With a universal message on war, Sing before Breakfast is a historical fiction of stellar note, impressive allegory, and surprising tenderness. Powerfully wrought with painstaking accuracy, author and history buff George Stein realistically captures events of the American Civil War and its impact on civilians and their land. Through the eyes of a young boy, a nation is being forged.

The Old Testament is the primary religious text for the Jewish people and also forms a major part of the sacred texts of Christianity. The Old Testament covers not only the religion of the ancient Israelites, but also gives a detailed account of their secular life, which naturally includes their mental health issues. Most of the common major psychiatric disorders are well represented, and there are several descriptions of depression. The verses of the Old Testament were all written with a primary religious intention, but sometimes, almost incidentally, they include mentions of familiar mental symptoms. This becomes clear only when all the religion, history and myth are stripped away from them - hence the title The Hidden Psychiatry of the Old Testament.

This landmark study, first published by Cornell University Press in 1966, shows how Hitler's elite army grew from a praetorian guard of barely 28,000 men at the beginning of the Second World War to a combat-hardened army of more than 500,000 in 1945. George H. Stein examines in detail the structure and organization of the Waffen SS and describes the rigid personnel selection and intensive physical, military, and ideological training that helped to create the tough and dedicated cadre around which the larger force of the later war years was built.