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The Psychology of Revolutionary Religious Personalities

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New religious movementsor so-called "cults"continue to attract and mystify us. While mainstream America views cults as an insidious mix of apocalyptic beliefs, science fiction, and paranoia, with new vehicles such as the World Wide Web, they are becoming even more influential as the millennium approaches. Len Oakesa former member of such a movementexplores the phenomenon of cult leaders. He examines the psychology of charisma and proposes his own theory of the five-stage life cycle of the two types of prophets: the messianic and the charismatic.

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A translation from the Sudanese of Tahas major work in which he outlines the main features of his teachings. Mahmoud Mohamed Taha had long been known for his radical reinterpretation of Islam. His reputation, along with his vigorous opposition to the Islamization program, ultimately led to his demise.

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Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, Abdullahi Ahmed An Na'im

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Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo

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The legal treatment of sexual behavior is a subject that receives little scholarly attention in the field of Middle East womens studies. Important questions about the relationship between sexuality and the law and about the societies enforcing that relationship are rarely addressed in the current literature. Elyse Semerdjians "Off the Straight Path" takes a bold step toward filling that gap by offering a fascinating look at the historical progression of the treatment of illicit sex under Islamic law.

Semerdjian provides a comprehensive review of the concept of zina, i.e., sexual indiscretion, by exploring the diverse interpretation of zina crime as presented in a variety of sources from the Quran and hadith to legal literature. She then delves into the history of legal responses to zina within the specific community of Aleppo, Syria. Drawing on a wealth of sharia court records, Semerdjian provides a realistic view of Syrian society during the Ottoman period. With vivid detail, she describes specific womens lives and experiences as their cases are presented before the court. Semerdjian argues that the actual treatment of zina crimes in the courts differs substantially from sentences prescribed by codified Islamic jurisprudence. In contrast to the violent corporal punishments dictated in the Islamic legal code, the courts often punished crimes of sexual indiscretion with nonviolent sentences, such as removal from the community. Employing exceptional insight, "Off the Straight Path" presents a powerful challenge to the traditional view of Islamic law, enabling a richer understanding of Islamic society.

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Pacifist Bookseller Roy Kepler and the Paperback Revolution

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Long a hub for literary bohemians, countercultural musicians, and readers interested in a good browse, Kepler's Books and Magazines is one of the most well-known independent bookstores in American history. When owner Roy Kepler opened the store in 1955 he changed the book industry forever as a pioneer in the "paperback revolution."  The notion of selling texts in inexpensive paperbound volumes was revolutionary in the publishing trade and Kepler's focus on stocking these inexpensive books put him at the forefront of the movement. Paperback-selling was not the only revolution Kepler supported, however. In Radical Chapters, Doyle sheds light on Keplers remarkable contributions not only to the book industry but also to pacifism. Recalling the tumultuous politics of the last century, he highlights Keplers achievements in advocating radical pacifism during World War II, anti-nuclear activism during the Cold War era, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. During those decades, Keplers Books played an integral role, creating a community and space to exchange ideas for such notable figures as Jerry Garica, Joan Baez, and Stewart Brand. Doyles fascinating chronicle captures the man who inspired that community and offers a moving tribute to his legacy.

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In Pragmatism in Islamic Law, Ibrahim presents a detailed history of Sunni legal pluralism and the ways in which it was employed to accommodate the changing needs of society. Since the formative period of Islamic law, jurists have debated whether it is acceptable for a law to be selected based on its utility, rather than weighing conflicting articulations of the law to determine the most likely expression of the divine will. Virtually unanimous opposition to the utilitarian approach, referred to as "pragmatic eclecticism," emerged among early Islamic jurists. However, due to a host of changing institutional and socioeconomic transformations, a trend toward the legitimization of pragmatic eclecticism arose in the thirteenth century. Subsequently, the Mamluk authorities institutionalized this pragmatism when Sultan Baybars appointed four chief judges representing the four Sunni schools in Cairo in 1265 CE. After a brief attempt to reverse Mamluk pluralism by imposing the Hanafi school in the sixteenth century, Egypts new rulers, the Ottomans, embraced this pluralistic pragmatism. In examining over a thousand cases from three seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury Egyptian courts, Ibrahim traces the internal logic of pragmatic eclecticism
under the Ottomans. An array of archival sources documents the manner in which Egyptian societys subaltern classes navigated Sunni legal pluralism as a tool to avoid more austere legal doctrines. The ensuing portrait challenges the assumption made by many modern historians that the utilitarian approaches adopted by nineteenth- and twentieth-century Muslim reformers constituted a clear rupture with early Islamic legal history. In contrast, many of the legal strategies
exercised in Egypts partial codification of family law in the twentieth century were rooted in premodern Islamic jurisprudence.

