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  The Lost Language of Symbolism...

  Harold Bayley

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  Mining information from mythology, folklore, religious texts, and fairy tales from around the world, a foremost expert on symbols explains word origins and their meanings. The ultimate symbols are the letters and words in language as Bayley moves beyond mere pictures to understand the vital messages that have been ignored or lost across the centuries

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  Sam Houston and Santa Anna: The...

  Charles River Editors

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  More than most men in history, Sam Houston was a contradictory individual. He was born in the United States while George Washington was in office, and in an era when the native people who were gradually being subjugated were considered savages, he called them friends and even lived among them. He was abandoned by his first wife and, after suffering the sting of divorce, married again in the manner of his native family, only to abandon his Indian bride to return to life among his own people. In the interim, he fought for their rights in the halls of government, defending them even as he obtained favor in the eyes of one of their worst enemies. He seemed to have the right mix of charm and grit to make a successful life with him and their large family. 
  	Though he was born and raised elsewhere, Houston is considered one of Texas’ truest sons, and during his life he fought for its independence from Mexico and then for its submission to the United States. He owned slaves himself but spent his entire political career fighting against the spread of “the American cancer” to the West. Then, when his beloved state seceded from the Union, he not only opposed secession but sacrificed his own position to protest it, only to turn around and support the Confederacy during the last years of his life.  
  The butcher of the Alamo and Goliad. The traitor who sold half of Mexico. The Napoleon of the West. Mr. Fifteen Nails. The Mother Country’s seducer. Almost 150 years after his death, a lot of name-calling is still being directed towards Antonio López de Santa Anna, president of Mexico 11 times in the 19th century, and today, the vast majority of his compatriots consider him the greatest traitor in history. It was not like that in his day; actually, there had never been a more popular man in Mexico, or anyone more eulogized and essential than General Santa Anna. In life he was the most famous - and infamous - Mexican general and politician. 

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  The Man Who Mistook His Wife for...

  Oliver Sacks

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  This work provides a concise synthesis of the key insights and analysis from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. It is an independent summary, not the original book, and has no affiliation with or endorsement from the original publication. Created for readers who want a clear, thought-provoking overview, it distills the central themes and ideas while preserving the depth and relevance of the work. 
  A collection of fascinating case histories from clinical neurology, describing patients whose brain injuries and disorders lead to bizarre perceptual distortions, memory gaps and identity shifts. Through these stories, the book explores what happens when specific mental functions fail, and what that reveals about the nature of consciousness, self and reality.

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  Montford Point Marines The: The...

  Charles River Editors

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  In the summer of 1942, the first group of African American recruits stepped off a bus into the pine woods of North Carolina, bound for an experiment the Marine Corps had long vowed never to attempt. Their destination - Montford Point, a hastily constructed satellite to the new Camp Lejeune - was more than a training ground. It was a compromise with democracy, a segregated doorway into an institution that had defined itself for generations by who could not enter. The Corps’ exclusivity had a racial edge: unlike the Army, which had long employed segregated black regiments, and the Navy, which at least allowed African Americans to serve as stewards and messmen, the Marines had barred black men outright from 1798 into the Second World War. (Nalty 1995) 
  	Between 1942 and 1949, nearly 20,000 black men trained at Montford Point. They endured tar-paper barracks that baked in summer heat and leaked in coastal storms, learned to drill to the cadence of instructors who sometimes doubted their right to wear the uniform, and mastered skills that would carry them to the beaches and supply trails of Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. Their story illuminated the paradox of wartime America, a republic that preached freedom abroad while policing hierarchies at home. 
  	In the process, Montford Point became both a threshold and a proving ground. It marked the reluctant admission of black men to a branch that had defined itself against them, and it tested a proposition central to mid-century American life: whether citizenship could be earned, displayed, and finally recognized through service. The soldiers’ stories can’t be branded as hagiography or indictment, but they offer a clear view of how a segregated experiment altered an institution and, over time, the nation the soldiers served.

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  The Religious Instruction of the...

  Charles Jones

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  This work is an extended exhortation urging white ministers and slaveowners to attend to the spiritual needs of slaves and free blacks. The book is broken into four parts. The first part is an historical sketch of slavery in the Colonies and the United States, with a focus on missionary and religious efforts directed towards the African slaves. This account goes from 1620 to 1842. Jones closes this first part with a summary of each denomination and each state. The second part treats the "Moral and Religious Condition" of slaves and free blacks, blaming their circumstances for their lack of virtue. Jones especially calls attention to their poverty and lack of education. He describes their ignorance of Christianity, their general lack of character, and their prevailing vices, noting that in the end, they are totally dependent on white men for the ability to overcome these limitations. In light of this description, Jones goes on in the third part to describe the obligations of the Christian church to rectify these problems. He asserts that the religious education of the African part of the population is a duty no Christian can ignore. In addition, he lists several benefits of religious instruction. The final part of the book proposes some strategies for implementing programs of religious instruction for slaves, making recommendations for Sabbath services as well as weekday plantation meetings. Jones says that the Christian gospel must be presented in a way that is intelligible to uneducated slaves, and must be inculcated early in childhood when possible. The guiding principle he describes for dealing with the condition of the slave is to be only concerned with the spiritual, not the secular, political, or civil. Jones concludes with pointed exhortations to masters, ministers, and the church at large, calling them all to devote more attention to the religious instruction of the African part of the American population.

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  The Coming Storm - Power...

  Odd Arne Westad

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  From a renowned Yale historian comes a chilling look at the looming threat of the next Great Power war and the urgent interventions necessary to avoid it in the twenty-first century. The vast majority of people alive today have come of age in a world of remarkable stability, presided over by either one or two Superpowers. This is not to say the world has been peaceful; but it has, to a great extent, been predictable. As an increasing number of Great Powers jostle for regional supremacy, as well as competitive advantage in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and trade, our world has become more fragile, unpredictable—and combustible. The outbreak of global war among today’s Great Powers seems increasingly likely. Such war, as Odd Arne Westad powerfully argues in this urgent book, would be of a magnitude and devastation never before seen. To understand the threats that face us in this complex new terrain, we must look to the lessons of the past, and especially the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—a time when Great Powers clashed and sought regional dominance, nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had failed them; a time when tariffs increased, immigration and terrorism were among the biggest issues of the day, and a growing number of people blamed the citizens of other countries for their problems. A time, in other words, that carries eerie parallels with our own.

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