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"Anne Morrison Welsh tells the moving story of her husband's self-sacrifice [self-immolation] at the Pentagon in November 1965 in a desperate effort to help end a war he abhorred. Quaker Norman Morrison felt led to make this extreme statement in a manner of Vietnamese Buddhist monks. In telling her husband's story, the author also shares her own spiritual journey of forgiveness, acceptance and gradual recovery from life's wounds. A 1999 visit to Viet Nam was healing for Anne Morrison Welsh as she and her daughters met with many Vietnamese who shared with her the extraordinary impact that Norman Morrison's act had on their hearts and minds"--P. [4] of cover.
One day in November 1965, Norman Morrison, a devout Quaker, immolated himself on the steps of the Pentagon as a protest against the Vietnam War. It was a terrible and defining moment of an era, one that marked the lives of many people - not least Morrison's own family, who were left struggling to understand his action and to pick up the pieces of their lives. This searing memoir by his widow, Anne Morrison Welsh, recounts Norman's story as well as her own journey, over a lifetime, to find acceptance, forgiveness, and recovery from life's wounds. While many were appalled by Morrison's action, others were deeply affected - among them, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who later described Morrison's death as one of the critical turning points in his life. Decades later, on a pilgrimage to Vietnam, Anne and her children completed a circle that brought them to terms, in a new way, with the mystery and meaning of that day in November.
"Intense and absorbing... If you buy only one book on the Vietnam War, this is the one you want." -Chicago Tribune Christian G. Appy's monumental oral history of the Vietnam War is the first work to probe the war's path through both the United States and Vietnam. These vivid testimonies of 135 men and women span the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. Sometimes detached and reflective, often raw and emotional, they allow us to see and feel what this war meant to people literally on all sides: Americans and Vietnamese, generals and grunts, policymakers and protesters, guerrillas and CIA operatives, pilots and doctors, artists and journalists, and a variety of ordinary citizens whose lives were swept up in a cataclysm that killed three million people. By turns harrowing, inspiring, and revelatory, Patriots is not a chronicle of facts and figures but a vivid human history of the war. "A gem of a book, as informative and compulsively readable as it is timely." -The Washington Post Book World
This book examines a variety of different forms of political self-sacrifice, including hunger strikes, self-burning, and non-violent martyrdom.
A New York Times Editor’s Pick. Shortlisted for the Bookmark Festival Book of the Year and the McIlvanney Prize "I wasn’t sure there could be a great pandemic novel. Here it is." Ian Rankin My name is Haley Cooper Crowe and I am in lockdown in a remote location I can’t tell you about. It’s five years after the pandemic, and for most people life has returned to normal—but not for Haley Cooper Crowe and her brother Ben. Children of divorce, they live with their mother, but their dad believes there’s a new, much deadlier virus spreading out of control, and that he can only save his kids by kidnapping them and hiding them in his remote prepper hideaway. Once confined to their off-grid “safe house”, Haley and Ben are completely cut off from civilisation. Will they make it out alive? How can they save their mother? How can they discover what’s happening on the outside? Propulsive, electrifying, tense, and often visceral and funny, How to Survive Everything is one teenage girl’s guide to navigating the imminent collapse of her world, family and sanity.
'Vietnam' features accounts of 135 men and women that span the history of the Vietnam conflict from its murky origins in the 1940s to the chaotic fall of Saigon in 1975. It allows us to see what this war meant to people on various sides - Americans and Vietnamese, generals and guerillas, policy makers and protesters.
Robert S. McNamara is one of modern America's most controversial figures. His opinions, policies, and actions have led to a firestorm of debate, ignited most recently by Errol Morris's Academy Award-winning film, The Fog of War. In the companion book, editors James G. Blight and janet M. Lang use lessons from McNamara's life to examine issues of war and peace in the 20th century. McNamara's career spans some of America's defining events--from the end of World War I, through the course of World War II, and the unfolding of the Cold War in Cuba, Vietnam, and around the world. The Fog of War brings together film transcripts, documents, dialogues, and essays to explore what the horrors and triumphs of the 20th century can teach us about the future.
Sacrifice and Modern War Writing presents the most extensive study to date of twentieth- and twenty-first-century war writing. Examining works by over 110 authors, Alex Houen surveys how war writing explores sacrifice in relation to major modern and contemporary conflicts, from the First World War to the War on Terror. Various conceptions of sacrifice are examined, including Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and secular. The discussion ranges across literary portrayals of multiple sacrificial practices, including ancient rituals of child sacrifice, martyrdom, scapegoating, and suicide bombing. Houen builds an innovative interdisciplinary approach to how war, sacrifice, and their representations in...
Buddhism and Christianity are ancient, rich, and multivalent wisdom spirituality traditions that often have insightful similarities as well as distinct perspectives from entirely different starting points. Fragrant Rivers of Wisdom explores some of these paths and encourages readers to gain, as far as is possible, a participant's appreciation of another faith. This book aims to help readers celebrate and enjoy the rich wisdom legacies of a teacher revealing a pure lotus blossoming from mud and the legacies of a peasant Jewish carpenter from Galilee revealing love on a cross. Both teachers share the power of love, the joys of healing encouragement, and the creative resources of spirit-filled living. Their ancient words and their modern communities still following these paths are dynamically relevant for our modern context of confusion and challenge.
In an age of intolerance, compassion can be dangerous. Pillar of Fire captures the stunning witness of the medieval mystics known as Beguines. Amid the intrigues of kings and knights, against a panorama of church corruption, Crusader campaigns, and Inquisition trials, these bold women broke all the rules. In this sweeping historical saga, young Clarissa flees from a forced marriage, befriends a colorful minstrel, and unravels the mystery of a midwife's murder. After a spiritual pilgrimage to the Egyptian desert, she returns with a Muslim orphan and gathers a community of devoted sisters. Threats come when they offer refuge to people suffering from leprosy and a Jewish family under persecution. When church officials get word of their rituals celebrating the feminine aspects of God and of Clarissa's mystical visions, they charge her with heresy and turn up the heat, as she struggles with the wound of betrayal and discovers the power of forgiveness.