Roy Herron graduated with highest honors from the University of Tennessee at Martin, then studied New Testament and Ethics in Scotland before earning Divinity and Law degrees from Vanderbilt University. But he came home to West Tennessee and served the Volunteer State in both the Tennessee House and Senate. For four decades, Herron served as a legislator, attorney, teacher, and Methodist minister. In that work, he published op-ed essays and articles in Tennessee’s leading newspapers and publications from The Japan Times to The Wall Street Journal on various topics including constitutional liberties, economic justice, health care, politics, and more.

This informative volume collects the most powerful of these writings, adding helpful updates and contemporary insights. With an engaging, conversational style, Herron addresses voter ID laws, drunk-driving statutes, women’s rights and many recurring, contemporary issues. Whether describing the challenges facing his elderly mother as she attempted to exercise her right to vote, or the struggles of working women and men facing illnesses without health insurance, Herron demonstrates an earnestness and thoughtfulness all too rare in politics.

These nearly fifty essays and articles provide evidence that Herron’s Democratic Party and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, Herron describes how faith brought him to politics and to fighting for justice, jobs, and constitutional freedoms for all citizens. Faith at Work is a veritable guidebook on how faith and spirituality should affect decision making and advocacy in public life.

ROY HERRON was a Tennessee State Representative from 1987 to 1997 and State Senator from 1997 to 2013. He wrote Things Held Dear: Soul Stories for My Sons and God and Politics: How Can a Christian Be in Politics? He coauthored, with Cotton Ivy, Tennessee Political Humor: Some of These Jokes You Voted For. He lawyers and writes in West Tennessee and Nashville.

In this provocative book, Benjamin Ginsberg examines the cycle of Jewish success and anti-Semitic attack throughout the history of the Diaspora, with a concentrated focus on the "special case" of America. For Ginsberg, the essential issue is not anti-Jewish feeling, but the conditions under which such sentiment is likely to be used in the political arena. The Fatal Embrace identifies the political dynamics that, historically, have set the stage for the persecution of Jews.

Looking back through the prism of the severe economic crisis for filmmaking in the 1980s, The Film Industry in Brazil explores the unusual relationship between the state-supported industry, which often produced politically radical films, and the authoritarian regime that had held sway for twenty years. To ground his analysis, Johnson covers the early years of the film industry, 1898-1930; attempts at industrialization during the 1930s and 1940s; film industry congresses and government film boards, 1950-1966; the National Film Institute, 1966-1975; and the expansion of the state's role from 1969 through 1980.

Well-conceived, carefully researched and documented, Johnson's study fills a major gap in film studies by tracing the development of this industry in Brazil, focusing specifically on its relationship to the state.

Harold Washington’s historic and improbable victory over the vaunted Chicago political machine shook up American politics. The election of the enigmatic yet engaging Washington led to his serving five tumultuous years as the city’s first black mayor. He fashioned an uneasy but potent multiracial coalition that today still stands as a model for political change.

In this revised edition of Fire on the Prairie, acclaimed reporter Gary Rivlin chronicles Washington’s legacy—a tale rich in character and intrigue. He reveals the cronyism of Daley’s government and Washington’s rivalry with Jesse Jackson. Rivlin also shows how Washington’s success inspired a young community organizer named Barack Obama to turn to the electoral arena as a vehicle for change. While the story of a single city, , this political biography is anything but parochial.

In the late eighteenth century the fledgling republic of the United States was faced with the problem of devising a form of government to oversee its vast land possessions north and west of the Ohio River. To fill this need, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Ordinance of 1784, which evolved into the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Deliberately modeled on the British colonial system, it granted territorial governors broad autocratic powers. It defined government in the Northwest, and all other subsequent territories in the public domain.  Eblen defines two historical periods (empires): 1787-1848; and 1849-1912; based on government land acquisition. This book describes the nature of government in all the contiguous territories of the United States, offering an original and comprehensive view of the role and meaning of territorial government, and the administration of the Western territories.

How have society's values and attitudes toward sexuality and morality changed over the centuries? Why and how has the state sought to criminalize certain forms of sexual behavior and to control reproduction? How have churches tried to influence the state in its regulation of sexuality?

