Biography & Autobiography

The definitive biography of one of the most beloved and respected figures in American religious life.

In this comprehensive biography, Jon Sweeney, official biographer of Tickle’s literary estate, explores every aspect of her life, a more than 50-year legacy of poetry; plays; literary, spiritual, and historical/theological work; and advocacy. Sweeney examines Tickle’s personal and professional roots, from her family, long marriage, and life on The Farm in Lucy, Tennessee, to early academic career and move into book publishing, where her role as founding editor of the Religion Department at Publishers Weekly influenced the growth of spiritual writing and interfaith understanding during the 1990s.

Sweeney also looks at pivotal relationships with John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and Brian McLaren, as well as her great influence on the increasing number who adopted fixed-hour prayer, the Episcopal Church as a whole, and the Emerging Church, for which she served as historian, forecaster, and champion. A look at her early, passionate advocacy for the LGBT community, lecture circuit controversies, and projects left unfinished completes the picture.

Reveals a complex new portrait of John Brown, radical abolitionist and leader of the 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry

John Brown is usually remembered as a terrorist whose unbridled hatred of slavery drove him to the ill-fated raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Tried and executed for seizing the arsenal and attempting to spur a liberation movement among the slaves, Brown was the ultimate cause celebre for a country on the brink of civil war.

“Fire from the Midst of You” situates Brown within the religious and social context of a nation steeped in racism, showing his roots in Puritan abolitionism. DeCaro explores Brown's unusual family heritage as well as his business and personal losses, retracing his path to the Southern gallows. In contrast to the popular image of Brown as a violent fanatic, DeCaro contextualizes Brown's actions, emphasizing the intensely religious nature of the antebellum US in which he lived. He articulates the nature of Brown's radical faith and shows that, when viewed in the context of his times, he was not the religious fanatic that many have understood him to be. DeCaro calls Brown a “Protestant saint”—an imperfect believer seeking to realize his own perceived calling in divine providence.

In line with the post-millennial theology of his day, Brown understood God as working through mankind and the church to renew and revive sinful humanity. He read the Bible not only as God's word, but as God's word to John Brown. DeCaro traces Brown's life and development to show how by forging faith as a radical weapon, Brown forced the entire nation to a point of crisis.

“Fire from the Midst of You” defies the standard narrative with a new reading of John Brown. Here is the man that the preeminent Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois called a "mighty warning" and the one Malcolm X called “a real white liberal.”

Meister Eckhart was a thirteenth-century Dominican mystic who became famous as a teacher, thinker, and preacher. His brilliant career, which included a chair of theology at the University of Paris and several important posts within his order, ended tragically when he was tried and convicted of heresy.

In Meister Eckhart Frank Tobin presents an overview of Eckhart's thought and language and of the relationship between the two. Tobin finds Eckhart's thinking unusual in its insistence that neither the division nor the union between God and creation had been expressed adequately. Moreover, Eckhart was radical in uncompromisingly applying metaphysics to a study of human spiritual progress and insisting that all ethical value derives from the "interior" work of the soul rather than its expression in "exterior" work.

The originality of Eckhart's thought is nowhere more evident than in his interpretations of the Bible. His sermons and treatises are distinguished from others by his ability to uncover unexpected and intellectually stimulating, and at times breathtaking, meaning of a speculative or mystical nature in what often seemed to be straightforward and even drab biblical passages. Part of this originality stemmed from Eckhart's attitude toward exegesis and his theory of language, both of which centered on the difficulty of expressing speculation on the infinite through finite and limited language. As a result of this attitude, Eckhart became a master of the startling paradox.

Through an analysis of Eckhart's linguistic strategies, Tobin shows that the Dominican's use of language follows with remarkable consistency from his view of language. He shows also that an understanding of Eckhart's style gives invaluable insight into his thought.

Tobin compares Eckhart's ideas with those of Thomas Aquinas to help clarify both Eckhart's originality and his place in the scholastic tradition.

Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language will be of value to scholars interested in medieval studies, church history, philosophy, intellectual history, and medieval German language and literature.

John Humphrey Noyes, founder of utopian communities in Putney, Vermont, and Oneida, New York, remain one of the most enigmatic reformers of the nineteenth century. The last biography, written over forty years ago, portrayed Noyes as a "Yankee Saint," a man of progressive ideas and religious vision. Yet he has also been called a "Vermont Casanova" whose elaborate theology of Perfection is simply justified the license he took with the women in his communities.

Robert David Thomas makes a convincing case that Noyes, though riven by conflict and full of contradictions, had his finger on the social and cultural problems that were bothering a great many Americans of his time. Studied out of context, Noyes must remain a mystery-radical yet conservative, shy yet arrogant, retiring, and passive yet forceful, even oppressive, in his leadership. But against the background of nineteenth-century American activism and religious enthusiasm, John Humphrey Noyes emerges as a man who overcame a tortured personal life and marshaled his inner resources to grapple with a confusing and rapidly changing social world.

Using modern theories of the ego, Thomas provides a psychologically consistent portrait of Noyes and therein a new perspective on the roots of nineteenth-century Perfectionism, utopian, reform, sexual ideology, and family theory. More than a conventional psycho-biography, this study assumes a sociological theme in its explanations of the social tensions of the era and the sources of "disorder" now so frequently mentioned in studies of the previous century.

If you are a Quaker, you will naturally want to read this portrayal of the remarkable woman—teacher, minister, writer—whose life was synonymous with the Philadelphia Race Street Yearly Meeting and the Friends General Conference. Quaker or not, you will find deep interest and everything to admire in the record of a personality so matter-of-factly devoted to religious tolerance and social progress.

Jane Rushmore's life covers nearly three-quarters of the period during which American Quakerism has been divided into "Hicksite" and "Orthodox" branches. While there has been endless discussion and analysis concerning the Separation, little attention has been paid the independent accomplishments of each group of their mutual efforts toward reconciliation. More than the biography of one person, Under Quaker Appointment also tells the neglected, impressive story of how the two groups worked their way back to organic union.

Here is the absorbing study of an outstanding American and of great events in the history of an organization whose expression of Christianity is universally unique.

The years following the Great Awakening in New England saw a great theological struggle between proponents of Calvinism and the champions of Christian liberty, setting the stage for American Unitarianism. The adherents of Christian liberty, who were branded Arminians by their opponents, were contending for the liberty of the mind and the soul to pursue truth and salvation free from prior restraint.

The Arminian movement took shape as a major, quasi-denominational force in New England under the guidance of particular clergymen, most notably Ebenezer Gay, minister of the First Parish in Hingham, Massachusetts, from 1718 to 1787. Despite his ubiquitous presence in the history of Arminianism, however, Gay has been a historical enigma. Robert J. Wilson's purpose in this biography is to trace Gay's long and fascinating intellectual odyssey against the evolving social, political, and economic life of eighteenth-century Hingham as well as the religious history of the coastal region between Boston and Plymouth.

