Origin of My Birthplace shows people how to recognize the Source of Life, the Origin of our Birthplace, and how to connect to it. Blackwell's journey to understand life's deepest realities and wonders took him to the Cathedral of Chartres, the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci and Nicolas Poussin, the book of Genesis, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, great literature, and back again to the Cathedral of Chartres and its famous labyrinth. These are some of the greatest, most profound works of art in all of history. Blackwell discovered people of uncommon insight--people who were able to connect the deepest realities within with the most life-generating realities without. With others, he discovered not only that anyone can understand these mysteries, when we do so our lives become more authentic and compelling. We begin to know God and the unfolding of the universe not as second-hand information, but in a direct, primary way.

• More than 380 birthplaces profiled • Birthplaces of all 44 presidents • Packed with photos of people and places Elvis, blue jeans, Abraham Lincoln, plutonium, Slinkys, Frank Sinatra, Cobb salad, Superman, Lucille Ball, e-mail, baseball, Mark Twain, flight, McDonalds, and hundreds of other notable people and things all have birthplaces. Some are gone and marked only by a plaque, but others have been preserved and even transformed into museums. This guidebook is packed with entries on American birthplaces of all sorts, taking travelers state-by-state to a variety of locations.

What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven? David M. Krueger takes an in-depth look at a legend that held tremendous power in one corner of Minnesota, helping to define both a community’s and a state’s identity for decades. In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have discovered a large rock with writing carved into its surface in a field near Kensington, Minnesota. The writing told a North American origin story, predating Christopher Columbus’s exploration, in which Viking missionaries reached what is now Minnesota in 1362 only to be massacred by Indians. The tale’s credibility was quickly challenged and ultimately undermined by experts, but the myth took hold. Faith in the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone was a crucial part of the local Nordic identity. Accepted and proclaimed as truth, the story of the Rune Stone recast Native Americans as villains. The community used the account as the basis for civic celebrations for years, and advocates for the stone continue to promote its validity despite the overwhelming evidence that it was a hoax. Krueger puts this stubborn conviction in context and shows how confidence in the legitimacy of the stone has deep implications for a wide variety of Minnesotans who embraced it, including Scandinavian immigrants, Catholics, small-town boosters, and those who desired to commemorate the white settlers who died in the Dakota War of 1862. Krueger demonstrates how the resilient belief in the Rune Stone is a form of civil religion, with aspects that defy logic but illustrate how communities characterize themselves. He reveals something unique about America’s preoccupation with divine right and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. By considering who is included, who is left out, and how heroes and villains are created in the stories we tell about the past, Myths of the Rune Stone offers an enlightening perspective on not just Minnesota but the United States as well.

Despite the mass dislocation and repatriation efforts of the last century, the study of return movements still sits on the periphery of anthropology and migration research. Homecomings explores the forces and motives that drive immigrants, war refugees, political exiles, and their descendants back to places of origin. By including a range of homecoming experiences, Markowitz and Stefansson destabilize the key oppositions and the key terminologies that have vexed migration studies for decades, analyzing migration and repatriation; home and homeland; and host, returnee, and newcomer through a comparative ethnographic lens. The volume provides rich answers to the following questions: _ Does group repatriation, sponsored and sometimes coerced by national governments or supranational organizations, create resettlement conditions more or less favorable than those experienced by individuals or families who made this journey alone? _ How important are first impressions, living conditions, and initial reception in shaping the experience of home in the homeland? _ What are the expectations that a mythologized homeland encourages in those who have left? Filling a conspicuous gap in the literature on migration in diverse fields such as anthropology, politics, international law, and cultural studies, Homecomings and the gripping ethnographic studies included in the volume demonstrate that a home and a homeland remain salient cultural imperatives that can inspire a call to political action.

In I’m Feeling the Blues Right Now: Blues Tourism and the Mississippi Delta, Stephen A. King reveals the strategies used by blues promoters and organizers in Mississippi, both African American and white, local and state, to attract the attention of tourists. In the process, he reveals how promotional materials portray the Delta’s blues culture and its musicians. Those involved in selling the blues in Mississippi work to promote the music while often conveniently forgetting the state’s historical record of racial and economic injustice. King’s research includes numerous interviews with blues musicians and promoters, chambers of commerce, local and regional tourism entities, and members of the Mississippi Blues Commission. This book is the first critical account of Mississippi’s blues tourism industry. From the late 1970s until 2000, Mississippi’s blues tourism industry was fragmented, decentralized, and localized, as each community competed for tourist dollars. By 2003–2004, with the creation of the Mississippi Blues Commission, the promotion of the blues became more centralized as state government played an increasing role in promoting Mississippi’s blues heritage. Blues tourism has the potential to generate new revenue in one of the poorest states in the country, repair the state’s public image, and serve as a vehicle for racial reconciliation.

This book suggests that the Old English epic Beowulf was composed in the winter of 826-7 as a requiem for King Beornwulf of Mercia on behalf of Wiglaf, the ealdorman who succeeded him. The place of composition is given as the minster of Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire (now Derbyshire) and the poet is named as the abbot, Eanmund. As well as pinpointing the poem's place and date of composition, Richard North raises some old questions relating to the poet's influences from Vergil and from living Danes. Norse analogues are discussed in order to identify how the poet changed his heroic sources while four episodes from Beowulf are shown to be reworked from passages in Vergil's Aeneid. One chapter assesses how the poem's Latin sources might correspond with what is known of Breedon's now-lost library while another seeks to explain Danish mythology in Beowulf by arguing that Breedon hosted a meeting with Danish Vikings in 809. This fascinating and challenging new study combines careful detective work with meticulous literary analysis to form a case that no future investigation will be able to ignore.