Recommended Texts by Subject

Although he retired from active involvement in Neiman Marcus in 1977, the influences of the philosophies of business he developed remain an important part of the training of Neiman Marcus personnel. The New York Times deemed Minding the Store "an opulent story that only an insider could tell!" 

As the prologue explains, " Cold Anger is a story about a new kind of intervention in politics by working poor people who incorporate their religious values into a struggle for power and visibility. It is about women and men who promote public and private hope, political and personal responsibility, community and individual transformation." The Arizona Daily Star exclaimed: "This may prove to be the year's most thought-provoking book. Anyone jaded by or cynical about the American political process will find reason for renewed hope in reading this volume."

This is the first book on therapeutic horseback riding meant for both parents and practitioners. Naomi Scott offers information about the amazing results possible with hippotherapy, from recreational riding for individuals with physical and mental disabilities to the competitions some riders enter (and win). Parents and caregivers looking for coverage of a specific special need will find most useful the fourteen case studies included, covering individuals with intrauterine stroke, cerebral palsy, transverse myelitis, Parkinson’s disease, paralysis, sensory integration dysfunction, multiple sclerosis, shaken baby syndrome, sensory damage, stroke, seizures, infantile spasms, Down syndrome, and autism. 

What happens when an expert on grief is faced with the slow decline of her beloved mother? Like A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis, Singing Mother Home offers an inside look at the struggles of an “expert” in coping with loss. Melba Vasquez, President of the American Psychology Association’s Division on Counseling Psychology, stated: “This is a unique book by a professional who understands the field of loss and grief . . . poignantly heartbreaking.” 

In a rich tapestry of personal journey, commentary, and memoir, Planned Parenthood’s leader affirms every woman’s fundamental human right to control her body, her destiny, her dreams; and inspires readers to see how the world can change—one heartfelt story at a time. Along with dozens of individual, first-person stories of outrage, passion, dedication, endurance, and vision, this book also traces Gloria Feldt’s personal journey from West Texas to activism in the civil rights and women’s movement, culminating in her current standing as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Planned Parenthood Federation and one of the most influential voices in the reproductive freedom movement.

Wukasch. Formerly The Longman Dictionary of Poetic Terms , this updated book is the definitive reference guide to poetry and poetic terms, with more than 1,600 entries on the devices, techniques, history, theory, and terminology of poetry from the Classical period to the present. "A remarkably useful book for poets, for students (and for their professors too) and for libraries."-James Laughlin, poet and publisher, New Directions.

A compilation of previously unpublished poems, short stories, essays, and creative nonfiction by writers of African descent from Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Mardis’ poem, “Invisible Man” was included in the Pushcart Prize XXIV, and the book includes a short story by Bernestine Singley, editor of “When Race Becomes Real.”

Heart-Diamond describes the author’s experiences growing up on a working cattle ranch in Southeastern New Mexico. As a book written from a woman’s point of view, it offers some unique commentary on the “cowboy” way of life. Library Journal says that it “deserves a wider audience.” 

Winner of the 1994 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.  Booklist calls it

Inside Tim Johnston’s Irish Girl, readers will find spellbinding stories of loss, absence, and the devastating effects of chance—of what happens when the unthinkable bad luck of other people, of other towns, becomes our bad luck, our town. Taut, lucid, and engrossing, provocative and dark—and often darkly funny—these stories have much to offer the lover of literary fiction as well as the reader who just loves a great story. “It’s dark in here, but brilliant. Tim Johnston is as wise as he is original, and his stories are impossible to forget.”—David Sedaris

Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2005. Michael White’s poetry is unusual for its loving patience in imagining how human predicaments feel. Using a striking variety of measures, his meditations attempt to re-enact the grain of consciousness as it plays out, from elegy to simple joy. 

Powerful and haunting, the ten stories of this debut collection imagine a world where dreams and reality merge, often with dangerous consequences. Michael Hyde explores the relationships between illusion and reality, delusion and clarity, as his characters come to realize that the revelations they wholeheartedly pursue are often not the ones that await them and will move them. “Michael Hyde’s stories are strangely satisfying and satisfyingly strange. They combine the gothic sensibility of Flannery O’Connor and the restrained prose of Raymond Carver. These are tales of love-in-extremis. They should be taken as a tonic before bedtime, to stir up our dreams and awaken our compassion.” 