A biography of a remarkable figure, whose politics prefigured today’s social justice, ecology, and gender equality movements

Ammon Hennacy was arrested over thirty times for opposing US entry in World War 1. Later, when he refused to pay taxes that support war, he lost his wife and daughters, and then his job. For protesting the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he was hounded by the IRS and driven to migrant labor in the fields of the West. He had a romance with Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, who called him a “prophet and a peasant.” He helped the homeless on the Bowery, founded the Joe Hill House of Hospitality in Salt Lake City, and protested the US development of nuclear missiles, becoming in the process one of the most celebrated anarchists of the twentieth century. To our era, when so much “protest” happens on social media, his actual sacrifices seem unworldly.

Ammon Hennacy was a forerunner of contemporary progressive thought, and he remains a beacon for challenges that confront the world and especially the US today. In this exceptional biography, William Marling tells the story of this fascinating figure, who remains particularly important for the Catholic Left. In addition to establishing Hennacy as an exemplar of vegetarianism, ecology, and pacificism, Marling illuminates a broader history of political ideas now largely lost: the late nineteenth-century utopian movements, the grassroots socialist movements before World War I, and the antinuclear protests of the 1960s. A nuanced study of when religion and anarchist theory overlap, Christian Anarchist shows how Hennacy’s life at the heart of radical libertarian and anarchist interventions in American politics not only galvanized the public then, but offers us new insight for today.

Rabbi Jacob Agus' (1911-1986) intellectual production spanned nearly a half century and covered an enormous historical and conceptual range, from the biblical to the modern era. Best known as an important Jewish scholar, he also held important rabbinic, teaching, and public positions. Although born and raised within an orthodox setting, Agus was strongly influenced by American liberalism and his work displayed modernizing sympathies, reservations about nationalism--including some forms of Zionism--and often severe criticisms of kabbalah. Agus crafted a unique, quite American, modernizing vision that ardently sought to remain in touch with the wellsprings of the rabbinic tradition while remaining open to the intellectual and moral currents of his own time.The Essential Agus brings together a sampling of Agus' most important published and unpublished material in one easily accessible volume. It will be an invaluable resource for students and researchers seeking to experience Agus' intellectual legacy.

Examines the rise of one of the most prolific spiritual leader of modern times

T.D. Jakes has emerged as one of the most prolific spiritual leaders of our time. He is pastor of one of the largest churches in the country, CEO of a multimillion dollar empire, the host of a television program, author of a dozen bestsellers, and the producer of two Grammy Award-nominated CDs and three critically acclaimed plays. In 2001 Time magazine featured Jakes on the cover and asked: Is Jakes the next Billy Graham?

T.D. Jakes draws on extensive research, including interviews with numerous friends and colleagues of Jakes, to examine both Jakes’s rise to prominence and proliferation of a faith industry bent on producing spiritual commodities for mass consumption. Lee frames Jakes and his success as a metaphor for changes in the Black Church and American Protestantism more broadly, looking at the ramifications of his rise—and the rise of similar preachers—for the way in which religion is practiced in this country, how social issues are confronted or ignored, and what is distinctly “American” about Jakes's emergence. While offering elements of biography, the work also seeks to shed light on important aspects of the contemporary American and African American religious experience.

Lee contends that Jakes’s widespread success symbolizes a religious realignment in which mainline churches nationwide are in decline, while innovative churches are experiencing phenomenal growth. He emphasizes the “American-ness” of Jakes’s story and reveals how preachers like Jakes are drawing followers by delivering therapeutic and transformative messages and providing spiritual commodities that are more in tune with postmodern sensibilities.

As the first work to critically examine Bishop Jakes’s life and message, T.D. Jakes is an important contribution to contemporary American religion as well as popular culture.

The first biography of the colorful life Madalyn Murray O'Hair—America's most famous (and despised) atheist

In 1964, Life magazine called Madalyn Murray O’Hair “the most hated woman in America.” Another critic described her as “rude, impertinent, blasphemous, a destroyer not only of beliefs but of esteemed values.”

In this first full-length biography, Bryan F. Le Beau offers a penetrating assessment of O’Hair’s beliefs and actions and a probing discussion of how she came to represent both what Americans hated in their enemies and feared in themselves. Born in 1919, O’Hair was a divorced mother of two children born out of wedlock. She launched a crusade against God, often using foul language as she became adept at shocking people and making effective use of the media in delivering her message. She first gained notoriety as one of the primary litigants in the 1963 case Murray v. Curlett which led the Supreme Court to ban school prayer. The decision stunned a nation engaged in fighting “godless Communism” and made O’Hair America’s most famous—and most despised—atheist.

O’Hair led a colorful life, facing assault charges and extradition from Mexico, as well as the defection of her son William, who as an adult denounced her. She later served as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt’s chief speech writer in his bid for President of the United States.

Drawing on original research, O’Hair’s diaries, and interviews, Le Beau traces her development from a child of the Depression to the dictatorial, abrasive woman who founded the American Atheists, wrote books denouncing religion, and challenged the words “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, “In God We Trust” on American currency, the tax exempt status of religious organizations, and other activities she saw as violating the separation of church and state.
O’Hair remained a spokesperson for atheism until 1995, when she and her son and granddaughter vanished. It was later discovered that they were murdered by O’Hair’s former office manager and an accomplice.

Fast-paced, engagingly written, and sharply relevant to ongoing debates about school prayer and other religious issues, The Atheist tells the colorful life-story of a woman who challenged America’s most deeply held beliefs.

American Rabbi provides a comprehensive and insightful assessment of Rabbi Jacob Agus' standing as a notable Jewish thinker. The volume brings together original writings by a range of distinguished contributors to consider the main aspects of Agus' life and work in detail and to flesh out the broad and repercussive themes of his corpus. Taken as a whole, they present a broad and substantial picture of a remarkable American Rabbi and scholar, illuminating Agus' committment to Jewish people everywhere, his profound and unwavering spirituality, his continual reminders of the very real dangers of pseudo-messianism and misplaced romantic zeal, and his willingness to take politically and religiously unpopular stands.
Formulated as a companion volume to The Essential Agus, which presents selections of Agus' own writings, the contributors' analyses are based on specific selections of Agus' work which appear in The Essential Agus. Though each volume stands on its own, they are closely interconnected and readers will benefit from consulting both works.

Important insights into the life and mind of one of the most significant civil rights leaders of the twentieth century

A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was one of the most effective black trade unionists in America. Once known as "the most dangerous black man in America," he was a radical journalist, a labor leader, and a pioneer of civil rights strategies. His protegé Bayard Rustin noted that, "With the exception of W.E.B. Du Bois, he was probably the greatest civil rights leader of the twentieth century until Martin Luther King."

Scholarship has traditionally portrayed Randolph as an atheist and anti-religious, his connections to African American religion either ignored or misrepresented. Taylor places Randolph within the context of American religious history and uncovers his complex relationship to African American religion. She demonstrates that Randolph’s religiosity covered a wide spectrum of liberal Protestant beliefs, from a religious humanism on the left, to orthodox theological positions on the right, never straying far from his African Methodist roots.

"In her portrayal of the life of Sister Catherine Donnelly, founder of the Sisters of Service, author Jeanne Beck has succeeded in weaving a tapestry rich in texture, broad in scope and deeply revealing of the character of a memorable Canadian woman." -Brian F. Hogan, C.S.B.

