Faithful Fighters

During the first four decades of the twentieth century, the British Indian Army possessed an illusion of racial and religious inclusivity. The army recruited diverse soldiers, known as the "Martial Races," including British Christians, Hindustani Muslims, Punjabi Sikhs, Hindu Rajputs, Pathans from northwestern India, and "Gurkhas" from Nepal. As anti-colonial activism intensified, military officials incorporated some soldiers' religious traditions into the army to keep them disciplined and loyal. They facilitated acts such as the fast of Ramadan for Muslim soldiers and allowed religious swords among Sikhs to recruit men from communities where anti-colonial sentiment grew stronger. Consequently, Indian nationalists and anti-colonial activists charged the army with fomenting racial and religious divisions. In Faithful Fighters, Kate Imy explores how military culture created unintended dialogues between soldiers and civilians, including Hindu nationalists, Sikh revivalists, and pan-Islamic activists. By the 1920s and '30s, the army constructed military schools and academies to isolate soldiers from anti-colonial activism. While this carefully managed military segregation crumbled under the pressure of the Second World War, Imy argues that the army militarized racial and religious difference, creating lasting legacies for the violent partition and independence of India, and the endemic warfare and violence of the post-colonial world.

The only American ever to crack al Qaeda, John Wells has been undercover so long that the CIA is no longer sure he's loyal - or even alive. Now, on the orders of Omar Khadri - the mastermind spearheading al Qaeda's attacks on American - Wells is coming home. And no-one knows what to expect.

Robert Egger wasnt impressed when his fiance dragged him out one night to help feed homeless men and women on the streets of Washington, DC. That was twenty-five years ago, and it wasnt that the cocky nightclub manager didnt want to help peoplehe just felt that the process was more meaningful to those serving the meals than those receiving them. He vowed to come up with something better. Egger named his gritty, front-line nonprofit DC Central Kitchen, and today it has become a national model for feeding and empowering people in need. By teaming up with chefs, convicts, addicts, and other staffers seeking second chances, Egger has helped DCs homeless and hungry population trade drugs, crime, and dependency for culinary careersand fed thousands in the process. Written by a DC Central Kitchen insider, The Food Fighters shows how Eggers innovative approach to combating hunger and creating opportunity has changed lives and why the organization is more relevant today than ever before. This retrospective goes beyond the simplistic moralizing used to describe the work of many nonprofits by interviewing dozens of DC Central Kitchen leaders, staff , clients, and stakeholders from the past two-and-a-half decades. It captures the personal and organizational struggles of DC Central Kitchen, offering new insights about what doing good really means and what we expect of those who do it. The women and men of DC Central Kitchen are in the business of changing lives. I have felt first-hand the energy and enthusiasm in that basement kitchen, and its infectious. This book is a testament to what is possible when we break down stereotypes, rethink old models, and challenge ourselves to become true agents of change. Carla Hall, co-host of ABCs The Chew Robert Egger and DC Central Kitchen changed my life, and I have never looked back. Their story will open a door to a new way of thinking about bringing dignity and hope to those in need. Jos Andrs, James Beard award winner, chef and owner of ThinkFoodGroup

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....

The Bohemian preacher and religious reformer Jan Hus has been celebrated as a de facto saint since being burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415. Patron Saint and Prophet analyzes Hus's commemoration from the time of his death until the middle of the following century, tracing the ways in which both his supporters and his most outspoken opponents sought to determine whether he would be remembered as a heretic or saint. Phillip Haberkern examines how specific historical conflicts and exigencies affected the evolution of Hus's memory-within the militant Hussite movement that flourished until the mid-1430s, within the Czech Utraquist church that succeeded it, and among sixteenth-century Lutherans who viewed Hus as a forerunner and even prophet of their reform. Using close readings of written sources such as sermons and church histories, visual media including manuscript illuminations and monumental art, and oral forms of discourse such as vernacular songs and liturgical prayers, this book offers a fascinating account of how changes in media technology complemented the shifting theology of the cult of saints in order to shape early modern commemorative practices. By focusing on the ways in which the invocation of Hus catalyzed religious dissent within two distinct historical contexts, Haberkern compares the role of memory in late medieval Bohemia with the emergence of history as a constitutive religious discourse in the early modern German land. In this way, he also provides a detailed analysis of the ways in which Bohemian and German religious reformers justified their dissent from the Roman Church by invoking the past.

