Extraordinary Times, Extraordinary Beings PDF Download

Author: Wayne S. Peterson
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 1612833012
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
All major religions of the world are expecting him. Christians know him as the Christ. Jews are still awaiting the Messiah. Hindus anticipate the coming of Krishna. Muslims are expecting the Imam Mahdi. And Buddhists call him the Fifth (Maitreya) Buddha. The names are all different, but many believe they all refer to the same person: a world Teacher who is among us now, and is called Maitreya. But he does not come as a religious leader. He is here as a guide for people of all religions, all countries, all societies. In this age of crisis, he is here to inspire all of us to put down the sword of religious, social, and economic strife, and to seek justice based on sharing and global cooperation of the human family. His message is that of all great teachers of the ageless wisdom: peace, love, the golden rule. Some very prominent world leaders and celebrities, and many others, are aware of Maitreya's reappearance, but are not yet prepared to go public due to the possible effect on their professional reputations/ however, many believe that it's just a matter of time before everyone will recognize that the world teacher is back, living among us. Wayne Peterson, a former American diplomat and director of the Fulbright Scholarship program, tells the story of his own extraordinary encounters with Maitreya, and why Maitreya has returned. It is a story of strange, fascinating events and penetrating wisdom and an inspirational message of hope for the future. It is a story that deals with nothing less than humanity's opportunity to redefine its institutions and beliefs based on the ancient wisdom common to all traditions. Above all, it is a story, both personal and planetary, of love, and of those extraordinary spiritual beings who embody it to the world.

Author: Andrew Stuart Bergerson
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253111234
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Hildesheim is a mid-sized provincial town in northwest Germany. Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times is a carefully drawn account of how townspeople went about their lives and reacted to events during the Nazi era. Andrew Stuart Bergerson argues that ordinary Germans did in fact make Germany and Europe more fascist, more racist, and more modern during the 1930s, but they disguised their involvement behind a pre-existing veil of normalcy. Bergerson details a way of being, believing, and behaving by which "ordinary Germans" imagined their powerlessness and absence of responsibility even as they collaborated in the Nazi revolution. He builds his story on research that includes anecdotes of everyday life collected systematically from newspapers, literature, photography, personal documents, public records, and especially extensive interviews with a representative sample of residents born between 1900 and 1930. The book considers the actual customs and experiences of friendship and neighborliness in a German town before, during, and after the Third Reich. By analyzing the customs of conviviality in interwar Hildesheim, and the culture of normalcy these customs invoked, Bergerson aims to help us better understand how ordinary Germans transformed "neighbors" into "Jews" or "Aryans."

Author: Condoleezza Rice
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307888479
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
This is the story of Condoleezza Rice that has never been told, not that of an ultra-accomplished world leader, but of a little girl--and a young woman--trying to find her place in a sometimes hostile world, of two exceptional parents, and an extended family and community that made all the difference. Condoleezza Rice has excelled as a diplomat, political scientist, and concert pianist. Her achievements run the gamut from helping to oversee the collapse of communism in Europe and the decline of the Soviet Union, to working to protect the country in the aftermath of 9-11, to becoming only the second woman--and the first black woman ever--to serve as Secretary of State. But until she was 25 she never learned to swim, because when she was a little girl in Birmingham, Alabama, Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor decided he'd rather shut down the city's pools than give black citizens access. Throughout the 1950's, Birmingham's black middle class largely succeeded in insulating their children from the most corrosive effects of racism, providing multiple support systems to ensure the next generation would live better than the last. But by 1963, Birmingham had become an environment where blacks were expected to keep their head down and do what they were told--or face violent consequences. That spring two bombs exploded in Rice’s neighborhood amid a series of chilling Klu Klux Klan attacks. Months later, four young girls lost their lives in a particularly vicious bombing. So how was Rice able to achieve what she ultimately did? Her father, John, a minister and educator, instilled a love of sports and politics. Her mother, a teacher, developed Condoleezza’s passion for piano and exposed her to the fine arts. From both, Rice learned the value of faith in the face of hardship and the importance of giving back to the community. Her parents’ fierce unwillingness to set limits propelled her to the venerable halls of Stanford University, where she quickly rose through the ranks to become the university’s second-in-command. An expert in Soviet and Eastern European Affairs, she played a leading role in U.S. policy as the Iron Curtain fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated. Less than a decade later, at the apex of the hotly contested 2000 presidential election, she received the exciting news--just shortly before her father’s death--that she would go on to the White House as the first female National Security Advisor. As comfortable describing lighthearted family moments as she is recalling the poignancy of her mother’s cancer battle and the heady challenge of going toe-to-toe with Soviet leaders, Rice holds nothing back in this remarkably candid telling.

Author: Melissa Sturm
Publisher: AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1456733788
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
1861 - 1866 It should not be. Young men marching off to war. Mothers and fathers left behind to worry. Sisters packing boxes of mittens, scarves and pies to send to their brothers on the fields. Young women with hopes of marriage and homes of their own left to wait and wonder if their dreams will ever come true. Yet it is the life of many as President Lincoln calls up Northern troops to keep Union together and the South prepares to defend their homes. Henry Harris cannot deny the call of duty. He puts on the Union blue and marches South to War. His family and beloved Olivia are left behind. Overnight, it seems, everything changes. Olivia cannot accept Henrys choice of duty over his love for her. Father is left to worry for his sons safety. Sister Sarah puts on a brave face, packs boxes full of good things, and tries her best to be an anchor as the waves of War wash over their lives. Henry must do his duty. As the years rush by, the South is destroyed and the North receives a battered victory. Letters from Henry are the only line connecting him to the changing lives of his family back home. But are those letters enough to protect the hearts of the ones he loves? Or will the many miles and long days of separation destroy all hopes and dreams?

