This study seeks to resolve differences between various types of political leaders and to link broad historical patterns with the idiosyncratic circumstances of individual lives and careers--to integrate the micro and the macro levels of understanding in the field of leadership studies. To accomplish this task, a vast array of previous scholarship and primary documents has been assembled and drawn into new combinations. Equivalent data on all U.S. presidents enable an unprecedented internal comparison within this select group. Comparison with parallel data, developed for other types of leaders, permits U.S. presidents to be analyzed in comparative perspective for the first time. Against this background, the study creates a unique collection of medical and psychological profiles for the entire set of presidents--a body of data that allows us to discover new combinations and patterns of presidential traits. American presidents emerged from this study looking very much like other political leaders in terms of social background and preparation for a political career. But contrary to myth, the authors found U.S. presidents to be puzzingly unexceptional--even average--in their personal and career characteristics. For other types of leaders, the authors had found distinctive combinations of traits and experiences that seemed to account for their political leadership roles. For the presidents, such combinations seemed elusive, even confounding. They did conclude, however, that presidential leadership is firmly anchored in the cultural, sociological, and historical contexts from which it emerges.

Some subjects are terribly complicated like Gravity, Dark Matter, Wormholes and the whole idea of Quantum Physics. Recently, though, these difficult subjects have taken a back seat to the search for the historical Jesus, especially, after Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code. Yet, it should be pointed out that the search to identify Jesus of Nazareth is not as difficult as liberals have led to believe. One problem is that liberals refuse to debate in the traditional manner of denying or affirming a proposition that can be proven true or false based on the evidence. Liberals insist on presenting hypotheses dressed in a postmodern worldview that allows subjective imagination to be valued as highly as historical facts. They present opinions without labeling them as such, responding that, "My views are as authoritative as yours!" They do this while discounting and distorting concrete historical facts, without which, conservative scholars are left shadow-boxing avoidance and silence. ROBERT FULLER is an ordained minister having received his BA degree in the Biblical Field from Abilene Christian University and a M. Ed from the University of North Texas. Mr. Fuller's goal in this book is to reduce the highly technical material surrounding the Jesus-debates into a more easily understood vocabulary that avid readers without degrees can comprehend. This subject is extremely interesting and important to the laity and those who have no idea about what is going on in this cultural conflict. I believe this book accomplishes its goal by unveiling the "slight-of-hand" illusions of scholars who present personal opinions in the guise of scholarship. Read this book and find out that some liberal scholars have stacked their bunk higher that a two-story building!

Hillary Is the Best Choice presents a more balanced view of politics. To start with, politics is neither good nor bad. It is neutral. It can either go good or bad depending on the politicians who are involved. For the first time in American presidential politics, for example, we have a woman candidate. In previous elections, when only men were presidential contenders, the tendency to play "dirty" was always a great temptation. With Hillary Clinton, Democratic Senator from New York and our country's former First Lady, as one of the current leading presidential aspirants, it is our hope that the old pattern of negativity will be replaced by a new pattern of political civility. Politics can be a clean activity. And elections, especially presidential ones, ought to be a matter of choosing the better of two goods (when an independent or third party candidate is running, it will be a matter of choosing the best of three).

In a literary tour-de-force, Colin Bennett advances the thesis that the defining moment of the 20th century will prove to be 12.30 pm on Thursday, November 26, 1952, when George Adamski claims to have met Orthon, a long-haired youth from Venus.

Religion in Sociological Perspective is an introduction to the sociology of religion core text, designed to present and illustrate the basic theories sociologists use to understand the social dimensions of religion. First and foremost, the authors seek to help students understand the perspective from which sociologists view religion. By the time students have finished this book, they should understand the central theories and methods of research in the sociology of religion, and they should have an idea of how to apply these analytical tools to new groups they encounter. The goal of this text is to be illustrative rather than all-encompassing. The Fifth Edition continues to draw on a wide range of perspectives. The text aims to help students recognize the contributions of various theoretical perspectives and the blind spots of each theory. Conflict, functional, social constructionist, and rational choice paradigms are used throughout the text. Various middle-range theories are also utilized to explore specific processes. Despite the effort to introduce many perspectives, however, we have made an effort to enhance integration of the text by using one framework throughout the book: the open systems model.

Since 1889, The American Academy of Political and Social Science has served as a forum for the free exchange of ideas among the well informed and intellectually curious. In this era of specialization, few scholarly periodicals cover the scope of societies and politics like The ANNALS. Each volume is guest edited by outstanding scholars and experts in the topics studied and presents more than 200 pages of timely, in-depth research on a significant topic of concern-- http://ann.sagepub.com.