Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide


August Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud predicted that religion would gradually fade in importance and cease to be significant with the emergence of industrial society. Their belief that religion was dying became conventional wisdom in the social sciences during most of the twentieth century. However, this analysis reveals that the traditional secularization thesis needs updating now. Religion has not disappeared and is unlikely to do so, even though secularization has had a surprisingly powerful negative impact on human fertility rates.

Hitler's U-Boat Bases


This book examines the monolithic bunkers that were constructed at strategically crucial sites, designed to withstand the aggressive attack from allied forces for Germany's U-Boat fleet. The book examines the bases in detail, each site is explored, showing how and why it was bulilt, from the design and the materials used in teh bunkers and their strategic importance to the German U-Boat missions.

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World


In the vein of the bestselling Salt and Cod, a gripping chronicle of the myth, mystery, and uncertain fate of the world’s most popular fruit

In this fascinating and surprising exploration of the banana’s history, cultural significance, and endangered future, award-winning journalist Dan Koeppel gives readers plenty of food for thought. Fast-paced and highly entertaining, Banana takes us from jungle to supermarket, from corporate boardrooms to kitchen tables around the world. 

We begin in the Garden of Eden—examining scholars’ belief that Eve’s “apple” was actually a banana— and travel to early-twentieth-century Central America, where aptly named “banana republics” rose and fell over the crop, while the companies now known as Chiquita and Dole conquered the marketplace. Koeppel then chronicles the banana’s path to the present, ultimately—and most alarmingly—taking us to banana plantations across the globe that are being destroyed by a fast-moving blight, with no cure in sight—and to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.

Sexing the Church: Gender, Power, and Ethics in Contemporary Catholicism


The regulation of human sexuality in contemporary Catholicism, a topic that monopolizes public conversation about the Catholic Church, is also a central concern of Catholic theological discussions of religious ethics. Aline H. Kalbian traces the history of the connection between moral theology and sexual ethics as it applies to the concern for order in official teachings on marriage, reproduction, and sex. 

She explores order as it is reflected in the theology of marriage, the 20th-century challenge to that order in the debates on contraception and assisted reproduction, and the way attitudes about gender in Catholicism connect theological and moral order with ecclesiastical order.

Flavours of India Delicious Slow Cook Recipes Made Simple

Flavours of India
A Culinary journey through India’s best known regions...


India is home to one of the most exciting and diverse cuisines in the world. From rich, indulgent and spicy to light, delicate and fragrant, the choice is immense. At Patak’s, we are passionate about Indian food and about inspiring you to discover and enjoy the vast array of flavours that the cuisine has to offer. The best way to experience real Indian food is to cook it yourself and cooking Indian food at home needn’t be difficult. That’s why I’ve developed these simple, easy-tofollow recipes that celebrate the diversity of India’s regional cuisine.

Islam and the Abolition of Slavery


Contemporay debates about Muslim slavery occur in a context of fierce polemics between Islam and other belief systems. While Islamic groups had an ambivalent and generally muted impact on the legal repudiation of slavery, a growing religious commitment to abolition was essential if legislation was to be enforced in the twentieth century. Drawing on examples from the whole 'abode' of Islam, from the Philipines to Senegal and from the Caucasus to South Africa,Gervase Clarence-Smith ranges across the history of Islam, paying particular attention to the period from the late 18th century to the present. 

He shows that "sharia-minded" attempts to achieve closer adherence to the holy law restricted slavery, even if they did not end it. However, the sharia itself was not as clear about the legality of servitude as is usually assumed, and progressive scholars within the schools of law might even have achieved full emancipation over the long term. The impact of mystical and millenarian Islam was contradictory, in some cases providing a supportive agenda of freedom, but in other cases causing great surges of enslavement. The revisionist Islam that emerged from the 18th century was divided. "Fundamentalists" stressed the literal truth of the founding texts of Islam, and thus found it difficult to abandon slavery completely.

"Modernists,' appealing to the spirit rather than to the letter of scripture, spawned the most radical opponents of slavery, notably Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the Islamic William Wilberforce. Once slavery had disappeared, it was the Sufi mystics who did most to integrate former slaves socially and religiously, avoiding the deep social divisions that have plagued Western societies in the aftermath of abolition. In this important new book, Clarence-Smith provides the first general survey of the Islamic debate on slavery. Sweeping away entrenched myths, he hopes to stimulate more research on this neglected topic, thereby contributing to healing the religious rifts that threaten to tear our world apart in the 21st century.

Fast Feng Shui for Singles: 108 Ways to Heal Your Home and Attract Romance


Everything you need to know to shake off the disappointments of the past and find the lasting joy and happiness you desire with the power of feng shui! Fast Feng Shui for Singles provides a unique, holistic, and highly effective program to get you from being alone to being in love.

