In a world overflowing with to-do lists and self-help manuals, where pragmatism has a strong gravitational pull, it may feel like spending time in contemplation of the beauty and glory of the Lord is at best impractical and at worst irresponsible. After all, there is so much to do. Yet before we can adequately serve God, we must actually know God.With an eye toward the purpose for which we were made—to know God and enjoy Him forever—Theology for Life unpacks ten crucial do...

Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett - the names speak for themselves. Though these three men have found immense success at different times and in different fields, their stories share much in common. It all starts with the prodigious child - the young boy with uncanny abilities.For Musk, it was it his deep focus and his obsession with books. For Gates, it was his teenage enterprising and his early mastery of computing. For Buffett, it was his natural business sense and his af...

What does it take to prevail in Antarctica?Four geologists and two mountain guides face the brutal beauty of West Antarctica eight hundred miles from the United States main base. Their search reaches far into the treacherous mountains of Marie Byrd Land. Over six weeks of living in tents and traveling by snowmobile, the team endures endless cold and furious blizzards. They cross ice fields and hidden crevasses, which one of the team learns about the hard way.

In a world filled with breathtaking beauty, we have often overlooked the elusive charm and magic of certain landscapes. A cloudy river flows into a verdant Arctic wetland where sandhill cranes and muskoxen dwell. Further south, cypress branches hang low over dismal swamps. Places like these—collectively known as swamplands or peatlands—often go unnoticed for their ecological splendor. They are as globally significant as rainforests, and function as critical carbon sinks for addressing our ...

A recipe for success, whether business or culinary, requires a finite set of ingredients and specific execution. Each ingredient and amount is equally important as is their related quality, and all must be matched to the outcome desired. Also essential are the proper guidance, the talent to execute, and the required resources. Straying from the simplest of recipes creates results that range from mediocre to catastrophic.In The Recipe, Nelson employs decades of successful business e...

A rich portrait of American Catholicism at a crossroads between crisis and opportunityThe most vocal leaders in the United States Catholic hierarchy today embrace a culture-war Catholicism that pits them against the pastoral priorities of Pope Francis and many Catholics in the pews.Reclaiming American Catholicism makes the argument that recalibrating the Church's engagement with politics and public life is vital for both the Church and the country....

To his admirers, Luis W. Alvarez was the most accomplished, inventive, and versatile experimental physicist of his generation. During World War II, he achieved major breakthroughs in radar, played a key role in the Manhattan Project, and served as the lead scientific observer at the bombing of Hiroshima. In the decades that followed, he revolutionized particle physics with the hydrogen bubble chamber, developed an innovative X-ray method to search for hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Chep...

In 1945 the United States and Japan fought the largest and most devastating land battle of their war in the Pacific, a month-long struggle for the city of Manila. It was a key piece of the campaign to retake control of the Philippine Islands, which itself signified the culmination of the war, breaking the back of Japanese strategic power and sealing its outcome.In The Battle of Manila, Nicholas Sarantakes offers the first in-depth account of this crucial campaign from the ...

The rediscovery of a curator's lost journal illuminates the astonishing African journey that formed the basis of the Chicago Field Museum's famed collectionsAfter the extinction of the dodo and Carolina parakeet and the collapse of the American bison population, naturalists expected many more vulnerable species to die out with spread of industrialization. This triggered a race to collect rare species of animals expected soon to be lost forever. Established in 1893,...

How the US policy of competition with China is detrimental to democracy, peace, and prosperity—and how a saner approach is possibleFor close to a decade, the US government has been preoccupied with the threat of China, fearing that the country will "eat our lunch," in the words of Joe Biden. The United States has crafted its foreign and domestic policy to help constrain China's military power and economic growth. Van Jackson and Michael Brenes argue that great-powe...

One of the world's leading scholars of Buddhism presents the story of its dramatic journey across the globeOver the course of twenty-five centuries, Buddhism spread from its place of origin in northern India to become a global tradition of remarkable breadth, depth, and richness. Donald S. Lopez Jr. draws on the latest scholarship to construct a detailed and innovative history of Buddhism—not just as a chronology through the centuries or as geographic movement, but...

A landmark history told with narrative skill, Freedom to Discriminate uncovers realtors' definitive role in segregating America and shaping modern conservative thought. His book traces the increasingly aggressive ways realtors justified their practices, how they successfully weaponized the word "freedom" for their cause, and how conservative politicians have drawn directly from realtors' rhetoric for the past several decades. Much of this story takes place in California, and Slate...