There are many conflicts around the world at present which claim to be in the name of God - in Iraq, in Syria, in Gaza, as well as elsewhere. However, Rabbi Lord Sacks argues forcefully that a true understanding of religion will enable and inspire us to bring peace, not war - that far from leaving religion on the sidelines, we must put it at the heart of our peacemaking efforts. From Darwinian evolution to game theory, Sacks shows how the common human problem - that we pass on our genes as individuals, but can only survive in groups - drives a tendency to violence which can subvert even the most loving of religions; but as he explores the biblical stories that underpin monotheism he uncovers the hidden truth that even as God establishes his own chosen people, so his sympathies and his protection are as much or more upon the losers and the apparently disadvantaged.-- Provided by the publisher.

From the prelude of the October 1973 Middle East war through the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in March 1979, Kenneth W. Stein traces American involvement in the Arab-Israeli negotiations. He provides a range of first-hand accounts, recollections and anecdotes from over eighty bureaucrats, diplomats and military leaders who participated in Arab-Israeli peace talks in the 1970's and since. Charting the complex and often contradictory goals of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, the US and the USSR, Stein chronicles the evolution of these negotiations and analyzes the roles of Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, and Begin. --From publisher's description.

This volume, first published in English in 1987 makes available an important part of Weil’s early writings. Although primarily known as a religious thinker, she devoted enormous energy in her formative years to her work as a political activist and as a philosopher/teacher. This book reveals these other sides of Weil and demonstrates the lines of continuity underlying her whole thought. Written between 1929 and 1941 the book covers a crucial and transitional period in Weil’s life. Taken together they represent invaluable primary source material on the evolution of Weil’s life and on her chosen method of abstracting elements from her personal experience and transmuting that experience into considered thought. Even when highly theoretical, her writing was always concerned with the application of her intelligence to concrete problems of human existence.

2284: World Society, Iaian Vernier's Memoir is a fascinating study of mankind. Written as a work of fiction, it looks at the human condition 200 years in the future. Predicting the outcome of today's social policies, 2284 is a cultural anthropology study that adds to Itzkoff's extensive writing on the topic. Iaian Vernier writes in 2284 of the revolutionary internationalism that has been established in Nairobi, Africa. He chronicles the disasters that almost destroyed the twenty-first-century world. He describes in anecdote and philosophical depth the new scientific and secular world that has been established to bring peace, equality, ethnic diversity and democracy to humanity, while scrutinizing the plans for demographic stability that will sustain humanity into the future. In the twenty-third century, the forbidden rationality of the scientific minds of the twenty-first century have been unleashed.