When teacher Catherine Donnelly first arrived in Western Canada from Ontario in 1918, she discovered two things: first, the need for a Catholic presence in the rural public schools of the west, and second, her own calling to be a religious.

Catherine saw that the west was growing rapidly, and that there was a lack of religious guidance for the people of the region, particularly the immigrants coming from other countries. She looked to existing Catholic orders as a means of reaching these people, but found that none of the orders were willing to accept Catherine's radical ideas, such as her refusal to wear the traditional nun's habit, and her strong belief in the individuality of members of orders. Catherine founded the Sisters of Service in 1922, and through this new order was able to make an impact on the lives of townspeople and students in prairie schools of the west.

In this biography, Jeanne Beck reconstructs the extraordinary life of Sister Catherine Donnelly. The well-researched account is at once informative and inspiring a fitting tribute to the woman who believed "the spiritual life and the intellectual life have the same root deep in the unity of the intelligence."

The Burden Is Light! is the author’s soul-searching account of her discovery of Jesus Christ.

Told in the vibrant, honest prose that has made Eugenia Price a classic religious writer and bestselling novelist, The Burden Is Light! offers an intimate account of her conversion to Christianity at the age of thirty-three.

Traversing the mountains and valleys of her journey from birth to rebirth in Jesus Christ, Ms. Price examines closely her spiritual, personal, and professional development through the years.

The first and only full-length biography of one of
the most charismatic spiritual innovators of the twentieth century.

Through his widely popular books and lectures, Alan Watts (1915-1973) did more to introduce Eastern philosophy and religion to Western minds than any figure before or since. Watts touched the lives of many. He was a renegade Zen teacher, an Anglican priest, a lecturer, an academic, an entertainer, a leader of the San Francisco renaissance, and the author of more than thirty books, including The Way of Zen, Psychotherapy East and West and The Spirit of Zen.

Monica Furlong followed Watts's travels from his birthplace in England to the San Francisco Bay Area where he ultimately settled, conducting in-depth interviews with his family, colleagues, and intimate friends, to provide an analysis of the intellectual, cultural, and deeply personal influences behind this truly extraordinary life.

"Margaret Cropper was the first to capture [Evelyn Underhill's] life, which now in this new century can continue to inspire, challenge and point the way for those on the ancient quest for the holy."
—from the Foreword by Dana Greene, dean of Oxford College of Emory University

SkyLight Lives reintroduces the lives and works of key spiritual figures of our time—people who by their teaching or example have challenged our assumptions about spirituality and have caused us to look at it in new ways.

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) was one of the most highly acclaimed spiritual thinkers of her day. Her fresh approach to mysticism provided one of the first invitations to modern seekers to realize that not only saints or great holy men could experience the love of God—but that all people contain within them a capacity for the Divine.

This intimate biography, written by one of Underhill’s closest friends, allows us to appreciate this revolutionary woman as both a charming, down-to-earth friend and a groundbreaking spiritual seeker and guide.

Through letters, personal reminiscences, and excerpts from Underhill’s much-loved published writings—including her definitive Mysticism, published in 1911 and continuously in print since then—Margaret Cropper captures the spirit, journey and wisdom of one of the most influential women of the early twentieth century.

Updated with a new foreword by Dana Greene, dean of Oxford College of Emory University, this intriguing spiritual portrait includes a brief memoir of Lucy Menzies, one of Underhill’s closest confidants, highlighting their remarkable relationship.

This biography of Evelyn Underhill, one of the greatest spiritual thinkers of the early twentieth century, guides readers on a voyage through her life and a survey of her spiritual classics that would forever bring the Divine into the everyday for countless people.

A passionate writer and teacher who wrote elegantly on mysticism, worship and devotional life, Evelyn Underhill urged the integration of personal spirituality and worldly action. This is the moving story of how she made her way toward spiritual maturity, from her early days of agnosticism to the years when her influence was felt throughout the world.

An early believer that contemplative prayer is not just for monks and nuns but for anyone willing to undertake it, Underhill considered the study of modern science not as a threat to contemplation but rather an enhancement of it. Her many lectures and writings on mysticism and spirituality, including her classic Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man’s Spiritual Consciousness, inspired the many people touched by her unique passion to take on a spiritual life.

Powerful life lessons in a funny and moving portrait of family, community and spiritual discovery in America.

Hilarious and heartfelt, Ron Wolfson's inspiring memoir is filled with stories of growing up in a warm family, encountering colorful characters like the merchants of Omaha and the famous Warren Buffett, navigating adolescence and learning never to underestimate his mother.

With easygoing Midwestern humor and profound poignancy, Ron's "true stories" of family and community in the United States of America will resonate with anyone seeking to shape stronger families, create compelling communities and live their best life, a life of joy and laughter, meaning and purpose, and, yes, blessings and kisses.

"I am the best boy in the United States of America. That’s what my grandfather—my 'Zaydie’—called me from the time I was a little child in Omaha, Nebraska. I know it’s true because this is a true story. All my stories are true....

“Zaydie loved three things: his family, his business, and his adopted country—the United States of America. I never, ever heard Zaydie say 'the United States.’ It was always ‘da United States of America,’ in his thick Russian accent.... For Louie Paperny, each one of his nine grandchildren was the best boy or the best girl in the United States of America. We believed him. I believed him. And in a certain way, I’ve lived the rest of my life trying to be that best boy."

—from Chapter 1

An inspiring message for all humanity from one of
India's most beloved spiritual teachers

If Sri Ramakrishna was a leaping flame of spiritual realization, Holy Mother was a steady glowing fire of God-consciousness. To the Master, Sri Ramakrishna, she was the goddess of wisdom in human form. To her disciples she was the Divine Mother herself. To her devotees she was a more real mother than their own earthly mother. To the seekers of truth she was the final word, and to sinners she was the last refuge.
—from the Introduction

The year 2003 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Sri Sarada Devi, the wife and spiritual companion of Sri Ramakrishna. Known affectionately in India and throughout the world as the Holy Mother, she was a rare combination of human and divine qualities, and is an inspiration today to millions who seek spiritual fulfillment.

The first American edition of the conversations and teachings of the Holy Mother as recorded by her disciples, both lay and monastic, this fascinating collection brings to life the Holy Mother’s teachings on human affliction, self-control, and peace in ways both personal and profound. It illuminates her role as the power, scripture, joy, and guiding spirit of the Ramakrishna Order and clearly captures her unyielding devotion to God that earned her a reputation as a steady glowing fire of God-consciousness.

Translated from the original Bengali by Swami Nikhilananda, a direct disciple of the Holy Mother, these inspiring and detailed conversations offer new insight into the daily life of this endearing and beloved spiritual personality and her message of compassion that continues to influence her devotees in India and throughout the world.

A brilliant portrait of a beloved and controversial
figure in twentieth-century spirituality.

Simone Weil (1906-1943) was a writer and philosopher who devoted her life to a search for God—while avoiding membership in organized religion. She wrote with the clarity of a brilliant mind educated in the best French schools, the social conscience of a grass-roots labor organizer, and the certainty and humility of a mystic—and she persistently carried out her search in the company of the poor and oppressed.

