Read and Download eBook Full
Author: Swanee Hunt
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2006-10-04
Total Pages: 436
ISBN-13: 9780822338758
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn autobiography by Swanee Hunt, daughter of the legendary oil magnate H. L. Hunt, Bill Clinton's Ambassador to Austria, and internationally renowned philanthropist.
Author: Reza Aslan
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2013-09-12
Total Pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9351360776
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative end meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. Two thousand years ago, an itinerant Jewish preacher from Galilee launched a revolutionary movement proclaiming the "Kingdom of God", and threatened the established order of first-century Palestine. Defying both Imperial Rome and its collaborators in the Jewish religious hierarchy, he was captured, tortured and executed as a state criminal. Within decades, his followers would call him the Son of God. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic figures by examining Jesus within the context of the times in which he lived: the age of zealotry, an era awash in apocalyptic fervor, when scores of Jewish prophets and would-be messiahs wandered the Holy Land bearing messages from God. They also espoused a fervent nationalism that made resistance to Roman occupation a sacred duty. Balancing the Jesus of the Gospels against historical sources, Aslan describes a complex gure: a man of peace who exhorted his followers to arm themselves; an exorcist and faith healer who urged his disciples to keep his identity secret; and the seditious 'King of the Jews', whose promise of liberation from Rome went unful lled in his lifetime. Aslan explores why the early Church preferred to promulgate an image of Jesus as a peaceful spiritual teacher rather than a politically conscious revolutionary, and grapples with the riddle of how Jesus understood himself. Zealot provides a fresh perspective on one of the greatest stories ever told. The result is a thought provoking, elegantly written biography with the pulse of a fast-paced novel, and a singularly brilliant portrait of a man, a time and the birth of religion.
Author: Amos Oz
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2018-11-13
Total Pages: 161
ISBN-13: 1328987566
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe acclaimed author presents “three passionate lectures about the state of politics in Israel” in this “humorous, mournful, enraged, and uplifting” volume (Kirkus). A National Jewish Book Award Finalist Israeli author Amos Oz has won numerous awards for his novels capturing the cultural and political complexities of his country, including the Frankfurt Peace Prize, the Primo Levi Prize, and the National Jewish Book Award. But these essays on the universal nature of fanaticism and its possible cures, on the Jewish roots of humanism and the need for a secular pride in Israel, and on the geopolitical standing of Israel in the wider Middle East and internationally, “may contain his most urgent message yet.” (Ruth Eglash, Washington Post). These essays were written, Oz states, “first and foremost” for his grandchildren: they are a patient, learned telling of history, religion, and politics, to be thumbed through and studied, clung to even, as we march toward an uncertain future. “Concise, evocative . . . Dear Zealots is not just a brilliant book of thoughts and ideas—it is a depiction of one man’s struggle, who for decades has insisted on keeping a sharp, strident and lucid perspective in the face of chaos and at times of madness.” —David Grossman, winner of the Man Booker International Prize
Author: Gordon Bonnet
Publisher: LIttle Bustard Books
Published: 2023-01-25
Total Pages: 403
ISBN-13: 1960370022
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDuncan Kyle is an ordinary twenty-something whose simple life of sports, his job, and his girlfriend comes to a crashing end late one night when he falls through the floor of his apartment. He finds himself in Malkuth, a desolate, desiccated world where the only living beings are a sardonic Sphinx and her invisible caretakers, who in this frigid place are drawn to anything that is warm. He is told by the Sphinx that he will have to make his way through the ten worlds of the Sephirot before he will be able to get back home. In each world he visits, he has to rely on his wits again and again not only to find his way to the next portal, but simply to stay alive. Along the way he meets a wild huntress who is torn between making love to Duncan and killing him; an elderly woman who tries to convince him that he has been ill and dreamed the whole thing; a scarlet-robed judge who sentences him to be whipped and then executed for performing evil magic; a kind potter and his daughter who take him in and heal him of his injuries; and a timid, soft-spoken Methodist minister who helps him to survive in a world where hell breaks loose, literally, once the sun goes down. And in each one, he has to summon the strength to keep going—because if he falls for the snare each world represents, he'll never find his way home.
Author: H. W. Brands
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2021-10-12
Total Pages: 481
ISBN-13: 0525563458
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFrom the acclaimed historian and bestselling author: a page-turning account of the epic struggle over slavery as embodied by John Brown and Abraham Lincoln—two men moved to radically different acts to confront our nation’s gravest sin. John Brown was a charismatic and deeply religious man who heard the God of the Old Testament speaking to him, telling him to destroy slavery by any means. When Congress opened Kansas territory to slavery in 1854, Brown raised a band of followers to wage war. His men tore pro-slavery settlers from their homes and hacked them to death with broadswords. Three years later, Brown and his men assaulted the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to arm slaves with weapons for a race war that would cleanse the nation of slavery. Brown’s violence pointed ambitious Illinois lawyer and former officeholder Abraham Lincoln toward a different solution to slavery: politics. Lincoln spoke cautiously and dreamed big, plotting his path back to Washington and perhaps to the White House. Yet his caution could not protect him from the vortex of violence Brown had set in motion. After Brown’s arrest, his righteous dignity on the way to the gallows led many in the North to see him as a martyr to liberty. Southerners responded with anger and horror to a terrorist being made into a saint. Lincoln shrewdly threaded the needle between the opposing voices of the fractured nation and won election as president. But the time for moderation had passed, and Lincoln’s fervent belief that democracy could resolve its moral crises peacefully faced its ultimate test. The Zealot and the Emancipator is the thrilling account of how two American giants shaped the war for freedom.
