Most Popular Books by Robert K

For every Wild Bill Hickok or Billy the Kid, there was another western gunfighter just as deadly but not as well known. Robert K. DeArment has earned a reputation as the premier researcher of unknown gunfighters, and here he offers twelve more portraits of men who weren’t glorified in legend but were just as notorious in their day. Those who think they already know all about Old West gunfighters will be amazed at this new collection. Here are men like Porter Stockton, the Texas terror who bragged that he had killed eighteen men, and Jim Levy, who killed a man for disparaging his Irish blood, though he was also the only known Jewish gunfighter. These stories span eight decades, from the gold rushes of the 1850s to the 1920s. Telling of gunmen such as Jim Masterson, the brother of Bat Masterson, or the real Whispering Smith—the man behind the fictionalized persona—whose career spanned four decades, DeArment conscientiously separates fact from fiction to reconstruct lives all the more amazing for having remained unknown for so long. The product of iron-clad research, this newest Deadly Dozen delivers the goods for gunfighter buffs in search of something different. Together the Deadly Dozen volumes constitute a Who’s Who of western outlaws and prove that there’s more to the Wild West than Jesse James.

A reissue of the classic report of Columbia''s Bureau of Applied Social Research, outlining techniques for eliciting specific responses of individuals and groups to particular events and situations. The 1956 edition of this book may be regarded as seminal within sociology, spawning a whole field of qualitative opinion research that has continued to evolve through half a century of inquiry. This is a reissue of the book, with a new preface by Merton, a select bibliography of writings on the focused interview and focus group research, and a new introduction that traces the diffusion of Merton''s technique from sociology to other fields, including history, psychology, mass media and marketing research.

This book will help readers understand the practice of qualitative research--whether they want to do it, teach it, or just learn about it. All the major research phases are encompassed (startup, design, data collection, analysis, and composing), including newly emerging trends. Numerous easy-to-read vignettes show how other scholars have successfully implemented specific procedures. Equally distinctive, the book presents qualitative research as an adaptive craft. The array of choices among different procedures and methods enables readers to customize their own studies and to accommodate different worldviews and genres. New to This Edition: *Stronger discussion of different worldviews (e.g., constructivism, postpositivism, and pragmatism) and how they relate to different methodological choices. *Clearer emphasis on doing a generalized qualitative study, while acknowledging 12 specialized genres (e.g., action-based research, arts-based research, autoethnography, grounded theory, phenomenology, and others). *Expanded discussions of different kinds of qualitative study samples and of mixed methods. *New ideas on how to avoid getting stalled when analyzing qualitative data. *Consideration of an additional way of concluding a qualitative study: by taking action. Pedagogical Features *Chapters start with an abstract and end with a suggested exercise. *Key terms and concepts appear in boldface throughout the text and are listed in end-of-chapter recaps as well as in the book?s glossary. *Sections within each chapter start with a preview box: ?What you should learn from this section." *An appendix presents a semester- or yearlong field-based project.

"Book describes the world premiere of the American opera based on Melville''s novel Moby-Dick, with the same name. Wallace describes the creative process of writing the music and libretto, the rehearsals and stage design, and the opening night in Dallas in May 2010."--ECIP Data View, Summary.

"A collection of eight of Greenleaf''s most compelling essays on servant-leadership, ... [an] approach to leadership ... which puts serving others, including employees, customers, and community, first."--Back cover.

Why another book on software project management? For some time, the fields of project management, computer science, and software development have been growing rapidly and concurrently. Effective support for the enterprise demands the merging of these efforts into a coordinated discipline, one that incorporates best practices from both systems development and project management life cycles. Robert K. Wysocki creates that discipline in this book--a ready reference for professionals and consultants as well as a textbook for students of computer information systems and project management. By their very nature, software projects defy a "one size fits all" approach. In these pages you will learn to apply best-practice principles while maintaining the flexibility that''s essential for successful software development. Learn how to make the planning process fit the need * Understand how and why software development must be planned on a certainty-to-uncertainty continuum * Categorize your projects on a four-quadrant model * Learn when to use each of the five SDPM strategies--Linear, Incremental, Iterative, Adaptive, and Extreme * Explore the benefits of each strategic model and what types of projects it supports best * Recognize the activities that go into the Scoping, Planning, Launching, Monitoring/Controlling, and Closing phases of each strategy * Apply this knowledge to the specific projects you manage * Get a clear picture of where you are and how to get where you want to go

