Madelyn Holmes

Build peace, not bombs. Make friends, not enemies. Create hope, not fear. Work toward reconciliation, not revenge. Witness never again the iconic mushroom cloud, the ruined radioactive cityscapes, and the never-ending civilian casualties. Hiroshima, the peace memorial city, has spread its message of peace and friendship to the outside world through sister city diplomacy.This rebuilt, green municipality holds out a welcome mat to those seeking a future without war. Starting in 1959, Hiroshima signed sister city agreements with Honolulu (USA), Volgograd (Russia), Hannover (Germany), Chongqing (China), Daegu (South Korea), and Montreal (Canada). This book tells the stories of the people who created and bolstered the bonds with Hiroshima's six sister cities. Officially designated as a peace memorial city by the government of Japan in 1949, Hiroshima has made use of sister city diplomacy as a channel for educating the world about the impact of nuclear weapons. With gifts, gardens, musical performances, youth groups, peace bells, sporting events, conferences, and artwork, citizens of Hiroshima and its sister cities have made friends, overcome prejudices, and attempted to reconcile with former enemies.

In Working for the Common Good, Madelyn Holmes details the political policy work of eight social democratic Canadian women and highlights their largely unrecognized struggles and accomplishments.Throughout their political careers, Agnes Macphail, Thérèse Casgrain, Grace MacInnis, Pauline Jewett, Margaret Mitchell, Lynn McDonald, Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough worked towards curing society's economic and social ills. They raised their voices for world peace from the 1920s to the 2000s. They were incensed about economic inequality in Canadian society and advocated for policies to reduce poverty. They fought for social justice for Indigenous peoples, Japanese-Canadians, Chinese-Canadians, Muslim-Canadians and the imprisoned. The profiles in this book illustrate the many ways these politicians embraced the cause of gender equality and served as role models for generations of Canadian women.

In this collection of interviews with students and teachers in Hangzhou, China, the reader meets a student at Zhejiang university, majoring in English and studying Japanese and Italian; a teacher who spent his childhood as a "little Red Guard" of the Cultural Revolution and went on to study in England; a young girl who dreams of princesses and romance, and another who wants to be a backpacker when she grows up; and more. Ranging in age from 7 to 52, the thirteen interviewees represent a cross-section of Chinese culture and experience, with various levels of social status, education, and economic standing. Their words, supplemented by the author's detailed descriptions of their surroundings and daily activities, offer a fresh perspective on life in present-day China.

This collection of biographies describes twelve women conservationists who helped change the ways Americans interact with the natural environment. Their writings led Americans to think differently about their land--deserts are not wastelands, swamps have value, and harmful insects don't have to be controlled chemically. These women not only wrote on behalf of conservation of the American landscape but also described strategies for living exemplary, environmentally sound lives during the past century. From a bird lover to a "back to the land" activist, these women gave early warning of the detrimental effects of neglecting conservation. The main part of this work covers six historical figures who pioneered in their thinking and writing about the environment: Mary Austin, Florence Merriam Bailey, Rosalie Edge, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Helen Nearing, and Rachel Carson. A later chapter gives portraits of six post-World War II conservationists: Faith McNulty, Ann Zwinger, Sue Hubbell, Anne LaBastille, Mollie Beattie, and Terry Tempest Williams. The work covers a broad range of conservationist concerns, including preservation of deserts and old growth forests, wildlife protection, wetlands maintenance, self-sufficient sustainable ways of producing food, and pollution control. A conclusion examines where conservationists have picked up after Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and gives conservation ideas for our time. An appendix lists the published writings of the twelve conservationists.