Roosevelt


Brett Harper - 2014
    Theodore Roosevelt, known to all but his friends as Teddy, was born a sickly child but transformed himself into an outdoorsman, a cowboy, and a warrior who led his Rough Riders up the San Juan Heights of Cuba in a charge that still ranks among the world's military legends. But Roosevelt was also a man of letters who churned out some forty books, a gifted politician who charmed the nation, and a statesman who could settle a war as well as wage one. His wily acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone set up an engineering feat that has lasted a century, and it's safe to predict that we'll never again see his match for exuberance, force of character, patriotism, and sheer energy. His story will grip you like his handshake.

Can We Talk to God


Ernest Shurtleff Holmes - 1992
    The excessive materialism of the late 20th century has proven an inadequate substitute for God. As we have acquired more things, we have developed an ever-growing emptiness. Even the popular media today are telling us there is a great hunger for the inner peace that comes from prayerful communion with a higher power. "Can We Talk to God?" offers readers a framework for prayer that is compatible with traditional religion, yet moves beyond it in the recognition of a divine presence within each person. This book sets forth the teaching of Ernest Holmes, called Science of Mind, which is a synthesis of the greatest ideas of religion, science and philosophy. Originally published in 1934 as The Ebell Lectures on Spiritual Science, it is as fresh and profound today as it was then, offering readers answers to such important questions as: What is the nature of God? What is our relationship to God? How do we communicate with God? What is the secret of spiritual power? Where is humanity headed? How can a prayer be used to help ourselves and others?Many readers wonder, Can I talk to God? This beautiful book answers with a resounding YES!, and shows readers the way. The method of prayer it teaches will open the door to healthier, happier living.

World History: Ancient History, United States History, European, Native American, Russian, Chinese, Asian, Indian and Australian History, Wars including World War 1 and 2


Adam Brown - 2016
    You will be astonished to learn about some of the events that have occurred! Here is a Sneak Peek of What you will Learn: - Ancient History - Asian History - European and Russian History - American History - Australian History - World Wars I & II, and the Vietnam War - And much, much, more Here is what other readers say about this book: "This book is packed with really important information about the world's history." "I was surprised how much I learned from this. I really like how everything is laid out, it makes it very easy to follow. I especially like the section on Native Americans" "I couldn't put this book down, and not because I'm a nerdy avid reader (I am) but because it's filled with so much about our world history without the facts jumping all over the place like some history books I've read." "I am highly impressed by the content of this book and I would recommend this to all my colleagues as well" Subjects include: Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, The Roman Empire, Constantine and Christianity, India, Ancient Korea, Chinese Dynasties, Napoleonic Europe, Foundation of USA, The 1812 War, Australia and Wars, World War I, World War II, The Ottoman Empire, Greece and North Africa, The Diem Regime, Pearl Harbor and much more! All Continents As Known Today Are Covered: North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Take action and get this book now!

Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth


Reza Aslan - 2013
    Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher and miracle worker walked across the Galilee, gathering followers to establish what he called the “Kingdom of God.” The revolutionary movement he launched was so threatening to the established order that he was captured, tortured, and executed as a state criminal. Within decades after his shameful death, his followers would call him God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history’s most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. Scores of Jewish prophets, preachers, and would-be messiahs wandered through the Holy Land, bearing messages from God. This was the age of zealotry—a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty incumbent on all Jews. And few figures better exemplified this principle than the charismatic Galilean who defied both the imperial authorities and their allies in the Jewish religious hierarchy. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against the historical sources, Aslan describes a man full of conviction and passion, yet rife with contradiction; a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves with swords; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity a secret; and ultimately the seditious “King of the Jews” whose promise of liberation from Rome went unfulfilled in his brief lifetime. Aslan explores the reasons why the early Christian church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary. And he grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself, the mystery that is at the heart of all subsequent claims about his divinity. Zealot yields a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told even as it affirms the radical and transformative nature of Jesus of Nazareth’s life and mission. The result is a thought-provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel: a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time, and the birth of a religion.

