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  The Donum Dei - An Alchemical...

  Unknown author

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  The Pretiosissimum Donum Dei, 'the most precious gift of God', is an important early alchemical work, with a famous series of 12 illustrations. There have been identified over 60 manuscripts of the Donum Dei, the earliest dating from the 15th century. Some of these versions ascribe the work to Georgius Aurach de Argentina [sometimes 'Anrach'] and date it to 1475, though this unverified. There are versions in Latin, German, French and Italian, and one in English in the British Library.

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  The Weather Girls

  Sarah Webb

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  It's 1944. Twelve-year-old Grace Devine lives at Blacksod Lighthouse and weather station in County Mayo with her parents and little brother. When a German plane crashes nearby, she and her best friend Sibby risk their lives to save the young pilot. Grace's family take him in, but their neighbours are horrified at having an 'enemy' in their midst.
  Meanwhile, the Met Office in England suddenly asks Blacksod to send them weather reports every hour. But why? As the wind and rain howl outside, Grace begins to understand that something important is happening, something to do with the war – and she is right in the eye of the storm.
  A tale of bravery, adventure and a remarkable friendship, inspired by true events from World War 2.

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  Expectation of Valor - Planning...

  Colonel Kevin C.M. Benson (Ret),...

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  Given the length of time the United States spent in Iraq, there is a perception that there was no consideration before the war of what should be done after coalition forces arrived in Baghdad and removed Saddam Hussein. However as this unofficial history reveals, there was a great deal of planning to address how to achieve the policy objectives for Iraq set by the Bush administration. Kevin Benson—director of plans for the United States Third Army, the ground forces command headquarters for GEN Franks' Central Command, at the start of the war—details the development of the invasion plan and its subsequent execution from D-Day in March 2003 until the change of command of operations in Iraq and the departure of Third Army in June 2003. 
   
   
   
  He addresses the persistent trope that "the Army did no planning" for "Phase IV," revealing that extensive plans were proposed, and were met with very little interest in Washington. The book covers the difficulties encountered in dealing with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, from getting his approval on the number of forces requested to conducting the campaign to find the "smoking gun" of WMD; the instructions given to Army, Marine, and coalition forces; and the daily secure video teleconferences with Central Command and the Pentagon, and the rather remarkable conversations and guidance that came from these meetings.

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  Fighting for Queen and Country -...

  Nigel Ely

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  'Slowly I raised my rifle, aimed and pulled the trigger... One round hit and went through the boot. The leg kicked up about three feet and fell back. Confirmed! The Argy was now dead for sure. No screams, no nothing.'Spud Ely's SAS career has taken him into some of the most deadly, high-octane, violent battles ever. From the Falklands to the Persian Gulf, he has been in the very centre of the most ferocious fighting scenes modern history has witnessed. Armed to the hilt with the most up-to-date, hi-tech military machinery and his highly-toned fighting skills, Steve is truly a force to be reckoned with.Fighting for Queen and Country is the unputdownable account of his most bloody, violent, heroic moments. 'Through the smoke and fire I could see two bodies inside, one burning and obviously a goner. I shot the other in the guts. The look on his face was total shock as blood spurted up from him and covered my right leg. Then I put two rounds in the other body for good measure.'

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  The Purposeful Graduate - Why...

  Tim Clydesdale

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  We all know that higher education has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Historically a time of exploration and self-discovery, the college years have been narrowed toward an increasingly singular goal—career training—and college students these days forgo the big questions about who they are and how they can change the world and instead focus single-mindedly on their economic survival. In The Purposeful Graduate, Tim Clydesdale elucidates just what a tremendous loss this is, for our youth, our universities, and our future as a society. At the same time, he shows that it doesn’t have to be this way: higher education can retain its higher cultural role, and students with a true sense of purpose—of personal, cultural, and intellectual value that cannot be measured by a wage—can be streaming out of every one of its institutions. The key, he argues, is simple: direct, systematic, and creative programs that engage undergraduates on the question of purpose. Backing up his argument with rich data from a Lilly Endowment grant that funded such programs on eighty-eight different campuses, he shows that thoughtful engagement of the notion of vocational calling by students, faculty, and staff can bring rich rewards for all those involved: greater intellectual development, more robust community involvement, and a more proactive approach to lifelong goals. Nearly every institution he examines—from internationally acclaimed research universities to small liberal arts colleges—is a success story, each designing and implementing its own program, that provides students with deep resources that help them to launch flourishing lives. Flying in the face of the pessimistic forecast of higher education’s emaciated future, Clydesdale offers a profoundly rich alternative, one that can be achieved if we simply muster the courage to talk with students about who they are and what they are meant to do.

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  Anglo-Saxons and the Jutes The:...

  Editors Charles River

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  As the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned and Roman control of the area broke down.  
  Little is known of this period of British history, but soon the Anglo-Saxons – who had been harassing the Saxon Shore as pirates – showed up and began to settle the land, creating a patchwork of little kingdoms and starting a new era of British history. Several early medieval historians, writing well after the events, said the Anglo-Saxons were invited to Britain to defend the region from the northern tribes and ended up taking over. However they came to control most of England, the Anglo-Saxons became the dominant power in the region for nearly 500 years, and the strength of their cultural influence could be felt even after William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings and became the first Norman ruler on the island. The efforts to consolidate his rule in England were complicated from the start, both due to external enemies and those jockeying for his position while he was still alive, but the Normans would manage just barely to cling to power over England, and William remains the last foreign conqueror of the island.  
  The Jutes were so closely related to the Angles and Saxons that the nature of their existence has been, and continues to be, the subject of scholarly debates. Although historians and archaeologists have identified a Germanic tribe known as the Jutes that migrated to England at the same time as the Angles and Saxons, the attempt to distinguish them from the other tribes has been questioned. Either way, once the Jutes landed in England, they immediately distinguished themselves from the Angles and Saxons by carving out kingdoms in the regions of Kent and the Isle of Wight. From these two locations, the Jutes not only carried on many of their pre-migration cultural traditions but also adopted some of the new, unifying European traditions, particularly Christianity.

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