Much of the story about the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany has yet to be told. In Motherland in Danger, Karel Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to the people on the home front? For Stalin, the obstacles were manifold. Repelling the German invasion would require a mobilization so large that it would test the limits of the Soviet state. Could the USSR marshal the manpower necessary to face the threat? How could the authorities overcome inadequate infrastructure and supplies? Might Stalin’s regime fail to survive a sustained conflict with the Germans? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, from up close, its propaganda machine. Using sources in many languages, including memoirs and documents of the Soviet censor, Berkhoff explores how the Soviet media reflected—and distorted—every aspect of the war, from the successes and blunders on the front lines to the institution of forced labor on farm fields and factory floors. He also details the media’s handling of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, as well as its stinting treatment of the Allies, particularly the United States, the UK, and Poland. Berkhoff demonstrates not only that propaganda was critical to the Soviet war effort but also that it has colored perceptions of the war to the present day, both inside and outside of Russia.

Main description: Much of the story about the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany has yet to be told. In Motherland in Danger, Karel Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to the people on the home front? For Stalin, the obstacles were manifold. Repelling the German invasion would require a mobilization so large that it would test the limits of the Soviet state. Could the USSR marshal the manpower necessary to face the threat? How could the authorities overcome inadequate infrastructure and supplies? Might Stalin's regime fail to survive a sustained conflict with the Germans? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, from up close, its propaganda machine. Using sources in many languages, including memoirs and documents of the Soviet censor, Berkhoff explores how the Soviet media reflected-and distorted-every aspect of the war, from the successes and blunders on the front lines to the institution of forced labor on farm fields and factory floors. He also details the media's handling of Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust, as well as its stinting treatment of the Allies, particularly the United States, the UK, and Poland. Berkhoff demonstrates not only that propaganda was critical to the Soviet war effort but also that it has colored perceptions of the war to the present day, both inside and outside of Russia.

All Spencer wanted was a normal life. College, a job, maybe even a research fellowship which culminated in finding a way to free his mother from the psychic snow globe where he last saw her. Okay, so as the powerless son of the world's most powerful Augment, maybe normal is too much to ask for. Spencer's soon sucked back into his father's world of weaponized humans by his best friend, Eric, and the Crimson Mask himself. The battle this time isn't with a psychotic robot builder, but with an enemy whose vision of the future is as infectious as the computerized plague set to deliver it. Hound, Ember, Polybius, Aurora, and Danger join the Crimson Mask alongside Spencer and Eric as they try to control the aftermath of Killcreek's destruction. Augments long forgotten have emerged with their powers amplified. And with them, a reminder of Spencer's greatest loss.

“I’m reading this book right now and loving it!”—Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild How can a mother and daughter who love (but don’t always like) each other coexist without driving each other crazy? “Vibrating with emotion, this deeply honest account strikes a chord.”—People “A wry and moving meditation on aging and the different kinds of love between women.”—O: The Oprah Magazine After surviving a traumatic childhood in nineteen-seventies New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly twenty years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the unthinkable: Rita, whose days are spent as a flâneur, traversing Manhattan from the Clinique counters at Bergdorf to Bloomingdale’s and back again, suffers an incapacitating fall, leaving her completely dependent upon her daughter. Now Elissa is forced to finally confront their profound differences, Rita’s yearning for beauty and glamour, her view of the world through her days in the spotlight, and the money that has mysteriously disappeared in the name of preserving youth. To sustain their fragile mother-daughter bond, Elissa must navigate the turbulent waters of their shared lives, the practical challenges of caregiving for someone who refuses to accept it, the tentacles of narcissism, and the mutual, frenetic obsession that has defined their relationship. Motherland is a story that touches every home and every life, mapping the ferocity of maternal love, moral obligation, the choices women make about motherhood, and the possibility of healing. Filled with tenderness, wry irreverence, and unforgettable characters, it is an exploration of what it means to escape from the shackles of the past only to have to face them all over again. Praise for Motherland “Rarely has a mother-daughter relationship been excavated with such honesty. Elissa Altman is a beautiful, big-hearted writer who mines her most central subject: her gorgeous, tempestuous, difficult mother, and the terrain of their shared life. The result is a testament to the power of love and family.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance

This is the second in a series of four volumes, presenting the most important texts that triggered and shaped the processes of nation-building in Central and Southeast Europe. The series aims to integrate the history of these cultures with that of general European civilization. Thus it counteracts the habit whereby European intellectual phenomena and historical movements are generally analyzed where they originated and experienced their earliest and most intensive development, while the peculiar manifestations of these currents in the 'Other Europe' are neglected.

