“Calling in the Soul” (Hu Plig) is the chant the Hmong use to guide the soul of a newborn baby into its body on the third day after birth. Based on extensive original research conducted in the late 1980s in a village in northern Thailand, this ethnographic study examines Hmong cosmological beliefs about the cycle of life as expressed in practices surrounding birth, marriage, and death and considers the gender relationships evident in these practices. The Hmong (or Miao, as they are called in China, and Meo, in Thailand) have lived on the fringes of powerful Southeast Asian states for centuries. Their social framework is distinctly patrilineal, granting little direct power to women. Yet within the limits of that structure, Hmong women wield considerable influence in the spiritually critical realms of birth and death. Calling in the Soul will be of interest to sociocultural anthropologists, medical anthropologists, Southeast Asianists, and gender specialists. Replaces ISBN 9780295800424

Ten years ago one of America's most important public figures, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, chronicled her quest both deeply personal and, in the truest sense, public to help make our society into the kind of village that enables children to become able, caring resilient adults. IT TAKES A VILLAGE is a textbook for caring, filled with truths that are worth a read, and a reread. In her substantial new introduction, Senator Clinton reflects on how our village has changed over the last decade, from the internet to education, and on how her own understanding of children has deepened as she has watched Chelsea grow up and take on challenges new to her generation, from a first job to living through a terrorist attack. She discusses how the work she is doing in the Senate is helping children and looks at where America has been successful, improvements in the foster care system and support for adoption, and where there is still work to be done, providing pre-school programmes and universal health care to all our children. This new edition elucidates how the choices we make about how we raise our children, and how we support families, will determine how all nations will face the challenges of this century.

Wendy Call visited the Isthmus of Tehuantepec?the lush sliver of land connecting the Yucatan Peninsula to the rest of Mexico?for the first time in 1997. She found herself in the midst of a storied land, a place Mexicans call their country'sø?little waist,? a place long known for its strong women, spirited marketplaces, and deep sense of independence. She also landed in the middle of a ferocious battle over plans to industrialize the region, where most people still fish, farm, and work in the forests. In the decade that followed her first visit, Call witnessed farmland being paved for new highways, oil spilling into rivers, and forests burning down. Through it all, local people fought to protect their lands and their livelihoods?and their very lives.ø ø Call?s story, No Word for Welcome, invites readers into the homes, classrooms, storefronts, and fishing boats of the isthmus, as well as the mahogany-paneled high-rise offices of those striving to control the region. With timely and invaluable insights into the development battle, Call shows that the people who have suffered most from economic globalization have some of the clearest ideas about how we can all survive it.

One hundred kilometers from Seville, there is a small village, Marinaleda, that for the last thirty years has been at the center of a long struggle to create a communist utopia. In a story reminiscent of the Asterix books, Dan Hancox explores the reality behind the community where no one has a mortgage, sport is played in the Che Guevara stadium and there are monthly "Red Sundays" where everyone works together to clean up the neighbourhood. In particular he tells the story of the village mayor, Sanchez Gordillo, who in 2012 became a household name in Spain after leading raids on local supermarkets to feed the Andalucian unemployed.

Your most valuable asset is the people in your life. Does this sound familiar? You are so busy you don't have time for your friends. You get sick and no one shows up to help or express concern. You want someone in your life who really cares and knows who you are. You experience quick encounters as exciting, but at the end of the day you are still lonely. From your family to members of your congregation, to the people who deliver your mail or serve your coffee each morning, every person you know, every person you see is a part of your Personal Village. With this insightful, funny and approachable book as your guide, you can master the skills of getting closer with the people around you, of having people in your life by choice, not by chance. Too much is written about how to make money too little is written about how to strengthen our personal communities, according to respected relationship therapist, Marv Thomas. To combat the many dehumanizing effects of 21st century life,

"Some churches now advertise courses on how to pray. How ridiculous! That is like giving a course on how to fall in love." —A. W. Tozer Tozer understood prayer as few do: as a way of life. Now readers can share that same grand vision. Prayer combines the best of Tozer on prayer into one volume. Tozer was captured by the great wonder of God, and he regarded prayer as the primary means of coming into His presence. But if our everyday life is filled with the barrenness of busyness and there is no serious urgency to pray, we forfeit the wonder of being conformed to the image of Christ and knowing our God more intimately—the true Christian life. Prayer is doable. God is accessible. And Tozer provides the wisdom and encouragement to help us encounter Him daily. With commentary and reflection questions provided by compiler W.L. Seaver, Prayer takes our understanding of prayer to new depths and helps us have a life that prays.

Having flamed out in her job in the executive offices of Nurses in Neighborhoods NY (NINNY), the fictional Frances is keeping a low and lonely profile while considering how best to rise from her metaphorical ashes. Her hiatus abruptly ends, however, when she discovers Lana Plotsky, her elderly neighbor and fellow Cooperator, dead on the laundry room floor. As Frances can t just leave Mrs. Plotsky there, she improvises a solution, which in short (and outrageous) order subjects her to the purview of the USA Patriot Act! Is her next stop Guantanamo Bay? Will she have to ship out before, or after, the shiva for Mrs. Plotsky? This delightfully over-the-top tale of life, love, and liberty in lower Manhattan spoofs an equal-opportunity cast of unforgettable characters who somehow miraculously manage to make their way, and mostly get along together, in the 21st-century American urban village they proudly call home: Cooperative Village.

Finally, a book that offers a practical yet well-researched guide for practitioners seeking to hone the way they show up in citizen space. At a time when public trust in institutions is at its lowest, expectations of those institutions to make people well, knowledgeable, and secure are rapidly increasing. These expectations are unrealistic, causing disenchantment and disengagement among citizens and increasing levels of burnout among many professionals. Rekindling Democracy is not just a practical guide; it goes further in setting out a manifesto for a more equitable social contract to address these issues. Rekindling Democracy argues convincingly that industrialized countries are suffering through a democratic inversion, where the doctor is assumed to be the primary producer of health, the teacher of education, the police officer of safety, and the politician of democracy. Through just the right blend of storytelling, research, and original ideas, Russell argues instead that in a functioning democracy the role of the professionals ought to be defined as that which happens after the important work of citizens is done. The primary role of the twenty-first-century practitioner therefore is not a deliverer of top-down services, but a precipitator of more active citizenship and community building.

Well known throughout the Islamic world as the foundational thinker for a significant portion of the contemporary Muslim intelligentsia, Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was jailed by Gamal Abdul Nasser’s government in 1954. He became one of the most uncompromising voices of the movement we now call Islamism and is perhaps best known for his book, Ma`lam fi al-tariq. A Child from the Village was written just prior to Qutb’s conversion to the Islamist cause and reflects his concerns for social justice. Interst in Qutb’s writing has increased in the West since Islamism has emerged as a power on the world scene. In this memoir, Qutb recalls his childhood in the village of Musha in Upper Egypt. He chronicles the period between 1912 and 1918, a time immensely influential in the creation of modern Egypt. Written with much tenderness toward childhood memories, it has become a classic in modern Arabic autobiography. Qutb offers a clear picture of Egyptian village life in the early twentieth century, its customs and lore, educational system, religious festivals, relations with the central government, and the struggle to modernize and retain its identity. Translators John Calvert and William Shepard capture the beauty and intensity of Qutb’s prose.