This unique history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for freemasonry in the United States, Mark A. Lause analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European Revolutions of 1848.
Lause traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, including the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. This book shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions and may have played a part in key events such as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860-1861.

Ophelia Field's 'Kit-Cat Club' is a story of a changing time in 17th-century Britain, during the reigns of Queen Anne and George I, when a group of men and their enterprising initiatives paved the way for new literary and political viewpoints, born out of the most unexpected circumstances. The Kit-Cat Club was founded in the late 1690s when Jacob Tonson, a bookseller of lowly birth, forged a partnership with the pie-maker Christopher (Kit) Cat. What began as an eccentric publishing rights deal - Tonson paying to feed hungry young writers and so receiving first option on their works - developed into a unique gathering of intellects and interests, then into the unofficial centre of Whig power during the reigns of William & Mary, Anne and George I. With consummate skill, Ophelia Field, author of the acclaimed biography of the first Duchess of Marlborough, 'The Favourite', portrays this formative period in British history through the club's intimate lens. She describes the vicious Tory-Whig 'paper wars', the mechanics of aristocratic patronage, the London theatre world and its battles over sexual morality, England's union with Scotland, Dublin society governed by a Kit-Cat and the hurly-burly of Westminster politics. Field expertly unravels the deceit, rivalry, friendships and fortunes lost and found through the club, along with wonderful descriptions of how its alcohol-fuelled, all-male meetings were conducted. Tracing the Kit-Cat Club's far-reaching influence for the first time, this group biography illuminates a time when Britain was searching for its own identity.

The occult sciences have attracted followers and fascinated observers since the middle ages. Beyond Enlightenment examines the social, political, and metaphysical doctrines of Martinism, a French occultist movement and offshoot of Freemasonry that flourished from the late eighteenth century to the dawn of the twentieth century. The French Revolution and the disorder that followed it convinced Martinists that modern society was on the wrong path. For guidance they looked back not to the corrupt Old Regime but rather to a lost golden age of mankind that existed only in their imagination. The Martinists were closely engaged in the political events of their times, and rightly or wrongly, they earned a reputation for secret intrigue and ubiquitous hidden influence. David Allen Harvey focuses on the Martinists themselves, recreating their own social and political views. He traces the birth of Martinism during the Enlightenment, its revival in the fin de siecle, and the late nineteenth-century formation of a distinctly Martinist project-the synarchy-aimed at the social and political renewal of France and the greater world. The Martinist doctrines formed a unique synthesis of Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment thought. Harvey maintains that Martinists were a peaceful, esoteric society that rejected both secular materialism and dogmatic Catholicism, seeking to reveal the hand of Providence in history, discover divinely inspired laws of social and political organizations, and enact the kingdom of heaven on earth. Seeking to explore and analyze the "irrational" side of the "Age of Reason," Beyond Enlightenment is a welcome addition to recent studies of esoteric movements. Historians of culture, religion, and politics in post-Revolutionary France, as well as historians of esotericism and alternative religions will be interested in this engaging and revealing study.

Among established American institutions, few have been more successful or paradoxical than the Boy Scouts of America. David Macleod traces the social history of America in this scholarly account of the origins of the Boy Scouts and other character-building agencies, through which adults tried to restructure middle-class boyhood.
Back in print; First paperback edition.

Academic and popular opinions agree that Canadian public life has become wholly secularized during the last hundred years. As this book acknowledges, religion has indeed lost most of its influence in education, politics and various interest groups. But this rigorously researched volume argues that religion was one of the early institutional bases of the public sphere, and although it has since become differentiated from the state, it should not be overlooked or underestimated by historians and sociologists of modern Canada. A compilation of scholarly case studies, it addresses the continuing influence of religion on modern, 'secular' institutions and thus on shaping communal identities.

Van Die's book brings together some of Canada's leading historians of religion - including an entry by distinguished US historian, Mark Noll. Religion and Public Life in Canada shows an awareness of the effects of issues such as gender, ethnicity, and regionalism, and considers the recent influence of previously 'outsider' religions such as Judaism and Sikhism. By challenging the assumption that religion has become a matter only of private concern, and by showing its historical and continued relevance to public life, the book takes the debate over secularization on to an entirely new plane of concern.

Long encouraged by the International Association for the Study of Organized Crime, the current research on this broad and intriguing topic is systematically brought together in this exemplary reader. Understanding Organized Crime in Global Perspective presents a rich collection of articles by outstanding researchers in the field who examine empirical research examples, salient issues and their explication, and provide a theoretical foundation as a guide for further explorations. Skillfully edited by Patrick J. Ryan and George E. Rush, this accessible and timely volume focuses on such particular areas of study and recent trends as: the nature of organized crime; theoretical perspectives; organized crime in Russia, Eastern Europe and Hong Kong, with predictions for the next century; the diversity of activities and structures; and how the law enforcement community responds to organized crime.

For Hemingway and Fitzgerald, there was Paris in the twenties. For others, later, there was Greenwich Village, Big Sur, and Woodstock. But for an even later generation-one defined by the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Tom McGuane, and Hunter S. Thompson-there was another moveable feast: KeyWest, Florida. The small town on the two-by-four-mile island has long been an artistic haven, a wild refuge for people of all persuasions, and the inspirational home for a league of great American writers. Some of the artists went there to be literary he-men. Some went to re-create themselves. Others just went to disappear-and succeeded. No matter what inspired the trip, Key West in the seventies was the right place at the right time, where and when an astonishing collection of artists wove a web of creative inspiration. Mile Marker Zero tells the story of how these writers and artists found their identities in Key West and maintained their friendships over the decades, despite oceans of booze and boatloads of pot, through serial marriages and sexual escapades, in that dangerous paradise. Unlike the "Lost Generation" of Paris in the twenties, we have a generation that invented, reinvented, and found itself at the unending cocktail party at the end-and the beginning-of America's highway.

In a timely contribution to current debates over the psychology of boys and the construction of their social lives, "On My Honor" explores the folk customs of adolescent males in the Boy Scouts of America during a summer encampment in California's Sierra Nevada. Drawing on more than twenty years of research and extensive visits and interviews with members of the troop, Mechling uncovers the key rituals and play events through which the Boy Scouts shapes boys into men. He describes the campfire songs, initiation rites, games, and activities that are used to mold the Scouts into responsible adults.
The themes of honor and character alternate in this new study as we witness troop leaders offering examples in structure, discipline, and guidance, and teaching scouts the difficult balance between freedom and self-control. What results is a probing look into the inner lives of boys in our culture and their rocky transition into manhood. "On My Honor" provides a provocative, sometimes shocking glimpse into the sexual awakening and moral development of young men coming to grips with their nascent desires, their innate aggressions, their inclination toward peer pressure and violence, and their social acculturation.
"On My Honor" ultimately shows how the Boy Scouts of America continues to edify and mentor young men against the backdrop of controversies over freedom of religious expression, homosexuality, and the proposed inclusion of female members. While the organization's bureaucracy has taken an unyielding stance against gay men and atheists, real live Scouts are often more open to plurality than we might assume. In their embrace of tolerance, acceptance, and understanding, troopleaders at the local level have the power to shape boys into emotionally mature men.