Montessori: Living the Good Life will surprise you more than you can imagine. With a master's degree in theology, author Connie Ripley Lujan delves deep into Maria's spiritual understanding of the roots of war. Passionately she explains how we can make a difference.

Maria Montessori discovered the secret miracle of childhood over one hundred years ago. Her vision of peace lives on in this passionate memoir of a disciple of her spirit.

Maria's enlightened revelation of the newborn's talent to construct his future life with his own mind is illuminated step by step as each chapter probes deeper into mankind's existence.

The key to assisting the new ones, Maria tells us, lies in the adult's willingness to collaborate with the child's desire for an appropriate environment. Education, for the child and the adult, is the crucial element.

A thoughtful guide for mothers, fathers, grandparents, and all educators and citizens concerned for peace in the home, schools, and world, Montessori-Living the Good Life, about the child in your arms and the child in your heart, is for everyone.

The author goes where no one dares to go, explicating Maria's concepts of the origins of war and peace and how we can make a difference.

"Alex Sangha has an impressively broad range of knowledge on issues that affect the world, and challenges problems that most people have come to accept. Sangha doesn't just point out the troubles in this world, but thinks of bold solutions for them."

- Jenny Uechi, Managing Editor, Vancouver Observer

Alex Sangha has produced a critical, yet positive, book that covers a range of topics, from environmental conservation to reconciling religion and sexuality to depression and arranged marriage. He believes every person should be informed and should have their say on subjects that matter.

Catalyst is a collection of 40 short commentaries about problems facing Canada and the world in the 21st century. It is filled with topics for social discussion for the informed citizen, as well as for parents and teachers who want to get young adults thinking critically about the world around them.

Catalyst is an excellent conversation starter. Each article includes questions for the reader, which can be a great springboard for critical discussion.

"Alex writes clearly, concisely and with a non-judgmental view point. Alex is clearly a world citizen who disseminates on a wide variety of issues with amazing clarity. His refreshing views on a wide range of subjects are written with elegance and a light touch that does not cloud the issues."

- Veeno Dewan, Former Editor, Voice Newspaper

The Black papers examines the Institution of racism in the United States from a historical context and addresses its culpability for the downfall of the Black community and the disconnect of its people. The author asserts that the incestuous relationship between Black leaders and the establishment has hampered the efforts of grassroots organizations to challenge effectively the systematic discrimination as related to members of the Black community. The material discussed is direct and offers a thorough assessment of racism and its devastating effect on an entire community.

Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943) was a prominent German sociologist, economist and Zionist activist. As a co-founder of academic sociology in Germany, Oppenheimer vehemently opposed the influence of antisemitism on the nascent field. As an expert on communal agricultural settlement, Oppenheimer co-edited the scientific Zionist journal Altneuland (1904-1906), which became a platform for a distinct Jewish participation within the racial and colonial discourses of Imperial Germany. By positioning Zionist aspirations within a German colonial narrative, Altneuland presented Zionism as an extension, instead of a rejection, of German patriotism. By doing so, the journal's contributors hoped to recruit new supporters and model Zionism as a source of secular Jewish identity for German Jewry. While imagining future relationships between Jews, Arabs, and German settlers in Palestine, Oppenheimer and his contemporaries also reimagined the place of Jews among European nations.

In Asia and the Pacific, climate change is now a well-recognised risk to water security but responses to this risk are either under reported, or continue to be guided by the incremental or business as usual approaches. Water policy still tends to remain too narrow and fragmented, compared to the multi-sectoral and cross-scalar nature of risks to water security. What's more, current water security debates tend to be framed in discipline specific or academic ways, failing to understand decision making and problem-solving contexts within which policy actors and partitioners have to operate on a daily basis. Much of the efforts to date has focussed on assessing and predicting the risks in the context of increasing levels of uncertainty. There is still limited analysis of emerging practices of risks assessment and mitigation in different contexts in Asia and the Pacific. Going beyond the national scales and focussing on several socio-ecological zones, this book captures stories written by engaged scholars on recent attempts to develop cross-sectoral and cross-scaler solutions to assess and mitigate risks to water security across Asia and the Pacific. Identifying lessons from successes and failures, it highlights management and strategic lessons that water and climate leaders of Asia and the Pacific need to consider. This book showcases reflective and analytical thought pieces written by key actors in the climate and water spaces. Several critical socio-ecological zones are covered - from Pakistan in the west to pacific islands in the east. The chapters clearly identify strategies for improvement based on the analysis of emerging responses to climate risks to water security and gaps in current practices. The book will include an editorial introduction and a final synthesis chapter to ensure clear articulation of common themes and to highlight the overall messages of the book.

