The tragic and fascinating history of the first epic struggle between white settlers and Native Americans in the early seventeenth century: “a riveting historical validation of emancipatory impulses frustrated in their own time” (Booklist, starred review) as determined Narragansett Indians refused to back down and accept English authority. A devout Puritan minister in seventeenth-century New England, Roger Williams was also a social critic, diplomat, theologian, and politician who fervently believed in tolerance. Yet his orthodox brethren were convinced tolerance fostered anarchy and courted God’s wrath. Banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635, Williams purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and laid the foundations for the colony of Rhode Island as a place where Indian and English cultures could flourish side by side, in peace. As the seventeenth century wore on, a steadily deepening antagonism developed between an expansionist, aggressive Puritan culture and an increasingly vulnerable, politically divided Indian population. Indian tribes that had been at the center of the New England communities found themselves shunted off to the margins of the region. By the 1660s, all the major Indian peoples in southern New England had come to accept English authority, either tacitly or explicitly. All, except one: the Narragansetts. In God, War, and Providence “James A. Warren transforms what could have been merely a Pilgrim version of cowboys and Indians into a sharp study of cultural contrast…a well-researched cameo of early America” (The Wall Street Journal). He explores the remarkable and little-known story of the alliance between Roger Williams’s Rhode Island and the Narragansett Indians, and how they joined forces to retain their autonomy and their distinctive ways of life against Puritan encroachment. Deeply researched, “Warren’s well-written monograph contains a great deal of insight into the tactics of war on the frontier” (Library Journal) and serves as a telling precedent for white-Native American encounters along the North American frontier for the next 250 years.

In The American Miracle- Divine Providence in the Rise of the Republic, Michael Medved uncovered a pattern of extraordinary and improbable turns in the young nation's ascent to power. Now, in the anticipated second volume, the nation's epic tale enters the modern era. As the civil war comes to an end and reconstruction begins, the Union is narrowly saved from total demise. But contempt still runs hot through the battered nation, and the future of the United States is still at stake. In This Favored Land, Medved reveals the instruments of fate that took the bedraggled country from its lowest point to her dominant role on the world stage today. Following the paths of American heroes and the little known figures who played indispensable roles in the unfolding of the nation's freakishly fortunate destiny, This Favored Land proves that the founding fathers were right- God has always been--and continues to be--at work in shaping the fate of the nation.

'Wonderfully written and characteristically brilliant' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads 'Elegant, readable ... an impressive synthesis ... Not many historians could have done it' - Jonathan Sumption, Spectator 'Tyerman's book is fascinating not just for what it has to tell us about the Crusades, but for the mirror it holds up to today's religious extremism' - Tom Holland, Spectator Thousands left their homelands in the Middle Ages to fight wars abroad. But how did the Crusades actually happen? From recruitment propaganda to raising money, ships to siege engines, medicine to the power of prayer, this vivid, surprising history shows holy war - and medieval society - in a new light.

Questions about divine providence have preoccupied Christians for generations: Are people elected to salvation? For whom did Jesus die? This book introduces readers to four prevailing views on divine providence, with particular attention to the question of who Jesus died to save (the extent of the atonement) and if or how God determines who will be saved (predestination). But this book does not merely answer readers' questions. Four Views on Divine Providence helps readers think theologically about all the issues involved in exploring this doctrine. The point-counterpoint format reveals the assumptions and considerations that drive equally learned and sincere theologians to sharp disagreement. It unearths the genuinely decisive issues beneath an often superficial debate. Volume contributors are Paul Helseth (God causes every creaturely event that occurs); William Lane Craig (through his 'middle knowledge, ' God controls the course of worldly affairs without predetermining any creatures' free decisions); Ron Highfield (God controls creatures by liberating their decision-making); and Gregory Boyd (human decisions can be free only if God neither determines nor knows what they will be). Introductory and closing essays by Dennis Jowers give relevant background and guide readers toward their own informed beliefs about divine providence.

