Aino Halinen's doctoral disseration from the Turku School of Economics, Finland, has now also been published by Routledge. The study is a pioneering piece of work on the development of buyer-seller relationships in professional services, mainly building on the theoretical work by the IMP group interaction/network studies. The study also interestingly reflects the recent "relational turn" in marketing research in general. The longitudinal case study described and analysed in the book also gives the reader a good example of how an interpretative research method can provide thorough theoretical insights and meaningful managerial implications. The book can be characterized as "obligatory" readings for any M.Sc. or doctoral student in marketing interested in interorganizational relationships and networks.

Edmund Wilson's "To The Finland Station" is a history of communism from Michelet to Lenin. Well that's not exactly correct-this book is many books rolled into one. First it is a history of the idea of a Marxist interpretation of history. Second it is a first-hand account of the efforts by Marx and Engels to start a communist revolution. Third it is a literary criticism of "Das Kapital", the books of Michelet and other writers.

Edmund Wilson was the book reviewer for "The New Yorker" magazine for many years. I picked up this book wanting to read something, anything from the literary critic who many consider the finest since, say, Samuel Johnson. Wilson is famous for, among other things, writing about the literature of the Civil War, "Patriotic Gore", and learning Hebrew so that he could write "The Dead Sea Scrolls". (He must have understood French and German too since he seems to have read Michelet and Marx in the original.) Wilson was also notorious for panning "The Maltese Falcon" and all mystery writing in general. Perhaps his greatest contribution was to revive from obscurity and make famous the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of "The Great Gatsby", who books had gone out of print.

"To the Finland Station" is a long book that is often difficult to read. The long discussion of Hegel and Dialectical Materialism-while no doubt important to the idea of a Marxist interpretation of history-had me rereading the same paragraphs over and over. Still I don't understand any of it. But the terse nature of this prose and the theories they contain render one of the most startling ideas in the book. Marx says that most shallow readers-I guess he had me in mind-have missed the idea of communism completely. It is not simply the progression from capitalism to a struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois.

Wilson writes that Marx says "To many simple minded persons who have just heard about Marxism, it means something extremely simple: it means that people always act from motives of economic interest and the everything that everything mankind has thought or done is susceptible of being explained in those terms". Yes, that is my precise understanding of Marxism and I learned it in high school.

Until I read this book I did not know that Marx and Engels were not just pointy headed intellectuals working away in the safety of a university. No, they were front-line politicians and revolutionaries who risked their necks and their money to foment revolution. As Wilson points out, Marx used his inherited money to buy weapons for revolutionaries in Belgium. Both were expelled from Belgium, Prussia, France, and Marx finally settled in London. He and Engels spent much of their efforts trying re-ignite the Paris Commune (a French civil war in the 1870's where the communists actually took Paris for a few days) in revolutions in Austria and elsewhere.

It is interesting to note that capitalism and the lack of money caused Marx and his family great suffering. Marx was broke during most of his life in London. He and his family were evicted from their homes even while Mrs. Engles was suckling her child. The child later died. Marx made a little money writing articles for newspapers such as Horace Greeley's New York City newspaper "The World". But he mainly lived off charity from Engles and financial bailouts from Lasalle. Lasalle was another revolutionary. Marx was jealous of any rival to his position as leader of the movement. Engels was jealous of any rival to the affections of Marx.

For me the most interesting character in the book is Jules Michelet. Wilson takes you into his study as he labors away at his great "History of the French Revolution". Michelet was lucky to have been the first historian granted access to the French version of the national archives. (I think he founded the Academie Française?) Michelet today might be best known for popularizing the feats of the young French maiden, Jean D'Arc.

Other extremely interesting sections of the book were descriptions of early efforts to build idealistic communistic communes in the young country, The United States. All of these efforts failed. The most famous were the Brook Farm and others based on the writing of Fourier. (You can read Susan Sontag's "In America" for a description of one such commune.) I did not know that early efforts at communism were launched right here in the USA. Fancy that!

To his credit Edmund Wilson went back into his book years after it's publication and wrote a new introduction. There he derides the evils of Stalinism. While it's conception might have been pure and elegant like some subtle mathematical proof-to the writer Saint Simon communism was even a new religion--it's implementation was bloody and ridiculous. Today most people would agree that it has been totally discredited. But we should all read "To the Finland Station" to understand what all the fuss was about.

