UDM Libraries Book of the Week

By Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell

Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation’s religious landscape has been reshaped.

America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith and conservative politics, have abandoned organized religion. The result has been a growing polarization—the ranks of religious conservatives and secular liberals have swelled, leaving a dwindling group of religious moderates in between. At the same time, personal interfaith ties are strengthening. Interfaith marriage has increased while religious identities have become more fluid. Putnam and Campbell show how this denser web of personal ties brings surprising interfaith tolerance, notwithstanding the so-called culture wars.

American Grace is based on two of the most comprehensive surveys ever conducted on religion and public life in America. It includes a dozen in-depth profiles of diverse congregations across the country, which illuminate how the trends described by Putnam and Campbell affect the lives of real Americans.

Nearly every chapter of American Grace contains a surprise about American religious life. Among them:

• Between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith;

• Roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives;

• Young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage;

• Even fervently religious Americans believe that people of other faiths can go to heaven;

• Religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans: more generous with their time and treasure even for secular causes—but the explanation has less to do with faith than with their communities of faith;

• Jews are the most broadly popular religious group in America today.

American Grace promises to be the most important book in decades about American religious life and an essential book for understanding our nation today.

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By Ben Shephard

At the end of World War II, long before an Allied victory was assured and before the scope of the atrocities orchestrated by Hitler would come into focus or even assume the name of the Holocaust, Allied forces had begun to prepare for its aftermath. Taking cues from the end of the First World War, planners had begun the futile task of preparing themselves for a civilian health crisis that, due in large part to advances in medical science, would never come. The problem that emerged was not widespread disease among Europe’s population, as anticipated, but massive displacement among those who had been uprooted from home and country during the war.

Displaced Persons, as the refugees would come to be known, were not comprised entirely of Jews. Millions of Latvians, Poles, Ukrainians, and Yugoslavs, in addition to several hundred thousand Germans, were situated in a limbo long overlooked by historians. While many were speedily repatriated, millions of refugees refused to return to countries that were forever changed by the war—a crisis that would take years to resolve and would become the defining legacy of World War II. Indeed many of the postwar questions that haunted the Allied planners still confront us today: How can humanitarian aid be made to work? What levels of immigration can our societies absorb? How can an occupying power restore prosperity to a defeated enemy?

Including new documentation in the form of journals, oral histories, and essays by actual DPs unearthed during his research for this illuminating and radical reassessment of history, Ben Shephard brings to light the extraordinary stories and myriad versions of the war experienced by the refugees and the new United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration that would undertake the responsibility of binding the wounds of an entire continent. Groundbreaking and remarkably relevant to conflicts that continue to plague peacekeeping efforts, The Long Road Home tells the epic story of how millions redefined the notion of home amid painstaking recovery.

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By Josef Ruzek

According to recent studies, at least one-fourth of military personnel returning from duty in Afghanistan and Iraq have received a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); approximately 10-15% of these veterans will experience significant symptoms. Whether the causes stem from a more complex environment in these post-9/11 war zones, or from more survivability because of improved body armor, better medical care, and more sophisticated diagnosis, the prevalence of PTSD and other war-related stress disorders among returning military personnel is on the rise.

Veterans of any war face major challenges reintegrating into civilian society, but these challenges become much more complex with an accompanying stress disorder. And the new demographic profile of today’s military–more female, more married, and more ethnically diverse–means that troops on and off the battlefield are more vulnerable to combat and noncombat stressors, the latter including sexual abuse. Suicide rates among these veterans are at an alarming high. The higher prevalence of these deployment-related stress disorders also has troubling ramifications among the parents, spouses, and children of these veterans.

Caring for Veterans With Deployment-Related Stress Disorders explores the myriad causes and consequences of these peculiar war-zone disorders, yet its emphasis is on prevention and treatment through better assessment, psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic interventions (including couple/family therapy), and appropriate evidence-based treatments. The final part of this edited volume concludes with broad guidelines for minimizing current barriers to treatment for stress-disordered veterans and their families by shifting care to the local/community level of health care providers.

Contributors to Caring for Veterans With Deployment-Related Stress Disorders are leaders in the clinical and research communities devoted to studying and treating PTSD and other war-trauma stress disorders among military personnel. The editors of the volume are all top officials and researchers at the Veterans Administration’s National Center on PTSD.

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By Lynn R. Kahle

The growing complexity and importance of sports and event marketing has pushed scholars and practitioners to apply sophisticated marketing thinking and applications to these topics. This book deals with the professional development in the sense that sports marketing can be viewed as an application of consumer behavior research. Readers will learn about new opportunities in using consumer behavior knowledge effectively in the areas of a) influencing behaviors in society and sports, b) building relationships with consumers through sports and events, and c) providing services to consumers through sport and event sponsorships. This book, by a superb group of authors, includes comprehensive reviews, innovative conceptual pieces, empirical research and rigorous attention to data.

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