Hancock Shaker Village The City Of Peace

The United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, commonly known as the Shakers, followed Mother Ann Lee to the United States in 1774 when life in England became difficult. In the United States, they established several colonies whose governing principals included celibacy and agrarian communal living. Even at its peak, however, Shakerism claimed only about 4,500 members. Today, except for one active community in Sabbathday, Maine, the great Shaker villages are diminished, but the Shakers left an enduring impact on the religion and culture of the United States. The A to Z of the Shakers relates the history of this fascinating group through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on Shaker communities, industries, individual families, and important people. Every definition, biography, and point of history was submitted to the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake for their review before it was included for publication. As such, the voice of the contemporary Shakers is found in the dictionary, and they have given it their unequivocal endorsement.

“Shakerism teaches God’s immanence through the common life shared in Christ’s mystical body.” Like many religious seekers throughout the ages, they honor the revelation of God but cannot be bound up in an unchanging set of dogmas or creeds. Freeing themselves from domination by the state religion, Mother Ann Lee and her first followers in mid-18th-century England labored to encounter the godhead directly. They were blessed by spiritual gifts that showed them a way to live the heavenly life on Earth. The result of their efforts was the fashioning of a celibate communal life called the Christlife, wherein a person, after confessing all sin, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can travel the path of regeneration into ever- increasing holiness. Pacifism, equality of the sexes, and withdrawal from the world are some of the ways the faith was put into practice. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Shakers contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on Shaker communities, industries, individual families, and important people. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Shakers.

The 1,000 Places to See books are pleasurable, inspiring, wondrous, a best-selling phenomenon and, yes, practical: Announcing the updated edition of 1,000 Places to See in the USA & Canada Before You Die, The New York Times No. 1 bestseller. Because USA & Canada is not only a wish book but also a guide, this information, including phone numbers, Web addresses, and more, is now completely revised and updated. For travel season, for long summer weekends, for whenever the mood strikes to pack up the car and set out to discover a new piece of America (and Canada!), 1,000 Places to See in the USA & Canada is a map to all the unique and wonderful places just around the corner: Sail the Maine Windjammers out of Camden. Explore the gold-mining trails in Alaska’s Denali wilderness. Collect exotic shells on the beaches of Captiva. Play tennis the way it was meant to be—on grass—at the lavish Victorian Newport Casino. Take a barbecue tour of Kansas City—Arthur Bryant’s to Gates to Snead’s. There’s the ice hotel in Quebec, the stalacpipe organ in Virginia, out-of-the-way Civil War battlefields, dude ranches and cowboy poetry readings, and what to do in Louisville after the Derby’s over. More than 150 places are highlighted as family-friendly, and indices in the back organize the book by subject—wilderness, dining, beaches, world-class museums, sports, festivals, and more.

After World War II, Nat King Cole romanticized Route 66 with his wonderfully melodious voice. Route 66 was a transcontinental highway that traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles. Today, Route 66 is no more. Can today’s traveler drive across the country on a two-lane highway and recapture the romance that Nat sang about half a century ago? It is possible! U.S. 20 begins in Boston and travels through the heartland, 3,365 miles, to Newport, Oregon. Its journey takes the traveler through a myriad of towns and places to explore. Through the Heartland on U.S. 20: Massachusetts relates the development of the road, each town’s historic events, people of renown who lived there, even the infamous, things to do and see, and the towns’ best restaurants. An exciting adventure awaits the reader as he or she travels through Massachusetts on U.S. 20.

Covering the U.S.A. and Canada like never before, and for the first time with full-color photographs, here are 1,000 compelling, essential, offbeat, utterly unforgettable places. Pristine beaches and national parks, world-class museums and the Just for Laughs festival, mountain resorts, salmon-rich rivers, scenic byways, the Oyster Bar and the country’s best taco, lush gardens and coastal treks at Point Reyes, rafting the Upper Gauley (if you dare). Plus resorts, vineyards, hot springs, classic ballparks, the Talladega Speedway, and more. Includes new attractions, like Miami’s Pérez Art Museum and Manhattan’s High Line, plus more than 150 places of special interest to families. And, for every entry, what you need to know about how and when to visit. “Patricia Schultz unearths the hidden gems in our North American backyard. Don’t even think about packing your bag and sightseeing without it.” —New York Daily News

Draws on oral and written testimony to trace the history and evolution of the Shakers, set within the broader context of American life