This anthology encompasses a broad range of essays on sexuality spanning European history from the fifteenth century to the present. The topics in this collection of fifteen essays have both historic importance and current relevance. All crucial issues in the regulation of sexuality are addressed, from incest to infanticide, from breast-feeding and women's sexuality to female prostitution, from pornography to reproductive politics, and from the first homosexual rights movement to AIDS.

Contributions from a diverse group of prominent scholars representing a variety of disciplines are included in this anthology. Essays by Randolph Trumbach on "Sex, Gender, and Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London"; Ruth Perry on "Colonizing the Breast: Sexuality and Maternity in Eighteenth Century England"; Theo van der Meer on "Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth Century Amsterdam"; Robin Ann Sheets on "Pornography, Fairy Tales, and Feminism: Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber'"; and James W. Jones on "Discourses on and of AIDS in West Germany, 1986-1990."

Offering the most up-to-date scholarship from a significant and growing field, this collection is essential for both students and faculty in social history, family history, women's and gender studies, gay studies, sociology and literature.

From Citizens to Subjects challenges the common assertion in historiography that Enlightenment-era centralization and rationalization brought progress and prosperity to all European states, arguing instead that centralization failed to improve the socioeconomic position of urban residents in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth over a hundred-year period.

Murphy examines the government of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the several imperial administrations that replaced it after the Partitions, comparing and contrasting their relationships with local citizenry, minority communities, and nobles who enjoyed considerable autonomy in their management of the cities of present-day Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. He shows how the failure of Enlightenment-era reform was a direct result of the inherent defects in the reformers' visions, rather than from sabotage by shortsighted local residents. Reform in Poland-Lithuania effectively destroyed the existing system of complexities and imprecisions that had allowed certain towns to flourish, while also fostering a culture of self-government and civic republicanism among city citizens of all ranks and religions. By the mid-nineteenth century, the increasingly immobile post-Enlightenment state had transformed activist citizens into largely powerless subjects without conferring the promised material and economic benefits of centralization.

Alberto Fujimori ascended to the presidency of Peru in 1990, boldly promising to remake the country. Ten years later, he hastily sent his resignation from exile in Japan, leaving behind a trail of lies, deceit, and corruption. While piecing together the shards of Fujimori’s presidency, prosecutors uncovered a vast criminal conspiracy fueled by political ambition and personal greed.

The Fujimori regime managed to maintain a facade of democracy while systematically eviscerating democratic institutions and the rule of law through legal subterfuge, intimidation, and outright bribery. The architect of this strategy was Fujimori’s notorious intelligence advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos. With great skill, Fujimori and Montesinos created the appearance of a democratic public sphere but ensured it would work only to suit their personal motives. The press was allowed to operate, but information exchange was under strict control. The more government officials tampered with the free flow of ideas, the more they inadvertently exposed the ills they were trying to cover up. And that proved to be their downfall.

Merging penetrating analysis and a journalist’s flair for narrative, Catherine Conaghan reveals the thin line between democracy and dictatorship, and shows how public institutions can both empower dictators and bring them down.

Do fundamentalisms tend toward political activism, and how
successful have they been in remaking political structures?
To answer this question, the contributors to this volume—
political scientists, historians of religion,
anthropologists, and sociologists—discuss the anti-
abortion movement, Operation Rescue in the United States, the
Islamic war of resistance in Afghanistan, Shi'ite
jurisprudence in Iran, and other issues. The volume
considers the effect that antisecular religious movements
have had over the past twenty-five years on national
economies, political parties, constitutional issues, and
international relations on five continents and within the
traditions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism,
Hinduism, and Sikhism. Marty and Appleby conclude with a
synthetic statement on the fundamentalist impact on polities,
economies, and state security.
The Fundamentalism Project, Volume 3

Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby direct the
Fundamentalism Project. Marty, the Fairfax M. Cone
Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Modern
Christianity at the University of Chicago, is the senior
editor of the Christian Century and the author of
numerous books, including the multivolume Modern American
Religion, also published by the University of
Chicago Press. Appleby, a research associate at the
University of Chicago, is the author of “Church and
Age Unite!” The Modernist Impulse in American
Catholicism.