Thompson (statistics, Rice U.), Williams (business, Rice U.), and Findlay present a new, antiefficient markets approach to investment theory and management. Coverage includes the basic institutional factors involved in how stock markets operate and whether the markets are efficient, basic concepts of utility theory, diversification as an important fundamental requirement of rational investment choice, the current theory in financial economics, the capital asset pricing and the arbitrage pricing models, basic valuation equations and related methodologies, a detailed procedure for analyzing securities, the importance of compound interest, and an analysis of the options market. For individuals managing their own investments and/or the investments of others. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

William James's (1842-1910) masterful treatise on the psychology of individual religious experience was originally composed for the prestigious Gifford Lectures delivered at Edinburgh University in 1901-1902. James's gift for distilling the essential ingredients of the religious experience from the great mass of details is evident in every chapter. Taking the approach that extreme manifestations of the religious temperament give us more insight into the subject than the routine features of worship and ritual, he discusses many intriguing accounts of remarkable religious experiences grouping these experiences into broad types: healthy-mindedness, the sick soul, the divided self and the process of its unification, conversion, saintliness, and mysticism. He also discusses the distinctions between religious experience and philosophy; psychological theories concerning the origin and nature of religious belief; and the overall value of religion to human well-being.

Children will enjoy coloring the pictures while reading this retelling of the Christmas classic by Clement C. Moore, which blends Santa Claus with the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch figure of the Belsnickel, a thin, cantankerous old man who visits children before Christmas and rewards or punishes them based on their behavior.

The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato.

A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his Platonic Theology, translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance.

Highlighted by more than 1,600 new color and black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps, this thoroughly revised field guide to North American fishes includes detailed profiles of 657 fish species, along with notes on 764 more, all-new maps forHighlighted by more than 1,600 new color and black-and-white photographs, illustrations, and maps, this thoroughly revised field guide to North American fishes includes detailed profiles of 657 fish species, along with notes on 764 more, all-new maps for fresh- and saltwater species, identification tips, and other features. 50,000 first printing. fresh- and saltwater species, identification tips, and other features. 50,000 first printing.

The President of Williams College faces a firestorm for not allowing the women's lacrosse team to postpone exams to attend the playoffs. The University of Michigan loses $2.8 million on athletics despite averaging 110,000 fans at each home football game. Schools across the country struggle with the tradeoffs involved with recruiting athletes and updating facilities for dozens of varsity sports. Does increasing intensification of college sports support or detract from higher education's core mission?

James Shulman and William Bowen introduce facts into a terrain overrun by emotions and enduring myths. Using the same database that informed The Shape of the River, the authors analyze data on 90,000 students who attended thirty selective colleges and universities in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s. Drawing also on historical research and new information on giving and spending, the authors demonstrate how athletics influence the class composition and campus ethos of selective schools, as well as the messages that these institutions send to prospective students, their parents, and society at large.

Shulman and Bowen show that athletic programs raise even more difficult questions of educational policy for small private colleges and highly selective universities than they do for big-time scholarship-granting schools. They discover that today's athletes, more so than their predecessors, enter college less academically well-prepared and with different goals and values than their classmates--differences that lead to different lives. They reveal that gender equity efforts have wrought large, sometimes unanticipated changes. And they show that the alumni appetite for winning teams is not--as schools often assume--insatiable. If a culprit emerges, it is the unquestioned spread of a changed athletic culture through the emulation of highly publicized teams by low-profile sports, of men's programs by women's, and of athletic powerhouses by small colleges.

Shulman and Bowen celebrate the benefits of collegiate sports, while identifying the subtle ways in which athletic intensification can pull even prestigious institutions from their missions. By examining how athletes and other graduates view The Game of Life--and how colleges shape society's view of what its rules should be--Bowen and Shulman go far beyond sports. They tell us about higher education today: the ways in which colleges set policies, reinforce or neglect their core mission, and send signals about what matters.

Analysis and Management of Animal Populations deals with the processes involved in making informed decisions about the management of animal populations. It covers the modeling of population responses to management actions, the estimation of quantities needed in the modeling effort, and the application of these estimates and models to the development of sound management decisions. The book synthesizes and integrates in a single volume the methods associated with these themes, as they apply to ecological assessment and conservation of animal populations.

