Bodyguard Matilda Karsen agrees to take an unusual assignment rescuing an heiress from a cult and uncovers a mass murder that will launch an international manhunt with her as the target. Zachary Goldeagle, producer, adventurer and Hopi shaman offers to help an old friend. They become embroiled in a deadly international intrigue, pitted against wealthy and powerful adversaries who want them both dead or worse. In a race around the globe, they have one chance to keep an ancient secret from the wrong hands. It means facing the Labyrinth of the Initiate a place designed to kill.
“Wounds into Wisdom is for anyone who has suffered trauma, either directly or in a family whose generational trauma is buried. It helps readers uncover suffering and use it to help others―the final stage of healing. We may not be able to control what happens to us, but we can control what happens next.” ―Gloria Steinem 2020 Nautilus Book Award―GOLD/Psychology 2020 Book Award from the Jewish Women’s Caucus of the Association for Women in Psychology 2019 Book of the Year Award Finalist in Religion and Self-Help categories Our past does not simply disappear. The painful history of our ancestors and their rich cultural wisdom intertwine within us to create the patterns of our future. Even when past trauma remains unspoken or has long been forgotten, it becomes part of us and our children―a legacy of both strength and woundedness that shapes our lives. In this book, Tirzah Firestone brings to life the profound impact of protracted historical trauma through the compelling narratives of Israeli terror victims, Holocaust survivors, and those whose lives were marred by racial persecution and displacement. The tragic story of Firestone’s own family lays the groundwork for these revealing testimonies of recovery, forgiveness, and moral leadership. Throughout, Firestone interweaves their voices with neuroscientific and psychological findings, as well as relevant and inspiring Jewish teachings. Seven principles emerge from these wise narratives―powerful prescriptive tools that speak to anyone dealing with the effects of past injury. At the broadest level, these principles are directives for staying morally awake in a world rife with terror.
Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town tells the story of growing up in the rubber community of Firestone Park in Akron, Ohio"the former Rubber Capital of the World. The book begins with the rededication of the bronze Harvey Firestone statue on August 3, 2000, at the Centennial celebration for the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company. The statue"perched high on a hill at the entrance to Firestone Park, the residential community Harvey built for his workers in 1915"was sacred to the author, Joyce Coyne Dyer, and her father, Tom Coyne, during the fifties, a time when the Coynes worshipped the company and thought themselves members of the Firestone family.
The rubber industry was born in bankruptcy and built through bankruptcies. As this history details, many of the great rubber barons--Charles Goodyear, Harvey Firestone, B.F. Goodrich, F.A. Seiberling--found themselves or their companies in bankruptcy courts. Fortunately, the industry has always proven as elastic as its product. From the early search for an American location to process the rubber of the tropics to the collapse of the industry, this is the story of rubber in America.
An ambitious and shocking exposé of America’s hidden empire in Liberia, run by the storied Firestone corporation, and its long shadow In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the world’s automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the world’s rubber. But only one percent of the world’s rubber grew under the U.S. flag, creating a bottleneck that hampered the nation’s explosive economic expansion. To solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny West African nation, Liberia, founded in 1847 as a free Black republic. Empire of Rubber tells a sweeping story of capitalism, racial exploitation, and environmental devastation, as Firestone transformed Liberia into America’s rubber empire. Historian and filmmaker Gregg Mitman scoured remote archives to unearth a history of promises unfulfilled for the vast numbers of Liberians who toiled on rubber plantations built on taken land. Mitman reveals a history of racial segregation and medical experimentation that reflected Jim Crow America—on African soil. As Firestone reaped fortunes, wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few elites, fostering widespread inequalities that fed unrest, rebellions and, eventually, civil war. A riveting narrative of ecology and disease, of commerce and science, and of racial politics and political maneuvering, Empire of Rubber uncovers the hidden story of a corporate empire whose tentacles reach into the present.
This book takes stock of arguments about the historical legacies of communism that have become common within the study of Russia and East Europe more than two decades after communism's demise and elaborates an empirical approach to the study of historical legacies revolving around relationships and mechanisms rather than correlation and outward similarities. Eleven essays by a distinguished group of scholars assess whether post-communist developments in specific areas continue to be shaped by the experience of communism or, alternatively, by fundamental divergences produced before or after communism. Chapters deal with the variable impact of the communist experience on post-communist societies in such areas as regime trajectories and democratic political values; patterns of regional and sectoral economic development; property ownership within the energy sector; the functioning of the executive branch of government, the police, and courts; the relationship of religion to the state; government language policies; and informal relationships and practices.
Reviews: Hall’s Tundra Stone series blends near-future dystopia, elements of magic, and alternate worlds for a story that fully merges science fiction with fantasy... fans seeking a fresh interpretation of a dystopian future, with a touch of magic and a sense of the power of nature, this story hits the spot. (Booklife) Alex and Billey’s chapters alternate with first-person perspectives, keeping events intimate and on parallel tracks. Many genre tropes entwine, including apocalyptic survivors developing powers and a scandal happening in the fae courts... A deep exploration of character emotions ensures careful pacing (Kirkus Review) Friendship, danger, deception, and the power of communing with nature power the narrative... Hall strikes a believable, chillingly familiar chord with the Orange event that poisons the land, kills many people, and forces those who survive to fight for dwindling resources. (Booklife) Eighteen-year-old Alex Chegasa, one of the first generation to be raised on post-apocalyptic Earth, was taught to embrace her magical gifts. After the Orange, as the planet burned, magic trickled in. The bombs that had wiped out most life ripped open the barrier between worlds. Can the next generation, connected to the magic, be the solution to mankind’s problems or are they destined to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors? Did the Orange, the very thing that ravaged the planet, also provide the solution? Or is magic more than a coincidence? While Alex searches for somewhere to belong, in Massachusetts, she questions if survival is enough when she comes to understand that magic, used by the wrong people, could be more dangerous than the power of the generations before her. Meanwhile, in a parallel story, we meet eight-hundred-year-old Fae, Billey NicNevin. With a past she doesn’t remember, she struggles to fit into Nuadh Caled (New Scotland) as it rebuilds itself. When she meets a woman whose soul calls to her, will she find her missing piece or tumble into insanity? Are their destinies connected? What if the fantastical stories from Alex’s childhood were true?
The world has changed. Two hundred years ago most people lived in small rural communities. They walked or rode a horse when they traveled. Water wheels were their only source of power. Communication was restricted to the spoken and printed word. But everything changed. The change started slowly in the forests of western New York. Visionaries used the technology of the 1800's to manufacture potash from ashes, used the technology of the 1820's to collect and market natural gas, and used the technology of the 1840's to make kerosene from petroleum. Advances in engineering made it possible to dig canals and build railroads to get these products to market. These canals and railroads accelerated the pace of change. Merchants then learned to protect their interests by influencing public policy and funding decisions being made in the state legislatures and in the United States Congress. This resulting combination of technology, engineering, and public policy impacted the lives of those who lived in Chautauqua County many years ago, and it still impacts our lives today.