The Black Beach By J. T. Barbarese Winner of the 2004 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry.

The poems of The Black Beach describe everyday acts like putting children to bed, coaching Little League, and sending a daughter to school, but brood over what may be behind the everyday and how to reach it and talk to it.

"The Black Beach constantly delights with its questing, surprising, and not-easily-satisfied imagination."—Andrew Hudgins, Judge

"Barbarese has an uncanny ability to size up the urban scene, then hallow and harrow it. He wins me over in poem after poem."—Maxine Kumin 

The Perseids, winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, is a book which insists that visual contemplation of the world is an act of the soul. These poems render the rich biological detail of landscape with passion and exactitude and describe the mind's dazzling revelations during moments of shifting perspective and scale. 

Trained as both a Baptist and a Marine, Flynn writes of reconciling Baptist views (all men are brothers in love) with Marine views (you are a professional killer and you will attack until I say you are dead), injecting humor and acerbic wit throughout.

"Sullen Baptists is a treat for old fans of Robert Flynn."—Amarillo Globe News 

In the nine stories of Let's Do, various calamities strike ordinary Midwesterners, who cope with a mixture of good intentions and ineptitude. Balancing humor with painful clarity, author Rebecca Meacham pulls readers into the lives of characters who struggle with—and more often against—change.

"Meacham's vision is complex, her characters rich and memorable, and the impact of her stories is dazzling."—Erin McGraw, author of The Baby Tree

The first novel in the Lucinda 'Lucy' Richards trilogy, The Train to Estelline takes place as Lucy starts her job as the new school teacher for the White Star school in the Panhandle.

"A truly fine tale of the indomitable human spirit, told in the honest voice of a strong young schoolmarm in early day West Texas."—Larry L. King

"This is one of those books that is easy to get into, hard to get out of. Once started, it is nearly impossible to put down. Once put down, it is not easily forgotten."—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Eleanor Wilner described Merritt, recipient of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, as having “a voice with many musics, sufficiently rich, nuanced and various to express, maintain poise and wrest meaning from the powerful cross-currents in which the heart is torn. I have seldom seen intelligence equal to such a scorching degree of intensity, or mastery of form so equal to passion’s contradictory occasions.” 

“A collection of essays arguing for a more interactive and cooperative approach to the teaching, reading, critiquing, and writing of literature. Private Voices, Public Lives is of critical importance to readers, teachers, reviewers and critics. The essays incorporate ideas on current issues of autobiography, women's voice, reader response, diversity, and gender.”—Midwest Book Review

"These visionary stories bring us an America that is as phantasmagoric as a Bosch painting come to life, yet as real as the daily news—a land of mega churches, tilt-a-whirls, thoughtful muggers, low-income apartment buildings, Jesus, runaways, lost cities, obese suicidal hikers, drag contests, tornados . . . a land both fragile and tough, heartbroken, and resiliently hopeful. In short, this is an amazing, urgent, vital book, and Kelly Magee is an exciting new literary talent.”—Dan Chaon, author of Among the Missing and You Remind Me of Me

“Wonderful Girl is a smart, funny collection, by turns poignant, mysterious, terrifying, sexy, often just plain nuts (in a good way!). The characters in these stories are deliciously confused but always in control, if not of their fates, at least of their pets and boyfriends. What strong voices these women have! Contemporary American life has never seemed so threatening and yet so warm, so full of possibility, yet so harrowing. Reading Wonderful Girl is like meeting a dozen new friends, people you instantly fret over, want to know better, want to call and give advice, bring home to meet your folks, people you ultimately love.”—Bill Roorbach, judge and author of The Smallest Color, Big Bend, and Temple Stream

This unique collection of narratives, essays, and poems includes an original interview with Maya Angelou and pieces by Naomi Shihab Nye, Pat Mora, Rosemary Catacalos, and many others. Each work relates how women have demonstrated courage by taking a risk that has changed their lives—courage as a result of thoughtful choices demonstrating integrity and self-awareness. Each section opens with a description of its organization and the significance of individual pieces. Themes include sustenance for living, faith in the unknown, the courage of choice, the seams of our lives, and crossing borders.

