Although the Victorians were awash in texts, the Bible was such a pervasive and dominant presence that they may fittingly be thought of as 'a people of one book'. They habitually read the Bible, quoted it, adopted its phraseology as their own, thought in its categories, and viewed their own lives and experiences through a scriptural lens. This astonishingly deep, relentless, and resonant engagement with the Bible was true across the religious spectrum from Catholics to Unitarians and beyond. The scripture-saturated culture of nineteenth-century England is displayed by Timothy Larsen in a series of lively case studies of representative figures ranging from the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry to the liberal Anglican pioneer of nursing Florence Nightingale to the Baptist preacher C. H. Spurgeon to the Jewish author Grace Aguilar. Even the agnostic man of science T. H. Huxley and the atheist leaders Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were thoroughly and profoundly preoccupied with the Bible. Serving as a tour of the diversity and variety of nineteenth-century views, Larsen's study presents the distinctive beliefs and practices of all the major Victorian religious and sceptical traditions from Anglo-Catholics to the Salvation Army to Spiritualism, while simultaneously drawing out their common, shared culture as a people of one book.

An investigation into the art and history of diary writing as well as a guide to the great diaries and private chronicles of the famous, the infamous, and the anonymous

First published in 1997, it would be hard to find a publisher today for a white, male expatriate writing about the realities of life in a Jamaican hamlet. To make matters worse, Guy Kennaway wrote One People in the local patois. But this comic novel - sparkling with irreverent wit - is cherished in Jamaica where it is recognized for its "humor and humanity" and as a mirror which reflects the essence of the island, where "culture is something that comes from the ground up and good times do not require a whole heap o' money." Guy Kennaway's novel about Jamaican life and culture is set in the fictional village of Angel Beach. It is an affectionate and hilarious description of a small community where everyone knows everyone's business, poverty is a way of life, and dreams of escape trickle through fingers.

Presents an offbeat revision of the U.S. Constitution that reflects twenty-first century realities and addresses unresolved questions while describing the author's research into ancient Greece's early practices of democracy.

The Tharu of lowland Nepal are a group of culturally and linguistically diverse people who, only a few generations ago, would not have acknowledged each other as belonging to the same ethnic group. Today the Tharu are actively redefining themselves as a single ethnic group in Nepal's multiethnic polity. In Many Tongues, One People, Arjun Guneratne argues that shared cultural symbols—including religion, language, and common myths of descent—are not a necessary condition for the existence of a shared sense of peoplehood. The many diverse and distinct socio-cultural groups sharing the name "Tharu" have been brought together, Guneratne asserts, by a common relationship to the state and a shared experience of dispossession and exploitation that transcends their cultural differences. Tharu identity, the author shows, has developed in opposition to the activities of a modernizing, centralizing state and through interaction with other ethnic groups that have immigrated to the Tarai region where the Tharu live.This book"s claims have wide implications for the study of ethnic identity and are applicable far beyond Nepal. The emergence of the category of Native American, for example, may be considered an analogous case because that ethnic identity, like the Tharu, subsumes people of different cultural origin, and has been defined both through the state and against it.

You can go after the job you want…and get it! You can take the job you have…and improve it! You can take any situation you’re in…and make it work for you! Since its release in 1936, How to Win Friends and Influence People has sold more than 30 million copies. Dale Carnegie’s first book is a timeless bestseller, packed with rock-solid advice that has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. As relevant as ever before, Dale Carnegie’s principles endure, and will help you achieve your maximum potential in the complex and competitive modern age. Learn the six ways to make people like you, the twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking, and the nine ways to change people without arousing resentment.

A vital record of the lives and testimony of brave people who have come out of the shadows of anonymity.