Books published by Ohio University Press

A compelling history of the 1846 Mormon expulsion from Illinois that exemplifies the limits of American democracy and religious tolerance.When members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known as Mormons) settled in Illinois in 1839, they had been persecuted for their beliefs from Ohio to Missouri. Illinoisans viewed themselves as religiously tolerant egalitarians and initially welcomed the Mormons to their state. However, non-Mormon locals who valued competitive individualism perceived the saints' western Illinois settlement, Nauvoo, as a theocracy with too much political power. Amid escalating tensions in 1844, anti-Mormon vigilantes assassinated church founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Two years later, the state expelled the saints. Illinois rejected the Mormons not for their religion, but rather for their effort to create a self-governing state in Nauvoo.Mormons put the essential aspirations of American liberal democracy to the test in Illinois. The saints' inward group focus and their decision to live together in Nauvoo highlight the challenges strong group consciousness and attachment pose to democratic governance. The Saints and the State narrates this tragic story as an epic failure of governance and shows how the conflicting demands of fairness to the Mormons and accountability to Illinois's majority became incompatible.

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Kubitschek was one of the most important political leaders of Brazil during the twentieth century. As president, he pushed decisively for the industrialization of the largest of the Latin American nations. He also provided his country with the most democratic regime it had ever experienced.

In this, Julie Hanson's second award-winning book, the poems inscribe deep stillness on a world of harmonies in motion. Whether composed on modern objects, say a vacuum-"e;part pet, part sculpture/sprawled awkwardly, still shrieking"e;-that evokes a sudden onrush of sobbing, or the notional movement between a plastic bag, a lawn and a return from a France not yet visited, these poems circulate among the senses as moments that pass and are recalled.Hanson's poems investigate interiority as they resonate in the ear to excite the eye. Together, her poems illustrate the movement between and among seasons and tasks, work and leisure, solitude and people, and all through the private life as it intersects with the products and noises of industry and nature. Hanson's is a poetic realm that includes the head-splitting bright white screamings of an Indy 500 race into a zen garden, this realm we all inhabit where birdsong and squeaky water meters improvise together.

Joseph J. Capista's Intrusive Beauty reckons with reluctant ecstasy and the improbable forms that beauty assumes. In this powerful debut, Capista traverses earth and ether to yield poems that elucidate the space between one's life and one's livelihood. While its landscapes range from back-alley Baltimore to the Bitterroot Valley, this book remains close to unbidden beauty and its capacity to sway one's vision of the world. Whether a young father who won't lower the volume on the radio or a Victorian farm boy tasked with scaring birds from seed-sown furrows, the inhabitants of Intrusive Beauty are witness to the startling ease with which one's assorted lives come in time to comprise a singular life. Mortality, love, duty, desire, an acute longing for transcendence: here, old themes resound anew as they're uttered in a multiplicity of forms and means, holding fast always to the heart.

Today, the surprisingly elastic form of the memoir embraces subjects that include dying, illness, loss, relationships, and self-awareness. Writing to reveal the inner self-the pilgrimage into one's spiritual and/or religious nature-is a primary calling. Contemporary memoirists are exploring this field with innovative storytelling, rigorous craft, and new styles of confessional authorship. Now, Thomas Larson brings his expertise as a critic, reader, and teacher to the boldly evolving and improvisatory world of spiritual literature.In his book-length essay Spirituality and the Writer, Larson surveys the literary insights of authors old and new who have shaped religious autobiography and spiritual memoir-from Augustine to Thomas Merton, from Peter Matthiessen to Cheryl Strayed. He holds them to an exacting standard: they must render transcendent experience in the writing itself. Only when the writer's craft prevails can the fleeting and profound personal truths of the spirit be captured. Like its predecessor, Larson's The Memoir and the Memoirist, Spirituality and the Writer will find a home in writing classrooms and book groups, and be a resource for students, teachers, and writers who seek guidance with exploring their spiritual lives.

In Mexico Mystique Frank Waters draws us deeply into the ancient but still-living myths of Mexico. To reveal their hidden meanings and their powerful symbolism, he brings to bear his gift for intuitive imagination as well as a broad knowledge of anthropology, Jungian psychology, astrology, and Eastern and esoteric religions.

Decades after independence for most African states, the struggle for decolonization is still incomplete, as demonstrated by the fact that Africa remains associated in many Western minds with chaos, illness, and disorder.

The memoir of Daniel Parker (1781-1861) is an invaluable primary source for post-revolutionary and antebellum American history, an itinerant preacher's account of the frontier's diverse and evolving religious landscape, and an engaging human story.

George M. Houser's moral integrity and influential advocacy for nonviolent protest helped shape the American Civil Rights Movement, anticolonial independence victories across Africa, and the overthrow of the South African apartheid regime.

This fictionalized, first-person biography tells how a cunning rogue with nothing to lose relies on his guts and wits to survive amid racism and injustice in apartheid South Africa.

