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The story of silk is an old and familiar one, a tale involving mercantile travel and commercial exchange along the broad land mass that connects ancient China to the west and extending eventually to sites on the eastern Mediterranean and along sea routes to India. But if we shift our focus from economic histories that chart the exchange of silk along Asian and Mediterranean trade routes to medieval literary depictions of silk, a strikingly different picture comes into view. In Old French literary texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, emphasis falls on production rather than trade and on female protagonists who make, decorate, and handle silk.

Sea of Silk maps a textile geography of silk work done by these fictional women. Situated in northern France and across the medieval Mediterranean, from Saint-Denis to Constantinople, from North Africa to Muslim Spain, and even from the fantasy realm of Arthurian romance to the historical silkworks of the Norman kings in Palermo, these medieval heroines provide important glimpses of distant economic and cultural geographies. E. Jane Burns argues, in brief, that literary portraits of medieval heroines who produce and decorate silk cloth or otherwise manipulate items of silk outline a metaphorical geography that includes France as an important cultural player in the silk economics of the Mediterranean.

Within this literary sea of silk, female protagonists who "work" silk in a variety of ways often deploy it successfully as a social and cultural currency that enables them to traverse religious and political barriers while also crossing lines of gender and class.

Sea-Brothers offers the most extensive analysis to date of the sea and its meaning in American literature. On the basis of his study of Melville, Crane, London, Hemingway, Matthiessen, and ten lesser-known sea-writers, Bert Bender argues that the tradition of American sea fiction did not end with the opening of the western frontier and the replacement of sailing ships by steamers. Rather, he demonstrates its continuity and vitality, identifying a central vision within the tradition and showing how particular authors draw from, transform, and contribute to it.

What is most distinctive about American sea fiction, Bender contends, is its visionary, often mystical, response to the biological world and to man's perceived place in the larger universe. When Melville envisioned the sea as the essential element of life, indeed as life itself, he changed the course of American sea fiction by introducing the relevance of biological thought. But his meditations on the whale and "the ungraspable phantom of life" project a different reality from that envisioned by his successors. In American sea fiction after Melville, the influence of Origin of Species is as powerful as that of Moby Dick or the theme of sailing ships being displaced by steam.

The ideal of brotherhood so central to American sea fiction was severely compromised by the biological reality of a competitive, warring nature. Twentieth-century sea fiction has continued to center on the biological world and address the possibility of democratic brotherhood, but the issues were fundamentally changed by Darwin's theories.

This book will be a valuable source for students and scholars of American literature and will interest readers of sea fiction.

The first martyr to the cause of American liberty was Major General Joseph Warren, a well-known political orator, physician, and president of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. Shot in the face at close range at Bunker Hill, Warren was at once transformed into a national hero, with his story appearing throughout the colonies in newspapers, songs, pamphlets, sermons, and even theater productions. His death, though shockingly violent, was not unlike tens of thousands of others, but his sacrifice came to mean something much more significant to the American public.

Sealed with Blood reveals how public memories and commemorations of Revolutionary War heroes, such as those for Warren, helped Americans form a common bond and create a new national identity. Drawing from extensive research on civic celebrations and commemorative literature in the half-century that followed the War for Independence, Sarah Purcell shows how people invoked memories of their participation in and sacrifices during the war when they wanted to shore up their political interests, make money, argue for racial equality, solidify their class status, or protect their personal reputations. Images were also used, especially those of martyred officers, as examples of glory and sacrifice for the sake of American political principles.

By the midnineteenth century, African Americans, women, and especially poor white veterans used memories of the Revolutionary War to articulate their own, more inclusive visions of the American nation and to try to enhance their social and political status. Black slaves made explicit the connection between military service and claims to freedom from bondage. Between 1775 and 1825, the very idea of the American nation itself was also democratized, as the role of "the people" in keeping the sacred memory of the Revolutionary War broadened.

Any organization that has a searchable web site or intranet is sitting on top of hugely valuable and usually under-exploited data: logs that capture what users are searching for, how often each query was searched, and how many results each query retrieved. Search queries are gold: they are real data that show us exactly what users are searching for in their own words. This book shows you how to use search analytics to carry on a conversation with your customers: listen to and understand their needs, and improve your content, navigation and search performance to meet those needs.

Are we alone in the cosmos? Could we one day live on a different planet? How is life formed? What other secrets does the universe hold? 

Through profiles of seven remarkable women scientists and their achievements in their respective fields, Searching Beyond the Stars takes us deep into space, looking at once to the distant past and the distant future to capture the awe and intrigue of some of the biggest questions we can possibly ask.

Making connections across astronomy, chemistry, physics, history, and more, Nicole Mortillaro draws on her own experience as a woman in STEM to highlight the incredible odds each scientist faces while chasing new discoveries and the ways in which sexism and racism, among other barriers, still affect women scientists to this day. Sidebars filled with fascinating facts take readers behind the science and encourage them to delve deeper. Vibrant illustrations by Amanda Key showcase the wonder of space and the passion and eternal curiosity that drive each scientist in their work unfurling the mysteries of our universe.

Scientists Profiled

Katherine Johnson, research mathematician and aerospace technologist at NASA. Helped get the first American astronauts into space and safely home again. Lived in Newport News, Virgina.

Jill Tarter, radio astronomer and project scientist at NASA. Opened up possibilities for communicating with aliens. Lives in Berkeley, California.

Sara Seager, astrophysicist and planetary scientist. Credited with laying the foundation for the field of exoplanet atmospheres and the search for life on exoplanets. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, Sara now lives in Massachusetts.

Emily Lakdawalla, planetary scientist, journalist, speaker, and expert science communicator formerly of The Planetary Society. Lives in Los Angeles, California.

Tanya Harrison, planetary scientist and geologist. Was on the science operations team for NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter analyzing imaging from a geologist’s standpoint to see whether we might one day live on Mars. Director of Science Strategy at Planet Labs. Lives in Washington, D.C.

Renée Hložek, astrophysicist and cosmologist. Her work is to imagine, dream, and calculate the mathematical equations that govern and predict the end of the universe. Originally from South Africa, Renée now lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Ashley Walker, astrochemist, science communicator, and activist. Co-organizer of #BlackinChem, #BlackInAstro, and #BlackInPhysics to highlight and amplify the voices of Black researchers and scholars in these fields. Lives in Chicago, Illinois.

*A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

Searching for Health Information reviews the research on the process of seeking health information and contributes to that literature by analyzing the largest available database on health-information-seeking behavior, the Cancer Information Service (CIS), a referral service sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. But the book is not only about CIS. Vicki S. Freimuth, Judith A. Stein, and Thomas J. Kean describe the general context in which people search for health information about a variety of diseases and other health concerns. They then present a theoretical overview of the nature of information and the way people search for it. By analyzing data obtained from more than a million calls to CIS over a four-year period and by studying follow-up surveys of over 7500 of these callers, the authors contribute to our understanding of the process of information seeking.

The communication of health information is increasingly important, and this book breaks new ground in its analysis of one successful system.

For many years, award-winning journalist and author Cole Moreton has been involved in and worked alongside those offering relief and welcome to men, women and children arriving, in desperate straits, near his home on the south coast. Back in 2019, he wrote, 'The men, women and children risking their lives to cross the Channel in small boats are not aliens, invaders, migrants or some other lesser category of human to be dismissed. They are us.'

Incarnation is a major theme of this exhilarating course. Mary and Joseph's search for a place to give birth to the son of God, and their terrifying flight to Egypt to escape the murderous intentions of King Herod, have clear echoes in the accounts Cole offers of contemporary journeys. And through his captivating exploration of Leaving Home, Fleeing Home, Carrying Home and Finding Home, we are enabled to reflect on our own need for guidance, sanctuary and comfort in the love of God, who ever walks beside us.

