For millions of conservative Christians, America is their kingdom--a land set apart, a nation uniquely blessed, a people in special covenant with God. This love of country, however, has given way to right-wing nationalist fervor, a reckless blood-and-soil idolatry that trivializes the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Alberta retraces the arc of the modern evangelical movement, placing political and cultural inflection points in the context of church teachings...

"On a cold day in March of 1911, officials marched twelve Black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. Under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. When construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state's Hospital for the Negro Insane. For centuries, Black patients have been absent from our history books. Madness transports readers behind the brick...

"In Mystical Mushrooms, explore the magical properties, mythological connections, and symbolic qualities of ever-intriguing fungi"-- Mushrooms have been the stuff of dreams, fairy tales, and even hallucinations. Kane explores the history, folklore, and future of common and not-so-common fungi. She catalogs iconic fungi species and details their lore and mystical properties. She also provides helpful guidance on enhancing your magical practice with...

"At a time when civilian periodicals faced strict censorship, US Army Chief of Staff George Marshall won the support of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create an expansive troop-newspaper program. Both Marshall and FDR recognized that there was a second struggle taking place outside the battlefields of World War II--the war of words. While Hitler inundated the globe with propaganda, morale across the US Army dwindled. As the Axis blurred the...

"Accidental injury is the leading cause of death for Americans under forty-five. Those who have caused accidents walk among us. They are us. Episcopal priest David W. Peters unintentionally killed someone in a traffic accident as a young man, and in Accidental, he guides readers through the aftermath of these tragedies toward healing and recovery"--

There were five times as many post offices in the United States in 1899 than there are McDonald's restaurants today. During an era of supposedly limited federal government, the United States operated the most expansive national postal system in the world. In this cutting-edge interpretation of the late nineteenth-century United States, Cameron Blevins argues that the US Post wove together two of the era's defining projects: western expansion and the...

"Microbiomes: A Very Short Introduction provides a succinct overview of the communities of microorganisms that inhabit animals (including humans) and plants. Microbiomes are generally beneficial to their animal and plant hosts, functioning to promote healthy growth, to protect against infectious disease, and, in some animals, to support complex behavioural traits, such as learning and memory. However, under some circumstances, the microbiome can cause...

Shifting Currents is an original and comprehensive history of swimming. It examines the tension that arose when non-swimming northerners met African and Southeast Asian swimmers. Using archaeological, textual and art historical sources, Karen Eva Carr shows how the water simultaneously attracted and repelled these northerners--swimming seemed uncanny, related to witchcraft and sin. Europeans used Africans' and Native Americans' swimming skills to...

"The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone--Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London--reveals how the idea of "industrial murder" is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He...

"One of our great behavioral scientists plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences. Robert Sapolsky's "Behave," his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior,...