ABSTRACT
In recent years, it seems we have faced increasingly frequent natural disasters, conflicts, and other major catastrophes. As I am completing this book in New York City at the end of 2012, we are just recovering from super-storm Sandy, which left thousands of people along the northeast coast with their homes, businesses, and property ruined from the floods of a surging ocean. The civil war in Syria rages on with more than 40,000 deaths and hundreds of thousands displaced in and from a country that has seen such destruction that recovery will take decades. Weeks ago the conflict erupted again between Gaza and Israel, exacerbating tensions that now make peace seem farther off than ever. And just before the winter holidays, one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history took place in Newtown, Connecticut.