These twelve original essays by geographers and anthropologists offer a deep critical understanding of Allan Pred's pathbreaking and eclectic cultural Marxist approach, with a focus on his concept of "situated ignorance": the production and reproduction of power and inequality by regimes of truth through strategically deployedmisinformation, diversions, and silences. As the essays expose the cultural and material circumstances in which situated ignorance persists, they also add a previously underexplored spatial dimension to Walter Benjamin's idea of "moments of danger." The volume invokes the aftermath of the July 2011 attacks by far-right activistAnders Breivik in Norway, who ambushed a Labor Party youth gathering and bombed a government building, killing and injuring many. Breivik had publicly and forthrightly declared war against an array of liberal attitudes he saw threatening Western civilization. However, as politicians and journalists interpreted these events for mass consumption, a narrative quickly emerged that painted Breivik as a lone madman and steered the discourse away from analysis of theresurgent right-wing racisms and nationalisms in which he was immersed. The Breivik case is merely one of the most visible recent examples, say editors Heather Merrill and Lisa Hoffman, of the unchallenged production of knowledge in the public sphere. In essays that range widely in topic and setting-for example, brownfield development in China, a Holocaust memorial in Germany, an art gallery exhibit in South Africa-this volume peels back layers of "situated practices and their associated meaning and power relations." Spaces of Danger offers analytical and conceptual tools of a Predian approach to interrogate the taken-for-granted and make visible and legible that which is silenced.

It was a time of honored traditions and tight-knit communities ... an era where neighborhood schools thrived, and children played simple games in the fresh outdoors. Finding Lost Marbles: Remembering the '50s in River City is a whimsical look back at what once was, before technological gadgetry "wired" our youth, and a reflective consideration of how we can reach back and resurrect some of the values that made the Fifties so fabulous.

Leo Sidebottom, a clerk in a Birmingham Factory went to war in 1915. This book is a collection of his postcards to his new wife from the trenches of France during the Great War. The images and messages will give you an experience of life in the war which changed the world. It starts with a week from his diary when he gets engaged, enlists, gets married and leaves for war with the Royal Engineers. He talks of the Politics, the topics of the day and the "rumours." With over 200 postcards depicting scenes of the devastation this book will transport you back to a different world.

This book offers a comprehensive examination of the generations of women who entered religious life in the United States after 1965. It provides up-to-date demographics for women's religious institutes; a summary of canon law locating religious life within the various forms of life in the Church; an analysis of Church documents on religious life; and data on the views of post-Vatican II entrants regarding ministry, identity, prayer, spirituality, the vows, and community. Beginning each chapter with an engaging narrative, the authors explore how different generations of Catholic women first became attracted to vowed religious life and what kinds of religious institutes they were seeking. By analyzing the results of extensive national surveys, the authors systematically examine how the new generations of Sisters differ from previous ones, and what those changes suggest about the future. The book concludes with recommendations for further understanding of generations within religious life and within the Church and society. Because of its breadth and depth, this book will be regarded by scholars, the media, and practitioners as an essential resource for the sociological study of religious life for women in the United States.

Sixteen-year-old Rebecca Middleton and best friend Jasmine Meens make their "trip of a lifetime" to the Queen's "Jewel in the Atlantic," oblivious to secrets beneath the island's idyllic guise and to the horrors that await them on the dark side of Paradise.Sunny days and teal surf welcome the Canadian teenagers as they roam the twenty square miles of the seemingly pristine British territory. But on this searing July night, a full moon, an unusual storm, a cancelled cruise, absent taxis, and chance meetings end in the gruesome kidnap, rape, torture, and murder of Rebecca Middleton. Emotions left over from long-standing racial inequities impact Becky's case from the moment of her slaughter--especially the hangings of two black men for the murders of five white men during those racially charged 1970s--a matter many still prefer not to discuss.Repercussions from the young Canadian tourist's death and its investigative and judicial failures create international uproar that catches the attention of famed U.S. forensic scientists Dr. Michael Baden and Dr. Henry Lee. During an inquiry brought about by a tourist boycott of Bermuda, advocate LeYoni Junos exposes truths behind this tangled web of deceit. But it won't be long before LeYoni Junos suffers those consequences typically experienced by those who fail to "lie in the tide."Then, almost eight years after Rebecca's murder, the case catches the attention of British human rights lawyer Cherie Booth, QC, wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who terms Bermuda's responses "repugnant to justice." Meanwhile, despite responsibility for territories' "good governance," Britain treads lightly. This is a true story of murder, collusion, conspiracy, and cover-up designed to protect the secrets of privilege, and hide the poverty, violence and drugs that darken Bermuda's tranquil pastels, a third-world setting of mysterious beauty and international influence incongruent with its size.

