Until 1997, author Joseph Howard Tyson did not know that he descended from Germantown's original settlers. This realization deepened his concern for Philadelphia and his appreciation of William Penn's legacy. During the past eight years, he has tried to view the city through Penn's eyes. Penn's Luminous City is Tyson's record of that journey. A devout Quaker, William Penn believed that God's power would manifest more powerfully in a "City of Light." He chose the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers as the site for his Holy Experiment: an ideal society with a model capital city, governed by an assembly, and dedicated to religious toleration. He chose the name Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love, after the devoutly Christian Asia Minor town mentioned by Scripture. Penn regarded the blighted areas as products of human vice. However, Tyson believes that genuine urban renewal requires spiritual regeneration. Positive actions such as slum clearance, creek cleanup, Philadelphia's reconnection with the trail system, and school reformations manifest the healing actions of the "Light." The expansion of Philadelphia's green infrastructure would not only spur redevelopment but improve the city's spiritual condition. Through Penn's Luminous City, Tyson conveys Penn's prophetic vision that still inspires citizens to make the city a better place.

The Third Reich proves Lord Byron's maxim that truth is stranger than fiction. Hitler's mania made the Reich surreal. This book documents his neuroses, charisma, ruthlessness, and "storybook" rise to power. It's alarming that an astute psychopath with acting ability became an absolute dictator in a modern European state. German political naivety contributed to his miraculous ascent. During election campaigns between 1927 and 1933 Hitler posed as an anti-Communist savior, while concealing his real agenda of war, genocide, and quack "eugenics." The Surreal Reich closely examines all leading Nazis. It shows how Hitler had different sets of favorites at various times. Dietrich Eckart, Rudolf Hess, and Ernst Rohm in the early years; Hermann Goering and Josef Goebbels through the middle period, then Heinrich Himmler and Martin Bormann from 1939 to 1945. Nazism's heyday occurred during an era of supposed progress. Yet escalating war casualties in that "enlightened age" tell a different story. 620,000 people died in America's Civil War, only 5% of them civilians. World War I caused approximately 16 million fatalities. Most of the 5 million non-combatants succumbed from starvation or Spanish Influenza. World War II resulted in 60 million deaths, 52% of them civilians. One warped "idealist" sparked that fruitless orgy of destruction: Adolf Hitler.

Early associates such as Rudolf Hess, Ernst Hanfstaengl, and Hermann Esser all claimed that Hitler revered alcoholic playwright Dietrich Eckart more than any other colleague. Eminent German historians Karl Dietrich Bracher, Werner Maser, Georg Franz-Willig, and Ernst Nolte have confirmed this assessment. Hitler not only dedicated Mein Kampf to Eckart, he hung his portrait in Munich's Brown House, placed a bust of him in the Reich Chancellery next to one of Bismarck, and named Berlin's 1936 Olympic stadium the Dietrich Ekcart Outdoor Theater. Yet British-American scholarship has virtually ignored "Nazism's Spiritual Father." J. H. Tyson weaves Eckart's biography into a colorful account of modern German history.

Author Joseph Howard Tyson, who has written biographies of William Penn, Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, Dietrich Eckart, and Adolf Hitler, admits to being a "closet astrologer." In World War II Leaders: A Historical & Astrological Study he puts Astrology to the test by juxtaposing biographical sketches of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Emperor Hirohito, Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt with detailed interpretations of their natal charts. On another level this work sets forth six different perspectives on the Second World War-- from the standpoints of Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, Britain, and America. Those interested in history and the occult will find this book an unforgettable reading experience.