Homeland Elegies


Ayad Akhtar - 2020
    Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque adventure -- at its heart, it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home.Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and our ideals have been sacrificed to the gods of finance, where a TV personality is president and immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds of 9/11 wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one -- least of all himself -- in the process.

Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire


Akala - 2018
    In this unique book he takes his own experiences and widens them out to look at the social, historical and political factors that have left us where we are today.Covering everything from the police, education and identity to politics, sexual objectification and the far right, Natives speaks directly to British denial and squeamishness when it comes to confronting issues of race and class that are at the heart of the legacy of Britain's racialised empire.

Ethics: A History of Moral Thought (Modern Scholar)


Peter Kreeft - 2003
    Boston College professor Peter Kreeft delivers a course addressing some of the questions man has been asking since the beginning of time. What is good? What is bad? Why is justice important? Why is it better to be good and just than it is to be bad and unjust?

The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America


Thom Hartmann - 2019
    Supreme Court in this punchy polemic." --Publishers WeeklyThom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, lays out a sweeping and largely unknown history of the Supreme Court of the United States, from Alexander Hamilton's arguments against judicial review to modern-day debates, with key examples of cases where the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional powers using the excuse of judicial review, and possible solutions.Hartmann explains how the Supreme Court has spilled beyond its Constitutional powers in a series of rulings, including how it turned our elections over to American and foreign oligarchs with twin decisions in the 1970s, setting the stage for the very richest of that day to bring Ronald Reagan to power.You'll hear the story of a series of Republican presidents who used fraud and treason to secure their elections, and how the GOP knew it but looked the other way because "the Court is hanging in the balance." A court that then went on to gut hundreds of pieces of progressive legislation, as Republicans had hoped.Ironically, Hartmann points out, John Roberts (now the Court's Chief Justice), when he worked for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, came up with a novel theory about how Congress could go around the Supreme Court. His goal was to effectively reverse Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board, but in the process provides us with an elegant legal argument and legislative solution that could, in an emergency, be used by a progressive Congress and president to clean up much of the damage the Court has done in past decades.Thomas Jefferson argued it is not the role of the Supreme Court to decide what the Constitution means, but rather the duty of the people themselves (and how they can do it). America may soon be forced to decide if it's going to continue to be governed as a constitutional monarchy, with nine unelected royals who have final say on everything, or if we are to revert to being a democratic republic as was largely the case before the late 1800s when America's first industrial era oligarchs corrupted the Court.

Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome


Rodney Stark - 2006
    How did the preaching of a peasant carpenter from Galilee spark a movement that would grow to include over two billion followers? Who listened to this "good news," and who ignored it? Where did Christianity spread, and how? Based on quantitative data and the latest scholarship, preeminent scholar and journalist Rodney Stark presents new and startling information about the rise of the early church, overturning many prevailing views of how Christianity grew through time to become the largest religion in the world.Drawing on both archaeological and historical evidence, Stark is able to provide hard statistical evidence on the religious life of the Roman Empire to discover the following facts that set conventional history on its head:Contrary to fictions such as The Da Vinci Code and the claims of some prominent scholars, Gnosticism was not a more sophisticated, more authentic form of Christianity, but really an unsuccessful effort to paganize Christianity.Paul was called the apostle to the Gentiles, but mostly he converted Jews.Paganism was not rapidly stamped out by state repression following the vision and conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in 312 AD, but gradually disappeared as people abandoned the temples in response to the superior appeal of Christianity.The "oriental" faiths—such as those devoted to Isis, the Egyptian goddess of love and magic, and to Cybele, the fertility goddess of Asia Minor—actually prepared the way for the rapid spread of Christianity across the Roman Empire.Contrary to generations of historians, the Roman mystery cult of Mithraism posed no challenge to Christianity to become the new faith of the empire— it allowed no female members and attracted only soldiers.By analyzing concrete data, Stark is able to challenge the conventional wisdom about early Christianity offering the clearest picture ever of how this religion grew from its humble beginnings into the faith of more than one-third of the earth's population.

Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography


Bruce Chilton - 2004
    His letters to various churches scattered throughout the Roman Empire articulated, for the first time, the beliefs that make up the heart of Christian practice and faith. In this extraordinary biography, Bruce Chilton explains the changing images of Paul, from the early Church period when he was regarded as the premiere apostle who separated Christianity from Judaism to more recent liberal evaluations, which paint him as an antifeminist, homophobic figure more dedicated to doctrine than to spiritual freedom. By illuminating Paul’s thoughts and contributions within the context of his time, Chilton restores him to his place as the founding architect of the Church and one of the most important figures in Western history. Rabbi Paul is at once a compelling, highly readable biography and a window on how Jesus’ message was transformed into a religion embraced by millions around the world. Drawing on Paul’s own writings as well as historical and scholarly documents about his life and times, Chilton portrays an all-too-human saint who helped to create both the most beautiful and the most troublesome aspects of the Church. He shows that Paul sought to specify the correct approach to such central concerns as sexuality, obedience, faith, conscience, and spirit, to define religion as an institution, and to clarify the nature of the religious personality—issues that Christians still struggle with today.

Jews Don't Count


David Baddiel - 2021
    People fighting the good fight against homophobia, disablism, transphobia and, particularly, racism. People, possibly, like you.It is the comedian and writer David Baddiel’s contention that one type of racism has been left out of this fight. In his unique combination of reasoning, polemic, personal experience and jokes, Baddiel argues that those who think of themselves as on the right side of history have often ignored the history of anti-Semitism. He outlines why and how, in a time of intensely heightened awareness of minorities, Jews don’t count as a real minority.

Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus: How a Jewish Perspective Can Transform Your Understanding


Lois Tverberg - 2018
    By helping them understand the Bible as Jesus and his first-century listeners would have, she bridges the gaps of time and culture in order to open the Bible to readers today.Combining careful research with engaging prose, Tverberg leads us on a journey back in time to shed light on how this Middle Eastern people approached life, God, and each other. She explains age-old imagery that we often misinterpret, allowing us to approach God and the stories and teachings of Scripture with new eyes. By helping readers grasp the perspective of its original audience, she equips them to read the Bible in ways that will enrich their lives and deepen their understanding.

Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary


Marcus J. Borg - 2006
    He shows how the Gospel portraits of Jesus, historically seen, make sense. Borg takes into account all the recent developments in historical Jesus scholarship, as well as new theories on who Jesus was and how the Gospels reflect that.The original version of this book was published well before popular fascination with the historical Jesus. Now this new version takes advantage of all the research that has gone on since the 80s. The revisions establish it as Borg's big but popular book on Jesus.

Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race


Reni Eddo-Lodge - 2017
    She posted a piece on her blog, entitled: 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' that led to this book.Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism. It is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of colour in Britain today.

Four Views on the Apostle Paul


Michael F. Bird - 2012
    Paul's historical and religious context affects the theological interpretation of Paul's writings, no small issue in the whole of Christian theology.Recent years have seen much controversy about the apostle Paul, his religious and social context, and its effects on his theology. In the helpful Counterpoints format, four leading scholars present their views on the best framework for describing Paul's theological perspective, including his view of salvation, the significance of Christ, and his vision for the churches.Contributors and views include:Reformed View: Thomas R. SchreinerCatholic View: Luke Timothy JohnsonPost-New Perspective View: Douglas CampbellJewish View: Mark D. NanosLike other titles in the Counterpoints: Bible and Theology collection, Four Views on the Apostle Paul gives theology students the tools they need to draw informed conclusions on debated issues.General editor and New Testament scholar Michael F. Bird covers foundational issues and provides helpful summaries in his introduction and conclusion. New Testament scholars, pastors, and students of Christian history and theology will find Four Views on the Apostle Paul an indispensable introduction to ongoing debates on the apostle Paul's life and teaching.The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.