<DIV>Oneworld Publications and the Kahlil Gibran Research and Studies Project at the University of Maryland have put together The Essential Gibran, a volume of selected passages representative of Gibran’s style and thought. The collection includes selections from his Arabic works, English works, letters, and selected criticism of his artwork as well as his writings.<BR><BR>Offering a wide variety of theme, occasion, mood, and form, his essential style is captured in reflective poetic prose, dramatic sketches, allegories and parables, national and international addresses, and romantic writings of all kinds. Evident throughout is his abiding respect for universal human rights, the equality of men and women, and religious tolerance; while his profound respect for the natural world, at a time when it was already under threat from the forces of industrialization, made him a forerunner of the ecological movement. Emphasized is his message of cultural, religious, and political reconciliation which gains a particular poignancy and relevance in an age when East and West are in increasing need of mutual understanding to promote a way towards peaceful coexistence.<BR><BR>This collection of passages will shed a unique perspective of Kahlil Gibran as a poet of the culture of peace, and will throw new light on a twentieth-century author who occupies a unique position in the pantheon of the world’s great writers. It is a wonderful insight into a universal figure whose profound humanity and concern for the highest standards of integrity in both a moral and literary sense transcends the boundaries between cultures, which have too often found themselves in opposition to each other.<BR></DIV>