This detailed description and analysis of Madagascar's Merina tribe and its ancient circumcision ritual is significant as a basis for the analysis of anthropological theories of ritual in general.

"One of Canada's foremost leaders in conflict resolution writes about his personal experiences of infamous, long-standing conflicts in South Africa, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and elsewhere. He argues that we must understand human violence if we are to keep human civilization alive. From such understanding, he is able to show how deep-rooted conflict can slowly be transformed into peace and reconciliation. Anyone who cares about violence in this world should feel that this book is for them."

Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Zizek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in the world.

The story of a torture survivor from Colombia who has dedicated his life to healing the pains of others. Shockingly honest, heartbreaking, and vibrantly told, The Blessing Next to the Wound is a passionate and evocative memoir that, amid enormous suffering and loss, is a full-throated affirmation of life.

"To pursue the matter of "revelation in context," I will address an exceedingly difficult text in the Old Testament, Joshua 11. The reason for taking up this text is to deal with the often asked and troublesome question: What shall we do with all the violence and bloody war that is done in the Old Testament in the name of Yahweh? The question reflects a sense that these texts of violence are at least an embarrassment, are morally repulsive, and are theologically problematic in the Bible, not because they are violent, but because this is violence either in the name of or at the hand of Yahweh." -from chapter 2

In this book Maurice Bloch synthesises a radical theory of religion.

"Bursting with wise observations." -- J. Courtney Sullivan, author of The Engagements and Maine "Gleams like a jewel." -- The Philadelphia Inquirer "Stunning. . . Unique and unforgettable." -- Glamour Hailed as one of the best books of 2014 by The Philadelphia Inquirer, Elise Juska's The Blessings is a moving novel about a tight-knit Irish Catholic clan over the course of twenty years. The Blessings rally around one another in times of celebration and those of sorrow, coming together for departures and arrivals, while its members harbor private struggles and moments of personal joy. College student Abby ponders homesickness in her first semester away from her Philadelphia home, while her cousin Stephen commits a petty act of violence that takes a surprising turn, and their aunt Lauren faces a crisis in her storybook marriage she could never have foreseen. Through the lens of one unforgettable family, this beautifully moving novel explores how our families define us and how we shape them in return.

"It is widely recognized that the Hebrew Bible is filled with rape and sexual violence. However, feminist approaches to the topic remain dominated by Phyllis Trible's 1984 Texts of Terror, which describes feminist criticism as a practice of "telling sad stories." Pushing beyond Trible, Texts after Terror offers a new framework for reading biblical sexual violence, one that draws on recent work in feminist, queer, and affect theory and activism against sexual violence and rape culture. In the Hebrew Bible as in the contemporary world, sexual violence is frequently fuzzy, messy, and icky. Fuzzy names the ambiguity and confusion that often surround experiences of sexual violence. Messy identifies the consequences of rape, while also describing messy sex and bodies. Icky points out the ways that sexual violence fails to fit into neat patterns of evil perpetrators and innocent victims. Building on these concepts, Texts after Terror offers a number of new feminist strategies and approaches to sexual violence: critiquing the framework of consent, offering new models of sexual harm, emphasizing the importance of relationships between women (even in the context of stories of heterosexual rape), reading biblical rape texts with and through contemporary texts written by survivors, advocating for "unhappy reading" that makes unhappiness and open-endedness into key feminist sites of possibility. Texts after Terror also discusses a wide range of biblical rape stories, including Dinah (Gen. 43), Tamar (2 Sam. 13), Lot's daughters (Gen. 19), Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11), Hagar (Gen. 16 and 21), Daughter Zion (Lam. 1 and 2), and the Levite's concubine (Judg. 19)"--

An exploration of our relationship with food and eating locally—from the bestselling author of Your Money or Your Life Taking the local food movement to heart, Vicki Robin pledged for one month to eat only food sourced within a ten-mile radius of her home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Washington. Like Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the bestselling books of Michael Pollan, Blessing the Hands That Feed Us is part personal narrative and part global manifesto. Robin’s challenge for a sustainable diet not only brings to light society’s unhealthy dependence on mass-produced, prepackaged foods but also helps her reconnect with her body, her community, and her environment. Featuring recipes throughout, along with practical tips on adopting your own locally-sourced diet, this is a candid, humorous, and inspirational guide to the locavore movement and a healthy food future.

Nutaaq and her older sister, Aaluk, are on a great journey, sailing from a small island off the coast of Alaska to the annual trade fair. There, a handsome young Siberian wearing a string of cobalt blue beads watches Aaluk "the way a wolf watches a caribou, never resting." Soon his actions—and other events more horrible than Nutaaq could ever imagine—threaten to shatter her I~nupiaq world. Seventy years later, Nutaaq's greatgranddaughter, Blessing, is on her own journey, running from the wreckage of her life in Anchorage to live in a remote Arctic village with a grandmother she barely remembers. In her new home, unfriendly girls whisper in a language she can't understand, and Blessing feels like an outsider among her own people. Until she finds a cobalt blue bead—Nutaaq's bead—in her grandmother's sewing tin. The events this discovery triggers reveal the power of family and heritage to heal, despite seemingly insurmountable odds. Two distinct teenage voices pull readers into the native world of northern Alaska in this beautifully crafted and compelling debut novel.