Ohio Violence starts with scandal: the narrator leads the high school football coach into the cornfields, but as she promises, “nothing happened.” In the fields, in the woods, in the dark water of Ohio, something is happening. Girls disappear, turn on each other. Men watch from the rearview as the narrator hedges, changes her mind, then shows all in this break-out collection of bittersweet and cataclysmic lyrics. Winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry, 2008.

The field of corrections comprises three distinct areas of study: institutional corrections (jails and prisons), community corrections (probation and parole), and intermediate sanctions (community service, boot camps, intensive supervision programs, home confinement and electronic monitoring, halfway houses, day reporting, fines, and restitution). Caputo explores the background and foundation of intermediate sanctions programs and then describes in clear detail each program and its effectiveness.

Written by a Texas inmate trained as a reporter, this book gives practical advice on how inmates live, eat, play, work, and die in the Texas prison system. It spotlights the day-to-day workings of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—what’s good, what’s bad, which programs work and which ones do not, and examines if practice really follows official policy.

"While the book is meant to be a primer for those with loved ones in prison, it should be required reading for any attorney involved in criminal law."—Texas Lawyer de Novo Magazine

Walking George examines the entire life of George John Beto (1916-1991) and his many achievements in the fields of both education and criminal justice. During his ten-year term as the director of the Texas Department of Corrections, Beto spearheaded many education and reform programs aimed at rehabilitating inmates, such as the Windham school district for educating inmates, the first of its kind at any prison in the United States. 

This volume collects fourteen articles connecting popular media with academic inquiry, illustrating the connections between the future world of Star Trek and current issues in international law, law and justice, and the American legal system. It makes an ideal text to teach students interdisciplinary academic concepts using a familiar, popular media phenomenon. 

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman ascended the University of Texas Tower and committed what was then the largest simultaneous mass murder in American history. He gunned down forty-five people inside and around the Tower before he was killed by two Austin police officers. In addition to promoting the rise of S.W.A.T. teams to respond to future crises, the murders spawned debates over issues which still plague America today: domestic violence, child abuse, drug abuse, military indoctrination, the insanity defense, and the delicate balance between civil liberties and public safety. 

This is the first study of roadside crosses and memorials erected in remembrance of death on the highway. They are a meeting place for communication, remembrance, and reflection, embodying ongoing relationships between the living and the dead.

A fascinating and insightful account of a little known and often misunderstood aspect of African-American culture, American Voudou details the author’s own personal experiences within this system of belief and ritual, along with descriptions and experiences of other people, ranging from those who reject it entirely to ardent practitioners and leaders. Davis raises questions and offers insight into the nature of religion, American culture, and race relations. Library Journal called it “engagingly written.” 

When the early Spanish and Mexican colonists came to settle Texas, they brought with them a rich culture, the diversity of which is nowhere more evident than in folk art, folk craft, and architecture. This first book-length publication to focus on Texas-Mexican material culture shows the richness of Tejano folk arts and crafts traditions.

“An important addition to the study of Mexican-American material culture . . . a valuable tool for future researchers.”— Southwestern Historical Quarterly

When families gather and tell their stories, they are passing down the “family saga” to the next generation. Herein are stories of feuds, oddball family members, wartime experiences, and significant life events, sure to stimulate all families to remember and share their stories. A Publication of the Texas Folklore Society. 

“Square dancing is friendship set to music,” says author Betty Casey. Whether you’ve done it before or you’re just starting out, this book tells you everything you need to know—85 basic movements used all over the world, the spirited calls unique to square dancing, the costumes and equipment that are best, and music (from “Red River Valley” to “Mack the Knife”) that will set your feet in motion.   

The author provides the complete history of the rise and fall of federal bilingual education policy and details how the English-only movement defeated it at the federal level, only to continue the fight state-by-state.

"A clearly written, controlled overview of a complicated public policy debate that has extended over four decades and resides squarely inside the multiple ideological debates over American identity, the federal role in education, and multiculturalism and diversity versus Americanism . . . An invaluable tool for researchers."—History: Review of New Books

Bill Jason Priest is credited with developing and defining the Dallas County Community College District, transforming the junior college program into a seven-campus district from 1965 to 1981. Drawing from archives and numerous interviews with Priest and his personal and professional associates, Kathleen Krebbs Whitson presents the life of a giant in Texas and community college education. 

