Achilles in Vietnam: Combat
Trauma and theUndoing of Character by Jonathan
Shay
amazon.com: History Editor's Recommended Book, 10/01/96
Shay works from an intriguing premise: that the study of the great
Homeric epic of war, The Iliad, can illuminate our understanding
of Vietnam, and vice versa. Along the way, he compares the battlefield
experiences of men like Agamemnon and Patroclus with those of
frontline grunts, analyzes the berserker rage that overcame Achilles
and so many American soldiers alike, and considers the ways in
which societies ancient and modern have accounted for and dealt
with post-traumatic stress disorder---a malady only recently recognized
in the medical literature, but well attested in Homer's pages.
The novelist Tim O'Brien, who has written so affectingly about
his experiences in combat, calls Shay's book "one of the
most original and most important scholarly works to have emerged
from the Vietnam war." He's right.
Achilles in the Quantum
Universe : The Definitive History of Infinity by
Richard W. Morris
From Kirkus Reviews, 03/15/97
The idea of the infinite has baffled thinkers since ancient times;
now a top science writer tries to shed light on the concept. Morris
(Cosmic Questions, 1993, etc.) begins by noting the paradoxes
that arise when infinite numbers are put through standard arithmetic
processes: Half of infinity remains infinite, and infinity minus
30 trillion is still infinite. Precisely because of its tendency
to produce paradox, infinity has always had a shady reputation.
George Cantor, the first mathematician to seriously study it,
went mad. It was the suggestion of infinite worlds, rather than
the heliocentric model of the solar system, that got Giordano
Bruno burnt at the stake. And Newton went to great pains to find
a way to explain his newly invented calculus without resorting
to the infinitesimals (infinitely tiny numbers) on which its operations
depend; he never quite managed the trick. Morris spends a good
deal of time showing how astronomers and cosmologists have dealt
with the growth of the observable universe and with the implication
that the actual universe might really be infinite. Much of our
modern picture of the cosmos arises from the fact that certain
equations in Einstein's general relativity theory produce infinite
answers--"singularities''--when the right values are plugged
in. From these troublesome infinities eventually arose the concepts
of the Big Bang and black holes, both of which are now considered
all but confirmed by observational evidence. Morris is a clear
and lively writer, with a penchant for down-to-earth examples--a
useful asset in dealing with a subject so notoriously difficult.
A good survey not only of infinity, but of the scientific revolutions
that have grown out of our attempts to grapple with the concept.
-- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Achilles' Choice by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes, Boris Vallejo
Customer review.
A classic tale of future sport mania and the athletes. Achilles'
Choice delves into a future evolution of the Olympics in which
life is the ticket to enter. This extreme development of sports
is expressed through the people most involved--the athletes. The
characters , especially Jillian Shomer, are magnificently expressed
in their actions and thoughts. The reader can easily feel the
heated struggle of competition and the agony over moral and life
dilemmas faced by Jullian. Furthermore, these future competitors
are extremely applicable to today's athletes, and connect the
reader to the harsh life and choices these talented people face.
A great red.
The Achilles Syndrome : Overcoming the Secret Fear of Failure by Petruska Clarkson, Pertruska Clarkson
America's Achilles' Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack by Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, Bradley Thayer
Men, Sex and Relationships : Writings from Achilles Heel by Vic Seidler (Editor)
Protect Your Achilles Heel : Crafting Armor for the New Age at Work by Roberts Wess, PhD
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