History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Places Rated Almanac (Special Millennium Edition)

Average customer rating:

Version 2000
Extremely helpful tool in relocating
A city may be "great on paper" but beware!
The best book of its kind.
Love this book

Places Rated Almanac (Special Millennium Edition)
David Savageau
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Best Places to Raise Your Family, First Edition (Rated)

ASIN: 0028634470

Amazon.com

Looking to live somewhere where houses are cheap? Head to Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa, where the average home costs $75,700, and annual property taxes for that home are about $960. Perhaps a good job market is a higher priority. In that case, pick Phoenix, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; or Riverside, California, as they top the list of places projected to have the highest-percentage increase in new jobs by 2005. Most of those jobs, by the way, are expected to have above-average pay. This and other detailed information can be found in the sixth edition of Places Rated Almanac, a helpful resource for people thinking of relocating as well as those with a desire to learn about cities and towns. Metropolitan areas are rated in nine categories: costs of living, job outlook, transportation, education, health care, crime, the arts, recreation, and climate. But don't go looking for statistics on Podunk--the focus remains on 354 metro areas, metro defined as a city or urbanized population of at least 50,000, located in a county with a total population of at least 100,000.

Places Rated is laced with intelligent and, unexpectedly, witty writing. The whole concept of judging places, the author notes, may seem the utmost of brass. "Yet everyone does it, privately. Some suspect that culture in Omaha or Des Moines or Saskatoon is a contradiction. Others surmise that daily life in Miami consists of surviving drug-trade shoot-outs..." Organized intelligently, Places Rated acknowledges that "livability" and "quality of life" are moving targets. Livable for whom? The artist who wants mountain vistas? The entrepreneur who wants low taxes and no red tape? With these limitations in mind, the book ends with a chapter titled "Putting It All Together," where the reader is invited to rate cities with a customized list of priorities. Arriving at your customized list, however, requires answering 72 questions that force you to decide once and for all what you value most--a low cost of living or good school districts or mild winters or some other criterion. And should you find that climate matters most, head for Santa Barbara, California, where winters and summers are mild and natural hazards are few, and stay away from Rochester, Minnesota, unless you're willing to endure 35 days when it's 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and 165 days of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, annually. --John Russell

Book Description

This blockbuster best-seller makes headlines coast to coast with its candid, fascinating look at all the factors that contribute to our quality of life. Sometimes controversial and always thought-provoking, Places Rated has been completely updated with the latest statistics. It's packed with timely facts and unbiased information on more than 350 metro areas in North America.Whether you're mulling over the idea of relocating, trying to decide where to start out, or just curious about how your hometown stacks up, you'll be intrigued by Places Rated Almanac. Places Rated ranks each metropolitan area on a number of essential factors, many of which are of vital interest in today's economy. They include:

Job markets
Cost of living
Housing costs
Educational standards
Quality of public transportation
Health care
Recreational facilities
Crime rates
Environmental factors
Climate

Easy-to-use charts help readers put this wealth of information to work to find the places that best suit their special needs and interests. Packed with unbiased, reliable and up-to-date information, this one-of-a-kind guide offers something to amuse or intrigue on every page. Newly redesigned this year with a two-color interior!

Customer Reviews:

Version 2000.......2007-03-12

Even the older editions give you a lot of valuable information.
I highly recommend it.

Extremely helpful tool in relocating.......2007-02-13

We used this book when we lived in New York and decided we wanted to relocate "somewhere else." It was extremely useful in narrowing the choices to places that had attributes that were most important to us, which in our case were things such as cost of living, weather, education, healthcare. It also offers a ton of info on other factors such as public transportation, the arts, employment, etc.

The book included a "quiz" you can give yourself, the answers to which will help you reveal to yourself which factors are in fact the most relevant to you.

In reading some of the other reviews, I must point out that relocating is not something you base upon a book alone. It was a great reference point, but once we narrowed our choices to several areas, we then did more specific research on those areas via the internet, sending for info from Chambers of Commerce, making phone calls, in-person visits, etc.

We ended up moving south and are extremely happy in our new area. In researching our new region, we found that many other people around here are also "transplants," thereby eliminating the aspect of feeling "foreign" in our new home town.

Definitely an excellent resource I would recommend to anyone considering relocating.

A city may be "great on paper" but beware! .......2004-07-23

These books are full of extremely helpful information, but I warn my fellow readers to take a place's culture into account before making a life-changing move. The books will not help you here. My husband and I bought a previous edition of Places Rated and devoured it while looking for a place to relocate from Los Angeles. We settled on a southern capital that seemed to have everything going for it, including consistently high rankings in Places Rated and every other city ranking we could find. Unfortunately, a city that looks great on paper may not be the place for you. Despite having lived in several states, we were unprepared for the surprising difficulties we experienced as "yankees" living in the south. From petty social and work discrimination to routinely being screwed over by one business after another hired to work on our home or car, etc., it became evident that we were identified as "yankees" on sight and treated accordingly. So much for southern hospitality! I assure you that we did our best to fit in and make friends, as we have successfully done in every other region of the country. After 2-1/2 years of this, we sold our home for a loss and got our "unsweet tea" out of there. Perhaps we were naive, not realizing that the yankee business is still such a potent issue in the south, but we will make future relocation choices with this experience in mind.

