Socialism and War

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James P. Young

In a survey of American political thought unrivaled in its breadth, Young gives voice not just to Locke, Jefferson, and Madison but also to Rawls, Shklar, Kateb, Wolin, and Walzer. To the problems facing Lincoln and Dewey, he brings modern feminism, multiculturalism, postmodernism, and the current conservative backlash. Broadly informed, scrupulously fair, and marvelously clear, Reconsidering American Liberalism is a tour de force of historical exposition and contemporary analysis as well as significant contribution to the future of liberal thought.

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Charles Bracelen Flood

Historian-biographer Charles Bracelen Flood brings to life the drama of Lincoln's final year, in which he oversaw the last campaigns of the Civil War, was reelected as president, and laid out his majestic vision for the nation's future in a reunified South and in the expanding West. In that crucial year, the Civil War was far from won: as the year began, Lincoln had yet to appoint Ulysses S. Grant as the general-in-chief who would finally bring victory. At the same time, with the North sick of the war, Lincoln was facing a reelection battle in which hundreds of thousands of "Peace Democrats" were ready to negotiate to leave the Confederacy as a separate American nation. In his personal life, he had to deal with the erratic behavior of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, and was unknowingly stalked by John Wilkes Booth.--From publisher description.

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Stanley Karnow

This book is an account of America's imperial experience in the Philippines from 1898 to 1946. Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, has now written an enthralling account of an almost forgotten subject: America's imperial experience in the Philippines. Panoramic in scope, profound in its perceptions and compassionate in its human portraits, In Our Image is an exciting, heroic, tragic, colorful and often comic narrative drawn from many hitherto unpublished documents as well as hundreds of interviews with American and Filipino participants. Above all, its brilliant descriptions and analysis of this important chapter in American history holds lessons for the present and future. No other book on the subject is as comprehensive. - Jacket flap.

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Debra Sabia

Contradiction and Conflict explores the rich history, ideology, and development of the popular church in Nicaragua. From careful assessments within the context of Nicaragua's revolutionary period (1970s-1990), this book explores the historical conditions that worked to unify members of the Christian faith and the subsequent factors that fragmented the Christian community into at least four identifiable groups with religious and political differences, contradictions, and conflicts. Based on research and interview fieldwork conducted in Nicaragua, this groundbreaking volume, primarily focused on three Christian base communities in Managua, records disparate voices that recount the development and character of the popular church. Together, these eloquent voices contradict a fundamental and widely held opinion on the nature of the popular church. Debra Sabia establishes that, contrary to what has been thought, the popular church was neither homogeneous nor unified and that divergent notions of the popular church exist in Nicaragua. Using the work of Max Weber as a model in developing a theoretical framework for examining the popular church in Nicaragua, Sabia divides the popular church community into four ideal types: the Marxist, the Christian Revolutionary, the Reformist, and the Alienated Christian. Each ideal type is differentiated by its members' general orientation to spiritual and political beliefs and practices. Sabia provides important details about the origins and impact of these divisions, and she is especially sensitive to the groups' and individuals' own perceptions of their particular blend of religion and politics. By examining the impact of the popular church on the revolution and, conversely, the effect that Nicaraguan politics has had on the popular church, the study offers original conclusions for assessing the future viability of the popular church in the counterrevolutionary state.