For the first time ever, the course book is accompanied not only by a CD/audio download but also by a video, filmed on location by Monkeynut in a beautiful manor house outside Dover. Cole Moreton is joined in discussing the themes of Searching for Home by Bishop of Dover Rose Hudson-Wilkin, activist Bridget Chapman and Grmalem Gonetse Kasa, who came to the UK from Eritrea some years ago.

COMPLETE LIST OF SEARCHING FOR HOME PRODUCTS

Course book including transcript of video and access to video/audio downloads (paperback 978 1 73918 200 7)

Course book including transcript of video and access to video/audio downloads (eBook 978 1 915843 27 2, both ePub and Mobi files provided)

Participants' book including transcript of video: pack of 5 (Paperback 978 1 915843 25 8)

Participants' book including transcript of video (eBook 978 1 915843 26 5, both ePub and Mobi files provided)

Video of discussion to support Searching for Home, available via the course book with access to audio and video downloads

Audio book of discussion to support Searching for Home (audio digital download 978 1 915843 29 6)

For many years, award-winning journalist and author Cole Moreton has been involved in and worked alongside those offering relief and welcome to men, women and children arriving, in desperate straits, near his home on the south coast. Back in 2019, he wrote, 'The men, women and children risking their lives to cross the Channel in small boats are not aliens, invaders, migrants or some other lesser category of human to be dismissed. They are us.'

Incarnation is a major theme of this exhilarating course. Mary and Joseph's search for a place to give birth to the son of God, and their terrifying flight to Egypt to escape the murderous intentions of King Herod, have clear echoes in the accounts Cole offers of contemporary journeys. And through his captivating exploration of Leaving Home, Fleeing Home, Carrying Home and Finding Home, we are enabled to reflect on our own need for guidance, sanctuary and comfort in the love of God, who ever walks beside us.

For the first time ever, the course book is accompanied not only by a CD/audio download but also by a video, filmed on location by Monkeynut in a beautiful manor house outside Dover. Cole Moreton is joined in discussing the themes of Searching for Home by Bishop of Dover Rose Hudson-Wilkin, activist Bridget Chapman and Grmalem Gonetse Kasa, who came to the UK from Eritrea some years ago.

COMPLETE LIST OF SEARCHING FOR HOME PRODUCTS

Course book including transcript of video and access to video/audio downloads (paperback 978 1 73918 200 7)

Course book including transcript of video and access to video/audio downloads (eBook 978 1 915843 27 2, both ePub and Mobi files provided)

Participants' book including transcript of video: pack of 5 (Paperback 978 1 915843 25 8)

Participants' book including transcript of video (eBook 978 1 915843 26 5, both ePub and Mobi files provided)

Video of discussion to support Searching for Home, available via the course book with access to audio and video downloads

Audio book of discussion to support Searching for Home (audio digital download 978 1 915843 29 6)

Audio book of discussion to support Searching for Home (CD 978 1 915843 28 9)

Searching For Meaning introduces readers to the different methods used to interpret the New Testament.

Top scholars give a short definition of a particular criticism and then Paula Gooder gives a practical example to demonstrate how that criticism can be applied to a biblical text.

A very broad range of methods are introduced, from traditional criticisms such as source criticism and historical criticism tot he more modern methods such as feminist criticism and liberation criticism.

Readers will understand how different meanings and emphases can be drawn out from a text depending upon the method of interpretation chosen. They will also be given the skills to start analysing and examining texts for themselves in a meaningful and insightful way.

At the end of Liberia's thirteen-year civil war, the devastated population struggled to rebuild their country and come to terms with their experiences of violence. During the first decade of postwar reconstruction, hundreds of humanitarian organizations created programs that were intended to heal trauma, prevent gendered violence, rehabilitate former soldiers, and provide psychosocial care to the transitioning populace. But the implementation of these programs was not always suited to the specific mental health needs of the population or easily reconciled with the broader aims of reconstruction and humanitarian peacekeeping, and psychiatric treatment was sometimes ignored or unevenly integrated into postconflict humanitarian health care delivery.

Searching for Normal in the Wake of the Liberian War explores the human experience of the massive apparatus of trauma-healing and psychosocial interventions during the first five years of postwar reconstruction. Sharon Alane Abramowitz draws on extensive fieldwork among the government officials, humanitarian leaders, and an often-overlooked population of Liberian NGO employees to examine the structure and impact of the mental health care interventions, in particular the ways they were promised to work with peacekeeping and reconstruction, and how the reach and effectiveness of these promises can be measured. From this courageous ethnography emerges a geography of trauma and the ways it shapes the lives of those who give and receive care in postwar Liberia.

The life and legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes, a trailblazing Black lifeguard, who became a cultural icon in a racist society

Searching for Serafim is a layered exploration of the life of Serafim "Joe" Fortes. A Trinidad native who arrived on the shores of Canada in 1885, Fortes was heralded as a hero in Vancouver for saving dozens of people from drowning as the city's first lifeguard, and his funeral drew the largest crowd ever recorded in the city's history. Since his passing, Fortes has been commemorated with a postage stamp and local buildings named in his honour. Yet, little has been discussed about how he navigated an openly white supremacist society as an Afro Latino man.

In Searching for Serafim, author Ruby Smith Díaz seeks to unravel the complicated legacy of a local legend to learn more about who Fortes was as a person. She draws from historical documents to form an insightful critique of the role that settler colonialism and anti-Black racism played in Fortes's publicized story and reconstructs his life, from over a century later, through a contemporary Black perspective, weaving poetry and personal reflections alongside archival research. The result is a moving and thought-provoking book about displacement, identity, and dignity.

With black-and-white photos.

This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. This book is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Learn about beaches and coastal life with this children’s introduction to animals, plants, and seashells.

Ocean beaches capture our attention like few places on Earth—and for good reason. Two vastly different ecosystems merge here, attracting a wide variety of life forms. Become a young oceanographer. Learn all about beaches and the plants and animals found there. East Coast expert Erika Zambello and West Coast naturalist Stephanie Panlasigui present a kids’ introduction to beach life. The children’s book, ideal for early and middle-grade readers, conveys fascinating information for beginners.

Start by learning about beaches and their various habitats, as well as tips on beach safety, collecting etiquette, and Leave No Trace principles. That’s followed by an introduction to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and an identification guide to common and noteworthy types of shells, plants, and animals—including birds, dolphins, manatees, and more. Seashells & Beachcombing for Kids is rounded out by family-friendly beach activities and Citizen Science Projects.

Inside You’ll Find

• Beginner information with beachcombing tips
• The basics of oceanography
• Identification guide to coastal animals, plants, and seashells
• Beach-related activities that the entire family can enjoy

Be inspired by these fun collections of cupcakes for a eggsellent Easter, with designs including a chocolate nest of eggs, chirpy chick cupcakes and cute bunnies and chicks, bursting with the joys of spring.

A sample chapter from Carolyn White's Seasonal Cupcakes.

Be inspired by these fun collections of cupcakes for a eggsellent Easter, with designs including a chocolate nest of eggs, chirpy chick cupcakes and cute bunnies and chicks, bursting with the joys of spring.

A sample chapter from Carolyn White's Seasonal Cupcakes.

A beginner-friendly collection of more than 10 push pop cake designs for seasonal celebrations, featuring simple sugarpaste decorations and colourful, tasty cake and filling combinations. From New Year to Easter, Valentine's Day to the 4^th of July, Halloween to Christmas, this eBook covers the best seasonal celebration cake recipes and sugarcraft ideas. The designs look great but are also easy to follow and quick to make, with tasty cake recipes and plenty of ideas for fillings and toppings.

