At the heart of American studies is the idea of America itself. Here, Buck looks at the religious significance of America by examining those religions that have attached some kind of spiritual meaning to America. The author explores how American Protestantism-and nine minority faiths-have projected America into the mainstream of world history by defining-and by redefining-America's world role. Surveying the religious myths and visions of America of ten religions, Buck shows how minority fa...

This book examines the intersection of African American history with that of the Bahá’í Faith in the United States. Since the turn of the twentieth century, Bahá’ís in America have actively worked to establish interracial harmony within its own ranks and to contribute to social justice in the wider community, becoming in the process one of the country’s most diverse religious bodies. Spanning from the start of the twentieth century to the early twenty-first, the essays in this volume exami...

Bahá’í Faith: The Basics provides a thorough and accessible introduction to a fascinating, independent world religion. Examining its historical development, current “community-building” efforts and the social contributions of the Bahá’í Faith in the world today, this introduction covers:Beliefs: Bahá’í spiritual teachingsPrinciples: Bahá’í social teachingsHistory: Bahá’u’lláh and his covenant.Scripture: Bahá’í sacred texts and inspired g...

This publication provides essential reading for any language teacher. Pupil engagement in the language-learning process is key to success, and with this in mind the authors provide a comprehensive list of ideas as well as explaining the underlying principles of successful language-learning.Neil Jones, Assistant HeadteacherLearning a language, especially in a class or group, is an intensely practical subject. Active participation by students is the key to successful...

“One July day four hundred years ago, Samuel de Champlain stepped out of a small boat at Quebec and began a great adventure.” So begins Christopher Moore’s riveting account of the life of the extraordinary, daring “father of New France.”Samuel de Champlain helped found the first permanent French settlement in the New World; he established the village that eventually became the great city of Quebec; he was a skilled cartographer who gave us many of our first accurate maps of North A...

Evolution strategies have more than 50 years of history in the field of evolutionary computation. Since the early 1990s, many algorithmic variations of evolution strategies have been developed, characterized by the fact that they use the so-called derandomization concept for strategy parameter adaptation. Most importantly, the covariance matrix adaptation strategy (CMA-ES) and its successors are the key representatives of this group of contemporary evolution strategies.This book pr...

Engineering the Climate: The Ethics of Solar Radiation Management discusses the ethical issues associated with deliberately engineering a cooler climate to combat global warming. Climate engineering (also known as geoengineering) has recently experienced a surge of interest given the growing likelihood that the global community will fail to limit the temperature increases associated with greenhouse gases to safe levels. Deliberate manipulation of solar radiation to combat climate change is...

How can you effectively motivate young people to engage with foreign language learning?How can young people engage with new ideas and cultural experiences within and outside the classroom?The new edition of A Practical Guide to Teaching Foreign Languages in the Secondary School offers straightforward advice and inspiration for training teachers, NQTs and teachers in their early professional development. Written by a team of expert professionals, it offers a wide ra...

Do you teach English as a foreign or second language? Are your students at an intermediate or advanced level? If so, this book will save you a lot of lesson prep time. With 50 role plays that span a wide variety of topics, you’ll almost always be able to find a role play that will fit your lesson topic.Inside are role plays that cover everything from government regulation to messy roommates. With commonly taught topics like technology, music, job interviews, and movies. As well as ...

Twenty years in the making, in Letters from the American Desert, Glaysher reflects on the cultural, political, and religious history of Western and non-Western civilizations,pondering the dilemmas of postmodernity, in a compelling struggle for spiritual knowledge and truth. In what is a highly autobiographical work, fully cognizant of the relativism and nihilism of modern life, Glaysher finds a deeper meaning and purpose in a universal Vision. Confronting the anti...

For eight years the president of the United States was a born-again Christian, backed by well-organized evangelicals who often seemed intent on erasing the church-state divide. In Europe, the increasing number of radicalized Muslims is creating widespread fear that Islam is undermining Western-style liberal democracy. And even in polytheistic Asia, the development of democracy has been hindered in some countries, particularly China, by a long history in which religion was tightly linked to...

Karen Armstrong explains how to practise the religion of compassion that her last books have preached.In November 2009 Armstrong and TED launched The Charter of Compassion, which states that "We call upon all men and women to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion...to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings — even those regarded as enemies." To date, it's been signed by over 48,000 people on the Web, including such figures as The Dal...