The Romans were a superstitious bunch with public portents forming an integral role in most political and social ceremonies and rituals. This detailed analysis of prodigia (unusual events that were reported to the Senate who then proclaimed that event as an unfavourable portent) does not look at what these events reveal about Roman psychology but, instead, focuses on the sociological consequences of this complete integration of politics and religion during the Republican period. Much of the book comprises a table of prodigies, gathered from primary sources, notably Livy's Ab urbe condita and Julius Obsequens' Ab anno-urbis conditae DV prodigium liber . This data is supported by detailed discussions of Cicero and public divination, the relationship between divination and science, the types of portents and the nature of religio-politics. Danish summary.

Renowned cultural theorist reveals the deeper meanings of popular cultural phenomena in post-9/11 life in America.

Breslaw (history, U. of Tennessee) has created a fascinating reader--for undergraduate classes in history, anthropology, religious studies, or women's studies--surveying the subject of witches, witch hunts, and the larger political context of both. The sections, which cover Christian perspectives, non-Christian beliefs, diabolical possession, issues of gender, and a lengthy section on the Salem witch trials, each include an introduction by Breslaw, primary sources, then secondary commentaries on the sources. The latter are excerpts from books and articles. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

The War on Terror and American Popular Culture is a collection of original essays by academics and researchers from around the world that examines the complex interrelation between the Bush administration's "War on Terror" and American popular culture. Written by experts in the fields of literature, film, and cultural studies, this book examines in detail how popular culture reflects concerns and anxieties about the September 11 attacks and the war those attacks generated, how it interrogates the individual and collective impacts that war has wrought, how it might challenge or critique current policy, and how it might reinforce or endorse the war and its sociopolitical paradigms.

Chapters include the following: Lawsuits: These are actual lawsuits allowed into our nation's courts. The only way this chapter would be stranger is if it listed lawsuits so absurd they were not allowed into the courts. Hunting and Fishing: I live in a small drinking town with a hunting and fishing problem. Weather: This includes a column on the benefits of climate change, a subject that most news reports ignore, and why we in Walden, Colorado, are in favor of global warming. Politics: The first column is my abortive attempt to run for president of the United States. Another is on what we should learn from the Greeks, and another on state stereotyping. Yes, that happened. Internet English: This is the Age of the Text. So why do so many of these texters not know basic English? Sadly, examples abound. Technology: I've suggested a number of new inventions. You'll like the Fleshomatic. EEKs: Hope you're not one. Health: You don't realize the value of an eye until you've lost one. Advertising: Dilbert once observed that if marketing worked, it would be illegal. But it must work on some of us. Bureaucracies: If learning about what our government workers are actually doing doesn't drop you into a state of depression, you might be heavily medicated. Human Behavior: None of these columns seemed to fit anywhere else, like what if the passage of an asteroid made us all smarter?

Sometimes the best way to let one know what something is, is to let one know what it isn't. Today's typical academic book in eschatology provides the reader with a brief history of the various positions in the field followed by why certain positions should be considered the better options. This is not that book. Over the course of twelve chapters, six sequences will be presented from the three major sources in the New Testament regarding the subject, i.e., Paul's letters to the Thessalonians, the Olivet Discourse, and John's visions in Revelation. Through a careful reconciliation of those six sequences, Dr. Steven R. Bates will show that there's only one sequence of end-times, which he has labeled "The Post-Armageddon, Premillennial Resurrection." He asserts that had any other sequence of end-times been correct, whether pre-tribulationism, pre-wrath, mid-tribulationism, historic pre-millennialism, post-millennialism, a-millennialism, preterism, or any other sequence that one could possibly imagine, then the proponents of that postulation should be able to take the same six sequences from Scripture and reconcile them precisely with one another, sentence by sentence, and prove whatever sequence they propose. But, of course, no one will ever attempt such an endeavor because it's theoretically impossible. Scripture's six sequences only confirm one sequence, and it is the one which has been presented in The Sequence.