Eerdmans

A Michigan Polar Bear Confronts the Bolsheviks
A War Memoir
Godfrey J. Anderson
Edited and introduced by Gordon L. Olson
This graphic first-person account of a little-remembered event in U.S. history
tells the story of a young soldier from Grand Rapids during President Woodrow
Wilson’s ill-fated 1918 military expedition against the Bolsheviks in the frozen
reaches of northern Russia.
Godfrey Anderson describes traveling, as a member of the American “Polar
Bears” medical corps, by ship and train from the U.S. to England, and from there
to Archangel, Russia, where they joined forces with French, British, Canadian,
and local Cossack fighters to hold off the Red Army. His unit set up field hospitals
in the vast Siberian wilderness, endured many hardships, rubbed shoulders and
shared food with Russian villagers, and barely escaped the advancing Bolsheviks
in a harrowing nighttime retreat by sleigh. Anderson’s honest narrative, well
illustrated and laced with ironic humor, has an irresistible charm and transparency
to it.
A substantial introduction by Michigan historian Gordon Olson sets the geopolitical
stage for Anderson’s war memoir. This book is not just for American
history and military buffs, who will find it especially resonant, but for all those
who enjoy a down-to-earth narrative and a gripping personal story.
Memoir • History
September / 978-0-8028-6520-5
6″ × 9″ paperback
60 photos / 4 maps
200 pages / $17.99 [£11.99]
Gordon L. Olson is City Historian
Emeritus of Grand Rapids, Michigan,
and coeditor of Thin Ice: Coming of Age
in Grand Rapids.
Sunday, Sabbath, and the Weekend
Managing Time in a Global Culture
Edward O’Flaherty and Rodney L. Petersen, with Timothy A. Norton, editors
In an age that emphasizes work and productivity as the source of identity, this
book points powerfully to an ancient yet countercultural practice — Sabbath
keeping. Fourteen contributors from diverse traditions examine how Christians
and their churches can or should find meaning in the concepts of Sunday and
Sabbath in relation to the pressures of contemporary 24/7 global culture.
A spirituality that takes shape around regular Sunday and Sabbath worship is
central to the historical identity of Christianity. Through the lens of this book, it
is also seen to be central to fostering the social capital upon which a healthy
society grows and thrives.
Contributors: Horace T. Allen Jr., Alkiviadis C. Calivas, Donald B. Conroy,
Ruy O. Costa, Marva J. Dawn, Darrell Guder, Thomas Massaro, Alexis McCrossen,
Timothy A. Norton, Edward O’Flaherty, Dennis T. Olson, Rodney L. Petersen,
Aida Besançon Spencer, Gloria White-Hammond.
Edward O’Flaherty is director of ecumenical affairs for the Archdiocese of
Boston. Rodney L. Petersen is executive director of the Boston Theological
Institute. Timothy A. Norton is codirector of the Lord’s Day Alliance of the U.S.
Christian Living
September / 978-0-8028-6583-0
6″ × 9″ paperback
208 pages / $16.00 [£10.99]
www.eerdmans.com toll free 800 253 7521 41