In the aftermath of the Civil War, New Mexico Territory endured painful years of hardship and ongoing strife. During this turbulent period, a U.S. military officer stationed in the territory assembled an album of photographs, a series of still shots taken by one or more anonymous photographers. Now, some 150 years later, Hardship, Greed, and Sorrow reproduces the anonymous officer’s “souvenir album” in its totality. Offering an important glimpse of the American Southwest in the mid-1860s, the book opens with a thoughtful foreword by Jennifer Nez Denetdale, who considers the varied and lingering effects that settlement, conquest, and nineteenth-century photography had on the Apaches and Navajos. In her insightful introduction accompanying the photographs, curator and scholar Devorah Romanek places the photographs in historical context and explains their unusual provenance. As she points out, the 1866 album integrates a number of important themes in connection to the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, including the French intervention in New Mexico and the internment of Navajos at the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation. The story of the album’s provenance reads like a mystery: some loose ends remain untied and some questions remain unanswered. In addition to containing what may be the earliest extant photographs of Navajo Indians, the album features both studio and field images of U.S. Army officers, Mexican politicians, and various sites throughout New Mexico. According to Romanek, a number of the album’s photographs have appeared in other publications but with scant attention to their original context or purpose. This compelling book reveals what we know about the collection, its compiler, and the photographer—or photographers—who captured such a fraught and complex moment in the history of the American Southwest.

This all-new 20-minutes-a-day study of Nehemiah reminds readers that with God’s help, one person who is ready to do the impossible can change the world. Hope is not wishful thinking. It is a confident expectation for the future. Nehemiah knew how to live with true hope. After boldly requesting permission from the king to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, he restored the city and called his people back to God. Despite opposition on all sides, Nehemiah saw God transform a cup-bearer into a contractor, ruins into a city, and a wayward people into followers of God. As Bible teacher Lenya Heitzig reminds readers in this new Fresh Life study, God calls them to live boldly with a hope that only He can give.

There is a common misconception that collections management in museums is a set of rote procedures or technical practices that follow universal standards of best practice. This volume recognises collections management as a political, critical and social project, involving considerable intellectual labour that often goes unacknowledged within institutions and in the fields of museum and heritage studies. Collections Management as Critical Museum Practice brings into focus the knowledges, value systems, ethics and workplace pragmatics that are foundational for this work. Rather than engaging solely with cultural modifications, such as Indigenous care practices, the book presents local knowledge of place and material which is relevant to how collections are managed and cared for worldwide. Through discussion of varied collection types, management activities and professional roles, contributors develop a contextualised reflexive practice for how core collections management standards are conceptualised, negotiated and enacted. Chapters span national museums in Brazil and Uganda to community-led heritage work in Malaysia and Canada; they explore complexities of numbering, digitisation and description alongside the realities of climate change, global pandemics and natural disasters. The book offers a new definition of collections management, travelling from what is done to care for collections, to what is done to care for collections and their users. Rather than ‘use’ being an end goal, it emerges as a starting point to rethink collections work.

The “greater fool” theory of economics states that it’s possible to make money by buying paper (securities), whether overvalued or not, and later, selling it at a profit because there will always be an even greater fool willing to pay the higher price. Many described in this book profited by peddling such worthless junk to foolish investors. But for some people—Bernie Madoff, Norman Hsu, Sholam Weiss, and “Crazie Eddie” Antar, aka the “Darth Vader of Capitalism”—overvalued securities were not enough. Outright fraud was their way of life. History of Greed is the compelling inside story of the names you know—Charles Ponzi, Baron Rothschild, Lou Pearlman—and the names you don’t—Isaac Le Maire, the world’s first “naked” short-seller. It’s also our story—why we ignore the lessons of the past and fall prey, most every time, to the promise of easy money. For thousands of years, alchemists unsuccessfully tried to turn worthless base metals into gold. Where science failed at turning nothing into something, business succeeded. Sometimes we praise the creators of derivatives, collateral debt obligations, subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, or auction rate securities as Wall Street’s new financial wizards, the creators of “magic paper.” Other times, we vilify and prosecute them as scam artists. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell who is who. History of Greed reveals the inside secrets of how the markets really work, and how scam artists abuse them to gain an unfair edge or to outright steal. It describes how luftgescheft (“air business”), wizardry, dishonesty, and fraud are used to swindle people. Along with a comprehensive bibliography, History of Greed also details: 400 years of financial fraud—from everyday fraud to the odd and unusual Accounting fraud (phantom sales), stock option fraud (backdating), auction rate securities, hedge fund fraud, Ponzi schemes, promotion fraud (pump-and-dump scams), and money laundering How to detect fraudulent schemes How government regulation only fixes yesterday’s problems If it’s too good to be true, it probably is. If they say you can’t lose, you probably will. History of Greed shows that there really is no such thing as a free lunch, while also detailing how not to become the “greater fool.”

A healing book for those in the wake of life’s devastating storms. We can never plan for the unexpected turns of this life that sometimes lead to great personal suffering. Sometimes that suffering can overshadow everything and threaten to pull us under. Nancy Guthrie knows what it is to be plunged into life’s abyss. Framing her own story of staggering loss and soaring hope with the biblical story of Job, she takes you by the hand and guides you on a pathway through pain—straight to the heart of God. Holding On to Hope offers an uplifting perspective, not only for those experiencing monumental loss, but for anyone going through difficulty and failure. (Includes an 8-week study on the book of Job for readers who want to dig deeper into what the Bible says about dealing with suffering and grief.)

The extraordinary humanitarian Samantha Nutt gives a bracing and uncompromising account of her work in some of the most devastated corners of the world - and a new, provocative vision for changing course on growing militarisation. It is a brilliant distillation of Dr Nutt's observations over the course of 15 years providing hands-on care in some of the world's most violent flashpoints. Combining original research with her personal story, it is a deeply thoughtful meditation on war as it is being waged around the world against millions of civilians.