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Why is it that the human brain so often refuses to consider winning chess tactics? Every chess fan marvels at the wonderful combinations with which famous masters win games. How do they find those fantastic moves? Do they have a special vision? And why do computers outwit us tactically?
This rich book on chess tactics proposes a revolutionary method for finding winning moves. Charles Hertan has made an astonishing discovery: the failure to consider key moves is often due to human bias. Your brain tends to disregard many winning moves because they are counter-intuitive or look unnatural.
We can no longer deny it, computers outdo us humans when it comes to tactical vision and brute force calculation. So why not learn from them? Charles Hertan's radically different approach is: use COMPUTER EYES and always look for the most forcing move first!
By studying forcing sequences according to Hertan's method you will: develop analytical precision improve your tactical vision overcome human bias and staleness enjoy the calculation of difficult positions
Charles Hertan is a FIDE master from Massachusetts with several decades of experience as a chess coach. Instead of rehashing the usual classic examples he has unearthed hundreds of instructive combinations which appear here for the first time in print.
Win more games by recognizing moves that matter!
With a foreword by three-time US chess champion Joel Benjamin, a member of the Deep Blue Computer team that defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997..
Price: $18.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"...[a] provocative and original account..." --NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

Originally published in 1993, Forcing the Spring was quickly recognized as a seminal work in the field of environmental history. The book links the environmental movement that emerged in the 1960s to earlier movements that had not previously been defined as environmental. It was the first to consider the importance of race, ethnicity, class, and gender issues in the history and evolution of environmentalism.

This revised edition extends the groundbreaking history and analysis of Forcing the Spring into the present day. It updates the original with important new material that brings the book's themes and arguments into the 21st century, addressing topics such as: the controversy spawned by the original edition with regard to how environmentalism is, or should be, defined; new groups and movements that have formed in the past decade; change and development in the overall environmental movement from 1993 to 2004; the changing role of race, class, gender, and ethnicity in today's environmentalism; the impact of the 2004 presidential election; the emergence of "the next environmentalism."

Forcing the Spring, Revised Edition considers environmentalism as a contemporary movement focused on "where we live, work, and play," touching on such hot-button topics as globalization, food, immigration, and sprawl. The book also describes the need for a "next environmentalism" that can address current challenges, and considers the barriers and opportunities associated with this new, more expansive approach.

Forcing the Spring, Revised Edition is an important contribution for students and faculty in a wide variety of fields including history, sociology, political science, environmental studies, environmental history, and social movements. It also offers useful context and analysis for anyone concerned with environmental issues.

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Price: $27.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A host of catastrophes, natural and otherwise, as well as some pleasant surprises--such as the sudden end of the cold war--have caught governments and societies unprepared in recent decades September 11 is only the most obvious example among many unforeseen events that have changed, even redefined, our lives. We have every reason to expect more surprises in future.

Certain kinds of unanticipated scenarios--particularly those of low probability and high impact--have the potential to escalate into systemic crises. Even positive surprises can pose major policy challenges. Contemporary policymakers, however, lack the understanding and the tools they need to manage low-probability, high-impact events. Refining our understanding and developing such tools are the twin foci of this insightful and perceptive volume, edited by renowned author Francis Fukuyama and sponsored by The American Interest magazine.

Organized into five sections, Blindside addresses the psychological and institutional obstacles that prevent leaders from planning for negative low-probability events and allocating the necessary resources to deal with them. Case studies pinpoint the failures--institutional as well as personal--that allowed key historical events to take leaders by surprise, and other chapters examine the philosophies and methodologies of forecasting. The book's final section offers a debate and two discussions with internationally prominent authorities who assess how individuals, communities, and local and national governments have handled low-probability, high-impact contingencies. They suggest what these entities can do to move forward in a period of heightened concern about both man-made and natural disasters.

How can we avoid being blindsided by unforeseen events? There is no easy or obvious answer. But we first must understand the obstacles that prevent us from seeing the future clearly and then from acting appropriately. This readable and fascinating book is an important step in that direction.

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Price: $11.90 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This book provides a unique survey of the worldwide database of sequence stratigraphy, reviews the methods for describing sequences and assessing causes of sequence generation, and provides an in-depth analysis of the mechanisms of sequence development. The book reviews the present status of global cycle correlation and the hypothesis of global eustacy, and examines the applications of sequence stratigraphy to studies in practical petroleum geology. Students, lecturers, researchers, and practitioners are provided with a critical, but balanced, appraisal of modern concepts in this rapidly developing and controversial area. Ideas and concepts originating from a wide range of individuals and "schools" of thought are discussed and evaluated. A very extensive bibliography is included..
Price: $270.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Forcing the Spring challenges standard histories of the environmental movement by offering a broad and inclusive interpretation of past environmentalist thought and a sweeping redefinition of the nature of the contemporary environmental movement. Robert Gottlieb demonstrates the centrality of environmental concerns to a wide range of social movements of the past century as he explores the connections between pressures on human and natural environments and the role of these pressures in shaping society. His analysis provides fundamental new insights into the past and future of the American environmental movement by placing it within the larger context of American social history.

