"The union of religion and political agitation...remains constant throughout the century....It is most evident in the spritual autobiographies of evalgelists like Jarena Lee, Julia Foote, and Amanda Smith. Smith's 1893 account of her career in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where she rose from deaconess despite the significant opposition of male preachers, is all the more striking against the backdrop of her childhood experience of slavery. In the transport of her own conversion experience, the young Amanda Smith ran to a mirror to see whether her color had changed."--Eric J. Sundquist in The New York Times Book Review

Even with baby boomers retiring and greater media and research attention being lavished on older people, most gerontologists have studiously avoided examining romance among the elderly. Love Stories of Later Life is an appealing and eye-opening remedy to this neglect, as leading gerontologist Amanda Smith Barusch presents original research into what love and romance mean in seniors' lives. The result is a glimpse into a world many people didn't know existed - that of romantic love in later life.
Unlike superficial guidebooks that purport to help seniors find a new mate, Love Stories of Later Life integrates theory and the latest research on love and the aging process. Drawing on a wealth of personal narratives collected during a landmark five-year study, the book presents the lived experiences of older adults from all walks of life. It addresses the impact of common age-related changes, both emotional and physical, on romantic relationships, and argues that love continues to sculpt our personalities and our lives, even in life's later decades. Each chapter includes practical tools for the serious student of love, including exercises designed to increase self-awareness and relationship-building as well as annotated lists of suggested reading that are at once comprehensive and accessible.
Barusch's fresh perspective, engaging voice, and in-depth qualitative research make Love Stories of Later Life an important contribution to the study of individual lives and the aging process. This book will guide gerontologists, social workers, and counselors as they in turn help their older clients navigate love's challenges.
Visit the author's website: Amanda Barusch

A transformational approach to conflict argues that conflicts must be viewed as embedded within broader relational patterns and social and discursive structures. Central to this book is the idea that the origins of transformation can be momentary, situational, and small-scale or large-scale and systemic. The momentary involves shifts and meaningful changes in communication and related patterns that are created in communication between people. Momentary transformative changes can radiate out into more systemic levels, and systemic transformative changes can radiate inward to more personal levels. This book engages this transformative framework by bringing together current scholarship that epitomizes and highlights the contribution of communication scholarship and communication-centered approaches to conflict transformation in personal, family, and working relationships and organizational contexts. The resulting volume presents an engaging mix of scholarly chapters, think pieces, and personal experiences from the field of practice and everyday life. The book embraces a wide variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including narrative, critical, intersectional, rhetorical, and quantitative. It makes a valuable additive contribution to the ongoing dialogue across and between disciplines on how to transform conflicts creatively, sustainably, and ethically.

This innovative handbook bridges the gap between the colorectal surgeon, the stoma nurse and the dermatologist. It addresses the questions of what pathology is involved, what can be done by nurses, when to refer to a dermatologist, and what can be done by a dermatologist. Now in its second edition, the book has been revised throughout and contains new information on nutrition and child stoma patients.