Behind the writing of history is a philosophy of history, and behind that philosophy of history are certain pre-theoretical and essentially religious presuppositions. There is no such thing as brute factuality, but rather only interpreted factuality. The historian's report is always the report of a perspective, a context, a framework; man is not, like God, beyond time and circumstance, condition and place. Man is neither a prime mover nor a prime viewer, but, to deny to man the status of a first cause and a first view is by no means to deny the validity or function of secondary causes and secondary viewers. The writing of history is always in terms of a framework, a philosophical and ultimately religious conceptual structure in the mind of the historian. To the orthodox Christian, the shabby incarnations of the reigning historiographies are both absurd and offensive. They are idols, and he is forbidden to bow down to them and must indeed wage war against them. A Christian historiography and a Christian revisionism are thus for him moral imperatives. For Christian revisionism, there is thus an incarnation that stands as the central point in history, Jesus Christ, and, this incarnation was without confusion of the eternal and the temporal, the divine and the human. This requires a denial of any coming, continuing, or possible incarnation in any historical order or institution. The divinization of church, state, school, or any other institution, or its absorption into the incarnation, is thus a sign of paganism. These essays are studies in Christian revisionism. There purpose is to call attention those aspects of American history currently neglected. Originally published in 1965, these essays were a continuation of the author's previous work, This Independent Republic.

A penetrating account of the religious critics of American liberalism, pluralism, and democracy—from the Revolution until today “A chilling consideration of persistent mutations of American thought still threatening our pluralist democracy.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) The conversation about the proper role of religion in American public life often revolves around what kind of polity the Founders of the United States envisioned. Advocates of a “Christian America” claim that the Framers intended a nation whose political values and institutions were shaped by Christianity; secularists argue that they designed an enlightened republic where church and state were kept separate. Both sides appeal to the Founding to justify their beliefs about the kind of nation the United States was meant to be or should become. In this book, Jerome E. Copulsky complicates this ongoing public argument by examining a collection of thinkers who, on religious grounds, considered the nation’s political ideas illegitimate, its institutions flawed, and its church‑state arrangement defective. Beholden to visions of cosmic order and social hierarchy, rejecting the increasing pluralism and secularism of American society, they predicted the collapse of an unrighteous nation and the emergence of a new Christian commonwealth in its stead. By engaging their challenges and interpreting their visions we can better appreciate the perennial temptations of religious illiberalism—as well as the virtues and fragilities of America’s liberal democracy.

This major new text by leading authorities takes a broad interdisciplinary approach to the changing relationship between the EU and the US in the 21st century and its historical, global and domestic context. The authors focus on the contrast between the policy convergence and interdependence on the one hand and the intense competition on the other.

Through contemporary environmental philosophy and emerging paradigms in complex systems theory, Andrew McMurry presents a new reading of Emerson, Thoreau, and the green tradition in American thought. McMurry analyzes Emerson and Thoreau's foundational roles in the formation of the two main currents in American environmentalism: the managerial, or "shallow," and the radical, or "deep." The author draws, in particular, on Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's theory of autopoesis and the social systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. These theories, says McMurry, give us the conceptual tools to update Emerson and Thoreau's philosophies of nature, literary aesthetics, and attitudes toward pastoralism for the current age of environmental risk and uncertainty. McMurry's systems approach helps us to recast essentialist, ultimately debilitating binaries such as nature/culture, wilderness/civilization, and wild/tame along the lines of a suppler, richer distinction: that between self-organizing systems (like language or society) and their environments (defined simply as whatever cannot communicate with the system). Such an undertaking also allows McMurry to reflect on the systemic obstacles that ecocriticism, as a genre enabling positive environmental practices, must confront if it is to be theoretically coherent. Sophisticated and socially relevant, Environmental Renaissance is both a call for critics to broaden their parameters and a warning about rhapsodizing on nature while our very life-support systems are crumbling.

A riveting blend of science writing and true-crime narrative that explores the valuable but often shocking interface between crime and nature--and the secrets each can reveal about the other--from a pioneer in forensic ecology and a trailblazing female scientist. From mud tracks on a quiet country road to dirt specks on the soles of walking boots, forensic ecologist Patricia Wiltshire uses her decades of scientific expertise to find often-overlooked clues left behind by criminal activity. She detects evidence and eliminates hypotheses armed with little more than a microscope, eventually developing a compelling thesis of the who, what, how, and when of a crime. Wiltshire's remarkable accuracy has made her one of the most in-demand police consultants in the world, and her curiosity, humility, and passion for the truth have guided her every step of the way. A riveting blend of science writing and true-crime narrative, The Nature of Life and Death details Wiltshire's unique journey from college professor to crime fighter: solving murders, locating corpses, and exonerating the falsely accused. Along the way, she introduces us to the unseen world all around us and underneath our feet: plants, animals, pollen, spores, fungi, and microbes that we move through every day. Her story is a testament to the power of persistence and reveals how our relationship with the vast natural world reaches far deeper than we might think.