The book, Loud Thoughts on Religion, has a small prehistory. In 2003 there was held a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Vienna, Austria. On the agenda of the session there was an issue of the study of religion at school and rise in the level of tolerance among followers of the world religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The author of the book made a speech and criticized the system of the study of religion existed in the West then: on a free day representatives of religion attend schools, select a group of religion representatives and teach basics of religion to children in different audiences. This method, indeed, lays the foundation of non-tolerance at the school age. Naturally, by explaining children their religious belonging, every priest puts his religious convictions above others. This cannot be otherwise. Pupils individually understand that their religion is better and take others as representatives of less important religion. The author suggested his variant of approach to the study of religion having made an emphasis on combined study of the history of appearance of religion as they appeared and showing fundamental regulations of every religion. He suggested not providing children with religious education as such, leaving that for pupils and their parents. The session participants liked this pragmatic approach, and they charged Prof. Rafig Y. Aliyev unofficially with preparing the book and submitting it for consideration of PACE Special Commission. Thus, the author' idea was reflected in the book as a religion textbook at school. The book was translated into several languages and distributed among the commission members. Over 10 years has passed since then and the textbook is still used as basic book on religion. Loud Thoughts on Religion provides primary information about the nature and origin of religion. It is an attempt to give a correct vision of national and cultural heritage of Azerbaijan and religion of Islam, which is an integral part of the modern way of life. Readers will be able to find interesting materials about the appearance of Islam, Muslim rites of worship and worldview principles, role of Islam in society, and the influence it has on spiritually and culture.

From an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, an epic novel of love and loss and the long shadows war leaves behind. Summer, 1942. Kitty, an army driver stationed in Sussex, meets Ed, a Royal Marine commando, and Larry, a liaison officer with Combined Ops. She falls instantly in love with Ed, who falls in love with her. So does Larry. Both men go off to war, and Ed wins the highest military honor for his bravery. But sometimes heroes don’t make the best husbands. Motherland follows Kitty, Ed, and Larry from wartime England and the brutally tragic Dieppe raid to Nazi-occupied France, India after the war, and Jamaica before independence. Against this ever-changing backdrop—as they witness history being made and participate in the smaller dramas of romance, friendship, and parenthood—these three friends make choices that will determine the challenges and triumphs of their lives. But the insistent current running through all they experience is the unacknowledged tension of the love triangle that binds them together and must somehow be resolved. Written by an award-winning screenwriter whose novels have earned extraordinary critical praise, Motherland is a compelling, page-turning narrative brimming with stunning war scenes, pageantry, politics, and questions about faith and art, as well as quiet, intimate moments of passion, doubt, and longing. Above all, it is a great love story about three people struggling to find happiness and meaning amid war and its aftermath.

Like Anne Frank, Hilde Jacobsthal was born in Germany and brought up in Amsterdam, where the two families became close. Unlike Anne Frank, she survived the war, and Otto Frank was to become godfather to Rita, her first daughter. "I am the child of a woman who survived the Holocaust not by the skin of her teeth but heroically. This book tells the story of my mother's dramatic life before, during and after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. "I wrote Motherland because I wanted to understand a story which had become a kind of family myth. My mother's life could be seen as a narrative of the twentieth century; along with my father she was present and active at many of its significant moments." Rita Goldberg Hilde Jacobsthal was fifteen when the Nazis invaded Holland. After the arrest of her parents in 1943 she fled to Belgium, where she went into hiding and worked with the Resistance at night. She was liberated by the American army in 1944. In April 1945 she volunteered with a British Red Cross Unit to go to the relief of Bergen-Belsen, which had itself been liberated one week before her arrival. The horror and devastation were overwhelming, but despite her shock and grief she stayed at the camp for two years, helping with the enormous task of recovery. Sorrow and exuberance went hand in hand as the young people at Belsen found renewed life and each other. Hilde got to know Hanns Alexander (subject of the recently published Hanns and Rudolf), who was on the British War Crimes Commission, and, eventually, a Swiss doctor called Max Goldberg. Motherland is the culmination of a lifetime of reflection and a decade of research. Rita Goldberg enlarges the story she heard from her mother with historical background. She has talked with her about the minutest details of her life and pored over her papers, exploring not only her mother's life but her own. Complicated feelings are explored lightly as Rita takes the story beyond Bergen-Belsen, where paradoxically her parents met and fell in love; beyond Israel's War of Independence where they both volunteered, and on to the next chapter of their lives in the US. A deeply moving story, Motherland will become an essential text about World War II, the Holocaust and the survival of the spirit.

• A spinning wheel which paved way for a nation’s independence from foreign rule and became its symbol for self – sufficiency and dignity. • The world’s only floating post office. • The world’s tallest statue in memory of the legendary “Iron Man” who united more than 500 princely states and thus became the architect of the world’s largest democracy. • Magnificent and mystic festivals of kites, lights, boats and colours with elaborate rituals. • A crater on Planet Venus named after a lady doctor. • The son of a boatman who sold flowers outside a temple but grew up to become the nation’s “Missile Man” and also its President. • “Tandav / ?????”, the Cosmic Dance of Lord Shiva at the Temple of Chidambaram. • Operation Flood, the world’s largest dairy development programme. • “The Song of the Lord”, a poem on the essence of “Vedant”, narrated on the battlefield by none other than Liladhar Lord Krishna, the Supreme Godhead. What they all have in common? Being a part of the splendid tapestry of the world’s oldest civilisation, India. Come and embark on this fascinating journey to witness all this and the cultural heritage of India, its religions and festivals through the eyes of 7 – year old Mokshaj and his two sisters, Ruthvika and Rudrika, both of whom are twins aged 5 years. A must read for children of all ages.