Bøger udgivet af Mercer University Press

Relates the stories of the cotton mill workers and their families who lived and worked in Eufaula, Alabama, a small town on the Chattahoochee River, from the 1890s to 1945. Utilizing previously unpublished family records, oral histories, and other primary sources, David Alsobrook relates the stories of the lives of these ordinary mill families - their hopes, dreams, joys, and tragedies.

The moving targets of identity are not always dramatic or final. Sharps Cabaret brings us ex-expatriate poems. They enter, in one way or another, once-familiar territory. Here, when re-crossing oceans, streets, supermarket aisles, or exam rooms, the trip is always a trip. Something is always at stake.

Presents the perspectives of more than two-dozen authors on the controversial sport of hunting, surveying the relationship between the blood sport and Christianity. The first half of the book provides sketches of the diverse interpretations of hunting in Hebrew and Christian cultures. The second half offers prescriptions for the place of hunting in the life of contemporary Christians.

John Lane's travelling geologist sings a dawning epoch's blues. The Anthropocene is upon us, and his poems show how humans believe they have become "the planet's boss, the big chief, the emperor of air, diesel fuel,/bow thrusters, and tax shelters".

Amy Blackmarr returns to her native Georgia as a "refugee," fleeing a bleak Kansas winter, the trauma of graduate school, and a "loss of identity, confidence, boyfriend and best dog and pride." Now White Pine Cabin, a hut barely big enough to turn around in, becomes the setting for Blackmarr's searing self-examination as she tells the stories that have led her so far inward and works out a trail back toward a happier connection with herself, the land, her God, and the people in her world. With an irony that keeps her prose from sinking into sentiment, Blackmarr writes of her dishonesty in a lost relationship, flunking her graduate exams, the inborn racism she was surprised to discover, and the loss of her beloved god Max. But her enduring love for the land brings needed beauty and balance, and her sense of humor won't let us get away without hearing about the ghost by the creek, the beat that comes for her pork roast, the mice that eat a rat snake, and the landfill that swallows her car. Finally, when Blackmarr allows herself to move outside her solitude she always discovers the world's unexpected generosity, and it is this gift that helps heal her and make her aware of the art we create in the interwoven kindnesses we pay each other.

The touching, humorous stories of a Kentucky childhood

Novelist Raymond L. Atkins offers a lighthearted change of pace in his newest book, South of the Etowah: The View from the Wrong Side of the River. In this collection of humorous essays, Atkins explores a diverse range of topics as seen from the porch of his home on the southern bank of the mighty Etowah river in northern Georgia.

Unlike previous works that merely assert that baseball, as the US national pastime, is an American civil religion, or others that draw parallels between the Bible and baseball, this book develops a sustained sociological argument for the conclusion that baseball is "a distinct denomination of American civil religion."

The Allman Brothers Band was formed in 1969 by Duane and Gregg Allman. Their musical combination of the elements of rock, blues, jazz, and country was hugely successful and continues to stand the test of time. Filled with more than two hundred captioned images, this new book chronicles The Allman Brothers Band memorabilia from 1969 to 1976.

Judge Anthony Alaimo's life is a metaphor for quintessential American values: courage, hard work, patriotism, compassion. This book takes us inside the incandescent life and tumultuous times of Alaimo, WWII bomber pilot, POW, and indomitable escape artist, whose fidelity to the law is equaled by his compassion and outrage at injustice.

Paul Tillich, more than any other theologian of the twentieth century, maintained an energetic dialogue with psychology, and especially psychotherapy. This book explores what Tillich's theology has to offer psychologists and others working in the field of mental health, spiritual development, and pastoral counselling.

As the only remaining female in the George Nash family, Ociee chooses to view herself as more brother than sister as she grows up on their Mississippi farm. When her father decides that it's time to make her into a young lady, she is sent to live with her Aunt Mamie in Asheville. There she will bloom and sow seeds of love in the lives of those who come to know her on Charlotte Street. The film The Adventures of Ociee Nash is based on this book.

The revised and expanded third edition of this classic book on the Governors of Georgia will now include the governorships of Zell Miller, Roy Barnes, and Sonny Perdue. Perfect for classroom use, this readable and reliable text is newly typeset and includes new photographs.

Frederick Douglass: A Precursor of Liberation Theology deals with the evolution of Frederick Douglass's philosophical and theological development. This book is another paradigm that expands the debate and places Douglass's thought in a more appropriate context, namely anticipating liberation theology. Since no consensus exists about Douglass's philosophical and theological development, Reginald F. Davis attempts to settle a dispute in Douglass studies that revolves around his religious odyssey and in particular the character and cause of his philosophical and theological development. The dispute among scholars is concerned with where to locate Douglass on the theological spectrum. Some scholars identify Douglass as having moved away from traditional forms of Christian millennialism, which elevates not the human agent but an omnipotent God who apocalyptically intervenes in human affairs and history. Still others interpret Douglass as having moved outside the circle of theism to enlightenment humanism. There is also an unsettled debate about the cause of Douglass's theological shift. One view attributes Douglass's shift to a psychological factor of rejection by "White Churchmen" over his support for radical policies like abolitionism. Another perspective attributes Douglass's shift to enlightenment principles of natural law and rationality. Davis utilizes selected categories from liberation theology to provide a more accurate exegesis of Douglass's study to encourage a new angle of interpretation of Douglass's philosophical and theological evolution.

