With compassion for adopted individuals and adoptive and birth parents alike, Adam Pertman explores the history and human impact of adoption, explodes... the corrosive myths surrounding it, and tells compelling stories about its participants as they grapple with issues relating to race, identity, equality, discrimination, personal history, and connections with all their families. For the first edition of this groundbreaking examination of adoption and its impact on us all, Pertman won awards from many organizations, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists, the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption Law, the American Adoption Congress, the Century Foundation, Holt International, and the U.S. Congress. In this updated edition, Pertman reveals how changing attitudes and laws are transforming adoption—and thereby American society—in the twenty-first century.

The passage of Measure 58 in Oregon in 1998 was a milestone in adoption reform. For the first time in U.S. history a grassroots initiative restored the... legal right of adopted adults to request and receive their original birth certificates. Within a day after the law went into effect, nearly 2,400 adoptees had applied for these previously sealed records, elevating their right to know over a birth mother's right to privacy. E. Wayne Carp, a nationally respected authority on adoption history, now reveals the efforts of the radical adoptee rights organization Bastard Nation to pass this milestone initiative. He has written an intimate history of a passionately proposed and opposed initiative that has the potential to revolutionize the adoption reform movement nationwide. Carp follows the campaign from its inception through the hard-fought signature drives of proponents Helen Hill and Shea Grimm to the electoral campaign and ensuing court battles. The opposition was formidable: government officials, adoption agencies, news media, the ACLU, religious organizations, and ad-hoc citizen political groups. Using correspondence and his own candid interviews with all the key players, Carp shows how both sides mobilized their constituencies and formed their strategies. In describing challenges to Measure 58's constitutionality, Carp reveals legal arguments that were never publicized by the Oregon media and remained unknown to the American public until now--issues centering on privacy rights that are crucial to understanding both sides of the controversy and the hazards of initiative politics. As Carp shows, Measure 58 was important because it framed the issue of adoption reform in terms of civil rights and equal protection of the law rather than in terms of psychological needs or medical necessity. The resulting law now gives adult adoptees access to birth certificates but it also allows birth mothers to indicate whether or not they wish to be contacted. Carp not only chronicles a milestone initiative and a model piece of legislation for other states to emulate, he also proposes a sensible way to cut the Gordian Knot that bedevils adoption reform today.

Adoption and Assisted Reproduction: Families Under Construction provides an in-depth exploration of the fascinating and controversial issues emerging... out of biotechnology and society's expanding understanding of family identity. In this ideal supplement to any Family Law curriculum, authors Appleton and Weisberg combine solid treatment of the law and carefully crafted additional content to elicit analysis and fuel class discussion. Using a balanced presentation of law, policy, critical perspectives, and depictions in popular culture, this finely honed text features: Thorough analysis of important cases, statutes, and regulations, including law reform efforts and the absence of law on some topics Opportunities for comparative analysis of law and policy among various states and nations, with exploration of questions of jurisdiction, choice of law, and enforcement Critical perspectives on core concepts, such as parentage, the role of the state in the construction of family, and examination of unspoken assumptions about gender, race, and class Clear and informative exposition Interdisciplinary materials and references to books and films from popular culture, which bring the legal materials to life Discussion of professional responsibility and the role of the lawyer in the face of cutting-edge social issues and nascent law and policy Notes and Questions that follow the principal cases and illuminate salient themes Thought-provoking problems that prompt consideration of new issues, preparing students not only to address the law as it exists, but as it might become

Is the Bible still an authoritative guide? Television documentaries regularly explore the "mysteries of the Bible" and question whether its stories... can be supported by historical facts. A multitude of people claim the Bible's authority for their own, often competing, agendas. And for many, the church has lost credibility in light of various scandals and failures. Is it any wonder, then, that a growing number of folks doubt whether the Bible is a legitimate source of religious authority, much less the word of God? In A Doubter's Guide to the Bible, Terry Giles asks the hard questions that skeptics have about the Bible. Affirming the legitimacy of doubt in light of such questions, Giles invites us to walk with him as he explores issues such as the Bible's origins, violence in the Bible and in the modern world, and the degree to which the Bible has been used as propaganda to justify particular ends. Never ignoring the doubts that may still remain, Giles suggests that the Bible's power arises from its ability to open up a space where we can meet God, who confronts us amidst all the messiness of our humanity. Whether we've never considered these questions before--and especially if we have--A Doubter's Guide to the Bible is an essential companion on our spiritual journey.  

