The year was 1851 and the place was Hangtown, the California mining camp that today is known as Placerville. It was here that the unpredictable and entertaining story of Zach Johnson's search for gold takes place. Zach, the son of an Episcopal priest, was a gentle man who'd come to Hangtown from Virginia to get rich. What did he do that so many men wanted him dead?It was in Hangtown's El Dorado Hotel that Zach met Claire McCarthy, a feisty, independent beauty. Zach and Claire fell ...

At one time when an individual wanted a direct, personal experience of God that person turned to his or her dreams. The early third century Christian defender of the faith, Tertullian, observed, "Is it not known to all people that the dream is the most usual way that God reveals himself to man?" Yet by the eleventh century, King William II of England states, "They are not good Christians that regard dreams." Why did this reversal of opinion occur, not only in Christian thinking, but in Jew...

Sixteen older men were asked to describe their spiritual journeys while on a retreat. They responded by opening their souls and speaking with rare honesty, courage, and vulnerability. The candor of the men revealed a tapestry of beliefs: most were Christian, though some attended church and others did not. One was Jewish while others identified as spiritual, agnostic, or atheist. The retreat provided a forum where the men presented authentic accounts of how their spiritual journeys unfolded...

The Hangtown series is the story of Zach Johnson's search for his soul. Zach struggles with morals, religion, sex, and love. In book two, Zach confronts the repressive forces of the Nativist Party; endeavors to understand why God allows suffering; and is dumbfounded by a series of dreams his love, Claire McCarthy, has. The adventure unfolds in Hangtown, a 1852 California mining town.

1852 was an election year. At that time, Hangtown was a mining camp in California's mother lode. The Native American Party was popular there because it wanted to make the United States a white, Protestant nation. Opposing the Nativists was Zach Johnson, the owner of the local newspaper. Zach's editorials argued women, Negroes, Indians, and immigrants deserved the same legal rights as native-born men. The struggle for dominance between the Nativists and Zach was unrelenting, and at times, r...

World War II veteran Hank Dunfield is about to turn one hundred years old. The staff at Ponderosa Pine Lodge have recruited Sarah, a young nursing student, to keep Hank safe, comfortable, and in the building while they plan a grand centenarian celebration. There’s one problem: Hank doesn’t want to live that long.Seemingly opposites, Hank and Sarah kindle a deep friendship. Sarah fears the future with multiple sclerosis will be even more isolated, difficult, and painful than the iso...

Hosoi, Tatsuno and Pratt examine the realities, problems and backgrounds of crimes committed by elderly people in both Japan and international perspectives.Japan’s aging population is a commonly known issue globally, and the world looks to Japan to understand the issues that other nations may experience in the future. One such aspect is an increase in crimes committed by the elderly. According to the National Police Agency in Japan, the proportion of elders arrested for committing ...

This book traces the rise of contemporary populism in Western democracies, marked by the return of would-be 'strong men' politicians. It seeks to make sense of the nature, origins, and consequences of their ascendancy—as expressed, for example, in the startling rise of the social movement surrounding Trump in the US, Brexit in the UK and the remarkable spread of ideologies that express resistance to ‘facts,’ science, and expertise.Uniquely, the book shows how what began as a form o...

How do comics produce such a striking range of vibrant stories, representations, and expressions of the sensibilities of their creators? Henry John Pratt's The Philosophy of Comics provides a ground-breaking, illustrated introduction to the study of comics and graphic novels, advancing the field of comics studies by attending to some of its most notable problems. Pratt examines the history of comics, the contrast between comics and cartoons, the tenuous place of comics in the art ...

This book examines the impact and implications of the relationship between risk and criminal justice in advanced liberal democracies, in the context of the ‘revolt against uncertainty’ which has underpinned the rise of populist politics across these societies in recent years. It asks what impact the demands for more certainty and security, and the insistence that national identity be reasserted, will have on criminal law and penal policy. Drawing upon contributions made at a symposium held...

Throughout much of the western world more and more people are being sent to prison, one of a number of changes inspired by a 'new punitiveness' in penal and political affairs. This book seeks to understand these developments, bringing together leading authorities in the field to provide a wide-ranging analysis of new penal trends, compare the development of differing patterns of punishment across different types of societies, and to provide a range of theoretical analyses and commentaries ...

`A lucid and fascinating account of how society initially comes to be viewed as ′civilized′ on the basis of how it punishes its offenders, and the various numances and contradictions that form the backdrop to that ′civilization′ prior to 1970 and the unraveling of that process thereafter. ...He [Pratt] has at the very least broadened the boundaries of the debate about the history of imprisonment in new and novel ways that will surely become a basis for future analysis′ - The Howard Journal...