Robert Coles's study of this strange and compelling figure includes the details of her short, eventful life: her academic career, her teaching, her political and social activism, and her mystical experiences. Coles also analyzes the major themes her life encompassed: her politics, her Jewish identity, her moral concerns, her intellect, and her experience of grace. This is the best, most accessible introduction to the woman who was a spiritual influence on the life and work of so many, among them T. S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Adrienne Rich, and Albert Camus.

Robert Coles, M.D., was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his five-volume Children of Crisis series. He is Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard Medical School and the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University, and is the author of many books, including The Spiritual Life of Children, The Moral Life of Children, and Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion.

From Zen Buddhist practitioner to rabbi, East meets West in this firsthand account of a spiritual journey.

Rabbi Alan Lew is known as the Zen Rabbi, a leader in the Jewish meditation movement who works to bring two ancient religious traditions into our everyday lives. One God Clapping is the story of his roundabout yet continuously provoking spiritual odyssey. It is also the story of the meeting between East and West in America, and the ways in which the encounter has transformed how all of us understand God and ourselves.

Winner of the PEN / Joseph E. Miles Award

Like a Zen parable or a Jewish folk tale, One God Clapping unfolds as a series of stories, each containing a moment of revelation or instruction that, while often unexpected, is never simple or contrived. One God Clapping, like the life of the remarkable Alan Lew himself, is a bold experiment in the integration of Eastern and Western ways of looking at and living in the world.

An intimate biography of one of the greatest social and religious reformers of the modern world.

"Gandhi's work in nonviolence was comprehensive and not simply confined to politics or human rights. It was about building positive relationships based on respect, understanding, acceptance and appreciation. It was about eliminating exploitation of all kinds and creating harmony."
—from the Foreword by Dr. Arun Gandhi, cofounder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) was one of the most important and influential social and religious reformers of the past century, spending his life striving for justice, peace and equality among countries, races and classes. His ideas and ideals have inspired generations of activists—from Martin Luther King Jr. to Vaclav Havel—and acted as catalysts for change in every corner of the globe.

In this intimate biography, Charles ("Charlie") Andrews-Englishman, Anglican priest, and a close friend and colleague of Gandhi's in both South Africa and India—explores the life and times of this great soul, providing fascinating insight into the spiritual, political and historical environment that affected Gandhi, playing key roles in the development of his thought and action.

Mahatma Gandhi: His Life and Ideas uses letters, personal reminiscences and excerpts from Gandhi's many published and private writings to paint a vivid and accessible portrait of the personality and spirit of one of the most prominent figures in Indian—and world—history.

This updated edition showcases a new foreword about the continuing impact and importance of Gandhi's message today, written by Dr. Arun Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's grandson and cofounder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence.

How faith transforms the lives and work of creative and innovative people we admire—an inspiration to discover the spirit of God in our own life and work.

Faith is the secret foundation of many lives—including, as this book reveals, the lives of many people we admire and look to for inspiration. In this moving book, soul-searching conversations unearth the importance of spirituality and personal faith for more than forty artists and innovators who have made a real difference in our world through their work. Seeing the ways that these lives have been strongly—even miraculously—affected by faith will serve as an inspiration to discover the spirit of God at work in your own life and work.

Luther: A Giant Among Leaders

When called to account for himself in front of the emperor and representatives of the people—a single assembly embodying the greatest political and religious powers of the day—Luther defended his writings and pronouncements. Facing excommunication and execution, he was given a last chance to recant. He refused, replying that his conscience was bound by the Word of God. The nearly five centuries that have passed since that trial still reverberate with his final declaration to those powerful dignitaries: "Here I stand." This book focuses on that place where all of us must stand if we want to lead others to a better community, a better society, a better world. 

Also includes:

• George Washington’s First Inaugural Address
• George Wshington Second Inaugural Address
• George Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States
• Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior

Marshall's The Life of George Washington is the first biography about a U.S. president ever published.

The Life of George Washington: with Farewell Address to the Nation, Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior and Other Writings from the 1st President of the United States is part of the U.S. Heritage series and is a collection of the key writing from and about President George Washington that helped establish and form the United States of America. The revolutionary ideas and inspirational writings are included in this book for everyone, for students of all ages, to people who are actively involved in politics and their community and anyone interested in the amazing birth and history of America.

LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN!

HUMANIX BOOKS U.S. Heritage series is the definitive collection of political writings and history of the Founding Fathers that paved the way for the United States of America to become the indispensable nation and THE example of Democracy, Liberty and Freedom in the world.

THE MEMOIRS AND OTHER KEY WRITINGS OF JOHN ADAMS, A LEADER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

Also includes:

The Autobiography of John Adams: with Diaries and Other Revolutionary Writings from the 2nd President of the United States is part of the U.S. Heritage series and is a collection of the key writings from President John Adams that helped establish and form the United States of America. The revolutionary ideas and inspirational writings are included in this book for everyone, for students of all ages, to people who are actively involved in politics and their community and anyone interested in the amazing birth and history of America.

LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN!

HUMANIX BOOKS U.S. Heritage series is the definitive collection of political writings and history of the Founding Fathers that paved the way for the United States of America to become the indispensable nation and THE example of Democracy, Liberty and Freedom in the world.

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.”  – Matthew 5:9

“I don’t think any president has been more wrongly persecuted than Nixon, ever. I just think he was a saint.” – Ben Stein

From Ben Stein, New York Times bestselling author, humorist and former speech writer for both Nixon and Ford administrations – a powerful (and humorous) thinker on economics, politics, education and history and motivation – a personal memoir of his friend Richard Nixon: The man, patriot, president, peacemaker and visionary. 

The Richard Nixon Stein remembers and lovingly describes has almost nothing to do with the Richard Nixon as portrayed in most media. In Stein’s view, Richard Nixon was a born peacemaker, a saint. Stein believes Nixon was tortured, abused, beat up by the Beautiful People, but through it all, above all, he was a peacemaker, a trait he inherited from his Quaker mother. 

Nixon’s goal, as he often explained to Stein and others on his staff, was to create “a generation of peace.” And Stein argues he did it; Nixon gave the United States the longest sustained period of peace since World War II. In Stein’s view, if we no longer have to fear Russian ICBMs screaming out of hell to start nuclear war, we can thank the shade of Richard Nixon.

Why did the media hate him so much? Stein argues it was because Nixon was vulnerable and showed it when attacked. He did not have the tough hide of a Reagan or an Obama. Like the schoolyard bullies they are, the media went after Nixon for his vulnerability.

An insider’s account of Nixon the man, president and peacemaker, The Peacemaker: Nixon: The Man, President and My Friend will make you reconsider the life and legacy of 37th President of the United States.

"We will make America strong again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again. Greater than ever before!” — President Donald J. Trump

The ultimate collection of President Donald J. Trump's most important speeches and words to the Nation.

The Greatest Speeches of President Donald J. Trump is edited by New York Times bestselling author and President Reagan biographer Craig Shirley who also wrote the introduction. This beautiful book will include historical photographs throughout and is the perfect gift for anyone who wants to know the history of how President Trump made America great again. 

