In the decades following World War II, a movement of clergy and laity sought to restore liberal Protestantism to the center of American urban life. Chastened by their failure to avert war and the Holocaust and troubled by missionaries' complicity with colonial regimes, they redirected their energies back home. Renewal explores the rise and fall of this movement, which began as a simple effort to restore the church's standing but wound up as nothing less than an openhearted crusade to remake our nation's cities. These campaigns reached beyond church walls to build or lend a hand to scores of organizations fighting for welfare, social justice, and community empowerment among the increasingly non-white urban working class, dovetailing with the contemporaneous War on Poverty and black freedom movement. Renewal illuminates the overlooked story of how religious institutions both shaped, and were shaped by, postwar urban America.

In 1944, Portsmouth, the formidable Davey Dwyer, known as 'Moose' to his friends, is working as an engineer in the Navy and dating Sally, the love of his life. The build-up of army and navy servicemen from Canada and America does not sit comfortably with Davey, who considers anyone north of Port Creek to be an 'outsider'. When Dwyer finds himself caught up in a fight with four American soldiers, he wakes up in a police cell to face a life-changing decision. After being torn away from Sally, Davey is enlisted in the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne, working closely alongside Major Carter. Dwyer becomes good friends with Private Danny Brooks and when the two later find themselves united on the dark lonely battlefields of Normandy, Dwyer realises that his life is about to change forever, in a war of unprecedented bloodshed and tears that would change the course of history.

In 1944, Portsmouth, the formidable Davey Dwyer, known as 'Moose' to his friends, is working as an engineer in the Navy and dating Sally, the love of his life. The build-up of army and navy servicemen from Canada and America does not sit comfortably with Davey, who considers anyone north of Port Creek to be an 'outsider'. When Dwyer finds himself caught up in a fight with four American soldiers, he wakes up in a police cell to face a life-changing decision. After being torn away from Sally, Davey is enlisted in the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne, working closely alongside Major Carter. Dwyer becomes good friends with Private Danny Brooks and when the two later find themselves united on the dark lonely battlefields of Normandy, Dwyer realises that his life is about to change forever, in a war of unprecedented bloodshed and tears that would change the course of history.

The Citizen Soldier is a war story with a difference. Following a street fight, which results in his combatant's death, Portsmouth born and bred Davey Dwyer is given an ultimatum. Either enlist in the American 101st Airborne, or go to prison. He chose the latter. After only a few days military training at Greenham Common, his plane is shot down over the Normandy Coast on D-Day and he ends up landing thirty miles from his intended drop zone, two miles south of Omaha Beach. On landing, he his reunited with the now injured Major that recruited him, for his very own chilling reasons, and the only friend he had made whilst based at Greenham common. With every effort being made not to compromise the surprise of the invasion, Dwyer is left not only carrying the Major to safety, but also finds himself fighting an enemy within the US Army and his own voice of reason. The story then follows the exact timeline of the events that took place on Easy Red Sector with Dwyer and the Major hiding amongst the German positions witnessing the horrors below on the beach. Dwyer throughout makes a 'nuisance' of himself as far as the Germans are concerned and has further enemy contacts. Dwyer's initial euphoria of gaining retribution on the German enemy following the killing of his family in an earlier bombing raid, starts to turn into despair as a result of taking human lives and the horror he finds himself in the middle of. It makes him start to question his own actions and very sanity throughout his emotional roller-coaster. The question of why he was recruited by the Major in the first place, to get him into the mess, is also at the forefront of his mind.

Memories Never Fade...

Jason Simons (Sims) can't seem to understand his constant mental quagmire over the belief that he is no longer in love with his girlfriend, Kelly. In a last ditch effort to understand himself, he decides to take up his best friend's offer to leave Baltimore and drive back to their hometown, Morehead City, North Carolina, to attend their ten-year high school reunion. However, Sims has other plans in store that could possibly determine his fate along with that of many others. Lingering memories of his high school sweetheart, Sonya, could stir up more than just old embers.

...When There's a DEMON in View

Home is a place Sims has run from ever since his father's untimely death and his sister Carol's murder. Carol disappeared along with many other girls in what was thought to be one of the largest unsolved killing sprees in the nation. With matters involving local pirate folklore, homeland security, computer hackers, and a serial killer dating back to the early 1700's, those who know Sims will discover another side of life often taken for granted...survival and each other.

Memories Never Fade...

Jason Simons (Sims) can't seem to understand his constant mental quagmire over the belief that he is no longer in love with his girlfriend, Kelly. In a last ditch effort to understand himself, he decides to take up his best friend's offer to leave Baltimore and drive back to their hometown, Morehead City, North Carolina, to attend their ten-year high school reunion. However, Sims has other plans in store that could possibly determine his fate along with that of many others. Lingering memories of his high school sweetheart, Sonya, could stir up more than just old embers.

...When There's a DEMON in View

Home is a place Sims has run from ever since his father's untimely death and his sister Carol's murder. Carol disappeared along with many other girls in what was thought to be one of the largest unsolved killing sprees in the nation. With matters involving local pirate folklore, homeland security, computer hackers, and a serial killer dating back to the early 1700's, those who know Sims will discover another side of life often taken for granted...survival and each other.

Janice Gaither spends her life remembering the days of love she lost long ago. Unhappy from the lack of devotion from her husband, she can only think of one man, Travis Jordan, dead and buried.

Immigrant neighborhoods of the early twentieth century have commonly been viewed as segregated, homogeneous slums isolated from the larger 'American' city. But as Mark Wild demonstrates in this new study of Los Angeles, such districts often nurtured dynamic, diverse environments where residents interacted with individuals of other races and cultures. In fact, as his engaging account makes clear, between 1900 and 1940 such multiethnic areas mushroomed in Los Angeles. "Street Meeting", enriched with oral histories, reminiscences, newspaper reports, and other sources, examines interactions among working-class Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Jews, Italians, African Americans, and others, reminding us that Los Angeles has been a multiethnic city since its birth. This study further argues that these ethnic interactions played a crucial role in the urban development of the United States during the early decades of the twentieth century.