Sargent “Sarge” Shriver founded the Peace Corps, launched the War on Poverty, created Head Start and Legal Services for the Poor, started the Special Olympics, and served as ambassador to France. Yet from the moment he married Joseph P. Kennedy’s daughter Eunice in 1953, Shriver had to navigate a difficult course between independence and family loyalty that tended to obscure his incredible achievements.Scott Stossel, through complete access to Shriver and his family, renders the story of his life in cinematic detail. Shriver’s myriad historical legacies are testaments to the power of his vision and his ability to inspire others. But it is the colorful personality and indomitable spirit of the man himself—traits that allowed him to survive the Depression, WWII, and the Kennedy family—that will inspire readers today to expand the “horizons of the possible.”

    Even though apartheid itself had no virtue, the author, himself a young black man who spent his childhood under apartheid, insists that it was not a vast moral desert in the lives of those living in townships. In this deep meditation on the experiences of those who lived through apartheid, it points out that despite the poverty and crime, there was still art, literature, music, and morals that, when combined, determined the shape of black life during that era of repression.

    The Soviets had no intention of bestowing their coveted prize on an unknown American; a Russian pianist had already been chosen to win. Yet when the gangly Texan with the shy grin took the stage and began to play, he instantly captivated an entire nation.The Soviet people were charmed by Van Cliburn’s extraordinary talent, passion, and fresh-faced innocence, but it was his palpable love for the music that earned their devotion; for many, he played more like a Russian than their own musicians. As enraptured crowds mobbed Cliburn’s performances, pressure mounted to award him the competition prize. "Is he the best?" Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev demanded of the judges. "In that case . . . give him the prize!"Adored by millions in the USSR, Cliburn returned to a thunderous hero’s welcome in the USA and became, for a time, an ambassador of hope for two dangerously hostile superpowers. In this thrilling, impeccably researched account, Nigel Cliff recreates the drama and tension of the Cold War era, and brings into focus the gifted musician and deeply compelling figure whose music would temporarily bridge the divide between two dangerously hostile powers.

    Reproductions from Dürer, Holbein, Cranach, Rembrandt, and many other lesser-known or unknown artists illustrate the fascinating history. The fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries are stressed.The book is divided into 12 chapters, each with a separate introduction. Most of the illustrations are collected in five of these chapters: Devils and Demons, including Belial, Beelzebub, and the Anti-Christ; Witches and Warlocks, their animals, forms, and rituals; The Danse Macabre, with the Dance of Death Alphabet by Holbein and representations of all classes leveled by the common force of death; Memento Mori, including a skull clock, a macabre representation of the Tree of Knowledge and Death, and the winged hourglass and scythe; and Religio-Political Devilry, the fight between the Papists and the Reformers, and symbols of devils in other political disputes. There are also chapters on the Fall of Lucifer, Faust and Mephistopheles, Hell and Damnation, The Apocalyptic Horsemen, Witch-Hunting, The Art of Dying, and Resurrection and Reckoning.Anyone curious about witchcraft, death, and devils will be interested in this book. It is particularly useful to teachers, artists, and illustrators who need clear reproductions for the classroom, for models, or for commercial uses. Death, devils, and their history are very much with us today.

    This monograph follows Van Gogh between 1886 and 1890, from Holland to Paris, where his palette was brightened with impressionistic colour, to Arles and his still-mysterious friendship with Gauguin.