The collection includes speeches from many pivotal and powerful moments in President Trump’s time in office and his presidential campaigns:

• Trump’s campaign announcement at Trump Tower 
• His surprise Presidential Victory Speech
• His speech to the People of Poland in Warsaw
• The Salute to America at Mount Rushmore 
• His Farewell Address to the People of the United States and the World

The President's own strong and inspiring words from his final speech to the Nation from Washington D.C. while in office as the 45th President of the United States of America:

"We must never forget that while Americans will always have our disagreements, we are a nation of incredible, decent, faithful, and peace-loving citizens who all want our country to thrive and flourish and be very, very successful and good. We are a truly magnificent nation...

As long as the American people hold in their hearts deep and devoted love of country, then there is nothing that this nation cannot achieve. Our communities will flourish. Our people will be prosperous. Our traditions will be cherished. Our faith will be strong. And our future will be brighter than ever before.

I go from this majestic place with a loyal and joyful heart, an optimistic spirit, and a supreme confidence that for our country and for our children, the best is yet to come.

Thank you, and farewell. God bless you. God bless the United States of America."

THE MEMOIRS AND OTHER KEY WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, PRIMARY AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Also includes:

• The Declaration of Independence
  
• The Louisiana Purchase,
• Notes on Virginia
• Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address
• Letter to Congress Regarding Lewis and Clark Expedition
• The Louisiana Purchase Treaty
• Thomas Jefferson’s Second Inaugural Address

The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson: with The Declaration of Independence, The Louisiana Purchase, Notes on Virginia, And Other Writings from the 3rd President of the United States is part of the U.S. Heritage series and is a collection of the key writings from President Thomas Jefferson that helped establish and form the United States of America. The revolutionary ideas and inspirational writings are included in this book for everyone, for students of all ages, to people who are actively involved in politics and their community and anyone interested in the amazing birth and history of America.

LEARN WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN AMERICAN!

HUMANIX BOOKS U.S. Heritage series is the definitive collection of political writings and history of the Founding Fathers that paved the way for the United States of America to become the indispensable nation and THE example of Democracy, Liberty and Freedom in the world.

From the time he arrived on the political scene in 1964 – throughout his presidency and beyond, Ronald Reagan – used his speeches to inspire and reinvigorate America.

When he spoke, Reagan, said, he was “preaching a sermon.” The American people saw his vision of America and his dreams for the future and they overwhelmingly responded; he was re-elected in 984 by the largest number of electoral votes in the nation’s history. Here in this collection of twenty-eight speeches spanning the Reagan era, readers can find inspiration in Reagan’s “sermons.”

From his first speech in the political arena in 1964 to his Last Letter to America, informing Americans of his Alzheimer’s disease, Ronald Regan’s words show a profound belief in God, freedom, individualism, limited government, and his great love for his country. In addition to an introduction by Reagan’s son, Michael Reagan, each speech features an informative introduction which puts the speech into historical context, making The Last Best Hope the perfect entrée into the influence of one of the major figures of the 20th century.

Since his death in 1950, Sri Aurobindo Ghose has been known primarily as a yogi and a philosopher of spiritual evolution who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in peace and literature. But the years Aurobindo spent in yogic retirement were preceded by nearly four decades of rich public and intellectual work. Biographers usually focus solely on Aurobindo's life as a politician or sage, but he was also a scholar, a revolutionary, a poet, a philosopher, a social and cultural theorist, and the inspiration for an experiment in communal living.

Peter Heehs, one of the founders of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, is the first to relate all the aspects of Aurobindo's life in its entirety. Consulting rare primary sources, Heehs describes the leader's role in the freedom movement and in the framing of modern Indian spirituality. He examines the thinker's literary, cultural, and sociological writings and the Sanskrit, Bengali, English, and French literature that influenced them, and he finds the foundations of Aurobindo's yoga practice in his diaries and unpublished letters. Heehs's biography is a sensitive, honest portrait of a life that also provides surprising insights into twentieth-century Indian history.

“I love this book. It feels like a secret treasure bequeathed by Stephen Levine to be opened after his death—an overflowing vessel of insight, humor and literary genius. Animal Sutras may be the best book Stephen Levine ever wrote.” —Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy

“Stephen was a profound healer of the heart, writer and meditation teacher. In Animal Sutras, his other gifts shine, as a wise poet-naturalist and Dharma storyteller-philosopher, offered here in a lyrical, quirky, playful, and inviting collection.” —Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart

For Stephen Levine, “animal-people” were his greatest teachers. So, at age seventy, he began collecting animal spirit stories and transcendent moments in nature from throughout his life—from the green snake who taught him to meditate as a boy to the generous hen whom predators would not harm, and many more. “Animals have a natural mindfulness,” Levine writes. “They know what they are doing. Humans, who are full of confusion and seldom wholly in touch with their mind/body, need encouragement and technique to live in the present.”

Stephen Levine (1937–2016) was an American poet, author, and spiritual teacher best known for his work, with his wife Ondrea, on death and dying. He is one of a generation of pioneering teachers who made Theravada Buddhism more widely available to students in the West. Like the writings of his colleague and close friend Ram Dass (formerly Richard Alpert), Levine’s work is also flavored by the devotional practices and teachings of the Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba. Levine spent many years in the Southwest, including one tending a wildlife sanctuary in southern Arizona, and among the mountains of New Mexico, where Ondrea still lives. His many books include Who Dies?, A Year to Live, Unattended Sorrow, and Healing into Life and Death.

How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere captures for a general audience the spiritual shift away from a God “up there” and “out there” and towards an immanent divine right here. It’s built around the personal journeys of a close-knit group of prominent contributors. Their spiritual visions of immanence, sometimes called “panentheism,” are serving as a path of spiritual return for a growing number of seekers today. Contributors include Deepak Chopra, Richard Rohr, Matthew Fox, Rupert Sheldrake, Cynthia Bourgeault, Ilia Delio, Keith Ward, John B. Cobb Jr., Loriliai Biernacki, Marjorie H. Suchocki, and Rabbi Bradley Shavid Artson.

How the South Bronx and Puerto Rican migration defined Fr. Neil Connolly’s priesthood as he learned to both serve and be part of his community

South Bronx, 1958. Change was coming. Guidance was sorely needed to bridge the old and the new, for enunciating and implementing a vision. It was a unique place and time in history where Father Neil Connolly found his true calling and spiritual awakening. The Kingdom Began in Puerto Rico captures the spirit of the era and the spirit of this great man.

Set in historical context of a changing world and a changing Catholic Church, The Kingdom Began in Puerto Rico follows Fr. Neil Connolly’s path through the South Bronx, which began with a special Church program to address the postwar great Puerto Rican migration. After an immersion summer in Puerto Rico, Fr. Neil served the largest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the Bronx from the 1960s to the 1980s as they struggled for a decent life. Through the teachings of Vatican II, Connolly assumed responsibility for creating a new Church and world. In the war against drugs, poverty, and crime, Connolly created a dynamic organization and chapel run by the people and supported Unitas, a nationally unique peer-driven mental health program for youth. Frustrated by the lack of institutional responses to his community’s challenges, Connolly challenged government abandonment and spoke out against ill-conceived public plans. Ultimately, he realized that his priestly mission was in developing new leaders among people, in the Church and the world, and supporting two nationally unique lay leadership programs, the Pastoral Center and People for Change.

