Each year, more than 2.5 million cases of battering are reported in the Unites States, and as many as 2,000 incidents of abuse turn into murder cases. Every month, more than 50,000 women in the United States seek restraining or protection orders. While many books detail distinguishing characteristics of the abusive relationship, few accounts reveal how some women eventually gather the resources and courage to leave.

In a chronicle by turns harrowing and inspiring, Ann Goetting tells how sixteen women finally got away for good. "Getting Out" recounts not only the stories of their abuse but also the women's life histories leading up to the battering -- and the resources they drew upon to escape.

Some of the women here received assistance from compassionate family members -- Lee, for instance, secured support from her parents, who scheduled a holiday trip home for her to get her away from her husband, Tony, whose battering had reached life-threatening dimensions as he became progressively more involved with an outlaw motorcycle gang. Others were saved by a network of friends -- Israeli-born Netiva married an American and escaped after a group of fellow graduate students helped break down the isolation that held her captive.

As Goetting explains, leaving is a process rather than an event, often marked along the way by reconciliations and resumption of abuse. But as she and her informants suggest, the process invariably extends back to a critical moment when a decision to leave is made. The life-affirming moment may follow a particularly appalling episode of abuse or arrive in a long-repressed recognition of self-worth garnered from a positive experience at work or in the rearing of a child.

"Getting Out" is a book that some women may read to discover solutions to problems within their own lives and those of people they know. It is also a work that social workers and psychologists who deal with battered women will find singularly informative, and one that will find an audience of readers seeking to understand the lives of women involved with abusive men.

In The Baptism of Early Virginia, Rebecca Anne Goetz examines the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies-ultimately in the idea of "hereditary heathenism," the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians-including freedom. Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters' racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America.

As communities face new social and economic challenges as well as political changes, the responsibilities for social services, housing needs, and welfare programs are being placed at the local government level. But can community-based organizations address these concerns effectively? The editors and contributors to Mobilizing Communities explore how these organizations are responding to these challenges, and how asset-based development efforts can be successful.

How the music of human interaction can help us better understand the nature of social science research

In "The Baptism of Early Virginia, "Rebecca Anne Goetz examines the construction of race through the religious beliefs and practices of English Virginians. She finds the seventeenth century a critical time in the development and articulation of racial ideologies--ultimately in the idea of "hereditary heathenism," the notion that Africans and Indians were incapable of genuine Christian conversion. In Virginia in particular, English settlers initially believed that native people would quickly become Christian and would form a vibrant partnership with English people. After vicious Anglo-Indian violence dashed those hopes, English Virginians used Christian rituals like marriage and baptism to exclude first Indians and then Africans from the privileges enjoyed by English Christians--including freedom.

Resistance to hereditary heathenism was not uncommon, however. Enslaved people and many Anglican ministers fought against planters' racial ideologies, setting the stage for Christian abolitionism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using court records, letters, and pamphlets, Goetz suggests new ways of approaching and understanding the deeply entwined relationship between Christianity and race in early America.