Changes to the landscape of higher education in the United States over the past decades have urged scholars grappling with issues of privilege, inequality, and social immobility to think differently about how we learn and deliberate. Thinking Together is a multidisciplinary conversation about how people approached similar questions of learning and difference in the nineteenth century. In the open air, in homes, in public halls, and even in prisons, people pondered recurring issues: justice, equality, careers, entertainment, war and peace, life and death, heaven and hell, the role of education, and the nature of humanity itself. Paying special attention to the dynamics of race and gender in intellectual settings, the contributors to this volume consider how myriad groups and individuals-many of whom lived on the margins of society and had limited access to formal education-developed and deployed knowledge useful for public participation and public advocacy around these concerns. Essays examine examples such as the women and men who engaged lecture culture during the Civil War; Irish immigrants who gathered to assess their relationship to the politics and society of the New World; African American women and men who used music and theater to challenge the white gaze; and settler-colonists in Liberia who created forums for envisioning a new existence in Africa and their relationship to a U.S. homeland. Taken together, this interdisciplinary exploration shows how learning functioned not only as an instrument for public action but also as a way to forge meaningful ties with others and to affirm the value of an intellectual life. By highlighting people, places, and purposes that diversified public discourse, Thinking Together offers scholars across the humanities new insights and perspectives on how difference enhances the human project of thinking together.

This book gathers together research from three key application themes of modelling in operational research - modelling to support evaluation and change in organisations; modelling within the development and use of organisational information systems; and the use of modelling approaches to support, enable and enhance decision support in organisational contexts. The issues raised provide valuable insight into the range of ways in which operational research techniques and practices are being successfully applied in today's information-centred business world. Modelling for Added Value provides a window onto current research and practise in modelling techniques and highlights their rising importance across the business, industrial and commercial sectors. The book contains contributions from a mix of academics and practitioners and covers a range of complex and diverse modelling issues, highlighting the broad appeal of this increasingly important subject area.

Ray Paul hits a home run with his newest novel. The story chronicles Todd Mueller's journey through the complexities of love, the world of business and his ambition to parlay his hopping fastball into a major league career. Unfortunately, life conspires against the young man and Todd is beset with many problems, some of his own making. Despite his weaknesses, Todd is a man we can cheer for. The author's writing style is down to earth. He imparts life lessons without a hint of preaching and displays a firm grasp of human nature. Todd's triumphs and failures are cleverly woven into a storyline that is not only entertaining, but a mosaic of universal, recognizable and all-too-human traits. Ray Paul has mastered the art of storytelling.

Annabelle and the Sandhog is a heart-felt and thought-provoking exploration of the complexities of family relationships as seen through the eyes of three generations of O'Malley men. As the clan patriarch, John O'Malley, recovers from a stroke-and with nothing but time on his hands-he revisits his life as an unwanted child and his ultimate decision to leave home at age sixteen. He becomes a sandhog, that skilled but dangerous occupations of blasting into bedrock to lay bridge and skyscraper foundations. His son Mike, still harbors resentment for the constant relocations he endured in his youth. Mike's son, Tim, deals with the loss of a child. Communication is strained across the board. A simple tape recorder provides the catalyst to healing as John records his life story and both son and grandson begin their own introspective journeys. The author offers to his readers not only a lesson on what it was like to live and work in America in the early 1900's but one on life in general-a lesson that transcends the years

Life seldom turns out the way we design it. We can plan wisely and sow with skill, but how we handle what comes up between the rows defines our character and ultimately our lives. In Ray Paul's sequel novel, Between the Rows, his protagonist, George Konert, has settled into a peaceful co-existence with his new wife Catherine. This afterglow lasts until life's inevitable nettles force him into action. Between the Rows is yet another wonderful novel about George Konert, who finds himself in endless trouble as usual. What I love about Ray Paul's storytelling style is that he allows his characters to be real in every way. They're well-drawn, faults and all, and therefore it's easy to connect with them. George, his family, and his neighbors and their children go through a lot in this story, including grief when a shocking event occurs. This author's books never fail to make me laugh and cry, and above all, fall in love with the gentle wisdom George always finds by the end. Christine DeSmet, a fiction teacher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is the author of the novel, Spirit Lake, and novellas in the Tales from the Treasure Trove series by Jewels of the Quill. She also directs writing retreats and conferences in Madison.