Robert Orlando – författare

A rethinking of St Paul's role in shaping the emerging Christian religion, emphasising his human, political and material interactions with his contemporaries.The Apostle Paul's dramatic and much discussed conversion on the road to Damascus radically changed the course of his life - as well as the Christian religion. Can a new narrative, and a new perspective, be brought to this twothousand-year-old story and centuries of critical thought and study?The writer and filmmaker Robert Orlando believes it can. 'Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe' is a dramatic and challenging book, inspired by his controversial film of the same name. This ground-breaking look at Paul's life draws on extensive research into Paul's letters and the book of Acts to reveal his human attitudes and insecurities. Orlando constructs a fresh take on Paul's life, especiallyhis collection for the Jerusalem church, and proposes that Paul, as one of Christianity's most celebrated converts, may have needed more than faith and fervour to convince the other apostles to accept his vision of ministry. 'Apostle Paul: A Polite Bribe' illustrates how a vision of promise eventually leads to a hopeless prison cell and, ultimately, a new religion, challenging the traditional perspective and inspiring new thought about one of the best-known founders of the Christian religion.

"Better to fight for something than live for nothing." — General George S. PattonIt is 75 years since the end of WW II and the strange, mysterious death of General George S. Patton, but as in life, Patton sets off a storm of controversy.The Tragedy of Patton: A Soldier's Date With Destiny asks the question: Why was General Patton silenced during his service in World War II? Prevented from receiving needed supplies that would have ended the war nine months earlier, freed the death camps, prevented Russian invasion of the Eastern Bloc, and Stalin's murderous rampage. Why was he fired as General of the Third Army and relegated to a governorship of post-war Bavaria? Who were his enemies? Was he a threat to Eisenhower, Montgomery, and Bradley? And is it possible as some say that the General's freakish collision with an Army truck, on the day before his departure for US, was not really an accident? Or was Patton not only dismissed by his peers, but the victim of an assassin's bullet at their behest? Was his personal silence necessary?General George S. Patton was America's antihero of the Second World War. Robert Orlando explores whether a man of such a flawed character could have been right about his claim that because the Allied troops, some within 200 miles of Berlin, or just outside Prague, were held back from capturing the capitals to let Soviet troops move in, the Cold War was inevitable. Patton said it loudly and often enough that he was relieved of command and silenced. Patton had vowed to “take the gag off” after the war and tell the intimate truth and inner workings about controversial decisions and questionable politics that had cost the lives of his men. Was General Patton volatile, bombastic, self-absorbed, reckless? Yes, but he was also politically astute and a brilliant military strategist who delivered badly needed wins.Questions still abound about Patton’s rise and fall. The Tragedy of Patton seeks to answer them.