"[An] engrossing study, told mainly by the subjects themselves... a valuable addition to POW literature and unique for its positive view of wartime captivity."
—Publishers Weekly
"Lieblich has skillfully integrated oral histories to produce a compelling story."
—Library Journal
"The minutes of the meetings recorded hereby are an excerpt of the lives of ten men, who had spent all their days and nights together. Each one observed the other in his grief and joy.Each one, according to his ability and sensitivity, saw it as his duty to contribute to the general welfare, to save our boat from sinking....In fact, we managed to keep afloat most of the time, and if we erred here or there, at least we had the best intentions."
—From a secret collective diary kept by ten POWs
A national bestseller when it first appeared in Israel, Seasons of Captivity is a story of human survival and hope that documents the experience of ten Israeli prisoners of war who shared a single jail cell in Egypt for more than three years.
The engrossing chronicle of the prisoners' ordeal is told in their own words—from their capture in 1969, through six months of interrogation, torture, and isolation, to their movement to a common room. A watershed event, their transfer to shared living quarters enabled them to forge a community and an almost utopian social system. They held weekly meetings, kept a common diary, started study classes, and, among other projects, translated The Hobbit into Hebrew.
The narrative goes on to describe the re-entry of the POWs into family and social roles upon their release and return to Israel in 1973. An exploration of the personal impact of the experience on the wives of the married prisoners introduces the women's own stories of separation and reunion. Some of them had suddenly found themselves, in effect, single mothers—yet their husbands were alive. Their husbands found stronger, more independent women in place of the traditional ones they had left behind. One of the women remarks, I thought [my husband] had been angry at me, in part unconsciously, for being so strong and competent in his absence...I had managed, well, almost effortlessly.
This dramatic and moving account illustrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of the most dehumanizing circumstances.

"[An] engrossing study, told mainly by the subjects themselves... a valuable addition to POW literature and unique for its positive view of wartime captivity."
—Publishers Weekly
"Lieblich has skillfully integrated oral histories to produce a compelling story."
—Library Journal
"The minutes of the meetings recorded hereby are an excerpt of the lives of ten men, who had spent all their days and nights together. Each one observed the other in his grief and joy.Each one, according to his ability and sensitivity, saw it as his duty to contribute to the general welfare, to save our boat from sinking....In fact, we managed to keep afloat most of the time, and if we erred here or there, at least we had the best intentions."
—From a secret collective diary kept by ten POWs
A national bestseller when it first appeared in Israel, Seasons of Captivity is a story of human survival and hope that documents the experience of ten Israeli prisoners of war who shared a single jail cell in Egypt for more than three years.
The engrossing chronicle of the prisoners' ordeal is told in their own words—from their capture in 1969, through six months of interrogation, torture, and isolation, to their movement to a common room. A watershed event, their transfer to shared living quarters enabled them to forge a community and an almost utopian social system. They held weekly meetings, kept a common diary, started study classes, and, among other projects, translated The Hobbit into Hebrew.
The narrative goes on to describe the re-entry of the POWs into family and social roles upon their release and return to Israel in 1973. An exploration of the personal impact of the experience on the wives of the married prisoners introduces the women's own stories of separation and reunion. Some of them had suddenly found themselves, in effect, single mothers—yet their husbands were alive. Their husbands found stronger, more independent women in place of the traditional ones they had left behind. One of the women remarks, I thought [my husband] had been angry at me, in part unconsciously, for being so strong and competent in his absence...I had managed, well, almost effortlessly.
This dramatic and moving account illustrates the resilience of the human spirit in the face of the most dehumanizing circumstances.

The stories we tell of American beginnings typically emphasize colonial triumph in the face of adversity. But the early years of English settlement in America were characterized by catastrophe: starvation, disease, extreme violence, ruinous ignorance, and serial abandonment. Seasons of Misery offers a provocative reexamination of the British colonies' chaotic and profoundly unstable beginnings, placing crisis—both experiential and existential—at the center of the story. At the outposts of a fledgling empire and disconnected from the social order of their home society, English settlers were both physically and psychologically estranged from their European identities. They could not control, or often even survive, the world they had intended to possess. According to Kathleen Donegan, it was in this cauldron of uncertainty that colonial identity was formed.

Studying the English settlements at Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth, and Barbados, Donegan argues that catastrophe marked the threshold between an old European identity and a new colonial identity, a state of instability in which only fragments of Englishness could survive amid the upheavals of the New World. This constant state of crisis also produced the first distinctively colonial literature as settlers attempted to process events that they could neither fully absorb nor understand. Bringing a critical eye to settlers' first-person accounts, Donegan applies a unique combination of narrative history and literary analysis to trace how settlers used a language of catastrophe to describe unprecedented circumstances, witness unrecognizable selves, and report unaccountable events. Seasons of Misery addresses both the stories that colonists told about themselves and the stories that we have constructed in hindsight about them. In doing so, it offers a new account of the meaning of settlement history and the creation of colonial identity.

"…this book covers a range of algal phyla, specialised algal bioprocessing and application topics that make it very interesting for a broad audience. Each chapter covers a theme in such a way that can easily be read by a non-specialist but, as the authors incorporate recent published papers, the book will also be interesting for experts...I also recommend the book for entrepreneurs and technical staff working in different algal-based operations."(Journal of Phycology)

As the global demand for meat increases due to population and economic growth, more pressure has been placed on the animal feed sector to support sustainable livestock production, whilst also ensuring the nutritional value and palatability of feed. With traditional sources of protein, including oilseeds and distiller grains, considered as major contributors to climate change, there is growing interest in establishing alternative, more ‘climate-smart’ sources of protein, such as seaweed and other forms of microalgae that can supplement livestock diets.

Seaweed and microalgae as alternative sources of protein summarises current advances in utilising macroalgae and microalgae as alternative sources of proteins. The collection reviews processes of protein formation in macroalgae and microalgae, macroalgae farming and processing as well as microalgae bioprocessing. Chapters also discuss the practical application of seaweed as an alternative protein source in ruminant, pig, poultry and fish diets.

Edited by Professor Xin Gen Lei, Cornell University, USA, Seaweed and microalgae as alternative sources of protein will be a standard reference for researchers from universities or other research centres involved in macroalgae/microalgae production and livestock nutrition, companies involved in the manufacture or supply of animal feed or livestock nutrition services, government and other agencies regulating the animal feed sector, as well as farmers interested in furthering their knowledge on recent developments in the animal feed/livestock nutrition sector.

"…this book covers a range of algal phyla, specialised algal bioprocessing and application topics that make it very interesting for a broad audience. Each chapter covers a theme in such a way that can easily be read by a non-specialist but, as the authors incorporate recent published papers, the book will also be interesting for experts...I also recommend the book for entrepreneurs and technical staff working in different algal-based operations."(Journal of Phycology)

As the global demand for meat increases due to population and economic growth, more pressure has been placed on the animal feed sector to support sustainable livestock production, whilst also ensuring the nutritional value and palatability of feed. With traditional sources of protein, including oilseeds and distiller grains, considered as major contributors to climate change, there is growing interest in establishing alternative, more ‘climate-smart’ sources of protein, such as seaweed and other forms of microalgae that can supplement livestock diets.

Seaweed and microalgae as alternative sources of protein summarises current advances in utilising macroalgae and microalgae as alternative sources of proteins. The collection reviews processes of protein formation in macroalgae and microalgae, macroalgae farming and processing as well as microalgae bioprocessing. Chapters also discuss the practical application of seaweed as an alternative protein source in ruminant, pig, poultry and fish diets.

Edited by Professor Xin Gen Lei, Cornell University, USA, Seaweed and microalgae as alternative sources of protein will be a standard reference for researchers from universities or other research centres involved in macroalgae/microalgae production and livestock nutrition, companies involved in the manufacture or supply of animal feed or livestock nutrition services, government and other agencies regulating the animal feed sector, as well as farmers interested in furthering their knowledge on recent developments in the animal feed/livestock nutrition sector.

A charming deep dive into the hidden world of seaweed, filled with fascinating facts and beautiful illustrations of the most sensuous family of water plants.

Seaweed is so familiar, and yet we know so little about it. Even its names—pepper dulse, sea lettuce, bladderwrack—are mystifying.

In this exquisitely illustrated portrait, poet and artist Miek Zwamborn shares discoveries of seaweed’s history, culture, and science. We encounter its medicinal and gastronomic properties and long history of human use, from the Neolithic people of the Orkney islands to sushi artisans in modern Japan. We find seaweed troubling Columbus on his voyages across the Atlantic and intriguing Humboldt in the Sargasso Sea. We follow its inspiration for artists from Hokusai to Matisse, its collection by Victorians as pressed specimens in books, its adoption into fashion and dance, and its potential for combating climate change, as a sustainable food source and a means of reducing methane emissions in cattle.

And, of course, we learn how to eat seaweed, through a fabulous series of recipes based around these “truffles of the seas.”

The many questions that surround movements for secession and self-determination are both practically urgent and theoretically perplexing. The United States settled its secession crisis in the 1860s. But the trauma and unfinished business of those events are still with us. Around the world secession and self-determination are the key issues that cause strife and instability.
This volume provides an unusually comprehensive consideration of the many challenges of law and political philosophy that accompany them, and offers theoretical insights that provide guidance for policy. Among the questions considered are: should the international community recognize a right to secede and, if so, what conditions must be satisfied before the right can be asserted? Should secession and its conditions be recognized within domestic constitutions? Secession is the most extreme form of political separation and there are modes of self-determination short of it, including indigenous peoples' self-government and minority language rights. To what degree can these intrastate autonomy arrangements help ameliorate the injustices faced by indigenous groups?

Featuring twelve simple yet profound essays, Jerome K. Jerome’s Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow is a humorous and clever collection. Each essay is crafted around a timeless and relatable issue, such as the unfortunately common inability to make decisions. On the Art of Making Up One’s Mind observes this to be a common practice. Beginning with the story of a young woman who cannot decide what color of garment to buy, this essay takes notice of the everyday day occurrences of this struggle, comparing the experience for men and women. As a common theme in the collection, societal expectations and assumptions about gender play a main role in many of the essays, tackling topics such as relationships and dating. However, other essays focus on the universal experience of being human, separate from implications of gender. This is portrayed in On the Exceptional Merit Attaching to the Things We Meant to Do through the narrative of a failed craft. Despite shortcomings, pride always finds a way to warp reality, which is why Jerome ironically warns against taking advice in the essay On the Inadvisability of Following Advice. With discussions of pride, intention, vices, and ideals, Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow addresses the truths of topics that are simultaneously overlooked, yet universally experienced.

With satirical prose and thoughtful reflection, Jerome K. Jerome combines humor and sentiment in Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, presenting serious topics without intimidation, inviting thought and laughter. Though first published over one-hundred years ago in 1898, Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow feature timeless and universal themes and realizations that remain to be clever and relevant to modern-day society.

This edition of Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome K. Jerome is presented in an easy-to-read font and features an eye-catching new cover design. With these accommodations, this edition is accessible and appealing to contemporary audiences, restoring Jerome K Jerome’s work to modern standards while preserving the original wit and charm of Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

Kicking ass and taking notes—what it’s like to be a woman in the ring.

Alison Dean teaches English literature. She also punches people. Hard. But despite several amateur fights under her belt, she knows she will never be taken as seriously as a male boxer. “You punch like a girl” still isn’t a compliment — women aren’t supposed to choose to participate in violence.

Her unique perspective as a 30-something university lecturer turned amateur fighter allows Dean to articulately and with great insight delve into the ways martial arts can change a person’s — and particularly a woman’s — relationship to their body and to the world around them, and at the same time considers the ways in which women might change martial arts.

Combining historical research, anecdotal experience, and interviews with coaches and fighters, Seconds Out explores our culture’s relationship with violence, and particularly with violence practiced by women.

"An important addition to women’s martial arts scholarship, Dean provides personal insight into the radical space women occupy in sport fighting. Seconds Out is a must-read for all fighters looking for mentors in the complicated world of martial arts." —L.A. Jennings, author of Mixed Martial Arts: A History from Ancient Fighting Sports to the UFC

"Dean brings a fresh new female voice to the topic of combat sports." —Trevor Wittman, renowned MMA trainer, UFC analyst, and founder of ONX Sports

"Trained in the discipline and art of both fighting and literature, Dean combines both with style. She honors the fighters, writers, and historians who have come before her and definitively ends the idea of women fighters as a novelty. Seconds Out is a must-read for anyone who feels the call of the bell and reverence for a good fight." —Sue Jaye Johnson

Secrecy and Esoteric Writing in Kabbalistic Literature examines the strategies of esoteric writing that Kabbalists have used to conceal secrets in their writings, such that casual readers will only understand the surface meaning of their texts while those with greater insight will grasp the internal meaning. In addition to a broad description of esoteric writing throughout the long literary history of Kabbalah, this work analyzes kabbalistic secrecy in light of contemporary theories of secrecy. It also presents case studies of esoteric writing in the work of four of the first kabbalistic authors—Abraham ben David, Isaac the Blind, Ezra ben Solomon, and Asher ben David—and thereby helps recast our understanding of the earliest stages of kabbalistic literary history.

The book will interest scholars in Jewish mysticism and Jewish philosophy, as well as those working in medieval Jewish history. Throughout, Jonathan V. Dauber has endeavored to write an accessible work that does not require extensive prior knowledge of kabbalistic thought. Accordingly, it finds points of contact between scholars of various religious traditions.

“The power of Raphael’s stories comes from his passion for telling the truth, however painful.”—Hadassah Magazine

“His characters are voices of reason, observers rather than judges. The prose is poetic, the sex scenes sweat with passion.”—Los Angeles Times

When Lev Raphael published the controversial story collection Dancing on Tisha B’av, he broke new ground in the publishing world. Never before in one book had an American writer dealt with the conflicts between homosexuality and traditional Judaism, linked the chilling mind diseases of antisemitism and homophobia, and borne witness not only to the legacy of Holocaust survivors but the suffering and conflicts of their children. Winner of the prestigious Lambda Literary Award, Raphael opened the door to a new kind of American Jewish fiction.

Secret Anniversaries of the Heart unites the best stories from Dancing on Tisha B’av with 12 new stories, including one never before published. Here we encounter tales of antisemitism on the college campus, of self-hatred and body obsession, and of survivor parents whose only response to the Holocaust is to isolate themselves, unconsciously committing a kind of emotional suicide.

In a collection that encompasses over 25 years of his award-winning stories, Lev Raphael proves himself a visionary like James Baldwin and shares Anita Brookner’s gift for dramatizing the pain of seemingly quiet lives in stories that are both passionate and precise.

Lev Raphael is the author of 17 books published in a dozen languages. A winner of the Lambda Literary Award, among many prizes, his short works have appeared in numerous anthologies, including the star-packed Who We Are: On Being (and Not Being) A Jewish American Writer (Schocken/Random House). The author of a popular mystery series, he performs all over the country and hosts a weekly book show on NPR.

