The “deadlines” were boundaries prisoners had to stay within or risk being shot. Just as a prisoner would take the daring challenge in “crossing the deadline” to attempt escape, Crossing the Deadlines crosses those boundaries of old scholarship by taking on bold initiatives with new methodologies, filling a void in the current scholarship of Civil War prison historiography, which usually does not go beyond discussing policy, prison history and environmental and social themes. Due to its eclectic mix of contributors—from academic and public historians to anthropologists currently excavating at specific stockade sites—the collection appeals to a variety of scholarly and popular audiences. Readers will discover how the Civil War incarceration narrative has advanced to include environmental, cultural, social, religious, retaliatory, racial, archaeological, and memory approaches.

Cultural Variability in Context, a collection of papers presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in April 1989, documents and explains the varied settlement and subsistence practices found in the prehistoric mid-Ohio Valley during the Woodland Period, ca. 1000 B.C.-A.D. 1000. The prehistoric societies of the mid-Ohio Valley played an important part in the development of the social complexity that characterized the Woodland period in eastern North America. Ohio Valley Adena and Ohio Hopewell ceremonialism occupy prominent positions in current interpretations of the period, as they have for many years. This volume focuses on underlying settlement and subsistence relationships, and is especially concerned with assessing time/space variability within the period and its ultimate influence on broader, inter-regional issues.

Stretching between Cleveland and Akron in heavily urban northeastern Ohio, Cuyahoga Valley National Park has been called a “Green-Shrouded Miracle,” preserving precious green space and offering a retreat to more than two million visitors each year. It is a refuge for native plants and wildlife and provides routes of discovery for visitors. The winding Cuyahoga River gives way to deep forests, rolling hills, and open farmlands.

The Danse Macabre of Women is a 15th-century French poem found in a lavishly illuminated late medieval manuscript. The only Dance of Death devoted entirely to women, it was written by an anonymous author and subsequently expanded by several poet/editors. In this version, one of the later productions, 36 women are called in the midst of their bustling daily lives to join the eternal Dance of Death. Young and old, rich and poor, widow, matron, and child—each is the focus of two short poelms written in the form of a dialogue (Death calls and the victim replies) and accompanied by an illumination (or a miniature).

Darling Ro and the Benét Women presents a revealing glimpse of social and literary life in New York and Paris during the 1920s. Using a recently released collection of letters from the Benét Collection at Yale University, author Evelyn Helmick Hively extracts captivating anecdotes and impressions about a talented group of writers and impressive feminist figures. Written by Rosemary Carr Benét to her mother, Dr. Rachel Hickey Carr (one of Chicago’s first women physicians), the compilation of letters and short dispatches from Paris provides the focus of the book.

“Detailed research and thoughtful insights make David Zeisberger: A Life among the Indians a valuable study of Indian-Colonist relations in eighteenth-century British North America. Judicious in approach and compassionate without being polemical or sentimental, Olmstead brings to life the story of this Moravian missionary to the Eastern Woodland Indians. This volume, in combination with the author’s Blackcoats Among the Delaware, merits acceptance as the standard work about Zeisberger.” Philip Weeks, author of Farewell, My Nation: The American Indians and the United States.

A 30-minute history of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio, in 1935. AA had its beginnings as the outcome of a meeting between Bill W., a New York stockbroker, and Dr. Bob S., an Akron surgeon. Prior to their meeting, Bill had gotten sober and had maintained his recovery by working with other alcoholics. Meanwhile, Dr. Bob had yet to achieve sobriety. Responding to Bill’s convincing ideas, he soon got sober, never to drink again. The founding spark of AA had been struck.

“This book is a document of a particular world, real, wrenched from the poet’s life, as if written with a gun to his head or a spike through his heart. Reading it is like opening a damp newspaper wrapped around a big fish just caught, fins glistening, scales shining, one rhymed eye open and looking right at you, daring you to eat the whole thing.”—Dorianne Laux, author of The Book of Men

Deadbeats, Dead Balls, and the 1914 Boston Braves chronicles the team’s misfortune, meteoric rise through the 1914 season, and audacious World Series run against the overwhelmingly dominant Philadelphia Athletics. Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem, a mainstay in the game for over 70 years, called the Braves “the most spirited team he ever saw”—but would their spirit be enough against one of the most powerful teams ever put together?

In March 2021, the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University and the University of Arizona Poetry Center launched the website for the Global Vaccine Poem project, inviting anyone to share experiences of the pandemic and vaccination through poetry. Dear Vaccine features selections from over 2,000 poetry submissions to the project, which come from all 50 states and 118 different countries.