Quakers Books

Book SynopsisLife affirming, inclusive and contemporary theology rooted in Quaker spirituality and Biblical wisdom.

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Book SynopsisProphet against Slavery is an action-packed chronicle of a remarkable and radical individual. It is based on the award-winning biography by Marcus Rediker, which prompted the Quaker community that once disowned Lay to embrace him again after 280 years. Graphic novelist David Lester brings the full scope of Lay's activism and ideas to life.Born in 1682 to a humble Quaker family in Essex, England, Lay was a forceful and prescient visionary. Understanding the fundamental evil that slavery represented, he employed guerrilla theatre tactics and direct action to shame slave owners and traders. The prejudice Lay suffered as a dwarf and a hunchback, as well as his devout faith, informed his passion for human and animal liberation. Exhibiting stamina, fortitude, and integrity in the face of the cruelties practiced against his 'fellow creatures', he was frequently a solitary voice speaking truth to power.Lester's beautiful imagery and storytelling, accompanied by afterwords from Rediker and Paul Buhle, capture the radicalism, the humour, and the humanity of this uncannily modern figure. A testament to the impact each of us can make, Prophet against Slavery brings Lay'' prophetic vision to a new generation of young activists who today echo his call of 300 years ago: 'No justice, no peace!'Trade ReviewPraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:Admirers of Marcus Rediker's splendid The Slave Ship will be delighted by this historian's new book. Sailor, pioneer of guerrilla theater, and a man who would stop at nothing to make his fellow human beings share his passionate outrage against slavery, Benjamin Lay has long needed a modern biographer worthy of him, and now he has one. -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s GhostPraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:A modern biography of the radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay has long been overdue. With the sure hand of an eminent historian of the disfranchised, Marcus Rediker has brought to life the wide-ranging activism of this extraordinary Quaker, vegetarian dwarf in a richly crafted book. In fully recovering Lay's revolutionary abolitionist vision, Rediker reveals its ongoing significance for our world. -- Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of AbolitionPraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:The unswerving eighteenth-century abolitionist Benjamin Lay, maligned when not ignored for many generations, has at last found his sympathetic biographer. In this captivating must-read book, Marcus Rediker shows that Lay's disfigured body contained a mind of steel and a heart overflowing with compassion for victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Lay's place in the annals of American reform is now secure. -- Gary Nash, author of Warner Mifflin: Unflinching Quaker AbolitionistPraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:Lay's antinomian radicalism has been wonderfully excavated by Marcus Rediker in this eloquent testament. -- Catherine Hall, author of Legacies of British Slave-OwnershipPraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:This turbulent life of a seafarer, glove maker, and preacher is the stuff of legend, recovered with panache by Rediker. -- John Rees, author of The Leveller RevolutionPraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:In this vivid life, Rediker explains how Benjamin Lay, the dwarf, became an iconic prophet of abolitionism. Lay lived in the utmost simplicity in a cave, eating no meat, and wearing only clothes he had made himself. Rediker shows how Lay, despite his modesty, used spectacle to dramatise the cruelty of slavery, and explains why, despite clashes with the wealthy, Lay died at seventy-seven with an estate worth over £500, which he bequeathed to the poor. The Fearless Benjamin Lay offers a master class in eighteenth-century radical micro-history, showing how much is revealed by the scattered details of one man's life, a short man but a political and moral giant. -- Robin Blackburn, author of The American CruciblePraise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:Like most satisfying biographies, Rediker's is part group biography, offering sketches of the lives with which Lay's intersected. * Times Literary Supplement *Praise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:It is a pretty safe bet that for every 1,000 people who know of William Wilberforce, no more than the odd one might have heard of Benjamin Lay. But if anyone deserves to muscle in on the mildly self-congratulatory and largely middle-class pantheon of Abolitionist Saints, it is the gloriously improbable and largely forgotten Quaker throwback and hero of Marcus Rediker's generous and absorbing act-his own phrase-of 'retrospective justice'. -- David Crane * Spectator *Praise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:Rediker has done a valuable service in rescuing Lay from obscurity ... I suspect there will be few readers who won't want to boil a celebratory turnip to salute what Benjamin Lay achieved in the course of his long and remarkable life. -- John Preston * Daily Mail *Praise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:This is micro-history at its best, a careful concentration on one small man's activities as a way of testing out the limits of what could be thought, known and felt in the hive-mind of early modern America. -- Kathryn Hughes * Guardian (Best biographies of the year 2017) *Praise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:It is a pretty safe bet that people reading this excellent biography of the Quaker radical Benjamin Lay will not have heard of him or his exploits. Hopefully because of Marcus Rediker's hard work and perseverance more people will now know of this extraordinary figure. -- Keith Livesy * A Trumpet of Sedition *Praise for The Fearless Benjamin Lay:Historian Marcus Rediker's excellent book . illuminates the life of this extraordinary man. -- Eugene Grant * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisArnold Marsh, son of Belfast tin-factory owner born in 1890, is best remembered as an educationist and headmaster of Newtown Quaker School in Waterford, Ireland. His life also saw him travel widely, leaving Canada to work in a gold mine in Northern Ontario, on railway construction in British Columbia, and in a lumber camp in Alaska where he met Scandinavians, Chinese and Japanese, Russians and a Finn who learned language after language so that he could read different versions of the Bible. There he encountered the racism experienced by native Alaskans treated as foreigners in their own country. In 1917, once war was declared in the United States, Marsh sailed from Alaska to California where he played an extra in the Douglas Fairbanks movie A Modern Musketeer. He was eventually ‘inducted’ into the US Army at Camp Lewis, Washington, and was sent to France to join the front line beset by Spanish Flu. After peace was declared, Marsh returned to Ireland where he cycled 1200 miles around Ireland on a ‘Grand Tour’. Returning to his first love, education, he got a job in the Friends School, Lisburn, becoming headmaster in 1926. At that time, he observed that Irish Protestants were pessimistic about their future, many sending their children to English schools. Numbers at Newtown had fallen to twenty pupils and the buildings were dilapidated. In sympathy with the new post-1916 independent Ireland, Marsh took immediate steps to improve the school’s conditions, and during his tenure, numbers grew to 300–400 pupils. His fresh ideas about multi-denominational education took inspiration from his own schooldays at Sidcot in England: ‘The masters were our friends. We could look up to them and enjoy their company. … I got a great deal out of being away for those years, doing other work and getting to know other people. With my students I discussed the whole social system, trying to get people to think things out afresh.’ He married the distinguished portrait painter Hilda Roberts and they, with their daughter Eithne, settled at the foot of the Dublin mountains in Woodtown Park during the late 1930s, building a community of like-minded tenants and idealists drawn from all over Europe. In his later years, he was inspired to write his memoir, illustrated with postcards, letters and photographs describing his journeys and adventures in North America, and his experiences as a headmaster. In 1976, a year before his death aged eighty-six, he was still splitting and sawing logs for the fire, recalling his early career as a lumberjack in Alaska those fateful years ago.

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Book SynopsisAnyone wanting to gain an insight into the range of Quaker beliefs would do well to read this engaging anthology of Quaker experience. I was very moved by the honesty and openness of the contributors on such thorny questions as pacifism, evil, simplicity and their understanding of God. Harvey Gillman, author of A Light that is Shining.

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Book SynopsisA study of Lancashire Quakers and the establishment between 1660 and 1730.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisConfessions of a Prison Chaplain explains the 'lifeline' provided by the work of the prison chaplaincy. Written by a Quaker chaplain (but equally compelling for all faith groups), it shows how important to prisoners contact can be  -  how chaplains fit into the ever-pressing world of prison regimes. Among the diverse topics covered are Christmas in prison, death in prison (or of a loved one on the outside) and learning in prison  -  as well as restorative justice (which is in line with the teachings of various faiths: as old as religion itself). As the author writes, prisoners are 'Children of God' no matter what their crime, how petty, serious or heinous. How to deal with those whose crimes are so distressing as to challenge this idea is also a feature of the book. It contains a chapter on life-sentence prisoners, those with only a distant and in some cases forlorn hope of release as well as telling the stories of individual prisoners, their time in prison and the 'calming' role of the chaplain when contrasted with the security pre-occupations and rule dominated routines of governors and prison officers. With a Foreword by Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust, General Secretary of Prison Reform International and one of the UK's leading commentators on penal matters.Trade Review'Engaging, thought-provoking - contributes to our understanding of the hidden, often neglected world of prison': Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust.Table of ContentsAbout the Author; The Author of the Foreword; Foreword; Preface; 1. Portrait of a Prison; 2.Faith in Prison; 3.Seeking 'A Gathered Stillness'; 4. A Confession; 5. Learning in Prison; 6. Death in Prison; 7. Christmas in Prison; 8. Stories from Prison; 9. Lifers; 10. Restorative Justice; 11. Positive Justice; 12. Conclusion: Children of God; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Friends Way is a grand walk that starts in Barley, Lancashire, passing over the summit of Pendle Hill to and through some of the finest parts of the Yorkshire Dales to end at Sedbergh. It combines glorious scenery with superb wildlife and striking geology, and it also visits many places that were crucial in George Fox’s journey of 1652. He preferred to deliver his sermons outdoors, dismissing churches as ‘steeple-houses’. His long walk and discussions with Seekers and other dissidents were the catalyst for the creation of the Society of Friends, first known as Quakers. From Pendle Hill, where Fox had his vision, to Fox’s Pulpit, where he gave his ‘Sermon on the Fell’ to a crowd of over 1000, the route is steeped in Fox’s personal journey. This 62-mile Way ends at Sedbergh, a town rich in Quaker heritage, to be followed by two day-walks, one a circuit that takes in Fox’s Pulpit. The whole route can be completed comfortably inside one week. It will appeal not only to all Quakers who enjoy walking, but also to those walkers who don’t yet know the remarkable story of Fox’s 1652 journey and life. The guidebook is richly visual, with mapping at 1:35,000 on 17 of its pages and nearly 140 colour photos. It is robustly bound and printed on rainproof paper.

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Book SynopsisThe Friends Way route will appeal not only to all Quakers who enjoy walking, but also to those walkers who don’t yet know about Margaret Fell's remarkable story. This volume, a sequel to Friends Way 2, continues the route from Sedbergh to Swarthmoor Hall near Ulverston. After George Fox reached Swarthmoor Hall, he deeply impressed Margaret Fell (1614-1702) with his radical ideas. She later became a committed Quaker who was imprisoned for her beliefs, and also his wife. She worked tirelessly to organise the movement, to lobby for releasing prisoners of conscience and to spread the Quaker word by publishing letters. This book covers her journey from mistress of Swarthmoor to mother of Quakerism, as well as devoting a section to Swarthmoor Hall which was and is the most important centre of Quakerism in northern England. The route takes in major Quaker sites in Sedbergh and Kendal en route to Swarthmoor Hall, and it can comfortably be completed inside one week.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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