A “magnificent and intimate” (Harper’s) modern classic of Russian history, the spellbinding story of the love that ended an empire—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, The Romanovs, and Catherine the Great “A moving, rich book . . . [This] revealing, densely documented account of the last Romanovs focuses not on the great events . . . but on the royal family and their evil nemesis. . . . The tale is so bizarre, no melodrama is equal to it.”—Newsweek In this commanding book, New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of the Russian empire to tell the story of the Romanovs’ lives: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis’s brave struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.

An urgent new warning from two bestselling security experts--and a gripping inside look at how governments, firms, and ordinary citizens can confront and contain the tyrants, hackers, and criminals bent on turning the digital realm into a war zone. "In the battle raging between offense and defense in cyberspace, Clarke and Knake have some important ideas about how we can avoid cyberwar for our country, prevent cybercrime against our companies, and in doing so, reduce resentment, division, and instability at home and abroad."--Bill Clinton There is much to fear in the dark corners of cyberspace. From well-covered stories like the Stuxnet attack which helped slow Iran''s nuclear program, to lesser-known tales like EternalBlue, the 2017 cyber battle that closed hospitals in Britain and froze shipping crates in Germany in midair, we have entered an age in which online threats carry real-world consequences. But we do not have to let autocrats and criminals run amok in the digital realm. We now know a great deal about how to make cyberspace far less dangerous--and about how to defend our security, economy, democracy, and privacy from cyber attack. This is a book about the realm in which nobody should ever want to fight a war: the fifth domain, the Pentagon''s term for cyberspace. Our guides are two of America''s top cybersecurity experts, seasoned practitioners who are as familiar with the White House Situation Room as they are with Fortune 500 boardrooms. Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake offer a vivid, engrossing tour of the often unfamiliar terrain of cyberspace, introducing us to the scientists, executives, and public servants who have learned through hard experience how government agencies and private firms can fend off cyber threats. Clarke and Knake take us inside quantum-computing labs racing to develop cyber superweapons; bring us into the boardrooms of the many firms that have been hacked and the few that have not; and walk us through the corridors of the U.S. intelligence community with officials working to defend America''s elections from foreign malice. With a focus on solutions over scaremongering, they make a compelling case for "cyber resilience"--building systems that can resist most attacks, raising the costs on cyber criminals and the autocrats who often lurk behind them, and avoiding the trap of overreaction to digital attacks. Above all, Clarke and Knake show us how to keep the fifth domain a humming engine of economic growth and human progress by not giving in to those who would turn it into a wasteland of conflict. Backed by decades of high-level experience in the White House and the private sector, The Fifth Domain delivers a riveting, agenda-setting insider look at what works in the struggle to avoid cyberwar.

Identifies and explicates the areas that are currently being overlooked or undervalued in the current discussions of theology and film.

