Charles de Foucauld

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Andrew M. Greeley

"Father Greeley says those who know his novels know him best, but in this revealing book of autobiographical essays - really the second volume of his Confessions of a Parish Priest - he lets us see yet another side of his personality: the crusader, the seeker of justice, and the defender of those who have been abused by the church he loves so well."--BOOK JACKET. "Always on the side of compassion, understandng, and honesty, Father Greeley has many enemies both in and outside the church, and in this book he answers some of his critics, but he is always fair and forgiving."--BOOK JACKET. "Furthermore! also lets Father Greeley share memories of some of the extraordinary people he has known and show how they have influenced his life. He writes about his other favorite country (Ireland), his favorite city (Chicago), and his favorite team (the Bulls)."--BOOK JACKET.

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John Demos

"Early on the morning of February 29, 1704, before the settlers of Deerfield, Massachusetts, had stirred from their beds, a French and Indian war party opened fire, wielding hatchets and torches, on the lightly fortified town. What would otherwise have been a fairly commonplace episode of "Queen Anne's War" (as the War of the Spanish Succession was known in the colonies) achieved considerable notoriety in America and abroad. The reason: the Indians had managed to capture, among others, the eminent minister John Williams, his wife, Eunice Mather Williams, and their five children. This Puritan family par excellence, and more than a hundred of their good neighbors, were now at the mercy of "savages"--And the fact that these "savages" were French-speaking converts to Catholicism made the reversal of the rightful order of things no less shocking." "In The Unredeemed Captive, John Demos, Yale historian and winner of the Bancroft Prize for his book Entertaining Satan, tells the story of the minister's captured daughter Eunice, who was seven years old at the time of the Deerfield incident and was adopted by a Mohawk family living at a Jesuit mission-fort near Montreal. Two and a half years later, when Reverend Williams was released and returned to Boston amid much public rejoicing, Eunice remained behind - her Mohawk "master" unwilling to part with her. And so began a decades-long effort, alternately hopeful and demoralizing for her kin, to "redeem" her. Indeed, Eunice became a cause celebre across New England, the subject of edifying sermons, fervent prayers, and urgent envoys between the Massachusetts Bay Colony and New France. But somehow she always remained just out of reach - until eventually, her father's worst fears were confirmed: Eunice was not being held against her will. On the contrary, she had forgotten how to speak English, had married a young Mohawk man, and could not be prevailed upon to return to Deerfield." "Eunice's extraordinary and dramatic story speaks to broad, compelling themes that involve race, religion, the place of women in two societies, and, above all, contact between cultures ("Captivity, after all, meant 'contact' of a particularly vivid sort") and the crossing of cultural boundaries. For both colonists and Indians, the stakes were high in early-eighteenth-century America. Hence the boundaries were carefully patrolled: "To travel across them was costly and dangerous - and potentially transforming." The Unredeemed Captive traces just such a transformation - remarkable, profound, and uniquely American."--Jacket.

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Brenda James and William D. Rubinstein

Motivated by scholarship and driven by curiosity, Shakespeare historian Brenda James applied a sixteenth-century code-breaking technique to the dedication of Shakespeare's Sonnets. What she uncovered led her to the truth behind literature's greatest mystery. For more than 150 years, academics have questioned how William Shakespeare of Stratford, a man who left school at age thirteen and apparently never traveled abroad, could have written such a broad and deep body of work, one that is said to draw on the largest vocabulary of any writer in the English language. Now, in The Truth Will Out James and history professor William D. Rubinstein explore the facts behind James's important findings, detailing how her work on the dedication led to the name Sir Henry Neville, a prominent Elizabethan diplomat whose life unlocked the secrets of the Shakespeare Authorship Question once and for all. Examining the true nature of Shakespeare of Stratford's involvement with the plays, the authors reveal the London actor to be a mere pawn, while Neville, the Oxford-educated ambassador to France and a member of Parliament for twenty-eight years, was actually the Bard. Disguising his authorship to avoid bringing scandal and shame to his family name, Neville spent a great deal of time abroad in Europe, entering a realm of aristocratic intrigue and mystery that provided the foundation for some of his greatest plays. With insightful explanations of never-before-studied documents, James and Rubinstein demonstrate that not only did the refined and worldly Neville know the landscape of Shakespeare's plays firsthand but that these works represent a total convergence of the events in Neville's life. But the evidence proving Neville's authorship is not merely circumstantial. Comparing mysterious signatures and Neville's richly woven family lineage, the authors paint a portrait of a man whose claim moves beyond the speculative. An experienced politician, who was well-versed in the intrigues of the Court, Neville was locked away in the Tower of London for his part in the unsuccessful Essex Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth. Using a collection of Neville's writings from his imprisonment, James and Rubinstein provide an exhaustive cross section of the intrigue surrounding Neville's life, exposing the events that led to his hidden writings and the cloaking of their true origin. Captivating and elucidating, The Truth Will Out is a revelatory exploration of two men and their times that will forever change the landscape of Shakespearean scholarship.

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Roy MacLaren

"During the Second World War, Canadians found themselves behind enemy lines in Europe and Asia. Not all, were ill-fated airmen shot down in the fury of battle. Some were there by design; as volunteers who risked their lives on extremely hazardous assignments." "Almost one hundred Canadians served the Allied forces by passing as locals in occupied countries. At the behest of two British secret services, these men made language and custom their costumes and wove themselves into the social fabric of France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Burma, Malaya, and Sarawak. They risked their lives assisting resistance groups on sabotage and ambush missions or in smuggling Allied airmen out of occupied territories. Quiet heroes of the war, these Canadians helped to make the brutal and unrelenting warfare of the underground a potent weapon in the Allied arsenal."--Jacket.