I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in broadening their perspective on the influence of social and structural forces on human personality and development.

This book is an extremely engaging and informative collection of essays by a number of religious scholars chronicling the attempts of various North American religious denominations to negotiate the impact of modernity on the family. These denominational histories reveal periods of growth and decline in the denominations themselves and in their attention to family issues. They also show the range of voices within the various denominations. These stories thus debunk the "culture wars" typology, according to which denominations are labeled as univocally liberal or conservative.

The two major forces that appear across these denominational accounts are the tension between individualism and community and the influence of market forces on family life. The stories show how these broad social forces, more than any one social movement have produced many changes in families. Feminism is usually cited as one of the forces that has impacted the modern family, and it has spurred action and/or inspired reaction in virtually every denomination. Likewise, the recent focus on fatherhood in a number of denominations demonstrates the continuing importance of social and cultural change on churches and families. The most powerful insights from these various denominational narratives are the need to negotiate with, rather than reject modernity, and the important point that the mere presence of conflict on issues like the family does not necessarily indicate failure.

Whether the conflict is over tradition and innovation, individualism and familism, public and private, ideals and reality, or protective withdrawal from or prophetic engagement with the surrounding culture, the essays in this volume show how the family has been an important locus of the reconciliation of religion and modernity in American culture.

This book is one of a number of books on the Industrial Revolution by Phyllis Deane. She focuses more on the positive aspects of the revolution, and has many good primary source quotes from famous people who lived during that time. If you don't want to pick it up here, definitely check it out at your local library.
-Jason Fooks

I used this book to teach my two young children to read. We followed the guideline and one year later they both could read simple books before 1st grade. A side benefit with this book is my children learn to spell simple words on their own --- all before they entered 1st grade

We absolutely loved this book. The pictures were gorgious and the facts and information fascinating. Most people we have talked to have always thought tulips ORIGINATED in Holland. We thought that, too, but learned differently in this great book! If you love tulips, this book is for you!

Ok, so it's been almost 20 years since I read the book.... twice. I found it quite amusing and entertaining even though it didn't fit my standard genre of Alfred Hitchcock & the 3 investigators or Astronomy books. It was one of my absolute favorite fiction books, and the reason I looked it up now on Amazon is because my wife, a teacher, had never heard of it. I guess some great works are just obscure. Too bad.

This series is the most intelligent and helpful workbook ever written. The exercises are psychologically astute, and the artwork is moving. Wickham is a highly established and reputable therapist. This book will be a boon to therapist, teachers, parents, and children. Check out the other books for children by these authors.

Phyllis Ann Naylor's haunting York trilogy dips back into time travel and the haunting presence of the gypsy family. Though it doesn't answer all the questions, "Footprints at the Window" gives a note of finality to this trilogy.

It's been a stressful summer for Dan: He's found that Huntington's Disease runs in his family and may strike him down when he's in his forties, his father is being tested, and he is haunted by magpies and visions of the Faws, gypsies, whom he encountered in York -- even to the point of being drawn back into the waning days of the Roman Empire. Now a family of gypsies has come to the land near where his grandmother lives, and it's making Dan nervous.

What he finds is seemingly another Faw family, a few years down the line and with radically different names. And while trying to help the girl Oriole -- who bears a striking resemblance to Orlenda -- Dan is drawn back in time. Now it's the Middle-Ages, during the time of the Black Death, and he is the only person to recover from the disease. He encounters another incarnation of the Faw family, and for the second time tries to help the beautiful Orlenda escape to safety. What will happen will change Dan's life forever...

Perhaps the only flaw of this trilogy is that in the third book, some of the threads are left dangling. For example, I was never entirely sure why it is that Joe, Dan, and the Faws are repeatedly featured in the past; the implication seems to be that they were reincarnated, especially since Blossom refers to her grandfather being the exact image of Ambrose Faw.

Naylor hasn't lost her talent for atmosphere, either between the characters or in a given place. Dan shows a plausible growth in character, and a new philosophical bent that he did not have in the first book. This new maturity is reflected in his actions in the Middle-Ages and his increased acceptance of "what will come will come."

As the story progresses, we also see that it is less a story about gypsies, past lives or incarnations, or time travel, but rather a story about Dan and the inner struggles that are brought into focus and greater clarity by the events of the trilogy. Gratifyingly, there is also a note both of finality and of "starting again" in this book, a wistful acceptance, and a very real sense that sometimes a thing like Huntington's Disease can't be predicted.

A good conclusion to an extremely good trilogy, "Footprints" is definitely worth checking out.