Author: Reza Aslan
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-11-07
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 0553394738
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Zealot and host of Believer explores humanity’s quest to make sense of the divine in this concise and fascinating history of our understanding of God. In Zealot, Reza Aslan replaced the staid, well-worn portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth with a startling new image of the man in all his contradictions. In his new book, Aslan takes on a subject even more immense: God, writ large. In layered prose and with thoughtful, accessible scholarship, Aslan narrates the history of religion as a remarkably cohesive attempt to understand the divine by giving it human traits and emotions. According to Aslan, this innate desire to humanize God is hardwired in our brains, making it a central feature of nearly every religious tradition. As Aslan writes, “Whether we are aware of it or not, and regardless of whether we’re believers or not, what the vast majority of us think about when we think about God is a divine version of ourselves.” But this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature—our compassion, our thirst for justice—but all that is bad in it: our greed, our bigotry, our penchant for violence. All these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. Whether you believe in one God, many gods, or no god at all, God: A Human History will challenge the way you think about the divine and its role in our everyday lives. Praise for God “Timely, riveting, enlightening and necessary.”—HuffPost “Tantalizing . . . Driven by [Reza] Aslan’s grace and curiosity, God . . . helps us pan out from our troubled times, while asking us to consider a more expansive view of the divine in contemporary life.”—The Seattle Times “A fascinating exploration of the interaction of our humanity and God.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “[Aslan’s] slim, yet ambitious book [is] the story of how humans have created God with a capital G, and it’s thoroughly mind-blowing.”—Los Angeles Review of Books “Aslan is a born storyteller, and there is much to enjoy in this intelligent survey.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Author: Reza Aslan
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2011-03-01
Total Pages: 239
ISBN-13: 144644113X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK*Why do they hate us? An entire cottage industry has arisen to answer this question. But what no one has really figured out is, who exactly are they? Is it al-Qaeda? Islamic nationalists? The whole Muslim world? *HOW TO WIN A COSMIC WAR lays out, for the first time, a comprehensive definition of the movement behind and surrounding al-Qaeda and the like, a global ideology properly termed Jihadism. *Contrasting twenty-first-century religious extremism across Christianity, Judaism and Islam with its historical antecedents, Aslan demonstrates that while modern Jihadis may have legitimate social grievances - the suffering of the Palestinians, American support for Arab dictators, the presence of foreign troops in Muslim lands, to name a few - they have no real goals or actual agenda. *So, what do the Jihadists want? Aslan's answer is: Nothing. The Jihadists have no earthly agenda; they are fighting a metaphysical conflict, a theological war. And ever since 9/11, we have unfortunately been fighting the same cosmic war, the war they want: the so-called 'War on Terror'. *How do we win a Cosmic War? By refusing to fight in one. And in this stunning new work, Aslan reveals surprising conclusions about how we can deal with this predicament.
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2004-06-08
Total Pages: 434
ISBN-13: 1400078997
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities. • Now an acclaimed FX limited series streaming on HULU. “Fantastic.... Right up there with In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song.” —San Francisco Chronicle Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.
Author: O. S. Hawkins
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2024-04-02
Total Pages: 245
ISBN-13: 1430086084
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen the name W. A. Criswell is read or heard, certain thoughts come to mind. Many likely remember him as a president of the Southern Baptist Convention, or the founder of the Criswell College in Dallas, Texas, or the senior pastor for five decades of one of the largest Baptist churches in America, or even one of the key figures during the Conservative Resurgence. All of these are acknowledgments of the importance of the life of Criswell, but these do not necessarily capture who he was as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a friend and mentor. O.S. Hawkins was closely mentored by Criswell and was his pastoral successor. In Criswell: His Life and Times, Hawkins takes on the task of capturing the life of one of the most important figures in modern Baptist history. He discusses his humble upbringing, the dedication of his parents to ensure he received a proper education, his early years as a pastor, and how his love for the church influenced those around him over the course of his life. It is a biography that is both admiring and honest, and written with the knowledge of someone who could only know Criswell as a friend and a mentor.
Author: Scott Samuelson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-04-03
Total Pages: 231
ISBN-13: 022613041X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis accessible and thought-provoking introduction to philosophy shows how the eternal questions can shed light on our lives and struggles. These days, we generally leave philosophical matters to professional philosophers. Scott Samuelson thinks this is tragic, for our lives as well as for philosophy. In The Deepest Human Life, he restores philosophy to its proper place at the center of our humanity, rediscovering it as our most profound effort toward understanding, as a way of life that anyone can live. Exploring the works of some of history’s most important thinkers in the context of the everyday struggles of his students, Samuelson guides readers through the most vexing quandaries of existence—and shows just how enriching the examined life can be. Samuelson begins at the beginning: with Socrates, and the method he developed for approaching our greatest mysteries. From there he embarks on a journey through the history of philosophy, demonstrating how it is encoded in our own personal quests for meaning. Through heartbreaking stories, humanizing biographies, accessible theory, and evocative interludes like “On Wine and Bicycles” or “On Zombies and Superheroes,” Samuelson invests philosophy with the personal and vice versa. The result is a book that is at once a primer and a reassurance—that the most important questions endure, coming to life in each of us. Winner of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities
