A Passion for Truth


Abraham Joshua Heschel - 1973
    In this work Heschel explores despair and hope in Hasidism as he experienced it himself through study of the Baal Shem Tov and the Kotzker.

Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice


Wayne D. Dosick - 1995
    Combining quality scholarship and sacred spiritual instruction, Living Judaism is a thought-provoking reference and guide for those already steeped in Jewish life, and a comprehensive introduction for those exploring the richness and grandeur of Judaism.

Africa Lost: Rhodesia's COIN Killing Machine (SOFREP)


Dan Tharp - 2013
    Everyone knows about Navy SEALs and Green Berets but nobody knows about the deep recce, sabotage, and direct action missions conducted by the Rhodesian SAS. The Rhodesian Light Infantry was a killing machine, participating in combat jumps every night during the heat of the Bush War. The Selous Scouts were perhaps the most innovative and daring unconventional warfare unit in history which would pair white soldiers with turncoat black “former” terrorists who would then infiltrate enemy camps.US military veteran and historian Dan Tharp covers each of these three units in depth.(18,000 words)

Through Apache Eyes: Verbal History of Apache Struggle (Annotated and Illustrated)


Geronimo Chiricahua - 2011
    Yet, the one constant in the history of the Apache People is their constant struggle to survive in a world where they are surrounded by various enemies, including other Indian tribes, the Mexicans and finally their brutal nemesis the United States Army. Attacked, tricked, lied to and double crossed by all of those who surround and outnumber them, the Apache people continued their struggle until they were for all intent and purposes almost totally wiped out. One Apache’s name stands out in their brave yet woeful history and it is Geronimo, who at age 30 witnessed the massacre of his mother, wife and two young children.I’ve taken his recollections or accounts of the struggle of the Apache people and intertwined them with some archeological facts about this extraordinary tribe. In addition, I have searched and included some of the best photos of Apaches from that era, which I collected from Library of Congress Archives. What impressed me most about Geronimo was his brevity of words, yet his ability to take a knife to the heart of anyone who reads his verbal history. Like most Apaches, Geronimo said little, but what he did say was profound and truthful. But most powerful is what Geronimo didn’t say in his recollections. It is between this silence one can feel the pain, sorrow, pride and bravery of the Apache People. Chet DembeckPublisher of One

Earth's Last Empire: The Final Game of Thrones


John Hagee - 2020
    Pastor Hagee reveals who they are, where they come from, and what they signify. Learn why Hagee believes that we are in the beginning stages of World War III, and how this will eventually take us to the Battle of Armageddon. Pastor Hagee vividly describes the key players that signify the King is coming!

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind


Yuval Noah Harari - 2011
    Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical – and sometimes devastating – breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology and economics, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities. Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behaviour from the heritage of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? Bold, wide-ranging and provocative, Sapiens challenges everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our power ... and our future.

Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust


Carol Rittner - 1993
    Yet for women, as scholar Myrna Goldenberg observes, "The hell was the same, but the horrors were different." Different Voices is the most thoroughgoing examination of women's experiences of the Holocaust ever compiled. It gathers together - for the first time in a single volume - the latest insights of scholars, the powerful testimonies of survivors, and the eloquent reflections of writers, theologians, and philosophers. Twenty-eight women in all speak of Hitler's "Final Solution, " from the rising storm in prewar Germany to the terrors and privations of the camps, and of the everyday heroism that kept hope alive. Part One, "Voices of Experience, " recounts the painful and poignant stories of survivors. We hear Olga Lengyel's anguish at discovering that she had unwittingly sent her mother and son to the gas chamber; on recalling the brutality of Irma Griese, a stunningly beautiful SS officer; on witnessing the unspeakable "medical experiments" the Nazis conducted on women. We share Livia F. Britton's memory of hunger and terrible vulnerability as a naked thirteen-year-old at Auschwitz. We learn of the horrific price that Dr. Gisela Perl was forced to pay to save women's lives. Part Two, "Voices of Interpretation, " offers the new insights of women scholars of the Holocaust, including evidence that the Nazis specifically preyed on women as the propagators of the Jewish race. Marion A. Kaplan describes the lives of a generation of Jewish women who thought that they were assimilated intoGerman society. Gisela Bok examines the Nazi's eugenics theories and sterilization programs, and Gitta Sereny questions Theresa Stangl, wife of the Kommandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, about her perceptions of the atrocities and of her moral responsibility. In Part Three, "Voices of

The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition


Doreen Carvajal - 2012
    Raised a Catholic in California, "New York Times"journalist Doreen Carvajal is shocked when she discovers that her background may actually be connected to "conversos" in Inquisition-era Spain, Jews who were forced to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity or face torture and death. With vivid childhood memories of Sunday sermons, catechism, and the rosary, Carvajal travels tothesouth ofSpain, to the centuries-old Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera, to investigate her lineage andrecover her family s original religious heritage. In Arcos, Carvajal is struck by thewhite pueblo'sancient beauty and the difficulty she encounters in probing the town's own secret history of the Inquisition. She comes to realize that fear remains a legacy of the Inquisition along with the cryptic messages left by its victims. Back at her childhood home in California, Carvajal uncovers papers documenting a family of Carvajals who were burned at the stake in the 16th-century territory of Mexico. Could the author sfamily history be linked to the hidden history of Arcos? And could the unfortunate Carvajals have been her ancestors? As she strives to find proof that her family had been forced to convert to Christianity six-hundred years ago, Carvajal comes to understand that the past flows like a river through time and that while the truth might be submerged, it isnever truly lost."

The Big Book of American Facts: 1000 Interesting Facts And Trivia About USA (Trivia USA)


Bill O'Neill - 2016
     From USA history to silly facts about American presidents, from laws you can’t believe are laws to facts about U.S. inventions, this book is the perfect solution to any moment of boredom. It has facts about religion and sports, facts about U.S. geography and nature, facts about food and drinks, and facts about language, animals, and American education. There are facts about science, facts about the military, facts about modes of transportation, facts about business and money, and facts about how big the United States really is. According to one American, “This book of trivia is the greatest thing that’s been written since the Nevada state Constitution. Did you know that was the longest message ever sent via Morse code telegram?” With this book of 1,000 trivia facts, you’ll impress even the most knowledgeable friends you have. Use the interesting facts to start a great conversation. Pull out the random facts to make someone smile. Be the center of any party with all the funny facts you’ll find in this book. Got a pub quiz or trivia night to go to? Prepare with this book! With this many fun facts about the United States, you’ll win every time.

Where Do We Go from Here?: How Tomorrow’s Prophecies Foreshadow Today’s Problems


David Jeremiah - 2021
    

Horses of God


Mahi Binebine - 2010
    It was the deadliest attack in Morocco’s history. The bombers came from the shantytowns of Sidi Moumen, a poor suburb on the edge of a dump whose impoverished residents rarely if ever set foot in the cosmopolitan city at their doorstep. Mahi Binebine’s novel Horses of God follows four childhood friends growing up in Sidi Moumen as they make the life-changing decisions that will lead them to become Islamist martyrs.The seeds of fundamentalist martyrdom are sown in the dirt-poor lives of Yachine, Nabil, Fuad, and Ali, all raised in Sidi Moumen. The boys’ soccer team, The Stars of Sidi Moumen, is their main escape from the poverty, violence, and absence of hope that pervade their lives. When Yachine’s older brother Hamid falls under the spell of fundamentalist leader Abu Zoubeir, the attraction of a religion that offers discipline, purpose, and guidance to young men who have none of these things becomes too seductive to ignore.Narrated by Yachine from the afterlife, Horses of God portrays the sweet innocence of childhood and friendship as well as the challenges facing those with few opportunities for a better life. Binebine navigates the controversial situation with compassion, creating empathy for the boys, who believe they have no choice but to follow the path offered them.Winner of the 2010 Prix du Roman Arabe and Prix Littéraire Mamounia"The novel provides context and perspective to often little-explored issues, offering incredible insight into the complex lives of poor boys who are groomed to kill themselves for a cause and commit violent acts in the name of religion. Binebine portrays these young men as supremely human, victims of powers much larger than themselves, and like any Kafkaesque anti-hero, cogs in an incomprehensible and monstrous machine."--Starred Publishers Weekly"Moroccan painter, novelist, and former math teacher Binebine (Welcome to Paradise) writes with humor and pathos amid the novel’s grinding tragedy but never allows the narrative to veer into self-pity or cheap sentimentality. The book is based on the 2004 suicide bombings in Casablanca, and Binebine’s unblinking eye for detail makes this a haunting tale." --Library Journal

Jesus in India


Mirza Ghulam Ahmad - 1899
    Christian and Muslim scriptures provide evidence about this journey.

Lost Boys of Hannibal: Inside America's Largest Cave Search


John Wingate - 2017
    Three modern day Tom Sawyers, with no caving expertise but an abundance of bravado, made Hannibal ground zero for a terrifying calamity that would leave its traumatic mark for half a century. Joel Hoag, his brother Billy, and their friend Craig Dowell vanished after exploring a vast and complex maze cave system that had been exposed by highway construction. Fifty years later, their fate remains the ultimate unsolved mystery.

Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing


Michael Engle - 2019
    It was a sea in name only. It was actually a bone dry, ancient dusty basin pockmarked with craters and littered with rocks and boulders. Somewhere in that 500 mile diameter basin, the astronauts would attempt to make Mankind’s first landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong would pilot the Lunar Module “Eagle” during its twelve minute descent from orbit down to a landing. Col. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would assist him. On the way down they would encounter a host of problems, any one of which could have potentially caused them to have to call off the landing, or, even worse, die making the attempt. The problems were all technical-communications problems, computer problems, guidance problems, sensor problems. Armstrong and Aldrin faced the very real risk of dying by the very same technical sword that they had to live by in order to accomplish the enormous task of landing on the Moon for the first time. Yet the human skills Armstrong and Aldrin employed would be more than equal to the task. Armstrong’s formidable skills as an aviator, honed from the time he was a young boy, would serve him well as he piloted Eagle down amidst a continuing series of systems problems that might have fatally distracted a lesser aviator. Armstrong’s brilliant piloting was complemented by Aldrin’s equally remarkable discipline and calmness as he stoically provided a running commentary on altitude and descent rate while handling systems problems that threatened the landing. Finally, after a harrowing twelve and a half minutes, Armstrong gently landed Eagle at “Tranquility Base”, a name he had personally chosen to denote the location of the first Moon landing. In “Landing Eagle-Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing”, author Mike Engle gives a minute by minute account of the events that occurred throughout Eagle’s descent and landing on the Moon. Engle, a retired NASA engineer and Mission Control flight controller, uses NASA audio files of actual voice recordings made inside Eagle’s cockpit during landing to give the reader an “inside the cockpit” perspective on the first Moon landing. Engle’s transcripts of these recordings, along with background material on the history and technical details behind the enormous effort to accomplish the first Moon landing, give a new and fascinating insight into the events that occurred on that remarkable day fifty years ago.

Clara's War


Clara Kramer - 2008
    Three years later, in the small town of Żółkiew, life for Jewish 15-year-old Clara Kramer was never to be the same again. While those around her were either slaughtered or transported, Clara and her family hid perilously in a hand-dug cellar. Living above and protecting them were the Becks.Mr. Beck was a womaniser, a drunkard and a self-professed anti-Semite, yet he risked his life throughout the war to keep his charges safe. Nevertheless, life with Mr. Beck was far from predictable. From the house catching fire, to Beck's affair with Clara's cousin, to the nightly SS drinking sessions in the room just above, Clara's War transports you into the dark, cramped bunker, and sits you next to the families as they hold their breath time and again.Sixty years later, Clara Kramer has created a memoir that is lyrical, dramatic and heartbreakingly compelling. Despite the worst of circumstances, this is a story full of hope and survival, courage and love.