Ward Books

Strong Farmer tells of people's struggle to make enough money to feed themselves and their families. It tells of men killed in the countryside in disputes over money, land and cattle. It sheds light on the cycle of work, trade and celebration that has always marked the farming year and brings vividly to light the rituals of cattle dealing--and occasional sharp practice -- that characterised transactions between traders.

The Catholic "strong farmer" was a crucial force in the shaping of modern Ireland from the early nineteenth century. The strong farmers provided the financial and educational foundation for Catholic Emancipation, the post-Famine Catholic church and mainstream Irish nationalism through to the foundation of the Irish state. They also shaped the transition from a labour-intensive grain economy to a cattle economy in which many thousands of farm labourers were made redundant and were forced to emigrate.

In Strong Farmer, Ciaran Buckley uses interviews conducted by Chris Ward with her father Joe Ward to view recent Irish history through the lens of one prominent family and brilliantly weaves together the threads of history and folklore to tell a story of money, power and unbreakable family ties.

Joe Ward's memoirs give us a worm's-eye view of a class of people that has remained hitherto obscure ... both for its immediacy and its long-term impact, this is an important book -- Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times.

Too bad that the bottom-line economics of publishing have let this searing account of Indigenous struggles over land and ecology go out of print. Because of its concentration on environmental and land-use issues, this is one of the author's most focused works, though they are all worthwhile. The documentation is thorough; the presentation is relentlessly didactic but always readable. No country that treats its indigenous people as the US always has can claim moral superiority over others. Cf. also Alvin Josephy, "Now That the Buffalo's Gone," a slightly older but still valuable book on many of the same issues.
N.B. Many of Churchill's books reprint essays published elsewhere, so beware of overlap with the contents of several other titles by this committed scholar-activist.

Wonderful, creative resource of calligraphic renderings of biblical texts for Sunday programs and church newsletters. Pages are suitable for scanning and reproduction is allowed for non-commercial use.

A great work for individual spiritual growth and for a better understanding of sacred scripture. Coupled with appropriate humor, the readings are topic focused and direct. The readings provide wonderful homily material for the ordained who are searching for new thoughts and meanings in scripture. A wonderful aid for anyone seeking a deeper meaning in scripture.

He has learned that terrorists on Earth plan to set off a nuclear bomb. But being a coward he has no idea what to do. He can't take this information to his government because the means at which he got it was illegal and is punished with death. He decides he needs to go to Earth, which is just as illegal and also punished with, you guessed it, death, and find Harry Borg, the man who saved Essa.
So Guss, with help from Sissi, fights his way to the gateway and gets to Earth, only to find his human friend is MISSING!
Why is Harry gone? Will Guss and Sissi be able to find some human to help them and will they stop the terrorists before they set off the bomb and, unknowingly, start a nuclear holocaust?
Great second novel in the series!

This was one of my favorite books as a child. At one time I had the entire collection, but somehow they magically disappeared over time. This would be a great collection to have once again. This book is essential to the collection. I remember reading this book night after night until I had the entire book down by heart. Truely a work of art.

When I was in high school in Samoa we would often hang out at the Rainmaker Hotel's pool after school ended every day. The hotel pool was the place to be, and the fact that you couldn't swim there unless you were a guest, or a "member" of the pool (which cost a few bucks a month, which of course none of us could pay). One of our pals worked in the dive shop poolside, which of course enabled us to hang out there whenever we wanted. One day, we were loafing as usual when one of us noticed a fortyish American woman, quite attractive, sunning herself and talking to a young boy, who we discovered was her son.

She looked so familiar! One of us finally figured out, "Hey, she's on TV...an actress!" The kid confirmed this for us. "Yeah, my mom is on lots of TV shows," he said matter-of-factly. "My dad is a movie star." The boy's name was Christian Peppard (son of George "Hannibal" Peppard of "A-Team," and famed Hollywood actor ("Barefoot in the Park,' "Blue Max," etc)...and his mom, the woman we were staring at, was the famed stage and TV actress Elizabeth Ashley.

So what does this have to do with the book? Turns out that Elizabeth and her son were visiting Samoa and accompanying the political writer Nick Von Hoffman, and "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau. This little gang of mainland luminaries were involved in a "research" project, looking into life in the last of the American colonies, none other than our own American Samoa, for a projected book to be published back in what von Hoffman called "The Nifty Fifty."

Nick's book is an interesting glimpse into daily life in America's Outback, circa 1975. It's not a pretty picture. And, even though the Feds have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the island economy, the place is still an economic wasteland. There are a few bright spots in more recent years, with the opening of mainland style retail businesses (and the inevitable invasion of McD's and KFC).

Excerpts of this book originally ran in Rolling Stone (I kept the issues for years before they finally disintegrated), and it was several years later, after I had left the islands for college on the mainland, that I finally found a copy of this book. I still have it, and thumbing through it, it's interesting to note how much life in Samoa has changed...and how a lot of it hasn't.

Captain Buddy Ward has written more than a simple piece of fiction; moreover, he has provided several intiguing stories that serve as the medium for a complex character's evolution. Dave, the Captain of the Anna Karrue, is a complex individual that undergoes a phenomenal change for the better; he is a character that anyone can easily relate to at some point in his epic-like life---I hope to hear of a sequel in the near future. Finally, I offer my highest compliments to Captain Ward for a job well done and highly encourage everyone to take a trip on the Anna Karrue; this book is a can't miss!

Too few American educators know the thoughtful and visionary writings of Colin Ward. A longtime educational activist and philosopher in Great Britain, Ward's work has been much neglected by American scholars and practioners. In this thoughtful and inspiring set of essays, he outlines a very simple fact - "all places are learning places." He illustrates this point with stories from the field of ecological oriented education, school reform in England, practical learning connections with the environment, schooling in the city (even when these settings can seem hostile environments for the young), and what it means to promote empowerment oriented learning. Ward's life work is about shifting our ideas and conceptions of where learning occurs and how - here he paints a compelling picture of what not only can be but what is happening in the UK.

Michael Malahy Morris
Research Professor in Public Policy and Community Learning
University of New Mexico
Fulbright New Century Scholar 2007-2008 (Spain)

very well written poems about the true feelings and thoughts of a bipolar person...thanks, Yvonne for trying to help us all understand the uniqueness of YOU...