This book is a radical exploration of the mystical teachings in the Gospel of John. It helps the reader to experience these spiritual truths for themselves, and go beyond the everyday mind which is dominated by the ego and realize their eternal Being, which Johns Gospel calls Logos. By approaching the teachings in a meditative state, the symbolism contained within the Greek text opens out and comes alive in the present moment. The Gospel is not a historical document; it speaks directly to each person now and the states of consciousness represented in the stories are accessible now. The book contains guided meditations to help bring this to life for the reader. This awakening concerns our relationship with the whole of life. Spiritual consciousness means that we are aware of the sacredness of our connections to each other as fellow human beings, and to the creatures of the natural world. Christ and the Logos contain both masculine and feminine in balance; at this critical time, our well-being and that of our fellow creatures is dependent on this realization.

This remarkable new book reveals the hitherto unknown story of the soldiers who took the first tanks into action on the Somme battlefield in September 1916. Drawing on official records, contemporary newspaper reports and family memories, Stephen Pope provides a fascinating insight into the lives of First Tank Crewmen, covering their recruitment, scant training, rapid deployment and their premature use in battle. He then traces their inter-connected lives over the next two years as tanks played a key role in the defeat of the Germany Army in 1918. He reveals the story of their return to civilian life and their often difficult struggle to build a family life. Sadly many of the First Tank Crew died young, some due to injuries or illnesses developed as a result of their wartime service. Many of their marriages failed, some as a direct result of the stresses of the battlefield. Many were childless and few lived to see their grandchildren grow up. Amongst the stories revealed are those of the grandson of the social reformer Joseph Rowntree, the champion rose grower Bill Harkness; the Scottish chemist Stuart Hastie who introduced science into the whisky distilling process and the Liverpool school teacher Graham Nixon who tried to teach John Lennon mathematics. None of those who fought in the tanks achieved great fame for their actions and few revealed their wartime secrets to their families. However, many became pillars of their local communities, giving a life of service to those around them. This book tells the previously untold stories of bravery, determination and dedication by a group of unsung heroes. The author has used his contacts with more than fifty relatives of those who fought at the First Tank Action and used their input to provide a detailed description of their lives after the war. He has also gathered together many, previously unpublished pictures including many of the tankmen in France, and has revealed the backstory to several well known photographs. Above all, he has linked individual lives together to create a fascinating story of ordinary men who took part in extra-ordinary events. The story of The First Tank Crews is one well worth reading.

This is the first volume of a new six volume history of the Tank Corps during the First World War. The first history was written shortly after the end of the Great War by Lt Col JFC Fuller in 1919. This, and the subsequent version written by Sir Basil Liddell Hart in 1959, provided a broad overview of the origins of the Tank Corps but did not undertake detailed analysis of the tank actions and the changes introduced in the organisation or operation of tank units as a result of the lessons learned. This new history seeks to overcome these shortcomings. The first volume, which covers the period November 1914 to November 1916, gives an introduction to the initial design and development of the first battle tanks. It provides details of the selection and training of crewmen and the tactical and logistic challenges associated with bringing a new weapon system into combat within one year after acceptance of the prototype. The impact of armoured vehicles in the initial actions in 1916 was limited. However, as the British C-in-C Douglas Haig determined within two days of their debut on the Somme, tanks would soon become a key element in the all-arms battle. The battle chapters of this initial and subsequent volumes analyses the part played by tanks in success or failure of the British Army until the summer of 1918, after which the tanks took the lead as American, Australian, British, Canadian and New Zealand forces drove back the Germans during a 100 day advance which culminated in the defeat of the German Army in the field. Each volume is illustrated by contemporary photographs and tables showing the order of battle of tank units in each battle, as well the formations they supported, and the opposing forces. It also includes a separate map book which enables the readers to follow the course of the battle. Whilst designed for readers with a passion for detail of the development of the British Army during the last two years of the First World War, this new history aims to enable those with a general interest to gain an understanding of the part played by the tanks, their crew and their commanders in the destruction of the Germans' will to win, some six months before the planned start of the 1919 offensive. The tanks had successfully fought through the mud and the blood, to the green fields beyond.

Choice "Outstanding Academic Book" (1998) "Nationalism and amateurism. While countless scholars have written on one or the other of these two important concepts, S.W. Pope has undertaken to explore the relationship between them. His subtle analysis on this relationship is but one of many highlights in this wonderfully insightful and multi-faceted book." -Allen Guttmann, Amherst College "Pope has done a masterful job of combining his reading from secondary sources with his own original research to give us a definitive account of the time when sports and national identity came to be connected. The clarity and specificity of language made this book a pleasure to read. Those in the development of American sports should read this book, as should anyone curious about how the rhetoric of nationalism became dependent upon its connection to the rhetoric of athletics." -The International Journal of the History of Sport "The strength of the text lies in the rich contextual detail that Pope has assembled to illustrate the fusion of national ideology and sport in the American context. This is especially the case when he draws upon the primary sources . . . The result is a series of carefully rendered studies tracing ideological contestation in various spheres of sporting discourse." -International Review of the Sociology of Sport "Patriotic Games is gracefully written and explores more fully and satisfactorily than any previous book the relationship between nationalism and American sports in the years between the American centennial in 1876 and the sesquicentennial in 1926."-Journal of American History "The documentation of sources is exceptionally well done and exhaustively detailed. This thoroughly readable work is highly recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty collections." -Choice "[Patriotic Games] challenges sport historians to look more closely at the ways in which sports rhetoric weaves national, social, and personal agendas into tightly knit fabric. In so doing, it offers a provocative perspective on the ideological function of sports that will help to advance this growin area of sports scholarship."-Journal of Sport History