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Drawing on 20 years' experience of officiating at interfaith weddings, the author provides advice on how to combine elements of two faiths so that everyone can rejoice with the bride and groom on their wedding day.

A new edition covering the latest scientific research on how the brain makes us believers or skepticsRecent polls report that 96 percent of Americans believe in God, and 73 percent believe that angels regularly visit Earth. Why is this? Why, despite the rise of science, technology, and secular education, are people turning to religion in greater numbers than ever before? Why do people believe in God at all? These provocative questions lie at the heart of How We Believe , an illuminating study of God, faith, and religion. Bestselling author Michael Shermer offers fresh and often startling insights into age-old questions, including how and why humans put their faith in a higher power, even in the face of scientific skepticism. Shermer has updated the book to explore the latest research and theories of psychiatrists, neuroscientists, epidemiologists, and philosophers, as well as the role of faith in our increasingly diverse modern world.Whether believers or nonbelievers, we are all driven by the need to understand the universe and our place in it. How We Believe is a brilliant scientific tour of this ancient and mysterious desire.

From the author of the now-classic Resource Wars, an indispensable account of how the world's diminishing sources of energy are radically changing the international balance of powerRecently, an unprecedented Chinese attempt to acquire the major American energy firm Unocal was blocked by Congress amidst hysterical warnings of a Communist threat. But the political grandstanding missed a larger point: the takeover bid was a harbinger of a new structure of world power, based not on market forces or on arms and armies but on the possession of vital natural resources.Surveying the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, Michael Klare, the preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, forecasts a future of surprising new alliances and explosive danger. World leaders are now facing the stark recognition that all materials vital for the functioning of modern industrial societies (not just oil and natural gas but uranium, coal, copper, and others) are finite and being depleted at an ever-accelerating rate. As a result, governments rather than corporations are increasingly spearheading the pursuit of resources. In a radically altered world- where Russia is transformed from battered Cold War loser to arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States is forced to compete with the emerging "Chindia" juggernaut-the only route to survival on a shrinking planet, Klare shows, lies through international cooperation.Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet surveys the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape, and argues that the only route to survival in our radically altered world lies through international cooperation."Klare's superb book explains, in haunting detail, the trends that will lead us into a series of dangerous traps unless we muster the will to transform the way we use energy." -- Bill McKibben

In Bottom of the Ninth, Michael Shapiro brings to life a watershed moment in baseball history, when the sport was under siege in the late 1950s "A fascinating look at an almost forgotten era . . . One of the best baseball books of recent seasons." -Cleveland Plain DealerShapiro reveals how the legendary executive Branch Rickey saw the game's salvation in two radical ideas: the creation of a third major league-the Continental League-and the pooling of television revenues for the benefit of all. And Shapiro captures the audacity of Casey Stengel, the manager of the Yankees, who believed that he could remake how baseball was played.The story of their ingenious schemes-and of the powerful men who tried to thwart them-is interwoven with the on-field drama of pennant races and clutch performances, culminating in the stunning climax of the seventh game of the 1960 World Series, when one swing of the bat heralds baseball's eclipse as America's number-one sport.

When the author and his wife drove to a rural animal shelter and adopted Murphy, a mistreated Saint Bernard, they vowed that they'd never become the kind of people who, say, get their dog a facial treatment. Chronicling the world of American pet mania, this title shows how the way we treat our pets reflects the ideas about consumerism, and family.

In eighteenth-century England - where cockfighting and bull baiting drew large crowds, and the abuse of animals was routine - the idea of animal protection was dismissed as laughably radical. This book presents a cultural narrative that takes us into the lives of animals - and into the minds of humans - during some of history's fascinating times.

When the 'sky train' to Tibet opened in 2006, the Chinese government fulfilled a fifty-year plan first envisioned by Mao Zedong. This book explores the lives of the Chinese and Tibetans swept up in the project.

"A wake-up call . . . Moser's argument is cogent."-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution In Blue Dixie, Bob Moser, an award-winning political reporter for The Nation, argues that the Democratic Party needs to jettison outmoded prejudices about the South if it wants to build a lasting national majority. With evangelical churches preaching a more expansive social gospel and a massive left-leaning demographic shift to African Americans, Latinos, and the young, the South is poised for a Democratic revival. Moser shows how a volatile mix of unprecedented economic prosperity and abject poverty are reshaping the Southern vote. By returning to a bold, unflinching message of economic fairness, the Democrats can win in the nation's largest, most diverse region and redeem themselves as a true party of the people. Keenly observed and deeply grounded in contemporary Southern politics, and with a new afterword covering the ramifications of the 2008 election, Blue Dixie reveals the changing state of American politics.

