Have you ever thought you completely knew a story, inside and out, only to see some new information that shatters what you had come to accept as unquestioned fact? Well, Richard Nixon is that story, and "Nixon's First Cover-up" is that new information.

With few exceptions, the religious ideologies and backgrounds of U.S. presidents is a topic sorely lacking in analysis. H. Larry Ingle seeks to remedy this situation regarding Nixon--one of the most controversial and intriguing of the presidents. Ingle delves more deeply into Nixon's Quaker background than any previous scholar to observe the role Nixon's religion played in his political career.

Nixon's unique and personally tailored brand of evangelical Quakerism stayed hidden when he wanted it to, but was on display whenever he felt it might help him advance his career in some way. Ingle's unparalleled knowledge of Quakerism enables him to deftly point out how Nixon bent the traditional rules of the religion to suit his needs or, in some cases, simply ignored them entirely. This theme of the constant contradiction between Nixon's actions and his apparent religious beliefs makes "Nixon's First Cover-up "truly a groundbreaking study both in the field of Nixon research as well as the field of the influence of religion on the U.S. presidency. Forty years after Nixon's resignation from office, Ingle's work proves there remains much about the thirty-seventh president that the American public does not yet know.

Quakerism has long fascinated historians and religious scholars, and Richard Allen's examination of the community's rise and fall in Wales holds a wealth of new insights. The prominent role played by women, the resilience of Quakers in the face of a variety of forms of official persecution, the ways that education, careers, and marriage were determined by a strict code of conduct, and the reasons for Quakerism's decline all come under consideration here. As the first scholarly analysis of Welsh Quakers, this book represents an important new contribution to our knowledge of the movement.

William Penn is justly famous for his part in the political development of colonial America. Yet he was also one of the leading Quaker theologians of the seventeenth century and the most important translator of Quaker religious thought into social and political reality, and his life and works cannot be fully understood without a knowledge of his religious hopes and ideals. Melvin Endy goes beyond the political histories, biographies, and histories of Quakerism to provide a comprehensive account of Penn's religious thought, its influence on his political thought and activity, and the significance of his life and thought to the Quaker movement. His assessment of Penn's place in the Quaker movement and his discussion of Penn's thought in relation to Puritan, Spiritualist. Anglican, and pre-Enlightenment developments has led to an understanding of Quakerism that differs from the recent tendency to stress strongly its Puritan origins and affinities. Because of the revisionist nature of this interpretation and the author's conviction that early Quaker thought has never been adequately related to its intellectual milieu, this study of Penn has been developed into a vehicle for a new analysis of aspects of early Quaker thought. Finally, the Pennsylvania venture is examined and assessed as a laboratory in which the vision of a society run according to the principles of a spiritual religion was put to the test. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Elizabeth Fry was one of the nineteenth century's most extraordinary women. Born the daughter of a Quaker banker, she was eighteen when she commandeered a laundry room to begin her own school. At twenty, she wed Joseph Fry and, over their marriage, they had eleven children. But a charitable visit to Newgate Prison would change the course of her life, and of history, forever. Unable to ignore the plight of the female convicts before her, she determined to do everything in her power to right the injustices they faced... By her death, Elizabeth was famous amongst royalty, parliament and women on the street alike; respected by Queen Victoria; supporter to William Wilberforce; and influence on Florence Nightingale. This biography, told with verve and pace, and interwoven with extracts from Elizabeth's private diaries, will inspire and move you with the turn of a page.

Here is the perfect introductory guide to the history and ideas of the Quakers, one of the world's most fascinating and enigmatic religious groups. Emerging in England in the 1650s as a radical sect challenging the status quo, the Quakers are now best known for their anti-slavery activities, their principled stance against war, and their pioneering work in penal reform. Famous Quakers include Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, Lucretia Mott, Herbert Hoover, James Dean, Judi Dench, and A.S. Byatt. And while the group still maintains a distinctive worship method to achieve a direct encounter with God, which has been at the heart of the movement since its beginning, Quakers today are highly diverse: some practice a protestant evangelicalism, others are no longer Christian. In this generously illustrated book, Pink Dandelion, the leading expert on Quaker Studies, draws on the latest scholarship to chart the history of the sect and its present-day diversity around the world, exploring its unique approach to worship, belief, theology and language, and ecumenism. It concludes by placing the Quakers in the wider religious picture and predicting its future.
About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.

An inspiring and enlightening introduction to Quakerism, the second title in the Yale University Press "The Spirit of . . ."series Who are the Quakers, what do they believe, and what do they practice? The Religious Society of Friends-also known as Quakers--believes that everyone can have a direct experience of God. Quakers express this in a unique form of worship that inspires them to work for change in themselves and in the world. In The Spirit of the Quakers, Geoffrey Durham, himself a Friend, explains Quakerism through quotations from writings that cover 350 years, from the beginnings of the movement to the present day. Peace and equality are major themes in the book, but readers will also find thought-provoking passages on the importance of action for social change, the primacy of truth, the value of simplicity, the need for a sense of community, and much more. The quoted texts convey a powerful religious impulse, courage in the face of persecution, the warmth of human relationships, and dedicated perseverance in promoting just causes. The extended quotations have been carefully selected from well-known Quakers such as George Fox, William Penn, John Greenleaf Whittier, Elizabeth Fry and John Woolman, as well as many contemporary Friends. Together with Geoffrey Durham's enlightening and sympathetic introductions to the texts, the extracts from these writers form an engaging, often moving guide to this accessible and open-hearted religious faith.

Early modern Quakers looked to their dreams to gain spiritual insight and developed a potent system of dreamwork that acted simultaneously as a device for gaining and retaining authority and as a democratizing force. Night Journeys recounts how Quakers on both sides of the Atlantic turned their sleeping experiences into powerful stories that advanced a more inclusive--but still imperial--vision of colonial and Revolutionary America.

Quakers did not keep their dreams to themselves. On the American mainland, Caribbean plantations, and in the British Isles, Quakers were competing to shape their imperial culture when they circulated dreams beyond meetinghouse walls and influenced larger transatlantic movements for reform.

Covering a broad time span that begins with the English civil war and ends with the creation of the American republic, Carla Gerona argues that dreams provided Quakers with mental maps to influence the values of their emerging colonial society, usually, though not exclusively, in progressive ways. Night visions, as Quakers often termed their dreams, contributed to social and cultural changes such as the abolition of slavery and religious reform. Simultaneously, dreams helped Quakers define and delineate their mission in America and the world, fostering innovative concepts of individuality, community, nation, and empire.

What was distinctive about the founding principles and practices of Quakerism? In George Fox and Early Quaker Culture, Hilary Hinds explores how the Light Within became the organizing principle of this seventeenth-century movement, inaugurating an influential dissolution of the boundary between the human and the divine. Taking an original perspective on this most enduring of radical religious groups, Hinds combines literary and historical approaches to produce a fresh study of Quaker cultural practice. Close readings of Fox's Journal are put in dialogue with the voices of other early Friends and their critics to argue that the Light Within set the terms for the unique Quaker mode of embodying spirituality and inhabiting the world. In this important study of the cultural consequences of a bedrock belief, Hinds shows how the Quaker spiritual self was premised on a profound continuity between sinful subjects and godly omnipotence. This study will be of interest not only to scholars and students of seventeenth-century literature and history, but also to those concerned with the Quaker movement, spirituality and the changing meanings of religious practice in the early modern period. -- .