Alexandria -- a town of about 3,500 people in Glengarry County in Eastern Ontario -- conforms in some respects to the stereotype of small towns as friendly communities without the strains of city life. Although David Rayside found Alexandria to be a pleasant town, in this penetrating study he reveals that this community, which includes an almost equal mix of anglophones and francophones, is also marked by social inequalities and divisions that parallel those in urban centres.
A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times "A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.”-New York Post The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future. Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland is the story of the drug as it infiltrates the community of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), a once-thriving farming and railroad community. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by meth and the global forces that have set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy. Oelwein, Iowa is like thousand of other small towns across the county. It has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy and an out-migration of people. If this wasn't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has come to town, touching virtually everyone's lives. Journalist Nick Reding reported this story over a period of four years, and he brings us into the heart of the town through an ensemble cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose case load is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime, and Jeff Rohrick, who is still trying to kick a meth habit after four years. Methland is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives the drug has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war. It will appeal to readers of David Sheff's bestselling Beautiful Boy, and serve as inspiration for those who believe in the power of everyday people to change their world for the better.
Life is messy. But life is also beautiful. These are the twin themes that author/artist Carolyn Arends (writer of ten Top 10 Christian songs) opens up in her searching exploration of how God meets people in the ordinary moments of life, part of the ConversantLife.com line of books. This humorous, tender, and passionate collection of personal stories illustrate the mysterious ways that God works to bring people through life's struggles and discover the amazing power of grace. Why the birth of her child and the death of a friend gave her a new perspective What a prairie storm and the beauty of a bright red canyon can teach people about God How mismatched shoes and Bach oratorios can give readers a glimpse into a deeper mystery Fans of Don Miller and Anne Lamott will discover a kindred spirit in Carolyn and her transparent and gutsy meditations on life's unanswered questions and the One who can be found there. Formerly titled "Living the Questions"
British security officer Alan Turner battles radical German students and neo-Nazis after an embassy flack disappears from Bonn with dozens of top secret files.
Granville Hicks was one of America's most influential literary and social critics. Along with Malcolm Cowley, F. O. Matthiessen, Max Eastman, Alfred Kazin, and others, he shaped the cultural landscape of 20th-century America. In 1946 Hicks published Small Town, a portrait of life in the rural crossroads of Grafton, N.Y., where he had moved after being fired from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for his left-wing political views. In this book, he combines a kind of hand-crafted ethnographic research with personal reflections on the qualities of small town life that were being threatened by spreading cities and suburbs. He eloquently tried to define the essential qualities of small town community life and to link them to the best features of American culture. The book sparked numerous articles and debates in a baby-boom America nervously on the move. Long out of print, this classic of cultural criticism speaks powerfully to a new generation seeking to reconnect with a sense of place in American life, both rural and urban. An unaffected, deeply felt portrait of one such place by one of the best American critics, it should find a new home as a vivid reminder of what we have lost-and what we might still be able to protect.
"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.
Milbank and Mitchell, dissimilar in size and separated by more than two hundred miles, have more in common than might appear at first glance. In the first half of the twentieth century towns such as Milbank and Mitchell formed hubs for commerce, social activities, and culture. Eric Fowler and Sheila Delaney looked at their communities from different viewpoints, but their childhood and young adult memories of South Dakota share common themes.
Small Canadian cities confront serious social issues as a result of the neoliberal economic restructuring practiced by both federal and provincial governments since the 1980s. Drastic spending reductions and ongoing restraint in social assistance, income supports, and the provision of affordable housing, combined with the offloading of social responsibilities onto municipalities, has contributed to the generalization of social issues once chiefly associated with Canada’s largest urban centres. As the investigations in this volume illustrate, while some communities responded to these issues with inclusionary and progressive actions others were more exclusionary and reactive—revealing forms of discrimination, exclusion, and “othering” in the implementation of practices and policies. Importantly, however their investigations reveal a broad range of responses to the social issues they face. No matter the process and results of the proposed solutions, what the contributors uncovered were distinctive attributes of the small city as it struggles to confront increasingly complex social issues. If local governments accept a social agenda as part of its responsibilities, the contributors to Small Cities, Big Issues believe that small cities can succeed in reconceiving community based on the ideals of acceptance, accommodation, and inclusion.
A Concise History of Western Civilization: From Prehistoric to Early Modern Times: Third Edition By: Gary Forsythe This volume is designed to serve as the textbook for an undergraduate college course that surveys the history of Western Civilization up to the Early Modern Period. It differs from most Western Civilization books in that it places more emphasis on the ancient world and less on the Middle Ages. It treats the ancient Near Eastern civilizations with a view to understanding the historical context of ancient Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, and it also stresses the political thought and institutions of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which have been so important in shaping the political institutions of many modern nations worldwide. The text is a straightforward textbook of basic historical information and represents the content of the author's class lectures in his course on Western Civilization.
