This Land That I Love

February, 1940: After a decade of worldwide depression, World War II had begun in Europe and Asia. With Germany on the march, and Japan at war with China, the global crisis was in a crescendo. America's top songwriter, Irving Berlin, had captured the nation's mood a little more than a year before with his patriotic hymn, “God Bless America.” Woody Guthrie was having none of it. Near-starving and penniless, he was traveling from Texas to New York to make a new start. As he eked his way across the country by bus and by thumb, he couldn't avoid Berlin's song. Some people say that it was when he was freezing by the side of the road in a Pennsylvania snowstorm that he conceived of a rebuttal. It would encompass the dark realities of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, and it would begin with the lines: “This land is your land, this land is my land….” In This Land That I Love, John Shaw writes the dual biography of these beloved American songs. Examining the lives of their authors, he finds that Guthrie and Berlin had more in common than either could have guessed. Though Guthrie's image was defined by train-hopping, Irving Berlin had also risen from homelessness, having worked his way up from the streets of New York. At the same time, This Land That I Love sheds new light on our patriotic musical heritage, from “Yankee Doodle” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” to Martin Luther King's recitation from “My Country 'Tis of Thee” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963. Delving into the deeper history of war songs, minstrelsy, ragtime, country music, folk music, and African American spirituals, Shaw unearths a rich vein of half-forgotten musical traditions. With the aid of archival research, he uncovers new details about the songs, including a never-before-printed verse for “This Land Is Your Land.” The result is a fascinating narrative that refracts and re-envisions America's tumultuous history through the prism of two unforgettable anthems.

Take a tour of the most amazing landmarks and cities in Florida! God Bless Florida will show readers how special their state is and how God made such a wonderful place for us to live.

Paintings of outdoor scenes accompanied by quotations from various authors.

“Oddný Eir is an authentic author, philosopher and mystic. She weaves together diaries and fiction. She is the writer I feel can best express the female psyche of now and has bridged the gap between rural Iceland and Western philosophy. A true pioneer!!!!!!!!” —Björk The winner of the Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize in 2012, Land of Love and Ruins is the debut novel by a daring new voice in international fiction: Oddný Eir. Written in the form of a diary but with fantastical linguistic verve, the narrator sets out on a universal quest: to find a place to belong—and a way of being in the world. Paradoxically, her longing to settle down drives her to embark on all kinds of journeys, physical and mental, through time and space, in order to find answers to questions that concern not only her personally, but also the whole of humankind. She explores various modes of living, ponders different types of relationships and contemplates her bond with her family, land and nation; trying to find a balance between companionship and independence, movement and stability, past, present, and future. An enchanting blend of autobiography, diary, philosophical inquiry, and fantasy, Land of Love and Ruins is a richly imagined and utterly unique book about being human in the modern world.

"This is an exceptionally forceful collection, substantial, evocative and enduring, much like the region of Canada the writers are addressing." -Saskatoon Star PhoenixContributors include Rudy Wiebe, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Karen Connelly, Sharon Butala, and others.

"Palestinians and Israeli Jews live in one land, yet as two distinct communities, each of which claims ownership of the same territory. How are we to understand the divine promise pertaining to the land? Did God promise the land exclusively to the Jewish people? Do the Palestinians have a right to live in the land, or does God want them to leave? After affirming important Palestinian Evangelical concerns, The Land of Christ challenges the argument that God gave the land to Israel. Yohanna Katanacho asks: (1) What are the borders of the land? (2) Who is Israel? (3) How did God give Israel the land? Through careful biblical exegesis, the book responds to these questions, exposing the superficiality of many slogans and claims. Then the book presents an alternative biblical theology of the land. However, the theology of the land in this book is intimately associated with the context in Israel/Palestine. The Palestinian Kairos Document is the most accepted representative of the current Palestinian context and theology. The book unpacks this document and extrapolates on its theology of the land. Finally, the author does not leave the reader without hope. Katanacho portrays Hagar as a symbol of hope and considers the Korahite Psalms from the perspective of refugees. "