"In 1922, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, a leader of the Zionist movement as well as many Progressive causes, established a non-denominational rabbinical seminary in New York City. Having already founded the thriving Free Synagogue movement and the American Jewish Congress, he now turned his energy toward opening the Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) with the same ambitious aim: revolutionizing American liberal Judaism. He believed mainstream American Jewish institutions had become outdated, refusing to relinquish a nineteenth-century mindset. In championing the new Jewish nationalism and fighting alongside America's leading proponents of social and economic justice, Wise had developed a mass following. But he recognized that he alone could not bring about the change he sought; he needed a new cadre of young rabbis who shared his outlook and could spread his vision. We Shall Build Anew tells the little-known story of how Wise changed the trajectory of American Judaism for the next century. By opening the Jewish Institute of Religion, he began to train that new cadre of young rabbis, charged them with invigorating and reshaping Jewish life, and launched them into positions of leadership across the country. We Shall Build Anew explores Wise's vision for the Jewish Institute of Religion and the central role it would play in shaping twentieth-century American liberal Judaism. Conflict lies at the heart of this story. Wise faced hostility from across the denominational landscape, including attempts to quash the school before it ever opened. The national Reform leadership, weary of Wise's unceasing criticism and worried that a new rabbinical school would create competition for their own seminary, Hebrew Union College (HUC), opposed the endeavor. There were weaknesses in the JIR model and in Wise's leadership, too. Faculty fought bitterly, and the discord contributed to a constant rotation of scholars. Some eventually moved to more prestigious secular institutions, like Harvard and Columbia, which established the first two academic chairs in Jewish studies in the nation in the 1920s. And the students fought. From a wide range of backgrounds, they fiercely debated their Zionist, political, and cultural ideals. JIR also admitted several highly accomplished women, designated as "special students" who could sit in on classes but were barred entry into the rabbinical program. Despite years working on behalf of women's suffrage and civil rights, Wise would not be party to women's entry into the rabbinate. Finally, Wise's failure to generate a sustainable funding model created further instability for the school. Still, the JIR flourished and sent rabbis to congregations throughout the United States. JIR's non-denominationalism did not last, though. In the late 1940s, JIR's fiscal problems became insurmountable, and as Wise approached his death he reluctantly agreed to merge the Institute with Hebrew Union College, forfeiting the school's independence and bringing it under the umbrella of the Reform movement. And despite Wise's early aim to break down barriers between American Jewry's various factions, the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements continued to carve out separate identities. In the early 21st century, however, Wise's vision for liberal Judaism and non-denominationalism has gained traction, and distinctions between the non-Orthodox denominations have begun to collapse. Whether or not Wise's ideas about non-denominationalism will continue to flourish remains to be seen. But it is clear that his blend of Jewish nationalism and American progressivism, which made him and his congregation objects of contempt within the world they sought to change, took hold. Today, it is impossible to think of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements without their core commitments to Zionism, Jewish peoplehood (now called klal yisrael), and social and economic justice (commonly referred to as tikkun olam). The story of We Shall Build Anew has greater importance now than ever. With Orthodox Jewry moving increasingly to the right on the political spectrum, and a growing number of secular Jews joining the left in challenging the legitimacy of Zionism and the idea of a Jewish state, the Conservative and Reconstructionist movements in the middle are grappling with significant contraction. This leaves the Reform movement, the most direct heir to Stephen S. Wise's legacy, as American Jewry's hub of resistance to the radical right, and a stronghold of support for progressive forces in Israel. In creating JIR, Stephen S. Wise acted on his convictions-and thanks to his prescience as well as his efforts, ultimately the American Jewish community came around to his ideas, fulfilling Wise's most ambitious goal: A reinvention of modern American liberal Judaism"--

Bestselling author and renowned economist Lester Thurow argues forcefully that globalization is not a done deal and we must seize the moment now if we are to create a new global economy in which all can prosper. In this new book, Thurow examines the newly–forming global economy, with a special focus on the role of the US and the dangers to our own national well–being. He examines such questions as: What's at stake for us in the global economy? Why is it important that the system be equitable and that other countries prosper along with us? What should our goals as a nation be – long term and short term? What are the tough choices that need to be made in our relationship with other countries and world regulatory bodies? What role should we be playing globally? What are the political, economic, social choices / tradeoffs we will have to confront? Thurow contends that the huge and growing US trade deficit poses grave dangers to the value of the dollar and is putting our own economy in jeopardy. As the world economy leaps national boundaries, its hallmark seems to be a rising instability and a growing inequality between the first and third worlds. Financial crises in the third world come ever more frequently and seem to be ever more severe. The first world economies seem to be in ever more frantic boom and bust cycles. Globalization causes riots throughout the world and is one factor in the rise of terrorism against the West. Thurow shows how some nations, including Ireland and China, have embraced the concept of globalization and placed themselves into a position to prosper with growing and productive national economies. He contrasts their positive actions with Japan, whose leaders have allowed the nation to drift into stagnation and have destroyed its prosperity. He argues that this is the time to choose globalization or be left behind, the time to "build a global economy that eliminates the defects," and he provides plenty of ideas for corporations, governments, economists, and citizens to act upon.

