Most Popular Books by Martin Brown

This beautiful field guide offers orchid enthusiasts everything they need to know about what, where, and when to find wild orchids in the southeastern United States. With 285 color photos and detailed original drawings, it will delight both the new admirer and the long-time lover of these seductive flowering plants. Covering a region that includes eastern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and northern Florida, as well as southeastern North Carolina, and southern Arkansas, the book presents all the information necessary to correctly identify 76 species of orchids, 4 varieties, 61 forms, and 13 hybrids. It includes some of the rarest species found in the United States as well as several new species and subspecific taxa that recently have been documented in this area but have never been described in book format. No existing field guide provides all available information for these states. Orchid identification presents even experienced botanists with a challenge. Paul Martin Brown, author of several successful orchid books for other U.S. regions, undertakes this task in a logical, easy-to-understand manner. The guide is designed for locating information easily while one foot is in the proverbial bog. Brown’s approach to the complex vocabulary of botanical taxonomy is clear and his explanation of botanical keys will aid the novice orchid hunter as well as the trained orchid professional. Created for identification in the field or anywhere live specimens are found, the key is not strictly technical. Its dependence on color and measurements has been kept to a minimum, allowing readers to use it without removing orchids from the wild. Supporting material addresses common questions about habitat, color forms, and hybrids and also clarifies the taxonomically confusing genera Spiranthes and Platanthera.

This paper examines the impact of the recent banking crises in Europe and Central Asia on households' incomes and consumption patterns. The analysis is based on the 2010 wave of the Life in Transition Survey, which covers 12,704 households in eleven countries that experienced a banking crisis between 2008 and 2011. It finds that households in middle-income crisis countries are more than twice as likely to be hit by an income shock as households in high-income crisis countries. The labor market channel is the predominant source of income shocks, with wage reductions more widespread than job-losses. In reaction to income shocks, households reallocate spending from non-essential goods to staple foods. Reductions in staple-food consumption are, however, prevalent among low-income households. The paper examines potential crisis mitigators and finds that at the macro level a flexible monetary regime is associated with fewer cutbacks in household consumption. At the meso level, it finds no evidence that foreign bank ownership amplified the transmission of banking crises to households in Europe. With respect to micro-level mitigators, the analysis finds that diversified income sources as well as stocks of non-financial and financial assets help households to cushion income shocks. Access to informal and formal credit also mitigates the impact of income shocks on household consumption, with the former especially important in middle-income countries.

In the HORRIBLE HISTORY series, this quiz book is packed with foul questions about the most awesome ancient civilisations. With vomit-tasting Greek doctors, ruthless Mesopotamian rulers, evil Egyptian grave-robbers, mad Roman emperors and miserable Mayan mums.

"In this Building Small Office Networks Using the Junos OS training course, expert author Martin Brown will teach you everything you need to know to build a small office network using the Junos OS. This course is designed for users that already have a basic knowledge of Junos. You will start by learning how to build the Internet edge, including connecting branch offices, configuring firewall zones, and configuring static routes. From there, Martin will teach you how to create the IPSec VPN tunnel and build the core, including configuring VLANs, upgrading Junos, and routing with a switch. Finally, Martin will take you through finishing touches, such as authentication, SNMP, and device management. Once you have completed this computer based training course, you will have learned everything you need to know to design and build a small office network using the Junos OS. Working files are included, allowing you to follow along with the author throughout the lessons."--Resource description page.

This paper studies the behavioral mechanisms underlying the increase in strategic defaults during an economic crisis. We report data from a laboratory experiment in which we exogenously vary the state of the economy. Our data reveal two main reasons for why an economic contraction adversely affects repayments. First, weak economic conditions seem to soften debtors' moral constraints. When surrounded by insolvency, solvent debtors become less hesitant to default strategically. Second, an economic downturn also undermines the enforcement of social repayment norms by peers. However, we find that the decrease in norm enforcement is not caused by a break-down of the repayment norm itself, but rather is a consequence of the additional informational uncertainty that weak economic conditions create. In a crisis peers are reluctant to sanction defaulters, because the risk of harming innocent debtors is higher.

This book is a collection of short pieces of observational writing. Martin sees the world through his own personal viewpoint and writes about things that inspire him. Maybe they will inspire you, anger you or make you smile. The important thing is to have some reaction, and you will.Martin has written about subjects as diverse as performance art, trainspotting, bilocation, elder abuse, hip hop, football and, of course about Monogamy and Music.

This paper uses survey data for over 23,000 households from 28 transition countries in 2010 to explore how the use of household credit is related to foreign bank ownership. In countries with higher foreign bank presence we find a stronger relation between household income, education and employment status and the use of credit cards and mortgages. Our findings are robust to endogeneity and are supply rather than demand-driven. They suggest that foreign banks- as compared to domestic banks - are more likely to cherry-pick their retail credit customers.