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Decolonization Models for Americas Last Colony

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Addresses the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, and provides the long-term options that Puerto Rico might have as a sovereign country using six countries as case studies- Singapore, Ireland, New Zealand, Estonia, Slovenia and Israel

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The Story of the Lowry Band, Indian Guerillas of Reconstruction

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During the Civil War many young Lumbee Indians of North Carolina hid in the swamps to avoid conscription into Confederate labor battalions and carried on a running guerilla war. To Die Game is the story of Henry Berry Lowry, a Lumbee who was arrested for killing a Confederate official. While awaiting trial, he escaped and took to the swamps with a band of supporters. The Lowry band became as notorious as their contemporaries Jesse and Frank James, as they terrorized bush-whacked leaders of possses and military companies. For more than five years, with the support of local Indians and Negroes, they eluded capture. In 1872, Henry disappeared and some of his other followers were eventually hunted down and killed by bounty hunters.

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The African Burial Ground in New York City

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In 1991, archaeologists in lower Manhattan unearthed a stunning discovery. Buried for more than 200 years was a communal cemetery containing the remains of up to 20,000 people. At roughly 6.6 acres, the African Burial Ground is the largest and earliest known burial space of African descendants in North America. In the years that followed its discovery, citizens and activists fought tirelessly to demand respectful treatment of eighteenth-century funerary remains and sacred ancestors. After more than a decade of political battleon local and national levelsand scientific research at Howard University, the remains were eventually reburied on the site in 2003.

Capturing the varied perspectives and the emotional tenor of the time, Frohne narrates the story of the African Burial Ground and the controversies surrounding urban commemoration. She analyzes both its colonial and contemporary representations, drawing on colonial era maps, prints, and land surveys to illuminate the forgotten and hidden visual histories of a mostly enslaved population buried in the African Burial Ground. Tracing the history and identity of the area from a forgotten site to a contested and negotiated space, Frohne situates the burial ground within the context of late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century race relations in New York City to reveal its enduring presence as a spiritual place.

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The Selected Poems of Hava Pinhas-Cohen, Bilingual Edition

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Raised in a Ladino-speaking family of Bulgarian Jewish immigrants, Pinhas-Cohen fuses the ancient Sephardic chant of her childhood with the contemporary rhythm of Israeli life. This singular talent for bridging the ancient and the modern sets her apart from most other Hebrew poets of her generation. Secular in style and spirit, yet rooted in the life cycle of religious Judaism, Pinhas-Cohens poems portray everyday life in modern Israel through a sacred yet personal language. Awarded the coveted Prime Ministers Prize for her poetry, Pinhas-Cohen is a poet whose verse in English translation is long overdue. This bilingual collection offers readers a careful selection of poems from each of her seven published volumes. Hart-Green has worked closely with the poet herself on these translations, several of which have appeared in journals such as the Jewish Quarterly and the Toronto Journal of Jewish Thought. Her lively translations display the dazzling breadth and depth of Pinhas-Cohens oeuvre, making Bridging the Divide not only the first but the definitive English-language edition of this vital Hebrew poets work.

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The Making of Eurocentrism in World History

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Hegel, more than any other modern Western philosopher, produced the most systematic case for the superiority of Western white Protestant bourgeois modernity. He established a racially structured ladder of gradation of the peoples of the world, putting Germanic people at the top of the racial pyramid, people of Asia in the middle, and Africans and Indigenous people of the Americas and Pacific Islands at the bottom. In Hegel and the Third World Tibebu guides the reader through Hegels presentation on universalism to argue that such a classification flows in part from Hegel's philosophy of the development of human consciousness. Hegel classified Africans as people arrested at the lowest and most immediate stage of consciousness, that of the senses; Asians as people with divided consciousness, that of the understanding; and Europeans as people of reason. Tibebu demonstrates that Hegels views were not his alone but reflected the fundamental beliefs of other major figures of Western thought at the time.

With detailed analysis and thorough research Hegel and the Third World challenges the central idea of Hegel's philosophy of history: progress. In addition, Tibebu succeeds in providing a fascinating critique of the Western philosophers rationalization of the gradual decline suffered by the people of the Third World in the context of modern world history.

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Writing Beyond the Curriculum in the City of Brotherly Love

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In Gravyland, Parks chronicles the history of an urban university writing program and its attempt to develop politically progressive literacy partnerships with the surrounding community while having to work within and against a traditional educational and cultural landscape. He details the experience of Temple Universitys New City Writing program from its beginning as a small institute with one program at a local public school to a multifaceted organization, supported by large multiyear grants and establishing partnerships across the diverse neighborhoods of Philadelphia. The author describes classrooms where the community takes a seat and becomes part of the conversationa conversation that readers of Gravyland share through the inclusion of a selection of passages produced by community writers published by New City Community Press.

While Parks celebrates classroom success in generating knowledge through dialogue with the larger community, he also highlights many of the obstacles the organizers of the New City Writing program faced. The author shows that writing alliances between universities and communities are possible, but they must take into account the institutional, economic, and political pressures that accompany such partnerships. Blending the theoretical and practical lessons learned, Parks elucidates New City Writings effort to offer a new model of education, one in which the voice of the professor must share space with the voices of the community, and one in which students come to understand that the right to sit in a classroom is the result not just of nationalist war but of peaceful civil disobedience, of community struggles to gain self-recognition, and of collective efforts to seek social justice.

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Whether set in Maxim D. Shrayers native Russia or in North America and Western Europe, the eight stories in this collection explore emotionally intricate relationships that cross traditional boundaries of ethnicity, religion, and culture. Tracing the lives, obsessions, and aspirations of Jewish-Russian immigrants, these poignant, humorous, and tender stories create an expansive portrait of individuals struggling to come to terms with ghosts of their European pasts while simultaneously seeking to build new lives in their American present.

The title story follows Jake Glaz, a young Jewish man apprehensive about marrying a Catholic woman. After realizing Erin will not convert, Jake leaves the United States to spend Yom Kippur in Amsterdam, "a beautiful place for a Jew to atone." In "Sonetchka" a literary scholar and his former girlfriend from Moscow reunite in her suburban Connecticut apartment. As they reminisce about their Soviet youth and quietly admire each others professional successes, both wrestle with the curious mix of prosperity, loneliness, and insecurity that defines their lives in the United States.

Yom Kippur in Amsterdam takes the immigrant narrative into the twenty-first century. Emerging from the traditions of Isaac Babel, Vladimir Nabokov, and Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shrayers vibrant literary voice significantly contributes to the evolution of Jewish writing in America.

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In 1950, future Hall of Famer Earl Lloyd became the first African American to play in a National Basketball Association game. Nicknamed "Moonfixer" in college, Lloyd led West Virginia State to two CIAA Conference and Tournament Championships and was named All-American twice. One of three African Americans to enter the NBA at that time, Lloyd played for the Washington Capitals, Syracuse Nationals, and Detroit Pistons before he retired in 1961.

Throughout his career, he quietly endured the overwhelming slights and exclusions that went with being black in America. Yet he has also lived to see basketballa demonstration of art, power, and pridebecome the black national pastime and to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama. In a series of extraordinary conversations with Sean Kirst, Lloyd reveals his fierce determination to succeed, his frustration with the plight of many young black men, and his sincere desire for the nation to achieve true equality among its citizens.

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This is the story of marching men and clashing ships, of suffering, and of occasional heroic deeds. As in wars past, and for similar reasons, Lake Champlain and the region surrounding Lower Canada, Vermont, and Upstate New York became one of the major theaters of military action. For two and a half years, people in the region saw armies raised, defeated, and disbanded. They witnessed their own militia repeatedly called out to protect the border areas and to serve as adjuncts to regular army units. Despite a series of disheartening military reverses, loss of life, and destruction of property, civilians maintained a remarkable degree of resilience. They fled if battle threatened but soon returned to pick up the threads of their lives. Everests story shows us a war in microcosm and allows us a close-up experience of the small events that helped shape the destiny of a youthful and growing nation.

