Short Studies

Exploring the cultural and institutional dimensions of Christianity and tracing its course over two millennia, Linda Woodhead provides a fresh, lively, and candid portrait of Christianity's past and present. Addressing topics including the competition for power between different forms of Christianity, the churches' use of power, and its struggles with modernity, this new edition includes up-to-date information on the growth and geographical spread of Eastern Christianity, reflecting the global nature of Christianity in our ever-shifting contemporary culture.

What in the world is God doing? It's easy to wonder this. We are living in an unfolding story, and it's hard to hold on when difficult circumstances linger, or your deepest prayer hangs in the air, seemingly unanswered. Thankfully the Bible is filled with people who experienced the same thing. They had to learn to trust God's way and timing—and their stories give us insights to live that way too.

Reframing your perspective can transform your life. We often face circumstances that we cannot change - a job we are forced to keep, a relationship that did not work out, a decision we cannot take back. The stress of life can overwhelm us, and we may not see past the obstacles in our path. In the face of unwanted challenges, we may despair over our lack of control and long for an easier way out. Laurie Short offers a simple but revolutionary idea: Change nothing that is around you yet still change everything about your life.

As a 41-year-old man confronts his own mortality in this collection's title story, he recalls his Spokane Indian father's chilling death from alcoholism and diabetes. Another tale features an eccentric salesman pursuing a married woman from airport to airport. And then there's the film editor who sees nothing wrong with altering footage to fit preconceived views - until he becomes the target of media distortion.

In this very short introduction, Tim Bayne introduces the field of philosophy of religion and engages with some of the most burning questions philosophers discuss.

Studying for the NCLEX-RN can sometimes feel like you're stuck in a word maze, surrounded by terms that seem impossible to remember. Every time you think you've got one down, another ten pop up to take its place. Sound familiar? We know the struggle-trying to cram 1,200 essential vocabulary words into your brain can be overwhelming. But here's the good news: it doesn't have to be boring!

In 1999, Texas passed a landmark clean energy law, beginning a groundswell of new policies that promised to make the US a world leader in renewable energy. As Leah Stokes shows in Short Circuiting Policy, however, that policy did not lead to momentum in Texas, which failed to implement its solar laws or clean up its electricity system. Examining clean energy laws in Texas, Kansas, Arizona, and Ohio over 30 years Stokes argues that organized combat between advocate and opponent interest groups is central to explaining why states are not on track to address the climate crisis.

When Europeans first arrived in North America, between five and eight million Indigenous people were already living there. But how did they come to be here? What were their agricultural, spiritual, and hunting practices? How did their societies evolve, and what challenges do they face today? Eminent historians Theda Perdue and Michael Green begin by describing how nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers followed the bison and woolly mammoth over the Bering land mass between Asia and what is now Alaska between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, settling throughout North America.

Based upon a 10,000 year old oral tradition, these stories reflect three essential elements of the cumulative wisdom of Paula Underwood's Native American ancestors. "Who Speaks for Wolf" deals with the human impact on the Earth, "Winter White and Summer Gold" deals with planning for the future, "Many Circles, Many Paths" deals with living together in peace.

Karl von Clausewitz is considered by many to have been one of the greatest writers on war. His study On War was described by the American strategic thinker Bernard Brodie as "not simply the greatest, but the only great book about war". It is hard to disagree. Even though he wrote his only major work at a time when the range of firearms was 50 yards, much of what he had to say remains relevant today. Michael Howard explains Clausewitz's ideas in terms both of his experiences as a professional soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, and of the intellectual background of his time.

In The Call of the Wild, Buck is a big-hearted dog whose blissful domestic life gets turned upside down when he is suddenly uprooted from his California home and transplanted to the exotic wilds of the Alaskan Yukon in the 1890s. White Fang is the story of a wolf-dog that is rescued from its brutal owner and gradually becomes domesticated through the patience and kindness of its new owner. Lost Face (Including Other Short Stories) is a collection of seven short stories by Jack London.

Study Break, a collection of interconnected contemporary Young Adult short stories written by Gen Z authors, explores different parts of "the college experience," from questioning your major to questioning your identity.

This Very Short Introduction provides both the believer and non-believer with a balanced survey of the central questions of theology. David Ford's approach draws us in to considering the principles underlying religious belief, including the centrality of salvation to most major religions; the concept of God in ancient, modern, and postmodern contexts; the challenge posed to theology by prayer and worship; and the issue of sin and evil. He also probes the nature of experience, knowledge, and wisdom in theology, and discusses what is involved in interpreting theological texts.

A Sherlock Holmes fan for most of her life, Gayle Lange Puhl has collected in this volume her latest stories and studies on the Great Detective. Included here are her well-reviewed “Colonel Warburton’s Madness” and “The Blood-Splattered Bridge”, plus other entertaining adventures. Essays on various Sherlockian subjects are also covered. Notable among them are the history of the real Criterion Bar and the contents of the Agra Treasure box.

A baby is born to an unwed mother in a barn. The child grows up in an obscure mountain village until he emerges a man with a revolutionary message. His out-of-the-box thinking and nonconformist charisma infuriate the guardians of the status quo who determine to destroy him along with his dangerous ideas. Love and hate, life and death stand their ground in the ultimate face-off. But who will have the last word?

Here are the uncensored words of real lesbians describing their hottest, wildest erotic adventures. This real-life erotica collection is like peeking into the secret diaries of some very frisky girls. In this collection, lesbians from across the country reveal their deepest, most intimate erotic secrets: things they wouldn't dare tell anyone else.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, (1860 - 1935), gained much of her fame with lectures on women's issues, ethics, labor, human rights, and social reform. She often referred to these themes in her fiction. She is best remembered for her 1892 short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", which was based on her own bout with severe depression and misguided medical treatment.

In this book, Dr. Kurschner traces the key topics and passages providing compelling biblical evidence that the church will first encounter the Antichrist's great tribulation before Christ returns to rapture his people and judge the world. Jesus warns us, "Remember, I have told you ahead of time." (Matt. 24:25). And Paul cautions us, "Let no one in any way deceive you, for that day will not arrive until the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness [Antichrist] is revealed, the son of destruction" (2 Thess. 2:3).

Have you ever wondered how much that guy with the cardboard sign makes? One economics student did and he decided to find out. During the summer of his senior year at college, while earning a B.A. in Economics and Political Science, David P. Spears spent 80 hours undercover as a panhandler. Systematically recording every transaction at the exit ramp, Spears captured a rarely seen picture of how modern urban charity works.

In his highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Art Matters: Hemingway, Craft, and the Creation of the Modern Short Story, Robert Paul Lamb delivers a dazzling analysis of the craft of this influential writer. Lamb scrutinizes a selection of Hemingway's exemplary stories to illuminate the author's methods of construction and to show how craft criticism complements and enhances cultural literary studies