In February 1534, a radical group of Anabaptists, gripped with apocalyptic fervor, seized the city of Münster and established an idealistic communal government that quickly deteriorated into extreme inequality and theocratic totalitarianism. In response, troops hired by the city's prince-bishop laid siege to the city. Fifteen months later the besieged inhabitants were starving, and, in the dead of the night, five men slipped out. Separated from his fellow escapees, Henry Gresbeck gambled with his life by approaching enemy troops. Taken prisoner, he collaborated with the enemy to devise a plan to recapture Münster, and later recorded the only eyewitness account of the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster. Gresbeck's account, which attempts to explain his role in the bizarre events, disappeared into the archives and was largely ignored for centuries. Before now, Gresbeck's account was only available in a heavily edited German copy adapted from inferior manuscripts. Christopher S. Mackay, who previously produced the only modern translation of the main Latin account of these events, has adhered closely to Gresbeck’s own words to produce the first complete and accurate English translation of this important primary source.

This book refutes the long held view of the Israeli left as adhering to a humanistic, democratic and even socialist tradition, attributed to the historic Zionist Labor movement. Through a critical analysis of the prevailing discourse of Zionist intellectuals and activists on the Jewish-democratic state, it uncovers the Zionist left’s central role in laying the foundation of the colonial settler state of Israel, in articulating its hegemonic ideology and in legitimizing, whether explicitly or implicitly, the apartheid treatment of Palestinians both inside Israel and in the 1967 occupied territories. Their determined support of a Jewish-only state underlies the failure of the “peace process,” initiated by the Zionist Left, to reach a just peace based on recognition of the national rights of the entire Palestinian people.

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'Fascinating' Guardian, 'Book of the Day''A truly masterly book... A tour de force that will be read for a very long time.' Peter HennessySelected by the New Statesman as an essential read for 2022Britain shaped the modern Middle East through the lines that it drew in the sand after the First World War and through the League of Nations mandates over the fledgling states that followed. Less than forty years later, the Suez crisis dealt a fatal blow to Britain's standing in the Middle East and is often represented as the final throes of British imperialism. However, as this insightful and compelling new book reveals, successive prime ministers have all sought to extend British influence in the Middle East and their actions have often led to a disastrous outcome.While Anthony Eden and Tony Blair are the two most prominent examples of prime ministers whose reputations have been ruined by their interventions in the region, they were not alone in taking significant risks in deploying British forces to the Middle East. There was an unspoken assumption that Britain could help solve its problems, even if only for the reason that British imperialism had created the problems in the first place.Drawing these threads together, Nigel Ashton explores the reasons why British leaders have been unable to resist returning to the mire of the Middle East, while highlighting the misconceptions about the region that have helped shape their interventions, and the legacy of history that has fuelled their pride and arrogance. Ultimately, he shows how their fears and insecurities made them into false prophets who conjured existential threats out of the sands of the Middle East.

There is so much confusion today concerning who is a true prophet and who is a false prophet. God has not kept us in dark on any issue of life. The working of miracles and performing signs and wonders have been seen as a prove that someone is a prophet, but Jesus said in Matt 24:24 that false prophets will rise and will perform many signs and wonders that if care is not taken, even the elects will be deceived. If signs and wonders, miracles are not the yardstick to measure who is a true prophet then the big question is, HOW DO WE KNOW WHO IS A FALSE PROPHET? The author in this book reveals step by step guide on how to know who is a false prophet.

Pastor Ernie Gruen was in a tough position in January 1990. A spiritual leader of the Kansas City area with over 30 years of experience in church ministry, he had seen many sincere Christians seriously hurt by Mike Bickle's group of false prophets. They were very uneducated, emotionally unstable, spiritually weak, badly led, inadequately supervised and poorly disciplined--but frequently promoted. Gruen had embraced and promoted Bickle, the new pastor in town, when he arrived in the city; so he felt partially responsible. He had confronted the power-hungry young preacher privately, but he neither repented nor recanted. There was no brokenness, no humility--just defiance and deception. He was stubborn as a mule, acting like an ungodly man in the Old Testament who had been marked by God and confronted by a prophet, showing no signs he would change. There was no point in further delay.Now it was time to step up, speak out, and name names--dramatically expose the private sins and public heresy of a serious man who consistently appeared so godly, so devout, so "cutting edge"--so prophetic. To the many Christians who saw the rising American religious star in public and heard all his wild stories at church meetings and special conferences, he clearly appeared to be pure gold--prayerful, worshipful, sacrificial--the leader of the future, the elite man of God called, anointed and appointed to lead the chosen generation into the greatest revival in world history: a global harvest of a billion souls.Could anyone so sincere be so sincerely wrong? Do I go with what I believe God is telling me? Or do I just accept what they say God is telling them?The struggle was so stressful. But his decision was final. He would face his fear of death. He would get in that pulpit with the entire congregation present and the tape recorder on, and defy the "prophets" to preach the sermon of his life--the word of the Lord--a prophetic rebuke against the worst fake prophetic movement in a generation.It was not a group effort in preparation or delivery; it was one man with one voice and one message. Usually he was a pastor of just his church; but on a winter Sunday morning, walking in the fear of God, carrying a special sermon carefully crafted on his knees with his Bible open, Ernie Gruen became, if only for one day, a prophet to an entire nation.