In A Doubtful River, photographers Robert Dawson and Peter Goin and essayist Mary Webb explore the ways the river's multifarious users relate to the... region's aridity and the precious waters of the Truckee. Dawson's and Goin's eloquent photographs record unforgettable images of the Truckee River's course from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada to desert-bound Pyramid Lake and the ways the river and the land beside it have been used and reshaped by human needs, greed, and carelessness. Webb's essays offer a moving verbal counterpoint, focusing on the people who depend on and adjudicate the river's water. The sum of the elements of this book is a memorable picture of the complexity of water allocation in a region where conflicting traditions about the uses of the land and its resources, a rapidly growing population, and limited supply make water the most precious commodity of all.

This brief, humorous introduction to theology by noted educator and author Don McKim will provide seminarians, college students, and general readers... with a fun way to learn the basics. The book covers the key movements, thinkers, definitions, and questions of theology in a lighthearted way. Includes illustrations by Ron Hill.

The Dozen a Day books are universally recognized as one of the most remarkable technique series on the market for all ages! Each book in this series... contains short warm-up exercises to be played at the beginning of each practice session, providing excellent day-to-day training for the student.

(Willis). The Dozen a Day books are universally recognized as one of the most remarkable technique series on the market for all ages! Each book in... this series contains short warm-up exercises to be played at the beginning of each practice session, providing excellent day-to-day training for the student.

The Cantos have been called Ezra Pound's intellectual diary, composed over the course of sixty years. Long out of print as a separate volume—it was... originally published in 1933—this epic of nine groupings of poems is available from New Directions.An epic of great vision and complexity, Pound's Cantos addresses the profound human issues in history and in our time. Each of the nine groupings of poems can be seen as a fresh wave that swells out from and falls back upon the earlier cantos, extending them structurally, adding new layers of meaning. "A Draft of XXX Cantos" (1930), which introduces the work, thus anticipates the full Cantos' essential themes and provides the surest entry into Pound's encyclopedic masterpiece.

Haim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934) is celebrated as one of the leading figures in modern Jewish literature. Although most famous for his Hebrew poems,... Bialik was also a master of short prose. Often expressing a realism and social awareness associated with the Russia of his youth, Bialik's stories showcase his gift for lyricism, symbolism and humor, captured in engaging vignettes of life in the Ukranian countryside.

On March 7, 1965, voting rights demonstrators were brutally beaten as they crossed the Edmund Petis bridge in Selma, Alabama. One of the most-publicized... incidents of the civil rights campaign, images from that day have been seared into the nation's consciousness. Yet little has been written about the civil rights events in the surrounding counties, the vast sections of the rural south. Cynthia Griggs Fleming addresses this gap by bringing to light the struggle for equality of the citizens of Wilcox County, Alabama. Although right next door to Selma, their story has been largely ignored. Through the eyes of the residents of the county, Fleming relates a struggle punctuated by cowardice and courage, audacity and timidity, fear and foolishness. And, in the end, the entrenched power structure refused to yield and the county remains segregated to this day. Personal and compelling, In the Shadow of Selma is essential reading for everyone interested in the continuing struggle for civil rights in the United States.

From the author of the award-winning bestseller The Content of Our Character comes a new essay collection that tells the untold story behind the... polarized racial politics in America today. In A Dream Deferred Shelby Steele argues that a second betrayal of black freedom in the United States--the first one being segregation--emerged from the civil rights era when the country was overtaken by a powerful impulse to redeem itself from racial shame. According to Steele,1960s liberalism had as its first and all-consuming goal the expiation of America guilt rather than the careful development of true equality between the races. This "culture of preference" betrayed America's best principles in order to give whites and America institutions an iconography of racial virtue they could use against the stigma of racial shame. In four densely argued essays, Steele takes on the familiar questions of affirmative action, multiculturalism, diversity, Afro-centrism, group preferences, victimization--and what he deems to be the atavistic powers of race, ethnicity, and gender, the original causes of oppression. A Dream Deferred is an honest, courageous look at the perplexing dilemma of race and democracy in the United States--and what we might do to resolve it.

Dr. Phyllis Baker is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Wolfson Campus of Miami Dade College and is Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Florida... International University. She is the recipient of the National Leadership Award given by the American Association for Community Colleges and The Innovator of the Year Award presented by the National League of Innovators. Phyllis is also the author of the book African-American Spirituality, Thought and Culture published by IUniverse. A Dreamer s Journey chronicles her exploration and fascination with dreams and how the dreaming process can be utilized to transform and enrich our lives.