"A wise old adage of faith states, ''Read the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other.'' The slogan is an invitation to notice the complex engagement of faith and culture. In Useless Beauty, Johnston takes up the interface of faith and culture with specificity and immediacy. His discussion permits an instructive dialogue, whereby we read Ecclesiastes differently, and we read contemporary film with fresh eyes of faith. Neither the text nor the films can be easily dismissed as ''absurd.'' Both are thickened, and we are driven deeper in our self-discernment by the process. Johnston''s alertness and urbaneness constitute a model for faith that is not simplistic and a model for culture that is not thin or transparent." --Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary "Johnston reads Ecclesiastes with a rich, postmodern hermeneutic--not the more common simplistic, linear, moralistic, or formulaic approach that threatens to drown Bible readers in the shallows. His reading has great value for people seeking new ways to find meaning in Scripture. Personally, it helped me weave my life experience with my viewing of film and my reading of the Bible, and it left me feeling alive and energized." --Brian McLaren, pastor (crcc.org) and author (anewkindofchristian.com) "Johnston weaves the wisdom of Ecclesiastes into contemporary narrative films and vice versa, merging theology and film into a smart and insightful dialogue to enhance understanding of both." --William D. Romanowski, Calvin College; author of Eyes Wide Open "Some of the most helpful contemporary interpretation of Scripture comes from those who look at the text with eyes other than those of the biblical scholar. Johnston''s interpretation of Ecclesiastes through the lens of film is an excellent example. The text comes to life in the interaction he creates with the narratives of major contemporary movies. They in turn are better understood by the careful theological interpretation Johnston gives them through the lens of Ecclesiastes. The possibilities for preaching and teaching are obvious." --Patrick O. Miller, Princeton Theological Seminary "This book is a well-informed and sensitive example of how, in our uncertain and contradictory times, to engage film and Scripture without denying the integrity of either. It is highly recommended." --Rikk E. Watts, Regent College

Marshall McLuhan made many predictions in his seminal 1964 publication, Understanding Media: Extensions of Man. Among them were his predictions that the Internet would become a «Global Village», making us more interconnected than television; the closing of the gap between consumers and producers; the elimination of space and time as barriers to communication; and the melting of national borders. He is also famously remembered for coining the expression «the medium is the message». These predictions form the genesis of this new volume by Robert Logan, a friend and colleague who worked with McLuhan. In Understanding New Media Logan expertly updates Understanding Media to analyze the «new media» McLuhan foreshadowed and yet was never able to analyze or experience. The book is designed to reach a new generation of readers as well as appealing to scholars and students who are familiar with Understanding Media. Visit the companion website, understandingnewmedia.org, for the latest updates on this book.

A narrative account of the survey of almost 1,000 professional historians on what constitutes a successful performance in the presidency, this survey tells us almost as much about the thinking and biases of historians as it does about the nature of the American presidency. Besides comparing past presidential polls and constructing a ranking list of the nation''s chief executives, this study examines why historians rate presidents the way they do, and it analyzes those qualities and traits historians look for in a successful president. It also delimits what constitutes a failing performance in the White House and marks the major pitfalls that almost assuredly lead to an adverse historical verdict. In the process, the study demonstrates that there is not always a close correlation between what historians say a president should do and what historians obviously feel when actually ranking the performances of the presidents of the United States. This study should prove enlightening not only to the historical profession but to the general public, political pundits, newscasters, public officials, and all presidential aspirants, and even to past and present occupants of the White House and their staffs.

In this ambitious interdisciplinary work, Robert K. Wallace explores the stylistic and aesthetic affinities of English landscape painter J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) and American novelist Herman Melville (1819-1891), establishing Turner as a decisive influence on the creation of Melville''s Moby-Dick. Wallace begins his study by tracing the evolution of Turner''s powerful aesthetic of the indistinct from his seascapes of the early 1800s through his whaling oils of the mid-1840s. He then examines Melville''s self-education in the fine arts from 1846 through 1849, a period culminating in an 1849 visit to London, where Melville saw Turner''s works side by side with those of the Old Masters. Wallace also shows how the aesthetic of Melville''s first five novels evolved in direct relation to the art criticism he read in books by Hazlitt, Ruskin, and Eastlake, as well as in English and American periodicals. Wallace''s discussion of how Melville''s knowledge of painting influenced his successive novels illustrates an important part of Melville''s mental and artistic landscape. The discussion of influence culminates with three chapters devoted to the composition of Moby-Dick, showing Turner''s influence from the beginning to the end of Melville''s masterpiece. The study ends with an examination of the artistic and spiritual legacies of each artist. Wallace shows how Melville and Turner lead us into comparable realms: the visible spheres of love as well as the invisible ones of fright. Richly illustrated to document the visual experience that influenced Melville''s literary achievement, this study advances our understanding of Melville as a literary artist and connoisseur of art, of Turner as an influence on American culture, and of the interrelations between literature and painting--as well as between England and America--in the mid-nineteenth century.