The best book of its kind........2003-12-28

It's tough to read a book of someone's opinions on where to live as its really a heartfelt decision each person needs to make for themselves. But most of this book is straight statistics, such as weather and crime. The book is big and leaves enough room for each metro area so you can read the climate graphs without too much eyestrain. It's the best book on deciding where to move that I found. I took tons of notes from this book, and it actually helped me pick an entirely new place to live than the ones I had originally thought of! The only section I didn't like was the arts and culture section. I'm into the artsy scene, but the authors rated cities based on number of symphonies and orchestras and operas - who goes to these anymore??

Love this book.......2002-08-17

This book is just great. I have bought every retirement-places-rated type of book that I can get my hands on and this author is by far the best. The millennium edition is twice as big as the last edition and every subject is covered that anyone would want to know about an area; cost of living, transportation, jobs, education, climate, crime, the arts, health care, recreation. I can't wait for the next edition to come out! We're not retiring any time soon so it's helpful to really be able to study and evaluate where we are going to want to retire.

My New Baby And Me: A First Year Record Book For Big Brothers And Big Sisters

Average customer rating:

A perfect book for the younger, new big brother/sister
Love it!!!
Great older sibling baby gift
great memories
Perfect for new older siblings

My New Baby And Me: A First Year Record Book For Big Brothers And Big Sisters
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Manufacturer: Little Simon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

New Sibling | Issues | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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I'm a Big Sister
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ASIN: 0684187124

Customer Reviews:

A perfect book for the younger, new big brother/sister.......2007-07-14

I bought this book for my 3 year old and it is perfect for her age level. With its large text, humorous check lists, and simple art and observational activities, it is perfect for the younger, new big brother or sister (3-6 yrs). This book allows the child to compare themselves to the baby which shows them how special they are, and how much care the baby needs.

Love it!!!.......2007-07-09

This book is exactly what I was looking to get for my stepson. He is so excited about our new baby and this was just icing on the cake. He can't wait until the baby is born so he can start writing in his baby book just like me and Dad will in ours. I highly recommend this book to anyone that is either having another child or bringing a child into a blended family.

Great older sibling baby gift.......2007-05-21

This is a terrific "big brother" or "big sister" gift to help the older sibling feel like they're not losing something having just had a baby. It's a really good quality book and good activity for a parent to do with the older sibling.

great memories.......2007-05-18

This book is great for older siblings to fill out about the new baby. If they can't write yet you can also fill it out for them. Makes a great gift for the older child that might feel left out.

Perfect for new older siblings.......2007-01-10

I bought this for my daughter, who is just over two. Although she can't answer every question on her own yet, this book is perfect for her. I know when she is older she will really appreciate being able to look back and see how she felt about her new brother when he first arrived. Highly recommended for any children ages 2-6.

Best Places to Raise Your Family, First Edition (Rated)

Average customer rating:

Best Places to Raise Your Family
Not worth it.
Great for those seeking new places to live
Great Relocation Resource
It's OK.

Best Places to Raise Your Family, First Edition (Rated)
Bert Sperling , and Peter Sander
Manufacturer: Frommers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0471746991

Book Description

Best Places to Raise Your Family: Experts Choose 100 Top Communities That You Can Afford provides timely facts and expert in-depth analysis on 100 U.S. neighborhoods in an accessible and friendly format. Whether you're mulling over the idea of relocating your family, trying to decide where to live once you have a family, or just curious about how your hometown stacks up, you’ll be intrigued by Best Places to Raise Your Family. In addition to providing population statistics, each city is ranked on a number of essential factors such as: education, standard of living, health and safety, and lifestyle. Easy-to-use tables help you put this wealth of information to work to find the place that best suits your family's special needs and interests.

Customer Reviews:

Best Places to Raise Your Family.......2007-09-09

Great Book! Where each city is broken down and reviewed I would like to see a map of the city/state and surrounding area to see exactly where the city is located and what it is close to...

Not worth it........2007-01-03

Somehow I live in one of these places and I know several others very well. I trying to move from one of the best places to raise my family. This book just didn't have the information needed to make a sound decision.

Great for those seeking new places to live.......2006-11-08

This book is perfect for people interested in moving to better places to raise families. It is well organized and represents choices throughout the country. The one complaint I would offer is that many of the best places chosen are on the expensive side, but that is probably unavoidable, as people pay more to live in nice places. There are many inexpensive options described, as well. This book has been hugely inspiring for my family and we don't regret the purchase.

Great Relocation Resource.......2006-07-27

As just one component of your relocation research this is a great tool. While it is hard to question the underlying research presented in the book you have to look for nuances in the recommendations the authors make to gain a better understanding of a particular area. These carefully worded nuances are a critical part of gaining a true picture of the "Best Place" being rated.

Having lived in a few of the cities rated as "Best Places" the subtle comments reveal a much more accurate picture of the area than the statistical data.

It's OK........2006-07-27

There is a lot of information here. We especially liked the 100 `family' places around the country, but isn't that what any suburb is anyway? Still, the selections are interesting.

There are just a few maps in the book and they are quite cheesy. Plus, a lot of the figures they use are recycled from the Census of six years ago. Any good web surfer can dig that stuff up.

I don't know about you, but I could have used less information on Starbucks outlets and `picture postcard' settings and a lot more on the schools. Isn't that why families move?

This book is an OK start. But there must be a better book out there on how a family in North Carolina can find a good school system in suburban Phoenix.

Cities Ranked & Rated: More than 400 Metropolitan Areas Evaluated in the U.S. and Canada

Average customer rating:

Informative, Helpful, Encyclopedic, Cures Insomnia
THE BEST RESOURCE IF YOU'RE PLANNING A MOVE!
Cities Ranked and Rated
Lots of Data Ranking One Man's Opinion
Great Reference Manual

Cities Ranked & Rated: More than 400 Metropolitan Areas Evaluated in the U.S. and Canada
Bert Sperling , and Peter Sander
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Job Hunting | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0470068647

Book Description

The Latest Facts & Figures on the Best Places to Live in North America!

For anyone thinking about relocating-or interested in the demographics of American life—Cities Ranked & Rated offers unbeatable insights into more than 400 metropolitan areas in the United States and Canada. Data is provided by Bert Sperling, creator of Money magazine's original "Best Places to Live" list.

This unique guide combines honest opinions and objective facts to help readers compare cities quickly and comprehensively.

Data on the 45 fastest-growing U.S. cities
Separate rankings and ratings for 27 Canadian cities
Easy-to-read charts showing the best and worst U.S. cities in over 50 categories
State-level comparisons of population densities, taxes, government expenditures, educational testing, and more
Details on how to find more information at Bestplaces.net/CRAR

Highlights Include:

The strongest job outlook
The lowest cost of living
The most days of sunshine
The best educational opportunities
The best air and water quality
The lowest healthcare costs
The lowest crime rate
The shortest daily commute
The lowest automobile costs
The most leisure amenities

Customer Reviews:

Informative, Helpful, Encyclopedic, Cures Insomnia.......2007-10-01

If it's a location found in the United States or Canada, odds are that inside this hefty paperback colossus of a book (with a friendly green cover!) you'll find it ranked, rated, profiled, cross-sectioned, detailed, written-up, compared, contrasted, broken down, dissected, described, critiqued, praised, criticized, explained, considered, pondered, investigated, turned inside and out, and then in the end set before you with neat little charts and data that give you a good idea of what living in one of the featured areas would be like. Want to know the chances of a hurricane hitting Fairbanks, Alaska in any given year? It's in there! How about the number of library books per resident in Canton, Ohio? Yup, you can find that out, too. (It happens to be 3.96, according to page 248.) How many Hispanics live in El Paso? Cities Ranked & Rated will enlighten you in mere seconds. Whether you're a realtor, a would-be re-locator, or an average Jane who happens to absorb naked trivia like the parched soil of Las Vegas, Nevada absorbs its meager 4.0 inches of annual rainfall (page 487) this is a reference book for you! Can I hear three cheers for the minutia-obsessed geeks who made all this raw information possible?

THE BEST RESOURCE IF YOU'RE PLANNING A MOVE!.......2007-09-24

We waited anxiously for the Second Edition. We purchased two copies so we could each explore cities and then compare our ideas. Having recently made a moving mistake, we wanted to do some serious, extensive research before our next move. Cities Ranked & Rated is the perfect resource for the job! The ten main categories are critical to the comparison of cities, and the numerous sub categories rounded out our need for information. Well done, and definitely worth every cent of the cost, which was quite reasonable! As usual, Amazon got the books to us very quickly.

Cities Ranked and Rated.......2007-09-09

I love all of the detailed information that this book provides. One thing that was missing for me was a small map of the city/state so you could see exactly where it is located and what it is close to (I would like to see this for each individual city)

Lots of Data Ranking One Man's Opinion.......2007-09-02

I agree with another reviewer. There is a ton of data, and if you need information for a move this book gathers most of it for you. Some data however is misleading or confusing. For example my area of interest is the Front Range of Colorado. Some data points listed under a city is actually county or statewide data. Since I am looking for a smaller city to live in I might have crossed off some of the cities because the county population is considerably higher than the city in the book.

As far as ranking goes, it is somewhat driven by the author's view of ideal in each category. For me low humidity is more important than days over 90 degrees or below 32 degrees. Thus the rankings are skewed against what I am looking for. The book would be more helpful if it had a third section that allowed the reader to construct their own rating scale and explain how to load the data in a spreadsheet for evaluation. That would be awesome!!!!

