighting the Bush/Cheney Oil Administration -- let's roll!
Book Description
"Derrick Jensen is a rare and original voice of sanity in a chaotic world. He has wisdom and wit, grace and style, and is a wonderful guide to a good life beautifully lived."-Howard Zinn
The companion piece to Derrick Jensen's immensely popular and highly acclaimed works A Language Older Than Words and The Culture of Make Believe, Endgame stands to become Jensen's most influential book. Building on a series of simple but increasingly provocative premises, Jensen leaves us hoping for what may be inevitable: a return to agrarian communal life via the disintegration of civilization itself.
Customer Reviews:
Thought provoking.......2007-08-09
End Game is a far reaching book with implications for personal praxis taken to a new and (for some) perhaps disturbing level. The questions Jensen raise are profound and his aim is personal transformation at every possible level of human consciousness. This visionary work looks at consequences to human activity and directs our awareness inside asking where we stand, what we stand for, and perhaps most important, what will we do. This book's prescriptions go way beyond the recycle, drive less, live sustainable lives scenario, but takes one utterly to the heart of our modern environmental crisis by asking us to impact contemporary forces inimical to the Earth even if that means breaking, circumventing, or ignoring legal mandates.
How you answer the questions Jensen raise and his prescriptions against the machine of modern living, is perhaps the definitive journey of any life in this moment of his-story. The denial is so widespread and so egregious that action on behalf of the earth is an imperative survival tactic in Jensen's view. Also given the single political party system we have inherited after 911 ought to give us pause for the abdication so prevalent by those we elect, destroying our personal legal rights. The power of the government has risen to alarming proportions without thought to restore - or protect - our individual rights by those we elect to congress; and corporations continue to carry the day over the rights of its citizens.
The book is thought provoking on numerous levels; and it may be one of the most influential books on behalf of the human/earth interface for the case for personal transformation I can think of or recommend. This is something the so called spiritual Pollyanna'a will never get as they bask in their eco la la, everything is love rhetoric ad nausea!
No matter what conclusions you reach after reading this book, I doubt if you will ever be the same again. This is a book for doers and not talkers. Environmentalism is no longer a spectator sport: we need change agents not eco-wannabes! Read everything Derrick writes.
I'm Still Stunned By This Book........2007-08-06
It's been over a year since I finished reading "Endgame" for the second time. Immediately after reading it for the second time I wrote out a two page review to post here, but didn't post it because I didn't think it gave this piece of work the credit it deserves. I don't think any words that I write in a book review can clearly illustrate the impact this book has had on me. The transformation that I'm going through after reading this book is still happening, and will be happening for a long time.
So, out of fear that my words will somehow deter you from not reading one of the most important books written to date, I'm just going to end this review with this: If you have this slight feeling that something is missing in your life, or there is something wrong with the world around you, than give this book a read. I'll guarantee you that you will find out why you feel this way, and there will be no turning back. I'm still stunned after reading "Endgame".
Fits Like a Gun in Your Hand.......2007-02-25
Derrick Jensen is one of those authors that people love or hate. As for myself, I have mixed feelings about the guy and his message. Despite these mixed feelings, though, I never fail to read his books when they come out - and Endgame was by far an away the most anticipated and climactic one yet due to its highly controversial subject: taking down civilization. That's right, taking down civilization.
But why would anyone want to take down civilization, you might ask? At this point, I should say that if you have not already had the pleasure of receiving a formal introduction to the man and his work, you might want to start with one of his earlier publications, such as Listening to the Land, A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Strangely Like War and Welcome or the Machine. In fact, I would recommend reading them all. They lay the groundwork from which Endgame both springs and builds upon: specifically, that civilization is F-U-B-A-R and doomed to collapse in the near but not too distant future, if not from climate change, then from resource depletion, soil erosion, toxic buildup or any other of the common environmental factors outlined in Jared Diamond's Collapse or the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World reports.
