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"Mark Edward Taylor gets to the heart of Obama's appeal." -- Cal Thomas In 2004 a cadre of Democratic advisers and communications experts hatched a plan to elect a largely unknown, biracial American to the highest office in the land in only four years. Knowing that its chosen one would have to rise above Hillary Clinton and then the Republican candidate, "Team Obama" created a new style of American political leader defined by "Sacred Six" characteristics: a creation story, sacred words, sacred images, sacred rituals, true believers, and a messianic leader. The Sacred Six became Barack Obama's "Devotional Code," eliciting enthused voter chants of Hope, Change, and Belief ("Yes we can!") and consummating a special relationship between faithful voters and the saintly candidate whom Oprah Winfrey baptized as "The One." "Branding Obamessiah" tells this amazing story by looking at everything from Team Obama's evangelistic rallies and iconic images to its sacred words and supra-racial rhetoric. Author Mark Edward Taylor examines Obama-themed comic books, magazines, logos, music, "holy" relics, social-media epistles, and children's books. He reveals the messianic rhetoric in Obama's carefully crafted autobiographical writings and public speeches. Taylor shows how such messianic imagery reinforced true believers' own hope-filled websites, blogs, publications, and videos. "Branding Obamessiah" includes nearly 1,000 endnotes with links to online audio, video, and text sources so readers can follow the fascinating tale of a multimedia campaign that generated more online news coverage and inspired more pro and con bloggers and YouTube videos than all previous presidential campaigns combined. Hardly anything Obama said or did escaped cameras, microphones, and online scrutiny. "Branding Obamessiah" is an engaging and illuminating trip through the most quasi-religious campaign of any modern US presidential candidate. The book also serves as a warning about the increasingly potent combination of entertainment, celebrity, social media, and religion in American politics. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Cal Thomas Introduction Prologue 1 Getting in the Game PART ONE: Changing the Political Game 2 Selling an American Product 3 Marketing Subconscious Spirituality 4 Branding Obamessiah 5 Revealing the Sacred Six PART TWO: Composing a Creation Story 6 Filling In Obama's Missing Years 7 Targeting His Anger 8 Remembering Fiction PART THREE: Chanting Sacred Words 9 Keeping It Simple 10 Feeling In the Blanks 11 Seizing American Exceptionalism 12 Changing the Truth PART FOUR: Venerating Sacred Images 13 Seeing as Believing 14 Photographing Deity 15 Flipping through Obamagazines 16 Sheparding the Sheeple 17 Landing Logobama 18 Viewing Negatives PART FIVE: Observing Sacred Rituals 19 Traveling with Brother Love's Salvation Show 20 Multitasking for the Messiah 21 Collecting Campaign Relics 22 Pilgrimaging to Holy Places PART SIX: Bringing in Believers 23 Crowding around the One 24 Programming Intimacy 25 Tuning In to Barockstar PART SEVEN: Coloring the Messiah 26 Absolving the National Guilt 27 Changing the Election's Complexion 28 Building a Millenarian Movement Epilogue Notes

Beginning with the first colonists and continuing down to the present, the dominant narrative of New England Puritanism has maintained that piety and prosperity were enemies, that the rise of commerce delivered a mortal blow to the fervor of the founders, and that later generations of Puritans fell away from their religious heritage as they moved out across the New England landscape. This book offers a new alternative to the prevailing narrative, which has been frequently criticized but heretofore never adequately replaced. The author’s argument follows two main strands. First, he shows that commercial development, rather than being detrimental to religion, was necessary to sustain Puritan religious culture. It was costly to establish and maintain a vital Puritan church, for the needs were many, including educated ministers who commanded substantial salaries; public education so that the laity could be immersed in the Bible and devotional literature (substantial expenses in themselves); the building of meeting houses; and the furnishing of communion tables--all and more were required for the maintenance of Puritan piety. Second, the author analyzes how the Puritans gradually developed the evangelical impulse to broadcast the seeds of grace as widely as possible. The spread of Puritan churches throughout most of New England was fostered by the steady devotion of material resources to the maintenance of an intense and demanding religion, a devotion made possible by the belief that money sown to the spirit would reap divine rewards. In 1651, about 20,000 English colonists were settled in some 30 New England towns, each with a newly formed Puritan church. A century later, the population had grown to 350,000, and there were 500 meetinghouses for Puritan churches. This book tells the story of this remarkable century of growth and adaptation through intertwined histories of two Massachusetts churches, one in Boston and one in Westfield, a village on the remote western frontier, from their foundings in the 1660’s to the religious revivals of the 1740’s. In conclusion, the author argues that the Great Awakening was a product of the continuous cultivation of traditional religion, a cultural achievement built on New England’s economic development, rather than an indictment and rejection of its Puritan heritage.

