Mercer University Press Search Results

Sam Williams is one of the nation's leading experts in urban competitiveness. Over seventeen years at the helm of a top chamber of commerce and twenty-two years as a partner in a global architect-development company, Williams earned a national reputation for harnessing the power of CEOs to make cities thrive. With their long-term view and the ability to garner support from many sectors, CEOs can often successfully address urban challenges too big for political and bureaucratic leaders to solve alone. In The CEO as Urban Statesman, Williams uses case studies to argue that business leaders can and should contribute to their communities by using their business skills to solve public policy problems--and he tells them how to do it. These projects are all different, but they share common themes. Williams explores each case in detail, distilling best practices as well as cautionary tales for business leaders who want to help their cities thrive.

From the first conflict under General Nathan Bedford Forrest at Murfreesboro in 1862 to the desperate and often brutal battles with Union cavalry in the Carolinas during 1865, the 2nd Georgia was almost constantly in action. While the 2nd Georgia fought in such famous campaigns as Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, Knoxville, Resaca, Atlanta, and Bentonville, they also participated in deadly encounters at Farmington, Mossy Creek, Noonday Creek, Sunshine Church, and Waynesboro. Many of these conflicts are obscure to all but the most ardent Civil War historians. Returning in paperback, this is the first regimental history of a Georgia Cavalry regiment ever published. The 2nd Georgia served under both Nathan Beford Forrest and Joe Wheeler, and campaigned not only on home turf, but literally on the farm acreages of many of the unit's members.

Death, and the Day’s Light, the volume of poetry James Dickey was working on when he died, offers the writer’s final views on love and death, fathers and sons, and war and resurrection. This volume constitutes an invaluable addition to the canon of a major American poet and allows for a complete understanding of his oeuvre.

William Wright’s eighth collection of poems is an expansive personal journey that includes poems about subjects as varied as a farm woman forsaken by her husband, yellow jackets, insomnia, a mountain witch, salt marshes, a ditch filled with rainwater, and even a post-apocalyptic portrait of the last person on Earth. Beginning with “Prologue,” a piece that embeds a kaleidoscopic, novel-like vision of a small agricultural town and a few of its inhabitants, these poems capture the exterior world and recontextualize its many forms through a dreamlike logic, harnessing radiant imagery and strong aural texture through lines and words that stir both mind and heart. Here, Wright reveals how the most luminous forms often dwell in even the darkest subjects and images.

Published jointly with the Historic Chattahoochee Commission. Triumph of the Eccunna Nuxulgee is the first book to chronicle the tragic saga of Indian Removal with a specific focus on the Chattahoochee Valley of Georgia and Alabama. With candor and objectivity, William W. Winn chronicles the duplicity, political maneuvering, and military force through which the native Creeks ultimately lost their lands, illuminating latent issues of morality, sovereignty, cultural identity, and national destiny the affair brought to the surface. 

This unique book, originally published in a limited edition in 1982 and out of print for many years, is the most comprehensive collection of Civil War letters written by residents of Southeastern Alabama and Southwestern Georgia to be published. Poignant in emotion, informative in detail, and broad in scope, the correspondence contained here provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the Civil War and its effect on individuals and families from an intensely personal perspective. The writers, the great majority of them unlettered and expressing themselves in a disarmingly honest manner in their heartfelt missives, collectively paint a compelling portrait of a watershed moment in national history from a regional viewpoint. They make well-known events tangible and lesser-known sidebars illuminating.

To the Gates of Atlanta covers the period from the Confederate victory at Kennesaw Mountain, 27 June 1864, leading up to the Battle of Peach Tree Creek, 20 July 1864, and the first of four major battles for Atlanta that culminated in the Battle of Jonesboro, 31 August and 1 September 1864.

To the Gates of Atlanta also gives the important, but previously untold stories of the actions and engagements that befell the sleepy hamlet of Buckhead and the surrounding woods that today shelter many parts of Atlanta’s vast community. 

From Smyrna to Ruff’s Mill, Roswell to Vinings, Nancy Creek to Peach Tree Creek, and Moore’s Mill to Howell’s Mill, To the Gates of Atlanta tells the story of each as part of the larger story which led to the fall of The Gate City of the South.

In the Beginning highlights the history of the world’s largest religious memorial to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Inspired essays on education, social justice, nonviolence, peace, ecumenism, and civil and human rights are offered in honor of Lawrence Edward Carter, Sr., founding dean of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel.

This book is a lasting tribute and valuable contribution to the history and educational mission of Morehouse College.

Contributors include Lewis V. Baldwin, Thomas O. Buford, Delman L. Coates, Jason R. Curry, Norm Faramelli, Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Barbara Lewis King, Douglas E. Krantz, Bill J. Leonard, Otis A. Maxfield, Echol Nix, Jr., Harold Oliver, Peter Paris, Samuel K. Roberts, Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Harold Dean Trulear, Edward P. Wimberly, Vincent L. Wimbush, and Virgil Wood.

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas was an intelligent, spirited woman born in 1834 to one of the wealthiest families in Georgia. At the age of fourteen she began and kept a diary for forty-one years, documenting her life before, during, and after the Civil War. In 1851 she graduated from Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. Her life is an amazing story of survival and transformation that speaks to women in our own time.

When it opened in October 1864, Camp Lawton was called “the world’s largest prison.” Operational only six weeks, this stockade near Millen, Georgia, was evacuated in the face of advancing Federal troops under General Sherman. In that brief span of time, the prison served as headquarters for the Confederate military prison system, witnessed hundreds of deaths, held a mock election for president, was involved in a sick exchange, hosted attempts to recruit Union POWs for Confederate service, and experienced escape attempts. Burned by Sherman’s troops following its evacuation in late November 1864, the prison was never reoccupied. Over the next 150 years, the memory of Camp Lawton almost disappeared. In 2010, the Confederate military prison was resurrected—a result of the media event publically showcasing the findings of recent archeological investigations. This book not only summarizes these initial archeological findings, but is also the first full-length, documented history of Camp Lawton.

RISE AND SHINE! is an engaging, funny, and poignant memoir about a Southern son and his life’s relationship with food. Johnathon Barrett takes you on a decades-long journey of culinary exploration. Successfully melding those early days of learning the basics of Southern fare and later stretching his culinary skills, Barrett demonstrates in this narrative his formula for a successful casual dinner or a formal black tie affair. With several menus and 100 recipes ranging from down-home picnic offerings such as ‘Joyce’s Don’t Mess with Success Pimento Cheese’ to a magnificent platter of ‘Grouper Meunière,’ the author provides a wonderful array of delights for contemporary cooks. This culinary love letter to Barrett’s parents and other loved ones who raised him will make you laugh, maybe shed a tear, and fill your hearts with a renewed appreciation for the magic that can happen in a family’s kitchen.

Should high-tech prosthetic limbs be permissible in elite sports competitions? Why are caffeine and altitude tents usually acceptable while some cold medications are not? What will happen as we engineer new enhancing options such as genetic modification technologies that increase muscle strength, or individualized nutritional genomic programs for elite athletes? The ethics debate about the use of enhancements in elite sport is becoming increasingly complex. Yet we are not asking what relevance sports’ religious dimension has to this debate. Through an examination of literature on the relationship between sport, religion and spirituality, hope emerges as a compelling feature of sport and a significant part of what makes sport meaningful. Trothen explores four main locations of hope in sport: winning, losing, and anticipation; star athletes; perfect moments; and relational embodiment, and examines how these locations intersect with the enhancement debate.