Key Features
*Integrates population modeling, parameter estimation and decision-theoretic approaches to management in a single, cohesive framework
* Provides authoritative, state-of-the-art descriptions of quantitative approaches to modeling, estimation and decision-making
* Emphasizes the role of mathematical modeling in the conduct of science and management
* Utilizes a unifying biological context, consistent mathematical notation, and numerous biological examples

Over the course of his career, American explorer William Clark (1770-1838) wrote at least forty-six letters to his older brother Jonathan, including six that were written during the epic Lewis and Clark Expedition. This book publishes all of these letters, most for the first time, revealing important details about the expedition, the mysterious death of Meriwether Lewis, the status of Clark's slave York (the first African American known to have crossed the continent from coast to coast), and other matters of historical significance.
There are letters concerning the establishing of the Corps of Discovery's first winter camp in December 1803, preparations for setting out into the country west of Fort Mandan in 1805, and Clark's fossil dig at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, in 1807. There are also letters about Lewis's disturbed final days that shed light on whether he committed suicide or was murdered. Still other letters chronicle the fate of York after the expedition; we learn the details of Clark and York's falling out and subsequent alienation. Together the letters and the richly informative introductions and annotations by James J. Holmberg provide valuable insights into the lives of Lewis and Clark and the world of Jeffersonian America.

"It is a magnificent epic," said William H. Prescott after the publication of History of the Conquest of Mexico in 1843. Since then, his sweeping account of Cortés's subjugation of the Aztec people has endured as a landmark work of scholarship and dramatic storytelling. This pioneering study presents a compelling view of the clash of civilizations that reverberates in Latin America to this day.

"Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the Conquest of Mexico is Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck. "More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration. . . . Here, as nowhere else, has Prescott succeeded in delineating character. All the chief actors of his great historic drama not only live and breathe, but they are as distinctly differentiated as they must have been in life. Cortés and his lieutenants are persons whom we actually come to know in the pages of Pres-cott. . . . Over against these brilliant figures stands the melancholy form of Montezuma, around whom, even from the first, one feels gathering the darkness of his coming fate. He reminds one of some hero of Greek tragedy, doomed to destruction and intensely conscious of it, yet striving in vain against the decree of an inexorable destiny. . . . [Prescott] transmuted the acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure literature."


From the eBook edition.

The question of the nature of God's foreknowledge and how that relates to human freedom has been pondered and debated by Christian theologians at least since the time of Augustine. And the issue will not go away. More recently, the terms of the debate have shifted, and the issue has taken on new urgency with the theological proposal known as the openness of God. This view maintains that God's knowledge, while perfect, is limited regarding the future inasmuch as the future is "open" and not settled. Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views provides a venue for well-known proponents of four distinct views of divine foreknowledge to present their cases:Gregory A. Boyd of Bethel College presents the open-theism view, David Hunt of Whittier College weighs in on the simple-foreknowledge view, William Lane Craig of Talbot School of Theology takes the middle-knowledge view, and Paul Helm of Regent College, Vancouver, presents the Augustinian-Calvinist view. All four respond to each of the other essayists, noting points of agreement and disagreement. Editors James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy introduce the contemporary debate and also offer a conclusion that helps you evaluate the relative strengths and weaknesses of each view. The result is a unique opportunity to grapple with the issues and arguments and frame your own understanding of this important debate.

The Platonic Theology is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato.

A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his Platonic Theology, translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance.

Sheehan and O'Meara (they're the contributing editors to Sky & Telescope and Odyssey magazines) trace the history of Mars investigations in this volume for the popular reader. Although they begin in prehistory and classical antiquity, recounting Odysseus's trials in the Odyssey , the majority of the book is devoted to scientific research of the planet, from Ptolemy to the 20th-century US space program, with rather grainy b&w photos of early telescopes, observatories, and famous astronomers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

An adaptation of the famous poem about a Christmas Eve visitor, set in the Pennsylvania Dutch country, includes a pie recipe and information about Belsnickel and the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect.

Collects several of William James' writings, which discuss philosophy, psychology, religion, and politics.

Gathers James' first twenty-four published stories, which deal with the impact of the Civil War, a spoiled child, an arrogant businessman, and the compromises forced by social conventions

Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the bestseller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.

Few observers of the late twentieth century have their fingers so presciently on the pulse of the global political and economic realignment ushering in the new millennium as do James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. Their bold prediction of disaster on Wall Street in Blood in the Streets was borne out by Black Tuesday. In their ensuing bestsellar, The Great Reckoning, published just weeks before the coup attempt against Gorbachev, they analyzed the pending collapse of the Soviet Union and foretold the civil war in Yugoslavia and other events that have proved to be among the most searing developments of the past few years.

In The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg explore the greatest economic and political transition in centuries -- the shift from an industrial to an information-based society. This transition, which they have termed "the fourth stage of human society," will liberate individuals as never before, irrevocably altering the power of government. This outstanding book will replace false hopes and fictions with new understanding and clarified values.