Holley Ulbrich is a Ph.D. economist with a graduate degree in theology as well. She has been teaching students from freshmen to doctoral levels at Clemson University for 40 years, as well as teaching economics to staff at the World Bank, legislators, and public policy makers. She is Alumni Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics at Clemson University and a senior scholar at the Strom Thurmond Institute.From the author: "I've been writing most of my life--textbooks, lectures, speeches, essays, and now and then a book that is not a textbook. My graduate degrees are in economics and theological ethics and especially the intersection between the two. I like to write about how to make the world a better place for ourselves and future generations, which was the motivation for writing Our Money, Our Values with Catherine Mobley. I love to write because I never know who is going to read it and respond to it. Writing gives me a chance to flesh out ideas, share what I have learned, and enter into dialogue with my readers." My newest book has been 40 years in the making, and reflects my long-time fascination with holidays as expressions of the culture and our relationship to the natural world and the historical/political world. Since I'm an economist, it seemed natural to use that social context of holidays as a jumping off point for reflections on economic issues ranging from population control to immigration to economic forecasting to property rights. A lot of people share the view of Thomas Carlisle that economics is the dismal science, but it isn't dismal at all. It's optimistic, it sees our individual and collective lives as a series of choices to be made and problems to be solved, and the tools of economics can help us thing through some of those issues in our common life.