Criminal justice is unavoidably human. Detectives, witnesses, suspects, and victims shape investigations; prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurors, and judges affect the outcome of adjudication. Simon shows how flawed investigations produce erroneous evidence and why well-meaning juries send innocent people to prison and set the guilty free.

Americans have long acknowledged a deep connection between evangelical religion and democracy in the early days of the republic. This is a widely accepted narrative that is maintained as a matter of fact and tradition—and in spite of evangelicalism’s more authoritarian and reactionary aspects. In Conceived in Doubt, Amanda Porterfield challenges this standard interpretation of evangelicalism’s relation to democracy and describes the intertwined relationship between religion and partisan politics that emerged in the formative era of the early republic. In the 1790s, religious doubt became common in the young republic as the culture shifted from mere skepticism toward darker expressions of suspicion and fear. But by the end of that decade, Porterfield shows, economic instability, disruption of traditional forms of community, rampant ambition, and greed for land worked to undermine heady optimism about American political and religious independence. Evangelicals managed and manipulated doubt, reaching out to disenfranchised citizens as well as to those seeking political influence, blaming religious skeptics for immorality and social distress, and demanding affirmation of biblical authority as the foundation of the new American national identity. As the fledgling nation took shape, evangelicals organized aggressively, exploiting the fissures of partisan politics by offering a coherent hierarchy in which God was king and governance righteous. By laying out this narrative, Porterfield demolishes the idea that evangelical growth in the early republic was the cheerful product of enthusiasm for democracy, and she creates for us a very different narrative of influence and ideals in the young republic.

When in doubt, make belief. For author and news anchor Jeff Bell, these are words to live by. Literally. As someone who has spent much of his life battling severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Bell has had to overcome crippling uncertainty few people can imagine. In this powerful follow-up to his critically acclaimed memoir, Rewind, Replay, Repeat, Bell expounds on the principles of applied belief that allowed him to make such a remarkable recovery from this “doubting disease” and the lessons he’s learned while traveling the country talking about doubt. With the help of more than a dozen leading experts, Bell offers readers practical techniques for pushing through the discomfort of uncertainty — whether it stems from OCD or just everyday worries — and demonstrates how a shift from decisions based on fear and doubt to ones based on purpose and service can transform any life. Featuring interviews with Sylvia Boorstein, Patty Duke, Dan Millman, Leon Panetta, Tom Sullivan, and others

Drawing on her own prayer life as well as the prayer experiences of friends and strangers, Jane Redmont offers a practical compilation of prayer types sure to enliven any reader's spiritual practice. Now in paperback for the first time, Jane Redmont's When in Doubt, Sing is a revitalizing (National Catholic Reporter), wide-ranging and substantive (Spirituality & Practice), and open-minded, generous-hearted (Library Journal) introduction to prayer and the life of prayer from a Christian theologian whose warm, thoughtful, inviting voice will endear her to a diverse audience of believers and spiritual seekers. First published in 1999, and now reissued with a new preface, this book is both a rich, practical compendium of prayer types (such as centering prayer, praying with icons, and lectio divina) and a warmly personal guide to enlivening your spiritual life.

Survivors of one of the fiercest battles of the war in the Pacific tell their dramatic stories in this collection of oral histories.