This unique book blends cultural ethnography with an illustrated guide to the forest birds of southern Chile and Argentina. Fifty bird species are named in Yahgan, Mapudungun, Spanish, English, and scientific nomenclature, followed by a description, full color photographs, distribution map, habitat and lifestyle, and history in the region. Each entry is augmented further with indigenous accounts of the bird in history and folklore. The book includes two CDs with recordings of birdcalls and their names in four languages, followed by numerous narratives of Yahgan and Mapuche stories about the birds translated directly from interviews with elders of both communities.

Fourteen writers, including Roy Bedichek, John Graves, Stephen Harrigan, Wyman Meinzer, and Naomi Shihab Nye, explore the uniqueness of Texas nature in all the major regions of the state. Pride of Place updates Bedichek's Adventures with a Texas Naturalist by acknowledging the increased urbanization and the loss of wildspace in today's state. It joins other recent collections of regional nature writing while demonstrating what makes Texas uniquely diverse. 

This is the story of how a toxic waste facility affected the citizens of Winona, Texas. Soon after the plant opened nearby, residents started noticing huge orange clouds rising from the facility and an increase in rates of cancer and birth defects in both humans and animals. One resident, Phyllis Glazer, was outraged and organized a grass-roots movement to publicize the problems in Winona, which resulted in the plant’s closure in 1998. During this time, Tammy Cromer-Campbell was on the scene documenting Winona’s story. Using a plastic Holga camera, she created hauntingly distorted images, fifty of which are included in this volume, that are both works of art and testaments to the damage inflicted on the people of a small Texas town by one company’s greed.

Originally published in 1979, Geraldine Ellis Watson’s Big Thicket Plant Ecology is now back in print. This updated edition explores the plant biology, ecology, geology, and environmental regions of the Big Thicket National Preserve in East Texas. Watson covers the ecological and geological history of the Big Thicket and introduces its plant life, from longleaf pines and tupelo swamps to savannah wetlands and hardwood flats.

Focusing on a much-neglected area of film experience in America, Black Cinema Treasures furthers the preservation of America’s cultural and historic heritage, especially its African-American heritage as seen through the eyes of the African-American independent filmmakers of the 1920s through the 1950s. The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society deemed it “bound to take its place among notable books on films and the black experience in America.” 

This Publication of the Texas Folklore Society examines folklore and its many roles in education. Articles explore teaching in rural school houses in the early twentieth century, academic scholarship in the field of folklore itself, and folklore in the “early years” of day care centers, scout programs, children’s books, and high school. Coverage continues into the college experience, with stories about early Aggies, ghosts on university campuses, and collegiate cowgirls. The book closes with discussions on ways to help improve our memories, a linguistic study of cowboy poetry, and a comprehensive look at folklore studies. 

Texas has a large population who has lived on both sides of the border and created a folkloric mix that makes Texas unique. Both Sides of the Border gets its name from its emphasis on recently researched Tex-Mex folklore. But we recognize that Texas has other borders besides the Rio Grande. We use that title with the folklorist’s knowledge that all of this state’s songs, tales, and traditions have lived and prospered on the other sides of Texas borders at one time or another before they crossed the rivers and became “ours.” A Publication of the Texas Folklore Society. 

Overcoming a troubled and poverty-stricken childhood to eventually win top college scholarships, Collins made it to the top of every ladder she climbed. She joined the Navy in 1942. As a pioneer among female commissioned officers, she was in a unique position to observe not only how Navy women overcame discriminatory obstacles, but also how the Navy came to depend on women as an essential component of its standard operations. She retired in 1962 at the rank of captain, the highest rank a woman could then hold. 

This is the story of the "other" Houston, Joshua, the slave of Margaret Lea until she married Sam Houston and moved to Texas in 1840. Joshua was unique among slaves: he was taught to read and write, and was allowed to keep money he earned. The story is set in a background of historical details about southern social history before, during, and after the Civil War. 

