Employing the classic Chinese saying “returning home with glory” (man zai rong gui) as the title, Michael Williams highlights the importance of return and home in the history of the connections established and maintained between villagers in the Pearl River Delta and various Pacific ports from the time of the Californian and Australian gold rushes to the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Conventional scholarship on Chinese migration tends to privilege nation-state factors or concepts which are dependent on national boundaries. Such approaches are more concerned with the migrants’ settlement in the destination country, downplaying the awkward fact that the majority of the overseas Chinese (huaqiao) originally intended to (and eventually did) return to their home villages (qiaoxiang). Williams goes back to the basics by considering the strong influence exerted by the family and the home village on those who first set out in order to give a better appreciation of how and why many modest communities in southern China became more modern and affluent. He also gives a voice to those who never left their villages (women in particular). Designed as a single case study, this work presents detailed research based on the more than eighty villages of the Long Du district (near Zhongshan City in Guangdong Province), as well as the three major destinations—Sydney, San Francisco, and Honolulu—of the huaqiaowho came from this region. Out of this analysis of what truly mattered to the villagers, the choices they had and made, and what constituted success and failure in their lives, a sympathetic portrayal of the huaqiao emerges. Returning Home with Glory inaugurates the Hong Kong University Press book series “Crossing Seas”. “From the very local qiaoxiang or home village of migrants to the transnational destinations in America and Australia, this book is a model of how to write ‘diaspora’ into modern Chinese history. The Cantonese Pacific comes alive in this highly readable book that is sure to capture our imagination.” —Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Brown University “A perceptively conceptualized and well-researched case study of an emigrant community in the Pearl River Delta that extended its reach to Sydney, the Hawaiian Islands, and San Francisco. Williams offers a refreshing qiaoxiang perspective through which to understand the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” —Yong Chen, University of California, Irvine “This welcome study of Chinese mobility among settler societies of the Pacific places the family and the village at its heart, just as its subjects did over the century under review, to 1949. A path-breaking study based on first-hand research.” —John Fitzgerald, Swinburne University of Technology

In Glory, Kansas, the best bakery in three counties not only brings together ingredients for sweet treats, but is the place where--through the powerful mix of friendship, community and a well-stocked kitchen--a wounded hero can forge a forever kind of love. Back in the hometown he left behind five years ago, Jack McConnell has returned battle-scarred and feeling like half a man. But Betsy Lewis only sees the hero who once saved her life and set her heart on fire. Now she's burning to save him in return. She'll use every trick she's got up her sleeve, from her generous natural assets to her talent for baking, to coax Jack out from the bottom of his whiskey bottle. At first, Jack responds to Betsy like any red-blooded man would. He's always denied his attraction to the innocent girl he used to know, but he's returned to find Betsy's grown into a full-on woman with strength enough for both of them. Until Jack realizes the only way to conquer his demons and be worthy of the hero's mantle she's pinned to his shoulders is to save Betsy one last time--from himself.

David Eisenhower delivers a warm, personal recollection of the retirement years of his grandfather, Dwight D. Eisenhower, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where they lived.

The Blackburns' improbable journey from bondage to freedom pulsates with the breath-catching urgency of a thriller, yet this remarkable story is true . . . An invaluable testament to resistance, resilience, and a once-denied but unalienable right to life and liberty.--Rene Graham, "The Boston Globe."

Gina Townsend is trying to be a mother to her six-year-old niece, Amanda Jane, but the girl's biological father isn't helping matters. Reed Hollingsworth has returned to Glory, no longer the scruffy, gangly boy Gina remembers, but a sexy and successful man. Reed feels betrayed that neither Townsend sister bothered to tell him he was a father until he had money, but he's not about to shirk his responsibilities. So when he demands Gina move in with him as part of Amanda Jane's custody agreement, he tries not to notice pretty much everything about her--especially the way his solemn-faced daughter laughs when they play together. Raising a child together, Reed and Gina learn that some dreams come and go, but some are a spark that burns eternal.

Return to Glory will challenge everything you were ever taught about human history Beginning with a careful documentation of the ways God entrusted people of African descent with the initial development of civilized societies, Return to Glory then directs its readers on a magnificent tour of life in America through the triumphant stories of contemporary African-Americans. These pages are filled with the glorious contributions to the development and enhancement of world culture by the black race.