The author of Men Explain Things to Me explores the moments of altruism and generosity that arise in the aftermath of disaster Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster? whether manmade or natural?people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities? In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.

This book covers the theological, philosophical, mystical, topographical, architectural and ritual aspects of the Muslim belief in paradise and hell.

In the course of the nineteenth century, Jamaica transformed itself from a pestilence-ridden "white man's graveyard" to a sun-drenched tourist paradise. Deftly combining economics with political and cultural history, Frank Fonda Taylor examines this puzzling about-face and explores the growth of the tourist industry into the 1990s. He argues that the transformations in image and reality were not accidental or due simply to nature's bounty. They were the result of a conscious decision to develop this aspect of Jamaica's economy.Jamaican tourism emerged formally at an international exhibition held on the island in 1891. The international tourist industry, based on the need to take a break from stressful labor and recuperate in healthful and luxurious surroundings, was a newly awakened economic giant. A group of Jamaican entrepreneurs saw its potential and began to cultivate a tourism psychology which has led, more than one hundred years later, to an economy dependent upon the tourist industry.The steamships that carried North American tourists to Jamaican resorts also carried U.S. prejudices against people of color. "To Hell with Paradise" illustrates the problems of founding a tourist industry for a European or U.S. clientele in a society where the mass of the population is poor, black, and with a historical experience of slavery and colonialism. By the 1990s, tourism had become the lifeblood of the Jamaican economy, but at an enormous cost: enclaves of privilege and ostentation that exclude the bulk of the local population, drug trafficking and prostitution, soaring prices, and environmental degradation. No wonder some Jamaicans regard tourism as a new kind of sugar.Taylor explores timely issues that have not been previously addressed. Along the way, he offers a series of valuable micro histories of the Jamaican planter class, the origins of agricultural dependency (on bananas), the growth of shipping and communications links, the process of race relations, and the linking of infrastructural development to tourism. The text is illustrated with period photographs of steamships and Jamaican tourist hotels.

A finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell, is surfer and former war reporter Chas Smith’s wild and unflinching look at the high-stakes world of surfing on Oahu’s North Shore—a riveting, often humorous, account of beauty, greed, danger, and crime. For two months every winter, when Pacific storms make landfall, swarms of mainlanders, Brazilians, Australians, and Europeans flock to Oahu’s paradisiacal North Shore in pursuit of some of the greatest waves on earth for surfing’s Triple Crown competition. Chas Smith reveals how this influx transforms a sleepy, laid-back strip of coast into a lawless, violent, drug-addled, and adrenaline-soaked mecca. Smith captures this exciting and dangerous place where locals, outsiders, the surf industry, and criminal elements clash in a fascinating look at class, race, power, money, and crime, set within one of the most beautiful places on earth. The result is a breathtaking blend of crime and adventure that captures the allure and wickedness of this idyllic golden world.

God comes back to Earth to do away with evil. God and Satan go to war to decide the fate of the universe. Who will win? What is the ultimate outcome for the future of the good believers and all the people of the Earth?

Over half of Americans believe in a literal heaven, in a literal hell. Most people who hold these beliefs are Christian and assume they are the age-old teachings of the Bible. Ehrman shows that eternal rewards and punishments are found nowhere in the Old Testament, and are not what Jesus or his disciples taught. He recounts the long history of the afterlife, ranging from The Epic of Gilgamesh up to the writings of Augustine, focusing especially on the teachings of Jesus and his early followers. Ehrman shows that competing views were intimately connected with the social, cultural, and historical worlds out of which they emerged. -- adapted from jacket

This book is one of the many Islamic publications distributed by Mustafa Organization throughout the world in different languages with the aim of conveying the message of Islam to the people of the world. Mustafa Organization is a registered Organization that operates and is sustained through collaborative efforts of volunteers in many countries around the world, and it welcomes your involvement and support. Its objectives are numerous, yet its main goal is to spread the truth about the Islamic faith in general and the Shi`a School of Thought in particular due to the latter being misrepresented, misunderstood and its tenets often assaulted by many ignorant folks, Muslims and non-Muslims. Organization's purpose is to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge through a global medium, the Internet, to locations where such resources are not commonly or easily accessible or are resented, resisted and fought!

Roses, pleasure and politics: a fresh take on Orwell as an avid gardener, whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world. 'I loved this book... An exhilarating romp through Orwell's life and times' Margaret Atwood 'Expansive and thought-provoking' Independent Outside my work the thing I care most about is gardening - George Orwell Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses that Orwell is said to have planted in his cottage in Hertfordshire, Rebecca Solnit explores how his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power. Following his journey from the coal mines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War; from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism, Solnit finds a more hopeful Orwell, whose love of nature pulses through his work and actions. And in her dialogue with the author, she makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Colombia. A fresh reading of a towering figure of the 20th century which finds solace and solutions for the political and environmental challenges we face today, Orwell's Roses is a remarkable reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance. 'Luminous...It is efflorescent, a study that seeds and blooms, propagates thoughts, and tends to historical associations' New Statesman 'A genuinely extraordinary mind, whose curiosity, intelligence and willingness to learn seem unbounded' Irish Times

In the middle of the journey of our life Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood but then he founds a whole lot of literary movements and arguably modernity itself with his Divine Comedy that, nonetheless, inexplicably, didn't make God laugh. This serious absence caused God's non-divine counterparts, humans, to wonder: "Why are we in hell?" "Why is it so funny?" "And why can't I laugh?"

Those who know Lewis's work will enjoy Martindale's thorough examination of the powerful images of Heaven and Hell found in Lewis's fiction, and all readers can appreciate Martindale's scholarly yet accessible tone. Read this book, and you will see afresh the wonder of what lies beyond the Shadowlands.