This book develops a new energetic/thermodynamic basis for the cyclic nature of civilizations. The growth of a civilization is due to the ability of the civilization to acquire and utilize resources for growth. The theory developed turns out to be identical to Blaha's previously developed theory, which successfully matches the history of 50+ civilizations. The energetic/thermodynamic theory appears in studies of superorganisms such as ant and bee colonies as well as other organisms including colonies of microbes. It also appears in theories of predator-prey populations such as wolves and rabbits. The consideration of superorganisms, predator-prey population cyclicity, and human civilization cyclicity suggests that there is an underlying unity in Nature in the growth of large groups of organisms and leads to the conclusion that civilizations are superorganisms. Thus this new model of civilizations is called SuperCivilizations. The book begins by overviewing superorganisms including some exciting new evidence for microbial superorganisms on land and in the deep sea. Subsequently we discuss almost all of the known human civilizations within the framework of this theory. We also consider the Richardson theory of arms races and show that Richardson's equations are identical to those of our energetic/thermodynamic model of civilization dynamics. With a suitable choice of parameters the arms race theory has cyclic solutions (as well as the exponential solutions studied by Richardson) that describe the dynamics of armaments growth in the United States - Russia confrontations from 1981 - 2010. The book also describes a program for the exploration and the colonization of the Solar System and a new means of travel to the stars and galaxies with a view towards the development of a space civilization. The probable effects on contemporary human civilizations of meeting an alien civilization are also described in detail. Because of a close analogy with Newtonian dynamics, and realizing that chance plays a major role in human history, the book also develops a probabilistic theory of civilization dynamics. The cyclic theory of civilizations is also generalized to a civilization theory for populations with three interconnected population segments: a dominant minority/leadership, followers, and external immigrants. This generalized theory leads to the cyclic theory of civilizations under reasonable conditions.

This volume offers a comparative survey of diverse settler colonial experiences in relation to food, food culture and foodways - how the latter are constructed, maintained, revolutionised and, in some cases, dissolved. What do settler colonial foodways and food cultures look like? Are they based on an imagined colonial heritage, do they embrace indigenous repertoires or invent new hybridised foodscapes? What are the socio-economic and political dynamics of these cultural transformations? In particular, this volume focuses on three key issues: the evolution of settler colonial identities and states; their relations vis-a-vis indigenous populations; and settlers' self-indigenisation - the process through which settlers transform themselves into the native population, at least in their own eyes. These three key issues are crucial in understanding settler-indigenous relations and the rise of settler colonial identities and states.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2016 Rural queer experience is often hidden or ignored, and presumed to be alienating, lacking, and incomplete without connections to a gay culture that exists in an urban elsewhere. Queering the Countryside offers the first comprehensive look at queer desires found in rural America from a genuinely multi-disciplinary perspective. This collection of original essays confronts the assumption that queer desires depend upon urban life for meaning. By considering rural queer life, the contributors challenge readers to explore queer experiences in ways that give greater context and texture to modern practices of identity formation. The book's focus on understudied rural spaces throws into relief the overemphasis of urban locations and structures in the current political and theoretical work on queer sexualities and genders. Queering the Countryside highlights the need to rethink notions of "the closet" and "coming out" and the characterizations of non-urban sexualities and genders as "isolated" and in need of "outreach." Contributors focus on a range of topics-some obvious, some delightfully unexpected-from the legacy of Matthew Shepard, to how heterosexuality is reproduced at the 4-H Club, to a look at sexual encounters at a truck stop, to a queer reading of TheWizard of Oz. A journey into an unexplored slice of life in rural America, Queering the Countryside offers a unique perspective on queer experience in the modern United States and Canada.

