Moving beyond familiar myths about moonshiners, bootleggers, and hard-drinking writers, Southern Comforts explores how alcohol and drinking helped shape the literature and culture of the U.S. South.Edited by Conor Picken and Matthew Dischinger, this collection of seventeen thought-provoking essays proposes that discussions about drinking in southern culture often orbit around familiar figures and mythologies that obscure what alcohol consumption has meant over time. Comple...

Does it matter how Christians in other times and places thought?If the Bible alone is God?s revelation, why spend time studying church history?Aren?t history and tradition more of a problem than a solution?For many Christians whobelieve the Bible is the ultimate authority for faith and life, questions about the role and value of the church's traditions can be difficult to tackle. But let's be honest: even those of us who admit that church history is important are often to...

Wings of Gold makes a unique contribution to the history of naval aviation. The book sets out the day-to-day experiences and reactions of a cadet who went through the aviation training program at its peak during World War II. An emphasis on training is missing in almost all books dealing with that conflict; in this book, it is the focus. In contrast with official histories, this is an account of how training did occur, rather than how it was intended to occur. It chronicl...

How did the Christian Church originate, what journeys has it taken over two millennia, and how did it come to exist in its present, myriad forms? The answers to these questions form a tapestry of history that reaches from first century Palestine to the ends of the earth. This volume tells this rich story from an ecumenical perspective, drawing on both Eastern and Western historic sources in exploring the rise of Eastern Orthodoxy; the church across Asia, Africa, and the Americas; and the r...

FOR A FIGHTER PILOT IN THE MIGHTY EIGHTH, DEATH WAS ALWAYS A HEARTBEAT AWAY.When the skies of Europe blazed with the fiercest air battles in history, fighter pilots like Norman “Bud” Fortier were in the thick of it, flying four hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet, dodging flak and dueling with Nazi aces. In their role as “escorts” to Flying Fortresses and Liberators, the fighter squadrons’ ability to blast enemy aircraft from the sky was key to the succes...

Capturing the hearts of a beleaguered nation, the fighter pilots of World War II engaged in a kind of battle that became the stuff of legend. They cut through the sky in their P-38s to go one-on-one against the enemy—and those who survived the deadly showdowns with enough courage and skill earned the right to be called aces. But two men in particular rose to become something more. They became icons of aerial combat, in a heroic rivalry that inspired a weary nation to fight on.Richa...

This provocative in-depth book focuses on the experiences of the infantry soldier in Vietnam. More than 60 Army and Marine Corps infantrymen speak of their experiences during their year-long tours of duty.

During the early years of World War II in the Pacific theatre, against overwhelming odds, young American airmen flew the longest and most perilous bombing missions of the war. They faced determined Japanese fighters without fighter escort, relentless anti-aircraft fire with no deviations from target, and thousands of miles of over-water flying with no alternative landing sites. Finish Forty and Home is the true story of the men and missions of the 11th Bombardment Group as it fought alone ...

“No heroes, everyone did their part, and everyone was scared to death.”They are the words of soldier Mark W. Harms in 1968, summing up his combat experience during the Vietnam War. His stunning letter home is just one of hundreds featured in this unforgettable collection, Letters from Vietnam. In these affecting pages are the unadorned voices of men and women who fought–and, in some cases, fell–in America’s most controversial war. They bring new i...

Aces In CombatThe American Aces SpeakEric HammelAdding to his acclaimed in-the-cockpit series, The American Aces Speak, combat historian Eric Hammel comes through with yet another engrossing collection of first-person accounts by American fighter aces serving in World War II and the Korean War.As in the other four volumes, Aces In Combat is a highly charged excursion into life and death in the air, told by men who excelled at piston-engine and jet-engine aerial combat and lived to tell about ...

American civilians who were on the home front during World War II would each have different stories to tell. With most, almost certainly their stories would not be as dramatic as the stories of many of those who lived in the battle zones of Europe and the Far East. Despite the difference, there would be many moving stories to tell of Americans who lost loved ones or received them home wounded or tarnished in some way by the war. Our parents welcomed us home untarnished, but changed by our ...

Prior to 1979, you probably hadnt heard of counterterrorism or Special Operations. Even so, special warriors have been around since Moses sent Joshua to spy out the land of Canaan. In 1986, Colonel Billy R. Wood served as the operations officer of the newly organized 45th Aviation Battalion (Special Operations). This unit was highly classified. The special operations training and missions carried out by the team were conducted in secret, and members couldnt even tell their wives and famili...