Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Foundations of Financial Management or Eight Months in Illinois

Foundations of Financial Management

Author: Stanley B Block

Foundations of Financial Management is a proven and successful text recognized for its excellent writing style and step-by-step explanations to make the content relevant and easy to understand. The text's approach focuses on the "nuts and bolts" of finance with clear and thorough treatment of concepts and applications. There is a strong real-world emphasis presented throughout. This text has definitely stood the test of time due to the authors' time, energy, and commitment to quality revisions. In addition to completing the textbook revisions, the authors also revised ALL end of chapter problems and complete the solutions themselves. Block and Hirt know what works and what doesn't work for students, and they have consistently maintained a high quality textbook that is responsive to the demands of the marketplace.



Book review: Health Care Science Technology or What Every New Manager Needs to Know

Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants

Author: William Oliver

The Illinois frontier offered abundant opportunity, noted English traveler William Oliver after his journey to America in 1841–42, but life there was hard. Accordingly, Oliver advised the wealthy and comfortable to remain in England and counseled the unprosperous to seek their fortunes in America. Written for the poor who would migrate and published in 1843, his Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants sought only to provide pertinent, valid, and practical information about what people might encounter in the frontier state. What Oliver actually accomplished, however, was much more: he imparted invaluable insights into and analyses of American life during an era of sweeping social, economic, and political change.



In his new foreword to this edition, James E. Davis stresses Oliver’s sincere desire to help British immigrants succeed in America. Oliver, Davis notes, “devoted dozens of pages of advice on numerous matters: various routes to Illinois and their advantages and disadvantages, processes of settling, qualities of western houses, costs of obtaining a new farm.” Oliver discussed other practical matters, such as the importance of having sons. He also assured his intended readership that “in the West, distinction of classes is little known and seldom recognized.”



As a document covering the middle west in the 1840s, Eight Months in Illinois: With Information to Immigrants has few equals. Its portrayal of farming and trade in relatively primitive times is historically accurate. It paints a plain picture, laying out the essential facts and presentingthe typical incidents that enable us to trace the course of a settler’s simple, diligent, laborious day-to-day life. According to Davis, Oliver depicted “accurate and balanced slices of life in Illinois and America, including nasty insects, crude conditions, and the necessity of work.” And he did so without a trace of anti-American bias.



Eight Months in Illinois with Information to Immigrants was reprinted with emendations in 1924 by Walter Hill.



Booknews

This is a reprint of the book originally published in 1843 by William Andrew Mitchell, and reprinted by Walter M Hill in 1924. Author William Oliver, a noted English traveler, was writing to provide as much useful information as possible for the poor who would migrate to America. For the contemporary American reader, his text provides a candid description of life during a time of great social, economic, and political change. This newest edition includes a foreword by James E. Davis (Illinois College). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



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