A new book on Kansas history, John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History, features 27 people whose work helped shape the state's character. Nearly half the contributing authors are KU faculty, including the authors profiling John Brown and Bob Dole.

Scheduled for release on Kansas Day, Jan. 29, the University Press of Kansas book focuses on 150 years of state history with profiles of the historical men and women some not as well known as Brown and Dole.

A public pre-Kansas Day event is scheduled in Lawrence featuring KU (or contributing) authors discussing the book and the Kansans whose lives they have researched.

A public book signing with editor Virgil Dean and many of the contributing authors is planned from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Friday, Jan. 27, at the Dole Institute of Politics. KU's Spencer Research Library is co-sponsoring the book signing.

Jonathan Earle, associate professor of history, writes about Brown, and Burdett Loomis, professor of political science, about Dole.

In all, 11 of the 27 contributing authors are from KU's faculty, and the book's editor earned his doctorate in history from KU.

The book profiles agitators such as Brown; William H. Russell, Leavenworth proslavery partisan; and Mary Elizabeth Lease, Wichita Populist attorney known for advising farmers to "Raise less corn and more hell." Motivators such as Dole and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower of Abilene; Clarina I.H. Nichols, women's rights activist of Quindaro; and William Allen White, the "Sage of Emporia." Innovators included Joseph G. McCoy, the cattle trader who settled in Abilene, as well as contemporary visionaries such as Wes Jackson, Salina environmentalist who founded The Land Institute, and Gordon Parks, the New York City artist whose childhood memories of Fort Scott were the basis for his book and his movie.

In addition to Earle and Loomis, other KU faculty contributors include:

• K. Allen Greiner, assistant professor of family medicine at the KU Medical Center, on Dodge City's Dr. Samuel J. Crumbine, whose public health crusades to "swat flies" may have led to the invention of the flyswatter
• M. H. Hoeflich, the John H. & John M. Kane professor of law, on Girard publishers Emanuel and Marcet Haldeman-Julius, whose Little Blue Books dished out advice on par with today's Dr. Phil.
• Timothy Miller, professor and chair of religious studies, on Charles Monroe Sheldon, the Topeka minister and prohibition activist who coined the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?"
• Brian Moline, adjunct professor of law, on Vern Miller, Wichita sheriff whose methods of enforcing drug and alcohol laws during the 1970s after he was elected State Attorney General made national headlines.
• Rita G. Napier, professor of history, on William H. Russell, Leavenworth proslavery agitator.
• Norman E. Saul, professor of history, on Mennonite leader and flour milling executive Bernhard Warkentin, who lived in Halstead and Newton.
• Marjorie Swann, associate professor of English, and William M. Tsutsui, associate professor of history, teamed up professionally to write on John Steuart Curry, the Dunavant (Jefferson County) artist whose mural of John Brown on the interior walls of the Kansas Capitol is renowned.
• John Edgar Tidwell, associate professor of English, on Gordon Parks.