Darkwater; voices from within the veil

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Pope John Paul II

Mother of Church Is a collection of writings and adsresses on Our Lady by Pope John Paul II. He has already given to the Church profound and inspiring doctrine on Our Lady. In his teaching he always sees Mary as inseparably linked to Christ and as intimately associated with the life and mission of Church. This has been clear from the very begining of his Pontificate when he placed his entire future ministry under Mary's maternal care. Pope John Paul's teaching on Mary is profoundly biblical in inspiration and we see in her real, living person, with human emotions and feelings. She lives by faith, proceeding step by step along her pilgrim way, at times in the midst of darkness. She also comes across to us as someone who fully shares day-to-day human concerns, while at the same time dedicating her whole being without reserve to God's transcendent purposes. She remains within reach. She is very near to each one of us, someone whose help we can rely on and whose virtues we can always look to as a model for our lives. -- BACK COVER.

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Walter Prescott Webb

The Great Frontier represents a daring attempt to interpret the settlement of the American West in the global context of the expansion of European civilization between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. According to Webb's boom hypothesis, the expansion of Europe's Great Frontier into the Western Hemisphere energized a static society and made possible the development of such fundamental institutions of the modern era as individualism, capitalism, and political democracy. Webb contends that the closing of the global frontier at the end of the nineteenth century, with the end of easily available empty land and readily exploited natural resources, was responsible for the crises and violence of the twentieth century and boded ill for the future of the United States's treasured democracy.

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Stephen Jones

"Along with Jones' moving film Li Manshan : Portrait of a Folk Daoist, this engaging and original book describes a hereditary family of household Daoist priests in rural north China. It traces the vicissitudes of their lives--and ritual practices--over the turbulent last century through the experiences of two main characters: Li Manshan (b.1946), and his distinguished father Li Qing (1926-99). The story anchors changing ritual practice in the ethnography of ritual specialists and their patrons as they negotiate new challenges, giving a unique flavor of rural life in China today. A vivid portrait of a rapidly changing society, the work will fascinate anthropologists, scholars of Daoism and folk religion, world-music aficionados, and all those interested in Chinese society"--Publisher's description.

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Denise Lardner Carmody and John Tully Carmody

Examines the origins, assumptions, and consequences of three major concepts in American religious history: the Puritan judgement of human nature, the Enlightenment disestablishment of religion, and the definition of truth of American Pragmatism. The lives and beliefs of Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, and William James fully characterize these three mainstream religious principIes. ln unique counterpoint, the Carmodys bring into the discussion the many religious and secular groups that were not, and still are not, part of the primarily white, Protestant, male historical tradition: Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, women, African-Americans, and others. The Republic of Many Mansions concludes that the future of American religious culture lies in a collective and ongoing dialogue among the many voices active in the American religious landscape.