Weston appears to do a very fine job presenting us with the various perspectives of the Villa -- the large living room, entryways, linear wood use, and of course the extraordinary pool and sauna. The integration of text with pictures makes the book accessible to students just beginning to embark on a study of this great Finnish architect.

The title of this book is misleading, for in fact this very large book is about the architecture of Finnish architect Reima Pietila, a maverick "organic" modernist architect among the purist straight-lined Finnish modernist architects. Connah shows how Pietila is closer in spirit to Finland's most famous architecture genius, Alvar Aalto, than all those who claim to continue the Aalto legacy through a white functionalistic aesthetic. Connah's book is divided into 3 parts: superb reproductions of Pietilä's drawings together with crisp photographs; a simple outline of Pietila's work and world, drawing parallels when necessary to other worlds, including Pietila's favourite thinkers such as Heidegger and Wittgenstein; and, most thought-provokingly, very controversial footnotes, which tell the hidden story behind the difficulties Pietila faced from his compatriots. An excellent book.

I decided to buy this book because I have family that still lives in St. Lucia. The book actually speaks about them. I found it to be enjoyable reading and very enlightening. The pictures are informative but nothing like a "voyage to the island" itself. It can be a bit slow but definitely a good book to read at least once. Hope you enjoy.

This is the true story of a late-deafened woman, her hearing husband and two sons who move from Finland to the Carribean for two years. The book reads a bit like a diary; with day to day humor and struggle of being in a new culture, trying to figure things out, and feeling isolated from the deaf community and family back home. That's when Raija meets the American Peace Corps volunteer and his newly opened deaf school. She teaches children (age 12-16) their first language, and eventually takes one child into her home. This book is an interesting look at language aquisition, and also the power of community. Anyway, it's just a light and enjoyable read.

Undoubtedly this is a book of fine photographs and drawings. And for many architects and students that is more than enough. They want to be inspired, and to get a feeling for the material qualities of architecture. They indeed need few words. But Weston's book makes a claim to be more than that. It claims to be a historical monograph. But we get little sense of the strangeness, the Otherness, of Finnish culture. Aalto could more or less be designing anywhere. Reference to Finland is merely stereo-typical "nature". Aalto remains as elusive as ever.

I love Alvar Aalto's architecture and i think this is book contains so beautiful photografs as his architecture is. Richard Weston on the best.

If you are one those who don't like boring books, and you like books to show good photografs, this is the book you have to buy about this great architect that ALVAR AALTO was. This book is one of my favourites and believe, i have plenty of book is my room. Amazing book and amazing photografs!

Raising the Wind is the life's work of Professor Ernest J. Moyne. Indeed, it was not published until after his death in 1976. This book is an exhaustive list of literary references to the use of strings or bags to generate winds throughout history. Many references are given to stories mentioning Manx strings, Scottish strings, Finnish strings and Lapp strings.

I found this to be a real boring book. I had hoped that this book might provide some stories about Finnish or Lapp wizards or folktales, but was profoundly disappointed. So, if you want a book mentioning (but not going into any depth) about the use of string to generate winds, then this book is for you. For anyone else, I would suggest that you don't bother with this book.

Ernest J. Moyne's Raising the Wind represents years of painstaking research into a trope of Western (and particularly English) literature - that of the Lapp (Sami) or Finn witch or wizard. As one who has studied the phenomenon in Scandinavian literature, it was amazing to me to discover how prevalent it was in English-language discourse. Although the text may not be an edge-of-the-seat, keep-you-up-all-night thriller, it is a substantial academic resource and should be read as such. Anyone researching constructions and representations of witchcraft, magic, the Wild Man, the Noble Savage, or the indigenous Other, ought to read and make use of this book.

The fact that "Alvar Aalto: A Critical Study" is one of very few texts written in English about the under-represented architect gives this book a higher rating. I don't believe that the author is a native English speaker, as I found the text to be quite rough, especially compared to the poetics of Spiro Kostof. The publisher had good reason to take this book out of print. Then again, architects can not write, so...

Finnish economic situation in the world and its economic rank in the worl

An interesting book, (but not an attractive book) although I didn't understand the local politics of most of it. So it puzzles me, then, that it is written in English and not Finnish! I was recommended to the book because one of the chapters had been published earlier in ANY; this was a chapter on Steve Holl's Kiasma art museum in Helsinki, Finland. Connah seems strangely bitter about Holl's project for no other reason than it is not designed by a Finnish architect, particularly Finland's Don Quiotaex, namely Reima Pietila, to which Connah plays Sancho Panza. An interesting book for those, like me, researching Finnish architecture.