Reforming the

International Order:

Towards a New

Humanitarian Paradigm

Article by His Royal Highness

Prince El Hassan Bin Talal

"The implementation of a New International Humanitarian Order seeks to transcend the limitations of the current international framework by emphasizing intra-independence, cultural affinity, and a renewed focus on human dignity and the right to life for future generations. By prioritizing these principles, the New Order could pave the way for a more just, stable, and sustainable global order." (Modern Diplomacy, September 26, 2024).

HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan is a pluralist and staunch campaigner for the rights of all to live in peace and dignity. HRH has established the Arab Thought Forum, the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies, the Higher Council for Science and Technology, The Royal Scientific Society, the West Asia North Africa Institute (WANA) and the Regional Security Centre in Jordan.

Please read more...

A Proclamation for Peace:

Translated for the World

Edited by Allison deFreese & Kim Stafford

"This book sends a peace proclamation around the world so it may become a new poem in Arabic and Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian, Tibetan and Mandarin, Tamil, Vietnamese, Polish, Yoruba, Yucatec Maya, and a host of other languages. Together with notes about peace-making translators and their languages, and QR codes for recordings of voices speaking gentle words, this book is for the children of the world."

Translator Allison deFreese and writer-poet Kim Stafford collaborated with the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters to record and publish this message to the world in 50 languages. Please see the contents page here and listen to the proclamation in English here. For more information or to order, please click here.

Winter Light:

The Memoir of a Child of Holocaust Survivors

By Grace Feuerverger

"Grace was always searching for shelter but knew that her home was the last place where she could find it. Montréal offered Grace the chance of a lifetime. She was four years old when she discovered the joie-de-vivre of her French-Canadian neighbors in the working-class east end of her beloved city. As she grew older other serendipitous “rescues” arrived in surprising ways from many different people and places. Vivid and lyrical, Winter Light is a deeply moving memoir about the vast unknown territory of the human heart, where love and hope can rise above everything — in spite of the ghosts that still haunt us."

Grace Feuerverger is professor emerita of education and ethnography at the University of Toronto. Please read more here...

Solidarity: An Act of Rebellion and a Pathway to Ecological Peace

Article by Dr. Youssef Mahmoud

"For centuries humans have considered themselves separate from and superior to nature. This ideology has been used to justify the extensive extraction of Earth’s resources for ever-increasing consumption on a finite planet. The resulting ecological overshoot has placed humans as an endangered species. To help reverse this trend and prevent disputes over natural resources from fueling more conflicts, some have called for ecological solidarity as a key step to make peace with nature.This means making room for a new type of peace that has been excluded from the dominant discourse, a peace that transcends human relations and involves being empathetic with all living beings, human and non-human." (Global Solidarity Report, 2024)

Dr. Youssef Mahmoud is Senior Advisor at the International Peace Institute. See also "People, the Planet, and the Pact for the Future: Interview with Youssef Mahmoud" (Global Observatory, 2024). Please read more here...

From Vision to Action:

Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship

By John Marks

"From Vision to Action offers a master class in effective negotiation and conflict resolution. It builds on a core strategy of understanding differences and acting on commonalities. Marks uses his own experiences of creating real-life breakthroughs during his time leading Search for Common Ground, which he founded and built with his wife, Susan Collin Marks, into the world’s largest peacebuilding nonprofit" (Columbia University Press).

John Marks is the founder of the renowned peacebuilding organization Search for Common Ground, which was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. Please read more here...

Values and Indigenous Psychology in the Age of the Machine and Market

Editors: Alvin Dueck and Louise Sundararajan

"This interdisciplinary edited collection addresses issues at the intersection of indigenous psychology, market ideology, values, and technology. The aims of this book arise from the recognition that whereas the unfolding of the agricultural revolution over thousands of years allowed for the gradual co-evolution of values and technology to blossom, the post-industrial technological revolution is so accelerated that there has been little time for the co-evolution of values."

Alvin Dueck is Distinguished Senior Professor of Cultural Psychologies at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, USA, and Louise Sundararajan received her Ph.D. in History of Religions from Harvard University, and her Ed.D. in Counseling Psychology from Boston University, USA. She is founder and chair of the Task Force on Indigenous Psychology, which has grown to have over two hundred researchers from around the globe. Please read more here...

The Respectful Classroom:

The Challenges of Cultivating Dignity

in the Education System

By Avi Shahaf

"Of every metric evaluated by our modern education system, the one most impactful to the future success and well-being of students and educators—is dignity. The classroom is defined by it: students, principals, teachers, counselors, and educators are all bound by their respect—or lack thereof—for one another. At a time when harassment, fear, and mistrust are abundant, displays of mutual respect and dignity between teacher and student are the keys to empowering both groups and unlocking the full potential of their relationship."

Avi Shahaf is an award-winning organizational consultant specializing in promoting dignity and human value in organizations around the world. Please read more here...

Misrepresentation and Silence in United States History Textbooks

By Mneesha Gellman

"This open access book investigates how representation of Native Americans and Mexican-origin im/migrants takes place in high school history textbooks. Manually analyzing text and images in United States textbooks from the 1950s to 2022...This book argues for an innovative rethinking of US history curricula to consider which stories are told, and which perspectives are represented."

Mneesha Gellman is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College, in Boston, MA. Please read more here...

The Impact of Wars on World Politics,

1775–2023: Hope and Despair

By Deepak Tripathi

"In a study of cyclical history, this book presents a grand sweep of modern history and how decades of savage wars, and turbulence, led to a brief era of exhilaration and hope, followed by despair in the new century. The collapse of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the Soviet Union (1991), marking the end of the Cold War, were celebrated with great euphoria."

Deepak Tripathi, PhD, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. A former journalist, he worked for the BBC for 23 years as a foreign correspondent, commentator, and editor. Please read more here...

Eastern Religions, Spirituality,

and Psychiatry:

An Expansive Perspective on Mental Health and Illness

Editors: H. Steven Moffic, Rama Rao Gogineni, John R. Peteet, Neil Krishan Aggarwal, Narpinder K. Malhi, and Ahmed Hankir

"This book provides a thorough and accessible reference for all the major Eastern faith traditions and their intersection with psychiatry. Understanding Eastern religion is of paramount value to all mental health professionals, as there is a growing emphasis on religion and spirituality as a part of clinical cultural competence interventions..."

Please read about the editors here. For more information about this textbook, click here.