Animals play crucial roles in Buddhist thought and practice. However, many symbolically or culturally significant animals found in India, where Buddhism originated, do not inhabit China, to which Buddhism spread in the medieval period. In order to adapt Buddhist ideas and imagery to the Chinese context, writers reinterpreted and modified the meanings different creatures possessed. Medieval sources tell stories of monks taming wild tigers, detail rituals for killing snakes, and even address the question of whether a parrot could achieve enlightenment. Huaiyu Chen examines how Buddhist ideas about animals changed and were changed by medieval Chinese culture. He explores the entangled relations among animals, religions, the state, and local communities, considering both the multivalent meanings associated with animals and the daily experience of living with the natural world. Chen illustrates how Buddhism influenced Chinese knowledge and experience of animals as well as how Chinese state ideology, Daoism, and local cultic practices reshaped Buddhism. He shows how Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism developed doctrines, rituals, discourses, and practices to manage power relations between animals and humans. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including traditional texts, stone inscriptions, manuscripts, and visual culture, this interdisciplinary book bridges history, religious studies, animal studies, and environmental studies. In examining how Buddhist depictions of the natural world and Chinese taxonomies of animals mutually enriched each other, In the Land of Tigers and Snakes offers a new perspective on how Buddhism took root in Chinese society.

Showcases the diversity and beauty of the animals sharing the tiger's domain and documents the strain that modern and urban values place on India's ecosystems

The Chort, a small Mayan tribe, had been living isolated on the steep, eroded mountainsides of eastern Guatemala for centuries. As the country developed around them, they had become a downtrodden people. With overpopulation and no more land available, they had become a violent people. Fierce fighting often would break out between families to protect their meager resources. Droughts and crop failures were common, diseases and infant mortality were astronomical, and education was not available. Fear from the dark world shaped their culture and permeated their lives with stoicism and despair. They felt their cry for help was silenceduntil God heard their cry. An adventure began when Ray and Virginia Canfield, along with their three young children, responded to Gods call to go. They relocated forty-five Chort families to a jungle village and lived among them, offering agricultural and medical help. Would these people be able to change and adopt new ways to improve their existence? Would they be willing to break away from centuries of traditions that held them hostage to despair and hopelessness? Would this daring relocation project succeed? God began to work in miraculous ways as the Chort opened their hearts to Jesus. While the missionaries poured their lives into helping them improve their physical and material lives, God extended a new hope to His people. And He had even greater plans for the future of His Chort followers.

The Nazi Study of India and Indian Anti-Colonialism is the first detailed and critical study of the intellectual and political connections that existed between some German scholars specializing on India, non-academic 'India experts,' Indian anti-colonialists and various organs of the Nazi state. It explores the ways in which different knowledge discourses pertaining to India, particularly its colonization and the anti-colonial movement, were used by these individuals for a number of German organisations to fulfil the demands of Nazi politics. This monograph also inspects the links between the knowledge providers and embodiments of National Socialist politics like the Nazi party and its affiliates. In this study, Baijayanti Roy aims to ascertain whether such political engagements were actually more rewarding for the scholars than their 'practical services' to the state in the form of strategic deployment of their knowledge of India. The Nazi Study of India and Indian Anti-Colonialism offers case studies of four organisations which incorporated such complicated entanglements of knowledge and power: the India Institute of the Deutsche Akademie in Munich, the Special Department India of the German Foreign Ministry, the Seminar for Oriental languages and its successor institutions at the University of Berlin, and the Indian Legion of the German Army. The knowledge networks underlying these organisations were dominated by German Indologists, but non-specialist knowledge providers, both German and Indian were also included. The Nazi regime expected all scholars and intellectuals to engage in Kulturpolitik (cultural politics), which entailed propagating the glories of the 'Reich' and its supreme leader as well as collecting 'politically valuable' knowledge within and outside Germany. For the four organizations concerned, this meant conducting pro-German and from around 1938, anti-British propaganda aimed at Indians. Loosely following an analogy provided by Herbert Mehrtens in the context of natural sciences, this monograph posits that there were 'patterns of collaboration' between the knowledge providers and the representatives of the Nazi regime. At the core of these 'patterns' was, to borrow Mitchell Ash`s theory, an exchange of resources and capital in which scholars and experts offered their knowledge of Indian languages, history and culture to authorities like the Foreign Ministry, the SS and the Army. In return, they received increased professional opportunities, financial remuneration or in some cases, increased power and influence.

