Most of the past publicity about the Unification Church (Unification Movement), and Reverend Moon has been negative. Jo Ann attempts to give an understanding of what this movement is all about, based on her experiences, and as seen through her eyes, and explain what made her and thousands of American young people join this movement. She also tries to give a basic understanding of the Divine Principle (the teachings of Reverend Moon). She says, "I believe if the world knew even the basics of the Principle, we could see the way to peace on earth, as we could overcome the things that divide us now." The chapter on "What We Believe" deals with questions humans have been asking from the beginning of time, including who or what God is, the purpose of life, our spiritual and physical bodies, spiritual growth, life after death, the origin of evil, the truth about the life of Jesus, the purpose behind human history, and the mission Reverend Moon said he was given by Jesus on a North Korean mountainside in 1936 when he was sixteen years old. The purpose of giving this basic understanding is to help make happy individuals and families at a time when so many people feel there is no purpose in life or ability to save this world from destroying itself. Jo Ann also explains the meaning of the "Blessing," which refers to the well-known group wedding ceremonies, a hallmark of the Unification Movement. She was matched by Reverend Moon to a Japanese groom, and they participated in the Blessing ceremony of 2,075 couples in Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1982. ______________________________________________________________________________ Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Jo Ann Crooks grew up in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Like so many children of that time, she grew up in an alcoholic home as her father (a World War II veteran) tried to deal with the horrors of war by drinking. She also grew up as a Catholic, and her early experiences of faith influenced her decision, as a young adult, to join the Unification Church (Unification Movement) and have helped her to continue in the church for over forty years. She considers herself a "regular" member of the church, not a leader of any kind and a "typical" American. She has two adult children and two cats and currently lives in Tempe, Arizona, a city near Phoenix.

Modern religious identities are rooted in collective memories that are constantly made and remade across generations. How do these mutations of memory distort our picture of historical change and the ways that historical actors perceive it? Can one give voice to those whom history has forgotten? The essays collected here examine the formation of religious identities during the Reformation in Germany through case studies of remembering and forgetting—instances in which patterns and practices of religious plurality were excised from historical memory. By tracing their ramifications through the centuries, Archeologies of Confession carefully reconstructs the often surprising histories of plurality that have otherwise been lost or obscured.

In this passionate and searching book, Anthony Kronman offers a third way—beyond atheism and religion—to the God of the modern world We live in an age of disenchantment. The number of self-professed “atheists” continues to grow. Yet many still feel an intense spiritual longing for a connection to what Aristotle called the “eternal and divine.” For those who do, but demand a God that is compatible with their modern ideals, a new theology is required. This is what Anthony Kronman offers here, in a book that leads its readers away from the inscrutable Creator of the Abrahamic religions toward a God whose inexhaustible and everlasting presence is that of the world itself. Kronman defends an ancient conception of God, deepened and transformed by Christian belief—the born-again paganism on which modern science, art, and politics all vitally depend. Brilliantly surveying centuries of Western thought—from Plato to Augustine, Aquinas, and Kant, from Spinoza to Nietzsche, Darwin, and Freud—Kronman recovers and reclaims the God we need today.

This is the first in-depth analysis of the impact of Italian unification on the hitherto isolated communities of rural Sicily. Traditional explanations of Sicily's instability depict a society trapped by a feudal past. Lucy Riall finds instead that many areas of the island were experiencing a period of rapid modernization, as local government increased their organizational efforts. Beginning with the period prior to the revolution of 1860, Dr Riall shows why successive attempts at political reform failed, and analyses the effects of this failure. She describes the bitter and violent conflict between rival elites and the mounting tide of peasant unrest which together threatened the status quo within the isolated communities of the Sicilian interior. Through an examination of the problems of local government - tax collection, conscription, the organization of policing - and of attempts to suppress peasant disturbances and control crime, she shows that the modernization of the Sicilian countryside both undermined the control of the central government and made the countryside itself more unstable.