Soldier of Courage, Soldier of Compassion is drawn from the letters and diaries of Captain Bennett L. Munger of company C, 44th New York state volunteer infantry. Munger's regiment was known as "Ellsworth's Avengers", in honor of their fallen comrade, Col. Elmer Ellsworth. The regiment was a seasoned fighting unit, and saw action in many important battles during the civil war. Munger's career would eventually place him in the position of prison inspector for the north's most notorious, Confederate prisoner of war camp, "Elmira". Elmira was little better than a death camp, that in some ways was on par with the horror of Andersonville. Munger's letters and diaries give an important firsthand account and insight into a moment in time that otherwise would be lost without this small volume that is dedicated to his unwavering service to his country and his steadfast compassion to ease the sufferings of his fellow man.

The formation of what would eventually become the West Virginia National Guard has its roots intertwined in the Old Virginia Militia system of the early and mid-1700s. This militia system spanned the Indian hostilities of the French and Indian War, American Revolutionary War, 1780s and 1790s Indian Wars, and Civil War. Images of America: West Virginia National Guard covers the time span between 1898 and 1919. This period of guard history was chaotic, to say the least, and was typified by turbulent social, economic, and political unrest.

The Golden Yoke is a remarkable achievement. It is the first elaboration of the legal, cultural, and ideological dimensions of precommunist Tibetan jurisprudence, a unique legal system that maintains its secularism within a thoroughly Buddhist setting. Layer by layer, Rebecca Redwood French reconstructs the daily operation of law in Tibet before the Chinese invasion in 1959. In the Tibetans' own words, French identifies their courts, symbols, and personnel and traces the procedures for petitioning and filing documents. There are stories here from judges, legal conciliators, and lay people about murder, property disputes, and divorce. French shows that Tibetan law is deeply embedded in its Buddhist culture and that the system evolved not from the rules and judgments but from what people actually do and say. In what amounts to a fully developed cosmology, she describes the cultural foundation that informs the system: myths, notions of time and conflux, inner morality, language patterns, rituals, use of space, symbols, and concepts. Based on extensive readings of Tibetan legal documents and codes, interviews with Tibetan scholars, and the reminiscences of Tibetans at home and in exile, this generously illustrated, elegantly written work is a model of outstanding research. French combines the talents of a legal anthropologist with those of a former law practitioner to develop a new field of study that has implications for other judicial systems, including our own.

The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.

In 1802, Charles Wells brought his family of 22 children down the Ohio River to a point later known as Wells Landing. With its ferryboat, tannery, blacksmiths, lumber, and flour mills, the village became a stop for river traffic and a commercial center where the scattered farming population would sell their wares. When Charles Wells died in 1815, he willed part of his estate to two daughters, Delilah Wells Grier and Sarah Wells McCoy, which they plotted and named Sistersville. In 1816, two years after Tyler County was formed, Middlebourne was chosen as the county seat. When the railroad reached Tyler County in 1884, its quiet communities enjoyed moderate prosperity; however, when Joshua Russell struck oil at the Polecat well in 1891, nearly 15,000 people rushed into the Sistersville area to find their fortunes. Discover the story of the oil boom with its saloons, hotels, opera houses, theaters, mansions, industries, and churches as told in detail through photographs from local collections and museums.