Fr. H. Drake Library (St. Paul's College)  

In 1976, Nahlah Ayed's family gave up a comfortable life in Winnipeg for the squalor of a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. The transition was jarring, but it was during this unsettling period that Ayed first closely observed the people whose heritage she shared. She had to become accustomed to rudimentary housing and crowded streets, unfamiliar social customs, and the prevailing mood of loss and mourning. But it was hearing the family's stories of exile and displacement that profoundly affected her.

The political, media and business elites of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal ran this country for almost its entire history. But in the last few years, they have lost their power, and most of them still do not realize it’s gone. The Laurentian Consensus, a name John Ibbitson coined for the dusty liberal elite, has been replaced by a new, powerful coalition based in the West and supported by immigrant voters in Ontario. So what happened?
Great global migrations have washed over Canada. Most people are unaware that the keystone economic and political drivers of this country are now Western Canada and the immigrants from China, India, and other Asian countries who increasingly are turning Ontario into a Pacific-oriented province. Those in politics and business have greatly underestimated how conservative these newcomers are, and how conservative they are making our country. Canada, with an ever-evolving and growing economy and a constantly changing demographic base, has become divorced from the traditions of its past and is moving in an entirely new direction.

Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art-The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at forty-three, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.

Originally published in 1960 in German as Der Gelbe Stern, this landmark book was one of the first comprehensive photographic accounts of the Holocaust. During the 1950s, researchers in Washington, D.C. and London pored over more than 1,500 tons of photographs and documents seized after World War II. In 1960 Gerhard Schoenberner gathered some 200 photographs from the newly uncovered material, most of them taken by Nazis to chronicle their war against the Jews. Schoenberner named the book after the yellow badge that the Nazis forced the persecuted Jews to wear.

The fascinating story of a friendship, a lost tradition, and an incredible discovery, revealing how enslaved men and women made encoded quilts and then used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad.

In his riveting and provocative Why Priests'.  Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills poses challenging questions: Why do we have priests?  Why did the priesthood develop in a religion that began without it and, indeed, opposed it?  Would Christianity be stronger without the priesthood, as it was at its outset? Wills makes clear that he is not opposed to the priesthood; in fact, as a young man he studied for five years at a Jesuit seminary.  Nor does he advocate the elimination of the priesthood.  'It is not a personal issue but an historical one,'  Wills states.  Not one of the New Testament's apostles or early disciples is a priest - not Peter, not Paul, not one.  After examining the early church's egalitarian structure, Wills studies the powers that later accrued to the priesthood, in particular the ability to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ: 'The Host, as a separate object of worship, outside and apart from the Mass, had become the whole point of the faith.'  Though transubstantiation became accepted Catholic doctrine, Wills traces back through the centuries to show that other interpretations of the Eucharist have been widely held by leading Catholic theologians but stridently dismissed by the Church.And on what basis did the priesthood arise?  Wills contends that the idea of a Christian priesthood was a novelty introduced in an anonymous document, mislabeled a letter, which was written in the nineties of the first century of the Common Era.  This 'Letter to Hebrews' was meant to solace groups in Rome and correct their backsliding ways.  A late addition ot the New Testament, the Letter to Hebrews helped inject the priesthood into a Christianity where it did not exist, drawing on two brief Old Testament references to a king and priest, Melchizedek, to propose the eccentric views found only in this Letter: that Melchizedek was a priest eternally (without ancestry of any kind), that Jesus was a human sacrifice replicating on a higher plane the animal sacrifice of the Mosaic Law, and that Jesus advocates for his believers from a seat in heaven. 

The statistics are alarming. Some say that once every nine minutes a woman in the United States is beaten by her spouse or partner. Others claim that once every four minutes a woman in the world is beaten by her spouse or partner. More women go to emergency rooms in the United States for injuries sustained at the hands of their spouses and partners than for all other injuries combined. Shelters for battered women are filled beyond capacity every single day of the year. Despite the overwhelming evidence that violence in our homes is a daily reality, most of us are not willing to acknowledge this private violence or talk about it openly.

The concept of yinyang lies at the heart of Chinese thought and culture. The relationship between these two opposing, yet mutually dependent, forces is symbolized in the familiar black and white symbol that has become an icon in popular culture across the world. The real significance of yinyang is, however, more complex and subtle. This brilliant and comprehensive analysis by one of the leading authorities in the field captures the richness and multiplicity of the meanings and applications of yinyang, including its visual presentations. Through a vast range of historical and textual sources, the book examines the scope and role of yinyang, the philosophical significance of its various layers of meanings, and its relation to numerous schools and traditions within Chinese (and Western) philosophy. By putting yinyang on a secure and clear philosophical footing, the book roots the concept in the original Chinese idiom, distancing it from Western assumptions, frameworks, and terms, yet also seeking to connect its analysis to shared cross-cultural philosophical concerns.

The global climate change problem has finally entered the world's consciousness. While efforts to find a solution have increased momentum, international attention has focused primarily on the industrial and energy sectors. The forest, and land-use sector, however, remains one of the most significant untapped opportunities for carbon mitigation. The expiration of the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period in 2012 presents an opportunity for the international community to put this sector back on the agenda.

Forests are among our most ancient, primal landscapes, and fairytales one of our earliest and most vital cultural forms. In this fascinating and illuminating book, Maitland argues that the two are intimately connected.

Psychologists have done a great deal of research on the effects of trauma on the individual, revealing the paradox that violent experiences are often secreted away beyond easy accessibility, becoming impossible to verbalize explicitly. However, comparatively little research has been done on the transgenerational effects of trauma and the means by which experiences are transmitted from person to person across time to become intrinsic parts of the social fabric. With eight contributions covering Africa, Central and South America, China, Europe, and the Middle East, this volume sheds new light on the role of memory in constructing popular histories – or historiographies – of violence in the absence of, or in contradistinction to, authoritative written histories. It brings new ethnographic data to light and presents a truly cross-cultural range of case studies that will greatly enhance the discussion of memory and violence across disciplines.

Offering a fresh perspective on treatment, this book presents an overarching framework and numerous specific strategies for working with violent youth and their families. The authors draw on extensive experience to identify four critical factors that push some adolescents to commit harmful, even deadly acts: devaluation, erosion of community, dehumanized loss, and rage. Effective ways to address each of these factors in clinical and school settings are discussed and illustrated with evocative case material. The book also provides essential guidance on connecting with aggressive teens - many of whom have endured traumas of their own - and managing difficult situations that are likely to arise in therapy.

If we are blowing our Franciscan horn here, it should have been blown much earlier and much louder! This is the wisdom that our world so desires and needs today. We can no longer see ourselves as separate from the 'great chain of being,' and we can no longer see this as a non-religious issue. Francis intuited all of this 800 years ago. —Father Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico Three of the greatest minds in Franciscan theology, Ilia Delio, O.S.F., Franciscan Keith Douglass Warner, O.F.M., and Pamela Wood, come together to discuss one of the greatest crises of our time—the destruction of the Earth.