This “wickedly pacey page-turner” (Total Film) unfurls the behind-the-scenes story of the making of The Godfather, fifty years after the classic film’s original release. The story of how The Godfather was made is as dramatic, operatic, and entertaining as the film itself. Over the years, many versions of various aspects of the movie’s fiery creation have been told—sometimes conflicting, but always compelling. Mark Seal sifts through the evidence, has extensive new conversations with director Francis Ford Coppola and several heretofore silent sources, and complements them with colorful interviews with key players including actors Al Pacino, James Caan, Talia Shire, and others to write “the definitive look at the making of an American classic” (Library Journal, starred review). On top of the usual complications of filmmaking, the creators of The Godfather had to contend with the real-life members of its subject matter: the Mob. During production of the movie, location permits were inexplicably revoked, author Mario Puzo got into a public brawl with an irate Frank Sinatra, producer Al Ruddy’s car was found riddled with bullets, men with “connections” vied to be in the cast, and some were given film roles. As Seal notes, this is the tale of a “movie that revolutionized filmmaking, saved Paramount Pictures, minted a new generation of movie stars, made its struggling author Mario Puzo rich and famous, and sparked a war between two of the mightiest powers in America: the sharks of Hollywood and the highest echelons of the Mob.” “For fans of books about moviemaking, this is a definite must-read” (Booklist).

The Myth of a Gentile Galilee is the most thorough synthesis to date of archaeological and literary evidence relating to the population of Galilee in the first-century CE. The book demonstrates that, contrary to the perceptions of many New Testament scholars, the overwhelming majority of first-century Galileans were Jews. Utilizing the gospels, the writings of Josephus, and published archaeological excavation reports, Mark A. Chancey traces the historical development of the region's population and examines in detail specific cities and villages, finding ample indications of Jewish inhabitants and virtually none for gentiles. He argues that any New Testament scholarship that attempts to contextualize the Historical Jesus or the Jesus movement in Galilee must acknowledge and pay due attention to the region's predominantly Jewish milieu. This accessible book will be of interest to New Testament scholars as well as scholars of Judaica, Syro-Palestinian archaeology, and the Roman Near East.

This offbeat slice of American history places the story of our great republic beneath an unexpected lens: that of fringe candidates for president of the United States. Mark Stein explores how their quest for our nation’s highest office helped to amplify voices otherwise quashed during their day. His careening tour through elections past includes the efforts of true pioneers in the quest for social equality in our country: the first woman to run for president, Victoria Woodhull in 1872; the first African American to run for president, George E. Taylor in 1904; and the first openly gay cross-dressing candidate for president, Joan Jett Blakk in 1992. But The Presidential Fringe also takes a look at those who would jest their way into the Oval Office, from comedians such as Will Rogers and Gracie Allen to Pat Paulsen and Stephen Colbert. Along the way, Stein shows how even seemingly zany candidates, such as “Live Forever” Jones, Vegetarian Party candidate John Maxwell, Flying Saucer Party candidate Gabriel Green, or, most recently, Vermin Supreme, provide extraordinary insights of clarity into who we were when they ran for president and how we became who we are today. Ultimately, Stein’s examination reveals that it was often precisely these fringe candidates who planted the seeds from which mainstream candidates later harvested genuine, positive change. Written in Stein’s direct and witty style, The Presidential Fringe surveys and portrays an American landscape rife with the unlikely, unassuming, unexpected, and (in a few cases) unbalanced presidential hopefuls who, in their own way, have contributed to this nation’s founding quest to form a more perfect Union.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived

Over the past several years, privately run, publicly funded charter schools have been sold to the American public as an education alternative promising better student achievement, greater parent satisfaction, and more vibrant school communities. But are charter schools delivering on their promise? Or are they just hype as critics contend, a costly experiment that is bleeding tax dollars from public schools? In this book, Jack Buckley and Mark Schneider tackle these questions about one of the thorniest policy reforms in the nation today. Using an exceptionally rigorous research approach, the authors investigate charter schools in Washington, D.C., carefully examining school data going back more than a decade, interpreting scores of interviews with parents, students, and teachers, and meticulously measuring how charter schools perform compared to traditional public schools. Their conclusions are sobering. Buckley and Schneider show that charter-school students are not outperforming students in traditional public schools, that the quality of charter-school education varies widely from school to school, and that parent enthusiasm for charter schools starts out strong but fades over time. And they argue that while charter schools may meet the most basic test of sound public policy--they do no harm--the evidence suggests they all too often fall short of advocates' claims. With the future of charter schools--and perhaps public education as a whole--hanging in the balance, this book supports the case for holding charter schools more accountable and brings us considerably nearer to resolving this contentious debate.

Drawing on rich interdisciplinary research that has laced the emerging subject of drag studies as an academic discipline, this book examines how drag performance is a political, socio-cultural practice with a widespread lineage throughout the history of performance. This volume maps the multi-threaded contexts of contemporary practices while rooting them in their fabulous historical past and memory. The book examines drag histories and what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. Featuring work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, this book allows the reader to engage with a range of archival research including camp and history; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; the connections between drag king and queen history; queering pantomime performance; drag and military veterans; Puerto Rican drag performers and historical film.

The Civil War is often portrayed as the most brutal war in America's history, a premonition of twentieth-century slaughter and carnage. In challenging this view, Mark E. Neely, Jr., considers the war's destructiveness in a comparative context, revealing the sense of limits that guided the conduct of American soldiers and statesmen. Neely begins by contrasting Civil War behavior with U.S. soldiers' experiences in the Mexican War of 1846. He examines Price's Raid in Missouri for evidence of deterioration in the restraints imposed by the customs of war; and in a brilliant analysis of Philip Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley campaign, he shows that the actions of U.S. cavalrymen were selective and controlled. The Mexican war of the 1860s between French imperial forces and republicans provided a new yardstick for brutality: Emperor Maximilian's infamous Black Decree threatened captured enemies with execution. Civil War battles, however, paled in comparison with the unrestrained warfare waged against the Plains Indians. Racial beliefs, Neely shows, were a major determinant of wartime behavior. Destructive rhetoric was rampant in the congressional debate over the resolution to avenge the treatment of Union captives at Andersonville by deliberately starving and freezing to death Confederate prisoners of war. Nevertheless, to gauge the events of the war by the ferocity of its language of political hatred is a mistake, Neely argues. The modern overemphasis on violence in Civil War literature has led many scholars to go too far in drawing close analogies with the twentieth century's total war and the grim guerrilla struggles of Vietnam.

Examines effects of the environmental distribution of antimicrobial resistance genes on human health and the ecosystem Resistance genes are everywhere in nature—in pathogens, commensals, and environmental microorganisms. This contributed work shows how the environment plays a pivotal role in the development of antimicrobial resistance traits in bacteria and the distribution of resistant microbial species, resistant genetic material, and antibiotic compounds. Readers will discover the impact of the distribution in the environment of antimicrobial resistance genes and antibiotics on both the ecosystem and human and animal health. Antimicrobial Resistance in the Environment is divided into four parts: Part I, Sources, including ecological and clinical consequences of antibiotic resistance by environmental microbes Part II, Fate, including strategies to assess and minimize the biological risk of antibiotic resistance in the environment Part III, Antimicrobial Substances and Resistance, including antibiotics in the aquatic environment Part IV, Effects and Risks, including the effect of antimicrobials used for non-human purposes on human health Recognizing the intricate links among overlapping complex systems, this book examines antimicrobial resistance using a comprehensive ecosystem approach. Moreover, the book's multidisciplinary framework applies principles of microbiology, environmental toxicology, and chemistry to assess the human and ecological risks associated with exposure to antibiotics or antibiotic resistance genes that are environmental contaminants. Each chapter has been written by one or more leading researchers in such fields as microbiology, environmental science, ecology, and toxicology. Comprehensive reference lists at the end of all chapters serve as a gateway to the primary research in the field. Presenting and analyzing the latest findings in a field of growing importance to human and environmental health, this text offers readers new insights into the role of the environment in antimicrobial resistance development, the dissemination of antimicrobial resistant genetic elements, and the transport of antibiotic resistance genes and antibiotics.