At a young age, William Thomas Tucker witnessed a drunk driver run down a playmate. Not understanding how an all-loving God could allow such unfair cruelty, Tucker lost his faith and elected to become an atheist. Over the ensuing three decades, Tucker built a successful business and family life without, he presumed, God's help. Then his world turned upside down as he lost not only his wife, but his business career and personal fortune--and almost lost his children to social services. In his pain and frustration, he turned to what he perceived to be an uncaring and unloving God and demanded an explanation. He was instantly rewarded with a series of larger-than-life miracles sent, unmistakably, from God. Thus began a 20-year experience of asking for and receiving miracles in his life for himself, his family, and his friends. Miracles Made Possible shares not only the amazing stories of how these miracles came to pass but also the techniques Tucker used in asking God to perform them. He shares the 3-step process he's followed countless times to obtain miracles both great and small just when he needed them most. Tucker insists that it doesn't take a saint to receive miracles, just someone with the courage to ask for and the faith to believe in extraordinary outcomes.

Unlike other critiques of the scientific literature on racial difference, The Science and Politics of Racial Research argues that there has been no scientific purpose or value to the study of innate differences in ability between groups. William Tucker shows how, for more than a century, scientific investigations of supposedly innate differences in ability between races have been used to rationalize social and political inequality as the unavoidable consequence of natural differences. Tucker structures his work chronologically, with each chapter describing how research on genetic difference was used in a particular era to support a particular political agenda. He begins with the use of science to support slavery in the mid-nineteenth century and ends with the effects of Jensenism in the 1970s. Highlights include one chapter describing a little-known but concerted attempt by a group of scientists to overturn the Brown v. Board of Education decision on the basis of "expert testimony" about racial differences, and another that presents a review of the eugenics movement in the twentieth century. The author also considers how to balance the rights and responsibilities of scientists, concluding that one generally neglected method is to strengthen the rights of research subjects.

In this informative and inspiring book the author narrates the stories of 12 patients whom he treated during their recovery from serious mental illness. These narratives reveal their common struggles: misdiagnosis, dual-diagnosis, impeded access to medication, medication-adherence issues, homelessness, employment/unemployment issues, and problems with governmental agencies. They also reveal some of the satisfactions of practicing outreach psychiatry: appreciating the patients’ resilience, persistence, and talents, and the cooperation of outside service-providers, all of which promote recovery. Each patient’s path is unique. Their successes remind us that schizophrenia, paranoia, bipolar illness, and substance abuse need not preclude a productive and satisfying life. · Direct quotations from patients demonstrate their awareness of their problems and progress. · Patients’ acceptance promotes flexibility and creativity from their psychiatrist. · Team members provide innovative and targeted support. · The psychiatrist identifies aspects his interactions with these patients that contributed to his professional development. · A unique feature is the documentation of patients’ monthly progress for up to 6 years. Though no one knows what initiates recovery, this book vividly describes how it does so. For psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers these are compelling stories of hope and a powerful call to consider outreach psychiatry.

In his stunning new book, Marriage and Civilization, author William Tucker looks at the evidence from biology, evolution, anthropology, history, and culture to come to a remarkable conclusion: it was the monogamous pairing of male and female - unusual among mammals - that led to human evolution. Moreover, it is monogamous marriage that has shaped Western Civilization, giving us our sense of justice, undergirded Western democracy, and is the greatest institution we have for perpetuating human freedom and happiness. Yet marriage is now under threat - and perhaps not in ways that people suspect. We could actually see the de facto abolition of marriage, with the state taking many of the responsibilities formerly assumed by the nuclear family. Among Tucker's many eye-opening observations: How primitive polygamy was a retrogression from the original monogamous structure of the human family Why monogamy was essential to the development of ancient Greek democracy Why it was the Catholic Church, not the Bible or Christianity in general, that was the great defender of monogamous marriage in Western Civilization Why polygamous societies - from primitive farming communities, to the Mongols, to the Muslim world, to the early Mormons - are internally violent and have bloody borders Why same-sex marriage - utterly irrelevant, in evolutionary terms - is a distraction from the real marriage debate we should be having The prospects for monogamous marriage - and the dangers if it collapses Marriage and Civilization might be the most important, provocative, and talked-about book of the year.

A manual to show practicing physicians and medical students how to make use of short stories to help their patients adapt to their illnesses and participate in their treatment. For most people, the quickest route to wisdom, other than experience, is through stories. Stories speak across generational lines and cultures, emphasize the universality of human experience, and offer insight into the dynamics involved in unfamiliar situations. Freud and D.W. Winnicott were among the few psychiatrists able to write case histories emblematic of the vicissitudes of the human condition. As a rule, the technical and dry approach of the psychiatric literature is not fit to teach doctors how to connect to their patients' suffering because it privileges pathological categories over experience. Tucker, therefore, turns to the drama and conflicts of fictional characters, to restore the human dimension of medicine and to entice practitioners to grasp the emotional and intellectual layers of the particular situations in which their patients are entrapped. The sixteen stories selected here are analyzed to show how they illustrate the process of change, as defined by Erik Erikson’s description of the "life cycle." Some of these stories include "Gooseberries" by Anton Chekhov, "The Dead" by James Joyce, and "Her First Ball" by Katherine Mansfield. Physicians and medical students can turn to these narratives as examples of how others have dealt with challenges and debilitating conditions, and encourage their patients to follow similar paths to bring about change in their lives.