If you have ever wondered what led to the rise and fall of New Zealand's Telethon, or pondered the appeal of Metro magazine, or sought to understand the popularity of Billy T. James, this book is for you. The Dominion of Signs is a brilliant and provocative commentary on contemporary New Zealand culture.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." --Genesis 1:24-26 In this crucial passage from the Old Testament, God grants mankind power over animals. But with this privilege comes the grave responsibility to respect life, to treat animals with simple dignity and compassion. Somewhere along the way, something has gone wrong. In Dominion, we witness the annual convention of Safari Club International, an organization whose wealthier members will pay up to $20,000 to hunt an elephant, a lion or another animal, either abroad or in American "safari ranches," where the animals are fenced in pens. We attend the annual International Whaling Commission conference, where the skewed politics of the whaling industry come to light, and the focus is on developing more lethal, but not more merciful, methods of harvesting "living marine resources." And we visit a gargantuan American "factory farm," where animals are treated as mere product and raised in conditions of mass confinement, bred for passivity and bulk, inseminated and fed with machines, kept in tightly confined stalls for the entirety of their lives, and slaughtered in a way that maximizes profits and minimizes decency. Throughout Dominion, Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible's message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter's argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and "scientifically proven" notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives. The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.

A "marvelous" (Economist) account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination. Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion-an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus-was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history. Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.

From the Gamma Quadrant they came, hordes of merciless Jem'Hadar soldiers commanded by the shape-changing Founders, who seek to conquer both the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon™ Empire. Now that the Dominion has joined forces with the Cardassians, and claimed Deep Space Nine™ as their prize, Starfleet is running out of time. As a secret military project nears completion, the destiny of the entire Alpha Quadrant depends on the courage of a few. In the Federation's time of greatest peril, as the Starship Enterprise™ readies itself for battle, Captain Jean-Luc Picard leads a desperate mission of espionage deep into the heart of the hostile Cardassian Empire. Unless they can prevent the Dominion from creating an artificial wormhole, hordes of fresh Jem'Hadar warriors and Changelings will pour into the Alpha Quadrant, dooming the Federation to unconditional surrender. But there may be a traitor along on the mission and Picard finds he cannot trust even his closest allies.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

Translations and analyses of three Persian Sufi texts, offering a perspective on Islam that is rarely met in modern works.