"Rich in history, lore, recipes, fascinating images—in short, a delicious book from start to finish" (Sandy Ingber, Grand Central Oyster Bar).Tracing the oyster's role in cooking, art, literature, and politics from the dawn of time to present day, this unique book reveals how oysters have sustained communities financially and ecologically, and have loomed surprisingly large in legend and history. Using the oyster as the central theme, Smith has organized the book a...

This book describes the wide array of social networking services that are now available online and highlights how these services can be used by genealogists to share information, photos, and videos with family, friends, and other researchers. Each chapter guides you through a unique category of social networking services using genealogy-related examples. From blogs and wikis to Facebook and Second Life, author Drew Smith shows you how to incorporate these powerful new tools into your family h...

Many people expect faith to be inflexible and unchanging. It is relevant because it always has been, at least to them. To admit change is to bring on the end of faith and all of its benefits. Others believe that a relevant faith is by nature shallow and unrooted. Author and educator Drew Smith disagrees. He believes that it is both possible and necessary to reframe faith in such a way that it is relevant to our present society. At the same time, this reframed faith is still a historic fait...

Essays on the civil rights movement outside the South and since the 1960s.It has become popular to confine discussion of the American civil rights movement to the mid-twentieth-century South. From Every Mountainside contains essays that refuse to bracket the quest for civil rights in this manner, treating the subject as an enduring topic yet to be worked out in American politics and society. Individual essays point to the multiple directions the quest for ...

A professional genealogist reveals how to get past brick walls in research and unearth hard-to-find ancestors Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques uses up-to-date and highly organized methods and techniques to show you how to find the elusive details to round out your genealogy research. You’ll get past the brick walls that have stumped you and see how to move beyond basic types of genealogy resources. The book covers a variety of software programs and specialized geneal...

Break through brick walls in your genealogical researchLearn how to use innovative methods to unearth hard-to-find ancestors. Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques shows you, step by step, how to uncover elusive details by taking advantage of specialized tools and software programs and using proven best practices for breaking through the brick walls that have hindered your progress.You’ll get professional advice on formulating a research strategy, understanding ...

Religion, Culture and Spirituality in Africa and the African Diaspora explores the ways in which religious ideas and beliefs continue to play a crucial role in the lives of people of African descent. The chapters in this volume use historical and contemporary examples to show how people of African descent develop and engage with spiritual rituals, organizations and practices to make sense of their lives, challenge injustices and creatively express their spiritual imaginings.

Analyzing the extensive data gathered by the Public Influences of African American Churches project, which surveyed nearly two thousand churches across the country, Long March Ahead assesses the public policy activism of black churches since the civil rights movement. Social scientists and clergy consider the churches’ work on a range of policy matters over the past four decades: affirmative action, welfare reform, health care, women’s rights, education, and anti-apartheid activis...

This book on black churches and urban politics uses case studies from various cities to examine the strategies and tactics of activist clergy and congregations. These case studies illustrate how black activist clergy and congregations negotiate the political terrains of their respective cities. The cases show that the political culture of a city-whether that culture is shaped by machine politics, a legacy of political protest, racial and ethnic factionalism, or a city whose power resides i...

Very few thinkers have traveled the heretical path that François Laruelle walks between philosophy and non-philosophy. For Laruelle, the future of philosophy is problematic, but a mutation of its functions is possible. Up until now, philosophy has merely been a utopia concerned with the past and only provided the services of its conservation. We must introduce a rigorous and nonimaginary practice of a utopia in action, a philo-fiction—a close relative to science fiction. From here we can s...

If you want an easy, effective, inexpensive way to lose weight that you can customize to your lifestyle, then keep reading.Many people have some extra pounds they'd like to get rid of, and sometimes the weight just won't go away. You try all the diets. You buy a gym membership and work out, and it's great for your body but the pounds are still there. Then there are the special diets. One week you can't eat a food, the next week you can. How do you remember what to ...

The world stands at a crossroads.With plague and violence stalking the streets and a new Cold War brewing in the East, America has never been more unprepared to face her enemies. There’s blood in the water, and the sharks are circling.When CIA assassin Jason Trapp is called to the Middle East to identify a man suspected to be feared ISIS terrorist Khaled al-Shakiri, he expects to be in and out in a matter of hours. Unfortunately, fate has other ideas. After...