All Our Families, a project of the Berkeley Forum on the Family, takes a hard look at contemporary families. Thoroughly revised and updated, this second... edition includes chapters on divorcing families, single-parent families, step-families, dual-income families, adolescent-parent families, immigrant families, and gay and lesbian families. Distinguished by their exceptional reputations as family scholars, the Forum's interdisciplinary team of authors examines the challenges to existing public policies that are brought on by problems such as custody disputes, family poverty, parental kidnapping, fathers who aren't really fathers, abuse and neglect, and the special psychological conditions faced by today's couples with newborns. The contending claims of biological and psychological parents are also exposed and confronted. Essential for courses in sociology, psychology, social work, public policy, and law, All Our Families, 2/e proposes new policies for strengthening the families of America as we move into the twenty-first century.

All Our Kin is the chronicle of a young white woman's sojourn into The Flats, an African-American ghetto community, to study the support system family... and friends form when coping with poverty. Eschewing the traditional method of entry into the community used by anthropologists -- through authority figures and community leaders -- she approached the families herself by way of an acquaintance from school, becoming one of the first sociologists to explore the black kinship network from the inside. The result was a landmark study that debunked the misconception that poor families were unstable and disorganized. On the contrary, her study showed that families in The Flats adapted to their poverty conditions by forming large, resilient, lifelong support networks based on friendship and family that were very powerful, highly structured and surprisingly complex. Universally considered the best analysis of family and kinship in a ghetto black community ever published, All Our Kin is also an indictment of a social system that reinforces welfare dependency and chronic unemployment. As today's political debate over welfare reform heats up, its message has become more important than ever.

Grief as a lifelong human experience is the scope of this absorbing book. Kenneth Mitchell and Herbert Anderson explore the multiple dimensions of the... problem, including the origins and dynamics of grief, loss throughout life, caring for those who grieve, and the theology of grieving. This examination is enriched by vivid illustrations and case histories of individuals whose experiences the authors have shared.

This eagerly awaited non-fiction debut by acclaimed Native environmental activist Winona LaDuke is a thoughtful and in-depth account of Native... resistance to environmental and cultural degradation.LaDuke's unique understanding of Native ideas and people is born from long years of experience, and her analysis is deepened with inspiring testimonies by local Native activists sharing the struggle for survival.On each page of this volume, LaDuke speaks forcefully for self-determination and community. Hers is a beautiful and daring vision of political, spiritual, and ecological transformation.All Our Relations features chapters on the Seminoles, the Anishinaabeg, the Innu, the Northern Cheyenne, and the Mohawks, among others."One of the pleasures of reading All Our Relations is discovering the unique voices of Native people, especially Native women, speaking in their own Native truths."-Women's Review of Books"...as Winona LaDuke describes, in moving and often beautiful prose, [these] misdeeds are not distant history but are ongoing degradation of the cherished lands of Native Americans."-Public Citizen News"...a rare perspective on Native history and culture."-Sister to Sister/S2S"Hers is a beautiful and daring vision of political, spiritual, and ecological transformation. All Our Relations is essential reading for everyone who cares about the fate of the Earth and indigenous peoples."-Winds of Change"No ragtag remnants of lost cultures here. Strong voices of old, old cultures bravely trying to make sense of an Earth in chaos."-Whole Earth

Published Under the Garamond Imprint Though they account for only a small portion of the formal homeless statistics, there are many more women living on... insufficient funds, with violent partners, in unacceptable dwellings, or in other fragile circumstances that are too often overlooked. They are our mothers, our daughters, our aunts, our nieces, our wives?they are all our sisters?and they remain largely invisible compared to homeless men. Susan Scott interviewed more than 60 women facing homelessness across Canada. Part of her agreement with these women was to tell their stories in the way they would want to have them told. With uncompromising honesty and a deep sense of empathy, Scott recounts their stories while highlighting the many underlying problems they face. These include personal histories of abuse, addiction, and violence, as well as systemic conditions of gentrification, a paucity of affordable housing, and a lack of social services sensitive to women's needs. All Our Sisters is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about the conditions facing homeless women in Canada.

   H. L. Mencken first identified the South as the “Bible Belt” in the 1920s. To be sure, religion shapes and defines even those Southerners who... don’t think of themselves as particularly religious. Practically no one who grows up Southern can escape being shaped, stimulated, harmed, or informed by religion and spirituality.   All Out of Faith gives voice to southern women writers who represent a broad spectrum of faiths, Catholic to Baptist, Jewish to Buddhist, and points in between. These essays and stories revea; that southern culture has always reserved a special place for strong women of passion.   Frances Mayes and Barbara Kingsolver investigate the importance of place. Dorothy Allison, among others, writes of the transformative power of art; in her case, of a painting of Jesus she loved as a child. Lee Smith is one of several women who write of religious fervor; she recalls the excitement of being saved, not once but many times, until her parents made her stop. Vicki Covington and Mab Segrest describe their conflicts between faith and sexuality. Pauli Murray, the first black female Episcopal priest, and Jessica Roskin, who became a Jewish cantor, tell of remaining within their original religious tradition while challenging their traditional roles.   Contributors: Shirley Abbott, Dorothy Allison, Vicki Covington, Susan Ktchin, Sue Monk Kidd, Cassandra King, Barbara Kingsolver, Frances Mayes, Diane McWhorter, Pauli Murray, Sena Jeter Naslund, Sylvia Rhue, Jessica Roskin, Mab Segrest, Lee Smith, Jeanie Thompson, Jan Willis.      

2 cassettes / 3 hoursRead by the authorNow, this national bestseller is specially priced at $12.95"This is a moving, memorable audio, the kind that... stays in the listener's mind long after it ends."                       --Billboard"Rick Bragg writes like a man on fire.  And All Over But The Shoutin' is a work of art.  While reading this book, I feel in love with Rick Bragg's mother, Margaret Bragg, a hundred times.  I felt like I was reading one of the prophets in the Old Testament when reading parts of this book.  I thought of Melville, I thought of Faulkner.  Because I love the English language , I knew I was reading one of the best books I've ever read.  By explaining his life to the world, Rick Bragg explained part of my life to me.  You feel things in every line this man writes.  His sentences bleed on you.  I wept when the book ended.  I never met Rick Bragg in my life, but I called him up and told him he'd written a masterpiece, and I sent flowers to his mother."--Pat Conroy"A sort of Alabama version of Angela's Ashes, this memoir details the miserable, impoverished childhood that informed and inspired a young man who became a successful writer . . . . Throughout, Bragg's own vice barely contains his bitterness and rage." --Chicago Tribune"Listening to myself read it aloud gave me the opportunity to hear my words in my own voice, not just in my mind.  Reading the sad parts out loud brought tears to my eyes.  It was a delightful experience, and I'm proud to have done it." -Rick BraggThis haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times.  It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most.But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone.  Evoking these lives - and the country that shaped and nourished them - with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings hone the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family.The result is unforgettable.

My Year of Meats, Ruth Ozeki’s delicious debut novel, won a devoted following and was hailed by critics as inventing a new genre: the “eco-saga.”... Now, Ozeki takes us to the heart of the potato farming industry. When Yumi Fuller returns to her hometown after a twenty-five-year absence, she comes face to face with an old friend, her aging parents, and her conflicted past—as well as the “Seeds of Resistance,” a rollicking environmentalist group that finds trouble wherever they plant themselves. With a quirky cast of characters and a keen eye for the vicissitudes of corporate life, political resistance, youth culture, aging baby boomers, and globalization, as well as the beauty of seeds, roots, and all growing things, All Over Creation offers something for just about everyone.

Even as Americans keep moving "all over the map" in the late twentieth century, they cherish memories of the places they come from. But where do these... places—these regions—come from? What makes them so real? In this groundbreaking book a distinguished group of historians explores the concept of region in America, traces changes the idea has undergone in our national experience, and examines its meaning for Americans today.Far from diminishing in importance, the authors conclude, regional differences continue to play a significant role in Americans' self-image. Regional identity, in fact, has always been fed by the very forces that many people think threaten its existence today: a central government, an aggressive economy, and connections with places beyond regional boundaries. Calling into question widely held notions about how Americans came to differ from one another and explaining why those differences continue to flourish, this iconoclastic study—by scholars with differing regional ties—will refresh and redirect the centuries-old discussion over Americans' conceptions of themselves.

Updated and revised to include theoretical and other developments, bibliographical additions, new photographs and illustrations, and expanded name and... subject indexes, the fourth edition of All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas is the most complete and comprehensive book of its kind. The text also features a layout and readability that make the material easy to navigate and understand.The book investigates the ways in which the subject of geography has been recognized, perceived, and evaluated, from its early acknowledgment in ancient Greece to its disciplined form in today's world of shared ideas and mass communication. Strong continuities knit the Classical Period to the Age of Exploration, then carry students on through Varenius to Humboldt and Ritter--revealing the emergence of "the new geography" of the Modern Period.The history of American geography--developed in seven of the twenty chapters--is strongly emphasized pursuant to the formal origins of geography in late nineteenth-century Germany, Darwin's theory of evolution, and the Great Surveys of the American West. This treatment is enhanced by chapters concerning parallel histories of geography in Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia (including the USSR and CIS), Canada, Sweden, and Japan-countries that at first contributed to and later borrowed from the body of US geographical thought.All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas, Fourth Edition, is ideal for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in the history and philosophy of classical, medieval, and modern geographical thought.

Paul Baumer enlisted with his classmates in the German army of World War I. Youthful, enthusiastic, they become soldiers. But despite what they have... learned, they break into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches. And as horrible war plods on year after year, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principles of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against each other--if only he can come out of the war alive."The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure."THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW