Beyond Ophir

Jim Lanier had a good life going: a great family, a successful pathologist, a sometimes singer. Then he went to the dogs, ran the Iditarod in 1979, and has never recovered. With that ‘79 race as the book’s backbone, Jim tells its tale—entertaining, exciting, occasionally informative, and mostly the truth. From the bustle of metropolitan Anchorage to Front Street in Nome, it’s no how to do. If anything, it’s a how not to—how not to prepare, how not to train, how not to run. On the other hand, it’s how not to give in to the urge to quit when the going gets tough, in life and in this metaphorical Iditarod.

The Everlasting Spring: Beyond Olympus is a trilogy. A continuing story of romance and true love in three epic sagas spanning two-thousand years in the tumultuous rise of Western Civilization. The storyteller is an old man who understands and appreciates the heroes and heroines; the saints and sinners, who made epic history, by sharing the love and self-sacrifice that enabled Western Culture to survive. When he was young and foolish; naïve and swaggering with false bravado, the old man frolicked in the good life, and took it for granted...until a cold Christmas Eve when a lovely young woman broke his heart and changed his mind. His soul was frozen, in the absence of hope, as the tragic death of romance brought darkness, with agony and despair. But the trajectory of his life was soon altered, blessed by the light from a star so bright, he was inspired by the vision, and started to write. He walked with his characters, the brave and bold, remembered by historians, the new and some old. He miraculously survived, four-score in events, with no worries...and a few sad regrets. His life was replete with trials and tribulations known only to those who dream, daring defeat; but find peace in their passion for truth everlasting. Once called a hero, he perished the thought. The old man knew better souls, those who risked all for true-love and blind justice between the dark-nights of their souls, and their time in the light. They were immortals, seeking knowledge with facts; and their odyssey touched all, as they followed the sun, moon and stars--like the old man was doing when he met Benjamin and Boudica; Colton and Blue Star, and two others too, then chronicled their journeys in a corps of discovery: to find spiritual treasure...the most precious of all.

The figure of King Solomon is central to our understanding of the history of Israel and Judah. This volume of collected articles brings the reader up-to-date with the latest scholarship in the field. The work consists of twenty-four chapters and provides important studies in the historical approach to Solomon and to 10th century B.C.E. Judah and Israel with archaeological surveys of the neighboring regions, sociological surveys, and literary readings of the biblical texts. With suggestions for further research and indexes.

"This collection of articles is an attempt to get at the complexities of Sephardic history by bringing together scholars who approach the topic from quite different points of view and quite different methodologies. It includes twelve essays selected from those presented at a conference at the University of Maryland to mark the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of Jews from Spain." "The papers range chronologically from the eleventh to seventeenth centuries, and geographically from Spain to Italy and the Low Countries."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Comprehensive and critical analysis of the post-Zionist debates and their impact on various aspects of Israeli culture. Post-Zionism emerged as an intellectual and cultural movement in the late 1980s when a growing number of people inside and outside academia felt that Zionism, as a political ideology, had outlived its usefulness. The post-Zionist critique attempted to expose the core tenets of Zionist ideology and the way this ideology was used, to justify a series of violent or unjust actions by the Zionist movement, making the ideology of Zionism obsolete. In Beyond Post-Zionism Eran Kaplan explores how this critique emerged from the important social and economic changes Israel had undergone in previous decades, primarily the transition from collectivism to individualism and from socialism to the free market. Kaplan looks critically at some of the key post-Zionist arguments (the orientalist and colonial nature of Zionism) and analyzes the impact of post-Zionist thought on various aspects (literary, cinematic) of Israeli culture. He also explores what might emerge, after the political and social turmoil of the last decade, as an alternative to post-Zionism and as a definition of Israeli and Zionist political thought in the twenty-first century.

The Greatest Secret Hidden By History, Until Now. "When the teenage Alicia McCann has a horrible accident, she is visited by the Whisper Catcher - a dreamlike spirit girl with great powers. But the Whisper Catcher's powers are waning, her strength stolen by an evil shadowy spectre. To help the Whisper Catcher, Alicia must undertake a strange and terrifying journey from her home in San Francisco to the depths of the Australian outback. Dark treachery awaits and Alicia must dig through history to uncover a terrifying secret, unlike any she could imagine ..."

Drawing upon economic history, cultural studies, intellectual history and the history of science and medicine, this collection of case studies examines the transatlantic transfer and transformation of goods and ideas, with particular emphasis on their reception in Europe.