Additionally when we visited Fort Collins, we found the city to lack the building code enforcement we are used to. Consequently, we found the city to look trashy and undeserving of it's high rating. Yes the climate is great, but the neighborhoods are trashy. The book needs to include building code enforcement standards.

Great Reference Manual.......2007-07-12

This is a great reference manual for anyone that wants, needs, or is forced to relocate. It's also a great book for those grads that might be considering several different geographical areas (guidance counselors and human resource folks need this book). The book ranks about 400 cities throughout the US and Canada. You could use "Cities Ranked and Rated" online, but the book is much, much better. The first 140 pages of the book delve into what, how, and the whys of the data, and believe me there is a bunch of data. I'm betting this is the company from which everyone else gets their data. You've seen those mags that list 10 Best Places to Retire, or 10 Best Places to Raise a Family, etc, etc. The amount of data crammed into the two pages per city is staggering. Everything about weather, taxes, education, outdoor activities, libraries, arts, Starbucks (who would have thought), transportation, demographics, housing, income, healthcare; the list goes on and on. We also own the first edition and this new one was worth the "upgrade."

Islands and Ancestors: Indigenous Styles of Southeast Asia (African, Asian & Oceanic Art)

Average customer rating:

Necessary but not Perfect

Islands and Ancestors: Indigenous Styles of Southeast Asia (African, Asian & Oceanic Art)
N. Y.) Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York
Manufacturer: Prestel Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Prehistoric & Primitive | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Folk Art | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Southeast Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 3791308998

Customer Reviews:

Necessary but not Perfect.......2002-04-08

Unfortunately there are few texts that provide a survey of Indonesian art and culture. For that reason this book is a must-have for anyone interested in that area. However, the chapters are choppy and at times difficult to read. It is a challenge to determine each chapter's main point and how each chapter relates to the others. More than once I turned a page and thought I had missed a paragraph, because the next word in the sentence did not seem to make sense. This book is valuable for its photographs and for the information it does provide, if you don't mind a less than fluid read.

Cities Ranked and Rated: More than 400 Metropolitan Areas Evaluated in the U.S. and Canada, 1st Edition

Average customer rating:

Must read for anyone moving to a new city or wanting to
where should i be?
Fat book of facts
Truth: its a good book for most of us
A Publisher's Huge Embarassment

Cities Ranked and Rated: More than 400 Metropolitan Areas Evaluated in the U.S. and Canada, 1st Edition
Bert Sperling , and Peter Sander
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Best Places to Raise Your Family, First Edition (Rated)
Making Your Move to One of America's Best Small Towns: How to Find a Great Little Place as Your Next Home Base
Retirement Places Rated: What You Need to Know to Plan the Retirement You Deserve (Rated)
Places Rated Almanac (Special Millennium Edition)
50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family: Lee & Saralee Rosenberg's (Lee and Saralee Rosenberg's 50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family)

ASIN: 076452562X
Release Date: 2004-03-30

Book Description

Cities Ranked & Rated: Your Guide to the Best Places to Live in the U.S. & Canada provides timely facts and unbiased information on over 400 U.S. and 30 Canadian cities in an easy-to-access format. Whether you're mulling over the idea of relocating, trying to decide where to start out, or just curious about how your hometown stacks up, you’ll be intrigued by Cities Ranked & Rated. In addition to providing population statistics, each city is ranked on a number of essential factors, many of which are of vital interest in today's economy. Categories include: economy and jobs, cost of living, climate, education, health and health care, crime, transportation, leisure, and arts and culture. Easy-to-use tables help you put this wealth of information to work to find the city that best suits your special needs and interests.

Customer Reviews:

Must read for anyone moving to a new city or wanting to.......2007-03-17

I've been looking for a place to settle down for a few years now and it's much easier to read a book written by those who have researched every major and medium sized city in the country and Canada than to try and do it myself. This book also includes small cities but obviously not EVERY one. It is very informative and it ranks the cities in an easy to understand way. This book includes details most people trying to relocate want to know about such as - weather, crime rates, what kind of crimes occur the most, water quality, air quality, population, job growth rates, #of hospitals nearby, airports nearby, colleges, sports and culture nearby.

where should i be?.......2007-02-28

I bought this book in hopes of finding my ideal location. The book is useful but almost all statistical. Also, the real estate and economy sections are very much out of date - then again, our economy in general is always changing. I found the sections on Canada very helpful. For more stats, try the US Census website, talk about all the right tools!

Fat book of facts.......2006-02-05

I found this book a delightful conglomeration of every fact you might want to know about a city and it's livability. The catagories were population,economy& jobs, Cost of living, Climate, Education, Healthcare, Crime, transportation, Leisure,arts& culture, and quality of life.The charts, tables,and maps kept me in a sense of discovery! The info is really easy to understand and not too abstract. Peter Sander and Bert Sperling, the authors have a great background and created a very flowing publication.

Truth: its a good book for most of us.......2006-01-28

I think this book is uncannily accurate in the way it described many cities with which I am familiar. Must be accurate for the others as well, right? So I would say it is actually very useful.. Anything with a gazillion bits of information will have some errors, but on the whole, trust me, it's a good book.

