During the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002, an estimated 20,000 children were forced to join the fighting where they were ordered to kill a friend, relative, or neighbor under threat of being killed themselves. Boston College researcher Theresa Betancourt, the Salem Professor in Global Practice in the School of Social Work, has followed hundreds of these former child soldiers for more than two decades. Her study and the insights it offers on mental health and resilience are the focus of a new book, Shadows into Light: A Generation of Former Child Soldiers Comes of Age (Harvard University Press, 2025). Filled with vivid personal stories, Shadows into Light depicts heartbreak and despair, but also remarkable triumphs. According to Betancourt, the lives of the former child soldiers were shaped not just by their personal ordeals but also, crucially, by the responses of their families, peers, and broader communities. Read more in this author Q&A from BC News.
“Art is a central aspect of human societies, yet few people know how the art market functions. The most prominent aspects of the art world, including galleries, museums, media attention, and even critical acclaim, are actually shaped by buyers and those who cater to buyers, whereas artists tend to play a secondary role,” says BC Carroll School of Management Associate Professor of Marketing 
Theologian 
On Boston Common stands a monument dedicated to the Oneida Football Club. It honors the site where, in the 1860s, 16 boys played what was then called the “Boston game”—an early version of football in the United States. In the 1920s, a handful of them donated artifacts to museums, deposited self-penned histories into libraries and archives, and erected memorials, all to elevate themselves as the inventors of American football. But was this origin story as straightforward as they made it seem? In the new book
Ed Yong
The Universities of Scotland, Ireland and New England during the British Civil Wars: Contested Seminaries 
Love: A History (Oxford University Press, 2024)
How does one recover from a near-death experience? In his memoir, 1974 Boston College graduate Michael J. Hession, M.D., a physician who has cared for critically ill patients for more than 30 years, shares the story of his own near-death experience and his arduous recovery in the hopes of helping others. In 
BC Bookmarks 