This book is about "speaking truth to power." It contains word-pictures of dozens of iconoclasts who (ironically) themselves became icons. But they inspire us to keep up the momentum of change. However, the author does set outer limits, because change has often taken history to places where it shouldn't go. The book is predicated on an understanding that Prophecy is less about foresight, and more about insight. "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls… in tenement halls…"...

TO BE FAIR - Contemplations of an Inconvenient MissionaryHere is a response to the revisionist narrative about Christianity and the church in general, and missionaries in particular. Some very ugly allegations have emerged and this response deals with them carefully and comprehensively. The author draw from his well of missionary experience in Africa, to give some perspective to Christian outreach in North America and elsewhere. He weighs it up in a balanced way, admitting that mis...

These two names have rarely been seen together.But most people can immediately see the distinction, and thus the emphasis of sighting them as a pair.Or is it citing them as a pair?They symbolize extremes."Orania" is rooted in Orange, as in the Orange Free State and before that William of Orange."Azania" shares the same deep African root as Tanzania which combined Tanganyika (once a German colony) with Zanzibar (which was partially settled by Arab traders long ago – probably Azania ...

The title has a familiar poetic ring to it. It is the second half of a rhyme that goes back to 1475, when William Caxton wrote a book about games The Game and Playe of the Cheese. It was a divination game, about who you were going to marry. Then AA Milne recycled it in 1927, in Now We Are Six. It is a playful turn of phrase, but serious too. So it is both traditional and relevant, like the book, which has recycled "beggar man" as "bogyman", to fit the narrative. And for gender balance, "po...

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2013A joint biography of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who led the United States into an unseen war that decisively shaped today's worldDuring the 1950s, when the Cold War was at its peak, two immensely powerful brothers led the United States into a series of foreign adventures whose effects are still shaking the world.John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brothe...

The public debate over American interventionism at the dawn of the 20th century is vividly brought to life in this "engaging, well-focused history" ( Kirkus , starred review).Should the United States use its military to dominate foreign lands? It's a perennial question that first raised more than a century ago during the Spanish American War. The country's political and intellectual leaders took sides in an argument that w...

From the author of Boiling Point**,** Overthrow provides a fast-paced narrative history of the coups, revolutions, and invasions by which the United States has toppled fourteen foreign governments —not always to its own benefit"Detailed, passionate and convincing . . . [with] the pace and grip of a good thriller." —Anatol Lieven, The New York Times Book Review"Reg...

An indispensable guide to the historical expeditionary adventure across the American continent.Preface by #1 New York Times –bestselling author Stephen E. AmbroseMore than two centuries have passed since Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's famous transcontinental journey between the Missouri and the Columbia River systems. They never did find the fabled Northwest Passage, but over twenty-eight mo...

Kanzi the chimp, Koko the ape, singing whales, trumpeting elephants, and dolphins trained for naval service--all of them make the news each year. Members of these species learn to communicate both with their voices and with body language, and without the signals they develop, each would be an island, unable to survive on Earth. How much do we know about how animals communicate with each other or with humans?Scientific American Focus: The Language of Animals examines the som...

The 14th Gemina Martia Victrix Legion was the most celebrated unit of the early Roman Empire–a force that had been wiped out under Julius Caesar, reformed, and almost wiped out again. After participating in the a.d. 43 invasion of Britain, the 14th Legion achieved its greatest glory when it put down the famous rebellion of the Britons under Boudicca. Numbering less than 10,000 men, the disciplined Roman killing machine defeated 230,000 rampaging rebels, slaughtering 80,000 with only 400 Ro...

From the time of the continent's formation tens of millions of years ago as the Godwana twin of Antarctica, Australia has been dominated by fire much as its sister has been by ice. Now Stephen Pyne, one of our foremost environmental historians, proposes a major reinterpretation of the Australian experience by using fire and Australia to explain one another. He narrates the story of how fire came to Australia and interacted with the Australian biota and its human inhabitants, while at the s...

The bestselling author of All the Shah’s Men and The Brothers tells the astonishing story of the man who oversaw the CIA’s secret drug and mind-control experiments of the 1950s and ’60s.The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA’s master magician and gentlehearted torturer—the agency’s “poisoner in chief.” As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powde...