In Pursuit of Unity, Michael Perman presents a comprehensive analysis of the South's political history. In the 1800s, the region endured almost continuous political crisis--nullification, secession, Reconstruction, the Populist revolt, and disfranchisement. For most of the twentieth century, the region was dominated by a one-party system, the "Solid South," that ensured both political unity internally and political influence in Washington. But in both centuries, the South suffered from the noncompetitive, one-party politics that differentiated it from the rest of the country. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Perman argues, the South's political distinctiveness has come to an end, as has its pursuit of unity.

This contextualised study illuminates the oft-misunderstood aspects of Richard Baxter's ecclesiology: purity, unity, and liberty. In doing so, it sheds further light on the nature of seventeenth-century English Puritanism, and the quest for the true church and the corresponding conflicts between the Laudians and Puritans.

Albert Einstein once wrote: "The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction." Remarkably, in this book we arrive at those universal axioms from which universal science can be built up by pure deduction. Within the prevailing paradigm of science - the mathematical philosophy of nature - we show it is not possible to unify science. To overcome this limitation we introduce a new, more general paradigm. Since the new paradigm is a generalisation of the mathematical philosophy of nature, we are able to retain the mathematical knowledge built up within the prevailing paradigm. Within the new paradigm we introduce four empirical universal axioms, from which we deduce that it is not possible to mathematically unify the two fundamental theories of physics - quantum theory and general relativity. Instead, from the universal axioms we logically deduce the first symmetry of nature, the first invariance of nature, the universal arrow of time, the universal laws of nature, and the three universal dynamic theories of nature - quantum theory, general relativity and universal evolution. The first symmetry of nature and first invariance of nature arise from the constancy of the universal laws of nature not only being a symmetry, but a unifying symmetry. The biological view of universal evolution provides a new theory of biological evolution that replaces what we show is the deficient neo-Darwinian synthesis. In a similar way, theories of evolution in all the sciences are based on their respective views of universal evolution. From the universal axioms, we deduce the universal features of nature thereby unifying physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, economics and all of science. This book is written for scientifically-inclined general readers, teachers, students, scientists, philosophers, physicists, chemists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and economists.

In John Locke's Theology: An Ecumenical, Irenic, and Controversial Project, Jonathan S. Marko offers the closest work available to a theological system derived from the writings of John Locke. Marko argues that Locke's intent for The Reasonableness of Christianity, his most noted theological work, was to describe and defend his version of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity and not his personal theological views. Locke, Marko says, intended the work to be an ecumenical and irenic project during a controversial time in philosophy and theology. Locke described what qualifies someone as a Christian in simple and irenic terms, and argued for the necessity of Scripture and the reasonableness of God's means of conveying his authoritative messages. The Reasonableness of Christianity could be construed as personal, but mainly in the sense that it puts the burden of understanding Scripture and arriving at theological convictions on the autonomous individual, rejecting the notion that one should base one's doctrinal opinions on so-called authorities. His work was inadvertently controversial partly because then, like today, readers typically failed to make a distinction between Locke's personal and programmatic positions. Marko also points to places in Locke's corpus where he avoids advocating for a particular sectarian position in his treatment of theological doctrines. What is more, it shows why attempting to categorize Locke--a philosopher, theologian, and political scientist all at once--according to traditional Christian paradigms is a dangerous misstep and a difficult scholarly feat.