An authoritative overview of the last three years on the Internet that is is plagued, however, by serious questions of audience, an elitist voice, and an almost paranoid preoccupation with Microsoft's Bill Gates. Beginning with the creator of the first graphical Web browser, Marc Andreesen, Reid—himself a Net world wheeler and dealer—takes a ``big name'' approach in his technological history, using the eight people behind such milestone Web products as RealAudio (Rob Glaser), Java (Kim Polese), and Yahoo! (Jerry Yang) as centerpieces around which he builds his study. Subjects run the gamut from pure technological advances to the history of Web marketing and ``merging mediums,'' such as the Web and TV. For a CEO looking to launch a Web site, the book's business-savvy language will work, and it may prove an informative read. Similarly, the highly technical style will make a reader already fluent in the online lingo comfortable. However, to a lay reader, this book is likely to sound dangerously technocratic, as Reid is not very thorough in explaining the dozens of highly technical terms he uses. Indeed, Mark Pesce, creator of Virtual Reality Markup Language, states the dangers of too much technology in too few hands, saying: ``I am both excited and mortified by this technology.'' Furthermore, Reid's perspective is very Bay Areaspecific, ignoring developments taking place outside of California. If, for example, Wired is the leading Web publisher, as Reid claims, then what of New York exploits such as Word and Charged? And while Gates-bashing has always been the intramural sport of the industry, Reid takes it to a new low by dubbing Microsoft's CEO ``Chairman Gates'' in an obvious reference to Mao's authoritarianism. Of course, Reid's subtitle is reminiscent of Arthur Schlesinger's hagiography of John Kennedy. Perhaps the Web is Reid's Camelot and Gates his Castro.
Pub Date: May 2, 1997
ISBN: 0-471-17187-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1997
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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