No Turning Point

The Battle of Saratoga in 1777 ended with British general John Burgoyne’s troops surrendering to the American rebel army commanded by General Horatio Gates. Historians have long seen Burgoyne’s defeat as a turning point in the American Revolution because it convinced France to join the war on the side of the colonies, thus ensuring American victory. But that traditional view of Saratoga overlooks the complexity of the situation on the ground. Setting the battle in its social and political context, Theodore Corbett examines Saratoga and its aftermath as part of ongoing conflicts among the settlers of the Hudson and Champlain valleys of New York, Canada, and Vermont. This long, more local view reveals that the American victory actually resolved very little. In transcending traditional military history, Corbett examines the roles not only of enlisted Patriot and Redcoat soldiers but also of landowners, tenant farmers, townspeople, American Indians, Loyalists, and African Americans. He begins the story in the 1760s, when the first large influx of white settlers arrived in the New York and New England backcountry. Ethnic and religious strife marked relations among the colonists from the outset. Conflicting claims issued by New York and New Hampshire to the area that eventually became Vermont turned the skirmishes into a veritable civil war. These pre-Revolution conflicts—which determined allegiances during the Revolution—were not affected by the military outcome of the Battle of Saratoga. After Burgoyne’s defeat, the British retained control of the upper Hudson-Champlain valley and mobilized Loyalists and Native allies to continue successful raids there even after the Revolution. The civil strife among the colonists continued into the 1780s, as the American victory gave way to violent strife amounting to class warfare. Corbett ends his story with conflicts over debt in Vermont, New Hampshire, and finally Massachusetts, where the sack of Stockbridge—part of Shays’s Rebellion in 1787—was the last of the civil disruptions that had roiled the landscape for the previous twenty years. No Turning Point complicates and enriches our understanding of the difficult birth of the United States as a nation.

Repeatedly declared dead by the media, the women’s movement has never been as vibrant as it is today. Indeed as Stanford professor and award-winning author Estelle B. Freedman argues in her compelling new book, feminism has reached a critical momentum from which there is no turning back. A truly global movement, as vital and dynamic in the developing world as it is in the West, feminism has helped women achieve authority in politics, sports, and business, and has mobilized public concern for once-taboo issues like rape, domestic violence, and breast cancer. And yet much work remains before women attain real equality. In this fascinating book, Freedman examines the historical forces that have fueled the feminist movement over the past two hundred years–and explores how women today are looking to feminism for new approaches to issues of work, family, sexuality, and creativity. Freedman begins with an incisive analysis of what feminism means and why it took root in western Europe and the United States at the end of the eighteenth century. The rationalist, humanistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, which ignited the American Revolution, also sparked feminist politics, inspiring such pioneers as Mary Wollstonecraft and Susan B. Anthony. Race has always been as important as gender in defining feminism, and Freedman traces the intricate ties between women’s rights and abolitionism in the United States in the years before the Civil War and the long tradition of radical women of color, stretching back to the impassioned rhetoric of Sojourner Truth. As industrialism and democratic politics spread after World War II, feminist politics gained momentum and sophistication throughout the world. Their impact began to be felt in every aspect of society–from the workplace to the chambers of government to relations between the sexes. Because of feminism, Freedman points out, the line between the personal and the political has blurred, or disappeared, and issues once considered “merely” private–abortion, sexual violence, homosexuality, reproductive health, beauty and body image–have entered the public arena as subjects of fierce, ongoing debate. Freedman combines a scholar’s meticulous research with a social critic’s keen eye. Sweeping in scope, searching in its analysis, global in its perspective, No Turning Back will stand as a defining text in one of the most important social movements of all time.

“Rania Abouzeid has produced a work of stunning reportage from the very heart of the conflict, daring to go to the most dangerous places in order to get the story.” —Dexter Filkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Forever War Award-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict through the dramatic stories of four young people seeking safety and freedom in a shattered country. Hailed by critics, No Turning Back masterfully “[weaves] together the lives of protestors, victims, and remorseless killers at the center of this century’s most appalling human tragedy” (Robert F. Worth). Based on more than five years of fearless, clandestine reporting, No Turning Back brings readers deep inside Bashar al-Assad’s prisons, to covert meetings where foreign states and organizations manipulated the rebels, and to the highest levels of Islamic militancy and the formation of the Islamic State. An utterly engrossing human drama full of vivid, indelible characters, No Turning Back shows how hope can flourish even amid one of the twenty-first century’s greatest humanitarian disasters. Winner of the Overseas Press Club of America's Cornelius Ryan Award for the best non-fiction book on international affairs and a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize.

Sir Michael Wood was born on January 28, 1918 in the UK. He studied medicine, and in 1943 he qualified as a surgeon and soon after was married to Susan Buxton. Susan’s deep-rooted interest in Africa after spending her early life in Zaire finally pushed the move of the young Wood family, then with two children, to East Africa. They arrived at the port of Mombasa in 1948. With the help of Gerald Anderson, Michael Wood established himself as General Surgeon in East Africa. Soon he found he was regularly being called to emergencies beyond the confines of the city of Nairobi. Often he had to charter flights to remote locations where no hospitals existed. The number of these emergencies escalated and became a challenge. Mindful of what lay ahead, Michael learnt to fly. In 1954, Michael went to England on a Marks Plastic Surgery Fellowship with Sir Archibald McIndoe. Together with Dr. Thomas Rees, an American surgeon (also a beneficiary of the Marks Plastic Surgery Fellowship), they would develop the idea of Amref Health Africa and its Flying Doctors Service. The needs for fundraising for Amref Health Africa were very demanding from the beginning, which Michael Wood undertook tirelessly. This involved him taking breaks from his work in Africa to solicit funds in Europe and North America. His fundraising trips brought him into contact with famous people: His Highness the Aga Khan IV; Prince Karim, Dusty Roads of the Sloan-Kettering Foundation, Vice-President Richard Nixon, as well as David Rockefeller; one of the Rockefeller brothers. Sister Breege Breslin, one of the Medical Missionaries of Mary who is proud to have worked with Sir Michael Wood on many occasions as his theatre nurse, said, that it was his faith and his determination to help ease a situation that made him the ‘Legend’ he is. Sister Breege said during a recent interview that even after long hours of surgery with very little daylight left for him to fly back to base, Sir Michael Wood would always take the time to see one last patient. In 1970, he was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for services to Africa and later in 1985 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1986, he was given the Raoul Wallenburg Award for Humanity. Michael Wood retired from being Director General of Amref Health Africa in 1985 and soon afterwards went on to establish FARM Africa (Food and Agricultural Research Mission). In May 1987 Michael died of cancer at his Karen home. As well as numerous technical articles including ‘From an Idea to an Institution – AMREF at 25 years’, and ‘Who Aids Whom’, Michael Wood wrote his autobiography ‘Go an Extra Mile’ in 1978, ‘Different Drums’ with photographer David Coulson in 1987, and ‘No Turning Back’. This manuscript was discovered after his death and was edited for publication by his wife Susan. Michael and Susan had four children: Mark who has become a world-renowned Opthalmic surgeon, Janet who farms in Tanzania, Hugo who grows wheat in Kenya, and Katrina who works between Los Angeles and London on promoting the film industry....

"No Turning Back", is intended to be an evangelistic tool returning people to God by taking them to God's creation, how sin ruined what was created and separated us from God and His following attempts to bring us back to Him, revealing the path He has created to bring us back to God

“[T]here will be no turning back,” said Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. It was May, 1864. The Civil War had dragged into its fourth spring. It was time to end things, Grant resolved, once and for all. With the Union Army of the Potomac as his sledge, Grant crossed the Rapidan River, intending to draw the Army of Northern Virginia into one final battle. Short of that, he planned “to hammer continuously against the armed forces of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him . . . .” Almost immediately, though, Robert E. Lee’s Confederates brought Grant to bay in the thick tangle of the Wilderness. Rather than retreat, as other army commanders had done in the past, Grant outmaneuvered Lee, swinging left and south. There was, after all, no turning back. “I intend to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer,” Grant vowed. And he did: from the dark, close woods of the Wilderness to the Muleshoe of Spotsylvania, to the steep banks of the North Anna River, to the desperate charges of Cold Harbor. The 1864 Overland Campaign would be a nonstop grind of fighting, maneuvering, and marching, much of it in rain and mud, with casualty lists longer than anything yet seen in the war. In No Turning Back: A Guide to the 1864 Overland Campaign, from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May 4 - June 13, 1864, historians Robert M. Dunkerly, Donald C. Pfanz, and David R. Ruth allow readers to follow in the footsteps of the armies as they grapple across the Virginia landscape. Pfanz spent his career as a National Park Service historian on the battlefields where the campaign began; Dunkerly and Ruth work on the battlefields where it concluded. Few people know the ground, or the campaign, better.

Examines how values have changed between 1970 and 1993. Based on data collected through a random sample of 2,500, 15 to 75-year-old people interviewed in 1993.

For the past 10 years, the story of Donald Calloway's journey from runaway teen to Marian priest has touched the hearts and changed the lives of thousands of people. Now, in this 10th anniversary edition of No Turning Back, the Very Rev. Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, looks back on the past decade in a new introduction to this Christian classic, a perennially powerful witness to the transforming grace of God and the Blessed Mother's love for her children. His witness proves a key truth of our faith: Between Jesus, the Divine Mercy, and Mary, the Mother of Mercy, there's no reason to give up hope on anyone, no matter how far they are from God.