Discovering the real mission of priesthood, urban ministry, and the Catholic Church in the United States, author Angel Garcia ably blends the dynamic forces of Church and world that transformed Fr. Connolly as he grew into his vocation. The book presents a rich history of the South Bronx and calls for all urban policies to begin with the people, not for the people. It also affirms the continuing relevance of Vatican II and Medellin for today’s Church and world, in the United States and Latin America.

The book provides an account of many Jesuits, from the time of St. Ignatius to the 1990’s, who have been incarcerated around the world for their faith. It is divided into chapters that deal with specific themes related to their imprisonment. The principal themes are: prayer as a key element in survival, arrest and trial procedures, the experience of suffering, Mass, the daily order of prison life, forced labor, ministry to other prisoners, guards, prisoners who became Jesuits while imprisoned, community in prison, and voluntary incarceration.

This is the first book to examine the experience of incarcerated Jesuits around the world and down through the centuries from the standpoint of these various themes. Much of the material is by the Jesuits themselves, in letters, autobiographical fragments and other sources—including obscure publications long out of print. The result is a gathering together of these pieces and fragments into a coordinated whole, with commentary on their significance in the context of the political and cultural situations of their time—situations that were generally the immediate cause of the Jesuits imprisonment, whether in Elizabethan England or in Communist China and Russia.

A chart of imprisoned Jesuits by country of incarceration at the beginning, and a glossary of names at the back (as well as an index), will help the reader to keep track of the names of the many Jesuits who figure in the book.

In 1946 Edward Rohs was left by his unwed parents at the Angel Guardian Home to be raised by the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters hoped that his parents would one day return for him. In time they married and had other
children, but Ed’s parents never came back for him. And they never signed the legal papers so that he could be adopted by another family.

Raised by the Church chronicles the extraordinary life of Ed Rohs, a bright, mischievous boy who was raised in five institutions of the Catholic orphanage system in postwar Brooklyn, New York, from infancy in 1946 until he was discharged as an adult in 1965.

Rohs was one of thousands of children taken in by Catholic institutions during the tumultuous post-WWII years: out-of-wedlock infants, children whose fathers had been killed in the war, and children of parents in crisis. Ed
gives a brief history of each institution before describing that world—the Sisters and Brothers who raised him, the food, his companions, and the Catholic community that provided social and emotional support.

When Ed finally leaves the institutions after nineteen years, he has a difficult time adjusting. He slowly assimilates into “normal” life and determinedly rises above his origins, achieving an advanced degree and career success, working for years in child welfare and as volunteer strength coach for the Fordham University basketball team. He hides his upbringing out of shame and fear of others’ pity. But as he begins
to reflect on his own story and to talk to the people who raised him, Ed begins to see a larger story intertwined with his own.

With original research based on interviews with clergymen and nuns, archival data from the New York Archdiocese, and government records, Raised by the Church tells the social history of an era when hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers passed through the orphanage system. Through the story of one man, this book gives us a much needed historical perspective on an American society that understood and acknowledged the community’s need for a safe haven.

This refreshing re-evaluation of the so-called autobiography of Ignatius Loyola (c. 1491–1556) situates Ignatius’s Acts against the backgrounds of the spiritual geography of Luke’s New Testament writings and the culture of Renaissance humanism. Ignatius Loyola’s So-Called Autobiography builds upon recent scholarly consensus, examines the language of the text that Ignatius Loyola dictated as his legacy to fellow Jesuits late in life, and discusses relevant elements of the social, historical, and religious contexts in which the text came to birth. Recent monographs by Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle and John W. O’Malley have characterized Ignatius’s Acts as a mirror of vainglory and of apostolic religious life, respectively. In this study, John M. McManamon, S.J., persuasively argues that an appreciation of the two Lukan New Testament writings likewise helps interpret the theological perspectives of Ignatius. The geography of Luke’s two writings and the theology that undergirds Luke’s redactional innovation assisted Ignatius in remembering and understanding the crucial acts of God in his own life.

This eloquent, lucidly written new book is essential reading for anyone interested in Ignatius, the early Jesuits, sixteenth-century religious life, and the history of early modern Europe.

This book is the first biography in 42 years of the priest and educator whom
historians have called “the most important anticommunist in the country.”
Edmund A. Walsh, as dean of Georgetown College and founder in 1919 of its
School of Foreign Service, is one of the most influential Catholic figures of the
20th century. Soon after the birth of the Bolshevik state, he directed the Papal
Relief Mission in the Soviet Union, starting a lifelong immersion in Soviet and
Communist affairs. He also established a Jesuit college in Baghdad, and served
as a consultant to the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
A pioneer in the new science of geopolitics, Walsh became one of Truman’s most
trusted advisers on Soviet strategy. He wrote four books, dozens of articles, and
gave thousands of speeches on the moral and political threat of Soviet Communism
in America. Although he died in 1956, Walsh left an indelible imprint on the
ideology and practical politics of Cold War Washington, moving easily outside the
traditional boundaries of American Catholic life and becoming, in the words of one
historian, “practically an institution by himself.” Few priests, indeed few Catholics,
played so large a role in shaping American foreign policy in the 20th century.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666) is a spiritual autobiography by English author and Puritan preacher John Bunyan. Written while Bunyan was serving a lengthy prison sentence for preaching without a license, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners is both a record of Bunyan’s personal experience, the story of his conversion, and a document of a time of historical and political crisis in England. The restoration of King Charles II to the throne in 1660—which followed years of sectarian violence and the 1649 execution of his father Charles I—initiated a period of religious and political repression. Nonconformist Christians, and preachers especially, were forbidden from practicing their faith, a crime for which Bunyan was arrested. He was tried and convicted in 1661, spending the next twelve years in Bedford County Gaol.

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, written and published during this period, is the story of Bunyan’s life, focusing on his conversion to Puritanism and his personal trials as a man punished for his beliefs. Containing numerous biblical references, Bunyan’s work is similar to Saint Augustine’s Confessions in its compositional structure—beginning with the author’s sinful youth, it moves through his process of conversion to his growth as a Christian and rise to the status of preacher. Where it differs, however, is in its detailed description of Bunyan’s arrest and imprisonment, a time he relied on his belief in God to carry him safely through.

While less popular than The Pilgrim’s Progress, a Christian allegory Bunyan began writing in jail, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners is an important and powerful work which has inspired generations of Christians, including John Brown and Martin Luther King Jr.

This edition of John Bunyan’s

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

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.

Confessions (401) is the work of Saint Augustine, a Roman theologian and bishop responsible for some of the core doctrines of today’s Catholic church. His literary works, including The Confessions, The Enchiridion, and On Christian Doctrine, are commonly viewed as foundational works of Christian theology and Western philosophy. Bishop of Hippo Regius—in modern day Algeria—from 395 to his death in 430, Augustine helped to justify and consolidate the role of Christianity in the Roman Empire and was canonized as a saint for his efforts.

A young man does poorly in school, steals from his neighbor’s orchard, and has a son with a woman to whom he is not married. These are some of the core personal experiences detailed by Augustine in his autobiographical and theological work Confessions, in which he grows from a life of sin to accepting God and the Christian faith. Interspersed with stories of his life and conversion are descriptions and critiques of Neoplatonism, Manichaeism, and astrology, systems of belief and understanding which, for Augustine, fall short of the vision of humanity and salvation offered by Christianity. Throughout this text, Augustine encourages readers—especially those who have led troubled lives—not only to convert to Christianity, but to understand the inherent imperfection of all humanity and to envision the ultimately hopeful message of transformation and forgiveness offered by faith in God. Confessions is at heart a Christian text, but it is also essentially human. Augustine is remembered not just as a saint and Christian leader, but as a figure who precipitated the evolution of Western thought.

Augustine’s Confessions is a foundational work of autobiographical and philosophical writing, influencing such writers as Blaise Pascal, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, Bertrand Russell, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Its personal nature and depth of honesty are considered formal innovations in autobiography and memoir writing, and its meditations on God and human nature have made it an essential text for philosophers and theologians for centuries.

This edition of Saint Augustine’s Confessions is a classic of autobiography and Christian theology reimagined for modern readers.

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.

Many people know that Sir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was a British statesman and prime minister, a speechmaker who led his country through World War II. What, perhaps, they don't know is that he came under enemy fire over 50 times; that he took 36 bottles of wine, 18 of scotch and 6 of brandy to the Boer War; that he painted over 600 works of art and won the Nobel Prize for Literature; and that he developed his taste for Havana cigars while working as a war correspondent in Cuba.

The ‘Biographic’ series presents an entirely new way of looking at the lives of the world’s greatest thinkers and creatives. It takes the 50 defining facts, dates, thoughts, habits, and achievements of each subject, and uses infographics to convey each of them in vivid snapshots.

This groundbreaking biography of Mikhail Tomsky reveals his central role in all the key developments in early Soviet history, including the stormy debates over the role of trade unions in the self-proclaimed workers’ state. Charters Wynn’s compelling account illuminates how the charismatic Tomsky rose from an impoverished working-class to become both a Politburo member and the head of the trade unions, where he helped shape Soviet domestic and foreign policy along generally moderate lines throughout the 1920s. His failed attempt to block Stalin’s catastrophic adoption of forced collectivization of agriculture would tragically make Tomsky a prime target in the Great Purges.

RUS

Опираясь на российские и британские архивы и мощную базу вторичных источников, Чартерс Уинн предлагает новые интерпретации истории советских профсоюзов и политики Коммунистической партии в 1920-х годах. В центре его монографии — фигура Михаила Томского, жизненный и политический путь которого автор прослеживает от начала политической активности в дореволюционной заводской среде и до последнего — ставшего фатальным — конфликта со Сталиным по поводу коллективизации.

A revelatory biography of Australia’s longest-serving prime minister.

Robert Menzies claimed the prime ministership in 1939 and led the nation during the early years of the war, but resigned two years later when he lost the confidence of his party. His political career seemed over, and yet he staged one of the great comebacks to forge a new political party, devise a new governing philosophy, and craft a winning electoral approach that as to make him Australia’s longest-serving prime minister.

The lessons Menzies learned—and the way he applied them—made him a model that every Liberal leader since has looked to for inspiration. But debate over Menzies’ life and legacy has never settled.

Who was Robert Menzies, what did he stand for, what did he achieve? Troy Bramston has not only researched the official record and published accounts, but has also interviewed members of Menzies’ family, and his former advisers and ministers. He has also been given exclusive access to family letters, as well as to a series of interviews that Menzies gave that have never been revealed before. They are a major historical find, in which Menzies talks about his life, reflects on political events and personalities, offers political lessons, and candidly assesses his successors.

Robert Menzies is the first biography in 20 years of the Liberal icon—and it contains important contemporary lessons for those who want to understand, and master, the art and science of politics.

Winner of the 2020 Australian National Biography Award and the 2020 NSW Premier’s Non-Fiction Award.

The oddly compelling story of a man regarded as Australia’s worst prime minister.

William McMahon was a significant, if widely derided and disliked, figure in Australian politics in the second half of the twentieth century. This biography tells the story of his life, his career, and his doomed attempts to recast views of his much-maligned time as Australia’s prime minister.

After a long ministerial career under Menzies, McMahon became treasurer under Harold Holt, and fought a fierce, bitter war over protectionism with John McEwen. Following Holt’s death in 1967, McEwen had his revenge by vetoing McMahon’s candidature for the Liberal Party’s leadership, and thus paved the way for John Gorton to become prime minister. But almost three years later, amid acrimony and division, McMahon would topple Gorton and fulfill his life’s ambition to become Australia’s prime minister.

In office, McMahon worked furiously to enact an agenda that grappled with the profound changes reshaping Australia. He withdrew combat forces from Vietnam, legislated for Commonwealth government involvement in childcare, established the National Urban and Regional Development Authority and the first Department of the Environment, began phasing out the means test on pensions, sought to control foreign investments, and accelerated the timetable for the independence of Papua New Guinea. But his failures would overshadow his successes, and by the time of the 1972 election McMahon would lead a divided, tired, and rancorous party to defeat. 

A man whose life was coloured by tragedy, comedy, persistence, courage, farce, and failure, McMahon’s story has never been told at length. The Life and Stories of William McMahon fills that gap, using deep archival research and extensive interviews with McMahon’s contemporaries and colleagues. It is a tour de force - an authoritative and colourful account of a unique politician and a vital period in Australia’s history.

He was the reformer who made Victoria a leader in social equality, the arts, and the environment. He and his government built the underground rail loop, decriminalised homosexuality, abolished capital punishment, and outlawed sexual discrimination in the workplace.

Hamer and his team ended the demolition of the inner suburbs, preserved the best of the state’s buildings and landscapes, and set aside large areas of diverse ecosystems as national parks. They gave Melbourne key infrastructure such as the West Gate Bridge and the Thomson Dam, extended the city’s tramlines for the first time in half a century, and built art galleries, libraries, and theatres all over the state.

Yet Dick Hamer was a Liberal: a Toorak boy educated at Victoria’s best schools, who served for years under the conservative Sir Henry Bolte before taking the reins himself and making the Liberal Party a spearhead of reform from 1972 to 1981.

Hamer was a different kind of politician. He was intelligent, fair-minded, courteous, and hard-working, and governed with the longterm interests of his people in mind. He never tried to manufacture issues or direct debates for short-term political gain.

Victorians recognised this, and elected him three times in a row as their premier—the last Liberal premier in Australia to have achieved this feat. He stands as the exemplar of important qualities in the Liberal tradition. Dick Hamer: the liberal Liberal is the first biography to be written of this remarkable man, who so embodied a quality now lacking in our public life: integrity.

Elle a osé réussir (in English, She Dared to Succeed), delves into the life of a woman who, for more than 30 years, broke multiple glass ceilings in the Canadian media and political worlds. Well-known in the broadcasting industry, she was propelled to the political forefront following her appointment to the Senate of Canada (1995) and her election as President of the Liberal Party of Canada (2006).

She had to overcome many challenges throughout her career: sexism, prejudice against single mothers and career women, wage disparities, and harassment in the workplace. Above all, she experienced the opprobrium reserved for Senate members—all of whom were exonerated—targeted as part of the Senate expenses scandal (2012-2016). In this book, she bears witness to the human cost of this chapter of Canadian history.

This biography, with a foreword by the Hon. John Manley, is the fruit of impressive research by the author, who not only interviewed Madame Charette-Poulin at length, but also conducted 67 interviews, including with prominent Canadians such as Right Honourable Jean Chrétien and Brian Mulroney, the Honourable Sheila Copps, Sharon Carstairs, Mike Duffy, Hugh Segal, Céline Hervieux-Payette, Vivienne Poy, Linda Frum, Sheila Fraser, as well as judges Robert Desmarais, and Robert Del Frate.

She dared to succeed... despite it all.

Also available in English (She Dared To Succeed)
Available in hardcover, trade paperback, and accessible PDF et ePUB formats.

Shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday, September 1, 1928, Europe gained a new kingdom and its only Muslim king: 32-year-old Zog I of the Albanians. Few foreign journalists were present in the Parliament House in Tirana to hear him swear his oath on the Koran and the Bible, yet the birth of the Kingdom of Albania—a native monarchy, not an alien imposition—did not go unnoticed abroad.
King Zog (1895–1961) was a curiosity, and so he has remained: the most atypical European monarch of the twentieth century, a man entirely without royal connections who created his own kingdom. By contemporaries, he was variously labeled "the last ruler of romance," "an appalling gangster," "the modern Napoleon," "the finest patriot," and "frankly a cad." Even today his reputation is disputed, but Zog is undeniably one of the foremost figures in Albanian history. Though notorious for cut-throat political intrigue, he promised to bring order and progress to a land that had long known little of either. "It was I who made Albania," he claimed.
Zog's reign ended in 1939; Italian Fascists forced him into exile and post-war Stalinists kept him there despite his best efforts to return. In this first full biography, Jason Tomes explores the reality behind the man described in The Times as "the bizarre King Zog" and shows him to have been the product of a unique time and place. Tomes invites readers to set aside their assumptions about modern European monarchy and meet a king who fired back at assassins and paid his bills with gold bullion.

The shocking assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 propelled the memory of the slain president to a revered status. Naturally enough, the public came to terms with the tragedy in Dallas by investing the chief executive's life with Lincolnesque significance--a moral importance transcending politics.
Traditionally, historians have accentuated either the positive "Camelot" or the negative "counter-Camelot" view of JFK. Measured appreciation became adulation and criticism evolved into vilification. Bringing together leading Kennedy scholars with a group of younger historians, Mark J. White demonstrates that both versions of JFK are unsatisfying caricatures, lacking subtlety and nuance. Using recently declassified documents, Kennedy examines many of the key issues surrounding the president's time in the White House: Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin issue, the space race, relations with de Gaulle, and trade policy. Rejecting the idolatry and bitterness evident in so many previous works on JFK, the volume presents a compelling reappraisal of the Kennedy presidency.

Historic Photos of Harry S. Truman illustrates the life of one of the least complex and most transparent of our American presidents. As he said, "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

The dozens of photos in this book follow Truman's life of preparing, however unknowingly, to step into the rather large shoes of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The emerging theme of his life underscores the value of human interaction—his was a life spent building social networks. Whether it be business clubs, the Masons, or the military, Truman made loyal friends and powerful allies. Through these interactions, he learned to listen and to lead.

With facts and quotations from newspaper accounts, interviews, and diary entries, the captions in Historic Photos of Harry S. Truman help make his life and career come alive on the book's pages.

Historic Photos of Harry S. Truman illustrates the life of one of the least complex and most transparent of our American presidents. As he said, "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

The dozens of photos in this book follow Truman's life of preparing, however unknowingly, to step into the rather large shoes of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The emerging theme of his life underscores the value of human interaction—his was a life spent building social networks. Whether it be business clubs, the Masons, or the military, Truman made loyal friends and powerful allies. Through these interactions, he learned to listen and to lead.

With facts and quotations from newspaper accounts, interviews, and diary entries, the captions in Historic Photos of Harry S. Truman help make his life and career come alive on the book's pages.

Theodore Roosevelt: Hero

"Every great nation owes to the men whose lives have formed part of its greatness not merely the material effect of what they did, not merely the laws they placed upon the statute books or the victories they won over armed foes, but also the immense but indefinable moral influence produced by their deeds and words themselves upon the national character." —Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals

Before his fiftieth birthday, Teddy Roosevelt had served as a state legislator in New York, undersecretary of the navy, police commissioner of New York City, governor of New York, and two terms as Vice President and then president of the United States. He also had run a cattle ranch in the Dakota Territories, had worked as a journalist and editor, conducted scientific expeditions o four continents, raised five children, and enjoyed a fulfilling marriage with his wife. No wonder he continues to capture our imaginations as he did the loyalty and respect of his own time.

In The Courage and Character of Theodore Roosevelt, George Grant explores the life and character of one of the most remarkable men of the twentieth century. In doing so, he defines the qualities that made Roosevelt such an extraordinary leader, the exploits that made him so famous, and the spiritual values and faith that he affirmed with such vigor as he walked the world stage with an impact generated by few men in his time.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, architect of Egypt’s 1952 Revolution, president of the country from 1956 to 1970, hero to millions across the Arab world since the Suez Crisis, was also a family man, a devoted husband and father who kept his private life largely private.
In 1973, three years after his early passing at the age of 52, his wife Tahia wrote a memoir of her beloved husband for her family. The family then waited almost forty years, through the presidencies of Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, both unsympathetic to the memory of Nasser, before publishing Tahia’s book in Arabic for the first time in 2011. Now this unique insight into the life of one of the giants of the twentieth century is finally available in English.
Accompanied by more than one hundred photographs from the family archive, many never before published, this historic book tells the story of Gamal and Tahia’s life together from their marriage in 1944, through the Revolution and Gamal’s career on the world stage, revealing an unknown and intimate picture of the man behind the president.
“At 6:30am on the morning of July 23, 1952 there was a knock on the door. Tharwat Okasha shook my hand and congratulated me: ‘The military coup has succeeded.’ I asked him about Gamal. ‘He is close by, not more than five minutes away at the General Command.’ At 9:30am an officer called: he had come from the General Command at Kubri al-Qubba, sent by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser to tell me that he was fine and would not be home for lunch.”

To coincide with the release of Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix, in November 2023.

Napoleon: His Life, His Battles, His Empire offers an unprecedented insight into the mind of this extraordinary man who, from modest beginnings on the small island of Corsica, became Emperor of France and its vast empire.

It examines the battles that made him a legend - Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena and Wagram - and looks at his social and political reforms which revolutionized the western world.

Illustrated with stunning artworks, sketches and photographs, the authors draw on painstakingly researched documents, including the Treaty of Campo Formio, signed by Napoleon, love letters from Napoleon to Josephine, Napoleon's proclamation to his troops before the Battle of Austerlitz and the codicil to the great man's will, to give a glorious account of a fascinating man.