I discover a "lost" aunt, separated from our family due to racism and discrimination against the disabled. She had a mental disability due to childhood meningitis. She was taken away in 1942 when all Japanese Americans were considered the enemy and imprisoned. She then became a "ward" of the state. We believed she had died, but 70 years later found her alive and living a few miles from our family farm. How did she survive? Why was she kept hidden? How did both shame and resilience empower my family to forge forward in a land that did not want them? I am haunted and driven to explore my identity and the meaning of family—especially as farmers tied to the land. I uncover family secrets that bind us to a sense of history buried in the earth that we work and a sense of place that defines us.

A guide to the hidden mysteries and secrets of the world from an established author and expert on conspiracies, the unexplained, and the paranormal!

History is written by the winners—and the powerful—but how much of it is fiction? And who is really in control today? From the dawn of civilization to the 21st century, from ancient aliens to the New World Order, Secret History: Conspiracies from Ancient Aliens to the New World Order examines, explores, and uncovers the hidden, overlooked, and buried history of civilization.

The book moves from biblical, Egyptian, Mayan, Greek, and early mysteries of antiquity to the clandestine doings of the Nazis and the Masons and assassination plots of the more recent past to the surveillance, monitoring, mind-control, and secret schemes of today. Researcher Nick Redfern investigates the stories, mythologies, lore behind incredible events and clandestine groups of yesterday and today. More than 60 entries dig deep into the manipulation of events by influential groups, including …

• Historical riddles—revealing, alien visitations, space gods, human–alien crossbreeding, and more.

• Government cover ups—exposing, mind control, murders, scientists' research, secret agents' agendas, and more.

• Powerful groups and intended consequences—illuminating, 9-11, new world order, bird-flu, chemtrails, and more.

Tracing the chilling and lasting effects of conspiracies, cabals, and plots, Secret History: Conspiracies from Ancient Aliens to the New World Order exposes their deep reach in shaping today's world! Truly an eye-opening read!

Come along on an informative, whirlwind tour of urban species—from intelligent crows to backyard lichens—and discover that you are surrounded by wild nature, even in your own backyard.

When biologist Hanna Bjørgaas spots a fairy cup lichen in Antarctica, she is surprised to recognize it from her own backyard in Oslo. When she returns home, she embarks on a journey into urban nature, visiting city parks, cemeteries, and concrete rooftops to investigate the species that live in urban spaces. Along the way, she meets corvids, songbirds, ants, pigeons, bats, sparrows, fungi, and linden trees—and the experts who study their surprising abilities to survive, and thrive, in the city.

As Bjørgaas discovers, urban nature—and its unique mixture of species that have never lived together before in Earth’s history—is valuable. More than half of the world’s human population lives in densely populated areas—and plants and animals have followed us into cities. Secret Life of the City invites us to pay more attention to the sounds, sights, and smells of urban nature right outside our door.

A treasure trove of fascinating flora and fauna, this wonderful book offers a plea to save our city plants, animals, and fungi before we lose them, too.

“. . . fills a void for the delightful, little-known and vibrant cuisine of this South American nation. You will be thrilled by the ethnic diversity and originality of the dishes passionately and thoroughly gathered by native chef Patricia McCausland-Gallo.” —Jacques Pépin

From the coffee and cacao grown high in the Andes Mountains, to the tropical fruits of the Caribbean and Amazonian regions, the great cattle farms on the plains, and bountiful seafood from the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, Colombia is a country of varied and exotic culinary offerings.

Now updated with a new chapter on lighter Colombian fare, this bestselling Hippocrene cookbook shares even more secrets from this beloved cuisine. With a 16-page color insert, glossary of Colombian foods and ingredients, an introduction to Colombia’s cuisine and regions, and of course, over 200 easy-to-follow recipes, this cookbook brings the vibrant culinary tradition of Colombia alive!

Sample recipes:

• Pandebono
• Ajiaco bogotano (Chicken and Potato Soup)
• Crema de Zapallo o Ahuyama (Cream of Pumpkin Soup)
• Buñuelos de Maíz (Corn Fritters)
• Pernil de Cerdo (Fresh Leg of Pork)
• Carne Desmechada (Stripped Beef)
• Cocktail de Calamares (Squid Cocktail)
• Pescado Frito (Whole Fried Fish)
• Bolas de Tamarindo (Tamarind Balls)

Since the inception of car and motorcycle racing, people have been fascinated by the engines that power high-performance vehicles. This book reveals and explains modifications from the secretive world of motorsport. It is written in an easy-to-read style, perfect for the DIY engine builder who wants increase the power and reliability of their engine. The book explains build methods common to all 4-stroke engines, rather than specific makes or models, making the information ideal for the builder of either a period or modern engine.

Opening with planning suggestions about the types of tuning and modifications that can be undertaken, and their possible consequences to drivability, it then moves on to define tuning and blueprinting, and the inspection and build processes involved right through to testing a completed engine. It also has sections on ignition, exhaust and fuel systems, all made clearer by 200 original drawings and photographs. Containing five engine inspection and build sheets, and the contact details of approximately 45 specialist manufacturers and motorsport suppliers, this book is an essential purchase for all engine-building enthusiasts.

Keep Your Marriage Strong

“Written by a licensed relationship therapist and a divorce attorney, if you read this book, you won’t need the services of either! ” ―Becca Anderson, author of Let Me Count the Ways

#1 New Release in Sociology of Marriage & Family

Couples communication and relationship experts David Bulitt and Julie Bulitt share their relational knowledge in this book that may save your marriage. With stories and marriage help tested by real couples, learn how to survive and thrive after relationship and marriage fights, becoming parents, deaths, and other struggles.

Get partnership and marriage help tested by real couples. The relationship experts behind the bestselling The Core Conversations for Couples put together another essential couples book for relationships. Secrets of Strong Couples shows you how real couples have made it through to the other side of real crises—together.

Learn how to overcome couples communication hardships, marriage fights, and more. Walk alongside committed partners as you learn how to fix your marriage or relationship, no matter what life throws at you. Whether you’re dealing with infertility, job loss, infidelity, grief, or other relationship strife, these personal stories provide all the relationship and marriage advice you need to thrive!

Inside this essential couples gift, you’ll find:

• Practical advice from authors experienced in couples, marriage counseling and divorce law
• Examples of how to persevere through life’s most difficult trials without losing each other
• Real couples communication help from partners who are not afraid to share their difficult stories

Readers of books like This Is How Your Marriage Ends by Matthew Fray, Marriage Be Hard by Kevin Fredericks & Melissa Fredericks, or Communication Miracles for Couples by Jonathan Robinson will love Secrets of Strong Couples.

Lethal injection is nothing like what people think. This is its untold story.

In the popular imagination, lethal injection is a slight pinch and a swift nodding off to forever-sleep. It is performed by well-qualified medical professionals. It is regulated and carefully conducted. And it usually provides a “humane” death. In reality, however, not one of those things is true.

Secrets of the Killing State pulls back the curtain on this clandestine punishment practice, presenting a view of lethal injection that states have worked hard to hide. Botched executions are a part of this story, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. For all the suffering that we see, there is also suffering that we don’t see. Indeed, the story told here is even bigger than the executions themselves, for behind the scenes is where it unfolds. Fake science, torturous drugs, inept executioners, prison problems, and decades of state secrecy have created an execution method hard-wired to go wrong in countless ways.

