Throughout history, personal liberty, free markets, and peaceable, voluntary exchanges have been roundly denounced by tyrants and often greeted with suspicion by the general public. Unfortunately, Americans have increasingly accepted the tyrannical ideas of reduced private property rights and reduced rights to profits, and have become enamored with restrictions on personal liberty and control by government. In this latest collection of essays selected from his syndicated newspaper columns, Walter E. Williams takes on a range of controversial issues surrounding race, education, the environment, the Constitution, health care, foreign policy, and more. Skewering the self-righteous and self-important forces throughout society, he makes the case for what he calls the "the moral superiority of personal liberty and its main ingredient—limited government." With his usual straightforward insights and honesty, Williams reveals the loss of liberty in nearly every important aspect of our lives, the massive decline in our values, and the moral tragedy that has befallen Americans today: our belief that it is acceptable for the government to forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another.

In the past century, average life expectancies have nearly doubled, and today, for the first time in human history, many people have a realistic chance of living to eighty or beyond. As life expectancy increases, Americans need accurate, scientifically grounded information so that they can take full responsibility for their own later years. In The Art and Science of Aging Well, Mark E. Williams, M.D., discusses the remarkable advances that medical science has made in the field of aging and the steps that people may take to enhance their lives as they age. Through his own observations and by use of the most current medical research, Williams offers practical advice to help aging readers and those who care for them enjoy personal growth and approach aging with optimism and even joy. The Art and Science of Aging Well gives a realistic portrait of how aging occurs and provides important advice for self-improvement and philosophical, spiritual, and conscious evolution. Williams argues that we have considerable choice in determining the quality of our own old age. Refuting the perspective of aging that insists that personal, social, economic, and health care declines are persistent and inevitable, he takes a more holistic approach, revealing the multiple facets of old age. Williams provides the resources for a happy and productive later life.

Nationally syndicated columnist and prolific author Walter E. Williams recalls some of the highlights and turning points of his life. From his lower middle class beginnings in a mixed but predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia to his department chair at George Mason University, Williams tells an "only in America" story of a life of achievement.

Discusses issues related to racism in the United States.

Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction Shortlisted for the Museum of African American History's Stone Book Award * National Council on Public History Book Award Honorable Mention A “powerful and deeply moving” (LA Times) reexamination of the struggle for survival in the Reconstruction-era South, and what it cost. The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in collective memory. But this pivotal era looked very different to African Americans in the South transitioning from bondage to freedom after 1865. They were besieged by a campaign of white supremacist violence that persisted through the 1880s and beyond. For too long, their lived experiences have been sidelined, impoverishing our understanding of the obstacles post-Civil War Black families faced, their inspiring determination to survive, and the physical and emotional scars they bore because of it. In I Saw Death Coming, Kidada E. Williams offers a breakthrough account of the much-debated Reconstruction period, transporting readers into the daily existence of formerly enslaved people building hope-filled new lives. Drawing on overlooked sources and bold new readings of the archives, Williams offers a revelatory and, in some cases, minute-by-minute record of nighttime raids and Ku Klux Klan strikes. And she deploys cutting-edge scholarship on trauma to consider how the effects of these attacks would linger for decades--indeed, generations--to come. For readers of Carol Anderson, Tiya Miles, and Clint Smith, I Saw Death Coming is an indelible and essential book that speaks to some of the most pressing questions of our times.

Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was one extreme contradiction piled on top of another. It was an incredibly influential company in the world of professional wrestling during the 1990s, yet it was never profitable. It portrayed itself as the ultimate in anti-authority rebellion, but its leadership was working covertly with the two wrestling giants, the WWF and WCW. Most of all, it blurred the line between real life and the fantasy world of professional wrestling like no other company before it, and many of those who thought they were conning others ended up being victims of the ultimate con. Hardcore History: The Extremely Unauthorized Story of ECW offers a frank, balanced look at the evolution of the company, starting even before its early days as a Philadelphia-area independent group called Eastern Championship Wrestling and extending past the death of Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2001. Writer Scott E. Williams has pored through records and conducted dozens of interviews with fans, company officials, business partners, and the wrestlers themselves to bring you the most balanced account possible of this bizarre company.

What role did religion play in sparking the call for civil rights? Was the African American church a motivating force or a calming eddy? The conventional view among scholars of the period is that religion as a source for social activism was marginal, conservative, or pacifying. Not so, argues Johnny E. Williams. Focusing on the state of Arkansas as typical in the role of ecclesiastical activism, his book argues that black religion from the period of slavery through the era of segregation provided theological resources that motivated and sustained preachers and parishioners battling racial oppression. Drawing on interviews, speeches, case studies, literature, sociological surveys, and other sources, Williams persuasively defines the most ardent of civil rights activists in the state as products of church culture. Both religious beliefs and the African American church itself were essential in motivating blacks to act individually and collectively to confront their oppressors in Arkansas and throughout the South. Williams explains how the ideology of the black church roused disparate individuals into a community and how the church established a base for many diverse participants in the civil rights movement. He shows how church life and ecumenical education helped to sustain the protest of people with few resources and little permanent power. Williams argues that the church helped galvanize political action by bringing people together and creating social bonds even when societal conditions made action difficult and often dangerous. The church supplied its members with meanings, beliefs, relationships, and practices that served as resources to create a religious protest message of hope.

Thirteen-year-old Starshine Bott learns how to cope with an unconventional, politically active mother and does a lot of growing up in the process.

When Love Stands Still, Move On!, is the story of all women living in relationships with men, the same men, for years, with no ring or marriage in sight. If you asked them why, they would probably not have an answer; they could not begin to explain, except to say, because I love him. When we fall in love, when we become comfortable with someone, and when we give our hearts completely to that person, we find ourselves doing so many things that we just cant explain; things that we will probably one day regret. Very few women can honestly say that the ring and the marriage are not important to them after being in a long term relationship. Its what we tell ourselves to get through the reality that, after years, the man that weve loved for so long has never asked us to marry and maybe never will. When a woman commits herself to loving a man for a long period of time; for years, and he does not ask her to marry him its as if he is saying to her, the woman whose life he has coveted, whose body he has made use of, and whose love he has accepted for years, that she is not worthy of marriage. For those women who are living in a life long courtship, you are not alone. This is the story of Gabriela Tymes. Like so many other women, Gabriela has been in a relationship with the same man for years, with no ring, no marriage and no asking in sight. His name is Donovan.

Walter E. Williams applies an economic analysis to the problems black Americans have faced in the past and still face in the present to show that that free-market resource allocation, as opposed to political allocation, is in the best interests of minorities. He debunks many common labor market myths and reveals how excessive government regulation and the minimum-wage law have imposed incalculable harm on the most disadvantaged members of our society.