The evolution of stores out of the old peddler-and-plantation system, with colored illustrations and pencil drawings.

Each Vermont country store carries its own particular stock of special wares and memorable characters. From the Connecticut River to Lake Champlain, country stores and their dedicated owners offer warmth against the blizzard, advice and a friendly ear or a stern word. Neighbors meet and communities are forged beside these feed barrels and bottomless coffee urns. Author Dennis Bathory-Kitsz returns once again to the Green Mountain State with this updated and revised history and guide to its beloved country stores. When Hurricane Irene threatened many of these local institutions and communities in 2011, Vermonters came together, often at their country stores. Explore the very heart of communities big and small, where locals have been keeping their house keys behind the counter and solving the world's problems on the front stoop for more than two hundred years.

The old country stores along the back roads of rural Mississippi are the treasures that remain of a bygone era. Travel back to the Mississippi of yesteryear and hear of the deadly can of molasses that once caused a massacre in Carrollton, Mississippi, in the late 1800s. Find the church near Alston's General Store in Rodney with a Civil War cannonball lodged in its front facade. Or discover the haunts of Causeyville General Store among shelves and corners stocked with relics of the American past. These and other stores remembered here by local author June Davis Davidson were the cornerstones of their communities, and harken back to a time when the sweetest things in life were the smell of peanuts roasting and reaching into the penny candy jar.

Looks at the history of general stores in North Carolina, providing a collection of photographs of the stores and interviews with their owners.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

Isaac Wolf can travel through time. But he's also in a race against it. With tensions in Prague rising at the height of World War II, Isaac Wolf is forced to leave home with nothing more than a small backpack and a pendant in the shape of an eternity knot. His parents believe the pendant will keep him safe--if he can discover what it really means. This clue leads him to Rookskill Castle, home of the Special Alternative Intelligence Unit where gifted children can learn to harness their powers to support the Allies' cause. With the help of his new friends and an antique watch that allows him to travel through time, Isaac must unlock his own powers and uncover the true meaning of the eternity knot. The only way he can do that, though, is by hunting for a series of magical artifacts that are scattered throughout the past . . . and Isaac isn't the only artifact hunter. Soon he finds himself in a race against a threat just as deadly as the war itself--one that his parents had been trying to shield him from all along.

In the Winter 2012 issue of Southern Cultures… The Great Debate: NASCAR vs. College Football Undercover: Inside the World of the Debutante On the Backroads: Country Stores and the Days of Yore A Look at the Numbers: Race and Region in the American South and Beyond Autobiography: Cotton Milling in Alabama and Understanding Personal Identity in the South . . . and more. Southern Cultures is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, winter) by the University of North Carolina Press. The journal is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for the Study of the American South.

Entertaining at home in gracious French style. Born from her experience of everyday living in France, Sharon Santoni reveals the gracious, easy French way of entertaining guests at her countryside home, year-round. Personal stories evoke the spirit of the French lifestyle, while gorgeous photos make us feel right at home. Santoni creates lush bouquets from her garden and utilizes resources from surrounding nature to lay gorgeous tables both indoors and outdoors. Venues range from a Sunday morning breakfast on the patio, to a ladies lunch in her lush garden, a formal dinner in her dining room, and a picnic by the river. Santoni also shares 15 favorite recipes utilizing seasonal foods. Find inspiration for your tables throughout the seasons, and discover the simple pleasure of entertaining friends and family. Sharon Santoni writes the popular blog My French Country Home. She is the author of My Stylish French Girlfriends (Gibbs Smith). She resides in Normandy, France.

In The American South, William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill demonstrate their belief that it is impossible to divorce the history of the south from the history of the United States. Each volume includes a substantial biographical essay—completely updated for this edition—which provides the reader with a guide to literature on the history of the South. Coverage now includes the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, up-to-date analysis of the persistent racial divisions in the region, and the South's unanticipated role in the 2008 presidential primaries.