“This work is quite different and is unique in that it chronicles the internment of the only Japanese-American combat soldier captured during the Pacific campaign of World War II. Frank "Foo" Fujita, a Texan who served with the ‘Lost Battalion’ of the 36th Infantry Division, was captured during the defense of Java in early 1942.”—Southwestern Historical Quarterly

“The book itself is based on a journal Fujita secretly kept while in captivity . . . [A]n excellent first-person account, one which will add greatly to the existing literature.”—Journal of Military History

"Crossing the Pond" is a term Native Americans used to describe the process of being transferred overseas for military duty. This was both an event and a duty taken quite seriously by tribal members, who participated in every aspect of wartime America. The Wyoming History Journal states: “This solidly researched study provides a good overview of the World War II era of American Indian history.” 

James “Jim” Davis piloted a B-24, as part of the 8th Air Force, on nearly thirty missions in the European Theatre during World War II. He flew support missions for Operations Cobra and Market Garden and numerous bombing missions over occupied Europe in the summer and fall of 1944, attacking enemy airfields, airplane factories, railroad marshalling yards, ship yards, oil refineries, and chemical plants. While he and his crew survived without serious injuries, they witnessed the destruction of many of their friends’ planes and experienced serious damage to their own plane on several occasions. 

Edited by Peter B. Lane and Ronald E. Marcello. 

This book pairs eminent military historians and veterans discussing key military engagements and themes, from World War II to the present. Inside are such illustrious names in military history as David Glantz (Soviet warfare in WWII), Robert Divine (decision to use atomic bomb), George Herring (Johnson as commander-in-chief), and Brian Linn (comparing occupation in Philippines 1899-1902 with current occupation in Iraq). Within each military period in question is a veteran’s narrative account, giving an “I was there” perspective of the war being discussed. 

If White Kids Die describes the author’s gradual maturation as he encountered the other side of legally enforced racism. Harassed by police for being in a white neighborhood with a black coworker, arrested for vagrancy, and prevented from driving by arcane residency laws, Reavis came to understand the frustration with “The System” that fueled the Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, he saw the infighting and strategizing within the Movement that prevented it from living up to his ideals. David J. Garrow, Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory University School of Law calls it “a valuable and honest addition to the existing literature on white movement volunteers.”

General Thi fought for twenty-five years in Vietnam until Saigon fell in 1975, serving with the Vietnamese National Army and commanding the Army Corps Task Force along the Demilitarized Zone. Here he provides a rare and valuable insight into the Vietnam War.

“Thi strongly counters the prevailing ‘American’ view that the Republic of Vietnam’s government and military were hopelessly corrupt and ineffective. Not everyone will agree with General Thi’s viewpoint, but everyone will have to factor it into his own analysis of the Vietnam War.”—John Carroll, Lamar University

Rattler One-Seven puts you in the helicopter seat, to see the war in Vietnam through the eyes of an inexperienced pilot as he transforms himself into a seasoned combat veteran. At the age of twenty, Chuck Gross spent his 1970-71 tour with the 71st Assault Helicopter Company flying UH-1 Huey helicopters. He inserted special operations teams into Laos and participated in Lam Son 719, a misbegotten attempt to assault and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail, during which his helicopter was shot down and he was stranded in the field.

Laidley’s letters home to his father in Virginia begin on August 23, 1945, in New York, and end on May 13, 1848, from Mexico City. They reveal the horrors of the battlefield, his low opinion of volunteer soldiers, the jealousy over promotions within the officer corps, and continued concerns over his own physical and spiritual health. 

This is a complete history of the 1st Infantry Division’s cavalry unit fighting in Operation Desert Storm. Stephen A. Bourque and John W. Burdan III served in the 1st Infantry–Bourque in Division Headquarters, Burdan as the Operations Officer of the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry. Based on extensive interviews and primary sources, Bourque and Burdan provide the most in-depth coverage to date of a battalion-level unit in the 1991 war, showing how the unit deployed, went into combat, and adapted to changing circumstances.

