Examines the economy and it's impact of slavery on the coast land slave states pre-Civil War.

In the corridors of the Vatican on the eve of World War II, American Catholic priest Joseph Patrick Hurley found himself in the midst of secret diplomatic dealings and intense debate. Hurley’s deeply felt American patriotism and fixed ideas about confronting Nazism directly led to a mighty clash with Pope Pius XII. It was 1939, the earliest days of Pius’s papacy, and controversy within the Vatican over policy toward Nazi Germany was already heated. This groundbreaking book is both a biography of Joseph Hurley, the first American to achieve the rank of nuncio, or Vatican ambassador, and an insider’s view of the alleged silence of the pope on the Holocaust and Nazism. Drawing on Hurley’s unpublished archives, the book documents critical debates in Pope Pius’s Vatican, secret U.S.-Vatican dealings, the influence of Detroit’s flamboyant anti-Semitic priest Charles E. Coughlin, and the controversial case of Croatia’s Cardinal Stepinac. The book also sheds light on the powerful connections between religion and politics in the twentieth century.

The Lambeth Commission, established by the Archbishop of Canterbury, was charged with examining the legal and theological implications flowing from the Episcopal Church's decision to appoint a priest in a committed same sex relationship as a bishop and the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster's authorization of services for same sex unions. It was also charged with examining and making practical suggestions about how the provinces of the Anglican Communion may relate when they feel unable to remain in full communion with one another. The report focuses on reconciliation. The Primates' Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion called the commission's unanimous endorsement of the report "a sign of hope." "If there is a real desire to walk together in our discipleship of Christ," the Primates' Committee said in a statement, "then a course can be plotted to maintain the highest degree of Communion possible, in spite of differences about the way in which Christ's Gospel is to be interpreted in a diverse and troubled world."