After considering the historical roots of environmentalism from the 1890s through the 1960s, Gottlieb discusses the rise and consolidation of environmental groups in the years between Earth Day 1970 and Earth Day 1990. He examines the increasing professionalization of the major environmental organizations and the parallel rise of community-based groups over the past decade, and ends with an in-depth consideration of the role of ethnicity, gender, and class in the formation and definition of movements..
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

What's a dyed-in-the-wool gardener to do when faced with stubborn Old Man Winter's downright refusal to let much of anything grow? Force it, that's what. Forcing is the art of convincing a bulb, branch, houseplant, or cutting to flower when it would otherwise be dormant. So when the drabness of winter and its attendant exorbitant price for cut flowers hits you, try forcing.

It's not difficult, but it does take some planning and foresight. If you want to force bulbs to flower in February, for instance, you have to order them in late summer so that you can pot them up in the fall. Twigs, on the other hand, are much easier to force: just cut them after six weeks of cold weather, put them in some water, and watch the virtual spring of your warm rooms transform them into leggy, flowering spirea, corylopsis, forsythia, or catkins, for instance. Author Katherine Whiteside explores associated topics such as choosing the best container and presentation within the home, as well as topics only an expert could love ("the narcissus question").

Forcing, Etc. is a good read. It's not a reference book in the truest sense of the word; the lack of an index is at fault there. This doesn't mean that there's not an awful lot of good information here for beginners and adepts, well and entertainingly written. But when you want to check on the fertilizer ratio for your calla lilies, you'll have to page through the entire book to find it (in a very small typeface, too). But with Richard Felber's gorgeous photos on every page, maybe that's not such a bad thing to have to do. --Stefanie Durbin.
Price: $6.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

This is an enlarged new edition of Grace Halsell last book, Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture... And Destruction of Planet Earth. This edition includes transcript of CBS 60 Minutes program "Zion's Christian Soldiers" aired October 6, 2002 and additional articles on the subject written by the author.

"Halsell exposes Falwell's Christian tours as having only one purpose: to raise money for Falwell and Israel, under the guise of preparing the pilgrims for the approaching Armageddon. An excellent book."

Book Description

In her startling new book, Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture and the Destruction of Planet Earth, Grace Halsell explores the danger of a new religious doctrine sweeping America. Adherents to this doctrine are said to constitute the fastest growing movement in Christianity today. Its leaders proclaim that God wants--even demands--that Planet Earth be destroyed in our generation.

Cult members do not look like the so-called "crazies"--those such as Jim Jones or leaders of the "Branch Davidians" or "Heaven's Gate," who led followers to death declaring the end is near. Yet, Halsell writes, "They accept the same theology: we can do nothing about the environment, it's useless to work for peace, rather we must build more weapons for Armageddon."

Those proclaiming that we must wage Armageddon do not, however, expect to suffer. As the book points out, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye and almost 100,000 other U.S. Fundamentalists broadcasting on 2,000 Christian radio and TV stations assure adherents that while the world will be destroyed, they will be given a free Rapture ticket. They need not suffer a moment of agony. As Jerry Falwell puts it, "I'm not worried. You know why? I ain't gonna be here."

Cult leaders assure followers, now said to include one out of ten Americans, that they will be wafted up to heaven for a special grandstand seat where, in comfort, they will watch the final holocaust, the agony and death of billions of men, women and children.

Forcing God's Hand explains the popularity of this End Time doctrine. A Tennessean, Cyrus Scofield, popularized the idea of a Free Rapture, a theology originally imported from England less than 200 years ago. The theology holds that Christians must look to the biblical land of the Jews for their salvation; that the land itself is more important to Christians than the message of Christ. Scofield taught that Christ was held hostage until Jews carried out a preordained plan: they were to leave their native lands, including Russia, Europe, Africa and America, and settle in Palestine. They were to eradicate, with the help of Christians, the most sacred Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, a mosque holy to a billion Muslims around the world; and once Christ returned, the Jews must convert to Christianity. His doctrine, called dispensationalism, was encoded into the Scofield Reference Bible.

His dispensationalist Reference Bible is used by virtually all TV and radio preachers. Their certitude in Armageddon, along with their offer of an escape hatch, makes converts of a growing number of mainstream, middle to upper-middle class Americans. Dispensationalists attend a variety of Protestant churches, including those known as charismatic. They represent 15 to 20 percent of the 16-million member Southern Baptist Convention. They also are members of so-called Bible churches and megachurches, such as those attended by Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr in McLean, Virginia, and U.S. Congressman Tom DeLay in Sugar Land, a suburb of Houston.

Dispensationalism is taught throughout the U.S., at large and influential seminaries including the Dallas Theological Seminary, where Hal Lindsey studied, the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia College of the Bible, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, as well as 200 other colleges and institutes. Currently there are more than 100,000 students in Bible school. .
Price: $12.16 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A comprehensive guide to the care of house plants, whether you are an apartment dweller or have a country home. Excellent instructional and informative text. Beautiful Photography..
Price: $15.94 [Notify me when price goes down.]