A Publisher's Huge Embarassment.......2005-11-24

This book rates cities by several livability factors, then adds the ratings to determine who's #1 (it's Charlottesville, VA), who's #2 (Santa Fe, NM) . . . all the way down to who's #331 (Laredo, TX), dead last.

In doing so, the authors have inadvertently switched the ratings of cities with the same name: Columbia (Missouri and South Carolina), Columbus (Georgia and Ohio), Decatur (Alabama and Illinois), Florence (Alabama and South Carolina) Jackson (Michigan and Mississippi), Lafayette (Indiana and Louisiana) and Springfield (Illinois and Massachusetts).

For example: Florence (Alabama) gets Florence (South Carolina's) rosey score for employment, while the latter is saddled with the former's rather grim employment score. Or, Jackson (Michigan) receives Jackson (Mississippi's) milder weather rating, while the latter is stuck with the former's rotten climate rating.

Since a city's ranking depends on the rankings of other cities, these astounding errors affect the final results of every other city listed in the book. You can verify this yourself by comparing ratings summarized in the beginning of the book with ratings in each city's profile.

This book is a fraud. If this had happened in health care or financial services, the authors would have been fired and their study withdrawn.

Average customer rating:

I actually shook my fist at this book while reading it. More than once.
Automotively Optimistic
What It Is.....
Exceptionally well done
On the Edge

Edge City: Life on the New Frontier
Joel Garreau
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Media Studies | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape
Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
The Economy of Cities

ASIN: 0385424345
Release Date: 1992-09-01

Book Description

First there was downtown. Then there were suburbs. Then there were malls. Then Americans launched the most sweeping change in 100 years in how they live, work, and play. The Edge City.

Customer Reviews:

I actually shook my fist at this book while reading it. More than once........2005-10-20

Edge City is obnoxious partially because it is full of lies, distortions, and contradictions, and partially because it espouses an irresponsible model of growth and settlement. I say "irresponsble" because while Garreau claims to be merely descriptive, he's actually prescriptive: he not only argues that ECs are inevitable, but insists that they're vital and wonderful and soup for the human soul. I admit, however, that what what initially raised and finally sustained my rancor is that it's another case of someone simply ignoring the research that has come before them, research of which they are clearly aware, and not bothering to show how their new theory sits with respect to that previous knowledge, or why their new explanations are superior to previous ones.

Garreau makes at least 4 references to Jane Jacobs and her seminal Life and Death of Great American Cities early on in his book - mostly throwaway references, one slightly critical. There's absolutely no engagement, though her work is highly relevant. In LDGAM, Jacobs argues that the basic tenents of urban zoning and planning, which she labels "City Beautiful", are flawed, and destined to create dead grey areas in cities. She advocates mixed zoning, so that the same neighborhood contains at least retail, offices, and residential units, and so that there's significant cross-use and foot traffic throughout the day and night. She also advocates measures in general that are calculated to make movement easier and more appealing for pedestrians, such as shorter blocks, and irregular streets mixed in with the main arterial thoroughfares. Her book is much richer than all of this; this is just a summary of the most relevant parts.

Garreau's Edge City opens up by lamenting the deadness of downtowns and their lack of cross-use, their tendency for single-zoning, etc. He goes on to suggest that his "Edge Cities" (suburbs that have rapidly sprung up over the past 30 years, and which contain a mix of commercial, retail, and residential areas) are not only a good solution to the "problems of cities", but in fact, the inevitable one as well. This would be fine if he talked explicity about why mixed-use zoning in cities doesn't work; why being able to walk across the street to buy milk, take a 20 minute bus to work, walk 10 minutes to a park, and be in the midst of thousands of easily accessible city amenities is so much worse than living in a suburb where you need a car to get anywhere, where you have a 20-minute drive to shopping of any kind, and a 45-minute drive to work. But he doesn't. He makes hand-wavey remarks that humans seek out open spaces and freedom, that a man over 30 who takes the bus every day is a failure, that man seeks to be close to nature, and that urban planners are effete intellectuals who have no idea how real people live. Etc. Again, any one of those propositions would be fine, but there's no data to back it up. The book as a whole is little more than a complicated mess of contradictory claims.

For example, in one chapter, Garreau describes Edge Cities as affordable, but in another he admits that as Edge Cities age, they become increasingly expensive, and "middle-income" people are reduced to paying through the nose to live in what Garreau himself describes as the suburban equivalent of tenement houses. When praising the loveliness and freedom of Edge Cities, Garreau more or less only concentrates on the richest citizens - his interviewees were business owners, vice-presidents, and lawyers, all pulling down upper-middle class salaries at the very least. One upscale couple remarks, "It's really our money that makes us free." (How droll!) Indeed, Edge Cities are great if you're a CEO or can afford a giant house on a 3-acre lot, and at least one car per driver to meet basic transit needs. (And social services are a lot better when you're in a neighborhood where everyone makes several hundred thousand a year: at last, you don't have to subsidize local poor people!) At least, Edge Cities are great while they're new. Garreau describes in several places old suburbs that crumbled and died after they got a little less shiny and new, and their corporate sponsors decided to pick up and build a different plot of virgin land.

