Synopses & Reviews
Charles Manuel “Sweet Daddy” Grace founded the United House of Prayer for All People in Wareham, Massachusetts, in 1919. This charismatic church has been regarded as one of the most extreme Pentecostal sects in the country. In addition to attention-getting maneuvers such as wearing purple suits with glitzy jewelry, purchasing high profile real estate, and conducting baptisms in city streets with a fire hose, the flamboyant Grace reputedly accepted massive donations from his poverty-stricken followers and used the money to live lavishly. It was assumed by many that Grace was the charismatic glue that held his church together, and that once he was gone the institution would disintegrate. Instead, following his 1960 death there was a period of confusion, restructuring, and streamlining. Today the House of Prayer remains an active church with a national membership in the tens of thousands.
Daddy Grace: A Celebrity Preacher and His House of Prayer seriously examines the religious nature of the House of Prayer, the dimensions of Graces leadership strategies, and the connections between his often ostentatious acts and the intentional infrastructure of the House of Prayer. Furthermore, woven through the text are analyses of the race, class, and gender issues manifest in the House of Prayer structure under Graces aegis.
Marie W. Dallam here offers both a religious history of the House of Prayer as an institution and an intellectual history of its colorful and enigmatic leader.
Review
“Dallam has made a major contribution to the scholarship and literature on Daddy Grace and the United House of Prayer for All People.”-Choice,
Review
“Provides significant insights for our understanding of Daddy Grace and the House of Prayer. This well-researched, clearly written text is a valuable scholarly resource for those interested in New Religious Movements, American Religion, and African American Religion.”
-—Sandy Dwayne Martin,author of For God and Race
Review
“Dallam has uncovered an aspect of the African American past about which we have long known too little. In doing so she has made a substantial contribution to the study of twentieth-century African American religion. Assiduously researched and carefully written, Dallams book finally elevates the scholarship on 'Sweet' Daddy Grace to the level of that of his rival and contemporary, Father Divine.”
-—Wallace D. Best,Harvard Divinity School
Review
“This edgy and resourceful analysis of Daddy Grace, a misunderstood yet highly significant religious luminary, expands our understanding of a critical period in the black church experience. Dallams meticulous scholarship fills in many crucial pieces and refutes longstanding inaccuracies regarding Grace's life, message, and legacy.”
-—Shayne Lee,author of T. D. Jakes: America's New Preacher
Review
Dallam's book is the most thorough biography of Daddy Grace to date.
“Dallam has done a great service in providing a detailed scholarly study of 'Sweet Daddy' Grace and his church. . . . A thoughtful study that should henceforth make it impossible to dismiss Grace as a 'cult leader' who had little religious significance in his lifetime or beyond.”
“Provides significant insights for our understanding of Daddy Grace and the House of Prayer. This well-researched, clearly written text is a valuable scholarly resource for those interested in New Religious Movements, American Religion, and African American Religion.”
“Dallam has uncovered an aspect of the African American past about which we have long known too little. In doing so she has made a substantial contribution to the study of twentieth-century African American religion. Assiduously researched and carefully written, Dallam’s book finally elevates the scholarship on 'Sweet' Daddy Grace to the level of that of his rival and contemporary, Father Divine.”
“This edgy and resourceful analysis of Daddy Grace, a misunderstood yet highly significant religious luminary, expands our understanding of a critical period in the black church experience. Dallam’s meticulous scholarship fills in many crucial pieces and refutes longstanding inaccuracies regarding Grace's life, message, and legacy.”
Review
“This comprehensive analysis of privacy in the information age challenges traditional assumptions that breeches of privacy through the development of electronic dossiers involve the invasion of one's private space.”
-Choice,
Review
“Solove ultimately is no ‘chicken little but an idealist of the best sort, concluding a positive role for law in the problem of privacy. Whether the world will leave Orwell and Kafka behind and evolve into Solove remains to be seen, but herein is offered a plan to achieve that objective.”
-Journal of Information Ethics,
Review
“The Digital Person challenges the existing ways in which law and legal theory approach the social, political, and legal implications of the collection and use of personal information in computer databases. Soloves book is ambitious, and represents the most important publication in the field of information privacy law for some years.”
-Georgetown Law Journal,
Review
“Anyone concerned with preserving privacy against technology's growing intrusiveness will find this book enlightening.”
-Publishers Weekly,
Review
“Solove . . . truly understands the intersection of law and technology. This book is a fascinating journey into the almost surreal ways personal information is hoarded, used, and abused in the digital age.”
-The Wall Street Journal,
Review
“Dallam has done a great service in providing a detailed scholarly study of 'Sweet Daddy' Grace and his church. . . . A thoughtful study that should henceforth make it impossible to dismiss Grace as a 'cult leader' who had little religious significance in his lifetime or beyond.”
-—Journal of American History,
Review
“Provides significant insights for our understanding of Daddy Grace and the House of Prayer. This well-researched, clearly written text is a valuable scholarly resource for those interested in New Religious Movements, American Religion, and African American Religion.”
-—Sandy Dwayne Martin,author of For God and Race
Review
“Dallam has uncovered an aspect of the African American past about which we have long known too little. In doing so she has made a substantial contribution to the study of twentieth-century African American religion. Assiduously researched and carefully written, Dallams book finally elevates the scholarship on 'Sweet' Daddy Grace to the level of that of his rival and contemporary, Father Divine.”
-—Wallace D. Best,Harvard Divinity School
Review
“This edgy and resourceful analysis of Daddy Grace, a misunderstood yet highly significant religious luminary, expands our understanding of a critical period in the black church experience. Dallams meticulous scholarship fills in many crucial pieces and refutes longstanding inaccuracies regarding Grace's life, message, and legacy.”
-—Shayne Lee,author of T. D. Jakes: America's New Preacher
Review
“Dallam has made a major contribution to the scholarship and literature on Daddy Grace and the United House of Prayer for All People.”-Choice,
Synopsis
Seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, electronic databases are compiling information about you. As you surf the Internet, an unprecedented amount of your personal information is being recorded and preserved forever in the digital minds of computers. For each individual, these databases create a profile of activities, interests, and preferences used to investigate backgrounds, check credit, market products, and make a wide variety of decisions affecting our lives. The creation and use of these databases—which Daniel J. Solove calls “digital dossiers”—has thus far gone largely unchecked. In this startling account of new technologies for gathering and using personal data, Solove explains why digital dossiers pose a grave threat to our privacy.
The Digital Person sets forth a new understanding of what privacy is, one that is appropriate for the new challenges of the Information Age. Solove recommends how the law can be reformed to simultaneously protect our privacy and allow us to enjoy the benefits of our increasingly digital world.
The first volume in the series EX MACHINA: LAW, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Synopsis
Dallam here offers both a religious history of the House of Prayer as an institution and an intellectual history of its colorful and enigmatic leader.
About the Author
Daniel J. Solove is associate professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. He is the co-author of Information Privacy Law.