New Releases by Michael Johnston

Michael Johnston discusses how he reached out to inspire his teenage students at a rural school in the Mississippi Delta.

Focusing on the Great Plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota between 1929 and 1945, Down and Out on the Family Farm examines small familyøfarmers and the Rural Rehabilitation Program designed to help them. Historian Michael Johnston Grant reveals the tension between economic forces that favored large-scale agriculture and political pressure that championed family farms, and the results of that clash. ø The Great Depression and the drought of the 1930s lay bare the long-term economic instability of the rural Plains. The New Deal introduced the Rural Rehabilitation Program to assist lower- to middle-income farmers throughout the country. This program combined low-interest loans with managerial advice. However, these efforts were not enough to compete with the growing scale of agriculture or to counter the recurring drought of the era. Regional conservatism, environmental factors, and fiscal constraints limited the federal aid offered to thousands of families. ø Grant provides extensive primary source research from government documents, as well as letters, newspaper editorials, and case studies that focus on individual lives and fortunes. He examines who these families were and what their farms looked like, and he sheds light on the health problems and other personal concerns that interfered with the economic viability of many farms. The result is a provocative study that gives a human face to the hardships and triumphs of modern agriculture.

"This book includes scores of real-life results related to the things that count - like response percentages, costs, and average dollar returns. There is also a CD-ROM with dozens of full-color samples of successful fund raising packages, all of which are backed by the expertise of renowned contributors. Direct Response Fund Raising is an indispensable tool to plan and execute bold and successful direct response campaigns that will boost donor and membership response rates quickly - and consistently."--BOOK JACKET.

The nonprofit community has embraced new technology with enthusiasm and vigour for three key reasons: increased Internet usage by nonprofits, growth in the total online audience, and advances in technology.

Offers advice on how a nonprofit organization can benefit from fundraising on the Internet--from creating a Web site to securing automated credit card donations.

The companion to Volume 2 of The New Church''s Teaching Series, Roger Ferlo''s Opening the Bible, Michael Johnston''s Engaging the Word teaches us how to use the critical and practical tools for reading the Bible described by Ferlo to interpret the Hebrew and Christian scriptures: what did they mean for their original audience and what do they mean for us today? Johnston introduces us to the key terms and concepts of biblical criticism that show us how to read Scripture on three key levels: the literal, historical, and prophetic. He explores with us passages that touch on questions of ethics, the nature of God, the teachings of Jesus, and eschatology, and offers vivid insights into the physical setting and geography of the Bible. Above all, the purpose of Engaging the Word is to help us become people who can read and interpret the Bible intelligently and perceptively. It offers the fundamental questions that we must ask of any biblical text in order to enter fully into its meaning for us and for our worshiping community: Who wrote the passage? When was it written? What does it actually say? For what community or group was it written? What was its message for that community? What is its message for us today?

This analysis of political corruption and public policy in America considers such issues as the costs and benefits of political corruption, the causes of corruption, and the consequences of a corruption-free political system. J.S. Nye''s definition of corruption is used for the discussion: ''behavior which deviates from the formal duties of a public role (elective or appointive) because of private-regarding (personal, close family, private clique) wealth or status gains: or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private-regarding influence.'' Three general perspectives for understanding corruption are considered: (1) personalistic approaches, which deal with the kinds of people who hold positions of public trust; (2) an institutional view, which finds the causes of corruption in flaws or unrecognized biases in laws and institutions; and (3) a systemic perspective, which suggests that corruption grows from basic relationships between government and society. The development of the systemic view suggests that corruption is a form of influence that depends on the successful mobilization of political resources. Case studies of machine politics, police corruption, and Watergate are presented, followed by a case study that shows the difficulties of reform to counter corruption. An analysis of the broad social and political consequences of corruption considers both the costs and benefits of corruption. The concluding chapter offers a few reform strategies and policy proposals, tempered by a comment on the necessity of a realistic perspective of corruption in a democratic society. A selected bibliography has 61 listings, and a subject index is provided. Illustrative tabular information and footnotes accompany each chapter.