Becoming and remaining a people

Sample

Toyin Falola

"Christianity and Social Change in Africa is the most comprehensive look at the African encounter with Christianity in recent years. The book's themes are drawn from the pioneering work of J.D.Y. Peel, building on his creative explanation of the African experience of Christianity. The volume covers a broad range of themes, including religious expansion, the rise of Pentecostalism, and the use of new media and technologies to convert people and reform believers. The various manifestations of religious impact run through all the chapters, covering aspects of culture, politics, the economy, and the landscape. The volume also explores the success of Africans in exporting Christianity to other parts of the globe, a phenomenon that has redefined both the message and meaning of this religion."--Jacket.

Sample

Martin L. Gross

Watching the nation's tradition of fairness and individuality decline, Martin L. Gross describes how it is giving way to a reign of conformity and error, including the insidious "Political Correctness." The crisis he describes goes beyond an attack on reason - actually heralding the end of sanity in American life. Spearheaded by what he calls the "New Establishment" - a coalition of anti-intellectual academics, bureaucrats, politicians, judges, military leaders, social workers - the concepts that made America great are being thrown onto the cultural scrap heap in favor of a new "experimental" society that favors the few and ignores the many. Gross argues passionately, with fact and reason that the theories of the New Establishment, which have gained control of virtually every American institution, are a peril to society. One result is that they have replaced the ideal of a single America with separatism. In The End of Sanity, the New Establishment is unmasked as a secular theocracy, a pseudo-religion that gains its power through dogma, which it demands be enforced. But, says the author, there is a cure for America's ailment once we have diagnosed how deeply social and cultural insanity have infected the nation. Gross gets to the root of the problem, including examining the "gods" of the New Establishment, then provides remedies that can reverse the wrong-headedness.

Sample

Charles Alexander Eastman (Ohiyesa

"Fitzgerald's work focuses on Charles Eastman's (Ohiyesa's) compelling story of embracing the traditional cultural ideals of his nomadic ancestors while living in the modern industrialized world of his time. Born in a buffalo-hide tipi in 1858, Eastman was raised as a traditional Sioux Indian in his youth, but was catapulted into the dominant white society of his time, becoming a medical doctor who cared for wounded Indians after the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee and helping to co-found the Boy Scouts of America in 1910." "This book features: selections from Charles Eastman's five most important books; more than 275 color and black & white vintage photographs, paintings, vignettes, timelines, and maps; nine interviews with contemporary American Indian leaders on their experience of "living in two worlds"; and thought-provoking discussion questions and lists of free supplementary study materials."--BOOK JACKET.

Sample

John Kenneth White

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency marked a conclusive end to the Reagan era, writes John Kenneth White in Barack Obama's America. Reagan symbolized a 1950s and 1960s America, largely white and suburban, with married couples and kids at home, who attended church more often than not. Obama's election marked a new era, the author writes. Whites will be a minority by 2042. Marriage is at an all-time low. Cohabitation has increased from a half-million couples in 1960 to more than 5 million in 2000 to even more this year. Gay marriages and civil unions are redefining what it means to be a family. And organized religions are suffering, even as Americans continue to think of themselves as a religious people. Obama's inauguration was a defining moment in the political destiny of this country, based largely on demographic shifts, as described in Barack Obama's America.