The first edition of Shaping Seattle Architecture, published in 1994, introduced readers to Seattle’s architects by showcasing the work of those who were instrumental in creating the region’s built environment. Twenty years later, the second edition updates and expands the original with new information and illustrations that provide an even richer exploration of Seattle architecture. The book begins with a revised introduction that brings the story of Seattle architecture into the twenty-first century and situates developments in Seattle building design within local and global contexts. The book’s fifty-four essays present richly illustrated profiles that describe the architects' careers, provide an overview of their major works, and explore their significance. Shaping Seattle Architecture celebrates a wide range of people who helped form the region's built environment. It provides updated information about many of the architects and firms profiled in the first edition. Four individuals newly included in this second edition are Edwin J. Ivey, a leading residential designer; Fred Bassetti, an important contributor to Northwest regional modernism; L. Jane Hastings, one of the region’s foremost women in architecture; and Richard Haag, founder of the landscape architecture program at the University of Washington and designer of Gas Works Park and the Bloedel Reserve. The book also includes essays on the buildings of the Coast Salish people, who inhabited Puget Sound prior to Euro-American settlement; the role that architects played in speculative housing developments before and after World War II; and the vernacular architecture built by nonprofessionals that makes up a portion of the fabric of the city. Shaping Seattle Architecture concludes with a substantial reference section, updated to reflect the last twenty years of research and publications. A locations appendix offers a geographic guide to surviving works. The research section directs interested readers to further resources, and the appendix “Additional Significant Seattle Architects” provides thumbnail sketches of nearly 250 important figures not included in the main text.

The evolution of the Canada–US borderland in the Pacific Northwest included the wholesale transformation of social organization and individual identities together with the redefinition and application of public power. Before and After the State examines the impact of those changes across a region that already harboured a vibrant, highly complex mélange of societies with dynamic local, regional, and global trade and kin networks. Allan McDougall, Lisa Philips, and Daniel Boxberger explore fundamental questions of state formation, social transformation, and the (re)construction of identity to expose the narratives and other devices of nation building, their impact on generations caught in the transition, and the reverberations of those national myths that continue to the present.

The Presbytery of Seattle 1858-2005 is a chronological narrative concerning Seattle Presbytery, its churches and its predecessors, the Presbyteries of Puget Sound and Oregon. The book briefly summarizes the church and Presbyterian history in Europe and in the American Colonies. It describes the history leading to the missionary beginnings of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Old Oregon with Rev. Henry H. Spalding and Dr. Marcus Whitman from 1836-1847. Rev. George F. Whitworth, the next Presbyterian minister who arrived in Washington Territory in 1854, planted the first churches and organized the Presbytery of Puget Sound in 1858 with two fellow ministers. Much of the early history of the Presbyterian churches in Washington Territory was related to the Presbyterian church in Oregon and early California. The pioneer ministers of Oregon and Washington are discussed. The earliest Presbyterian churches of Washington Territory were organized near Olympia. As a frontier presbytery only three ministers were necessary for organization, yet even that number could not be sustained and the Presbytery of Puget Sound lapsed in 1865 and was re-organized in 1876. Gradually the presbytery expanded and organized additional churches throughout the whole territory. Currently the Presbytery of Seattle encompasses two counties, King and Kitsap, which surround urban Seattle. In 1883 the Sumner Academy of Sumner, Washington began through the efforts of Rev. Whitworth and became Whitworth College in 1890. For over thirty years, beginning in 1909, the Seattle First Presbyterian Church was the largest Presbyterian Church in the nation. At its peak in 1939 it reported 8,818 members and eleven assistant pastors with 26 branches and a session of 110 elders. From its branches and support 24 Presbyterian churches were organized in the Seattle area. The place and accomplishments of women within the church are explored. The first woman to preach in a Seattle Presbyterian church was evangelist Mrs. Louisa M. Woosley in 1894. Largely because of her efforts the Third Cumberland Presbyterian Church (CPC) was organized in 1895. She was the first woman ordained by the Cumberland Presbyterians in 1889, however in 1894 her ordination was voided by the CPC. She was reordained a minister in 1913. The Third CPC became the Cherry Street Presbyterian Church in 1909 with the Cumberland PCUSA merger. Nine women at the Seattle First Presbyterian Church were the first officially ordained deaconesses in the nation in 1915. The slow acceptance of women as elders after 1930 and subsequently women ordained to Word and Sacrament after 1974 within the presbytery is discussed. Anyone interested in the Presbyterian church in early Oregon, Washington Territory and Washington State will find facts and stories of the 196 historic churches of the Puget Sound and Seattle Presbyteries. All Presbyterian ministers, elders and members will gain new insights into the vision, hopes, successes and failures of the church. The book is unique as it is the first extensive history of the Presbyterian Church in Washington since the publication of The History of the Synod of Washington of the PCUSA in 1908.

The Washington State Capitol Campus is the heart of state government. Olympia was designated the capital of Washington Territory in 1853. The territorial legislature first met in rented quarters before moving to a simple wooden capitol building. After becoming a state in 1889, the government began building an elaborate capitol building until the Panic of 1893 halted construction. As a temporary solution, the state purchased the former Thurston County Courthouse. Over a period of decades, a new group of permanent capitol campus buildings were constructed. Since then, the campus has continued to grow, meeting the changing needs of government. However, the history of the campus is more than a tale of buildings. It is also the story of the workers, legislators, and visitors who have made this place a community.

In the nineteenth century, more than a third of American hospitals were established and run by women with religious vocations. In Say Little, Do Much, Sioban Nelson casts light on the work of these women's religious communities. According to Nelson, the popular view that nursing invented itself in the second half of the nineteenth century is historically inaccurate and dismissive of the major advances in the care of the sick as a serious and skilled activity, an activity that originated in seventeenth-century France with Vincent de Paul's Daughters of Charity. In this comparative, contextual, and critical work, Nelson demonstrates how modern nursing developed from the complex interplay of the Catholic emancipation in Britain and Ireland, the resurgence of the Irish Church, the Irish diaspora, and the mass migrations of the German, Italian, and Polish Catholic communities to the previously Protestant strongholds of North America and mainland Britain. In particular, Nelson follows the nursing Daughters of Charity through the French Revolution and the Second Empire, documenting the relationship that developed between the French nursing orders and the Irish Catholic Church during this period. This relationship, she argues, was to have major significance for the development of nursing in the English-speaking world.