Step-by-step guidelines show you how to use feng shui to heal old heartache and rediscover a sense of self; attract new opportunities and jump-start your social life; nurture a budding relationship; fan the flames of passion; and overcome barriers to intimacy, communication, and commitment. Filled with journaling exercises, meditations, rituals and feng shui tips on every aspect of turning your love life around.

Fast Feng Shui for Singles prepares and inspires you to transform your home and heart into environments that welcome romance and support a lasting, loving relationship with the man or woman of your dreams!

Homosexuality in Islam - Scott Kugle


The first book length treatment to offer a detailed analysis of how Islamic scripture, jurisprudence, and Hadith can accommodate a sexually sensitive Islam. Numerous scholars and commentators maintain that the Qur'an and Hadith rule unambiguously against same-sex relations. This pioneering study argues that there is far more nuance to the matter than most believe.



Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries - Paul Fregosi


Jihad, the Muslim holy war against Christians and others, has raged for 1300 years with bloody conquests in Europe dating from campaigns to convert the infidels in the 7th century to today's random acts of terrorism in the name of Allah. Yet this huge unrecorded 'hole' in European history has been censored and stifled by political and literary authorities who have feared reprisals from angry Muslims trying to hide a legacy of brutality vastly more bloody and six times longer in duration than the atrocities of the crusades. 

This is the engrossing factual account of the immense and little-known Islamic military invasions of Europe, and the major players who led them, beginning around 650CE. The Islamic Arabs (and later the Moors) occupied a number of the Mediterranean Islands, and invaded Spain and Portugal in 711CE, and ruled over much of the Iberian peninsula for the next 800 years. France was attacked and invaded, as was Italy, and the European coasts all the way to Ireland and Iceland. The Muslims swept over the Balkans, besieged Vienna, and were intermittent masters of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary into the 19th century, destroying the Byzantines, taking Constantinople (turning it into Istanbul). Ambitious and unrelenting, the Muslims also sought to conquer Austria, and Russia. In a bright and brisk narrative, Paul Fregosi's unique and provocative work is the first, and only, general history of the Jihad, the most neglected and disregarded phenomenon in European history.

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Why I Am Not a Muslim - Ibn Warraq


Those who practice the Muslim faith have resisted examinations of their religion. They are extremely guarded about their religion, and what they consider blasphemous acts by sceptical Muslims and non-Muslims alike has only served to pique the world's curiosity. This critical examination reveals an unflattering picture of the faith and its practitioners. Nevertheless, it is the truth, something that has either been deliberately concealed by modern scholars or buried in obscure journals accessible only to a select few.




Made in India: Decolonizations, Queer Sexualities, Trans/national Projects


Made In India explores the making of "queer" and "heterosexual" consciousness and identities in light of economic privatization, global condom enterprises, sexuality-focused NGOs, the Bollywood-ization of beauty contests, and trans/national activism. In examining seemingly disparate and high profile events in post/neo colonial India, since the 1990s, Made In India demonstrates the relationships between identity formation and the political economy of trans/national sexualities. These events demonstrate the material, political, and cultural contexts within which postcolonial subjects negotiate their lived experiences within moments of decolonization and recolonization. Bhaskaran's unique analysis makes Made in India an important addition to postcolonial studies, gender studies, and diaspora studies courses.

Water/Waste Processing April 2012


Based on your industry status, you're exactly the kind of top-level executive who should be reading every issue of Water/Waste Processing magazine. 

The success of every publication depends on getting it into the hands of the audience it was meant to serve. This is why you’re invited to receive a complimentary subscription to Water/Waste Processing's host publication, Processing magazine. With Processing magazine you get the processing industry’s most objective coverage of new products in fluid handling and so much more. 

The April issue of Water/Waste Processing is now online and ready for viewing. 

Feature articles in this issue include:

When 'Good Enough' Isn't Good Enough 
Water & Sewer Costs are Skyrocketing; Here's What You Can Do About It 
Meter Replacement, Other Moves, Reduce Utility's Water Consumption 22% 
Chinese Industry Makes a Beeline for Membrane Bioreactor Technology 
New Product Spotlight 
Industry News

Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh


This book presents a comprehensive and perceptive study of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh through the first two decades of its history from 1951. The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was the most robust of the first generation of Hindu nationalist parties in modern Indian politics and Bruce Graham examines why the party failed to establish itself as the party of the numerically dominant Hindu community. The author explains the relatively limited appeal of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in terms of the restrictive scope of its founding doctrines; the limitations of its leadership and organization; its failure to build up a secure base of social and economic interests; and its difficulty in finding issues which would create support for its particular brand of Hindu nationalism. Bruce Graham ends with a major survey of the party's electoral fortunes at national, state and local levels.



An Area of Darkness: A Discovery of India


A classic of modern travel writing, An Area of Darkness is Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s profound reckoning with his ancestral homeland and an extraordinarily perceptive chronicle of his first encounter with India.