In sum, the Edge City phenomenon Garreau describes and joyfully embraces as inevitable is no more and no less than a greedy, unsustainable land grab that will force us to build a lot of unecessary infrastructure (roads, sewers) to places that will just be abandoned in another 50 years.

Automotively Optimistic.......2005-03-31

Explores the new environments arising at the junctions of interstate highways on the edges of major American metropolises. These developments supplemented suburbia first with retail and then with office buildings to become during the 1980s new centers of intensity rivaling or surpassing the old downtowns.

Through a succession of chapters, each nominally dedicated to a single metropolitan area, Mr. Garreau examines the edge city in its relation to some key issues in American society (transportation, race, quasi-governmental institutions, etc.) and then proceeds to investigate the edge city's compatibility with the traditional concepts of civilization, community, soul, and finally "hallowed ground."

An engaging and informative discussion of the forces shaping the new communities under construction throughout America. I recommend Edge City strongly to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of why we build the way we do.

My recent re-reading of Edge City was prompted by my first reading of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. First published in 1961, Ms. Jacobs' work is now a classic that I wish I had read years earlier.

In a chapter entitled "Erosion of cities or attrition of automobiles," Ms. Jacobs expresses extreme pessimism regarding the place of the automobile in a livable urban environment. She counsels deliberate "attrition" of automobiles as the only protection against "erosion" of the city by continual further accommodations to them. Her well reasoned analysis of the conflict between car and city left me convinced of the wisdom of her recommendations.

But I remembered vaguely that Mr. Garreau had by contrast seemed entirely optimistic about the quality of life in edge cities built from the ground up to accommodate automotive traffic. So I read Edge City again.

My memory was not mistaken. Mr. Garreau seems optimistic about nearly every aspect of the edge city, cars included, about which he declares: "The system of individual transportation we Americans have devised, of course, is the finest method of moving the most people and freight in the most directions at the most times ever devised by the mind of man. At its center is the automobile and the hard-surfaced, all-weather road (p. 108)."

Ms. Jacobs, on the other hand, emphasizes the inefficiencies of automobiles. They are generally under-occupied when in use. They require vast areas of land for roads and parking lots that go unused for much of the time. Negative feedback is a chief characteristic of systems built to accommodate them: they always use up all of the roads and parking, requiring enlargement of both, spreading the buildings even farther apart, with the result of inducing even more travel by car.

Oddly enough, Mr. Garreau admits all of these drawbacks in his book (Death and Life of Great American Cities is in his bibliography.). Nevertheless, he remains optimistic.

One explanation for this difference in attitude before the same facts rests on a difference between the two authors regarding the definition of the term "density." Both praise what Mr. Garreau calls "urbanity"-the variety and uniqueness of life in our most attractive urban environments. Both also agree that "density" is necessary to urbanity.

The problem is that Ms. Jacobs is a walker while Mr. Garreau is a driver. She wants to experience continuous urbanity (hence also density) over the paths she walks, starting from her own front door. Mr. Garreau is content to experience urbanity at a locus of density to which he drives over asphalt parking lots. Ms. Jacobs wants her urbanity along a city sidewalk, whereas Mr. Garreau will take his in a suburban mall. The automobile is destroyer of the former and enabler of the latter.

For Mr. Garreau, density may be discontinuous, presenting loci of dense human activity separated by lots full of the cars that bring the humans together. For Ms. Jacobs, density is continuous, uninterrupted by the freeways and parking lots that are indeed forbidding to pedestrians.

Another explanation for the difference in attitude is that Ms. Jacobs sees the car as one of many influences destroying the urbanity of the established older "center" city. Inversely, Mr. Garreau sees the automobile as the prerequisite for the construction of a new "edge" city that will in his view gradually develop the same urbanity-with the HELP of the automobile: "But the best bet is probably the one we are engaged in right now: building Edge City. It is a world that does not deny the automobile, but at the same time increases density, putting everything a person desires as close as possible to his house while reducing the number of different places he has to park in order to go about his affairs (p. 129)."

Personally, I am a walker, but I see his point, and I liked the book.

I should mention before closing that there are some interesting appendixes: (1) list of edge cities to be found in each major metropolitan area in the United States; (2) dictionary of important jargon used by developers of edge cities; and (3) list of the "laws" (primarily quantitative) determining the layout of edge city development ("Americans won't walk more than 600 feet," for example). There is also an extensive bibliography, partially annotated.

What It Is............2005-02-01

It is interesting to read this book again with the benefit of some history since it was first written. The Edge City has evolved and continues to evolve, but there is little doubt at this point that Garreau's basic premise was correct. We are on the edge because this is where it makes sense for so many of us to live. Just as the traditional city worked in the late 19th and first half of the 20th century, Edge City works today, and not just in the United States, but globally. I've seen Edge City in Toronto, Malmo Sweden and other places the author references and what strikes me is how similiar it is to Edge City in my own backyard, that is, The Woodlands, Texas.

