In fiction, drama, poems, and pamphlets, nineteenth-century reformers told the familiar tale of the decent young man who fell victim to demon rum: Robbed of his manhood by his first drink, he slid inevitably into an abyss of despair and depravity. In its discounting of the importance of free will, argues Elaine Frantz Parsons, this story led to increased emphasis on environmental influences as root causes of drunkenness, poverty, and moral corruption—thus inadvertently opening the door to state intervention in the form of Prohibition. Parsons also identifies the emergence of a complementary narrative of "female invasion"—womanhood as a moral force powerful enough to sway choice. As did many social reformers, women temperance advocates capitalized on notions of feminine virtue and domestic responsibilities to create a public role for themselves. Entering a distinctively male space—the saloon—to rescue fathers, brothers, and sons, women at the same time began to enter another male bastion—politics—again justifying their transgression in terms of rescuing the nation's manhood.

In its discounting of the importance of free will, argues Elaine Frantz Parsons, this story led to increased emphasis on environmental influences as root causes of drunkenness, poverty, and moral corruption - thus inadvertently opening the door to state intervention in the form of Prohibition.".

Being a man is not about what you are, but about who you are. It is about how you chose to live your life. There is a huge difference between being a male and being a man. In this humorous and slightly irreverent book, Derrick Van Orden builds on his 26 years as a Navy SEAL, sailor, father and grandfather to guide the next generation along the path to manhood. Intertwining stories from his extensive career as a frogman, with contributions from subject matter experts ranging from highly decorated fellow Navy SEALs to the Academy Award winning actor Jon Voight, Derrick explains in simple terms how to do the things men across the world used to know how to do - the forgotten art of Manhood: Change a tire; Sight in a gun; Tie a tie; Cook a bat to eat; Throw a punch; Drive like a SEAL; And many more need-to-know man skills.

Do you know how to fight off an alligator? Throw a four-seam fastball? Mix the perfect martini? How about Ben Franklin’s 13 Rules of Improvement? Learn all this and more in the new expanded paperback edition of Frank Miniter’s New York Times bestseller The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide. Broken into seven sections—survivor, provider, athlete, hero,romantic, cultured man, and philosopher—Miniter teaches guys the skills,attitudes, and philosophies they need to be the ultimate man.

One must handle the challenges of growing up with a sense of humor. Though living in paradise can be a dream, life is not without strife. There were no rich, no poor, and no unemployment in Brian Allen's Panama Canal Zone. Yet his home town was utterly destroyed and the dead exhumed. Brian tells his story with humor, warts and all. My Paradise Lost is about a boy growing to manhood in the golden age of the Canal Zone. It was an innocent, Huck Finn in the rain forest existence. His township of Coco Solo was a blue collar world of mangoes and maids, exotica and history. Misadventure abounds and teen romance is just as awkward in paradise as anywhere. There is parental conflict, life, death, and the ghost of Jim Crow racism. At the best time of his life, Brian is involved in a fatal car accident that puts him in the custody of the intimidating Guardia Nacional. His fate rests in the courts of a dictatorship whose El Supremo is bent on sovereignty over his Canal Zone home. You will feel the tropical sun, splash in the canal, ache for love, laugh at the familiar, and cry for the dead. Photos and popular recipes are included."I thought the wonderful days of growing up in the Zone were gone until I read My Paradise Lost. This Coco Solo girl was transported back to treasured days gone by. Brian beautifully captured the spirit of the Zone, mosquitoes and all. Thank you Brian for a personal peek at an evolving Paradise." --Betty LeDoux-Morris, four time past president of the Panama Canal Society. “You learn something when you read Brian Allen's work, about history, about the world, about yourself, in a voice that is as familiar and comfortable as your best friend's.” --Karen L. Barron, English Professor and award winning fiction and non-fiction writer. Reader: be prepared. This is a charming coming-of-age memoir set in the exotic location of the Panama Canal Zone, and filled with humor, adventure, and insight. But My Paradise Lost is also an examination of colonialism, justice, hardship and loss. Through his story, Allen reveals the development of his character. In doing so, he enlarges our sense of what it means to be both Americans and global citizens. --Thomas Averill, English Professor, W.U. Writer in Residence, O. Henry Award winning author.

In Manhood Acts Michael Schwalbe offers a new perspective on the social construction of manhood and its relationship to male domination. Schwalbe argues that study of masculinity has lost touch with its feminist roots and has been seduced by the politically safe notion of 'multiple masculinities'. Manhood Acts delineates the practices males use to construct 'women' and 'men' as unequal categories. Schwalbe reclaims the radical feminist insights that gender is a field of domination, not a field of play, and that manhood is fundamentally about exerting or resisting control. Manhood Acts arrives at the conclusion that abolishing gender as a system of oppression will require more than transgressive self-presentation. It will be necessary to end the exploitive economic relationships that necessitate manhood itself.