Traveling from the bureaucratic morass of Bombay to the ethereal beauty of Kashmir, from a sacred ice cave in the Himalayas to an abandoned temple near Madras, Naipaul encounters a dizzying cross-section of humanity: browbeaten government workers and imperious servants, a suavely self-serving holy man and a deluded American religious seeker. An Area of Darkness also abounds with Naipaul’s strikingly original responses to India’s paralyzing caste system, its apparently serene acceptance of poverty and squalor, and the conflict between its desire for self-determination and its nostalgia for the British raj. The result may be the most elegant and passionate book ever written about the subcontinent.

The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion


Is tantra just about exotic sexual practice or does it amount to something more? This lively and original book contributes to a more complete understanding of tantra. It argues that within the different Hindu traditions, it is ritual and ascetic practice which fully explains corporeality. Without minimizing its sexual dimensions, Flood argues that the tantric body is more than just a sexual entity, and cannot be understood apart from the religious traditions and texts that give it form. Through ritual and yogic practice the body is formed into a pattern determined by these traditions, and the practitioner thereby strives to mould his or her life into the shape of the tradition.

Discourses By Meher Baba


Meher Baba's Discourses throw the light of true knowledge on many of life's most perplexing problems. Inspiring and practical, the Discourses provides an ever-fresh framework of spiritual perspective on the challenges of everyday life. As Meher Baba said, "Words that proceed from the Source of Truth have real meaning." Discourses bears eloquent testimony to that fact and after 50 years in print remains an incomparable companion for anyone seeking spiritual direction.

Gandhi: Naked Ambition By Jad Adams


The pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India's independence movement, pioneer of non-violent resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience (satyagraha), honoured in India as 'father of nation', Mohandas K. Gandhi has inspired movements for civil rights and political freedom across the world. Jad Adams offers a concise and elegant account of Gandhi's life: from his birth and upbringing in a small princely state in Gujarat during the high noon of the British Raj, to his assassination at the hands of a Hindu extremist in 1948 only months after the birth of the independent India which he himself he had done so much to bring about. He delineates the principal events of a career that may truly be said to have changed the world: his training as a barrister in late Victorian London; his civil rights work in Boer War-era South Africa; his leadership of the Indian National Congress; his focus on obtaining self-government and control of all Indian government institutions, and the campaigns of non-cooperation and non-violence against British rule in India whereby he sought to achieve that aim (including the famous 'Salt March' of March/April 1930); his passionate opposition to partition in 1947 and his fasts-unto-death in a bid to end the bitter and bloody sectarian violence that attended it. Jad Adams's accessible and thoughtful biography not only traces the outline of an extraordinary life with exemplary clarity, but also examines why Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings are still profoundly relevant today.

The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana


The "Kama Sutra" is famous as an ancient Hindu sex manual. But its significance goes much deeper -- it is also a spiritual guide. In the Tantric sects, the union of the god Shiva and the goddess Shakti symbolizes the union of all opposites in the One, and also symbolizes the unity of the individual consciousness with the One. As the Upanishads put it, "In the embrace of his beloved, a man forgets the whole world, everything both within and without. In the same way, he who embraces the Self knows neither within nor without."

The Taj Mahal is A Temple Palace - P. N. Oak


P N Oak is dead. His book is just "Trash Mahal." A bigoted Shiv Sena activist he put forward the absurd theory that Taj Mahal was a Shiva temple, now you know the biased angle. Tajmahal does have some/minor characterizations of Hindu architecture. This was due to some local synthesis and influence, but the major architecture is the Safavid Persian influence using local material ie Makrana Rajasthan marble and sandstone. Now please erect a samadhi for this liar PN Oake and call it TRASH MAHAL a perfect tribute. Book was thoghtfully banned in India. He even lost a Indian Supreme Court case in year 2000, about 400 years after Emperor Shahjehan's death who he was falsely accusing. Good riddance.

Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things


Pollution is no longer just about belching smokestacks and ugly sewer pipes—now, it’s personal. The most dangerous pollution, it turns out, comes from commonplace items in our homes and workplaces. To prove this point, for one week authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie ingested and inhaled a host of things that surround all of us. Using their own bodies as the reference point to tell the story of pollution in our modern world, they expose the miscreant corporate giants who manufacture the toxins, the weak-kneed government officials who let it happen, and the effects on people and families across the globe. 

This book —the testimony of their experience —exposes the extent to which we are poisoned every day of our lives, from the simple household dust that is polluting our blood to the toxins in our urine that are created by run-of-the-mill shampoos and toothpaste. Ultimately hopeful, the book empowers readers with some simple ideas for protecting themselves and their families, and changing things for the better.

SiliconIndia May 2012 US Edition


San Mateo based BluePointe Capital management is emerging as the most trustworthy wealth management firm for Indian Americans. Read to find out how they have managed this.

SiliconIndia May 2012 India Edition


As the Managing Director of Mayfield Fund, a 43 year old venture capital firm and a successful entrepreneur before, Naveen Chaddha has been on both sides of the fence. He gives an insight into a VC's mind and shares the lessons he learnt as an entrepreneur.

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