Well into the twenty-first century, the United States remains one of the most highly religious industrial democracies on earth. Recent Gallup surveys suggest that 76 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is divinely inspired or the direct word of God. In Medieval America, Andrew M Koch and Paul H. Gates, Jr. offer a thoughtful examination of how this strong religious feeling, coupled with Christian doctrine, affects American political debates and collective practices and surveying the direct and indirect influence of religion and faith on American political culture. Koch and Gates open a more critical dialogue on the political influence of religion in American politics, showing that people's faith shapes their political views and the policies they support. Even with secular structures and processes, a democratic regime will reflect the belief patterns distributed among the public. Delving into a perspicacious analysis of the religious components in current practices in education, the treatment of political symbols, crime and punishment, the human body, and democratic politics, they contend that promoting and maintaining a free, open, and tolerant society requires the necessary limitation of religious influence in the domains of law and policy. Readers interested in religion and politics will find much to discuss in this incisive exploration of Christian beliefs and their impact on American political discourse.

Well into the twenty-first century, the United States remains one of the most highly religious industrial democracies on earth. Recent Gallup surveys suggest that 76 percent of Americans believe that the Bible is divinely inspired or the direct word of God. In Medieval America, Andrew M Koch and Paul H. Gates, Jr. offer a thoughtful examination of how this strong religious feeling, coupled with Christian doctrine, affects American political debates and collective practices and surveying the direct and indirect influence of religion and faith on American political culture. Koch and Gates open a more critical dialogue on the political influence of religion in American politics, showing that people's faith shapes their political views and the policies they support. Even with secular structures and processes, a democratic regime will reflect the belief patterns distributed among the public. Delving into a perspicacious analysis of the religious components in current practices in education, the treatment of political symbols, crime and punishment, the human body, and democratic politics, they contend that promoting and maintaining a free, open, and tolerant society requires the necessary limitation of religious influence in the domains of law and policy. Readers interested in religion and politics will find much to discuss in this incisive exploration of Christian beliefs and their impact on American political discourse.

Then What Happened Papa is a story about the generation that came to age in WWII, as well as the personal story of a man whose childhood on a Nebraska farm during the Great Depression gave him a deep love for the land and shaped his future as a researcher, educator and international rangeland and agriculture consultant. With humor and maybe a few controversial thoughts, this book reflects both universal themes and cultural uniqueness among people worldwide. It takes you to Iraq, Africa, China, Russia, Australia and other locations spanning the globe. Meet the bellowing Coast Guard Coxswain, King Neptune and the Polywogs, Susie the pet hippo, the "close call" rhino, inventive Aussie gamblers, the Mali Maiden, and American Cowboys hosting Chinese rancher for Western Barbeque, to name just a few, as farm boy finds his calling in a career serving the lands and people of the world.

HAY, HELL, KIDS & CATTLE is a humerous biography interspersed with dowm on the farm philosophy. It is about a boy, one of 16 children, growing up on a dryland farm in Nebraska during the 1903's. The author utilized his prose and sketches by a boyhood neighbor to present a vivid panorama of rural life in Custer County during the drought and depression. It was a critical period in the history of our country. A period that most do not remember, and some would like to forget. This book will make you laugh. It may make you cry abd maybe even a little wiser.

When Wealth and Our Commonwealth was first published in hardcover, coverage was intense and widespread: virtually all of the national broadcast and print media ran interviews and reviews. The adamant argument for reform, not reversal, of the most progressive tax in our nation continues to resonate. This edition, with a new preface by the authors, is sure to continue to fuel the debate.
"Gates, a happy warrior and a bear of a man, has thrown his formidable resources into making sure that he and people like him pay a decent share of the cost of government. He and Collins are doing urgent work. . . . Inheritance taxes would fall only on the largest estates. That, said Gates, is entirely just. As he puts it, those who were best able 'to take advantage of what society has to offer' have a debt to pay. It's a concept no less worthy for being old-fashioned." --E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post
"If you doubt whether there are any truly public-spirited Americans left, let me introduce Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins. Their new book is worth reading for its fascinating history of the conservative estate-tax repeal movement alone. But more than that, Wealth and Our Commonwealth challenges us all, rich and not-so-rich, to a more strenuous and farsighted notion of citizenship."--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
"Bill Gates and Chuck Collins provide a clear rationale for retaining the estate tax in this helpful and unselfish analysis."--Jimmy Carter, Winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize
"As this book reminds us, inheritance taxes are not about raising tax revenue. They are about 'What Kind of a Nation Do We Want to Be?' Economics is inevitably a relay race where participants do not start from the same point, but we can limit how large those gaps are. This book gets our thoughts back on the right issues."--Lester Thurow, author of The Future of Capitalism and Building Wealth: New Rules for Individuals

Paul Laurence Dunbar, introduced to the American public by William Dean Howells, was the first native-born African American poet to achieve national and international fame. While there have been many valuable editions of his works over time, gaps have developed when manuscripts were lost or access to uncollected works became difficult.
"In His Own Voice" brings together previously upublished and uncollected short stories, essays, and poems. This volume also establishes Dunbar's reputation as a dramatist who mastered standard English conventions and used dialect in musical comedy for ironic effects.
"In His Own Voice" collects more than seventy-five works in six genres. Featured are the previously unpublished play Herrick and two one-act plays, largely ignored for a century, that demonstrate Dunbar's subversion of the minstrel tradition. This generous expansion of the canon also includes a short story never before published.
Herbert Woodward Martin, renowned for his live portrayal of Dunbar, and Ronald Primeau provide a literary and historical context for this previously untreated material, firmly securing the reputation of an important American voice.