Edith Louisa Cavell was a British nurse. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested. She was subsequently court-martialled, found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. She was shot by a German firing squad at the age of 49. Her execution was greeted with worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage. A woman of profound faith, she told her chaplain, on the night before her execution, 'Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." Her death caused international outrage and may have contributed to America's decision to enter the war. Three films and a stage play have been written about her life, and many public buildings and streets named after her. She will feature on a commemorative [5.00 coin in 2015.

Caryll Houselander (1901-54), an English Catholic laywoman, artist, and visionary, was driven by a strong identification with the poor that enabled her in fresh and insightful ways, to proclaim the 'Christing of the World.' Wright interweaves texts and images into an intimate encounter with a fascinating woman, a 'divine eccentric,' and a gifted reader of souls.

The murder in 2005 of an American nun, Sister Dorothy Stang, focused the world's attention on the plight of poor farmers in the Brazilian Amazon and their struggles against rapacious developers. Sister Dorothy had worked in Brazil for forty years. From a conventional nun in the pre-Vatican II era, she had developed a keen social conscience and, increasingly, a deep, mystical commitment to the integrity of Creation. These ideals combined in her advocacy for the rights of the poor and her defense of the imperiled rain forest. They also earned her the enmity of land-grabbing ranchers who repeatedly threatened her. "All I ask," she wrote, "is God's grace to help me keep on this journey, fighting for the people to have a more egalitarian life and that we learn to respect God's creation."

In this biography of Reformed theologian Francis Turretin (1623-87), Nicholas A. Cumming provides critical context for the life and theology of this important seventeenth-century theologian and his impact on the Reformed tradition as a whole. Turretin has commonly been identified as a strict scholastic theologian; this work places Turretin in his broader context, analyzing his life and theology in terms of the political and religious aspects of post-Reformation Europe and his posthumous influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Reformed theology. This work begins with a biography of Turretin, including his education and ministry, then proceeds to the context of Turretin's theology in the early modern and modern periods, particularly in relation to his major work The Institutes of Elenctic Theology.

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland explores the life and legacy of Jon Halldorsson, Bishop of Skalholt (1322-39), a Dominican who had studied the liberal arts in Paris and canon law in Bologna. Combining different disciplinary approaches (literary and intellectual history, manuscript studies, musicology), this book aims to examine the conditions under which literate culture thrived in 14th-century Scandinavia. The studies included in this volume consider Jon Halldorsson's educational background and his contributions as a storyteller to Old Norse literature, focusing especially upon legendary sagas such as Clari saga and examining their link to the Dominican tradition of exempla. The volume also includes critical studies of manuscripts that contain tales and adventures, secular law and canon law, administrative writings, as well as music and liturgy from the province of Nidaros. Combining these various analytical perspectives results in rich insights with broad implications for our understanding of medieval Nordic culture. Contributors are Astrid Marner, Christian Etheridge, Embla Aae, Gisela Attinger, Gottskalk Jensson, Gunnar Hardarson, Hjalti Snaer AEgisson, Karl G. Johansson, Stefan Drechsler, Vedis Ragnheidardottir, and Vidar Palsson