For more than a generation after World War II, offi cial government doctrine and many Austrians insisted they had been victims of Nazi aggression in 1938 and, therefore, bore no responsibility for German war crimes. During the past twenty years this myth has been revised to include a more complex past, one with both Austrian perpetrators and victims.Part one describes soldiers from Austria who fought in the German Wehrmacht, a history only recently unearthed. Richard Germann covers units and theaters Austrian fought in, while Th omas Grischany demonstrates how well they fought. Ela Hornung looks at case studies of denunciation of fellow soldiers, while Barbara Stelzl-Marx analyzes Austrian soldiers who were active in resistance at the end of the war. Stefan Karner summarizes POW treatment on the Eastern front. Part two deals with the increasingly diffi cult life on the Austrian homefront. Fritz Keller takes a look at how Vienna survived growing food shortages. Ingrid Bhler takes a rare look at life in small-town Austria. Andrea Strutz analyzes narratives of Jewish refugees forced to leave for the United States. Peter Ruggenthaler and Philipp Lesiak examine the use of slave laborers. And Brigitte Kepplinger summarizes the Nazi euthanasia program.The third part deals with legacies of the war, particularly postwar restitution and memory issues. Based on new sources from Soviet archives, Nikita Petrov describes the Red Army liberation. Winfried Garscha analyzes postwar war crimes trials against Austrians. Brigitte Bailer-Galanda and Eva Blimlinger present a survey of postwar restitution of property. And Heidemarie Uhl deals with Austrian memories of the war.

The Magnificent Ride examines the social and religious dimensions of the Hussite revolutionary movement in 15th-century Bohemia. It argues that ’the magnificent ride’ was, in fact, the first reformation, and not merely a precursor to the reformations of the 16th century. The religious revival which had begun in Prague in the later middle ages reached its zenith in the period between Jan Hus and the Council of Basel. This book reconstructs the Hussite myth and shows how that myth evolved into the historical phenomenon of heresy. Acts of heretical practice in Bohemia, condemnation of Jan Hus, defiance of ecclesiastical authority and attempts by the official church to deal with the dissenters are fascinating chapters in the history of late medieval Europe.

An award-winning journalist’s powerful portrait of his native Baghdad, the people of Iraq, and twenty years of war. “An essential insider account of the unravelling of Iraq…Driven by his intimate knowledge and deep personal stakes, Abdul-Ahad…offers an overdue reckoning with a broken history.”—Declan Walsh, author of The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State “A vital archive of a time and place in history…Impossible to put down.”—Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise The history of reportage has often depended on outsiders—Ryszard Kapuściński witnessing the fall of the shah in Iran, Frances FitzGerald observing the aftermath of the American war in Vietnam. What would happen if a native son was so estranged from his city by war that he could, in essence, view it as an outsider? What kind of portrait of a war-wracked place and people might he present? A Stranger in Your Own City is award-winning writer Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s vivid, shattering response. This is not a book about Iraq’s history or an inventory of the many Middle Eastern wars that have consumed the nation over the past several decades. This is the tale of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniacal leader who shaped the state in his own image; a people who watched a foreign army invade, topple that leader, demolish the state, and then invent a new country; who experienced the horror of having their home fragmented into a hundred different cities. When the “Shock and Awe” campaign began in March 2003, Abdul-Ahad was an architect. Within months he would become a translator, then a fixer, then a reporter for The Guardian and elsewhere, chronicling the unbuilding of his centuries-old cosmopolitan city. Beginning at that moment and spanning twenty years, Abdul-Ahad’s book decenters the West and in its place focuses on everyday people, soldiers, mercenaries, citizens blown sideways through life by the war, and the proliferation of sectarian battles that continue to this day. Here is their Iraq, seen from the inside: the human cost of violence, the shifting allegiances, the generational change. A Stranger in Your Own City is a rare work of beauty and tragedy whose power and relevance lie in its attempt to return the land to the people to whom it belongs.