Böcker av Lawrence Clayton

A tale of one family's trajectory through America and a changing modern world through a charming story. From relatives who fought in the Civil War to societal struggles of overcoming the Southern legacy and moving past the "lost cause," this page-turner story bounces between nations, philosophies, and different sides of the political aisle. Though a second installment is planned for the more recent past, this first volume is a fully-realized portrait of a proud American bloodline.

As our country goes through trying times, the author put together the best of his op-ed columns, published in his local newspaper, The Tuscaloosa News, which deals with the issues facing our nation today. Clayton ranges all the way from the issues very close to home and family, such as what is being taught in our schools, colleges, and universities, to issues straddling the incredibly complex and often rancorous events in public life, from the presidency of the nation all the way down to local school boards. He not only identifies and analyzes issues we are all, more or less, familiar with, like Project 1619, critical race theory, the programs of diversity, equity, and inclusion in virtually all colleges and universities across the country, but the reader will also find suggestions and remedies for a world that has become almost dysfunctional or dystopic in today's language. These suggestions range all the way from establishing new programs of study that emphasize our traditional values, like liberty, equality, the right to vote, personal responsibility, and furthermore, call for a restoration of the home and religion to fashionably modern concerns with sexism, racism, and other expressions leaving young people at loose ends on who they are and what is it that made the nation so prosperous and generous until this day. As a historian, he does not ignore what went wrong over the years in the making of our people but deals with them honestly and explores many answers suggested by a close reading of both natural law and Christian Scripture.

Ever since Europeans discovered and came to conquer and colonize the Americas, a great question occupied European Christians. Did Jesus Christ, or his immediate successors the Apostles and the first Christians who followed, cross the great Atlantic or Pacific Oceans and proselytize among the indigenous peoples of the New World? Read the story of what may have happened. Using his knowledge of the age of the Conquest, the author begins with a shipwreck and an artifact and weaves the story of the Andean cross, a piece of Christian culture that is both American and European. This faced-paced story spanning Europe, North America, and Latin America will electrify you with its implications on the great age of the Encounter and the secrets and mysteries of Christianity that still fascinate so many.

This comparative look at vaqueros, cowboys, and buckaroos brings the mythical image of the American cowboy into focus and detail and honors the regional and national variations.