Thomas D. Wilson

The music and film industries have long come to terms with the digital, and now the traditional printed book is challenged by digital formats. The e-book has become established in most countries, but is still a small part of the book industry. In this book a group of researchers follow the actors involved in the Swedish e-book market, from authors and publishers to libraries, booksellers and readers during 2012-2016. Using surveys, interviews and other sources the main actors were researched and it is shown how they act and react towards the e-book and towards each other. While the main focus in on Sweden as a small language country, several international comparisons are made. Are printed books disappearing soon? How are reading habits changing when the book becomes digital? Which forces are driving radical change and which are holding it back? The book discusses these and related questions and shows that after a period of rapid increase in the production and use of e-books, several factors slow down the rate of adoption, but digitisation of the book is an ongoing process and the current e-book is not the end of the story.

The Allied Chaplains of the American, British, Canadian and Polish armies in the battles for Northwestern Europe and in the Battle of the Atlantic are often overlooked due to their small numbers in relation to the hundreds of thousands of other men who made up the Allied armies. However, the chaplains were highly respected and appreciated by the men in the various units they served, as well as often being incredibly brave men who were (and are) forbidden by the rules of war from carrying any sort of weapon into battle, beyond their holy books and their faith. Allied chaplains suffered the second highest loss rate of killed or wounded of any group of men in World War II (second only to that of RAF Bomber Command) and were virtually irreplaceable due to the academic and religious training that took years to complete. This book looks at the Allied Chaplains who died: during the Battle for France in 1940, endured the horrors of the Dunkirk evacuation, died in the battles on the North Atlantic (due to the sinking of their ships by German U-Boats), in the Battle for Normandy in 1944, during the Allied liberation of occupied Europe, and the defeat of Germany. It includes information about their lives before entering military chaplaincy, their deaths and sometimes the differing accounts of their deaths, as well as their final resting places in cemeteries across Europe and in the United States of America or where they are commemorated on Memorial Walls to the Missing. The Revd Dr Thomas Wilson has had an interest in WW II military history since he was 12 years old. Revd Wilson had a career in the business world before answering the call ot ordained ministry. He was ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada, and served as the Rector of a parish in Southwestern Ontario. In 2007, he had the chance to spend a year in France, on a university exchange program that his wife, Professor Dawn Cornelio Was coordinating. While there, they led some of the Canadian students on a visit to Normandy, where they all participated in graveside memorial Service for Canadian Chaplain Walter Brown. It was Padre Brown's murder that led Revd Wilson to initially explore all the Allied Chaplains killed in the Battle for Normandy. After moving to serve as the Rector of a Scottish Episcopal (Anglican) Church for over 5 years, Revd Wilson now is the Anglican Chaplain of St Raphael and the Var in southern France where he ministers to a multi-national English-speaking congregation.

Thomas D. Wilson’s Charleston and Savannah is the first comprehensive history of Charleston and Savannah in a single volume that weaves together the influences and parallels of their intrinsic stories. As two of the earliest English-speaking cities founded in America, Charleston and Savannah are among the nation’s top historic sites. Their historic characters, which attract millions of visitors each year, are each a rich blend of cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic elements. Yet even with this popularity, both cities now face a challenge in preserving their authentic historic character, natural beauty, and environmental quality. Wilson charts the ebb and flow of the progress and development of the cities using various through lines running within each chapter, constructing an overall character assessment of each. Wilson charts the economic rise of these port cities, beginning with their British foundations and transatlantic trade in the colonies through to their twentieth-century economic declines and resurgences. He examines the cultural and economic aspects of their Lowcountry landscapes and their evolution as progress and industrialization made their mark. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in his comparisons of the two cities, he considers their histories, natural landscapes, weather patterns, economies, demographics, culture, architecture, city planning, and infrastructure. While each has its own civic and cultural strengths and weaknesses, both are positioned as historically significant southern cities, even as they assess aspects of their problematic pasts.

Thomas D. Wilson’s Charleston and Savannah is the first comprehensive history of Charleston and Savannah in a single volume that weaves together the influences and parallels of their intrinsic stories. As two of the earliest English-speaking cities founded in America, Charleston and Savannah are among the nation’s top historic sites. Their historic characters, which attract millions of visitors each year, are each a rich blend of cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic elements. Yet even with this popularity, both cities now face a challenge in preserving their authentic historic character, natural beauty, and environmental quality. Wilson charts the ebb and flow of the progress and development of the cities using various through lines running within each chapter, constructing an overall character assessment of each. Wilson charts the economic rise of these port cities, beginning with their British foundations and transatlantic trade in the colonies through to their twentieth-century economic declines and resurgences. He examines the cultural and economic aspects of their Lowcountry landscapes and their evolution as progress and industrialization made their mark. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies in his comparisons of the two cities, he considers their histories, natural landscapes, weather patterns, economies, demographics, culture, architecture, city planning, and infrastructure. While each has its own civic and cultural strengths and weaknesses, both are positioned as historically significant southern cities, even as they assess aspects of their problematic pasts.

The statesman and reformer James Oglethorpe was a significant figure in the philosophical and political landscape of eighteenth-century British America. His social contributions—all informed by Enlightenment ideals—included prison reform, the founding of the Georgia Colony on behalf of the ""worthy poor,"" and stirring the founders of the abolitionist movement. He also developed the famous ward design for the city of Savannah, a design that became one of the most important planning innovations in American history. Multilayered and connecting the urban core to peripheral garden and farm lots, the Oglethorpe Plan was intended by its author to both exhibit and foster his utopian ideas of agrarian equality. In this book, the professional planner Thomas D. Wilson reconsiders the Oglethorpe Plan, revealing that Oglethorpe was a more dynamic force in urban planning than has generally been supposed. In essence, claims Wilson, the Oglethorpe Plan offers a portrait of the Enlightenment, and embodies all of the major themes of that era, including science, humanism, and secularism. The vibrancy of the ideas behind its conception invites an exploration of the plan's enduring qualities. In addition to surveying historical context and intellectual origins, this book aims to rescue Oglethorpe’s work from its relegation to the status of a living museum in a revered historic district, and to demonstrate instead how modern-day town planners might employ its principles. Unique in its exclusive focus on the topic and written in a clear and readable style, The Oglethorpe Plan explores this design as a bridge between New Urbanism and other more naturally evolving and socially engaged modes of urban development.