In some ways, everything in our world seems out of control, but turmoil has been a part of the evolution of our nation since its founding. America has endured extremely dark periods in its history—the Revolution, World War II, and perhaps the darkest of all, the Civil War.But in darkness, leaders emerge to shine a light of hope to guide people. During the American Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant emerged to guide the nation to victory, then to the beginnings of reconciliation. As Lieute...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest surviving literary work in the world. The epic poetry describes the ancient King Gilgamesh and his journey to discover the secret to eternal life.

Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet, thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC. Hesiod’s ‘Theogony’ is a poem describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods. It was sourced from various local traditions about the gods, synthesized and organized as a narrative that reveals their origin and the history of their rule over the cosmos. Hesiod declares – in the "Kings and Singers" passage – that it is upon him, the poet, that the Muses have bestowed the visible signs ...

‘War Is a Racket’ is a 1935 book by Smedley D. Butler (1881 –1940), a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient who became an outspoken critic of American wars and their consequences. During his 34-year career as a Marine, he took part in military actions in the Philippines, China, Central America, the Caribbean and France. After his retirement from the US Marine Corps in 1931, he took his speech "War is a Racket" on a nationwide tour. Due to it...

The author of ‘Acres of Diamonds’ (1890) was Russell Herman Conwell (1843 – 1925), an American Baptist minister, orator, philanthropist, lawyer, and writer. The author was inspired by the story of a Persian farmer who loses his life looking for a diamond mine when his own farm (which he sold to finance his search for a mine) literally contained acres of diamonds. The main message of this motivational classic is that one need not look elsewhere for opportunity, achievement or fortune, becau...

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65), is the author of ‘On the Shortness of Life (c. 49 AD).’ In it, Seneca draws insight from different streams of ancient wisdom: Stoic, Epicurean, Platonic, Skeptic and Cynic, as he addresses some of the important questions humans face. Seneca encourages people to be mindful of time and to use it purposefully. He suggests awareness and acceptance as a remedy for many worries and wasteful dissipations. We need to be aware of...

‘The Practice of the Presence of God’ is a collection of the teachings of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (Nicolas Herman, c. 1614 – 1691), a 17th-century Carmelite friar. The book consists of sixteen short letters, a collection of spiritual maxims, four conversations written down by Father Joseph de Beaufort and a brief bio, most likely by de Beaufort. The theme of the work is the cultivation and development of an awareness of the presence of God. Lawrence's method of acquiring the p...

Daniel Defoe (1659 or 1661 - 1731) was an English writer and journalist who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. In 1665, the bubonic plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 victims. In ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’, first published in 1722, Defoe chronicles the progress of the epidemic. His fictional narrator traverses a city with deserted streets and alleyways, where the houses of death have crosses daubed on their doors. He described the panic among the inha...

First published in 1918, ‘The Elements of Style’ is an American English writing style guide, which have since become an essential tool for writers and educators in its numerous editions down the years. The rules of ‘The Elements of Style’ are rooted in common sense and tradition. The original comprised “eight elementary rules of usage, ten elementary principles of composition, a few matters of form, a list of 49 words and expressions commonly misused, and a list of 57 words often misspelle...

Daniel Defoe (1659 or 1661 - 1731) was an English writer and journalist who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. In 1665, the bubonic plague swept through London, claiming nearly 100,000 victims. In ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’, first published in 1722, Defoe chronicles the progress of the epidemic. His fictional narrator traverses a city with deserted streets and alleyways, where the houses of death have crosses daubed on their doors. He described the panic among the inha...

The provenance of artworks is a burning issue in current scholarship and politics. Transpose provenance into architecture and it reveals new and surprising dimensions in the social, material and cultural lives of buildings and architectural artefacts, reframing questions of migration, movement and circulation. Provenance in architecture illuminates the intricate trajectories of fundamentally composite objects from their complex origins to their uncertain destinations.This dictionar...

Nikola Tesla believed that every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance.