God Bless America by Karen Stollznow
God Bless America lifts the veil on strange and unusual religious beliefs and practices in the modern-day United States. Do Satanists really sacrifice babies? Do exorcisms involve swearing and spinning heads? Are the Amish allowed to drive cars and use computers? Taking a close look at snake handling, new age spirituality, Santeria spells, and satanic rituals, this book offers more than mere armchair research, taking you to an exorcism and a polygamist compound--and allowing you to sit among the beards and bonnets in a Mennonite church and to hear L. Ron Hubbard's stories told as sermons during a Scientology service. From the Amish to Voodoo, the beliefs and practices explored in this book may be unorthodox--and often dangerous--but they are always fascinating. While some of them are dying out, and others are gaining popularity with a modern audience, all offer insight into the future of religion in the United States--and remind that fact is often stranger than fiction.
Dr. Karen Stollznow is the author of the best-seller God Bless America. Her other titles include Language Myths, Mysteries and Magic, Haunting America, the novel Hits & Mrs and her forthcoming book Would You Believe It? Karen is a co-host of Monster Talk with Blake Smith (aka Dr. Atlantis), an award-winning podcast that looks at the facts and legends about Bigfoot, sea monsters, ghosts, goblins, and the thing under your bed. She is a linguist who teaches at several universities and she was a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, where she worked on a project involving endangered writing systems for the Department of Linguistics and Unicode. She has worked as a Consultant Linguist for several major companies, including Path Wise and Leap Frog. Her blog features articles about language with a focus on myths and misconceptions. Here you'll find posts about everything from speaking in tongues to animal communication and mysterious writing systems. As a mother of a toddler she is particularly interested in first language acquisition. Karen is a researcher who writes about a diverse array of topics, including language, culture, religion, science, history and paranormal claims. She has appeared on national and international TV shows, including A Current Affair, Today Tonight, Alicia Menendez Tonight, and The History Channel's Miracles Decoded. She has contributed to Psychology Today, Scientific American Mind, Australasian Science, and many other publications. Karen was born in Sydney and has a PhD in linguistics from the University of New England, Australia. She currently lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband Matthew Baxter and their baby boy Blade.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781939578006 |
| ISBN 10 | 1939578000 |
| Title | God Bless America |
| Author | Karen Stollznow |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Pitchstone Publishing |
| Year published | 2013-10-01 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |