This collection of nine essays, edited by Thad W. Tate and David L. Ammerman, examine various aspects of the development of Anglo-American culture in the Chesapeake colonies, Maryland and Virginia. The studies provide a detailed and informative consideration of life in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake.

The scholars writing in this volume have published various works on the colonial Chesapeake. James Horn, who authored the essay on servant emigration to the Chesapeake, has written Adapting to a New World: English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake. Lorena S. Walsh, who herein examines marriage and family life in colonial Maryland, has written From Calabar to Carter's Grove: The History of a Virginia Slave Community. Darrett B. and Anita H. Rutman provide a startling and compelling portrait of family fragmentation and reformation due to early parental death and successive remarriage. The two also cowrote the study, A Place in Time: Middlesex County, Virginia, 1650-1750, a detailed reconstruction of life in a Virginia county, for masters and farmers and servants and slaves.

The emergence of an American-born elite is considered in Virginia by Carole Shammas, author of Inheritance in America, and in Maryland by David W. Jordan, author of Foundations of Representative Government in Maryland, 1632-1715. Carville V. Earle, author of Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System, presents a study of disease and death rates in early Virginia. Kevin P. Kelly studies the dispersed settlement patterns in Surry County, Virginia. Kelly authored The Economic and Social Development of Seventeenth-Century Surry County, Virginia. Lois Green Carr and Russell R. Menard, who have authrored and edited a number of studies on the Chesapeake, present in this book a study of the economic opportunities of freed indentured servants in Maryland.

The essays presented in this work should interest anyone researching Chesapeake history or Southern genealogy.

Africans and African-Americans were present in Virginia from early in the seventeenth century, but the essays herein concentrate on the early Anglo-American presence. The book by Rutman and Rutman, as well as the work by Walsh, should be consulted for African-American life in the early Chesapeake. See also Wesley Frank Craven, White, Red, and Black: The Seventeenth-Century Virginian. White, Red, and Black is a tremendous but succinct study of the white, Indian and African presence in early colonial Virginia. Gerald Mullin, Flight and Rebellion: Slave Resistance in Eighteenth-Century Virginia, as well as works by Mechal Sobel, illuminate black colonial experience in a later period.

This book offers much needed support to child care providers who are caring for special needs children or who wonder whether the child they are caring for has a special need. It is designed in an easy to use format: 33 exceptionalities are included (such as asthma, epilepsy, learning disabilities, abuse, etc.) with 3-5 pages of information on each one. The layout is in chart form with a spiral binding, so the book can be left open to the exceptionality you wish to review. Under each category the authors address the following: Behavioral Characteristics, What Else Could It Be?, and Recommendations. Additional resources are provided at the end of each category.

I found this book to be excellant. It follows the early childhood experience of a number of children with different special needs. It covers interviews from parents, educators, and family members. I felt the book really emphasizes the idea that these are, first and foremost, children. They need the same experiences as many "typical" developing children. It also hits hard on the subject of the parental involvement and how important it is in the "BIG PICTURE". I would recommend this book for anyone working with children, preschool teachers, elementary teachers, and childcare providers alike. It is an "Easy Read" full of great and useful information>

This tape has been heard in our home pretty much on a daily basis for a couple of weeks now. The results are very good so far. I, as a mother of 3, am benefiting in more ways than one. My children, 11, 8, and 3, are learning to get along better with each other, and it's helped me to be more patient by helping me to help them to think more positively about themselves. The things taught in this tape, are things that need to be taught on a daily basis in every home.

James Legge was a 19th-century Scottish missionary to China. This is his translation of the "Four Books" and three of the "Five Classics." The translations are dated, and Legge's interpretations of the texts are often old-fashioned, but these are still important and useful translations.

Of the "Five Classics," Legge translates the Book of Documents (a collection of historical texts), the Spring and Autumn Annals (another historical work; Legge also includes his translation of the Tso Commentary on this), and the Book of Odes. (The other two of the five are the Record of Rites and the I Ching, which Legge also translated, but which are not in this collection.) The "Five Classics" have been central texts of Confucianism since about the time of Christ.

The "Four Books" are the Great Learning, the Analects of Confucius, the sayings of the later Confucian Mencius, and the Doctrine of the Mean. These texts are all quite old, but they were grouped together, and made the basis of the Confucian educational curriculum, around the 12th century A.D.

Part of what makes Legge's translations so helpful is that he includes the Chinese text, along with extensive interpretive notes, introductions, and glossaries. This can be a little overwhelming for the beginner, but it's fun to have all the information in one place.

One caution: This set is normally in 5 volumes. I assume that this edition has combined the 1st and 2nd volumes (the "Four Books") into one volume, but it is possible that this edition does not include all that I think it does.

Choosing Death: Suicide And Calvinism In Early Modern Geneva by Jeffrey R. Watt (Associate Professor in History, University of Mississippi) is a thorough, scholarly, deftly presented case study of the Republic of Geneva and its history of suicide. From views of the suicide in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that regarded self-destruction as the result of demonic possession, and that harshly appropriated the property of those who took their own lives, to the late eighteenth century turn of thought that recognized the role that mental illness and personal trauma often played in suicide. Choosing Death is a fascinating, informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking social history of an admittedly grim subject within the historical context of a proud and sovereign European nation.

The fact that the writings of Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) are only now being translated into English is cause for celebration and so I highly recommend this publication. Bruno Bauer is one of the great unsung intellectuals of history. He was imitated by many famous minds of his time, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. This book, CHRIST AND THE CAESARS (1877) was the last of his dozen great tomes on Christianity.

What is most remarkable about this book is that Bruno Bauer goes down to text-by-text comparisons of the New Testament and the Epistles of the great Stoic writer, Lucius Seneca (tutor to Nero Caesar), in order to research keywords and key phrases common to both.

Actually, this had been done many centuries ago to some degree, but with a different twist. The Early Fathers of the Christian Church had presumed that Seneca's writings resembled New Testament writings so much because Seneca 'must have been' a secret Christian. There is even an ancient forgery that claims to be a cordial, personal correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul.

However, Bruno Bauer cited the latest 19th century scholarship to show that if there were identical words and phrases between the writings of Seneca and the writings of the New Testament, the copying was all on the New Testament side, because Seneca wrote his Epistles a full generation before St. Paul wrote his.

That only gets us to chapter two.

Another remarkable fact about this book (a fact that I recently brought to the attention of Elaine Pagels) is that Bruno Bauer demonstrates that St. Paul's texts were clearly Gnostic in many essentials. Now, Elaine Pagels says she did not read Bruno Bauer, and I believe her, but every single citation made by Bauer about St. Paul's alleged Gnosticism is included in Ms. Pagels work on St. Paul (although Ms. Pagels goes on to give three times more examples than Bruno Bauer did in 1877). To me, this says a great deal about Bauer's insight so long ago.

This writing by Bruno Bauer has a key theme - that the writers of the New Testament were influenced to a significant degree by the existing Roman philosophers of the day, including Seneca, Philo, Josephus and others. Bauer does not just state this or give a few examples, but he provides a rigorous textual analysis and a penetrating historical analysis to make his points.

This book, like most books by Bruno Bauer, was not translated into English until a century after his death. This was unfair because he was so influential in his own day, but it is understandable when we recognize that Bauer was attacked by both the left wing as well as the right wing. Bauer's anti-communist stance earned him the total rejection of Marx and the Marxists, while Bauer's demand that we take a scientific approach to the Bible earned him the total rejection of fundamentalists and the right-wing regime of Prussia in 1841.

Although this translation has many typographical errors and the wit, wisdom and genius of Bauer's prose does not shine through this translation, the fact is that this is the first edition of the first time that CHRIST AND THE CAESARS has been translated into English, and if a second edition will ever come, this first edition must be successful. That is why I give it the highest rating. I believe in Bauer, and I want him to have more attention.

Christ in Christian Tradition:
Since Adolph von Harnack's great work on History of the Dogma, there is no parallel for this ever-growing and most established reference in Chrisological history and development of Doctrine of the Person of Christ. This review covers only volume 2, part 4: The Church of Alexandria With Nubia and Ethiopia
Fr. Grillmeier reevaluates the alternative Orthodox, albeit mystical, Christology of the great Alexandrines: Alexander, Athanasius, and Cyril. With the help of the able academic Dr. Hainthaler expouds, not only the defense of Severus of Antioch, and Theodosius of Alexandria (in house arrest at Constantinopole) but also the arbitration of his colleague the colorful grammarian , scientific theologian , the genius Johannes Philoponus.

Whast is new in theology?
Aloys Grillmeier is revealing in this volume new sources made available by two great Coptologists; Prof. Tito Orlandi and Dr. Hans Quecke, who supported this great work in service of a better understanding of the schism that divided the One Holy Universal Apostolic Church. For the very first time a Christology of Shenute of Atripe, and his Disciple Besa the Archimandrite of the White Monastery are briefly reviewed for the first time.
The legendary story of faithful Nubia (in Coptic : Land of Gold) and holy Axum (Ethiopia) are treated at some elaboration, that was only attempted by the great Utah U. historian A. S. Atiya. Thus this work consecrated not only time but also space, as the Orientals are used to say.

Book Contents:
Part One: Alexandrian Christology in Greek:
Section I: Christology of the patriarchs;
1. Timothy Aerulus in rejection of Chalcedon
2. The struggle between Pro and Anti Chaledonians
3. Theodosius, Spiritual heir of Severus of Antioch
4. Two hierarchies: the Copts and Melkites
Section II: Christology of the Scholars:
1. The poet Nonnos of Panopolis
2. Two Alexegites: Ammonius and Olimpiodore
3. John Philoponus, Alexandrian Philosopher and Theologian
4. Cosmas Indicopleustes

Part Two: The Province of Coptic Christology:
1. A new source for Shenute: Founder of Coptic Christology
2. Besa: Archimandrite of the White Monastery
3. Christology in Coptic liturgical prayers

Part Three: The Cross of Christ over Nubia

Part Four: Christ in a new Messianic Kingdom of Ethiopia

Concluding Epilogue:
This great book, 430 pages of ecclesiastical agony and Christological ecstasy, work of great Christian Scholars who in search of truth discovered the treasures of Alexandrian and Coptic faith. John Meyendroff says in his Epilogue of Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions "Actually, it becomes increasingly embarrassing to use the term 'Monophysite' to designate these ancient Churches.' After less than a decade this work was translated into English to dogmatically support Fr. Meyendroff and all the blessed Dyophisite Chaledonians.

Further Readings?
1.A History of Eastern Christianity
by Aziz Suryal, Atiya

2.Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church, 450-680 Ad (Church History ; 2),
by John Meyendorff
3.The First Seven Ecumenical Councils, their history & theology
by Leo D. Davis,SJ

Father Louis Bouyer has written a detailed yet clear account of the Christian experience underlying the entire faith, the union of the person with the Holy Trinity. Partly an anthropological study on the nature of the cultic practices of early societies and mostly a treatise on the way in which Christianity built upon the "good dreams" that pervaded humanity leading up to the Incarnation, Bouyer sympathetically reviews in particular Hellenistic paganism by focusing upon Eleusis, Mother Goddesses, Dionysius, Orphism, and Mithras. He then reviews the Jewish Wisdom tradition and, for the next 200 pages, devotes himself entirely to the Christian experience in its New Testament and sub apostolic expressions. He also includes insightful chapters on the later tradition including modern psychological understandings of mysticism. This is a very insightful and useful book for both the novice and the expert. Be sure to look at the sample pages as they give you the best review! Enjoy!

This book changed my life. Until my wife and I read it we were deeply unhappy and on the point of divorce. Her drinking was getting out of control and I had not been able to satisfy her natural desires for over a year. After reading Professor Ayres' researches on early christian sexual positions we have never looked back. Thank you, thank you, thank you Professor Ayres! You saved my marriage.