In crafting racial visions of the modern world, European thinkers appropriated the Christian doctrine of providence, constructing the idea of European humanity’s rule over the globe on the model of God’s rule over the universe. As a powerful ordering theory of the relationship between God and creation, time and space, self and other, the doctrine served as an intellectual framework for the theorization of whiteness, as the male European subject replaced Jesus Christ as the human being at the center of world history. Through an analysis of the work of G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Barth, and James H. Cone, God, Race, and History examines this subversion of the Christian doctrine of providence, as well as subsequent attempts within modern Protestant theology to liberate the doctrine from its captivity to whiteness. It then develops a constructive political theology of providence in conversation with Delores S. Williams and M. Shawn Copeland, discerning Jesus Christ at work through the Holy Spirit in the struggles of ordinary, overlooked, and oppressed human creatures to survive and to carve out a flourishing life for themselves, their communities, and their world.

From the author of "American Mafioso" comes the story of the Brown brothers, leading slave merchants of Providence, Rhode Island, during the time of the American Revolution.

The story of the indigenous people in what would become Rhode Island, their encounters with Europeans, and their return to sovereignty in the twentieth century. Before Roger Williams set foot in the New World, the Narragansett farmed corn and squash, hunted beaver and deer, and harvested clams and oysters throughout what would become Rhode Island. They also obtained wealth in the form of wampum, a carved shell that was used as currency along the eastern coast. As tensions with the English rose, the Narragansett leaders fought to maintain autonomy. While the elder Sachem Canonicus lived long enough to welcome both Verrazzano and Williams, his nephew Miatonomo was executed for his attempts to preserve their way of life and circumvent English control. Historian Robert A. Geake explores the captivating story of these Native Rhode Islanders.

A revelatory look at the separation of church and state in America—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Great Influenza For four hundred years, Americans have fought over the proper relationships between church and state and between a free individual and the state. This is the story of the first battle in that war of ideas, a battle that led to the writing of the First Amendment and that continues to define the issue of the separation of church and state today. It began with religious persecution and ended in revolution, and along the way it defined the nature of America and of individual liberty. Acclaimed historian John M. Barry explores the development of these fundamental ideas through the story of Roger Williams, who was the first to link religious freedom to individual liberty, and who created in America the first government and society on earth informed by those beliefs. This book is essential to understanding the continuing debate over the role of religion and political power in modern life.

I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me (Psalm 57:2) The greatness of God is a glorious and unsearchable mystery. 'For the LORD most high is terrible; he is a great king over all the earth' (Psalm 47:2). The condescension of the most high God to men is also a profound mystery. 'Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly' (Psalm 138:6). But when both these meet together, as they do in this Scripture, they make up a matchless mystery. Here we find the most high God performing all things for a poor distressed creature. It is the great support and solace of the saints in all the distresses that befall them here, that there is a wise Spirit sitting in all the wheels of motion, and governing the most eccentric creatures and their most pernicious designs to blessed and happy issues. And, indeed, it were not worthwhile to live in a world devoid of God and Providence.

"God has a special providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America."--Otto von Bismarck America's response to the September 11 attacks spotlighted many of the country's longstanding goals on the world stage: to protect liberty at home, to secure America's economic interests, to spread democracy in totalitarian regimes and to vanquish the enemy utterly. One of America's leading foreign policy thinkers, Walter Russell Mead, argues that these diverse, conflicting impulses have in fact been the key to the U.S.'s success in the world. In a sweeping new synthesis, Mead uncovers four distinct historical patterns in foreign policy, each exemplified by a towering figure from our past. Wilsonians are moral missionaries, making the world safe for democracy by creating international watchdogs like the U.N. Hamiltonians likewise support international engagement, but their goal is to open foreign markets and expand the economy. Populist Jacksonians support a strong military, one that should be used rarely, but then with overwhelming force to bring the enemy to its knees. Jeffersonians, concerned primarily with liberty at home, are suspicious of both big military and large-scale international projects. A striking new vision of America's place in the world, Special Providence transcends stale debates about realists vs. idealists and hawks vs. doves to provide a revolutionary, nuanced, historically-grounded view of American foreign policy.