Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour, and now the Library Team will be offering related reading lists based on the topic of Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Dr. Roxy Manning and Rev. Shawn Gauthier on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024 at 11 a.m.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. The United Nations: Its History and the Canadians Who Shaped It: Fifty Years of Struggle and Hope, by Desmond Morton, 1995, 341.23 MOR [Gift of Lucy Stewart. From LibraryThing: “For some children, the United Nations is a huge building in New York City. For others, it’s the blue-helmeted soldiers or the huge piles of relief food they see on TV. Or maybe when some kids think of the UN, they picture kids collecting money for UNICEF at Halloween. Whatever a child’s image of the United Nations, this book will explain its history and introduce the people who shaped it”].
2. Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? A Relentlessly Optimistic Manifesto for Canada’s Role in the World, by Michael Byers, 2007, 971.07 BYE [From LibraryThing: “In Intent for a Nation, Michael Byers argues that it is time for a clear-eyed appreciation of our strengths and weaknesses, of all we have and all we could be. A whole series of world events-the waning of US credibility; the increasing value of natural resources; the brain-gain; the ever-increasing interdependence of peoples, countries and continents-have combined to put Canada center stage in a new world order. Instead of emulating our increasingly isolated neighbor, we should be advancing the Canadian model, an idealistic, fiscally prudent, socially progressive vision that has never looked so good. Intent for a Nation is a fundamentally optimistic, informed and opinionated overview of where Canada stands in the world and what aggressive public policies are needed to carry the country forward in an ever more competitive and volatile world. Here is a book urging Canadians to rediscover their national self-confidence, to find the courage to dream great dreams-and make them happen”].
3. Canada’s Global Future – Navigating a New World, by Lloyd Axworthy, 2003, 327.17 AXW [From the hardcover edition: “In Navigating a New World, Lloyd Axworthy charts how we can become active citizens in the demanding world of the twenty-first century, to make it safer, more sustainable and more humane. Throughout he emphasizes the human story. As we meet refugees from civil war and drought, child soldiers and landmine victims, the moral imperative is clear: this is a deeply compassionate appeal to confront poverty, war and environmental disaster. Before Lloyd Axworthy entered global politics, “human security” — a philosophy calling for global responsibility to the interests of individuals rather than to the interests of the nation state or multi-national corporations — was a controversial and unfamiliar idea. When put into action, human security led to an international ban on landmines, initiatives to curtail the use of child soldiers, and the formation of the International Criminal Court. Today, with conflict raging across the planet — and building — the need for a humane, secure international governance is more vital than ever. So how can Canada reject a world model dominated by U.S. policy, military force and naked self-interest? How can we rethink a global world from the perspective of people — our security, our needs, our promise, our dreams? Lloyd Axworthy delivers recommendations that are both practical and radical, ranging from staunch Canadian independence from the U.S. to environmental as well as political security; from rules to govern intervention when nations oppress their own citizens, to codes of conduct on arms control and war crimes. Arresting and provocative, Navigating a New World lays out just why Canada has the skills to lead the world into a twenty-first century less nightmarish than the last, and help make the world safer and more just for us all. This is a call for action from one of Canada’s most eloquent statesmen and thinkers, and is essential reading for all Canadians. Where is the line we draw in setting out the boundaries for being responsible for others? Is it simply family and close friends? Do we stop at the frontiers of our own country? Does our conscience, our sense of right or wrong, take us as far as the crowded camps of northern Uganda, surrounded by land mines, attacked repeatedly by an army made largely of child soldiers? I believe we in Canada have a special vocation to help in the building of a more secure order. We need not be confined to our self-interest”].
4. Lotta and the Unitarian Service Committee Story, by Clyde Sanger, 1986, 921 HIT [From CM Archive: “The story of the Unitarian Service Committee’s founder and director for thirty-six years is at once a biography of Lotta Hitschmanova and a history of USC Canada. Because of Lotta’s ill health, Sanger had to rely on research and interviews with her colleagues in Canada and abroad. His evident enthusiasm and admiration for his subject (Sanger is a director of USC) and his background in journalism and foreign aid have produced a story that vividly communicates Lotta’s forceful personality and dedication.
Lotta’s secure life in Prague was shattered by the war that left her homeless, and ultimately an orphan. In 1942 she arrived in Canada, and almost immediately started trying to alert Canadians to problems of European war victims. The USC, which she organized in Canada, started with European relief work and expanded to relief and rehabilitation programs in Korea, India, the Gaza strip, and Vietnam. Details of the successes and frustrations of Lotta’s efforts reveal a remarkably capable, persistent, and brave individual. Sanger completes the USC story by describing the recent shift in emphasis from small projects, with close personal contact, to larger integrated community development schemes.
Lotta’s story has interest both as an example of the impact of one individual’s vision and effort and as a chronicle of specific relief work. Sanger provides some footnotes and appendices related to USC leadership and finance, but no bibliography. There are two eight-page sections of black-and-white photographs”].