When is truth nothing more than an illusion?Dwight returns to his hometown after a divorce, determined to pick up the pieces of his life and finish writing his second book. After all, the first one was a bestseller. Instead, he gets pulled into a bizarre conspiracy involving a shadowy group trying to spread misinformation through a series of videos detailing odd stories of Vikings, mermaids, and space aliens. Who are these people, and why do so many actual...

Well-known public historian Robert Archibald's personal exploration of the intersections of history, memory, and community reveals how we participate in the making and sustaining of community as well as how we remember the community that shaped us. Writing in a rich literary narrative, Archibald blends local history, personal reminiscence, and an analysis of the changing meaning of community with a passionate call for more effective public history. A Place to Remember poetically illustrate...

In this lyrical volume Robert R. Archibald explores a growing crisis of modern America: the dissolution of place that leads to a dangerous rupture of community. Community_born historically within the collective space of the town square where citizens come together to share stories and make meaning of their common histories_is dissipating as Americans are increasingly isolated from that shared space and are being submerged into an individualistic consumer monoculture with disregard for the ...

The Confederation Poets were a group of Canadian English-language poets of the late nineteenth century whose work expressed the national consciousness inspired by the Confederation of 1867. Their transcendental and romantic praise of the Canadian landscape would go on to dominate Canadian poetry until the twentieth century. They were also called the Maple Tree School due to how their verses portrayed a touching love for the Canadian landscape. The term ‘Confederation Poets’ was coi...

A small-town kid, a reformed criminal, and an assassination... will the hate group behind it all be brought to justice?In 1968, Horace Narwhal commits a stupid crime and ends up paying for it by serving a stint in the Army. When his required enlistment ends, he returns home and finds a new job. A new life. He takes classes at night, gets his GED, and finds he has a natural talent creating whimsical sculptures. And he meets a police detective, a woman who c...

Contrary to popular belief, it turns out that crime might pay, and it might pay well.Four friends had become vigilantes to combat the offenses they saw committed against the innocent. But a promise to the FBI means they can no longer break the law to seek justice for victims. A family crisis changes everything, and now they have no choice. They are driven to take some sort of action, even if it means skirting the law. Again.Beth's mother and father are wrongfully sued and l...

They were two strangers on a cruise. Now, they're racing against the clock to save lives and are about to become the world's most unlikely heroes.Athena and Brent had never met until fate threw them together aboard a luxury cruise ship. When disaster strikes and the ship begins to sink, they risk their lives to rescue a couple in wheelchairs, making them the last passengers to escape the doomed vessel.Their bravery goes viral. Overnight, they become interne...

George isn't certain how he became a dung beetle-or scarab, as he prefers to be called. All he knows is that after he was murdered, this is his new incarnation.And since dung beetles don't have opposable thumbs, he enlists the help of Judy, a travel writer working on a piece in Africa, to help him track his killer. Her luggage tag address says she is from Cleveland, his hometown, so he grabs the opportunity to go home and fix things. Soon, George and Judy figure out a way to commun...

In Social Memory and History, a group of anthropologists, sociologists, social linguists, gerontologists, and historians explore the ways in which memory reconstructs the past and constructs the present. A substantial introduction by the editors outlines the key issues in the understanding of social memory: its nature and process, its personal and political implications, the crisis in memory, and the relationship between social and individual memory. Ten cross-cultural case studies-groups ...

Much of what is written about colleges and universities ties rapidly rising tuition to dysfunctional behavior in the academy. Common targets of dysfunction include prestige games among universities, gold plated amenities, and bloated administration. This book offers a different view. To explain rising college cost, the authors place the higher education industry firmly within the larger economic history of the United States. The trajectory of college cost is similar to cost behavior in man...

What underlying philosophy and mission should museums pursue in the first half of the twenty-first century? In Museum Philosophy, twenty-four authors use the lenses of a variety of disciplines to answer this essential question. Museum professionals offer their answers alongside philosophers, historians, political scientists, educators, sociologists, and others in a wide-ranging exploration of institutions from art museums to zoos.Hugh Genoway's book offers philosophical an...

As the cost of higher education continues to rise, students and their families find it increasingly difficult to navigate the financial aid maze. In Redesigning the Financial Aid System, economist Robert Archibald examines the history of the system and its current flaws, and he makes a radical proposal for changing the structure of the system.Archibald argues that one of the problems with the current model—in which universities are responsible for the majority of grants wh...