Or you might want to just dive right in, since in Volume I of Endgame Jensen outlines many of the fundamental flaws of our cherished civilization. And although each page reads with the power and relevance of an anarcho-primitiveist manifesto, Endgame, the two-volume summation of Jensen's writing career, amounts to nearly 1,000 pages in total - a lot of lumber for a strident call to arms. In fact, under the right circumstances, the book itself is large enough to be used as a blunt instrument to aid the deconstruction of civilization. All jokes aside, though, the net result is a rather awkward flow: a seemingly never-ending concatenation of ideas that, although related by theme, often contradict each other - by the author's own admission:
"Why do you think I laid out the premises explicitly for you, put you in a position of actively choosing to agree or disagree with them? Whey do you think I've approached this form so many directions? Why do you think I've expressed my own fears, expressed my own confusion? Why do you think I've made points, undercut or contradicted them, and then made them again? ... The point is the process I am trying to model. The point is that you puzzle your own way through, and figure out for yourself what, if anything, you need to do." (p 886)
Although I enjoyed the book thoroughly, and often recommend it to friends, Jensen does not come off as being genuine here. By this, I don't mean that he is purposefully deceiving the readers so much as himself. Along with all the interesting environmental science, psychology and poetry the book contains, the underlying current of rage and despair that makes his writing so profound reaches an all time high in Endgame - to the point where he calls upon the reader to "go on the offensive," imploring us to blow up dams, tear up concrete and knock down cell phone towers. Just "don't get sloppy," he advises. "Don't tell anyone who doesn't need to know. Don't get caught" (Dams: Part IV).
Of course, the minute some 16-year-old kid is locked up for taking Jensen's advice and demolishing a dam - or worse - I am sure Jensen will quote something from the 2-page chapter entitled "Responsibility" in his defense - a chapter which, remarkably enough, is little more than an apology for doing such things as blowing up dams to protect your "land base". Or perhaps he will quote one of the many disclaimers ("but don't listen to me, follow your heart") he so sparingly peppers throughout a book predominately dedicated to inspiring illegal activities. Considering the average age of his readership is probably around twenty-four, devoting only two pages to responsibility in a book of this nature is, in my opinion, an abominable abrogation of balance. But, hey, like most geniuses, Jensen is not known for his emotional balance.
All books have weaknesses, just as all authors have weaknesses, and having met Jensen on more than one occasion and sat in on many of his lectures around the country, I am very much aware that the overall importance of his thought far outweighs the single-minded, dam-demolition-obsessed demagogic carelessness of his presentation. In conclusion, I highly recommend that you read this book - but be careful not to leave it lying around where one of your curious, trigger-happy kids might find it unattended. The content is dangerous enough to require parental discretion - which I advise.
Some books you might also want to check out of a similar theme: Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism, Against Civilization, My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization, and Igniting a Revolution.
j.w.k.
Important reading.......2006-12-11
Civilization is killing the planet. I can see you rolling your eyeballs, but wait: what does "civilization" mean? Derrick Jensen defines civilization as (abbreviated): "...a complex of stories, institutions, and artifacts - that both leads to and emerges from the growth of cities,...with cities being defined...as people living more or less permanently in one place in densities high enough to require the routine importation of food and other necessities of life." (Endgame Vol 1, p. 17)
This civilization goes way beyond even food and other necessities. Look around you: just about everything in sight is a human artifact. Where did those artifacts come from? If you start to investigate and realize how many species are wiped out (hundreds of species per day, as opposed to a natural extinction rate of one species every 5 years), how many indigenous people are ousted from their own land (where they were subsisting by growing or gathering food on that land) in order to support our lifestyles (for instance, raising cattle on land that traditionally belonged to the indigenous people of Mexico and sending nearly all of that beef to the US and the UK), you will find out just how bloody our hands are. There's something terribly wrong with this picture and no matter how loud environmentalists yell, no matter how many people start recycling and replacing their lightbulbs with more "environmentally-friendly" ones, it's not looking any rosier.
And think about this: if the previous paragraph took you 2 minutes and 33 seconds to read (you probably read faster than that), one more Rainforest species went extinct - to support our lifestyles.
In Endgame Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization, Derrick Jensen gives case after case showing how the dominant culture is killing the planet. Endgame picks up where the last chapter of his previous work, The Culture of Make Believe, leaves off. In that chapter he dared to speak what few are willing to hear: "...the next step is to get rid of our whole inhumane system, to quit valuing production over life, and to physically stop those who do. The next step is to bring down that which originated in conquest abroad and repression at home. The next step is a planet liberated from the destruction; the next step is the end of civilization." (Culture, p. 602) In Endgame Volume 1 he honestly examines, without flinching, the morality and feasibility of doing just that. He challenges us to get past the belief that what we're doing currently is enough. It's not enough, and we're running out of time. He challenges us to get off our butts and do whatever it takes, and that's not one thing, that's many things. He states over and over that, "We need it all."
People, human and non-human, will defend and fight for who and what they love. If you love this planet, you will read this book and answer the challenge. Civilization is killing the planet. What are you going to do about it? In Endgame Volume 2: Resistance he explores just what that might take.
Glass half full.......2006-11-22
If you are new to Jensen, this book and its companion volume make for an excellent place to start. In these two books, Jenses rehashes the (I feel) very convincing arguments he made about the corrupt and destructive nature of modern western civilization in his older works like A Language Older than Words, and Culture of Make Believe.