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Here is a comprehensive, significant study of wetlands flora, which encompasses all members of the plant and fungi kingdoms. These include poisonous, hallucinogenic, medicinal, and edible plant life as well as native and non-native plants that have the potential to become troublesome weed species. Complete and accurate details are offered on plant collection and preservation. A special chapter provides nontechnical investigations and projects for those pursuing areas beyond the realm of gathering and identifying flora. Conservation and habitat preservation are emphasized throughout the book.

Handsomely illustrated, informative, and easy to read, this hands-on guide will prove an accessible and invaluable companion to professional and amateur naturalists as well as to students and the general public.

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"Who Will Die Last?" is a collection of David Ehrlichs short stories originally written in Hebrew and each translated by a different person. The translators are writers, teachers,  activists, doctors, or rabbis, and they all bring a unique voice to stories of life and the search for meaning within it. Ehrlichs characters are quirky and uncomfortable in themselves, yet they are incredibly honest and worthy of the readers time and empathy. In "Its All Right," for instance, the character struggles with hiding his homosexuality from his parents, who are coming for an unexpected visit from Israel. "Three times I move the flowers, trying to give my hovel the appearance of a home. The pink carnations look a little confused."  Hidden homosexuality is a theme within the stories, and in this way becomes a metaphor for the many ways in which we all feel different from others and ashamed of this difference. Yet despite the odd characters living in distant or unlikely places, these stories of the struggle to belong show the humor and pathos of the shared human condition.

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Narrated in the tradition of Tolstoy's confessional trilogy and Nabokov's autobiography, Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story  is a searing account of growing up a Jewish refusenik, of a young  poet's rebellion against totalitarian culture, and of Soviet fantasies  of  the West during  the Cold War. Shrayer's remembrances ore  set  against a rich backdrop of politics, travel, and ethnic conflict on the  brink of the Soviet empire's collapse. His moving story offers generous  doses of humor and tenderness, counterbalanced with longing and  violence.

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A Critical Examination of the Thought of Mahmud Muhammad Taha

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A highly influential Sudanese reformist thinker, Mahmud Muhammad Taha is regarded as a product of a dual legacy rooted in mystical Islam on the one hand and in the tradition of modernity on the other. Publicly executed in 1985 folowing his conviction of apostasy, Taha offered distinctly original interpretations of the Quran and a radical theory of Islamic prayer. In Quest for Divinity, Mohamed Mahmoud presents an in-depth and balanced treatment of Tahas controversial yet significant thought. The authors ability to provide access to relevant literature in both Arabic and English offers readers a rare view of the considerable nuance in Tahas thought. With rich detail Mahmoud explores Tahas theories of human freedom and his social message, referred to as "the second message of Islam" with its emphasis on political, economic, and social equality. Tahas embrace of modernity is further assessed relative to his position on science, law, and art-areas that have always attracted Muslim modernists.

Quest for Divinity will attract attention to Tahas compelling but little-known intellectual contribution as a seminal modern reformer of Islam. Such recognition is long overdue and will enrich the current debates on Islam and modernity.

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Ahmet Midhat Efendis famous 1875 novel Felatun Bey and Rakim Efendi takes place in late nineteenth-century Istanbul and follows the lives of two young men who come from radically different backgrounds. Rakim Efendi is an erudite, self-made man, one who is ambitious and cultivated enough to mingle with a European crowd. In contrast, Felatun Bey is a spendthrift who lacks intellectual curiosity and a strong work ethic. Squandering his wealth and education, he leads a life of decadence.

The novel traces Rakim and Felatuns relationships with multiple characters, charting their romances and passions, as well as their foibles and amusing mishaps as they struggle to find and follow their own path through the many temptations and traps of European culture. The author creates a rich portrait of stratified Ottoman life through a diverse and colorful cast of charactersfrom a French piano teacher and an Arab nanny, to a Circassian slave girleach deftly navigating the shifting mores of their social class. Written during the Ottoman Empires uneasy transition to modernity, the novels protagonists embody both the best and worst elements of two worlds, European and Ottoman. The novel provides readers with an elegant yet powerful appeal for progressive reforms and individual freedoms. Levi and Ringers fluid translation of this Ottoman classic stands as a landmark in the history of Turkish literature in translation.

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Ahmet Mithat Efendi, A. Holly Shissler, Melih Levi, Monica M. Ringer

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An compelling coming-of-age memoir that presents a  portrait of suburban  life in  upstate New York shaped by the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam and the constant threat of Nuclear exchange during the 1950's/early 1960's.