Books about Martyrdom from Amazon.com

"One of the most gripping stories to come out of the shooting at Columbine High School"

is told in the acclaimed national bestseller that illuminates the most remarkable aspect of 17-year-old Cassie Bernall's tragic death: her life.

She Said Yes is an "intense and fascinating memoir" (Publishers Weekly) of an ordinary teenager growing up in suburban Colorado, and faced -- as all teenagers are -- with difficult choices and pressures. It is only now, when the world knows Cassie Bernall as one of the Columbine High students killed by two rampaging schoolmates, that the choices she made offer a profound relevance for us all. Once a rage-filled young woman who walked a path similar to that of her killers, Cassie found a way out of her personal snares and, through her faith and a family's love, chose to embrace life with courage and conviction.

Told with unflinching honesty by her mother, Misty Bernall, Cassie's story is "a profoundly human story that should be read by every parent and every teenager" (New York Post)..
Price: $1.98 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In 1966, Sister Dorothy Stang went to Brazil as a missionary, and in 1982 she moved to a small town in the Amazon to work with an organization to protect poor farmers and their land from loggers and land-developers who stop at nothing—including murder—in pursuit of profits. After testifying at a government panel investigating illegal incursions into protected areas, Sister Dorothy was denounced as a “terrorist” by powerful companies and began receiving death threats. Refusing to be intimidated, she continued her work—until two gunmen shot her six times on a rural Amazon road.

THE GREATEST GIFT is the first biography of this extraordinary woman and her mission. Written by a mainstream journalist who has spent many years in Brazil, it exposes the entrenched collusion between government officials and commercial interests and celebrates the profound courage of Sister Dorothy and others fighting to protect the Amazon jungles and the people eking out a life there.

Inspired by deep religious conviction, Dorothy Stang gave of herself generously. A book that will resonate with readers of Sister Helen Prejean’s Dead Man Walking, THE GREATEST GIFT presents not only the story of Sister Dorothy’s tragic death, but the powerful and beautiful lessons of her life..
Price: $10.93 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Since 2001, two dominant worldviews have clashed in the global arena: a neoconservative nightmare of an insidious Islamic terrorist threat to civilized life, and a jihadist myth of martyrdom through the slaughter of infidels. Across the airwaves and on the ground, an ill-defined and uncontrollable war has raged between these two opposing scenarios. Deadly images and threats—from the televised beheading of Western hostages to graphic pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib, from the destruction wrought by suicide bombers in London and Madrid to civilian deaths at the hands of American occupation forces in Iraq—have polarized populations on both sides of this divide.

Yet, as the noted Middle East scholar and commentator Gilles Kepel demonstrates, President Bush’s War on Terror masks a complex political agenda in the Middle East—enforcing democracy, accessing Iraqi oil, securing Israel, and seeking regime change in Iran. Osama bin Laden’s call for martyrs to rise up against the apostate and hasten the dawn of a universal Islamic state papers over a fractured, fragmented Islamic world that is waging war against itself.

Beyond Terror and Martyrdom sounds the alarm to the West and to Islam that both of these exhausted narratives are bankrupt—neither productive of democratic change in the Middle East nor of unity in Islam. Kepel urges us to escape the ideological quagmire of terrorism and martyrdom and explore the terms of a new and constructive dialogue between Islam and the West, one for which Europe, with its expanding and restless Muslim populations, may be the proving ground.

(20080922).
Price: $18.45 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, probably written before the end of the first century, purports to be an instruction based on sayings of the Lord and given by the Twelve Apostles to pagans who wished to become Christians.

The Epistle of Barnabas is a homily on the mistaken Judaistic conception of the Old Testament.

The Epistles consist of a covering note and a letter, which is an exhortation to the Philippians on Christian life in general. The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp is the story of this bishop of Smyrna's death at the hand of the Roman authorities in Asia for the defense of the Christian faith.

The Fragments of Papias. Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor, was the author of five books, entitled Exegesis of the Lord’s Gospel.

The Epistle to Diognetus is an apology for Christianity, presented by an unknown writer to a pagan of high social or political rank..
Price: $15.01 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Here is a collection of accounts of more than 4011 Christians burned at the stake, of countless bodies torn on the rack, torn tongues, ears, hands, feet, gouged eyes, people buried alive, and of many who were willing to bear the cross of persecution and death for the sake of Christ..
Price: $29.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The Politics of Martyrdom
Tripp York exhibits how Christianity's ultimate act of witnessing, martyrdom, is an inherently political act. By refusing to accept such modern dichotomies such as mind/body, sacred/secular, and the public/private, York argues that the path of Christianity cannot but lead to a confrontation with the same powers that crucified Jesus. The martyrs as ones who die like Christ bring forth, via memory, the moment in which all the world was simultaneously exposed as fallen and redeemed. York explores this theme historically, theologically and through biography, such as in the recent martyr Oscar Romero. Book 2 in the Polyglossia: Radical Reformation Theologies series..
Price: $12.91 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Brilliantly considered, crisply written, unsparing in its conclusions, Suicide Bombers in Iraq is an absolutely essential contribution to understanding the factions that are warring over the future of that shattered country, the region, and Islam."
- Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

The war in Iraq was supposed to be easy. Instead it has delivered the message that Islamic resistance and martyrdom can defeat the only remaining superpower, just as jihadists drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan during the 1980s. Now a haven for jihadists, Iraq has entered a civil war whose duration, scope, and magnitude have yet to be determined. The overwhelming majority of suicide attacks in Iraq have targeted Iraqi security forces and Shia civilians, not coalition forces. The perpetrators appear to be largely non-Iraqi volunteers. Many are from Saudi Arabia, but substantial numbers have come from Europe, Syria, Kuwait, Jordan and North Africa. They are foiling U.S. plans to stabilize the country and turn it into a democratic regime and an ally in a region of religious radicalism, entrenched authoritarianism, and hostile states with nuclear ambitions. Understanding the phenomenon of suicide bombing in Iraq is therefore vitally important for U.S. national security, foreign policy in the Muslim world, and the war on terrorism. This study, the first of its kind on the Iraqi insurgency, draws extensively on open-source intelligence and papers of record, primary sources from insurgent groups including online documents and videos, and interviews with U.S. servicemen who have served in Iraq. It examines the history of suicide bombing in Iraq and many other countries, theoretical perspectives on suicide bombing, the varied factions that comprise the insurgency, the ideology and theology of martyrdom supporting suicide bombers, their national origins and characteristics, and the prospects for a "third generation" of transnational jihadists forged in the crucible of Iraq. According to Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, this text is "Brilliantly considered, crisply written, unsparing in its conclusions...an absolutely essential contribution to understanding the factions that are warring over the future of that shattered c.
Price: $9.59 [Notify me when price goes down.]

True stories of men and women just like you who stole victory for Christ in the face of death..
Price: $3.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Repellent and fascinating at the same time, the terrible tortures of Christian martyrs evidence a sort of evil creativity and gleeful bloodlust on the part of their tormentors. This book, originally published in 1989 in a limited edition, captures the gruesomeness of torture and provides an intellectual examination of it - with an awareness of the visceral thrill that such images provide. It includes a reproduction of the 1591 book of the same title, with engravings and descriptions of Christian tortures; segments from The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (1824), by an Augustinian nun (which helped inspire Mel Gibson's film Passion); the article "On the Physical Death of Jesus," by William D. Edwards, describing the forensic realities of the crucifixion (which also impacted the film); and 24 illustrations by a variety of well-known artists, performers, and infamous criminals including Daniel Clowes, Joe Coleman, Raymond Pettibon, and Kaz..
Price: $5.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]