"Absorbing . . . Riveting . . . A legal thriller."-Kevin Boyle, The New York Times Book ReviewFollowing the Civil War, Colfax, Louisiana, was a town like many where African Americans and whites mingled uneasily. But on April 13, 1873, a small army of white ex-Confederate soldiers, enraged after attempts by freedmen to assert their new rights, killed more than sixty African Americans who had occupied a courthouse.Seeking justice for the slain, one brave U.S. attorney, James Beckwith, risked his life and career to investigate and punish the perpetrators-but they all went free. What followed was a series of courtroom dramas that culminated at the Supreme Court, where the justices' verdict compromised the victories of the Civil War and left Southern blacks at the mercy of violent whites for generations. The Day Freedom Died is a riveting historical saga that captures a gallery of characters from presidents to townspeople, and re-creates the bloody days of Reconstruction, when the often brutal struggle for equality moved from the battlefield into communities across the nation.

On September 26, 1918, more than one million American soldiers prepared to assault the German-held Meuse-Argonne region of France. This book offers accounts of combat, studded with portraits of remarkable soldiers like Pershing, Harry Truman, George Patton, and Alvin York.

Lays the fearful shape that nuclear danger has unexpectedly assumed in the 21st century. This title addresses the fundamental questions: How and why has nuclear danger revived? Where are we heading? What can be done? And, he argues that half measures will no longer suffice, nor will piece meal solutions that address isolated aspects of the crisis.

A "vivid, unpredictable, fair, balanced and . . . very entertaining" look at how education reforms have changed one typical American elementary school over the course of a year (Jay Mathews, The Washington Post)The pressure is on at schools across America. In recent years, reforms such as No Child Left Behind have created a new vision of education that emphasizes provable results, uniformity, and greater attention for floundering students. Schools are expected to behave more like businesses and are judged almost solely on the bottom line: test scores. To see if this world is producing better students, Linda Perlstein immersed herself in a suburban Maryland elementary school, once deemed a failure, that is now held up as an example of reform done right. Perlstein explores the rewards and costs of that transformation, and the resulting portrait-detailed, human, and truly thought-provoking-provides the first detailed view of how new education policies are modified by human realities.

"Geng's memoir . . . does much to restore integrity to the genre of the addict memoir as presented in classics by William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and Jerry Stahl."-The New York Times Book ReviewSteve Geng-thief, addict, committed member of Manhattan's criminal semi-elite-was a rhapsody in blue, all on his own. Women had a tendency to crack his head open. His sister? Also unusual: Veronica Geng wrote brilliantly eccentric pieces for The New Yorker, hung with rock stars and Pulitzer Prize winners, threw the occasional typewriter, fled intimacy. They were parallel universes, but when they converged, it was . . . memorable.Spanning decades of unresolved personal drama and rebellion, Steve Geng's memoir, Thick as Thieves, is the story of their lives, the bond between them, and all the things they shared. This is a memoir about two siblings who loved each other (sometimes), the thrill of the shoplift, and the power of the written word, which will lift your spirits, kick you in the shins, and help you remember the person who understood you the most. Geng has made a lot of mistakes in his life. Thick as Thieves may just make up for them.

Drawing on the author's personal history, this book presents the lives of three generations of women and their ordeals with love, rejection, and revolution.

"Admirably comprehensive . . . The Price of Liberty shows that [Hormats] knows his history."-Niall Ferguson, The Wall Street JournalAmerica's first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, identified the Revolutionary War debt as a threat to the nation's very existence. Ever since, Hamilton's principles for securing the country through sound finances have guided leaders from Madison and Lincoln to FDR and George H. W. Bush as they have fought to protect the United States-with the invention of the greenback, a progressive income tax, Victory Bond campaigns, and cost-sharing with allies.In this bracing work of history, Robert D. Hormats, one of America's leading experts on international finance, argues that the United States must realign its policies on taxes, defense spending, Social Security, Medicare, and oil dependency to safeguard the nation in the coming decades.