If you are simply a Jensen junkie, and love his voice and his ideas, then of course you won't be disappointed by these books. More of what you've come to expect from DJ. No disrespect intended, because this was why I bought them. To this crowd, I recommend these books without reservation.
If you liked what you read in his older books, and are contemplating a purchase of these works, hoping for a further development of his ideas, you may be disappointed. Much of what is said here has been said in his other books. Volume 1: The Problem of Civilization condenses the material from both Language and Culture, and adds some new anecdotal evidence. It's done well, of course, but offers very little genuinely new material for thought, I'm afraid. Volume 2: Resistance, is horribly mistitled. It offers absolutely no ideas or suggestions about how to resist. It merely says we must. It's essentially the same as all the other books, with a touch more pleading tacked on.
Jensen is, in my opinion, among the very small handful of most important writers working today. His is a voice of sanity in an insane world. For that, you really owe it to yourself to at least pick him up and read SOMETHING that he's written. However, I have trouble recommending these books simply for their own independent value. If you already know Jensen's message, these will feel eerily like reruns.
Customer Reviews:
Great Endgame book for those trying to move from beginner to Club level.......2006-11-09
Pandolfini has won me over. He is a great chess teacher, and it shows in the way he has set this book up. Each page covers one endgame problem, beginning with a discussion written in an easy and interesting style explaining what the problem is intended to illustrate.
Studying the endgame is not necessarily fun... but the endgame is where the money is in Chess, similar to putting in golf. It is very important to study it if you want to improve. What Pandolfini does is makes it palatable by presenting a series of one page self-contained problems. I have found this an excellent addition to some of the Convekta software I am using to study chess, because he explains the ideas behind the endgame positions in more detail and with clarity.
An Excellent 2nd Book on Endgames.......2006-11-06
First, download the errata as mentioned in other reviews and get that much over with. There *are* more errors than there should have been (1/2 star taken right off the top).
That said, this should be your *second* endgame book. Why? Because the writing style is terse and laconic. The book is made up of a long series of endgame positions, one per page, with a paragraph of descriptive text and a nearly, if not completely, un-annotated list of moves below the paragraph. It's up to you to digest the text, and relate it to the moves as you play them out. I believe that to do this effectively, you need some basic endgame background, hence my statement that this should be your *second* endgame book.
The book is quite complete, providing at least one example of all important endgame situations. It is not an exhaustive text, such as Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual or some others, but it leaves out very little, even if what is covered is at times brief (a single example) or at a high level.... but that is not a bad thing. At this stage of learning, you want clear examples, not problem-like esoterica.
Four stars overall. (Another half off for the at times difficult presentation style of text/move list.)
(What would be the first endgame book? Briefly, I'd use Robertie's "Easy Endgame Strategies" or even better if you don't mind an older book in descriptive notation, Horowitz's "How to Win in the Chess Endings.")
An Excellent Instructional Manual to Improve your Endgame.......2006-08-07
Probably anyone no matter their skill level can benefit from this book, but I think is best suited for beginners to intermediate players. The author describes the techniques employed in the most important and typical endgame situations, presenting more than 239 positions that clearly describe how a good player will solve the problems encountered in each one of them. If you have read and liked the style of any other Pandolfini's chess instructional books chances are you will enjoy this one.
The book is divided in three parts. A complete part of the book is devoted to king and pawn endings, but also enough coverage is given to endgame positions where the knight, the bishop, the root, and the queen, and a combination of minor and heavy pieces play the important role of helping promote a pawn or act to accomplish a mating solution.
As the author states "the book is designed to improve the skills of the practical player who is interested in wining the ending clearly, simply and efficiently."
I bought this book as part of a used chess book collection on an auction, and I was not disappointed at all with this title. The book systematically showed me how to think and analyze typical positions that as a matter of fact I have encountered during accrual play. One the things I like the most is the Instructional format of this book, clear and easy to follow. For me is absolutely a must have, especially if you are a beginner.
The book uses algebraic notation, but I guess this is just a matter of preference and it actually doesn't affect the quality and usefulness of the information presented. Nevertheless you should take this into account in case you prefer descriptive notation.
A note on the typos...........2006-08-04
I agree with the many reviewers who think this is an excellent book but are troubled by the typos. For those of you considering using the book, there's a very helpful Houston Chessclub website with a collection of corrections to the book. If you do a Google search for "Pandolfini's Endgame Errata" you can locate it easily. Once you have that, there's no reason not to get this very worthwhile book.
A Great Endgame Strategy Book.......2005-08-11
Pandolfini writes in a way that is clear, logical, and just plain easy to understand. Any of his books are "must haves" for a solid chess library. His Endgame book covers an area that I belive is often overlooked in favor of the latest opening. This book is just what it says, a "course on endgame concepts" that would benefit any chess player.
Amazon.com
Journalist David Rohde was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for his reporting on the Bosnian city of Srebrenica. After the United Nations' "safe haven" fell, Rohde investigated reports of massacres, and was arrested by Bosnian Serbs while investigating mass graves near the town.
In End Game, Rohde tells the entire story of the fall of Srebrenica, in which 7,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed, making it the worst massacre in Europe since World War II. Rohde's reporting is prodigious, and as the narrative progresses the book picks up power as a series of events, presented in a matter-of-fact manner, come together and the reader sees how a village was obliterated, with many of its inhabitants killed and hidden in mass graves.
The book is disturbing, particularly because Rohde calmly shows how the horrors of Srebrenica could have been avoided. The conflict in Bosnia has perhaps been a puzzle to many, and this book will do much to give the horrors a human face.
Customer Reviews:
Anatony of a Massacre.......2005-09-20
This is an extraordinary book that describes the now forensically-proven slaughter in chilling detail and pulls no punches: indeed, while Rohde rightly places the blame for this massacre squarely on the shoulders of the Bosnian Serb leadership and their patrons in Serbia proper, the UN, US, and Europeans are also taken to task for their incompetence and negligence, as is the Bosnian Government.
A good read, although could be more complete.......2005-01-26
This is a well written book and with its hour by hour simultaneous documentary approach is rather like another book I have called "The Day Guernica Died" by different authors published 30 years ago. This one looks at the actions, or inactions, of those involved on the ground, and at the wider political picture including that of the pontification of UN and NATO leaders, who you feel after reading this may as well not been there at all. After reading it you get a good feel for what happened, except in a few places where the author admits he can't decide betweenn conflicting accounts, but are still left wondering about why it happened - what was the basis of the underlying ehtnic tensions that lead to the Muslims, Serbs and Croats having the attitudes to each other that they did? The whole war in former Yugoslavia seemed quite unbelievable to those of us who were well removed from the events, and probably even to those in some neighbouring countries. After all, it was (and still is) a lovely countryside full of historic pretty towns and villages and the people seemed unified under Tito who, although communist, wasn't under the Soviet yoke. In fact the people had a reputation for humor and fun - within a short space of time it all changed. We are told that in WWII the Croats generally aligned themselves with the Nazis while the Serbs generally fought against them, but not a whole lot more. (The author doesn't mention that the Muslims generally aligned themselves with the Nazis too and in fact formed an SS division: 13.Waffen-Gebirgs-Division der SS "Handschar") This background information is something you will need to look for elsewhere. A few photos in the book would have helped also.
One more thing.......2004-12-20
there is an interesting rebuttal of this propaganda piece which prompted the author of this book to personally respond. I found it particularly interesting as Mr Rohde reverted to personal attacks when his lies and manipulations were challenged. It's written by Jared Israel and it's located here http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/fulltext.htm
One of my favorite books of all time. The untold story........2003-12-28
I watch TV news religiously, both network and cable, and I was unaware of the magnitude of war crimes taking place in the Serbo-Croation war, and of the U.N.'s dismal efforts to sustain peace and help those in danger of ethnic cleansing (read execution into pre-dug mass graves) and the ramifications of the U.S. under Clinton not fighting to save lives as Slobodan Milosevic and others carried on these atrocities.This book inspired me to sponsor a Muslim Bosnian woman through a support organization. You've heard of the Holocaust. Now you need to hear this story, too.
Excellent account of a terrible tragedy.......2003-08-21
Rhodes has put together a thorough examination of all sides involved in what can confidently be called one of the worst tragedies to befall the European continent since WWII. Rhodes provides remarkable insight from the Dutch, Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Muslim perspective.
The reader has to carefully weigh the accounts from each side, mainly based on the image each faction wants to portray, to include the Dutch peacekeepers and senior UN Military leadership at UNPROFOR headquarters.
Of note for military officers, this book offers a valuable case study for a very precarious leadership predicament--i.e. that of the Dutch peacekeepers and the senior military leadership in Sarajevo.
A depressing story, but well written
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- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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- Painting Four Seasons Of Fabulous Flowers
- The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth
- Starting Out Right With Your New Dog: A Complete Guide
- Memling's Portraits
- Introduction to Architectural Science: The Basis of Sustainable Design
- Orchids of the Solomon Islands & Bougainville
Harrington on Hold 'em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. 1: Strategic Play
Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategies for No Limit Tournaments, Vol. III--The Workbook (Harrington on Hold'em)
The Theory of Poker
Caro's Book of Poker Tells
Phil Gordon's Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold'em