Earth is the only planet known to have fire. The reason is both simple and profound: fire exists because Earth is the only planet to possess life as we know it. Fire is an expression of life on Earth and an index of life’s history. Few processes are as integral, unique, or ancient. Fire on Earth puts fire in its rightful place as an integral part of the study of geology, biology, human history, physics, and global chemistry. Fire is ubiquitous in various forms throughout Earth, and belongs as part of formal inquiries about our world. In recent years fire literature has multiplied exponentially; dedicated journals exist and half a dozen international conferences are held annually. A host of formal sciences, or programs announcing interdisciplinary intentions, are willing to consider fire. Wildfire also appears routinely in media reporting. This full-colour text, containing over 250 illustrations of fire in all contexts, is designed to provide a synthesis of contemporary thinking; bringing together the most powerful concepts and disciplinary voices to examine, in an international setting, why planetary fire exists, how it works, and why it looks the way it does today. Students, lecturers, researchers and professionals interested in the physical, ecological and historical characteristics of fire will find this book, and accompanying web-based material, essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate courses in all related disciplines, for general interest and for providing an interdisciplinary foundation for further study. A comprehensive approach to the history, behaviour and ecological effects of fire on earth Timely introduction to this important subject, with relevance for global climate change, biodiversity loss and the evolution of human culture. Provides a foundation for the interdisciplinary field of Fire Research Authored by an international team of leading experts in the field Associated website provides additional resources

Ghosts. Ghouls. Goblins. Just about every G word that makes your blood turn blue. It’s in here. Banshees too. And one seriously baaaaaaad wizard. Dragons. Knights with long poles. Knights with rusty butts. It’s all inside these covers. Two brothers who grow up around a house made of blue and white bricks. One becomes a singer and the other a teacher. But both wind up colliding with a tanker truck and die, exploding into space. In here, I tell you. There’s also a castle where a man named Rocky falls in love with someone named Katie. Yeah, pretty yucky stuff, I know. That’s in here too. But what happens in that castle will curdle your blood, and make you hurl your lunch. You got to see that stuff. Oh, and basketball too. The most famous basketball game of all time is right inside this book. Where can you buy a book with so much stuff for less than a thousand dollars? Hurry, before the author catches on and raises up the price. (This book was named a finalist in the children's fiction category of the Fresh Voices 2006 Awards, sponsored by the Writer's Marketing Association)

Vignettes of Vietnam & Other Colorful Stories is a nostalgic collage of short stories, fermented and lingering, some for years, waiting on a venue to finally emerge. Hopefully, that time is now! Vignettes of Vietnam chronicles a young soldier’s experiences during his year’s tour of duty in the war-torn country and the discovery, while on an ambush patrol, of horrific photographs of GI comrades, captured, tortured and mutilated; the discovery of his Homie, butchered during an overnight LPR (Long Range Patrol), and his own subsequent escape, using arboreal survival strategies. The Excremenator provides insight into the violent life of young Anthony Morris. Born in the ‘hood’ (Chicago), he is a victim of the vicious street gang culture that results in the senseless death of his beautiful and beloved, Janet. Tired of the meaningless violence, he welcomes military conscription as a viable means of escape and redemption. But sent to ‘Nam, he’s forced to confront the reality of the correlation—urban (street gang affiliation), versus Jungle (military warfare), which proves instrumental in the determination of his outlook on life, as well as and his nasty name! The Night the Cow Got in Zion Franklin, Unforgettable Fang Grey, Snake Dancing, “A Tree. . . So Far! are comical (hopefully, colorful) highlights of an era long past.