"Engaging . . . With a novelist's eye for biographical detail, Epps has written an . . . enthralling book."-David W. Blight, Chicago TribuneThe last battle of the Civil War wasn't fought at Appomattox by dashing generals or young soldiers but by middle-aged men in frock coats. Yet it was war all the same-a desperate struggle for the soul and future of the new American Republic that was rising from the ashes of Civil War. It was the battle that planted the seeds of democracy, under the bland heading "Amendment XIV." Scholars call it the "Second Constitution." Over time, the Fourteenth Amendment-which at last provided African Americans with full citizenship and prohibited any state from denying any citizen due process and equal protection under the law-changed almost every detail of our public life.Democracy Reborn tells the story of this desperate struggle, from the halls of Congress to the bloody streets of Memphis and New Orleans. Both a novelist and a constitutional scholar, Garrett Epps unfolds a powerful story against a panoramic portrait of America on the verge of a new era.

Drawing on a lifetime of field experience, this book tells the stories of the Mafia's twentieth-century bosses, showing how men such as Sam Giancana, "Crazy Joe" Gallo, and John Gotti became household names.

"[A] tightly crafted, very readable book . . . the best in-depth contemporary analysis we are going to get."-Stephen Flynn, The Washington PostWhen Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on August 29, 2005, federal and state officials were not prepared for the devastation it would bring. In this searing indictment of what went wrong, Christopher Cooper and Robert Block take readers inside FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security to reveal the inexcusable mismanagement during the crisis-the bad decisions that were made, the facts that were ignored, and the individuals who saw that the system was broken but did nothing to fix it.In this award-winning and critically acclaimed book, Cooper and Block reconstruct the crucial days before and after the storm hit, laying bare the government's inability to respond to the most elemental needs. They also demonstrate how the Bush administration's obsessive focus on terrorist threats fatally undermined the government's ability to respond to natural disasters. The incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina is a wake-up call to all Americans, wherever they live, about how distressingly vulnerable we remain.

"As warm and stimulating as a library to which one returns again and again."-Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice)While books contain insights into our selves and the world, it takes a conversation-between the author and the reader, or between two readers-to bring them fully to life. Drawing on sources as diverse as Dr. Seuss and Simone Weil, P. G. Wodehouse and Isaiah Berlin, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda shows how the wit, wisdom, and enchantment of the written word informs and enriches nearly every aspect of life, from education and work to love and death. Organized by significant life events and abounding with quotations from great writers and thinkers, Book by Book showcases Dirda's capacious love for and understanding of books. Favoring showing as much as telling, Dirda draws us deeper into the classics, as well as lesser-known works of literature, history, and philosophy, always with an eye to how we might better understand our lives.

A riveting account of the origins and development of the German army that breaks through the distortions of conventional military historyAcclaimed for his revisionist history of the German Army in World War I, John Mosier continues his pioneering work in Cross of Iron, offering an intimate portrait of the twentieth-century German army from its inception, through World War I and the interwar years, to World War II and its climax in 1945.World War I has inspired a vast mythology of bravery and carnage, told largely by the victors, that has fascinated readers for decades. Many have come to believe that the fast ascendancy of the Allied army, matched by the failure of a German army shackled by its rigidity, led to the war's outcome. Mosier demystifies the strategic and tactical realities to explain that it was Germany's military culture that provided it with the advantage in the first war. Likewise, Cross of Iron offers stunning revelations regarding the weapons of World War II, forcing a reevaluation of the reasons behind the French withdrawal, the Russian contribution, and Hitler as military thinker. Mosier lays to rest the notion that the army, as opposed to the SS, fought a clean and traditional war. Finally, he demonstrates how the German war machine succeeded against more powerful Allied armies until, in both wars, it was crushed by U.S. intervention.The result of thirty years of primary research, Cross of Iron is a powerful and authoritative reinterpretation of Germany at war.

"Compelling, suspenseful, and deeply reported . . . Masters gives a dramatic inside account of the fight between Spitzer and the titans of finance."-NewsdayFew politicians have burst onto the American scene with as much impact as Eliot Spitzer. As New York's attorney general, he exposed wrongdoing by stock analysts, mutual fund managers, and insurance brokers, and investigated corporations that have misled or defrauded ordinary investors and consumers. And as the next governor of New York, Spitzer is now a rising star on the national political scene.No reporter has had better or more complete behind-the-scenes access to Spitzer than Brooke A. Masters, who covered him for four years at The Washington Post. Spoiling for a Fight is her dramatic and revealing portrait of the politician who has brought down some of the biggest names in American finance and has set his sights on higher office. And in a new afterword, she chronicles his ascension to New York's highest office and assesses his future political prospects.

