Innumerable men and women in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were gripped by the anxiety, often conviction, that they were doomed to go to hell. This condition of mind was commonly enmeshed with such circumstances as parental severity, social exclusion, and economic decline, which seemed to give cogency to a Calvinist theology specializing in the idea of rejection. This book investigates how a menacing discourse compounding theology and social experience constructs subjectivity and shapes texts. Looking at a variety of sources, including puritan autobiographies and works by Bunyan, Burton, Donne, Marlowe, and Milton the book challenges both the assumption of authorial autonomy and the emollience toward protestant culture that have informed most literary studies of the period.

Puritan Richard Baxter explains many of the reasons that one develops a melancholy or depressed frame of mind. He pays particular attention to when sorrow becomes unhealthy and what are the warning signs. He explains causes such as diseases of the body, sinful discontents, guilt of sin and mistakes in thinking. He explains cures of melancholy and gives many of his own counsels. He explores the topic of taking care of a melancholy person. This puritan sermon is from the "Morning Exercise at Cripplegate" series. This edition includes an outline of the sermon and a biographical sketch of Richard Baxter. The sermon is also called "The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow."Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was born at Rowton in Shropshire, England. He had little formal education but studied on his own. He spent most of his ministry at St. Mary and All Saints Church at Kidderminster. He was a leader of the Nonconformists at the Savoy Conference. He spent time in jail for his puritan views. He was a prodigious writer. His most famous works are "Call to the Unconverted," "The Saints Everlasting Rest" and "The Reformed Pastor."

Everyone eats, but rarely do we ask why or investigate why we eat what we eat. Why do we love spices, sweets, coffee? How did rice become such a staple food throughout so much of eastern Asia? Everyone Eats examines the social and cultural reasons for our food choices and provides an explanation of the nutritional reasons for why humans eat, resulting in a unique cultural and biological approach to the topic. E. N. Anderson explains the economics of food in the globalization era, food's relationship to religion, medicine, and ethnicity as well as offers suggestions on how to end hunger, starvation, and malnutrition. Everyone Eats feeds our need to understand human ecology by explaining the ways that cultures and political systems structure the edible environment.