By their very nature, most newspaper columns and editorials are ephemeral. They are often written in haste to meet a deadline, and what excites interest today may elicit only yawns tomorrow or the next day. This is especially true of community newspapers, whose focus is on matters of interest to a smaller, parochial readership. This book is a collection of pieces that step outside that mold. The author's broad education (four degrees, including a Ph.D. and a J.D.) and wide range of work experiences (college professor, probation officer, prosecuting attorney, professional magician, novelist, editor, publisher, and grocery-store sackboy, to name a few) have provided him with a unusual perspective from which to observe and comment on the problems and pleasures of being a sentient being on Planet Earth in the twenty-first century-and on how we got to this point in human history. Inspired by the example and encouragement of the newspaper editor who gave him his first job in journalism, the author has inflicted upon the readers of several newspapers his reflections on a broad and eclectic range of subjects, from religious and racial intolerance to UFO "sightings" and the beauty of a toad's eye. Throughout it all, the author has been motivated by one unvarying purpose-to make his readers think. Not just about last week's school board meeting or next month's municipal elections, but about ideas and issues with a shelf-life longer than that of ripe tomatoes in your grocer's produce department. Here, then, are half a hundred of those pieces, rescued from dusty newspaper "morgues" and offered to a broader audience than the unsuspecting subscribers to whom they were originally addressed. The author will be pleased if you read them, but he will have failed in his purpose unless reading them makes you think.

Irena Nikaj is clearly one of the best students that I have ever had. That conclusions covers all my years of teaching at the University of Tirana, later at the Institut of Social Studies at the Hague, the netherlands, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from were I received my PhD., at Eastern Michigan University and various other universities in the United States From the very beginning Irena Nikaj has impresed me with her hunger for knowledge, the range of her cultural awareness, her intellectual abilities and her discipline, blending her creativity with her systematic application to her work. And she has lived up to that promise ever since Fatos Tarifa, PhD Director, Institute of Social and Policy Studies European University of Tirana Scientific Secretary, Albanian Academy of Arts and Sciences Former Albanian Ambassador to the Netherlands and the United States Editor-in-Chief, Sociological Analysis & Academe Alternate e-mail addresses: [email protected] Phone: ++355682016022 The monograph titled "Albanian Social and Philosophical Thinking of the '30s (Neo-Albanianism)" has not only theoretical, but also, practical value in the treatment and solution of the many complicated issues that are plaguing Albanian society at present. By introducing an excellent and quite visionary theoretical analysis, this book will preserve its theoretical and practical value even in the future. by Prof. Dr Zyhdi Dervishi Head of Department of Sociology Faculty of Social Science University of Tirana, Albania

Jes s Maga a se ha lanzado a un metaf rico viaje hacia el centro del infinito, tratando de conocer simult neamente las verdades que definen al ser humano. En sus obras es f cil discernir que sabiamente, no acepta que exista diferencia alguna entre el hombre y la creaci n, entre el macrocosmos y el microcosmos, nos explica entre las l neas de sus pensamientos, que la mente humana y la mente divina es una; o como nos ense a el TOLTECAYOTL, que en el cosmos, en la creaci n, en el todo existe el secreto abierto de una evidente dualidad que a todo lo unifica y que a todo lo trasciende y que todos somos partes integrales del multiverso, en su obra comparte con nosotros tambi n la realidad de que en todas las edades, en todas las culturas, y en diversas escuelas filos ficas comparten estas ideas aunque se expresen de manera diferente. Siempre ha sido un anhelo de Jes s compartir estas mieles del conocimiento, aun sabiendo que mucho es de car cter especulativo, y como el sostiene para si: "es mejor especular en la b squeda de las verdades existenciales que mantenerse en ese c modo sill n de la ignorancia." En esta obra, Maga a nos conduce de manera objetiva por el camino hacia ese viaje a trav s de puertas metaf ricas dimensionales, para llegar de manera segura a ese punto central del infi nito en donde se acrisolan los pensamientos que nos ayudan a cumplir con la misi n para la que hemos sido tra dos a esta tercera dimensi n en que vivimos. Muchas veces se puede defi nir a un ser humano por su b squeda, por sus amistades, por sus obras, Jes s Maga a es f cil de defi nir es un hombre de mente gil y abierta que ama la creaci n a todos los seres humanos y sobre todo respeta y ama a Dios que para el es el mism simo universo, proclama en su obra que debemos respetar con ah nco a nuestra madre tierra que nos aloja en su seno. Para m es un honor que Jes s Maga a mi amigo, mi compatriota y colega, haya compartido sus escritos y como nos lo dice en uno de los cap tulos: Feliz viaje OSCAR LUIS GUZMAN Fundador de C.A.L.I (CIRCULO ARTISTICO Y LITERARIO LATINOAMERICANO) Dedico mi obra a: Un Gran ser Humano el cual ha sido brote de inspiraci n y respeto. Claudia Alderette, mi amiga, mi productora.