A practical, laugh-out-loud guide to adopting your man's family-from your first date to your firstbornGirlfriends, fiancées, and wives rejoice! Here, at last, is a book you can turn to in times of stress, panic, and family vacations to the smallest cottage ever built on the island of Nantucket. Mirroring the natural progression of a relationship and incorporating interviews from women just like you, this hilarious, savvy guide will help you survive your first meeting with future in-laws, from the holidays, weddings, and new babies, to the day they retire to the house next door because "it's a great real estate investment."Discover a wide array of sanity-retention techniques and tips on scoring major points with each and every in-law. Learn how to sweet-talk his sister, mollify his mother, and defuse potentially explosive situations-like when your pumpkin pie gives Nana a bad case of hives. Stories range from the tragic "my father-in-law just pinched my ass and not in that sportsmanship kind of way," to the triumphant "I'm now CEO of my grandfather-in-law's cement company-Thanks Pupup!"Offering handy translation charts with curse words in Persian and compliments in Cantonese, a list of gifts and how to interpret their hidden meaning, tips for reclaiming the holidays one Bastille Day at a time, and your very own set of Mother-in-Law MadLibs, I Heart My In-laws embodies the old saying, "It's funny because it's true."

Examines the strange birth of the settler movement in the ten years following the Six-Day War and finds that it was as much the child of Labour Party socialism as of religious extremism. This title also shows how three American presidents turned a blind eye to what was happening in the territories, and reveals their strategic reasons for doing so.

A young man's quest to reconcile his deafness in an unforgiving world leads to a remarkable sojourn in a remote African village that pulsates with beauty and violence These are hearing aids. They take the sounds of the world and amplify them." Josh Swiller recited this speech to himself on the day he arrived in Mununga, a dusty village on the shores of Lake Mweru. Deaf since a young age, Swiller spent his formative years in frustrated limbo on the sidelines of the hearing world, encouraged by his family to use lipreading and the strident approximations of hearing aids to blend in. It didn't work. So he decided to ditch the well-trodden path after college, setting out to find a place so far removed that his deafness would become irrelevant.That place turned out to be Zambia, where Swiller worked as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years. There he would encounter a world where violence, disease, and poverty were the mundane facts of life. But despite the culture shock, Swiller finally commanded attention-everyone always listened carefully to the white man, even if they didn't always follow his instruction. Spending his days working in the health clinic with Augustine Jere, a chubby, world-weary chess aficionado and a steadfast friend, Swiller had finally found, he believed, a place where his deafness didn't interfere, a place he could call home. Until, that is, a nightmarish incident blasted away his newfound convictions.At once a poignant account of friendship through adversity, a hilarious comedy of errors, and a gripping narrative of escalating violence, The Unheard is an unforgettable story from a noteworthy new talent.

The world's premier climatologist, Lonnie Thompson has been risking his career and life on the highest and most remote ice caps along the equator, in search of clues to the history of climate change. This narrative takes the reader inside retreating glaciers from China, across South America, and to Africa to unravel the mysteries of climate.

Thousands of people are diagnosed with a brain tumour. This work tells patients the information they need to know to understand and address their diagnosis. It provides information on brain tumour diagnoses, the different types of tumours, and where to go for treatment; and addresses the emotional impact on the patient and their family.

"Thoughtful and convincingly argued . . . Rauch's impressive book is as enthusiastic an encomium to marriage as anyone, gay or straight, could write." -David J. Garrow, The Washington Post Book World In May 2004, gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, but it remains a divisive and contentious issue across America. As liberals and conservatives mobilize around this issue, no one has come forward with a more compelling, comprehensive, and readable case for gay marriage than Jonathan Rauch. In this book, he puts forward a clear and honest manifesto explaining why gay marriage is important-even crucial-to the health of marriage in America today, grounding his argument in commonsense, mainstream values and confronting social conservatives on their own turf. Marriage, he observes, is more than a bond between individuals; it also links them to the community at large. Excluding some people from the prospect of marriage not only is harmful to them but also is corrosive of the institution itself.Gay marriage, he shows, is a "win-win-win" for strengthening the bonds that tie us together and for remaining true to our national heritage of fairness and humaneness toward all.