The story of lethal injection is a story of gross incompetence, law breaking, torturous deaths, and a stunning indifference to the way in which human beings die at the hands of the state. These are the secrets of the killing state—all that we know from litigation files, scientific studies, investigative journalism, autopsy reports, interviews, and scholarship across a number of fields. Death penalty expert Corinna Barrett Lain uses this groundbreaking journey into the dark reality of lethal injection to shine a light on the American death penalty more broadly and show that the state at its most powerful moment is also the state at its worst.

We are now over 45 years into the lethal injection era, and most Americans still have no idea what states are doing in their name. It’s time they found out.

A Next Generation Indie Book Award Finalist

''I love this book. It reads like a walk in the woods with the best naturalists."—John Muir Laws

A Californian may vacation in Yosemite, Big Sur, or Death Valley, but many of us come home to an oak woodland. Yet, while common, oak woodlands are anything but ordinary. In a book rich in illustration and suffused with wonder, author Kate Marianchild combines extensive research and years of personal experience to explore some of the marvelous plants and animals that the oak woodlands nurture. Acorn woodpeckers unite in marriages of up to ten mates and raise their young cooperatively. Ground squirrels roll in rattlesnake skins to hide their scent from hungry snakes. Manzanita's rust-colored, paper-thin bark peels away in time for the summer solstice, exposing sinuous contours that are cool to the touch even on the hottest day. Conveying up-to-the-minute scientific findings with a storyteller's skill, Marianchild introduces us to a host of remarkable creatures in a world close by, a world that “rustles, hums, and sings with the sounds of wild things.”

Explores the Christian-theological foundations of modern social justice movements and how they've shaped contemporary debates on climate, race, and gender

From Pope Francis’s call to “repent for ecological sins” to murals depicting George Floyd in the Virgin Mary’s arms, Christian motifs have permeated contemporary justice discourse. In Secular Christian-Social Justice, legal scholar Noa Ben-Asher investigates the often-hidden theological foundations of seemingly secular social justice movements, exploring how climate, racial, and gender justice are fundamentally animated by Christian themes and values.

Combining critical legal theory, theology, feminist and queer thought, and cultural analysis, Ben-Asher demonstrates that contemporary social justice movements operate through four distinctly Christian theological frameworks: apocalyptic worldviews that frame social crises as existential battles between good and evil; trauma-centered narratives that mirror Christian concepts of grace and redemption; appeals to human dignity rooted in Catholic social teaching; and critiques of material inequality that echo biblical economic justice traditions. This interdisciplinary approach allows for tracing the subtle yet pervasive influence of Christian thought across climate, racial, and gender justice. Thus, Ben-Asher argues, the so-called “culture wars” in the United States aren’t taking place between religious and secular forces, but between two Christianities: one traditional and institutional, the other reformist and ostensibly secular.

The book contends that reckoning with these theological foundations is essential for both intellectual honesty and effective legal and political action. Providing a critical diagnosis of contemporary law and activism, Secular-Christian Social Justice challenges and deepens readers’ understanding of the relationship between religion, law, and politics in America, and calls for more radical forms of climate, racial, and gender justice that transcend inherited theological paradigms.

In the late Enlightenment, a new imperative began to inform theories of interpretation: all literary texts should be read in the same way that we read the Bible. However, this assumption concealed a problem—there was no coherent "we" who read the Bible in the same way. In Secularism and Hermeneutics, Yael Almog shows that several prominent thinkers of the era, including Johann Gottfried Herder, Moses Mendelssohn, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, constituted readers as an imaginary "we" around which they could form their theories and practices of interpretation. This conception of interpreters as a universal community, Almog argues, established biblical readers as a coherent collective.

In the first part of the book, Almog focuses on the 1760s through the 1780s and examines these writers' works on biblical Hebrew and their reliance on the conception of the Old Testament as a cultural, rather than religious, asset. She reveals how the detachment of textual hermeneutics from confessional affiliation was stimulated by debates on the integration of Jews in Enlightenment Germany. In order for the political community to cohere, she contends, certain religious practices were restricted to the private sphere while textual interpretation, which previously belonged to religious contexts, became the foundation of the public sphere. As interpretive practices were secularized and taken to be universal, they were meant to overcome religious difference. Turning to literature and the early nineteenth century in the second part of the book, Almog demonstrates the ways in which the new literary genres of realism and lyric poetry disrupted these interpretive reading practices. Literary techniques such as irony and intertextuality disturbed the notion of a stable, universal reader's position and highlighted interpretation as grounded in religious belonging.

Secularism and Hermeneutics reveals the tension between textual exegesis and confessional belonging and challenges the modern presumption that interpretation is indifferent to religious concerns.

For much of the twentieth century, most religious and secular Jewish thinkers believed that they were witnessing a steady, ongoing movement toward secularization. Toward the end of the century, however, as scholars and pundits began to speak of the global resurgence of religion, the normalization of secularism could no longer be considered inevitable. Recent decades have seen the strengthening of Orthodox movements in the United States and in Israel; religious Zionism has grown and radically changed since the 1960s, and new and vibrant nondenominational Jewish movements have emerged.

Secularism in Question examines the ways these contemporary revivals of religion prompt a reconsideration of many issues concerning Jews and Judaism from the early modern era to the present. Bringing together scholars of history, religion, philosophy, and literature, this volume illustrates how the categories of "religious" and "secular" have frequently proven far more permeable than fixed. The contributors challenge the problematic assumptions about the development of secularism that emerge from Protestant European and American perspectives and demonstrate that global Jewish experiences necessitate a reappraisal of conventional narratives of secularism. Ultimately, Secularism in Question calls for rethinking the very terms that animate many of the most contentious debates in contemporary Jewish life and far beyond.

Contributors: Michal Ben-Horin, Aryeh Edrei, Jonathan Mark Gribetz, Ari Joskowicz, Ethan B. Katz, Eva Lezzi, Vivian Liska, Rachel Manekin, David Myers, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Andrea Schatz, Christophe Schulte, Daniel B. Schwartz, Galili Shahar, Scott Ury.

In Israel, gates, fences, and walls encircle public spaces while guards scrutinize, inspect, and interrogate. With a population constantly aware of the possibility of suicide bombings, Israel is defined by its culture of security. Security and Suspicion is a closely drawn ethnographic study of the way Israeli Jews experience security in their everyday lives.

Observing security concerns through an anthropological lens, Juliana Ochs investigates the relationship between perceptions of danger and the political strategies of the state. Ochs argues that everyday security practices create exceptional states of civilian alertness that perpetuate—rather than mitigate—national fear and ongoing violence. In Israeli cities, customers entering gated urban cafés open their handbags for armed security guards and parents circumnavigate feared neighborhoods to deliver their children safely to school. Suspicious objects appear to be everywhere, as Israelis internalize the state's vigilance for signs of potential suicide bombers. Fear and suspicion not only permeate political rhetoric, writes Ochs, but also condition how people see, the way they move, and the way they relate to Palestinians. Ochs reveals that in Israel everyday practices of security—in the home, on commutes to work, or in cafés and restaurants—are as much a part of conflict as soldiers and military checkpoints.

Based on intensive fieldwork in Israel during the second intifada, Security and Suspicion charts a new approach to issues of security while contributing to our appreciation of the subtle dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This book offers a way to understand why security propagates the very fears and suspicions it is supposed to reduce.

 With the world facing immense challenges, how do we create a safer and more equitable world? 

Geospatial intelligence offers valuable insights to help organizations and governments protect communities. By using technology to obtain location-based data, these groups can make spatially informed decisions about how best to help people who are most at risk. Learning the technical skills needed to use geographic information systems (GIS) to visualize and interpret this data has never been more essential for working to find resolutions for the numerous challenges humanity faces today. 

