Comprised of 200 readable and informative historic vignettes reflecting all areas of Senate activities, from the well known and notorious to the unusual and whimsical. Prepared by Richard A. Baker, the Senates Historian, these brief sketches, each with an accompanying illustration and references for further reading, provide striking insights into the colorful and momentous history of The World's Greatest Deliberative Body. Review from Goodreads: "Jason" rated this book with 3 stars and had this to say "This coffee table book on Senate History comes from none other than the U.S. Senate Historian, Richard Baker. The House of Representatives recently acquired noted historian of the Jacksonian era, Robert Remini as the official House Historian. He recently wrote a pretty impressive tomb on the House of Representatives. The Senate already has a 4 volume history written by US Senator, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, so the Senate could not reply in that manner. So, I think the coffee table book was the best that we could muster. I think this is the first time I have actually read a coffee table book from cover to cover. It is a chatty little story book filled with useful cocktail-party-history of the US Senate. That's useful knowledge to me, as I never know what to say at Washington cocktail parties. Perhaps anecdotes about Thomas Hart Benton will help break the ice. The most striking thing to me about the book was the number of attacks on the Capitol. I had heard about all the incidents individually, but it is more jolting to see them sequentially. 3 bombings, 2 gun attacks and then the attempt on September 11th. In a way, its remarkable that the Capitol complex remained so open for so long. Note, I use the past tense here. As any of you who have visited the capitol recently will have noted, it is increasingly difficult to get in. And once the Capitol Visitor Center is completed, I expect it will be very much a controlled experience like the White House. In any case, Baker's prose is breezy and he is dutifully reverent to the institution without missing the absurdities of Senate life. You also get a sense of the breakdown in lawfulness that preceded the Civil War. Its not just the canning of Charles Sumner, its also the Mississippi Senator pulling a gun on Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton in the Senate chamber. Then there is the case of California Senator David Broderick (an anti-slavery Democrat) being killed in a duel by the pro-slavery Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. Apparently, back in those days, California was a lot more like modern Texas. In any case, the slide toward anarchy can definitely be found long before Fort Sumter. Another interesting aside that I really never knew concerns the order of succession. All of us learn in school that it is the President, then the Vice President, then the Speaker of the House and then President Pro Tempore of the Senate. After that, you get the members of the Cabinet, and I was aware that as new departments were created, they have been shuffled up a bit. What I did not know, is that Congress was not always in the order of succession at all. For a long time, it devolved from the President to the VP and then directly to the Secretary of State. Furthermore, when they first inserted Congress, it was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate who was third in line over the Speaker of the House. The structure we all know and love was only finalized in 1947 after some hard thinking in light of FDR's demise and the Constitutional Amendments on succession that followed. Anyway, this is a book for government geeks. If you are one, its a nice read and about as pleasant a way to introduce yourself to Senate history as I have found. If not, there are prettier coffee table books to be had."

The U.S. Ocean Commission Report identified the need for regional ecosystem assessments to support coastal and ocean management. These assessments must provide greater understanding of physical and biological dynamics than assessments at global and national scales can provide but transcend state and local interests. This need and timeliness is apparent for Long Island Sound, where a multi-state regional restoration program is underway for America’s most urbanized estuary. Synthesis of the Long Island Sound ecosystem is needed to integrate knowledge across disciplines and provide insight into understanding and managing pressing issues, such as non-point sources of pollution, coastal development, global climatic change, and invasive species. Currently, there is a need for a comprehensive volume that summarizes the ecological and environmental dynamics and status of Long Island Sound and its myriad ecosystems. It has been 30 years since a comprehensive summary of Long Island Sound was prepared and 50 years since the pioneering work of Gordon Riley. Major advances in estuarine science are providing new insights into these systems, and yet, the condition of many estuaries is in decline in the face of continuing coastal development. There is an opportunity to lay a foundation for integrative coastal observing systems that truly provide the foundation for improved decision-making. This book will provide a key reference of our scientific understanding for work performed over the past three decades and guide future research and monitoring in a dynamic urbanized estuary.

This collection of essays discusses fascinating aspects of the concept that microbes are at the root of all ecosystems. The content is divided into seven parts, the first of those emphasizes that microbes not only were the starting point, but sustain the rest of the biosphere and shows how life evolves through a perpetual struggle for habitats and niches. Part II explains the ways in which microbial life persists in some of the most extreme environments, while Part III presents our understanding of the core aspects of microbial metabolism. Part IV examines the duality of the microbial world, acknowledging that life exists as a balance between certain processes that we perceive as being environmentally supportive and others that seem environmentally destructive. In turn, Part V discusses basic aspects of microbial symbioses, including interactions with other microorganisms, plants and animals. The concept of microbial symbiosis as a driving force in evolution is covered in Part VI. In closing, Part VII explores the adventure of microbiological research, including some reminiscences from and perspectives on the lives and careers of microbe hunters. Given its mixture of science and philosophy, the book will appeal to scientists and advanced students of microbiology, evolution and ecology alike.

This book, which will appeal to all with an interest in the history of radiology and physics, casts new light on the life and career of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, showing how his personality was shaped by his youth in the Netherlands and his teachers in Switzerland. Beyond this, it explores the technical developments relevant to the birth of radiology in the late nineteenth century and examines the impact of the discovery of X-rays on a broad range of scientific research. Röntgen (1845-1923) was born in Lennep, Germany, but emigrated with his family to the Netherlands in 1848. As a 17-year-old he moved to Utrecht, entering the Technical School and living at the home of Dr. Jan Willem Gunning. In this well-educated family he was stimulated to continue his studies at university. In 1868 he received a diploma from the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich and just a year later completed a PhD in physics. He followed his mentor, August Kundt, to the universities of Würzburg (1870) and Strasburg (1872) and married Anna Ludwig in 1872. In 1879 Röntgen gained his first professorship at a German University, in Giessen, followed by a chair in Würzburg in 1888. Here he discovered X-rays in 1895, for which he received the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901. From 1900 until his retirement in 1921 he occupied the chair of physics at the Munich University.

This volume contains a selection of papers from the International Conference on Argumentation (Amsterdam, 2002) by prominent international scholars of argumentation theory. It provides an insightful cross-section of the current state of affairs in argumentation research. It will be of interest to all those working in the field of argumentation theory and to all scholars who are interested in recent developments in this field.