This is the first broad study to argue that the image of Union prison officials as deliberately negligent and cruel to Confederate prisoners is severely flawed. Once the careful reader disregards unreliable postwar polemics, and focuses exclusively on the more reliable wartime records and documents from both Northern and Southern sources, then a much different, less negative, picture of Northern prison life emerges. While life in Northern prisons was difficult and potentially deadly, no evidence exists of a conspiracy to neglect or mistreat Southern captives. “Gillispie provides an important revision and clarification of our knowledge about Civil War prisons.”—James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom

This is the first-ever complete history of the Light Crust Doughboys, the "official music ambassadors of the Lone Star State" and trailblazers in western swing with Bob Wills and Milton Brown. Includes an audio CD with thirty Doughboys tunes. "This is the most definitive work on the beginning and evolution of western swing music and the history of the Light Crust Doughboys that I have seen."—James Blackwood, nine-time Grammy winner. "As valuable to the casual fan as to any student of Texana."—Rick Koster, Dallas Morning News

In Spartan Band (coined from a chaplain’s eulogistic poem) author Thomas Reid traces the Civil War history of the 13th Texas Cavalry, a unit drawn from eleven counties in East Texas. The cavalry regiment organized in the spring of 1862 but was ordered to dismount once in Arkansas. The regiment gradually evolved into a tough, well-trained unit during action at Lake Providence, Fort De Russy, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Jenkins' Ferry, as part of Maj. Gen. John G. Walker's Texas division in the Trans-Mississippi Department. 

“Stimpson provides an opportunity for readers to view rural life in Texas during the Depression and its aftermath. Thoughtful readers will quickly realize that the black family of that time and place had a stability often overlooked today. Stimpson’s almost Biblical cadence further enriches the reading, as does the imagery used to call up emotional response to the good times and the bad that mark his life.”—School Library Journal.

Edited by John W. Storey and Mary L. Kelley.Standard histories of Texas traditionally focus on political, military, and economic topics, with emphasis on the nineteenth century. Twentieth-Century Texas: A Social and Cultural History offers a much-needed corrective. Written with both general and academic audiences in mind, the fourteen essays herein cover American Indians, Mexican Americans, African Americans, women, religion, war on the homefront, music, literature, film, art, sports, philanthropy, education, the environment, and science and technology in twentieth-century Texas.

An important chapter in the history and folklore of the West is how women on the cattle frontier took their place as equal partners with men. The cowboy may be our most authentic folk hero, but the cowgirl is right on his heels. This Spur Award winning book fills a void in the history of the cowgirl. Arizona Highways says: “It is a pleasure from start to finish.” 

This is a bilingual edition of never-before published early Californio memoirs of Spanish soldiering and mission work. The primary voice is that of eighty-three-year-old Don Jose Maria Amador, a former “Forty-Niner” during the California Gold Rush and soldado de cuera at the Presidio of San Francisco, who tells of reconnoitering expeditions against the indigenous populations of California. In addition to Amador’s memoir, a friend from Mission Santa Cruz, Lorenzo Asisara, also describes the harsh life and mistreatment the Indians faced from the priests. 

Erickson’s articles and essays have been published in Texas Highways, Livestock Weekly, The Dallas Morning News, The Dallas Times Herald, and American Cowboy. Some are essays in which Erickson views contemporary life through the lens of cowboying. But all of them are vintage master storyteller John Erickson, told with humor and thoughtfulness. The Dallas Morning News called it “a finely crafted collection of articles and essays on the topics he knows best: ranching and cowboying.”

In Sea la Luz, Juan Francisco Martínez tells the story of Protestant mission work among the Spanish speaking of the Southwest throughout the nineteenth century. By 1900, about 150 Spanish-speaking Protestant churches with more than five thousand adult members existed in the region. They were rejected by their own people because they were Protestants, but Anglo American Protestants did not readily accept them either because they were Mexican. 

This is the first study of roadside crosses and memorials erected in remembrance of death on the highway. They are a meeting place for communication, remembrance, and reflection, embodying ongoing relationships between the living and the dead. 

A collection of articles forming a handbook of information on Metropolitan Universities, their unique mission and characteristics. It addresses the questions and concerns of faculty, students, administrators, state educational policy makers, and mayors or city managers, all of whom are involved in institutions located in or near the urban center of a metropolitan area. 

As the prologue explains, " Cold Anger is a story about a new kind of intervention in politics by working poor people who incorporate their religious values into a struggle for power and visibility. It is about women and men who promote public and private hope, political and personal responsibility, community and individual transformation." The Arizona Daily Star exclaimed: "This may prove to be the year's most thought-provoking book. Anyone jaded by or cynical about the American political process will find reason for renewed hope in reading this volume."