Garreau is correct that Edge City is in transition. The Houston Galleria has gone from Edge City to traditional city in any sense of the definition. As housing is added and density increased, the area adapts. Always a destination, it is now home for increasing numbers of Houstonians. Mass transit is not far off. The Edge City is going mainstream, at least in the Galleria, and the end product is very attractive. The same can be said for The Woodlands. Yes, it is Disney-esque, but it is also funky in it's own way, and the end product will continue to evolve. The new pedestrian friendly village is already a hit, and water taxis and pathways make carless movement between major attractions a viable alternative to traditional suburban transit.

This is an excellent read, in no small part because Garreau resists the urge to lecture and condescend. He seems fascinated by the product and willing to admit that Edge City is what it is, and it might be a viable alternative even for those among us who view sprawl as wasteful and immoral. If you're interested in understanding the evolution of modern society, both good and bad, in terms of the places more and more of us are calling home....then this is a worthwhile read.

Exceptionally well done.......2004-09-13

This book explores what has become of the suburbs. Garreau's argues that certain suburbs have developed into a new kind of city, a city without a traditional downtown. He believes that such "edge cities", are the cities of the future. Garreau's criteria for an "edge city" are:
--5 million square feet or more of office space
--600,000 square feet or more of retail space
--more jobs than bedrooms
--perceived as one place by the population
--developed within the last 30 years

With these criteria in mind, Garreau sets off across the US to study our major edge cities. He explores edge cities in New Jersey, Texas, Southern California, and the areas around Boston, Detroit, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. In each area that he visits, Garreau takes up an edge city theme. For instance, in Detroit he discusses cars and the role they play in edge cities, and in Atlanta he discusses questions of race and class in edge cities.

At the end of the book is a list of US cities that qualified for edge city status in 1992. This is followed by a glossary of words used by edge city developers and a set of "laws" about how edge cities work. These "laws" are statistical observations about human behavior relevant for city planning, such as "the furthest distance an American will willing walk before getting into a car is 600 feet." Finally, there is an annotated list of suggested readings, endnotes, and an index.

Garreau is neither for nor against edge cities. He tries instead to understand how they work, and why they have popped up so rapidly across the country. He strives to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, coming across more like Jane Jacobs than Lewis Mumford, who argued so stridently for regional planning. Garreau points out that edge cities are being built by developers who are in the business to make money. In other words, they build what they believe will sell, and given the fact that the developments sell so well, a lot of Americans are making the conscious decision that they want to live in edge city developments. Through interviews with developers, employers, and residents, Garreau explores the factors that make edge cities so popular.

He writes "Maybe it worked like this. The force that drove the creation of Edge City was our search deep inside ourselves for a new balance of individualism and freedom. We wanted to build a world in which we could live in one place, work in another, and play in a third, in unlimited combination, as a way to nurture our human potential. This demanded transportation that would allow us to go where we wanted, when we wanted. That enshrined the individual transportation system, the automobile, in our lives. And that led us to build our market meeting places in the fashion of today's malls." Cars are key elements in this phenomenon. They make it possible for people to separate their workplaces from the residences, and they define the distances which are considered commutable. They make it possible for people to live spread out enough from each other that everyone can have a front yard, yet at the same time, for the development to be dense enough to support large employers and sophisticated shopping options.

Garreau doesn't devote much space to the problems created by such heavy dependence on personal autos. Would Americans ever be willing to trade in their cars for more sustainable transit options, such as bicycles? Unless the price of gas rises drastically, we probably won't find out. But it seems that it wouldn't be that hard to develop edge cities where people could get around by bicycle or foot. In Scandinavia, for instance, new developments are connected by bicycle/pedestrian walkways that are completely separate from motorways and have their own underpass system so that interactions with motorized traffic are kept to a minimum. Everyone from the youngest tot to the oldest senior citizen uses these paths. If bike travel were made easy and safe here, perhaps it might become more popular, easing the congestion on the roads. It might also help with our obesity epidemic.

One topic that Garreau seems to overlook is the question of the support workers for edge cities. In Garreau's edge city descriptions, the edge city residential properties are attractive and upscale, suitable for well-paid white color employees. The money these people have supports the edge city malls, shopping centers, and restaurants. But such highly skilled people aren't likely to actually work at the malls, where the jobs are minimum wage. All those shops and restaurants require ranks of minimum wage workers, and people earning the minimum wage can't afford to live in Edge City where the housing costs are so high. Instead, they live in run-down inner cities or outlying towns and commute long distances to their jobs at the malls. They may not reside in edge cities, but they still comprise a major component of the overall operations and their needs and habits should also be considered.

I lived in an edge city west of Boston for four years. I lived in a box, I worked in a box, and when I got home at night I was dead tired from the commute. The distances between shops and homes were so large that a car was absolutely required to get around. It was virtually impossible to meet others, and cultural activities were extremely limited. For the most part, the only public space in town was at the malls. The town spirit seemed to be missing along with the town center. The first chance we had to leave town, we bolted and have never looked back. If Garreau is right, and edge cities are the wave of the future because that's where Americans are choosing to live, I'm afraid for the future of America. Hopefully, as edge cities begin to mature, they will become more livable places.

On the Edge.......2004-04-19

This was the first book on cities and planning I ever read, and I was captivated through most of it. Filled with fascinating views on how real estate and commerce work together, this book ties together views of different metropoles as they develop their "Edge Cities," grown-up suburbs that are more than bedroom communities. These Edge Cities have overwhelmed the central city that gave birth to them, as suburbanites find them easier to commute to (at first), and certainly cleaner than the "real city." Gridlock and sprawl are the result as the Edge Cities go up everywhere.

And I still remember my eagerness in reading this terrific book, city after city, looking forward to the San Francisco chapter... and my crushing disappointment when Garreau discussed not Silicon Valley, the quintessential Edge City, but... Concord. Concord? How did he miss Silicon Valley, at the intersection of 85 and 280, or 101 and 880, or... (Garreau feels freeway junctions lead to Edge Cities)

Okay, other than my personal disappointment that he missed the real story, that the suburban metroplex is none other than San Jose/Santa Clara/Cupertino/Sunnyvale/Mountain View/Palo Alto/Redwood City this is still a great book. The endpapers show the contrast between Tyson's Corners postwar and in the nineties, and what a contrast it is.

Customer Reviews:

outdated.......2006-03-18

This would be an excellent and thorough book were it not nine years old. The information on cost of living is useless because so much has changed.

Just OK.......2004-11-28

The book is put together very well and is easy to read. Now for the negatives. Most of the information is old which makes it unusable. It's OK for a starting point, but you'll be going back to the internet for up-to-date information.

50 Fabulous Places to Raise Your Family by Giovagnoli.......2004-08-29

This book describes optimal places to live and retire. The author
describes the quality of life, local economy/jobs , entertainment and a plethora of other concerns. Fountain Hills, Arizona is listed for its jobs, no state income tax and quality of lifestyle. Gainesville Florida is listed as the most livable
city in the USA. Huntington, NY is listed as a preferred
suburb with good schools, beaches and vacation spots.
Charlottesville, VA. is praised for its scenary, affordable
housing, schools and educational centers. This book is a solid
value if you are researching an area unfamiliar to you.
Before you move anywhere, visit the locality, speak to residents and make up your own mind independent of what any book conveys.

Published in 1997 - Too Old & Dated!.......2003-10-25

I was excited to receive this book, but hadn't noticed in the product description that it was last published in 1997, and since it's nearly 2004, this book was not very helpful. The data is time sensitive (cost of living, populations, tax rates, home costs, school info, etc). Each city review had a nice "contact" list at the end, but one major thing missing were website addresses (which would've helped locate more recent data). Only the addresses & phone numbers were listed, and most were not toll-free numbers. Shame on me for not noticing the publication date, shame on Amazon.com for recommending it as a match with "The Places Rated Almanac" (the book found me, I wasn't looking for it specifically).

Inaccurate and way too subjective.......2003-10-11

We visited 10 of the communities listed, and are quite familiar with seven more of them. First, the authors seem to have a preference for non-pedestrian-friendly, car-oriented suburban sprawl. Second, I don't know where they got their info. We went so far as to move to one of the communities listed in the book, and after we got there we found out that the "excellent public schools" cited by these authors were ranked 48th in the country, and that there was very little for children to do. Health care was rated 47th in the country and was subpar, expensive and difficult to obtain. Not only that, the community was not friendly or welcoming to outsiders, and it was a most decidedly un-family-oriented environment. We stayed a year and left this town. We had not gone only on the basis of this book's recommendation, of course, but we had taken it into consideration as part of the total picture and it turned out to be extremely misleading.

Book Description

In this absorbing history, Jon C. Teaford traces the dramatic evolution of American metropolitan life. At the end of World War II, the cities of the Northeast and the Midwest were bustling, racially and economically integrated areas frequented by suburban and urban dwellers alike. Yet since 1945, these cities have become peripheral to the lives of most Americans. "Edge cities" are now the dominant centers of production and consumption in post-suburban America. Characterized by sprawling freeways, corporate parks, and homogeneous malls and shopping centers, edge cities have transformed the urban landscape of the United States.

Teaford surveys metropolitan areas from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt and the way in which postwar social, racial, and cultural shifts contributed to the decline of the central city as a hub of work, shopping, transportation, and entertainment. He analyzes the effects of urban flight in the 1950s and 1960s, the subsequent growth of the suburbs, and the impact of financial crises and racial tensions. He then brings the discussion into the present by showing how the recent wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia has further altered metropolitan life and complicated the black-white divide. Engaging in original research and interpretation, Teaford tells the story of this fascinating metamorphosis.

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