Security First: Geospatial Workflows for a Safe and Equitable World guides readers through specific exercises and examples to show how GIS can be used to address significant world issues while building the technical skills required to work in the field of human security and geospatial intelligence. 

Through 20 geospatial workflows, Security First covers a breadth of topics found in geospatial security, such as: 

• human rights violations,  
• vulnerability to flooding,  
• concerns around illegal fishing, 
• quantifying and mapping land use and land cover change, 
• monitoring environmental justice, and 
• emergency response and disaster management. 

Each chapter is organized with learning objectives, technical requirements, prerequisite knowledge, a geospatial workflow, an analysis, and additional resources. All detailed exercises use ArcGIS software and downloadable data, helping to establish and reinforce the technical skills of readers. Users will also interpret their results and write an intelligence brief, requiring them to think critically about the result of their work. In helping to guide strategic decision-making, this manual will get readers on their way to incorporating GIS into their work for improved analysis and results.

Written for professors, students, and professionals, Security First is the first crowdsourced workbook in the growing field of human security and geospatial intelligence. Contributors and editors include academics teaching or studying human security and geospatial intelligence.  

Get the technical and critical-thinking skills you need to work in human security and geospatial intelligence. 

How Americans have weathered constitutional crises throughout our history

Since protestors ripped through the Capitol Building in 2021, the threat of constitutional crisis has loomed over our nation. The foundational tenets of American democracy seem to be endangered, and many citizens believe this danger is unprecedented in our history. But Americans have weathered many constitutional crises, often accompanied by the same violence and chaos experienced on January 6. However, these crises occurred on the state level. In Sedition, Marcus Alexander Gadson uncovers these episodes of civil unrest and examines how state governments handled them.

Sedition takes readers through six instances of constitutional crisis: The Buckshot War, Dorr’s Rebellion, Bleeding Kansas, the Brooks-Baxter War, a successful terrorist campaign to overthrow South Carolina’s government during Reconstruction, and the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898. He chronicles these turbulent periods of violent anti-government conflict on the state level, explaining what it was like to experience coup d’états, rival governments fighting in the streets, and disputed elections that gave way to violence. As he addresses constitutional breakdown, Gadson urges Americans to pay increased attention to the risk of constitutional instability in their home states. His sweeping historical analysis provides new insights on the fight to protect democracy today.

As Americans mobilize to prevent future crises, Sedition reminds us that our constitutional order can fail, that democratic collapse is possible, and offers us advice on how to save our constitutional system.

American religion, Steven Goldberg claims, has fallen into a trap. Just at the moment when it has amassed the political strength and won the legal right to participate effectively in public debate, it has lost its distinctive voice. Instead of speaking of human values, goals, and limits, it speaks in the language of science.
In the United States, science has extraordinary influence and respect. American religious leaders seeking prestige for their point of view regularly couch their responses to technological developments, or defend their faith, in scientific terms. They claim, for instance, that medical studies demonstrate the power of prayer, that science validates the Bible, including its account of creation, and that patenting the genetic code is dangerous because genes are the essence of who we are.
But when ministers, priests, and rabbis expound on double-blind studies and the genetic causes of behavior, they do not elevate religion, Goldberg maintains, they trivialize it. Seduced by Science examines how, by allowing scientific discourse to set the terms of the debate, American religious leaders facilitate religion's move away from its more appropriate and important concerns of values, morality, and humility. Science can tell us a lot about what is but precious little about what ought to be and our religious leaders often miss the chance to add an important voice from a faith-based perspective to the public debate that follows scientific advances.
Discussing the most recent and pressing collisions between science and religion-such as the medicinal benefits of prayer, the human genome project, and cloning-Goldberg raises the timely question of what the appropriate role of religion might be in public life today. Tackling the legal aspects of religious debate, Goldberg suggests ways that religious leaders might confront new scientific developments in a more meaningful fashion.

Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn exposes the fears expressed by elders about young people in the early American republic. Those authors, educators, and moral reformers who aspired to guide youth into respectable stations perceived new dangers in the decades following independence. Battling a range of seducers in the burgeoning marketplace of early America, from corrupt peers to licentious prostitutes, from pornographic authors to firebrand preachers, these self-proclaimed moral guardians crafted advice and institutions for youth, hoping to guide them safely away from harm and toward success. By penning didactic novels and advice books while building reform institutions and colleges, they sought to lead youth into dutiful behavior. But, thrust into the market themselves, these moral guides were forced to compromise their messages to find a popular audience. Nonetheless, their calls for order did have lasting impact. In urban centers in the Northeast, middle-class Americans became increasingly committed to their notions of chastity, piety, and hard work.

Focusing on popular publications and large urban centers, Hessinger draws a portrait of deeply troubled reformers, men and women, who worried incessantly about the vulnerability of youth to the perils of prostitution, promiscuity, misbehavior, and revolt.

Benefiting from new insights in cultural history, Seduced, Abandoned, and Reborn looks at the way the categories of gender, age, and class took rhetorical shape in the early republic. In trying to steer young adults away from danger, these advisors created values that came to define the emerging middle class of urban America.

Encounters, transformations, and reflections from in-prison and post-release theater workshops

See Me is a collection of intimate dialogues about collective experiences in the context of prison theater workshops. Each essay is a collaboration between two or three people who connected profoundly in the temporary community that a workshop can create. Part I is an exchange grounded in the prison theater workshop between the author and one of the incarcerated participants. They alternately tell the story of what they found in the workshop, each other, the future they imagined together, and the social turmoil and utopian aspirations of the times. Part II consists of essays jointly written by eight other people impacted by close relationships spawned in diverse in-prison and re-entry theater workshops.

If you're an executive, designer, product manager, marketer, or engineer, communication is part of your work. Using images and text in unique ways, comics can engage readers in ways traditional methods can't. In See What I Mean, you'll learn how to create comics about your products and processes without an illustrator—just like Google, eBay, and Adobe do.

Many have been hugely helped by mindfulness practice. But how do we move beyond our initial goal of functioning well to live a life marked by deep awareness, genuine compassion and ease of being?

Tim Stead is an accredited mindfulness teacher who seeks to explore this very question. Offering new versions of familiar practices, he meditates on three key themes – see, love, be – that connect strongly with the concerns of many great spiritual traditions.

This warm-hearted book will resonate as much with those who do not have a faith commitment as with those who do.

‘Thoughtful and intensely practical, See, Love, Be offers a fascinating insight into the human condition. I particularly enjoyed the use of the well-judged poems at the end of each chapter.’
Michael Mosley, science journalist, TV presenter and producer

Community-based initiatives to preserve and protect our food supply

Historically, seed companies were generally small, often family-run businesses. Because they were regionally based, they could focus on varieties well-suited to the local environment. A Pacific Northwest company, for example, would specialize in different cultivars than a company based in the Southeast. However the absorption of these small, independent seed businesses into large multinationals, combined with the advancement of biotechnology resulting in hybrids and GMO seeds, has led to a serious loss of genetic diversity. The public is now at the mercy of the corporations that control the seeds.

In the past few years, gardeners have realized the inherent danger in this situation. A growing movement is striving to preserve and expand our stock of heritage and heirloom varieties through seed saving and sharing opportunities. Seed Libraries is a practical guide to saving seeds through community programs, including:

• Step-by-step instructions for setting up a seed library
• A wealth of ideas to help attract patrons and keep the momentum going
• Profiles of existing libraries and other types of seed saving partnerships

Whoever controls the seeds controls the food supply. By empowering communities to preserve and protect the genetic diversity of their harvest, Seed Libraries is the first step towards reclaiming our self-reliance while enhancing food security and ensuring that the future of food is healthy, vibrant, tasty, and nutritious.