Eddie Rickenbacker survived personal tragedies and dozens of close calls as a mechanic, a race car driver, a fighter pilot, and airline executive. This biography invites young readers to consider the difference between recklessness and courage, even if both present dangers, and the enduring value of hard work and personal responsibility.

Through the prism of sports and from a range of scholarly perspectives, this anthology offers insight into the varied and shifting experiences of African athletes, fans, communities, and postcolonial states.

Set in rural Appalachia and told through the voices of three different present-day narrators, this harrowing novel about white supremacists attempting to take over a small town focuses an unflinching eye on America's ongoing, fraught relationship with racial and political injustice.

Trees not only add beauty and value to property but also enhance the physical environment by providing shade, reflecting heat, and blocking wind. Choosing the right trees for the right location and conditions, however, is not always easy: each species has its own requirements for sunlight, water, drainage, and protection.Landscaping with Trees in the Midwest: A Guide for Residential and Commercial Properties describes sixty-five desirable tree species, their characteristics, and their uses. More than 325 color photographs illustrate the appearance of each species through the seasons-including height, shape, bark, flowers, and fall colors-as well as other factors that influence selection and siting in order to help the landscape professional or homeowner make informed choices.This guidebook also considers trees as a factor in overall environmental health and gives special consideration to the effects of the emerald ash borer, which continues to wreak havoc in wooded areas of the Midwest, offering replacement alternatives for vulnerable areas. In addition to the text and photos, the book includes a table of growth rates and sizes, a map of hardiness zones, and other valuable reference tools.

In Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai, Wangari Maathai is presented as a scholar whose contributions to gender equality, democratic spaces, economic equity and global governance, and indigenous African languages and knowledges paralleled her renowned environmental activism.

Cy Young: American Baseball Hero tells the life story of Cy Young, the hardest-throwing pitcher in baseball history, and introduces middle-grade readers to America's favorite pastime, explaining balls, strikes, and outs in an exciting and easy-to-understand way.

"e;Call me what you want-corrections officer, C.O., guard, jailcop, turnkey-I helped keep people there against their will. For this, the jail rewarded me with food."e;When Ben Langston took a job at the State Correctional Institute at Rockview, it was because there were few other options. At his previous job-putting labels on water bottles-he did not have cups of human waste thrown in his face. He did not have to finger sweaty armpits in search of weapons. There were no threats against his life. But the jail paid better.Jail Speak is a memoir written from a guard's perspective. It's about the grind, about dehumanization, drama, punishment, and the cycles of harm perpetrated by the prison industry. It's about masculinity and conformity and emotional detachment. It's a look at the inside that you didn't want to know about, and it's for mature audiences only. Know your limits.

The reincarnation of a legendary nineteenth-century Caribbean emperor as a contemporary African leader is at the heart of this novel. Sacred River deals with the extraordinary lives, hopes, powerful myths, stories, and tragedies of the people of a modern West African nation. It is also the compelling love story of an idealistic philosophy professor and an ex-courtesan of incomparable beauty. Two hundred years after his death, the great Haitian emperor Henri Christophe miraculously appears in a dream to Tankor Satani, president of the fictional West African country of Kissi, with instructions for Tankor to continue Henri Christophe's rule, which had been interrupted by "e;that damned Napoleon."e;Ambitious in scope, Sacred River is a diaspora-inspired novel, in which Cheney-Coker has tackled the major themes of politics, social strife, crime and punishment, and human frailty and redemption in Malagueta, the fictional, magical town and its surroundings first created by the author in The Last Harmattan of Alusine Dunbar, for which he was awarded the coveted Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Sacred River is equally about love and politics, and marks the return to fiction of one of Africa's major writers.

Based on one of the most significant periods in Frank Waters's own life, Pike's Peak is perhaps the most complete expression of all the archetypal themes he explored in both fiction and nonfiction.In

A bold synthesis of the events that have dominated modern Africa in this historic era of nation-building and transformation.

This critical account of the fair trade movement explores the vast gap between the rhetoric of fair trade and its practical results for poor countries, particularly those of Africa. In the Global North, fair trade often is described as a revolutionary tool for transforming the lives of millions across the globe. The growth in sales for fair trade products has been dramatic in recent years, but most of the benefit has accrued to the already wealthy merchandisers at the top of the value chain rather than to the poor producers at the bottom.Ndongo Sylla has worked for Fairtrade International and offers an insider's view of how fair trade improves-or doesn't-the lot of the world's poorest. His methodological framework first describes the hypotheses on which the fair trade movement is grounded before going on to examine critically the claims made by its proponents. By distinguishing local impact from global impact, Sylla exposes the inequity built into the system and the resulting misallocation of the fair trade premium paid by consumers. The Fair Trade Scandal is an empirically based critique of both fair trade and traditional free trade; it is the more important for exploring the problems of both from the perspective of the peoples of the Global South, the ostensible beneficiaries of the fair trade system.

There is no easy way to identify grasses. And no one understands this better than H.D. Harrington, who observed thousands of students struggle and learn. His clear, concise, and well-organized guide will continue to be a basic and essential text for use in the classroom or in the field.