This voluminous work on Church History by Philip Schaff (1819-1893) was originally published between 1858 and 1893 in eight volumes in the USA and covers the period from the beginnings of Biblical Christianity in A.D. 1 to the History of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland (1517-1648). Being still a popular text in North America, this work had been out of print for over a century and has now been carefully edited and reformatted for republication in four volumes, each of them containing the text of two volumes of the original edition. Schaff’s work, unlike other works in the field, covers a multitude of church history-related aspects - from church doctrine, policy, events and processes to aspects of social moral and family life, arts and more. This is the fourth and final volume in this series and is a special edition covering the period of the Reformation from 1517-1648 that ends with the Peace Treaty concluded 1648 in Münster, Westphalia, following the long period of the Thirty-Year War.

This voluminous work on Church History by Philip Schaff (1819-1893) was originally published between 1858 and 1893 in eight volumes in the USA and covers the period from the beginnings of Biblical Christianity in A.D. 1 to the History of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland (1517-1648). Being still a popular text in North America, this work had been out of print for over a century and has now been carefully edited and reformatted for republication in three volumes, each of them containing the text of two volumes of the original edition. Schaff’s work, unlike other works in the field, covers a multitude of church history-related aspects – from church doctrine, policy, events and processes to aspects of social moral and family life, arts and more. It is a very comprehensive text, extremely well-written and readable, rich in material and sources used, and attests to the excellence of protestant German theological scholarship under the influence of emerging Historical-Critical Biblical Exegesis at his time. This second volume covers the period from the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers to Medieval Christianity (A. D. 311-1073).

Humanity is confronted with the gravest financial crisis and economic recession since the Great Depression. Political leaders, national ministries of finance, and central banks around the world are trying to prop up their countries' sinking economies and arrest a downward economic spiral by innovative financial rescue and bank bailout plans, as well as economic stimulus and recovery packages. These measures are being taken to reestablish trust in the economy and to trigger an economic revival. Despite these efforts, stagnation seems imminent, as uncertainty leads businesses and consumers to place spending and investing decisions on hold.Social entrepreneurs are essential to the restoration of a sustainable planet and the improvement of lives of billions of people, especially of those living in extreme poverty. Therefore, social entrepreneurs deserve further recognition and support by the international community - by governments, multinational companies, and philanthropic organizations. Creating a New Civilization through Social Entrepreneurship highlights the global movement of social entrepreneurship and some of the leading organizations and individuals that are advancing this citizen sector movement. The volume presents examples of innovative people that are tackling major social problems and triggering systemic change throughout the world today.

Many scholars have focused on contemporary sources pertaining to the Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews between 1933 and 1945--citing dated documents, newspapers, diaries, and letters--but the sermons delivered by rabbis describing and protesting against the ever-growing oppression of European Jews have been largely neglected. Agony in the Pulpit is a response to this neglect, and to the accusations made by respected figures that Jewish leaders remained silent in the wake of catastrophe. The passages from sermons reproduced in this volume--delivered by 135 rabbis in fifteen countries, mainly from the United States and England--provide important evidence of how these rabbis communicated the ever-worsening news to their congregants, especially on important religious occasions when they had peak attendance and peak receptivity. A central theme is how the preachers related the contemporary horrors to ancient examples of persecution. Did they present what was occurring under Hitler as a reenactment of the murderous oppressions by Pharaoh, Amalek, Haman, Ahasuerus, the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian Pogroms? When did they begin to recognize and articulate from their pulpits an awareness that current events were fundamentally unprecedented? Was the developing cataclysm consistent with traditional beliefs about God's control of what happened on earth? No other book-length study has presented such abundant evidence of rabbis in all streams of Jewish religious life seeking to rouse and inspire their congregants to full awareness of the catastrophic realities that were taking shape in the world beyond their synagogues.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Refugees in Europe, 1919-1959 offers a new history of Europe's mid-20th century as seen through its recurrent refugee crises. By bringing together in one volume recent research on a range of different contexts of groups of refugees and refugee policy, it sheds light on the common assumptions that underpinned the history of refugees throughout the period under review. The essays foreground the period between the end of the First World War, which inaugurated a series of new international structures to deal with displaced populations, and the late 1950s, when Europe's home-grown refugee problems had supposedly been 'solved' and attention shifted from the identification of an exclusively European refugee problem to a global one. Borrowing from E. H. Carr's The Twenty Years' Crisis, first published in 1939, the editors of this volume test the idea that the two post-war eras could be represented as a single crisis of a European-dominated international order of nation states in the face of successive refugee crises which were both the direct consequence of that system and a challenge to it. Each of the chapters reflects on the utility and limitations of this notion of a 'forty years' crisis' for understanding the development of specific national and international responses to refugees in the mid-20th century. Contributors to the volume also provide alternative readings of the history of an international refugee regime, in which the non-European and colonial world are assigned a central role in the narrative.