Cindy Conner is a permaculture educator, founder of Homeplace Earth and producer of two popular instructional gardening DVDs. She is also the author of Grow a Sustainable Diet .

A Seasonal Guide for Growing & Cooking Foods Right at Home

“Luay makes growing your own food, even if just a small amount, into an achievable endeavor.”—Niki Irving of Flourish Flower Farm, flower farmer, florist, author of Growing Flowers

#1 Best Seller in Organic Gardening

Learn to garden in any space with Seed to Table, grow and cook nutrient-dense foods to take your gardening and cooking to the next level!

Gardening, cooking, and eating done right! Seed to Table focuses on how to feed your family with nutritious foods from your own outdoor, home and/or kitchen garden. Whether you live in a city or in the country, this book gives you tools on effective growing techniques, seed starting methods, and garden maintenance. 

Organic gardening for every individual style! Have fun while you create your own gardening system whether it be for a container garden or a kitchen garden. Try out big and small garden ideas to stock up your fridge with delicious fruits, vegetables, and herbs to grow your self-sufficiency. Maximize your minimal or large space with impactful practices that are perfect for anyone on a sustainability and self-sufficiency journey.

Inside Seed to Table, you’ll find:

• A full and in-depth guide on preserving foods while cultivating homegrown foods
• Easy and delicious vegetable-forward recipes and preservation techniques to feed your whole family
• Effective urban gardening tools to create a garden in a patio garden, rooftop space, or any space

If you're looking for books on urban gardening or gardening in any space, add this book to your collection! If you liked Plants-Only Kitchen, Holistic Homesteading, or Raised-Bed Gardening for Beginners, then you’ll love Seed to Table.

“A brilliant and engaging book on haiku, and on the state of the body and mind required in the million to one shot against producing a good one” —Jim Harrison

First published in 1997, Seeds From a Birch Tree introduced readers to the only form of poetry in all of world literature that makes nature into a spiritual path. Its message was simple: Haiku teaches us to return to nature by following the seasons—seventeen syllables at a time.

With its mix of poetry and memoir, fallen leaves and birdsong, Seeds From a Birch Tree awakens us to what Bashō called “the life of each thing.” Simple instructions guide us to the possibilities for creativity and joy hidden in plain sight in the natural world around us, giving us hope and resilience in the face of life’s challenges.

This Revised & Expanded 25^th Anniversary Edition includes the complete text of the original classic, plus dozens of new haiku and an Afterword by the author discussing haiku for the 21^st century.

Seeds of Empire recreates the events surrounding General John Sullivan's scorched-earth campaign against the Six Nations of the American Indians of New York and the Eastern territories in 1779, following the surrender of General John Burgoyne's British army at the Battle of Saratoga. Mintz's meticulous historical research and renowned storytelling ability give life to this arresting narrative as it probes the mechanisms of the American Revolution and the structure and function of the Iroquois Six Nations.

The depth and wide geographical impact of David Lewis-Williams.
It is largely through the work of David Lewis-Williams that San rock art has come to be understood so well, as a complex symbolic and metaphoric representation of San religious beliefs and practices. The purpose of this volume is to demonstrate the depth and wide geographical impact of Lewis-Williams' contribution, with particular emphasis on the use of theory and methodology drawn from ethnography that he has used with inspirational effect in understanding the meaning and context of rock art in various parts of the world. Seeing and Knowing explores how to understand and learn from rock art with and without ethnography. Because many of the chapters are based on solid fieldwork and ethnographic research, they offer a new body of work that provides the evidence for differentiation between knowing and simply seeing. This volume is unique in that it focuses exclusively on rock art and ethnography, and covers such a wide geographic range of examples on this topic, from southern Africa, to Scandinavia, to the United States. Many of the chapters explore studies in rock art regions of the world where variation and constancy can be observed and explored across distances both in space and in time. The editors have entitled the book Seeing and Knowing to echo Lewis-Williams' Believing and Seeing published almost thirty years ago; they say 'seeing' again because looking at rock art is and will always be central, and then what is seen when human eyes and minds look; they say 'knowing' in recognition that, by his work and by his example, archaeologists now know a little more than they knew before. Even so, as Lewis-Williams will be the first to say, we still know only a fraction.

Who is Jesus Christ?
You've never met Him in person, and you don't know anyone who has. But there is a way to know who he is. How? Jesus Christ - the divine Person revealed in the Bible - has a unique excellence and a spiritual beauty that speaks directly to our souls and says, "Yes, this is truth." It's like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light, or tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet.
The depth and complexity of Jesus shatter our simple mental frameworks. He baffled proud scribes with his wisdom but was understood and loved by children. He calmed a raging storm with a word but would not get himself down from the cross.
Look at the Jesus of the Bible. Keep your eyes open, and fill them with the portrait of Jesus in God's Word. Jesus said, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, He will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." Ask God for the grace to do His will, and you will see the truth of His Son.
John Piper has written this book in the hope that all will see Jesus for who he really is and will come to enjoy him above all else.

How can we understand God's revelation to us?

Throughout the church's history, theologians have often answered this question by appealing to a doctrine of illumination whereby the Holy Spirit shapes our knowledge and understanding of Scripture. Without denying the role of the Holy Spirit or the cognitive role of illumination, Ike Miller casts a broader vision of divine illumination and its role in the Christian life. In his constructive approach, Miller argues for a fully trinitarian view of illumination that forms not just our intellect, but also appeals to the affections and encourages our ethical action.

In order to develop this theology of illumination, Miller explores both Augustine's and Karl Barth's readings of the Gospel and Epistles of John, including Barth's previously untranslated lectures on the Gospel of John. In the light of his careful study of both the Johannine literature and the theologies of two giants from Christian history, Miller contends for a doctrine of illumination whereby we are enabled to know God and participate in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Over the centuries some of the world’s greatest painters have explored and expressed their faith in God through their art. 

Here, Richard Harries invites you to reflect with him on thirty such artists, and to see how their paintings illuminate important aspects of Christian faith and teaching.

Encompassing masterpieces by Rembrandt, Leonardo, Titian and Caravaggio as well as modern works by Chagall, Spencer and Rouault, this book presents the essentials of the faith in a way that will move the reader to respond with heart as well as head.

The author of The Jew in the Lotus seeks to answer the Dalai Lama’s question.

Rodger Kamenetz, author of international bestseller The Jew in the Lotus, about a pilgrimage of rabbis to see H.H. the Dalai Lama (a historic dialogue between Jewish and Buddhist masters), watched as the rabbis asked H.H. in Dharamsala, “How does your spiritual practice purify afflictive emotions?” Rodger explains in this book, “This is the most fundamental question we might ask of any spiritual practice, any religion or philosophy of life. How do your practices help you purify afflictive emotions such as anxiety, envy, resentment, and shame?”

Kamenetz sets out to answer this question experimentally, in spiritual practice, through the contemplation of images in memory, dreams, perception, and prayer. These practices lead to a life of feeling which displaces negativity and reactivity.

Seeing into the Life of Things will help readers cultivate these skills—perception, memory, dreams, and prayer. The book is structured as a commentary on these practices building step-by-step from the simple “count your blessings” to more difficult images in dreams. Kamenetz shows how to use dreams as prompts and scripts, in order to learn how to experience feelings by acting them out.

Memoir and narrative threads also run through the book, revolving around the author’s relationship with Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi—the most important Jewish teacher of the 20th century and the anchor of that trip to Dharamsala in 1990.