President Carter's words are as relevant today as when first spoken. This first address of the Carl Vinson Memorial Lecture Series at Mercer University is a masterful assessment of the difficulties of resolving disputes. President Carter's guidelines for establishing a more stable peace in the world are concise and imaginative without sacrificing their essential practicality.

Heartbreaking and true, The Great Sea Island Storm of 1893 details human courage and perseverance in the face of the second most fatal hurricane in US history. On a Sunday evening in August 1893, a massive hurricane slammed into South Carolina and Georgia at high tide. The howling winds and pounding waters struck hardest at the Gullah communities along the coastal islands.Stunned by the sudden fury of the storm, the island dwellers took extraordinary measures to protect themselves. Clearly, they were no match for what many referred to as the "cyclone." By the time the waters ebbed and the winds subsided, 2,000 or more had drowned and tens of thousands were left homeless, hungry, and destitute. Neither the US Congress nor South Carolina's state legislature appropriated funds to assist the stricken people.Fortunately, Clara Barton, founder and president of the American Red Cross, took charge. In the first hurricane relief and recovery effort of the Red Cross, individuals and private charities sustained the survivors with grits and pork for almost a year. Rebuilding homes, food supplies, and spirits was a long arduous process. For the next sixty years, residents of one community held vigils every August, praying to be spared from such a catastrophe ever again.

This work examines the birth and maturation of Averett College, and institution of higher learning in Southside Virginia. The school's official seal--and elliptical medallion with the words "Averett College, Danville, Virginia" surrounding a lamp and cross--was emblematic of the institution's history and mission. The lamp represented learning, while the cross stood for the Southern Baptist environment in which learning took place. Yet these two symbols were never static representations. Learning in 1859, when the college was founded, was designed to produce a "finished" you lady who could model high culture while attending to hearth and community. Refinement of this curriculum during the next four decades preceded dramatic change in the early twentieth century: job-related education, and elective system, and junior college status. Pre-professional, coeducation and a baccalaureate program followed. Next came new degrees and new venues. The 1980s and 1990s brought non-traditional adult education at twenty-five sites throughout Virginia that soon eclipsed the traditional program. Just as the lamp and cross continued to be enduring motifs, the mission of the institution also reflected the purposes of education in the United States. Since colonial times, Americans have regarded education as essential to representative government. By the 1820s, Americans considered schooling essential to democracy. In the emerging industrial age of the nineteenth century as financial necessity and opportunity continually challenged traditional female roles, Americans were forced to concede the urgency of educating women. The place of Averett College in this larger educational milieu is secondary theme of thiswork.

Jimmy Morrow, a pastor and serpent handler for over a quarter of a century explores the history of serpent handling from a variety of sources, including his extensive familiarity with families whose roots are deep in Appalachia. As a native Appalachian Jimmy has access to histories unavailable to outsiders. While not formally trained as a historian, Jimmy's own narrative of the Jesus Name tradition is a unique contribution to not only Appalachian studies, but to the history of what many have prematurely thought to be a tradition whose obituary is soon to be written. Jimmy's astounding photographs and his keen insight to the power of this tradition that he proudly upholds suggests that while unlikely ever to be a dominant form of religious expression, it will continue as perhaps Americas most unique form of religion that persists in Appalachia despite laws against the practice of handling serpents. This is an extraordinary personal account of a unique form of religious devotion and dedication. It will be of interest to anyone interested in Appalachian culture or religion in the South.

In his powerful debut collection Twelfth Year and Other Stories, Randy Hendricks paints each of his characters with a few meticulous strokes. Characters in search of identity, in search of the right path, in search of answers, drive each story and the questions each poses. In "The Stove, " Joby Johnson must contend with the weight of his own pride and the questions it raises about who he is and who he wants to be. Sitting in a hospital waiting room, Caleb Vance must confront his own regrets as he looks back on his wife and their life together in the story "D & C." The narrator of "Ruins" moves us through his search for the real man behind his grandfather and the real man behind himself, seeking in his memories what he could not find in the actual experiences themselves. Randy Hendricks's economical storytelling gives each work an inevitable sense, as if the stories had always existed, each line of dialogue following the one before so naturally that one could not imagine the stories being any other way. Step by step then, each story in this collection constructs a journey of the most internal and fundamental kind, journeys that we all must make toward who we are.