Most Americans are more aware of the workings of the federal government than of their own state government. But these "laboratories of democracy" constitute perhaps the most creative and successful component of the American political experiment. Like each of the states, Tennessee state government has a distinct history and a political culture that reflects that history. This book places Tennessee's modern political institutions in the context of the history and personalities that formed them. They pay special attention to the period after 1978, when three governors left a lasting impression on the direction and culture of the state government. Separate chapters examine the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, explaining how and why Tennessee's political culture differs from other states. The book also explores the ways in which education, health care, corrections, and economic development define much of the government agenda. Additional chapters on the media, political campaigns, and local government provide a backdrop that elucidates more fully how the state government functions. The authors profile many of the personalities who have shaped the state's political agenda. Among these are longtime Senate Democratic Speaker John Wilder; his close ally, Senate Republican Leader Ben Atchley; House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, son of a Lebanese immigrant; and Bill Snodgrass, who served as State Comptroller for forty-seven years. The book explains how each of these individuals related to three Tennessee governors, Republicans Lamar Alexander and Don Sundquist and Democrat Ned McWherter, whose administrations presided over the state's greatest period of growth and prosperity. Illustrated with photographs and tables, and featuring anecdotal sidebars that illuminate key issues, this book will become the standard text on Tennessee state government and politics for years to come. The Authors: William Lyons is a professor of political science at the University of Tennessee and coauthor of such books as American Government: Politics and Political Culture. John M. Scheb II is a professor of political science and director of the Social Science Research Institute at the University of Tennessee and coauthor of American Constitutional Law, among other books. In partnership with Dr. Lyons, he provides campaign consulting for political candidates and applied survey research for businesses and organizations. Billy Stair is director of communication and community outreach at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He served for eighteen years in the legislative and executive branches of state government, including eight years as senior policy advisor to the Governor.
Danial Thames spends his free hours loitering in the public library. There he tries to glean some semblance of the life he finds described in books from his encounters with staff and patrons. Finding a scrap of writing on the library floor, he is inspired to litter fragments of his own random prose into the pages of various books. After many months, he discovers a notebook in which his writing has been copied down. Discovering that the collector is a talented writer, Danial Thames attempts to develop a friendship but finds himself jealous of the freedom the writer has to accept or desert him.
According to legend the Constantinian Order is the oldest chivalric institution, founded by Emperor Constantine the Great and governed by successive Byzantine Emperors and their descendants. While this chronology was supported by multiple writers even into the twentieth century, it has little historical basis. Nonetheless, the Angeli, Farnese and Bourbon families which held the Grand Mastership could legitimately claim Byzantine imperial descent, albeit in the female line, and the Order’s cross replicates that seen by Constantine in the vision recorded by both Lactantius and Eusebius, writing very soon after Maximian’s defeat at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. The Order’s emergence in the middle of the sixteenth century, when Christian Europe was under assault from a militant Ottoman empire, gained Papal support almost immediately and by the end of the seventeenth century the Order had mem-bers across the Italian peninsular, in Spain, Bavaria, Austria and Bohemia, Croatia and Poland. Today the majority of the Order’s members are found in Italy and Spain but there are also members in Portugal, France, Belgium, Great Britain and Luxembourg, with smaller groups in the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden as well as an expanding membership in the United States. This work examines the conversion of Constantine and the histories of the Angeli, Farnese and Bourbon Grand Masterships, with extensive reference to hitherto unpub-lished documents in the Vatican archives and in the Farnese and Bourbon archives in Naples. These serve to confirm the close relationship the Order had with the Church and the high regard in which it was held by successive Popes, as well as its autonomy as a subject of canon law independent from any crown or temporal sovereignty. This unique status has enabled its hereditary Grand Masters to maintain this dignity after the absorption of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies into a united Italy. The Order’s autonomy, coupled with the Grand Master’s close links to the Spanish Crown, has meant that Spanish and Italian citizens (as well as the citizens of several other states which have accorded the Order recognition) may obtain official permission to wear the Order’s decorations. 2018 is the three hundredth anniversary of the Papal Bull Militantis Ecclesiae which confirmed and approved the previous Papal acts concerning the Order and laid out the rights and privileges of the Order, its Grand Masters and members. In the early 20th century Pope Saint Pius X and Benedict XV conferred further privileges on the Order, ap-proving the statutes, while the then future Pope Pius XII had been admitted to the Order in 1913. Today the Order is engaged in works of charity, in conformity with the Church’s teachings, and includes among its members some thirteen Cardinals as well as some thirty members of reign-ing or former reigning families.
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