Author: Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 1536225746
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description
Set in an incarceration camp where the United States cruelly detained Japanese Americans during WWII and based on true events, this moving love story finds hope in heartbreak. To fall in love is already a gift. But to fall in love in a place like Minidoka, a place built to make people feel like they weren’t human—that was miraculous. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tama is sent to live in a War Relocation Center in the desert. All Japanese Americans from the West Coast—elderly people, children, babies—now live in prison camps like Minodoka. To be who she is has become a crime, it seems, and Tama doesn’t know when or if she will ever leave. Trying not to think of the life she once had, she works in the camp’s tiny library, taking solace in pages bursting with color and light, love and fairness. And she isn’t the only one. George waits each morning by the door, his arms piled with books checked out the day before. As their friendship grows, Tama wonders: Can anyone possibly read so much? Is she the reason George comes to the library every day? Maggie Tokuda-Hall’s beautifully illustrated, elegant love story features a photo of the real Tama and George—the author’s grandparents—along with an afterword and other back matter for readers to learn more about a time in our history that continues to resonate.

Author: Kenneth Whyte
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 030774387X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 770

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Book Description
"An exemplary biography—exhaustively researched, fair-minded and easy to read. It can nestle on the same shelf as David McCullough’s Truman, a high compliment indeed." —The Wall Street Journal The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the twentieth century—a wholly original account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, his battle against the Great Depression, and their own history. An impoverished orphan who built a fortune. A great humanitarian. A president elected in a landslide and then resoundingly defeated four years later. Arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism, Herbert Hoover lived one of the most extraordinary American lives of the twentieth century. Yet however astonishing, his accomplishments are often eclipsed by the perception that Hoover was inept and heartless in the face of the Great Depression. Now, Kenneth Whyte vividly recreates Hoover’s rich and dramatic life in all its complex glory. He follows Hoover through his Iowa boyhood, his cutthroat business career, his brilliant rescue of millions of lives during World War I and the 1927 Mississippi floods, his misconstrued presidency, his defeat at the hands of a ruthless Franklin Roosevelt, his devastating years in the political wilderness, his return to grace as Truman's emissary to help European refugees after World War II, and his final vindication in the days of Kennedy's "New Frontier." Ultimately, Whyte brings to light Hoover’s complexities and contradictions—his modesty and ambition, his ruthlessness and extreme generosity—as well as his profound political legacy. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times is the epic, poignant story of the deprived boy who, through force of will, made himself the most accomplished figure in the land, and who experienced a range of achievements and failures unmatched by any American of his, or perhaps any, era. Here, for the first time, is the definitive biography that fully captures the colossal scale of Hoover’s momentous life and volatile times.

Author: Herb McCormick
Publisher: Paradise Cay Publications
ISBN: 1929214995
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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In As Long as It’s Fun, the biography of Lin and Larry Pardey, Herb McCormick recounts their remarkable sailing career—from their early days in Southern California to their two circumnavigations to their current life in a quiet cove in New Zealand. Through interviews with their families, friends, and critics, McCormick delves deeply into the couple’s often-controversial opinions, sometimes-tenuous marriage, and amazing list of accomplishments. As Long as It’s Fun is as much a love story as it is a sea yarn, and, like all such stories, it’s not without complications . . . which makes it not only a sailing tale but also a human one.

Author: Emily Pearson
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
ISBN: 1423614313
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
This illustrated children’s book celebrates the extraordinary potential of ordinary deeds—showing how one child’s act of kindness can change the world One ordinary day, Ordinary Mary stumbles upon some ordinary blueberries. When she decides to pick them for her neighbor, Mrs. Bishop, her thoughtful act starts a chain reaction that multiplies around the world. Mrs. Bishop makes blueberry muffins and gives them to her paperboy and four others—one of whom is Mr. Stevens, who then helps five different people with their luggage—one of whom is Maria, who then helps five other people—and so on, until the deed comes back to Mary.

Author: H. Stanley Wood
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802829771
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This book observes distinguishing traits of twenty-first-century clergy who have of established churches that successfully reach unchurched people. It distills the results of a large-scale research project focused on successful pastors of newly-developed churches in seven mainline denominations across the U. S. Drawn from clergy focus groups and a survey of more than 700 effective pastors, this study elucidates key leadership qualities that transcend denominational differences. Four experts -- H. Stanley Wood, Carl S. Dudley, Darrell L. Guder, and Robert S. Hoyt -- interpret the data, placing the findings in the context of church history, current religious demographics, theories of leadership, and comparison with the FACT study (the largest study of worshipping communities ever undertaken). An extensive addendum provides profiles of successful new churches and denominational differences.

Author: Bernice Eaton
Publisher: Archway Publishing
ISBN: 1480896055
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
In the early 1900s, thirty-five individuals left their current church to venture on a journey of starting a new church. This journey would change not only the community, but the lives of many. In Making a Difference in Our Father’s House, authors Bernice H. Eaton and Reverend Dr. Gregory E. Moore chronicle the history of the creation of Trinity Baptist Church in Fort Valley, Georgia. Eaton and Moore pieced the history together from written and oral resources including financial records, the first warranty deed, programs, conference minutes, minute books, newspaper articles, correspondence, written and oral histories, books, manuscripts, and census records. It presents a look at everything from the church founders to its pastors and leadership, and its programs and outreach. Making a Difference in Our Father’s House shows that throughout its history, the members demonstrated their faith, their hope, and their courage as they went about doing God’s will. They worked to make a better community for the people of Fort Valley and Peach County becoming known as the People’s Church.